The Risk
From what’s become a productive exchange between Katherine and me downblog:
The danger from the libertarian perspective is not that we elect Democrats and they stop official torture and curtail the policy of preventive war while they get about the business of changing health care policy and raising taxes and preserving 70-year-old social welfare programs in amber. The danger is that we elect Democrats and they leave torture and preventive war largely unchanged to cover their right flank, so that the Democratic Party can get about the business of changing health care policy and raising taxes and preserving 70-year-old social welfare programs in amber.
Reading liberal bloggers did a lot to cure me of my rightist stereotypes of “the America-hating left.” Probably Hesiod gets more credit than anyone. During the runup to the Iraq War he was mouthy and sarcastic and too quick to consign broad swathes of the country to the category of “Moron-Americans.” But his anguish that the war augured sorrow for his country was palpable. The emotional context was unmistakably, for lack of a better term, “pro-American.” I’ll happily admit it was an eye-opener. It helped me recognize that my disdain for liberal patriotism was facile and unworthy.
But you know what? I’m not being asked to elect liberal bloggers. I’m being asked to elect Democratic politicians. So yes, I would like to have some confidence that said politicians will, as Jesse Walker put it, “Be good on the issues where the left is supposed to be good.” Because the official Democratic Party has been nothing short of pusillanimous on peace and civil liberties in the Bush II era. When it comes to torture and tyranny, it’s better to put the reins of power in the hands of cowardly enablers than unabashed enthusiasts, but that makes a pathetic rallying cry.
The actual task before us is immense. It’s not enough to hold the line on civil liberties, executive aggrandizement and promiscuous war for a few years until the Republicans regain power. We need to actively roll back the damage that’s been done, and “shift the centerline” so that the next Republican Administration will think twice before taking America even this far. That means we need a Democratic Party with, say, half the commitment it brings to preserving the right to terminate pregnancies to every other individual right out there, and at least half the commitment to setting hard limits on Presidential power that it brings to preserving entitlement programs.
UPDATE: Fixed grammar at behest of editor.
Comment by srv —
June 10, 2006 @ 4:00 pm
”That means we need a Democratic Party with, say, half the commitment it brings to preserving the right to terminate pregnancies”
Pro-choicers are just another special interest group within a political party. They are powerful, the way evangelicals are powerful. They make up enough of a voting and funding base that you cant turn your back on them, and you cant really control them. Either you are onboard, or you are stabbing them in the back.
If the last few years have proven anything, there is no such base on civil liberties. That dog will not hunt. While I question whether any of my conservative republican friends have ever taken a civics course, I do know that most of my democratic friends failed it. In short, the morons are everywhere.
This means you either have to come up with a strategy to build a large base of zealous activists or produce enough money to beat all the other special interest groups who have a stake in authoritarianism. The former is unlikely, and the latter would require defeating the following: the Republican party, federal/state/local crime lobbies, national security lobbies, corporate defense contractors, etc).
If phase I of the strategy is not getting a big check from a billionaire or two, I am doubtful you can get anywhere.
It is a sad state of affairs when Preserving the Constitution is probably only achieveable under a corporate funding model.
Comment by Katherine —
June 10, 2006 @ 4:18 pm
sort of off topic, sort of not: Three prisoners committed suicide at Guantanamo today.
Comment by anon —
June 10, 2006 @ 7:19 pm
Last week Political Theory Daily Review linked to a piece by Mark Schmitt that seems to me complementary to your thoughts here. In particular, Schmitt makes the point that the most vulnerable Republicans in the upcoming midterms are likely to be moderate Republicans (Schmitt does not clarify whether this is due to gerrymandering, the Republican base/party finding them insufficiently conservative, or both). Schmitt seems to assume that the result will mirror the 1994 elections, with moderate Republicans being replaced by liberal Democrats. If he’s right, maybe Congress will grow a spine on civil liberties. But I could just as easily see the moderate Republicans being replaced by Democrats who feel tremendous pressure to cover their right flank in order to ensure their longevity in office.
Comment by Hesiod —
June 10, 2006 @ 8:15 pm
Firs, let me say that I had no idea I had that kind of impact on Jim’s thinking. If so, maybe my blog wasn;t a big waste of time after all.
As to your larger point, it all hinges on what happens in the next couple of elections. I can tell you that very few Democrats support the war in Iraq, torture, curtailed civil liberties, etc. Especially the rank and file. It is, as you said, the cowardly enablers in Washington who are the problem. But, I think you are going to see some movement on this when (and I mean when, nt if) Ned Lamont defeats Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary.
That loss will send shockwaves through Democratic Washington like a nucleear weapon. And, let’s be frank here, Lieberamn will be done if he loses the primary. By that time, an independant run will make him look pathetic and grasping.
In any case, no matter what happens in 2006, the Democrats couldn’t reverse all these policies on thier own anyway. Bush will still be President. The best they could do would be to start serious oversight of Bush’s activities, and probably create a constitutuional crisis.
Comment by Neel Krishnaswami —
June 10, 2006 @ 8:32 pm
In regards to actively creating a civil liberties culture, I started to wonder: how did the Freedom of Information Act get passed in the first place? Pretty much all I know is that LBJ wasn’t happy about signing it. (Wikipedia isn’t much help.)
Comment by Katherine —
June 10, 2006 @ 8:38 pm
I think a Democratic Congress starting next year is going to have far more impact on the constitutional/rule of law/torture issues than whether say, John McCain or Hillary Clinton gets elected President. (On preventive war issues it’s a somewhat different story–McCain we know sucks, Hillary could go either way, and that’s very largely controlled by the executive.)
We need investigations, and investigations are going to play a lot better in the press if you are trying to end an ongoing scandal and prevent a president in power from abusing it; than they will play if you’re doing it after the fact. Congressional investigations of this after the fact are going to be portrayed as: the Democrats are sore winners. It would still be appropriate for DOJ to appoint a prosecutor to investigate, but it would be incredibly risky (you want to start your term by making the CIA hate you?) and the press coverage would not be good, and I doubt most Democratic presidential candidates would do it. I also doubt they would go for the lesss confrontational route of just declassifying a lot of the most damning evidence. And a GOP candidate absolutely would not, even if he was going forward.
We need those investigations if we are going to change public opinion on this, and we need divided government for a bit–Congress asserting itself is a far better safeguard against this happening again than 4 years of a more benign chief executive.
It’s possible we wouldn’t get them even if the Dems took over–the usual suspects will say: ”too negative”, ”too distracting from the issues we want to run on in 2008”, etc. But there are Democrats in Congress who care about this and some of them would be chairs of the key committees.
Comment by Katherine —
June 10, 2006 @ 8:40 pm
Neel, I was wondering the same thing yesterday. I had assumed it was post-Watergate, but no.
We need to get someone to write a bill about State Secrets Privilege in the worst way. And putting SOME enforceable restrictions on the classification power.
One of the best things Bill Clinton did in office was to veto an Official Secrets-act.
Comment by Nell —
June 10, 2006 @ 10:17 pm
Katherine and Neel: The FOIA was first passed in 1966 (one of Ralph Nader’s best initiatives), but only given real teeth during the brief Ford administration. It took Watergate, the wave of newly elected Democrats in Congress (the ’class of 1974’), the 1975 Church hearings on CIA and FBI abuses, and the end of the Viet Nam war that made it safe to acknowledge all the lies and coverups it involved. Ford staffers Cheney and Rumsfeld fought it, indeed advised defying it using the state secrets privilege. Bastards.
Comment by Nell —
June 10, 2006 @ 10:20 pm
Looking back at that period, I have to say it supports Katherine’s case for divided government for the next few years. But that Congress was one hell of a lot more combative and reform-minded than this one will be, even in the best case scenario.
Comment by Frank —
June 10, 2006 @ 10:30 pm
Hesiod- Congrats!
Jim- We differ on this. I question the patriotism of liberals sometimes because I recognize that my own critical impulses sound in my head like something a liberal would say, and don’t always come from a patriotic place. I was raised by liberals and I think I see all the bad in them.
On the other hand, I’ve had an equal and opposite realization to the one you report. That is I now believe there are no patriots in the Republican party. Its not just that they support tyranny that the founders would have called for armed resistance against. Its that they are collaborating in a looting expedition against America.
Comment by Nell —
June 10, 2006 @ 10:31 pm
And taking back Congress won’t undo the kind of complete moral deformation that has twisted the highest levels of the U.S. military, to judge from the Guantanamo commander’s response to the three prisoners who hanged themselves. All were hunger strikers who had endured the ongoing torture of force feeding. Rear Admiral Harry Harris:
”[T]his was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.”
Makes you proud to be an American, eh?
Comment by Nell —
June 10, 2006 @ 10:44 pm
My bitter comments open me to the charge of insufficient patriotism, I realize.
But it’s being represented to the world by a man who presides over a torture regime while painting himself — and by extension, all Americans — as victims that fills me with disgust and shame. It makes me desperate for political representation that will distance us from this sick, cruel, appalling disgrace, and begin to reverse it.
Comment by Katherine —
June 10, 2006 @ 11:14 pm
Nell, I nearly hit the roof when I read that.
It’s also really, really classy to repeat the charges against them to the press (one is apparently a ”mid-to-high-level al Qaeda operative”, another was an enemy combatant captured in the battlefield in Afghanistan, another apparently belonged to a ”splinter group”) while refusing to release their names.
If they do release the names or ISNs I’m going to post the CSRT and ARB, assuming they’re in the FOIA documents.
Just keep in mind, the military is a huge organization; it contains multitudes. You have your Admiral Harrises and General Millers, and you have your Charles Swifts and Alberto Moras.
Comment by Rich Puchalsky —
June 11, 2006 @ 12:01 am
”When it comes to torture and tyranny, it’s better to put the reins of power in the hands of cowardly enablers than unabashed enthusiasts, but that makes a pathetic rallying cry.”
The Democratic Party doesn’t owe a rallying cry. So you vote for them, maybe send a small amount of money depending on your wealth — a small investment of time/energy. Rallying cries are authoritarian politics anyway.
As a Democrat, I expect the Democrats, if they get into power, to be influenced by the same power structures as everyone else. Civil rights are a loser as a political rallying point in American society, because a majority of Americans don’t care much about civil rights. They are always going to be primarily defended by ethnic / religious / cultural minorities, ”wonkish” groups, etc.
If Democrats get the Presidency, they will become enamored of military adventurism for the same reasons that any party with the Presidency quickly finds out that military adventurism is one of the best things that the Presidency is good for. As previously mentioned here, I’d expect the Libertarians to do the same thing if they somehow got a President. (There have been wars over high tariffs before — why not?). I’ll still take Clinton’s military adventurism over Bush’s.
So, what would you do for the Democrats if they provided a good rallying cry around these issues that you wouldn’t/shouldn’t do merely to save the U.S. from continued Republican domination? If the answer is ”not much”, as I expect it would be, then what motive do they have for taking on positions that would please you better?
Comment by Avedon —
June 11, 2006 @ 7:40 am
”That means we need a Democratic Party with, say, half the commitment it brings to preserving the right to terminate pregnancies”
We already have that Democratic Party. That’s the problem.
Comment by Nell —
June 11, 2006 @ 9:34 am
Let’s say Al Gore runs. Libertarians: re-read his MLK Day speech. What if he were to make those themes a major part of his campaign? (Along with, naturally, responding to global warming and getting the hell out of Iraq, if we haven’t been forced out of there by 2008.)
Is that enough of a rallying cry?
Comment by srv —
June 11, 2006 @ 3:47 pm
”It makes me desperate for political representation that will distance us from this sick, cruel, appalling disgrace, and begin to reverse it.”
The People just aren’t there. We can all agree that the current Dem leadership is just a posse of enablers, but I agree with Katherine. Any Dem who can threaten Republican moderate seats isn’t going to be a civil-rights firebrand.
I think the best civil-rights folks can hope for is that Feingold gets elected and outdoes King George. I’d suggest imprisoning Yoo and Addington under Article II powers, and dragging their cases thru the courts until SCOTUS had to intervene. Otherwise, these wacky interpretations of the Constitution will just return again after the next terrorist attack.
Comment by Jim Henley —
June 11, 2006 @ 5:37 pm
Nell: Yes, the sentiments in the Gore essay, made to stick, work for me.
Avedon: Heh. You know, the sentence you quote in fragment could use some work. The most I’ll say for myself as a prose stylist is that I write a pretty good first draft, most of the time, and most of the time a first draft is what you get. But that could be clearer.
Comment by Mr. Obscura —
June 11, 2006 @ 5:50 pm
Nell: The Gore essay adds evidence to my conviction that I held my nose and pulled the wrong lever in 2000.
But Gore is right, political discourse is conducted in 30-second TV commercials. I have no idea how such a reasoned, passionate defense of the American ideal from those who are systematically dismantling it (from both sides of the aisle) can be reduced to that 30-second format. But for all our sakes, I hope someone does.
Comment by Nell —
June 11, 2006 @ 5:58 pm
Pigs will fly when Feingold is nominated, much less wins the general election. I’m backing him, but that should tell you all you need to know about his chances.
(Hey, gotta love his nifty fundraising mug, though: it features the Bill of Rights with several of the amendments crossed out. Fill it with hot beverage and watch them be restored!)
Comment by Katherine —
June 11, 2006 @ 6:04 pm
yeah Nell, your and my combined endorsements will ensure his doom.
that mug is soooo cheesy, but very endearing.
(I would also consider Gore, but doubt he’ll put himself through that again. who knows.)
Comment by Jim Henley —
June 11, 2006 @ 6:37 pm
I totally want one of those mouse pads.
Feingold starts with two strikes from a libertarian perspective because of campaign finance ”reform,” but it’s time for us to admit that, on pretty much every other civil-liberties issue out there, he’s as good as they come. In the present context he’s worth supporting.
Comment by Zack —
June 11, 2006 @ 10:11 pm
When it comes to torture and tyranny, it’s better to put the reins of power in the hands of cowardly enablers than unabashed enthusiasts, but that makes a pathetic rallying cry.
I don’t see that as a problem. From the political culture I come from, we voted for the least evil option holding our nose the whole time (i.e. when we could vote). So I don’t understand this idealistic notion common among a number of bloggers that we must vote for the best guy. There’s no best guy. Such is life.
Then again, whatever happened to punishing incumbents and showing displeasure at their actions? That is good enough for me.
As for what would happen where the Democrats take back Congress (and/or the Presidency), nothing much! I would settle for rolling back of the torture and other imperialist actions. Genuine investigations are never going to happen since there are lots of people who would be burned, including foreign governments and intelligence agencies (anywhere from Canada and Germany to Egypt, Syria and Uzbekistan).
Trackback by Andrew Olmsted dot com —
June 12, 2006 @ 8:37 am
MinMaxing Politics
Steve Benen, who stood in for Kevin Drum while he was on vacation last week, closed out his week by noting the appearance of six separate articles in the Washington Post with some advice for Democrats as the November elections…
Comment by No Nym —
June 12, 2006 @ 2:24 pm
re: executive aggrandizement. Why not label it ”executive activism,” ala judicial activism? We’re not against the commander in chief carrying out his duties, we just think he needs to stay in the bounds set by the constitution and the congress.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
June 12, 2006 @ 2:24 pm
As a libertarian who regrets supporting the Iraq invasion and voting once for Bush, I’d vote in a heartbeat for a Democratic presidential candidate who adamantly said he’d end the current practices of torture and indefinite detention without charge or POW status. S/he’d have to be absolutely bug-nuts on another issue for me to even hesitate.
I don’t expect to get such a candidate, mind. But such a candidate would get me.
Comment by The other Eric —
June 15, 2006 @ 8:41 pm
It’s a fair cop, Jim. Some of our Democratic leaders are sniveling, pusillanimous whimps who’d sell their own grandmothers for a chance at power.
But frankly, the worst of them are incompetent politicians. Witness Lieberman’s whiny, self-indulgent, and rapidly-sinking campaign. An organized pressure group can threaten the leadership. In 2002, the online Democratic base was powerless; in 2006, we have an ally in charge at the DNC, and we’re forcing at least one primary showdown.
So challenging the torture-apologists and war-mongers is certainly possible, if not easy. Like all enablers, they stink of fear and cowardice.
The larger problem: The American people aren’t behind us on civil liberties. They don’t care very much about torture, eavesdropping, or secret prisons. And we’ll have an awfully hard time bringing the politicians around without winning over the public.
So let’s start thinking about how to change public opinion. If we were to repeat one theme for a year, the way the Democrats repeat ”culture of corruption”, what should that theme be? Can we instill shame at the very thought or torture? Or is there a better way to present it?
If you’re voting Democratic, please feel free to start lobbying the party and applying pressure. Libertarians share some core values with many Democratic voters–a love of the Constitution, and a hatred of secret prisons aren’t the least. And nobody’s asking the libertarians to be passive partners in this coalition.
Trackback by Kuff's World —
June 18, 2006 @ 7:43 pm
The Libertarians are coming!
In case you missed it, the Libertarian Party of Texas had its convention last weekend, right here in Houston. The Chron reports from the address by 2004 LP Presidential candidate and current Congressional hopeful Michael Badnarik. The Libertarian Party…
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June 19, 2006 @ 5:56 pm
[...] ves, but the net result could still be a win for the country. Now for the cold water, via Jim Henley: Reading liberal bloggers did a lot to cure me of my rightist stereotypes [...]
Pingback by Positive Liberty » Blog Archive » Libertarians and the Democratic Party —
June 19, 2006 @ 5:57 pm
[...] ves, but the net result could still be a win for the country. Now for the cold water, via Jim Henley: Reading liberal bloggers did a lot to cure me of my rightist stereotypes [...]