| | Chris, Joe, Linz,
Chris said: Thing is, Joe: Nobody on this side of the aisle is suggesting for a moment that the US should sit idly by and be attacked. The first and most important function of government is defense, the defense of individual rights. You will have no argument from me about the need for the United States to defend the individual rights of its citizens and, by extension, their territorial integrity. A powerful defense based on a policy of principle is the surest way to deter attack.
The question is, can the US, or the government of any country, actually prevent an attack. I agree the threat of retaliatory force prevents some kinds of attacks by some countries, as our nuclear superiority no doubt prevented a nuclear attack during the cold war. (Although I think we were just "lucky" in Cuba.)
But there is no guarantee that even that kind of defence will always work. It depends on the sanity of the decision makers in the countries with nuclear capability. North Korea comes to mind. If the "beloved leader" takes it into his loony head to launch a missile at the West Coast or Hawaii, our nuclear superiority won't prevent anything.
Certainly, the "superior force" kind of defence is useless against terrorist attacks. There is no one to retaliate against.
Chris has rightly connected the legitimate functions of government to defend the individual rights of its citizens and, by extension, their territorial integrity. It is always individual rights, to life, liberty, and property, that is to be defended from both domestic and foreign threats. But the problem is the same for both kinds of defence. No government has ever been devised that can actually defend it citizens from the threat of force from any source. The Objectivist system does not even pretend it is possible. After stating it is the purpose of government to protect individual rights, there is not one word about how individuals are to be protected from the initiation of force.
There is no mention of anything called "protective force," in Objectivism, there is only, "retaliatory force." But one only retaliates after the crime, the assault, the theft, the destruction of property has already taken place. Of course it is assumed the mere threat of retaliation will prevent those contemplating an assault or stealing someone's property from carrying out their nefarious plans. That is what is assumed; but in fact, we know it does not work. If it worked, there would be no crime. Does anyone doubt there is crime, and plenty of it? It does not work because it assumes those who would initiate force are as reasonable as those who come up with the schemes to prevent it. They aren't, that is why they are criminals.
Defence against attack by foreign attackers works exactly the same way. The military is only able to react to attacks or invasions that have already occurred or, in the rare case where intelligence is capable of discovering it, when imminent. Certainly no country has greater "defensive capability," than the United States. It couldn't even prevent an attack by nineteen fanatical nuts that destroyed millions of dollars in property and killed more the 3000 Americans. What do you suppose it would be able to do to prevent a serious invasion?
I am not questioning if the military (in the case of foreign aggression) or the police (in the case of domestic aggression) can do something once the act has occurred or commenced. My question is, what is the theory that even imagines such things can be prevented? No government, and no country has ever done it, and no system even pretends it can, not even the Objectivist one.
Yet, all that our government has done, from the Patriot Act to our invasion of Iraq is ultimately defended by the argument, we must do these things because we cannot, "sit idly by and be attacked." Since none of these things can prevent another attack, particularly a terrorist attack, instead of, "sitting idly by," we are very busy, suppressing the freedom of American citizens, killing and being killed, and impoverishing the American tax slaves, but we will still be attacked. When the next attack comes, will the clamor be for more oppression and more wasteful military action, anywhere in the world except to protect American borders? Or, will people finally wake up and say, this isn't working?
Because it is not going to work. If there were anything that could be done to prevent terrorist attacks, Israel would have done it long ago.
I am not trying to make a point, so much as asking a question. I would really like to know how any of the suggested policies on this thread will prevent another terrorist attack against the United States or any other country. How, for example, does the invasion of Iraq make the United States, or any other country, safe from terrorist attacks? Those who defend the Iraqi invasion do not do so on those grounds. They defend it on the basis of, "freeing the Iraqi people from an evil Tyrant." That's nice, but what has that got to do with protecting Americans from terrorist attacks? NOTHING! If our purpose is to free people from evil Tyrants, what's wrong with the Cuban people? or the North Koreans?
If it is supposed Saddam and company were truly in cahoots with al Quada, and that increased the threat of terrorist attacks against the United States and the only way to prevent it was to eliminate Saddam, then that ought to have been the action taken. It was not necessary to invade Iraq to accomplish that. A nuke or two could have done it. Do I hear protests about how may innocent Iraqi citizens would have been killed? Were no innocent Iraqi citizens killed during our invasion? Does someone complain that many more would have been killed by a nuke? So, it is alright to kill innocent Iraqi citizens, it is just not alright to kill more than a certain number; but, just how does one objectively determined what that number is? Does the fact that the nuke option would mean no Americans would have to die not matter? It does to me. I figure, one American death is about equivalent to a million Iraqi deaths.
Eliminating Saddam and his regime, in reality, will have absolutely no effect on the threat of terrorist attacks on a single American citizen. But no one is arguing that anymore; the whole thing has been respun as a humanitarian action to free the Iraqi people from an evil tyrant, as though that makes the whole enterprise moral. But it is an even more gross immorality, because our military is not voluntarily supported. The invasion of Iraq is hugely expensive and the expense is financed by money extorted from American citizens in the form of taxes. The invasion of Iraq to, "free the iraqi people," is at the expense of "enslaving the American people." Just how does that fit into the Objecitivist view of individual liberty?
Regi
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