The Rational Animal

I’ve noticed that it’s become popular for people to say things like “I don’t support the war, but I do support our troops.” This always seemed strange to me; imagine if someone said “I don’t support murder, but I do support our murderers.” You’d think he’d gone crazy, and rightly so. After all, if you don’t support a given behavior, it seems strange to support those performing the behavior of their own free will.

We have a completely voluntary military, and only adults can join. Adults that have the same rational faculty and access to information that you and I do. If I am capable of understanding that the military is a murderous group of thugs that support a violent minarchy-gone-wrong, then they are too.

This of course means that the troops, just like everyone else, are ethically responsible for their decisions and actions. If someone joins the military and commit acts of theft, murder, rape, etc. then they are not a good person, even if they think that they are. Would a random murderer be a good person just because he actually believed his murders were morally good?

I think the “I don’t support the war, but I do support our troops,” viewpoint ultimately stems from a desire to still believe that the United States of America is good, righteous and just. Pretending that the U.S. government is simply making a judgment error when warring with Iraq makes it easier to rationalize this viewpoint.

If we accept that not supporting the war logically means not supporting those who make war possible (the troops), this leads us down the road of questioning the moral nature of the state itself. After all, if the state is responsible for evil, doesn’t that make the state evil? It’s easier to not think about this or its implications and to instead come up with “I don’t support the war, but I do support our troops.”