All Favor the Common Good the question is how it Comes About

Posted by Dan Kervick, Jul 31 2010, 2:08AM - Link

I'm sorry, Kotzabasis. But your abstemious interpretation of the permissible pursuit of the common good as something that can only be the emergent result of individual action in a laissez faire economy is an anachronistic projection of latter-day libertarian values onto the much more nuanced views of the founders of the United States, many of whom were quite eager to build their new nation through energetic government, and with a far-sighted concern for the public good and national interest.

You seem not to understand the traditions of classical republicanism, civic humanism and the contractarian theories of government that formed the wellspring of American political thought. Governments are instituted to promote positive values and pursue the general welfare, not just to protect individual liberties and establish a system of "thou shalt nots".
Jefferson supported mandatory public education; he authorized the Cumberland rd. John Adams established a system of socialized medicine for seamen...

Nadine says,

BTW, I think you misunderstand kotz (often easy to do). He is not arguing that the government should have no part in building infrastructure. He says that proper government function is to safeguard individual property and liberty and trade. As long as you keep the principle in mind, you can certainly debate about what sort of infrastructure is proper to be left to government. But there should be a due process for that debate; government must be checked from just deciding and grabbing for itself without a check and balance. That's what Madison was worried about, government propensity to take more and more power to itself. The Constitutional framework was intended to be that check; but this has been steadily hollowed out and vitiated by 100 years of progressive legal thinking.

Posted by kotzabasis, Jul 31 2010, 7:43AM - Link

Nadine, thanks for clarifying my position.
Kervick

I am not suggesting the disutility or euthanasia of government as the latter is a necessary and vital institution in the affairs of its people. I am only saying that it is not its business to enact the common good as the latter spontaneously rises from the rational actions of people in their every day working affairs in the context of an unhampered free market, without however being free from some necessary at times regulation. It goes without saying that government must take initiatives both internal and external for the general welfare of the country such as education, building roads and hospitals etc and ensuring that the vital interests of the nation are protected from external or internal enemies. But all these initiatives of government which contribute to the enhancement of the common weal merely consummate the wishes of its constituents, the government does not impose them upon the latter by legislation. In democracies no government can ever succeed in implementing its policies unless these policies have some resonance among its constituents and its opinion makers, the fourth estate.

Only in certain critical circumstances, such as war, statesmen, with that unique Nietzschean combination of intellect, moral clarity, and fortitude, can go against the stream, but by their nature they are accountable neither to men nor God but to History, although, like Winston Churchill, they can still be vulnerable to the vagaries of a volatile electorate.

Carrots 'Debased Currency' in Diplomacy with Iran

By Con George-Kotzabasis

Reply to: Remembering Our Goals In Iran

By Andrew Lebovich The Washington Note May 25, 2010

One can trace a masochistic pleasure in Andrew Lebovich. He often has a craving to replace facts with fictional occurrences to his detriment, like in this case “...breakthroughs with hostile countries often occur not as a result of threats or harsh measures alone...” Present then a factual example where this has occurred, as Nadine asks.

Professor Kupchan’s proposal is a ludicrous absurdity. In this moonshine diplomacy with Iran he will be asking the latter to replace its libido dominandi to be the major power of the region and of the Muslim world with carrots, i.e., of “curbing the drug trade ...which flows into Iran” and with a “new security architecture in the Persian Gulf.” Is it conceivable to him that while Iran is risking even the great possibility of being bombed either by Israel or the U.S. in its determined pursuit to acquire nuclear weapons under whose carapace will render it supremacy in the region, it will negate this strategic goal by accepting Kupchan’s carrots?

Hardline Approach to Israel Will Harm U.S. Strategic Interests

By Con George-Kotzabasis

Those who recommend, like Dan Kervick, a reduction of aid to Israel and an open reference to its nuclear weapons by the U.S., because of an errant and arrant announcement of the Ramat Shlomo construction plans by a subordinate Israeli authority, are political and strategic dilettantes and should abstain from delving with the complex and dangerous issues of the Middle East that are beyond their understanding.

America at this moment is losing blood and valuable resources fighting a determined and dangerous enemy, which indirectly includes Iran, having only one steadfast and unflinching ally in this fight, the state of Israel. It would be unprecedented in the annals of war that a country that was involved in war would chastise its major ally in the hope that such chastisement would appease its implacable enemies. Such recommendation should be rejected tout court for its strategic ignorance and stunning dim-wittedness. As the outcome of such proposition would be to intensify and further increase the demands of the Palestinians against the Israelis, and hence push the negotiations and peace process further away and with the great danger of turning it into a war process between the Palestinians and Israelis. And the second part of the proposition, that the U.S. should bring up the state of Israel’s nuclear weapons, and to do so in the context of the Iranian ambition to acquire nuclear weapons, will injudiciously provide, if it was adopted by the Administration, an additional excuse to the Iranians and enhance the determination of the Mullahcratic regime to acquire its nuclear arsenal. Thus the Obama administration will be totally defeated in two of its major strategic goals, i.e., to clinch a deal with the Palestinians and Israelis, and to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

With such friends as Clemons and Kervick, why would Obama need to have enemies?

Fanatics are Deaf to the Dictates of Reason

By Con George-Kotzabasis

I don’t know if Tamils were the first suicide bombers prior to the Palestinians—perhaps some other commentator in this thread could disabuse my ignorance-- but my comparison was between Christians and Muslims so your point is completely pointless.

As for American pilots being suicide-bombers in the Battle of Midway, one must really overstretch one’s imagination. You totally disregard the elementary fact that America had never had a self immolating or suicidal cult in its culture, as there is definitively a suicidal cult among Muslim fanatics. So your riposte is intellectually “post less” as it cannot find the address of reason.

Certainly, stating the obvious, Muslims are human, and even the fanatics among them. But the latter, like all fanatics of whatever religion or ideology, are unreasoning humans and therefore are deaf to the dictates of reason. So your appeal to them will be a complete futile and barren exercise by you. Lastly, Thomas Hardy’s poem, by which you thought would strengthen your argument, is totally misplaced as it applies to reasoning combatants

Romantics on Politics and War

By Con George-Kotzabasis

Just one example, was it “hate and anger’ that drove the war against the Nazi axis? To place all wars under the rubric of “hate and anger,” and to misinterpret Clausewitz like you do, is doltishly foolish. But in the end for leftists and centre left inclined like Steve Clemons, empirical reality is spurned by pure, noumenal politics. The heart stands in moral judgment over the intellect. Facts do not stand in cognitive judgment over romantic ideas.

American Liberal Annoyed by Australian 'Snow Flakes' Falling on his Head

American says,

I have no idea about the substance and accuracy of the report itself. But I'm not sure I understand how the release of this news would be supposed to put a better face on the war. Doesn't the story instead create the impression that the war is a classic imperialist war, with US over in Afghanistan prospecting for mineral riches, when they are supposed to be hunting down terrorist "safe havens"?

Australian says

Kervick like an eager bambino susceptible to all thrilling excitements seen his hobbyhorse “classic imperialism” on the rugged mountains of Afghanistan rushes to ride it for a playful trot.

American says,

Kotzabasis, you didn't read my comment very carefully.
I will elaborate on the point I was making. Since the James Risen story was published, there has been a flurry of comment in response to the story. Much of that comment is skeptical about the timing and purpose of the release of information on which the story is based. The common theme of these sceptical comments is that this release is somehow designed to make the war in Afghanistan look better or more justified.


The problem with this line of sceptical argument is that the Risen report about minerals in Afghanistan, whether accurate or inaccurate, whether overblown or proportional, whether suspiciously timed or not, does nothing at all to make the war look any better. That's because the war is supposed by its defenders to be justified as an essential fight against dangerous jihadist terrorists, Taliban extremists and their enclaves in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Any story line that clouds that message actually *undermines* the justifications for the war offered by the administration and its supporters. Surely the people who are telling us that we need to be in Afghanistan to defeat Al Qaeda and to combat the evil oppression of Taliban-style Islamic government do not want us thinking that the war is really driven by greed.
So my implicit point was not that the war actually *is* an imperialist war for booty, but rather that if there is any deliberate timing to the release of this information about the discovery of mineral riches in Afghanistan, then a better explanation for that release is that it is designed to *undermine* support for the war by making it look like the US's interest in fighting it is driven by a desire to exploit and profit from Afghanistan's mineral wealth.

On a separate point, your comments on this blog are about 95% concerned with the other commenters on the blog, and only about 5% concerned with the actual events and issues
you claim. I think you should try harder to keep your personal characterizations to yourself and focus on issues.

Australian says,

Only for phantasmagorical ideologues of the Left could the war be anything other, post 9/11, than a war against “dangerous jihadist terrorists.” To imagine now with this ‘serendipitous’ discovery of minerals, if it’s true, that this could “undermine” the “support” and justification of the war could only be imagined by someone with a ‘cloudy’ mind., since only such a mind would come to the conclusion that this was just another “classic imperialist” venture.

The reason why I sometimes refuse to deal with the content of the commentators, including some of your own, is that they are a banal regurgitation of the intellectually and politically bankrupt dogmas of the pathological Left. And this engenders in me a frolicsome mood to deride directly the amateurish violinist who pretends to give a classical performance (Read political analysis) with discordant sounds and intellectually cacophonous notes. Now you know the secret about my playful mood sans ‘French letter’.

American says,

Kotz, you really are an ass. You do more than I ever could, by virtue of your own demeanor, to discredit everything you say. So I will have nothing more to do with you, and will let your disordered personality speak for itself. Feel free to fire at will with the insults.

Australian says,


My Dear Kervick, TO EACH HIS OWN. And your raising the white flag against my arguments, in your refusal to engage me, speaks volumes about your character and intellectual weight.

Imperative Principle of Warfare

By Con George-Kotzabasis

Any truce between Hamas-Hezbollah and Israel serves one purpose only, its use for rearming the terrorist organizations and engaging Israel in the future from a stronger position. The vocation of a good strategist is to identify an irreconcilable deadly enemy that cannot be placated and relentlessly destroy him before he becomes stronger. The Israelis despite all their cleverness are as yet apparently unaware of this imperative principle of warfare.