WOW! Liberty & Power has added a host of interesting “Contributing Editors” to its already impressive stable making it a libertarian intellectual powerhouse. I go way back with most of the folks on its roster–in some cases, to when they were students, in others to when I was a student. My congratulations.
Given the stance of most of the Liberty & Power contributors on the “war on terror” in general, and the Iraqi war in particular, the time may be ripe for a full fledged debate on the relationship between libertarianism and foreign policy. It appears that there is an assumption on the part of many libertarian intellectuals that libertarian principles entail a very specific version of “noninterventionism” in foreign policy.
I believe that this is a category mistake, and that noninterventionism (which I favor), and its exact contours, does not follow deductively from libertarian first principles. In other words, two people holding exactly the same commitments to libertarian principles can favor radically different foreign policies. I realize that this is a cryptic observation, but I do fear that the recent anti war vociferousness of some libertarian intellectuals, of whom I have the highest regard and respect, may unfairly tag all libertarians with a very particular set of foreign policy positions about which even radical libertarians actually differ.
I confess that my instincts here are driven by the fact that I disagree sharply with the anti war stance of these libertarians, and they with me, but I do not believe my libertarian principles, or my commitment to them, have changed in the slightest. Because I think neither has theirs, something other than libertarian first principles are at stake. About all this I am open to reasoned argument. I have not given this matter any sustained or systematic thought, but the time may be nigh to do so.
Update: Note that Liberty & Power has now been added to the much-coveted Volokh Conspiracy blog roll at the left!
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