"kill Team"

[Johnny]

Stern-
Your arguments for anarchy are compelling however they'd be more compelling if anarchy wouldn't devolve into what we have today or worse. I'll admit the government is inefficient and is full of problems. However I don't truly believe an anarchist society could maintain itself without devolving into tribal warfare and well anarchy in the more common sense of the word.

There's plenty of violence in the world, and there needs to be a force of good people to protect the masses. I know you claim you can protect yourself better than the cops or whatever and maybe that's true but there are thousands of innocent people in the world who can't protect themselves. The lame, elderly, children, mentally ill, etc need the protection of society and a well prepared individualist such as yourself is not equipped to protect the whole of society. Violence is a fact of life which is unfortunate however it doesn't negate the need for a police force. If the good people of the world sit around concern themselves only with themselves then the world will be left to the murderers, rapists, and criminals.

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Johnny' timestamp='1284426118' post='2172819']
Stern-
Your arguments for anarchy are compelling however they'd be more compelling if anarchy wouldn't devolve into what we have today or worse. I'll admit the government is inefficient and is full of problems. However I don't truly believe an anarchist society could maintain itself without devolving into tribal warfare and well anarchy in the more common sense of the word.[/quote]

I am arguing for anarchy/voluntaryism because it is immoral to take money from non-aggressors at gunpoint. You are arguing against it for utilitarian and hypothetical reasons.

[quote]
There's plenty of violence in the world, and there needs to be a force of good people to protect the masses. I know you claim you can protect yourself better than the cops or whatever and maybe that's true but there are thousands of innocent people in the world who can't protect themselves.[/quote]

And many of those people, such as the people in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, [i]died[/i] because they had the inculcated mindset: "I don't have to protect myself. The [i]government[/i] will protect me." They don't take measures to protect themselves or help themselves because they think they don't [i]have [/i]to. How many people screamed out their last while on the phone with 9-1-1, while counting on the State police and its 7 minute national average response time to come save them from the violent invaders who kicked in their doors? Thousands upon thousands. Without the shielding umbrella of a coercively-funded State, people would be forced to protect themselves. If they can't protect themselves from gangs of individuals, then they certainly can't protect them from the State ,and it is only the State with such a proven record of destruction, and only the State with the [i]capacity[/i] for such slaughter, because it rests on public support. No neighborhood, in a world without State-funded cops, is going to let a bunch of thugs terrorize them. They will band together and do what needs to be done for mutual support, voluntarily.

[quote] The lame, elderly, children, mentally ill, etc need the protection of society and a well prepared individualist such as yourself is not equipped to protect the whole of society.[/quote]

Exactly: they need the protection of a [i]society.[/i] A society is a group of people acting in mutually-beneficial, free-will exchanges. Taking money from others at gunpoint is not "social behavior." A society that cannot come up with a moral, voluntary means to protect the weakest and most vulnerable in that society is a society that does not deserve to continue in existence. Americans survived and thrived for over 150 years without an income tax, State education, State welfare, Federal roads, CPS, and for much of that time, without State police.

Is your solution to poverty the State (coercively-funded) solution? "Great Society?" Welfare? Food stamps? Section 8? It has failed. Or is your solution the effective, voluntary one, based on love of neighbor, the Church, charities, who actually care about the people to whom they give support? I know I'd give a lot more to charities if the State weren't taking over 40% of my income in all sorts of taxes and "registration fees." Are humans such scumbags that poor and crippled people would starve to death unless money was taken from the members of society? Then your society is doomed to failure anyway, and will crumble from the bottom up, State or no State, but especially if it has a State.

[quote]Violence is a fact of life which is unfortunate however it doesn't negate the need for a police force. If the good people of the world sit around concern themselves only with themselves then the world will be left to the murderers, rapists, and criminals.[/quote]

I never denied the need for a group of armed men who are paid to stop murderers, rapists, robbers, and other [i]real[/i] criminals. San Francisco has a group which is voluntarily funded by private individuals and shopkeepers. The people love them, while they usually aren't the biggest fans of the San Francisco P.D.

~Sternhauser

Edited September 14, 2010 by Sternhauser

[Chi Zhuzi]

[quote name='Sternhauser' timestamp='1284417899' post='2172760']
Were you on the Missouri or the Wisconsin?
[/quote]

BB64. The USS Wisconsin.

Some of what you say is true about the history conscription into the military throughout the world. But Napoleon also stated that poverty and want were the best schools for a soldier. And Napoleon was no fool, he marched men barefoot for miles, into victory, early in the Republics history. Napoleon also too medals off his own chest and placed them upon the chest of a "nobody" French soldier in the Grand Army. He knew how to inspire his men.

And it's true many people join the military for college money. That's not really true for those that enlist in the Marine Corps or double volunteer in the U.S. Army for units like the Rangers or the Army's excellent Mountain Battalion.

Of course motivation can be for adventure, status, personal trial, or a number of other reasons.

Just causes are great. And I'm familiar with the Just War Doctrine.

But, in my mind, sometimes the honor is not contingent on a just cause, but just showing up on game day.

Of course, governments can use it's "expendable" citizens as pawns, treating or making nothing but geniuses out of them. In a certain sense this is what happens in most U.S. wars. The small nation of Vietnam that was no threat to the United States is a perfect example. Arguably so was Iraq. In the case of the former we were intent for economic reasons, to subdue Vietnam for the neo-colonial interest for Japan. In the latter case oil and civilian military contracts seem to have been large motivators.

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Chi Zhuzi' timestamp='1284512892' post='2173288']
Just causes are great. And I'm familiar with the Just War Doctrine.

But, in my mind, sometimes the honor is not contingent on a just cause, but just showing up on game day.[/quote]

Someone who fights for an unjust cause is unjustified in fighting, and hence, his showing up on "game day" is not honorable.

What is worse, but probably not applicable to you, is that having such a mindset might indicate the gravely immoral desire to fight for the sake of fighting. I'm sure we've both known people who want to get in fights just to fight, or for the excitement. It is gravely wrong to entertain such desires.

~Sternhauser

Edited September 15, 2010 by Sternhauser

[Fragments]

I just wanted to say, I don't feel I have enough debating skills to take part in this debate but I am finding the attitudes clashes that occur at times very interesting to read. Good discussion has come from this.

+1

[Ed Normile]

First, God bless the men and women heroes who serve in all branches of the U.S. Armed forces as well as those selfless citizens who serve in our police force. Secondly, the argument proffered here by Stern is exactly the same argument used by those who condemn the whole Church by the actions of a miniscule amount of those in charge in the Church. You can not condemn a whole organization by the actions of the few bad apples who are in the barrel with the overwhelming majority of good specimens who are mixed with them. I really get sick of this type of argument, some bad cops steal drug monies or beat some detainee and the whole of the police force is bad, a group of soldiers does something wrong so the whole military is at fault, some priests are defiling their vow of celibacy so the whole church is the culprit, this is juvenile and beneath those who post it.

Along these lines, why not accuse the apostles of being bad as fully one twelfth of their numbers handed over Jesus, for that matter Jesus must be guilty of something, just look at all the bad that has been done in his name throughout history and Jesus being God must have known this would happen, give me a break kiddies. What really surprises me is that most of these who state things like this are the first to say we can not condemn all illegal aliens as its only a few who commit crimes, silly me, I thought that coming into a country illegally was a crime in and of itself.

ed

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Ed Normile' timestamp='1285219168' post='2175427']
First, God bless the men and women heroes who serve in all branches of the U.S. Armed forces as well as those selfless citizens who serve in our police force.[/quote]

They don't serve me, or my neighbors. The squeegee guy on the corner doesn't serve me when he slaps a grimy, grit-encrusted squeegee onto my windshield and scrapes it across, giving me a "service." But then,[i] [/i]he doesn't threaten to kill me if ignore him or refuse to pay him for his "services."

That is not applicable to the hornet-nest kickers, whether they are 4 miles away, or 4,000 miles away.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to use sarcasm in this post, Ed. Please don't take it personally. The Emperor needs to be laughed at, because he's not wearing any clothes, and the majority act as though he's a very noble and regal fellow indeed, which would be even more laughable, if their attitudes didn't have such a dangerous effect. It encourages them.

So yes, Ed, thank goodness for those Statepolice keeping a keen eye on expired $25 emissions stickers, (you know, the ones you have to buy from the State, or else) while one factory belches out more pollutants in a minute than your car will in its lifetime. So grateful. They can also show up 30 seconds after one calls them to stop a 3 AM home invader from trepanning one's skull with an ice axe, did you know that? They defy the laws of physics, those protector heroes. Oh, wait. The average national Statepolice response time is 7 minutes. But despite that, I know [i]I[/i] breathe a huge sigh of relief, and think, "[i]Thank goodness! [/i]Another rapist/murderer off the street," whenever I see someone pulled over, and a cop writing him a $120 ticket for "excessive tinting." Doesn't everyone feel the same sense of relief? You'd have to be crazy not to!


[quote]You can not condemn a whole organization by the actions of the few bad apples who are in the barrel with the overwhelming majority of good specimens who are mixed with them.[/quote]
Chlorine is a good, and a necessary chemical. Ammonia is a good, and a necessary chemical. Mixing them together forms lethal chlorine gas.

Men who do violence to protect others are a necessary thing. Paying men who do violence to protect others is a necessary thing. Paying them by taking money at gunpoint creates a milieu in which they are not readily held accountable for their actions. As I stated early on, if this were about "a few bad apples," "rogue officers," etc., you wouldn't see 100 "bad apples" laughing about a woman nearly getting killed by a rubber baton round in the face. You would have seen the savage biped with a stick in the video, who tried to crush that lady's trachea, dragged to the ground and cuffed by all the allegedly "good apples" who were all about him. They stood there and watched. They're all in the same barrel. And the barrel itself is a major contributing factor to the rottenness of the apples within. One cannot rationally make any such argument about the institution of the Church. Or carpenters. Or plumbers. Or taxi drivers. Or grocers. Or farmers. Or miners. Or . . .

Congress is populated with felons, people convicted of multiple DUIs, serial adulterers and bribe-takers. But it's not the power, the ego-stroking environment, or the throngs of special interest groups plying them with bribes, that attract a certain kind of person (most of them) to the political realm in the first place. The kids you knew in high school playing the school president popularity contest game were selfless, and were all about serving the needs of the students. That's why they went on to be politicians. It's not the ubiquitous gaggle of women wanting to sleep with politicians, who take them up on their desire "because I could," as Bill Clinton put it, that causes the political realm to be saturated in infidelity. Because that's not what happens in politics to any exponentially greater degree. It's not a pervasive culture of sin and degradation that infests the political structures to the core, due to the presence of the artificially-concentrated [i]power[/i], [i]pride of life, [/i]and [i]libido dominandi, [/i]the lust to rule, as St. Augustine says, that [i]drives[/i] "the City of Man." There are just a few "bad apples" here and there. That's all. Congress does a great job. Without the firm guidance of those moral Solons, we'd turn into a country of bloodthirsty animals.


[quote]I really get sick of this type of argument, some bad cops steal drug monies or beat some detainee and the whole of the police force is bad, a group of soldiers does something wrong so the whole military is at fault, some priests are defiling their vow of celibacy so the whole church is the culprit, this is juvenile and beneath those who post it.[/quote]
What happens when two ordinarily decent, socialized dogs meet each other, Ed? They sniff each other, and they wag their tails. One dog may exhibit submissive behavior because the other is physically or otherwise more dominant, but usually, there isn't any aggression between the two, even on the part of the dominant dog. It's a purely natural arrangement. Do you know what happens when those same two dogs get their leashes tangled? They often go [i]ballistic[/i]. They attack each other savagely. Why is that? Because it is [i]unnatural[/i] for them to be mixed up like that, for the two things to be entwined together. Getting paid by tax money taken by threat of violence, and having a "moral" monopoly on certain types of violent acts that would be morally wrong for any [i]other[/i] individuals to commit is [i]not[/i] a natural situation. Immoral violence is the predictable result of that unnatural situation. Do you want to know why Statepolice violence isn't more widespread? Because the majority of the would-be beating and shooting victims [i]back down. [/i]They turn [i]submissive[/i] before the unjust aggressor trying to assert his dominance, his "alpha dog" status. They roll over, tuck tail and wet themselves. "No, sir, I didn't mean any offense, sir." Statepolice often go [i]ballistic[/i] at the first sign of "disrespect" or non-cooperation. You can watch it in a hundred police videos, read about it in a thousand articles. But you still won't get it, Ed.


[quote]Along these lines, why not accuse the apostles of being bad as fully one twelfth of their numbers handed over Jesus, for that matter Jesus must be guilty of something, just look at all the bad that has been done in his name throughout history and Jesus being God must have known this would happen, give me a break kiddies.[/quote]
Not a logical comparison, as I've pointed out above, but worth some fun. Let me point out that the other disciples did not put Judas on paid leave pending investigation of "any potential misconduct," whereupon no wrongdoing was found on the part of any disciple actor. Nor was the compliant Jesus found guilty of "resisting arrest" and "assault on a police officer." Jesus was, however, an innocent man who was mocked, beaten to a pulp, and executed by State actors. Some things never change.


[quote]What really surprises me is that most of these who state things like this are the first to say we can not condemn all illegal aliens as its only a few who commit crimes, silly me, I thought that coming into a country illegally was a crime in and of itself.
[/quote]
I'd say that the "illegal" and "legal" immigrants commit the vast majority of the crimes in my area, judging by Statepolice reports.

However, crossing a political border is an act that, in and of itself, harms absolutely no one. Hence, in and of itself, it is not a crime. Unless you would have considered breaking the Fugitive Slave Act a "crime," too.

I don't believe that it is moral to tackle someone who harmlessly crosses an artificial and imaginary line, and I don't believe it is moral to kill him if he resists your tackling him, because sometime in the future, he may commit a real crime. Violent people should be imprisoned, and if necessary, shot, to prevent them from causing harm to other people.

~Sternhauser

Edited September 23, 2010 by Sternhauser

[Ed Normile]

No problem about the sarcasm Stern, I truly like my exchanges with you, your posts are intelligent and well written even when I do not agree with you, but above all you are polite. They (servicemen and police) actually do serve you by allowing you the freedoms you enjoy such as complaining about your government publicly, try that in Iran or China or N. Korea and we will never hear from you again.

Crossing an imaginary? line, these lines are not imaginary, they were purchased with the blood of those who came before us, and unfortunately it does hurt many people, even those who do not think it does. Think of unemployment numbers, people who can not compete with those who will work for half as much as an AMERICAN CITIZEN WHO IS FORCED TO PAY TAXES HERE, workers here in the constrcution industry and the agricultural industry can not feed a family and pay taxes and rent and keep their family healthy on the wages an illegal who works for less than half an American taxpayer needs to survive, even landscapers suffer from these illegal workers. Of course when they can not get a job they have to rely on unemployment monies which further strain the economy and eventually gets pulled from the failed social security system, monies we are being robbed of and many need to survive their less productive years, but hey, at least with health care we will be getting rid of many of the old timers so their money may get back into the pool, well about 40% of it when they reinstate the death tax this fall, talk about your trickle down economics.

ed

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Ed Normile' timestamp='1285561268' post='2176182']
No problem about the sarcasm Stern, I truly like my exchanges with you, your posts are intelligent and well written even when I do not agree with you, but above all you are polite. They (servicemen and police) actually do serve you by allowing you the freedoms you enjoy such as complaining about your government publicly, try that in Iran or China or N. Korea and we will never hear from you again.[/quote]

Ed, my right/ability to complain about the government comes from the government's soldiers not killing me for doing so? That's circular logic, Ed.

[quote]Crossing an imaginary? line, these lines are not imaginary, they were purchased with the blood of those who came before us, and unfortunately it does hurt many people, even those who do not think it does.[/quote]

The aetherial lines were purchased with blood? No such transaction took place. The lines were drawn on a map, not in the earth, after that land was appropriated during the abominable collection of crimes that was the Mexican-American War.

Crossing a line on a map does not in and of itself, hurt anyone. That is incontrovertible. If I draw a line in the sand, and you cross it, you've harmed no one by doing so.

[quote]Think of unemployment numbers, people who can not compete with those who will work for half as much as an AMERICAN CITIZEN WHO IS FORCED TO PAY TAXES HERE,[/quote]

I've heard all this before from the mainstream press KKK in the 1880s, Ed. The [i]same[/i] exact arguments, not a whit of difference. All the crimes those baboon-visaged Irish were committing! How the Irish, the Italians, the Bohemians, and the Chinese were stealing all the jobs, leaving the red-blooded [i]American[/i] people unemployed. They were almost as bad as the recently-freed slaves! Why, those Chinese were taking all the railroad-building jobs! [i]Stealing[/i] them! Then they got a monopoly on the laundry business! Only using violence to stop them could possibly stem the dread threat of cheap labor! Employment protectionism will save us from the foreign menace!

[img]http://www.mark-carlile.com/c0df4690.jpg[/img]
[img]http://immigration.procon.org/files/immigration%20images/1860-1869%20the%20great%20fear%20of%20the%20period%20that%20uncle%20sam%20may%20be%20swallowed%20by%20foreigners.jpg[/img]



Just look at what unfettered Irish immigration represented to the economically-learned men back in the 1880s!

[img]http://open.salon.com/files/irish_racism1247788719.gif[/img]

The public was economically ignorant then, and they're economically ignorant now. During that unchecked flood of immigration into America, you do realize that the standard of living increased at a rate of 11% per year during the peak years? A rapid influx of immigration does cause a [i]temporary [/i]reduction in wages, Ed, but it does not cause unemployment or poverty in any long term scheme. State intervention in an economy causes unemployment and poverty. [i]People[/i] and their [i]productive labor [/i]only [i]increases[/i] overall wealth in an economy. You'd think that Cuba would be one of the richest places on earth, considering that hardly anyone immigrates to live under that State. Total job security. Only Cubans working there. It's not a wealthy place, and that's because the Cuban State (and the United State) and their economic interventionism is destroying the economy, just as the State is doing here.

And you must realize you're arguing with an anarchist when you're saying that "it's not fair" that [i]those[/i] people don't get taxed? That's the logical equivalent of saying that José should be beaten with a stick, because it wouldn't be fair if only [i]Andy[/i] got beaten with a stick.

[quote]workers here in the constrcution industry and the agricultural industry can not feed a family and pay taxes and rent and keep their family healthy on the wages an illegal who works for less than half an American taxpayer needs to survive, even landscapers suffer from these illegal workers. Of course when they can not get a job they have to rely on unemployment monies which further strain the economy and eventually gets pulled from the failed social security system, monies we are being robbed of and many need to survive their less productive years, but hey, at least with health care we will be getting rid of many of the old timers so their money may get back into the pool, well about 40% of it when they reinstate the death tax this fall, talk about your trickle down economics.[/quote]

Ed, let's say that the Federal State is throwing a party. They take your money, and they fill many piñatas -- no: a[i] plethora [/i]of piñatas, with [i]your[/i] money. The people with the sticks hit the piñatas, scattering your money all around. But you're not engraged at the people who just took your money at gunpoint to stuff into piñatas: no, you're[i] [/i]enraged at the people who flock in and scrabble to get the money that was stolen from you after it falls out of the piñata. You're not upset that thugs are stealing your money and using it to fill a trough, you're upset that people are eating out of the trough. I've got a lot of problems with that kind of logic, Ed.

~Sternhauser

Edited September 28, 2010 by Sternhauser