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Freedom In Libya

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Wotan

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When dictatorships are first overthrown, they're extremely vulnerable and open to outside influence -- especially from the semi-civilized, semi-free West, which they generally look up to, and naturally turn to. This was true of eastern Europe in 1989, the Soviet Union in 1991, Kuwait in 1991, Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003, Tunisia and Egypt this year, and most recently Libya.

These were the times when the political liberals, and other forces of freedom, needed to act. This was when the West -- led by America -- needed to insist on a new government and rule of law based upon the U.S. Bill of Rights -- or at least the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights (to which virtually all states are already pledged).

Western liberal influence ought to have come down hard on these weak, wide-open peoples and polities. America and the West ought to have influenced the hell out of them in the direction of liberty, justice, and individual rights. But in fact they did only a hint of a suggestion of a shadow of this.

Mostly the self-hating, self-destroying West violated its Age of Reason and Enlightenment liberal roots and essence by adhering to its current false and evil political philosophy of democracy -- not freedom. It promoted autonomy and self-rule -- not freedom. It backed political correctness and multiculturalism -- not freedom. It supported moral equivalency and cultural relativism -- not freedom.

Such is the loathsome and depraved political value system of today's irrational, illiberal West.

Earlier this year America and the West brutally betrayed the long-suffering people of Tunisia and Egypt. And we're about to do the same to the people of Libya.

Virtually no-one in scumbag, pro-slavery America, Britain, France, Germany, and Japan is going to speak up for freedom in Libya -- just as virtually no-one did recently in Afghanistan, Iraq, Tunisia and Egypt. The philosophically ignorant, morally unself-confident, self-hating, self-destroying, irrational, illiberal West -- led by impotent, feckless, paper tiger America -- is about to do its usual stupid, hateful, evil thing in Libya. Just watch.

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The title and first sentence seems to say that in Libya freedom is replacing dictatorship. A more accurate description is that one dictatorship is replacing another.

Regarding Kuwait, what happened there in 1991 is the U.S. government defended the Kuwait government when Iraq invaded the country. The Emir of Kuwait’s dictatorship was just as brutal as Saddam Hussein’s in Iraq.

Egypt doesn’t belong in the same sentence with Libya. Egypt’s regime change was truly local and spontaneous, Libya’s is primarily due to outsiders, principally NATO.

About the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights: on a very superficial first reading it sounds imitative of the U.S. Bill of Rights but a close inspection reveals it to be the opposite. Every “right” in the U.N. document is qualified by the equivalent of “except in the over-riding interest of the state.”

Anyway, it isn’t the West’s or America’s business to insist – with soldiers and guns and bombs – that Libyans do this or that.

There’s a sense in which America is, to quote Wotan, “scumbag, pro-slavery.” For over a generation the U.S. government – rather distinct from America and Americans – has propped up dictatorships all over the world. For another example besides that of Kuwait already mentioned, read Craig Murray, a former British ambassador to Uzbekistan. His retailing of U.S. outrages goes on and on, it seems like you can click “next page” forever. “Uzbekistan: The Banality of Evil” doesn’t seem to be there anymore, which is what I was looking for.

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Mark2 is right that Craig Murray (whose book I read) is an amazing hero and freedom-fighter, in his own way. He's also a fairly admirable lover of "wine, women, and song" and life! :thumbsup:

Mark2 is also right that the U.N.'s idea of individual rights is very inferior to America's first 10 Amendments, and subject to wide interpretation besides. Still, it's far better than what the Libyans are almost certainly going to get.

In some important sense, however, it is America and the West's job, business, and social duty to insist on liberty for the helpless political children of Libya who are currently so ignorant. America and the West should be like a brief, light parent to them governmentally. A tiny effort now by the political liberals of this earth will very likely yield large benefits for both parties later. And, yes, in some instances (where the cost is low and profit high) this insistence should take the form of guns and bombs against evil-doers and slavery-reinstaters. No more than justice allows, to be sure, but force is proper and necessary here. The socialists and jihadis should be nipped in the bud, so that the political liberals can far, far better flourish in the long run.

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