Lew Rockwell on how libertarians were right about 9/11

A libertarian must never tire of saying “I told you so.” Nor is there a dearth of opportunities to do so. Before 9-11, for example, it was the libertarians who said that 1990s sanctions against Iraq and broader intervention in the Middle East would inspire terrorism. The libertarians also warned that FAA regulations weren’t really making the airlines secure. The libertarians further saw that hundreds of billions spent on “defense” and “intelligence” weren’t really providing either. 

Thus was 9-11, two years ago, a big “I-told-you-so” moment for libertarians. The hijackers, seething in anger at US policy in the Gulf region and the Middle East, exploited a FAA-regulated system with plenty of loopholes for bad guys, to crash into a major financial center, and the US government, despite all its spending and promises, was powerless to stop it. 

And yet, in this upside-down world, the big message after 9-11 was not that the government and its ways had failed us. Quite the opposite. We were told that the government would save us. It was libertarianism that failed. 

Remember? Hillary Clinton, always exploiting the political moment, said of the efforts to cope on that awful day, “we saw government in action.… It was the elected officials who were leading and comforting.” That’s an odd way to describe running for their lives, prior to seizing power from their bureaucratic bunkers.

Vice President Dick Cheney said, “one of the things that’s changed so much since September 11th is the extent to which people do trust the government, big shift, and value it, and have higher expectations for what we can do.” The triumph of hope over experience! 

George Will wrote that “Sept. 11 forcefully reminded Americans that their nation-state…is the source of their security.… Events since Sept. 11 have underscored the limits of libertarianism.” He is speaking here of the same nation-state that stood by and did nothing as 19 guys with box cutters took down the twin towers.

Francis Fukuyama joined in to proclaim the “fall of the libertarians”: 

[9-11] was a reminder to Americans of why government exists, and why it has to tax citizens and spend money to promote collective interests. It was only the government, and not the market or individuals, that could be depended on to send firemen into buildings, or to fight terrorists, or to screen passengers at airports. 

Albert Hunt of the Wall Street Journal typified this genre of commentary. “It’s time to declare a moratorium on government-bashing,” he wrote. 

For a quarter-century, the dominant public culture has suggested government is more a problem than a solution.… But, as during previous catastrophes, America turns to government in crisis.… For the foreseeable future, the federal government is going to invest or spend more, regulate more and exercise more control over our lives… We will hear much less about the glories of privatization in areas like airport security.… Top Bush administration officials will have to dramatically alter their views on regulation.… Moreover, more muscular authority must be given to the new Office of Homeland Security…Tougher security measures at home are unavoidable.… But there is no real debate over expansion in general. Sept. 11 has underscored the centrality of government in our lives. 

So it went, across the political spectrum. The idea was that the events of that day had somehow refuted all our slogans about cutting government, privatization, personal liberty, markets, and peace. Clearly, they said, it was excessive liberty that had led to this disaster. It was cuts in government, and too little foreign belligerence, that brought it on, while the public sector, from the New York firemen to the military bosses who exacted vengeance abroad, saved us.

~ Lew Rockwell, "Times Change, Principles Don't," Mises Wire, September 11, 2003

 

Walter Block: "I would say that 75% of libertarians favor Israel" regarding the Gaza invasion

I regard the Mises Institute as the preeminent Austro-libertarian group.  However, that's only the Mises Institute.  There's the Cato Institute which is much more pro-Israel, Reason Foundation is much more pro-Israel...  I would say that 75% of libertarians favor Israel and 25% don't, which is roughly my assessment of the overall population of the U.S.

~ Walter Block, "Is Zionism a Libertarian Movement?," Gilad Alper, 1:01:00 mark, May 18, 2024

Jacob Hornberger on the statist morass

Today, I pointed out, both Democrats and Republicans are leading America to disaster, especially with their out-of-control federal spending and debt.  We might well end up experiencing a perfect storm involving monetary, economic, and foreign-policy crises. 

American libertarians have the potential for leading the world out of this statist morass.  But we can do so only by adhering to libertarian principles and making the case for a genuinely free society.

~ Jacob Hornberger, "My Talk at Porcfest," The Future of Freedom Foundation, June 28, 2021

Kevin Duffy on the cyclical nature of the libertarian movement

Before getting too down on the libertarian movement, it helps to look at where we are in the cycle.  Ron Paul's popularity peaked around 2008-10 alongside the Great Financial Crisis.  12 years of bull markets and the greatest financial bubble in history later, it's incredible the movement even has a pulse. 

The crowd is completely detached from reality.  Signs in the financial markets include Tesla exceeding Berkshire Hathaway in market cap, Robinhood, day trading, option buying, SPACs, and the hottest IPO market since 2000.  The Fed can do no wrong.  No surprise, a parallel mania is taking place with Covid and worship of the medical authorities.  There is no way 2020 madness happens in a bear market.  These bubbles will burst as they always do.  Our job is to poke fun at them, not to convince people.  Sure, you might be able to convince a few, but the vast majority are in la la land.  Only when the bubble bursts will people be desperate for answers and ready to consider the non-interventionist point of view. 

For promoters of liberty, today's famine is tomorrow's feast.

~ Kevin Duffy, comment on The Tom Woods Show podcast, December 20, 2020

Emma Elliott Freire on the impact of the Covid rules on children

Articles about the impact of the pandemic on children tend to focus on the education they have lost due to school closures. But it is also worth noting that children are witnessing repeated violations of their innate sense of fairness. This may well leave them with a sense of mistrust towards institutions and authorities. Is COVID-19 going to raise up a generation of libertarians?

~ Emma Elliott Freire, "Why COVID Kids May Grow Up To Be Libertarians," FEE.org, October 13, 2020

Hans-Hermann Hoppe on how exclusion is required to achieve a free society

Libertarians, in their attempt to establish a free natural social order, must strive to regain from the state the right to exclusion inherent in private property.  Yet even before they accomplish this and in order to render such an achievement possible, libertarians cannot soon enough begin to reassert and exercise, to the extent that the situation still permits them to do so, their right to exclusion in everyday life.  Libertarians must distinguish themselves from others by practicing (as well as advocating) the most extreme form on intolerance and discrimination against egalitarians, democrats, socialists, communists, multiculturalists, environmentalists, ill manners, misconduct, incompetence, rudeness, vulgarity, and obscenity.  Like true conservatives,... true libertarians must visibly and ostentatiously dissociate themselves from the false multicultural and anti-authoritarian egalitarian left-libertarian impostors.

~ Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy: The God That Failed, p. 219

Jeff Deist on libertarians and humility

Being a libertarian means we don't know.  It means we don't know what's best for 320 million people in the U.S., much less 7 billion across the world.  So that, to me, involves humility.

~ Jeff Deist, "Jeff Deist on the Trouble with Libertarian Technocrats," The Tom Woods Show, January 10, 2020

Tom Woods on what it means to be a libertarian

Here's what libertarians think: you shouldn't commit acts of aggression against peaceful people.

That's it.

It has nothing to do with a hatred of rules, or even "wanting to be left alone," or individualism, or selfishness, or anything else. Some libertarians may indeed hate rules or be selfish, but these qualities do not follow from the central libertarian principle.

Which, again, is simply: no violence against the peaceful.

Now when you put it that way, libertarianism sounds at least intriguing, even attractive.  Which is why our critics never do put it this way.

Can society operate, and even flourish, without aggressive violence?

If we imbibe what we're told from grade school onward -- that we'd all be helpless boobs without the wise stewards who to our good fortune have agreed to rule over us -- then of course we already know the answer: why, of course not!  We need violence, and we need political leaders handing down orders, in order to enjoy civilized life.

Really?

I'm not so sure.

I think the opposite is true.

~ Tom Woods, September 30, 2019

Michael Kinsley on libertarians

Libertarians and communitarians (to continue this unjustified generalizing) are different character types. Communitarians tend to be bossy, boring and self-important, if they're not being oversweetened and touchy-feely. Libertarians, by contrast, are not the selfish monsters you might expect. They are earnest and impractical--eager to corner you with their plan for using old refrigerators to reverse global warming or solving the traffic mess by privatizing stoplights. And if you disagree, they're fine with that. It's a free country.

~ Michael Kinsley, "Libertarians Rising," Time, October 29, 2007

Joseph Stromberg on Howard Buffett

[Howard] Buffett’s consistent defense of classical liberal, free-market, republican, and anti-interventionist positions makes him an interesting, if little remembered, forerunner of today’s libertarianism and anti-Establishment conservatism. He was, as Murray Rothbard later pointed out, the most hard-core of the dwindling handful of Old Right politicians in the early Cold War period. Buffett contributed occasionally to such journals as Human Events, The Freeman, and later, New Individualist Review.

~ Joseph Stromberg, "The Old Cause," Antiwar.com, April 24, 2001