Reader B.R. writes in:
I read your article “Rethinking Libertarian Minimalism” at TCS. Excellent work.
I would probably classify myself as a Libertarian if the party would consider a serious foreign policy. Since they do not, I side with Republicans because their view on foreign policy are in line with mine, and I am not threatened by their social policies.
I had the same observations about Cato’s views on Iraq. It is a shame that the party that understands the true meaning of liberty is unwilling to understand that in today’s world, liberty abroad is vital to our security.
A lot of the e-mail has looks like this.
I agree with the emailer on this one. Free Market thinkers need to accept that there is more than just putting troops on our boarders.
I should like to suggest that BR and Batnf think about Liberty and how we gained ours.
Our forefathers wanted no “entangling alliances”, yet here we are with NO ONE on our borders and a litany of government promises to protect sheepherders in Gondwanaland.
The Republican foreign policy amounts to aggression against those that we think may, one day, do us harm. Their thinking is…Hey, we have a lot more to lose than they do because if they nuke us we’ll lose millions of people and billions of dollars but if we nuke them they’ll only lose millions of people and millions of dollars.
What’s wrong with establishing a national defense? What if we could cut the size of our military costs by 90% and have a strong border, missile and coastal/port defense? What if no one really wanted to attack us because we were neutral? Is that really so bad?