Last week Arizona Senator Jon Kyl delivered the Heritage Foundation’s Jesse Helms Lecture, appealling to conservatives to support a “strong naitonal defense.” For commentary on the speech and a rebuttal of Heritage’s infatuation with war and militarism, see my latest piece at the Tenth Amendment Center.
To hear an audio version of the essay, read by TAC founder Michael Bolden, click here.
Yesterday Tom Woods posted a comment from a reader who was upset about Woods’ commentary on the $17,000 drip pans the army bought recently. The reader, Greg, made a big deal about the criticism and wrote: “If that drip pan can be gotten for cheaper then either someone in the army made an honest mistake or that drip pan is really needed.” He went on to argue that “[I] think its (sic) best if you leave it to the command structure (who know a thing or two about helicopters) to decide what the army needs or doesn’t.”
As it happened, and as Woods noted, Greg got Marshall McLuhaned by another reader. After providing a robust enough resume in aircraft maintenance, he noted that a drip pan is “a large pan you slide under an aircraft while it’s parked to keep oil or hydraulic fluid from ‘dripping’ on the hangar floor.”
However, the biggest problem with Greg’s statement was his admonition to “leave it to the command structure.” Like a good sheep, Greg is perfectly content to let someone else make all the decisions, and pays no mind to what is done with his money. Not only that, but he instinctively jumps to defend the planners without even understanding the subject matter.
As a veteran of the latest chapter in the war on Iraq, I can say that almost without exception, the “command structure” is probably the last group of people who should be consulted about what “the army needs or doesn’t.” These guys have no idea what goes on in the army, what works, what doesn’t. The military is perhaps the single greatest bureaucratic nightmare that any central planning board could ever devise.
There is so much waste in the military it’s hard to explain it to someone lacking firsthand experience. Just looking at a soldier’s personal equipment and the bureaucratic regulations that go along with it is bewildering enough, let alone getting into weapon systems development and equipment procurement.
For my first deployment we were all issued plain black fleece jackets, clearly meant for outerwear. But, because the uniform regulations hadn’t been updated to prescribe proper wear of a jacket, we weren’t allowed to wear them, except as “undergarments.” They were required items on the packing list, we had to take them with us, wash them, and bring them home, but we were never allowed to wear them.
By the time of my second deployment the army had updated the uniform regulations and soldiers who were issued green fleece jackets could wear them. The thing was, only the new soldiers were issued green jackets, and all the older soldiers had to take their black fleece, again, but could not wear them, again. It’s completely insane.
And this is the group Greg wants to be in charge of everything, and you’d better not dare to question them.
A reader asked The Libertarian Homeschooler about her and her husband’s parenting style, and their son, known as The Young Statesman, (the younger boy goes by The Baby Anarchist) answered:
Nicholas,
My mom regularly asks me and my brother, ‘who owns you?’ I say, ‘me.’ So does my brother. We own ourselves.
We all–adults and kids–observe the two laws.
We all do what we have agreed to do and no one encroaches on the person or property of the others.
If we do not wish to participate in the family, that’s fine but you miss out on the benefits of the family. You can still live on the family property (I would live in the tree house (it has a roof) and I’d have to kill the bunnies in the back yard and I’d have to take the fruits and vegetables from the garden, my parents would help me but I’d be on my own) but you don’t get stuff like tv, internet, electricity, heat, and the comforts that come from being a member of the family. I would miss having a family, being able to be in my choir, I would miss piano, I would miss my brother. But I could be on my own and not have to obey their rules. I just wouldn’t get to have anything. So, given that choice, I would like to obey their rules.
The rules are the two laws. There are no other rules. I’m not forced to follow the rules. It’s my personal decision not to live in the tree house, but I also get protection from those family rules. The rules apply to anybody that comes on to the property. They apply to Mom and Dad. That means they can’t encroach upon me and they must do all that they have agreed to do. We all live by the same rules. Unlike our government which gets to do whatever it wants any time it wants even if it disobeys the Constitution or laws that they have made up. There isn’t a monopoly on force in our house. My parents don’t use force against me. I don’t use force against my brother and neither does he.
They give me all of the things I might want and a little bit extra. They wouldn’t give this to anyone else. They give me their property and their time. They don’t give their property or time to anyone else except my brother. In exchange for that I follow their rules. I would never do that for anyone else (except for the people who my parents have said I should listen to and obey). Nobody else is my mom or my dad. We trade. They give me their time and their property and I give them the right to the last say on important decisions.
We aren’t like every other family in the United States. We’re different. My parents don’t always order us around. They are allowed to take away the use of their property but they never take away my property unless I’ve broken one of the two rules (but that’s never happened).
If we have an agreement that I will do something and I don’t do that thing, they will take away something of theirs that I have been using like the internet connection or the electricity for my electronic devices. That’s not tyranny. That’s just an agreement. It’s all set out in the beginning and no one is coerced into the agreement. If I don’t like an agreement, I’ll see if I can make alterations to it. No one is bound by an agreement they don’t want to be bound by. Agreements can be revisited.
It’s basic economics. What we bring into the family is what we get out of it. If my brother is being loyal and kind to me, he can expect loyalty and kindness from me. It’s trade. If I do something for you, I can expect something back from you.
My mom [The Libertarian Homeschooler] is not a tyrant. My dad (Zeus) is not a tyrant either. They operate like anarchists. Like a free market. All of our exchanges are voluntary.
So thanks for reading this. If you have any more questions just ask away. I’m unschooled. I actually have all day.
Jonah Goldberg was a guest of Greg Knapp Friday promoting his new book, The Tyranny of Clichés. As might be expected, the depth of intellectual exchange was exceedingly shallow. The two mocked those who say “violence never solved anything,” and Knapp, a professed Christian, commented that it would be fun to punch someone who eschews violence and watch them get mad.
They discussed Adolf Hitler and Mohandas Gandhi in the context of civil disobedience, with Goldberg suggesting the latter was successful only because the British were civilized enough to eventually accept nonviolent resistance. Knapp agreed that Gandhi would not have been so successful, had his methods been used against the Nazis. This is of course only speculation, since there was no such attempt at peaceful non-compliance during the rise of the National Socialist movement.
This is due in part to the fact that so many felt as if they were free. Indeed, journalist Milton Mayer studied the German people after the war, and published his findings in a book entitled They Thought They Were Free
Goldberg noted (correctly) that Gandhi referred to Hitler as “friend.” What went unmentioned, in fact what was denied, was the context of the exchange, and what Gandhi actually wrote in his appeal to Hitler not to start a war. He wrote:
It is quite clear that you are today the one person in the world who can prevent a war which may reduce humanity to a savage state. Must you pay that price for an object however worthy it may appear to you to be? Will you listen to the appeal of one who has deliberately shunned the method of war not without considerable success?
But this is neither here nor there since, as Walter Block points out, it was the Allies who made it possible for Hitler to rise to power after the U.S. entered the war and helped enforce the Treaty of Versailles:
There were not two separate wars, so-called World War I, and then so-called World War II. There was only one World War. It started in 1914 and ended in 1946; yes, yes, there was a slight cessation of hostilities between 1919 and 1939, but the so-called ‘interwar period’ consisted of the Allies taking steps that brought Hitler front and center, in effect created him, and thus assured the continuation of this one World War.
Had the U.S. not entered the war, that is to say, had it taken a non-violent approach, it’s doubtful the terms of the ceasefire would have been so harsh against the Germans, and the war could have ended much sooner.
The two then went on to discuss Jesus’ admonition to carry a sword, apparently a reference to Luke 22:36, cause it wouldn’t have been Ephesians 6:14. I mean, you know that Jesus guy, he was all about violence and returning evil for evil, as Peter wrote in 1 Peter 3:9. As many know, Jesus taught that “blessed are the [war-makers], for they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9); if “someone slaps you on the right cheek, [strike their] other cheek also” (Matthew 5:39). And who could forget that epic battle scene in the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus leads the disciples in hand to hand combat after one cuts off the ear of one of the arrestors (Luke 22:49-51)?
As a Christian it frustrates me to no end that so many followers of the Prince of Peace will so readily promote violence and war. Not only do they ridicule those who denounce violence, but they also fantasize about hurting them.
Audio of the interview is below; skip to 6:00 for the relevant segment.
The irony of all this is how the two excoriate the Left for using clichés and Orwellian language manipulation to promote their policies, all the while glossing over historical facts and taking scripture out of context to fit their own agenda.
