Rebel of the Week: The United States Senate

April 6th, 2011

This week the United States Senate unanimously voted to declare President Obama’s unauthorized by Congress and thus unconstitutional military action in Libya a direct violation of the philosophy he endorsed as a candidate to the American people.  The resolution, introduced by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, allowed the Senate to confirm their adherence to an abstract statement President Obama made in 2007:

The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.

Their brave and gallant stand against unmitigated federal authorit…. alright.  This didn’t really happen.  What actually happened was far more predictable and dastardly: 90 senators overwhelming voted to table without discussion Rand Paul’s attempt to hold President Obama to his candidatal statements and expose his hypocrisy.

I generally have mixed feelings on American intervention.  I’d like to see military dictatorships and all autocrats ousted and at the very least replaced by democracies if not something more explicitly libertarian.  When I see people rebelling against people like Egypt’s Mubarak or Libya’s Qaddafi my heart goes out to them; I want to see their rule obliterated immediately, and since libertarian intervention alternatives are crowded out by state monopoly on protection services, we don’t have a system in which we can always actively aid the fraternal order of freedom fighters.  Could you even donate via Paypal or ChipIn to buy the rebels weapons? I’m dubious such a thing would be permitted by the American state.

So while I do support direct action and the moral legitimacy of those participating in revolutions in the Arab world I certainly do not trust the American state to be the one to “help” them, especially considering their recent horrible behavior in Haiti.  I tend to think that people are motivated by self interest and while altruism is possible it is generally not the rule.  For people with power (and people who desire power) I think this is at least doubly the case, especially when they necessarily must keep idle capital moving (through breaking windows or war) in our statist economy for fear of it collapsing under its own weight.  They also like to hook up the good ol’ boys who make the weapons, build the new infrastructure, etc. with sweetheart deals which help keep public choice economists securely employed.

But when we can’t trust the state to even follow the basic rule of law for the most serious of state activities such as entering into wars, how can we trust them for anything?  Why should I follow the laws which are imposed upon me if state actors don’t have to? The incentives are bad when some animals are more equal than others.

Enough of the ranting.  You can have your award now, Senators.


About the Author: Ross Kenyon

Ross Kenyon is a Center for a Stateless Society Research Assistant currently living and studying in Istanbul, Turkey. He was a member of the Arizona State University Students For Liberty leadership team, and has recently started his own organization, Mutual Aid on the High Seas, devoted to sailing to impoverished communities in the Caribbean, performing humanitarian aid and promoting dialogue about liberty as an emancipatory philosophy for working people. On top of all of that, Ross will be joining us on Silver Underground as a contributor. Subscribe and follow his clever jabs and thoughtful reviews on news!