"Stop the War, Stop the Spending"

Brian Doherty | April 15, 2009

David Boaz at Cato's blog calls for a more explicit connection between those two noble libertarian causes: anti-war and anti-government spending:

President Obama rose to power on the basis of his early opposition to the Iraq war and his promise to end it. Now he has doubled down on the war in Afghanistan and has promised to keep the war in Iraq going for another 19 months, after which we will have 50,000 American troops in Iraq for as far as the eye can see. If McCain had proposed this sort of minor tweaking of the Bush policy, I think we’d see antiwar rallies in 300 cities. Calling the antiwar movement!

So here’s my suggestion. Some libertarian group — which may or may exist already; the Internet makes it amazingly easy to organize a new group at a moment’s notice — should start a campaign to unite the antitax and antiwar constituencies with a simple message:

Stop the War, Stop the Spending

Or maybe it should be “Stop the Wars, Stop the Spending.” But it would pick up on Ron Paul’s appeal with his TV ads in which he said, “I’m the only presidential candidate who’ll bring our troops home from Iraq immediately and stop wasteful government spending.” Millions of Americans are tired of the war and worried about soaring federal spending. Somebody should give them a rallying point.

Matt Welch from the May issue of Reason magazine on Obama's spending mania.

Comments

mark|4.15.09 @ 11:44AM|#

I am off to fight a fire at work. No time for tea parties. But I love this idea! It really gets to the heart of this issue.

Congressional Republicans and |4.15.09 @ 11:44AM|#

"Stop the War, Stop the Spending"

There are just so many things wrong with those two directives.

Warty|4.15.09 @ 11:49AM|#

The directives are vague. For example, is anyone watching?

At any rate, I certainly wouldn't harm the child.

|4.15.09 @ 11:58AM|#

I nominate David Boaz to start such a group. It was his idea, right? Bust a move, Dave.

KT|4.15.09 @ 11:59AM|#

YES! Exactly. I agree, this gets to the heart of the issue, brings up a huge aspect that Ds&Rs are unwilling to discuss, and actually has a point to make and a useful suggestion, unlike this tea party malarkey.

About Obama "keep[ing] the war in Iraq going for another 19 months", though: It's interesting that the public debate over the war has changed enough to make a statement like that possible. Not too long ago, any kind of time table or plan to withdraw was vehemently resisted.

|4.15.09 @ 12:00PM|#

How many people actually support both initiatives at the same time?

Most anti-war types are for more government.
Most anti-government types seem to support (philosophically) the wars.

It's like finding the preacher who supports gay marriage. Sure they exist but not in numbers enough to 'rally'.

|4.15.09 @ 12:02PM|#

Chane has come, war is over! Pay no mind to the overseas contingency operations behind the curtain! OMG, Obama's new dog is cute!

|4.15.09 @ 12:03PM|#

How about simply "Stop"?

The slogan? "It's you, stupid."

|4.15.09 @ 12:10PM|#

Wait- didn't you guys learn anything in history class?

War is the ultimate stimulus package; you can't have too many wars. We need to attack Mexico, as soon as the Presidential Suit gets back!

We'll all be rich.

|4.15.09 @ 12:11PM|#

Really, Daniel hit the nail on the head. Most of the people who attend anti-war rallies live off the taxpayers; students, professors, artists, pensioners, community organizers, etc. Are they really going to oppose, much less march against, tax increases and/or spending increases that fill their own pockets?

Obviously alot of tax payers are against some aspects of the War on Terror, but I bet the vast majority are too busy or not committed enough to go marching.

|4.15.09 @ 12:16PM|#

C'mon, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are going great. We have the "right people" in charge now.

|4.15.09 @ 12:23PM|#

"Obamaphile | April 15, 2009, 12:02pm | #

Chane has come,"

You mean that Wasanasan kid that Kahn's folks love so much?

|4.15.09 @ 12:25PM|#

But it would pick up on Ron Paul's appeal with his TV ads in which he said, "I'm the only presidential candidate who'll bring our troops home from Iraq immediately and stop wasteful government spending."

Uh David, those ads were a colossal failure, that actually diminished Paul's appeal.

Forty-Two|4.15.09 @ 1:04PM|#

Stop the War, Stop the Spending

this is unAmerican

creech|4.15.09 @ 1:43PM|#

Too bad that the libertarian movement has avoided setting up grass roots groups. Maybe the LP has, but they are always burned out from petitioning or worried that their job is to elect and not to educate.

|4.15.09 @ 3:01PM|#

The "Stop the War, Stop the Spending" idea is exactly right. I just stopped by a local "tea party," and concluded the following:

1. It had a lot more people than I would have predicted.
2. It's more an anti-Obama rally than an anti-tax rally, since the people generally support/supported the Bush Administration's policies.
3. Anti-tax is fine, but the real issue is spending, which no one (Republicans included) wants to address.
4. We're doomed as a society; humans are simply too stupid to govern ourselves.

|4.15.09 @ 3:06PM|#

Asking Cato to do anything pro-active or grassroots is asking too much I feel...

Will|4.15.09 @ 3:43PM|#

"Chane has come"

No, Chang has come. You know, the Klingon Emperor's Prime Minister?

|4.15.09 @ 4:03PM|#

Asking Cato to do anything pro-active or grassroots is asking too much I feel...

Its not really their mission. They are a think tank, not a grassroots activist organization.

Jeffersonian|4.15.09 @ 4:18PM|#

I thought Libertarians and anti-war types supported the "Good War" (Afghanistan). The truth is you believe in such a narrow version of self defense for the nation that your foreign policy is the abdication of one.

Sal Paradise|4.15.09 @ 4:25PM|#

Drink!

|4.15.09 @ 5:10PM|#

This, he claimed in his speech to Congress, will be achieved partly through $2 trillion in "savings" that will come by "eliminat[ing] wasteful and ineffective programs."

He thinks we're all idiots.
"Eliminating wasteful and ineffective programs" ranks right up there with I won't cum in your mouth and the check's in the mail.

|4.15.09 @ 5:36PM|#

We're doomed as a society; humans are simply too stupid to govern ourselves.

We've known this for a long time. 18th Amendment.

|4.15.09 @ 6:17PM|#

the Internet makes it amazingly easy to organize a new group at a moment's notice

So what's stopping Mr Boaz from doing it?

It's easy to get thousands of people to click a "Join Group" button on Facebook, yes. Getting those people to actually do the things out in the real world that are necessary to have an impact is considerably harder.

|4.15.09 @ 6:50PM|#

Jeffersonian,

Our government publicly supported the Taliban right up until September 11. Already in 2001 the U.S. has provided $125 million in so-called humanitarian aid to the country, making us the world's single largest donor to Afghanistan. Rest assured the money went straight to the Taliban, and not to the impoverished, starving residents that make up most of the population. Do we really expect a government as intolerant and anti-west as the Taliban to use our foreign aid for humane purposes?


The same foreign policy geniuses who paid the taliban money in the 90's through 2001 are the guys who now want to go to keep a war going with them...how much safety did that get us?...why should we trust these people with our tax dollars now?

Go destroy the House of Saud and stop kissing that fucking wahhabist and then I'll believe our foreign policy guys are serious about terrorism...until then, it is clear that the GWOT is a thinly veiled boondogglery for the military industrial complex.

mark|4.15.09 @ 7:10PM|#

Jeffersonian your namesake would slap you.

Seriously though, the underpinning of this "tea party" movement is spending, not taxing, because most people instinctively feel that government spending IS stealing, whether they get the money from you via inflation or higher taxes down the line. Intellectuals like to separate the two, imagining that you can have some set of spending priorities and some other set of taxing priorities, both based on totally separate moral choices, and everything will work out. This is wrong and the tea partiers know it. More fundamentally they feel like the political process which elected Barack Obama did not simultaneously authorize him to spend money like a drunken sailor. They (rightly) feel like the government is taking action without their consent, a feeling which jives nicely with the "not in our name" anti-war movement. Both spending and wars must be paid for, and the protesters know it better than most.

jtuf|4.15.09 @ 7:53PM|#

The anti-war movement within the Libertarian party should base their arguement on the non-initiation of force. Spending on the military is one of the few legitimate functions of government. Besides, it's not like an unjustifiable war would suddenly become justifiable if we discovered a new technology that allowed us to inflict the exact same damages for a mere $5. On the other side of the theoretical spectrum, if our choices are to send the military or be wiped out as a nation, the break even point would be much higher than anything we've spent on war so far.

Gene Berkman|4.15.09 @ 8:17PM|#

Cato is limited to commenting on politics, rather than organizing for political action because of their status as tax exempt institute. In that function, they have done an outstanding job promoting the libertarian position on many current issues.

The movement against war and big government that Dave Boaz is proposing is being developed by the Libertarian Party, the Campaign for Liberty and similar groups. Now if Cato can get the Club for Growth, FreedomWorks and the National Taxpayers Union to promote an antiwar position as part of their limited government viewpoint, we could have a substantial movement on the slogan that Dave Boaz has given us.

|4.16.09 @ 2:54AM|#

It is unlikely that the anti-war position will gain any long-term traction within the Republican party.
Mainly because there IS going to be a continuing need for military action in various hotspots, and nobody else is stepping up to the role.
Nobody we would WANT, anyway.
Plus the military is one of the Republicans major client constituencies, like the unions are clients to the Democrats.

The best libertarians can hope for is to try to moderate the GOP to be a bit more cautious, and a lot more competent with how wars are carried out. They won't be nearly so expensive if they are limited in scope and over quickly.