From: mike@gordian.com (Michael A. Thomas)
Subject: Re: Libertarians in WW2
Organization: Gordian; Costa Mesa, CA
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 20:42:10 GMT

In article <1992Nov16.021937.24246@midway.uchicago.edu>, thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Ted Frank) writes:
> In article <1992Nov16.013012.21277@gordian.com> mike@gordian.com (Michael A. Thomas) writes:
> >  Nonsense. Germany certainly invaded plenty of other "neutral"
> >states. 
> 
> But they had objectives for doing so.  In each and every one of them.

  And they had objectives for the Japanese provoking a fight with
us as well. So what's your point? In 1942 we had a good deal to
fear about Germany for our *own* security, and I'm sure that
distinction was not lost on the Germans. The fact that they
conned the Japanese into a Komakazi mission with us is testament
of that. I just can't see how you could infer that a lib state
would have seen this any differently. Perhaps you are confusing
libs with pacificists?

> >Also, they were putting a good deal our ships to the
> >bottom of the ocean at the time too. 
> 
> Because we were supplying the enemy.  Under a Lib States, the government
> wouldn't be selling arms.

  Wrong. I'm sure the distinction would have been blurred on the
Germans had "supplying of the enemy" been in an official
capacity of the US government or just by private transactions
of our population -- it made little differnce from their
perspective.

> >  In retrospect, Japan bombing Pearl Harbor had to be its
> >single largest mistake. Had we entered the war at all, it would
> >have been against Germany, and we would have probably ignored the
> >autrocities that the Japanese were performing in the Pacific.
> 
> I got news for you.  When we entered the war, the primary objective
> *was* Germany.
 
  This is not news to me, Ted. Japan certainly was a high priority
as well. Had the Japanese left us alone though, I doubt seriously
we would have screwed with them at all, which was my point.
 
> >  We would have probably been drug into the conflict no matter
> >what though. In fact, the isolationist tendencies at the time were
> >probably as strong if not stronger than any lib government.
> >FDR, though he wanted to enter the war, was very much hamstrung
> >by public opinion.
> 
> Both of the major candidates for president in 1940 were anti-isolationist.

  So what? Politicians run all the time with platforms which are
not necessarily indicitive of the publics actual sentiment. In fact,
this is what a republic is *supposed* to do. The alternative is
demagoguery.

> >  Certainly, there would have been a downturn in the US economy
> >following WWI. But at that point, the US was *the* dominant economic
> >force in the world. It was the US going down the shithole which killed
> >off the rest of the world, not the other way around. Pumping up the money
> >supply and all the rest of the nasty things that happened in the 20's
> >took a probable normal recession and made it into a catastrophe.
> 
> Whose theory is it that the money supply caused the depression?  I'm
> skeptical.  

  It's been about 10 years since I read this, and I have forgot the
source. Sorry. Even if you dismiss this point though, it is not
fair to call the 1920's and Hoover laissez-faire capitalists. The
Sherman anti-trust laws and all kinds of other things had been passed
by this point. Government meddling into the ecomony was the rule of
the day, and I don't think you can dispute that there was a big effort
at the time to "smooth" the business cycle from the panics and 
recessions which plauged the late 1800's. The Great Depression was
no real suprise.
-- 

		Michael Thomas	(mike@gordian.com)
	"I don't think Bambi Eyes will get you that flame thrower..."  
		-- Hobbes to Calvin
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