Year: 2013

My Latest Op-Ed: “…Libertarians Are Selfish and Stupid”

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Politics , , , ,

It’s on foreign policy and the straw men libertarians routinely have to deal with. An excerpt:

If there is one thing that Leftists are known for, it is being rationally ignorant: the less you know about your opponent, the easier it is to dismiss him as a “right-wing nut job,” a “Korporate Klown,” or a “Teabagger.” The less you know about your opponent, the easier it becomes to swallow the fall of the Berlin Wall and the stagflation of the 1970s. The less you know about your opponent, the easier it is to forgive Barack Obama for his trespasses (see also this post by an economist, Bryan Caplan, on Leftist ignorance of conservative and libertarian arguments).

Conservatives are indeed more well-informed about Leftist programs and Leftist thought, but this is hardly something to be proud of. Being proud of such a fact is like Cuba being proud about the fact that it is not considered to be the worst violator of human rights in the world.

Read the rest. It’s on Dr Delacroix’s “other” blog. I’ve got a new one coming out either today or tomorrow, so be sure to check in more often and watch the fireworks.

Hopefully nobody is getting too tired of the NOL’s foreign policy focus lately…

Libertarian Foreign Policy: A Dialogue on Imperialism

Brandon Christensen Liberty , ,

Brandon: Always interesting but more like the basis for a movie story. More lack of attention to well-known facts. You write: “the Arab monarchies that purportedly helped NATO .”

One Arab monarch helped NATO, and not “purportedly.” Its’ Qatar which even flew air attacks, aside from other forms of help. For the time being, the voice of Libya is the provisional government. It’s a rickety alliance composed of every movement that wanted Kadafy out, a very broad alliance according to every observer (except perhaps you). That government asked NATO to stay. How can one be more positive?

You follow Al-Jazeera‘s Arabic speaking discussion boards? I wish I knew Arabic too.

And, by the way, if you have consulted any part of Al-Jazeera for any length of time, don’t you agree this press organ has its own agenda which is not secret at all, not even discreet?

Films on the current situation in Libya in an Anthropology class? Kind of strange. (I don’t doubt it happened but it’s strange.)

Dr Delacroix writes:

One Arab monarch helped NATO, and not “purportedly.” Its’ Qatar which even flew air attacks, aside from other forms of help.

Haha! I know the facts fairly well. I was simply relaying what I have read about the thoughts and opinions that Libyans have on foreign policy. You and I know that Qatar was the only monarchy to participate in the bombings, but we also have access to information 24/7. Some Libyans still rely on more archaic forms of communication to attain information…

It’s a rickety alliance composed of every movement that wanted Kadafy out, a very broad alliance according to every observer (except perhaps you). That government asked NATO to stay. How can one be more positive?

Asking a powerful, benevolent military alliance to occupy their country while they figure things out is not the same thing as being thankful for NATO’s bombing campaign. They might be happy that they suckered the West into doing their dirty work, but that is not the same as being grateful.

And while the alliance may be broad, it no doubt has enemies that have been excluded. I’m sure we’ll find out more about these enemies as time moves on.

You follow Al-Jazeera Arabic speaking discussion boards? I wish I knew Arabic too.

Dude, Google’s Chrome application for websurfing has a translation option every time you land on a page that is published in a foreign language. You just click ‘yes’ or ‘no’ if you want it to be translated. It’s 2011, bro.

And, by the way, if you have consulted any part of Al-Jazeera for any length of time, don’t you agree this press organ has its own agenda which is not secret at all, not even discreet?

I totally agree, but I don’t think that the ‘comments’ section is moderated much. It’s a lot like the Huffington Post, actually. A genuine agenda is easily recognized, but that agenda does not really trickle down into the discussion boards. Anybody can have their say!

Films on the current situation in Libya in an Anthropology class? Kind of strange. (I don’t doubt it happened but it’s strange.)

Oh yeah! Please buh-lieve it! The anthropology courses I’m working with are really just political and economic theory using examples of societies outside of the West rather than reading excerpts of John Locke’s Second Treatise for the umpteenth time…

Towards World Peace: Free Trade Edition

Brandon Christensen Liberty , , , , , ,

Evgeniy’s most recent piece ends with a question that I think goes unasked way too often. He writes:

Мне вот интересно, как борются с предрассудками среди населения в других странах?

[I’ve been wondering how to fight prejudice in the population in other countries?]

My own answer is probably a little predictable, but the surest way to combat foreign prejudices is through free trade. Nothing will ever eliminate social prejudices, at least not in our lifetimes, and this is especially true in regards to all things foreign.

If humanity were to ever adopt the central tenants of libertarianism, namely that the individual is the most important social unit, then I think prejudices of the kinds that cause our societies strife (racial, ethnic, religious, etc.) would cease to exist. In fact, I am so sure of libertarianism’s ability to eliminate the bad -isms of the world that I have decided to devote a portion of my otherwise exciting, prosperous and non-conformist life to this blog in order to further the case for liberty.

The best way for me to argue free trade’s case for combating prejudice in foreign affairs is by bringing up the European Union. After World War 2, the US and Great Britain had to find a way to make the French and the Germans play nice so that yet another major war could be averted. They found their answer in free trade: French and German statecraft began to focus on how to operate within a bound-together framework, rather than on how to outmaneuver the other. The French and German people, as we all know, have known nothing but peace since free trade between them has been implemented.

Free trade doesn’t have to be this abstract idea, either. Every time a Russian citizen watches a Pixar film, he is becoming less prejudiced against Americans. Every time an American citizen takes a shot of vodka from the motherland (giving toasts as he does so), he is becoming less prejudiced against Russians. Without free trade, these two consumer goods – movies and vodka – would have a hard time reaching foreign customers who desire them.

Libertarian Foreign Policy: A Dialogue on Imperialism

Brandon Christensen Liberty , , , , ,

Brandon: For the most part, I am happy to let your comments stand. Together, we do a reasonably good job of clearing up issues about intervention. I don’t need to “win” the argument. However, however, I think you don’t pay enough attention to easily ascertainable facts: Your write: “I don’t think our involvement will be looked upon with graciousness by the peoples we are inevitably trying to help.” The Libyans don’t look on the NATO intervention, including the US, with graciousness?

Good point, good point. Here is my quick (or not-so-quick) take: the Libyans living in exile in the United States have certainly been gracious. The temporary government in power has certainly been grateful. The Libyans in Europe harbor very different views, though. They see this as an imperialistic adventure. They loathe the fact that NATO helped the rebellion in any way, shape or form.

The Libyans in Libya have even more disparate views on the subject. Some have turned their ire towards the tyrant of Algeria. Some are claiming that NATO intervened because of Libya’s oil, and they point to the Palestinian territories to ask why NATO hasn’t helped them. Some of them have been gracious towards the Arab monarchies that purportedly helped NATO in its bombing campaigns. Some Libyans have expressed thanks to NATO. Some Libyans have fixated on Israel. None of them, from what I have seen, have expressed any sort of graciousness at all to the United States of America.

My sources are the unscientific and spam-prone discussion boards on Al-Jazeera’s Arabic-speaking website and a couple of films that I have watched in some Anthropology classes. In fact, in one of the films there were calls for help from Egypt, Jordan, and Kazakhstan after Ghaddafi began fighting with airplanes, but nobody on the streets was calling for help from the West.

Around the Web: the underbelly of Portland

muricaderp Current Events, Economics, Law, Links

1. Trouble on the waterfront. White longshoremen, members of a union rife with open nepotism, go on strike at grain docks on the Columbia River, management brings in black strikebreakers, and racial nastiness ensues.

This is not a one-off episode. There is a huge amount of multigenerational animosity between longshoremen and port owners. It’s so bad and enduring that I’m inclined to think that the whole port industry in the US (and probably in many other countries, where it is at the very least corrupt) is deeply poisoned.

2. In which a tweaker named Axmaker stabs a man named Savage, then sings “Girl on Fire” over the dispatch radio from a stolen sheriff’s patrol car. The uncanny names of the parties only add to the righteousness of a scenario that was fated to someday happen somewhere between Tacoma and Medford.

3. Portlandia absolutely has to “honor” this bizarre tale from the Portland Police Bureau. The episode should be called “Nazi Behind the Bush.” Radley Balko originally brought Captain Mark “Ehrenbaum” Kruger to my attention when Kruger was controversially chosen to teach a leadership course to other police commanders, but the back story is even better, as it involves apparent collusion on the part of other city officials to hide evidence of Kruger’s scandalously Germanic extracurricular activities, an aptly named sensitivity course called “Tools for Tolerance,” a deputy city attorney named Manlove, and, Scout’s honor, a Cmdr. Famous.

4. Not quite the Majors-Cullen school of excellence in nursing, but still, smart money says that Jeffrey Neyle McAllister, RN, will be taking a long-term disciplinary assignment at Dr. Kitzhaber’s Big House.

There are at least two kickers to this story. First, the Oregon State Board of Nursing renewed McAllister’s license without disciplinary provisions while he was under police investigation for sexually assaulting patients. Second, a double kicker from McAllister’s employment history: before being hired as an RN, he worked as a hospital security guard and as a municipal police officer in the cities of Independence, Beaverton and Seaside.

“Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior”

Brandon Christensen Religion , , , , ,

Seven studies using experimental and naturalistic methods reveal that upper-class individuals behave more unethically than lower-class individuals. In studies 1 and 2, upper-class individuals were more likely to break the law while driving, relative to lower-class individuals. In follow-up laboratory studies, upper-class individuals were more likely to exhibit unethical decision-making tendencies (study 3), take valued goods from others (study 4), lie in a negotiation (study 5), cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize (study 6), and endorse unethical behavior at work (study 7) than were lower-class individuals. Mediator and moderator data demonstrated that upper-class individuals’ unethical tendencies are accounted for, in part, by their more favorable attitudes toward greed.

That’s the abstract for this paper (possibly gated) by Paul K. Piffa, Daniel M. Stancatoa, Stéphane Côtéb, Rodolfo Mendoza-Dentona, and Dacher Keltnera.

I would only point out that the authors’ definitions of “unethical” are far from rigorous. How, for example, can we be sure that the rules and even the laws that rich people evade, break or ignore are themselves ethical?

Is it not true that a polity tends to become more unjust as the volume of its laws increases? (h/t Alessandro Cerboni)

Around the Web

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Links , , , , ,
  1. Wasting the Golden Hour in America’s Iraq Meltdown. James Clad has a longish piece in the National Interest.
  2. Randy Barnett on Slavery, Libertarians and the Civil War
  3. Russian cinema trends: Biopics of Soviet stars
  4. ‘Invisibility’ wetsuits for Australian surfers. The LA Times reports.
  5. Matt Steinglass on race and juries in the US (and Europe). An interesting piece from the Economist.
  6. Miami Herald op-ed on the state’s bungling of the Zimmerman case

Libertarian Foreign Policy: A Dialogue on Imperialism

Brandon Christensen Liberty , , , , , , , , ,

This is starting to feel a lot like shooting fish in a barrel Dr Delacroix. Since we both know exactly how Leftists argue, I think it would be pertinent to over your rebuttals point-by-point.

I am glad we agree on the US intervention in Afghanistan based on the fact that the Taliban hosted and refused to deliver the terrorist Al Qaida.

And it would have been nice if we had focused our resources and our energy on staying there and hunting down al-Qaeda. There is also something amiss here: Osama bin Laden was shot dead in a shootout involving our special forces underneath the nose of Pakistan’s version of West Point. As we both know very well, the Taliban and Islamabad have never been on friendly terms, yet both sides gave refuge to bin Laden.

My suspicion is that both factions harbored bin Laden because of his immense wealth, not because of ideological solidarity. Also, I am not sure that the Taliban would have even been able to retrieve bin Laden if they wanted to. Rule by the Taliban was no doubt cruel, but for the most part they relied heavily on regional strongmen and political alliances to maintain control of the state.

With all this being said, I don’t think we ever declared war on Afghanistan. I may be wrong, but I think we focused our efforts on toppling the Taliban regime and hunting bin laden rather than fighting the Afghan state. This is actually a logical outcome, if you think about it, because al-Qaeda was not sponsored by Kabul, and it most certainly was not sponsored by the impoverished warlords of the Afghan regions, either. I’m willing to bet that the Taliban were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Remember, al-Qaeda, or whatever is left of it after President Obama gets finished with them, is not the same thing as the Taliban. I would even say, with some confidence, that the Taliban knew nothing of the attacks being planned against the United States.

Either way, both factions are finished, and it’s time to bring our troops home after a job well done (thanks to President Obama’s strategy).

The “some press reports” statement regarding the Taliban blinding of little girls with acid shows what might be deliberate ignorance. The assertion was made by several responsible neutral sources, including National Geographic, not exactly a hawkish extremist publication. I suspect the Libertarian pacifist stance cannot be maintained without a broad practice of tactical ignorance such as you just demonstrated: Iran’s nuclear weapons? No problem.

My point wasn’t to discredit the press reports, it was to suggest that going to war with a state because a regime sometimes sponsors the throwing of acid into little schoolgirls’ eyes is a little bit silly. And where did the statement on Iran’s nuclear weapons come from?

Pulling stuff out of thin air to legitimate a point that was used to purposefully misconstrue the argument of your opponent is something only Leftists do, usually.  When are you going to come out of the closet, Dr Delacroix?  We’re all dying to know!

Your disquisition on the French Revolution simply ignores my question: Is the American revolution any the less valid because ti was helped by the intervention of a foreign power, France? When you seem to relate the Terror to this intervention, you are going out on a very thin limb. There is a conventional belief that the French intervention hastened the revolution in France by aggravating the public debt.

Ah. Here I think there is a miscommunication between us. If a revolution happens, it is valid regardless of who is involved and who it affects. Pretending otherwise is a waste of time. I brought in the French angle because today the United States IS France playing the role of interventionist in the Middle East.

How is relating the social, political, and economic upheaval of the Terror – which was aggravated by French intervention in the Anglo-American war – going out on a very thin limb? I did not suggest that we are on a crash course for violent revolution. I only drew some (quite pertinent) parallels between the two situations: supporting revolutions that have nothing to do with national security has never bode well for the states that do the intervening.

If you negative feelings, your apprehensions about the Arab Spring were all well-founded (were) should we then, as a country, continue to favor tyranny in those countries as we did for thirty years?

Ah. I have never said that I do not support the revolutions going on in the Middle East. Ever. What I have done is raise a flag of caution in the face of bellicose calls for more bombing, more involvement, and more intrigue on the part of Washington in the revolutions going on in the Middle East. Given that we have been supporting brutal regimes in that part of the world for the last half century, I don’t think our involvement will be looked upon with graciousness by the peoples we are inevitably trying to help.

Of course I support the revolutions going on in the Middle East, I just don’t support our government getting involved with them. When the dust clears, I think we should be the first state to stick out our hand and offer our friendship to the new governments.  I think the people of the Middle East would be inclined to agree with me.

Zimmerman, Martin and Racism in America: Who’s Really Promoting Prejudice?

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Liberty, Politics , , , , ,

Campaigners chose to make Trayvon Martin the focus for a national discussion of race in America. But it was never going to lead to an enlightened and rational debate. In seeking to personalise the issue and create an emotional tie through Martin’s case, campaigners dodged the significant structural and institutional barriers that give rise to racial inequality. And by portraying racism as something that comes from deep within the hearts of white people (so deep that whites often don’t even realise they’re racist), today’s elitist ‘anti-racist’ outlook makes racial divisions appear hopelessly insurmountable.

This comes from Spiked, an online British publication (h/t Mark Brady). Read the whole thing.

I am a little disappointed in myself for not paying closer attention to this trial. Its importance for understanding American society has just become evident to me over the past few days. For what it’s worth, I think the US is still a deeply racist society. I think there are structural and institutional barriers in place today that prohibit most blacks from having the same support networks as other ethnic groups.

I think that the government is responsible for these structural and institutional imbalances, but also that black leaders are responsible for failing to consider (consider) anything other than statist solutions to the problems that afflict American society. I also think that religion is partly to blame. Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams may go to church on Sundays, but you’d never know it based solely on their arguments.

I’ve got a post on peace coming up shortly. Hopefully it’ll be much clearer than this.

La mort d’un jeune homme, le verdict, la montee du fascisme, le racisme.

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Law , , , , , , ,

Je suis desole pour le manque d’accents et de cedilles. Avec mon logiciel de traitement de texte americain ils sont simplement trop difficiles a former.

Introduction

Fin Mars 2012, un homme denomme Zimmerman tuait d’un cou de feu un adolescent de dix-sept ans nomme Martin. Je decris le debut de cette affaire dans un rapport intitule: “Un adolescent noir assassine….”

Le treize Juillet 2013, Zimmerman etait acquitte. Je brosse ci-dessous ls principaux faits de la suite de cette affaire. Je mele a cette description mes commentaires et mes opinions, en caracteres gras.

La victime

Ce n’etait pas le jeune garçon joufflu que TV5 – la chaine francophone internationale – a eu l’outrecuidance (ou la betise) de montrer mais un adolescent de dix-sept ans, plutot grand, bine bati. Il aurait pu facilement faire du mal a l’inculpe. (Je ne sais pas s’il l’a fait, bien sur mais il en etait capable, physiquement), un homme un peu courtaud. La main-courante de son ecole indique que Martin etait un petit deliquant, un voleur pour etre precis. Il n’etait pas particulierement pauvre. Lors de sa rencontre fatidique avec l’inculpe il rendait visite a son pere divorce dans un quartier residentiel economiquement un peu superieur a la moyenne.

Lors d’une breve conversation telephonique avec une de ses amies le soir de sa mort, la victime a brievement employe un terme raciste anti-Blanc (“Cracka”).

Absents du dossier: Tous les antecedents judiciaires de la victime s’il y en a . Je ne sais pas s’il y en a. Possible usage de drogue induisant la rage. Continue reading →

Libertarian Foreign Policy: A Dialogue on Imperialism

Jacques Delacroix Liberty , ,

Brandon: I am glad we agree on the US intervention in Afghanistan based on the fact that the Taliban hosted and refused to deliver the terrorist Al Qaida.

The “some press reports” statement regarding the Taliban blinding of little girls with acid shows what might be deliberate ignorance. The assertion was made by several responsible neutral sources, including National Geographic, not exactly a hawkish extremist publication. I suspect the Libertarian pacifist stance cannot be maintained without a broad practice of tactical ignorance such as you just demonstrated: Iran’s nuclear weapons? No problem.

Your disquisition on the French Revolution simply ignores my question: Is the American revolution any the less valid because ti was helped by the intervention of a foreign power, France? When you seem to relate the Terror to this intervention, you are going out on a very thin limb. There is a conventional belief that the French intervention hastened the revolution in France by aggravating the public debt. It’s not much and isn’t there a chance it’s a little out of your area of expertise? All the same, I admire your gumption! Next thing you know, you are going to offer to continue this discussion in French and you will correct my grammar in that language! (OK, that last statement wasn’t fair. I couldn’t resist. I am deeply ashamed!)

Reply Part II: You sidestepped my main question by taking advantage of my advanced age to distract me with ancillary issues:

If your negative feelings, your apprehensions about the Arab Spring were all well-founded (were) should we then, as a country, continue to favor tyranny in those countries as we did for thirty years?

Same question: How about individually, as human beings?

Libertarian Foreign Policy: A Dialogue on Imperialism

Brandon Christensen Liberty

All reasonable except for what’s not covered in your program:

  1. When an existing state protects actively terrorists on its soil that it could stop and those terrorists kill Americans, are we supposed to say, “Win some, lose some?”
  2. Should the United States be returned to British rule because it gained its freedom through foreign intervention?

And I know you have already answered the question below; I just want confirmation, to make sure I don’t misunderstand you.

When someone is burning little girls’ faces with acid next door do you really believe it’s best to do nothing?

When Egypt and/or Libya turn out to do real well in two years, will you think of sending and “Ooops” message? I ask, because, as you well know, your fellow isolationists who are on the Left, never do.

Haha! You never cease to amaze me Dr Delacroix…

1. When an existing state protects actively terrorists on its soil that it could stop and those terrorists kill Americans, are we supposed to say, “Win some, lose some?”

No, if a state is sponsoring terrorism against the republic or against our allies then we should go to war with the sponsoring state. After the fall of communism state-sponsored terror essentially ceased, though, because despots like Ghaddafi realized that they couldn’t play the superpowers off on each other.

It is trickier when there are terrorist organizations that are not connected to states. Luckily we have all the resources needed to maintain a leaner, meaner military and clandestine force to combat such organizations. Additionally, removing our government-sponsored military from places where they are not welcome would also decrease the likelihood of being targeted by terrorist organizations.

Unfortunately, bringing our troops home and modernizing our military and clandestine apparatuses don’t seem to be high on Washington’s priority list.

2. Should the United States be returned to British rule because it gained its freedom through foreign intervention?

I think you’re looking at this from the wrong angle. We should not be focused on the two factions who fought what was essentially a civil war, but rather on the foreign influence that intervened in the war on behalf of one side. What happened to France politically, economically, and socially after the Anglo-American War?

I don’t think that our society is going to descend into something resembling the Terror anytime soon, but the political, economic, and social constraints placed on our society by Washington’s interventions – both foreign and domestic – are all very visible today.

When someone is burning little girls’ faces with acid next door do you really believe it’s best to do nothing?

This practice is horrible, and of course I condemn it. However, bombing, invading, and occupying a foreign state because of some news reports documenting the throwing of acid into little girls’ eyes is just a little bit ridiculous.

Do you think it would be fair to say that the Soviet Union would have been justified in bombing the United States from Cuba because of the Jim Crow laws? The logic in this last point suggests that they would have been.

We should publicly condemn this practice, and even publicly support (but not fund) rebellion in despotic states, but ultimately this despicable practice needs to be stopped by those whom it affects. The men in Afghanistan need to grow a pair.

If Egypt and Libya turn out to be fine and dandy in two years time, I will be ecstatic and relieved. And of course I will send you a letter of apology. I’m just hoping you’ll do the same if you’re wrong. However, based on your bleeding heart arguments for fighting other states because little girls sometimes have acid thrown in their eyes, I won’t hold my breath expecting one [Editor’s note: I have yet to receive a letter of apology, but technically Dr Delacroix has a few months left…].

Про некоторые стереотипы мышления

Evgenii Grigorev Liberty ,

Всем привет. Давно я тут ничего не писал: новая работа и тотальная нехватка времени даже на некоторые домашние дела оставила проект NOL далеко позади,в  самом хвосте моего списка дел. Но вот, наконец, я слегка разгрузил свое расписание, и вновь готовь писать свои мысли и наблюдения о жизни России и всех сопутствующих проблемах.

Сегодня речь пойдет о стереотипах мышления и “врожденной злости” некоторых категорий граждан по отношению к различным национальностям и меньшинствам, проживающих на территории нашей необъятной страны. Вот сколько лет живу – до сих пор не могу понять этих стереотипов. Одно дело, когда заходит речь о “гостях из дружественных республик”, которые порой не умеют вести себя в чужой стране и вообще всячески пытаются насадить нам свой образ жизни. Здесь, в общем, уместна если не ненависть, злоба и агрессия – то по крайней мере “усталость и раздражение”. Однако большинство тех, кто открыто выступает против приезжих – сами вечером идут на рынок и покупают у них овощи и фрукты, нанимают их для выполнения ремонта в квартире. Кто мешает бойкотировать? Правильно, у них дешевле. А желание сэкономить в нашей крови.

Другой разговор – всякие меньшинства, которые и так постоянно в обиде. Несколько дней назад у меня состоялся весьма долгий и интересный разговор с незнакомцем в интернете, который, несмотря на возраст и в общем-то грамотную речь и определенный кругозор, свято верил, что, например, гомосексуализм можно “вылечить”.  Из разговора я понял, что у некоторых людей нетерпимость базируется исключительно на каких-то дремучих пещерных предрассудках и банальном незнании теории. Как и полагается любой настоящей тайне, предрассудки сами себя отлично охраняют, блокируя всю новую и важную информацию, и полагаясь на фразу “мне бабушка сказала, что геев можно вылечить”.

Говорят, что “в России две беды: дураки и дороги”. Но я хочу слегка преобразовать эту поговорку: “в России две беды. Дураки – и предрассудки”. Интересен факт, что чем больше человек активно во что-то верит, тем больше у них шансов обратить в свою веру остальное адекватное население. Так, любая глупость, сказанная по телевизору, воспринимается как истина.

Мне вот интересно, как борются с предрассудками среди населения в других странах?

Libertarian Foreign Policy: A Dialogue on Imperialism

Brandon Christensen Liberty , , , , ,

Brandon: I share many of your suspicions and even your fears though not especially about Libya, I think it’s going to be OK. But supposing you turn out to be completely right elsewhere. What’s the implication for action? Leave butchers in peace? Hope their victims don’t succeed in overthrowing them? Forever?

No, I think that the people who live under dictatorships should overthrow their overlords, if they can. This doesn’t mean I support the U.S. government helping them out. Too many questions arise out of such policies. It’s easier to blame a foreign influence for troubles in our society than it is to blame ourselves.

My quick policy proposal for foreign relations:

  1. stop hurting people through economic sanctions. Those only hurt the people we are trying to help and help the people we are trying to hurt.
  2. stop supporting regimes for strategic purposes. Doing so often causes us to turn a blind eye towards the some of the worst aspects of these strategic partners.
  3. stop condemning states for doing things that we do ourselves. It’s hard to condemn the prison states of China and Cuba when we have the highest rate of incarceration in the Western world, for example.

I think Egypt and Libya are going to be just as bad as they have been, if not worse. Only Tunisia, which did not rely on foreign support AND recently elected Islamist parties to their new government, will come out of this for the better. I hope I’m wrong, of course, but libertarians rarely are!

The Islamist parties in Tunisia, by the way, don’t have the same “anti-imperialist” sentiments as the Islamists in Egypt and Libya do. I wonder why…

Libertarian Foreign Policy: A Dialogue on Imperialism

Brandon Christensen Liberty , , , ,

Ghaddafi is dead. Hooray.

Now on to the part where we actually have to think about the consequences of our actions. Why don’t we take a look at the region of the Middle East that has actually held elections without being occupied by a foreign power: the Palestinian territories.

Would you like to Google ‘Fatah’ and ‘Hamas’, or shall I?

It’s great that Ghaddafi is dead, and it would be nice if our actions in helping to bring him down were celebrated throughout the Muslim world. I won’t hold my breath though. After bombing the Serbians to help out Muslim Bosniaks the U.S. was thanked with a couple of airplanes being flown into our commercial buildings (it also refroze relations with Russia that still haven’t thawed).

The point I make here is not that all Muslims should be lumped together, but rather than our foreign policy establishment DOES lump all Muslims together. They never take into account all of the intricacies involving the political processes taking place in this part of the world. The effort in Serbia was a calculated response by the Clinton administration to win over the hearts and minds of the whole Muslim world, but what we got instead was soured relations with Russia and a nod of approval from the monarchies of the Gulf states, Turkey, and the autocratic regimes of Jordan and Egypt. One enemy (though certainly not the only one) of the Gulf state monarchies – al-Qaeda – had a different opinion on the matter.

Al-Qaeda looked the other way and saw military troops protecting the monarchies of the Gulf states.

Does anybody here seriously think that helping to dislodge a brutal dictator from power in the Muslim world is going to earn us the approval of the same Muslim world? In fact, what happens if – miraculously – a liberal, secular regime is voted into office in Libya? What do think will be the claims of the rival parties (especially the Islamist ones): that the elections were held fair and square, or that the new liberal regime is a mere puppet of the West?

Bottom line: unless there is a direct threat to the U.S. republic, we shouldn’t be playing that Old World game of Realpolitik. All that leads to is intrigue, speculation, and entangling alliances. Sure, some dictators have died because of our efforts. Then again, some have also benefited. Everybody is a hypocrite of course, but the more we can avoid being so, the better. The idea – nay wish! – that the newly liberated people of the Arab world will somehow elect secular, Western-friendly governments after 50 years of oppression by regimes that were perceived by the Muslim public to be secular and Western-friendly belongs to be filed under the category of ‘fantasy,’ not foreign policy.

The Ghaddafi regime undertook policies that were hostile to the West. His regime sponsored terrorism against innocent people in the West. I am glad he is dead. I am glad that his own people shot him in the streets. But I think one of the major complaints that Libyan elites had for his policies was not that he sponsored these acts, but rather that he sponsored them under the guise of anti-colonialism rather than for Islam.

A couple of thought exercises: what happens if the Libyan electorate chooses to entrust an Islamist political party hostile to the West with running the state? Does the United States accept the outcome, or do we take the same route we did when Hamas was elected in the Gaza Strip?

How would the U.S. be perceived by the Muslim world if our role there was limited to one of trading, and not one of policing?

Has anybody here thought about the possibility of a prolonged civil war in Libya due to regional rivalries that have been suppressed by a strong-arm dictatorship for the last 40 years? After all, the main reasons given for NATO’s operation in Libya was twofold: 1) to keep Libya from disintegrating into a civil war that would send thousands of refugees to Europe’s decadent shores and 2) to win over the hearts and minds of the Muslim world.

Can we be confident that these goals have been accomplished, or are we merely stabbing at shadows in the dark in the name of democracy?