[extropy-chat] 70% oppose resumption of military conscription

[Samantha Atkins]

On Jun 26, 2005, at 10:01 AM, Mike Lorrey wrote:

> --- Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
>
>> On Jun 25, 2005, at 5:38 PM, Mike Lorrey wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Depends. What is the militia? It is the whole of the people, as the
>>> founding fathers said. How does one mobilize the militia?
>>>
>>
>> Who says that "one", e.g., government is not charged with mobilizing
>> the militia by force at all.  If the people believe war is necessarly
>> then ample volunteers will come forth.  If not then either you are in
>> over your head or the war is not the will of the people.  The Us has
>> no business forcing some of the people to risk their lives in a cause
>> they do not believe in.  This is slavery of the worse sort.
>>
>
> Is forcing someone to pay for their negative externalities  
> "slavery"? I
> think not, nor do any rational libertarian thinkers (like Friedman,
> Rothbard, etc). Many a polluter will claim their pollution is not
> harming others and refuse to pay for their damage.
>

Iraq is hardly my negative externality.  Neither are most of the  
foolish entanglements of politicians.  I did not agree to any such  
contract and please do not trot out the tripe that I agreed just by  
being born here.   The above has nothing to do with the question.

> Those who refuse to vote against promoters of bad foreign policies  
> here
> commit a negative externality, a sin of omission (i.e. voting for
> politicians who treat terrorism as 'a crime' to be prosecuted, or
> refusing to vote). Those who make excuses for and apologies for  
> foreign
> tyrants who commit great evils and injustices, and paint our own state
> as a greater evil (as Chomsky, et al do) also commit a negative
> externality.
>

Bullshit.  It is not my duty to attempt to babysit every busybody  
politician on the planet.

> The above logic, however, only applies to libertarians. Statists  
> cannot
> enjoy its benefits because they do not believe in it. Statists, being
> statists, initiate force against others 24/7/365. They accept as a
> given that the state has a right to use its power to make people do
> things they do not want to do, generally because the state was
> popularly elected. People who believe in statism of any form therefore
> do not have a right to object to a draft, or refuse to be drafted.  
> They
> have consented by their willing agreement to use force unjustly  
> against
> their fellow citizen, in confiscating income, land, or lives to serve
> their own needs (subsidized housing, crops, disaster protection, drug
> wars, etc) to have the same done to themselves by the state. Thus, no
> statist can rationally object to being drafted into public service of
> any kind.
>

Even statists have the right to object to their lives being spent for  
nothing of any real import.
>
>>
>>
>>> Enforcement of the laws is a time honored use of the militia, going
>>> back to the days prior to William the Conqueror, when the English
>>> system of constables and shire reeves was all that was needed to
>>> mobilize the people for either law enforcement or military defense.
>>>
>>
>> Ever hear of Posse Comitatus?    It is not an American or libertarian
>> honored idea that it is fine to use the military for law enforcement.
>>
>
> Posse Comitatus is a law that dates from the post-Civil War
> reconstruction era, which was passed along with a number of Jim Crow
> laws to protect locals intent on killing and lynching uppity freed
> slaves from being pursued, caught, and prosecuted by federal forces.
>

That is hardly an exhaustive analysis.  It is a very good idea not to  
sic a nation's troops on tis own citizens.

>
>>
>>
>>>
>>> We don't live in the middle ages any more, though, we are not a
>>>
>> simple
>>
>>> agrarian feudal society. Society is complex and our laws are
>>>
>> complex,
>>
>>> and our Constitution, our highest law, recognises the legal weight
>>>
>> of
>>
>>> treaty with foreign nations as law, subject only to judicial
>>> interpretation in cases where they conflict with other law.
>>>
>>
>> Are you sure you are a libertarian?  The freedom of the people shall
>> not be abridged by a legitimate government.  An illegitimate
>> government should not be supported and should be opposed.   The Bill
>> Of Rights is part of the highest law.  It was expressly designed to
>> keep the newly formed  government in check.   If any treaty or
>> domestic law violates any of these or their intent it must to the
>> maximum extent possible be treated as  null and void by free
>> persons.  Complexity is no excuse for condoning enslavement.
>>
>
> No, it isn't. However, all real libertarians believe in contract law.
> If you engage in contract, in commerce, you are bound by the terms you
> operate by. If you commit negative externalities against others, you
> also can be forced to compensate for damages, even by indenturement.
> Just compensatory indenturement is not slavery.

Their are no pertinent "externalites" in this case.

- samantha
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20050626/ab960398/attachment.html>