A Couple Quick Questions, Ed. 13
Posted on October 2, 2011 at 2.32 pm
Q. What do you think about intergovernmental organizations interfering in other nations’ issues?? I mean, nations that are not members of those international organizations. — Marie, from the internet.
A. First, let’s be specific with terms so that what I’m saying is clear to all reading. From Wikipedia, universal arbiter of truth:
An intergovernmental organization, sometimes rendered as an international governmental organization and both abbreviated as IGO, is an organization composed primarily of sovereign states (referred to as member states), or of other intergovernmental organizations. Intergovernmental organizations are often called international organizations, although that term may also include international nongovernmental organization such as international non-profit organizations (NGOs) or multinational corporations.
What we’re discussion are intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), not international organizations in general. Good examples of IGOs would be the UN, its predecessor the League of Nations, or NATO.
These actors, theoretically (and I strictly mean “theoretically” — but that’s another essay), are acting on behalf of the citizens of their member nations. It’s a permanent form of an alliance. Indeed, all three of the IGOs I named basically grew out of wartime alliances.
So if you want to know if it’s ok for an IGO (NATO, for instance) to interfere in countries which aren’t a member of the organization (Libya, purely as a hypothetical) ask yourself this: Would it be ok for the U.S., U.K., France, Spain, Greece, Canada, and the rest of the 28 members countries of NATO to invade Libya? If it wouldn’t be, then why is it ok for them to do it because they put on a different color hat? Hat color does not magically transform something which isn’t your business into your business.
If interventionist foreign policy is not ok on a national scale, then it’s not ok on a supranational scale either.
Q. I’ve seen a discussion recently discussing the viability of Ron Paul defeating Obama in the 2012 general election, with the thought emerging that it could definitely happen. Do you believe there’s a healthy possibility? — ambielina, from tumblr.
A. For well over a year, national matchup polls have been placing Ron Paul within just a few percentage points of President Obama, often in a better position than any of the other GOP candidates. The most recent poll I’ve seen actually has Dr. Paul beating the president, 51% to 49%.
Obviously, this is great news. As the Paul campaign press release on the new poll put it, “Dr. Paul is making strides, affirming that the American people are looking for conviction instead of the typical status quo rhetoric being offered by establishment candidates.”
Unfortunately, Ron Paul isn’t currently running against Obama. He’s running for the GOP nomination. And while America at large may prefer Ron Paul to the other Republican candidates, the Republican Party doesn’t necessarily agree. I’ve long since said that if he could get the nomination and have the full force of the GOP behind him, Ron Paul could win — but he isn’t too likely to get the nomination. Even with these great poll results, that’s still the answer I’d give your question.
Q. Is there a libertarian position on capital punishment? Or any form of punishment for that matter? — polymurphism, from tumblr.
A. Though some will tell you this is a do-or-die issue for the libertarian, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find libertarian unanimity on this issue. Walter Block, for instance, argues strongly in favor of the death penalty despite admitting “it costs more to fry an inmate on death row (due mainly to legal costs) than it does to imprison him for life, and such a penalty has little or no disincentive effect in reducing the murder rate”:
[I]t is not necessarily wrong to kill people. It is not impermissible in self-defense, nor is it to kill those who no longer have entitlement to their own lives. Let the message go out, loud and clear: if you murder, you give up the right to your own life. (I am assuming arguendo that innocent people are not executed for murder; given the congenital inefficiency of government operation, this is the only legitimate reason to oppose the death penalty.)
Ron Paul, by contrast, has become an opponent of the death penalty since he first became involved in politics (it’s one of the very few matters on which his position has changed):
The death penalty issue is not only about mistakes that governments make. It is about the power they wield. If the government can legally kill, it can do just about anything. I no longer believe this government should be trusted with this power. The death penalty has an effect on the society that endorses it. The more civilized the society is, the more likely it has moved away from the death penalty. The more authoritarian a government becomes, the greater is the number of executions.
Personally, I tend to be in Ron Paul’s camp on this one. The allowance of the death penalty doesn’t seem to improve the society which allows it. That’s not to say that on hearing that someone had been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt guilty for a heinous crime that I wouldn’t instinctively want him executed. But it is to say with Blackstone and Genesis, “better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.”
Under Biblical law, “there had to be at least two witnesses, false accusers were to receive the same punishment as the accused. Furthermore, the whole community was to take part in the execution through stoning, so that everyone had ‘blood on his hands.’
“In the USA, we permit circumstantial evidence, just one eyewitness, and, more important, prosecutors and judges are given complete immunity, even when it later is revealed that they engaged in lies, subornation of perjury, and other kinds of misconduct. Along those lines, witnesses who lie for the state also receive de facto protection. And when someone is executed, it is done in what amounts to a very private ceremony.
“…Christians who support present State homicide should understand that our present system would have been condemned roundly by Old Testament prophets.” Bill Anderson, http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/95380.html
[...] As I’ve written before, I have serious trouble with the idea that the government should be able to legally kill people, especially in light of the difficulty in establishing absolute proof of guilt and the institutional racism which repeated studies have observed in the sentencing system. Furthermore, the allowance of the death penalty doesn’t seem to improve the society which allows it. That’s not to say that on hearing that someone had been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt guilty for a heinous crime that I wouldn’t instinctively want him executed. But it is to say with Blackstone and Genesis, “better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” [...]