The Republican-Lite Positions of the Libertarian Party: The National Security State
Among the biggest differences between Republican-Lite Libertarians and regular Libertarians is with respect to the U.S. national-security state. The former are fierce supporters of this type of governmental structure, and the latter are fierce opponents of it.
The national-security state consists primarily of the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA. It is a governmental structure that wields omnipotent, totalitarian-like powers over both the American people and foreigners. Such powers include state-sponsored assassinations, torture, and indefinite detention. There is no possible way to reconcile a national-security state with the principles of libertarianism and the principles of a free society.
The United States has not always been a national-security state. From the founding of the nation until the 1940s, America’s governmental structure was what is called a limited-government republic. It consisted of a governmental structure whose powers were limited to those enumerated in the Constitution, the document that called it into existence. Consisting of three divided and independent branches of government — executive, legislative, and judicial — its powers were limited to those few powers enumerated in the Constitution.
Additionally, after the Constitution was enacted, the American people demanded the enactment of ten amendments, which became known as the Bill of Rights. Those amendments further expressly restricted the powers of the federal government.
Our nation’s limited-government republic included a small, basic military force that fell within the control of the executive branch of the government. Given such, its powers were limited and restricted by the Bill of Rights, just like the rest of the federal government. For example, the Fifth Amendment, which prohibits the federal government from killing people without due process of law, applied to the military and everyone else within the federal government.
Everything changed with the conversion of the federal government to a national-security state, especially with respect to the power to extinguish human life without due process of law. Owing to its vast and ever-growing military power, the national-security establishment became a separate and distinct fourth branch of the federal government. It also became the most powerful and influential branch. As Tufts University law professor Michael Glennon details in his excellent book National Security and Double Government, it is the national-security branch that is actually controlling and running the federal government, especially with respect to foreign policy, foreign interventionism, and foreign wars, with the other three branches playing deferential or supportive roles.
By calling into existence a limited-government republic, the Framers rejected fully and completely the national-security state form of governmental structure. Their mindsets were reflected by the deep antipathy they expressed toward “standing armies,” which was the term used in their time for a national-security state.
Why did our Americans ancestors reject the national-security state form of governmental structure? Because they understood that it was their own federal government, not some foreign regime or group, that constituted the greatest threat to their freedom and well-being. The last thing they wanted was a president, democratically elected or not, who had an enormous, permanent, all-powerful military to help him impose his will on the citizenry.
It goes without saying that the Republican Party is a fierce supporter of the U.S. national-security state. Republicans are convinced that this totalitarian structure is necessary to keep us safe by protecting us from the Reds, terrorists, Muslims, Russians, Chinese, North Koreans, Cubans, Venezuelans, Iranians, drug dealers, illegal immigrant “invaders,” and other scary creatures.
Unfortunately, when Republicans flooded into the Libertarian Party and became Republican-Lite Libertarians, they bought much of their baggage with them. Among the heaviest and worst pieces of baggage was their ardent support of the national-security state, along with all the dark-side powers and activities that have come with this totalitarian-like governmental structure.
When I joined the Libertarian Party in 1990, the party platform included a call to abolish the CIA. Alas, no more. Wanting to appear “credible” and “respectable,” the Republican-Lites succeeded in getting that plank eliminated a long time ago.
The Republican-Lite ardent support for the national-security state manifested itself during the Covid crisis, with some Republican-Lites calling for pro-vaccine physicians to be sent to Gitmo, the national-security state’s prison camp, torture center, and tribunal “judicial” system located in Cuba, for punishment.
Every once in a while, one will find a Republican-Lite calling for the abolition of the CIA and possibly even the NSA. Nonetheless, every Republican-Lite steadfastly supports the continued existence of the Pentagon and the vast military-industrial complex. These particularly Republican-Lites fail to realize that the problem is the overall military-intelligence-surveillance establishment, which has been divided into three parts for efficiency’s sake. Eliminating the CIA or the NSA would simply mean that the dark-side powers of those two agencies would be absorbed into the Pentagon and the vast military establishment. After all, let’s not forget that it was the Pentagon, not the CIA, that assassinated Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani.
We also mustn’t forget that Republican-Lites, like Republicans, are fierce proponents of America’s socialist immigration-control system and the militarized police state that is used to enforce that system. They understand that the federal government needs the Pentagon and the vast military-intelligence-surveillance establishment to win its war on immigrants. That includes, of course, the militarization of the border and, as we are now seeing, the use of the military to suppress dissent against the federal government’s immigration police-state measures.
A necessary prerequisite for achieving a free society is the dismantling and abolition of the national-security state and the restoration of a limited-government republic. As long as Republican-Lites continue to dominate and hold sway in the Libertarian Party, the L.P. will continue leading America away from freedom and in the direction of tyranny.