[mothballed]

The US may have no use for Venezuelan oil, but Venezuela nationalized US investments in 1976, stealing Exxon and Gulf Oil's assets then paying them back a pittance.

Venezuela owes those companies several billion in 1976 dollars, money they have not repaid. The US will now likely use their oil as collateral to force them to pay. No I am not dumb enough to think they will stop only there or do this in a justifiable way, but I would assert, when someone steals something from you, you have the right to use force to get it back, even if the method just used is not the right one.

[fireflash38]

I'm fairly certain that there's a large segment of the population who would deeply dislike that rationale, especially if it's applied consistently to all past actions (cough slavery)

[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.

[swsieber]

Where do you draw the line in the list of "not the right [method]"? I would assert that this is not justified, (in addition to not being the right method).

Can we send troops down there and just starting kill people until they pay us? Torture them maybe? Start spraying agent orange?

If someone steals something from me, I'm justified in beating them up, threatening their family, maybe even burning their house down until I get what I want, 50 years later?

Where do you draw the line between justified and unjustified when it comes to "not the right [method]"?

[Hikikomori]

Conveniently leaving out over 100 years of US involvement in Venezuela and stealing of natural resources huh.

[wat10000]

Then let Exxon and Gulf Oil try to use force to get it back. Why should I be forced to help them?

[mothballed]

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.

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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.

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>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.

[wat10000]

I don’t understand. Your previous comment was saying that the US has the right to use force to get back assets that Venezuela seized. Since I’m an American taxpayer, that means the US has the right to force me to help with this. Now you’re saying I shouldn’t be. That seems like the exact opposite of your previous statement.

I completely agree that this is happening regardless of what I think and all we can really do is consider how we got here. But that wasn’t at all the comment I was replying to.

> 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.

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.

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?

[mothballed]

Sorry for the wonkiness, I now have an extra comment to reply in-sequence. Thank you for your grace in handling that and the inconvenience there.

I think the crux of your difficulty of understanding is not understanding the difference between a victim being able to fight back, a victim being able to fight back with the assistance of a willing proxy, and the wrongness to force 3rd parties to pay.

It is possible that Exxon has the right to fight back. And that Exxon can use a mercenary force to effect that effort. It is possible that the US military is a mercenary force. The wrong part would be that the mercenary force forced you to pay. Not that Exxon might get justice via proxy.

It can be simultaneously true that a mercenary force could act justly, while also being true they did not act justly, in part because they also used violence against uninvolved 3rd parties (in this case, taxation against you and perhaps also violence against some uninvolved Venezuelans). I think that is the case here.

[wat10000]

I’m not sure why you’re talking about hypotheticals where a different act could be just. I thought we were talking about what’s actually happening. In the context of a news story about US military actions that I help pay for, you stated that force is justifiable to recover stolen property. Either this describes what we’re actually discussing i.e. the actual events taking place, or it’s a confusing non sequitur.

[mothballed]

Let me be explicitly clear in the context, and take on good faith you're just not understanding.

In this particular, concrete event I believe Exxon had the right as a victim to take back their assets, and I believe that the funding of the US military by taxes is immoral, the very act of the people doing so is moral only so far as it does not affect innocent third parties such as yourself or go beyond compensation for the theft. I think I have been pretty clear about this, that in the concrete I think it's simultaneously true that recovery is justified but the funding method was not.

I do believe the US military actions insofar as they recover stolen property is justified, but not the funding mechanism by which they've done so. I'm not sure why this is hard to understand -- if say the police recover your stolen bicycle I can remark the police had a right to go get it even though the police have done it in the wrong way by using violence to tax 3rd parties to go get it. In this case two results -- the victim by proxy rightly recovered the stolen property but also wrongly used violence against third parties to achieve it, both simultaneously true. You are trying to muddy things by suggesting if I agree with one I must agree with the other.