Help Trump reduce enemy creation by rejecting a neocon National Security Advisor Retweet
We prefer principles to personalities, but sadly…
Personnel is policy 
The people a President hires will often exercise more power than the President does. It’s unusual that we focus on personnel. But some appointments may bring policies so bad that we must oppose the person. To us, policies that defend against aggression are legitimate, while those that commit aggression are illegitimate.
The rumored appointment of John Bolton as National Security Advisor would move foreign policy in an aggressive, illegitimate direction.
- Mr. Bolton is one of the arsonists who set the world on fire during the George W. Bush regime.
- He was a prime architect of the Iraq invasion. He still defends the move as “great.”
- He supports military intervention anywhere and everywhere, whether it’s failed in Libya or will fail in Syria.
Such policies will create more enemies for the U.S., making us less secure. John Bolton would be a National INsecurity Advisor.
Candidate Trump argued for less foreign intervention. Support that goal. Tell President Trump to reject John Bolton.
Do you tend to support foreign intervention? Here’s why we oppose it…
The right and wrong of foreign intervention
Violence to defend yourself or others (including foreigners) is legitimate. Aggression is not. Military intervention in foreign countries often looks defensive, but it is actually aggressive for two reasons…
- It’s tax-funded
- It’s politically managed
Tax funding is…
- Immoral because it uses threats of violence to make people pay for things they don’t want or that their consciences abhor.
- Impractical because it removes the need to perform well — the money comes whether the service provided is good or bad. This is one reason foreign intervention usually produces bad results.
Tax funding also requires political management. That makes foreign intervention doubly impractical. Randolph Bourne observed that “War is the health of The State.” The great libertarian scholar Robert Higgs showed in Crisis and Leviathan that Bourne’s observation is true. War causes The State to grow and politicians to gain new powers. In other words…
Politicians benefit from war even when no one else does.
That’s why military interventions usually do more harm than good. We’ve tested this claim in seven articles reviewing U.S. military history. We asked the following questions about each conflict…
- Did it defend freedom?
- Did if defend America?
- Did it make the world better?
The answer was a consistent “no” on every question for every war. Military intervention has made America and the world less free and less safe. But…
The results might be better if the military was voluntarily funded.
Citizens would control the purse strings. They could expand funding for good interventions and reduce it for bad ones.
We know this is a bold new way to think. But do THINK about it. Don’t just react. Remember, people once thought they couldn’t live without…
- Human sacrifice
- Animal sacrifice
- Kings and lords
- Slavery
- Male dominance
Most human progress has come from rejecting old certainties.
Replacing tax funding with voluntary funding could be another step forward for the human species. In the meantime…
- Tell President Trump to reject John Bolton as National Security Advisor.
- Forward this message to friends you think might agree.
- Share this action item on Facebook and other social networking sites.
- Please consider making a contribution or starting a monthly pledge to further our work.
Thanks for being an ACTIVE DC Downsizer,
Perry Willis & Jim Babka
Downsize DC
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