YouTube: “It’s not ISIS in the Levant or ISIS in the abstract that is killing our people. The truth is that the threat we face is from murder-by-Muslim-immigrant at home. And it’s more often than not an invited and legal threat. Use precision language, not dumb bombs; and the solution will present itself.”
Category Archives: War
2 Immutable Libertarian Truths About Gold Stars & Creating Value For Society
Business, Donald Trump, Free Markets, Government, libertarianism, Military, The State, War
Shall I play the litmus-test game of, “Are you a libertarian”? OK. I don’t believe you can call yourself a libertarian and disagree with these two statements I tweeted out:
1) The obscenity of the Gold Star designation, given for the “privilege” of dying for Uncle Sam. You are not awarded for bravery, where your obligation is toward your brothers-in-arms, for whom most men in the military are prepared to die; your family is awarded with a special status for simply dying, for getting killed.
#GoldStar Family designation sounds obscene, like a special credit card The government gives to those who die in State-launched wars.
— Ilana Mercer (@IlanaMercer) August 2, 2016
2) Donald Trump has created more value for many more fellow Americans than any one man dying in the service of The State. (He just doesn’t know how to express himself. Neither do his “surrogates.”) Are we back to conflating The State’s wars with the Common Good? Wars destroy wealth and life; they don’t enhance them. America hasn’t fought a Just War for a long long time. (Read “Just War for Dummies.”)
Has #GStephanopoulos heard of #AdamSmith's Invisible Hand? #Trump's done more good than pols & their footsoldiers. https://t.co/JUp9X9N6ms
— Ilana Mercer (@IlanaMercer) July 30, 2016
#DonaldTrump has created more value for many more fellow Americans than any 1 man dying in the service of The State. https://t.co/JUp9X9N6ms
— Ilana Mercer (@IlanaMercer) July 30, 2016
The Statist Mindset Of ‘Libertarians’ Garry Johnson & William Weld
Donald Trump, Law, libertarianism, Nationhood, Rights, The State, War
Gary Johnson and his sidekick William Weld, Libertarian Party goofballs, are running for president and VP, respectively. The two fulminated to CNN’s Victor Blackwell against Donald Trump. From the libertarian perspective, though, their mindset was much more statist and deferential to state structures than Trump’s.
Weld, in particular, went over the various policies Trump was proposing, voicing objections to each that were thoroughly statist.
WELD: Some of the stuff that he’s running on I think is absolutely chaotic. I’m going to do this to Mexico. OK, that’s a violation of the North American Free Trade agreement, which is the supreme law of the land. It is a treaty. We signed it. I’ll do this to China. No questions asked. OK, that’s a violation of the World Trade Organization rules [which good libertarians despise], exposing us, the United States, to sanctions. And we would be the rogue nation. I don’t think we want to be the rogue nation. You know? Let’s let North Korea be the rogue nation, not us.
Trump can’t do what he proposes because he’ll be in violation of this or the other agreement between states, national and international, which Weld treats as holy writ.
Not to real libertarians. The idea of radical freedom is to dissolve the chains with which others have bound us. Smashing or refashioning these agreements and reclaiming national, state and individual sovereignty, as Trump proposes, is more libertarian than the queasiness these two evince at such actions.
Johnson and Weld objected to Trump’s proposals on the statist grounds that renegotiating agreements or optimizing them for Americans would violate agreements that by their nature sideline the American people.
You don’t get more un-libertarian than that. Then there’s the viva Hiroshima attitude:
Friend just called, horrified that @GovGaryJohnson is on CNN saying bombing of Hiroshima was a Good Thing. This is a "libertarian"?
— Justin Raimondo (@JustinRaimondo) May 27, 2016
UPDATED: What ‘Bombing ISIS’ In Syria Looks Like
Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, Middle East, Neoconservatism, Russia, Terrorism, War
This is what “bombing ISIS” in Syria looks like. You can’t find them, you can’t tell friend from foe, and you kill kids galore. It’s a bad idea.
“The truth about Syria: Undercover behind rebel lines,” By Clarissa Ward
The Russians did it. How will our Daisy Cutters differ?
UPDATED (3/22): Donald Trump, will you consider?
There are no good bombs.