Neo-Conniption

Cato's Ed Crane and Bill Niskanen take aim at the neo-conservative threat to civil liberties, and call for a broad, trans-partisan coalition to oppose it.

Comments

[erf]

A not so well written article that doesn't make any new points about the current erosion of freedom in the U.S.
And calling the neo-conservative imperialism "un-American" might be effective in some circles, it hardly qualifies as making an intelligent point.

[bill o'reilly's dog]

weak article. no doubt neocons supported the war, some support exporting democracy and domestically they favor welfare-lite. so do most democrats and republicans. so does most of the american public for that matter.

but rather than discuss the issues i suppose it is far easier to blame a mysterious conspiricy. at least they didn't drag poor old leo strauss's corpse out for everyone to spit on.

[Stickler]

Mysterious conspiracy? What the fuck are you talking about, Billdog? There's no conspiracy talk in the article. None at all.

[Gentile neocon]

"Merely living in a free society appears to be insufficient for neo-conservatives."

Well, yes. They also would like to see *other people* live in free societies. Assholes.

[joe]

Exporting democracy is one thing. Trying to do it at the point of a gun is another. Remember, "neo-Reaganite," we never fired a shot at Eastern Europe.

[Lisa M.]

Best way to have *other people* live in free societies, is to live in such a way that other societies might emulate the good things we do.
http://www.self-gov.org/

Not Libery by Coercion, but Libery by Example.

[Anonymous]

libery means not coercing dictators

[Anonymous]

liberty means not coercing dictators

[david f]

how about liberty via the big mac and levis? it did a good job in europe back when, and its absence is helping keeping castro in power.... wait a sec --exporting democracy... wasn't that a Klintonite plan in haiti and yugoslavia. and bush's in somalia... and klinton's there too... neocons don't have a corner on that market (either by negotiations or by gunpoint).

drf

[Anonymous]

no guns were fired at eastern europe but lots of 'em were being pointed

[Eric Deamer]

As a card carrying Neo-conservative and Neo-imperialist I am of course an inveterate warmonger and welcome this open delcaration of war from the monocultural, dissent free camp of the Libertarians. Given the weak logic of this essay it should be a slaughter, which of course warms my evil heart. Refuting the entire screed point by point takes too much space for a comment box. But, I can't resist a few hints:

First, if the essay purports to be attacking a particular worldview it should have some idea of what that worldview actually is. Simply making "neocon" a synonym for "anyone Libertarians disagree with" does not help your cause. Many different types of conservatives are conflated in this piece. For instance: Faith Based Initiatives are a neocon idea? What the hell?

Second, positing Goldwater and Reagan as the good non neocon type cons is laughable. They were both extremely internationalist in their thinking, and would be doing the same things in Foreign Policy if they were in power now, if not being bolder.

Third, if you're just going to accept the reasoning of revisionist left-wing historians that "imperialism" is bad in and of itself and use it simply as an epithet that cuts off the discussion, like "racism" etc. then you should at least explain what those arguments are. Why is the slightest mention of empire in any kind of postiive light automatic cause for hysteria? Why is it "Unamerican"?

Fourth, if you honeslty think that Osama Bin Laden is less of a threat to America's liberty than John Ashcroft (far from a Neocon by the way), that's fine. You'll probably get along great with Katrina Van Heudel and Noam Chomsky, but you'll convince more mainstream Americans if you give at least some hint of you would have us deal with the Bin Laden's of the world.

[joe]

"wasn't that a Klintonite plan in haiti..."

"no guns were fired at eastern europe but lots of 'em were being pointed"

Defending is different from exporting.

"...and yugoslavia. and bush's in somalia"

Those were efforts to stop genocides. Trying to set up democracy came later, as a response to the question "Uh, now what?"

[Ariel Sharon]

Eric, are you a follower of leo struass? if so, give me the secret password and we can discuss the Secret Plan For World Domination.

[david f]

hey joe,

what is some good background on haiti (since it seems like an export and not a defense now) for this? thanks!

and the reason, "to stop genocide" and the justifications for iraq, possibly to "prevent genocide at the hands of WMDs or terrorists" seem awfuly close. factor in the oil-and-israel interests of the US, and that makes yugoslavia and somalia seem actually weaker.

then, mr. deamer's comments: john ashcroft's assult on civil liberties is way over the line, so i'm not interested in distinguishing the behavior of some US official whose job it is to protect and defend the constitution and some terrorist little shits who deserve to be locked in a room with Jar Jar Binks for a good, long time. one needs to be rooted out and killed. ashcroft needs some sort of constitutional restraint. comparing the two is beyond stoopid. but discounting ashcroft's assult on the constitution is pretty dangerous, too. as a card carrying neocon, remember what a prez hillary will do to your peeps in the name of PATRIOT and "terror". all of a sudden it's rule of men, not law.

going after afghanistan was cool, but you loose me on iraq there -- i still don't see the threat, and all the lies told are a bummer. (and agreed, this article wasn't the best, but neither were any of the justifications for war -- except for, "we need to kick some islamic/arab ass", which never really got the press)

cheers!
drf

[dude]

My evil fantasy is that Hillary wins in 2008, and the full force of the newly expanded police state comes down on all the "conservatives" who looked the other way during Dubya's reign. See ya in Gitmo NRA, have fun in the undisclosed brigs right-to-life groups. . .

[Anonymous]

mine is when we fail to arrest a terrorist and he blows NYC to radioactive dust. tee hee hee, then those leftists will be looking silly!

[joe]

Haiti had actually managed to hold fair elections and elect a president. A military coup had toppled him, and Clinton's adventure was an attempt to restore the rightful president. Restoring democracy where it recently existed is close enough to protecting it in my book.

I'm not defending the Somalia or Yugo interventions, just pointing out that regime change was not the motivation for the interventions. In Iraq, despite a lot of pretexts being thrown around, replacing Saddam with a democratic regime, rinse, repeat, was the point from the beginning. The fact that Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld etc can't tell "Democracy" from "Obedient Manager of Oil Fields" doesn't change the fact that they thought they were exporting democracy.

[holger viking]

you are right Dude. American Liberties are threatened by the administration. America is physically threatened by OBL and Iraq. That seems to be a meaningful difference to what DRF and Eric Deamer are saying. Other threats to America: Korea. But, pull out of Korea, and they are no threat. Iran, maybe. The EU, definitely. Brugesgroup.com for more on that.

[david f]

Holger -- there's a huge difference between the physical threat to the country and the damage to the constitution. (and where was iraq a threat to america? that was not demonstrated satisfactorily)

Joe -- cool! thanks! ah yes, Breck sure has made a comeback!

cheers, all!
drf

[fyodor]

Okay Eric Deamer, since you asked, empire is bad because it tramples the right of a foreign citizenry to be governed by those it has ascented to be governed by. And since this right is spelled out in the Declaration of Independence, the document upon which this nation was founded, I would say it is reasonable to say that empire is antithetical to this country's founding principles. How's that?

Now one may argue that it's the lesser of available evils, but this is why dominating other peoples is bad.

[Eric Deamer]

Whether you agree with a more agressive Foreign Policy and whether or not you are concerned about Ashcroft's assault on civil liberties are two completely separate concerns which the article tries to conflate in order to create a schism among conservatives.

The Patriot Act, Total (Terrorist) Information Awareness, the made up "Enemy Combatant" classification, these are all valid concerns for any civil libertarian and I applaud the Cato Institute and Reason Magazine for bringing attention to these issues. But why so privilege these issues over what, respectfully, seems to me the more basic concern of my liberty to show up to work in the morning without terrorists piloting a 747 into my office building. Securing this kind of liberty requires some kind of response in our Foreign Policy. Of course many disagree with the response we've made, but what does disagreeing with Foreign Policy have to do with the purely domestic issue of the liberty of Americans under their constitution. And if you disagree with the Foreign Policy I hope you have a better one.

[Thomas Jefferson]

Tsk, tsk, tsk ... all these ENTANGLING RELATIONS ... I had no idea it would become this bad ...

[Eric Deamer]

Fyodor,

Exactly how many people around the world consented to be governed by the people governing them? The last time I read anything on the matter I remember that only a small percentage of all the sovereign states on the planet were actual democracies.

[fyodor]

TJ,

Believe me, you're better off dead!

[fyodor]

Eric Deamer,

I told you why Empire is bad and "Unamerican", since you asked and apparently didn't know. (TJ weighed in on this as well!) I also acknowledged that it was possible to see it as the lesser of available evils, by which I intended to acknowledge the point you have made since. Any other questions? 🙂

[Thomas Jefferson]

Dear Fyodor,

I may be dead, but my great-great-grand daughterf are ftill alive. Cannot we return to what I and my fellow framerf intended in the firft place? If only for their fake?

Fincerely,
TJ -- (af you call me nowadayf)

(EDITOR'S NOTE: In his writings, Mr. Jefferson used the letter "f" in place of "s." Apparently, he's still in that habit, even from the grave. Do substitute, please.)

[Anonymous]

yo TJ, what up with the Barbary Pirates yo? wits up wit dat!

[Warren]

Good article, but who will read it? and who will be influenced? Will libertarians ever have the infulence the neocons now enjoy?

[Eric Deamer]

Warren,

Not until they actually come up with some positive policy ideas instead of merely being against everything.

[TJ]

Dear New Yorker,

The Barbary Pirates situation was somewhat of a problem, and not entirely of my own doing. If I had had my druthers, I would have done it entirely different.

However, please note that that incident can be likened to our present-day Coast Guard protecting and defending our commercial transactions along our shipping lanes.

When a hostile entity deliberately obstructed our lanes, we had to take action. Nevertheless, it is the INITIATION OF FORCE that we should be against. (In that instance, the Barbary Pirates were the instigators.)

Defending ourselves from aggresors is an entirely appropriate form of (re-)action.

Sincerely,
TJ

(EDITOR'S NOTE: This time, I cleaned it up for that great man, so you wouldn't have to grapple with his "f" & "s" substitutions.)

[Jaws]

A brilliant retort, Eric. Just one quibble: How do you explain the approximately seven bajillion books, articles, papers, and tracts in which libertarians have painfully detailed their policy ideas? Just asking.

[Douglas Fletcher]

Well, if TJ had established a democracy on the Barbary Coast we probably wouldn't have Khadaffi today. I think.

[Bey]

Some of those Barbary states were (relatively) democratic already.

[Kevin Carson]

Stickler,

"Conspiracy theory" is just a conversation-stopper that pinks and sheeple throw out when you doubt the State's official rationale for anything, or question any aspect of the consensus reality in Newsweek or on CNN. They probably think the Reichstag was really burnt down by Communists.

Eric Dreamer,

Re Reagan and Goldwater. Buchanan's definitely wrong to recast RR as an Old Right type. He was definitely a partisan of empire and the national security state. But he wasn't a neocon. He was a New Rightist--totally different animal. The New Right of the '50s bridged the gap between the genuine non-interventionist conservatism of the Old Right and the neocon takeover of the late '80s and '90s. Many politicians who are loosely identified as neocons--Tom Delay and his ilk, for instance--are really Sunbelt New Rightists. They're holdover NAM-style union-busters and good ol' boy ex-Dixiecrats. The problem is, the issue is complicated because the lines between New Right and neocon became blurred in the '90s. As somebody said, "We're all neocons now."

The situation with Goldwater is similarly nuanced. Although more or less a New Rightist on Vietnam, his New Rightism was colored heavily by a Taftian reaction against the Rockefeller wing. And as Karl Hess recalled it, there was a huge paleolibertarian elemnent in the mix. Goldwater got a lot more skeptical on Cold War adventurism as the light at the end of the tunnel kept receding. And under Hess' influence, he took a pretty sympathetic attitude toward the YAF's libertarian faction.

[student]

"If TJ had established a democracy on the Barbary Coast we probably wouldn't have Khadaffi today. I think."

Actually, Doug Fletcher, TJ was not in the business of "establishing democracies." He wanted to be as far away from entangling alliances as possible.

And he was way too busy trying to "establish a Constitutional Republic" here -- his primary calling.

Sorry you failed, TJ. (sob)

(Or did you?)

[Mezey Jennifer]

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DATE: 01/25/2004 01:42:29
To go to war with untrained people is tantamount to abandoning them.