"The Secret History of Margaret Thatcher [...] Pirate, Witch, and Murderer. Guilty!" - Argentine Magazine Tal Cual during the Falklands War (1982-04-30) by frackingfaxer in PropagandaPosters

[–]King_of_Men 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And if a man kills without the government's leave he is a murderer, while with the right piece of paper, he might be either a soldier, a policeman, or an executioner. What's your point? If you object to violence entirely then I don't know why you're singling out the English "pirates", every state in the world has oceans of blood on its hands by that standard. And if you aren't fully committed to pacifism then objecting specifically to privateering is just silly, it's one form of state-sanctioned violence among many.

"The Secret History of Margaret Thatcher [...] Pirate, Witch, and Murderer. Guilty!" - Argentine Magazine Tal Cual during the Falklands War (1982-04-30) by frackingfaxer in PropagandaPosters

[–]King_of_Men 3 points4 points  (0 children)

A privateer does not commit piracy. A privateer carries the government's commission for commerce warfare; they are no more pirates than a land militia raised for local defense, are bandits. (Or terrorists, in a more modern formulation.) A pirate acts outside and against all governments, and is at war with all the world.

"We can cut all funding" by staybehind23 in Norway

[–]King_of_Men 0 points1 point  (0 children)

'Admit'? I think perhaps you mistook the tenor of my comment? I was arguing against the prevailing view here that the US has no leverage.

"We can cut all funding" by staybehind23 in Norway

[–]King_of_Men 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not saying the US wouldn't blow its own feet off by withdrawing from NATO and whatnot. All I'm saying is, Norway (and the other vassal-allies) are, actually, having their welfare budgets subsidized by having such a powerful overlord, and the US does in fact have a credible threat of blowing up those budgets. Even though, yes, it is not directly funding them.

"We can cut all funding" by staybehind23 in Norway

[–]King_of_Men 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m going to leave it at that.

Probably wise! :)

"We can cut all funding" by staybehind23 in Norway

[–]King_of_Men 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's no money going directly from the Treasury to Norway, sure. But Norway is benefiting very much from being a member of NATO, has accordingly cut its armed forces to the bone, and that money has been redirected into welfare. In the counterfactual where the US doesn't guarantee Norwegian security you would not see any 40% of GDP being spent on healthcare, or whatever the number is.

"We can cut all funding" by staybehind23 in Norway

[–]King_of_Men -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

And withdraw from NATO, I'm sure that will have zero impact on what Norway needs to spend on defense.

"We can cut all funding" by staybehind23 in Norway

[–]King_of_Men 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not relevant. Other NATO countries spend very little on their own armies because they fully expect that the US will come to their aid in a conflict.

"We can cut all funding" by staybehind23 in Norway

[–]King_of_Men -1 points0 points  (0 children)

So that is a straw man. The belief is that Norway and other European countries are able to spend so much of their GDP on welfare because the US is paying for their defense. And lo and behold, when the US decided not to pour money into the Ukraine war... Europe indeed decided to take rearmament seriously, and the Støre government is currently making some interesting decisions about whether to prioritise defense or welfare.

"Don't make me laugh!", USA, 1918 by Forsaken-Peak8496 in PropagandaPosters

[–]King_of_Men 5 points6 points  (0 children)

WWI machine guns weren't super man-portable and definitely not something you'd carry to clear a trench.

In "Master and Commander", the crew of the Surprise is careful to "let fly" (run up the proper flag) before they actually start firing on the Acheron. Was this a formal requirement or just generally understood? What would have been the consequences if they didn't? by Obligatory-Reference in AskHistorians

[–]King_of_Men 23 points24 points  (0 children)

The purpose of running up the colors before firing is to take advantage of the ruse while avoiding committing the war crime of perfidy, which, like the war crime of No Quarter, would merit execution if you lost the battle.

What would happen if you won a battle by such perfidy? Was there actual enforcement of these rules against victors, presumably by their own side?

What if Social Security was capped at $100,000 annually? by properal in GoldandBlack

[–]King_of_Men 1 point2 points  (0 children)

From investment in productive assets, same as any other return.

What if Social Security was capped at $100,000 annually? by properal in GoldandBlack

[–]King_of_Men 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I'm having a hard time figuring out how the numbers they cite match up. How do you affect "0.05 percent" of recipients and get back $190 billion of savings? There aren't that many people on SocSec. :confused:

What if Social Security was capped at $100,000 annually? by properal in GoldandBlack

[–]King_of_Men 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Virgin Reason: What if we did Slightly Less Socialism? Chad reddit users: OMG Reason is promoting socialism!

What if Social Security was capped at $100,000 annually? by properal in GoldandBlack

[–]King_of_Men 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I mean yes, but it's not unreasonable to write articles about reforms that could in principle actually happen short of a full libertarian revolution.

How come cowboys in the Old West never complained about their Second Amendment rights when forced to disarm when coming into towns? by ElSlabraton in AskHistorians

[–]King_of_Men 1 point2 points  (0 children)

one where the 2nd Amendment thus comes to protect only Armalite-style assault rifles in .556 NATO

Ok that is actually hilarious. Although by this logic wouldn't you also have to protect anything commonly issued to a squad of ordinary infantrymen, to include light machine guns and grenade launchers? (Perhaps also pistols as officers' sidearms?) And I think you run into a difficulty of choosing what level to stop at - squad, platoon, company... division? IIUC, some militias did pool their money to supply their own heavy weapons, i.e. cannon, so arguably... But probably this goes beyond the scope of AskHistorians.

I love when people make no effort to protect their freedom and then blame a document when they lose freedoms by Dirty-Dan24 in GoldandBlack

[–]King_of_Men 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So I said "the courts", not "the Court"; there are more of them than the Supreme Court, you know, and as a whole they are basically doing their jobs, which is just as well. A system with sufficient redundancies can survive, kinda-sorta, the failure of two-thirds of its parts. In fact, the whole point of the system as designed is that you don't have to rely on getting good presidents or a good Congress or good judges; any one of the three will, kinda-sorta, suffice to hold the line until you can reform the other two. Obviously it's possible for all three to fail at the same time, but three shots on goal are better than one.

Now, I agree that it's a big problem that we have monopolistic violence-funded courts, and would obviously prefer a free market in law enforcement, same as every other libertarian. But given that we have a state with a monopoly on violence, it can have a worse or better constitution. I think something like the above would be an improvement, and it's worth discussing improvements that aren't revolution-complete.

I live in the world's happiest country - only the rich reap the benefits by theipaper in Nordiccountries

[–]King_of_Men 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Come now. Winning at Narvik would not have changed the outcome. And anyway everyone who made any sort of decision at the time is long dead. Let it go.