The Military and American Liberty

August 11, 2008
by Evans Munyemesha

Under the Bush Administration, the members of the armed forces have enjoyed sky-high adoration and ernomous visibility for apparently abandoning their private interests - as they presumably voluntarily abandon their families and private employment for public service and the common good - in order to protect the security of strangers and the health of the great American Empire.

The apparent abandonment of private interests by the members of the armed forces and their self-assigned duty to protect the security of strangers is said to be not only an honorable sacrifice but the highest duty that a person could ever give. This is a peculiar manner of reasoning since it appears to be against the will of many of these same strangers as the numberless public protests against the Iraqi war have demonstrated.

But yet, military people (particularly those fighting the war) are idolized everywhere by common folk. Some of them are even awarded medals for engaging in activities that if done by a private citizen for private purposes, would be considered criminal since they involve the destruction of life and property.

Here then, is the great question: Can the American Military Safeguard Our Liberty?

Let us wander about into a few observations and see where we end up:

1. The military discourages independent thinking and action, acts so essential to the growth, nurturance and progress of liberty.

Like the State, subordination of the mind and body of its members is its health. Instrumental to this process of systematic subordination and centralization of life by the military is the demand that certain information be classified as State secrets; information, according to the military, too dangerous for public consumption.

But, excluding a greater number of the population from accessing certain information ensures that the military could subtly shape the mood and character of the common people without them knowing what is truly transpiring around them. It is a commonly-known utterance that a people kept in perpetual darkness makes for an easy dupe; and an easy dupe is always ripe to propagate an idea even in the absence of evidence to support the idea. And, as we have so often seen, in the presence of such evidence, a dupe dares not examine it.

It is around this axiomatic concept that the concoction of 'national security' or 'State Intelligence' finds its roots. To allow some men to trust themselves with the secrets that they just manufactured and calling them "State secrets" is to regard these men as invulnerable to temptations which powerfully seduce us all. What manner of man is the military man to somehow be invulnerable to the afflictions that besiege us all to different degrees?

The same man who it has been shown else that he despises productive exertion, in its stead, priding in plunder and vanity; the same man who glories in the subjugation of fellow man and glorifies mass terror; the same man who puts a higher value on shined boots, a starched uniform, medals and pins, and a rigid, orchestrated lifestyle; the same man who pisses on his own freedom; the same man who flourishes in an environment of manipulation and propaganda: It is to this man that any sane man should entrust State secrets upon which his life depends? I find this idea of a people committing their State secrets to the breasts of a few select men to parallel that ancient practice of privately confessing one's sins to a clergyman.

2. The military is not generally bound by the rules, laws and morals common to all, but instead, by its own strange and rigid code that slowly but surely transforms independent individuals into instruments of the State (sometimes even against their own conscience and will as is indicated by times of compulsory National Service).

"Under every government the [last] resort of the people, is an appeal to the sword; whether to defend themselves against the open attacks of a foreign enemy, or to check the insidious encroachments of domestic foes. Whenever a people ... entrust the defense of their country to a regular, standing army, composed of mercenaries, the power of that country will remain under the direction of the wealthiest citizens."
--Quote by an anonymous framer of the US Constitution, sourced from Independent Gazetteer, January 29, 1791

3. The military, having its own insular culture within a broader culture, has no regard for the rights of its members. Where there is no regard for rights, there could be no real liberty.

4. The military thrives on agitations for conflict and war, or giving the impression that there permanently exists a nervous enemy out there ready to attack. All this is done while existing wholly on the efforts of other, productive members, of society. It glorifies a life of plunder and empty honors. Because it is preoccupied with a life of conquests and wars, all fruitful economic activity is deemed irrelevant to its existence or that all economic activity needs to be subordinate to military aspirations. As such, it focuses its energies towards regions that abound in materials it could acquire by force.

Always in search for a weak party to intimidate, defeat and rob---sometimes even under the most ridiculous and incoherent of pretexts such as to 'civilize the natives' or 'bring about democracy from a theocracy'. As the military produces nothing of valuable economic consequence for self-sufficiency---other than tools of destruction and propaganda---its presence anywhere is a perennial threat to private ownership of property, as it tends towards the collectivization of activities, destroying free institutions and fostering despotism by first snuffing out the rights of every subject that belongs to it.

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5. "Whenever an army is established, it introduces a revolution in manners, corrupts the morals, propagates every species of vice, and degrades the human character."
--Mercy Otis Warren; The American Revolution.

6. The military is no different than a fellowship of highwaymen, in which each acquires his wealth according to one's rank or to one's exploits in the combat zone.

7. As the military starts to grow, to meet its burgeoning needs, which is always, it becomes more belligerent, more calculating, more intolerant, and more demanding, despising the established ethical code of conduct that guides peaceful human relations. It soon begins, as well, to transmit its coarse and vulgar character out of its barracks and army camps into the general population, which, unwittingly, begins, too, to slowly acquire deeply fascistic or dangerously nationalistic attitudes that reveal themselves in such things as the efforts to smother free and entrepreneurial spirit, endeavors and ambitions. This growth also leads to the idolization and elevation of national symbols (e.g. national flags, national anthems, and war presidents) over rights and private individuals, and the regarding of military service as the highest social value or the most admirable profession commanding respect and deference.

But see how quickly the military man becomes destitute as soon as the farmer refuses to feed him, the teacher refuses to enlighten him, the tailor refuses to clothe him, the physician refuses to treat him, the landlord refuses to house him, the artist refuses to entertain him, and a million other professionals refuse to render their services to him. The military man perishes! Yet, through popular ignorance, the military man has attained the status of a demigod, and his uniform is treated as a symbolic tunic worn only by the brave.

8. Further growth in the military leads to a weakening of the institutions of a free society, and we then see a gradual increase in the centralization of critical industries such as financial, security, shipping, and migration institutions. An increase in size of a structure must always induce an increase in the costs for its maintenance as well as in difficulties of containment and control.

This continued increase in physical size will attain a stage where the costs make the benefits of further increase negative because perpetual increase of a thing is impossible ---with the exception of human stupidity. There must occur a point at which the increasing structure self-destructs just as continued inflation of a tube, without let, deflates it by bursting.

As such, the military's ineluctable inclination towards growth is one reason, besides the absence of moral restraints, that it can't exist for the preservation of peace and order, however benevolent its officials. The fact that a growing military could not be stopped once it has started implies a diminution or depression in economic activity; this is so because military adventures do not provide conditions suitable for production nor do they stimulate it. On the contrary, they disturb, disrupt, transfer, seize, alleviate, stifle, and worsen production or fruits of production. The MidEast and much of Africa furnish us ample instances to support this observation.

From our short wanderings into these observations, I believe it safe to deny that the military service people are there to safeguard our liberty when they are owned by the State. Therefore, their primary duty is to protect and defend the liberty of the Government from whose breast they suck---and not the liberty of society. If the liberty of society is protected by the military (and there are instances that this has occurred before), it is either by chance or there is a greater benefit to the military and not to society in doing so.

The foregoing observational excursion does not purport to say that there have not been certain gains from rare men who have served well in the armed forces even under existing arrangements; nor does looking with a critical eye upon these existing arrangements ignore the silent agitations of those military men trying to be freed from the grip of this abominable institution.

Yet, still, I am not confident that the majority of our contemporaries will accept the conspicuous truth that liberty is not a child of militarism. The liberty of a people in any society, a rarity to be sure, is dependent on the character of the free members of that society; and therefore, for there to be liberty in society anywhere, its members, individually, must be free. This means that the members must be self-directing individuals.

Liberty sought by use of bombs and other instruments of terror is liberty sought in vain. If found, it is fleeting and only for a special class.

If there is a particular brand of liberty that requires for its attainment the sacrifice of young men and women, or any other human beings of whatever age, in war, that brand of liberty is fitted for a time long past. The only true liberty desirable among a people and imaginable to me is that of self-sacrifice; to sacrifice another, for one's liberty, I could not bring myself to conceive. The desirable liberty which I speak of is attainable by the continuous improvement in the values and morals of a society. But to seek permanent liberty by way of military service is no different than to search for a virgin prostitute.

If indeed the military people secure liberty (and the police force maintains order) how come is it that, in spite of having expansive enterprises of both, combined with their thoroughly advanced and sickly effective gadgets, there is neither liberty nor order anywhere? Not even in the so-called "land of the free" where it shall soon be illegal to be obese as legislators seek to find a way to keep the 'Nation' healthy and lean. Keeping up such a costly enterprise as the military (and its sibling, the police force) could never secure liberty (nor order) but certainly heighten the decadence of our sentiments.