Sobran was fired from National Review in 1993 and was accused of being an anti-Semite (most notably by Jewish neoconservative writer Norman Podhoretz). Podhoretz wrote that "Joe Sobran's columns ... [are] anti- Semitic in themselves, and not merely 'contextually.'" Buckley disagreed with Podhoretz's accusation, noting that he "deemed Joe Sobran's six columns contextually anti-Semitic. By this I mean that if he had been talking, let us say, about the lobbying interests of the Arabs or of the Chinese, he would not have raised eyebrows as an anti- Arab or an anti-Chinese."[3]
On Jan 19, 7:12 am, "M. Johnson" <[email protected]> wrote: > The Reluctant Anarchistby Joseph Sobran > My arrival (very recently) at philosophical anarchism has disturbed some of > my conservative and Christian friends. In fact, it surprises me, going as it > does against my own inclinations. > As a child I acquired a deep respect for authority and a horror of chaos. In > my case the two things were blended by the uncertainty of my existence after > my parents divorced and I bounced from one home to another for several years, > often living with strangers. A stable authority was something I yearned for. > Meanwhile, my public-school education imbued me with the sort of patriotism > encouraged in all children in those days. I grew up feeling that if there was > one thing I could trust and rely on, it was my government. I knew it was > strong and benign, even if I didn't know much else about it. The idea that > some people – Communists, for example – might want to overthrow the > government filled me with horror. > G.K. Chesterton, with his usual gentle audacity, once criticized Rudyard > Kipling for his "lack of patriotism." Since Kipling was renowned for > glorifying the British Empire, this might have seemed one of Chesterton's > "paradoxes"; but it was no such thing, except in the sense that it denied > what most readers thought was obvious and incontrovertible. > Chesterton, himself a "Little Englander" and opponent of empire, explained > what was wrong with Kipling's view: "He admires England, but he does not love > her; for we admire things with reasons, but love them without reason. He > admires England because she is strong, not because she is English." Which > implies there would be nothing to love her for if she were weak. > Of course Chesterton was right. You love your country as you love your mother > – simply because it isyours,not because of its superiority to others, > particularly superiority of power. > This seems axiomatic to me now, but it startled me when I first read it. > After all, I was an American, and American patriotism typically expresses > itself in superlatives. America is the freest, the mightiest, the richest, in > short thegreatestcountry in the world, with the greatest form of government – > the most democratic. Maybe the poor Finns or Peruvians love their countries > too, but heaven knows why – they have so little to be proud of, so few > "reasons." America is also the mostenviedcountry in the world. Don't all > people secretly wish they were Americans? > That was the kind of patriotism instilled in me as a boy, and I was quite > typical in this respect. It was the patriotism of supremacy. For one thing, > America had never lost a war – I was even proud that America had created the > atomic bomb (providentially, it seemed, just in time to crush the Japs) – and > this is why the Vietnam war was so bitterly frustrating. Not the dead, but > the defeat! The end of history's great winning streak! > As I grew up, my patriotism began to take another form, which it took me a > long time to realize was in tension with the patriotism of power. I became a > philosophical conservative, with a strong libertarian streak. I believed in > government, but it had to be "limited" government – confined to a few > legitimate purposes, such as defense abroad and policing at home. These > functions, and hardly any others, I accepted, under the influence of writers > like Ayn Rand and Henry Hazlitt, whose books I read in my college years. > Though I disliked Rand's atheism (at the time, I was irreligious, but not > anti-religious), she had an odd appeal to my residual Catholicism. I had read > enough Aquinas to respond to her Aristotelian mantras. Everything had to have > its own nature and limitations, including the state; the idea of a state > continually growing, knowing no boundaries, forever increasing its claims on > the citizen, offended and frightened me. It could only end in tyranny. > I was also powerfully drawn to Bill Buckley, an explicit Catholic, who struck > the same Aristotelian note. During his 1965 race for mayor of New York, he > made a sublime promise to the voter: he offered "the internal composure that > comes of knowing there are rational limits to politics." This may have been > the most futile campaign promise of all time, but it would have won my vote! > It was really this Aristotelian sense of "rational limits," rather than any > particular doctrine, that made me a conservative. I rejoiced to find it in > certain English writers who were remote from American conservatism – > Chesterton, of course, Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, George Orwell, C.S. > Lewis, Michael Oakeshott. > In fact I much preferred a literary, contemplative conservatism to the > activist sort that was preoccupied with immediate political issues. During > the Reagan years, which I expected to find exciting, I found myself bored to > death by supply-side economics, enterprise zones, "privatizing" welfare > programs, and similar principle-dodging gimmickry. I failed to see that > "movement" conservatives were less interested in principles than in > Republican victories. To the extent that I did see it, I failed to grasp what > it meant. > Still, the last thing I expected to become was an anarchist. For many years I > didn't even know that serious philosophical anarchists existed. I'd never > heard of Lysander Spooner or Murray Rothbard. How could society survive at > all without a state? > Now I began to be critical of the US Government, though not very. I saw that > the welfare state, chiefly the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, > violated the principles of limited government and would eventually have to > go. But I agreed with other conservatives that in the meantime the urgent > global threat of Communism had to be stopped. Since I viewed "defense" as one > of the proper tasks of government, I thought of the Cold War as a necessity, > the overhead, so to speak, of freedom. If the Soviet threat ever ceased (the > prospect seemed remote), we could afford to slash the military budget and get > back to the job of dismantling the welfare state. > Somewhere, at the rainbow's end, America would return to her founding > principles. The Federal Government would be shrunk, laws would be few, taxes > minimal. That was what I thought. Hoped, anyway. > I avidly read conservative and free-market literature during those years with > the sense that I was, as a sort of late convert, catching up with the > conservative movement. I took it for granted that other conservatives had > already read the same books and had taken them to heart. Surely we all wanted > the same things! At bottom, the knowledge that there were rational limits to > politics. Good old Aristotle. At the time, it seemed a short hop from > Aristotle to Barry Goldwater. > As is fairly well known by now, I went to work as a young man for Buckley > atNational Reviewand later became a syndicated columnist. I found my niche in > conservative journalism as a critic of liberal distortions of the US > Constitution, particularly in the Supreme Court's rulings on abortion, > pornography, and "freedom of expression." > Gradually I came to see that the conservative challenge to liberalism's > jurisprudence of "loose construction" was far too narrow. Nearly everything > liberals wanted the Federal Government to do was unconstitutional. The key to > it all, I thought, was the Tenth Amendment, which forbids the Federal > Government to exercise any powers not specifically assigned to it in the > Constitution. But the Tenth Amendment had been comatose since the New Deal, > when Roosevelt's Court virtually excised it. > This meant that nearly all Federal legislation from the New Deal to the Great > Society and beyond had been unconstitutional. Instead of fighting liberal > programs piecemeal, conservatives could undermine the whole lot of them by > reviving the true (and, really, obvious) meaning of the Constitution. > Liberalism depended on a long series of usurpations of power. > Around the time of Judge Robert Bork's bitterly contested (and defeated) > nomination to the US Supreme Court, conservatives spent a lot of energy > arguing that the "original intent" of the Constitution must be conclusive. > But they applied this principle only to a few ambiguous phrases and passages > that bore on specific hot issues of the day – the death penalty, for > instance. About thegeneralmeaning of the Constitution there could, I thought, > be no doubt at all. The ruling principle is that whatever the Federal > Government isn't authorized to do, it's forbidden to do. > That alone would invalidate the Federal welfare state and, in fact, nearly > all liberal legislation. But I found it hard to persuade most conservatives > of this. Bork himself took the view that the Tenth Amendment was > unenforceable. If he was right, then the whole Constitution was in vain from > the start. > I never thought a constitutional renaissance would be easy, but I did think > it could play an indispensable role in subverting the legitimacy of > liberalism. Movement conservatives listened politely to my arguments, but > without much enthusiasm. They regarded appeals to the Constitution as rather > pedantic and, as a practical matter, futile – not much help in the political > struggle. Most Americans no longer even remembered what "usurpation" meant. > Conservatives themselves hardly knew. > Of course they were right, in an obvious sense. Even conservative courts (if > they could be captured) wouldn't be bold enough to throw out the entire > liberal legacy at once. But I remained convinced that the conservative > movement had to attack liberalism at its constitutional root. > In a way I had transferred my patriotism from America as it then was to > America as it had been when it still honored the Constitution. And when had > it crossed the line? At first I thought the great corruption had occurred > when Franklin Roosevelt subverted the Federal judiciary; later I came to see > that the decisive event had been the Civil War, which had effectively > destroyed the right of the states to secede from the Union. But this was a > very much a minority view among conservatives, particularly atNational > Review, where I was the only one who held it. > I've written more than enough about my career at the magazine, so I'll > confine myself to saying that it was only toward the end of more than two > happy decades there that I began to realize that wedidn'tall want the same > things after all. When it happened, it was like learning, after a long and > placid marriage, that your spouse is in love with someone else, and has been > all along. > Not that I was betrayed. I was merely blind. I have no one to blame but > myself. The Buckley crowd, and the conservative movement in general, no more > tried to deceive me than I tried to deceive them. We all assumed we were on > the same side, when we weren't. If there is any fault for this > misunderstanding, it is my own. > In the late 1980s I began mixing with Rothbardian libertarians – they called > themselves by the unprepossessing label "anarcho-capitalists" – and even met > Rothbard himself. They were a brilliant, combative lot, full of challenging > ideas and surprising arguments. Rothbard himself combined a profound > theoretical intelligence with a deep knowledge of history. His magnum > opus,Man, Economy, and State, had received the most unqualified praise of the > usually reserved Henry Hazlitt – inNational Review! > I can only say of Murray what so many others have said: never in my life have > I encountered such an original and vigorous mind. A short, stocky New York > Jew with an explosive cackling laugh, he was always exciting and cheerful > company. Pouring out dozens of big books and hundreds of articles, he also > found time, heaven knows how, to write (on the old electric typewriter he > used to the end) countless long, single-spaced, closely reasoned letters to > all sorts of people. > Murray's view of politics was shockingly blunt: the state was nothing but a > criminal gang writ large. Much as I agreed with him in general, and > fascinating though I found his arguments, I resisted this conclusion. I still > wanted to believe in constitutional government. > Murray would have none of this. He insisted that the Philadelphia convention > at which the Constitution had been drafted was nothing but a "coup d'état," > centralizing power and destroying the far more tolerable arrangements of the > Articles of Confederation. This was a direct denial of everything I'd been > taught. I'd never heard anyone suggest that the Articles had been preferable > to the Constitution! But Murray didn't care what anyone thought – or > whateveryonethought. (He'd been too radical for Ayn Rand.) > Murray and I shared a love of gangster films, and he once argued to me that > the Mafia was preferable to the state, because it survived by providing > services people actually wanted. I countered that the Mafia behaved like the > state, extorting its own "taxes" in protection rackets directed at > shopkeepers; its market was far from "free." He admitted I had a point. I was > proud to have won a concession from him. > Murray died a few years ago without quite having made an anarchist of me. It > was left to his brilliant disciple, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, to finish my > conversion. Hans argued that no constitution could restrain the state. Once > its monopoly of force was granted legitimacy, constitutional limits became > mere fictions it could disregard; nobody could have the legal standing to > enforce those limits. The state itself would decide, by force, what the > constitution "meant," steadily ruling in its own favor and increasing its own > power. This was true a priori, and American history bore it out. > What if the Federal Government grossly violated the Constitution? Could > states withdraw from the Union? Lincoln said no. The Union was "indissoluble" > unless all the states agreed to dissolve it. As a practical matter, the Civil > War settled that. The United States, plural, were really a single enormous > state, as witness the new habit of speaking of "it" rather than "them." > So the people are bound to obey the government even when the rulers betray > their oath to uphold the Constitution. The door to escape is barred. Lincoln > in effect claimed that it is not our rights but the state that is > "unalienable." And he made it stick by force of arms. No transgression of the > Constitution can impair the Union's inherited legitimacy. Once established on > specific and limited terms, the US Government is forever, even if it refuses > to abide by those terms. > As Hoppe argues, this is the flaw in thinking the state can be controlled by > a constitution. Once granted, state power naturally becomes absolute. > Obedience is a one-way street. Notionally, "We the People" create a > government and specify the powers it is allowed to exercise over us; our > rulers swear before God that they will respect the limits we impose on them; > but when they trample down those limits, our duty to obey them remains. > Yet even after the Civil War, certain scruples survived for a while. > Americans still agreed in principle that the Federal Government could acquire > new powers only by constitutional amendment. Hence the postwar amendments > included the words "Congress shall have power to" enact such and such > legislation. > But by the time of the New Deal, such scruples were all but defunct. Franklin > Roosevelt and his Supreme Court interpreted the Commerce Clause so broadly as > to authorize virtually any Federal claim, and the Tenth Amendment so narrowly > as to deprive it of any inhibiting force. Today these heresies are so firmly > entrenched that Congress rarely even asks itself whether a proposed law is > authorized or forbidden by the Constitution. > In short, the US Constitution is a dead letter. It was mortally wounded in > 1865. The corpse can't be revived. This remained hard for me to admit, and > even now it pains me to say it. > Other things have helped change my mind. R.J. Rummel of the University of > Hawaii calculates that in the twentieth century alone, states murdered about > 162,000,000 of their own subjects. This figure doesn't include the tens of > millions of foreigners they killed in war. How, then, can we speak of states > "protecting" their people? No amount of private crime could have claimed such > a toll. As for warfare, Paul Fussell's bookWartimeportrays battle with such > horrifying vividness that, although this wasn't its intention, I came to > doubt whether any war could be justified. > My fellow Christians have argued that the state's authority is divinely > given. They cite Christ's injunction "Render unto Caesar the things that are > Caesar's" and St. Paul's words "The powers that be are ordained of God." But > Christ didn't say which things – if any – belong to Caesar; his ambiguous > words are far from a command to give Caesar whatever he claims. And it's > notable that Christ never told his disciples either to establish a state or > to engage in politics. They were to preach the Gospel and, if rejected, to > move on. He seems never to have imagined the state as something they could or > should enlist on their side. > At first sight, St. Paul seems to be more positive in affirming the authority > of the state. But he himself, like the other martyrs, died fordefyingthe > state, and we honor him for it; to which we may add that he was on one > occasion a jailbreaker as well. Evidently the passage in Romans has been > misread. It was probably written during the reign of Nero, not the most > edifying of rulers; but then Paul also counseled slaves to obey their > masters, and nobody construes this as an endorsement of slavery. He may have > meant that the state and slavery were here for the foreseeable future, and > that Christians must abide them for the sake of peace. Never does he say that > either is here forever. > St. Augustine took a dim view of the state, as a punishment for sin. He said > that a state without justice is nothing but a gang of robbers writ large, > while leaving doubt that any state could ever be otherwise. St. Thomas > Aquinas took a more benign view, arguing that the state would be necessary > even if man had never fallen from grace; but he agreed with Augustine that an > unjust law is no law at all, a doctrine that would severely diminish any > known state. > The essence of the state is its legal monopoly of force. But force is > subhuman; in words I quote incessantly, Simone Weil defined it as "that which > turns a person into a thing – either corpse or slave." It may sometimes be a > necessary evil, in self-defense or defense of the innocent, but nobody can > have by right what the state claims: an exclusive privilege of using it. > It's entirely possible that states – organized force – will always rule this > world, and that we will have at best a choice among evils. And some states > are worse than others in important ways: anyone in his right mind would > prefer living in the United States to life under a Stalin. But to say a thing > is inevitable, or less onerous than something else, is not to say it is good. > For most people, "anarchy" is a disturbing word, suggesting chaos, violence, > antinomianism – things they hope the state can control or prevent. The term > "state," despite its bloody history, doesn't disturb them. Yet it's the state > that is truly chaotic, because it means the rule of the strong and cunning. > They imagine that anarchy would naturally terminate in the rule of thugs. But > mere thugs can't assert a plausiblerightto rule. Only the state, with its > propaganda apparatus, can do that. This is what "legitimacy" means. > Anarchists obviously need a more seductive label. > "But what would you replace the state with?" The question reveals an > inability to imagine human society without the state. Yet it would seem that > an institution that can take 200,000,000 lives within a century hardly needs > to be "replaced." > Christians, and especially Americans, have long been misled about all this by > their good fortune. Since the conversion of Rome, most Western rulers have > been more or less inhibited by Christian morality (though, often enough, not > so's you'd notice), and even warfare became somewhat civilized for centuries; > and this has bred the assumption that the state isn't necessarily an evil at > all. But as that morality loses its cultural grip, as it is rapidly doing, > this confusion will dissipate. More and more we can expect the state to show > its nature nakedly. > For me this is anything but a happy conclusion. I miss the serenity of > believing I lived under a good government, wisely designed and benevolent in > its operation. But, as St. Paul says, there comes a time to put away childish > things.www.sobran.com
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