Wednesday, June 30, 2004

What Would Ayn Rand Say?

If there are any Ayn Rand type libertarians out there who believe that the U.S. had no business launching Operation Iraqi Freedom it might be interesting to get their response to the words of the master herself on the subject. In 1963 she wrote:

Dictatorship nations are outlaws. Any free nation had the right to invade Nazi Germany and, today, has the right to invade Soviet Russia, Cuba, or any other slave pen. Whether a free nation chooses to do so or not is a matter of its own self interest, not of respect for the nonexistent "rights" of gang rulers. It is not a free nation's duty to liberate other nations at the price of self-sacrifice, but a free nation has the right to do it, when and if it so chooses. From "Collectivized" Rights (Emphasis hers)

Her argument, I think, was that rights do not inhere in nations, rather they inhere in individuals. The nation has a "right" to exist only insofar as it embodies the collective rights of the individuals which comprise it and freely choose its leadership. The chief right of the individual is the right to one's life which entails the right to be free. Any government which denies these rights to its people has no legitimacy and no right to exist. In short, the destruction of such a government violates no right possessed by the tyrant government.

Rand, I think, would say today that the Bush administration was not duty-bound to liberate Iraq, but they had the "right" to do it. I wonder how many of her libertarian devotees would agree.