What We Owe the Real Defenders of America

In this episode of New Ideal Live, Onkar Ghate and Elan Journo discuss what it means to honor a nation’s soldiers and veterans. They argue that the decision to go to war is a serious moral issue and has to take seriously the lives of its soldiers in battle.

Among other topics, they cover:

How the purpose of a proper government (the protection of its citizens’ individual rights) sets the bounds for the proper use of the military;
Ayn Rand’s perspective on what justifies war, and how it differs from libertarian and conservative views;
Why regarding military service as a sacrifice for the “common good” is a mistake and an insult to soldiers and veterans;
What Rand thought of American wars of her time, especially Vietnam, and how America’s foreign policy from World War I on has too often betrayed American soldiers;
Why Ayn Rand opposed the draft on moral grounds.

Mentioned in the discussion are Ayn Rand’s essays “The Roots of War,” “Lessons from Vietnam” (available in the book The Voice of Reason), “The Wreckage of the Consensus,” the Ayn Rand Lexicon’s entry on “war,” Rand’s books Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal and The Virtue of Selfishness, Elan Journo’s books Winning the Unwinnable War and What Justice Demands, and Journo and Ghate’s book Failing to Confront Islamic Totalitarianism.

This podcast was recorded on November 11, 2020. Watch or listen to the discussion below. Listen and subscribe from your mobile device on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher. Watch archived podcasts here.