We can stop fighting foreign wars. Pull back all the troops and put them on our borders inspecting people and containers. Issue every person an ID chip. Use the navy strictly to keep the sea lanes open. Let the businesses assume all the risks of foreign trade. Can’t think of an intermediate solution.

Curt Doolittle,

You haven’t presented any justification for the so-called “war on terror” (which is in fact a war of terrorism by the US government), nor have you in any way rebutted the original author’s arguments. You’ve erected strawmen arguments, as can clearly be shown by your assertions (or implications) that anyone here is denying that terrorists exist or that they’re a threat.

And regarding the threats of terrorism, you’ve done nothing to rebut those who argue that terrorism isn’t as much a threat as the US government says it is, but that it’s actually provoked by US imperialism. You’ve merely made assertions.

PS: A tip: You should not need to format comments posted to the Mises Blog with HTML-hypertags, unless you want to emphasis something or strong something. If you wish to manually separate your paragraphs, however, you should use the paragraph [P] tag instead of the line-break [BR] tag.

RE: “You haven’t presented any justification for the so-called “war on terror” (which is in fact a war of terrorism by the US government), nor have you in any way rebutted the original author’s arguments. You’ve erected strawmen arguments, as can clearly be shown by your assertions (or implications) that anyone here is denying that terrorists exist or that they’re a threat.

Sigh…

Please paraprhase my argument to show that you have some understanding of it, and so that we can find a few more narrow points to debate. I can easily understand your argument, because it is quite simple, but I have yet no evidence that you understand mine, and absent that feedback, this is not a debate. It is merely an attempt by you to control the floor of a speech, by which you hope by simplicity and emotion to sway an absent but assumedly immature audience.

I argued, not for the war, but against absolute pacifism, and the reasoning you, the author of the article, (and some other fellow) were using. I did not say the war in Iraq and the war in afghanistan were good ideas. I said that the method you were using to criticize them was inadequate to the task, and that as such you had not proven that they were bad ideas.

The set of objections you use to answer the argument of those who disagree with you is simply an error in your thinking. I tried to show this discord along a number of axes. This is a means of argument for complex problems. Since all ideologies that predict future events using partial knowledge require these axes, and that any argument against them must resolve the differences using the same relative positioning in these axes, or they are errors in categorization, which is to say, they are simply errors in understanding. You may be only be experienced with arguments as to statefulness rather to equlibria on multiple axes, but again, this tendency to simplicity is an ignorance to a time axis that implies a neccessary rather than axial utility, and this is the source of many such conflicts. And this is yet another set of ideas that, given current circumstances, I think is far to weighty for this discussion.

But back to matters at hand: Protestant Christianity produced the only social and ethical framework for modern capitalism. It did so for a number of reasons. And it succeeded in producing widespread prosperity for specific reasons, using many ideas that are not rational on face value. Some of them are just plain unpleasant. Those reasons are in conflict with your underlying framework, which will only work in a smaller population that is fairly heterogeneous, and hopefully hosted by another society with a longer average time preference.

I asked the question in a previous post, of how you would extend the time preference of a body of diverse people. If you can answer this question, you will be better able to argue your position. So, while I would agree with you as to the optimum state, and the optimum mechanics, and the optimum result of any anarchic society, I would counter that it is impossible to implement, and even if achieved, would be impossible to maintain. Something which Veblen covers a bit in the Theory of the Liesure Class.

The technique I am using employs a similar but more precise (perhaps analytical) argument than Sowell uses in A Conflict of Visions, which shows how underlying assumptions about the nature of the universe make a resolution of the debate an impossiblity. I used arguments to necessity for the aggregation and transfer of knowledge, which cannot be wrong unless you believe we are gifted our knowledge from heaven. These are not trivial arguments, and they certainly aren’t straw men. And in this argument I am using a higher level of precision than you use, based upon absolute necessity, not ideological shorthand and platitudes, and it is not one that is incoherent, simply one that is less accessible because of the knowledge required to wield it. If your argument is that I need a better marketing agent, well, then, I’ll have to make due with a more limited customer base, but that does not change the validity of the argument.

You could argue that the purpose of zealotry is to exaggerate and generate momentum in a direction. And to that end, I would support your agenda. But to argue to more concrete ends, is something I cannot agree with, because such thinking is not supported by logic, history or facts.

That being said, either enter the debate, understand it or let’s just not bother. While the eventual outcome may only be that you choose to keep your current thinking, (I think it is your reason for existance so you must) and there is some evidence that road-to-damascus conversions are nigh on impossible, especially for zealots, (who I agree have utility, but I’m not a statist so entergies are best spent elsewhere) you certainly will not win the debate, other than through nullification by fillibuster.

-Cheers

Curt Doolittle,

Protestant Christianity produced the only social and ethical framework for modern capitalism.

Only if you ignore the Catholic Scholastics.

Curt Howland,

RE:“This statement is, of course, not an argument at all.”

Um, I hazard to guess, but isn’t that an argument? Yes, I am fairly sure, so, moving onward…

I can only answer this with a deeper question: Do human rights (or the equivalent) exist, and if they do, are they purely temporal, or are they intertemporal? Do they extend into the past, and into the future? And what is the implication if they do not?

Forgive me for borrowing a bit from Lao Tzu, but this is the most effective shorthand for these kinds of things.

You see, I understand the debate. I understand both sides, I know the differences, and the underlying assumptions and values. I can’t tell if you don’t know them or can’t know them, or whether you just conveniently avoid them. But your line of thinking is very simple, and the epistemic device it uses to make predicate judgements is an error. You may choose to employ it. And it may be because you cannot see a longer time axis. But methusela and the mayfly have different philosophies, because they must. To each of them, time is a different scarcity and actions a different utility.

As I said before, socialists deny ignorance and take action, and pacifists deny knowledge and fail to act. Both are problems. Both are epistemic errors. Both are suicidal.

Perhaps I should find comfort that Darwin will get his due.

-Cheers

Curt,

The only one here who has completely failed to understand what is being said here is yourself, and you’re hiding it in an air of self-indulgent and long-whinded rhetoric. I doubt anyone reading this is impressed by your fuzzy “use” of the English language, and would suggest you consider taking a look at Orwell’s Politics and the English Language.

You are erecting strawmen, and doing so again and again. You’ve accused individuals here of “absolute pacifism”. Either you do not understand what pacifism means, or you do not understand the position of the original author, or you’re erecting a strawman intentionally. Pacificism is a philsophy under which all use of coercive force is considered immoral. While there are some pacifists here, the more general opinion would be that initiating aggression (or coercive force) is criminal. Even excusing your strawman argument, you haven’t demonstrated any deficiency with absolute pacifism. This is because you apparently fail to understand what it means to say something is “wrong”. To say that using coercive force is wrong does not mean that you believe that there could ever be a state of affairs where no coercive force is ever used, anymore than does to say that initiating aggression is a criminal act is to say that you ever believe there could be a state of affairs where no initiation of aggression occurs.

You apparently cannot separate an argument of morality from one of practicality to achieve certain ends. Obviously, everyone desires to be free of terrorism. That is an ends. There are some means which are capable of accomplishing this, and others which aren’t. I’d argue that in addition to being completely unable to eliminate or reduce terrorism (certainly not in the long run, and not likely in the short-run), military imperialism is furthermore an immoral and criminal means: both because it necessitates the initiation of aggression against foreign citizens (murder), and because it necessitates the initiation of aggression against citizens at home (taxation/inflation). These, of course, are also tied up in a practical aspect, in that foreign aggression provides the motivation for anti-US terrorism, and that economic destruction at home (taxes, inflation, the business cycle, enormous debt-levels, etc) dampen the capacity for self-defense.

Showing that something is immoral and criminal is a refutation of it. We can also show that these wars are unable to achieve their stated ends. You also conveniently overlooked one of the original author’s posts: this is a “war on terror”; that is, a war against an abstract idea or category of people, and a war that will thus be unending, as in 1984.

Your argument is so fundamentally flawed that one scarcely knows where to begin in rebutting it. Firstly, the reality is that — contrary to what you’re saying — the “war on terror” is going to foster more terrorism in the long-term. If we want to reduce terrorism, the means able to achieve that would be to quickly cease our militarily imperialistic ventures in the Middle East. Secondly, of course individuals have the right to defense themselves: but only using the means that they rightfully own. I’m entitled to defend myself, but not to steal from you to assist me in doing so. Anyone who thinks that the best solution to terrorism is to engage in offensive warfare have the right to use your own money and resources to do such, provided they only retaliate against actual aggressors. The world would be much better off if these nuts bankrupted themselves. Thirdly, your assertions that “anarchy” is impossible is merely that: a baseless assertion, undermined by the reality that there are historical examples of Stateless socities existing for for hundreds of years, and one example of a Stateless society that existed for a millenium (approximately 3 times longer than the US has currently existed, and it is arguable that the US was a different form of government after the Civil War). Of course, if by “anarchy” you mean a state of affairs where there is no initiation of aggression, you are probably right: it is almost impossible that there could ever exist a state of affairs where there is no initiation of aggression (e.g., there are no criminals). Of course, no-one arguing for anarchism believes that this will result from it; merely that it is more stable, more prosperous, more in alignment with human nature, and more safe than any other conceivable system.

“I’m trying to point out that the arguments in use are not able to refute those of the opponents

Actually, yes they are capable of refuting those argument on moral grounds.

“I’m saying that such arguments won’t change an opponent’s mind.”

Only if you think that all advocates of war would be completely unswayed by an argument that their actions are criminal and immoral.

Furthermore, there are also practical arguments against the “war on terror”: that it cannot achieve it’s stated end, and that it results in numerous undesireable consequences.

But, even if true, so what? It is one thing to show a proof that 2+2=4 and quite another to be able to convince an ass of that.

The means of convincing someone that the “war on terror” is not a good idea may, in some cases, be different from the demonstrations that this war is both necessarily immoral and impractical. To that end, any conceivable means (that don’t invovle initiating aggression) are possibly under consideration, and the only question is whether or not they will be effective means. E.g., demonstration of immorality and criminality, demonstration of impracticality and negative consequences, rhetoric, appeal to authority (e.g., the Bible), demagoguery, verbal bullying, hyperbole, etc. The only question regarding the means beyond demonstrating immorality/criminality and impracticlity is their long-term effectiveness (e.g., lying will probably backfire).

David,

Thank you. Finally something specific to debate. Although, it might do to play a little better tag here, because we’re inter-posting.

“Pacificism is a philsophy under which all use of coercive force is considered immoral.”

Yes. But why? And what do you mean by immoral? Why does this term exist and what does it mean? Along what time and population axes? I am quite sure you mean “the person I know” and “a time I can understand”. You use the word “Criminal” as well as does the author, but your opponents disagree with this categorization, because again, this criminal is someone you know, or can know. The problem is the actionabilty of knowledge. And don’t think I’m denying the individual and short term axes of this problem. I’m not. While I’m aware of both, I can’t tell if you are.

To possess any vision of right and wrong, you must follow any statement with “because it leads to X”. Again, this is a conflict of visions. You presume a binary universe, with an implied X. Others presume differently. You are making an ideological argument to absolutism that must have some utility, or else it is meaningless.

RE: “You apparently cannot separate an argument of morality from one of practicality to achieve certain ends.”

I’m not sure whether you mean certain, as in “knowingly absolute” or certain as in “specific”. I will assume that you mean “specific”.

You are apparently unaware that any argument to morality is an argument to utility for some assumed end, and it is an epistemic device for the optimum achievement of that end. It is either that, or it is a religion, and must rely upon a diety of absolute knowledge. I am sorry to add that, because it’s a distraction, but that is the eventual outcome of that line of thinking.

RE: “Obviously, everyone desires to be free of terrorism…”

This paragraph is the critical part of the debate. Which is, to convince people that the threat can be abated, and by what specific actions, and with what guarantees. It is not ideological arguments to pacificsm and trade. No one can really disagree. But this mixes the general and specific.

RE: “..dampen the capacity for self-defense..”

Im not sure that is proven by the numbers. I would agree with you if you take a long term perspective, but this denies a population’s ability to reorganize and alter it’s system in response to prior mistakes. As Hayek said, America is fairly good at this, because our only social bond is essentially our messianic vision and economic utility. This allows us to change quickly.

RE: “Showing that something is immoral and criminal is a refutation of it.”

Well, that’s a judgement that’s only possible if one ebraces the entire framework. In effect it’s circular if one does not. In this case, it is circular.

RE: “…Stateless socities existing for for hundreds of years…”

I’m not denying it at all, in fact, I long for it. But these, all of them, exist in an environment, and an environment that permits that existance. I do not see that environment with twelve billion people on the planet many of whom may well experience either shortages, envy or rapid change which they do not wish to embrace, because they have neither the knowedge, the cultural ability to reorganize, nor the resources to adjust to new circumstances. For some of these people, this is a question of survival. The will not go quietly into the night.

RE: ” Of course, if by “anarchy” you mean a state of affairs where there is no initiation of aggression, you are probably right”

And that is precisely what I’m saying. That and the ocean of difficulties that pour out of it. These things are unachieveable, and since common sense holds this conviction (whether right or wrong, but widely held none the less), then it is under these terms that one makes the argument of persuasion, not one of ideology that assumes a more limited set of circumstances.

This is the same error socialists make: that the principles of the family and tribe, for whom altruism is possible, because knowledge of all people is possible, can be applied to the greater body of men, because sheer time and numbers prohibit this knowledge from forming into something actionable. It is impossible. These connections may be difficult to make, but they exist none the less. While the future is not entirely kaleidic, such statefulness is an illusion of history, a figment of the mind, and not possible to attain.

And this is why your argument, and that of “big L” libertarianism in general, does not propagate well in a body of men. While I hold and firmly believe in these precepts, and love their purity and beauty and promise, I am not so enraptured that I would suffer the outcome of blind obedience to them. Nor would I wish it on my fellow man. This is simply an abdication of reason. It is to ignore knowledge, even if that knowledge is supect, in exchange for an epistemic device that permits one the release of responsibility.

To form a religion, for the purposes of propagation of an idea, is a pragmatic and utilitarian solution. Religions do not require specific knowldge of their hosts, only aggregate action, and by repetition and imitation, like common sense, these methods birth humans of reasonable similarity. To reduce the temporal and population radii of the theories which these religions embody is not a progressive religion, it is an erroneous one. That is the problem. An artificial reduction of the boundaries by which this discussion is held. That does not mean that the underlying principles are not ideals that shoud be pursued, but as ideals, one should never expect them to be achieveable.

While you see me as an opponent, I am merely ally (perhaps an eccentric one) who is trying to get you (collectively) to improve your argument.

Thank you for an insightful and actionable posting.

-Cheers

Curt Doolittle,

I can only answer this with a deeper question:

I guess you missed kindergarten, where most people learn it is impolite to answer a question with a question, especially when the second has nothing what so ever to do with with what was asked in the first place.

I couldn’t agree more, it is a very simple question, with a very simple answer which you certainly know. One which you have been completely unwilling to answer.

So, either you are in Iraq doing what you espouse others to do, or you are a hypocrite. Very simple.

RE: “Which “Heinous Government and all it’s distructive ends,” are you refering to?”

This refers to the revisionist history of the US that starts with the Imperial Lincoln, the rise of the federal bank, the imposition of the income tax, the docratization of the senate, the destruction of the gold standard, and the rise of the welfare state. Or, well, something along those lines, depending upon which writer finds what events more important. There are a dozen audio lectures about it on the mises web site, and well, Tom DiLorezo writes quite a bit about Lincoln. I think Thomas Woods delivers these ideas with eloquence and an uncommon humor and his new book The New American History is something that’s worth reading, Block does a great job in lectures and papers, (he’s prolific as well as humorous and informative.)

Pls don’t come after me on this one issue as if I’m opening that debate, it’s not my area of expertise. There are plenty of people at Mises who know more about this topic than I do. If you disagree with it, I won’t feel comfortable debating it, but the person I was debating with is not likely to disagree. That being said, they tend to be arguing for the means of achieving their ends, more than they are the relative merits of other governments. So it’s pretty easy to get wrapped up in two different debates. This kind of revisionist argument is a tactic, and since I argue from a position of mechanics, I think that whether it’s true or not is simply unnecessary to resolving the underlying problem.

I love my country, am proud of the good it’s done, and disappointed at it’s errors. I do not desire perfection from it, just that it be more good than bad. My fear is lies in the growing power of government, the taxation that destroys capitalization and innovation, the cultural political correctness, and the growing democratic socialism which destroy the culture that permits innovation. I see these as greater threats. While we can, if necessary rise up and change a government, common sense values that are calculated by trial and error over generations cannot be so easily replaced, and once lost, there is little evidence in history that they can be regained. There are multiple risks, that cannot be weighed in isolation.

-Cheers

Well, online disinformationalists are trained to argue ad nauseam for the end effect of maximized opportunity cost.

Curt –

of course, I oversimplified, and there’s a lot of grey areas.

My point is that advancing technology allows acquisition of significant offensive capabilities by small groups of anonymous individuals, not overtly affiliated with any states.

This presents two problems: first, any WMD-based deterrent becomes worthless, and so is conventional regular army, which is geared to wage the war of attrition. You can’t fight a war if you have no idea where (or who) the enemy is.

Second, the default responce to anonymity of the enemy is massively increased surveilance, which is hugely costly and rather ineffective (the more data you gather, the more false alarms you get), seriously damaging to morale, and destroys exactly what is supposed to be defended.

In other words, there’s no good deterrent, technological or organizational defence against WMDs used by terrorist groups. Controlling proliferation is merely a stalling tactics.

On the other hand, WMDs, by their nature, are only good against compact concentrations of enemy combatants or suppliers. Employing a nuke to kill one person in a large city is, well, insane from the military (or criminal) point of view: there are cheaper ways of doing that without creation of numerous determined enemies or attracting much attention.

So the logic dictates that the only effective way of dealing with WMDs in the long term is to reduce the effectiveness by decentralization of targetable assets (so as to reduce effectiveness of any single hit), disguising them among neutrals and friendlies, and just stopping being an easily identifiable enemy. Note that insurgent forces in Iraq and Chechnya are doing exactly that, and that’s how they are able to hold against the much better equipped and supplied regular armies.

A conventional territorial state is a sitting duck for WMD strikes. If you want to damage it badly you know where it is, it is compact, practically all civilians in the cities are subjects of the states and are taxed or employed by those states – and therefore killing them does damage the target state. As an added benefit, a state presents a single ideological facade to the outside, and so is easily made info a singular enemy by the propaganda.

Because states are such convenient and vulnerable targets, it stands to reason that they will continue attracting attempts by smallish groups to use WMDs and other highly destructive tactics.

Eliminating the territorial monopolies on protection and ideology would, pretty much, achieve the dispersal, commingling, and disidentification of targets, and thus increase the cost/benefit ratio for use of WMDs, hopefully to the point of complete pointlessness. (It still does not exclude the possibility of irrational crazies making things go boom, but makes terrorism useless as a tactics in a sustained conflict).

So it is in the best interest (survival-wise) of populations of the modern states to clamour for dissolution of the states – though I’m not at all optimistic about that happening any time soon, not without massive “incidents” and further slide of democracies into totalitarism with subsequent revolutions and wars, or emergence of some other, possibly technological, factors depriving states of their ability to gather monopoly rents and control information.

Of course, you’ll never hear this kind of analysis from the government defense “experts”.

Thanks do little to enlight us with your deep logic and sparsed touch of etheral knowledge in order to let us be more effective and strong and just enjoing the luminescent force of grounding our own (just now poor)believes. So well educated by you, we give you our gratidude and bless us in order we may not loss the state of grace you conferred to us all in this place and in our future. do little, do too much, we are at your feet and give again your cultural benediction meanwhile we stay here open minded to hear your saint “verbo”.Happy?

Curt Howland wrote:

Interesting comments. However, the equation of crime and “terror” doesn’t work. Does the possibility of a crime being committed justify killing someone?

Why am I allowed to own a car capable of breaking the speed limit?

Crimes can be punished, because it is recognized that an individual commits a crime. Someone who commits murder, for instance. If no murder has been committed, there is no crime.

Defense is not proactive. A crime must first have been committed in order for action to be “defensive”.

This “War on Terror”, however, is pro-active
——————————–

Interesting! And I thought that self-defense is always proactive. Imagine if you are about to be attacked by a mugger. Would you wait till a crime has been committed (your wallet is actually stolen) before you defend yourself? I bet you will proactively attack the mugger before he/she harms you.

Thank you, Michael, that’s exactly what I was trying to say. The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have nothing to do with defense. “Iraq” and “Afghanistan” were no threat. Some individuals may have used Afghanistan as living space who had attacked people in the US, but that only makes the individuals themselves rational targets of action.

Why Pearl Harbor doesn’t equate: The GOVERNMENT of Japan initiated the attack. No such attribute exists in this “terror” war. Killing citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan is simply murder, there is no rational justification related to “terror”.

The guy at http://www.infowars.com/ points out lots of other things that make attacking those countries rational, but again they have nothing to do with actually trying to prevent “terror”.

Michael,
I agree that the threat has to be imminent. Saddam Hussein was definitely an imminent threat to allies of US, including Israel, kurdish people, Kuwait and so on. I am sure any conception of self-defense will also include defense of those with whom you have defense pact, either express or implied. US was maintaining overflights to make sure that Saddam couldn’t attack Kurdish people. US was maintaining bases in the Arab region in order to protect Kuwait and other oil-rich countries. And Saddam had earlier attacked Kuwait. So, if your allies are facing immient threat then I believe it is okay to act in the defense of your allies. What do you feel?

Secondly, as per the ceasefire agreement during the first Gulf War, Saddam was supposed to have disarmed and provided weapons inspectors access to Iraq so that they verify that WMDs were indeed destroyed. Saddam did not do provided access to the international inspectors. So, if a criminal violates his terms of probation and refuses access to his property to the cops, and then cops then raid his/her property do you think it is wrong?

The way you talk about Saddam Hussein is as if US and Saddam were total strangers to each other and US attacked Saddam Hussein on mere suspicion of bad conduct!

Ashish: If the threat of which we are speaking is not restricted to an imminent threat against the US, then we can expect Washington to remain embroiled in many of the world’s disputes forever more. Is that really something the taxpayers are willing and able to pay for? Is that really what they have signed up for? In my opinion that objective is way too ambitious, not to mention, dangerous for his nation to undertake.

Doug,

If memory does not fail me, the US did ask the then Government of Afghanistan (the Talibans) to surrender the individuals (Al Qaeda) responsible for the 9/11 attacks, giving them a time period to do so. To which they answered no, despite publicly condemning the attacks.
Does that not grant some kind of pressure or action?
I think that if someone, either a person or a government, knowingly protects a murderer, then becomes an accomplice. And if he is not sure about the culpability, or is sure of his innocence, he must try to prove this in a court where his protegee has sufficient guarantees. There were and are plenty of international courts which could have handled this.
I am only refering to Afghanistan.

HUMAN RIGHTS are non-negotiable.