Saturday January 14, 2012

LIBERTARIANISM FOR PEOPLE WHO HATE LIBERTARIANISM.  David French notices that lots of U.S. servicemembers are donating to Ron Paul's campaign. But he has an explanation that will allow his more old-fashioned wingnut readers to feel good about this.

First, these brave men and women aren't contributing to Paul because they're antiwar hippies -- "the idealists who seem to believe that just one more irrigation project, or one more new school, or a few more cups of chai (with some nice intercultural dialogue) will turn the corner in the Area of Operations." No, they're antiwar because, like David French, they hate towelheads.

The Middle East is a savage place that views human life cheaply and will never, ever be worth fighting to change, and in fighting to change these cultures, we simply make more enemies. So long as they don’t try to kill us at home, they can do whatever they want to each other, and if they do try to kill us at home, the response shouldn’t be nation-building or invasion but overwhelming punitive force designed to destroy our enemies, not transform cultures. We’ll call this school of thought “Rubble doesn’t cause trouble”...

Almost every Ron Paul supporter I’ve ever known in the military (and I know quite a few) is in the “rubble doesn’t cause trouble” camp. They’re not idealistic about peace, and they don’t necessarily believe the rhetoric that if we leave Iraq and Afghanistan, we won’t get attacked. They instead think we responded the wrong way to 9/11 and that the last ten years of costly war have proven them right.

French doesn't agree with them there -- he still wants America to roam the world looking for inferior people to fuck with. But because he respects our men and women in uniform (and needs them to do the actual fucking-with for him), he'll defend them against charges of being interested in peace.

Well, look, if Glenn Greenwald can use Ron Paul for his cause, why can't French use him for his? It's not like the crazy old fuck is serving any other useful purpose except posing for "Well, ya gotta admit Ron Paul is right about..." stories.