Political Theory

Re: Prosecuting politicians for war crimes

AaronBurr — Sun, 01 May 2011 17:59:30 GMT

Can anyone name me any british Politician indicted for war crimes and by which country?

Re: Prosecuting politicians for war crimes

NidStyles — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 11:46:33 GMT

That's an impressive trick. I'm going to try doing a head stand in mine, and maybe someone will drop off a few hundred ounces of gold at my doorstep while I'm in the position.

Re: Prosecuting politicians for war crimes

Caley McKibbin — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 10:45:01 GMT

Sitting on my chair could somehow have a "butterfly effect" that leads to a serial killer going on a spree or some such.

Re: Prosecuting politicians for war crimes

NidStyles — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 10:31:17 GMT

^^ Chair dancing?

Re: Prosecuting politicians for war crimes

Caley McKibbin — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 00:19:06 GMT

False. You're both equally guilty of murder. Two people can be guilty for one murder, and while you did not pull the trigger, your action was not merely free speech/trade/association.

The action of sitting on my chair is not merely sitting on my chair.

Re: Prosecuting politicians for war crimes

William — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 07:00:37 GMT

How are the voters less innocent?

Because no matter how right "hard nosed realistic conservatives" think their hair brained metaphysics are it is simply silly in this day and age to try and control a mass amount of people and think you can accuse them openly. Conservatives will always and inevitably lose because they are boring and almost gleeful in being controversialy reactionary. Hate to break it to the rather boring self professed articocratic lovers of "beauty, truth, and order" but the world has gone "native and vulgar" and thank Cthulu for that, it supplies more stuff at a cheaper cost rather than ghosts of ideals.

The American public chose a president who is willing to attack nations abroad. If it wasn't Bush it would have been someone else. It is the public that had the intent, the motive and the opportunity.

If you can get away with something you will (whatever the hell "the public" means anyway). If you are dumb enough to believe that you can sit in a very publicized position of high authority, not take the brunt of the blame for whatever gets spouted at you, and than try to spread it around to a bunch of people you grouped together that you are supposed to lead and call them guilty, you deserve to fail.

No one gives a fig about intent if the levels of power are that unequal. Outside of said situation it is a meaningless and near useless word. All that matters is what has the power to make authority happen and produce a relatively homeostatic environment.

This conservative approach is no good. If you want millions of people to suffer under the yoke of elitist opression try something else like selling them a feel good self empowering idea, like the lefties do. This is why lefties are smarter, better, more cosmopolitan, correct, and realistic than "hard nosed conservatives". They get the games and the language of real power.

Re: Prosecuting politicians for war crimes

Clayton — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 05:01:26 GMT

@OP: Watch this (all the way to the end).

Public choice theory 101 tells us that no individual voter chooses the political leaders. The whole idea of 'choosing' via popular ballot box is a gigantic charade. Political leaders are not guilty of "war crimes", they're guilty of being accessory to murder, usually through a long chain of command. The voters are not accessory to anything except stupidity and mass delusion. Don't hold your breath for ordinary legal theory to be applied to political leaders any time soon.

Clayton -

Re: Prosecuting politicians for war crimes

NidStyles — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 09:03:24 GMT

Now I favor Kinsella's definition. If you reasonably thought that your action will lead to murder, then you are guilty of murder. This will include for example the person who payed money to hire a hit man. Intent is important, because if you killed someone with malicious intent you should receive tougher punishment than if you killed someone accidently.

That's a very statist appraoch, and that's how we end up with run-away prison population's for simply being at the scene of a robbery and happening to know the robber on a personal level.

I'm slightly drunk right now, so any further critiquing of that rational is not possible with clarity at this moment. I can state though, that your logic is circular and quite vacuous on this point. Off to drink more Landshark now.

Re: Prosecuting politicians for war crimes

Merlin — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 07:31:18 GMT

mikachusetts:

Eugene:
I would prefer not to have anarchy at all than to start killing ex police officers. In fact I would have no compassion towards those who will attempt to harm ex politicians, police officers or soldiers. But that's just me.

I really don't get you Eugene. You have no problem advocating the torture of innocent people who hide the locations of terrorist, but you are appalled by the idea of hurting politicians, police officers or soldiers. What if it was a palestinian cop or a palestinian soldier? Then it would ok to kill them, right?

Zing! Although we all suffer from Stockholm’s Syndrome to some extent.

Revenge is the most natural desire in man, and I myself would be burning to break some police legs if my brother had been treated heavy—handedly by them for being at the wrong club at the wrong moment. Children as young as 16 have ‘committed suicide’ while under custody, suspected for petty theft (he would not even have faced any jailtime, even if found guilty). Now let anyone tell me that his parents wouldn’t pay someone to square a few account if they did not fear retaliation in turn. And I’m not even mentioning the sadism of prison guards.

Which brings me to my point: I suspect that right now there’s an immense amount of repressed hate towards state enforcers which will be vented as soon as given a chance. When anarchy comes, arbitrators, PDAs and insurers will have to choose: let it go though or forcefully keep the offended form acting, as the state does right now. Again, I doubt I’ll ever find a libertarian who’d punish the father of the child above to save some Neanderthal police officer (who, anyway, is supposed to be capable of defending himself, else how could he defend his 10’00 citizens?).

Re: Prosecuting politicians for war crimes

mikachusetts — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 21:04:01 GMT

Eugene:
I would prefer not to have anarchy at all than to start killing ex police officers. In fact I would have no compassion towards those who will attempt to harm ex politicians, police officers or soldiers. But that's just me.

I really don't get you Eugene. You have no problem advocating the torture of innocent people who hide the locations of terrorist, but you are appalled by the idea of hurting politicians, police officers or soldiers. What if it was a palestinian cop or a palestinian soldier? Then it would ok to kill them, right?

Re: Prosecuting politicians for war crimes

Eugene — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 19:45:09 GMT

I would prefer not to have anarchy at all than to start killing ex police officers. In fact I would have no compassion towards those who will attempt to harm ex politicians, police officers or soldiers. But that's just me.

Now I favor Kinsella's definition. If you reasonably thought that your action will lead to murder, then you are guilty of murder. This will include for example the person who payed money to hire a hit man. Intent is important, because if you killed someone with malicious intent you should receive tougher punishment than if you killed someone accidently.

The problem with Kinsellla's definition is that if a single person payed a hitman, he will be liable for murder, but if 1000 different people payed the hit man, they will not. That's because each one of the 1000 people did not have a reasonable belief that HIS ACTION will lead to the murder. It was only his action combined with the other of others.

Re: Prosecuting politicians for war crimes

Merlin — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 07:32:45 GMT

People’s responsibility is only determined by what they did, not what their intentions where. I have little doubt that many nazi soldiers had the best intentions, and just thought that what they where doing was painful but necessary. And this absolves them how?

So, I must stick with my idea: if I have been a direct statist enforcer and I have wronged people due to my job, I must be ready to defend myself now, for no one else will stand by me if the brother on a guy I shot for drugs comes to claim my life. If that brother is punished for killing you who killed his brother than I really do not see what state would we have gotten rid of in the first place.

Re: Prosecuting politicians for war crimes

Matticus Rex — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 22:24:34 GMT

Caley McKibbin:

The idea of prosecuting bureaucrats is a wrong application of law. If I offer you money to shoot someone and you do it, you are guilty of that, not me. I'm only involved in harmless conspiracy.

False. You're both equally guilty of murder. Two people can be guilty for one murder, and while you did not pull the trigger, your action was not merely free speech/trade/association.

Re: Prosecuting politicians for war crimes

Caley McKibbin — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 21:56:59 GMT

The idea of prosecuting bureaucrats is a wrong application of law. If I offer you money to shoot someone and you do it, you are guilty of that, not me. I'm only involved in harmless conspiracy.

Re: Prosecuting politicians for war crimes

NidStyles — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 20:04:31 GMT

First of all, not all police officers have done murder hence I would not kill every police officer.

Second, the number of those who have been directly involved in statist depredations is so elevated that their full prosecution would indeed cause a societal breakdown. It’s just not worth it.

Finally, one could be willing to let bygones be bygones if the state crumbled tomorrow. What I would not be willing to do, is protect former police officers form rightful retaliation by their former victims, or indeed hold such victims responsible for retaliation.

But if the imperative at hand would be to bring to a quick halt the depredations of some state now, for example, Nazi Germany, full retaliation on state agents would be the only way to do this. The mafia knows as much very well and they use such tactics when they feel threatened to much effect.

The fault's in this logic are glaringly obvious. See my above post for clarification on this.

Being a Veteran that was involved in statist action's in Iraq and Afghanistan for a total of 7 year's, I can tell you what the effect of such a policy would be, as I did above.

This would occur because as Individual's I have more in common with the Police and Veteran's like myself, than I do with you or the other's that advocate this message. I do not hold guilt about my action's, and I accept responsibility for only my own action's. However the entire basis of my responsibility is centered around my acceptance of the consequences of my choices. I will pay for the rest of my life in my own way for my action's, and I have already accepted this.

The mafia is hardly an example to follow, as their own action's are quite statist in reality.

The message you guy's are promoting here is nothing but more of the same statist crap that participated in the unethical war's in the first place. I would suggest you check your premises here again. If you are considering your thought's to be truly in line with AC, or whatever you are labelling yourself as, you are in error here.