Return to the Free Liberal Homepage

« Wonderful Ron Paul Article in Washington Post | Main | Find out if you could be on Leno's "Jaywalking" »

Why did libertarians support the war?

This article provides about as good an explanation as I've seen for so-called libertarians who supported the Iraq War. While it is good that libertarianism has become "cool," (this is not a new phenomenon in my opinion), a lot of these recent converts don't really understand how limited government evolves and how war is antithetical to it.

Posted by Paul Gessing on December 2, 2007 12:39 AM |

Comments

Are you all not aware of the Libertarian Defense Caucus? You make it sound like Pro-Defense libertarianism is a new thing.

The LDC was founded in the 1970s by First Libertarian Presidential candidate Dr. John Hospers, Mike Dunn and others wanting to preserve the original Pro-Defense views of the libertarian movement.

If there are any Newbies around, it's the pacifist usurpers who've invaded our libertarian movement, but who are indeed Leftists.

Posted by: ericdondero [TypeKey Profile Page] | December 3, 2007 05:35 PM

"You make it sound like Pro-Defense libertarianism is a new thing.

The LDC was founded in the 1970s by First Libertarian Presidential candidate Dr. John Hospers, Mike Dunn and others wanting to preserve the original Pro-Defense views of the libertarian movement.

If there are any Newbies around, it's the pacifist usurpers who've invaded our libertarian movement, but who are indeed Leftists"

Several points here.

First of all, I am unaware of any major component of libertarians who are "pacifists" or "anti-defense." The only group holding such views is the small LP cult centering around Carol Moore, and even they are more interested in passive resistance than pacifism.

Pacifism, thus, isn't the issue. The issue is whether libertarians endorse a Bismarchian foreign policy with subdoctrines such as "pre-emptive war" or whether they endorse the traditional American foreign policy of neutrality abroad, with "defense" being defense, rather than some Orwellian code word for imperialism.

Second, while the LP may have begun with John Hospers as its first Presidential candidate, libertarianism hardly began with John Hospers or 1970. In fact, if you read Hospers book on libertarianism, written about that time, and compare it with, e.g., what was being published by FEE at the time, you will discover that Hospers was both a lukewarm LP advocate and that he was more in tune with moderate "conservatives" who repudiated libertarianism, like, say, William F. Buckley, than he was with any of the mainline libertarians of the day. [The one exception was, of course, Ayn Rand, who was generally considered as somewhat of a kook at the time and who was hardly representative of the libertarian mainline view or much in tune with traditional Americanism.]

Finally, some of us have been "around" since the decade before the 1970s and aren't much impressed by attempts to distort history such as the above by Mr. Dondero. Anyone who considers himself as a Rightest first and a libertarian second isn't much of a libertarian. Never has been, never will be.

Posted by: lawecon [TypeKey Profile Page] | December 4, 2007 05:54 AM

Free-for-all (frfr-ôl) -- n. A disorderly fight, argument, or competition in which everyone present participates.

from Dictionary.com



Advertisement
Free For All -- The Free Liberal Blog