Jan
27
So what change were they expecting? Is this the Change, which Obama promised, a change of place of attack from Iraq to Pakistan?
On 23rd of January President Obama ordered Drone attack on Pakistan.1
Since September, the US is estimated to have carried out about 30 such attacks, killing more than 220 people, and now, the count will be increased many folds.
Is not it proving that the President does not change the office the office changes the president?
Is not USA Imperialist now?
Are these killings of innocent human beings justified just because now the owner of the killing machine is a democrat liberal socialist? Is he just displaying the effect of Military Keynesianism?
On 26th of January 2009, Obama ordered missile attacks again on Pakistan. Despite all urging by Pakistan leaders, Obama as a ruthless killer warned that he would not flinch from bombing directly in Pakistan, if he get information about militants are there in Pakistan.2
Does not he have information that there are innocent helpless victims of his madness also? Are not they Human but cattle’s to be butchered for the pleasure of Obama the great tyrannical warrior?
Where are all those anti-war Americans and all those anti-American Indians now who were shedding tears at the demise of Saddam Hussein? Was Saddam deserving their sympathy more than what innocent Pakistanis deserves as their basic right?
Obviously, Obama is no better than George W. Bush was; there is no change all are being driven by same Military Keynesianism, after all, all these bombings, missiles attacks are increasing US government spending isn’t it? So Paul Krugman may stress that all these killings are sad, but economically they may be profitable, as Krugman said after the 9/11 attack.3
The media says that these strikes will help Obama portray himself as a leader who, though ready to shift the balance of American power towards diplomacy, is not afraid of military action. Ohh yes it is increasing the government spending, the Keynesian solution to economic crisis.
Yet the major question is Can one claim that Obama is a killer just because he ordered attacks on Pakistan border?
Is Obama a legitimate murderer? It is an age old philosophical dilemma. How can we claim that the President who ordered is the killer and not the soldiers? Obama ordered the bombing, but he was not the person who bombed. He did not kill anybody, nor was his motive was to kill innocent people. The soldier, who actually bombed can be termed as the killer, because he knew his actions would certainly kill innocent people, or was he not certain about it? Moreover, the missiles on America were bombed by unmanned aircraft. That is, no soldier actually attacked on any Pakistani.
They just programmed the missiles to drop at a certain area, which they assumed is free of any Pakistani civilian and full of Jihadist terrorists. The intention of those soldiers was not to kill innocent civilians but to attack the Jihadists. Therefore, here is the contradiction.
Yet, the question arises that when one kills a person using a gun, we do not blame the gun as a killer, we blame the user of the gun, as the killer. Therefore, why should not we consider the person who ordered the shooting as a killer, when we know that the shooter was a part of his modus operandi? The problem is, when a person uses a gun to kill someone, the gun cannot think, gun is not alive. Gun is neutral and cannot commit any crime. Gun is very dependent on the user.
It is certainly not the case when Obama orders the soldiers to bomb in Pakistan or on border. Soldiers are not guns, bombs, or deadly missiles. They are not tools; they are rational living human beings. They can think what they are doing and they are not slave to anyone, and even if they are under service, they have right to deny.
When a soldier kills an enemy, he gets praise and accolades, it is termed as his courage. When a soldier kills a civilian, an innocent person, it is his crime.
Furthermore, Obama never ordered killing innocent civilians. Thus, to blame Obama as a murderer is wrong.
Now consider this, why should not Obama be termed as killer? Answer is, his intention was not to kill civilians, but it was to kill Jihadist terrorists. Secondly, he was not directly involved. He just initiated an action by ordering. There were probabilities that the soldier might have denied accepting Obama’s order, as he was free.
That is, the probability of denial of orders makes Obama blame less. Yet, once a soldier accepts the orders, it becomes his free-will to attack, so one can blame the soldiers. Yet, in this case, the soldiers programmed a machine to bomb at a certain place. Their intention was not to kill civilians, and there were ample probabilities that there might have been no civilian causalities. Thus, by the same logic, one cannot blame soldiers too for the killings. So, was it all just an accident that caused deaths in Pakistan?
The problem is probability cannot be the base of innocence. Let us say, a person deeply in love with Russian Roulette, uses a single bullet in the revolver and points it at the hand of the victim whom he is going to kill. He announces that if the victim dies at the first shot, then it is his death, but if he survives, then it is his life. The killer will not take the second shot. Here, the situation is just similar. The murder is very probabilistic, and also, the intention of the killer is not to kill, but to enjoy Russian Roulette. So one victim, one bullet and one shot (while there could have been 6 shots), what is the probability that the victim may be killed?
Yet, probability cannot decide the crime. If the person dies in this extravagant endeavor of the Russian Roulette player, than it is certified murder, we cannot term it as an accident.
Thus, the soldiers cannot be said victimless because it was very less probabilistic that the unmanned aircrafts and missiles will kill innocent civilians of Pakistan. They obviously bear certain moral responsibility for the result of their extravaganza. Similarly, Obama also was aware of the probabilistic mishap, thus he also bears a certain moral responsibility for the murder of Pakistani civilians.
Now consider this, while knowing the probabilistic chances of death, can a person play the same Russian Roulette game with himself or his beloved one say his son? 
What will a President of USA do if somehow certain terrorists enter in White House near to the room where his wife and children are resting? Will he order bombing on White House while knowing that it may kill his family, there are probabilities? No, he will not do so. Even if Obama did not wanted to kill civilians, even if the deaths were all probabilistic, we cannot term Obama blameless if he imposed a risk on others, which he himself might have denied to accept for his family or his own self.
Conclusion: A change might have been a try to negotiate with Jihadists in Iraq, Iran or Afghanistan, a try to spread peace and liberty. Obama is No Change!
He is as murderous and anti-humanity as Bush was, all his promises of CHANGE were false. Obama may not be termed as murderer, yet he owns the burden of crime along with soldiers equally. USA is still working under Military Keynesianism, yet we cannot say that dead Keynes is the real criminal.
Worth Mentioning::So let me suggest a truly audacious hope for your administration: How about a five-year time-out on war – unless, of course, there is a genuine threat to the nation?4
- Obama ordered attack on Pakistan, 23rd of January, Times Online UK. [↩]
- Obama ordered Missile attack on pakistan on 26th of january, TOI [↩]
- Paul Krugman, after the 9/11 attacks [↩]
- Calling a Time Out [↩]
37 Responses to “The Killing Instinct of President Barack Obama”
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Rob Says:
January 27th, 2009 at 5:03 amIf so called innocent civilians allow terrorists to hide in their home, they sure are taking the risk. Did it ever occur to you that the terrorists who are brainwashing civilians and using them as human shields may be responsible for this tragedy?
JB Hickock Says:
January 27th, 2009 at 7:14 amBarack Obama is a murderer. No amount of semantics or philosophy changes it. When a cult leader like Obama gives the order to kill, he is just as guilty of murder as his henchmen. You are too quick to presume Obama didn’t intend to kill anyone but “jihadists” (anyone who resists US aggression). For all we know, Obama was getting sexual pleasure thinking about piles of dead children. There are piles of rubble mixed with body parts in Pakistan. Do you think anyone is actually going to hold up a lifeless limb from that rubble and say “See! Here’s the bad guy! His name was Mohammed. God bless the USA!” No. There’s no way to prove anyone in that rubble was good or bad, and even if there were, you can’t believe anything any government tells you.
We even have precedents for this in the court system: e.g., Charles Manson. The State is a collectivist cult and Obama serves as its public figurehead and leader. Barack Obama is a cult leader that orders his henchmen to commit murder. In other words, he’s the President. Murder has been an implicit Presidential job requirement since the Civil War. Barack Obama’s favorite movie is admittedly The Godfather. Maybe he’s the kind of slug that gets off on “whacking” people. You are far too kind and lenient in assuming that anyone but a vicious psychopath could be President of the USA, or any other powerful country for that matter. Don’t project your own goodness onto people with power. Obama doesn’t think like you. No leader thinks like us. They can’t afford to. If powerful people thought like powerless people, they’d lose their power.
Sukrit Sabhlok Says:
January 27th, 2009 at 9:11 amWhenever a politician orders a military offensive, they KNOW that there is a significant risk that innocent civilians will die. If the laws that apply to normal people were to apply to politicians, then they would be held to be murderers – because they recklessly ordered a military bombing knowing that innocents would probably die. But since politicians consider themselves above the normal rules that apply to civilians, they can get away with murder by calling it “war” or “collateral damage”.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 27th, 2009 at 11:33 pm@GP what credible source you are demanding off?
I am not talking of Jihadists who were killed, I am talking of Pakistani civilians, innocent people who have been killed.
here is what newspaper The Guardian says –
Barack Obama bloodied his hands for the first time as America’s Commander-in-Chief, ordering the destruction of several homes in a small village in Pakistan. At least 18 were killed and two homes destroyed by unmanned Predator drones per the UK Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/24/pakistan-barack-obama-air-strike
In Villages, people lives, with their wives, and kids and infants.
By the way GP
What proof you have that you are not terrorist?
GP Says:
January 28th, 2009 at 10:34 am@Unpretentious
”
<<<<<<< Thanks for backing up your statements with link of Guardian and I guess you overlooked below statements in same Guardian link -
“Obama has warned that he is prepared to bomb inside Pakistan if he gets relevant intelligence about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. He had also said he would act against militants along the border if the Pakistan government failed to.”
and kindly tell me – what would be your comments had it been the case – where same terrorists successfully plan and implement
another 11/26 in INDIA ? . I think its gr8 if people like OBAMA are taking some tough calls to destroy the roots of terrorism by such attack and even if civilian cajualties happened in the process so be it…its better to sacrifice those few innocents( yeah I am considering a same scenario happening with me or my family and I stick to my stand)
to save millions of those innocent ppl from those inhuman beings(read – terrorist ) Its their destiny to die and why????
( I can give u the answer – but for you it won’t make sense coz I am sure u don’t believe in effect of KARMA…It was their destiny to die bcoz of their bad Karmas in previous birth…but anyways if u don’t believe in it then just ignore my statements and don’t waste your precious time in criticizing it coz it doesn’t matter and I admitt I don’t not having capacity/energy to make u understand this. )
I have nothing personal against you so it will be better if u stick to the point rather than getting personal in arguments Coz it results only into wastage of time ,distraction from main point of arguments and of course, wastage of lot of mental energy.
By the way the answer of your query about proof of me NOT being terrorist is preety simple — “Do you have any proofs that I am terrorist
Again – Here in this case – Obama’s decision to attack terrorist camps in pak is in best interest of INDIA >>>>>>>>
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 28th, 2009 at 1:54 pmwho same terrorist?
Listen GP the person I am talking of are not terrorist, they were civilians.
And when there were terrorists in Hotel TAj, did Indians bombed Hotel taj?
What if US government had bombed Hotel Taj because there were terrorist?
And if they had bombed Hotel taj, would it have killed only terrorists and not a single innocent person out of those 780 people who were hostage there?
Is there NO innocent people in pakistan ? all are terrorist? so if Obama gets knowledge that there are terrorist in Islamabad, he should bomb Islamabad?
If he get information that there are terrorist in Delhi he should bomb Delhi?
Are you mad? ohh no you are terrrorist. it proved it Mr Terrorist.
Obama is more dangerous TERRORIST than what Kasab was, or Afzal Guru was, and all the three terrorists are living. And yeah, George W Bush was also a terrorist, he is also living.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 28th, 2009 at 2:46 pmOne more thing GP,
Even before I gave links to Times of India and Times online in the main article…check the footnotes.
About Obama,
He must hate women and children!! How could he just bomb them indiscriminately?!! Oh, the humanity!!!
Lol it was same Obama who said–
Barack Obama
On US troops in Afghanistan
August 14, 2007 FoxNews
And now, he is doing the same, ordering Army to Air-raid villages and kill civilians. Within an year he changed, and even predator missiles changed. What a bigot. But then just like all other spiritual leaders and politician, he is deemed to be a BIGOT.
gaurav Says:
January 28th, 2009 at 5:56 pmA intriguing delivery of probablistic theory to validate a murderous instincts of a person, I really would like to ask something if it’s all about probablity, isn’t there a probablity that these terrorist if spared could have attacked on america and may have caused another 9/11 like a terrorist attack leading to death of many american citizens and Barrack obama being the president is the person to be called responsible for it,as he’s responsible for those bombing so would he may be for the deaths and then thsi bomb attacks can be deemed as a act of self-defence,without any doubt it raises doubt about probality of such an act, because he can mislead information as george bush did in iraq attack citing WMDs which one never found, Truth is an objective attribute which accounts only to be reason as a parameter to adjudge itself, so if the reason was truthful enough then he’s right otherwise not. The issue again boils to the fact that involving into a violent puts govt. into the same shoe with the terrorist but then in today’s Terrorism affected world, Millatary offence is sought for, and yes i think it’s better to discuss was millitary attacks on pakistan is justified or not? Rest about white house atacks is something very much conflicting,talking about things like what obama will do can lead you nowhere , people with different sympathies for obama will come up with different reasons. Further the reason can be elucidated by covering the stastics of innocent killed ,without any doubt planning such a attack should not be supposed to get a Millitary badge to Obama
on world stage ,as i said it all boil downs to intentions and then effects ,without any doubt carrying a millitary operation in which 5 terrorist and five 5 civillians are killed is farce ,and yes you may come up with the issue that i am being a collectivist who doesn’t care about individuals,no without any doubt Govt. is supposed to guard for evry individual’s rights and yet Millitary accounts can be validated Through accounting for The truth,i.e.,reason.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 28th, 2009 at 6:03 pm@Gaurav
It is not about Killing terrorists. It is about killing civillians.
By the way what is the probability that “you will never become a terrorist and will never attack Indian Parliament or American Whitehouse?
Is there any guarantee that you will never rape anyone and kill anyone?
Is there any guarantee for any person on earth that he will never commit a crime?
So should all human be killed just because they may become criminal of some sort or other?
The truth is, All that War on terrorism is nothing but American Terrorism, and India is attached to it.
What about RAW, is not RAW creating and supporting terrorists to bomb in pakistan citiies? what is the proof that RAW is not doing that? There are many accuses on RAW though just like on ISI.
Gaurav Says:
January 28th, 2009 at 7:56 pmWith all those reasons,i really think it will be little difficult to go on but talkin about american-terrorism do you want to say that america planned 9/11.THis was all george bush doin it covertly,no don’t bring the topic of henry kissinger,ronald reagan or cold war between,it was al started by CIA and stuff like that is to be debatable at another column,but right know even if america was responsible for creating all them it feels the need for killing them,and talking about guarantee thing America or any Govt. is officially killin someone after alking to bejan daruwala that he will become terrorist or not,It’s killing people who are terrorist,who have already killed people or are part of organization who have killed people who are innocent and most probably i haven’t done anything like that till now.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 28th, 2009 at 11:33 pmbut talkin about american-terrorism do you want to say that america planned 9/11.
And when did I said that?
What is it to breach a nation’s sovereignty and entering it forcibly and attacking people, wasting tax payer’s money?
It is terrorism and nothing else. What is going on in Afghanistan, Iraq, and pakistan is terrorism and nothing else.
And just like you have not killed anyone, the people killed in Pakistan have not killed anyone, there is no record that they were involved in ANY criminal activity. Just like they could be terrorist you could be too. So should you be killed?
Until you won’t understand that those who have been killed were NOT terrorist, you won’t understand what have been written here.
People killed in Pakistan were as innocent as you are.
Don’t you understand the difference between civilians and terrorists?
The 220 Pakistani citizens killed till now since September had NO CRIMINAL RECORD of ANY kind.
Jon Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 12:38 amHi Unpretentious Diva,
You said “Just like they could be terrorist you could be too. So should you be killed?” and obviously the answer is no, because you shouldn’t kill people on a *probability* of becoming bad.
However, what if you turn around that argument? Obama got intelligence that there were terrorists in a certain house. Now how can you blame him for a *probability* of there also being innocent people there? No matter how good your intelligence information is, there’s always a chance that innocent people could be hurt. In the cases you mentioned, it turned out that innocent people were hurt so you might think the probability was 100%. But before the bombing took place, it wasn’t 100%, it was much lower.
I’m just curious what you think. In every situation in real life, from criminal convictions, to killing in self defense, to intervening on someone’s behalf to help them, you are always dealing with probabilities that you are doing the wrong thing. Maybe you convicted an innocent man. Maybe you let a guilty man go free. You won’t know until after the fact when you can review the consequences (like in this case discovering that some of the people killed were innocent civilians). But you have to find a method to resolve those probabilities and still accomplish useful work.
What do you suggest Obama do, besides the stock answer of withdrawing all forces and leaving everybody alone? If he sent in 200,000 troops to occupy Pakistan, there would still be innocent people hurt, so how is that a better solution? How many innocent civilians have died in Pakistan due to these missile strikes, compared to how many innocent civilians have died in Iraq due to suicide bombs against troops? I think many more have died in Iraq from terrorist attacks due to the troop presence, so are you sure you would wish that for Pakistan?
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 1:56 am@Jon
As a matter of fact, Law, Morals, Individual rights do not act on probabilities, law are not subjective and they are pretty much Objective.
If someone committed a crime in a free-society, there is 100% probability that someone did that crime.
We search for the probable suspect; we do not kill them do we?
We gather evidences, we discusses the issue, we engage a third party medium to have a neutral view.
Until a suspect is not proven guilty, we do not punish him, it is against human right of a man to own his life, to self-governance (Swaraj).
Once when an accused is proven guilty and the probability of his being the criminal becomes 100%, the law based on Individual right punishes the certain criminal.
Accusation cannot be the base of killing.
Now let us consider that there were false evidences, and the case was all forged, and an Innocent person was punished, what a free-society does in such a case.
The judgment was based on 100% certainty, yet because of corruption, or bribery or forged evidences, if there is a case of punishing an Innocent man, and then it is considered as a CRIME. The third party Judge and the responsible authority are considered as criminal, and they should bear the consequences of that crime.
That is why George W Bush should be punished for the war-crimes he caused in Iraq, which is why Obama is liable to punishment under war-crimes, yet, it is bigger than a war-crime. Is USA in war with Pakistan? NO!
Even in a war situation, if civilians are killed, the free-society considers it as a punishable crime.
Let us consider the issue of killing in self-defence.
Let a person killed a man, arguing that he was attacking him and it was a case of self-defence.
We have courts to prove it, to put up the evidences, to reduce the probabilities of crime to zero. We have third party judges and jury, the debaters’, lawyers, and proper free-voluntary system of verifications; we have always improving technologies and articulations.
Thus if a person kills someone under the threat of life as a self-defence, it is verifiable, debatable and provable.
In this case also, if someone puts up false evidences, and somehow wins the case in his favour, and later on, the family of the victim proves that the evidences were forged (which they can surely do) then the person becomes a Killer, and punishable.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 2:06 amTrue and when did I say that George W Bush was better than Obama?
As a matter of fact, the decision by Obama to attack in Pakistan at Afghanistan border was without any proper channelling, even now Pakistan government is urging to stop missile attacks.
Yet, do you think wars are a solution for terrorism? Since how long USA is fighting against the people who are being termed as terrorist.
Since how long, the fight of Gaza going on? Is it a solution?
Is Iraq free of terrorists now? Is Afghanistan free of terrorists now? So if there are some terrorists in Pakistan, is USA able to make them vanish? Without even proving that they really are terrorists?
Even in Jammu Kashmir Shariat Law is allowed and is being practiced and Indian government allowed the Shariat law. Shariat law is what Talibanese follows (with more strictness and authority) so should Obama attack J and K too?
In the original article, I mentioned in conclusion
Jon Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 2:52 am“We have courts to prove it, to put up the evidences, to reduce the probabilities of crime to zero.”
My point was that you can NEVER reduce the probability to 0%. There is always a chance that an innocent person is put in jail, or a guilty person is let free. You have to find a balance of what is acceptable. You can’t have a system that is so fascist that everybody accused goes directly to jail. You also can’t have a system that is so ineffectual that nobody is ever sent to jail. Neither works.
In the US jury trial system, the standard is to have 12 peers determine whether there is “reasonable doubt” about your guilt or innocence. Not 100% certainty, not beyond a shadow of a doubt, but simply beyond reasonable doubt. That means there ARE innocent people in jail and there ARE criminals who go free. But that’s compromise.
On larger scales where you’re talking not about an individual crime but an army or a state, the standard has to be much more lenient. It’s simply impossible to make a national decision beyond a reasonable doubt that no harm will be done. Impossible. The balance that the military finds is that they do not target civilians purposely or for no reason, but at the same time they do not avoid conflict where civilians may be harmed.
“True and when did I say that George W Bush was better than Obama? As a matter of fact, the decision by Obama to attack in Pakistan at Afghanistan border was without any proper channelling, even now Pakistan government is urging to stop missile attacks.”
What proper channeling should Obama go through? The Pakistan Army does nothing, the tribal militias have been decimated by the Taliban already (and by the Pakistan Army as well!), the local police force does not exist anymore, the civilian government has no authority in that region… what do you suggest?
Also notice that you ask a lot of questions but still have not provided an actual alternative solution. You say “try to negotiate with Jihadists in Iraq, Iran or Afghanistan, a try to spread peace and liberty” in the original article, but that is not an actual plan. From Obama’s viewpoint, he IS trying to spread peace and liberty. That is too subjective!
Going back to the missile strikes, you still haven’t provided a concrete plan for that either. Pretend you are Obama. You get a call from the CIA saying the house at these gps coordinates has Osama bin Laden in it! It’s verified by eyewitnesses on the ground! They’re having a high level meeting and will be there for the next 45 minutes! Okay what do you do? Nothing? Call the Pakistan Army? Call the nearest Frontier Corps station? Call the police? Broadcast on TV that you give up and you’re withdrawing all troops?
I would just like to hear an actual concrete answer that does not involve missile strikes (the only realistic way to take action in such a short amount of time). Not a general answer about peace or long-term negotiation, but what you would actually do and say 30 seconds after getting that call.
“Yet, do you think wars are a solution for terrorism? Since how long USA is fighting against the people who are being termed as terrorist.”
What if there is no solution? What if the only thing we can hope for is an equilibrium?
“Since how long, the fight of Gaza going on? Is it a solution?”
I don’t know why Gaza came into this. But again, I don’t think there is a solution to Gaza unfortunately. Obviously Israel will never be defeated by groups like Hamas, who don’t even have a real military. And obviously Israel can’t kill millions of people. So again it seems like the future will be an equilibrium where one side suffers greatly. What do you propose to do about that? I really don’t see a solution.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 3:52 amThere can sure be certainty of a crime and criminal, in some case, there can be doubts. And if anyhow an innocent is punished, the third party arbitrator judge system is responsible for that “crime”. I never said there cannot be any misdeeds, But misdeeds are Punishable, should be punished, there can be no compromise on that, why? because if you want citizens to compromise on behalf of governmental crimes, why should not people start compromising on individual crimes?
In case of government acting as a monopoly over law enforcement, such crimes may occur to much higher extent, that is why private third party legal debates are always better providing a market competition for honesty and certainty in judgment and interferences.
USA legal system is surely much better than many of other systems, Yet, it is not the best and it needs extreme improvement to be termed as a system of free civilized society, as one may put, Civilization is process of freeing a man from men.
If freedom is the base, then nation or state holds nothing. As a matter of fact, society is nothing but a collection of Individuals. Society, Nation, state, are nothing but HUMAN construct, an Imaginary we accept sometimes for our own benefit. We cannot stress over that Imaginary to that extent that it may start harassing Individuals, the building block of that imaginary human construct, specially when Individual exists and is a reality.
Savages are recognized by their breeds, nationality, creed, race, color, sex etc.
Thus obviously, when you talk of Nation, army or any collectivist statist authority, it certainly is deemed to be creating trouble, coercion harassment and crime at some level or other.
This is curse of collectivism which we all suffering from both sides, be it USA army, or Talibanis.
Wow!, on 20th january he was sworn in, and within 6 days he ordered two strikes on Pakistan, and you say he had no other way?
Is Osama dead now? So all was futile is not it? There is no way by which you can justify an attack on somebody else’s house.
Even if there is proper evidence that a criminal is In PAKISTAN, without negotiations of a thrid party arbitrator, if some army attacks on Pakistan, than it is a crime.
Obama is certainly not forced to commit a crime, who is putting a gun on his head if he stop his madness?
Gaza came in between because Israel is and was always in between these tussles of Iraq, Iran Afghanistan and now Pakistan.
Simple reality is, even you will find yourself unable to remember a time when American army was not fighting somewhere/anywhere and hence wasting the money USA government robs from the citizens in the form of tax.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 4:08 amHow it can be subjective?
If a government officer is entering your house forcibly, even than it is not action of peace or liberty, while what Obama is ordering for is to bombard other nation’s border.
I understand that even in America property rights holds very less sense these days under the socialist streams going on since long, yet if someone is clearly breaching property rights, how can you even suggest that it is a process of peace? it is a process of governmental tyranny and nothing else.
You are simply trying to save a wrong, trying to suggest that Obama is not a killer, but objectively, he is.
Your tries to support him are subjective for sure.
renegade_division Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 4:31 am@Jon Said:
I have a few questions for you. First of all who decides what percentage of doubt is good enough? Sure there is a Jury trial system, but Juries are not professionals, they are shown DNA evidence, AND they are told that DNA is 90% accurate, they are shown circumstantial evidence and now they are left to decide it with no guidance, there is an evidence but it cannot be used because its extracted from a violation of accused’s 4th Amendment rights, but if Jury hears about it they get biased towards the results.
And after all these things we leave it at “beyond reasonable doubt” to the jury. People do learn to play with the juries, a woman who cries in front of jury and is accused of killing her husband has a major chances of walking free, compared to a woman who does not cry in front of jury. That does not really sound like beyond reasonable doubt to me.
Secondly, if statistics say that an african-american male who has been convicted of a crime once, has an 80% chance of committing that crime again, does that mean we should throw an african-american male who commits one crime into jail forever?? Is 80% good enough? How about if statistics show 90% probability? How about 99.99% probability that an individual will commit a crime again?
You are right that there is no 100% probability or 0% probability ever and I disagree with Unpretentious here when she says that it will be a zero percent probability among competing judicial systems. The private competing judicial systems only ensure that whatever probability is possible is the best possible for that situation. It can’t be 100% or 0%, but a jury/judge based monopolistic judiciary system can never ensure maximum efficiency, just like a competing private entities always provides you cheapest possible rate for any service/commodity in comparison to a monopolistic govt entity.
Take an example of Somalian telecom industry, no govts there, only private cut throat competition, and local calls are UNLIMITED FREE on cell phones for only $10 per month(a comparable US plan would be $170 per month). You can launch your own cell phone company within hours in Somalia(no I am not talking about getting a phone line, but setting up a phone company), and a landline phone company within days.
A $10 per month plan demonstrates the minimum possible cost for a phone connection at present times. It can be only done by a free market.
Pretend you are GWB, you get a call from CIA saying that Saddam Hussein might be building weapons of mass destructions….you know where I am going with it, right? NO I am not saying that there is a justification of Iraq invasion, all I am saying is GWB wasn’t a military dictator, with his pet project of invading Iraq. GWB was a democratically elected President too using the same information from its intelligence agencies.
Americans love to tie Bush with “personal profits” from Iraq invasion. But could it be possible that he did it because of America? Americans say GWB invaded Iraq for Oil(instead of America invaded Iraq for oil), but then the question comes in, well what did he wanted to do with the Oil, did he want to drink it? Well to answer that question a theory of tying personal profit of Bush with the war in Iraq.
The truth is, America invaded Iraq because American govt(Republicans and Democrats) found an opportunity and public opinion to settle down this Iraq oil issue once and for all. Its just that when the War became too costly, everybody ran back and claimed “Bush” waged war for “oil companies”.
This is really stupid to think that Obama got intelligence that Osama is hiding at that location, whenever that happened in Bush administration, they declared it, “Military made a strike to where they suspected Osama might be hiding”. This imaginary scenario is just a lame defense of Obama’s actions, which I fail to understand why considering you run a Pakistani website.
Jon Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 5:45 am“But misdeeds are Punishable, should be punished, there can be no compromise on that, why? because if you want citizens to compromise on behalf of governmental crimes, why should not people start compromising on individual crimes?”
I don’t think you’re familiar with the US jury system; forgive me if I’m wrong. If the jury makes an incorrect verdict, it is not a crime. The judge is not put on trial. The jury members are not put on trial. It’s simply a mistake. Mistakes are always treated differently than intentional harm and in many cases it’s not a crime.
“Thus obviously, when you talk of Nation, army or any collectivist statist authority, it certainly is deemed to be creating trouble, coercion harassment and crime at some level or other. This is curse of collectivism which we all suffering from both sides, be it USA army, or Talibanis.”
I don’t know what you mean about collectivism being a curse. Surely it’s human nature for people to form groups? Civilization certainly wasn’t forced on us by anyone. To me, Rousseau’s Social Contract spells out one of the most moral and natural forms of governance. Are you talking about some other type of collectivism?
“Wow!, on 20th january he was sworn in, and within 6 days he ordered two strikes on Pakistan, and you say he had no other way?”
Hmm. Again you completely ignored my question and did not give an answer. I guess you do not have an answer or are afraid to give it.
“Gaza came in between because Israel is and was always in between these tussles of Iraq, Iran Afghanistan and now Pakistan.”
Care to explain? I do not see what Israel has to do with the missile strikes we were talking about. Surely you don’t follow some crazy conspiracy theory that Israel is secretly bombing Pakistan or something?
“How it can be subjective? If a government officer is entering your house forcibly, even than it is not action of peace or liberty, while what Obama is ordering for is to bombard other nation’s border. I understand that even in America property rights holds very less sense these days under the socialist streams going on since long, yet if someone is clearly breaching property rights, how can you even suggest that it is a process of peace? it is a process of governmental tyranny and nothing else.”
This is getting ridiculous. You don’t have property rights if you allow these actions to go on. In America, Pakistan, or any country in the world, if you are using your private property to build up a resistance army to overthrow the government, you will be arrested and will lose your property. In America and countries where drugs are illegal, if you are growing drugs in your garden your house will be taken away from you. Property rights do not protect you from legal consequences. Property rights are actually the right to control private access to your land, as well as derive a profit from your land. That’s it. You’re not allowed to keep out the police, the army, the IRS, or any other public officer. Property rights do not override the law. That should be obvious!
As for “spreading peace” being subjective, I think that’s quite clear. For instance, Hamas’s idea of peace is that Israel withdraws from the occupied lands and lets Palestine rebuild as a true modern nation. Israel’s idea of peace is for Hamas to give up that idea and stop launching rockets at Israel. Hence peace is subjective, not objective.
“You are simply trying to save a wrong, trying to suggest that Obama is not a killer, but objectively, he is.”
Objectively, he is partially responsible for some deaths but he is not a murderer or killer, nor does he have a “killing instinct”, nor is he “anti-humanity”. Hopefully you see the difference. Similarly, you and I are responsible for some deaths as well. Think about it. If you have money for an internet connection and computer, there are people you could have saved from starvation or worse using the money you spent on the computer. So you are partially responsible for their deaths through your inaction.
Jon Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 6:10 am“I have a few questions for you. First of all who decides what percentage of doubt is good enough?”
Everybody decides from themselves. There is no fixed percentage.
“Secondly, if statistics say that an african-american male who has been convicted of a crime once, has an 80% chance of committing that crime again, does that mean we should throw an african-american male who commits one crime into jail forever?? Is 80% good enough? How about if statistics show 90% probability? How about 99.99% probability that an individual will commit a crime again?”
Again, no fixed percentages, which are impossible to calculate anyway. Also, people are put on trial for crimes that have already happened, not the likelihood of future crimes.
“The private competing judicial systems only ensure that whatever probability is possible is the best possible for that situation. It can’t be 100% or 0%, but a jury/judge based monopolistic judiciary system can never ensure maximum efficiency, just like a competing private entities always provides you cheapest possible rate for any service/commodity in comparison to a monopolistic govt entity.”
That’s a very interesting idea, I haven’t heard of it before. The thing is, if you’re taking a capitalistic view of the judicial system, how do you provide a market for it? What is the market?
“The truth is, America invaded Iraq because American govt(Republicans and Democrats) found an opportunity and public opinion to settle down this Iraq oil issue once and for all. Its just that when the War became too costly, everybody ran back and claimed “Bush” waged war for “oil companies”.”
I agree that blaming everything on Bush as if he’s a dictator is illogical. Everything was approved by Congress and initially had widespread support. To be honest, I don’t think anybody will know the truth for at least 50 years. It takes a while for history to be settled.
“This is really stupid to think that Obama got intelligence that Osama is hiding at that location, whenever that happened in Bush administration, they declared it, “Military made a strike to where they suspected Osama might be hiding”.”
Sorry, you misunderstood. I wasn’t saying that is what happened. I was asking Unpretentious Diva what her response would be to that hypothetical situation. I feel like her judgment of Obama is grounded in an emotional reaction without any underlying philosophy or theory that would let her make a decision in real life. It’s very easy to feel sad about something and say “This should not have happened!” It’s much harder to put forth what should have happened instead and show why your reaction is better. Unfortunately, she continues to ignore my question on the matter so I’m giving up on understanding her theory more.
“This imaginary scenario is just a lame defense of Obama’s actions, which I fail to understand why considering you run a Pakistani website.”
I help run the Grand Trunk Road blog in a limited fashion, if that’s what you are talking about, but I am American and have an American perspective. I clearly have very different ideas than you about the responsibilities of a government to its own people as well as to other governments. I’m always interested in talking to people about that, but I hope you will give me the benefit of the doubt and not assume I’m lame or stupid. To me it’s clear that if a country has rogue elements operating within its borders, and cannot or will not do anything about them, then their case of sovereignty is weakened. What do you think?
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 6:46 amI am not at all emotional about it.
Obama was emotional and fool and he did the crime.
Why should I order to bomb a place where many more people are certainly living since ages even if I get an information that Osama is out there?
How and why should I judge the lives of those innocents any less than my or any other American’s life?
So one thing is clear that I won’t do what Obama did, and it is not emotional, it is reasonable. Reason is Political Equality of every citizen around the globe, and the right to life. If I breach it by coercion, I am criminal no less than Osama.
Curse of collectivism is, it denounces the right of individual freedom.
And if Obama had to attack on Pakistan, declare the war. When USA can provide those billions of dollar every now and then for pakistan, why it cannot force pakistan to act on the site? And if it cannot force, than declare war, or forget Osama.
What sort of talks Obama had with pakistani diplomats and millitary personals before attacking on Pakistan? Which third party arbitrator approved USA’s action to attack another nation? It makes no sense to support obama for any hypothetical cause.
About collectivism, to gather voluntarily is an Individual right, to not to let that group exploit your individual freedom is also an Individual right.
renegade_division Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 7:20 am@Jon Said:
That’s not really an answer to my question, what if George W Bush’s percentage for a reasonable doubt of Osama hiding in a children’s village is 2%? Are you saying everything is acceptable?
In the movie Eagle Eye, the huge machine does a revolt against the President because he orders a bombing on a funeral in Afghanistan when there was only 51% confirmation of the terrorists being identified by the system. Because of this the machine which was coded to follow the Constitution to the letter construes the Executive Branch as a threat to the nation(because an attack like that would increase the hatred in the world for America, thus provoking more attacks on American soil), so it decides to eliminate the executive branch altogether and install the Secretary of Defense(who agreed with the Machine to abort the mission).
Its a classic hollywood example for our discussion, according to machine 51% wasn’t good enough to order the strikes, but according to the President it was good enough. Now the acceptable percentage isn’t written in Constitution, in fact according to the constitution, attacks on foreign soil aren’t even allowed.(Look at the record of Ron Paul for a completely word-to-word following of Constitution).
There are many punishments for future crimes, conspiracy to commit a murder is one of them. Solicitation is another, pretty much everything which is a crime, planning to commit that crime is punishable.
I am glad you liked the idea.
There are currently 250,000 members of American Arbitrators Association and the number is increasing every year. These arbitrators provide you mediation for civil law suits, they can also do so for criminal law suits, like it used to happen in England around 15th century. These private courts were quite efficient in providing justice, in fact the whole common law system on which most of our statutory law system is based wasn’t developed overnight by a committee of legislatures, in fact it was developed over case by case basis in the private courts.
This is exactly how Somalia’s Islamic Court System developed, the only problem is that they were having Shariat in mind, so they weren’t really Libertarian as Americans would want it, though the ICU(Islamic Court Union) was pretty acceptable for mots of the Somalis who are Muslims.
If tomorrow a Catholic Court system develops, and a Christian woman agrees to go to the court, and the court holds her guilty for abortion and punishes her, the judgment would be binding to her(coz she agreed to go there at the first place), on the other hand, if an atheist woman goes for abortion, and a Christian husband wants to drag her a Christian court, and she does not agree to it, then this catholic court can never force their judgment on her unless most of the courts she can possibly go to agree with the Catholic court.
Though it may sound like a big problem, but it is not, the Catholic specific courts can only enforce a biblical decision on an individual as long as the individual agreed upon the court, although the individual can go to an appeals court, and if this court turns out to be a non-catholic court, then the people will have to agree upon the more Libertarian solution.
If a Catholic guy marries 2 woman at the same time, without letting them know about each other, and when these women want to drag him to a catholic court, but the Man goes to a Mormon court(who do not consider polygamy as a crime), then the more Libertarian solution will be binding, (the Mormon solution as long as there was no fraud involved in the marital contracts).
Though there will not be any marriage laws, so every marriage must involve a pre-nuptial agreement, describing in full what the divorce settlement, and other things would be. So the polygamy clause will be included in it(That is the individual must not be in a marital contract with anybody else during the duration of the marriage), that means for most of the people the marriages will be exclusive, except for those who want a multiple partners marriage.
She is Indian, if anything emotional then she should be happy for such an attack. But she is not, and that shows she is thinking rationally.
Although the big point what we were trying to show here was that whether its Obama or Bush, nothing ever changes. The fault lies in the position(Presidency) rather than the individual.
Well what if the President of Mexico thinks that Minuteman Project is a rogue American group which is harming their citizens who are crossing the borders, and he must make a missile strike on the house of Chris Simcox to eliminate the rogue elements. And in this attack he makes a missile strike on the house of say Michael Moore, and nobody in Mexico even questions whether he attacked the right house or not. For them all Gringos are the same, if President came and said, “We took down the house of a suspected Minuteman Group member and 4 people were killed in this operation”.
Well people in Mexico don’t care whether Bill O’Reilly is dead or Lou Dobbs, as long as the President can link them to Minuteman Project.
Well what do you say about that?
Jon Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 7:56 am“How and why should I judge the lives of those innocents any less than my or any other American’s life? So one thing is clear that I won’t do what Obama did, and it is not emotional, it is reasonable. Reason is Political Equality of every citizen around the globe, and the right to life. If I breach it by coercion, I am criminal no less than Osama.”
Thank you for answering. I respect your opinion but I think you’re asking for something unreasonable. You are essentially saying that action is only justified when the chance for civilian casualties is 0%. That is simply impossible.
“Curse of collectivism is, it denounces the right of individual freedom.”
People are safer in groups than alone so collectivism actually supports the right of individual freedom. In exchange for that safety you voluntarily give up rights that hurt others. For instance, you have no right to kill your neighbor — but in return, he has no right to kill you. The state protects you from each other. Giving up certain rights allows other rights to be experienced more fully — things like the right to privacy, the right to free speech, and so on. These are rights that would be very difficult, if not impossible, to enforce without some degree of collectivism.
“And if Obama had to attack on Pakistan, declare the war. When USA can provide those billions of dollar every now and then for pakistan, why it cannot force pakistan to act on the site? And if it cannot force, than declare war, or forget Osama.”
This is a huge issue in itself. I don’t know the answer. Actually I agree with you on this point and I think the USA should do more to ensure that any funds given to Pakistan go directly to the civilian government for it to disburse rather than directly to the Pakistan Army where there is no accountability. That would probably help the situation.
“What sort of talks Obama had with pakistani diplomats and millitary personals before attacking on Pakistan? Which third party arbitrator approved USA’s action to attack another nation? It makes no sense to support obama for any hypothetical cause.”
Obama did in fact have talks with Pakistani officials. He told them he would continue the policy of using missile strikes when provided with good information on targets. Pakistan has the right to refuse that request by declaring war on the US. Since they aren’t doing that, what conclusion do you draw?
I think there’s an important distinction between attacking Pakistan and attacking the Taliban within Pakistan. Are you saying that the Taliban is *part* of Pakistan? That doesn’t make sense since the Taliban is openly fighting the legitimate government of Pakistan. Why should the Pakistan government defend the Taliban, rationally speaking?
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 10:35 amTo make groups is Individual’s right. two or more people agree for a cause on mutually beneficial grounds voluntarily.
If that group exerts impression on individual liberty that much that individuals start sacrificing their ownself for the group, then it becomes a cult and it has its own disastrous disadvantages. Some of them are mentioned here go read and get the gist of it. http://www.reasonforliberty.com/random/the-crowd-mentality-and-terrorism.html
Secondly, if the group becomes legitimately more important than the Individual existence, it doesn’t remain group of free individuals, it becomes a slavery with a tyranical ruling bench. That is not healthy history is evident of that, you may try to grope in marx, stalin or lenin case.
Thirdly, if a group starts enforcing the majority rule over minority, it becomes exploitative demanding sacrifice by the individual get a read here http://www.reasonforliberty.com/reason/the-impasse-of-democracy-voting-is-not-a-solution-it-is-a-killer.html
The holocaust was a consequence of group mentality, and so was all racism and related crimes.
There should always remain an equilibrium between grouping right and Individual right and the proper limit of that equilibrium is the freedom of individual to engage in mutually beneficial relations voluntarily by choice, with an option to not to choose to be a part.
Just because taliban is a gorup, if you start killing children and kids of talibanis, it makes no sense.
Now about Pakistan.
I never said Pakistan is taliban, yet you and may be Obama thinks that pakistan is rouge state, if there are some talibanis in Pakistan, then Pakistan government/army is either supporting them or not taking any action against them, that is why Obama ordered air strike.
So, if he is so sure that pakistan army is doing nothing, why cannot he attack Pakistan?
He can do so he is mad, when he can order bombing civilian villages of pakistan, then why cannot he attack islamabad lahor or karachi too? Even Hitler was mad.
And Hitler was also chosen democratically by germans, USA chose Obama.
About my rational thinking, For me, the notion of nation matters nothing, India, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran USA, all are one in same for me One world, what is important is Individual and Individual right, his right to own his life, that is his right to act for his living.
Obama is destroying Innocent life, he is criminal. There are no two way talks about it.
By the way, why did you avoid answering Renegade_division?
Jon Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 10:52 am“That’s not really an answer to my question, what if George W Bush’s percentage for a reasonable doubt of Osama hiding in a children’s village is 2%? Are you saying everything is acceptable?”
No, I thought you were referring to jury trials still. Even if there’s a 99.9% chance that Osama is hiding in a village full of children, obviously you would not bomb it. Be realistic!
“There are many punishments for future crimes, conspiracy to commit a murder is one of them. Solicitation is another, pretty much everything which is a crime, planning to commit that crime is punishable.”
Yes, those are crimes in and of themselves written into law. Note that the act of planning to commit murder is distinct from the act of murder itself.
“If tomorrow a Catholic Court system develops, and a Christian woman agrees to go to the court, and the court holds her guilty for abortion and punishes her, the judgment would be binding to her(coz she agreed to go there at the first place), on the other hand, if an atheist woman goes for abortion, and a Christian husband wants to drag her a Christian court, and she does not agree to it, then this catholic court can never force their judgment on her unless most of the courts she can possibly go to agree with the Catholic court.”
What happens to people who change religions? What happens to children who join a church because their parents tell them to?
It’s an interesting idea but there are a lot of details to work out. The main problem I see is that it becomes easy to take advantage of the desperate, the uneducated, or the plain naive, because you can get them to agree to any arbitrary set of laws that you want. In reality, contracts are subordinate to the law of the land and to personal rights. If you willingly and knowingly sign a contract that says you must be lashed 50 times if you get an abortion, because you’re young and in love and you don’t think you’ll ever need or want an abortion… that’s an illegal contract. It cannot be enforced in court. That protection seems to be missing from the system you propose since the contract effectively becomes the new law.
“Well what if the President of Mexico thinks that Minuteman Project is a rogue American group which is harming their citizens who are crossing the borders, and he must make a missile strike on the house of Chris Simcox to eliminate the rogue elements.”
What is the truth? The way you have phrased it is very ambiguous — maybe Mexico is crazy, maybe they’re right, who knows. I have to know the truth before I can judge the situation.
Jon Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 11:08 amUnpretentious Diva,
I find it hard to believe that you truly believe what you’re saying about groups. Look, we here are a group right now. You me and renegade_division. I do not have moderator status on this blog, though. When I make a comment, I must wait for it to be approved by someone else. In this group I have given up my right to free speech.
However, what do I gain from this? I gain protection from others who would abuse their right to speech. Your blog does not have hundreds of spam posts on each article, which would make the comment section worthless. So I give up my liberty voluntarily to the group (even more dangerously, to the single leader of the group) so that I can enjoy a good blog with good comments and no spam.
The same thing works in larger groups. I have given up the liberty to go to a crowded theater and make a false alarm that there is a fire. In exchange for that, I gain the freedom to go to a crowded theater and not have OTHER people make false alarms.
Groups become dangerous not when individual liberties are limited by the group, but when disparities in individual liberties are allowed. If a subgroup within the group has more rights than others, you have a problem.
That is what happened with the Soviet Union. The top members of the communist party were above the law and could dictate others’ rights at will. It wasn’t the group that made it bad but the disparity.
renegade_division Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 11:22 am@Jon Said:
That sounds like you didn’t understand my point at all.
I just gave an example that if Christian courts get enough market then they will be famous giving decisions to binding Christians. In the sense that if two Christians wanna go to their Pastor for a dispute resolution they are free to do so, but then asking “what if one of the person changes his religion?”, well I think the stupidity of the question is obvious.
Although if you mean to say what if a teenage girl who went ahead and had an Abortion is punished by the Christian court for taking a life, but the Libertarian courts do not acknowledge it as a crime(I am not taking a stance on Abortion here, but lets say if that happened), well its a simple thing, if this girl went to Libertarian courts in future and claimed an act of aggression against the Christian courts then the christian court must be punished.
The point is, that nothing is involuntary here, in this case the teenage girl’s consent wasn’t involved so the Christian court had no recourse, although if the Christian court simply shows papers of parents signing a document “accepting the Christian courts” as a binding authority on this case then the liability is with parents.
I don’t know why you think that politicians who seek votes from people somehow have these supernatural powers and this extraordinary thinking which profit-seeking private individuals just do not have as the laws of nature dictate. A poor guy needs food really really desperately, can you charge him a Million dollars for that food? Which current law protects a really really poor guy from being ripped off of his million dollars for a plate of food? The answer is NONE!(Price gauging is only applicable in natural disasters).
So does that mean either people in America are constantly ripping off poor people of their millions of dollars for a plate of food, or people in America are real nice people and they don’t do these evil things out of sheer generosity.
Is my point clear here? Its in comic language, but I evolved it to answer some totally irrelevant questions people ask about a society of pure Liberty. There is no law against asking poor and desperate people to do things for you(excluding slavery), but then what is it you really want them to do without giving them bodily harms?
If you raped a poor girl who has no money, any ambulance chasing lawyer would be willing to fight for her case pro-bono if her claim is substantial, and rip you off of Millions of dollars as restitution(and a heavy fee for himself).
Just an additional point the libertarian judicial system will stress on restitution as much as punishment, currently in our justice system punishment is much more important than restitution, if a girl is raped, and is offered 5 million dollars and she will keep her mouth shut, its not acceptable in Legal system of America, its definitely not acceptable if its a murder and the family decides to move on by taking money(restitution).
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 11:36 amRight, and that is your voluntary choice. You are not coerced for it. you can surely deny conversing with us, that is your individual freedom have not been breached. it is an agreeable condition, it is my property and i am letting you use it, its my free-will.
Yes the same thing should work on Large group,
it should work like this http://www.reasonforliberty.com/philosophy/liberty-tolerance-freedom-of-expression-and-political-correctness.html
but it doesn’t as for example, compulsive taxation, it is compulsory, it is wastage, it is exploitation.
There are many other examples, as for the case you are a christian, there’s a group cult holy grail http://www.reasonforliberty.com/current-affairs/human-sacrifice.html
It becomes coercive and extreme.
There’s a billion examples, yet better you read what is provided first before commenting again, it will help you understand that I am not talking of anti-community i am surely talking of Pro-community, but good of community is only when Individual Freedom is preserved. Otherwise it becomes tyranny/.
So, please do not try to preach alone, rather try to understand other’s point of view too.
renegade_division Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 11:54 am@Jon Said:
I disagree with you and Gargi on this one. You don’t HAVE a right to free speech on my blog. Free speech isn’t a positive right that every individual must be given that, the right to free speech is just a negative right, preventing govt from making any laws against it.
Your “First Amendment rights” are only applicable on your own property, anybody else’s property who gave you consent to put your speech on his property, and govt properties(public properties).
IF if you wanna write something on your own blog, and someone prevents you(provided its not a blogspot blog and google is preventing you coz its google’s property) , then its a violation of your private property rights, if govt stops you from doing so then its a violation of your first amendment rights.
If you are given a consent by a newspaper on writing on his newspaper and govt or third party stops you, then its a violation of newspaper writer’s property right.
This definition of free speech, that my speech is also applicable on your butt, is what leftist hippy students talk about when they are kicked out of a private meeting.
So by not having your speech, or prevention, modification or deletion of your comments on this blog is not a violation of any of your rights, coz they don’t exist on this blog, in fact forcing me to put your content on my site would be a violation of my property rights.
Again dangerously not true.
You don’t even have the right to say your own name against the wishes of a theater owner, leave alone screaming fire. The Supreme Court’s definition of the “exception” of first amendment is dangerously wrong.
When you scream Fire in a crowded theater, you violate the property rights of the theater owner by creating a disturbance there. No you don’t give up any Liberties coz you don’t have any positive rights on his property, whatever rights you get are the rights HE GIVES YOU.
If he forces you to wear a man’s dress(coz you are a man) on his property, or else he threatens to kick you out then he is not violating your “right to be dressed as a fairy and demanding attention”, nor when you wear man’s clothes you are giving up your “right to be dressed as a fairy and demanding attention”.
The only rights you have on his property is what you own of your own, for example if he steals your money in his theater, that’s your property, so its a theft, if he steals your baby, your wife, yourself, your clothes, your car and basically anything he allowed you to bring to his property, then its all theft.
Umarblogs Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 12:04 pmFriends foreign policy doesn’t change-
As said above, Obama may be with a slight or wee shift in
its policy in afghanistan may differ than the Bush. But at the same
time he will contnue America’s killing spree in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the same poeple who were labelled as Mujahedeen’s by former Prez US Reagen. A front cover pic on Iqbal Ahmed’s book can show you the meeting gowing on between ‘Mujaheedens and Regan’—during his tenure. He is even reported to have said that he too is a Mujaheeden.. But now the same people are TTTrrrssttts……Irnony and Shame.
Jon Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 12:09 pm“That sounds like you didn’t understand my point at all.”
You’re right, I guess I didn’t understand. Reading your new examples, I understand but find your idea meaningless. People can choose whatever courts they want, they can choose new courts in the future, they can even get one court to punish another court! You’re not describing a system of “courts” in any common sense of the word. That’s why I was confused.
Your idea of a libertarian justice system, if you’re trying to connect that with the religious courts example, cannot work. If I can pay one court to declare another court invalid and punish them, obviously your system devolves to anarchy and chaos.
If you’re not trying to connect them, it still fails because not all criminals are wealthy. For instance:
“If you raped a poor girl who has no money, any ambulance chasing lawyer would be willing to fight for her case pro-bono if her claim is substantial, and rip you off of Millions of dollars as restitution(and a heavy fee for himself).”
Yes, but what if I’m also poor? What lawyer will do the pro-bono work and then get nothing? Umm… nobody. So the poor who have nothing to lose will go unpunished because nobody will have anything to gain.
I mean… are you really arguing that justice can work as a private enterprise? Five seconds of thought will tell you that it can’t provide true justice if it operates with profit motives!
Jon Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 12:11 pm“I disagree with you and Gargi on this one. You don’t HAVE a right to free speech on my blog. Free speech isn’t a positive right that every individual must be given that, the right to free speech is just a negative right, preventing govt from making any laws against it.”
Good Lord. Obviously first amendments rights don’t apply to this blog. If you look at the context, it’s clear that I was talking about a more general definition of personal liberty than the narrow scope of the US Constitution. Don’t insult my intelligence.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 12:16 pm@ Jon
Restitution is always an optional case. it never is a compulsory case.
As for example, in a feud, someone kills a person, he accepts his crime, but the family of victim want to forgive him, they do not want him to be hanged, then there is a way.
if they want the culprit to get capital punishment, no restitution can save him.
Similarly, be the girl is poor or rich, if she want the rapist to be punished severely (as per law) no money can save him.
Yet, if for some reason girl just do not want him to punish, he may get freedom without any restitution too, if girl decides they may marry too, if girl decides, she may get restitution too.
Lawyer s secondary, first is the victim and accused.
About pro-bono thing, when there will be private security nets, the private security nets will provide the lawyers by themselves.
And just like the private ISP providers, the charges of security nets will be as low as possible because of competitive market.
Justice will be reachable for the poorest of the community at proper charges.
and anyways, nothing is free in any sort of world.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 12:24 pm@jon, I never said I have any right of free speech on your property.
Why not read this again? http://www.reasonforliberty.com/reason/the-impasse-of-democracy-voting-is-not-a-solution-it-is-a-killer.html
I properly explained that Right of free speech free expression or any other right is totally dependent on RIGHT TO PROPERTY.
You can use your right to free speech on your blog.
Here, i am allowing you to speak on my freee-will it is mutual agreement.
That is why I am saying, read before commenting. Read each and every article I mentioned, and then you may get some point to disagree with.
Or you can read this
http://www.reasonforliberty.com/philosophy/republic-india-struggling-against-slavery.html
But here, when we are talking (we three, I have allowed you to talk, to express yourself, at my property, as if it is a cocktail party and i have invited you at my house. its mutual beneficial agreement, a proper way of free society.
renegade_division Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 8:58 pm@Jon Said:
Maybe I shouldn’t have used the unique examples initially, actually sooner or later these questions come in in such a discussion(like how would your Libertarian courts handle the case of Abortion), but it seems I should have explained regular cases first.
Any criminal or civil case is basically a case of conflict between two parties, a rape case is between victim and rapist, a murder case is between a murderer and murder victim’s estate. So in case of conflict, we both have to settle down on a common third party arbitration. If we both agree on the same third party arbitration, things are good, we will sign a binding agreement and the decision given by it will be binding. If we don’t agree on a common third party arbitration(or if its just one sided accusation), you will go to yours(Court A) for a decision, and either the other party must go to a court(court B) of its own choice, or be ready to accept the decision of court A.
Now if both the courts, A and B give the same decision, the conflict is solved. If not then the courts A and B are said to be in a conflict, so now THEY will go to a common third party arbitration(chances are they might already be having a pre-determined court for themselves), if not then the court A and B are said to be in conflict just like you and me. This process cannot arbitrarily go on forever because there are huge costs involved with seeking any justice.
The invalidation claim I was talking about was only for court system which disagree with each other on a huge basis. For example, nobody can really stop the Catholics from seeking a Catholic court system, its a free society after all, the issue is how much power does the Catholic court has on people who do not wanna come under catholic court system. I was trying to explain you that.
This concept is already pre-existing in real world in Somalia, with Islamic Courts union, they gave justice based on Shariat, although initially they were quite widely accepted, and they basically ruled Somalia’s huge part(not rule as in Obama kind of rule, but the simple fact that if they gave a justice, it was enforced all over the land by Islamic Courts Union), but later because of Ethopian military’s operations they don’t exist that widely anymore.
Without constant military invasions by Ethopia and UN/US Somalis would have got eventually fed up with the Islamic courts system and would have opted for more Libertarian judgments.
You being rich or poor does not matter in a justice system, if you damaged someone for say $1 million then you must pay that money back irrespective of your economic status. Since justice is based on restitution more than punishment, even a rape case would be more about restitution(financial compensation) than punishment.
Now how will a poor man pay a million dollars from his pocket? The answer lies in private prison system(well if courts are private how come prisons aren’t, lol).
In the private prison system the intention is not a punishment, rather how does a prison try to use the culprit to create restitution for the victim.
So if you are a poor watchmaker who raped a girl and now has to pay $5 million dollars then you will be employed to work by a prison in a confined territory(depending upon your crime it could be confined or not), you could be living exactly like how you live right now, but the only difference would be a majority percentage of your salary would go towards the restitution fund.
A Prison would be successful or unsuccessful on how well they take care of their prisoner vs how profitable they are.
Take for example if you chose to go to a 5-star prison, you would be wasting most of your salary on your benefits, so it will take longer for you to come out with the restitution money, on the other hand living in a shabby room will help you save more money, thereby will make you come out of prison faster.
Anyways restitution is not the ultimate decision by everyone, it could happen that the rape victim wants punishment, so the individual will be punished in proportion to his crime. A slap for a slap, an eye for an eye, a rape for a rape. You could rape the person yourself, or you could hire someone to rape him for you. Two slaps for one slap would be an act of initiation of aggression. Then this person is entitled to slap you back.
Or you could simply want him to be sent to a prison for x amount of years(proportional the crime done, decided by free market courts).
That means for slapping someone, you could go to jail for few hours, or be made to pay $250 restitution, or be slapped by the other person or someone hired by the other person.
For a bit more detailed discussion, you can read two short essays written by Robert Murphy ‘Chaos Theory’: http://mises.org/books/chaostheory.pdf Its only 60 pages, so not going to take much time.
Don Emmerich Says:
February 17th, 2009 at 12:36 pmAmen, Unpretentious Diva! Keep speaking the truth!
Joan Kruegel Says:
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