Well That's Just Great: Scaling Back "Lofty" Goals Edition
So, apparently "front-line generals" and (a broader class??) "American officials" are letting loose of their "lofty goal" of a democratic Iraq.
Apparently, they've decided to settle for non-psycopathy.
Ugh.
So, apparently "front-line generals" and (a broader class??) "American officials" are letting loose of their "lofty goal" of a democratic Iraq.
Apparently, they've decided to settle for non-psycopathy.
Ugh.
posted by Winston Smith at
5:29 PM
8 Comments:
Geez, I got there quite awhile ago, around the time when even the left abandoned idealism for realism.
We've started to question the neo-con ideology that democracy is the only moral system. Even the classical liberal position is seeking balance between order and freedom.
Iraq is illustrating that freedom without order is a currency you cannot spend, and the Arab world is beginning to agree.
Hence the abandonment of the "democracy initiative." Nobody in the Arab world, at this particular time, actually wants it. The price is too high.
(We think of Ben Franklin's statement that those who trade security for liberty deserve neither, but a poke around the internet [I do fact-check myself around here, as my ankles are always exposed] indicates he never actually said it.
Man and especially Woman will trade freedom for security in a New York or a London minute, as the former is worthless without the latter. (See Hobbes, T.) The Iraqi people are no exception. Democracy is a function of leisure, not necessity; saving yourself and your family is Job One, at least according to Mr. Hobbes, albeit not Patrick Henry.
Younger, I would have resisted those claims mightily...but wiser now...they seem more plausible.
But if we keep going down that path, don't we eventually have to say that it's better to live on your knees than die on your feet?
I suppose the real answer is this: what's now being claimed/realized is what any reasonable person--esp. those with actual experience living through such things--should be able to see: that at least SOME trade-offs are reasonable. Accepting, e.g., a not-too-brutal strong-man in order to avoid chaos and the war of all against all probably isn't unreasonable.
I read this alleged Arab proverb somewhere, going something like "better a hundred years of tyranny than one year of anarchy." Having never lived under either of those two conditions, it's hard for me to make a judgment about that.
I think the American founding myth of Live Free or Die might have been a lot of big talk. The British fought against the revolution half-heartedly. One wonders if the liberation from a tax on tea would be enough to justify persisting if the British had been slaughtering entire villages.
China 1948-2007 is an interesting experiment in human nature. First comes order, then economic liberty, and the symbolism of Tiananmen notwithstanding, politics bringing up the rear.
Interesting exchange...I don't know if the American Revolution was as risk-free to the people initiating it as you suggest, Tom, but I agree with your more general point. While you could argue that the British didn't go all out against the Americans during the Revolution, it was clearly a very risky undertaking for the founders and the Americans paid a serious price in the war. I suppose you could question whether the founders were motivated by freedom as much as we were taught as children, though, but they did take a big risk nonetheless, with substantial costs.
I agree with the general point that freedom doesn't count for much if you can't exercise that freedom because your society is so dangerous. But it seems equally obvious that security isn't worth much if you have no freedom. These seem like pretty basic truths of political philosophy to me...
This is a somewhat different point, but it's related to the Iraq point since it seems like democracy is being challenged here in the US in addition to Iraq, and for similar reasons. I sometimes wonder what price we are willing to pay for freedom when, say, our security is several notches above that of Iraq's. One thing I have been noticing in Rudy Giuliani's campaign is his consistent reference to NYC before he was mayor, and how New Yorkers didn't really have security so his civil rights violations were justified. Well, compared to many people in the world, New Yorkers had plenty of secruity even before Rudy. But if there is a *sense* of insecurity, maybe many people would be willing to sacrifice a lot of freedom for what is *actually* a small increase in safety.
I wonder sometimes, especially when I look at the rhetoric of the Republicans right now, whether some Americans (I include myself here) have gotten so comfortable that we would be willing to sacrifice a significant amount of freedom for small gains in security. I think Republicans would argue that we need to be open to restricting some liberties during the war on terror because the threat is so great. So this issue only gets interesting to me when we look at it that way--how much insecurity are we willing to put up with as a price of freedom? We have to talk about degrees of trade-offs between liberty and security. I have to honestly say that I would sacrifice a good deal of freedom if I would gain a great deal of security from those sacrifices (I know this is vague, sorry...) But I also believe that there is also a point at which I would be willing to put myself in danger in order to challenge a tyrannical government or to protect myself from an external threat to my freedom. It's hard to define the exact boundaries though...
I think "tyrannical" is the tipping point. But it's sort of a term of art. How much is too much?
By American standards, the (leftist) Chinese government is tyrannical altho the people seem to be relatively OK with it. Singapore (rightist!) has almost the exact same structure---order, economic freedom, politically very authoritarian.
So too, left and right (and in America's case Dem-Rep) don't have much in the way of analogues with our closest cousins, the British. Incredible breaches of "civil rights" in the name of security against Islamist freakheads
[also against their own rank and file---look up ASBO!]
that both left and right in America would find unacceptable are routine under the Labour government, and the people there, both left and right, are polled with overwhelming support.
You tell me. I can't even detect a left-right pattern here once you take it outside the United States.
We take this America thing for damned granted, I think we all might come to agree.
Which is cool. I'm very much in favor of us all coming to agree, on damned near anything.
The British fought against the revolution half-heartedly. One wonders if the liberation from a tax on tea would be enough to justify persisting if the British had been slaughtering entire villages.
The first sentence is quite risible, TVD, I didn't know that you were going into stand-up these days.
As for your latter observation, it wasn't just British forces that fought for the Crown:
Additionally, over the course of the war the British[6] hired about 30,000 soldiers from German princes, these soldiers were called "Hessians" because many of them came from Hesse-Kassel. The troops were mercenaries in the sense of professionals who were hired out by their prince. Germans made up about one-third of the British troop strength in North America.
I heard no less than a historian from the War College explain that although there were a few atrocities caused by the "Hessians" against the civilian population, these were used for propaganda purposes by the Revolutionaries and were quite effective in rallying support for the cause.
There were under 5,000 American combat deaths in the revolution. Small potatoes by British standards. The fact that they substantially turned it over to mercenaries belies your attempt to prove me wrong. On something. Anything. Wack-a-mole on Righty.
Did you look around for anything that might support my view, or just go directly for the first scant piece of evidence against?
Because if your counterargument is that the British fought the Americans with the same ferocity as in other parts of the Empire, or against France, 30,000 Hessians weakens your point, not strenghtens it. I grew up near Washington's Crossing. The Hessians, like most mercenaries, fought as little as was absolutely neccessary.
Actually, I thought you'd enjoy my little prick at the bubble of American myth. But I suppose getting after me is Job One. Partisanship über alles.
As for the propaganda value, historians find it entirely possible that less than half the colonists were even in favor of the revolution. What your War College pal said is undoubtedly true, but it didn't work.
TVD, you do need to demonstrate better reading skills than you did in the above.
There were under 5,000 American combat deaths in the revolution. Small potatoes by British standards. The fact that they substantially turned it over to mercenaries belies your attempt to prove me wrong.
Actually, 1/3rd of the forces isn't
'substantially' turning it over to the mercenaries, but the fact that they had to use any at all is proof of how serious they took the Revolution.
As for your first assertion:
The total loss of life resulting from the American Revolutionary War is unknown. As was typical in the wars of the era, disease claimed more lives than battle. Historian Joseph Ellis suggests that Washington's decision to have his troops inoculated against the smallpox epidemic was one of his most important decisions.[16]
An estimated 25,000 American Revolutionaries died during active military service. About 8,000 of these deaths were in battle; the other 17,000 deaths were from disease, including about 8,000 who died while prisoners of war. The number of Revolutionaries seriously wounded or disabled by the war has been estimated from 8,500 to 25,000. The total American military casualty figure was therefore as high as 50,000.[17]
Link
So, you've minimized the number of combat dead, and want to use that as the only marker for discussion.
The Hessians, like most mercenaries, fought as little as was absolutely neccessary.
But their involvement was used against the British cause because of the acts of a few 'bad apples', so arguing about how hard they fought is irrelevant to the point at hand.
Actually, I thought you'd enjoy my little prick at the bubble of American myth. But I suppose getting after me is Job One. Partisanship über alles.
Except that so far your little prick has run against the rhino-skin balloon of reality, as I've already demonstrated in this post.
As for the propaganda value, historians find it entirely possible that less than half the colonists were even in favor of the revolution.
The figure most often cited is that 1/3rd were Patriots, 1/3rd were Loyalists, and 1/3rd didn't care.
What your War College pal said is undoubtedly true, but it didn't work.
As for what I heard the War College gentleman say, it doesn't make him
my pal, just a reliable source of information. He said that it worked, and I tend to believe him over your undocumented assertions here. Call me crazy, but your attempts to minimize my points have only demonstrated your bias and lack of facts and reasoning in this area, and you should quit while you're ahead.
Finally:
The British spent about £80 million and ended with a national debt of £250 million, which it easily financed at about £9.5 million a year in interest. The French spent 1.3 billion livres (about £56 million). Their total national debt was £187 million, which they could not easily finance; over half the French national revenue went to debt service in the 1780s. The debt crisis became a major enabling factor of the French Revolution as the government was unable to raise taxes without public approval.[19] The United States spent $37 million at the national level plus $114 million by the states. This was mostly covered by loans from France and the Netherlands, loans from Americans, and issuance of more and more paper money (which became "not worth a continental.") The U.S. finally solved its debt problem in the 1790s.[20]
Somehow those sums of money don't strike me as demonstrating a 'half-hearted effort' but, again, I'm merely dust in the wind compared to the wisdom you display here on an annual basis.
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