wjr@x.UUCP (Bill Richard) (09/26/85)
<nuclear terrorism> Note: This is Stella Calvert, a guest on this account. In article <28200087@inmet.UUCP> janw@inmet.UUCP writes: > I believe you've made two very good points: to paraphrase, in a >libertarian setting citizens might be better *able* to defend >themselves, and more *willing* to do so. However, this would seem >to be more significant for guerilla-type warfare than for other >kinds of war. I wonder if you have thought through (I haven't) >various possible scenarios of a foreign aggression against Liber- >taria ? I hope we can think it through here. We all together know far more than any of us does individually. However, I didn't mean to limit libertarian defense to the guerilla model. Foreign aggression against us would probably result from some outside agitator (to revive a 60s phrase) perceiving a power vacuum. This mistaken impression would be met by all the security companies, affinity groups, and impromptu guerillas who LIKED power vacuums. I may not have much else in common with other interest groups in Libertaria, but I would share a dedication to the libertarian model of social organization. Why do I know that a majority of my neighbors would share this? because if not, I'm still living in the United Statist's turf. > >> But (I think I hear a voice crying) how are you going to defend yourself >> against a rival group with nuclear weapons? Simple. I'm not. If you convert >> me from a productive person to a vortex of plasma, I won't be much use to you. > >You would - as an example to others; it worked in Hiroshima. >(Not that I don't like your attitude ... if everyone had it, >it *might* be effective). As I suggested above, I won't get the libertaria I want unless I am successful in spreading these ideas. By the time the problem arises, my neighbors will not be "citizens" sitting on their @$$es waiting for the government to protect them, but individuals who recognize that a coercive attack on me IS an attack on their freedoms too. And yes, I know that my attitude *might* not be effective. But it'll do me till someone (you, perhaps?) comes up with a better. And if it doesn't work, well, evolution in action. If the dead can regret, I will, but the only way to debug social programs is to see how they crash. I already know more than I want to about the bugs in Mutual Assured Destruction. BTW, my understanding of Hiroshima was that the bombings convinced the government that it could not win, while the people were already willing to call it quits. If someone has better information, correct me, please. >There are always organizations, governmental or not. Trade unions >negotiate and sometimes surrender for their members. In WWII, >Norwegian government did not surrender; it left the country. So >Quisling took over. When the USSR "liberated" Poland, there was >no government (the one in London they didn't recognize). They >installed one of their own. Masses of individuals can surrender, >too, through panic. It is the aggressor's business to organize >panic, and nuking you might come in very handy. Trade unions, unfortunately, presently have power to coerce their members. Can you say "right-to-work laws"? Not in a GM plant. People get harassed for parking their Toyotas in the company lot. A union in libertaria will be no more than another affinity group; and if I don't like the way the Confederated Sisterhood of Cat-Sitters represents me, I'll go freelance. Quisling was able to make a move because anarchy takes practice. Many Norwegians did resist, but building a libertaria for the first time under the gun and the face of a foreign threat is an entirely different game. I'll play it if I must, but I'm trying to avoid it. And I have faced armed coercers (hitchhikers meet the strangest people), suppressed my panic, refused to back down, and had a puking anxiety attack afterwards. I'm a bookworm wimp with few self-defense skills. But my choices were few: surrender (and probably be hurt or killed, run (not built for it), or insist that the coercer coerce before he benefited (I only had to hit him twice). Surrendering before you're beaten may be less painful, but it's much more humiliating. I suspect that in the absence of a government that can be panicked by a few hundred letters from worried constituents, enough people will keep their cool to resist first, and have the creeping twitches later. And if not, I'll still die as a free woman, not a "citizen". And if libertaria can't fix death, maybe it can at least fix taxes! > What surprises me on this net, is the paucity of constructive >ideas. Where are all the Utopias - isn't this just the place >for them? It is mostly "liberty good, slavery bad" on one side, >and "we'll coerce you to help the poor" on the other: a tug >back and forth in one dimension. > > Come on, folks : you can do better than that. > I'm trying -- and I think you are too. Maybe someday we'll have something we think is worth implementing. By the way, my utopia is a space colony. Anyone want to start a discussion of the space colony Anarchia? This would be an especially useful framework to discuss interference from states, since an earthbased libertaria would have to replace a state, and the problems there are a major can of worms. STella Calvert (guest on ...!decvax!frog!wjr) Every man and every woman is a star.