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?

We'll set you free - even if it kills you

reprinted from May 4th, 2004

Much of the rationalization for our invasion and occupation of Iraq has been to give the nation of Iraq a democratic basis, and to spread democracy throughout the Middle East. If we are to believe the President, all people deserve to be free, which can only occur in a democracy.

Securing democracy in Iraq is the work of many hands. American and coalition forces are sacrificing for the peace of Iraq and for the security of free nations.

Therefore, the United States has adopted a new policy, a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East. This strategy requires the same persistence and energy and idealism we have shown before. And it will yield the same results. As in Europe, as in Asia, as in every region of the world, the advance of freedom leads to peace.

Giving Bush the benefit of every doubt, his seemingly idealistic plan for democratizing the Middle East, beginning with Iraq, seems to have drawn nothing but violent resentment from the Iraqis themselves. They don't seem to appreciate what the U.S. is offering them. They're not cheering our gift to them. In fact, the U.S. effort in Iraq has, for perhaps the first time in history, brought us to the point where most of the world's people view the U.S. as "the bad guys". 8,000 to 10,000 Iraqi civilians have, to date, been "freed" from their tyrannical government... they're dead, as a result of our effort at "securing democracy" for them.

Much as I would love to see every nation organized as a republic, with free and equitable elections, there is no way to make that happen through the use of force. It could be argued that both Germany and Japan had democracy successfully forced on them as a result of WWII. Both Germany and Japan were brought completely to their knees by the war, devastated to the point that they were almost a "clean slate". Is that to be the model for inflicting democracy? Is almost complete destruction required to make the remaining populace free? I would hope that most of us would reject such destruction as a "solution".

Trying to impress our "free society" on other societies is doomed to failure, unless we can demonstrate that it is advantageous. Presumptive war does not demonstrate that in any way... it is the choice of bullies who happen to have the upper hand at the moment. Do we believe that Iraqis can look upon the actions of our government and want to model themselves after us? Is this what it means to be a leader of the free world? Do we really believe that Iraqi citizens, who know the tragedy of war up close and very personal, would want to emulate us? Is this the path to peace and freedom?

It is not. The U.S., in trying to force our way of life onto others is no more legitimate than the former Soviet Union trying to force socialism on other nations, and it is no more effective. Force simply does not work. Try to force anyone to do what they don't want to do, and they will rebel. They will find ways to go around, under, and over the force, and they will resent the attempt at force. Force changes the rules... the use of force legitimizes more force, either in defense or in retaliation.

War breeds atrocities. From the earliest conflicts of recorded history to the global struggles of modern times inhumanities, lust and pillage have been the inevitable by-products of man's resort to force and arms. Unfortunately, such despicable acts have a dangerous tendency to call forth primitive impulses of vengeance and retaliation among the victimized peoples. The satisfaction of such impulses in turn breeds resentment and fresh tension. Thus does the spiral of cruelty and hatred grow.
-- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Frank Murphy

Most of us would probably agree that if most or all nations were free, peace would be far more likely. Humans have a natural desire to be free. That means free to make our own choices, which means free from being forced by others. Freedom is a desirable goal, but force is a ridiculous means to try to achieve it. Use of force to effect freedom is completely self-contradicting.

How then are we to survive in a world that contains unfree nations... nations controlled by those who would try to take advantage of us? Can a free, peaceful nation survive alongside nations with "evil" dictators and warlike tendencies?

In order to answer that question effectively, we must unfortunately remove ourselves from reality and return to the image of the U.S. that most citizens still cling to... that we are the good guys, only reacting to bad guys. That is not the view held by the rest of the world, but let us delude ourselves momentarily and pretend that we are not really war-mongers, oil-chasers, and empire-builders... the big bullies of the earth.

The United States has no chance of spreading democracy and freedom throughout the world until it rejects much of what our government has been doing for decades. The U.S. has created so many enemies by its actions, that many Americans have been led, through fear, to conclude that force is the answer. We seem to be defending ourselves, rather than reaping what we've sown. We seem to be retaliating against attack or threat, rather than getting what we've earned.

Our government, through many administrations, has interfered in the business of other nations, using trickery, deceit, subterfuge, and even military action... all in the name of "freedom". Those sneaky, underhanded efforts have failed, but they have succeeded in creating great resentment and mistrust. Before we can make any movement toward actually working toward universal freedom and peace, we must first fix our own government.

By allowing our government to simultaneously inflict their ideas on others and create animosity around the globe, it has become a monster... not just in it's actions toward the rest of the world, but in it's actions toward us. We've allowed our government to destroy our own freedoms in the name of protecting us from enemies we created. Every day we continue on this destructive path, the more the U.S. becomes like those nations we abhor as totalitarian and evil. We are following in the path of the Soviet Union, toward our own collapse, caused by the weight of our own policies.

We can return to being what our nation once was... a beacon of light, demonstrating, rather than trying to force, the fruits of freedom on others. I'll continue tomorrow with the libertarian... no, the American Way, toward global peace and freedom... a way our nation once demonstrated with remarkable results, but that we have relinquished to power-hungry, elitist politicians.