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Empire vs. Peace, Freedom, Morality, and Prosperity

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The justification that U.S. officials use for their assassination of people overseas, including American citizens, is that the people they’re killing are bent on killing U.S. forces. Thus, the justification is sort of a modified self-defense concept—they’re trying to kill us and so we’re assassinating them before they have a chance to kill us. Most mainstream commentators have come to passively accept this justification for the U.S. assassination program. You can especially see this when they comment on people killed who are considered “collateral damage.” They refer to those people as innocent civilians and to the targeted people as terrorists or insurgents. The notion is that the assassins were simply targeting the “bad guys” and, unfortunately, struck some innocent people in the process. But the fact is that people over there are trying to kill U.S. forces because U.S. forces are over there. They’re over there occupying Afghanistan. They’re rearming Iraq, after destroying the country and killing countless people. They have ...

TGIF: The Cruel Joke of Sacralizing Voting

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By now we’re used to MSNBC’s state adoration, expressed not only on its programs but also through in-house promotions. These are often heavy-handed, such as Rachel Maddow’s spots asserting that only governments can accomplish “great things.” Sometimes the promos are more subtle, such as one currently running. Voiced by prime-time “All In” host Chris Hayes, the spot shows a series of colorful shower curtains backed by a sappily whistled tune; the final curtain turns out to be not for a shower but for a voting booth — at which point Hayes says, In America there are many ways to express yourself, but only one that counts. Speak out. The message: vote or you have no voice. Whether it’s intended or not, no message could more effectively instill an abject passivity toward the ruling elite. As someone once said, if voting could change things, it would be illegal. In Year 6 of Barack Obama, is it necessary to say this? Note the irony of ...

One Moral Standard for All

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Libertarians make a self-defeating mistake in assuming that their fundamental principles differ radically from most other people’s principles. Think how much easier it would be to bring others to the libertarian position if we realized that they already agree with us in substantial ways. What am I talking about? It’s quite simple. Libertarians believe that the initiation of force is wrong. So do the overwhelming majority of nonlibertarians. They, too, think it is wrong to commit offenses against person and property. I don’t believe they abstain merely because they fear the personal consequences (retaliation, prosecution, fines, jail, lack of economic growth). They abstain because they sense deep down that it is wrong, unjust, improper. In other words, even if they never articulate it, they believe that other persons are ends in themselves and not merely means to other people’s ends. They believe in the dignity of persons. As a result, they perceive and respect the moral space around others. (That ...