We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata slogan of the day Respecting the sovereignty of Iraq was nothing more than respecting the sovereignty of Saddam Hussein, at the expense of the people who would have been tortured and killed for not voting for him!
– Alice Bachini
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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This reminds me of an interesting quote from William Shawcross’s Harkness Lecture, posted by Brian a few days ago. In reference to the US “neo-cons” – Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Don Rumsfeld, etc:
They do not believe that evil governments can be reformed. Sovereignty is relative ? the more evil the state the less sovereignty to which it is entitled.
After a century of communism and the left’s attempts to eradicate individual human judgement and morality, these people are fighting back. They are calling the world what it is and interacting with it based on a set of moral values derived from right and wrong instead of expedient and not expedient. More power to them.
Bachini’s statement is sheerly brilliant. But Leftists, who could most stand to absorb its message, will never accept it, because it distinguishes between a State and its subjects — a cleavage that, if admitted, would destroy their entire political vision.
Of course, Hitler shared the Left’s views on that score. But don’t expect them to think hard about that, either.
‘Sovereignty’ is a rather slippery concept, just by itself, since most of us don’t really believe in sovereigns [kings and queens] any more.
It is already a stretched metaphor when applied to recent concepts like nation states.
If we, as libertarians, stretch it to every individual, we get the Huey Long slogan “Every man a king!”.
Is that what sovereignty means now?
“Blue of the sea is forbidden
The desire to see is forbidden
The love between two fishes
Alone and together is forbidden”
A part of Forbidden by Shahyar Ghanbari .
Do you think could we Deliver Forbidden land “Iran” ?
It’s optimistic of Byron to suggest that squashing Saddam is a sign of a new moral imperative, a new phase of action based on the US administration’s sense of right & wrong rather than upon what is merely expedient. I’m far from being a relativist, but governments everywhere tend to act from a sense of what is expedient, and no matter how justifiable the Iraq war was (I think it was right) you have to admit that choosing Iraq rather than, say, Libya, Iran, Saudi Arabia or N.Korea was pretty damn expedient – not to say a softer option…
Clearly, the world government will be the entity that gets to choose who is good, and who is bad; who is entitled to “respect of soverignty” and who is not. It is indicative of where we are all headed, that fewer people realize or care about the implications of that truth.
Unless you have a level of government that sits over the contending nations, making distinctions such as those above, the only peace and order you can achieve will come out of a code of international behavior between nations that treat each other as legal equals. When a nation can unilaterally point to another as a moral inferior, thus a legal inferior, subject to invasion and intervention from “superior” nations, then there is no “code of behavior between equals,” and the order that will emerge is the old classic, “might makes right.”
Did we struggle all these centuries, just to come around full circle to the situation we were deliberately trying to escape? That would be the very definition of irony.
Let me ask the question: do the self-avowed libertarians here want a world government that is “superior” to all the national governments (both “good guys” and “bad guys”)? If so, then I guess nothing more needs to be said. That’s where we’re headed, with the apparent full approval of the so-called libertarian cheerleading squad. But if that is NOT what you want, then you really need to take another look at the inevitable consequences of the patterns of national interaction that are being established now.
The “good guys” that might control a world government today or in the near future will inevitably be replaced by less worthy individuals; that seems to be the way of all governments. So, what happens when the uber-government becomes oppressive? Where will we be able to go — to whom will we appeal — for freedom?
In the United States, we have seen that story play out in the struggle between the States and Federal government. We have documented cases of federal oppression that individual states are unable to thwart. Can anybody out there promise with a straight face that the same pattern won’t be played out between a world govermnent and various inferior national governments?
As bad as Saddam’s regime was, the concept of respect for national soverignty helped to contain the damage that could be done by the Saddams of the world to the territory within their own borders. When the future Saddams get hold of the reins and levers of the world government, what then? Think about that.
James: you offer us ‘self avowed libertarians’ a false choice. We do not want a ‘world government’, what we want is to reduce the sanctity which governments of any stripe take unto themselves… in short, personally I want to delegitimise whole swathes of what governments do, not just in Iraq, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Burma and China but in the USA, Britain, Italy, Israel, Germany and France. There is nothing sacred or super-moral (that which negates morality) about a nation, so the notion of nations ‘treating each other as equals’ is rather like members of the Cosa Nostra treating members of rival crime families as equals as they sit around a table carving up who can do what is which territories. The fact I regard the overthrow of Ba’athist Socialism in Iraq by the USA and UK as a good thing does not change my view that it was tantamount to a robber and a thief putting a murdering rapist out of business.
First we take care of the greater evils… and then we move on the the lesser evils.
Tony, good point. What I neglected to mention is that morality and expediency are not always mutually exclusive. For example, it was both expedient and moral to rid Iraq of a dangerous despot and to replace it with a democratic capitalist government. The Iraqi people profit, the US profits, and the world profits (both financially and in terms of security).
If you want to be a pure realist, and look at it in terms of economics and money, then you could say that a democratic capitalistic Iraq will financially benefit America in several ways. It will be another trading partner with whom we can do business without upsetting our conscience. It may serve to drive down the price of oil. In the long run, it will reduce uncertainty in our oil supply, driving down both prices on various oil-related goods and interest rates in general, creating more business investment and jobs and economic growth. It may provide a local asylum for some of the Middle East’s oppressed who could use that refuge to press for democratic reforms in their nearby home countries, leading to similar economic benefits to America and the West.
Agree or disagree, this is the basic gist of what the neo-cons believe, at least from what I’ve read. Check out the Project For a New American Century site for starters, and William Shawcross’s Harkness lecture below, to see where I’m coming from with that comment.
Perry: Could it be that you are deliberately refusing to see? There is no “False choice.” There are the simple patterns of force — not only between nations, but also between individuals — which have been demonstrated so many times, over and over again throught the centuries. You ignore them at your (and our!) own risk, just like ignoring the force of gravity, or the momentum of a 20-ton boulder, can lead to trouble.
I applaud you for comparing the Iraq war to “a robber and a thief putting a murdering rapist out of business.” You are definitely closer to the mark, there. But if you think that the current trajectory will end with a de-legitimization of nation-governments, and NOT with a strong, global uber-government, put in place to keep rogue nations big and small in check, I think you are denying ample evidence of recorded history.
You are no more going to achieve libertarian ends going down that road than US voters, continually endorsing “mainstream” GOP and Democratic candidates, in election after election, can get smaller, less-intrusive government, lower taxes, or fewer bothersome regulations. IT JUST DOESN’T HAPPEN THAT WAY.
You say you don’t want huge, global government; that you want to de-legitimize government. Yet you support acts and approaches that history validates as practically guaranteeing the generation of yet another layer of strong, all-encompassing government. What makes you think that THIS TIME, anything different will happen than the last few hundred or thousand times this pattern has played out? When some actors take opportunities to aggress unilaterally, eventually, enough other actors find ways to follow that lead, to the point that relative chaos ensues, followed by a popular clamor for central organization and authority, which eventually leads to a strong government that is superior to all the contributors to the chaos.
NOBODY is going to behave all the time. Ever. The key question to answer is, what do the actors do when one of their number misbehaves? If they need a bully boy to bring the miscreant to heel, that argues for government. If they can find a way to work things out between themselves, that argues for autonomy, and even a workable anarchy. If they can work things out PEACEFULLY, that’s a stable, benign relationship. This is as eternally true for individuals as it is for nations. If people/nations behave, there is no need for conflict resolution. If they misbehave, either the conflict can be settled by mutual interaction (peaceful or not), or by the force of a third-party. In the latter case, you have a government, however temporarily. If people/nations believe that the third-party force will be needed constantly or systemically, they will form (or endorse/support) permanent governments to institutionalize that force.
At any level of interaction — interpersonal, group, regional, national — intervention has its price and its consequences. Peace between actors seems to require that those actors know and mind their own business for the most part, and not aggress against their fellow actors, certainly not turning force or violence against those other actors except in self-defense and response to aggression. When this condition is violated, the viability of anarchy is brought into question, and the seeds for government are sown. When this condition is violated routinely and egregiously, the notion that actors can operate via self-government is discredited altogether, and the weed of traditional government flowers and thrives. How is the current trajectory, which you and others here appear to endorse, not serving to fertilize and water that noxious weed?
To make a long story short, it was not necessary to go to war to help the Iraqi people in a way that is consistent with a true, benign “anarchy” between nation-states. That the “coalition” has gone to war in this matter serves to legitimize GOVERNMENT, particularly an eventual WORLD GOVERNMENT, I believe, to keep order among the inreasingly belligerent and dangerous national players. A successful non-military approach, on the other hand, would have served to legitimize and demonstrate the feasibility of NON-GOVERNMENT, at least bringing the “need” for a supra-national government into question. That’s not the road we’re on, unfortunately.
James, well put.
Take a look at the post from which Alice’s quote was taken (in the WMD thread below). She goes on to say:
It’s time for us in the West to understand that we have not just a right but a responsibility to get rid of evil nations and make the whole world safer and better. As the costs go down, this will happen more and more.
Wow! I wonder why this wasn’t quote of the day. Maybe because as soon as we start thinking we’re responsible for ‘getting rid’ of ‘evil nations’ (whatever they are, maybe related to ‘rogue states’).We are undoubtedly on the slippery slope, the road to occupation and empire.
I hope you’re all ready to discharge this responsibility. I’m having a hard time though seeing how this is making the world ‘safer and better’, I can’t imagine how much safer and better everyone (outside the West naturally) are going to feel as ‘evil nations’ are got rid of, (and on an increasingly cost effective basis!) I suppose we just have to imagine how much safer and better the Middle East is looking this morning and then imagine the rest of the World enjoying similar stability?
Is nobody else concerned when foreign policy is discussed in terms of ‘evil nations’, ‘rogue states’ and the like? All of a sudden diplomacy is being conducted with the vocabulary of Batman and Robin but without the finesse.
Call it what you will but the first casualty of such an idealistic crusade will be our own liberties. Still, she promises that the costs will come down,. there’s a happy thought…
“Is nobody else concerned when foreign policy is discussed in terms of ‘evil nations’, ‘rogue states’ and the like?”
Well, there are ‘evil nations’ and ‘rogue states’.
Was that sentence above some attempt at relativism, claiming all states are equal, therefore deserve equal treatement, and there is no ground upon which to proclaim them evil ?
A state that enslaves it’s people and murders thousands or millions of them is evil. A state that attacks it’s neighbours causing millions of deaths in war is a rogue state. (Iraq did all that)
Can James ignore this and then acuse Perry of blindness ? Can you claim seriously there is no such thing as evil states ? Or that it is better to ignore reality and look the other way and then they will disappear?
“A successful non-military approach, on the other hand, would have served to legitimize and demonstrate the feasibility of NON-GOVERNMENT…”
What are you talking about ? Pipe dreams ? What is “a successful non-military approach” ? Shorthand for doing nothing, and standing by as Saddam continues to kill and maime thousands and attack his neighbours ? Letting more people die horrible deaths would “demonstrate the feasibility of NON-GOVERNMENT” ??
“…code of international behavior between nations that treat each other as legal equals” –
What code ? Does some code of international behaviour exist ? That’s news to me.
What exists is pious , hypocrite and empty palavering by a cotterie of deparved, absurd and corrupt busybodies, called the UN that produces typically the Durban conference and Lybia as head of Human Rights comission, voted in by Europeans that make a creer out of cheating on snactions they voted to impose.
Ignore the tangible reality we live in, and invoke some vague and hypotetical fears about a world government evolving in the distant future ? You should take a closer look at evil and rogue states that exist here and now; doing something about them (like terminating them) is a step in the right direction of preventing more evil and rogue states (world Government ??) in the future.
Jacob,
Can you claim seriously there is no such thing as evil states ?
No I can’t. I think Nazi Germany, for example was an evil state. Baathist Iraq probably qualifies as well. My point is that emotive and entirely subjective terms such as ‘evil’ are unsuitable for the formulation of foreign policy. Who defines it? What is evil and what merely unpleasant? Many people find abortion or capital punishment ‘evil’, are states which allow those things to happen ‘evil’ too?
I’m not saying that all states are alike, simply calling for the same level of detachment and cool analysis which we would employ in our domestic affairs. We don’t charge criminals because they’re ‘evil’ (although they may well be), we prosecute them because they broke the law. After the case the judge will often make a value judgement during sentencing but before then it is essential that he does not.
You and I may have very different conceptions of evil but the law does not depend on value judgements, it depends on proof, and because of that it safeguards our liberty. When you start to dilute these principles, by using value judgements you put these safeguards in jeopardy and endanger us all.
When our leaders make the decision on whether to send our armed forces into harms way and risk the lives of themselves and others I expect my government to base its decision on hard facts and not value judgements.
There is also the question of where you draw the line, after all, every state which was abritarily defined as evil would be fair game. Where would it end?
Here you have touched on a big part of my objection, Matt. I care nothing for any law which does not have some objective moral justification. Any law which does not, i.e. which has no basis in objective morality, is a law that I have no moral problem breaking. If I do not choose to break it, it is just a matter of tactical cost/benefit analysis.
All our understandings are conjectural to some degree, so whilst no one has a monopoly on understanding truth, that does not mean objective truth does not exist. Thus objective standards of what is (and who is) evil are by no means impossible… to say otherwise suggests “it is all relative”, which is one very small step away from nihilism. As a result, it makes no sense to treat all states as equally valid and deserving of respect for their sovereign autonomy, anymore than it makes sense to do the same for people regardless of their actions.
“… simply calling for the same level of detachment and cool analysis ….”
You can have all the “level of detachment and cool analysis” you want. I’m not opposed to “detachment and cool analysis”.
But, when the analysis is done – if you don’t come up with the conclusion that Iraq is an evil state that needs to be dealt with – you are wrong.
You might oppose war on the ground that it is too costly. That would be a plausible and debatable objection.
But to refrain from proclaiming Iraq evil smacks of relativism and willfull blindness; it is evasion of cool analysis, it is glaringly not true.
” … every state which was abritarily defined as evil would be fair game. Where would it end?”
Not **arbitrarily** – objectively. You don’t mean to imply that every and any definition is arbitrary ???
That there is no such thing as unarbitrary definitions ?
Yes, evil states are fair game. Before you attack them you do some cool headed cost/benefit analysis, but yes – in principle they are fair game !
Matt quoted me:
“It’s time for us in the West to understand that we have not just a right but a responsibility to get rid of evil nations and make the whole world safer and better. As the costs go down, this will happen more and more.”
And then replied thus:
“Wow! I wonder why this wasn’t quote of the day. Maybe because as soon as we start thinking we’re responsible for ‘getting rid’ of ‘evil nations’ (whatever they are, maybe related to ‘rogue states’).We are undoubtedly on the slippery slope, the road to occupation and empire.”
This is rubbish. It’s quite simple to define which states are evil. You use reason (that’s if you’ve got any reason).
Here’s a quiz, see if you can get the idea:
1) How does the state in question treat its sportsmen?
a) they get paid lots of money, marry Spice Girls, and appear in “Hello” magazine a lot,
b) they make shampoo adverts, for lots of money,
c) they are beaten with electric cables and submerged in baths of raw sewage?
2. When a group of citizens wishes to protest against the government, do they:
a) have a march through the capital and get shown on the news articulating their views,
b) have a march through the capital, ending with their being mown down by tanks,
c) get their villages gassed?
3. How are woman treated in the state in question?
a) pretty much the same as men,
b) pretty much the same as men except they are also allowed to whine about their treatment,
c) banned from driving/ education/ wearing make-up/ leaving the house without five layers of sacking and sixteen armed male next-of-kins to protect them from being raped in the street?
4. If the state invades other countries, does it then:
a) enforce democracy,
b) enforce evil dictatorship,
c) have a big party?
5. Which of the following are easily and cheaply available in the state in question:
a) Macdonalds,
b) Starbucks,
c) internet access,
d) clean drinking water?
I could go on for days. But I have other things to do.
hah… starbucks makes the difference between civilisation & not? Surely availability of *decent* coffee’s more important. For all the ‘cock our noses at the liberal establishment, and love big business’ stuff that goes on here, do any of you really prefer drinking in anonymous establishments staffed by exchange student drones to proper cafes with staff who actually give a damn? France, for instance (yes, that dread word…) has very few branches of Starbucks. But I take your point; in order to be stable enough to attract these businesses, the country’s probably going to be ok.
… so overall, doesn’t this give us a license to invade any country that doesn’t provide it’s citizens with easy, cheap internet access?
Also, more seriously, how do you propose to improve the condition of women, if their subjugation is encouraged by the government but also a social tradition? Eg. Afganistan; we displaced the Taliban, so now there’s no official policy of beheading or whatever, but women still have to go veiled in most places, & you still hear terrible accounts of things like women being beaten and spat on by their relatives for the ‘crime’ of being raped. Ie., if it’s society in these countries that’s evil, how do you propose to rectify this?
A_t,
Not everything can be rectified.
But that is not a justification for failing to rectify what can be rectified.
Removing the Saddam regime was a big step in the right direction, even if not all bad things in the world have already been rectified thereby. Same for the Taliban. Or are you sorry to see them gone ?
yeah, i just *so* wish those bastards were back in power, murdering folk etc.
Actually, what I mainly wish is, if we’re really up for a “let’s topple undemocratic governments” policy, that our governments would present this to us, and other countries, honestly.