The Glade 4.0

That would be great, except that he was talking about a free society. Individuals have a very poor record of defending themselves, even in large numbers, against organized opponents that work as a team.

In this free society, there are presumably at least some people that are willing to defend their own freedom and who, if they plan to do so in any sort of effective manner, necessarily end up defending everyone else's as well. If they are insufficient to protect against outside attack, they should not be forced to give up their own freedom to that attacker by in order to avoid forcing other people of military age to do so as well in the interest of a free society that will otherwise ceas to exist anyhow.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

By failing to conscript people in the face of imminnent attack (assuming your standing forces are insufficent to defend you, which is probably the case. If they were sufficient, the attacker would most likely be deterred), you are stripping everyone of their freedom in the name of freedom from conscription. I suppose this might not be true if the attacker is likely to provide greater freedom for everyone, but.. that's not usually the case.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Of course it has. That does not mean it has not protected freedom. A temporary loss of a certain freedom is obviously preferable to a permenant loss of far more freedom, which is presumably why this "free society" is defending itself in the first place.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

The government exists to protect rights, having it take an action known to infringe on rights destroys any logica basis for its existence.

If the people do not come out in sufficient force than they have stated they care more about their lives than freedom and so it should be taken away. Those who would rather die than live oppressed have already died by the time its over.

Everyone gets what they want.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

What government are you talking about here, ours? Because the first sentence of the preamble states that one of the purposes of the government is to provide for the common defense. So, it must protect rights and defend borders.

Yes that is an action that protect rights. It doesn't say that it can infringe on rights in order to do that. People want the government to protect rights, local governments can pass laws to stop murder, they cant kill everyone to get the murder rate to zero.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Yes, because that's EXACTLY the same.

Both functions of the government are listed in the preamble. Common defense and protection of rights. Why should one receive more weight than the other?

It is quite apparent that the functions of government must be balanced in a reasonable fashion when a conflict like this arises.

Reducto ad absurdum is an awesome way to make a point, however, it only works if there are no other options. Otherwise, you create a false dichotomy.

I'd like to point out that with your belief-set of "inherent rights," governments must infringe upon rights in order to protect them. For instance, incarceration is a violation of one's rights. If one has inherent rights, they do not simply go away because you've broken a law or infringed upon someone else's rights. You either have inherent rights or you do not. Since I know you believe one does have inherent rights, then the only method governments have of enforcing rights is infringing upon the rights of those who violate the rights of others.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

One willingly sacrifices their claim to rights when they act to infringe on the rights of others. Thats why punishment for rights violations is just.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

That's utterly absurd when faced with the fact that failing to take action will result in even worse infringement of rights. The logical basis for its existence isn't important in the face of practical reality.



Totally collectivist viewpoint. "The people" don't have any one view, Why should those willing to defend their own freedom lose it because others are too cowardly to do so without being forced? Why should they have to die just to avoid the philosophical infringement of rights?



Except the people who have to die to defend their freedom that they couldn't defend anyhow because there weren't enough of them. They lose the liberty they're willing to stand up for regardless, and they aren't all standing up for it out of devotion to principle; they're standing up for it because it's good for them and their families. It means nothing to a dead man.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

In the end, life is all a person has. Love, honor, freedom, all the things people would choose to die for die with them.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Look at it the other way around, though. Perhaps a life without those things - a life of loneliness, shame, and oppression - is worse than death.

Horseshit. Throughout the history of our species individual man has a wonderful record of defending himself against aggressors. You are trying to use an absurdly small and nefariously calculated data sample, which runs contrary to the nearly homogeneous majority of human history.



They have opted out of freedom when they suspended the freedom of another to achieve freedom. What they have enacted is power to manipulate others against their will for what they feel are better ends. You cannot create a condition of freedom by admitting that freedom can be suspended. That is literally the act of willfully admitting that freedom doesn't exist. Only privilege doled out by a superior power. A decree that we should all submit to an benevolent dictator. The two words have different meanings. Use them.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Mal: Try to see past what she is, and on to what she can be.
Zoe: What's that, sir?
Mal: Freedom, is what.
Zoe: [pointing] I meant, what's that?
Mal: Oh. Yeah, just step around that. I think somethin' must've been livin' in here.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Oh really? What "small nefarious data sample" are you referring to? Your claim that people have a "wonderful record" is certainly not any more meritorious, especially sicne you've decided to strawman "organized opponents who work as a team" into "aggressors." Of course individuals have a good record of defending themselves against aggressors; aggressors include predatory animals and immense numbers of other individuals or very poorly organized, equipped, or trained small groups. That does not in any way refute the assertion that a collection of individuals is no match whatsoever for a well-organized group of enemies even when the individuals have a significant advantage in numbers.

You may want to reference the effectiveness of British regimental square tactics aginst various tribal opponents; squares were practically unbreakable, even by opponents such as the Mahdi Army in the Sudan which had firearms. By the same token, Egyptian troops, which were far less disciplined, were destroyed by the Mahdi even when using square tactics, even though the Egyptians were armed comparably to British infantry, and certainly better than the Mahdi forces that defeated them. Even in that case, however, the superior organization of the square allowed them to hold out almost 3 days against the Mahdi.



All of this is simply arbitrary proclaimation on your part. I could just as easily say that those who refused to defend the free society opted out of their own freedom by refusing to defend it while expecting to benefit from those who did, thereby granting permission to conscript them.

Your position is utterly reliant on internal consistency for its own sake. There is no good reason we should want to live in a free society if that society is, by its nature, unable to remain free becuase it is more concerned with remaining true to arbitrary principle than it is with freedom in any practical sense.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

They're free to talk about it now and have always been. Like you said, they'd be discharged. You can be gay and be in the .mil, but you can not be openly gay. You have to keep you're love for the cock on the "down low."

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn