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The impact of US presidential elections goes well beyond American borders. The United States is not just the most powerful and wealthiest nation in the world; its political positioning on the most controversial issues strongly influences, if not drives, the rest of the world. In a time when the price of oil is as high as nearly US$ 100 per barrel and climate change is possibly regarded as the greatest challenge the international community is facing, people around the world should look closer at how the presidential candidates address energy and environmental issues. Such an approach would reveal that the world — leave aside the US — has a substantial interest in having Dr. Ron Paul as the next US President, for at least four good reasons.

First, on energy policy in general Ron Paul is possibly the only presidential candidate who does not slavishly follow the energy independence mantra. Energy independence is not just possible to achieve without dramatically impacting the Americans’ life, liberty, and property — as it would mean that cheaper sources of energy are not taken into consideration, and that people and industries are prevented from freely making contracts with foreign firms or individuals. The mere fact that America claims it will reduce its energy imports — assuming this is taken seriously abroad — will create among market participants the expectation that the US demand will decrease for political reasons. Now, since most oil & gas resources are owned or anyhow controlled by producing States, the feeling that America — the world’s largest consumer — will reduce consumption would probably lead to a renaissance of OPEC as a well-functioning cartel — which it has not been in the last 20 years. So, a serious effort to cut US hydrocarbon consumption would not only leave Americans worse off, but most probably might paradoxically push up oil prices and cause serious economic problems abroad.

Second, Dr. Paul has consistently opposed ethanol and other biofuel subsidies. The evidence is growing that not only are biofuels far more costly than conventional sources of power, but they are also energy-inefficient (that is, the amount of energy spent in the production of biofuels is higher than the amount of energy they release) and thus environment-unfriendly. Biofuel policy is just the latest name for agricultural subsidies, and as such it has serious consequences. Most notably, the surge in biofuel demand has caused a substantive growth in food prices, which is particularly impacting on the developing countries. Agriculture is addicted to subsidies, but this provides no justification for making it even harder for poor economies to grow. And, again, since America is the world’s leading country both in terms of subsidizing agriculture and biofuels, a reversal in US policies would probably change the world’s negative attitude in this respect, not to mention the revitalizing effect it might have on WTO negotiations to remove trade barriers in agriculture.

Third, an alleged reason to subsidize biofuels is that, according to some estimates that are increasingly becoming discredited, they would contribute to the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. While this may be true under particular circumstances which do not hold as regards to US-grown biofuels, Dr. Paul’s platform on climate change is far more convincing than that of his Republican and Democrat opponents. Ron Paul calls for a fair assessment of science in the first place, while others apparently believe what they listen to at CNN is "the" voice of science. Congressman Ron Paul would not give up property rights and individual freedom in exchange for supposedly good weather one hundred years from now. This is most important in the international arena: the free market is particularly under siege in Europe. Under the flag of fighting global warming, a Soviet-style system of energy rationing has been set in motion. The EU is pressing other countries to follow its example, and other presidential candidates in the US might consider the option, which after all gives the government a tremendous power over the future of society and the economy as a whole, because energy is a fundamental input to all economic activity. This European system is unsustainable in the long run, but it can’t endure in the short run either unless other major economies embrace it. Dr. Paul’s election would be a sign of hope also to those Europeans who realize that the world might be in danger, but green socialism can hardly be a solution.

Last but not least, Ron Paul’s foreign policy proposals can significantly contribute to solving the current energy crisis as well as global warming. On the one hand, military campaigns in the Middle East are part of the reason why oil-producing countries resist economic integration. A more peaceful setting in the region might strengthen the case for free trade and easier access to resources for foreign companies, including US-based oil companies. This, in turn, would dramatically improve the rate of recovery for oil & gas and would increase the efforts in exploration and production, leading to a fall in the price of oil. On the other hand, more economic integration would also mean a faster technological change in developing countries, that are far less energy-efficient — hence more carbon-intensive — than the developed world, including the US.

To sum up, there are several important environmental reasons why the rest of the world has an interest in Dr. Paul’s victory. In fact, his policy proposals, if enacted, would make not just the US a more prosperous country, but also the world as a whole a better, cleaner, and safer place.

Carlo Stagnaro [send him mail] is Energy & Environment Director of Istituto Bruno Leoni, Italy’s free market think tank.

It’s not a joke: you just have to check out Richard Hollingham’s reportage from Greenland. The author went to that cold and inhospitable place in order to see with his own eyes the effects of anthropogenic global warming. "Greenland is a massive island locked in ice," he says. "And from the air there is little evidence that it is melting. Its enormous ice cap, a sea of white stretching seemingly forever, overflows into thousands of glaciers… It is only when you get near to the base of the glaciers that you can see how the landscape is changing. A few metres above the ice, the rock is totally bare. A scar running horizontally across the valleys." The phenomenon is so dramatic that new vegetation is growing: "This land was being exposed for the first time for millions of years." Remember: millions of years.

If things are really going this way, well, we have to do something. If really 150 years have been enough to change global climate in such a huge way, then we need to take action. Call it Kyoto Protocol or however else, we need to turn the Earth’s atmosphere to its natural conditions. We have to do it now. Time is running out and we can waste no more of it. Then the question arises: which atmospheric conditions are "normal"?

Hollingham’s article, although indirectly, provides us with an answer: "The Earth’s climate has warmed before, albeit naturally. A ruined church on the banks of a fjord marks the remains of a Viking farming civilisation. The sun casts shadows through the arched window to the site of the altar, last used in the 1400s before the area was abandoned when it became too cold to support habitation."

It is quite a surprise that neither Mr Hollingham, nor BBC editors noticed such a clamorous contradiction. How is it possible that Vikings built in 1400s a Church on a land that hadn’t see the sun for millions of years? And how could they succeed in farming on a land that was supposedly covered by a deep ice layer? Finally, how can we know that the observed, recent global warming is due to man-made emissions, and not to natural causes? After all, BBC journalist tells that our planet used to be warmer centuries ago (at least warm enough for Greenland to be a fertile land) and then, for some reason, it got colder.

It looks like Mr Hollingham has discovered what was and is obvious. There was no need to go all the way to Greenland just to recognize that Vikings were not stupid. When around one thousand years ago they discovered a green land, they called it Greenland. Then that very same land became white: climate had changed, as it always does and always will.

As Mr Hollingham himself claims, "Greenland is turning green." Does it really sound that strange?

Carlo Stagnaro [send him mail] is Free Market Environmentalism Director of Istituto Bruno Leoni, Italy’s free market think tank.

Said Benedict XVI:

"Dear brothers and sisters, after our great pope, John Paul II, the cardinals have elected me, a simple, humble worker in God’s vineyard.

I am consoled by the fact that the Lord knows how to work and how to act, even with insufficient tools, and I especially trust in your prayers.

In the joy of the resurrected Lord, trustful of his permanent help, we go ahead, sure that God will help, and Mary, his most beloved mother, stands on our side.

Thank you."

The first thing that Ratzinger, however implicitly, tells is that John Paul II is "the Great" — a title that few Popes have been given. This suggests that the Holy Father wants to follow the footsteps of his illustrious predecessor, he aims to pursue continuity — not only on theological grounds (which is obvious), but also as far as the leading themes of the papacy are concerned.

Surely, Cardinal Ratzinger was extremely closed to Karol Wojtyla — especially in his defense of the role of reason and the struggle against any form of gnosis. To Ratzinger, the very essence of Christianity is a Truth does exist which is objective — and may be investigated by man through an appropriate use of reason.

The point was very clear even in his last public sermon as a simple Cardinal — the one he made at the Mass for the Election of a Supreme Pontiff a few days ago.

The central theme of the speech was the dangers of relativism, which is after all the opposite of the idea of Truth. What is relativism if not the belief that no truth exists that is superior to mere opinion? In the relativist mind, thinking itself is useless — since there’s no truth to investigate.

"How many winds of doctrine we have known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking…. The small boat of thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves — thrown from one extreme to the other: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism, and so forth. Every day new sects are created and what St. Paul says about human trickery comes true, with cunning which tries to draw those into error (cf Ephesians 4:14). Having a clear faith, based on the Creed of the Church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas, relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and “swept along by every wind of teaching,” looks like the only attitude (acceptable) to today’s standards. We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires."

A point which is made so strongly can’t be ignored. Michael Novak has rightly recognized that the very emergence of relativism means that "Power trumps."

"The new way [to relativism] — writes Novak — is not toward objectivity, but toward subjectivism; not toward truth as its criterion, but toward power. This, Ratzinger fears, is a move back toward the justification of murder in the name of "tolerance" and subjective choice."

Yet Novak does not go as far as to recognize, given such a context, the dangers entailed in the "divinization" of democratic rule so typical of the contemporary word. Democracy goes far beyond being a merely procedural rule, and is raised to the status of the main ideological ethos of our time. Legitimacy comes to be tested not in the light of independent criteria of good and evil — but rather via the mere ratification of a particular act by a parliamentary majority.

In a way, the very idea of the possibility of voting on whatever issue — ranging from killing infants (abortions) and adults (war) to the denial of private property (taxation) and wealth redistribution (subsidies and regulation) — is in essence a form, if not the form, of relativism.

On the other hand, it should be remembered that Truth isn’t enemy to freedom. As Alejandro Chafuen points out, "Cardinal Ratzinger focused on teaching the importance of convictions, rather than force. On November 6, 1992, at the ceremony where Ratzinger was inducted into the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences of the Institute of France, he explained that a free society can only subsist where people share basic moral convictions and high moral standards. He further argued that these convictions need not be u2018imposed or even arbitrarily defined by external coercion’."

Not by chance Ratzinger was, so to speak, the theological killer of the "liberation theology," an attempt to merge Christian tradition with Marxist ideology.

In a private document that preceded the official Introduction of 1984, he wrote:

"The crucial result of this exegesis was to shatter the historical credibility of the Gospels: the Christ of the Church’s tradition and the Jesus of history put forward by science evidently belong to two different worlds. Science, regarded as the final arbiter, had torn the figure of Jesus from its anchorage in tradition; on the one hand, consequently, tradition hangs in a vacuum, deprived of reality, while on the other hand, a new interpretation and significance must be sought for the figure of Jesus… The biblical concept of the u2018poor’ provides a starting point for fusing the Bible’s view of history with Marxist dialectic; it is interpreted by the idea of the proletariat in the Marxist sense and thus justifies Marxism as the legitimate hermeneutics for understanding the Bible."

In the 1985 interview-book, Rapporto sulla fede, that Vittorio Messori (later to interview John Paul II in Crossing the Threshold of Hope) authored with the Cardinal, he sharply defined Marxism "not the hope, but the shame of our time."

Indeed very significant is the name that Cardinal Ratzinger chose for himself.

The last Benedict was Benedict XV, who was a strong critic of World War I, which he defined as a "useless massacre" that was leading to the "suicide of Europe." Benedict XV was a Pontiff for peace. He made very clear that the path that Europe was climbing would end in the death of the West. Benedict XVI has the same vision, although today the threat to Europe is much more ideological than before: the smoking gun is not a real gun, as it was the case in 1914—18, but relativism.

Asked by an interviewer to comment on John Paul II’s opposition to the Iraqi war, the then Cardinal Ratzinger explained that he found the Holy Father’s judgment "reasonable also from a rational point of view: there were no sufficient reason to wage war against Iraq." But, far more important, he added that "we should start asking ourselves, if the existence of the very notion of a just war makes sense today, with new guns that make destruction possible to an unprecedented extent, far beyond combating groups."

With the help of God, Benedict XVI will help the Old Continent, the place from which civilization stems and the homeland of Christianity, to recover.

Alberto Mingardi [send him mail] and Carlo Stagnaro [send him mail] are the Directors of Istituto Bruno Leoni, Italy’s free market think tank.

Carlo Stagnaro Archives

The last steps of the earthly journey of John Paul II embody the mystery of the Christian calling: there is no contradiction between the "athlete of God," — the pontiff who liked to ski the most difficult slopes, to the scandalized bafflement of many — and the little frail man, stooped under the weight of age, the illness, and the Cross. The priest hanging by a ever thinner thread to his life is the very same who, as the President of the Italian Episcopal Conference (IEC) Cardinal Camillo Ruini said, "can already see and feel the Lord."

Ruini did not choose his words casually: "see" and "feel" are verbs permeated by a deep materiality. The most important legacy of John Paul II is perhaps his stressing the importance of the flesh. The Pope does not belong to that host of moralists that define their Christianity along the lines of abstinence: life is to be sucked dry. In a rather jocular turn of the phrase, Cardinal Giacomo Biffi explained once that the goal of the Christian is to enter Heaven, if at all possible, with a full belly. Catholicism — added Biffi — is the "religion of tortellini." It is not by chance that all the major heresies are rooted in a spiritualist bent: the negation of the material world or, at the very least, the banishment of the flesh to the horizon of evil.

The Holy Father never ceded to this temptation. He was always able to share with the world his deep love of life and its joys, including the material ones. His unprecedented habit of kissing the soil of the countries he visited, his unfailing smile, his very willingness to make apparent his current suffering, everything about him reveals the certainty that Catholicism’s promise is a total one: our soul’s salvation goes along with our body’s resurrection.

It is no surprise, then, that the red thread of this Papacy was the emphasis on the theme of life. The worst threat today doesn’t come much from materialism, but its opposite, namely the notion that human life is somehow less significant than the dizzy heights of the spirit, that material life is a sort of hindrance, the necessary and unpleasant premise to a sublimated eternity. Quite the opposite: the Bishop of Rome — as Ruini remarked — "lived, worked, suffered, rejoiced" with "the same inner peacefulness and trusting abandonment in the hands of God" with which he is facing his death bed.

On the pages of last Saturday’s Corriere della Sera Vittorio Messori painted an "already sanctified hero," able to put together "the freedom of the children of God and the discipline of the obedient Catholics." This is a Pope who managed to defuse the terrible tension pervading the Church at the time of his election: the tension between the flight from past orthodoxy and the instinctive closing within its own ranks. Wojtyla conceived a Church capable of coming to terms with the modern world without betraying the heritage of two thousand years of history or surrendering the claim to a timeless Truth.

Messori also defined him as "the first color Pope," whereas Pius XII was a "radio Pope," John XIII a "proto-television" one, and Paul VI a "black and white" one. The Pope gave himself fully to the mass media. He went as far as to allow — if not to welcome — the insistent gaze of the cameras on his tired and gaunt features, his palsied hands, his gravelly voice. In so doing, he could turn the newspeople into God’s people, making of his own illness, in the days in which its effects are particularly devastating, a formidable tool of conversion. The pain of this Polish Pope, witnessed by the whole world, is an echo of the passion of Christ. Neither of them hid themselves from view. The bodies of Christ and his Vicar are marked by the burning wounds that hurt the flesh as well as the spirit.

And both found solace in the same figure: the mother. "I am happy" — whispered the Pope from his death bed — "You be, too. Let us pray together in bliss. Let us happily entrust everything to the Virgin Mary." Bliss, a bliss that overcomes every other thought, propels the man from the East into the bosom of the Virgin. She will be the One to reach for his hand and to escort him, crossing the threshold of hope.

Carlo Stagnaro [send him mail] is Free Market Environmentalism Director of the Istituto Bruno Leoni, the free-market think tank in Italy.

Such
meetings have been organized by the Associazione
Culturale Mitteleuropea (Middle European Cultural Association)
every year since 1975 on the weekend the nearest to the anniversary
of Emperor Franz Joseph's birth (b. August 18th, 1830 — d. October
21st, 1916). Why do these people find it important to keep the candle
of his memory alive almost a century after the end of the Empire?
Why do many others join them spiritually, if not physically?

The
politically correct media, not to mention history books, say that
the Empire was the anachronistic relict of past ages. It represented
all that democratic, socialist and egalitarian culture condemns:
an institution whose roots were in the Roman Catholic tradition,
and very aware of the cultural and religious complexity of Central
Europe; the idea that we can live within institutions with no national
identity; the view that the Emperor got his authority directly from
God and for this reason his power was limited by well-defined moral
rules; and finally, an order descending from the Middle Ages.

With
World War I, the Jacobin spirit triumphed over Western society.
President Wilson's "project of a new American century"
(as his modern heirs would define it) needed to normalize the Austrian
exception. As Ralph
Raico notes, "Wilson was a u2018progressive,' a leader in the
movement that advocated using the full power of government to create
u2018real democracy' at home. But Wilson's horizons were much broader
than the United States. Preaching the gospel of u2018making the world
safe for democracy,' he aimed to extend the progressive creed to
the ends of the earth. More than Franklin Roosevelt himself, Woodrow
Wilson is the patron saint of the u2018exporting democracy' clique in
America today."

Democratic
propaganda put the three Central Empires (Austria-Hungary, Germany,
and Turkey) in the same category of non-democratic regimes. However,
Vienna was not the capital of a centralized, militaristic, and despotic
system. Emperor Franz Joseph viewed himself as first among public
servants. He well knew that the entire world was radically changing;
there was no place for his ancient imperial institutions. Notwithstanding,
he conceived his own life as a service to "my peoples"
(as he always called all the people of the Empire) because the very
existence of the Empire was in their interest. For centuries, Empire
was a guarantee for many small nations which could have not survived
otherwise — or at least would have found it much harder. It is not
by chance that Jews lived much better in that Catholic Empire than
in the neighbouring nation-states, whether Protestant or Orthodox.
And when the old order disappeared and Vienna became only the capital
of a small state in the Alps, that space was quickly occupied by
the Nazi army and, after World War II, by Soviet imperialism. (Erik
von Kuehnelt-Leddihn told the story of an arrogant Teddy Roosevelt
calling on Franz Joseph and asking what possible point there could
be to a monarch in the modern 20th century. “To protect my peoples
from their governments,” replied the Emperor.)

As
Joseph Roth points out in his masterpiece, The
Emperor's Tomb, "The so called extraordinary is obvious
for Austria-Hungary. By this I mean that only in this crazy Europe
of nation-states and nationalists what is obvious seems bizarre…
Austria's soul is not the centre, it is the periphery. Austria should
not be looked for in the Alps, where they have chamois and edelweiss
and gentian, but no idea of what the two-headed Eagle is. The substance
of Austria is fed and ever restored in the territories of the Crown."
In other words, Roth remarks that imperial institutions were important
especially because they gave security and protection to the mosaic
of small communities of Central Europe and the Balkans.

The
old Habsburg Empire was 676,616 square kilometres in size and had
52 million inhabitants, including 12 million Austrians, 10 million
Hungarians, 5 million Poles, more than 5 million Serbs and Croatians,
4 million Ruthenians, less than 9 million Czechs and Slovaks, and
1 million Tridentate, Venetians and Friuli's. There were 34 million
Roman Catholics, 4.5 million Orthodox, as many Protestants, 2.5
million Jews, and 700,000 Muslims. The peaceful coexistence of such
different realities was granted by the structure of the Empire.
This complexity prevented any single identity from emerging as a
leader able to impose uniformity on the others.

During
Franz Joseph's reign (1848–1916), Vienna was not only the capital
of a wealthy Empire, but also the cultural capital of the whole
world. The major philosophers, scientists, and artists of the time
had their roots within the Empire: Brahms and Kafka, Doderer and
Klimt, Brentano and Mahler, Husserl and Kokoschka, Freud and Popper,
Wittgenstein and Kelsen, and so forth. And, of course, the Austrian
school of economics owes its name to the fact that Carl Menger had
the opportunity to work and develop a new economic theory in Vienna.
By noting that, we don't mean that Franz Joseph was some sort of
patron; indeed, most intellectuals lived without his support (though
he did hire Menger as tutor to his son, the Crown Prince). The point
is that culture finds the ideal conditions to emerge in a context
of liberty and wealth; and especially in a society which understands
the central importance of exchange and debate. The Soviet Union
and Nazi Germany could not tolerate internal dissent, and thus knew
less intellectual vivacity. In fact, most worthy intellectuals were
dissidents who "needed" to be purged….

The
merit of Franz Joseph, then, was that he understood the importance
of and was able to manage such a pluralistic organization. While
in other parts of Europe the idea was growing that the state must
coincide with the nation (i.e., it should have one language, one
religion, one culture), the Empire was a miraculous example of spontaneous
pluralism (which is the contrary of multi-culturalism imposed by
force). Since it couldn't define itself in terms of language, race,
religion, etc., it was able to maintain a regime of liberty until
its fall in World War I.

Remembering
the Empire, as those in Giassico are doing, is a way of expressing
nostalgia for the traditional, tolerant Europe which was literally
destroyed by nationalism and socialism. The Empire certainly had
democratic bodies; however, its odd and old-fashioned equilibrium
of powers and traditions prevented the dramatic rise of "national"
exploitation and the consequent decline of liberty that other nations
experienced at least 50 years before Austria. As Hans-Hermann Hoppe
would say, the democratic devil tempted Austria and could conquer
it by the harsh apple of war.

Franz
Werfel once said that "nation-states are demoniac units by
their own essence." For this reason, the Austrian novelist
celebrated the wisdom of the Austrian Empire, pointing out the impossibility
(in Vienna, Prague or Budapest) of creating a mystic and romantic
idea of the nation-state.

In
fact, the Empire was only a large space where small, different communities
could live together with their natural rights protected. Significantly
enough, Franz Joseph was always opposed to the anti-semitic movement
of Karl Lueger, the Christian-Socials: "any anti-semitic movement
should be halted at its birth." He repeatedly vetoed Lueger's
election as Mayor of Vienna, showing how the "absolute"
power of the Emperor was less absolute, and far less dangerous than
the power of democratic bodies. The fall of Austria-Hungary left
the road free for all the nationalisms, including Mussolini's and
Hitler's.

One
could infer that today's neo-conservative project; that is, building
an American Empire, follows the example of Austria-Hungary, and
therefore libertarians should support it. Unfortunately not. George
W. Bush will not be a new Franz Joseph. Basically, the Habsburg
Empire was a multi-national, largely pre-state Empire, while what
the former Trotskyites who are running the federal government aim
at creating is one global, stars-and-stripes state. They want to
create a super-state at a global level, while the old Empire was
the survival of a completely different way of organizing social
relationships.

If
we compare it to US imperialism, the European Union is actually
part of the same paradigm. In Paris, Berlin or Rome we don't have
ruling classes determined to conquer the world — probably because
they do not have a strong enough army — but it's evident that they
would like the United Nations to become a legislative body with
democratic elections and an absolute power — some sort of command
and control headquarters.

In
contrast, the Austrian-Hungarian Empire was implicitly "federalist";
within it the instances of local communities were taken into great
account. While both the EU and the forthcoming American Empire are
modelled on the basis of the modern nation-state, the old Empire
had its roots in medieval polycentrism and pluralism, and was the
heritage of Catholic universalism, which was peculiar to Europe
before the idea of "sovereignty" deeply harmed all those
good things.

These
are very good reasons to praise the memory of the Emperor Franz
Joseph of Habsburg.

August
18, 2003

Carlo
Stagnaro [send him mail]
co-edits the libertarian magazine “Enclave”
and edited the book “Waco.
Una strage di stato americana.” Here’s his
website. Carlo Lottieri [send
him mail] teaches Philosophy of Law in Siena (Italy)
and he's the author of "Il pensiero libertario contemporaneo"
(Macerata: Liberilibri, 2001).

Those
bullies who worship "health" as some sort of modern golden
calf entered virtually everyone's house; the politically correct
media network printed pages and pages in the newspapers of many
nations, and broadcast hours and hours on TV to warn people that
smoke "kills." Not only active smoking, mind you, but
second hand smoke as well is depicted as public enemy number 1.
Indeed, smoking is supposed to cause 3.5 million deaths around the
world, 400,000 deaths in the U.S., and 53,000 deaths in Italy, to
mention only a few statistics. (You might be intrigued to know that
the latter figure was 90,000 only a few weeks ago. But a new law
passed by the center-right Italian government instantaneously "saved"
almost 40,000. We all are immensely grateful to our beloved Taliban
minister — sorry, I meant Italian minister — Girolamo Sirchia).
Oh, well, those numbers are little more than random figures, as
is clear when you begin to look at where they're coming from.

So,
the WHO and the whole coalition for WNTD warned that tobacco is
"the first preventable cause of death in the world." This
is false. Not true. It's a lie.

In
fact, the first preventable cause of death in the world is another
one, which the WHO, anti-smoking activists and health fascists never
questioned. It is abortion. Every year, 40 million abortions are
performed worldwide, 1.5 million in the U.S., and 150,000 in Italy.
So, for every old guy "killed," say, by smoke-induced
lung cancer, 13.14 children are murdered around the world, 3.75
in the U.S., and 2.83 in Italy. Moreover, according to a survey,
about 98% of the abortions are performed in the U.S. for reasons
other than rape, incest, or saving the mother's life. So, what about
it? Why doesn't the WHO complain about it? Why does nobody in the
public health arena seem interested in organizing a World No Abortion
Day?

Of
course, it is self-evident that anti-smoking zealots aren't interested
in saving children, because they have no interest in human life.
Rather, they often hate children for the very same reason they hate
smoking (and, along the same line, fatty food, alcoholic drinks,
cellular phones, and so forth). They despise all that may result
in more joy and happiness. They are ugly people who can't even figure
out the meaning of a pure laugh. So, since they are sad people,
they want all other people to be sad. And can you imagine a sadder
world than one without any pleasure, including cigarettes, whisky,
chocolate cakes, and children playing in the garden?

Anyway,
this is not the real point. The problem is that modern society is
experiencing a dramatic lack of conscience about true values. So,
"health" or "nature" or "choice" are
seen as values in themselves, no matter what this means for human
beings. So, in order to protect "public" health, the government
is allowed to tread on individual liberty; in order to save nature,
it may deny that any property right has ever existed; and in order
to give people a choice, it may even kill children. Because abortion
is murder, whatever you may think. You may say that a fetus
is not "alive," or a child is not a man; yet, a fetus
is the same thing as a child, and a child is the same thing as a
man. This is so obvious that only those generations who conceived
national-socialism and communism could even dream of putting it
in doubt. But, when the government is given enough power to move
the line between legitimate and illegitimate actions — that is,
between life and death or, if you prefer, between right to life
and murder — then something in that society is wrong. Jeff Snyder
is completely right in defining abortion as "The
Right Right For Our Time," that is, "The things we
recognize as fundamental rights acquire that status at some point
in history, such that they uniquely fit that time and place,
and crystallize for us the distinct character of the men of that
time." And nothing fits with our time more than "a woman's
right to choose."

I'd
like to make three final points about abortion. First of all, even
if you're not a libertarian, and think that taxes may be justifiable
sometimes, you should recognize that a strong minority of the population,
if not the majority, regards abortion as an immoral thing. So, abortion
should at the very least not be paid for with taxpayers'
money — or, to put it another way, if one wants to abort, one should
pay for it. Secondly, as Dave
Kopel and David Stolinki put it, "If [a woman] became pregnant
and suddenly decided on an abortion, her husband would have no legal
say… This woman's control over her body includes the right to
an abortion with no regard for the fetus's life or the father's
wishes." Instead, the father should have some right over his
child, before the mother performs an abortion. In the third place,
women often "choose" to abort because they have no financial
means to support a child. Well, relatives or other persons should
be permitted to "buy" the fetus — that is, to give the
lady some money not to terminate her pregnancy. If you are shocked
at the idea of selling children, you should be even more concerned
about killing them.

All
in all, anti-smoking zealots lie when they say tobacco is "the
first preventable cause of death in the world." That cause
is abortion, and if they really wanted to help saving human lives,
they should campaign against abortion in the first place. In fact,
they often say they are not prohibitionist, and that they aim to
educate people (who do not want to be educated — not by them in
any case). They also say they aim to protect nonsmokers' rights,
especially children's rights. If they are consistent with what they
say, they should also engage in educating people about natural rights,
including life, liberty, and property. The very first way to protect
the right to life, in particular, is to protect the right to birth.

June
7, 2003

Carlo
Stagnaro [send him mail]
co-edits the libertarian magazine “Enclave”
and edited the book “Waco.
Una strage di stato americana.” Here’s his
website.

In
a couple of recent articles (see: "Tolkien
vs. Power," Mises.org, and "Tolkien
vs. Socialism," LRC), we have given a basic account of
the libertarian nuances of Tolkien’s thought. This time we will
try to deal with criticisms of our thesis. We will particularly
focus on what is perhaps the best-grounded attempt to frame Tolkien’s
political insights from another, opposite, perspective: that provided
by Canadian-born independent scholar Patrick Curry, in his Defending
Middle-Earth. Tolkien: Myth & Modernity (London: Harper
Collins, 1997). This is a 160-page critical work, developed from
a talk presented by Curry on the occasion of a 1992 Centenary Conference
(see Patricia Reynolds and Glen H. Goodknight, Proceedings
of the J.R.R. Tolkien Centenary Conference. Keble College, Oxford,
1992).

Curry’s
pamphlet is a well-written, engaging essay. It is not sloppy scholarship,
nor is it the literary equivalent of a fast-food snack, along the
lines of Michael White’s Tolkien. A Biography. Dr. Curry’s
aim is also praiseworthy. He attempts to offer an articulate answer
to the typical sneering at Tolkien’s work that frequently comes
from professional literati, an attitude he attributes to what novelist
Ursula K. Le Guin has defined as “a deep puritanical distrust of
fantasy." It seems to be quite a widespread virus among intellectuals.
Curry's effort, insofar as it is represents a man of letters seeking
to rescue Tolkien from the haughty critics, is very much needed.
Three cheers for Patrick.

Curry
fights what he aptly calls the “modernism” of those critics, and
credits himself as a “post-modernist” defender of Tolkien. In spite
of the fact that Dr. Curry pretends he is dealing with literary criticism,
he is consciously using the jargon of social sciences (sociology
in particular), and addressing more "ideological" questions
so to speak, than literary ones. This is quite clear as soon as
one takes a look at the index of names and references: Theodor Adorno
and Max Horkmeiner are quoted three times, as many times as Tolkien’s
acclaimed biographer Humphrey Carpenter. Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman
is quoted four times, exactly as much as the Beowulf, one of the
“topoi” of Tolkien’s scholarship. The Bible deserves no more than
two quotations (one in a footnote), half of Salman Rushdie’s. Feminist
writer Angela Carter is quoted five times, one more than Théoden
King, as many as the Hobbit Merry, one less than Max Weber.

Please
note that, in the introduction, Dr. Curry guarantees that “my goal
means addressing contemporary conditions – cultural, social
and political – and readers; and, as far as seems relevant,
Tolkien’s own character and intentions. But I try to do so while
respecting the books’ internal integrity; that is, without the single-minded
reductionism that sees everything in such a story as ‘representing’
something else, in line with a predetermined interpretive programme
around class, or gender, or the unconscious” (p. 16). Well said.
He goes on to quote Tolkien on allegory (“I cordially dislike allegory
in all its manifestations”), and announces that “I have too much
respect for Tolkien’s work, in all its richness, to sacrifice it
on the altar of theory” (p. 18).

These
are apparently wise words. They seem to embody a well-deserved respect
towards Tolkien’s prose, and we have no reason to doubt Dr. Curry
is good-willed. Anyway, the fact that Tolkien was no fan of allegorical
novels does not mean he did not use symbols in his own writings,
especially when he himself explained what a particular symbol stood
for in his extraordinary letters, edited by his son Christopher.

Tolkien
himself distinguished “applicability” from “allegory": “one
resides in the freedom of the reader, the other in the purposed
domination of the author." Curry quotes Tolkien on the matter,
and avails himself of the “right as a reader to perceive ‘applicability’”
(p. 72). In so doing, Curry commits a gigantic mistake which should
be avoided by any conscious scholar of Tolkien. He suggests that
the Ring “epitomizes the strongest economic and political
power in Middle-earth, which already threatens to dominate all others
in one vast autocratic realm” (emphasis added). Please note that
the adjective “economic” lies in a prominent position: Dr. Curry
is not suggesting that Power, to reach the stage of a totalitarian
state, has to take over the economy, but rather implies that the
economy is based upon a Power-like relationship itself.

"Economic"
power is indeed the shibboleth of many pundits. As Murray Rothbard
explained, so-called “economic power” is a vague label used for
an alleged form of “private coercion." “A favourite illustration
of the wielding of such ‘power’ is the case of a worker fired from
his job, especially by a large corporation. Is this not ‘as bad
as’ violent coercion against the property of the worker? … Let
us look at this situation closely. What exactly has the employer
done? He has refused to continue to make a certain exchange which
the worker preferred to continue making. Specifically, A, the employer,
refuses to sell a certain sum of money in exchange for the purchase
of B’s labor services."

But
“under a regime of freedom, where no violence is permitted, every
man has the power either to make or not to make exchanges as and
with whom he sees fit… ‘Economic power,’ then, is simply the right
under freedom to refuse to make any exchange. Every man has this
power." (Power
and Market, pp. 228–229)

How
different from “political power”! The latter is a power retained
by the few, to be exercised over the many. It is not a mere refusal
to keeping a voluntary relationship going: it is the power to impose
some decisions and their burdens on unconsenting adults. Alas, if
economic power is an empty shell which anyone may fill accordingly
to his own prejudices, ideas, and interests, political power is
clearly about domination.

There
is some evidence Tolkien saw himself as an opponent of political
power, and wanted his opus magnum to reflect his own feelings. He
wrote:

“You
can make the Ring into an allegory of our own time, if you like:
and allegory of the inevitable fate that waits for all attempts
to defeat evil power by power” (The
Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, p. 121).

“Power
is an ominous and sinister word in all these tales” (Ibid., p.
152).

“The
story is cast in terms of a good side, and a bad side, beauty
against ruthless ugliness, tyranny against kingship, moderated
freedom with consent against compulsion that has long lost any
object save mere power, and so on” (Ibid., pp. 178–179).

“In
my story Sauron represents as near an approach to the wholly evil
will as is possible. He had gone the way of all tyrants: beginning
well, at least on the level that while desiring to order all things
according to his own wisdom he still at first considered the (economic)
well-being of other inhabitants of Earth. But he went further
than human tyrants in pride and the lust for domination, being
in origin an immortal (angelic) spirit” (Ibid., p. 243).

“Of
course my story is not an allegory of Atomic power, but of Power
(exerted for domination)” (Ibid., p. 246).

The
Lord of the Rings is precisely the epic journey to destroy the
One Ring, which symbolizes absolute power. He who wears the Ring
becomes a slave at the same time as he is made supremely powerful.
This recalls what actually happens in our own world every day: rulers,
even well intentioned and idealistic ones, are ruled themselves
at the same time by their spasmodic need for more power.

As
a matter of fact, Tolkien maintains that power is always evil –
a good power cannot even be conceived. From the very beginning of
the novel, the good guys own the Ring. Since it is the most powerful
weapon in the world, many of them argue it could be used against
Sauron, the Dark Lord. Even though the Ring was forged by him and
is undoubtedly evil, they suspect it could nonetheless help to pursue
a good end. This is an extraordinary way to ask the question: can
the means be subordinated to the ends? Can a good end be pursued
by evil means? Tolkien’s answer is strikingly negative: evil means
can pursue only an evil end – no matter if the intentions of
the actor(s) incline to the good.

When
Frodo offers him the Ring, the wise Gandalf cries:

“No!
With that power I should have power too great and terrible.
And over me the Ring would gain a power still greater and more
deadly! Do not tempt me! For I do not wish to become like the
Dark Lord himself. Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by
pity, pity for weakness and the desire of strength to do good.
Do not tempt me! I dare not take it, not even to keep it safe,
unused” (The Lord of the Rings, p. 60.)

Curry
refuses to adopt the approach we have briefly outlined and instead
proposes an alternative hypothesis. Accordingly, the Ring does not
represent what Tolkien himself clarified it represents in his mythology,
but is rather a symbol of the “megamachine," an artifact of “modernity."

Here
Curry provides his own definition of “modernity," taking advantage
of the fact that the “anti-modernism” of Tolkien’s writings is self-evident,
and self-proclaimed. The point is that, of course, in order to realize
what “anti-modernism” is, you must provide a positive definition
of “modernity” in the first place. Curry proposes his own one: “modernity
is thus characterized by the combination of modern science, a global
capitalist economy, and the political power of the nation-state”
(p. 22).

Such
definition is ingenuous and wrong. The historical co-existence of
these three elements is arguably not pure chance: science and technology
played a considerable role in advancing the productive capacity
of the capitalist system, and the capitalist system in turn supplied
more resources for innovation and technological advancement. The
nation state provides the legal framework, being the monopolist
of aggression and pretending to be the ultimate decision-maker.

But
are these three factors logically and inevitably bound together?
Is this “combination” the only possible one? Does capitalism need
nation states? Can we imagine a scenario in which the nation state
is no longer in place, but science and capitalism still flourish?
Vice versa, is it not empirically true that there are nation states
where development has been cut short by those very same institutions
of the state?

Moreover,
as soon as we speak of “modernity," we must find something which
is truly peculiar to this very limited age. Is science exclusively
a “modern” feature? Certainly, technology sky- rocketed in the 19th
century and great developments were achieved. But we might point
to the example of space exploration, which began during the Cold
War as the “space race” between the US and the Soviet Union. Must
we assume that the existence of the Soviet Union was a necessary
historical condition for human exploration of space?

We
won’t deny that the antagonism between the US and the USSR “prompted,"
so to speak, the Apollo missions, or the Sputniks. But it seems
to us ludicrous to support the idea that the fact that the Cold
War and space exploration coexisted for a time is anything more
than a historical coincidence.

This
is even clearer when we examine the relationship between the market
and the state: the whole corpus of libertarian writing argues that
they are not twin brothers, but rather that each is the enemy of
the other. History also teaches that we experienced the free market
before the nation state was born. The standard example is, of course,
the institutional framework of the European “feudal anarchy." But
America itself was a market long before becoming a modern state.

Moreover,
developments in science are a constant feature of human history:
ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, and feudal Europe all experienced
dramatic achievements in disciplines like physics, medicine, and
chemistry. They also developed some technologies which formed the
basis for our own progress.

Never
was such pre-modern progress as bright as after the Industrial Revolution,
certainly. But since we knew science and technology before the modern
period, we can't claim that they are a peculiar trait of the modern
age.

If
we put aside science and free market capitalism, what are we left
with? Obviously, the state. It, indeed, is a typically modern institution:
we have always had governments, but never a state structured like
the one which emerged from absolutism and the French Revolution.

When
Tolkien opposed modernity, he was opposing modernity precisely in
this sense. He was not a proto-green theorist, nor did he anticipate
any trend in the current environmentalist movement. He did have,
of course, an aesthetic preference for a more rural, less urbanized
society. But even his alleged “fear” of machinery has been largely
exaggerated by some of his readers.

Tolkien’s
biographer Humphrey Carpenter remembers that, during August 1953,
Tolkien visited George Sayer in Ireland. Sayer was a close friend
of C.S. Lewis, who was professor at Malvern College and often attended
the Inklings' meetings. (The Inklings were a group of scholars bound
together by the same passion for ancient stories and myths; among
them were J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, C. Williams, and so forth.
See Humphrey Carpenter, The
Inklings. C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, C. Williams and their friends).
Mr. Sayer recorded Tolkien reading some extracts from The
Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Then he played
the recording tape. Initially, JRRT was wary: he had never seen
anything like it. So, he recited the Pater Noster in order to drive
away demons, then repeatedly tried out the recorder and was so struck
by it that he bought one to use at home. Thanks to it, he eventually
ended up composing a radio comedy, The
Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, Beorhtelm's Son. (See Carpenter,
J.R.R.
Tolkien (A Biography)). This demonstrates that Tolkien,
who certainly didn't love modern technology, was indeed ready to
take advantage of it; he simply feared the bad use human beings
could make of such technology, but never denied that there were
good uses as well.

Curry
systematically tries to read Tolkien’s contempt towards the state
as tantamount a refusal to accept scientific “modernity," and so
an attempt to prepare the ground for “post-modernism." Even this
view lies in a precise confusion between two different kinds of
power. Curry openly fails to distinguish between two very different
concepts: “power over nature and power over man," as Murray Rothbard
defined them.

“It
is easy to see that an individual’s power is his ability to
control his environment in order to satisfy his wants. A man
with an ax has the power to chop down a tree; a man with a factory
has the power, along with other complementary factors, to produce
capital goods. A man with a gun has the power to force an unarmed
man to do his bidding, provided that the unarmed man chooses
not to resist or not to accept death at gunpoint. It should
be clear that there is a basic distinction between the two types
of power.

"Power
over nature is the sort of power on which civilization must be
built; the record of man’s history is the record of the advance
or attempted advance of that power. Power over men, on the other
hand, does not raise the general standard of living or promote
the satisfactions of all, as does power over nature. By its very
essence, only some men in society can wield power over men. Where
power over men exists, some must be the powerful, and others must
be objects of power. But every man can and does achieve power
over nature” (Power and Market, p. 232).

Curry
intentionally confuses one sort of power with the other, and takes
advantage of the slipperiness of the word "power" to portray
Tolkien as an environmentalist.

Curry
also presents a completely stereotyped view of capitalism, looking
for “class awareness” (p. 40) in Tolkien, while suggesting that
“in sharp contrast to our possessive individualism, the Hobbits
are intensely communal… and live in a relatively simple and frugal
way… Collective voluntary simplicity is becoming the only positive
alternative to collective immiseration” (p. 51).

The
alleged "frugality" is not a choice; rather, it is simply
typical of an agrarian, pre-industrial society depicted by Tolkien
not just in the Shire, but in all Middle Earth. As soon as Tolkien
chooses that setting for his stories, it is the need for realism
within the confines of the story which prompts him to describe such
a living condition.

However,
generally speaking, the Hobbits are quite wealthy, and engage in
trade with the rest of the known world (Pipe-weed being their leading
product). The Shire is a sort of "confederacy," with no
central government. It “had hardly any u2018government'. Families for
the most part managed their own affairs. Growing food and eating
it occupied most of their time. In other matters they were, as a
rule, generous and not greedy, but contented and moderate, so that
estates, farms, workshops, and small trades tended to remain unchanged
for generations.” The Hobbits "attributed to the king of old
all their essential laws; and usually they kept the laws of free
will, because they were u2018The Rules' (as they said), both ancient
and just" (The Lord of the Rings, p. 9). There was a
strong sense of being members of the same community — and that was
an individual and voluntary choice. This didn't exclude the possibility
for some (including the Baggins of Hobbiton) to get richer. And
it's hard to speak about classes, let alone "class awareness,"
when one looks at the kind of feudal-style relationship between
Frodo and Sam, for instance: they are friends, but Frodo is the
master and Sam the gardener in the first place.

Then
there is the matter of Tolkien’s relationship with the natural world.
Curry quotes a letter Tolkien wrote to the Daily Telegraph,
on July 4th 1972. “I am (obviously) much in love with plants and
above all trees, and always have been; and I find human maltreatment
of them as hard to bear as some find ill-treatment of animals” (p.
65).

What
Curry does not acknowledge here is that Tolkien is making a comparison
between the maltreatment of plants and animals, but what he doesn’t
do is to compare maltreatment of animals and plants to child abuse,
rape, or war atrocities. It is not because Tolkien was a libertarian
(or an anarcho-conservative, as he would rather define himself),
but because he was a Christian and a Roman Catholic.

This
is of a particular interest in Curry’s study: he systematically
refuses to deal with Tolkien’s Catholicism. He seems sure that “despite
his personal religious convictions, Tolkien was acutely aware of
writing in and for a divided post-Christian audience." “His
book therefore makes no explicit reference to any organized religion
at all, and… offers no hostages to a religious allegorical interpretations”
(p. 28).

He
therefore suggests that in The Lord of the Rings “there is
much evidence of an active animism," and that the Middle Earth
is but “nominally monotheistic… the One only directly intervened
in history once, in the momentous reshaping of the world in the
Second Age. There is never the slightest suggestion that He would
do so again, no matter how badly matters went in the War of the
Ring” (p. 109).

Curry
also sees in the spiritual world of the Middle-earth “both a polytheist-cum-animist
cosmology of ‘natural magic’ and a Christian (but non-sectarian)
ethic of humility and compassion” (pp. 28–29).

This
is a rather peculiar statement, especially in the light of Tolkien’s
own writings, and recent studies too. Tom Shippey, for example,
pointed out that the Fellowship of the Ring departs from
Rivendell on December 25, with its success and the fall of Sauron
on March 25. While the symbolism of the departure date is obvious,
March 25 is more obscure. It is, however, a very important date
in the old English calendar: on that day, the English once acknowledged
the fall of Adam and Eve and celebrated St. Gabriel’s Annunciation
to Mary and the Resurrection of Christ at the same time. Really,
a meaningful day.

Moreover,
it's not completely true that the One — God — never intervenes in
history. He does it rarely, of course, but always to shape events
of major importance. For example, why did Bilbo find the Ring in
the first place? Gandalf explains that

"There
was more than one power at work, Frodo. The Ring was trying to
get back to its master. It had slipped from Isildur's hand and
betrayed him; then when a chance came it caught poor Déagol,
and he was murdered; and after that Gollum, and it had devoured
him. It could make no further use of him: he was too small and
mean; and as long as it stayed with him he would never leave his
deep pool again. So now, when its master was awake once more and
sending out his dark thought from Mirkwood, it abandoned Gollum.
Only to be picked up by the most unlikely person imaginable: Bilbo
of the Shire! Behind that there was something else at work,
beyond any design of the Ring-maker. I can put it no plainer than
by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its
maker. In which case you also were meant to have it. And that
may be an encouraging thought" (The Lord of the Rings,
pp. 54–55, emphasis added).

The
same can be said with regard to that hideous strength by which Sam
saves his master from the Orcs at Cirith Ungol, right after defeating
the previously undefeated Shelob. And the very destruction of the
Ring — the way it falls in the Cracks of Doom — may be understood
either by invoking chance or Providence, and it's very difficult
to opt for the former. In fact, as JRRT himself writes:

"At
this point the u2018salvation' of the world and Frodo's own u2018salvation'
is achieved by his previous pity and forgiveness of injury.
At any point any prudent person would have told Frodo that Gollum
would certainly betray him, and could rob him in the end. To u2018pity'
him, to forbear to kill him, was a piece of folly, or a mystical
belief in the ultimate value-in-itself of pity and generosity
even if disastrous in the world of time. He did rob him and injure
him in the end — but by a u2018grace', that last betrayal was at a
precise juncture when the final evil deed was the most beneficial
thing that anyone cd. have done for Frodo! By a situation created
by his u2018forgiveness', he was saved himself, and relieved of his
burden." (The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, p. 234).

In
a 1968 column, Russell Kirk beautifully grasped the meaning and
method of Tolkien’s literary accomplishments, acknowledging that
"Tolkien is a man profoundly religious, but far more subtle
and more exciting than the talented author of religious tracts.
The imagery of his fantasies is drawn more from Norse mythology
than from Christian tradition or the classical world. [But] In his
fables there are men and elves and dwarves and trolls and wizards
— and especially hobbits, a race of simple and likable beings who
teach us more about man's condition than could any naturalistic
representation of man himself." Kirk went so far as to recognize
that "Tolkien teaches us how to live here and now — how to
triumph over death. In an age of scribbling neurotics, Tolkien is
a giant of faith."

Here
Curry's interpretative attempt is wrecked. To read Tolkien as an
environmentalist, it is necessary to refuse to acknowledge his Catholicism.
The Bible is not obscure on the topic. God’s first command to mankind
is “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it;
and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of
the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth” (Gen.
1:28). Also, in the Gospel, simply commanding “Peace! Be still!”
(Mk. 4:39) Jesus Christ shows himself to be Lord of nature such
that “even wind and sea obey Him” (Mk. 4:41). He addresses His creation
and demands obedience. But we have to remember that, according to
Genesis, man is made in God’s “image and likeness” (Gen. 1:26).
That is, men are called by God Himself to exercise their stewardship
over His creation. It is not a surprise that environmentalists have
to get back to a sort of paganism, even when reading The Lord
of the Rings, to provide a suitable backing of their ideology.
Tolkien’s message in any case should not be misunderstood: he stood
up against power over man, hoping – as a Roman Catholic –
that men will be wise enough to understand how to exercise power
over nature in the most responsible way.

January
3, 2003

Alberto
Mingardi [send him mail]
is a student in political thought in Italy.
Carlo
Stagnaro [send him mail]
co-edits the libertarian magazine “Enclave”
and edited the book “Waco.
Una strage di stato americana.” Here’s his
website.

If
it is true that an artist can display his mastery in the treatment
of any kind of subject, it is also true that this "literary
pauperism" tends to expel myth, legend, and generally "great
stories" (as opposed to the small stories of everyday misery
in this imaginary "capitalist" world) from the canon of
literature.

John
Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973) was definitely not
a writer of this sort. He was a storyteller amused by his own stories.
He was a creator of myths and legends. A scholar of the languages
of the past, he certainly was not ashamed of the best legacies of
Western civilization.

Indeed,
he was a lifelong opponent of central planning. Perhaps this is
among the reasons why he is still not regarded as one of the major
authors of the twentieth century. Notwithstanding this slight, several
dozen millions of copies of his masterpiece, the over 600,000 words
long The
Lord of the Rings — have been sold. Peter Jackson's movie
version of The
Fellowship of the Rings was a blockbuster last year, and
the forthcoming The Two Towers is expected to repeat that
success.

This
is very good news for libertarians. In fact, if Hollywood movies
and prominent authors have often became a powerful tool in the hands
of so called "progressive" propagandists, Tolkien's work
can become just as powerful in the hands of defenders of liberty
who are informed about the nuances of his opus magnum.

Tolkien
demonstrated, on more than one occasion, a very clear mind about
both the origins and the possible (almost certain, in fact) outcome
of socialism. Being a devout Roman Catholic, he couldn't stand those
who regarded religion as nothing but the "opium of the people."

His
letters are an important source of information about what he thought
of the world around him. It should be kept in mind that The Lord
of The Rings, which was published in 1954–55 for the first
time, actually was begun in the 1930s. It was a time when the future
looked black; the choice seemed to be between the Nazis and the
communists; that is — as Tolkien soon realized — two twin brothers
of the very same mother, the French Revolution (about his vision
of the war, and his belief that the choice was between two evils
rather than good and evil, see Stagnaro 2002).

Tolkien
was deeply impressed by the experience of two world wars, during
which he encountered a larger
sense of the sadness of war. Literary critic Tom Shippey
quite appropriately defines him as a "post-war writer."
He also notes that Tolkien learnt at his own expense the lesson
of the twentieth century, that is "that u2018violence breeds violence',
that (the British) victory in World War I bred only the desire for
vengeance which erupted in World War II. The whole British experience
of World War I moreover tended to show that there was no clear indication
of right and wrong as between the two sides, no matter what official
propaganda might say (…) In this context, Tolkien's good, violent,
kindly, bloodthirsty characters — the adjectives just used fit particularly
well for Théoden King — seem much less eccentric, paradoxical
or thoughtless than so many reviewers indicate" (p.90).

To
put it differently, it must be understood that Tolkien didn't see
in his own life (and therefore didn't transfer into his novels)
a chance for power to act for the good, nor did he find in left-wing
socialism (in neither the hardcore version implemented in Russia,
nor the softcore one to become popular in the West) a convincing
alternative to right-wing "national" socialism (as it
had been interpreted by Hitler or, to a smaller extent, by Mussolini).

He
had almost no faith in any form of organization. When people try
to plan the future, they always forget (or pretend not to know)
that life is much more complex than any system one might imagine;
"chance" is by definition impossible to forecast. Moreover,
human beings act following their own reason and their own will,
not in any standard way predictable by the planners.

With
regard to life in military camps, Tolkien (1995) wrote to his son
Christopher that

however
it is, humans being what they are, quite inevitable, and the only
cure (short of universal Conversion) is not to have wars — nor
planning, nor organization, nor regimentation (…) All Big Things
planned in a big way feel like that to the toad under the harrow,
though on a general view they do function and do their job. An
ultimately evil job. For we are attempting to conquer Sauron with
the Ring. And we shall (it seems) succeed. But the penalty is,
as you will know, to breed new Saurons, and slowly turn Men and
Elves into Orcs. Not that in real life things are as clear cut
as in a story, and we started out with a great many Orcs on our
side… Well, there you are: a hobbit amongst the Urukhai. Keep
up your hobbitry in heart, and think that all stories feel
like that when you are in them. You are inside a very great
story! (p.78)

From
this passage, we may deduce that Tolkien was quite pessimistic about
history, leaving aside his infinite trust in Providence. He thought
than any form of central planning, as put in place by self-conceited
human planners, was impossible and doomed to failure. Anyway, he
was as sure that humanity in general was acting within a higher
plan, to be revealed at the end of the history with the coming of
God in glory to divide the just and the unjust. To a certain extent,
Tolkien also held a sort of millenarian view; indeed he said "I
think there will be a u2018millenium', the prophesied thousand-year
rule of the Saints, i.e. those who have for all their imperfections
never finally bowed heart and will to the world or the evil spirit
(in modern but not universal terms: mechanism, u2018scientific' materialism,
Socialism in either of its factions now at war)" (1995, p.110).
Not only does central planning not work, it is a sort of revolt
against nature, in the sense that it marks man's attempt to take
the place of God himself. When men pretend to be able to completely
manage their own destiny, they become so presumptuous as to say
farewell to God. This is not just a fascinating theoretical analysis,
but something empirically true. As any one may easily see, socialist
regimes typically try to get rid of God. How successful these attempts
have been is doubtful.

We
won't argue that Tolkien was at all acquainted with Mises' analyses
and ideas. It would be hazardous to say that the Oxonian professor
ever read any economics. But it seems he acquired through his own
experience a rather sophisticated understanding of how socialism
does (not) work.

Speaking
about the desire for knowledge and genuine curiosity in the organization
of universities, he said:

It
is not just a question of the degeneration of real curiosity and
enthusiasm into "planned economy," under which so much
research time is stuffed into more or less standard skins and
turned out in sausages of a size and shape approved by our own
little printed cookery book. Even if that were a sufficient description
of the system, I should hesitate to accuse anyone of planning
it with foresight, or of approving it wholeheartedly now that
we have got it. It has grown, partly by accident, partly by the
accumulation of temporary expedients. Much thought has gone into
it, and much devoted and little remunerated labour has been spent
in administering it and in mitigating its evil. (Tolkien 1983,
p.227).

"I
am not a u2018socialist' in any sense — Tolkien added once — being adverse
to u2018planning' (as must be plain) most of all because the u2018planners',
when they acquire power, become so bad — but I would not say that
we had to suffer the malice of Sharkey and his Ruffians here. Though,
the spirit of u2018Isengard', if not of Mordor, is of course always
cropping up. The present design of destroying Oxford in order to
accommodate motor-cars is a case. But our chief adversary is a member
of a u2018Tory' Government. But you could apply it anywhere in this
days" (Tolkien 1995, p.235). From these words we may draw some
preliminary conclusions. First, Tolkien did not have any sympathy
towards socialism. Second, he soon realized that socialist ideas
could be declined both right and left, and in both cases it implied
a refusal of Christian heritage and traditional values. Third, socialism
is not only evil in itself, but also presupposes a huge class of
bureaucrats (planners), whose job is ultimately harmful for the
society as a whole: it is not just a matter of inefficiency, but
also of morals. Or, better, of the lack of moral of a system in
which individuals don't provide for themselves, relying instead
upon the mercy of political power. Fourth, socialism had conquered
"public opinion": both intellectuals and common people
were going to endorse it as the best way to produce welfare, partly
because they had lost any alternative.

Any
serious criticism of socialism is based upon an appraisal of the
fact that planning is ultimately impossible, because people's behaviour
can't be predicted in any meaningful sense. "A man is not only
a seed — JRRT argued — developing in a defined pattern, well or
ill according to its situation or its defects as an example of its
species; a man is both a seed and in some degree also a gardener,
for good or ill. I am impressed by the degree in which the development
of u2018character' can be a product of conscious intention, the
will to modify innate tendencies in desired directions (…) In
any case, I personally find most people incalculable in any
particular situation of emergency" (Tolkien 1995, p.240).

Speaking
about Frodo's alleged "failure" in destroying the Ring
in the Cracks of Doom, he adds that

I
dislike the use of "political" in such a context; it
seems to me false. It seems clear to me that Frodo's duty was
"humane" not political. He naturally thought first of
the Shire, since his roots were there, but the quest had as its
object not the preserving of this or that polity, such as the
half republic half aristocracy of the Shire, but a liberation
from an evil tyranny of all the "humane" [including
Elves, Hobbits and all "speaking creatures"] (…)

Denethor
was tainted with mere politics: hence his failure, and
his mistrust of Faramir. It had become for him a prime motive
to preserve the polity of Gondor, as it was, against another potentate,
who had made himself stronger and was to be feared and opposed
for that reason rather than because he was ruthless and wicked.
Denethor despised lesser men, and one may be sure did not distinguish
between Orcs and the allies of Mordor. If he had survived as a
victor, even without use of the Ring, he would have taken a long
stride towards becoming himself a tyrant, and the terms and treatment
he accorded to the deluded peoples of east and south would have
been cruel and vengeful. He had become a "political"
leader: sc. Gondor against the rest. (Tolkien 1995, pp.240–241).

Tolkien
also recognized the morality of "the Cause of those who oppose
now the State-God and Marshal This or That as High Priest, even
if it is true (as it unfortunately is) that many of their deeds
are wrong, even if it were true (as it is not) that the inhabitants
of u2018The West', except for minority of wealthy bosses, live in fear
and squalor, while the worshippers of the State-God live in peace
and abundance and in mutual esteem and trust" (Tolkien 1995,
p.244). But, as we now know well, the worshippers of the State-God
experienced the blackest poverty that humanity has ever seen, for
merely political reasons.

The
last quotations help introduce the "empirical" part of
this article. We want to show that not only was Tolkien perfectly
aware of the inherent problems of socialism; he also wanted to put
his position so clearly that he dedicated to it one of the most
important (and regrettably less studied) chapters of his masterpiece:
the VIII Chapter of Book Six, "The Scouring of the Shire."
After the War of the Ring, the Hobbits get back to their homeland,
but find a very bad surprise there: the evil Saruman (Tolkien's
fictionalization of a philosopher dreaming of being king) has taken
power and established a socialist regime.

To
understand to what extent Saruman modifies the economic and political
situation of the Shire, it's useful to see how things are before
his arrival. Well, the Shire is a small piece of land blessed by
the fact that its inhabitants do not know the meaning of the nasty
word, "coercion": politically speaking, it is a sort of
confederacy among four quarters (the "Farthings"). It
"had hardly any u2018government'. Families for the most part managed
their own affairs. Growing food and eating it occupied most of their
time. In other matters they were, as a rule, generous and not greedy,
but contented and moderate, so that estates, farms, workshops, and
small trades tended to remain unchanged for generations." Once
there was a king; at the time of the War of the Ring, however, the
Shire has no sovereign. The Hobbits "attributed to the king
of old all their essential laws; and usually they kept the laws
of free will, because they were u2018The Rules' (as they said), both
ancient and just" (Tolkien 2001, p.9).

But
when the four Hobbits (Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin) get back from
their journey to destroy the Ring, they find regrettable changes
in the way of life of the Shire. Saruman (who is known as "Sharkey")
has managed to create a centralized power and a planned economy.
He has also established Lotho, a figure simultaneously both victim
and predator, on the "throne." At a certain point Lotho
is secretly killed. It is interesting to look at the way Sharkey
modifies even the landscape of the Shire. Despite a good harvest,
Hobbits experience dramatic shortages: "It's all these u2018gatherers'
and u2018sharers', going round counting and measuring and taking off
to storage. They do more gathering than sharing, and we never see
most of the stuff again" (Tolkien 2001, p.976). Moreover, "everything
except Rules got shorter and shorter, unless one could hide a bit
of one's own when the ruffians went round gathering stuff up u2018for
fair distribution': which meant they got it and we didn't"
(p.989). Also, a multitude of new officers have been hired by the
new government, because many rules require as many public officers
to enforce them.

Central
planning has completely spoiled the landscape of the Shire. Big,
dirty buildings have been built, trees cut down, and industries
are polluting land and waters. The old mill, for example, has been
knocked down in order to build "a bigger one and fill it full
o' wheels and outlandish contraptions" (p.990). Sharkey is
always aware of what Hobbits think, thanks to his spies (most of
them Hobbits themselves). "This is worse than Mordor — cried
Sam — Much worse in a way. It comes home to you, as they say; because
it is home, and you remember it before it was all ruined."
"Yes, this is Mordor," replies Frodo. So they initiate
a revolt, and Hobbits finally throw Sharkey and the other felons
out (actually, Skarkey is killed by his own servant, Wormtongue).
After it, there's a restoration: "Before Yule not a brick was
left standing of the new Shirriff-houses or of anything that had
been built by u2018Sharkey's Men'; but the bricks were used to repair
many an old hole, to make it snugger and drier." That seems
to indicate that socialism not only is unjust, but also inefficient:
even a brick may be used in a more appropriate way thanks to a decentralized,
free decision-making process.

Tom
Shippey notes that "there is something suggestive
also in Saruman's notorious u2018voice', which always seems u2018wise and
reasonable', and wakes desire in others u2018by swift agreement to seem
wise themselves'. Gandalf's harshness represents denial of Utopias
and insistence that nothing comes free. Even Lotho u2018Pimple', Frodo's
relative, has a place in the argument because he is such an obvious
Gradgrind — greedy and bossy to begin with, but staying within the
law till his manipulators take over, to jail his mother, kill her
and eat her too (if we can believe the hints about Grìma
Wormtongue). Jeremy Bentham to Victorian Capitalists? Old Bolshevik
to new Stalinists? The progression is familiar enough, and it adds
another modern dimension to Middle Earth — or rather a timeless
one, for though in the modern age we give Saruman a modern u2018applicability',
his name, and the evident uncertainty even in the Anglo-Saxon times
over mechanical cleverness and u2018machinations', show that his meaning
was ancient too. Saruman nevertheless does have one distinctive
modern trait, which is his association with Socialism" (p.154).

Long
before his arrival in the Shire, Saruman had tried to convince Gandalf
that evil actions may result in good ends: "We can bide our
time, we can keep our thoughts in our hearts, deploring maybe evils
done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge,
Rule, Order, all things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish,
hindered rather than helped by our weak or idle friends. There need
not be, there would not be, any real change in our design, only
in our means" (Tolkien 2001, p.253). As Tom Shippey (1992a)
points out, "What Saruman says encapsulates many of the things
the modern world has learnt to dread most: the ditching of allies,
the subordination of means to ends, the u2018conscious acceptance of
guilt in the necessary murder’. But the way he puts it is significant
too. No other character in Middle Earth has Saruman's trick of balancing
phrases against each other so that incompatibles are resolved, and
none comes out with words as empty as u2018deploring', u2018ultimate', worst
of all, u2018real'" (p.108).

Saruman,
hence, represents not merely socialism, but also the modern attitude
to compromise, to renounce principles for power — and one may also
suspect that he is intended to show that when one accepts a "dialogue"
with evil, one risks playing by evil's rules. So, every success
will be temporary, and every victory Pyrrhic, because ultimately
evil will prevail — unless one is strong enough (as Gandalf is,
and as are partly Frodo, Sam, and the other members of the Fellowship
of the Ring except Boromir) to refuse the evil from the beginning.
The ends are the means, to a certain extent.

So,
was Tolkien an anti-socialist novelist? Of course he was that —
and much more. Jessica Yates (1992) is certainly right in pointing
out that Tolkien's criticism against nazism applies to communism
as well. In fact, she defines him as "anti-totalitarian."
The question is: what is "totalitarian"? There are two
possible definitions, the one being "not democratic,"
and the other "anti-liberty." If you choose the former,
then the "anti-totalitarian" label does not fit. Tolkien
was certainly conscious of the dangers of democracy, as we showed
in a precedent article (see Mingardi and Stagnaro 2002). In brief,
he thought that democracy is nothing more than a means to govern
people, and as such potentially harmful. Indeed, "I am not
a democrat, only because u2018humility' and equality are spiritual principles
corrupted by the attempt to mechanize and formalize them, with the
result that we get not universal smallness and humility, but universal
greatness and pride, till some Orc gets hold of a ring of power
— and we get and are getting slavery" (Tolkien 1995, p.246).
Tolkien was of course anti-totalitarian, but he was also anti-democratic
for the very same reason.

We
must therefore embrace an alternative definition of "anti-totalitarian."
We may describe as "totalitarian" all those regimes which
openly deny such natural rights as life, liberty, and property —
that is, any modern state. From this point of view, it is easy to
see Tolkien as an opponent of nazism and communism, as well as of
modern social democracies. Democracy is at its best only a set of
procedural rules, not a "moral" good itself.

We
are of the opinion that Tolkien's consistent vision can become a
weapon for libertarians seeking to put an end to the barbarian statism
which still characterizes our world. To popularize themes and reflections,
to teach simple people in a simple language, novels are essential.
Socialists understood that this is very important. Dickens has been
perhaps as important to them as Marx. Let us, therefore, make Tolkien
"our" Dickens.

REFERENCES:

MISES, Ludwig
von 1972 [1956] The
Anti-Capitalist Mentality, Grove City: Libertarian Press.

MINGARDI, Alberto
and STAGNARO, Carlo 2002 "Tolkien
v. Power," The Ludwig von Mises Institute, February
26, 2002.

REYNOLDS, Patricia
and GOODKNIGHT, Glen H. (editors) 1992 Proceedings
of the J.R.R. Tolkien Centenary Conference. Keble College, Oxford,
1992, Altadena (CA) and Milton Keynes: The Mythopoeic Press
and The Tolkien Society.

SHIPPEY, Tom
A. 1992a The
Road to Middle Earth, London: Grafton.

SHIPPEY,
Tom A. 1992b "Tolkien as a Post-War Writer," in Reynolds
and Goodknight (1992), pp.84–93.

STAGNARO, Carlo
2002 "Bush
and the Ring," LewRockwell.com, July 25, 2002.

TOLKIEN, John
Ronald Reuel 1983 The
Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, London: George
Allen & Unwin.

TOLKIEN, John
Ronald Reuel 1995 [1981] The
Letters of JRR Tolkien, London: Harper Collins Publishers.

TOLKIEN,
John Ronald Reuel 2001 [1954–55] The
Lord of the Rings, London: Harper Collins Publishers.

YATES, Jessica
1992 "Tolkien the Anti-totalitarian," in Reynolds and
Goodknight (1992), pp.233–245.

December
9, 2002

Alberto
Mingardi [send him mail]
is a student in political thought in Italy.
Carlo
Stagnaro [send him mail]
co-edits the libertarian magazine “Enclave”
and edited the book “Waco.
Una strage di stato americana.” Here’s his
website.

The
"great history" is known to everyone. But few know the
role of Switzerland during the conflict. That small country succeeded
in preserving its traditional liberty even when Hitler was supposed
to win the war and establish a New World Order. Swiss citizens were
always united in opposition to the Nazi dictatorship. Nor did they
sign any sort of alliance with Britain, the US, and the Soviet Union.
They had the policy of armed neutrality, and deterrence was their
major arm — leave aside the weapons privately owned, which posed
a major threat to any invading army, German, Soviet, or otherwise.

Recently
I talked about Swiss behavior during WW2, and tried to learn something
useful for our own future, with Stephen
P. Halbrook, author of Target
Switzerland. Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II. Mr.
Halbrook also authored several books and articles about the right
to keep and bear arms: among them, the famous That
Every Man Be Armed. The Evolution of a Constitutional Right.

STAGNARO:
Many people believe Switzerland was quite “collaborationist” with
Nazi Germany during the Second World War. Your book shows things
went differently. How could the Swiss defend their independence
without compromising with the regime of Hitler?

HALBROOK:
Every man in Switzerland had a rifle at home. Shooting was the national
sport. A look at a map shows tiny, democratic Switzerland surrounded
by the Axis powers stretching all over Europe and into Russia and
North Africa. This nation of riflemen situated in the Alps managed
to remain neutral and to dissuade a Nazi invasion.

Winston
Churchill, England's wartime leader, wrote as the Allies were engaged
in conquering Germany in 1944: "Of all the neutrals Switzerland
has the greatest right to distinction. . . . She has been a democratic
State, standing for freedom in self-defence among her mountains,
and in thought, in spite of race, largely on our side."

By
contrast, the year before, Adolf Hitler stated that "all the
rubbish of small nations still existing in Europe must be liquidated
as fast as possible," and that if necessary he would become
known as the "Butcher of the Swiss."

But
Hitler knew that the Swiss were gun owners and that many Nazis would
be butchered in the process. Located in Bern, American spy Allen
Dulles, the head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), explained:
"At the peak of its mobilization Switzerland had 850,000 men
under arms or standing in reserve, a fifth of the total population.
. . . That Switzerland did not have to fight was thanks to its will
to resist and its large investment of men and equipment in its own
defense. The cost to Germany of an invasion of Switzerland would
certainly have been very high."

Incidentally,
Italian partisan leaders would slip over the border into Ticino,
the Italian-speaking Swiss canton, and arrange with the OSS for
air drops of supplies to their mountain bases.

STAGNARO:
German generals studied several plans to invade Switzerland.
All of them worried about the strength of the Swiss army, as well
as about the ability of Swiss to make them pay a very high price.
Let’s play history-fiction: had the Germans really tried an invasion,
what fate would they have been likely to find?

HALBROOK:
When Hitler came to power in 1933, Nazi propaganda depicted Switzerland
as one of several countries to be annexed as part of "Greater
Germany." Unlike the other European neutrals, which spent money
for the welfare state, the Swiss immediately began military preparations
to repel an eventual German attack. In 1940, Switzerland was a potential
southern invasion route to France, while Belgium and Holland were
the northern invasion routes. The Germans avoided Switzerland, where
every man was armed and the spirit of resistance predominated.

Just
after the fall of France, the German forces devised several new
invasion plans against Switzerland – the Nazis would occupy the
German and French speaking areas, and Fascist Italy would occupy
the Italian speaking area. These plans acknowledged that the Swiss
were well-trained marksmen, and recommended considerable forces
for the attack. While Hitler hated Switzerland – which he called
a "pimple" on the face of Europe — for refusing to join
the New Order, he was distracted by the Battle of Britain and then
by Operation Barbarossa, the battle with the Soviet Union in 1941.

Yet
just days before the assault on Russia, Hitler and Mussolini met
on the Brenner. The record states: "The Führer characterized
Switzerland as the most despicable and wretched people and national
entity. The Swiss were the mortal enemies of the new Germany."
The Duce called Switzerland "an anachronism." Attack plans
against Switzerland continued to be made.

When
the Fascist government collapsed and the liberation of southern
Italy began, Germany occupied northern Italy — which greatly increased
the risk to Switzerland. Germany wanted the Swiss Alpine routes
to ship soldiers and weapons, and the Swiss refused. But Switzerland
provided sanctuary to Italian and French partisans and refugees.

A
Nazi invasion of Switzerland during any of the above periods would
have faced the following: The Swiss border forces would have fought
to the death and would have been eliminated. But the bridges and
roads were charged with explosives and would be destroyed, as would
the Gotthard and Simplon tunnels on the Alpine routes to Italy.

The
Swiss forces were concentrated in the Alpine Réduit. Panzers
and the Luftwaffe could not operate in these steep mountains. Wehrmacht
infantry would have been subjected to murderous fire from artillery
hidden in mountain sides. Swiss forces could hold out indefinitely
in the Alps.

Any
German occupation of parts of Switzerland would have had extreme
costs in blood. Unlike any country Germany occupied, every Swiss
man had a rifle at home. The Swiss government and military ordered
that no surrender would take place, and any report of a surrender
was to be regarded as enemy propaganda. The Swiss would have waged
a partisan war unequaled in European history. While many Swiss would
have been killed, the invaders would have faced a Swiss sniper behind
every tree and every rock.

STAGNARO:
You make a strong point in defense of the Swiss military organization:
Switzerland could resist against Germany thanks to its armed citizenry.
Do you believe this system is still good, despite the dramatic changes
we have experienced in the last decades, both in the kind of enemies
(e.g., terrorism) and in the ways of waging wars?

HALBROOK:
Shortly before World War I, the German Kaiser was the guest of the
Swiss government to observe military maneuvers. The Kaiser asked
a Swiss militiaman: "You are 500,000 and you shoot well, but
if we attack with 1,000,000 men what will you do?" The soldier
replied: “We will shoot twice and go home."

Still
today, every Swiss male on reaching age 20 years old is required
to attend recruit school and issued a Fucile d'assalto 90 (model
1990, 5.6 mm selective fire rifle) to keep at home. Many women also
participate in the shooting sports, as do teenagers and elderly
persons. Weapons are carried so commonly on public transportation,
around towns, and to hotels – especially when a shooting match
is about to occur — that foreigners think a revolution is occurring.
For an example of a contemporary shooting match which took place
in the Swiss canton of Ticino, visit
my website and look for "An Armed Society."

The
Swiss militia army consists primarily of an infantry of the armed
populace, but also includes modern artillery — some of which is
hidden in Alpine fortifications — and fighter jets. As for terrorism,
depending on the circumstances, a vigilant and armed populace may
be instrumental in stopping a massacre. If terrorist acts occur
on Swiss soil, the citizenry will resist however possible.

STAGNARO:
Most RKBA supporters assert that gun control is the key to tyranny.
In fact, Hitler disarmed his enemies (starting from German Jews)
before they could organize a resistance. Do you believe there’s
a link between the Swiss tradition of an army of the people, and
the tradition of liberty of that country?

HALBROOK: Machiavelli
said it best: the Swiss are "armatissimi e liberissimi."
From 1291, when the Swiss Confederation was born, armed Swiss peasants
and herdsmen resisted the aggression of some of the great armies
of Europe. Every man was expected to provide his own arms and to
defend against any invasion.

When
Hitler came to power, his henchmen burned the Reichstag and blamed
it on the Communists — the excuse to suspend all constitutional
rights and to disarm all political opposition. Under the gun control
laws passed by the liberal Weimar republic, the Nazis began disarming
Jews. Then came Reichskristallnacht in 1938, in which the Nazis
smashed up businesses and homes with the excuse that the Jews were
dangerous and must be disarmed. Gestapo chief Heinrich Himmler threatened
20 years in the concentration camp for any Jew caught with a gun.

When
the Nazis occupied France and other countries, they found the registration
lists of firearm owners in the police departments. Gun owners who
did not turn in their firearms within 24 hours were shot, as were
those who failed to inform on their friends and relatives. For whatever
reason, historians have shown no interest in highlighting the cruel
fate of Jews and subjects in the occupied countries who were firearm
owners. And yet some of these gun owners who eluded the Nazis were
able to use their firearms to save their families, refugees, and
others and even to mount armed resistance. The Warsaw ghetto uprising
of 1943 was initiated with only a half dozen illegal handguns.

In
Switzerland, the only "gun control" law was that every
man must shoot accurately at 300 meters. Had they attacked, the
Nazis would have needed no gun registration records — they could
have assumed that every man had a gun. As war clouds approached,
in 1938 at the World Shooting Championships held in Luzern, Switzerland,
Swiss Federal President Philipp Etter declared:

"There
is probably no other country that, like Switzerland, gives the soldier
his weapon to keep in the home. . . . With this rifle, he is liable
every hour, if the country calls, to defend his hearth, his home,
his family, his birthplace. The weapon is to him a pledge and sign
of honor and freedom. The Swiss does not part with his rifle."

The
Nazis heard this message in countless other venues. They knew that
they could not execute every Swiss for having a weapon — instead,
they knew that countless German soldiers would die from Swiss snipers.
The powerful German army could make Switzerland into a wasteland,
but the German blood that would be spilled was unacceptably high,
and the country would be ungovernable.

STAGNARO:
The American Founding Fathers warned that a professional standing
army could be a threat to liberty, because it induces a strong temptation
to imperialism. In your vision, is there any correlation between
the peculiar military organization of the Switzerland, and its neutrality?

HALBROOK:
America's Founding Fathers recognized that standing armies were
dangerous to liberty because such armies oppressed the population
domestically and engaged in wars of imperialist aggression. That
is why the United States originally followed the Swiss model of
republicanism, a militia army, and neutrality. America's founders
wished to avoid "entangling alliances" in Europe, and
the US entered World Wars I and II reluctantly.

A
militia army includes virtually all able-bodied males under arms
in a country, and thus challenges any invader with unending guerilla
warfare. A standing army consists of professional soldiers forming
a small proportion of a country's population. Numerous standing
armies in Europe collapsed before the onslaught of Hitler's blitzkrieg
— the governmental elites surrendered and ordered the soldiers to
lay down their arms. An attack on Switzerland would have encountered
no elite to surrender, and instead armed resistance at every turn.

The
organization of the Swiss military as a militia meant that, while
it could protect its country, it could not have invaded another
country. This was the experience since medieval times. Armed Swiss
commoners defeated the mightiest armies of invading knights at numerous
battles – they left Charles the Bold in a ditch with his head crushed
by a halberd at Nancy in 1477 – but were themselves defeated when
they ventured into foreign lands, such as at Marignano in 1515.

The
above is the key to Swiss neutrality. Militia armies are good at
defending their own countries, but are no good at attacking other
countries, and thus avoid foreign wars. Both militia defense and
neutrality thus promote the ideals of peace.

One
last thought. The Second Amendment to the US Constitution declares:
"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security
of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms,
shall not be infringed." Besides being influenced by the Swiss
example, America's Founders were also inspired by Cesare Beccaria's
Dei Delitti e delle Pene (1764), which characterized as "false
idee di utilità" the laws that prohibit peaceable citizens
from carrying arms, which encourage attacks by armed criminals against
unarmed victims.

As
the world community enters an uncertain 21st century,
the lessons of history will either be learned or its mistakes will
be repeated.

December
2, 2002

Carlo
Stagnaro [send him mail]
co-edits the libertarian magazine “Enclave”
and edited the book “Waco.
Una strage di stato americana.” Here’s his
website.

Perhaps,
rather than turning the other cheek, one should close an eye and
aim well?

Most
ecclesiastical authorities have declined to point out this line
of argument; for whatever reason, they have been reading the Holy
Bible from a pacifist's, coward's, weakling's point of view. Yet,
it should be clear that embracing gun control implies the denial
of the basic principle of individual responsibility.

"The
problem is not six-shooters; the problem is sinners. Eliminating
guns won't solve that problem…. The proximate (civil) solution to
gun-related violence is stiffer (biblical) penalties for harming
humans and property – whether by guns, knives, axes, spray paint,
or computers. The ultimate solution to gun-related violence
is the transformation of individuals by the Gospel of Jesus Christ….
The ironic solution of liberals is to lock up the guns and liberate
the criminals after a mere wrist slap," wrote Andrew
Sandlin in The Christian Statesman, Vol. 140, No. 1.

In
reality, while inviting people to love and mercy, Jesus never said
that individuals have no right to defend themselves. Even less did
he say they should not defend their feebler brothers when such are
in danger. A person might decide to offer no resistance to aggression
if he risks only his own life, but he can't shirk the moral duty
to help others. As Jeff Snyder
has written, "Although difficult for modern men to fathom,
it was once widely believed that life was a gift from God, that
to not defend that life when offered violence was to hold God's
gift in contempt, to be a coward and to breach one's duty to one's
community." (Nation
of Cowards, Accurate Press, 2001, page 16.)

The
belief is deeply shared that a Christian should always stand and
be ready to sacrifice, and that guns are evil means that should
never be used nor owned. However, a gun is merely an object. It
has no soul, no brain, and no wishes. It does nothing, but its owner
does. An evil person will use his guns to do evil, and a good person
will use his guns to defend himself and others. It is people who
are good or evil, not guns. Of course, those who deny this
implicitly affirm that guns are magical things with the power to
change people's mind. That is obviously an absurdity.

In
any case, many Christians like to cite Jesus' words: "You have
heard that it was said, u2018An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.'
But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you
on your right cheek, turn the other to him also" (Matthew 5:
38-39.) According to many researchers and theologians, Jesus intends
to condemn useless or exaggerated violence, not the use of
lethal force against aggression. Thus, rather than contradicting
the words of the Holy Scriptures, Jesus is cautioning his disciples
not to misunderstand the Bible. In fact, a few lines before this
statement, Christ says, "Whoever therefore breaks one of the
least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called
least in the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5: 19.)

Jesus
says love is better than hatred, and that vengeance can never be
the solution. On the other hand, He doesn't say self-defence is
bad. This would lead to the rule of the stronger over the weaker,
of the bully over the gentle person. And, while inviting us to turn
the other cheek, He doesn't invite us to turn the other's
cheek, which precisely is the effect of gun-control laws.

Christ
suggests to his followers that they arm themselves: "But now,
he who has a money bag, let him take it, and likewise a sack; and
he who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one"
(Luke 22: 36.) Later, as he is taken away, Jesus rebukes Peter,
who has just cut the ear of an aggressor: "Put your sword in
its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.
Or do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He will
provide Me with more than twelve legions of angels? How then could
the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must happen thus?" (Matthew
26: 52-54) — from which we can see that some of the Apostles (two
of them) were armed.

As
Larry Pratt notes, "While
Christ told Peter to u2018put your sword in its place,' He clearly did
not say get rid of it forever. That would have contradicted what
He had told the disciples only hours before. Peter's sword was to
protect his own mortal life from danger. His sword was not needed
to protect the Creator of the universe and the King of kings"
("What Does The Bible Say About Gun Control?", in Chalcedon
Report).

Years
after the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, Paul writes to Timothy:
"But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially
for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse
than an unbeliever" (1 Timothy 5:8). "This passage applies
to our subject because it would be absurd to buy a house, furnish
it with food and facilities for one's family, and then refuse to
install locks and provide the means to protect the family and the
property," Mr. Pratt wrote.

This
also recalls another quote from the Bible: "If the thief is
found breaking in, and he is struck so that he dies, there shall
be no guilt for his bloodshed. If the sun has risen on him, there
shall be guilt for his bloodshed. He should make full restitution;
if he has nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft" (Exodus
22: 2-3.) He who steals into another's home bears the responsibility
of his criminal action. Self-defence is not a crime.

Under
the heading "Unjust aggressor," the Dizionario ecclesiastico
("Ecclesiastic dictionary", UTET, 1959) derives the following
statement from Thomas Aquinas: "Without doubt one is allowed
to resist against the unjust aggressor to one's life, one's goods
or one's physical integrity; sometimes, even ’til the aggressor's
death… In fact, this act is aimed at preserving one's life or
one's goods and to make the aggressor powerless. Thus, it is a good
act, which is the right of the victim." There are three conditions
under which legitimate self-defence must lie: "That he who
is the target of the force is an aggressor and an unjust aggressor…
That the object of the defence is an important good, such as the
life, physical integrity or worthy goods… [and] That defensive
violence is proportionate to aggression." Under these conditions,
"One is also allowed (not required) to kill other people's
unjust aggressor."

On
these grounds, even a great Catholic author, J.R.R. Tolkien agrees:
"The aggressors are themselves primarily to blame for the evil
deeds that proceed from their original violation of justice and
the passions that their own wickedness must naturally (by their
standards) have been expected to arose. They at any rate have no
right to demand that their victims when assaulted should not demand
an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth" (The
Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, 1995, p. 243.) In his well-known
novel, The
Lord of the Rings,
the evil Sauron requires of free peoples that "men shall bear
no weapons," otherwise he will assault them (The Lord of
the Rings, 2001, p. 872.)

According
to George Crocker "The Word of God does allow and encourage
self-defence.  In the Scriptures we do not find God encouraging
His people to be either “hawks” or “doves” when dealing with self-defence.
They are just to be reasonable." ("Self
Defence Or Turn The Other Cheek?"). Mr. Crocker concludes
his article quoting Dr. A. T. Robertson: "Jesus protested when
smitten on the cheek (John 18:22). And Jesus denounced the Pharisees
(Matt 23) and fought the devil always.  The language of Jesus
is bold and picturesque and is not to be pressed too literally.
Paradoxes startle and make us think. We are expected to fill in
the other side of the picture…. Aggressive or offensive war by nations
is also condemned, but not necessarily defensive war or defence
against robbery and murder." (A.T. Robertson. Word
Pictures in the New Testament, Vol. I, p. 48).

Of
course, the religion would not be moral, in a deep sense, which
required its followers to passively suffer aggressive violence.
Actually, rather than Christian, this approach is typical of post-Christian
thought, which avoids weighty concepts, including those of individual
responsibility or sin. "The far most important principle that
was pulled away from Christian policy is the theory of sin. This
is not an uninteresting topic of moral theology; rather, it is the
precious premise of a realistic and keen understanding of human
nature and of its free, everlasting moving to and from Good and
Evil," the late political scientist Gianfranco Miglio said
in 1946.

Many
years later, Prof. Miglio added: "I can't suffer, or understand,
the u2018social Catholics'. They seem to teach God how He should have
made humans. They don't admit men's evilness: to them, the culprit
is u2018the society'…. They hate America, the free-market, the whole
West, that has been created by Christianity."

Indeed,
among Christians' greatest virtues there is realism; they well understand
that men may freely choose to do evil, and even find it sweet. Gun-control
laws disarm all men, but only an ingenuous person fools himself
into believing that criminals will be law-abiding! Such measures
may make crime more difficult to perpetrate, but they make self-defence
nearly impossible.

"Consider
the situation of a mother in a rough Los Angeles neighborhood, moments
after an escaped psychopathic murderer has broken into her house,"
suggests David B. Kopel.
"The woman has good reason to fear that the intruder is about
to slaughter her three children. If she does not shoot him with
her .38 special, the children will be dead before the police arrive.
Is the woman’s moral obligation to murmur “violence engenders violence,”
and keep her handgun in the drawer while her children die? Or is
the mother’s moral duty to save her children, and shoot the
intruder?" ("Does God Believe In Gun Control?")

Further,
gun-control is the key to tyranny, because a dicator would find
virtually no resistance if the people are unarmed. With regard to
the motto "Obey God, Serve Mankind, Oppose Tyranny," Daniel
New noted that "A motto can, on occasion, capture a whole
philosophy of life, and it can stick with a young person throughout
his or her life. The phrase u2018Obey God' is undoubtedly the most profound
part of that motto. No one can serve two masters" (Michael
New: Mercenary… Or American Soldier?, p. 34.)

One
could hardly make an argument that God gave some people the authority
to assault, and some others the duty to be assaulted. Indeed, He
gave men the gifts of conscience and intelligence, so that they
may decide if an action is good or worthy. So it is very hard to
justify, from a Christian point of view, a law whose prime effect
is to disarm honest people.

One
may believe banning guns is a good thing, and campaign for gun control;
nobody has the right to do it in the name of God.

August
30, 2002

Carlo
Stagnaro [send him mail]
co-edits the libertarian magazine “Enclave”
and edited the book “Waco.
Una strage di stato americana.” Here’s his
website.

Actually,
this comparison is deeply mistaken. The main character of Tolkien’s
trilogy is not a person but a thing – the Ring itself. What
does this ring represent, and where can it be found in the current
world? The Ring is absolute power. It makes its owner irresponsible,
enslaves him, deprives him of his personality and free will. While
making him absolutely powerful, it absolutely corrupts him, as Lord
Acton would say. On the other hand, the Ring gives the illusion
of ruling and ordering the world and society. J.R.R. Tolkien would
hardly have taken a position in favor of the war on terrorism. He
no doubt would have found it hard to join the “New World Order”
at the end of the Cold War.

This
is what Arthur Calder-Marshall said in his enthusiastic review of
The Lord of the Rings: “Frodo, pursued by the Black Riders,
is so frightened that to escape them, he puts on the Ring. But instead
of becoming invisible, he becomes plainer to the Black Riders, the
Ring having the same nature of evil as they have. I do not think
Tolkien himself would object to my concluding that the parallel
to this in the modern world is when one nation, convinced of the
justice of its cause, employs a weapon of terror against its enemies,
and in doing so becomes possessed by the very evil that it is fighting
to destroy in the enemy.” (See Yates 1995, p.233)

Tolkien
himself was horrified by war. On October 23, 1944, he wrote: “I
have just been out to look up: the noise is terrific: the biggest
for a long time, skywide Armada. I suppose it is allright to say
so, as by the time that this reaches you somewhere will have ceased
to exist and all the world will have known about it and already
forgotten it… With regard to the blasphemy, one can only recall
(when applicable) the words Father, Forgive them, for they know
not what they do – or say. And somehow I fancy that Our Lord actually
is more pained by offences we commit against one other than those
we commit against himself, esp. his incarnate person.” (Tolkien
1995, p.97)

Indeed,
he defined Adolf Hitler as a “ruddy little ignoramus” who is “ruining,
perverting, misapplying, and making for ever accursed, that noble
northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have
ever loved, and tried to present in its true light.” (Tolkien 1995,
pp.55-56) And he was caught by a deep and bitter hilarity when he
heard “of that bloodthirsty old murderer Josef Stalin inviting all
nations to join a happy family of folks devoted to the abolition
of tyranny & intolerance!” (Tolkien 1995, p.65)

One
might think that Tolkien opposed totalitarian regimes while appreciating
democracy as the perfect form of government. Actually, not only
was he a proud supporter of the English monarchy, he also strongly
criticized democracy: “I am not a ‘democrat’ only because ‘humility’
and equality are spiritual principles corrupted by the attempt to
mechanize and formalize them, with the result that we get not universal
smallness and humility, but universal greatness and pride, till
some Orc gets hold of a ring of power – and then we get and are
getting slavery.” (Tolkien 1995, p.246) With regard to the atomic
bomb, he wrote: “Mordor is in our midst. And I regret to note that
the billowing cloud recently pictured did not mark the fall of Barad-dûr,
but was produced by its allies – or at least by persons who have
decided to use the Ring for their own (of course most excellent)
purposes.” (Tolkien 1995, p.165; see also Mingardi and Stagnaro
2002)

In
fact, it is clear from the very beginning of the novel that the
Ring can’t be used against the enemy. The Ring “is altogether evil – explains the Elvish lord Elrond – Its strength is too great for
anyone to wield at will, save only those who have already a great
power of their own. But for them it holds an even deadlier peril.
The very desire of it corrupts the heart. If any of the Wise should
with this Ring overthrow the Lord of Mordor, using his own arts,
he would then set off himself on Sauron’s throne, and yet another
Dark Lord would appear. And that is another reason why the Ring
should be destroyed: as long as it is in the world it will be a
danger even to the Wise.” (Tolkien 2001, p.261)

Power
can’t be defeated by merely changing who holds it; indeed, it should
be eliminated, so that men could have no such means to dominate
their fellows. After all, Frodo’s goal in The Lord of the Rings
is to destroy the Ring: not to hide it or “redeem” Sauron, or even
to give the Ring to somebody who is perhaps “good and wise.” Since
the Ring is evil in itself, it will always turn any action undertaken
with it into evil, whether or not its owner intended to do good.

Tolkien
himself pointed out that one should always be sure (at least, inasfar
as it is possible) to join the right party. He didn’t believe a
good end may justify evil means, nor that good means can make an
evil end good. As Tom Shippey points out, “If evil were only the
absence of good, for instance, then the Ring could never by anything
other than a psychic amplifier; it would not ‘betray’ its possessors,
and all they would need do is put it aside and think pure thoughts.
In Middle-Earth we are assured that it would be fatal. However if
evil were merely a hateful and external power without echo in the
hearts of the good, then someone might have to take the Ring to
the Cracks of Doom, but it need not be Frodo: Gandalf could be trusted
with it, while whoever went would have only to distrust his enemies,
not his friends and not himself. As it is the nature of the Ring
is integral to the story.” (Shippey 1992, pp. 132-133)

Often,
Tolkien has been accused of dividing people – or at least the characters
of his novels – into “good” and “evil.” This isn’t true: Tolkien,
as a Christian, strongly thought that good and evil do exist and
are separate; at the same time, he knew that people are both good
and evil. Good guys may be wrong, and bad guys may change their
minds. The hero of The Lord of the Rings fails his mission
and finally isn’t strong enough to destroy the Ring – it will fall
into the fire of Mount Doom only thanks to his past mercy in saving
Gollum’s life. On the other hand, Gollum moves very close to repentance.

Of
course, this does not mean that one must choose every time between
two alternatives, nor that choice is easy. “The utter stupid waste
of war — wrote Tolkien – not only material but moral and spiritual,
is so staggering to those who have to endure it. And always was
(despite the poets), and always will be (despite propagandists).”
(Tolkien 1995, p.75)

However,
JRRT did not share pacifist ideas, since they can’t explain the
reasons for war. “All things and deeds – he said – have a value
in themselves, apart from their ’causes’ and ‘effects.’ No man can
estimate what is really happening at the present sub specie aeternitatis.
All we do know, and that to a large extent by direct experience,
is that evil labours with vast power and perpetual success – in
vain: preparing always only the soil for unexpected good to sprout
in.” (Tolkien 1995, p.76)

From
the perspective of The Lord of the Rings, war does not decide
the future of the world. Of course, battles are big and important.
However, they are not decisive. Even if they can be won by the good,
they have no meaning without the success of Frodo’s mission. Indeed,
the Dark Lord seems to be very likely to advance until the end,
when the Ring is destroyed thanks to Providence. Such an unexpected
end is among the deepest beliefs of Tolkien. In order to define
it, he coined the word eucatastrophe: “The sudden happy turn in
a story with pierces you with a joy that brings tears (which I argued
is the highest function of fairy-stories to produce). And I was
there led to the view that it produces its peculiar effect because
it is a sudden glimpse of Truth, your whole nature chained in material
cause and effect, the chain of death, feels a sudden relief as if
a major limb out of joint had suddenly snapped back. It perceives – if the story has literary ‘truth’ on the second plane (for which
see the essay) – that this is indeed how things do really work in
the Great World for which our nature is made. And I concluded by
saying that the Resurrection was the greatest ‘eucatastrophe’ possible
in the greatest Fairy Story – and it produces that essential emotion:
Christian joy which produces tears because it is qualitatively so
like sorrow, because it comes from those places where Joy and Sorrow
are at one, reconciled, as selfishness and altruism are lost in
Love.” (Tolkien 1995, p.100)

If
you accept such a truth, you hardly going to find either aggressive
nationalism or cowardly pacifism attractive. When one holds the
truth that world goes on within a greater plan, and therefore any
action has to be judged in itself, one will not fall into uncertainty.
In Tolkien’s view, people are responsible for their actions before
God, so that they must act according to His law, even though human
laws are different, if they want to gain after their earthly existence.
“Sometimes we need to be able to change our minds or even to disobey
authority, when that authority invites us to go against our consciences,”
Giuseppe Roncari noted. (Roncari 2002)

So,
today’s war on terrorism seems a war to own the Ring, rather than
a war to destroy it. Neither Bush’s nor bin Laden’s supporters fight
for liberty; they all fight to strengthen their own power. One can
hardly choose to join one or the other – and should only ask whether
there is still a place for common, peaceful people in the lands
of the opposing war lords. Indeed, the only rational position is
that of Treebeard: “I am not altogether on anybody’s side, because
nobody is altogether on my side, if you understand me… And there
are some things, of course, whose side I’m altogether not on; I
am against them altogether.” (Tolkien 2001, p.461)

References:

RONCARI
Giuseppe 2002, “The Ring” in: Franco Manni (ed.) Introduzione
a Tolkien Milan: Simonelli Editore.

MINGARDI
Alberto and STAGNARO Carlo 2002, “Tolkien
v. Power” Ludwig von Mises Institute, February 26, 2002.

SHIPPEY
Tom A. 1992 (1982), The
Road to Middle-Earth London: Grafton.

TOLKIEN
John Ronald Reuel 1995 (1981), The
Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien London: Harper Collins.

TOLKIEN
John Ronald Reuel 2001 (1954-55), The
Lord of the Rings London: Harper Collins.

YATES
Jessica 1995, “Tolkien the Anti-Totalitarian” in: Patricia Reynolds
and Glen H. Goodknight (ed.) Proceedings
of the J.R.R. Tolkien Centenary Conference (Keble College, Oxford,
1992) Altadena, CA: The Tolkien Society and The Mythopoeic Society.

July
25, 2002

Carlo
Stagnaro [send him mail]
co-edits the libertarian magazine “Enclave”
and edited the book “Waco.
Una strage di stato americana.” Here’s his
website.

We
have talked of this, and much more, with Jeff
Snyder, whose last book, Nation
of Cowards (Accurate Press, 2001) is a strong case in defence
of the individual right to keep and bear arms.

On
September 11, 2001, the worst terrorist act in history was committed
without any guns. The terrorists were armed only with knives and
box-cutters. Some say that the hijackers found it quite easy to
realize their plans; airplane passengers, in fact, can't carry firearms.
Even pilots and cabin stewards are unarmed. What about gun-free
airplanes and airports?

The
track record of gun-free zones is, how shall we say this, less than
impressive: post offices, schools, and now, airplanes. The events
of September 11 could not have occurred but for the fact that air
travelers are disarmed, and airplanes are a Second Amendment free
zone. In no other way could the terrorists have commandeered the
planes with box cutters and pocket knives, turned them into flying
bombs, and wrought such massive destruction of life, property, and
our economy. This is not because the terrorists would have been
afraid of being shot and killed by passengers, since they were obviously
prepared to die. Instead, they would have known that they would
not succeed in carrying out their mission against the World Trade
Center and Pentagon, and so there would have been no point in trying
that.

So
it turns out that depriving people of freedom has its costs. It
is hard to conceive of a more graphic illustration.

People
imagine that curbing liberty will prevent those with evil intentions
from carrying them out, by depriving them of the ability to act
in a dangerous or deadly fashion. However, liberty is not just the
necessary condition for bad people to act, it is also the necessary
condition for good people to act. Unless the act prohibited is mala
in se (wrong in itself), like murder, then restricting liberty
in hopes of rendering bad people harmless comes at the price of
incapacitating good people and rendering them helpless.

This
is a Faustian bargain that would not appear desirable to the good
unless the good believed that it was not their responsibility to
act. It appeals to those who think of themselves as consumers of
public safety, who believe, with the State's encouragement, that
government can and will control external reality to deliver a safe
world to them. So they choose to trust in government control, which
expressly promises to deal with the problem, rather than relying
on the unpredictable chance that their fellow citizens have the
moral capacity and willingness to do the right thing when circumstances
call upon them to do so. They know that they do not intend
to act, but expect government officials to save them. How, then,
can they believe that other citizens will do so? Fundamentally,
then, this concept of the "gun-free zone" reveals a very
profound failure or inability to trust in one another. Of course,
we are encouraged by the State to trust in it, in lieu of or in
preference to trusting in one another.

Do
you still believe that America is "a nation of cowards"?

No.
Actually I think that Americans are, by and large, encamped in a
mental state that precedes cowardice. Cowardice implies that a person
knows what he ought to do, but shrinks or flies from it in fear
or self-interest. The bulk of Americans, it seems to me, are in
one or two states that precede awareness and acceptance of the notion
that they should defend themselves: (1) denial that anything will
happen to them, or belief that their risk is adequately controlled
by insuring that they work and live and travel only in what they
perceive to be "safe" neighborhoods, i.e., relatively
crime free zones; or (2) belief that it is not really their responsibility
to protect themselves or others, but the state's, and that the state
will protect them. I suspect that most Americans do not acknowledge
that they have any responsibility to protect themselves from a violent
assault, or have not realized or accepted the reality of what that
entails, or believe that avoidance of "dangerous areas"
is adequate. I might be wrong, because there is a third possibility,
namely, that they are fully cognizant of the risks and accept them,
but do not wish to become "the kind of person" that carries
a gun everywhere, or cannot be bothered with the nuisance of it
all. If that position is adopted with full awareness of the implications,
it is not cowardice.

Your
book is a strong case against utility. You state every individual
has the right to keep and bear arms and, more generally, certain
rights, no matter whether or not it leads to a more prosperous and
peaceful society. Why?

I
do not believe that rights are founded on prudential grounds, nor
do I believe that individuals are entitled by society or their government
to possess or exercise rights only so long as society or the state
judges (whether rightly or wrongly) that the rights confer an aggregate
net benefit upon society or the state as a whole. I have been concerned
in many of my writings to demonstrate this, as well as the corollary
proposition, that rights cannot be defended or justified on utilitarian
grounds, since to undertake such a defense is to imply that rights
require a utilitarian justification, and are therefore contingent
on positive aggregate outcomes. By the way, I speak of social utilitarianism,
normally expressed as "the greatest good for the greatest number,"
not of individual utilitarianism, that is, the notion that each
individual acts to maximize his individual welfare.

Utilitarianism
is a result-driven ethic, that is, it is driven by a desire to secure
a specified result, a particular "greatest good," desired
by the greatest number. Utilitarianism thus concerns itself with
gaming the outcome of the exercise of man's freedom. By definition,
all matters are necessarily subordinate to the acquisition of the
"greatest good" for the "greatest number," a
particular aggregate net benefit. As a result, particular individuals
simply don't count and, in fact, the philosophy sanctions the use
of individuals solely as a means to an end, that is, it sanctions
human sacrifice, so long as those to be sacrificed are not so numerous
that it eliminates rather than contributes to the overall aggregate
benefit.

This
is very evident in Handgun Control Inc.'s writings in favor of gun
control. They do not deny that some people successfully use guns
to defend themselves, and they freely site Department of Justice
Statistics that report that this happens about 65,000 times a year.
But they argue that this benefit is small in comparison to the number
of homicides, suicides and crimes committed with guns each year,
and that it would result in a greater benefit to society to eliminate
or severely restrict access to handguns. Thus, tacitly, by their
own admission, the 65,000 persons a year who would otherwise benefit
from having a gun are to be sacrificed in favor of the hundreds
of thousands a year who will benefit from elimination of guns.

Because
utilitarianism is concerned with securing a desired aggregate outcome,
whether the individual is permitted liberty to act depends on whether
his fellow citizens are, in the aggregate, using their liberty to
achieve the desired good. If not, the individual's liberty may be
curbed or re-directed. Thus, the individual's freedom depends on
how others behave, and is defined and circumscribed with
reference to the results that others achieve. In other words,
you cannot carry a gun, because too many others are using
them to commit crimes. Thus the scope of your freedom depends not
on how you act, but on how others act.

By
contrast, classically, individual rights are founded on the notion,
as expressed by Kant, that each individual is "an end in himself,"
that all are entitled to be treated as having equal dignity, and
that it is therefore wrong to treat others solely as a means to
a desired end. A philosophy of individual right is not results-driven,
and therefore does not sanction human sacrifice in favor of the
highest good desired by the greatest number. An approach that rests
on man's freedom cannot, by definition, be driven by outcome or
result: if men are left free, the outcome will be left variable!
Of necessity, then, an approach that rests on freedom cannot possibly
guaranty a specified, favorable outcome, either individually or
in the aggregate. It cannot, therefore, promise safety, security,
a reduction in violent crime, etc. Such concerns are blissfully
beside the point, for the point is precisely to respect each individual
as an end in himself.

However,
individual autonomy and dignity are thin reeds to hang anything
on these days! It's just not enough, you understand! And I often
think that that would be a pretty good epitaph for the whole wretched
20th Century: "Dignity Was Not Enough." People
seem to believe they are more secure on the seemingly "scientific"
grounds found in the results uncovered by social scientists. For
example, in the gun control debate, you find people who are immensely
comforted and bolstered by the findings of John Lott, that concealed
carry laws are associated with measurable, significant decreases
in violent crimes. They feel that this, truly, establishes legitimacy
for their right to carry arms. Who needs ethics when you have numbers?
Amazing.

Many
people agree with you, that anyone should be able to own and carry
a handgun for personal defense. But what about military weapons?
Don't you think it would be dangerous to let people be so strongly
armed?

I
do not wish to alarm you, but we already freely permit people to
have military weapons and, what's worse, the people we permit to
have these weapons are clearly the most dangerous people on the
planet. I mean, of course, those in government. Do I take your question,
then, to mean, that while we manage to live in the world with this
state of affairs, the incremental danger of letting anyone else
(who is so inclined) have these weapons would be simply too dangerous
and intolerable, so that it is better to protect the monopolies
enjoyed by those now in power?

I
am sorry to be a little glib, but really I don't know how to answer
your question. It is a sometimes unfortunate fact that we generally
take the familiar, the status quo, as the proper baseline for judging
all matters and see any change productive of uncertainty as an intolerable
threat to our current comfort level. This is illustrated in the
gun control debate all the time. People are concerned that, if concealed
weapons permit laws are passed that allow any sane, law-abiding
adult to carry a handgun for self-defense, these unknown strangers
will be a danger to their community. You see, what do we really
know about these people, and what training do these people really
have? Yet ask them how much they really know about the police who
are carrying not only handguns but also who have shotguns and, sometimes,
semiautomatic rifles in their cars. What do they really know about
the temper, character and personality of these people? What do they
really know about their training? Basically, they know nothing about
that. They know they wear uniforms that make them look "official"
and that they work for a respected organization that is supposed
to protect them, and this is enough. It is familiar; it is part
of the ordinary fabric of life, so it is part of the baseline or
background against which risks are measured, rather than part of
the risk assessment itself. If you try to point out to them that
they already live, quite comfortably and with scarcely a thought,
with the risk they are supposedly worried about, they look at you
like you are a madman. It is a failure of imagination. They cannot
step off the baseline, cannot see the world apart from the baseline.

Really,
would we any better or worse off if the individual right to keep
and bear arms clearly encompassed the right to own tanks, fighter
jet aircraft, stinger missiles, and suitcase nukes? I have no idea,
but I think that the question is unanswerable except as a general
indication of our beliefs about the nature of people. However, I
will say that, at least here in the United States, historically,
at least prior to the 1960s, except for the 1934 tax imposed on
machine guns (which had the merit of doubling their cost to help
keep them out of the hands of the disgruntled poor), I believe that
there were no legal prohibitions against owning most military weapons.
I am not aware of any instances during this period in which the
absence of these legal prohibitions led to societal horrors. Perhaps
almost all who are inclined to use these weapons against their fellow
man are attracted to service in government, where it is socially
acceptable?

You
say that the Second Amendment affirms an individual right, which
exists before any organized government, so that it cannot be repealed
any more than we could repeal the right to life or any other natural
or God-given right. But don't you think, as some say, that it is
an anachronistic legacy of the Revolutionary War?

Okay,
you're baiting me now! First, I hope that I do not say this,
but that I simply state what was once believed or elucidate the
implications of the now largely forgotten theory of natural rights.
I try to demonstrate how far we have fallen away from this understanding
and, correspondingly, how illegitimate our government has become
judged by reference to its founding principles. I do this mostly
for my own edification but also in hopes that others will pick up
the thread and re-examine the whole question of the nature of the
state and its legitimacy.

I'm
not going to take the bait and argue that the right is just as relevant
today as it was at the time of the Revolutionary War, nor address
the claim that, since small arms are insufficient to defeat a modern
army, with its helicopter gun-ships, laser-guided bombs and satellite
surveillance, the right is quite anachronistic, at least in terms
of protecting against government tyranny, because I'm not really
interested in that. You're still judging the right's right to exist
by whether or not the right works. The question implies a
utilitarian standard. If it isn't productive of desired or useful
results in the present age, it has no raison d'eêtre.
The question in this case is, rather, why you think you have a right
to deprive a peaceable individual of this liberty because it doesn't
produce any discernible benefits for you or others. Is Carlo's
idea of utility the measure of all things, is Carlo the center of
the universe which, himself unmoved, moves all he surveys? Or do
others have equal autonomy and dignity? For if so, then there is
no single measure of a common utility held in common, and, all being
equal, no one has a right to impose his will on others. Or to say
the same thing a bit differently, a common or shared utility exists,
if at all, only to the extent of what people do entirely by voluntary
association and cooperation.

Or
perhaps your question really inquires into the status of natural
rights, namely, whether or not what we call "natural"
rights are really simply historical in nature, or creatures of custom,
and can therefore come into and go out of existence. If they can
be made by custom, why can't they also be unmade by custom? Or,
if they are made by custom, why can't they be unmade by positive
law?

The
theory is that such rights are in some sense "God-given,"
or necessarily presupposed in individual autonomy or dignity and
in the tacit requirement of mutual respect among persons of equal
inherent dignity. Or some would argue that they are the necessary
logical conditions of a government by consent of the people, and
are in that sense prior to government. As such, government cannot
legitimately change them, without government ceasing to be a "servant"
of the people.

Yet
the fact remains that what we call individual rights achieve recognition
of that status at some particular point or era in history, and reflect
the temper of that time. For example, in 1689, the English Bill
of Rights took formal recognition of the right of English Protestants
to keep arms, after a Catholic King endeavored to disarm them. However,
the "right" reflects a long-standing custom of leaving
people free – largely undisturbed – to own and bear arms for self-defense.
So because the right is manifested in human affairs at particular
times and places and not universally among all peoples at all times
and places, it appears a matter of custom, "arbitrary"
in the sense that it does not express the necessity of a physical
law. Then here is the leap: therefore we can change it, or refuse
to recognize it as a legitimate ethical principal. This debate has
been going on since the Greeks. In Ethics, Aristotle distinguishes
between what we call positive or man-made laws and natural laws
and notes that some say that even so-called "natural"
laws are just based in human custom. Aristotle concedes that there
is some merit to this view, in the sense that so-called "natural"
laws are not "natural" in the sense of physical laws,
but cautions that the distinction is a legitimate one and not to
presume that because such laws are "customary," that natural
laws are subject to ready political manipulation. The implication
is that human nature is not infinitely or readily malleable, least
of all by fiat.

What
about Christians and guns? Some of them say that people should not
resist aggressions, because violence is never justified. Some others
believe that life is a gift from God, which should be defended by
every necessary means. What of this?

Frankly
this is not as clear as I would like, although I will certainly
not blame God for my confusion! The position that the Christian
does not offer violence against violence, or resist, even in self-defense,
is rooted both in the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill,"
and in the Sermon on the Mount, where Christ counsels not to resist
evil, to turn the other cheek and to love one's enemies (Matthew
5: 38 — 45). On this basis, the use of all force, even to fight
for or establish what is right or just, is wrong, and the counsel
implicitly condemns all governments, which are founded on coercion.
Few have written as forcefully on this issue as Leo Tolstoy. If
you are interested in this I recommend The
Law of Violence and the Law of Love and The
Kingdom of God is Within You. However, there are those who,
examining the nuances of the original, untranslated words, argue
that Christ's counsel is against retribution, revenge or punishment,
and does not prohibit self-defense in the moment of assault. This
seems also to be Aquinas' position, who essentially argues that
self-defense is legitimate as long as there is no hatred or retribution
in your heart, and the current Pope has also written that self-defense
is legitimate in the eyes of God. Frankly, I am not sure where the
truth lies, because I find it difficult to accept the notion that
loving one's enemies is consistent with striking them down or killing
them, and further, non-resistance is consistent with Christ's own
life as revealed in the Gospels. So I suspect that Tolstoy is correct.
But even the alternative view implies a severely limited domain
for the exercise of force and, I believe, essentially prohibits
the use of force to render justice.

You
write, "self-government, not war." What does it mean?

This
is from an article I wrote titled, "The Line in the Sand,"
which addresses the question of when it is appropriate for people
to take up arms against their government. Basically it means, don't
wage war trying to reform the government, or to institute a new
form of legitimate government; instead, ignore the state, accept
and handle your responsibilities without trying to pass them off
onto others, and govern yourselves through voluntary arrangements.
That warrants some elaboration. First, I think it necessary to recognize
and admit that perhaps the most important fact of the American experiment
in limited government, with its Bill of Rights and express reservation
of rights to the People, is that it did not work. I don't think
any new, supposedly better institutional or structural elements
of a reformed government will work either. Fundamentally, it is
a problem of the nature of man, and his ready desire to use force
to compel others to secure benefits to himself; fundamentally, this
is a religious problem. If you create an institution with the sole
legitimate power to compel others, nominally only for certain limited
purposes, the power will eventually be used for any purpose. It's
like building a car that can go 120 miles per hour, telling the
driver he can only ever drive 10 miles per hour and expecting that
he won't exceed the self-imposed speed limit.

Second,
its pretty clear from de Jouvenel's examination of the growth of
power of states that government grows by offering to relieve individuals
from burdensome social obligations that they have (such as educating
their children or taking care of one's parents in their old age)
or intervening on their behalf where they are the weaker party (such
as in employer-employee relations), thereby creating fealty to the
government in return for empowerment against others or a release
from obligations. This process ultimately creates an individual
who is free from all social ties, a solitary figure who relates
to everyone else only by and through the state. This theory makes
sense of the seemingly incongruous expansion of personal, sexual
or reproductive rights following the radical curtailment or destruction
of individual property and contract rights and all encompassing
expansion of the Federal government's power via a creative interpretation
of the commerce clause during the New Deal. Whatever may be your
opinion of sexual freedom or marriage, the fact is that the Supreme
Court's "discovery" that the use of contraceptives and
abortion are fundamental individual rights, coupled with the growth
of no-fault divorce, high taxation that drives women to work, subsidized
day-care and increasingly, children's rights, are gambits by the
state to break down what most would consider to be the final and
most basic structure of society: the family. It is an indication
that the process of freeing the individual from all obligations
to others in favor of one, all encompassing obligation to the state,
is nearly complete.

In
this light, the state is best resisted by ignoring it and refusing
it's offers and assistance and, since the state seeks to isolate,
by forging voluntary social relationships with one another to provide
for our mutual needs and wants. A good and so far successful example
of this is the growth of home-schooling.

If
America is a nation of cowards, what about other nations? For example,
European countries have no Second Amendment (and no Bill of Rights)
to stand for. What do you believe those people should do?

Okay,
from de Jouvenel to popular culture. In The Empire Strikes Back,
when Luke is about to enter the cave that "is strong with the
dark side of the Force," Yoda says to him, "Your weapons,
you will not need them." I would like people to understand,
"Your rights, you will not need them." Rights do not make
you free; only by acting free can you become free. The knowledge
of the prior existence of rights is useful, as reminders of what
men once were, what they fought for, where they drew a line against
compulsion by their King or government; it helps us perceive that
men one time conceived themselves as possessing a core dignity and
autonomy that they would not permit others to lay hands on — it
helps us to perceive our baseline, which we would otherwise
be blind to.

But
to fight for the establishment of rights or for recognition of rights
by one's government involves tacit subordination to the state. The
struggle to make a government recognize a right works in favor of
the state, because it implicitly sets up government as the arbiter
of the existence of the right. If one will not act within the scope
of freedom delineated by the right unless or until the state concedes
it lawful to do so, why of course then there is no right and the
state controls your conduct. Thus, the passage of concealed carry
permit laws in the United States is an admission that the right
to keep and bear arms no longer exists in this country.

But
there is more to it than that. The whole notion of individual rights
is fundamentally a bankrupt notion, and not because of the problem
I spoke of before concerning whether or not the rights were really
"God-given" but merely customary and subject to change.
The notion of "fundamental rights" is correlative to the
notion of legitimate coercion; it implies, and tacitly depends upon
acceptance of subjection to a domain of coercive authority. You
can be governed, except that government must leave you alone in
such and such spheres of activity: free speech, free exercise of
religion, bearing arms, etc. The "rights" analysis pictures
envelopment in a sphere of coercive authority, with specified, limited
pockets of freedom. It's the baseline problem! Why are just those
areas of my behavior "protected" and not others? The fundamental
question is not what rights do I have, but why may anyone exercise
coercive authority over me in the first place? It is coercion, not
freedom, which must be justified. If coercion is not legitimate,
there is no need for "rights." Arguing "rights"
is arguing from an acknowledged and accepted subordinate — unfree
— position.

So,
your rights, you do not need them! They cannot and will not help
you, because no government wishes to recognize them (although it
may make a show of doing so as long as it thinks it necessary, until
most people can be brought around), and it is fine with the state
if you spend your life attempting to compel the state to acknowledge
and respect their existence. The question is whether you will act
free or how you will use your freedom. But take care that you do
not throw yourself away cheaply or needlessly, for such a one as
the state; choose well how to create good in the world. Seek and
speak the truth about what you know about the nature of the state,
ignore the state as best you can, refuse its assistance, accept
and fulfill your responsibilities instead of seeking ways to shift
your burdens to others, and forge the social relationships you want
or need to live as you would like without the state's tender mercies.

February
8, 2001

Carlo
Stagnaro [send him mail]
co-edits the libertarian magazine “Enclave”
and edited the book “Waco.
Una strage di stato americana.” Here’s his
website.

LRC
needs your support. Please donate.

We
discussed this with the well-known Catholic author Vittorio Messori,
who is as keen an observer of reality as he is disenchanted by it.
Messori is motivated by a deep Christian realism, which emanates
from virtually every line of his last book, Gli occhi di Maria
(Mary's Eyes), written in co-operation with Rino Cammilleri
and published in Italy by Rizzoli. He also authored Jesus
Hypotheses and the famous Crossing
the Threshold of Hope, with Pope John Paul II.

What
do you think about the war in Afghanistan?

This
so-called "war" is the triumph of hypocrisy. I cannot
summon up even a gram of the excitement and enthusiasm of those
who recently waved American flags in Rome in support of the war.
One cannot hide the fact that the Taliban are creatures of the United
States. Furthermore, business relationships between Bush's and bin
Laden's clubs are documented. But, even beyond this, the Taliban
exist thanks to the myopia of the US secret services which, during
the war against the Russians, created, financed, and armed them.

What
is surprising is that the US has reacted with typical state logic
against an enemy who is not a state.

In
fact, the most powerful and armed nation in history has gone to
war against a private citizen. To get a man out of a cave in Afghanistan,
the largest airplane carriers in the world have been deployed! I
find that extremely grotesque. But there is another reason why this
war is hypocritical: as all the "politically incorrect"
people know, the foreign policy of the United States over the last
decades has been pro-Islam and, often, pro-terrorism.

Can
you elaborate on this point?

The
US is somehow a "prisoner" of the Middle East. In order
to obtain forgiveness for its unconditional support of Israel, and
in order not to be pressured (although it is) by a billion Muslims
who are exasperated by this situation, the US supported the Muslims,
and helped and financed them everywhere outside the Middle East.
Let us not forget, however, that for Islamic people Israel is, for
all intents and purposes, the fifty-first star of the US flag. It
is not a coincidence that the nation of the stars and stripes is
intimately tied with Saudi Arabia. I ask myself how it is possible
that the admirers of the United States do not realize this paradox.
The US government, which is always ready to go to war in defence
of human rights, has always had its most solid base of support in
Saudi Arabia. This is a country where the tribal clan of the Sauds
considers itself the guardian of the holy Muslim places, and it
is the most outstanding example of Islamic integralism and fanaticism.
In that nation, the most basic human rights are not respected, to
the point that Bibles are confiscated at the airport and if, by
any chance, a Christian priest is found serving Mass by himself
(even if locked in his own hotel room) he can be put to death. But
"humanitarians" say nothing about this.

Why
do you think there is such inconsistency between the human-rights
rhetoric and the support for a country that has such little respect
for human dignity?

First
of all, because that is where the oil is. Second, because the US
feels the need to be forgiven. It is sufficient to look at the shameful
Kuwait war — a conflict where a world coalition was put together
to save a few rich emirs (who had bank accounts in London and New
York) and to please Saudi Arabia. And also because Israel considered
Iraq a dangerous and uncomfortable neighbor. But we have seen a
similar state of affairs in another shameful war, in Kosovo, where
the Christian America sided with the Albanian Muslims against the
Christian Serbs. There is, after all, such an enmeshment of problems
and contradictions as to really make this a war of hypocrisies.

What
do you say of pacifism, so dear to hardcore liberals?

I
believe that the essential and often forgotten virtue of Christians
is realism. As a man of faith, I know that Jesus has promised only
one Heaven, but not on this earth. Therefore, I do not trust in
prospects for peace or a brotherly world, because I do believe,
to the contrary, in the consequences of original sin. Jesus Himself
clearly states that he came not to bring peace, but war and divisiveness.
Pacifism is a post-Christian ideology which has nothing to do with
Christianity. The realist Christian knows that he will always have
to deal with war, since he lives in an ever-changing world that
is full of evil and sin. The Christian's duty is to attempt to limit
the damage.

In
this scenario, where do you see the globalization process?

Since
I do not believe in utopia, or in a universal "let's all just
love each other," I believe it is necessary to respect history's
rhythms and scope. Today, history moves towards economic globalization.
We must avoid confusing globalization with pacifist ecumenicism.
Economic unification does not mean the elimination of conflicts,
nor does it mean that different populations will be ready to shake
hands and ask each other forgiveness for their errors. As a well-known
Italian aphorist, Ennio Flaiano, said, "If peoples knew each
other better, they would hate each other more."

Carl
Schmitt said the state is born from the secularization of theological
concepts, and therefore it is a competing entity, an enemy of religions.
What do you think about that?

I
agree. See, I understand many of the reasons of the modern anarchists,
and I recognize myself in many of the positions of the FORCES
organization and the libertarian magazine Enclave.
But, I repeat, I believe in original sin, thus I do not underestimate
Hobbes' warning: homo homini lupus (that is, man is the wolf
of men). I respect law enforcement officers, because I know I need
them; however, do not ask me to love them! I think that the monster
state is the Beast of the Apocalypse. In a perspective of faith,
the state emerging from the end of the ancien régime
horrifies me. In this key, my nightmare is One World Government.

However,
they say that the times of totalitarianism are over. Isn't democracy
an effective instrument to counter these degenerations?

Communism
and fascism are two litigious brothers: both have post-Christian
ideologies based on the monstrosity of the ethical state. Think
about the idea that, in Benito Mussolini's words, "for fascism,
everything is inside the state, and nothing is outside of it."
This diabolical mentality is the same in communism, but it is also
typical of the state as envisioned by the liberals. After all, the
state of the progressive Catholic is some sort of mother that takes
care of us, who prohibits us from smoking, who imposes safety belts
and helmets. There is nothing more diabolical than a bureaucrat
with good intentions, like those of the former Italian health minister
Umberto Veronesi who worries about my lungs, or of his colleague
who worries about my little head when I scooter downtown!

Your
condemnation of the modern state seems to postulate a re-evaluation
of the institutions that preceded it….

I'll
tell you an anecdote. In Turin, near the Royal Palace, there is
an 18th century building called the Palace of the Chancellor.
This building today can barely hold one among many central government
branches in that region. Now, appreciate that at one time this building
was the headquarters of the entire government of the Sardinian Kingdom,
a large, multi-national state that spanned from Lake Geneva all
the way to the South of Sardinia. This should illustrate that ancien
régime that I mention from time to time: a poorly organized,
lean state which demanded — and, thank God, gave — little, thus
needed only a bare-bones bureaucracy.

Considering
what has happened and what is happening, what are we, as individuals,
supposed to do?

I
do not want to patronize anyone, but this desire "to do"
stems from a typically modern, unrealistic ambition. One of the
greatest calamities of our time is the committed intellectual —
the one, that is, who writes marching programs and teaches moralistic
lessons to his peers. Maybe the United States had no alternative,
even though (and with all due respect for the dead) I do not understand
how war is waged for the three thousand victims of September 11,
while no one has lifted a finger for the crowds of poor Christians
who have been massacred by Islam, wherever it is the majority. However,
if Bush wants to do something that is really useful, he should ask
himself why those planes were launched against New York City
and Washington.

I
will ask you that: why?

I
answer you in simple terms: I believe that the core of it all is
Israel. My Jewish friends (who are many and very dear to me) disagree
and say it is not so; they also are convinced that the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict is a local matter. Unfortunately, I am convinced of the
opposite since, as a scholar of the religious world, I well know
the feelings of Islam. It is for this reason I tell my Jewish friends
to acknowledge this disturbing reality — to be ready for further
danger in Judea, Samaria, and Galilee. Rightly or wrongly, the exasperation
of the Muslim world stems from there. The situation is particularly
difficult because, in those lands, Israelis and Palestinians take
shifts as victims and persecutors. Some self-criticism would be
needed from Bush, maybe an acknowledgement that American foreign
policy (starting with that of his father and his family) has always
been pro-Islam, and that all those "terrorist monsters"
are, ultimately, their brainchildren.

January
15, 2001

Carlo
Stagnaro [send him mail]
co-edits the libertarian magazine “Enclave”
and edited the book “Waco.
Una strage di stato americana.” Here’s his
website.

Support
LRC