I suspect that both on the right and the left, and among libertarians, there are many who avoided service during the Viet Nam war, and who have a large part of their self-regard bound up in the idea that military intervention abroad is always, or nearly always unjustifiable. One reads in a paleo publication that such action would only be justified in case of an attack on this country (hello, Earth calling: have you forgotten this is just what happened on 9/11?) On the left, there is a constant search for arguments that would suggest that action was not necessary (there were really no WMD, never mind Iraq had actually used them years before, there were unverifiable “back channel” peace initiatives from Iraq, etc.). No effort is made to address the arguments for preemptive measures having become necessary in the new environment in which thug states aggrandize themselves through surreptitious use of terror. I believe this goes back to what I have previously commented on: a general unwillingness to face reality about human nature and the human condition. In a time in which traditional religion is in decline, and there is no longer a belief in an ultimate moral order in the universe, not only acknowledged liberals, but many weak conservatives and libertarians cling to “blank slate” and “noble savage” ideas, because it is simply too frightening to contemplate the always present potentiality for great evil in man. The post 9/11 situation has brought great pressure to bear on the unrealistically optimistic, or utopian view of human nature, and since this view is the defining essence of liberalism, from which all of its core positions flow, and indeed is the basis of many people’s very sense of identity as adherence to leftist pieties has replaced traditional religous belief, there is today, for the better I think, a great moral crisis building in the West. When people’s sense of who they are is challenged, great emotion and strife is only to be expected, and that is why we are seeing such extreme expressions of opinion.

I wish I could agree with Thucydides who seems to assume that those rightwingers who have lost their marbles over the war against Iraq and the anti-terrorist struggle have done so for “leftist” reasons, but there seems to me to be no good evidence that people like Paul Craig Roberts, or indeed Pat Buchanan, suffer from an overoptimistic assessment of the world or man. Indeed, my impression is that they are more pessimistic about human nature than I am, or some others at VFR. And their stands today, in many cases, are extremely hard to reconcile with those these same people took during the Cold War. I wish I had an alternative explanation to offer for their slide into irrationality, but I don’t. In a few cases, anti-Semitism may be involved, but it can hardly provide an overall explanation.

To Thucydides,

Since 9/11, the full meaning of liberalism—which is suicide in face of one’s implacable enemies—has now become manifest, and must be worked out one way or the other. It is the apocalypse of liberalism.

To Mr. Levine,

I think that there is an element of liberal utopianism and “noble savage” thinking on the anti-war right. It can be seen in their assumption that the Muslims are really just reasonable people, and that their violence and hate are solely caused by _us_ and our oppressions and selfishness, not by anything within themselves. So, if we appeal to their reasonable nature (e.g., by not opposing them, by getting Israel to abandon the settlements, etc.), then they will become reasonable toward us.

To Mr. Levine: I cannot speak to the particular motivation of Messrs. Buchanan or Roberts, but I believe that even those who do not generally adhere to a pollyanna-ish view of human nature are prone to slip into denial when the stakes get high enough. It is not very comfortable to think there are large numbers of people on this planet who are so consumed with a sense of failure and impotence (see Mahathir speech) that they would celebrate our mass murder. Now that there are well financed terrorists consumed with this ideology who are collaborating surreptitiously with thug states in an era of megadeath technology, survival requires that we as a nation act, not merely offer opinions or engage in wishful thinking. The conservatives and libertarians who always wanted to just stay at home and mind our own business do not realize that this is no longer possible in today’s environment, yet they adhere to their old way of thinking. Well, we left well enough alone for the last 20 years, and still had 9/11. As for the left, their wish is what it always has been: to see American power shattered, because for them, America is the locus of evil.

Mr. Levine writes: “I wish I had an alternative explanation to offer for their slide into irrationality … “

In a way, it’s not hard to understand, because it follows an age-old pattern, built into human nature. People start with a gripe, in this case I think a legitimate gripe, that their country, their world, is being taken away from them. But then they move into the irrational. They decide that one particular group is responsible for this disaster; in this case, that group is the “neocons.” The harm that they feel is being done to them by this group, the resentment they feel toward this group, then becomes the organizing principle of their thought. They no longer move toward the good and the true. They just seek ways to express that dislike and hatred.

Is this new? No, it’s been with the human race from the beginning. But when it takes on collective, ideological forms, it becomes especially destructive. In a country like America, built on a common rule of law and a common adherence to reason, it is even worse.

Mr. Auster is correct that there seems to be an obsessional focus on the neocons. And while no true conservative could endorse any such exercise in futility as a Wilsonian project of bringing Madisonian constitutional democracy to the tribal Middle East, it is nevertheless essential in the aftermath of our toppling Saddam that something that has the potential to last for a while be put in place. That might well be some form of constitutional monarchy headed by a Hashemite. Again, we are all being forced to adjust to new circumstances - it just seems that many paleos can’t bring themselves to face the reality that the safety of our country depends on our success in Iraq.

Another serious consequence of antiwar irrationality on the right and left is that it deprives us of the searching, serious discussion on these issues we desperately need. Instead of participating in the common effort of finding solutions to the very difficult situation in which we find ourselves, Bush’s enemies just hurl invective at him, while the Bush people, constantly under attack, hunker down and barely engage in any discursive defense of their policies.

Politics—the discussion of the common good—is not abolished only by liberal PC. Politics can also be effectively abolished by an atmosphere of irrational hatred, which can come from the so-called right as well as from the left.

Does anyone have the actual citation for Rothbard’s alleged statement that “The Soviet Union is the greatest force for peace in the world today”?

I quoted Wheeler on the Soviet Union quote, but the coup d’état quote comes from Joseph Sobran recounting a conversation with Rothbard years ago, which I discuss here:

http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/001246.html

I don’t agree with Rothbard’s view of the Soviets, but I would be surprised if Rothbard said that. I would like to see the actual document.

I think someone on the LewRockwell.com claimed Rothbard didn’t make the statement.

Thucydides writes:

“I believe that even those who do not generally adhere to a pollyanna-ish view of human nature are prone to slip into denial when the stakes get high enough. It is not very comfortable to think there are large numbers of people on this planet who are so consumed with a sense of failure and impotence (see Mahathir speech) that they would celebrate our mass murder.”

I second this thought. Conservatives can become like liberals, for the same reasons that liberals are liberals. Liberals tend to reject the belief in the existence of evil and enemies, because that leads to moral judgment, conflict and war. Now, conservatives are generally less intolerant of war than liberals, and so are less resistant to the idea that there are enemies. But what if enemies appear who are much more serious and threatening than any enemies before, and that confronting such enemies would lead the country to embrace things that the conservatives cannot abide, like war in several foreign countries, like lasting commitments abroad, like doing things that may even collaterally benefit the Jewish state, and so on? In that case, the conservatives might also start to deny the existence of enemies. Out of fear of war and its consequences, anyone might start to have a pollyannish view of human nature. Moreover, the MORE objectively evil and threatening the enemy becomes, the MORE pollyannish—or the more addicted to moral equivalence—one must become in order to deny the enemy’s nature. And that is the morally inverted world of liberalism. QED.

Paul Craig Roberts deranged? That’s a bit simplistic isn’t it Lawrence? I don’t buy into all of PCB’s commentary, but he is a smart guy asking some probing questions on many issues. I’d like to see you address his points rather than trying to dismiss them.

From time to time over the last year I’ve linked particularly egregious articles by Roberts. The ever-increasing derangement they demonstrate speaks for itself. You could find them through our search facility which you can access on the main page.

However, here’s one of Roberts’s pieces that seems especially unhinged.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts8.html

I agree with you, Bill. I find the ad hominem attacks upon P.C.R., that so frequent this site, to be rather effete at best.

As far as Wheeler’s “powerful uppercut,” against the dissident right… Well, with such effeminate blows being launched at the “schismatics,” I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t realize the folly of their ways. However, it was rather vainglorious of Wheeler to allow them back, if they come to their senses.

What a load of pap, indeed. Damascus here we come…

Cicero, please explain how Wheeler’s attack on the anti-American right, and my description of a certain columnist as “deranged,” are both “effeminate.” By the way, since you claim to be offended at ad hominem attacks, it’s hard to surpass the attack of calling other people “effeminate.”

Actually, I would call it playful in referring to a very weak article. Deranged, IMHO, carries a very different stigma. I simply haven’t read such an illogical argument, filled with the same tired canards (and some new ones, too) in quite some time.

Examples including:

His use of the terms anti-American Right and anti-Americanism. Such as the allegation of “…both don’t care about defending their country.” Last I checked, most of the paleocons I follow are rather staunchly pro-military/pro-defence, and have a deep love of our nation’s history and unique heritage.

His thinly-veiled attempts to tie Utley, Keene, Barr, Norquist and Phillips to some pro-Moslem cabal are particularly distasteful. Rather akin to linking McCormick, Taft and Wheeler (hopefully no relation) to Father Coughlin and the German-American Bund in WWII. I consider it especially illuminating that such an august group of men are taking a very unpopular stance, especially within their own party - Phillips notwithstanding, on this war and Ashcroft’s machinations, as well.

I don’t even no how to describe his vitriolic upon the late Murray Rothbard. Suffice it to say, I doubt Rothbard “hated” America nor saw the Soviet Union as a great paragon of peace. I, personally, could never swallow all of M.R.’s ivory tower perspectives, however, such statements are entirely incompatible with his philosophical bent. Geez, I don’t even know what a “black-flag anarchist” is.

And then, where would we be without Pat and Paul having copies of Der Sturmer under the bed? Gosh, he forgot Joe, Sam, Paul G. …At least Kristol is bit more eloquent in creating snide innuendoes than, well, this poor fellow.

But how does he top his epoch off? Why, of course, with a 1-2-3 Limbaughesque sermon for our friends on the left-side of the bell curve. The pure Burkean wisdom of,”Make them come to their senses” The ever popular, ” stop doing Howard Dean imitatations…” Lest we forget, ” if you get get into a confrontation with a member of A.A.R., don’t back down.” And the topper (rather like telling your child not to talk to strangers), ” Tell them to take their anger out on the terrorists who…”

I enjoy a good laugh, including slavish praise of G.W., so thank you for the posting.

“I suspect that both on the right and the left, and among libertarians, there are many who avoided service during the Viet Nam war, and who have a large part of their self-regard bound up in the idea that military intervention abroad is always, or nearly always unjustifiable. “

Did *you* hold you ground in the phalanx as the Persians bore down at thermopylae, Thucydides? Or did you command an Athenian warship; part of the fleet that crushed the people of Milos?
http://web.mit.edu/dimitrib/www/Milos_Photos/Milian_Dialogue.html

Wait, you wrote that!

Quoted in Justin Raimondo’s hagiography of Murray Rothbard, An Enemy of the State (2000), p. 136:

Rothbard and Liggio now agreed that “there was no Russian ‘threat’”:

“The threat to the peace of the world, in Europe, in Asia, and throughout the globe was the United States Leviathan. For years, conservatives and libertarians had argued about the external (Russian) and internal (Washington) threats to individual liberty…But now we—Leonard and I—were truly liberated; the scales had fallen from our eyes, and we saw that the ‘external threat,’ too, emanated from Washington, D.C.”

I realize the above quote is not as outlandish as the quote under discussion, but it’s plenty outlandish. And doesn’t it follow logically that, if the U.S. were responsible for international aggression, that the Soviets were a force for peace? And don’t the apologetics for Muslim terrorism which we see on the paleo right follow from the same sort of thinking?

The passage above described a changing view of the Soviet Union by Rothbard. Initially, he believed that the Soviet Union was a threat to America, but it had to be stopped through internal measures or “McCarthyism” (Rothbard wrote a few famous pro-McCarthy speeches) as some like to call it. This view is analgous to the current paleo position that the most obvious and simple solution to stop Islamic terrorism is to not let Arabs into the country.

Rothbard’s views evolved and he did not see the Soviet Union as a threat to America, and he did see America as an agressor. I do not agree with that, nor do most paleos, but I don’t see how that makes the Soviet Union a “force of peace”

Also, it is absurd to equivocated Grover Norquist’s islamophillia with the anti-war right, as they generally oppose his rainbow-GOP views and I believe Norquist supported the war on Iraq anyway.

Does the Raimondo book say when Rothbard and Liggio came to this view?

Rothbard and Liggio “concluded that our older isolationism had suffered from a fatal weakness: the implicit acceptance of the basic Cold War premise that there was a Russian threat” after their break from Ayn Rand (after 1958), which led them to oppose Goldwater.

“They adopted a view of Stalin…that closely resembled Trotsky’s…Stalin’s successors…had almost frantically tried to stop the military build-up and achieve disarmament through negotiation. The United States had always successfully resisted, and American peace activists were routinely smeared by the Right…” (pp 135-6)

Is that close enough, Mr. Epstein?

“[Rothbard and Liggio] concluded that our older isolationism had suffered from a fatal weakness: the implicit acceptance of the basic Cold War premise that there was a Russian threat … “

The phrasing of this is revealing of the libertarian/isolationist mindset: that it was a “weakness” in one’s isolationism to accept that there was a Russian threat. One’s perceptions of external reality must serve one’s ideology. If one has a perception of an external fact that is inconvenient to one’s ideology, one must deny the fact or fail in the ideology.

This is exactly the kind of thinking on the antiwar right (as well as the antiwar left) that I have repeatedly criticized at VFR.

I tend to agree with you on the ideological facet you’ve hit on, Mr. Auster. The rigidity of of the antiwar left and certain libertarians bears resemblance, at least in my opinion, to the very thing they both supposedly abhore: Marxism Nary a soul of either group, for that matter, would agree to this; however, the unyeilding nature on the subject (war) has a propensity to leaving them both without the flexibility to adjust to changing circumstances. The empirical case is fairly obvious with the former, yet I believe it could be made for the latter, notably fringe elements, as well.

All this being said, the conservative opposition doesn’t have the same obdurate lineage. It has reached it’s current position, superfluous of this war, for a multitude of reasons. Such as, the stationing of our troops in 100+ countries; our continuing presence in NATO (I thought we won); “humanitarian” military ventures in every god-forsaken locale - Lady Thatcher, in Statecraft, has been particularly insightful, at least on this “one,” and on and on …

These positions, as you well know, are very much in accord with the beliefs of the founders of the republic. I’ve no use for the “praise” being given out, by many paleocons, for the benign nature of the Muslim world. Just as I have none for the frequent depiction, by neos and mainsteam conservatives, of the idyilic nature of Israel. It doesn’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense to sitr up the animus of billions of fanatics living, and thinking, like they’re still prepared to scale the gates of Vienna. I simply do not enjoy being lied to by my own government, employing the most specious arguments as to make the anatomy of a giraffe seem normal.

Still, I can’t see how your penchant for lumping rather divergent groups together is very intellectually honest, sir.

Maybe, like my forefathers, I still force myself to walk down “Gibbon Lane” every now and then.

Cicero starts by agreeing with me, and ends by calling me intellectually dishonest. If he had a critique of what I said, he should have made it. Instead, he merely added to his list of ad hominems. Thus in this one thread (the first he has participated in at VFR, at least under the name Cicero), he has already characterized me and others as “effete,” “effeminate,” and “intellectually dishonest.” Three strikes and you’re out, Cicero.

Jack Wheeler’s recollection is that the Rothbard quote about the USSR being the world’s greatest force for peace came from a lead article in an issue of the Libertarian Forum in 1974.