Mario Rizzo on Libertarians and War

Randy Barnett recently published an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal titled, "Libertarians and the War: Ron Paul doesn't speak for all of us."  Barnett's piece centers around the following question and answer:

Does being a libertarian commit one to a particular stance toward the Iraq war? The simple answer is "no."

Mario Rizzo wrote a letter to the editor of the WSJ commenting on Barnett's piece.  A shorter version of Mario's original letter ran in the paper two days ago.  Below is the original letter as well as the shorter version of the letter that appeared in the paper.

The Original:

To the editor:

Randy Barnett argues ("Libertarians and the War," July 17) that libertarianism does not imply any particular stance toward the Iraq War. He contends that as long as the U.S. government is delegated the task of protecting the American people from foreign aggression of one sort or another, there could be a reasonable libertarian argument in favor of the war – or, at least in favor, of some proper management of the war. As with most sophistic arguments there is a kernel of truth here. There is some configuration of facts that can, within libertarian principles, justify an attack on another country including Iraq. Nevertheless, Barnett does grave injury to the classical liberal and libertarian tradition by ignoring its strong Presumption of Peace. In his trenchant analysis of America’s entry into the First World War, Randolph Bourne captured the essence of the classical liberal critique of war: “War is the health of the State….The citizen throws off his contempt and indifference to Government, identifies himself with its purposes…and the State once more walks, an august presence, through the imaginations of men.” This pervasive effect of war was stressed by the nineteenth century libertarian Herbert Spencer who saw the evolution of society as a conflict between the peaceful voluntary structures of industrial society and the regimentation and bias toward state action inherent in war and militarism. War is a both an activity and frame of mind that values conformity and the acceptance of orders over the primacy of the individual. This is the primary cost of war. Of course, no classical liberal objects to self-defense. But where was the evidence of the threat from Iraq? We all now know that the “evidence” was unforgivably poor. The real motivation was regime change in the hope of making the Middle East more amenable to particular foreign policy goals. Furthermore, the U.S. government, as a signer of the U.N. Charter, had no authorization to invade, regardless of Saddam’s resistance to inspections. The immediate defense of the nation was not at stake so the “right” of every nation to self-defense cannot be honestly invoked. And to say, as some have, that the present disastrous consequences of the invasion were not reasonably foreseeable makes a mockery of foreign policy expertise. Can libertarians of good will disagree with the above? Perhaps. But an adequate libertarian case for war in Iraq would have to overcome the heavy burden imposed by the Presumption of Peace. No libertarian I know or heard of has even begun this task.

The Published Version:

WSJ, 07/30/2007, p.11

As with most sophistic arguments, there is a kernel of truth in Mr. Barnett's argument that libertarianism does not imply a particular stance toward the Iraq war. There is some configuration of facts that can, within libertarian principles, justify an attack on another country including Iraq. Nevertheless, Mr. Barnett does grave injury to the classical liberal and libertarian tradition by ignoring its strong presumption of peace. Of course, no classical liberal objects to self-defense. But where was the evidence of the threat from Iraq? We all now know that the "evidence" was unforgivably poor. The real motivation was regime change in the hope of making the Middle East more amenable to particular foreign policy goals. Regardless of Saddam's resistance to inspections, the U.S. government -- as a signee of the U.N. Charter -- had no authorization to invade. The immediate defense of the nation was not at stake so the "right" of every nation to self-defense cannot be honestly invoked. An adequate libertarian case for war in Iraq would have to overcome the heavy burden imposed by the presumption of peace. No libertarian I know of has yet begun this task.

Mario J. Rizzo

Comments

[Rafe Champion]

Clearly a distinction has to be made between diferent wars, especially between defensive and aggressive actions. It is a pity that these issues are mostly addressed during wartime because it would help to get sorted on basic principles during more relaxed times. The Vietnam debate revealed that the Australian law on conscientious objection to military
service was very bad, requiring (a) religious belief as a ground for objection and (b) objection to ALL wars. Secular patriots had no
legitimate ground to object. This has been fixed after a long process of review under the previous Labor administration. I wonder if they dragged their feet for fear that improvement in that law would prompt renewed challenges to compulsory labor union membership (a form of conscription)in some jobs.

What is the US law on conscientious objection these days?

[Robert Higgs]

FYI: My own original letter, an excerpt from which was printed in the WSJ along with Mario Rizzo's letter and two others on July 30.

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2004