Defense of Liberty

Free Republic ^ | September 23, 2001 | Annalex

[annalex]

Defense of Liberty

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.

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.

All rights reserved. Reproduction in full is authorized with attribution to the Free Republic and Annalex.

[annalex]

I also have a son called to active duty now for the third time. [...] Our policy has been wrong and only gets worse.

There is no excuse for Clinton's shenanigans in the Balkans, but this one is of different cloth. However wrong our policy was, it did not cause this attack, and this time we are justified to strike back, hard.

I say that we ask for forgiveness and offer forgiveness.

.. to the Serbs, perhaps. Forgiveness is a personal act; if you can forgive the mad bombers, you are a better man than I am, but I pray for them. War, on the other hand, is a collective act. A soldier who decides to forgive the enemy on the battlefield betrays his comrades and his country, and he is a bad Christian.

[annalex]

hope that their ideas regarding foreign policy never get the chance to be implemented.

Derbyshire has a fine piece about the Republic vs. Empire controversy in the National Review. The imperial policy can be curtailed through political means; Britain did it. The outcome was more terrorism, welfare state and dependence on the US for defense.

[annalex]

we've supported quite a bit of aggression

That's the nature of the game. One can't have a functioning defensive policy without aggression. That is why the proper yardstick for foreign policy is national interest, and not non-aggression.

[annalex]

.

[annalex]

Holy War isn't a good prescription

Holy War is an old metaphor, I didn't offer it and I don't know what a better one would be. This is a war between civilizations, but it is not a national or religious war. Although led by Christians, it is joined by Jews and westernized Muslims. It is not a war between ideologies or cultures either, because the Western civilization consists of many ideologies and cultures, with individual dignity and rule by consensus as a common trait.

I believe that tactically, many methods seems effective, and war by proxy looks particularly attractive, but ultimately, this war will be won when a Westernized regime controlls the territory and a police force mops up the resistance. The Westernized regime will have the task of winning the hearts of the population with rule of law and a clear path to prosperity. The model of that is General MacArthur and post-WWII Japan.

[annalex]

Yup. Thanks.

[annalex]

fort dix

No wolf nor swine nor dog shall gnaw our bones.

[annalex]

Don't understand you, sorry. What April? What was the reaction of the Rockefellers?

[Benoit Baldwin]

>The word for tulip -you know, the flower-- was a confusion 
>with the word for the turban. 

Tulips, you say.

   In reading the history of nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities; their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first. We see one nation suddenly seized, from its highest to its lowest members, with a fierce desire of military glory; another as suddenly becoming crazed upon a religious scruple, and neither of them recovering its senses until it has shed rivers of blood and sowed a harvest of groans and tears, to be reaped by its posterity. At an early age in the annals of Europe its population lost their wits about the Sepulchre of Jesus, and crowded in frenzied multitudes to the Holy Land: another age went mad for fear of the Devil, and offered up hundreds of thousands of victims to the delusion of witchcraft. At another time, the many became crazed on the subject of the Philosopher's Stone, and committed follies till then unheard of in the pursuit. It was once thought a venial offence in very many countries of Europe to destroy an enemy by slow poison. Persons who would have revolted at the idea of stabbing a man to the heart, drugged his pottage without scruple. Ladies of gentle birth and manners caught the contagion of murder, until poisoning, under their auspices, became quite fashionable. Some delusions, though notorious to all the world, have subsisted for ages, flourishing as widely among civilized and polished nations as among the early barbarians with whom they originated, -- that of duelling, for instance, and the belief in omens and divination of the future, which seem to defy the progress of knowledge to eradicate entirely from the popular mind. Money, again, has often been a cause of the delusion of multitudes. Sober nations have all at once become desperate gamblers, and risked almost their existence upon the turn of a piece of paper. To trace the history of the most prominent of these delusions is the object of the present pages. Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.

–Charles MacKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness Of Crowds

>God help us all.

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him--and promptly forget His teachings.

C'est Homme.

[headsonpikes]

The risk of having a 'successful' state is that pride, careerism, and complacency speedily lead to the destruction of the values that made the successful state possible.

There is no peace but the peace of the grave; life is a constant, conscious battle.

These are old lessons.

[Lev]

Anyone can rightfully refuse service to a customer without identification.

Absolutely. But this is not what is happening, is it? Private parties will be FORCED to refuse service to a customer without identification.
Regards.

[Storm Orphan]

That's one of those points where I differed.

"Rights" are not involved in private transactions until government begins dictated terms.

[TheDon]

At least the British had an Empire to lose, where's ours?

[lakey]

Just re-read my post...omitted the most important part - her name - April Glaspie, US ambassador to Iraq prior to the Gulf War.

She was Bush's "fall guy." Told Saddam that her instructions were that whatever Iraq did, the US had no opinion or interest in Kuwait.

Do you remember?

[annalex]

I believe that a citizen database is a done deal. The public doesn't make the assumption that the database will be misused. I also think that people have an intuitive sense of natural rights, and understand that the right not to have others keep information on you does not exist.

The right to dictate conditions of a business transaction doesn't exits either. If an airline wants to see an ID before they let you on their plane, you are free to refuse to fly, that's all. When a government agency dictates to the airline how to do business, that is a dispute between the airline and the government. Since the issue is one of national security, the government has a legitimate say in the matter: it is not an instance of intrusive regulation.

I believe that the citizen database will be abused by the government. The pattern of abuse will be that citizens who oppose any facet of the government activities,-- wholly inside the protections given to them by the Bill of Rights,-- will be facing smear tactics based on the knowledge of every transaction they have ever entered with anyone. We saw such abuse employed by Clinton against his opponents, perhaps with the help of the pilfered FBI files. With the citizen database in place, ordinary citizens will be exposed to intimidation just as much as the proverbial glass-house politicians are today.

[annalex]

Thanks.

[annalex]

The epithet "barbarians" applies to the mad bombers better than to the Medieval Saracenes who could teach the valiant Franks a thing or two.

[annalex]

Was Ghandi libertarian?

Not in any meaningful sense. In particular, his insistence of economic self-reliance ("let's make our own cotton") was the opposite of what a libertarian would prescribe. It also put India on a slow economic track from which they are recovering only now.

[annalex]

Time will tell if abuses of liberty, in the name of liberty, will be forthcoming.

I can tell you now that they will be, if you rather not wait all that time.