libertarians and nukes?

[Zavoi]

Deterrence is a defense, right?

Yes, but MAD as self-defense isn't legitimate, in that it involves the threat of force against innocent third parties who happen to be in the geographical vicinity of your enemy.

 

[Mini-Me]

The myriad of reasons one might hold, and the value placed upon a nuke are subjective and cannot be quantified. Of course if there is no victim there is no crime. If my nuke sits in its bunker for twenty years idle, where is the victim, where is the crime? The only "crime" could be that you and the King prohibit me from having one. The crime is therefore you and the king infringing upon my rights as a human being. Congratulations, your argument is the well honed argument of the state, designed to opress and regurgitated with minor variations throughout human history.

If a private individual possesses a nuclear weapon, their mere possession of it would constitute a clear and perhaps imminent threat of violence. When someone is pointing a gun at you, the threat is dire enough that you are justified using force to disarm him or to even eliminate the threat entirely. Even if the gun isn't loaded or they're just joking, you have no way of knowing that, and you're within your rights to defend yourself from the threat.* When a nuke is just sitting in your bunker, you're basically pointing a gun at an entire city of people, and therefore, they have the right to defend themselves from the threat. After all, there is no legitimate "defensive" use for a nuke. You cannot defend your home with it, you cannot defend your city with it, etc. If some crazy old man goes through the trouble of obtaining a nuke, he's almost certainly planning on using it. Even if he's just an "eccentric collector," nobody else knows for sure that he's not an eccentric collector who is seconds away from vaporizing a city - you don't store a nuke for "benign" reasons for the same reason you don't point a gun at somebody for "benign" reasons: People will take you seriously and do what they must to survive, and they are well within their rights to respond seriously to threats that are too late to address once they're carried through.

*By the way, this is completely different from preemptive war between nations based on threats of violence. On the level of wars between nations, you will still have time to defend yourself afterwards if another country attacks you. On the personal level, though - when someone's pointing a gun at you or arming a nuke next-door - your only chance for action is before they "pull the trigger."

Also, thanks to NickCoons for helping me with this argument a couple weeks back.

Yes, but MAD as self-defense isn't legitimate, in that it involves the threat of force against innocent third parties who happen to be in the geographical vicinity of your enemy.

Yup.

 

[Mini-Me]

No one has said anything about the government being more responsible about nukes, at least I have not, its not about that.

I have nothing against anarchism really, I'm just trying to be practical here. Its easy to speak hypothetically on this forum that, "oh it'd just work out and nothing would happen", but in real life no one in good conscious could take this very seriously. I said in an earlier post, that when making the transition to a more libertarian society all nukes would have to be destroyed. What if some statist screwball decided to just hold on to a nuke as part of his weapons collection, then a year later decide to hold an entire city ransom with it?

You don't think voluntary communities would unanimously opt to destroy any nuclear weapons no matter who owned them in their area?

We can say all we like about how the government is horrible, inefficient, and even tyrannical, but there's no doubting they're better custodians of nuclear weapons than, say...the Columbine shooters would have been (or anyone else who's life goal is to take as many people with them as possible...which is the kind of private individual who is by far the most likely to seek out nuclear weapons).

BTW, I noticed that Zavoi made comments a few pages back about the legitimacy of responding to the threat of force, and they were very similar to my previous post...so, consider my post a "me too."

 

[NMCB3]

And you have no right to put a gun to my head, and squeal that you'll be really careful not to pull the trigger.

Oh shucks, if only I was as principled as you.

I`m not putting a gun to your head with my idle nuke any more than I`m putting a gun to your head with my cannon. Besides your the only one squealing here, squealing because I`m not doing what you believe I should do, not living my life according to your rules What would be next in our hypothetical scenario? Would you get together with your tyrannical friends and force me to comply with your demands? Are you the state?

 

[NMCB3]

If a private individual possesses a nuclear weapon, their mere possession of it would constitute a clear and perhaps imminent threat of violence. When someone is pointing a gun at you, the threat is dire enough that you are justified using force to disarm him or to even eliminate the threat entirely. Even if the gun isn't loaded or they're just joking, you have no way of knowing that, and you're within your rights to defend yourself from the threat.* When a nuke is just sitting in your bunker, you're basically pointing a gun at an entire city of people, and therefore, they have the right to defend themselves from the threat.

No I`m not "basically" pointing a gun at you any more than I`m pointing a gun at you driving around in my armored personnel carrier. If you aggressed against me and my nuke I would be well within my right to defend myself from you the aggressor in this case.

After all, there is no legitimate "defensive" use for a nuke. You cannot defend your home with it, you cannot defend your city with it, etc.

What you think is the proper use for my property is irrelevant.

If some crazy old man goes through the trouble of obtaining a nuke, he's almost certainly planning on using it. Even if he's just an "eccentric collector," nobody else knows for sure that he's not an eccentric collector who is seconds away from vaporizing a city - you don't store a nuke for "benign" reasons for the same reason you don't point a gun at somebody for "benign" reasons: People will take you seriously and do what they must to survive, and they are well within their rights to respond seriously to threats that are too late to address once they're carried through.

This sounds a lot like the Salem witch burnings, they believed that certain people were a threat and killed them. Those innocent people had aggressed against no one.

*By the way, this is completely different from preemptive war between nations based on threats of violence. On the level of wars between nations, you will still have time to defend yourself afterwords if another country attacks you. On the personal level, though - when someone's pointing a gun at you or arming a nuke next-door - your only chance for action is before they "pull the trigger."

What you are describing is exactly the doctrine of preemptive war. You assume I`m a threat so you justify in your own mind initiating violence against me, just like the people in Salem. Because of your fear, you toss the non-aggression axiom and therefore libertarianism out the window. Congratulations, you have just destroyed the free society. You and your murdering friends can now assume the role of the State, our little expirement in freedom is over.

 

[Matt Collins]

Yes, but MAD as self-defense isn't legitimate, in that it involves the threat of force against innocent third parties who happen to be in the geographical vicinity of your enemy.

Collateral damage?

 

[Andrew-Austin]

I`m not putting a gun to your head with my idle nuke any more than I`m putting a gun to your head with my cannon. Besides your the only one squealing here, squealing because I`m not doing what you believe I should do, not living my life according to your rules What would be next in our hypothetical scenario? Would you get together with your tyrannical friends and force me to comply with your demands? Are you the state?

Your just being a Mr. abstract hypothetical turd now, and its not making for a very interesting convo.

If we lived in anarchy, and I tried to convince you as politely as I could to destroy your collection of nukes, you would in fact do so.