Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/johnband/sharpener.johnband.org/index.php:1) in /home/johnband/sharpener.johnband.org/wp-includes/feed-rss2-comments.php on line 8
Comments on: Over and over and over and over and over, like a monkey with a miniature cymbal http://sharpener.johnband.org/2006/08/over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-like-a-monkey-with-a-miniature-cymbal/ Trying to make a point Fri, 25 Jan 2008 12:21:35 +0000 hourly 1 By: Rob http://sharpener.johnband.org/2006/08/over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-like-a-monkey-with-a-miniature-cymbal/#comment-28828 Mon, 14 Aug 2006 22:28:00 +0000 http://www.thesharpener.net/2006/08/06/over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-like-a-monkey-with-a-miniature-cymbal/#comment-28828 But a milittary still has to be paid for, and while I can see that courts and so on are a requirement of enforcing the set of property rights right-libertarians favour, it’s not entirely clear that a military would be, and surely not a military with any significant offensive capability.

]]> By: The Realist http://sharpener.johnband.org/2006/08/over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-like-a-monkey-with-a-miniature-cymbal/#comment-28618 Mon, 14 Aug 2006 02:03:41 +0000 http://www.thesharpener.net/2006/08/06/over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-like-a-monkey-with-a-miniature-cymbal/#comment-28618 A British libertarian, like any other brand of Brit, should take no interest in dreary semitic civil wars except for a determination to keep the UK well out of them.

Any Jew/Muslim with a British passport who shills for Israel/Arab countries or Iran should be made to live there. And no more of this ‘dual nationality’ crap, which allows Shirley Porter to flee to Tel Aviv when the law’s after her assets, and to flee back to Mayfair when the missiles start falling.

]]> By: JohnnyD http://sharpener.johnband.org/2006/08/over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-like-a-monkey-with-a-miniature-cymbal/#comment-28557 Sun, 13 Aug 2006 16:06:00 +0000 http://www.thesharpener.net/2006/08/06/over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-like-a-monkey-with-a-miniature-cymbal/#comment-28557 It does seem to me the libertarians should support Hizbullah! After all, the demand that Hizb should disarm is surely a demand for “gun control” – something that libertatians usually rage against!

Or is gun control suddenly acceptable now if it is Arabs who are being disarmed?

]]> By: Bishop Hill http://sharpener.johnband.org/2006/08/over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-like-a-monkey-with-a-miniature-cymbal/#comment-27932 Thu, 10 Aug 2006 19:30:16 +0000 http://www.thesharpener.net/2006/08/06/over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-like-a-monkey-with-a-miniature-cymbal/#comment-27932 The accusation that the author of the Samizdata piece is calling for collective punishment seems wide of the mark to me. Surely the essence of punishment is that it is deliberately aimed at the person or people on the receiving end of it? I don’t think that anyone apart from the loonier left hand end of the political spectrum is accusing Israel of deliberately targetting civilians are they? Yes, there are civilians dying but it’s a war and, however appalling, this does happen in war. But it is clearly not collective punishment.

Mind you, I don’t accept the Samizata author’s contention that those caught in the crossfire are somehow to blame. It would be a brave person to stand up to Hizballah.

]]> By: chris http://sharpener.johnband.org/2006/08/over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-like-a-monkey-with-a-miniature-cymbal/#comment-27858 Thu, 10 Aug 2006 15:50:53 +0000 http://www.thesharpener.net/2006/08/06/over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-like-a-monkey-with-a-miniature-cymbal/#comment-27858

genuine right-libertarians, who, I would have thought, would probably be fairly skeptical about the state possessing a military, let alone using it.

Libertarianism is not anarchism, there is some room for a small constrained state that performs it’s few functions and keeps out of every other aspect of life. The major one of these functions is the protection of it’s citizens. So a state maintaining an army to defend it’s citizens is perfectly supportable, as is using it, in order for a state to defend its citizens from outside aggressors.

]]> By: Jherad http://sharpener.johnband.org/2006/08/over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-like-a-monkey-with-a-miniature-cymbal/#comment-27765 Thu, 10 Aug 2006 08:59:28 +0000 http://www.thesharpener.net/2006/08/06/over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-like-a-monkey-with-a-miniature-cymbal/#comment-27765 Sigh. ‘The Arabs.’

Do people really believe that every citizen of Lebanon is a member of Hezbollah? Have people again forgotten that we’re talking about a guerilla group amongst civilians, not a nation of guerillas?

Of course, something of a self-fulfilling prophecy here – the fight is making Hezbollah much more popular. Much longer, and the Israelis will have managed to radicalise whomever is left. Yeehaw.

Self defence is one thing – but you can’t claim that pistolwhipping my neighbour/brother/mother/pet dog is self-defence if I slap you around. What about if my mother cheers me on – do you get to knock her about a bit then?

]]> By: Tom Paine http://sharpener.johnband.org/2006/08/over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-like-a-monkey-with-a-miniature-cymbal/#comment-27700 Thu, 10 Aug 2006 06:00:38 +0000 http://www.thesharpener.net/2006/08/06/over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-like-a-monkey-with-a-miniature-cymbal/#comment-27700 There are a lot of straw men set up in these comments for attack. The nasty people being described generally sound more like anarchists or survivalists than libertarians.

What’s interesting is the fierce dislike of “libbos” expressed by some here. Socialists and other Statists of various hues turned the 20th Century into the greatest era of carnage in human history. There were no victims of libertarianism, as far as I can recall.

Why the intensity? One has to suspect that here be Socialists with an unsatiated lust to control and oppress.

Comment 19 is really interesting. The analogy is so poor that, if purposefully false, one wonders whom he hopes to fool. Israel knows its enemies shelter behind women and children, so she must just accept that she can’t ever attack them, whatever they do? Embedding guerrillas in a civilian population is a war crime. Hezbollah is responsible for the consequences of that – but then it is clear that it desires and glories in those consequences.

The fact remains that if the Arabs lay down their arms there will be peace. If Israel lays down her arm, there will be genocide. Read the charters of Hezbollah and Hamas. Compare and contrast with IDF doctrine.

Apologists for Hezbollah should be clear about what they are doing. Their calls for”peace” are so much more than just naieve in this context, that it is almost impossible to believe in their sincerity.

They are calling for a ceasefire that will return a “normality” in which Israelis die in rocket attacks while Hezbollah and Hamas remain safely under the protection of the Lebanese government and the Palestinian Authority respectively.

]]> By: Devil's Kitchen http://sharpener.johnband.org/2006/08/over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-like-a-monkey-with-a-miniature-cymbal/#comment-27698 Thu, 10 Aug 2006 04:21:41 +0000 http://www.thesharpener.net/2006/08/06/over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-like-a-monkey-with-a-miniature-cymbal/#comment-27698 Israel – claims to be trying to avoid civilian casualties, but used missiles and bombs to attack Hezbollah because it’s easier and safer (for them) than street-by-street clearance, which could reduce civilian casualties but would increase their own.

Yes, although the fact that the Lebanese said that the army — the official one, I mean — would fight against the IDF if Israel tried an invasion. Presumably, Israel — naturally wanting to safeguard the safety of its own citizens — preferred not to fight two armies and also realised that high-level bombing was going to cause less casualties to their own side.

You know: like we did when we (illegally) bombed the shit out of Serbia. Or is it not “disproportionate”
when we bomb the crap out of civilians?

As for your main thrust, well, maybe I should reclassify myself as a “libertarian pragmatist”. Or, of course, look at the Wikipedia definition of libertarian, which contains the following line:

Force is not opposed when used in retaliation for initiatory aggressions such as trespassing or violence.

Obviously, there are those of us who believe that this principle is not inconsistent with Israel’s actions. In fact, if a libertarian were to believe that Israel was attacked first (something, of course, that is far from clear) then we would have to support her over her aggressor.

There is, of course, more to it than that. It is really about degrees, I suppose; ultimately, a democracy such as Israel fundamentally allows more personal freedom than the fundamental theocracies that Hezbollah represents. If one believes that there is a wider conflict between democracy/the West/Israel/whatever and Islamist theocracies (which many do; not least since, just before the Iraqi elections in January 2005, Al-Zarqawi declared “a bitter war against “the principle of democracy and all those who seek to enact it”) then a libertarian will always be biased towards the democracy, for reasons which should be patently obvious.

This is, I think, how I feel about the matter. I don’t necessarily condone Israel’s retaliatory action but, then again, if the Lebanese government had forced the disarmament of Hezbollah as per UN Resolution 1559 (which, I will admit, is easier said than done and may have run the risk of a civil war) we might not be in this situation.

But ultimately, it is a question of democracy versus fundamental theocracy. No contest for a libertarian. Or would you disagree?

DK

]]> By: Jherad http://sharpener.johnband.org/2006/08/over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-like-a-monkey-with-a-miniature-cymbal/#comment-27687 Thu, 10 Aug 2006 01:22:21 +0000 http://www.thesharpener.net/2006/08/06/over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-like-a-monkey-with-a-miniature-cymbal/#comment-27687 I’m still struggling with the constant assertion that the loss of Lebanese life is terrible, but all down to Hezbollah’s tactics… The notion is as juvenile as me swinging my arms wildly about as I walk down a busy street declaring that anyone hit had only themselves to blame.

Since when have Hezbollah’s military tactics *not* been guerilla? Declaring that they are all terribly unsporting by not facing the IDF across an open field, and that if *only* they did this, the Lebanese population would be spared is… well, criminal.

Israel is well aware of the nature of its enemy. Using conventional airstrikes and artillary against an guerillas embedded in a civilian population is not simply stupid (in that it will not achieve the desired goal), not simply a case of ‘oh well, they didn’t play ball’ – it is a failure to embrace the fact that it is their duty to protect civilian life, and to fight in a manner which upholds this.

Simple. If Hezbollah were hiding in Israeli, US, British, French, German or Australian cities, there would be no airstrikes on populated areas. As Hezbollah are Lebanese however, it seems Israel believes that they have free reign to shoot wherever they like, and civilian casualties are ‘tragic’ but unavoidable.

]]> By: Julian Todd http://sharpener.johnband.org/2006/08/over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-like-a-monkey-with-a-miniature-cymbal/#comment-27598 Wed, 09 Aug 2006 17:30:55 +0000 http://www.thesharpener.net/2006/08/06/over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-like-a-monkey-with-a-miniature-cymbal/#comment-27598 Those were really painful links to look at, you bastard. I agree. I’ve never been able to follow what’s going on between the ears of a libertarian. They’re like religious nuts who contradict everything written down about their creed. Who would Jesus bomb?

Yes, you’d think they would admire the pants off the Iraqi insurgency or Hezbol, those guys who take to the hills when a foreign army bombs their way into their country, and who fight back with pure ingenuity and against all the odds. But for the colour of their skin, the story is like all their rambo-style wet-dreams.

But they’re not the slightest bit interested. Instead, they know which side is right, and then make stuff up to fit it. So, rather than these fighters actually defending their homelands against aggressive attacks, they have to be thoughtless ideologues under orders from a foreign state. Thirty years ago, the enemy fighters were driven by their belief in Marx, which was always quite a silly idea. Now they are willing to fight and die because they “hate our freedom”.

]]>