The question that forms the title of this post first entered my mind when I put up a post about Martin Luther King a couple of months ago, around the King birthday celebration. People honor King for working to free his people — Americans of African descent — while I look at his other attempts — to interfere with our trying to extend freedom to the people of Vietnam — and see King a lot less favorably.
But more recently this same question has occurred to me in the context of two other people, politically far removed from King: Ron Paul and Gary Johnson. Paul and Johnson are both considered libertarians: Paul was the Libertarian nominee for the Presidency in 1988, though before and after that year he has been involved in Republican Party politics; Gary Johnson is seeking to be the LP's candidate in 2012, though, similarly to Paul, he has been an officeholder under the Republican banner. And both seem to feel that taking part in foreign wars to attempt to gain freedom for other people is a bad thing.
The question with which I titled this post applies to all these people. Why is freedom good — but exporting freedom bad?
But more recently this same question has occurred to me in the context of two other people, politically far removed from King: Ron Paul and Gary Johnson. Paul and Johnson are both considered libertarians: Paul was the Libertarian nominee for the Presidency in 1988, though before and after that year he has been involved in Republican Party politics; Gary Johnson is seeking to be the LP's candidate in 2012, though, similarly to Paul, he has been an officeholder under the Republican banner. And both seem to feel that taking part in foreign wars to attempt to gain freedom for other people is a bad thing.
Ron Paul: The war mentality was generated by the Iraq war in combination with the constant drumbeat of fear at home. Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, who is now likely residing in Pakistan, our supposed ally, are ignored, as our troops fight and die in Iraq and are made easier targets for the terrorists in their backyard. While our leaders constantly use the mess we created to further justify the erosion of our constitutional rights here at home, we forget about our own borders and support the inexorable move toward global government, hardly a good plan for America.
Gary Johnson: I would completely withdraw our military presence [in Afghanistan].
The question with which I titled this post applies to all these people. Why is freedom good — but exporting freedom bad?
2 comments:
2 of your 3 stated principles are in error. The government has one function only: to provide the people with an environment that is free from force, so that they can live freely...it is not a govt function to provide goods that the people can't or won't provide themselves...the gov't has no place in industry... lincoln was totally wrong in his statement that gov't may provide goods if it can do so at a cheaper price...that would place the gov't in direct and unfair competition with private industry... read THE PROOF OF FREEDOM on thefrontiersmen.blogspot.com
The nature of the human species requires that it be totally absolutely free. raynewman
Yours is a totally libertarian point of view. And while I understand it, I can't subscribe to it. If private enterprise will not provide a good at a price people can afford, people may be deprived of a necessity simply because they do not have the funds. I imagine that this is acceptable to you, but it is not to me.
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