One dude’s foreign policy views vis à vis his libertarian moral code
Like many contributors to this site, I find that I align closest with the general co-occurrence of values known to the world as “libertarianism.” But surely many libertarians would disagree with some of the arguments I make, so I’ll just say that I agree with libertarians on many — possibly most — political issues. What follows is my best attempt at establishing a philosophical basis for my political views. This post was partially inspired by Mike McGowan‘s great series of posts entitled “one guy’s thoughts on libertarianism.”
If I had to summarize my perspective on the proper role of government in one [hyphenated] word it would be “anti-interventionism.” I don’t believe governments have the right to intervene in any individual’s free actions, ever. I believe every individual ought to be free to act; I believe the law ought to codify as crimes actions freely committed by individuals which deny other individuals’ freedom; I believe the government ought to enforce the law by restricting the freedom of guilty individuals, but only to the extent absolutely necessary to preserve the freedom of other individuals (thus I am against the death penalty and other forms of excessive punishment). Implicit in this belief system is that one of the freedoms guaranteed to individuals is the freedom to commit crimes. If and when they are committed, the individual faces punishment by the government. (This will be important later.)
My interest and passion is for foreign policy more than domestic because I believe it is in the former area that our government more repugnantly denies individuals their freedom. We also tend to be more ignorant and silent about it because of our physical distance from it. I absolutely think our government’s local actions, such as its “stimulative” domestic spending, is idiotic and destructive and wrong; if I could totally redesign domestic policy it would consist of little more than law enforcement as mentioned above (with far less laws on the books — in particular I’d abolish laws which punish victimless crimes) and basic social services. A public option for healthcare is far less sickening to me than a stimulus package; I do believe we have some obligation as a society to help poorer individuals who cannot help themselves, but I believe government “projects” tend to hurt the economy and support entrenched interests in government at the expense of individuals.
But like I said, I am more concerned about the state of American foreign policy. I think it’s morally imperative that we apply the same principles of freedom to foreign individuals that we apply to ourselves, but our politicians seem to rarely seriously consider that. My argument is that if we do apply those principles, we can immediately see the problem with war in general and preemptive war in particular.
War is an action which implicitly takes away freedom from individuals — by killing them as a group. So based on the principles I’ve established above, war is illegal. This applies to all government actors, anywhere in the world. Based on this, we can see that terrorist attacks are absolutely crimes (no shit). But as a response to such crimes, war, unlike a democratically appointed justice system, is itself illegal. For me there is little room for debate on this. Granted, realpolitik guarantees that some wars (thinking mainly of the two World Wars here) are simply inevitable, but even so, large-scale murder is always illegal.
What I believe we need for handling these kinds of criminal interactions between states is a transparent, democratically elected international court with jurisdiction in all states. The entity I propose would have the right to punish in response to all acts of war, using the same set of laws I described above (based, again, on principles of individual rights) to identify criminal actions. This entity would be acceptable in all the ways that the American war machine is unacceptable as a world police officer for the simple fact that war, even advanced, strategic, precisely targeted war, is incapable of punishing discriminately. (Also, as I mentioned above, I am against the death penalty, and a warring army has typically not been elected by its victims.) In the absence of some entity like the one I’m advocating, it is always morally preferable to do nothing in response to acts of war than to respond with an act of war.
But this critique so far has not even taken into account preemptive war, like Operation Iraqi Freedom, which is wrong for an additional, painfully obvious reason: it not only punishes indiscriminately, it punishes prior to the crime. We felt that Iraq was a threat, so we punished the Iraqis — denied them freedom. Waging war with the Taliban in Afghanistan even though we were attacked by Al-Qaeda falls into the same category. It shows an utter disregard for individual rights. It is for similar reasons that I find the struggle of the Palestinians so compelling.
The Palestinians have very little freedom of action — a logical consequence of their lacking citizenship. One of the main reasons that many are against granting Palestinians citizenship (and the accompanying freedom of action) is they feel it is a threat to their security — they believe that some sub-set of the population is likely to use their freedom to commit crimes. Leaving aside that this is collective punishment (punishing an entire population for the crimes, or possible crimes, of a sub-set of that population), from a moral point-of-view, grounded in principles of individual freedom, this should never be a concern. Every individual is entitled to autonomy until they are proven guilty of denying the autonomy of others. Regardless of the possible consequences. This is how we treat Americans (for the most part), so why should we not offer the same rights to other peoples? If and when such consequences result, the jurisdictional justice system has the right to punish the responsible actor(s).
For me, these wars are absolutely crucial because they rest so heavily on preemptive punishment (particularly in Iraq and Gaza). Preemptive punishment goes on all over the world, no doubt; I condemn it wherever it occurs; but we simply cannot use that as an excuse to commit it ourselves. And it must be reiterated that preemptive punishment is absolutely contrary to individual freedom. In this way the US and Israel, two democracies — certainly much freer internally than many other nations — are actively committing tyranny abroad. And as a taxpayer I am morally culpable, even if the death and destruction I’ve bought is all the way on the other side of the world.
Thus I think it’s increasingly important that we keep an anti-war strain of libertarianism alive. It’s clear that those in power — aside from the lonely and faraway voices of outspoken anti-war Congress members like Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul — have no moral problems with the War on Terror. We’ll know a real foreign policy alternative has arrived when a candidate for election declares that individual freedom is a human right, not just an American right.
Latest posts by Calvin Pollak (Posts)
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- One dude’s foreign policy views vis à vis his libertarian moral code - February 12, 2010
- Senate approves more sanctions against Iran - January 29, 2010
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I’m a strict isolationist. There is rarely a need for America to invade other countries (though the possibility exists and should be planned for). Iraq was not a threat to the US’s continued existence. Al Qeada wasn’t even a threat to our existence.
Terrorist attacks, even if they kill thousands, aren’t even coming close to wiping out our population. They certainly aren’t killing enough people to justify us giving up our 4th Amendment rights here at home for the “safety” provided by the group that the let the guy with explosive skivvies onto a plane…
In fact, one could argue (and I do) that our presence in the ME is one of the reasons terrorist attacks happen in America in the first place.
Rest assured, no other nation has ever even contimplated invading this country with their military, not in the last 200 years anyway. How did Admiral Yamamoto put it?
“We would find a rifle behind every blade of grass”?
Interestingly enough, and somewhat sadly, I think that America, full of people who value “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”, turn to bullets and death more often than needed. We’re a nation full of matchless businesspeople, our capitalist economy made our nation the envy of the world, virtually overnight (given the length of human history). There shouldn’t be a foreign relations issue that we cannot solve with the weapons of the free market and the mind.
There is no need to risk the lives of American soldiers to protect the spineless citizens of another nation when they let their government walk all over them.
But that’s just my minority opinion.
Good post.
I also consider myself a libertarian on most things. But I couldn’t disagree with the two of you more on this issue. However, that is probably predicatable as I am a soldier. Do you seriously want an international court that “has the right to punish in all states”? And how exactly do you think that punishment would be carried out? And what happens when an offending state tells the court to go fuck itself? And since no state can speak for every person making up its population, isn’t punishing the whole state more freedom denying to people who aren’t responsible? I could go on and on but I don’t really want to. Let’s just leave it as I couldn’t disagree more.
@ Jeffrey
“Do you seriously want an international court that “has the right to punish in all states”? ”
No, I prefer America remain a sovereign nation, but, ask yourself this:
How is the idea behind an international court that determines the guilty across State boundaries that much different than an American politician deciding someone is a criminal and needs to be taken out by our military?
Or that some country should suffer because of the actions of their leaders?
Justification was made for Iraq that we needed to put an end to “an evil regime”. Sounds like a verdict from a judge and jury, doesn’t it?
So we destroyed a country that hadn’t attacked us, plunged its population into civil war, and set ourselves up as the law… I don’t agree with that course of action, either.
An international court with jurisdiction — powerful enough to have genuine authority — in all states, even if explicitly designed only to rule in matters of war, could, quite easily, be seen as precedent to rule on all sorts of matters and lead to more international control over sovereign nations, subjecting us, perhaps in the long run, perhaps in a run not too far off, to all kinds of policies. It might sound like a slippery slope argument, but sometimes deliberately wetting a grassy hill really does make it slippery. Calvin, I don’t think you would like the implications of this idea outside of matters of war. Think about it.
“…it is always morally preferable to do nothing in response to acts of war than to respond with an act of war.”
Always? If the tanks come rolling in, and mass rape and genocide is on the agenda, the people who are going to be killed and raped and so on would be more moral to do nothing and allow their family members to be killed and raped than to organize and fight back?
Nanking, as it was about to raped, if it had the capacity to fight back against the Japanese army, with its own military or militia or citizens bearing arms or whatever, in an organized fashion — an act of war — should have refrained from doing so? Because it is morally preferable to do nothing than to respond to an act of war with an act of war?
If the Jews in Poland and around Europe had had the capacity to fight back against the Nazis, if they could have organized an army, they should have done nothing as the tanks rolled in? That would be morally preferable to war? If the possibility (or high probability) existed that some innocents would be killed as they fought back against the Nazis, the Jews should have done nothing? France should have done nothing? England? Europe should have surrendered to Germany? (I am not getting into whether all the tactics of the Allies were justified — Dresden, Hiroshima, and all the rest — but asking only about the always.)
Imagine an internal miltary revolution occurring in the Soviet Union during Stalin’s reign, a war against Stalin, one intended to free the country from the mass murder and starvation and gulags he oversaw. If such an act of war were possible, had some chance of success (maybe even a likelihood), even granting the mass casualities and loss of innocent lives that could result in the civil war, would it more moral to allow the torture and horror to go on indefinitely because the cost of war is immoral?
These are hypothetical, of course. I am not getting into the history or causes of war, or worrying about realism here. I just want to be clear about what you mean. You do say, “realpolitik guarantees that some wars (thinking mainly of the two World Wars here) are simply inevitable, but even so, large-scale murder is always illegal.”
Here you indicate that you understand that war will sometimes happen no matter what. Okay, but I’m focused on the moral argument you’re making about responding to an act of war with war always being immoral and that the alternative, doing nothing (otherwise known as “being killed”), is preferable.
I am not talking about the War on Terror or Iraq or anything in particular — we can leave aside the remote control drones and all the rest — and deliberately provided examples that focus on the results of the moral choice that you suggested is always preferable, since sometimes (throughout history) there will be aggressors and region- or world-dominating leaders who will attack those least likely to be able to defend themselves.
And I am not making any argument here about the U.S. defending other countries. Or about anything else. Again, my question is about the moral imperative you argue for.
“Implicit in this belief system is that one of the freedoms guaranteed to individuals is the freedom to commit crimes.”
I am wondering about this one as well. I don’t know how literally to take your positions. Are you applying absolute philosophical positions to the real world? Does your quote above mean that police should not patrol neighborhoods in order to deter or stop a rape or burglarly in progress? That punishment after the fact is the only role for law enforcement? If yours were a Rothbardian position of private police and private courts and no government existing, even then the private police would presumably be trying to prevent real crimes from happening when it could.
@ Scott:
“Does your quote above mean that police should not patrol neighborhoods in order to deter or stop a rape or burglarly in progress? That punishment after the fact is the only role for law enforcement?”
Scott, I see what you’re trying to say, but I have to argue from an “A is A” stance, and tell you about my reality.
Where I live, way out in the country, the police response time to a distress call is about 15 minutes, unless you get lucky and a cop is in this corner of the county on another call. There are no police on patrol. Heck, after 8PM, there are less than 20 police on duty in our entire county.
Much of America lives with the reality that the cops don’t prevent crime, they solve crimes that have already happened. Thus, the only — possible — role of law enforcement is punishment. There is no such thing as “crime prevention” here, just “punishment of crime”.
That’s why “getting tough on crime” doesn’t mean “hiring more police officers to stop criminals”, but “harsher penalties for the criminals we catch.
The cops don’t stop crime, the individual who is armed and refuses to be a victim, that’s who stops crime.
In criminal cases, the law is just there to clean up the resulting mess.
And thank the goddess that the law is reactionary!
Do you wish to argue for a law enforcement system that has the power to imprison people –before– they commit the crime?
Mike, I have no argument with you about the police usually not getting to the scene in time to prevent a specific crime (though sometimes they do), but I do remember instances when deliberate police slowdowns resulted in crime increases. And even though police don’t usually get there in time to prevent crime, do you really think the crime rate would stay the same if cities pulled patrols off of the streets? No police cars in a neighborhood at all, except to investigate crimes that already happened, and you think there would be no increase in crime? I agree that being able to defend yourself is more reliable, since police usually get there after the fact, but a police presence of some kind does influence crime rates.
Also, since you use “A is A” a lot, and quote Rand when it suits your argument, you might consider her conclusions about military action, etc. Certainly they are not yours.
Mike, I mention Rand simply to point out that saying “A is A” is not an argument, unless people agree on what A is. And even agreeing on A, they don’t always reach the same conclusions. That is why I pointed out that you and Rand disagree on some major issues — the military particularly.
Anyway, the reality of your rural area and a city are not the same “A.” Maybe where you live there are no patrols and crime would not be affected one way or the other. But that is not necessarily how it is in other places. And there does seem to be correlation between police presence and crime rates in cities.
And I never suggested that police should arrest people before they commit crimes. But as someone who supports gun rights, you should know the importance of deterrence. Studies show that criminals fear homeowners being armed more than being caught by police… I know, this supports your argument more than mine. But I am not seeing this as either-or.
Citizens being able to defend themselves deters crime and provides a defense when deterrence doesn’t work. And police generally patrolling an area doesn’t usually stop particular crimes — though it does sometimes do so — but does provide a general deterrence and is connected to crime rates.
Since many places don’t allow citizens to be armed when walking the streets, the only deterrent when out in public is some general police presence. We can argue that citizens should be allowed to be armed, but they’re not.
I think it’s a mistake to try to use a domestic law-enforcement example here and go off on a tangent away from the foreign policy topic here.
@ Scott:
1) You and I both agree about –my– reality, that –my– A is A.
We both agree that the number of police doesn’t affect the crime rate here in my rural county.
In Arkansas, good luck finding someone who isn’t armed.
Thus, we should both agree that in my neck of the woods, the true purpose of law enforcement is punishment, correct?
Now, had I made the argument that Calvin made, that law enforcement’s only role was punishing criminals for crimes already committed, given my reality which we both agree upon, wouldn’t I be right in making the assertions he made?
Yes.
That’s why you cannot find fault with his thoughts on the police and the nature of law enforcement; it’s too easy to find individuals who live where his ideas are correct, where reality is different than your reality.
Your reality, in the cities, while it may be different than my reality in the country, doesn’t give you the freedom to dictate to my reality what must it be. You wouldn’t argue that people in cities and people in the country should live under different sets of laws, that law enforcement should be different for the city people than the country people.
That’s not how the law works. It is supposed to apply to each of us equally, regardless of circumstance.
2) When you ask “[Is] punishment after the fact … the only role for law enforcement?”, when you question that reality, you are the one who opens up the possibility that there is another role for law enforcement other than simply punishing criminals after they commit their crime.
If law enforcement is waiting until after the crime is committed, if that’s the bad thing, then you must be arguing that the good thing is –preventing– the crime from happening, or that the law should be arresting people before the crime occurs.
Let’s take this argument all the way out to its farthest extent, so I can really illustrate my point:
If the greater good is preventing crime from happening, and enough people feel that way, then we’re going to get some changes to the law enforcement structure in America.
We’re going to have to pass laws which mandate that the cops now prevent crime.
How are you going to achieve that goal in rural areas?
Hire more police? We can’t afford it in the poor, rural Ozarks. And even if we could, the number of police required to monitor and prevent crime in the remote areas is going to be astronomical.
Like I said, I’ve got a fifteen minute response time, and I live three miles away from the nearest home. How many police would it take to prevent all crime from occurring in that stretch of uninhabited country? Even though people don’t live there, that doesn’t prevent crime from occurring there!
Meth cookers are always looking for unpopulated dirt roads where they can brew a fresh batch. You’d have to have a cop on every corner to prevent that from happening.
Thus, any law which mandates that police prevent crime, rather than merely punish crimes after they’re committed or arrest the criminals beforehand, requires the impossible. Why make laws that are impossible to enforce? That just degrades the respect for the law in the first place.
Seeing as we’ve shown that it is not possible to prevent crime with any reasonable degree of success, that means that law enforcement MUST act in the frame of time specified by either “before” or “after” the crime has occurred.
No matter how much you don’t want that point to be either-or, it is either-or. We’ve eliminated one of the three possible times when the police could act, as the crime is happening, and now we’re left with just two options.
Given that reality, I’d rather stick to the idea that law enforcement punishes crimes that have already taken place, not go about arresting people before they have the chance to commit them!
3)” Also, since you use “A is A” a lot, and quote Rand when it suits your argument, you might consider her conclusions about military action, etc. Certainly they are not yours.
I mention Rand simply to point out that saying “A is A” is not an argument, unless people agree on what A is. And even agreeing on A, they don’t always reach the same conclusions. That is why I pointed out that you and Rand disagree on some major issues — the military particularly.”
If you wish to argue that “A isn’t A”, well, I don’t know that I can comply. I find that it is impossible to argue with someone who doesn’t accept reality. Even if you disagree with 99.99% of what Rand wrote, you cannot deny the truth of “A is A”. It doesn’t matter if I totally agree with her on everything or not, that particular statement is true.
Truth is. Regardless of who first utters it.
Let’s take a hypothetical crazy person. Schizophrenia proves that operating reality is subject to the individual’s perception of that reality. Our minds determine what is real to us and what isn’t.
But, if that crazy person, who is incapable of seeing reality as it is, is standing under a falling boulder, but refuses to acknowledge the existence of the boulder, and it lands on them, do they not die? Are they not crushed by the boulder simply because they refuse to recognize its existence?
Does it matter to their reality that your reality is different, that you are not going to be crushed by the boulder? Does that prevent them from being crushed as well?
No matter if you agree with Rand or not, that point (A is A) is not open to debate. Which is why I use it so often. Reality may be different in different places, to different people, but the bedrock idea that a rational individual must operate in their reality doesn’t change. When in Rome…
And when we start talking about the law, especially federal law which should be the same for every citizen, then you find that a minimalist approach is the only approach that can cover all of the different variables of reality. If we must have a set of laws which works for both rural and urban realities, you must take the reality which requires the least law, and apply it across the board. Smallest common denominator. It’s the only way the law can function equally and fairly. Otherwise, people out in the country will be crushed under requirements that are only necessary for the cities.
The smallest common denominator is that law enforcement’s only role is to punish crimes that have already been committed. It’s the only reality that works in rural areas.
@ Rob
True, the article was about foreign policy.
I believe in protecting myself and letting others live their own lives, with a healthy dose of the respect for life.
Thus, I’m an isolationist. Dont’ harm me, and I don’t give a crap about what happens in your country, who rules it, or how you feel about them. Not my problem.
Rob, fair enough — I was referring to a quote from the original post, which did seem to be about domestic law enforcement, so I’ll just make a few last points in response to Mike and then anyone who wants to get the discussion back to foreign policy can do so.
Mike, you wrote: “You wouldn’t argue that people in cities and people in the country should live under different sets of laws, that law enforcement should be different for the city people than the country people.”
Actually I would, and so would the nation’s founders, more or less, and the laws are different already in many cases.
You also wrote: “If we must have a set of laws which works for both rural and urban realities, you must take the reality which requires the least law, and apply it across the board.”
But we mustn’t have a set of laws that work for everyone. I don’t need to get into the whole state’s rights position in great detail — assume you’re familiar with it — but I’ll touch on a few points.
1) Different conditions call for different approaches. That’s one reason most laws are supposed to be made on the state level. Within the bounds of what is Constitutional, laws having to do with sentencing, driving age, death penalty, drinking age, misdemeanors, felonies, are traditionally made on the state level, and sometimes on the local level. I would argue that generally and within the bounds of the Constitution, the more local the jurisdiction, the better (the driving age was different for me as a New York City resident than it was for people who lived upstate). It makes sense for the driving age to be different for people in Montana and for people in New York City, if traffic conditions, etc. are different enough. Noise ordinances might not be necessary in rural areas, where people live far apart, but might be necessary when people live in apartment buildings, so even within a state, local municipalities might pass laws that don’t apply in other places (in New York City you could not make a right turn at a red light when I was younger, but you could in other parts of the state). Federal law should be the same for every citizen, but that is one reason most laws should not be federal laws — one-size-fits-all centralized authority can’t account for local differences. The Federal government has encroached more and more on local authority (for example, strong-arming all states to adopt a drinking age of 21).
2) Another reason laws should be local whenever possible is local politicians — one would hope — are more responsive to, more likely to hear from, more likely to be voted out by the people in their own communities if they are not doing a good job. Mike, you might not like a dumb law being passed by someone in your Arkansas county, but in most cases it would be worse if that law were passed by someone in a big city in Arkansas and worse still in Washington D.C. or some other city who has little idea what conditions you face, and who has constituencies from other, maybe far away, places he is trying to please.
3) Local government allows for experimentation. No presidential candidate is going to run on a platform for legalizing drugs, as an example. But counties, or states, might decriminalize, or legalize for medicinal use, as they have been trying in California. When the Federal government tries to crack down on the local experiment, it denies freedom for people to govern themselves, and also denies other states from seeing whether the experiment works. If decriminalizing has few ill effects, if it saves money, etc., other states could try their own versions of it. When there is a monopoly at the largest level on making the law, the experiment doesn’t happen.
So, anyway, I am not disputing that police don’t deter or prevent crime where you live. I believe police do deter crime in other places. And millions and millions of people live in those places, in or near major cities — between cities and suburbs, the numbers are huge. And there is no reason most laws have to be made on the federal level; most should not be.
Libertarians might fear local tyrannies, but they are easier to escape than national ones. A bad law in a town — a town that outlaws alcohol, for example — might make you want to leave the town, which is inconvenient to say the least. But that same bad law on a national level — well, leaving the country is a bit more inconvenent. And if we mock Mayor Bloomberg for the nanny policies he is trying to implement in New York, we should also recognize that if had the power to make his war on salt or soda or whatever into a federal law, there would be no escaping it short of leaving the country. As is, if the laws remain local, you can be in a place like Arkansas, where maybe there are enough like-minded people to prevent such laws from being passed.
That’s all I’ll say on the subject in the thread for this post, which Rob reminds us is mainly about foreign policy.
“An international court with jurisdiction — powerful enough to have genuine authority — in all states, even if explicitly designed only to rule in matters of war, could, quite easily, be seen as precedent to rule on all sorts of matters and lead to more international control over sovereign nations, subjecting us, perhaps in the long run, perhaps in a run not too far off, to all kinds of policies. It might sound like a slippery slope argument, but sometimes deliberately wetting a grassy hill really does make it slippery. Calvin, I don’t think you would like the implications of this idea outside of matters of war. Think about it.”
This piece was meant to be more philosophical, more an exposition of my principles than a set of practical policy recommendations. The international court I described was just meant to be an example of (what I believe could be) the only morally acceptable response to acts of war. What I’m trying to get is that our response to 9/11 was immoral, but so was 9/11, and so were the subsequent roadside bombs detonated by militants against our troops in Kabul, and on and on… One of the issues with war is that each side has a strong justification, usually machismo and national pride, to continue the fight, to continue responding. All such responses are immoral, in my view, because they simply annihilate more freedom, only this time from the “other.” An international court elected by the citizens of the world would on the other hand represent a morally clean freedom-limiting power.
Try to remove practical concerns from your mind for the moment. We agree to accept government into our lives so that the rule of law applies to everyone — so that there is some power, elected by all of us as a group, that can police us — and subsequently annihilate some of our individual freedom — so that we all have a net gain of individual freedom. Basically what I was trying to get at was that this international court could act in the same way for interactions across nation-state lines, but that the United States military is comparatively totally illegitimate because it annihilates the individual freedom of Afghanis and Iraqis without being democratically elected to do so.
I have a lot more to say but have to run to class. Wasn’t able to respond to comments over the weekend cause I don’t have internet in my apartment, but I saw y’alls comments on my blackberry. Glad to see some spirited discussion going. Be back in a bit.