STOP THIS SHIT!

[Lloyd Danforth]

Few of my friends were involved in the Vietnam mess, no one I knew died and except for my now deceased ex brother in law and myself few of my acquaintances were even affected by it.
Nobody has died prematurely in my family since 1928. I have no idea what it is like to have to deal with the premature death of a loved one.
Today, 13 more families must deal with just that. When the Fuck is this shit going to end?

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_AFGHANISTAN?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-10-29-09-22-40

[Russell Kanning]

it really is insane

[Jim Johnson]

It is a sadness.

[WithoutAPaddle]

What is the "_ _ IT" that you are looking to see end?  Suicide bombing, or American mlitary presence in foreign countries?

[Lloyd Danforth]

I meant the US military occupation, but I'll be happy when the killing of all 'fodder' ends.

[John]

I'm with Tolstoy.

If one wants to understand why it never ends and what greases the gears of the Global WARmachine, regardless of faith or belief, I think everyone should read (or listen to for free on line) Leo Tolstoy's "The Kingdom of God Is Within You."

[WithoutAPaddle]

I'm with Tolstoy....

And I've met Tolstoy, as told in this post:

http://nhunderground.com/forum/index.php?topic=22032.msg331956#msg331956

but I never did get to arrange to have him autograph a "War, What is it Good For?" record sleeve.

[Lloyd Danforth]

I learned a long time ago that my reading yet another book isn't going to change others.

[Alex Libman]

Tolstoy was definitely a very interesting fella (and I've read him in the original Russian), but he wasn't an economist, and he was pretty far away from understanding the scientific basis of human Rights and what actually makes peace possible.

Millions of murders are prevented, and billions of people are living longer and more affluent lives, as the result of regime changes that came about through proper application of war.  You can hate me all you want, but you cannot overcome the logic of my arguments (which are expressed more fully on other threads).

[Tom Sawyer]

I'm with Tolstoy....

And I've met Tolstoy, as told in this post:

http://nhunderground.com/forum/index.php?topic=22032.msg331956#msg331956

but I never did get to arrange to have him autograph a "War, What is it Good For?" record sleeve.

Bonus points for the Seinfeld reference.  lol   

[Tom Sawyer]

Tolstoy was definitely a very interesting fella (and I've read him in the original Russian), but he wasn't an economist, and he was pretty far away from understanding the scientific basis of human Rights and what actually makes peace possible.

Millions of murders are prevented, and billions of people are living longer and more affluent lives, as the result of regime changes that came about through proper application of war.  You can hate me all you want, but you cannot overcome the logic of my arguments (which are expressed more fully on other threads).

The US getting involved in WW I, when the Germans, French and English had fought to a standstill and were going to have to negotiate the peace; created the conditions for the rise to power of Hitler; then WW II lead to the cold war; which helped create our own police state, were we spied on our own citizens much as the regime we were against;and lived under the threat of nuclear war... etc etc

Seems we do something to make the world a better place and twenty years later pay for it with the next conflict...

So, to be scientific about it all, you must tally the negatives associated as well as the positives... include the negatives of out of the millions killed there was sure to be some individuals who would have contributed great things, we will never know about. Even the numerical tally doesn't tell the whole story... because the truth is the loss of one life is immeasurable in it's impact.

[Alex Libman]

If I spend enough time, I'd find a dozen yet-unlibricided quotations of myself arguing against WW1 and the mishandling of WW2.  This thread is about dealing with situations like Afghanistan and Libya.

All governments impose themselves on a population some fraction of which doesn't want them, but these problems can only be solved by prioritizing the degrees of evil.  Uncle Sam's empire is far, far better than the alternative!  It is the Pax Americana that creates an opportunity for globalization, relatively free trade, relatively free Internet, and all the other prerequisites for a post-democratic society where Anarcho-Capitalism would be a real possibility.

Individual Rights didn't just fall from the sky on monkeys swinging from trees!  Rights are economic phenomena that evolve as the result of a certain level of wide-spread literacy and development.  The history of the human civilization is a gradual progression toward greater possibility of individual Rights (with some temporary setbacks, like the Middle Ages), and we are still pretty far from an endgame.  Take away some evils (i.e. the U.S. empire) prematurely, and only more evils (i.e. Russia and China) will result.

Yes, government monopolies are very inept and inefficient at implementing regime change, as they are with everything else...  But even if my fantasy of voluntarily-funded PDA's came true today, they would still require some liability limitations that are still impossible under a pure NAP ruleset.

Aggression isn't going to disappear overnight.  People are going to die, no matter what.  Libertarians need to stop sticking their ivory tower where it doesn't realistically belong - for now NAP is an ideal, a future destination.  We need to think in terms of an evolutionary timeline - what reduces aggression the most.  Having Afghanistan under the hegemony of Uncle Sam rather than Mother Russia or the Taliban will be a definite improvement.  The path to individual self-ownership is complex, and people who make it all about peace (or all about pot) are doing more harm to the cause of liberty than good.  Freedom will come not by tripping Uncle Sam, but by achieving the spread of greater economic freedom and more intergovernmental competition.

[Tom Sawyer]

The slippery slope is the terrain your beliefs have to traverse. I mention the WW's to illustrate the unintended consequences that seem to plague military interventions.

This also ignores if things would change, regimes fall due to their own weight. Places like Afghanistan and Iraq are vestiges of the old world, the new world is gain ground; that is until we get involved with force and make things worse ie Iran. Propping up the Shah with the CIA etc led to the radical fundamentalist blowback.

I don't believe in nonintervention because I'm a pacifist... I'm a pragmatist and former military, who sees disfigured young men that were put in harms way for a good excuse to line the pockets of Defense Contractors (yeah, I earned my living that way for awhile).

Nice that you have your picture for your avatar.

[Alex Libman]

I agree that the "slippery slope" possibility is a flaw in my argument.  I'm skeptical of everything the government does or says, even 9/11.  My "war isn't always the greatest evil" argument has many imperfections, but the alternative, mindless peace-worship, is a lot more dangerous.  With all due respect to Orwell, perpetual war will not be a mechanism by which governments can retain power in the 21st century - war is costly and hugely unpopular.  It is peaceful complacency to tyranny that's doing a lot more harm!

A war where equally-immoral powers (ex. the European empires of WW1, or Hitler vs Stalin in WW2) fight against each-other in a zero-sum game is definitely a horrible thing, but this has no place in the modern world.  I call WW2 "the war to save communism" in criticizing it, but Eurasian domination by Germany and Japan would have also been very bad - the world was better off with America grabbing a large share of power, which saved Western Europe and parts of East Asia.  What we've seen since WW2 is wars against Communism and other final holdouts of tyranny, with American victory resulting in those countries reforming and opening up to the rest of the world.  American inaction or defeat (ex. Iran) results in on-going stagnation and tyranny.  Those defeats did not come from ineptitude, but from the "peace movement" tying America's hands!

Study the causal effect between economic freedom and prosperity, Internet freedom, and all those other good things that bring us a step closer to true liberty.  All champions of economic freedom came about as the result of war, and/or had to be defended through war.  Last year Libya ranked #173 on the Index of Economic Freedom.  All countries USA has any potential of going to war with are in the bottom 10, as were Iraq and Afghanistan before they temporarily disappeared from that listing.  (The last time it appeared, Somalia was dead last.)  If those countries undergo a regime change and emerge on the same level as Oman, Jordan, Malaysia, or at least Turkey - that is a tremendous gain for life and freedom!

[littlehawk]

Total Dork!!!  LOL!