| | Aaron,
I can't repeat everything I just wrote in this new post on another thread, but here's a relevant excerpt:
One of the most common differences between (many) libertarians and Objectivists is their commitment to entirely differing conceptions of "rights." Many libertarians (especially anarchists) adhere to an intrinsicist (platonic) conception of rights, as being an essential aspect of human nature. By contrast, Objectivists uphold a contextualist view of rights, as being an extension of the ethics of rational self-interest into social situations. By the intrinsicist view, rights are something you just have. By the contextualist view, rights are moral principles you recognize and apply.
These diverging views of rights and their source explain many of the political arguments we see here on SOLO. If you believe "rights" are essences of individuals, something they just have, then there are no circumstances in which they disappear. From this premise, it's a short step for anarchists to reject such vital governmental powers as arrest, subpoena, emergency curfews or roadblocks or health quarantines, and contextual limitations on weapons of self-defense (e. g., outlawing private possession and/or use of machine guns, bombs and tanks in "self-defense"). Anarchists reject even defensive wars, because innocent civilians (who are analogous to "human shields" or hostages held by aggressor nations) will likely be harmed during our defensive efforts. They even reject government itself because, being a final arbiter of force, government necessarily compels compliance and/or participation even of unwilling individuals, and thus allegedly "violates their inherent rights" to refuse participation.
By contrast, Objectivists see such governmental activities as necessary and proper extensions of the morality of rational self-interest into a social framework, which any valid theory of rights must therefore incorporate and accommodate...
Should the concept of "rights" be interpreted within a moral context of rational self-interest? Or is it a kind of Kantian "categorical imperative" -- a metaphysical commandment that shouts "thou shalt not impose force," without regard to any considerations of rational self-interest?
A more profitable debate, then, would not be over Iraq or any other specific policy questions. It ought to be over the more basic questions: What is your definition of "rights," and what do you believe is their ultimate source and justification?
If you want to read the whole thing, click here.
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My beloved nation is filled with flaws, errors and outright stupidities, and I will always strive against those. But Ed, there is no equivalency between the flawed West, and the primitive tyrannies; it's not close, it’s not even in the same fucking ballpark. Stop providing the moral sanction that the low life cowards and anti-Americans of LewRockwell and others use. They are beneath contempt, and to treat them with anything other than total contempt, is a betrayal of the good. 
