Comments (9)

• Roger M

  So what should have been our response to 9/11?

  Published: March 30, 2006 8:58 AM

• Charles Hueter

  Small, privately-funded squads of Chuck Norris-trained hitmen scanning the globe for the planners and perpetrators!

  Seriously, I see nothing wrong in the victims of the attack in starting a fund to pay for the investigation and hunt of the people responsible. Combine that with a reduction in the statism the American government exports overseas (always a good thing).

  Published: March 30, 2006 9:04 AM

• David K. Meller

  It is an an exaggeration, if not a misstatement of fact, to say that "conservatives" are, or were ever, an enemy of government growth in the domestic sector! Both in rhetoric and in policy, most "conservatives" emphasized only the trimming and culling (often very gradually) of spending, regulation and other often extremely destructive interventions that the social-democratic warfare-welfare state engaged in. Add to that, these self-styled "free-market conservatives" would be adversaries, often relentlessly attacking actual advocates of the abolition or even the serious rollback of domestic State power far more viciously than they did their "liberal" critics and opponents. Observe the treatment of Murray Rothbard, Ayn Rand, Hans Sennholz, Ludwig von Mises, and Henry Hazlitt, to name a few, by the figures of mainstream conservatism throughout their careers.

  Whenever an opportunity came to call for the dismantling of some outrageous boondoggle, from the income tax to the public-"school" system, form the Federal Reserve to the Departments of Energy, Education, or Agriculture, Housing subsidies, the grotesque and invasive "equal opportunity" regulations, the preposterous enforcement of insider trading, antitrust, anticompetitive practices and other bizarre and incomprhensible laws and statutes, having more in common with the "Spekulatsia" laws of the former USSR than any statute or regulation that belongs to the government of a free society, and these conservative enforced them with a viciousness and brutality that a COMMUNIST such as a Krushchev, a Deng Xiaoping, or a Fidel Castro could only admire. They certainly NEVER called for the full and immediate repeal for these laws!

  Most recently, look at the Republicans' enforcement of Federal laws against so-called price gouging, by the Bush misgovernment that played such an important part in the tragic aftermath of the Hurricanes Katrina and Rita disasters.

  Where were domestic "free market conservatives" then?

  The Republican Party was a sewer of collectivism, statism, and abominable linkages of the criminal elements of Big Business, Banking,and Government since the Election of Abraham Lincoln and the War for Southern Independence. For the following 70 years or so, it has only become worse, e.g. playing the LEAD in everything from the establishment of a mind-killing compulsory and tax-funded,(or is it tax-looted?) system of government "education", the establishment of the Department of Agriculure, the political and legal establishment of Railroad and Utility monopolies with their attendent State and Federal subsidies, High tariffs, the AMA licensing monopoly and FDA, which has played havoc with everyone's health and well-being for the past century, the takeover of entirely voluntary and private religiously based charitable and benevolent associations by government licensed "social workers" and other so-called professionals, first by local and State governments, during the progressive era, and then that monstrosity in the 1920's, the Prohibitionist nightmare,(overwhelmingly endorsed, supported, and expanded by the so-called "free-market limited government" Republicans from (at least 1876-1933) before it metasisized into the poisonous "war-on-drugs" after 1968.

  In all of the above, not only did conservatives TAKE THE LEAD in domestic policy initiatives, but they used all of their influence; all of their media, cultural, and political power to obstruct and deflect our efforts to at least limit their barbarous and vicious exercise of State power against otherwise decent, law-abiding, and honorable Americans. They often attacked fellow Republicans who would at least try to do the decent thing in their opposition to the latest big-government crusade, in the vilest and most slanderous manner.

  If I was a new-deal socialist, which I am not, I would almost believe that the only time so-called conservative Republicans expressed support for limited government or for the Constitution, was when a critic of their (Republican) policies would advocate some small measure of government support to their VICTIMS for a change.

  The Americans who were improverished by the results of their interventions and regulations might have deserved a little help too, even if they weren't millionaires, or members of the Trilateral Commission or the Bilderberg Group!

  Mr. Rockwell, there are no two minds about Republicans, there never has been, and this only has become more visible during the loathsome and idiotic administration we Americans now have the misfortune to suffer under. A totalitarian is a totalitarian, even if he will sometimes display a fig leaf for "efficiency" purposes.

  GOD BLESS AMERICA!!

  David K.Meller

  Published: March 30, 2006 10:38 AM

• Faré

  1- Politicians don't have two brains; they do whatever gets them elected. Voters just decide on the lesser of two evils; because the advertised relative platforms of the politicians are inconsistent doesn't mean any voter's mind follows these inconsistencies.

  2- Curing the sick is good, and that's why it should not be left to the government. Waging war against dictators is also good, and that's also why it should not be left to the government. If you tried to explain to left-wing nuts that curing the sick is bad, and that's why government shouldn't do it, they would rightfully laugh at you. Same thing when you try to explain to right-wing nuts that fighting dictators is bad. It isn't, and you're rightfully getting laughed at.
  

  Published: March 30, 2006 1:54 PM

• Eric

  "our response" to 9/11 should have been two-fold. First, get our heads out of the sand and except the true cause - it ain't that they hate our McDonalds or our freedoms (although we certainly have far less freedom now). And second, treat it as a criminal offense, not an act of war since there's no responsible government to attack.

  When a criminal robs a bank and kills people, we don't let our police go around bombing whatever neighborhood the bank robbers were supposedly hiding in.

  When we ignore the true causes of 9/11, we have little hope of avoiding another one. Suppose China put a puppet president in charge with a maniac vp behinds the scenes running the show and kept them in power by providing military bases in DC. Do you think there would be no Americans objecting to this?

  We should also stop the macho responses that are likely to make things worse. We can't win a war where we have so much more to lose. And even if we were to win, what we'd have left would not be worth fighting for.

  I'm surprised that our gasoline delivery system hasn't been attacked. Can you just imagine if every gas tanker had to have federal employees driving shotgun. Say hello to $5-10 gas. I guess by putting so many targets in Iraq, there is no need to attack the homeland, at least for now.

  Published: March 30, 2006 4:23 PM

• tz

  You missed the Buchananite faction, but I think it doesn't fit well into the two brained model. Of course he ran from the Reform party.

  My main complaint with him is the lack of economic knowledge - it is mainly our big government that is causing our base to erode.

  Though I'm not sure either characterization is correct - Clinton and Bush were both beligerent interventionists AND big spenders.

  One of the problems with technology making the world smaller is the same as when they could start seeing inside bodies with probes. In the latter case they would do surgery, but didn't have a handle on infection. In the former they think they are smart enough to interfere with existing structures to "fix" them, but the fix is worse than the prior state.
  

  Published: March 30, 2006 4:45 PM

• averros

  Faré --

  you're right... however, regarding #2, I do not think there's a right to fight for somebody else's freedom if they didn't ask for it (i.e. if they did not delegate their right to self-defense).

  Just like trying to "cure" people who don't think they're ill. We all know where that road leads.

  So if there's some dictator, oppressing some people, it is not our business. If someone oppressed asks for help, the only proper course of action (if you do wish to help) is to help him and only him - for example, by squirreling him out and extracting (possibly forcefully) the compensation from the dictator commeasurable to the victim's losses.

  It follows that someone who has lost a relative to a dictator's regime has right to ask anyone to help to kill the dictator. But he has no right to ask to start a military action against people who had no part in the murder of his relative (i.e. the dictator's regular army and such) - until these people choose to interfere with killing of the dictator.

  In other words, the best defense against disctators in plain old assasination. Funnily how the statists prohibit assasination of heads of foreign states by the deputies of their victims.

  Hopefully, with UCAVs and other armed robots becoming smaller, smarter, and cheaper, assasination of heads of states will become affordable to private parties. Somehow, I don't think the conventional states will survive for long if their leaders-to-be are blown up as soon as they assume the office.

  Published: March 31, 2006 1:34 AM

• Marco de Innocentis

  "So what should have been our response to 9/11?"

  When possible, avoid travelling by air in countries with lax airport security and an aggressive foreign policy :-)

  Published: March 31, 2006 3:18 AM

• anarkhos

  "So what should have been our response to 9/11?"

  Uh, do what? The perpetrators committed suicide.

  Published: April 2, 2006 12:46 AM