State of Disunion 2003
by William Stone, III
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Well, Dubyuh's most recent State of Disunion address is out of the way,
and I
managed to restrain myself from watching it. What would have been the
point?
All he was going to do was gibber on about saving the world from terrorism
and
adding all kinds of insane government programs that would save the world.
And
- as they've been in the process of doing since Bloody Tuesday - the
Republicans would applaud like the wild, power-mad butchers they are,
ejecting once and for all the notion that they have any real affinity for
limited government.
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Why bother watching such tripe? I probably would have ended up cursing at
the television and putting .45-inch slugs through it. Certainly my
viewing
habits would have improved as a result, but then I'd've had to fix the
holes
in both the walls and exterior siding of the house.
Instead, I spent a couple of hours watching "The Matrix", wishing I could
simply unplug myself from the insanity.
The thing that really galls me isn't the mad rush to war that both the
Republicans and Democrats are engaging in. After all, they're sick,
twisted,
disgusting little trolls deep down in their evil, shrivelled souls.
They'd
have absolutely no qualms about selling their own mothers and sisters into
prostitution, as long as they got an occasional hummer.
They don't bother me. What bothers me is the people who are nominally
supposed to be on the libertarian side who want to send other peoples'
sons
off to die in a pointless conflict based on the price of a fuel that's
mere
moments away from obsolescence.
That's right: oil as a fuel source is about to be obsolete -- and
probably
would already be gone were the FedGov not bent on artificially keeping its
prices low. Regardless, the next Henry Ford is ultimately going to
put a "Mr. Fusion" on every car in America. When that happens, watch how
rapidly the entire concept of the Middle East fades from the American
consciousness. The United States will abandon any pretense of being
interested in the region, and the various factions will go back to being
what
they were prior to 1948: warring tribes engaged in centuries-long blood
feuds, more concerned with murdering each other than some heathen country
half a world away.
Until then, however, we have would-be dictators like Comrade Dubyuh to
deal
with. And worse, we have lily-livered so-called "libertarians" who don't
even understand what individual liberty really means.
Let me be very specific: if you are in favor of any war ANYWHERE, then
you
are not a libertarian.
A libertarian is a person who believes that no human being has the
right -
under ANY circumstances - to initiate force against another human being,
nor
to advocate or delegate its initiation. If you don't believe that, you're
not a libertarian, pure and simple.
No libertarian can be in favor of any kind of war. War is totally at odds
with the Zero Aggression Principle.
Now, let's forget the specifics of any given war, because they really
don't
matter. War - as a concept - cannot be waged without the initiation of
force.
On a high level, war requires government, and government requires
initiation
of force. I know it would be nice to imagine a world in which government
didn't initiate force, but it's not possible. Government initiates force
against the governed. Government cannot so much as put one brick atop
another without stealing money or resources to get it done. Certainly the
massing of troops on anyone's border is an affair requiring billions of
dollars in this day and age, and these billions must be stolen from the
governed.
Government - as a concept - initiates force. Government without
initiated
force is the same as fish without water: e.g. DEAD.
For any so-called libertarian to be in favor of war is to be in favor of
government. For any so-called libertarian to be in favor of government is
to
be in favor of initiated force. To be in favor of initiated force is to
not
be a libertarian.
However, on a closer level, war very specifically initiates force. In
modern
terms, we call the victims of initiated force "collateral damage," but I
prefer to call them what they truly are: "innocent bystanders."
Let's imagine for a moment that divorced of all the government propaganda
that Dubyuh and his cronies are using to inflame sentiment against him,
that
Saddam Hussein is a raw, naked initiator of force. There are many reasons
to
believe this: from all accounts, both he and the ilk with which he
surrounds
himself are wretched, evil excuses for human beings several orders of
magnitude worse than Dubyuh himself.
As an initiator of force, Hussein is morally required to provide
restitution
to his victims. If he will not or cannot, then there is no reason that
any
individual or group of individuals cannot take it upon themselves to
respond
to his initiated force and destroy him.
Note that INDIVIDUALS may destroy him, not GOVERNMENT. Individuals have
the
ability to peacefully raise a militia, buy materiel, and shoot him dead
without requiring disinterested parties to become involved. Government
forces EVERYONE to become involved.
However, the moment that any individual harms an innocent bystander, then
that
individual becomes an initiator of force himself.
So let's take a hypothetical (but highly probable) situation:
Saddam Hussein lives in a palace, which he pays for by keeping his
subjects
in a state of abject poverty. Nestled up against his palace are subjects
who
use it for shelter, who attach their carts to it and trade with those
surrounding it, or just wander by to take pictures of it.
Enter the men of the North Sioux City Militia, Ltd. The NSCM has raised
the
necessary funds and hired the appropriate personnel to locate Saddam, and
they decide that one sure way to get rid of him is to drop a large bomb on
his palace while he's inside it.
The pilots of the NSCM fly over the palace, and using the high technology
at
their command, let fly with an explosive missile that can shoot the fleas
off
of a dog's back from 20,000 feet.
The missile does the job, turning Saddam's palace into assorted piles of
rubble. However, in the process, they also kill the individuals crowded
around the palace at the time of its destruction.
The pilots of the NSCM have just become initiators of force. Their
victims
are due restitution. Considering that their victims are DEAD, it's
impossible to provide such restitution. Therefore it would not be an
initiation of force for interested members of the Greater Baghdad Regional
Militia to shoot the pilots dead -- provided that the GBRM's snipers
didn't
initiate force against anyone else to do so.
Similarly, massing hundreds of thousands of government troops to invade a
country, shoot their way through, and destroy Saddam Hussein will
inherently
initiate force against numerous other individuals in the process.
Thus war - as a concept - is inherently immoral.
No doubt pseudo-libertarians among my readers are up in arms at this
point,
pointing out that in all of human history, wars have created victims.
Such
is the price of war.
This is certainly true. Nevertheless, war is immoral because it violates
the
Zero Aggression Principle. If you can't accept this simple,
easily-provable
truth, then you are not a libertarian.
What, you may ask, are individuals to do about such force initiators as
Saddam Hussein? The answer is simple:
Anything they like, provided that they do not initiate force.
They can raise private bounties, for example. An interesting note about
force initiators is that lacking any real moral scruples, they are easily
bought. A sufficiently high bounty will cause Saddam's own henchmen to
betray him.
They can infiltrate his country and at an opportune moment pick him off
sniper-style.
They can invest in new technologies, such as space exploration, particle
weapons, and targeting systems. Imagine for a moment that the NSCM
launches
a particle beam weapon over Baghdad. The next time Saddam Hussein goes
out
for a stroll in his palace garden, he -- and he ALONE -- will acquire a
large
hole from his skull to his crotch, and no force need be initiated against
anyone.
The only real answer to the problems of dictators and terrorists will not
be
found in government. They'll be found in free individuals with 100% sole
ownership of their lives and destinies. Relying on government to solve
these
problems only creates tyranny and suffering. Indeed, as has been noted
many
times previously, the reason that Bloody Tuesday occurred at all was
because
immoral government foreign policy incited terrorists while immoral
domestic
policy made it possible for them to hijack the aircraft. Had the
individuals
in the United States been simply left unmolested by their government,
Bloody
Tuesday would never have occurred.
Indeed, in all likelihood, dictators such as Saddam Hussein (or Joseph
Stalin,
Adolph Hitler, or Abraham Lincoln) would not have survived long enough to
cause trouble.
Free individuals can morally rid the world of dictators and terrorists.
Governments can only create more of them.
- – William Stone, III
William Stone, III is a computer
nerd (RHCE, CCNP, CISSP) and philosopher of the Zero Aggression Principle from McCook Lake, South
Dakota. He seeks the Libertarian Party's nomination for the 2004 Senate race
is South Dakota.
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