I know that you're opposed to military action against ISIS, but do you really view military action against this group as being exactly the same as say invading Iraq and removing Saddam Hussein from power in 2003? Or do you at least see a difference?
Rand Paul op-ed: ‘I Am Not an Isolationist’
- Thread starter Dianne
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I know that you're opposed to military action against ISIS, but do you really view military action against this group as being exactly the same as say invading Iraq and removing Saddam Hussein from power in 2003? Or do you at least see a difference?
CaptUSA
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Yeah, I get that. Do you see another potential candidate that is putting more restrictions on intervention than Rand?
cajuncocoa
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This again. Rand doesn't have to be good. He just has to be marginally better than all other candidates. Got it.
cajuncocoa
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It might even be worse. And it's still none of our business.
ProIndividual
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All this interventionist/non-interventionist stuff is a pure manifestation of the state's existence. Without it, those for war would have to fund it entirely and convince troops to join THAT WAR voluntarily (not just join the armed forces under the false pretenses of defense, only to be ordered on the threat of lost benefits or jail to fight in wars of initiated aggression), and could not rely on the half against the war to be forced into subsidizing the war, and could not rely on threats to staff the positions needed to carry out the war.
If all funding and troops for the war were derived strictly via voluntary means, then the morality of the war is largely quantified and knowable. It doesn't boil down to trying to get minarchists to think logically (which may happen over a period of years of self-reflection, but not in a debate, because minarchy is based on an illogical premise, and them expecting a long term logical result is magic fairy land stuff).
Want a justified war? Then drum up donations. If you whine about being extorted (taxed) already, then push for them to be tax-deductible donations (and of course, that means to NOT incentivize war via moral hazard, ALL donations to private institutions for anything the state currently does would also need to be simultaneously made tax-deductible).
Want a justified war? Start PERSUADING people to give up their lives for your cause.
Here are the two horrible arguments against this ethical means to derive funding and manpower:
1. The people are cheap and wouldn't pay unless threatened with rape cages and property seizure (the pro-taxation argument).
2. The troops are cowards and won't join a particular war; they only join the military voluntarily and then we have to order their cowardly asses into individual actions.
Both are shit arguments because...
1. We give more total dollars of our own free wills to charities (let alone for-profit businesses) than any other people on Earth. If they refuse to give that doesn't make them cowards...it means your shitty case for war wasn't good enough to morally justify funding it to them.
2. No war that was truly justified and not partly started by us for non-defensive reasons has EVER wanted for volunteers. See recruitment for the militias via Thomas Paine's Common Sense (and well before it) in the Revolution, and the 9-12-01 recruitment spike. We never lost a war in our period without a standing army (although that's a separate debate, I thought I'd mention it), AND we only needed drafts for wars that were not sold to the people well enough (or could not be sold well enough because they were IMMORAL AS FUCK).
Until all funding and staffing of troops is done purely voluntarily, it's anyone's guess as to what wars are ethical...and it's likely few if any. If you can't convince people they need to do something for their own defense, then it's just your opinion with a government gun backing it (to extract funding and staffing of troops for your opinion).
And enough of this conflating terrorism with war bullshit...
Terrorism is as likely to kill you as an American citizen as your bathtub (actually the bathtub kills you more often on average). How fucking afraid are you to die in your bathtub? The proportion of fear related to other risks is how we determine rational vs irrational fear. If you are more afraid of terrorism by a large number than dying in your bathtub, you are being IRRATIONAL. Stop using your irrational cowardice to justify wars. You, as an average American, should be far more afraid of being shot by a cop than killed by a terrorist....and yet I have to read people on this forum blow Rand while cradling his balls and saying "but ISIS is an imminent threat".
Not if we stop provoking them. And if they end up being such a threat later, then deal with it accordingly. But the idea you can EVER justify a war without funding it and staffing it PURELY voluntarily is nonsense. There is no way to quantify it when coercion is the source of troops and funding. There is no way to argue how threatened you feel by ISIS while simultaneously having little or no fear of things that are much greater threats to you or that are nearly equal threats. You guys need to get your fear to rational levels (fear proportionate to relative risks). You should be far more afraid of cops, house fires, cars, medical mistakes, etc. than terrorists. ESPECIALLY terrorists who didn't start killing Americans until we started bombing them. ESPECIALLY when the Americans they killed KNEW they were in a war zone. The first one killed was a prisoner in Libya BEFORE this! He fucking knew the risks...so just stop the nonsense.
This is why all republics (and to faster extent, democracies) FAIL. You can't get logical results long term from an illogical premise. Majority opinion is NOT the same as consumer preference (people answer polls one way, and then reverse it when they are asked to PAY for that which they just "supported" rhetorically). Majority opinion is an informal logical fallacy. The idea we can vote our way out of the eventual collapse of Rome 2.0 is crazy talk. The voting mechanisms make it so the BEST you can ever hope for is a Rand-type...we'll never get what is moral or just like that. Our movement will be co-opted one election at a time until Ted Cruz and Rand Paul are themselves incrementally cornered and seen as "too extreme" on libertarian points. Trying to appeal to the majority will always lead to incremental neutering of any liberty movement. It turned classical liberals into anti-free market, pro-huge state modern liberals over a period of less than 2 centuries. It turned Barry Goldwater conservatism into neoconservatism in less than 50 years (just as Goldwater said would happen). It WILL turn libertarianism into little more than paleoconservativism (pro-protectionism, anti-free market, anti-immigration, pro-labor market protectionism, pro-tariff/indirect taxation, anti-elimination of tax, etc.).
Winning elections IS NOT how generational changes occur. It's at best a symptom of an already occurred change. To change this country, and the world, we need to first change minds. If we focused on using elections to change minds instead of actually winning (like Ron did), then we'd be fine. The problem is, we focus on winning to the detriment of the message and changing minds (Rand). That leads to people who feel lied to when they believed our politicians, and it leads to NOT changing their minds. They come to reject our FAKE message as lies, and never accept our REAL message because we squander the opportunity to let them hear it.
We need to be lighting "brushfires in the minds of men", not winning elections for short term gain that isn't going to be sustainable, and as sophists who fit in with all the other sophists (just with slightly modified positions).
Fuck majority opinion. The first thing I do when the majority agrees with me is review all my premises and logic to make sure I'm not wrong...because the majority agreeing with you is usually the first sign you are fucking totally wrong. You want change? It won't come through the implicit violence of the ballot box. It will come before that, via changing minds. The wins in elections should ONLY be happy accidents showing the people are ready for RADICAL change...not watered-down, won't make a major difference, change. If you don't convince them of the need for radical change, and instead run elections to win them no matter how much you have to bend to the whims of the violent, fickle, and stupid mob, then OF COURSE you will incrementally destroy your own cause. They need truth to convince them, and that means we need to run on truth, not run on really trying to win as our first goal. Sure, we won't win elections for a while, but when we finally do, America will be begging for radical change. The Rand approach is just a logical long term disaster (and that assumes he's being a sophist and just hiding true libertarian opinions...which I have come to doubt).
Brushfires in the minds of men can only stay lit when truth is their fuel. They burn out quickly and consume the fire-starter when the combustible is little more than pandering and compromise of principles (as opposed to coalitions ON individual principles). Don't be surprised if you get burnt by your nationalism, statism, and sophistry.
If all funding and troops for the war were derived strictly via voluntary means, then the morality of the war is largely quantified and knowable. It doesn't boil down to trying to get minarchists to think logically (which may happen over a period of years of self-reflection, but not in a debate, because minarchy is based on an illogical premise, and them expecting a long term logical result is magic fairy land stuff).
Want a justified war? Then drum up donations. If you whine about being extorted (taxed) already, then push for them to be tax-deductible donations (and of course, that means to NOT incentivize war via moral hazard, ALL donations to private institutions for anything the state currently does would also need to be simultaneously made tax-deductible).
Want a justified war? Start PERSUADING people to give up their lives for your cause.
Here are the two horrible arguments against this ethical means to derive funding and manpower:
1. The people are cheap and wouldn't pay unless threatened with rape cages and property seizure (the pro-taxation argument).
2. The troops are cowards and won't join a particular war; they only join the military voluntarily and then we have to order their cowardly asses into individual actions.
Both are shit arguments because...
1. We give more total dollars of our own free wills to charities (let alone for-profit businesses) than any other people on Earth. If they refuse to give that doesn't make them cowards...it means your shitty case for war wasn't good enough to morally justify funding it to them.
2. No war that was truly justified and not partly started by us for non-defensive reasons has EVER wanted for volunteers. See recruitment for the militias via Thomas Paine's Common Sense (and well before it) in the Revolution, and the 9-12-01 recruitment spike. We never lost a war in our period without a standing army (although that's a separate debate, I thought I'd mention it), AND we only needed drafts for wars that were not sold to the people well enough (or could not be sold well enough because they were IMMORAL AS FUCK).
Until all funding and staffing of troops is done purely voluntarily, it's anyone's guess as to what wars are ethical...and it's likely few if any. If you can't convince people they need to do something for their own defense, then it's just your opinion with a government gun backing it (to extract funding and staffing of troops for your opinion).
And enough of this conflating terrorism with war bullshit...
Terrorism is as likely to kill you as an American citizen as your bathtub (actually the bathtub kills you more often on average). How fucking afraid are you to die in your bathtub? The proportion of fear related to other risks is how we determine rational vs irrational fear. If you are more afraid of terrorism by a large number than dying in your bathtub, you are being IRRATIONAL. Stop using your irrational cowardice to justify wars. You, as an average American, should be far more afraid of being shot by a cop than killed by a terrorist....and yet I have to read people on this forum blow Rand while cradling his balls and saying "but ISIS is an imminent threat".
Not if we stop provoking them. And if they end up being such a threat later, then deal with it accordingly. But the idea you can EVER justify a war without funding it and staffing it PURELY voluntarily is nonsense. There is no way to quantify it when coercion is the source of troops and funding. There is no way to argue how threatened you feel by ISIS while simultaneously having little or no fear of things that are much greater threats to you or that are nearly equal threats. You guys need to get your fear to rational levels (fear proportionate to relative risks). You should be far more afraid of cops, house fires, cars, medical mistakes, etc. than terrorists. ESPECIALLY terrorists who didn't start killing Americans until we started bombing them. ESPECIALLY when the Americans they killed KNEW they were in a war zone. The first one killed was a prisoner in Libya BEFORE this! He fucking knew the risks...so just stop the nonsense.
This is why all republics (and to faster extent, democracies) FAIL. You can't get logical results long term from an illogical premise. Majority opinion is NOT the same as consumer preference (people answer polls one way, and then reverse it when they are asked to PAY for that which they just "supported" rhetorically). Majority opinion is an informal logical fallacy. The idea we can vote our way out of the eventual collapse of Rome 2.0 is crazy talk. The voting mechanisms make it so the BEST you can ever hope for is a Rand-type...we'll never get what is moral or just like that. Our movement will be co-opted one election at a time until Ted Cruz and Rand Paul are themselves incrementally cornered and seen as "too extreme" on libertarian points. Trying to appeal to the majority will always lead to incremental neutering of any liberty movement. It turned classical liberals into anti-free market, pro-huge state modern liberals over a period of less than 2 centuries. It turned Barry Goldwater conservatism into neoconservatism in less than 50 years (just as Goldwater said would happen). It WILL turn libertarianism into little more than paleoconservativism (pro-protectionism, anti-free market, anti-immigration, pro-labor market protectionism, pro-tariff/indirect taxation, anti-elimination of tax, etc.).
Winning elections IS NOT how generational changes occur. It's at best a symptom of an already occurred change. To change this country, and the world, we need to first change minds. If we focused on using elections to change minds instead of actually winning (like Ron did), then we'd be fine. The problem is, we focus on winning to the detriment of the message and changing minds (Rand). That leads to people who feel lied to when they believed our politicians, and it leads to NOT changing their minds. They come to reject our FAKE message as lies, and never accept our REAL message because we squander the opportunity to let them hear it.
We need to be lighting "brushfires in the minds of men", not winning elections for short term gain that isn't going to be sustainable, and as sophists who fit in with all the other sophists (just with slightly modified positions).
Fuck majority opinion. The first thing I do when the majority agrees with me is review all my premises and logic to make sure I'm not wrong...because the majority agreeing with you is usually the first sign you are fucking totally wrong. You want change? It won't come through the implicit violence of the ballot box. It will come before that, via changing minds. The wins in elections should ONLY be happy accidents showing the people are ready for RADICAL change...not watered-down, won't make a major difference, change. If you don't convince them of the need for radical change, and instead run elections to win them no matter how much you have to bend to the whims of the violent, fickle, and stupid mob, then OF COURSE you will incrementally destroy your own cause. They need truth to convince them, and that means we need to run on truth, not run on really trying to win as our first goal. Sure, we won't win elections for a while, but when we finally do, America will be begging for radical change. The Rand approach is just a logical long term disaster (and that assumes he's being a sophist and just hiding true libertarian opinions...which I have come to doubt).
Brushfires in the minds of men can only stay lit when truth is their fuel. They burn out quickly and consume the fire-starter when the combustible is little more than pandering and compromise of principles (as opposed to coalitions ON individual principles). Don't be surprised if you get burnt by your nationalism, statism, and sophistry.
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helmuth_hubener
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After, you mean, you were exposed to enough of the media narrative carefully and persuasively explaining why you should support them.
These people are professional persuaders. They are very persuasive. They have persuaded you. This is not surprising.
But that predictable occurance obviously doesn't mean that there's actually any way on this green Earth that the US government should be getting into another war. Just mind our own business. Just come home.
Remember that?
Some of us still agree with it.
Just Come Home.
Did anybody listen to that clip from the Tom Woods Show talking about Rand? I thought it was extremely insightful and enlightening, and it could not be more relevant:
http://www.schiffradio.com/pg/jsp/verticals/archive.jsp?dispid=310&pid=66419
25:44 and especially 28:18
Did you listen? What are your thoughts?
Is Rand trying to outsmart himself?
Here's my thought: How can we get Tom Woods onboard as an advisor to Rand?
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Sure sounds like the same liberation philosophy to me.
CaptUSA
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Yeah, not what I'm saying. If he is good on a lot of other issues, but only marginally better on this one, isn't that still better than any other alternative?
Listen, I'm not trying to persuade you in any way. To me, the main disappointment is not the intervention issue. I tend to think he is still a non-interventionist. The issue to me is how far he will stray in order to get the power. It's got to put the question in your mind, that once he has the power, will he still stray in order to keep it - or to gain more power? When I take a long-range view, though, I still tend to think it's better to have someone in that office that may stray from time to time than have someone whose stated purpose is to f**k s**t up.
Acala
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You realize that there is much more to having an effective air force than stealing some airplanes? But even if they had an airforce and trained pilots and fuel and ammunition and all the support aircraft needed to get them across the ocean we could shoot them all down before lunch. It is not a realistic threat at this point, but if they DID amass an attack on US soil, go ahead and shoot them down. It will never happen.
Acala
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An attack on Americans abroad is not an attack on the USA.
Acala
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If you want to be the niceness police, go for it - on your own dime and time. Might I suggest your first stop should be the Pentagon?
Acala
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The USA also has committed brutal acts of aggression against others. Does that mean there is nothing immoral about killing you?
Acala
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Explain exactly how ISIS poses a threat to the liberty of the people of the USA. I don't mean single criminal acts of murder on US soil. I mean a threat to the continuation of the Republic.
cajuncocoa
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I understand. And Rand still has my vote for the reasons you mentioned. I just hope most here agree that there's a point where we have to tell him "enough!" We cannot concede too much more to garner the support of people who got us into the mess we're in in the first place.
helmuth_hubener
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Here's what Jimmy Duncan has to say:
Rep. ‘Jimmy’ Duncan urges using war money to fund highways
Duncan has been critical of the vast costs related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. “We need to stop spending all these billions in Iraq and Afghanistan and start taking better care of our own people and our own country,” he said.
Iraq is once again the center of debate in Washington, D.C., as President Obama ponders options to help bolster the conflict-torn country against a fast-moving Islamic insurgency. The militant group known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) has seized Mosul, Tikrit and other towns in Iraq as the country’s military melted away in recent weeks.
Opposes Iraq action
Duncan opposes further military involvement in Iraq. “We cannot continue to send money and support to corrupt governments overseas when we have so many unmet needs here at home, and we certainly don’t need to keep doing almost everything for other nations,” he said in a statement to The Daily Times. “We have spent mega-billions on Iraq and Afghanistan, with some estimates topping $2 trillion, and they are still in chaos. Spending more treasure and spilling more blood for these wars will do no good. The Iraqi people are going to have to take care of their own problems, including the ISIS.
“President Obama should make sure our embassy is secured and not let something happen like what happened in Benghazi, but otherwise, this war has been going on twice as long as World War II, and it is long-past time for U.S. involvement and support to end.”
-- http://www.thedailytimes.com/news/r...cle_f73b71de-c6a9-5c3d-b46e-9f3d9fcd46bf.html
Rep. ‘Jimmy’ Duncan urges using war money to fund highways
Duncan has been critical of the vast costs related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. “We need to stop spending all these billions in Iraq and Afghanistan and start taking better care of our own people and our own country,” he said.
Iraq is once again the center of debate in Washington, D.C., as President Obama ponders options to help bolster the conflict-torn country against a fast-moving Islamic insurgency. The militant group known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) has seized Mosul, Tikrit and other towns in Iraq as the country’s military melted away in recent weeks.
Opposes Iraq action
Duncan opposes further military involvement in Iraq. “We cannot continue to send money and support to corrupt governments overseas when we have so many unmet needs here at home, and we certainly don’t need to keep doing almost everything for other nations,” he said in a statement to The Daily Times. “We have spent mega-billions on Iraq and Afghanistan, with some estimates topping $2 trillion, and they are still in chaos. Spending more treasure and spilling more blood for these wars will do no good. The Iraqi people are going to have to take care of their own problems, including the ISIS.
“President Obama should make sure our embassy is secured and not let something happen like what happened in Benghazi, but otherwise, this war has been going on twice as long as World War II, and it is long-past time for U.S. involvement and support to end.”
-- http://www.thedailytimes.com/news/r...cle_f73b71de-c6a9-5c3d-b46e-9f3d9fcd46bf.html
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How could it be worse? We're talking about targeted air strikes this time and not sending in ground troops, and we have the permission of the Iraqi government to launch the air strikes against ISIS. They asked for our help and asked us to launch the air strikes. I don't see how you can say that it's even remotely the same situation as the original Iraq invasion in 2003, and I certainly don't see how you can say that it's actually worse.
ISIS claims that territory is theirs, and there's no question they are occupying it. So you have the permission of a neighboring government and you want to get involved in other countries' territory dispute.
Team America: World Police
jllundqu
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I've been trolling some lefty sites and they are eating this up. They are trying to lay the "flip-flopper" label around Rand's neck. They are using these for comparison:
Rand Paul: I am NOT an Isolationist (Time, Sept. 2014)
http://time.com/3268581/rand-paul-i-am-not-an-isolationist/
Right alongside this:
Rand Paul: No Good Case for U.S. Military Intervention (Wall Street Journal, June 2014)
http://online.wsj.com/articles/sen-rand-paul-america-shouldnt-choose-sides-in-iraqs-civil-war-1403219558
To the left, this is a gift... they can play the flip flopper card all day now.
Rand Paul: I am NOT an Isolationist (Time, Sept. 2014)
http://time.com/3268581/rand-paul-i-am-not-an-isolationist/
Right alongside this:
Rand Paul: No Good Case for U.S. Military Intervention (Wall Street Journal, June 2014)
http://online.wsj.com/articles/sen-rand-paul-america-shouldnt-choose-sides-in-iraqs-civil-war-1403219558
To the left, this is a gift... they can play the flip flopper card all day now.
Remember no matter how many facts and truths came out, you still couldn't persuade the conservatives that Bush's invasion of Iraq was a bad idea? Remember Ron Paul getting boo'd for saying 9/11 was a result of blowback? That is how what you are doing now trying to persuade TC. Facts, logic and reasoning no longer matter to TC as long as we kill ISIS. And if we kill any innocents along the way which we definitely will then oh well. And if the family of those innocents decide to join ISIS to get revenge then we will just send them more bombs. We will do that until there is peace and harmony in the region. That is what it is like talking to these people now.
Oh by the way, Israel who is right there in the middle of all this is SOOOOOOOO worried about ISIS that they went ahead and bombed the Syrian Army.
http://news.yahoo.com/israel-hits-syria-army-post-errant-fire-183619492.html
Don't worry about ISIS Israel! America got this!
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