# At what point do soldiers bear personal responsibility for their actions?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-soldiers-bear-personal-responsibility-for-their-actions/334207>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [December 5, 2005, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-soldiers-bear-personal-responsibility-for-their-actions/334207 "2005-12-05T18:05:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 5

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**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2005, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-soldiers-bear-personal-responsibility-for-their-actions/334207/81 "2005-12-09T16:45:09Z")

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> [@CandidGamera](#):
>
> No, evangelism isn’t intrinsic to libertarianism - I’m afraid you’re wrong in that regard. There are evangelistic libertarians, of course. But it’s not intrinsic to the philosophy. Hell, evangelism isn’t even really intrinsic to Christianity, depending on how one interprets some of the passages in the Bible.

Really? I mean, your position is that libertarianism is a better system, but you’re not gonna try to convince anyone?

As for the rest of your post, you don’t have a consistent definition of coercion. I think even \*\*Liberal \*\*will disagree with you. Libertarians (the rational ones), believe in two types of coercion: initiatory and retaliatory. Some types of coercion are not OK, others are. But the libertarian does not state that all coercion is wrong, neither does she define coercion to mean only the coercion that she considers wrong, as you’ve done.

Obviously this isn’t detrimental to your philosophy, you just need to modify your language. You do, in fact, believe in occasionally coercing others based on your moral system–though perhaps less often than in our present system.

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**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2005, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-soldiers-bear-personal-responsibility-for-their-actions/334207/82 "2005-12-10T00:57:33Z")

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> [@Richard Parker](#):
>
> Really? I mean, your position is that libertarianism is a better system, but you’re not gonna try to convince anyone?

Meh. If prompted, sometimes I talk about it. I’m content with a reaction of “What you say is rational, but I disagree.”

> [@](#):
>
> As for the rest of your post, you don’t have a consistent definition of coercion. I think even \*\*Liberal \*\*will disagree with you. Libertarians (the rational ones), believe in two types of coercion: initiatory and retaliatory. Some types of coercion are not OK, others are. But the libertarian does not state that all coercion is wrong, neither does she define coercion to mean only the coercion that she considers wrong, as you’ve done.
> 
> Obviously this isn’t detrimental to your philosophy, you just need to modify your language. You do, in fact, believe in occasionally coercing others based on your moral system–though perhaps less often than in our present system.

Perhaps I’m misremembering some of the discussions he’s presented. I could’ve sworn that force used to resist coercion was not considered coercion in and of itself. Maybe not. Nevertheless, the definition I provided is self-consistent. It just doesn’t correspond exactly with the general, broader definition of the word. I do that sometimes when I can’t think of a better word. Like my semantic split of morals and ethics.

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