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Thursday, April 14th, 2005
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9:03 am - On Declining to Join the Military
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This Monday, an Army recruiter caught me leaving a temp agency office, next to which the Army, Navy, and Marine recruiters had strategically set up shop. I immediately and smilingly informed him of my anti-war prejudices, but he seemed undaunted. My description of my pitiful economic situation (in response to his questions) undoubtedly encouraged him. He induced me to sit down with him in his office, where I gave him some more basic info about myself. He tried to feel me out, asking if I was a God-fearing man, did I have a girlfriend, etc. I filled out a short paper form -- no asthma, no criminal record, etc.
I agreed to come back the next morning at 11:00 for a longer meeting, where he could really make his pitch. Now, I had recently entertained some Mormon missionaries for 2 separate half-hour philosophical discussions in my living room, and had later accompanied them to a church service where we watched a live broadcast featuring their revered Prophet and other LDS luminaries. I told the recruiter this story, trying to make clear that my interest in these kinds of meetings had to do with an anthropological curiosity, an intellectual interest in sampling bizarre social structures.
My honesty didn't seem to phase him. He never broke out of salesman mode. "I know Army recruiters have a reputation as liars. I want to show you I'm not like that. My style is very low-pressure." He injected a bunch of standard, banal talking points about military life: you'll learn discipline, it will make you a better person, everybody really wants to be part of a team even if they don't realize it, etc.
Next morning, the first technique he employed was a very glitzy, stylized propaganda video on a laptop computer, showcasing various Army career paths. Soldiers in dynamic, exciting situations. Video-game-type music with a sexy beat; quick cuts from scene to scene.
Pilots, parachuters, surgery assistants, spies, MPs teamed with German shepherds, etc., glowingly described their jobs and all the wonderful things that joining the Army had done for them.
A couple Special Forces officers, standing at attention, with stern expressions, robotically recounted the high points of their sophisticated training, with the clear anal-territorial subtext: "Look what magnificent bad-asses we are. We can kick anybody's ass."
Infantile fraternal jocularity was another selling point. An interviewer asked a team of three officers which of them was the best at whatever it was that they specialized in.
"That would be me."
"I have to disagree with you there, I'm the best."
"I think you're both mistaken."
I kind of assumed the video would gloss over the actual business of killing people, but that turned out to be one of the major selling points. A female helicopter pilot talked with a devious smile about the thrill of battle, asking, "In what other job do you actually get to engage a real enemy, with real weapons?"
I think the recruiter might have picked up on the combination of amusement and disgust with which I was reacting, because he cut off the video after it had only glamorized maybe 30 of the "212 Ways to be a Soldier". (He had given me a pencil and paper so that I could write down the code numbers of any of the Ways that interested me.) We moved to another room and sat down across a desk from each other, and he started a pretty high-pressure pitch centered around the financial benefits I'd get out of enlisting. We talked about my rent and expenses, my outstanding loans, and my so-far-fruitless job search. The military option would surely remove a lot of uncertainties and difficulties -- "And you wouldn't even have to put in a resume!"
After I went into a rap about U.S. democracy as basically a sham, and about the military as a pawn of greedy elite corporate interests (I worked in points like media manipulation of the public mind, and Bush and Kerry getting figurehead training in the same secret society at Yale), the recruiter finally got the picture. He emitted a sound bite about how I should appreciate the fellows out there putting themselves on the line so that I can enjoy freedom of speech, did some anxious jogging-in-place ("time's a-wastin, gotta get movin"), and gave me some brochures that he hoped I would pass along to any desperate friends.
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Saturday, February 23rd, 2002
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7:27 pm - The Maurice System
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I don't see how allegations of force initiation would be resolved under an anarchist system.- A malicious predator may have absolutely no interest in resolving allegations that he has initiated force. (I'm not talking about "interest" in the Objectivist sense of what's actually in the predator's best interests; I just mean he may not be interested in it.) I'm thinking of the vast majority of rapists, muggers, murderers, etc. who operate today. In lieu of a single monopolistic authority for resolving force-related disputes, they could just refuse to cooperate with any institution or individual that attempts to extract restitution from them.
- There's even a problem in cases of honest disputes, in which each side truly believes that he has not initiated force. If they can't come to any agreement through private arbitration, there needs to be a final arbiter to decide on matters of restitution. Otherwise, the danger of infinite stalemate is very real.
For these reasons, I think an exclusive constitution is necessary in order to lay out the procedures for resolving disputes that can't be resolved privately. And an exclusive final arbiter must be designated by the constitution.
Under such a system, all executive functions, such as police forces and militaries, would be private and competitive, but would be ultimately bound by the decisions of the final arbiter. Contracts and voluntary standards would take the place of all legislation, except for the constitution (which would only lay out codes of acceptable behavior in a very broad way, basically just providing a clear definition of initiation of force). All funding for the government (which I think would really be a misnomer for such an institution, which is why I call it a final arbiter) would come from the losers in cases that it decides, since deciding such cases would be its only job.
Here's the kicker, which I think should make this system acceptable to anarcho-capitalists, whose primary (and legitimate) objection to government is that it governs without the unanimous consent of the governed: The constitution and final arbitration agency would only have jurisdiction where the property owners consent to it. This would, of course, encourage- adjacent property owners to adopt the same constitution
- the final arbitration agencies of adjacent and intermingled properties to establish comprehensive treaties with each other, and
- single owners to own large pieces of property in residential areas, so that large numbers of tenants can live under the same system.
And things will be much easier in space, where we?ll be able to start from scratch, and where most habitats will be artificial and separated by thousands of miles from their nearest neighbors.
So I think this system overcomes the legitimate objections of anarcho-capitalists to government and vice versa. It provides for only one final arbiter in a given geographic area but avoids the coercion seemingly inherent in all systems of government.
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