V.I. Lenin, the first supreme leader of the Soviet Union, allegedly said that western supporters of the communist regime were “useful idiots.” Whether or not Lenin said this is beside the point, because in the United States, we have an abundance of ‘useful idiots” who still believe the Bush invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were necessary for the national security of the United States.
In New Jersey “useful idiots” bloviate about the glory of military intervention in the Middle East, and assert that the United States can intervene anywhere in the world where there are “bad guys.” There rants can be found at Conservatives with Attitude website, http://www.gopusanj.com/wordpress/
There arguments—if you want to call them that–are sophomoric at best. Two individuals responded to my latest essay about the counter counterrevolution at www.MurraySabrin.com, which was reposted at CWA. I in turn commented on their comments at the CWA website.
I wrote:
If you support the federal government’s foreign policy, then ipso facto you support crony capitalism, bailouts, and big government. See Murray Rothbard’s classic essay, Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy, http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard66.html.
In this extensive essay, Rothbard demonstrates conclusively that America’s financial elites have used the military power of the federal government to protect their business interests overseas–with devastating results for indigenous peoples and the growing anti-American sentiment throughout the world.
Rothbard shows how Wall Street banking and law firms have controlled the State Department for more than a hundred years. He names the individuals who have manipulated American public opinion for decades to camouflage their interventionist goals. In reality the elites have used the military under the guise of defending freedom overseas in order to enhance the American people’s security as a ruse. The federal government’s foreign policy has been the handmaiden of the rich and powerful at the expense of the average American worker and small business owners since the 19th century. See the expose by the highly decorated General Smedley Butler, War is a Racket, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3_EXqJ8f-0 and http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html.
If you want to be a real patriot, don’t parrot the neoconservative lies that the federal government’s foreign policy is about our “national security.”
One pro war blogger reacted to my piece with this comment:
The role of the police is to get bad guys at home. (True. MS). The role of the American military is to get bad guys abroad. (Where is that authorized in the U.S. Constitution? MS) One may argue about whether prosecutorial discretion should be exercised to forego prosecution of a bad guy at home, or to not depose a bad guy abroad – but to condemn the govenrment (sic) (and its military) for going after bad guys – rather than condemning the bad guys – is an attack on government as such. (What a confused and dumb statement. Isn’t it the obligation—the legal duty–of prosecutors to prosecute the “bad guys” at home? And as Howard Buffett, Midwestern chairman of the Robert Taft (Mr. Republican) for president campaign, wrote, “Even if it were desirable, America is not strong enough to police the world by military force. If that attempt is made, the blessings of liberty will be replaced by coercion and tyranny at home. Our Christian ideals cannot be exported to other lands by dollars and guns.” (MS)
In recent years thanks to both Republicans and Democrats, the Patriot Act was passed to “fight terrorism” at home, and is one of the most egregious laws in the history of the country. See Judge Napolitano’s numerous essays about the anti-liberty Patriot Act, http://www.lewrockwell.com/napolitano/napolitano-arch.html
The blogger continues:
The no government anarchy that Sabrin, Paul, Rothbard and other libertarians advocate is not capitalism. It is either outright totalitarianism or a precursor to totalitarianism. (This is about a dumb as it gets. In addition, it is a straw man argument. Rothbard’s anarcho-capitalism position has not been refuted by economists, social analysts, etc. There is ample evidence that there can be a peace and the rule of law without the state. See Bruce Benson, The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without the State. Also see Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy: The God That Failed)
Caopitalism (sic) requires a government – a limited government, with strictly defined powers. This is something that libertarians either do not understand or intentionally ignore. (How has the limited government experiment worked out so far during the past 200 years? The promise of the American Revolution—limited government, a constitutional republic and no entangling alliances–has been replaced with the welfare-warfare state. By any standard, America would be unrecognizable by the signers of the Declaration of the Independence.)
This blogger makes the following libelous statement about the late Murray Rothbard’s views of the Soviet Union, repeating one of Bill Buckley’s lies about libertarians and others who did not sign on to his “fortress America” position during the Cold War.
Footnote to my previous comment #14: Murray Rothbard is on record as having supported the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and for saying that if not for American aggression and America’s military industrial complex, the USSR and USA could have gotten along just fine. Use that when judging Mr. Sabrin’s reliance on the “conclusiveness” of Mr. Rothbard’s muising (sic) on American foreign policy.
For Murray Rothbard’s view of the Cold War see his 1966 essay, Myths of the Cold War, http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard111.html
Every policy of aggression by a central government needs “useful idiots” to fear monger, warmonger and scapegoat. The two amateurish bloggers at CWA continuously criticize anyone (not with facts but with childish name calling and personal attacks) who opposes the federal government’s military interventions, even though our reckless polices have cost millions of innocent civilians their lives from the Philippines to Korea to Vietnam and now the Middle East. These irrefutable facts say volumes about these two individuals and their moral compass.
Although there have been ‘useful idiots” on the left who have supported the murderous Soviet experiment in collectivism, there are now so many well known “useful idiots” on the right who will condone every abuse of the people’s liberties by the federal government and ignore the slaughter of hundreds of thousand of civilians overseas in order to justify a failed interventionist foreign policy.