Soundings, May 2002

According to Philip Johnston of London's Daily Telegraph, the EU is considering a proposal to make "racism and xenophobia" crimes carrying a prison sentence of two years or more. "The draft plans define racism and xenophobia as an aversion to individuals based on 'race, colour, descent, religion or belief, national or ethnic origin.'"

Shifting Coalitions I. The following is from Michael Walzer's "Can There Be a Decent Left?" published in the Spring 2002 issue of Dissent. "Many left intellectuals live in America like internal aliens, refusing to identify with their fellow citizens, regarding any hint of patriotic feeling as a surrender to jingoism. That's why they had such difficulty responding emotionally to the attacks of September 11 or joining in the expressions of solidarity that followed. Equally important, that's why their participation in the policy debate after the attacks was so odd; their proposals (turn to the UN, collect evidence against Bin Laden, and so on) seem to have been developed with no concern for effectiveness and no sense of urgency. They talked and wrote as if they could not imagine themselves responsible for the lives of their fellow citizens. That was someone else's business; the business of the left was . . . what? To oppose the authorities, whatever they did."

Shifting Coalitions II. The following is from Lakshmi Chaudhry's "There's Something about Cato," posted on the Web site of AlterNet.org, where she is a senior editor. An indication of AlterNet's political orientation is given by its "important new book," After 9/11: Solutions for a Saner World, which features Bill Moyers, Arundhati Roy, and Edward Said, among others.

"In Richard Pollock's version of 1960s history, both the Berkeley Free Speech and the anti-war movements were based on libertarian values. 'They were about the freedom to express dissent, which is a libertarian value. It had nothing to do with anything Marxist or socialist,' the Cato Institute's communications guru expounds with undisguised enthusiasm. Hell, in the world according to Richard Pollock, even the hippies were libertarians. [Pollock is Cato's vice president for communications.]

"This self-proclaimed ex-Nader supporter claims progressives are suffering from amnesia and, worse, a bad case of identity crisis. 'If the Left would just take off its blinkers and look libertarians in the eye, they would see themselves,' he says. His pet theory? A good liberal is merely a libertarian gone astray."

Shifting Coalitions III. "Why is the anti-interventionist idea so important to these [libertarians] that they'll twist themselves into knots to stick with it? At the root of the problem, I think, is the refusal of many libertarians to accept the legitimacy of the state as the guarantor of our liberty. There is, of course, a streak of anarchist thinking that runs through the contemporary libertarian movement. And many libertarians who don't go the whole anarchist nine yards still harbor a deep-seated hostility to the state as an institution. Their beef isn't just with excessive government, it's with the whole idea of government.

"If you don't accept the legitimacy of the state, you can never really embrace the necessity of war—since war is inescapably an affair of state. You can support your local police force on the idea that it just needs to be privatized—as if would be, of course, in your anarcho-libertarian utopia. But huge armies with aircraft carriers and Apache attack helicopters and cruise missiles and tanks and a million young men in arms? That can't be in private hands, can it? War machines are creatures of the state—and therefore inherently suspect.

"If you're in this frame of mind, there's great pressure to conclude that there's no need for big militaries that can project force overseas. To maintain your animus against the state, you've got to convince yourself that Swiss-style militias are all you need to get by in the world. And that any threats which might require a more muscular response would just go away if we'd only keep our nose out of other people's business." Brink Lindsey, on BrinkLindsey.com, April 4, 2002.

Graph

On February 5, 2002, the Tarrance Group reported on a survey of college students conducted between January 19 and 24, 2002.

How Important Is Each of These Values to You?
Personal Responsibility: Extremely: 56% Very: 38% Total: 94%

Family Extremely: 60% Very:36% Total: 94%

Patriotism: Extremely: 20% Very: 43% Total: 63%

Volunteering in the Community: Extremely: 17% Very: 41% Total: 58%

Religion: Extremely: 27% Very:23% Total: 50%