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Given the partisan nature of everything, it's no surprise that debates about the unfolding humanitarian tragedy in Afghanistan center on the Biden administration's handlingor most would say, mishandlingof the pull-outof U.S. troops and resulting conquest by the Taliban.

"The debacle of the U.S. defeat and chaotic retreat in Afghanistan is a political disaster for Joe Biden, whose failure to orchestrate an urgent and orderly exit will further rock a presidency plagued by crises and stain his legacy,"wroteCNN analyst Stephen Collinson. The retreat had a troubling "fall of Saigon" air about it, as desperate Afghans clung to departing U.S. fighter jets.

Others blamed the former Trump administration. "This was a consequence of the Trump administration's announcementof a fixed date for total withdrawal," arguedRobert Tracinski in The Bulwark. "This signaledthat the United States had given up and that we would be leaving the Afghan government without support." That, too, makes some sense.

Nevertheless, late-game finger-pointing reminds me of lost hikers arguing about exit trailswhen the problem was heading into the woods in a blizzard. Sure, specific U.S. policies have failed along the way. Writer Bari Weiss, for instance, casts a wide netblaming Bill Clinton's refusal to target Osama bin Laden, George W. Bush's reliance on warlords, and Barack Obama's unwillingness to focus on winning.

The problem is America's fundamental policythe hubristic idea that a government that can't even handle its domestic responsibilities has the wherewithal to rebuild an undeveloped nation. That's a bipartisan delusion, although I'm pleased Trump and Biden finally pulled the plug. Had our War on Poverty succeeded, perhaps one could make a stronger case for intervention. We should know better but rarely learn.

Libertarians long decried endless U.S. military interventions given our understanding of the way the government worksas opposed to its myopic promises. I recall the angry responses The Orange County Register editorial pages received when we opposedthe wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as readers questioned our patriotism for pointing out the obvious. It's too bad it can take decades to be proven right.

The Iraq war made no sense given the dubious connections between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks, but Afghanistan was a hotbed for terrorism. It was a tougher case, but there were alternatives to an outright invasion. But once our leaders start pounding the war drums, there was no reasoning with Americans who insisted that this timeresultswould be different.

It is horrific to watch the Taliban, whose philosophy emanates from the Dark Ages, cement its grip on Afghanistan. The results will betragic indeed. Expect widespread executions of those who cooperated with the Western regime, the relegation of women to the status of chattel, and the re-imposition of Islamic law. But let's not forget the horrific effects of the war and occupation.

"An accurate accounting of the war in Afghanistan must take into account the roughly 2,400 American service members, 3,800 American contractors, 66,000 Afghan security forces, 47,000 Afghan civilians, and others (including journalists and aid workers) who were killed,"explainedEric Boehm in Reason. Then add to that the trillions of dollars in costs.

Reasonalso pointed to a report by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. SIGAR lamented our shifting goals: "At various points, the U.S. government hoped to eliminate al-Qaeda, decimate the Taliban movement that hosted it, deny all terrorist groups a safe haven in Afghanistan, build Afghan security forcesand help the civilian government become legitimate and capable enough to win the trust of Afghans."

Although it pointed to a few successes, the "Lessons Learned"report documented 140 pages of failures. The best lesson learned, however, is that the United States should not insert itself into these foreign conflicts, should not engage in nation-building, and should limit its interventions to defensive measures that actually protect our nation and its interests. That's what libertarians always have argued.

"Most Americans still want to see some sort of retribution against Osama bin Laden and his far-flung organization,"wrotethe Register's late editorial writer Alan Bock. "But more are wondering if they'll see it anytime soon. The dread word 'quagmire,'has become part of the discourse." He wrote that in 2001and it's hard to say he was wrong.

What should the United States government do now? It should complete the pull-out, keep close tabs on any terrorist networks that could threaten us, and accept as many Afghan refugeesinto the United States as possible. Many of them, especially interpreters, worked with the U.S. military. Welcoming them here is the least we can doand can help prevent a bloodbath.

Former Gen. Colin Powell is known for citing the "Pottery Barn"rule of foreign affairs. "If you break it, you own it." How about the U.S. start following the libertarian rulejust stop playing with other people's pottery?

This column was first published in The Orange County Register.

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Libertarians Correctly Predicted the Afghanistan Fiasco Reason.com - Reason

Thomas L. Knapp| Libertarian View

More than seven months after the fatal shooting of Ashli Babbitt during the January 6 riot, the Capitol Police Department officer who shot her is speaking out. I know that day I saved countless lives, Lt. Michael ByrdtellsNBC Newss Lester Holt.

Maybe hes right, maybe not, but hes going farther than he has to go. The standard for use of deadly force not just in the Capitol Police Department but generally is not certain knowledge but rather,as the departments policy puts it, a reasonable belief that said use of force is in the defense of human life, including the officers own life, or in the defense of any person in immediate danger of serious physical injury.

Did Byrds actions meet that standard? The events of the day, andthe video record of the shooting, say yes.

Even setting aside the question of whether the 2020 presidential election was stolen, as many Trump supporters believe, and the bizarre theories of QAnon, with which she seems to have been affiliated, the story of Babbitts death is a story of reasonable versus unreasonable beliefs.

It was unreasonable for Babbitt especially given her description in online biographies as a 14-year Air Force veteran and former security guard at a nuclear power plant to believe that she and the mob she joined could walk into the US Capitol and violently prevent Congresss certification of the election without armed Capitol Police officers contesting the matter.

It was even more unreasonable for Babbitt to believe that when her fellow rioters began smashing the windows of the barricaded doors to the Speakers Lobby, and that when she attempted to crawl through one of those windows, the armed officers charged with protecting Congress wouldnt respond with deadly force. Frankly its surprising that they didnt do so as soon as the window-smashing began.

On the other hand, whether or not one likes the Capitol Police, or Lt. Byrd, or Congress, or the outcome of the election, it was entirely and obviously reasonable for Lt. Byrd to believe that members of a mob attempting to force their way through those barricaded doors represented a danger of immediate danger of serious physical injury or even death to himself and those he guarded.

Ashli Babbitt is neither a martyr nor an innocent victim of police abuse (of which there are far too many). She willingly joined a violent mob. She willingly took part in that mobs violent actions. She willingly went an extra foot or two beyond the actions of most of that mobs members. And that extra foot or two was fatal.

Had Ashli Babbitt not put her unreasonable beliefs into motion against Michael Byrds reasonable beliefs, shed almost certainly still be alive.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org).

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Libertarian view: Beliefs and expectations, reasonable and unreasonable - The Spectrum

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- Rumbles from the motorcycles and rock shows of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally have hardly cleared from the Black Hills of South Dakota, and the reports of COVID-19 infections among rallygoers are already streaming in -- 178 cases across five states, according to contact tracers.

In the three weeks since the rally kicked off, coronavirus cases in South Dakota have shot up at a startling pace -- sixfold from the early days of August. While it is not clear how much rallygoers spread the virus through secondary infections, state health officials have so far reported 63 cases among South Dakota residents who attended the event.

The epicenter of the rally, Meade County, has become red-hot with new cases, reaching a per capita rate that is similar to the hardest-hit Southern states. The county reported the highest rate of cases in the state over the last two weeks, according to Johns Hopkins researchers.

The Black Hills region's largest hospital system, Monument Health, warned Friday that it has seen hospitalizations from the virus rise from five to 78 this month. The hospital was bracing for more COVID-19 patients by converting rooms to intensive care units and reassigning staff.

Virus cases were already on the rise when the rally started, and it's difficult to measure just how much the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is to blame in a region where local fairs, youth sports leagues and other gatherings have resumed.

However, Meade County could be a harbinger of things to come for the Upper Midwest as infections ripple from those events, said Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.

"This coronavirus forest fire will keep burning any human wood it can find," he said. "It will find you, and it's so infectious."

Health officials in North Dakota, Wyoming, Minnesota and Wisconsin all reported cases among people who attended the rally, with North Dakota also reporting two hospitalizations. Some health officials noted people could have caught the virus elsewhere.

A team from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention determined last year's rally looked like a "superspreader event." The team said the event offered a lesson: Such large gatherings can result in "widespread transmission" of infections and attendees should follow precautions like getting vaccinated, wearing masks and social distancing.

The aftermath of this year's rally looks eerily similar to last year -- when the event heralded a wave that did not subside until the winter.

But the pandemic fallout from the rally won't be seen for weeks and an exact case count will likely remain unknown, Osterholm said.

Daniel Bucheli, a spokesman for the state Department of Health, said the virus spike is following "a national trend being experienced in every state, not just South Dakota."

He also pointed out that Meade County's vaccination rate of 45% lags behind the statewide rate of 56% eligible people vaccinated.

The city of Sturgis also downplayed the virus numbers, issuing a statement that blamed the increase in positivity rate on a "significant increase in testing performed to proactively reduce the spread of COVID-19" and accusing "individuals in the national media" of mischaracterizing the event.

Despite the more contagious delta variant, this year's motorcycle rally was even bigger than last year. More than 500,000 people showed up during the 10-day rally.

The streets of Sturgis filled with rallygoers drawn to the libertarian rules of South Dakota -- motorcycle helmets weren't required, minimal attire and bodypainting were welcome, and masks were often nowhere in sight. Bikers bellied up to bars and packed into rock shows.

Two bands that performed at the rally have canceled shows after musicians came down with the virus. Corey Taylor, the lead singer of Slipknot who had embarked on a solo tour, told fans he was "very, very sick" from COVID-19, though he did not say where he contracted it.

"This is the worst I've ever been sick in my life," Taylor said in a Facebook video this week. "Had I not been vaccinated, I shudder to think how bad it would have been."

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How much impact could Sturgis rally have on COVID caseload? - WPTV.com

The era of big government is over, President Bill Clinton declared in his 1996 State of the Union address.

There was no question about that at the time. Clinton was banking on triangulation co-opting the GOPs policy ideas to win over its voters to win re-election that fall. After years of hearing about Reagan Republicans grip on the suburbs and the GOP takeover of the House in 1994, Democrats had decided if you cant beat em, join em. The result was two parties both in favor of shrinking the federal government and leaning into a more laissez-faire neoliberalism.

Twenty-five years later, that time is over. Shrinking the size and scope of government is no longer a driving force in either party. What we see instead are two very different visions of the role of government but no real desire from either side to curtail its influence. Republicans are increasingly embracing authoritarianism over libertarianism, even as they frame it as freedom; Democrats have stopped running away from the tax and spend criticism that Clinton embraced.

Its not that big a surprise to see this shift on the Republican side of the aisle. The GOP has had a loose commitment to limited government over the years, in terms of both raw power and areas of influence. On an ideological level, the anti-regulatory spirit embedded in the party has always clashed with the social conservative branchs need to control certain peoples bodies and behavior through anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ policies.

And while President Ronald Reagan campaigned on slashing spending through cutting the governments allowance, the resulting tax cuts didnt slow a massive increase in federal spending. We saw the same under Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump. Ballooning deficits undercut promises of reduced government.

The GOP has had a loose commitment to limited government over the years.

Trump didnt even pay lip service to limiting the federal governments power and scope. But the party went along with him, even though his flashes of authoritarianism are diametrically opposed to the libertarian impulse once prevalent in the more serious wing of the GOP.

Today, the governors vying for Trumps supporters have been fine with using whatever means possible to assert similar auras of authority. Gov. Greg Abbott has consolidated power in Texas by riding roughshod over city and county elected officials and countering what had once been party dogma: Local governments produce better outcomes. Abbotts latest executive order, issued Thursday, bars any level of government in the state from mandating Covid vaccinations, despite the Pfizer vaccines recent FDA approval.

Meanwhile, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has spent weeks ordering school districts not to mandate masks for students. (That effort appears to be backfiring as school boards, cities and counties call his bluff.)

What really makes this latest shift from small government so striking is the GOPs newfound desire to regulate the behavior of private businesses. After decades of devotion to the free market, Republicans recently began targeting what they consider symbolically woke actions by major corporations. Attempts by Abbott and DeSantis to ban cruise lines from requiring vaccinations for their passengers show that this interventionism extends to dictating corporations more substantive actions.

Across the aisle, Democrats are finally aggressively touting major projects and investments after years of running scared from Republican attacks on their tax and spend policies and alleged socialism. President Joe Biden surprised most of the Washington establishment when he championed nearly $4 trillion in proposed new spending. By backing that vision, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have grounded it firmly in the mainstream of Democratic politics.

Democrats are finally aggressively touting major projects and investments after years of running scared from Republican attacks on their tax and spend policies and alleged socialism.

But give credit to the rising clout of progressives such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. Sanders once considered a gadfly, now the chair of the Senate Budget Committee plans to spend the next weeks barnstorming GOP territory to gin up support for the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill that Democrats are preparing for next month.

This dedication to big government isnt a fait accompli in either party. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem came out in an Instagram post Tuesday against a bill that would ban employers from mandating shots for their employees, calling it not conservative and a wolf in sheeps clothing. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine opposes a similar bill in his state but the idea is still popular among the anti-vaccine crowd that DeSantis and Abbott are trying to capture.

And as I wrote Tuesday, some moderate Democrats in the House and the Senate are balking at the price tag of the reconciliation bill, despite the popularity of the proposed spending among voters. Theyre likely to win some concessions which will dull the impact of some of the affected programs but the vast majority of projects will be at least partly funded.

From those Democrats, one hears echoes of the political consultants who convinced Clinton that stealing Republican voters was more important than actual liberal achievements. But were a long way from 1996 the momentum has swung toward active governance, not elected officials who sit on the sidelines. And with one party eager to expand government assistance and the other filled with leaders eager to assert their dominance, dont expect to hear either speak sincerely about small government any time soon.

Hayes Brown is a writer and editor for MSNBC Daily, where he helps frame the news of the day for readers. He was previously at BuzzFeed News and holds a degree in international relations from Michigan State University.

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Ron DeSantis and Bernie Sanders agree on one thing - MSNBC

Martin Fey| For The Bulletin

Republicans often grouse about Hollywood and news media hostility toward conservative views, and the penchant of both institutions for caricaturing conservatives as racists. But the phenomenon is nothing new.

From 1971 to 1979, Norman Lears popular sitcom All in the Family revolved around the small-mindedness, ethnocentrism, jingoism, homophobia and racism of family patriarch Archie Bunker, who in almost every episode was given a liberal lesson. It was a great creation, but Archies offensive language and addiction to stereotypes would never get past Hollywoods woke censors today, nor would Lears choice to make him a sometimes-likeable character despite his copious flaws. It has been said that preaching is fatal to art, but Lear preached liberalism without browbeating his audience. Conservatives and liberals both tuned in for nearly a decade, and then to many years of reruns.

Today there is no subtle preaching in Hollywood, no effort at understanding opposing points of view. A similar sitcom today would portray Archie as pure evil, a scheming white supremacist rather than an unthreatening ignoramus. Hollywood 2021 is close to the reverse of it in the 1950s, when communists, former communists and socialists were blacklisted. Now its conservatives and Republicans in Hollywood who work in fear, muzzled by the threat of an informal blacklisting that harms careers and breaks long relationships.

A few occasionally speak out, though usually gently. Tim Allen, star of the sitcom Last Man Standing, is one of them. In one frank moment he told comedian Jimmy Kimmel on air that being a non-liberal in Hollywood is risky. You get beat up if I dont believe what everybody believes, he said. This is like 30s Germany. Although Last Man Standing was the second highest rated sitcom in 2017, ABC decided to cancel it. Many fans angrily attributed that decision to Allens political views, although the anger subsided when the Fox network picked up the show the next season.

Stacey Dash, an African American/Latina actress best known for her leading role in Clueless, put it this way:

Because Im black Im supposed to therefor be a Democrat, which is absurd, she said. They (Democrats) are supposed to be the party of tolerance, but I dont see any tolerance.

Stars who are aging out of the industry, like Clint Eastwood, Kelsey Grammer and John Voight, are more likely to speak honestly about their political views, but they never show any intolerance toward their liberal counterparts. Instead, they usually invoke libertarian ideas and the desire that people be willing to hear both sides. Occasionally they go out on a limb. Voight called Donald Trump the greatest president since Lincoln, a statement that no doubt took him completely off the cocktail circuit.

The Trump presidency brought the Hollywood leftists to new heights of viscousness, even threats of violence. The same people who in 2020 condemned Trump for refusing to accept his election loss and accused him of fomenting insurrection were apoplectic after his 2016 win. They led the so-called Resistance movement, which rejected Trumps legitimacy and began the anti-Trump hysteria that marred his entire presidency.

It is expected that actors and musicians will be openly liberal and anti-conservative, but the Trump era dragged many of them to slathering lows. Wrestler actor Mickey Rourke and Orange is the New Black actress Lea Delaria chose baseball bats as their preferred weapon for a Trump beat-down. Musician Marilyn Manson and comedian Kathy Griffin created Trump decapitation images. Madonna told thousands at a DC womens march that she had thought a lot about blowing up the White House, and actor Robert DeNiro, still a tough guy in his aging decrepitude, was joined by rapper Everlast in preferring to simply punch Trump in the face.

Most Americans, fortunately, can separate Hollywood fantasy from reality. But there is another class of script readers who have been far more damaging the icons of the mainstream news media. Except for Fox News on cable and the airwaves of talk radio, the media spoke in lockstep and with the same vocabulary through every one of the false narratives brought to bear on Trump. It started with the falsehood that he extolled Nazis and white supremacists after the Charlottesville VA tragedy, a vicious lie that the unreported full text of his remarks should have long ago put to rest. Then there was the Russia collusion lie, based on documents the FBI knew to be fraudulent and discredited by the nearly three-year Mueller probe that Democrats simply rejected. The supposedly reliable intelligence sources that said Russia had offered terrorists bounties for Americans killed in Afghanistan, and that Trump had done nothing to stop them, turned out to be mendacious. Then there was the false story that Trump had peaceful protestors gassed in Lafayette Park near the White House so he could stage a photo op. The inspector general found that the Park Service gave the order because a fence contractor had a job to do. While the lies were circulating Trump was vilified as a dictator, a racist and a traitor. By the time the truth was out, few were paying attention.

Hollywood, music and the media have done more damage in the past five years to American institutions than any presidency in history. Unfortunately for those industries, trust in them was one of the casualties.

Martin Fey is a member of the Quiet Corner Tea Party Patriots.

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View from the Right: Hollywood, music and the media have damaged American institutions - Norwich Bulletin