Randy Barnett, on anti-war libertarians.

Does being a libertarian commit one to a particular stance toward the Iraq war? The simple answer is "no."

I agree.

Ron Paul may not speak for all of you. Fair enough.

But it does appear that over 50% of recent campaign contributions made to GOP POTUS contenders by people in the military went to Ron Paul.

Link

Percentages:

52.53% Ron Paul
35.4% McCain
7.9% Romney
5.2% Giuliani
2.2% Hunter
2.6% Others

Ron Paul may not speak for everyone but it appears many in the military like what he is saying.

Ron Paul may not speak for everyone but it appears many in the military like what he is saying.

For certain values of "many." How many members of the military contribute to political campaigns at all? I suspect that those who do are more politically active, and it's certainly conceivable that someone in the military who is politically active is more likely to be anti-war. But it tells us nothing about what the troops in general think.

In fact, given how low those numbers are, the biggest thing that web site tells me is that very few members of the military contribute to political campaigns at all, and the sample is so small as to be meaningless.

But you just keep going ahead and flogging dead horses, Bill. I guess you think it's good exercise.

Rand, the dead horse being flogged is support for the "war." Or at least the war in the manner currently defined which is absolutely bereft of logic. A war in which all we are doing is supporting one faction against another depending on what part of Iraq we are talking about.

Not that I think the war should be defined by what the troops want. Not at all, they are but there to serve, but yet, why try to be the salve that heals the wounds of Islam and die doing so?

Absolutely bereft of logic?

That's a pretty strong claim - and one I don't think is strictly supportable. In terms of, well, logic.

Logic one does not agree with (because it is based on predicates you don't share) is not non-logic.

Sigivald is right on the mark which is why I personally prefer rationality, something I don't see much evidence of among the anti-war arguments.

If the US leaves Iraq before it becomes a stable society it will be uglier and more destructive for both Iraq and the world at large than the aftermath of the Viet Nam war and that was more than horrendous enough. Everyone across the world including all currently "anti-war" and all currently "pro-war" supporters (including me) will blame the US directly, with scorn, disgust, and outrage.

What is even worse is that for once they'll all be entirely correct and the tide of anti-US sentiment will be completely justified.

I hope it will not happen. I think the US and the american people deserve better than such an outcome, and Iraq, and the middle east, and the world.

The Neocons got at least one thing right: power equals responsibility.

Bill, thanks for the link.

As a military veteran, I find those numbers to be absurd. It turns out the people who posted that information simply took the FEC's contributions by employer data and searched for "army", "navy", "air force", "veteran" (but not "marines" it appears). Anyway, I could come up with various nitpicks, but the most important problem is this method doesn't account for the contributions where the employer was not identified. This is no small issue. For instance, Paul's total contributions are about $2.4m and McCain gets $2.2m alone from just the "no employer cited" category.

Those numbers are totally worthless.

Some libertarians don't get the fact that as libertarians we believe in individual thought and freedom of concience. You have a right to an opinion but you have not right to tell me what to believe or not.

If the US leaves Iraq before it becomes a stable society...

HH, you assume too much. It is not in the power of the US to ensure this. There are too many factors that obscure this vision. First and foremost it is not within the capacity of a viewed as Christian nation to address an intra-Islamic confrontation, which is exactly what is happening and will happen in Iraq.

The first sign of logic is to understand that we can only take sides in Iraq. We can't make the sides work together. I'm not sure what precedent you can use to say that we are capable of creating a stable society in Iraq.

The Iraqis refer to our troops as The Jews . Having absorbed that fact, now tell me how your expect them to take our guidance towards a stable society. You and many who share your viewpoint profoundly lack an understanding of Middle Eastern society.

The best we can do with the current policy is to keep taking sides and suppress the inevitable. We can't change minds since we are associated in their minds with the devil .

T'n'T since our comments are sort of off-topic I pasted my reply at a pastebin (it felt too long for an off-topic post). Here's the link http://paste.lisp.org/display/44705

No idea how long it will stay there.

I don't pay much attention to current data on GOP campaign contributions. A lot of Republican wallets are staying closed right now, because they're not sure that all of their party's 2008 candidates have officially announced.

HH, I thought your reply was interesting and vaguely on subject - you might reconsider posting it here, to immortalize it.

You have a right to an opinion but you have not right to tell me what to believe or not.

If your beliefs pose a direct threat to the sovereignty of other nations, or the lives of the people your government claims to represent, libertarians have a moral justification to invade your country and have you shot.

The former is clear as day, we had no justification on the sovereignty argument. Evidence of "WMD's" was clearly fabricated for propaganda purposes. We've known as much for almost a decade, PNAC proposed it to Bill Clinton in 1998. The later justification is somewhat murkier. Saddam is a tyrant, however compared to Robert Mugabe's regime or the butchers involved in the Sudan genocide which we haven't intervened against, he's positively a saint.