Apr 11, 2011
John Stossel: we “had to kill innocent people to end World War 2.”
See here. How can someone who is so sensible on most issues be so terribly wrong on this one?
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Aeon J. Skoble - 4/11/2011
That link didn't paste right. It is
here
Aeon J. Skoble - 4/11/2011
Boaz was right to note that "murder is always wrong" is a tautology. Stossel's counter-example of WWII is one that I realize is contested, but I take his overall point to be that sometimes bad things happen as consequences of otherwise-justifiable things. That is true. Since we have rights to self-defense, libertarianism doesn't imply pacifism, and although it does imply a higher standard of rights-protection that traditional just-war doctrine contains, it doesn't dispense with the doctrine of double-effect either. For more, see the Reason Papers symposium on Watr and Liberty http://www.reasonpapers.com/archives.htm#v28
Mark Brady - 4/10/2011
David, you ask, "How can [Stossel] who is so sensible on most issues be so terribly wrong on this one?"
I note that Norman Horn, who wrote the post to which you link, is harder on Boaz than on Stossel:
"I'll give Stossel some grace considering he has not been very exposed to our philosophy except in limited amounts. He is not being thoughtful toward the issue. Perhaps he would come around just as he did on free markets given a substantive and fair presentation of the information. I met him in Austin about a year ago and I think he is a good fellow, and I truly hope he can figure out this critical principle of libertarianism.
"How Boaz can hold such contradictory thoughts in his head, though, is downright baffling. I would plead with him to reconsider such positions. Liberty means liberty for all."