NOT ALL LIBERTARIANS ARE CREATED EQUAL
The idea that Libertarianism is monolithic must be corrected. It is also important to point out that extreme Libertarianism in international affairs differs from Globalism in no particular manner.
(“Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace”)
The Radical Austrians perceive international borders to be illiberal impediments to people, capital, goods and services.
(“You, you may say
I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the world will be as one”)
Many Ron Paulistas dream the same dream. I am surprised, however that the most fierce of foes of sinister globalism, Alex Jones, and his clones are Paulistas.
Libertarian Constitutionalists agree on the premise that the Constitution as the Framers conceived it is the best hope of maintaining a Liberal republic. It is the Constitutional piece that is required to maintain liberty; and unfortunately I am detecting a nascent anti-Constitutional, or anti-Federalist contingent within the Libertarian ranks. The rise of those who would exhume Alexander Hamilton and exile him from the Pantheon of American Founders is an ominous sign of how far down the path of Anti-Federalism the Austrian Schooled radical libertarians wish to go. Coupled with the sudden urge to “honestly” deal with Abe Lincoln, and declare him a Tyrant, by some of the supporters of the movement behind Ron Paul is concerning. It becomes evident that even if the Constitution were to be fully restored there would remain legitimate differences in the policies that various interests would seek. Indeed, when the Federal Government no longer is in charge of picking winners and ameliorating the losses of certain losers, there would remain a legitimate diversity of interests that would still need to be sorted out through deal-making and compromise of Representatives and Senators. The return of legitimate Constitutional government would represent the beginning of new political debates; and this is good. But it will raise the question of: now, what shall our reinvigorated Liberal republic do; how shall it conduct itself in the society of other sovereign nations and states?
How shall the Federal Government use the legitimate powers conferred upon it to “form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”? These are political issues that are legitimate debates within a constitutional republic. However, Dr. Paul and his followers have taken particular stances on some of these issues and have made them into tests of loyalty to Libertarian Doctrine, which they aren’t.
What if someone who is less enamored with the Constitution than another candidate, but the other candidate reflects one’s own opinion of a policy that is believed to be superior to the Constitutionalist’s proposed use of Constitutional power?
For instance: Trade Policy.
Trade Policy is to be set by the Congress: Article one; section 8; third paragraph “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes”.
The dogmatic Radical Austrian ideological libertarian insistence upon Free Trade as a logical corollary to individual liberty is at odds with the Constitution.
So if a candidate A is in favor of a nationalist trade policy, (Dr. Paul admits that setting Trade Policy with foreign states is a legitimate Federal power in “End The Fed”) but believes it to be illiberal, and not only bad on a practical level, but evil for its reduction of liberty, what to do?
Unfortunately there is no candidate A! (That would have been the Pat Buchanan Constitutionalist that never showed up for this campaign season; it might have been Michele Bachmann, or Sarah Palin. Alas.)
And if candidate B is in favor of a very forward Naval defense policy (as Constitutionally laid out in Article One, section 8, paragraph 13: “To provide and maintain a Navy;” to ensure American preeminence over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans; the God-given moats that will forever guarantee our Independence, then I ask what of the equally Constitutionally minded Dr. Paul’s evisceration of America’s forward and yes, offensive control of the Seas? Agreed, that the very idea of a single pair of “boots on the ground” in the middle of Central Asia is as absurd as landlocked Mongolia investing in a Navy! But, America has evolved from the antebellum days. No longer divided into a Northern modernizing commercial republic producing wealth through increasing industrialism, agricultural but becoming a major player in international commerce; and a Southern fossilized remnant of Cavalier Britain before their Civil Wars. The Cavaliers, or Royalists were based upon a landed gentry with aspirations to nobility. They derived their wealth from agriculture and rentals. They scorned the upstart Middleclass with their Reformed Protestant chapels. They, the new Bourgeois, or Middleclass, were represented by Parliament. They were the shop keeps, the craftsmen, the merchants that represented the dawn of The Modern Age. The final act of the British Civil Wars took place in Appomattox Court House Virginia. America has moved on. No longer is half the nation ruled over by aristocratic families set upon White Columned Mansions upon a well-tended lawn, surrounded by monoculture cotton for export. And no longer are “servants” (southern for “Slaves”) used as beasts of burden and fed and clothed by the products of the plantations themselves. This medieval landscape had to die before the United States of America could come into its own. The Confederacy for all its talk of “states rats” was essentially fighting against the triumph of the “bourgeois shopkeepers”. It was men like Robert E. Lee, and Jefferson Davis who like Napoleon before them scorned the fighting spirit of the crass bourgeois Anglo-Saxon “shop keeps”. In case some have not noticed or have come to regret the fact, the North won. And the results were not the South and the new west becoming a greater New England but instead an entirely new USA becoming a Continental Constitutional Republic of wealth, and power, on a level unseen in history. The New World, Atlantis perhaps, saved western Europe three times and continues to do so.
It is now no longer feasible to be as supreme as once we were. The inevitable occurred as new continental-sized states were ruthlessly unified by means of the various Isms’ of the Twentieth Century. Now, there are nations the size and might of which have never been seen stomping over the face of the planet. The Great Powers we reckoned with as a young nation were France, Britain, Spain, and Germany was not yet even a unified state yet. The Framers never dreamed that nations with fabulous names from a mythic past, like Persia, India, China, or a backwards Russia would trod the earth like Behemoths. There are Chinese cities whose names we do not even know that have more people than Portugal, or Spain!
Yet, still the Atlantic and Pacific moats protect us. But we will require the forward offensive Naval and Air Power to project our frontiers to the far side of those oceans. The Constitution requires in Article One, section 8, paragraph 13: “To provide and maintain a Navy”, and if they could envisage such a thing as an Air Navy, the Framers would surely have added that to the paragraph. Constitutional Libertarians need not be non-interventionalist in foreign policy. The USA has evolved from a small group of semi-autonomous states clinging to the eastern seaboard to a Continental power with interests spanning the globe. There is no example in history of a major power reaching an apogee and deciding that they shall step back a pace or two so as to “not be over there”. Nations are like Dylan said about people, only more so, they are either “busy being born or busy dyin'”. Major nations continue to strive or they begin to collapse. There is never any middle course. Maybe, President Paul, will thread that needle. But, I would not trust his Austrian School fanaticism that sees all international borders as purely “illiberal” and arbitrary lines on a map. They are Constitutionalist (but only maybe, it appears the Articles of Confederation are starting to seem more to their liking!) yet they do not abide Congress restricting the flow of labor, capital, and goods flowing unimpeded across our borders. The Constitutional right of Congress “to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes” though admitted by Dr. Paul, was said by him to be unwise policy. I disagree. There are those Austrian Scholars who giggle that we should be grateful to those people who wish to sell us the consumer goods we want for a price lower than American companies could provide. The Doctor giggles, ‘should we ask them to charge us more?’ Problem is that the cheap imported goods are not so cheap, no, not so cheap at all. Drive from Green Bay, down the western shore of Lake Michigan, past derelict plants. Then visit South Chicago, where our current president prepared for the office by organizing the urban street. Round the bend to Gary, Indiana, proceed through to Detroit, Toledo, Erie, across New York State past Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Utica; one long rusting blight of what was once the source of the might that created the wealth that when needed became the arsenal of democracy. It lies like a bleeding corpse. Perhaps a new “Industrial Ruins National Park” will revitalize the region? This is the cost of ~giggle~ the Chinese not charging us enough for the goods we want. Libertarianism in international affairs differs from Globalism in what particular manner? Our Alex Jones’ friends, so vigilantly on guard against The New World Order Globalists, have somehow anointed Dr. Paul. Yet he would do his best to facilitate freer trade if that were possible. H would allow the last remnant of industry to be sucked out to China, and he would also reduce the size of our Navy facing this same hyper-industrializing China.
Dr. Paul’s unwavering loyalty to the doctrine of Free Trade is not the typical pragmatic Anglophone Way. (It is interesting how Anglophobic paranoia fills Alex Jones’ clones; just as it did the isolationists in the early twentieth century. Anglophobia unites illiberal attacks on the Modern Age both from the right and the left!, but that thought is for another time). Even Jefferson knew that theories must come second to the reality of statecraft. He went beyond the Congress’ authority to purchase New Orleans and took up Napoleon’s offer for the entire Louisiana Territory. Would an ideologue make that compromise?
Would Dr. Paul have looked beyond his ideology to base his decision on statesmanship?
As China begins to grow militarily into a potential major challenger to American dominance in the Pacific, the good Doctor prescribes harsh cuts in military spending. When China pushes past the First Island Chain, if we allow the “Finlandization” of Japan, Taiwan, The Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam, we shall have a new border. Not only will we be ineffectual at the southern border, with Mexico, we should then have a western border with China in California.
The Constitution is not a suicide pact, Lincoln commented. Nor is Constitutional Libertarianism a philosophy dependent upon the generosity and peaceful intentions of others. Radical Austrian Libertarianism would be, it ought to be discarded as just one more Utopian Ism. Does he suggest private ships with Letters of Marque instead of the US Navy patrol the western Pacific? Is he crazy? We can and ought to be libertarian within our borders, but maintain supremacy in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. And we also need to protect our people from having to compete with coolie labor in a race to the bottom.
Ironically, Hamilton, and Lincoln, now considered fiends by the Lew Rockwell, Ralph Raico, Von Mises intellectuals of the Austrian School are believed to have injected a virus of International (Jewisssh) Bankers into the United States. Yet, they are the ones who were assassinated! Imagine the conspiracy theories if Hamilton shot and killed Burr, or Jefferson! Or if it was Jefferson Davis assassinated instead of Lincoln! Finally, the last straw for me, was the vile Jew hatred spewed last week by former CIA man Scheuer, a standard on Judge Napolitano’s show. The Judge a Paulist and an Austrian, proved to me how essentially un-American Radical Austrian School Libertarianism is last week. The vile anti-Semitic comments on the websites of Alex Jones, and on Facebook pages discussing St. Paul shows who these Theories attract. No, I cannot blame Jones and the Facebook Pagemasters for the comments of their followers. But, it would be foolish to pretend there is no connection between the Ism of Radical Libertarianism and the vile anti-Zionist, anti-Jew tide of filth. The psychosis in the US between the Leftists worshippers of Obama, on the one hand and the spitting spew of anti-Jewish hatred on the anti-Globalist side is leaving a narrow almost untenable path. Glenn Beck seems to be the sole guardian there. Mark Levin is not a Libertarian, so though a Constitutionalist on many points, he is willing to use the Federal power to fight the drug war. Forced to choose between the two “opposites” this country is committing suicide.
“From whence shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall some trans-Atlantic military giant step the earth and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe and Asia…could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide.”
― Abraham Lincoln
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