The Libertarian Priority
“I am getting more and more convinced that the war-peace question is the key to the whole libertarian business.” ~ Murray Rothbard
That our enemy is the state, there is no question. As Rothbard explains:
Briefly, the State is that organization in society which attempts to maintain a monopoly of the use of force and violence in a given territorial area; in particular, it is the only organization in society that obtains its revenue not by voluntary contribution or payment for services rendered but by coercion. While other individuals or institutions obtain their income by production of goods and services and by the peaceful and voluntary sale of these goods and services to others, the State obtains its revenue by the use of compulsion; that is, by the use and the threat of the jailhouse and the bayonet. Having used force and violence to obtain its revenue, the State generally goes on to regulate and dictate the other actions of its individual subjects.
What, then, could possibly be a higher priority for libertarians than these evil triplets?
How about war, empire, and the military? How about the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force? How about the warfare/police/national security state? How about intervention, invasion, and occupation? How about foreign aid, foreign bases, and foreign wars? How about bombs, bullets, and missiles? How about innocents injured, maimed, and killed? How about an aggressive, belligerent, and meddling foreign policy?
And don’t forget about the widow and orphan twins.
Rothbard early on recognized what libertarianism’s priority should be: “I am getting more and more convinced that the war-peace question is the key to the whole libertarian business.”
Until such time as the United States returns to the foreign policy articulated by Jefferson in his first inaugural address—“Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none”—the top priority of libertarians must be to expose the evils of the warfare state.
I didn’t say the only priority, I said the top priority. Food stamps don’t kill Americans or foreigners. Foreign interventions kill both. Working to privatize local garbage collection is certainly a good thing, but libertarians need to never lose sight of the insidious nature of the warfare state and U.S. foreign policy.
Nevertheless, some libertarians seem like they are more concerned about expanding gay rights than the evils of the warfare state and U.S. foreign policy.
Don’t be one of them.
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