Libertarian Commentary #16-12B, by Nathan Barton

We interrupt this campaign…

Today, it seems that all the domestic politics, including the stiff-official three-way GOP race and the two-way Dem race to see who gets to be Massa for the next four years, is on hold temporarily for a time of screaming hate and defiance at “terrorism.” Even the First Citizen trip to the latest imperial province, Cuba, is paused while he ramps up fear and hatred.

A series of explosions seared through Brussels, Belgium on Tuesday, causing multiple fatalities. At least 34 are dead and hundreds wounded in multiple bombing attacks, as reported by the Guardian and elsewhere. It is considered, in many ways, to be the “Capital of Europe,” or at least the EU, and the politicians, police, and people in general are panicking. And doing nothing which seems to be productive.

CNS News is one of multiple news outlets reporting the situation, in essence saying that much of Europe is on “lockdown” with trains and planes and even trucks and auto traffic frozen or diverted. The Guardian asks “Why was Brussels targeted?” as though it comes as a surprise that the heart of Belgium, Benelux, and the EU is any less of a target for the assumed attackers (the Caliphate, or “Islamic State”) than Istambul or Damascus or Tel Aviv.

I have been in Brussels myself, and in just a few decades, there are MANY reasons for it to be the “epicenter” of terrorist violence, though the Guardian seems reluctant to admit it. Urban areas with a vast underclass of people who bring their own evil culture into the heart of a different, but still evil culture, together with growing economic degradation, are nasty, ugly, violent places. Neither Muslim culture (especially not that of the Caliphate) NOR European culture (society and government) value human life or liberty. The human life that they count as worthless is a different slice of humanity, maybe, and they both CLAIM to value some, and to value some liberty, but there is so very little real difference.

But none of this seems to matter to the politicians, the “leaders” of the West. There is much talk about “solidarity” but little talk about prevention.

Mama’s Note: My first reaction to this story this morning was to remember that nobody in those crowds had any way to defend themselves, nor to stop the murderer. Without tools, training or even the willingness to use appropriate tools to help themselves survive… they were simply fish in a barrel. Unfortunately, a similar attack in any large US city would probably run pretty much the same course.

In the states, CNS News has a long list of articles detailing the response of Cruz, Trump, Kasich, and Clinton, and even the guy who interrupted his “historic” vacation to the tropical island paradise of Cuba. Strangely enough, Sanders has apparently not said a peep. As for the others, mostly it is a montage of condolences and “renewed” pledges to “stand by” our ally Belgium (or, for Sanders and Clinton and other Tranzis, “Europe”). There are appeals for calm and claims of seeking vengeance. But not much about prevention. Especially not the impact that dropping tons of bombs (sometimes indiscriminately) on neighborhoods and villages and towns in Syria and Mesopotamia and Yemen and Libya has in leading to such attacks as in Turkey and Belgium.

Closest to talking “prevention” is Trump, and his words are already being taken as one more proof that he is just another George Wallace or Adolf Hitler. CNS News reports that he is urging more control of borders, more “looking” at people coming in, and more observation on the part of everyday people, instead of depending just on security forces. He also pointed out that Europe has been harboring these vipers in their bosom for years, often openly and with no attempt to integrate them, pointing to the recent arrest of yet another “mastermind” of the now-surpassed Paris terror attacks.

But he doesn’t seem to get the total situation any more than Cruz (more missiles, more bombs) or Clinton (more grand coalitions to attack).

Such killings will continue, whether it is a remote village in Mesopotamia and the Arabian desert or the heart of an urban area like Brussels, London, Madrid, or Paris, as long as politicians and so-called religious (or ethnic or cultural) leaders treat people as nothing more than animals with hands – even if it is only some people that they do treat that way. As long as Western powers treat Afghan and Kurd and Armenian and Arab people as expendable, there will be those who treat Westerners the same way. As long as people give up their own responsibility and liberty and let the minions of the state provide a spurious security, they will die and be wounded, or have friends and neighbors and associates killed and injured.

Bombs are MUCH harder to defend against than the standard rapist or mugger or rioter; especially suicide bombers. But it can be done, and it is not so much that weapons of self-defense have been prohibited, but the mindset, the attitude that LETS those be prohibited, that finds worship of the State and dependence on it to be the preferred way of life. There is, I believe, a reason that we do not suffer so many bombings here: we still do not accept that worldview, that mindset. That attitude is dominant in the European Union, and in Belgium; so far, it is NOT in the Fifty States. But the more prevalent it becomes, the more likely that the bombing attacks already suffered in Boston (more European now than American) and in a dozen European cities, will be suffered in Detroit and Chicago and Minneapolis and Richmond and Baltimore and DC.

If we don’t want that, we must change, and reject the surrender of personal responsibility and liberty.