On Thu, 2004-12-23 at 01:29 -0800, Jay P Hailey wrote: > Anthony gregory has been on a real tear lately. I really like what the guy > has to say > > http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory51.html > > Liberventionists: The Nationalist Internationalists by Anthony Gregory
> One peculiar contradiction is the notion that anti-war libertarians - a > redundancy, when the terms are properly understood - I'll have to take serious issue here. He is neutering the language, and then murdering it. In reality as well as theory libertarians are not "anti-war" by definition. They are in support of wars of defense. I know of no single libertarian who would say that if Canada came steamrolling into America to conquer it, the government, or individuals, could not fight a war to prevent it. I know of no libertarians that say Kuwait did not have a natural right to fight a war against Iraq when Iraq invaded them; or France, Poland, and many other countries fought a misguided war when Germany came rolling in. Therefore, Mr. Gregory abuses the English language, as well as libertarians and libertarian philosophy when he says that "anti-war libertarians" is a redundancy. He is claiming that any libertarian is "against war". This position, as demonstrated above is bunk. Indeed it is FUD (Fear Uncertainty Doubt) of the most malicious kind: likely unintentional and with Good Intentions(tm). He should have, and would be well advised to, argue against specific wars and their causes/justifications for/against them with regard to their relation to libertarian thought, philosophy and belief. > On the other hand, so think many of the liberventionists, we real > libertarians also couldn't care less about the oppression of foreigners. If > we oppose Gulf War II, it's because we prefer Saddam Hussein to a life of > liberty for the Iraqi people. If we oppose the Cold War, we are turning our > backs to the victims of Communism. If we question World War II, we are Nazi > sympathizers who care nothing about those that Hitler oppressed and > mass-murdered. To sum up, we are insufficiently internationalist. A nation actually can have valid concerns about another nation conquering others. Just as an individual can have valid concerns, and take action against, similar activity in their local area, such as their "city block". It seems to me in this piece that Mr. Gregory is buying into a common (and fallacious) argument against libertarianism. > >From the liberventionist viewpoint, war is a positive good. It is good for > America and saves Americans lives - and so to oppose it is to not care about > one's fellow Americans - and it liberates and saves the lives of foreigners, > and so to oppose it is to support tyranny abroad. Well at least according to Mr. Gregory's definition here, he can not consider me to be one if his "liberventionists". Though I suspect he would anyway. > In truth, war is almost always a negative-sum game. It is a tragedy for > everyone involved, minus the political elite of the winning state. Again, he commits a serious fallacy in this proposition. In the example of the American War of Independence that war is clearly neither a zero sum game, nor a "negative sum" one. The whole of the Colonies were improved, as was -and this may come as a shock- England herself. In that war both sides actually benefited. Indeed it could be well argued that the whole of the world has benefited from that war. Yet it would be folly to carry that argument to all wars, just as it is folly to carry all wars into a negative sum game scenario. > Libertarians who believe in individual liberty as a universal value don't > usually have to turn their back to one group or the other to speak out > against war: Again I must emphasis that libertarians should not "speak out against war" in the general sense Mr. Gregory uses. Instead, they should speak out for and against specific wars as their conscience, beliefs, philosophy and realities dictate to them. > It turns out that we libertarians were right about the threat posed by > Saddam to Americans. There wasn't any. More than 1,300 Americans have so far > died in a war totally unnecessary and counterproductive to protecting > Americans at home. Gulf War II has extinguished the lives of nearly half as > many Americans as died on 9/11, all to preempt a nonexistent threat. > > We were, and are, also right about the "liberation" of the Iraqi people. > Freedom is not happening in Iraq. In a country with an outraged and > fundamentalist majority, pure democracy would not yield anything close to > liberty, or even an improvement over Saddam's regime. I see a bit of semantic sleight of hand here. A pure democracy would not yield anything close to liberty in in country: outraged religious fundamentalist majority not needed. The only time a pure democracy could stand a chance of working is if every single citizen were a libertarian through and through, and agreed on everything by requiring each vote to be unanimous. Even then, I am not without doubt. > Unless the country is > split up into separate regions, the only realistic way that "order" can be > achieved any time soon is under the iron fist of a despot, much like Saddam. I disagree. I've actually conceived of a few ways the "country" can be kept whole without requiring a despot or iron fisted dictator. Indeed, these same ways apply you the US as well. In the case of Iraq, I began with a presumption that there existed geographical areas comprised of certain demographics, such as the Kurd laden Norther part. Basically I accepted the three regions as fact and worked from there. Applying principles I'd like applied to my federal government, I have arrived at an organization that gives each a pretty high autonomy (more so than our US States have) while balancing it into a union nation as a whole. Naturally, unless it were implemented it would be impossible to "prove" it would work. Yet so far everyone who has applied an analysis has failed to see any significant blocks to it working. Indeed this structure of government is the focal point of the book I am currently working on. > Liberventionists have to wonder why the US helped put Saddam in power in the > first place. Some more questions: Why did the US back Saddam in a war with > Iran, which killed one million Middle Easterners? Why did the US support > Saddam during his worst human rights abuses against the Kurds, providing him > with chemical weapons after it became clear he was a monster, and shielding > him from UN censure in the 1980s? Why did the US give him the green light to > attack Kuwait? Why did the US impose sanctions on Iraq that killed a million > Iraqis by depriving them of their basic human right to trade and import food > and medicine freely? Because at the time, those in power thought it the right thing to do. That is the simple and most accurate answer one can come up with. The underlying insinuation is that this past activity by in many cases different people somehow precludes taking actions that are in seeming opposition to prior administrations and congresses. This is fallacious thinking. We libertarians are very fond of our belief that people can and do change. We believe in the ability of people to see the error of their past ways and amend them. Yet why is it we are asked to then say that the US government, which has it's "leadership" change fairly frequently -indeed the human analogy is having your brain/spirit/whateveryoucallit swapped out - can not or should not change. If I were to elected POTUS I would make many changes particularly in foreign policy. Would Mr. Gregory them use the demons of past foreign policy to say I should or could not do that? Given that he would like many (though not all) of my changes I suspect he would not. In my view such an action would constitute a lack of consistent application of beliefs -a problem many a libertarian and especially Libertarians have. > Why did the US initially support the Oil-for-Food > Program, and demand that Saddam stop all trade outside its parameters, only > to turn around and condemn the program and pretend that the UN alone bears > responsibility for the corruption and suffering Iraq has endured in recent > years, and that somehow all of this justifies the Iraq war? I had to call this one out. This is a particularly egregious breach of intellectual honesty and fairness. > Why is the US maintaining an occupation of the Iraqi people that 98% of them > do not consider one of liberation? It's been said that 94.6% of percentages are made up. I'll let the irony and sarcasm of that statement be evidence for it's poignancy The one above is extremely suspect. Where does Mr. Gregory obtain his factoid that 98% of Iraqis do not view themselves as having been liberated from Hussein by the US/Coalition? Has he taken a poll or election in Iraq? Such wild assertions do damage to his credibility. > This war is not good for America, or for Iraq. That's the plain-as-day > truth. Yes, Saddam was a very, very bad man, who did very evil things - > especially when he was a US ally - but over the last quarter of a century, > US intervention has consistently brought to Iraq nothing but Ba'athist > tyranny, war, suffering, mass starvation, bombings, puppet dictatorships, > military occupations, censorship, death and destruction on a hardly > imaginable scale. The idea that one more year of fighting - one more smart > bomb - one more US puppet regime - one more intervention - will somehow > bring freedom, peace and security to the country, would be hilarious, if > such dangerous misconceptions weren't responsible for so much human > suffering when applied to the real world. There is much to raise an eyebrow at in that paragraph. Can Mr Gregory point out any prior Iraq meddlings where we insisted on public elections? I can not find any evidence for this having happened. Indeed the lack of historical experience with any form of elective government in the Iraqi consciousness is one of the most significant barriers to establishing one there. It is rare indeed for the US government to try new things. I would argue this is true of most ideologies of governance to include our own libertarian ones. It is certainly true that prior US administrations have a history of propping up dictators. This is one of the very few diversions from said "policy". It is the largest in recent memory and clearly one of the largest historically. This, regardless of the justifications, represents a step forward if it should continue. An elective government does not guarantee liberty. But it provides a much better chance for it than a dictator. It also decreases any puppet-like qualities in the resulting government. > Libertarians are supposed to recognize the limitations of government - any > government - to do good. That includes our government as well as the > governments abroad that our government put in place. > > Libertarians don't oppose war because we don't care about the liberty of > foreigners or the safety and lives of Americans. We oppose war because we > realize that it is bad for virtually everyone involved. Again, this is likely a short sighted and definitely a fallacious argument. Those who justify Gulf War II based on the "liberation" do indeed have valid arguments and points that libertarians need to accept and incorporate to remain true to our beliefs. To say that Iraqis have or will have gained no benefit from the war is myopic and absurd. Granted, we can not say for certainty what will happen in the future. However leaving whether or not the US removing Saddam was the right thing for the US to do aside, I find it laughable to say that Iraqis would be better off under Hussein or another like him than even the current situation - which is far from acceptable. I suspect this is because Mr Gregory has not lived under such regimes. Like most Americans and libertarians, Mr Gregory does not have experience of living with truly fascist and oppressive governments. As a result we live in an ivory tower of sorts. We imagine that despite the torture chambers, the middle of the night abductions and secret murders of dissidents done solely to foster and perpetuate fear is somehow worse than being occupied by a foreign nation which intends to give me a voice in my government, and orders of magnitude more opportunity and freedom than I had before. I consider myself fortunate in an odd sort of way. While I have not personally lived under such a government, I have seen up close those who have. I have discussed the experience at length with people who have lived it. It gives me a better understanding. Just as living in Germany during the cold war and witnessing the effects of socialism and government control of the economy does to the economy and society formed many of my beliefs in the free market. I have lived under socialist government with "an out": coming home. Mr. Gregory would do well in his opposition to Gulf Wars II by separating the very real positive effects of removing such a brutal bastard as Hussein from the justifications/excuses/reasons for doing it. There is absolutely no reason why one has to deny the benefits of the war to have opposed/oppose it. > The liberventionists who want to have it both ways - who think that > sacrificing American lives will bring freedom to people abroad, Does Mr. Gregory seriously believe that Americans can not sacrifice their lives to bring freedom to others? That is one of the most ludicrous statements I've ever heard. Here he essentially argues that history is a large lie. Ho also invalidates a tenet of libertarian government. Did the sacrificing of French lives help to bring freedom to non-French lives? Mr Gregory, myself, and most who read this are proof it did. Sure, the French government got involved because they wanted to maneuver England into a corner; yet the result is the same. Did the sacrificing of American lives bring an end to Hitler's regime abroad? I think that is likewise without question. It is clear to any who look that Jes are able to roam freely in Europe, and while the Europeans democratically chose socialism the sacrifice of American lives did give them the freedom to do so. This demonstrates the fallacy Mr Gregory commits. He says that all cats are mammals, all mammals have blood, and then concludes that all mammals that have blood are thus cats. Americans sacrificing their lives abroad can indeed bring freedom to others. Among libertarian beliefs is that in situations such as a government ruled by a brutal dictator, that the government should not get in the way of private citizens getting together to free said country - as opposed to doing it for them. > and yet > killing innocents abroad will save American lives Again, a mis-characterizing insinuation. The unspoken implication is that the intent was to "kill innocents". I am willing to believe in many misjudgements and intention to do nefarious things at all levels of government. But I am not so unrealistic to think that someone seriously thought "well we can save lives by going overseas and killing innocent people". I imagine that pressed, Mr Gregory would have to admit he doesn't believe such a notion either. Yet he does put it forth. > nationalist internationalists. They believe that the US warfare state can be > a great blessing, on balance, for both Americans and foreigners. They > believe that, when the score-sheets are tallied and the dust has cleared, > the large-scale initiations of force, central planning and government > spending involved in war will be a good deal for both Americans and for the > world. And they may have valid historical evidence to substantiate such a belief. As it has happened in the past. Not that noting and acknowledging that means I argue for it. Merely that to claim it is without cause is an invalid argument. > Killing innocent foreigners to protect Americans and sacrificing > young Americans to save foreign innocents is their strange and deadly > formula for international peace and national security. They claim to be both > altruists and patriots, but they are simply both nave internationalists and > blind nationalists. It's a paradox, as is their general philosophy. Mr Gregory seems to be living in a town may of straw people. Can he point to a single instance of anyone in the administration who proposed that killing innocent people would lead to positive effects for "national security" or freedom, or people? Can he point to people making that argument? No, I believe he can not. I believe this because it is a stupid, and ludicrous claim. Nor have I seen anyone say it. He damages his credibility by making such men of straw. Surely his analytical skills would be better applied to the real arguments at hand? > This is why liberventionists are not really libertarians. They believe in > and advocate the US nation-state's ability to centrally plan the world > toward liberty. I have not seen this among the libertarians who have supported the war. I readily stipulate that Mr Gregory may have. However, it would erroneous for either of us to apply that as a valid representation of all libertarians who support(ed) the war. > Real love of country and real concern for the plight of foreigners fit much > better with a consistent love of peace, than they do with warmongering. Realization that not all wars are created equally, and that not all war is inherently a zero or negative sum fits better with reality and libertarianism than to make such ludicrous blanket statements as Mr Gregory has. His apparent penchant for straw man argumentation, his apparent inability to separate reality form theory, and his attempt to pigeon-hole libertarians as against "war" is damaging to the cause of liberty, not representative of libertarian thought, and incredibly naive. Indeed if this is representative of his work, I am not interested in seeking it out. Politics abounds with too much of that lack of thinking it through before speaking/writing. Cheers, Bill -- Bill Anderson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> _______________________________________________ Libnw mailing list [email protected] List info and subscriber options: http://immosys.com/mailman/listinfo/libnw Archives: http://immosys.com/mailman//pipermail/libnw
