For As Long As Our Love Shall Last

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Mon, 25 Jul 2005 12:00:00 GMT
From tacticalforums:
"On your tombstone there will be two dates, separated by a dash. That dash was your life." -- Austin
and:
"We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful." -- C.S. Lewis
and:
"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." -- John Adams

# Perry de Havilland at Samizdata.net - The appropriate use of force - Billy Beck wanted some clarification of the post I printed here yesterday. Here's what I wrote: [samizdata]

Billy,

It wasn't you who branded me a "leftist". That was G. Cooper, dittoed by Verity. You compared me to an "ordinary commie anencephalic", the last word of which I had to look up: "Anencephaly is the congenital absence of the cranial vault with the cerebral hemispheres completely missing or reduced to small masses. The malformation results in a severely underdeveloped, or undeveloped, cerebral cortex. However, the brain stem, or lower brain, does develop and integrates digestion, respiration, and other human functions at least for a short time if the infant is born alive." Somehow I doubt that anyone with that condition will be having any kind of discussion on the internet. So I ignored that comment as irrelevant.

I neglected to define my terms. By "war" I mean the military conflict that governments seem to be so fond of. Two "world wars" and the Korean war reportedly happened before I was born. I turned eighteen in 1974, shortly after the draft stopped for the Viet Nam war. I have watched U.S. military adventures since then, but not very closely. I've paid a little more attention to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, enough to know that there have been tens of thousands of non-combatant deaths. I agree with you that crew-served weapons used to destroy property or kill large numbers of people have become easier to control. If they ever become as repeatedly aimable as a rifle, so that those who control them can do better than trying not to kill innocents and actually cause no unintended injuries, I will admit them as weapons that can be used by moral humans. Even current explosive weapons are possible to use in a moral manner, but only if those using them know for certain that no non-combatant is close enough to be injured.

It's always been time to kill the bad guys. The bad guys who killed 82 people at Waco, 22 of them innocent helpless little children, should be killed. The cretin who shot Vicki Weaver in the head should be hanged by the neck until dead. Whoever was actually responsible for the demolition of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma city should die. All of those responsible for taking down the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001, should suffer slow, horrible, public deaths. The inhuman slugs who set off bombs in the London Underground and busses should perish, ASAP.

But every one of these travesties was carried out by a group of individuals. Sharing a nationality, city of residence, language, culture, religion, skin color, whatever with the perpetrators does not make anyone a fair target. Only the individual criminals are culpable, and they are the only people who it is OK to kill. Ascertaining the guilt of suspected actors takes some doing, except by the individuals who personally witnessed it. That process is usually called a trial.

So I agree with you. Capture the perps. Bring them to trial. Execute the guilty.

But war as commonly fought today has way too many unintended consequences. It destroys civil liberties for the innocent who happen to live in the war's location. It puts people with no personal stake on the ground killing other people that were not originally involved. It creates a huge cloud of evil and confusion and death and suffering. It makes more problems then it solves.

Now if by "war" you mean a Hatfield & McCoy type feud between small groups of people all of whom have a personal stake in the outcome and where every combatant knows every other one, that makes more sense to me. Or if you mean perforating blue helmets should the U.N. ever put "peacekeeping" forces in the United States, I'm with you. For that matter, the bombs the Iraqis are using against "coalition" forces seem perfectly justified to me. U.S. and British troops have invaded their communities. They are defending them. I would do the same if someone appeared near my house and started shooting and bombing my neighbors. No matter what rhetoric their political leaders were spouting.

-Bill

# Associated Press via The First Amendment Center - Man awarded damages for arrest while videotaping troopers - sometimes the courts get it right. [smith2004]

# Jennifer D'Angelo at Fox News - 'Til Death Do Us Part' Is Dying Out - some people are acknowledging reality by changing the traditional wedding vow to "for as long as our love shall last" or "until our time together is over" or similar. [progressivenews]

# "Dirtyharriet" at LibertyForum via Rense.com - US Military Ordered To Prepare Nuke Attack On Iran? - consider the source, but I would not be surprised if this is true. [smith2004]

# Thomas L. Knapp at The Libertarian Enterprise - My Rebuttal to Chris Claypoole's Rebuttal of My Rebuttal of His Rebuttal of the LP'S "Exit Strategy For Iraq" - good discussion of the differences between a political party, an ideological party, and a revolutionary party. Mr. Knapp contends that the Libertarian Party is heading from ideological/political to pure political. He wants to create a new ideological/revolutionary party. [tle]

# Ron Beatty at The Libertarian Enterprise - The Dream - Mr. Beatty is reminded of his duty by two true American patriots. [tle]

Tom looked at me, his eyes sharp. "The Bill of Rights has become no more than a moldy parchment! The people have allowed the cowardly curs in government today to totally disregard all the safeguards that were put there! Where is the fire for freedom? What has happened to so totally enslave such a proud people? Why do they not hold these craven excuses for men to their oaths? Why do they choose to remain slaves?"

# Tactical Forums S.W.A.T. Magazine Forum - Please take out the trash! - 10 long pages of often cogent discussion prompted by Claire Wolfe's "Enemy at the Gate" article (PDF) in the latest issue of S.W.A.T. Magazine. The quotes at the top of today's blog came from sig lines in this discussion. [clairefiles]

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