Inviting the Vampire
By Lee Harris Published 03/19/2004
According to legend, it is impossible for a vampire to enter your house unless you have invited him in. Last Sunday, the Spanish people invited a vampire to enter their house, and the question that now looms before them -- and the rest of Europe as well -- is how to get him back out.
The vampire is terror -- but not just the old homespun terrorism of the European past, but the radically new form of terror that came to the world's attention on 9/11, namely catastrophic terror.
Once upon a time, back in the nineteenth century, terrorism was used to assassinate harmless members of royal families, which meant that unless you were close to the throne, you had nothing to worry about. During the late 1950's, small scale terror attacks were used both in Algeria and in metropolitan France, first of the Algerian Muslims to achieve independence from France, and then by the Algerian Europeans -- the so call pied noirs -- in order to prevent independence.
Here, for the first time, the threat of terror was felt at the personal level by the average guy. Yet as Alistair Horne writes in his history of the Algerian revolution, A Savage War of Peace, the terrorist bombs were designed more to shock and frighten the general public rather than to kill or maim them on a large scale. Two or three people might die in an explosion, but not two thousand or even two hundred.
Yet even these small scale terror attacks were sufficient to divide France into two bitterly opposed factions and to bring an end to the Fourth Republic -- a fact that should wake us up to the vastly greater potential for political de-stabilization posed by the systematic use of catastrophic terror.
Catastrophic terror, unlike ordinary terror, it is not intended to take a few token lives; it is deliberately designed to take so many lives at once that it induces an immediate visceral fear in the entire community that they too are under attack. This effect was clear in the days immediately after 9/11. Back then everything spooked us; and people, hearing the backfire of a truck, jumped out of their skin. At that point it was conceivable that "they" could be anywhere, and that another catastrophic event was right around the corner.
Looking back on 9/11 in light of the strike on Madrid, we are struck by two things. First, our initial phase of collective jitteriness immediately after 9/11, and second, the failure of Al Qaeda to exploit this jitteriness in order to influence or undermine our political system. As far as the date of the attack was concerned, 9/11 might have been pulled out of a hat.
The same thing cannot be said of the terror strike in Madrid. The explosions on Thursday seemed deliberately designed to echo in the minds of the voters the following Sunday -- to echo in their minds and to influence their vote.
If this is the case, then it may well mean that the date of future terror strikes will no longer be drawn out of a hat, but rather will be selected with an eye to maximizing the damage not to people or buildings, but to the political system of the country under attack -- and how better to achieve this end than to plan catastrophic terror events for the eve of national elections, or, even worse, for the morning of one?
If the small scale terror of the Algerian revolutionaries can bring down a republic, one can only begin to imagine the political havoc that the technique of catastrophic terror could achieve if those ruthless enough to exploit it were also cunning enough use it in order to discredit and subvert the very nature of the democratic process. What, after all, is the value of a democracy if terrorists can influence the outcome of elections through acts of mass violence? Who will be willing to vote for a party that has made a point of standing up to terrorism, if the price of their vote will be the brutal murder of hundred or thousands of their fellow citizens -- or even themselves?
What this vampire will do next is anybody's guess. But one thing is certain. It is easy to get a vampire to cross the threshold; but getting him to leave once he has made himself at home -- that is a good deal trickier.
Lee Harris recently wrote for TCS about "Puppet States." His book, Civilization and Its Enemies, was just released by Free Press.
Copyright ? 2004 Tech Central Station - www.techcentralstation.com
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washingtonpost.com
U.S. Mideast Initiative Faces Arab Backlash
By Glenn Kessler and Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, March 21, 2004; Page A19
KUWAIT CITY, March 20 -- The Bush administration and Arab leaders are engaged in a delicate dance over President Bush's call for democracy in the Middle East, with each side struggling to find a balance between high-minded rhetoric and actual progress, U.S. and Arab officials said.
Facing an Arab backlash, the Bush administration has honed its Greater Middle East Initiative, due to be unveiled at the Group of Eight summit of industrial powers in June, to place greater emphasis on plans emerging from the region, such as a possible resolution from the Arab League later this month, U.S. officials said. Arab officials say they feel pressured to respond to the Bush administration proposals, but even reformers privately say they fear that any U.S. imprimatur would discredit the initiative in the eyes of the Arab public and strengthen radical Islamic forces.
The balancing act was on display last week as Secretary of State Colin L. Powell met with Kuwaiti and Saudi officials about the U.S. initiative. Powell told reporters in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Friday that the push for greater freedoms in the Middle East was "not a matter of satisfying the United States; it's a matter of satisfying the aspirations of the people in the Arab world." Powell flew back to Washington after meeting with Kuwait's emir, Sheik Jabir Ahmed Sabah, on Saturday.
In recent weeks, after administration plans for the June summit were leaked before U.S. officials had fully discussed them with Arab leaders, a bevy of U.S. officials have toured the region to make amends.
"When our ideas were first made known to the press, there was a great deal of angst in the region," Powell acknowledged. "It has caused a great deal of debate, a lot of argument in the press, and that's good. That's part of the democratic process."
"Each nation has to find its own path and follow that path at its own speed," Powell said.
Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Prince Saud Faisal, standing next to Powell, responded that the Saudi monarchy was ushering in reforms but not "to get a report of good behavior." He said reform would take place at a pace that would make it "a unifying force for the country and not a divisive aspect."
Saudi Arabia has scheduled its first municipal elections for later this year, and officials have hinted that women may be granted the right to vote. But shortly before Powell arrived, Saudi officials arrested 10 reformist figures, including a university professor, after they had called for the monarchy to move toward a more constitutional model. They also were planning to criticize a state-approved human rights group set up earlier this month. Saudi officials said the group was involved in "acts of sabotage."
Powell said he has expressed concern over the detentions. But Saud, the foreign minister, said, "These people sowed dissension when the whole country was looking for unity and a clear vision, especially at a time when it is facing a terrorist threat."
The pace of reforms has also been uneven in Kuwait. The news media are relatively free to criticize the government but not the emir. Some Islamic leaders have used the political process to block even modest reforms proposed by the emir, including granting women the right to vote, liberalizing the economy and allowing coeducation at universities.
"Kuwait is moving in this direction rather steadily, with a legislature that is -- how should I put this gently? -- is showing some energy with respect to oversight of the government," Powell said Saturday after meeting with Kuwaiti officials.
Officials are now focusing on the upcoming Arab League summit in Tunis, which begins March 29. The 22 members of the league have indicated that they will discuss democracy initiatives and possibly adopt a resolution. "I think if the Arab League could come to some conclusion that everyone agrees to, we would certainly respect that statement of vision," Powell said.
But U.S. officials said the text of such a resolution would determine whether it could be embraced as a step forward at the G-8 summit. Egypt, which has criticized the U.S. initiative, has submitted a proposed resolution that U.S. officials have suggested falls short of Bush administration goals.
The Egyptian proposal would affirm a commitment to "processes of modernization and reform that are undertaken by Arab societies in response to the wishes and needs of their people." The initiative supports the efforts of nongovernmental organizations "within the framework of legality" and links progress on the issue to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt recently said at a conference on reform issues that homegrown reforms must take society's cultural, religious and demographic character into account to avoid "instability or the overtaking of the reform process by extremists who would steer it in a different direction."
"From what we saw of the Egyptian idea, there were more red lines than forward-looking ideas for reform," said a State Department official involved in democracy planning in the Middle East.
Jordan, which in recent months has responded more positively to U.S. calls for reform, also plans to propose a resolution. While its text has not been made public, it is expected to cover similar ground but refer more specifically to good governance, freedom of expression, women's rights, judicial and educational reforms and commitment to human rights.
Jordan's foreign minister, Marwan Muasher, traveled to Washington recently to share his government's ideas with U.S. officials.
Powell told Muasher that the United States has "many tools available to nations that want to use those tools to enhance their reform efforts," such as an ongoing program at the State Department, according to a senior State Department official close to Powell who participated in the meeting. "Powell told Muasher that is the spirit of what we want to do at the G-8: We will try to define tools and reforms and how they can be used as we watch progress in the Arab world."
Wright reported from Washington.
? 2004 The Washington Post Company
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washingtonpost.com
Ex-Aide Assails Bush on War on Terrorism
Associated Press
Sunday, March 21, 2004; Page A22
Richard A. Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism coordinator, accuses the Bush administration of failing to recognize the al Qaeda threat before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and then manipulating the nation into war with Iraq with dangerous consequences.
He accuses President Bush of doing "a terrible job on the war against terrorism."
Clarke, who is expected to testify Tuesday before a federal panel reviewing the attacks, writes in a book going on sale Monday that Bush and his Cabinet were preoccupied during the early months of his presidency with some of the same Cold War issues that his father's administration had faced.
"It was as though they were preserved in amber from when they left office eight years earlier," Clarke told CBS for an interview tonight on "60 Minutes."
CBS's corporate parent, Viacom Inc., owns Simon & Schuster, publisher of Clarke's book, "Against All Enemies: Inside the White House's War on Terror -- What Really Happened."
Clarke acknowledges that, "there's a lot of blame to go around, and I probably deserve some blame, too." He said he wrote to national security adviser Condoleezza Rice on Jan. 24, 2001, asking "urgently" for a Cabinet-level meeting "to deal with the impending al Qaeda attack." Months later, in April, Clarke met with departmental deputy secretaries, and the conversation turned to Iraq.
"I'm sure I'll be criticized for lots of things, and I'm sure they'll launch their dogs on me," Clarke said. "But, frankly, I find it outrageous that the president is running for reelection on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something."
Clarke retired in 2003 after 30 years in government. He was among the longest-serving White House staffers, transferred from the State Department in 1992 to deal with threats from terrorism and narcotics.
Clarke previously led the government's secretive Counterterrorism and Security Group.
? 2004 The Washington Post Company
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washingtonpost.com
Kerry Rejects Outsourced Endorsements
By John F. Harris
Sunday, March 21, 2004; Page A07
John F. Kerry's campaign is trying to wave surrender on the great controversy over his claim that more foreign leaders secretly back his candidacy than President Bush. Campaign aides last week said he is neither seeking foreign endorsements, nor will he accept them.
"This election will be decided by the American people, and the American people alone," Rand Beers, a Kerry foreign policy adviser, said in a statement. "It is simply not appropriate for any foreign leader to endorse a candidate in America's presidential election. John Kerry does not seek, and will not accept, any such endorsements."
So goes the effort to end the hubbub over perhaps the most damaging boast in U.S. politics since Al Gore claimed the invention of the Internet. Like that earlier boast -- Gore was indeed an important early backer of government research funding for the technology that eventually became the Internet -- this one may well have more truth than not. Polling in most European nations shows powerful anti-Bush majorities -- do the leaders disagree that much with their constituents? -- and just last week Bush was rebuked by the prime minister of Poland and the newly elected leader of Spain.
But the most prominent voice on the record last week backing the presumptive Democratic nominee was not exactly welcomed by Kerry. Former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad -- a man with a long history of anti-Semitic utterances -- declared, "I think Kerry would be much more willing to listen to the voices of people and of the rest of the world."
The Republican National Committee, continuing what has been a drumbeat of Kerry mockery, featured a new video on its Web site, www.rnc.org. With Austin Powers-style music and images, the spot spoofs the candidate as "John Kerry: International Man of Mystery."
Of course, the Republicans had their own problems with unsavory Asian dictators last week, after Newsday disclosed that the official merchandise Web site for Bush's reelection campaign has sold clothing made in Burma, which has a repressive government and whose goods are banned from import to the United States.
Two Spinners Whirl Back
Two familiar faces in the world of political spin and media combat are returning to Washington, courtesy of Kerry. Howard Wolfson, an aggressive campaign spokesman for Hillary Rodham Clinton's 2000 Senate run in New York, is moving here to join the Kerry communications team, spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said.
Coming from even farther away is former State Department spokesman James P. Rubin, himself a man of Austin Powers-like mystique, arriving soon from London for six months in Washington. Rubin, who is married to CNN star correspondent Christiane Amanpour, will live here through the fall as a foreign policy adviser and public surrogate for Kerry. Kerry, however, was not Rubin's first choice for president; he advised Wesley K. Clark until the retired Army general's campaign ended.
Democrats Building Unity
It will be a parade of Democratic stars in town on Thursday for the Democratic National Committee's "Unity Dinner," designed to celebrate the party's determination to bury intramural differences and rally behind Kerry.
Former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, who have had their differences over the years, will be on hand for the dinner at the National Building Museum -- as well as at an after-hours party at the nightclub Dream.
Also present for the dinner will be all of this year's Democratic presidential candidates, minus one. Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (Ohio) was not invited, a DNC official said, because he is still campaigning and not preaching party unity.
The day will also mark the ribbon-cutting at the DNC's newly renovated headquarters at the foot of Capitol Hill. About $13 million was spent refurbishing the building, once a notorious dump. The building is wired for the latest technology, including a studio for satellite news conferences, but staffers grouse that it's still many long blocks from decent expense-account restaurants for source-building reporters.
350 Friends Briefed at 1600
The socially conservative and politically influential Family Research Council was given red-carpet treatment at the White House on Thursday. More than 350 major donors and other supporters received a private briefing from Elliott Abrams, the National Security Council staff director for Middle East affairs.
To give the White House session a more intimate feel, Bush aides split the more than 350 attendees of the council's annual "Washington Briefing" into two groups on successive days.
The Family Research Council is a nonprofit educational foundation and by law must be nonpartisan, but the GOP leanings were clear at last week's briefing. When James Dobson of Focus on the Family warned during one discussion that gay marriage could lead to a "man marrying his donkey," Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, had the crowd chortling by saying that made him think of "a Republican marrying a Democrat."
Staff writer Mike Allen contributed to this report.
? 2004 The Washington Post Company
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SPIEGEL ONLINE - 20. M?rz 2004, 17:12
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/0,1518,291685,00.html
F?lschungsskandal
Starreporter von "USA Today" erfand Geschichten
Nach den Betrugsf?llen bei der "New York Times" ersch?ttert ein weiterer Skandal die US-Presselandschaft: Reporter Jack Kelley, hoch dekoriert und f?nf Mal f?r den begehrten Pulitzer-Preis nominiert, hat brisante Storys f?r "USA Today" einfach erfunden.
AP
Reporter Jack Kelley: "Ich habe das Gef?hl, ich werde hereingelegt"
Washington - Jack Kelley soll sich wichtige Teile von mindestens acht gro?en Reportagen f?r die Zeitung "USA Today" ausgedacht haben. Das sind die Ergebnisse einer Untersuchungskommission, die das Blatt eingesetzt hat. Unter den 729 Artikeln, die Kelley zwischen 1993 und 2003 f?r die Zeitung schrieb, seien "journalistische S?nden" von betr?chtlichen Ausma?en.
Unter anderem berichtete der Reporter von einem Selbstmordanschlag auf eine Pizzeria in Jerusalem. In der Story hatte Kelley geschrieben: "Drei M?nner, die drinnen gerade ihre Pizza a?en, wurden aus ihren St?hlen geschleudert. ... Als sie auf dem Boden aufschlugen, l?sten sich ihre K?pfe von den K?rpern und rollten die Stra?e herunter", berichtet die US-Zeitung "Los Angeles Times". Der Autor habe behauptet, die Augen in den abgetrennten K?pfen h?tten noch gezwinkert.
"Ungeheuerlichste Missetat"
Bei "US Today" indes ist unklar, wie Kelley den Zwischenfall ?berhaupt beobachtet haben will. Der Reporter habe etwa 30 Meter entfernt mit dem R?cken zur Pizzeria gestanden, als die Bombe hochging. Nach Beh?rdenangaben sei au?erdem bei dem Anschlag niemand gek?pft worden.
Als Kelleys "ungeheuerlichste Missetat" bezeichnete die Untersuchungsgruppe einen Vorfall aus dem Jahr 2000. Der Journalist hatte ein Foto von einer kubanischen Hotelangestellten f?r eine L?gengeschichte ?ber eine Frau benutzt, die bei ihrer Flucht mit dem Boot ums Leben gekommen sein sollte. Tats?chlich war die Frau nicht geflohen, zudem ?u?erst lebendig und von einem Reporter Anfang des Monats ausfindig gemacht worden.
Jack Kelley arbeitete seit 21 Jahren f?r die Zeitung und war pers?nlicher G?nstling des "USA Today"-Gr?nder Al Neuhart. Der 43 Jahre alte Journalist wurde f?nf Mal f?r den Pulitzer-Preis nominiert. Er berichtete aus Krisengebieten wie dem Nahen Osten oder Afghanistan. Im Januar hatte er seinen Job bei der Zeitung gek?ndigt, nachdem er Redakteuren gegen?ber zugegeben hatte, sie get?uscht zu haben. Er beharre aber nach wie vor darauf, nicht Falsches getan zu haben. "Ich habe das Gef?hl, ich werde hereingelegt", soll er zu Kollegen gesagt haben.
"Wir haben als Institution unseren Lesern gegen?ber versagt, weil wir Jack Kelley Probleme nicht bemerkt haben. Daf?r entschuldige ich mich", sagte Herausgeber Craig Moon. "In Zukunft werden wir sicherstellen, dass eine Umgebung gew?hrleistet ist, in der solch ein Missbrauch nie wieder vorkommt."
? SPIEGEL ONLINE 2004
Alle Rechte vorbehalten
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Annan seeks Iraq 'fraud' inquiry
BBC
The UN-administered scheme was vital for feeding Iraqis
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has called for an independent inquiry into allegations of fraud and corruption in its oil-for-food programme in Iraq.
An internal UN inquiry is already under way, but Mr Annan wants outside firms and individuals to be investigated too.
The programme aimed to help Iraq cope with sanctions by allowing oil sales profits to be used for basic goods.
But the US now estimates that Saddam Hussein's regime made billions more out of it than previously thought.
The US Treasury thinks $10bn of illicit gains were made between 1997 and 2002 from the scheme - up from the previous estimate of $6bn.
In January, an Iraqi newspaper alleged that individuals and organisations from more than 40 countries had received vouchers for cut-price oil from the Iraqi regime.
'Serious consideration'
In a letter to the Security Council, Mr Annan proposed setting up an independent high-level inquiry to look into alleged corruption in the oil-for-food programme which was run by the UN from 1996 until last year.
It is highly possible that there's been quite a lot of wrongdoing, but we need to investigate and get to see who is responsible
Kofi Annan
He said the allegations, whether well-founded or not, had to be taken seriously.
Such an independent inquiry would need the backing of the Security Council, and Mr Annan said he would be sending it more details.
Under the oil-for-food programme, more than $65 billion was handed out for food, medicine and other non-military goods to ease the impact of 1991 Gulf War sanctions on ordinary Iraqis.
It was funded by sales of limited quotas of oil.
The programme was closed after the invasion of Iraq by US-led forces.
Smuggling
The US General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigatory arm of Congress, says Saddam Hussein earned $5.7bn from oil smuggled out of Iraq and $4.4bn from illegal surcharges he placed on oil.
GAO officials say the oil was smuggled through Syria, Jordan and the Persian Gulf and that the government imposed surcharges of up to 50 cents a barrel. It also took commissions of between 5-10% from suppliers.
In order to obtain more Iraqi money stashed away by the old regime, the US Treasury on Thursday submitted the names of 16 Saddam Hussein family members and 191 quasi-governmental firms to the UN.
A UN Security Council resolution requires that member nations freeze accounts which contain Iraqi money and hand over the funds for Iraq's reconstruction.
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Demonocracy
Beware of once-elected thugs.
What exactly does democracy -- "people power" -- really mean? Even the Greeks who invented this peculiar institution were not quite sure. Was it just rule by a majority vote? Or did it include mechanisms and subsidies to ensure the participation of the poor? Or to protect the minority from mob rule? Aristotle himself was baffled about what actually distinguished some forms of oligarchies from democracies; indeed his Politics can offer only a hopelessly confused typology.
Later Westerners who looked back at democracy in Athens were also confused over whether it was the noble "School of Hellas" of Pericles or the mobocracy that had precipitously executed Aegean islanders and condemned Socrates -- or both. Sober critics of democracy usually preferred a "Mixed Constitution," a consensual constitution that had various checks -- sometimes legislative, sometimes executive and judicial -- on popular will.
In any case, through the long cauldron of Western political thought there has emerged a consensus that constitutional government should have elements of both direct voting and elective representatives to protect citizenry from their own spontaneous and raw emotions. An independent judiciary, constitutional protection of minority and religious rights, guarantees of personal freedom and expression -- all these institutions are also essential to the idea of "democracy."
In addition, free markets are integral to consensual government. So are property rights. And these institutions are not simply to be ensured at the national level alone; in a modern free country they naturally permeate all of society, from informal elections at local PTA meetings to airing squabbles freely at the local chamber of commerce.
"Democracy" is also an evolving concept. From its inception in ancient Greece it has steadily become more inclusive -- dropping barriers to participation based on wealth, race, and gender. And it has also become more careful to distance governance from what a given electorate happens to feel on any given day, whether through judicial intervention or the rise of vast bureaucracies run by the executive branch.
In the modern world, the terms "democracy" and "republic" -- nomenclature native only to Western languages -- are bandied about quite loosely, inasmuch as they lend a veneer of legitimacy to otherwise awful regimes. The Soviet Union was supposedly a conglomeration of "republics." So were North Vietnam and East Germany. Indeed "democratic peoples" and "socialist republics" were usually code words for no voting and no liberty.
In light of the propaganda value of giving lip service to freedom, dictatorships on the Right also rarely call themselves "The Autocracy of Chile" or "The Nicaraguan Dictatorship." Many of the Arab autocracies -- the Saudi monarchy's employment of "kingdom" is an exception -- are officially "republics." Of course, not a single one has a really consensual government or regularly scheduled elections that are truly free.
So most countries that are not democratic claim that they are; and yet democracy itself turns out to be much more than just the occasion of one free election. And this paradox can raise real problems. Look at the Iranian elections of 1980 that took place in a climate of intimidation and without constitutional guarantees. Secular candidates were harassed and voters intimidated. Within three years there was essentially only one Islamic party and thereafter only sporadic rigged elections. The Iranian "president" and "parliament" meant little then and mean less now, as we learn from the recent forced withdrawal of a number of "reform" candidates.
Ditto for the Palestinians. Arafat had one sort of free election in 1996. But his "opponent," Samiha Kahil, was denied commensurate air time and contended with the bribery, violence, and censorship of Fatah, before garnering a mere nine percent of the vote. There have been no presidential elections since, no free judiciary, and no free press. The Palestinian Authority is about as democratic as the regime of Saddam Hussein, who "won" his similarly fixed election by about the same plurality as Arafat. Yet the New York Times praised Arafat in 1996 for his electoral victory and like most others in the media has been reluctant since to condone his isolation to his Ramallah bunker, given that chimera that he was a "democratically elected leader."
Haiti is not much different. An exiled Mr. Aristide was restored by the United States in 1996, on the pretext that he probably won the 1994 election. But since then he has engaged in criminality, censorship, blackmail, and violence to ensure that both the parliamentary and presidential elections of 2000 were engineered to his own satisfaction. For all his priestly past, New York sojourns, and professed sympathy for the poor, he too is a one-vote, one-time thug.
In some ways these aborted democracies are more pernicious than the old-style dictatorships, in that they use their purportedly democratic geneses as cover for some pretty awful things. The modus operandi works something like this. An initial election follows after the demise of a prior government either associated with autocracy or the machinations of the West -- the abdication of a Duvalier, Shah, or Israeli governing authority. Jimmy Carter arrives to certify (sometimes quite accurately) that the election is more or less fair -- even as he can say little about the absence of a ratified constitution, free press, legitimate opposition, or bill of rights. U.N. "observers" lurk and prowl in the shadows to legitimize the proceedings, understandably scurrying back to their compounds or hotel the first time some hired goon sticks an AK-47 up their noses.
In the years that follow (such "reelected" leaders never lose and never step down), various human-rights organizations and Western leftists subsequently praise the new progressiveness of the "emerging democracy" and turn mostly a blind idea to the predictable theft, killing, and lawlessness that follow.
So happy are supporters of elected indigenous scoundrels that they issue a lifelong pass, one that has the practical effect to encourage all sorts of pathologies, from making nuclear bombs (Pakistan and Iran) to blowing up innocent civilians (Arafat). In most cases, vocal Westerner sympathizers -- a Sartre, Foucault, or Chomsky -- are never interested much in real democratic government, but instead find a vicarious delight in seeing raw power employed under the slogans of "social justice" and "national liberation" and expressed in predictable anti-Western tones -- democracy providing them necessary cover on the cheap for cheering on pretty awful rulers.
To this day, supporters of Iranian nationalism still cite voting in Teheran. "Elected" Mr. Arafat enjoys the fruits of moral equivalence and thus is seen as no different from Sharon -- inasmuch as he too "won" a majority vote just like his counterpart. That Fatah is a lawless gang -- that Palestinians have no real free press and are routinely robbed, shaken down, and sometimes killed by their thugocracy -- is again excused by a single, once-upon-a-time vote. By the same token, Mr. Aristide is championed by the Congressional Black Caucus and an array of leftists precisely because he once won a purportedly transparent election when those he now despises took the effort to ensure his accession.
We should worry about these developments as we press ahead with needed democratic reform in Iraq. It will be easy to have one free election in Iraq under Western auspices. But precipitous voting will hardly make a democracy. Indeed it may have the opposite effect of extending legitimacy to radical Islamicists or strongmen who emerge through the liberality and sacrifice of Western blood and treasure -- only in the years ahead to curb free speech, individual rights, the right to own property, and engage in commerce without government coercion. And far from hating "democracy," such demonocratic subversives welcome its initial largess, by which all the better they can later destroy it.
What to do when we wish to leave -- and those most likely to subvert the process most want us out? The most important development now unfolding in Iraq is not the date of elections, but the emergence of a constitution that protects secularism, women's rights, and ethnic minorities, and a popular culture -- Internet, television, free assembly, and consumerism -- that promotes free and easy association.
Without all that, we will inevitably see a one-time elected leader who will systematically transform American-sponsored fair voting into an institutionalized sham. And these demonocrats will largely be given a pass from anti-American Westerners who, when the corpses pile up and the chaos ensues, will still cling to the myth that Sheik X, Ayallatoh Y, or Chairman Z was in fact "elected."
The administration seems to grasp all these pitfalls and yet senses that democracy can still work in formerly awful places like South Africa, Poland, and Turkey -- if there is a commitment to these vital ancillary institutions and protections. But they are between the rock of global demands for instant Iraqi popular sovereignty and the hard place of guaranteeing long-term democratic success a decade from now when our troops are gone and the world may be an even more dangerous place.
This is not the old realpolitik of giving a pass for pumping oil and keeping Communists at bay, or ignoring the usual descent into demonocracy. Instead of slurring our efforts as colonialist and self-interested, we should at least concede that the implementation of consensual rule in Iraq is the most idealistic, perhaps expensive, and in the end audacious initiative in the last half century of American foreign policy.
Indeed, we are in one of the rare periods of fundamental transformation in world history -- as the United States has pledged its blood and treasure in both a dangerous and daring attempt to bring the Middle East, kicking and screaming, into the family of democratic nations and free societies. So while American soldiers fight, build, patrol, and sometimes die in Iraq and Afghanistan, the world at large -- the Saudi royal family, President Musharraf, Mr. Khaddafi, the mullahs in Iran, the young Assad, the kleptocracy on the West Bank, and the weak and triangulating Europeans -- wonders whether the strong horse will prove to be the murderous bin Laden and his Arab romance of a new Dark Age, or George Bush's idea of a free and democratic Middle East.
http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson200403190815.asp
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The Deficit Debate Is a Charade
Bloated government, not the tax cut, is to blame.
By Daniel J. Mitchell
The charges lodged against the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are deceptively simple: They have dramatically reduced government revenues, causing big, long-term deficits that will hurt the economy by driving up interest rates.
But this charge doesn't withstand scrutiny. This is partly because of the tenuous relationship between deficits and interest rates. (If deficits have such an adverse effect on interest rates, why are the rates lower today than they were during the surplus years?) But it's mostly because long-run deficits are caused by the growth of government spending.
Tax cuts certainly aren't to blame. From 1951 to 2000, federal tax revenues averaged 18.1 percent of gross domestic product. Tax-cut opponents frequently imply that Bush's tax cuts have emptied government coffers and created long-term fiscal chaos, but the Congressional Budget Office projects that tax revenues for 2012 to 2014 will average 18.1 percent of gross domestic product. You don't have to be a math whiz to realize how absurd it is to claim that tax cuts cause long-run deficits when tax revenues will mirror their long-term average. (This analysis, by the way, assumes that the tax cuts are made permanent.)
Critics note that tax revenues currently fall below 18.1 percent of GDP. But this is a short-term phenomenon caused by the recent recession and the temporary stock market-driven collapse of tax revenues from capital gains. No one expects these short-term factors to last. The CBO, for instance, estimates that tax revenues soon will return to historical norms, averaging 18.1 percent of GDP over the 2007-09 period.
This does not mean, incidentally, that tax revenues should always be 18.1 percent of GDP. It is just a coincidence that average revenue collections and future revenue projections are identical as a share of national economic output. It does mean, however, that we can't truthfully pin blame for future deficits on the tax cuts.
Deficits, however, are not the issue. The real problem is government spending, and we should view rising deficits as a symptom of Washington's profligacy. The spending crisis is both a short-term and a long-term problem. Federal spending has jumped dramatically in recent years, climbing from 18.4 percent of GDP in 2000 to more than 20 percent of GDP in 2004 (and less than half of that increase can be attributed to national defense or homeland security).
But this short-term expansion of the federal government's burden is minor when compared to what will happen after the baby-boom generation begins to retire. Without reform, huge unfunded promises for Social Security and Medicare benefits will cause federal spending to rise sharply. (And lawmakers last year made the problem worse by creating a new entitlement for prescription drugs under Medicare.)
Bigger government, though, is economically harmful. When politicians spend money, regardless of whether they get it from taxes or through borrowing, they're taking it from the productive sector of the economy. This might not be so bad if lawmakers used strict cost-benefit analysis to determine if the money was being well-spent -- particularly when compared with the efficiency of private-sector expenditures. Unfortunately, that rarely happens. Instead, politicians allocate funds on the basis of political rather than economic considerations. This inevitably weakens economic performance.
Lower spending would be a good idea even if we had a giant surplus. Government programs deprive the private sector of resources that could be used to boost jobs and create growth. This is why we should cut "discretionary" spending and re-examine entire programs, agencies, and departments. Lawmakers also should reform entitlement programs, in part to reduce long-term budget pressures but also because the private sector is better at providing health care and retirement income.
Today's deficit debate is largely a charade. The proponents of big government shed crocodile tears about the deficit because they want higher taxes. Yet historical evidence clearly shows that higher taxes tend to encourage more government spending and hurt the economy -- and both of these factors can cause the deficit to climb still higher. Worse, higher taxes would hurt U.S. competitiveness, making America more like France and other European welfare states.
To save our children and our grandchildren from such a fate, we should keep cutting taxes and finally get serious about reducing the burden of government spending. That may not carry the political allure of vilifying tax cuts -- but at least it's accurate.
-- Daniel J. Mitchell is the McKenna fellow in political economy at the Heritage Foundation
http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_comment/mitchell200403190800.asp
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>> GITMO PUSH PULL...
Guant?namo Detainees Deliver Intelligence Gains
By NEIL A. LEWIS
GUANT?NAMO BAY, Cuba, March 19 -- Military officials say prisoners at the detention center here have provided a stream of intelligence to interrogators during the past two years, including detailed information about Al Qaeda's recruitment of Muslim men in Europe.
Military and intelligence officials also said those detainees who were cooperative had provided information about Al Qaeda's chemical and biological weapons efforts, had spoken about the training of suicide bombers, and had described Al Qaeda's use of charities to raise money for its aims.
"We have been able as a result of information gained here to take operational actions, even military campaigns," said Steve Rodriguez, a veteran intelligence officer who oversees the interrogation teams. "There are instances of learning about active cells, and we have taken action to see that the cell was broken," he said, in one of a series of interviews given to a reporter on an arranged tour.
Another American official said analysts had been able to understand a kind of network in Europe that selected young Muslims, who were later drawn into Al Qaeda by imams and Islamic cultural centers and eventually sent to Afghanistan. He said this information has been sent on in recent months to European counterparts.
The sweeping assertions about the value of the detention center at Guant?namo respond to criticism of the operation, in the United States and abroad. Released detainees have also made allegations of mistreatment.
Apparently in an effort to counter the criticism, officials offered to talk in far greater detail than before about their interrogation techniques and what they say are important intelligence harvests from the detainees.
The officials denied the specific allegations of mistreatment made by prisoners recently returned to Britain whose accounts appeared in British newspapers and from Afghans who spoke to The New York Times in Kabul. Their accounts detail enforced privation, petty cruelty, beatings and planned humiliations.
There is no way so far to verify the situation of the detainees as described by the American officials, nor the charges of mistreatment.
The first military tribunals for some prisoners at Guant?namo may begin this summer, an event that is expected to draw new criticism. Many groups have challenged the legal basis the United States has cited to justify the detentions.
Speaking of the intelligence gleaned, Mr. Rodriguez contended that it was still useful, despite the fact that some of the detainees had been at Guant?namo for nearly two years. "I thought that when I first came here, there would be little to gain," he said. "But when they talk about what happens in certain operational theaters, the locations of certain pathways, that information doesn't perish."
He said a large number of the 610 detainees had not been cooperative with interrogators. At least 50, he said, were "ardent jihadists and have no qualms about telling you that if they got out, they would go and kill more Americans."
Mr. Rodriguez's emphasis on the dozens of the most hard-core detainees raises a significant question about Guant?namo: Does the prison camp also house many innocents who were swept up in the chaotic aftermath of the Afghanistan war?
Human rights groups and relatives of those detained have said the United States has committed a gross injustice by imprisoning many people who were in Afghanistan or Pakistan for reasons other than joining the Taliban or fighting for Al Qaeda. More than 100 prisoners from Guant?namo have been released so far.
Three former British prisoners who are friends from the city of Tipton said in interviews published last week in The Sunday Observer that they were arrested after they went to the region to arrange a marriage for one of the men. One of the others was to serve as best man. They spoke of beatings and abuse by American soldiers, charging that the Americans had stood on their kneeling legs and had held guns to their heads during questioning at Guant?namo.
Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the departing commander of the Joint Task Force, which runs the prison camp at Guant?namo, categorically denied the allegations.
He said he was confident that all the men there had been properly screened and fit the definition of an enemy combatant. "These people have a number of cover stories," he said. "I can say with certainty that the British detainees were here for an appropriate reason."
Mr. Rodriguez said, "If I were to believe the stories they tell me at first, then 90 percent of them are innocent rug merchants."
The released detainees said some prisoners had been treated brutally by soldiers from the Immediate Reaction Force, a group of seven members called to prison cells when an inmates refused to obey an order. One carries a plexiglass shield, and the rest have elbow and knee pads.
Such actions, officials said, occur three times a week on average and are always videotaped.
General Miller acknowledged a handful of occasions when the handling was judged to have been too rough, but said no one was left seriously injured. He said one military policeman had been court-martialed for overreacting when an inmate threw excrement on him. The soldier was acquitted.
The detention system at Guant?namo is intended to make the prisoners as compliant as possible. The detainees are schooled in a system of rewards and penalties calibrated to their behavior, including potential access to books and puzzles or being deprived of towels and a toothbrush.
For instance, most prisoners are not allowed to exercise in their 6-by-8-foot cells, but get twice-weekly 20-minute periods for exercising and showering. But if the camp authorities decide that detainees are becoming cooperative, they are given more time out of their cells.
The International Committee of the Red Cross, the only outside group that visits the detainees, has not publicly complained about physical mistreatment. But it has said the prolonged detention without any certainty for the inmates about their future is inhumane and psychologically debilitating.
The detainees may be summoned for questioning at any time of day or night for as many as two daily sessions of up to five hours.
One senior intelligence officer, a reservist who is a homicide detective in civilian life, described using hamburgers from the base's McDonald's and games of chess to gain intimacy with a detainee he said had been Al Qaeda's chief explosives instructor.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
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Liberalism, Loose or Strict By Anthony de Jasay presented by www.cne.org
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Introduction The Centre for the New Europe (CNE) is proud to present its readers with "Liberalism, loose or strict", a paper by Anthony de Jasay. The paper was originally presented at the Liberales Institut of Zurich in December 2003. CNE thanks Liberales Institut's President Robert Nef for authorizing the present publication. Anthony de Jasay is one of the few truly original minds in contemporary social science. He is well-known for combining analytical rigor with a realistic approach to social phenomena--a rare quality, given that the industry of political superstitions, which has no purpose but to dress the emperor, is still working at full capacity. Jasay has been opposing such a tendency for some time. His acclaimed book, The State (1985), perhaps the finest treatise on the subject, has opened the eyes of more than a few readers to the true nature of the institution par excellence, in the realm of modern political philosophy. His Against Politics (1997), a collection of penetrating essays, has illuminated the shortcomings of F.A. Hayek's political philosophy, as well as cast new light on the weaknesses of limited government "libertarianism" and opened new perspectives in the examination of the emergence of social conventions. His last book, Justice and Its Surroundings, is dedicated to justice and to the issues that typically surround it: freedom, sovereignty, distribution, choice, property, agreement, et cetera. Not only is Jasay's treatment of justice per se original and groundbreaking - further, he provides insightful criticisms of the approaches used by scholars such as John Rawls, Robert Nozick, Brian Barry, and Thomas Scanlon. For any student of political philosophy, Jasay's work is almost a panacea against the philosophical viruses still poisoning European academia. CNE believes that this paper on "loose and strict liberalism" could greatly benefit readers, giving them a theoretical framework to better understand disputes and debates among so-called "classical liberals" and "libertarians". Jasay's paper envisions new solutions to ancient problems, and provides true intellectual excitement. To complement this paper, we also thank Anthony de Jasay for having been so kind as to answer a few questions by CNE Visiting Fellow Alberto Mingardi. MINGARDI: You speak about the loose foundations of classical liberalism, which hasn't been a very "firm" and "strict" political doctrine, but rather an "inclusive"one, an umbrella-political thought under which many different ways of thinking found place. What do you think is the key issue to distinguish between "loose" and "strict" liberalism? The theory of private property? The issue of social justice? DE JASAY: Property and justice are certainly getting different treatments in the two liberalisms, - but I think this is not a primary element of their differences, but rather the consequence of a more fundamental contrast. At the deepest level, the "loose" and the "strict" doctrines differ because the first is value-based, the second logic-based. In loose liberalism, we start from the value we think people should, and do, attach to freedom. But
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being liberals and tolerant, we also leave them freedom of choice: they are certainly entitled to like other values as well, and it is up to them to choose the tradeoffs between rival values that best suit their inclinations. Thus, value-based loose liberalism makes room for "social justice", for equality, for security and any number of other values you can think of. It is a doctrine of tradeoffs; it can be all things to all men as tastes, fashions of thought, forms of political correctness come and go. This is why I keep saying that (loose) liberalism "has a weak immune system". Its weak doctrine leaves it wide open to parasitic invasions ("rightsism") and mutations of identity. Strict liberalism has one cornerstone (you might even say it is its only cornerstone), namely the presumption of liberty, that is not value-based, is subject to no tradeoffs, but is simply a logical consequence of which kind of statement can be falsified and which kind verified. MINGARDI: What are the most relevant theoretical flaws that you notice in contemporary classical liberal / libertarian principles? DE JASAY: For greater clarity, it might be best to put a dividing line between classical liberalism and libertarianism though the division is far from sharp. My feeling is that classical liberalism suffers mainly from one "design fault": along Lockean lines, it accepts the sovereignty of the state because it believes that our "life, liberty and property" can be exempted from this sovereignty. In other words, it tacitly postulates that if we, good liberals, wish government to be limited, it will be limited. I am afraid this is stark nonsense; it is of the essence of government that it is a tool that some people will use to exploit others and by doing so secure the control of government. It is no use to say that government ought to be limited, or that we wish that it should be. (Cf. ch.2 "Is Limited Government Possible?" in my book Against Politics.) Classical liberalism stands or falls with limited government. If I am right that government has intrinsic, built-in features that predestine it to expand and encroach upon the sphere of individual choices, classical liberalism rests upon a falsehood. It is not clear that libertarianism can be accused of the same fault. It does not seem to me that limited government is an inherent element in libertarian theory. If I am right that it is not, libertarianism is in some sense more truthful. It can postulate anarchy. It can also take government as it exists, and postulate opportunistic, step-by-step shavings-off from its scope, - a privatisation here, the repeal of a busybody law there - as part of the libertarian rearguard fight. Putting it differently, the classical liberal sees the state as legitimate but regrettably overstepping its proper limits and hence in need of being cautioned. The libertarian by contrast sees the state not as an errant servant, but as an adversary. MINGARDI: How does the issue of Constitutionalism fit in your distinction between loose and strict liberalism? DE JASAY: In "loose" liberalism, the constitution is an essential ingredient of whichever kind of political order the particular version of liberalism happens to desire. A well-made constitution works rather like the auto-pilot of a passenger plane; it is an automatic device for ensuring that the plane will fly to the destination "we" have fixed for it. Given a good constitution, "we" are safe.
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But of course society is not a unanimous "we". There are many conflicts of interest where "we" confront "them". If these conflicts must be resolved constitutionally, the constitution will become a locus of conflict, - indeed, perhaps, the central locus of most conflicts. It will accordingly be amended, or twisted and turned in interpretation, or circumvented. Its guardian (the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court) will be unable to resist this; in some periods (the Warren Court) it will be its chief twister-and-turner. The constitution in its logical structure is a vow. Like a vow, it is up to "us" to keep it. It is also like a chastity belt whose key we have within reach. I believe constitutionalism, like its twin brother contractarianism, is a very dangerous strain of thought. It is illusion-mongering. It fosters a belief that we are on auto-pilot and safe from error or selfish deviation by the pilots. In strict liberalism, the constitution is (almost) irrelevant. Since government is not recognised as legitimate, the question of what it may legitimately do does not arise. MINGARDI: Why do you think "pious lies" are so successful in the intellectual environment? Why even so-called free market types do not go for strict liberalism, but rather worship some sort of alternatives, really indistinguishable from a theoretical standpoint from socialist (loose) liberalism? DE JASAY: Pious lies, e.g. the social contract, tell us that things went the way they did because at bottom we wanted them to go that way. The state of affairs has been chosen by a social choice rule that conforms to ethical axioms (e.g. majority rule). Laws are what they are because they maximise the common good, or maximise wealth (as in law-and-economics). A "veil of uncertainty" has made it rational for us consensually to adopt political institutions that in retrospect are proving to be redistributive and disadvantageous. And so on through the whole list of the social arrangements that systematically favour some at the expense of others. Pious lies, in short, serve to reassure us that we are not silly suckers. MINGARDI: You write that, "Despite the logic of the thesis that the state is intrinsically unnecessary, and the attractiveness of ordered anarchy, it is hardly worth the effort to advocate the abolition of the state. But it is worth the effort to constantly challenge its legitimacy". These are inspiring words, but how do you think that this effort to constantly challenge its legitimacy should take place in the contemporary world? DE JASAY: I am agnostic about civil disobedience and taxpayers' strikes. When I speak of challenging the illegitimate state, I mainly mean waging a relentless intellectual battle against the attitude that approves the law because it is the law, because it has been enacted according to the rules. Docility, willing submission to the "lawful government" makes it far too easy for the latter steadily to enlarge its domain of decision. We have reached the stage where almost any policy measure, no matter how outrageous, is accepted as legitimate provided it can be traced to the majority will. Challenging this means hammering home that the measure is outrageous for good reasons despite the majority wanting it (i.e. in practice, despite its being "socially progressive"). As things stand, this is merely a rearguard fight. However, for reasons we cannot really foresee, the tide may turn one day and the rearguard fight may become an advance.
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Liberalism, loose or strict By Anthony de Jasay Political doctrines can be understood and interpreted in many ways, but in order to survive and prosper, each doctrine needs some irreducible, constant element that represents its distinct identity and that cannot change without the doctrine losing its essential character. Nationalism must hold out sovereignty, the safeguarding and if possible the expansion of a territory, a language and a race as the chief goals of policy. If it did not, it would no longer be nationalism but something else. Socialism appears in many guises, but all its versions have at least one common, inalterable feature, namely the insistence that all wealth is created by society, not by individual members of it. Society is entitled to distribute wealth in whatever way fits its conception of justice. Common ownership of the means of production and equality of wellbeing are derivatives of this basic thesis. It is my contention that liberalism has never had such an irreducible and unalterable core element. As a doctrine, it has always been rather loose, tolerant of heterogeneous components, easy to influence, easy to infiltrate by alien ideas that are in fact inconsistent with any coherent version of it. One is tempted to say that liberalism cannot protect itself because its "immune system" is too weak. Current usage of the words "liberal" and "liberalism" is symptomatic of the Protean character of what the names are meant to signify. "Classical" liberalism is about the desirability of limited government and what goes by the name of laissez faire combined with a broad streak of utilitarianism that calls not for limited, but for active government. American liberalism is mainly concerned with race, homosexuality, abortion, victimless crimes and in general with "rights". In mid-Atlantic English, a liberal is what most Europeans would call a social democrat, while in French "liberal" is a pejorative word, often meant as an insult, and "liberalism" is a farrago of obsolete fallacies that only the stupid or the dishonest have the audacity to profess. These disparate usages do not have much in common. It should not surprise us that they do not. Loose doctrine on loose foundations Much of its lack of a firm identity is explained by liberalism's foundations. At its deepest, the doctrine seems to spring from the love of liberty. In more philosophical language, liberty is a value - final or instrumental - that we hold dear. All the superstructure of liberalism is made to rest on this easily acceptable value judgment. However, liberty is not the sole value, - not even the sole political value. It has many rivals; security of person and property, security of subsistence, equality of all kinds, protection for the weak against the strong, the progress of knowledge and the arts, glory and greatness spring to mind, and the list could be virtually endless. Many if not most of these values can only be realised at the cost of curtailing freedom. It is contrary to the liberal spirit of tolerance and love of liberty to try and reject these values and to dispute anyone's freedom to cherish some of them even at the expense of freedom. The love of liberty allows tradeoffs between it and other things. How much freedom should be given up for how much security or equality or any other worthy objective that at least some people want to achieve, is obviously a subjective matter, my value against your value, my argument against yours. Disagreement is legitimate. From this foundation, therefore, the evolution of the doctrine tends towards allowing rival values
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more and more Lebensraum, to incorporate and co-opt them. What surfaces is a variable mish-mash, all things to all men. Utilitarianism and the Harm Principle This evolution, almost predestined by the dependence of the doctrine on value judgments, was pushed further forward by the teachings of the three most influential theorists of classical liberalism, Bentham, James Mill and John Stuart Mill. They made one-man-one-vote and the good of the greatest number into an imperative of political morality, establishing a wholly arbitrary, if not downright self-contradictory, linkage between democracy and liberalism. This linkage has since achieved the status of a self-evident truth. It is being repeated with parrot-like docility in modern political discourse, and is doing much to empty liberalism of any firm identity. They also bear much of the responsibility for endowing liberalism with a utilitarian agenda. Liberal politics became a politics of betterment in all directions. There is always an inexhaustible fund of good ideas for improving things by reforming and changing institutions, making new laws, new regulations and perhaps above all by constantly adjusting the distribution of wealth and income so as to make it yield more "total utility". John Stuart Mill has quite explicitly laid down that while the production of wealth was governed by economic laws, its distribution was for society to decide. Utilitarianism made this not only legitimate, but actually mandatory, for failing to increase total utility by redistributing incomes is to fail doing the good that you could do. A mandate for overall betterment is, of course, a sure recipe for unlimited government. Many defenders of classical liberalism interpret Mill's famous Harm Principle as the safeguard against precisely this tendency of utilitarian thought. The principle looks like a barrier to the state's boundless growth. "...the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community against his will" - states Mill - " is to prevent harm to others".1 However, what constitutes harm and how much harm justifies the use of state power, are inherently subjective matters of judgment. There is a vast area of putative or real externalities which some regard as grounds for government interference while others consider that they are simply facts of life, to be left to sort themselves out. The harm principle, being wide open to interpretation, is progressively expanding its domain. Today, omission is amalgamated with commission. "Not helping someone is to harm him"; the harm principle is invoked by certain modern political philosophers to make it mandatory for the state to force the well off to assist those who would be harmed by the lack of assistance. There may well be strong arguments for forcing some people to help others, but it is surprising to find one that is supposed to be quintessentially liberal. Observing the effects of good intentions is often a matter for bitter irony. Locke tried with his innocent-looking proviso to prove the legitimacy of ownership and succeeded in undermining its moral basis. J.S. Mill thought that he was defending liberty, but what he achieved was to shackle it in strands of confusion. 1 J.S.Mill, On Liberty, ch.I., para 9.
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Strict Liberalism In order to prevent it from becoming indistinguishable from socialism, unprincipled pragmatism or just plain ad-hockery, liberalism must become more strict. It needs different foundations, and its structure must be made minimal and simple, so as better to resist the penetration of alien elements. I suggest that two basic propositions, one logical and one moral, suffice to construct a new, stricter liberal doctrine capable of defending its identity. One is the presumption of freedom, the other the rejection of the rules of submission that imply the obligation of political obedience. The Presumption of Freedom The presumption of freedom should be understood to mean that any act a person wishes to perform is deemed to be free - not to be interfered with, regulated, taxed or punished - unless sufficient reason is shown why it should not be free. Some deny that there is, or ought to be, such a presumption2. However, the presumption is not a matter of opinion or evaluation that can be debated and denied. It is a strict logical consequence of the difference between two means of testing the validity of a statement, namely falsification and verification. There may be an indefinite number of potential reasons that speak against an act you wish to perform. Some may be sufficient, valid, others (perhaps all) insufficient, false. You may falsify them one by one. But no matter how many you succeed in falsifying, there may still be some left and you can never prove that there are none left. In other words, the statement that this act would be harmful is unfalsifiable. Since you cannot falsify it - putting on you the burden of proving that it would be harmless is nonsensical, a violation of elementary logic. On the other hand, any specific reason objectors may advance against the act in question is verifiable. If they have such reasons, the burden of proof is on them to verify that some or all of them are in fact sufficient to justify interference with the act. All this seems trivially simple. In fact, it is simple, but not trivial. On the contrary, it is of decisive importance in conditioning the intellectual climate, the "culture" of a political community. The presumption of liberty must be vigorously affirmed, if only to serve as an antidote against the spread of "rightsism" that would contradict and undermine it, and that has done so much to distort and emasculate liberalism in recent decades. "Rightsism" purports solemnly to recognise that people have "rights" to do certain specific things and that certain other things ought not to be done to them. On closer analysis, these "rights" turn out to be the exceptions to a tacitly understood general rule that everything else is forbidden; for if it were not, announcing "rights" to engage in free acts would be redundant and pointless. The silliness that underlies "rightsism", and the appalling effect it exerts upon the political climate, illustrates how far the looseness of current liberal thought can drift away from a more strict structure that would serve the cause of liberty instead of stifling it in pomposity and confusion. 2 Notably Joseph Raz, The Morality of Freedom, Oxford 1986 , The Clarendon Press, pp.8-12
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The Rule of Submission "The king in his council has expressed his will, and his will shall be obeyed by all" is a rule of submission. So are the rules that required the citizens of Venice to obey the Signoria, that gave the power to make laws to a majority of a legislature and the power to elect legislators to a majority of voters. The latter of these rules are more "democratic" than the former, but they all share the same essential feature: the obligation of all in a community to submit to the decisions of only some of them. Moreover, every such rule imposes the obligation to submit to decisions reached by certain persons in certain ways so to speak in advance, before knowing what those decisions are in fact going to be. Reasons of practical expediency can be found why this must be so if the business of government is to be transacted. The reasons may be good ones, but the rule they call for is no less outrageous for all that. Submission can be morally acceptable if it is voluntary, and voluntary submission by rational individuals is conceivable on a case-by-case basis, on the merits of particular propositions. As a general rule, that amounts to signing a blank cheque, however, it can hardly be both voluntary and rational. If a general rule of submission is necessary for governing, - which it might well be - then the legitimacy of government, any type of government, turns out to be morally indefensible. Does this mean that strict liberals cannot loyally accept the government of their country as legitimate, and are in effect advocating anarchy? Logically, the answer to both questions must be "yes", but it is a "yes" whose practical consequences are necessarily constrained by the realities of our social condition. Orderly social practices that coordinate individual behaviour so as to produce reasonably efficient and peaceful cooperation, can be imposed by law and regulation. Today, many of our practices are in fact so imposed, - many, but not all. Some important and many less vital yet useful ones are matters of convention. Unlike a law that must rely on the rule of submission, a convention is voluntary. It is a spontaneously emerging equilibrium in which everybody adopts a behaviour that will produce the best result for him given the behaviour that he anticipates everybody else to adopt. In this reciprocal adjustment to each other, nobody can depart from the equilibrium and expect to profit from it, because he will expect to be punished for it by others also departing from the equilibrium. Unlike a law that depends on enforcement, a convention is thus self-enforcing. Its moral standing is assured because it preserves voluntariness. David Hume was the first major philosopher systematically to identify conventions in general, and two particularly vital conventions, that of property and of promising in particular. Hayek's fundamental idea of the "spontaneous order" can best be understood in terms of conventions. We owe the rigorous explanation of the self-enforcing nature of conventions to John Nash, and more recent developments in game theory show that conflict-ridden social cooperation problems formerly believed to be "dilemmas" requiring state intervention, in fact have potential solutions in conventions.
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The Strictly Liberal Agenda It is easy to describe plausible scenarios in which spontaneous conventions emerge to suppress torts and protect life and limb, property and contract3. However, such scenarios are written on a blank page, whilst in reality the page is already covered with what the past has written on it. In the West, at least two centuries of ever more elaborate legislation, regulation, taxation and public services, - in short, recourse to the rule of submission - have bred a reliance on the state for securing social cooperation. Society has therefore less need for the old conventions, and its muscles for maintaining old conventions and generating new ones have atrophied. In the face of this reality, it is probably vain to expect the collapse of a state to be followed by the emergence of ordered anarchy. The likeliest scenario is perhaps the emergence of another state, possibly nastier than its predecessor. This limits the practical agenda of strict liberalism. Despite the logic of the thesis that the state is intrinsically unnecessary, and the attractiveness of ordered anarchy, it is hardly worth the effort to advocate the abolition of the state. But it is worth the effort constantly to challenge its legitimacy. The pious lie of a social contract must not be allowed to let the state complacently to take the obedience of its subjects too much for granted. There is a built-in mechanism in democracy for the state to buy support from some by abusing the rule of submission and exploiting others. Loose liberalism has come to call this social justice. The best strict liberalism can do is to combat this intrusion of the state step by step, at the margin where some private ground may yet be preserved and where some public ground may perhaps even be regained. 30 October 2003 3 Cf. Jasay, Against Politics, London 1997 , Routledge, Ch.9 , "Conventions: Some Thoughts on the Economics of Ordered Anarchy".
Posted by maximpost
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