Do not make the mistake of thinking that because my conclusion is the same as another person's that my reasoning is the same
Calpundit has posted a fascinating analysis of Dick Cheney by John Perry Barlow, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and friend of Cheny's youth.
You should check it out. I still think little of Cheney, but it's food for thought.
Money quotes:
Here is the problem I think Dick Cheney is trying to address at the moment: How does one assure global stability in a world where there is only one strong power? This is a question that his opposition, myself included, has not asked out loud. It's not an easy question to answer, but neither is it a question to ignore.
Historically, there have only been two methods by which nations have prevented the catastrophic conflict which seems to be their deepest habit.
The more common of these has been symmetrical balance of power. This is what kept another world war from breaking out between 1945 and 1990. The Cold War was the ultimate Mexican stand-off, and though many died around its hot edges - in Vietnam, Korea, and countless more obscure venues - it was a comparatively peaceful period. Certainly, the global body count was much lower in the second half of the twentieth century than it was in the first half. Unthinkable calamity threatened throughout, but it did not occur.
The other means by which long terms of peace � or, more accurately, non-war � have been achieved is the unequivocal domination by a single ruthless power. The best example of this is, of course, the Pax Romana, a "world" peace which lasted from about 27 BCE until 180 AD. I grant that the Romans were not the most benign of rulers. They crucified dissidents for decoration, fed lesser humans to their pets, and generally scared the bejesus out of everyone, including Jesus Himself. But war, of the sort that racked the Greeks, Persians, Babylonians, and indeed, just about everyone prior to Julius Caesar, did not occur. The Romans had decided it was bad for business. They were in a military position to make that opinion stick.
(There was a minority view of the Pax Romanum, well stated at its height by Tacitus: "To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a wilderness, they call it peace." It would be well to keep that admonition in mind now.)
…If one takes the view that war is worse than tyranny and that the latter doesn't necessarily beget the former, there is a case to be made for global despotism. That case is unfortunately stronger, in the light of history, than the proposition that nations will coexist peacefully if we all try really, really hard to be nice to each other.
…I believe that Dick Cheney has thought all these considerations through in vastly greater detail than I'm providing here and has reached these following conclusions: first, that it is in the best interests of humanity that the United States impose a fearful peace upon the world and, second, that the best way to begin that epoch would be to establish dominion over the Middle East through the American Protectorate of Iraq. In other words, it's not about oil, it's about power and peace.
Well, alright. It is about oil, I guess, but only in the sense that the primary goal of the American Peace is to guarantee the Global Corporations reliable access to all natural resources, wherever they may lie. The multinationals are Cheney's real constituents, regardless of their stock in trade or their putative country of origin. He knows, as the Romans did, that war is bad for business.
But what's more important is that he also knows that business is bad for war. He knows, for example, there there has never been a war between two countries that harbored McDonald's franchises. I actually think it's possible that, however counter-intuitive and risky his methods for getting it, what Dick Cheney really wants is peace. Though much has been made of his connection to Halliburton and the rest of the Ol Bidness, he is not acting in the service of personal greed. He is a man of principle. He is acting in the service of intentions that are to him as noble as mine are to me � and not entirely different.
Posted by P6 at November 9, 2003 07:10 PM | Trackback URL: http://www.prometheus6.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2244I had always heard it that countries with the same religion rarely went to war, but it is a common theme of libertarianism and Free-Market types that no one has ever had too much of a hatred for someone that could make them a buck in trade.
It is really hard to hold a deep hatred for someone who can make your life better if you would simply get along with them. De Tocquville had a nice quote on this from one of his essays on Civil Association in America, but I don't have my Libertarian Primer on me to quote from it.
Phelps makes a good point here, although the long history of Jim Crow and segregation shows that people are often all too willing to put ideas of racial purity above what would seem to be their economic self-interest (i.e., not allowing black people in their store or restaurant even though they could make money from selling to them). I feel that one of the major weaknesses of libertarianism is that it doesn't take into account how irrational people can be and how capable of acting against their own self-interest for extended periods of time. Libertarianism is wonderfully appealing in theory, but it doesn't seem to match up with reality.
I don't think Jim Crow conflicts with this. They were still making money off of them, just not in the White Establishments. They would have to go to the back door. On the other hand, if they had started to serve them openly, they would have lost the much more wealthy white market for the sake of a small poor black market. Jim Crow was a reflection of the society (rather than the society being a reflection of Jim Crow.)
I've seen the argument in two places now (from two different directions) that it was the gathering of wealth in the black community that put an end to Jim Crow. Black wealth in America began rising steadily after the war, and with it came the civil rights movement. It kept rising significantly all the way up to the launch of the War on Poverty, where it leveled off to match the rest of the country.
As for libertarianism, it does recognize the irrationality of all people. Someone doesn't suddenly become more rational because they win an election, and an irrational electorate isn't likely to select a rational candidate. The only solution when you know that the people who will be weilding the life-and-death power of the state are going to be irrational is to severly limit that power.
I don't think Jim Crow conflicts with this. They were still making money off of them, just not in the White Establishments. They would have to go to the back door. On the other hand, if they had started to serve them openly, they would have lost the much more wealthy white market for the sake of a small poor black market. Jim Crow was a reflection of the society (rather than the society being a reflection of Jim Crow.)
Truth deserves repetition.
What does not get repeated is the idea that the wealth in the Black community has matched that of the mainstream. I really hope you don't believe that.