In that case, you will have to occupy about 10 other states.... it's not realistic. The war should be fought by proxy IMO.

No. This is why you don't do dumb things like declare a "War on Terror". Thats how you get mission creep.You objectively identify those threats that can actually cause harm and you go kill them if less persuasive methods fail. However I agree that occupation isn't always the best solution.

-DA 

Agree on all counts.

I advocate a system that provides justice.  You yourself have admitted that your statist "civil" law may not provide justice.  You propose then that your statist military law might do so.  I understand that for practical reasons you are attempting to make the best choice amongst limited statist judicial options.  The fact that this debate is undergoing should be evidence enough for the inadequacy of the status quo. 

 

You advocate a military trial.  Try them an line them up against a wall.  What if the victims see things differently?  What if they choose a trial whereby each and every one of them is able to read a victim impact statement to the killers?  What if they determine that the prison conditions are far too mild?  What if they decide that instant death by bullet to the head is far too easy, perhaps even far too dignified?

Compare these remarks to the comments made by arm chair generals and administration officials.

 

Excerpts from Peter Re gan's r...

 

 It becomes increasingly apparent that the solution is to do what the Soviets did when an operative was kidnapped and murdered in Beirut in the eighties. The guilty were hunted down, executed, mutilated, and dumped back in their own neighborhood. No more kidnappings of Soviet or Russian operatives to date.

 

 Once the authorities were sure KSM had been drained of all information, he should have been wrapped in the skin of a pig, a pork chop stuffed in his mouth, a bullet in each eye, and dropped on a street corner in Islamabad.

 

 Any thing less is self defeating and only satisfies the perverse sense of moral superiority possessed by mental midgets.

 

I AM here today to express my opinion on this administration's
recent decision to put terrorists from a foreign land on trial in a civilian
court of law of the United States of America.

I am an American. I am a United States Marine, a New York City
firefighter and the son of a New York City firefighter killed on 9/11.

 

 How do you know your mythical private law will provide justice either? Expounding on the wonders of alternatives is always fun, but doesn't always work when the rubber actually meets the road. We've had plenty of 'private law' in the history of the country. There's this term for it. We call it lynching.

 

 

Wow, you know next time someone accuses me of being a libertarian extremist I can just hold up this post and I'll look so damned moderate it will make their heads spin. Ever hear of rule of law? Or do you toss that over the side because it implies "statism" instead of the mob rule you appear to be advocating in the above paragraph?

 

While Rational Anarchy was a  fun diversion to read about in a book(yes, I love The Moon is a Harsh Mistress too), it's about as likely to be a practical form of government as true communism.

 How do you know your mythical private law will provide justice either? Expounding on the wonders of alternatives is always fun, but doesn't always work when the rubber actually meets the road. We've had plenty of 'private law' in the history of the country. There's this term for it. We call it lynching.

 

There is nothing mythological about it - your use of the term myth I am going to have to assume is necessitated by your desire to ridicule a concept you demonstrate a misunderstanding of.  Second lynchings have nothing to do with law, let alone private law, they are instead vigilante "justice."  Third, it is difficult to defend the practicality of an idea that your government will never allow because it would involve surrendering its priviliged monopoly on judicial powers and with it the right to overcharge you for its efforts.  How would private law work?  You own property you then sign a private law contract protecting that property.  If you own a home then you have the right to sign a private law contract with a private law provider governing the consequences of any action violating your property rights.  How does this provide justice - in that it allows the violated party to predetermine the consequences of aggrievement.  Your home is assaulted by an armed intruder, then that individual is subject to the private law agreement that you have undertaken which may for example include your right to shoot the invader.  Your neighbour (who may be the intruder), local political representative, or statist bureaucrat living thousands of miles away has no say in legal regime that you prescribe for your private property as they are not the aggrieved party. 

 

Just to be clear, lynching is not going to happen because if you and your cousins decide you don't like the way a man has looked at your daughter and then decide to invade that man's home with the intent to hang him to the nearest tree, you and your posse risk the not insignificant possibility that you'll be shot dead after stepping foot in your intended target's rose garden.  Lynchings have happened in the absence of private law, in a statist judicial monopoly legal environment and not too infrequently with the quiet indifference of those very same state authorities.  In raising the issue of lynchings you have confused the State's inability or indifference towards protecting its citizens with private law's effectiveness in doing just that - or do you honestly think the armed bla

So your fantasy cites an example from many hundred years ago as justification for validity. Excuse me for not being convinced.

 

There are simply too many questions raised from your mythical private law. Is there one provider? If so, can he set monopoly prices? Can he set the laws as he sees fit? If there is competition, what if two contracts butt heads? My private law contract says "you protect me from assault no matter what I've done" and yours has me owing that pound of flesh for something I might have done. Do the two companies engage in battle? Will there be fighting in the streets like rival mafia families offering protection? If instead the private law providers have a system of cooperation, what about collusion? Who watches these watchmen? Also, you seem to imply that the private law will be variable according to each contract. That's not rule of law, that's rule of laws with the actual exposure to law being completely variable depending on the contracts to which you are exposed.

 

You dismiss my lynching comment as invalid. How about if my private contract said that if any people of X racial persuasion looked at or touched my daughter, they got strung up? I'd say places could exist where such a contract might be offered. 

 

If I'm filthy rich, can I just sign one hell of a good private law contract simply granting me immunity to everything (well until enough other people pay for a higher contract)? 

 

There's enough holes in your fantasy to drive a truck through it. 

Now I don't make the fallacious assumption that the system of government we use presently is ideal (even in an ideal constitutional form). However rather to paraphrase Churchill, it's a lousy system, but better than the alternatives.