Are there innocents within war?

[TomL]

Does this collective judgment extend to all of the prisoners of the Iranian government, or just those who act in support of the existing regime? I'm curious, because you may not be aware that there is no automatic right of emigration in Iran, and escape is not instantly possible, from the moment that you grasp the nature of the government there.

Escape was not instantly possible to Kira, either. Or anyone who escaped from East Berlin. Or... the list goes on. People can and do escape, and if they choose not to try they have made their cost/benefit analysis and must suffer the consequences of that decision either way. If they decide to stay and help support a state which is culpable in an initiation of force, then they are also culpable.

[Proverb]

They aren't beyond your control. You are performing a cost/benefit analysis that puts the choice squarely on your shoulders. Should you choose to reject all immoral action by any state in which you participate, then you have only choice -- but that choice is available. Like I said, it is a cost/benefit analysis. I don't think there is one among us who wouldn't leap at the chance for a successful revolution resulting in an Objectivist state. But until that is a possibility, we take what we can get.

Have you considered that the choice we have to make between life with forced taxes and a jailed life with forced taxes is put on us by a majority of immoral individuals that we (Objectivists), at this juncture, have little power to change?

(The fact that the state of the union at some point could change doesn't change the fact that we have little power to change it)

(Yes there is another choice, fleeing, but to where?)

It is not possible to suffer moral guilt over anything one is forced to do at the end of a gun.

The thieves (US Government) are allowing me to live my life in a way that is very close to the life I would choose to live. Because I have judged that is without my power to counter the thieves, I will comply with their demands (taxes). I am not about to sacrifice the life I have so the thieves can take some amount of my life along with their monetary demands.

Edited August 15, 2005 by Proverb

[TomL]

Have you considered that the choice we have to make between life with forced taxes and a jailed life with forced taxes is put on us by a majority of immoral individuals that we (Objectivists), at this juncture, have little power to change?

Of course I have. That is the whole point.

(The fact that the state of the union at some point could change doesn't change the fact that we have little power to change it)

I've already said essentially the same thing. I think.

(Yes there is another choice, fleeing, but to where?)

I never suggested that people ought to flee the U.S. because it indirectly funds the PLO, or any of the other trite evils it is guilty of in the context of nations. What I suggested was that each person does exactly the cost/benefit analysis you are describing and decide to stay despite those things. If we were citizens of Iran I would suggest something else.

It is not possible to suffer moral guilt over anything one is forced to do at the end of a gun.

But you aren't! You are forced to pay U.S. taxes, yes -- if you want to live & work in the U.S. If you don't want to pay U.S. you can go somewhere else, and that is open to your choice. Only problem is, there isn't anywhere you can go to get away from all such liability.

The thieves (US Government) are allowing me to live my life in a way that is very close to the life I would choose to live. Because I have judged that is without my power to counter the thieves, I will comply with their demands (taxes). I am not about to sacrifice the life I have so the thieves can take some amount of my life along with their monetary demands.

Thank you. That is exactly what I mean.

[Proverb]

Ok, so then we agree that we suffer no moral guilt by living as we live in the US?

[AisA]

No, what I'm saying is there no way on earth to remain fully 100% moral in the context of particpating in a nation.  Period.  That option is not available to you.  What you must do is pick the least evil of all those available to you.  Sorry you don't like it, but that's the way it is. 

Why? Because you say so?

Why am I responsible for what the armed robber does with the loot? Why is one man's moral status a function of another man's actions? Doesn't morality end where a gun begins?

Since I am a very productive idividual, I have earned a significant amount of money and consequently have paid a great deal in taxes. Does this mean there is even more blood on my hands? Am I to be judged immoral while those that produce nothing and pay no taxes get a pass? Am I to be damned for the sin of producing?

There is some degree of moral culpability for your nation's actions.  It may be slight, as it is in this case, but its there.

Repeating the assertion does not make it true.

I reject the notion that moral culpability attaches to that which is outside one's control. At present, the only way to avoid supporting a less-than-perfect government is to die or become a parasite or go to jail. I reject the notion that the choice to live, produce and remain free is immoral. If it is, then man's life is no longer the standard of morality.

I seriously detest people who do not take responsibility for their actions and try everything they can think of to blame the bad things they participate in on someone else, especially while at the same time condemning someone else for the same thing.

I will take complete responsibility for my actions and for things I participate in voluntarily. I will accept no responsibility for actions taken at the point of a gun.

You are tossing out the fact that good & evil do not exist as a binary light switch.  You can do 1,000 good things and 1 small little evil thing and still overall be a very good person.  1 small little evil thing doesn't necessarily mean you ought to go the electric chair.  Get over it.

I refuse to accept an unearned guilt, no matter how small. And I refuse to accept the notion that the more I produce and earn, the greater my guilt.

Condemnation ought to be a matter of summation, not compartmentalization.  It should not be about isolating one abstraction and ignoring everything else that is relevant.

It appears to me that this is precisely what you are doing in ignoring the fact that taxes are taken from me by force and used against my will and over my repeated protests to my elected officials.

The irrationality of my neighbors, in electing legislators that misuse my taxes, cannot be held against me. Their irrationality cannot create an obligation on my part to go to jail or go on welfare.

[HaloNoble6]

We live in a world where everywhere one goes, there is a gun pointed at one's face. Everywhere. The decision to live here where the gun is less intrusive does not constitute advocacy of what this least intrusive gun does with my loot. If, on the other hand, somewhere, somehow, there was a place to live where no guns were pointed at me, and I decided to live here instead of there, that's another story. Morality is out of the window when the "choice" is between degrees of intrusion at the point of a gun.

[Proverb]

We live in a world where everywhere one goes, there is a gun pointed at one's face. Everywhere. [...]

This brings things into context. Thank you very much Felipe!

It is the fact that my choice to live in the US is in this context that allows me to suffer no moral guilt. I just wanted to throw that out there.

[TomL]

Doesn't morality end where a gun begins?

Yes, but the gun doesn't begin where you stop paying taxes and nothing else. It begins where you stop paying taxes and attempt to stay in the country. You don't get to throw half of the equation out the window because its too complicated for you. If you move out of the country, the U.S. will not pursue you to pay taxes. The gun stops.

Am I to be damned for the sin of producing?

Sure, to the degree that you produce that which initiates force or is used to initiate force. For example: your taxes which are used to fund the PLO, or the fruits of your productiveness which may be consumed by others who use it to contribute to the initiation, such as weapons builders, their contractors, and so on. Everything in an economy based on division of labor is supported by everything else.

I will take complete responsibility for my actions and for things I participate in voluntarily.  I will accept no responsibility for actions taken at the point of a gun.

Good, because you volunteer to pay U.S. taxes by staying in the U.S.

You cannot decide to stay in the U.S. and then deny that staying in the U.S. is your choice at the same time. Pick one, and only one. Taxes are taken from you with more than one option open to your choice, not just one. I'm sorry if that makes it too complex for you to handle.

It appears to me that this is precisely what you are doing in ignoring the fact that taxes are taken from me by force and used against my will and over my repeated protests to my elected officials.

Taxes are taken from you by force only in the event you choose to live in the state which demands the taxes. The fact that you have made the choice to stay because of the life you can lead here doesn't negate the fact that it was a choice, you made it, and you're responsible for its consequences. All of them.

The irrationality of my neighbors, in electing legislators that misuse my taxes, cannot be held against me.  Their irrationality cannot create an obligation on my part to go to jail or go on welfare.

Of course not. What generates your culpability is precisely your choice to produce value in and for a state which initiates force. The baker who bakes bread pays taxes directly to the state, and his productiveness is utilized by those who directly or indirectly initiate force against another nation. Everyone in a nation helps everyone else in the nation through division of labor, and they demonstrate their intention of doing so by participating in that system of their own volition.

It may be very difficult to leave Iran, but that doesn't mean its not open to choice. It just means its a choice with more immediate consequences.

[TomL]

We live in a world where everywhere one goes, there is a gun pointed at one's face.  Everywhere.  The decision to live here where the gun is less intrusive does not constitute advocacy of what this least intrusive gun does with my loot.  If, on the other hand, somewhere, somehow, there was a place to live where no guns were pointed at me, and I decided to live here instead of there, that's another story.  Morality is out of the window when the "choice" is between degrees of intrusion at the point of a gun.

Close. If you are not culpable for what the least intrusive gun does, then there is no incentive for you whatsoever to change what that least intrusive gun does. But there is such an incentive, isn't there? Don't you want to stop funding the PLO? Don't you want the U.S. government to stop initiating force to the degree that it does?

Saying that you are not responsible in the slightest (while at the same time facilitating the action) is by corollary saying that it is morally acceptable for those actions to be taken. Again, you can't have it both ways.

The U.S. and its citizens are guilty to a small degree... but such a small degree that we are completely savable. We can fix it. Iran is a lost cause -- they will kill us all before they can be fixed.

Edited August 15, 2005 by TomL

[HaloNoble6]

Here's an application of the morality you're advocating.

Suppose I had two children, and suppose they were taken hostage. Suppose the fact that they were both taken hostage is out of my control, like the fact that everywhere on the planet Earth there is a gun pointed at my face. Now, suppose the hostage-takers asked me to choose which child should live. Similarly, in this world, I have the choice of which country to live in. OK, so am I going to be responsible for the death of one my of children because I was forced to pick one that will live? Similarly, am I morally held responsible for the actions of the government I chose to abide by simply because I had to choose a government to abide by, and all of them engaged in immoral activity with the loot they took from me?

There is no way in hell that, necessarily, the choice to live in a particular place where the gun is less intrusive implies that I share in the moral guilt for what the government does with the loot it takes from me. If, however, I do nothing to change the state of the government I chose to live in, nothing at all, then indeed I'm supporting it and indeed I'm guilty for what it does. On the other hand, if, to the best of my ability and to the extent my time allows, I engage in intellectual activism, I vote responsibly, etc., then I do not share one shred of guilt for the things my government does with my loot.

This application of morality is what led Ayn Rand to say that students could guiltlessly take on government loans/grants so long as they took action against the system that created the loans/grants in the first place.

[Proverb]

By your standards TomL, I will hold you personally responsible for any evils the 'United States' chooses to endorse, initiate, or further for the whole of your life.

(Ignoring the fact that 'The United States' can't choose anything.)

Unless you have conceived a John-Galt-like alternative to living on the planet earth, there is no more moral of a choice than that of living in the United States while, as Felipe states, to the best of one's ability, attempting to steer the immoral.

If you truly are a pointing moral blame finger at me for 'funding any immoral act' in the United States no matter the context, you are on the dark road to communism.

[TomL]

If, however, I do nothing to change the state of the government I chose to live in, nothing at all, then indeed I'm supporting it and indeed I'm guilty for what it does.  On the other hand, if, to the best of my ability and to the extent my time allows, I engage in intellectual activism, I vote responsibly, etc., then I do not share one shred of guilt for the things my government does with my loot.

That is the next logical step -- the answer I was hoping for. Thanks for making it. But now consider the context of war being waged. If the state in which you participate initiates force against another, do you think that enemy has a moral obligation to stop and interrogate you about your intellectual activism before they put a bullet in your head to stop you from helping to produce the means of their destruction? Should they even care at all -- if you knowingly do so but oppose it at the same time? If everyone in a nation said they opposed it but their nation initiated force anyway, then what?

It is still a war amongst nations, and while you may properly not feel guilty about the choices you have made, you are still culpable for those choices should they prove to be the wrong ones. The trick is to be as sure as possible you aren't making the wrong ones.

We the Living spoiler below:

Some might argue that Kira made the wrong choice to leave Soviet Russia because she was killed in the attempt. But when you consider the alternative, it was the only rational choice she could make. Fortunately for us, we have many more options open to us. Unfortunately for us, that means it isn't as simple as Kira's choice.

[HaloNoble6]

Now this is a different issue. One question is, "are citizens necessarily (acontextually) guilty for the actions of their government (whether domestic or foreign in nature)," the answer is a resounding no, not necessarily. The next question is, "what should a free nation do with the guiltless people of an enemy country?" And the answer is that this question is secondary to: "How can we quickly, efficiently, win this war?" If, after a cost/benefit analysis, a free nation determines that it would cost nothing to spare the guiltless of the enemy nation (nevermind the fact that it is incredibly difficult to discriminate in the use of mass force between the guilty and the guiltless), it can do so (in fact, I would say it should do so). Similarly, if after this analysis a free nation determines that it would be too costly or, far more likely, impossible to do so, it can morally go on with the war even if it means the death of guiltless people. So who is guilty for the death of the guiltless? Of course, the guilty who put us in this position in the first place. QED

[TomL]

By your standards TomL, I will hold you personally responsible for any evils the 'United States' chooses to endorse, initiate, or further for the whole of your life.

I see. Are you going to ignore my intellectual activism in your summation, then? Or the entirety of all the elements of my cost/benefit analysis?

I do not begrudge you for the U.S.'s initiation of force, because I know that you have made the best choice possible given the options open to your choice. I also know that you will fight intellectually for the right political actions to be taken. Why will you now throw your knowledge that I will do the same out the window?

there is no more moral of a choice than that of living in the United States while, as Felipe states, to the best of one's ability, attempting to steer the immoral.

I have never contradicted that, and in fact I support that statement whole-heartedly.

If you truly are a pointing moral blame finger at me for 'funding any immoral act' in the United States no matter the context, you are on the dark road to communism.

Not any immoral act committed in the United States, but any immoral act committed by the United States against another nation. Yikes! Why do we keep losing the distinction between an initiation of force amongst individuals and an iniation of force amongst nations? Not even close to the same thing!

[AisA]

Doesn't morality end where a gun begins?

Yes, but the gun doesn't begin where you stop paying taxes and nothing else. It begins where you stop paying taxes and attempt to stay in the country. You don't get to throw half of the equation out the window because its too complicated for you. If you move out of the country, the U.S. will not pursue you to pay taxes. The gun stops.

It must be too complicated for you to provide support for your assertion that culpability attaches, because you still have not done so.

Your premise is that if one can outrun the armed robber, then one cannot say that one is being forced. That is a non-sequitur. The ability to escape a threat does not mean the threat does not exist.

Am I to be damned for the sin of producing?

Sure, to the degree that you produce that which initiates force or is used to initiate force. For example: your taxes which are used to fund the PLO, or the fruits of your productiveness which may be consumed by others who use it to contribute to the initiation, such as weapons builders, their contractors, and so on. Everything in an economy based on division of labor is supported by everything else.

Well, it is good to know where you stand. You condemn people in proportion to their productivity and rationality. That is a profoundly evil and disgusting notion.

I will take complete responsibility for my actions and for things I participate in voluntarily.  I will accept no responsibility for actions taken at the point of a gun.

Good, because you volunteer to pay U.S. taxes by staying in the U.S.

This would mean that I am volunteering to be robbed unless I move somewhere where the robbers cannot get me.

This means a woman volunteers to be raped unless she removes herself to a city where there are no rapists. Of course, if the rapists move to her new location, she is volunteering to be raped again unless she moves elsewhere.

You cannot decide to stay in the U.S. and then deny that staying in the U.S. is your choice at the same time. Pick one, and only one. Taxes are taken from you with more than one option open to your choice, not just one. I'm sorry if that makes it too complex for you to handle.

There is no way to choose not to pay taxes, except by choosing to die, become a parasite or go to jail. This means that you have made the choice to live, be productive and remain free evil. So man’s life is not the standard of your morality.

It appears to me that this is precisely what you are doing in ignoring the fact that taxes are taken from me by force and used against my will and over my repeated protests to my elected officials.

Taxes are taken from you by force only in the event you choose to live in the state which demands the taxes. The fact that you have made the choice to stay because of the life you can lead here doesn't negate the fact that it was a choice, you made it, and you're responsible for its consequences. All of them.

This means that the choice to produce goods makes you liable for the possible consequence of having them stolen and misused. Since man's life requires production, you have turned the decision to live into a liability.

Of course not. What generates your culpability is precisely your choice to produce value in and for a state which initiates force.

You have repeated the assertion again, without support. You have not shown why the man who produces the goods is morally responsible for the actions of the robber that steals them.

[TomL]

Now this is a different issue.  One question is, "are citizens necessarily guilty for the actions of their government (whether domestic or foreign in nature)," the answer is a resounding no.

This is the most hypocritical part of this whole argument. Where the hell does the government from? Are they aliens from outer space?

How does a person produce the means of perpetrating evil, knowing that that's what it will be used for, and not be partially responsible for that evil? If you aren't responsible, then why do you take any intellectual activity at all to change it?

What consequence does it have your life?

Aren't you again ignoring the life you gain by choosing the provide the means to initiate the little force that the U.S. does?

[HaloNoble6]

The point is that the answer is "not necessarily, please look at context." There is nothing hypocritical about asking someone to judge based on a full context.

[TomL]

It must be too complicated for you to provide support for your assertion that culpability attaches, because you still have not done so.

Sure I have. You just choose to ignore it. Suit yourself. Since I'm regarded as evil and disgusting, I'll make better use of my time elsewhere.

[TomL]

The point is that the answer is "not necessarily, please look at context."  There is nothing hypocritical about asking someone to judge based on a full context.

That's all I'm saying! In this case, the context includes the fact that the U.S. perpetrates some evil acts. And if it is the act of a nation, then the nation is responsible.

I never claimed that the quantity or severity of the evil which the U.S. has perpetrated morally validate destruction of the U.S. All I am saying is that its there, and we need to first admit to it and take responsbility for it as a nation before we can fix it. The more we deny that we are responsible for it, the more it will happen. The denial fuels its perpetuity.

So its either that as a nation, we are completely righteous and without fault, or completely guilty and deserving of total destruction? Why? Why can't we be something in between?

I submit that all nations are somewhere in between. The U.S. happens to be at the good end of the spectrum, making it the best choice available today.

[HaloNoble6]

And if it is the act of a nation, then the nation is responsible.

If by "nation" you mean "all citizens", then this doesn't jive with taking a full context into account. As I said, sure a country can perpetrate immoral acts, and does so all the time, but so long as I actively oppose those acts, I can live guilt-free in the freest nation, and therefore share no guilt in the immoral acts "the nation" engages in.

[AisA]

Sure I have. You just choose to ignore it.  Suit yourself. Since I'm regarded as evil and disgusting, I'll make better use of my time elsewhere.

I did not say that you are evil and disgusting. I said the notion that people should be condemned in proportion to their productivity and rationality is evil and disgusting.

[TomL]

Your premise is that if one can outrun the armed robber, then one cannot say that one is being forced.  That is a non-sequitur.  The ability to escape a threat does not mean the threat does not exist.

I never said that. You don't have to outrun the U.S., you can leave any time you like. If a robber sticks a gun in your face and you can get away but choose not to, whose fault is it? Certainly the robber is to blame, but you are also for not taking the best option open to you.

Well, it is good to know where you stand.  You condemn people in proportion to their productivity and rationality.  That is a profoundly evil and disgusting notion.

I'm just want to make it clear that I never said that, and that words are being put into my mouth. A private trade is not the same thing as the effect that private trade has on the nation in which it occurrs.

This would mean that I am volunteering to be robbed unless I move somewhere where the robbers cannot get me.

I never said that either. This drops a mass of context that has already been brought up in this thread that I will not bring up again.

This means that you have made the choice to live, be productive and remain free evil.  So man’s life is not the standard of your morality.

This means that the choice to produce goods makes you liable for the possible consequence of having them stolen and misused.  Since man's life requires production, you have turned the decision to live into a liability. 

I never said any of those things, either. I know you'd like to believe I said them, but again you drop context, and insert assumed context which I did not intend. Perhaps it is my failure for not being a clearer writer.

[TomL]

I did not say that you are evil and disgusting.  I said the notion that people should be condemned in proportion to their productivity and rationality is evil and disgusting.

So ideas don't make a man evil, just his actions? Who does that smack of?

Incidentally it is not my idea, just the one you are inserting by means of ignoring half of what I've said and isolating out only a small part of it, and then twisting it into what you think I'm saying. Can you say MUP? I knew you could.

[TomL]

I never said that.  You don't have to outrun the U.S., you can leave any time you like.  If a robber sticks a gun in your face and you can get away but choose not to, whose fault is it?  Certainly the robber is to blame, but you are also for not taking the best option open to you.

Not to mention the fact that the gun the U.S. points at you for its taxes is the gun you give it in the first place. Or should we find someone else to blame for that too? Perhaps the founding fathers were evil for creating this monster?

It's ridiculous to drop all this context. As long as it continues, so will the evil.

[colin]

No, what I'm saying is there no way on earth to remain fully 100% moral in the context of particpating in a nation.  Period.  That option is not available to you.  What you must do is pick the least evil of all those available to you.  Sorry you don't like it, but that's the way it is. 

This is the problem that I have with what you are saying. Morality requires choice. If I have no choice then morality is not in issue. If I pick the least evil available, then I have done all that is possible if I am to remain a resident of this world. If there is no option(choice) of a lesser evil, then I fail to see how I can be said to have behaved immorally.

Am I missing your point entirely?