And futile attepmpts at seperating and/or denying association with whatever yellow journalism accuses one of, only increases the effect (i.e. The Streisand Effect).
The best you or any of can do is put on record what any of us stand for, and what we don’t, & spread that accordingly.
Maybe also hit back with some journalism in response, such as dissecting the logically fallacies of white power, how anti-libertarian white power as a concept is, & how racist is a smear term utilized by politically correct know it alls who want to silence people they do not agree with it, & so forth.
Treat it like a non-issue / non-scandal & with a critical & intelligent response / attitude, & you are not feeding into the troll-journalism machine.
LOL if it’s quotes you want, remember your Bible: “I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war”.
Besides, “War and not peace is the father of destruction. War and not peace is the son of power hungry maniacs. War andnot peace leaves a lot of unholy ghosts.” And you can quote me.
I like witty one liners so I obviously have a pension for quotes. [:P]
Anyways, on the topic of this poor fellow, I don’t understand how people could fail to remember that libertarianism is based on the Non-Aggression Principle and clearly this individual was creating preemptive aggression. I guess we need to redouble efforts in pointing that out. I mean that is why libertarians oppose the state, it commits aggression against others.
I want to give a quick summary of my views on violent resistance to a tyrannical government, in light of the Austin plane attack and the (possible) attack on a Utah IRS facility.
There is a big difference between arming yourself and saying, “If they come onto my property, it’s show time” versus, “I am going to fly my plane into a government office.” If you’re trying to win converts, the former is a lot more likely to garner sympathy than the latter.
Proponents of violent resistance have in mind the idea that if we could just get x million fellow citizens to think like us and stand up to Big Brother, we’d eventually win after they killed y million of us. Well OK, but if we had x million fellow citizens who thought like us, then I submit it wouldn’t take violence. They could just stop paying taxes and see what happened. The results would be the same–eventual crumbling of the empire–but with a lot less bloodshed.
People (like the Austin pilot) who think it’s smart strategy to provoke the government into doing something awful because then the people will rise up, are being awfully optimistic about the mass of Americans they otherwise refer to as “the sheeple.” Remember Waco? How much more awful would the government have to be? But did the average American go buy a long gun and renew his membership in the John Birch society? Of course not. Most Americans just needed to hear a TV anchor give the official explanation. “Oh OK, yeah I guess that makes sense. If I were in charge of rescuing a bunch of children from abusive parents, I’d probably send in chemical weapons and tanks too. Too bad those kids had religious nutjob parents and got burned up.”
Last point:
People often invoke the Founding Fathers. Yes they were brave and they fought a war to free the country. And yet, many of the same people who love the Founding Fathers go on to chastise present-day Americans by saying, “Our nation of wimps now have a level of taxation far higher than the colonists endured under King George.” Hmm there are two ways to interpret this. One is to say, “It’s time for another bloodletting!” Another is to say, “Hmm maybe the violent American Revolution wasn’t such a hot idea after all.”
I personally do not care if individuals want to actually fight back against the state, misguided or not. So far at least these kamikaze fellows are keeping the combat in between them and their opponents. Ideally, we would want to reform or revolt peacefully through changing the minds of others, but the individual tolerance for abuse is clearly a subjective value. It is all very interesting, we will see how things go. If innocents die, I will be as quick as any to condemn, and I do mourn any and all human death or injury, but ask yourself how much are you personally willing to take before you yourself break down? I love life too much to waste it on a guaranteed death showdown with strangers, but apparently some other people have a different view.
These individuals who were shot at were deliberately preemptively targeted. It’s blatant aggression, not self-defense. It is breaking the most basic tenet of libertarianism.
Depends on the context. Certainly a person who is sweeping garbage off the street as a public worker isn’t liable for taxation. These individuals who were standing guard at the Pentagon probably weren’t individuals who tried to aggress against this man or his property. Now this is something I don’t know, I mean perhaps yesterday they were but I think that is highly unlikely. Its a question of whether or not our actions are only a representative of ourselves. I mean if I tell you to kill someone and you actually do it…is it my fault? It’s your action, you will it into existence.
Shhhhhhh, we don’t want to confuse the MSM … just repeat after me “the Taliban are the ultimate libertarians, the Taliban are the ultimate libertarians, war is peace, ignorance is strength, slavery is freedom, the Taliban are the ultimate libertarians…”
In this context, the actual individuals are being protected from prosecution by a larger group who approve, or are at least indifferent, to his/her actions. This is like unto a gang protecting a murderer, does not that also implicate them?
Do people who are just performing services implicate themselves in such protection? I mean do public educations collect taxes or threat to collect taxes? Do public librarians protect big business?
I doubt the man is a libertarian in the slightest sense.
-He tried to harm and kill innocent people
-He submitted a proposal to the DoD in 2004
-He’s a registered Democrat.
-He had a previous record of mental illness
The man clearly was psychotic and I don’t understand how having your name associated with Mises.org or libertarian works means anything. This is just another failed effort to slime libertarian and free market economics by linking them with lunatics.
It’s bad, but I don’t see why a gunman in the pentagon is worse than some other one. In fact, it’s probably lessened by the fact that it’s where the empire is managed and murders of brown people conspired. The pentagon has been responsible for millions of deaths. And a gunman is their concern? Are we to be defamed if the military blows up an Iraqi wedding and they find the Arabic translation of Human Action lying on a charred table? The pentagon is a menace II society. It’s funny anyone could actually believe an ideology against the pentagon would matter… it would hardly matter any more than an ideology for punching a shark in the mouth.
The whole thing wreaks of trying to cook up a Reichstag fire. Probably not for some sinister Nazism (though the police state sure is at full speed ahead). But for at the very least so the current regime can seem like the adults holding back the child revolutionaries and breakers of society. Which the Republicans had to pretend to do against the left. And each side must do after their quadrennial cycle of office wielding.