The Next Civil War

It begins with the general election of 2012. The GOP retains its majority in the House and gains a majority in the Senate. But the presidential election is too close to call, as the outcome in several, deciding States depends on the outcome of hotly contested recounts.

The outcome of the presidential election remains important because the GOP’s majorities in the House and Senate are not large enough to override vetoes. If the presidential election goes to Barack Obama, Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare, curtail entitlement programs, curb the regulatory agencies, recommit to the war on terror, and rebuild national defense will be thwarted. Democrats, hoping to thwart those GOP initiatives, dispatch armies of lawyers to the States where the presidential election hangs in the balance.

In the end, there is a replay of Bush v. Gore, but on a grander scale. The U.S. Supreme Court effectively decides the election for the Republican candidate, by a vote of 5-4. Democrats are outraged. The governors and legislatures of the solidly Democrat States, in a series of coordinated actions, enact resolutions to the effect that their States will not recognize the authority of the federal government, and will bar federal agencies from operating within their States. The governors of the rebelling States order their States’ police and National Guard forces to seize all civilian federal offices (IRS, Social Security, etc.), the functions of which will be assumed by the rebelling States.

What would you do? Take the following poll, leave a comment, or do both.

The Killing of bin Laden and His Ilk

The following is from a post by Fernando Teson, a philosopher-lawyer:

[T]he extrajudicial killing of a named person by a government for a public purpose, can be morally justified outside the battlefield onlyif the following four conditions are met:

1) it is necessary to avert deaths of innocents;

2) the government has a just cause (this condition is different from the first one);

3) the target is culpable, a true villain; and

4) capturing the villain is not possible.

I think that the three first conditions were met in the case of bin Laden, but I’m unsure about the fourth. We don’t know what happened here but even someone as wretched as bin Laden has to be given the chance to surrender. I’m inclined to think that this last requirement does not stem from any fundamental right that bin Laden has, but rather from what our democracy should be.

Why is killing permissible only if capture is not possible? Bin Laden and others of his ilk were and are villains, beyond doubt. They should be captured instead of being killed outright only if these conditions are met:

Capture does not lead to a trial in a civilian court, with its opportunities for grandstanding and a betrayal of justice — acquittal or a sentence less than death because a terrorist is treated as if he were owed the rights of an American, whose rights he would strip if he could.

Capture is for the sole purpose of attempting to extract information that might be useful in tracking down other terrorists and/or thwarting terror plots.

What “our democracy should be” is ruthless in the pursuit of its enemies. They will never respect us, but they should fear us.

What about U.S. citizens who have joined forces with foreign terrorists? Teson objects to “the declared intention of the Obama administration to kill U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki.” The link in the preceding quotation leads to a post by Glenn Greewald, who cannot be said to sympathetic to the defense of Americans from their enemies (see this and this). Greenwald does make a good point:

[T]he reality is that the [Obama] administration has retained and, in some cases, built upon the core Bush/Cheney approach to civil liberties and Terrorism. As Al Gore asked in his superb 2006 speech protesting Bush’s “War on the Constitution”:

Can it be true that any president really has such powers under our Constitution?

If the answer is yes, then under the theory by which these acts are committed, are there any acts that can on their face be prohibited?

If the president has the inherent authority to eavesdrop on American citizens without a warrant, imprison American citizens on his own declaration, kidnap and torture, then what can’t he do?

There are good reasons to curb governmental acts that are not authorized by or contemplated in the Constitution. Slippery slopes do exist, as is all too evident in the state of the union. But where were Greenwald, Gore, and all other Constitution-invoking “liberals” — past and present — when it came to such blatantly unconstitutional acts as the passage of Social Security, Obamacare, and the multitude of other extra-constitutional homages to tyranny? Their hypocrisy precedes them.

Having said that, it seems to me that the constitutional niceties could be observed as follows: Try al-Awlaki (and others like him) for treason; secure a death sentence; and enforce the sentence with a “hit.”

Transnationalism and National Defense

Ed Whelan of Bench Memos explains:

“Transnationalism” challenges the traditional American understanding that … “international and domestic law are distinct, [the United States] determines for itself [through its political branches] when and to what extent international law is incorporated into its legal system, and the status of international law in the domestic system is determined by domestic law.” Transnationalists aim in particular to use American courts to import international law to override the policies adopted through the processes of representative government.

Transnationalism is a manifestation of an attitude that seems to prevail among leftists and extreme libertarians. Such types advocate a kind of international legal order in which acts of aggression against Americans cannot be answered or avenged except through the observance of legal niceties. As if there are international tribunals that would dispense even-handed judgments where the U.S. is concerned. As if our enemies could be counted on to observe international laws against aggression.

This benighted attitude is found in this post by Don Boudreaux, an otherwise sensible libertarian:

One of the great tenets of liberalism — the true sort of liberalism, not the dirigiste ignorance that today, in English-speaking countries, flatters itself unjustifiably with that term — is that no human being is less worthy just because he or she is outside of a particular group. Any randomly chosen stranger from Cairo or Cancun has as much claim on my sympathies and my respect and my regard as does any randomly chosen person from Charlottesville or Chicago.

The problem with such sentiments — correct as they may be — is the implication that we have nothing more to fear from people of foreign lands than we have to fear from our own friends and neighbors. Yet, as Boudreaux himself acknowledges,

[t]he liberal is fully aware that such sentiments [about “us” being different from “them”] are rooted in humans’ evolved psychology, and so are not easily cast off. But the liberal does his or her best to rise above those atavistic sentiments,

Yes, the liberal does strive to rise above such sentiments, but not everyone else makes the same effort, as Boudreaux admits. Therein lies the problem.

Transnationalists equate sovereignty with jingoism, protectionism, militarism, and other deplorable “isms.” Transnationalists ignore or deny the hard reality that Americans and their legitimate overseas interests are threatened by nationalistic rivals and anti-Western fanatics.

In the real world of powerful rivals and determined, resourceful fanatics, the benefits afforded Americans by our (somewhat eroded) constitutional contract — most notably the enjoyment of civil liberties, the blessings of free markets and free trade, and the protections of a common defense — are inseparable from and dependent upon the sovereign power of the United States. To cede that sovereignty for the sake of transnationalism is to risk the complete loss of the benefits promised by the Constitution.

It is for those reasons that I reject and despise leftists and extreme libertarians who have used the recent, justified, and laudable execution of Osama bin Laden as an occasion for spewing their venom. Noam Chomsky exemplifies the left’s moral relativism:

We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic.

Jeffrey Tucker exemplifies loony anarcho-capitalism:

I have some vague sense that many people are opposed to capital punishment, and for good reason, and especially when there is no trial and conviction, and yet we are expected uncritically to celebrate the death of Bin Laden at the hands of the U.S. state.

What Chomsky, Tucker, and their ilk have in common is their status as cosseted intellectuals who benefit from the existence of the very state that they profess to abhor. I have little doubt of the fate that would befall them should they venture into the wrong part of the world without a retinue of SEALs to protect them from what passes for “justice” among the savages.

Osama, Obama, and 2012

Obama did what any president should have done. However, because Osama was killed by U.S. forces on Obama’s watch, much of the glory will redound to Obama. But the glory really belongs to the team of Americans who conducted the raid on Osama’s lair, to the intelligence apparatus that led the team there, and to everyone directly involved in command and support of the operation.

The killing of Osama, at this late date, probably will have little or no effect on the operations of al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. The killing of Obama is a symbolic act of justice, and that’s about all it is. But that, in itself, is worth a lot to any American who abhors the 9/11 attacks for what they were: murderous attacks on innocent persons by cold-blooded fanatics. Anyone who is celebrating today but who said ten years ago that “we asked for it” is a hypocrite who should be wearing sackcloth instead of celebrating.

It remains to be seen whether the almost-certain surge in Obama’s popularity will last. There is much about the man and his policies that deserves deep unpopularity. Yesterday’s events will recede from view before long, and Americans will return to their struggles with unemployment, inflation, intrusive government, and mounting debt. It is those things that most likely will occupy Americans’ minds when they cast their votes in November 2012.

A case in point: Bush senior enjoyed a surge of popularity following the decisive (but incomplete) victory in the Gulf War of 1990-91, but he was nevertheless unable to win re-election in 1992. The third-party candidacy of Ross Perot had a lot to do with Bush’s unseating. But had the election taken place right after the defeat of Saddam’s forces, Bush probably would have won handily. Unfortunately for Bush — and the country — the election took place 20 months later, by which time Americans’ discontent with their economic lot led too many of them to vote for Perot and Clinton.

As Yogi says, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.”

Rating America’s Wars

In “Why We Should (and Should Not) Fight” I say that

American armed forces should be used only to preserve, protect, and defend the interests of Americans.

I ended that post with an assessment of the engagements in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. But what about earlier American wars? Here are my thumbnail assessments of them (the dates indicate years in which U.S. forces were involved in combat):

Indian Wars (1637-1918). This long, episodic battle with Native Americans was justified when the purpose was to defend Americans and justly condemned when the purposes were genocide and theft of Indian lands by force or fraud. There is probably much more to be ashamed of than to be proud of in the history of the Indian Wars.

Revolutionary War (1775-1783). The struggle for self-government deserves praise whether the motivation was liberty in general or the economic interests of colonial planters, merchants, and manufacturers. The latter is a subset of the former, and the outcome of the war served both ends. In that regard, many of the leaders of the armed struggle also became prominent figures in the establishment of the Articles of Confederation and Constitution. Both documents were aimed at preserving and extending the liberty for which the revolution was waged.

War of 1812 (1812-1815). A leading cause of this war was the imposition by Britain of restrictions intended to impede American commerce with France. That, alone, would have justified the war if Britain could not be dissuaded by peaceful means, which it could not be. The U.S. had other legitimate grievances: impressment of American sailors into the British navy and British support of Indian raids in the Northwest Territory. The War of 1812 was, in effect, a belated and creditable resumption of the Revolutionary War.

Mexican-American War (1846-1848). The proximate cause of the war was the attempt by Mexico to retake Texas, which had won independence from Mexico in 1836 and annexed itself to the United States in 1845. The resulting war enabled the U.S. to acquire from Mexico — for $18,250,000 — land that is now California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming. The U.S. was right to prosecute the war and entirely reasonable about the terms and conditions for resolving it.

Civil War (1861-1865). The war that is still being fought (with words) by many Americans pitted the morally reprehensible Southern defenders of slavery against Northerners, led by Abraham Lincoln, who hewed to the dubious proposition that secession is impermissible under the Constitution. The Civil War can be justified only in that it ended slavery in the United States, which was not Mr. Lincoln’s original aim in prosecuting it.

Spanish-American War (1898). This unnecessary war was fought on the excuse of Spanish atrocities in Cuba and the still-mysterious sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor. It was in fact an exercise in imperialism through which the U.S. acquired the dubious honor of controlling Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines — altogether more trouble than they were worth. It is especially galling that Theodore Roosevelt rode the Spanish-American War to fame, and eventually to the imperial presidency.

World War I (1917-1918). The immediate cause of the entry of the United States into this war was German acts of belligerence — sabotage and the sinking of U.S. merchant ships. Those acts were aimed at preventing the U.S. from selling war supplies to Britain. Germany, in other words, was sorely provoked, and the U.S. government could not realistically claim to be a neutral party in what was really a European war, with Asian and African sideshows involving opportunistic attacks on German interests in those regions. Had the U.S. stayed neutral and avoided war, Germany might have won, though a stalemate was more likely. In either event, an exhausted Germany would hardly have been a threat to the U.S., and might even have welcomed trade with the U.S. as it rebuilt in the post-war years. All of this was last in the anti-German hysteria of the time, which played well to the super-majority of Americans whose roots were in the British Isles. It is pure hindsight to say that a victorious or stalemated Germany probably would not have produced the Third Reich, but true nevertheless. America’s entry into World War I was a mistake, in any event, but it turned out to be a horrendously costly one.

World War II (1941-1945). While Anglo-American and French politicians pursued the illusion that peace could be maintained through diplomacy and treaties, Adolf Hitler and Japan’s military caste pursued dominion through conquest. The Third Reich and Empire of the Rising Sun failed to dominate the world only because of (a) Hitler’s fatal invasion of Russia, (b) Japan’s wrong-headed attack on Pearl Harbor, and (c) the fact that the United States of 1941 had time and space on its side. Had the latter not been true, Americans could well have found themselves cut off from the world — and much the poorer for it — if not enslaved. World War II clearly ranks just behind the War of 1812 as the most necessary war in America’s post-Revolutionary history.

Cold War (1947-1991). This necessary, long, and costly “war” of deterrence through preparedness enabled the U.S. to protect Americans’ legitimate economic interests around the world by limiting the expansion of the Soviet empire. The Cold War had some “hot” moments and points of high drama. Perhaps the most notable of them was the so-called Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, which was not the great victory proclaimed by the Kennedy administration and its political and academic sycophants. (For more on this point, go here and scroll down to the section on Kennedy.) That the U.S. won the Cold War because the USSR’s essential bankruptcy was exposed by Ronald Reagan’s defense buildup is a fact that only left-wingers and dupes will deny. They continue to betray their doomed love of communism by praising the hapless Mikhail Gorbachev for doing the only thing he could do in the face of U.S. superiority: surrender and sunder the Soviet empire. America’s Cold War victory owes nothing to LBJ (who wasted blood and treasure in Vietnam), Richard Nixon (who would have sold his mother for 30 pieces of silver), or Jimmy Carter (whose love for anti-American regimes and rebels knows no bounds).

Korean War (1950-1953). The Korean War was unnecessary, in that it was invited by the Truman administration’s policies: exclusion of Korea from the Asian defense perimeter and massive cuts in the U.S. defense budget. But it was essential to defend South Korea so that the powers behind North Korea (Communist China and, by extension, the USSR) would grasp the willingness of the U.S. to maintain a forward defensive posture against aggression. That signal was blunted by Truman’s decision to sack MacArthur when the general persisted in his advocacy of attacking Chinese bases following the entry of the Chinese into the war. The end result was a stalemate, where a decisive victory might have broken the back of communistic adventurism around the globe. The Korean War, as it was fought by the U.S., became “a war to foment war.”

Vietnam War (1965-1973). Whereas the Korean War was a necessary war against communist expansionism, the Vietnam War was an unnecessary entanglement in a civil war in which one side happened to be communist. Nevertheless, the U.S., having made a costly commitment to the prosecution of the war, should have fought it to victory. Instead, unlike the case of Korea, U.S. forces were withdrawn and it took little time for North Vietnam to swallow South Vietnam. American resolve suffered a body blow, from which it rebounded only partially by winning the Cold War, thanks to Reagan’s defense buildup in the 1980s. When it came to actual warfare, however, Vietnam repeated and reinforced the pattern of compromise and retreat that had begun with the Korean War, and which eventuated in the 9/11 attacks.

Gulf War (1990-1991). This war began with Saddam Hussein’s invasion of oil-rich Kuwait. U.S. action to repel the invasion was fully justified by the potential economic effects of Saddam’s capture of Kuwait’s petroleum reserves and oil production. The proper response to Saddam’s aggression would have been not only to defeat the Iraqi army but also to depose Saddam. The failure to do so further reinforced the pattern of compromise and retreat that had begun in Korea, and necessitated the long, contentious Iraq War of the 2000s.

The quick victory in Iraq, coupled with the coincidental end of the Cold War, helped to foster a belief that the peace had been won. (That belief was given an academic imprimatur in Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man.) The stage was set for Clinton’s much-ballyhooed fiscal restraint, which was achieved by cutting the defense budget. Clinton’s lack of resolve in the face of terrorism underscored the evident unwillingness of American “leaders” to defend Americans’ interests, thus inviting 9/11. (For more about Clinton’s foreign and defense policy, go here and scroll down to the section on Clinton.)

Which leads us back to the wars and skirmishes of the 21st century.

Why We Should (and Should Not) Fight

G.W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein — a decision that was approved by Congress — was justified on several grounds. One of those grounds was a humanitarian consideration: Saddam’s record as a brutally oppressive dictator.

But humanitarian acts have nothing to do with the interests of Americans, except for the mistaken belief that the “rest of the world” (presumably including our enemies and potential enemies) will think better of the United States for such acts. The belief, as I say, is mistaken. Our foreign enemies and potential enemies see such things as evidence of American softness, when they do not see them as ways of obtaining U.S. weapons for future use against American interests. Our foreign “friends” (the sneer is well-advised) see the humanitarian acts of the U.S. government as one, two, or all of the following: (a) substitutes for their own humanitarian acts, which may accordingly be curtailed or withheld, (b) evidence of America’s “imperial” aims, and (c) evidence of the willingness of Americans to expend lives and treasure, sometimes in vain, for elusive or illusory objectives.

From the point of view of American taxpayers, the commission of humanitarian acts by the U.S. government is almost always and certainly a waste of money. (I have elsewhere discussed and dismissed the proposition that such acts are morally superior to the alternative of letting taxpayers decide how best to use their money.) It follows that now military operation can or should be justified solely on the basis of humanitarianism. And yet, that is the essential justification of Obama’s adventure in Libya.

Were Obama to come right out and say that our military involvement in Libya is really aimed at ensuring a continuous flow of petroleum from that country’s wells, refineries, and ports, he would be accused of waging a campaign of “blood for oil.” That, of course, was a leftist rallying cry against Bush’s invasion of Iraq, and Obama — as a man of the left and opponent of the Iraq war — does not want to be painted with the same brush.

Bush, too, sought to avoid the taint of “blood for oil.” But, in reality, it was in the interest of the U.S. (and other nations) to restore the flow of Iraqi oil to (or above) the rate attained before the imposition of UN sanctions.

Nevertheless, political discourse has become so mealy-mouthed since the end of World War II that no American politician dare speak of an economic motivation for the use of military force. And so, American politicians must adopt the language of hypocrisy, cant, and political correctness to justify acts that are either (a) unjustifiable because they are purely humanitarian or (b) fully justifiable as being in the interest of Americans, period.

In sum, American armed forces should be used only to preserve, protect, and defend the interests of Americans. To that end, American armed forces certainly may be used preemptively as well as reactively. And as long as it remains economically advantageous for Americans to import oil from other countries, it will be a legitimate use of American armed forces to defend those imports — at the source and every step of the way to this country. I would say the same about any resource whose importation is vital to the well-being of Americans.

The decision whether to use force to protect Americans and their interests, in any given instance, requires a judgment as to the likely costs, benefits, and success of the venture. For practical purposes, it is the president who makes that judgment, but he is ill-advised to commit armed forces without the backing of Congress. When armed forces have been committed, they should remain committed until the objective has been met, unless it becomes clear — to the president and Congress, the media and protesters to the contrary — that the objective cannot be met without incurring unacceptable costs.

A reversal of course sends a very strong signal to our enemies and potential enemies that America’s leadership is unwilling to do what it takes to protect Americans and their interests. Such a signal, of course, makes all the more likely that someone will act against Americans and their interests.

All of that said, I come to the following conclusions about current military engagements involving American armed forces:

Iraq was worth the effort, assuming that a post-withdrawal Iraq remains a relatively stable, oil-producing nation in the midst of surrounding turmoil.

Afghanistan is worth only the effort required to destroy its usefulness as an al Qaeda base. If that cannot be achieved, the large-scale U.S. presence in Afghanistan should be scaled back to a special operations force dedicated solely to the detection and destruction of al Qaeda facilities and personnel.

Libya is worth only the effort required to ensure that it remains a major oil-exporting nation. Aiding the Libyan rebels is likely to backfire because of the strong possibility that al Qaeda or its ilk will emerge triumphant in a rebel-led post-Gaddifi regime (as seems to be the case in Egypt’s post-Mubarak regime). Given that possibility, the U.S. government should withdraw all support of the NATO operation, with the aim of (a) bringing about the end of that operation or (b) forcing a “willing coalition” of European nations to do what it takes to ensure that a post-Gaddafi regime is no worse than neutral toward the West.

Earlier wars are treated here.

Reality Strikes Again

Ross Douthat writes in today’s NYT (“Obama the Realist“):

On the campaign trail in 2008, Barack Obama played to two very different foreign policy constituencies. Often he presented himself as the tribune of the anti-war left — the only candidate who had opposed the invasion of Iraq from the beginning, the man who could be trusted to civilize the global war on terror, and the perfect figure to smooth the transition to a post-American world order. To more bipartisan audiences, though, he cast himself as a cold-eyed realist — the rightful heir to George H. W. Bush, if not Henry Kissinger, who would pursue America’s interests without pretending (as the younger President Bush often did) that they matched up perfectly with America’s democratic ideals….

From the war on terror to the current unrest in Egypt, [Obama’s] foreign policy has owed far more to conservative realpolitik than to any left-wing vision of international affairs….

On nearly every anti-terror front, from detainee policy to drone strikes, the Obama administration has been what The Washington Times’s Eli Lake calls a “9/14 presidency,” maintaining or even expanding the powers that George W. Bush claimed in the aftermath of 9/11. (Dick Cheney himself admitted as much last month, effectively retracting his 2009 claim that Obama’s terrorism policies were undermining national security.) Time and again, this president has proved himself a careful custodian of both American and presidential prerogatives — and the most perceptive critics of his policies, tellingly, have been civil libertarians rather than Republican partisans.

Obama’s adoption of realpolitik is unsurprising to me. In the heat of the 2004 election, when Kerry had pulled even with Bush in the polls and it seemed that Kerry the anti-warrior might become president, I wrote this:

Assuming the best on the domestic front — that is, deadlock — what about the war on terror? All wouldn’t be lost if Kerry were to win the White House. He says dangerous multilateralist things about defense policy. But, in these times of clear and present danger, even a Democrat president will put defense above the trappings of internationalism. A massive failure to defend the homeland or to secure vital overseas interests would ensure a rout in the mid-term elections and a one-term presidency, if not impeachment.

It is good to know that Obama seems to take seriously his role as commander-in-chief. But I do wonder whether his new-found “realism” arises from a sense of responsibility or fear of impeachment. I would not rule out the latter.

“Intellectuals and Society”: A Review

Thomas Sowell‘s Intellectuals and Society is a rewarding and annoying book.

The book is rewarding because it adds to the thick catalog of left-wing sins that Sowell has compiled and explicated in his long career as a public intellectual. When Sowell criticizes the anti-gun, soft-on-crime, peace-at-any-price, tax-spend-and-regulate crowd, he does it by rubbing their noses in the facts and figures about the messes that have been created by the policies they have promoted.

Having said that, I must also note the ways in which Intellectuals and Society annoys me, namely, that it is verbose and coy about the particular brand of intellectualism that it attacks.

VERBOSITY

Regarding verbosity, here is a randomly chosen example, from page 114:

Abstract people are above all equal, though flesh-and-blood people are remote from any such condition or ideal. Inequalities of income, power, prestige, health, and other things have long preoccupied intellectuals, both as things to explain and things to correct. The time and effort devoted to these inequalities might suggest that equality is so common or so automatic that its absence requires an explanation. Many intellectuals have approached equality in much the same spirit as Rousseau approached freedom: “Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains.” To much of the modern intelligentsia, man is regarded as having been born equal but as having become mysteriously everywhere unequal.

Which means:

The notion of equality propounded by left-wing intellectuals bears no relation to the reality of the human condition. But the false ideal of equality enables leftists to advance the notion that disparities of income, power, prestige, and health (among other things) are injustices that call out for correction.

There are other ways of saying the same thing — all of them equally concise and therefore easier for the reader to grasp. Dozens, if not hundreds, of other passages in Intellectuals cry out for the same kind of ruthless editing. With that done, the book would be more compelling, because the facts and figures that make Sowell’s case against leftist intellectuals would stand out more sharply.

THE TRUE SUBJECTS OF THE BOOK

This brings me to the “intellectuals” who are the subject of the book. Sowell’s definition of intellectuals is so broad that it includes him and others of his ilk:

Here “intellectuals” refers to an occupational category, people whose occupations deal primarily with ideas — writers, academics, and the like. Most of us do not think of brain surgeons or engineers as intellectuals, despite the demanding mental training that each goes through, and virtually no one regards even the most brilliant and successful financial wizard as an intellectual.

At the core of the notion of an intellectual is the dealer in ideas, as such — not the personal application of ideas, as engineers apply complex scientific principles to create physical structures or mechanisms. A policy wonk whose work might be analogized as “social engineering,” will seldom personally administer the schemes that he or she creates or advocates. That is left to bureaucrats, politicians, social workers, the police or whoever else might be directly in charge of carry out the ideas of the policy wonk. (Intellectuals and Society, pp. 2-3)

Sowell’s definition encompasses thinkers who devoted much (or all) of their careers to combating the kinds of statist policies advanced by the left-wingers who are the real targets of Intellectuals and Soceity. Sowell even mentions two anti-statist intellectuals — Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman — in the first chapter of his book, in a context which suggests that they are among his targets. But Sowell later invokes Hayek, Friedman, and other “conservative” intellectuals as he confronts left-wing ideas and their consequences.

There can be no doubt that Sowell’s fire is directed at left-wing academicians and pundits — and their enablers in political-bureaucratic-media complex — for the many good reasons documented in the book. A truth-in-packaging law for book titles — a left-wing idea if ever there was one — would require the renaming of Intellectuals and Society to Left-Wing Intellectuals and the Dire Consequences of their Ideas.

My aim is not to quibble with Sowell’s title, but to lament his lack of clarity about which set of intellectuals he is attacking, and why that set of intellectuals deserves reproach, whereas Hayek, Friedman, and company do not. Surely the author of Intellectuals and Society — who is, by his own definition, an intellectual — does not mean to denigrate his decades of research and writing in the service of liberty. (This is not to say that conservatives and self-styled libertarians are above reproach; they are not, as I show elsewhere in this blog. But left-wing “intellectuals” deserve a special place in hell for their contributions to the destruction of the social fabric and demise of liberty, which Sowell so thoroughly documents.)

THE LEFT AND ITS ILLUSIONS

Now for the meat of Intellectuals and Society. And beneath an over-abundance of dressing, there is plenty of meat. Sowell draws on his own work and that of many distinguished philosophers and scholars as he puts the lie to left-wing ideas and policies. Thus we find the likes of Gary Becker, William F. Buckley Jr., Edmund Burke, Richard Epstein, Friedman, Hayek, Eric Hoffer, Paul Johnson, Jean-Francois Revel, Adam Smith, and James Q. Wilson pitted against left-wing stars of the past and present, including Louis D. Brandeis, Noam Chomsky, the Clintons, Herbert Croly, John Dewey, Walter Duranty, Ronald Dworkin, Paul Ehrlich, William Godwin, Edward Kennedy, Paul Krugman, Harold Laski, Roscoe Pound, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., George Bernard Shaw, the Webbs, and H.G. Wells.

Because of the timing of the book’s publication, Barack Obama makes only a cameo appearance as a senator who opposed the surge in Iraq:

[Obama] said in January 2007 that the impending surge was a “mistake that I and others will actively oppose in the days to come.” He called the projected surge a “reckless escalation,” and introduced legislation to begin removal of American troops from Iraq no later than May 1, 2007…. Another 20,000 troops [Obama said] “will not in any imaginable way be able to accomplish any new progress.” (p. 268)

Intellectuals and Society does not directly address the “highlights” of Obama’s presidency to date: “stimulus” spending, Obamacare, and new financial regulations. But they are merely new manifestations of old policies that — among others — the book amply discredits.

But I am getting ahead of myself. The hunt for left-wing error begins in earnest with “Knowledge and Notions,” Chapter 2 of Intellectuals and Society. There, Sowell highlights some leading tendencies of left-wingers. There are the experts in particular fields who act as if their expertise gives them license to expound on any and all subjects. Appositely, Sowell quotes Roy Harrod on John Maynard Keynes:

He held forth on a great range of topics, on some of which he was thoroughly expert, but on others of which he may have derived his views from the few pages of a book at which he had happened to glance. The air of authority was the same in both cases. (p. 12)

Sowell then turns to the matter of centralized, expert knowledge vs. decentralized knowledge, and how the former can never substitute for the latter when it comes to making personal and business decisions — left-wing dogma to the contrary. Here, Sowell echoes Hayek’s Nobel Prize lecture, “The Pretence of Knowledge.”

The final pages of Chapter 2 are devoted to a critique of rationalism. This is the habit of mind, usually found on the left, by which intellectuals superimpose their views of what “ought to be” on decades and centuries of human striving, and pronounce the results of that striving “irrational.” (A recent case in point is Judge Vaughn Walker’s fatuous decision in Perry v. Schwarzenegger.)

Chapter 4, which is out of place, continues in the same vein as Chapter 2. That is, it expose more systemic errors of the left-wing view of the world. The sequence opens with a reprise of the theme of Sowell’s earlier book, A Conflict of Visions, which is followed by a departure from the studied neutrality of that book:

Th[e] vision of society … in which there are many “problems” to be “solved” by applying the ideas of morally anointed intellectual elites is by no means the only vision, however much that vision may be prevalent among today’s intellectuals. A conflicting vision has co-existed for centuries — a vision in which the inherent flaws of human beings are the fundamental problem and social contrivances are simply imperfect means of trying to cope with that problem…. (p. 77)

[That conflicting] vision is a sort of zero-based vision of the world and of human beings, taking none of the benefits of civilization for granted. It does not assume that we can begin with what we already have and simply tack on improvement, without being concerned at every step with whether these innovations jeopardize the very processes and principles on which our existing level of well-being rests…. Above all, it does not assume that untried theories stand on the same footing as institutions and practices whose very existence demonstrate their ability to survive in the world of reality…. (p. 79)

If you happen to believe in free markets, judicial restraint, traditional values and other features of the [constrained] vision, then you are just someone who believes in free markets, judicial restraint and traditional values. There is no personal exaltation resulting from those beliefs. But to be for “social justice” and “saving the environment,” or to be “anti-war” is more than just a set of beliefs about empirical facts. This [unconstrained] vision puts you on a higher moral plane as someone concerned and compassionate, someone who is for peace in the world, a defender of the downtrodden, and someone who wants to preserve the beauty of nature and save the planet from being polluted by others less caring. In short, one vision makes you somebody special and the other vision does not. These visions are not symmetrical…. (pp. 79-80)

That is to say, adherents of the constrained vision (conservatives) put great stock in what works, and change it only for the sake of improving it, and not for the sake of changing it because it doesn’t comport with their a priori views of how the world “ought to be.” By contrast, adherents of the unconstrained vision (the left) are wedded to the rhetoric of “ought to be” and its close relation, the Nirvana fallacy. They judge existing arrangements against unattainable standards of perfection (invented by themselves), and proclaim themselves to be on the side of all that is good. The adherents of the constrained vision point out, quite rightly, that the left’s proposals are inherently flawed because they fail to take into account the ways in which human nature produces unintended consequences.

Sowell has more to say about the unconstrained vision; briefly, it invents “rights” (to a “living wage,” “decent housing,” and “affordable health care,” and so on) that cause “compassionate” politicians to impose obligations on third parties (i.e., hapless taxpayers). This legalized theft — for that is what it is — is committed with scant regard for the good that taxpayers would do with their own money; for example:

Save it in the form of bank deposits, bonds, and stocks so that businesses may be formed, expand, and adopt more productive technology, thus creating jobs and fueling economic growth.

Help private charities and members of their immediate families, who are no less worthy of such help than complete strangers (unless, of course, you are an omniscient leftist who thinks otherwise).

But such considerations are beneath the left, whose mission is to “do good,” and damn the consequences.

On that note, I return to Sowell’s dissection of left-wing rhetoric. Here are some other incisive passages from Chapters 4:

That some people [the left] should imagine that they are particularly in favor of progress is not only another example of self-flattery but also of an evasion of the work of trying to show, with evidence and analysis, where and why their particular proposed changes would produce better end results than other people’s proposed changes. Instead, [those other people] have been dismissed … as “apologists for the status quo.” (pp. 101-2)

If the real purpose of social crusades is to make the less fortunate better off, then the actual consequences of such policies as wage control become central and require investigation…. But if the real purpose of social crusades is to proclaim oneself to be on the side of the angels, then such investigations have a low priority…. The revealed preference of many, if not most, of the intelligentsia has been to be on the side of the angels. (pp. 104-5)

…William Godwin’s notion that the young “are a sort of raw material put into our hands” remains, after two centuries, a powerful temptation to classroom indoctrination in schools and colleges…. This indoctrination can start as early as elementary school, where students are encouraged or required to write about controversial issues…. More fundamentally, the indoctrination process habituates them to taking sides on weighty and complex issues after hearing just one side of those issues…. In colleges and universities, whole academic departments are devoted to particular prepackaged conclusions — whether on race, the environment or other subjects…. Few, if any, of these “studies” include conflicting visions and conflicting evidence, as educational rather than ideological criteria might require. (pp. 108-9)

While logic and evidence are ideal criteria for the work of intellectuals, there are many ways in which much of what is said and done by intellectuals has less to do with principles than with attitudes…. During the earlier [“progressive”] era [of the early 1900s], when farmers and workers were the special focus of solicitude, no one paid much attention to how what was done for the benefit of those groups might adversely affect minorities or others. Likewise, in a later era, little attention was paid by “progressive” intellectuals to how affirmative action for minorities or women might adversely affect others. There is no principle that accounts for such collective mood swings. There are simply reasons du jour, much like the adolescent fads that are compulsive badges of identity for a time and afterwards considered passé…. (pp. 110-12)

…Anyone who suggests that individuals — or worse yet, groups — are unequal is written off intellectually and denounced morally as biased and bigoted toward those considered less than equal. Yet the empirical case for equality ranges from feeble to non-existent…. Does anyone seriously believe that whites in general play professional basketball as well as blacks? [For readers new to Sowell: He is black.] How then can one explain the predominance of blacks in this lucrative occupation, which offers fame as well as fortune? For most of the period of black predominance in professional basketball, the owners of the teams have all been white, as have most of the coaches. Then by what mechanism could blacks have contrived to deny access to professional basketball to whites of equal ability in that sport? (p. 114)

Thus armed against the essential fallacies of left-wing intellectualism, the reader is treated to dissections of left-wing error with respect to economics (Chapter 3), the media and academia (Chapter 5), the law (Chapter 6), and war (Chapters 7 and 8).

THE LEFT AND ECONOMICS

Chapter 5 (“Intellectuals and Economics”) is a sustained litany of the left’s obdurate insistence on the truth of economic fallacies. If there were a Nobel Prize for Economic Illiteracy, it would be awarded to left-wing academics (some of them economists) and pundits, as a group.

One of the left’s favorite preoccupations is “income distribution”:

Although such discussions have been phrased in terms of people, the actual empirical evidence cited has been about what has been happening over time in statistical categories — and that turns out to be the direct opposite of what has happened over time to flesh-and-blood human beings…. [I]n terms of people, the incomes of those particular taxpayers who were in the bottom 20 percent in income in 1996 rose 91 percent by 2005, while the incomes of those particular taxpeayers who were in the top 20 percent in 1996 rose by only 10 percent by 2005 — and those in the top 5 percent and top one percent actually declined. (p. 37)

The left’s systematic misunderstanding of economics rises to astounding heights on many other issues:

High interest rates — “immoral,” even though they reflect the risk of lending to borrowers who are likely to default.

Capitalism — “exploitative,” even though it has brought workers to much higher standards of living than under socialism and communism.

Competition — “chaotic,” because shallow thinkers cannot conceive of progress without central planning and control (though they are ready enough to concede man’s superior mental capacity to the chaotic thing known as evolution).

Government intervention — “essential and beneficial,” despite generations of evidence to the contrary (which is ignored by wishful thinkers on the left).

Business — “economically dominant,” despite the rise and fall of many a business empire, and the fact that business is at the mercy of consumers, not the other way around. (See “capitalism” and “competition.”)

Recessions and depressions — “the result of capitalist excesses,” even though — normal business cycles aside, government intervention (so cherished by the left) has caused or exacerbated several recessions (including the present one) and the Great Depression.

(In the foregoing list, I have violated the letter, but not the spirit, of Sowell’s commentary on economic subjects.)

THE LEFT, THE MEDIA, AND ACADEMIA

The title of Chapter 5 is “Optional Reality in the Media and Academia.” The subtitle of the entire book could well have been “The Left and Optional Reality,” for in Chapter 5 and elsewhere Sowell exposes leftism and left-wing intellectuals as unconnected with reality. There is a preferred leftist version of the world — which changes from time to time and drags devoted leftists in its wake. From that preferred vision, leftists concoct their view of reality.

As Sowell reminds us in Chapter 5, the left’s concocted view of reality has included:

air-brushing the brutality of totalitarian regimes then being held up as leftist ideals (e.g. the USSR, Communist China, Cuba)

suppressing data that would show affirmative action to be counterproductive

depicting gun ownership as an unmitigated evil

trying to pin poverty among blacks on “racism,” when it predominates among the families of single, black mothers who have been lured into a cycle of dependency on welfare

portraying homosexuals as “victims,” except when they happen to be priest of the despised Catholic religion

giving publicity and credibility to trumped-up charges of rape and arson, when the victims are black or the alleged perpetrators are “privileged” whites

exaggerating the incidence of poverty in the United States

demonizing the left’s enemies by attributing to them evil deeds that they didn’t commit

coining euphemisms to promote pet causes (e.g., bums as homeless persons, swamps as wetlands, trolleys as light rail, liberalism as progressivism)

justifying all of the foregoing (and more) on the ground that truth is subjective

portraying Americans as barbaric, in the face of true barbarism among cultures currently in favor with leftists

exaggerating the importance of isolated events, for the sake of promoting the left’s agenda, while ignoring the great advances that have resulted from the hum-drum, daily work of millions of “average” Americans.

The point of all of this deception and self-deception is simple and straightforward: it is to make the case (first to oneself and then to the public) for the left’s vision of how the world should be run. In the left’s Alice-in-Wonderland world of reality, the vision precedes and shapes the facts, not the other way around.

THE LEFT AND THE LAW

Nowhere is the left’s upside-down world more evident than in the development and application of law, which is the subject of Chapter 6 (“Intellectuals and the Law”). As Sowell observes,

There can be no dependable framework of law where judges are free to impose as law their own individual notions of what is fair, compassionate or in accord with social justice. Whatever the merits or demerits of particular judges’ conceptions of these terms, they cannot be known in advance to others, or uniform from one judge to another, so that they re not law in the full sense of rules known in advance to those subject to those rules….

By the second half of the twentieth century, the view of law as something to be deliberately shaped according to the spirit of the times, as interpreted by intellectual elites, became more common in the leading law schools and among judges. Professor Ronald Dworkin of Oxford University epitomized this approach when he dismissed the systemic evolution of the law as a “silly faith,” — systemic processes being equated with chaos, as they have been among those who promoted central economic planning rather than the systemic interactions of markets. In both cases, the preference has been for an elite to impose its vision, overriding if necessary the views of the masses of their fellow citizens…. (pp. 157-160)

The left’s approach to the law is, in a word, rationalistic. That is, it would uproot tradition — which embodies the wisdom of experience — simply because it is tradition, and replace it with reductionist constructs that have been tested only in the minds of left-wing intellectuals. The left’s insight into human nature, and all that it entails, is profoundly shallow, to coin an apt oxymoron.

Sowell documents many of the ways in which the left has tortured the Constitution, so that it no longer serves its intended, minimalist role of preserving the liberty that had been won by the War of Independence. The story of how the Constitution — the supreme law of the land — became, in the hands of the left, a weapon in their war against liberty is too depressing (and long) to recount in detail. I will say, simply, that Sowell has the story down pat:

disregard for the original meaning of the Constitution (and, thus, disregard for the rule of law)

judicial interpretation of the Constitution in ways intended to reach outcomes favored by the left, even when those outcomes clearly ran contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution

the expansion of the power of the federal government, in the service of those outcomes, to a point where there is nothing beyond its dictatorial reach, and no one is secure in the right to the peaceful enjoyment of life, liberty, and property.

It is not only that government now enjoys unlimited reach, but that it has failed in its duty to curb the reach of the predators among us:

As noted in Chapter 2, a retired New York police commissioner who tried to tell a gathering of judges of the dangerous potential of some of their rulings was literally laughed at by the judges and lawyers present. In short, theory trumped experience….

[A]fter many years of rising crime rates had built up sufficient public outrage to force a change in policy, rates of imprisonment rose — and crime rates began falling for the first time in years. [Leftist intellectuals] lamented the rising prison population in the country and, when they acknowledged the declining crime rate at all, confessed themselves baffled by it, as if it were a strange coincidence that crime was declining as more criminals were taken off the streets….

In light of the fact that a wholly disproportionate amount of crime is committed by a relatively small segment of the population, it is hardly surprising that putting a small fraction of the total population behind bars has led to substantial reductions in the crime rate….

…The very mention of “Victorian” ideas about society in general, or crime control in particular, is virtually guaranteed to evoke a sneer from the intelligentsia. The fact that the Victorian era was one of a decades-long decline in alcoholism, crime and social pathology in general … carries virtually no weight among the intelligentsia, and such facts remain largely unknown among those in the general public who depend on either the media or academia for information.

Thus are the wages of leftist idealism and the left’s rationalistic dismissal of traditional ways and mores.

THE LEFT AND WAR

Sowell rolls out the heavy guns in Chapter 7 (“Intellectuals and War”) and Chapter 8 (“Intellectuals and War: Repeating History”). A good way to summarize the lessons of these chapters is to say that the left’s attitudes toward war resemble the ebbing and flowing of an emotional tide. War is good, in the abstract, when it is a distant memory and the one in the offing presents an opportunity to “do good” — “the war to end all war,” and all that.

Then comes a war and its aftermath, both of which are far messier than intellectuals had expected them to be, given that their minds run to abstraction. A reflexive anti-war posture then sets in, and becomes a sign of membership in the leftist coalition,much as a fraternity pin dangling from a watch chain used to be a sign of membership in this or that exclusive circle. Given the left’s dominance in the various mass media, anti-war propaganda soon dominates and colors the public’s view of war.

Anti-war sentiment — inflamed by the left — might have kept the U.S. out of WWII, with disastrous results, had it not been for the Hitler’s decision to attack the USSR and Japan’s miscalculated attack on Pear Harbor. The former event was more important to left than the latter, which caused non-intellectual isolationists to awaken from their slumber.

A generation later, anti-war propaganda disguised as journalism helped to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Vietnam. What was shaping up as a successful military campaign collapsed under the weight of the media’s overwrought and erroneous depiction of the Tet offensive as a Vietcong victory, the bombing of North Vietnam as “barbaric” (where the Tet offensive was given a “heroic cast), and the deaths of American soldiers as somehow “in vain, ” though many more deaths a generation earlier had not been in vain. (What a difference there was between Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite and his sycophants.)

Were it not for the determined leadership of Ronald Reagan, the left’s anti-war and anti-preparedness rhetoric — combined with a generous dose of fear-mongering — would have derailed the defense buildup in the 1980s, to which the collapse of the Soviet Union should be attributed. The left, of course, refuses to go along with the truth, preferring instead to credit the feckless Mikhail Gorbachev.

Only the 9/11 attacks helped to reverse the Clinton defense build-down of the 1990s. It has often been said, and said truly, that Clinton balanced the budget on the back of defense. But the 9/11 attacks might not have occurred had it not been for the “wall” of separation between foreign intelligence and domestic law-enforcement that was erected and maintained under Clinton’s Justice Department.

Only the determined leadership of George W. Bush (say whatever else you want to about him) brought about a reversal of fortune in the Iraq war, over the vocal and obstructive voices of the left — among which one must number the present occupant of the White House.

Then there is the constant campaign of leaks — originated through leftist media outlets — that compromise defense plans, intelligence operations, and anti-terrorist activities. That campaign meshes well with the left’s resolute determination to treat terrorists as criminal suspects, even when they are able to evade civilian justice because the evidence against them is too sensitive to be divulged in civilian courts.

Members of the armed forces are useful to the media mainly as a weapon with which to beat the anti-war, anti-defense drum. Aside from the occasional token remembrance of their sacrifices, they are mainly portrayed by the media as “victims” (because of war wounds), suicidal (though less so than the population at large), and violent (though less so than civilians of the same demographic group).

The beat goes on, relentlessly. In the meantime, America’s enemies and potential enemies take heart.

Americans now face a far more serious budget-balancing exercise, as the nation’s tax-payers face the looming mountain of debt arising from the accrual of “commitments,” past and present known as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and their expansion through CHIP, the Medicare prescription drug program, and Obamacare. Instead of confronting the real problem, politicians will duck it — for a while — by cutting other programs and raising taxes. Defense will carry a disproportionate share of the burden.

Will the U.S. be prepared for the next Pearl Harbor, the one that is far more devastating than the 9/11 attacks? In light of history and the way in which politics is played, the answer is “no.” And the next time, the U.S. will not have months and years in which to mobilize for a counter-attack. The next time, the enemy — whoever it is — will strike directly at America’s energy, telecommunications, and transportation networks with devastating blows that cripple the economy and spread fear and chaos throughout the land. (Here, I should remind the left that a sudden defeat would deprive its members of the opportunity to do what they do well when their leaders signal approval of a war: writing propaganda pieces for the home front, making propaganda films (often thinly disguised as entertainment), and commandeering the economy to plan wartime production, set price controls, and establishing ration quotas.)

Shouldn’t the nation be preparing assiduously against such a contingency, and spending what it takes to prevent it, to work around it, and to recover from it quickly? You would think so, but — thanks largely to the left-wing agenda of bread and circuses — the necessary steps will not be taken. And the left will be out in front of the opposition to preparedness, shouting that the nation cannot afford more defense spending when it faces critical social “obligations.”

On that note, I close this portion of the review with an apt quotation that I am fond of deploying:

It is customary in democratic countries to deplore expenditure on armaments as conflicting with the requirements of the social services. There is a tendency to forget that the most important social service that a government can do for its people is to keep them alive and free. (Marshall of the Royal Air Force Sir John Cotesworth Slessor, Strategy for the West, p. 75)

BAD IDEAS HAVE BAD CONSEQUENCES

The title of this final portion of a long review sums up the thesis of Intellectuals and Society. Sowell’s eponymous concluding Chapter 9 is not consistently on target, but it has its moments; for example:

The general public contributes to the income of intellectuals in a variety of ways involuntarily as taxpayers who support schools, colleges, and various other institutions and programs subsidizing intellectual and artistic endeavors. Other occupations requiring great mental ability — engineers, for example — have a vast spontaneous market for their end products…. But that is seldom true of people whose end products are ideas. There is neither a large nor a prominent role for them to play in society, unless they create it for themselves. (pp. 286-7)

*     *     *

While the British public did not follow the specific prescriptions of Bertrand Russell to disband British military forces on the eve of the Second World War, that is very different from saying that the steady drumbeat of anti-military preparedness rhetoric among the intelligentsia in general did not imped the buildup of a military deterrence or defense to offset Hitler’s rearming of Germany (p. 288)

In international issues of war and peace, the intelligentsia often say that war should be “a last resort.”… War should of course be “a last resort” — but last in terms of preference, rather than last in the sense of hoping against hope while dangers and provocations accumulate unanswered, while wishful thinking or illusory agreements substitute for serious military preparedness — or, if necessary, military action. As Franklin D. Roosevelt said in 1941, “if you hold your fire until you see the whites of his eyes, you will never know what hit you.” The repeated irresolution of France during the 1930s, and on into the period known as the “phony war” that ended in its sudden collapse in 1940, gave the world a painful example of how caution can be carried to the point where it becomes dangerous (pp. 289-90)

*     *     *

The period from the 1960s to the 1980s was perhaps the high tide of the influence of the intelligentsia in the United State. Though the ideas of the intelligentsia still remain the prevailing ideas, their overwhelming dominance ideologically has been reduced somewhat by counter-attacks from various quarters….

Nevertheless, any announcement of the demise of the [leftist intellectualism] would be very premature, if not sheer wishful thinking, in view of [its] continuing dominance … in the educational system, television and in motion pictures that deal with social or political issues. In short, the intellectuals’ vision of the world — as it is and as it should be — remains the dominant vision. Not since the days of the divine rights of kings has there been such a presumption of a right to direct others and constrain their decisions, largely through expanded powers of government. Everything from economic central planning to environmentalism epitomizes the belief that third parties know best and should be empowered to over-ride the decisions of others. This includes preventing children from growing up with the values taught them by their parent if more “advanced” values are preferred by those who teach in the schools and colleges. (pp. 291-92)

*     *     *

Unlike engineers, physicians, or scientists, the intelligentsia face no serious constraint or sanction based on empirical verification. NOne bould be sued for malpractice, for example, for having contributed to the hysteria over the insecticide DDT, which led to its banning in many countries around the world, costing the lives of literally millions of people through a resurgence of malaria. (pp. 296-7)

*     *     *

One of the things intellectuals have been doing for a long time is loosening the bonds that hold a society together. They have sought to replace the groups into which people have sorted themselves with groupings created and imposed by the intelligentsia. Ties of family, religion, and patriotism, for example, hav long been treated as suspect or detrimental by the intelligentsia, and new ties that intellectuals have created, such as class — and more recently “gender” — have been projected as either more real or more important. (p. 303)

*     *     *

Under the influence of the intelligentsia, we have become a society that rewards people with admiration for violating its own norms and for fragmenting that society into jarring segments. In addition to explicit denigrations of their own society for its history or current shortcomings, intellectuals often set up standards for their society which no society of human beings has ever met or is ever likely to meet.

Calling those standards “social justice” enables intellectuals to engage in endless complaints about the particular ways in which society fails to meet their arbitrary criteria, along with a parade of groups entitled to a sense of grievance, exemplified in the “race, class and gender” formula…. (p. 305)

I remind you that Sowell (and I) are, in the main, talking about the left — especially its elites. These are the so-called intellectuals and technocrats who dominate the media, academia, left-wing think tanks, and the upper layers of government bureaucracies. The smugness, sameness, and other-worldliness of their views is depressingly predictable.

The left advances its agenda in many ways, for example, by demonizing its opponents as “mean” and even “fascistic” (look in the mirror, bub), appealing to envy (stuck on “soak the rich,” with the connivance of some of the guilt-ridden “rich”), sanctifying an ever-growing list of “victimized” groups (various protected “minorities”), and taking a slice at a time (e.g., Social Security set the stage for Medicare which set it for Obamacare).

The left’s essential agenda is the repudiation of ordered liberty of the kind that arises from evolved social norms, and the replacement of that liberty by sugar-coated oppression. The bread and circuses of imperial Rome have nothing on Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, Obamacare, and the many other forms of personal and corporate welfare that are draining America of its wealth and élan. All of that “welfare” has been bought at the price of economic and social liberty (which are indivisible).

Leftists like to say that there is a difference between opposition and disloyalty. But, in the case of the left, opposition arises from a fundamental kind of disloyalty. For, at bottom, the left pursues its agenda because it hates the idea of what America used to stand for: liberty with responsibility, strength against foreign and domestic enemies.

Most leftists are simply shallow-minded trend-followers, who believe in the power of government to do things that are “good,” “fair,” or “compassionate,” with no regard for the costs and consequences of those things. Shallow leftists know not what they do. But they do it. And their shallowness does not excuse them for having been accessories to the diminution of America. A rabid dog may not know that it is rabid, but its bite is no less lethal for that.

The leaders of the left — the office-holders, pundits, and intelligentsia — usually pay lip-service to “goodness,” “fairness,” and “compassion.” But their lip-service fails to conceal their brutal betrayal of liberty. Their subtle and not-so-subtle treason is despicable almost beyond words. But not quite…

The Folly of Pacifisim

Bryan Caplan — one of my favorite pseudo-libertarian targets — pooh-poohs the idea that “if you want peace, prepare for war”:

This claim is obviously overstated. Is North Korea really pursuing the smart path to peace by keeping almost 5% of its population on active military duty? How about Hitler’s rearmament? Was the Soviet Union preparing for peace by spending 15-20% of its GDP on the Red Army?

All Caplan has demonstrated is that there are aggressive people and regimes out there, and that non-aggressors are naive to believe that those people and regimes will not attack you if you are not armed against them.

Caplan’s particular brand of pacifism is worse than naive, however. It is also imbued with moral relativism, which I address in “Inside-Outside“:

[W]ho better to help you defend yourself than the people with whom you share space, be it a neighborhood, a city-state, a principality, or even a vast nation? As a member of one or the other, you may be targeted for harm by outsiders who wish to seize your land and control your wealth, or who simply dislike your way of life, even if it does them no harm….

…[Caplan] considers the differential treatment of insiders and outsiders to be an unmitigated wrong. But group cohesion is a prudential social instinct that no amount of rationalism can obliterate. Differential treatment of insiders and outsiders is an inevitable aspect of that prudential social instinct. It is not, at bottom, a moral issue.

To the Caplans of this world, the outsider who would attack you is your moral equal. He just happens to be “over there.”

It is true that one may be attacked from within, by one’s supposed allies. But that does not lessen the need to be prepared for attacks from without. In fact, it points to the virtue of preparedness, generally.

Ronald Reagan, in the context of arms-limitation talks with the USSR, often said “Trust, but verify.” I would change the saying to this: “Trust those who have earned your trust; be armed against the rest.”

The wisdom of preparedness is nowhere better illustrated than in the world of the internet, where every innocent user is a target for the twisted and vicious purveyors of malware. I am far from a computer expert, but my limited knowledge of computing has enabled me to root out malware thrice in the past few years — once for my wife, once for my father-in-law, and once (just yesterday) for myself. Think of the many completely inexpert users whose systems are fatally compromised or restored only at great trouble and expense because they are defenseless against the jackals who roam the internet.

The Caplans of this world simply don’t want to admit that there are “good” people and “bad” people, and that it is necessary for the “good” people to arm themselves against the “bad” people. In fact, the actions of individuals who promulgate malware and terrorist groups like Al Qaeda make a good case for preemptive warfare.

As for the true state of the world, I find apt a passage from Simon Mawer’s novel, The Gospel of Judas, which centers on a laicized Catholic priest named Leo Newman. Toward the end of the story, which is about the discovery of an alternative account of the life and death of Jesus by Judas Iscariot, a French priest encounters Newman and says,

Newman, you are one of those sentimentalists, who see Jesus Christ as a kind of social worker and the Christian faith as a series of conveniently liberal moral precepts. No wonder you abandoned the Church…. The Almighty is not a liberal, Monsieur Newman… The Almighty is the driving force for the entire universe and the universe is not a very liberal place. That is what the modern world seems not to understand….

Pacifists are sentimentalists who see the world as a benign place, which can be tamed by their moral precepts. They can afford their naivete because they are sheltered from the real world by the cops and soldiers whose efforts they scorn.

A Modest (Passenger-Screening) Proposal

It seems that TSA allows some government officials to skip airport security. That’s fair enough; they’re probably trustworthy individuals, even if I wouldn’t want to have a beer with them or invite them to my home.

In their trustworthiness lies the solution to the screening brouhaha. Well, almost. Democrats aren’t trustworthy because they hang out with the likes of Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright. (Belated repudiations don’t count.)

So, let’s start with high-ranking Republican officials. A good place to start would be with the 290 or so Republican members of the next Congress, the one that will convene in January. Let’s allow each of them to name 20 other trustworthy U.S. citizens. Assuming a duplication rate of 50 percent, the net result would be a list of 2,900 trustworthy persons (290 x 10). If each of them names 20 other trustworthy persons (of whom half are duplicates), the next round produces a list of 29,000 persons. The next round produces 290,000; the next, 2,900,000; and the next 29,000,000.

If, along the way, some of the Republicans name Democrats who are trustworthy — which is possible, I suppose — the next round would bring the total to 290,000,000 trustworthy persons. That’s certainly more than the number of U.S. citizens who would want to fly on a commercial aircraft.

So, in a matter of seven rounds, which should take only a few months to complete, TSA could have a list of all the citizens who don’t need to be screened for flights leaving the U.S. or bound for the U.S. Everyone else (in the U.S. or abroad) would have to endure a body scan, pat-down, or whatever else TSA can dream up to make them uncomfortable. Foreign-based flights wouldn’t be allowed to land in the U.S. unless passengers not on the trustworthy list are screened under TSA supervision.

P.S. To ensure that individuals give some thought to the trustworthiness of the persons they name, there would be a harsh penalty attached to the naming of a person who commits, or tries to commit, a terrorist act on an airplane or in an airport. The penalty? The prominent publication via the internet of the irresponsible person’s body scan — front, sides, and back — accompanied by the person’s mug shot and home address.

The Body-Scan Brouhaha, Revised and Extended

Here.

The Body-Scan Brouhaha

REVISED AND EXTENDED 11/21/10

I am sympathetic to those who detest the thought — and intrusiveness — of body scans and pat-downs.

One solution — which has the ring of rationality — is to allow airlines to offer flights with varying degrees of preflight screening, and to price the flights accordingly. But that solution is unworkable; there just aren’t enough flights going to the same place at about the same time to afford the traveler a real choice for any particular trip.

It is evident that travelers are paying the price for political correctness, and that the price is getting too high for a lot of them. In a case like this, I take vociferous opposition by some travelers, together with the outraged outpourings of columnists and editorialists, as evidence that the silent majority is fed up. (See, for example, this, this, and this.) Now, the question is whether there will be enough outrage among members of Congress to put a stop to the foolishness and follow the lead of the Israelis.

On this issue, I blame Geogre W. Bush, who wanted to seem so even-handed toward Muslims that he wouldn’t overrule then-sectrary of transportation Norman Mineta’s anti-profiling policy. Once TSA’s screening policy headed in that direction, a Democrat administration certainly wasn’t about to reverse it.

The answer, it seems to me, is to adopt El Al’s way of doing things:

Passengers are asked to report three hours before departure. All El Al terminals around the world are closely monitored for security. There are plain-clothes agents and fully armed police or military personnel who patrol the premises for explosives, suspicious behavior, and other threats. Inside the terminal, passengers and their baggage are checked by a trained team. El Al security procedures require that all passengers be interviewed individually prior to boarding, allowing El Al staff to identify possible security threats. Passengers will be asked questions about where they are coming from, the reason for their trip, their job or occupation, and whether they have packed their bags themselves. The likelihood of potential terrorists remaining calm under such questioning is believed to be low (see microexpression).^[38]

At the check-in counter, passengers’ passports and tickets are closely examined. A ticket without a sticker from the security checkers will not be accepted. At passport control passengers’ names are checked against information from the FBI, Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), Scotland Yard, Shin Bet, and Interpol databases. Luggage is screened and sometimes hand searched. In addition, bags are put through a decompression chamber simulating pressures during flight that could trigger explosives.^[39] El Al is the only airline in the world that passes all luggage through such a chamber.^[40] Even at overseas airports, El Al security agents conduct all luggage searches personally, even if they are supervised by government or private security firms.^[41]

….

Critics of El Al note that its security checks on passengers include racial profiling^[51] and have argued that such profiling is unfair, irrational, and degrading to those subject to such screening. Supporters of El Al argue that there is nothing inherently racist about passenger profiling and that special scrutiny of Muslims may often be necessary for security purposes.

The alternative — which, I gather, libertarian purists would prefer — is to drop screening altogether because, after all, how much risk is there, really? Well, libertarian purists are the kind of people who would have us disarm because, after all, no one is threatening to invade the country, right?

When I get on an airplane, everyone else on that plan (except my wife) is a potential threat to me. I am willing to put up with security measures of the right kind. I am not willing to put up with unnecessarily intrusive measures, which are inflicted on me and most of my fellow travelers simply because “our” government refuses to focus on the source of the threat.

I Want My Country Back

When a Tea Partier says something like “I want my county back,” leftists reliably label the sentiment as racist, sexist, homophobic, mean-spirited, and a lot of other things that are meant to be uncomplimentary. Well, I’m not an active member of the Tea Party movement, but I am sympathetic to it. And if I were to say “I want my country back,” here’s what I would mean by it:

Let’s start with the unlawfulness of government. The Constitution of the United States creates a “national” government of limited and enumerated powers, to act on behalf of the States and their citizens in certain matters. This “national” government has nevertheless blatantly and persistently exceeded its rightful powers. Moreover, much of what is done by all governments — not just the “national” government — is in fact unlawful at its core. There is a fundamental tenet of law — one that precedes and informs the Constitution — which is that “law” is law only when it serves the general welfare, regardless of its official status as an legislative, executive, or judicial act. Therefore, it is truly unlawful for the “national” government or any other government in the United States to interfere with the lives, liberty, or property of Americans for the purpose of promoting special interests, however laudable those interests may seem. And yet, the “laws” under which Americans labor are, in the main, enactments that serve special interests and the power-lust of politicians, bureaucrats, and judges. In sum, I want my country (and its various parts) to return to the true “rule of law,” which is to promote the general welfare by

protecting all Americans from their enemies within and without

ensuring the free movement of all Americans

ensuring the free exchange of goods and services

and nothing more.

One of the most insidious ways in which government interferes with our liberty is by exercising a subtle but powerful form of thought control. It is not the business of government to tell us what to believe or how we must arrive at our beliefs. But government — which puts it imprimatur on the vast majority of educational institutions and much of the “factual” information in many fields of endeavor — does all of those things. Thus, contrary to the intentions of the Founders, we have become a nation imbued with official beliefs about matters ranging from the origins of the universe to the goodness of our enemies to the climatic effects of (puny) human endeavors.

One of the key beliefs instilled by government — directly and through those who are in its thrall — is its beneficent role in our economic and social affairs. It never seems to occur to the proponents of governmental interference — or to its relatively few of its opponents — that there is a living, breathing case study which disproves the beneficence of economic meddling. When government spending and regulation played a tiny role in the economic affairs of the United States — from the 1790s to around 1900 — GDP grew at an annual rate of 4.2 percent. Now, with the regulatory-welfare state fully upon us, GDP grows at an annual rate of 3.1 percent (and falling). The difference between those two rates — when compounded over a generation, a lifetime, or a century — ranges from significantly large to enormous. The road to economic lassitude is paved by the good intentions of regulation and spending by government. Liberty — part of which is the right to make mistakes and benefit from the resulting lessons — is a collateral victim of regulatory zeal. Liberty is a victim of government spending, as well, because it deprives individuals of some portion of the rewards for their labor and capital, and the full enjoyment of those rewards.

With respect to social matters, there is only one way to put it: Government is an enemy of society. Its main mission, when you think about it for more than a minute, is to supplant voluntary and beneficial social arrangements with schemes hatched in the vacuum of intellectualism. It is as if there were nothing to the eons-long learning that is expressed in the Ten Commandments and Golden Rule, and embodied in churches, clubs, and other voluntary, private associations. We must, instead, take our social marching orders from elites, who have their own peculiar views of what is right and just: serial polygamy, pederasty, and infanticide, to name just a few things. The social engineering favored by intellectualoids arises not from the wisdom of tradition, which fosters stable, trusting, and supportive social relationships, but from idle theorizing and a large dose of adolescent and post-adolescent rebellion.

Now, after a more than a century of “progressive” destruction of the Constitution and its restraints on government, Americans no longer enjoy the protection of government and the self-policing restraints of social custom. Instead, Americans suffer the fads and whims of the self-anointed, whose legacy lingers after their departure from the scene.

Now, after more than a century of “progressive” interference in the economic affairs of Americans, our progeny face unaffordable financial commitments, which they will be expected to honor even as their standard of living withers under the assault of taxation and regulation.

Now, after more than a century of social experimentation in which anti-social behavior has been exalted and long-standing voluntary social arrangements and institutions have been stripped of their authority, too many of our progeny are hooked on hard drugs, casual sex, and gratuitous violence as forms of “entertainment” and as “lifestyles.”

I want my country back.

The “Forthcoming Financial Collapse”

I have written before about my membership in a Google Group

whose active members are retired scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and economists — some in their upper 80s — who worked on defense issues from the 1940s to the 2000s….

Most members of the group were government employees and/or employees of government contractors. Their attraction to government service — and its steady and rather handsome paychecks — derives, in good part, from their belief in the power of government to “solve problems,” and in the need for government to do just that. It is only natural, then, that many members of the group hold an unrealistically exalted view of the power of quantitative methods to “solve problems,” while holding naive views about the machinations of government, human nature, and history. (The pioneers of military operations research in the United States, by contrast, were realistic about the relative impotence of quantitative analysis of complex, dynamic processes.)

Here, for example, is a recent communication from one of the group’s older members:

A political scientist and former Foreign Service Officer friend proposes the following which, if valid, may complicate the U.S.’s capability to handle the forthcoming financial collapse of our country.

His formulation is as follows: (1) The World Trade Center attacks grievously damaged our self-confidence but did little but material damage. (2) On the other hand, the collapse of Lehman Brothers had impacts across the financial world and among the Central Banks of many countries. In effect, the U.S. was the instrument inflicting damage and loss on both trading partners and creditors.

Do we agree that the second is the more serious. What may be the dimensions of the impact?

If I were to reply, this is what I would say:

Your message is provocative in more than one respect. I won’t get into the material effect of the 9/11 attacks, except to say that the assessment that they caused “little material damage” seems to ignore the economic after-shock and the value of 3,000 lives lost. But I am more concerned with the policy implications of your friend’s formulation, and with what you call “the forthcoming financial collapse of our country.”

I have trouble with your friend’s formulation because it involves an irrelevant comparison. On the one hand, there was a deliberate attack on the U.S. by a foreign enemy. On the other hand, a major investment bank failed, in large part because of investments in bad securities that were issued pursuant to policies of the U.S. government (sub-prime mortgage loans and low interest rates). These are not mutually exclusive events, and should be considered separately in devising appropriate government policies (including a hands-off policy). I am sure that your friend would prefer fewer bank failures, but not at the cost of more terrorist attacks.

I turn now to government’s role (or lack thereof) in securing our economic future. Let’s begin with the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Lehman was allowed to fail because government officials didn’t want to send a “signal” that a bailout would be an automatic reward for failure. But those same officials, in their panic, reversed course with respect to other financial institutions and bailed them out. The bailouts didn’t really help credit markets (as they were supposed to) because — quite reasonably in the aftermath of a government-caused financial panic and recession — the bailed-out institutions (and others) have been slow to lend, while individuals and businesses have been slow to borrow. What the bailouts mainly did was to reinforce the view that government (i.e., taxpayers) will bear the costs of foolish endeavors — which only encourages banks (and other businesses) to undertake more foolish endeavors. The price for those endeavors will come due at the bursting of the next bubble, whatever it is and whenever it occurs.

If there is any lesson to be taken from the comparison offered by your friend, it is an old one that most Americans seem not to have learned: The real job of government is to protect citizens from foreign and domestic predators. Government does that badly enough (though I would rather have it done by government than by private parties, namely, warlords). Government is even worse at other things, like intervening in economic affairs, the unseen cost of which — in forgone economic output — dwarfs the amount spent by governments (at all levels) on defense and law-enforcement. This comparison is apt because we could better afford to pay for the protective services of government, were it to butt out of our economic affairs.

This brings me to “the forthcoming financial collapse of our country.” I assume that you refer to the huge obligations incurred by the federal government in the form of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid — and the promised expansion of these by what has become known as Obamacare. These obligations, which now consume about 10 percent of GDP, will consume 25 percent of GDP before the end of this century. Add to them the cost of other governmental functions and the regulatory obstacles that government throws into the path of economic growth, and you do have something like an economic disaster in the making — but it may occur in slow motion (as it has for the past century), rather than in the form of a dramatic collapse.

One result of the slow-motion disaster could be a “sovereign debt crisis,” namely, the inability of the U.S. government to sell its debt except, perhaps, at very high rates of interest. In the alternative, the government, acting through the Fed, would simply “print money” in an effort to inflate its way out of the problem. But that would only make government debt less marketable while further stifling economic growth by creating great uncertainty in capital markets. The bottom line is that the “forthcoming financial collapse” — or its slow-motion equivalent — is of the government’s making, and can be averted only by getting government out of the business of running the inter-generational Ponzi schemes that we know as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

The real strength of the “country” is its people and their voluntary social and business arrangements. It is not government, which — contrary to the views of “progressives” — stands in the way of progress and prosperity.

A Moralist’s Moral Blindness

Bryan Caplan restates his version of the Golden Rule, which is that “we” ought to be treated just as “we” would treat others. (My take on Caplan’s earlier post is here.) Much as I like the Golden Rule, for its civilizing influence on humans, I am not a simple-minded moralist like Caplan and other libertarian purists.

Caplan objects to the “double standard” by which Americans, for example, would praise the killing of enemy civilians, were it a necessary act of war, but condemn the killing of 3,000 Americans by an enemy who proclaims his act necessary in the service of some objective. I wonder if Caplan would object to the “double standard” when faced with the prospect of his children being among the 3,000 Americans killed.

The Golden Rule also is known as the ethic of reciprocity, and for a good reason. For the Golden Rule to operate effectively, it must be accompanied by a reasonable expectation that your mundane acts of self-restraint and helpfulness will be returned in kind by persons whose lives touch yours, or with whom you share a bond of kinship or culture.

The Golden Rule simply doesn’t operate very well across personal, familial, or cultural boundaries, Caplan’s wishful thinking to the contrary. (Consider, for example, the rudeness that often prevails in anonymous encounters over the internet and on the highway.) And there is no inherent reason that the Golden Rule should operate well across those boundaries, just because Caplan (or any other intellectual) asserts that it should. Who died and left him (and his ilk) in charge?

There are other moral considerations at work, aside from reciprocity. One of them, which I discussed in my previous post, is the ethic of mutual defense:

[W]ho better to help you defend yourself than the people with whom you share space, be it a neighborhood, a city-state, a principality, or even a vast nation? As a member of one or the other, you may be targeted for harm by outsiders who wish to seize your land and control your wealth, or who simply dislike your way of life, even if it does them no harm.

If, like Caplan, you are willing to allow an enemy to obliterate some of your fellow citizens because you have obliterated some enemy citizens, you are not to be trusted. You might as well be an enemy.

More generally, Caplan’s moral blindness betrays his Rationalism. As Michael Oakeshott explains,

the Rationalist never doubts the power of his ‘reason … to determine the worth of a thing, the truth of an opinion or the propriety of an action. Moreover, he is fortified by a belief in a ‘reason’ common to all mankind, a common power of rational consideration….

… And having cut himself off from the traditional knowledge of his society, and denied the value of any education more extensive than a training in a technique of analysis, he is apt to attribute to mankind a necessary inexperience in all the critical moments of life, and if he were more self-critical he might begin to wonder how the race had ever succeeded in surviving. (“Rationalism in Politics,” pp. 5-7, as republished in Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays)

Thomas Sowell puts it this way:

One of the things intellectuals [his Rationalists] have been doing for a long time is loosening the bonds that hold a society [or a nation] together. They have sought to replace the groups into which people have sorted themselves with groupings created and imposed by the intelligentsia. Ties of family, religion, and patriotism, for example, have long been treated as suspect or detrimental by the intelligentsia….

Under the influence of the intelligentsia, we have become a society that rewards people with admiration for violating its own norms and for fragmenting that society into jarring segments. In addition to explicit denigrations of their own society for its history or current shortcomings, intellectuals often set up standards for their society which no society has ever met or is likely to meet.

Calling those standards “social justice” enables intellectuals to engage in endless complaints about the particular ways in which society fails to meet their arbitrary criteria, along with a parade of groups entitled to a sense of grievance, exemplified in the “race, class and gender” formula…. (Intellectuals and Society, pp. 303, 305)

Sowell’s attack is aimed at left-wing intellectuals, but it could just as well be aimed at libertarian purists like Caplan and his ilk.

Inside-Outside

Bryan Caplan seems to think that the tendency of geographically proximate groups to band together in self-defense is a kind of psychological defect. He refers to it as “group-serving bias.”

It is nothing of the kind, however. It is a simple case of self-defense. And who better to help you defend yourself than the people with whom you share space, be it a neighborhood, a city-state, a principality, or even a vast nation? As a member of one or the other, you may be targeted for harm by outsiders who wish to seize your land and control your wealth, or who simply dislike your way of life, even if it does them no harm.

The cause of Caplan’s confusion is his adherence to a kind of libertarian idealism. In the anti-war argot of the 1960s, it was expressed as “Why can’t we all just get along?” But hope is not reality, Caplan notwithstanding.

Not getting along, to Caplan, is a moral defect. He therefore considers the differential treatment of insiders and outsiders to be an unmitigated wrong. But group cohesion is a prudential social instinct that no amount of rationalism can obliterate. Differential treatment of insiders and outsiders is an inevitable aspect of that prudential social instinct. It is not, at bottom, a moral issue.

If Caplan were logically consistent, he would focus his moral lens on the animal kingdom. There is plenty of inter-group conflict to condemn there: shark vs. tuna, cheetah vs. antelope, spider vs. fly, and so on. In the case of man vs. cattle (hog, fish, fowl, or other living thing), I wonder if Caplan opts for veganism? It would be the proper choice — for him.

September 11

Never forgive, never forget, never relent.

Related post: September 11: A Remembrance

The Meaning of the Mosque Controversy

The controversy about the ground-zero mosque — which is summarized here — reminds me of an old post of mine, “Losing Sight of the Objective”:

Those who are so keen to bestow constitutional rights on terrorists have lost sight of a key purpose — perhaps the key purpose — of the Constitution: to provide for the common defense. Of Americans. Against their enemies: foreign and domestic, overt and covert.

Whether the mosque will serve as a front for terrorist activity remains to be seen. But there is good reason to suspect that it will. And if it does, it will be further evidence that America’s “leaders” have lost sight of the objective in their rush to display “tolerance” for everyone — well, tolerance for everyone but heterosexual, white Christians and Jews; for example:

St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, which once sat right across the street from the World Trade Center, was crushed under the weight of the collapse of Tower Two on September 11, 2001. St. Nicholas was the only church to be lost in the attacks, and nine years later, while City of New York officials are busy removing every impediment to the building of the Cordoba mosque two blocks from the site, St. Nicholas’ future remains unclear.

The last bit of hopeful news for St. Nicholas came two years ago, in July 2008, when church officials and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced a deal which would have allowed the church to be rebuilt about two blocks from its original location….

Trouble emerged after St. Nicholas announced its plans to build a traditional Greek Orthodox church building, 24,000 square feet in size, topped with a grand dome. Port Authority officials told the church to cut back the size of the building and the height of the proposed dome, limiting it to rising no higher than the World Trade Center memorial. The deal fell apart for good in March 2009, when the Port Authority abruptly ended the talks after refusing to allow church officials to review plans for the garage and screening area underneath. Sixteen months later, the two sides have still not met to resume negotiations.

St. Nicholas Church’s difficulty in getting approvals to rebuild stands in stark contrast to the treatment that the developers of the proposed Cordoba mosque have received. New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, state Atty. Gen. Andrew Cuomo, and a raft of city officials have all come out publicly in favor of building the mosque, and the city’s Landmarks and Preservation Commission recently voted unanimously to deny protection to the building currently occupying the site where the mosque is to be built.

The mosque is proposed to rise 13 stories, far above the height of the World Trade Center memorial, with no height restrictions imposed. (Mark Imponemi, “Mosque Moves Forward, Yet Church in Limbo“)

The case of the ground-zero mosque is only a symptom of the larger problem, which is denial and appeasement. Bill Whittle spells it out in a 13-minute video, “Ground Zero Mosque Reality Check.” Denial and appeasement arise from what Thomas Sowell calls one-day-at-a-time rationalism:

One-day-at-a-time rationalism [addresses] the immediate implications of each issue as it arises, missing wider implications of a decision…. A classic example was a French intellectual’s response to the Czechoslovakian crisis that led to the Munich conference of 1938:

…Joseph Barthélemy, who taught constitutional law at the University of Paris and was French representative at the League of Nations, asked in Le Temps the question French leaders had to answer: “Is it worthwhile setting fire to the world in order to save the Czechoslovak state… ? Is it necessary that three million Frenchman …. would be sacrificed to maintain three million Germans under Czech sovereignty?

Since it was not France that was threatening to set fire to the world, but Hitler, the larger question was whether someone who was threatening to set fire to the world if he didn’t get his way was someone who should be appeased in this one-day-at-a time approach, without regard to what this appeasement could do to encourage a never-ending series of escalating demands. By Contrast, Winston Churchill had pointed out, six years earlier, that “every concession which has been made” to Germany “has been followed immediately by a fresh demand.” Churchill clearly rejected one-day-at-a-time rationalism. (Intellectuals and Society, p. 31)

Leftists will embrace the cause of the ground-zero mosque because it is in their nature to embrace anything that undermines civil society. Libertarian purists will embrace it because they embrace one-day-at-a-time rationalism (e.g., this blogger).

As a libertarian realist, I am prepared to say that the mosque should not rise if it is likely to become a front for terrorist activity. I am keeping my eyes on the objective, which is the defense of Americans’ lives, liberty, and property: against their enemies foreign and domestic, overt and covert.

Delusions of Preparedness

The current push to trim the defense budget is foolish on two counts. First, the huge deficits projected for the federal government arise mainly from commitments to continue and expand three major entitlement programs: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid (Obamacare represents an expansion of all three). Second, the defense budget should be geared to external threats, not to the federal government’s fiscal problems. Cutting the defense budget to fund profligate spending on “social services” is like preparing for a street brawl by spending money on a new suit instead of brass knuckles.

There is, nevertheless, a tendency in political-punditry circles to bemoan the amounts spent on defense. Anti-defense zealots get it into their heads that the government spends “too much” on defense — period. What they mean, of course, is that the government spends money to execute wars of which they disapprove, and to prepare for wars that they would rather not think about. There is also the fear — now that the looming bankruptcy of entitlement programs cannot be denied — that money will be taken from “social services” rather than defense.

On that score, it is well to remember the words of Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir John Slessor:

It is customary in democratic countries to deplore expenditures on armaments as conflicting with the requirements of the social services. There is a tendency to forget that the most important social service that a government can do for its people is to keep them alive and free.

Rather than take money from defense, our “leaders” should be thinking about how to spend more on defense. Nothing is more inviting to an aggressor than his intended victim’s lack of preparedness.

A common mistake, even among students of war, is to assume that there will be time to mobilize American’s economic engine, as in World War II. But that was before the advent of nuclear weapons, long-range missiles, and the ability of terrorists and cyber-warriors to create economic and military chaos. I submit that America’s strength vis-a-vis its actual and potential enemies now requires the following:

1. secured/hardened/redundant telecommunications (including internet), transportation, and energy networks

2. effective strategic and tactical intelligence (necessarily more intrusive than desired by civil-liberties purists)

3. quick response (at home and abroad) to tactical intelligence via special operations units (including some that can respond in kind to cyber-attacks)

4. a large “standing army,” with a broad range of strategic and conventional forces that are fully manned and trained, well-maintained and supplied, and technologically advanced — to deter and, as necessary, fight hostile regimes that pose threats to Americans and their overseas interests.

It is my sense that our current and planned defenses do not measure up to those requirements. The talk of cutting the defense budget should be scuttled, as should the “social services” that are the real cause of the government’s fiscal problems.

The Decision to Drop the Bomb

The final words with respect to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — as far as I am concerned — were written five years ago by Richard B. Frank in The Weekly Standard (“Why Truman Dropped the Bomb“) and Victor Davis Hanson at National Review Online (“Considering Hiroshima“). Here’s an excerpt of Frank’s piece:

The sixtieth anniversary of Hiroshima seems to be shaping up as a subdued affair–though not for any lack of significance. A survey of news editors in 1999 ranked the dropping of the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945, first among the top one hundred stories of the twentieth century. And any thoughtful list of controversies in American history would place it near the top again. It was not always so. In 1945, an overwhelming majority of Americans regarded as a matter of course that the United States had used atomic bombs to end the Pacific war. They further believed that those bombs had actually ended the war and saved countless lives. This set of beliefs is now sometimes labeled by academic historians the “traditionalist” view. One unkindly dubbed it the “patriotic orthodoxy.”

But in the 1960s, what were previously modest and scattered challenges of the decision to use the bombs began to crystallize into a rival canon. The challengers were branded “revisionists,” but this is inapt. Any historian who gains possession of significant new evidence has a duty to revise his appreciation of the relevant events. These challengers are better termed critics.

The critics share three fundamental premises. The first is that Japan’s situation in 1945 was catastrophically hopeless. The second is that Japan’s leaders recognized that fact and were seeking to surrender in the summer of 1945. The third is that thanks to decoded Japanese diplomatic messages, American leaders knew that Japan was about to surrender when they unleashed needless nuclear devastation. The critics divide over what prompted the decision to drop the bombs in spite of the impending surrender, with the most provocative arguments focusing on Washington’s desire to intimidate the Kremlin. Among an important stratum of American society–and still more perhaps abroad–the critics’ interpretation displaced the traditionalist view….

[I]t is clear [from a review of the evidence now available] that all three of the critics’ central premises are wrong. The Japanese did not see their situation as catastrophically hopeless. They were not seeking to surrender, but pursuing a negotiated end to the war that preserved the old order in Japan, not just a figurehead emperor. Finally, thanks to radio intelligence, American leaders, far from knowing that peace was at hand, understood–as one analytical piece in the “Magic” Far East Summary stated in July 1945, after a review of both the military and diplomatic intercepts–that “until the Japanese leaders realize that an invasion can not be repelled, there is little likelihood that they will accept any peace terms satisfactory to the Allies.” This cannot be improved upon as a succinct and accurate summary of the military and diplomatic realities of the summer of 1945.

The final words go to Hanson:

The truth . . is that usually in war there are no good alternatives, and leaders must select between a very bad and even worse choice. Hiroshima was the most awful option imaginable, but the other scenarios would have probably turned out even worse.

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Never forgive, never forget, never relent.

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