Nort Korea is Isolationistic, Norway is non-interventionistic.
North Korea disallows any interaction with the outside world, Norway allows people and commercial interaction with the world but keeps their armies and navies in Norway. You see the difference?
There is an ICJ and numerous other international tribunals, as well as the courts of the host state and the US. What all these courts will agree on is the right of the sovereign state to expropriate assets from the private sector. In the US and other places, this is qualified by “for just compensation.” Many other places, it is not. If that’s a risk you can’t live with, don’t do business in that country. And if that strikes you as harsh, if the USG repudiates a foreign national’s contract or expropriates foreign-owned private assets, are you ready for the bombs to start flying over here?
Also, that taxpayer argument won’t fly very far. Should I be able to go to China and get in a dust-up and then demand everybody else bear the costs of a war with another nuclear power because I decided to do business there?
Well other than the Muslim campaigns in the Middle Ages, can you currently name any Middle Eastern invasions of free society, I mean, other than the ones we invite ourselves?
The Amish are theocrats. Are you revved up to invade them?
Bottom line, if you want to go forth and slay dragons, do it on your own dime. That’s the libertarian way.
RE: Len,
The soldiers stake in the business is irrelevant because it is a volunteer force… you sign up to kill people and break things.
But suppose the businessmen owning those assets over seas scrounge up some funds and pay Lockheed, Boeing, & Raytheon to bomb those places into the 4 century and then commandeer their oil fields. This would yield the exact same result in the end: lots of “innocent” people dead… the only difference is that with hardcore business guys directing the fight, they would get a truly decisive victory unlike the US military who too often does not due to political reasons.
Don’t get me wrong, I would have no problem with this… but at the same time I’m not advocating some “kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out” strategy either. But we’re dealing with regimes who will not play by our rules, or the rules that all parties agree upon. To not allow retaliation is to circumvent justice and support those regimes.
True, their stake in the business isn’t really the point. But note that their “volunteer” status doesn’t matter either: their commanders have no moral right to order them to kill and break. The commanders are therefore criminals, and following orders to commit crimes would make them criminals in turn. (Not to mention the fact that they’re paid entirely in stolen money.)
–Len.
RE: Len,
But the “commanders” do have that right when the entities they are contractually bound to defend property rights are abrogated by use of force.
Granted: they have exactly the same rights you personally have. If you see a crime in progress, and own an M1A, you can intervene and defend the victim from the aggressor. Adding a khaki uniform to the mix changes nothing. So if you’re allowed to personally fly to Iraq and start shooting civilians, or kidnapping and torturing them without due process, then soldiers can too. If you can’t, neither can they.
–Len.
I’ve missed your point somehow..
RE: Spideynw,
Look, I’m no fan of FDR… I think he’s one of the worst presidents ever.
To go back to my Mideast oil example again, we were ‘trading’ with them until the seized our (and again, when I say our I just mean the property of American businessmen who were in a binding contract with those countries) property by force. Those businesses operate in American under a contract that affords them protection. Retaliation is justified. Same thing goes with any trading partner that is attacked.
But look… Japan and America had plans drawn up against each other since the 20s. Instead of trading with them while they marched on China and the South Pacific and therefor aiding an aggressor, we should have attacked them earlier before they had become such a large threat. How on earth can you morally do business with a regime that is responsible for the Rape of Nanking??? By trading with them you enable those atroicities to take place. That’s a sick position to hold.
So, an American civilian trading with a Japanese civilian becomes indirectly responsible for Nanking… because the Japapanese civilian is claimed by the nation whose government was ultimately responsible.
Nice collectivist “logic” you’ve got going on there.
RE: MacFall,
It’s not collectivist at all…
The free Japanese “civilian” doesn’t exist under a fascist regime. They do business directly with the State (or the totalitarian Japanese Empire in this case) which does business with us (and by “us” you know what I mean by now).
Trading with Japan would not have prevent war with them and all it did was strengthen their Empire.
Military force is not justified if someone’s property is confiscated in another country! If some poor sap decides to invest his savings in some other country, then I, as a taxpayer, should not be obligated to pay for military operations to get it back if it is lost. He took the risk, not I.
I doubt you would find very many people that would agree with your line of thinking.
Everyone understands that there are risks involved with investing in other countries. This is why so little is invested in Africa.
The same could be said of any other country that would trade with U.S. citizens. We caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq with our sanctions in the 90’s, invaded Afghanastan because they would not turn someone over to us without us first providing proof of wrong-doing, and invaded Iraq based on poor intelligence, and we send billions of dollars of military aid every year to corrupt governments.
So you think I should not be able to trade with citizens in other countries just because my government is corrupt?
If we allow open trade with the citizens of other countries, everyone benefits by becoming more wealthy, which allows peaceful regime changes in other countries.
“invaded Afghanastan because they would not turn someone over to us without us first providing proof of wrong-doing” …are you insane!? You sound like Obama’s pastor…
I’m finished with this thread… this is like arguing with a communist… impossible to learn anything from someone who is so far removed from reality. The users on this forum are really no different than most other political forums on the internet. “Libertarianism” rules internet political debate the same way that US communists ruled pamphleteering. Now there are some pretty smart folks here who are black&white types of people as far as their beliefs… I love reading arguments for reducing the size of government and all that… But some of the ideas that are also harbored here as far as 9/11, the nature of war, WWII, are the exact same as liberal democrats… yuck.
Neocons freak out, nice.
Descendants of liberals, of course, we are. Libertarianism is the outgrow of liberalism.
So what? That doesn’t automatically make them false. That’s a logical fallacy known as ad hominem, where you attack the person making the argument (or their personal attributes) instead of attacking the argument itself.
It’s not enough to say “that’s a liberal idea”, and dismiss it; you have to be able to explain why the argument is invalid, and just as importantly - form one to replace it. Otherwise, you look like a Marxist. Only instead of dismissing your opponents as “bourgeoise”, you dismiss them as “liberal”. But it’s the same fallacy.
I think that requires some historical perspective. bin Laden was a hero in Afganistan, with is a country with some extreme customs regarding hospitality and guests. They weren’t going to give him up, but it wasn’t because they supported the 9/11 attacks. Hell, a good portion of the Muslim world believes 9/11 conspiracy theories.
…not that I really feel sorry for the Taliban or the Japanese military during WWII.
He’s just quoting international law. To extradite a criminal, the extraditing nation needs to show probable cause–which, by the way, is a fairly low standard. The US had no extradition treaty with Afghanistan, but it was perfectly reasonable for them to demand probable cause. Instead of offering it, however, the US issued an ultimatum that Bin Ladin be handed over without any evidence. We couldn’t have extradited Bin Ladin from the UK without offering ANY evidence, yet that was the pretext for invading Afghanistan.
–Len.
You sound more and more like a troll. I would guess that you have a hard time making friends because obviously you believe that you are the only one with correct views and only your views should be held. Anyone who differs from your point of view is a “liberal democrat” or something else. You never address the argument but simply dismiss any evidence given as conjecture because your supposed superiority won’t allow you to examine the facts. You are arrogant, ignorant and intolerable. You’ve made us all a little dumber by reading your replies.
I feel sad for people like you because you refuse to examine your “reality” and check the facts to make sure you are being told the truth. I hope you live a long and peaceful life with those blinders on. May the yoke of your masters be light upon your shoulders and the foot upon your through not be so oppressive. Now, go scurry off and lick the boots of your masters while real men work to solve the problems of this country.
RE: McFall & kingmonkey,
I can go through the posts of the members here and could find ad hominem attack after ad hominem attack. (accept for in my posts.. as I was simply expressing my reluctance to associate myself with an organization that harbored certain view points ((not trying to disprove them or disprove something with them)), which is independent of other arguments on other topics. My ‘reluctance to associate’ was the conclusion, not premises of why the libertarian view point on government is wrong. Even then, I don’t believe this could be a real ad hominem attack because for some libertarians their argument for lesser government stands to gain by casting the 9/11 disaster as an act directed by the government – as that is simply a criticism of the testimony.) I can find in this thread alone admissions of contradiction in the minarchist argument by Mises members. Kingmonkey, in pretty much all of your posts you could flip your own statement Anyone who differs from your point of view is a “liberal democrat” only replace the quotations with statist, collectivist, or communist… and in other examples, you are guilty of exactly what you accuse me of being. (you see McFall, in politics, we call that being an ass Hypocrisy…) As to why the ‘fathers’ of libertarian thoughts did not come to the conclusions of many here, there is no conclusive answer. But perhaps the most compelling observation came on the first page, when one member said that the biggest red flag should be how dogmatic people can be on this forum when it comes to non-aggression… dogmatic enough to drive them to believing in conspiracy theories to help push their views.
For McFall, kingmonkey, and some others, they’re not interested in eliminating ad hominem attacks on this forum, because they don’t point them out when one of their own makes one. It’s only pointed out in a situation like this, which begs the question, who is really guilty of the fallacy here? =) I can’t say it wasn’t successful either cause I spent most of my post talking about it lol…
Next, I am not interested in winning new friends by espousing my beliefs… as I cannot see anyone truly comfortable with who they are making any attempt to persuade someone to be their friend. But the membership of the LvMI certainly understands that this is not a popularity contest… though I think with some moderation on some of your views, and selling cookies door-to-door for ad time ya’ll could probably expand you membership beyond a mere few hundred… but what would that then say about you as an institute? So ditch this 16 year-old Civics class “loser cause he’s different” nonsense. You can also ditch the over-used swipes like “I’m dumber for having read your posts”… they just make you look like a dork.
Fine; do so.
Fine; but that’s irrational. If there is nothing wrong with the view points, it makes no sense to try to distance yourself from them. If there is something wrong with them, prove it.
If I were to encounter such attacks, I would address them. But I don’t usually interfere in a discussion not directed to me, or as in an original post, to the community in general.
First, compromise on principle is always dispicable. If one accepts the premise of one’s own beliefs, they are rationally obligated to carry them to their logical conclusion, even if that makes them “a radical”. Moderation is intellectual cowardice.
Second, the membership of this forum is a tiny fraction of the “membership” of the libertarian movement. I doubt the LVMI is interested in bringing all of those tens of thousands of people to this forum.
The individuals within this community cannot be justly construed to represent the community as a whole, because this forum includes all sorts of people, regardless of what they believe or how they defend it. Calling out people who use personal attacks is commendable; dismissing everyone who shares their viewpoint is, by definition, collectivist reasoning. I have yet to see you directly address the arguments to which you object, but look forward to your doing so.
That depends upon your definition of socialism. Most people who call themselves libertarians define socialism to refer to some sort of Marxist, or Stalinist, or Maoist, or Hegelian, or Hitlerian, or generally big-government system, and define themselves as anti-socialist. There are some, however, such as Brad Spangler, who propose a radically different definition of socialism, and under the Spanglerian definition, we libertarians could be described as socialists.
I can assure you that we have not switched to Obama. Most Ron Paul supporters will tell you that if they had to choose one of the three Democrats running, they would choose Gravel. 99.9% of Ron Paul supporters will tell you that Hillary Clinton is the worst choice, so perhaps this is why you seem to think we’ve turned to Obama. Simply put, Obama is horrible. I’ll most likely end up voting Libertarian again in '08.
Neither candidate supports isolationism.
Ron Paul doesn’t support isolationism because he believes in free trade. No isolationist has ever, or will ever, support free trade.
Obama, well, Obama is pro-war, just like Mrs. Clinton. (Don’t believe their rhetoric.)
Wrong. What you see is a lot of the Truthers are either libertarian or liberal. This is true. But few libertarians are Truthers. Most libertarians believe that the government would be too incompetent to pull off something like 9/11.
Yes, a very vocal minority. Ignore them. We do.
Isolationism is economically dangerous. We should have free trade with all nations. Although isolationists argue that we need high tariffs and trade regulations to help protect domestic industry, they are wrong.
If a bunch of individuals wish to buy plane tickets and fight in foreign nations against the despots that rule there, more power to 'em. If people wish to donate money to these individuals, so that said individuals can afford to buy arms and other accountrements, more power to 'em. But why should you be taxed and forced to fund these individuals when A) the despots they aim to depose pose no threat to you and B) you have children to feed? Further, why send our military to do the dirty work, when A) we will never be appreciated for it, B) we will inspire anti-Americanism to inadvertantly grow, and C) we will need them here if we find ourselves attacked?
There are many who would argue that the North Korean system would have collapsed by now if not for the fact that we’re still stationed in South Korea.
Yes, we should do away with tariffs, embargoes, sanctions, and all other trade regulations.
No.
Libertarians have been warning the world for decades that our interventionist foreign policy in the Middle East could lead radicals there to attack us. Unfortunately, the predictions of libertarians came true on Sept. 11th, 2001. You guys should have listened to us, 9/11 wouldn’t have happened. Thousands of innocent people would still be alive today. They should be alive, but were unjustly murdered. America would be a happier, safer place, if not for interventionism and all the other big government programmes.
(For clarification, allow me to add: the attack on innocent Americans was unjust. But it was not unavoidable. All government action has unintended consequences, whether you’re looking at minimum wage laws, anti-trust laws, the welfare system, gun control laws, &c. In the same way we can avoid the unintended consequences of these laws simply by repealing said laws, we could have avoided 9/11 by adopting a non-interventionist foreign policy.)
I don’t believe anyone or anything should maintain a monopoly on force.
The Soviet Union fell for only one reason: socialism doesn’t work. To claim that our own adoption of greater and greater levels of socialism, and particularly Reagan’s socialist military policy, lead to the downfall of the Soviet Union is to ignore reality.
You want to know how socialism hurts the economy? Wow.
You own your own body. If your body is alive, it is of higher value than if your body is dead. Thus, when someone kills you, that person is committing theft.
The primary rights that exists are to self-ownership and the ownership of justly-acquired property. All other rights proceed naturally from those, including free speech, freedom of religion, right to keep and bear arms, &c.