Over and over and over and over and over, like a monkey with a miniature cymbal
A while back, I had cause to wonder whether right-wing libertarians were just cleverer Tories, on the matter of inheritance tax. The new war for the Litani makes me ask the same question.
Why have almost all the supposed “libertarian” sites come out firin’ for Israel? It can’t just be the comfort of the electronic echo-chamber. A random sample of actual libertarians would likely show a scattering of reactions, up to and including compassionate indifference. Perhaps one would expect them to mention that, whoever the actual aggressor(s), a televised invasion of a sovereign nation won’t work, not unless the intention is to ignite a Middle East war and/or strengthen Hezbollah’s hand in Lebanon (I’ve seen this considered on “pro-Israel left” sites, for example). At the very least, I’d expect some mention that war is the health of the Israeli state.
Second (ta, Alex), “libertarian”-minded sites seem more interested in excuse-making for IAF and IDF screw-ups, getting down and dirty with speculation and paranoid conspiracy, than in critical (rational-individualistic) analysis. That one of Cameron’s shiny new A-listers would give credence to this loaded nonsense isn’t surprising, but since when is a principled libertarian motivated by apologism for actually existing statehood?
Finally, the “libertarian” defence of collective punishment: this is perhaps the idiotic apogee, and could easily have been penned after Oradour-sur-Glane. A twentieth-century doctrine with deep European roots, in the sack of Beziers during the Albigensian Crusade: Neca eos omnes. Deus suos agnoscet. Not only barbaric, but a strange, somewhat Stalinist position for a social individualist to be taking. Collective guilt is the justification used to murder Londoners in 2005. The Tel Aviv bus bomber’s mitigation. Of course, it’s not quite so odd if these “social individualists” are simply attack dogs for the powerful, who delight in the consolidation of ancien regime in the Middle East. If, that is, they are nothing more than the educated electronic vanguard for brainless aggressive Republicanism.
Atiwar.com is an obvious exception to this, as I would suspect Lee Rockwell and Karen Kwiatkowski to be.
There were some U.S. Libertarians who supported Bush through the Iraq War and beyond and it is no suprise that they support US/Israel’s current adventure.
What a strange question. In a conflict between a democratic society under siege and a bunch of genocidal throwbacks to the Middle Ages, whom exactly would you expect a libertarian to back?
True, I have just returned from a long car journey and I am more than a bit fagged but no matter how many times I read your post I can’t understand a word of it!
I mean, what’s “apologism” when it’s at home?
Those Libertarians don’t regard Lebanese as proper humans (see comment 2). Also, libertarianism is a high-selfishness, low-solidarity position: it’s all about my freedom, and anyone and anything that gets in the way of that can go to hell. Certainly there is no solidarity with the Lebanese being violently oppressed by a state, yet I’m sure that if the average second-amendment advocate found bombs falling on his house he’d fire back, regardless of the moral colouring of the bombs.
“I’m sure that if the average second-amendment advocate found bombs falling on his house he’d fire back, regardless of the moral colouring of the bombs.”
Which just might explain why the Israeli’s, who have suffered two years of being fired at by rockets from Lebanon, a country with whom they agreed a peace deal, are indeed firing back!
“Those Libertarians don’t regard Lebanese as proper humans “
Um I don’t follow. Israel makes efforts to warn Lebanese civilians of impending raids and considers it regrettable when there are casualties. Hezbollah does not warn prior to raids and celebrates when their are casualties.
Find me a Libertarian site where this is not clearly understood. The difference is that Libertarians clearly understand that Hezbollah is flouting laws on the conduct of war and must bear responsibility for the same.
This accusation that libertarians don’t regard some people as human is baseless, disgusting and unfounded.
“it’s all about my freedom, and anyone and anything that gets in the way of that can go to hell. “
Bollocks. That’s anarchy not libertarianism. Libertarianism is very clearly “I am free to do whatever I like SO LONG AS I DO NOT INFRINGE ON THE FREEDOM OF OTHERS”.
Why is this so difficult to understand?
“Certainly there is no solidarity with the Lebanese being violently oppressed by a state, “
Hezbollah is not really a state. Oh. Sorry, you mean Israel. Silly me.
“yet I’m sure that if the average second-amendment advocate found bombs falling on his house he’d fire back, “
Errmmm? Find me a libertarian site complaining about return fire on uniformed IDF/IAF combatants engaging a Hez position.
And before you go off on a ramble about the two soldiers kidnapped that started this whole thing, that doesn’t really count as “firing back”, does it?
“regardless of the moral colouring of the bombs. “
you really cannot make out ANY moral distinction between the indiscrimate use of an area weapon against highly populated civilian areas and the use of precise munitions against military targets, specifically cited – in flagrant breach of the Geneva Conventions – in civilian areas?
Oh dear.
There you have the nub of the problem for the Libertarian :
“I am free to do whatever I like SO LONG AS I DO NOT INFRINGE ON THE FREEDOM OF OTHERSâ€Â.
Seems like a simple stance but in complex issues like this it becomes less straightforward.
The question the libertarian should be asking him/herself is “What strategy is most likely to bring about the desired result?” (see above)
Well it seems to me that raising Lebanon and turning the country into what is termed a “failed state” is not going to bring about the required result, the strategy that is being employed at the moment is going to make matters worse and rally support behind Hezbollah while weakening support for more Israel-friendly factions within Lebanon.
Now people are forgetting important facts from the early days of the conflict.
Early on Hezbollah requested dialogue for a prisoner exchange, this was an ideal opportunity to open discourse but too much pride was at stake. Also few people acknowledge that the IDF made regular sorties across the Lebanese border since the last withdrawal, the rockets were often a response to these but everyone gets so heated that nobody knows which came first any more.
Did you know that a month beforehand a group of Mossad agents were apprehended in Lebanon complete with explosives and weapons? The Lebanese government protested to the UN but to no avail.
Now everyone is pissed-off and wants revenge – what a bloody mess.
I confess I don’t understand this either. In particular, I don’t get this:
but since when is a principled libertarian motivated by apologism for actually existing statehood?
Personally I’ve never met one of these ‘principled libertarian’ types and I’m an unpricipled one myself so I’m a little confused. Libertarians are not anarchists – they believe in the (limited) state and I’m assuming this allows for ones that are “actually existing”? Are you saying they shouldn’t do this at all, or is it only with regards Israel that they should be so indifferent to what actually exists? And if so, why?
I shouldn’t speak for them, and I’m not sure who all these ‘libertarians’ you refer to are anyway, but I’d assume they’d argue capitalism with liberal democracy is a more liberal political arrangement than a theocratic bureaucracy and see in this conflict the former being represented by Israel?
Simple, really. You have to look pretty hard, among intelligent critical thinkers anyway, for anyone acting the apologist for firing rockets at Haifa (yes, I know they’re out there). However, there are three apologists for the dropping of bombs on residential suburbs just in the eight comments above. And if you follow the link in the piece, you’ll find a boilerplate apology for medieval collective punishment, posted at a leading “libertarian” site. Frankly, I find it odd that anyone doesn’t find that odd.
Plus they ought to be opposed to the demand that Hizbollah disarm, on the grounds that that would be gun control.
Please remember, that for all the many faults of Isreal, it is basically a democratic state.
Hizbollah are fascists.
They are paid for by the Iranian government who are, effectively nazis.
Hizbollah deliberately place themselves among civilians, so as to be hard to shoot at -the Canadians killed in the UN bunker were victims of this – Hozbollah were standing on top of the bunker.
But then, we’re in the run-up to WWII are we not?
With the US playing the part of Stalin’s communists, and the islamists being the nazis.
Note that Stalin wasn’t a nice man, and his regime was repulsive, but the nazis (certainly from our point of view) were worse.
Sound familiar?
Are we prepared to support the Spanish republican (Isreali) government and, more importantly, people, from nazi genocide?
You have to look pretty hard, among intelligent critical thinkers anyway, for anyone acting the apologist for firing rockets at Haifa (yes, I know they’re out there).
Oh come off it. You’ve added this caveat as a get-out from the bleedingly obvious fact that there is much more uncritical support for Hizbollah than there is for Israel amongst the ‘left’. But the many amongst the former are exempted as not being “intelligent critical thinkers” and in exchange you give us two links? Hmph! Not very convincing.
Anyway, you haven’t explained what you’re on about with this “actually existing statehood”. Is this a real phrase or did you just invent it in order to make those you disagree with sound Stalinist?
When did I say this post was about the “left”? It was specifically about libertarians, and even more specifically (predominantly) about so-called “right-wing libertarian” writers, who seem to have dropped their usual critical, rational-individualist approach in favour of a defence of an actually-existing state. A defence some of whose actions, in my opinion, don’t warrant. Further, some of these people happily defend collective punishment (apparently it’s okay if you send leaflets first). If we tried the doctrine out in their communities, I’m certain they would object. Spotted the inconsistency?
Don’t believe me? I’d be interested in an alternative reading of that post at Samizdata. I really can’t be bothered to post links to much of this bile elsewhere, but if you think about it for 30 seconds, I’ll bet you can jump to a site or three. Try some of the blogs of those who’ve commented here already and take it from there.
As for those on the left who have defended Hezbollah, even “glorified” them, well I think we can agree that many aren’t intelligent, and the vast majority aren’t libertarians, who were the subject of the post after all. If you’re thinking of “Lenin”, who certainly is the first and perhaps the second, then yes, they do exist. (Though if you think he and I are intellectual soulmates, your memory doesn’t stretch back to here.) However, I’ve yet to see him justify collective punishment quite so crisply, and how does his existence negate in any way my main point(s)?
Strangely enough, not everything in this world, nor even everything I scrawl on t’Interweb, is about the “left”.
1)
Hezbollah – bunch of basards.
Israel – defending themselves from said bastards.
Lebanese people – victims of crossfire.
2)
Hezbollah – claim (sometimes) to be fighting for the Lebanese/Arab people, yet use them as human shields.
Israel – claims to be trying to avoid civilian casualties, but used missiles and bombs to attack Hezbollah because it’s easier and safer (for them) than street-by-street clearance, which could reduce civilian casualties but would increase their own.
Lebanese people – continue to be victims of crossfire, plus start to resent being blown up all the time. That resentment will be aimed at the people firing the missiles, not the people they are firing them at.
3)
Seeing that Hezbollah bear the brunt of the original sin in this case should not preclude the recognition that although Israel’s situation is difficult at best (well-nigh impossible, in fact), their current tactics are not only not working but are potentially creating even more problems.
Nor should seeing Hezbollah as the people that sparked this particular conflict lead to – often only inferred, but nonetheless present in much of the most fervently pro-Israel comment – the tarring of the rest of the population of Lebanon with the same brush.
Hezbollah are bastards, therefore the Lebanese people deserve to die – which seems to be the thought process of a number of the people/groups our man Jarndyce has identified above – is not a logical step.
“Hezbollah – claim (sometimes) to be fighting for the Lebanese/Arab people, yet use them as human shields.”
Except even that one is a matter of debate.
As ever each side uses the alleged attrocities of the other to justify committing their own crimes. The problem is many people act like football supporters and have to pick one team to support (except football fans can be generally very critical of the teams they support, which isn’t the case here).
I suppose what you want is – if you were to deny that right-libertarians are just clever Tories – a distinction between people who claim to be right-libertarians but actually are just Tories with strong views about the free market, and genuine right-libertarians, who, I would have thought, would probably be fairly skeptical about the state possessing a military, let alone using it. You could test by asking about whether the mere existence of the Pentagon/Trident is a flagrant injustice. It may be that there are, by that distinction, no actually-existing right-libertarians.
Of course, we could push the distinction and get three categories: free-market Tories claiming to be something called a right-libertarian; people claiming to be something called a right-libertarian; people who realise that enforcing exclusive rights over property involves interference, who get called left-libertarians, but would, accurately, be the only people called libertarians.
Surely a generally principled individualist libertarian would prefer to support Hezbollah. There’s a lot been made of it’s ideology, but the fact remains that it doesn’t control the state, affiliation to it purely voluntary and unlike Israel it doesn’t force anyone to join its armed wing.It also maintains extensive social services through a combination of charity and donations from business affiliates rather than through coercive taxation.
Israel may be a democracy, but from a libbo point of view that’s not strictly relevant – after all a democracy is a form of political organisation that uses the fact that it has a regular head count to coerce people into paying money to the state that they’d rather spend on themselves.
And while the Hezb’s fight with volunteer forces the IDF consists of 20,000 professionals, 85,000 conscripts and 800,000 reservists – people who the state gives no choice but to fight. And of course, the number of reservists Israel uses also raises the question of fighters hiding amongst the civilian population.
On the other hand, hezbollah’s successful resistance on the ground in South Lebanon shows that the voluntary principle applied with sufficient determination is enough to stymie what, from a libertarian point of view, is the attempt by a state to unleash overwhelming coercive power through its well armed helots.
Come on libbos! Up the Hez!
Those were really painful links to look at, you bastard. I agree. I’ve never been able to follow what’s going on between the ears of a libertarian. They’re like religious nuts who contradict everything written down about their creed. Who would Jesus bomb?
Yes, you’d think they would admire the pants off the Iraqi insurgency or Hezbol, those guys who take to the hills when a foreign army bombs their way into their country, and who fight back with pure ingenuity and against all the odds. But for the colour of their skin, the story is like all their rambo-style wet-dreams.
But they’re not the slightest bit interested. Instead, they know which side is right, and then make stuff up to fit it. So, rather than these fighters actually defending their homelands against aggressive attacks, they have to be thoughtless ideologues under orders from a foreign state. Thirty years ago, the enemy fighters were driven by their belief in Marx, which was always quite a silly idea. Now they are willing to fight and die because they “hate our freedom”.
I’m still struggling with the constant assertion that the loss of Lebanese life is terrible, but all down to Hezbollah’s tactics… The notion is as juvenile as me swinging my arms wildly about as I walk down a busy street declaring that anyone hit had only themselves to blame.
Since when have Hezbollah’s military tactics *not* been guerilla? Declaring that they are all terribly unsporting by not facing the IDF across an open field, and that if *only* they did this, the Lebanese population would be spared is… well, criminal.
Israel is well aware of the nature of its enemy. Using conventional airstrikes and artillary against an guerillas embedded in a civilian population is not simply stupid (in that it will not achieve the desired goal), not simply a case of ‘oh well, they didn’t play ball’ – it is a failure to embrace the fact that it is their duty to protect civilian life, and to fight in a manner which upholds this.
Simple. If Hezbollah were hiding in Israeli, US, British, French, German or Australian cities, there would be no airstrikes on populated areas. As Hezbollah are Lebanese however, it seems Israel believes that they have free reign to shoot wherever they like, and civilian casualties are ‘tragic’ but unavoidable.
Israel – claims to be trying to avoid civilian casualties, but used missiles and bombs to attack Hezbollah because it’s easier and safer (for them) than street-by-street clearance, which could reduce civilian casualties but would increase their own.
Yes, although the fact that the Lebanese said that the army — the official one, I mean — would fight against the IDF if Israel tried an invasion. Presumably, Israel — naturally wanting to safeguard the safety of its own citizens — preferred not to fight two armies and also realised that high-level bombing was going to cause less casualties to their own side.
You know: like we did when we (illegally) bombed the shit out of Serbia. Or is it not “disproportionate”
when we bomb the crap out of civilians?
As for your main thrust, well, maybe I should reclassify myself as a “libertarian pragmatist”. Or, of course, look at the Wikipedia definition of libertarian, which contains the following line:
Force is not opposed when used in retaliation for initiatory aggressions such as trespassing or violence.
Obviously, there are those of us who believe that this principle is not inconsistent with Israel’s actions. In fact, if a libertarian were to believe that Israel was attacked first (something, of course, that is far from clear) then we would have to support her over her aggressor.
There is, of course, more to it than that. It is really about degrees, I suppose; ultimately, a democracy such as Israel fundamentally allows more personal freedom than the fundamental theocracies that Hezbollah represents. If one believes that there is a wider conflict between democracy/the West/Israel/whatever and Islamist theocracies (which many do; not least since, just before the Iraqi elections in January 2005, Al-Zarqawi declared “a bitter war against “the principle of democracy and all those who seek to enact it”) then a libertarian will always be biased towards the democracy, for reasons which should be patently obvious.
This is, I think, how I feel about the matter. I don’t necessarily condone Israel’s retaliatory action but, then again, if the Lebanese government had forced the disarmament of Hezbollah as per UN Resolution 1559 (which, I will admit, is easier said than done and may have run the risk of a civil war) we might not be in this situation.
But ultimately, it is a question of democracy versus fundamental theocracy. No contest for a libertarian. Or would you disagree?
DK
There are a lot of straw men set up in these comments for attack. The nasty people being described generally sound more like anarchists or survivalists than libertarians.
What’s interesting is the fierce dislike of “libbos” expressed by some here. Socialists and other Statists of various hues turned the 20th Century into the greatest era of carnage in human history. There were no victims of libertarianism, as far as I can recall.
Why the intensity? One has to suspect that here be Socialists with an unsatiated lust to control and oppress.
Comment 19 is really interesting. The analogy is so poor that, if purposefully false, one wonders whom he hopes to fool. Israel knows its enemies shelter behind women and children, so she must just accept that she can’t ever attack them, whatever they do? Embedding guerrillas in a civilian population is a war crime. Hezbollah is responsible for the consequences of that – but then it is clear that it desires and glories in those consequences.
The fact remains that if the Arabs lay down their arms there will be peace. If Israel lays down her arm, there will be genocide. Read the charters of Hezbollah and Hamas. Compare and contrast with IDF doctrine.
Apologists for Hezbollah should be clear about what they are doing. Their calls for”peace” are so much more than just naieve in this context, that it is almost impossible to believe in their sincerity.
They are calling for a ceasefire that will return a “normality” in which Israelis die in rocket attacks while Hezbollah and Hamas remain safely under the protection of the Lebanese government and the Palestinian Authority respectively.
Sigh. ‘The Arabs.’
Do people really believe that every citizen of Lebanon is a member of Hezbollah? Have people again forgotten that we’re talking about a guerilla group amongst civilians, not a nation of guerillas?
Of course, something of a self-fulfilling prophecy here – the fight is making Hezbollah much more popular. Much longer, and the Israelis will have managed to radicalise whomever is left. Yeehaw.
Self defence is one thing – but you can’t claim that pistolwhipping my neighbour/brother/mother/pet dog is self-defence if I slap you around. What about if my mother cheers me on – do you get to knock her about a bit then?
Libertarianism is not anarchism, there is some room for a small constrained state that performs it’s few functions and keeps out of every other aspect of life. The major one of these functions is the protection of it’s citizens. So a state maintaining an army to defend it’s citizens is perfectly supportable, as is using it, in order for a state to defend its citizens from outside aggressors.
The accusation that the author of the Samizdata piece is calling for collective punishment seems wide of the mark to me. Surely the essence of punishment is that it is deliberately aimed at the person or people on the receiving end of it? I don’t think that anyone apart from the loonier left hand end of the political spectrum is accusing Israel of deliberately targetting civilians are they? Yes, there are civilians dying but it’s a war and, however appalling, this does happen in war. But it is clearly not collective punishment.
Mind you, I don’t accept the Samizata author’s contention that those caught in the crossfire are somehow to blame. It would be a brave person to stand up to Hizballah.
It does seem to me the libertarians should support Hizbullah! After all, the demand that Hizb should disarm is surely a demand for “gun control” – something that libertatians usually rage against!
Or is gun control suddenly acceptable now if it is Arabs who are being disarmed?
A British libertarian, like any other brand of Brit, should take no interest in dreary semitic civil wars except for a determination to keep the UK well out of them.
Any Jew/Muslim with a British passport who shills for Israel/Arab countries or Iran should be made to live there. And no more of this ‘dual nationality’ crap, which allows Shirley Porter to flee to Tel Aviv when the law’s after her assets, and to flee back to Mayfair when the missiles start falling.
But a milittary still has to be paid for, and while I can see that courts and so on are a requirement of enforcing the set of property rights right-libertarians favour, it’s not entirely clear that a military would be, and surely not a military with any significant offensive capability.