The Philosophy of Freedom

by Caleb Nelson

  The altruism of Just War theory even extends to weighing the lives of one’s own soldiers against the lives of the civilians in an enemy nation. According to Walzer, we should abstain from all judgments of the fighting and whether or not our cause is just. “We do this because the moral status of individual soldiers on both sides is very much the same: they face one another as moral equals.”

  [418]

  What do we expect our soldiers to accomplish when we tell them that their enemies are their moral equals? As to the civilians of enemy nations, Elshtain says, “According to just war thinking, it is better to risk the lives of one’s own combatants than those of enemy noncombatants.”

  [419]

  This is what modern soldiers are being taught: that they are to fight and kill their moral equals with no regard for the justice of their cause, and that they are to hold enemy civilians in higher regard than their own lives.

  This is what “discrimination” means in Just War Theory. Such a policy put forward by today’s intellectuals, Yaron Brook says, undermines “Americans’ moral confidence in our goodness and thwart[s] Americans’ ability to unequivocally identify the evil of those who seek to destroy us. A country not sure of its own right to exist is sure to be weak in the face of those who challenge that right.”

  [420]

  Holding the lives of enemy civilians as more valuable than the lives of a nation’s own civilians and soldiers is deadly and immoral. If it is possible to isolate innocents without military cost, then obviously they should not be killed. It is in no nation’s or soldier’s rational self-interest to kill innocents. But even if many of an enemy’s citizenry may not support the aggressive actions of their government, we cannot hold their innocence above our own self-preservation. The important principle to be aware of here is that any innocent deaths in war are the sole moral responsibility of the aggressor nation. This is another reason why it is important to only go to war for proper moral causes. “The civilian population of an aggressor nation is not some separate entity unrelated to its government,” Brook and Epstein point out,

  “An act of war is the act of a nation—an interconnected political, cultural, economic, and geographical unity. Whenever a nation initiates aggression against us, including by supporting anti-American terrorist groups and militant causes, it has forfeited its right to exist, and we have a right to do whatever is necessary to end the threat it poses.”

  [421]

  With the exception of objectors, the individual citizens in a country that goes to war bear some responsibility for that war. This is an important reason why people should be interested in the science of politics—they may ultimately reap consequences for the unjust and immoral actions of those they allow to rule them.

  A nation’s only moral concern should not be for the safety, comfort, or political freedoms of the enemy populace, but of ensuring the cheapest, fastest, most effective way to guarantee the safety of its own citizens and neutralize threats against their rights.

  Both the Civil War and World War II were won this way, and “once massive defeats were handed to the enemy, the causes that drove the military threats were thoroughly defeated as political forces. There are no threatening Nazis or Japanese Imperialists today, nor was there any significant political force agitating for the reemergence of the Slave South after the Civil War.”

  [422] (There is, unfortunately, a neo-Nazi resurgence happening among the youth in Europe, but this is a new threat, not the result of a failure to eradicate the old threat.)

  In war, we must choose between the morality of victory and life, or the morality of death and defeat. It is the choice between self-interest and altruism. Let us choose to defend our life and happiness.

  Review

  Q1: What are the requirements for going to war morally?

  Q2: What are the moral principles the “just-war” theory violates?

  Q3: If you could write America’s (or your own country’s) foreign policy, what would it be?

  Chapter 20: Environmentalism

  “Everything we have developed over the last 100 years should be destroyed.”

  [423]

  - Pentti Linkola, Finnish Ecological Activist

  The science is in. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that traps heat. Mankind adds billions of metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year, and the temperature of the earth has gone up slightly in the last hundred years. There is a vitriolic debate raging about whether mankind’s contribution to global temperature is a serious threat. It is not within the scope of this book to evaluate or attempt to answer that question. Both sides of the debate have been guilty of fabricating evidence to support their side. It is very difficult to find unbiased and verifiable data on the issue. However, the purpose of this book is to apply objective principles to ethics and politics, and we can still do that.

  We have focused on the necessity of having proper ethical principles. Mandatory ethics, which prohibits the initiation of force, is the minimum requirement for any ethical society. It is the foundation of all other ethical principles, but it is only the starting point. Individuals must seek their rational self-interest. This includes long-range planning. But truly long range planning should extend to the welfare of future generations. The majority of climate scientists warn that anthropogenic climate change is a serious problem. We should be responsible stewards that better our world and make sure it lasts for those who come after us.

  Politically speaking, it does not matter that earth’s climate is changing due to mankind’s influence. It is not a problem that falls under the purview of government. Remember that the only job of government is to protect the rights of its citizens. It is not the job of government to address climate change any more than it is the President’s job to make sure we eat our vegetables.

  Man’s relationship with his environment is a complex, multifaceted issue. Many particulars require experts in the philosophy of law and property rights, as well as ecology. We can, however, come to an understanding of some general principles to guide our decisions and actions in the particular issues surrounding man’s relationship with the planet he lives on. We will address those here, recognizing that this is not a comprehensive list.

  We will also examine the core philosophy and aims of the environmentalist (or green) movement and its incompatibility with capitalism and freedom. We will then examine the proper principles to guide a moral approach to the issue of man’s interaction with the earth.

  THE PERCEPTION

  “The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States. We can’t let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the U.S. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are.”

  [424] - Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund

  Many people may think of the environmentalist movement as a well-meaning movement (that is occasionally marred by crazy radicals) whose intent is to work towards awareness of man’s relationship with his environment and solutions to maintain care over the planet to keep it beautiful, healthy, and productive for generations to come. Although this view is laudable, it is also exactly wrong to ascribe such beliefs and motives to the environmentalist, or green, movement. While many who support the green movement do believe such things, they are mistaken if they believe that such ideas are the essential principles guiding the movement.

  Just as many self-proclaimed Marxists/Communists may naively have no understanding of core Communist philosophies, such as dialectical materialism and economic determinism, so also many well-meaning environmentalists have no idea what the movement they so passionately support actually, in its essence, advocates. (Perhaps, once they do, they can coin a new term to differentiate themselves from the “radical” environmentalists, such as “naturalists,” or “stewards.”)

  ENVIRONMENTALISM IS ANTI-HUMAN

  “If it were up to me, all the people associated with the Gulf oil spill, which is murdering th
e Gulf, would be executed. That would be part of the function of a state.”

  [425] - Derrick Jensen, co-author of Deep Green Resistance

  The core standard of value for the environmentalist movement is not that man’s life has value and must be protected, but that nature has value intrinsically (in and of itself, with no consideration of any value that man may derive from it) and that it must be protected even at the sacrifice of man’s life. If we hold man’s life as our highest value, such a doctrine must be considered evil.

  This doctrine is not easily found in press releases or on the front page of green websites, but it can be found explicitly nonetheless. Here is the anti-man doctrine in the environmentalists’ own words:

  “I suspect that eradicating smallpox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems.” “Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs.”

  [426] - John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal

  “We advocate biodiversity for biodiversity’s sake. It may take our extinction to set things straight.” “Wilderness has a right to exist for its own sake.”

  [427] - David Foreman, Earth First!

  “Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, is not as important as a wild and healthy planet . . . Some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.”

  [428] - David Graber, biologist, National Park Service

  “The collective needs of non-human species must take precedence over the needs and desires of humans.”

  [429] - Dr. Reed F. Noss, The Wildlands Project

  “We, in the green movement, aspire to a cultural model in which killing a forest will be considered more contemptible and more criminal than the sale of 6-year-old children to Asian brothels.”

  [430] - Carl Amery, Green Party of Germany

  The environmentalist movement today is not concerned with the health and well-being of mankind, either now or in the future. If it were, it would advocate for the one social system which ensures that the earth and its resources are used in the most productive, life-serving ways possible—that social system is capitalism.

  ENVIRONMENTALISM IS ANTI-CAPITALISM

  “We need a culture that is self-consciously oppositional to things like corporate power, capitalism, industrialization and ultimately civilization, because that is the arrangement of power on this planet right now.”

  [431] - Lierre Kieth, co-author of Deep Green Resistance

  Environmentalism rejects capitalism because it rejects a basic epistemological premise of capitalism—that man must be left free to act on his own judgment. It also rejects a fundamental ethic of capitalism—that the requirements of man’s life constitute the standard of moral value.

  Instead of considering mankind as having intrinsic value, environmentalism holds that nature, or the environment, has value intrinsically. Nature is valuable in and of itself, regardless of what man requires to live; this value must be protected from nature’s only enemy: mankind.

  At a UN-backed conference in Venezuela of around one hundred and thirty green activist groups in 2014, the Margarita Declaration was issued: “The structural causes of climate change are linked to the current capitalist hegemonic system. To combat climate change it is necessary to change the system.”

  [432]

  Though some environmentalists will often claim to be opposed to merely “indiscriminate” or “excessive” use of natural resources, their ideology actually compels them to oppose any interaction with nature for human purposes. “Preserving nature” is an idea that conflicts with mankind’s requirements for life. To survive, mankind must interact with nature, alter it, and use it.

  Today we see green activists even starting to criticize even the public’s willingness to “go green.” As Michael Ableman, an organic farmer and environmental author, said, “The assumption that by buying anything, whether green or not, we’re solving the problem is a misperception. Consuming is a significant part of the problem to begin with.” In other words, the problem isn’t that the public is “buying green”; the problem is that the public buys anything at all.

  [433]

  While there are many degrees of environmentalists (as in any movement) the core philosophy of this movement is not to value and preserve nature to benefit man, but to value nature untouched by man—which means man un-benefited by nature.

  Environmentalism does not and cannot advocate capitalism, because if people are left free to act on their judgment, they will use the materials of the earth to prosper and produce the requirements of human life. Such use of the earth is necessary for any human to survive. We must have food, water, clothing, and many other things produced from the earth’s elements in order to live.

  DO PEOPLE REALLY NEED ALL THIS STUFF?

  Some may argue that cars, computers, petroleum, and electricity are not requirements of human life. Actually, in much of today’s society, they are. Take an average American worker as an example. First, his family lives by his income which he makes by driving to work at a local retail outlet in a car, bus, or train. His work only exists as it is because of automobiles and gasoline and computers, etc. If we didn’t have those he wouldn’t even have an income, nor would his employer even exist in the form it does today.

  The worker also relies on all these things to bring him food from far away factories and farms. Most of the things he uses every day are either made with fossil fuels or are produced and distributed by them. If he didn’t have them, and had to farm and hunt for subsistence, even with the help of neighbors, he and his family would probably die pretty soon. Without power or transportation, it’s not hard to imagine that most of New York City would begin to starve in three or four days. So while these things were not necessary for life throughout most of history and don’t exist in impoverished countries, they are necessary, literally, for the billions of people that can now only exist because of these things—billions that would have died in centuries past at much lower levels of production.

  ENVIRONMENTALISM AS A POLITICAL WEAPON

  “Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, to have approached global warming as if it is real means energy conservation, so we will be doing the right thing anyway in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.”

  [434] - Timothy Wirth, former U.S. Senator (D-Colorado)

  Many politicians, parties, and bureaucrats do not care about the preservation or exploitation of the planet one way or the other. However, they still espouse the green movement for popularity and for political clout. This is admitted openly. Canada’s former environmental minister, Christine Stewart, said, “Climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.” You should recognize the lingo by now. Those words mean “social justice” and “economic equality,” i.e. wealth redistribution policies. Environmentalists have thus been humorously compared to watermelons—a thin skin of “green” on the outside, but mostly “red” (meaning Communist) in the middle.

  Some scientists now claim that their studies, which show how global warming has been greatly exaggerated, have been suppressed from publication because it was “less than helpful” to the climate cause. Professor Bengtsson said, “The problem we now have in the climate community is that some scientists are mixing up their scientific role with that of a climate activist.”

  [435]

  Christine Stewart also said that “No matter if the science is all phony, there are still collateral environmental benefits [to global warming policies].”

  [436] So even if all the science is bunk, the government interventionist policies should still be enacted because they result in good things, we are told. The contrasting moral alternative to such a view is that even if all the science is correct, it does not constitute a carte blanche for the violation of human rights by the government or by other citizens. Education and persuasion are the moral alternatives to government force.

  OWNERSHIP AND STEWARDSHIP

  The first true governing principles
of the environmentalist controversy are the principles of ownership and stewardship. We discussed these in some depth in the early chapters of this book.

  The morality of private property rights must be the foundation for any discussion on climate change or environmentalism. Yet, it is exactly such rights that the environmentalist movement denies. Such a principle includes the recognition that the initiation of force is evil, and that property should be privately owned, with the owners having the freedom to develop or preserve the property as they judge best. Capitalism is the only social system which enables this.

  Under capitalism if a person or corporation pollutes someone’s land or water, they are held accountable in a court of law. Property rights are protected, but otherwise people are left free to act on their best judgment.