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From: faustus@ucbcad.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: Military conscription/slavery
Message-ID: <63@ucbcad.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 17-Jan-85 02:35:53 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbcad.63
Posted: Thu Jan 17 02:35:53 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 19-Jan-85 00:42:56 EST
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> Richard Carnes writes:
> > I don't consider conscription to be slavery.  Neither did Locke . . .
> > . . .  Neither did Abraham Lincoln when he
> > . . .  Neither does anyone else, as far as I know, except libertarians.  The
> > state of Israel has had conscription during its entire existence.  I read
> > the papers but I have not noticed any great outcry from Israelis against
> > this form of "slavery", or any great agitation for an all-volunteer force.
> > How do libertarians explain this rather striking fact?  
> 
>      Well, gosh, I guess we must be wrong!  People disagree with us.  Why 
> should we even attempt to argue the point?  (leaving sarcasm mode.)

There is a reason that very few people have agreed with you -- societies
that don't have a military don't tend to last for very long.

>      How is slavery defined?  Haven't got a Webster's handy, but how about:
> "Use (or threat of use) of force to cause an individual to act in a manner
> contrary to their free will for an extended period of time."  What's that I
> hear you shouting?  You don't like my definition?  Well, you are hereby 
> challenged to provide a definition of slavery which excludes conscription.
> Anyway, with the above definition of slavery, it seems clear that conscription
> is one form of slavery.

How about "Forcing another person to work or depriving him of his liberty,
when it is not essential for the overall well-being of the society that
this be done".  I think that this would exclude conscription and
most other exampes where the term "slavery" is clearly inappropriate,
such as keeping criminals in jail (which by your definition is also
slavery and presumably is also wrong).

>     How is being in the services involuntarily different from being enslaved?
> Well, you get paid.  . . . . That was all I could think of.  Doesn't seem
> like much of a 'real' difference to me.  

If nobody is in the army, then some very bad things are likely to
happen. If you are not enslaved, then some rich slave-owner will be
a bit poorer, which isn't that bad. A big difference...

>      While we're on the subject, how do people feel about these questions?
> a.) Is a person morally responsible for actions which they were ordered to do?

Depends on the force behind the order. If he faces death as the consequence
of his disobedience, no.

> c.) If your answer was no, do you think that someone who participates in a
>     massacre while just 'following orders' is innocent?

Well, it depends on the circumstances. If the man is a soldier in the
Iranian army, and his commander threatens dissenters with death, then
he can't be responsible. But if it is an army where the price of disobedience
is just a dishonorable discharge, then the man isn't innocent.

Of course, in answering these questions I'm not applying any clear and
simple laws of the sort that libertarians and marxists always have to
have, but just telling what my (and most people's, I think) intuitions
are. That is the ultimate basis for any moral jugdements anyway, so why
are so many people so eager to find some basic timeless laws of
morality? There are some things that you just can't define in terms of
other things, and "good" is one of them. Which means that any
judgements about what should be done and what should not be done can't
be made into laws, because they all rest on what is "good".  Slavery is
not good simply because we think it isn't, and conscription is good
simply because (some of us at least) think it is good, or at least
necessary. If you have a counter-argument to this, I expect it to start
with a definition of "good" and a proof that it is objectively
correct...

	Wayne