04 January 2011

Two from Vance

Always interesting and in many ways a kindred spirit....here are a couple of posts from Lawrence Vance.



The first concerns foreign policy and can be found here.

The second concerns why he picks on Republicans and can be found here.

I don't always agree with him on everything, but from my standpoint, he's thinking things through and that's a huge start.

Here are the articles themselves:

Can U.S. Foreign Policy Be Fixed?


by Laurence M. Vance



Recently by Laurence M. Vance: Why I Pick on Republicans











The WikiLeaks revelations have shined a light on the dark nature of U.S. foreign policy. As Eric Margolis recently described it: “Washington’s heavy-handed treatment of friends and foes alike, its bullying, use of diplomats as junior-grade spies, narrow-minded views, and snide remarks about world leaders.”



As much as I, an American, hate to say it, U.S. foreign policy is actually much worse. It is aggressive, reckless, belligerent, and meddling. It sanctions the destabilization and overthrow of governments, the assassination of leaders, the destruction of industry and infrastructure, the backing of military coups, death squads, and drug traffickers, and imperialism under the guise of humanitarianism. It supports corrupt and tyrannical governments and brutal sanctions and embargoes. It results in discord, strife, hatred, and terrorism toward the United States.



The question, then, is simply this: Can U.S. foreign policy be fixed? Although I am not very optimistic that it will be, I am more than confident that it can be.



I propose a four-pronged solution from the following perspectives: Founding Fathers, military, congressional, libertarian. In brief, to fix its foreign policy the United States should implement a Jeffersonian foreign policy, adopt Major General Smedley Butler’s Amendment for Peace, follow the advice of Congressman Ron Paul, and do it all within the libertarian framework of philosopher Murray Rothbard.





Thomas Jefferson, our first secretary of state and third president, favored a foreign policy of “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations – entangling alliances with none.” This policy was basically followed until the Spanish-American War of 1898. Here is the simple but profound wisdom of Jefferson:



No one nation has a right to sit in judgment over another.



We wish not to meddle with the internal affairs of any country, nor with the general affairs of Europe.



I am for free commerce with all nations, political connection with none, and little or no diplomatic establishment.



We have produced proofs, from the most enlightened and approved writers on the subject, that a neutral nation must, in all things relating to the war, observe an exact impartiality towards the parties.



No judgment, no meddling, no political connection, and no partiality: this is a Jeffersonian foreign policy.



U.S. Marine Corps Major General Butler was the most decorated Marine in U.S. history. After leaving the military, he authored the classic work War Is a Racket. Butler proposed an Amendment for Peace to provide an “absolute guarantee to the women of America that their loved ones never would be sent overseas to be needlessly shot down in European or Asiatic or African wars that are no concern of our people.” Here are its three planks:



The removal of members of the land armed forces from within the continental limits of the United States and the Panama Canal Zone for any cause whatsoever is hereby prohibited.

The vessels of the United States Navy, or of the other branches of the armed service, are hereby prohibited from steaming, for any reason whatsoever except on an errand of mercy, more than five hundred miles from our coast.

Aircraft of the Army, Navy and Marine Corps is hereby prohibited from flying, for any reason whatsoever, more than seven hundred and fifty miles beyond the coast of the United States.



Butler also reasoned that because of “our geographical position, it is all but impossible for any foreign power to muster, transport and land sufficient troops on our shores for a successful invasion.” In this he was echoing Jefferson, who recognized that geography was one of the great advantages of the United States: “At such a distance from Europe and with such an ocean between us, we hope to meddle little in its quarrels or combinations. Its peace and its commerce are what we shall court.”



And then there is our modern Jeffersonian in Congress, Rep. Ron Paul, the only consistent voice in Congress from either party for a foreign policy of peace and nonintervention. In a speech on the House floor several months before the invasion of Iraq, Ron Paul made the case for a foreign policy of peace through commerce and nonintervention:



A proper foreign policy of non-intervention is built on friendship with other nations, free trade, and open travel, maximizing the exchanges of goods and services and ideas.



We should avoid entangling alliances and stop meddling in the internal affairs of other nations – no matter how many special interests demand otherwise. The entangling alliances that we should avoid include the complex alliances in the UN, the IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO.



The basic moral principle underpinning a non-interventionist foreign policy is that of rejecting the initiation of force against others. It is based on non-violence and friendship unless attacked, self-determination, and self-defense while avoiding confrontation, even when we disagree with the way other countries run their affairs. It simply means that we should mind our own business and not be influenced by special interests that have an ax to grind or benefits to gain by controlling our foreign policy. Manipulating our country into conflicts that are none of our business and unrelated to national security provides no benefits to us, while exposing us to great risks financially and militarily.





For the libertarian framework necessary to ensure a foreign policy of peace and nonintervention, we can turn to libertarian political philosopher and theoretician Murray Rothbard:



The primary plank of a libertarian foreign policy program for America must be to call upon the United States to abandon its policy of global interventionism: to withdraw immediately and completely, militarily and politically, from Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, from everywhere. The cry among American libertarians should be for the United States to withdraw now, in every way that involves the U.S. government. The United States should dismantle its bases, withdraw its troops, stop its incessant political meddling, and abolish the CIA. It should also end all foreign aid – which is simply a device to coerce the American taxpayer into subsidizing American exports and favored foreign States, all in the name of “helping the starving peoples of the world.” In short, the United States government should withdraw totally to within its own boundaries and maintain a policy of strict political “isolation” or neutrality everywhere.



The U.S. global empire with its 1,000 foreign military bases and half a million troops and mercenary contractors in three-fourths of the world’s countries must be dismantled. This along with the empire’s spies, covert operations, foreign aid, gargantuan military budgets, abuse and misuse of the military, prison camps, torture, extraordinary renditions, assassinations, nation building, spreading democracy at the point of a gun, jingoism, regime changes, military alliances, security guarantees, and meddling in the affairs of other countries.



U.S. foreign policy can be fixed. The United States would never tolerate another country building a string of bases around North America, stationing thousands of its troops on our soil, enforcing a no-fly zone over American territory, or sending their fleets to patrol off our coasts. How much longer will other countries tolerate these actions by the United States? We have already experienced blowback from the Muslim world for our foreign policy. And how much longer can the United States afford to maintain its empire?



It is time for the world’s policeman, fireman, security guard, social worker, and busybody to announce its retirement.



Reprinted from The Future of Freedom Foundation.



January 4, 2011



Laurence M. Vance [send him mail] writes from central Florida. He is the author of Christianity and War and Other Essays Against the Warfare State and The Revolution that Wasn't. His newest book is Rethinking the Good War. Visit his website.


Why I Pick on Republicans


by Laurence M. Vance



Recently by Laurence M. Vance: The Twelve Days of Christmas (Government Version)











So, the Republicans are back in control of the Congress again. Ho-hum. Time to start writing about the Republicans again.



I haven’t always picked on Republicans. In fact, I used to be one, faithfully voting for all the Republicans on the ballot to keep those evil Democrats out of office. As a conservative who had never been exposed to libertarianism, I was a Republican by default. Oh, the political ignorance of youth!



I remember taking a political survey in seventh or eighth grade in which I scored, I think, an 8 out of 10, with 1 being extreme liberal and 10 being extreme conservative. Obviously, it wasn’t the World’s Smallest Political Quiz. I suppose it was on the basis of that survey that I considered myself a conservative. I don’t remember any political discussions at home growing up.



The first election in which I was old enough to vote was in 1980, but I don’t remember voting or even being registered until perhaps the 1982 midterm elections. Even so, I really don’t remember in which election years I voted and in which ones I didn’t. I think the last time I voted as a frustrated, libertarian-leaning conservative and still somewhat ignorant Republican was for Bush the elder against Clinton in 1992. I didn’t care much for Bush, but he was a Republican and Clinton was a Democrat.





Now I don’t just not vote; I make it a point not to vote. I must confess, however, that I did violate this principle on two occasions, but not my conscience. A county in Florida I lived in had an extra 1.5 percent discretionary sales tax surtax. There was a vote in the county to extend the 1 percent portion of the tax for another ten years. I voted against it. It passed anyway; that is, the majority of the voters in the county voted themselves a tax increase. Go figure. The other time I voted was for Ron Paul in the Republican presidential primary. I felt dirty having to switch my voter registration from Independent to Republican, but it felt good to vote for Dr. Paul. I switched my registration back to Independent as soon as I cast my vote. This was the first and only time I actually voted for someone instead of just voting against someone.



Although I don’t vote, I do follow and write about politics, and especially Republican politics. Because I often write about the lies, hypocrisy, and evil doings of the Republican Party, I get two kinds of negative e-mail. First are the nasty e-mails from conservatives castigating me for being – along with things like a communist piece of s**t – a Democrat, a liberal, a left-winger, or a leftist. The second kind is from those who criticize me for not writing about the lies, hypocrisy, and evil doings of the Democratic Party. This group may even share some of my criticisms of the Republican Party, but I am picking on Republicans, they say.



To the first group I would say that I have never been a member of or voted for a member of the Democratic Party in my life. I think the last good Democratic president was Grover Cleveland. True, I rarely criticize the Democratic Party, but not because I have anything but utter contempt for it. The socialist and statist policies of the Democratic Party are well known. It is the party of liberalism, socialism, feminism, collectivism, abortion, organized labor, big government, environmentalism, affirmative action, welfare, paternalism, taxing and spending, income redistribution, and every alternative lifestyle known to man. The Democrats are evil, but they are predictably, dependably, and consistently evil. The conservatives who mistake me for a Democrat are many times warmongers who think that to oppose imperialism, militarism, war, and empire means that one is a liberal. On this fallacy see "Anti-war Stance Is Right, Not Left," by Gary Benoit of the as-far-from-liberal-as-you-can-get John Birch Society.





To the second group I would first say all of the above that I said about the Democrats and then add that although Republicans claim to be for free trade, free markets, free enterprise, capitalism, the Constitution, smaller government, less intrusive government, fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, etc. – they show by their actions that they are merely using libertarian rhetoric to get elected and reelected. They want a government limited to one controlled by Republicans. As powerfully argued by Lew Rockwell about the Republicans:



Economic liberty is the utopia that they keep promising to bring us, pending the higher priority of blowing up foreign peoples, jailing political dissidents, crushing the left wing on campus, and routing the Democrats. Once all of this is done, they say, then they will get to the instituting of a free-market economic system. Of course, that day never arrives, and it is not supposed to. Capitalism serves the Republicans the way Communism served Stalin: a symbolic distraction to keep you hoping, voting, and coughing up money.



If you have any doubt then listen to what Representative Mike Pence, former chairman of the House Republican Conference, said before the recent midterm election:



What I’ve said is there will be no compromise on ending this era of runaway spending, deficits and debt. No compromise on repealing Obamacare lock, stock and barrel. No compromise on defending the broad mainstream values of the American people in the way we spend the people’s money at home and abroad. On issues that go straight to principle and straight to the concern the American people have on spending and taxes and values, there’ll be no compromise.





I have just one question for Mr. Pence: Where were you during the Bush era of "runaway spending, deficits and debt"? I’ll tell you where he was, he was voting for Republican runaway spending, deficits, and debt. What makes the Republicans worse than the Democrats is that Democrats don’t masquerade as advocates of smaller and less intrusive government. They openly call for increased government intervention in the economy and society.



Another reason I pick on Republicans is because they are the biggest supporters of war, militarism, imperialism, and empire. When was the last time a pro-life Republican ever expressed concern for the life of any foreigner killed by U.S. bombs and bullets?



There is only one thing you can be sure of that Republicans won’t compromise on: their devotion to war and an aggressive, interventionist foreign policy. Speaking recently at the American Enterprise Institute, South Carolina Republican senator Lindsey Graham called for war with Iran. The Republican victory in the midterm election will not change anything when it comes to foreign policy. Some races were still undecided when Republicans began calling for more bloodshed in Afghanistan.



Why do I pick on Republicans? They deserve it, that’s why. America is quickly becoming a fascist police state, thanks in a great measure to Republicans and their PATRIOT ACT, Department of Homeland Security, war on terror, TSA, and war on drugs. Instead of complaining about Democratic legislation passed during the last two years, Republicans in Congress should look in the mirror.



January 3, 2011



Laurence M. Vance [send him mail] writes from central Florida. He is the author of Christianity and War and Other Essays Against the Warfare State and The Revolution that Wasn't. His newest book is Rethinking the Good War. Visit his website.



Copyright © 2011 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.



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