There's Simply No Excuse

August 6th marked the 60th anniversary of the atrocities wrought by the U.S. military on the inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Dropping the bomb has been a flashpoint of debate and controversy ever since the doors of the Enola Gay opened up and unleashed hell on these two cities. The American public has been inundated with a tidal wave of excuses and justifications as to why it was necessary and good for us to incinerate hundreds of thousands of Japanese women and children. Others have questioned the wisdom and necessity of the attacks. What I find disturbing and abhorrent is that there exists a mainstream debate about the topic at all.

I find it thoroughly repulsive that civilized people would advocate this type of behavior for any reason, let alone when the excuses given are wholly speculative and/or outright lies. If you are one who still believes dropping these two bombs was necessary, I would strongly recommend reading this article. There simply are no excuses for committing these acts of terror. It is completely contradictory and inconsistent to condemn terrorists, tyrants and war criminals for the slaughter of innocent civilians and still condone what was done on August 6th, 1945. Even if the reasons given for dropping the bombs held some water (which they most definitely do not,) we cannot adopt the means of tyrants and terrorists without becoming the same.

If ending the war early or "saving American lives" are legitimate ends towards which any means can justifiably be used, then there is no end to the atrocity and barbaric cruelty that can be used. Even if murdering the innocent residents of a particularly city will make a tyrant cease his aggressive ways, it is still wrong to do so. This is exactly the mentality of the terrorists we now condemn. "If we kill enough innocents, maybe they will submit to our demands." Regardless of what those demands may be and how good they may seem, the ends do not justify the means used.

This is the problem I have with most of the actions and functions of government. They are virtually all based on force and violence. Even in cases where I agree with the ends being pursued, I find the means used by government to achieve them to be immoral and unacceptable. Anthony Gregory expressed this same sentiment in his LRC article State Violence and Limited Government:

"Merely believing that a state should be confined to protecting life, liberty and property, however, is not enough to be a libertarian. These laudable ends boasted of the state cannot cancel out the evils of the means used. Indeed, this is the principal argument against the welfare statism of the left. Charity and healthcare are not ideas that libertarians oppose. Nor do we object to clean air or water, an educated populace or higher wages for workers. What we reject, for both practical and ethical reasons, is the use of aggressive force against innocents as a means of achieving these ends. In welfare statism, it is not the giving side, but the taking side, with which we have the most problem."

It is the means we use to achieve our ends that define us and that ultimately determine whether we are good or bad. It may be argued that any number of ends are worthy of pursuit, but if force and violence are the means used rather than persuasion and voluntary cooperation, I want nothing to do with it.