Airstrip One

Liberty for All?

Liberty Log, a British Libertarian web log has been banging the drum for war on Iraq, and even sent me an e-mail to say this. The "Libertarian case for war"?



And what lies behind this Liberventionism? Well the desire to make everyone free. The Iraqis, it seems have a fundamental right to change their government.



Obviously we could make the same observations about the Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and Jordan. Very few of them are satisfied with what their Israeli or Hashemite overlords. This however is not the real case at issue here. For all I know the St Andrew's Libertarian club is all for the Palestinian right of self determination.



The issue is really what business of ours. The Iraqis, Kurds and Palestinians are simply not our affair. So they may want Parliamentary government, but I'd like a new computer and the government, my government, has no business providing either. If I genuinely wanted a computer badly enough I'd work more / buy less / borrow / take out of savings or a combination of any of those. I would not go to the government. I would even less go to a foreign government. I would make the sacrifices myself.



Wilsonian (Woodrow rather than Harold) fantasies about self determination are not really libertarian as any decent libertarian would stop at his own borders. Many indeed stop way before then.



If a people want democracy badly enough they'll get it themselves. They'll change their regimes. As bizarre as it sounds many people put democracy behind independence for their tribe, internal security or prosperity. We can see that the Irish over history have often preferred home grown thugs like De Valera, Haughey and perhaps tommorow Adams to perfectly decent British politicians. Baldwin may have been a nicer man but his happy-clappy religious views and his rather educated (if not quite cut glass) English accent were worse than any terror mongering or incipient fascism.



Which brings me to my final observation. Democracy, if it is to be kept, has to be earned. The same goes for liberty and free markets. The arab world may settle down to some stable western like constitutional order, but it won't do it if it's imposed. And to be frank with the present mood on the Arab street do we really think that the West won't simply impose Sheikh Illsellyouallmyoil or General Bidableloony?