Non-Intervention is Non-Negotiable!

In an article at PJMedia.com, writer Keith Farrell suggests that libertarians should support foreign interventionism and specifically takes The Future of Freedom Foundation and LewRockwell.com to task for opposing foreign interventionism. Acknowledging that some U.S. interventions have proven to be absolute disasters, Farrell feels that libertarians should nonetheless be supporting U.S. foreign interventionism in selected cases.

Farrell is wrong. Not only is foreign interventionism contrary to libertarian principles, it inevitably produces destructive results for both the targeted nation and for the American people.

We begin with a mistake Farrell makes that is common to those who advocate foreign interventionism — his conflation of the private sector of American people and the U.S. government. Actually, they are two separate and distinct entities, a phenomenon best evidenced by the Bill of Rights, which expressly protects the American people from the federal government.

I think it’s great that Farrell feels a moral duty to help people suffering tyranny and oppression overseas. He raises Venezuela as an example.

But one great big glaring question immediately arises: What is Farrell doing here at home? Why isn’t he instead in Venezuela, standing with the protestors and fighting for change, rather than sitting here in the United States talking about how concerned he is about the people of Venezuela? The same applies, of course, to Ukraine, another area that Farrell is concerned about.

Farrell is a young man. He appears healthy enough. Nothing prevents him from boarding a plane and flying off to Venezuela, Ukraine, North Korea, Vietnam, or anywhere else people are suffering oppression, starvation, or tyranny.

Individual responsibility is partly what libertarianism is all about. Libertarianism doesn’t prevent people from expressing concern for the plight of others. It also doesn’t prevent people from standing for their beliefs. But it holds that people must take individual responsibility for their beliefs.

Instead of taking personal responsibility for his beliefs, Farrell wants to delegate the task to the federal government. He wants the government to help the Venezuelan people, perhaps with troops, bombs, missiles, and bullets or maybe with just cash that the IRS has forcibly extracted from the pockets of the American people or maybe by simply supporting a violent and vicious coup in the country, as the U.S. government has done in such countries as Iran, Chile, Guatemala, Egypt, and others.

In addition to traveling overseas to help foreigners, is there anything else private Americans can do? Sure, they can also send money, food, equipment, or other items to foreigners — that is, assuming that it’s not illegal under U.S. law to do so, as it has been with sending money to victims of the U.S. sanctions against Cuba, Iraq, and Iran.

But there is another libertarian principle involved here, one that Farrell, interestingly enough, doesn’t even mention:

Read More At: http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archive...h/27/non-intervention-is-non-negotiable!.aspx

Kind of sounds like Keith Farrell has been getting his talking points from the Baptist Board interventionists. Does 't it? :wavey: