Category Archives: Middle East

Frankly, My Dear Egyptians, I Don’t Give a Damn

Democracy, Foreign Policy, Founding Fathers, Individual Rights, Israel, Middle East, Nationhood, Regulation

The following is an excerpt from my new WND.COM column, “Frankly, My Dear Egyptians, I Don’t Give a Damn” (http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=259413):

“Members of the American chattering class have been tripping over one another to show off their solidarity with the popular uprising in Egypt.

After being hammered left and right for his hands-off approach to Egyptians’ demand for democracy, Barack Obama complied, and waxed fat about those universal rights that belong to the Egyptian people.

You know, the same rights sundered stateside by U.S. representatives – who’ve designated for the Great American Unwashed special ‘free speech zones’ where they may lawfully assemble, and who’ve proposed emergency Internet-killing and net-neutrality laws, individual health-care mandates, and on and on. For the edification of Egyptians Against Freedoms Flouted in America, it has been estimated that our federal government may use the criminal process to enforce over 300,000 federal regulations. Hey, you could be an outlaw and you don’t know it!

… What remains of the rights to property and self-ownership in the soft tyranny that is the USA is regulated and taxed to the hilt. …

… More often than not, Americans who yearn for the freedoms their forebears bequeathed to them are labeled demented and dangerous. I’ve yet to hear liberty-deprived peoples the world over stand up for the tea-party patriots. When they do – I’ll gladly galvanize on their behalf. …”

The complete column is “Frankly, My Dear Egyptians, I Don’t Give a Damn,” now on WND.COM.

UPDATED: Self-Defense Honored In Egypt (Reader Horrified By Hoppe)

Feminism, GUNS, Individual Rights, Law, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Middle East

Not a word has the non-libertarian mainstream media said about the spontaneous order that has sprung from the disorder in Egypt. I’m referring to what Hans-Hermann Hoppe calls “the private production of defense”:

“Private-property owners, cooperation based on the division of labor, and market competition can and should provide defense from aggression.” (http://mises.org/journals/scholar/hoppe.pdf)

No sooner had the chaos erupted in Egypt than individuals acted to protect their families and private property.

Volunteers formed neighborhood watch groups to patrol the streets. They also set up checkpoints to stop criminals and mischief-makers from gaining access to private property.

Having endured the disparaging comments of an American policeman while he was fingerprinting me when I applied for my firearm license—I was amazed by the response of the Egyptian military to an armed, proactive citizenry:

“‘The military encourages neighborhood youth to defend their property and their honor,” the army said in a statement.

Honor is central to the macho Arab culture. “It is better to die with honor than live with humiliation,” goes an Arab saying. It is considered cowardly to fail to protect one’s kin and possessions. These, naturally, are timeless truths and values that transcend culture and religions. But men in the US have been neutered (often by their left-liberal women). Some liberal men would sooner see their homes robbed and their women imperiled than abandon pacifism. The most the typical Western man will do to defend hearth and home is to dial 911… and wait… and wait… . (And when tragedy strikes, they become eloquent spokespersons for everything but self-defense.)

There is almost nothing more immoral and unnatural than a liberal male.

As night follows day, the progressive policies enacted by such people lead to a regressive society.

UPDATED (Feb. 2): To the “contemplationist” who is horrified by Hoppe: I’m a minarchist as was Nozick, but I’m also a big Hoppe fan. Hoppe’s writings don’t horrify me; they delight.

The Arab Street: Militant or Moderate?

Democracy, Foreign Policy, Islam, Israel, Middle East

The Arab Street has always been more militant than its leaders—that is if moderation is conflated, in the Arab world, with less religiosity and a less belligerent position toward Israel and the US. To some, this might be an arguable point. But as someone who lived in Israel when the heroic Anwar Sadat addressed the Israeli Knesset (and paid for it with his life), it seems a fair point to make: Sadat (a hero to many ex-Israelis like myself) was—and Mubarak is—more moderate than the pan-Arabists who preceded them (Google “Pan-Arabism before Nasser”).

The chants that rise above the fists punching the air in the streets of Cairo and Alexandria are often about—and against—Mubarak’s patience with “the Jewish State,” which, naturally, “controls the USA.”

I have no idea who’ll follow Mubarak, but if Lebanon is any indication, then the Islamist faction will be influential given its “persuasive” tactics.

This does not mean that the uprising in Egypt is not democratic and, as such, a legitimate expression of the will of the majority. It is also true, however, that Arab dynastic rulers have, for the most, been more moderate than the seething masses they’ve rules with an iron fist.

UPDATE II: Egypt In Economic Context (‘A Wave of Global Inflation’)

America, Economy, Foreign Aid, Foreign Policy, Inflation, Middle East, Neoconservatism, Republicans

Speaking of boobs (http://barelyablog.com/?p=33995), Dana Perino, the Heidi Klum of the commentariat, wishes Iraq on the Egyptians. Perino, who was once a spokesperson to Bush, a man who was barely able to speak, prattled to a reserved Megyn Kelly on Fox News about the upheaval in Egypt.

Mentioning her boss’ achievements in Iraq made Ms. Mindless glow with pride. She pointed out that the bliss in Baghdad was brought about in response to the democratic urges of the Iraqis—yes, this was murder with majority approval, an American majority (http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_view.php?editid1=363.) Perino also implied that glorious Iraq is a product of a well-thought out philosophy.

Airheads aside, serious analysts—the kind who also live in the region or visit it on occasion—say Iraq “is looking a lot like Lebanon,” violent and balkanized beyond repair. Its few remaining Christians are being systematically exterminated.

Perino gave another shout-out of sorts to Iranian interests. Without being asked, she dredged up the Gaza-strip elections her boss had agitated for and got, back in the day. If you recall, those gave us Hamas.

Another day, another dullard.

Even John Bolton, who’ll take any position in opposition to Obama’s less bellicose foreign policy, seemed to agree with the restraint of the State Department’s response to the riots roiling Egypt.

Contrast Bolton’s unusual retrain with the American Enterprise Institute’s formulaic demand that “President Obama’s administration … assert the U.S. government’s role as the preeminent defender of freedom in the world. … Now is not the time for equivocation.”

Ditto the Weekly Standard. The folks there hanker after a time “when the Bush White House was feeling its oats with victories for the freedom agenda in Iraq and then Lebanon.”

That’s the neoconservative parallel universe for you.

In response to Bush pressure, “Mubarak pushed back with the 2005 parliamentary elections when he awarded the Muslim Brotherhood some 20 percent of the seats—if you want democracy, the Egyptian president seemed to be warning the White House, I’ll stick Osama bin Laden’s friends in parliament.”

Justin Raimondo, at Antiwar.com (for which I once wrote a bi-weekly column), puts “the revolutionary wave now sweeping the world” in the context of catastrophic economic policies and attendant realities. This wave will not spare the US, despite “the myth of ‘American exceptionalism,’ which supposedly anoints us with a special destiny and gives us the right to order the world according to our uniquely acquired position of preeminence.”

Coming to a neighborhood near you?

UPDATE I: You bet. In Egypt, “The government must approve the formation of political parties, effectively assuring its monopoly on political power.” (Via Infoplease.com ) More to the point: “the country’s inefficient state-run industries, its bloated public sector, and its large military investments resulted in inflation, unemployment, a severe trade deficit, and heavy public debt.”

State-caused poverty and the attendant lack of opportunities are likely the catalysts that have sent Egyptians into the streets.

The emphasis, in the US, exclusively on politics and on Egypt’s democracy deficit is myopic. Nevertheless, this focus allows DC’s chattering classes to forget that we too, albeit to a lesser extent, are over-leveraged. Our moocher and looter classes might also riot once they can no longer live out the life to which they are accustomed.

UPDATE II (Jan. 29): “A Wave of Global Inflation” is the tipping point for Egypt. Jerry Bowyer, author of “Free Market Capitalist’s Survival Guide,” agrees about the role of inflation and the attendant spike in the prices of basic necessities in the crisis in Egypt.