“Destruction is the only end that the mystics’ creed has
ever achieved, as it is the only end that you see them achieving today,
and if the ravages wrought by their acts have not made them question
their doctrines, if they profess to be moved by love, yet are not
deterred by piles of human corpses, it is because the truth about their
souls is worse than the obscene excuse you have allowed them, the
excuse that the end justifies the means and that the horrors they
practice are means to nobler ends. The truth is that those horrors are
their ends.”
— Ayn Rand, “This Is John Galt Speaking,” Atlas Shrugged (hc), p. 1046.
Long before our national politicians stupidly and unconstitutionally
invaded Iraq, I wrote arguing against such nonsense. Launching this
undeclared war violated the basic principles of self-defense, the
proper purpose of government, the Constitution, and any rational
cost-benefit analysis. Like most tyrants, supporters of the war sought
to inflate the dangers of terrorists so Americans would cower in their
basements and meekly accept the most egregious violations of their
rights and freedom. (For a representative sample of my articles in this
area, see “
Rand on War,” “
Self-Defense: Preemptive, Immediate, and Retaliatory,” “
Avenging Angels,” “
Unleashing the Dogs,” “
The Corruption of Self-Interest,” “
Eager for War,” “
The New Boogeymen,” “
Race for Freedom,” “
Constitutional Suicide,” “
A Good Defense,” “
Good Wars: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecies of Statists,” and “
We Speaks.”)
After witnessing years of this conflict, we have seen ample evidence to
indicate how “ill-advised” (i.e., irrational and crazy) this venture
was and continues to be. Untold billions of dollars stolen from
Americans to pay for our military interventionism and to rebuild a
country whose infrastructure we destroyed; thousands of Americans
killed and maimed, their lives ruined — not to “keep us safe,” not “for
freedom”....but for
nothing; tens-of-thousands, perhaps
hundreds-of-thousands of Iraqi noncombatants killed by American forces;
Iraqis reduced to primitive conditions, unable to enjoy the basic
amenities of life; creating a recruiting ground and rallying point for
new terrorists; establishing an open-ended commitment to spill American
blood and waste American money stolen from taxpayers for years,
decades, maybe even a century (according to one presidential-hopeful);
the kidnapping, torturing, and murdering of prisoners as governmental
policy; a rapid erosion of what few rags of freedom we still enjoyed:
ending
habeas corpus, increasing surveillance and searches sans warrants, abandoning
posse comitatus,
instituting national ID cards, mandating biometric data and passports
for travel, engaging in unconstitutional wiretapping, accepting
indefinite detention without charges, denying representation by a
lawyer and trial by jury, admitting hidden and hearsay “evidence,”
eroding our economy and our monetary system through massive inflation
and deficit spending, erecting border fences, promoting a false belief
in the possibility of “nation-building,” seizing control over our
ability to fly, limiting the First Amendment-guaranteed right to
protest against our government, excusing lies about WMDs and other
“threats,” linking the War on “Drugs” with the War on “Terrorism,” and
on and on and on and on...
It’s bad enough when the Demicans and Republicrats yammer on defending
such crap. It’s more distressing when so many self-proclaimed
“libertarians” join the ranks of the interventionists. For me, an
admirer of Ayn Rand and an Objectivist, it is worst when the most
visible examples of “Objectivists” proudly beat their chests as they
announce that warmongering is the moral path to follow.
The Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) (see
here)
long leaped over the edge into wacky-dom in declaring that we should
just nuke the Mideast and be done with it. Even the Atlas Society (also
known as the Objectivist Center) (see
here)
— once viewed as the anti-ARI — has consumed the poisoned fruit and
exposed its slavering fangs, especially in its newest publication,
The New Individualist,
edited by that exemplar of warmongering, Robert Bidinotto (who once
ignorantly declared [in regard to the U.S. becoming a police state; it
already is...] that “it can’t happen here.”). The “Rebirth of Reason”
site is littered with brain-numbed acolytes supporting Bidonotto’s
hostility and belligerence (see
here), echoing the equally erroneous bellicose views promoted by fellow-traveler, Lindsay Perigo, editor of
Free Radical.
Some of these chicken hawks bury their nakedly anti-freedom agendas in
critiques of Ron Paul, as though his sad inconsistencies somehow
transmute their own into gold. This ruse, however, does not disguise
their fundamental disdain of Objectivist principles that dare interfere
with their aggressive goals. Nor does it hide their evasion of the
actual results that have devastated this country when they get what
they ask for and a president implements what they desire: (see
here)
“project credible power globally...”; have “forward projection of U.S.
military power”; “foreign bases (which implies alliances)”; and
interventionism and torture that really aren’t, no sirree!
I don’t support much of what Paul believes, but Bidonotto’s preference
for “anybody else” (Hillary? Rudy? Obama? Romney? McCain?) reveals his
gut-level emotional attachment to war and violence and a world-spanning
American empire that trumps any and all other considerations (e.g., any
of the negative consequences mentioned above resulting from the
invasion of Iraq).
These Objectivist warmongers self-righteously proclaim their love of
reason and individualism and capitalism even as they vigorously defend
and promote and worship the
very policies that are
demonstrating in coldly brilliant colors just how utterly destructive
they are to our freedom, our rights, and our lives. These Objectivist
warmongers “are not deterred by piles of human corpses” that continue
to grow in the wake of their militaristic wet dreams. These Objectivist
warmongers refuse to focus on “the ravages wrought by their acts.”
These Objectivist warmongers declare that the ends justify the means,
even as those means impoverish and corrupt our country. These
Objectivist warmongers declare that “the horrors they practice are
means to nobler ends” but the starkly evident reality is that, “The
truth is that those horrors are their ends.”
These Objectivist warmongers befoul whatever other good deeds they do
with their rank hypocrisy and blindness. They create an image of what
Objectivism means that is worlds distant from its true identity.
This is
one Objectivist, though, who is unafraid to declare that
these warmongers in Objectivist clothing are utterly and completely
wrong, wrong to the core and as bankrupt of integrity and morality as
are the warmongering politicians whose feet they kiss and worship at.
This is
one Objectivist who knows that war is, indeed, the health of the State.
This is
one Objectivist who recognizes the genuine requirements for rights and liberty and morality.
This is
one Objectivist who understands Objectivism.
(from
Don't Get Me Started!, 1-22-08)
