Returning to peace and freedom

reprinted from May 5th, 2004

Yesterday, I said I would outline the American Way toward global peace and freedom - a way our nation once demonstrated to the world so successfully. The remarkable aspect of that secret to spreading peace and freedom is that it also has the wonderful result giving us the greatest prosperity possible.

The first and indispensable step is to eliminate our tendency to think of ourselves as some sort of "superpower" responsible for controlling whatever happens around the globe. That egotistical, patronizing attitude is responsible for alienating us from others. Perhaps even worse, that attitude is making it increasingly difficult for us to demonstrate that freedom really does work, if given a chance. As James Madison put it:

Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies. From these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, debts and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the dominion of the few.... No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

Prophetic words. Notice that Madison said "No nation could". As he wrote, he could not have imagined that the United States would find itself in our current world role. To those who founded our nation, it would have been unthinkable that we would hold complete military dominance over the planet, and be willing to use it for the most inane of reasons.

What those founders understood so deeply was that open trade with other nations is the path to peace... that nations which trade freely with each other are not likely to sacrifice that mutual benefit by war.

Perhaps even more importantly, nations whose people are free... whose citizens are not trampled upon by their government, have such a positive effect upon other nations. As Christopher Preble, director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, put it:

Liberal, free market democracy spreads naturally, from free states to unfree states, from dynamic societies to stagnant ones. And we all know why. Classical liberalism encourages intellectual inquiry; autocracy stifles it. Free markets reward entrepreneurial spirit; the state punishes it. Growing, vibrant liberal states combine the traits of political and economic freedom to defeat their autocratic neighbors not by killing their soldiers, bombing their cities, and jailing their leaders, but by luring away the most ambitious, intelligent, and gifted individuals. Faced with this exodus of talent, illiberal governments have only two choices: isolation or reform. Isolation leads to collapse -- not immediately, but eventually.

This is the path toward peace... to recreate that which we once had... a free economy, with small government, a foreign policy of non-interference, free trade with citizens of other nations, and open borders, welcoming the workers of less-free nations to join us.

We don't need war to keep us safe.
We don't need war to prosper.
We don't need war to eliminate other governments we view as threatening.

Quite the contrary... war creates enemies while reducing our own prosperity. War is the antithesis of everything we hold dear. It cripples our economic productivity. It kills thousands of our best, young hopes for the future. It destroys our reputation as freedom-loving people. It invites escalation to greater levels of destruction.

The realization that our United States has perpetrated a totally unjustified war, with all the attendant repercussions we have yet to face, should sicken every thinking American. It should anger each of us, and we should be without mercy toward the "leaders" who have wrought this disgraceful state of affairs into being... IN OUR NAMES.

We have been deceived, lied to, tricked, and oppressed in the name of this ungodly conflict. We've watched our "leaders" display egotistic bluster, watched them spin the truth until it is unrecognizable, and have seen them create an atmosphere of fear to keep us in the dark.

Journalists fear they will be seen as unpatriotic if they challenge White House statements, said Robert Sheer, a syndicated columnist for the Los Angeles Times.

"There is no doubt that there is an atmosphere of fear in the media of being out of sync with the punitive government," Sheer said.

Do not misunderstand me. This is not about President Bush, although I would truly love to see him serving with the troops in Iraq until he decides to cut and run. The root of American problems lies in the control of two major political parties who will do anything to get votes... anything! They are willing to sacrifice lives, freedoms, and prosperity to keep from admitting that they know nothing about "running a nation". It could hardly be more clear than it is right now. We have two primary candidates who both support this absurd war and continued death and destruction, and they are representative of their parties. They have political power, are intoxicated by it, hooked on it harder than drug addicts, and completely unwilling to relinquish it.

As long as the American people continue to believe that they have to choose between Republicans and Democrats, nothing... absolutely nothing... is going to improve. It will get continually worse, until our once-great nation crumbles around our feet.

The true path to prosperity and peaceful coexistence is so very simple that it may seem impossible to some. It is... doing what we do every day. Every day, we work at our occupations, trade with each other, deal with each other peaceably, and try not to interfere with each other. We deal politely and patiently with each other. We help each other voluntarily. We also use great ingenuity and ambition to further our own lifestyles.

We are a great people... a vast mixture of races, backgrounds, customs, and lifestyles. We descended from poor but hard-working immigrants from around the globe, who learned to be tolerant of their differences. We do not war with each other. We do not try to force our neighbors to mimic our lifestyle or beliefs.

The American people must learn to again acknowledge that it is WE, not our government, that creates greatness. Our foundation government was small and unobtrusive, which allowed for tremendous growth, but over time, we have allowed that government to sap our greatness and even distort us into an aggressive, bullying nation.

President Bush recently said:

"the nation is in a "period of testing and sacrifice" spearheaded by a "new generation of Americans as brave and decent as any before it."

Yes, Mr. Bush... we are as brave and decent as any before us, but this "period of testing and sacrifice" is of your making, not ours, and it was totally unneccessary. It will cost us billions of dollars and smear our reputation with our neighbors. Your actions, and those of Congress, do not represent the will of the American people. It's up to us to put a halt to this insanity, by re-taking control of our nation, and there is no other way to accomplish that short of completely DUMPING both the Republican and Democratic political parties. I understand how radical that sounds, but do you honestly believe that there is any other workable choice? How many more wars will it take before you're forced to come to that conclusion?