The Fake China Threat and Its Very Real Danger
by Joseph Solis-Mullen
Libertarian Institute, 2023; vii + 145 pp.

How States Think: The Rationality of Foreign Policy
by John J. Mearsheimer and Sebastian Rosato
Yale University Press, 2023; 304 pp.

Libertarians understand — or should understand — that military conscription is a form of slavery or involuntary servitude. In fact, everyone should understand this. And yet conscription has been employed by the U.S. government for the past 161 years, ever since Abraham Lincoln signed the first federal conscription act into law in March 1863, enslaving thousands of American men.

From its earliest decades, the defenders of freedom — known historically as “classical liberals,” “radicals,” and “libertarians,” have sought to reduce and limit the war-making powers of the state. This is an unceasing theme across the ranks of the classical liberals, who come from many different nations and who, by today’s mainstream political standards, would nearly all be considered radical anti-war activists. Below is just a sampling of thoughts from these liberals. Many are well known among our readers, such as Frédéric Bastiat and Herbert Spencer.

The Misesian (TM): You have remarked that after 1900, all the pieces come into place for modernity in terms of the American warfare state. What are some of these pieces and how did they fall into place at that time?

Hunt Tooley (HT): To some extent, the state has always used wars to maintain and increase domestic control.

Americans are increasingly uneasy about their “national” security, and increasingly concerned that war is lapping at our shores. Instead of reducing the risk of harm to America and our interests, the federal government in Washington seems to be seeking it, investing in it, fueling it and lying about it.

I have four children, one of whom is grown, and all of them have grown up under a government that has continually waged elective and aggressive wars.

Do you know the term “matinee”? Originating from the French matinée, it means “morning” and it refers to artistic presentations or exhibitions held during the day. In the United States of the 1930s and 1940s, matinees were especially popular for airing “sitcoms”—weekly episodes full of adventure and suspense that kept audiences looking forward to the next chapter. These serials only arrived here in Brazil between the 50s and 60s.