Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 38. Sunrise is 6:35 AM and sunset 5:39 PM for 11h 04m 15s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 32.1% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1948, in a coup d’état led by Klement Gottwald, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia takes control of government in Prague to end the Third Czechoslovak Republic.
All libertarians would prefer a world of free trade with friendly nations. We are the descendants of the Enlightenment, and rightly understand the power of free trade to uplift both buyers and sellers. We are cosmopolitan: welcoming of, and open to, other people and places.
Much to our regret, violent threats to the liberty of nations and trade between them occasionally arise, and so we must decide: will we support free peoples abroad & their hopes for peaceful commence with us and others?
I am from a movement family (that is, an old libertarian family, long before the term libertarian was coined), and for us this was always clear. We are to support free peoples against autocracy abroad, and autocratic impulses at home. Many campaigns during the Cold War were misguided, but the war was not. The Soviets were, in every principal respect, the enemies of liberty. There never was a good Soviet (as a supporter of that dictatorship) and there never will be a good Putinist. Thousands of years of moral teaching condemn them.
Now comes a modern-day czar, with his militant imperialism, twisted teachings, and criminal army, to oppress the free people of Ukraine. In the family and teachings of which I am a grateful descendent and inheritor, one is called to oppose Russian imperialism.
There are some exceptions to this view among libertarians: some who are pacifists (there is a small group of Quaker libertarians) and others who are inveterate isolationists. The former (Quakers) are principled and consistent (if mistaken). The latter (isolationist) group professes a contradiction. The isolationists want free trade, and would defend liberty at home, but not so much that they would fight to defend liberty and trade abroad. Convenient of them: unlike the Society of Friends that advocates pacifism everywhere, the isolationists place liberty underneath their personal convenience. They are a millstone around libertarianism’s neck.
Ukraine acts in her self defense; defense of self and others is a right, natural to Ukraine (and to America on her behalf, as a defense of others).
Evan Casey reports On the anniversary of the Russian invasion into Ukraine, Wisconsin-Ukrainians continue to help their country:
After putting his son to bed, Valentyn Potapenko flipped on the TV to find what moments before was a typical day had now turned into a nightmare. It was Feb. 24, 2022, and from his home in Wauwatosa, he watched as Russia launched a war by bombing his hometown in Ukraine.
He almost couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing.
“Right away, I didn’t believe that it was happening,” Potapenko said.
In the days after Russia invaded his home country, Potapenko, who moved to America in 1995, said he felt hopeless. He had many family members and friends who were still living in Ukraine.
But he and his wife decided to take action, starting a website to collect donations for his people. After collecting nearly $50,000 in a few days, the couple then partnered with Wisconsin Ukrainians, which has collected over $500,000 in donations in the last year.
“People here in the United States jumped on board and helped in any way possible,” he said.
Christiana Trapani, a second generation Ukrainian-American, has a similar story. She owns Door County Candle Co., and has raised over $800,000 to support humanitarian efforts by selling the popular Ukraine candle.
These Wisconsinites are among the best of this state, and of America. Slava Ukraini, Heroiam slava.