Libertarians and Pacifists inhabit a wonderful make believe world so long as there are adults around to do the heavy lifting.
Twitter These Days
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
I have long believed that libertarians and pacifists live in a fantasy land. John Stossel comes to mind. Obviously a smart guy, but he has made a lot of money being in the media. I’m sure his libertarianism would come to an end if he had a crack house on one side of his home, a hoarder on the other side and a junkyard across the street.
Mr. Stossel isn’t the first person I’d think of to critique. Too many others.
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One should have a respect for markets, but also an understanding that markets are not omnicompetent. Political life ideally is about building and nurturing institutions which perform functions participants in markets do not and implementing best practices in the operations of such institutions. The sorry state of our political life is that it is often an exercise in competition between those who want to use state institutions to feed their clients (and incompetent public employees are among their clients) and abuse everyone else and those who bit*h a great deal but have no conception of how to repair anything and no real interest in so doing. (The philanthropic sector these days seems to be a stew of corruption and principal-agent issues subsisting on government grants).
The babble about ‘neocons’ is stupid, but it’s not a signature of the libertarian strand of thought.
Perfect take on right-wing chatter!
Apparently, at one extreme are all those who unquestioningly hitch the US’s wagon to Israel’s (like the GOP representative who places the Israeli flag before the US’s in her X/Twitter “bio”).
At the other, all those who think any action in the Mideast is automatically equivalent to becoming Israel’s vassal.
Please correct me as needed, but I suspect Trump’s foreign policy is a lot like Lord Palmerston’s: “The [US] has no permanent allies, only permanent interests.”
When it comes to foreign policy Trump is no mystery. He has always said that he will not tolerate the mad mullahs having the bomb.
[…] and News:Gray Lady Is Puzzled About Amy Coney Barrett – Terry Mattingly at Rational SheepLibertarians & Pacifists Live in a World of Make Believe – D. McClarey at The American […]
“Libertarians and Pacifists inhabit a wonderful make believe world..”
Many Catholics too, as many were against actions to rid a Terrorist regime of the ability to build nuclear weapons.
If a murderer threatens the lives of innocents and you shoot him are you as pro-life in the wrong? No, it’s not you who change.. the equation is: by his own action he forfeited his right to life, or in this case -terrorist right to nuclear weapons.
Many Catholics too, as many were against actions to rid a Terrorist regime of the ability to build nuclear weapons.
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What you see there is people engaged in pondering intellectual puzzles who are at home with conclusions which are perverse. Sometimes there’s a stew of motivated reasoning there.
Amen, David WS and Art D. I have been overdosed with self-proclaimed Trads going bonkers over how eliminating Iran’s nuclear bomb capability somehow violates the parlor game Just War Theory of St. Thomas Aquinas.
I am a devotee of Thomism, and Aquinas is my Patron Saint. But you can’t stretch his Just War analysis to fit modern war and communication technology. You just can’t. It is a wonderful framework for theoretical discussion, but no more than that. I wish Trads, not to mention scholars like Ed Feser, would realize that and stop whining.
“What you see there is people engaged in pondering intellectual puzzles who are at home with conclusions which are perverse. Sometimes there’s a stew of motivated reasoning there.”
I notice this as being true on both sides of most debates these days.
Frank:
Just War Theory allows response to an “imminent threat”. In the Middle Ages, if the enemy was marching toward your frontiers, you didn’t have to wait for him to step across, but could strike him first in his own territory. Iran has wanted the bomb to kill us and the Israelis for decades and made that load and clear. With the continued enrichment activities, the threat was becoming imminent and repeated attempts at negotiation have gone nowhere. JWT, unlike modern pacifism, has long recognized determined malice.
“ But you can’t stretch his Just War analysis to fit modern war and communication technology.”
The Ukrainians are doing a pretty good job at sticking to the script