Category Archives: libertarianism

UPDATED (6/7/2017): Dennis Rodman (& Russia) Promoting Global Peace

Communism, Foreign Policy, Free Markets, Hillary Clinton, libertarianism, Middle East, Russia

Dennis Rodman has a road-map to peace: “building trust and understanding through sport and cultural exchanges,” as he put it. It’s slow, laborious and precludes lobbing bombs at North Korea or depriving its poor, long-suffering people of contact with the world.

Rodman says this about his frequent visits to Pyongyang: “I know in time Americans will see I’m just trying to help us all get along and see eye to eye through basketball and with my friendship with Kim I know this will happen.”

These are baby steps, but it’s one man’s way of opening up a closed and cloistered society to outside influence: through positive, voluntary exchanges and interactions.

On the other hand, a woman of war—Hillary Clinton—has just issued forth in support of Barack Obama’s adventure in Syria, while also giving a cursory nod to Russian diplomacy.

Russia has urged Syria to put its chemical weapons under international control for subsequent destruction to avert a possible military strike.
“We are calling on the Syrian authorities not only agree on putting chemical weapons storages under international control, but also for its further destruction and then joining the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons,” Lavrov said. “We have passed our offer to [Syrian Foreign Minister] Walid al-Muallem and hope to receive a fast and positive answer,” he added.
… Russia and Syria urged the US to focus on convening a peace conference to end a more than two-year long crisis, rather than launching military strikes.
With Obama seeking Congress’ support for military action to respond to an alleged chemical attack near Damascus, al-Muallem said “the diplomatic channels to resolve this issue have not been exhausted”.
“We ask about the motivation of the US to launch a strike against us”, he said.
Lavrov has reiterated Moscow’s full support for calls by the UN Security Council to bring chemical experts back to Syria to complete their mission.

On a positive note: With this predictable move (not yet online)—Hillary and her Amazons did, after all, orchestrate the war against Libya—she may have damaged her presidential prospects for 2016.

We can only hope.

In any case, Hillary Clinton or Dennis Rodman for public office? I know what my choice would be.

UPDATE (6/7/2017): President Trump will get more from North Korea and its patriotic people, who prefer their own dictator to American-imposed democracy, if he sends as an emissary a man who endeavored to open up that closed and cloistered society to outside influence through positive, voluntary exchanges and interactions, not threats; a man who opted for slow, laborious efforts that preclude lobbing bombs at North Korea or depriving its poor, long-suffering people of contact with the world. That man is Dennis Rodman.

UPDATE II: His Highness’s Collateral Damage

Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Just War, libertarianism, Middle East, Neoconservatism, Republicans

“… And if you’re so dead-set against the killing of children that you are willing to send us into yet another conflict, will you guarantee that the 1000-pound Tomahawk missiles that you will heap on Syria won’t kill children—or are they simply your collateral damage?”

These powerful words were delivered by Judge Jeanine (written, no doubt, by her show’s writers), five minutes and 28 seconds into her weekly Opening Statement.

Judge Jeanine was speaking about the thing no Republican cared about during Iraq: collateral damage.

Let us hope that this wonderful, country wide awakening is no brief jaunt, but a return to an America-First, do-no-harm foreign policy.

Photos: Nine Years of War in Iraq.

UPDATED I (9/8): And “Will the murders of those children be less significant than those we go to avenge?” I failed to transcribe Jeanine’s last clincher. This is the sort of sharp logic missing from most tele-commentary.

UPDATE II: In reply to the thread on Facebook: Other than as an economist, Thomas Sowell is unpersuasive. No serious libertarian should take him seriously on issues of just war. Sowell was full-throttle for the war against Iraq.

UPDATE III: Shock ‘N Awe For Syria? (Senators Say Onward To Syria)

Foreign Policy, Just War, libertarianism, Media, Middle East, Neoconservatism, Propaganda, Republicans, War

“A non-interventionist does not pretend that he is all knowing,” explained the great, much-missed Ron Paul to the war mongers on CNN (cheerleader Christian Amanpour is seriously aroused at the prospects of shock ‘n awe). Given the US’s dismal record in detecting WMD in faraway lands about which we know NOTHING, Dr. Paul rightly doubts the evidence as to the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government. Syria is immersed in a civil war, observed Paul, we know nothing about the dynamics there—who’s fighting whom—and Uncle Sam killing more Syrians just because the factions in that country are killing one another will accomplish nothing good.

Van Jones, a former Obama lackey (whom I might just begin to respect on some limited level), seconded Ron Paul’s sentiments. (This just highlights how serious was the failure of Mitt Romney and his surrogates to adopt the libertarian foreign policy so as to galvanize both libertarains and the left to his candidacy.)

Little daylight exists between the Republicans and Democrats in the halls of power. This, in my opinion, will be patently evident in the vote in Congress for Obama’s so-called “strategic” strafing of Syria, as if daisy cutters can be lobbed judiciously.

UPDATE I: Debate, Or Self-Aggrandizing Disquisitions? The “debate” conducted by members of the “Senate Committee Foreign Relations,” better described as the delivery of self-aggrandizing disquisitions, confirms the unanimity of opinion among the people’s so-called representatives—even as most Americans oppose the strike.

If you have any sense, you’ll see that going into Syria, an adventure whose costs our people will shoulder, demonstrates again that is us against them, where them constitutes “The Comitatus—”the sprawling apparatus that encompasses the ministries of government, the lawyers, the diplomats, the adjutants, the messengers, the interpreters, the intellectuals”

Lest you forget, the D.C. hood is also home to your favorite, oh-so gritty media personalities, who gather inside or near the Bubble to reap “the benefits of being at the center of the Imperium.” This means rocking the ship of state just enough to retain street cred with “the folks.”

UPDATE II: ONWARD TO SYRIA. As was predicted in this post, “they” would win; “we” would lose. BBC NEWS is first to report that “US senators’ draft backs limited action.”

The measure to be voted on next week sets a time limit of 60 days on any operation. The draft document also bans the use of any ground forces in Syria.

Secretary of State John Kerry said the US had to act after the Assad regime’s “undeniable” chemical weapons attack.

The Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, endorsed Mr Obama’s call for military action.

According to a copy of the draft resolution obtained by AFP news agency, the senators wish to restrict the operation to a “limited and tailored use of the United States Armed Forces against Syria”.

The resolution states that “the president may extend” a 60-day operation “for a single period of 30 days” if he obtains further specific Congressional approval.

“The authority granted… does not authorise the use of the United States Armed Forces on the ground in Syria for the purpose of combat operations,” the statement added.

FACEBOOK THREAD. It amazes me how immoral people the world over are (US politicians included) about demanding American blood and treasure. As I wrote in The Titan is Tired, “We Americans have our own tyrants to tackle. We no longer want to defend to the death borders not our own—be they in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, [Syria], wherever. And we don’t need our friends looking to us to do so.” And I added, “This column has been consistently polite about—but disinterested in—the putative push for freedom across the Middle East. Dare I say that such a stance, and not slobbering sentimentality, is the proper, libertarian position? I promised, accordingly, that when liberty deprived peoples the world over supported patriots stateside, I’d return the favor. The same goes for Israel.”

UPDATED: John Maynard Keynes: Where’s The Genius? (Part 1)

Capitalism, Celebrity, Classical Liberalism, Communism, Debt, Economy, History, Inflation, Intellectualism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Media

“John Maynard Keynes: Where’s The Genius?! (Part 1)” is the first part of my conversation with Benn Steil. Dr. Steil is senior fellow and director of international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations. His latest book is “The Battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World Order”:

1) ILANA MERCER: Congratulations on a beautifully written book, so carefully researched, with both archival and secondary material. Followers of the Austrian School of economics, as I believe we both are, have a reflexive disdain for John Maynard Keynes. Nevertheless, the portrait you drew of him was powerful and persuasive. For example, it is easy to sympathize with Keynes’ frustration with the American mind—so prosaic and anti-intellectual—during the critical Bretton-Woods negotiations. There is much to admire too about Keynes’ “unrelenting nationalism.” I had never before thought of Keynes as an English patriot, first. You, a Hayekian thinker, managed to humanize J. M. Keynes. How did that happen?

BENN STEIL: Thanks Ilana. I’m a great admirer of Hayek’s writing, as you know, but I’ve never been one to wear the Austrian (or any other) label. More importantly, “The Battle of Bretton Woods” is in large measure a parallel biography of Keynes and Harry Dexter White, and no biographer succeeds in engaging readers of any stripe without empathy towards his subjects. In the case of Keynes, I may not sympathize with his economics in the way that his greatest biographer, Robert Skidelsky, does, but I found it not in the least bit difficult to admire him as a gifted public intellectual and to warm to him as a human being, with all his obvious flaws and foibles. One aspect of Keynes that I tried to bring out is how fundamental his English upbringing and nationalism were to shaping both his economic and political thinking. He was a defective diplomat, no doubt, but he took to the role with ease and enthusiasm.

2) MERCER: My mistake. You were awarded the 2010 Hayek Book Prize, so I presumed you favored Austrian economics. But back to Keynes. As you reveal, he “never bothered with a [doctorate]; he hadn’t even a degree in economics,” and “he formally studied economics for a brief period” only. (page 61) His election to “a life fellowship at Kings College, Cambridge, at twenty-six” seemed to rely on familial membership in Britain’s intellectual peerage. Yet, as you contend, he amalgamated the qualities of “mathematician, historian, statesman, philosopher” “with a genius that no economist has ever matched.” (page 62) Guide the perplexed, please.

STEIL: It’s important to understand that in Keynes’s day, …”

Read the rest of the conversation, “John Maynard Keynes: Where’s The Genius?! (Part 1),” on WND. Stay tuned for the conclusion, next week, of the Steil-Mercer conversation about Keynes.

If you’d like to feature this column, WND’s longest-standing, exclusive paleolibertarian column, in or on your publication (paper or pixels), contact ilana@ilanamercer.com.

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UPDATE (8/15): I forewarned Benn Steil, who is the nicest gentleman—and, unlike J. M. Keynes, a jolly good sport—that our readers are hard-core. If only these readers used respectful language, but there is nothing I can do about the conduct of others.

It has to be obvious from my questions to Dr. Steil (part 2 is still to come) that I have the utmost respect for his scholarship and that I enjoyed what was an impressively researched, beautifully written book. I am not one of those tinny ideologues who’d rather miss out on an important intellectual contribution just because it doesn’t comport 100% with my philosophy. I’m too curious for that.

Benn Steil and I began communicating when I penned an irate blog about a negative review of his book in The Times Literary Supplement.