How Liberals Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Big Brother

For anyone around my age who casually follows politics, this fact might seem a little odd and confusing, but not all that long ago, “anti-government” sentiment came mostly from the left. Back in the 1960’s, it was the New Left that threatened the social order and wasn’t on what you’d call great terms with government on any level, given their opposition to the Vietnam War, their views on drugs, and their treatment at the hands of the police (outside of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, most prominently). Accordingly, when the New Left scored something of a posthumous victory as anti-war ultraliberal George McGovern was nominated, the attack against him was not that he’d be a “big-government socialist,” but rather that he believed in “amnesty, abortion, and acid”—all of which would involve less, not more, government interference in people’s lives. Nixon’s 1968 campaign, on the other hand, had focused on a return to “law and order” and appropriately so; it would have been a huge fraud if Nixon had run as someone promising to make government smaller, given his declaration of the “War on Drugs” and generally fascistic handling of his presidency.

The 60’s-70’s period was not entirely an anomaly, either; the American left’s intellectual heritage goes back to Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, among others—all of whom were, to say the least, extremely skeptical about government, and very wary of it gaining too much power. This tradition of distrusting government as an institution continued well into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; Henry David Thoreau, a pacifist, abolitionist, and environmentalist, was the one who originally coined the phrase that “the government is best which governs least.” Samuel Clemens (better known as Mark Twain), a radical for his day and age (and, to some extent, by today’s standards as well) wrote in one of his pieces that “the only rational patriotism, is loyalty to the nation all the time, loyalty to the government when it deserves it.” His derision of politicians rivals that of Tea Partiers today. Henry George, a popular social reformer of about the same era who helped influence the later Progressive Movement,  promoted limited government while at the same time indicting the inequality of wealth that existed.

This tradition of distrusting the government extended into the twentieth century with figures like Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, a staunch proponent of limiting government power, who warned that we should “be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent.” Clarence Darrow, the famed lawyer and another notable liberal, fought tenaciously against every encroachment of government upon the people’s freedoms; he even went so far as to say that “every government on earth is the personification of violence and force.” Pretty much as anti-government a quote as you could ask for. 

 It was, then, not without precedent that the New Left waged its war on “The Establishment”—a war that, while not really successful, managed to bring into the spotlight new issues, such as an opposition to the Vietnam War, a desire to reevaluate “traditional” American values, and a support for drug policy reform, all of which helped propel George McGovern to capture the 1972 Democratic nomination over the sort of Cold War liberal candidates that had dominated the party for the past decades. Rather, the New Left had a long history of high-profile and even relatively mainstream left-wing and liberal figures to draw off of (even if the New Left detested “liberals”, meaning hawkish party insiders like President Lyndon Johnson).

 While “liberalism” from the forties to the sixties often referred to an ideology that was all too eager to suppress civil liberties and start wars in the name of “fighting Communism,” liberals could generally be counted on to be at least slightly less eager to destroy the Bill of Rights, and there were moments when liberals did speak out against the Red Scare that was going on, such as when reporter Edward R. Murrow said that “we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.” And, wisely, from FDR to LBJ, Democratic presidents framed their economic programs in terms of the evils they were intended to avoid—such as corporate oligarchy—rather than trying to portray government as some objectively good institution; on the contrary, despite their, shall we say, checkered records in terms of actually protecting individual rights, these presidents and their allies and supporters were wise enough to portray themselves as being enemies of tyranny (such as when Harry Truman accused his opponent of being a front man for a fascist movement, among other instances). Even when right-wingers accused liberals of promoting some kind of economic tyranny, the response was to paint them as being in line with corporate interests and enemies of the common man, rather than just the government.

After Nixon soared to reelection over McGovern, things fell apart pretty quickly for him, as the Watergate scandal ultimately resulted in his resignation. This and the Vietnam War had shattered Americans’ view of their government. This should have been good news for a left wing that had renewed its anti-authoritarianism with the nomination of McGovern, and, in fact, Jimmy Carter capitalized off of it pretty effectively, notably saying in his acceptance speech for the Democratic Nomination that “It is time for the people to run the government, and not the other way around.”

However, after four ineffectual years (due largely to bad luck more than any fault of his own), Carter was ousted by Ronald Reagan, claiming to represent some kind of “small government conservatism.” His time in office was characterized by anything but a reduction in government, as spending increased, wars were started, terrorists were armed in foreign countries, the military-industrial complex spun out of control, and civil liberties were put in danger by measures such as Executive Order 12333, which the NSA uses to this day to justify its domestic spying.

In the decades after Reagan’s presidency, Republicans have continued to claim they support limited government while promoting an increasingly fascistic agenda. And for some reason, liberals have decided not to challenge their absurd claim to be for small government. Instead, they’ve embraced it and, apparently, believe it themselves—take Forward Progressives, a popular liberal website where “anti-government” is used frequently as an epithet against Tea Partiers, or when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid compared them to early twentieth century anarchists on the Senate Floor.

There are a couple problems with this, the first being that it’s not true. There’s no conceivable way a movement that endorses the sort of radical social conservatism and theocracy that the Tea Party does can be called “anti-government”—Tea Partiers dislike government run by Democrats, but not government as an institution (unlike Jefferson, Paine, and actual anarchists). They were all too happy to rally behind Rick Santorum, whose “small government” views included supporting a ban on hardcore porn and talking about the dangers of free speech, and Herman Cain, who thought cities should be able to ban mosques from existing within their borders.

The second problem with pro-government liberalism is that it’s a strategically idiotic stance to take. Americans would be lunatics to trust their government at this point, and, accordingly, they largely don’t. There are about a thousand valid reasons to hate the United States government, so trying to smear your opponents by calling them anti-government is about as likely to be effective as attacking them for being pro-puppy. When Tea Partiers try to use George Orwell against liberals, the correct response would be to point out how there’s nothing more Orwellian than a group of ultra-reactionary theocratic social conservatives saying they stand for “freedom” and “limited government,” not just saying, “oh, that’s silly.”

The third problem is that reinforcing the idea that liberalism is in favor of government actually impacts the views that liberals have. A Washington Post poll from last year showed that liberals support the NSA programs by a 2-1 margin (a greater level of support than they enjoy from conservatives or moderates); only about a third of liberal Democrats believe what should be an obvious truth, that the government is a threat to their freedoms (just about every other ideological group believes so at a higher rate), and thirty-two percent (based on a Pew poll from 2013) believe the absurd idea that government will do the right thing “most or all of the time.” Allen Clifton, a self-described progressive, recently busied himself complaining about how everyone is trying to make the police look bad and it’s not fair, even defending a police officer who decided to arrest a man for talking to him while he was writing a ticket (the man was trying to tell the officer that his son, who was receiving the ticket, is autistic). He attacked those criticizing the police as “anti-government” (predictably) and “far-right.”

There’s this thing liberalism is supposed to be about: liberty. It’s sort of what the word is named after. It’s a bit lacking in a lot of the modern movement. Even when it comes to the issues where liberals are promoting freedom from government interference, a lot of them can’t seem to admit it—gay marriage is about tolerance and equality, abortion and contraception are about women being treated fairly, etc. That’s not to say that those aren’t good points, but they essentially hinge on the idea that actions should be permitted because we want to be nice to the people doing them.

While it’s absurd that Tea Partiers are ready to claim we’re headed toward a tyranny when President Obama does virtually anything, that doesn’t mean that It Can’t Happen Here and it’s silly to worry about government tyranny at all, as some liberals have argued, or at least implied, including President Obama. Obviously, there are liberals who this description doesn’t fit at all (Glenn Greenwald, most prominently), but those are people outside of what we might call mainstream liberalism, and they know it. The idea at the core of liberalism—that government’s role should be to protect and assist its citizens, not oppress them—has been violated time and time again by those claiming to be liberals. But what we’re looking at here is something fundamentally different, and perhaps more dangerous: an attempt to redefine liberalism as an ideology that loves big government (as evidenced by numerous love-letters written by liberals to big government, sometimes disturbingly literally) and scoffs at those who think tyranny could actually happen in the United States. That’s not an ideology that deserves to call itself liberalism. And it’s not one that’s smart on any level in the country we live in today.

Defending Moral Relativism

Whether or not they’re well-educated enough to know the phrase “moral relativism,” there are a lot of people—the fervently religious in particular—who are absolutely terrified of the concept. Supposedly, if there’s not some objectively right morality (usually, but not always, dictated by some kind of god), then there’s no way of condemning the Holocaust, rape, or whatever else the opponent of moral relativism can come up with. This argument is particularly popular by religious fundamentalists as a supposed criticism of atheism. In reality, there are quite a few atheists who believe in objective morality (Sam Harris, for instance)—but, really, regardless of religiosity, I think moral relativism is not something to be wary of, but something to embrace, and stand up for.

Moral relativism, in my view, is the idea that everyone is free to decide on their own set of moral rules. What are considered fundamental values differs radically from person to person, and so it only makes sense that each person should be at liberty to decide what sort of moral rules logically follow from their personal values. Without this principle, the idea of being an individual or “choosing your own path” becomes meaningless. Objective morality is the demand that each person adhere to a certain set of rules, and it grants no right to challenge those rules. Moral relativism, on the other hand, offers everyone the opportunity to reflect on what they stand for and devise their own rules and guidelines from those principles.

As for the objections to moral relativism, a close examination proves them to be completely without merit. Most people, I think, can agree that there’s no objective code for what makes a good movie or good book—sure, there are guidelines, but they aren’t rigid or unquestionable. Even those guidelines weren’t handed down by God; they were just arrived at by a sort of general consensus. But that doesn’t mean that there’s no way to criticize 50 Shades of Gray or Troll 2—the fact that there’s no objective definition of a “good movie” or “good book” doesn’t mean I have to accept these works as good, or even that I can’t view them as bad. Whether a movie or a book is good or bad in my opinion depends on my own personal taste, and my personal beliefs on what makes a movie or book good or bad. The same concept applies with moral relativism; there’s no objective right or wrong, but that doesn’t mean you can’t condemn actions if you find them to be abhorrent. Furthermore, no one needs some abstract moral code to oppose mass murder, or rape, or torture; they just need some amount of interest in the well-being of others. To imply it’s impossible to care about other people’s welfare without being commanded to do so by some set of divine rules is downright insulting to any concept of human decency.

I suppose the great fear here is that if everyone is allowed to base their morality on their feelings rather than some kind of unquestionable maxims, then we’ll have a societal breakdown as everyone acts on whatever whim they have at the moment. Ultimately, that idea is just kind of silly. In fact, moral relativism affords us a great opportunity as a society: to actually evaluate whether the values we teach our children and (theoretically) abide by ourselves are actually effective at maintaining a happy and stable society, or whether they’re outdated and should be done away with. For instance, the only reason some of our more prudish sexual mores have hung around so long is probably just because society shuns anyone who tries to question them, rather than actually listening to their arguments. Moral relativism doesn’t dictate that our society can’t hold to any values, but rather that the values it does hold to should be thought out properly instead of being clung to out of some blind faith in their veracity.

In rebuttal to those who try to argue that moral relativism is dangerous and enables the worst and most damaging behaviors, I’d like to argue the exact opposite: moral absolutism is what’s truly dangerous and what often justifies the worst things in history. For instance, it’s a common narrative that Hitler’s rise was due to moral relativism, but the exact opposite is true: some of the groups Hitler targeted—homosexuals, for instance—were chosen out of some twisted idea of protecting public morality. At least, that’s how he and his cronies portrayed it, and that’s why the German population went along with it.

The danger of moral absolutism is that when you’re convinced you’re enforcing some morality that can’t be challenged, it’s easy to justify the worst atrocities, because anyone who stands in the way of your moral crusade is immoral ipso facto, and therefore whatever happens to them is well-deserved. Moral relativism doesn’t have this issue; no principle or value is above criticism, and you have to evaluate your actions by their actual effects, not whether they’re promoting some sacred cause. For a moral absolutist, it’s easy to explain why they and their followers can commit heinous crimes and not be just as bad (or worse) than those they oppose: “We’re the ones fighting for what’s right.” It’s the same attitude Bob Dylan described when he sang, “you never ask questions when God’s on your side.” For a moral relativist, though, the question is quite a bit more difficult, because they recognize that if they’re harming others as much, or more, than those they’re fighting against, there may be no rational way to claim some moral high-ground.

Lastly, I’d like to argue something that might seem counterintuitive to many people: moral relativism, at least in the practical sense, is not at all incompatible with religion. For instance, one can look at the philosophy of the devout Christian Søren Kierkegaard. In Kierkegaard’s view, ethics are just rules set up for the benefit of society, but it’s ultimately up to each individual to decide their own morals, based on who they are. Kierkegaard believed that the only legitimate relationship with God was an intensely personal one that superseded any human institutions, such as churches, for instance. And, Kierkegaard believed, what’s right from a religious or teleological perspective (which was up to each person to divine from their relationship with God) sometimes runs completely contrary to all of the ethical rules society holds dear. This is, for all intents and purposes, a belief in moral relativism.

Ultimately, the choice is clear: if we value the idea that each person should be able to be true to themselves, to choose their own way—that is, if we actually believe all the clichés we have about “being yourself”—moral relativism is the only rationally consistent choice. If we believe the chief virtue a person can have is an unwavering obedience to rules—necessarily, the rules of man (who wrote all those holy books, after all?)—then moral absolutism is the appropriate position to take. It’s a choice for each person to make, but I thought I’d do my best to dispel any illusions about the options.

Bill Maher's Attack on Islam (and facts)

When uneducated, socially conservative, Christian fundamentalists attack Islam and Muslims, I am neither surprised nor particularly interested. It’s inevitable that among the ignorant and the bigots in America (of which there are many) opinions like that are going to be held. Likewise, when far-right political parties in Europe take anti-Muslim stances, it’s to be expected. It doesn’t interest me that much because I don’t have much respect for the opinions of those groups. However, when intelligent people who call themselves liberals, and with whom I agree on a number of issues, start attacking Islam in ways that go beyond any rational justification, I do feel some need to speak out, and that’s what I’m doing right now.

I want to take as a particular example Bill Maher’s recent anti-Islam rant, because it nicely captures the phenomenon I’m talking about. It’s already been pretty well refuted by Reza Aslan, so I might end up reiterating some of his points, but I’d like to expand on what he said a little. Now, I like Bill Maher, and I agree with him the vast majority of the time—I think his recent reaction to our new war in Iraq was spot-on, for instance. But when it comes to Islam, he starts to sound like people I agree with a lot less of the time, like Sam Harris or the late Christopher Hitchens, both defenders, at least to some extent, of the Iraq War (the second one, that is). Now, before I dissect his tirade, I’d like to make it clear that I’m not arguing for holding Islam to some standard other than any the one I’d hold any other religion to; I’m not a Muslim, nor do I agree with Islamic orthodoxy. But Bill Maher and some of the other outspoken atheist personalities are painting a picture of Islam that’s absurdly oversimplified, and are using criticism of Islamic dogma as a pretense for attacking Muslims as people.

Maher starts by arguing that due to its views on apostasy, adultery, etc. the “Muslim world” has not only common ground with ISIS, but too much common ground. He

casually claims that “vast numbers of Muslims” believe in the death penalty for apostasy. He cites absolutely nothing to back this up, but that’s not even really the point. The real issue is that he fails to take into account the various countries and cultures from which these “vast numbers” of Muslims hail; take Turkey, a country of over 76.5 million people where Muslims make up over 98% of the population; in that country, support for making Sharia law the law of the land is a paltry 12%, based on a Pew poll released in 2013; among that twelve percent (half of whom think Sharia should only be applied to Muslim citizens even if it is made the law of the land), support for stoning as a punishment for adultery is only 29%, and support for the death penalty for leaving Islam—i.e., apostasy—is only seventeen percent. That means among the whole population, support for either of those is in the low single digits. Let’s keep in mind that in America’s golden age during World War II, around thirteen percent of our population supported the extermination of the Japanese race, man, woman, and child; Turkey suddenly seems pretty enlightened, doesn’t it? And, if you look at the poll yourself, you’ll find the results are similar in plenty of other Muslim countries.

But that’s just the beginning. Maher goes on, talking about how the “rule of law” is better than theocracy—okay, fair enough. But what evidence is there that Islam necessitates theocracy? Lebanon, Turkey, Kosovo, and Albania (just to name a few) are majority Muslim states run as parliamentary democracies. As said before, support for making Sharia the law of the land in countries like these is often quite low. So in what way is it fair to equate Islam with theocracy? The fact that there exist Islamic theocracies is no more indicative that Islam promotes theocracy than is the fact there exists atheist states that repress religion indicative that atheism necessitates state suppression of religion.

Maher’s talk of “rule of law” is just another part of the problem; he talks about “liberal Western values” earlier in the segment, too, but there’s sort of an issue with that whole idea: those “liberal Western values” are for Us, not Them. That’s been true from early on, when everyone had unalienable rights except for slaves or Native Americans, naturally. Granted, the “Us” has expanded from propertied white males to all citizens of the United States (to at least some extent), but the United States’ sphere of influence has expanded even more. Our “liberal Western values” have resulted in us supporting—sometimes personally installing—autocratic, authoritarian, and even genocidal regimes. Oh, and probably the worst Islamic theocracy, Saudi Arabia? We support them. The Taliban? We created them. It’s fine if Bill Maher wants to say the Muslim world doesn’t live up to the values that he holds dear—it doesn’t live up to the values that I hold dear, either—but if Maher honestly thinks the values the West has historically represented, and continues to represent, are better than the Muslim world’s, he needs to learn about American history from somewhere other than high school textbooks.

Maher goes on to talk about how in order to count as a liberal, you have to stand up for liberal values—again, fair enough. He then comments that “It amazes me how here in America we go nuts over the tiniest violations of these values while gross atrocities are ignored across the world.” Let’s take a look at the examples he cites. First, he cites how homosexual acts are punished by death in ten countries. True. But let’s keep in mind that anti-gay laws aren’t exactly exclusive to Islamic countries; Uganda—an overwhelmingly Christian country—recently passed a harsh anti-gay law. Further, while in every Muslim country there’s certainly progress to be made in terms of LGBT rights, there are promising events in some of them. In Albania, for instance, gays and lesbians were granted the right to serve openly in the military in 2008, when Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was still in effect for the United States, and a hate crime law has been passed which surpasses anything in effect in the US as well. Albania—a country where almost six out of ten people are Muslim—has also signed onto a UN Declaration supporting LGBT rights. Granted, Albania’s rights and protections granted to LGBT people extend beyond most of the other Muslim countries, but there are similar protections in some, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo.

Maher’s homophobia accusation provides a particularly interesting chance to examine the real origins of homophobia in many Islamic cultures. The Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim world notes:

Whatever the legal strictures on sexual activity, the positive expression of male homeoerotic sentiment in literature was accepted, and assiduously cultivated, from the late eighth century until modern times. First in Arabic, but later also in Persian, Turkish and Urdu, love poetry by men about boys more than competed with that about women, it overwhelmed it. Anecdotal literature reinforces this impression of general societal acceptance of the public celebration of male-male love (which hostile Western caricatures of Islamic societies in medieval and early modern times simply exaggerate).

In fact, it appears the current homophobia may be the legacy of intervention from those Westerners Maher is so fond of.

Maher’s next point is the supposed sexism of Islam; he cites Saudi Arabia as an example of Islamic oppression of women. Again, Saudi Arabia (a US ally as mentioned before) is probably the worst Islamic state, so using it to indict Islam is about as fair as using Uganda to indict Christianity. There are Muslim countries that have substantial numbers of women in government right now, and have had women as their heads of state. How many female heads of state has the US had? Oh, right—zero.

He then moves on to discussing female genital mutilation, ignoring the fact that that’s a problem that happens throughout Africa, including in Christian countries, and is by no means prevalent in every Muslim country. A particularly outlandish remark is made here, when Maher ridicules the argument made by Yale’s atheist group that Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a victim of FGM, doesn’t “represent a totality of the ex-Muslim experience,” by asking whether they mean the women who like mutilation. Perhaps worse than this remark is the utter non-response that it has elicited. Imagine that Bill Maher had mocked the idea that someone who had been molested by a clergyman doesn’t represent the ex-Christian by asking, “Meaning what? The people that liked being molested?” The outrage would have been enormous. Or what if he’d sarcastically asked if representing the ex-Jewish experience fairly meant finding someone who “had liked having his foreskin cut off?” The Anti-Defamation League would have pitched a fit.

Furthermore, there’s a better explanation to the lack of liberal outrage at these facts than some refusal to criticize Islam—these things aren’t happening here, in the country we’re supposed to be in control of. I haven’t heard a great deal of outrage from Bill Maher about North Korea’s prison camps—is that because he refuses to criticize an atheist country? Or is it maybe that what’s happening across the world, and which we have little, if any, control over, isn’t worth pointlessly raising hell about?

Maher accuses his fellow liberals of siding with people who “hold women down and violate them,” but this is just utter nonsense. There are no liberals defending female genital mutilation or oppression of women; there are just liberals who recognize that the attitudes of people like Bill Maher and Sam “at war with Islam” Harris will do nothing but hate-monger. You don’t defeat an ideology by attacking those who abide by it. The anti-Islamic sentiment of people like Harris and Maher is demanding that every Muslim abandon their religion if they want to fight against Islamic extremism and terror groups like ISIS. But convincing the Muslim world that the West really does hate their religion and want to wipe it out is not a recipe for some secular paradise; it’s a recipe for failure. Maher might think he’s being boldly truthful and politically incorrect, but he’s actually just incorrect, and he might want to consider doing research before he gratuitously attacks the religion of 1.6 billion people.

Note: This blog post was edited to change the description of Harris and Hitchens as "avid supporters of the Iraq War" to the current description as "defenders, at least to some extent, of the Iraq War." This was done after research on the subject revealed that Harris has not so much voiced support for the Iraq War (let alone avid support) as much as he has simply tried to argue it could be justified in some way on humanitarian grounds, and generally attacked those who opposed it. I apologize for the error.

People vs. Principles

This will be a bit of a departure from my normal subject matter, but with the world in the shape it’s currently in, I know I’m ready to talk about something other than current events—hopefully, you are, too, whomever you happen to be. I’d like to address what I consider a pretty troubling, but sort of fascinating phenomenon: loyalty to people trumping loyalty to principles.

First, let me explain why this is a bad thing. After all, it doesn’t sound so bad—people are actually right here and now, and can suffer, be happy, flourish, languish, etc., so loyalty to people seems like a good thing, and to a point, it is. Principles, on the other hand, are abstractions, just ideas in our minds (unless you’re a Platonist, I guess, but I’m not). So it seems like being loyal to principles instead of to people is damaging and dangerous, and to an extent, that’s also true. Principles should be formulated at least partly based on their impact on other people, and if principles prove damaging to oneself or others, it’s often a good idea to rethink them. But what I’m talking about in terms of loyalty toward people is not some sort of devotion to the welfare of humanity itself, but loyalty toward specific people, or specific groups of people.

 The reason this is so dangerous is because it ultimately means that if a person you’re loyal to tells you to abandon what you believe in, you go along with it. In the abstract, virtually everyone agrees that doing something like that is terrible and indefensible, but that doesn’t keep them from doing it. For instance, the NSA programs under George W. Bush were highly unpopular among Democrats, with a 2006 Pew poll showing that 61% were opposed, and 37% were in support. In a poll from 2013, under Obama, polling showed an almost exact reversal from the Democrats—with 64% supporting it, and only 34% opposed. That’s a swing of 27%; granted, some people who were too young to be counted in polls like this came of age between 2006 and 2013, and some people certainly died in that timespan, meaning the pool of Democrats had altered—but younger voters were the least likely to be friendly to the NSA programs, and older voters were the most likely. So out of the people who were Democrats at the time of both polls, the percentage who changed their views is probably greater, not less, than 27%.

Of course, the Republicans were hardly any better—they supported NSA programs by a three-to-one margin in the 2006 poll, and were almost evenly split on the issue by 2013. What we’re witnessing here, in both cases, is like some twisted game of Follow the Leader, and this issue is just one example of a general rule. In fact, a recent-ish study showed that ultimately, liberals and conservatives have basically the same view regarding authority: when it agrees with their side, it deserves to be obeyed; otherwise, no. That sort of explains why liberals are all right with Obama doing things they would have shrieked about if Bush had (extrajudicial assassination of an American citizen, for one) while conservatives who approved of all sorts of expensive programs under Bush scream about how Obama will bankrupt the country. It’s okay for our guy, but we’ll be damned if the other side gets away with it.

I think it should be pretty self-evident why this is both reprehensible and dangerous, but in case it’s not, let me explain it briefly: when approval of policies is based on liking the person doing them, approval for any given policy can be obtained by finding a likable enough person. In case you can’t see where this is going, I’ll spell it out: have you ever watched a speech by Adolf Hitler? I don’t speak a bit of German, but there’s absolutely no doubting that his charisma was unbelievably compelling. And, sure enough, plenty of people who probably harbored plenty of doubts about his vicious, genocidal policies went along with them because they had a convincing enough spokesman.

I think the instinct to abandon principles in order to be in agreement with people you like exists for pretty much everyone, myself included. The trick is just to teach yourself to overcome it, and realize that liking someone doesn’t mean agreeing with everything they do or believe. I like to think I’ve achieved that—if someone I respect says something I disagree with, I’m certainly interested to hear their argument, and I might end up changing my view if I find it convincing, but I don’t immediately begin rethinking the stance I’ve taken. The people who I’ve generally seen most successfully stay true to their principles rather than follow leaders tend to have a good deal in common—a sort of apathy toward what others think of them, a tendency to form close relationships with a small number of people, and a great passion for what they believe in. I suppose this makes sense—for those who are less likely to feel some close bond with another person, there’s less temptation to abandon their principles because there are fewer people whose opinions really matter to them; and, often, those they truly admire they can continue to admire in spite of disagreements.

There’s not really any big conclusion or solution to this post. Ultimately, the only thing I can do is to warn whoever might read this against allowing yourself to follow people instead of principles. If someone you like or admire gives their opinion on an issue, don’t just decide you agree with it because it’s easier than doing the research and coming up with your own opinion. That sounds like obvious advice, but I can only assume a lot of people aren’t following it—and I know I’ve been guilty of following the people I like instead of really thinking out my own positions, as just about everyone probably has. But, although it can be an easy mistake to make, it’s not always an easy one to fix.

Pound the War Drums

I didn’t watch President Obama’s speech about ISIS on September 10, but by the time I got around to reading the text of it online, I mostly knew what was in it. Not much of it is encouraging. I wrote about my concerns about our involvement with the situation in Iraq (and now Syria) before, and, based on Obama’s speech, just about everything that I was concerned might happen is now going to happen. If you’ve both read my previous blog entry on Iraq and watched/read the speech, you probably know what I’m talking about. But for those who don’t and might stumble across this blog post, and just for the sake of putting my thoughts out there in a more thorough manner now, let’s go through the speech and see just what is so concerning.

The whole speech, when examined closely, is pretty incoherent, and that’s particularly obvious with the opening remarks. Obama first talks about how successful our counterterrorism strategies have been since he took office, and how we’re safer as a country. In the long run, anyway, that’s pretty doubtful. The drone war Obama has presided over is certain to breed more anti-American hatred, and likely more terrorism. The fact that we’ve succeeded in damaging al-Qaeda and killing Osama bin Laden does nothing to keep new terrorists from emerging when we’ve bombed and killed numerous innocents in Yemen and Pakistan. Supporting the military dictatorship in Egypt probably doesn’t help our popularity, either; nor does standing up for Israel in the UN. So the idea that the counterterrorism strategy we’ve pursued in the last few years is actually making us safer, at least in the long run, is enormously doubtful.

Obama then segues to talking about ISIS, and how they threaten American interests and Americans. Of course, intelligence experts have pretty much all concurred that ISIS poses no immediate threat to the American homeland, which Obama even kind of admits later on (“we have not yet detected specific plotting against our homeland”).  As evidence, he largely cites the fact that ISIS leaders have threatened America—but that proves nothing. To grain credibility, ISIS desperately wants us to see them as a threat and despise them; the fact that they make threats doesn’t indicate those threats will actually be carried out successfully. Not to mention their threats have been largely because of our intervention already, which makes the case for greater intervention a little dubious.

After stating that we need to “degrade, and ultimately destroy” ISIS (good luck on that front), Obama begins laying out a plan. Not a very good one, though. The first part is expanded airstrikes that go beyond defense and into offense. There’s pretty broad agreement that airstrikes are not enough to destroy ISIS, as even John Kerry has said. So why, if ISIS is such a big threat to us, are we limiting ourselves to airstrikes? They’ve already beheaded American captives in retribution for our current airstrikes; are more bombings really the answer? Moreover, Obama states that he intends to expand this air campaign into Syria if necessary. But aside from being dangerous (flying over areas of war has this vague possibility of having your plane get shot down, not that there’s any recent event to remind everyone of that), without either UN approval or the Assad regime’s assent, airstrikes in Syria would be illegal under international law. Not that American violations of international law are exactly anything new.

The second part of this master plan is to “increase our support to forces fighting these terrorists on the ground.” This essentially translates into pouring more military advisers into Iraq and providing more arms to the “moderate” Syrian rebels. Neither of these are particularly good ideas, to say the least. Sending more military advisers into Iraq basically paves the way to sending in actual combat troops—a step which Obama has promised repeatedly not to take, but which, even if he keeps that promise, his successor might be less reluctant about, particularly if we already have American troops in Iraq in a “non-combat” role.

As for arming the Syrian rebels, this seems a particularly counterproductive move. Obama rules out cooperating with the Assad regime, but if ISIS is really so crucial to eliminate, why don’t we try to negotiate some kind of agreement—even a purely temporary one—between Assad and the “moderate” rebels like the Free Syrian Army? Neither of them wants ISIS to take Damascus, and the fact that Assad is still in power after years of civil war is a testament to his army’s abilities. So why continue to aid those who fight that army, diverting it from fighting ISIS, particularly when the arms we provide could end up falling into ISIS’ hands anyway?

Further, Obama doesn’t even mention Iran as a potential ally, despite the fact that it, too, has demonstrated its opposition to ISIS. If ISIS really poses such a threat, why aren’t we turning to regimes that, while terrible, obviously don’t pose a real threat to us? No one with any credibility thinks Iran or Syria poses a threat to the United States, so if ISIS is really such a grave threat, we should be eager to cooperate with them. The fact that we’re not raises some important questions about what our real motivations are here.

The third part of the Obama plan is to “draw on our substantial counterterrorism capabilities to prevent ISIL attacks. Working with our partners, we will redouble our efforts to cut off its funding; improve our intelligence; strengthen our defenses; counter its warped ideology; and stem the flow of foreign fighters into – and out of – the Middle East.” All of that sounds fine in theory, but none of it really lines up with reality. As previously stated, there’s no credible evidence that ISIS is planning an attack on American soil—if their goal is really to create an Islamic caliphate, it’s hard to imagine why we’d be among their biggest concerns. Of course, the likelihood of their attacking us is significantly higher if we directly involve ourselves in fighting a war against them. And if Obama thinks that waging its third war in Iraq in twenty-five years is the best way for the United States to win the hearts and minds of those who hate us, his understanding of the situation is impressively bad.

Part four is to continue providing humanitarian assistance to those in the region. Fair enough. The United States should provide humanitarian aid, and as I’ve said before, there’s no reason it shouldn’t be involved in some broader plan to deal with ISIS—but the rest of this plan is incredibly badly put together. It’s after laying all of this out that Obama asserts that he has the authority to do all of this without Congressional approval. This is perhaps the most troubling part of this speech—I’ve generally disagreed with Republicans and right-wingers when they talk about Obama being arrogant, but if any move in his presidency shows hubris, it’s this one. This is the president telling us that he’s going to involve the country in a conflict overseas that may, in the words of his own Secretary of State, “take a year…may take two years…may take three years.” And that he’s going to do so without even trying to get Congress’s approval. Even Bush got Congress’s approval before going to war in Iraq. I’ll let that speak for itself.

When I wrote my last blog post about Iraq, I had some grave concerns, but I didn’t expect things to get this much worse this quickly. This is essentially the president unilaterally declaring war, and putting forward a plan that is a recipe for a conflict that will drag on for years, endanger American lives, and probably do very little, if anything, to create a more stable situation in the Iraq-Syria region.  ISIS poses a threat to Iraq, Syria, and other Arab nations in the region—so let them fight their own war. Sure, ISIS should be wiped out, and if we can help protect innocent civilians, great—but this strategy isn’t likely to do much of either. Instead, it’ll probably gain ISIS street cred among other anti-American jihadist groups, and ensure that ISIS will be more than happy to kill Americans when it gets the opportunity.

There are a number of things about this whole situation that are deeply troubling. One is that the president has basically announced that we’re going to war—which he’s unilaterally decided—and instead of being different from the norm, like it used to be, that barely elicits a response. Another is that Obama seems to have prepackaged the War on Terror in a way that has convinced most liberals to at least acquiesce to it. The most disturbing thing, though, is that essentially we’re playing right into ISIS’ hands—they wanted to get a rise out of us, and they did. This is not a good time to be an American. This is not a good time to live on this planet at all. 

Note: Originally this blog stated that the Syrian rebels massacred Christians, and linked to a source. However, I have judged that source unreliable, and have not been able to find a reliable source to back up the massacre it alleged. I apologize to everyone for the error.

Don't Boycott Burger King

For those who regularly follow online news outlets like the Huffington Post (as I do), you’ve probably seen something about how Burger King is buying Tim Hortons, making Burger King legally Canadian, and thus allowing it to dodge taxes in the US. Understandably, there’s a lot of outrage about that—some, including people I like, like economist Bruce Bartlett, have even called for a boycott. And at first, I was on board with that. There’s not too much doubt about the motive here—pure corporate greed. And, obviously, it is pretty bad if corporations can get out of paying their taxes but average Americans can’t. But, the more I thought about it, the less it seemed reasonable to try to force Burger King into paying its taxes.

For everyone who’s outraged by Burger King’s tax dodge, I understand how you feel, but ask yourself an important question: where would the tax money go? Into military aid for Israel, or aid for Egypt’s dictatorship, maybe? For developing expensive new weapons systems that help us fight the ongoing, bloody war in the Middle East? To subsidies for oil companies that help make sure we get involved in any conflict in any oil-rich country, no matter the cost to our security or the people of that country? To enforcing the fascistic War on Drugs that’s been going on for decades? The answer is yes, to all of those. That is what the US government would spend Burger King’s tax money on.

Now, of course, there are good things the government would spend it on, too—education, social welfare, developing greener energy—but, first off, that spending is pretty paltry compared to a lot of the things I just listed. But, more importantly, shouldn’t we draw a line in the sand somewhere when it comes what the government can fund and still deserve tax revenue? Let it put it this way—would you donate to a charity that happened to, on the side, buy guns and arm inner city gangs? No? Then why is our government deserving of taxpayer money when it funds the atrocities it does? In fact, given the choice between taking an easy step to avoid paying taxes or willingly paying them, it’s the second option that seems more morally questionable when you consider just what those taxes are used for.

Now, obviously, Burger King isn’t avoiding its taxes to make some bold political statement. It is, like I said, raw corporate greed. But how is that any different than normal? There are tons of companies that could pay their workers better, or charge their customers less, and stay in business, but choose not to because of corporate greed. Corporations are entities that are essentially designed to make a profit. And, really, if Burger King has decided to increase its profits by avoiding paying taxes to the US government, we should be happy they didn’t do something much worse, like cut their employees’ already-meager pay or charge more for their food, which is often bought by people who probably can’t afford a whole lot better. (That’s not to sound classist—I eat at Burger King, too, but you get the point.)

“But the money has to come from somewhere!” Yeah, sure. But why don’t we demand that that “somewhere” is from the Defense Department, or from corporate welfare, or from ending the War on Drugs? It’s not like there aren’t areas the government could afford to cut spending from. The several million dollars in taxes Burger King is avoiding will barely make a difference to the government, but even if it did, we know where to cut from. So why act like the government just has to go deeper in debt or raise taxes on everyone else? Sure, ideally the government should take those dollars going into military spending or imprisoning non-violent drug offenders and invest it elsewhere, so spending as a whole wouldn’t decrease—but when the government actually shows some sign it’s going to do that, that’s when it’s time to think about boycotting Burger King if it continues its tax avoidance.

Some points I want to be clear on: I’m not saying it’s good that Burger King has done this. Realistically, I think the impact won’t make much of a difference. And, yes, as long as the government is funding horrible things, it’s better if it gets the tax money to do so from rich corporations than from the middle class. I do support closing loopholes and creating taxes that prevent this sort of thing from happening. But my point is simply that, with our current government, paying taxes is not something that should be seen as praiseworthy. With an ideal government, it would be, but ours is not ideal. If I could easily avoid paying taxes to it without legal penalty, I’d do so in a heartbeat—not out of greed, but out of principle. If Burger King does the same, not out of principle but out of greed, I can’t condemn its action, just its greed—and its greed is not unique. Unless you want to boycott every greedy corporation (which is the vast majority of them), then boycotting Burger King is pointless. If there’s an organization to boycott, it’s the government—but good luck on that front.   

Thoughts on Iraq

A few months ago, I wrote that the US was out of Iraq, unlike it had been for much of my life so far, unless the government decided to launch airstrikes in response to the ongoing violence there. It’s no secret that our invasion was a key factor in creating the current conflict there—it helped install a sectarian Shiite leader and allow Shiites to commit an outright ethnic cleansing against Sunnis in Baghdad. Not surprisingly, in a region already rife with sectarian conflict, actions like these helped turn Iraqi Sunnis toward increasingly extremist responses, which explains a great deal of the increase in numbers of ISIS, or the Islamic State, as it’s now calling itself.

We then have some idea of how this current situation came about. US military intervention was enormously detrimental in Iraq the last time. What’s the current response of the government? Airstrikes and military advisors—i.e., more military intervention. Further, there’s no justification now that couldn’t have been used for our invasion and ousting of Saddam—ISIS is genocidal, but so was he; no one doubts the brutality of Saddam’s regime, nor the brutality of ISIS; and the US at least allegedly played a role in helping both come to power.

None of that is to say military action is therefore unjustified, just that we should exercise great caution in assuming that the cruelty and viciousness of the Islamic State demands US intervention, any more than Saddam Hussein’s cruelty and viciousness did (of course, there are still people who think we made the right move in our previous invasion, but those people are too far detached from reality to be worth spending much time on). Military intervention is not always an effective way to deal with problems like these; the US launched airstrikes against Kosovo in the late ‘90s, and the result was an enormous escalation of the violence there. We should be very wary in assuming that won’t happen here. The beheading of James Foley was done in retaliation for the airstrikes, of which ISIS has already vowed to avenge any and all; so, unless they significantly limit ISIS’s ability to harm and kill innocents, it ought to be very seriously considered whether such airstrikes run the risk of being counterproductive.

The fact that we’ve sent in hundreds of military advisors is also concerning; the Vietnam War started with military advisors. This isn’t try to draw any ill-thought-out parallels, but it should be clear at this point that Iraq is huge quagmire when it comes to any military intervention. It’s troubling that we seem to be gradually creeping toward doing exactly what Obama promised we wouldn’t—sending in combat troops. Even if Obama keeps that promise, he stays in office for only about two and a half more years; this situation doesn’t exactly show signs of blowing over in the near future, and who knows if whoever succeeds Obama will abide by the same standard. There’s good reason to think Hillary Clinton wouldn’t, for instance.

Then, of course, there’s the issue that everything that has so been done by the Obama administration has lacked congressional approval; that’s especially troubling when Obama has specifically said there is no end date for our current actions. One has to wonder exactly what we’re getting into, and question why the president doesn’t even seem inclined to have these actions—actions extending into the future indefinitely—approved by Congress, as they constitutionally should be.

It should also be noted that our current motive is less than pure, as usual. Once again, the oil fields in Iraq are an important motivating factor for the US government. Of course, if military action for oil can actually do good for the people in the affected region, then the impure motives should be no concern—but, once again, we have to be wary of what we’re told when we realize the powerful forces that may be backing action not to the benefit of either Iraqis or everyday Americans.

None of this is to say that the world should sit idly by while the mayhem in Iraq unfolds. On the contrary, the events there deserve the attention of the United Nations. There’s no reason that, pending a Security Council resolution or something similar, the United States shouldn’t be involved in taking appropriate action. However, any long-term intervention of any nature in Iraq should be both well thought out and approved by Congress. The United States cannot continue to pretend to be the world’s policeman as it takes military action serving the interests of corporate elites (but working much to the detriment of everyday people), nor can the executive branch continue to absorb powers reserved for Congress. All of us must bear that in mind as we contemplate what the appropriate way forward is in handling the Iraq situation.

Correction: This post originally stated that the US had deliberately helped Saddam Hussein come to power; I have deleted that claim and linked a new source to acknowledge that the reality was somewhat more complicated and qualified that this involvement is alleged.