Category Archives: libertarianism

Liberal Vs. Libertarian Response To Ferguson (Rand’s Just An Opportunist)

Britain, Intellectualism, Law, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Racism

“Liberal outrage over what some see as racial injustice” vs. libertarian anger “that connects the perceived overreaction by a militarised local law enforcement to [a libertarian] critique of the heavy-handed power of government”: As expected, BBC News adopts a more analytical angle on the “unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, following the shooting death of Michael Brown by a police officer.”

Expected too is BBC’s take on the libertarian scene. As its libertarian stand-bearers, BBC News has chosen from the ranks of Beltway libertarians, conservatives and Republican congressmen and senators.

“The state is big and powerful and violent and can hurt you, whether it’s the FDA, the state prosecutor or the local police force,” writes Hot Air blog’s Mary Katharine Ham, concisely summarising the gist of this libertarian argument.
Breitbart’s John Nolte puts it a bit more sharply: “The media hate police but without them, who will ultimately force us to buy ObamaCare and confiscate our guns?”
On Wednesday night Congressman Justin Amash, a libertarian-leaning Republican embraced by the grass-roots Tea Party movement, tweeted that the news from Ferguson was “frightening”, asking: “Is this a war zone or a US city? Gov’t escalates tensions w/military equipment & tactics.”
One of the leading figures in today’s libertarian movement, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul …

In his response to Ferguson, as is his wont, Sen. Rand Paul managed to straddle liberal and libertarian narratives, vaporizing idiotically as follows:

“Anyone who thinks that race does not still, even if inadvertently, skew the application of criminal justice in this country is just not paying close enough attention.”

Rand is the very embodiment of political opportunism.

UPDATE II: Navy SEAL’s Bad Karma Continues (LIBERTARIAN LAW of Libel)

Ethics, Free Speech, Justice, libertarianism, Military

Deceased Navy SEAL Chris Kyle lived by the sword and died by the sword (BAB 02.03.13). “Or, in hippie speak: Kyle had bad karma”; he was “shot point-blank” by “another soldier who was recovering from post traumatic stress syndrome.”

In a book detailing his life as Uncle Sam’s assassin, Kyle libeled another Navy man, former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura. It proved the wrong move. “Kyle’s estate,” reports The Daily Caller, “which is run by his widow Taya,” will be liable for “$500,000 for defamation and $1.3 million for unjust enrichment.”

UPDATE I (7/30): Soldiers Against Due Process. Fox News, predictably, reports “Outrage After Jesse Ventura Wins Lawsuit Against Chris Kyle”:

Ben Smith, Kyle’s roommate during SEAL training, still disputes that his friend lied about the confrontation, which occurred at a memorial service for a SEAL who had been killed when he jumped on a grenade.
Smith said he’s having trouble “grasping” how the American judicial system could come up with a verdict like this, recalling that Kyle had told him about the confrontation with Ventura.
“He was running his mouth and saying some really vile stuff, saying we should lose more men, more heroes, more guys out there who were fighting the fight. Is that not almost treasonous? Like you’re anti-American, saying we should lose? [Chris] said ‘you say that again, I’m going to pop you in the — I’m going to get ya.’ And he did and he came over and did it,” said Smith. … Later on the show, the hosts expressed their own thoughts on the shocking ruling, questioning how Ventura could go after the widow of an American hero.

MORE.

UPDATE II: LIBERTARIAN LAW of Libel. There is the controversy over libel in libertarian circles. Most of us think that speech ought to be unfettered and that a person has no right in his reputation. I suppose I ought to have mentioned the libertarian law of libel, which I like a lot and support. Instead, I got carried away with my feelings about this much-worshiped killer.

An Open Border Is Open Season On Private Property, Persons Included

IMMIGRATION, Israel, libertarianism, Private Property, Terrorism

This is “scary stuff,” writes BAB contributor Myron Pauli. “I wonder what the Open-Borders crowd thinks about this ‘right’ to travel into Israel to kill and kidnap people.”

Myron was referring to the WaPo’s “How Hamas uses its tunnels to kill and capture Israeli soldiers”:

It was a Monday in October 2013 when residents of a kibbutz called Ein Hashlosha just east of the Gaza border heard strange sounds.

It may have been difficult to pinpoint the source. The sounds weren’t coming from above ground — but beneath it. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soon discovered that the sounds signaled an “extremely advanced and well prepared” tunnel.

Not only was the burrow remarkable in depth and length — 1.5 miles long and 66 feet underground — it was equipped with electricity and contained enough cookies, yogurt and other provisions to last its occupants several months. Israeli forces estimated that Hamas had dumped $10 million and 800 tons of concrete into the two-year project.

Such “terror tunnels,” the Israeli military said in a statement Friday, are “complex and advanced.” And their use, Israel said, is “to carry out attacks such as abductions of Israeli civilians and soldiers alike; infiltrations into Israeli communities, mass murders and hostage-taking scenarios.”

An open border is open season on private property, persons included, Myron. Libertarians, it would appear, are too flaccid to deal with this reality, other than to say, “Under anarchy the issue would be sorted out.” That’s a synonym for intellectual cop-out.

Israel’s To Blame? Really?

Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, libertarianism

I’m having a hard time following the logic of the article, “Who Started ‘the Cycle of Violence’ in Palestine?”, in which Israel is blamed for the renewed hostilities between it and the Palestinians of the Gaza strip.

As circuitous as it is curious, the case woven in “Who Started ‘the Cycle of Violence’ in Palestine?” seems to hang on the claim that “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet lied to the Israeli and international public by pretending not to know that the [3 kidnapped Israeli] boys were almost certainly [already] dead,” and that “although the Israeli government knew the three boys were almost certainly dead, they initiated what they dubbed ‘Operation Brother’s Keeper.’ Thousands of IDF soldiers combed the West Bank, ostensibly searching for the kidnapped boys.”

OK. Let’s assume that indeed, as author Justin Raimondo asserts, “the Israeli political class exhibits a malevolence unique among nations.” Isn’t that perspective beside the point here? Didn’t the latest conflagration in fact begin with the kidnapping and killing of the three Israeli teenagers? What am I missing?