We get it, Mr. Palmer. You don't care for Justin Raimondo. I would think you would be a little worried about your reputation as a scholar, though, enough to quit with the hatchet jobs. You don't come across, to this observer, as reasonable when you are making your own fevered attacks.

And spare me the tu quoque fallacies, I've read plenty of Raimondo, and I know how he can return in kind.

It is plainly ironic, to many observers I'm sure, that you spend so much effort vilifying a man with whom you probably share upwards of 98% of your political beliefs, including those that are most fundamental.

Yes, Michael, it is deeply ironic. It is also utterly asinine.

On the other hand, it must always be borne in mind that I am sickened almost unto death by my own political/cultural impotence and by my envy of the world-renowned achievements of Tom G. Palmer. It should also be borne in mind that this impotence and this envy have eaten me away over the years, hollowed me out, leaving only an empty shell capable of nothing better than composing virulent denunciations of the good and true on the Internet. They have also led me to churlishly forget -- even to cravenly spit upon! -- the almost fantastic largesse with which Tom G. Palmer has showered me over the nearly 30 years during which we have known one another. In point of fact, I owe everything I am and everything I own to the generosity, the saintliness, of Tom G. Palmer . . . oh. Where was I? Oh yes, so when I speak of Tom G. Palmer's unaccountable obsession with Justin Raimondo and Lew Rockwell and a handful of others in the libertarian movement as "asinine," my remarks must be taken with a grain -- perhaps even half a pound! -- of salt.

Michael and Mr. Riggenbach seem unconcerned that Mr. Raimondo spends his time finding people who would like to enjoy the freedom that most everyday Americans enjoy and then steps upon them, vilifies them, mocks them, and sides with their oppressors (e.g., Ukrainian gangsters, Kyrgyz strongmen, Syrian dictators), all in the name of a political philosophy of freedom. I find that deplorable -- enough so to wrote five short posts in 2005 on Raimondo's ongoing parody of libertarianism. Neither Michael nor Mr. Riggenbach bother to defend Mr. Raimondo's trashing of pro-democracy movements in other countries, or his exultation at the killing of people who step forward to stop anti-American terrorists in Iraq, or his disgraceful mocking of the poisoning of a courageous man -- now president -- in Ukraine. I find those views reprehensible and especially so when presented as examples of "libertarian" analysis; I don't know what percentage of my beliefs about political thought overlap Mr. Raimondo's, but it's surely far, far less than 98% and, more importantly, does not include something that is very important to me: a commitment to the liberty of people struggling to get out from under dictatorships, whom Mr. Raimondo does his very best A) to exclude from the U.S. if they want to come here (as he is an open advocate of "sealing our borders"), and B) to vilify, trash, and mock. Mr. Raimondo aligns himself with a tiny pro-dictatorship cult (the "BHHRG"), as well as some of the most anti-individualist and anti-libertarian figures in politics in the U.S. and abroad. As a simple matter of fact, I see very little overlap between my views and Mr. Raimondo's.

Since none of the forums on which Mr. Raimondo publishes have comment features, he eagerly exercises the rights to freedom of expression that he thinks so irrelevant in other countries without contradiction. Every once in a while I see something or am forwarded something so nasty, so off-the-wall, so divorced from reality that I write a short blog post to alert others to the ways in which the good term "libertarianism" is being tarnished. Michael and Mr. Riggenbach don't like that. So they should post comments at the end of Mr. Raimondo's columns (or pepper him with requests to install a comment feature).

Mr. Riggenbach raises the name of Mr. Rockwell, someone who joins Raimondo in disparaging the desires of people in Ukraine and elsewhere to enjoy greater freedom and who aligns himself with the BHHRG, as well as with the ugliest elements of the far left and the far right, all of which are united by a disturbing anti-Americanism. It seems that if someone is an open enemy of the U.S. or of constitutional republicanism of the sort Americans imperfectly enjoy, then that person must be a friend of Raimondo and Rockwell. If anyone points to the way that Mr. Rockwell has brought truly despicable racists, Confederate Revivalists of the strangest sort, and the like into the same circle with more respectable names, Mr. Riggenbach characterizes that as an "unaccountable obsession." I believe it important that someone, every once in a while, point out how thoroughly both Mr. Raimondo and Mr. Rockwell have disgraced libertarian ideals. Michael and Mr. Riggenbach don't like that. Fine.

" I wouldn�t be surprised if Raimondo were to denounce North Koreans for abandoning the workers� paradise in order to live in the illegitimate pseudo-democratic puppet state of the U.S. imperialists to the south."

Why not? Afterall, his hero Rothbard pimped Soviet propaganda about Stalin's invasion of Finland and cheered on the Peoples Republic of Vietnam as they stormed into Saigon to slaughter thousands of people and put the rest in chains. These same asshats claim black slaves in Confederate Slave-states of America were more oppressed under Evil Lincoln. It goes on and on...

It doesn't take long to go from anti-statism to anti-United Statism. But it is pretty sick to watch these hate-filled imbeciles actually destroy the cause for which they claim to love (i.e. liberty).

The proof that the U.S. is THE el Dorado for Freedom of expression is that you are allowed to say such nonsense. Go and try to say whatever is on your mind in North Korea, Syria, Cuba or Belarus...but do not expect BHHRG to come to your defense if things go wrong for you.
On the general attitude at antiwar.com : it sounds as if for these people, democracy is not a right but a privilege. And they enjoy this privilege that much that they do not want to share it with others. Well, hard luck for J.R.: Kyrgyzstan seems to want to join the club.

According to Mr. Raimondo, "It's a joke, really, how the Europeans and the Americans go traipsing all over the world searching for cases of electoral injustice to rectify, when the worst offenses are right in their own countries." This seems naive in the worst way. While America falls increasing short of the republican, federalist, constitutionally limited government benchmark, to assert that the US is the leading violator of rights is absurd. "The worst offenses?" Really? Let me tick off a few who I would consider far, far worse: North Korea, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Sudan, China, Russia, Iran, etc. Need I go on? Just as the word ââ?¬Å?fascistââ?¬Â and ââ?¬Å?democracyââ?¬Â now have little or no meaning, Mr. Raimondo's shrill tone has marginalized his opinions. Is there merit to some of his criticism? Yes. But Iââ?¬â?¢m afraid Mr. Raimondo has not progressed past a high schooler's ability to persuade.

I don't know what's more amazing, the fact that Raimondo's vitriol is better placed in a bad satirical newspaper, or the fact that he actually has a small cult of followers.

Brian Radzinsky: "I don't know what's more amazing, the fact that Raimondo's vitriol is better placed in a bad satirical newspaper, or the fact that he actually has a small cult of followers."

Now I guess I am a member of a small cult of followers of Justin Raimondo. Radzinsky has no apparent concern for intellectual honesty. He's just another hatchet man. Good job, Brian!

To anybody who might actually be concernd about the truth of matters. I am not a follower of Justin Raimondo. In fact, if Raimondo and Palmer were all that libertarianism had to offer, I would turn away in disgust. Luckily, there's more out there. And hopefully, libertarianism can survive the likes of Palmer, Raimondo, and there cadres of Radzinskys.

I'll tell you one thing for certain, I would never expose ANYONE who I thought had the stirrings of libertarianism in them to any of you. If I did, I would never live it down.

Mr. Palmer,

I don't think it is necessary to belittle Mr. Raimondo for including a first-person reference in one of his columns. I too am often taken aback by this sort of thing. It seems unserious and is generally less than effective in bolstering an argument. I think Orwell's influence in this instance is less than praiseworthy. However, this style is indeed prevalent, especially among online journalists, even those of the first rank like JR. This is soemthing we must learn to ignore.

I appreciate your back and forth with the writers on antiwar and lewrockwell, I only wish that you would confine your critiques to the substance of their arguments. My sympathies tend to lie with them, but I am rather desperate for reasoned rebuttals to their pieces. I don't think there is any chance of bringing myself, and other increasingly radical libertarians like me, back to the Cato mainstream if you and your allies become indistinguisable from David Horowitz and his ilk.

BTW, Thanks for taking the time to make your blog a must-read.

Anon1's first comment confused me. Wheres' the first person reference? I had to go back to Raimondo's column and found that the quotation is from him comparing censorship in a little dictatorship with his (Raimondo's) being unable to get a debate with the Democratic leader of the House of Representatives. That's not just a "first person reference"; it's stupid. Raimondo thinks taht the "worst offenses" are in the U.S. and Europe? What planet does he live on?

Oh, here's CNN's story on Kyrgyzstan (that's a mouthful): http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/03/24/kyrgyzstan/index.html
Headline: Kyrgyz election 'declared invalid'
The story says "Unconfirmed reports say Mr Akayev has left the country." Maybe he's going to call Justin Raimondo and ask if he can sleep on the couch at the antiwar.com offices. What creeps.

I'm with Anon1 on this. We should try to deal with JR & Co. on the merits (or lack thereof) of their arguments, rather than let things get personal.

(Although the picture is funny.)

Let me get this straight. Raimondo trashes everyone in sight. He compares dictatorial repression with his personal problems as a failed Republican candidate. Palmer says Raimondo has trashed people and has trivialized real experiences of oppression by comparing them to Raimondo's personal problems getting on TV. So.....Palmer is making things personal. Ohhhkaaay.

Also, to Kevin, what's so "radical" about siding with authoritarian dictatorships, like Raimondo and the Rockwellians do? (That could be the name of a rock band; they could tour all the sleazy dictatorships of the world, denouncing the American-European-NGO-human-rights-axis-of-democracy.) I don't see anything "radical" (or "libertarian") about siding with dictatorship. Do you?

I may not have made myself entitely clear. I was trying to encourage Mr. Palmer to engage those libertarians with whom he disagrees in a substantive way. Though I tend to agree with Mr. Raimondo, Marcus Epstein, etc... on most issues of foreign policy, I realize that this is considered unacceptable company by Mr. Palmer and others whom I respect among mainstream libertarians.

In reference to his Kyrgyzstan column, I noted that JR had fallen prey to his unfortunate tendency to personalize world events. I find this most tiresome, calling to mind dreadful post-adolescent seminars. This weakness of his is an easy target. I don't need to be prompted to recognize its frequent appearances on antiwar.

Instead of shooting fish in a barrel, I wish TP would tell me why I oughtn't to be skeptical of this particular "popular" uprising in a country rife with criminal syndicates and foreign military powers. It would be very surprising indeed if the Pentagon was not playing favorites in a country hosting an important base of operations.

My reference to "radical" libertarians was merely an inelegant attempt to differentiate those of us who can comfortably converse over cocktails with AEI staff, and those of us liable to create a scene in any social situation involving registered Republicans. Not long ago I was safely in the former camp, but as time goes on, well...

Well, an interesting discussion. I'm off to the gym, where I will mull things over. In the meantime, things seem to have rather overtaken Mr. Raimondo's support for the dictatorship in Kyrgyzstan. The allegedly "radical libertarian" position of supporting authoritarian dictatorships has been taking it on the nose lately: after Georgia and Ukraine, maybe Kyrgyzstan? (It's too early to tell how this will turn out, and I've corresponded a few times today with friends in central Asia, but they are guardedly optimistic that the opposition is more liberal (in the classical sense, of course) than the ousted ex-president. Furthermore, neither the opposition nor the ousted regime are Islamists, which is (needless to say) a good sign.

Let's face it: Mr. Raimondo has a very soft spot in his heart for dictators. He's shown it in the Ukrainian case and now in his feverish comments about Kyrgyzstan. Someone who favors "sealing the borders," who opposes trade liberalization because of alleged "loss of sovereignty," and who eagerly defends authoritarian dictatorships has lost any claim to be considered a "libertarian."

Yes, he opposed a stupid, foolish, and unjustified war. So did (to take a list of people who may be honorable or not in their own ways, but who have little else in common) Ralph Nader, Pat Buchanan, Joerg Haider, Jacques Chirac, Vladimir Putin, and Howard Dean. Is that enough to make them all libertarians?

Thank you, Anon1, for the nice comments.

So let me set out what I think is substantively wrong with the Raimondoite/Rockwellite view.. They systematically make excuses for every nasty state other than the U.S. Other states have "spheres of influence" (Raimondoââ?¬â?¢s words). They need understanding. They're innocent of wrong doing. (Read his whitewashing of the Syrian dictatorship, or of the now departed Ukrainian regime, or of the now departed Kyrgyz regime.) People who struggle to get rid of those authoritarian gangster regimes are trashed in the most personal of terms. (Viktor Yushchenko was slandered as a ââ?¬Å?CIA/neocon stoogeââ?¬Â and mocked for looking like a "toad," to take but one example.) Iraqis who join the democratic process or who volunteer for the police to fight the people who drop mortar rounds on schools and religious processions are denounced in the strongest of terms. What kind of libertarianism is that? It's no kind at all. Raimondo and his type simply hate one state in the world above all others. That state is the United States of America. The result is a loss of contact with reality, alliances with truly creepy, anti-free trade, anti-American, pro-dictatorship cults like the BHHRG and with Serbian nationalists (Raimondo's hatred for Albanians, for example, comes through clearly), and implicit support (and very strong rhetorical support) for the "Iraqi resistance" against the "traitors" and the "quislings" who are working with U.S. forces to create a constitutional democracy. Raimondo cannot claim to be a friend of liberty; he is merely an enemy of the American government. And just a momentââ?¬â?¢s reflection will tell us that those two aren't really the same thing.

One consequence of such an approach is to discredit serious voices for peace, for a cautious and less aggressive foreign policy, and for libertarianism all round. It may feel good to vent against the American government as the most oppressive state in the world (even though serious people know that�s not true), but that doesn�t actually accomplish any reduction in coercion or violence.

Top that off with a rhetorical style that is vicious, personal, and always below the belt. Michael, in the first comment above, is angry that I ââ?¬Å?vilifyââ?¬Â Raimondo. The ââ?¬Å?vilificationââ?¬Â consists in pointing out that Raimondo routinely resorts to ad hominem attacks, sexual innuendoes, malicious gay-baiting, and the like. I find that really rather strange. A truly ââ?¬Å?personalââ?¬Â attack would take the form of making fun of his looks, or his name, or his sexuality, or his clothes, or, well, something personal and irrelevant to his arguments. That would be to stoop to his level. Itââ?¬â?¢s not a ââ?¬Å?personal attackââ?¬Â to point out that someone else engages in personal attacks. To conclude that he has discredited himself in the process is for the same reason not a ââ?¬Å?personal attack.ââ?¬Â Itââ?¬â?¢s a claim about his behavior, his low standards of argumentation, his unwillingness to offer reasons when slander will achieve his end.

Finally, Anon1 raises a good question about whether one should be skeptical about an uprising. Sure, why not? But, then, why be supportive of the state? Why not be skeptical of the regime in power, too? Could it be because Raimondo thinks that the uprising may be more friendly to the one government in the world he hates? An attitude of skepticism would at least lead one to be skeptical toward both sides. That is not Raimondo�s attitude at all. It tells us something about his agenda. (And note that Raimondo was not only wrong about Ukraine, but disastrously and maliciously wrong. The fact that the Russian libertarians were so supportive of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine might tell us something, don�t you think?)

In any case, some important issues were raised above. I hope that I have done justice to them.

I appreciate Tom Palmer summarizing his substantive critique of Raimondo's politics in general. I agree to a certain extent with a few of his points. Raimondo is a little too defensive about the existing bad regimes in certain parts. As a particularly notable example, Raimondo has a soft spot of Vladimir Putin that I certainly don't share.

However, I still don't see anything substantively criticizing the particular column (the one from Wednesday) in question. It's true that Raimondo makes it more personal that he perhaps should have, but this is a stylistic problem. His main argument was that the alleged irregularities in Kyrgyzstan are no worse than what goes on in the United States. This may or may not be true, but I have yet to hear anyone dispute it with facts rather than with mere disdain. While Raimondo would, I hope, want to qualify the statement that the "worst offenses" are in the west, it's true that U.S. and European elections are far from perfect. The U.S. is in violation of international accords regarding the access of all parties to the ballot. Belgium certainly did ban one of its largest political parties for (allegedly) having illegal ideas. This doesn't mean that Western countries should never criticize other countries for blatant electoral fraud, but they should at least come up with some serious claims before presuming to judge others.

Justin Raimondo appears to be an unreconstructed Rothbardian.

War is the health of the state and the enemy of liberty.

Libertarians must always oppose war.

Of course, war nearly always involves conflicts between states.

So what can a libertarian do? It is the duty of each libetarian to focus on the evils of their own state.

So, Syrian libertarians should emphasize how there is no need to have Syrian troops in Lebanon, no need to get back the Golan heights, etc.

Russian libertarians should argue that there is no need to worry about what happens in the Ukraine--so what if they join Nato. They should argue to just let Chechna go.

American libertarians, on the other hand, must show that no foreign intervention by the U.S. government has ever been justified, nor will any future intervention be justified.

There appears to be a faction in the U.S. government committed reconstructing the entire Muslim world. By some accounts, Iran and Syria are high on the list. Events in Lebanon are pointing to a pretext for a war against Syria and Hezbollah. Raimondo is making a one-sided case against such intervention.

And, of course, fighting the Muslims and Arabs is nothing compared to returning to enmity with the Russians. They have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world many times over.

I read must of Raimondo's stuff on anti-war.com. I don't think he is sympathetic to foreign despots. He is very critical of the leadership of the opposition to those despots. The general thrust of the argument is that the U.S. government shouldn't be picking sides in a struggle between two sets of unsavory characters.

I certainly don't take what he says as gospel, but I admit that skepticism about the motives of politicians comes natural to me.

My own preference is for a more balanced approach, rather than propaganda in opposition to U.S. govenrment policy.

Rothbard once wrote approvingly of the Bolshevik's support for the military defeat of Czarist Russia in WWI. Perhaps Raimondo holds to the view regarding the U.S. in Iraq. Still, anti-war.com and Raimondo's columns don't make such a view obvious. Only one or two quotes over the years can be interpreted that way. The one repeated by Palmer, over and over, wasn't even by Raimondo. For the most part, the commentary on anti-war.com is to support our troops by bringing them home.

Perhaps because I have taught at a military college for many years and have many former students going to war, supporting them by bringing them home is certainly my attitude. I would never wish American soldiers ill.

Generally, I find the "paleo-libertarian" faction's invective against maintream libertarians and mainstream libertarian groups to be horrible.

It is a mistake, however, to reply in kind. Yes, it is easy to say. And harder to do. I know that I have often failed to follow the stricture. But we should all try harder.

Bill Woolsey

A quick note in between meetings. Bill Woolsey writes,

"Rothbard once wrote approvingly of the Bolshevik's support for the military defeat of Czarist Russia in WWI. Perhaps Raimondo holds to the view regarding the U.S. in Iraq. Still, anti-war.com and Raimondo's columns don't make such a view obvious. Only one or two quotes over the years can be interpreted that way. The one repeated by Palmer, over and over, wasn't even by Raimondo. For the most part, the commentary on anti-war.com is to support our troops by bringing them home."

The latter half is not, in my view, accurate. I will respond later, however, with more detail, as I have other urgent matters at the moment.

Let me get this straight. Raimondo is a vocal critic of "resistance" leaders like Chalabi in Iraq, Yushchenko in Ukraine, Walid Jumblatt in Lebanon, and Kulov, Bakiyev, and Kadyrbekov in Kyrgyzstan. From this, Palmer assets that Raimindo is pro-Saddam, pro-Yanukovich, pro-Bashar, pro-Akayev, and so on. Ridiculous! Palmer writes as if these are cases of heroic, Jeffersonian freedom fighters taking on oppressive dictators. Raimondo does a great service, I think, in pointing out that Palmer's heroes are themselves thugs, creeps, ex-Commie murderers, and so on. Simply because one faction takes to the streets with banners and shouting and waving while the incumbent hides or complains or flees, doesn't imply that the former are somehow more libertarian than the latter! In all his blathering about Raimondo and Yushchenko's skin condition etc. I haven't seen any evidence presented for Yushchenko's libertarian credentials. Why on earth is he the hero? How is he any better than Yanukovich? Who are the good and bad guys in Kyrgyzstan?

I find it scandalous that Palmer assumes that critics of these opposition leaders are therefore not libertarians, that they support dictators, or whatever. In such disputes the libertarian should support the side that's, well, more libertarian. Which side is that in Kyrgyzstan? Who knows? The opposition leaders there are all former Soviet or Kyrgyz government people with plenty of blood on their own hands. Why should a libertarian necessarily root for them?

The Bolsheviks had substantial popular support in 1917. They held plenty of rallies in public squares. If I denounce Lenin and his accomplices, will Palmer call me a statist who "supports" the brutal Czarist regime?

Kudos to Otto Kerner, Bill Woolsey, and Todd. What an unexpected pleasure to find somebody on this blog who can read Justin Raimondo and then give evidence of actually understanding what he read.

Mr. Raimondo of antiwar.com denounces (in places documented elsewhere on my web site) the "quislings" and "traitorsââ?¬Â who join the Iraqi police (the ones ââ?¬Å?Iraqisââ?¬Â ââ?¬Å?sure are killing a lot ofââ?¬Â). The terrorists are referred to by one antiwar.com editor as the ââ?¬Å?Iraqi Resistanceââ?¬Â (http://www.antiwar.com/blog/comments.php?id=P1440_0_1_0 ) and the coalition forces are referred to as ââ?¬Å?The Crusadersââ?¬Â (http://www.antiwar.com/blog/comments.php?id=P1437_0_1_0 ). And, in the words of Mr. Raimondo's colleague, senior editor at antiwar.com, Mr. Jeremy Sapienza:

"I will stand up proudly for it. I have cheered on men attacking US troops. I will continue to cheer any defeat US troops meet."

(The cached page from no-treason.com is at:
http://216.239.63.104/search?q=cache:WLfwLYAITYUJ:www.no-treason.com/Murphy/Schneider/+Jeremy+Sapienza+treason+antiwar.com&hl=en )

Perhaps I have misunderstood the meaning of those remarks. Perhaps Mr. Sapienza only meant that he would stand up and cheer when jihadis attack U.S. troops *and* simultaneously his favorite football team scores a touchdown. And perhaps Mr. Raimondo and the anonymous ââ?¬Å?texââ?¬Â use such terms as ââ?¬Å?quisling,ââ?¬Â ââ?¬Å?traitor,ââ?¬Â ââ?¬Å?the Iraqi Resistance,ââ?¬Â and ââ?¬Å?The Crusadersââ?¬Â for purely descriptive purposes. But I doubt it. My standards of interpretation are not so fogged as Mr. Riggenbachââ?¬â?¢s. I think itââ?¬â?¢s quite clear what they have in mind.

Letââ?¬â?¢s turn to Mr. Raimondoââ?¬â?¢s characterization of foreign political movements that are resisting their governments. Of course, not all are pro-liberty. (Duh.) Thatââ?¬â?¢s not Mr. Raimondoââ?¬â?¢s point. He has slimed those in Georgia that chucked out Eduard Shevardnadze and brought in Mikhail Saakashvili and his government (including explicit libertarians such as Kakha Bendookidze ââ?¬â?? see http://www.economist.com/people/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2963216 ). He has trashed and slimed in the most despicable way the political figures who were supported by the libertarians in Ukraine and in Russia, notably Viktor Yushchenko, who is indeed a courageous man (slimed by Mr. Raimondoââ?¬â?¢s allies at the BHHRG for privatizing state resources ââ?¬Å?to foreignersââ?¬Â when he was for a short time prime minister). Frankly, Mr. Raimondoââ?¬â?¢s views on affairs outside of the U.S. (much like his views of matters within the U.S.ââ?¬â?¢s borders) often donââ?¬â?¢t make a lick of sense. He is anti-Albanian and flirts with creepy Serb nationalism (notice the writings of the Serb nationalist on the antiwar.com website, Nebojsa Malic, whose writings on the Srebrenica massacre are revealing: http://antiwar.com/malic/?articleid=2865 ); he is pro-Russian nationalism and against Chechen independence (http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=3598 ); he writes with remarkable charitableness about a central Asian authoritarian leader who was until very recently busily creating a dynasty. (We shall see how those who turned him out themselves turn out; itââ?¬â?¢s too early to tell. But to insist that the opposition should have rolled over and allowed rigged elections and the establishment of a permanent dynasty, based on the presidentââ?¬â?¢s elevation of his children to office, becauseââ?¬Â¦.Ralph Nader wasnââ?¬â?¢t on the ballot in Pennsylvania?!) What on earth is Mr. Raimondo getting at? What is ââ?¬Å?libertarianââ?¬Â about such an incoherent mix of rants?

Now letââ?¬â?¢s turn to Toddââ?¬â?¢s remarks. Contrary to his claim above, I have not written that any of the opposition figures are ââ?¬Å?heroic, Jeffersonian freedom fighters taking on oppressive dictators,ââ?¬Â although I do actually know some of the people in Georgia and Ukraine who were involved, and they are indeed strong classical liberals and an enormous improvement over the thugs they pushed out of office. (And regarding my ââ?¬Å?blathering about Raimondo and Yushchenkoââ?¬â?¢s skin condition etc.ââ?¬Â Todd really ought to take that up with Mr. Raimondo, whose writings were astonishing for their rage, their viciousness, and their hate filled mockery of Yushchenkoââ?¬â?¢s condition; as were the remarks of his colleagues, who found remarks about ââ?¬Å?bad sushiââ?¬Â very amusing: http://www.antiwar.com/blog/comments.php?id=P1531_0_1_0 .) Todd implies that if you donââ?¬â?¢t know much, donââ?¬â?¢t root for either side. Fair enough; he should stay silent. Mr. Raimondo has consistently opposed and slandered the out-of-power opposition and offered consoling, understanding words for those in power (in Lebanon/Syria, in Ukraine, in Georgia, in Kyrgyzstan, in Chechnya). He isnââ?¬â?¢t urging us to find out more; he knows that those not in power must be bad if there is any evidence that they might be more friendly to the U.S. or more hostile to other great powers.

Finally, I respect Bill Woolseyââ?¬â?¢s remarks and think that he has put his finger on some important reasons why Mr. Raimondo takes the positions he takes. But several things should be remembered. When Rothbard made his arguments, there was precious little international media. His irrational and untenable claims about how peace loving Stalin was (the dictator with the ââ?¬Å?passion for peaceââ?¬Â) were not intended for people living in the USSR. I think his claims were disgraceful regardless, but on his terms and at that time more defensible (possibly) than they would be now. (I was present when he cheered on the North Vietnamese conquest of South Vietnam and I shudder to think that I did not speak out at the time about what a monstrous attitude that was; Rothbard was completely indifferent to the fate of millions of people, about whom he cared not one fig.) We should indeed be more judicious in finding out about and expressing opinions about political movements around the world. I think that Bill Woolsey is, if anything, too generous to the people at antiwar.com: for example, to Mr. Sapienza, who cheers whenever any of Bill Woolseyââ?¬â?¢s former students are attacked.

Mr. Riggenbach fails to convince; his interpretive standards are simply too foggy to notice the abiding hatred of freedom abroad that Mr. Raimondo shows. Todd fails to grapple with hard problems and, given his lack of knowledge about world events, would be well advised to follow his own implicit advice and hold his tongue, at least until he finds out something.

All in all, Mr. Raimondoââ?¬â?¢s ââ?¬Å?analysisââ?¬Â starts with a pre-set conclusion in each case; if the regime change might be one that might conceivably be favored by people Mr. Raimondo hates, heââ?¬â?¢s against the opposition. Thatââ?¬â?¢s neither very intelligent nor morally defensible as a way to think or write about political struggles abroad.

Update: I found that I had difficulty posting the above to my own site. It turns out that if you put in too many URLs, it will not allow the post (which is a way to guard against spam comments from porno firms.) If anyone else has that problem, please email me your comment and I will post it. The software from moveabletype also keeps out comments on "old postings," which is mainly a blessing, because that is where porno spam comments, internet gambling ads, and erectile dysfunction ads tend to be posted, but it sometimes keeps out legitimate comments. If you have difficulty posting, please let me know and I will go to the editing software or ask my friendly (volunteer) web master.

I hope no one thought that as I laid out what I take to be the Rothbardian "principles" of foreign policy analysis that I would accept them. I didn't like Rothbard's approach in abstract, and yes, occassionally it did come off absurdly offensive in particular. The Reason article celebrating the North Vietnamese victory over the South Vietnamese state was pretty embarrassing.

I read the remarks by "tex" from time to time. I didn't see the remarks cited here, and while they were too flippant, I will take a chairitable interpretation for now. Using the terms "resistence" and "Crusader" doesn't necessarily suggest a desire to see U.S. soldiers killed.

Unfortunately, the U.S. government has been telling the U.S. people over the last few years, that the criminals and dead-enders were about to be defeated. Tex debunks those claims. The Sunnis, anyway, are resisting the Crusaders. And, of course, if the Shia determine that the U.S. isn't going to turn power over to them, they may start resisting the Crusaders too. From their perspective, of course.

I don't believe that the Kurds and Shia, who together make up the vast majority of Iraqis, should be described as "quislings." It would be like Spartans complaining that the Helots showed no support for defending the Spartan state.

Given that the insurgents are so heavy with Baathists and Salafis, I think it should be no surprise that Shias and Kurds would be glad to fight them.

The Shia, anyway, haven't come off as "quislings" to me. They seem devoted to taking over Iraq and ruling according to their principles.

On the other hand, it is no surpose that Sunnis see the vast majority of the fellow countrymen as quislings. Gee, why don't our former subjects show more loyalty to the state we ruled?

The google archive (or whatever) didn't work for me. I vaguely recollect, however, the discussion referenced. I grant that there are some libertarians who take the Rothbardian view and root for the defeat of U.S. government forces. I didn't realize that the person quoted, however, was some kind of associate editor at anti-war.com. I still don't believe that such a view is typical. If Raimondo (or Eric Garris) thinks that way, he isn't very obvious about it.

I don't doubt that the pro-Serbian commentator has failings. There is a good bit of commentary on anti-war.com that I dislike on some ground or other. Some of the leftist stuff is over the top.

I am very sympathetic to an approach that tries to understand things from other's point of view--and that includes folks like Putin. I agree, however, that Raimondo's pro-Putin article was inaquately balanced.

As I said before, it is a one-sided case against intervention. Raimondo, believes, with some justification, that the neo-cons want to return to a policy of confrontation with Russia. They exaggerate the evils of Putin. Raimondo is combating the efforts of "the war party."

I think a more balanced, objective view is more appropriate.

Consider Sistani. I would like the dominant Shia faction to go ahead and take over because that will help the U.S. get out of Iraq. I don't believe that their planned dominance over the other 40% of Iraqis is a good thing, I certainly have no use for the moral paternalism they are almost sure to enforce, and I don't believe that their foreign policy will be especially desirable. Trouble could easily develop in the Persian gulf.

But destroying the Baathist regime almost inevitably led to them taking over. And so, I reject the notion that the U.S. must stay until the Iraqis get a "constitutional order." That is the plan to reconstruct the Iraqis into liberal democrats. I see that as the fatal conceit. And it is then that I begin to wonder how many advocates of that approach want perpetural (or at least indefinite) U.S. rule.

Dan (with others making similar comments, including TGP): "While America falls increasing short of the republican, federalist, constitutionally limited government benchmark, to assert that the US is the leading violator of rights is absurd. "

I have a question. It is not ideological, but sociological. How does one measure "the leading violator of rights" among states?

Were it based on the Constitutions that states create and professed to live under, clearly the United States would NOT be among the leading violators of rights.

But is a better parameter: the state with the highest level (not rate) of taxation? Or the state with the highest military budget? Or the state with the largest military? Or the state with the greatest numbers of military troops planted on foreign soil? Or the state with military bases in the largest number of other countries? Or the state that has bombed or invaded, directly or through surrogates, the greatest number of other countries in the last 6 decades? Or the state with the greatest number of weapons of mass destruction? Or the state that, historically, has used the greatest number of atomic weapons on foreign civilians?

Clearly, if the standard is: has killed the greatest number of its own citizens, the United States wouldn't come close to winning the "prize". But this definition seems inappropriately parochial. Perhaps a more cosmopolitan notion of justice would suggest the standard: Has killed the greatest number of civilians, both foreign and domestic. Is this a proper parameter by which to gauge the state that is "the leading violator of rights"?

Some would suggest the United States government and power structure is Janus-faced. If one stares only at the benignant face that shines on the fruited plains and majestic purple mountains, it would seem absurd to suggest that power structure is responsible for more violations of rights than any other state. But when one looks more closely at the face that gazes abroad, the sociological question of how one measures rights violations becomes of crucial importance...

Could somebody tell me where Rothbard said Stalin had a "passion for peace"? I've read most of his stuff and I don't recall seeing any praise of Stalin. I heard a talk by Ralph Raico where he said Truman deliberately overstated the Soviets' expansionist aims after WWII. But I've never heard Rothbard or his associates say something nice about Stalin. I also don't think he "cheered on the North Vietnamese conquest of South Vietnam." He thought the fall of South Vietnam illustrated how a state could collapse, which he thought was a good thing, but I can't imagine he was cheering the Viet Cong. Does anyone have quotes from Rothbard on these subject?

For a New Liberty, by Murray N. Rothbard, 1973, p. 293
ââ?¬Å?American military and foreign policy since World War II has postulated an imminent threat of Soviet attack against which American energies were supposed to be mobilized. But in contrast, if we take a sober look at Soviet Russian foreign policy since the Bolshevik Revolution, we find a continuing passion for peace which has sometimes bordered on the suicidal. Poland attacked Soviet Russia after World War I, and gained a large chunk of White Russia and the Ukraine as a result. Before World War II, so devoted was Stalin to peace that he failed to make adequate provision against the Nazi attack. The much vaunted ââ?¬Ë?expansionââ?¬â?¢ of the Soviet Union occurred only and solely in response to the unprovoked German attack; in defeating Germany, the Soviet Union had to roll over Germanyââ?¬â?¢s military allies in Eastern Europe. Not only was there no Russian expansion whatever apart from the exigencies of defeating Germany, but the Soviet Union time and again leaned over backward to avoid any cold or hot war with the west.ââ?¬Â

Murray N. Rothbard, "The Death of a State," July 1975, Reason magazine

I see that the references to Rothbard are posted above. I did not recall whether Rothbard had written up his essay on "Death of a State" in Reason or in Libertarian Forum, his personal newsletter. (I've searched but the Reason archives don't go back that far and the extensive archive of material by Rothbard maintained by the Mises Institute strangely doesn't contain that essay.) It was, as I recall quite awful; as Bill Woolsey above notes, it was ââ?¬Å?pretty embarrassing.ââ?¬Â I remember the day that Saigon fell to North Vietnamese troops. (There were virtually no Viet Cong by that time; they had been mostly wiped out in the Tet Offensive.) I was in the living room of George H. Smith in Hollywood, along with the late R. A. Childs, Jr. and a number of other libertarians. We were having a study group (I don't recall exactly on what; maybe Mises's Theory of Money and Credit, which I recall reading with them, perhaps some other text). Murray Rothbard called from New York and was cackling as the phone was passed around about how "Great!" it was that Saigon had fallen. I recall him saying "It's happened! It's happened!" That was of a piece with the question he used to pose to people: "Do you love the oppressed or hate the oppressor?" The correct answer was to "hate the oppressor" and "screw the oppressed!" It was hatred that provided the energy, not love of humanity. That came out in many different ways, notably hatred of the U.S. government and triumphalism at the victory of another state, a state that was an enemy of the United States.

All of the above might be mainly of antiquarian interest, having happened almost 30 years ago, except that Bill Woolsey has, I believe, correctly put his finger on that attitude of Rothbard�s as what is motivating some of his epigones today. They want the U.S. to be defeated, which means, they want the enemies of the U.S. to be victorious. TB writes above, "He thought the fall of South Vietnam illustrated how a state could collapse, which he thought was a good thing, but I can't imagine he was cheering the Viet Cong." For the South Vietnam to be conquered, North Vietnam had to be victorious. That�s not an original discovery. Lots of states have been conquered by external enemies. To consider that a great discovery is a sign of a weak grasp on human history. After all, Poland collapsed in the face of National Socialist and Communist aggression, so I suppose that that should have been cheered on as a great advance in social science (and a victory for anarchism, no less), as well.

Those remarks of Murray Rothbard�s, both spoken and written, were a disgrace. Truly disgusting. And a blot on the career of a many who accomplished much good. It seems that his current followers have picked up Rothbard's bad impulses and left behind the good.

Ross Levatter has raised some very important and difficult questions and done so in a reasonable, fair, and judicious manner. I�m going to mull them over a bit. But as I begin to do so, let me add a few others.

Is the greatest rights violator the state that, when the war is over, leaves behind the least freedom or the one that leaves behind the most, that is, the greatest number of ongoing rights violations, or the fewest? For example, when the armies of the USSR rolled over eastern and central Europe, they established subordinate police states that started out with executions of large numbers of class enemies and deportations to slave labor camps and exercised brutal power for decades. When the armies of the UK and the USA rolled over southern, northern, and western Europe, they established basically free constitutional democracies whose records of rights violations, while serious, were virtually as nothing compared to those in central and eastern Europe. Do the ongoing violations of rights count, or do only wartime killings count? If the latter, would we count the Third Reich's relatively bloodless military occupation of Denmark as less of a rights violation than the US's and the UK's bloody military march through northern France and Belgium? Consider similarly the U.S. war with Japan and the postwar situation in that country, as well as the war over Korea. Does it matter whether one ended up in the U.S. occupied parts or the Communist occupied parts of Japan or Korea? How would one tot up and enter into the comparison the ongoing rights violations in South Korea (bad as they were) with the ongoing rights violations in North Korea? (See the material referenced here: http://www.tomgpalmer.com/archives/019970.php ).

Now I�ll do some mulling over the difficult questions that Ross Levatter has posed.

I note that Mr. Palmer still has not produced any evidence to contradict what Justin Raimondo says about Kyrgyzstan, although he has at least bothered to assert that there were "rigged elections". Palmer scoffs at Nader being kept off the ballot the same way that Raimondo scoffs at the Kyrgyz opposition's claims. I suppose we are meant to understand that all the important candidates in the U.S. were on the ballot anyway ... but I suppose this Akayev fellow didn't think his opposition was important, either.

Also, the attempt to drag Jeremy Sapienza, a man of forthright principle, into this is pretty iffy. I have no doubt that he meant exactly what he was quoted as saying, and there is no need to imply that anything needs to be read into it. I wonder if Mr. Palmer would be similarly repulsed by those who have cheered on the deaths of Iraqi soldiers, or Russian soldiers, or Chechen soldiers, or North or South Vietnamese soldiers, etc.? If the issue here is really a concern for the loss of human life, then I have to respect that. If the idea is that the lives of American soldiers are somehow especially valuable because they are American, that I can never respect.

PS - I don't have my copy of For A New Liberty at hand right now, but I wonder if the Rothbard quote is out of context. I have no trouble believing that Stalin had a "passion for peace" in the same sense that any criminal would: the desire to be left alone to enjoy his ill-gotten gains.

My thanks to Tom for his kind characterizations of my recent questions. I reiterate, as he mulls them over, that the questions (for which I myself do NOT have clear answers) were not meant as ideological barbs but as sincere questions of sociology.

To further stimulate Tom's thought, and that of others, we can add in a dash of libertarian ideology as well as Lord Acton's insight, and ask whether, from that perspective, the most powerful state (however we choose to define that) is, ipso facto, the most dangerous or (potentially?) rights-violating state?

As regards the interesting questions Tom raised, one issue I think important to constantly keep in mind when addressing issues of war is the need to properly tally both domestic as well as foreign effects. Certainly American state subsidization of the rebuilding of Europe under the Marshall Plan was helpful for (some) Europeans, but it was dramatically burdensome on the US taxpayer. Certainly the freeing of chattel slaves was a wonderful result of Lincoln's war, but it also led to a (less pronounced but more extensive and far more prolonged) loss of freedom for Northern citizens. I'm sure (though I'm not a student of sociology) that the rule to look at the seen and the unseen (to paraphrase Bastiat), the direct and indirect, applies to that field as much as it does in economics...

Mr. Sapienza is one of the principals at antiwar.com. His views, as expressed in a frank exchange, capture what is his own openly expressed view and at least an undercurrent at antiwar.com, as well as with Lew Rockwell, whose mocking of the death by friendly fire of football-player-turned-Army-Ranger was also revealing. I don't cheer the deaths of soldiers in general, although I will be quite happy when Abu Musab al-Zarkawi is captured or killed. Furthmore, I shed no tears over the killing of willing participants (as opposed, say, to conscripts) in establishment of regimes of mass murder (Waffen SS units in Poland and Ukraine, for example, and jihadis in Iraq). Not every life is to be equally mourned; those who volunteer to enslave others should be, in my opinion, considered differently from those who are conscripted, or who volunteer for (here I may anger Mr. Koerner) the armed forces of the U.S., the U.K, Poland, Italy, Australia, Denmark, or other coalition governments. I would not have "cheered" the deaths of poor Iraqi soldiers in Saddam's army (conscripts mainly, in any case), but I would "cheer" the death of the Ba'athist party militias who freely and happily massacred Kurds and marsh Arabs and of the jihadi volunteers who tortured and killed Margaret Hassan, an aid worker who had devoted her life to helping poor Iraqis, not to mention beheading adults (along with their children) who were perceived as friendly to foreigners or infidels.

The quotation from Murray Rothbard above is the same that I had posted in a different location, so you can find it by typing in a Google or Yahoo search with the terms "Stalin Rothbard passion peace," for example. I've just gone and found my old copy of *For A New Liberty*(inscribed "Feb. 1975, To Thomas Palmer, For reason and liberty � Murray Rothbard"). It's hard to imagine what kind of context would be missing for such an irresponsible statement. But, just to satisfy any skeptics, here is the sentence (and the clause) that precede it:

"We have already dealt theoretically with the standard and supposedly crushing argument against establishing anarcho-capitalism: what if the Soviet Union should attack? But there is more to be said empirically;"

Here is what follows:

"It pulled its troops out of Azerbaijan and Austria; pressured the Communist guerrillas of France and Italy into *not* taking power as the German armies withdrew and instead forced them into ruinous coalitions with centrist parties; abandoned the Greek Communist guerrillas and turned Greece over to Great Britain; *tried* to pressure Tito into subordinating himself into a coalition with Mihailovich and Mao Tse-Tung into a coalition with Chiang Kai-Shek; and it did *not* impose communism in Eastern Europe until after several years of a Western-launched Cold War. Thus, Stalin, far from being an expansionist, did his best to accede to American demands in the name of peaceful coexistence, but the United States, in *its* global expansionism, proved implacable."

Those sentences are followed by a footnote:

"On this analysis, see Kolko and the other revisionist works mentioned in footnote 2 of this chapter. Neither has Communist China been the aggressive bugbear of American propaganda. If we examine Chinese deeds since the inception of the Communist regime, we find no territorial expansion, a passive acquiescence in virtual American occupation of Chinese territory (Taiwan, Quemoy, Matsu) as well as British and Portuguese occupation (Hong Kong, Macao), and a *unilateral* cease-fire and withdrawal to its border after India had aggressed against China in border skirmishes. On the last, see Neville Maxwell, *India's China War* (New York: Pantheon Books, 1970)."

There's the context. Anarcho-capitalism would work because....the USSR is not expansionist and there was nothing to fear, as the leaders of the USSR had shown their "continuing passion for peace which has sometimes bordered on the suicidal," as in their invasion and annexation (along with the Third Reich) of Poland, their annexation of Moldova, their annexation of the northern Japanese islands (since they entered the war with Japan at the very end in order to occupy Japanese territory), and so on.

Finally, about Justin Raimondo's hysterical denunciation of the Kyrgyz opposition and his whitewashing of the President-since-1990-and-never-giving-up Askar Akayev. Raimondo paints Akayev as a gentle democrat and the opposition as awful thugs. I've no doubt that the opposition are not all classical liberals; as I've written, we'll wait and see, but my friends in central Asia tell me that at least they're not Islamists, as Raimondo now insinuates.

But really, Mr. Koerner, having the Democrats challenge Ralph Nader's signature drive is unfair and nasty. Is it really the same thing as say, George Bush being president for fifteen years, then decertifying all of the Democratic candidates and only allowing Republicans on to the ballot, and then elevating his daughters as his successors, in order to exercise unchallenged and complete power? We shall see how events in Kyrgyzstand turn out, but I see no reason to assume that the autocrat in power is just great and to smear the people who claimed that the election was rigged and who went into the streets.

I do know that Raimondo was completely, disastrously, immorally off base in his descriptions of events in Georgia and in Ukraine. He is weirdly pro-Putin, in a way that no Russian libertarian is. Even libertarians who work in the Kremlin, i.e., Andrei Illarionov, have been far harsher on Putin than Mr. Raimondo, whose descriptions of Putin are weirder than weird. The case of the Chechens, whom Mr. Raimondo smears on every occasion, is a good case. President Putin has screwed that situation up several times now. They should have been let go long ago. Every day they don't let them go, it seems to get worse. Dr. Illarionov has called for freedom for the Chechens, but not Mr. Raimondo. And Dr. Illarionov held a quite courageous news conference (see my post here: http://www.tomgpalmer.com/archives/016697.php ) in which he congratulated the Ukrainian voters for their brave vote to throw out the gangsters (the Yanukovych forces, whose idea of an "election campaign" was to bus in drunken miners armed with iron bars) and to put an end to Russian imperial ambitions. Why is Mr. Raimondo so eager to slime and slander every opposition movement to every state, other than ours? And the fact that he was so completely wrong about Ukraine and Geogia (his good friends at the BHHRG also were extremely eager to keep in power the authoritarians Aleksander Lukashenko in Belarus and Aslan Abashidze in Ajaria) calls into question his claims about Kyrgyzstan. He simply has no credibility. That's not the same as saying that the opposition in Kyrgyzstan is pure or wonderful. They were, however, pretty clearly reacting to a seizure of absolute power by someone who didn't like the idea of ever parting with it; as such there is some presumption in favor of denying absolute power to the president-of-fifteen-years.

I see that my post crossed cyberspace with Ross Levatter's.

He asks two more important questions. The first one actually doesn't seem so difficult to me. I think that there's a big difference between weak government and limited government. I favor limited government. I like lots of limits. But weak government is a different matter. It does not follow from wanting to limit state power that anything that weakens a state is a good thing. This is something that the less thoughtful followers of Murray Rothbard forget. Lebanon had weak government during the 1970s; it did not have limited government; and it was a really terrible place to live. (Rothbard and his dimmer followers mistake anti-statism with favoring diminishing the authority of any given state; but quite often that is simply a recipe for disaster, for statelessness is not the same as liberty. What Rothbard set out as an ideal was stateless liberty, but then the liberty part is sometimes forgotten in the pursuit of statelessness.)

What I prefer over stateless chaos (as in the case of Lebanese warlordism, southern Somali warlordism, etc.) is government that has the power and the authority to secure rights and justice, but which is limited to those functions. Other arrangements are possible. For example, there's weak, unlimited government, of the sort that some parts of the world witness, to their sorrow. The only thing really worse than that is strong unlimited government. But far better than both is strong (in the sense of possessed of the resources and the authority to secure peace and justice), limited government. So it does not follow that the strongest (or most "powerful") government is the most dangerous to liberty, if that government exercises limited powers. Generally more dangerous is the weak and unlimited government, incapable of securing justice but quite ready to plunder and pillage in irregular (and unpredictable) ways.

The second issue is of great concern to friends of liberty. The extension of American military force abroad has had awful consequences for the extension of coercive state power (in the sense of a reduction of its limits) at home, including loss of rights to freedom of speech, freedom of movement, requisition of resources, power over the use of privately held assets, and much, much more. Those are good reasons to oppose the extension of American military force. But the question that Ross Levatter asked was about how to compare different states in terms of their violations of rights, not whether any given policy is likely to increase or decrease rights violations within a state. (That's an important -- a vital -- question, but it's not the same as the one he posed.) But they're all damn good questions and deserve more mulling.

I am slightly suprised by how easy Tom feels my question about the potential equivalence of rights-violating states and powerful states is. Without suggesting the answer Tom offers is wrong, and agreeing that "limited" and "weak" are not synonymous, I myself am not comfortable implying that Lord Acton's dictum about the corrupting influence of power is jejune. If not jejune, Acton's insight at least implies that there is a tension between a government's gaining ever greater power (over resources, people, etc.) and that same government remaining limited in the sense Tom favors. Cf, Public Choice economics literature, or the history of the United States of America.

Tom has become a significant scholar of Constitutional government. But I'm sure he agrees that pieces of paper, alone, do not constrain government. This has always been, in my view, the strongest argument for anarchy, best made out in Randy Barnett's The Structure of Liberty. We see how easily the bulk of the American public is misled into thinking, abroad, that Iraq was a serious (indeed, imminent) threat to the US, or, domestically, how Congress, passing a law that applies to only one person, acts constitutionally while state and federal judges who apply traditional interpretations of guardianship are "activist" threats to the Constitution. How, then, can even the most thoughtful efforts on libertarian constitutional theory save Iraq, or the USA? (Yes, this, too, is a different question than my initial one...I am Witmanesque...I contain multitudes...:-)

I evidently misunderstood the first query that Ross Levatter posed. Acton's dictum referred to the effects of power (understood in Lockean ways, i.e., arbitrary power) on people; it corrupts them. I took Ross Levatter to be referring to the power of a government, as in, does it have more or fewer police officers to enforce the law. I certainly agree that power in the former sense is corrupting. I evidently misunderstood Ross Levatter to mean the powers (as in, resources, number of police officers, size of military, etc., which was what he referenced in his earlier post) of governments, rather than powers in the constitutional sense. In the former sense, the U.S. government is quite powerful, more so than any other state on earth. In the latter sense, it is too powerful, but still less so than most governments. It seems that Ross Levatter and I have been writing past each other, for which I apologize.

I'm preparing for a conference on constitutionalism and the judiciary, which is focused precisely on the issue that Ross Levatter raises in his second paragraph immediately above. It's a very difficult problem. Plenty of constitutions contain "parchment barriers" to the usurpation of powers, but mere parchment barriers don't work. The interesting question is: what does work? Why do some work well and others not? So the problem in constitutional design is to establish incentives such that maintaining the constitution is more valuable than violating it, even when violating it is in one's interest. (An example would be the resistance to Roosevelt's court-packing scheme, even by his own Democratic supporters in the Congress, who felt that it was a usurpation of power that went too far and threatened the whole scheme.) I have posed this problem to Republicans and Democrats (depending on who has been in power) in the form of a question: Would you favor the granting of power X, knowing that it will be yielded by
(to Democrats) George W. Bush?
(to Republicans) Hillary Clinton?
It's one way to get people to think at a constitutional level. But the problem of establishing the right incentives, and creating the precedents whereby they will be institutionalized, is a remarkably thorny and difficult one.

But that takes us rather far afield from whether Justin Raimondo is a very reliable guide to world politics, or even whether we should favor having "our state" defeated by other states, just because it is "our state."

My apologies to Tom for posting this response after only hours ago in a private email saying to him I thought we could let matters rest with his last helpful and interesting response to me. However, the more I consider it, the more I think one more round may be fruitful.

Tom makes a clear distinction between ââ?¬Å?powerââ?¬Â in the sense of command of resources and ââ?¬Å?powerââ?¬Â in the sense of perceived legitimate authority, noting that Actonââ?¬â?¢s famous dictum applies only to power in the latter sense. I agree. Microsoft commands great power in the former sense, yet I feel no threat from Microsoft since they cannot compel me to buy their products nor is their control over these resources immune from market competition.

But even the most limited constitutional government, Tom would surely agree, is a monopoly. The economics of monopoly, coupled with the insights of public choice, seem to me to blur the distinction between the two senses of power Tom describes when applied to government, if not in theory, then at least in practice.

I recall during a 1980 Presidential debate at the ASU campus in Tempe, Arizona, where I spoke for Ed Clark, the Libertarian candidate. The representative for Republican candidate Ronald Reagan came out forthrightly for a limited government and also spoke of the daunting Soviet threat requiring a massive military buildup on our part. I responded, ââ?¬Å?So your candidate is for a dramatically more limited government than we have today, with a corresponding significant cut in the taxes we pay for government, but which can nonetheless fight two major land wars in Eurasia and an additional minor war in Africa, according to current government policy that your candidate accepts?ââ?¬Â ââ?¬Å?Yes,ââ?¬Â was the response of this college Republican, who saw no contradiction in a limited, low-tax government with a massive, bloated military force spread imperially throughout the globe in over 100 countries. But I know Tom has a much keener insight than that college student of long ago.

When you have a monopoly on power, in the Actonian sense, you can use itââ?¬â?historically you typically DO use itââ?¬â?to commander power in the sense of increased resources. This is not an ââ?¬Å?if and only ifââ?¬Â mathematic proof, so I grant Tom it doesnââ?¬â?¢t logically follow that the government with the greatest resources (or even greatest resources per capita) is necessarily the government with the greatest power in the Actonian sense. History, political philosophy, political science, and perhaps even economics do not lend themselves to such mathematical proofs, but they command a logic of their own nonetheless. Monopoly government can command resources. To remain in power, no matter the constitutional restraints, government agents use those resources at the margin to reward those who can assist them in maintaining power. This use of Actonian power allows them to, over time, gain more power over resources, more firmly establishing their grasp on and ability to use to their benefit Actonian power. Such is the logic, I submit, of political monopolies. Where in the grand pageant of the history of Power, as Roy Childs spoke of, is there a clear counterexample? Where do we see a government structure that over time increases its power over resources but successfully binds itself constitutionally to NOT increase its Actonian power? [Again, not being the student of history that Tom and some others who add to this blog are, I note this is a question, not a rhetorical device with an implied answer.]

Tom claims that the US government is the world�s most powerful in terms of commanding resources but far from the most powerful (though still more powerful than desired) in Acton�s corrupting sense. And yet making that very claim requires an answer to the sociological question I first asked: How to measure rights violations? Are the horrid rights violations that occur to a relatively small group of people in North Korea clearly worse than the political imprisonment of millions of peaceful drug law offenders in the United States? It was to answer questions of this sort that I raised my initial challenging and to-be-mulled-over query. But I am less convinced than Tom (whose judgment I highly respect) that there is no connection, with respect to monopoly governments, between their ability to command resources and their ability to command people.

Levatter:
"How to measure rights violations?"

Answer is that you *can't* do so in general, because the measure of those rights violations hinges in a large part on the *individual values* of the person being violated. *I* don't get to tell other people how much freedom they can bloody well *live without*.

Palmer:
"What I prefer over stateless chaos (as in the case of Lebanese warlordism, southern Somali warlordism, etc.) is government that has the power and the authority to secure rights and justice, but which is limited to those functions."

You do understand that such a government can't exist, right? A government by *its nature* violates rights and dispenses injustice.

John Lopez suggests I engage in a quixotic quest:

Levatter:
"How to measure rights violations?"

Lopez: Answer is that you *can't* do so in general, because the measure of those rights violations hinges in a large part on the *individual values* of the person being violated. *I* don't get to tell other people how much freedom they can bloody well *live without*.
-------

But I think Mr. Lopez may have a mistakenly skewed view of the matter. I believe he is confusing the subjective value a person may attach to a right with the right itself.

For example, it is one thing to say that, since I don't like oysters, I would not personally feel terribly harmed if the government passed a law that (illegitimately) prohibited me from exercising the right to eat oysters.

It is quite another thing to say that it is merely a subjective matter to claim that the right against murder is more important than the right against trespassing.

If sociologists and political scientists can make no comparison statements about various regimes--cannot compare 19th century England and the 20th century Soviet system, for example--then those social sciences are inherently limited. I don't think the economic notion of subjective value from which marginal utility is developed requires such agnosticism.

Having said this, such judgments are not easy to make, require careful factual research and much judicious weighing of facts and values. That something is difficult is not to say it is logically impossible, which is the claim I take Mr. Lopez to have been attempting.

Mr. Lopez may very well be right that it's in the nature of government to violate rights. (There's an interesting distinction that some have drawn in the past between "state" and "government," with the possibility of "voluntary governments," such as condo associations and clubs being possible, but we'll set that to the side for the moment, and assume that Mr. Lopez is referring to the inherently involuntary form of government.) But that doesn't mean that government cannot also protect rights.

The city in which I live (D.C.) may not be the best example, but there are plenty of places in which the police protect people from violence, the courts adjudicate disputes, and people enjoy a large degree of freedom. (Even with all its faults, the D.C. government does a better job of that than, say, what we observe in Mogadishu.) I presume that Mr. Lopez prefers cases in which governments do protect (at least some) rights to cases in which the institutions of government violate even more rights and rarely (or perhaps never) protect them. On a list of outcomes in order of preference, I think that stateless chaos (warlordism, tribalism, etc.) should be listed lower than living in, say, the United Kingdom, with its very well established but fairly limited state that does in fact provide a high degree of security of life, liberty, and estate. I'll bet that Mr. Lopez would agree. What I think he favors is a condition of stateless liberty, not stateless chaos characterized by complete insecurity of life, liberty, and estate. The ideal of stateless liberty is not the same as statelessness per se; the liberty part, i.e., the existence of a legal system that defines and secures rights, is essential. We have a number of historically well documented examples of stateless legal systems that are very attractive, compared to the alternative systems that existed at the time. (They include the Icelandic Commonwealth, statless Christian Ireland, the American west, etc.) What is important is that in each case a well functioning system of law existed, from which we can learn much about the functioning of free societies; indeed, much of the American legal system is not a part of the sovereign state, but is made up of civil society mechanisms, such as bail bondsmen, bounty hunters (who catch more fugitive crooks than do the police), credit bureaus, debt collection agencies, and so on. (Some would call that government that was not a state, but it's not all that important whether we call it government or not.)

I�m happy for people to explore the ideal of a system of rights and justice without a state. It is both an inspiring ideal and a good way to examine and think about the ordering mechanisms of free societies. But it�s important also to realize that statelessness *per se* is not what is attractive, as there are plenty of stateless conditions without liberty. It is liberty that matters. And given that, I am happy to do what I can to tame states (realizing that they will always remain, like wild carnivores that have been domesticated, still very dangerous). The mechanisms by which we tame them (and there has been remarkable progress, as well as terrible retrograde motion, over the past five hundred years) deserve careful study and attempts should be made to implement them. They won�t realize the ideal, but they�ll come closer. And closer is better than further.

Palmer:
"I believe he is confusing the subjective value a person may attach to a right with the right itself."

I took that to be Levatter's point. You can determine that rights have been violated, but it's awfully hard to say that one or the other violation is "worse", except according to your own values.

"For example, it is one thing to say that, since I don't like oysters, I would not personally feel terribly harmed if the government passed a law that (illegitimately) prohibited me from exercising the right to eat oysters.

It is quite another thing to say that it is merely a subjective matter to claim that the right against murder is more important than the right against trespassing."

I would say instead that they are different facets of the same thing, namely an individual's life.

"On a list of outcomes in order of preference, I think that stateless chaos (warlordism, tribalism, etc.) should be listed lower than living in, say, the United Kingdom, with its very well established but fairly limited state that does in fact provide a high degree of security of life, liberty, and estate. I'll bet that Mr. Lopez would agree."

Yes, but again, that's for individuals to decide. My hierarchy of values isn't necessarily a moral imperative, in fact I may be making choices that are objectively bad for me.

I'll just note that I mistakenly attributed the first two quotes in my reply above to Tom Palmer, rather than the unsigned (Ross Levatter, maybe?) poster.

Very funny that Raimondo has responded...but without linking to any of the actual criticisms of him from Dr. Palmer or anyone else, but only to edited versions of them provided by Raimondo! And he brings out his usual low gay-baiting at the end, about Dr. Palmer's going to Iraq:

So go to Iraq, Tommy boy, and suck up to the "libertarian" ayatollahs: I�m sure they�ll be thrilled to hear your views on "constitutionalism," gay marriage, and the evils of "homophobia."

The whole thing is at http://www.antiwar.com/blog/comments.php?id=P1954_0_1_0

It's like Raimondo cannot even tell that he is validating the criticisms people make of him, that he is a gay-baiter and that he is bitterly anti-American! We have people like that in Europe, but mainly on the most extreme communist left or nationalist right fringes. Raimondo would be at home in the NPD: http://www.npd.de/

Right. (BB's post, above). Furthermore, why is Raimondo so riled up about Tom's trip to Iraq? By his own admission, he doesn't know who is funding it, and he claims repeatedly that the conference is for the US government, even though this blog has made it clear the conference is for Iraqis.

"It's like Raimondo cannot even tell that he is validating the criticisms people make of him, that he is a gay-baiter and that he is bitterly anti-American! We have people like that in Europe, but mainly on the most extreme communist left or nationalist right fringes. Raimondo would be at home in the NPD: http://www.npd.de/"

Not sure that the NPD would be the right thing for him, but
he'd clearly be a client for the Verfassungsschutz... and guess what, Dr. Palmer would be first in line to come to his defense.
That's America!
NV

Still, Raimondo asks a reasonable question. Who is paying for Mr. Palmer's trip to Iraq? And, as for the assertion that a given conference is for Iraqis ... which Iraqis? Who will be invited?

Raimondo's take on the discussion here is interesting.

It appears that Raimondo does cheer for the defeat of U.S. troops. He appeals to the authority of Herbert Spencer with a headline that Spencer is right.

I still stand by the view that most of the commentary on anti-war.com doesn't reflect such a view and Raimondo's own commentary doesn't generally make that view obvious.

I can think of various reasons why British soldiers in the late 19th century in Afghanistan are more culpable than U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

How many U.S. solidiers in Iraq signed up to with the intention of defending and expanding the U.S. Empire?

Knowing a good number of young people who do go into the military, I am certain that there are many who _wish_ they were joining up to create and defend a U.S. Empire.

I do meet young people who would support a U.S. political movement that has a fascist approach to foreign policy.

I also run into a good many older officers. They seem pretty sincere in their views that the military and military activity are necessary evils. They also tend to be more committed to defending U.S. interest than projecting U.S. values along neo-con lines. While I disagree with their often quite hawkish views, they do not see themselves as defending or expanding a U.S. Empire. They are, of course, willing to "do their job" and seek to impose U.S. values on the rest of the world.

And, of course, not all young people joining the military have a "Risk" mentality either. It is just not all that rare. And I think they mostly grow out of it.

Many joined the U.S. military for economic reasons. They should have known that they could be dragooned into an unjust war, but they just might have been needed for a just war. I suppose the same defense could have been made of British troops in the late nineteenth century.

In my opinion, defending the Empire seemed to be a more important aspect of British foreign policy. Though, I must admit, that major power threats to the U.S., and what I would count as a just war, have been receeding in likelihood for the U.S.

Also, we must always be mindful that a large portion of Americans believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and supported the attack on the U.S. in 9-11. As far as I know, there was no large-scale delusion in in Great Britain regarding the "threat" from Afghanistan.

Of course, I have no problem with the notion that Herbert Spencer, like Justin Raimondo, was just wrong in this circumstance.

A quick note between meetings. I've raised a fair amount of funds to finance Arabic translations, an Arabic web site, think-tank activity in Iraq, and my trip. I'll post a note later this evening. Given Mr. Raimondo's now open endorsement of killing Americans, I'll not be posting my itinerary. He's made his views clear enough. (Also note: I'm not advising the U.S. government, but the Iraqis who will be debating and writing a Constitution. Maybe Mr. Raimdono hasn't read the news, but there was an election in Iraq and millions of people defied the terrorists to cast their ballots for an assembly that will write a Constitution. He ought to get out of his Orc hole once in a while.)

I looked at the Raimondo blog twice before it hit me that Raimondo says that Palmer "smeared one of our employees, Jeremy Sapienza." What was the smear? Palmer QUOTED him writing "I will stand up proudly for it. I have cheered on men attacking US troops. I will continue to cheer any defeat US troops meet." If just quoting someone is the same as "smearing" him, it does kinda make you wonder.

Not much to add, other than what I've written above. Anyone who visits, however, may be interested in how Mr. Raimondo has been caught up in his own excitement and has fallen for a patently obvious hoax, a forged document alleging to have been written on U.S. Embassy stationery by the U.S. Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, proving that all the strings there are being pulled from Washington. I poke holes in it here:
http://www.tomgpalmer.com/archives/020009.php
(note also the link to Mr. Nathan Hamm at www.registan.net, who pokes additional holes in the document and in Mr. Raimondo's credibility.) One commentator (Mr. Daniel Wiener) to my post pointed out one of the interesting implications of Raimondo's eager circulation of a hoax:
-----
After reading through Justin's article, I was amused by the way he first dares the U.S. Government to repudiate the memo ("If this isn't a memo written and conceived in the U.S. embassy, then let the U.S. State Department deny it."). Then, when the memo is indeed repudiated, he tries to use that fact to discredit the repudiation ("if it is a forgery, and a "crude" one at that, why is the U.S. government bothering to issue an official statement? Why give it that much credence ââ?¬â?? if there isn't some truth to it?").

So what exactly does Justin want the U.S. Government to do if the memo really is a forgery? Denounce it or not denounce it? Apparently either action helps prove that the memo is legitimate. Justin has definitely covered all his bases; he can never be proven wrong.
-----
No thinking person should take such a kook seriously.

"How many U.S. solidiers in Iraq signed up to with the intention of defending and expanding the U.S. Empire?"

The US is an "Empire"? How so? Because it looks nothing like the British Empire, Roman Empire, etc?

Are you just relying on the Lenninist theory "Imperialist Capitalist Exploitation" that anti-war Marxists use? If so, are you then a Marxist?

Or are you using "Empire" because it a scary word to use in your propaganda? If so, why do you feel the need to be dishonest with such a distortion?

The U.S. is an empire. Even by some formal definitions. Ivan Eland makes the point well in his new book, The Empire Has No Clothes.

It seems to me that whether we call a policy "imperialistic" or "interventionist" (or "isolationist" or "non-interventionist"), there remain important issues about the conduct of foreign policy. Rather than being hung up on terminology (not that that isn't sometimes important), it's worthwhile to ask hard questions about the important issues of when military force may or may not be used, what the proper relations are among separate states, and whether or under what conditions one state may take action that impinges on the territorial authority of another, including actions on behalf of oppressed people living under the power of another state.

I wasn't claiming that the U.S. has an
Empire. Great Britain, however, did have
an Empire during the Afghanistan war.
Persumably, British soldiers understood
that they were signing up to defend the
Empire.

To judge U.S. soldiers in Iraq as being
morally equivalent to British soldiers
in Afghanistan in the 19th century, it
would require that U.S. soldiers signed
up to defend (and expand) the U.S. Empire.

Hardly any of them had such an intention.

My own opinion is that U.S. interventionism
is significantly different than traditional
Empires and so I don't favor calling it an
Empire. The name, however, isn't really
central to my position on U.S. foreign policy.

Thanks to all who gave me the Rothbard cites. I still don't think he was defending communism or hating America the way some of you are implying. Joseph Stromberg write about it here, "How Murray Rothbard Single-Handedly Brought Down the Saigon Government with Malice Aforethought."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/stromberg/stromberg67.html

I am perplexed why anyone takes Raimondo seriously. He's been falsifying his writing since he first advertised himself as the "Italian Stallion" in the local gay rag in San Francisco.