Last Friday, as the puppet leaders in Iraq were arguing about what is going to be the Iraqi constitution, they had to speak especially loudly to be heard over the explosions and bombs outside. These are not ideal conditions under which to forge a new governing authority, especially one purporting to grant liberty and rights. The first ambition of the state will always be to exercise power. And if there were ever a constitution designed to enhance government power, this is it. And yet, there will always be “political pilgrims” who say otherwise. Full article on LRC.
Source link: http://blog.mises.org/3967/theyve-seen-the-future/
They’ve Seen the Future
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“Nor can they see what average Iraqis see, which is a country ripped to shreds by violence, martial law, and a lack of basic needs, due entirely to socialist provision.”
As a first-hand observer, I agree. On the last point, readers may be interested in this: Socialism Depends on Leaders
“11. a. The state shall take care to strengthen the role of civil society on the basis of legitimate goals and peaceful means, as well as empowering it through cooperation with the institutions of international civil society”, I see nothing good coming from this clause.
From looking at this constitution you can already see the road to total state control, it’s a shame. Can anybody point me at a good article or book discussing different constitutions in history?
They have the nerve to call this a constitution. No wonder there’s ongoing turmoil and unrest in Iraq. The tenets of this warped abomination for a constitution would do little but achieve ongoing social unrest, political turmoil, perhaps even pave the way for another Saddam Hussein or Ayatollah Khomeini.
In Liberty,
Harry Valentine
Is there a mises.org canon that has been translated into Arabic we can airlift? Rothbard’s man, economy and the state; LR’s Speaking of Liberty…
As much as I doubt in AnCap working (can it work when groups insist on coercion and repression and not freedom?), they are far more likely to have anarchy than anything resembling a liberal democracy or republic.
I suppose this might be an interesting practical question. Given Iraq as-is, how would one go about creating a free society there?
Tz, we can start a long discussion on how Iraq can become a successful AnCap society, the problem is there’s one crucial thing missing in Iraq. That is the spirit to throw of government, like the Dutch spirit of 1568 and the American spirit in 1776. In both these cases the spirit of limited/no government and property rights was present. Now in both these historical events the people established small limited governments, the Dutch in 1648 and Americans in 1789, but we learned enough from those two examples not to try that again.
Now we have the situation in Iraq with over 100.000 of foreign troops occupying the country, with “democracy” forced on them and the propaganda telling them that once they have the new constitution they are going to have freedom. I don’t see it happening that all the people would go on the street to claim there independence, throwing off there new government and foreign occupiers. And then develop a system of private property and free markets like that what developed in Europe in the middle ages.
I hope all Iraqi people find a copy of For A New Liberty on there pillows when they wake up in the morning, read it, cause a revolution and establish a free market. I think this solution is much better than the current proposal of establishing a new government under a new “constitution”. At least the US and the Netherlands had time under a limited government to raise living standards and make the country prosperous. The Iraqi’s will have almost from the beginning a socialist government, by the looks of this constitution.
Maikel Van Zaanen writes: “Can anybody point me at a good article or book discussing different constitutions in history?”
All I can point you to is the fact that constitionalism is statism and is therefore morally bankrupt. How, after all, can past generations bind future ones in this fashion? As Jefferson (and, oh, what an oxymoron he is!) rightly said:
“The question [w]hether one generation of men has a right to bind another…is a question of such consequences as not only to merit decision, but place also among the fundamental principles of every government. … I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self-evident, that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living…”
*lol*, *sigh*… they aren’t even pretending to try.
Ahhhhhhh! “… no censorship… except by law” Ha ha ha! Someone over there has a sense of humour. But wait a minute; we’re being subjected to the same dark humour over here too. Only over here, our media pretends to be free yet is the mouthpiece of the state. That seems even darker.
A couple days before Rockwell’s commentary under discussion was put up, I posted on my discussion group about just such a “political pilgrim” in Iraq — about the only one to spend much time in the field, so to speak, and who was consequently killed (as happens eventually to any Westerner who strays beyond the “Green Zone” without heavily armed guards). So much for the peace and democracy this poor fool thought the Bush regime was putting into place. It’s brief, and I’m taking the liberty of pasting my text herewith:
As many of you might know, Steven Vincent, an American freelance journalist and cheerleader for the US occupation of Iraq who was working full-time there, was recently executed gangland-style by some resistance fighters. (Ironically, Vincent was too bigoted about the whole Iraqi situation to acknowledge such people being dignified by that description:
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/vincent200508020823.asp .)
Anyway, one of the NRO columnists wrote a tribute to Vincent (who’d written for NRO and the NR print edition, plus the NY Times and CS Monitor). In it, she quotes a Michael Rubin of NRO and AEI, who admits to having “never met” Vincent. Get this: “[H]is murder is a reminder of how much is at stake.”
“[H]ow much is at stake”! What’s that supposed to mean?
That Vincent is a martyr in the cause of imperial conquest instigated by Bush regime disinformation? That the invading forces should redouble their counterinsurgency undertakings?
Because of the US invasion, Iraq has become an extremely hostile environment for Western visitors. What’re we supposed to do — continue to violently occupy a faraway land that never before did anything to us for however many years it takes to make its natives accept and appreciate incognito foreign journalists prowling around?
( http://www.nationalreview.com/lopez/lopez200508030843.asp )
Then what are we to make of wills as they are the desires of the dead? If the dead can’t impose their wills on the living. Conversely, Chesterton called tradition “the democracy of the dead”.
And past generations already do bind future generations – The children born in europe in 1946 had to live with the consequences of the battles fought on that soil whether they wanted to or not. The good and evil we do today will affect the next generations.
Constitutionalism cannot be morally bankrupt as you basically appeal to something like it when you call for no state at all. Your constitution to limit government would simply have a single line granting it no power whatsoever, and you would hold it as a higher authority than the state.
This reminds me of the parody of the Magna Carta in “1066 and All That: A Memorable History of England”.
1. That no one was to be put to death, save for some reason (except the Common People).
2. That everyone should be free (except the Common People).
3. That everything should be of the same weight and measure throughout the Realm (except the Common People).
4. That the Courts should be stationary, instead of following a very tiresome medieval official known as the King’s Person all over the country.
5. That no person should be fined to his utter ruin (except the King’s Person).
6. That the Barons should not be tried except by a special jury of other Barons who would understand.
Magna Charter was therefore the chief cause of Democracy in England, and thus a very Good Thing for everyone (except the Common People).
Getting back to the topic of “political pilgrims” (a useful concept, unfortunate as it is that the phrase was popularized — and perhaps originated — in the title of a book by Paul Hollander, who seems to be something of a neocon; though there may be some satisfaction to be found in a neocon’s idea illuminating his fellows):
The pro-invasion journalists trekking to Iraq (and Afghanistan too, I’ve noticed) hardly constitute the first time elements of the American right have undertaken political pilgrimage. During the Cold War, there were more than a few anticommunist crusaders who gleefully took guided tours of the palaces, villas, model factories, and other pleasing sights presented by certain of the regimes that were considered bulwarks against International Communism: Franco’s Spain, Pinochet’s Chile, Smith’s Rhodesia, Nationalist South Africa, Chung Park Hee’s South Korea.
But the top prize for this goes to Chiang Kai-shek’s Taiwan. Remember “Dr.” Walter Judd and the Committee of One Million?
I’m not singling out all these regimes as being strikingly bad in the contexts of their times and places. (I actually have much sympathy for the plight of whites in southern Africa then and now, though not much for the one-time governments acting in their names). Certainly none of them were nearly as bad as the Communist regimes of the time, so the reputation of the right then suffers far less in comparison. But I think it worth remembering that many American anti-Marxists in those days operated much as their leftist foes.
Today their counterparts extoll the virtues of US occupation forces and the puppet regimes they keep in power. (Note that I include Afghanistan, which is unjustly neglected in these discussions, where the same issues are playing out.) So their reputation eminently deserves to suffer, all the while the modern left isn’t extolling anyone much. (Okay, Castro a little. In any case, the plain fact is the left doesn’t have anyone to extoll anymore, not anybody who’d be found convincing with the larger public, anyway.)
As one who has been critical of the more radical libertarian mindset, I have yet admired the good judgement and ethical consideration with which “content” has been separated between the Mises.org and LewRockwell.com websites.
I think Lew missed on this one.
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