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Hope Is No Substitute for Theory

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Should libertarians hope that Barack Obama succeeds or fails in his presidency? The question comes to mind because conservatives got embroiled in the issue when their leading radio star, Rush Limbaugh, said he hoped Obama would fail. Some commentators thought that was a horrible thing to say. Radio stars need regular public controversy to keep their listeners tuned in, so there’s no point in analyzing what the Republican partisan Limbaugh might have meant. But the question may lead us to other insights. Everything hinges on the underlying question: succeed or fail at what? The goal determines the answer. If we assume Obama wants to use the power of government — the power of the gun, really — to redesign society, then any advocate of liberty hopes he fails. The core liberal idea (in the original sense of ...

Hornberger’s Blog, April 2009

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Thursday, April 30, 2009 The Ninth Circuit v. the CIA by Jacob G. Hornberger The omnipotent power claimed by the CIA was dealt a major blow Tuesday by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Binyam Mohamed et al v. Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc. The five plaintiffs are victims of the CIA’s kidnapping, rendition, and torture program. All five were kidnapped overseas by CIA agents, transferred to brutal but CIA-friendly foreign regimes, and tortured. They filed suit against the provider of the airplane that did the transporting—Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc. Before Jeppesen even filed an answer to the lawsuit, the U.S. government intervened and requested an immediate dismissal of the case on the ground that to permit it to go forward would result in the disclosure of “state secrets” that were vital to “national security.” The district court granted the government’s motion to dismiss. The plaintiffs appealed. The court of appeals reversed the ruling of the district court and remanded the case with ...

Foreign-Policy Blowback Comes Later

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Supporters of the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan cite the U.S. occupation of Iraq to buttress their case for staying in Afghanistan. “The surge! The surge!” they cry, reminding people that increasing the level of U.S. troops in Iraq has brought stability, peace, and freedom to that country, enabling the U.S. government to rebuild the nation into a shining beacon of democracy and prosperity for the world. Oftentimes, however, it takes a long time for the adverse consequences of U.S. imperialism and interventionism to manifest themselves. Consider, for example, the 1953 coup in which the U.S. government, operating through the CIA, ousted the democratically elected prime minister of Iran and replaced him with a U.S.-approved puppet, the Shah of Iran, who proceeded to terrorize and torture his own people for some 25 years, with the support of the U.S. government. By the time the Iranian people revolted against the ...