Category Archives: libertarianism

UPDATED: Is Ron Paul Good For Israel? (Inadvertently, Yes)

Foreign Policy, Israel, libertarianism, Political Philosophy, Ron Paul

The excerpt is from “Is Ron Paul Good For Israel?”, my latest WND.COM column:

“In 2007, the Ron Paul presidential campaign commissioned a short position piece from me concerning the congressman and Israel. In discussion with Dr. Paul’s then-campaign managers, I had ventured that to forge ahead as a viable candidate, Rep. Paul would need to convince the enormously powerful Christian Right that he was not hostile to Israel. For America’s Evangelicals—and not the puny AIPAC (American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee) often invoked derisively by libertarians—are Israel’s most powerful political lobbyists.

The truth is that libertarians consider Israel a bit of a vexation. As a principled libertarian and an unapologetic Zionist, I have strived to navigate these shoals without resorting to special pleading. … The time is ripe, then, to publish ‘Unshackling Israel,’ the piece I penned for Dr. Paul back in December of 2007…”

The complete column is “Is Ron Paul Good For Israel?”, now on WND.COM.

My new book, Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa, can be pre-ordered from the publisher. Shipping is currently free. Follow the “Buy” links on the page. The Amazon account will be activated shortly.

UPDATE (May 14): Actually, I am unsure what readers mean when they assert that I must have “investigated” Ron Paul and certified him as a friend of Israel, whatever that means. Nothing of the sort. I have no idea what Ron Paul feels or thinks about Israel. The good news is that Paul’s First Principles are all I need to know about. And I do know these; these are sound. With the kind of First Principles Paul holds, he will be good for America, first and foremost, which means he will not be meddling with other countries, which, inadvertently, means he will let Israel conduct its own affairs.

Here is another thing I know: Paul understands that an American president will have a tough time currying favor with Americans if he tilts wildly toward the crazy Palestinians. Americans are generally pro-Israel. Simple. If Paul starts exculpating suicide bombers in Israel, it’s over. That’s the way Americans roll.

UPDATED: The Titan Is Tired

EU, Foreign Policy, Israel, Judaism & Jews, libertarianism, Middle East, Multiculturalism, Nationhood, Neoconservatism, Old Right, Palestinian Authority, Terrorism, The West, UN

The following is from “The Titan Is Tired,” my new WND.COM column:

“… 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. Israelis want the support of Americans in standing up for their national sovereignty. Fine. But they should respond in kind.

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, wherever. And we don’t need our friends looking to us to do so.”

The complete column is “The Titan Is Tired,” now on WND.COM.

UPDATE (April 29): On Facebook, our friend Nebojša Mali writers this: “Ilana, the whole article is well-written, but that last paragraph is simply outstanding.”

Me: “Let me read it. Forgot it. Oh, it’s up there in the excerpt. Thanks, Nebojsa; coming from you, that’s nice. I think it captures how I feel personally: tired. Can’t imagine what some poor marine, or any soldier, must feel as the unarmed armchair warriors here and abroad coax him back to hell for the 1000th deployment. What the hell for? So that Ann Coulter can continue to be the prettiest, most profitable (almost) war profiteer around? Here’s something written about that for your site (antiwar.com), it’s called “LETHAL WEAPONS: NEOCON GROUPIES.”

Ron Paul Vs. The ‘Revirginizing’ Republicans

libertarianism, Political Philosophy, Republicans, Ron Paul

John H. Richardson of Esquire Magazine has a great line about the Republicans’ hollow commitment to constitutional principles: “Once Obama became president, the hymen of their small-government ideals spontaneously regenerated.” Richardson follows with a fabulous piece about Ron Paul:

“[Ron] Paul chose to use the new Congress’s ceremonial reading of the Constitution — a tribute to him — to chastise his colleagues for the hollowness of the stunt. ‘Will there be no more wars without an actual congressional declaration?’ he asked. ‘Will the Federal Reserve Act be repealed? Will only gold and silver be called legal tender? Will we end all the unconstitutional federal departments, including the Departments of Energy, Education, Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, and Labor? Will the Patriot Act be repealed and all the warrantless searches stopped? Will the TSA be restrained or abolished? Will the IRS’s unconstitutional collection powers end? Will executive and judicial quasilegislative powers be ended? Will we end the federal war on drugs? Would we end the federal government’s involvement in medical care? Will we end all the federal government’s illusionary insurance programs? Will we ban secret prisons, trials without due process, and assassinations? Will we end our foreign policy of invasion and occupations?'”

The feature about Ron Paul is well-worth reading. (While you’re at it, here’s a defense of Representative Paul, one of many, written during the heyday of the attacks against him launched by Beltway libertarians.)

Other good lines by Richardson: “Words that other politicians used like screeches of chimpanzee code, Paul actually meant and could explain so that everything from the economic collapse to marijuana legalization to terrorism actually connected and made sense. Like the words on everyone’s lips these days, small government. The way Ron Paul explains it, the U. S. Constitution was all about setting up a balance of powers in order to prevent a recurrence of government tyranny, a purpose emphasized by the Bill of Rights….”

A not-so-good line, because arguably incorrect (the accretion of the state has been the ruin of the USA): “He doesn’t care that it was a powerful American government, based in Washington and willing to invest in its people, that ultimately made the United States into the world-historic power that it is today, with a huge economy and a vast middle class. Nor does he care that it was that strong central government that ensured the survival of the young country” …

Finally:

The difference is that a lot of conservatives just say this stuff without meaning it. It was conservatives, after all, who said that you can have small government along with two wars and seven hundred overseas military bases. But Ron Paul goes the other way. Philosophical and systematic and pure in a way that young people may be best qualified to understand, he lays bare the contradictions. That is the reason his ideas have spread like hidden veins throughout our culture, the reason he has become such a stunning challenge to the existing order. He means the words that everyone else just uses. He’s flinty as a Founder and solid as the gold standard — not just the messenger but also the message.

UPDATE II: Beck Bucks The System (If “Incoherent & Meandering”)

Glenn Beck, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, libertarianism, Media, Uncategorized

Yes, I’ve been critical of the irrational, illogical twists and turns in the thinking of Glenn Beck in recent months. (Here). “Skeptic” (the magazine) could use Beck’s conspiracy building tactics to fill an issue on irrational thinking. However, besides exuding goodness, Beck also radiates rebellion. Whatever one thinks of Beck, he is a rebel. And like all real rebels, he too must secede from the system. Glenn’s departure from FoxNews is an act of secession. FoxNews is the system. Beck is no longer able to abide by the ideological and disciplinary constraints imposed by the Republican establishment’s megaphone.

Beck has promised his jubilant adversaries that they were “going to pray for the days of 5:00PM,” intimating that a force of nature has been unleashed on the world. Or as the Judge put it, “Bigger, better and more Beck.”

Go Glenn! Of course, as I had hoped (see “Beck has Left the Building”), The Judge may stand to inherit the slot.

UPDATE (April 7) I: I hear here, and on Facebook, lots of cheerleading for one program, The Judge’s. Or Stossell’s—who is marvelous, but still very much within the remits of conventional, by-the-book libertarianism. I love them both to bits. But none of you so-called “independent thinkers” has noticed that these shows tolerate, 1) the must-have, establishment Tea Partiers, and 2) the Reason and other narrow-faction libertarianism. The shows are still within the, admittedly, wonderful box. Those who say Beck is part of the system are as insane as Beck (who is a good type of insane; a lovable goof, as Huggs put it). Beck is a natural secessionist.

I’m surprised that you’ve all fallen to your knees before (our) ideological correctness, dismissing Beck’s brave act of secession, b/c of his errors of thought. I have news for you: In the liberty-oriented community, people tend to huddle in atrophying intellectual attics, and quibble about detecting and expelling contrarians. Dare to dissent on this or the other point of purity, and keepers of the flame will take it upon themselves to read you out of the movement. This, naturally, makes for tribalism, not individualism. The bad, moreover, have a nasty habit of crowding out the good. Or as one wag once said to me (was it Randy Barnett? I can’t recall), “Quality is never the result of intellectual purges: the most creative and independent thinkers are the first to go.” That makes perfect psychological sense: those who remain feel more secure, group cohesion having trounced intellectual vitality.

UPDATE II (April 9): Larry Auster:

Glenn Beck’s announcement that he is going to “transition off” his daily TV program later this year, whatever that means, is about as coherent as Sarah Palin’s July 2009 announcement of her reasons for resigning from the governorship. Has anyone noticed that Beck, like Palin, is inveterately incapable of forming a cogent sentence, and that one of the reasons for this, as with Palin, is that almost everything he says revolves around himself?

Indubitably true.