July 14, 2002

11:51 AM

Americans against World Empire. This Conservative/Libertarian coalition presents analysis, articles, links, opinions and rants from every corner of the political spectrum. ""Perpetual war serves a number of purposes.....It is under wartime conditions that the U.S. state will, at least initially, face the least resistance as it finishes the......process of gutting the Bill of Rights and voiding inconvenient parts of the U.S. Constitution......It is under wartime conditons that all opponents of U.S. policies anywhere in the world, including within the U.S. itself, can be most easily labled 'terrorist.'" This statement would have come from a conservative in 1940. Today it is from the Left. (Alternative Press Review, spring 2002).
posted by Mack Twain (6 comments total)

I'm unclear on why you think it wouldn't have come from the left in 1940 as well.
posted by bingo at 1:21 PM on July 14, 2002

This seems to be along the same lines as the work being put forth by the folks at Anti-war.com, Lewrockwell.com, and the Ludwig von Mises Institute (all part of the related libertarian anti-war movement, no Cato-ists here, but for the sake of brevity I'm leaving several anti-war libertarian sites out). Even Pat Buchanan, who is not a libertarian, is going to be putting out an anti-war magazine with Scott McConnell and Taki Theodoracopulos.

Now the web-based anti-war movement will finally come full circle the day Gore Vidal gets a blog.
posted by insomnyuk at 1:44 PM on July 14, 2002

There's long been an isolationist wing among conservatives, and the US LP has always been staunchly isolationist -- which has surely kept a lot of other libertarians out of the party. Abd of course the anti-statism of this crowd can have synergies with the anti-authoritarianism of the left. When the pacifists on the left are backing the same issue, it can seem a very strange collection of bedfellows.

TNR has early handicapping of Pitchfork Pat's magazine, and Andrew Sullivan also panned it in advance, saying . Someone should sue him for expropriating a perfectly decent political tradition for his nativist, reactionary myopia.... It's usually good form to express hope that any new publication succeeds. Sorry. No can do. (He also thinks it marks positive things about the GOP that Buchanan is so isolated.)
posted by dhartung at 7:14 PM on July 15, 2002

I note with a smirk how many pieces listed demand that the govt or some other august body impose this or taht. And that is Libertarian?
posted by Postroad at 4:17 AM on July 16, 2002

I read the Just War Theory link, and I was with the guy (Llewelyn Rockwell) up until he says that the U.S. Civil War was not just (he doesn't mention that the Confederacy started shooting first), but that the Spanish Civil War was just - for Franco! Saying that "a Catholic sensibility" meant opposing the Union and supporting the Confederacy also doesn't help.
posted by skoosh at 4:31 AM on July 16, 2002

I'm unclear on why you think it wouldn't have come from the left in 1940 as well.
Perhaps because the Democrats were running the country in 1940, and FDR was the one responsible for suspending the civil liberties we are once again concerned about losing. Perhaps FDR/Dems do not encompass the entire spectrum of the left, but they were a pretty socialist bunch.
posted by thirteen at 8:48 AM on July 16, 2002