Posted on 10/20/2001 7:27:01 AM PDT by annalex
Since the resolution was not stated "can be" ... "could be" ... or "may be," it is ridiculous on its face.
"...hence foreign intervention is an essentially military endeavor."
Intervention by the covert operatives of one nation to influence or control domestic political developments within another country is as clearly "intervention" as is military action. We should have little doubt that the U.S. has engaged in more numerous political interventions than the far more visible military form.
If intervention can be morally justified, it is IMO only under conditions in which clear and imminent threat exists. These are the same conditions under which I feel it is appropriate for U.S. law enforcement to engage in preventive action against our own citizens.
The government does seek majoritarian consent for its specific policies, and you can work to bring your views into majority. Universal consent is needed under natural law when that activity of the government doesn't follow from the constitution. For example, if the government decides to run a pension plan, participation in that plan should be voluntary so that there is a universal consent to it.
The Key Concepts section makes it clear that any time the foreign government is limited through our action in its use of force, what we have is intervention. That would include covert operations.
Having determined that the intervention is justified (against a government that usurps power), we have the next question: is it a good idea? Rand's answer is that it would depend on concrete circumstances and should be rooted in natinal interest only. There is no reason to limit that to cases of imminent threat. Clearly, at least in some cases, the national interest will be better served if the intervention occurred before a threat form some menace is imminent. For example, the US would have (a) been justified and (b) served its national interests better if it invaded the USSR right after the World War Two, rather than waiting till the missiles were installed in Cuba, -- by which time the success of a military confrontation became doubtful.
Balogney. There is nothing whatsoever that authorizes foreign intervention abroad. The phrase uttered over and over in the constitution is "repel invasion." Extermely specific.
The military was also forbidden from being funded for longer than two years.
But aside from that, it was expected that you as a citizen would shoot some foregn invaders and be a well regulated militia member.
"Consent of the governed" - what exactly do you think that phrase means anyway? It's nice sounding but meaningless? Consent by a bunch of white men dead and burried 200 years ago?
The discussion doesn't rectify the wrongly worded resolution itself, but irrespective of that, can we name any government throughout all of history which could not be reasonably argued to have "usurped power"? Are there any which have taken less power from their own citizens than our own, one which almost every FR poster believes has usurped too much? Pre-emptive self defense always involves subjective judgements and almost always can be reasonably viewed by some knowledgeable individuals as premature, over-reaching, unnecessary and/or immoral.
The imminent threat proviso narrows the range of subjective judgement and makes it more likely that if errors are made they will be on the side of non-intervention, which I think appropriate. It is not enough that our interventions serve U.S. interest, but to be moral IMO they must be self-defensive (at least retributive, which actions have a self-defense component in the sense of warning against future conduct which threatens U.S. security.)
The post-WWII USSR example doesn't quite fit, as our experience with Stalin (particularly the objectives/intransigence/attitudes revealed in negotiations at Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam) made it quite clear to those who weren't predisposed to sympathy for the "Brave New World" that an imminent threat existed, and plenty of people were saying so.
Among other clear signs, he demanded that we forcibly return 2 million refugees from the Soviet Union and its satellite states (who had made their way to the right side of the Iron Curtain) as a condition of releasing approximately 60,000 British and American POWs who were in Soviet camps after having been "liberated" from German POW camps by the west-moving Red Army. Should we have caved to the demand and forced 2 million newly free people back to his tyranny? Should we have seen that demand as proving the existence of an imminent threat?
I don't see a more equitable mechanism of consent in matters of national interest than majoritarian consent at election time, -- the classic Lockean body politic. Do either of you?
Note that the situation is different in matters of domestic policy. There the only players are ourselves, a free nation. So we can mix and match policies based on universal consent. Under the libertarian ideal of self-government, if our government proposes some cockamammie scheme that some of us like, then those who like the scheme sign up, those who don't -- don't sign up, and there is equity all around. But we can't have a foreign policy based on universal consent. That would legitimize a fifth column of non-consenters, who would jeopardize the safety of the consenters, and so won't be rightful.
And amazingly enough, under the dictates of the militia act of 1792, it is the only situation where the President can call up the militia and command the armed forces without a Congressional declaration of War.
Frankly, I think the militia act is unconstitutional because it gives the President the power to act when the Constitution doesn't delegate that authority. But, I, like you see it as a legitimate necessity. I wish it had been sent out as an amendment to the constitution.
Right now, we have a totalitarian military dictator who runs this country. Doesn't matter who's been elected. Because of the forced consent that is the income tax and a military that includes career officers and soldiers, the republic is history. It's on the dust bin of history waiting to be either restored, or acknowledged for the dictatorial empire that it is.
My face was expressing the realization that it is politically incorrect to say so, yes. Nevertheless, our government represents adequately about 90% of our electorate, at least as regards the so-called war on terrorism, as well as the taxation and regulation policy. As I disagree with 90% of what out government does, that is because I disagree with 90% of people I meet. We have a government with consent of the governed, without a doubt. However, all that is beside the point. The Rand's test is not on us, but on the foreign nation. If a foreign nation is ruled by a government that usurped power, then is can be invaded rightfully. By whom? By anybody!
Let's return to the lovely scene in the park (#17). Who has a right to stop a thug? Anyone. The world is an open season on any dictatorship. They are outlaws. We don't have to present any credentials; we don't have to go to confession first.
This whole article does what you just did-make a bunch of assertions that are flatly false
Then it should be easy for you to point out its flaws concretely.
Might makes right eh? Your assertion might fly if the President adhered to the constitution. The Congress that was elected STILL hasn't declared war. And why? Because there is absolutely no nation to declare war upon!
And if the President were to restrain himself until he was given his declaration, he might just entertain letters of Marque because it is the only constitutional remedy for foreign and nationless pirates such as the infamous Al Qaeda and bin Laden. (Not that anyone has bothered to produce a shred of evidence that anyone involved in that organization really committed these acts).
She did and you ignored them. That the Rand institute are full of objectivist warmongers is no secret and I am beginning to see why Rand didn't like libertarians. I am betting the feeling is mutual.
To start off the entire racket she is peddling, she states several times that government's have "rights." This is impossible. Government's hold powers but no rights. That is because they are not individuals and obtain their delegated authority from those entities who actually do posess rights.
This a govenrment has no "right" to act in any fashion whatsoever, much less creating empires and taking down so-called "rogue" nations.
And if you insinuate that libertarians are in general pacifists again I am going to scream. Given that libertarians are the most staunch second amendment advocates anywhere in the world, that idiotic assertion must stop immediately.
The test is not on the invading nation, but on the invaded. If that government has usurped power, then war on that government is justified for anyone. That being said, our government meets the minimal tests: no one prevented the American voters to vote in the ultra-libertarian ticked in every branch of government, except the mind of the voters themselves.
I agree that the imminent threat test is a good rule of thumb. Yet, it is not the whole test. As you argue for example, that the USSR should have been invaded in 1945-49, you go against the prevailing line of thought that there was no imminent threat from them. What happens is that you present an argument that a particular rogue nation is certain to present a threat, and once the threat is presented, it will be harder to confront. Together with you, I think that the West was blind to the Red threat in 1945-49 and betrayed its civilizational obligations to the Western values. The betrayal of the soviet refugees was a dramatic manifestation of that betrayal across a very broad spectrum. But I would hesitate to qualify the Red threat as imminent.
Ahhhh now you have just justified the terrorists. Congratulations.
I guess I have to agree with your minimal test; the fact that a government routinely violates the constitutional authority granted to it is insufficient justification to call it "usurping" if the vast majority of the citizenry offers no objection.
But I would hesitate to qualify the Red threat as imminent.
They held 60,000 Allied citizens against their will and used them as leverage to get what they wanted. If that isn't imminent threat, I don't know what is. Of course the threat that the Soviet Union would become a nuclear super-power which threatened the whole world was not so imminent at that time, but we had clear self-defensive justification to demand the release of the 60,000 and to start kicking A$$ is they weren't immediately released.
This is getting far afield of the subject of the thread, but I think our concessions to the USSR were not technically errors, but the result of willful blindness and the influence of communists and communist sympathizers in our government and media.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.