I’m always looking for thoughful perspectives on things, because all we really get in the national media is talking points and mindless attacks and mindless defenses.

Few attempt to persuade using honest logical arguments, because there is no money in it. The money is in performing a kind of political minstrel show, with entertaining ranting and raving to those of a prejudiced mindset toward the host’s viewpoint.

Anyway, the libertarians at LewRockwell.com see the world in a different way. And they take their time in presenting their opinions (for the most part).

Below is a long three paragraph excerpt from a libertarian critique of the liberal and conservative positions regarding the Katrina disaster and the military occupation the is now going on.

As I read the critique, I found myself identifying with the author’s portrayal of BOTH the left’s and the right’s reactions. In other words, I’m critical of government’s response, and I think it makes Bush look bad, so that puts me on the left. But I’m also OK with the idea of a military occupation (and even shooting to kill) in this devasted region, and that puts me on the right.

The libertarians attack both perspectives. It’s an interesting read.

My bottom line: It’s absurd and pure fantasy for the economic anti-government libertarians to think that modern society could function without a strong national protective presence. Moreover, when a region is devasted and has to be abandoned, we have to have martial law for a time. There is no other way except anarchy.

One of the classic criticisms of economic anti-government libertarianism is that it wants something akin to anarachy.

There are just too many damn people in the world for governments to be passive and weak and tiny.

One day I will talk in detail about my theory of the reason for growth in the government’s power: In a nutshell, governmental power grows in response to real problems and a desire of the people to be protected from things and to pool their resources for the common good, whether that is protection from Monopolies, protection from pollution, building roads, or providing a powerful deterrent force to outside enemies, or protection from unsafe construction techniques for buildings, or protection from fire hazards in hotels, (etc, etc, etc). People want safety (for good reason - since it means life!) and look to government to help them. To provide that safety, government must grow. When we had relative anarchy in the USA, people got hurt too much and could not trust anything. I’ll flesh this out someday.

Military Occupation in America and the Prospects for Liberty

So we see here a bumbling, draconian military reaction to an enormous government failure. Yet all too many left-liberals seem to think the problem is simply Republican mismanagement and not enough government spending. I have heard very few on the left denounce the imposition of martial law and the treatment of human beings in the area as livestock or worse. They complain that the federal government has been all tied up in Iraq and so it has neglected New Orleans, but they have not been as quick to note that perhaps the federal government’s efforts to bring relief and order to the flooded American coast, however well funded, will prove as problematic and counterproductive as its attempts to bring “freedom” to the Middle East. Do they really think that the U.S. government’s military occupiers are suited for disaster relief?

What might be worse than the liberal critique is the conservative reaction to it. Americans on the left are at least upset and unhappy with the system, as they should be. Liberal news outlets have not appeared as critical of the establishment in some time. The rightwing, in contrast, upholds Bush’s handling of the situation, saying he’s doing everything as well as he can, and that the only problems are the local authorities and the recalcitrant population unwilling to follow orders and evacuate. The federal government doesn’t owe the indigents anything, so say the most brazen conservative pundits, borrowing rhetorically from libertarian opposition to welfare statism, but doing so for the perverse purpose of vindicating the federal response and upholding the big-government Bush regime. Sure, it is wrong and wrongheaded for the feds to tax Americans for disaster relief. But the feds are hardly blameless for what has happened. Sure, to blame Bush alone for the catastrophe is out of line and unproductive. But to portray Bush as the victim is an obscenity.

The rightwing sentiment seems to hold that the government is correct in imposing martial law, and that it should shoot all looters and troublemakers on sight and implement order with an iron fist where the flood has swept it away. Clearly, most conservatives have little opposition to government involvement in addressing the disaster per se. If anything, their qualm seems to be the idea of their tax dollars going to welfare recipients rather than on hiring more National Guard troops to tame the disorderly hordes in Iraq and New Orleans, and, if that fails, to shoot to kill. Nor does the right seem any more likely than the left to object in principle to coercively detaining American citizens in a convention center or sports arena. Mandatory evacuations and detentions – the very cause of much of the looting and violence – receive conservative approval.