I'd like to take a detour this evening from my usual election-centered writing, to talk about some ideas that have floated around in my head for the last few days. You see, a friend of mine e-mailed me an article by a man named Sean Harris, an apparently controversial writer who writes about "the danger religion poses to modern societies". (
http://www.samharris.org) Mr. Harris wrote an article in the Los Angeles Times on September 18th of this year entitled "The End of Liberalism?"
(
http://www.samharris.org/...), which says in part,
On questions of national security, I am now as wary of my fellow liberals as I am of the religious demagogues on the Christian right.This may seem like frank acquiescence to the charge that "liberals are soft on terrorism." It is, and they are.
Part 1: An Introduction
As a liberal, I was personally offended by the notion that my ideological bearings make me unsuited for the global realities of today. Clearly Mr. Harris has NOT read up on the LIBERAL idea of containment from the Cold War, which proved vital to stopping the spread of Soviet influence after World War II. He also did NOT remember the liberal, but muscular foreign policy that liberals have exercised throughout the 20th century. In short, my liberalism combines social reform at home and foreign internationalism abroad - and I see no reason that Mr. Harris' remarks on the dangers of religion today should be used as an excuse to bash my ideology.
For indeed, that is what Mr. Harris' article discusses; namely, that liberals are soooo out of touch with reality that they fail to understand the threat posed by terrorist fundamentalism to the rest of the world. Look here, Mr. Harris - I live a half-hour from NYC - so don't you dare tell me I don't "get" what they did to us on 9/11, or what its aftermath has done for America.
But I digress. The purpose of this diary is not to rant against smug scholars who say liberalism is a dead ideology. HELL NO! Rather, what I began to do after reading this article is to think. My thoughts ran as follows:
1) What does being a liberal mean in this age of terrorism dominating our daily lives?
2) What can liberalism offer from its past in providing solutions for the future?
3) What should we do starting in 2007 to fight terrorism and still ensure a return to liberal values at home?
I will address each question in turn.
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Part 2: What is liberalism in 2006?
This is arguably the trickiest question to answer, since liberalism by itself is not a constant. The very idea of being "liberal" means that you are willing to embrace change, which of course results in what was "liberal" in value now becomes more "conservative". That, after all is what progress is called; when a change occurs, the world moves to the "left" (rhetorically speaking), pushing the "old" values further to the right as it gradually occurs. For example, almost no American, from the Greens to the Constitution Party would argue that slavery is a good thing for America; yet that very issue provoked the Civil War just 150 years ago. Thankfully, times have changed.
What liberalism stands for is evolving even now, as the "old order" of liberalism (the New Deal, the Great Society etc.) was enacted a generation ago. Even as the Bush Administration attempts to "roll back the clock", the vast majority of the American people oppose such efforts on his part. Rolling back time has never worked for long in any country in the history of the world, and Bush is no exception. But this is liberalism is domestic terms. What, then, is liberalism based on with foreign policy?
If by liberalism we meant "Interventionism", then clearly liberalism has triumphed in foreign affairs. The United States intervenes, almost Imperially, in most areas of the globe, whether be it with dollars, values or guns. From 1991 onward, the United States has been the world's lone superpower, although that role is steadily declining as China and India acquire more power. In this sense, we have followed the British Empire of the mid-19th century, which despite strong public opposition to overseas expansion at home steadily acquires new lands of influence and control across the globe. Today, arguably, the sun never sets on the United States.
Yet there is more to liberalism than mere intervention; the vision of international liberalism also includes the reduction of famine, poverty, disease and the persecution of ethnic and religious minorities throughout the globe. No serious "liberal" power can ignore its moral imperatives while reaping its political rewards. If it does so, it violates its liberal credo.
Therefore, I can safely say that President Bush's War on Terror (c. 2001 onward) is not a liberal foreign policy iniative. Therefore, what is? What does liberalism offer in a foreign policy context?
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Part 3: The Lessons of Liberalism
Liberalism offers the United States (and by extension, the world) many powerful lessons from its past that can be used today for good measure. Liberalism became an essential part of American foreign policy (arguably) with Woodrow Wilson's 14 Points. While Wilson did not extend his vision to non-white areas of the world, he did provide some excellent plans for promoting a safer, more prosperous world in the aftermath of World War I:
"I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.
II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants.
III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.
IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.
...
XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike."
(
http://www.lib.byu.edu/...)
These five points in particular are relevant now, and the 14th (first the League of Nations, now the UN) has been successful since 1945. Open peace agreements, freedom of the seas (and of the skies now?), the promotion of free trade and the reduction of armaments (including nuclear weapons now?) are all pretty darn good ideas, right? Well, they happen to be liberal ones too!
Franklin D. Roosevelt also had a liberal vision for Foreign Policy. We find it in his equally famous "Four Freedoms" speech of 1941.
In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.
The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world.
The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way everywhere in the world.
The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -- everywhere in the world.
The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor -- anywhere in the world.
That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called "new order" of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/...
Hey, don't they sound familiar? They're liberal ideas, brought to the surface by a great liberal President. I also include the last paragraph to note how FDR's rhetoric can be incredibly relevant and useful today - when used for the right and just reasons.
These ideals expressed by Wilson and FDR hold meaning and relevance for us even today.
If North Korea signs secret treaties with Iran (bombs for supplies), or if the US signs a secret treaty with Saudi Arabia (arms for oil), neither one is morally correct. Neither treaty should exist. If American cannot act morally, it should not act at all.
If the US were to adopt a strictly protectionist economic policy (along with the lesser world leaders), then both poorer and richer nations alike would collapse economically. The Wilsonian concept of Free Trade has triumphed.
The United States pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Treaty in 2003; this prevents us from helping other nations (and ourselves) safely dispose of nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry that could otherwise destroy mankind. This urgent task has been made even more critical by the saber-rattling of Iran and North Korea in recent months.
We face a vast disparancy between "haves" and "have-nots" in the world, with half of our world's population at or below the poverty line. That is unacceptable, as is the raging flood of death called AIDS that has been left unchecked.
And how can we possibly stay inactive and watch as Darfur becomes a greater and greater disaster every day?
These current crises in our world are not "new" in the sense that they have been discussed before. They are new in that we can use the tools that worked well in the past to solve the problems of today and tomorrow.
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Part 4: What We Must Do
Let us assume for a moment that it is January 2007 already. The Congress is relatively split, with the Democrats possibly controlling both Congressional houses, possibly one. It's irrelevant, really, since all signs point to a Congress closely divided on partisan lines, and it will be unlikely to force any major policy changes on its own.
Let us also assume that President Bush, in a moment of rare insight, has Dick Cheney resign, has Congress appoint a liberal statesman as VP and then promptly resigns himself.
It is impossible, of course that this will happen. But this is a hypothetical exercise at any rate. The foreign policy of our country will not change much until a new President is sworn into office in 2009. But a boy can dream, right?
So, we see that our new, liberal President (Gore? Feingold? Ted Kennedy?) is facing some pretty tough foreign policy challenges. Iraq is in chaos, with Afghanistan slipping towards anarchy as well (thanks to our inattention). North Korea and Iran are saber-rattling, and China, India and Russia are on the march. Most importantly, Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin-Laden have not been defeated. What is to be done?
If the United States is going to "win" the War on Terror, it needs to do three things:
1) Drop the "War on Terror" monikor immediately, and redefine the current situation with the goal of making the world more stable. National leaders may not care about democracy or liberty or free trade, but they sure as hell care about getting bombed in their homes by rogue terrorists. What threatens us threatens all.
2) Reach out to China, India and Russia with a message of stabilizing the world, and how it's in the world's best interest to contain fundamentalist extremism. Only by bringing in almost 45% of the world's population to the table can we form a truly international solution. After all, a terrorist could just as easily nuke Beijing or Moscow as New York.
3) Upon reaching International terms, withdraw American troops from Iraq to friendlier nations nearby and let the chaos work itself out. Iraq is going to become a Shiite theocracy ala Iran, it's just a question of when. The sooner we resolve the situation there, rather than losing Americans lives for a puppet government, the better.
The world is rapidly becoming a more cohesive place every day with globalization. The threat from Islamic fundamentalism can be argued to be the last throes of "the old way" of individual societies without international contact. Only by combating this threat head on can the world permanently move in a liberal direction.
What is this new liberal direction, you ask?
-Create a global War on AIDS, or Poverty, or Disease - or whatever global crisis the world community wants to tackle first. Here is a Coalition of the Willing, which would be willing to send money and volunteers to Africa and Asia to help those in dire need.
-Cede International authority in the long run to China and India. India is a growing democracy, and China is slowly heading in that direction. By 2020, it is not inconcievable to have three global powers dictating foreign policy. Add Russia (and the EU?) to this potent mix, and 'voila!' you have a new balance of power.
-With most of our money not flowing into foreign disasters, we can then turn our attention to domestic security and civil progress again. That, of course involves replacing the PATRIOT Act with better, more liberal legislation, actually funding our border security patrols and providing stronger security for ports, nuclear and chemical plants and restoring Habeus Corpus and Posse Commitatus to the US Constitution.
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Conclusion: What We Can Do
Of course, all the ideas presented above are a fantasy while the Republican Party (and President Bush) continue on their present direction off the global cliff. So, the simple answer to "What can we do?" is simple:
Vote every single Republican out of Washington - ASAP. From the Presidency on down, elect responsible leaders to office who will actually show some maturity, common sense and competence in dealing with foreign policy. And that means the Democratic Party.
I hope reading my diary has made you think. It certainly was a product of a lot of thinking, and I look forward to your responses. Thanks!