Does the present world order presume that the NAP applies to countries?

[Donnadogsoth]

I am aware that the present world order doesn't recognise the legitimacy (or, often, even the existence) of the NAP.  The NAP's specific application to the individual human, nor its recognition by the state, is not what I am asking after.  Those are being addressed well enough elsewhere.  My question is whether, under the best possible interpretation of the global order's mandate, constitutions, and bills of rights--its spirit, if you will--the NAP can be said to at least theoretically apply to countries, as if the countries (sovereign nation-states) were sovereign human individuals forming a community of actors governed by the NAP.

 

Or, does the present community of nation-states not even recognise the NAP as operative amongst itself, even theoretically as an ideal, even implicitly?

[dsayers]

Title poisons the well. Country is a concept and behaviors are voluntary actions, which concepts cannot engage in.

[Donnadogsoth]

Title poisons the well. Country is a concept and behaviors are voluntary actions, which concepts cannot engage in.

 

I know we we have had our disagreements, dsayers, but you can do me the favour of understanding the metaphor.  Does the present world order--made up of people who in some sense have come to a consensus which they have codified in constitutions, laws, and policy statements--act--through its agents--as though the NAP applies to countries?  Or contrariwise, does the present world order have no such explicit or implicit set of constitutional, legal, and policy statements that would allow for anything resembling a consensus, even a consensus among the more enlightened countries if not the entire world?

[dsayers]

The metaphor is problematic. There are people in the world that accept that murder is immoral, but regard genocide (war) are righteous, benevolent, and necessary. This lack of cognitive dissonance is the result of NOT calling things by their proper names, and therefore not acknowledging that "country" is a concept. Thus, I cannot abide "country" being addressed as if it is an entity, because this would make me complicit in future genocide.

 

Do you see how valuable precision with language can be?

[shirgall]

No, NAP is not applied to countries. I have argued that lethal force doctrine should apply to countries though, as in the universal, "the circumstance that justifies the use of lethal force is the immediate, otherwise unavoidable danger of death or grave bodily harm to oneself or the innocent."

[Donnadogsoth]

The metaphor is problematic. There are people in the world that accept that murder is immoral, but regard genocide (war) are righteous, benevolent, and necessary. This lack of cognitive dissonance is the result of NOT calling things by their proper names, and therefore not acknowledging that "country" is a concept. Thus, I cannot abide "country" being addressed as if it is an entity, because this would make me complicit in future genocide.

 

Do you see how valuable precision with language can be?

 

Are you telling me prosecuting World War flipping Two was genocide on the part of the Allies?

[dsayers]

Are you telling me prosecuting World War flipping Two was genocide on the part of the Allies?

Strawman. Why quote what I've said if you're just going to say I said something else?

[rosencrantz]

Are you telling me prosecuting World War flipping Two was genocide on the part of the Allies?

 

 

Murder turns into something virtuous when an old dude with shiny badges on a uniform tells you so.

[Donnadogsoth]

Strawman. Why quote what I've said if you're just going to say I said something else?

 

You just said war is genocide.  "There are people in the world that accept that murder is immoral, but regard genocide (war) are righteous, benevolent, and necessary."  Is all war genocide to you, then?

 

Murder turns into something virtuous when an old dude with shiny badges on a uniform tells you so.

 

 

All deaths caused by all wars are murder?

[rosencrantz]

All deaths caused by all wars are murder?

 

 

 

Yes.

[shirgall]

All deaths caused by all wars are murder?

 

I'm not going to call it murder in all cases. If some country declares war on yours, mobilizes forces, and sends them to occupy your land, take your stuff, and to rape, kill, or enslave your people, then self-defense in the form of war seems pretty justified to me.

 

Even if you had no state of your own, forceful invasion merits forceful defense.

[Donnadogsoth]

I'm not going to call it murder in all cases. If some country declares war on yours, mobilizes forces, and sends them to occupy your land, take your stuff, and to rape, kill, or enslave your people, then self-defense in the form of war seems pretty justified to me.

 

Even if you had no state of your own, forceful invasion merits forceful defense.

 

A note of ringing sanity.

 

 

Yes.

 

 

And is it possible to have a war of one man against one man?  And if so, then if the aggressor should be killed in self-defense by the target, you would consider that murder also?

[rosencrantz]

And is it possible to have a war of one man against one man? 

 

 

No. War involves states.

[AncapFTW]

You could theoretically have a government (country could theoretically apply to a culture or geographic area, so I didn't use it) that only used force against other governments if they first initiated violence against it, but governments, by definition, violate NAP when dealing with "their people", so they must violate it in some ways.

[dsayers]

You just said war is genocide.  "There are people in the world that accept that murder is immoral, but regard genocide (war) are righteous, benevolent, and necessary."  Is all war genocide to you, then?

This is not what you said. You spoke of prosecution and tried to reference specifics. When you said earlier that we've "had our disagreements," you were covering up this lack of integrity.

[Donnadogsoth]

No. War involves states.

 

Why couldn't both men each declare themselves states-of-one?  Then would their combat be war?

[shirgall]

Why couldn't both men each declare themselves states-of-one?  Then would their combat be war?

 

The think the term "war" implies at least a scale at a tribal level, where the strategic intent is to dominate or obliterate the other tribe in organized sustained conflict. This, however, is probably a aspect of the definition that requires refining.

 

If a one-on-one conflict becomes a war, I think it has to be sustained for a significant period of time, with numerous engagements.

[Mister Mister]

To understand your question, you'd have to clarify what you mean by "present world order".  What is the point of this?  Are you trying to find some justification for war, from a libertarian/ancap framework?  That's quite a challenge...you'll have to explain how a concept called "country" affects the universal application of the NAP.

As far as WWII, Stef did a series on both world wars a few years ago that is worth a look.  But there are several points that I've gotten that are important to consider.  One is that, in 1916, both sides were at a standstill, having suffered massive casualties and made little to no gains.  It wasn't until Woodrow Wilson brought American forces to the stage - ostensibly in order to "make the world safe for democracy" (sound familiar?), but really it was more likely about protecting the significant loans the U.S. had made to England and France - that the balance was tipped in favor of the Allies.  Which brings us to the second point, that the massive reparations imposed on Germany and debt accrued from WWI led directly to the Depression and the rise of the Nazis.  It's really more appropriate to see the world wars as one great war with a 20 year cease fire.  All this is important, because philosophy is so much about prevention, and you can talk about Hitler and Nazism like it just rose out of Hell to claim the world, but the reality is that WWII was the result of decades of prior bad decisions.  Finally, one of the biggest things people miss when praising the Allies for defeating Hitler, the most EVIL man ever, is that they allied with STALIN WHO WAS ARGUABLY 5 TIMES WORSE THAN HITLER, and sold off significant portions of Eastern Europe and Eurasia to the Soviets (with the aid of Communist spies in the State department), to be enslaved by Socialist Totalitarian Rule for half a century.  So YES, the Allies in WWII were complicit with genocide.

All this is really relevant with the modern conflict with ISIS, which would not exist had it not been for decades of stupid interventions on the behalf of Western countries.  If you think that ONE more military intervention will fix the problem, how are you different from a liberal who thinks ONE more government program will fix the problems caused by all the other ones?

[Donnadogsoth]

To understand your question, you'd have to clarify what you mean by "present world order".  What is the point of this?  Are you trying to find some justification for war, from a libertarian/ancap framework?  That's quite a challenge...you'll have to explain how a concept called "country" affects the universal application of the NAP.

 

As far as WWII, Stef did a series on both world wars a few years ago that is worth a look.  But there are several points that I've gotten that are important to consider.  One is that, in 1916, both sides were at a standstill, having suffered massive casualties and made little to no gains.  It wasn't until Woodrow Wilson brought American forces to the stage - ostensibly in order to "make the world safe for democracy" (sound familiar?), but really it was more likely about protecting the significant loans the U.S. had made to England and France - that the balance was tipped in favor of the Allies.  Which brings us to the second point, that the massive reparations imposed on Germany and debt accrued from WWI led directly to the Depression and the rise of the Nazis.  It's really more appropriate to see the world wars as one great war with a 20 year cease fire.  All this is important, because philosophy is so much about prevention, and you can talk about Hitler and Nazism like it just rose out of Hell to claim the world, but the reality is that WWII was the result of decades of prior bad decisions.  Finally, one of the biggest things people miss when praising the Allies for defeating Hitler, the most EVIL man ever, is that they allied with STALIN WHO WAS ARGUABLY 5 TIMES WORSE THAN HITLER, and sold off significant portions of Eastern Europe and Eurasia to the Soviets (with the aid of Communist spies in the State department), to be enslaved by Socialist Totalitarian Rule for half a century.  So YES, the Allies in WWII were complicit with genocide.

 

All this is really relevant with the modern conflict with ISIS, which would not exist had it not been for decades of stupid interventions on the behalf of Western countries.  If you think that ONE more military intervention will fix the problem, how are you different from a liberal who thinks ONE more government program will fix the problems caused by all the other ones?

 

(1) I'm asking whether there is any meaningful precedent among the nation-states of the world to view the NAP as desirable.

 

(2) Regardless of how the problem started, at some point steps need to be taken to eliminate it.  By your Middle East reference are you suggesting America should have remained isolationist in WWII?--but of course the ancap answer is "yes" because America by rights shouldn't exist.  Which begs the question of how an ancap population in what was formerly known as America would have responded to the military adventurism of the Third Reich.

[Mister Mister]

(1) I'm asking whether there is any meaningful precedent among the nation-states of the world to view the NAP as desirable.

 

(2) Regardless of how the problem started, at some point steps need to be taken to eliminate it.  By your Middle East reference are you suggesting America should have remained isolationist in WWII?--but of course the ancap answer is "yes" because America by rights shouldn't exist.  Which begs the question of how an ancap population in what was formerly known as America would have responded to the military adventurism of the Third Reich.

1) sorry I don't understand the syntax of your question.  nation-states are founded upon the violation of the NAP.

 

2) I think I made a pretty strong case that the actions of the Allies directly lead to the rise of the Third Reich, and that they allied with an arguable even worse regime to kill the monster they helped create.  And you dismiss this with "Regardless of how the problem started, at some point steps need to be taken to eliminate it."...That's really annoying.  It's like you didn't process anything I said.

Should America have remained isolationist in WWII?  You're missing the whole point.  Had they remained "isolationist" (the word you're looking for is non-interventionist) in the First World War, there would have been no Third Reich!!!  So chew on that.

 

A politician and a totalitarian thinks in terms of short-term "solutions" to crises with no perspective on what caused them.  A philosopher thinks in terms of long-term prevention.  I get the sense that the purpose of this thread is for you to justify your bloodlust and desire for war in your name, at the expense of other peoples' freedom.  Please correct me if I'm wrong.

[Donnadogsoth]

1) sorry I don't understand the syntax of your question.  nation-states are founded upon the violation of the NAP.

 

2) I think I made a pretty strong case that the actions of the Allies directly lead to the rise of the Third Reich, and that they allied with an arguable even worse regime to kill the monster they helped create.  And you dismiss this with "Regardless of how the problem started, at some point steps need to be taken to eliminate it."...That's really annoying.  It's like you didn't process anything I said.

Should America have remained isolationist in WWII?  You're missing the whole point.  Had they remained "isolationist" (the word you're looking for is non-interventionist) in the First World War, there would have been no Third Reich!!!  So chew on that.

 

A politician and a totalitarian thinks in terms of short-term "solutions" to crises with no perspective on what caused them.  A philosopher thinks in terms of long-term prevention.  I get the sense that the purpose of this thread is for you to justify your bloodlust and desire for war in your name, at the expense of other peoples' freedom.  Please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

(1) Yes, I know that.  I'm presuming that these nation-states are hypocrites with regards to how they treat their own citizens, but potentially not hypocrites with regards to their encoded ideal with regards to other nation-states.  In other words, do nation-states play at the fantasy they are a group of sovereign individuals against whom no aggression is legitimate?

 

(2) And it would be wonderful if life were wonderful.  That I support a war against ISIS is not secret knowledge, but I support it only voluntaristically.  I would not force another human being to go to war for my sake.  My point is that there are circumstances that arise that call for killin'.  If the philosopher-kings can arrange to both do the killin' that needs doin', and arrange our affairs such that no further killin' is necessary, then bully for us and three cheers for them.

[rosencrantz]

Why couldn't both men each declare themselves states-of-one?  Then would their combat be war?

 

They could declare themselves koalas and chew on leaves. Won't change the nature.

[Donnadogsoth]

They could declare themselves koalas and chew on leaves. Won't change the nature.

 

How many men are required to form a state?

[rosencrantz]

How many men are required to form a state?

 

 

 

Andorra + 1