Comment by mothballed

Why wouldn't apply to the people that keep or have kept slaves? It's probably harder to find anyone alive who has kept slaves or conspired with those who kept slaves, but I'm sure you could find some. Most of them are sex trafficking victims nowadays.

(to be clear here, living person Maduro was in an active conspiracy with the [at the time] living person Chavez who seized those assets* and Maduro knowingly and intentionally used the stolen assets of currently living shareholders of Exxon and and Gulf oil, this isn't even remotely analogous to some nebulous group of white people paying people who look like they might have been slaves but have never been slaves for the sins of other dead people who happened to be the same skin color who kept slaves)

If you mean just grabbing some random person who looks like a former slaveholder and then going after them for reparations to someone who happens to look like they might have been a slave if born in another time, then no that doesn't make sense. In fact most white people that are here probably can trace their lineage to the post civil war pre-WWII mass immigration, they don't even have a family lineage or personal inheritance lineage to slave holders.

>, especially if it's applied consistently to all past actions (cough slavery) reply

Also of note here, it was applied against slaveholders in a literal civil war where a notable portion of them were killed, although it by no means made up for what happened nor was it even the sole reason for the war. So yes the US government has done far more against slaveholders than they have against the Maduro/Chavez regime.

* Yes it happened before Maduro was in the Chavez regime, but he wittingly and knowingly later entered the conspiracy and used the stolen assets of living people as an ongoing continuation of the theft.

You shouldn't. But you are, and taxes ultimately are there to force via violence people to pay to help fund what they won't pay voluntarily. Now we're only left thinking about how we got here. You and I have next to nill say in this, particularly since the guy ordering it is a 'lame duck' with no further vote to worry about and has a nearly unilateral command of the military by congressional deadlock on any funding hiccups until at least midterms.

--------

Re: taxation is theft argument below regarding taxpayer monies used for justice (my comments throttled so I can't reply in thread)

Didn't say American taxpayers should have to help. I fully agree any self-help should be fully funded by the victim and not the taxpayers. I completely agree with your argument; simultaneously I'd argue they do have the right to fund an operation to seize their assets. I stated the US did this for this reason; I'd also agree if someone say steals my bike it is theft to try and use taxpayer funds to use the police to get it back, but I'd still acknowledge why the police did it and acknowledge the right of the person with the stolen bike to get it back even though I might not acknowledge they've done it in the right way.

>Your previous comment was saying that the US has the right to use force to get back assets that Venezuela seized

I did not. I said the person that has them seized has the right to get them back. You assumed I meant I supported the US doing it via violence of forcing taxpayers to do it.

The general populace is far more agreeable to theft of the general populace for justice of theft than you or I, though, our arguments fall completely flat in the face of that of an argument for a democratic republic. Generally taxation is considered an acceptable for the securement of the most basic tenants of life, liberty, and property under such political ideology.

----------

>Huh? You commented on an American military operation by saying that If someone steals from you then you have the right to use force to retrieve it.

Yes I commented that because that is the rational used why the US did it; they are wrongly doing proxy by justice under a principle that could be right if done correctly. I agreed with the underlying rational but not the US forces doing it by proxy via taxpayer expense. However under the popular argument that taxation isn't theft I think your argument falls flat.

I did not say the US had the right to retrieve it via violence against innocents, in fact I said exactly what you said, the person that has it done has the right to retrieve it, not that you could force someone else to do it at gunpoint as the US has done to its citizens.

I explicitly said * even if the method just used is not the right one* to reflect my agreement with your argument, but I did not say your argument out loud, because it is deeply unpopular and it would just get my comment ignored/flagged because that has happened everytime I've used your hardcore-libertarian type logic.

>Was that just a total non sequitur? Were you just saying the oil companies have the right to use force, unrelated to the US military, on a comment thread that is specifically about the US using military force?

It is not at all unrelated that the oil companies wanted something (that might be moral, if done correctly) and then the US went on to do something they wanted in an immoral way, have you been paying attention at all to politics in the US for the past 30+ years? It's baffling you could even come up with this conclusion.

Of course even if they limited the mission to getting back Exxon assets, they will be damned either way. Either for using private mercs at their own expense, people will say they're operating outside the law. If they use the sovereign state, then people will argue the taxation is theft argument about using military assets for misplaced justice and argue they should have just used mercs. They really cannot win either way.