[extropy-chat] give a small window into the military mind

[Mike Lorrey]

Glad I could be of service and I hope I wasn't too abrasive for you to
get the point. While I am well versed in the orthodox libertarian
gospel, as an individualist I generally don't accept even the word of
Rothbard or L Neil Smith as gospel. I think for myself, thanks. 

I try to live in "is" and work at baby steps toward getting the world
to 'ought'. I don't pout and stamp my footie and demand the world
accomodate me, like so many absolutists do. While I score 100%x100% on
the WSPQ, I don't demand the world become 100% libertarian
immmediately, nor do I insist the people I work with politically be the
same, so long as we are all making progress daily. While I'm on the
Freedom Train chugging down the tracks, those living in air castles are
still back in slaves-ville living in the hallucination that reality
will stop existing if you stop believing in it.

--- c c <beb_cc at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Mike, this is such a comprehensive answer it took
> 99.9% of the strut out of me. Almost nothing left to
> say. I grew up in the early '70s, becoming interested
> in libertarianism gradually throughout that decade, in
> a remore philosophical sense, it was one of the many
> fads floating around at that time. There was
> periodically someone passing out flyers at a mall with
> the headline, "do as thou will" or somesuch. After
> reading this post the only wind in my sails concerning
> libertarianism is that is a creation of intellectuals,
> and we intellectuals are many things-- including
> tricksters. So libertarianism itself is to be taken
> seriously yet not too seriously. The actual practicing
> of freedom is something else.
> 
> >Mike Lorrey wrote:
> > Veterans benefits are indeed for past services,
> > which at the time were
> > very poorly paid for (without those benefits, the
> > real hourly wage of
> > an E-1 through E-3 isn't much more than minimum
> > wage). Earned benefits
> > don't need to be justified on libertarian grounds,
> > any more than any
> > employee of any corporation needs to justify their
> > benefits.
> >  What needs to be justified on libertarian grounds
> is
> > what services the
> > individual renders for the government. Is one a tax
> > collector, or a
> > welfare administrator, or a bureaucrat who writes
> > tax or welfare
> > regulations, or a BATF or DEA agent? 
> > I was an electrical/environmental/avionics tech on
> > F-15 and F-111
> > aircraft. The closest I came to being even
> > tangentially working in
> > support of government activities I thought
> > questionable from a
> > libertarian standpoint was when Bush 41 modified
> > posse comitatus to
> > have the military assist in the drug war. The F-15
> > unit I was in at the
> > time was already tasked as a fighter interceptor
> > unit for NORAD and
> > intercepted every aircraft that didn't identify
> > itself in the pacific
> > northwest, so there wasn't any real change in our
> > operations and to my
> > knowledge we didn't splash any drug planes while I
> > was there.
>  Private sector laborers generally don't risk getting
> > arrested by
> > competitive companies and held in prisons and
> > tortured for years. Nor
> > do most industrial or other workplace accidents
> > maime the worker so
> > thoroughly that repair and rehabilitation is so
> > difficult. Nor do they
> > get paid to intentionally put themselves in harms
> > way (except for, say,
> > cops and firemen). Private employers generally want
> > you to follow OSHA
> > rules at all times.
> > I have never heard that any service member 'gets'
> > rights by enlisting.
> > If anything, the service member gives up rights,
> > including agreeing to
> > be held to justice under the UCMJ rather than
> > civilian law, and to
> > pretty much be told what to do with his or her life,
> > which may include
> > being separated from spouse and kids for long
> > periods of time.
> > 
> > About the only right we gain is the right to tell
> > obnoxious
> > know-it-alls to go to hell when they start telling
> > us we are baby
> > killers, mercenaries, or didn't earn our pay and/or
> > benefits. In a
> > world where most civilians either don't own guns,
> > don't believe in
> > guns, or the military, or the common militia, or in
> > self-defense, the
> > risking and bleeding and dying that military members
> > do enables such
> > self-deluded idiots to continue to live in their
> > fantasy worlds of
> > poorly estimated risk. This includes a few
> > individuals who claim to be
> > libertarians but interpret the zero agression
> > principle as pacifism
> > with a shuck and jive, betting their bluff will
> > never be called, rather
> > than responsible self-defense as it should be.
> > 
> > I know of few real libertarians (counting all
> > libertarians and not just
> > absolutist anarchists living in their air castles in
> > denial of reality)
> > who do not recognise that one of the few legitimate
> > functions of the US
> > government under the US Constitution, or even the
> > Articles of
> > Confederation, if you disbelieve in the validity of
> > the Constitution,
> > is the military. While keeping a standing army is
> > generally wrong in
> > libertarian eyes, a full time Navy and any other
> > means of power
> > projection with large capital equipment (which IMHO
> > includes air power,
> > space power, as well as ships), is legitimate.
> > 
> > If you still think otherwise, then fine, come and
> > bitch at me once
> > you've gone and dismantled the 90% of the US
> > government that ISN'T
> > constitutionally allowed. Until then, you've got a
> > lot bigger fish to
> > fry than my veterans benefits. At the time I
> > enlisted, I was a
> > republican. You could say the Air Force made me a
> > libertarian, so in
> > that sense, the US military made the world a
> > slightly better place by
> > one person (though some may dispute that).
> > 
> > I know of a number of other libertarians who went
> > through similar
> > experiences, who enlisted. I believe the older ones
> > who enlisted back
> > when there was a draft followed Heinlein's advice
> > that the best place
> > to hide from a draft is in the military.
> > 
> > Mike Lorrey
> > Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
> > "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of
> > human freedom.
> > It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of
> > slaves."
> >                                       -William Pitt
> > (1759-1806) 
> > Blog: http://intlib.blogspot.com
> > 
> > __________________________________________________
> > Do You Yahoo!?
> > 
> === message truncated ===
> 
> 
> 
> 		
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Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
                                      -William Pitt (1759-1806) 
Blog: http://intlib.blogspot.com


		
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