My anarcho-capitalistic tendencies tell me the real problem is that there are nation-states. However I do not seem them going out in a hurry. Not any time soon. People all over the world think in terms of nation-states, it shapes their world view. Not only that, they anthromorphise nation-states – talking about states as if they are people. US wants to do this, France wants to do that and so on.

As long as that remains the case, I see a bright future for the US in the world arena. I mean where else can someone like Noam Chomsky do all his America bashing so effectively, but inside America itself? I won’t go into details over at the comment section, but I would like to quote another statist from another liberal nation

You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.
- Winston Churchill

This is the same guy who said ‘Democracy is the worst form of government except for everything else.’

As things stand, I see a liberal government as the only viable alternative to an anarcho-capitalistic society. So we are stuck with second best, for the time-being.

I have long believed that China and India are the sleeping dragons of capitalism, that are awaking in the 21st century, and will surpass the US in their economic power.

They still have a ways to go in terms of the western concepts of individual liberties and “natural rights” (see Leoni’s paper from 40 years ago, just published by Mises.org: http://libertarianpapers.org/2009/15-two-views-of-liberty-occidental-and-oriental/). But China has toyed with socialism in the 20th century and found it lacking, and is now moving inexorably toward capitalism. India has found feudalism not to work in the modern era, and is also rapidly blossoming into a capitalist and free society. When the dollar finally fails, these eastern nations, along with Japan, Singapore, and Indonesia, will form a formidable trading block with awesome economic power.

I suspect that the long-term goal of the kleptocrats who pull our leaders’ strings in the Middle East is to get western control of it, before India and China do, and that is why we are at war there today.

India and China want Iran’s oil, and India is building a pipeline across Pakistan to get to it. Western oil companies want to be there first, to be the middlemen to profit from that. Isn’t that why our Dear Leader has stepped up bombing in Pakistan?

It is a mystery to me how a group of people so relentlessly logical about economics can be so utterly foolish about politics. And yet that is the fundamental truth about Austrians and it is the reason that this movement will never be more than a fringe enterprise. In fact, ultimately they do serious harm to laissez-faire capitalism. Does anybody really pay attention to Ron Paul when he speaks about economics? No, because he has managed to marginalize himself with his anti-war statements.

Time and time again, libertarians become the dupes and apologists for the most horrible regimes in the world. We were told that German Fascists would never attack America, and Soviet Communists were never really a threat and we over-reacted.

So now we are told yet again that the jihadists are not a threat. That the destruction of two of America’s most iconic buildings is not really that big a deal and we shouldn’t over-react.

So we get little pearls of wisdom like the following:

“Al Qaeda Central — the group led by Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri — has been unable to launch a major attack anywhere. It was a terrorist organization; it has become a communications company, producing the occasional videotape rather than actual terrorism”

As evidence of what? An effective politico-military strategy pursued my America? Oh no, not at all. This is evidence of how we over-reacted to this miniscule opponent. This is like a doctor looking at an x-ray from a patient which had recently undergone chemotherapy and observing that since there are no tumors perhaps the chemo was a mistake along.

I can go on and on but what is the point. Obsession with an idea is immune to logic. That is too bad.

To Chad,
You cannot even concede that the WTC buildings were iconic buildings? Why is it necessary that ALL Americans need to consider them so? Isn’t it enough that a sufficient number, both American and non-American, thought the buildings to be iconic that Al Qaeda targeted them?

Then you state:
“The USA has never been and still is not in any danger of being conquered by the invading armies, navies, and air forces of Al Qaeda or any other terrorist organization with Islamic overtones despite what the alarmists and fictional writers may propose.”

Are you kidding? We have already been invaded. What do you think 9/11 was? We lost more people on 9/11 than we did in Pearl Harbor. And yet you are not concerned. All I have to say is that I am happy I don’t have to rely on your judgment for my security.

You go on:
“If we would just get our armed forces out of their countries and leave them alone, they would leave us alone, too, although ever being fond of us is probably too much to ask by this point.”

We had no military forces in Afghanistan before 9/11. In fact America having secured the Afghan’s freedom from the Soviets dutifully picked up and left.

It is twisted logic to believe that it is American provocation that is the cause of all our troubles. If only we minded our own business no one else would mind ours. Unfortunately life is not that simple and believing that complex human interactions can be explained by simple minded rules like minding our business is childish and dangerous.

As a non-American, what I most object to about the French AND the Americans is the belief that real history only starts from the day of their respective revolutions. As if the rest of the world should be compelled to accord these days in July (4th and 14th) icon status around the world.
Do any Americans know when was Australia Day, or the date of Anzac Day, or when we had the Eureka Stockade (the only thing close to an armed insurrection with ideals thrown in)?
Australians and New Zealanders won’t be insulted if you don’t know, nor will we make agit-prop movies called ‘Independence Day’. When the Americans and the French become as laconic about their national days, it will become a less touchy world.

George P, I had never even heard of those buildings before they were destroyed; they were practically unknown outside the USA, that’s how little of an icon they were. And that destruction was not an invasion. An invasion is a very specific thing; unless you count invasions of the southern states by northern ones, or of Utah by federal forces, the only time the USA was ever invaded was when the British invaded part of Maine in the British-American War (what we did to Washington was also not an invasion).

Chad: “The USA has never been and still is not in any danger of being conquered by the invading armies, navies, and air forces…”

Many libertarians set up this false dichotomy: if the US isn’t in danger of being conquered, the state should do nothing. However, the state, as long as it exists, has the obligation to seek justice for murdered citizens and prevent further attacks against citizens within its territories. A threat of being totally conquered isn’t the only reason for acting.

PM Lawrence: “I had never even heard of those buildings before they were destroyed;”

You should listen to Bin Laden’s story about why he attacked the WTC. He honestly thought that it was the financial center of the West and its destruction would cause the collapse of Western economies. He didn’t realize that our own governments are doing a much better job of destroying our economies than he ever could.

I read this article, but not Zakaria’s book.
What would transpire if American soldiers just up-and-left all corners of the world, outside the U.S. and its legal territories?

While this is my preference, I’m not a geopolitical expert, soothsayer, and fortune teller, like those that have inhabited the halls of Congress and the Oval Office, those who always seemed to predict with near-flawless confidence levels what will happen should we close our bases and fly home.
They are the anointed ones who seem to have the intelligence I lack, since they can predict what would happened if we had abandoned NATO, had stopped selling arms to both sides of various wars, had stopped guarding their refineries and their interests (yes, I said “their”.)

We are up to our arm pits in others’ affairs. So what would occur if Obama said, “Under my watch, as Commander in Chief, I am ordering the joint chiefs to develop and execute a roadmap, for my approval, and which will result in the withdrawal of all American forces throughout the globe, such roadmap and withdrawal to be entirely completed by June of 2012, six months prior to the end of my first term.”

Ignoring the Congressional zoo, the calls for his head, the accusations that he’s incompetent and that Joe Biden needs to step in, the screaming paranoia, the survivalists hunkering down…. Say he did this, and say he signed it into law.
What would the result be?

This is what the CIA spends millions of man-hours assessing. And they still screw it up. (Oh, right, I know, I know… I forgot. “Maybe they screw it up, but it would be even more screwed up without them.”)

The late William F. Buckley used to predict mass starvation if someone like Hussein had taken over Kuwait and stopped the oil from flowing. Leftist Paul Ehrlich used to predict the same if we didn’t abandon capitalism.

Short term, and long term, what would generally happen to the “United States,” its so-called allies, and the planet if we said, “Good bye”?
I wonder.