Oakes

What are those circumstances, in your view? My bold. I never said you are entitled to government money - only that it would be moral to accept it when the government forces circumstances where life is impossible without accepting it.

Two points: (1) I would question whether Eric thinks that it would be immoral for those in socialist societies, where private property is completely abolished, to accept whatever rations are due to them. The tragic part of socialism and welfare statism is that people are forced to cannibalistically feed off of each other. The key word there is "forced"; accepting a welfare check isn't theft any more than it would be murder for a death camp inmate to kill a fellow inmate under the orders of the camp guards. They need to feed off of each other as a matter of survival. (2) Even if you managed to get back all the money you payed in taxes, you wouldn't truly be making up for the wealth the government stole from you. There is an uncalculable mountain of wealth that disappears as a result of government regulation and the perversions of supply and demand resulting from subsidies and price controls, not to mention the destruction of the most precious resource of all: the human mind, which is systematically dumbed-down by progressive education in public schools. A check for a million dollars per person couldn't make up for this crime. In sum, it is moral to accept government handouts, under the two conditions explained above: (1) You must truly need the handouts as a matter of survival (corporate welfare is ruled out here because companies don't need it), and (2) your need must be the result of the government (which is possible even if you don't pay any taxes, but may not be the case if you are just lazy). If the first condition isn't met, the government didn't "force" you to accept the handout because you didn't need it; if the second condition isn't met, it wasn't the government that made you need the handout, it was your own laziness.

I just got finished saying that I would obliterate an entire city if a group of terrorists didn't let a hostage free. It should be clear how that analogy applies to your WWII example. Let's see... So thousands and thousands and thousands of people, with thousands and thousands and thousands of them having virtually nothing to do with the emperor's own guilt, are expendable for the purpose of acting on principle. So is this principle of always acting on principle absolute? Would you eradicate the entire island of Japan to bring justice to the emperor? Either you're arguing that I'd be morally guilty for those "thousands and thousands and thousands" of deaths or that post was pointless. So now there are situations where you think it would be moral to kill civilians. The only difference between you and me is that you are willing to weigh the worth of civilian lives with the lives of our troops, and possibly choose to sacrifice a few of the latter if you come out in favor of the former. Why isn't the psychology of the enemy a "concrete military goal"? I ask again, how do you distinguish the two? So we don't have to grovel in each individual example, I'll make the principle clear for you: If an enemy offered to end the war on the condition that a crime against an American would be forgotten, such an offer would be rejected. EDIT: I'd like to add one thing to this last one. Not every member of the Wehrmacht was tried for war crimes in WWII, so it is invalid to speak of the "lowest level member of the war machine" or some kid stealing a pack of gum from a soldier. I am speaking of those who would've otherwise been tried for war crimes; i.e., those in high-ranking positions. They are the ones responsible for the war and thus the crime against Americans.

Again you bring up the bodyguard analogy, and again I state the difference between individuals and governments: On the personal level, there are two innocent people, and only one can survive - both are "right" and thus morality cannot apply. On the governmental level, there are two groups of innocent people (American servicemen and Japanese schoolchildren) receiving the consequences of their governments' (good or bad) actions - one gov't is "right" and the other is "wrong," thus morality applies. If you consider the government just like any other private organization, with no fundamentally different representative role to its people (it just has a "contract" to fulfill like any other company), I suggest that you check your premises because they may be more closely aligned with anarchism. Are you demanding of me omniscience? How could I have known that in such a situation? It changes nothing. If it were my decision, every time an American soldier or civilian is captured and the monstrous terrorists threaten to behead him or her, I would not hesitate to demand that the American be released under pain of a massive, city-wide show of force they can only dream of. How's that for the consequences of my premises? I am not about to accept guilt for the consequences of a criminal government evading justice, any more than I would today if Osama Bin Laden offered to end terrorist attacks under the condition that he and his aides are allowed exile in Malibu. Now that I've answered your questions, I have a few for you: Do you agree that civilian casualties are acceptable if they are collateral damage (i.e., we were trying to get military targets)? For example, if an Iraqi dictator surrounds schoolyards with anti-aircraft weapons, and American warplanes can only destroy them by killing the children as well. My second question is: Have you ever heard of psychological operations? They're the part of the military that seeks to destroy enemy morale, which is why intentionally targeting civilians falls into this category. The actual target in such cases is a psychological one (the morale of the enemy government), even though superficially civilians are the ones we seem to be targeting. How can you distinguish this from any other kind of collateral damage?

First thing we agreed on all day

This is pure skepticism: We can never be sure that the government follows its own rules, therefore there is no reason have a government. A government, with its limits properly defined, its checks and balances properly aligned, and most importantly, its citizenship with a culture of reason in mind, can be expected to rule without an axe to grind. I'm such a poet. I didn't say there needed to be multiple companies; my point was to show that if we only contracted to "Amalgamated Police," there would be no such thing as "Brinks Police" or "Consolidated Police." But that's a moot point because even if there were other police companies available, their contracts would also need to be enforced by somebody. Anarchism is such a catch-22. Well, in the short run, its the people who appoint the judges, who are elected by the American people. Thus it should be obvious why I consider a "citizenship with a culture of reason in mind" so important.

Taking my previous example, if Bin Laden offered to end all terrorist attacks provided we impose Islam in all public schools, and we refused, it would be obscene to say that we prolonged the war (although technically true, at least for the short-term).

We are assuming here that the government will follow its own laws. Without that assumption, there is no point in speaking of a "government" at all. You're assuming that there will be multiple police companies contracted with the government, which your system doesn't guarantee. And even if there were, who enforces their contracts?

Let's take the police as an example. If we contracted out to private police companies for all of our policing needs, who would be enforcing those contracts? The market (and all the contracts involved) presupposes that there is some threat of force behind them.

I understand that, but demanding unconditional surrender is not in itself a bad thing. I would consider it a moral travesty to grant the demands of an aggressor in order to buy peace; there is no better single definition of appeasement. That book looks interesting, though. I might check it out.

You haven't supplied any quote suggesting that it was specifically the part of the proclamation that caused them to continue their war.

Remember, as I said after "EDIT:", I am not against the government using private contractors. I'm against requiring that that's all the government uses. If Lockheed, Boeing, and every other airplane manufacturor all of a sudden refused to produce airplanes for the US Air Force, the government would have every right to start an airplane company of its own (which would then be government property). Admittedly, this is a far off example, but my point is that if the government had to contract out all of its police forces, courts, military bases, and everything else, the government would have no way of enforcing its monopoly on the use of force. It would simply be a needless restriction that does nothing to further individual rights.

You're still not being completely clear. If our enemy nation stated that they would end the war if their emperor would be exempted from justice, naturally I would refuse, for the same reason I would refuse if Osama Bin Laden offered to end all terrorist attacks if we would require that Islam be taught in all public schools. One does not compromise on principles.

Did that book state exactly what in the Potsdam Proclamation gave them "more ammunition to continue the war"?

Post #19

Are you suggesting that the Japanese were continuing the war solely out of fear that their emperor would be executed should they fail? Where's your evidence for this? I'm sure this would have brought the enemy to their knees.

Why should we not demand unconditional surrender? And how many would've died given the alternative?

Since I'm not the one who wrote it, I can't answer you. And this would be relevant if not for the fact that Ayn Rand repeatedly condemned anarchism. My only purpose in this thread is to reinforce what a mere cursory knowledge of her writings makes obvious. Now if you have nothing left to add to this discussion, we can end this.

Explain. Give me an alternative where zero Americans die, not a blank quote.

By the way, does this non-stop questioning of the trivial remind anyone else of Tom Robinson? Where has that guy been lately?

Anyone other than Lew Rockwell readers can understand that the definition was identifying the essentials, and not giving the green light for anarchism. Now you are just playing with words.

That wasn't my question. I'll ask it again: Do you agree that Truman was forced to choose between killing enemy civilians and sending American boys to die? Of course it wasn't required to win the war; we could've mounted a land invasion, although surely with more American deaths.

A study of Objectivism would permit one to read it as "the vast majority of property will be privately owned." The nature of the government itself is entirely different under these two systems. If you cannot see that much, this discussion is more of a waste of time than I thought it was.

Not literally, but he was forced to choose between that and sending American boys to die. Do you agree with that much?

If the government had to contract out all its property, it would be at the mercy of those particular corporations. More importantly, there is no reason to place such a restriction on the government, save a general dislike for the government (i.e., anarchism). EDIT: I forgot to mention, I am not against the gov't contracting to private corporations. I'm against forcing it to do so as a rule (all the time).