Through out this thread and the other two threads, I’ve tried to make a case for just one concept. The concept that the only moral justification for going to war is in reaction to a threat that is serious enough to warrant self-defense of the nation.
Andre’s last post is the best proof I could ever have asked for. It shows clearly what happens if one strays from taking concepts seriously and as if they had meanings.
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Without self-defense, one problem an advocate of loose and easy war has is justification. They can be accused of altruism or crusading. Take a look at part of Andre’s justification:
People often say a foreign policy of Rescue and Liberation is personally morally wrong because it's "altruistic" and "crusading." But what if the initial cost in free-state money and lives is trivial, and the long-term free-state benefits is vast? And what if the liberators claim, say, 10% of the land or resources as "just payment for services rendered…" Let’s see, we initiate force in order to gain property of others. The word for that is theft.
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One of the moral issues to be dealt with in the launching of a major war effort is the necessary loss of innocent civilian lives (hence the need for self-defense). Those who want to pursue their loose and easy war policies need to minimize the importance of those lives and to marginalize those people who will die. Best of all would be to pretend that those innocent families are actually evil in some way. Here is Andre doing just that:
People say Rescue and Liberation is socially morally wrong because of a relatively small amount of collateral damage… this maudlin, out-of-context, "loss of innocents"... People refer to "innocent Nastonian civilians" but these guys, in my judgment, are responsible for enslaving and torturing their kids! I don't think they can successfully pass the buck of guilt to the dictator. These parents need to stop reproducing completely -- which will doom the tyranny eventually. But if they don't, as seems inevitable and universal, then they're guilty of being vicious, hateful child-abusers. Thus they can be rightfully attacked on the basis of rescuing and liberating the kids. [emphasis added] Well, that takes care of that. Instead of families of people going about their lives, doing the best they can to survive in a dictatorship, they are "vicious, hateful child-abusers" and I guess the kids are just "small amount[s] of collateral damage" and it would be "maudlin" and "out-of-context" to concern ourselves any further.
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Obviously, self-defense only makes sense in the face of a threat. For rational people that means a real threat (not made up), imminent (not way off in the future), and of a magnitude that warrants national war. But for those who want a loose and easy war policy one form of rationalization is to steal the meaning of the word “threat” – so they can point to just anything as if it were a threat. Here is Andre doing that:
People say Nastonia is possibly no threat to the free state or the free state's friends. But slavery anywhere is a threat to freedom everywhere. Almost certainly the Nastonians are plotting against and threatening their neighbors, harboring and funding terrorists and international criminals, selling dangerous weapons to thugs, over-polluting the earth, stealing intellectual property, etc. This is what tyrannies do. It's their ineluctable nature. Notice how much is just plain made up – there was nothing in the hyptothetical about all these plots, or terrorists, or threats to neighbors. All blatant lies to create threats that don’t exist.
And here is more of Andre showing that once you decide to treat words as if meaning were elastic there really is no limit to how far you can go in that direction:
Even ultra-poor, ultra-weak, ultra-small Haiti is a threat to the US in that they tend to do the above, and send criminal charitable immigrants of low culture to America and elsewhere, which influence and degrade free state culture worldwide. And Haiti hurts America by failing to provide us with cheap sugar, clothes, and resort vacation areas, etc. which materially hurts our lives -- not just theirs. So, load up the B-52s with bombs – Haiti is attacking us and putting us in mortal fear for our lives by not providing us with enough cheap sugar, clothes and resort areas.
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Andre is quite clear in the following paragraph in showing that he knows that he is providing a different version of self-defense and national interest. And he is claiming that the existing versions are false.
People say a foreign policy of Rescue and Liberation is morally wrong because it violates the proper purpose and nature of a free state, namely "self-defense." But as Alexander and others and myself above have indicated, this is a narrow and false notion of national self-defense and self-interest. In my view, one can easily be "pro-active" in one's self-defense without perverting or violating that ideal. This is basically true since foreign freedom always helps everyone and foreign slavery always hurts everyone. Thus Rescue and Liberation, if done right, isn't always or necessarily "altruistic" or "crusading." ---------------------
And, Andre indicated, when he told us that he chose the first poll answer, that he thinks it would be immoral not to launch these wars. Welcome to Hell.
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