# Letters (December 1972) **URL:** **Published:** December 1, 1972 --- “A street quiz (what do you think about...?) gets nothing but regurgitation of the current newspaper and news broadcast—nauseating.” ## On the O’Hair interview I was very interested in _Outlook’s_ interview with Madalyn Murray O’Hair, and was delighted with Ms. O’Hair’s independent thinking and libertarian leanings. Your reference to radio stirred my interest: In Southern California (Mexicali-Calexico) a small radio station (250 watts) operated with little fanfare, with great influence over their service area. A decentralist-rightist (Bill Gleason) was the owner, and was much aware of the fact that his ostensibly balanced programs were creating a mood favorable to conservatism, and to local control. Said Mr. Gleason: “There are 485 congressional districts, and I could win the next election if I had one 250 watt station in most districts.” The power of the media is generally underrated. A street quiz (what do you think about...?) gets nothing but regurgitation of the current newspaper and news broadcast—nauseating. Never an original thought. I think Ms. O’Hair’s ambition to own a radio station is good—but too modest. Mr. Gleason ran an “American Network” and sold tapes to several stations over the U.S. I’d be pleased to know of any programs in that direction, interested in participating. R. Ormsbee Bridgewater, Mass. ## The fungus is among us...? Thought you might like to know that someone has put out a bogus Volume III, Number 4 of your magazine. Must have been some gang of conservatives out to give libertarianism a black eye. In the Madalyn Murray O’Hair interview, they’ve got some statist attorney named Ralph Fucetola talking about getting the government to force this fellow named Buckley into broadcasting some stuff he doesn’t like on his own radio station. Garvan F. Kuskey Santa Barbara, Calif. ## Fucetola replies The question isn’t whether or not I am a statist lawyer because I have advocated the use of state force against William F. Buckley Jr.’s radio holdings. The question is whether the use of state force against Buckley’s radio holdings is aggression in this case. The essence of aggression is the use of force or fraud or the threat of force against the will of a potential victim. Buckley supports the idea of a state (it’s a “divine” institution); he supports aspects of this state, including, I believe, some sort of control over the airways. He does not, I believe, concede the right to civil disobedience. Thus it cannot be said that any use of the state’s force, within the confines of its laws, violates his will. Moreover, Buckley benefits from state force in a most direct way; his radio stations partake of a monopoly maintained by state force. In that way they are part of the state and should be bound by the state’s self-imposed limitations... the First Amendment included. Buckley may make no “law” for “his” property which abridges anyone’s right of free speech. This logic, of course, leads to chaos... but, as we all know, _government is chaos_, and those who support it deserve to receive the full force of its illegitimate power. I don’t believe using the law to smash the law-giver is improper libertarian behavior. ## The cross and the flag With the July-August issue of _Outlook_, your editors reached a new low in bad taste. The shocking appearance of an interview with Madalyn Murray O’Hair, the atheist adventurer, in a magazine that purports to advocate freedom will do much to undermine the battle against Godless Atheistic Communism. In every country where Communism has dominated, the Church has been the first institution to be destroyed because it offers the only effective opposition to Communism. The cross and the flag are all that stand between us and the minions of Moscow. _Outlook_ seems determined to see that such tools are stripped from us. Yours in Christ Major Winston Domo, USAF (Ret.) Tulsa, Oklahoma \[Major Domo is the editor of Attack \& Kill Newsletter and is recognized far and wide as one of America’s leading anti-communist crusaders.—Ed.\] ## On “The Crime of Government” In their article, “The Crime of Government,” Louis Rossetto, Jr. and Stan Lehr mention the case of General Tomoyuki Yamashita, who was condemned at the Pacific Theater War Crimes Tribunal. As libertarians attempting to discover and apply natural law to such difficult matters as war crimes, it is only sensible that we do as Rossetto and Lehr have done; namely, examine the decisions and reasonings of past masters of law and jurisprudence to see what help they offer. But I think we must reject the Yamashita case as a guide. As A. Frank Reel writes in his book, _The Case of General Yamashita_, “... It is interesting to note that in the Nuremberg indictments great care was taken to allege that these particular prisoners ’authorized, directed, or participated in’ the actual crimes. Nowhere in the record of the Nuremberg trials can there be found the cavalier disregard of that touchstone of our criminal law—the element of personal culpability—that signalizes the Yamashita case.” Bill Evers Stanford, Calif. ## The authors reply: Mr. Evers’ point is well-taken. We did not mean to go as far as to advocate using the Yamashita case as a precedent. We mentioned it largely to illustrate the danger of “victor’s justice” inherent in state-sponsored war crimes trials, and also, to contrast this Draconian precedent with the way in which some people today are willing to bend over backwards to allow our own contemporary war criminals to literally get away with murder. ## Welfare imperialism? I’ve just finished reading Roy Childs’ “Conservatives, Revisionism \& the Cold War” in the July-August _Outlook_ and wish to applaud it. The article makes me wonder what the author’s views are on welfare and what happens when U.S. businessmen involve themselves in the statism of other nations. I’m certain they follow those presented in his article in _Outlook_...and I’m just sorry he didn’t expand on these and hope he will do so in the future. Earl Zarbin Phoenix, Ariz. ## Even more LeFevre on Peden on voting Professor Peden tries to make a distinction between aggressive actions (the initiation of force in a first instance) and defensive actions (the initiation of force in a second instance). The fact is that human beings control their own energy in each instance. Every action of force is an initiated action. The person who aggresses does so because he believes he has reasons to do so. We may not agree with his reasons, but nonetheless he has reasoned that he should act aggressively. The person who reacts by using force defensively is also taking initiated action. He, too, believes that he has a reason for doing what he does. It is far easier to accept the rationale for defensive action than for aggressive action. But that is largely a matter of conditioning and insensible acceptance of governmental propaganda. Factually, each action is of the same character. Force is being used which is calculated to impose on a second party. Each use of force results from a decision made by an individual mind. Each such decision is based on a reason, good and sufficient to the actor, which in his mind justifies the action taken. The fact that most people disapprove of some of these actions and approve of the others does not alter their character. It is merely the expression of a value preference for one type of initiated violence over another type. Professor Peden goes on to imply that action and violence are equated. Surely, he can’t mean this. Violent action involves imposing on a second party by force. Peaceful action involves no imposition. His assertion that libertarian politics becomes an ethical possibility is simply an assertion that libertarians can impose on others justifiably, but that if others do precisely the same thing, such actions by them cannot be justified. But libertarian political action, like initiated defense, is a use of force against others. It imposes on the free choices others would make if left to their own devices. And the great merit of the libertarian position, at least to me, is found in the recognition that only the libertarian states frankly that he prefers a societal arrangement in which forceful impositon on others is not employed. In his contribution to this publication last month, Mr. Peden had the grace to say that \[LeFevre\] “... seems to be saying that those who want a State cannot be opposed without denying them their rights.” In a sense, that is true. I have no more right to take away the crutch on which a man is leaning than to insist that he lean on a crutch. But I most certainly do have a right to protest when he insists that I lean on the crutch, too, or that he has a right to place the leg of his crutch on my toe. And this is the problem with all types of collective action in which violence begins to be employed. It is, in fact, the very evil with which all governments are inflicted. Whenever a government takes an action, there are some who favor that action. it They have a right to favor it. They simply have no right to favor it at the expense of those who do not favor it. But how does government get around this evil? Frankly, it gave up long ago. When a policy is favored by some, it is imposed on all. And if, in seeking to permit a free society to flourish, we insist in the same manner—by violence—that all men be free, we are and must be engaged in the same type of procedure. If those who favor freedom seek to argue that their freedom justifies coercion imposed on everyone so they can get their way, then indeed we will have no answer to the dilemma. I asked Professor Peden what history has to say about those who sought to obtain freedom by employing violence. He says that the picture evolving from such efforts is “mixed.” I do not see it as “mixed.” The human slavery spoken of by Professor Peden was largely abolished by the efforts of one Granville Sharp. The act of Parliament which followed was virtually little more than an acknowledgement of what was already _fait accompli_. As for the accomplishments in religious freedom, repeal of the corn laws, the practice of free trade, and so on, especially the establishment of the Protestant church in Ireland, we might do well to take a really good close look. I am under the impression that, however real those gains may have seemed, since they were obtained by power they were susceptible to power plays against them, which surely have been used since. I am reminded of the revolution in Russia in which anarchists _did_ seek to overthrow the government by force. The result? And what of American efforts to abolish slavery in this country by the force of law? Whenever it appears that a gain has been made by the use of coercion, an avenue is created, by the use of force, down which an opposing force may come. If you win an election by majority vote, surely you are subject to lose the next one by the same process. But Professor Peden is right when he says that society is always in flux. Precisely so, and never more so than when it relies upon violence to attain a goal. Violent means do not provide a non-violent conclusion. Ends and means must be in harmony. The future of liberty is in our hands. And surely we must not sit on them. But this is no justification for using those same hands to punch others in the nose who may not agree. Robert LeFevre Santa Ana, Calif.