TGIF: The US Empire's 72-Year War on Iran

The likely temporary Israel-Iran ceasefire notwithstanding, if you need proof of how despicable Donald Trump is, consider this:

When asked last week if he would ask Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to stop bombing Iran, which had already said it would stop retaliating for Israeli attacks, Trump said, “I think it’s very hard to make that request right now. If somebody is winning, it’s a little bit harder to do that [than] if somebody’s losing. But we’re ready, willing and able, and we’ve been speaking to Iran. Israel is doing well, in terms of war, and… Iran is doing less well. It’s a little bit hard to get somebody to stop.”

Of course, Trump could have done more than request. He could have told Netanyahu that the transfer of American tax money, bombs, missiles, planes, arms, and spare parts would end at once if he did not stop the war. Trump did not do that. Instead, he made light of the question. That's despicable.

To say the least, Trump has a thing about Iran. That is likely explained in part by the 1979 Islamic revolution, which overthrew the American- and Israeli-backed dictator-monarch, and the taking of hostages in the American embassy. However, history did not begin in 1979. The U.S. government had helped abuse the Iranians long before that. A more suitable date on which to begin the story is August 15, 1953. That is when the CIA and British operatives ousted the democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, and restored the autocratic Shah of Iran to power. Mosaddegh, among other things, had nationalized the oil industry to the detriment of British oil interests.

It so happens that in 2014, when the Obama administration was negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran (the JCPOA) and congressional Democrats and Republicans were trying to undermine the interim agreement that had been agreed to, my old friend Marc Joffe and I wrote an article in the Guardian detailing the U.S. government's long abuse of Iran. Here are highlights from that article.

Congressional hostility toward Iran is rooted in a black-and-white worldview that runs as follows: the United States and Israel are liberal democracies that defend individual rights and human dignity, whereas Iran is a despotic theocratic regime that sponsors terrorism and would do anything within its power to wipe Israel off the map.

The world is rarely black and white, and conflicts are usually not resolved until each side understands the other's point of view. With that in mind, it may be worth pondering some inconvenient truths that would cause a fair-minded Iranian to doubt congressional wisdom.

The assertion that US policies are driven by a concern for human rights is not consistent with the history of US-Iran relations.

That may have been (and still may be) news to many Americans, but it should not have been. It wasn't news to the Iranians. The U.S. government has been aligned with brutal regimes all over the world for a long time. You can look it up. No need to go through the larger record here. The history of U.S.-Iran relations makes the point.

As the CIA now admits, [the U.S. government] overthrew a democratically elected Iranian government in 1953 and restored Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi to power. For the next quarter century, until the 1979 Islamic revolution, the US government supported the autocratic Shah—whose regime also enjoyed close relations with Israel.

The Shah's secret police—Savak—became increasingly brutal, ultimately detaining without trial and torturing tens of thousands of Iranian citizens. By the 1970s, the regime's brutality had been well documented in the west.

In 1976 the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva reported: "There is abundant evidence showing the systematic use of impermissible methods of psychological and physical torture of political suspects during interrogation."

Yet successive US administrations supported the Shah until the very end and then shielded him from prosecution after his overthrow.

Not only did the United States impose and support a regime that tortured innocent Iranians, there is also evidence that the CIA assisted Savak. A 1980 report on CBS's 60 Minutes documented close ties between these two organizations.

Joffe and I pointed out that this "adds perspective to the US embassy hostage-taking drama that stretched over the last 444 days of the Carter administration. Many in Iran believed that US embassy staff had aided and abetted Savak and were thus fair targets for retaliation. One need not condone the hostage-taking to understand that it was not merely an unprovoked, sadistic act." The 66 American embassy personnel were not seized by militant students until months after the revolution, when President Jimmy Carter admitted the Shah to the United States for medical treatment and presumably political refuge. The students were backed by the new ruler, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

That was not the end of the story. Americans might have forgotten the U.S. role in Iraq's savage war on Iran.

It is now well known that the Reagan administration helped Iraq with "intelligence and military support" after Saddam Hussein attacked Iran in 1980 and launched a brutal eight-year war. "[I]t was the express policy of Reagan to ensure an Iraqi victory in the war, whatever the cost," Shane Harris and Matthew M Aid wrote in Foreign Policy magazine last year. With the administration's knowledge,

Note well: "Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian forces, killing thousands. Declassified government records show that the Reagan administration, represented by special envoy Donald Rumsfeld, helped Saddam's military produce and deploy these awful weapons of mass destruction, which included biological as well as chemical agents."

Got that? The U.S. government provided WMD to Saddam Hussein for use against Iran. Iran's ruler refused to permit his military to produce chemical weapons for retaliation. (In 2003 the U.S. military invaded Iraq supposedly over WMD that Saddam had gotten rid of years earlier.)

To add injury to injury:

In 1988, while the war was in progress, a US warship, the USS Vincennes, shot down an Iranian civilian aircraft over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 aboard, including 66 children. The captain of the ship said it was under assault by Iranian gunboats at the time and that the Airbus A300 was misidentified as an attacking F-14 Tomcat. Iran countered that flight 655 left Iran the same time every day. Witnesses with Italy's navy and on a nearby US warship said that at the time it was shot down, the airliner was climbing. In 1996 the United States settled an Iranian claim against it at the International Court of Justice for $131.8m. While it was appropriate for the US government to accept responsibility, it could not make up for the Iranian people's losses: more innocent lives were snuffed out by this attack than were killed in the Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland.

President George H. W. Bush, however, refused to apologize for the tragedy. As Bush I put it: "I'll never apologize for the United States of America, ever. I don't care what the facts are." Sensitive, yes?

The new century signaled no diminution in American belligerence toward Iran—not even after the 9/11 attacks, which presented an opportunity for rapprochement with the Islamic Republic.

Despite Iran's efforts to cooperate with the United States after 9/11 (the Shiite regime opposed both the Sunni Taliban and al-Qaida in next-door Afghanistan to the east), President [George W.] Bush in 2002 included Iran as a member of the "axis of evil" along with North Korea and Iraq. The following year, the United States overthrew Saddam Hussein and occupied Iraq—placing US forces on both Iran's western and eastern flanks. Finally, in 2011, Iranian forces captured a US surveillance drone that was flying well within its air space—about 140 miles from the Afghanistan border.

Thus, "far from being innocent, US policy toward Iran appears downright hostile when viewed from the other side. Rather than continuing to tell ourselves tales, it is time we embrace the truth about our relations with Iran, which even American and Israeli intelligence agencies say is not building a nuclear weapon. We have a historic chance to end the destructive cold war with Iran, which, like it or not, will remain a major power in the Middle East. It would be a tragedy if Congress were to sabotage this opportunity."

Congressional obstruction notwithstanding, Obama, working with the other Security Council members, Germany, and the rest of the European Union, finalized the nuclear agreement with Iran, which imposed an additional inspections regime along with other restrictions and seemed to take war off the table. In return, Western sanctions were to be lifted, and Iran was to rejoin the world economy. In the 1990s, Iran's second and current "Supreme Leader," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a fatwa forbidding the procurement, production, or use of nuclear weapons.

Unfortunately, Trump tore up the agreement in 2018. President Joe Biden did precious little to revive his old boss's deal, but Trump presumably would have torn that up too when he returned to office this year. The U.S. government's shameful record concerning Iran continues to haunt the world. It's not over yet, no matter what Trump says.

TGIF: This Is America First

The Trump battle cry is America First. Revealingly, it is not Americans First. The former signifies, implicitly if not explicitly, national collectivism; the latter, individualism. To the extent Trump has a political worldview, it is not individualist. We cannot doubt that.

All of this is abundantly clear in his Iran policy, which is not just about Israel and Iran. This is not new. His seeming antiwar stance was an opportunistic political ploy. The Republican and Democratic wars of the 21st century were palpable fiascos, so of course he had to distance himself from them if he was to become the president. If he is good at anything, it is in finding his opponent's weakness. But what he says bears no necessary relation to what he believes.

Trump did not originally oppose America's wars. In a 2016 debate against his Republican primary opponents, he said George W. Bush had lied the country into war against Iraq, which is true. But the very next day, when confronted by an old army veteran in South Carolina, he slunk away from the charge, presumably so as not to offend the vet. In 2011, when the U.S.-led NATO assault on Libya was pending, Trump told Howard Stern that since "we" have troops in the neighborhood, they might as well take out Col. Qadaffi. Those are not good credentials for an antiwar candidate. I said from the start that he was not to be trusted.

No one should have expected America First to be linked to the freedom of individuals. Trump could have quoted John F. Kennedy's famous "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." For Trump, after himself, the nation is the only important unit. His foreign policy is of a piece with his mercurial yet steady protectionism and anti-immigrationism.

So we should not be surprised by his use of Israel to destroy Iran, which he has an obvious distaste for. It was clear in what he was saying for months before the immoral attack. The offer to negotiate over Iran's civilian nuclear program was a sham since it was always accompanied by the threat of military force. His cancellation of the solid Iranian nuclear deal during his first term was an unmistakable signal of what was to come when he thought the moment was right. As early as 2011 Trump tweeted that "America should not be pressuring Israel to show restraint against Iran." What more did we need to know?

What about MAGA? We'll have to see what happens, but I will be surprised by a wholesale jumping from the Good Ship Trump. Where would they go? Many will probably defer to Trump's claim that the imaginary Iranian bomb is a threat to America. Will MAGA follow Carlson and Bannon, or will they stick with El Presidente? We'll see.

If you have lingering doubts about Trump's honor, listen to him:

“Well, considering that I’m the one that developed ‘America First,’ and considering that the term wasn’t used until I came along [so wrong], I think I’m the one that decides [what it means]. For those people who say they want peace—you can’t have peace if Iran has a nuclear weapon. So for all of those wonderful people who don’t want to do anything about Iran having a nuclear weapon—that’s not peace.”

Who did MAGA think would be deciding, Laura Loomer and Marjorie Taylor Greene? (I don't want them to do the deciding either.)

By the way, no one really thinks Iran has or has even wanted nuclear weapons. That includes American and Israeli intelligence and the International Atomic Energy Agency. The ayatollah issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons as contrary to Islam long ago. That's inconvenient for Trump, so he declared that he does not care what his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, thinks.

Yet no one doubts that Israel has such weapons. Unlike Iran, it has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and thus is not subject to international inspections.

Also by the way, the surest method to encourage Iran to build a nuke is to attack the country. Nothing would be more effective than a nuclear weapon to deter a future attack, as North Korea's Kim Jong Un knows and Col. Qadaffi learned too late.

Finally, you might think someone who threw around the phrase America First would show some respect for constitutional limits on his power. But we're talking about Trump. He recognizes no limits. 

Be Careful What You Ask for

You wanted America First. You got it.

Did you think it wouldn't be conceived in national collectivist terms?

The clue's in the name. It's America First, not Americans First.

Phony Noninterventionists

Call me naive, but I increasingly suspect that much of today's "left" is not antiwar on principle. Rather, it's anti-American war because, in its view, America (not just the government) is rotten to the core: bourgeois, racist, patriarchal, heteronormative, blah, blah, blah. If left-wingers (Marxists, heavy or light) were in charge, they'd likely support foreign intervention under the right conditions, e.g., fighting apartheid in South Africa (which indeed was bad) or Pinochet (also bad) in Chile, or saving Maduro (bad too) from a middle-class uprising in Venezuela. In the 1960s and 70s the so-called radical left favored the communists in the Vietnam War. It was not just against U.S. intervention, as many libertarians were. In the 1970s Noam Chomsky supported Vietnam's intervention in Cambodia; he also favored leaving some U.S. troops in Syria. I note that Max Blumenthal has lately called for intervention against Israel (bad). (By whom I don't know.)

If the left is interventionist at home, then why wouldn't it also be interventionist abroad? It has no principled objection to government power. It just wants aggressive force put to "good" use, such as managing other people's peaceful market relations.

Libertarians are the only comprehensive noninterventionists. The "left" may want the libertarians to tag along to demonstrate that its opposition to the U.S. empire is broad-based. That would make libertarians its useful idiots. I prefer another role, as antiwar libertarians. But deep down, the "left" likely thinks the libertarians are knowing or misguided shills for what they disdainfully call "corporate America"—which they are not. The goal is freedom.

Maybe we libertarians should be called Compnons.

TGIF: Magna Carta Day

I wrote this in 2015 to mark the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, or Great Charter. In light of current events—featuring a president who aspires to unchecked power, despairs of the rule of law, and has discussed suspending the right of habeas corpus—the posting of this slightly modified version seemed appropriate. Magna Carta is remembered, somewhat fuzzily, for reining in the power of the government, for substituting the rule of law for the arbitrary rule of a man, and for a faltering step toward a decent  system of justice (presumption of innocence, burden of proof, trial by jury, and so on.) Happy Magna Carta Day this Sunday!

Sunday, June 15, is the 810th anniversary of the day in 1215 that rotten King John put his seal to the sheet of parchment known as Magna Carta at Runnymede in England. It wasn’t the first charter issued by an English monarch pledging to subordinate his power to the law (custom), yet it has had a staying power like no other in the imagination of people worldwide. This is especially ironic when you consider that at John’s request, Pope Innocent III nullified the charter just 11 days later and excommunicated the rebellious barons who forced it on him. (Further ironies: the charter had been drafted by the learned archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, whom the Pope had selected over John’s objection, and the charter affirmed the autonomy of the church.)

With the nullification, the civil war resumed between king and landholders who had grown tired of his taxes for wars in France (which he had lost along with vast properties) and other impositions. In the end, however, the barons more or less triumphed, as John’s successors, starting with his nine-year-old son, reissued the charter, albeit in revised editions. The principle that an English king was not a law unto himself would stand. While Magna Carta did not immediately raise the curtain on a libertarian, or even classical liberal, future, it may be said to have gotten the ball rolling, even if that was no part of anyone’s intention.

As I've mentioned before, the story of Magna Carta is instructive precisely because of its unintended consequences. This has been long noted, for example, by John Millar (1735-1801), a student of Adam Smith, a figure of the Scottish Enlightenment in his own right, and author of the multivolume  An Historical View of the English Government, From the Settlement of the Saxons in Britain to the Revolution in 1688 (1787). The judge and literary critic Francis Jeffrey wrote in 1804 that Millar’s “leading principle” was that institutions evolve “spontaneously from the situation of the society.” “Instead of gazing, therefore, with stupid amazement, on the singular and diversified appearances of human manners and institutions,” Jeffrey wrote, “Mr. Millar taught his pupils to refer them all to one simple principle, and to consider them as necessary links in the great chain which connects civilized with barbarous society.” (From Mark Salber Phillips’s introduction to Liberty Fund’s 2006 edition of Millar’s book.)

Regarding Magna Carta, in book 2, chapter 1, Millar wrote, “The character of John … is universally known, as a compound of cowardice, tyranny, sloth, and imprudence. This infatuated king was involved in three great struggles, from which it would have required the abilities of his father [Henry II], or of his great grandfather [Henry I, son of William the Conqueror], to extricate himself with honour; but which, under his management, could hardly fail to terminate in ruin and disgrace.”

Those struggles were against:  the challengers to his land holdings in France, Pope Innocent III, and the rebellious barons. After his humiliating losses in France, John made peace with the pope—accepting Langton at Canterbury and, in Millar’s words, “surrendering his kingdom to the pope, and submitting to hold it as a feudatory of the church of Rome.”

But his troubles were only beginning. Millar wrote:

The contempt which this abject submission of their sovereign could not fail to excite in the breast of his subjects, together with the indignation raised by various acts of tyranny and oppression of which he was guilty, produced at length a combination of his barons, who demanded a redress of grievances, and the restoration of their ancient laws. As this appeared the most favourable conjuncture which had occurred, since the Norman conquest, for limiting the encroachments of prerogative; the nobility and principal gentry were desirous of improving it to the utmost; and their measures were planned and conducted with equal moderation and firmness.

John would have none of it, and he moved to quash the rebellion of the barons. “He endeavoured by menaces to intimidate them; and, by delusive promises, to lull them asleep, in order to gain time for breaking their confederacy.” When that failed, “he made application to the pope as his liege lord; and called upon his holiness to protect the rights of his vassal.”

War broke out, and the king, “deserted by almost all his followers,” saw the ranks of the rebels grow.

All further opposition, therefore, became impracticable. At Runnemede, a large meadow between Windsor and Staines; a place which has been rendered immortal in the page of the historian and in the song of the poet; was held that famous conference, when the barons presented, in writing, the articles of agreement upon which they insisted; and the king gave an explicit consent to their demands. The articles were then reduced into the form of a charter; to which the king affixed his great seal; and which, though it was of the same nature with the charters obtained from the preceding monarchs, yet, as it was obtained with difficulties which created more attention, and as it is extended to a greater variety of particulars, has been called, by way of distinction, the great charter of our liberties.

Millar claimed that “feudal superiority of the crown, over the nobles” had been the rule since William the Conqueror, so “it would probably have been a vain project to attempt the abolition of it.” Then what was the point of the gathering at Runnymede on June 15, 1215?

The chief aim of the nobility, therefore, in the present charter, was to prevent the sovereign from harassing and oppressing them by the undue exercise of those powers, the effects of their feudal subordination, with which he was understood to be fully invested….

The jurisdiction exercised by the king, as a feudal superior, was another source of oppression, for which a remedy was thought requisite; and several regulations were introduced, in order to facilitate the distribution of justice, to prevent the negligence, as well as to restrain the corruption, of judges: in particular, it was declared, that no count or baron should be fined unless by the judgment of his peers, and according to the quality of the offence.

Millar then made an intriguing point about Magna Carta’s application beyond the barons' concerns:

While the barons were thus labouring to secure themselves against the usurpations of the prerogative, they could not decently refuse a similar security to their own vassals; and it was no less the interest of the king to insist upon limiting the arbitrary power of the nobles, than it was their interest to insist upon limiting that of the crown. The privileges inserted in this great transaction were, upon this account, rendered more extensive, and communicated to persons of a lower rank, than might otherwise have been expected. Thus it was provided that justice should not be sold, nor unreasonably delayed, to any person. That no freeman should be imprisoned, nor his goods be distrained, unless by the judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land; and that even a villein should not, by any fine, be deprived of his carts and implements of husbandry. [Emphasis added.]

I think that king and barons were aware of the fact, articulated by Étienne de La Boétie, that since the few rule the many, the ruled have it in their power to overthrow their rulers. Therefore, “liberal” measures are sometimes necessary to pacify the many to keep them from having revolutionary thoughts or to keep particular groups (such as the rising merchant class) from shifting allegiance to another contender for power. More often than not, acts of political kindness are the result of such motives.

Thus,

It is worthy of notice, however, that though this great charter was procured by the power and influence of the nobility and dignified clergy, who, it is natural to suppose, would be chiefly attentive to their own privileges; the interest of another class of people, much inferior in rank, was not entirely overlooked: I mean the inhabitants of the trading towns. It was declared, that no aid [tribute] should be imposed upon the city of London, unless with consent of the national council; and that the liberties and immunities of this, and of all the other cities and boroughs of the kingdom, should be maintained.... The insertion of such clauses must be considered as a proof that the mercantile people were beginning to have some attention paid to them; while the shortness of these articles, and the vague manner in which they are conceived, afford an evidence equally satisfactory, that this order of men had not yet risen to great importance. [Emphasis added.]

With the Great Seal of the king affixed, copies of Magna Carta were distributed throughout the country. But, Millar wrote, “nothing could be farther from [John’s] intentions, than to fulfil the conditions of the charter."

No sooner had he obtained a bull from the pope annulling that deed, and prohibiting both the king and his subjects from paying any regard to it, than, having secretly procured a powerful supply of foreign troops, he took the field, and began without mercy to kill and destroy, and to carry devastation throughout the estates of all those who had any share in the confederacy. The barons, trusting to the promises of the king, had rashly disbanded their followers; and being in no condition to oppose the royal army, were driven to the desperate measure of applying to Lewis, the son of the French monarch, and making him an offer of the crown. The death of John, in a short time after, happened opportunely to quiet these disorders, by transmitting the sovereignty to his son Henry the third, who was then only nine years of age.

Under the prudent administration of the earl of Pembroke, the regent, the young king, in the first year of his reign, granted a new charter of liberties, at the same time that the confederated barons were promised a perpetual oblivion for the past, in case they should now return to their allegiance.

There is much more to this story, of course. Suffice it to say here that Millar draws three broad conclusions from his account.

First, he saw significance in the fact that Magna Carta was not the only charter issued by a king; as noted, others had been issued before and were issued afterward. “Taking those charters, therefore, in connexion with one another, they seem to declare, in a clear and unequivocal manner, the general and permanent sense of the nation, with respect to the rights of the crown; and they ascertain, by express and positive agreement between the king and his subjects, those terms of submission to the chief magistrate...."

Second, contrary to “common opinion,” Millar wrote, “from the Norman conquest [1066] to the time of Edward the first [reign, 1272-1307]; while the barons were exerting themselves with so much vigour, and with so much apparent success, in restraining the powers of the crown, those powers were, notwithstanding, continually advancing.”

The repeated concessions made by the sovereign, had no farther effect than to prevent his authority from increasing so rapidly as it might otherwise have done. For a proof of this we can appeal to no better authority than that of the charters themselves; from which, if examined according to their dates, it will appear, that the nobility were daily becoming more moderate in their claims; and that they submitted, in reality, to a gradual extension of the prerogative; though, by more numerous regulations, they endeavoured to avoid the wanton abuses of it. Thus, by the great charter of Henry the third, the powers of the crown are less limited than by the charter of king John; and by this last the crown vassals abandoned some important privileges with which they were invested by the charter of Henry the first. [Emphasis added.]

If Magna Carta was a key moment in the West's advancement toward liberalism, the trajectory was neither straight nor smooth. But progress was undeniably made over the long haul.

Finally, we come to the law of unintended consequences. Millar says students of history “will easily see that the parties concerned in [the procurement “these great charters”] were not actuated by the most liberal principles; and that it was not so much their intention to secure the liberties of the people at large, as to establish the privileges of a few individuals.”

He summed up:

A great tyrant on the one side, and a set of petty tyrants on the other, seem to have divided the kingdom; and the great body of the people, disregarded and oppressed on all hands, were beholden for any privileges bestowed upon them, to the jealousy of their masters; who, by limiting the authority of each other over their dependants, produced a reciprocal diminution of their power. But though the freedom of the common people was not intended in those charters, it was eventually secured to them; for when the peasantry, and other persons of low rank, were afterwards enabled, by their industry, and by the progress of arts, to emerge from their inferior and servile condition, and to acquire opulence, they were gradually admitted to the exercise of the same privileges which had been claimed by men of independent fortunes; and found themselves entitled, of course, to the benefit of that free government which was already established. The limitations of arbitrary power, which had been calculated chiefly to promote the interest of the nobles, were thus, by a change of circumstances, rendered equally advantageous to the whole community as if they had originally proceeded from the most exalted spirit of patriotism. [Emphasis added.]

The power of apparent precedent worked in the common people’s favor; a small measure of liberty was parlayed into a larger measure, despite the efforts of the privileged classes.

When the commons, in a later period, were disposed to make farther exertions, for securing their natural rights, and for extending the blessings of civil liberty, they found it a singular advantage to have an ancient written record, which had received the sanction of past ages, and to which they could appeal for ascertaining the boundaries of the prerogative. This gave weight and authority to their measures; afforded a clue to direct them in the mazes of political speculation; and encouraged them to proceed with boldness in completing a plan, the utility of which had already been put to the test of experience. The regulations, indeed, of this old canon, agreeable to the simplicity of the times, were often too vague and general to answer the purposes of regular government; but, as their aim and tendency were sufficiently apparent, it was not difficult, by a proper commentary, to bestow upon them such expansion and accommodation as might render them applicable to the circumstances of an opulent and polished nation. [Emphasis added.]

Can classical liberals today roll back government power by appealing to "an ancient written record, which had received the sanction of past ages"? That is a tall order, considering who now reigns, but we must try, mustn't we?

(Learn more about Magna Carta at Liberty Fund.)

Benevolence

I don't understand why conventional moralists often see benevolence and self-interest as being at odds. Living--action in pursuit of life-sustaining ends, that is, of values--is a challenge, even a struggle. Success is not guaranteed. "There's many a slip 'twix cup and lip." So why wouldn't reasoning pursuers of self-interest view other beings who are similarly situated with favor? Egoists should rejoice over success stories. Examples of triumph in all constructive realms should inspire because they demonstrate that success is possible in this world. This is certainly the case in a positive-sum free-market society, in which entrepreneurs constantly push back the limits of scarcity. Remember what Ludwig von Mises wrote, "The fact that my fellow man wants to acquire shoes as I do, does not make it harder for me to get shoes, but easier." In a deep sense, one person's success is another person's encouragement to succeed. Ayn Rand understood this, especially in terms of art, but her nonfiction writing did not emphasize it in the context of human relations.

We should reject the conventional refrain that if you embrace the pursuit of self-interest, you are--at best--indifferent to other people beyond purely transactional considerations.

By the way, this goes toward answering the British moral sentimentalists, such as Adam Smith and David Hume, who argued that empathy is something additional to, and moderating of, "selfishness." I contend that it is not. It's entailed in egoism. Smith and Hume were bad empiricists, as Thomas Reid pointed out.

Egoists unite! You have nothing to lose but your guilt!

TGIF: On "Public Property"

A dubious theory held by some libertarians has been knocking about. It goes something like this:

The claim that government-controlled land is actually unowned—and thus not properly subject to government rulemaking—would lead to consequences that reasonable people would find abhorrent. Therefore, in the U.S. case, such land should be regarded as owned by Americans with the government as their representative. While privatization is the best course, it is unlikely to occur anytime soon. In the meantime, the government should make policy as though it were a private owner or the agent of private owners. For example, if the politicians think that private owners would want to restrict immigration, that is, keep them off the land, the politicians should do that.

Is government-held land owned or unowned? It is not a simple question. As Simon Guenzl reminds us, some of that land was obtained from its rightful owners by force through eminent domain. Those owners or their heirs could probably be identified. But much government-held land was obtained not by theft but through preemption. Since the government forbade and continues to forbid homesteading, the land has never had private owners. Hence, no owners could be identified. (The complicated matter of the Indians must be reserved for another day.) Guenzl thus distinguishes between state-claimed land and state-seized land.

Stolen land should not be regarded as unowned; it was taken from its owners. The government took it by force (even if it paid some cash), and now it is owned (controlled) by the government—but illegitimately.

What about the never-owned land? Is it unowned? Control is at the core of ownership. The government controls the land. Therefore, it makes more sense to regard it as illegitimately owned rather than as unowned. (How to privatize state-held land is not today's topic.)

Reasonable people will agree that the consequences of treating government-held land as unowned would be substantially negative. The homeless, drug-soaked, unsanitary encampments on public parks and sidewalks have degraded life in some "progressive" big cities. Responsible, self-supporting individuals and their families can't simply walk to shops and enjoy other amenities. That should not stand. Protest demonstrations have sometimes blocked major roads, impeding ambulances and the normal conduct of life.

We may thus regard the unowned status of government-held land as seriously problematic, and I am happy to reject it. The question, then, is: having rejected that status, must we prefer that the government make policy as though it were the private owner?

I'm not sure what that means, but I can't see how it would be possible under any interpretation. Sometimes it's said to mean that the government ought to act on behalf of the true private owners. "How would private owners want the land to be used?" I've already shown that much of the land never had owners. The state would have to imagine how private owners, had they existed, would have wanted the land to be used. But how can politicians and bureaucrats know that? Maybe those imaginary owners wouldn't want schools or libraries on their land.

With government-seized land, a similar problem would confront the policymakers. Moreover, why assume that all the dispossessed owners (if alive) would want the same thing? The socialist-calculation problem is relevant here. People don't really know what they will do until they confront alternatives, prices, and opportunity costs of particular circumstances. How arrogant for the politicians to presume to know what hypothetical people would want! How realistic is "the collectivist notion of the state [making policy] that emulates the market decisions and choices of the taxpayers?" Walter Block and Anthony Gregory write. Not very, I say.

A further problem plagues this approach. Along with the federal government, state, county, and local governments have seized land under eminent domain. Why should the federal government make policy for those lower levels of government, which would also be obliged to legislate on behalf of hypothetical owners? It's an all-around mess.

So where do we go from here? Again and alas, privatization is off the table for now. (How to privatize government assets is no easy question; thankfully, I don't have to deal with it today.)

Before answering my question, I'll raise a matter that is closely related: safety. Part of what governments at all levels have done is reserve to themselves the power to safeguard the people they rule. To be sure, governments endanger us all the time, but they also protect us in various ways, however ineptly. Some police activity protects innocent people from murderers, rapists, and thieves. Politicians have a (self-)interest in this. I remember a button that libertarians sold at conventions: "Don't Steal. Government Hates Competition." Officials will tend to want to discourage private criminals from attacking us if for no other reason than they want the booty for themselves. Plus, they want to be re-elected.

Since the government has forced itself on us as our protector, it seems obligated to carry out that function (in ways that don't further violate individual rights). Here's an imperfect analogy. A pilot friend with a small plane takes you on a flight. At 10,000 feet he informs you he's about to parachute home and leave the flying to you, whom he knows can't fly. (Some friend.) I submit that this would be a serious breach. The same with a surgeon who opens his patient's chest and then decides he'd rather be playing golf.

Similarly, if the government, without notice, closed all the police departments and courts without giving us a chance to form private protection agencies, we'd be in a right fix, especially the poorest, most vulnerable parts of town.

Thus, the government owes the taxpayers protection from private aggression. Among other things, its agents may properly keep public facilities free of real threats, for example, adult strangers using a bathroom in a public school. Further, the state is obligated to forbid aggressive interference with peaceful people who use the facilities as intended. Protest demonstrations that block streets are properly banned, not because of their views, but because others have a right to use the streets too. Noisy, grossly unwashed people may be excluded from public libraries. And so on. (As always, hard cases can arise.)

But assertions of state power that have objectives other than safe and appropriate use should not be allowed to sneak in under what I call the "nondisruption principle (NDP). Immigration control is an example. The general power to restrict immigration is unrelated to keeping "public" facilities safe and usable.

Concerning "public" property, then, we have two conflicting standards for how the government should behave. The first is that it should minimize its own aggression against non-aggressors, whoever they are, and permit the maximum peaceful use of "public" facilities as they were intended to be used. If you violate no one's rights, you're okay.

The second standard is that the government should seek to represent the hypothetical owners of currently government-held land. As we've seen, that is impossible. This standard is often invoked to justify restrictions on immigration, but it could easily license state aggression regarding drugs, guns, gambling, prostitution, and religion, restrictions libertarians rightly oppose. There is no limiting principle. Once you allow the standard to control immigration, you have no grounds to oppose it in other matters. The second standard is tantamount to assuming the government legitimately owns all the property it controls.

Defenders of the second standard will try to defend their position by claiming that people who have not paid taxes in the past have no claim to use public facilities now. That proves too much. Interstate travel entails people using facilities they have not contributed to previously. Children have not paid taxes. In fact, today's taxpayers once used the facilities before they had paid any taxes. Were they free-riding? But here's another problem: people who relocate (from wherever) will, alas, soon start paying sales, excise, income, property, and gasoline taxes and hence contribute to the upkeep of the facilities, including those they'll never use.

So, is it the case, as some have said, that libertarians have nothing reasonable to say about public property except that it should be privatized—that there are no right answers in a statist world? Resoundingly, I say no.

Immigration Conversation with Jacob Hornberger