Betrayal of the American Right - Ludwig von Mises Institute

Introduction xix
of foreign intervention—were once again being heard, and some of
the most withering attacks on U.S. foreign policy were coming
from old-fashioned conservatives. “The Old Right is suddenly
back!” a delighted Rothbard declared in 1992.
The fruits of this collaboration ultimately proved disappointing,
though Rothbard forged some valuable and cherished friendships
with a good many people who continue to admire and learn
from him to this day. Today, formal alliances of this sort, while still
strategically useful, seem much less important than they were even
15 years ago. When there is only a handful of publications and
platforms sympathetic to libertarian ideas, there is a natural desire
to want to forge an express alliance between libertarians and those
outlets. But in the age of the Internet, when the number of outlets
in which one can publish (and reach a great many people) is so
high, and in which each person can have his own website and blog,
libertarians can have very loud voices without erecting any formal
alliance with some other group.
In a way, it may be fortuitous that The Betrayal of the American
Right is appearing only now rather than 20 years ago. The folly of
the Iraq war and the propaganda campaign that launched it are
making even people heretofore settled in their views stop and
think. Listening to Bush administration propaganda, they can’t
help but wonder if that is what they themselves sounded like during
the Cold War. And even if they do not share Rothbard’s analysis
of the Cold War, plenty of people today, anticipating with dread
the endless U.S. wars that the future appears to portend, may be
willing to consider at least one important argument against Cold
War interventionism: it nurtured a military-industrial complex,
born in World War II, that is evidently incapable of ever being dismantled.
Milton Friedman’s dictum that there is nothing so permanent
as a “temporary” government program has found no more
striking vindication than in the American “defense” sector, which
always seems to find a rationale for higher spending and more
intervention.
In short, more people than ever are skeptical of the official government
version of just about anything, and are open to revisiting