Dictatorship nations are outlaws. Any free nation had the right to invade Nazi Germany and, today [1963], has the right to invade Soviet Russia, Cuba or any other slave-pen. Whether a free nation chooses to do so or not is a matter of its own self-interest, not of respect for the non-existent "rights" of gang-rulers. It is not a free nation's duty to liberate other nations at the price of self-sacrifice, but a free nation has the right to do it, when and if it so chooses…
- Ayn Rand, on Dictatorship
4 comments:
My stance is that private citizens should have the opportunity to fight as mercenaries in order to liberate slave pens.
For the government of a free state to invade a slave pen requires massive amounts of finance. In a truly free country, if the people refuse to finance such a war through voluntary contributions of money, the invasion is halted.
My problem is that in mixed economies, such as all Western states currently, the money to finance such wars of liberation is raised by printing fiat money, taxing the productive or by borrowing the cash from other slave pens such as Communist China and handing the debt to future generations, which include my three children.
Do good ends justify coercive means? Not in my book.
Rand is careful to limit the context of her comments to *free nations*. The government of a free nation does not use a central bank to print counterfeit money and thus debase the currency. It does not leave enormous debt for its young people to deal with. And it doesn't raise the money to pay for a war by extortion.
Indeed. The odious George Galloway couldn't even be glad that Gaddafi was facing a challenge (a dictator he has hated consistently since Lockerbie), his line was:
- What about Bahrain and Saudi? but then
- Taxpayers shouldn't pay for this when the country is nearly bankrupt.
The standard left line on Libya is then easy:
- Do nothing, you are complicit.
- Do something, then you're not doing enough.
Isn't it fascinating to watch the lefties being utterly silent on Obama declaring war on Libya with no clear and present danger to the US, not consulting congress or anything like that. Where is Public Addresses' moral outrage at such an unnecessary and illegal war ("right 2 protect" my ass)? The condemnation of the president bypassing all normal procedures? They know it is wrong by their own declared standards but cannot bring themselves to admit Obama is worse than Bush. Got to love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning.
Richard,
What do you say about citizens going to fight against countries the state considers allies? Should an American of Irish descent be able to go fight against British rule in NI?
Or should the state have a list of who is a free nation/ally, and who is a dictatorship that is fair game?
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