you dont think that young scared israeli soldiers sometimes shoot when they shouldnt have?
Prove it. Seems like we have plenty of assumptions and accusations yet no facts.
And do tell which Israeli landowners own 5 miles of land.
No, they’ve grown in ability. Now they shoot helicopter rockets and tanks shells into populated buildings.
This was the article:
'The assault on Gaza City coincided with a predawn missile barrage that set 20 homes ablaze in a southern Gaza village. Scores of residents suffered burns and gas inhalation, witnesses said. Doctors who treated the victims said they suspected Israel had fired white phosphorus shells, which can be used to illuminate the nighttime battlefield or to lay down a smoke screen.
Plumes of black smoke rose over Gaza City as Israeli ground forces backed by helicopter gunships inched into neighborhoods on the capital’s southwestern, eastern and northern edges before dawn.
Tall apartment buildings shook from the force of Israeli artillery and airstrikes, and Hamas fighters answered with mortars, automatic rifles and grenades. It was the heaviest fighting since Israel attacked the Palestinian enclave Dec. 27, saying it wanted to halt years of rocket attacks on southern Israeli communities.’
Honestly, look how petty you are.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/974044.html
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/958929.html
Would you like me to keep going?
Do they or do they not fire into apartment buildings?
The military advocate-general, Brig.-Gen. Avi Mandelblitt, informed the High Court of Justice on Tuesday that he had not changed his mind regarding the criminal charge to be levied against an officer and a soldier responsible for shooting a bound and blindfolded Palestinian detainee during a demonstration in Nil’in, near Modi’in Illit.
I don’t call anyone comrade. I just believe in self defense. I don’t believe it’s as effective if there isn’t a state. That’s it. I don’t want to see the dissolution of the state totally or of the military. And to be honest, neither do you. You just think you do. And I’m not a neocon. I disagreed with a lot of the whole social conservative movement. Because I’m not religious. I’m just a person who doesn’t see morality. I see effective or not effective. End of story.
Farm owners.
Please prove they fire into populated buildings with the intention to kill civilians and not to just kill someone firing on them.
You have no information on why those buildings were attacked or the rules of engagement used.
Please…
Armed Palestinians using Children as Human Shields (Video)
Hamas admits it uses human shields (Video)
They fire into apartment buildings directly at a source of attack. They do not fire indirectly or randomly at civilians. I realize this basic concept escapes you.
Murder isn’t always wrong. Sometimes it’s necessary. Not all the times but sometimes. Particularly in self defense. I’ll kill a man if I have to if I think it’s necessary in order to defend myself.
Also, my reaction to seeing a little girl get beaten has nothing to do with morality. It has to do with disgust. I don’t see it as a morally wrong act. I see it as an act that could eventually effect me. I see it as an act that could eventually effect others and obviously negatively effects the little girl. But that’s got nothing to do with morality. I see it as something that can’t be condoned because to condone it would bring about more of it. Violence, in and of itself, has no moral value. It’s all about who the violence is against and for what reason. Everything else in here is overphilosophized nonsense. I think you guys have taken the small government idea WAY too far. Which is a shame because I really thought I’d agree with you guys on everything.
You conveniently left this out…
ROFLMAO!!
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Yes, you’re here, so you are part of the group, like it or not. That’s just the way it goes. Now you do have choices. You can argue your point and hope people change their mind or you can leave. That’s all you can do. I’m sorry if this doesn’t vibe with your philosophy, but it’s just the way it is. The basis for this assertion is that you are no different from any other American and we all agree we’ve signed the contract too. Seriously, if you don’t think you can convince people to change the system to the way you want it, leave.
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I’m sorry you can’t see the utility of a military. But that’s ok. I’m not going to point a gun at you. But someone else undoubtedly will if you don’t pay your taxes. Or maybe they’ll just take your stuff, I don’t know. See, the problem here is that you’re the minority, and you are arguing a set of ideas that simply are not appealing AT ALL. See, if they were, I’d listen to everything you guys had said and say “ok, I like this, sign me up”, instead I feel…more and more disenfranchised from austrian economics because I’m starting to think it breeds anarchy, which I won’t ever stand for. Now…I’m not personally important. But I can’t imagine you convincing the majority of these positions. I think I can convince people of the economic side of this stuff, but not the social. You guys need a better blueprint.
How can you know what I want ? Ah, I take it you mean I don’t really know my true interests and I don’t realize how much I owe to the state & military protecting my freedoms ? Well, I can’t argue against blind faith =]
Anyways, when/if you ever get more acquainted with libertarian literature you’ll learn that war and militarism are the polar opposites of freedom and obviously not needed to achieve it.
What I’m trying to say is that if you got what you think you want, you wouldn’t be as pleased as you think you would be.
And war is the flip side of peace. One has to exist for the other to exist. Libertarian literature obviously doesn’t understand that. It’s like this: I trained to fight for years with the knowledge that once I was good enough, I probably wouldn’t ever have to fight and that if I did fight I would win. And I have lived a much more peaceful life because most of the physical conflicts I’ve had, I’ve won. Also, people are afraid of violence, sometimes when a person learns I can fight, they no longer think they can do whatever they want to me. So it’s my training in war that makes my life more peaceful. This same principle applies to states. The military MUST exist as a way to deter conflict but ALSO as a way to solve conflicts should they arrive.
There’s something I’m slightly curious about Jacob. Why is it that you didn’t join the military ? Or did you ?
To be honest, I wanted to join the marines when I was about 20. But…I inherited a lot of money and I didn’t want to die before I’d gotten a chance to enjoy…ya know…the money. So basically, I wasn’t ready to accept death. And I am ashamed of that sort of but I still can’t bring myself to enlist. I’m being honest with you now because I want you to understand where I’m coming from with all this. Instead of enlisting, I just kept training. I figured I was doing my part by training as hard as I could and by learning the techniques. Part of me still thinks about enlisting. But then all this money might go to waste. And I’m torn about that. It’s a tough decision to put my life in jeopardy like that. Now, I understand that I could ask to be assigned to something not on the battlefield, but I’d still be part of an organization that I’m just not ready to give my everything for. And that, in my opinion, would be an insult to myself and to the people I would be serving with.
Murder is not synonymous with killing. Murder is by definition wrong, because it is defined as wrongful killing.
In the picosecond between seeing a girl brutalized and its concomitant feeling of disgust, I seriously doubt the thought, “my word, this brutalizing business might get around to me; I’d better react accordingly” has time to cross your mind. It’s much more primal and direct than that. Mentally put yourself in that situation, forgetting for a moment your stance on the issue, and you’ll see that is true.
I gather this is the “optimization” you are out for. Are going for optimal utility? The greatest happiness for the greatest number? If so, then you’ve got a lot of “over-philosophizing” to do to justify that. Why should that outcome, out of infinite others, be the preferred one? A great many people are in situations in which optimal societal utility would mean a sub-optimal personal utility. Why shouldn’t they just continue to lobby for their government subsidies, or continue their reigns in impunity as rapacious Big Men in African “republics”?
If social optimization is your end, be aware that your political framework is just as much the product of overcooked philosophizing as any other. There was a time when that utilitarian-consequentialist worldview, which you may think is just the “natural way of thinking of things”, was nothing more than a glimmer in the eye of Jeremy Bentham. Via John Stuart Mill it subsequently captured the fancy of western academia, from there it permeated the ranks of opinion-molding hacks (journalists and public school teachers), and then became the received wisdom of mainstream thought. Such is the way a great many unmoored doctrines evolve into “just plain common sense.”
I doubt you’ll find any of us arguing against that. That is why we stand for non-aggression: not non-violence.
Careful tossing around accusations of being “overphilosophized” and “beyond the pale” when you yourself take the awfully difficult and extremist stance that there is no such thing as morality whatsoever.
Thank you. I think I should rest my case now…
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Who decides it’s wrongful? Isn’t that just a matter of opinion?
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My political framework is about efficiency and effectiveness. It could be argued that…if someone is not living their optimal lifestyle, they are neither efficient nor totally effective. In other words, those big men in Africa are forcing people to live suboptimal lives which are neither efficient, because they don’t produce as much as they could if they weren’t oppressed, or effective, because ultimately they fail at their work under the yolk of the big government. To be honest, I haven’t read all these philosophers you’re talking about. I just know that for morality to matter, there would need to be a God to enforce it. Because morals are just rules. But rules need an enforcer. Efficiency and effectiveness are better guidelines because they are self evident and require much less interpreting. Although, there is always room to argue about what is and is not effective. The other reason I don’t like thinking in terms of morals is because they always lead back to religion, and religion is all about the biggest government there is: God.
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Sometimes aggression might be necessary. What then?
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It’s not an extreme position to argue that morality doesn’t exist. All I’m saying is that your rules have no one to uphold them.
Do you think my decision to take my money and live my life was not the most optimal decision? What would you have done?
The same thing you did (except I would have never dreamt about joining the military to begin with).
What is it you find so undesirable about the military? Other than the obvious risk that you could lose your life?
That military ‘philosophy’ goes against all the abstract moral principles you don’t think even exist.
But on more practical terms…I imagine you know that some of the people who go to war, even voluntarily, later regret it ?