Tuesday
There are times when I almost feel sorry for conservatives and their confusion over libertarian positions on issues and why those positions appear to shift from time to time.
Our position does not actually change though... we just give pragmatic support to one group or another according to what we perceive is the current greatest threat to our principles. There may be disagreements and even splits amongst libertarians over "what should we be doing right now?" These are temporary because the disagreements are over strategy and tactics and fine points of philosophy, not the goals.
A conservative may look at the support of our particular faction of libertarians (Samizdata and friends) for the war and believe we are fellow travellers. They do not understand we see al Qaeda and the mad mullahs as such a grave threat to liberty and individualism in the world that we temporarily find common cause with the State. Defense is one thing most (not all) libertarians agree is a function of even a minimalist state.
There is a certain pragmatism summed up in the old Arab saying "The enemy of my enemy is my friend". The Islamic faction which clothes itself in blood and the Koran are most certainly something we can not ignore. The longer you leave them alone, the bigger the war will be in the end. It is easier to cut out a tumor than to go after a metastasized cancer.
That does not mean these fruitcakes will always be number one on our anti-hit parade. As their threat subsides libertarians naturally turn their attention to the long term enemy of liberty: The State.
I am ecstatic (guardedly) to see things working out in Iraq. Because of that, I too can turn my attention to the State.
The State has done much to undermine freedom over the last decade, all in the name of 'protecting us'. They really believe it. Sadly, they do not seem to have the same love of liberty we do. This has been brought home to me recently by conservative commentators who have denounced critics who took stands I consider obvious and courageous.
One woman wrote she would rather die in a terrorist attack, even see her child do so than give up their liberties. She did not like the surveillance state that is being put together in the US (and which is a nearly completed edifice in the UK) in the name of 'protecting' her.
Some years ago, not long after 9/11, I said pretty much the same thing to a CIA guy I once chatted with over beers. I told him I would rather die under a nuclear fireball than give up one tiny bit of my liberty. I stand by that. Those who fought and died in our wars did not do so for safety. They died to defend liberty and the essential character of America from foreign ideologues who hate individualism, hate liberty and hate the very idea of limits on governance.
I sometimes wish I could agree with the anarchist wing that we could completely do without a State. My decades of personal experience and historical reading say otherwise. We need that monstrous ravening beast on occasion. Our problem is how do we keep it starved, chained and caged in the interim? That is a question the founders of America wrestled with. All things considered, they did about as well as could be hoped. It is indeed as they said: the defense of Liberty is the work of every generation.
Our job now is to wrest freedoms back from the beast that were taken in the name of defense. (Am I the only one who thinks we should have a Department of War and make it damn clear what it is for?) I consider that excuse tedious and just plain wrong. Defense to me means going over there (like we did) and kicking the crap out of the enemy on their home ground. It also means people at home must defend their liberty by risking their lives on a day to day basis. They must take a personal responsibility for stopping terrorists or at least making them appear failures.
People who whinge and cry into cameras for The State to 'protect them' are simply weak and contemptible. One expects that from dependent children: not from free adults. An adult stares coolly at the distant watching enemy and shows them that killing a few thousand of us will accomplish nothing except get us pissed off and the enemy and his next of kin and entire way of life very dead.
As Heinlein said: "You can never defeat a free man. The most that you can do is kill him."
Machiavelli advocated a people's militia rather than a professional army as it would be good on defence and would not support a prince on expeditionary warfare that was not a sure thing.
Posted by BrianSJ at November 20, 2007 06:58 PM
am I the only one who thinks we should have a Department of War and make it damn clear what it is for?
Talking of Heinlein, in one of his books (Expanded Universe, I think) he said something along the lines "No Department of Defense ever won a war."
I think this may have been true, at the time.
Posted by Simon Jester at November 20, 2007 07:03 PM
A friend of mind is an event-management consultant. In 2002 he consulted for a state fair in the U.S. During one of their planning meetings there was a debate over the kinds of security tactics they should employ — bag searches, banning beverage containers, that sort of thing. The deputy chief of police was arguing (refreshingly) for a less intrusive level of security. He said,
"Any coward can tolerate tyranny. It takes a brave man to live in a free society."
Wouldn't it be nice if all of our civil servants had that kind of courage?
Posted by Tedd McHenry at November 20, 2007 07:22 PM
I've always said so: between this government and the terrorists, I know who I'd rather take my chances with.
"Am I the only one who thinks we should have a Department of War and make it damn clear what it is for?"
I once read about a fighter pilot taking command of a squadron and sneering at the Strategic Air Command slogan, "Peace Is Our Profession". He went some lengths to remind his troops that "war is our profession, and don't you ever forget it."
The stark reference to reality was refreshing, to say the least.
Posted by Billy Beck at November 20, 2007 08:42 PM
"Deliver my mail, defend my country, and leave me the f*** alone."
That just about sums it up for me.
Posted by JezB at November 20, 2007 09:55 PM
One woman wrote she would rather die in a terrorist attack, even see her child do so than give up their liberties.
That's a nice sounding slogan, but you need to look into what liberties you give up, into quantities and circumstances.
For example - if, in some terrorist infested area, you can reduce the number of attacks and victims by having road blocks and check points - that might be a bargain worth making.
Slogans are nice, but in life you often have trade-offs.
Posted by Jacob at November 20, 2007 10:30 PM
I said pretty much the same thing to a CIA guy I once chatted with over beers
He told you he was CIA! God, standards are slipping; there was a time the only people who ever admitted to be working for the CIA were the janitors in Langley.
Posted by Frederick Davies at November 20, 2007 11:18 PM
No, he did not. Another friend who knew him from college did.
Posted by Dale Amon at November 20, 2007 11:30 PM
"Deliver my mail, defend my country, and leave me the f*** alone"
Why on earth, in the era of global courier companies, does the state need to be in the mail business?
Posted by Perry de Havilland at November 20, 2007 11:39 PM
Why on earth, in the era of global courier companies, does the state need to be in the mail business?
So we can plausibly deny getting our tax bill in the mail :)
Posted by Tex at November 21, 2007 01:30 AM
Considering today's news about the lost in the mail data discs you probably have a point there Perry.
I guess I just like the way it scans. "Defend my country and leave me the f*** alone" just doesn't sound so good!
hehe.
Posted by JezB at November 21, 2007 01:30 AM
Lysander Spooner was delivering mail better than the US government a century and a half before you were born.
It's why they forced him out of business.
Posted by Billy Beck at November 21, 2007 01:48 AM
Why on earth, in the era of global courier companies
Because no sane global courier company is going to want to run a postal service. This might be a moot point now as things move away from mail, but historically it was pretty important.
Even now running a postal service isn't a great business. You want to be able to pick and chose what services you run and how you do it. Running a universal system that has a goal to deliver to every household in a country is a poor business.
Posted by Daveon at November 21, 2007 02:05 AM
Running a universal system that has a goal to deliver to every household in a country is a poor business
Not entirely true; it is the fact that you have to charge everyone the same, whether they live up a mountain in the middle of nowhere or next door to your main headquarters, that really makes it a poor business model. Equality is the problem, not universality.
Posted by Frederick Davies at November 21, 2007 08:03 AM
JezB:
I guess I just like the way it scans. "Defend my country and leave me the f*** alone" just doesn't sound so good!
Once you add Triple Canopy or Blackwater or DynCorp to the mix, you end up with "Just leave me the **** alone."
I think we can call it good.
Posted by Sunfish at November 21, 2007 10:05 AM
it is the fact that you have to charge everyone the same, whether they live up a mountain in the middle of nowhere or next door to your main headquarters, that really makes it a poor business model.
With the introduction of the Penny Post in the UK, the volume of mail carried shot up and has been growing ever since.
Posted by ian at November 21, 2007 01:42 PM
What is that Heinlein quote REALLY?
I tried to google it for context, and you seem to be the only ones to render it exactly THAT way.
I came up with:
"You can never defeat a free man. The most that you can do is kill him."
"You can never defeat a free man. The most you can do is kill him"
"You cannot defeat a free man. The most that you can do is to kill him."
"You can never defeat a free man. The most that you can do is to kill him."
and
"You can't defeat a free man, all you can do is kill him!"
Posted by Jens Fiederer at November 21, 2007 09:09 PM
If you can find a copy of "The Sayings of Lazarus Long" (or something like that), you might find the definitive wording.
I might add that I consider myself a very fortunate person to have worked with both Robert and Virginia in the early days of the L5 Society. (I also put up a web site for Virginia for awhile also). Fascinating people, the both of them.
Posted by Dale Amon at November 21, 2007 10:49 PM
Best I can recall is, Heinlein wrote "you can't conquer a free man". Google shows a bunch of results for that.
Posted by Bryan Pick at November 22, 2007 09:42 AM
Daveon:
It is not just "Uncle Sam the monopoly man" which passed various statutes preventing people doing the thing that you repeat are not possible - it was most other governments.
For example, in Germany they were still attacking private postal services as late as 1900. Although the great days were long over.
Oh, by the way, other "public goods" (such as light houses) have also often been provided by voluntary action rather than taxes.
On Machiavelli:
Here, sadly, I find myself on the statist side (at least I think so).
Machiavelli was himself a poor guide to miltary tactics - favouring a return to swords and shields (what was good enough for ancient Romans......).
As for militia - they tend to loose against regular armies (unless politics in the home nation of the regular army turns against it).
Although the Romans may be an exception to this rule.
In all three Punic Wars the Romans had what was, officially at least, still a militia army - whereas Cathage relied on mercenaries. And the Romans, eventually, won all three wars.
However, the army of Cathage was not really a "standing army" such as the Romans had after the time of Marius - it was made up partly of citizens but also of sell swords from anywhere (organized by whatever General had hired them). The government of Cathage was rather scared of such military forces and refused to support them all out.
Even Hannibal was undermined by lack of support from his own government.
Rome was prepared to spend (in money and lives) whatever it took to win.
Although, to be fair, Rome may also have had a bigger population to call on (from the area it dominated).
That was another problem for Florence that N.M. considered.
How could somewhere the size of Florence or even Tuscany maintain its independence in the face of powers the size of France or Spain? Somewhere tiny and out of the way (like San Marino) might maintain its independence (because it was not worth bothering with) - but Florence was a prize.
Hence his interest in Italian unity - although he could come up with no workable plan to achieve this.
Of course, as a black hearted reactionary, I am not wildy happy with the course that Italian unity took in the 19th century - it might higher taxes for almost everywhere, language persecution in most areas (where non standard Italian was spoken or written), and conscription in places like Sicily that had not had it before (it is also forgotten that vastly more people died in Sicily in the struggle against the new Italy, than went on for years and years, than had died in unification - everyone remembers biscuit man and his Redshirts, but hardly anyone seems to care how things turned out).
This all might have been worth it if, as N.M. had dreamed centuries before, a united Italy had been able to defend against intervention by other powers - but the performance of the Italian state in such matters was hardly Roman.
Italy was soon to become a battlefield for alien armies again.
The Italian government was, like most governments, very poor at delivering the mail - but it was also useless at national defence.
Anyone who thinks Italians are cowards knows nothing about them - it was the system that did not work (even by the low standards of govenments), and it still does not work.
Posted by Paul Marks at November 23, 2007 12:08 AM
Anyone who thinks Italians are cowards, has not seen them drive:-)
Posted by Alisa at November 24, 2007 12:05 PM
It is from the "Notebooks of Lazarus Long". It was published as a standalone volume, but I believe they are also still published in Heinlein's "Time Enough For Love".
Posted by Madrocketscientist at November 26, 2007 11:03 PM
Sheesh, folks.
It is from a story published as "Revolt in 2100" and "If This Goes On ...":
When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, 'This you may not read, this you may not see, this you are forbidden to know,' the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything--you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.
Posted by mariner at November 29, 2007 08:48 PM
Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked ...
For proof of this [in the U.S.] look no further than public schools, universities, and the so-called "MainStream Media".
Posted by mariner at November 29, 2007 08:51 PM
