WEBVTT NOTE The Classical Liberal Theory of Empire 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.600 Okay, now, the subject of our conference, imperialism, could not be more topical, could not be more on topic. 2 00:00:08.600 --> 00:00:16.400 Today, there are influential writers and politicians who openly proclaim the triumphant emergence of an American empire. 3 00:00:16.400 --> 00:00:26.400 Now, some writers, like Niall Ferguson, this English guy, say that the Americans, well, there could be an American empire, 4 00:00:26.400 --> 00:00:32.400 We're having an American empire, but Americans don't have the stamina to keep up an empire, sadly. 5 00:00:32.400 --> 00:00:43.400 Others like Walter Williams, whom I respect, the economist of George Mason, says Americans today are not as good as they were in the greatest generation. 6 00:00:43.400 --> 00:00:47.400 They don't have the courage to have an empire. 7 00:00:47.400 --> 00:00:52.400 But many people are saying, we do have an empire and all the better for it. 8 00:00:52.400 --> 00:00:59.080 We are supposed to be the reincarnation of the British Empire, bigger and better, and 9 00:00:59.080 --> 00:01:01.520 also a new and infinitely more powerful Rome. 10 00:01:01.520 --> 00:01:05.080 There are a lot of people who are thrilled at that. 11 00:01:05.080 --> 00:01:12.080 We will rule the world through a growing stockpile of nuclear weapons, against whom, by the way, 12 00:01:12.080 --> 00:01:18.480 through militarizing the space above the earth and monopolizing the military uses of space, 13 00:01:18.480 --> 00:01:24.360 through electronic technology that can eavesdrop on every single communication, everywhere, 14 00:01:24.360 --> 00:01:29.440 and through all the other products of the capitalist system that the government appropriates 15 00:01:29.440 --> 00:01:31.120 for its own purposes. 16 00:01:31.120 --> 00:01:38.040 And when you hear about so-called defense expenditures or war or threatening war or 17 00:01:38.040 --> 00:01:41.720 attacking, keep in mind what's going on and what always goes on. 18 00:01:41.720 --> 00:01:54.720 And that is that the magnificent American wealth machine produces the means that then the government siphons off for its own aggressive purposes. 19 00:01:54.720 --> 00:02:00.720 The great classic liberals opposed war and what led to war, military buildups and imperialism. 20 00:02:00.720 --> 00:02:10.720 The more consistent and so-called doctrinaire of these libertarians, the more doctrinaire they were, you know, dogmatic and so on, 21 00:02:10.720 --> 00:02:13.480 The more bitterly they opposed war. 22 00:02:13.480 --> 00:02:18.560 Frederic Bastiat, the great Bastiat, for instance, the great Herbert Spencer, Richard Cobden 23 00:02:18.560 --> 00:02:24.700 and John Bright, the leaders of the Manchester School who brought free trade to England. 24 00:02:24.700 --> 00:02:30.320 They were against war for some obvious reasons and for some not so obvious reasons. 25 00:02:30.320 --> 00:02:34.800 War means ruined lives, devastation and death. 26 00:02:34.800 --> 00:02:39.360 That's why governments are anxious to keep the pictures of war from their people. 27 00:02:39.360 --> 00:02:45.800 Our own government doesn't even permit showing photographs of all the flag-draped coffins 28 00:02:45.800 --> 00:02:56.960 that arrive at the Dover Airfield Base every day, or rather every night, secretly arriving 29 00:02:56.960 --> 00:02:59.840 and then dispersed throughout the country. 30 00:02:59.840 --> 00:03:05.000 Also war works against everything that's built up by the system of voluntary interaction 31 00:03:05.000 --> 00:03:07.720 based on the principle of private property. 32 00:03:07.720 --> 00:03:11.160 It is the opposite of civilization. 33 00:03:11.160 --> 00:03:17.640 As Ludwig von Mises said in his book, Liberalism, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus was wrong. 34 00:03:17.640 --> 00:03:22.560 It's peace, not war, that is the father of all things. 35 00:03:22.560 --> 00:03:28.000 More subtly, the libertarians of the past and of today set themselves against war because 36 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:31.400 it always enhances the power of the state. 37 00:03:31.400 --> 00:03:36.080 Maybe you've heard the phrase, war is the health of the state. 38 00:03:36.080 --> 00:03:40.400 Murray Rothbard introduced it into libertarian thinking. 39 00:03:40.400 --> 00:03:46.760 It stems from Randolph Bourne, an anti-war radical from the time of the First World War. 40 00:03:46.760 --> 00:03:51.640 Murray stressed this idea because that is what history has demonstrated. 41 00:03:51.640 --> 00:03:58.760 And you can read about it in detail in Robert Higgs's indispensable work, Crisis and Leviathan, 42 00:03:58.760 --> 00:04:04.720 where he shows how our wars have expanded the oppressive power of the American government 43 00:04:04.720 --> 00:04:14.720 The Founders of the American Republic looked on the great monarchies of Europe as military machines, which indeed they were. 44 00:04:14.720 --> 00:04:22.720 They were engaged in constant warfare with each other to build up their empires around the world, 45 00:04:22.720 --> 00:04:29.720 meanwhile oppressing their own people and grinding taxes, ever-higher taxes out of their subjects. 46 00:04:29.720 --> 00:04:35.720 George Washington, in his farewell address, stated that, 47 00:04:47.720 --> 00:04:58.720 Richard Cobden, who was the great activist and theorist of classical liberal anti-war and anti-imperialist ideas in the mid-19th century, 48 00:04:58.720 --> 00:05:18.720 Thomas Jefferson wrote, I am for free commerce with all nations, political connection with none, and little or no diplomatic establishment. 49 00:05:18.720 --> 00:05:24.720 In his second inaugural address, Jefferson warned against entangling alliances with any foreign country, 50 00:05:24.720 --> 00:05:30.720 because that was the sure way to get us involved in wars that were none of our business. 51 00:05:30.720 --> 00:05:34.720 Now, James Madison is often considered the father of the Constitution. 52 00:05:34.720 --> 00:05:38.720 This is what Madison had to say about war. 53 00:05:38.720 --> 00:05:42.720 Of all the enemies of true liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded 54 00:05:42.720 --> 00:05:47.720 because war comprises and develops the germ of every other. 55 00:05:47.720 --> 00:05:53.720 War is the parent of armies, from armies proceed debts and taxes, 56 00:05:53.720 --> 00:05:59.160 and armies and debts and taxes are the known instrument for bringing the many under the 57 00:05:59.160 --> 00:06:01.760 domination of the few. 58 00:06:01.760 --> 00:06:09.960 In war too, the discretionary power of the executive, the president, is extended. 59 00:06:09.960 --> 00:06:12.600 This is the father of the Constitution. 60 00:06:12.600 --> 00:06:18.800 No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. 61 00:06:18.800 --> 00:06:24.600 Elsewhere, Madison wrote, it may be a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is 62 00:06:24.600 --> 00:06:30.680 to be charged to provisions against dangers real or imagined from abroad. 63 00:06:30.680 --> 00:06:39.360 Well, in recent years, we have to actually illustrate the loss of liberty at home. 64 00:06:39.360 --> 00:06:42.500 It's all over the place. 65 00:06:42.500 --> 00:06:46.760 And these politicians are so short-sighted, all they care about is the next election. 66 00:06:46.760 --> 00:07:01.760 There is one, of course, magnificent and heroic exception, a friend of the Mises Institute, a congressman from Texas, but aside from him, I think it's literally the case, all they think about is their own re-election. 67 00:07:01.760 --> 00:07:08.760 What's going to happen 10 or 20 years from now with different people in charge doesn't matter to them. 68 00:07:08.760 --> 00:07:19.760 Supposing that someday the Republicans lose control of the presidency, I mean, is that conceivable when the dollar collapses and we go into a tailspin? 69 00:07:19.760 --> 00:07:36.760 Well, then there might be a few spectacular killings, and then they'll start arresting, throwing into some gulag somewhere, pro-life activists, you know, could be considered having links to terrorism, as they would say, 70 00:07:36.760 --> 00:07:45.080 gun, pro-gun activists, right, militiamen, or anybody else who connected with a hate 71 00:07:45.080 --> 00:07:54.320 group. But why should the people who temporarily have control of the police 72 00:07:54.320 --> 00:07:59.880 power care about that? That only holds for the future. So this view of the 73 00:07:59.880 --> 00:08:04.280 dangers of war and the dangers of extending the power of the presidency 74 00:08:04.280 --> 00:08:09.720 was shared by other founding fathers. It is no accident that the power to declare 75 00:08:09.720 --> 00:08:14.540 war was vested in Congress. That's what Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution 76 00:08:14.540 --> 00:08:21.400 says. Congress shall have power to declare war. The president was commander-in-chief 77 00:08:21.400 --> 00:08:25.840 only in the sense that once Congress declared war, he would be responsible for 78 00:08:25.840 --> 00:08:32.900 deploying the armies. This principle was so firmly established and so well 79 00:08:32.900 --> 00:08:38.260 People understood that even power-hungry presidents, power-hungry presidents like Woodrow Wilson 80 00:08:38.260 --> 00:08:44.060 and Franklin Roosevelt felt compelled to go to Congress for a declaration of war. 81 00:08:44.060 --> 00:08:47.620 This was after they had maneuvered the country into war, but that's a different question. 82 00:08:47.620 --> 00:08:49.420 I can't go into that. 83 00:08:49.420 --> 00:08:56.460 I'm probably the last of the real Roosevelt haters, and it would take too much time. 84 00:08:56.460 --> 00:09:01.500 But now we have so-called conservatives, self-styled believers in the strict construction 85 00:09:01.500 --> 00:09:07.620 of the Constitution, who say that the President may, just on his own, attack, bomb and invade 86 00:09:07.620 --> 00:09:10.520 any country he feels like. 87 00:09:10.520 --> 00:09:17.660 Some conservatives, some strict believers in strict construction of the Constitution. 88 00:09:17.660 --> 00:09:22.700 This policy of neutrality and non-intervention was the golden rule of American foreign policy 89 00:09:22.700 --> 00:09:25.780 until the end of the 19th century. 90 00:09:25.780 --> 00:09:32.880 And under this policy, under this minding our own business, this America became an 91 00:09:32.880 --> 00:09:43.060 economic powerhouse, the economic powerhouse, Stupor Mundi, the wonder of the world. 92 00:09:43.060 --> 00:09:48.680 We didn't send armies or bombers or foreign aid to other countries, rather the American 93 00:09:48.680 --> 00:09:53.680 attitude was that the United States should set an example and be a beacon to the world 94 00:09:53.680 --> 00:09:57.080 Showing you what a free people can achieve. 95 00:09:57.080 --> 00:10:02.640 That by the way was the meaning and the point of that statue in New York Harbor, which the 96 00:10:02.640 --> 00:10:09.360 French people sent us as a birthday present a hundred years after the Declaration of Independence. 97 00:10:09.360 --> 00:10:12.520 The statue has nothing to do with immigration. 98 00:10:12.520 --> 00:10:15.640 There was a Lazarus poem that was tacked on afterwards. 99 00:10:15.640 --> 00:10:20.560 The name of the statue is liberty and lightning in the world. 100 00:10:20.560 --> 00:10:23.080 That's why she's carrying the torch. 101 00:10:23.080 --> 00:10:27.680 though it was not the policy of invite the world, invade the world. 102 00:10:27.680 --> 00:10:31.640 It was simply acting as an example to the world. 103 00:10:31.640 --> 00:10:38.720 There were wars, of course, in the 19th century, the war of 1812, the war against Mexico, the 104 00:10:38.720 --> 00:10:47.720 final awful ordeal of the 1860s, but there were always opponents of those wars. 105 00:10:47.720 --> 00:10:53.160 In the war of 1812, New England was on the point of seceding from the Union. 106 00:10:53.160 --> 00:10:59.080 In the Mexican War, a congressman from Illinois named Abraham Lincoln denounced President 107 00:10:59.080 --> 00:11:00.880 Polk and his war. 108 00:11:00.880 --> 00:11:06.440 A few years later, the same Abraham Lincoln was responsible for the greatest bloodletting 109 00:11:06.440 --> 00:11:12.000 in American history, 620,000 dead. 110 00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:16.160 That's pretty much as much as all the other wars put together. 111 00:11:16.160 --> 00:11:22.280 Well, we can't get, there are other people here who know a lot more about that awful 112 00:11:22.280 --> 00:11:29.380 ordeal that we got into in the aftermath than I do. 113 00:11:29.380 --> 00:11:38.620 But there's this continuing prejudice in the back of everybody's mind against the South. 114 00:11:38.620 --> 00:11:45.160 But one little point about the war for southern independence, which a lot of people call the 115 00:11:45.160 --> 00:11:51.000 of the Civil War, Gore Vidal, maybe you've heard of him and seen his stuff, he's as good 116 00:11:51.000 --> 00:11:56.440 on foreign policy as he's bad on economics, but he got into a lot of trouble with the 117 00:11:56.440 --> 00:12:03.040 New York intellectuals when he wrote that those people up there cared a lot more about 118 00:12:03.040 --> 00:12:08.040 the Spanish Civil War than they ever cared about the American Civil War, and that got 119 00:12:08.040 --> 00:12:35.040 The most prominent anti-war movement in the 19th century came at the time of the Spanish-American War and the war against the Philippines, our first war in Asia, we are now up to our 6th and 7th Asian wars. 120 00:12:35.040 --> 00:12:45.040 The fever for war against Spain was hyped up by the alleged unspeakable sufferings of the Cubans at the hands of the unspeakable Spaniards. 121 00:12:45.040 --> 00:12:54.040 The U.S. Navy ship, the Maine, exploded in Havana Harbor. What was it even doing in Havana Harbor? 122 00:12:54.040 --> 00:13:01.040 After ultimatums to Spain, President McKinley got the war he was aiming for all along. 123 00:13:01.040 --> 00:13:08.040 Now, meanwhile, a cabal had been operating behind the scenes in the American government, 124 00:13:08.040 --> 00:13:14.040 very similar to the neoconservative cabal that got us into the Iraq War. 125 00:13:14.040 --> 00:13:18.040 It included Theodore Roosevelt, the effective head of the Navy, 126 00:13:18.040 --> 00:13:24.040 John Hay, the Secretary of State, Henry Cabot Lodge, a leading senator, 127 00:13:24.040 --> 00:13:29.040 and Alfred Thayer Mahon, a top theoretician in the Navy Department. 128 00:13:29.040 --> 00:13:35.840 Mahan is an odd bird. He was very influential. He was not a fighting man. He was a bureaucrat. 129 00:13:35.840 --> 00:13:40.640 He spent his time writing books, pushing for bigger and bigger budgets for the Navy. 130 00:13:40.640 --> 00:13:47.140 In 1893, he published a work, The Influence of Naval Power Upon History. 131 00:13:47.140 --> 00:13:50.340 Talk about humanitarian. 132 00:13:50.340 --> 00:13:56.240 In Germany, the Kaiser loved the book, had it translated into German and sent it to all his naval commanders. 133 00:13:56.240 --> 00:14:02.940 It fueled the naval race between Germany and England. It was so fateful for the world. 134 00:14:02.940 --> 00:14:08.540 In Japan, the naval officers loved the book, used it to build up the Japanese navy. 135 00:14:08.540 --> 00:14:13.040 The same thing happened in other imperialist countries. 136 00:14:13.040 --> 00:14:21.340 So Mahan contributed greatly to the mad and very scary armaments race among the great powers. 137 00:14:21.340 --> 00:14:24.540 What Theodore Roosevelt and his buddies were aiming for 138 00:14:24.540 --> 00:14:29.820 was to make America into a world power with colonies like the other countries. 139 00:14:29.820 --> 00:14:36.060 They loved and admired power and military force, they favored what they called the large policy. 140 00:14:36.860 --> 00:14:41.260 The small policy was what used to be the traditional American way, 141 00:14:42.060 --> 00:14:45.180 minding our own business and keeping our distance from world politics 142 00:14:45.900 --> 00:14:48.940 and the wars that came with playing a big part in world politics. 143 00:14:48.940 --> 00:14:56.700 but this cabal had contempt for that small policy they didn't understand 144 00:14:56.700 --> 00:15:02.820 really what the life of ordinary decent Americans was Mahan was a lifelong 145 00:15:02.820 --> 00:15:08.540 bureaucrat Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge were old money they looked 146 00:15:08.540 --> 00:15:12.740 down on people who worked for a living in the hustle and bustle of the marketplace 147 00:15:12.740 --> 00:15:18.460 considered it faintly ridiculous and it's no accident that today's neo 148 00:15:18.460 --> 00:15:20.980 are considered of his love, Theodore Roosevelt. 149 00:15:20.980 --> 00:15:23.660 That I can understand. 150 00:15:23.660 --> 00:15:26.020 What I can't understand is what Theodore Roosevelt is doing 151 00:15:26.020 --> 00:15:30.340 on Mount Rushmore, along with Washington and Jefferson. 152 00:15:30.340 --> 00:15:32.620 Lincoln makes more sense. 153 00:15:32.620 --> 00:15:34.860 But how come whoever the sculptor was who 154 00:15:34.860 --> 00:15:36.700 created Mount Rushmore, how come he 155 00:15:36.700 --> 00:15:40.580 gets to select the four greatest American presidents? 156 00:15:40.580 --> 00:15:44.220 And everybody has to pay attention to that. 157 00:15:44.220 --> 00:15:46.100 At the Mises Institute, we have our own list 158 00:15:46.100 --> 00:15:48.500 of the Greatest Presidents. 159 00:15:48.500 --> 00:15:51.140 Grover Cleveland might be included, or especially 160 00:15:51.140 --> 00:15:54.180 Martin Van Buren, both from Buffalo, New York. 161 00:15:57.380 --> 00:16:01.220 But my own sentimental favorite is Zachary Taylor, 162 00:16:01.220 --> 00:16:02.820 who got sick at his inaugural party 163 00:16:02.820 --> 00:16:03.820 and died a month later. 164 00:16:08.740 --> 00:16:14.260 The idolization nowadays of Theodore Roosevelt is a bad sign. 165 00:16:14.260 --> 00:16:22.220 He was an unabashed, out-and-out American imperialist as today's neo-Kanzar. 166 00:16:22.220 --> 00:16:27.860 When the war with Spain came, he and his co-conspirators were ready with their plans. 167 00:16:27.860 --> 00:16:32.980 William McKinley had promised not to annex an inch of territory. 168 00:16:32.980 --> 00:16:38.100 Once Spain was beaten, the United States annexed Puerto Rico, established a protectorate over 169 00:16:38.100 --> 00:16:39.100 Cuba. 170 00:16:39.100 --> 00:16:42.740 Worst of all, America forced Spain to cede the Philippines. 171 00:16:42.740 --> 00:16:50.180 Now the boundaries of the United States are not this continental stronghold, this impregnable 172 00:16:50.180 --> 00:16:56.660 fortress that we had in the North American continent, but 7,000 miles away on the other 173 00:16:56.660 --> 00:17:01.540 side of the Pacific in the middle of a fierce rivalry among the imperialist powers. 174 00:17:01.540 --> 00:17:06.620 There were some who were already beginning to talk about the coming inevitable war with 175 00:17:06.620 --> 00:17:07.620 Japan. 176 00:17:07.620 --> 00:17:12.580 The Filipinos weren't happy to exchange one imperialist master for another, so 177 00:17:12.580 --> 00:17:18.880 So we had to send an army to the Philippines to suppress a rebellion, just as invasion 178 00:17:18.880 --> 00:17:23.020 and occupation of Iraq has created what they call an insurgency. 179 00:17:23.020 --> 00:17:28.720 Funny how people don't like to be invaded and occupied by foreigners. 180 00:17:28.720 --> 00:17:34.300 The decision to annex the Philippines, vicious war against the Filipinos, about 200,000 men, 181 00:17:34.300 --> 00:17:40.740 women and children killed, generated an anti-war movement, the Anti-Imperialist League, which 182 00:17:40.740 --> 00:18:10.740 William Grahame Sumner 183 00:18:10.740 --> 00:18:16.740 In the 19th century, first professor of sociology in the country at Yale and a hardcore libertarian. 184 00:18:16.740 --> 00:18:20.740 That's when professors of sociology could be libertarians. 185 00:18:20.740 --> 00:18:25.740 He advocated the gold standard, always argued against every scheme for inflation, 186 00:18:25.740 --> 00:18:30.740 opposed coercive labor unions, defended the rights of non-union workers. 187 00:18:30.740 --> 00:18:36.740 Those are the unions and historians, of course, called scabs. 188 00:18:36.740 --> 00:18:48.740 He opposed what he called plutocrats, but by plutocrats he meant men of wealth who's the government instead of the market to gain and increase their wealth. 189 00:18:48.740 --> 00:18:56.740 As part of this opposition, he fought against the protective tariffs to the point where the Republican trustees of Yale tried to get him fired. 190 00:18:56.740 --> 00:19:05.740 He also tried to influence public opinion. One of his best known essays is called The Forgotten Man. 191 00:19:05.740 --> 00:19:12.540 Man. Who is the Forgotten Man? Well, someone says, let's say the two social reforms get together, 192 00:19:12.540 --> 00:19:20.940 A and B, and they plan to help someone who's in dire straits, C. Now C might be in dire straits 193 00:19:20.940 --> 00:19:28.140 because of his bad habits, his bad lifestyle, or because of bad luck. The social reformers, A and B, 194 00:19:28.140 --> 00:19:34.940 wanted to help C from their own funds, or by appealing to others for their donated funds, 195 00:19:35.740 --> 00:19:37.900 There would be no problem. That would be one thing. 196 00:19:37.900 --> 00:19:49.020 But instead, what they do is to target Dee, the forgotten man, and force him to give up some part of his money to support poor C. 197 00:19:49.020 --> 00:19:52.540 Now Dee, the forgotten man, is a productive member of society. 198 00:19:52.540 --> 00:19:58.860 He works hard for himself and his family. He's not a burden to society, and so he contributes to it. 199 00:19:58.860 --> 00:20:03.660 He's a quiet man, doesn't like to make a fuss, doesn't ask for special favors from others, 200 00:20:03.660 --> 00:20:09.500 especially from the taxpayers. He obeys the laws, pays his taxes, asks for nothing 201 00:20:11.260 --> 00:20:16.540 further than to be left alone, to work for himself, to accumulate as much wealth as his 202 00:20:16.540 --> 00:20:20.300 talents will allow him to, and to leave his children better off than he was. 203 00:20:21.740 --> 00:20:26.300 Everyone celebrates and praises the social reformers A and B. They applaud their 204 00:20:26.300 --> 00:20:30.060 and applaud their compassion and helping poor C. Everyone loves that. 205 00:20:30.060 --> 00:20:36.180 But they don't pay the slightest attention to Dee, they forget about him, although he's 206 00:20:36.180 --> 00:20:41.220 the one who keeps the whole system running through his work and his life. 207 00:20:41.220 --> 00:20:47.140 And Sumner adds, interestingly, sometimes forgotten man is a woman. 208 00:20:47.140 --> 00:20:53.380 Well, in 1899, Sumner gave a talk in New Haven, it was entitled, The Conquest of the United 209 00:20:53.380 --> 00:20:56.580 States by Spain. 210 00:20:56.580 --> 00:21:04.380 That's after our great, glorious victory over the Spanish wooden fleet that had, of course, 211 00:21:04.380 --> 00:21:10.180 been placed under the protection of the Virgin Mary, so the Spaniards thought they were invincible. 212 00:21:10.180 --> 00:21:16.180 But Spencer said the conquest of the United States by Spain, what could he mean by that? 213 00:21:16.180 --> 00:21:23.140 It kicked the hell out of Spain, the American people were deliriously happy, north and south. 214 00:21:23.140 --> 00:21:32.140 I want to define the issue. We have beaten Spain in a military conflict, but we are submitting to be conquered by her on the field of ideas and policies. 215 00:21:32.140 --> 00:21:38.140 Nations as well as individuals have a character, they have a signature. 216 00:21:38.140 --> 00:21:45.140 America originated in a revolt against imperialism, called the American Revolution. 217 00:21:45.140 --> 00:21:55.140 Our country was dedicated to the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, which of course was understood to include the right to private property. 218 00:21:55.140 --> 00:22:07.140 The Constitution of the United States was composed to establish a government of strictly limited powers, decentralized and multiply divided, to ensure the maximum of freedom. 219 00:22:07.140 --> 00:22:11.140 That was the vision of the Founding Fathers. 220 00:22:11.140 --> 00:22:18.140 There would be no armies except the militia, which would have no functions but those of the police. 221 00:22:18.140 --> 00:22:23.140 The Americans would have no regal court, no pomp. 222 00:22:23.140 --> 00:22:31.140 There was no grand diplomacy because the Americans intended to mind their own business and not be involved in any of the intrigues 223 00:22:31.140 --> 00:22:34.140 to which the European statesmen were accustomed. 224 00:22:34.140 --> 00:22:42.640 Our fathers would have an economical government, even if grand people called it a cheap and 225 00:22:42.640 --> 00:22:44.540 parsimonious one. 226 00:22:44.540 --> 00:22:51.720 And taxes would be no greater than absolutely necessary to pay for such a small government. 227 00:22:51.720 --> 00:22:55.880 Citizen was to keep all the rest of his earnings, use them as he thought best for the happiness 228 00:22:55.880 --> 00:22:59.900 of himself and his family. 229 00:22:59.900 --> 00:23:02.540 But Spain, that was America. 230 00:23:02.540 --> 00:23:07.420 But Spain, Sumner says, chose a different road. 231 00:23:07.420 --> 00:23:13.380 A Spanish blessing goes, may God deny you peace, but give you glory. 232 00:23:13.380 --> 00:23:17.700 Well, they chose glory and empire. 233 00:23:17.700 --> 00:23:20.380 And the Spanish Empire was glorious. 234 00:23:20.380 --> 00:23:25.540 It was the first empire of which it was said that the sun never set on it, from one end 235 00:23:25.540 --> 00:23:27.740 of the world to the other. 236 00:23:27.740 --> 00:23:36.500 And with glory and empire and world power came the necessary concomitants, and there's 237 00:23:36.500 --> 00:23:42.940 an inevitability about these things, endless war and expenditures for war, putting down 238 00:23:42.940 --> 00:23:48.380 insurgencies like the revolt of the Dutch people, for instance, debt and inflation, 239 00:23:48.380 --> 00:23:56.060 confiscatory taxation, national bankruptcy, and in time decline and fall. 240 00:23:56.060 --> 00:24:03.300 And Sumner says that is the point where Spain is now, and the United States has entered 241 00:24:03.300 --> 00:24:05.580 onto that path. 242 00:24:05.580 --> 00:24:08.660 Sumner even mentioned the semantic trick that the American imperialists were trying 243 00:24:08.660 --> 00:24:09.960 to play. 244 00:24:09.960 --> 00:24:14.420 They called anyone who wanted to stick to the traditional American policy isolationists. 245 00:24:14.420 --> 00:24:17.700 You've heard the term? 246 00:24:17.700 --> 00:24:19.620 The term is now over a century old. 247 00:24:19.620 --> 00:24:21.260 It's argued by terminology. 248 00:24:21.260 --> 00:24:25.900 It's probably the best example of that, even better than calling the U.S. government's 249 00:24:25.900 --> 00:24:30.300 Military Arm, the Defense Department. 250 00:24:30.300 --> 00:24:37.100 Some Defense Department, after spending trillions of dollars, when 9-11 came, they couldn't 251 00:24:37.100 --> 00:24:41.780 even defend their own headquarters. 252 00:24:41.780 --> 00:24:47.620 And now anything the Pentagon wants to squander money on is called defense expenditure. 253 00:24:47.620 --> 00:24:51.420 But isolationism is an even better semantic fraud. 254 00:24:51.420 --> 00:24:54.660 And some are already in it as answer to. 255 00:24:54.660 --> 00:24:59.300 In a world of incessant fighting, devastation and death, who would not choose to isolate 256 00:24:59.300 --> 00:25:05.420 himself and his family and his country in the peaceful pursuit of happiness? 257 00:25:05.420 --> 00:25:08.820 But isolationist in the sense that the empire buildings use the term, how ridiculous is 258 00:25:08.820 --> 00:25:09.820 that? 259 00:25:09.820 --> 00:25:16.340 In the traditional American policy, Americans traded with peoples all over the world. 260 00:25:16.340 --> 00:25:23.300 Our ships went to China, to Europe, to Latin America, and we traded with anybody who was 261 00:25:23.300 --> 00:25:27.100 was anxious to trade with us, and most of them were. 262 00:25:27.100 --> 00:25:35.100 We could invest money anywhere in the world where people welcomed American capital, and most of them did. 263 00:25:35.100 --> 00:25:41.000 Sumner was a great social scientist, so naturally held to the laws of nature and human nature, 264 00:25:41.000 --> 00:25:44.600 just as valid for Americans as for anyone else. 265 00:25:44.600 --> 00:25:52.300 And if we go along a certain path, we have to take the consequences the way other people did. 266 00:25:52.300 --> 00:25:58.980 America seems to have chosen the way of empire, but, Sumner concluded, yet the scheme of a 267 00:25:58.980 --> 00:26:07.980 republic which our fathers formed was a glorious dream, which demands more than a word of respect 268 00:26:07.980 --> 00:26:13.420 and affection before it passes away, and that's what I believe. 269 00:26:13.420 --> 00:26:19.300 Finally, quoted a lot of great libertarians, I'm going to quote somebody who was definitely 270 00:26:19.300 --> 00:26:35.700 Hermann Göring was one of the top Nazi leaders, among those put on trial at Nuremberg. He 271 00:26:35.700 --> 00:26:41.580 was a very evil man, but he was a shrewd man when it came to politics. G.M. Gilbert was 272 00:26:41.580 --> 00:26:47.660 an American psychiatrist who interviewed Göring and the other defendants at Nuremberg. One 273 00:26:47.660 --> 00:26:51.660 One day, this is what Hermann Göring told him. 274 00:26:51.660 --> 00:26:58.060 Naturally, the common people don't want war, either in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, 275 00:26:58.060 --> 00:27:00.060 or for that matter in Germany. 276 00:27:00.060 --> 00:27:05.540 But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple 277 00:27:05.540 --> 00:27:11.060 matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or 278 00:27:11.060 --> 00:27:13.260 a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. 279 00:27:13.260 --> 00:27:23.260 Now, Dr. Gilbert, a good American sheeple, retorted that in a democracy, people have a voice. They decide. 280 00:27:23.260 --> 00:27:30.260 In the United States, he added, only Congress can declare war. That was America in 1946. 281 00:27:30.260 --> 00:27:32.260 But Goering had the last word. 282 00:27:32.260 --> 00:27:39.260 Oh, that is all well and good, but voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to do the bidding of the leaders. 283 00:27:39.260 --> 00:27:49.060 All you have to do is to tell them that they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and for exposing the country to danger. 284 00:27:49.060 --> 00:27:51.060 It always works the same way. 285 00:27:51.060 --> 00:28:08.060 The thing to keep in mind, I would say, is that we should remember that they are liars, that they consistently lie. 286 00:28:08.060 --> 00:28:16.060 Machiavelli knew that. He said, the people go by appearances rather than reality so the leaders can fool them into anything. 287 00:28:16.060 --> 00:28:46.060 There's one very, and they lie about big things, they lie about small things. One small example, except it's not a small example to his family, everybody remembers Jessica Lynch and the fabrication, the total lies on the front page of the Washington Post of this heroic woman, had to be of course a woman, who fought to the last cartridge and then she took out her bowie knife or whatever and had been 288 00:28:46.060 --> 00:29:06.060 The other poster child of their wars was Pat Tillman, a famous young football star. 289 00:29:06.060 --> 00:29:23.060 He had been drafted by some team. He was set to make a fortune. Instead, he volunteered to fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan as an army ranger. 290 00:29:23.060 --> 00:29:31.060 His brother, Kevin Tillman, volunteered at the same time. Pat Tillman was killed. 291 00:29:31.060 --> 00:29:56.060 The Pentagon story, as soon as they got the news, they burned his gear, they burned his diary, that is, the Pentagon did, and they told his family, they told the public, he'd been killed, again, fighting against the Taliban to the last cartridge, using his, whatever, but a real hero, a real American hero. 292 00:29:56.060 --> 00:29:59.060 Let's roll, okay? 293 00:29:59.060 --> 00:30:07.060 And it was only weeks afterwards that the Pentagon, which knew about it from the very start, 294 00:30:07.060 --> 00:30:12.060 told the parents what actually had happened. He'd been killed by so-called friendly fire. 295 00:30:12.060 --> 00:30:20.060 He'd been killed by his own men by some stupid mistake, the kind that always happens in war. 296 00:30:20.060 --> 00:30:40.060 Now, a few days ago, and his father denounced the Pentagon for lying to the family and having him buried under false pretenses, and now you can imagine how the mother and father feel about something like that. 297 00:30:40.060 --> 00:31:03.060 And now his brother, Kevin, who's left the Army Rangers, has denounced not only what they did to his brother Pat, his older brother Pat, but the whole war in Afghanistan, the whole war in Iraq, saying that all of it was based on a tissue, immense complex tissue of lies. 298 00:31:03.060 --> 00:31:18.060 So that's what I would leave with you. When you hear the imperialists and their apologists talk, and the media total accomplices, they just report. 299 00:31:18.060 --> 00:31:24.060 They're stenographers rather than reporters. They report that the government releases to them. 300 00:31:24.060 --> 00:31:29.060 When you hear all that, then just keep in mind they're all liars. Thank you. 301 00:31:33.060 --> 00:31:35.060 Thank you very much.