I’m giving a speech tomorrow at U.C. Berkeley that I should have advertised here earlier.
Title: The Case for a Non-Interventionist Foreign Policy
Time: 3:00 p.m. to 3:50 p.m.
Place: East Pauley Ballroom of the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union Building
Organization: Students for Liberty
Other speakers include David Friedman, Jeff Hummel, and Tom Palmer. Here are more conference details.
Earlier in the day, sometime between 8:00 and 8:30 a.m. PDT (11:00 to 11:30 a.m. EDT), I’ll be interviewed on MSNBC on “Buy American.”
READER COMMENTS
Nathan Smith
Nov 4 2011 at 8:10pm
Libertarians support a non-interventionist foreign policy and a non-interventionist domestic policy. It seems admirably consistent. Except that their non-interventionist domestic policy would still protect basic human rights. So actually it’s not very consistent. Libertarianism at home + liberal internationalism abroad might be a better fit.
David R. Henderson
Nov 4 2011 at 10:32pm
@Nathan Smith,
Just so you understand, it’s my case against government intervention in other countries. I have no trouble if an American patriot wants to kill the premier of North Korea.
Also, I think of non-interventionism as being liberal internationalism abroad. But maybe you and I mean something different by “liberal” and/or by “internationalism.” So what do you mean by the term “liberal internationalism” and what would be a good example of a government that’s practicing liberal internationalism successfully?
George
Nov 5 2011 at 8:24am
Will these talks be video taped at all? For all of us unfortunate enough to be on the East coast. Also, that’s a pretty great ensemble of speakers would be a shame to miss out.
Nathan Smith
Nov 5 2011 at 10:45pm
re: “it’s my case against government intervention in other countries”
But I assume you do support government protection of basic human rights on American soil. Liberal internationalism is vague, but some examples, such as the American- and British-led liberation of western Europe from the Nazis and subsequent establishment of peace and security through NATO, would be generally regarded as successful examples of a liberal internationalist, and interventionist, foreign policy.
The general point is that if it’s licit at all to use coercion to finance protection of human rights, it’s hard to justify drawing the line at some particular set of national borders; jurisdictions are needed in a legal system of course as a kind of division of labor, but questions of when violence is legitimate have to be more fundamental.
If you say it’s not licit, you’re a Tolstoyan-style anarchist, which I say with absolutely no disrespect. On the contrary, I regard that as one of the more consistent, principled, and honorable points of view in these debates about government and sovereignty, though it’s not (quite) my own (anymore).
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