The apology you deserve.

This is an apology to friends. To good friends-- and even better ones. It is an apology for my dear Democrat friends, who can't understand my political opposition to "nation-building", as well as an apology for my dear Republican friends, who cannot stand tolerate my disrespect for "regime change". You can't understand my reluctance to vote (or maybe you just didn't hear me too well when I said that foreign policy matters to my views). So I propose a compromise-- a trite historical digression sandwiched between an unsatisfying explication and more "lame excuses".

Perhaps you will not forgive me for refusing to vote in this oh-so-critical election, and that is fine. I can live without your forgiveness so long as I can live with myself-- one is much more interesting than the other, and besides, the Baptist revival scene never excited me much. My hopes are with a victory for Kerry, but my heart is oddly cold on the subject of this farce called the 2004 presidential election. Yes, cold.

Sorting through political views, the labels are stupefying—libertarian, classical liberal, anarcho-capitalist, etc—as they obscure more than they reveal about one’s political views and understanding. While knowing what to call someone might make it easier to decide whether you superficially love or hate them, it does nothing to advance genuine political thought or debate. I prefer “independent” (but even that has connotations). Or maybe “left-libertarian”, partly because its meaning as a political designator is still uncertain. Yes, I would rather live in Sweden than Iran. Yes, I fear the big-government Religious Right as much as I fear Islamist terrorism. But I fear a democracy in which the citizens are marching in lockstep, whether for left or right, even more.

Enough ranting. Why? Why does the current election seem intellectually paralyzing? Concerns about the situation in Iraq are paramount, as I do not believe a government’s foreign policy can be neatly severed from its domestic policy.

Describing the reasons for the collapse of communism in the Eastern bloc states, Czech dissident Vaclav Havel noted that the cause of the arms race and wars was not the existence of weapons but their use for expansionist purposes. In mobilizing the population of communist states to resist the communist government, the dissidents focused on issues of human rights and peace—these issues are inseparable. War is the worst possible human condition. In his 1985 essay, “An Anatomy of Reticence”, Havel writes about communist governments, but could very well refer to the “unilateralist foreign policy” of the current administration:

“Without free, self-respecting, and autonomous citizens, there can be no free and independent nations… a state that ignores the will and rights of its citizens can offer no guarantee that it will respect the will and rights of other peoples, nations, and states. A state that refuses its citizens their right to public supervision of the exercise of power will not be susceptible to international supervision….A state that does not hesitate to lie to its own people will not hesitate to lie to other states. All of this leads to the conclusion that respect for human rights is the fundamental condition and the sole, genuine guarantee of true peace. Suppressing the natural rights of citizens and peoples does not secure peace—quite the contrary, it endangers it.”

We teach the world nothing about freedom when the Patriot Act is supported by both Democrats and Republicans alike in Congress. We teach the world nothing about the beauty of democracy and electoral choice when our choices are between two men who both supported the Patriot Act. We teach the world nothing about equality when marital relations are defined not by shared commitment and values, but on the presence of particular sex organs. We teach the world nothing about free markets when we violate trade agreements and prop up corporations through welfare and subsidies. We teach the world nothing about anything when we can’t encourage a spirit of dissent that might lead people to say, “Look, our system is currently sucking. I will not accept these choices.” And then we wonder why America lacks serious public intellectuals…

While sitting in the Gdasnk prison in 1985, ruminating over the situation of "soft communism" in Poland, Adam Michnik wrote:
"People who claim that the use of force in the struggle for freedom is necessary must first prove that, in a given situation, it will be effective, and that force, when it is used, will not transform the idea of liberty into its opposite."

This seems as true now as it was in 1985, even lacking the confines of prison walls. Michnik, however, does not stop there. He goes on to describe the kind of battles worth fighting-- the battles that many think are idealistic, silly, unpragmatic, and just plain out-of-sync.

"It is true that social change is almost always accompanied by force. But it is not true that social change is merely a result of the violent collision of various forces. Above all, social change follows from a confrontation of different moralities and visions of social order. Before the violence of rulers clashes with the violence of their subjects, values and systems of ethics clash inside human minds."

I do not condemn all war—sometimes, albeit rarely, war is necessary. I just condemn the wars that are waged continuously for circumspect reasons—the only wars of “liberation” are the ones that you fight on your own. If we truly internalized human rights and individualism, it would be very, very difficult for us to accept even the death of one innocent civilian in Iraq. There are wars worth waging, and battles worth fighting, where the costs are not so high, where the results are not measured in body counts. The best wars are in our heads, between ideas, and in our hearts, between appropriate solutions to the hauntings of the head.

Taking a position in this election is asking me to lie about something I know very, very well-- that Kerry's position on Iraq will not be that different from his ridiculous predecessor's. If voting means anything, it means standing up for your position on such issues. The current choices do not allow me to take a stand on an issue that matters to me. I want more for America and more for the world than the pretenses of stale two-party democracy and partisan demagoguery.

In November, my fingers will be crossed for Kerry. But please excuse my lack of passion—this kind of politics is not for me. I am a liberal first and foremost. It is only too bad that both my Democratic and Republican Party-thumping friends forgot about the importance of ideas, values, and principle in their stampedes for the podium and power. We’ll talk in a year—if your man wins, the world might be a better place, right? I drink with the disillusioned.