Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site x.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!harvard!think!mit-eddie!cybvax0!frog!x!wjr
From: wjr@x.UUCP (Bill Richard)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Defense in Libertaria, and other Amazing Stories
Message-ID: <779@x.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 26-Sep-85 01:21:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: x.779
Posted: Thu Sep 26 01:21:04 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 1-Oct-85 07:38:17 EDT
References: <3476@topaz.UUCP> <28200073@inmet.UUCP> <567@x.UUCP> <239@umich.UUCP>
Reply-To: wjr@x.UUCP (STella Calvert)
Organization: Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA
Lines: 53

<>
Note: This is STella Calvert, a guest on ...decvax!frog!wjr.

In article <239@umich.UUCP> torek@umich.UUCP (Paul V. Torek ) writes:
>In article <567@x.UUCP> wjr@x.UUCP (STella Calvert) writes:
>>[In Libertaria, I'd] know that my neighbors, likewise free, would be
>>ready to defend our common condition of non-coercion by killing the coercers.
>Not unless there is a very strong community spirit and you have very brave
>neighbors.  Otherwise many neighbors will cop out, either fleeing or hoping
>that the rest of the community will succeed while she (the cop-out-er)
>covers her ass.  Before the war, the cop-out-ers also don't contribute to
>the town's (or region's) Buy-a-tank-and-some-antitank-missiles Fund.

I wouldn't contribute to the Tanks for the Invasion Fund either.  But if I've
armed my neighborhood defenses, tanks would not be a major problem.  Landscape
repair might be, though.  What percentage of the population is militarily
effective in the United Statist Army?  Someone, perhaps in this
newsgroup, pointed out that an army that is 3% effective will beat one that is
2% effective.  And even though I am not a martial arts wiz I can provide hot 
meals and covering fire, and subscribe to a security service in advance.  

And I assume that there will be what _you_ call cop outs.  I accept that there
are people who think killing is wrong under any circumstances.  I don't agree
with them, but I'll kill or die for their right to be left peacefully in their
folly.  I further accept that I am pigheadedly stubborn, and would rather be a
dead freewoman than a live slave.  This may be stupid enough to get me killed
someday.  Other people may doubt the value of dying for their rights.  But
all fall in the same category as sick, old, young, and pregnant 
folks.  It's in my interest to protect them, because a threat against one 
of us is a threat against us all.  And I may someday fall into the
non-combatant class myself.  

>How incredibly naive.  As if nuclear terrorism couldn't work by making an
>example out of a few libertarian towns and then warning the rest not to
>resist -- or else.

How incredibly naive.

I've discussed this in another article, but the nut is this.  I will not live
in a libertaria unless I succeed in selling the idea that coercion must be
resisted.  That it is both stupid and dangerous to surrender to blackmail.
Unless individual responsibility for safety becomes a widely distributed 
value, there will not be a libertaria to resist nuclear blackmail.  And if
individual responsibility within a community of interest permits a libertaria,
I doubt that nuclear terrorism will work.

If you think I'm hand-waving this one, give me help -- the nastiest questions
you can ask.  It's a lot too important to be wrong on.  Thank you.

				STella Calvert
				(guest on ...!decvax!frog!wjr)

		Every man and every woman is a star.