Libertarians and Liberty
Reason magazine reviews the war in Iraq on its fifth anniversary, and there is much rhetorical moaning, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. I haven’t visited Reason’s offices, so I can’t say whether they are also covering their heads in ash, but it seems likely.
It’s hard not to shake one’s head and sigh in frustration at those who argue vehemently (and in accord with principle, to be sure) that the deaths of 3000 Americans on a single September morning do not justify diminutions of liberty (such as warrantless wiretapping of terrorist suspects) so small and technical that 99.999% of Americans will never be affected by them, yet simultaneously argue that the postwar violence in Iraq, which has never approached the 7,000 deaths per month average of the totalitarian Saddam regime (let alone the peaks reached during various wars, both civil and of aggression), nevertheless utterly negates the value of an expansion of liberty so vast that it touches the lives of every Iraqi in ten thousand different ways, from a semblance of free press and free expression to the first free and fair elections in generations to the nontrivial freedoms to buy generators (state production of electricity is only slightly above prewar levels, but private generation (essentially illegal under Saddam) may now actually exceed state production), cars (at least twice as many as under Saddam), and cell phones (one hundred times as many as pre-war).
Didn’t those things used to matter to libertarians?
One might certainly allow that the decision to liberate Iraq has been disastrous politically here in America, as polls consistently find majorities Americans disapproving of the decision. But when similar majorities of Iraqis still believe the decision to invade was right, it is hard to argue the war, objectively speaking, has been a failure.
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14 comments
I can at least respect the consistency of libertarians who think we should just draw down out troops everywhere in the world that isn’t U.S. soil. I may think it’s daft, but at least it’s consistent.
Didn’t those things used to matter to libertarians?
Only for Americans. Foreigner don’t have rights that should be protected.
Well, I’m more-or-less a libertarian, and I think the people at Reason have been roughly koo-koo ever since Virginia Postrel left as editor.
The best thing Ayn Rand ever said was that totalitarian states have no right to exist (paraphrasing and I’ve lose the source, but it certainly isn’t out of character, is it?), and that’s the thing I most agree with her about - the rest of my libertarianism being more informed by the Austrian economists and classical liberalism than by Objectivism.
It should be noted that most Libertarians seem to see the relations between countries in the same light as the relations between individuals, which is to say that one country can do what it wants until it infringes on the rights of another country. As Iraq did not attack us (we just had really tenuous evidence that they might gain the ability to do so at some point in the future), a Libertarian would argue that we had no right to attack them, since it’s not the job of our government to liberate the subjects of other governments.
Personally, I don’t fully agree with this perspective, but I do believe it is self-consistent.
(I do, though, agree with some of the other points that you’re countering as completely and utterly ridiculous. I find the notion of warrantless wiretapping atrocious, as it does infringe upon our most basic rights, as laid out in the Constitution, and I really don’t think it’s necessary at all to fight terror. The reason we failed to stop 9/11 was an organizational communication issue, not a lack of government powers.)
Yeah, except that Iraq did attack us. Multiple times. It also attacked a number of our allies, and funded terrorism. So the libertarians might be asked what they were smoking when they came to believe Iraq never attacked us.
It might also be fitting to ask why libertarians view countries that suffer under the boot unelected despots and megalomaniac mass-murderers as being co-equal with democratically elected and free nations.
By the way, which of our rights, “most basic” or otherwise, are laid out in the Constitution that make so-called “warrantless wiretapping” an obvious violation? I have a copy of the Constitution right here, so if you could point me to the text which spells that out, I’d be mighty obliged.
I think the majority of libertarians got Iraq wrong. The US government action in Iraq supports their values. If we had large private militaries then a private operation would have been preferable, but we don’t yet have them, so let’s support what we do have.
Dean,
Check out the 4th amendment, on illegal search and seizure. The whole concept of a “warrant” is specifically getting legal sanction to engage in limited search and seizure.
Admittedly, the Constitution didn’t specify whether monitoring communications constituted search and seizure, but the courts have typically upheld that it does.
Oh, and Dave, before using the Iraqi opinion polls to back up your arguments, look at what Dean posted yesterday on that subject:
http://www.deanesmay.com/2008/03/19/iraqi-opinion-polls/
I ended up leaving the LP because they seemed to hold the position that freedom was an American right, not a human right. I fail to see the difference between using the American military to protect people from tyranny in our own government and protecting people from tyranny in other governments.
The argument I got a lot from other libertarians was, “well, what about China? What about Iran?” Quite frankly, if I thought there was a feasible military solution that ended in freedom in those places, I would support it. The reality is that there was political will to attack Iraq where it didn’t exist with other tyrannies. Iraq, unlike Iran, was fairly well educated and had a much less stable government. You eat an elephant just like anything else, one bite at a time.
(Of course, I also think that we should be on a track to annex more places as states, starting with Puerto Rico and a bunch of Pacific islands. Freedom for everyone is my creed.)
Phelps’s last blog post..Citizen Journalist
Phelps,
That perspective raises an interesting question: Is it really freedom to force people to be free?
On one hand, invading a country to topple a corrupt government could be justified (so long as you’re confident you’re there for the right reasons, and can actually re-establish a free, democratic state in the aftermath).
On the other hand, the U.S. territories already have periodic votes on statehood. They have the freedom to actively CHOOSE whether they want to be a full state or not, and they choose no. Forcing them into statehood would not be liberating them, it would be denying their freedom to choose statehood or not.
First things first, freedom and democracy are not the same thing. Someone could be under tyranny in a democracy (in fact, I think that is the natural state of pure democracy) and free under a benevolent monarchy.
I have no intention of forcing anyone into statehood — I support making statehood attractive enough (through strong Federal reforms) they they would be pressuring to become states.
As to “forcing” people to be free? Yes, I think it is justified to “force” ten people to be free because one of them wants it. It is the corollary to it being wrong to enslave someone because nine other people think it is a nifty idea.
Phelps’s last blog post..Citizen Journalist
Ah, that makes more sense. The use of the word “annex” threw me off a little, as it implies laying claim to a territory which you don’t already own, meaning both that this place is not part of your territory already, and that you’re not giving them a choice in the matter. This may have been just a poor choice of words.
There isn’t any other term for adding a state to our union.
Phelps’s last blog post..Citizen Journalist
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