Unhand Us, Greybeard Loon!
In commenting on the last Republican Presidential debate in the online Ricochet discussion that took place while it was underway, I predicted that Ron Paul would win the Iowa caucus. Later in the debate, when Michele Bachmann tore into him with regard to his views on foreign policy, Peter Robinson asked whether I would like to revise my prediction, and, impressed by the tongue-lashing she administered to her fellow Congressman, I backed off. If the latest polls are any guide, however, I may well have been wrong to abandon my original intuition.
I do not share the Iowans’ admiration for the Congressman from South Texas, but I sympathize with it. In the debates, on economic matters, his observations have been cogent and concise. As anyone who has read Friedrich Hayek can easily comprehend, there is a powerful case to be made against what Franklin Delano Roosevelt called “rational administration,” especially in the economic sphere; and Ron Paul knows how to make the argument. In addition, we have to face up to the fact that his rivals leave much to be desired. In a time of crisis, when Americans are more ready than at any time in my lifetime to return to their roots and embrace the cause of limited government, there is no one in the Presidential race of obvious stature, demonstrated competence, and evident eloquence who is willing and able to articulate the case for limited government.
What we have, instead, are a tongue-tied Governor from Texas who knows next to nothing about the national government; a Congresswoman who has never even chaired a committee, who cannot hold onto staff, who commands no support from among her colleagues, and who is apt to descend into demagoguery; a two-term former Senator who lost his seat by a margin of 18% and commands no support from among his former colleagues; a disgraced former Speaker of the House with a taste for adultery, an admiration for the “model” on which Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were based, and a penchant for embracing the latest left-liberal fads; and a one-term former Governor with a gift for losing elections who pioneered the program on which Obamacare is modeled and who thinks the individual mandate a policy that conservatives should adopt. In such a field, to the unsuspecting glance, Ron Paul – who is by all accounts good-humored and charming – looks pretty good. I have a colleague who has known him for many years who firmly believes that he is an honorable man.
I do not, however, possess an unsuspecting glance, and about Ron Paul’s honor, I harbor grave doubts. When one examines the Congressman’s record more closely and when one explores what he professes to stand for today, he seems far less attractive. As Julian Sanchez and David Weigel documented four years ago in an article in the libertarian journal Reason Magazine, back in the 1980s, Ron Paul, Murray Rothbard, and a handful of other libertarians formed a political alliance with a group of paleo-conservatives – most of them unreconstructed Confederates, and some of them out-and-out racists. Their closest ally within this camp was Llewelyn Rockwell, Jr., who served as Paul’s congressional chief of staff from 1978 to 1982 and was vice-president of Ron Paul & Associates, the highly profitable outfit that published the Ron Paul Political Report and the Ron Paul Survival Report, and Paul, Rothbard, and Rockwell ostentatiously modeled their project on the demagogic populism pioneered by Senator Joseph McCarthy and Louisiana’s David Duke. As Sanchez and Weigel put it, “During the period when the most incendiary items appeared—roughly 1989 to 1994—Rockwell and the prominent libertarian theorist Murray Rothbard championed an open strategy of exploiting racial and class resentment to build a coalition with populist "paleoconservatives," producing a flurry of articles and manifestos whose racially charged talking points and vocabulary mirrored the controversial Paul newsletters recently unearthed by The New Republic.”
One could, of course, choose to resolutely ignore the conspiracy-mongering, the racial prejudice, the anti-Semitism, and the visceral hostility to the homoerotically inclined which was propagated in the newsletters published by Ron Paul & Associates. One could avert one’s gaze from the implications of a remark that the Congressman once made to Cato Institute President Ed Crane: that “his best source of congressional campaign donations was the mailing list for The Spotlight, the conspiracy-mongering, anti-Semitic tabloid run by the Holocaust denier Willis Carto until it folded in 2001.” And the partisans of Ron Paul – like the partisans of Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich – are inclined to be highly selective in singling out what they take to be the elements in their hero’s record that are legitimate for the rest of us to discuss. “That was then,” they say,” and this is now. Focus on the positive, get with the program, and rally around our champion.”
I think that this is a mistaken approach. If you want to try to understand what Romney or Gingrich or any other candidate would be apt to do if elected President, one would do well to look at the overall record in speech and deed of each, and the same can be said of Ron Paul. The Congressman from Texas may or may not himself be a racist, an anti-Semite, a homophobe, and a believer in conspiracies, but he was certainly willing to trade on the racism, the anti-Semitism, the homophobia, and the gullibility of others – and he has not fully abandoned the stratagems that enriched him twenty years ago, made him a national figure, and earned him in certain circles a cult-like status. As James Kirchik, the journalist who first dug up the newsletters four years ago, has recently reported in The New Republic, Paul, “who once entertained the notion that AIDS was invented in a government laboratory,” asserted just last January “that there had been a ‘CIA coup’ against the American government and that the Agency is ‘in drug businesses.’” Moreover, Paul
appears regularly on the radio program of Alex Jones, perhaps the most popular conspiracy theorist in America (profiled by TNR in 2009), where he often indulges the host’s delusional ravings about the coming “New World Order.” He continues to associate with the John Birch Society, the extreme-right wing organization that William F. Buckley denounced in the early 1960’s after it alleged that none other than President Dwight D. Eisenhower was a “dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy.” Asked about the group in 2007, Paul told the New York Times, “Oh, my goodness, the John Birch Society! Is that bad? I have a lot of friends in the John Birch Society.” Indeed, Paul delivered the keynote address at the organization’s 50th anniversary dinner in September.
There is, in fact, much in Ron Paul’s record that gibes far better with the nativism of a Pat Buchanan (whose Presidential campaign he supported in 1992) than with mainstream libertarianism. As libertarian Ilya Somin points out, with considerable consistency, Paul has opposed free-trade agreements, school vouchers, and relaxed strictures on immigration, and he has resolutely refused to distance himself from “the Stormfront neo-Nazis, racists, 9/11 "Truthers," and other assorted wackos who have endorsed him.” Those who compare Congressman Paul’s persistent association with unsavory characters to that of Barack Obama with Bill Ayers and the Reverend Jeremiah Wright have a point. It may not be an accident that Ron Paul has less appeal among genuine Republicans in Iowa than among certain Democrats and independents. Like his friend Buchanan, he is, in some respects, the heir of George Wallace.
Ron Paul’s stance on foreign affairs gibes well with the various species of xenophobia that he has stoked now for decades. In this respect, he is an heir to the thinking that undergirded the old American First Committee – which once drew support from people as respectable as Potter Stewart, Gerald Ford, Kingman Brewster, William H. Regnery, H. Smith Richardson, Robert E. Wood, Sterling Morton, Joseph M. Patterson, Robert R. McCormick, Sargent Shriver, and John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Of course, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the German Declaration of War woke these men up from their dogmatic slumber. But there were others – on the left and on the right – who stuck to their guns, and the numbers in their ranks swelled in the course of the Vietnam War. Poorly conducted wars and ill-advised foreign adventures have a propensity for reviving among the excitable the illusion that the United States can go it alone.
Human beings have a propensity for turning half-truths into overarching doctrines that purport to explain everything, and the academy is the natural locus for doctrinaire thinking of this sort. In this regard, today’s libertarianism is not unlike the old Marxism. It starts with an insight into the way the world works, and some of its adherents take the part for the whole. The old Marxists were right to think that transformations in the means of production have far-reaching consequences. They erred, however, when they jumped to the conclusion that these developments can be made to explain everything. Today’s libertarians are right when they argue that central planning cannot work, that the free market is a mechanism for collecting and distributing information, and that the pretense to “rational administration” is madness. When they assert that recessions are a natural and welcome consequence of the business cycle and that attempts to interfere with this process have a tendency to backfire and produce severe and prolonged downturns, they are on the mark.
When, however, they extend their theory of the spontaneous emergence of order from the economic sphere to foreign affairs, they make a mistake quite similar to the one that the old Marxists made. I have attended small academic conferences in which I have heard libertarians earnestly argue that we, not the Germans or the Japanese, are at fault for our involvement in World War I and World War II. I found these discussions, as I found my interchanges with the old Marxists, stimulating in the extreme. Those who make these arguments are often quite intelligent. They are also doctrinaire to the point of madness. When you are a hammer, everything that you encounter looks like a nail.
How did we get into World War I? Their answer is that we provoked the Germans to attack our ships. We did so by honoring the British blockade against Germany while refusing to honor Germany’s blockade against the British. Had we insisted on our right to trade freely with both, or had we acquiesced in the face of both blockades, we would not have been subject to attack, and we would have avoided a serious loss of American life.
How did we get into World War II? At a certain point, the American government refused to sell oil to the Japanese, and this provoked them into attacking Pearl Harbor and seizing the Philippines. Had we honored the principles of free trade, we would have avoided an armed conflict that resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of American lives.
What this particular sect of libertarians (who are no less apt to divide into sects than were the old Marxists) refuses to acknowledge is that the American people have political interests abroad that are incumbent upon them, if they are to remain secure in the long run, to pursue. For all of his faults (which were legion), Woodrow Wilson understood that it was not in the American interest for a single imperialist power to come to dominate Europe. And for all of his faults (which were also legion), Franklin Delano Roosevelt understood that it was not in the American interest for a single imperialist power to come to dominate Asia. Neither sought war. But both sought to tip the balance against the powers they rightly regarded as a threat to the United States, and soon enough they found themselves drawn into war.
I do not mean to endorse Wilsonian internationalism. That doctrine, rooted in a distortion of the thinking of Immanuel Kant, is as mad as the doctrine embraced by the sect of libertarians that I am discussing. It supposes that there can be a war to end all wars and that the world can be made safe once and for all for democracy. The truth is uglier. In the international sphere, order does not spontaneously emerge. It is imposed. It is, moreover, fragile and temporary always, and “rational administration” within the international sphere of the sort envisaged by Wilson and his admirers is no more effective than “rational administration” of the economy. Like the old Marxists, the Wilsonian internationalists and the libertarian isolationists live in an alternative universe. In the universe in which you and I live, however, there is no substitute for prudence. There are fights that are not worth the candle, and there are fights that are well worth fighting. But there will be fights – and on the basis of a sober assessment of our interests, we must choose when, where, and how to fight. In deciding, we must always look to the particulars.
Ron Paul is an adherent of the doctrinaire libertarian sect to which I refer. When it comes to foreign policy, he is not a prudentialist. He is an ideologue – perfectly willing to deny or ignore the facts if they do not gibe with the doctrine that he has embraced. He is also, let me add, a cagey character. To get a sense of what I mean, take a close look at this statement made by his former staffer Eric Dondero and then consider what the Paul campaign says and does not say pertaining to the Texas Congressman’s stance regarding the Second World War. Paul’s silences are as telling as the words he utters. In this particular, he is very much like Mitt Romney. He is less apt to lie than to speak the truth, nothing but the truth, and only a part of the truth – and to do so in such a manner as to mislead the unwary. His statements sometimes require parsing.
It is in light of this digression that you can understand Ron Paul’s stance regarding Al Q’aeda and Iran. Our troubles are, he persistently tells us, our own fault. We have provoked these people, and what they have done to us in return is perfectly understandable and, he implies, perhaps even just.
We had troops in Saudi Arabia, says the Congressman, and that is why Al Q’aeda attacked the twin towers and the Pentagon (if, of course, it was not the work of Mossad). Ron Paul conveniently ignores the fact that the troops that we stationed in Saudi Arabia were there at the invitation of the government of that country, and he never mentions the fact that the first attack on the twin towers arranged by Al Q’aeda took place before we had any troops in Saudi Arabia at all. In an alternative universe in which the libertarian isolationists reside, inconvenient truths are resolutely ignored.
Ron Paul wears blinders of a similar sort when he discusses Iran. The truth is that the Khomeini regime has been prosecuting a war against us for more than thirty years. At the outset, when Jimmy Carter was President, the theocrats of Iran seized our embassy and took our diplomats hostage. Later, when Ronald Reagan was President, they arranged for a suicide bomber provided by Hezbollah to take out our embassy in Beirut and a great many of our diplomats. Not long thereafter, they did the same for a marine unit posted elsewhere in Lebanon. Later, they arranged for the bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia; and when we were in Iraq, they carried on a covert war in that country against our troops.
In our dealing with Iran, we have been comparatively restrained and circumspect. It is true that, towards the end of the Iran-Iraq War, we provided intelligence support to the Iraqis; and when the Iranians tried to shut down the Gulf, we intervened to keep that shipping lane open. But for the most part we have held our fire, mindful that Iran could easily become a quagmire. And we have repeatedly – from the time of Reagan on (remember the Iran-Contra affair?) – made overtures to the mullahs, but never to any avail.
Given the threats that the mullahs and their minions have directed at us, given their treatment of our diplomats in Teheran, given the attacks they have concerted against our soldiers and diplomats in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, given their open hostility to our long-standing allies, and given the fact that they have prepared forces capable of shutting down the Straits of Hormuz and this past week practiced cutting our lifeline and that of our allies to the oil that travels from the Persian Gulf through those straits, we have reason to take seriously the intelligence reports indicating that the Iranians are preparing to build nuclear weapons and the evidence that they are developing delivery systems capable of reach our allies in the Middle East, Europe, and, perhaps, in time, the United States as well.
What is Ron Paul’s response to these developments? He has rejected the evidence out of hand, he has denied that we have any grounds for concern, and he has called for a 40% cut in our defense budget (as has Gary Johnson of New Mexico). You might want to ask what would be left of that budget were we to cut it by 40%. That budget has four components – legacy obligations (pensions to be paid, medical care to be provided), personnel, equipment, and research on new defense systems. I doubt very much whether Congressman Paul has in mind radically cutting the first of these four – which would leave us with the task of reducing that part of the budget that goes for present and future defense by as much as 60%. What he has in mind is simple – that we give up entirely the capacity to project power beyond our shores – and he means what he says (as does Gary Johnson).
Ron Paul’s premise (and that of Gary Johnson) is the same as that of those on the left who argued (and still argue) that the Cold War was our fault, that we provoked the Soviet Union, that if we had been more accommodating of the legitimate needs of the communist regime all would have been well. The sect within the libertarian camp to which Paul (and Johnson) belong is as loony as the fellow-traveling left, and it is just as dangerous.
As Ricochet member Percival put it in a memorable comment on this site, “If Ron Paul's stance on law enforcement were in line with his foreign policy, we wouldn't try to defend ourselves with expensive police departments. Instead, we'd try to understand the criminals and get along with them by giving them what they want – our stuff.”
- Comment (61)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (7)
Comments:
Dec '10
Re: Unhand Us, Greybeard Loon!
Paul A. Rahe
When, by way of trade policy, for example, we get in the way of the imperial ambition of other states, they will consider attacking us. The alternative, however, would be for us to cooperate with their every desire. The best way to avoid "blowback" of this sort is to be powerful enough militarily that they would not even dare. · Dec 30 at 8:06am
But Prof. Rahe: We're broke. That cannot remain our only answer.
Or do you dispute the fact that we're broke?
Apr '11
Re: Unhand Us, Greybeard Loon!
This is wrong. It's the old saw of the false alternative. Must every alternative force us to "cooperate with their every desire"?
Are you really so unimaginative that you can't see a range of alternatives? No, you are not that unimaginative.Then what are you doing here? The dead give-away was the faulty universalization 'every'.
Alternatives. Perhaps we deny some desires and grant others, as we do with China now. Perhaps we frustrate their desires below the level of provocation, as we do with North Korea now. Perhaps we cooperate and compete at the same time, as we do with Russia today. There are many more.
Before you wrap yourself in the mantle of realist, Aristotelean prudence, you should leave aside the Kantian universals you so despise.
May '10
Re: Unhand Us, Greybeard Loon!
Jeff Younger
This is wrong. It's the old saw of the false alternative. Must every alternative force us to "cooperate with their every desire"?
Are you really so unimaginative that you can't see a range of alternatives? No, you are not that unimaginative.Then what are you doing here? The dead give-away was the faulty universalization 'every'.
Alternatives. Perhaps we deny some desires and grant others, as we do with China now. Perhaps we frustrate their desires below the level of provocation, as we do with North Korea now. Perhaps we cooperate and compete at the same time, as we do with Russia today. There are many more.
Before you wrap yourself in the mantle of realist, Aristotelean prudence, you should leave aside the Kantian universals you so despise. · Dec 30 at 8:31am
Well said.
Oct '11
Re: Unhand Us, Greybeard Loon!
Paul A. Rahe
It was Llewelyn Rockwell who linked the two and saw them as models for the political project that he, Murray Rothbard, and Ron Paul launched. I agree. Whether McCarthy can be defended is an open question (I am inclined to think not, but . . . ). Whether David Duke can be defended is not an open question. Rockwell championed both, as did Ron Paul's newsletters. · Dec 29 at 4:36pm
Edited on Dec 29 at 04:44 pm
Totally agree with your "open" question, in fact David Duke was last seen putting Ron Paul signs in yards by day and defaming innocent cars by nights. Thanks for the a very informative article.
Apr '11
Re: Unhand Us, Greybeard Loon!
Jeff Younger
Alternatives. Perhaps we deny some desires and grant others, as we do with China now. Perhaps we frustrate their desires below the level of provocation, as we do with North Korea now. Perhaps we cooperate and compete at the same time, as we do with Russia today. There are many more.
Remember that in Mr. Paul's world, we have a new calculus, more in keeping with our position in the 1930s - primarily a commercial power, but increasingly not a serious military power.
The success of all these alternatives assumes that we will be taken as seriously in a future in which we lack our military preponderance as a dimension of power, as we are today. This is great for other states that are willing to respect the status quo and to work within its limits. But we don't maintain our military forces to deal with these countries as it is. The problem - going back to Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan and the Soviet Union - is with revisionist powers that do not want to live within that framework, are willing to take what they want when unopposed, and have the ability to strike quickly from afar.
Mar '11
Re: Unhand Us, Greybeard Loon!
Perhaps we deny some desires and grant others, as we do with China now. Perhaps we frustrate their desires below the level of provocation, as we do with North Korea now. Perhaps we cooperate and compete at the same time, as we do with Russia today.
These options assume, at the minimum:
1) We have an intelligence community sufficiently capable to be able to confirm and monitor that what they stipulate their desires are actually reflects their actions, and a robust enough community of analysts that speak the language and know the history to understand the character of their regimes and the strategic imperatives they face. I await Ron Paul proposal.
2) To frustrate their desires we must have a vast array of instruments at our disposal: not only international agencies and the good graces of the neighboring regimes, but, in the particular example you cited with regard to North Korea, but some 30,000 troops along their border, and a very capable fleet based in the near abroad. I await Ron Paul's proposal.
3) A robust military presence on the international stage that reminds them of the limits of desire, a la China and Russia today. See above.
Re: Unhand Us, Greybeard Loon!
KarlUB
Paul A. Rahe
When, by way of trade policy, for example, we get in the way of the imperial ambition of other states, they will consider attacking us. The alternative, however, would be for us to cooperate with their every desire. The best way to avoid "blowback" of this sort is to be powerful enough militarily that they would not even dare. · Dec 30 at 8:06am
But Prof. Rahe: We're broke. That cannot remain our only answer.
Or do you dispute the fact that we're broke? · Dec 30 at 8:18am
Yes, we are not broke. We are an immensely wealth country that spends too much on entitlements. We need to tackle that. In 1960, defense constituted 60% of the federal budget. Now it constitutes 20%.
Re: Unhand Us, Greybeard Loon!
Jeff Younger
This is wrong. It's the old saw of the false alternative. Must every alternative force us to "cooperate with their every desire"?
Are you really so unimaginative that you can't see a range of alternatives? No, you are not that unimaginative.Then what are you doing here? The dead give-away was the faulty universalization 'every'.
Alternatives. Perhaps we deny some desires and grant others, as we do with China now. Perhaps we frustrate their desires below the level of provocation, as we do with North Korea now. Perhaps we cooperate and compete at the same time, as we do with Russia today. There are many more. · Dec 30 at 8:31am
I am not quite sure what your point is. No American administration has ever set out to provoke a war. All have sought to use the levers in their possession to "frustrate" the desires of the empire-builders "below the level of provocation." Sometimes, however, the empire-builders have been provoked. Should that be a surprise?
My point was that the libertarian isolationists reject this approach. Their motto is: "Blame America First."
Sep '11
Re: Unhand Us, Greybeard Loon!
Dr Rahe:
It seems to me that many things the federal government does are unconstitutional. As Antonin Scalia said (and I paraphrase), "we [SCOTUS] don't 'throw out' laws. Things that are unconstitutional weren't laws to begin with." If so, then aren't unconstitutional laws, or at least their enforcement, illegal, regardless of what SCOTUS says about them? I'm not counseling disobeying those "laws", just voting with the understanding that many of them are grossly and obviously illegal. Isn't that of primary importance? How can we live in society under the rule of law if every citizen doesn't act within his purview to uphold the Constitution? My purview is voting (and rambling on Internet forums.)
I think Ron Paul's foreign policy ideas stink, but it's not illegal to have a bad foreign policy. I've never heard him say he wants to do anything that I would consider unconstitutional. So if I'm serious about doing my little bit towards upholding the rule of law, then I'm stuck with him.
Am I wrong? Are my priorities misplaced? (Not asked rhetorically.)
May '10
Re: Unhand Us, Greybeard Loon!
KarlUB:
Given this do you have any advice to offer to those who summarily reject Paul with insults, call his supporters "Paultards," and otherwise pretend like his support is the product of kids smoking too much Mary-Jane, or perhaps the product of a liberal fifth column? · Dec 30 at 7:44am
Karl - Having long admired you for hanging in and continuing to pound away, I think you deserve a response. I can't speak for Professor Rahe, but I use particularly sharp rhetoric about Ron Paul because I am convinced that letting him run anything more important than a soda fountain would be extremely dangerous. His foreign policy views render him absolutely unfit to discharge the responsibilities of the office (I've popped off at length about this, so no need to go further). He also cavorts with ... questionable people and has, at least, sat by as his name was attached to vile things.
We've corresponded at length and I don't doubt your support of the man is anything but honorable. I think I understand why you support him; however, I believe Ron Paul is a terrible champion of the ideals you want to restore to Washington.
May '10
Re: Unhand Us, Greybeard Loon!
Paul A. Rahe
Yes, we are not broke. We are an immensely wealth country that spends too much on entitlements. We need to tackle that. In 1960, defense constituted 60% of the federal budget. Now it constitutes 20%. · Dec 30 at 11:12am
Facts are pesky things. You said that yourself. Right now our national debt exceeds 100 percent of our GDP.
I think that means we're broke. Allocating 20 percent of the GDP to defense, given the facts, is really not feasible. We'll see that soon enough.
Apr '11
Re: Unhand Us, Greybeard Loon!
This is wrong. Paul advocates a raiding strategy not an occupation strategy for national defense. This does not imply a return the the 1930s.
Apr '11
Re: Unhand Us, Greybeard Loon!
Paul A. Rahe When, by way of trade policy, for example, we get in the way of the imperial ambition of other states, they will consider attacking us. The alternative, however, would be for us to cooperate with their every desire. [...]
I am not quite sure what your point is. [...]
My point was that the libertarian isolationists reject this approach. Their motto is: "Blame America First."
My point was that you're using bad rhetoric: you're saying things that are not true.
You give a false choice, the status quo or libertarian acquiescence. But there are many ways to bring our policies in line with libertarian views, and they don't involve cooperating with the imperialist desires of America's enemies. Quite the opposite.
You're not a random internet troll. You know this. Why, then, are you writing these things?
May '11
Re: Unhand Us, Greybeard Loon!
Brandon Zaffini
Paul A. Rahe
Yes, we are not broke. We are an immensely wealth country that spends too much on entitlements. We need to tackle that. In 1960, defense constituted 60% of the federal budget. Now it constitutes 20%. · Dec 30 at 11:12am
Facts are pesky things. You said that yourself. Right now our national debt exceeds 100 percent of our GDP.
I think that means we're broke. Allocating 20 percent of the GDP to defense, given the facts, is really not feasible. We'll see that soon enough. · Dec 30 at 5:37pm
Defense spending is 20% of the Federal Budget, not of GDP. Its more like 4% of GDP. Its also, along with providing justice, the only actual function of the Federal Government. A vigorous defense is easily within our means if we abandon the functions that have no place at the Federal level.
May '11
Re: Unhand Us, Greybeard Loon!
Jeff Younger
My point was that you're using bad rhetoric: you're saying things that are not true.
You give a false choice, the status quo or libertarian acquiescence. But there are many ways to bring our policies in line with libertarian views, and they don't involve cooperating with the imperialist desires of America's enemies. Quite the opposite.
You're not a random internet troll. You know this. Why, then, are you writing these things? · Dec 30 at 10:13pm
Prof. Rahe makes a critique of "libertarian isolationists" and you substitute simply "libertarian" in your replies. Perhaps it is not the Professor's rhetoric that is defecient.
We did have a "peace-at-any-price" majority in America prior to both World Wars. Both Paleocons and Libertarians of the kind described in the original post have pointed to that policy as the correct one, and have treated our provocations as a mistake. It is to these figures and their ideas that Prof. Rahe refers. Jeff Younger has misapplying these criticisms to other kinds of libertarians.
Apr '11
Re: Unhand Us, Greybeard Loon!
Jeff Younger - I guess I have not caught that dimension of Mr. Paul's approach. He has tended to be more unequivocal from my perspective, and many of his advocates with whom I have spoken seem to view his approach as withdrawal as a the key to avoiding conflicts. In any case, does the raiding strategy amount to a return to the gun boat diplomacy appied into the Good Neighfor era prior to World War II or the missile lobbing retaliation strikes of the 1990s? Also, this raiding stategy seems a bit of a paper tiger in practice if you elimiate the forward bases and dismantle other capabilities necessary for conducting these raids as part of cutting the defense budget.
Jan '11
Re: Unhand Us, Greybeard Loon!
Professor Rahe’s article is the conventional boilerplate of the Beltway-Military-Industrial complex elite. You can find similar articles with similar viewpoints on the web site’s of think tanks which span the ideological spectrum from A to B. (Think “Frank Gaffney,” for instance.) The difference is that those think tanks provide subsidies for the authors, and cushioned chairs on which the authors can sit. Professor Rahe makes his contribution for free. A cheap date.
You will also find many adjectives and adverbs in this essay about Ron Paul’s views. Most are derogatory, some defamatory. But one word that you will not find in the professor’s discussion of presidents, foreign policy and American actions is CONSTITUTIONAL.
This is strange. Professor Rahe acknowledges that Congressman Paul’s domestic program and his decades-long and unwavering dedication to constitutionally limited government place him above all of the other declared primary candidates in the field. But in the conduct of foreign policy and in guiding America’s actions in the world the Constitution vanishes, replaced by the amorphous “interests.” These priorities trump everything else; they stand alone in being the driver behind America’s interactions with the world.
Jan '11
Re: Unhand Us, Greybeard Loon!
Unfortunately, who interprets these “interests;” whose “interests” are the ones that future policy will primarily serve; and what actions serving them will entail is never made clear. Apparently like pornography we’ll know them when we see them.
But Professor Rahe forgets that “interests” – special or otherwise – exist in the domestic realm as well. In large measure they are responsible for the very soft despotism he has decried in the past. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, whether the squeaks emanate from NPR, the teachers’ unions or Northrup (which recently moved its headquarters to the Beltway – where no airplanes are made.) Could it be that the same mess that “interests” have created in our domestic politics have been created in our foreign affairs? Let’s see: Inflated aspirations, overextended resources, ineffectual policies, no-win scenarios and facilitation of dependence in clients – Nah!
Ron Paul has non-interventionist, small military views. But he is running for President, not Dictator. His Defense and State Department appointments have to be confirmed by the Senate. His treaties have to be ratified there, too. Appropriations come from the House, and Congress can override a President Paul’s veto.
Jan '11
Re: Unhand Us, Greybeard Loon!
And if the Congress believes we should commit troops overseas, they have the means. It’s all in the Constitution, friends.
What are you worried about? That Ron Paul, a veteran of the armed forces, won’t defend his country if it is threatened? That mistakes will be made out of a bias toward inaction, as opposed to the mistakes so recently and disastrously made out of a bias toward action? That “interests” which a foreign policy elite (and perhaps you) feels are vital may not enlist the same enthusiasm in the American populace at large?
These are good words. Professor Rahe should remember, however, that it is the Constitution that provides the sober, prudential framework for determining what those interests are, and when, where and how we pursue them.
Apr '11
Re: Unhand Us, Greybeard Loon!
Kenneth Gauck
Prof. Rahe makes a critique of "libertarian isolationists" and you substitute simply "libertarian" in your replies. Perhaps it is not the Professor's rhetoric that is defecient.
We did have a "peace-at-any-price" majority in America prior to both World Wars. Both Paleocons and Libertarians of the kind described in the original post have pointed to that policy as the correct one, and have treated our provocations as a mistake. It is to these figures and their ideas that Prof. Rahe refers. Jeff Younger has misapplying these criticisms to other kinds of libertarians. · Dec 30 at 11:12pm
So Prof. Rahe uses "libertarian isolationists" in a comment. You explain: in the original post, he uses the term "libertarian" to mean "libertarian isolationist". In the quote above, you use the word "libertarian" to mean "libertarian isolationist", giving the examples of prewar Paleoconservatives [sic].
Rahe and you conflate "libertarian" and "libertarian isolationist" in plain view - while you deny it. Bizarre. You must know you are doing this. I just want to know why.