[Peace-discuss] neocon or same old con?

["E. Wayne Johnson 朱稳森"]

Adventures in Neocon Land

Mises Daily: Friday, May 20, 2011 by Stefano R. Mugnaini

Like many liberty-minded people, I tend to be a bit pessimistic. I find 
myself doubting that the great mass of Americans can be convinced, 
awakened, or converted to a genuine love of human liberty. Every day 
that passes brings another outrage: a child molested by the TSA, a 
private business seized by regulators, or an innocent individual 
imprisoned for crimes defined by nothing more than the whim of this 
legislature or that. And the outcry, if present, is subdued and muted, 
except in a few pockets of protest.

My malaise risked transformation into something more severe as I watched 
the shameful celebrations and media gloating after the bin Laden 
assassination. Then comfort came from an unlikely source.

I found myself on a televised opinion panel for "likely Republican 
primary voters." The experience alternated between horribly frustrating 
and incredibly amusing, as you might expect it would. In the end, 
however, my adventure in Neocon Land was strangely enlightening, and 
even a little bit encouraging. If nothing else, it provided an 
opportunity to learn to tie, and to sport, my brand new Mises-crest bow tie.

I suppose I was chosen for the panel on account of being a member of 
some email list that I had signed up for on my journey toward 
libertarianism. (It took me some time, several wars, and a heavy dose of 
Austrian economics to realize that conservatism was not consistent with 
my beliefs or the nature of human freedom.)

This particular gathering was organized for the purpose of gauging 
reactions to the Republican presidential debate in Greenville, SC, on 
May 5th. As I anticipated, there was a tremendous level of ignorance in 
the room. These were not well-informed political junkies; they appeared 
to be jingoistic, anti-immigrant neoconservatives of the most 
stereotypical sort. I walked into a discussion about the brilliance of 
Donald Trump's imperialist and protectionist policy suggestions — which, 
shockingly, gave way to a conversation about the evil illegal immigrants 
who, apparently, are taking all the jobs and committing all the crimes. 
This set the tone for the night. The consensus was that the path to 
prosperity is simple: build a border fence, shoot anyone who approaches 
it, take all the oil in Iraq, and levy heavy tariffs on Chinese exports.

What about this was encouraging, you ask? Nothing so far. The rest of 
the night went similarly. The questions asked throughout the session 
were shallow and leading. The pollster told us when to respond to the 
Republican debate we were watching, and he implied strongly what form 
the responses should take.

Ron Paul was jeered by this committee of 29 because he suggested that 
the war on drugs was a waste of time; but everyone got a kick out of his 
rhetorical question: "How many people here would use heroin if it were 
legal?" Gary Johnson was similarly derided when he suggested that 
immigrants, even of the illegal type, put more into the economy than 
they extract. I think the woman behind me actually started hissing at 
that point. Trump was hailed as a genius for his 25 percent China-tariff 
idea, and as a bold, brave figure when he condemned them for 
manipulating their currency, as if the United States were a bastion of 
sound, legitimate monetary policy. When Paul brought up the crazy notion 
that the Federal Reserve might have something to do with the economic 
collapse of 2008 and the subsequent price inflation and stagnation, 
blank stares won the day. I innocently asked one of my neighbors if he 
had heard of the Austrian theory of the business cycle. He angrily 
responded, "I know what a business is!"

I left the event dejected and thoroughly disgusted. But after a few days 
in this state, a thought occurred to me, and my initial misgivings gave 
way to a ray of hope. The members of the group that gathered that night, 
though woefully uninformed and generically partisan, were also eminently 
teachable. They genuinely cared about the consequences of the course 
pursued by the federal government. They were impressionable and 
surprisingly receptive to ideas unlike their own.

The most vocal proponent of protectionism in the room eventually 
conceded that tariffs are destructive, rather than constructive. He 
accepted my rough paraphrase of Human Action: All that a tariff can 
achieve is to divert production from those locations in which the output 
per unit of input is higher to locations in which it is lower. A tariff 
does not increase production; it curtails it.

Our discussion of the immigrant question yielded similar fruit. There 
was universal agreement on the importance of a free market, but limited 
understanding of what that actually means. But therein is the source of 
my hope.

Statism and interventionism are not, for most, the result of careful 
consideration of all the alternatives. They are merely a knee-jerk 
reaction to events, arising more from herd instinct than careful 
analysis — simplistic patriotism from those who haven't the time or 
inclination to read Nock or Rothbard. This is why I see political action 
and involvement as essential, even to the most ardent anarchist. We 
probably won't win what we desire at the ballot box. But, as Jacob 
Huebert brilliantly pointed out, that is not the only result of the 
electoral process. There is a great multitude that honestly desires 
peace, freedom, and the preservation of individual rights. They are 
groping for the truth about the economy and the nature of the state; but 
they search in vain because they don't know where to look. We can show them.

Take, for example, the tea party. My experience with members of this 
movement is that they are not antiliberty, though some of their views 
would qualify as such. They are just at a different place in their 
journey. Fiscal issues have awakened many of them, if not yet fully. 
But, as Thoreau famously wrote in Walden,

    /  The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in
    a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only
    one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is
    to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How
    could I have looked him in the face?/


I walked out of my adventure in Neocon Land as downhearted as I have 
been in a long time, but I have come to see the true import of the 
gathering in the lesson it taught me: most people tend to gravitate 
toward liberty — they just have not heard it properly defined.
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