Another full chapter of Libertarianism Today is now online for free — this one on why libertarianism is antiwar. This is my favorite chapter of the book, so I’m especially glad I could make it available through Antiwar.com.
Other parts of the book you can read for free online:
And if you want to read the whole thing, it’s on sale at a special low price for a limited time.
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I’m delighted to learn that someone has violated my so-called intellectual property rights and posted a Japanese translation of part of Libertarianism Today on YouTube. There’s a version with English audio (a decent computer voice) and Japanese subtitles and a version with what I can only assume is Japanese audio and Japanese subtitles.
The translation is of one of my favorite parts of the book, on “Why Libertarians Oppose War.”
UPDATE: I’m told that the title of the Japanese-audio version is “Under Any Circumstances Government is Criminal Enterprise! Watch Out!”
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Today Antiwar.com has an excerpt from Libertarianism Today on why libertarians oppose war.
Here’s how it starts:
Libertarianism and war are not compatible. One reason why should be obvious: In war, governments commit legalized mass-murder. In modern warfare especially, war is not just waged among voluntary combatants, but kills, maims, and otherwise harms innocent people. Then, of course, wars must be funded through taxes, which are extracted from U.S. citizens by force – a form of legalized theft, as far as libertarians are concerned. And, historically, the U.S. has used conscription – legalized slavery – to force people to fight and die. In addition, an interventionist foreign policy makes civilians targets for retaliation, so governments indirectly cause more violence against their own people when they become involved in other countries’ affairs. Plus, war is always accompanied by many other new restrictions on liberty, many of which are sold as supposedly temporary wartime measures but then never go away.
Read the rest of the excerpt at Antiwar and the rest of the chapter, which has much more on war, in the book.
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At the beginning of his show this morning, Glenn Beck started ripping into the imam that all the talk-radio hosts love to hate, because the imam has (correctly) pointed out that the U.S. has killed many more innocent non-Muslims than al-Qaeda has.
Beck went on to defend the U.S. embargo against Iraq that killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people during the 1990s, argued that we should have fought the Iraq war “full on” from the beginning (meaning we shouldn’t have been so squeamish — as if “we” were — about killing innocent people), and claimed that the current U.S. government is the only one in the history of the world that has ever fought wars in a manner that avoided killing civilians.
Last year, Beck promoted a rally in Washington to protest the federal government’s taxing and spending. This year, he’s holding a rally to glorify the U.S. military. Can there be any doubt that by the time the Republicans regain control in Washington, Beck and his many followers will be right back where all the conservatives were during the George W. Bush years? Only it will be much worse, because they’ll have much bigger, more powerful government at their disposal, which they will not reduce one bit. And one shudders to think of what the apparent growing extreme, irrational hatred of Muslims may lead to.
Unless, that is, Ron Paul and other true libertarians can steer the Tea Party movement onto the right track before it’s too late.
As a good first step, it’s time for everyone — including some people who should know better — to stop suggesting that Glenn Beck is any sort of libertarian.
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by Jacob Huebert on August 15, 2010
in History, War
Earlier this month, the anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had conservatives once again defending the U.S. government’s slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.
Normally one doesn’t find political pundits devoting entire columns to defending things the government did more than half a century ago, but I can see two reasons why they do so here.
One, of course, is the atrociousness of what the government did. A nuclear attack on a civilian population is so heinous that it might make people think about the violent, criminal nature of their rulers. So you have to keep reminding everyone that it was okay because it was (supposedly, not really) necessary to save grandpa’s life.
The other purpose — for neoconservatives, the main purpose — is to justify in advance doing it again to Persians and others who have been deemed less than human.
This is why libertarians must never shy away from this issue. It’s also why it’s especially disgusting to see the bombings defended in an official publication of my alma mater, Grove City College. What defending mass murder has to do with “Christian scholarship” or the school’s advertised “authentically Christian” education, I can’t fathom. (I would say it’s a new low, but they did it last year, too.)
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How disgusting to learn that Glenn Beck’s much-hyped “8/28″ rally isn’t going to be about demanding more liberty from the federal government but will instead be about honoring the people who carry out that government’s extremely costly wars of aggression.
I’ve had a chance to catch some of Glenn Beck’s radio show lately, and it’s bizarre.
For maybe a fourth of the time, he’ll be pretty great and go after the right targets, bashing the likes of Woodrow Wilson and the Progressives. Even here, he’ll make some comments that suggest he doesn’t really understand economics or know much history, but for the most part, this portion of what he does is remarkably sound. To his credit, he’s sometimes good in places that probably surprise and upset some of his audience, as when he supports tolerance of the so-called Ground Zero mosque (which is neither a mosque nor at Ground Zero).
For another fourth or so of the time, the show is like an innocuous, annoying “morning zoo” program.
For another fourth of the time, he spouts typical conservative-talk-radio junk, including the requisite anti-immigration stuff.
And for another fourth of the time, he sounds like a patently fraudulent televangelist.
It’s great that he gets a few things very right, that the heroic Judge Napolitano often guest-hosts his TV show, and that he’s promoted The Road to Serfdom. But his unquestioning support for one of the biggest, most destructive arms of the federal government — which the Founding Fathers he exalts would have abhorred and Woodrow Wilson would have loved — shows that he’s not libertarian and sadly neither is much of the Tea Party movement that reveres him.
Still, maybe he brings enough people far enough along that some will jump over to genuine libertarianism. I hope that outweighs the disrepute he brings to some good ideas — and the name “libertarian” — by associating himself with them.
If you know a brighter-than-average Glenn Beck fan who’s on the edge, you might try giving him a copy of my book.
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