You can’t do better than the coverage on LewRockwell.com. It has been comprehensive. See this interview with Doug Casey, this article by Paul Craig Roberts, Anthony Gregory on the timing and meaning, and much more. Also, see Robert Higg’s short but powerful reaction.
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/16811/on-osama-and-obama/
On Osama and Obama
Previous post: Interview with Professor Bagus
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The Story it’s a-changing:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/05/the-slippery-story-of-the-bin-laden-kill/238261/
Also heard: Bin Laden was killed by his bodyguard:
http://nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Regional/Islamabad/03-May-2011/Osama-was-killed-by-his-own-guard-sources
Lew is too dark about military wipeout of the compounds’ inhabitants. Apparently quite a few are now under supervision of Pakistani authorities (can’t find the source back though).
The whole narrative unsurprisingly has a ‘suspect the government no matter what’ tilt to it. Vocal on the real vices of the government, silent on the real vices of Osama Bin Laden. The comparison is important, because without that the reader does not have the information needed to acquiesce to the lesser evil or support the greater good (depending on how the situation is interpreted). The reader of course can access material produced by other independent sources if he so chooses. But people usually refrain from further scrutinizing the opinions of those that they admire.
Having said that I would like to end on a positive note. Doug Casey, Paul Craig Roberts, Anthony Gregory and Robert Higgs have all brought out valid and interesting points.
As always, the choice is not either/or. Hating Bin Laden does not mean loving government. Criticizing government does not mean supporting Bin Laden. In fact, you could hate Bin Laden and government for the same reasons: their use of violence.
@Jim
To not understand the principle of acquiescing to the lesser evil is to not understand the principles of trade. Your response signifies that lack in understanding. I am willing to bet my last dollar that every libertarian will pick Obama over Osama if they are their only two choices. Either/or.
It is not a love vs hate dichotomy I am talking about. It is the love less vs love even less. Or hate more vs hate even more. This lack of sensitivity to subtlety is troubling.
“To not understand the principle of acquiescing to the lesser evil is to not understand the principles of trade.”
Sounds familiar. Again with either/or, if I do not pick Obama or Osama, which is a false choice, I am rejecting trade. As usual, this is nonsense.
You are not rejecting trade. You just do not understand it. Trade leaves you with what you hate less than what you had to give up. Like giving up Osama and ending up with Obama.
Between the two adversaries you have a favorite. This is not a fight whose outcome you are indifferent to. You care for the party that gives better chance for liberty. And you know it is not Osama. Despite all his flaws, it is that statist opponent of his that you care for. But to admit it would be akin to blasphemy. With that kind of dogma, you will dig the grave for liberty.
I do not believe the state or Bin Laden is the source of liberty. The victory of either adversary does not somehow produce liberty.
Also, I know each post needs a huge dramatic conclusion, but cut the shit on this kind of unsupportable babble:
“But to admit it would be akin to blasphemy. With that kind of dogma, you will dig the grave for liberty.”
Neither adversary is the source of liberty, of course. But there is still the choice as to who among the two gives liberty a better chance. Osama stands completely against it. While Obama at least on paper is committed to protecting it. That is why it is not a fight that you are indifferent to. The statist opponent of Osama like it or not is on your side. But if you reject him because he is a statist, you are leaving the path wide open for Osama and in that process digging the grave for liberty. It can be logically deduced. I am not saying it for drama.
“The statist opponent of Osama like it or not is on your side.”
How will Obama’s Statism result in liberty?
Also, do you assume that the ability to inhibit liberty is the same with both Obama and Bin Laden? Or do you claim that Bin Laden is able to inhibit liberty more than Obama? And if so, why?
I remember when growing up, me and my friends would play a game called “would you rather?”
You play it like this: you ask your friend if he rather be raped by a man by a large member or have his body completely set on fire or some other horrible fate.
The end was always the same: we’d laugh at him and either call him a faggot that’s afraid of fire or a sicko that enjoys being set on fire, etc.
How would upholding the constitution of the US as he swore in his oath protect liberty?
I don’t.
How does Obama’s oath uphold liberty? And what in US history would indicate that President’s are primarily inclined to uphold liberty, or to uphold even the US Constitution? Also, how do you respond to Lysander Spooner’s statement:
“But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.”
Obviously, I suggest that the Constitution is no guarantee of liberty.
Do you claim that Bin Laden is able to inhibit liberty more than Obama and is thus the greater evil? And if so, why?
I will let you find out for yourself how upholding the constitution of the Unites States upholds liberty. How about the fact that the constitution protects Lysander Spooner’s the liberty sufficiently enough for him to be able to criticize it?
Are you so ignorant about current affairs to not know the answer to that question? That too in the information age? Wow.
Thanks for playing. Please try again.
Note that Spooner realized that neither the Constitution nor government is not the source of liberty.
Neither did the founding fathers who framed the constitution. The constitution is not the source of liberty, it is a means to protect it. It does not therefore imply that there aren’t other ways of protecting liberty or that the constitution perfectly protects liberty.
Yet, you seem to rely quite heavily on President Obama and his oath to the Constitution to preserve liberty.
And you copped out when asked to explain why Osama Bin Laden was the greater threat to liberty than our domestic government. Why are Bin Laden and his followers so much more evil, that I should submit to the evil US Government and its followers (you included) to save me?
If I believe that both are merely two paths of tyranny, why am I wrong to reject both? The whole purpose of Mises.org is to suggest that there is a better way than choosing the lesser of two evils.
I do not. I recognize it to be one way that worked in this particular instance.
No need to submit to “the evil US Government”. Just recognize that in this instance they played a role in protecting your liberty, just as they are obligated to.
That is an extremely simplistic and flawed view of things. On one side there is the US government – with the capacity to be tyrannical, but obligated and pressured into preserving liberty. On the other side is a real tyrant weakened and eventually killed by the US government.
Sometimes choosing the better way means choosing the lesser evil.
“No need to submit to “the evil US Government”. Just recognize that in this instance they played a role in protecting your liberty, just as they are obligated to.”
The fact is that killing Bin Laden did nothing to protect Americans’ liberty.
By the Obama administration’s admission the murder did not diminish but increase, the threat of attack on the US in the short term.
That Bin Laden was murdered in cold blood rather than captured and put on trial lowers the moral standing of the American regime even further, making more enemies and fewer friends for America.
Popular support for the murder in the US, along with the worldwide prevalence of collectivist thinking, means that the American people in general will be blamed for their government’s actions.
Finally, the episode is another defeat for the rule of law in the US, increasing the threat to Americans from their own ruling class.
What about in the long term?
It stems from the limits of classical liberalism which forms the basis of the USA. Law itself was never perfect enough to protect liberty that people could remain complacent. Under this set up, that will always be.
That won’t be necessary.
Come on! Every single US president since bush senior killed more people than any Osama. Are you suggesting people should support outlaw mass-murderers? I mean, Osama may have wanted to be first on the list, but he is the last.
Abhilash, what would be the point of extensively denouncing Osama Bin Laden, when public discourse has already been replete with such denunciations? Would we be saying anything that hasn’t already been said innumerable times? No. Therefore, we would not be adding anything significant to public discourse.
On the other hand, aside from a handful of sources, the problems involved in this whole affair with regard to the rule of law and due process are almost entirely neglected. The Mises Institute, LewRockwell.com, Antiwar.com, Judge Napolitano, and Glenn Greenwald will continue to fill that void, no matter how much people like you try to “shame” us into silence.
Similarly, public discourse is replete with denunciations of the Holocaust and antebellum slavery, but relatively sparing regarding the pernicious impacts of America’s Israel-related policies, and almost silent regarding the pernicious impacts of Abraham Lincoln’s doings. So you will hear a lot more from Austro-libertarians about the latter two issues, and not much about the former. That does NOT mean such Austro-libertarians are anti-Semitic or racist. The acts of the Al Qaeda terrorist, the SS officer, and the American slaveholder disgust me just as much as they do any other decent person. But you won’t find me writing much in denouncing those acts because they are already denounced PLENTY in all the mainstream venues (newspapers, television, schools, mainstream web sites, etc). And I (and others) refuse to take a drastically different approach just so as to preclude the non-sequiturs of the simple-minded or to avoid the smears of the PC thought police.
Just because you disagree with a mainstream view does not necessarily mean that you are making any meaningful contribution to the public discourse. I am not trying to shame anyone into silence. It is actually a provocation towards meaningfully contributing to the public discourse.
Danny,
The problem, as I see it, is that the views you are defending are much more mainstream and politically correct than you are willing to admit. If you look at the mainstream media, there’s lot of head-shaking about the American people’s natural reaction of joy, a lot of questioning the legal and moral validity of the operation, the evil nature of OBL and so on. The mainstream media is dominated by the liberal left. On the issue of war, American paleos (paleoconservatives and paleolibertarians) are just as confused and unnerving as the liberals.
I’m not sure what the reasons may be, but I tend to think they suffer what may be called “envy of Switzerland”. Unlike Keynessians, they understand that war is disastrous for the economy, and they rightly see the risk of using war as an excuse to advance the government’s agenda on other issues. They look at peaceful and prosperous contries like Switzerland (or Liechtestein, which doesn’t even have a standing army) and they think America could do that too. What they are missing is that having laughable armies or no armies at all is a luxury Europe can afford because they know America, with a real army, is behind their backs.
You want to see a few politically incorrect opinions, for comparison, here they go:
Obama took credit, but most of the merit of Osama’s killing should go to Bush, since all the relevant information came from Guantanamo, a Bush creation, and those prisoners were captured during the Bush wars, interrogated with the techniques Bush authorised, after they refused to cooperate in conventional interrogations. Obama had no interest in having Osama alive, because he knew Osama wouldn’t talk, and Obama promised not to waterboard any more terrorists.
Terrorists should be executed on the spot, except if some useful information can be extracted from them. The interrogation techniques should be proportional to the alleged crimes, the likelyhood of being guilty and the imminent danger of future crimes; in some cases, those techniques should include what can be described as “torture”, which is a loaded term that can stretched like a rubber band by liberals. If we accept that criminals should be punished, then we are saying they should be made to suffer, and what’s “torture” if not making someone suffer on purpose? The Geneva conventions are just that, conventions, agreements with many assumptions behind them. They assume prisoners of war are basically decent people who were following orders of their legitimate governments as they normally should. They are not applicable to a vicious criminal band whose members target civilians and then hide behind civilians.
Liberals are guilty of the current state of the world. Imagine for a moment that the liberal press disappeared. Then the answer to the questions of how to fight terrorism, end world poverty and bring world peace would become pretty obvious. Destroy the nuclear facilities of Pakistan, North Corea and Iran, invade the middle East and Africa, confiscate their weapons, bring back the era of Western colonial empires, this time under the banner of NATO, or just America. Disband the UN. Pay for the wars with cheap oil and minerals from the colonies, and later, when they become economically viable thanks to having decent governments controlled by the West, make them pay a tribute, until they cover the full costs of the war. Islamists and other undesirables should be sent to the colonies, where their lives would not be at risk (as it would be in the middle East now), unless they try to engage in criminal activities. After ten or fifteen years, with the miraculous economic deveolpment of Africa and the Middle East, with nothing to offer and no safe havens, Islamism (and hopefully Islam) will be all but dead. It’s not a pipe dream, something like that was happening not so long ago, until socialism and then the liberals spoiled it.
I think you went a bit overboard with the last para. Colonialism despite all its benefits undermines liberty too greatly that it is not worth trying again. The imperialist and the colonist develop dominator-dominated relationship rather than one based on mutual respect and understanding. The problems of the present have its roots in deeply entrenched notions and beliefs that run counter the concept of liberty. If those sort of beliefs are internalized by the majority, then liberty loses out.
There is a term, politically incorrect in the US, but extensively used in the Indian subcontinent – Social reform. It involves empowering people who challenge such widely held beliefs and encouraging people to challenge them both overtly and subtly with the backing of the state. That goes beyond the classical liberal notion of a state protecting people’s rights, to a state actively involved in developing a society where individual rights are respected. In Bangladesh for instance, the Grameen Bank is a tool of the state to do just that.
As movements like these mature you get more and more people who do not arrange their lives according to deeply held social norms. These people look upon the state as their guardian and protector because without it they risk social ostracism and worse. The process continues, society becomes more free and the state more powerful. A liberal state emerges.
As a libertarian, I am not sure how to think about this. On one hand there is an old society with norms that are not accommodating to the concept of liberty. On the other side is the state, actively working to challenge such norms. But the state does not value liberty for its own sake. Only for its capacity to empower it. One thing I can say is this. Being an anti-statist in such instances does not make you a libertarian. Being a statist also does not make you a libertarian either but if you are part of that society, the state becomes your best bet when it comes to your liberty. That explains why anarcho-capitalism has not taken roots in those places.
What can be done? At the least, don’t acquiesce to the greater evil as you recognize it.
I fully understand that you disagree. A few years ago I would have been shocked at what I’ve just said. In part, I was trying to illustrate what a serious politically incorrect view looks like in the current Western environment. But only in part.
Yes, mutual respect and understanding should be the ideal, but what kind of mutual respect and understanding do you find in the Middle East and Africa these days? None! There’s only oppressed individuals and oppressors, and misery everywhere. There are two possible routes for the West:
First option, let those countries “govern themselves”, that is, let the most powerful warlord rule and terrorize dissenters, sink the country in the depths of misery, wait and hope that America and other Western countries can lead them by the example, show them how a free society works, and maybe one day they will understand. This has been tried for a few decades. What did we get? Misery-struck hellholes with nuclear weapons. Until we have a perfect ABM shield, nuclear weapons mean that leaving them alone until they decide to attack us is not the safe option it used to be. Some libertarians propose billateral disarmament agreements. That would never work. It worked with the USSR because there was some symmetry of power, and only after a degree of mutual trust was achieved. When it comes to governments as that of Pakistan and North Corea, nuclear weapons is all they’ve got. They would be foolish to get rid of them. I would be okay with that if they were peaceful and cooperative, but they have relinquished their right to be respected as equals with their threats, their support of criminals and their general failure to build a prosperous, safe and productive society. Power comes with responsibility, and they have proven their lack thereof.
Which leads us to the second option. Of course, there’s no need to call it a colonial empire, there are many ways it could be spun to garner support from enlightened local leaders, I’m just being brutally honest about its nature. It would be controlled by NATO, it would emphasize individual rights against local thugs and warlords, a bright future of prosperity and maybe the final goal of independence and a peaceful Western-style democracy, not fear and submission. What if the local population doesn’t buy the message? They will, when they see the results. If they are stubborn, it may take a generation of two, but that wouldn’t be a problem, because the system would be stable and profitable, good for them and good for us, no misery, foreign aid, war or terrorism.
Of course, right now this is indeed a pipe dream, but only because the left liberal mainstream media would never let it happen.
There is much more then you think there is.
These countries were never allowed to govern themselves. The governments they have are descendants of ones involuntarily imposed on them by European governments.
Basically your world views of Africans and Middle Easterners have been shaped by governments and organizations that wish to continue the military expansion that was the cold war. Now instead of the USSR we have to create boogymen out of imagined threats coming from countries that can barely function, much less impose a threat.. nuclear or otherwise. Your thinking on the subject is barely above delusional.
Your advocating a fascist dictatorship and probably don’t even realize it. The most likely path this thinking leads too is third world war.
I know I would not tolerate Germans sending in military to tell me how I should live my life. If NATO military came to my house and tried to force me to live in a way that was ‘green’ and protect the environment it would likely lead to bloodshed.
Would you resist a invasion from France or Japan?
Why would you think that anybody else would accept this?
@ Martin
Let’s not be arrogant enough to think that solutions to world problems can fit in such a simple narrative. These complex situations evolve in ways unique to each circumstance. Most anyone can influence it, but no one can control it. There are cases where direct intervention might be necessary and there are cases where that could be outright harmful. If everyone who loves liberty regardless of their social standing plays a part to influence any and all events they can influence in ways that promote liberty, then things would be eventually be ok.
The thing I like about liberty is that it is fully scalable. It can work at an institutional level, it can also work at an individual level. And it can apply to any place, at any time and any circumstance. I do not think a single master plan approach would work. Such planes rely on simplistic assumptions and are often too fragile.
“…the state becomes your best bet when it comes to your liberty. ”
oops. So much being a libertarian.
“The process continues, society becomes more free and the state more powerful. A liberal state emerges.”
How do the two happen simultaneously? One (the state) only grows at the expense of the other (society-the group of people plundered by the government).
I did read your whole post too, I’m not taking the quotes out of context. You seem to have an anthropology/marxist view towards the relationship of man, society, and state (in this and other posts). I only say this because I’ve heard this talk before in an intro level anthropology class. There was a lot of discussion about “social norms”, and using the state to further liberty/fill in the blank. That marxist-anthro class I took, despite a lot of rhetoric about the need of government to correct society’s inherent flaws, never addressed the real issue: the relationship between those who wield force (the government) and everyone else (society).
Reflection on this subject might do you some good. You call yourself a libertarian, but I do wonder if you really understand the meaning of liberty or the true nature of what a government is.
I’m not insulting you, I’m not patronizing you, I’m only suggesting reflection and thought on the matter. You have some points as well which I will reflect on.
You put social norms in quotes as if it is something that I invented. There does not appear to be any enduring social norms in the United States. That could explain why. Elsewhere it is real and considered common knowledge. And usually there is not one norm but a set of norms that reinforcing each other. And they evolve with time. Outdated conventions get quietly dropped and new norms evolve to take their place. Occasionally there are sudden disruptions when norms change suddenly and quickly. They are not marxian in nature. You can explain them without aid of polylogism or class concepts. Methodological individualism is sufficient to explain them.
Society can have flaws because society is a product of human action (not human design). And human beings are flawed. It is also possible that these flaws can remain unaddressed for a very long time even once they are recognized. People have a general tendency to suffer evils that they are familiar with. A spirit echoed in the Declaration of Independence.
The relationship between the state and its people maybe the relationship between the oppressor and the oppressed. But that does not imply that the oppressed can recognize, value or appreciate the truth in libertarian principles. Maybe the people running the state can better appreciate it. Maybe through oppressing those they can’t they are preventing a greater oppression from taking place.
It is an extremely simplistic view of things to say if you love liberty, you must hate the state. Anything that facilitates liberty is agreeable. A nation-state can play that role. In some instances it may even be necessary.
nate-m,
Tell that to the Christians in Irak, Pakistan, Egipt, etc. I don’t even mention the Jews, because hardly any are left in the area.
That’s incorrect. There have been countless civil wars in Africa and the Middle East, with governments coming and going all the time. Yes, Western governments have supported some brutal dictators, but that’s because the local alternatives were usually worse, and the easy alternative of direct foreign-based pacification was sabotaged by the liberal press. Whenever Europeans have had full control, the countries have prospered.
Tell the East Europeans the USSR was a boogieman. Tell the South Koreans that North Korea poses no threat. The threats are real. Just because they can’t feed most of their citizens, it doesn’t mean they pose no threat for other countries, no matter how wealthy and powerful they are. Building is difficult, destroying is easy, avoiding destruction may be easy or difficult, depending on the technologic balance of weapons and shields. Nowadays, it’s very difficult. Nuclear weapons with no ABM shields make the world less stable and isolationism less viable.Do you think the US government would allow Kim Jong Il to insult and threaten America as he does if he had no nukes?
Of course not. You are throwing the “fascist” label at me because “imperialist” and “neocon” just don’t sound dirty enough, but you should know it’s nonsense. The old trick of “reductio ad Hitlerum”. Fascism is a totalitarian collectivist ideology, while my proposal is to defend the rights of the oppressed individuals against the alleged collective rights of a few nations, which in practice are just the whims of so many warlords, the cowardly complicity of others, the fascination of the populace with power and success, and the terrified silence of dissenters. The closest thing to fascism nowadays is political Islam.
Because they accept much, much worse kinds of oppression, when they are overwhelmed by force. It has happened before, countless times, and you can see it every day in the news. But first, they have to be really overwhelmed, which means not just destroying the warlords’ heavy artillery, but also establishing gun-free zones where people can live and work safely, protected by police. There’s no need to forbid guns by law, they will migrate to gun-free zones attracted by the jobs. Also, once they see law and order, security and prosperity, many locals will step up and cooperate to build a better future.
Does it cross your mind that this may be a problem that can’t be solved through military force?
I never said that USSR was not a boogyman. I said that third world nations with nuclear weapons and the threat of terrorism are boogymen.
Horseshit. Look up the term ‘fascism’. You are effectively advocating the military conquest of other countries in order to force them to have the type governments and societies you think that they should have.
What else would you call it? Peacekeeping?
I think that we have enough of our own problems without trying to conquer half the world and reshape it in our image.
And, yes, they will resist you. Very few people appreciate foreign dictators telling them how to live.
Nate your image, is the image of liberty. If you don’t reshape the world in that image, then humanity will not survive. Your problems won’t end. It will multiply in ways that will make today’s problems look like a luxury. There is no question of foreign vs local when it comes to liberty. It is in the nature of all human beings to be free. Their problems are your problems too. Your problems are theirs too. Lines drawn on a map is not going to change that. If it is liberty that is driving their resistance, then it must be admired. The interventionists really are dictators. But is that always the case? They don’t like being told how to live, that is true. But they like telling others how to live. That is the problem.
Here.
Try this as a thought experiment:
Imagine your traveling to the ‘wrong side of the tracks’. Go to the poorest, most red neck, roach invested trailer park that you could imagine. Drive up in your SUV, break out your club and then kick down the door unannounced of the first trailer you feel would most benefit from your benevolence.
Destroy their crank labs, flush their pot, crush their pipes. Show them how to manage finances, show them were to get training. Show them how to make proper resumes and worship in the correct manner. Have the man be nice to his wife instead of hitting her when he is angry. Anything you think that they should be doing to make their lives better and get out of the self destructive life style that the lead.
Then if they don’t obey you, beat them. If the man is oppressing his wife then you can go ahead and kill him for the sake of her and her children.
You do that on a individual level a few times and maybe it would help you gain insights on what needs to be done for Africa.
They have to do it for themselves, unfortunately.
If they want I see no problem suppling them the weapons and provide various services, mercenaries, and training that they can use to liberate themselves, but I don’t think foreign invasions is going to help anybody out.
That thought experiment tells me more about you than the situation. You are trying to use the familiar to understand the unfamiliar based on superficial similarities. You do not have insights into what is happening in Africa. Such insights are very difficult to develop unless you are on the ground. To an outsider, it is very difficult to know who the insiders with such insights are and how and in what way they would help them. That kind of work takes time and effort. But they are getting better and better at it.
You are correct, they have to libertate themselves. And when you intervene to help make that possible, you are in fact reshaping their world. You seem to have back tracked a bit. Before you where against intervention. But now only intervention in the form of invasion.
In case of Iraq, there was an opportunity to intervene without invading. The liberty loving outsiders did not appreciate it enough to seize it, eventually making a invasion type intervention necessary. In the case of Afghanistan too that window was available when the Russians left. Again the liberty loving outsiders goofed up. Most of the problems today have their roots in those goof ups. I see the government trying to correct it in Libya.
There’s no reason to think so. Everything you see around you, the little pleasures you enjoy in a free and prosperous country, are ultimately enforced at gunpoint against the enemies of freedom and peace. Of course, the attackers may resent the intervention for a long time; so do wannabe criminals when police stops them. But you know what, they are overwhelmed and they can’t do anything about it. Solving the problem doesn’t mean the attackers will suddenly love you. It means they will desist from further attacks.
You said “Now instead of the USSR we have to create boogymen out of imagined threats”, which seems to imply America created a boogyman out of the USSR. Anyway, that’s irrelevant, because both the USSR and present-day unstable nuclear countries are real threats.
I looked up ‘fascism’. Did you? It has a lot more to do with internal politics than with foreign policy. Yes, it’s a militaristic and warmonger ideology, among many other things. It promotes war as an end in itself, or as a means for desired domestic social effects, not as a last resort to protect the country against foreign threats, much less to promote individual freedom, capitalism or classical liberalism, to which it is inimical.
If you want to stick a label to my position, “moral universalism” comes to mind. I feel closer to objectivists than to paleolibertarians on that issue. But in the current situation, with nuclear weapons in the hands of lunatics, I think it’s just common sense, unless you are blinded by dogmatic non-interventionism.
They don’t appreciate domestic dictators either, if they are not their favored brand. And yet, dictators keep their power against large sectors of their societies. How? At gunpoint. Of course some would rather die for their idiotic ideologies than cooperate, but most people just want peace and prosperity. My exit strategy is show them how it’s done (freedom and capitalism), then slowly give them back control, but without nukes and keeping an eye on them for as long as necessary.
Martin, I get the feeling that slowly and steadily we have creeped from the “we shall protect your freedom” mode which I like, to the “we shall force you to be free” mode which I am very uncomfortable with. Frankly I find it scary. I find you rely too much on the use of force, rather than wit. If forces for liberty begins to dictate terms at gun point, then they become like the dictator and freedom loses out.
Even the use of force has to be done in a witty manner. In fact if wits take prominence, then use of force can be minimized over time. Real victory after all is ideological. In Vietnam, the US forces could win every fire-fight and still lost the war because the ideological front was neglected. A military victory can still be an ideological defeat. But an ideological victory would imply no military victory is necessary. Iraq had to be occupied. Afghanistan had to be occupied. But there where opportunities to intervene that did not require such large scale occupation.
Abilash,
No disagreement here. I’m still in “protect your freedom” mode. The trouble is, protecting the individual freedoms will sometimes require foreign intervention, which some locals will find an insult to their national pride. Sometimes you can’t have it all, either national pride or individual freedoms. Of course, most of the times you can retain both with some clever tactics. There is always some local support for the intervention, even if those people keep quiet out of fear. You can often play with the structure of incentives to make a bad government act responsibly and cooperate.
But when push comes to shove, a more drastic approach may be necessary. What I was doing here is biting the bullet, taking the worst possible scenario, a hostile country with nuclear weapons and no local cooperation, and presenting an alternative to defeatist isolationism and appeasement. I explained it in the most brutally honest way I found, for the sake of clarity. Hence the references to gunpoint and examples from the colonial era. Of course, I’d much rather see America support enlightened local groups who defend freedom than build an actual colonial empire, and I prefer a combination of secessions, reunifications and migrations, to make democracy viable and stable, over an oligarchy controlled by the West.
I must ask, what country are you from (is it Malaysia?) and what do you think is the best way America and other Western countries can help, without hurting their own interests. It’s never been my intention to offend people from non-Western countries, especially if they understand and defend freedom as you are doing. On the other hand, I enjoy shocking and offending Western left-liberals, defeatists, isolationists, self-haters, cultural Marxists and other “spoiled children of freedom”.
I do not want to give too many personal details here. But my country of origin is easy enough to find out from my surname. If you do please keep it to yourself for now. It is not Malaysia although I have been to Malaysia. I am not going to answer if the question of
It is a complex situation. There is no one best way independent of time and place. It is the work of entrepreneurs. They are needed in all spheres. To dismantle laws that prevent capitalism from taking off, to wane people away from old entrenched habits, to empower political forces who are the least hostile to capitalism. To develop a whole new class of libertarian philosophers, thinkers and economists.
here’s paul craig roberts’ non-pc version of same:
http://www.rense.com/general93/osause.htm
Somewhat along those lines of Roberts, I think this from Margolis is the best short summary I’ve read on 9/11:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis205.html
great article from the fearless and much-maligned margolis. indeed, it was the debris (“hideous, stinking miasma”) that swayed my mind and exculpated the 19 arabs. that was my epiphany. pace popular mechanics, something very strange and inexplicable happened that fateful day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqChg5CCBdY
actually, this one is better. 3:20 onwards.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iJEHI1izVM
osama couldn’t account for this.
http://is.gd/pfPgHK
AbiNambi, let’s reframe your false dilemma
Would you rather:
- Have a more limited government?
OR
- Vengeance?
That is a false dilemma. The real dilemma is would you have Obama or Osama.
It is not a false dilemma, you asked before “who do you hate more?”
So I simply rephrase it:
Do you hate Osama and would like revenge?
OR
Do you hate Obama and would like less government?
And unlike you, I’m not implying that a mammoth state is a necessity to “defend freedom” by killing Osama. In fact, the operation which did succeed in killing Obama was one prescribed by Ron Paul’s suggestion of using a Letter of Mark instead of bankrupting the nation and killing civil liberties.
That’s also a false dilemma. Not going to war with Afghanistan would not suddenly put someone like Osama in charge of the United States government.
The idea that the world is all safer because we spent over a trillion dollars and caused countless civilian casualties to get Osama and end terrorism is ridiculous. Play this out 20 years and we’ll still have terrorists, and probably more of them than before this whole ordeal. The government will pass new laws and spy on people even more than it does now. It will do this partly due to terrorism and partly for protection of intellectual property.
I should also note that now that Osama is dead, your false dilemma has been rendered moot and you are free, since you no longer have to hate Osama.
Now you’re free to hate Obama
When it comes to threats for my liberty, Obama is way down on the list. Some overzealous libertarians come up before him. Good intentions can result in counterproductive behavior too.
I’ve read all of these comments and I’m still trying to figure out what your point is. You’ve done a good job of circumlocuting it, but get to it. Overzealous libertarians, etc. etc. Are you going somewhere with this all this, or do we all have to take turns guessing what you’re driving at?
Who are these “overzealous libertarians” and how do they threaten your liberty?
His liberty to be a neo-con shill. Although, perhaps, that is the first time anyone has accused a libertarian of threatening someone’s liberty. A+ for creativity!
What you do not think people with good intentions can act in a counterproductive manner. However did the saying arise, ‘The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions.’ I will admit. I could be doing the same.
By trading freedom for temporary security?
You didn’t answer my question
:3 nyoro~n
That is not the trade-off as I see it. When two groups are opposing each-other acquiesce to the one that supports liberty more.
I did not answer it, because it seemed obvious. Many people on this thread are ofcourse. By not having a sense of proportion, I think they threaten liberty. It does not take a genius to realize that Osama is a real threat to liberty while Obama is legally committed to protecting it. Yet Obama gets criticized for killing Osama. I have already explained myself there. I will not go again.
Seems kind of far-fetched, no?
If the criticism of these “overzealous libertarians” were really so powerful, wouldn’t we be living in anarchotopia right now?
So are “we” to him. The US government has endorsed, sponsored, funded and directly took actions to oppress peoples half-way around the world. Osama’s problem lies in the conflation of american people with their government (I’d go so far as to say that, were he to exclusively murder politicians, a lá 24 Season 1, we’d be in a much better world).
I could tell you that you should reign in your government so it doesn’t stir up a hornet’s nest, but given its size and scope, its impossible for an American citizen to know how his tax dollars are being spent badly.
Hahaha, please. Next you’ll tell me he’s a constitutional scholar*
The criticism isn’t levied solely against him and it’s <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_JEVhtwuU8"not just about killing Osama.
It simply took one “Marque and Reprisal” to kill him.
To quote Chris Douglas-Roberts
* this is a joke
Daniel you have nothing new to offer. I have already explained my points in several way here to several people. I do not care enough to give a specific rebuttal to what you wrote. You are only repeating yourself and I will have to repeat myself. After a while Deja Vu sets in and the whole thing becomes stale.
I am sorry, but I feel I cannot let this go this easily. Not because I want to criticize Obama or Osama or whatever, but because I do want to offer something new.
What is new is this: I am criticizing you. Yes, you. Why, you, specifically?
You are throwing around what [here] is a very serious accusation, while at the same time ignoring a huge elephant in the room.
Even supposing the government of the US does in fact defend your liberties, it has done a piss-poor job, in the past, in the present and will probably continue to do so in the future. The small comfort that you find in Osama’s death pales in comparison to what has been done to civil liberties under the guise of defending said liberties.
You say Osama is a symbol, and that is true, but ceci n’est pa un pipe; a symbol is just that, a symbol, and this one that hasn’t done anything (but hid) for more than 10 years while your government has killed more americans than 911 did while not wasting a second in this interim finding ways to make you more poor materially, socially and legally.
In the end, all you have is a very flawed and impractical analysis that does little in the way of rationalizing or justifying what has actually been eroded, if not outright taken from you.
Revel, then in you symbol’s death. For this is what you truly love. Not liberty, or truth, or even justice, but simply bloodlust and vengeance.
Not just a symbol, he was a vanguard. He gave the movement ideological direction. I am not offering a general praise for the government. Only for this specific instance.
That makes a lot more sense. Like getting your (unfortunately taxed) money’s worth.
You should have said that before.
Osama vs Obama?
Who has done most to destroy America?
Lets list a few agents:
1) Homeland Security and the TSA
2) The Fed
3) The Department of Education and the Teachers Union
4) The EPA and the Environ-mental activists
5) The Department of Energy
6) Federal Bureaucrats
Osama gets an assist with #1
Obama gets an assist with #5 and #6
IMHO #2 and #6 are the biggest threats, #1 in the short term and #5 in the long term. (IMHO, I think the Fed will bankrupt us before we run out of oil.)
Osama is either dead or is under control of the USA government in some hole somewhere.
The idea that they faked his death or whatever just to get good headlines for Obama doesn’t make any sense. It took me a while to figure out exactly why I was feeling this way, but now I have it nailed down.
The risk of being exposed is much too massive for the government to fake the raid and whatnot.
If they said that they killed Osama and Osama is really still alive and they didn’t realize it… then all Osama has to do is just release a video of himself or whatever and it would be embarrassing beyond belief.
Even if they know Osama was dead 100% they still wouldn’t of faked the raid. Why? Because all anybody would have to do to disgrace the USA would be to exhume the body, cut off the finger and send it to some major Muslim media outlet.
These recent events prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that one way or another the USA government is in control of his person. Either his dead body or living body. But they have him (and quite possibly did dispose of him at sea).
The ONLY way that Osama could still be alive is if they captured him in that raid, or some other previous occasion. To us it really makes no difference… he is about as dead as you can get either way.
Could you imagine if they captured him alive took him in? It would be a fiasco. They would either send him off to Guantanamo bay, which would be embarrassing. Or, worse, they would have to take him in and put him on trial. Could you imagine Osama in USA custody and hiring lawyers and have them arguing his case in public? That’s worse.
There was NO way that they could of afforded, politically, to take him and alive and admit to it. But the most likely scenario is that he is dead. I know that there are a lot of conspiracy buffs and paranoids out there, but you have to understand that it’s far far more difficult to keep something secret then you think it is.
This is why for the 90% of stuff that the government does that is really screwed up is done in public, no secrecy. Nothing hidden… then they just lie about it.
nate, I love your writing but the your’s and could of’s are really starting to get to me :S
Sorry. I forget to watch for that stuff.
operation northwoods says that’s not true. pearl harbor says that’s not true. the military can keep secrets, and uses compartmentalization, in any case.
The military uses a technique called “Project McNamara” – during the cold war numerous decoy military bases were constructed to confuse Soviet Union spies. Wikileaks is a good example of this – release a bunch of document some of which are true (but not really sensitive) and most of which are false. (The military would never allow really sensitive information to be transmitted unencrypted over the internet or any other way for that matter. They spend a huge amount of money on encryption technology.)
Does it not seem suspicious the two things that President Obama has been unable to find, his birth certificate and Osama Bin Laden, both happened to turn up in the same week?
Ask yourself why an obviously fake version of Obama’s birth certificate was released? Probably to see the reaction of the media. Despite the fact that you only need to download the birth certificate and open it in Adobe Photoshop to see that it is a fake, the media did not pick up on it. Had they picked up, I’m sure another authentic version was ready to be released. So I see this as a dry run to see how much the media was prepared to cover up.
That’s my conspiracy theory for today.
Late breaking news – US “Intelligence?” appears to have found proof that Elvis is dead.
david ray griffin on obl and elvis:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15601
> operation northwoods says that’s not true. pearl harbor says that’s not true.
Yes, of course, Pearl Harbor never happened. It all makes sense now.
> the military can keep secrets,
The military is good at two things; 1. Killing things, 2. Blowing shit up.
That is the only thing that they need to be good at. It’s their job. They should take pride in it. Everything else they are borderline incompetent as anybody actually involved in the military can attest to.
They can probably keep very good secrets for anything that involved maybe 15 or 20 people or less. They can probably keep details about big events secret by destroying or hiding pieces of documentation. But they certainly can’t keep big events involving hundreds of people secret.
pearl harbor was a japanese attack, but much circumstantial evidence points to provocation by the roosevelt administration and foreknowledge of the aggression (see harry elmer barnes, morganstern, and denson). operation northwoods was unearthed accidently looking for other documents under foi. nobody ever spoke.
http://mises.org/daily/216
nate-m,
No kidding! Congratulations for showing a modicum of common sense. Skepticism should work both ways.
On the other hand, your arguments are completely unimpressive for those who think 9-11 was done by the US government (and the Jooos!) and Bin Laden is a CIA agent. That’s how conspiracy theories work; any new peace of evidence against the conspiracy just makes the conspiracy bigger and more sophisticated, reinforcing the belief that big conspiracies are indeed possible, which leads to further conspiracy theories, and so on.
http://mises.org/media/4593/Conspiracy-Theories-History-and-The-State
Jeff Riggenbach’s article is event proof. If the historian ever finds the government’s stand to be correct, he is automatically labelled a court historian or at the least he has not done his research properly. If the historian’s stand is anti-government, then he has something interesting to say. And this is true for every historical event under every circumstance.
No interpretation of historic events, based on the most compelling evidence can ever change that. Because he is trying to categorize the interpreters themselves based on whether their interpretation takes a pro or anti-government form. It is not the reasons historians provide that gets evaluated. Rather it is the historians themselves.
Abilash,
I also read the Riggenbach article, but I read it to show the classification working the other way around. Riggenbach was quoting Barnes, saying:
“There is a determined effort,” he wrote, “to block those suspected of seeking the truth from having access to official documents, other than those which have become public property.… Many of these important sources are … completely sealed off from any historian who is suspected of desiring to ascertain the full and unbiased truth with respect to American foreign policy since 1933.”
This implies that it is the holders of official documents, those who are restricting the access to those documents to some historians, or only releasing some documents, that are doing the classification.
Whoever is doing the grunt work in the government of deciding which documents can be shared with historians and which cannot, is acting in a sort of historiological role on behalf of the government, and can thus be called a “court historian”. A historian who asks for documents which are restricted is, by making that request, making a claim that there could be an important piece of the puzzle therein, and thereby that historian is, to a certain degree “Revisionist”. To make that request, the historian necessarily claims that the set of documents released by the government’s court historian does not tell the full story, or that a particular piece could be better illuminated.
Therefore, the way I read Riggenbach, it seemed to me that the agency actually performing the censorship, by restricting access to certain documents to certain chosen people (their own internal people), is the one that decides who is a court historian and who is a revisionist.
You said “he is trying to categorize the interpreters themselves based on whether their interpretation takes a pro or anti-government form.” I disagree. I think he is providing an explanation for the fact that “interpreters” are treated differently by the government based on the government’s expectations of the outcome of their work. Meaning, that historians who choose to focus on areas in which the government is not trying to hide anything (e.g. “environmental impact of coal mining”) find that the documents they wish to access are freely available, while those with a focus which may reveal unpleasant truths about government (“factors determining US involvement in WWII”) find themselves blocked at every meaningful turn.
In my opinion, the work of a historian should include as much of the relevant evidence as posiible, and, where collection of more evidence was impossible, good reasons should be given for such. Those historians who write about such research areas in which the vast majority of source material is censored, but then write as though they are confident that the story they have managed to put together is anywhere near complete, seem to me to be inferior historians to those who point out the loss in insight censorship has cost them. In this regard, I think the characterisation of such historians as “court historians” is fair, as they have taken on faith that the source material they have been given is an unbiased and representative sample. Do you disagree? Why?
There does not seem to be a proper appreciation of the complexities involved. There are things that the government wants hidden, so people who try to look for things are stopped, so they cry foul and make accusations. Then there are people who cry foul and make accusations against the government when in fact there is nothing to hide and all relevant details are out in the open because they have a different ideological agenda. Neither are court historians. Both have a message that anti-statists are receptive to. But one is trying to find the truth, while the other is trying to drown it out in noise. I was hoping that a proper appreciation of such things would be reflected in his article.
That is reasonable. Assuming no foul play, but you still have not rely on the historian’s judgement. He decides what is relevant and what is not. He could leave out something that he felt was not relevant, but you might feel otherwise.
Abilash,
“Whether a conspiracy theory is true is usually a matter for history to decide.”
Even if we do as Riggenbach reports Cass Sunstein did, and “assume a well-motivated government that aims to eliminate conspiracy theories, or draw their poison, if and only if social welfare is improved by doing so,” this determines the evidence to be released not based on which theory is true or false, but on which theory the government determines is best for social welfare. But there is also a second problem.
At the point when the government chooses to restrict access to certain evidence, it does not have access to all the possible theories this piece of evidence will strengthen or weaken the case for, as many of those theories will not have been worked out yet – the process takes time. In restricting access to that evidence which may be used to strengthen the case for any one particular false, “trying to drown it out in noise” conspiracy theories, that evidence is simultaneously restricted from strengthening the case for an unknown number of legitimate theories.
The Wikileaks release of the Afghanistan War Diaries may have contained evidence that could conceivably be seized upon by all sorts of nutjob weirdos as proof of something crazy, but it also brought to light evidence that, in at least one case, American soldiers were killing Afghan civilians without provocation, and getting away with it (http://www.collateralmurder.com/)
The point of the article is that, at the time of the government’s decision to restrict a piece of evidence, it is impossible to restrict only those pieces of evidence which will be used to bolster the crazy theories only, as all the evidence could equally be used by legitimate or crazy historians, for legitimate or crazy theories. Therefore, it must be using a different set of criteria to decide on which evidence to release. Riggenbach implies that the criteria it might be using might be designed partly to paint the government in a very positive light (well, as positive as possible), rather than designed to “aid the social welfare”, but this is a separate point.
The fact that there are “conspiracy entrepreneurs” is so exposed as not being a valid reason for restricting access to evidence, even if the conspiracy entrepreneurs do create a lot of “noise”.
I am not arguing for restricting access to evidence. The clarity you show in your comments did not seem recognizable in the article. To put it another way, it seemed to be the kind of article that allows crazy conspiracy theorists to justify their nuisance.
the earth is flat, the moon is cheese, and wikileaks is a force for freedom.
http://is.gd/QuwSeW
newson,
Is that link supposed to be an example of the “nuisance” caused by crazy conspiracy theorists, as described by Abilash, or are you seriously claiming that wikileaks is a zionist plot to overthrow the world? If the latter, do you have any sources that write a bit clearer, or provide arguments or evidence to back up their assertions?
to colin phillips:
“overthrowing the world” is gilding the lily. with wikileaks, as with all “acceptable” media, it pays to ask “cui bono”. i don’t see assange as any serious threat to the status quo, quite the contrary. http://is.gd/djNho4
jeff gates goes into this in great length in his book.
http://www.criminalstate.com/press/Introduction.pdf
I know. But it’s safe to ignore the wingnuts because no amount of argument is going to win out against them. They are not using logic to form their opinions. They have their belief first then they manipulate what facts they choose to acknowledge as real to suit their world view.
My favorite conspiracy theory is that the world is actually flat. The antarctic is not a continent, but a ice wall that surrounds the borders of earth. This is what keeps the oceans from spilling out. In order for the Zionists (usually these things involve Jews somewhere) to keep the flat earth a secret they actually have vast underground network of government agents that control access to the antarctic. That way it prevents people from documenting the fact that on the other side of the antarctic wall is a steep drop off into space (or something, nobody knows except the government)
Trips to the south pole are artificial, like the moon landings. The scientists studying antarctic life are frauds.
This seems more in line with the tastes of the audience here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vupiwJyK1w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVCdLV3Xlbo
Fresh from Onion news.
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