Yes, you could. However one was really the outgrowth of the other. Centralization and regimentation introduced during the war against Hitler is what set the US on the path of Cold War belligerency. How do you propose to fight a major war like that, but not come out a permanently more militant and regimented society?
There were probably other ways to prevent Stalin getting Western Europe. Also Soviet domination did not always mean having to adopt a Soviet system internally. It is something I have to look in more, but it is possible that without a Cold War countries under Soviet clout would have been free to pick their internal organisation.
You draw a distinction, but it is arbitrary.
The Third Reich was at no point an immediate threat to the US. Not only it had shown no desire to conquer America, it clearly lacked the means to do so. So it was at most a potential threat in the future.
So if you run with this criteria then you can use it to attack anyone as everyone can be a potential threat for the future. Any small time state may attack other states and subjugate them to itself, thus growing its power until one day it is able to threaten USA. — Better to attack them while they are still small then, just like Hitler was removed before he could become a real threat.
but it is possible that without a Cold War countries under Soviet clout would have been free to pick their internal organisation.
The idea of a worldwide Communist Revolution is to have a revolution for Wordwide Communism, imho.
it clearly lacked the means to do so
As Germany, it did. As Overlord of Europe, not as much.
So if you run with this criteria then you can use it to attack anyone as everyone can be a potential threat for the future.
No, you can attack power-hungry megalomaniacs who subjugate others. And why not also attack small time states which subjugate other states? They’re getting their rights violated…
This is not persuasive. Countries do not find themselves under attack just for spoils, but for all sorts of ridicilous reasons, particularly if they are seen as easy picking. Examples of interventions with totally absurd rationales behind them would be Grenada in 1983 and Somalia in 1992.
They could do more than they do currently, however. They could each be as obsessed with security as the US is and end up resembling Israel or North Korea.
I’ll grant you you’re on to something, but I would not put it quite like that.
Think of the system of alliances pre-1914. Many small powers had a great power backer, jet this did not mean they neglected their defense in any way.
The reason investing into defense is today useless for so many states is that so many are part of the exact same sphere of influence that all their neighbours are also a part of. With conflict within a sphere being against the interest and the wishes of the sphere’s controller likelihood of war is small. For example if Hungary and Romania wished to go to war they would simply not be premitted, until 1990 by the Soviets, and since then by the USA.
I must admit I did not delve into examples provided by Block too deeply. Instead I immediately thought of the movie Fail Safe. In it a person murders 8 million people in order to save a couple of billion.
Doing so seems desirable from the point of view of survival of the human race, which is kind of important. After all libertarianism can not exist, without humans, in an uninhabitated world. If libertarianism would prevent the movie protagonist from saving humanity, then libertarianism would in some sense be anti-human and self-defeating.
Of course in the movie the saviour-murderer has no illusions he had any right to take away the lives of so many people and unwilling to live with this takes his own. Having made victims, he takes on the punishment for doing so and in doing so becomes a marty, albeit still also a criminal.
From here on you can see why absolute insistence on punishment for NAP aggression is crucial just on utilitarian grounds. Without it it is just a world of communistic nihilism and breaking of eggs for the sake of omeletts with the chance for doom actually increasing.
Well since a would-be-saviour has the option to offer himself up as a sacrificial lamb, he can not make anyone else into a sacrificial lamb and not be a hypocrite. The only way for a libertarian to save the town is to volunteer.
While it is intuitive, libertarianism doesn’t say that he should volunteer and save the town. The rabbi has no obligation to choose a course of action that will lead to less rights being violated by other people.
That doesn’t follow. Only when the self-sacrifical options have been exhausted does breaking the NAP come into field, but they have not been exhausted here. (I guess a libertarian arguing for American WWII intervention would then first have to donate all his money to the cause and go fight himself and only then can he also argue for state war, and even then only if he is willing to face punishment after the war.)
They must welcome it if is the wish of the victims to exact it. They are free to ask for forgiveness however. (Something they wouldn’t recieve in the Jewish town scenario, but may in a more conventional scenario.)
That doesn’t mean they don’t think they’re less of a target than other countries.
I don’t follow this. Those three countries are quite different. And being obsessed with security doesn’t make nuclear resources magically appear.
I’m not sure how you could be sure there weren’t any countries that slacked off a little bit, especially so long ago, but yes the rest of that speaks to my point.
That doesn’t follow. In the first part you say “The only way for a libertarian to save the town is to volunteer.” Then in the very next sentence you say “libertarianism doesn’t say that he should volunteer and save the town”. So again, we’re left with the same conundrum I outlined. If no one volunteers, you’re either faced with disregarding the libertarian proportional punishment stance, or total annihilation…which you admit is anti-human and self defeating.
Why? Who said anything about self-sacrifice? Why does that have to be part of it? All Block said was you have to be willing to accept punishment.
Sounds like you’d also have to do the same for advocating a draft. Are you prepared to do that?
I said that: “provided the violator will be punished (or at least can have punishment exacted on him should the victim so choose).”
If you are saying they may believe something that is not reasonable for them to believe (that they are less likely to find themselves under attack when empirically it is just the opposite) then the burned of proof is on you.
Libertarianism offers a libertarian path for a person to save the town, it does not tell him to walk it.
Libertarianism can only make sure that libertarianism is not anti-human and self-defeating. It can not make sure humans will be such. If no one among the townspeople steps forward to save the town in a libertarian manner then how is that responsibility of libertarianism. Libertarianism did not stand between them, and their town being saved. Not in the absolute.
(Not that the town going gor the option that sees them annihalated is necessarily anti-human or self-defeating. If it is an act of purposeful defiance where the town refuses to be blackmailed in such a way then it is most certainly not, but that would just be adding a dimension that doesn’t contribute anything to the purpose of the conversation.)
I would think it goes without saying. Self-sacrifice does not involve coercion while making “unwilling martyrs” does. Obviously if you can save a theatre-full of people either by killing one person, or alternatively by petting a magical squirrel, then you should choose the latter course of action. (Or you can choose inaction, but if you choose the first action, then you are a straightforward murderer since it was not actually necessary to involve aggression on your part in order to save those people. (Albeit the theatre-full of people who would thus continue to live can naturally be happy that you did not choose inaction.))
Me? But I’m unenthusiastic about American entry into the war.
You tell me then. If they’re in so much real danger like you suggest, why is it they “don’t tremble”?
But it stood between someone and his freedom to live and defend himself. You can’t say libertarianism isn’t at least somewhat self-defeating while at the same time claiming the only way for someone to be a libertarian is to commit suicide.
Says who? Where does libertarianism say anything about “picking the ‘better’ option”? Again, all Block said was you have to be willing to accept punishment for whatever you do. This sounds like you’re either trying to make a utlilitarian or moral argument to support libertarianism, when the whole point was to try to saddle both untilitarian interests and deontological interests in situations where they were at odds.
You can’t claim “it’s okay to put utlitarian interests ahead of deontological ones, because we can still be logically consistent if we just say you’re willing to suffer the consequences” just so you can “eat our utilitarian cake, and keep our deontological cake, too”…and then come back and say “well, first you have to exhaust all non-coercive options, then it’s okay to violate NAP.”
You might as well just do like virtually everyone else does and just “feel it out” on a case by case basis and say “well in this case it’s ‘different’. That case over there, ABC was going on, so you shouldn’t have done X. But here X is okay because DEF.”
Which is exactly my point. Doesn’t that mean you should be advocating a draft and then happily accepting your punishment for doing so?
Because their governments are less interested in waging aggressive war and thus have less incentive to try to make them fearful. Security obsession manifest in America is largely an excuse to maintain the Empire.
Well it is not suicide when you are murdered by Nazis. Also defense would be jumping the Nazis, not a fellow sufferer.
That said, it hit me that if we imagine the town has a population of 2, then it is really just an example of A telling B to kill C, else A will kill B, and that is something that has long been covered. The stock answer is that libertarianism doesn’t really have any pronouncements to make on B killing C in these circumstances other than to say that murder is on A not B.
Actually you are right. That’s all Block says, but he only actually applies this when there is a utilitarian benefit. He doesn’t talk about kicking the crap out of a random old lady for the sake of it, then accepting punishment. That’s technically ‘legit’ too, but it’s not paired with maximum utilitarian benefit.
Yes it was a moral argument, why is that a problem?
You mean, I should be advocating a draft because it would serve to make US entrering into and starting wars less likely, or something? No, I wouldn’t do that.
You can’t really foresee all the effects of policy with effects as far reaching as conscription. It may help some at first, but it may also backfire dramatically somewhere along the way.
My opinion about this is that if you let aggressors such as Hitler divide and conquer, then you’ll lose. Only together the more peaceful nations can win. I’m not sure about U.S involvement, but Britain had to be involved in order to bear Hitler.
Okay you’re getting there…now why are their governments less interested in waging war…?
Well it’s technically suicide if you offer yourself up voluntarily for execution. And the defence I was talking about was against anyone who would aggress you…meaning the Nazis or your fellow townspeople. You said to remain a libertarian you had to offer yourself up to be killed. I’m saying you have a right to your life and to defend it.
So what. That changes nothing about what we’re talking about. Again the whole point of this line of reasoning is to establish “a further explication of libertarianism”…a view in which “libertarianism becomes a theory of punishment”…which is supposed to be “a more sophisticated and truer version of our philosophy”. (Perhaps you should more closely read the paper you recommended.) Again, according to Block’s punishment theory (which you introduced into the discussion and admitted you subscribed to) the man who commited the violation of NAP needs to be punished in the exact same way as he committed the violation…in this case death. This of course would take us back to square one…where virtually everyone ends up getting killed either at the hands of the Nazis for not doing what they are told, or at the hands of each other for violating NAP and accepting their punishment.
The only way you could get around this is if you argued that B is not responsible for his own actions because he was under duress. However, this again does not align with your own stated philopsophy, as in the very previous post you said: “Obviously if you can save a theatre-full of people either by killing one person, or alternatively by petting a magical squirrel, then you should choose the latter course of action”…You used this statement to support your claim that someone should volunteer himself to be sacrificed before forcing someone else into sacrifice…that “all non-coercive methods be exhausted before violating NAP” as it were.
So again, you need to pick something and stick with it because you’re moving the goal posts. Your conclusion about ABC does not align with everything you’ve stated previously.
How do you know? The best part of the paper was where he actually admitted its shortcomings:
“As David Gordon has pointed out to me, it makes something of the same mistake as does utilitarianism, when faced with the sadist. Do we take his utility into account? And if so, what about the utility monster who enjoys torturing people, we stipulate, more than the victims suffer from it. The response, “Well, we just don’t count such utility” cries out for the response, “Why ever not? What is the difference, based on your theory”? In similar manner, we may ask of the theory I am putting forth in the present paper, “Why punish, at all, the ‘perpetrator’ of the violation of the NAP who shoots the coke machine, or saves the would-be suicide, or kills a few innocent people so that the Martians will stay off our case? If this person is truly a hero, why punish him?” The response, “Because he violated the NAP” is not fully convincing, because, in this case it is good to violate the NAP.”
The only problem is he doesn’t offer any real answer to this. He just says [paraphrase] “well however bad this explication of the theory is, I still think it’s better than the older alternative.”
This was even more disappointing to me. He purports to be presenting “a more sophisticated and truer version of libertarianism”, and in the end he has little more logical backing for it than the statists and their “well in this case it’s different.” This is why I said it’s an interesting angle, but ultimately isn’t fully useful. If the whole point is to be logically consistent, and not just justify actions and aggressions based on how you “feel” about or judge different situations, then this whole line of reasoning helps almost nothing.
Because as I pointed out in the very sentence you quoted, the whole point was to try to saddle both untilitarian interests and deontological interests in situations where they were at odds. I explained this in the paragraph that follows as well. I’ll say it again: you can’t argue that you can remain logically consistent even if you put moral utlitarian interests ahead of deontological ones, on the grounds that you’re willing to suffer the deontological consequences of doing so…and then come back and make a moral utilitarian argument that you “should” do things in a certain way.
It’s either okay to violate NAP or it’s not. The whole reason Block’s explication is supposed to be superior is because he uses deontological reasoning to satisfy the violation of deontological violations. And you claim you agree with this. But then you come right back and argue that the deontological violations have to be done in a moral/utilitarian way, otherwise you’re not a proper libertarian. Which makes the whole argument fall apart. Again, you might as well just say “well xzy situation is ‘different’. So doing that was okay. But in abc situation…no, it wouldn’t be okay to do that.” Which basically gives you no stronger ground than the statists.
Then what the hell was the point of introducing the paper that advocates doing just that?
While it is intuitive, libertarianism doesn’t say that he should volunteer and save the town. The rabbi has no obligation to choose a course of action that will lead to less rights being violated by other people.
In the case nobody volunteered, yes. So what?
Yes sometimes bad things happen, what about it?
Why do you insist on some kind of clever solution? There isn’t one. There isn’t even a tolerable solution. I’m sorry that if no one volunteers punishment theory can not solve the Jewish Town scenario in a way that you would find acceptable, but it can’t.
Block doesn’t talk about what should happen if no one volunteers because libertarianism has nothing to say about that. Indeed libertarianism does not even claim someone should volunteer, there are no positive obligations and Block specifically prefaces the part about a rabbi volunteering by saying “In my view” which I take to mean he is not making a statement in the absolute. In case he is making such a statement regardless, he is wrong.
As you see I’m fine with it and not looking for ways to get around it.
There are three different scenarios here. In one there is only the component of saving yourself, or self-preservation (the ABC), in one there is only the component of saving others (the theatre), in one there are both components (the Jewish town).
I am not looking to apply something from ABC to the theatre or from theatre to ABC. However both ABC and theatre may be applied to their respective components of the Jewish town scenario.
Libertarianism has nothing to say about a person in the Jewish town scenario who forcefully hands over a fellow sufferer for execution to save himself. That is the lesson of ABC. Such a person, however, can not claim to be a saviour in the sense that the saviour-murderer from Fail Safe was (or the guy outside the theatre with magic squirrel in hand). In the Fail Safe scenario committing aggression was the only path avaliable for the protagonist in order to save folks, but in the Jewish town scenario there was another way of doing it.
So such a person, (just like the protagonist in the theatre scenario if he chooses to become a killer) can not hide behind punishment theory (not that that would bestow any practical benefits) to explain his actions. You yourself proved as much where you concluded “However, obviously, B cannot exist, as if there were anyone willing to accept execution as punishment for forcing A into execution, then he would simply volunteer himself to spare A and the rest of the town in the first place.”
You are right. What punishment theory does is provide a way for a libertarian to be immoral. I can’t make an objection on libertarian grounds when somebody uses this license to act immoraly in ways I don’t like. Where did I make such an objection?
Let’s track back the conversation:
J: All he says is that the highest Rabbi or someone else should volunteer himself to be the sacrifice, as it would save more lives…then Block moves on to another case. My mouth dropped at this.
M: Well since a would-be-saviour has the option to offer himself up as a sacrificial lamb, he can not make anyone else into a sacrificial lamb and not be a hypocrite. The only way for a libertarian to save the town is to volunteer.
J: Why? Who said anything about self-sacrifice? Why does that have to be part of it? All Block said was you have to be willing to accept punishment.
M: I would think it goes without saying. Self-sacrifice does not involve coercion while making “unwilling martyrs” does. Obviously if you can save a theatre-full of people either by killing one person, or alternatively by petting a magical squirrel, then you should choose the latter course of action.
J: Says who? Where does libertarianism say anything about “picking the ‘better’ option”? Again, all Block said was you have to be willing to accept punishment for whatever you do.
M: Actually you are right. That’s all Block says, but he only actually applies this when there is a utilitarian benefit. He doesn’t talk about kicking the crap out of a random old lady for the sake of it, then accepting punishment. That’s technically ‘legit’ too, but it’s not paired with maximum utilitarian benefit.
So I explicitly stated that kicking the crap out of a random old lady for the sake of it, then accepting punishment is legitimate libertarian behaviour. The conversation wasn’t about me claiming a libertarian can only make NAP violations that have some kind of good consequences, it was about you claiming Block chickens out, instead of saying as allegedly follows from what he is talking about that if nobody volunteers somebody should be forced, which is ridicilous because for starters in libertarianism there aren’t positive obligations and forcing someone involves action.
Libertarianism as punishment theory doesn’t say we should aspire to utilitarian benefit, but that we can (if only we are willing to suffer the cosequences, which will in no way be diminished than if we weren’t after ‘the greater good’).
My fault for not keeping in mind what the line of conversation was about thus ending up babbling, allow me a revision:
J: All he says is that the highest Rabbi or someone else should volunteer himself to be the sacrifice, as it would save more lives…then Block moves on to another case. My mouth dropped at this.
M: Since a would-be-saviour of the town has the option to save the town by offering up himself up as a sacrificial lamb, it follows that if a libertarian or anybody else were to claim the only reason they forced someone into the position of a sacrificial lamb was to save the town then they wold be stating something that is patently untrue. If a libertarian wants to save the town, then the only way for him to do it is to volunteer. Which does not mean that he should save the town or should want to save the town. He is also not a hypocrite if he forcefully hands over someone to the Nazis for the hell of it (conditioned on his acceptance of punishment), or to save himself.
Lets return to the theatre scenario. There is a theatre full of people, all of whom are in imminent mortal danger. There is a guy outside the theatre, the only person who can save them from certain death either by petting a magical squirrel sitting in his lap, or by killing an innocent doorman.
Lets say the guy outside kills the doorman, and later speaking to the police says either:
a.) “I killed the doorman to save the people inside the theatre.”
b.) “I took advantage of the situation to kill the doorman.”
Then which of the two statements is correct? Obviously b.) is correct because it was not actually necessary to kill the doorman to save the people in the theatre. When he says he killed the doorman to save people he is making stuff up.
Now lets apply this to the Jewish town scenario. A person can not say “I forcefully handed over this other person to the Nazis in order to save our town.” and be speaking the truth. He is making stuff up, he did it to save himself.
The theatre guy doesn’t have to pet the squirrel. He can do whatever he likes. However if he is about saving people in the theatre (rather than about something else), then there is only one thing he can do, not two of them. The same for somebody who wants to save the Jewish town by doing something by himself.