Webinar: The Anti-Militarist Libertarian Tradition

Here is the video from my Future of Freedom/Liberty.me webinar on the anti-militarist libertarian tradition.
 

Webinar: The Antimilitarist Libertarian Tradition

Next Tuesday, Oct. 21, at 7 p.m. central, I'll conduct a webinar on "The Antimilitarist Libertarian Tradition," for The Future of Freedom Foundation and Liberty.me. Below is a preview.
 

TGIF: The Antimilitarist Libertarian Heritage

With the United States on the verge of another war in the Middle East — or is it merely the continuation of a decades-long war? — we libertarians need to reacquaint ourselves with our intellectual heritage of peace, antimilitarism, and anti-imperialism. This rich heritage is too often overlooked and frequently not appreciated at all. That is tragic.

Libertarianism, to say the least, is deeply skeptical of state power. Of course, then, it follows that libertarianism must be skeptical of the state’s power to make war — to kill and destroy in other lands. Along with its domestic police authority, this is the state’s most dangerous power. (In 1901 a libertarian, Frederic Passy, a friend of libertarian economist Gustave de Molinari, shared in the first Nobel Peace Prize.)

Herbert Spencer, the great English libertarian philosopher of the late 19th and early 20th century, eloquently expressed radical liberalism’s antipathy to war and militarism. His writings are full of warnings about the dangers of war and conquest.

TGIF is here.

TGIF: Does Freedom Require Empire?

In a startling article, Daniel McCarthy, the admirable editor of The American Conservative magazine (TAC), writes, “Successive British and American empires created and upheld the world order in which [classical] liberalism could flourish.” In other words, as he writes in “Why Liberalism Means Empire,” “Liberalism and empire reinforced one another in manifold ways.” Therefore, if we want an enduring liberal democratic society, we must acknowledge the necessity of a U.S.-enforced global empire.

Read all of TGIF here.