Friday, August 29, 2014

[VIDEO] Libertarians NEED to create market for military/defense ideas!

HOW can we provide for a strong national defense and community defense in ways that uphold libertarian values?

Not the easiest question to answer! While non-intervention is excellent for preventing future blowback, it does NOTHING about the blowback that already exists and is still boiling up.  Discussed are:
  • The Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria
  • Paramilitary drug cartels in Mexico and on the U.S. border
  • Crime in our cities and towns
  • Imperial wars versus libertarian just wars

So... we need libertarian ideas on military and national/community defense!

This conversation is from the August 20, 2014 episode of "Breaking the Oathbreakers" from the NWO Truth Radio network.

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Five Libertarian Ideas #23 - Libertarian national defense, Part II




President Obama calls for “peace”
President Obama has said about the rioting and police response in Ferguson, MO: "Now is the time for peace and calm on the streets of Ferguson. Now is the time for an open and transparent process to see that justice is done." Which is exactly why he allows the Pentagon to distribute military arsenals to local police departments like Ferguson PD... -8/15

The Pentagon
From the Pentagon to the police station
I am NOT okay with the Pentagon giving military arsenals to local police departments. I can see the use for a SWAT team but not a SWAT army. The Pentagon should be issuing surplus goods to the National Guards. If there is a genuine military-grade threat at home, the Governor should call up the state militia, NOT militarized police. -8/15

When statist academics command armies
One of the things I like best about Navy SEAL Dick Marcinko's books is that he tells it like it is. There are always politicos in Washington--some idealistic to the point of self-righteous, some totally corrupt--who constantly screw with the military.

Despite their naivety and outright arrogance, none of these pencil-pushing idiots have ever served or knows how to lead troops in battle. Yet they use the military to push their personal agendas and it always gets people killed. -8/17

Private military/security contractors
Citizen militias vs. private military companies
Libertarians are often undecided on whether the ideal military organization is the citizens' militia or the private military company. Both entities can align with libertarian ideas, depending on the morality and objectives of the operators.

The citizens' militia predates the US Army by over 150 years, but the first English colonial warriors were private sector troops, as Plymouth and Jamestown colonies were corporate endeavors. Just as both entities can be effective tools for communal self-defense, both types of entities can throw away morality and become instruments of oppression for states, quasi-states, warlords, and private sector despots. -8/18

Libertarians, anarchists, and voting
For those who believe that the state is violence and that even voting is ultimately participation in such violence, consider this: voting for libertarians, or libertarian ballot measures, is self-defense. -8/14


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Private military contractors photo courtesy of Private Military Contractors Facebook page. Pentagon aerial photo Camila Ferreira and Mario Duran used via CC BY-SA 3.0 license, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Toward a New Liberty: Why We Disagree

Photo by Judd Weiss
Many in the movement have called me a statist, and that pisses me off like you wouldn't believe. (For starters, calling someone inside the movement a statist is childish ad hominem. It's also a great way to get people to agree with you... NOT!


I'm a libertarian through and through, but I operate differently from most of you. Here's how:

Most of you have a brilliant grasp of libertarian theory. You're focused on the finish line. For some, the finish line is a government that obeys the Constitution to the letter; for others, the finish line is full harmonious anarchy.

You see how things ought to be, then you see how things are (police brutality, unjust wars abroad, obscene taxation) and the difference horrifies you.

It's TOO EASY to focus on the finish line and then self-righteously preach about how the police are pigs, how we don't need a standing army, how the state must be done away with, etc. Too easy!

I see the finish line and I want it just as badly as you do. But I also understand that we need to GET THERE first. It won't happen overnight, and we won't get to the libertarian society in one Great Leap Forward. It happens through baby steps.

Yours Truly reading "The Moral Revolution in Atlas Shrugged"
So when I disagree with you, I'm not negating the Rothbardian vision of a new liberty. I'm either making recommendations on the NEXT STEP on the long journey to get there, or I'm telling you to cool it on living in Theory Land and get back to the now, so that you can help me identify ways to get to that new liberty. Remember, simply identifying how things ought to be does NOTHING to change the reality of what's happening now in real time.

We need to consciously and constantly work towards the finish line, inch by inch and yard by yard. We do this by scaling back big government, having honest and productive discussions with those who disagree with us, and supporting market innovations that complement our worldview (i.e. Uber, Bitcoin, the Internet). Sometimes we'll need to make the best of a bad situation if it advances our cause.

The liberty movement NEEDS theorists--engineers--like you to help us keep our eye on the ball, the finish line, so that our movement never loses its soul. But the movement also needs people like me--navigators--to pay attention to "conditions of the road" so that our movement can get there rather than be a pseudo-religion.



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Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Five Libertarian Ideas #22 - Libertarian National Defense at Home and Abroad

The Second Amendment and the next generation
Being a rifle shooting instructor has been a privilege. I love being able to teach the next generation about proper gun use, sportsmanship, and self-defense. The police can't be everywhere, nor do we want them everywhere, and criminals will continue to disobey the rule of law and human rights (surprise, surprise!). I'm a firm believer that the best way to stop evil people with guns is to have more good people with guns. -7/23

US Army troops patrol Afghanistan's Highway 1

"Limited war" in Afghanistan
This half-assed policy of undeclared "limited war" is only getting my brothers and sisters killed. We either completely conquer Afghanistan so that it will never be the same, or we leave and give the Afghans the liberty to destroy each other rather than have more of our people killed by "allies." -8/5

Toward a small standing army

You want a small standing army like the one envisioned in the Constitution? It can be done in 3 years.
1) Increase and expand special operations in the regular forces so we can neutralize threats without conventional forces.

2) Increase and expand the state militias (i.e. the National Guard and state defense forces). This gives us Title 10 troops who can be activated to fight constitutionally declared wars, while giving the several states citizen-soldiers immune from federal activation. -8/5

National Guard Special Forces soldiers in counterterrorism training

Groupthink: hating the police
It disturbs me to see so many libertarians expressing hatred for the police. I thought we were the enlightened group who sees people as individuals--free agents--rather than lumping them all together based on race, religion, or occupation. Keep in mind, the vast majority of police officers have neither beaten protestors nor shot people. -8/14

Civilians who think they're military experts
Not gonna lie. When civilian libertarians lecture me about the military, it's like listening to a Keynesian try to "teach" me economics. Just 'cause you read Albert Jay Nock and watched 'Lone Survivor' does NOT give you the right to be a pain-in-the-ass know-it-all intellectual. We have plenty of THOSE in academia. MILITARY ORGANIZATIONS WILL NOT DISAPPEAR IN ANARCHY; THEY WILL MERELY BE PRIVATIZED. (Furthermore, don't assume the PMC or militia in your area will be libertarian...) -8/14

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Images by the Department of Defense and National Guard Bureau and are in the public domain.

Sunday, August 17, 2014

A Question on ISIS, Terrorism, and Libertarian Response

Screenshot from an execution video from ISIS propaganda


Fellow libertarians, we have a major problem. When the federal government waged its illegal wars and clandestine interventions abroad, it bred hatred and ultimately blowback. As I see it, ISIS is worse than Al Qaeda. The previous waves of jihadists' main grievance against our people [Americans] was that our government occupied Islamic holy lands. Their main goal was to remove foreign occupation forces from their holy lands and from the Middle East. ISIS has upped the stakes and done what Al Qaeda couldn't, conquering extensive territory and establishing a state.

Al Qaeda offered rhetoric on establishing a Caliphate and expanding; ISIS is actually doing it, and they're kicking ass and taking names. Furthermore, they've made it absolutely clear that they'll continue expanding and that they're coming for us. They don't care about the difference between the State and We the People; they don't care about statism/tyranny versus anarchy/liberty; they don't care about our nonaggression principle. Hell, they make no qualms about mass-executing civilians for not being good enough Muslims.

They're coming for us, sooner or later, and they're raising their sons to carry on the jihad. They may not be able to send infantry or armored divisions to attack the US, but they'll sure as hell send cells and suicide bombers to kill in America. The ISIS press secretary literally announcing the Islamic State's short term goal of sending "martyrs" to America and their end goal of "raising the flag of prophet Muhammad over the White House." They've promised to attack us; so far they've shown in Iraq and Syria that they keep their promises. 


I'm not afraid of them, but I believe my level of concern to be a healthy one; I'm not afraid of burglars but I still lock my doors at night. So when an organization of assholes who execute 2000 people in single swoops announces an intention of sending violence to the country I live in, I'd like to have a contingency plan JUST IN CASE.


How then do we as libertarians stand by the nonaggression principle and non-interventionism when ISIS continues to expand its state and crush liberty? How do we as libertarians help America prepare for self-defense knowing THIS manifestation of blowback is coming for us? When terrorism targets us, how do We the People fight terrorism without betraying libertarian principles?

Not training or arming foreign armies and insurgencies is a no-brainer in my book, as we would all agree that it causes blowback. However, not causing further blowback in the future doesn't change the fact that a state and army, who hates us for not being like them, currently exist and have declared that they want a piece of America. Also, I'm completely against forfeiting civil liberties over to the government so it [they] can "protect" us. Ben Franklin said that those who trade liberty for security deserve neither.

How do we apply libertarian principles in real-time given the current conditions in American society and the rest of the world? While there's still relative peace on our shores, we NEED to think of ways to prepare for and respond to terrorism, foreign and domestic, without betraying libertarian principles. 


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Execution photo from an ISIS video, courtesy of New York Daily News. Second [mass] execution photo from ISIS' Twitter feed, courtesy of news.com.au.

Friday, August 8, 2014

Five Libertarian Ideas #21 - War in Gaza, War in Ukraine, Personal responsibility

Israeli soldiers shield a child during a rocket attack

Arguing over Gaza
Since Jews and Muslims, liberals and conservatives are BACK into hysterical arguing over whether Israel or Palestine has the moral high ground in Gaza, I would like to formally protest the U.S. government's illegal conquest and occupation of my two ethnic motherlands, northern Mexico and the Confederate States of America. ‪#‎lol‬ -7/12

Alcoholism and personal responsibility
Dealing with alcoholic family members brings me in touch with my inner Ayn Rand. No, I don't want to help you. Your poor choices do not amount to my emergency. You had every opportunity under the sun to get your act together. Stop blaming other people for your problems. Others may enable your parasitic behavior but I refuse to participate. -7/13

PTSD from gang violence in LA
Every day this summer I've worked with teenage boys who have PTSD from gang violence in LA. They have thousand yard stares and can recount in graphic detail their friends and neighbors being shot, and them being attacked for refusing to join a gang.

Every day these boys make the decision to risk their lives going to school and to Scout meetings, and they're working towards becoming Eagle Scouts and making plans to afford college.

Then you've got people here in the suburbs who were handed everything on a silver platter, who make every excuse for not having their act together. It makes me sick. -7/18

Anti-Russian mentality
Julie Borowski did well to pose this question: Is there an anti-Russian mentality in the US? I think there is, and it's remained after the Cold War, and that mentality bothers me. I'm in no way anti-Russian, but rather anti-Kremlin. The thuggish actions of Comrade Putin and his merry band of ex-KGB officers and former Party apparatchiks do not represent the vast majority of Russians who manage to live their lives without invading neighboring countries, promoting Communism, or praising Stalin. -7/21

Civilian casualties in the War in Ukraine
Between the Russian government covertly shooting down the airliner and the Ukrainian government carrying out multiple air-to-ground strikes, more and more civilians are being killed in the crossfire. This is unacceptable! Civilians will inevitably be caught in the crossfire of wars but if risk of civilian casualties can be minimized, it should be minimized immediately. It's better for both sides to risk soldiers (all of whom are volunteers in this war) on ground operations than to carry out air operations that kill more civilians. -7/22

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Photo by the IDF