I humbly express my opinions only in order to generate discussion that may educate me and possiblly change my mind And in no way mean to disrespect others who frequently post here.
First off---
I want the most freedoms/liberty for myself as possible.
I want the most freedoms/liberty for others as possible.
I want these freedoms/liberties to be maintained for long into the future.
I think that secession of NH or any state would not further freedom/liberty ?in the long term.
Here is my Rationale.
The world is a brutish place. There are people in the world that do not support/believe in my right to freedom/liberty. There are people (sheep) that will allow these persons to control their resources (labor, taxes, military...). These 2 elements will generate aggressor nations. I want an equally large military/defensive force to protect me from these persons.
I personally would not be able to protect myself. The ALL Volunteer Militia of New Hampshire would not be able to protect me.
End of Rationale.
Some Points
I feel that there needs to be a balance of freedoms with the ability to maintain these freedoms into the future (*winces inwardly*, *braces for angry responses*).
Part of my thinking is that if you support secession from the federal govt, then logically you would support the secession from the state govt,?. And on down to the secession of the individual (anarchy). Which just weakens defensibility further. This would happen throughout the USA.
We have a system of govt that can be used to effect change peacefully (as opposed to so many in the world that do not). I feel that efforts would be better focused on cutting govt size, stripping govt power, and shrinking govt spending. I think the yoke could sit pretty light (again winces).
Thank you for taking time to read and welcome all responses.
Roger VW
(FYI Am also posting on FTL BBS for more responses)
Can I freely live in your dream society ..... and not want to be defended by a huge military? Is there room for me to disagree?
Just let me hit the defence argument, other people will pick on the rest :)
Do you feel that an organized military is necessary to protect your freedoms?
Would you be willing to voluntarily pay for such an organized military?
Are there lots of people that would also be willing to pay for such an organized military?
Personally, I have three "Yes" answers.
On that basis, why do you need to force people to pay money to that military when they would pay voluntarily? And if you don't need to force people... why do you need a state to provide that military?
<edit>
And just to kill the free rider argument before it gets started:
Would you prefer to deal with people and businesses that support an organized military?
Would there be lots of other people and businesses with the same preference?
Therefore, there will be businesses that support the organized military, and they will make sure to tell you about it. Maybe they will contribute a percentage of your purchase to the military, maybe they will only hire employees that contribute...
But the point is that people do it freely, rather than being forced to pay for the military, the organizational breurocracy and the force used to make them pay!
</edit>
btw .... do you really love the Feds?
That's the rub.
We would need your support (taxes), but how to get it?
Enforcement cost would outweigh the tax burden.
Hopefully I could convince you of the need to sacrife a small bit, to perpetuate the freedoms that we could hopefully recapture.
A small tax of some kind that would sit lightly of the shoulders.
Telethons?
Sdaly - I am not sure.
Quote from: rogervw on September 02, 2006, 08:52 PM NHFT
We would need your support (taxes), but how to get it?
The military that ran effectively and efficient would get money because people would
pay them for security. Most people buy home insurance. Don't you think there would be interest in insurance against invasion or terrorists?
Quote from: rogervw on September 02, 2006, 08:52 PM NHFT
Enforcement cost would outweigh the tax burden.
That's the problem
today, and it's why a voluntary solution would need an awful lot less of your money to build an effective military.
<edit>And I guess I should throw this in at some point, because I'm not sure how new you are to the libertarian end of the spectrum: There are a lot of people (minarchists, for one easily-Wikipediable group) who feel very much as you do. You just got lucky in that the first two people to pick up your thread are on the anarchist end of the spectrum.</edit>
Damm - thats is some fast responses. That just makes me want to move to NH.
Anyway -
Do I love the fed govt? I love the idea that we have a system/idea/Constitution that values life, liberty, and the pusuit of happiness. I feel very fortunate to live in the USA. But sadly, we have gone very astray from those ideals. I do not love much of our Fed govt and what is done by them.
The US used to have small taxes .... now look.
Quote from: rogervw on September 02, 2006, 08:59 PM NHFT
Do I love the fed govt? I love the idea that we have a system/idea/Constitution that values life, liberty, and the pusuit of happiness.
I think that the Constitution was a means to enslave people. There were people that left the convention in disgust. I would leave the next one. They created a republic like Rome .... and look we have an empire ...... wow couldn't see that one coming.
I agree that individuals and business (as an extension of individuals) would pay voluntarily for a military. However - I want to a large number to be volunteering to pay so that my milatry is larger than any other miltary that is formed through force. And I don't think that individuals/small goups/secceded(if that is a word) states would be enough.
And yes - a smaller, more efficent milatary would suffice. But it would still need to be large. I feel that that is why in the constitution, a navy was supported. It was the largest, most expensive, most important tactical unit of the time.
Your point of wanting to be part of the group with the largest military .... basically proves the point that that is not the solution. As soon as your side has a bigger military then your enemy will have to build more or get enough allies to grow larger than you.
You have come to the base of all government ..... they will protect you from bad people. But that is the lie they teach you. You become their slave.
How many countries try to invade Switzerland?
I'm not setting forth Switzerland as a model for anything. I use it as an example of a neutral country that is left (relatively) unmolested.
Not many countries would want to invade an independent NH (other than the U.S.) -- if she avoided "entangling alliances" and left free individuals govern themselves.
Scissors beat paper.
Rock beats scissors.
Nuke beats traditional military ;D
So honestly, I don't see any reason for a huge military force other than offensive action (ala the current US foreign policy).
A rogue nation is not going to field a massive invasion force when you can a) nuke the force en-route to the US, and b) nuke the country of origin. A smaller force would simply be chewed to shreds by the military based on your shores and its supporting militias.
<edit>
Switzerland is a good example of neutrality, but the US has a huge advantage: Water. Lots and lots of water between it and any dangerous countries. Neither Canada nor Mexico is ever going to field the kind of force you are worried about...
</edit>
Russel - instead of leaving the convention I would rather have you there helping to shape it.
"US used to have small taxes" and
"Now we have an empire" - only because we let it happen.
[sorry-still trying to figure out how to do quotes"
And yes I am fairly new to deciding that I'm a libertarian( but I'm swinging fast) and
I don't think anarchist is a bad word.
And again - I am all for not entagling oursleves in others concern. My point is that I want to have the bigest stick on the block. If someone wanted to invade Switzerland (they weren't that uneffected in WW2) they could. I just don't want to be invaded.
I think it'd be great if we could all go about our merry lives without having to give the slighest thought to whether the government existed or not (assuming it does), because it is so unintrusive.
But it aint that way
Quote from: Russell Kanning on September 02, 2006, 09:14 PM NHFT
You have come to the base of all government ..... they will protect you from bad people. But that is the lie they teach you. You become their slave.
I am not a slave to the gun under my bed.
Do you disagree with the postion that a "protector force" is needed?
Or do only disagree with any type of forced support?
Having the biggest stick in the world makes you the target.
I guess what it really comes down to is this:
Do you feel that it is moral and necessary to point a gun at people who do not want to pay for the military your propose?
Remember that the gun requires not only that everyone pay for the defensive military, but also:
- the government that decided the rules regarding who should pay and how much
- the taxation service that determines who is not paying enough
- the police who go to those people's houses and arrest them
- the court that tries and sentences them for tax evasion
- the prison in which they will sit, not contributing to the economy
And because the police must outgun the civilians for this to work, you also require gun laws, and the inspectors and enforcers for those, and SWAT-like units to deal with armed civilians.
Dude... all to force a few pacifists to pay for a military, when you could just refuse to do business with them?
Quote from: Spencer on September 02, 2006, 09:35 PM NHFT
Having the biggest stick in the world makes you the target.
I don't think it's so much having the stick as the continual poking of said stick into hornet's nests...
Roger, welcome to the forum! :)
The threat of military force is not new. Mankind has struggled with warfare for millenia.
However, I think you are wrong that an armed populace is not capable of repelling a foreign invasion. Look at what has been done in Iraq by an insurgency, against the most powerful empire in history. Surely the Mexican or Canadian forces would be no match against an even more powerful insurgency.
Some people might be willing to pay for a military voluntarily. Some will NOT. What are you going to do with those people (like me) who find funding a military morally repugnant? Throw me in a cage, and if I resist shoot me dead? The penalty for standing for peace should be kidnapping or murder? That doesn't seem very free or very fair to me.
Quote from: rogervw on September 02, 2006, 09:18 PM NHFT
Russel - instead of leaving the convention I would rather have you there helping to shape it.
But how could I stay .... it is not right for me to decide how others should live. I can't be involved in shaping policies for a government ..... since it is based on stealing and killing.
Quote from: rogervw on September 02, 2006, 09:23 PM NHFT
Do you disagree with the postion that a "protector force" is needed?
I don't think it is right for me to resist evil by force, so ... yes.
http://www.mises.org/story/805
The Military Option
By Robert Blackstock
Posted on 10/16/2001
I told my mother that I do not support military action in Afghanistan and that I absolutely do not support the idea of the draft being reestablished. My mother paused and said, "That disappoints me . . . I thought I had raised a patriot."
Hold it right there. I love my country, and if it were to be invaded by a foreign power, I would be the first volunteer to protect it. However, I also believe that the Constitution still matters. Therefore, the first thing I must ask is, "Has Congress proclaimed war on Afghanistan?" The answer is, "no," and that's only the first problem.
The attack on the World Trade Center was carried out by a group of criminals, and, like most others, I agree that the criminals should be brought to justice. Murder is murder; if you commit murder, you must pay the price. Unfortunately, the nineteen people who were certainly involved are all dead, so all attention has turned to getting Osama bin Laden, who stands accused of having masterminded the plot.
But is using the military the way? When the U.S. invaded Panama in 1989 to "arrest" Manuel Noriega, 3,000 Panamanian civilians were killed (this is a number that is still hotly disputed by the U.S. State Department, as shocking as that may seem), and it seems our justice in Afghanistan will be little different. A small village and a Red Cross storage house have already been hit. Thank goodness that the bomb that hit the boys' school didn't detonate.
Making matters more confusing, Afghanistan doesn't really have a government. They've been fighting a civil war since the Soviet withdrawal, and now all of the weapons are in the hands of two factions. The faction that controls the largest territory is the Taliban, a group which is an extremely small percentage of the population.
Think of it this way: if 1000 people are stranded on a deserted island and two of those people have machine guns, who will be the leaders? The civilians may complain at first, but after a few examples have been made, the surviving population will be far more docile. The same applies in Afghanistan.
The majority of the population are plain folks like you and me who just want to make a better living for their families. Now the U.S. is dropping bombs on them. (For a good, short article on how the average Muslim around the world is not a fanatic, gun-toting American-hater, see the article, The Varieties of Muslim Experience, located on the Jewish World Review Web site.)
In 1993, Ira Einhorn was tried in a Pennsylvania court and convicted in absentia for the 1977 murder of his girlfriend. Mr. Einhorn had fled to France, which refused to extradite anyone to the U.S. to face the death penalty. Now I ask, the next time France refuses to extradite a murderer, should we bomb their civilian population?
Adolf Eichmann, who masterminded the deportation and murder of millions of Jews, deserved to be brought to justice if anyone ever has. After the Second World War, Eichmann fled to Argentina to hide with his family. The Israeli government finally located him in 1960 and had the Massad quietly "liberate" him; i.e., they kidnapped him and returned him to Israel for trial. He was sentenced to death by hanging in 1962. By present U.S. standards, Israel would have been justified in carpet-bombing Buenos Aries unless the Argentine government had quickly complied. Obviously, it would have been a ridiculous thing for Israel to do, so why are we, the Americans, doing it to the Afghans?
And why are we concentrating on Afghanistan? Well, that's where the now infamous "terrorists training camps" are located. But the Taliban are educated at a special religious school in Pakistan. Why haven't we insisted that Pakistan shut down the Taliban school and hand over the teachers? Could it be because, unlike Afghanistan, Pakistan has the bomb?
When I mention my disapproval of military action to some of my friends, they always say, "Don't worry. The military's weapons can take out a chosen target and not disturb a single flower in front of the orphanage next door."
Really? Then why did NATO planes "accidentally" bomb the Chinese Embassy in Kosovo a few years ago? Why did U.S. planes "accidentally" bomb a residential neighborhood in Afghanistan this past weekend, or a Red Cross food storage facility a few days later?
Whenever the military is used, no matter how noble the intentions, civilians die, and I am bitterly opposed to bringing even more misery to an already miserable people. Furthermore, who actually believes that military power will stop terrorism? If the military was all it took to wipe out terrorists, Israel would have long ago shut down the PLO, and Britain would have made Northern Ireland a vacation mecca even before my birth.
A small group of terrorists has done despicable things, and they should be brought to justice. I'll even volunteer to pull the switch after their trial. But I see absolutely nothing honorable in bombing innocent families (whose only crime is being born in the wrong place) when other options are available. I see nothing patriotic in answering the suffering of our citizens with the suffering of someone else's.
So yes, I am a Patriot, but I am a patriot who is against the actions of his government, and I am reminded of the last paragraph of George Orwell's Animal Farm:
QuoteTwelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
The Myth of National Defense
http://www.mises.org/store/product1.aspx?Product_ID=171
With eleven chapters by top libertarian scholars on all aspects of defense, this book edited by Hans-Hermann Hoppe represents an ambitious attempt to extend the idea of free enterprise to the provision of security services. It argues that "national defense" as provided by government is a myth not unlike the myth of socialism itself. Defense services are more viably privatized and replaced by the market provision of security.
From the introduction:
"Even aside from day-to-day security risks, the reality of terrorism and its resulting mayhem has demonstrated the inability of government to provide adequate security against attacks on person and property. The lesson of September 11 is indisputable: government had not only failed to act as a guardian of security and protection but had actually been the primary agent in creating insecurity and exposure to risk, and, moreover, did not achieve secure justice once the crime had been committed.
"However, this was not the lesson that was drawn from the affair. Instead, the political elite successfully exploited public fears to vastly increase government spending, central credit inflation, bureaucratic management, citizen surveillance, regulation of transportation, and generally wage an all out attack on liberty and property.
"Meanwhile, US foreign policy pursued in the aftermath became more aggressively interventionist, violent, and threatening (the US refused even to rule out the employment of nuclear weapons against enemy regimes) than it had been before, thereby increasing the number of recruits into the ranks of people who are willing to use extreme violence as a means of retribution.
"In the same way that government intervention in times of peace can generate perverse consequences in markets that do not tend toward clearing, in times of war, military intervention can thus have the effect of harming the prospects for peace and security and bringing about a permanent state of violence and political control. Truly, the political affairs of our time cry out for a complete rethinking of the issues of defense and security and the respective roles of government, the market, and society in providing them."
* Introduction by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
* The Problem of Security; Historicity of the State and "European Realism" by Luigi Marco Bassani and Carlo Lottieri
* War, Peace, and the State by Murray N. Rothbard
* Monarchy and War, by Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
* Nuclear Weapons: Proliferation or Monopoly? by Bertrand Lemennicier
* Is Democracy More Peaceful than Other Forms of Government? by Gerard Radnitzky
* Mercenaries, Guerrillas, Militias, and the Defense of Minimal States and Free Societies by Joseph R. Stromberg
* Privateering and National Defense: Naval Warfare for Private Profit by Larry J. Sechrest
* The Will to be Free: The Role of Ideology in National Defense by Jeffrey Rogers Hummel
* National Defense and the Theory of Externalities, Public Goods, and Clubs by Walter Block
* Government and the Private Production of Defense by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
* Secession and the Production of Defense by Jrg Guido Hlsmann
ISBN: 0-945466-37-4
464 pgs. (hardcover)
Long article about the book mentioned above.
http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?control=1356
I Don't Owe the Military Anything
http://www.lewrockwell.com/edmonds/edmonds177.html
I Still Owe the Military Nothing
http://www.lewrockwell.com/edmonds/edmonds181.html
Four Reasons We Should Abolish the Military
http://www.lewrockwell.com/edmonds/edmonds182.html
Tracy
August 1997
Volume 15, Number 8
The Costs of War
John V. Denson
Amid media fanfare, the Pentagon has released its report on U.S. military and foreign policy into the next century. The report says that the U.S. should retain the military capability to fight two foreign wars at once. The Cold War may be over, the Pentagon admits, but it warns against any attempt to pare back the warfare state or cut the cash flow to arms dealers.
It is no surprise that a bureaucracy would study itself and conclude that neither its budget nor its policies should change. Neither is it a shock that the Pentagon has bypassed the question of why we need to involve ourselves in any foreign wars. After all, the U.S. long ago abandoned the Constitutional ideal of a strictly defensive military posture.
What is truly disturbing is that the report treats the subjects of war and military empire so casually. War is the most destructive government program. But to read the Pentagon's case, you'd think there are no costs associated with war and no downside to permanent empire. Have we learned nothing from a century of wartime bloodshed?
The conventional view is that all U.S. wars have been fought to protect freedom. In fact, war has been the main source for the expansion of the power of the federal government. War has eroded our economic liberties, debased our money, increased the national debt, and radically transformed the political structure of the original American republic. The result of these wars has been the loss of freedom for Americans, not its protection.
This would have been no surprise to the framers. "Of all the enemies to public liberty," warned James Madison, "war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few."
What's more, wars are not usually fought for any of the stated idealistic reasons. Once you get past the government disinformation that bombards us during wars, you find that wars are most often fought to protect the economic status of special-interest groups.
For example, the Civil War is said to have been about abolishing slavery. But most people at the time recognized that as mere cover. The real purpose of the war was to preserve the federal government's revenue base and the economic privileges enjoyed by Northern industrial interests at the expense of the agricultural South. Lincoln favored the tariff while Davis condemned it, but neither disputed that it was central to the war.
After the South was conquered, the swollen Union Army was not dismantled but rather put to other purposes. Under the principle of use it or lose it, the Army was sent to massacre the Indians so the West could be made safe for more government-backed industrialists. It was exactly as English historian Lord Acton predicted: a Northern victory led to empire.
The next war was just as pointless. It was over the Spanish possessions in the New World, a war Secretary of State John Hay labeled as "splendid." Mark Twain originally supported it because he thought its purpose was to free Cuba from Spanish tyranny. Then he discovered that the war was actually fought so that the U.S. could have coaling stations in the Philippine Islands for trade with (and control over) China. Twain then turned against the war, and issued his famous phrase: "We cannot maintain an empire in the Orient and maintain a republic in America."
President McKinley provoked the Spanish-American War by sending the battleship Maine to the harbor in Havana (recent evidence confirms that the hull was blown outward, not inward, so the Spanish were not responsible). At the same time, he sent the Navy to the Philippines. He helped the Philippines throw off their Spanish rulers, and once they had gained their freedom, McKinley turned the guns on citizens themselves, murdering more than 3,000 in cold blood. McKinley then sent 5,000 Marines to China to help suppress the Boxer Rebellion, which was led by Chinese patriots who wanted foreign invaders and opium dealers off their soil.
Neither was America's entry into World War I necessary. And had we not intervened, the war would have been negotiated to a close in the traditional manner. Our entry cost American citizens dearly in lives, taxes, inflation, and lost freedoms. The government was vastly expanded, and wartime agencies later became the core planning apparatus for the New Deal.
The greatest costs of this war stemmed from the Treaty of Versailles, made possible by America's entry. Its Carthaginian terms bred intense resentments, and virtually guaranteed another European-wide conflict in the future. Yet the allies continued to insist upon the terms of the Treaty until the next war.
World War I brought Communism to Russia (the draft and bloodshed were the Bolsheviks' main issues), Nazism to Germany (Hitler preyed on real grievances), state capitalism to America (the central bank funded the war and nationalized industry supplied the munitions), and Fascism to Italy (the war had destroyed the old order). In its cataclysmic effects, it compares only to the Peloponnesian War that ended the civilization of ancient Greece.
Another cost of war is the change that has taken place in public morals and in our attitudes toward violence. During World War II, 50 million people--70 percent of them civilians--were slain for purposes of geopolitics. The war crimes ranged from the mass slaughters across Europe and Russia, to the allied terror bombing of Dresden, to the atomic bombing of Japan.
President Eisenhower, in his farewell address of January 17, 1961, issued a warning about the dangers of special interests behind the war machine. Few presidents ever spoke with the military authority of President Eisenhower. He was speaking about people and interest groups he knew all too well.
"We must never let the weight" of the military-industrial complex "endanger our liberties or democratic processes," he said, measuring his words carefully. "We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
When he said that we were already in the thick of the Cold War, but defense spending ran only $52 billion per year, compared with the $300 billion we spend today, seven years after the Cold War has ended. Even if we adjust these figures for inflation, Congress will allocate 15 percent more this year than the budget Eisenhower thought represented a grave threat to liberty.
When Commerce Secretary Ron Brown was killed in an airplane crash last year, we got a clear view of the military-industrial complex in action. Dead along with Brown were a dozen leading industrialists who had flown in a military plane over Bosnia. They all had a strong financial interest in intervening in that war and reaping profits from the "rebuilding" effort.
The military-industrial complex is at work in the attempt to expand NATO to the borders of Russia. NATO was supposedly formed to unite Europe against the Communist threat of Soviet Russia. With the fall of that regime, NATO now serves no useful purpose. Why, then, is it still in existence, let alone expanding? Because the new nations coming into the alliance will have to buy weaponry manufactured by U.S. businesses, who will in turn guarantee their investments with American tax dollars.
Beginning with President Truman, Democrat and Republican presidents alike have contended that it is no longer necessary for Congress to declare war. Presidents may send armed forces anywhere in the world without congressional authority. We could have a perpetual war in order to maintain perpetual peace and become the world's policeman without any authorization from Congress. George Orwell's book 1984 was a warning against this very thing.
Why did the American Constitution give Congress the exclusive power to declare war and authorize military action? The framers were familiar with English history and England's separation of powers in its unwritten constitution, which placed the power of the sword in the executive branch and the power of the purse in the legislative branch.
When Charles I violated this separation of powers and raised war money without the consent or approval of parliament, it sparked a civil war, and the king's head was chopped off. The framers looked to this example of why the mere separation of powers cannot prevent war. They removed all power to declare war from the executive branch, and placed it exclusively with Congress.
In Shakespeare's Henry IV, the dying king made a confession to his son who would inherit the throne. His foreign war in the Holy Land had been completely unnecessary, but was carried out for a particular political purpose. He used the oldest trick of the trade: create a foreign war to increase and concentrate power and silence your critics. His advice to his son was that he too should "busy giddy minds with foreign wars."
As Madison said, "war is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. In war, a physical force is to be created; and it is the executive will, which is to direct it. In war, the public treasuries are to be unlocked; and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them." "The strongest passions and the most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast," he wrote "are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace."
Presidents Washington and Jefferson also warned against wars in Europe. "I have deemed it fundamental for the United States never to take an active part in the quarrels of Europe," wrote Jefferson. "Their political interests are entirely distinct from ours. Their mutual jealousies, their balance of power, their complicated alliances, their forms and principles of government are foreign to us. They are nations of eternal war."
The great accomplishment of Western civilization was the discovery of freedom by the effective limitation on state power. War, even victorious war, is the greatest threat to freedom. It removes those restraints on governmental power and causes immense power to be concentrated into the central government. As Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in 1833, "All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it."
The Pentagon says we need a warfare state that can conduct two foreign wars at one time--which is not to say it won't be shy about asking for billions more once those wars are begun. But if our concern is the preservation of a free society, we could do no better than to echo James Madison: "No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
http://www.mises.org/story/2252
Searching for America's Next Enemy
By Doug Bandow
Posted on 7/17/2006
Peace is boring. How else to explain the search by some conservatives for a new enemy?
After the Cold War the foreign policy establishment could have gratefully accepted peace, stopped meddling around the globe, and demobilized America's outsize military. Instead, it found other enemies.
Doing so wasn't easy. Saddam Hussein's Iraq proved to be easy prey. Now Iran is getting the most attention.
But the Pentagon has just issued its latest alarmist assessment of Chinese military spending. Former Australian diplomat Gregory Clark writes of a "China threat lobby."
In fact, had there been no 9-11, which yielded both an enemy ("Islamofascism") and a conflict ("Global War on Terrorism"), China might have ended up in Washington's crosshairs early in Bush's term. Years before joining the Bush administration as deputy defense secretary, Paul Wolfowitz authored a Pentagon paper that advocated preventing "potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role."
After 9-11 Bush officials apparently recognized that they needed Beijing's help and weren't likely to browbeat the PRC into compliance with their demands. But conservative hostility towards China never disappeared.
Some critics focused on trade issues. Anger over human rights violations plays a role. Fears have been rising over China's rising influence in Asia. Now Beijing's critics point to its military build-up.
For instance, the congressionally created US-China Economic and Security Review Commission contends that "China's methodical and accelerating military modernization presents a growing threat to US security interests in the Pacific." Clinton H. Whitehurst, Jr., writes for the Strom Thurmond Institute: "For the second time in half a century the United States is engaged in a 'cold war' with a powerful adversary ? the People's Republic of China."
A number of "China as enemy" books have been hitting the American market, most recently Jed Babbin's and Edward Timperlake's Showdown: Why China Wants War with the United States. Last year Roger Kaplan wrote in The Atlantic: History suggests "the result is likely to be the defining military conflict of the twenty-first century: if not a big war with China, then a series of Cold War-style standoffs that stretch out over years and decades."
You may have thought that the end of the Cold War, which left America as the planet's dominant power, meant peace. Think again. Washington must occupy Afghanistan and Iraq, attack Iran, confront North Korea, and, most importantly, beat back the yellow horde. It all would be silly if the neocons had not already dragged the United States off into one unnecessary war. Instead, it's frightening.
Yet why should we assume Beijing and the United States will come to blows? China today is more prosperous, accessible, and responsible than ever before. Although Beijing is not a close ally, it is not hostile either.
Rather, it is a significant power with a range of interests which, unsurprisingly, do not always match those of America. The situation calls for thoughtful, nuanced diplomacy, not self-righteous scare-mongering.
Unfortunately, China critics routinely overstate Chinese capabilities and misstate US interests. For instance, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld recently suggested that "Since no nation threatens China, one must wonder: Why this growing investment. Why these continuing large and expanding arms purchases?"
In fact, that question would be better asked by Chinese officials to Secretary Rumsfeld. Who threatens whom?
America's increase in military outlays over the last few years alone equals China's entire defense budget. Washington spends upwards of seven times as much as the PRC, is allied with every leading industrial state around the globe, and has allies ringing China. The idea that Beijing's modest (after inflation) increases in military outlays are preparing it for a global or even regional war of conquest is simply silly.
Equally disturbing, much of the discussion of China confuses which "interests" are in conflict. Former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) contended that "They don't have to be a threat sufficient to invade the United States. They just have to be a threat sufficient to go against our interests."
Unfortunately, there are "interests" and then there are "interests." In today's world, the United States purports to have an interest in everything in every country, and therefore believes itself to be entitled to go to war to make every country everywhere do what America wants.
In the case of China, the "threat" is primarily a threat to the American empire, not the American republic. The basic issue is Washington's predominance in East Asia.
The ultimate threat, in the view of analyst Ross Munro, is that Beijing's "grand strategy is to dominate Asia. And that puts the United States and China on a collision course."
But America is not alone. India also is a rising power, Russia maintains a sizable nuclear deterrent, Japan fields a capable military, South Korea is growing in influence, Australia is a regional leader, the ASEAN states are developing new cooperative ties, and more.
Washington has a hard enough time dominating this crowd. How will a nation that remains socially unstable, economically underdeveloped, and politically uncertain take over? The United States can play the role of a traditional off-shore balancer, wary and watchful, but aloof from conflicts that do not concern it.
The principal US goal should be to accommodate the rise of a likely great power, promoting mutually-beneficial cooperation while ensuring American security. Unfortunately, Washington's attempt to engage in containment (even if packaged with engagement as "congagement") encourages conflict.
Pushing China's neighbors to choose sides may not redound to America's benefit. Most importantly, treating Beijing as hostile is more likely to turn it hostile.
Washington should encourage private economic and cultural ties with the PRC, depoliticizing much of the relationship. Washington should seek China's cooperation on issues of shared interest, such as stability on the Korean peninsula. US officials should speak frankly about issues of proliferation and human rights, but should do their most contentious work behind the scenes. Most important, America's allies should take over responsibility for their own defense.
Indeed, what would offer a better constraint to China than a nuclear Japan and South Korea? Washington should not push its friends to adopt any particular defense and foreign policy. But the United States should make clear that the good ol' days when allies could ignore their military needs while expecting American troops to ride to the rescue are over.
There will be no more important bilateral relationship over the next century than that between the United States and China. Much depends on the ability of the two nations to overcome cultural and political differences to cooperate peacefully. The first step in doing so is for America not to go to Asia in search of enemies to combat.
Men With Two BrainsBy Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
Posted on 3/30/2006
Here is a book review of no particular book but rather a class of books that has been the ruling genre in conservative nonfiction for fifty years. Actually we can include blogs in this too, since thousands upon thousands partake of the same error.
This critique applies the nearly every tract written from the Right from Barry Goldwater's Conscience of a Conservative to the latest publishing venture of the talk show media celebrity wing nut to the statement of principles of the local College Republican club.
Here is the argument, reduced form:
QuoteOn domestic policy, the government is the enemy. We need to scale back government spending and regulations that tie up business in red tape. The public schools are failing and need an injection of competition. Too many welfare programs are out of control. Taxes are too high and complex. Politicians and bureaucrats shouldn't run our lives, lest liberty be lost. Let's return to our founding principles and return government to the people.
On the foreign policy, we are surrounded on all sides by enemies. Dangers lurk everywhere. We need to strike them before they strike us. We must not shirk our responsibilities to ourselves and the world. We need not fear the use of power, even war, even relentless global war. We cannot cut our defenses. Indeed, we must expand them. Our allies need us. We need not listen to the cowards who would recoil from this struggle against evil because freedom isn't free. If anything we need to beef up military spending.
Do you see the contradiction? Apparently it is not obvious to thousands of writers, activists, and thinkers, and not just today but dating back for decades. The problem is this. In the first paragraph, the government is rightly presumed to be the coercive enemy that takes from the people and saps their productivity. It cannot perform tasks as efficiently as property owners. It helps rather than hurts. Government does not know best. Our choice is government or liberty.
All that is fine as far as it goes. But when it comes to foreign policy, the analysis is entirely reversed. The presumption that the American people and the government are unified is integral to the analysis, as summed up in the plural pronouns "our" and "we," as if the people have direct control over the foreign-policy decisions of the political leadership.
Whereas the government is considered to be bubble-headed and ham-handed in domestic policy, in matters of foreign policy the government is suddenly imbued with virtuous traits such as courage. Taxes, in this case, are not a burden but the price we pay for civilization. The largest and most violent government program of all ? namely war ? is not an imposition with unintended consequences but an essential and praiseworthy effort at protection.
I don't mean to pick on the Right exclusively. The Left often offers the inverse of this recommendation. They believe that the government can't but unleash Hell when it is waging war and spending on military machinery. But when it comes to domestic policy, they believe the same government can cure the sick, comfort the afflicted, teach the unlearned, and bring hope and happiness to all.
Each sides presumes that it potentially enjoys full control over the government it instructs to do this thing as versus that thing. What happens in real life, of course, is that the public sector ? always and everywhere seeking more power ? responds to the demands of both by granting each party's positive agenda while eschewing its negative one. Thus is the Left given its welfare, and the Right given its warfare, and we end up with a state that grows ever more vast and intrusive at home and abroad.
What neither side understands is that the critique that they offer of the programs they do not like apply also to the programs they do like. The same state that robs you and me, ties business in knots, and wrecks the schools also does the same and worse to countries that the US government invades. From the point of view of the taxed, the destination of the money doesn't matter; it is all taken by coercion and all of it saps the productive capacity of society. Similarly, the state that uses military power to impose its imperial will on foreign regimes ? destroying property, lives, and making endless enemies ? is the one the Left proposes to put in charge of our economic lives.
It is impossible to make sense of the contradictions, particularly in the American political context, where the rise of American military power parallels the rise of big government at home. This is true from the Civil War to the present. These two parts of the state grow together. (Understand that this critique is not the usual libertarian rendering that you hear in the media that we supposedly agree with the right on economic policy and the left on social policy; there are too many problems with that apparatus to go into here, but suffice it to say that it leaves foreign policy completely out of the picture.)
Now it is perfectly true that history and present reality provide many examples of government that are invasive internally but not externally. Sweden, Canada, Italy, and a 100 other nation-states have huge welfare states but no noticeable international military presence . However: many of the world's welfare states were actually imposed by military conquest (e.g. Japan after WW2). Also, the Left would do well to observe that the best guard against a warmongering state is a state that is powerless in all aspects of life.
What makes no sense at all ? conceptually, historically, or politically ? is the rightwing view that the state should be expansionist and imperialist abroad but otherwise do nothing at home beyond the limits set forth in the Constitution or the political writings of the founding generation. It is undeniable that that warfare state will not restrict itself to harming and bullying foreign peoples. It always and everywhere does the same to the domestic population. It occupies us, attacks our property, ferrets out political enemies, and wages low-intensity warfare against us.
The suggestion of conservatives that the government engage in all-out war on the world but otherwise leave people free to manage their own affairs is completely absurd in every way. It is akin to the demand that one's left leg march in one direction and the right leg march in the other direction. If we know how the human body works, we know that this suggestion is ridiculous. So too, if we know how government works, we know that a state that is expansionist abroad will never let well enough alone at home.
Back to the leg analogy. The person who is told to march in two separate directions faces a dilemma. He cannot do both at once so he must evaluate the priorities of the instructor. He must discern what is the most important course. For American conservatives, this choice is obviously clear: so important is their foreign-policy agenda to their overall worldview that they are willing to live with Leviathan at home for the duration.
One way we can discern this is the utterly non-negotiability of the interventionist position. That the United States must wage war is surely the one point that unites the American Right. To be sure, it wasn't always so: before the early 1950s and immediately after the end of the Cold War, some intellectuals on the Right began to see that empire and liberty are incompatible.
But these were brief periods. For the most part, the political tracts of today live with the same contradictions that stained them in the 1980s and before. All the neconservatives contributed in the 1970s and 1980s was an embrace of the welfare state that had been previously rejected on the right; otherwise their foreign policy position was largely the same as that pushed by the National Review crowd since the 1950s. What's more, the end of the Cold War changed nothing.
Whereas the fear of Communism was the great reason for expansionism and the delay of liberty back then, now there is a new enemy ? radical Islam and its terrorism ? that must be beaten into submission.
In all this, conservatives are men with two brains. One sees the government as a menace, something stupid, inefficient, brutal, isolated from real life, and the enemy of liberty. The other sees government as a smart, wise, and all-knowing, a friend to all, in touch with life around the planet, and the friend to liberty everywhere. How these two brains are integrated is never explained. But the truth is that Jeffersonian-Misesian-Hayekian-Rothbardian critique of the state applies in both cases. You either embrace it or you don't. As Harry Browne said: "The government that's strong enough to give you what you want is strong enough to destroy you."
In this sense, President Bush at least has consistency on his side. He has expanded both the domestic and international Leviathan more substantially than any president since Lyndon Johnson, who was also consistent in this respect. Their love of the state began differently, but it has ended in the same support of the welfare-warfare state. It is those who would keep the foreign-policy circuses but decry the domestic-policy bread who need to have their heads examined.
It will take me a bit to get through all this, but much seems to have missed my point.
I think that secession/anarcy would be too weak to protect itself from tyrants.
Quote from: Minsk on September 02, 2006, 09:18 PM NHFT
Scissors beat paper.
Rock beats scissors.
Nuke beats traditional military ;D
Then I want to be in the country with a nuke.
Quote from: aries on September 02, 2006, 09:21 PM NHFT
I think it'd be great if we could all go about our merry lives without having to give the slighest thought to whether the government existed or not (assuming it does), because it is so unintrusive.
But it aint that way
But it could be
Quote from: Minsk on September 02, 2006, 09:38 PM NHFT
I guess what it really comes down to is this:
Do you feel that it is moral and necessary to point a gun at people who do not want to pay for the military your propose?
No I do not. I feel that only a large enough group volunatrily supporting the milatry will be sufficient to protect me from tyrants that force their support.
Quote from: Caleb on September 03, 2006, 09:34 AM NHFT
However, I think you are wrong that an armed populace is not capable of repelling a foreign invasion. Look at what has been done in Iraq by an insurgency, against the most powerful empire in history.
This is the point I am making. I want to be protected against the next most powerful empire in history.
Quote from: Russell Kanning on September 03, 2006, 11:38 AM NHFT
I don't think it is right for me to resist evil by force, so ... yes.
Until there is no evil, sadly I will need force to protect myself from evil.
And I will would also protect you from those same evils.
Thank you all for the repsonses.
Quote from: Minsk on September 02, 2006, 09:49 PM NHFT
Quote from: Spencer on September 02, 2006, 09:35 PM NHFT
Having the biggest stick in the world makes you the target.
I don't think it's so much having the stick as the continual poking of said stick into hornet's nests...
exactly.
Rogervw... welcome to the forum.
I think parts of what you are saying is right on... also having the biggest military does not make it the best.
NKorea has a large one, the USSR had a large one that was not so good. etc.
Come to NH.
Quote from: rogervw on September 03, 2006, 02:07 PM NHFT
I think that secession/anarcy would be too weak to protect itself from tyrants.
If we achieve secession/anarchy we will have thrown off the most powerful government in history. Why couldn't we do that to the next tyrant too?
Quote from: rogervw on September 03, 2006, 02:07 PM NHFT
I think that secession/anarcy would be too weak to protect itself from tyrants.
So after all that: Why would an anarchy be too weak to protect itself from tyrants?
Want a nuke? Spend money on a group that will buy and maintain a handful of nukes.
Want a defensive military? Spend some money on that.
As long as there are enough people with the same fears, there will be lots of money flowing.
So again: Why do you insist on point a gun at Russell's head to defend him from tyrrany? Sounds like a bit of a contradiction doesn't it?
Though don't worry, you're not the only one with those opinions. And for the forseeable future we are all pulling in the same direction... OTOH if the US government does eventually get beaten down to purely Constitutional levels, or thereabouts, you will probably find anarchy a lot less scary.
Quote from: Russell Kanning on September 03, 2006, 02:41 PM NHFT
If we achieve secession/anarchy we will have thrown off the most powerful government in history. Why couldn't we do that to the next tyrant too?
Oh I think we could, it is just the years of oppression and human suffering that I would want to avoid.
Quote from: Minsk on September 03, 2006, 02:53 PM NHFT
So again: Why do you insist on point a gun at Russell's head to defend him from tyrrany?
What gun at Russel's head? I agree that support should be volunatry. I just think you need a large group working together. A few free-riders would be fine.
Quote from: Minsk on September 03, 2006, 02:53 PM NHFT
And for the forseeable future we are all pulling in the same direction...
I agree and this is where the effort should be directed, until...
Quote from: Minsk on September 03, 2006, 02:53 PM NHFT
if the US government does eventually get beaten down to purely Constitutional levels, or thereabouts, you will probably find anarchy a lot less scary.
Probably...
Free Riders: Austrian v. Public Choice
By Jim Fedako
Posted on 7/13/2005
The latest exploits of Lance Armstrong in this year's Tour de France provide a solid backdrop for discussions contrasting the economic ideas of the Austrian School and the adherents of Public Choice.
Public Choice is predicated on the belief that individual preferences can be known and quantified. From this simplistic view of Thymology, the Public Choice school deduces supposed economic laws regarding government interventions in the market. Government is required because acting man cannot negotiate agreements effectively with other self-seeking acting men.
The Austrian School starts from an aprioristic axiom that humans act by using means to obtain ends. Their ends are individualistic and self-centered. The Austrians do not claim to know unrevealed individual preferences nor do they deduce the need for government interventionism in the market. Acting man is able to create working arrangements with other acting men that benefit all involved.
OK. Good and well. But what about the Tour? How can a bicycle race be applied in discussions of economic theory? Simple. Cycling is an excellent reflection of the market. 198 professionals begin each year's Tour with certain unrevealed goals. Sure, some end goals are widely known. For Lance, a seventh win. For Jan Ulrich, a chance to redeem himself. But what about the 196 other riders?
As in all sports, and all human activities for that matter, there are those few who sit at the pinnacle. The rest are simply one of the bunch. Sure they dream of winning the Tour, but more than likely they are concentrating on the wearing the best-in-the-mountains jersey, the best-in-the-sprints-jersey, winning a stage, or just securing a professional contract for next year.
Public Choice assumes that every racer has the same goals and will react like any other racer in all situations. The Austrians will have none of that. It is impossible to look at a rider and know for certain what he wants to achieve during any given day of the Tour. Certainly you may guess what his team has set for him but what really lies in his heart is unseen and unknown, at least until human action reveals his preferences.
In bicycle races, individual riders will typically "attack" the main field of riders in order to gain time over those other riders and a better chance of success. Better to be 1 of 4 in a small ?breakaway? group at the finish line than 1 of 198 in the large field.
In order to gain time, riders must work together by taking turns leading and blocking the wind so that the following riders can rest awaiting their turn at the front. So there you have it, 4 riders with widely divergent preferences working together for a common goal. The four have established a de facto contract that is to everyone?s benefit, even though none knows the other's true motives.
One may assume that they all are looking to win the stage. Possible. But it's also likely that one just wants some time in front of the cameras, another wants to pad time on rivals, a third is there just to assist his team?s goals, and the fourth wants the win so bad he can taste it.
But how do the four create this ad hoc contract? A quick glance, a nod, a wink, or a few words exchanged is all that is required for the four riders at hand to build a successful coalition. Public Choice will have none of this reality. They say that negotiation cannot be frictionless and that only through government interventions can people agree to work together.
What about the "free rider?" In Public Choice theory, the "free rider" always gums up the works. The "free rider" causes coalitions to collapse and contracts not to be formed. Think there are no "free riders' in the Tour.
Think again. Everyone wants to ride in a breakaway group for free. Who wouldn't? Conservation of energy is important when you are racing over 2,000 miles in three weeks. But pressures internal to the coalition typically force the "free rider" to perform. In reality no one really knows if the all racers in the breakaway are giving their fullest effort because no one really knows other's internalized desires and abilities.
There are always ?free riders? or ?free loaders? in all human activities. That becomes just another datum assumed when choosing amongst alternative choices. Every racer in the Tour understands this quite clearly. Accept it and move on.
Externalities? Come on: every action creates supposed externalities. Should Lance be taxed to offset help he received during the Tour from other riders who were actively pursuing their own selfish interest? Who would create and administer the Pigovian tax structure that would offset all of Lance?s gains and loses? Can even the Cray Supercomputer solve these equations and derive a payout before the 2006 Tour begins?
OK. Individual preferences unrevealed, externalities, ?free riders? everywhere, and ad hoc contracts being agreed upon without legal signatures. But what about society? What is best for the collective group of 198 riders? Can this spontaneous order (or disorder, depending on your viewpoint) be best for all? Is this even close to Pareto optimality? It all depends. If you agree that each rider has unrevealed goals, throw that neoclassical equilibrium out the window. The impossible task becomes the creation of an aggregate demand curve.
So, assume that you can create this curve. What would you have? A Tour that functioned much like the Soviet economy. As stated above, all riders want to be ?free loaders?, er ?riders,? in that they don?t really want to suffer over a hundred miles of mountain roads if their needs were truly going to be met otherwise. Why sweat and pound the asphalt when you can lazily ride and occasionally stop to view the sights?
A couple of problems will arise. First, all riders cannot be designated the Tour champ ? the Tour is not a Kindergarten class ? so all needs cannot be met. In order to correct for this, the results would have to be created in a manner that approximated the regressed preferences of the aggregate field. Lance would probably remain champ and the other riders would be slotted into their likely finishing positions ? all based on creating the efficient solution.
This lead to the second problem, this manner of racing would be slow and boring. Who would watch the riders literally tour France at a leisurely pace? Other than a spouse or two, probably just a few mothers, fathers and girlfriends. The Tour would be no more and 198 riders would be out of a job, all to satisfy some odd belief in equilibrium and utility. This is not a very satisfactory solution.
As you enjoy the Tour on TV remember that riders from many countries, speaking a host of different languages, are able to negotiate productive contracts that are mutually beneficial to both riders and viewers.
http://www.mises.org/story/1855
But Wouldn't Warlords Take Over?
By Robert Murphy
Posted on 7/7/2005
On two separate occasions in the last couple of weeks, people have asked me a familiar question: ?In a system of ?anarcho-capitalism? or the free-market order, wouldn?t society degenerate into constant battles between private warlords?? Unfortunately I didn?t give adequate answers at the times, but I hope in this article to prove the adage that later is better than never.
APPLES AND ORANGES
When dealing with the warlord objection, we need to keep our comparisons fair. It won?t do to compare society A, which is filled with evil, ignorant savages who live under anarchy, with society B, which is populated by enlightened, law-abiding citizens who live under limited government. The anarchist doesn?t deny that life might be better in society B. What the anarchist does claim is that, for any given population, the imposition of a coercive government will make things worse. The absence of a State is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition to achieve the free society.
To put the matter differently: It is not enough to demonstrate that a state of private-property anarchy could degenerate into ceaseless war, where no single group is strong enough to subjugate all challengers, and hence no one can establish ?order.? After all, communities living under a State degenerate into civil war all the time. We should remember that the frequently cited cases of Colombia and now Iraq are not demonstrations of anarchy-turned-into-chaos, but rather examples of government-turned-into-chaos.
For the warlord objection to work, the statist would need to argue that a given community would remain lawful under a government, but that the same community would break down into continuous warfare if all legal and military services were privatized. The popular case of Somalia, therefore, helps neither side. It is true that Rothbardians should be somewhat disturbed that the respect for non-aggression is apparently too rare in Somalia to foster the spontaneous emergence of a totally free market community. But by the same token, the respect for ?the law? was also too weak to allow the original Somali government to maintain order.
Now that we?ve focused the issue, I think there are strong reasons to suppose that civil war would be much less likely in a region dominated by private defense and judicial agencies, rather than by a monopoly State. Private agencies own the assets at their disposal, whereas politicians (especially in democracies) merely exercise temporary control over the State?s military equipment. Bill Clinton was perfectly willing to fire off dozens of cruise missiles when the Lewinsky scandal was picking up steam. Now regardless of one?s beliefs about Clinton?s motivations, clearly Slick Willie would have been less likely to launch such an attack if he had been the CEO of a private defense agency that could have sold the missiles on the open market for $569,000 each .[ii]
We can see this principle in the case of the United States. In the 1860s, would large scale combat have broken out on anywhere near the same scale if, instead of the two factions controlling hundreds of thousands of conscripts, all military commanders had to hire voluntary mercenaries and pay them a market wage for their services?
CONTRACT THEORY OF GOVERNMENT
I can imagine a reader generally endorsing the above analysis, yet still resisting my conclusion. He or she might say something like this: ?In a state of nature, people initially have different views of justice. Under market anarchy, different consumers would patronize dozens of defense agencies, each of which attempts to use its forces to implement incompatible codes of law. Now it?s true that these professional gangs might generally avoid conflict out of prudence, but the equilibrium would still be precarious.?
?To avoid this outcome,? my critic could elaborate, ?citizens put aside their petty differences and agree to support a single, monopoly agency, which then has the power to crush all challengers to its authority. This admittedly raises the new problem of controlling the Leviathan, but at least it solves the problem of ceaseless domestic warfare.?
There are several problems with this possible approach. First, it assumes that the danger of private warlords is worse than the threat posed by a tyrannical central government. Second, there is the inconvenient fact that no such voluntary formation of a State ever occurred. Even those citizens who, say, supported the ratification of the U.S. Constitution were never given the option of living in market anarchy; instead they had to choose between government under the Articles of Confederation or government under the Constitution.
But for our purposes, the most interesting problem with this objection is that, were it an accurate description, it would be unnecessary for such a people to form a government. If, by hypothesis, the vast majority of people?although they have different conceptions of justice?can all agree that it is wrong to use violence to settle their honest disputes, then market forces would lead to peace among the private police agencies.
Yes, it is perfectly true that people have vastly different opinions concerning particular legal issues. Some people favor capital punishment, some consider abortion to be murder, and there would be no consensus on how many guilty people should go free to avoid the false conviction of one innocent defendant. Nonetheless, if the contract theory of government is correct, the vast majority of individuals can agree that they should settle these issues not through force, but rather through an orderly procedure (such as is provided by periodic elections).
But if this does indeed describe a particular population, why would we expect such virtuous people, as consumers, to patronize defense agencies that routinely used force against weak opponents? Why wouldn?t the vast bulk of reasonable customers patronize defense agencies that had interlocking arbitration agreements, and submitted their legitimate disputes to reputable, disinterested arbitrators? Why wouldn?t the private, voluntary legal framework function as an orderly mechanism to settle matters of ?public policy??
Again, the above description would not apply to every society in history. But by the same token, such warlike people would also fail to maintain the rule of law in a limited State.
FREE RIDERS?
A sophisticated apologist for the State?especially one versed in mainstream economics?might come back with yet another justification: ?The reason a limited government is necessary is that we can?t trust the market to adequately fund legitimate police forces. It may be true that 95 percent of a population would have similar enough views with respect to justice such that peace would obtain if they all contributed substantially to defense agencies dedicated to enforcing their views.?
?However,? the apologist could continue, ?if these police agencies have no right to extract contributions from everyone who endorses their actions, then they will be able to field a much smaller force. The market fails specifically because of the free rider problem: When a legitimate firm cracks down on a rogue agency, all law abiding people benefit, but in a free market they would not be obliged to pay for this ?public good.? Consequently, rogue agencies, funded by malevolent outlaws, will have a much wider scope of operation under anarchy.?
Again, there are several possible replies to such a position. First, let us reflect that a large standing army, ready to crush minority dissenters, is not an unambiguously desirable feature of government.
Second, the alleged problem of free riders would not be nearly as disastrous as many economists believe. For example, insurance companies would ?internalize the externalities? to a large degree. It may be true that an ?inefficient? number of serial killers would be apprehended if the relevant detective and police agencies had to solicit contributions from individual households. (Sure, everyone gets a slight benefit from knowing a serial killer has been caught, but whether or not one person contributes probably won?t make the difference between capture or escape.)
Yet insurance companies that each held policies for thousands of people in a major city would be willing to contribute hefty amounts to eliminate the menace of a serial killer. (After all, if he kills again, one of these companies will have to pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars to the estate of the victim.) The same reasoning demonstrates that the free market could adequately fund programs to ?contain? rogue agencies.
Third, people need to really picture the nightmare scenario to see how absurd it is. Imagine a bustling city, such as New York, that is initially a free market paradise. Is it really plausible that over time rival gangs would constantly grow, and eventually terrorize the general public?[iii] Remember, these would be admittedly criminal organizations; unlike the city government of New York, there would be no ideological support for these gangs.
We must consider that in such an environment, the law-abiding majority would have all sorts of mechanisms at their disposal, beyond physical confrontation. Once private judges had ruled against a particular rogue agency, the private banks could freeze its assets (up to the amount of fines levied by the arbitrators). In addition, the private utility companies could shut down electricity and water to the agency?s headquarters, in accordance with standard provisions in their contracts.
Of course, it is theoretically possible that a rogue agency could overcome these obstacles, either through intimidation or division of the spoils, and take over enough banks, power companies, grocery stores, etc. that only full-scale military assault would conquer it. But the point is, from an initial position of market anarchy, these would-be rulers would have to start from scratch. In contrast, under even a limited government, the machinery of mass subjugation is ready and waiting to be seized.
CONCLUSION
The standard objection that anarchy would lead to battling warlords is unfounded. In those communities where such an outcome would occur, the addition of a State wouldn?t help. Indeed, the precise opposite is true: The voluntary arrangements of a private property society would be far more conducive to peace and the rule of law, than the coercive setup of a parasitical monopoly government.
Quote from: rogervw on September 03, 2006, 05:35 PM NHFT
Quote from: Minsk on September 03, 2006, 02:53 PM NHFT
So again: Why do you insist on point a gun at Russell's head to defend him from tyrrany?
What gun at Russel's head? I agree that support should be volunatry. I just think you need a large group working together. A few free-riders would be fine.
Cool, then we agreed earler and I could have shut up -- I'm fairly poor at that though ;)
The risk of talking about "state" and "government" is that throughout modern history they have always been funded through taxation, and through pointing guns at citizens who would rather not pay up. If you remove the force from government, what you wind up with is perfectly compatible with anarcho-capitalism... It might take some time for competition to develop in areas the cooperative-previously-know-as-government has long monopolized, but at least the competitors will not be fined, arrested or killed for their efforts.
Quote from: rogervw on September 02, 2006, 08:35 PM NHFT
I humbly express my opinions only in order to generate discussion that may educate me and possiblly change my mind And in no way mean to disrespect others who frequently post here.
First off---
I want the most freedoms/liberty for myself as possible.
I want the most freedoms/liberty for others as possible.
I want these freedoms/liberties to be maintained for long into the future.
I think that secession of NH or any state would not further freedom/liberty ?in the long term.
Here is my Rationale.
The world is a brutish place. There are people in the world that do not support/believe in my right to freedom/liberty. There are people (sheep) that will allow these persons to control their resources (labor, taxes, military...). These 2 elements will generate aggressor nations. I want an equally large military/defensive force to protect me from these persons.
I personally would not be able to protect myself. The ALL Volunteer Militia of New Hampshire would not be able to protect me.
End of Rationale.
Some Points
I feel that there needs to be a balance of freedoms with the ability to maintain these freedoms into the future (*winces inwardly*, *braces for angry responses*).
Part of my thinking is that if you support secession from the federal govt, then logically you would support the secession from the state govt,?. And on down to the secession of the individual (anarchy). Which just weakens defensibility further. This would happen throughout the USA.
We have a system of govt that can be used to effect change peacefully (as opposed to so many in the world that do not). I feel that efforts would be better focused on cutting govt size, stripping govt power, and shrinking govt spending. I think the yoke could sit pretty light (again winces).
Thank you for taking time to read and welcome all responses.
Roger VW
(FYI Am also posting on FTL BBS for more responses)
Well I dont support secession so this doesnt apply to me.
Quote from: rogervw on September 03, 2006, 05:35 PM NHFTWhat gun at Russel's head? I agree that support should be volunatry. I just think you need a large group working together. A few free-riders would be fine.
If it's voluntary, then it's an anarchy, not a government. Government's exist by initiating force against those who don't wish to participate.
If you truly believe that support should be voluntary, then you
are talking about a bunch of anarchists hiring mercenaries.
Joe
If you secede how will you protect yourself from the most powerful nation on Earth...the US? Especially if you are surrounded on all sides...VT, ME, MA. Now if ME and VT joined in it might be a little more feasible. That would make a nice sized country!
Quote from: SeanSchade on November 28, 2006, 11:29 PM NHFT
If you secede how will you protect yourself from the most powerful nation on Earth...the US? Especially if you are surrounded on all sides...VT, ME, MA. Now if ME and VT joined in it might be a little more feasible. That would make a nice sized country!
When you're surrounded, you can shoot in any direction! ;D
Quote from: rogervw on September 03, 2006, 02:07 PM NHFT
It will take me a bit to get through all this, but much seems to have missed my point.
I think that secession/anarcy would be too weak to protect itself from tyrants.
Quote from: Minsk on September 02, 2006, 09:18 PM NHFT
Scissors beat paper.
Rock beats scissors.
Nuke beats traditional military ;D
Then I want to be in the country with a nuke.
Quote from: aries on September 02, 2006, 09:21 PM NHFT
I think it'd be great if we could all go about our merry lives without having to give the slighest thought to whether the government existed or not (assuming it does), because it is so unintrusive.
But it aint that way
But it could be
Quote from: Minsk on September 02, 2006, 09:38 PM NHFT
I guess what it really comes down to is this:
Do you feel that it is moral and necessary to point a gun at people who do not want to pay for the military your propose?
No I do not. I feel that only a large enough group volunatrily supporting the milatry will be sufficient to protect me from tyrants that force their support.
Quote from: Caleb on September 03, 2006, 09:34 AM NHFT
However, I think you are wrong that an armed populace is not capable of repelling a foreign invasion. Look at what has been done in Iraq by an insurgency, against the most powerful empire in history.
This is the point I am making. I want to be protected against the next most powerful empire in history.
Quote from: Russell Kanning on September 03, 2006, 11:38 AM NHFT
I don't think it is right for me to resist evil by force, so ... yes.
Until there is no evil, sadly I will need force to protect myself from evil.
And I will would also protect you from those same evils.
Thank you all for the repsonses.
Quote:
"I feel that only a large enough group voluntarily supporting the military will be sufficient to protect me from tyrants that force their support."
Response:
You state "protect me" in the above quote!?! It's YOUR duty to protect yourself...however you chose to do that...other than forcing other people to do it or contribute to it...
Quote:
"This is the point I am making. I want to be protected against the next most powerful empire in history."
Response:
You state "I want to be protected" in the quote directly above...see previous response...