Abegweit
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  • "War" is an extreme response but I'd agree with you that confiscation of assets is indeed a valid complaint. I don't see why an embargo is though. Not that I'm really a fan of the embargo either, but don't we have a right to refuse to associate with Japan if we don't want to associate with them? Why is it completely acceptable to refuse to trade with someone normally but if the government does it its an act of war?
    As for World War II, I am of course no fan of the annexation of Hawaii, but Japan certainly didn't own it either, and by that point I highly doubt that Hawaii seriously wanted to be independent either. If they did/do than of course they have the right to secede, just like the CSA did and just like any state should be able to now (Thanks a lot Lincoln) I don't see what's so horribly improper about having a military base in Hawaii either, considering that it was a US state at the time. I guess as an anarchist you'd oppose the existance of the military entirely. But still, if somebody attacked a military base in the US we certainly would have a right to repel that attack and do what we needed to to get them to cease and desist (With all due concern for civilians.) If the base they attacked was in Japan I'd be more inclined to agree with you, which is also why the Confederacy was the defender in the Civil War.
    I admit I'm not really a huge fan of the word "Terrorist" either, they're really just mass murderers who happened to kill themselves. Killing yourself is legal under libertarian NAP anyway (I don't think you should, but it shouldn't be illegal) so really what they did that should have been legally wrong was to commit mass murder. I admittedly still use the word in conversations though, I guess it stuck to me, even though I don't like it. And I absolutely, 100% agree with you that the provocations that incited them should be eliminated. Even if that was all we did, it would have been more productive than what we actually did do. I believe that is why RP originally voted for Afghanistan, not to wage war. Of course, George W. Bush went far further than that. A tough lesson that needed to be learned for any future libertarians in congress. Never, EVER vote yes to authorize force over something like that, they won't use it responsibly.
    Inevitably Mobby dragged World War II into it, which may be where you start to get disappointed with me. Feel free to log out again and read it at your leisure, but basically what I said was:

    1. If we could have avoided the war through a more rigorously neutral policy, we had a moral responsibility to do so. Any possible humanitarian argument for that war pretty much goes out the window because of Stalin. We had a moral responsibility, if it was possible, to avoid escalating the conflict and sending four hundred thousand Americans to their deaths.

    2. All that said, Japan did attack us, and so we did have a right to defend ourselves.

    Mobboss is going to attack that first point. I'm curious how you would dissent from that second point. Should we have just laid down and died? I don't really think that's practical.

    Imagine you were sworn in as President in 1941, immediately after the attack happened. What would you do?
    At least you don't totally trash people who disagree with you on a few points, you know who your allies are and who your real enemies are. And I absolutely think you can criticize someone on a few points, even say they are flat out wrong on those points, while still respecting the person. I will also say that I dismissed the possibility that Ron Paul is a closet anarchist in my original post. To be honest, I'd be a little disapointed if he was, not because I would have any problem whatsoever if he wasbut because it would be, in effect, the only lie he ever told. He's the one politician who I know tells the truth every time. If he were an anarchist, that would mean he was at the least dishonest about it for his entire political career. I don't think he is though. He sounds like one at times, so do I when I talk about secession, but ultimately I think he believes a minimal state to be optimal.
    *Sigh*

    I guess according to your comments I (And also Ron Paul) are very mild Satanists. At least I realize the difference between legality and morality. See the thread linked above.
    Agreed that the CSA was an example of self-defence.

    I despise the word terrorist and refuse to us it. I agree that the people behind 9/11 should have been brought to justice. At the same time, the provocations which incited them to the act should have been eliminated.

    As for Japan and WWI, "we" were not attacked. Not even if we refers to the illegally-annexed Kingdom of Hawaii. An outpost installation of the American Empire was attacked. The US government responded with overwhelming force and mass murder. A legitimate response might have been a demand for reparations. Maybe not even that because I really see little distinction between the attack on Pearl Harbor and the American acts which preceded it. Embargoes and confiscation of assets are both acts of war.
    In the 9/11 case, if we had limited ourselves to going after the actual terrorists I wouldn't have objected. Of course, we didn't do that at all, we used that as an excuse to wage an all out war on Afghanistan, and later Iraq, and wreck our Civil Liberties at home. Regarding World War II, I would say Pearl Harbor was no excuse to fight in Europe, except that Germany declared war on us. There's a line between support noninterventonist foreign policy and just laying down and dying. When someone declares war on you, I'd say you have a right to defend yourself.
    Depending on how we define "America" you have to say that the Confederate States military was definitely acting in self-defense. I know the hardcore statists go with "But Ft. Sumter" but its very clearly obvious who the aggressors were in that case, and it was the North. So if you count the South as "America" then the South clearly acted in self-defense as recently as 1865. Its worth noting that Murray Rothbard considered the Southern side justified in this war as well.

    I agree with you that there were provocations in the World War Two case, that we shouldn't have done, but once Pearl Harbor happened, what exactly were we supposed to do? Just sit there and take it?
    Are you counting minarchists as statists here? Because I could see that one taken a couple of ways.

    In an earlier commercial during the same super bowl Jeep made some comments about the armed forces as well. I turned to my father and said that I would buy a Jeep when they learn the difference between defense and offense. I don't even really hate them, I hate their overlords, but the absolute obsession of all things military is really getting to my skin. I feel like its new, but I'm probably just starting to recognize it more. They haven't actually been defending our freedoms since, at best (I know we possibly could have avoided this through more neutral foreign policy, but at least we were actually attacked first here) World War Two. Not a single thing our military has done since then has actually been to defend our freedom.
    http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/131758.html

    I imagine you've probably read this already, and I actually saw the commerical in question before reading Vance's comment, I expected that he would have commented and was not disappointed. Honestly, I'm fairly laid back when it comes to the military in general when compared to Vance and most others at LRC. I know that most of them have no idea what they are really doing. I know that many of them lay down their lives BELIEVING that they are actually defending this country. But the idolatry is really putting me on edge, its as if any criticism of the military whatsoever is akin to blasphemy against God.

    You made a comment awhile ago about idolatry of the military in this country, and its absolutely true. Even my father, who is generally pro-military (Even while usually, although not always, backing non-interventionist policy) agreed that I had a point.

    What's our world coming too?
    In other words, I reject the idea that "Minarchy is utopian" but that anarchy is not. The difference, as I see it, is that minarchy would probably require the majority of politically active people, while anarchy would require the majority of everyone, in order to work correctly. I have reasons for thinking this, but won't bog up the VM board here. There is also, of course, the imperialist problem. Someone would do to us the same thing that we did to the Middle East, if they could. Remember that America isn't the only evil government in the world :)lol:)

    A quick question for here though, why does so much of LRC seem to hate Rand Paul? I strongly prefer his father, but I also know that Rand's strategy is much more applicable to the real political structure in the USA (Admittedly, the fact that he didn't care about this is what drew me to Ron Paul, and libertarianism, in the first place.) Rand, to me, seems at least as good as Gary Johnson, if not better.
    I just thought it was really funny that you put it in your Civ Strategy article. I find it even more funny that nobody seemed to notice it.

    I get the difference between the normal usage of the word "Anarchy" as synonymous for "Total chaos" and the type of sophisticated, orderly anarchism, as supported by most of the folks at LewRockwell.com (Are Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan the only "Non anarchists" who regularly post on there?) The trick, of course, is actually getting to anarchy in the latter sense without getting it in the former sense. While I think that its theoretically possible, I think that the same sorts of people, maybe even a somewhat less libertarian group of people, would be able to create a minarchy.
    Hey! The CIV treatment of anarchy is offensive to all right-thinking people!

    I haven't forgotten you, BTW. I will finish that stuff I was writing about my personal philosophy.
    http://mises.org/community/forums/t/32759.aspx

    If I had any faith in humankind, I just lost it.

    Yeah, name every shooting in the past several years, drill the latest one into our heads, and worship the state because it can fix every problem of mankind.

    Not even an anarchist, I want to vomit:crazyeye:

    I want to demand a plan to end idiocy, but that ain't happening either.
    That's basically where I'm at at this point.

    Merry Christmas to you as well:)

    If you can see my signature you should click on the last link in my sig. You'd get a kick out of it:)
    I was rereading one of the old Ron Paul threads back from 2011, you said "The whole Civil Rights Act was evil."

    Why, in this case?

    I haven't read the whole thing, but I do know of two things that those acts did, one was to restrict freedom of association, which we both disagree with, the other was to destroy the Jim Crow laws.

    Of course, you were right that those laws would have been ended at grassroots level without Federal intervention, but it would have taken longer. Was there any good reason to let them continue in that case?

    I wouldn't have even voted for the law, because of the freedom of association part, but if all they had done was to repeal Jim Crow, what would possibly have been wrong with that?
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