PI> LOL!!! Brian you should look into comedy. You're much better at it than you'll ever be at debate. Your claims of "traps" are so ridiculous; I had to step away from my keyboard to laugh. [...] You're a dishonest little weasel caught up in his own pseudo-intellectual self-absorbed nonsense. [...] a libertarian, which is what I am, and what you are not. [...] Nothing I've ever said is absurd. It's you who keeps bringing up incredibly stupid things [...] than you or your incredibly stupid ilk ever will. So once again your lies shine through. [...] Your so-called trap #4, like everything else you've said, is completely worthless and stupid. You have never "trapped" me, and you never will. You are my intellectual inferior and always will be. [...] You've made yourself look like even more of a fool. [...] You're not worthy of any response from me at all, but I do it only to show everyone what a moron you really are. <PI
We now resume my annihilation of Paul's sputterings, already in progress:
PI> I knew you'd be dishonest and not back up your promise to give money to the LP in my name. All of your lies about your posting the questions earlier, or about you not promising to pay the LP only re-enforce and prove everything I've always said about you. <PI
PI> The 5 questions you asked were never asked of me before <PI
In my $1000 challenge I explicitly referred to "my ten questions" -- the ten yes-or-no questions near the top of my previous email sent Jan 28. In fact, I challenged you with the language of question 1 on Feb 14 2005 and Oct 3 2005, and questions 2, 3, and 5 were based on points I made to you on Oct 3 2005
PI> You asked "As a Sovereigntarian, you should also consider it an initiation of force for a state to violate its contractual agreements with other states". Not being a "sovereigntarian" I can't answer that question <PI
That wasn't my question, that was an earlier taunt that didn't respond to when I made it on Oct 3 2005. So on Jan 28 2006 I asked point blank: "Do you believe that the sovereignty of an aggressive tyrannical state immunizes it from all possible consequences of it violating signed treaties with other sovereign states?" You ignored it, but nevertheless said on Jan 29: "I answered all of his questions on a point by point basis." I then issued my $1000 challenge on Jan 30, and only then did you finally answer my Jan 28 question.
PI> Once again, I have answered all of your questions <PI
You count as poorly as you read. From my Jan 28 list of ten questions, there are still two you've never come close to answering:
And here are six other questions and challenges from that just that message that you have never answered:
Again: I'll donate $1000 to the LP in your name if you (or anyone else) can quote from your previous messages to me your specific answers to each of the above eight questions and challenges.
PI> You didn't like it when I accurately restated question number one because you claim "it invokes extra-legal vigilantism in the context of a force-wielding authority already charged with preventing and punishing the aggression of bullies" but this is exactly what you support. I've already proven the war in
is unconstitutional so it actually is outside the law. <PI Iraq
What is the "force-wielding authority already charged with preventing and punishing the aggression of" tyrants like Saddam? The UN? You once again fail to appreciate my point about the difference made by the presence or absence of a functioning police authority -- even though I taunted you for this failure on Jan 28:
PI: If I see a man beating his wife and I kill him, IT IS MURDER. Now you will predictably try to say the man was killing his wife and you killed him to save her. That doesn’t fly either.
BH: If you kill a wife-beater when there is a functioning court system that routinely and effectively deals with such aggressors, then yes it's murder. Even though I'd already made this point to you earlier about a functioning court system, you failed to predict it would be my response -- and then called attention to your failed prediction. LOL
You still haven't responded to my point about a functioning court system, but because my point wasn't in the form of a question, it's one of many unanswered points that I haven't bothered to include in my challenges to you.
PI> I could care less about what YOUR definition of libertarianism is because you aren't one. Though in your dishonesty, you took an oath and violated it. Your oath says that you don't support the initiation of force for political gain or social engineering and this most certainly applies to starting wars with foreign nations who have not attacked ours because your political gains are to "liberate" foreign oppressed people. <PI
Thank you for stumbling over yet another point from my Jan 28 message that you've never responded to. I quote: "You appear not to know David Nolan's original meaning for the Pledge. To educate yourself, see http://blog.360.yahoo.com/KnowingHumans?p=171 ."
PI> You claim that your love of liberty and hatred of aggression is what drives you to start unprovoked aggression. This is like saying your desire to preserve virginity is what makes you want to have sex with as many virgins as you can. Starting aggression does not lower the amount of aggression, period. End of story. It doesn't matter who your aggression is directed at or how aggressive that person is. Your aggression adds to the total amount of aggression and does not eliminate any. <PI
Ah, so you've changed your answer to question 1: "Do you claim that an investment in force initiation can never lead to a net reduction in the overall incidence of force initiation?" On Jan 30 you said "no", but got embarrassed when I pointed out the implication that I care more than you about reducing the net incidence of aggression, so on now on Jan 31 you say yes. A "yes" is ridiculous, because investing in force initiation obviously can sometimes reduce the overall incidence of force initiation. By contrast, "having sex with as many virgins as you can" obviously can never increase the incidence of virginity. So what is your final answer: can an investment in force initiation ever lead to a net reduction in the overall incidence of force initiation? Yes or no?
PI> I do care about reducing the overall amount of aggression and the first place to start is with the aggression on the part of our own government. It doesn't matter if aggression on the part of the U.S. Military would lead to less aggression elsewhere; all that matters in our country is that we minimize the aggression on the part of our own government in our own country.<PI
I never said you don't care about reducing the overall amount of aggression. I just said that you care more about being a force-initiation virgin -- about having clean hands and agreeing with fellow liberty-lovers to merely set a good example of abstaining from first use of force. That's why you're less libertarian than I am.
PI> You don't care about reducing tyranny, oppression, or aggression more than I do; in fact you want to take part in those things under the guise of policing the world or being a good guy. Hitler thought he was a good guy too. He thought his aggression would make the world a better place too. Yours is no different than his. (Here's where you predictably link to wikipedia or some other worthless source of non-reference and mention Godwin's Law…which is itself irrelevant and bogus) <PI
Our readers don't need me to point out to them how silly and desperate your Hitler analogy is. They know perfectly well that just because Hitler used guns, that doesn't make gun use always immoral. Since I've now trained you to invoke Godwin's Law on yourself, the link I offer instead is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning.
PI> the best way to stop aggression is to stop being aggressive. <PI
That's good advice for a Hitler or a Saddam, but it's just silly to say their example means that there is no possible investment in force initiation that a nation could ever make that would reduce the overall amount of force initiation. Do you dare say this?
PI> The United Nations has absolutely no authority what-so-ever over any nation on earth including those who signed the charter. The United Nations is nothing more than a forum for nations to gather for diplomatic discussions to avoid conflict. No nation who has ever signed the UN charter answers to the UN or any group of nations in the UN. <PI
You are even more ignorant about the UN Charter than you are about the US Constitution. The UN Charter says signatories agree
to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression. [...] The Members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter. [...] Should the Security Council consider that measures provided for in Article 41 would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate, it may take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations. [...] All Members of the United Nations, in order to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security, undertake to make available to the Security Council, on its call and in accordance with a special agreement or agreements, armed forces, assistance, and facilities, including rights of passage, necessary for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security. [...] The action required to carry out the decisions of the Security Council for the maintenance of international peace and security shall be taken by all the Members of the United Nations or by some of them, as the Security Council may determine.
So I ask you again: was Iraq was under duress in December 1945 when it agreed to the above obligations of the United Nations Charter? Yes or no?
PI> If
Cuba started slaughtering Americans andAmerica issued letters of marquis and reprisal, it would allow any private force to invade, and do anything they wanted without fear of recrimination. Whether it was a yacht club, or a well armed and trained militia <PI Cuba
I see you still cannot spell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_marque, even after I corrected you. I suppose it's mis-spelled "marquis" in your crayon version of the Constitution, the one where you scribbled "ships and soil" into the words of Art I Sec 8.
It's laughable for you to talk about an imaginary "well-armed and trained militia" sallying forth to defend Americans abroad under "letters of marquis", so I'll just leave you in this trap for you to gnaw your legs off.
PI> As far as your laughable challenge to show the 9/11 commission said
posed no credible threat, I've already done so. I did it in my last post when I showed that they said there was no credible relationship with Al Queda, and no collaborative relationship between them. Iraq never helped Al Queda, and never attacked us. That means they weren't a threat to us.<PI Iraq
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_sequitur.
The 9/11 commission report simply does not dispute the charge that Iraq's involvement with WMDs and anti-American terrorism constituted a threat to America, and I DEFY you to cite the page number of the report where it says otherwise.
PI> Feel free to describe how a nation that has been victimized, starved to death, scrutinized, and occupied by American troops for 12 years was suddenly a threat to America without any nukes, without any plans for nukes or supplies to build nukes, without any connection to those who have attacked America, and without any means of attacking America was a threat. <PI
You seem to be tacitly admitting that if Iraq had the intention of acquiring nuclear weapons, it would have been a threat to us. Your silly claims of "victimized, starved to death, scrutinized, and occupied" have already been given unanswered refutation here, and are irrelevant -- unless you're changing your mind and are now claiming that we should not have retaliated if even a "victimized" Iraq nuked an American city. You again ignore the fact that Iraq provided refuge and assistance to terrorists who had targeted and killed American civilians. As for "without any means of attacking America", are you saying there were no box cutters in all of Iraq? Are you denying that Saddam had admitted to pursuing nuclear WMDs and had used chemical WMDs to commit international aggression? Just because you wouldn't have been able to figure out how to hurt America doesn't mean Saddam couldn't have done so.
PI> Congress can only declare war in the defense of AMERICAN ships and soil. Congress may only declare war against those who have attacked us or are currently attacking us because this is the definition of DEFENSE. <PI
The phrase "ships and soil" is absent from the Art I Sec 8 grant of the war-making power. The word "defense" only occurs twice in the Constitution. Its use in the Preamble neither grants nor modifies the war power, which is enumerated with the other federal powers in Article One Section Eight. Its use in clause one of that section does not modify the war power granted in clause eleven.
The Preamble is simply not operative in granting or limiting federal power. It says why the federal government was created, not what it can or cannot do. If you want to know what the Constitution says the federal government can or cannot do, you need to look for language like "the Congress shall have power..." or "Congress shall make no law...". The word "shall" does not appear in the Preamble.
The war power is granted by clause 11, not clause 1. Clause 1 would indeed disallow a specific empire tax or nation-building tax, but it doesn't require that the general-purpose Armies authorized in clause 12 confine their operations to U.S. soil, or their actions to repelling invasions. Indeed, clause 15 is an example of how the Constitution does limit the scope of military action when it wants to, by placing on the Militia the very sort of restriction that it doesn't place on the Army: "to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions".