RoR: Forum

Hong Zhang:

This is nonsense. Karl Marx's Communist ideology and persons like Lenin and Mao were the direct reasons of Communism coming into practice. Everything else at best were indirect cause."

Also, we must remember that the US sided with Stalin in World War II, helped him take over Eastern Europe, and guaranteed to him parts of China, which became outraged by the US talking out of both sides of its mouth. This allowed Mao to come to power.

Have you ever heard of Yalta and Operation Keelhaul? I especially suggest you read a little bit about Operation Keelhaul, if you really think the US is an angel walking on earth with its wars and diplomacy.

Post 41

Saturday, January 22, 2005 - 5:12pm

Anthony Gregory said:

Yes, the United States and South Vietnam won that war, the US communist led anti-war protestors and communist sympathizing media lost it. Militarily it was won.

The US government lost it

No, The US government won it.

Could we try to have more meaningfull discussion than that?

Why was nearly every single encounter a military victory then? Why were the South Vietnamese able to fight the soviet backed communist north aggression for TWO MORE YEARS if it was lost? What is your definition of a lost war? A won war? I would define the a victorious war as generally one in which the military objective is achieved. In this case securing the continuation of the South Vietnam as a soveriegn state, which it remained so for two more years, with no help whatsoever. It was lost when the democraticly controlled congress, influenced by the communist run anti-war protestors, succeeded in making it ILLEGAL to help anyone in indochina. Thus ensuring absolutely no opposition to an all out aggression by the North. It is no coincidence that the final massive aggression by the North occured shortly after Nixon's resignation. They new their greatest enemy was defeated.

With only a modicum of support South Vietnam would still be a country today, and would likely have eclipsed South Korea in freedom and standard of living 15 years ago.

This counterfactual is utterly worthless

You are asserting that it is utterly worthless to consider the likely outcomes of events and act on them, do you think the world is knowable? Did you vote in the last election? Clearly you were considering likely projections of events and acting on it. Why was it wrong for the UN to do as such in Korea and wrong for the US to do as such in Vietnam? Everyone who supported that war insisted that thier would be a massive communist blood bath if we pulled out, and surprise surprise, there was.

Is that not typically how one acts in the world? When faced with a decision we weigh the alternative outcomes and make a best case judgement. Do you, instead, fret and whine that you couldnt possibly know the outcome of the choices, and as such simply refrain from choosing at all? It seems your suggested courses of actions and comments follow that illogic. Again, what are you doing on an objectivist forum?

The similiarities between vietnam and korea are striking. Both wars lasted similiar lengths of time (re US involvment) and saw nearly as many US Soldiers killed. Though the Korean war saw more civilian deaths and also involved the United Nations. Both were very foriegn cultures to Americans, and in both the populations and demographics were similiar in the northern and southern regions. In both the aggresive communist north was backed by a large communist power, in Korea it was both the chinese and the soviets, in Vietnam it was primarily soviets. The Korean war saw its military objectives achieved, protecting a soveriegn nation's existence. Today North Korea is an orwellian nightmare where speaking out against the government is punishable by death, and millions of people have starved to death while they have the largest standing army as a percentage of population in the world and their factories and fields remain deserted and decaying. But hey, what do you care, its nobody you love or care about getting murdered or arrested. Contrast that with South Vietnam, which was politically very similiar to South Korea at the start of the Korean war. Both had shitty dictators who oppressed their people. Of course they were a million times better than thier communist counterparts, but what does that matter, right? Today South Korea is one of the strongest economies in the world and ranks as one of the highest in political, civil, and economic freedoms. South Vietnam would have been the same today with only a minimal amount of effort, and the genocides in Cambodia and Laos would have been prevented.

I would like to know when, exactly, it was the life for the Vietnamese got better "after we left" Clearly it went down hill as they continued to fight off communist north agression until finally losing, and then having half a million people murdered and a quarter million lost at sea. And then lived for the next twenty years under a brutal communist hell hole which surpressed every civil liberty libertarians have pretended to value.

You yourself have admitted it's better now than it was during the war

Thats about the most rediculously disgusting thing I think I have heard uttered. Talk about living for the expediancy of the moment. Is it not cold when you walk to your car to go to work? Why go to work then and suffer through that cold! Is it not annoying to go to yearly health exams? Why go to those, you could be doing other things more important. Do you not do things you dont much like doing in order to accomplish something you value more? Do you have goals you are working towards? Do you understand the concept of benefit and cost analysis of an action, and that every action has effects that permeate throughout your life? Yes War is bad while its going on, while bullets are flying by your head and bombs are blowing up, but that single moment, or month, or year, or decade is not to be extrapolated out over all of eternity. Hopefully the terrible days of wars are repayed by a greater standard of living, more freedoms, and a more enjoyable life afterwards. The condition for South Koreans during the Korean war were indeed bad, but the conditions they would have suffered indefinately would have been far worse. Or are you asserting that 50 years in near starvation in a communist hell hole is less bad than 5 years of war? I think most South Koreans would disagree with you, and probably many North Koreans, but of course they would be killed if they did. It seems you are suggesting that no wars are good because any given instant of that war is far worse than the lifetime of freedom it may achieve. I must say that if this is your viewpoint that it is a peculiar one that I have not yet come across, and I am honestly shocked by it.

There is no doubt difficult choices to be made when deciding to act and deciding how to act, and I certainly disagree with a good portion of US foriegn policy. But often inaction will lead to more deaths than action would. Fine with you, you say, because your hands are clean. But I would prefer a world where as few people live in hell hole states as possible, and bringing the world to fruition as quickly as possible. You are perfectly content in asserting that any and all action against these states is morally wrong because any instant of war is far more horrible than a lifetime of brutal oppression, or perhaps thats because you think one can never make assessments about the outcomes of events, the world is, after all, confusing and unkowable and you are but a helpless bag of molecules caught in it, right?

Since you dont support sanctions, nor intervention, what moral ground are you standing on? Your are asserting that we should leave well enough alone and let murderous dictators remain murderous dictators, as long as they dont kill anyone WE care about, right? Saddam was only killing his own people, after all, so its none of our business.

You're saying that the US government has a right to murder hundreds of thousands of foreigners all because it turned against a regime it considered an ally during its worst atrocities. And you ask me what moral ground I'm standing on? Please.

You are sying that the US should sit back and do nothing while tens of millions of people are slaughtered. You dont care about people, you dont care about rights, you dont care about justice. You are saying that a volunteer government choosing to oust a murderous dictator is unjust. No dictator has a right to remain as such, and no country that doesnt respect the rights of their citizens has any rights of its own. Your moral ground is "as long as you arent killing anyone I care about, I dont give a shit"

I will say the Korean war in Korea didn't leave it much better than it was before (only better than we can imagine it would have been)

And you still say that now, when North Korea and South Korea stand in such utter contradiction to each other!? The Korean war sure as hell left Korea a better place after then it was before. It allowed it to become a representative liberal democracy which respected individual rights and property rights. Ah, but you couldnt know thats what would happen you say. All we did was support that murderous dictator Sigmen Rhee against another murderous dictator. But a judgement call had to be made, lives would be lost now but more would be saved later. The murderous expansionism of the soviet union was all ready afoot. Not one single country supported by the soviet union ever become anything other than a communist hell hole until after the fall of the soviet union, and 130 million people were killed in the interim. History has proved the judgement right. A significant portion of the right wing anti communist dictators the United States backed become progressive western democracies which saw dramatic increases in the standard of living for its people.

What is the world you imaging in your crystal ball where no wars have ever taken place? What would it be like now? An anarcho-capitalist utopia? What is the principle motivating your foriegn policy opinions? It seems it is simply to have no foriegn policy at all.

Regards,

Michael Dickey

Post 42

Saturday, January 22, 2005 - 5:44pm

Thomas Knapp said:

-----

Of course, perhaps you might take under consideration under the "pro-war" or "pro-freedom" commentary some of the writings of RJ Rummel
-----

Thanks for mentioning that. I have a great deal of respect for Rummel's writings on "democide," and would be ecstatic to feature his articles in Freedom News Daily and Rational Review News Digest.

Here's the deal, though: Right now, I personally "cover" somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 web sites a day (for commentary -- as many or more for news as well), and the other three editors cover similar numbers of sites. I'd like to keep up with more, but I'm only one guy [four people]. If you know of an "update" or "alert" list for Dr. Rummel's work that I can sign up for, I'll be glad to do so

There is a feed to Rummel's blog here

http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/dYfV

His actual blog is here

http://freedomspeace.blogspot.com/

Which he updates daily and where you can also sign up for daily email updates.

Regards,

Michael Dickey

Post 43

Saturday, January 22, 2005 - 5:55pm

Jason Papas writes:

Of course, Hong Zhang is exactly right. It is philosophy that is the key. The dominant philosophy in continental Europe was collectivism in its national or international varieties. The communism of Asia was the cause of people acting like Communists (apparently this is hard for some of our nihilo-libertarian friends to follow).

One example of such a collectivist, murderous philosophy is aggressive warmongering. And, of course, democracy itself is not individualism. Democracy is tyranny of the majority. The collectivist philosophies of Europe in the 19th century were bad enough. Compounded with democratization of war in the 20th century, we saw two world wars and unprecedented democide.

In response to Michael Dickey, I'll just say that none of my questions have really been answered. No one has addressed how the US helped expand Communism. No one has addressed Operation Keelhaul or US aid to Saddam Hussein. No one has discredited my argument that US intervention over the last century has contributed to the worst developments in warfare and the worst examples of expansionist tyrannical states.

it not annoying to go to yearly health exams? Why go to those, you could be doing other things more important. Do you not do things you dont much like doing in order to accomplish something you value more? Do you have goals you are working towards? Do you understand the concept of benefit and cost analysis of an action, and that every action has effects that permeate throughout your life?

Yes, and I understand that government central planning is incapable of making efficient and productive economic calculation. If you trust the state to bring about world freedom, you might as well trust it to handle the much easier tasks of providing food, shelter, and healthcare for the people.

It is a collectivist and flawed notion to say that since individuals act, and make sacrifices, for the benefit of future gains – essentially, that individuals act upon time preference – we can extend that principle to states, which are simply monopolies of violence and fail to have any profit and loss tests, accountability, or individual responsibility attached to them.

Yes War is bad while its going on, while bullets are flying by your head and bombs are blowing up, but that single moment, or month, or year, or decade is not to be extrapolated out over all of eternity. Hopefully the terrible days of wars are repayed by a greater standard of living, more freedoms, and a more enjoyable life afterwards.

Your hopes run up against history. You are arguing for the ultimate in collectivism: allow thousands or millions to die, to be shot at, bombed and killed by the state, and somehow the state will achieve "a greater standard of living, more freedoms, and a more enjoyable life afterwards."

You are sying that the US should sit back and do nothing while tens of millions of people are slaughtered.

Interesting argumentation. So, if people are starving in Africa, as they are, and you oppose government foreign aid to alleviate their suffering, would it be proper for me to say that you think "the US should sit back and do nothing while tens of millions of people starve to death"? Or, perhaps, would you have skepticism that the state would properly, efficiently and humanely distribute food?

You dont care about people, you dont care about rights, you dont care about justice.

I'm not the one advocating the death of thousands of innocent people based on some ridiculous, disconnected theory that the state can effectively conduct a crude "benefit and cost analysis" and do the right thing.

You are saying that a volunteer government choosing to oust a murderous dictator is unjust.

There's no such thing as a voluntary government. And if our government is so great, why did it fund, assist and protect Saddam Hussein after it discovered he gassed the Kurds? I don't trust the government to always be good. Why should I? It's good friends with plenty of "murderous dictators." And it steals half the wealth in this country, locks up more people per capita than any other nation, and disarms people (one reason 9/11 happened) and strips them of their rights.

No dictator has a right to remain as such, and no country that doesnt respect the rights of their citizens has any rights of its own.

No "country"? What you are saying is that any group of people ruled by an abusive government don't have any rights? And you say I don't care about justice and rights?

Or do you mean any government that doesn't respect the rights of "its" citizens has no right to exist? In that case, I agree with you. But you don't agree with yourself, since you believe that the US state, which has not only violated rights but has killed people, should go on existing, violating rights and killing people.

Your moral ground is 'as long as you arent killing anyone I care about, I dont give a shit'

No. That's wrong. But what you seem to advocate is "as long as my government is killing people I don't care about, I'll trust it to do the right thing in the end."

It seems it is simply to have no foriegn policy at all.

Peace, commerce and friendship with all. I buy goods overseas, and try to protect innocents abroad by speaking out when my government kills them. That's my foreign policy.

As far as government, I think it should stay out of foreign affairs, and domestic ones as well.

Post 44

Saturday, January 22, 2005 - 6:50pm

I was disappointed, but unsurprised, by Kurt Eichert's reply to my post, in which I discussed the glaring contradictions between the principle of individual, natural rights, and American war-making in the twentieth century.

First, as to the history of the Second World War. Mr. Eichert simply asserts that Robert Stinnett's DAY OF DECEIT has been declared to be intellectually out-of-bounds and conspiratorial bunk by Historians In The Know. But I prefer proof to unsubstantiated and shrill denunciations, which is why I appreciate and admire Robert Stinnett's book (which I am willing to bet Mr. Eichert has never read).

Mr. Eichert claims that my point that FDR bullied, harrassed, and provoked the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor for the purpose of forcing US entry into the European war is absurd and self-contradictory. But what could be clearer and more straightforward? The US government precipitated a long series of coercive acts against an authoritarian, war-prone state, thereby creating the conditions for swaying Americans into supporting our entry into a European war that did not threaten us. If one picks up a shovel and whacks repeatedly at a hornet's nest, eventually hornets will come swarming out of the hive. The fact that the Japanese were militarily aggressive in Asia posed zero military threat to the citizens of the United States. Clearly, FDR's provocation of Japan was illegitimate and recklessly irresponsible.

Mr. Eichert asserts that Britain was confident that British ships and French infantry were sufficient to contain Germany. But whether or not this is true is really irrelevant. The British were generally reform-minded, "good-government" altruists who ached to engage and destroy Hitler's Germany, in spite of pretty good evidence that Hitler had no ambitions on the United Kingdom or Western Europe. The French were much less enthusiastic about going to war with Germany, undoubtedly because they bordered Germany, unlike the British. What is some of the evidence that Hitler's original military ambitions were to the East? William Henry Chamberlain's AMERICA'S SECOND CRUSADE recounts how Germany's military had been designed for rapid advance across the plains of Russia, rather than for an assault on France and Britain, which required different equipment and tactics.
In addition, Hitler wrote about the need for Germany's expansion eastward, in MEIN KAMPF. Hitler admired the British empire, and put out diplomatic feelers proposing an alliance in which Britain would dominate the seas, and Germany would dominate the East.

Chamberlain also recounts two or three informal (and illegal) diplomatic contacts by FDR liasons with the British and the French, in 1939, assuring them of subsequent American entry into any war against Hitler. The British were eager for American help, because they were focused, not on simply repelling any German invasion of England, but on destroying Hitler's empire. Chamberlain describes the lengths to which Hitler went to avoid engaging the United States in war, in spite of continuing American provocation designed to achieve exactly that end. When the British issued their blank check "insuring" the sovereignty of Poland, they knowingly put Britain and France on a collision course with Germany, completely aware that Britain and France lacked the military capability of defending Eastern Europe from Hitler's (or Stalin's) slavering appetite. A strong case can be made that Britain and Churchhill did so for the purpose, not of defending Britain, but of pursuing a collectivist, altruist crusade to exterminate a bad dictator.

Had Britain, France, and the United States remained warily aloof, concerned with their legitimate security interests rather than with leading a "holy war", it is not far-fetched to assume that Hitler and Stalin would have fought to an exhausted stalemate. As events transpired, of course, Stalin's dictatorship filled the vacuum created by Hitler's destruction. This is, of course, the predictably perverse sort of consequence that flows from illegitimate government programs--domestic or military.

Mr. Eitchert's denunciation of a night watchman government, adverse on principle to any military adventure unrelated to defense, as "unrealistic" sounds like an unfortunate backdoor denunciation of individual liberty and individual rights as unsuited for "the real world". If he believes that taxation and the military draft do not violate individual rights, then his support of the right of individuals to live for themselves is thin gruel, indeed.

The contradiction between individual rights and the activities of the war-state won't go away, regardless of name calling or mud slinging. If Mr. Eitchert and other objectivists do think individual rights are somehow trumped by the taxation and regulation needed to sustain a war state, then we certainly hold antagonstic ideas about politics and the purpose of government.

As to Mr. Perigo's shrill accusations about "Saddamites", I walk in good company. Another famous "Saddamite", John Adams, wrote: "America does not roam the globe in search of monsters to destroy."

Post 45

Saturday, January 22, 2005 - 8:14pm

This is incredulous. I can’t believe I am reading this. For a brief moment I was even entertaining the thought of becoming a subject of His Supreme Majesty the Japanese Emperor! How does Honda Yokoyama sound to you, huh?! Oh, also why don’t we blame WWII on the Jews? They were the ones who pushed US government into the War? Geez, Hitler could have been the biggest anti-Communist hero if the West hadn’t interfered! (Never mind that he made a peace treaty with Stalin in 1939). Now he had only just killed six million Jews!

I think I am losing it… this is too nauseating.... Darn, where is that Cordero when one needs him?!

(Edited by Hong Zhang on 1/22, 8:26pm)

Post 46

Saturday, January 22, 2005 - 8:40pm

This is incredulous. I can’t believe I am reading this. For a brief moment I was even entertaining the thought of becoming a subject of His Supreme Majesty the Japanese Emperor! How does Honda Yokoyama sound to you, huh?! Oh, also why don’t we blame WWII on the Jews? They were the ones who pushed US government into the War? Geez, Hitler could have been the biggest anti-Communist hero if the West hadn’t interfered! (Never mind that he made a peace treaty with Stalin in 1939). Now he had only just killed six million Jews!

No one said Hitler was a hero. And, indeed, allying with Stalin does undermine the case that your regime is anti-Communist and anti-tyranny. Stalin, who was arguably worse than Hitler, was a US ally in WWII. He killed more people than Hitler. The US helped him kill millions in Operation Keelhaul.

Since you're all Objectivists, maybe the only revisionism on US entry into World War I and II that you'll take seriously will have to come from Ayn Rand herself. As Rand wrote in 1966:

Just as [Woodrow] Wilson, a "liberal" reformer, led the United States into World War I "to make the world safe for democracy" -- so Franklin D. Roosevelt, another "liberal" reformer, led it into World War II, in the name of the "Four Freedoms." In both cases the "conservatives" -- and the big business interests -- were overwhelmingly opposed to war but were silenced. In the case of World War II they were smeared as "isolationists," "reactionaries," and "America-First'ers."

World War I led, not to "democracy," but to the creation of three dictatorships: Soviet Russia, Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany. World War II led, not to "Four Freedoms," but to the surrender of one-third of the world's population into communist slavery.

I also suggest you read this genius piece by Chip Gibbons, on Rand's views on foreign policy, which includes this insightful excerpt from "Understanding the Global Crisis: Reclaiming Rand’s Radical Legacy" by Chris Matthew Sciabarra, an article you can find on this very website:

Government intervention in the economy and U.S. intervention abroad mirrored each other in one significant respect: each problem caused by statist intervention led to new interventionist attempts to resolve it. Just as World War I begat World War II, and World War II begat the Cold War, so too did the Cold War beget "hot" wars in Korea and Vietnam, in which more than 100,000 drafted Americans lost their lives. Vietnam especially had laid bare the inner contradictions of U.S. foreign policy. "There is no proper solution for the war in Vietnam," Rand counseled at the time; "it is a war we should never have entered. We are caught in a trap: it is senseless to continue, and it is now impossible to withdraw" ("From My 'Future File'"). Rand had opposed U.S. involvement in both Korea and Vietnam, and wondered why the U.S. had "sacrificed thousands of American lives, and billions of dollars, to protect a primitive people who never had freedom, do not seek it, and, apparently, do not want it" ("The Shanghai Gesture, Part III"). It is advice well worth keeping in mind-anytime the U.S. wages war with the expressed aim to free an oppressed people.

Gibbons asks:

If Rand did not support World War I, World War II, Korea or Vietnam, what makes people think she would have supported the war in Iraq?

Well? Please read these Randian arguments against the War on Terror, and then explain to me why I'm irrational, selfish or ignorant of history. Of course, my reasons are not just Randian (the war is bad for me and Americans) but Rothbardian (it's bad for the world). But I wonder if Rand would really support this war, seeing as how she opposed US entry into WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, and seeing as how she opposed the US intervening aggressively against the USSR, as well.

Post 47

Sunday, January 23, 2005 - 5:11am

Rand never blamed the world wars on US entry – that would be silly as they started years before. Nor did she blame the events that followed, on our entry – she blamed the agents who started the war. She was very clear that the blame falls on totalitarian and authoritarian powers. Rand always focused on the role of philosophy in history and the dominant philosophy in Germany and Russia are the key to understanding the roots of war. You may want to read the whole essay “The Roots of War” instead of cherry-picking sentences and insinuating that her approach is one of superficial event-causation (A happened, B happened … you see?)

(Edited by Jason Pappas on 1/23, 8:15am)

Post 48

Sunday, January 23, 2005 - 11:04am

Anthony,
As an Objectivist, one should base his or her judgement on facts and reason, not on anybody else's opinions, not even Rand's herself. You seem to base your argument on "what would have happened if..." a lot. And your logic that Communism or fascism were the direct results of wars is just bizarre.

But it appears that we are divided above all on the moral issues. There is always room to argue about the global and political strategies, which is fine. Nobody here likes war. It is hell and should be avoided if at all possible. It is your equating the war time killings committed by the US government and its armed forces with the evils of Hitler and Stalin that I object very much.

Post 49

Sunday, January 23, 2005 - 8:39am

Look, I said:

You can say WWII stopped Hitler and Imperial Japan, but it did lead to Mao and the Communist takeover of Eastern Europe and Asia.

Hong Zhang said:

This is nonsense. Karl Marx's Communist ideology and persons like Lenin and Mao were the direct reasons of Communism coming into practice. Everything else at best were indirect cause.

Is it nonsense or not that "WWII... did lead to Mao and the Communist takeover of Eastern Europe and Asia"?

Again, Rand said:

World War II led, not to "Four Freedoms," but to the surrender of one-third of the world's population into communist slavery.

This is not "cherrypicking." Ayn Rand did believe that WWII led to the spread of Communism, which is why she opposed US entry into the conflict.

As Rand explained:

Dictatorship nations are outlaws. Any free nation had the right to invade Nazi Germany and, today, has the right to invade Soviet Russia, Cuba or any other slave pen. Whether a free nation chooses to do so or not is a matter of its own self-interest, not of respect for the non-existent 'rights' of gang rulers. It is not a free nation's duty to liberate other nations at the price of self-sacrifice, but a free nation has the right to do it, when and if it so chooses.

This right, however, is conditional. Just as the suppression of crimes does not give a policeman the right to engage in criminal activities, so the invasion and destruction of a dictatorship does not give the invader the right to establish another variant of a slave society in the conquered nation.

Well, in intervening in WWII, the US actively helped spread Communist tyranny in Eastern Europe. As Franklin Roosevelt said, regarding the Yalta agreements:

I just have a hunch that Stalin is not that kind of man. Harry [Hopkins, Roosevelt's confidant and personal envoy to Stalin] says he's not and that he doesn't want anything but security for his country, and I think that if I give him everything I possibly can and ask nothing from him in return, noblesse oblige — he won't try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace.

Oh yeah. What a voice for liberty. And remember, FDR had no reason to be so naive. This was after Stalin murdered millions and had annexed half of Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia.

Post 50

Sunday, January 23, 2005 - 1:17pm

Hong Zhang:

Anthony,
As an Objectivist, one should base his or her judgement on facts and reason, not on anybody else's opinions, not even Rand's herself. You seem to base your argument on "what would have happened if..." a lot. And your logic that Communism or fascism were the direct results of wars is just bizarre.

But it appears that we are divided above all on the moral issues. There is always room to argue about the global and political strategies, which is fine. Nobody here likes war. It is hell and should be avoided if at all possible. It is your equating the war time killings committed by the US government and its armed forces with the evils of Hitler and Stalin that I object very much.

I only cited Rand to show that the revisionist history surrounding World War I and II –- history as understood by most antiwar Rothbardian libertarians, which explains the rise of Nazism and Communism as direct results of World War I and the spread of Communism as a result of World War II – is not this bizarre, conspiratorial and irrational historiographical interpretation. I'm surprised how many Objectivists aren't familiar with this history, seeing as how Rand herself believed it.

It is correct. That's the way it happened. The greatest democidal regimes were born out of war, and became worse with war. As horrible as Hitler was during the 1930s, he was multitudes worse during World War II, when he launched the Final Solution in earnest.

And, by the way, US wartime killings often overlap with democidal killings, such as in Operation Keelhaul, where the US government and other Allies essentially murdered two million people who had fled Communist tyranny. Other democides are funded by the US state, such as in East Timor.

And, I admit: when the US government drops a nuclear bomb on 100,000 innocents in a totally unnecessary act, an act condemned by most political and military leaders at the time, I fail to see the moral difference between it an an act of terrorism, mass murder or democide in which 100,000 innocents are slaughtered. I fail to see the difference because there is none. As MacNamara admits in The Fog of War, had the US lost World War II, it would have been justly considered a war crime.

Post 51

Monday, January 24, 2005 - 8:53am

Anthony Gregory said:

“One example of such a collectivist, murderous philosophy is aggressive warmongering”

Are you suggesting that absolute ALL WARS produce an outcome that is worse than having had no war? I would be interested to know what crystal ball you are gazing into which gives you this alternate history where no Wars were ever fought.

“democracy itself is not individualism. Democracy is tyranny of the majority.”

Of course not, that is why we and Rummel no doubt establishe the difference of Liberal Democracies, that is, representative republic with constitutional protections of civil liberties. The ‘Tryanny of the majority’ can only extend so far. Regardless though, the standards of living, and the political and civil rights in democracies always tend to be better than those of non-democracies. Of course this idealized anarcho-capitalist utopia that lives in your head may be justly called more fair to it’s inhabitants, but I am sure it wouldn’t fare so well sitting next to Stalinist Russia, where the entire nation can be forced at the drop of a hat to wage war on your little utopia and free the proletariat from the evil capitalists!

The fact is this dreamlike ‘country’ that you love to hold the US standards up to does not exist and has never existed and if it ever does it will only come to pass when the majority of the world no longer lives under brutal oppression or murderous tyranny.

“In response to Michael Dickey, I'll just say that none of my questions have really been answered. No one has addressed how the US helped expand Communism. No one has addressed Operation Keelhaul or US aid to Saddam Hussein.”

The US also fought communism where it could and when it could. I do not suggest that absolutely every instance of foreign intervention was proper, and I certainly do not support the US’s backing of the Khmere Rouge to help them fend of the invading North Vietnamese (who helped put the Khmere Rouge into power, and thought the Khmere’s brand of communism was too extreme for even their taste’s, additionally Pol Pot was becoming psychotically paranoid and thought Thailand, Laos, and North Vietnam where in league with the CIA to Oust him, to bad he was just dreaming it up) The North Vietnamese finally did install a puppet government after overthrowing the Khmere Rouge and subsequently set up a slightly less murderous communist government. I guess they figured the Khmere had already gotten rid of most of the “counter-revolutionaries” when they murdered 1/3^rd oif the population. But the main point is if the US has not completely abandoned Indo china, and specifically South Vietnam, the North Vietnamese would not have been victorious over the South, and would not have moved onto Cambodia to help bring about the Khmere’s defeat of Lon Nol (again whom even modest support by the US would have kept in power) You can rehash the anti-US rhetoric of “The Killing fields” and try to blame the Khmere Rouges massacre of their own people with some twisted logic on the US, but the fact is it is they who did the killing, and they did it with AK-47’s and Soviet tanks not M16’s and Hueys, and they did it in the name of Stalin and Marx.

”No one has discredited my argument that US intervention over the last century has contributed to the worst developments in warfare and the worst examples of expansionist tyrannical states.”

There is only so much time in the day to counter your ridiculously broad generalizations and over simplifications of complex events. Yes the US sided with Stalin, but that was to defeat a more immediate threat to the world, Nazism and Japan’s murderous expansionism. The allies could not have defeated Germany, Japan AND Russia at the same time. The US did not put Lenin and Stalin into power, and fought Stalinism to a significant degree during the cold war, which was anything but cold, opposing the expansionism of communism in Greece, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia (when supporting Lon Nol), Laos (supporting the Hmong), Chile, Cuba, Afghanistan (the Mujahadeen would not have fought off the massive soviet invasion without the infusion of millions in aide and thousands of surface to air missiles) etc etc (I do not care to list every state the US backed against soviet communism). Many people following WWII wanted the US to move on Russia and depose Stalin, and I am sure you would have been right there crying interventionism and claiming those proponents to be war mongering. Yet Stalin was at his weakest at that point and we had nuclear weapons, he did not. An invasion costing 10’s of thousands of lives might have saved 10’s of millions later. Instead nothing was done until later, and the giant cemetery that was Russia was left lone to murder. You on one had despise interventionism but on the other blame the US for the democide in the soviet union. What should we have done about it, launched a massive ground invasion? Opposed its expansionism with all out war every step of the way (hardly, since I doubt you even considered it a threat, no doubt uttering that in the same breadth in which you acknowledged that it has killed millions upon millions of people)

Did the US put Mao into power? Since you like to play the alternative history game I’ll gaze into my crystal ball. Had the us backed the Nationalists against the communists in China, (who themselves killed millions) in all likelihood 35 million lives would have been saved from the communist purges under Mao, and China today would be a state like Tawain but of over a billion people, it no doubt would have been the world superpower, and your equivalent today would no doubt be arguing in mandarin that the evil war mongering of China has caused all the problems of the world. Had we supported the Nationalists, there would have been no Mao, no purges, no Korean war, no Vietnam war, and the collapse of the Soviet union, absent it’s largest ally, would have been escalated, and 10’s of millions of lives would have been saved. But you would have been right there crying war mongering and imperialism.

“it not annoying to go to yearly health exams? Why go to those, you could be doing other things more important. Do you not do things you dont much like doing in order to accomplish something you value more? Do you have goals you are working towards? Do you understand the concept of benefit and cost analysis of an action, and that every action has effects that permeate throughout your life?

Yes, and I understand that government central planning is incapable of making efficient and productive economic calculation. If you trust the state to bring about world freedom, you might as well trust it to handle the much easier tasks of providing food, shelter, and healthcare for the people”

Of course you completely ignore the point, that things are done in the short term for goals of the long term. But in either case, I will address your point. I trust huge, bloated, inefficient governments that are representative democracies to spread freedom into the world more than I do “I’ve got mine screw you” ostrich solipsists such as yourself, who think that if you just do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, a perfect world will magically come about, neglecting that fact that SOMEBODY must be doing something to rid the world of those dictators, either it’s slaves whipped by them or their neighbors sick of seeing mass graves.

“It is a collectivist and flawed notion to say that since individuals act, and make sacrifices, for the benefit of future gains – essentially, that individuals act upon time preference – we can extend that principle to states,”

Then you are asserting the opposite, that all states must act only on the expediency of the moment, never being directed by principles or abstractions, and live only for the few seconds before and few seconds after their actions. If individuals can act and make sacrifices for the benefit of future gains, then why cant groups of individuals? Is that not the basis of a mutual fund? Insurance? Even if a state were completely voluntary and citizens chose to partake in state activites only voting on the use of the funds they voluntarily grant to said state, that state will still need a standing military and will still need to act to ensure the continuation of its citizens and will still need to recognize trends and abstractions and act towards long term goals. To surve it must live for the inverse of the expediency of the moment.

“Yes War is bad while its going on, while bullets are flying by your head and bombs are blowing up, but that single moment, or month, or year, or decade is not to be extrapolated out over all of eternity. Hopefully the terrible days of wars are repayed by a greater standard of living, more freedoms, and a more enjoyable life afterwards.

Your hopes run up against history”

Do they? Why then does more of the worlds population than ever before live under representative governments of some form, and many more under liberal democracies? Why do people all over the world, even the poorest, live longer healthier lives than ever before? Why are there fewer wars than ever before? Whey has the number of people killed in wars continued to decline for the past 50 years? Because we have created millions of monstrous dictators? Or is it because the United Sstates helped the world defeat Facism, Slavery, Communism, Totalitarianism, and now global Terrorism. The United States has freed more people than all other nations combined, and it continues to do so, despite the short sighted rhetorchic of absolute pacifists such as yourself, pacifism that rewards the murderous expansionism it hopes to undermine.

You dont care about people, you dont care about rights, you dont care about justice.

I'm not the one advocating the death of thousands of innocent people based on some ridiculous, disconnected theory that the state can effectively conduct a crude "benefit and cost analysis" and do the right thing.

Your not? That’s rather disingenuous. You advocate absolute isolationism and pacifism, which rewards all brands of murderous expansionism. That you choose not to make a choice about what to do about murderous expansionistic dictators does not absolve you of the moral culpability of that choice. Millions will still die. It is depraved indifference. You are indirectly advocating the deaths of thousands of people based on the theory that if you let them die now, more will not die later. Is that not the exact same theory I am espousing? You advocate the ridiculous disconnected theory that as long we aren’t doing the killing, its ok, even if 10 or 100 times as many people die by us not intervening. That as long as it isn’t anyone that lives within my borders that’s getting killed, I don’t care. I am advocating the theory that liberal democracies do not make war, and that the more liberal a democracy the less democide it commits and the less warlike its nature. History justifies this stance. Support for Korea prevented 50 million people from living in a brutal dictatorial hell hole for 50 years, a little more support in Vietnam would have prevented 100 million people from living in that brutal hell hole. You act as though if the US had not been involved in Vietnam, everything would have been rosy. Ridiculous, the communists would have just overrun Indochina with NO resistance and still killed millions upon millions of people. That you refuse to acknowledge the tough decision of deaths from inaction vs. deaths from action does not mean the problem disappears.

“There's no such thing as a voluntary government. And if our government is so great, why did it fund, assist and protect Saddam Hussein after it discovered he gassed the Kurds? I don't trust the government to always be good. Why should I? It's good friends with plenty of "murderous dictators."

Sorry, I meant to say volunteer army. The United Sates did not want to lose control of its primary source of energy to the Soviet Union, which is why it opposed the soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the soviet backed state of Iran. It is common military strategy to cut off supply lines. At the time the Soviet Union was a greater threat to the American people, and the world, than Saddam Hussein was. Now it is not, and Saddam is. You take out your worse enemies first, and you deal the best blow you can against an enemy with the limited resources of the world. I don’t trust the government to always be good either, but nor do I trust the choice of pacifist isolationism to ensure a safe world for the continuation of my existence. Yes the US has been and still is good friends with murderous dictators, it was also “good friends” with Stalin at one point in time, and now his government has been defeated. We do not exist in a world free from material limitations. We were “Good friends” with Saddam at one point, no we have him in jail. A lot more of our “Good friends” will soon be joining him if they don’t shape up. They were good friends because a greater enemy always loomed on the horizon, that Soviet Union which you simultaneously blame the US for creating and deride it for fighting.

“And it steals half the wealth in this country, locks up more people per capita than any other nation, and disarms people (one reason 9/11 happened) and strips them of their rights.”

The US certainly locks up more people than most other westernized nations, but NOT more than ANY other nation. The report you are referring to specifically does not include those closed governments that do not report such things, like Vietnam, Iraq, Burma, Cuba, North Korea, etc. Additionally we have a moronic portion of the population that glorifies violence as a means to achieve value, parading victimization and deriding achievement through intelligence and productivity. Going to prison is considered a right of passage to many groups. Similar problems are on the rise in Britian, with a growing segment of their population glorifying binge drinking and nightly outings of violence. What percentage of the population is locked up in the US for victimless crimes? What percentage is in Cuba? Hey, why don’t we just ask Castro, I’m sure hes a trustworthy guy.

“Or do you mean any government that doesn't respect the rights of "its" citizens has no right to exist? In that case, I agree with you. But you don't agree with yourself, since you believe that the US state, which has not only violated rights but has killed people, should go on existing, violating rights and killing people.”

Every country at some point in time has violated some rights and killed people somewhere. The point is liberal democracies do that far less than any other form of government, and the more liberal a democracy the less it does it, and the more liberal democracies there are the less it occurs in the world. Right now radical Islam is the worse threat to the world and the continuation of our existence, especially considering the rapid growth of technological progress (this, incidentally, is why I am involved with the Lifeboat www.lifeboat.com project) Nearly every single majority Arab or Islamic nation is a murderous tyranny or theocratic hell hole and they are breeding terrorists by the thousands by forcing them to languish in poverty while blaming all of their problems on the west. The murderous oppressive governments of the middle east are the source of this, and something must be done about them. It is a matter of self defense, and it is morally just. Creating a progressive western democracy smack dab in the middle of the middle east is the best blow we can deal against this enemy.

Doing nothing in Iraq would have allowed Saddam to carry on murdering people at the same rate he has been for the last 30 years, which would have amounted to over 150,000 people now since the time we deposed them. Doing nothing kills more people than doing something. Except in the former you get to feel all happy about yourself, while Saddam cuts out tongues, paves over people, breaks limbs, and has wives and children raped in front of their family members.

“Peace, commerce and friendship with all. I buy goods overseas, and try to protect innocents abroad by speaking out when my government kills them. That's my foreign policy”

Yet you won’t even bother to speak out if THEIR government kills them? Only if OURS does? That’s the problem. And what if our governments kills the people that are killing them? Do you still speak out against it?

Regards,

Michael Dickey

Post 52

Monday, January 24, 2005 - 9:38am

Anthony:

Thank you for the fascinating post concerning Rand's comments about World Wars I and II as essentially altruist-collectivist crusades. I made the error of assuming that all the shrieking and table pounding by later day "Randians" for virtually ANY (republican) war somehow reflected what Rand thought.

It seems likely that Rand would have opposed both of the American wars against Iraq, for the same reasons that she opposed our entry into Korea and Vietnam. Although the "Roots of War" is my favorite essay by Rand, I hadn't appreciated her clarity and prescience about the history of American war-making in the twentieth century. I regret having made the comment in an earlier post that Ayn Rand must not have given this subject much thought.

You've made plenty of powerful, insightful points in your arguments. Good writing!

Post 53

Monday, January 24, 2005 - 10:26am

Are you suggesting that absolute ALL WARS produce an outcome that is worse than having had no war? I would be interested to know what crystal ball you are gazing into which gives you this alternate history where no Wars were ever fought.

No. A war might result in something better than what existed before. But without that crystal ball you speak of, how would we know? I certainly wouldn't trust the state to make such decisions. After all, it is possible that a socialist program of any type might somehow make things better, as a matter of circumstance. This can't be predicted, and as a natural-rights libertarians and opponent of state central planning, I wouldn't trust government to engage in socialism or war.

Of course this idealized anarcho-capitalist utopia that lives in your head may be justly called more fair to it’s inhabitants, but I am sure it wouldn’t fare so well sitting next to Stalinist Russia, where the entire nation can be forced at the drop of a hat to wage war on your little utopia and free the proletariat from the evil capitalists!

The freest, most decentralized country in Europe during WWII was Switzerland, and the Nazis didn't dare invade it because, unlike in the rest of the world, the well-armed and neutral Swiss did not consider their government to be the same as the country, and they were instructed to defend themselves rather than the state.

You can rehash the anti-US rhetoric of “The Killing fields” and try to blame the Khmere Rouges massacre of their own people with some twisted logic on the US, but the fact is it is they who did the killing, and they did it with AK-47’s and Soviet tanks not M16’s and Hueys, and they did it in the name of Stalin and Marx.

I don't know of the research in "The Killing Fields," but I can't see how it isn't clear that fireboming Cambodia and killing hundreds of thousands of innocent peasants didn't help bring the Khmer Rouge to power. The fact alone that the US helped the Khmer Rouge against the somewhat less brutal Communist Vietnamese (not saying much; the Khmer Rouge might have been the worst regime, per capita, ever) belies the notion that the US had the best interests of the Cambodians in mind.

Many people following WWII wanted the US to move on Russia and depose Stalin, and I am sure you would have been right there crying interventionism and claiming those proponents to be war mongering.

My whole point is that the US shouldn't have actively help Stalin, the greatest mass murderer in world history, mass-murder so many millions of people and take over Eastern Europe. Look at the Yalta agreements, for Pete's sakes. FDR was a Stalinist-sympathizer, and Truman was a Communist sympathizer as well. These guys weren't going to stop Stalin; they actively and enthusiastically and unnecessarily helped the man.

Had the us backed the Nationalists against the communists in China, (who themselves killed millions) in all likelihood 35 million lives would have been saved from the communist purges under Mao, and China today would be a state like Tawain but of over a billion people, it no doubt would have been the world superpower, and your equivalent today would no doubt be arguing in mandarin that the evil war mongering of China has caused all the problems of the world. Had we supported the Nationalists, there would have been no Mao, no purges, no Korean war, no Vietnam war, and the collapse of the Soviet union, absent it’s largest ally, would have been escalated, and 10’s of millions of lives would have been saved. But you would have been right there crying war mongering and imperialism.

Well, would have you been supporting the funding of Nationalists in the 1940s? Would have you had the foresight?

And what do you think of FDR giving Stalin control of the seaports and railroads in Manchuria? From there, of course, Stalin helped Mao launch his revolution. I would have opposed the giveaway to "Uncle Joe," which might have stopped the Communist takeover of China.

And what about when Truman embargoed China after Chiang Kai-shek refused to cooperate with Mao to form to a coalitional government? I would have opposed that too, which might have stopped the Communist takeover of China.

I would have also opposed the creation of the UN, which further entrenched the Commies.

With the beginning of the UN and the Cold War, the US also stopped altogether in the formality of declaring war.

Then you are asserting the opposite, that all states must act only on the expediency of the moment, never being directed by principles or abstractions, and live only for the few seconds before and few seconds after their actions. If individuals can act and make sacrifices for the benefit of future gains, then why cant groups of individuals? Is that not the basis of a mutual fund? Insurance? Even if a state were completely voluntary and citizens chose to partake in state activites only voting on the use of the funds they voluntarily grant to said state, that state will still need a standing military and will still need to act to ensure the continuation of its citizens and will still need to recognize trends and abstractions and act towards long term goals. To surve it must live for the inverse of the expediency of the moment.

There's no such thing as a voluntary state. States are inherently coercive entities that violate natural rights.

My point was that states can't be trusted to plan for the future, or for the moment. There are reasons socialism fails, and those reasons apply as much to war as anything else.

Whey has the number of people killed in wars continued to decline for the past 50 years? Because we have created millions of monstrous dictators? Or is it because the United Sstates helped the world defeat Facism, Slavery, Communism, Totalitarianism, and now global Terrorism. The United States has freed more people than all other nations combined, and it continues to do so, despite the short sighted rhetorchic of absolute pacifists such as yourself, pacifism that rewards the murderous expansionism it hopes to undermine.

War deaths declined quite a bit, since the first half of the 20th century was probably the bloody in world history.

Fascism, Communism, totalitarianism, and terrorism have not been defeated at all. Slavery died out because of the triumph of classical liberal ideas, not because of imperial war.

Of course, we still have slavery to the state -- such as with conscription, which was involved in all these past wars you seem to love so much.

Your not? That’s rather disingenuous. You advocate absolute isolationism and pacifism, which rewards all brands of murderous expansionism. That you choose not to make a choice about what to do about murderous expansionistic dictators does not absolve you of the moral culpability of that choice. Millions will still die. It is depraved indifference. You are indirectly advocating the deaths of thousands of people based on the theory that if you let them die now, more will not die later. Is that not the exact same theory I am espousing? You advocate the ridiculous disconnected theory that as long we aren’t doing the killing, its ok, even if 10 or 100 times as many people die by us not intervening. That as long as it isn’t anyone that lives within my borders that’s getting killed, I don’t care. I am advocating the theory that liberal democracies do not make war, and that the more liberal a democracy the less democide it commits and the less warlike its nature. History justifies this stance. Support for Korea prevented 50 million people from living in a brutal dictatorial hell hole for 50 years, a little more support in Vietnam would have prevented 100 million people from living in that brutal hell hole. You act as though if the US had not been involved in Vietnam, everything would have been rosy. Ridiculous, the communists would have just overrun Indochina with NO resistance and still killed millions upon millions of people. That you refuse to acknowledge the tough decision of deaths from inaction vs. deaths from action does not mean the problem disappears.

Had the US not intervened in WWI, there would have probably been no Leninism, Stalinism, Nazism, World War II, Maoism, Cold War, Korean War, Vietnam, Cambodian genocide or War on Terror. You might think this historical interpretation is totally off. But there's plenty of evidence for it.

Sorry, I meant to say volunteer army. The United Sates did not want to lose control of its primary source of energy to the Soviet Union, which is why it opposed the soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the soviet backed state of Iran. It is common military strategy to cut off supply lines. At the time the Soviet Union was a greater threat to the American people, and the world, than Saddam Hussein was. Now it is not, and Saddam is. You take out your worse enemies first, and you deal the best blow you can against an enemy with the limited resources of the world. I don’t trust the government to always be good either, but nor do I trust the choice of pacifist isolationism to ensure a safe world for the continuation of my existence. Yes the US has been and still is good friends with murderous dictators, it was also “good friends” with Stalin at one point in time, and now his government has been defeated. We do not exist in a world free from material limitations. We were “Good friends” with Saddam at one point, no we have him in jail. A lot more of our “Good friends” will soon be joining him if they don’t shape up. They were good friends because a greater enemy always loomed on the horizon, that Soviet Union which you simultaneously blame the US for creating and deride it for fighting.

See how the US is constantly funding future enemies? There's a lesson in this. Wait ten years and see whom the US is fighting next. When the US was supporting Saddam, he was at his most murderous, by far. I don't see how you can just ignore the implications of this.

The foreign interventionist has a very similar attitude as the domestic interventionist. If taxation is too high, let's use inflation. If inflation is raising prices, impose price controls. If price controls don't work, let's try rationing. If rationing doesn't work, maybe the next intervention will.

US intervention in foreign affairs always creates future problems that demand even more intervention. But we never get the peace and freedom we're promised. Look at the Communist domination of Eastern Europe -- largely a consequence of WWII and US assistance of Stalin. How did it end? It fell apart, since socialism doesn't work. Look at Communist China -- largely a consquence of US assistance of Stalin and indirect support of Mao. What's causing it to improve toward liberty? Capitalism, trade, and the example of markets from the West.

US wars are a sorry history, and mark the least free times our nation has seen since the Civil War.

What percentage of the population is locked up in the US for victimless crimes? What percentage is in Cuba?

I don't know about Cuba. It the US it's almost half. That's a million innocent people deprived of rights of liberty and property.

Doing nothing in Iraq would have allowed Saddam to carry on murdering people at the same rate he has been for the last 30 years, which would have amounted to over 150,000 people now since the time we deposed them. Doing nothing kills more people than doing something. Except in the former you get to feel all happy about yourself, while Saddam cuts out tongues, paves over people, breaks limbs, and has wives and children raped in front of their family members.

I don't get to feel "happy about myself." After all, you warmongers are the ones who are winning.

150,000? This is based on projections that include data from when Saddam was at his worst, and a US ally. If you really think the last year in Iraq has been all that much better, I think you're ignoring how bad it is over there.

Iraq itself, of course, is a Western creation. The three major regions shouldn't be one country.

Yet you won’t even bother to speak out if THEIR government kills them? Only if OURS does? That’s the problem. And what if our governments kills the people that are killing them? Do you still speak out against it?

Most of the people the US government kills are innocent, not people killing other people.

I oppose all state slaughter. But as an American, I feel most compelled to oppose the killing done in my name.

Of course, during the 1990s I opposed the sanctions in Iraq, since, it should be obvious, such sanctions hurt the people and not the ruler/former US ally.

Post 54

Monday, January 24, 2005 - 1:53pm

Just to clear up some of Gregory's counterpoints:

I appreciate and admire Robert Stinnett's book (which I am willing to bet Mr. Eichert has never read).

OK, the fact is that I did read it, and in fact when I was younger and more naïve I believed it and wrote an entire research paper largely based on it. I can cite many historians who address and debunk his arguments, but it is a question of how much time I wish to spend on it, and so I will address his major points below as you did.

The US government precipitated a long series of coercive acts against an authoritarian, war-prone state, thereby creating the conditions for swaying Americans into supporting our entry into a European war that did not threaten us. If one picks up a shovel and whacks repeatedly at a hornet's nest, eventually hornets will come swarming out of the hive. The fact that the Japanese were militarily aggressive in Asia posed zero military threat to the citizens of the United States. Clearly, FDR's provocation of Japan was illegitimate and recklessly irresponsible.

To use a schoolyard analogy, you are telling me that if I tell a bully that I won’t sell him a stick so he can whack the other kids, I should be blamed for “provoking him” when he decides to sucker punch me? This is exactly what the USA did, we saw the aggressive and evil expansion and the stories of the rape of Nanking and the like, much publicized in the press here, and chose not to give them the ammo to kill with. We knew we risked war, but it was only a matter of time that they would start attacking everything else they didn’t control in the Pacific anyway, and it was high time to take a stand against Fascist aggression. Yes, FDR was goddamned worried about the Nazis – Hell, in 1944 they already had scud missiles (the V-2) and a victorious Germany, with the advanced science they had which was far too late to matter in WW II, would have been devastating in any subsequent cold war with a Nazi Europe.

William Henry Chamberlain's AMERICA'S SECOND CRUSADE recounts how Germany's military had been designed for rapid advance across the plains of Russia, rather than for an assault on France and Britain, which required different equipment and tactics.

Ok, this is pure bunk. In fact, in Heinz Guderian’s book Panzer Leader, a man who was one of the architects of Blitzkrieg, he describes how the concentration of forces – air and mobile army operations, was essentially designed for Europe and woefully inadequate to the vast stretches and frontier of the East, which they attacked with fewer armor and aircraft than the invasion of France, on a front that was many, many times wider!

Had Britain, France, and the United States remained warily aloof, concerned with their legitimate security interests rather than with leading a "holy war", it is not far-fetched to assume that Hitler and Stalin would have fought to an exhausted stalemate. As events transpired, of course, Stalin's dictatorship filled the vacuum created by Hitler's destruction. This is, of course, the predictably perverse sort of consequence that flows from illegitimate government programs--domestic or military.

Pure wishful thinking. I believe Germany would have won against Russia, absent US (and British, since they would have had to agree to a peace absent US help also) aid in the war. At the very least, even given a draw, we would have had two superpower fascist/communist states to deal with, no military built, no atomic bomb, vs. two nations, probably both with atomic weapons, and means to deliver them (rockets or long range aircraft, all in the works and a few scant years away from operation). I would suggest the book Barbarossa by Alan Clark as a good reference, as well as Heinz Guderian's Panzer Leader.

If he believes that taxation and the military draft do not violate individual rights, then his support of the right of individuals to live for themselves is thin gruel, indeed.

I don’t believe that the draft is necessary or moral, and would like as little taxation as possible - I would be ecstatic to see us dissolve the various federal entitlement and price support programs and restrict spending to the military and law enforcement and court needs of the Federal government. I am just saying that you must be willing to defend yourself, Individually and as a Nation, and that there is no contradiction. Both Germany and Japan voluntarily declared war on the USA, not the other way around, and we had to defend ourselves, and not trading with or aiding/sanctioning evil is not the same as attacking! Similarly, neither was the dropping of the atomic bomb wrong (I wrote about this elsewhere), and I also notice you used the term "essentially" to describe another attack, which sounds to me like the same reasoning as the above about "provoking" being the same thing as acting.

Ok, end of troll feeding for me.

Post 55

Monday, January 24, 2005 - 2:31pm

Pure wishful thinking. I believe Germany would have won against Russia, absent US (and British, since they would have had to agree to a peace absent US help also) aid in the war.

This belief isn't grounded in history. Hitler's fate was sealed in September, 1941 when he invaded Russia and the winter set in. No one has ever conquered Russia from the west. Hitler had no chance.

Germany couldn't even win the Battle of Britain. If Britain had brought all its troops home from around the world -- remember, at the time it controlled a much larger empire than the Nazis did, subjugating its colonial satellites and mass-murdering the indiginous population of Australia – it could have easily defeated Germany, especially with Russian help. The main reason Germany attacked Britain was because Britain declared war after Germany invaded Poland (though, for some reason, Britain and the Allies didn't mind as much when Stalin invaded Poland two weeks later). Why did Britain declare war on Germany, when Hitler's main goal was to move Eastward? Well, Churchill knew that FDR would come to the rescue.

But why didn't Britain bring its empire home to protect its island and defeat Hitler? Because Churchill wanted an empire too, just like Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Stalin, FDR and the other murderous, socialist, and collectivist rulers who sent their people to die in that war.

Of course, Stalin was happy to see Hitler and Western Europe duke it out. His plan, the reason he allied with Hitler, was so the "capitalist" countries would destroy each other and the socialist USSR could come in and get the loot. Stalin's strategy basically worked, and he emerged as the true victor of World War II.

At the very least, even given a draw, we would have had two superpower fascist/communist states to deal with, no military built, no atomic bomb, vs. two nations, probably both with atomic weapons...

I don't know where you get the idea that Germany would have gotten nuclear weapons. They were nowhere close. I studied with a premier expert on Germany's nuclear weapons program.

See more here.

I am just saying that you must be willing to defend yourself, Individually and as a Nation, and that there is no contradiction. Both Germany and Japan voluntarily declared war on the USA, not the other way around, and we had to defend ourselves, and not trading with or aiding/sanctioning evil is not the same as attacking! Similarly, neither was the dropping of the atomic bomb wrong (I wrote about this elsewhere), and I also notice you used the term "essentially" to describe another attack, which sounds to me like the same
reasoning as the above about "provoking" being the same thing as acting.

Murdering 200,000 Japanese civilians isn't "wrong"? And you call yourself an individualist? It's not like the bombings were necessary to win the war. The country was blockaded and devastated by the firebombings, and posed absolutely no threat to America.

Post 56

Monday, January 24, 2005 - 4:48pm

This belief isn't grounded in history.
Yes it is. You are looking at History as it happened, I am looking at a USA that does nothing

Germany and its Allies - Italy, Rumania, Finland, Hungary - had a very large mass of divisions (228 on the Eastern Front alone, that doesn't count the West, Norway, North Africa, the Balkans), and destroyed vast numbers of Russians, especially in 1941 and 1942. They came back from near-defeat in 1941 and smashed the Russians again in 1942 until Stalingrad, then re-built again until they fought the battle of Kursk in 1943. These were the 3 turning points - Moscow, Stalingrad, and Kursk. Take away the extra pressure of the USA - in the East, the Russian forces that could have been pinned down by a Japanese attack on Russia (remember, you have an appeasing USA still selling Oil to Japan, so they have plenty of Oil for their army and navy now, plus what they take from their unopposed romp in southeast asia - absent the US, count Australia down for the count by 1942, and India by 1943. Now, what was Britain going to do with a handful of Indian and Australian Divisions "pulled from the East" which their governments would not have allowed any more of than was already done, in fact they stripped the East so heavily to hold on to North Africa they were completely rolled over by the Japanese. Then, in the West, no Lend-Lease to Britain, so they lose North Africa, the British are done, the Russians can't win.

The USA provided 50% of the Allied Aircraft, 40% of Tanks, 34 million tons of merchant shipping (the UK and commonwealth produced about 9 million), plus all kinds of other goods, especially trucks in quantity, which allowed the USSR to build more tanks and fewer trucks as a consequence.

As to nukes, I speak of your world - the USA has no Atom Bomb program, it cost Billions! So, give the Germans what 5 or 10 or so post-war years? They had Jets, they had Rockets, we have a small budget, maybe a big Navy if we are lucky and they aren't turned into shelters for the homeless or something... that is your "non-intervention" result.

Now granted, I won't sit here and say I agreed with all of our policies, far from it! Nor can you sit and see History from the POV of those who were forced to make those difficult decisions - However, your results would have ineluctably led to the loss of far more.

The overall strategic bombing in WW II of cities for "morale" was a failure, and against industry it had some effect, against lines of communication it was extremely valuable, as well as in tactical roles to destroy and limit enemy movement and against shipping as well (which is also supply and transport infrastructure).

However, the Japanese had not yet agreed to surrender prior to the use of the atomic bomb, which did work from a morale perspective finally, and even then many did not want to surrender. Note too that there were still large Japanese Armies in China, murdering civilians and in fact intentionally destroying crops so as to cause mass starvation. They were ready with more suicide planes, some more advanced ones with pulse jets they had hidden in mountains, all sorts of stuff. An invasion would have cost more lives, especially ours, the ones we are morally obligated to protect. It was the moral obligation of the Japanese leaders to surrender to save their people from death, which they refused to do no matter how sure the war was lost until the Russians dug Hitler dead out of his bunker in Berlin and the Atom bomb stopped the Japanese. They were murdered by the Japanese leaders who started the war, prosecuted the war, and refused to surrender even after all hope was lost.

Post 57

Monday, January 24, 2005 - 10:08pm

Not to get pulled into arguments with the Saddamites, but I thought this comment by Anthony was interesting:

I just have a hunch that Stalin is not that kind of man. Harry [Hopkins, Roosevelt's confidant and personal envoy to Stalin] says he's not and that he doesn't want anything but security for his country, and I think that if I give him everything I possibly can and ask nothing from him in return, noblesse oblige — he won't try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace.

Oh yeah. What a voice for liberty. And remember, FDR had no reason to be so naive. This was after Stalin murdered millions and had annexed half of Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia.

I find it interesting that he criticizes FDR for being naive when it comes to Stalin, and accuses him of not being a voice of liberty. But what exactly is his position? If he were in charge, he would also seek peace with Stalin by not "interfering". He's of the position that nobody is a threat to the US, so the US should never get involved. Since the preferred outcomes is the same as his own, and FDR is a dupe, what does that say?

Post 58

Tuesday, January 25, 2005 - 2:00pm

Mark Humphrey, an old college buddy of mine, writes...

"The US government precipitated a long series of coercive acts against an authoritarian, war-prone state..."

Huh?

Er, um...excuse me, old friend. "Coercion" is indeed immoral when used against peaceful individuals.

But "coercion" against a state? And "an authoritarian, war-prone state" to boot?

Can an armed assault against "an authoritarian, war-prone state" even be properly characterized as "coercive" (or "aggressive" or "interventionist")?

Needless to say, I disagree with Mark's view.

One of the most egregious philosophical errors of isolationist libertarians is context-switching: the application to governments of moral principles that are, by nature, applicable only to individuals. They seem to (selectively) forget that moral principles such as "rights" and "autonomy" and "self-government" don't apply to states; they apply only to individuals.

Thus dictatorships, which don't even recognize the concepts of individual rights and autonomy, can't claim the protection of those principles for their statist apparatus and acts.

Likewise, concepts such as "coercion" and "aggression" and "intervention" -- which derive from the concepts of individual rights and sovereignty -- simply don't apply to acts of force against "authoritarian, war-prone" states. Dictatorships are illegitimate gangs of thugs; and illegitimate gangs of thugs are, morally speaking, fair game for any individual, group or government -- such as any liberal democracy -- that finds it in its self-interest to knock off such regimes.

But in switching the context of individual rights and autonomy to states, anti-war libertarians are compelled to accept a bizarre ethical inversion: to morally defend dictatorships against attack, while morally condemning those legitimate governments that take up arms against them.

Hence the ugly spectacle of self-styled "libertarian enemies of The State" perverting the concepts of "rights," "autonomy" and "self-government" to defend brutal dictatorships...but only when those brutal dictatorships happen to come under assault by the U. S. military.

As Ayn Rand asked: Who stands to gain, and who stands to lose, by such a "principle"? By perverting the concept of rights in this way, "anti-war libertarians" are becoming, de facto, the theoretical enablers of tyrants.

During the Cold War, one of the most transparently phony arguments put forth by illegitimate communist regimes was that the U. S. had "no right to interfere in our internal affairs," as they butchered and enslaved and violated the rights of millions of individuals within their borders.

Yet ironically, the majority of today's "libertarians" have accepted this Soviet line of argument in principle, and are declaring these thug regimes' claimed borders and corrupted institutions as morally inviolable.

We can all argue about the prudence of any particular military action, such as the war in Iraq.

But we must dismiss out of hand the perverse moral argument of those libertarians who label "interventions" against tyrants (such as Saddam) "immoral" or "aggressive."

That such "reasoning" would come to predominate the libertarian movement underscores my grim assessment of the movement at the 2004 TOC Summer Seminar. If, after decades of theorizing, libertarians can't yet grasp so basic a principle as "individual rights," and the obvious implication that it can't be twisted to prop up tyrannies against foreign attack, then the term "libertarian" has lost any communication value as a label fit for self-designation.

This said, a personal aside to my friend Lindsay Perigo:

Sorry, Lindsay: the battle for the term "libertarian" is already lost. It's now almost universally associated with those whom you despise. To millions, it now means the various Libertarian Parties, FND, Lew Rockwell.com and the Mises Institute, AntiWar.com, Independent Institute, et al., who universally subscribe to embarrassing philosophical nonsense.

One of the things I learned while studying marketing -- particularly, "branding" -- is that once a term has acquired deeply ingrained public connotations, it's useless to fight to redefine and reclaim it for oneself.

The term "liberal," for example, is now a goner in America: we can't reclaim it to mean "classical liberal" after several generations have come to associate it with welfare statism. Likewise, Rand never was able to reclaim and redefine "selfishness" to mean something positive -- not after negative connotations had been established over countless generations. To virtually everyone alive except this readership, "selfish" means Peter Keating, not Howard Roark. It would take billions of dollars in advertising to even make a dent in that public perception now. And even if we had such resources, is that the best use of billions of dollars?

In such circumstances, it's far better to come up with a new term of self-description -- or at least one which, if not freshly minted, has not already set like cement in the public mind.

"Libertarian"? I'll gladly consign it to all those sundry moral libertines, philosophical subjectivists, political anarchists, isolationists and anti-Americans who now virtually monopolize its usage in public forums.

Good riddance to it, and to them.

--Robert Bidinotto

Post 59

Tuesday, January 25, 2005 - 2:45pm