Before the phrase "intersectionality" ever entered a college syllabus, Asian Americans in San Francisco were already living it — connecting dots between U.S. foreign policy and a much longer history of violence against Asian peoples.

In 1969, as the Vietnam War ground on with no end in sight, Asian American protesters took to the streets of San Francisco in a rally that was about far more than one conflict. For these demonstrators, Vietnam wasn't an isolated mistake. It was the latest chapter in a pattern that stretched back through Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the brutal Philippine-American War at the turn of the 20th century. They saw the destruction of Southeast Asian communities not just as geopolitical miscalculation, but as an extension of racist and colonialist logic embedded in American empire-building.

Here's what makes this history relevant — and why it belongs in a liberty-minded publication like this one.

You don't have to be on the political left to recognize that the Vietnam War was a catastrophic failure of government. Over 58,000 Americans dead. Trillions in today's dollars burned. A draft that stripped young men of bodily autonomy. And for what? The war delivered none of its stated objectives and left destruction on a staggering scale.

The Asian American protesters in 1969 San Francisco understood something that fiscal conservatives and civil libertarians should appreciate: unchecked government power — especially military power — doesn't just threaten people abroad. It erodes freedom and accountability at home. Every dollar spent on a war without a clear mandate is a dollar taken from taxpayers under false pretenses. Every life lost in a conflict driven by political inertia rather than genuine defense is an unforgivable waste.

San Francisco has a long tradition of holding the government's feet to the fire. Whether the issue is runaway military spending or runaway municipal budgets, the underlying principle is the same: those in power owe the public transparency, restraint, and results.

These 1969 protesters demanded exactly that. We'd do well to remember their example — not as a left-right issue, but as a fundamental question of what we allow our government to do with our money, our people, and our name.