# Liberty Movement > Defenders of Liberty > Thomas Massie Forum >  Thomas Massie opposes military strikes in Iraq

## tsai3904

> *Ky Congressional delegation split on U.S. airstrikes in Iraq*
> 
> Members of Kentucky and Indiana's congressional delegations are expressing a wide variety of reactions to U.S. airstrikes in Iraq.
> 
> ...
> 
> U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky 4th Congressional District) argues that President Obama should have sought congressional approval for the airstrikes against militants in northern Iraq.
> 
> "Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congressnot the Presidentthe power to declare war," Massie said in a statement to WHAS11.  "These air strikes require congressional authorization, and the American people deserve open debate by their elected officials."
> ...


More:
http://www.whas11.com/news/politics/...270498331.html

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## Christian Liberty

Good for Massie

I haven't heard anything from Rand yet, is he opposed?

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## Brett85

Massie is the best we have in Congress on foreign policy.  He's pretty close to Ron on foreign policy.

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## Brett85

You don't have to guess where Ron stands on this.

https://www.facebook.com/ronpaul/pho...336686/?type=1

BTW, the comments are surprisingly bad.  Not a good sign.

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## CaptUSA

> BTW, the comments are surprisingly bad.  Not a good sign.


WOW!  You're not kidding!  And on Ron Paul's page!  The media has really done a number on the American public.

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## Brett85

> WOW!  You're not kidding!  And on Ron Paul's page!  The media has really done a number on the American public.


I'm seeing comments from people calling themselves libertarians on Facebook and other forums who are all in favor of the air strikes in Iraq.  It almost seems like the movement is being coopted to me.

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## CaptUSA

> I'm seeing comments from people calling themselves libertarians on Facebook and other forums who are all in favor of the air strikes in Iraq.  It almost seems like the movement is being coopted to me.


They are just responding to the dog whistle.  http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...40#post5611340

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## Christian Liberty

> I'm seeing comments from people calling themselves libertarians on Facebook and other forums who are all in favor of the air strikes in Iraq.  It almost seems like the movement is being coopted to me.


Indeed.  More and more I'm considering ditching the libertarian label.

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## Brett85

> Indeed.  More and more I'm considering ditching the libertarian label.


I never accepted it.  I just don't think that using our military to police the world is a conservative position.  The conservative position is to have a strong military and use them for deterrence, to scare off any country that's considering attacking us.

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## Christian Liberty

> I never accepted it.  I just don't think that using our military to police the world is a conservative position.  The conservative position is to have a strong military and use them for deterrence, to scare off any country that was considering attacking us.


I understand.  We aren't the same on all our positions but we're more or less the same here (we probably disagree on the concept of a standing army, and obviously I don't believe taxation should exist so any military would have to be voluntarily funded, but that's a long way off anyway.)  But really, its not people like you that are making me consider ditching the label.  I'm fine with the various levels of extremes in libertarianism.  If clarification is needed, I'll say I'm an ancap and/or a voluntarist, while you'd be some variation of minarchist or classical liberal.  My issue is the fact that "libertarian" is rapidly becoming more of a socially liberal, fiscally somewhat conservative movement.  When gay marriage is getting more attention in "libertarian" circles than ending social security or bringing our troops home, something is wrong.

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## Brett85

> My issue is the fact that "libertarian" is rapidly becoming more of a socially liberal, fiscally somewhat conservative movement.  When gay marriage is getting more attention in "libertarian" circles than ending social security or bringing our troops home, something is wrong.


Exactly.  The media believes that anyone who's "fiscally conservative" and supports gay marriage is a libertarian.  By that standard, you could say that John Bolton, Dick Cheney, Rudy Giuliani, Rob Portman, and many others are "libertarians."

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## Christian Liberty

> Exactly.  The media believes that anyone who's "fiscally conservative" and supports gay marriage is a libertarian.  By that standard, you could say that John Bolton, Dick Cheney, Rudy Giuliani, Rob Portman, and many others are "libertarians."


This is why I'm seriously considering just saying I'm a voluntarist and letting that be the end of it.  The term "libertarian" is becomming utterly useless.  "Anarcho-capitalist" is a good one as well, albeit somewhat misleading in the sense that when most people hear "anarcho-anything" they assume chaos and lawlessness.  But at least that type of label gets people asking questions.  The last thing I want is to identify myself as libertarian and have some stupid Republican be like "OK he supports abortion and gay marriage but agrees with us on the important stuff*"

*Anti-abortion is important to me, but not to the neocons.

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## Warlord

the 2003 authorization is still on the books. Like or not the prez has the authority to do this until Congess deauthorizes

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## Feeding the Abscess

> You don't have to guess where Ron stands on this.
> 
> https://www.facebook.com/ronpaul/pho...336686/?type=1
> 
> BTW, the comments are surprisingly bad.  Not a good sign.





> I'm seeing comments from people calling themselves libertarians on Facebook and other forums who are all in favor of the air strikes in Iraq.  It almost seems like the movement is being coopted to me.


Happened a while ago. People - myself included - warned about this in 2009. We were mocked, called purists, etc. It's only going to get worse.

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## Warlord

> Happened a while ago. People - myself included - warned about this in 2009. We were mocked, called purists, etc. It's only going to get worse.


The media and its propaganda are very powerful tools

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## osan

Mr. Goodmoney, allow me to introduce you to your predecessor, Mr. Badmoney.

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## Brian4Liberty



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## Vanguard101

One could argue we should stop it unless we are willing to dehumanize ourselves. That's outside political philosophy though




> Theoretically I'm not necessarily a 100% non interventionist regardless of the situation that arises.  I can see the rational for stopping someone like Adolf Hitler who was invading country after country and trying to take over the entire world, for example.  But I think that when you start getting to the point where you advocate intervening simply for humanitarian reasons, you're basically advocating unlimited military intervention around the world, because there's always going to be some humanitarian crisis occurring somewhere in the world.


Lol turn your argument around and apply that to the "rational" of stopping Hitler.

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## presence

> Keep calling me a shill, it doesn't make me one.
> 
> []
> 
> Even hard core Ron Paul supporters. I am frankly shocked at their response.


Unless genocide is occuring in the continental US, our territorial waters, or within the confines of one of our embassies... its 


NONE OF OUR DAMN BUSINESS (PERIOD)

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## Brett85

> What's the difference between what Hitler was doing and what the Islamic State are doing? one was taking over countries and ethnically cleansing them the other is taking over towns and ethnically cleansing them. I dont see much difference


I can't really help you out if you don't see a difference between the Holocaust and a civil war in Iraq.

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## Brett85

> Lol turn your argument around and apply that to the "rational" of stopping Hitler.


I don't see your point.

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## Christian Liberty

> I can't really help you out if you don't see a difference between the Holocaust and a civil war in Iraq.


I'm assuming his point is that the principle is the same.  And going under the assumption that he's pro-liberty, I assume his point is that the same principles that are being used to reject intervention in Iraq could logically be applied to Hitler, and the same principles that interventionists use to justify attacking Hitler could be used to accept intervention in Iraq.

And here's the thing, most people who I've seen defend WWII mentiion the Holocaust in some sense, and try to make you out as a heartless monster if you don't want to go to war to stop the genocide, even though the obvious small government and pro-liberty position is not to do so.  And then, once you get suckered into that, you get suckered into supporting war to stop genocide in general, which  leads to a warmongering interventionist foreign policy in general.  It is a logical progression.

Now, I assume that you would have rejected US involvement to stop the Holocaust just like any other genocide, and that your reason for getting involved would be your fear that the war would eventually reach US soil.  That's a different reason that requires a different set of arguments.  And, those arguments wouldn't  apply to Iraq at all, as only a total moron would think that ISIS is actually going to invade US Soil.

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## Brett85

Duplicate post.

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## Brett85

> I'm assuming his point is that the principle is the same.  And going under the assumption that he's pro-liberty, I assume his point is that the same principles that are being used to reject intervention in Iraq could logically be applied to Hitler, and the same principles that interventionists use to justify attacking Hitler could be used to accept intervention in Iraq.
> 
> And here's the thing, most people who I've seen defend WWII mentiion the Holocaust in some sense, and try to make you out as a heartless monster if you don't want to go to war to stop the genocide, even though the obvious small government and pro-liberty position is not to do so.  And then, once you get suckered into that, you get suckered into supporting war to stop genocide in general, which  leads to a warmongering interventionist foreign policy in general.  It is a logical progression.
> 
> Now, I assume that you would have rejected US involvement to stop the Holocaust just like any other genocide, and that your reason for getting involved would be your fear that the war would eventually reach US soil.  That's a different reason that requires a different set of arguments.  And, those arguments wouldn't  apply to Iraq at all, as only a total moron would think that ISIS is actually going to invade US Soil.


Yes, my view is that it directly threatens U.S national security when one country starts invading country after country and tries to take over the entire world.  I think it would've eventually reached U.S soil.  The genocide that went along with that would only be a secondary reason for intervening.  That alone wouldn't be enough.  But, I was just presenting a scenario to explain that I can't really say that I would oppose intervention in every single hypothetical scenario.  But every intervention since WWII I would oppose, (except for Afghanistan) so I'm not exactly an interventionist by any means.  I'm more non interventionist than Rand on foreign policy issues but not quite as pure as Ron.

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## Christian Liberty

Yeah, I disagree with you but I don't necessarily think its a big deal.  I don't really agree with you on Hitler's intentions (again, I think his goal was to make EUROPE Aryan, not necessarily the entire world, and even if he did want to make the entire world, I think that's an impossible goal that he never would have accomplished.)  I am curious what measures you believe were justified to wage such a war, which is more of a moral issue than a political one (then again, pretty much everything is for me these days, the more I think about it the more I am convinced of anarcho-capitalism and of how evil everything else is).  But I definitely don't think it makes you an interventionist.  A big problem is when neocons (not you, obviously) make it out like every petty tyrant and wanna-be racial/religious supremacist is a new Hitler.

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## Brett85

Yeah, Saddam Hussein was compared to Hitler to try to justify the Iraq War.  There was really no comparison.  Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator but didn't try to take over the world and rid the world of an entire race of people.  He cracked down on dissent and killed some of his own people, but he was about 1% as evil as Hitler.

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## Christian Liberty

BTW: I've read end the fed and it seemed clear to me that Ron was opposed to WWII.  Its worth noting that Pat Buchanan is on the record for opposing it as well.  THat said, I think Pat has been on record for supporting some smaller interventions, while Ron has not.

The WWII thing kind of bugs me, its so irrelevant politically but so relevant morally.  There's no way to fight a war of that magnitude without murdering tons of innocent people (The tax issue, while still relevant, is secondary).  I wouldn't necessarily have a massive problem with sending a special forces team in to assassinate Hitler (I say "necessarily" in the sense that as an ancap I still don't think such a thing should be government funded, and certainly what Germany would be likely to do in response to such a thing would have to be considered, but if we're assuming minarchism its a government action that I could tolerate) but it seems preposterous to me to say that we could actually have waged war against the entire country.  At least not the type of war that we actually did fight, which involved directly targeting and murdering civilians.  Honestly, this is more the type of issue that I feel should be addressed in churches than in congress.  "We shouldn't get involved anywhere unless there's an immediate attack on our soil, or someone is actually trying to take over the world" would be good enough for me to vote for the person in question, but I have a hard time acknowledging anybody who is Ok with "collateral damage" for any reason as my brother or sister in Christ.  I know I'm putting a religious spin on it here but I think its relevant.  Maybe I should reopen my old thread on that issue.

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## Christian Liberty

> Yeah, Saddam Hussein was compared to Hitler to try to justify the Iraq War.  There was really no comparison.  Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator but didn't try to take over the world and rid the world of an entire race of people.  He cracked down on dissent and killed some of his own people, but he was about 1% as evil as Hitler.


I wrote my last post before I saw this, and so it was more random rambling on my part than a direct response to it.  Yes, I agree with you here.  Although (its almost wrong to say this at all, but take it in  context) I guess I'm not sure I agree with you with regards to QUITE how evil Hitler was.  He was probably the most evil man ever to live, but again, I think his goal was to take over Europe and create a master race in Europe, not necessarily to take over the entire world.  Its not necessarily that I think he would have turned down a chance to take over the entire world, but I think the idea of sustaining an empire that big is just impossible (Remember Hitler couldn't even deal with Russia.)  I don't remember where I read this, but I recall to reading somewhere that Hitler was ticked when he found out Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor.  Going to war with the US was just geopolitically terrible for Germany, and I think they would have avoided it if they could have.

Now, obviously, this isn't TO ANY DEGREE a justification of ANYTHING Nazi Germany did, but I don't think we should have gotten involved even there.

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## Brett85

> BTW: I've read end the fed and it seemed clear to me that Ron was opposed to WWII.  Its worth noting that Pat Buchanan is on the record for opposing it as well.  THat said, I think Pat has been on record for supporting some smaller interventions, while Ron has not.


Yeah, Buchanan seems terribly inconsistent to me.  He opposed American involvement in WWII but supported the surge in Iraq and supported sending in troops to rescue the kidnapped girls in Nigeria.

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## TaftFan

> Fair enough.  I'll lay this down and have the discussion.


Good!





> I think its something that needs to be addressed, though.  And I'll address it here.
> 
> The *purest* libertarian stance is that taxation is indeed theft, which goes along with the non-aggression principle as you mention later.  Now, I am not saying ALL libertarians agree with this, but it is the logical conclusion of libertarian thought (whether you agree with it or not.)
> 
> Anarcho-capitalists hold this principle as a universal maxim.  Strict minarchists make three exceptions (whether that be because they don't believe taxation for these reasons is theft, or whether they do think its theft but also a necessary evil, is irrelevant), for police [only to punish crimes in which there is a victim] military [only for defense], and courts [only to punish crimes in which there is a victim].  Now, I am "OK" with this as far as it goes.  I disagree with the exceptions, but that's another issue entirely.  Suffice to say that I think the libertarian tent is big enough for ancaps and minarchists.
> 
> But when you start putting exceptions on top of the exceptions, you no longer have libertarian philosophy, but something else.  
> 
> Let me put it this way, you can take the position (as a minarchist) that taxation is not theft if its to provide for a defensive military.  But even by the minarchist rules, taxation for the purpose of stopping genocide, or military adventurism of any kind, IS theft.  So really, you can't get away from this as part of the discussion.  It would be kind of like saying that you want socialized police (which would be a valid minarchist position) but you then also want the government to hire security guards for every home and to help Canada with its policing and pay for that on the tax tab as well.  Even if we allow for the sake of discussion that the original socialization of police isn't theft, the extra stuff certainly is.
> ...


That is a fair objection. Humanitarian interventions probably wouldn't be allowable under a minarchy, unless you accept a more broad minarchist state which involves things like fire departments.

But then there is the broader libertarian and classical liberal framework as well. Again, I don't feel it violates the NAP on the foreign policy scale, or Just War Theory for that matter. 




> Again, this is something that needs to be discussed.  Now, we can allow (again, I'm going to try to do this with the minarchist axioms, and I may fail) for a military that is government funded solely for the purpose of defending the country. * But once you allow for military actions in which innocent civilians are killed, you are now allowing for murder, which is completely against the NAP regardless of  whether you're a minarchist or anarchist*.  Similarly, if you allow for taxation to fund the defense of OTHER PEOPLE'S countries, you are now forcing Americans to pay for the defense of not only their own country, but other countries as well, which again, would be theft even according to MINARCHIST premises.  And I think if you stray too far from this, if at all, you have something that isn't libertarianism.  
> 
> Now, I can say that as an ancap, minarchist foreign policy is preferable to any other statist foreign policy because it involves stealing the least, giving the people who are actually paying for the service the most bang for their buck, and not killing any (or at the very least far fewer, in the event that the military actually is attacked and needs to fight) civilians.  But again, I'm having issues because the minarchist implication of the NAP is not actually consistent either.  I'm willing to use them for the sake of argument to see how far the NAP can be stretched without breaking, but again, I think its just an issue of the minarchist being inconsistent, and if you are consistent, you either end up with anarcho-capitalism or with non-libertarianism.


I'm not sure if you suggesting collateral deaths are murder?

I think in the case of a genocide, as much as intervening is designed to help innocent people, I think it is also the result of a moral obligation that comes over people and in that sense it is to their benefit to satisfy the obligation. 

And I think what minarchy does is take what is acceptable to do on an individual level (defend yourself from aggression) and transfer it to a collectivist level. The difference being a minarchy also involves a justice system.

Now go back to the individual level again. It is your place to defend yourself. It isn't your place to get involved in a fight among strangers, usually. But if a defenseless person is being attacked and killed, you have that moral obligation to step in.

I would argue that applies to everybody. It is something God has inserted as part of our humanity. Is that now abdicated on a collectivist level? I don't think anyone suddenly becomes exempt. 




> I don't see what's complicated/wrong with the idea of using the military only to defend the people who actually pay for it, and not using it to intervene overseas.


I feel we need to visualize the context. Say World War II wasn't going on, just the Holocaust. Would you use the military to end it?

Ron Paul was asked that once. He said he wouldn't risk the lives of the troops to do it.

But casualties cannot be expected to be high when you are stopping a genocide. Those committing it are executing, not trenched in to defend themselves. And the troops do volunteer knowing they may be sent to fight for a variety of reasons, many neither of us would support.

I know in my heart that Paul's answer was the wrong one. I believe it is incredibly selfish, even though I know that wasn't his point. His point was to adhere his to his principles no matter what. I think this extreme example shows why Jesus brushed legalism aside. It's why he gave us common sense.



> I think any form of intervention is going to result in those issues, which is why I think your stance, even if well-intentioned, ultimately leads to a MASSIVE State far bigger than you would be OK with.


Blowback has specific causes, primarily retribution. Chaos results from power vacuums. So I don't think you can say as a general rule that bad things (beyond the conflict itself) have to result.



> If you, personally, were to gather a group of people, privately fund the effort, and go over and kill a bunch of soldiers and government leaders who were engaging in genocide, all without killing any civilians, than I'd agree, such an action would not be aggressive.  Heck, I don't necessarily consider political assassinations "aggressive", though of course ill advised (in most cases the politician is himself an aggressor to a severe degree.)  But, once you throw the government paying for it in the mix, again, considering the MINARCHIST principles that allow for a government-funded military for defensive purposes, this is nonetheless theft.  This isn't a distraction from the discussion, its a key element of the discussion.  There's also the fact that civilians are virtually always killed in these endeavors, thus they are murderous.


I would like to see such a scenario happen. I think the government should allow people to set up a rescue organization and allow them to purchase everything they need without legal restriction. 

But that isn't where we are today. If a bunch of hotheads were actually dumb enough to go there under current circumstances, they wouldn't know where to start. They would be quickly and easily killed.



> I presume that by the same logic you use to condemn intervention in Russia and China, you would also say that intervention in Nazi Germany to stop the Holocaust (We can leave the Pearl Harbor issue for another time, and I understand you could argue the conflict as defensive based on that) would have been unjustified because it would be impossible to do so without killing civilians.


No, I am saying that if going in to stop a genocide is going to result in an all out war that makes the genocide look like a drop in a bucket, then that is just stupid.




> When?


?



> Love it or hate it, that is clearly policing at least some part of the world.


Maybe you are right. Police sometimes stop crimes. But usually they are there to collect people for punishment and deter crime.

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## TaftFan

I should note that sending aid and weapons to innocent civilians should happen before any military intervention. As always, it should be the last option on the table.

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## Christian Liberty

> That is a fair objection. Humanitarian interventions probably wouldn't be allowable under a minarchy, unless you accept a more broad minarchist state which involves things like fire departments.


A pure minarchy would only allow for the three things I mentioned.  But, Walter Block (not saying he's always right or anything like that, but I think he brought up an interesting point here) also allowed for a third category of libertarianism that isn't either anarchy or minarchy, but basically a "minarchy +" which is basically a minarchy plus a few extra things.  Unlike anarchy or minarchy, the third category was somewhat nebulous and never really defined.  In other words, anarcho-capitalism and minarchism are both things that you either believe in or you don't (if you believe in no State you're an ancap, if you believe in a State that does JUST the three things mentioned you're a minarchist, and if neither of the above is true you're neither) but the "minarchy +" (I think Block also called it classical liberalism) is one of those things where I'm not exactly sure where the line is, and I don't think Block ever defined it either.  Basically, someone who's limited government enough to qualify as libertarian, but not enough so to qualify as a minarchist.

Now... I'm OK with this category existing in theory, but I'm not sure exactly where the line is.  If the only additional things you wanted the government to do other than the big 3 are fire departments, I think I'd still consider you a libertarian.  Same if you add roads.  Mind you, you're getting less pure as you add more stuff, but still libertarian.  

But, I can't do it with war.  For me that's really a black and white issue.  I don't mean to be rude about it, but on that one I really feel like either you take the correct, non-interventionist position, or you aren't a libertarian.  War by necessity puts a TON of things under government control, and unlike police [by this I mean the minarchist police force, I don't think the current one benefits basically anyone], fire departments, or the like, war is actually a redistribution of resources from taxpayers to people in other countries.  It doesn't benefit the people who are paying for it at all.  So, I feel like trying to argue that that could possibly be libertarian is like arguing that social security could be libertarian.  But it gets even worse when you consider that war also leaves innocents dead, even if unintended.



> But then there is the broader libertarian and classical liberal framework as well.


This feels a lot like the whole "thick" libertarianism that some people are advocating.  Keep in mind that whether the "thick" libertarian is advocating conservatism or liberalism doesn't matter.  libertarianism is defined by belief in the non-aggression principle and private property rights.  libertarians can (and will) believe in other things as well; those other things may even supercede those two things in the libertarian's individual mind, but ALL libertarians believe in those two things, and those are the only requirements to be libertarian.  So, I don't really see how "broader libertarian principle" is applicable here.  The two principles that libertarians actually do all agree on says that you are wrong here.




> Again, I don't feel it violates the NAP on the foreign policy scale, or Just War Theory for that matter.


I don't remember the points in Just War Theory, but I don't subscribe to it.  Mind you, I respect the spirit behind it.  I agree that pacifism is incorrect (though understandable) and I also agree that the idea that government's can go to war to defend any interest they dream up is wrong (and not really understandable.)  But, I don't agree with the theory as written.  I don't think preemptive intervention is ever OK.  And I think defending yourself from aggression is OK even if you have no chance to succeed.  Maybe pragmatically a bad idea, but not immoral.




> I'm not sure if you suggesting collateral deaths are murder?


Absolutely.  I honestly don't see why this is so shocking to you.  I've never seen any libertarian who has disagreed with it.  But more importantly, it baffles me how any Christian could disagree with it.  This is an issue I grow more and more intolerant on by the day.  



> I think in the case of a genocide, as much as intervening is designed to help innocent people, I think it is also the result of a moral obligation that comes over people and in that sense it is to their benefit to satisfy the obligation.


Maybe at an individual level.  If you see a rapist raping a woman on the side of the street, and you have the ability to stop it, you have a moral obligation to do so (though I do NOT view you as a criminal inaction if you don't, unless you are a cop.)  But, on the other hand, if shooting would lead to you killing the woman, you would not shoot.  This is an obvious moral principle.  

But at the collective level I don't think it applies in the same way, because nation's are not individuals.  I know you don't want me to bring this up because its "irrelevant" but it really isn't.  The State is a criminal organization.  It funds its endeavors by stealing.  And worse, when it goes to war, innocent people are killed.  So, its not the same as individual intervention at all.



> And I think what minarchy does is take what is acceptable to do on an individual level (defend yourself from aggression) and transfer it to a collectivist level._ The difference being a minarchy also involves a justice system._


That's a pretty darn big difference.  But, I don't think you can just make this transfer .  For one thing, individuals don't have the right to engage in actions that lead to collateral damage for some kind of "greater good."  And we call civilians who do that "murderers" or even "terrorists."  And individuals can't force people to pay for whatever they want to do as individuals.  Heck, as an individual I can build an auto shop, but that doesn't mean the government has the right to do that with tax money.



> Now go back to the individual level again. It is your place to defend yourself. It isn't your place to get involved in a fight among strangers, usually. But if a defenseless person is being attacked and killed, you have that moral obligation to step in.


I already explained how this does not apply at the collective level.



> I would argue that applies to everybody. It is something God has inserted as part of our humanity. Is that now abdicated on a collectivist level? I don't think anyone suddenly becomes exempt.


I, like you, believe in God.  But I don't see anywhere in the Bible where God says you should use the State to impose his morals.  




> I feel we need to visualize the context. Say World War II wasn't going on, just the Holocaust. Would you use the military to end it?


Nope.  I addressed this question above.  In fact, even with WWII going on, I still wouldn't have gotten involved, which was the issue TC and I were discussing before.



> Ron Paul was asked that once. He said he wouldn't risk the lives of the troops to do it.


Ron is right, and he had guts to say it too



> But casualties cannot be expected to be high when you are stopping a genocide. Those committing it are executing, not trenched in to defend themselves.


Even one innocent casualty is unacceptable.  I am not a utilitarian.  Which may be why I'm an ancap and not a minarchist.




> And the troops do volunteer knowing they may be sent to fight for a variety of reasons, many neither of us would support.


I don't "support the troops" either.  Its a cliche, but Laurence Vance really does shed important light on those issues.



> I know in my heart that Paul's answer was the wrong one. I believe it is incredibly selfish, even though I know that wasn't his point. His point was to adhere his to his principles no matter what. I think this extreme example shows why Jesus brushed legalism aside. It's why he gave us common sense.


I don't think it shows any such thing.  Murder is still murder ,and theft is still theft.  I don't think Jesus would condone killing innocents for some "greater good."




> Blowback has specific causes, primarily retribution. Chaos results from power vacuums. So I don't think you can say as a general rule that bad things (beyond the conflict itself) have to result.


I don't think your post follows here.  Of course blowback has specific causes.  Seeing peaceful civilians  killed in the Middle East is a huge part of it.




> I would like to see such a scenario happen. I think the government should allow people to set up a rescue organization and allow them to purchase everything they need without legal restriction.


I should disclaimer here, and I know this is still somewhat controversial in libertarian circles, but here goes.  To paraphrase Murray Rothbard, a rifle can be pinpointed, an ICBM cannot.  There are certain types of weapons that are impossible to be used in any defensive manner (such as an ICBM) and so I tend to think that even possessing such weapons is a threat and a violation of the NAP.  I could be convinced either way on that point, but that's the position I tend towards.  A nuke isn't just different from a machine gun in degree, its different in kind.  Both weapons can be used to kill a lot of people.  But the fundamental difference between them is not that the nuke kills more people, but that the nuke CANNOT be used solely against aggressors.  The machine gun can.

Now, for what its worth, if a private militia were to go into Iraq or whatever, I don't think its anymore the US government's business what they do as it is what the Iraqi government or other foreign governments do.  Nor is it the US government's business if the foreign government kills them or has them put to death or whatever.  So, I'm not saying that if some private militia goes into a foreign country and kills some innocents in an effort to stop a genocide that the US government should actually prosecute them for it.  But I still don't think that would be right, which is part of why I think MOST warfare is intrinsically immoral.
[QUOTE]


> But that isn't where we are today. If a bunch of hotheads were actually dumb enough to go there under current circumstances, they wouldn't know where to start. They would be quickly and easily killed.


True.  But two wrongs don't make a right.



> No, I am saying that if going in to stop a genocide is going to result in an all out war that makes the genocide look like a drop in a bucket, then that is just stupid.


Which was the case in Nazi Germany as well.  More people were killed in the war than by the Holocaust, by a significant margin.

Now, we know government's are inefficient and don't care much about human life.  FDR didn't.  So, if you want to say some collaborative group of militias could have waged that same war  with far fewer casualties and far more efficiently and far less expensively, I would tend to agree with you.  Heck, I think they should have had a private "assassinate Hitler" fundraiser.  One casualty, not innocent, with a warning that the same will be done to anyone else who tries to institute a mass Holocaust.  Done.  (Yes, I know that it isn't easy to kill Hitler, but I think it could have been accomplished FAR more cheaply than waging WWII.)



> Maybe you are right. Police sometimes stop crimes. But usually they are there to collect people for punishment and deter crime.


I always assumed that "policing the world" was an expression for telling other countries how to run their affairs and intervening in countries because we don't like what they are doing.  I don't see how any knowledgeable person could think that US cops are actually useful at this point.



> I should note that sending aid and weapons to innocent civilians should happen before any military intervention. As always, it should be the last option on the table.


I agree with the idea of sending aid and weapons, but I don't think that's the government's job.  Individual civilians should have the right to do that if they want, or not.

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## invisible

> The media and its propaganda are very powerful tools


Whoa!  I said almost the exact same thing, those exact same words, in another completely different thread / context / different section of the forum.  I did so about 12 hours after you did, and I'm only reading this thread now for the first time.  That's REALLY weird!  Deja vu?  Or great minds think alike?

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## Vanguard101

> I don't see your point.


If a bunch of Hitlers rose up, you would be ok with intervening but for other humanitarian reasons we can't?

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## malkusm

Why is it the responsibility of the United States government (and more precisely, the United States taxpayer) to take care of these things?

Here's an idea: If so many people feel so passionately about intervening in genocides and humanitarian causes, why don't they volunteer with one of the hundreds of humanitarian aid/relief organizations that exist?

Oh right, it's the same reasoning that the left uses for domestic spending: It's easier to tackle our problems by taxing everyone else, than to sacrifice of ourselves.

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## Brett85

> If a bunch of Hitlers rose up, you would be ok with intervening but for other humanitarian reasons we can't?


I was just making the case that it would take an extraordinary situation for me to ever support an overseas intervention.  It's not very likely at all that we'll ever see another situation like what occurred with Nazi Germany during the 1930's and 1940's.  If we do ever intervene overseas, I think that it at least has to directly affect our national security.  If libertarians are now supposed to be in favor of intervening every time there's some humanitarian crisis, then libertarianism or non interventionism is basically meaningless.  There's always some humanitarian crisis going on somewhere in the world, so we're going to have non stop intervention everywhere around the world if we have to intervene every single time there's some humanitarian crisis.

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## Vanguard101

> I was just making the case that it would take an extraordinary situation for me to ever support an overseas intervention.  It's not very likely at all that we'll ever see another situation like what occurred with Nazi Germany during the 1930's and 1940's.  If we do ever intervene overseas, I think that it at least has to directly affect our national security.  If libertarians are now supposed to be in favor of intervening every time there's some humanitarian crisis, then libertarianism or non interventionism is basically meaningless.  There's always some humanitarian crisis going on somewhere in the world, so we're going to have non stop intervention everywhere around the world if we have to intervene every single time there's some humanitarian crisis.


Right, so I cross-applied your position to the position you critiqued...

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## Brian4Liberty

Let the Kurds sell their oil, and then they can buy weapons to defend themselves.

One reason for resistence to that idea is that many in the US refuse to admit the failure of "nation building" a new Iraq. Another reason is that Turkey is not fond of the idea of any Kurds having weapons that could be used to fight NATO weaponry (necessary to defeat weapons that fell into the hands of ISIS).

So should the US continue taking actions that stop the Kurds from defending themselves? (I.e. blocking arms sales and oil sales?)

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## presence

> If a bunch of Hitlers rose up, you would be ok with intervening but for other humanitarian reasons we can't?


You can!  Have fun with it.  Just don't should on me.

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## kcchiefs6465

> Let the Kurds sell their oil, and then they can buy weapons to defend themselves.
> 
> One reason for resistence to that idea is that many in the US refuse to admit the failure of "nation building" a new Iraq. Another reason is that Turkey is not fond of the idea of any Kurds having weapons that could be used to fight NATO weaponry (necessary to defeat weapons that fell into the hands of ISIS).
> 
> *So should the US continue taking actions that stop the Kurds from defending themselves?* (I.e. blocking arms sales and oil sales?)


The US most certainly should not. Should the dollar collapse because a certain brand of un-audit-able leeches must be paid to provide said weaponry to the Kurds? Regardless of if the Kurds buy them from 'us', it is still subsidized, incentivized, antithetical to freedom, burdening posterity, inflating the money supply... I don't think I need to go on.

Perhaps you are referring to a system that we do not have? Where free men trade with who they see fit? You know, not a bloated government infesting every aspect of trade?

I see this as a propaganda storm. The Man Who Sold the War; Bernays; Economic Hitmen; incubator babies and all that.

I wonder if the location has any bearing on 'our' 'obligation' to provide arms? They (the USG) unleash torturous psychopaths around the world, you know? Briefcases of cash? They've changed their ways I'm sure though. Turned over a new humanitarian stone.

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## kcchiefs6465

Oh, and Thank You, Thomas Massie.

Keep up the great work. Oppose this bull$#@! until your throat is dry.

These $#@!s never quit. The American people, if they weren't so damn easy, would be behind you. In ten years you'll be the one to be able to say that you were right. It should not have happened.

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## Anti-Neocon

> What's the difference between what Hitler was doing and what the Islamic State are doing? one was taking over countries and ethnically cleansing them the other is taking over towns and ethnically cleansing them. I dont see much difference


Did we enter WWII to stop genocide?

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## Lucille

Massie is awesome, for this and so much more.

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## Rond

What a warrior this guy is!   Thank you Congressman.

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## jmdrake

> I'm seeing comments from people calling themselves libertarians on Facebook and other forums who are all in favor of the air strikes in Iraq.  It almost seems like the movement is being coopted to me.


Well you and I are both on record now for possibly supporting air strikes against ISIS and so is Rand.  Really this is a case of "problem, reaction, solution".  Back in 2013 the majority of the U.S. people were totally against any re-involvement in Iraq and any involvement in Syria.  And then what happens?  A terrorist organization, closely allied at one point to CIA backed "freedom fighters", miraculously comes to the forefront and "bam" everybody feels we "have to do something".  The truth is that Christians are in trouble in Iraq and Syria precisely *because* of our intervention.  Christians were better off under Saddam.  In 2003 Christians began fleeing Iraq by the hundreds of thousands to escape the rapidly developing Shia Islamic Sharia Law state the U.S.A. was helping come to power in Iraq.  Meanwhile U.S. Christians were (mostly) blindly cheering on the destruction of their own Iraqi brethren.  These Iraqi Christians mostly went to Syria.  Then the U.S. government began undermining Syrian stability.  Now, when certain hawks want to go back into Iraq and want to invade Syria, we get this horrific enemy which gives them an excuse.  But....what do you do?  First and foremost we have to expose the facts of what's going on.  We have to make sure that this does *not* become an extension of the failed policy to topple Assad.  But we are currently being beaten on the propaganda front.  Even some within our own ranks have bought into the "FSA are moderates" line of BS.

Seriously.  Ron Paul's foreign policy simply doesn't make sense to those who never go beyond the "surface news" the mainstream media feeds them and changes on a weekly basis.  Everything I said in the above paragraph, that Saddam protected Christians, that ISIS was until very recently allied with the very same "moderates" that Obama and Hillary *still* want to send weapons to (and are sending weapons to) and that Assad is basically all that's standing between Christians in Syria, many of whom recently fled from Iraq, and total annihilation, can be found by carefully reading mainstream media news articles that conveniently get buried and forgotten once the media has moved onto a new narrative.

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