if we wanted to change society, wouldn’t it be better to try to attempt to pursuadesoldiers and officers of individualist principles rather than trying to pursuade business men, or worse, civilian academics?
My reasoning is that if we had a military that by and large did support individualist principles, a lot of the irrationality in the government would be impossible to enforce. The military would have to do nothing but say “no” to orders that were irrational, such as enforcing martial law if a state decided to abandon some irrational federal mandate.
The most ideological people in a society ought to be those in the military, after all it is their blood, and their willingness to kill men, abandon a comfortable life, and wage war, that makes all of this possible. Are they not in many ways just as much of an “Atlas” as someone like John Galt? After all if John Galt was accosted by thugs, and some force protected him and allowed him to produce in peace, would that not be one of the greates benefits?
I visited some of my family at Ft Leonardwood recently, and I talked to a lot of soldiers. I got the anecodtal impression that a lot of them know there is something deeply wrong with what is going on in this country, even if they can’t put their finger on it or they provide an incorrect answer. If the military, and its members, started acting in their self interest, I think our country would be a better place over all.
(This could all be applied with law enforcement, but law enforcement is so decentralized I am not sure how to influence them)
( I think the fact that Ayn Rand spoke at Westpoint is perhaps one of the best moves she made in making this country better)
In a civilized society the military enforces a country’s will on other countries, not on its own. Governments that don’t observe this distinction are called juntas or military dictatorships. You may want that, but I don’t.
The point of a military is to do its job, not to mutiny when it sees fit. During the Vietnam war a justification for the draft was that the threat of military rebellion (supposedly more likely with drafted than with volunteer soldiers) would place limits on the agressions or atrocities a government could get away with. One problem with this is that no such rebellion has ever happened. Another is that you could never trust them to fight for any of their country’s objectives.
What makes you think such soldiers would be Objectivists, implementing Objectivist values once they decided they didn’t like their civilian employers’ values? That strikes me as distinctly improbable, and you wouldn’t have much chance of changing their minds once the shooting started.
So soldiers are supposed to be slaves to the democratic process now matter how absurd the outcomes are? Isn’t the exact same kind of non-thinking, codependent altruism that we are supposed to be against?
I am really just advocating civil dissobedience in the military against the dangerous policies of our corrupt political system, not a military junta. I don’t think soldiers need to make any policies, rather just refuse to protect a society that would sacrafice their lives for the needs of foreigners. I am not advocating that a general create political policy.
Maybe we should be advocating that people don’t join/quit the military until our politicians start developing sounder policies over all.
I am really just advocating civil dissobedience in the military against the dangerous policies of our corrupt political system, not a military junta. I don’t think soldiers need to make any policies, rather just refuse to protect a society that would sacrafice their lives for the needs of foreigners.
The way to facilitate that is by making sure military service remains voluntary. Not by asking people to sign up and then refuse to do what they signed up for.
So soldiers are supposed to be slaves to the democratic process…?
No, they are supposed to do their jobs and keep their promises. Is that such a difficult distinction to make? The fact that service members can’t quit their jobs is a complication but not an insoluble one. It might be as simple as getting rid of the pertinent laws.
Of the two remedies you propose (civil disobedence and not joining the service in the first place) I much prefer the latter. If you want to try the second, that’s your prerogative as long as you’re willing to take the consequences. A soldier’s right to refuse is part of the Nuremberg Accords, which are supposed to be part of the constitution via the supremacy clause, but all three branches of government refused to recognize this during the Vietnam war.
There are three things that a rational military will do to protect individual rights: The first is to simply do what their job is. Under the knowledge that their country needs defenders and that the goverment is the only way to properly decide how to go about defending rights, they would follow all orders that come down, rational or not. This is what our military is currently doing. The second is to go on strike once they are doing more harm than good. The third is to revolt when the country is facing dictatorship.
What they don’t have the ability to do is anything inbetween any of these three options. They can’t decide to follow the good orders and disobey the bad. They can’t decide to take foreign policy into their own hands and act on their own without government consent. They can’t bring about peaceful change simply through the power of being the holders of force. Once, violent change is necessary, an intellectual and enlightened military is extremely important, but chances are you aren’t going to have that if peaceful change is impossible.