Liberty

Libertarian Foreign Policy: A Dialogue on Imperialism

Jacques Delacroix Liberty , , , , ,

Again, the soup is too rich. I am going to let most of what you say stand except two things:

1 Is it the case that you endorse and confirm the statement Ron Paul made voluntarily, on his own that he armed forces spend $20 billion a year on air conditioning in Iraq and in Afghanistan? I ask because it’s a measure of Ron Paul’s seriousness and of his followers, with respect to simple facts.

In this connection: It’s clear that Herman Cain knows little about anything outside the country. I don’t doubt Congressman Paul knows much more. About Gingrich’s alleged misstatements, I don’t know what you mean. Please, stop treating as obvious what others may not have seen, heard of, or noticed or may not exist at all.

2 Your sophisticated musings about what constitutes the right to wage war may well be worth considering. You make good arguments that they are worth it. However, they take us a long way from your original statement on the illegality, the unconstitutional character of these wars. At the time, you sound as if you were parroting the left-wing yahoos on the topic.

On moral responsibility, I chose Rwanda of an extreme case where it would have been easy to intervene productively at little cost or risk. That’s what this country did we respect to the beginning genocide of Kosovars against a much more powerful and sophisticated oppressor.

Your words speak for themselves on the Rwanda genocide.

Libertarian Foreign Policy: A Dialogue on Imperialism

Jacques Delacroix Liberty , , , , ,

Brandon: I stand corrected on the unimportant issue of whether you belong to the Libertarian Party or not. Most of your assertions could come straight out of one of the Libertarian organizations; that’s what misled me. Yet, I confess that you are not a Libertarian but an orthodox libertarian (small “l”).

I think our conversations are fairly useful to the many who are repelled by orthodox libertarians although they have much analysis and many positions in common with them.

The most useful thing you did recently to help this cause is to affirm clearly that we, as a nation, have no responsibility toward the victims of mass massacres in which we could intervene at little cost and at little risk to ourselves. I refer to Rwanda, of course and not to Iraq where there was always much risk.

We have radically different moral compasses. There is an impassable gulf there.

The second problem I have with orthodox libertarians and that you illustrate concerns the use of facts. As you know, in one Republican debate, candidate Ron Paul affirmed, under his own power, with no incitement, that the US armed forces spent twenty billion dollars a year on air-conditioning alone in Iraq and in Afghanistan. No Libertarian and no orthodox libertarian of note took the trouble to question him on this absurd figure.

You too, seem to not pay enough attention to facts that are both important and easy to ascertain. I find this common among followers of severe political or religious doctrines. Here is your latest example.

You take to me to task tersely for something we would agree is very important: not understanding the constitutional provision that places the initiation of war within the province of congressional action. In particular, you insist that I and my readers agree with you that both the Afghanistan War and the Iraq War are illegal, unconstitutional. Here are the relevant facts:

A Joint Resolution of Congress was passed on September 18th 2001. It gave the President authority to use all necessary force against against whoever he determined planned, committed, or aided the attack on 9/11. (Public Law 107-40.) The votes were: 401 – 1 and 98 – 0.

How is that for Congressional authorization?

“Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq” was passed October 16th 2002. (Public Law 107-243.) The votes were 297-133 and 77 – 23. That’s comfortably more than 2/3 majority in both houses.

It’s disconcerting to me that sometimes, you seem to get your information impressionistically only and only from the liberal media.

I am not blameless myself. My statement that “95%” of terrorist acts in the past twenty years were committed by people who called themselves Muslim was a bit overblown. That statement needs correction. See below but let me explain my mistakes.

I did not include much of Columbia in my mental count of terrorist acts because I am under the impression that there have been few intentional homicidal acts committed in Columbia not directed at one chain of command or another (not civilians). In addition, it seems to me that so many homicidal acts there are connected with the drug trade that there is little room left in the numbers for victims of terrorism as conventionally defined.

As for the Tamil Tigers, I have followed their story from their beginnings to their recent end. They were formally classified as a terrorist organization by a large number of governments. Yet I don’t think they committed a large number of terrorist acts defined as deliberate acts of violence against civilians. They were responsible for considerable collateral damage, I think, they were callous, but that’s different.

Thanks to your influence, I have become more conscious of what I mean by terrorism. It includes intentionality and blindness toward the (civilian) victims. Thus, I have revised my concept of terrorism. I will be more precise in the future.

In response to your intervention, I am reducing my estimate of worldwide responsibility for terrorism by people who claim to be Muslims from 95% to 85%. That’s a big reduction of more than 10%. Yet, it has not implications at all with respect to the substance of my argument.

And I repeat that I am not anti-Muslim but that I deplore vigorously the moral blindness of American Muslim organizations. By the way, for readers who are interested, there is a good, thick recent book by a Muslim scholar that both documents and, ironically, illustrates the same blindness: Akbar, Ahmed. 2010. Journey Into America: The Challenge of Islam. Brookings: Washington D.C.

Quentin Skinner on Liberty and Security

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

I think it very important that the mere fact of there being surveillance takes away liberty. The response of those who are worried about surveillance has so far been too much couched, it seems to me, in terms of the violation of the right to privacy. Of course it’s true that my privacy has been violated if someone is reading my emails without my knowledge. But my point is that my liberty is also being violated, and not merely by the fact that someone is reading my emails but also by the fact that someone has the power to do so should they choose. We have to insist that this in itself takes away liberty because it leaves us at the mercy of arbitrary power. It’s no use those who have possession of this power promising that they won’t necessarily use it, or will use it only for the common good. What is offensive to liberty is the very existence of such arbitrary power.

Read the whole interview. Dr Skinner is an eminent scholar in the history of Western thought, particularly liberal thought (though I seem to remember reading a book by him on Marx…). Although I don’t think he is an outright libertarian, he is definitely a civil libertarian and in the interview he seems to hold the same view of corporations that most libertarians have.

I guess it’s worth noting here that liberalism and libertarianism are basically the same thing (liber is a Latin word that means ‘free not slave’). In the US, conservatives are actually conserving one branch of liberal thought, and liberals are holding down another branch of liberal thought. This is true in Canada and Australia/New Zealand as well, but in much of the rest of the world, conservatives are monarchists and Leftists are fascists of one stripe or another.

Does this make sense? If not, you know where the ‘comments’ section is!

Libertarian Foreign Policy: A Dialogue on Imperialism

Brandon Christensen Liberty , , , , ,

Like shooting fish in a barrel…

I think that’s not the Libertarian position. The party’s position instead is to wait until we are attacked, as in Pearl Harbor, to engage in active defense on the basis of a military establishment much smaller than the current one. Please, correct me on these specific points if my perception is wrong.

To be honest, I have no idea what the LP’s position on foreign policy is. I don’t think it worth my time to even look it up either. I don’t know why you keep conflating libertarians with an irrelevant political party, either. It probably helps your position to look better, I suppose, but most libertarians vote and participate within the two parties that are dominant today. Just look at yourself. I know I do.

This particular aspect of your argument is disturbing though:

The party’s position instead is to wait until we are attacked, as in Pearl Harbor, to engage in active defense on the basis of a military establishment much smaller than the current one.

First of all, the United States didn’t “wait around” for Japan to attack us at Pearl Harbor. Nobody saw it coming, including, I am sure, a large number of Japanese policymakers and elites. The assumption that the U.S. was innocent in the whole affair is disingenuous as well. Did Roosevelt not impose an oil embargo on Japan? Is that not, essentially, an act of war? If we remember our Bastiat, then we must surely realize that when goods stop crossing borders, armies will.

I think it is also a mistake to confuse Japan – an industrialized imperial power – with the likes of North Korea and Iran. I have already addressed this in a number of other arguments, so I don’t think it is worth repeating here. Free men have nothing to fear from toothless despots. It is our own government that we must be wary of, first and foremost.

Drumming up fear and suspicion of far-away despots has never had a place at the table of Liberty. It is not hard to see why.

You refer mysteriously to the constitutional limits of military actions. I think both the Iraq war and the Afghanistan wars are constitutional. I think, the help to Libyan is borderline.

What part of “only Congress can declare war” don’t you understand? Tinkering with words is something only liberals do, I have found.

Speaking of bleeding hearts, my answer to your strange question regarding Rwanda is a wholehearted and resounding “yes“.

The people who took part in those massacres were all or mostly adults. That means that they are capable of making decisions for themselves. Paternalism is another idea that has no place at the table of Liberty. The people responsible for the massacres in Rwanda were the Rwandans. If we stretch this, we can even pin some of the blame on European imperialism. But to the bleeding heart liberal, living safely and comfortably in the United States, the Rwandan massacres were all our fault! We didn’t do anything about it!

95% of all terrorist acts in the world in the past twenty years have been committed by people who call themselves Muslims and most often, in the name of Islam.

It would be nice if you could provide some statistics to back up this rather mendacious claim. What about Columbia? Sri Lanka? What about the fact that most terrorist acts committed by Muslims kill other Muslims?

The rest of your argument I can mostly agree with. Except, of course, for the part where you have celebrated the successes of removing dictators from Iraq and Libya. Although I usually don’t have any problem wading in to a fight to help out a friend, I think I would be better to let you stand on your own for this one. Libya and Iraq are successes of American bombing campaigns and “nation-building” exercises. Yeah, sure, Dr Delacroix, and fairies sometimes fly out of my butt when I fart.

From the Comments: Are Imperialists Just Winging It?

Brandon Christensen Comments, Current Events, Liberty

The 2011 disaggregated dialogue between myself and Dr Delacroix on foreign policy has produced a number of thoughtful responses. Here is Dr Amburgey, a prestigious scholar at the U of Toronto’s business school, on one of Dr Delacroix’s many imperial myths:

@Jacques
Is there a word for someone who just makes stuff up? You claim

“[…] the following simple fact: 95% of all terrorist acts in the world in the past twenty years have been committed by people who call themselves Muslims and most often, in the name of Islam.”

If you’ll pardon the technical jargon, I think that claim is b.s. It’s easy enough to prove me wrong.

The Global Terrorism Database (GTD) is an open-source database including information on terrorist events around the world from 1970 through 2011 (with additional annual updates planned for the future). Unlike many other event databases, the GTD includes systematic data on domestic as well as transnational and international terrorist incidents that have occurred during this time period and now includes more than 104,000 cases. For each GTD incident, information is available on the date and location of the incident, the weapons used and nature of the target, the number of casualties, and–when identifiable–the group or individual responsible.

Statistical information contained in the Global Terrorism Database is based on reports from a variety of open media sources. Information is not added to the GTD unless and until we have determined the sources are credible. Users should not infer any additional actions or results beyond what is presented in a GTD entry and specifically, users should not infer an individual associated with a particular incident was tried and convicted of terrorism or any other criminal offense. If new documentation about an event becomes available, an entry may be modified, as necessary and appropriate.

The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) makes the GTD available via this online interface in an effort to increase understanding of terrorist violence so that it can be more readily studied and defeated.

Characteristics of the GTD
•Contains information on over 104,000 terrorist attacks
•Currently the most comprehensive unclassified data base on terrorist events in the world
•Includes information on more than 47,000 bombings, 14,000 assassinations, and 5,300 kidnappings since 1970
•Includes information on at least 45 variables for each case, with more recent incidents including information on more than 120 variables
•Supervised by an advisory panel of 12 terrorism research experts
•Over 3,500,000 news articles and 25,000 news sources were reviewed to collect incident data from 1998 to 2011 alone.

http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/about/

How about some real facts instead of just making stuff up as you go along.

Indeed. My own critique of Dr Delacroix’s made-up numbers will be up soon. Stay tuned, and as always, thanks for your comments.

Libertarian Foreign Policy: A Dialogue on Imperialism

Jacques Delacroix Liberty , , , , , , , , , ,

I am flattered, Brandon and I am sure I don’t deserve all this attention. I did not merit these detailed rebuttals and your rebuttals don’t deserve that much either. Sorry if this sounds dismissive b, it’s not my attention but your arguments seem to proceed from some debating class that I have not taken. He are your words:

It is not enough for you to have an adequate defense force that protects the territory and integrity of the Republic.

I think that’s not the Libertarian position. The party’s position instead is to wait until we are attacked, as in Pearl Harbor, to engage in active defense on the basis of a military establishment much smaller than the current one. Please, correct me on these specific points if my perception is wrong. Please, don’t run all around the chicken corral!

You charge me with saying that “we must bomb, maim, and bully other peoples in the name of peace as well.” Of course, it’s a caricature but it hides an important truth. We have different perceptions of recent events. Here it is in a capsule: The Iraqi liberation war did not do as well as it should have; it went much worse, in fact. Yet, knowing what I know now, if I had to make the decision I would do it again. The Libyan operation went as well as one could expect. As I wrote on my blog, it’s an Obama success.

You refer mysteriously to the constitutional limits of military actions. I think both the Iraq war and the Afghanistan wars are constitutional. I think, the help to Libyan is borderline.

I can’t take your otherwise thoughtful critique seriously because of all that you leave out of my clearly expressed position. I want to try one last time to elicit your response one something that is important to my military posture. I assume that you and I could easily agree that the US had no vital interest in Rwanda at the time of the genocide.

Was it fine to let thousands of Rwandan massacre hundreds of thousands of their fellow-citizens with machetes and bricks?

It seems to me that the first answer has to be a “yes” or a “no.”

One more thing, Brandon: I don’t know where in my writing you see anything resembling anti-Muslim statements. What I have done repeatedly is:

  1. denounced the hypocrisy of American Muslim organizations;
  2. deplored the blindness, the confusion of ordinary Muslims;
  3. attacked the mendacity of political correctness in this country, all with respect to the following simple fact: 95% of all terrorist acts in the world in the past twenty years have been committed by people who call themselves Muslims and most often, in the name of Islam.

I mean by “terrorism” violent acts directed deliberately against civilians.

Just to be superfluously declarative: I don’t think Muslims are evil; I think they are in massive denial. There are Muslim commentators who say exactly the same. There are too few and they are not heard much.

Libertarian Foreign Policy: A Dialogue on Imperialism

Brandon Christensen Liberty , ,

I can’t afford ganja.

I am not sloppy. The problem is that you and I are bumping against basic value preferences. I think you and yours love peace too much, at any cost.

I have finally vanquished you. Your argument for military intervention around the world has been reduced, it would seem, to one of stubborn resistance to reality.

Here is what an old fart once wrote on the topic of faith and facts:

I think facts matter and the people whose influence I fight every hour of the day […] think only beliefs and intentions matter. They are further sure that beautiful beliefs are more real than facts and that they trump facts (if any).

Keep this in mind and I take you and your readers on a little trip down memory lane. In your introductory volley against a libertarian foreign policy based on constitutional adherence and national interests – Peace At All Costs: Growing Isolationism Among Libertarians – you painted a crude picture of libertarian foreign policy as one that placed too much faith in clandestine operations and technology to do the job of eliminating terrorism. This was prior to the killing of Osama bin Laden by our clandestine and special forces operatives, of course. Also prevalent was the argument that Islam is by and large an oppressive and intolerant force for evil in the world. You also failed to address the argument that terrorist actions largely occur against governments because of an unwanted occupation.

Your second volley, Unconditional Peace: A Continuing Debate Part 4, is a largely failed attempt to break down the argument that military occupation plays no role in Jihadism and an attempt to link libertarianism with pacifism. Both were flatly rebutted. Yet that did not deter you or change your mind in the least. It is not enough for you to have an adequate defense force that protects the territory and integrity of the Republic. We must bomb, maim, and bully other peoples in the name of peace as well.

Your pleas for peace throughout the globe were well on display in your next tract – Tripoli, Libya: What’s Not Discussed in the Media; Augmented: Looting – where you celebrated the removal of a petty dictator by the U.S. and its allies on the borders of Europe. You seemed to be saying that what you wanted more than anything else was a Republic that was dedicated to keeping the peace in other societies by removing dictators from power. That seems, to me anyway, like a way of using government to bring about peaceful means. Notice how national security has become a non-issue for Dr Delacroix. You also seemed to be saying that Libyans were looking towards Iraq as an example of what their societies could like in the future. 700,000 dead, mostly from sectarian violence, and neoconservatives continue to laud the efforts of Washington there and compare them to some mass murdering sprees perpetrated by the very individuals that Washington installed in the first place. Incredible!

You saved your most venomous assaults on the foreign policy doctrines of most libertarians for last, though. In your essay entitled Libertarian Military Isolationism: Forward All, With Eyes Tightly Shut you direct your attention to the achievements of the American military over the course of the 20th century. At this point in time it would be pertinent to remind readers that Delacroix’s arguments no longer center around the dangers of Jihadism or Islam in general, as he did in his first volley. No longer is he talking about the role of military occupation in terrorist activities, as he did in the second volley. No longer is he pleading a moral case for bombing another state, as he did in his third volley. No, Delacroix is, in this essay, content to compare libertarian society to that of Somalia – as so many Leftists do – and list a number of achievements that the U.S. had purportedly accomplished in the past century. He calls for a Republic to be armed to the teeth, and appeals to the fear of some conservatives (mostly those who reside in all-white states in the middle of the Republic) that small, despotic and irrelevant states are watching our every move, and waiting to strike at the first chance they get. Never mind that these despotic states only have to look to their neighbors – whom are occupied by the U.S. military – to see what mistakes Washington is committing.

In his final volley before this one, Delacroix, in The Libertarian Project and Military Power, continues to hover on the moral. It is our burden, he asserts, to bring the world peace through military power. If the Republic does not step in and “do something”, then all hell will break loose. He again appeals to our successes in the 20th century against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan as proof that the American people can bring democracy to anywhere in the world.

In the ‘comments’ section of  these essays you will find my rebuttals to each of the myths that Delacroix has continued to build his foundation of an interventionist foreign policy upon. I hope that his readers will now see just which doctrine is clear-eyed and sober and which is based upon ignorance and fear.

Delacroix asserts at the end of the ‘comments’ section here that libertarians love peace at all costs, but given the arguments that we have both presented, I would urge his readers to ponder which of us has faith in an unknown power to mold a peaceful world through guns and bombs, and which of us sees reality as it is: based upon facts, sometimes ugly, nasty, smelly, disgusting facts, but facts nonetheless

I think facts matter and the people whose influence I fight every hour of the day […] think only beliefs and intentions matter. They are further sure that beautiful beliefs are more real than facts and that they trump facts (if any).

Libertarian Foreign Policy: A Dialogue on Imperialism

Brandon Christensen Liberty , ,

Libya will be in worse shape than it is now? In worse shape than it was under Kadafi? (He sure could keep order.)

I have already spoken to much of what you are saying: Suppose your prophecies turn out to be completely right. Would it mean that we should prefer the bloody tyranny of terrorists like Kadafi? Isn’t this simple?

Perhaps, but we don’t know what would have happened to Ghaddafi if the US had stayed clear of this problem (which had nothing to do with national security or defense).

Civil war was inevitable, given the nature of the Libyan state, but introducing a superpower into the struggle has only complicated Libyan matters.

A civil war sometimes helps a people to iron out their differences. I think our involvement there only enhances the creases that need ironing.

What problem (singular)?

Civil war was inevitable? After forty years? You’re kidding, right?

Yo are almost forcing me to write an essay just for you about Arab tyrannies, 1960 – 2011.

What problem? The Libyan state falling apart.

Civil war was inevitable? After forty years? You’re kidding, right?

Um, the rebels and Ghaddafi’s henchmen went after each other in the wake of revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia. Ghaddafi struck back quite effectively, but the violence didn’t end after those first strikes.

Ghaddafi may have eventually won the civil war, but he would either have had to eliminate his rivals completely (which he was certainly capable of doing) or he would have had to come to some sort of agreement with some of the factions he was fighting.

Helping the rebels eliminate Ghaddafi only removed one faction from the fight for Libya’s future. Many, many different factions believe that Libya should move in their direction. Most of the efforts to come to some sort of agreement with each other are going to be wasted on other priorities, though – namely the influencing of Western powers to support their specific cause.

With the West out of the picture – or at least off to the side where neighbors usually reside – the Libyans would have to work together to come to some sort of agreement for their state going forward. This is unlikely to happen now. Instead, what we’ll see is a prolonged conflict that will look a lot more like Iraq rather than Tunisia, as each faction uses the hapless and naive West for their own purposes of attaining power over a massive, oil-rich state that has known nothing but rigid central control for almost a century.

I would love to read an essay on Arab dictatorship over the past half-century. Don’t forget to include the involvement of the West in the process. Name names and spare nobody from your rancorous wit!

Libertarian Foreign Policy: A Dialogue on Imperialism

Brandon Christensen Liberty , , , , ,

Brandon: You are a kind of expert on Libyan public opinion accessed in translation from Al-Jazeera with a software that can hardly translate “My father’s car…”? That’s in preference to statements made by a ramshackle but very broad coalition watched over by hundreds of Western journalists on the ground some of whom (the French) have Arabic as a first language. Strange!

I understand that the translations are not perfect, but it doesn’t take a genius to understand what they are saying. I never said I was an expert, either.

Western journalists – especially from the states that are essentially welfare queens of U.S. military strength – have a lot less clout than does the Arab street, in my opinion.

Time will tell, of course, which one of our predictions comes true. In two years time [October 2013 – bc], Tunisia, which did not get any help from the West, will be a functioning democracy with a ruling coalition of moderate Islamists in power.

The Egyptian military will be promising the public that elections are just around the corner, and Libya will be in worse shape than it is today. Two years from today, Dr. J, you will be issuing an apology to me and making a donation to the charity of my choice.

Since you are very good at avoiding the facts on the ground in the name of democratic progress, I think we should establish a measurement rubric by which to measure the progress of Libya. How about GDP (PPP) per capita as measured by the IMF?

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.

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.

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?