PLAYBOY: What, in your view, is the proper function of a government?
RAND: Basically, there is really only one proper function: the protection of individual rights. Since rights can be violated only by physical force, and by certain derivatives of physical force, the proper function of government is to protect men from those who initiate the use of physical force: from those who are criminals. Force, in a free society, may be used only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. This is the proper task of government: to serve as a policeman who protects men from the use of force.
[...]
PLAYBOY: What about force in foreign policy? You have said that any free nation had the right to invade Nazi Germany during World War II....
RAND: Certainly.
PLAYBOY: ...And that any free nation today has the moral right—though not the duty—to invade Soviet Russia, Cuba, or any other "slave pen." Correct?
RAND: Correct. A dictatorship—a country that violates the rights of its own citizens—is an outlaw and can claim no rights.
[...]
PLAYBOY: Would you favor U.S. withdrawal from the United Nations?
RAND: Yes. I do not sanction the grotesque pretense of an organization allegedly devoted to world peace and human rights, which includes Soviet Russia, the worst aggressor and bloodiest butcher in history, as one of its members. The notion of protecting rights, with Soviet Russia among the protectors, is an insult to the concept of rights and to the intelligence of any man who is asked to endorse or sanction such an organization. I do not believe that an individual should cooperate with criminals, and, for all the same reasons, I do not believe that free countries should cooperate with dictatorships.
(via L for Liberty)
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen