Thank You, Lew

Had I only waited one day, I would not have had such a struggle with my post in reply to the Daily Bell regarding my views on the incompatibility of the warfare state and liberty - and therefore my view that profiting from the warfare state was incompatable with developing a free society.

But today I read a wonderful speech given by Lew Rockwell to the Alabama state convention of Young Americans for Liberty in Auburn, Alabama, on April 6, 2013.  In this speech, Lew says in a handful of words all that I could not effectively capture in my grade school attempts.

Following are some of the key passages from Lew's speech regarding the incompatibility of the warfare state and a free society.  In addition, I offer my humble commentary.

LR: First and foremost, Ron is a critic of the warfare state.

BM: It offers the single most extreme transgression against mankind and against the non-aggression principle.

LR: The devastation – in terms of deaths, maimings, displacement, and sheer destruction – appalled every decent human being.

BM: It is a real shame that some can create mind-numbing justifications in order to profit from these actions.

LR: While still in his thirties, Murray Rothbard wrote privately that he was beginning to view war as "the key to the whole libertarian business."

BM: Yet some in the libertarian camp believe that a libertarian society can be developed and maintained while financially supporting and profiting from the war business.

LR: Inspired by Ron, libertarians began to challenge conservatives by reminding them that war, after all, is the ultimate government program.

BM: Yet somehow it is more acceptable for some libertarians to participate in profiting from this government program as compared to other, less deadly, government programs.

LR: [Ron] explained the moral ideas at the root of the libertarian message: nonaggression and freedom.

BM: And absent the root, the tree of liberty will not survive.

LR: I am convinced that historians, whether or not they agree with him, will continue to marvel at Ron Paul for many, many years to come. Libertarians a century from now will be in disbelief at the very notion that such a man actually served in the US Congress of our time.

BM: Amen.