Young American Revolution Issue #4

1 Young American Revolution
2 December 2009
Contents
December 2009 / Issue 04
4 Editorial
Tear Down This Wall
5 8
Karl Marxs America By George Hawley
Has The Communist Manifesto replaced the Constitution?
27 Campus Spotlight
Ron Paul Commencement, Ending the Fed in Cleveland, Pop Quiz, Rave Against the Machine
Marxs ideas led to the persecution of the proletariat by a bureaucratic elite
Manifesto for Slavery By Robert Conquest
29 Bullies and Chatterboxes

How to handle distractions while you recruit for your group
12 14
Obamas Bad Medicine By Dr. Rand Paul Theres no such thing as a free heart transplant
Anti-Federalist Luther Martin didnt stop the Constitution but he made it better
By Jeff Fulcher
Beautiful Loser By Bill Kauffman
30 The Preble Problem

Should this man be Ron Pauls secretary of defense?
By Jeremy Lott
18
The Power of Fusionism By Donald Devine

Libertarians and conservatives can curb the state, if they work together
33 Profiles in Liberty
The insights of Peter Boettke
By Trent Hill
22 24
Washington is spending your money years before you earn it
Generation Gap By Rep. Michele Bachmann
36 Free Radical By David Gordon
Blueprint for Revolution By Steve Bierfeldt Real politics is about precinct organizing, not just sign waves or YouTube clips Hollywood at War By John W. Payne
What we can learn from Inglourious Basterds, G.I. Joe, and The Hurt Locker
Property, Freedom, Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe Edited by Jrg Guido Hlsmann and Stephan Kinsella
41
38 A Life in the Right By Karen De Coster
Encounters: My Life with Nixon, Marcuse, and Other Friends and Teachers by Paul Gottfried
Tear Down This Wall

.S. Eliot once said there are no lost causes because there are no gained causes. That sentiment has been a source of hope to constitutionalists, who rightly see that for all the setbacks we have suffered, our principles remain true. Unfortunately, false principles can also endure: they too are not lost causes. Even the most extreme forms of statism have not been permanently banished to the ash heap of history. Our lead story in this issue looks at how many points of Karl Marxs Communist Manifesto have already become law in AmericaMarx, after all, was the father not only of what came to be known as communism but also of social democracy, a creed that still prevails in most of Europe. It is the collectivist creed that Michael Moore, director of Capitalism: A Love Story, and others on the powerhungry Left would like to impose upon America. Much of their work, as Hawley shows, has already been accomplished. When the Berlin Wall came down 20 years ago, freedom triumphed over dominationin Eastern Europe, at least. Here in the United States, however, very little changed for the better. Uncle Sam, instead of playing chessmaster in a geostrategic game against the Soviet Union, became policeman to the world: 1989 was also the year George H.W. Bush launched an invasion of Panama to oust dictator Manuel Noriega. Two years later the USSR would implode, and Bush would take the U.S. to war in the Middle East. America did not come home victorious from the Cold Warshe did not come home at all. We never tore down our Berlin Wall, our Cold War complex of espionage agencies and defense contractors. And without having to guard the Fulda Gap or Khyber Pass against Russkies anymore, presidents were now free to meddle everywhere in the world. None of the wars of the Cold War had been constitutionally declared not Korea, not Vietnam. Many Americans
Publisher
Jeff Frazee
Editorial Director
Daniel McCarthy
Edward King, Nicole Gonzalez Knowlton
Deputy Editors
Art Director
Matthew Holdridge
Shane Helm, Anthony Rousseau
Illustration
W. James Antle III, Dylan Hales, George Hawley, Trent Hill, Jack Hunter, Bonnie Kristian, Kelse Moen, John W. Payne, Jeremy Lott
Contributing Editors
Young American Revolution is the official publication of Young Americans for Liberty (www.YALiberty. org). Subscriptions are $50 for one year (4 issues). Checks may be made out to Young Americans for Liberty and sent to PO Box 2751, Arlington, VA 22202. Young American Revolution accepts letters to the editor and freelance submissions. Letters should be between 50 and 300 words. Submissions should be between 700 and 2400 words. Letters and submissions may be edited for length and content. Write to us at contact@yaliberty.org or PO Box 2751, Arlington, VA 22202. Young Americans for Liberty is the continuation of Students for Ron Paul (SFP). In less than 8 months, SFP established over 500 college and high school chapters in all 50 states and over 26,000 students joined the Ron Paul 2008 campaign. The mission of Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) is to train, educate, and mobilize youth activists committed to winning on principle. Our goal is to cast the leaders of tomorrow and reclaim the policies, candidates, and direction of our government. We welcome limited government conservatives, classical liberals, and libertarians who trust in the creed we set forth. Opinions expressed in Young American Revolution are not necessarily the views of Young Americans for Liberty.
Copyright 2009 Young Americans for Liberty
thought that a little deviation from the Constitution might be justified in the dangerous climate of the arms race with the Soviets. But as events showed, the deviations were neither minor nor temporary. Every real or trumped-up crisis since the Berlin Wall fell, from the War on the Drugs to the War on Terror, has been turned by Washington into another Cold War, requiring yet more sacrifices of blood and treasure. Before 9/11, many neoconservatives were even pushing for a new Cold War with China. This mentality will be familiar to anyone who has read George Orwells 1984. The Soviet Union was not very close to what Marx envisioned as communism. For one thing, he thought that communism must first come to the industrialized nations as a natural progression from liberalism. The USSR was not a workers state, it was a garrison stateit produced not goods but tanks and ICBMs. The military and the intelligence services were the heart of the nation, subordinate only to the closed political class. Communism in practice meant military power and little else. That power proved to be ineffective for this year is also the 20th anniversary of the Russians retreat from Afghanistan. And now another military superpower is entrenched around Kabul The cause of peace and liberty looked lost during the Cold War. But it prevailed in Eastern Europe thanks to a mostly nonviolent revolution. In the United States today, there is a revolution brewing against statism. It can be won at the ballot box, if, as Steve Bierfeldt argues in this issue, we fight intelligently. But it can only be won if we remain focused on tearing down not only the wall of social democracy that Barack Obama and his allies are building at home, but also the ramparts of empire that should have come down with the end of the Cold War. The Editors
4 December 2009
Karl Marxs America

Has The Communist Manifesto replaced the Constitution?
George Hawley
hen the Berlin Wall fell and the The world remembers Marxs sharpSoviet Union imploded two years est phrases, as well as the mountain of later, Americans sighed a breath of relief. corpses his disciples constructed in the Seemingly overnight, our debilitating fear subsequent 140 years. More frequently that a horde of T-72s would blitz through forgotten, however, are the specific polithe Fulda Gap evaporated; the world realcies Marx promoted in his seminal work. ized a nuclear holocaust would not be the Section II of the Manifesto explicitly deCold Wars coup de grace. Whats more, clared what the Communists sought to the Cold Wars conclusion freed millions achieve. Even a cursory examination of of souls from Soviet oppression. We were the United States today refutes the noright to be relieved. American conservation that Marxism is an exhausted inteltives, who were eager to take credit for lectual force. USSRs demise, were feeling particularly The ten program points from The triumphant at that time. We had finally Communist Manifesto: reached the end of history, and demo1. Abolition of property in land and cratic capitalism reigned supreme. It reapplication of all rents of land to pubmains to be seen, however, whether postlic purposes. Cold War conservative chest thumping was truly justified. Although Americans still enjoy basic Although all freedom lovers should Bolshevik propaganda poster of Trotsky, property rights, the states power of emicelebrate the downfall of the dictatorship represented as St. George, slaying the counternent domain (reinforced in 2005 by the of the proletariat, the peaceful death of revolutionary dragon, 1918. Supreme Court case Kelo v. City of New the Soviet Empire did not necessarily inLondon) ensures that our right to our own dicate the demise of Marxism as a force in the world. In fact, a property is subject to the states whims. Zoning laws determine strong case can be made that the United States is more Marxhow property may be used. Heavy property taxes require you to ist now than ever before. It is true that a socialist revolution did pay what amounts to an annual rent on land you ostensibly own. not occur, as Marx predicted, via an apocalyptic struggle between Yes, you may own property, but only if the state does not think workers and the bourgeoisie, but a socialist revolution of sorts your property can put it to better use and only if you can afford to nonetheless took place. To those who believe Marxism has been keep paying the state for the privilege. relegated to the dustbin of history, I can only point to the words 2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. of Marx himself. The world we inhabit is not so different from the one Marx envisioned. The Constitutions 16th Amendment, ratified in 1913, provides In 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published The Comthe federal government the power to levy an individual income munist Manifesto, which provided an introduction to the Marxtax. As Marx wanted, that income tax is highly progressive and ist theory of historical materialism and famously proclaimed redistributive. The top earners in the United States pay a far higher the clarion call, The proletarians have nothing to lose but their tax rateup to 35 percent of their incomethan the rest of the chains. They have a world to win. Workers of the world unite! population.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance. Although all rights of inheritance have not been abolished, the federal government and several of the states impose large estate taxescalled death taxes by opponents. When Americans die, much of their accumulated wealth is simply confiscated by government rather than being inherited by their descendants. The federal estate tax goes as high as 45 percentand of course, if the estate is not liquid, the inability of heirs to pay the tax in cash can result in the loss of property. This is another way family businesses and childhood homes get taken away. 4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. As the United States has not experienced a massive exodus of wealth, this is not presently a major issue. But if Americas economic decline continues, and people with means rationally decide to leave the country, do not be surprised if this Marxist notion finds a new multitude of proponents. Already the United States employs the highly unusual practice of taxing its citizens who live abroad.
ever reason, a cybersecurity emergency. The FCC also seems to be moving closer to regulating the Internet under the guise of net neutrality. Meanwhile, the United States Department of Transportation, created by Congress in 1966, has broad powers to regulate transportation and create highways. Offices within the Department of Transportation include the Federal Aviation Administration (thank the FAA the next time you experience arbitrary hassles at the airport), the Federal Highway Administration, and the Federal Railroad Administration. Most means of transportation not controlled and maintained by the federal government are controlled and regulated by the states. Marx would be pleased. 7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
One of the less publicized consequences of the recent auto industry bailouts is the degree to which the government now has much broader powers to influence decisions made by American car manufacturers. The federal government owns majority shares in General 5. Centralization of credit in the Motors. The distinction between pubhands of the State, by means of a lic and private is being slowly eroded national bank with State capital and thanks to our current economic crisis. an exclusive monopoly. Although most major American The Federal Reserve Act was passed industries are still under private ownin 1913. The Federal Reserve is Amerership, it cannot be understated the icas central bank. Although privately degree to which Big Business and Big owned banks still exist, the Fed sets inGovernment are in bed with each other. terest rates, regulates private banks, proRent-seeking runs rampant and appears vides financial services for the U.S. govto be getting worse over time, regardless ernment, and controls the money supply. of which party controls Congress or While our system of public and private the White House. Furthermore, Presicooperation is more convoluted than Photograph of the tomb of Karl Marx at Highgate dent Eisenhowers warning about the Marx might have imagined, the Federal Cemetery, London. military-industrial complex is more Reserve has much more in common with relevant today than everdefense conMarxs vision than with a truly free banking system. tractors are dependent upon, in some ways as good as owned by, the federal government, while they in turn as good as own many 6. Centralization of the means of communication and transcongressmen. It is true that our current corporatist arrangements port in the hands of the State. are not Marxist per se, but it would be equally erroneous to say the The Federal Communications Commission, established in United States enjoys a truly free market. 1934, grants television and radio licenses and has broad regulatory 8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial powers. Thanks to new technologies, the governments ability to armies, especially for agriculture. influence our communications and media consumption has taken a blow in recent years. Nonetheless, the expansion of domestic Mercifully, our nations leaders have (so far) ignored this parwiretapping powers, efforts to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, ticular suggestion. and FCC demands that the media take steps to promote diver9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing indussity make it clear that the state is not about to abide truly free tries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town communication. Whats more, if passed, the recently introduced and country by a more equable distribution of the populace Cybersecurity Act of 2009 will grant the federal government over the country. broad powers to censor free speech on the Internet and violate Again, we have not witnessed such a development, and it is Internet-users privacy rights if the president declares, for what-
6 December 2009
unlikely that we ever will. If anything, our population is more crowded into major urban centers than ever before. 10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of childrens factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc. Both demands have been met. Education is not only free (that is, paid for with other peoples tax dollars) but compulsory. For most of Americas history, public education was generally decentralized, with the most important decisions regarding policy and curriculum made at the local and state level. This is increasingly less the case. Although conservatives once promised to abolish the Department of Education, President Bushs No Child Left Behind Act pushed us perilously close toward complete nationalization of K-12 education. The end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union was a great strike against tyranny, but it did not signal the end of Marxism. Although totalitarian communism is not the threat to human freedom it once was, we continue to move unabatedly toward greater collectivism and centralization. The United States bears a closer resemblance to Marxs utopian vision than most Americans care to acknowledge. Marx was mistaken about the means required to meet his ends; we now know that socialism can be realized without a bloody revolution. As the great economist Joseph Schumpeter pointed out, socialism is also perfectly compatible with democracyan insight further reinforced by the American publics apparent acceptance of many Marxist policies. One thing remains unchanged: Marxism is incompatible with liberty. This is true even if Marxist goals are achieved incrementally and democratically rather than through blood-soaked insurgencies. The increasing centralization of power in Washington, D.C. is a threat to our prosperity and all of our fundamental freedoms. Although Marxism remains a relevant intellectual force, anti-Marxist scholarship remains equally relevant. Socialism unfortunately survived the Cold War, but the anti-socialist critiques of Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, and Murray Rothbard are no less valid than they were at the time they were written. Centralized government control of our nations economy and basic infrastructure is no less problematic than it was a century agoa fact reinforced every time the states solutions to our economic troubles only make things worse. Most conservatives and many libertarians were content to rest on their laurels when the Soviet Union fell; they assumed Americas triumph signaled the victory of freedom over Marxism. They were wrong. Marxism is very much alive. Many Marxist policies are now so thoroughly institutionalized that few American politicians and pundits dare challenge them. In 2008, the American electorate was given the choice between two socialist visions that differed only at the margins. Despite a few hopeful signs, such as the recent Tea Party demonstrations, it is clear that freedom advocates still have a long road ahead of them. George Hawley [hawley.gs@gmail.com] is a graduate student at the University of Houston.
Manifesto for Slavery

Marxs ideas led to the persecution of the proletariat by a bureaucratic elite
Robert Conquest
Neocom has been suggested as a good rough definition of those who blame most of the worlds troubles on capitalism (especially these days American capitalism). This is mainly because the word Communist has, for nearly a century, come to mean an adherent of, or sympathizer with, one or other of the movements proclaiming that view. Nowadays, as a general word in common speech, it does not jar, and if anything gives a modern touch to the Communist Manifesto. Following the preamble, the Manifestos first sentence is clear enough: The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. The sections that follow give us the current contenders, proletariat and bourgeoisie, and following that the variousmostly left-wingwriters who are denounced as having misunderstood it all. Ones first thought is that Marxs classes (even allowing for the petit bourgeois) are too rigid, both in each categorys borders and in its motivations. Neither proletariat nor bourgeoisie are English words. (Anyone who knew France could note a real Bourgeois at a glance. Not so in the Anglo countries.) One thought in the Manifesto, so unreal as not to merit discussing here, is that the proletariat has no country. On the face of it the Manifesto seems to be essentially an illtempered polemic (though not quite foul and enervating, as it labels most so-called Socialist and Communist publications). To be fair, the Manifesto at one level avoids superficial dogmatism for instance, noting that the bourgeoisie brings even the most barbarian nations to civilization. (And Marx was to continue to call British rule in India progressive.) On the other hand, we read such dogmatic mispredictions as that the modern laborer instead of rising with the progress of industrybecomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth. In fact, Marx argues, the bourgeoisie cannot even assure an existence to its slave. That is, capitalism cannot produce a consumer societyan ironic charge, considering that the supposed excesses of consumer society are the focus of much of the Marxist critique of capitalism today. Communism and Social Democracy, 1848-1918 Marxs iron law of economic and social change failed. The Manifestos claim to be shaking the worlds capitals was, let us say, premature. And over the following years, in spite of the brief flare up, the revolutionary movement gradually crumbled. In the next decades [of the 19th-century] even the word communism faded. Marxism had by then become an accepted doctrine in a number of key working-class parties. Rather than abandon it, the more realistic Social Democrats revised it. Eduard Bernstein and others in effect accepted both that the laws had failed, and that revolution was unnecessary, but still called the residue Marxism. This was enough for the practical members, in particular for the workers as such. Though the socialist and tatiste element in Marxist (and pre-Marxist) thought still resulted in imprudent social policies, the larger idea had been to an important degree tamed. The Revisionists kept the name socialism (or social democracy). Communism was revived after Lenins Russian Social Democratic Workers Party (Bolshevik), finding no competitors for the word except from the Anarcho-Communists, took it in 1918 and, of course, had it applied to their imitators the world over. But they also kept Socialist, as in the third letter of the new USSR. Elsewhere, too, capitalism and socialism stayed on as descriptions not simply of an economic framework but of a society as a whole, distracting attention from the civic, political, and cultural elements. But clearly a society cannot be described simply in terms of one of its components. In one basic sense, while America was obviously more capitalist than the Soviet Union, it was also more socialist, if it was a question of societys powers over the economy. But Marxisms greatest success has been the demonizing of capitalism. No one has ever raised barricades under the flag of capitalismpresumably the skull-and-crossbones. And its evils
The Communist Elite
Marx in 1867
Engels in 1840
Lenin in 1895
Trotsky in 1897
Stalin in 1911
8 December 2009
are still constantly attacked, not only by conscious Marxists, but also by self-styled intellectuals who continue to insist that a modern industrial economy can be efficiently planned by knowledgeable, trained people like themselves. The Exploited Class The proletarian element in Marxism carries much of its weight. The rise of heavy industry has indeed, in a general sense, brought together a worker stratum concentrated in enterprises where solidarity of interests could easily be organized. But Marx erected on it the theory that this was the last exploited class faced by the bourgeois owner as the last exploiting classand would inherit the earth after the (scientifically proven) collapse of the capitalist economy. Marx came to his conclusions about the historical nature of the new class before he had even seen an actual proletarianas, indeed, was true of Lenin in the 1880s. But, come to that, Marx seems to have had a very odd idea of the bourgeoisie. Who can read without laughter those paragraphs of the Manifesto, which are solemnly printed year after year, about bourgeois sex life in Victorian times? Apart from the notion of the Victorian bourgeoisie sharing each others wives on this grand scale, there is something a little unreal, is there not, about the idea of the factory owner passing around the slums that house his employees, debauching a wife here, a daughter there. Particularly, perhaps, during the period of which Marx was writing. Meanwhile, it is true that Marx himself seduced, and had a child by, his maidwho might perhaps be regarded in this context as a proletarian employee. Marx did not consider that the proletariat might not be the last New Classa term Milovan Djilas coined for the Communist priviligentsia. Nor did he contemplate the possibility that the then new style of heavy industry itself, with its picturesquely horny-handed toilers, might also not be permanent. Indeed, the failure of the Soviet Union in the later technological, and militarytechnological, contest with the West may in part be seen as the defeat of archaic heavy industry by newer automated and sophisticated conditions of production: a defeat of Magnitogorsk by Silicon Valley. On the political side, one of Marxs great faults lay in omitting the mere possibility of terror and tyranny in the proletariats coming to power. A class cannot do anything as such, nor can a party. They must be ledby politicians, or by individuals, or cliques, or sworn brotherhoods. This fault in thought on the process makes names like Stalin and Mao come to mind, filling the conceptual
gap. It was always a conscious strategy of the Marxists to inculcate into the more or less spontaneous movements of the industrial working class the idea that socialism was its main, long-term interest. It is an ironic commentary on this that the great workers risings took place in countries where capitalism had been overthrown, in cities like East Berlin, Poznan, Budapest, and Gdansk. Adam Ulam notes that in the 1970 events in Gdansk, The Lenin Shipyard was finally cleared of its sit-in strikers after they had been threatened with an artillery bombardment; the Paris Commune Shipyard was stormed by government forces; and Karl Marx Street witnessed a confrontation between a defiant mob and army tanks. The result of proletarian revolutions has, at any rate, always been a lowering of the standard of living of the working class, together with the removal of its right to defend itself against this in traditional fashion. Nor did the records of the Marxist elites, when in power, show much respect for the masses. And this had been put clearly enough after the 1956 crushing of democracy and workers unions in Hungary when the Communist leader Jnos Kdr, in his address to the Hungarian National Assembly in 1957, said: The task of leadership is not to realize the desire and will of the massesthe task of leadership is to realize the interests of the masses. Why do I make this distinction? In the recent past we witnessed the phenomenon that certain categories of workers acted against their own interests. Marx and Engelss own attitude to the working class was that it had its duty to support them. When industrial workers voted Conservative in the British election of 1868, Engels wrote to his colleague, Once again the proletariat has discredited itself terribly. The Workers State? Marx derived all the evils of capitalismalienation, exploitation, crises, etc.from commodity production, that is, from the market system. In fact, the whole history of the USSR testifies to a refusal to face the fact that a complex modem economy cannot operate without a market mechanism. Why (even leaving aside economic common sense) Marx thought that a bureaucrats decision was less alienating than the unplanned play of market forces is not clear. In the extreme case where capitalism was actively illegal, as in the old Soviet Union, so that no mechanism existed to regulate (as against destroy) the market, trade was inevi-
The Workers State?
(1) Demolition of Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow. (2) Soviet soldiers in Stalingrad. (3,4) Scenes from a Gulag by Kersnovskaya.*
*This reproduction of the Eufrosinia Kersnovskaya work was made available by the courtesy of Kersnovskaya Foundation.
tably beset with bribery and blackmail. We find in the Manifesto such premonitions of the failures of the Soviet version as labor armies and the industrialization of agriculture. The lethal struggle against the peasantry did not improve either the economy or social relationsa theme on which scores of pages would be inadequate. The Soviet Union in practice often operated without even an official, up-to-date long-term plan. One further weakness is that, when plans are not achieved, a dictatorship is tempted to conceal the fact, and often does so. In the Soviet Union it was long plain that certain governmental practices are not those normally acceptable to workers. Under the norm system of piecework, workers were paid extra for any excess over the target or norm set. This target was so high, however, that to reach it was near the limit of human capacity. The Soviet-style Marxist was able for a long time to make certain saving assumptions. The workers had such high political standards that they knew their own long-term interests, accepted the norm system for that reason, and would never think of striking. After all, in the Marxist view, they owned the factories and so would simply be striking against themselves. This simple explanation was for the simple-minded. There is scarcely a pronouncement by Communists that does not identify Communist rule with the interests of the working class: even in his 1956 secret speech denouncing Stalin, Khrushchev partly excused Stalinisms crimes on the grounds that Stalin considered that this should be done in the interest of the party, of the working masses, in the name of the defense of the revolutions gains. In this lies the whole tragedy! The Exploiter Class The Manifesto explains, while in general people act according to their class economic interest, an exception is made for Marxist intellectuals: A portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat, and, in particular, a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole. Marxist and Communist leaders have been of bourgeois origin. But what is it that determines that some bourgeois intellectuals should become Marxists while others do not? For contemporary observers, the answer must be that they are temperamentally so inclinedas William James would have said. For certain minds Marxisms appeal had the advantages of both simplicity and complexity. It was not so simple as to sound nave, like Proudhons property is theft. Its main themes were simple enough to be apprehended without much strain but at the same time it was convoluted enough to require what amounted to a caste of interpreters. The late Hugh Gaitskell (later leader of the British Labour Party) explained that pretentious economic ideas are frequently vague or complicated and not as a rule expressed in the clearest possible manner. How is it that, in spite of this, they achieve such fame and popularity? Vagueness and complexity are not really limitations, but, on the contrary, advantages. For they make the task of criticism tedious and difficult and enable the heretic to say with perfect
truth that his views have never been refuted. At the same time the support of the plain man is not any way forfeited. For the most part he will not bother his head with the complicated details. He will be content to accept the broad conclusions largely on irrational grounds. But the great claim was that Marxism, as put forth in the Manifesto, was scientific. Marx and Marxists spoke much of the false consciousness of people whose arguments are only superficially intellectual, being (though they themselves are unaware of it) mere projections of class prejudice, and who thus believe themselves to be acting from religious or other motives while really driven by economic interests. Since Marxists took their theory to be the science of society, including history, sociology, and economics, when this became the official view of the state it implied, and in fact resulted in, the substitution of Marxism for the supposed pre-scientific groupings that had hitherto prevailed. In all the Marxist states, alternative views were suppressed, in academe as well as in society as a whole. And this led, as we saw, to a mental enslavement and degeneration of thought. Nor did this apply only to the subjects of Marxist dictatorship. It affected many elsewhere of those accepting its worldview under no such compulsion. As Lewis S. Feuer noted, Under no conditions whatever will the ideologist renounce his ideology. Thus the master of European Marxism, Georg Lukacs, declared that even if every empirical prediction of Marxism were invalidated, he would still hold Marxism to be true. At a different level, I remember being told by the late Jacques Katel, once prominent in French Communist circles, of how he attended a meeting of the Party branch at the Renault works in 1934. A somewhat supercilious representative of the Central Committee was putting forward the new line of the United Front with the Socialist Party. When he finished, one of the huge, loyal militants on whom the French Communist Party so strongly based itself got up and said, Comrade! Theres one thing I dont quite understand. How is it the Socialists were fascists yesterday and today theyre comrades? The representative of the Central Committee answered shortly, Comrade, thats the dialectic. Upon which, somewhat to Katels surprise, the militant said, Oh yes, sure yes, youre right its the dialectic, and sat down perfectly satisfied. The anarchist Bakunin suggested at the time that Marxists real aim was pedantocracy; that is to say, a regime in which theoreticianstheir own type of theoreticianswould be in charge. Or, to put it another way, it was a regime in which a political intelligentsia, unemployable in normal circumstances, would take the positions of power. And indeed, in many countries there is still a large overproduction of people educated to be lawyers and administrators. The intellectual have-nots can only take the power posts by removing the haves, so the incentive to revolution is obvious. (Their false consciousness as to such motives is equally understandable.) Robert Conquest is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and 2005 recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He is the author of 21 books, including The Great Terror, a classic account of Stalins purges. This essay is adapted from the introduction to the 2009 Gateway edition of The Communist Manifesto. 2009 Regnery Publishing.
10 December 2009
Obamas bad medicine

Theres no such thing as a free heart transplant
Dr. Rand Paul
.J. ORourke often says, You swer. Private enterprise gives us the think healthcares expensive Red Crossgovernment gives us now? Wait till its free! Whenever the Red Tape. Those who favor governgovernment provides, it must first ment-run medicine have never had take away. So those who argue that to place a call to a Medicare bureauwe can add 46 million uninsured folks crat. to the government rolls and incur no To get a feel for how Medicare expense are being dishonest or disincurrently works, take this example. genuous at best. As we get older our upper eyelids Contrary to what you might have often droop. If the eyelids obstruct heard in the media, not everyone who the vision, corrective measures are opposes Obamas health care plan deemed medically necessary, and inis an anti-intellectual rabble-rouser surance will pay. However, if youre who hates poor people and babies. on Medicare, you must roll the dice Eminent economists, physicians, and and hope it pays, as they will not prepoliticians have all urged the adminapprove any treatments. istration to avoid any radical changes To want to expand these probefore considering long-term effects. grams is not only the height of As a doctor, I have seen first-hand economic insanity, it is morally irwhat happens when we rush into reresponsible. These people expect form without first diagnosing what something that doesnt work on a truly ails the American healthcare large scale to magically begin funcsystem. In the immediate drive for tioning on a vastly larger scale. Washchange we have forgotten to decide America draws patients from around the world who seek ington wants to lose money on each what kind of change we want. I be- treatments they cannot get in their own country individuals healthcare, but somehow lieve it should be the kind of change make it up in volume. that creates long-term solutions by furthering our basic American Medicare, like Social Security, is demographically unsound. principles of ingenuity, self-reliance, and kindness. Once upon a time seven workers worked for every retiree. Now So before beginning the healthcare debate, we ought to ask its just one worker. Add in the Medicare prescription drug plan ourselves one simple questiondo our problems stem from too and the future insolvency comes even closer to the here and now. much government involvement or too little? And we are to believe Obamacare is not going to make this fiscal With over 20 years of experience as a doctor, I can say unnightmare better? equivocally that the problems are not caused by the market but There are two general categories of problems with healthcare: rather by Washington. Thousands of pages of onerous regulation, expense and access. With regard to access, we are told there are 46 a bloated bureaucracy, and all sorts of special-interest legislation million uninsured. But who are they? have driven up the cost of health care to unconscionable levels by Of the 46 million who are uninsured, a third of them earn preventing free-market forces from operating. over $50,000, a third are eligible for Medicaid but dont apply, and Already over half of medical care is paid for by the govern20 percent are in our country illegally. What never gets mentioned ment through Medicare and Medicaidin my practice the numis that every single one of them is entitled to emergency and ber is about 55 percent. I have seen how government runs medisometimes elective medical care. We are blessed to live in a nation cine and the picture is not pretty. where if someone needs immediate treatment, they will never be When the government fails to pay physicians, our staff must turned away from a hospital. The government ought to foster, not wait, often over 30 minutes, to speak to a Medicare operator who deter, private charities and churches that provide care. frequently cannot or will not fix the problem. We waste time only I treat over 100 patients each year through the Southern Kento have the operator dial another operator so we can wait another tucky Lions Eye Clinic. We charge $15 for the exam. We charge 30 minutes for them to pick up, and get an entirely different anthis small fee to make it clear that nothing is really free. Medical
12 December 2009
care costs moneyeven beyond my labor expenses. Even with socialized medicine, it would still cost money. The problem is that the costs would be hidden and entrepreneurs would not be able to drive them down. Unfortunately, the current administration has used fear to foist their reform onto the country. Whenever they trot out the 46 million uninsured and grandmas denied coverage, they are using scare tactics to get us to accept radical, irreversible change. Reality, however, does not comport with their diagnosis. Coverage is not the problem in Americaexpense is. If costs were driven down year-over-year, as they are in technology, no one would claim we were having a crisis because care would be more affordable and of higher quality. Is it any wonder that costs are rising most in government-controlled areas of medicineMedicare and Medicaid? This happens because no one pays directly for their healthcare and prices do not fluctuate with competition like they do in other areas of the economy. How do we combat the expense? The lack of portability? The fear of insurance premiums going through the roof if you become ill? Obama would simply mandate away these problems. If we are ready to trade freedom for security, the debate is over. If we still value freedom, we need to dig deeper for solutions. One solution that alleviates many of the current problems is to make health insurance more like term life insurance. If I have a heart attack and survive, my term life insurance will not change because I have a 20-year contract. If I have a heart attack and survive, my health insurance will double because I have a one-year plan. Already, my policy is rising at 17 percent per year even with a $5000 deductible. Ideally, when individuals are young and entering the workplace, we would have policies for them with $1000 to $5000 deductibles. The multiyear plans would gradually increase their deductibles as the years went on. Instead of having monthly payments of $800, individuals might ultimately have yearly payments of $800. The policies would be individualized and not associated with employment, therefore portable, and if you became sick the insurance company could not raise your rates because you would have a long-term contract in place. Solutions aimed at lowering prices include creating incentives for higher deductible policies, direct payment to physicians, and freely floating prices. In my practice, I see what market-forces can do for expanding coverage. The two items that patients pay for directly with cashcontact lenses and LASIK surgeryhave seen prices fall every year for over ten years. Competition works, especially in medicine. It is well known that socialism leads to long lines, rationing, and a lack of choice. But more importantly, socialized medicine stifles innovation. We might not have the best coverage in this country (as a result of government intervention), but we do have the best healthcare. That is because we are the only country that rewards innovation on the market place. The answer therefore is more and not less freedom. With the above principles in mind, we will look at real healthcare reformthe kind of reform that creates lasting prosperity for everyonenot merely those whom the government deems
worthy of care. To begin with, we ought to level the playing field between individuals and employers when it comes to tax deductions. By extending tax deductions to employer-provided insurance, but not individual insurance, Washington has driven a wedge between the buyer and the seller and added a middleman. This wouldnt make sense in any other area of the economy, so why does it make sense here? Building on the theme of things that dont work anywhere else but that the government expects to work in healthcare: we have to look at restrictions about where we can purchase insurance. We ought to lift all restrictions on insurance companies competing across state lines. If a person should be allowed to buy a car or clothing in another state, then he or she ought to be able to buy healthcare. There are two ways of organizing an economy. Either we can have a government medical board determine who receives what or we can have the market allocate healthcare. While it may be tempting to say that the government should correct inequalities, this is not the path to prosperity. In countries with socialized medicine, they are arguing over who gets the biggest piece of the piein America we try to bake more. In England, they have defined the exact amount each individual is worth in the last six months of their life, the equivalent of about $27,000 for medicine. If your chemotherapy exceeds that number you are deemed not worthy enough for treatment. I dont think Americans will tolerate such a system. Rand Paul is an eye surgeon in Bowling Green, Kentucky and a candidate for the U.S. Senate.
beautiful lOser
Anti-Federalist Luther Martin didnt stop the Constitutionbut he made it better
Bill Kauffman
So let us think about the people who lost, wrote the historian William Appleman Williams, who did not mean by that the 1925 Rochester Jeffersons but rather those unloved, perhaps unlovable, certainly defenderless, conservative presidents John Quincy Adams and Herbert Hoover, whose reclamation the leftwing Iowa patriot Williams undertook. We have a nasty habit of flushing down the memory hole the people who lost. Or demonizing them. Going back in time and painting Snidely Whiplash mustaches on their luckless countenances. Historians have not, on the whole, been kind to the AntiFederalists, the misleading name slapped on those who opposed ratification of the Constitution. In the mainbut not by Main, as we shall seethey have been written off as bucolic bumpkins unable to grasp the exquisiteness of the Madisonian Luther Martin argument or as agrarian radicals motivated by antipathy toward wealth, commerce, and table manners. They are sometimes, grudgingly, with many qualifications, given credit for siring, indirectly, the Bill of Rights, but more often they are swept aside as beetle-browed brutes incapable of appreciating the majesty of the Constitution or, as the old canard goes, as rural debtors fearful that the new Constitution would prevent states from issuing worthless paper money with which they could discharge the debts they had so imprudently run up. Well, hell, Im a rural debtor myself, so permit me to say a few words for the Anti-Federalists: the original people who lost. Men of little faith, the historian Cecelia M. Kenyon called them. Faith, that is, in the ability of other men to design a tentacular government that would come to cover the better part of a continent. The Antifederalists reflected a relatively early stage in the evolution of modern republican thought, asseverated Kenyon, who conceded that while their ideas were less advanced than those of the Federalists, they were not uninteresting. Cheapjack praise indeed. Im not sure why an author would undertake a book on a subject for which she can muster no praise more lavish than that it is not uninteresting. The history of weights and measures is not uninteresting. The jurisprudence of Sandra Day OConnor is, maybe, if were in a really generous mood, not uninteresting. The radical and rooted objections of early American patriots to the Constitution are, I venture to say, downright interesting. The Antis are the menand women, I add, not as a p.c. genuflection but in recognition of the Bay States Mercy Otis Warren, playwright and historian and among the most literary Anti-Federalistswho considered what the delegates to the Constitutional Convention had wrought in that sweltering Philadelphia summer of 1787 and said No. They included dissenting delegates to that convention, like George Mason of Virginia; patriots still afire with the spirit of 76, like Patrick Henry; and backcountry farmers and cobblers and libertarian editors and malcontent layabouts. They were not simply blockheads standing in the way of progress, wrote Robert Rutland in The Ordeal of the Constitution, but serious, oftentimes brilliant, citizens who viewed the Constitution in 178788 with something less than awe. The Anti-Federalists regarded consolidation of governmental power with what seems to me a meet suspicion, though it has seemed to others to verge on paranoia. One of my favorite Anti-Fed pseudonyms was taken by the writer who called himself None of the Well-Born Conspirators. They often made wild predictions about where this all would lead. For instance, George Clintonnot the funky parliamentarian but the New York Anti-Federalistprophesied that the federal city created by the Constitution, later known as Washington, D.C., would be the asylum of the base, idle, avaricious and ambitious. Gee, thank God that never happened. The Anti-Federalists raised a central question of political philosophy: Where ought political power to reside? In a remote central authority, or hard by the people? (My invidious phrasing, I admit.) A prominent Federalistwhich is to say, using the down-is-up
14 December 2009
nomenclature devised by those crafty consolidationists, an advocate of the new Constitutionlectured that we must forget our local habits and attachments, but this is only possible for those who have no local habits or attachments. One might as well enjoin that we must forget our heart and lungs. The sheer scope of this new system, the audacity of bringing thirteen far-flung states under one central government, astonished the Anti-Federalists. James Winthrop of Massachusetts marveled, The idea of an uncompounded republick, on an average one thousand miles in length, and eight hundred in breadth, and containing six millions of white inhabitants all reduced to the same standard of morals, of habits, and of laws, is in itself an absurdity, and contrary to the whole experience of mankind. Large and consolidated empires may indeed dazzle the eyes of a distant spectator with their splendour, but if examined more nearly are always found to be full of misery. More poetically, a Charleston versifier lamented: Ye, who have bled in Freedoms sacred cause, Ah, why desert her maxims and her laws? When thirteen states are moulded into one Your rights are vanishd and your honors gone; The form of Freedom alone shall remain, As Rome had Senators when she huggd the chain. The Antis were not quibblers, not captious carpers arguing about dotted is and uncrossed ts. Their objections cut to the heart of the new Constitution. Indeed, they began with the preamble. Samuel Adams, brewer and sometime Anti-Federalist, upon reading We the People of the United States, remarked wryly, as I enter the Building I stumble at the Threshold. I meet with a National Government, instead of a Federal Union of Sovereign States. Patrick Henry stumbled, too: The question turns, sir, on that poor little thingthe expression, We, the people, instead of the states, of Americaa locution that was extremely pernicious, impolitic, and dangerous. While the Federalists admired the finely wrought constitutional machinery, with its balance of powers, its cunning methods of nullifying the harmful effects of faction, of cupidity, of powerlust, the Anti-Federalists struck at the root. For the Anti-Federalists, wrote the historian Herbert J. Storing, government is seen as itself the major problem. They objected to almost every feature of the Constitution. Anti-Federalists wanted annual elections. A larger House of Representatives whose members were paid by the states, not the central government, so that they did not forget on which side their bread was buttered. Rotation in office, or term limits. A Bill of Rights. Limitations on standing armies. No general welfare clause, which, as the Biddeford, Massachusetts, Anti-Federalist Silas Lee predicted, would be construed to extend to every matter of legislation. At the head of this unitary state was a single executive whose powers were insufficiently checked. Who can deny, asked Philadelphiensis, that the president general will be a king elected to command a standing army? The Anti-Federalists stood for decentralism, local democracy, antimilitarism, and a deep suspicion of central governments. And they stood on what they stood for. Local attachments. Local
knowledge. While the Pennsylvania Federalist Gouverneur Morris flattered himself he came here in some degree as a Representative of the whole human race, Anti-Federalists understood that one cannot love an abstraction such as the whole human race. One loves particular flesh-and-blood members of that race. My love must be discriminate / or fail to bear its weight, in the words of a modern Anti-Federalist, the Kentucky poet-farmer Wendell Berry. He who loves the whole human race seldom has much time for individual members thereof. Contra the court historians, the Antis were cautious, prudent, grounded, attached. They were not the party of vainglory in 178788. Under no circumstances did Antifederalists think of themselves as immortals winning undying fame for themselves, wrote Michael Lienesch. In fact, they were at their rhetorical best in scoffing at the pretentions [sic] of those Federalists who pictured themselves in the role of classical legislators. They were plain people whose homely dreams ran not to national greatness. What to men of station was the periphery was to them the heart. Massachusetts Anti Amos Singletary of Worcester County told the states ratifying convention that These lawyers and men of learning, and moneyed men that talk so finely, and gloss over matters so smoothly, to make us, poor illiterate people, swallow down the pill, expect to get into Congress themselves; they expect to be the managers of this Constitution, and get all the power and all the money into their own hands, and then they will swallow up all us little folks just as the whale swallowed up Jonah. Things were spiralling out of control. The scale was getting too big. Anti-Federalist Samuel Chase of Maryland objected that the distance between the people and their Representatives will be so very great that there is no probability of a Farmer or Planter being chosen. Mechanics of every Branch will be excluded by a general voice from a Seat. Only the Gentry, the Rich & well born will be elected. This seems to me incontrovertibly true, and never more so than today. In smaller polities representatives are, in some sense, representative. My town council includes an electrician, a housewife, a custodian, and my lovely wife, whose academic training was in philosophy. This, I dare say, is a far more representative body than the U.S. Congress, and the town councils nearness to its constituency endows it with a legitimacy. I may not always agree with its acts but I can remonstrate, face to face, with those who make the local laws. I cannot do so at the national level. And our town council, whatever mistakes it might make, does not have blood dripping from its claws. This exordium leads us, finally, to the Antis Anti, the man who is, without doubt, the least honored delegate to the Constitutional Convention. Martin Luther launched a reformation. Martin Luther King Jr. got a national holiday. Yet what does their nominal inversion, Luther Martin, get? No respect. The total eclipse of this unfortunate son was observed as early as January 1869, when the Saturday Bulletin noted of Martin: He has only been dead about forty years, and yet his name has almost passed into oblivion . As it is, his fame is mainly traditionary, and in another generation will be almost forgotten. In 1903, after recounting Martins eventful life, Ashley M. Gould told the Maryland State Bar Association, No
monuments are erected to do reverence to his memory; there is no published edition of his works. I am no account as a monument builder but among my venial sins I am a novelist, and Ive wondered for nigh unto 25 years now why no one has written a novelistic treatment of Luther Martins life. He was well, lets take a look at his press clippings. William Pierce, the Georgia delegate who left us capsule sketches of his fellow immortals, wrote of Martin that This Gentleman possesses a good deal of information, but he has a very bad delivery, and so extremely prolix, that he never speaks without tiring the patience of all who hear him. Chief Justice Roger Taney remembered Martins utter disregard of good taste and refinement in his dress and language and manner of eating. (Aha, says my wife, the long-suffering Lucine, who has identified me as a housemartin.) A New Jersey farmboy of modest origins, a top scholar at the College of New Jersey (later Princeton), a teacher in Maryland, a young lawyer on the make, Luther Martins humble origins and eccentric behavior left him a misfit in the Maryland aristocracy, as Forrest McDonald writes. Popular accounts of the Constitutional Convention designate Martin as the villainthink a circa-1973 hybrid of Dennis Hopper and Ernest Borgnine, endlessly talkative but fitfully coherent, an obstructionist, a naysayer. He is the town drunk, the class bore, the motormouth. Though at Princeton he had been active in the Well Meaning Society, a debate club, this seems to have affected him rather as the Catholic catechism did young Ted Kennedy. It didnt take. Martin tried well meaning, found it wanting, and lit out for Verbosity Hill. Historians have not been kind to Luther Martin. He proved to be a tiresome speaker, says Max Farrand, who ascribes this fault to Martins school-teaching days. To Clinton Rossiter he is garrulous, sour, and pigheaded, albeit an influential pricker of egos and consciences. Catherine Drinker Bowen refers to his boisterous and interminable harangues; Martin, as she describes him in Philadelphia, was about forty, broad of shoulder, carelessly dressed, with short hair, a long nose, a rough voice and a convivial liking for the bottle which later was to lead him into insolvency and disgrace. He was impulsive, undisciplined, altogether the wild man of the Convention, furious defender of state sovereignty, by no means foolish in all he said. In any event, Martin is glimpsed through a shot glass, darkly. The imagery of alcohol, of dipsomania, surrounds him, imbibes him. Brandywhat a good wife she would be. Martin never de-
nied his habitual intoxication but offered only this exculpatory remark: In the heat of the summer my health requires that I should drink in abundance to supply the amazing waste from perspiration. The sweat defense. His villainy extends even into Jean Fritzs popular childrens book, Shh! Were Writing the Constitution (1987). Her Martin is a tall, mussed-up looking man who loved the sound of his own voice so much that once he started talking, he couldnt bear to stop. He was so boring that Madison didnt even bother to write it all down and Benjamin Franklin went to sleep. Well, look: Franklin would have fallen asleep during a lap dance, and Madison was a selective, not to mention tendentious, secretary. Jean Fritz also accuses Martin of swiping books from the Philadelphia library. I suppose that only a word-count-conscious editor kept her from indicting poor Luther for chewing gum in class and running in the halls. Yet scratch hard enough and the tarnish of eleven score years fades to reveal another Martin. He was also, as the historian M. E. Bradford has written, The tireless champion of the sovereignty of the states A cheerful pessimist and a great original. His eristic talents were widely celebrated. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist called Martin one of the great lawyers in American history, and also one of the great iconoclasts of the American legal profession. In his marvelous novel Burr (1973), Gore Vidals narrator describes his heros attorney as the redoubtable Tory, the drunk, the brilliant, the incomparable Luther Martin (easily the best trial lawyer of our time). The federalistic principles found in the Constitution are largely a result of concessions to [Martins] demands, wrote historian Everett D. Obrecht. Without his presence in the convention, the new national government would have been far more powerful. Yet it was still too powerful for Luther Martin. He left Philadelphia on September 4, 1787, and though he did not return to give my solemn negative to the document, he did phone in a request, as it were: that as long as the history of mankind shall record the appointment of the late Convention, and the system which has been proposed by them, it is my highest ambition that my name also be recorded as one who considered the system injurious to my country, and as such opposed it. Consider it done, Luther. This essay is excerpted from Forgotten Founder, Drunken Prophet: The Life of Luther Martin, 2009 ISI Books. Bill Kauffmans other books include Dispatches from the Muckdog Gazette, an account of his repatriation to his upstate New York hometown.
16 December 2009
The Power of Fusionism

Libertarians and conservatives can curb the state, if they work together
Donald Devine
ity the next generationespecially if it is yours! Your country is in a profound economic crisis that will be followed in a few years by a virtual explosion of elderly entitlement spending that will overwhelm government resources already strained to the breaking point by an almost trillion-dollar stimulus, budgets forecasting trillions more, unprecedentedly excessive monetary liquidity, and not enough young workers being born to pay for it all. The solution of both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations Ronald Reagan and Ron Paul has been more easy money, more spending, and more restrictions on the economy and peoples lives. Is there no other solution? The stock market has only lost more than 20 percent of its value in a two-day period three times: 1929, 1987, and 2008. In 1929 and 2008 the government responded with all of its toolswhich for President Herbert Hoover included the Federal Reserve, jawboning businesses on wages and state governments on welfare, massive federal building and reclamation projects, a forced repatriation of 500,000 Mexicans to open jobs for Americans, and a huge tariff to encourage purchase of U.S. products, as well as directly prefiguring Franklin Roosevelt with a Reconstruction Finance Corporation. Roosevelt merely ratcheted up Hoovers program, spending and regulating more. In spite of all this, the economy remained stagnant for an entire decade. Following the 2008 crash, President Bush went further, committing an incredible $2 trillion to open the Federal Reserve and Treasury to almost unlimited credit, nationalizing banks and other financial institutions, providing stimulus checks to citizens and states, and bailing out the mortgage, insurance, and auto industries. That did not produce recovery either. What happened after the other major crash? Following 1987s so-called Black Monday, which actually saw a somewhat sharper decline in stocks than 1929, President Ronald Reagan did nothingand the economy quickly healed. He did nothingas his son Michael described itunder the economic logic that markets cannot go up until potential buyers think prices have hit bottom. The market must find its own level on the basis of decisions made by the public, which creates all the wealth that government financial, regulatory, or spending bureaucrats merely redistribute. If government credit or bailouts or regulations keep prices up,
by definition prices cannot hit bottom and people will not buy discretionary items until they think the market will not drive prices lower still tomorrow. Reagan understood the value doing nothingthat is, letting prices seek their natural levelin 1987, and the same leave it alone strategy, together with tax and spending cuts, worked to cure Reagans first recession in 1981, too. How did Reagan get it right twice when Hoover, Roosevelt, Bush, and Obamato say nothing about Japan, old Europe, and much of the rest of the world kept getting it wrong? These all bought into the welfare-state philosophy of economic planning, which they believed had ended the 1930s Depression and had made the business cycle obsolete. All that was needed was to give the government planning experts the power and funds and they could tame markets. The only problem is that it took years to recover after 1929, and recessions have taken place every decade or so ever since. Nothing the central banks or treasuries or regulators did could stop them. Minor recessions could be ignored, but 20 percent declines could not, especially by 2009after 21 months, this was the longest recession since World War II. After six months of President Barack Obama, a Gallup poll found that 60 percent of Americans believed the old New Deal approaches would not work any longer. Reagan succeeded because he rejected the New Deal dream that the market could be manipulated into prosperity. Rather, he accepted that what Adam Smith called the invisible hand of individuals, families, groups, and businesses making free trades with others equally free was the only way to produce an efficient economy for all. Government had to provide broad rules for property regulationno stealing, violence, or fraudbut within those rules the market could work efficiently even as all followed their own self-interests. Indeed, as Smith noted, By pursuing his own interests [the individual] frequently promotes [the interest] of the society more effectively than when he really intends to promote it. By leaving decisions in the hands of individuals, the government is discharged from a duty it cannot perform for which no human wisdom or knowledge could ever be sufficient, the supervision of the industry of private people and of directing it toward the employments most suitable to the interests of society.
18 December 2009
In other words, market freedom works. But what about the rules within which individual freedom can operate so successfully? Reagan told an early meeting of his supporters in Washington soon after being sworn in as president that while individual economic freedom was central, It was Frank Meyer who reminded us that the robust individualism of the American experience was part of the deeper current of Western learning and culture. He pointed out that a respect for law, an appreciation for tradition, and regard for the social consensus that gives stability to our public and private institutions, these civilized ideas must still motivate us even as we seek a new economic prosperity based on reducing government interference in the marketplace. The modern philosopher Frank Meyer in his writing fashioned a vigorous new synthesis of traditional and libertarian thoughta synthesis that is today recognized by many as modern conservatism, Reagan explained. To both Meyer and Reagan that synthesis was rooted deep within the American experience. As Reagan put it,
level. They knew that mans very need for government meant no government should function unchecked. We the peopleand that is still the most powerful phrasecreated government for our own convenience. It can have no power except that voluntarily granted to it by the people. We founded our society on the belief that the rights of men were ours by grace of God. That vision of our Founding Fathers revolutionized the world. Those principles must be reaffirmed by every generation of Americans, for freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. That synthesisor tension as Meyer called itbetween an individual freedom granted by a Creator beyond the power of government to legitimately take away and the need for order based in tradition and law was the essence of Western political thought. It was based on both libertarian economic means and traditional value ends. Reagan, again, explained it as it related to his own program of reform:
Our goals complement each other. Were not cutting the budget simply for the sake of sounder financial management. This is only a first step toward returning power to Our Founding Fathers began the most excitthe States and communities, only a first step ing adventure in the history of nations. In toward reordering the relationship between their debates with the principles of human citizen and government. We can make govdignity, individual rights, and representative ernment again responsive to the people by democracy, their arguments were based on cutting its size and scope and thereby encommon law, separation of powers, and lim- Frank Meyer, fusionisms theorist suring that its legitimate functions are perited government. Their victory was to find a formed efficiently and justly. Because ours is home for liberty. a consistent philosophy of government, we can be very clear: Madison knew and we should always remember that no We do not have a social agenda, separate economic agenda, government is perfect, not even a democracy. Rights given and a separate foreign agenda. We have one agenda. Just as to government were taken from the people, and so he besurely as we seek to put our financial house in order and lieved that governments touch in our lives should be light, rebuild our nations defenses, so too we seek to protect the that powers entrusted to it be administered by temporary unborn, to end the manipulation of schoolchildren by utopiguardians. He wrote that government was the greatest of an planners, and permit the acknowledgement of a Supreme all reflections on human nature. He wrote that if men were Being in our classrooms just as we allow such acknowledgeangels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to ments in other public institutions. govern men, neither external nor internal controls on govThat philosophy of government guided the early American ernment would be necessary. In framing a government, he republic but frayed over time as new beliefs challenged it. Ninesaid, which is to be administered by men over men, the great teenth-century progressivism especially disputed the basic theme difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government of freedom and limited government, arguing that modern life reto control the governed, and next oblige it to control itself. quired a centralized national government not limited but with all Led by Madison and Jefferson and others, the authors of the power needed for experts to assure the peoples welfare. the Constitution established a fragile balance between the Begun by Woodrow Wilson, the new statism defeated the conbranches and levels of government. That concept was their stitutional separation under FDR and achieved its zenith of augenius and the secret of our successthat idea of federalthority with the Great Society programs of Lyndon Johnson. But ism. The balance of power intended in the Constitution is the end result of this concentrated power was the stagflation the guarantor of the greatest measure of individual freedom both stagnation and inflationunder Jimmy Carter that led to any people have ever known. Our task today, this year, this the election of Reagan as president. In office, President Reagan decade, must be to reaffirm those ideas. Our Founding Fareoriented government by cutting discretionary domestic national thers designed a system of government that was unique in all government spending by 9.7 percent and even reducing all nonthe worlda federation of sovereign states with as much law defense spending, including entitlements, from 17.9 to 16.4 perand decision-making authority as possible kept at the local
cent of Gross Domestic Product. By achieving this and reducing the top marginal tax rate from 70 to 33 percent, he unleashed the private sector in a surge of free growth that lasted until the current crisis, increasing the relative role of state and local government in the process, especially in advancing new programs. The next Democratic president, Bill Clinton, was forced rhetorically to say the era of big government is over, and even when the Democrats regained control of Congress in 2006, their first act was to require that all new spending be supported by new sources of revenue, inhibiting their ability to create new programs. Still, domestic national government spending soared as early as President George H.W. Bush and continued under Clinton. Finally, federal government spending exploded to a half-century high under George W. Bush. National economic regulation increased; education, farm, and transportation programs metastasized; foreign policy became increasingly interventionist and threatening to civil liberties; and social issues like the family, marriage, and research became politicized. As even Republicans have abandoned the Reagan formula of libertarian means for traditionalist ends, there has been a splitting back into the separate traditionalist and libertarian tribes of the pre-1950s era that Meyer and Reagan tried to unite. Society is split naturally into different political groupings. Political scientist Aaron Wildavsky identified four very broad cultural types: individualists, traditionalists (or deferentials as he called them), egalitarians, and fatalists. One estimate was that individualists (libertarians) represented 34 percent of the population, social conservatives (or traditionalists) equaled 22 percent, egalitarians (progressive liberals) were 27 percent, and fatalists (predominantly alienated non-voters) represented 17 percent. On the basis of this division, Wildavsky concluded that all politics must be coalition politics, with no single group able to build a reliable majority. Interestingly, Wildavsky claimed that the normal ruling coalition is the individualist/traditionalist one. The two groups could cohere because they both held a positive enough view of humanity that a strong central government was not required to control an irretrievably nasty human nature. Individualists consider nature as actually benign, encouraging freedom, experimentation, and entrepreneurship, believing that the invisible hand will make everything turn out right. Traditionalists are not so optimistic, but they do think nature can be at least tolerable for human social life if institutions like the family, church, and community are vibrant and active. Both of these views limit government in favor of private institutions. Both differ from egalitarians, who view nature as ephemeral, and fatalists, who view it as actually capriciousthese perspectives require the strong hand of government to control harmful nature. Some libertarians have tried to unify the individualists and secular egalitarians as a coherent political force. It has not worked because of their conflicting views of human nature and the fact that polls show that American individualists tend to hold traditional values on family, religion, and moralityindeed they are almost as socially conservative as the traditionalists on many traditionalist issues. It is significant that voting in Congress shows a very high correlation or correspondence between votes on economic and social issues. It is noteworthy that the supposedly pure libertarian Rep. Ron Paul also tends to vote socially conservative on the
major issues. President Reagan, Frank Meyer, and most of the others who have tried to revive the Founders synthesis did not see the fusion as merely tactical or political. As Reagan put it, libertarian means and traditionalist ends complement each other. Fusionism represents a consistent philosophy of government. Even the nontheistic economist F.A. Hayek taught that both freedom and tradition are necessary: liberty and markets cannot exist without a traditional, even religious, social order to sustain them. As social conservative Russell Kirk proclaimed, the state is often the greatest threat to traditional values and institutions. A serious review of the major philosophers of tradition and liberty will find that the best in each school believed both were necessary. It has been noted that Kirk did not consider himself to be a fusionist. But neither did Meyer by that name. The name fusionism is not essential. Kirk and Meyer both believed in a synthesis between tradition and freedom. Indeed, as Meyer taught, Western civilization itself was and is a harmony of both. Not a uniform tune but a harmonic masterpiecenot simple libertarianism nor univocal traditionalism, but both. As Reagan said, this was part of the deeper current of Western learning and culture that created Europe and its offspring around the world, very much including the United States. This fusionist vision has lost much of its inspirational force in Europe and is weakened even in the U.S. today. But as the results under President Reagan suggest, it may be the answer to our current problems and Americas future. Donald Devine, director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management during Ronald Reagans first term, is a professor of political science at Bellevue University and editor of the American Conservative Union Foundations ConservativeBattleline.com.
20 December 2009
GeneratiOn Gap
Washington is spending your money years before you earn it
Rep. Michele Bachmann
ecently, I appeared at a student town hall at the University of Minnesota with Dr. Ron Paul. We spoke to a full house on a Friday night, and it was positively refreshing to see so many students starting off their weekend with a rousing discussion of liberty. Liberalism has long claimed a stronghold on college campuses, including at the University of Minnesota, but todays students are starting to wonder what kind of future liberalism has left for them. The Great Societies of the past have whittled away at your opportunities for prosperity and at the very roots of the freedom that is your birthright. Students like you are on the cusp of the movement that will reclaim your fiscal and personal liberties. While liberals view the Constitution as an obstacle that gets in the way of their so-called progressive agenda, we Constitutionalists embrace this document as the blueprint for protecting personal freedom. We understand that this nation can be governed responsibly and in a limited capacity based on the Michele Bachmann (R-MN) wise words of our founders. Together, we need to keep asking the powers-that-bewhether that is your professor or the U.S. Secretary of the Treasuryfrom what part of the Constitution they derive the authority to do the things they do. Trust me, I know how difficult handling the critics can be. But never be afraid to speak your mind and stand up for your beliefs. This country is worth saving, and speaking your mind will help to save it. Especially as it is your generation that will be left to face the repercussions of this governments reckless policies and that will inherit a debt load greater than that of any previous generation in American history. Back when I was in your shoes, it was the mid-70s and President Jimmy Carter was in the White House. And, to be honest with you, I was a huge fan. In fact, my husband and I volunteered for his presidential campaign together, and we even attended his inaugural ball in Washington. I come from a family of Democrats, and we all thought that Jimmy Carter was a breath of fresh air in D.C. But Ill never forget that day when something finally snapped
in my head and I said enough is enough. I was a senior in college, and I was taking the Amtrak train back to Winona State College. I was reading one of Gore Vidals books called Burr, a crass novel about early U.S. history. At one point I said to myself, Boy, Vidal is just mocking our founding fathers. I remember finishing the book, putting it in my lap, looking out the window and thinking, You know what? I dont think I am a Democrat. I must be a Republican. The wisdom of the founding fathers is central to all my beliefs about government, and it is the Republican Party, far more than the Democrat Partyparticularly the Democrat Party of the 70s through todaythat values what the founders have left us. Simultaneously, I was witnessing how the country was faring under President Carter. At the time, I didnt consider myself overtly political, and I certainly didnt think of it as something that I would do as a profession. But it hit me. What kind of country did I want to leave my future children and grandchildren? I tell you this because Ive got a hunch that many of your classmates who worked hard for Barack Obama and supported his campaign last November will wake up one day soon and say, this isnt America. This isnt the change we hoped foror policies that will benefit me, my family, my future children. Theyll be turning to you for another way. Our nation is aching to seize the light of liberty once again. Were seeing it at town halls and tea parties from coast to coast. Americans are making their displeasure with this administration and Congress heard loud and clear. The people value their liberty; they believe in free markets. They understand that personal and economic freedoms are intertwined and that when one is threatened the other is also in jeopardy. All the while, President Obama is peddling policies that are weakening our nation economically and greatly diminishing our personal liberties and our national sovereignty. Look at these startling facts:
22 December 2009
The Obama AdministraAt the rate your government is tion is projecting a federal spending, the fruits of your labor deficit of $1.6 trillion this have already been spoken for, and year and his budget would government has first dibs. All becreate $9 trillion in budcause Congress, the president, and get deficits over the next the judiciary have failed to follow decademore debt than the limits on government jurisdicAmerica accumulated from tion as enumerated in the Constithe presidencies of George tution. Washington to George My fear is that in order to pay W. Bush combined (1789 off these debts, the Federal Rethrough 2008). And this is serve will print worthless money, using President Obamas inflate the money supply, and deconservative estimates. base the value of the dollar. InflaAccording to the Heritage tion is the cruelest tax of all. We Foundation, this year Washhave a predicted monetary crisis YAL member protests the recent healthcare proposal ington will spend $30,958 on our hands, perhaps as soon as per household, tax $17,576 eight years from now, and your per household, and borrow $13,392 per household. generation will be left holding the bag, unless Congress acts imAmerica faces a $43-trillion unfunded obligation in Social mediately. Security and Medicare. To cover the shortfall of promised Im proud to work with Dr. Ron Paul and other like-minded benefits, the Congressional Budget Office has found that colleagues to put the brakes on out-of-control spending, stop the Congress would eventually be forced to impose a 63 perdevaluation of the dollar, and keep the Fed accountable to the cent income tax on the middle class and an 88 percent tax American taxpayers. Your generation deserves freedom too. on the so-called wealthy. Congresswoman Bachmann represents the 6th District of Minnesota.
Blueprint for Revolution

Real politics is about precinct organizing, not just sign waves or YouTube clips
Steve Bierfeldt
t a campaign rally on a cold Liberty candidates and their winter evening, thousands of supporters all too often believe a individuals crowd around a stage fancy website with an automated to hear a presidential candidate real-time ticker will revolutionize speak on life, liberty, and the Conthe campaign and bring immedistitution. Homemade signs litter ate media attention to their cause. the crowd as the fiery congressThey believe simply announcing a man from Texas speaks to a sea of money bomb will be all that is activists, many of whom had nevneeded to reform the system and er before taken an interest in politransform their candidacy from tics. As he concludes, cheers erupt an upstart libertarian radar blip from the mass of people as they to a powerhouse ready to take celebrate the one man speaking on the political world. But, as what no other candidate dares to wonderful as money bombs and say. Ron Paul has ignited a crowd interactive websites assuredly are, desperate for a leader and in dothere is more to real politics. ing so has energized the thousands Ron Paul supporters at a pre-debate rally in Manchester, New Despite the signs, the blimps, in attendance, as he asks for their Hampshire on June 5, 2007. and the unmatched enthusiasm support in the upcoming presiof Ron Pauls supporters, on elecdential primary. tion night when the returns came back the votes were not there. The next day, about 75 percent of them do not show up to Not in Iowa, or New Hampshire, or Wyoming, or Michigan. Pauls vote. supporters were often quick to react to the tactics of the political The above illustrates the difficulty facing the liberty movement establishment and media, tactics we believed to be underhanded todaythe willingness of its participants to engage in philosophi(and which oftentimes were). But the liberty movement limited its cal discussion, policy talk, or social activism, but their reluctance effectiveness when it only played defense. to engage in political action, the only thing that counts on ElecWe watched political talking heads dismiss Ron Paul as a fringe tion Day. With the Ron Paul campaign over and his supporters candidate, who purportedly had a handful of supporters spamlooking to continue his vision, we see many cling to the same techming polls with text-message votes, and our only response was niques that were unsuccessful during his run for the presidency. to complain about the bias that we were up against and pour efI count myself tremendously blessed to have experienced a forts into more online polls. Just as conservatives and libertarians number of facets of the liberty movement. From training college should not expect favorable editorials from the New York Times students at a political think-tank to volunteering for Paul in his or the Huffington Post, we should never be content to sit and candidacy for president, I was able to see first hand all that goes complain. We can whine about how unfair the media is and how into one of the few honest and trustworthy movements in poliwe will never be given a fair shake, or we can do something about tics. Later, when I served as campaign manager for a Ron Paulit. We can hit the establishment where it really hurts, not in the endorsed candidate for Congress, I was able to put those skills online polls, but where the political class is most vulnerablein into practice. This essay relates what I have learned. local elections and the grassroots organizations that are the base
24 December 2009
of the political pyramid. One look to our town councils, state houses, or local political parties will show us the people we are up against. Many of these folks have dedicated their lives to destroying the principles we believe in. They have done so for only a paycheck, their proverbial 30 pieces of silver, and sometimes only out of a desire to have a title or control an office. In response we have committed ourselves not to taking their titles and offices away from them but instead to complaining about the system and offering symbolic protests. If elections were won by text messages, blog posts, or facebook links, the liberty movement would have achieved victory 20 times over. Instead we will continue to lose, and lose badly, until we realize it is up to us, as the next generation of freedom advocates, to learn how to win. The starry-eyed advocate of liberty believes a sound philosophy is what should take precedence above everything else in political life. He believes an uncomprising adherence to principle should trump hard-won victories, party politics, and a desire for power, fame, and fortune. The starry-eyed advocate of liberty is 100 percent correct. It is in this that the true believers in freedom hold the advantage. When working for a political nonprofit that would by all definitions be described as one run by neocons, I was often railed and berated for my defense of life, liberty, the Constitution, and especially Ron Paul. After one such defense of the ideals of our founding fathers I was called young, nave, and with a sigh and a chuckle was lectured by colleagues about how they, Remembered when they were that immature and idealistic. My response was simple: good. While I will not always be young, I hoped I would always be nave and idealisticalways willing to put principle ahead of politics, even if that meant costing myself an election, being called names, or remaining unpopular with those in power. The advocates of liberty have a tremendous advantage over their entrenched political counterparts. While we face a foe that has the techniques and technical knowledge to win elections, we take solace in the fact that our opponent is morally empty. Training oneself how to write a direct-mail letter, assemble a press release, or become a better public speaker is merely a skill that can be learned and refined. But having that skill and choosing to throw away political prestige in order to adhere to a sound antistatist philosophy is a road few people are willing to walk. That, however, does not mean that advocates of liberty should fail to cultivate the technical skills their opponents posses. Our side must learn how to succeed not just on the Internet or in the journals of intellectual thought, but in the political races and campaigns that shape our government. The supporters of liberty are among the most dedicated individuals one will find in any cause, political or not. Very few are willing to budge on any aspect of freedom no matter how small. Yet this philosophical correctness is not enough to initiate the transformation that is needed in government. Believing you are correct is not enough. Even actually being correct is not enough. Politics is not an art, expressive and creative, no matter how much so many of us want it to be. Campaigns and elections are very much a science, with tried and true methods that move votes from the living-room couch to the election booth. The science of
elections is based on numbers, statistics, and techniques that have concrete goals. Yard signs are popular campaign memorabiliabut yard signs do not vote. Volunteer for any candidate in virtually any race, and you will be hounded about yard signs. The candidate always wants to know what color they will be, where they will go, and how many can be placed along the highway. Yet yard signs are something that campaigns seem to do just for the sake of doing them; statistically they have an extremely low impact on changing minds, switching votes, or mobilizing the base. By contrast, as much as many of us complain about automated pre-recorded messages from candidatesrobo-callsthere is a reason campaigns, even in the age of advanced social networking, continue to do them: they work. Despite the anecdotal stories you hear about someone becoming angry at the flood of automated calls he has been receiving and pledging not to vote for that candidate out of spite it does not happen. Ask yourself, if you truly believed in the message Ron Paul was proclaiming and thought he was the only hope for our country, would you really refuse to vote for him simply because of a few automated telephone calls? If so, then statistically you werent going to vote for him anyway. Such voters are negligible. Some in the liberty movement dismiss old-fashioned directmail letters that include surveys and requests for contributions as either out of touch with the new way of doing things or simply as junk mail from groups that are out to make a quick buck. In reality, direct mail serves as a proven method to gauge what issues are important to an organizations membership base. As far as fundraising goes, there is a reason groups send out physical mail asking for help to fund project proposals: it works. Every part of a direct mail letter is a scientific instrument used to provide the best product and service to the member of that organization. Direct mail should not turn off the advocates of liberty but instead bring them into a world where they too can learn what works and what doesnt when it comes to recruiting for a cause or spreading a message. There is a reason most direct-mail letters are printed in courier font. It is because most donors to political organizations are over 70 years old, and the font reminds many of them of a typewriter. It gives them a tactile connection to an organization with which they feel philosophical sympathy. What is effective and what is easy are often two completely different things. The most effective way of changing minds and recruiting new voters or members is the tactic so many of us shy away fromdoor-to-door recruitment. Political operatives, campaign workers, and volunteers all agree when asked what the best technique is to influence voters: knocking on their doors, handing them a piece of literature, and talking with them. Despite rightwing jeers about Barack Obamas label as a community organizer, the ability to sort and mobilize a community is the most basic and most effective way to win in politics. A successful movement breaks down its locality as specifically as possible in order to appoint outgoing organizers who are a good match for their areas. In the realm of political campaigns, the selection of precinct captains is made to ensure that those in charge have a friendly face and a strong tie to the community. In todays world, we could live almost our entire lives without ever leaving our house. Delivery services, telecommuting, and Netflix
have made it theoretically possible never to need to engage another person in meaningful conversation. Yet despite all of our modern conveniences, deep down people long for individual connections. Going out of your way and initiating conversation with a complete stranger can be nerve-racking. You will undoubtedly run into individuals who make it quite clear that you are not allowed on their property again. But the most important question to ask of yourself about that is, So what? We pay respect to a congressman from Texas who at age 72 sought the nomination for president despite being harassed, bullied, and excluded from debates by members of his own party, and yet we are unwilling to endure the discomfort that might occur from an interaction on a neighbors porch? A little awkward conversation is a small price to pay in the fight for liberty. You dont have to wait for the next campaign season to become activeorganizing can, and should, be done everywhere and all the time. If you are in school, begin by drawing up precincts on campus and appointing leaders to recruit new members from dorm buildings, Greek houses, or off-campus apartments. Recruiting for your Young Americans for Liberty chapter or volunteering for a local liberty candidate will give you experience with real political work and familiarize you with tactics that have proven successful. Youll be learning by practice. Virtually every college in the nation wastes millions of the dollars it has taken from students in the form of activity fees to promote a slew of programs that are unjust or immoral. Refuse merely to complain about the waste that is going on and run for a position in your student government. Gather other liberty-minded friends together and run for all of the government positions. Upon your successful election, stand up and do exactly what you have criticized politicians for not doingfulfill campaign prom-
ises to lower costs and cut spending. Vote against all the programs you spoke out against. Do not just talk about the philosophy behind limited government, take action and achieve it. Instead of talking about the poor leadership that exists within your local political party, force a change. Find out the date of the next election for party chairman and spend the next several months recruiting liberty-minded individuals who live in your county. Use established political techniques to build a network of activists and then file the paperwork to become a candidate. Instead of talking about philosophy and the need to bring in new leadership to the county party, become the vehicle that accomplishes it. Become more involved with your YAL chapter or help friends at another school start one of their own. Familiarize yourself with the Campaign for Liberty and make it a point to visit their web site each day. The organization formed by Ron Paul has established a national local coordinator program, offers a new featured article every morning, and hosts both statewide and regional conferences containing some of the best political training you will ever receive. Those who adhere to the ideals of freedom no longer have any excuse for not getting deeply involved. Through YAL and C4L, you can learn all the political techniques you need to wrest control of government from those who have contributed to its overgrowth. Your fellow believers in freedom do not need your homemade signs or your blog posts. They need votes to win their elections and restore strictly constitutional government. There must come a time when each defender of liberty says enough and commits himself to a struggle that enacts change rather than merely discussing it. That time is now. This is your country, and its being taken from you one election at a time. Take it back. Steve Bierfeldt is director of development for Campaign for Liberty.
26 December 2009
Campus Spotlight
et us know what your Young Americans for Liberty chapter is doing whether youre hosting a speaker, planning a protest, or fighting statist indoctrination on campus. Send your items for Campus Spotlight to contact@ yaliberty.org. If your chapter has hosted a successful event or been involved in a campus controversy, we want to know about it! Ron Paul Commencement On April 20, 2009, our Young Americans for Liberty chapter hosted Dr. Ron Paul at Wake Forest University. What had started out as nothing more than a brainstorm in the back of our campus Starbucks eventually blossomed into an unforgettable night attended by over 1,300 people. Beginning with a line stretching all the way around the universitys main quad, Dr. Pauls speech seemed more like a rallying cry than a university lecture. Hosting him also gave our YAL members a chance to get to know Dr. Paul on a personal level. For those interested in mimicking our experience, there are a few key things to remember. First and foremostbe professional. We did not get Dr. Paul to come to our campus by sending him an e-mail. We did so by putting together a multipage proposal, detailing why both he and the liberty movement would benefit from this appearance. Getting this event together also entailed perseverance, as not only did we constantly have to ensure that everything on Dr. Pauls end of it was set, we also had to see to the logistics of hosting such an event on campus. Expenses were met largely through donations, thanks to many nights spent customizing direct-mail letters and stuffing envelopes. Advertising is key. If we had brought Dr. Paul but no one had known, it would have meant nothing. Instead, we had banners, flyers, and advertisements all over campus. We also secured media coverage by calling every single news outlet we knew in the region. Elliot Engstrom, Wake Forest YAL Ending the Fed in Cleveland We formed a Young Americans for Liberty chapter at Case Western Reserve University in the fall of 2008 and worked to build a dedicated base on campus. While our chapter was still new, we were able to gather a strong group together in order to attend the End the Fed protest in Cleveland. It was rather cold outside, but there was a sizable turnout outside the Cleveland Federal Reserve, and countless fellow patriots came together to voice their displeasure over the first bailouts. The crowd was very diverse, with a mix of college students and middle-aged adults. We walked around downtown Cleveland and regrouped at the Cleveland Federal Reserve, all the while conversing and meeting other liberty-minded citizens. Afterwards, we congregated at a local restaurant to talk about the days events and discuss politics and the successful protest. We plan to attract new members by staying active in the community by attending other events like the End the Fed protest. Tiffany Oliver, Case Western Reserve University YAL
Pop Quiz Since beginning in late 2008, our chapter has organized several events on campus. To date our Tax Day documentary has been the biggest success. During this event, we walked around campus and surveyed students on tax policies and how they thought Obama was doing as president. We did this along with a larger Tax Day protest on campus, both of which also coincided with two tea parties in the area. We were berated throughout the day by professors and were shocked to learn how little students knew about economics. The media took interest: we were covered by Seattle/Tacoma TV, interviewed by local radio stations, and featured in a two-page spread in our school newspaper. Since receiving all this pressespecially the campus paper articleour reputation on campus has grown among both classmates and strangers. Of course, some on our exceedingly liberal campus have complained openly about another conservative group, but many have also joined the ranks of our YAL chapter in hopes of challenging the status quo. Starting with only a few dedicated members, our chapter has grown to a group of over a dozen active members and more than 70 affiliated students and community members. With an ever-growing group of emboldened and disgruntled students, we headed into the new school year with tabling events, guest speakers, a newsletter, and rallies in hopes of making students question the statist bias theyre force fed everyday. Steve Heidenreich, University of Washington YAL Rave Against the Machine Since officially forming last year, our YAL group at the University of Mississippi has been very active. This October was an especially busy month for us. Along with hosting former National Libertarian Party Chair James Lark on campus, we planned a war protest on the stage at the legendary Ole Miss Grove. Our inspiration for this event came from a student-led flash rave held in the campus library last semester, which attracted a crowd of over 1,000 people. Named Rave Against the Machine, our protest was a 5-hour rave with speeches and live music. One of the speakers was a fellow UM student and an Iraq War vet talked about his experiences. The event being so close to Halloween, we had the host dress up as V from V for Vendetta and held a contest for the best costume among the attendees. Finally, we looked to local businesses for help with funding. There are companies sympathetic to the cause. Justin Head, University of Mississippi
28 December 2009
bullies and chatterbOxes

How to handle distractions while you recruit for your group
Jeff Fulcher
performance won the candidate any extra n my junior year of college, I saw a provotes, but it didnt give any up either. fessor make a little girl cry. She was running a recruitment table for the College When the campus progressives or any Republicans, and he was abusing his tenure of the hundreds of special interest student and experience to berate the poor girl into a organizations attack your activism, do what pile of whimpering, freshman goo. the candidate did. Stay calm, listen to their The worst part about the encounter was complaints, and then politely give your anthat it was so hopeless. Even if the girl had swers. You wont change their minds, but held her ownif she were equipped with that shouldnt be your goal anyway. Focus the talking points and guile to win the deon moving them along as quickly as posbateit would have still been a failure. The sible and appealing to the audience of neuprofessor would have walked away with his YAL members being confronted by security tral or sympathetic listeners by remaining ivory-tower convictions unchanged. And for demonstrating courteous and professional. worse, she would have still missed out on As annoying as protesters and angry authe opportunity to identify and activate the thoritarians can be, they are not the biggest hundreds of potentially friendly students walking by. threat to your recruitment efforts. Its the people that agree with Its easy to fall into that trap. It doesnt matter if the distraction you mostthe libertarian student who didnt know there was an comes from a screaming authoritarian or a supporter with the desoutlet for people like himwho can take up most of your time perate need to explain all the fine points of Austrian economics. and distract you from getting the job done. You have to know how to defuse the situation and get back to the In general, campuses are so overwhelmed by statist ideologues vital business of identifying your supporters. that libertarians rarely have an outlet for their opinions. Once they The easiest way to defuse the situation is to make sure it doesnt find one, years of pent-up discussion and ideas can erupt on that happen. At recruitment tables and outreach booths, your goal friendly face. As great as an excited libertarian student can be, you should be to use a tool like a quick political quiz to identify which have to maneuver the balancing beam between channeling that students agree with you. Some wont, thats alright. Let them go. excitement and missing out on other opportunities because of an You dont need to run the full-court press to try to convert them. in-depth discussion about the Chicago School. Some passers-by will give you a hard time. Some people are First and foremost, sign up that overeager recruit. Passionate just offended by your challenges to the status quo. Some are just students are the reason youre running a recruitment table in the looking for a fight. When possible, its best simply not to interact first place. Consider your job well done and invite him or her to with them. Focus on the process. Remind them youre just doing a your next meeting. Thats the place for deep conversationnot survey. Most of the time, if they can tell you arent going to fight the sidewalk in front of the student union. back, theyll leave. Hopefully you already have activities to plug supporters into. Occasionally that wont be enough. Whether through convicIf you have an event coming up, have the eager recruit sign up to tion or psychosis, some people just cant let a good thing be. When volunteer. Your new, yet overzealous, member needs an outlet to the fingers start pointing, and the blood starts boiling, and the express his passion for liberty. Be prepared to give him that outlet, volume is cranked all the way up the only thing you can do is sit or he might end up taking it out on you. there and remain calm. Sometimes, your best behavior, talking points, and strategies A couple of years ago, I saw a candidate shaking hands and kisswont get rid of your distractions. Some protesters are just too ing babies at a county fair. His platform was lowering taxes and passionate. Some new members are just too talkative. In times like reducing spending, but one of the attendees took that to mean these, you only have one recourse: the bathroom. If your distracsubjugating dark-skinned poor people to the whims of Big Oil. tion follows you into the stall, you need more help than I can give With a professional smile on his face, the candidate just stood you here. there and absorbed the verbal assault. He calmly restated his positions, and politely tried to answer all the accusations being lobbed at him. Eventually the angry ranter wore himself out and walked Jeff Fulcher (Jeff@theAdvocates.org) is the Director of Programs at the away. At least a dozen witnesses came up and praised the candiAdvocates for Self-Government. He makes sure libertarians are effective in date for the way he handled that crackpot. I couldnt tell you if this communicating their ideas.
the preble prOblem

Should this man be Ron Pauls secretary of defense?
Jeremy Lott
he world of serious foreign policy studies is heavy with specialists, technocrats, and realpolitikers. Its a surprise, then, when a respected scholar comes along and argues forcefully not just that U.S. policy is wrong on one particular point but that it is fundamentally misguided and counter to American interests. Its even more of a surprise when that scholar gets a respectful hearing among academics and in the popular press. Yet that has been the case, so far, with Christopher Prebles new book from Cornell University Press, The Power Problem: How American Military Dominance Makes Us Less Safe, Less Prosperous and Less Free. Prebles polemic has garnered praise from outlets from the International Herald Tribune (a good and lucid book) to the Washington Times. The Timess reviewer argued, Mr. Preble has started a debate where too often there has been a monologue. Preble is a historian and director of foreign-policy studies at the Cato Institute. Christopher Preble His previous books were John F. Kennedy and the Missile Gap, an expansion of his Ph.D. thesis at Temple University, and Exiting Iraq, a report based on the findings of a special committee to examine U.S. options in post-invasion Iraq. Before he studied history and well before he taught courses at Temple and St. Cloud State universities, he was a commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy during Americas first large-scale mobilization in the Persian Gulf. I spoke with Preble in September about defense spending, Barack Obama, paying for college, and the possible noninterventionist future of the Republican Party. You were a commissioned officer in the Navy during the first Gulf War, right? Yes. I was serving on board USS Ticonderoga, in month five of a six-month Mediterranean deployment, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. The next thing we knew, we diverted course, passed through the Suez Canal, and then parked in the Red Sea. Within a few weeks, we were relieved on station and returned to the states. The ship returned for a second deployment in October 1991, by which time the fighting had stopped, and we spent nearly five months in the Persian Gulf. We didnt see any direct
action in either case, but I do remember it being a pretty exciting, and occasionally tense, time. Why did you join the Navy? Short answer: they paid for school. Some libertarians might think me a hypocrite to rail against big government and then accept government money for school. Then again, the military is one of the few core functions of government, and libertarians are staunchly opposed to conscription. The types of incentives that encouraged me to join are essential to maintaining a high-quality all-volunteer force. Why I joined is less important than what I learned, and why I valued the experience. I worked with some of the finest people I have ever known. The dedication of the men and women who make a career in the military is an inspiration to me. And I consider myself fortunate to have had the opportunity. What do you think of the first Gulf War, in retrospect? In retrospect, I think the war set the tone for the post-Cold War era in an unfortunate direction: namely, that the United States would be the worlds policeman, and take responsibility for defending small, weak countries anywhere, and all the time. It was unrealistic to believe we could do that, but the lessons drawn from the first Gulf War convinced us that such wars could be cheap and easy. Were still paying the price for that combination of arrogance and naivety in Iraq and Afghanistan. The other problem with the first Gulf War was the presumption, still strong today, that the regions oil is in danger of being cut off from the rest of the world, and that the United States has a disproportionate interest in ensuring that that never happens. But there are many countries that are far more dependent upon the flow of Persian Gulf oil than we are. Why are we responsible for defending their access to oil? I just dont get it. And what of the producing states that depend on the revenue from the sale of the oil? The first Gulf War played into the mindset that we must intervene on behalf of countries in the region who cant or wont take prudent measures to ensure that their
30 December 2009
main source of income is protected, soin retrospectI think that the rationales for the war were pretty thin, and the long-term costs of the war far exceeded the benefits we derived from it. What moved your thinking in a noninterventionist direction? I have been a libertarian for as long as I can remember. I interned for Cato while in college, and became familiar with the classic noninterventionist arguments years ago. Ted Galen Carpenters work has been very influential on my thinking. It is not so much that I moved in a noninterventionist direction as that I have always understood noninterventionismboth domestically and internationallyto be a core feature of libertarianism. War is the health of the state. Milton Friedman reiterated this point before his passing. That doesnt mean that war is never justified; it does mean that the burden of proof should fall on the advocates for war, not those arguing against. Because libertarians understand how warfare can be so detrimental to liberty, I feel that we have a special obligation to speak out against wars of choice and to retain our very healthy skepticism of state power in all cases. We should not abandon this skepticism just because our military is exceptionally skilled and our men and women in uniform are professional and dedicated. We recruit and train these people for one purposeto defend the United Statesand we must never lose sight of that. The thesis of your recent book, The Power Problem, is hard to miss. You write, Wewe being the United States should reduce our military power in order to be more secure. How would a smaller military make the U.S. more secure? My beginning premise is that we are already quite secure. Foreign troops havent set foot on U.S. soil in nearly 200 years. There are quite a few countries that cant say the same. The few wars that weve been involved in within the past 20 years have been wars that we initiated, not because we were being threatened but because other countries were. In that respect, our mere possession of massive military powerfar more than we need to secure our vital interestsencourages people in other countries to underprovide for their own defense, and ultimately draws us into wars to defend them. The fact that we possess this massive power draws us into wars to defend one country from aggression by another but also to come to the aid of people who are being oppressed by their own government. This is a noble impulse, driven by an innate American desire to help others and by our can-do spirit. But the power problem is that we have too much, and others too little, which causes us to be the lone 911 call essentially by default. Americans would be far more secure if other countries had the capacity and will to act independent of us. That many countries lack those traits is in some measure because we have discouraged them from doing so. We need to reverse course, husbanding our power with extreme prejudice and encouraging others to do more. How does American defense spending stack up against defense spending in other countries? There is simply no comparison. The sum total of U.S. national
security spending comes to nearly $800 billionthat figure includes the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a few billion more tucked away in other government agencies (e.g. Energy, Veterans Affairs). The most credible estimates, compiled by the International Institute of Strategic Studies, put Chinese military spending in 2006 at about $122 billion. The United States spends almost as much as all of the other nations of the world combined. The British at the height of their empire had a two-power standard, meaning they would be stronger than the next two powers. We have, effectively, an every-power standard, despite the fact that most of the other relatively big spendersthe European countries, Japan, South Koreaare our allies. How much does the U.S. spend on the military per American vs. defense spending in, say, Germany, Britain, Japan, and China? The average American, every man woman and child, spends nearly $2,600; $800 billion divided by 300 million people. The average German spends just over $500. The UK spends about $1,040 per person; the average Japanese about $320. China spends less than $100 per capita, and, of course, a good amount of their spending is directed inward. The United States, thankfully and by design, doesnt use its military power for internal security. In how many countries does the U.S. currently have a military presence? Hard to say, actually. In terms of de facto permanent presence, we have the legacies left over after the end of World War II Japan, Germany, Italy, and the UKa few more from the Cold War, including South Korea, Kosovo. Then weve added a few more since 9/11, not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in the Horn of Africa, in the Philippines. We have small detachments attached to our embassies around the world, protecting our diplomats and other civilian workers. You work in the foreign policy shop at the Cato Institute, which came out swinging against the invasion of Iraq at a time when that position was not popular. What sort of pressure did Cato come under to go along with the war? Post-9/11, there was pressure on a lot of people, not just at Cato, to get behind the president and support his decisions. Some of the things that George Bush did after 9/11 made a lot of sense. But my colleaguesand it was chiefly my colleagues, because I didnt come on board until February 2003stood their ground on Iraq. The war was not connected to 9/11, and they warned it would be a costly distraction. It was so easy to cast war skeptics as pro-Saddam when I think most were simply pro-American they suspected that the war would harm U.S. security and opposed it on those grounds. Do you feel vindicated? I guess so, but so what? I would much prefer to have been wrong than to see my country suffer so much. I wish the war really had been a cakewalk as we were told it would be. If it had been easy, not nearly as many Americans would have lost their lives.
Iraq War boosters said the danger of civil war in post-Saddam Iraq was exaggerated by the wars opponents. How many Iraqis would be alive today if we had listened to people who actually knew something about Iraq, and who were arguing against the war that was sure to unleash sectarian tensions that had been kept under wraps for decades, if not centuries? Vindication, if you can call it that, is pretty cold comfort. How about accountability instead? We should never forget who was right, and who was wrong, about Iraq. If anything good can come from the war, it will be because we have learned that a healthy skepticism about war is something to be welcomed, not scorned. And if the advocates for the Iraq War need to get out of the business of political prognostication and grand strategy because no one takes them seriously any more, that would be just fine. In the immortal words of Judge Smails from Caddyshack: Well, the world needs ditch diggers, too. President Barack Obama was against the Iraq invasion from the beginning. Why do you think hes taking so long to draw the troops down there? I dont know, but I would speculate it is because he was handed a withdrawal timeline by the outgoing Bush administration that was generally acceptable to the American public, and that insulates him from charges that he withdrew too soon if Iraq descends into bloody chaos following an American withdrawal. Why has he decided to double down in Afghanistan? He hasntyetand Im holding out hope that he will establish a set of achievable objectives that are not dependent upon a very large, and open-ended, U.S. troop presence. There are voices on the other side, including the same neoconservatives and liberal hawks who were enthusiastic backers of the Iraq War, who are calling on Obama to properly resource the war. Lets be clear: that would require the United States to more than double down. And I think if he were to honestly lay before American people the likely costs of a multi-year commitment, what limited and shrinking support there is for the war would collapse entirely. The counterinsurgency doctrine that has made Gen. David Petraeus (among others) famous presupposes that you need a very high concentration of security personnel relative to the indigenous population in order to protect the population. And I mean very large: more than 400,000 troops if you were going to follow the doctrine to the letter. Advocates for more troops would never go to the American people with such a request. And I think that is, frankly, repugnant. If a policy cant be sold honestly to the American people, then it shouldnt be sold at all. Far better to adopt a different policy. For a supposedly antiwar candidate, Obama is proving to be very willing to go along with an awful lot of interventionism. Why is that? He spoke out against the Iraq War as a state legislator in 2002, but he didnt take a great risk in doing so: his constituents were strongly opposed, unlike in other parts of the country. So that didnt prove him to be an antiwar candidate in all cases. Besides, he said then, and has repeated since, that he isnt opposed to all
wars, just dumb wars, but he has been deliberately vague about what differentiates the two types. I think it is very telling that both he and John McCain supported growing the size of the military, the Army and Marine Corps, presumably to deal with the Iraq-type wars that most Americans have little interest in fighting. If President Obama is serious about drawing down the U.S. presence in Iraq, and I think he is, then why do we need more troops? Where does he plan to use them? There is a bipartisan consensus in favor of growing the military, and Obama and his team are in the middle of this consensus. What do you think of how Obama has dealt with some of his stickier foreign policy challenges, in Iran, Honduras, and Russia? It has been a mixed bag. I think his instincts are correct with respect to Iran and Russia. He appreciates that neither country can be cowed into submission by U.S. threats and pressure, and that while Americans would like to see both countries ruled fairly and well, we have a very limited capacity [to influence] domestic politics in either place. On the contrary, if we were to attempt to overturn the political order there, we would embolden the hardliners and undermine the reformers. By his words and actions, President Obama seems to understand that. On the other hand, you have the case of Honduras, which is complicatedat a minimum an internal political disputeand yet the Obama administration is treating it as a simple case of the overthrow of a democratically elected government. It isnt that obvious. Zelaya was attempting to alter the Honduran constitution in a decidedly undemocratic direction, and while one can quarrel with the measures taken to oust him from power, the knee-jerk reaction of defending Zalaya as an innocent victim, and his opponents as dictators and thugs, does not reflect a level of sophistication that the Obama team has demonstrated in other areas. In the late 1990s, a large number of Republicans were against war in Kosovo. What are the chances that well see a resurgence of Republican anti-interventionism any time soon? I would like to believe that the chances were good. Conservatives have always been skeptical of humanitarian intervention; that is, wars not aimed at advancing U.S. security but rather at ameliorating suffering. They generally share my belief that the states power is limited for a reason, and they are appropriately reluctant to see U.S. military power deployed in ways that do not advance U.S. national security. If they were to renew their skepticism of such missions, they could reap considerable political advantage: the public is overwhelmingly opposed to having the U.S. military play the role of global sheriff, but neither of the two major parties seems willing, yet, to revisit some of the core assumptions that have driven our foreign policy for nearly two decades. The answer, therefore, may come not in one or the other party, but a coalition that draws adherents from both sides of the political and ideological divide. Jeremy Lott is author of The Warm Bucket Brigade: The Story of the American Vice Presidency. He served as manager of editorial services at the Cato Institute from 2004 to 2006.
32 December 2009
Peter Boettke
Trent Hill
Profiles in Liberty
eter Boettke was an undergraduate at spirit is contagious, as any student who has Grove City College in Pennsylvania when ever had an exciting professor knows. Boettke he was introduced to free-market economics is so confident in his employer, GMU, that he and classical liberalism by Hans Sennholz, a threw down the gauntlet, I recommend anyprominent professor who had been a student one who cares passionately about free market of Ludwig von Mises. Professor Boettke is not ideas to come visit us for a week during the alone in this regard: Rep. Ron Paul was also regular academic year just to experience all introduced to Austrian economics by the late, that is going on in classes, workshops, readgreat Hans Sennholz. It was through Profesing groups, lunches, coffee conversations, etc. sor Sennholz that Boettke as an undergraduate Nowhere else comes close to an advanced got involved with the Foundation for Ecostudy center in market-oriented thought and nomic Education. This is one of the oldest policy application. free-market think tanks in the United States, Boettke has a very positive view of politiand one of the most prestigious. When asked cal activism, one that is not always shared by about why he pursued a more advanced educasuccessful academics. He recognizes the imtion in economics, Boettke told me, At FEE, portance of diversifying our efforts: I am a Bettina Bien Graves [longtime FEE staffer big believer in the division of labor. One of and a former student of Mises] took a spemy college buddiesMatt Kibbehas been cial interest in me and encouraged me to study engaged in grassroots political activism to economics at the graduate school level. This great impact. I applaud him and his efforts. eventually led both to an involvement with the Professor Peter Boettke But I wouldnt be good at what he does. I am Institute for Humane Studies, and in particular better in the classroom, not on television or Walter Grinder and Leonard Liggio, and to my at rallies. Of Young Americans for Liberty pursuit of a Ph.D. in economics at George Mason University. and other pro-liberty student groups, he says, Student groups At GMU Boettke studied under distinguished economists like are very important and the case for the classical liberal or libertarDon Lavoie, James Buchanan, and Gordon Tullock. From 1990 ian society doesnt rest on economics alonewe need not only until 1998 he worked at New York University under professors economists like Milton Friedman, but philosophers like Robert Israel Kirzner and Mario Rizzo in the Austrian Economics ProNozick and legal scholars like Richard Epstein as well. In other gram. The academic mentors that Professor Boettke had might words, the economic case for freedom has to be complemented be the envy of anyone, but Boettke claims that this was not the with the moral or philosophical case and instituted in the political most rewarding part of his careerhis students are. Working or legal system. Boettke seems to emphasize the idea of specialwith them on projects, reading their articles and books, watching ization, both in the study of economics and in advancing liberty them excel in their own careersthis is the source of my greatest in America. I am an egg-head, so I think students should study joy in my own work. all the books and articles of the great thinkers in this intellecBoettkes intellectual development mirrors that of many modtual tradition. But I understand that not everyone is going to be ern Austrian economists, Reading Ludwig von Mises as an undera scholarwe need teachers at all levels, we need ministers and graduate had a profound influence on me, and that deep appreciapriests, we need journalists, and we need activists. We are fighting tion for his brilliant work and commitment to truth has never left a culture warnot conservative versus liberal; but a culture war me. He also cites F.A. Hayek, Murray Rothbard, Ludwig Lachbetween individualism and collectivism. The collectivist stranglemann, and Israel Kirzner as major influences whose work he seeks hold is stronger than we think, and we have to challenge it at all to integrate into his own. Boettke describes his work environment levels. with an enthusiasm that is inspiring: Waking up and going to This concept of a culture war fought between the individualist work at GMU is like waking up at a Foundation for Economic and collectivism is an alluring idea. It dispels the left versus right Education or Institute for Humane Studies seminar, except rather depiction of the culture war with which we liberty-lovers are so than a week in the summer, we get to do it everyday! The passion uncomfortable. Boettkes statement also makes clear that it is inhe exudes while explaining the environment at GMU makes it obdividualists versus collectivism, not collectivists. We are to attack vious that he enjoys his work, his students, and his colleagues. This the harmful idea, not those who espouse it.
This does not mean, though, that Boettke allows his economics to be influenced by his political presuppositions. Far from it, in fact: we do have to respect a strict division of labor between the levels and also insist on a strict separation of economic scholarship and political affiliation. What he means by this is that economists, students, and other thinkers should not allow their political views to distract them from honest scholarly work, lest such loss of attention besmirch both the scholarly work and the political views. Boettke never got to meet his heroes F.A. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, but he did meet Murray Rothbard on a number of occasions. Boettke says of Rothbard, He was one of the most charming and engaging men I have ever met. He was a very important influence on me. However, he points out that the biggest influence was the first oneDr. Hans Sennholz. I can still remember those lectures (thirty years ago this year) as if I just heard them yesterday. He changed my life by introducing me to the world of Austrian economics and classical liberalism. What exactly set Professor Sennholz apart as a teacher and mentor? He had a wonderful way of communicating ideasthe welfare state was depicted as a society in a giant circle with all our hands in the pockets of our neighborsand was a passionate defender of the principles of a society of free and responsible individuals. He made me want to be a teacher of economics and I am so glad that I followed his lead. We should all be happy for the profound influence Hans
Sennholz had on Peter Boettke, as it has produced academic fruits for the liberty movement and for students of Austrian economics. Boettke clearly enjoys his profession and the general pursuit of truth. In the Austrian tradition of Mises, he has many students who benefited from his mentoring and have gone on to important economics research and writing of their own. This is the truest legacy of an Austrian economics professor, as well as a pro-liberty individualthey leave their mark upon those who know them, their love for liberty is passionate and contagious. Despite having spent copious amounts of time with the likes of Murray Rothbard, Israel Kirzner, Mario Rizzo, Hans Sennholz, James Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, Leonard Liggio, Bettina Bien Graves, and Walter Grinder, Boettke is able to communicate ideas very clearly to the non-academic, a trait he likely learned from his mentor, Professor Sennholz. We as lovers of liberty often become frustrated with others when they cannot understand, or simply disagree with, our concepts of economics, politics, or law. This sometimes leads to a not-so-subtle arrogance, especially in persecuted academics, that is off-putting. Boettke eschews all of this in favor of a friendly demeanor and easy pace. If every economics student were required to take a course from him, we might well live in a truly free market. Trent Hill [thill19@lsu.edu] is a history major at Louisiana State University and the editor of IndependentPoliticalReport.com.
34 December 2009
This much is true: You are being lied to

Dont Weep for Me, America-How Democracy In America Became the Prince (While We Slept)
Abraham Lincolns Prediction-1864
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country...corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. THIS BOOK IS THE RED PILL Michael Wolsey
The American public is, overall, completely ignorant of their true history. Practically everything they know about their country is a systematic, orchestrated falsehood. Well know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false. William Casey, former CIA Director, said in 1981 We are there. What makes this book different from other books out there is the weaving in and out throughout the story of the methods of deception used to fool the public and keep them under control, such as George Orwells 1984 and Platos Cave. The American founders knew our republic would not last. Machiavelli would have predicted as much. Tocqueville knew it. The reason why the American Republic didnt last is given by Abraham Lincoln in 1864: Ultimately, ...all wealth is aggregated in a few hands! Chillingly, in this provocative book, Machiavelli, Tocqueville, Orwell all come together to provide an accurate picture of America today! Written for the heart that yearns for freedom, This must-read book is essential reading and available from the publisher, Dorrance Publishing at: http://www.dorrancebookstore.com/doweformeamh.html or by calling 800-788-7654. Quantities are limited.
ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY!
free radical
David Gordon
Property, Freedom, Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe Jrg Guido Hlsmann and Stephan Kinsella, eds., Ludwig von Mises Institute, 400 pages
udwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard made contributions of decisive significance towards understanding the principles of a free society. To those of us who have learned so much from them, the question inevitably arises: who today carries on and extends their work? No one has a better claim to be the successor of these great economists and libertarians than Hans Hoppe. Hoppes background would not lead one to expect this. He first attracted notice as a star doctoral student of Jrgen Habermas, the famous exponent of the culturally Marxist Frankfurt School. Hoppe soon abandoned the Marxism of his mentor, though, and found Austrian economics and the political philosophy of Rothbard much more to his liking. Hoppe became so attracted to the Austrian brand of economics that he sought Rothbard out in New York. Rothbard took to his new disciple at once; and when he moved to the University of Nevada at Las Vegas as S.J. Hall Distinguished Professor of Economics, he recommended Hoppe for a position in his department. Rothbard and Hoppe made UNLV a world center for Austrian economics, and following Rothbards untimely death in January 1995, Hoppe continued to teach there until his recent retirement. In Property, Freedom, Society, 37 of Hoppes friends, colleagues, and students have joined together to pay tribute to this outstanding thinker on the occasion of his 60th birthday. Readers of the book will see how radically Hoppe breaks from prevailing views in political theory and economics. Probably Hoppes most obvious break with conventional wisdom is this: almost everyone favors democracy. Political theorists seek arguments to defend democracy, but they do not bring into question the desirability of that system. Hoppe does precisely this. He argues that in a democracy, the rulers have every incentive to spend in a profligate manner. They, after all, do not own the country, so they have no reason to conserve resources. Further, as contributor Doug French points out, because democracy is open to any and all who can get themselves elected, either through connections, personality, or personal wealth, it is a social system where leadership positions become a hotbed for sociopaths. Another contributor, economist Robert Higgs, raises a related problem for democracy. Its supporters claim that policies in a democracy must, in the long run, reflect what people want. Measures that at first catch them by surprise must ultimately win their approval. Does not democracy then possess an inestimable advan-
tage over competing systems? Higgs has an effective rejoinder to this all too common argument: If the people never avail themselves of the opportunity to overturn what was done initially without their consent, they may thereby reveal only that people who have been fed thin gruel for a long time get used to eating it and even come to consider it nutritious. Higgs offers an apt example: the widespread popularity of Franklin Roosevelt, in spite of the destruction and bloodshed of World War II that resulted from his interventionist foreign policy. For this dismal result, we may credit the democratic system that put Franklin D. Roosevelt and his party in power If democracy is unsatisfactory, what can be put in its place? Hoppe has a surprising answer. Monarchy is not an outdated system history has long since transcended; it is in many respects superior to its rival and supplanter. The distinguished intellectual historian Paul Gottfried states the essence of Hoppes case: Monarchs have the advantage over democratic rulers that they view the realm that they control as a hereditary possession, albeit one with restrictions on what they could do to others. Their hereditary right to their position renders monarchs less inclined to plunder than democratic officeholders Monarchs take the long view, since they hold power for life and wish to pass their realm to their heirs. Hoppes position here has often been misunderstood. He is not himself a monarchist; he says only that monarchy is superior to democracy. His own position, though, is still more radical. He denies that we need a state at all: in a free society, private protection agencies could provide all the necessary services of defense and justice. But how can Hoppe say this? Is not defense a public good that the free market cannot supply? A defense system against atomic attack, e.g., protects everyone within its range, not just those who pay for it; and one person can benefit from the service without reducing the gain to anyone else. How can the market provide a service that, in the trade jargon, is non-rivalrous and non-excludable? The noted Spanish economist Jess Huerta de Soto firmly endorses Hoppes departure from orthodoxy on public goods: the emergence of any case (real or apparent) of a public good is accompanied by the incentives necessary for the impetus of entrepreneurial creativity to find a better solution via technological and legal innovations and entrepreneurial discoveries which make it possible to overcome any problems that may arise. By prematurely declaring certain services to be public goods, advocates of
36 December 2009
the state prevent the market from dealing with a contradiction. Welfare economics acknowlthe goods in question. edges that coerced exchanges violate the PareHoppe and de Soto may be right that pubto constraint: if I force you to exchange apples lic goods do not prove the need for a state, for oranges, one cannot say that the exchange but why should we care about this technical leaves no one worse off. It leaves you worse controversy? Is it not best left to economists off, since you did not voluntarily make the to resolve? Unfortunately, it cannot be. The exchange. Despite this acknowledgment, welstate has, throughout history, been the prinfare economics ignores the same point when cipal enemy of liberty. Unless we can show the initial redistribution enters the scene. This that nothing essential demands that we have a starting point interferes with the activities of state, we will be doomed to battle a Leviathan those who have already endeavored to acquire that cannot be stopped. property. As such, it is inconsistent with the Need the alternatives be drawn this sharply? Pareto approach. Is it not possible to institute a strictly limited Hoppe is much more than a thinker and government? This, after all, was the aim of scholar. He is a teacher who attracted to himour Constitution. Would it not be wiser to enself a large number of devoted students. One deavor to return to constitutional government of them, Jeffrey Barr, comments: At the berather than to insist on so radical a measure as ginning of each semester, Professor Hoppe the states abolition? would announce that he would meet with stuHoppe firmly rejects this. Lew Rockwell redents who were interested in joining the Pocalls when Hoppe spoke at a conference we Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe litical Economy Club at a local pub . Those held on American history, and gave a paper who attended enjoyed long hours of debates on the U.S. Constitution . He argued that it on the many issues of the dayand what isrepresented a vast increase in government power and that this was sues there were to discuss! Readers of this excellent book will its true purpose. It created a powerful central government, with discover what aroused these students to such enthusiasm. the cover of liberty as its excuse. He used it as a case in point, and went on to argue that all constitutions are of the same type. David Gordon is a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute and editor Contributor Luigi Marco Bassani of the University of Milan of The Mises Review. ably brings out how the American state burst its constitutional limits. Here Abraham Lincoln played the key role. Bassani sees Lincoln as a nationalizer who, possibly under the influence of German migrs like Francis Lieber, sought to transform America into an organic state. To Lincoln, freeing the slaves was of secondary significance. Emancipation was a war measure that aimed to secure Union victory. Hoppes stress on the state as forcibly imposed on society puts him at odds with an influential group of classical liberals. Exponents of Public Choice, such as James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, see the state as akin to a voluntary organization. In this lies their chief failing, according to Tom DiLorenzo: [T]his entire literature, most of which is based on research on the U.S. political system, completely ignores the historical reality and effects of the U.S. governments violent destruction of the right of secession . This is all simply ignored by public choice scholars who proceed with their analyses as though the American War Between the States never happened. Hoppes work is by no means confined to philosophy and political theory. He has made pioneering contributions to economics as well. As Jeffrey Herbener of Grove City College emphasizes, Hoppe has shown that a key element of modern welfare economics is self-contradictory. According to welfare economics, the state can begin with any distribution of wealth it wishes. Given such a distribution, welfare economics shows that, by means of the free market, we can reach a Pareto optimal outcome, i.e., a situation where no one can be made better off without making at least one person worse off. Hoppe contends that the assumption that the state can proceed from a beginning distribution of wealth leads to
a life in the riGht

Karen De Coster
rofessor Paul Gottfried, who calls himself a historically centered traditionalist who admires the bourgeois civilization that had dominated the West in the nineteenth century, has written a first-rate memoir of some of his most cherished encounters with prominent politicians and intellectuals. Gottfried shrewdly avoided taking the conventional autobiographical route through his life and has instead produced a series of narratives relating to his scores of fascinating friendships with those he calls professional nonconformists or figures who have represented the true dissenting academy. Thus, Gottfrieds latest book gives us a series of revelations of his spirited engagements with some of the intellectual communitys most engaging minds. The author is a conventionally observant Jew whose father left Central Europe to escape the competing tyrannies that had begun to emerge prior to the Second World War. His flawed but courageous and rebellious father, born in Budapest, is a focus of the book early on. The elder Gottfried profoundly influenced his sons perspective and opinionated demeanor, both of which have led Paul to resist the conformist pressures of his chosen career as historian and teacher. That resistance has cost him friends. But Gottfrieds lack of popularity among his colleagues in academia has not prevented him from leading a life that, he says, has gone nowhere in particular but has nonetheless been packed with fascinating encounters. During his graduate stint at Yale, he met the German-Jewish scholar Herbert Marcuse, a theorist of the neo-Marxist Frankfurt School. Marcuses Old World carriage and extraordinary lectures attracted the young Gottfried, who became enthralled with European intellectual history and German philosophy. (Marcuse, in fact, was admired by a diverse group of young scholarsthe conservative philosopher and economist HansHerman Hoppe also studied under Marcuse at Goethe University in Frankfurt.) The significance of Marcuse as a scholarly influence in Gottfrieds life is summed up when the author concedes that he learned true liberal intellectual exchange from a declared Marxist-Leninist. Perhaps the principal lesson contained within Encounters is that Gottfrieds enviable intellectual life has not been without its pitfalls. Early on, his frequent dissent on issues that were critical to
Encounters: My Life with Nixon, Marcuse, and Other Friends and Teachers Paul Gottfried, ISI Books, 275 pages
the ambassadors of multiculturalism led to his marginalization by the liberal academic establishment. Not surprisingly, Gottfried is among the most candid and gifted of the conservative historians who have challenged the notion that neoconservatives are a part of the Right. He condemns them as paradigmatic leftists who are counterfactually identified as conservatives. Three main problems that Gottfried sees with the neocon-dominated establishment conservatives is their desire to enforce democracy all over the world, their support of gender politics, and their politically correct position on immigration. His historic battles with neoconservative ringleaders ultimately led to him being denied a professorship at Catholic University, as well as the defeat of his potential chairmanship at the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1986. Hence his assertion, The refusal to call neoconservatives what we are supposed to call them may be politically and professionally imprudent. Still, he challenges the neoconservatives when they resort to employing the conservative moniker in their quest for social progress through an extensive welfare state and egalitarian agenda. He writes: Both their enthusiasm for Third World immigration and their opposition to immigration restrictionists flow from their view that populations are interchangeable. All people are individuals who can be socialized in the same way, providing they are molded by a suitable public administration and by a steady diet of human-rights talk. Because, like the earlier progressives, the neoconservatives associate public education with democratic patriotism, and because they link morality to democratic values, they have been allowed to appropriate for themselves the conservative mantle. This, in my opinion, is a case of mistaken identity. Furthermore, his scholarly work has outlined the proper distinctions between the post-war, socially progressive, neoconservative Right and their critics who are genuinely on the Right. Gottfried calls this the airing of dirty linen. In his life, Gottfried has been inspired by a host of eccentrics who cannot easily be typecast along ideological lines, including the Communist-turned-religious-conservative Will Herberg, a Jewish
38 December 2009
theologian who once noted that anti-Catholicism is the anti-Semitism of secular Jewish intellectuals. There was also Christopher Lasch, a social critic and communitarian who cast aspersions on the narcissistic culture of consumer capitalism and bemoaned much of contemporary political thought in America, infuriating intellectuals on both the Left and Right. Gottfried at first became an adversary of Laschhe lost out on a professorship at the University of Rochester due to Laschs politicking and Gottfrieds own reputation as a Nixon Republican. Twenty years later, however, the two were friends, though its not clear what transpired in the years in between. One of the most curious associations described by Gottfried is his friendship with the 37th president, a friendship that started in the late 1980s when Nixon, a man who was more cerebral than his public persona revealed, read a copy of Gottfrieds 1986 book, The Search for Historical Meaning: Hegel and the Postwar American Right, a volume Nixon regarded as a major influence in his later years. Over time, Gottfried and Nixon maintained a series of correspondences and personal visits. Gottfried presents Nixon as an intriguing conversationalist and contends that he was remarkably knowledgeable about political theory because he studied the great thinkers, such as Hegel and Hobbes, while at Duke University. That Gottfried was a confidant of historic men such as Nixon reveals his importance to the intellectual and critical world. Pat Buchanan also entered the scene as the other half of what Gottfried terms two pugnacious Republicans. By the end of the 1980s, Buchanan, a former Nixon staffer, had become an unswerving opponent of neoconservative policymaking and military crusades. What Gottfried finds most remarkable about Buchanan is his principled departure from the surrender to neoconservatism that plagued most conservatives who were concerned about career advancement and acceptance in the 1980s. In that respect, Gottfried and Buchanan share maverick roots, and various cheerleaders for the establishment have continued to smear both of them over the years. Gottfried also celebrates the fellowship he enjoyed with Austrian monarchist Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, a Catholic aristocrat who was, for many years, prominent within the American conservative movement. Kuehnelt-Leddihn argued against representative democracy because he believed its majority-rule mechanism inexorably gave way to totalitarian rule. Instead he championed monarchism, which, he believed, was more suitable for sustaining a Christian society founded on individual liberties. Gottfried credits Kuehnelt-Leddihn with challenging the prevailing notion that equality is the nucleus of a free country and therefore equality must be procured through the powers of the state. Gottfried explains that democratic equality is an Aristotelian excess writ large over an entire society, and it keeps spilling over into social relations until it has infected everything. Gottfried also recalls his association with three men who, though they were ideologically diverse, often shared similar worldviewstraditionalist conservative Russell Kirk, paleoconservative Sam Francis, and libertarian anarchist Murray Rothbard. Sam Francis, a controversial thinker who described himself as a man of the Far Right, was an influential figure who, Gottfried reveals, became the contemporary on the American Right who shaped my thinking most decisively. Gottfried describes Rothbard as an
enduring optimist who believed that Americans would someday realize their destiny and choose liberty over tyranny and uproot the big government that had long betrayed them. This is in stark contrast to the view, shared by Kirk and Gottfried, which does not absolve the masses of blame for their political illiteracy and lack of ability to control their own destinies. Gottfried, in fact, claims that the government is far better than the one that the masses actually merit. This book is full of delightful, opinionated passages, which is something that readers have come to expect from Paul Gottfried. He, as a traditionalist conservative, often drifts into priceless utterances admonishing modern cultural phenomena, such as his Nietzschean reaction to the girly men and virago women that populate university settings. He admits his rage, at a meeting of the American Political Science Association, at the sight of the mannish women and mincing feminized males, all of who were dressed with the sartorial gracelessness of a televangelist. Gottfrieds book, in fact, is rife with swipes at the more repulsive facets of contemporary culture. In his introduction, he sets the stage when discussing many of the students he encounters, who represent the West not at all. They are merely consumers who occupy the space of what used to be the Western world, and they fall over themselves trying to repudiate the sexist, racist, anti-Semitic, and homophobic culture that preceded them. Gottfried, with his decades of battles against political correctness, anti-Westernism, the multicultural theocracy, and managerial-state bureaucracies, has been a pivotal figure in the world of ideas. His contributions to intellectual history and political theory can be difficult to classify according to an abstract profile, but for this reason his vast body of work offers an abundance of value for young conservatives, libertarians, Western traditionalists, and other independent intellectuals. When I first met Paul in the late 1990s and began to pore over his writings, I realized that I would agree with him far more often than I would disagree, and even then I understood that he advances significant interpretations of historical and modern events that are crucial to understanding American conservatism. Gottfrieds work documenting the evolution of the American conservative movement has been indispensable. Aside from his many books and scholarly articles, he has become a tireless popular essayist, with articles appearing on websites accessible to the educated layman. Gottfried is one of a dying breed, a man who is still committed to substance over symbolism and who has put the unpopular truth before his career. While the establishments defenders of received opinion may have derailed Gottfrieds academic career, I suspect that he was rescued from the halls of pedagogical obscurity and placed into his present role to defend traditionalist principles from the charlatans who have usurped them. The result has been a life of fascinating encounters and considerable achievement. Karen De Coster is a libertarian accounting/finance professional and writer. Her website is www.karendecoster.com.
40 December 2009
Hollywood at War
What we can learn from Inglourious Basterds, G.I. Joe, and The Hurt Locker
John W. Payne
very summer, the Hollywood machine cranks out numerous action blockbusters meant to lure audiences with thin plotlines and plenty of violence and shiny things. Less common is the serious war movie, which, although it might and usually does include prodigious amounts of violence and carnage, is typically plot and character driven. In any given summer, there is usually only one decent war movie, but this summer audiences had the opportunity to watch two: Inglourious Basterds and The Hurt Locker. Of course, there are also action movies that pose as war movies. They are often terrible, but very few plumb the depths of awfulness discovered by this summers G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Regardless of their differing levels of quality, each of these films offers insight into war and how Americans perceive it. G.I. Joe contains many hokey references to the 1980s cartoons with phrases like Knowing is half the battle thrown in to satisfy fanboys my age who wish they were still seven. What is worse, the action scenes are so jumpy and saturated with color as to be almost nauseating. The cinematographer seems to suffer from ADD and have a severe problem with hallucinogenic mushrooms. Still, somewhere inside this train wreck is a film that longs to be taken seriously, even if it does not deserve to be. The antagonist for most of the film is James McCullen, who runs a defense company named MARS. The company has developed a form of nanotechnology that can destroy entire cities, and NATO buys four warheads. McCullen sends his agents to steal the warheads back from NATO, then uses them to hold the world hostage. This plot is a criticism of a military-industrial complex run amok, where governments empower unscrupulous defense contractors who threaten the safety of all mankind. What is the solution to this extinction-level threat? Why, G.I. Joe, of course! Except in this version, G.I. Joe is no longer just an American hero. The force is now international, composed of commandoes from across the worldbut still under American command, naturally. Several years ago, Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow and leading neoconservative thinker Max Boot suggested that America create a Freedom Legion based on the French Foreign
Legion and composed of foreigners seeking American citizenship. G.I. Joe is the realization of Boots dream. The film starts with a fear of the military-industrial complex, but tells Americans to rest easy because as long as the world comes together under American control, an elite team equipped with untold amounts of whiz-bang gadgetry will keep us safe. In this way, it affirms the neoconservative and liberal-internationalist consensus that America must be the policeman of the world. Whereas G.I. Joe is an action movie with a few trappings of a war movie, Inglourious Basterds is self-consciously crafted in the war-movie genre. The film is in many ways an alternate universe Jewish revenge fantasy against the Nazis, but it is not terribly violent by the standards of the war genre (although what violence there is in this film is extremely graphic). This is doubly surprising given that Inglourious Basterds was directed by Quentin Tarantino, who became famous by directing and producing brutally violent movies about the criminal underground. In Basterds, Tarantino suggests that intelligent negotiation is as vital as violence for achieving the ends of warif not more so. Although the film beautifully weaves together several different storylines, the heart of the story is the conflict between Aldo the Apache Raine and Hans Landa, The Jew Hunter, played by Brad Pitt and Christopher Waltz, respectively. (In a just world, Pitt and Waltz would both be nominated for Oscars for these performances, but given the Academys past treatment of Tarantino that seems unlikely.) Raine leads a covert group of Jewish American soldiers into France before D-Day to kill Nazis for no reason other than to stir up fear in the German ranks. Landa, on the other hand, is tasked with removing all remaining Jews from France and later with protecting the premiere of the Nazi propaganda film Pride of the Nation. Both Raine and Landa use extreme violence against their respective targets, but each also employs negotiation to accomplish his goals with a minimum of bloodshed. These negotiations are backed up by the threat of violence, to be sure, but they also almost always lead to fewer deaths in the end. In fact, after Landa captures Raine, the two manage to negotiate an earlier end to World War II than occurred in reality.
Near the beginning of the movie, Pitts character declares that he and his men aint in the prisoner-taking business. We in the Nazi-killin business. But hes wrong; they are in the bargaining business the whole time. Basterds suggests that the Allied demand of unconditional surrender may have been mistaken. Even in the most apocalyptic conflict the world has ever seen, negotiation is still one of the most potent weapons at our disposal, and it can save millions of lives on both sides. Finally, there is The Hurt Locker, the most realistic film of the three and the one most relevant today. The film was extremely well received by critics, but audiences didnt bite, with the picture grossing only an estimated $13 million theatrically. The Hurt Locker follows an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team within the Armys Bravo Company in the early days of the occupation of Iraq. In the first scene, team leader Sgt. Matt Thompson is killed when an improvised explosive device (IED) he is attempting to defuse is detonated by an Iraqi with a cell phone. Thompson is replaced by Sgt. William James, who is the driving force of the movie. James, played superbly by Jeremy Renner, experiences war the way other, arguably saner, people experience heroin. Whereas Thompson preferred to employ a robot to investigate and destroy IEDs, James insists on defusing the bombs himself for the sheer adrenaline rush. James even keeps a part of each bomb he defuses as a memento of something that could have killed him. He is fascinated by the power of it. Unlike G.I. Joe, The Hurt Locker brings out some of the more realistic dangers of the military-industrial complex. As the team is driving to their next assignment, one of the soldiers notes all the idle American tanks lining the streets, weapons that would only be useful for fighting the old Soviet Army. The Pentagon is not prepared to fight a guerrilla insurgency because defenseindustry lobbyists pressure members of Congress to continue purchasing outdated weaponry. The Hurt Locker never attempts to be an action movie despite director Kathryn Bigelows extensive rsum in that genre. While the tension is high throughout the film, The Hurt Locker shows that war is, in the paraphrased words of a World War I veteran, tedium punctuated by moments of extreme danger. In one scene, the team meets a group of undercover British soldiers who have a flat tire and are soon attacked by insurgents. Several of the British soldiers are quickly killed by an enemy sniper. James
and his direct subordinate, Sgt. JT Sanborn, kill the first few insurgents in rapid succession but then must spend hours with their weapons ready, waiting for the last sniper to move. The film also illustrates the extremely frustrating and potentially deadly task of distinguishing friend from foe in a guerrilla insurgency. In the opening scene, Spc. Owen Eldridge could have saved Sergeant Thompsons life if he had shot the Iraqi with the cell phone, but instead he hesitated. Of course, if Eldridge took the shot and the Iraqi was not an insurgent, Eldridge could have inadvertently fanned the flames of rage against the United States. James comments on this tension between saving American lives and winning Iraqi hearts and minds when an Iraqi cab driver barrels through an Army barricade around a bomb. The cab driver backs up and is taken into custody by other soldiers, and James remarks that if he wasnt an insurgent, he sure the hell is now. But The Hurt Lockers main theme is revealed by a quote shown at the opening of the film from Chris Hedges profound book War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning: The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug. This most obviously applies to James. When Bravo Company is rotated out of Iraq, James returns home and seems out of place in civilian life. When shopping for groceries with his girlfriend and son, James is overwhelmed by the different kinds of cereal he must choose from. In many ways, war is more simplistic than civilian life because decisions are made in a split second and you either live or die. Conversely, civilian life offers thousands of choices large and small. James is torn between the love for his son and his addiction to war, and ultimately James is unable to cope with civilian life and signs up to return to Iraq. Sergeant James is representative of America as whole. As a country, we are torn between a life of relative ease, tending to our own little platoons of families and friends, and the intoxication of running a world empire. In sending James back to Iraq, The Hurt Locker seems to argue that America has already made her choice. John W. Payne is a freelance writer in Southeast Missouri and blogs at www. rougholboy.com.
42 December 2009
44 December 2009

Young American Revolution Issue #4

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1 Young American Revolution

Tear Down This Wall

Karl Marxs America By George Hawley

Has The Communist Manifesto replaced the Constitution?

Marxs ideas led to the persecution of the proletariat by a bureaucratic elite

Manifesto for Slavery By Robert Conquest

29 Bullies and Chatterboxes

Beautiful Loser By Bill Kauffman

30 The Preble Problem

The Power of Fusionism By Donald Devine

Washington is spending your money years before you earn it

Generation Gap By Rep. Michele Bachmann

36 Free Radical By David Gordon

38 A Life in the Right By Karen De Coster

3 Young American Revolution

Tear Down This Wall

Edward King, Nicole Gonzalez Knowlton

Shane Helm, Anthony Rousseau

Karl Marxs America

5 Young American Revolution

7 Young American Revolution

Manifesto for Slavery

The Communist Elite

The Workers State?

9 Young American Revolution

11 Young American Revolution

Obamas bad medicine

13 Young American Revolution

15 Young American Revolution

17 Young American Revolution

The Power of Fusionism

19 Young American Revolution

21 Young American Revolution

23 Young American Revolution

Blueprint for Revolution

25 Young American Revolution

27 Young American Revolution

bullies and chatterbOxes

29 Young American Revolution

the preble prOblem

31 Young American Revolution

33 Young American Revolution

This much is true: You are being lied to

Abraham Lincolns Prediction-1864

ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY!

35 Young American Revolution

37 Young American Revolution

a life in the riGht

39 Young American Revolution

41 Young American Revolution

43 Young American Revolution

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