America and Liberty

Economics Political Theory
1

Some libertarians view anarcho-capitalism as diametrically opposed to and its heritage, while, in fact, nothing is further from the truth. The self-ownership of the individual, self-reliance, technical innovation, freedom of thought, barely any taxes, the importance of non-governmental voluntary associations in free society, private charity, gun rights, citizen’s militias under localized control, rebellion against tyranny, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, free press, the preference of individualism to democracy, non-governmental provision of education, and gold and silver as money were emphasized by the Founders and were American traditions before the greedy warfare-welfare state took over. While it is true that freedom of enterprise is not mentioned in the Constitution, it should be noted that it was written before the Industrial Revolution had fully taken root. However, freedom of enterprise was also a great American tradition, and capitalism was greatly enhanced by the innovations of American entrepreneurs such as Thomas Edison, the Wright bros, and Henry Ford (who was an anti-war non-interventionist during WWII; a public dissident against the government, and yet one of the most economically powerful people in the country. Try to find that anyplace else in the world).

It is this bright American heritage that makes me believe that it is possible to be 100% libertarian, and yet be more patriotic than that flag-waving Republican guy over there. In fact, Thomas Jefferson himself said that we should have a violent rebellion every twenty years. Not even Ron Paul would dare say that!

Some claim that the Constitution was adopted illegally. That would be a completely irrelevant claim (even if it were true) because any legal system usually contradicts the one that preceded it.

However, that claim is false. People usually state that the leaders at the Constitutional Convention were not authorized to create a new Constitution. That is true, but the states voluntarily accepted it anyway because they believed it had merit. In other words, the states could have chosen to reject the Constitution and reprimand the delegates of the Convention, but they did not.

Secondly, there is the claim that the Constitution took effect before all of the states ratified, and therefore illegal. Again, a fallacy for two reasons: 1) an earlier treaty stated that any law passed by nine out of the thirteen states would become fully binding over the thirteen states. 2) The Constitution was later ratified by all thirteen states anyway.

Most importantly, the Constitution was adopted without a single death in the conflict to institute it. I see that as truly the mark of a free society.

Now, let’s tackle the third-rail in American history: slavery. While it is true that slavery was still practiced in the for a brief period following the Revolution (“fourscore and seven years”), slavery was abolished in the northern states immediately following . In fact, they would have banned it earlier, but the British government, profiting from slave trade, would not allow it. The southern states later gave up their slaves under force of arms.

Was it morally permissible to force them to give up their slaves? The answer to that no-brainer is yes. Under libertarian principles, any person whose rights are infringed (the slaves) may defend those rights with deadly force. It naturally follows that if a person is unable to defend their rights, it is entirely permissible to have a third party use force on their behalf.

There is the claim that “without the state, the slave owners would have no recourse against rebelling slaves.” Yes they would; they could beat them up or shoot them! Just because they wouldn’t have a state legislature granting legitimacy to the action wouldn’t stop the slave-owners from committing them. The profit derived from slave labor would ensure that slavery is perpetuated.

“Well, the only reason slavery was profitable was that the government spent tax dollars to find and catch escaped slaves!” Are we seriously to believe that the free market could not provide a slave-finding service, the same way it could provide any other service there is a demand for? The profit derived from slave labor would ensure that slavery is perpetuated.

“Well, they would have given up their slaves voluntarily if the government had just asked them nicely!” Again, another falsehood. The abolitionists had been asking nicely for the South to give up their slaves for decades up until they won the Presidency and were capable of wielding state force; even then, the South had the option of giving up their slaves peaceably. In fact, they could have given up their slaves, and then succeeded from the , and there would have been much less public support—and far fewer troops—to force them back into the ; unfortunately, they would not do that. They preferred to defend the institution of slavery with deadly force. The profit derived from slave labor would ensure that slavery is perpetuated.

“Those slave owners paid for their slaves; they should have been compensated.”

Does anybody deserve to be compensated for willingly purchasing stolen property?

“But don’t you understand? The government wasn’t concerned about slavery at all; they just wanted on excuse to wage war on the South and force them to pay tariffs!!!”

I don’t care. I would far rather have tariffs than slavery. (Besides, if the South had given up their slaves, the government wouldn’t have had an excuse to invade, and soldiers wouldn’t have enlisted. No slaves, no tariffs.)

Some libertarians disapprove of ’s role in the Cold War, but it was ’s foreign policy that stopped the Communists from taking over the world just as they had taken over all of , , and parts of . Keep in mind that these people were statists to the core with an ideology of conquest, a severe disregard for human life and property, and access to ICBM’s. In fact, a foreigner, French President Nicholas Sarkozy, has some insight on that very subject:

Ladies and gentlemen, the men and women of my generation remember the Marshall Plan that allowed their fathers to rebuild a devastated . They remember the Cold War, during which again stood as the bulwark of the Free World against the threat of new tyranny.

I remember the crisis and Kennedy who unhesitatingly risked engaging the in the most destructive of wars so that could preserve the freedom for which the American people had already sacrificed so much. No one has the right to forget. Forgetting, for a person of my generation, would be tantamount to self-denial.

But my generation did not love only because she had defended freedom. We also loved her because for us, she embodied what was most audacious about the human adventure; for us, she embodied the spirit of conquest. We loved because for us, was a new frontier that was continuously pushed back — a constantly renewed challenge to the inventiveness of the human spirit.

It deserves to be noted that in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War One, World War Two, the Cold War, and now the Iraq War, has stood on the side of freedom. In , we saw as people danced in the streets as was liberated, we saw the purple thumbs, the jubilation. We saw as the troops took Iraqi children and provided them with badly-needed medical care after being injured and left orphaned by insurgents. We saw as troops fed a starving people and built soccer fields and other public-works projects for the Iraqis. We saw as the surge put terrorist al-Sadr to flight and brought (just a little bit of) law and order back to the Iraqi streets. We saw as a dictator was put on trial and executed. I don’t mean to say that the invasion was necessary for security; I don’t mean to say that it needs to continue indefinitely; and I certainly don’t mean to say that it isn’t bankrupting us and causing the economic disasters we are seeing. However, in this war, is the good guy, as it is evident to anybody with a conscience.

Let’s backtrack some 200 years, though, and talk about the Founders. Some point out particularly non-libertarian aspects of the Founders to claim they are the bad guys. I feel the need to point out that if not for their heroism, we probably would not be having this discussion today.

Perhaps Steven. E. Ambrose, in his book To America, said it best.

“…I don’t see how we can take down the name of the man whose leadership brought this nation through the Revolutionary War and who turned down a real chance to be the first king of our nation.

“But he was a slaveholder,” students sometimes say to me.

“Listen, he was our leader in the Revolution, to which he pledged his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor. Those were not idle pledges. What do you think would have happened to him had he been captured by the British Army?

“I’ll tell you. He would have been brought to , tried, found guilty of treason, ordered executed, and then drawn and quartered. Do you know what that means? He would have had one arm tied to one horse, the other arm to another horse, one leg to yet another, and the other leg to yet a fourth. Then the four horses would have been simultaneously whipped and started off at a gallop, one going north, another south, another east and the fourth to the west.

“That is what was risking to establish your freedom and mine.”

God Bless .

(I am looking forward to a well-reasoned reply; however, don’t expect me to answer back, as I find it difficult to log onto the site. Every time I enter my name and password, I am denied access and I have to click “I forgot my password” and use the link that comes in my Email. What’s up with that??)

2

You completely lost me when you revealed your neoconservative premises with respect to foreign policy. Actually you lost me even before that when you started to defend constitutionalism and the union.

3

You are wrong even from the outset. The Civil War was not fought to end slavery. Slavery was purposely allowed in order to prevent the south from seceded.The Union would never have invaded the South in order to end slavery. Once the south had already seceded the war was fought to force them back into the Union.

Even if the war had been over slavery, that wouldn’t have changed anything.

The plight of the slaves, did not authorize the Union army to ignore the natural rights of every non-slave in the south. If one were actually to follow the libertarian ideal, proportional violence against aggressors only, war as we know it could not happen.

The fact that slaves have a right to defend themselves does not give them the right to invade third party territory and kill any non-slave owner who objects their trespassing. And the Union army is definitately not able to unilatelly declare themselves the agents of the slaves and do it on their behalf.

And beyond that, you are trying to excuse fact with theory. Even if there was a possible libertarian way to have fought the civil war, the fact is, thats not what really happened. The South was subjected to collectivist guilt and total war.

4

I agree that libertarianism has a strong connection to much of American history and tradition. Libertarians certainly can be “patriotic,” as long as they don’t turn their love for the nation into worship of the state. The American flag is cool, but I prefer the black flag, or the black and yellow, or the flag of my home state, Virginia (woman standing over fallen king with the words “Sic Semper Tyrannis”).

On the Constitution: even if the state governments consented to it and it was not a coup de tat, it is illegitimate. Do the state governments have any more legitimate authority than the federal? Do the state governments rest on the consent of the people? Are you aware of the fact that women, blacks and white males who didn’t own enough property were unable to vote or have any direct influence on government when the constitution was adopted? And what on earth could make the Constitution binding on anyone today? I never signed it. The people who wrote it are dead and the contemporary enforcers of it do not ask anyone to sign the document.

Read “No Treason” by Lysander Spooner.

Your views on the economics of slavery are a bit oversimplified. The slaveholders were able to pass enforcement costs onto non-slaveholders by compulsory patrols etc. A market force would have required the slaveholders to pay all enforcement costs. Abolitionists advocated Northern secession as a way to divorce slavery from its subsidies.

You also fail to mention that conscription (slavery) was used to fight the so-called Civil War. Using slavery to fight slavery eh? Other tactics in this war included but are not limited to murdering innocent civilians, destroying property, shutting down newspapers that don’t support the war, suspension of habeas corpus.

Slavery was ended peacefully in all countries except ours.

And you shouldn’t call dishonest Abe an abolitionist. True heroes like Garrison and Spooner should not be smeared by association with him.

As for your excessive militarism… I don’t know what to say. At least you realize that killin’ foreigners ain’t free.

Overall I like America too… but I still want to abolish its government.

5

Does anybody find it ironic that the United States was founded by slave-owners who wanted to be free? Nobody notices the hypocrisy? To argue that America was founded on the principles of liberty is to ignore that liberty was only ever given to some people, and not others. I recommend you watch George Carlin.

Besides, liberty became a tool for manipulation in politics (as the others have said) rather than a matter of principle and ethics long ago,

6

It can be argued that despite the irony (or contradiction) of such, that it was important nonetheless regarding the experiment in which the Founding Fathers attempted, even while acknowledging that at the time, they had no immediate solution to the slavery paradox concerning the founding of the country.

Obviously, they’re could’ve been the solution of abolishing slavery, as it was on it’s way out regardless well into the 1800’s, but I tend to think that the impending war with Britain, culminating into the Revolution, took more importance, and the unsaid idea was to deal with the paradox (which I’m sure wasn’t lost on the Founders, let alone Jefferson) later.

Even considering such, I would not point out the slavery paradox as the sole flaw for the eventual failure of the great experiment, but it is an important flaw; I would point out constiutionalism as being a rather fatal flaw of the experiment of this country.

Assuming the Internet continues to exist in it’s current form of relative independance & neutrality (doubtful), white-washing like this will (one hopes) eventually be revealed as a cruel, pointless joke.

7

Oh it is certainly not the only flaw, I agree it was not even close to being the only fault. However I was just pointing out that the OP claimed America was founded on principles of liberty, which I disagree with. As much as it might appear to have been a great experiment, it was doomed from the start, not in the least because of the hyporcisy involved. No matter how great the principles a country is founded upon, if double standards are permitted to exist then they effectively nullify any merits these principles may have otherwise had. Libertarianism shows us that consistency is key. Just as Agorism is so far the most consistent anarcho-capitalist variation between means and ends.

8

I am not neoconservative: I do not support domestic serveillance without judicial oversight on a case-by-case basis, I do not support tortured confessions, I do not support a sealed border and crackdowns on immigration, I do not want a nationalistic trade policy, I do not want more spending a defense (most of it is wasted on bureaucracy and corruption), I believe anybody captured by the government on suspicions of terrorism–or anything else–has a right to a civilian trial, and I want Gitmo shut down tight. That has to count for something.

However, I get royally peeved whenever somebody suggests American soldiers deliberately and routinely kill innocents, and I think anybody who would march into gunfire to liberate foreign nationals deserves respect, especially from those of us who denounce the evils of tyranny from the comfort and anonmity of the computer keyboard.

Is there no middle ground?

9

To tell you the truth, I think that social convention makes soldiers out to practically be demi-gods. Soldiers are considered virtuous, brave individuals who sacrifice themselves for the sake of others. I reject this irrational and altruistic view of the military. Soldiers of the state do not fight for my liberty. They are murderers for the state and should not be exempted from moral responsibility for their actions. True courage would be to refuse to murder for the state. At best, I sympathize with drafted soldiers who have no choice. But I sympathize much more with draft dodgers, as they are an example of true principle and courage.

Middle ground between what and what? Aggressive state warfare and the non-initation of force? No, they’re fundamentally contradictary with respect to eachother. The civil war, the Iraq war and the bulk of American foreign policy throughout its history for that matter has been unjust from a libertarian perspective.

10

Contrary to the claim that early Americans supported freedom for themselves and bondage for slaves, it should be noted that an early draft of the Declaration of Independence openly condemned slavery, and stated that one of the reasons the were revolting from the king was due to his support of slavery, which indicates that the Revolutionaries were motivated in part by a loathing for slavery.

he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemispere, or to incure miserable death in their transportation hither. this piratical warfare, the opprobium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of . [determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold,] he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce [determining to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold]: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he had deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.

Needless to say, that part of the Declaration was dropped due to the need for the support of slave owners in the Revolution. However, the northern states promptly banned slavery following independence, and the southern states were forced to give up their slaves after the Civil War. Lest it should be said the Civil War was fought for ulterior motives rather than slavery, it should be noted that the Republican party, of which was a member, was formed to abolish slavery. Moreover, violence concerning slavery took place long before the election of . Check the history books for characters like John Brown and Reverend Henry “rifles and Bibles go together” .

Slavery had to end. The south could have given up their slaves peaceably, but they did not.

11

If by “any non-slave owner who objects their tresspassing” you mean the Confederate army, you are quite mistaken. If the Union is justified in liberating the slaves, and the Confederacy uses lethal force to prevent that objective, the Confederate army is fighting against human rights and must be neutralized.

Are you serious?

Was the Union army supposed to ask each slave to sign an agreement making the army their agent? Of course not.

Suppose my neighbor is being held hostage, and any attempt to communicate with him will result in his death and possibly mine. Or suppose I have a girlfriend who has been kidnapped and sedated with a powerful date rape drug. In either case, I connot communicate with the victim, so I reasonably assume he or she wants to be rescued and justifiably exercise force on their behalf.

12

You really think the Iraq war was to liberate Iraqis?

Yes, there is…and it’s called The Road to Serfdom.

Oh, and I’m saying this as someone who ‘liberated’ both Kuwaitis and Iraqis – and somewhat arguably Panamanians.

13

You can claim that “Lincoln did not fight the Civil War to free the slaves; he had ulterior motives.” Okay; since I cannot read the mind of somebody who lived 150 years ago, I concede that may be true. However, freeing the slaves was a result.

You can claim that the Iraq war wasn’t faught to free the Iraqis. As I cannot read Bush’s mind, that could very well be the case. However, freeing the Iraqis was a result.

14

If I recall correctly, it was Stonewall Jackson who used threat of force to prevent soldiers from leaving when their enlistment expired. The Union did not use such tactics; the industrialized northern states could afford to pay their soldiers well, while the southern army had to beg for scraps.

That happened. I do not excuse of any of that; that was wrong.

You’re forgetting that America had a unique balance of power lacking in other countries: the industrialized North, and the agrarian South. The industrialized North was more than willing to end slavery, while the agrarian South was ready to fight for them, hence the conflict missing in other countries.

You’ll see no tears from me when the government collapses under its own weight. It’s America’s history that I wish to rescue from being ripped to shreds.

15

No, I mean the second a union soldier stepped foot on a farm owned by a non-slave owner, that soldier was a criminal and could be justly killed. By the farmer himself, or by any agent that the farmer employs. (Defense must be proportional, so deadly force would be the ultimate outcome, not the first attempt at resolution)

A’s mission to rescue B from C, does not entitle A to victumize D. And D is not obligated to use his property to help B(or to help A help B). D forbiding A from using his property does not make D an aggressor, nor does it make D share in C’s guilt.

Consent can be implied, however, there are very serious limits.

While one can assume that Jefferson’s slaves wanted their freedom, one can not assume that Jefferson’s slave would consent to having Jefferson killed in order to gain their freedom. And even if they did, death is not a proportional punishment for enslavement.

16

Fair enough. The antebellum South wasn’t a libertarian society. Same goes for the US as a whole. Most people fall into the trap of either over glorifying or over demonizing particular actions or actors. History shouldn’t be a blame game or a form of ancestor worship, but a tool of understanding.

17

So which would you rather have won? (I believe I have already made my view clear.)

God bless America!

18

The South. If the South had won, we would probably be living under anarchy today.

19

Are you joking or something? Ask the more than 3 million innocent Iraqis that have lost their homes or the 1.2 million who are dead due to violence since the US “liberated” them, if they’re happy to be free. And those are only official statistics, I imagine the real numbers are far higher. The word “liberation” seems to be a government favourite to refer to unlawful invasions.

Eitherway, you’re argument says that no matter the means nor the intentions, if the result was good, so be it. I thought libertarianism was about consistency. I have no doubt that the US has harmed themselves, and Iraqis far more by going into Iraq than if they had instead opened up free markets, stopped bombing them, and stopped putting up embargoes. The way to gain support is by setting a good example. If you want other nations to think of you as a bastion of free markets and freedom, then stop practicing corporatism and stop meddling with other nations!

Oh and since when does it take the ability to read Bush’s mind to figure out if the war in Iraq was fought for freedom? Do you really think Bush even had a say in deciding this? How naive are you really?

Edit: sorry I had old statistics, new ones are much higher.

20

That’s exactly what they do.

Regarding this as neocon propaganda or apology of the warfare state would be too far fetched ?