New at Reason

joe | July 27, 2007, 12:47pm | #

So I'm not a libertarian.

But if I was writing a piece about why some libertarians might now like Ron Paul, maybe the history of statements about scary black people gets into the column, somewhere.

Even if you just want to argue that those were the product of some ex-staffers. Lord knows he's got some weirdos who used to work for him.

Eric Atkinson | July 27, 2007, 12:56pm | #

I used to think of myself as a libertarian untill I stated to meet some; most were fruits, nuts and flakes. Ron Paul, imo,fits into the afore mentioned class. But man, his supporters are way out there in left field. They just don't love the NAACP the way joe does.

Craig | July 27, 2007, 12:59pm | #

If anything, the New York Times Magazine article showed that libertarians have very little to fear concerning the racist newsletter comments. The reporter barely mentioned it, concluding that the style was entirely different from anything Ron Paul has ever written, as is obvious.

As for the money Paul has supposedly drained from its "rightful" home in the campaign treasuries of Libertarian Party candidates -- isn't that up to the individual donors to determine? Didn't they already vote with their checkbooks and credit cards, for the candidate and the strategy they find most effective?

I disagree with Ron Paul on immigration, but if adopted the traditional libertarian position, he really would have no chance to win the Republican nomination, instead of a small and growing one.

The real curiosity of the campaign so far is how little the national media have raised the drug war issue. Ron Paul hasn't made it a major part of his campaign, but doesn't hesitate to answer questions about it, in a libertarian manner. Has the Establishment media realized that it is now a politically popular position, one they don't want to publicize? Or is it not just a big national issue, like the war and taxes?

Another Phil | July 27, 2007, 1:00pm | #

joe,

He did mention it:

Paul's newsletter during his years out of Washington contained some ugly race-baiting comments about the overwhelmingly criminal nature of black males in D.C. Paul says the comments were written by a staffer, but he's refused to say who and hasn't gone through any serious garment-rending and regret about it, though he did disavow them.

Granted, he didn't call it the foremost deal-breaker, but he didn't ignore it either.

NAL | July 27, 2007, 1:03pm | #

I would think that supporting the elimination of Roe V. Wade would be the more Libertarian stance. After all, it wouldn't make abortion illegal, it just turns the issue back to the states to decide individually.

matt | July 27, 2007, 1:05pm | #

As for the money Paul has supposedly drained from its "rightful" home in the campaign treasuries of Libertarian Party candidates -- isn't that up to the individual donors to determine? Didn't they already vote with their checkbooks and credit cards, for the candidate and the strategy they find most effective?

I've noticed that some of the biggest complainers about this are LP candidates with a history of underperformance and their hired consultants. This is probably a total coincidence.

Eric Atkinson | July 27, 2007, 1:07pm | #

More like Bill O. Spam.

Kwix | July 27, 2007, 1:09pm | #

I disagree with Paul on both abortion and immigration but that doesn't necessarily disqualify him for President.

His anti-abortion stance is that he doesn't like it and would like to see it relegated back to the states (contrary to Roe v Wade). As President, there isn't shit he can do to move it in that direction. The only way that the abortion question will be moved back to the states is if a)the SCOTUS rules it is not "commerce", thereby overturning Roe v. Wade or b)Congress drafts the first bill in recent history that actually diminishes it's control and power. The first is very unlikely and the second is laughable.

Immigration is a bit trickier as Paul has waffled on why he doesn't like illegal immigrants. In many pieces he says "no illegals while we have a welfare state". That's fair enough but in other pieces he has stated "absolutely no amnesty for illegals". Amnesty includes the right to work and pay taxes to the US government, IOW to support the welfare state. I'd like to see him clarify this position.

Even if he hateses him some brownskins, on every other position, he is just about spot on in my book and is head's and shoulders above everybody else on the playing field. If I am still having to choose the lesser of evils, I could do far worse than Ron Paul.

robc | July 27, 2007, 1:10pm | #

matt

Thats my point. If we agree on politics, why wouldnt he? Is there something about black, pot-smoking, urban, atheist, womanizing, New Yorkers that make them idiots?
Well, other than the New Yorker thing, which is a given.

The $50 is the new $20 | July 27, 2007, 1:15pm | #

As a Minnesotan, I love watching our media's top shelf political pundits state (as though it's a matter of fact) that Ron Paul has zero chance of winning the GOP nomination.

Reminds me of the early consensus when Jesse "The Body" Ventura ran for governor. I hope this ends the same way.

A lot can happen between now and election day. Dr. Paul's not just a starry eyed ideologue...he's also a political brawler who knows how to win elections as an outsider.

Note: Next year's GOP national convention is to be held in Minnesota. It's a sign...

ed | July 27, 2007, 1:18pm | #

supporting the elimination of Roe V. Wade would be the more Libertarian stance...it wouldn't make abortion illegal, it just turns the issue back to the states to decide individually.

States don't have rights. They're a smaller gang than the federal government but a gang all the same. Libertarianism is (or should be) about the primacy of the individual over the state. In that regard Roe does assert that primacy, so long as you don't count a fetus as an individual.

The Wine Commonsewer® | July 27, 2007, 1:19pm | #

Great piece Brian.

Ron Paul is the man even with the shortcomings I personally ascribe to him, which, are likeley different shortcomings than other libertarians see.

My main worry is that a hell of a lot of his supporters buy off on the Twin Towers was an inside job conspiracy theory. That will kill Ron Paul later on in the real world assuming that he moves forward as he has been.

I disagree with his point that the Arabs hate us because we are there and because we support the Jews. Not to dismiss that factor entirely but their culture demands that they hate us just the same way that orthodox religious right nut cases must hate gays.

Other than that? Dude, he's the man. How can you complain about a candidate that shares some 80-90 percent of your philosophical values?

As far as that goes, Kubby isn't any closer to my views than Ron Paul and Ron Paul has got better visibility.

robc | July 27, 2007, 1:21pm | #

TWC,

assuming Paul moves forward, a lot of his supports wont be the inside job conspiracy theorists anymore. There just arent enough of them to be a significant part of any large group.

The Wine Commonsewer® | July 27, 2007, 1:23pm | #

robc, you have an excellent point. One I missed entirely. Thanks. I'm serious. I feel a certain sense of relief.

My dad always said every political party has a core of nuts but since the LP is so dang small the nuts are much more visible than they are with the Dems and the GOP.

Russ 2000 | July 27, 2007, 1:30pm | #

Ron Paul as president could implement 5,000 bad ideas and as long as he eliminated the DEA he'd end up doing more good than harm.

Lamar | July 27, 2007, 1:31pm | #

A certain percentage of libertarians will be against whatever you're talking about at the moment. Even if you're talking about being against things, they'll be against being against things.

robc | July 27, 2007, 1:35pm | #

TWC,

Someone on another thread said the other day that if Paul won the GOP nomination no republicans would vote for him and he would get crushed in the primary. Im still trying to figure out how Paul wins the nomination without republicans supporting him.

Robert | July 27, 2007, 1:41pm | #

Ron Paul is right about earmarks, though. They're not appropriations. They just add specificity to spending already in appropriations bills.

Russ 2000 | July 27, 2007, 1:47pm | #

Paul has gotten much better as a candidate - in the shallow "Looks Good on TeeVee" sense

This is a great point. Ron Paul never avoids TV, TV avoids him (but less than they used to). Meanwhile, most of the other candidates, especially Rudy G, seem to come up with excuses for avoiding certain TV events. Eventually TV will get tired of those guys and Paul will get TV exposure and become familiar simply because TV needs to put someone on TV.

jj | July 27, 2007, 1:50pm | #

Touche, and hillarious, SIV!

BakedPenguin | July 27, 2007, 1:54pm | #

The thing I worry about the most is the racism angle. This could be the issue that comes up to bite Paul's campaign in the ass if he starts gaining ground on the front runners. His repudiation of the articles should have been stronger, and he should absolutely repudiate the support of David Duke and the Duke boys.

John | July 27, 2007, 2:00pm | #

I'm a libertarian of some 40 years' standing, going back to Goldwater in my early adolescence and Rand soon thereafter. My Randian roots predispose me to wariness of Paul's essentially "conservative" basis for his libertarianism, with arguments from tradition and religion rather than reason. Of course I'm very uncomfortable with the widely held "libertarian" positions on Iraq and the fight against armed, aggressive Islamic fundamentalism as well. My position and, I believe Rand's, would make Bush and Cheney look like pikers.

Kwix | July 27, 2007, 2:05pm | #

JasonL,
I have to agree with you there. So far, from what I have seen, Paul has been pretty good about keeping the "goldbuggery" out of the limelight as well as his true desire to abolish the IRS. Sadly(??), Immigration will probably land him high marks from the Republican's he is looking to court and I really don't know what the demographics say on the Blue side of the court for that one.

My biggest fear is that he will be presented with some of his past comments and stand by them, emphatically. Comments like full legalization of drugs, the repeal of the income tax, abolition of the FED etc. While they are good and noble causes, they are not "electable" ones. There are distinct differences between what the public is willing to accept and what they think they can accept. For example calling for an end to the "war on pot" might be an okay stance but calling for a complete end to prohibition will blow the race. In reality, they are one in the same but the wider public has enough experience with cannabis to feel comfortable with it.

Frater Plotter | July 27, 2007, 2:09pm | #

Here's what I'm worried about: Ron Paul could turn out to be the libertarian Howard Dean.

I went to a hippie college. A lot of my friends are "progressives" -- small-town socialists who'd like the government to stop Wal-Mart, fund their arts projects, and maybe help the ugly, crazy homeless be less ugly and crazy (while not impairing their freedom to live an authentic alternative lifestyle on the streets).

These folks put a lot of hope in the Howard Dean campaign. Dean had political experience but came across as being outside the machine; he stirred up grassroots support on the Internet and among younger, politically aware voters. And then he did badly in one primary, acted a little bit goofy in public, and the media pulled a Rita Skeeter and destroyed him.

Nice way to convince a lot of politically active young voters that they shouldn't bother.

So, we all think Ron Paul has a chance. Cool. But what happens if he pulls a Howard Dean? If the Paul campaign self-destructs (with media help) the way the Dean one did, what will that do to the libertarian movement?

Brandybuck | July 27, 2007, 2:15pm | #

All too often the terms "anarcho-capitalist" and "libertarian" are used interchangeably. Since Ron Paul is not an anarchist, many in the "I'm a Real Libertarian(tm)" movement consider him to be on the same moral plane as Stalin or Hitler. But libertarianism is not anarchism. Nor is it necessarily "minarchism", a word that some anarchists use to pretend that they aren't really anarchists.

By word and deed, Ron Paul is most certainly libertarian. His views on abortion derive from sound libertarian principles. See Libertarians for Life for his arguments. His views on national borders stem from his belief in national sovereignty, a concept alien and foreign to anarchists, but entirely compatible with the libertarian tradition.

metalgrid | July 27, 2007, 2:18pm | #

matt

Pitting the smaller gang against the larger, more dangerous one is a good strategic move, though, wouldn't you say? Especially when you can leave that smaller gang's territory quickly and easily.

Why go to all the trouble when you can vote for another candidate that won't require you to move at all by keeping it federal?

It would be lot easier to support him if he supported laws that maximize liberty for the individual unless that individual happens to be of a group he doesn't like. The lack of consistency and lack of rational grounds for his libertarianism makes me very wary of him.

Episiarch | July 27, 2007, 2:32pm | #

I would vote for a black, pot-smoking, urban, atheist, womanizing, New Yorker if he agreed with me on most issues.

Snoop Dogg lives in NYC?

Daze | July 27, 2007, 2:36pm | #

Abortion should be a libertarian issue. Most Americans support the right to decide when, whether and how often to have children, and to weigh the moral questions involved for themselves, without government interference. This is a classic battle of individual freedom vs government control, and Paul is on the statist authoritarian side. I really don't care if he finds it morally consistent or not.

Kwix | July 27, 2007, 3:00pm | #

Daze | July 27, 2007, 2:36pm | #
Abortion should be a libertarian issue. Most Americans support the right to decide when, whether and how often to have children, and to weigh the moral questions involved for themselves, without government interference. This is a classic battle of individual freedom vs government control, and Paul is on the statist authoritarian side. I really don't care if he finds it morally consistent or not.

Daze,
It IS a libertarian issue. The problem is that there are two lines of thought regarding abortion and "individual freedom". The first is that the fetus has no right to those freedoms until it is born (or at least can survive outside the womb) or that the mother's rights trump those of the fetus. The second line of thought is that the fetus does have individual rights, perhaps even from conception, and that it's artificial abortion is in essence abridging it's right to life by way of murder. I am of the former camp, Ron Paul is of the latter.

Kohlrabi | July 27, 2007, 3:03pm | #

Kwix,

I believe daze presumes s/he is the arbiter of libertarian authenticity.

Randolph Carter | July 27, 2007, 3:22pm | #

I don't know what people are talking about when they wax poetic about "the libertarian movement." For most people, it doesn't exist. Ron Paul, however, is a guy who has been elected repeatedly to office, and has a national stage with the Republican debates. He's done more for libertarianism than any LP politician in my short lifetime. So nuts to those purer-than-thou LP people. Ride the momentum of a libertarian-leaning candidate and get some good results rather than all bad results.

Kohlrabi | July 27, 2007, 3:27pm | #

Randolph,

Dang, do that and you won't be able to tell your friends that the reason we're stuck with dog crap is because someone tried to give you a porterhouse when you wanted the filet.

John Rhoads | July 27, 2007, 3:39pm | #

on the whole, I think ron paul will improve the image of Libertarianism. His stances bother me on a lot of issues, and if I could make say Harry Browne be the guy that reintroduces the philosophy to the country, then I would. However, most of the time I tell people who aren't intimately familiar with the philosophy that I'm a libertarian, they think ultra right (say Newt Gingrich or Rush Limbaugh). If Paul can get the mainstream perception of libertarianism to even be closer to what it actually is, then he will have done us a service. I'd much rather explain to someone why Paul's immigration position is not libertarian than explain why say the war on drugs is not libertarian, which is what I have to do now.

Reinmoose | July 27, 2007, 4:08pm | #

It seems to me that those who want us not to back Ron Paul because he's not the perfect libertarian are doomed to forever being politically insignificant, waiting for the "chosen one."

The Wine Commonsewer® | July 27, 2007, 4:17pm | #

My position and, I believe Rand's, would make Bush and Cheney look like pikers.

Well, they ARE pikers. They can't win the war and they can't shut it down. So they piddle along strewing blood and money behind them as they go with the net effect that nothing is accomplished and nobody is happy.

The Wine Commonsewer® | July 27, 2007, 4:26pm | #

I'm too young to know much of what Goldwater said except for the choice bits I've read, but Ron Paul just doesn't come across as a Barry Goldwater to me. ...not that Goldwater, despite the inspiring speeches, fared so well.

Goldwater didn't come across as a Barry Goldwater neither. Not until the country had moved so far left on the spectrum that JFK seemed like a conservative did Goldwater gain any credence (except in Arizona, of course).

I was pretty young myself but I clearly remember the teacher taking a straw poll one day in class and asking whose parents were voting for AuH2O. Out of 35 kids 2 hands went up.

Reinmoose | July 27, 2007, 4:31pm | #

However, most of the time I tell people who aren't intimately familiar with the philosophy that I'm a libertarian, they think ultra right

I can do ya one better. A lot of the people I tell who aren't intimately familiar with the philosophy think "Republican," and say the word with some degree of anger in their voices.

I usually half-jokingly lash back at them "Take it back! That's not an accusation you just go throwing around!"

Walker Pfost | July 27, 2007, 4:36pm | #

See this article on Donklephant.

Libertarians, seriously...who else do you got?

JasonL | July 27, 2007, 5:01pm | #

Ken,

We are on the same page.

The Democratic Republican | July 27, 2007, 5:02pm | #

Doherty, thank you for speaking some common sense to libertarians.

Robert | July 27, 2007, 6:09pm | #

"I really cannot fathom why Dr Paul's opposition to the Iraq War will tarnish libertarianism. Would libertarians prefer to be associated with the neocons and other idiotic and increasingly discredited superpatriots?"

It's not his opposition to the Iraq war that's the problem per se, for there are lots of good reasons to oppose it. The problem is many of Dr. Paul's related statements on foreign affairs, which are scary & naive. If people just know he's against the Iraq war that's fine, but if they hear him explain too much about it -- or if he gets elected -- we could be in a lot of trouble.

joe | July 27, 2007, 6:29pm | #

But what happens if he pulls a Howard Dean? If the Paul campaign self-destructs (with media help) the way the Dean one did, what will that do to the libertarian movement?

You mean if the Party passes him over in favor someone whose positions and rhetoric make him appear more "electable," only to see that electable candidate flame out, while events over the subsequent years demonstrate that Paul's out-of-the-mainstream policies and positions are thoroughly validated, and an overwhelming portion of the country comes to see their earlier repudiation of his stances as a gigantic error?

Ron Paul could do a lot worse than to emulate Howard Dean's trajectory.

Martin | July 27, 2007, 6:47pm | #

'It's not his opposition to the Iraq war that's the problem per se, for there are lots of good reasons to oppose it. The problem is many of Dr. Paul's related statements on foreign affairs, which are scary & naive. If people just know he's against the Iraq war that's fine, but if they hear him explain too much about it -- or if he gets elected -- we could be in a lot of trouble.'

Scary and naive? Thats what the foreign policy of the neocons and the liberal interventionists is. Not Dr Paul's. And if you think Paul's views are 'scary and naive', then surely the foreign policy thinking of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and J.Q. Adams was too, because Dr Paul's foreign policy thinking is very similar.

I mean Dr Paul is the only GOP candidate that rules out considering nuking Iran. And he's supposed to be the crazy one?

Ken Shultz | July 27, 2007, 7:05pm | #

"This is the central intellectual crisis going on with you guys."

Well I guess he's got us on that one.

...now that we've invaded Iraq, what's libertarianism gonna do now?!

Max | July 27, 2007, 7:06pm | #

Libertarianism is essentially an obsolete political philosophy. how can one deduce a pragmatic foreign policy from a priori ideals of individual liberty, free markets and property rights?

Well, you don't technically have to be a libertarian to support a pragmatic foreign policy, but it sure seems to help.

Can someone tell me what the "libertarian" prescription to the war in Iraq is?

That's an easy one: don't start it. Again, admittedly, a non-libertarian could arrive at the same pragmatic conclusion. But many did not.

MikeP | July 27, 2007, 7:10pm | #

Does libertarianism value any kind of pragmatic empiricism?

In case you are actually being serious and only come across as impolitic...

There are several ways to come to the same central libertarian political philosophy. Some of these -- particularly the economic consequentialist ones -- value pragmatic empiricism quite highly. One can effectively derive all of libertarianism from pragmatic empiricism, with theoretical principles such as natural rights or noninitiation of force falling out as generally valid statements of the empirical conclusions.

As you note, how to deduce a foreign policy from libertarian principles is not obvious. It is not surprising that libertarians can indeed in good faith and for good reason differ on foreign policy with respect to the projection of US interests and military force.

Most libertarians end up believing in a foreign policy much like Ron Paul's for the simple pragmatic empirical reason that governments prove time and again that they cannot be trusted with anything, much less the power to throw death and destruction around without extremely good reason.

twv | July 27, 2007, 7:39pm | #

Not all libertarians define themselves or their principles as following only and strictly from a conception of negative liberty. I don't. So I probably shouldn't respond to this:

How does a priori libertarianism address the threat of global jihad? Does libertarianism value any kind of pragmatic empiricism? I'm anxious to hear the answers to these pertinent questions? Anyone?

The penultimate sentence, quoted above, is not a question, but, taken as a question, coupled with that killer topic sentence about libertarianism being "obsolete," does give a good idea of the likely futility of addressing the stated concern in any detail. Any answer will simply be rejected out of hand.

Still, I can give a clue. How would a libertarian deal with global jihad? Probably a lot more effectively than clueless neocons and latter-day-imperialists have. Certainly, by not glossing (and gloating) over collateral damage in the Mid-East, a libertarian foreign policy would not exacerbate the problem, as have the current policies.

Arguably, had America's foreign policy been less interventionist, duplicitous, and high-hatted over the past 50 years, there would be no "global jihad."

I am actually very concerned about radical Islam. I loathe the religion. I have little respect for its founder. Am wary of its followers.

But I am more concerned about Americans insistent on a continuing policy of indiscriminate retaliation and naive nation-building coupled with an almost complete lack of understanding of Islam, no notions of blowback, unintended consequences, or any other social theory more complex than "we gotta do something."

Oh, and on the matter at hand . . . I have some admiration for Ron Paul, and I guess he's as good as "we" have, at present. But that doesn't mean I didn't wish we had better politicians.

Still, wishes don't even make a dark horse. It's really no surprise that a group known for its hatred of politics doesn't breed many effective politicians. Similarly, the ranks of the great singers aren't added to by the population of deaf mutes.

The $50 is the new $20 | July 27, 2007, 9:55pm | #

You won't vote for Dr. Paul because he's not frightened enough of Islam?

weird

John Rhoads | July 27, 2007, 10:01pm | #

demonstrates a weak point in libertarian thought -- that the state is the greatest modern threat to liberty, indeed, is so practically to the exclusion of all other threats.

Wrong. The greatest threat to liberty is, of course, superstition and religion.

interesting theory. Would you then argue that globally speaking religion has been responsible for more deaths in say the last 50 years than the state? You give a quite definitive answer to an interesting question without really backing it up with any data. I don't have any data on this matter either, but if I had to, I'd definitely put money on the state. Especially, if the state gets credit for religious states, which it should, since the damage that religious states are capable of is clearly greater than the damage that the non-stated religion can cause.

Mr. Nice Guy | July 27, 2007, 10:17pm | #

There were muslims, probably even quite a few 'fundamentalist' ones 50 or a hundred years ago in the Middle East. Were they hell bent on attacking the US back then? Perhaps they were and I have never read about it, but if they were'nt we might ask what was different back then? And it strikes me that one thing is that the US wasn't meddling in matters that effected those folks back then...

Eric Blair | July 27, 2007, 11:28pm | #

Golly gee willikers, I am flabergasted.


I always wondered why everyone is not libertarian like myself. Everybody I know just wants Gubmint to leave them the Hell alone. I'm telling you that 60% of "liberals" who vote for left wing Socialists and 80% of right wing "conservatives" who vote for the morality police are really Libertarians. They just don't know it yet.

I love Ron Paul's domestic policy. We need 434 more of him in Congress.

He has no clue when it comes to foreign policy. Worse yet, he can't even handle Bill Maher and is completely devoid of personality, charm, charisma. He is not a great orator and has no ability to communicate the philosophy of limited government to the masses.

It doesn't make him a bad person. A guy like Ronald Reagan only comes along once in a century.

He's out there somewhere.

whitetower | July 28, 2007, 1:03am | #

To the defenders of superstition and religion: I would submit that all states, especially dictatorial and totalitarian ones, are founded on some variant of religion -- faith, the occult, otherworldiness, an institutional, "organized" religion, or whatever. Whether this manifests itself in a Fuhrer, a Great Leader, or an actual priest-class is rather immaterial.

It isn't the "state" that is the enemy to liberty -- it is the motivating belief system (in nearly every case religious/superstitious in nature) that induces millions of people to obey the state and to enable it to destroy the liberty of others.

So, fifty years ago the superstition that was the enemy of liberty was Nazism/fascism; twenty years ago it was communism; today it's Islam. Paul doesn't get it.

Just on this point: I wonder what Paul would have said about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Did the United States government do something to "make" the Japanese attack us? Or was it the Japanese mystical belief system upholding the superiority in the Japanese race and embodied by their Emperor and Imperial Army?

crimethink | July 28, 2007, 1:26am | #

Anybody know what hideous corner of the 'Net linked here?

whitetower, I'm assuming your claim is that belief in Islam is sufficient to turn one into a terrorist. How then do you explain the fact that 99% of Moslems are not involved in acts of terror?

crimethink | July 28, 2007, 1:52am | #

Did the United States government do something to "make" the Japanese attack us?

Well, we did initiate an oil embargo against them in August 1941. Not to mention the discriminatory stance we took toward the Japanese in the London Naval Treaty of 1930, where they were allowed far fewer vessels of every class than we and the UK. Then there's the fact that we'd closed the US to Japanese immigration some years earlier.

Not that any of this justifies their actions at Pearl Harbor, but it's not the cut-and-dry case of us minding our own business till the evil, evil Japs attacked us, that's usually presented.

latenightcreep | July 28, 2007, 5:05am | #

So there I am, minding my own business, checking out the naughty section at a new (to me) streaming video site, and BAM, I get hit with propaganda for this Ron Paul guy in this video of hot wonkette on wonkette action! Can't you political types keep your smut out of my smut? The offending vid (actually pretty tame;) here:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=973_1184985131

zenpiper | July 28, 2007, 7:54am | #

This essay is full of errors. Not much use to anybody except to inflame. Get the facts right, if possible.

Mr. Nice Guy | July 28, 2007, 8:43am | #

whitower-Actually, there was quite a bit of dipolmatic hand slapping by the US against Japan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor#Background
Does this mean we "deserved" Pearl Harbor? Of course not. Japan could have responded with much less aggressive policies. What was deserved was the whupping we put on them after Pearl Harbor. However, our policies were certainly a cause (at least in part) of the attack. Not that the nationalism and aggression of Japan was not also a cause. I should think that many Islamists are the in the same boat; they have an ideology that makes them extremely (perhaps unreasonably) touchy, but they have many a bona fide beef with the US and other nations...

JasonL | July 28, 2007, 10:39am | #

I've often said that I think libertarian foreign policy as commonly stated is A) Not derivable from other libertarian principles and B) not very well thought out.

I would concede that there is some element of what we shouldn't be doing that causes people to dislike us, but I don't think it is serious to argue that if we stop doing things Islamic fundamentalists don't like they will leave us alone. The US is unique on the globe for any number of reasons - some are bad, but many of them are good.

I'm not willing to stop exporting and interacting with willing people in the Islamic world just because other Islamic people might get pissed that I'm a corrupting influence.

Further, it is not a very serious position to maintain that 'he likes me, so he won't harm me' is the best means of attaining security. You had better have a fully credible deterrent strategy in place that works on all players in the game. 9/11 didn't change everything, but it did highlight that deterrents to armies running across borders are necessary but not sufficient to deter certain types of characters.

Pakistan and India going nuclear right under our noses should tell us something about the nature of intelligence. Maybe we need more human assets, fine, but the larger message is that you can build nasty stuff and hide it with enough space and a tight knit group. We are not going to have a guy in bin Laden's cave feeding us information.

The standing question about our current mess remains, How CAN we establish credible threats to these types of actors at a lower cost to us and to bystanders in general?

The $50 is the new $20 | July 28, 2007, 11:37am | #

"You can tell a man by the company he chooses," Then the pig got up and slowly walked away.

crimethink | July 28, 2007, 1:25pm | #

I'm not willing to stop exporting and interacting with willing people in the Islamic world just because other Islamic people might get pissed that I'm a corrupting influence.

Holy strawman! Tell me where Ron Paul said we should do this.

You had better have a fully credible deterrent strategy in place that works on all players in the game.

I'm not sure there's a strategy in existence that would deter someone who's already on a suicide mission. Maybe we can threaten to torture surviving family members, or soak airplane fusilages in pork fat. And when you're dealing with non-state actors, you don't always have the ability to retaliate against the people giving orders, because they don't have a fixed territory you can attack.

The best strategy, in my opinion, is first and foremost to make terrorist acts difficult by shoring up security at likely targets. I know that the war-hawks would deride that strategy as "playing defense", but that's just jingoism. Having a cellar to retreat to when a tornado hits your house is "playing defense" too; if we were to take the advice of Bill Kristol et al., we would "play offense" by grabbing a bunch of oscillating fans, stand on the roof, and try to disperse the rotation of the tornado.

BTW, it just boggles my mind that the folks who got us into this mess, and clearly had no idea all along how to respond to the threat of non-state terrorism, are now criticizing libertarians for not having every "i" dotted and "t" crossed in our response to terrorism.

Ken Shultz | July 28, 2007, 4:41pm | #

"I've often said that I think libertarian foreign policy as commonly stated is A) Not derivable from other libertarian principles and B) not very well thought out."

I maintain that libertarian foreign policy is highly pragmatic.

...with Iraq being a prime example of a strategic blunder.

As a libertarian, I'm fundamentally against strategic blunders.

Mr. Nice Guy | July 28, 2007, 7:31pm | #

whitower-So some Islamic people in Sweden are talking about doing jihadic acts in Sweden. We have neo-Nazi or black nationalist kids here in the US talking about the same thing. Disaffection exists in every society, and if you are Islamic maybe you can dress your disaffection up in that garb.
Looking at your second link we find these words: "Authorities considered the threat of terrorist attacks in Sweden low." The conviction it lists concerned an attempted arson on, you guessed it, an Iraqi polling station (so it hardly discounts our assertion that they are upset with certain policies).
Now let's look at the third link. Notice that support for violence is highest in the nations that are more directly effected by US policy (Lebanon, where we gave Israel the weapons and green light to pound last year, and Jordan which has suffered from the Israeli mess we blindly support [refugees for one, lost land for another]). Nations towards which we have more friendly relations and policy, such as Turkey and Pakistan, have pretty low levels of support for violence against civilians. This supports our thesis more than yours.
Don't get me wrong, I've read Hunington and think there is a great deal to his thesis about "Islam's bloody borders." I've read the Koran, and compared to some other sacred texts it does seem to lend itself more to violent readings. However, notice that in the poll you provide NO majority in any nation listed in the most recent year supported violence against civilians. What does that mean for your thesis that Islam inherently spurs the violence?

Mr. Nice Guy | July 28, 2007, 9:15pm | #

I ask the question because for most people the reason why they want laws made at the local or state rather than federal level is that there is a greater chance at the federal level that some majority that is out of touch with the values of your region or locality will make laws that run counter to those values. Hence a federal law against gay marriage thwarts places like San Francisco or Mass. where they are cool with that. And yes, that makes some sense.
However, everyone should recognize that a locality's values can run counter to a minority in that locality, and then they often run roughshod over that minority. Sometimes the only way that majority can get justice is to appeal to the federal government. Take civil rights for example. The nation as a whole was WAY ahead of Mississippi on that issue. If we let Miss. make civil rights laws in the name of not forcing national values on this poor state then we overlook the fact that Miss. was enforcing its values on some poor minority.
In Surry County Virginia dogfighting is sure enough already illegal. But Vick is an immensely rich and powerful man, especially relative to Surry county. It's easier for a man like that to get around the law if he's faced only with the local police and prosecutor. But against the feds he can't do that as well.
In areas where there is a genuine split in the US about whether something should be illegal or not, then the feds should stay out of it. I'm thinking gay marriage, marijuana, euthanasia, gun rights. Currently dogfighting is not one of those areas as it is illegal in all 50 states. Therefore criminalizing it also at the federal level just makes enforcement of it much more consistent and reliable, as it did here.
Too many libertarians read that conservative tripe that gets handed out at libertarian conferences and such (historically the two movements have been close in the US, why is beyond me since conservatives are authoritarians*) about states rights. States and local governments trample on many rights just fine thank you, and sometimes the feds curb them. The South was a nightmare for individual liberty and human dignity until federal lawmakers and courts stepped in.
*Reading a recent thread here about libertarian-conservative alliances reminds me that there are people out there who sincerely believe that conservatives have a lot in common with libertarians. I would suggest they pick up a copy of what any good conservative will tell you is THE book of the conservative movement, Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind. It's how the movement sees its own forerunners and historical icons: Burke (the monarchist and foe of toleration), John Adams (of the Alien and Sedition Acts fame who castigated Jefferson's "naive" ideas on liberty and his "athiesm")), John Randolph and John Calhoun (aristocratic apologists for the slave south), T.S. Eliot (in his conservative Catholic phase). And this is BEFORE conservatism became essentially a wing of the religious right. So much for libertarian-conservative compatibility...For that matter, go to the source, the "father of conservatism" Burke himself and compare him to the liberal forerunner and counterpart Tom Paine (whom Reason had a great article recently). Liberals strike me as having much more in common with libertarians (heck, its right there in the root of both words, a concern with liberty). Where they divide, and its a big divide, is over whether liberty is freedom from or freedom to (with a boost from the government, of course!). But they both agree that liberty is what is good. Conservatives talk more about order and tradition than liberty. But don't take my word for it, read Burke and Kirk.