Posted under Conservatism & Interventionism & Political Philosophy
… you usually get sparks. And sometimes light. I think the ongoing exchange between Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com and Daniel Larison of Eunomia and American Conservative is one of those exchanges. Raimondo is a libertarian who often posts the views of paleoconservatives, as well as liberals, on his site. Larison is a paleoconservative. Both object to the present regime and its reality-deficient agenda of continuous warfare and the projection of American power as an end in itself. Both Raimondo and Larison are wise enough to see destructive foreign and domestic policy for what it is. But one grasps the nature of the problem confronting us, and the other does not.
Here’s Larison on Obama, whom he correctly unmasks as a phony antiwar champion:
Given the rather grim prospects for antiwar voters this election, it is understandable why many look to Obama and think that they have found someone they can trust. But this is a mistake. It isn’t that Obama is wrong on Iraq, but that he has happened to be right about it basically in spite of his own foreign policy views. … As I noted in a column last autumn comparing the universalist fantasies of President Bush and Obama, “There is no logical end to the list of foreign crises and internal political disputes that both visions compel the United States to solve.†Indeed, there is not one intervention, U.S. war or allied campaign except Iraq to which Obama has raised any objections in his career.
Raimondo’s rejoinder? That Obama is the best we can hope for. He agrees that Obama isn’t about to make fundamental change to the welfare/warfare monster, but at least, he says, the Democratic front-runner makes promises to end the current disaster in Iraq. But one has to ask: even if he makes good on those breezy promises, what will Obama do next? If we cannot reasonably hope to change the war beast’s disposition, and can only hope (?!) that Obama will make good on his tepid assurances to pull it out of this latest bloodletting, with no guarantees he won’t go off on his own war of liberation elsewhere (Iran? Darfur?), then we have to admit we have little real hope. Raimondo even concedes it’s little to feel optimistic about:
It is quite enough that Obama wants to end the war in 2009, and bring all our troops home. More than that, in these dark days, we have no right to expect or hope for. Yet it is enough, for now.
Sheesh. That’s supposed to motivate us? To keep telling ourselves that as bad as things get, they could always be worse? Doesn’t work for me. As a matter of fact, Raimondo tries to brighten up his dreary scenario by waving the tatters of the Ron Paul Revolution flag:
And while I’m on the subject of electoral politics and options for antiwar voters: it looks like Ron Paul is re-energizing his presidential campaign. That’s good news: the more options we have, the better.
But as I noted over a year ago, it’s self-defeating to get excited over the Ron Paul candidacy. All you’re going to do is to delude yourself into imagining that yet another man on a white horse is going to come rescue us. Problem is, one man cannot do it. DC is so hopelessly mired in the mud and muck of cronyism and conquest that it cannot be tidied up to look anything like the old Republic the Founders created. That political entity was strangled in its adolescence by one Abraham Lincoln and was replaced by a changeling that had similar features to the original, but possessed a radically contrasting soul, a soul that continuously lusts for power and profit, while demanding unending adoration for whatever it does. Those who benefiit from its misadventures have to keep assuring us it’s the child of Washington and Jefferson nobly undertaking another crusade for democracy, but those of us who judge things by their behavior rather than their words know it’s the spawn of Lincoln, Sherman, Hobbes, and Marx unleashing chaos on a long-suffering world.Â
Raimondo even tries to end his piece with a bit of sunshine about how we’re going to teach this beast to behave:
The anti-interventionist movement – that is, the movement to make a fundamental change in our foreign policy of dominationism – is bigger than any political candidate, or party. We don’t endorse candidates here at Antiwar.com, and not just because we’re a nonpartisan nonprofit foundation: in order to succeed, and really make that change, we’re going to have to transcend party, and even ideology, and come together as Americans to stop the carnage and the tragic loss of resources, both human and material.
That’s where Raimondo gets it wrong. He does not understand, like most conventional pundits these days, that the problem is not personal, but systemic. Putting the “right people†in charge of the national security state’s levers of power and plunder is an illusory goal. The thing was designed for central control, for internal surveillance and external aggression, and it’s not going to work for any other purpose. It’s like saying that we only need to tweak our good ol’ IBM System/360, and it’ll amaze people once again with its calculating speed and agility—just as it did in the good old days. You can go on believing that overgrown, clunky machinery deserves our loyalty because it was once shiny and promising. But at some point we have to realize that the machinery is inherently flawed and hopelessly outdated to the point where it is now more of a liability than an asset.Â
Both the legacy mainframe and the centralized megastate are based on old assumptions about economies of scale, one-size-fits-all architecture, and central control; core beliefs that have been proven to be ill-fitting in a new, decentralized age. Both need to be humanized and downsized.
The ruling class understands this. As Gary North says in another post, that’s why they’re throwing everything they have at us, from the bizarrely mis-named USA PATRIOT Act to the 2007 Protect America ACT. The central government is desperately trying to prop up its control over us with the instruments of fear and coercion. It’s trying to hold back a new world ready to be born. And it knows it cannot. That’s what we have to hope and work for.
Filmer on 25 Feb 2008 at 10:31 pm #
Raimondo endorsed Nader in 2004 in the American Conservative. I wonder if Nader’s entry this time will matter to him? It looks to me like Raimondo is headed towards an Obama endorsement.
Marc on 25 Feb 2008 at 10:34 pm #
Interventionism isn’t just about war. Obama has made it clear he wants to send billions to Africa, which is a clear form of Interventionism. But of course he’s also an interventionist in the most accepted form of the word too, as he wants to send troops to Darfur.
Harold Crews on 25 Feb 2008 at 10:53 pm #
My greater concern is who is more likely to send troops into North Carolina.
csason on 25 Feb 2008 at 10:55 pm #
For what it’s worth.. Once the beast is in motion, it is slow to stop…
NONE of the current list of candidates, including Ron Paul (who btw had a huge rally in Texas the other day..nearly 7000 by most reports) could ‘pull
out’ of Iraq within one term. Anyone who really believes that doesn’t have a good grasp on how the military works.. It will be a slow draw down, at best.
Obama doesn’t have one single solitary clue about how to actually be POTUS..I mean, look at how GWB managed to lay down for every whore
this side (and inside) of Babylon.
I for one, cannot fathom the extent of idiotic machinations that might
come from Barrack Hussein Obama’s white house. In fact, once he actually
took the oath, who knows what kind of insanity might occur.
As for the ‘differences’ between your two writers..it does seem one at least has an inkling of the ‘nature’ of the ultimate problem, but I say again, maybe differently this time.. the new POTUS will be much like
FDR’s successor.
roho on 25 Feb 2008 at 11:31 pm #
HB………Makes some really good points, and the American Conservative is much like the guy that has the old car that get’s bad gas miliage?….He knows what he needs, but car payments buy’s a lot of gas!
The “GLOBAL MASTERS” are not going to allow Obama to go crazy anymore than they would allow Princess Diane to marry some damn Egyptian. The CFR and the Roundtable of Britain do know how to make people like JFK comply!……..Reagan did not want Bush Sr. for a running mate, and they helped him see the light!
History shows that ONLY a Military man that the people/military both love and respects can purge a corrupt Government. But a military coup will never take place in my lifetime, but after it get’s much worse. There are still those in the Pentagan that realize that their oath was to the constitution and NOT the executive branch. They understand these stories much better than the average voter: http:www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55824
HarrisonBergeron on 26 Feb 2008 at 12:00 am #
csason,
Yes, the Beast is in motion — it’s savaging traditional liberties with the USA PATRIOT Act and other totalitarian means of keeping us under surveillance — all in the name of security.
But whose security are they worried about?
HarrisonBergeron on 26 Feb 2008 at 12:02 am #
Marc,
True — interventionism doesn’t start at the water’s edge — it starts at home. And the present regime, thanks to the Civil Rights revolution, claims the moral right to intervene EVERYWHERE — all in the name of freedom, you understand.
Bede on 26 Feb 2008 at 3:05 am #
Great post!
csason on 26 Feb 2008 at 4:13 pm #
HB..they are worried about ‘their’ security…and ‘they’ know they can’t have it as long as freethought and freespeech and the like exist.
Dinosaurs must be exterminated, they take up too much room…and make too much noise, and have been known to stomp an Ivory tower down
with one foot.