A reader requested that we respond to this article on LewRockwell.com. The author asks some uncomfortable questions about the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP).
- What if the NAP requires a certain cultural soil on which to thrive?
First, does the NAP require certain “cultural soil”? Could the answer be any more obvious? Where on earth does a libertarian society exist? Nowhere. The US has proponents of libertarian principles, but we are less free than we used to be. The NAP is dead on arrival in Saudi Arabia, or in Red China. It is self evident that the NAP won’t work everywhere. It doesn’t work anywhere at the moment.
- What if that cultural soil is to be found in what is traditionally understood as European and Anglo?
It obviously is. Our ideas of liberty come from France and England.
- Do all invasions require armed, uniformed battalions – supported by airpower?
Ask the Cherokee, Cheyenne, Apache, or Sioux.
- What if elites are purposely taking action to destroy that cultural soil, specifically for the purpose to destroy the one philosophical threat to their worldly power and control?
Then you cannot do anything about it, without violating your own NAP.
- Do parents have an obligation to protect this cultural soil for their children?
Only if they want their children to enjoy the same culture that they do. If you’re OK with your daughters wearing burkas or being forced to have abortions, then no, you don’t need to protect our culture.
- What if tha
t obligation requires methods that cannot be considered consistent with the NAP?
Then libertarians have to make a decision. What is more important to them, their principles or their children? At Men of the West, we’ve considered this already, and the answer is Alt Right or Die.
- It is acceptable for a voluntary community to set standards for new members to meet before they are allowed admittance?
Of course. Most libertarians would say no, but they don’t live in the real world.
- Is it acceptable for a voluntary community to set standards that members are required to meet, else they face expulsion?
Of course. But not without violating the NAP. We, at the Men of the West, say “You have to go home now”.
I’ve spent a little time trolling a Libertarian Party Facebook group. This is something that they cannot grok. In the particular group I’m in, a large portion of the group are left libertarians. They don’t care so much about liberty, except as it pertains to homosexual acts, abortion, and smoking weed. Another large portion of the group are those that are wedded to the principles, and lack the ability to see anything that isn’t compatible with them. The answer for them is always the NAP. They are completely unable to see that while it may to take two to tango, it only takes one side to make war. Not everyone cares about your personal liberty, and losing a culture war is no less devastating than losing armed conflict.
The NAP is basically an agreement between parties. If you don’t mess with me, I won’t mess with you. This works in theory, if the parties all subscribe to that principle. Most libertarians also support individual gun ownership, as they should. Eventually, a person can defend themselves with violence, should it become necessary, when their life or property be in danger. The weakness is they can only play defense. The other side gets to make the first move and they also get to set up the chessboard. Preemptive moves are aggression, and that violates the NAP.
Libertarian principles usually support open borders. They think that people should be allowed to move freely. This is where the fantasy breaks down. They simply cannot see that an influx of large numbers of people that have no conception of libertarian ideals is a threat. Perhaps they think those people just want to be free and that they share the libertarian ideas. The truth is most just want a job. That is the best case. Some obviously want to coopt Western Culture and replace it with Islamic theocracy. They either don’t care about libertarian ideas or are outright hostile to them. There’s nothing that says the whole nation cannot become like parts of Dearborn Michigan over time.
Combine the blindness against the threat with the principled inability to act if they finally do recognize it, you’ve got a recipe for extinction. Libertarians are willing to watch Muslim or Mexican hordes march across the border, and then give them voting rights. It’s an ideological blind spot so large you can’t see across it.
It should be easy to see that libertarian principles, as currently formulated, contain the seeds of their own destruction. Add in the fact that many libertarians are pro-abortion, and the hordes will out-breed them even if they keep them at bay for awhile.
Taking these ideas out of the theoretical and into the real world, you can see there is an existential threat to our culture in the US. The same thing that threatens the pie in the sky libertarian fantasy world is a threat to our constitutional republic as well. We already have a small muslim population that is not compatible with the West all. Giving them rights under the constitution was a big mistake. Our elites are still letting in large numbers of third world people who don’t give a hoot about limited constitutional government. The Democrat party wants to give these people voting rights. If they do, our country will soon no longer be what it is now. This leads to a question of my own.
Knowing that our elites are trying to destroy our culture, what are we going to do about it?
UPDATE: The author responds in the comments:
Mr. Glass
Thank you for the extensive comments on this post; I will second the comments of Brian on March 29, 2017 at 6:26 am.
The fact that a self-described “libertarian” can ask the questions that I asked should suggest that there are libertarians who realize that it takes much more than the NAP to develop and maintain a peaceful society.
I have written dozens of posts on libertarianism, culture, immigration. I have dealt with all of these on the basis of the non-aggression principle, and have poked holes in each left-libertarian position. Such as these are “left,” and ignore the “libertarian” whenever it gets in the way of “left.”
http://bionicmosquito.blogspot.com/p/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-x-none.html
I do not claim to be alt-right, yet I suggest there is much in common between Rothbardian / Misesian libertarians and the alt-right. a regular read of LRC should be evidence enough of this.
Kind regards
Bionic Mosquito.
My article was rather flippant in replying to yours, and for that I apologize. It was apparent from the tone of your article that you knew that the NAP was inadequate. I had other libertarians that I interact with on my mind when I wrote it, and you didn’t deserve harsh criticism.
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I saw a great quote awhile back: Nationalism is the natural evolution of the Libertarian, once they realize that not everyone wants to be free, not is everyone capable of being free.
I’ve seen that quote also. Had I remembered it, I would have included it.
This is something interesting I noticed. “But what about people who won’t follow the NAP” – they will say some kind of “dispute resolution organization”, insurance, or something else will be there. I can compare that with the Constitutionalist Christians that like owning guns and doing things for themselves and not being dependent at all.
If you are dependent for your daily bread and not unusual misfortune, whether it be on WalMart or the State, you aren’t free.
Worse, they aren’t even good in theory. They will say “I never consented to any Social Contract”. But the NAP itself is a social contract, and their eyes glaze over when you point it out, as well as other things.
Here’s a discussion of why DROs are as bad or worse than the state, but the libertarians seem to thing that if you oppressors are private companies, even as tyrannical as Stalin or Mao (yes, starving people to death) it’s OK
https://archives.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3656603&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=17#post433376467
(Stefan Molyneux had a similar rant on a call-in show but I forgot which one where he describes the DRO Dystopia without realizing how tyrannical he sounds, but he has also gone away from the hard libertarian since)
The only thing I need to know about libertarian philosophy is my own quote:
“The libertarian is the only man at the table who won’t reach for the gun that is in the center. By default, he gets eliminated first.”
Why should I reach for a strange gun when my CCW is easier
Liberty requires eternal vigilance, both individual and collective. The second amendment is the only necessary one, the Constitution is otherwise is graffiti on a parchment barrier.
You can have as much liberty as you are willing to directly defend – but it is the paradox, if you are ready for war you will have peace.
It requires a very special culture. Asia has a conformist culture. There are no guns, no crime, but no creativity in Japan. America, deriving from Europe with a lot of Christianity (which the libertine libertarins that just want to go on a drug induced bender and have sodomic debauchery) had some rather bright lines you just didn’t cross, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t shatter other temporal conditions with science and technology. So people were well armed but violence was rare. PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY (which is akin to duty which is a dirty word to libertarians – they don’t even want the duty of individual defense, much less when it is only possible collectively)
you exactly enumerate the reasons I eventually discarded libertarianism.
Be careful painting with such a broad brush. You make enemies of men who could be allies.
I know many men who you might define as “small l” libertarians. They are far from pacifism. They are all culturally and traditionally conservative, Christian, well armed and many of them train in martial skills. They discovered that Republicans are just as bad as Democrats so they have refused to give consent to being governed by a corrupt system. They are opposed to importation of strange cultures (yes, you read that right – nationalistic lovers of liberty), homosexuality, feminism, socialism and other “isms” that destroy traditional Western culture.
They simply want to be left alone to preserve their life, liberty and property. They will not tell you how to live your life and will not support theft of your property but they may gut shoot the man that tries to take theirs.
If they do not support the NAP and free trade/borders, they are not Libertarians. those three things, especially NAP, are the foundation of libertarianism.
If they DO support the NAP, they are cowards, and beneath contempt. Protecting yourself, if you are not willing to protect your neighbors, your culture, and your people, is ultimately selfish. They are useless, and should be alienated. the selfish are the enemy, and rightly so.
You should educate them.
There is nothing about the NAP that prevents the protection of others. There is nothing in any libertarian creed that even suggests protection is something that we should provide for ourselves to the exclusion of others.
Either your “protection of others” is defensive or offensive. Offensive “protection of others” would require violation of NAP.
Defensive “protection of others” has the same issues as personal protection, and allows similar damages to occur first, physically or culturally.
Attempting to justify the last will lead you down the same rabbit hole as the justification “We had to destroy the village to save it.”
Brian, I’m not trying to make enemies out of libertarians. I considered myself conservative/libertartian at one time. It’s a work in progress. Once you find a fatal flaw in a philosophy, you have to find a solution. I think I’ve found the fatal flaw, and it is open borders.
“I know many men who you might define as “small l” libertarians. They are far from pacifism. They are all culturally and traditionally conservative, Christian, well armed and many of them train in martial skills. They discovered that Republicans are just as bad as Democrats so they have refused to give consent to being governed by a corrupt system. They are opposed to importation of strange cultures (yes, you read that right – nationalistic lovers of liberty), homosexuality, feminism, socialism and other “isms” that destroy traditional Western culture.”
I think you just described me.
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0.5
Mr. Glass
Thank you for the extensive comments on this post; I will second the comments of Brian on March 29, 2017 at 6:26 am.
The fact that a self-described “libertarian” can ask the questions that I asked should suggest that there are libertarians who realize that it takes much more than the NAP to develop and maintain a peaceful society.
I have written dozens of posts on libertarianism, culture, immigration. I have dealt with all of these on the basis of the non-aggression principle, and have poked holes in each left-libertarian position. Such as these are “left,” and ignore the “libertarian” whenever it gets in the way of “left.”
http://bionicmosquito.blogspot.com/p/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-x-none.html
I do not claim to be alt-right, yet I suggest there is much in common between Rothbardian / Misesian libertarians and the alt-right. a regular read of LRC should be evidence enough of this.
Kind regards
Hey Bionic Mosquito, I will let Hugh answer more directly. I will just mention that most of us are long-time LRC readers (and many of us read your stuff, too). You might also appreciate the post that went up this morning that chronicles one of our author’s journey from AnCap to Alt-Right.
https://www.menofthewest.net/libertarian-alt-right-flight-utopia/
Bionic Mosquito.
My article was rather flippant in replying to yours, and for that I apologize. It was apparent from the tone of your article that you knew that the NAP was inadequate. I had other libertarians that I interact with on my mind when I wrote it, and you didn’t deserve such harsh criticism.
Thank you, and understood. I have a similar reaction when I read many libertarians.
Mr. Glass,
I was one of the regular posters on Bionic Mosquito’s site that prompted the article you were responding too.
I see BM has already responded to you directly but I just want to share a few thoughts.
Although I am not familiar with your site it looks very solid (the categories at the top alone are a mark in your favor), I will add it to my bookmarks.
My own ideological perspective is National Socialist with some caveats with regards to North America. BM has been willing to engage with my arguments for over a year and it has produced constructive dialogue. He has never censored me, even when I talk about Jewish power, and has even treated me with respect.
My point is that our ability to have constructive dialogue is evidence that there are some libertarians who understand and wish to address the Crisis of the West. I am skeptical that the libertarian label is going have any relevance for the struggle but libertarians themselves can play a part if they so chose.
The fact is that libertarianism is hemorrhaging people to the “altright,” but there will be some who do not fully jump ship. These people are not enemies and they can even be friends.
I say extend them the olive branch.
Heil Victory.
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Is it acceptable for a voluntary community to set standards that members are required to meet, else they face expulsion?
Of course. But not without violating the NAP.
Wrong. There is nothing aggressive about setting standards for those who you associate with. If a group of people form a community and set rules, there is nothing aggressive about that. It’s the same as your right to expel someone from your house if they violate the rules you’ve set forth.
Up until the point in which they associate with you, involuntarily.
“The NAP is basically an agreement between parties.”
Wrong again. The NAP is a PRINCIPLE, not a plan. Your criticism of the NAP is akin to criticizing the moral rejection of murder, rape, and theft as “unrealistic” because we will never occupy a world bereft of those acts.
“Libertarians are willing to watch Muslim or Mexican hordes march across the border, and then give them voting rights.”
Libertarians don’t support voting or aggression, so that’s wrong. Your blind spot is your lack of faith in the ability of Americans to defend themselves. Apparently the author thinks that gaining control of the reins of government is the answer, while hoping those reins will never be seized by those who wish to harm him. The same government that robs you and bosses you around will somehow, miraculously, become your benefactor if only you can make a good argument to it. The author thinks that free people could never defend themselves without the aid of government, the same government that has proven either incompetent to defend him, or even aided his enemies at times. He commits the ancient fallacy of insisting that if we do not want government to do something, we don’t want it done at all.
Libertarians don’t support voting? Then how do you explain the Libertarian Party?
Apologies, Phantom, pressed the wrong reply button.
Defense is not possible when there cannot be agreement on the enemy, as certain sides see no value to defending history, culture, or genetics while using the same to defend their philosophy.
If you don’t defend the foundations of your philosophy, held in common with non-libertarians, then you will no longer have them.
Your philosophy cannot exist except in a hothouse allowed by the aggressive actions of non-libertarians.
Worse, you disclaim any actions to maintain that hothouse and work to destroy the foundations.
The value of defending you is a net negative.
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