I can't speak for Libertarians but I thought they were well aware of the coercive power of violence; the whole point is to build a state that does less of it...

As has been discovered, that doesn't prevent some other state from doing violence to you.

The irony of doing this in former Yugoslavia is astonishing. Yes, states can fragment and borders can move .. at a considerable cost in human life. You can see it happening today in Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as the much more visible attempt by Russia to move the borders of Ukraine.

Again, this is surely not a new discovery for these people. TFA is obviously their biased explanation of events. But the behavior of the Croatian authorities could still be "surprising" if it was substantially different from past interactions. E.g. lack of formal written notice.

> the whole point is to build a state that does less of it

A state is only a state when it can defend its territory.

At the individual level, the praxis of property rights is that something belongs to you if the person with the biggest stick says it is - this is typically the state (libertarian utopia's excluded).

>… but I thought they were well aware of the coercive power of violence; the whole point is to build a state that does less of it...

in reality, in the real world, with all its immense complexity, their very very simplistic ideology leads directly to a hyper winner take all, i got mine everyone else can go die anti-social clusterfuck with significantly more violence towards everyone but those at the top.

the only people who believe their hyper selfish ideology would somehow magically lead to less violence are typically young teenagers who haven’t yet studied much human history, emotionally stunted adults, or folks who just haven’t really yet thought through most of the implications.

In the US, many libertarians are supportive of an unfettered second amendment.

One reason for this support, is perhaps the explicit acknowledgment that violence trumps rules or contracts.

it's not that sort of violence that matters. A bunch of provincial homesteaders with guns don't constitute an army. Any small nation that is going to survive is going to look like Israel or Taiwan, militarized, armed to the teeth, with discipline, cohesion and state capacity.

One of the funniest experiments with this kind of thing I ever read was a small town in the US being overtaken by libertarians, only to succumb to... bears. (as the citizens could neither organize waste regulations, public garbage disposal, or prevent one crazy guy from feeding the bears in the first place)

https://unherd.com/2020/12/libertarianism-never-ends-well/

> Any small nation that is going to survive is going to look like Israel or Taiwan, militarized, armed to the teeth, with discipline, cohesion and state capacity.

And protected and funded by the US ;)

So is (almost) all of Europe. Only four countries besides the US actually meet their obligations to fund NATO, and though they've given more by GDP than the US to Ukraine, it isn't by much.

NATO defense spending targets aren't an obligation (well, they aren't a spending onligation, just an obligation to make it a policy goal to move toward a spending target) and aren't “funding NATO”.

That's a double-misrepresentation popularized by Russian propaganda proxies seeking to sow discord in the West.

The whole point of NATO is shared defense. When one is attacked, all are attacked. If the US wasn't so heavily invested in their defense, they would certainly be spending more than they are now. The fact that so many countries have failed to meet their committed goal means they are being subsidized by those that have.

Keep calm. The US is now going to sell us weapons for shitloads of money in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The EU (specifically Germany who has resisted, Central and Eastern European states, some who have a corruption problem and where Russian propaganda is at home) is going to up their game now, after the fact. President Trump warned our politicians but to no avail. Only Poland has been doing it because the memory of what happened during WW2 is very much alive there.

> The fact that so many countries have failed to meet their committed goal means they are being subsidized by those that have.

Nonsense. That's not how reality works. Countries like Luxembourg or Portugal aren't "subsidized" because they don't spend 2% of their GDP in dissuading Russia from invading other NATO members.

Also, military spending per GDP is set as a line in the sand. Germany doesn't meet the 2% mark but still is the second biggest supporter of Ukraine's defense against Russia's invasion, which is the whole reason of existence of NATO.

Libertarianism does not preclude a self-defense force nor measures against bears. Get real.

Oddly related: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-...

It's not odd. It was specifically brought up in the conversation. It's what the person you are responding to was responding to.

a lot of nations started with groups of men with guns who went from there. a solid millitarized populace is the bootloader for a potential shake-up of government or splintering off.