War Is the Answer, but Only to a Specific Question

The fundamental disconnect with reality that so many Regressive-Democrats have is the concept that "war is not the answer." In fact, that is sometimes true; but in the vast majority of cases, it is the answer. E.g., why do you, as an American have freedom of speech? War. Why do we have elections to determine those in authority? War. Etc. Pacifism is ridiculous on its face as are inanities like an eye for an eye makes both sides blind. No, at some point one side surrenders qua surrenders and a resolution exists just as by any other means of diplomacy.

-"The Objective Historian" commenting on Kevin Drum's blog

I'm a picky eater and a great deal of my pickiness comes from wanting all the parts of my meal too work with each other. Diced onions tucked away in excellent meatloaf (Mom, I'm watching you!), mayonnaise snuck in under the bun of a superior buffalo cheeseburger (all you damn "authentic" burger joints!), and weird shit like green peppers mixed in with a salad (nearly every fancy restaurant)...these are instances where an otherwise perfectly serviceable dish suffers from the inclusion of elements that are so awful they distract my attention to them rather than on the good parts.

The above comment is an example of this happening in the realm of political analysis.

I'm not a pacifist. There are clear-cut cases where it is not only justified but proper to employ violence as a means to a goal, self-defense being the most important and most common of those. War, in the sense of organized individuals fighting to physically defeat other organized individuals, is therefore not something I oppose in principle. It is possible for a war to be waged for both good reasons and with proper means. It just doesn't happen very often and I'd lay most of the blame for that at the feet of the institution that engages in it most frequently: the state.

"The Objective Historian" has a nugget of truth in there and it is worth recognizing it as such. Consistent pacifism is suicide because thugs who don't share your values will destroy you. However, that morsel's flavor is overwhelmed by other ingredients.

The individual right to freedom of speech exists whether thousands of G.I.s are killed in combat or not. The fact that Americans have fought English, Spanish, Italians, Germans, Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, and other assorted people over the last century does not change this. Rights are not contingent upon the outcome of battles. Rights are not privileges granted by others (they are, in fact, the total opposite) and I have no doubt The Objective Historian would implicitly confirm this if I asked him or her to state whether Americans would still have the right to freedom of speech if we were on the losing side of WWII. I'd also ask him or her if the citizen-prisoners of Warsaw Pact nations had the same rights as everyone else during the Communist rule of their governments.

No, rights are not created by war. They are defended and upheld by war, and not even in most historic cases. Even when the rights of some are unshackled by a standard state war (say, the citizens of Europe occupied by the Axis powers), the states conducting the war to liberate those people inevitably engage in action back home that cannot be anything but a open slap at individual rights. Examples such as increased taxation, war economy planning boards, price controls, and restrictions on the press are not hard to find.

There is the argument that our ability to enjoy and flex our rights is contingent upon a peaceful society. If that were the extent of the argument, I wouldn't have an objection. However, those making it take a giant leap from there to the next step: state war and only state war can ultimately secure that peace. There is no justification for this aside from pointing to the historical record; a record, I must remind you, that has been and still is largely written by the victors.

War is the answer to only one specific question: Have such-and-such people aggressed against me and others to the point where myself and those others should respond to the aggressors' bloodshed with combat of our own, to right the wrongs they have committed? I don't think there are other applications that can conform to objective standards of justice. Just wars are fought to end oppression. We can fight wars to free ourselves from oppressors (the British monarchy, the multi-dimensional American demon) and we can fight wars to free others from oppression...but we cannot, in the course of fighting oppression, engage in it ourselves. Unfortunately, it needs to be stressed that mere violence doesn't qualify as oppression; violence must be used against the innocent before it counts as that.

We do not need a state to secure peace. Credible deterrents do not have to wear government uniforms. Effective warriors are not the exclusive realm of the coercive collectivism of the Sovereign. There is nothing in principle that prohibits free markets in defense services from working.

The Objective Historian's criticism isn't aimed at this, of course. He or she is claiming the Democratic Party is gripped by pacifism. This is clearly not true.

Posted by Drizzten at August 20, 2006 05:10 PM