Government Blunders Create More Demand for Its Services
by Ivan Eland | View comments |
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Most of the U.S. public does not seem to notice that its government’s actions have exacerbated or even created foreign threats, which that same government then says it needs more resources in order to counter.
If a restaurant, dry cleaner, or home repair business provided inferior goods or shoddy services, it is likely that the concern would go belly up. Yet when the U.S. government makes a blunder, the more its citizens reward its failure with further money and authority.
For example, after the Bush administration exacerbated the worldwide threat from Islamic terrorists by invading and occupying two Muslim nations, spied on Americans without warrants — which is both illegal and unconstitutional — to “urgently” combat such terrorism, and then saw its Attorney General dissemble about the espionage program, Congress has actually rewarded the administration for its actions. Afraid of being labeled “soft on terrorism” after an administration report cleverly stoked public fear by hyping al Qaeda’s regrouping, the legislators not only granted the administration legal authority for such warrantless domestic spying, but widened it to include cases in which terrorism is not suspected. Now the government may listen in on every phone call made by Americans to or from overseas. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives, has vowed that this cowardly travesty will be rectified when Congress reconvenes in September; but now that it’s law, President Bush need only veto the bill and obtain the votes of one-third of one chamber of Congress to block any changes to the horrific provisions.
At this point, the one scant hope seems to be that a more conservative Supreme Court would really be “strict constructionist” and rule that the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution — which should protect people from unreasonable searches and seizures — makes no exception to the requirement that wiretapping warrants be subject to judicial approval. Not even for reasons of “national security” does the Fourth Amendment waive warrants. In fact, protecting citizens’ rights during especially stressful situations was considered quite deliberately in the design of the Constitution.
This example is not the only self-generating demand for government activism that has arisen from the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Although al Qaeda had no presence in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, the Mesopotamian branch rose in opposition to the U.S. occupation, and now is causing mayhem by launching numerous suicide attacks against both military and civilian targets. Yet with a straight face, George W. Bush maintains that the U.S. must continue expending U.S. and Iraqi lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in Iraq to battle a threat he helped generate. He is also arming former enemies in Iraq — the Sunni guerrillas — to help battle the destructive group. Trust in the guerrillas may be misplaced, and could come back to haunt the United States later or exacerbate the ongoing civil war.
Furthermore, after the elimination of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq — Shi’ite Iran’s greatest rival — it was predictable that the strength of America’s greatest strategic competitor in the Persian Gulf region would grow. It is unwise to conduct military action that is likely to help your chief rival, but the zealous Bush administration did exactly that. After the United States created an 800-pound Iranian regional gorilla, it then felt the need to sell $20 billion dollars’ worth of arms to shore up its skittish, oil-rich, Sunni Gulf allies, and to try to buy some cooperation from them in supporting the Shi’ite-Kurdish government in Iraq. These sales in turn meant that the United States had to open its wallet — hiking by 25 percent the already huge military aid subsidies to the Gulf states’ nervous rival Israel, to an average of $3 billion per year. Finally, in the chain of largesse, aid to Egypt, a potential rival of Israel, also had to be increased to an average of $1.3 billion per year. Thus, to compensate for its bungling, the United States is stoking an arms race in a volatile region, which could lead to further catastrophes.
Most of the U.S. public does not seem to notice that its government’s actions have exacerbated or even created foreign threats, which that same government then says it needs more resources in order to counter. Instead of demanding that their government cease its excessive military interventions and occupations, arms sales, and foreign military assistance, and insisting that Congress cut off funding for such actions, the U.S. public rewards a government that not only performs poorly against those threats, but actually exacerbates them. The public would never stand for such failure from private business.
ieland@independent.org
http://www.independent.org
Read more articles by Ivan Eland
Why IC continues to publish your inane articles is beyond me. They are devoid of any real critical thinking, basic fact, or even a loose grasp of rality.
Perhaps if you stopped trying to paint everything in the world as the United States' fault and looked at the way things really work, your analysis wouldn't be so ridiculous. But, as always, you're not interested in being fair or accurate. Only right.
Comment by WolvenBear | August 18, 2007
If the author claims to have identified a problem, should it not be incumbent on him to offer a solution?
The only solution I detect offered in the article is that the People should demand “that their government cease its excessive military interventions and occupations, arms sales, and foreign military assistance, and [insist] that Congress cut off funding for such actions”.
Perhaps I can offer a solution for him? Article 1, Section 8, of the Constitution gives Congress the authority to “lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States.”
But, however hard we look, the Constitution does not define the “general Welfare”. So that provision is simply a license to print and spend money. Add to that the “common Defense”, and we might as well give government direct access to our bank accounts.
There are simply no principles that delineate the limits of government when it comes to spending money. Neither are our ‘rights’ rooted in any principles – government and the courts determine what they are to appeal to their supporters – which is why the ‘right to life’ has been denied the most vulnerable of the human species.
My solution? In my book, Freedom v. A Tyranny of Rights, I set out Ten Principles of Freedom to which government should be bound. Anything more, or anything less, creates oppression and inequality – and, of course, profligate and irresponsible government.
Joseph BH McMillan http://www.freedonvrights.com
Comment by Joseph BH McMillan | August 18, 2007
These are the same old tired arguments on how the Bush Administration is after a bunch of spinster librarians in Wisconsin. Nothing new here to comment on.
Comment by sedonaman | August 18, 2007
Well, now I have something to comment on.
"Anything more, or anything less, creates oppression and inequality – and, of course, profligate and irresponsible government."
I don’t see how this follows, but then again I guess I have to read the book.
But I will say that people do not want equality; they want INequality, and the folks who want it least of all are those who hope to get rich by writing books that advocate equality.
There was once a very wealthy Englishman who had a son and daughter away at college. They came home one day for summer break and started spouting to their father all the propaganda they heard in class about inequality being wrong. The butler was with them in the same room during the conversation. When the son and daughter had left the room, the wealthy Englishman asked his butler if he thought everyone should be equal, and the butler replied, “Heavens no, sire!! I don’t want to be equal to a footman!!”
As further proof that they do not, I encourage you to examine a society in which individuals start out equal. It can be done through a very interesting article “Economic Organization of a Prisoner Of War Camp” by R.A. Radford that can be found at http://webster.commnet.edu/faculty/~jascot/poweconomics.htm .
“In this reading R. A. Radford, an observant inmate of a German prisoner of war camp during World War II, provides us with invaluable insights about the evolution and operation of a market system. Here we observe in miniature a price system having the same general characteristics, encountering the same problems and disturbances, and performing essentially the same functions as the infinitely more complex price system of modern capitalistic societies. … Everyone receives a roughly equal share of essentials; it is by [free] trade that individual preferences are given expression and comfort increased.” [Emphasis added]
So, when the Red Cross packages were distributed at the beginning of the month, every prisoner started out equal. It was through the voluntary free trade among prisoners that not only the individuals were made better off, but the overall well-being of the prisoner “society.” The Marxist, such as yourself, would look at this and see the “injustice” of one prisoner having, say, two candy bars and another having none, never mind that this result was their preferences. It would have to be through coercive (to be polite) force that they be made equal because it would be completely against their wills. In order for Leftism to succeed (if you can call it that), you have to take away peoples’ rights.
“If incomes are equalized, they will be equalized at a low level.” – Economist Vilfredo Pareto, c. 1925
Comment by sedonaman | August 18, 2007
I could not agree with Sedonaman more. That is precisely the point I make in the book. Here is a short extract.
“Equality is the mercury of jurisprudence and philosophy.
“We discover that it can only be held together if confined in a vessel. Like the pigs in Orwell's Animal Farm, someone has to be more equal to ensure equality amongst the rest of us. And like Stalin in the Soviet Union, we discover that equality has to be imposed by force.
“I am talking here about equality in the sense of everyone being equally free, not equality in the 'social justice' sense of social and economic equality. The brand of 'equality' favored by the Europeans, socialists, and those claiming a superior 'social conscience' and more refined sense of compassion.
“Those who trumpet equality are always at a loss to explain what entitles one person to the labor or property of another. Even less, who exactly vests those who decide with that authority, other than force of arms, force of numbers, and a lot of "banging on the table".
“When equality ventures beyond judicial process, it is authoritarianism.
“Addressing inequalities, which are a natural state among free people of different abilities, can only ever be a matter of individual conscience, never collective compulsion. Even the first step towards compulsion enters the realm of authoritarianism. And from that realm, there is no return without tears.
“The advantaged are more likely to help the needy by throwing their money out of a window than surrendering it to profligate and incompetent government to squander on redressing perceived inequalities.
“If we were all free, we would not need someone else to impose equality upon us. A condition of individual freedom is also a condition of equality.”
But, as you rightly acknowledge, Sedonaman, you haven’t yet read the book.
Joseph BH McMillan. http://www.freedomvrights.com
Comment by Joseph BH McMillan | August 19, 2007
In my last comment, it was amiss of me not to quote the Principle relevant to the point Sedonaman so eloquently makes. Perhaps the moderators will indulge me, and allow a further comment.
The first 4 Principles of the Ten Principles of Freedom are what I call the Equal Freedom Principles. Here is Principle 4: “No one person, group of people, or institution howsoever constituted (including government), has any authority, natural or otherwise, to compel another person, without that person's consent, to labor for any other person, group of people, or institution (including government), or to compel any person to surrender all or part of their labor, income or property to any other person, group of people, or institution (including government).”
So, the Equal Freedom Principles specifically prohibit the type of ‘equality’ Sodonaman finds so repugnant.
The Equal Freedom Principles mean that everyone is equally free, and that includes, as I say in the book, the freedom to “screw up” – They do not permit a freedom to “screw up”, then demand that someone else pay to sort out the mess.
Thank you, Sedonaman, for the opportunity to clear that up!
Joseph BH McMillan http://www.freedomvrights.com
Comment by Joseph BH McMillan | August 19, 2007
Joseph BH McMillan:
Thanks for clearing it up. My reaction was triggered by the Marxist red(!)-flag words “oppression and inequality.”
I agree with most of what you have said. It sounds to me like a libertarian perspective.
Freedom to do what one pleases sounds fine, but not obvious to some is that one man’s liberty ends where the next man’s nose begins. As you point out in the example of the pigs in Animal Farm, government is necessary to establish, within reason, just where that next man’s nose does begin.
Another problem arises when we believe government can solve all our problems. This obviously requires higher taxation and its subsequent loss of freedom. I find it ironic that the same people who (incorrectly) quote Franklin’s “Those who sacrifice freedom for security (meaning national defense) will get neither” are the same who demand that everyone sacrifice their freedoms (through taxation) for a different kind of security, i.e., security from social problems.
Within this sphere, the raising even those legitimately governmental functions to a higher level than necessary presents the same loss of freedom. “Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and, at the same time, a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do. For every social activity ought of its very nature to furnish help (subsidium) to the members of the body social, and never destroy and absorb them.” – Pope Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno, 1931. I believe this idea is one reason why the founding fathers did not include direct taxation in the original Constitution.
Comment by sedonaman | August 19, 2007
Wow, I thought Mr. Eland’s thesis was that the American people were unwittingly supporting government waste and the erosion of their constitutional rights.
How this critique wound up provoking an example of equality for prisoners divvying up welfare handed to them through the cooperation of their oppressors in a controlled environment seems a bit absurd (although it is an interesting historical anecdote – thanks sedonaman).
But getting back to the topic as written, if we’re looking at Iraq as a model of the administration’s waste and exacerbated threats, my first thought would be that we need to stop leaving our weapons lying around where our enemies can find them and cart them off.
Perhaps it’s time we all fessed up to the truth. The chief reason we need to be in Iraq is that the United States’ economy would collapse without foreign energy supplies. That’s precisely why we need to retain our presence in the Middle East.
Personally, I’m much more worried about losing our oil supplies and the associated global, social and economic impact of such an event, than suffering through a nuclear attack or the rise of a caliphate state. The long-term implications for the former are much more broadly based, devastating, likely, and real than the implications or possibilities of the latter.
Comment by teleblaster | August 19, 2007
Sedonaman,
I’m beginning to think you have already read my book, but point taken on the “Red Flags!”
As you rightly say, my Equal Freedom Principles (Principles 1 – 4) are a form of pure Libertarianism. But as I show in the book, that can lead to the kind of problems you identify. The trick is to modify those Principles, by Principles that can attract Universal Consent (although some would be kicking and screaming about their ‘superior intellects and consciences’ while giving that consent).
Hence, Principles 5 to 10. Principles 5 through 10 are the only Principles that could attract Universal Consent. They are based on ‘natural human facts’ from which certain undisputable ‘human obligations’ arise [Principle 5 is the lynchpin connecting Principle 1-4 with Principle 6-10].
Here is the ‘wrap-up’ Principle which is relevant to the point you make, Principle 10: “I must not use my freedom for the sole or predominant purpose of interfering with the freedom of others for whatever reason, or exercise my freedom without regard as to the effect my actions may have on the freedom of others…” and vice versa.
But we Consent to the Ten Principles as a whole, not a selection that will best serve our purposes. Thus, someone cannot use Principle 1 as a shield against a breach of say Principle 10. [Principle 1: No one person, group of people, or institution howsoever constituted (including government), has any authority, natural or otherwise, to tell another person, without that person's consent, what to do.”]
If we thus limited government ‘authority’ to the Ten Principles of Freedom, we would truly have ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people,’ and not government of the mob, by the mob, for the mob. Or worse, as is now happening, when a political party garners its ‘majority’ by appealing to the fringe groups of society, government becomes mob-rule of the misfits.
I’ve enjoyed our exchanges, Sedonaman. You pose challenging questions.
But, as you rightly pointed out in your first comment, I didn’t write the book for my health!
Joseph BH McMillan http://www.freedomvrights.com
Comment by Joseph BH McMillan | August 20, 2007
"Government Blunders Create More Demand for Its Services" - great essay title, but wasted in this case
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Comment by LI Mike | August 21, 2007
Sounds about right to me. All of this is just stating the obvious.
If we would follow the Founder's recommendations of avoiding foreign entanglements we would be much better off.
And no, the "general welfare" clause isn't a blank check to do whatever you think is in "the general welfare" of the nation. Otherwise, it is a license for the Fed Gov to enter into medicine (socialized healthcare, Medicare, etc.), education (NEA) and every other unconstitutional undertaking they have engaged in.
We need to return to the roots of conservativism, not this neo-conservativism which is the hallmark of the Big Government Republicans.
Comment by freedom360 | August 21, 2007