Foreign Policy and Self-Defense: Bidinotto's Facts

***Foreign Policy and Self-Defense---Bidinotto and the Interventionism-Isolationism Fallacy***

Broad philosophical abstractions or generalities about political, economic, or military matters are not enough. Reality is concrete.

I very seldom, even in the conservative press, run across a systematic shredding of the –factual- fallacies involved in the worldviews and arguments so widely accepted today. With the exception of a few writers, such as Victor Davis Hanson who has a mastery of the details of history, I have run across few writers who try to systematic unsnarl and rebut false factual claims which are used to buttress destructive philosophical and political ideas.

I just snipped and condensed several paragraphs by Robert Bidinotto from his blog -- http://bidinotto.journalspace.com/?entryid=637 -- which demonstrate what needs to be done:

.....

1. “Noninterventionism...holds that past American policies abroad have been immorally aggressive against other nations, provoking them to "react" against us... By this interpretation of history, which parallels that of the communists and Islamists, America has been the great disturber of international peace. We are ever creating enemies where none really existed before.

“....[Ron] Paul repeatedly cites as aggression U.S. government actions that helped to topple and replace the Iranian regime of Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953. However, Paul rarely mentions these days (as he did on Dec. 3, 2002) that the U.S. and Britain did so "to prevent nationalization of Iranian oil."... Mossadegh ... systematically began to communize the Iranian economy. All this took place in the context of our Cold War with the Soviet Union, which had been plotting to extend its influence in Iran, via its puppet, the Tudeh Party, in order to gain control [of the] nationalized oil... Was it therefore unreasonable or wrong for the U.S. and Britain to take action to topple a dictatorial, increasingly leftist regime, in order to regain that stolen property and, more importantly, to protect American national security interests?

2. “ The relentless advance of communication, transportation, satellite, and weapons technology has simply obliterated the geographic "isolationism" that was still largely possible at the time of America's founding.

“When a plot hatched in remote mountains in a backward nation like Afghanistan, with conspirators drawn from places like Saudi Arabia, can bring down iconic buildings in New York and Washington, DC -- when Chinese rockets can "blind" in outer space the U.S. intelligence satellites that we depend on for our nation's defense -- when Iranian rockets and subs can threaten to shut down international shipping lanes, thereby interfering with free trade -- when Islamist terrorists and despots can shut down at whim international traffic in a commodity as basic as oil, etc., etc. [then] It is no longer possible to pretend we can draw any meaningful national-defense line at the water's edge.

"....National defense today requires the ability and willingness to project credible power globally, in direct protection of the very trade, travel, communications, and contacts among peoples that Ron Paul and many other libertarians declare to be the pillars of international relations and peace.

“ ...[This requires] the forward projection of U.S. military power -- through foreign bases (which implies alliances), naval-carrier battle groups, special ops forces, advanced military aircraft, and first-rate intelligence agencies (which means an effective CIA, NSA, etc.) “

[I urge you to read the whole piece – the above snips are taken somewhat out of context, and its full length and the integration with the philosophical points is needed for its effectiveness to be fully appreciated.]

....

Have you seen these points being made elsewhere? I don’t read everything, but I doubt these points have been widely elaborated on.

I would hope the New Individualist will continue and perhaps even expand focusing on many heavily factual, empirical, historical pieces. The need seems to be there for point by point rebuttals and point by point revisiting of history – and it will create a niche for itself as a resource even for those who may not be fully in agreement philosophically with Objectivism.

Finally, I am one who is often critical and grudging in offering praise. But now, I have to say this:

For many years, I have been so used to referring to “Bob” Bidinotto, but with this piece and with his recent work on The New Individualist, I now feel that he has fully earned the title Robert.

Post 1

Tuesday, November 27, 2007 - 4:26pm

Bidinotto's pieces are very impressive and a resounding rebuttal to the isolationists. It has become increasingly impossible for the U.S. to remain isolationist and protect its interests and the lives of its citizens.While I feel that was also true in the 1940's, today's global world makes a muscular foreign policy even more of an imperative.

Jim

Post 2

Tuesday, November 27, 2007 - 5:13pm

Phil, Jim -- many, many thanks for you kind comments.

The integration of abstractions and concretes is the most important thing I'm seeking in articles written for The New Individualist. As you point out, Phil, anyone can stand up on a soapbox and pontificate. But it's nice to back up one's opinions with some homework.

To make it easier for people here to find the article you mentioned, which attacks Ron Paul's view of "noninterventionism," here's a live link to it. (Thanks to a link from Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds, this particular piece has generated a LOT of traffic on my blog today.)

Post 3

Wednesday, November 28, 2007 - 12:30pm

Sigh. I was hoping I wouldn't feel the need to wade in on this topic here. I know that the application of rational egoism in the realm of foreign policy is an area where highly intelligent, well-intentioned Objectivists can and do disagree. I can accept that. However, it looks like some other Objectivists can't.

When an Objectivist magazine editor writes a long article replete with emotionally loaded words and blatant guilt by association smears against other Objectivists who hold the same foreign policy view as James Madison and George Washington, I've just gotta say something in response (though I'm not going to catalogue a list of instances here in a blog post).

There's a library of well-researched scholarship showing the harm to American liberty and treasury of failing to confine the US military to defending American territory and citizens from direct attack by foreign regimes (i.e., interventionism or militarism). And much of this material is NOT authored by "liberal-socialists," (even though that has no bearing on the validity of their arguments). Andrew Bacevich, Ivan Eland, and Ted Carpenter are examples of intellectuals who have done extensive work in this area.

Yet none such studies seem to be worth directly addressing (or reading) by some Objectivists. They prefer to blithely characterize that view as "insanity." Then they rush to point out how it puts other Objectivists in the same camp with regard to military force as some on the political Left (gotcha!). How sincerely disappointing and insulting.

(Edited by Jon Trager on 11/29, 12:12pm)

Post 4

Wednesday, November 28, 2007 - 4:05pm

I thought the November 26th piece by Robert Bidinotto was simply devastating. I read it over quite carefully and could only find tiny bits to quibble with. It would be terrific if Ron Paul or someone high in his campaign would respond to it. At the least, Congressman Paul needs to read it and learn from it.

My best hope here -- with the seemingly virulent anti-Americanism of the quotes -- is that Ron Paul was merely pandering to the left, in order to get more broadly-based support, especially for the upcoming "open" primaries.

But the loose talk and sloppy reasoning in the quotes cited above ill serves him. Robert B' is right to say Ron Paul sounds a lot like a communist or Muslim in his reckless bashing of American foreign policy.

On March 28, 2006 Paul evidently said:

The Muslim world is not fooled by our talk about spreading democracy and values. The evidence is too overwhelming that we do not hesitate to support dictators and install puppet governments when it serves our interests.

But the fact is America has a more than two century history of mostly sincerely promoting liberty and justice, and standing on principle thereof. It's just we're rather incompetent at it. We foolishly promote "democracy" (as does Paul) when we should be championing "freedom." And when it comes to friendly dictators, we support them with great hesitation and reluctance in most instances, and only in light of the bigger picture (such as the worldwide fight against communism or Islam). Our logic isn't always pure, but our hearts usually are. It's a smear, and gross misreading of history, to say otherwise.

If Ron Paul wants to promote liberty better -- and probably his own campaign as well -- he really needs to knock off the loose, sloppy, demagogic, "hate America, blame America" rhetoric.

Post 5

Wednesday, November 28, 2007 - 11:14pm

> none such studies seem to be worth directly addressing

Actually what Bidinotto did, Jon, is refute the underlying point of view and the historical "facts" on which such studies rest.

>an Objectivist magazine editor writes a long article replete with emotionally loaded words and blatant guilt by association smears

By saying this, which is a oversimplified (and example-free) distortion of a very thoughtful and intelligent article, you are guilty of the very "smear" of which you are accusing Mr. Bidinotto.

Post 6

Wednesday, November 28, 2007 - 11:20pm

Whine. I wish the isolationist anarchist pacifists who keep insisting that they are Randians would stand up for themselves, make their own arguments, and reveal themselves for who they are rather than assigning Jon Trager 30+ sanction points for his assertion that Rand's hawkish but rational self defense policies - i.e., fighting for our legitimate interests and to win - are just a matter of opinion among Objectivists. Saying that there are plenty of fools with the wrong opinions is not an argument.

Just what was the anti-federalist position on Anthrax and Nuclear bombs?

A state of war exists when an enemy with the means expresses or acts upon his intention to harm you. Pretending otherwise is cowardice, evasion, and eventually treason.

Rand wrote more on politics than any other subject. That people don't understand that what she said about communists applies even moreso to islamists baffles me. Look up the terms pacifist, isolationist, anarchist, government and libertarian in the Ayn Rand Lexicon on line and tell me that she would have any truck with Trager or his political kin.

Good show, Robert.

Ted Keer

Post 7

Thursday, November 29, 2007 - 1:06am

I wonder how much this viewing of foreign policy would be if the US were NOT the dominant country in the world - a view that the country thus could not survive in a hostile world?

Post 8

Thursday, November 29, 2007 - 2:52am

For the record, I sanctioned Jon's post.

Post 9

Thursday, November 29, 2007 - 8:16am

Today, I read a very interesting article, "The Logic of Torture," by philosopher Keith Burgess-Jackson.

Nominally, it's about the subject of torture; but really, it's about ethical differences—and how to think and argue effectively about all sorts of ethically charged controversies. Its lessons are relevant to the controversy I've raised about "interventionism."

While many of the disputes among libertarians and Objectivists about U.S. foreign policy are superficially about "the facts," the arguments are invariably freighted with tacit moral-philosophical assumptions that skew the interpretations of those facts, and the conclusions we draw.

The underlying, often unstated assumptions concerning the woozy notion of "noninterventionism" were my focus in the blog post about Ron Paul's brand of "noninterventionism". What, exactly, does this term actually and fully mean and imply?

Rather than come to grips with such philosophical questions, many proponents of noninterventionism understandably would prefer to divert the focus of debate to all the narrow, complicated factual questions that inevitably surround any historical event regarding U.S. foreign policy. They are trying to execute such a diversion now, regarding my analysis of "noninterventionism."

The noninterventionists' classic method of attack is as follows:

First, throw bumper-sticker terms like "noninterventionism," "neocon," and "blowback" at all questions of national security, with all the unexamined but implied philosophical freight that they carry -- thus setting the tacit moral premises of debate.

Second, cite complicated historical examples of U.S. foreign policy in action, cherry-picking the facts suitable to supporting those tacit moral premises.

Third, point to any bad event(s) that have subsequently arisen, even decades afterwards, as being necessarily caused by that preceding U.S. foreign policy.

This methodology -- smuggled-in moral premises, factual cherry-picking, and post hoc reasoning -- is nothing less than an effort to run a moral steamroller over opponents, while evading the basic philosophical premises that should govern U.S. foreign policy.

For instance, in my blog post, I raised the specific example of the history of U.S. policy toward Iran, often cited by Ron Paul as the cause of subsequent "blowback," such as Iran's hip-deep involvement in terrorism. In my response to Paul's account of that history, I did not intend to argue the merits of every decision made by the Eisenhower administration in its conduct toward Iran in 1953, as some critics have implied. I simply used this example -- Paul's example -- to illustrate how he had reduced the entire complexity of that situation to a sound bite about "blowback." He did so because his woozy notion of "noninterventionism," far from being a good moral guide to foreign policy, actually masks highly important ethical, political, and national-security considerations, and thus leads him to woefully superficial conclusions about complex events.

What considerations? Observe, for example, that in the very first Ron Paul quotation I cited, he says that "we [the U.S.] do not hesitate to support dictators and install puppet governments when it serves our interests." Did nobody but me observe the philosophical implication: that this prominent "noninterventionist" apparently thinks there is a conflict between a "moral" foreign policy, and one that serves American self-interest?

In fact, I am prepared to argue that the opposing of "morality" and "self-interest" actually is an inherent aspect of "noninterventionism," as a policy doctrine. This conflict occurs because "noninterventionism" is an intrinsicist approach to foreign policy, i.e., one based implicitly on deontological notions of "morality," inherent "rights," and an absolutist conception of "national sovereignty." Such intrinsicism explains, incidentally, why the doctrine of "noninterventionism" inexorably leads its proponents, such as Ron Paul, toward a de facto pacifism: If an abstraction, "nonintervention," is to trump "U.S. interests," where else could the doctrine take us? It's no accident that so many libertarian noninterventionists hang their hats at the "Anti-War.com" website.

Putting the facts about various historical events through the platonic interpretive filter of "noninterventionism" is like putting paper through a shredder: A mangled product will emerge from the other end.

So, rather than take the bait of Jon Trager and others to joust about this or that event in the history of U.S. foreign policy (which I'm the first to admit is a checkered history), I prefer instead to focus public attention on their factual shredder: the platonic doctrine of "noninterventionism" itself.

As an Objectivist, I think it's about time that somebody did.

(Edited by Robert Bidinotto on 11/29, 8:22am)

Post 10

Thursday, November 29, 2007 - 10:14am

Robert thank you for posting about this subject! I don't think there is anyone else that argues for an Objectivist foreign policy better than anyone else, hitting right at the heart of the epistemology of non-interventionists:

This methodology -- smuggled-in moral premises, factual cherry-picking, and post hoc reasoning -- is nothing less than an effort to run a moral steamroller over opponents, while evading the basic philosophical premises that should govern U.S. foreign policy.

Hear hear!!

Post 11

Thursday, November 29, 2007 - 1:14pm

Robert B' writes:

...rather than take the bait of Jon Trager and others to joust about this or that event in the history of U.S. foreign policy (which I'm the first to admit is a checkered history), I prefer instead to focus public attention on their factual shredder: the platonic doctrine of "noninterventionism" itself.

I've made these points many times before, but I think philosophically-closely-related Pacifists, Anarchists, Non-Interventionists, and even those who oppose a foreign policy of what I call (non-altruistic, non-crusading) Rescue and Liberation are all significantly anti-intellectual. This explains their infuriating nature and silence, for the most part. They oppose careful or detailed debate on the relevant political issues and problems as a matter of principle. But this stance is profoundly wrong.

Mindless pacifists, anarchists, and "non-interventionists" evidently can't think thru these issues competently and to their own satisfaction so, in frustration and exasperation, they seem to reject all discussion of the subject and any closely-related concepts and issues. And they almost invariably rely upon intellectual intimidation and moral condemnation to nip any incipient debate in the bud. But this manner of shutting down discussion simply isn't legitimate. The issues remain and the general public and Objectivist community don't buy the non-interventionist et al. arguments, even if they can't or don't refute the non-interventionists to their satisfaction.

Ultimately, I think non-interventionism as a principle, concept, and ideal can be mainly traced back to the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia. After 30 hideous years of religious wars, the civilized world came to the simple but common sense view that nation-states really needed to stop trying to religiously "save" their neighbors; they needed to much more learn to mind their own business. This resulted in a kind of near-absolute and mindless respect for the value and ideal of non-interference in internal affairs and non-violation of national sovereignty. These two beliefs seem to be the cornerstone of international law to this day. Something very close to this was also evidently the view of the Founding Fathers and even, mostly, Ayn Rand.

These non-interventionist principles and high ideals are correct as far as they go, but they just doesn't go far enough. They only really apply to nation-states of roughly equal morality and legitimacy i.e. roughly equal respect for freedom. And at some point the principle and high ideal of individual rights -- which are infinite in value -- needs to trump any non-interventionist foreign policy of non-interference in internal affairs and non-violation of national sovereignty.

Post 12

Thursday, November 29, 2007 - 1:28pm

I'm very pleased that some Objectivists responded positively to my last post, evidenced by the Atlas points I received. I'll just respond to a few points now.

Phil: "Actually what Bidinotto did, Jon, is refute the underlying point of view and the historical "facts" on which such studies rest."

He did? He refuted the historical facts--the literally dozens of case studies documented in books and studies that have been recently published--that concretize the harms attached to militaristic interventionism under the guise of national security, peacekeeping, or spreading democracy? I guess I missed that.

As for the guilt by association smears, Phil, anyone can read the post for themselves and see numerous examples firsthand. I tried to ignore them, but they're hard to miss.

Ted: "I wish the isolationist anarchist pacifists who keep insisting that they are Randians would stand up for themselves, make their own arguments, and reveal themselves for who they are rather than assigning Jon Trager 30+ sanction points for his assertion that Rand's hawkish but rational self defense policies - i.e., fighting for our legitimate interests and to win - are just a matter of opinion among Objectivists."

Ted, for a guy who posts so much on an Objectivist site, you've shown yourself to be breathtakingly ignorant of Rand's positions on other threads. Here, you've been true to form. I recommend you look up what AR said about such terms as "isolationism" and the art of smearing. Of course, whenever someone points out that what you've written explicitly contradicts something AR wrote, you revert to calling them randroids or implying they don't think for themselves. So nevermind.

Robert: "If an abstraction, "nonintervention," is to trump "U.S. interests," where else could the doctrine take us?"

If it were true that "noninterventionism" (meaning limiting a nation's military to a) protecting its own territory and citizens from a soon-to-be-attempted assault from a foreign state, or b) responding to such an assault) were opposed to U.S. interests in fact, then it would be a wrong doctrine. But I--and apparently others here--don't believe that's the case. I believe, based abstractly on an ethics of rational egoism and concretely on numerous scholarly studies I've read, that such a principle is the only proper one to adopt in the service of U.S. citizens.

Robert: "So, rather than take the bait of Jon Trager and others to joust about this or that event in the history of U.S. foreign policy (which I'm the first to admit is a checkered history), I prefer instead to focus public attention on their factual shredder: the platonic doctrine of "noninterventionism" itself."

Robert, I'm sorry you felt as if I were "baiting" you. I think you're a very good writer and editor. That's why I'm sorry to see that you've decided to pursue something that may alienate a significant number of Objectivists who approach this issue from the same perspective that you do, yet who honestly come to a different conclusion.

In any case, there's nothing "platonic" about the doctrine of *military* noninterventionism (not isolationism!) counseled by George Washington and other wise visionaries. It's a noble, traditionally eschewed principle born out by the historical record that--contrary to some assertions--is just as timeless as other principles that led to the creation of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Post 13

Thursday, November 29, 2007 - 1:46pm

Jon - would you not have intervened in Afghanistan where Al Quaeda was given refue after attacking the US?

Would you have intervened against Germany if they sank our ships attempting to sell goods to the UK? How many ships would need to be lost?

What about if a foreign Nation captured thousands of tourists and tortured them?

What about if pirates operating out of a rogue state brought shipping to a standstill? Would you only fight them on the seas or would you attack them on their own turf if need be?

Was Pearl Harbor an attack, or would you say it was arranged by Roosevelt as a masterful conspiracy, as many of the people who are on lew rockwell for example seem to think?

Post 14

Thursday, November 29, 2007 - 2:11pm

The Islamicists in Iran seized the U.S. embassy because they knew they could. In the 1970s, the USA was militarily in withdrawal and ideologically in retreat. The hostages appeared to have been released because the Reagan administration could be counted on to take a harder line than had the Carter presidency. So, I, too, thought at the time. However, as it turned out, the hostages were released because the United States government sold the government of Iran anti-tank missiles and other weapons for its war against Iraq. Part of the motivation for that was (a) to keep Iran and Iraq at war and (2) to befriend Iran in its war against Iraq. Of course, the USA government also did what it could to help Iraq, but the Ba'th Party, being secular and unashamedly socialist was better aligned with the USSR, especially after the Islamist revolution in Iran. All of that and more is fairly byzantine. The point is that there is nothing in that which speaks to "American" interests.

In fact, whatever "American" interests might be is not well articulated. The interests of every person (real or articifial) is not congruent with the interests of the "government." That word is in quotation marks because the elected Presidency is not the Congress and neither of them are the careerists in the State Department. State is in an uneviable positiion as one administration leads to the next, now Republican, now Democrat ... now, again and so on. State attempts to steer a course for what "it" imagines "America's" interests (long-term and short) to be. But "the State Department" is not an entity. It is a collection of persons with differing and conflicting and shifting interests that may have nothing to do with the external world. These are just people with jobs, most of them, we can hope, honestly attempting to do the best they can. However, as Dr. Newt Gingrich has famously said about the government, "They have the wrong information system." Their measures are powers and controls and influences, not markets and profits. What profit could there be in supporting Iran or Iraq in their pointless war over some potential oil reserves?

It is one thing to have a clearly defined interest in free trade and open markets. It is another thing to see the world as a chessboard where you get "white" or "black" by choosing a fist with a pawn inside.

Where is the advantage in seizing the Swiss embassy, or flying a jetliner into a Swiss skyscraper?

There was a John Stossel video on YouTube -- gone now, I believe -- from his 20/20 about the difference between capitalism and democracy. Hong Kong was not a democracy and is not so now, but it is still a rich and thriving place for entrepreneurship, even drawing people who find the USA no longer so friendly to capitalism and innovation. India is the largest democracy in the world, and one of the poorest nations, with very many and very complicated laws against business and therefore with huge gaps between the rich and poor. Democracy -- choosing your politicians -- is not so important, if there is freedom of commerce. That is not so much a matter of a written constitution, but of a social tradition. However, such cultural trends are hard to define and quantify.

In both business management and sociology courses, I have been presented with charts that show Nigeria as more "individualist" than the USA. I am not packing my bags. Similarly, for individualism in a western industrialized secular setting, the former East Germany is often touted. Again, I am not attracted. The fault may be mine, but I cite those cases to show that what make a "free" society is putative. Where you shop is up to you. So, if, by some odd happenstance, Hungary (high on individualism) were to go to war against Austria (low), I'd have to take a non-interventionist position on that.

That was my viewpoint 15 years ago when Saddam Hussein impudently sought to seize back Iraq's missing province of Kuwait. That action scared the bemohammed out of the Saudi royal family. (Lacking any popular support within their own -- and I mean "own" -- nation.) So, they paid the big bucks for the best army in the world and got Saddam Hussein off their doorstep. If the USA government in Washington DC made a lot of money from that, then that is fine, but I am not sure that the numbers appeared in the annual report. I know that as a stockholder (taxpayer), I was not given a Gulf War dividend.

The attacks of 9/11 were not carried out by Saddam Hussein's government. The surgical strikes in Afghanistan against the Taliban camps were tolerable, given the context. The war in Iraq was a different matter entirely. Perhaps, the USA government in Washington DC wanted to mend the fences with Iran again. Perhaps those weapons of mass destruction still worried the Saudi royal family. Perhaps there were other factors. Except for one contract security firm, and one other general management company, I do not see a lot of money being made on this. To me, if what you are doing makes sense, then it should be profitable. If what you are doing runs a loss, then maybe you need to think of something else -- unless, as happens, you have a clear vision and a workable idea, but just a tough road, like the first Xerox or the Apple Computer.

It is pretty easy to shoot at Dr. Ron Paul's "ideas" (if that's what his opinions are), but I have yet to read an Objectivist foreign policy paper that identifiies a problem, provides a solution, and shows a benefit.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 11/29, 2:20pm)

Post 15

Thursday, November 29, 2007 - 4:43pm

Jon,

I don't think Robert is trying to disrespect Objectivists who differ from him on foreign policy. I think he is putting forth his viewpoint and stating his reasons for it. America has made many foreign policy mistakes, but I don't think an alternative policy in the Middle East implementing noninterventionism would have led to a better outcome. Terrorist groups were targeting the US long before we staged troops in Saudi Arabia or invaded Iraq.

Incidentally, I think most of the most egregious US foreign policy mistakes have been made outside the Middle East (Suharto in Indonesia, ARENA in El Salvador, Somoza in Nicaragua) and none of those countries is carrying out terroristic attacks on the US. Why? Because they don't have a death wish and a nihilistic, militaristic, otherworldly religion . The terrorists and sundry Middle East dictators have in fact chosen death. Our policy should be to defend our country by giving it to them.

Jim

Post 16

Friday, November 30, 2007 - 2:51pm

Kurt, we could go through an endless laundry list of "what ifs," but it's easier to just state a principle (one inferred from objective facts and not "platonically" derived). I believe in any case where the United States were attacked, were under attack, or were facing immediate attack (logically inferred from credible information gathered by US intelligence agents), swift and devastating military action against the aggressor state, would-be aggressor state, or any state that harbors the aggressors is prescribed by the Objectivist ethics. In other cases, it isn't.

Jim: "I don't think Robert is trying to disrespect Objectivists who differ from him on foreign policy. I think he is putting forth his viewpoint and stating his reasons for it."

Jim, I appreciate your response and think you're one of the more considerate Objectivists on these sites. And if that were all he were doing, I wouldn't even have bothered to post on this thread. As I said earlier though, that's not all. He presented his position in a piece containing rhetorical devices intended to affect a knee-jerk emotional bias in readers without addressing the substantive evidence that would undermine his case. I don't think an Objectivist magazine editor should do that, particularly a talented one such as Mr. Bidinotto.

Like I said earlier, I can disagree about this issue with other Objectivists and still respect them. But it's very difficult to respect Objectivists who blithely assert that my view--and the view of a number of distinguished scholars, whether liberal, conservative, or libertarian--is "insane" without bothering to acquaint themselves with any of the books and studies on which that view is based.

On a final note, even though I've read all of Ayn Rand's published essays, speeches, and Q&As, I don't recall ever seeing her explicitly endorse any US war that occurred during her lifetime. I also don't recall her ever endorsing using the US military to depose foreign dictators or spread democracy. Of course, that doesn't prove by itself that she endorsed military restraint as I've defined it here. But it does indicate that she wasn't an unambiguous advocate of milatristic interventionism either. Do Objectivists really want to alienate other Objectivists on a subtopic that she didn't even clearly address?

Post 17

Friday, November 30, 2007 - 3:26pm

Jon, you mentioned: "On a final note, even though I've read all of Ayn Rand's published essays, speeches, and Q&As, I don't recall ever seeing her explicitly endorse any US war that occurred during her lifetime."

What about Rand's 1944 article in Reader's Digest? I read that about forty years ago, so I could easily be mistaken, but isn't that a peice in support of the American involvement in WWII? Does anyone here know what she wrote there?

Post 18

Friday, November 30, 2007 - 8:07pm

Stephen, you can find the Reader's Digest article, "The Only Path to Tomorrow" online here:
http://fare.tunes.org/liberty/library/toptt.html'

(There is also a current eBay auction with this January 1944 Reader's Digest for sale.)

"No tyrant has ever lasted long by force of arms alone. Men have been enslaved primarily by spiritual weapons. And the greatest of these is the collectivist doctrine that the supremacy of the state over the individual constitutes the common good."

If you can squeeze military intervention out of this, you are a better philosopher than I am. As I read it, Ayn Rand said that this is a battle for ideas and that unless individualism overtakes collectivism, civilization is doomed.

Post 19

Friday, November 30, 2007 - 8:33pm