>
> Indentured servitude, just to correct a historical point, was
> something very different from what you are describing. It was,
> usually, a person selling themselves into the service of someone in
> the United States for a fixed span of time, usually in return for
> passage to the United States, and also usually with the condition that
> they be given a significant amount of property at the end of their
> indentured period. The critical difference, of course, is consent.
> Even if it were debt indebiture - not a situation that had much
> existence in the US, to my knowledge - the debts would have been
> assumed with the implied threat of that status. Again, consensual.
> Slavery is distinguished from all of these states by the fact that it
> is _not_ consensual.
Well, abandoning history for a moment, the modern form of such
"servitude" is illegal immigration and people smuggling rings who force
people to work in sweatshops or even brothels to pay the debt. It IS
illegal, though, and we have come a long way since servitude was
sanctioned by the law.
>
> Actually, they are valid, as I think I've shown. Conscripts have
> _different_ rights, yes. They don't have _no_ rights, however. They
> are not property. A very different situation indeed.
Can anyone qoute from the bodies of military regulation that spell out the
exact rights of conscripts?
anyway, I still think it's contradictory to *force* someone into the
military (non voluntary service/coercion) in the name of defending
"freedom." At least a country that is totalirain anyway has a universal
draft as just part of the freight, without the hypocrisy....
>
> Libertarian, is, I sometimes believe, the philosophy that upholds free
> riding as a virtue. The ideal libertarian citizen seems, to me, to be
> someone who wants all of the benefits of a free society without being
> willing to do anything to sustain them. No? Then propose an
> alternative to conscription. Without conscription, every democratic
> government in the West would have been destroyed by its enemies.
> That's an historical fact that is essentially uncontrovertible. We
> are not unencumbered selves, nor do we have the right to make all of
> our own choices. That's not slavery, it's not evil, it's just
> reality. When society needs to be defended, someone must do it or
> society dies. Conscription is a vital ingredient to the defense of
> society. A libertarianism that doesn't accept that is a
> libertarianism that believes that wishing makes it so - that if you
> _want_ the world to be some way then it must, in fact, be that way.
> The world is not so accomodating. By accepting the benefits of living
> in society you consent to the demands that society places upon you,
> and one of those demands may, in fact, be that you risk your life to
> protect that society. If you _don't_ wish to consent to that demand,
> then free states provide you with an option. Renounce your
> citizenship and leave for a place that does not make that demand upon
> you. By staying, you consent, and are thus no slave.
I think you mean Ayn Randism - making a virtue of selfishness. There are
libertarians and libertarians; Rand has been such a big influence because
all these socially dysfunctional people read her just as they finished
Heinlein (some actually credit Heinlein with creating the US libertarian
movement.) Anybody can be a complete asshole, whining like a spoiled child
and call him/herself a "libertarian," which is not really a political
philosophy if used in that sense - it's just being emotionally
immature. Philosophical libertarians who simly believe in having less
government do acknowledget hat the social contract must be honored by BOTH
sides.
When I was 14 I picked up a car magazine and read long, detailed articles
giving elaborate justifications as to why the US should get rid of its
admittedly ridiculously low and un-enforceable 55mph speed limit...but I
saw right through them: look ,the car buffs who write this stuff aren't
going to come out and *admit* the real reason they're syaing these things
is they just like to drive fast! One can come up with amazingly
complicated rationalizations for being childish! (Look at the Republicans
who impeached Clinton; it was so absurdly partisan that obviously the
biggest reason for the impeachement was not the adultery or the lying
(politicians have told bigger lies before and gotten away with it!) but
the fact he was a Democrat and they just didn't like him. But that wasn't
what they *said*.) Why raise the speed limit?
"Because....because....*FLASH MAGIC SPELL OF TOTAL TRUTH TELLING IS CAST*
..becauess I love my sports car and hate #*(&! cops telling me how to
drive it."
Kristin
on, and our speed limit here is 65mph now, but they actually enforce
it...
