Shorter Brandon Berg: “Y’know, the State murdering ideological enemies is cool sometimes”

The libertarian consensus on Pinochet seems to be that, while he may have done some good by turning Chile away from the path down which it was headed under Allende, killing 3,000 people and torturing many more was inexcusable. I’m not entirely sure I agree with this.

…WTF?

First of all, the “libertarian consensus” can’t possibly be that Pinochet did “some good”, because the idea behind Pinochets regime was that economic freedom (which was NOT what he put in place; simply tossing regulations isn’t enough, the power structure created by previous political corruption needed to be dismantled) & political freedom were two different things.  Also, US interference (whether you believe we were directly responsible for the coup or not, we did have a hand in Chile) in a nation that posed no threat to us flies in the face of the non-aggression principle.  Allende’s behavior was no excuse.

I’m not going to offer a defense of Pinochet or his regime, largely because I don’t really know the details of what he did or the circumstances he faced. Maybe he really was an unprincipled thug. Probably. But it is my understanding that the vast majority of his victims were targeted for their involvement in revolutionary socialist movements, and I can imagine circumstances under which state-sponsored persecution of revolutionary socialists would be justified. (emphasis mine)

“Circumstances“?  Plural?  Gee, I can only think of one: when those revolutionary socialists conspire to kill people.  Note that in a case like that, the state sponsorship of such would be unnecesary: you don’t have to be their ideological opposite or even interested in the question at all to oppose murder.

The logic here suggests that it is OK for a government to eliminate its opponents simply for being opponents.  Following that train of thought, a rabid enough authoritarian could argue that, say, all radical libertarians should be rounded up and put before firing squads.  One thing we tend to point out in the US is how far beyond what the founders had in mind the US government has gone, suggesting that they’d have wanted another revolution a long time ago, it is not far-fetched that someone might think “well, they could attempt it at any moment” (even though it’d be dumb for them to think it).

Living in the United States in 2006, it’s easy to say that people should not be persecuted for their involvement in fringe political movements. And for us, that’s probably the right position to take. We can afford to, because they pose no real threat. But in an unstable political environment, where there is a very real danger of revolution, the answers aren’t so clear.

Revolution in an unstable political environment is a “danger”?  Usually if a nation is unstable it’s for a reason, people don’t willy-nilly decide “hey, let’s overthrow the government today, it’ll be a hoot!”.

Brandon has it backwards anyway.  Fringe movements don’t pose a threat because they aren’t persecuted, they can’t portray their lack of power to people on the fence about it as being due to them being actively stamped out. If the government holds down a group, it sends a message to people that they’re threatened by what that group is saying, for some people that’s enough to sway their view of it.

I would’ve expected this shit on Samizdata or QandO, sheesh…