For the Love of God, STOP Standing with Israel

by Jeff Godley

My Facebook feed has been inundated in the last week with posts expressing support for Israel.

Of all the well-intentioned-yet-hopelessly-misguided political sentiments out there, "Stand with Israel" is among the worst. Westerners should not be standing with Israel; nor should they should be standing with Palestine. Westerners should be staying out of this conflict altogether and stop trying to impose their own will on affairs in the Middle East.

Here are a few reasons why you should stop "Standing with Israel."

1. It makes the situation worse. 

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that Israel really is "the good guy" and Palestine really is "the bad guy." If Palestine really is committing unprovoked aggression against Israeli civilians, is having leaders from all the most powerful nations publicly state that they stand against Palestine likely to make the Palestinians see reason? Or is it more likely that this will simply make them desperate and lead them to redouble their efforts? This is hardly a fair question; a dangerous animal when cornered is more dangerous still - so why are we in such a rush to force Palestine into a corner?

2. It promotes entangling alliances

Idle words and political posturing are bad enough on their own. However, if recent history is any indication, expressions of political commitment may all-too-easily escalate to military commitment. Politicians who trumpet that they "Stand with Israel" may soon have their bluff called and asked to put their troops where their mouth is.

The conflict between over the Holy Land has been ongoing since the 7th Century. Do we truly believe that this time if we just send some people with guns into the region we will achieve lasting peace? Every time the West marches into the Middle East to "keep peace" they create more chaos and bloodshed. Even if our motives were pure each time, at what point will learn from our mistakes and admit that maybe, just maybe, our presence in the region will NOT make the situation any better?

3. It decreases security at home 

Westerners have been sold the bald-faced lie that terrorist attacks against Western nations are because terrorists "hate us for our freedoms." The truth is, terrorism is retaliation for the West's decades-long political and military intervention into the Middle East. Indeed, such "hippie" "peacenik" organizations as the CIA and the 9/11 commission have identified "blowback" (the politically correct way of saying "they hate us because we won't leave them alone") as a primary cause of the attacks of September 11th.

If China decided that it wanted to install a leader in Canada who was "friendly to the East" or if Russia invaded the U.S to "make the world safe for dictatorship," I imagine the idea would not sit entirely well with the citizens of those countries. But that is precisely what the Western world has done in the Middle East for the better part of a century. They hate us because we try to rule their countries in a way that best suits us. And we wonder why they attack us.

Intervening in the Middle East does not make Israel safe, and it certainly doesn't make us safe either.

4. It is bad for Christians in Palestine

Many of those who are "standing with Israel" are professing Christians, who invoke the idea that the Jews are "God's people" to justify their support of Israel. If so, what about God's "other" people - the many Christians in the Middle East?

Fact: there are far more Palestinian Christians than their are Israeli Christians. Fact: Palestinian Christians are not well-treated. Fact: every time conflict between Israel and Palestine breaks out in earnest, Christians are persecuted even more heavily. By "standing with Israel" Christians are choosing to stand against their brothers and sisters in Palestine.

The better path: non-intervention. 

As long as Western nations continue choosing sides in border disputes that do not involve them, war will be the daily reality for countless millions of people. If we truly take pity on the victims of war, we must accept responsibility for our own part in creating that reality - by interfering in international disputes we provoke war, we make war worse and we keep wars going.

Ron Paul said it best: the West serves foreign nations best when it stops inserting itself into their affairs. Be friends to other nations, trade freely with them, take no sides in any of their conflicts, and set an example of peace. That is how we ought to treat Palestine. If we won't stop provoking other nations, why should they? 

The Problem of Depravity: Why Human Evil is Not a Case for Minarchism

Anand, the proprietor of this blog, is on a hiatus from writing. In his absence, he has agreed to allow me, Jeff Godley, to continue writing content of my own. 

In one sense, the gap between libertarian minarchism and libertarian anarchism is negligible: both groups generally agree on major policy issues, such as ending the wars, ending the Fed, stopping the drug war, and getting the government out of education and healthcare.

Yet the way the two groups communicate, in another sense they are very far apart, indeed.

I don't intend this to be yet another "anarchists are right, minarchists are wrong" post. Time enough for that later. My goal here is to help the two camps debate in good faith, and to ensure both groups are making the strongest case possible for their positions. If our goal is the pursuit of truth, neither anarchist nor minarchist will be well served by endlessly repeating bad arguments.

To that end, I want to take a look at a common minarchist objection to an anarchist society: the problem of depravity. It usually takes this form:

Anarchism may work in theory, but it is not for the real world; men are not angels. Some form of government is necessary to maintain order among people, stop invading armies, and apprehend violent criminals. Government is a necessary evil. 

The problem with this argument is not it's inaccurate portrayal of humankind - no anarchist, after all, denies that men are not angels - but rather that its application is completely arbitrary. It takes a true statement ("men are not angels") and uses it to object to anarchism while ignoring the fact that the same argument is just as true of their own position.

When an anarchist challenges the minarchist, arguing that the "men are not angels" standard applies to those who are in government, the minarchist typically replies along these lines:

That is why the citizens must exercise eternal vigilance over the government; that is why we need to elect good leaders; that is why we have checks and balances; that is why we have need to follow the Constitution. 

Perhaps that is true; but the minarchist is arbitrarily choosing not to apply the "men are not angels" standard here. "Men are not angels" is supposedly anarchism's kryptonite - but only because minarchists fail to apply the standard consistently to their own position. If these sinful men are not be fit to govern themselves, how is it that they are fit to keep watch over government, judge who is a "good" leader, institute and uphold checks and balances and write and enforce constitutions?

If we accept the minarchist standard as applied to anarchism, we have to say that - since there is no ultimate guarantee that men can or will exercise any of these duties faithfully - men are just as unfit to be part of a minarchist order as they are to be part of an anarchist one.

The point is this: human depravity is a problem for every legal system. Every time Person A devises a system of legal order, whether it is centralized or polycentric, forced or voluntary, Person B can (quite correctly), raise the objection "how do we know that the people providing the order will do so properly?!?" So Person A devises a mechanism by which the legal consumers can ensure the best quality from the legal producers. Then Person B can object, "how do we know that the people responsible for this mechanism will do so properly?!?" So then Person A......

This kind of reductio ad infinitum is possible no matter what legal system one argues. Pointing it out is not a good argument, since it applies equally well to both sides of the debate. As long as the human will is involved in your legal system, there is the strong possibility it will fail, and fail miserably. There exist no iron-clad guarantees of perfection in any legal system. The point is not "men are not angels; therefore minarchism." Neither is the point "men are not angels; therefore anarchism." Rather, men are not angels; therefore... nothing at all.

Anarchists and minarchists need not always agree, and debate between the two camps helps clarify what we believe about government - a necessary and inevitable evil? a boon to humanity? or a destructive parasite with no justification? This is a valid question and one worth debating.

But in this debate not all arguments are created equal. Minarchists do not help their case by applying an arbitrary standard of human depravity. They should take care, lest they fall into their own trap.

Abortion and the Non-Aggression Principle: A Reply to A Pro-Life Libertarian

By Jeff Godley

Brandon Craig is the creator of a Facebook page entitled “Non-Aggression Principle Against Abortion” (NAPAA). The page is intended to persuade that abortion is an act of aggression against an unborn human being, and therefore is not permissible according to libertarianism.

I think this is an admirable effort; as libertarians, our opinion on all issues must be informed by the non-aggression principle (hereafter "NAP") - or else we are not really libertarians. And Mr. Craig’s claim, if true, is certainly a slam-dunk case against abortion. If abortion ipso facto violates the NAP, than no further discussion of the legitimacy of abortion is needed among libertarian circles. 

However, in a recent post at the NAPAA page, Mr. Craig made his argument against a competing attempt to reconcile the NAP and abortion - evictionism (view the whole post here). Mr. Craig objections to evictionism and positive case for his own views reveal what I believe to be several flaws in his reasoning, which I would like to address over the course of several posts.

In this first entry, I want to show that Mr. Craig is not being consistent in his appeal to the NAP when he argues against eviction. He states his thesis on evictionism as follows: “I do not even think eviction is morally permissible.” This subtle change in criteria casts some doubt on his argument. His initial claim is that abortion violates the non-aggression principle, yet he is now seeking to prove that eviction immoral. These two claims are vastly different in scope.

The NAP is but a small subset of morality. It is one thing to say "abortion is immoral". But if abortion is immoral, that does not in any way imply that it violates the NAP. It is possible even to be a wretched, immoral monster and NOT violate the NAP. 

People have the legal right (i.e. a negative right derived from the NAP) to shoot up with heroin and pay other people for sex. That does not mean that these actions are moral, or that anyone should condone them. It does however, means that our response to them cannot be one of force. That is all the NAP ever implies. 

The NAP does not address whether you should or should not shoot someone who breaks into your home. It only tells you that you have a legal right to do so - or, more to the point, that no one ought to force you NOT to shoot the intruder. Similarly, the NAP does not address whether you should or should not get an abortion. It only specifies what the legal ramifications ought to be if you make the decision to abort. 

This is not a semantic difference. It is fundamental to libertarian philosophy that we keep crystal-clear the distinction between the strict negative legal rights implied by the NAP, and all other positive obligations which may be placed on us by other aspects of moral theory. 

Yet Mr. Craig cannot seem to maintain this fundamental distinction in his argument. To respond to the common evictionist analogy of trespassing, he offers this counter-analogy: “Imagine it is winter time and it is 0 degrees outside. Now lets say I am paralyzed from the waste down and you invite me over to your house. You wheel me in and then once I am there you tell me to leave. Since I am not able to leave, I do not move. You tell me I am trespassing and I still do not move because I am not capable of it….For the eviction argument all you do is wheel me out into the 0 degree weather and I freeze to death. That would be what eviction is like.”

As an evictionist, I do not quibble with this analogy. I do not need to, because in the analogy the person wheeling the cripple into the cold has not violated the NAP!  Trespass has nothing to do with the intent of the trespasser, nor with their ability to leave. It has to do with the will of the person who owns the property. If a person is not welcome, they are by definition a trespasser. Their reason for being there is irrelevant; the owner’s reason for wanting them gone is also irrelevant. Most of all, the trespasser’s ability to leave or the difficulties they may have once they do are not relevant as far the NAP is concerned. 

In this analogy, Mr. Craig is not appealing to the NAP at all - he is simply appealing to our moral outrage at the monster who would cast a person into certain death. Monster though they may be, according to the NAP this person is not a criminal; they have committed no aggression, they have merely revoked permission for another person’s use of their property, as is their right. There is nothing invalid about the analogy; it simply does not imply was Mr. Craig believes it does. 

In abandoning his thesis that “abortion violates the NAP” in favour of the argument that “abortion is immoral”, Mr. Craig has ceased to argue as a libertarian and instead argued as an ethicist. In that regard, I support his efforts. I too have ethical problems with abortion; I too believe life begins at conception, and that every life, no matter how small, ought to be preserved.

But as a libertarian, I cannot condone the confusion of making an immoral choice, even one that harms another, with violating the NAP. The first in no way implies the second. Mr. Craig does a disservice both to liberty and to his own pro-life views by his imprecision. I urge him to do better. 

[Note from Anand: I think Jeff Godley has made an interesting and well-written case for the "evictionist" position, which means evicting the pre-birth fetus without killing it. While I am personally more inclined to the pro-life position, I believe Jeff thoughtfully reconciled the argument that abortion is morally impermissible and that it doesn't violate the non-aggression principle. I believe that one can hold the "evictionist" position without believing that abortion is moral, for evictionism makes no moral statement about the abortion itself; it only argues that abortion doesn't violate rights and thus shouldn't be criminalized).

A Plea to Young Activists - Embrace Liberty

A Plea to Young Activists—Embrace Liberty 

by

Jeff Godley

Introduction from Anand Venigalla, chief host: I had recently gotten a Facebook account, and in my encounters I stumbled upon a young Christian anarcho-capitalist by the name of Jeff Godley. I talked with him through private mail regarding many interesting things, and when I mentioned my blog, he asked if he could be part of it, as he has hosted other blogs as well. In this article, Jeff argues that young activists should embrace the libertarian philosophy, explaining why he finds libertarianism to be better than statism.

I hope that everyone who reads this blog will welcome Jeff. May his writing inspire us. :)

University students and young adults often find themselves swept up in the current of political activism. Having left home, often for the first time, we find a new freedom to think our own thoughts and embrace our own beliefs. These beliefs often lead us to actively pursue social, political or economic change through activism.

This new life is not all roses, however. We soon discover that not everyone shares our concern over the issues we have chosen. Some of our peers may disagree with our positions; others may simply not share our enthusiasm. These experiences can bring us into conflict with our peers, and leaves many of us wondering, is there any issue on which we can all agree? Is there any issue which can truly unite all of us?

I submit that there is one, and only one, issue on which can bring all young activists can stand in solidarity. That issue is liberty.

Liberty simply means the right of every individual to self-determination. I choose my words very carefully here: liberty is an individual right, not a right which is given to members of a specific group. One group of people cannot have “more liberty” than another, for liberty does not come from groups. And the right of liberty is one to self-determination - it is the right of a person to make their own choices regarding their life, their actions and their possessions. 

The truth of liberty may seem obvious, perhaps even not worth mentioning. Yet liberty is under attack everywhere, and often political activists, young or old, are partly to blame. Pick any contemporary political issue - environmentalism, economics, poverty, crime, drugs, gay marriage, to name a few - and you will the majority of people within the debate believe the solution is to take away the right of a certain group to make their own choices concerning their own lives, actions or possessions. Instead of liberty, they embrace coercion.

My plea to young activists is this: do not fall into this temptation. Do not seek to coerce others into accepting your agenda. Pursue whatever social change seems best to you; but above all other goals, pursue liberty.  

There are three reasons why I believe liberty ought to be considered the one issue which unites all activists.  

First, all of us became activists through liberty. We were each afforded the freedom to think our own thoughts, to embrace our own beliefs, to act in the way we thought best. Why, then, do we seek to deny this same freedom to others? In order to remain true to our own political goals, we must seek the same liberty for others that we claim for ourselves. 

Second, the complexity of social issues demands liberty. Coercion may seem the more attractive option for achieving change. After all, not everyone will agree that change is necessary - how do we deal with these people? Perhaps it is best simply to force them to comply with our demands.

The problem is that coercion, by definition, insists on uniformity. Coercion presumes that there is only one viable solution to a problem. By forcing others to accept our solution, we hinder social change. The great driver of human progress is innovation: changes in the way we approach problems and the means we use to address them are what ultimately lead to real, lasting change for the better. Science is the easiest example: where would we be if the great inventors of ages past had been told to embrace another person’s plan instead of creating their own? Social change is brought about not by those who conform, but those are free to transform. 

Third, only liberty ensures that social change is permanent. Coercion as a solution can never bring lasting change. If we choose to bring change by forcing others to conform, we have no choice except to continue coercing them forever. Coercion does not change hearts or minds; in fact, it tends to do the opposite. The more we seek to force others, the less likely it becomes that they embrace our cause of their own free will. After all, if our agenda was so great, why would we feel the need to force it on anyone? So the change lasts only as long as the group in charge remains stronger and more belligerent than the group being forced to comply. 

Some might object, “I can live with this situation of perpetual coercion, so long as my group remains strongest.” The problem with this is twofold. First, you cannot guarantee that your group will ever remain strongest, and if ever you lose your grasp on power, all your work can be lost in an instant. Second, any mechanism you put in place to maintain power over others can one day be used against you. If that should happen, the change you lobbied and legislated and voted so hard for could be permanently lost.

Liberty, on the other hand, does not seek to coerce others, but rather to persuade; it does not seek to make solutions mandatory, but rather to make them attractive; it does not seek to remove all alternatives but always seeks to innovate and find a better solution. Liberty, and not political coercion, is the true path to real and lasting social change. 

How, then, do we pursue liberty in our activism? 

Simply this way: instead of seeking a State-enforced solution to a problem, seek a voluntary one. It has become so common-place to think that the State is the engine of social change that this may suggestion might appear outlandish. Yet consider the abysmal record of state intervention. Since the 1950’s governments the world over have thrown vast amounts of money toward alleviating poverty. Government spending on poverty continues to climb, but so does the poverty rate. At some point, we have to ask: how many dollars will finally tip the scales? which increase will be the final one? If state intervention was the cure for poverty, surely we would have seen some qualitative improvement as result of the last 50 years of spending?

Poverty is just one example of an important issue which is wrongly delegated to government. The consequence of this is not simply a lack of improvement of poverty, but a lack of innovation. We still use the same methods to combat poverty that were in use 60 years ago - because that is the result of coercing others to embrace the solution we think best. How much better off today’s poor be if, instead of demanding a coerced solution from the state, activists had spent their energy seeking a creative and voluntary solution, and persuaded others to take part?

The solution to social problems does not lie in greater intervention of the state, not in enforced conformity. Quite the opposite, what is needed is liberty - the freedom of people to innovate, to create, and to do so without having another’s will imposed on them. In the short term, yes, this may mean that many will refuse to take up the cause. But it is unnecessary that a majority of people embrace the cause in order for a solution to be found - all it takes is a few motivated individuals dedicated to finding the right innovation.

Only the change that is chosen voluntarily will last. As tempting as government solutions can be, the state can never foster sweeping social change. Liberty does not demand that we abandon all of our other causes; it does however, demand a radical change in how we pursue them. Thus, my final plea is this: whatever cause you advocate for, embrace liberty. Persuade, do not coerce; pursue a voluntary solution, not an imposed one. Seek change that will truly impact the world for the better in a real, lasting way.

Liberty is the issue that must unite us all.