Posted on 09/23/2001 6:57:38 PM PDT by annalex
This is not the article I intended to post this week. Instead, I decided to put together some thoughts on the essence of libertarianism as applied to this war. I believe that the theoretical foundation of libertarianism: individual rights and freedoms, primacy of the individual over the collective and distrust of democratic government unrestrained by strict constitutionalism, -- will continue to animate American conservatism through this crisis and for years to come. In fact, when the President speaks of America as a force of good, hated because of her freedom, -- he speaks of libertarian values. Defense of Liberty
By Annalex
I also believe that the future of libertarianism in American political thought is in danger. There is a distinct possibility that the libertarians as a group of thinkers will blunder into irrelevance, --not because of their principles, but because of a cultural bias that has rendered them blind to the reality of the war that just started.
What is the bias and what is the reality?
Among all nations, America is uniquely dedicated to the proposition of individual freedom. It also has a powerful government, that is, as is its nature, intrusive and often violative of individual freedoms. There is no paradox here: it is the normal tension between the individual and the collective. Libertarianism is one-directional: no matter what is the present condition of individual freedoms vis-à-vis the collective coercion, libertarianism will pull for the individual just because the government will always pull for the collective. In absence of a recognized theoretical foundation and an analytical attitude, the pulling becomes a cultural bias: if the government does something, it must be wrong. If the individual wants something, it must be his right.
Thus a review of the recent offerings from the usual sources of libertarian thinking: Harry Browne, Lew Rockwell, Future of Freedom Foundation, -- reveal an amazingly myopic view of the conflict. It boils down to the assertions that the government has created the crisis with its imperial foreign policy; that punishing the terrorists is a matter of law, not war; that a rapid retreat from America's global positions is the road to victory; that any wartime measure that the government may adopt is a further assault on our freedoms.
Not so.
The government exists to protect individual rights. I cannot think of a greater violation of individual rights than having an airliner explode over you as you reach for your morning coffee. Our country has been invaded. The individuals that make up this country have their lives in danger. Thousands already lost theirs. We don't know how many future victims we'll mourn before it's over. The perpetrators of this atrocity are organized: they are a country in all but geography. From September 11 on, our government is waging a just, defensive war. It is doing precisely what a government should be doing. Every libertarian should be out on the street with an American flag and a lit candle. Any assistance should be given the government in prosecuting the war. Any impeding of the government's warmaking function is an assault on individual rights.
So, isn't the criticism of American foreign policy prior to September 11 valid? Some of it is. But it now belongs to the past. The important thing is that nothing in our foreign policy was aggressive in nature. The worst, the cruelest blunders of the Clinton's administration were reactions, -- often, misguided or self-serving reactions, -- to someone else's greater cruelty. This war is between civilizations. In that it is similar to the Cold War. It is not between nations, -- it is between ideologies. Our libertarian ideology of individual freedom is at war. Note that the enemy didn't strike Europe, where freedoms and individual rights are handouts form the state; it didn't strike Israel where the actual fighting for territory takes place; it didn't, in all likelihood, come from Iraq, which is our enemy as a nation. Its bloodiest attack was against peaceful traders of property. Of all political colors and stripes we, libertarians should be in the front, and we haven't been.
This is a war and not a police action. Those who perpetrated the atrocity are already dead. At the root of this is an ideology that will breed new atrocities just as fast as we punish for the old ones. This is a war. Call it a war. Fight it like a war. Go on the offensive: invade countries, topple regimes, install friendly governments. For every mullah out there, afraid of his own women, we have a General MacArthur. Godspeed.
We can be certain that the forces of statism will exploit this tragedy to their nefarious ends. War surtaxes are likely; a citizen database is a virtual certainty; a taxpayer bailout of the airline industry has already happened; a thorough bashing of political opponents of strong central government or imperial foreign policy as unpatriotic and outright treasonous should be expected. It is our duty to fight such encroachments of freedom, not only because of what they are, but because they do not make America stronger, and we need strength.
At the same time, we should remember what rights really are. No libertarian can seriously say that a private transaction that happens between the airline and the passenger is a matter of rights. There is no right to a steak knife or a gun in a carryon luggage - unless you put it in the trunk and drive. Anyone can rightfully refuse service to a customer without identification. It is not clear to me, and I think of individual rights a lot, what "right to privacy" precisely is. At most we can say that a national ID and a citizen database are dangerous tools in the hands of a hostile government. But they are not necessarily violations of individual rights per se; their misuse is.
The libertarians like to think in proximate causes. Thus we have an aversion to foreign policy, because it is all about preemptive actions, choosing sides early, and making prognoses based on cultural proclivities rather than concrete deeds. For the same reason we have a difficulty understanding nationhood and war. We need to learn very fast.
*** I changed the tag of our series from "Pursuit of Liberty" to "Defense of Liberty". I will continue the topics that we have started: individual rights, nature of property, moral defense of capitalism, just taxation, proper role of government, liberty and God's law. I will post as much as I can on nationhood, civilization, civil society and culture. I will have to slow down from a weekly publication to, perhaps, monthly, unless someone is willing to be my partner in this. That is because, sadly, I don't anticipate much help from the libertarian publications any more, and doing my own writing or researching sources that are not on the surface of the Internet takes time.
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OWK and I have a little project: an oath of citizenship needs to be reintroduced, so that those who reach maturity, regardless of place of birth and the status of the parents, would swear their consent to the constitution. Those who don't consent don't enjoy the benefits of citizenship. For example, the police department sends them a bill for the amount of police protection they consumed, and they can't vote or get elected.
Combine that with a national ID card, and you get a wholly legitimate system form the perspective of rights, although I suspect that a class of conscientious non-citizens will be quite large.
Robert A. Heinlein wrote somewhere, probably in the notebooks of Lazarus Long, that anytime a place gets crowded enough to require IDs, social collapse is not far away and it is time to go elsewhere. Of course his "elsewhere" was somewhere space travel could take the character he spoke through, so we really don't have an "elsewhere" to go to. I would rather fight for bringing the country I live in back to it's constitutional roots and bring back the individual freedom the founders fought for and sought for its citizens.
I myself have not advocated oaths of citizenship, or national ID cards.
I have however, advocated voluntary confederations for the mutual defense for rights (entered into by voluntary contract upon reaching the age of majority).
The only moral means of interaction among men is by mutual consent. In order for any governmental structure to be morally legitimate, it must be consented to (and funded) voluntarily by all it's participants. One potential method by which a structure might be administered, would be to afford each potential participant the opportunity to enter into voluntary constitutional contract (promising to make himself available for defense, jury duty, and even funding for example) upon reaching the age of majority. In exchange, he might recieve the voting franchise.
There would remain many details to work out, but I think this basic framework is the ONLY morally valid method by which men might be governed.
This is exactly what I remember you advocating; an "oath of citizenship" is what in my mind describes it, but the choice of expression is mine.
Either that or, you must allow someone who has done whatever to pledge his support to withdraw it if the government fails to live up to its end of the bargin.
I see the present Constitution as just such a system, short of a formal declaration of support. The government has failed to live up to its end of the bargin and it's time to either change it, or withdraw from it.
I, personally, feel that many have already done that. In my eyes, that is the reason there are over 100 million eligible voters out there who don't participate. The only thing is, the government will not allow them to withdraw and it forces them to continue to support it whether they want to or not.
How to make a change such as you suggest is the question of the day, I guess. It would almost take a completely new government from the top down to make that kind of change, along with some major changes to the Constitution, if not a new constitution.
Such a system seems like it could be workable, but there would have to be some very strong protections for anyone who chooses to participate and for those who choose not to participate, as well.
Absolutely.
Filing a report in triplicate should not be a billable service.
But then again; I haven't read your contract. Will it be posted soon?
The "contract" is in my editorial plan.
Huh? What he speaks of is a mythical and nonsensical assertion that has no basis in reality. America is not hated by Moslems because we are free.
We are hated by Moslems because they believe that we are helping Jews occupy land that they believe they own. Whether or not they have claim to Palestine is not the issue.
They (the Islamic Jihadists) want to impose Islamic rule world wide and that is their stated goal. We have most certainly meddled in the middle east and have done some things we shouldn't be proud of. Things which absolutely do not have anything to do with libertarian principles.
And most certainly the Islamic Jihadist movement is not accepted by all Moslems everywhere. In fact in their own countries they are not trusted which is why you find terrorist camps situated all around the middle east.
I'm sorry to come in here and pick a nit but this just bugs me. We have to face the fact that for at least 100 years we abandoned the libertarian principles this nation was founded upon.
Not that this makes the attack any less heinous but the number has been steadily declining and is no where near 7000. More like 2400.
It is true that we've done many things I wish we didn't. I wish we had stayed completely out of Yugoslavia and had found some radical resolution of the conflict with Iraq, in particular. That doesn't change the fact that in this war our cause is just.
It is also true that our enemy is militant Muslim civilization that permeates many Middle Eastern nations without wholly comprising any nation; that is to say, the so-called moderate Muslims are our natural allies.
I'm sorry but I don't believe that. Most of western civilization is overwhelmingly socialist. And again, while accusing libertarians of being myopic, you fall back on the position that Arabs in general hate western civilization. That is demonstrably false and evidence can be found in virtually every Cab and convenience store in America.
I don't wish to make too much of a generalization here because Arabs aren't exclusively found in Cabs and convenience stores. But I think you should get the point.
And rather than wild speculation about why Arabs in the middle east hate America, it would seem that the proper thing to do would be to ask the Arabs.
Individualism, rule of law, government by consensus, respect for property rights, tolerance of diverse opinions, -- all these things can be summarized in one word, freedom, and that is what separates us from the militant Arabs and unites us with Israel.
Does it really? When we annexed Iran during WWII and then finally installed a dictator friendly to us, how was that sticking to the ideals of freedom? If you think it didn't make an impression on the Persian people who lived there you weren't paying attention in 1978 when students finally had all they coiuld take and stormed the U.S. Embassy.
It is true that we've done many things I wish we didn't. I wish we had stayed completely out of Yugoslavia and had found some radical resolution of the conflict with Iraq, in particular. That doesn't change the fact that in this war our cause is just.
I don't recall arguing that retaliation is unjust.
When we armed and trained Iraq soldiers so they could murder thousands of Persians who we had forsaken and had finally grown tired of our petty control, how was that "standing for the principles of freedom?"
The Arabs in the middle east know us only by our actions. And our actions are absolutely not representative of the principles this nation was founded on.
It is also true that our enemy is militant Muslim civilization that permeates many Middle Eastern nations without wholly comprising any nation; that is to say, the so-called moderate Muslims are our natural allies.
Right, and we seem to have very little understanding of Arabs. When our business people wanted to compete with the Japanese and make business alliances they learned to speak Japanese and learned Japanese customs. It was extremely valuable.
It would be extremely valuable here as well but what I keep seeing is the insistence that it is totally unnecessary and we should hold on to the absurd belief that Arabs hate freedom and therefore hate us. Poppycock. Nobody hates freedom excepting those who withold political power from the people who deserve it.
The contrast holds if you look at our concrete deeds in the Middle East. An Arab Israeli can hold property, vote and make speeches on the street or in the Knesset (in Arabic, too) against his own government. Not coincidentally, we support Israel. During the Shah's regime in Iran Iranians could wear whatever they wanted, go to beaches in bikinis and watched and listened to whatever entertainment they liked. That was the regime we supported, to be replaced by the ayatollahs that banned all that and shot everyone with money or from the wrong party. In Saudi Arabia we have a military base because we have a treaty with the Saudi government, -- we didn't go to war with the Saudis to get that base. When Iraq invaded a weak neighboring country, we sided with the weak, and traditionally Arab, Kuwait. Our record in the Middle East, although reflecting for most part our self-interest, also reflects our values.
I agree that the Arabs in general adopt the western values whenever they have a chance. The warrior Arab civilization is small, in decline, and spread thinly. I talk more about the nature of our friends and enemies in the next article: Defense of Liberty: The Contours of Victory
And our CIA helped the Shah dispatch his political enemies. And you left out an important part of the puzzle. The Shah was the leader we decided was proper for Iran. That is absolutely not an American value. An American value would be self-determination and sovereignty. So our involvement was difinitively anti-American in nature.
That was the regime we supported, to be replaced by the ayatollahs that banned all that and shot everyone with money or from the wrong party.
And I haven't said that the Islamic hardliners who came to power weren't creeps. But their rise to power was helped along because of our interventions.
In Saudi Arabia we have a military base because we have a treaty with the Saudi government, -- we didn't go to war with the Saudis to get that base. When Iraq invaded a weak neighboring country, we sided with the weak, and traditionally Arab, Kuwait.
Please, when Iraq was invading Iran we sided with Iraq. Explain how that represents American values. Fact is, it doesn't. It was a cynical show of support which eventually backfired when Iraq used weapons and training we provided during their war with Iran to invade Kuwait.
Our record in the Middle East, although reflecting for most part our self-interest, also reflects our values.
If you really believe that, then what you have to believe that the initiation of aggression and the support of totalitarianism is an American "value." You can't seperate the one or two things that we did that reflected American values from the things we did that did not reflect those values.
In the context of the Cold War we supported totalitarian regimes that were on our side in that War. Since the whole Cold War was a war for the western ideals of freedom, tactical alliances with some unsavory characters were justified. The only way to have an active foreign policy in the Third World is to pick one S.O.B. over the other, since wise freedom-loving statesmen just don't exist out there. The proper question to ask is, why the Muslim culture so consistently produces dictatorial thugs as leaders.
That is simply a silly assertion. Khomeini was not a factor until the late 70's after the Shah had been in power for 30 years.
We installed the Shah shortly after WWII. We had taken control of Iran in order to keep supply lines open to the Soviets. We kicked his father, who was the leader of Iran at the time out into exile.
Our help in ousting the Shah's potential poltical opponents included stirring up dissent and encouraging violence. Our CIA did that. And rather than promote the seeds of liberty, we were promoting a totalitarian regime which supplied us cheap oil.
But you keep saying that we've been displaying "American values."
The only way that you can continue that position is to put on blinders. George Washington warned of what can happen when we entangle ourselves politically. That's American values. There was no reason for us to stay involved in Iran after WWII. None. Yet we did and the backlash from the Iranian people came from that intervention.
Similarly, during Iran-Iraq war Iraq looked like a better one to support, given the Iran's sponsorship of Hezbollah and the hostage crisis.
We supported Iraq as punishment for Iran's rejection of American intervention. American values?
You are right that everybody in the Middle East has a concrete grievance, such as our support of Israel, military presence in Saudi Arabia, support for the Shah, or the modernization inflicted on them by the global economy. The common denominator in all that is their propensity for being ruled by thugs. Their revolutuionaries, unlike the revolutionaries of the West, seek a greater tyranny, never freedom. To summarize: collectively, they hate freedom. Those who might choose freedom individually do not have a political mechanism to achieve it in their home land, they either emigrate or keep quiet.
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