SARS, Quarantine and Liberty
Tibor R. Machan
Let us assume here that SARS is a contagious disease that can be identified as such by doctors, including ones screening people who arrive from foreign shores. Would it be proper for the government to quarantine such folks?
If the disease is a serious health hazard, quarantine by legal authorities would be proper. Why?
It is the proper task of government to secure citizens’ rights. If someone with a contagious disease chooses to mingle with others who aren’t aware of this person’s disease, this person is very likely about to inflict a serious health hazard on these innocent citizens who haven’t chosen to mingle with the diseased person. So, the authorities entrusted with the job of securing our rights then have the responsibility to keep such people out of circulation.
Of course, whether SARS is such a serious disease is not something I know for sure and so I must put the matter in hypothetical form. If the disease is serious—not merely someone with a bad sneeze who may transmit a slight cold to others with whom contact will be unavoidable—then if this person intends to mingle with others, this person will be intent on embarking on criminal behavior—on assaulting others with his or her disease. No one has the right to do that to other persons who haven’t been forewarned and who have no choice about remaining in the vicinity of the diseased person.
None of this deals fully with the SARS phenomenon. There are, to the best of my knowledge, many others who carry contagious disease other than SARS. Thousands of persons with, for example, influenza travel freely about the globe without anyone going into panic about it. And, yes, influenza can kill! Arguably, then, SARS is something of a media driven scare, not a real serious hazard, compared to others afoot in various parts of the world.
The phenomenon reminds me of the time when thousands of people canceled trips to Europe after the USA bombed Libya back in April 1986 and there was fear of terrorism because of the bombing. One clever economist did some calculations and found that by remaining home, the chances for serious injury and even death for those who canceled their trips increased because of traffic hazards they would face when driving around on US soil. In contrast, flying to Europe and taking a train or a tour bus to various parts would have meant minimal danger to the tourists. No one, to my knowledge, has done a follow-up study on just how many of those who stayed away from Europe met with traffic mishaps. But the initial calculations by the economist seemed right.
In the present SARS scare thousands of people are foregoing vacations in China, Hong Kong, Toronto and other places where SARS has made its appearance. Given the relatively small numbers of those who have been felled by SARS, and given the statistical probability of meeting with traffic mishaps, it seems to me clear enough that this media driven and highly selective scare is once again leading to some unrecorded disasters.
Not much can be done about it, of course. When people get scared, however unreasonable their fear may well be, they will take measures to protect themselves. However, their protection may lead to worse things than what they feared in the first place.
It would be nice, under the circumstances, if the media—primarily news organizations—would report the comparative hazards stemming from SARS versus from other diseases and from the protective measures people are taking to avoid SARS. It should not be necessary for ordinary citizens, who rely so much on news organizations to inform them about what’s what, to become experts in this area. They should, instead, enjoy the services of their news reporters who should, in turn, dig deeper than superficial data that provides little more than grounds for panic rather than information that can help us make intelligent decisions. (For some official, government provided information on SARS, visit http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/sars/faq.htm.)
Friday, May 02, 2003
Rush Limbaugh's Fallacy
Tibor R. Machan
Every time I drive to school, I listen to Rush Limbaugh for about five minutes. It is cultural anthropology for me more than an interest in Rush's latest ridicule of Daschle & Co.. although I sympathize with that.
Last time I tuned in he was trying very hard to explain away the fact that no weapons of mass destruction had yet been found in Iraq. His take is that there were other good reasons to go to war there, namely, the alleged connection between Hussein's regime and Al Qaeda, the terrorist network, and Hussein's sadistic dictatorship. So, Rush reasons, never mind the WMD--we had the authority to do the war even without them.
Why would Limbaugh try so hard now to rationalize the war with Iraq? Well, for one, he seems to by loyal to a fault to George W. Bush and wants to make sure the guy continues in office. Without the WMD he may well be beaten up in the upcoming race for taking America to war without good reason. The sad fact for Rush is that those other reasons he gives for why Bush was justified in going to war are not good reasons, actually.
It is not the business of the United States Armed Forces to engage in retaliatory armed conflict against some country that is merely speculatively connected with the perpetrators of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the USA. Some kind of procedure is needed whereby within the rule of law the connection is firmly established and Iraq's regime is shown beyond a reasonable doubt to have supported Al Qaeda's terrorism. Just to point a finger and say, they had something to do with this simply isn't enough, not in a civilized society. Indeed, the thing that is supposed to differentiate terrorists from civilized warriors is that the former care nothing about the niceties of the rule of law--due process, burden of proof, rules of evidence and such.
What then about Saddam being a vicious dictator? Trouble is there are many such around the globe, have always been, and while everyone is authorized to try to assassinate these guys, morally speaking, armies of various countries owe it to their citizens to stay on their post and stand ready to defend them. They have no moral authority to gallivant about the globe and purge it of dictators--they already have a job of defending the rights of their citizens.
So Limbaugh's efforts to bail out Bush just won't wash. Bush knew better, too, which is why he insisted that the war with Iraq is first and foremost about the weapons. Why was that important?
Because in a free country the military must act defensively, never aggressively. Preemptive strikes are justified only if there is serious, demonstrably high probability that another country will attack. This is akin to the idea in the criminal law that if one acts against another because the other is about to act against oneself, it is excusable; otherwise it is aggression, nothing less. Even in the cases where battered woman's or wife's syndrome is invoked, the idea is that the man was certainly going to attack the woman, so she could only escape the attack by acting first.
Of course, the US military has acted in the past without the justification needed for preemptive attack. But those cases are far more testy to square with the basic American idea that self-defense is the only justification for using force against other people.Humanitarianism is usually given as the justification for such cases of military interference. Do they suffice as such? May a country's military invade another country when that country's rulers oppress the bulk of the people there?
This is a big question and only a little space is left to deal with it. Suffice it to say that citizens of other countries could, as volunteers, be justified in coming to the aid of the oppressed but the armies are not since, well, their job is to defend their own citizens.
Tibor R. Machan
Every time I drive to school, I listen to Rush Limbaugh for about five minutes. It is cultural anthropology for me more than an interest in Rush's latest ridicule of Daschle & Co.. although I sympathize with that.
Last time I tuned in he was trying very hard to explain away the fact that no weapons of mass destruction had yet been found in Iraq. His take is that there were other good reasons to go to war there, namely, the alleged connection between Hussein's regime and Al Qaeda, the terrorist network, and Hussein's sadistic dictatorship. So, Rush reasons, never mind the WMD--we had the authority to do the war even without them.
Why would Limbaugh try so hard now to rationalize the war with Iraq? Well, for one, he seems to by loyal to a fault to George W. Bush and wants to make sure the guy continues in office. Without the WMD he may well be beaten up in the upcoming race for taking America to war without good reason. The sad fact for Rush is that those other reasons he gives for why Bush was justified in going to war are not good reasons, actually.
It is not the business of the United States Armed Forces to engage in retaliatory armed conflict against some country that is merely speculatively connected with the perpetrators of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the USA. Some kind of procedure is needed whereby within the rule of law the connection is firmly established and Iraq's regime is shown beyond a reasonable doubt to have supported Al Qaeda's terrorism. Just to point a finger and say, they had something to do with this simply isn't enough, not in a civilized society. Indeed, the thing that is supposed to differentiate terrorists from civilized warriors is that the former care nothing about the niceties of the rule of law--due process, burden of proof, rules of evidence and such.
What then about Saddam being a vicious dictator? Trouble is there are many such around the globe, have always been, and while everyone is authorized to try to assassinate these guys, morally speaking, armies of various countries owe it to their citizens to stay on their post and stand ready to defend them. They have no moral authority to gallivant about the globe and purge it of dictators--they already have a job of defending the rights of their citizens.
So Limbaugh's efforts to bail out Bush just won't wash. Bush knew better, too, which is why he insisted that the war with Iraq is first and foremost about the weapons. Why was that important?
Because in a free country the military must act defensively, never aggressively. Preemptive strikes are justified only if there is serious, demonstrably high probability that another country will attack. This is akin to the idea in the criminal law that if one acts against another because the other is about to act against oneself, it is excusable; otherwise it is aggression, nothing less. Even in the cases where battered woman's or wife's syndrome is invoked, the idea is that the man was certainly going to attack the woman, so she could only escape the attack by acting first.
Of course, the US military has acted in the past without the justification needed for preemptive attack. But those cases are far more testy to square with the basic American idea that self-defense is the only justification for using force against other people.Humanitarianism is usually given as the justification for such cases of military interference. Do they suffice as such? May a country's military invade another country when that country's rulers oppress the bulk of the people there?
This is a big question and only a little space is left to deal with it. Suffice it to say that citizens of other countries could, as volunteers, be justified in coming to the aid of the oppressed but the armies are not since, well, their job is to defend their own citizens.
Wrong Take on Basic Human Rights
Tibor R. Machan
The University of California Press is one of the more prestigious university book publishers, so for one to get a manuscript accepted and published there, one must jump through many hoops. Manuscripts are usually sent out to peer scholars; if they like it the editors take the MS to a board that authorized issuing a contract for the book.
In certain fields of study this means pretty much that only books with a certain point of view will get the nod. Those of us looking for publishers can, thus, get a pretty good clue about whether we have a chance for one or another publisher by just looking at what they have published recently.
In light of this I should definitely not try to get the UC Press to take a look at any of my manuscripts that I would like to have published by a prestigious press, no sir. Why?
One of the books UC Press has just published is “Pathologies of Power; Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor.” The author Paul Farmer is praised by Tracy Kidder, who is the author of The Soul of a New Machine, for have produced “An eloquent plea for…human rights that would not neglect the most basic rights of all: food, shelter and health….” The foreword to the book is written by one of my favorite intellectual adversaries, Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen of Trinity College, Cambridge UK (soon to move to Harvard University to hold a most prestigious chair). All these have lined up giving this book their blessing. And that is too bad.
People wonder why the West—especially America and Great Britain—is seen in such a bad light by prominent folks around the globe! One clear reason is in evidence in the praise given to Paul Farmer’s book by Tracy Kidder and those who did the peer reviews and decided to publish the book—they seem not to have a clear idea about what is a fundamental, basic human right. One cannot repeat this often enough: no one has a basic right to food, shelter and health.
Just think of it for a moment. To have a basic right means all others are obligated to make sure it is not violated. With bona fide basic rights, such as to one’s life and liberty, this poses no problem because all others need to do to respect them is to abstain for intruding in one’s life and liberty. You respect my right to my life by not killing me; the right to my liberty by no assaulting or kidnapping me; my right to private property by not robbing or stealing fro me. You need do nothing for me, only abstain from becoming an intruder. Such basic rights have, thus, been dubbed “negative” rights.
Compare this with respecting a basic right to “food, shelter and health.” To do this one must actually work for others. The legal protection of these rights means, plain and simple, forced labor! If I have a right to food, those making food must provide me with food without compensation, just as I do not have to pay you if you do not murder, assault or rob me. So, such so called basic rights mean nothing less than the conscription of those who provide the goods to which we allegedly have basic rights (or the forcible taking of wealth from others so as to pay for the services). They have, thus, been named “positive” rights, requiring positive actions from others at the point of a gun.
Despite the evident forced labor implications of the “positive” rights idea, this kind of book gets to be published by a major American press, supported and endorsed by famous people. There should then be no great wonder about why the Western tradition of liberalism—the idea, as per the US Declaration of Independence, that public policy must aim first an foremost toward the securing of our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—is so defenseless from the intellectual community. Securing such rights is in direct conflict with securing those that author Paul Farmer insists are our basic human rights.
It is a constant source of puzzle to me that major intellectuals in Western universities and their presses have so little understanding of or appreciation for what it is that makes the Western World the envy of the rest, namely, its more or less strict protection of the right to individual liberty. Once such a right is secured, the securing of food, shelter and health care becomes a task for us all, a task that seems to be carried out much more successfully in the largely liberal West than where those other alleged rights, requiring governments to regiment people to respect them, are supposed to be held as basic.
Tibor R. Machan
The University of California Press is one of the more prestigious university book publishers, so for one to get a manuscript accepted and published there, one must jump through many hoops. Manuscripts are usually sent out to peer scholars; if they like it the editors take the MS to a board that authorized issuing a contract for the book.
In certain fields of study this means pretty much that only books with a certain point of view will get the nod. Those of us looking for publishers can, thus, get a pretty good clue about whether we have a chance for one or another publisher by just looking at what they have published recently.
In light of this I should definitely not try to get the UC Press to take a look at any of my manuscripts that I would like to have published by a prestigious press, no sir. Why?
One of the books UC Press has just published is “Pathologies of Power; Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor.” The author Paul Farmer is praised by Tracy Kidder, who is the author of The Soul of a New Machine, for have produced “An eloquent plea for…human rights that would not neglect the most basic rights of all: food, shelter and health….” The foreword to the book is written by one of my favorite intellectual adversaries, Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen of Trinity College, Cambridge UK (soon to move to Harvard University to hold a most prestigious chair). All these have lined up giving this book their blessing. And that is too bad.
People wonder why the West—especially America and Great Britain—is seen in such a bad light by prominent folks around the globe! One clear reason is in evidence in the praise given to Paul Farmer’s book by Tracy Kidder and those who did the peer reviews and decided to publish the book—they seem not to have a clear idea about what is a fundamental, basic human right. One cannot repeat this often enough: no one has a basic right to food, shelter and health.
Just think of it for a moment. To have a basic right means all others are obligated to make sure it is not violated. With bona fide basic rights, such as to one’s life and liberty, this poses no problem because all others need to do to respect them is to abstain for intruding in one’s life and liberty. You respect my right to my life by not killing me; the right to my liberty by no assaulting or kidnapping me; my right to private property by not robbing or stealing fro me. You need do nothing for me, only abstain from becoming an intruder. Such basic rights have, thus, been dubbed “negative” rights.
Compare this with respecting a basic right to “food, shelter and health.” To do this one must actually work for others. The legal protection of these rights means, plain and simple, forced labor! If I have a right to food, those making food must provide me with food without compensation, just as I do not have to pay you if you do not murder, assault or rob me. So, such so called basic rights mean nothing less than the conscription of those who provide the goods to which we allegedly have basic rights (or the forcible taking of wealth from others so as to pay for the services). They have, thus, been named “positive” rights, requiring positive actions from others at the point of a gun.
Despite the evident forced labor implications of the “positive” rights idea, this kind of book gets to be published by a major American press, supported and endorsed by famous people. There should then be no great wonder about why the Western tradition of liberalism—the idea, as per the US Declaration of Independence, that public policy must aim first an foremost toward the securing of our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—is so defenseless from the intellectual community. Securing such rights is in direct conflict with securing those that author Paul Farmer insists are our basic human rights.
It is a constant source of puzzle to me that major intellectuals in Western universities and their presses have so little understanding of or appreciation for what it is that makes the Western World the envy of the rest, namely, its more or less strict protection of the right to individual liberty. Once such a right is secured, the securing of food, shelter and health care becomes a task for us all, a task that seems to be carried out much more successfully in the largely liberal West than where those other alleged rights, requiring governments to regiment people to respect them, are supposed to be held as basic.
Monday, April 28, 2003
Why Islamists Detest America
Tibor R. Machan
Over the last several months there’s been a lot of consternation about why so many Muslims detest America. Why do they find the system of political economy associated with the USA so objectionable?
Put bluntly, their charge that America’s culture is “materialistic” is largely true, if by this they mean that people in America pay a good deal of attention to how well they can live, how much joy life can bring them—including when they go shopping.
Not that Americans do not believe in God or don’t embrace some religious faith but they do not do so with the kind of utter and blind devotion leaders of the Islamic faith demand of Muslims. For a most of these leaders the only government that is legitimate is one that demands of and forces its citizens to fully adhere to the Koran as they interpret it. Nothing else will do and when America associates politically or economically with countries where this goes on or where Muslim leaders want it to go on, the leaders believe it corrupts those societies, leads them astray from the Koran, which for them is a disaster. So, they hate the country from which such influences emanate.
America, in contrast, rests on a classical liberal political tradition in which tolerance reigns supreme as a principle of human relationships. John Locke, the grandfather of the American system of government, was also preoccupied with figuring out how government and church should be related. Out of his and some others’ reflections the American founders took away a liberal theory of government, one that opposes any union of state and church, especially at the federal level but by now also in every state. This has spawned a great many religious denominations in the USA—one needs only to look at all the different churches in one’s own neighborhood to appreciate this.
Yet, Americans tend, in the main, to confine their religiosity to Sundays or the Sabbath while during the rest of the week they go about their personal and professional lives pretty much with little deep concern for how these square with their faiths. Just compare the amount of public prayer Muslims practice to that of Americans!
Moreover, Christianity has by now made relative peace with commerce and the “materialism”—I’d prefer calling it “naturalism”—Muslim leaders find so detestable. Christians see human beings as having a divided self, composed of spirit and of matter (soul and body), with both due some measure of care in one’s life. The two sides do not always interact happily, of course, but that hasn’t lead to any great changes in American and other Western cultures.
Yes, commerce is often derided by writers, priests, ministers, intellectuals and the rest but this is often recognized as somewhat paradoxical if not altogether inconsistent—after all, most of those doing the deriding tend to be quite happy with the measure of material well being they have managed to achieve and few if any have taken any serious vows of poverty.
Finally, it is undeniable that a vigorous commercial culture tends to be directed to living well here on earth rather than to preparing for everlasting salvation. We may not be able to take it with us but we do like it a lot—namely, material wealth—while it we are dwelling here on earth. And that probably does distract many of us from focusing on what religious leaders consider our spiritual needs and obligations.
The question is whether the Muslim leaders are right: Is this freedom we enjoy in America and the West good for us all or are we becoming decadent, shallow and faithless as we enjoy our lives here on earth? I believe that without addressing this question we will always be vulnerable to the harangue of Muslim leaders (as well as others) and will keep being detested by many Muslim faithful across the globe. And some of this detestation will be deadly at times.
But then perhaps that is to be expected when one holds up as an ideal a sort of human life in which men and women are free and able not only to choose to do what is right but also what is wrong. Perhaps we ought to be more confident and firm in our belief that this is indeed how human beings ought to live. We ought also to stand up firmly in support of the system of politics and law that vigorously protects such a way of life. We should not hesitate to resist the aggression of those who find this so contemptible. They, after all, are quite mistaken in attempting to enforce by law the good life they demand of their faithful—simply no good can come from enforced goodness.
Indeed, if it is such a good life, why do they need all these laws to make people follow its principles?
Tibor R. Machan
Over the last several months there’s been a lot of consternation about why so many Muslims detest America. Why do they find the system of political economy associated with the USA so objectionable?
Put bluntly, their charge that America’s culture is “materialistic” is largely true, if by this they mean that people in America pay a good deal of attention to how well they can live, how much joy life can bring them—including when they go shopping.
Not that Americans do not believe in God or don’t embrace some religious faith but they do not do so with the kind of utter and blind devotion leaders of the Islamic faith demand of Muslims. For a most of these leaders the only government that is legitimate is one that demands of and forces its citizens to fully adhere to the Koran as they interpret it. Nothing else will do and when America associates politically or economically with countries where this goes on or where Muslim leaders want it to go on, the leaders believe it corrupts those societies, leads them astray from the Koran, which for them is a disaster. So, they hate the country from which such influences emanate.
America, in contrast, rests on a classical liberal political tradition in which tolerance reigns supreme as a principle of human relationships. John Locke, the grandfather of the American system of government, was also preoccupied with figuring out how government and church should be related. Out of his and some others’ reflections the American founders took away a liberal theory of government, one that opposes any union of state and church, especially at the federal level but by now also in every state. This has spawned a great many religious denominations in the USA—one needs only to look at all the different churches in one’s own neighborhood to appreciate this.
Yet, Americans tend, in the main, to confine their religiosity to Sundays or the Sabbath while during the rest of the week they go about their personal and professional lives pretty much with little deep concern for how these square with their faiths. Just compare the amount of public prayer Muslims practice to that of Americans!
Moreover, Christianity has by now made relative peace with commerce and the “materialism”—I’d prefer calling it “naturalism”—Muslim leaders find so detestable. Christians see human beings as having a divided self, composed of spirit and of matter (soul and body), with both due some measure of care in one’s life. The two sides do not always interact happily, of course, but that hasn’t lead to any great changes in American and other Western cultures.
Yes, commerce is often derided by writers, priests, ministers, intellectuals and the rest but this is often recognized as somewhat paradoxical if not altogether inconsistent—after all, most of those doing the deriding tend to be quite happy with the measure of material well being they have managed to achieve and few if any have taken any serious vows of poverty.
Finally, it is undeniable that a vigorous commercial culture tends to be directed to living well here on earth rather than to preparing for everlasting salvation. We may not be able to take it with us but we do like it a lot—namely, material wealth—while it we are dwelling here on earth. And that probably does distract many of us from focusing on what religious leaders consider our spiritual needs and obligations.
The question is whether the Muslim leaders are right: Is this freedom we enjoy in America and the West good for us all or are we becoming decadent, shallow and faithless as we enjoy our lives here on earth? I believe that without addressing this question we will always be vulnerable to the harangue of Muslim leaders (as well as others) and will keep being detested by many Muslim faithful across the globe. And some of this detestation will be deadly at times.
But then perhaps that is to be expected when one holds up as an ideal a sort of human life in which men and women are free and able not only to choose to do what is right but also what is wrong. Perhaps we ought to be more confident and firm in our belief that this is indeed how human beings ought to live. We ought also to stand up firmly in support of the system of politics and law that vigorously protects such a way of life. We should not hesitate to resist the aggression of those who find this so contemptible. They, after all, are quite mistaken in attempting to enforce by law the good life they demand of their faithful—simply no good can come from enforced goodness.
Indeed, if it is such a good life, why do they need all these laws to make people follow its principles?
The Trap of Humanitarian Wars
Tibor R. Machan
In moral philosophy altruism (or humanitarianism) has two versions. Under one, everyone must think of and work for others first and what counts for this is up to the beneficiaries. In short, your help is what they consider to be help, not something objective one can know without their input. Under the other, one must still think of and work for others first but what counts for this is something knowable by anyone and could even conflict with what beneficiaries would like to have done for them. The first is subjective, the second objective altruism or humanitarianism.
In connection with domestic public policies one can see the distinction when government gives cash to welfare recipients, so they can get what they want for it, versus when it gives them cheese or food stamps, insisting the poor get what is really good for them whether they like it or not. Both run risks—the first may amount to throwing money away since the poor might squander it, the second may offend by being paternalistic.
When governments go to war for the sake of helping people in foreign countries, it is always a puzzle whether they ought to follow the subjective or objective humanitarian policy. Should they just do for those who are in dire straits what they would like to have done for them or should they provide what will actually do them some good? The former approach trusts the people, rightly or wrongly, to know from what they will gain benefits, the latter trust the invading forces to do so. This is a paradox of humanitarianism – to do good for others, they sometimes need to be treated as children and have this good imposed on them. Otherwise all the help may be for nothing because those receiving it will squander it.
Many in Iraq, for example, seem now to be happy to have gotten rid of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship but this doesn’t mean they want what the American leaders believe would be best for them, namely, a liberal democratic regime. Rather, massive rallies have been held insisting that Iraq should become an Islamic country, run by Muslim clerics and other leaders. While this may indeed be more popular there than Saddam Hussein had been, it would be pretty harsh on many minorities the members of which do not embrace the Islamic faith, or not, at least, the version favored by the majority.
The impending democracy in Iraq would then mostly likely be illiberal, not liberal. That is to say, those who do not share the faith of the majority would not have constitutional protection against being bullied by the majority. It’d be as if, say, the Jehovah’s Witnesses or some other evangelical faith became the majority in America and could impose its religious practices on everyone else. Instead, now they must try to persuade people and if sent their way, they must leave.
In fact, in a just society it would never be tolerated to have morality or religion forcibly imposed, apart from the minimum protection of everyone’s basic rights. That much is required so that everyone has the chance to choose whether to do this or that, including whether to embrace this or that faith. The rest is entirely a matter of voluntary choice, otherwise it doesn’t count for much at all. Doing what is right, following a religion, because of threats from others, especially government, doesn’t count as doing what is right or following a religion at all.
Humanitarian or altruistic intervention is thus paradoxical. It aims to do good for others, especially political good, but then it must treat these others as if they were like children and couldn’t be trusted with deciding how they should act. Yet, if a country’s leaders have decided to tax their own people billions and billions so as to provide real help to the people of other countries and those people don’t want this help but want to do what is politically wrong, how is one to proceed?
Perhaps the lesson to be gleaned here is that humanitarian wars are wrong, period. The billions of dollars citizens of one country pay to keep a standing military should not be wasted on tasks that are hopeless. Americans should not be required to make the effort to help people who may not even want our help, or only want it to do something not much better than that from which they got liberated.
It isn’t as if Iraqis were incapable of taking part in a liberal democratic political order but the large majority of them may not want to do so, even if that’s wrong. American government officials should make up their mind—will they fight humanitarian wars that get them into the mess of having to impose the right system on unwilling people abroad or will they confine themselves to fighting to defend the people they are supposed to serve?
If the latter, then the only thing that made the war in Iraq just is that Saddam Hussein was very likely to unleash weapons of mass destruction against US citizens and their allies. OK, so he cannot do this any longer. Thus now the US military needs to leave and not play daddy or nanny to the Iraqis.
Tibor R. Machan
In moral philosophy altruism (or humanitarianism) has two versions. Under one, everyone must think of and work for others first and what counts for this is up to the beneficiaries. In short, your help is what they consider to be help, not something objective one can know without their input. Under the other, one must still think of and work for others first but what counts for this is something knowable by anyone and could even conflict with what beneficiaries would like to have done for them. The first is subjective, the second objective altruism or humanitarianism.
In connection with domestic public policies one can see the distinction when government gives cash to welfare recipients, so they can get what they want for it, versus when it gives them cheese or food stamps, insisting the poor get what is really good for them whether they like it or not. Both run risks—the first may amount to throwing money away since the poor might squander it, the second may offend by being paternalistic.
When governments go to war for the sake of helping people in foreign countries, it is always a puzzle whether they ought to follow the subjective or objective humanitarian policy. Should they just do for those who are in dire straits what they would like to have done for them or should they provide what will actually do them some good? The former approach trusts the people, rightly or wrongly, to know from what they will gain benefits, the latter trust the invading forces to do so. This is a paradox of humanitarianism – to do good for others, they sometimes need to be treated as children and have this good imposed on them. Otherwise all the help may be for nothing because those receiving it will squander it.
Many in Iraq, for example, seem now to be happy to have gotten rid of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship but this doesn’t mean they want what the American leaders believe would be best for them, namely, a liberal democratic regime. Rather, massive rallies have been held insisting that Iraq should become an Islamic country, run by Muslim clerics and other leaders. While this may indeed be more popular there than Saddam Hussein had been, it would be pretty harsh on many minorities the members of which do not embrace the Islamic faith, or not, at least, the version favored by the majority.
The impending democracy in Iraq would then mostly likely be illiberal, not liberal. That is to say, those who do not share the faith of the majority would not have constitutional protection against being bullied by the majority. It’d be as if, say, the Jehovah’s Witnesses or some other evangelical faith became the majority in America and could impose its religious practices on everyone else. Instead, now they must try to persuade people and if sent their way, they must leave.
In fact, in a just society it would never be tolerated to have morality or religion forcibly imposed, apart from the minimum protection of everyone’s basic rights. That much is required so that everyone has the chance to choose whether to do this or that, including whether to embrace this or that faith. The rest is entirely a matter of voluntary choice, otherwise it doesn’t count for much at all. Doing what is right, following a religion, because of threats from others, especially government, doesn’t count as doing what is right or following a religion at all.
Humanitarian or altruistic intervention is thus paradoxical. It aims to do good for others, especially political good, but then it must treat these others as if they were like children and couldn’t be trusted with deciding how they should act. Yet, if a country’s leaders have decided to tax their own people billions and billions so as to provide real help to the people of other countries and those people don’t want this help but want to do what is politically wrong, how is one to proceed?
Perhaps the lesson to be gleaned here is that humanitarian wars are wrong, period. The billions of dollars citizens of one country pay to keep a standing military should not be wasted on tasks that are hopeless. Americans should not be required to make the effort to help people who may not even want our help, or only want it to do something not much better than that from which they got liberated.
It isn’t as if Iraqis were incapable of taking part in a liberal democratic political order but the large majority of them may not want to do so, even if that’s wrong. American government officials should make up their mind—will they fight humanitarian wars that get them into the mess of having to impose the right system on unwilling people abroad or will they confine themselves to fighting to defend the people they are supposed to serve?
If the latter, then the only thing that made the war in Iraq just is that Saddam Hussein was very likely to unleash weapons of mass destruction against US citizens and their allies. OK, so he cannot do this any longer. Thus now the US military needs to leave and not play daddy or nanny to the Iraqis.
Why we are so Different
Tibor R. Machan
When I speak of America’s culture and political system, I have in mind what distinguishes these from the rest of the world’s and from much of human history’s cultures. There is, of course, a lot here that is no different from everywhere else, some great, some OK, and some pretty bad.
But what America has more of than most other places is human liberty. Sure, not all have it in sufficient abundance. Other countries actually have more in certain areas—e.g., in much of Europe you are free to smoke and use drugs, and leave stores open late at night. All in all, however, there is much more freedom in American than elsewhere.
This is vital because freedom is a prerequisite of morality, of acting ethically—people aren’t morally good when they are forced to behave well, however eager some are to make us all good. It is simply an impossible task.
Also, freedom is necessary for our individuality to flourish. In many societies and periods of history the reigning idea is “one size fits all.” Even the greatest thinkers have made this terrible mistake of thinking that one kind of life is best—even healthy—for everyone. It is from this that we got communism, fascism, totalitarianism and other regimes where the objective has been and is to make everyone conform to one vision of human excellence. But no such vision can possibly work because we are unique in the living world in being essentially individuals. Yes, we are social beings, too, but this side of us may not violate our individuality if our human nature is to be respected, honored.
What I am saying here is actually not tough to prove. Just look around you and notice how many decent people are quite different. Some are adventurous, some not, some are loners, some are gregarious, some introverted and some extra—the list could go on and on. Our goals, talents, tastes, and personalities are highly varied, yet oh so human. This is what individualism acknowledges—that we matter as individuals, not as parts of some greater whole. No one can be replaced as the individual who he or she is, and we all know this at least implicitly.
Now in America this is more or less consistently understood. And the price we pay for it is that we realize that what others do, for better or for worse, is something over which they are to have the final say however much it may displease the rest of us. The great cost of individualism is also its great benefit: an enormous variety of ways to live both well and badly.
In America this idea is pretty much accepted, at least at the gut level, even while many people bellyache about it endlessly. All sorts of pressure groups want to have everyone conform to their agendas, to their priorities, yet even as they do this they pretty much accept individualism in many areas of their lives. Such are the contradictions of our culture.
Those of other cultures, however, tend to be more severe. In most places the individualist idea hasn’t sunk in despite its evidence all around. The major source of all the diversity across the globe is nothing other than that people are individuals, apart from whatever else they may be. They have given rise to innumerable varieties of practices, traditions, philosophies, religions, styles of art, special sciences, and customs of food and dress.
What makes America quite irksome to many is that it was designed to accommodate a great deal of human variety; so, it cannot in all honesty offer any kind of utopian, one-size-fits-all vision of social life. With all this variety there is little hope for getting all people to march to the same drummer, to follow the lead of just one guru—or even just one variety of fitness trainer.
And that cannot but annoy those around the globe who want to continue to rule people along such lines.
Tibor R. Machan
When I speak of America’s culture and political system, I have in mind what distinguishes these from the rest of the world’s and from much of human history’s cultures. There is, of course, a lot here that is no different from everywhere else, some great, some OK, and some pretty bad.
But what America has more of than most other places is human liberty. Sure, not all have it in sufficient abundance. Other countries actually have more in certain areas—e.g., in much of Europe you are free to smoke and use drugs, and leave stores open late at night. All in all, however, there is much more freedom in American than elsewhere.
This is vital because freedom is a prerequisite of morality, of acting ethically—people aren’t morally good when they are forced to behave well, however eager some are to make us all good. It is simply an impossible task.
Also, freedom is necessary for our individuality to flourish. In many societies and periods of history the reigning idea is “one size fits all.” Even the greatest thinkers have made this terrible mistake of thinking that one kind of life is best—even healthy—for everyone. It is from this that we got communism, fascism, totalitarianism and other regimes where the objective has been and is to make everyone conform to one vision of human excellence. But no such vision can possibly work because we are unique in the living world in being essentially individuals. Yes, we are social beings, too, but this side of us may not violate our individuality if our human nature is to be respected, honored.
What I am saying here is actually not tough to prove. Just look around you and notice how many decent people are quite different. Some are adventurous, some not, some are loners, some are gregarious, some introverted and some extra—the list could go on and on. Our goals, talents, tastes, and personalities are highly varied, yet oh so human. This is what individualism acknowledges—that we matter as individuals, not as parts of some greater whole. No one can be replaced as the individual who he or she is, and we all know this at least implicitly.
Now in America this is more or less consistently understood. And the price we pay for it is that we realize that what others do, for better or for worse, is something over which they are to have the final say however much it may displease the rest of us. The great cost of individualism is also its great benefit: an enormous variety of ways to live both well and badly.
In America this idea is pretty much accepted, at least at the gut level, even while many people bellyache about it endlessly. All sorts of pressure groups want to have everyone conform to their agendas, to their priorities, yet even as they do this they pretty much accept individualism in many areas of their lives. Such are the contradictions of our culture.
Those of other cultures, however, tend to be more severe. In most places the individualist idea hasn’t sunk in despite its evidence all around. The major source of all the diversity across the globe is nothing other than that people are individuals, apart from whatever else they may be. They have given rise to innumerable varieties of practices, traditions, philosophies, religions, styles of art, special sciences, and customs of food and dress.
What makes America quite irksome to many is that it was designed to accommodate a great deal of human variety; so, it cannot in all honesty offer any kind of utopian, one-size-fits-all vision of social life. With all this variety there is little hope for getting all people to march to the same drummer, to follow the lead of just one guru—or even just one variety of fitness trainer.
And that cannot but annoy those around the globe who want to continue to rule people along such lines.
SARS, Quarantine and Liberty
Tibor R. Machan
Let us assume here that SARS is a contagious disease that can be identified as such by doctors, including ones screening people who arrive from foreign shores. Would it be proper for the government to quarantine such folks?
If the disease is a serious health hazard, quarantine by legal authorities would be proper. Why?
It is the proper task of government to secure citizens’ rights. If someone with a contagious disease chooses to mingle with others who aren’t aware of this person’s disease, this person is very likely about to inflict a serious health hazard on these innocent citizens who haven’t chosen to mingle with the diseased person. So, the authorities entrusted with the job of securing our rights then have the responsibility to keep such people out of circulation.
Of course, whether SARS is such a serious disease is not something I know for sure and so I must put the matter in hypothetical form. If the disease is serious—not merely someone with a bad sneeze who may transmit a slight cold to others with whom contact will be unavoidable—then if this person intends to mingle with others, this person will be intent on embarking on criminal behavior—on assaulting others with his or her disease. No one has the right to do that to other persons who haven’t been forewarned and who have no choice about remaining in the vicinity of the diseased person.
None of this deals fully with the SARS phenomenon. There are, to the best of my knowledge, many others who carry contagious disease other than SARS. Thousands of persons with, for example, influenza travel freely about the globe without anyone going into panic about it. And, yes, influenza can kill! Arguably, then, SARS is something of a media driven scare, not a real serious hazard, compared to others afoot in various parts of the world.
The phenomenon reminds me of the time when thousands of people canceled trips to Europe after the USA bombed Libya back in April 1986 and there was fear of terrorism because of the bombing. One clever economist did some calculations and found that by remaining home, the chances for serious injury and even death for those who canceled their trips increased because of traffic hazards they would face when driving around on US soil. In contrast, flying to Europe and taking a train or a tour bus to various parts would have meant minimal danger to the tourists. No one, to my knowledge, has done a follow-up study on just how many of those who stayed away from Europe met with traffic mishaps. But the initial calculations by the economist seemed right.
In the present SARS scare thousands of people are foregoing vacations in China, Hong Kong, Toronto and other places where SARS has made its appearance. Given the relatively small numbers of those who have been felled by SARS, and given the statistical probability of meeting with traffic mishaps, it seems to me clear enough that this media driven and highly selective scare is once again leading to some unrecorded disasters.
Not much can be done about it, of course. When people get scared, however unreasonable their fear may well be, they will take measures to protect themselves. However, their protection may lead to worse things than what they feared in the first place.
It would be nice, under the circumstances, if the media—primarily news organizations—would report the comparative hazards stemming from SARS versus from other diseases and from the protective measures people are taking to avoid SARS. It should not be necessary for ordinary citizens, who rely so much on news organizations to inform them about what’s what, to become experts in this area. They should, instead, enjoy the services of their news reporters who should, in turn, dig deeper than superficial data that provides little more than grounds for panic rather than information that can help us make intelligent decisions. (For some official, government provided information on SARS, visit http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/sars/faq.htm.)
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