{"id":199,"date":"2005-08-02T11:30:26","date_gmt":"2005-08-02T16:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=199"},"modified":"2005-08-02T12:27:33","modified_gmt":"2005-08-02T17:27:33","slug":"libertarian-realism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=199","title":{"rendered":"Libertarian realism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I hate war.  Even when the results of defeat would be worse than<br \/>\nthe results of war, I hate war.  It kills people and makes government<br \/>\nstronger.  But when the results of defeat would be worse, I face<br \/>\nreality and support war.<\/p>\n<p>Our Islamist enemies want to kill us all &mdash; starting with Jews and<br \/>\ngays, but continuing to anyone who doesn&#8217;t convert to Islam and accept<br \/>\nshari&#8217;a and the whole nine yards.  That&#8217;s not melodrama, it&#8217;s<br \/>\nreporting of the plain and simple statements Al-Qaeda uses in their<br \/>\nrecruiting videos. <em>They want to kill us all.<\/em>  They demonstrated<br \/>\nthe deadly seriousness of this aim on 9\/11.<\/p>\n<p>The choice between &#8220;support the war&#8221; and &#8220;allow the pressure off of<br \/>\nenemies who want to kill us all&#8221; is not a difficult one. As a libertarian,<br \/>\nI&#8217;m deeply sorry we live in a world where governments are doing the fighting<br \/>\nfor us, and I fear the consequences of the power they will amass while<br \/>\ndoing so. But I don&#8217;t see an alternative.<\/p>\n<p>If I had a magic wand that could instantly materialize a world of<br \/>\nprivate security agencies, insurance pools, and mercenaries capable of<br \/>\nfighting the war on terror, I would have waved it long before 9\/11.<br \/>\nBut I am not capable of changing the objective conditions of the war<br \/>\nany more than I am of changing the murderous intentions of our<br \/>\nenemies.<\/p>\n<p>Though I&#8217;ve been accused of abandoning my libertarianism for a<br \/>\nconservative position, I still believe in the non-initiation of force<br \/>\nas strongly as I ever have.  I saw one damn huge freaking initiation<br \/>\nof force on 9\/11 &mdash; not just an attack on one city or one country<br \/>\nbut an assault on Western civilization.  Everything al-Qaeda&#8217;s<br \/>\npropaganda organs have said since confirms that is what they intend.<\/p>\n<p>George Orwell, writing during World War II, wrote:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nPacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common<br \/>\nsense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically<br \/>\nhelp out that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining<br \/>\noutside such a war as the present one. In practice, &#8216;he that is not<br \/>\nwith me is against me.'&#8221;\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>If Orwell were alive today, I have no doubt he would view this war<br \/>\nas equally pressing, nor which side of it he would choose.  And all<br \/>\nlibertarians should heed his words.  We&#8217;ve shown far too much of a<br \/>\ntendency to slide into denial about the war on terror and the<br \/>\nconsequences of refusing to fight it.<\/p>\n<p>Sliding off into denial and fantasyland is not noble, it&#8217;s an<br \/>\nabdication of our responsibility as human beings and members of a<br \/>\ncivilization.  If that denial becomes &#8220;the&#8221; libertarian position, our<br \/>\nstatist opponents will damn us as for deserting our neighbors and our<br \/>\ncivilization in its hour of need &mdash; and they will be <em>right<\/em> to<br \/>\ndamn us.<\/p>\n<p>Other libertarians may fail this test.  I will not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I hate war. Even when the results of defeat would be worse than the results of war, I hate war. It kills people and makes government stronger. But when the results of defeat would be worse, I face reality and support war. Our Islamist enemies want to kill us all &mdash; starting with Jews and&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=199\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Libertarian realism<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-terror","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}