Libertarians and the Elections
by John Hospers
The Democrats are far from enthusiastic about their man Kerry, who is mostly an embarrassment to them. He stands for nothing consistent, but has made endless promises of equally endless spending (more than almost any other senator), but we are supposed to ignore the fiscal consequences of these promises now because the public's attention is focused on his real or imagined record in Vietnam 35 years ago. He's a hopeless candidate (need one say more?), but his supporters are not so much pro-Kerry as anti-Bush. Bush inflames some libertarians so much that they are now hardly distinguishable from extreme leftists.
But let's see. Around the 2000 election Barbara Bush said that we'd soon find out that Bush Jr. was much more 'conservative' than Bush Sr. But then came 9/11, which was correctly perceived as a threat to all of us, and suddenly we had to think first of national defense. Many desirable innovations, and changes in the law, had to be put on hold in order to lessen the danger of further attacks, and indeed threats to our existence, including possible nuclear attacks a few years down the line, from mass-propagandized Muslim fundamentalists who wanted us dead and were fully prepared to achieve this goal, once they had the wherewithal to achieve it. This was the situation that the Commander-in-Chief faced after 9/11, though most Americans had the luxury of not being in his unenviable position. He was convinced that there shoiuld be some response to terrorist threats, though most Americans appeared to think that if we ignored it it would just go away.
Some members of Rand's group will remember a New Year's Eve party in New York in l962 in which of course Rand herself was the star attraction. She was asked many questions - among them, how we should respond to the ever-growing burden of taxes (at that time almost 20%): should we openly rebel? She responded, "Accept 80% taxation if you have to, in order to preserve a free society - but if they try to stop you from speaking your mind, all bets are off."
I have thought of her 'quick response' many times in the last two years. In the current campaign, many libertarians are objecting that social security was not instantly privatized, that public education was not abolished, and so on; but much as we still cling to these ideals, it's hard to initiate them while one's house is on fire. All such changes would take time, and the transition-time would have to be carefully planned so as to minimize social upheaval. Still, these ideals should be kept alive, and nobody but libertarians are going to do this.
Elections are largely a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils. Even Kerry's supporters have little idea of what he would do as President (continue the war? stop it? have universal health care, a la Hillary, with all the fiscal consequences that entails?). Various pressure groups are beating the drums for more subsidies, not many of which could possibly be realized. There is simply no coherent policy here, either nationally or internationally.
Many say that the current war is one that Bush should never have embarked on. Perhaps. But if you were President after a major attack wouldn't you be derelict in your duty as Commander-in-Chief if you did not put national defense above all else? He and Cheney saw a great impending danger, not necessarily one that would materialize tomorrow, but one that could prove disastrous in the next few years if not checked. Many wanted to delay a response - France and Russia for example had financial dealings with Hussein that they didn't want to miss out on, and they wanted inspections (a la Blix) to continue into the summer when the temperatures would render it impossible for our soldiers to carry the required battle-gear (who thinks of that now? the media have forgottren all about it). Would they really not have minded if in a couple of years the U.S. and other nations were on the receiving end of some nuclear attacks? And whom do you suppose they would have blamed for negligence if that had occurred? Yet these same people attacked Bush as a traitor for going into Afghanistan, and then Iraq.
Bush believed that some counter-measures were called for, right away; he accepted low casualties now in order to prevent far higher casualties later. But some Americans, who considered only the immediate situation and paid no attention to the longer term, castigated Bush and Cheney as warmongers.
"But it's a libertarian principle that we should use force only in retaliation against its initiation by others, and moreover that the retaliation should be against only those who initiated it." I am not sure just where this alleged double-headed libertarian principle comes from: it is sensible enough in situations of ordinary aggression, when you are attacked and are then entitled to respond. But these attackers have no clear identity or regional boundaries - they are mindlessly conditioned fundamentalist Muslims dedicated to the destruction of the West. If we waited for the nuclear attack to occur, we might already be dead. In an era of quick attack and quick response, you can't always wait until the attack has been completed, any more than Israelis could in 1967 when they were surrounded by enemy troops poised to destroy them. (Ive discussed this briefly in a Reflection in "Liberty," September 2004.)
At the moment, the American President labors under a crippling load of responsibility, while being constantly attacked by an unending barrage of lies and distortions from the media.
Many libertarians can't stand Bush because of his professsed religious belief. Almost all Presidents have had some religious belief, but their political decisions are not usually based on them. Carter has strong religious belief, but not many people objected, even though some of his decisions (such as regarding the Shah of Iran) were utter disasters. Bush is demonized because he wears his convictions on his sleeve, although he seldom makes political decisions on the basis of them. (His views on stem-cell research are an exception, although he did grant money for such research, which no previous President had done.) I do not share his religious convictions, but I find them relatively harmless as determinants of national policy. Let him and adherents have these consoling convictions, and then discuss the issues of whether to respond to attack, and where and when, on their own merits, quite independently of theological presuppositions.
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