There’s no question that big business and big government are in it up to their necks, and shouldn’t be.

The flaw is in thinking that, just because government has outsourced functions to corporations, therefore you have established anything relevant. It’s a complete red herring. The cause of peace and freedom would not be better served if these corrupt functions were, as usual, performed by monopoly government agencies instead.

If the actions would not take place but for government’s monopoly, authority, decisions, funding, and direction, then it’s no use blaming companies for being more efficient at producing munitions, any more than we blame alcoholism on the efficiency of wineries.

The distinction between the left and right on this is a distinction without a difference. Obama and Gillard have in no way been an improvement on Bush and Howard provoking and waging aggressive imperialist wars that should not exist in the first place.

These wars show that socialists and neocons have far more in common with each other than either has with libertarians. Both socialists and neocons stand four-square behind big government’s arbitrary powers at home and abroad. They only differ on what they think everyone else should be bullied, invaded and humiliated for.

The following opinions are common among the centre-left:
• capitalism in general, and employment in particular, are intrinsically exploitative
• profit is an immoral quantity
• profit tends to show the misallocation of resources
• government has a legitimate right to take as much of the individual’s income and property as the government arbitrarily decides
• the purpose for which government spends tax funds, is presumptively more social, more fair and more productive than the purpose for which its private owners would spend them
• government has a right to rule by decree, so long as it complies with legislative formality
• government is more representative of the people, than the people are of themselves
• government has a legitimate right to compel the whole population to undergo 10 years of compulsory education, compulsorily funded, and the content of which is to be decided by government

(cont.)
• government has a legitimate right to “manage” the economy, and to run massive coercion-based property redistribution schemes
• government has a legitimate right to control the money supply and the financial markets, and manipulate interest and employment rates
• government has a legitimate right to regulate or direct any given detail of primary, secondary or tertiary industry
• government has a legitimate right to restrict and control international trade and impose trade restrictions if it thinks fit
• government has a legitimate monopoly of all questions to do with the security of the nation
• and so on and on and on.

(And then they have the gall to blame the resulting mess on “unfettered capitalism”.)

Now the point is this: you cannot possibly hope to have these beliefs carried out in practice, and for government not to be empowered to provoke and carry out perpetual war. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and all that.

*These wars are caused by the policies you are in favour of!* You cannot be in favour of perpetually coercing everyone at home in favour of big government, and expect any different result in foreign policy. That’s *exactly* the argument against fascist economics.

War is the health of the State. The more the State expands in response to these supposed external threats, the more it will take over the liberties and properties of the subject people inside the country. Hence the slide from social democracy to a fascist police state that we are witnessing in the USA and everywhere in the western world.

If I oppose the State invading my property, what different option do I have than the Iraqis exposing their lives to injury and death in opposing the coalition military?

Only libertarians are consistent in defending freedom, peace, and a general ban on initiating violence across the board. The leftists are either fake or confused in opposing the war: for they favour the permanent war of the State against its subjects that is the origin and driving force of all of it.

Wow! Peter you have excelled yourself! Go boy, lettem havit!

Who said we have no role models? He's a real, live, breathing one right here!

And I thought your were extinct, how wrong was I?

Peter Hume,

The issue with the neocons in the situation preceding the push into Iraq was that the people at the top of the pile had vested interests in going to war as a profitable undertaking.
Not only would the "state" be served by stamping its authority and influence on a resource rich region, but also war would enrich engineering firms and arms manufacturers, to name but a few beneficiaries.
In short, profit was to be made by private interests in every facet of the operation - in knocking things down and in building them up again.
The people that were in charge of government were representative of the interests of those that would profit from such undertakings - they fitted like a hand in a glove.

Poirot

Yes.

It is difficult to argue with the truth Peter.
And it ought to be made compulsory to resight at the start of every Parliamentary day; “ It is Not mine to Give”; and : “Though shall not Steal” ; I am Not Omniscient and Not a God, (Fallen Angel maybe) yes, that is already a conflict with the Definition of Government.