Code Red

[pancreasman]

There are, in fact, honorable ways to be a soldier. There is no honorable way to be a liberal, in war or in peace, because to be a liberal is to be at war, declared or undeclared, with Nature and Nature's God.

So there are dishonourable ways to behave in the role of a soldier in wartime?

[phank]

So there are dishonourable ways to behave in the role of a soldier in wartime?

Seems to depend on which god you believe in or don't believe in. Liberal (the opposite of godly) soldiers cannot be honorable.

[pancreasman]

Seems to depend on which god you believe in or don't believe in. Liberal (the opposite of godly) soldiers cannot be honorable.

I know I'm 'encouraging Epo' which is against forum rules, but I'd like to get a clear idea of his view of morality and law during wartime. No matter what I say, he says 'no, that's not it'.

[Darth Executor]

Seems to depend on which god you believe in or don't believe in. Liberal (the opposite of godly) soldiers cannot be honorable.

Liberals cannot be honorable, soldier or no soldier.

[pancreasman]

Liberals cannot be honorable, soldier or no soldier.

And there you have it.

But back to the thread. Do you agree that law has no place in warfare?

[Darth Executor]

And there you have it.

But back to the thread. Do you agree that law has no place in warfare?

Which law?

[Manwë Súlimo]

[pancreasman]

Which law?

Good point. I guess I mean generally, the rule of law. Do we have moral authority, for example, to prosecute people for 'war crimes'?

[Paprika]

Good point. I guess I mean generally, the rule of law. Do we have moral authority, for example, to prosecute people for 'war crimes'?

Depends on who "we" and "people" are. The Nuremberg trials, for example, were a travesty.

[Darth Executor]

Good point. I guess I mean generally, the rule of law. Do we have moral authority, for example, to prosecute people for 'war crimes'?

Depends. Do you have the guns to get away with it?

[jordanriver]

I think the de facto war crime is losing.

The way to test this is to lose your war...
...and you'll see who prosecutes who.

[pancreasman]

So would it be more honest to say war is awful and we do awful things. Afterwards we should not be held accountable for our actions.

[Cow Poke]

So would it be more honest to say war is awful and we do awful things. Afterwards we should not be held accountable for our actions.

War has changed. It has always been awful, but our current enemy is fighting from a position of apocalyptic fervor. They clearly do in public, and with no compunction, the things our society would not condone our own troops doing.

[Paprika]

*Tries to summarise in 10 or less words Epo's views on a complex issue based on Epo's diametrically opposed worldview that pman has rejected and rubbished*

Multiple attempts later:

No matter what I say, he says 'no, that's not it'.

No one could possibly have seen this coming.

[Epoetker]

So would it be more honest to say war is awful and we do awful things. Afterwards we should not be held accountable for our actions.

War is a state of hostilities with its own rules: in which all forms of force and fraud are theoretically permitted to either side if aimed against the other. The moral point of aiming for victory as quickly as possible in such wars is so that you don't end up getting a taste for the use of force and fraud to the point that you start using them in non-war situations. And just because you aren't judged under the rules of peace during wartime, doesn't mean that you won't be judged if your actions during that war broke the legal order of that war (committing force and fraud against your fellow soldiers, for instance.)

And the transition from war, to peace, to security, to a legal order isn't exactly a black-white transition, humans being what they are. Hate to harp on Moldbug here, but since you probably failed to read this in a previous post, I'm going to have to keep linking it till you read it:

Surrender comes in two forms: unconditional, or incremental. If unconditional surrender is necessary, it should by all means be pursued. If incremental surrender is effective, it may be pursued, but it is generally not effective. A predator will come back for more, knowing that he can get it. Incremental surrender may be associated with effective deterrence, but this is rare.

Therefore, in many cases peace can be achieved only in the Roman way: by victory. As with all military objectives, victory is achieved by any means necessary. Including artillery. Clearly, if the enemy uses artillery and you don't, your chances of victory are greatly reduced.

But the libertarian artillery officer faces a serious moral dilemma. Does artillery violate the natural rights of the target? I would say: the entire purpose of artillery is to violate the natural rights of the target. Clearly, if you could get your hands on the people your artillery is pointed at, and subject them to a full and fair judicial trial for whatever their offenses may be, you would have no need at all for artillery. Since you have no means by which to achieve this, you subject them to a 120-mm shell instead. Hence violating their natural rights - with both blast and shrapnel. When they may have committed no offenses at all. Boom! Hey, man, that hurt.

This is war: inter arma silent leges. Or so the Romans believed. One can, of course, reverse this axiom - just as Einstein himself, on so many bumper stickers, reversed si vis pacem, para bellum. When reversing millennium-old proverbs, be sure to expect the reverse results. Perhaps they won't happen; in that case, you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Similarly, once outright military conflict is ended, peace is established. But mere peace is a low state of order. In peace, the state must work toward security.

A state is secure if it maintains a monopoly of coercion. Security does not mean the absolute absence of crime, ie, private coercion; this is unachievable, because crime cannot be universally preempted. Security does mean the absolute absence of systematic or organized crime, as well as the absence of any other systematic resistance to state authority - from banditry to tax protest, terrorism to "civil disobedience."

And how does this resistance become "absent?" Well, of course, it does not do so on its own. Oh, no! Au contraire, mon frere! In certain rare instances, systematic crime can be legalized, and thus become orderly. Indeed, if the state's orders are physically unenforceable, it should reconsider them. It cannot outlaw the moon. Marijuana laws are perhaps a case of this - not due to the harmlessness of the drug, but the hardiness of the plant.

Otherwise, alas. Security is achieved when resistance is crushed. The use of artillery in this process should be unnecessary. If you need artillery, you are probably still working on the peace stage. On the other hand, the assumption that all security problems, in all cases, can be resolved by the use of rights-preserving judicial procedures, is entirely unwarranted.

Here we meet a good old friend, martial law - yet another traditional attribute of sovereignty recognized for millennia, yet strangely forgotten in the late 20th century. Martial law is no law at all, of course, but the arbitrary will of a military commander. It is really martial order. And there are countries in the world - quite a few, in fact - that need martial order, the way a camel that's just walked across Libya needs a glass of water.

Just like artillery, martial order is an essential step in the journey from military chaos to libertarian order. A state that can win its wars with artillery, but not enforce the result with martial law, is a state whose subjects can never feel secure. Have you ever lived in a fully secure society? It's an experience most of us can barely imagine.

But martial order is, by its nature, only temporary. As soon as it is achieved, it is time to move on to the next step: law. Once the state has suppressed all resistance to its will, it must render its own actions consistent and predictable. This result is produced by the institution of law.

Are you getting it yet?