William Marina
If not, I still thank him, for this may be a case of “it takes one to know one,” and without his splendid insight, I might never have become aware of my condition.
Despite his rather intemperate tone, what concerns me is his seeming inability to read and understand English. ¡Si queres, Justin, nos podemos comunicar en español! I have for years read his columns with interest, but now the question arises, can I trust his research any longer?
For example, he writes that “in a long, rambling piece …[Bill Marina] complains about libertarians ‘getting into bed’ with the Left”
What I wrote was “I just don’t think I want to climb into bed with True Believers with the goal of some kind of misguided, military, FGW [Fourth Generation War], Futile Crusade to make the world safe for American ideas of Liberty.”
I said nothing about anybody else climbing into bed, referring only to myself not doing so, and nothing about anyone doing so “with the Left.” The two people I mentioned, with whom I was dissenting, were William Lind and Lew Rockwell, both, as Raimondo acknowledges, clearly from the Right.
I spent some time describing Puritans as True Believers before relating that to today’s versions. Is that “rambling,” and too hard to follow?
Here’s another Menckenism on the Puritans: “A Puritan is someone who’s afraid that somewhere, somehow, somebody might be happy.” Justin sounds to me, not only very angry, but perhaps unhappy as well, and not just about me. Are you also a Puritan, Justin?
As I have observed over the years, what happens to libertarians who dissent, from within that dwindling group, I have increasingly defined myself primarily as a Taoist, as I first did over 40 years ago.
One theme that came through in the comments was that “we” are such a small group, “we” need to stick together and not quarrel. I have never placed that need over open dissent.
As a Taoist, I have valued the view that one can be “ a majority of one,” and especially Dr. Stockmann’s observation in Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People,” that “a man is strongest when he stands most alone.”
Justin complains that I am so negative, that I mentioned no one whose work appears to satisfy me: “is anybody good enough for you?” Again, it appears he cannot read very well. I mentioned HL Mencken, Murray Rothbard, William Appleman Williams, Carroll Quigley, Adam Smith and the Tao. If it will help to make you happy, Justin, I can give you the names of many other writers whose works I have found enlightening.
Justin goes on at me: “I am sick unto death of ‘libertarians’ who sit on the sidelines carping, kvetching, and coughing up all sorts of ‘objections’ to what we do at antiwar.com.” As a reader and supporter, my only comment, Justin, was that you might reconsider running Lind’s writings as a regular column, doing some of them as you might Paul Wolfowitz’s writings, in telling us about the aims of the Empire. As it is, you have institutionalized the work of someone whose goal is to improve the technology of warfare. Is that antiwar?
I am again saddened that you are so unhappy about all of those “carping” libertarians who have complained to you. I guess you can understand why I define myself primarily as a Taoist.
Justin says I nowhere cite or quote Lind. That is true, I thought a reader might go to antiwar.com among the links on the right side of the L&P site, and read for themselves. That’s what they are for. Justin also says I have “lied” about Lind’s position.
So, Justin, here’s a quotation from Lind at the end of his article in the lewrockwell.com Archives for October 7, 2004, which I believe says it all:
“The Fourth Generation seminar met Friday for the first time since last spring, and we have decided to write our own field manual on Fourth Generation war. It will be modeled on the excellent field manuals the U.S. Marine Corps issued when General Al Gray was Commandant. We plan to have it out in the first half of next year; LRC will offer the whole FMFM.”
I am opposed to war as a means of solving human problems or as means of enhancing State Systems.
Military strategists have been attempting to figure out ways to suppress “people’s war” for well over two millennia. While I doubt he will, if Mr. Lind now succeeds in developing more “humane” counter-insurgency tactics, he will certainly be a hero with the Marines, and all of the thuggish dictators around the world, who will adopt these tactics in putting down their own people.
And at least two libertarian, anti-state, anti-war web sites will be helping to disseminate that information. Now, maybe that will make you happy, Justin!
I haven’t totally sat “on the sidelines,” Justin. Interested readers can consult some of my writings on Peoples War, Marine Handbooks, weapons technology, etc, among the several articles under my name at independent .org. Here are two, that relate to the above, and that will link to many others:
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1283
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1286
What really disturbs me, however, is not your calling me an idiot, or seeming to misread my words, but rather your own:
“Lind is working from the assumption that we are indeed at war, and that there is a rational way to fight it: not in Iraq, not against states whether in the Middle East or elsewhere, but against what Michael Scheuer calls the "worldwide Islamist insurgency" represented by Osama bin Laden and the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks.”
If I understand you correctly, Lind’s manual will help the Marines find bin Ladin, something we have not yet been able to do.
A “rational way to fight” war; and, I mistakenly thought you were antiwar. Apparently an erroneous “assumption.” “Rational War” — pronounced with a slight Russian accent, sounds like something out of Ayn Rand, as when she used to tell her husband, Frank, to go out for a “rational walk” so that she could have sex with Nathaniel Branden. I hope Osama will listen to your reason.
Scheuer, dear Justin, appears to be writing about a war of ideas somewhat different from a new Handbook modeled along lines of that of the Marines.
Are you the official spokesperson for antiwar.com? If the aims of antiwar.com are as you state them, to develop new means of “rational” war, rather than to oppose war per se, then you really ought to get rid of that “negativism” you accuse me of, and perhaps change the name of your web site to “rationalwar.com,” along with proclaiming that the aim is really to fight the "worldwide Islamist insurgency." Given your aims, that is certainly more logical, straight forward and honest, for a group that is really not fundamentally antiwar, but rather seeking ways to wage rational war. For openers that should attract a number of Randians!
William Marina
To read the story, U.S. General to Review Policy, Iraq Training, click here.
Sheldon Richman
David T. Beito
In addition to her pioneering work as a folklorist and anthropologist, she was a novelist of considerable talent. She grew up in the all-black town of Eatonville, Florida, where her father once served as mayor. Eatonville was the setting for Hurston’s most famous novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). With much justification, Saturday Review ranked it with the works of William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway.
While Hurston never expressed a systematic political philosophy, her instincts were those of a libertarian. Her comments on the destructive role of the welfare state were prescient. In 1951, she called it the “the biggest weapon ever placed in [the] hands of those who sought power and votes” and charged that it was responsible for turning once independent citizens into pawns of the “Little White Father” in Washington.
Like Lane and Paterson, Hurston showed an affinity for anti-imperialism. Not surprisingly, she championed Robert A. Taft’s campaign for president in 1952. In her autobiography,
Dust Tracks on a Road (1942), she declared “I do not mean to single out England as something strange and different in the world. We, too, have our marines in China. We, too, consider machine gun bullets good laxatives for heathens who get constipated with toxic ideals of a country of their own.”
Hurston was suspicious of anyone, from left or right, who judged individuals by category. “I found,” she wrote, “that I had no need of either class or race prejudice, those scourges of humanity. The solace of easy generalization was taken from me, but I received the richer gift of individualism.”
Chris Matthew Sciabarra
Aeon J. Skoble
Jeffrey Rogers Hummel
Sudha Shenoy
American foreign policy in the 21st century stands at the opposite extreme: it manifests the shortest of short-term outlooks. This is inevitable, since it has to fit in, largely, with the US electoral timetable. This also means much - if not most - ‘foreign’ policy is directed very much for *domestic* effect. Thus the problems it meets are those that accompany & follow, a succession of short-term military (& other) interventions abroad. These expeditions may involve helping to topple one set of rulers & replacing them with another, but the operation is short-term, looking (almost entirely) to the immediate impact at home.
The slogans that are offered to justify military interventions -‘nation-building’, ‘establishing democracy’, etc. - clearly are intended for electoral consumption & for the gullible or ignorant. Short-term military adventurers, no matter how powerful, *can* intervene only in *continuing* historical contexts: even the greatest superpower on earth is incapable of recreating a history. The only questions are, what does this intervention add to the political mix? How do the other factions also contending for political power change their strategies? Who is strengthened? Weakened? Thus an additional strand is woven into the political fabric flowing from the loom.
Sheldon Richman
This brings me to the final defense of privatization [of Social Security]: the payroll taxes you pay are your money, and you ought to be able to do what you like with your money. This, I suspect, is the real justification behind the move to privatize, and it is the worst reason of all. The payroll tax is not"your" money; it's our money. Social Security was created as an insurance scheme, not a pension scheme. It was meant to provide a safety net, to protect the unlucky from immiseration in old age. The benefits we get are not payouts from accounts in which we have accumulated our own private stash. What we get is largely determined by what we earned, but we keep getting it even after we've taken out every penny we put in. And if we happen to die early, someone else reaps the benefits of our contributions.
That was in an op-ed by Barry Schwartz in yesterday's New York Times. Can you think of another paragraph with so many fallacies?
I've deconstructed Schwartz in "The Shady Origins of Social Security." My earlier tangle with Schwartz is here. (It may take two to tango, but only one to tangle.)
Chris Matthew Sciabarra
As we near the long-awaited"democratic elections" in Iraq, amidst growing violence across that country, much more attention is being given to the"nation-building" enterprise. In the current Winter 2004-2005 issue of Political Science Quarterly, Eva Bellin's essay,"The Iraqi Intervention and Democracy in Comparative Historical Perspective," offers some very insightful commentary.
Bellin begins with appropriate questions:"Is military occupation likely to be the midwife of democracy? Can democracy be imposed by force from the outside?" Since this is the"assumption driving America's intervention in Iraq and posited as a potential new pillar of ambition for U.S. foreign policy elsewhere," Bellin thinks the time is ripe for a thorough historical investigation of this strategy as a means to an end.
Many nation-builders point to Germany and Japan, for example. Clearly,"indigenous 'authoritarian' culture ... need not be an insurmountable obstacle to implanting democracy." Bellin understands, however, that"Germany and Japan began with a set of endowments, many of them anticipated by democratic theory, but others peculiar to the cases' unique historical context and time, that favored democratic outcomes." Bellin states unequivocally:"These endowments are not replicated in Iraq ..." Showing an almost Hayekian flair in her understanding of the role of unintended consequences, Bellin writes:
Historical experience suggests that although military occupation may increase the likelihood of democratization, and wise policy choices certainly improve its chances, the outcome is largely shaped by factors, both domestic and international, that cannot be controlled by military engineers operating within the confines of current cultural norms and conventional limits of time and treasure.
Whereas Iraq has never developed into a truly"advanced industrialized country," Germany and Japan were"highly industrialized countries with developed economies" prior to the Second World War, needing a major infusion of financial capital after the war. Democracies rarely endure in poorly developed countries like Iraq, which have also had few"prior experiences" with representative models. Moreover, unlike Iraq,"Japan and Germany were relatively homogeneous ethnically.""Nation building" becomes far more possible in countries where the population has a firmer"national identity" and"social solidarity." To a certain extent, that lack of"national identity" is what enabled Saddam Hussein to divide-and-rule. The Hussein regime, lacking any rule-bound state institutions, learned to exploit the social divide among Shia, Sunni, and Kurdish, in order to retain power in Iraq."Deliberate state practice of privilege and prejudice meted out along primordial lines fueled suspicion and distrust among the different communities of Iraqi society."
Bellin understands that"the rule of force" in Iraqi society has become endemic to political institutions there. It is part of the political culture as such."As a consequence, there are few institutional remnants or habits of mind ... to draw upon to help build democracy in Iraq." With no party institutions, except those rooted in" cliques of ethnic or religious elites," and with no genuine leaders of truly"national stature" (such as Emperor Hirohito in Japan) granting their imprimatur, the quest for"vibrant democracy" is severely hampered.
The article is not available free to readers, but can be ordered online here.
Sheldon Richman
Addendum: Some free-marketeers, including Milton Friedman, say reimportation should be stopped to protect the patent system. I say allow reimportation; abolish patents (and copyrights).
David T. Beito
Lost in this discussion, however, is the irony the underlies this loud conservative support. In taking this stand, conservatives have completely forgotten (or simply don't care anymore) that it was Gonzales who went to the mat to oppose Ted Olsen's draft of the DOJ's statement the University of Michigan admissions case. Olsen had wanted to condemn the University's use of biological diversity in college admissions in clear and concise terms.
Gonzales, however, waged a behind-the-scenes campaign to release a version that would endorse the inclusion of biological diversity as a"factor" to trump merit. Bush caved (he probably never really cared) and Gonzales got his way. Because of Gonzales's efforts, the DOJ is now on record endorsing the right of state universities to admit students on the basis of diversity even if it means the sacrifice of merit.
The willingness of conservatives to forgive and forget Gonzales (and thus set him up for a future on the Supreme Court) reveals once again just how much they have sacrificed principle in their single-minded preoccupation to wage the war on terror by"any means necessary."
Donald J. Boudreaux
Louis XIV was an absolute monarch. He created no wealth. Indeed, by extracting his fortune forcibly from his subjects he destroyed wealth. He was a predator. While some very rich Americans today win their fortunes by unsavory means, most earn their wealth by creating wealth for others. They produce FOR others; they don't prey ON others. They’ve earned their pricey Mercedeses and McMansions.
Sudha Shenoy
William Marina
While I am no great defender of the Bourbons, apart from their having helped the American Revolution, I believe the history of that period, and ours, is a bit more complex than that.
Whether ill gotten or not, a major motivation for the ostentatious display of wealth in a given social system is to establish status and hierarchy. A great virtue of the American system is that it has made it possible, for example, for virtually everyone to own an automobile as a means of transportation
It, therefore, becomes essential to establish the car as something much more than that! An Acura model has the only overall 5 star safety rating, but that brand (really a spruced up Honda Accord) has never achieved the status of a Lexus, Mercedes, Rolls, or Jaguar, and is rather boring because it is never in the repair shop as much either, which makes it something of a best-buy in the luxury category.
One could extend that example indefinitely to other items, the more related to “conspicuous consumption,” the better – that are not really important as an essential part of a decent lifestyle. Good ‘ol Thorstein V. called it “The Theory of the Leisure Class,” and I have always had a certain sympathy for the wealthy caught in that cultural syndrome, even if their wealth was in some cases a bit tainted.
The Bourbons were caught in a very different situation. The great historian Carroll Quigley, for one, pointed out in The Evolution of Civilizations (for which I am proud to have contributed a Bibliographical Note) that the French system was not that centralized, absolute structure argued by many historians, but rather much less centralized than the emerging British system of that time.
In short, the French system was much more feudal than the British, with the aristocrats in the provinces having considerably more power.
While the Parliament in GB might ameliorate some of the absolute power of the British monarch after the English Revolution, it was also part of a very powerful emerging British “State System,” including a much more efficient tax system with which, in Boudreaux’s terminology, the State could expropriate “wealth.”
The on-going fiscal problems of the French State were a reflection of its still relatively feudal condition. The ostentatious nature of Versailles, ironically, was in no small part an effort to partially curtail the real power of the aristocracy by bringing them there for fun and games for extended periods, thus luring them away from their provincial power bases.
The real centralization of State Power in France was, of course, brought about by the French Revolution and Napoleon.
Interestingly, the French system can be seen in an even purer form in the Tokugawa system in Japan at roughly the same time, a brilliant plan to break the power of the feudal aristocracy by keeping them at court for part of the year in a carefully thought out virtually checker-board pattern, thus keeping feudal lords from cooperating against the center.
The story of “The 47 Ronins,” Japan’s greatest story of the period is a magnificent recounting of that system, and draws new versions each year, even today.
So, I would suggest, Louis’ power was less than absolute, and he was having to try all sorts of schemes to make ends meet, all of which rather exhausted a guy also keeping a few mistresses on the side.
Wendy McElroy
(The reason CBS would want to make a groveling, desperate play for forgiveness is clear. Rather has been banned from the White House. And, as Newsweek reported,"Bush seemed to be enjoying the discomfiture of Dan Rather and CBS over the phony documents. At a press conference in mid-September with interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, Bush called out, 'Is anybody here from CBS?' He sounded more needling than gracious." Clearly, CBS wants to be there again.)
This morning RatherBiased confirmed the rumor...at least, part of it."A spokeswoman for CBS News told RatherBiased.com that news president Andrew Heyward and Washington Bureau chief Janet Leissner did meet with White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett as reported below." The unconfirmed part: what was discussed. Not that it takes investigative journalism to come up with a working hypothesis. An additional rumor has been floating: towit, CBS is trying to set up a swan song for Dan Rather before he retires from news broadcasting. As it stands, the man will leave in disgrace with news sites and bloggers giving him a slew of "the worst of ---" awards as his final remembrance. Unless, of course, the last interview of his career is with George W., an interview which would indicate Presidential forgiveness and allow CBS to wipe the now-hardened egg off its face. Anyway, that's the rumor according to Broadcast and Cable: Rather may be trying to interview Bush.
For more commentary, please see McBlog.
Sheldon Richman
Arthur Silber
With his typical flair and elan, James Wolcott saves me the bothersome work of once again troubling to sort through the mottled, blotchy landscape of one Andrew Sullivan's mind:
"No wonder you're all mixed up. You got a white man's first name, a Spanish man's second name, and a black man's third name."I still haven't recovered from reading this Sullivan statement earlier in the day (and even though I had first seen it quite a while ago):...Mickey Rivers, one of the greatest comedians ever to roam the outfield, diagnosing the identity crisis of teammate Reginald Martinez Jackson, better known as Reggie.
A similar condition bedevils Andrew Sullivan, whose sensible name badges a multicar pileup of identity conflict. He's a gay British Catholic Tory conservative"eagle" who deplores the etiolated patriotism and willpower of the coastal elites but resides in the blue lagoons of Washington, DC and Provincetown. His sympathies keep[] tugging him in so many different directions that he intellectually resembles Steve Martin in All of Me, herkily-jerkily battling with himself as if being yanked by an invisible leash. (Read his graf today about the nomination of Albert Gonzalez for A.G. and watch him tug himself back and forth.)
For all of his lofty rhetoric, which catches the tailwind of Tony Blair's, Sullivan gets a little peckish when the lower ranks forget their place and question their duties. Atrios today provides several prize examples. I will only note Sullivan's interesting choice of words in the following:That statement constitutes a glimpse into what passes for Sullivan's soul that I genuinely didn't need. (It is rivaled by a statement I discuss in the second half of this essay concerning the elections in Spain last year and the reaction of certain hawks -- and about the authoritarian bloodlust occasionally revealed when the warhawks let slip their very thin veneer of civilization.)"I'm sorry but I pay for those soldiers to fight in a volunteer army. They are servants of people like me who will never fight. Yes, servants of civil masters."
Servants? Masters? Some Brits just can't let go of the remains of the day.
But seeing Sullivan's remarks again just now, this thought occurs to me: Thank God that our soldiers are not servants of people like Sullivan. At least, I certainly hope they're not.
Given Sullivan's ability to deny the reality planted directly in front of him -- even when that reality is a screaming, bloody-stumped failure of a foreign policy -- if Sullivan had been giving orders, every single one of our soldiers would have been massacred by now.
Although, come to think of it, it probably is someone not unlike Sullivan in crucial respects: we seem to be doing all too well in the death department. But it's all for a"democratic Iraq," right? Please. Please. Please.
By the way, Spencer Ackerman also notes the"new optimism" that now grips our State Department:
There are some parts of the Sunni Triangle where the security right now, frankly, is not that bad. In parts of Diyala Province, some parts of Salahuddin Province, some parts of Nineveh Province, [the situation] is not all blood and fire and destruction in all places every day.There are"some parts" where the situation"is not all blood and fire and destruction in all places every day"!
This, as I am certain you realize, is undeniably wonderful news -- and a sure sign that democracy will take hold throughout the entire Middle East by next Monday.
At the very latest. Never let it be said that the State Department surpassed me as far as optimism is concerned.
William Marina
Rockwell notes:
“The most significant socio-political shift in our time has gone almost completely unremarked, and even unnoticed. It is the dramatic shift of the red-state bourgeoisie from leave-us-alone libertarianism, manifested in the Congressional elections of 1994, to almost totalitarian statist nationalism. Whereas the conservative middle class once cheered the circumscribing of the federal government, it now celebrates power and adores the central state, particularly its military wing.”
He then quotes from an unpublished 1994 memo of Murray Rothbard’s ascribing all sorts of libertarian implications to the Republicans taking control of Congress, and warning that the gains of this “revolution” might be lost.
That this occurred, Rockwell blames on the fact that “the establishment somehow managed to pin” the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing “to right-wing libertarianism,” and that so much energy was expended in focusing on the effort to impeach Bill Clinton for his attempt to cover up his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
Rockwell then leaps ahead to the situation today. His great lament is that so many Republicans, especially since 9/11, have gravitated to what he calls “Red State Fascism.” Thus, the greatest danger to American liberty is no longer from the left, but from the right.
He concludes:
“There has never in my lifetime been a more urgent need for the party of liberty to completely secede from conventional thought and established institutions, especially those associated with all aspects of government, and undertake radical intellectual action on behalf of a third way that rejects the socialism of the left and the fascism of the right.
I certainly agree with that statement, and my comments below are offered in the spirit of the “urgent need” he expresses. At the same time, I do not believe that it is possible “to completely secede from conventional thought and established institutions” or “undertake radical intellectual action” without cutting free from the parameters of many of his historical assumptions, as well as the conclusions that he has drawn from them.
Let’s begin with his, and Rothbard’s, assessments of the election of 1994. I do not think it had anywhere near the libertarian component they imagined. Where is Congressman Newt Gingrich in their analyses? Yet, most at the time attributed Republican success to the traditional decline after a party had won the presidency, with Clinton’s ineptitude in handling the health issue led by Hillary, his poor handling of such issues as gays in the military, and the way in which Gingrich led the Republican criticism of these issues.
Given the libertarian emphasis of the Rothbard-Rockwell analysis, even through Gingrich is not mentioned, one would imagine Gingrich was in the forefront of some sort of libertarian resurrection. Years earlier, Bruce Bartlett, then in Jack Kemp’s office, observed that Gingrich used to come over occasionally, and the staff would attempt to teach him a bit about supply-side economics, but that hardly qualifies as hard core libertarianism.
In my course on American Studies in those years, I used to show a few segments from the video tapes of Gingrich’s course on American Civilization, specifically where he talked about the origins of his Republicanism, especially the influence of Teddy Roosevelt on a relative, an uncle as I recall, who had in turn influenced Newt.
Gingrich was quite open in speaking about his Rooseveltian worldview, and my point in showing his lecture to my students was to demonstrate what an odd kind of conservatism the Republican leader was championing. It didn’t occur to me that Rothbard then, and Rockwell now, would see this as some kind of libertarian revolution.
TR was, of course, neither a conservative nor a libertarian, but a radical Progressive, who advocated a massive statism at home, as well as colonialism and imperialism abroad. It is no wonder today that Clinton, Gingrich and George W. Bush, all have talked about themselves as inheritors of TR’s mantle.
It would take considerable space to discuss all of what I consider Rockwell’s misperceptions about 1994. He says, for example, without offering any evidence, that “the state was seen as the enemy of education.” Conceding that schooling and education are quite different things, while Americans are aware of the failings in their dominant state schooling system, the hope springs eternal that it can be reformed. At the same time, some interests have been quite adroit in pushing a state-controlled charter school system as an alternative to really promoting private schools.
So shallow was this Gingrich-led “libertarian” revolution that Clinton was again elected in 1996, helped by the monetary efforts of the Fed, and his simple “triangulation” toward the Center. And Newt? The leader of this so-called great revolt was soon essentially out of the political ball game.
While I agree with Rockwell about the developing fascism in America, and have discussed it in a number of my articles at independent.org, its origins go way back beyond any supposed shift after 1994.
I will discuss the history of these developments in some future contributions to the L&P blog, and then endeavor to explore a viable alternative to this historical tendency.
