DEATH IS EASY by Russell Madden

FREEDOM,  As If It Mattered by Russell Madden

The Guardian Project by Russell Madden

RaNdoM by Russell Madden

 

"Self-interest."

That term has been batted about more of late than a tennis ball at Wimbledon. We're told that it was "in our interests" to invade Iraq. It's "in our interest" to set up a Western-friendly, "democratic" government in Baghdad. It's "in our interest" to wreak the same manner of changes in Syria...and Iran...and Korea...at gunpoint, if necessary. It's "in our interest" to expand NATO to include large numbers of our former enemies. It's "in our interest" to have American bases and soldiers in the Middle East, in South Korea, in the Philippines, in Bosnia, in Cuba, in Colombia. It's "in our interest" to intervene anywhere and everywhere in the world where someone, somewhere might, possibly, perhaps, maybe represent or conceivably become a threat to us someday, somehow, some way.

Nor is foreign policy the only arena in which this marvelously flexible and malleable "principle" has taken hold.

Our political leaders and their boosters inform us in no uncertain terms that it is "in our interest" to increase government spending, inflation, deficits, and taxes. It's "in our interest" to create a Department of Homeland Security and to pass various PATRIOT acts that authorize increased surveillance, indefinite detentions, and black bag operations against American citizens. It's "in our interest" to wage war on privacy in banking, drug consumption, sexual practices, and on the Internet. It's "in our interest" to give away drugs to rich seniors, to expand State control over medical care, to let the State direct how we will pay for our social "security" retirement. It's "in our interest" to have our firearms taken from us, our water rationed, our toilets monitored, our children "protected" by State-mandated nannies.

The schizophrenia of it all is enough to leave one's head spinning in incredulous wonder.

These are the same folks who have repeatedly condemned "selfish" individuals; who espouse "sacrifice"; who tout the "greatest good for the greatest number"; who cannot conceive of how anyone could believe his own life to be of sufficient importance to oppose the will of the majority.

Are the statists and the altruists concerned about this glaring incongruity? Hardly.

For these pragmatists supreme, whatever "works" is their guideline. For them, "self-interest" is whatever they want at any given moment. With that banner as one's "standard" for judging actions, the heavens are no barrier.

As Ayn Rand wrote:

"The term 'interests' is a wide abstraction that covers the entire field of ethics. It includes the issues of: man's values, his desires, his goals and their actual achievement in reality. A man's 'interests' depend on the kind of goals he chooses to pursue, his choice of goals depends on his desires, his desires depend on his values -- and, for a rational man, his values depend on the judgment of his mind." (Ayn Rand, "The 'Conflicts' of Men's Interests," in The Virtue of Selfishness, p. 50.)

The critical adjective here, of course, is "rational." Those who promote the kinds of policies mentioned above are unconcerned with reason or logic, except, of course, as strategic tools to be used or abandoned as circumstances require.

(Irrationalists have appropriated other legitimate words to further their own dark ends. Consider the popular uses of "sacrifice": it can mean proper costs [e.g., in time, money, effort] required to obtain one's goals/values that result in a positive or net gain. It can also refer to surrendering one's values to others in exchange for lesser or no values or actual harm, i.e., a net loss. Statists and altruists slide smoothly from one meaning to the other [using the same label for two different concepts] as fits their desires.)

A statist wants what he wants -- whether it's a war to "remove Saddam" or "national health care" -- and he wants it now... He does not care that:

"[A rational man] does not regard desires as irreducible primaries...which he is destined irresistibly to pursue. He does not regard 'because I want it' or 'because I feel like it' as a sufficient cause and validation of his actions. He chooses and/or identifies his desires by a process of reason, and he does not act to achieve a desire until and unless he is able rationally to validate it in the full context of his knowledge and of his other values and goals..." (Rand, "The 'Conflicts'...," p. 51. All emphases in quotes in originals.)

When the promoters of war decided long before 9-11 that Hussein had to go, they did not bother to offer rational validation for their predetermined goal. It did not matter whether their "evidence" was ambiguous or fictional, solid or ephemeral. They ignored the "full context" of Middle East history; of American perfidy in past wars, including Bush I's Gulf War; of the effects of U.S. interventions in foreign lands; of how and why we have been attacked by terrorists; of the likely consequences of an invasion; of the probability of any real threat to the U.S.; of how the war would increase State power and decrease freedom in our own country.

Tunnel vision is wonderful when one seeks to ignore reality. No need to bother contemplating the tigers closing in on both sides when one focuses exclusively on the slab of meat laying on the road.

"Desires (or feelings or emotions or wishes or whims) are not tools of cognition; they are not a valid standard of value, nor a valid criterion of man's interests. The mere fact that a man desires something does not constitute a proof that the object of his desire is good, nor that its achievement is actually to his interest." (Rand, "The 'Conflicts'...," p. 50.)

When one eschews the critical qualifier "rational" in regard to one's interests, almost anything becomes grist for the statist's mill. After all, somebody is going to benefit by a war. In Iraq, we've gotten rid of Hussein and his cronies. We found 700 billion dollars in cash. We control Iraq's oil fields. We gained valuable military experience for our untried troops. We can more directly influence events in the region.

The same holds true for government welfare programs. Old people -- no matter how rich -- get others to pay for their health care. Poor people don't have to work yet still enjoy cable TV and cell phones. Bureaucrats have cushy jobs and the ability to dictate to others. Connected companies see their profits soar.

These people think that if "self-interest" is good, then by golly, they're going to go for the gusto. They refuse to recognize the truth that:

"There is a fundamental moral difference between a man who sees his self-interest in production and a man who sees it in robbery. The evil of a robber does not lie in the fact that he pursues his own interests, but in what he regards as to his own interest; not in the fact that he pursues his values, but in what he chose to value; not in the fact that he wants to live, but in the fact that he wants to live on a subhuman level..." (Rand, "Introduction," in VOS, p. ix.)

When such a charged issue as war is the center of attention, even some libertarians and Objectivists are seduced by the corruption of self-interest the statists are espousing.

Consider some quotes from a recent article by William Thomas of the Objectivist Center ("Weighing War," Navigator, April, 2003):

"...it may be only a matter of time until some evil genius finds a way to acquire...weapons for a clandestine attack on the West." ["May" be?] ["Evil genius"?!?!]

"...our individual interests are served [by the government] by the...goal of creating...a society of traders..." [The State "creates" (and is a precursor to) a free enterprise society?!]

Free countries "essentially embrace the principles of liberty" and "provide at least the minimum of just rule." [A "minimum" of justice qualifies a nation as free?]

"It is entirely proper -- and entirely self-interested -- that the United States contribute to the military defense of these allies." [We are supposed to pay -- through our stolen wealth and lives -- for the defense of foreigners?]

"...governments of mixed political character, where the rule of law is uncertain or political freedom is under siege." [This does not describe the U.S.? Hello! PATRIOT Act? Drug War? Asset forfeiture? Indefinite detention? IRS? Etc., etc. etc.? Hello?]

"But despotisms have no moral legitimacy, and therefore in justice no sovereignty. Since (they) violate the rights of their own citizens in fundamental and pervasive ways, they cannot claim moral immunity from any outside party who would use force to liberate their citizens." [See last example. Over 90% of what the U.S. government does violates basic human rights, the Constitution, and morality. Virtually no area of life -- work, sex, family, recreation, home -- is exempt from the intrusions of the State. The U.S. long ago forfeited any "moral immunity." When does Switzerland plan to liberate us...?]

Whether we will "rescue oppressed and suffering foreigners...will be based in the practical costs and benefits of war and other policies..." [What about the proper purpose of government and the principles of freedom? Shall we believe that "we are all pragmatists now"?]

"Two overriding principles must shape our policy there. The first is to see our free allies secure. The second is to ensure the freedom of the oil trade on which the industrial economies depend." [Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison must be doing twirls in their graves at the notion that a valid purpose of our government is to ensure the security of foreign nations who are anything but "free." Nor is the purpose of our government to prance about the globe securing whatever natural resources our businesses need to operate. That would be a never-ending task.]

"In considering an attack on [Iraq or North Korea], the urgency of the matter has to do with depriving hostile and irrational regimes with [sic] the means of posing a threat, before it is too late." [By this "principle," we should have attacked the Soviet Union, Red China, Syria, Libya, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and a host of others long ago. Unsubstantiated alarmism may be great for motivating the great unwashed, but it makes for a lousy moral justification for war.]

"...the danger looks likely... could have become a prime customer for the North Koreans... could use its full oil wealth... could become formidable again... could well contribute to a long-term threat... If safe havens were widely available... could face a legion of...terrorists..." [Thomas acknowledges that this is a long list of "possibles" then ignores the implications of these unproven dangers.]

"Ending such a threat could well come at the cost of freedom itself... if major terrorist attacks proceeded at a steady pace for years, our only remaining response would be to give all powers to the government's homeland security forces." [What an amazing point of view... The only response is ceding all powers to the State?!?!? What about doing as Rand suggested: clearly enunciating a noninterventionist foreign policy and withdrawing our troops from around the world? What about restoring true freedom here so we citizens could defend ourselves from nuts with box cutters on planes? What about gutting the State of its powers and taxation and reducing it to a size where it can focus on its job of defending -- rather than violating -- our rights?]

"We can never be sure what a person will choose to do, but we can settle what he can do [sic], what his goals -- and his assessment of the facts -- make him want to do, and whether he will have a chance to do it." [And here we have justification for every illicit prior restraint law, regulation, and intervention imaginable. Don't punish someone for what he has actually done. No. As long as we make some (vague) judgment as to what he "can" do; what his beliefs are; what these "make"(!!! what happened to free will choices?) him want to do; whether he has a chance to commit an illicit act, then, by gosh, he's fair game.]

There's more -- much more, such as a demand for Iraqi reconstruction, U.S. troops placed indefinitely in Iraq, an acceptance of military force "soon" against North Korea, a call for the U.S. to "build up a world society" -- along these lines, but I've suddenly reached the limit of what I can stomach analyzing.

Rand told us that "...'Nietzschean egoists'...represent the other side of the altruist coin: the men who believe that any action, regardless of its nature, is good if it is intended for one's own benefit. Just as the satisfaction of the irrational desires of others is not a criterion of moral value, neither is the satisfaction of one's own irrational desires. Morality is not a contest of whims..." (Rand, "Introduction," VOS, p. x.)

The wars abroad against strangers and the wars at home against American citizens find rich soil in the kinds of contradictions Thomas and other libertarians are pushing to justify their bewildering stances on U.S. foreign policy. Acknowledging proper moral principles and concepts in one breath then ignoring or violating them in the next may "work" in stirring up the muck but does nothing to establish the truth or validity of what they advocate.

"One's own independent judgment is the means by which one must choose one's actions, but it is not a moral criterion nor a moral validation: only reference to a demonstrable principle can validate one's choices." (Rand, "Introduction," VOS, p. x.)

The proper principles of domestic government, the proper principles for our relationships to other nations, the proper principles of the rule of law and constitutional authority, the proper principles of freedom: all are discounted, ignored, or morphed into unrecognizable caricatures in the quest to bolster the untenable.

"Just as a rational man does not hold any conviction out of context...so he does not hold or pursue any desire out of context. And he does not judge what is or is not to his interest out of context, on the range of the moment.

 

"Context-dropping is one of the chief psychological tools of evasion. In regard to one's desires, there are two major ways of context-dropping: the issues of range and of means.

"...[A rational man] does not become his own destroyer by pursuing a desire today which wipes out all his values tomorrow.

 

"...He does not hold a desire without knowing (or learning) and considering the means by which it is to be achieved... he knows...that the lives and efforts of other men are not his property and are not there to serve his wishes... a rational man never holds a desire or pursues a goal which cannot be achieve directly or indirectly by his own effort.

 

"...He never seeks nor desires the unearned... He lives and judges long-range." (Rand, "The 'Conflicts'...," p. 51-53.)

War-promoters focused solely on defeating Saddam Hussein while shoving aside objections or worries over what "winning the peace" would require. They ignore the context of history, the realities of the present-day world, and the consequences the rest of us will have to endure in the future because of what they have and are doing.

The pro-war faction has achieved its immediate goal, yes, but in the process of doing so it is destroying what we supposedly wanted to save from the terrorists: our long-term freedom.

The pro-war crowd believe that my property and yours are theirs to dispose of as they see fit as they prowl the world seeking the creation of an American Empire. Don't want to pay for this war...or the next...or the next in the loss of your money and your freedom? Tough.

As James Madison said in regard to letting Congress decide what is or is not in the "interests" of the American public:

"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."

And:

"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare... The powers of Congress would subvert the very foundation, the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America."

And:

"To take [the words 'general welfare'] in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."

John Quincy Adams' words on such wars as represented by the recent conflicts in the Middle East ring as true today as they did so long ago:

"America... well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extraction, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force... She might become dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit." (John Quincy Adams; Address, July 4, 1821.)

Some prophecies are too painfully accurate.

Here's another one: You ain't seen nothing yet.