Obama and Talking to Enemies
by neolibertarian
I really like that Barack Obama was willing to go against orthodoxy and argue that America should always be willing to parley with its enemies. I disagree with the policy and the arguments for it, but the fact that he's willing to challenge conventional wisdom is commendable. The fallacy of tradition is often one of the weakest yet most sacred of logical fallacies.
Of course, I'm pretty sure Krauthammer has it right that this was not planned and was more of a spur of the moment, dogpile on Bush instance. It's also notable that all of his advisors are either hedging ('he meant mid-level representatives') or outright correcting Obama's statements - even though Obama has been both forceful and explicit in his pledge to meet with dictators, specifically mentioning Ahmadinejad.
Many of Obama's arguments for this policy are embarrassingly bad. He often uses historical examples, such as Reagan and Kennedy.
But Kennedy's summit with Khrushchev was a failure that probably encouraged the Soviets to be more aggressive, thinking that Kennedy was weak and easy to compromise. That summit is often blamed as a factor behind the Soviets putting nukes in Cuba.
And Reagan's summits with Gorbachev followed his previously critical stance toward the USSR, and even with Gorby he refused to abandon missile defense.
This doesn't mean that diplomacy and compromises are always bad, as they certainly provide countless positive results. But simply going to talk to any enemy, no matter what, is naivete or vanity.
If elected, President Obama's time would be far more productively spent supporting our allies than indulging the vanity of camera-hungry leaders like Chavez and Ahamdinejad. Instead of a Tyrants Tour, maybe Obama could spend his first year as President supporting our friends and allies around the world - meeting with reformers, dissidents, and the leaders of allied countries. It would make for a positive message that stressed the benefits of friendship with the US.
Of course, left out of the discussion is trade and commerce. For some reason, political observers find the character issue fascinating - wimp versus nuanced; courageous versus cowboy - and forget that the most important thing the US can do with other countries (except the specific ones we might go to arms against) is trade. Saying you want to forge a common bond with the world by limiting carbon emissions is one thing. Actually giving the people of the world access to the US market is far more meaningful.
While I'm sure the rest of the world is very pissy about Iraq and the US military even existing, and that a lot of diplomats and activists really care about the ABM, Kyoto or ICC treaties, the most impactful part of US-global relations is trade. Obama thinks the US should use its massive power to tilt trade in favor of itself. Even though we're by far one of the richest and most prosperous countries in human history, and even though trade creates benefits all around that are often far in excess of its temporary drawbacks, Obama still thinks that the US economy should be managed for the benefit of Americans - much to the detriment of everyone else.
Improving relations with the rest of the world is a lot more than just talking to dictators and diplomats. Ask him for the ability to compete fairly in the US market and suddenly Mr. Hope-of-the-World Obama clams up.
Democrats Embrace Protectionism
by neolibertarian
The Democrats, being both extremely insecure against charges of insufficient patriotism and being extremely awkward in their continuing push for faux-socialism, are moving more wholeheartedly against their supposed internationalist credibility.
We're supposed to believe that, because the Democrats want to cave in to pressure on the war in Iraq and in 2003 they wanted to listen to whatever France and Germany said, they must be more popular in the rest of the world. While it seems fairly clear that leaving Iraq would earn us no friends and alienate allies in the region (now tasked with fighting Iran's influence alone), I don't see how the Democrats' protectionism is going to win friends.
Obama and Clinton both promised a few weeks ago that if they could not secure agreement from Mexico and Canada to renegotiate NAFTA, they would both use their authority (as President) to withdraw from the agreement. Of course, Mexico and Canada are both sovereign countries that can't just be forced into obligations and that have their own problems with free trade. The difference is that Canada and Mexico want to make trade freer, whereas Obama and Clinton want trade to be less free.
I recall that in 2004 John Kerry made some very xenophobic comments about opening firehouses and schools in Iraq and closing them in America. In other words, the Democrats want us to help poor people as long as those poor people are in America; foreigners can go to hell. Nobody much picked up on this line, which I think displays a severe moral and philosophical failing of the mainstream Democrats.
Well that tactic is back and stronger than ever, now amplified with a general repudiation of globalization. In complaining about a government appropriation that went to a joint US-EU partnership, Rahm Emanuel had this to say:Having made sure that Iraq gets new schools, roads, bridges and dams that we deny America, now we are making sure that France gets the jobs that Americans used to have...
This is a dreadfully fascinating statement that should be recognized as xenophobic, isolationist and protectionist. Any politician who uttered the same words but with 'black people' inserted for France and 'white people' inserted for Americans would be run out of national politics on a rail. Rahm Emanuel is a stirring up primal hatreds for the sake of cheap political points and the foggy prospect of a minor and temporary political gain.
LaRouche and Buchanan seem to grow ever stronger in the Democratic party's philosophy. So why are people who style themselves as cosmopolitan, international, educated and tolerant so busy trashing foreign trade, foreign outsourcing and foreign receipt of US aid? In my opinion, a few reasons.
First, leftists are insecure about having their patriotism questioned. They think it's extremely unfair (even as many of them openly admit to their ambivalence and hostility toward the US) and they nurse wounds over it. Second, leftists are already opposed to spending money on Iraq and opposed to capitalism's ever-shifting markets that sometimes result in US job losses.
Since it requires no actual policy changes, this is merely a matter of linking the issues to shore up a weak point. They turn their opposition to the Iraq war -a perceived soft spot on the patriotism front- into the REAL patriotism. In other words, "we're SO pro-America that we don't want to spend on foreigners." Then they take opposition to globalization, corporations and capitalism and turn it into patriotism as well.
The result is not at all pretty and displays both intellectual dishonesty and an arrogant disrespect for those unfortunate enough to be caught on the wrong side of their rants.
In the end, we find three things:
1. The party against angering the rest of the world thinks that all the global economy should be subverted to the whims of America, no matter how loudly they oppose that.
2. The party against forgetting the basic physical needs of the poor wants to let the foreign poor twist in the wind for domestic political concerns.
3. The party against questioning another's patriotism will impugn your patriotism if you disagree with their isolationist and socialist agendas.
Don't yell at me for painting Democrats with a broad brush. Any Democrat who doesn't think that House Democratic Caucus Chair Emanuel's xenophobia should represent the whole party can direct complaints to him at the Democratic Caucus: call 202-225-1400.
If anybody does bother to call, you might ask how the Democrats can heal wounds with the world while restricting their access to our markets and telling them that foreigners don't deserve jobs as much as Americans do.
Swiss Taxes and European Trade
by neolibertarian
The EU has had a free trade agreement with Switzerland since 1972 (before it was even named the EU). The European Commission is trying to blame Switzerland of unfair trade, since it has such low taxes and attractive business climates. Coyote and Cato hit on this news item, both pointing out the dangerous implications of the argument that laissez-faire policies are ipso facto unfair trade practices.
In fairness to the EC, I have to admit that sometimes tax policies are normally considered unfair trade practice. This is a non-tariff barrier, a group of policy tools that includes import quotas and subsidies. If a subsidy is delivered in the form of a targeted tax cut, how is that different from taxing an entity and returning it to them in the form of a subsidy check? As far as I can tell, however, they're not trying to make this argument, anyway. I don't think foreign subsidies should be a big deal, though. It just means foreigners are financing a price reduction for Americans. The people who should be really pissed off are those foreigners paying the taxes.
Part of the problem is that free trade still has a distinctly 19th century bent to it. Goods are discreet, countries are discreet, and businesses are static; agreements regard raw resources and manufactured goods. Actually attracting businesses to locate in a given place isn't really covered by free trade rules. Nor should it be. Most free trade agreements involve a lot of rules and measures to control and circumscribe free trade, so that the agreement is freer than the status quo but not absolutely free on its own. Making up new rules to cover the movement of businesses and capital would likely make the world economy less free as protections spring up to limit the escape of businesses from repressive economies to free ones.
It's still incredibly hard to take most world politicians seriously on truly free trade, even when they aren't saying that low taxes are unfair, because of the anti-agriculture bias of free trade agreements. Europe is worse than anybody else (with France being at the moral bottom of the pile) when it comes to agricultural free trade. When it comes to industrial goods and intellectual property, even the movement of capital, the West gives free trade agreements high priority, but whenever agriculture is mentioned they all cite the need to protect and preserve and to tax. Hypocrisy.
Fortunately, the Swiss won't budge here. Taxes are generally despised in Switzerland, and tax competition is a long-held practice. Switzerland is not really interested in EU membership, and this incident is likely to broaden the gap. Switzerland didn't even join the UN until 2002. A vote in the early 1990s to join the European Economic Area failed and the Swiss instead pursued a bilateral agreement. The EEA was only established in the first place so that European neighbors could have freer trade with the EU without joining the EU, but apparently even the EEA was too close for comfort for the Swiss voters.
Foreign Policy: Moving The Boundaries
by neolibertarian
Rather than admitting that realism alone is an incomplete and amoral view of the world that tends to result in a host of negative consequences, Jonathan Rauch is arguing that realism is a good thing without defending the hardest aspects of realism.
His case argument for realism is JFK. Rauch acknowledges that a controlling component of JFK's rhetoric on the subject was liberalist (the sentence after the 'ask not' sentence was: "My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.") but then asserts that JFK was in actuality a realist in his policies. It's difficult to make distinctions on actions rather than rhetoric or philosophy because actions in general are dictated by situations. But Rauch makes several arguments that JFK was really a realist.
1) JFK read one document in one meeting and said it was a load of crap. Well the quoted section of that document IS a load of crap and was little more than feel-good nonsense. Here's the section: "to insure that modernization of the local society evolves in directions which will afford a congenial world environment for fruitful international cooperation and our ... for our way of life." That's meaningless fluff. I wouldn't try to get much insight out of this anecdote. Even if he did oppose one liberalist policy (which it isn't clear he did here) it doesn't mean he did it on realist grounds, nor does it mean he isn't a liberalist. Responding to the same document, JFK also said "We're not really fighting for the private enterprise system." That could be read as a realist statement that we're fighting for our country's existence, or it could be read as a liberalist statement that we're fighting for freedom itself, not merely for some aspects of capitalism. Not very indicative of much, regardless.
2) His first argument for JFK's realism was that he, "promised to 'bear any burden' to defend the free world against communism — not to free the whole world." That's aserious misreading of JFK's Inaugural Address. He said he wanted to bear any burden to ensure the survival and the success of liberty. He placed primary and solitary emphasis on liberty, not on our lives, our countries, our cultures or our families. He gave liberty the top and only slot in that mission-statement of a sentence. A realist would have said, "we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of our country" or "of our citizens." Just because he wasn't actively engaged in rollback-type policies or rhetoric doesn't mean he wasn't a liberal.
3) The real problem with Rauch's piece, though, is summed up in this quote: "Properly understood, [realism] does not... espouse indifference to regimes' internal structure." Actually, YES IT DOES. That's exactly what it does and that's what it's meant to do. Realism argues that everybody is the same and everybody is looking out for his survival; that applies to democracies and dictatorships, free-marketeers, fascists and communist. Realism as a foreign policy perspective argues that national behavior is not substantively changed by governmental structures.
Trying to argue that you're for a realism that DOES take into account democracy versus autocracy necessitates an acknowledgement that realism alone (pure realism) is insufficient to explain foreign policy actions. It means you're not merely a realist.
It would be far better stated if Rauch just said at this point in his essay that we should incorporate less idealism and less democratization into our foreign policy, because that's what he means (and he gets to it at the end of the essay). Trying to argue that realism doesn't stand for itself is silly and insulting to readers who know better.
It's hard not to rebut his defense of realist tactics, though. The problem with realism is that countries governed by realism know no lasting friends or enemies. Changing power relationships demand changing tactics. It would mean that if we thought fascists were better than islamists we'd side with the fascists, but if the democrats in the same country gained the edge we'd support the democrats against the Islamists. That sort of tactic held serious currency in some circles, but that kind of backstabbing, amoral look at foreign policy is both wrong on its face (it's dishonest and works against the interests of foreign victims of the people we support) and wrong in its results (it often ends up pissing people off and degrades what credibility we have).
The US should be working to build real allies and sustain our credibility. Switching allies all the time and supporting authoritarian or totalitarian elements are two good ways to show we have no moral backbone.
Of course, liberty itself is in our interest since liberty and democracy bring about lasting and stable allies; even if they don't side with us on critical issues, does anybody think France or Germany mean to attack us? They're not contemplating war with us, but a century ago wars would've started over far less than our invasion of Iraq. We have democratization to thank for that.
Our natural allies are (classical) liberals and democrats around the world, and we shouldn't abandon them to an ill-defined claim of 'our interests.'
Update: By the way, I got the Rauch article from a post by Volokh.
Serbia and Montenegro
by neolibertarian
Following the May referendum in Montenegro, both countries have now formally declared their independence from the collapsing union of Serbia and Montenegro.
Alone, Montenegro is smaller than Kuwait, East Timor or The Bahamas, and it doesn't even have its own currency. Instead, they use the Euro even though they aren't in the EU or the Eurozone. This is similar to some smaller Western Hemisphere economies relying heavily on the dollar for currency transactions; using a nearby currency that's respected, valued and guarded from inflation helps struggling economies even as it takes away their oft-desired tools for manipulating the economy (and hands those tools over to much more powerful foreign governments). Before using the Euro they used the Mark. Montenegro is done hitching its wagon to Serbia, but is firmly attached to the direction of the EU. Their real advantage over Serbia is having sea and ocean access, while Serbia is landlocked (though Serbia has the Danube and access to the Black Sea through Romania and Bulgaria).
Anyway, good for them. Their union wasn't really working anyway and had been effectively doomed for a while. The intervention into Kosovo really pushed this along, but it started before then.
Protests in Iran; Press the Contrast
by neolibertarian
Iran has been experiencing a lot of protests in the last week. The US ought to act quickly to capture the initiative in the inter-disciplinary struggle with Ahmadinejad. Giving active support to the reformist groups (offering them tons of air-time, both in the US through copious press conferences about them and with them, and regionally (maybe through US-backed media like Radio Sawa and Al Hurra tv).
The theocracy's opponents ought to be directly supported, because they show the lie of Ahdmadinejad's vision of Islam as the virtuous alternative to liberal democracy. If he can't even rally his own co-nationals to support the system they've had for over two and a half decades, how can he put forth Iran as the aegis for the Islamization of the West?
Ahmadinejad is, by his own choosing and design, a figure in the War on Terror. He hopes to be the main figure (kind of how Hitler was the main figure of World War II or Napoleon the main figure of the Napoleonic Wars). And the War on Terror, before anything, is an ideological struggle on par with the Cold War and other global conflicts. The US must be the promoter of freedom, individualism, and representative government - to contrast with the apparent Islamo-fascist values of nihilism, bigotry, misogyny and of course fear.
They stand directly opposed to freedom, including freedom of religion, of speech, of protest, of occupation, of residence, and of so many other things. Our job as supporters of freedom is to press the contrast.
Pressing the contrast means we show ourselves in support of freedom and our other values like tolerance and democracy. We must celebrate democracy and democracies by rhetorically and actively supporting new and emerging democracies and by chastising and excluding nascent dictatorships. We need to show the world the contrast so that they can see what the choices are.
Either you can be led by horribly violent and hateful people that will ban music, clothing, dancing, parties and entertainment they find distasteful (as has happened recently when terrorist-affiliated groups get influence of localities) or you can live your life as you please.
We pressed the contrast in the Cold War. Berlin was the best example, and a microcosm of the East-West German split, itself a microcosm of the East-West World split. West Berlin and the FRG (BRD) enjoyed an economic 'miracle,' democratic reformation and high levels of technology, safety and luxury by the 1960s. East Berlin and the GDR (DDR) were mired in comparative depression, horribly authoritarian politics that competed with the Nazi-era for Most Repressive Ever, and effectively stagnant levels of technology and luxury. Safety was widespread in the GDR, except for the omnipresent abuses of the Stasi secret police.
Pressing the contrast between East and West was what led to a huge stream of refugees escaping East Germany into West Berlin, until the Wall went up. The Wall itself was an amazingly clear example of pressing the contrast, one the East German leaders stupidly lobbied for themselves. To paraphrase Reagan addressing the House of Commons: in Europe the West's armies faced East to defend from invasion, while the Communist forces also faced East to stop their people from fleeing to the West.
The contrast between freedom and tyranny is the motivating power of the conflict. It explains to everybody why we fight, to ourselves, to our soldiers, to the people we're fighting, and to the people we fight to save. It should always be our policy to press the contrast in the War on Terror. Being the good guys is more important than actually killing the bad guys in a conflict like the war on terror.
They're already weak, that's why they use terrorism instead of armies, and remote training camps instead of countries. We need to stem the tide of terrorist creation, and a great way to do that is to press the contrast.
If I had my way, we'd also get our allies (UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, etc.) to agree to a joint statement that any person in a Muslim-majority country that isn't making satisfactory steps toward liberal democracy can apply for refugee status to live in one of these free countries. That should put a little fire under 'em. Of course, that wouldn't happen because too many people are unable to separate the terrorists from the other Muslims (and the Japanese aren't terribly thrilled with the idea of Korean migrants, let alone other migrants). But it would be effective overall; it would show these authoritarian countries we mean business, it would show people around the world we're serious in our commitment to liberal democracy, and it would provide lives of wealth and education to countless people (many of whom could return to their countries and join the reformist movements).
Ahmadinejad's letter to the President was defining the terms of an ideological struggle. The Islamists have seen themselves on the level of a global ideology at least since Qutb argued it in Milestones. He placed Islam on par with Western democracy and Eastern socialism. He characterized Islam as an ideology and not a religious or ethnic distinction. Ahmadinejad pretends to believe the same thing, challenging Bush to convert the US to a Muslim country.
If he wants an ideological struggle, then let's give him one. Let's press the contrast. Give aid to democrats and reformers who want it; keep up a continuous rhetorical defense of freedom and democracy; publicly and loudly praise Muslim advocates of liberty; emphasize in press conferences every instance of honor killing, every small-time thug band that breaks up a coed party, every person blown to pieces by a Palestinian suicide bomb; don't let up the heat.
The difference between sides is what animates a conflict.
We knew the South was wrong, socially and economically, and we knew that slavery was the heart of it all. The conflict was easier because slavery was the degrading difference (even well before the war, the vast majority of Northerners were opposed to slavery, they just didn't want to take it from the South - but to say the strong majority of Yankees were anything less than anti-slavery is mistaken). This is the best stanza from battle Hymn of the Republic:In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
We knew the Central Powers were undemocratic, and it was in part the fall of the Czar that helped the US into World War I. The Germans were imperialist and anti-democratic, threatening peaceful, democratic countries like Belgium, France and the UK. Granted, the conflict was hardly clear-cut because it didn't seem to be about anything, but the clear moral difference was there for most Americans. Even before entering the war was a possibility, the US population was largely rooting for the republics to prevail against the empires.
The contrast in WWII was especially clear, with new democracies falling left and right before fascist tyranny. Ike had this to say in the D-Day order:The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers in arms on other fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine; the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe; and security for ourselves in a free world... The tide has turned. The free men of the world are marching together to victory. I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory. Good luck, and let us all beseech the blessings of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.
The Cold War, of course, has a great model for pressing the contrast. Reagan knew perhaps more than any other President that we had to press the contrast with the USSR, and I have tons of quotes, lengthy and articulate, of Reagan and Shultz pressing the contrast. But I think this one from Reagan is especially appropriate here:Above all, we must realize that no arsenal or no weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have. It is a weapon that we as Americans do have. Let that be understood by those who practice terrorism and prey upon their neighbors.
Protests in Iran; Press the Contrast
by neolibertarian
Iran has been experiencing a lot of protests in the last week. The US ought to act quickly to capture the initiative in the inter-disciplinary struggle with Ahmadinejad. Giving active support to the reformist groups (offering them tons of air-time, both in the US through copious press conferences about them and with them, and regionally (maybe through US-backed media like Radio Sawa and Al Hurra tv).
The theocracy's opponents ought to be directly supported, because they show the lie of Ahdmadinejad's vision of Islam as the virtuous alternative to liberal democracy. If he can't even rally his own co-nationals to support the system they've had for over two and a half decades, how can he put forth Iran as the aegis for the Islamization of the West?
Ahmadinejad is, by his own choosing and design, a figure in the War on Terror. He hopes to be the main figure (kind of how Hitler was the main figure of World War II or Napoleon the main figure of the Napoleonic Wars). And the War on Terror, before anything, is an ideological struggle on par with the Cold War and other global conflicts. The US must be the promoter of freedom, individualism, and representative government - to contrast with the apparent Islamo-fascist values of nihilism, bigotry, misogyny and of course fear.
They stand directly opposed to freedom, including freedom of religion, of speech, of protest, of occupation, of residence, and of so many other things. Our job as supporters of freedom is to press the contrast.
Pressing the contrast means we show ourselves in support of freedom and our other values like tolerance and democracy. We must celebrate democracy and democracies by rhetorically and actively supporting new and emerging democracies and by chastising and excluding nascent dictatorships. We need to show the world the contrast so that they can see what the choices are.
Either you can be led by horribly violent and hateful people that will ban music, clothing, dancing, parties and entertainment they find distasteful (as has happened recently when terrorist-affiliated groups get influence of localities) or you can live your life as you please.
We pressed the contrast in the Cold War. Berlin was the best example, and a microcosm of the East-West German split, itself a microcosm of the East-West World split. West Berlin and the FRG (BRD) enjoyed an economic 'miracle,' democratic reformation and high levels of technology, safety and luxury by the 1960s. East Berlin and the GDR (DDR) were mired in comparative depression, horribly authoritarian politics that competed with the Nazi-era for Most Repressive Ever, and effectively stagnant levels of technology and luxury. Safety was widespread in the GDR, except for the omnipresent abuses of the Stasi secret police.
Pressing the contrast between East and West was what led to a huge stream of refugees escaping East Germany into West Berlin, until the Wall went up. The Wall itself was an amazingly clear example of pressing the contrast, one the East German leaders stupidly lobbied for themselves. To paraphrase Reagan addressing the House of Commons: in Europe the West's armies faced East to defend from invasion, while the Communist forces also faced East to stop their people from fleeing to the West.
The contrast between freedom and tyranny is the motivating power of the conflict. It explains to everybody why we fight, to ourselves, to our soldiers, to the people we're fighting, and to the people we fight to save. It should always be our policy to press the contrast in the War on Terror. Being the good guys is more important than actually killing the bad guys in a conflict like the war on terror.
They're already weak, that's why they use terrorism instead of armies, and remote training camps instead of countries. We need to stem the tide of terrorist creation, and a great way to do that is to press the contrast.
If I had my way, we'd also get our allies (UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, etc.) to agree to a joint statement that any person in a Muslim-majority country that isn't making satisfactory steps toward liberal democracy can apply for refugee status to live in one of these free countries. That should put a little fire under 'em. Of course, that wouldn't happen because too many people are unable to separate the terrorists from the other Muslims (and the Japanese aren't terribly thrilled with the idea of Korean migrants, let alone other migrants). But it would be effective overall; it would show these authoritarian countries we mean business, it would show people around the world we're serious in our commitment to liberal democracy, and it would provide lives of wealth and education to countless people (many of whom could return to their countries and join the reformist movements).
Ahmadinejad's letter to the President was defining the terms of an ideological struggle. The Islamists have seen themselves on the level of a global ideology at least since Qutb argued it in Milestones. He placed Islam on par with Western democracy and Eastern socialism. He characterized Islam as an ideology and not a religious or ethnic distinction. Ahmadinejad pretends to believe the same thing, challenging Bush to convert the US to a Muslim country.
If he wants an ideological struggle, then let's give him one. Let's press the contrast. Give aid to democrats and reformers who want it; keep up a continuous rhetorical defense of freedom and democracy; publicly and loudly praise Muslim advocates of liberty; emphasize in press conferences every instance of honor killing, every small-time thug band that breaks up a coed party, every person blown to pieces by a Palestinian suicide bomb; don't let up the heat.
The difference between sides is what animates a conflict.
We knew the South was wrong, socially and economically, and we knew that slavery was the heart of it all. The conflict was easier because slavery was the degrading difference (even well before the war, the vast majority of Northerners were opposed to slavery, they just didn't want to take it from the South - but to say the strong majority of Yankees were anything less than anti-slavery is mistaken). This is the best stanza from battle Hymn of the Republic:In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
We knew the Central Powers were undemocratic, and it was in part the fall of the Czar that helped the US into World War I. The Germans were imperialist and anti-democratic, threatening peaceful, democratic countries like Belgium, France and the UK. Granted, the conflict was hardly clear-cut because it didn't seem to be about anything, but the clear moral difference was there for most Americans. Even before entering the war was a possibility, the US population was largely rooting for the republics to prevail against the empires.
The contrast in WWII was especially clear, with new democracies falling left and right before fascist tyranny. Ike had this to say in the D-Day order:The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers in arms on other fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine; the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe; and security for ourselves in a free world... The tide has turned. The free men of the world are marching together to victory. I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory. Good luck, and let us all beseech the blessings of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.
The Cold War, of course, has a great model for pressing the contrast. Reagan knew perhaps more than any other President that we had to press the contrast with the USSR, and I have tons of quotes, lengthy and articulate, of Reagan and Shultz pressing the contrast. But I think this one from Reagan is especially appropriate here:Above all, we must realize that no arsenal or no weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have. It is a weapon that we as Americans do have. Let that be understood by those who practice terrorism and prey upon their neighbors.
Canada May Decide To Keep Its Economy
by neolibertarian
Harper's government is likely abandoning Kyoto (tip to instapundit) requirements and will almost certainly replace them with Canada-specific goals. Canada's Environment Minister called the Kyoto targets impossible. Since even if every country followed the Kyoto reductions it would result in an almost imperceptible temperature drop, scrapping the plan is a good idea. The most substantial effect of Kyoto is a wealth-transfer program from booming economies to stagnant economies.
More than that, it's targeted at countries that have experienced growth after 1990. Since European countries and Soviet-bloc countries saw tons of Cold War-era factories shut down in the early 1990s, most of them are already below 1990 levels. The target, then, is more specifically America and other rich Western countries that haven't have languid growth in the last sixteen years.
Countries like Russia and Australia have emissions goals higher than their current levels, meaning they can sell the difference (the amount they don't pollute but are allowed to pollute) to countries that are failing to meet emissions goals. Australia didn't ratify Kyoto, but New Zealand did under the National government largely because it was argued that New Zealand would be needlessly losing money that it could acquire from selling emissions credits, since New Zealand was given a higher emissions target. Since ratification, however, New Zealand had an economic boom and is now exceeding their emissions target - putting them in the position of either paying for credits or painful forced recession.
Since Canada is going to be in a position to pay for its extra-Kyoto emissions, it's very easy to see why they'd want to drop the obligations (or ask the Kyoto signatories to rework the standards). Kyoto is little more than a sham agreement designed to make bureaucrats and activists think something is happening - and at times, as a tool to berate the US. It's time that Canada, New Zealand and other countries join the US and Australia in calling out the hypocrisy and futility of Kyoto by refusing to participate.
It would also be nice if beneficiaries under Kyoto like India and Eastern Europe would acknowledge that it does more for wealth-distribution than for the climate. If it were about climate and not about activism and diplomacy, then every country would have to participate and the emissions goals wouldn't be transparently set at 1990 levels.
The Truth Isn't So Sexy
by neolibertarian
Michael Barone (a great political commentator) has been talking about a map of the world (book abstract) separating the world into two regions - the core and the gap. The core is supposed to be connected to the world through trade, being more stable, democratic and market-oriented - the advanced or growing countries. The gap is the reverse, the countries that aren't growing, aren't democratic and are isolated from world trade. This should bring up visions of the Global North/Global South model. Two-sphere views of the world are sexy, interesting and simple, so they're popular. Aside from core/gap and north/south, there have been the Free/Communist (later First, Second and Third/Unaffiliated Worlds) and Occidental-West/Oriental East views.
But unfortunately these views are rarely so precise as they suggest. It's natural that we try to simplify the world into trends, but if a model is overly simple then it can give us poor impressions of the world. Ignorance is its own deterrent, but it can also lead to poor policy decisions.
While the communist/free model was one of the more accurate models (since it rested on a semi-objective, single criterion - support for the Communists in a given country, especially in its government) I think the core/gap model is not quite so strong.
Now let me qualify this by saying I think the model has a lot of positive points. Most importantly, it seems to cut to the heart of global issues today and finding an important, far-reaching theme that underlies social and government policy. I think he found a good theme, though I might have framed it differently.
But I must make two criticisms. First, the idea that the Islamic terrorists we face are somehow left out of globalization is not really the way things are. They have pre-paid cell phones, websites, and other aspects of technology at their disposal. Many of them come from Gulf States that are extremely connected to the global market with international corporate headquarters, skyscrapers, bustling commerce, free trade zones, and even negotiated deals with the US to expand commercial ties. More than that, a lot of the terrorists come from educated, worldly areas in Western countries. It's not enough to chalk it up to simply globalization or technology, though obviously it's an important and contentious issue.
And second, I believe the map itself is over-simplified and misdrawn in areas. Using WTO membership as one indicator of acceptance of globalization, we see that most countries are members of the WTO, and most of the rest are observers. It seems odd that WTO members would be seen as part of the gap. But that's the real problem - countries are not singular or cohesive. In many places the urban areas should be considered integrated core and rural areas non-integrated gap - the difference between investor-sheikhs in Riyadh and nomadic Bedouins.
And that's why I titled the post the way I did. It's not half as sexy to say that certain people accept globalization and their neighbors don't, to say that parts of Brazil or the Arabian peninsula are part of the global market and other parts tragically aren't. The map just wouldn't be the same, it wouldn't be so cohesive and therefore would be much more complicated. It would be less compelling.
It's an interesting issue and a good model, but I think the conclusion is overreaching and the map is oversimplified and even inaccurate.
"The Power of Ridicule"
by neolibertarian
I've often thought how interesting it is that we don't see more mockery of terrorists like Saddam or bin Laden. Obviously they've both been made fun of a lot. Saddam's scruffy face was an easy shot, and in Sept/Oct 2001 there were a lot of jokes describing Osama as an ugly goat-fornicator.
After WWII broke out, caricatures of the Germans and Japanese were rampant and common - though often overtly racist. And when the Germans rampaged through Belgiums, images of the 'Hun' slaughtering Belgium babies were widespead. Nobody rational wants to chracterize Arabs or Muslims as a group, but sometimes I think more people should insult Osama a little more.
Well, somebody else seems to have had the same idea. Maybe ridicule doesn't project the image the governments wants of itself, but here's a spirited defense of why ridicule could help the larger abstract conflict.Little if any American World War II-era ridicule had much effect on continental Europe, but it was still vital to the war effort. Ridicule can be a defensive weapon if it helps calm the fears of the public at home and give hope that they can indeed defeat the enemy. British and American boys sang anti-Hitler songs, mostly mocking the fuehrer’s private parts, as one might expect from adolescents, but laughing at the enemy during wartime helps one become less fearful and more optimistic of victory.
My biggest problem with ridicule as a weapon is that it tends to emphasize the irrational and emotional, rather than a well-reasoned critique of the enemy. Of course, making a 10,000-word critical rebuttal in response to a crude sketch or one-liner has its own drawbacks.
For Kicks: The J-P Cartoons
by neolibertarian
I'm going to post some of the Danish cartoons (see Reason here for all of them, tip to Coyote). I just wanted to make two points. First, I'm a jahili blapshmer, and second that these cartoons are fairly tame - less biting than a lot of political cartoons I've seen.
Here are the 3 most controversial ones (to me, anyway, since I don't read Danish).
Then there are the three cartoons that Danish imams magically 'found' and added to the group as though nobody would notice there were too many cartoons and that there's looked suspiciously dissimilar from all the others. Check out Reason's post to compare them all.
Classical Tolerance and the Danish Mo' Cartoons
by neolibertarian
Those who wish for their personal beliefs to be tolerated (read: not banned or physically threatened) ought to in turn grant the same tolerance of others. It was Locke's Letter on Toleration that really covered this subject for the Western world, and argued for the separation of church and state (probably in no small part because Locke was a Puritan/Protestant a pre-Westphalia Catholic Europe).
To sum up the classical liberal belief of tolerance: there exists right and wrong, and good and bad. Right and wrong are the rules governing interaction between people, and exist to protect the rights and liberties of individuals. Liberty's most valuable attribute is allowing each person to find the good and the bad within the framework of right (lawful) actions. In other words, I am free from others' obstructing my search for good or moral living because the law protects me. This is what lets me find my own religious, social, political and theological beliefs and observations - and to state them publicly where others might hear them.
Perhaps one of the most important rights, especially in a religious society, is the RIGHT to be blasphemous as long as one is not violent towards others. I have a natural right to (potentially or with certitude) endanger my immortal soul. That's part of each person's search for 'the good.' As long as we obey 'the right' (laws protecting life and property) then we can live very different and unconvential versions of 'the good.'
The problem with the Muslim mindset (I can personally vouch that not all Muslims share the same values or perspectives on the world) that protests the Danish Mohammed cartoons is they don't allow people to really endager their souls or be blasphmeous. Muslim editors that reprinted the Danish cartoons have been arrested.
This is an especially virulent and dogmatic strain we're dealing with, though. The theoretical objection to depictions of Mohammed is that it leads to idolatry - but nobody here is arguing that the newspaper editors are intentionally engaging in or encouraging idolatry. This is really about respect for the letter of a rule, rather than what the rule was meant to protect.
In the same way, dietary codes (kosher and halal) were created as religious codes with social purposes; since certain foods are potentially unhealthful, the rules were created to protect believers and promote healthfulness among the faithful. The rules have long since taken on lives of their own as inherent morals, though they began as pragmatic concerns regarding diet. Of course, nobody ever rioted at an embassy over the serving of non-halal food (though Israel and Arab countries do have various importation bans on non-sanctioned foods like pork or alcohol).
So the rule is being rigidly enforced for the sake of the rules, and blasphemers 1,000 miles away are being protested and rioted over. Ridiculous.
I have the right to endanger my health with potentially unhealthful foods, to endanger my body with exposure to the sun and other carcinogens, to endanger my life by driving on highways and interstates, and to endanger my very soul with blasphemy, alcohol and delicious pepperoni (pork product!).
That's the classical tolerance that laid the foundation for Mill's Harm Principle and libertarianism. Unfortunately, it seems to be completely lacking in the minds of too many Muslims.
Republicans and Democracy
by neolibertarian
The Democrats are against the war in Iraq, and have trouble cheering too loudly for the development of democracy in other countries - especially in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon where independence and democracy are very strongly linked to Bush specifically and Republican rhetoric generally. Is this a fluke? After all, in the 1970s and 1980s a lot of lefties were criticizing the US and then the Reagan administration for not supporting democracy, for harboring authoritarian allies, and for being overly pragmatic in foreign policy. Surely that's the real left, and this is all just a departure, right?
Well, not really.
The criticism of Reagan was more on grounds of hypocrisy, since Reagan spent more time talking about democracy and freedom abroad (as relates to concrete American policy) than perhaps any President before or since. The left, by which I mean academics, activists and people near the fringe but not quite within it, criticized Reagan and the Republicans for holding onto right-wing authoritarians as a favorable alternative to left-wing totalitarians. It was primarily a way to criticize Reagan.
Between the Republicans and Democrats, it's overwhelmingly been the Republican preference to emphasize democracy, progress and freedom. While it's easy for leftists to glom onto democracy when they think Republicans are abandoning it, it's just as easy for them to run to isolationism when Republicans are weak there. That's certainly not to say that no leftists have objective or principled views on foreign policy, but there's a far more defined themerefor Republicans.
The Civil War, the first Republican-led war and a war that came about BECAUSE of the Republican victory in 1860, was characterized by pro-war Yankees as one or both of two things. First, it was often argued as a way to save the union and thus representative government; without the union, the argument went, there could be no republic. So the Civil War was then a fight for popular governance. And second, it was a fight for the freedom of both the western territories and of the slaves. The unionism/republicanism argument was more persuasive overall in the earlier parts of the war, but since then the freedom/abolition argument is all but universally favored (even to the point where few people know republicanism was put up as a justification at all).
The Cold War, heavily favored by Republicans, was also characterized as a struggle for freedom and democracy. While the Democrats were pushing the strategy of containment (hold the Soviets where they are, fight their expansion), more energetic Republicans were pushing the rollback/liberation strategy. The idea was that communism is an evil, and no person deserves to be enslaved under that system, therefore it's good on grounds of both morality and security to try and free peoples living under communist dominion. Moreover, the moral differences between freedom and communism must be exemplified, because that's the real fight.
Well the same thing applies in the Global War On Terror. We need to emphasize the difference between the world the terrorists want to create versus the world we'd like to create. Republicans are making this point much more strongly (though few politicians besides McCain and Bush are making it enough) than Democrats, and that's normaly, par for the course.
The Democrats, in the Civil War, the Cold War and the Global War On Terror - three conflicts that epitomize conflict between American-style free democracy and backwards-looking feudalism, totalitarianism and nihilism, respectively - took and are taking more "nuanced" stances.
A number of northern Democrats ('Peace Democrats' or 'Copperheads') in the Civil War wanted immediate peace negotiations with the South. They thought reuniting the union wasn't worth the cost of lives and property that it was taking. They differ from anti-GWOT Democrats by forthrightly admitting that they didn't think blacks should be emancipated. Modern Democrats don't usually say that foreigners don't deserve freedom and democracy, even if tyranny would be the result of their proposals. The Copperheads also thought that Lincoln was destroying the country and ruling as an anti-republican despot (where have we heard that before?).
In the Cold War and the War on Terror, the Democratic/anti-war position is generally one somewhere between conciliation/retreat and muted conflict. By downplaying the evils of the enemy, and laughing at those who do (whether it's Reagan calling the USSR an Evil Empire, or Bush calling three terror-backing countries an Axis of Evil) they refuse to enter into heightened conflict, anbd by extension don't put a great deal of pressure for liberal democracy. Sure, they want it, and they'll talk about it, but when there's any major cost beyond a simple spending program or diplomacy most of them aren't interested enough.
So it's no surprise that the anti-war left, which falsely seemed synonymous with democratization in years past, is almost totally uninterested in the natural and civil rights of people in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's always been Republicans who embrace freedom and democracy in foreign policy - though, unfortunately, even among Republicans there is a sizable number that will use any pretense to 'fight the enemy' and who don't see freedom as the motivating force in world events. But that's neither here nor there.
Republicans and Democracy
by neolibertarian
The Democrats are against the war in Iraq, and have trouble cheering too loudly for the development of democracy in other countries - especially in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon where independence and democracy are very strongly linked to Bush specifically and Republican rhetoric generally. Is this a fluke? After all, in the 1970s and 1980s a lot of lefties were criticizing the US and then the Reagan administration for not supporting democracy, for harboring authoritarian allies, and for being overly pragmatic in foreign policy. Surely that's the real left, and this is all just a departure, right?
Well, not really.
The criticism of Reagan was more on grounds of hypocrisy, since Reagan spent more time talking about democracy and freedom abroad (as relates to concrete American policy) than perhaps any President before or since. The left, by which I mean academics, activists and people near the fringe but not quite within it, criticized Reagan and the Republicans for holding onto right-wing authoritarians as a favorable alternative to left-wing totalitarians. It was primarily a way to criticize Reagan.
Between the Republicans and Democrats, it's overwhelmingly been the Republican preference to emphasize democracy, progress and freedom. While it's easy for leftists to glom onto democracy when they think Republicans are abandoning it, it's just as easy for them to run to isolationism when Republicans are weak there. That's certainly not to say that no leftists have objective or principled views on foreign policy, but there's a far more defined themerefor Republicans.
The Civil War, the first Republican-led war and a war that came about BECAUSE of the Republican victory in 1860, was characterized by pro-war Yankees as one or both of two things. First, it was often argued as a way to save the union and thus representative government; without the union, the argument went, there could be no republic. So the Civil War was then a fight for popular governance. And second, it was a fight for the freedom of both the western territories and of the slaves. The unionism/republicanism argument was more persuasive overall in the earlier parts of the war, but since then the freedom/abolition argument is all but universally favored (even to the point where few people know republicanism was put up as a justification at all).
The Cold War, heavily favored by Republicans, was also characterized as a struggle for freedom and democracy. While the Democrats were pushing the strategy of containment (hold the Soviets where they are, fight their expansion), more energetic Republicans were pushing the rollback/liberation strategy. The idea was that communism is an evil, and no person deserves to be enslaved under that system, therefore it's good on grounds of both morality and security to try and free peoples living under communist dominion. Moreover, the moral differences between freedom and communism must be exemplified, because that's the real fight.
Well the same thing applies in the Global War On Terror. We need to emphasize the difference between the world the terrorists want to create versus the world we'd like to create. Republicans are making this point much more strongly (though few politicians besides McCain and Bush are making it enough) than Democrats, and that's normaly, par for the course.
The Democrats, in the Civil War, the Cold War and the Global War On Terror - three conflicts that epitomize conflict between American-style free democracy and backwards-looking feudalism, totalitarianism and nihilism, respectively - took and are taking more "nuanced" stances.
A number of northern Democrats ('Peace Democrats' or 'Copperheads') in the Civil War wanted immediate peace negotiations with the South. They thought reuniting the union wasn't worth the cost of lives and property that it was taking. They differ from anti-GWOT Democrats by forthrightly admitting that they didn't think blacks should be emancipated. Modern Democrats don't usually say that foreigners don't deserve freedom and democracy, even if tyranny would be the result of their proposals. The Copperheads also thought that Lincoln was destroying the country and ruling as an anti-republican despot (where have we heard that before?).
In the Cold War and the War on Terror, the Democratic/anti-war position is generally one somewhere between conciliation/retreat and muted conflict. By downplaying the evils of the enemy, and laughing at those who do (whether it's Reagan calling the USSR an Evil Empire, or Bush calling three terror-backing countries an Axis of Evil) they refuse to enter into heightened conflict, anbd by extension don't put a great deal of pressure for liberal democracy. Sure, they want it, and they'll talk about it, but when there's any major cost beyond a simple spending program or diplomacy most of them aren't interested enough.
So it's no surprise that the anti-war left, which falsely seemed synonymous with democratization in years past, is almost totally uninterested in the natural and civil rights of people in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's always been Republicans who embrace freedom and democracy in foreign policy - though, unfortunately, even among Republicans there is a sizable number that will use any pretense to 'fight the enemy' and who don't see freedom as the motivating force in world events. But that's neither here nor there.
Defusing Iran
by neolibertarian
Michael Barone has excerpted Garton Ash's advice on how the West should deal with Iran:This is where we need to hear the other half of the message from my friend in Isfahan: Stick together, and be consistent. If Europe and America split over Iran, as we did over Iraq, we have not a snowball's chance in hell of achieving our common goals. To be effective, Europe and America need the opposite of their traditional division of labor. Europe must be prepared to wave a big stick (the threat of economic sanctions, for it is Europe, not the United States, that has the trade with Iran) and America a big carrot (the offer of a full "normalization" of relations in return for Iranian restraint). But the old trans-Atlantic West is not enough. Today's nuclear diplomacy around Iran shows us that we already live in a multipolar world. Without the cooperation of Russia and China, little can be achieved.
This makes a lot of sense to me, and I especially appreciate how in the following paragraph he links democratization to the effort. He's totally right on that point. Democracy will keep iranian leaders more accountable for peace and less accountable to extremists or terrorists who manipulate the governments and agendas of the Middle East. Democracies also are far less likely to ever engage in hostilities against each other (some say it's never happened, but that depends on your definition of democracy).
But he's quite right about the stick and the carrot. If Europe got tough on Iran then it would really send a message (so long as Russia and China don't try to undermine it, as China has done in sheltering North Korea and Mugabe from Western criticism). And the prospect of trading with America again could prove very valuable. It would also be surprising to see an aggressive Europe in a way that an aggressive America wouldn't be.
But there's a reason that we usually have an aggressive America and a conciliatory (appeasing? traitorous? surrendering?) Europe. Those roles reflect the values and political cultures on those involved. Europe is conservative, old and doesn't see a lot of benefit in changing the world. They see nuance and postmodernism: everyone has ulterior motives, everyone is materialistic, and the powerful countries are assumed to be more dangrous than the rebellious ones. It falls on America, as the younger, more energetic and idealistic country to run out and talk about saving the world for freedom and democracy.
It happened in World War I, when lanky ol' Wilson convinced the Western world that the postwar order would protect against aggression, that the instigators wouldn't be punished, and that national peoples would have self-determination. The leaders of old Europe laughed at Wilson then as they laughed at our Founders and as they laughed at Reagan and Bush-43. It's sounds incredibly naive (or just deceitful) to old Europeans to speak of such ideals. And so the League of Nations handed out parts of the world (particularly the MidEast) to France and Britain even as Poland and others received self-determination.
The Europeans are not accustomed to seeing situations in the manner of Americans. And so they're not going to rush in with a reformer's zeal and start fixing things. Most likely, the role will fall upon the British (maybe the germans under Merkel) to do a lot of the heavy lifting for Europe, and America will probably have to remain the hard-liner here.
What's very good news is that Iranians and Muslims are not at all happy with the new President of Iran. The Tehran stock market took a dive (he calls stock-trading 'gambling') , diplomas and reformers are publicly unhappy with him, and many Muslims actually condemned his pledge to wipe Israel off the map. So hopefully he'll have internal pressure to make up for the lack of a European backbone on this issue.
The Folly of Res Communis
by neolibertarian
A legal concept that a thing ('res') is owned in common by the community ('communis') is not well known to the average person, but it underpins the law of international waters and the law of space. And it really needs to go.
I. Enforcement
The concept of res communis when applied internationally (as opposed to internally, as when a state holds property within its jurisdiction and calls them community property) is incredibly difficult to enforce. If a group of citizens claiming no nationality or a new nationality tried to set up a new country in an area declared by treaty or convention as commonly held by the people of Earth (like the moon or international waters) then who's going to stop them? The UN doesn't really have the mandate for it, but neither does it have the credibility or police for it. Individual countries like the US might step up and do it, but that's prone to biased enforcement. More likely international courts would be brought in to deal with the issue, but how can international courts apply to people that don't recognize the court and aren't nationals of a signatory country? Naturally some courts (see: ICC) try to claim universal jurisdiction, but that's a problematic concept with very limited support.
Ultimately, if in the future somebody tried to set up a country in an area considered res communis then there wouldn't be a lot that countries would want to do to stop them.
It's the nature of owned property that the owner will protect the property. If international waters or the moon are owned in common by all of Earth, then all of Earth needs a property manager and rent-a-cops to protect the property. Otherwise it won't be protected. Somebody has to have the responsibility (and ideally the self-interest) to defend a property from being scavenged, polluted or squatted. By eliminating the privately-held and state-held options, only some IGO could be tasked with protecting these res communis areas, yet none satisfactorily exist. The closest thing is the International Seabed Authority, but it only relates to mineral-resource exploration and exploitation at the bottom of international waters; the moon, space, and of course the actual surface water of internationalw aters aren't really patrolled or policed.
II. Obstruction
Aside from the lack of any interested and empowered authorities to develop or protect the res communis areas, the practice also deters private or commercial progress toward them. It's entirely plausible that in fifty or a hundred years a company or group of people might want to establish a floating country, either moored or unmoored.
All it would really take is a group of super-sized cruise ships (connected or unconnected) and you could have a community of ten-thousand living more or less indefinitely on the water. They could get supplies by sending out boats or airplanes to the nearest land-based country and stocking up, and using the sea to make up the difference with fish or water. Energy could be supplied with nuclear reactors (like a battleship or a submarine) and you'd have a country. It would of course need financial support from tourism, or banking interests, or businesses seeking to avoid national regulation and intrusion or just a wacko trillionaire who likes the ocean; but just how it would operate is irrelevant. The point is that there's no real way to deal with people wanted to try this out, whether they were moored to the bottom of the ocean or sailing around the world.
With regard to space, it's obvious that eventually the technology of the space stations could be mimicked by companies or individuals either in orbit or on the Moon. The current treaties on the subject serve to inhibit development, especially on the Moon. Since nobody can own property on the moon, assuming it could somehow be profitable (financially or socially), there's no incentive to try - especially with the developed technology so far away.
The technology, though it's basically just science-fiction right now, will continue to stay far away and develop slowly if we don't allow for private initiative in this area. If there's a way to do it at an expected profit, it will eventually be found and done; all we have to do is find a way to allow for private property on the moon and other res communis areas.
If we want to encourage technological and scientific progress, especially towards the moon and space generally, we need to come up with an approach that is far less socialistic, far less hostile, and far less state-centered. Traditional and ancient international law may have been centered almost entirely on state and the domain of princes and governments, but today we must realize that individuals and enterprises can and do operate independently from states. It's only natural that laws reflect private endeavor.
III. Socialism and Power Politics
The idea of res communis sounds socialistic, and the rhetorical idealism behind it surely is. But the fact is that the law of the moon comes from two motivations: weak states and balancing states. The law of the moon is ideological realism dressed up by a little idealism.
The weak states, with little or no ability to send expeditions into space at all, let alone before the US, USSR and other, wanted to stop the big boys from making claims and keeping the weaker states out of the game. If you can't win, change the rules to cancel the game.
The balancing states didn't want to get into a fight over new territory on the Moon, a wonderful source of potential conflict, unrest and even violence or war. Rather than spending humongous cash reserves to colonize the Moon first or fight a war to stop the other from doing the same, they both agreed to keep it off-limits (see also: ABM).
Neither old-style socialism nor foreign policy realism offers the best alternative here (or most anywhere else). They lock out scientific and economic progress, not to mention a natural progression of humanity.
IV. Private Property of the Moon
My solution, naturally, is to find methods of allowing private property or even new countries to develop in these areas, just as happened during the Age of Exploration in the 1500s and 1600s. To figure out the law, some principles need to be drawn out. I'm limiting this part ot the moon, since open space, orbit and the international seas potentially involve moving territories (although I do think we ought to somehow accomodate moving territories somehow).
First, can sea, space or moon property be owned freehold or only by license? My undeniable preference is that we be talking about freehold, rather than licensing. That would be the only way to make a real country in these areas, since a country licensed by another country is more like a territory or protectorate. Governments already existing will want to make them licensed but otherwise controlled by said governments.
Second, how much property can be claimed at once and what has to be done to make it a valid claim? Obviously you can't just sit here on Earth, point to a map of the moon and make a credible claim. By the same token, you shouldn't be able to establish a claim to the entire moon based on having one outpost on it. For guidance, I'm turning to the US Homestead Acts, even though the moon isn't US property. The last version of the Homestead Act, from 1912 when it was mostly irrelevant, was that an area of 640 acres could be claimed either by purchasing it for $1.25 an acre after six months residence, or granted it after three years residence. Since it's hard to tell just what people would be doing on the moon (social versus financial reasons) it's hard to determine a size for a moon homesteading proposal. But I think it's a good starting point, in theory.
Third, do enterprises and individuals have the same options with regard to claiming land? It seems to me that they ought to be given equal weight, though of course any business enterprise could simply apply for adjoining homesteads, one for each employee, and get a larger area. But this trend would be sharply limited, since it would require actually living on the land and thus require a separate shelter for every homestead. The obstacle could be quartered by building a small community of shelters at the connecting point of four homesteads (assuming a grid formation) sort of like the borders of UT, Co, NM and AZ. All it would need is that at least one 'home' shelter be one each of the four claimed homestead areas.
Fourth, what power do governments have here? Do they grant the homesteads or does some international agencyhandle it? What powers of taxation are there? Who are the regulating bodies? These questions are hard to answer, and as a libertarian I'm not particularly thrilled at the idea that there has to be some form of government there at all, though in all practicality I realize it's nearly inevitable.
This subject is in a lot of ways fairly distant, but I think the issues involved ought to be handled sooner rather than later, especially if a change in law could encourage a change in technology.
Update: As a part of searching the Internet on this subject, I found an article from The Space Review on the same subject with the same position.
Afghan Elections Successful
by neolibertarian
(tip to Democracy Project)
The local and legislative election in Afghanistan seems to have gone smoothly despite violence. There was a high turnout among women, in some areas possibly higher than men. That squares with experience of newly-democratized areas, including Afghanistan's 2004 election election, Iraq's 2005 election and the South's first elections after black suffrage. Stories of women dragging their men to vote are common in such situations. That's a good sign, because it means women are going to be involved in the government and it means there's a good level of buy-in from the public for the idea of Afghan democracy.
Robertson on Chavez Assassination
by neolibertarian
Pat Robertson said on his show 700 Club this of Hugo Chavez, the anti-democratic President of Venezuela:We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.
He said that we should assassinate Chavez, largely because it's more effective and far cheaper than going to war. In principle, I agree, but I don't think Chavez currently qualifies.
Targeted killing of enemy leaders should be an openly stated goal of the United States. In my opinion it should be done in cases where there is some sort of congressional authorization, and only after the person in question refuses to surrender peacefully. We should admit to taking out the leader after it's done, because there's nothing to hide, and before it's done it should be clearly stated that not surrendering leaves him open to being killed. It requires more nuance than this, and ultimately it would be hard to kill leaders because they'd know to either surrender or go into hiding.
I don't think Chavez should be killed, though. It's quite likely that the election irregularities are the visible signs of him stealing the elections. The massive protests from what appears to be a majority of the country - business, labor, media, professionals - sugfgests that his only supporters are the rural poor. His actions in nationalizing land and business, including the oil industry and seizing lands together equivalent to the size of Belgium, betray his opinions on privacy and individual autonomy. His friendship with Castro, Saddam and the FARC terrorists in neighboring Colombia, not to mention the two separate coup attempts he led in the early 1990s against his own country, show his anti-democratic biases. His plans to re-establish Venezuela as a quasi-fascist "Bolivarian Revolutionary" state and to establish an anti-NATO, anti-US military coalition out of South American states show his deep-seated anti-US, anti-Western biases.
But he isn't fighting a war and he isn't committing genocide. He definitely needs to be out of power, but I don't think military action is justified. We shouldn't go to war with Chavez, and so we shouldn't use soldiers to kill him. Although targeted killings of enemy leaders is far quicker and cheaper than war, we shouldn't take that to mean that it should be done with far less evidence or cause than a war would require.
So, I agree in principle that we should use targeted killings, but I don't believe Chavez yet qualifies for such an action.
The Ethics of Torture
by neolibertarian
Set aside for a moment domestic laws and ratified international agreements regarding torture. Forget the implications of torture with regard to public or world opinion. When is physical torture ethical and when is physical torture unethical?
I have a simple jumping-off point: torture is not inherently unethical. Torture itself is morally neutral and can even be used in the service of both moral justice (inherent good) and pragmatic deterrence (instrumental good). We must again set aside everything but the act of torture; slippery slopes, bad press, criminal prosecutions are all irrelevant in this academic bubble. Torture can be good and torture can be bad, because torture is nothing more than a certain type of violence. Torture and violence are neutral actions. Of course, both of them can have tremendously bad consequences if used lightly - but again, forget the slippery slope for now.
Let's say that we have a terrorist whom we know is a terrorist. Just to be clear that this is a bad guy, we'll say our hypothetical terrorist both planned and undertook lethal actions against innocent men, women and children for being of the wrong nationality, race or faith.
Torturing this terrorist is a moral good when it serves justice; a lot of people don't like vengeance, but I'm personally a big fan of vengeance. Yay, vengeance. In my view, it is inherently good to punish the terrorist for the murders he committed, up to and including taking his life.
Torturing the same terrorist is an instrumental good when it deters or prevents future terrorist actions. This is why state torture generally exists: to beat information out of people. I'm not aware of the track record on how often good information can be physically tortured out of someone, but that sort of consideration would be critical to determining how instrumentally good torture would be; instrumentally-good torture is contingent on getting usable information to prevent further harm, or to deter terrorists for fear of being tortured.
Of course, what the terrorist and his ilk do to innocent people is also torture. Chopping off the heads of journalists and diplomats is decidedly torture. They are particularly brutal and will commit their torture against wholly innocent people for the sake of media coverage. Their torture is inherently bad because it is performed against innocent people.
That's the key to being inherently moral: the target must be deserving. The actor is irrelevant; the target is everything. A terrorist torturing a terrorist is inherently good, and a FBI agent torturing an innocent civilian is a moral bad. This brings us into the intent and thoughts of the torturers. It's my opinion that the act is separate from the actor's thoughts. Someone who enjoys torture on a visceral level (perversion, sociopathy, psychopathy, etc.) is an immoral person, whether or not the torture is moral or not. One terrorist could torture another terrorist out of a personal desire to kill a human being, making him an immoral person, while the act of torturing the targeted terrorist would be good for reasons of justice and vengeance. For the reverse to occur (good actor, bad act) would require a case of mistaken identity on the part of a well-intentioned torturer. Mistaken identity is perhaps the best argument in the case against real-world torture.
It's all well and good to confirm that violence, including torture, has its positive uses. If we lift the academic bubble, however, we can see that it's potentially quite dangerous to allow.
First, torturing people not convicted of crimes leaves open the very real possibility that an innocent person is being tortured. This is a problem, because there is no inherently good torture against an innocent person. Moreover, it's hard to get good intelligence from an innocent person (natch). And of course, the potential backlash from torturing someone later proven conclusively to be innocent would be severe.
Second, torturing guilty people might eventually lead to torturing people merely suspected of guilt, or to torture being accepted in everyday domestic crimes. Torture has long been a part of the police arsenal in many countries, and even in some liberal democracies the line against torture (including the protection against self-incrimination) is not nearly as strong as it really ought to be. This is the slippery slope argument.
Third, there's again the pragmatic question of whether torture is the best or even a good way of getting information. It's very possible that a beaten and bloody suspect will simply lie and give up bad or dangerous information in order to spare himself. Desperate people, especially desperate murderers that hate you and your 'people,' aren't great sources of information. The experts could better speak to this question than I could, however.
Fourth, we have a longstanding tradition, rightly so, of protecting the criminals and miscreants in our charge. They are fed, clothed and sheltered, given the right to legal recourse and appeals, and have the right to confidential interaction with their lawyers. I would not feel comfortable losing any of these rights, even for convicted murder-rapists. There's another question whether foreign combatants captured in period of war or conflict are covered by some or any of these protections, of course. The biggest pressure to use physical torture is against those held abroad (including Guantanamo) as terrorists or suspected terrorists.
Fifth, of course, is the potential backlash at home and abroad that torture would produce. It's no fun being told what to do or changing actions to avoid bad reactions, but if the underlying action is a mixed blessing then something like bad press is a pretty good reason. After all, if it ends up encouraging hatred of our country or if it ends up weakening our other foreign policies (like liberalization and democratization) then it's an instrumental bad.
I simply don't think it's appropriate for the state to engage in torture. If the state is going to exact vengeance, it should be done through incarceration and the death penalty, and after trials, appeals, counsel and all the rest. It's unnecessary for vengeance, so if it's justified it must be for pragmatic reasons. I'm not convinced that better information comes from a torture policy than from other avenues, nor am I delighted by the potential backlash or the slippery slope possibilities. I think the value of being a role-model nation is far greater than any supposed increased intelligence assets we may garner. The military conflicts we're fighting are important, but the political struggle to democratize the Middle East is the real conflict.
State torture itself is not automatically immoral, but it is a danger that risks the lives and liberties of innocents and threatens to undermine our primary foreign policy objective with regard to democratization. We should strongly restrict physical torture of those detained by our forces or our allies, avoid turning over captives to notorious torturing groups, and limit ourselves to more subtle and effective methods of gathering intelligence.
Religion in the Iraqi Constitution
by neolibertarian
Many people are concerned over the drafting of the Iraqi constitution and the role given to religion within it. I know why they're worried, but I think it's a relatively poor indicator.
It would be wonderful if a non-sectarian, non-religious constitution came out of Iraq. Religion has no need to be included in a legal document. It's entirely appropriate in a declaration like our Declaration of Independence or something along those lines. A declaration simply states what's going on and what we value. A constitution is a framework for the bounds and authority of the state, and the rights and avenues for redress open to the populace. Religion can be a valuable inspiration, but it's not particularly useful to codify explicitly sectarian values in law.
However, if the constitution does come out with religious gobbledygook about Allah being the supreme source of law, or the inspiration and reliance on the sharia, it's not immediately the end of the world or even of the democratic reforms in Iraq. The Egyptian constitution says the same thing: "Islam is the Religion of the State. Arabic is its official language, and the principal source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence (Sharia)." Egypt is no picnic of a government, being deceitful, authoritarian, socialist and dictatorial, but it is one of the more secular countries in the Arab world. In fact, one of the main justifications that Mubarak and his supporters use to justify their anti-democratic rule is to ask democrats whether they want to let the Muslim Brotherhood into power. The constitution might say one thing, but that doesn't mean the government or the society is controlled by radical Muslims.
It might be something done for political purposes, it might be done out of habit and tradition, it might be done to undercut religious opposition, or it might be a sign of much more troubling things to come. I'm definitely rooting for a nonsectarian Iraqi founding document, but if one fails to emerge I don't think we should overreact to what it might mean. Let's not focus on what their rhetoric is, good or bad, and instead make sure that they protect the rights and privileges of their citizens.
Whatever happens, women got to vote in the last election. I don't think things are looking rosy for the religious zealots in Iraq, no matter what flowery phrases they might get inserted in the preamble.
