[Lnc-business] [Lnc-votes] Email Ballot 2017-11: Military Members

Caryn Ann Harlos carynannharlos at gmail.com
Sat May 20 23:00:57 EDT 2017 

That wording is directly from our Platform and existed in 1974 at the time
of the Dallas Accord and unless we think the actual delegates who made the
Accord and in the years after were too daft to notice that, it must be
interpreted as not violative of the Accord.

We don't have the authority to disavow as a body the Platform.

It does not necesssrily require a standing army.

I am relatively certain I have done more research on the Accord than most
persons on this list.

-Caryn Ann



On Sat, May 20, 2017 at 8:55 PM Starchild <sfdreamer at earthlink.net> wrote:

>
> Personally, I *do* consider a military capacity to shoot down missiles
> and aircraft aimed at targets within the area known as the United States –
> e.g. a missile launch by the regime controlling the area known as North
> Korea – desirable. My strong preference however would be for such an air
> defense system to be independently maintained and voluntarily funded.
> Sadly, the chances of such an independent defense capacity existing at
> present or in the near future seems remote.
>
> On the other hand, despite a U.S. government military budget of over half
> a trillion dollars per year (per
> https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/652687/department-of-defense-dod-releases-fiscal-year-2017-presidents-budget-proposal/
> ), the odds that the U.S. government is or will be able to protect against
> such threats exacerbated by its own policies also seem alarmingly slim to
> me (particularly alarming from the vantage point of living in a major city
> on the west coast), given their track record that includes failures such as
> being unable to scramble fighter jets in time to stop the 9/11 attacks –
> unless one assumes those attacks were an "inside job" or were deliberately
> allowed to take place, neither of which possibilities I rule out – or to
> stop a drunken government employee from crash-landing a drone on the White
> House lawn (see
> https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/28/us/white-house-drone.html ). Nor, for
> that matter, has the aforementioned military spending done anything that
> I'm aware of to protect citizens, residents, and others in the United
> States from the most serious armed threat facing them – the resolution,
> after all, refers broadly to "defend(ing) the United States against
> aggression", and does not specify any particular source(s) of that
> aggression. *I would argue that both the worst current aggressor against
> the United States, and the entity that poses the greatest future threat of
> aggression, is the U.S. government itself!*
>
> For this reason, among others, the fact that the resolution appears to
> endorse a standing U.S. government military force is very troubling to me.
> I'm more inclined to agree with the American founders, who generally
> opposed such a standing army.
>
> Explicit *Libertarian Party* support for the maintenance of such an
> institution, I should point out, would also be a violation of the Dallas
> Accord on keeping the party officially neutral between the anarchist and
> minarchist (limited government) positions and not specifying how much
> government we ideally want to see in existence, if any.
>
> It's worth pointing out however that endorsement of a government standing
> army isn't the only way the resolution can be interpreted – although I
> suspect that if we were to survey people on whether such language
> constitutes an endorsement of a standing government army, most respondents
> would say yes. Here are a couple other possible interpretations which I
> think are *technically consistent *with the wording, although probably
> not what the maker or sponsors had in mind:
>
> • Since people on the part of Earth's surface commonly known as "the
> United States" could be defended against aggression via a non-aggressive
> foreign policy, a large and active libertarian movement, and a well-armed
> populace, the amount of military *sufficient* to defend the United States
> against aggression is zero, and thus that is (implicitly) the amount that
> we would be supporting if we pass the motion
>
> • The resolution's mention of "sufficient military to defend the United
> States" refers to non-government military forces such as independent
> militias, not to the U.S. government's military
>
> I mention these possible anarchist interpretations only for the record,
> not because I believe they are weighty enough to make the resolution
> acceptable as written. Given the considerations noted above, *I must
> oppose the motion as written and* *accordingly vote no*.
>
> On the positive side however, it is only the wording of the first
> "Whereas" clause that appears particularly problematic to me. The rest of
> the resolution, while not ideal in my view, seems palatable under the
> circumstances, and if that first clause, or at least the words *"support
> the maintenance of a sufficient military to defend the United States
> against aggression and"* can be dropped, then I would be inclined to
> support it unless someone else manages to point out reasons I would
> consider strong enough to warrant abstention.
>
> Love & Liberty,
>
>                                     ((( starchild )))
> At-Large Representative, Libertarian National Committee
>                          RealReform at earthlink.net
>                                  (415) 625-FREE
>
>
>
> On May 20, 2017, at 1:01 AM, lnc-votes at hq.lp.org wrote:
>
> We have an electronic mail ballot.
>
>
> *Votes are due to the LNC-Business list by May 30, 2017 at 11:59:59pm
> Pacific time.*
> *Sponsor:*  Hayes, Hewitt, Hagan, Mattson
>
> *Motion:*
>
> Whereas, We support the maintenance of a sufficient military to defend the
> United States against aggression and believe that the United States should
> both avoid entangling alliances and abandon its attempts to act as
> policeman for the world;
>
> Whereas, We oppose any form of compulsory national service and recognize
> that many members of the military
> were unjustly conscripted in the past;
>
> Whereas, Most voluntary members of the military joined with the idea
> and/or goal of defending the United States
> and, thereby, their property, families, and friends;
>
> Whereas, The United States Military-Industrial-Complex has used many
> well-meaning military service members for
> purposes other than defense against aggression and further involved them
> in foreign entanglements during attempts
> to act as the world’s policeman; and
>
> Whereas, Many current and former military service members are able to
> relate, identify, and speak out on the ways
> in which the United States military mission has been expanded and
> corrupted beyond a legitimate role of defense
> against aggression; now, therefore, be it;
>
> Resolved, Present and former members of the military who give such unique
> and powerful voice to the libertarian
> principles of peace and the non-initiation of force add great value to the
> Libertarian Party, and are welcomed as a
> vital part of our membership.
>
>
> -Alicia
>
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "lncvotes" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to lncvotes+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lnc-business mailing list
> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "lncvotes" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to lncvotes+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
> _______________________________________________
> Lnc-votes mailing list
> Lnc-votes at hq.lp.org
> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-votes_hq.lp.org
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "lncvotes" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to lncvotes+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lnc-business mailing list
> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>
-- 
*In Liberty,*
*Caryn Ann Harlos*
Region 1 Representative, Libertarian National Committee (Alaska, Arizona,
Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Washington) - Caryn.Ann.
Harlos at LP.org <Caryn.Ann.Harlos at LP.org>
Communications Director, Libertarian Party of Colorado
<http://www.lpcolorado.org>
Colorado State Coordinator, Libertarian Party Radical Caucus
<http://www.lpradicalcaucus.org>
Chair, LP Historical Preservation Committee

A haiku to the Statement of Principles:
*We defend your rights*
*And oppose the use of force*
*Taxation is theft*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business/attachments/20170521/7d1ecaca/attachment-0002.html>

More information about the Lnc-business mailing list