This is not how members of a community behave to each other. Please, grow a sense of honor, if not a sense of perspective. Otherwise, you may find yourself wandering in the wilderness again.

I was not in the least trying to suggest that Lew Rockwell (or the community of libertarians here generally) “supports a ruling military kleptocracy”; it’s patently obvious that Lew doesn’t – I mean, even if I were completely clueless as to Lew’s views up to now (I have of course read Lew’s writings, and he’s previously paid me the compliment of citing some of my favorite anti-war quotes), I AM commenting on a piece where he’s made it quite clear that he is opposed to our bloated military and interventions abroad!

That you have somehow missed this is itself an illustration of one of my points: we are all human, so we all have penchants for blind spots, particularly when partisan impulses are triggered.

As for my claim that Lew and other libertarians at times reflexively defend BP and fossil fuel interests (while attacking ‘enviro-fascists’, scientists, and common folk who are injured/threatened by statist corporations that, via the grant of limited liability of shareholders, embody moral hazard that has fuelled the growth of a regulatory state that corporations have since captured), far from “pretending” it I thought I stated it rather clearly; it has been my experience over the past several years, I stand beside it and even proffered a link to where Lew and others WERE engaged in an apology for a very statist BP. My references to what Lew has said and to my extensive disagreements are not “smears”, but simply disagreements.

The libertarian position consistently opposes any and all infringements of Individual Rights whether they are characterised as “Left” or “Right”, whether fascist, communist, socialist, environmentalist, welfarist, “progressive”, “liberal”, religious or any other form of collectivism.

Fair enough, even as so-called libertarians routinely ignore real problems regarding unowned and government-owned resources in favor of ad hom attacks on “collectivists” and “environmentalists”, while ignoring the role of governments and government-created corporate collectives in such problems. A further quibble is that libertarians do not insist that man deny his nature and forsake all communities, into which we are born and to which we are wont to join and to enter into bonds of mutual obligation, in favor of individual rights; rather, the instence is that individuals have the right to leave such communities, including communities with formal governments.

Please relax, Sione; beside the offense you cause, you constantly put egg on your own face. As a member of this community, I’m embarrassed for you.

Sincerely,

Tom

We thought we were doing right by the Iranians to assist the British in assassinating their elected leader back in ’52 (I believe was the year), and installing the Shah.

He wasn’t assassinated but imprisoned for life, he wasn’t elected (though he had been, on an earlier occasion, but had lost his electoral mandate), and it was slightly later.

Lew Rockwell has written on numerous occasions of his opposition to the policies of the Right and his opposition to corporations engaged in cronyism with those controlling the power of the state – particularly those using the state to enrich themselves at the expense of all others. For example, Rockwell, like Ron Paul, is in favour of non-intervention in the affairs of foreigners. He supports major reductions in military expenditure and withdrawal of the US military from bases all over the planet. This is not support of the present regime or its related interests- far from it. The libertarian position consistently opposes any and all infringements of Individual Rights whether they are characterised as “Left” or “Right”, whether fascist, communist, socialist, environmentalist, welfarist, “progressive”, “liberal”, religious or any other form of collectivism. Confirming that Tokyo Tom’s smears are false is as simple as checking what Lew Rockwell has written on this topic on this very site. A more extensive review of Rockwell’s position can be discerned by visiting http://lewrockwell.com/

Sione

I appreciate your sincere answer…

If I had to sum up your position on war and life in general, I would say you’re a pragmatist or perhaps an amoralist? Your reply is interesting…

One clarification:

Though you give examples of libertarian arguments against the act of war, they are at best adjunct arguments.

What you’re missing is the essence of libertarian thought (I alluded to this in an earlier comment). It is the respect of property rights (remember we define property as ones self as well as ones possessions) and because of this axiom, I cannot morally condone the reckless destruction of property. It’s an ethical argument. Many call it the non-aggression principle but really, it is self-evident to the ethics of property rights. To embrace the idea of non-aggression is what makes one a Libertarian.

Remember, Libertarians aren’t against war…we are against aggression. Think of the meaning and implication of the saying “Don’t tread on me”. If one violates your property, one is allowed to defend it.

But I’m not surprised that you do not have a clear definition of a just or unjust war.

It takes an evolution in thought and requires much introspection, the acceptance of reason over emotionalism, and looking at people NOT through the eyes of religion, culture, ideology, or their government but as individuals…who needs are universal to all individuals regardless of the collective haze from which we wish to view them.

Martin, I don’t mean any of this disparagingly towards you. I’ve walked this lonely road and though the path has always been apparent to me, it has not absolved me of the responsibility to labor rigorously at my beliefs and challenge them constantly. I can only imagine, for those who are unsure of the road to follow, that the journey seems arduous, overwhelming, and difficult. But it’s a journey worth taking.

Martin, I hope someday you will take that journey and I wish you the best of luck:)

That’s the thing, I don’t believe you can come up with an infallible practical criterion to decide whether war is permissible or not in any particular case, when you should respect the law or break it, try to improve the system or to bring it down, pay a ransom or attempt a rescue, accept stagnation forever or try some new technology which may pose a risk to third parties, and so on. Life is not so simple. In any case, I’m pretty sure “never” is the wrong answer. The problem I see with some libertarians is that their answer is too close to “never”, because they only see the bad consequencies of war, but they dismiss the disastrous effects of appeasement.

War is permissible when the alternative is worse, and I think letting violent thugs have their way is worse than war. If civilized people insist that war is never permissible, those thugs will learn that all they have to do is threaten with war and they will get all they want. Combatants should take the interests of non-combatants seriously, but it goes both ways, that is, non-combatants should be fair and lay the blame where it belongs, look at things from the perspective of the enemy and wonder how they would behave in their place. It’s not fair to compare unintended civilian victims of military attacks with the explicit targeting of children, hostage executions and other barbarous acts. Yes, people die in both cases, but that’s also true when people die in ordinary accidents. Intentions matter.

I see two possible reasons for the (in my opinion) unreasonably extreme anti-war position of some libertarians.

First, those libertarians emphasize their opposition to the state by rejecting all its symbols and initiatives, and of course, war is usually waged by a national army, which is the ultimate embodiment of the state. I understand no true libertarian can feel comfortable applauding essential institutions and initiatives of the state, but nevertheless those institutions and initiatives respond to a real underlying need for organised defense.

A second reason may be as a reaction to the Keynessian appreciation of war as a great source of economic activity. To this egregious fallacy, libertarians respond by insisting that war always means destruction and death, which are intrisically harmful. I agree the alleged reinvigorating effect of war is nonsense, but those libertarians should also consider the unseen destructive effects of appeasement.

To sum up my position, a libertarian should neither celebrate the perspective of war, as a hawkish Keynessian old-leftie would, nor squirm at the thought of fighting for a good cause, as a counter-cultural new-lefty would.

“I don’t believe in preemptive strikes.”

So you’d let the criminal shoot first before you returned fire?
You’d let a U.S. city be a smoking crater with millions dead before you attacked another nation?

I have learned much from L, and thank him for all he has done. At one time I felt like a voice in the wilderness, until I reached out for like-minded people and discovered that I was a libertarian.

There is a sort of underlying rumbling that the permawars in the middle east are pointless and wasteful, but it hasn’t quite risen to a mandate, as the left dropped the issue once Obama was the one expanding and extending the wars.

I wasn’t suggesting that you were unethical. I was making an attempt to get you to define your beliefs from an ethical and objective point of view.

It’s very easy to give references to various historical periods and rationalizations for their outcomes, but it doesn’t make it clear to me (and I am questioning if it is clear to you) just exactly when you believe war is appropriate and where you draw the line. When is war morally just and when is it unjust?

These are the questions that need to be answered before one can have a serious discussion on such issues. It is has become apparent to me that some libertarians and most non-libertarians have yet to really define what they believe. Many are big on citing history, theory, law, philosophy, and personal rationalizations but few can define what they believe.

I understand why. If one is clearly defined in their beliefs then he/she should be willing to present them for everyone to see. Of course, this makes you vulnerable to serious critique (especially if your beliefs are not sound or unethical). Most people are not willing to take that risk especially if they are not sure what their beliefs are.

In summary, since war is synonymous with death and those who die are usually innocent, one should be very clear on the moral justifications of war.

So, I ask you, Martin:

When is war morally just and when is it unjust?

Fair remarks, but the legal status of Judea and Samaria is complex and hotly debated. No other state has a higher legal claim to those territories than Israel (Jordan invaded them illegally and the would-be Arab state proposed by the non-binding UN resolution was rendered moot when the Arabs rejected the resolution), but instead of just annexing them, Israel set up a military government there, hence the complaints of “occupation”.

I can understand that the fact that the Supreme Court of Israel played along with the “occupation” concept can be seen as proof of indisputability, but it can also be seen as proof of commitment to fair play by Israeli institutions in an ongoing dispute. In any case the ruling is about the legal framework to be applied in the governance of the territories under the current regime, not about the extent of Israel’s legitimate territorial claims.

http://www.think-israel.org/grief.occupation.html

There are some very recent examples in history were these same questions were answered. remember when Russia and here satellite states were falling apart. Europe (generalized but France, Germany, England, etc… at different times/places in the last century) granted Independence to colonies around the world.

Where, and How will it end?

I don’t see anything inherently supremacist about claiming Judea and Samaria as part of Israel, as they obviously are, from a legal and historical point of view.

Leaving aside the claim of a historical claim (which is also highly dubious) Israel has no legal claim to the West Bank. Zip. Under international law it’s not Israeli, and even ISRAELI LAW ITSELF does not claim the West Bank is part of Israel, except for the portion in and around East Jerusalem which they have attempted to annex.

I don’t see anything inherently supremacist about claiming Judea and Samaria as part of Israel, as they obviously are, from a legal and historical point of view. If you can point out exactly who is making Jewish supremacist claims and what those claims are, I can tell you what I think of them. In all political movements some are reasonable, some are fringe and some are way out there. I don’t think it’s fair to single out Zionism, or even the settler movement, as uniquely guilty of having some members who go too far.

And now you say that I’m a traitor who defends diaspora Jews aginst the national interests or the host populations, namely Western countries, which I don’t care about. Oh, my, I’d say that’s textbook psychological projection. It’s you who plays into the Islamic divide-and-conquer game, ignoring the fact that our civilization is often called Judeo-Christian for a reason, weakening the alliance which can best defeat the real, proven, hostile intruders in Western societies, that is, the Islamists.

Interesting remarks about the Ottoman Empire’s intervention in WWI, but I was talking about the Ottoman Empire’s siege of Vienna in 1529, where it was crucially defeated by a Christian European coalition.

The causes of WWI have been hotly debated ever since, with beligerent autarchistic nationalism playing a key role in many explanations, but blaming the alliances for it is just as pointless as blaming the weapons. Maybe wars would be smaller if no-one formed coalitions, and maybe they would be less bloody if pillows were used instead of weapons. Good luck with disuading the enemies from using weapons and forming coalitions.

The cold war involved propaganda and many other things, but it was basically a military muscle showdown. Just because two people point a gun at each other while they talk and negotiate, instead of shooting each other, it doesn’t mean that violence plays no role in the dynamics of the process.

Here we go again, I disagree with you, so I am unethical. Nothing new here, but I find it odd that you contrast ethics with emotion and fear. There are strong emotions behind the quest for the ethical life, and behind every honest debate on ethical matters. As for fear, like any other emotion, it must be kept in check, but it has its place and its utter elimination leads to disaster.

Re. Jewish nationalism, there’s nothing wrong with nationalism as such, be it Jewish, black, white, whatever. The problem of course is when the immensely powerful diaspora puts their national interests ahead of the national interests of the host peoples in whose countries this diaspora has established residence. Pretty clear you don’t care particularly much about these peoples. Only question is whether you are a plant or a traitor.

Isn’t it even more “weird” when a “true libertarian”, like Ron Paul, advocates the huge spending cuts in military budget and oversees spending and promises to use the money thus obtained to “shore up” the entitlement programs, i.e. welfare statel? That seems to be an even bigger anomaly from the libertarian point of view, than mere foreign policy hawkishness. After all, miltary spedning is consistent with the minimal state libertarianism, while welfare state isn’t, and also it is unconstitutional. Where is the “constitutionalist” Ron Paul to deride the obviously unconstitutional programs like Medicare or Social security? He promises to “shore them up”! It can be debated among the reasonable libertarians whether the current level of funding for the military is justified by the military threats facing the US, but what kind of libertarian would say that welfare state is untouchable?

This is even more problematic when we take into account that the military spending declined as a percentage of GDP in the last couple of decades and it is not expected to rise in the next 50 years. On the other hand, the welfare state expenditures, especially Medicare, Medicaid and social security are expected to skyrocket, even according to the phony government projections that always underestimate the true costs of welfare statehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GAO_Slide.png. So, even according to these sources the overall government revenue would be insufficient to cover the mandatory entitlement spending “sometimes between 2030 and 2040″ ! And Ron Paul wants to “shore up” these programs by cutting military spending and pouring more money into these welfare state black holes!

I am not saying that any other Republican is better than that, just noting that this is a double standard; when Cantor or Boehner are unable to name a single federal welfare program they would cut, this is for many libertarians here a crucial proof that these are the lying, big government phonies. When Ron Paul does the same, or even worse, PROMISES to actually increase the entitlement spending that is kinda cool. Because, you know, he is calling the American imperialism names and promises to defund Pentagon (while preserving the welfare state, at least for the foreseeable future).

Ron Paul is great on monetary policy, as well as in his general refusal vote for any additional spending, but he is on welfare state even weaker than some other republicans.