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

Tim Hagan timhagan-tyr at yahoo.com
Mon May 29 19:41:19 EDT 2017


The wording is directly from the Platform, plank 3.1 National Defense. The LNC is subordinate to the Conventions. If you wish to know the intent, you would have to look at the debate during the 2008 Convention when this wording was adopted.  

Tim Hagan

      From: Starchild <sfdreamer at earthlink.net>
 To: Tim Hagan <timhagan-tyr at yahoo.com>; Jeff Hewitt <Jeffrey.Hewitt at LP.org>; Alicia Mattson <secretary at lp.org> 
Cc: Libertarian National Committee list <lnc-business at hq.lp.org>
 Sent: Monday, May 29, 2017 2:05 PM
 Subject: Re: [Lnc-business] Email Ballot 2017-11: Military Members
   

 I'm trying to decide how to vote on this motion, and wanted to ask the three of you as co-sponsors (Tim, Jeff, Alicia) your opinions on some of the language in the resolution – do you consider the phrase "we support the maintenance of a sufficient military to defend the United States against aggression" to be a reference specifically to the U.S. government's military (i.e. an endorsement of a standing government military), or do you see it as a reference to any military force or forces (e.g. independent militias, etc.) sufficient to defend the United States against aggression? (See my previous message below for more thoughts on this.)
Love & Liberty,
                                    ((( starchild )))At-Large Representative, Libertarian National Committee                         RealReform at earthlink.net                                (415) 625-FREE                                  @StarchildSF

On May 20, 2017, at 7:33 PM, Starchild 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




From: Lnc-business [mailto:lnc-business-bounces at hq.lp.org] On Behalf Of Alicia Mattson
Sent: Saturday, May 20, 2017 1:02 AM
To: lnc-business at hq.lp.org
Subject: [Lnc-business] Email Ballot 2017-11: Military Members  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 _______________________________________________
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