A Libertarian Perspective

I'm not a Libertarian, but they occasionally raise some good points; for example, take this piece by Harry Browne. Like many things Libertarian, it suffers from a bit too much anti-government paranoia (just mention the word "Waco" to a Libertarian and watch the show--be sure you've got popcorn), and it does lack subtlety ("reporters, journalists, and TV analysts are mostly all big government people," whatever that means); however, he does correctly point out that we are not asking the right questions (props for the Pynchon quote). And I agree that the standard Bush "They hate freedom" line is one of the most meaningless phrases ever uttered.

His solution is probably an isolationist foreign policy, which is probably unattainable for the US, given the state of world trade and our continuing dependence on imported raw materials, most importantly petroleum.

Also, the piece raises another troubling question: Why aren't there Latin American terror groups that attack US citizens, cities, and interests? I mean, we've been screwing around in that part of the world for a couple of centuries now. Have they just not found their Sayyid Qutb? Are Latin American and North American cultures too similar to have the same sort of anti-Western critique laid out by Qutb?

Drop some comments and discuss.