From: visser@convex.com (Lance Visser)
Subject: Re: Isolationist?
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1992 19:40:19 GMT
Organization: Engineering, CONVEX Computer Corp., Richardson, Tx., USA
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.

In <1992Nov15.133710.15@uoft02.utoledo.edu> jsteiner@anwsun.phya.utoledo.edu (jason 'Think!' steiner) writes:

+>thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Ted Frank) writes:
+>> jsteiner@anwsun.phya.utoledo.edu (jason 'Think!' steiner) writes:
+>> >thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Seventh Circuit Bound) writes:
+>> >> If Libertarians had won the 1932 presidential election, Europe 
+>> >> would be under the Fourth Reich, and there would probably be 
+>> >> some sort of dictatorship here as well under a Huey Long or 
+>> >> Charles Coughlin type.
+>> >
+>> >sorry, wrong answer. the US before WW2 -was- pretty isolationist.
+>> >Charles Lindburg, America First, remember? also remember that we
+>> >didn't get into the act until -after- Pearl Harbor, at which
+>> >time Germany also declared war on us. sure, FDR himself wanted
+>> >to get into the fray, but even he couldn't do it without a decent 
+>> >reason. 
+>> 
+>> Yes, but England wouldn't have withstood as long as it did if the
+>> US hadn't taken sides long before Pearl Harbor.  Japan wouldn't
+>> have even bombed Pearl Harbor if it wasn't for the United States
+>> refusing to sell oil to it -- but that's "meddling" in the 
+>> Libertarian view of the world.



+>not selling oil to a country that's threatening a bunch of other 
+>markets is "meddling"? prohibitions against "force or fraud" are 
+>quite a bit different from the false accusations of blind 
+>isolationism you accuse libertarians of.

	Of course its meddling.  The people who sell oil have the "Liberty"
to pick their own customers.  As far as I know, "force or fraud" as a 
Libertarian concept was never meant to be taken to the extremes that you
are extending it to.  It was meant to refer to force or fraud within
the domain where a particular government ruled, not to be extended to
some sort of international policeman status.  If you extend the concept
of "force or fraud" that far, you end up with a "libertarian" government
with potentially the same powers as the current one.


+>> >Pearl Harbor was a reason i doubt even libertarians would ignore.
+>> 
+>> Do you think the Japanese would've attacked Pearl Harbor if 
+>> Libertarians running the government refused to have an oil embargo 
+>> against the Japanese?

+>eventually, yes. the point is still moot because you have yet to
+>provide any reasons why a Libertarian guv -would- have sold oil
+>to the Japanese.

	A Libertarian government, by their own ideology could not
sell oil to anyone or prevent individuals/companies from selling
oil to whoever they decided to because that violates "personal liberty".
The best the government could do is probably ask.
	A libertarian government would have a very difficult time fighting
a war because it would have to raise armies and the funds to equip them 
on a strictly volunteer basis.
	The Libertarians would scrap all neutrality laws, laws about 
raising armies/paying for foreign armies and thus allow corporations 
to wage private wars on other countries from the united states.



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