 Four years after 9-11, almost to the day, we are still at war. Every day, American soldiers are dying in Iraq and in Afghanistan, in suicide bombings and ambushes. The death toll exceeds 1,800 in Iraq with many thousands injured. While generals complain of a shortage of troops in Iraq, the military is falling short of recruitment goals. And in what seems like endless missions, thousands of our troops are stationed, not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in Kosovo, Bosnia, in a variety of bases in Europe, Central Asia, Philippines, the Pacific, and in South Korea. While our military is stretched thin, the danger is far from over. The future of both Iraq and Afghanistan remains at best uncertain. Bin Laden and many of his deputies remain at large. After the gruesome bombing on the London Underground this summer, it is clear that the enemy continues to plot new attacks. Just this weekend, a new video, apparently from Al Qaeda, threatens attacks on Los Angeles and Melbourne, Australia. And as the Department of Homeland Security implies in its advertisements, on terrorism preparedness, it is just a matter of time before one plot or another will succeed and more Americans will be slaughtered. I've now mentioned the financial cost of our extensive military operations. The missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, military spending and reconstruction efforts are costing hundreds of billions of dollars. While deeply enmeshed in these campaigns, America faces other looming threats. Iran is building nuclear weapons. Unlike the Soviets, the Iranian Mullahs do not fear death, making their use of such weapons more likely. Meanwhile, North Korea is again saber-attling, boasting about its nuclear weapon technology. Imagine the North Koreans' arrogance when they can prove they actually have nuclear bombs. Within 10 years, terrorists might have a range of sources from which to buy an atomic bomb to use against us. Russia, possessing the second largest nuclear arsenal in the world, seems to be sliding towards fascism. China, fast becoming a rival if not a threat to us, is massively boosting its military spending. Today, more than ever, the importance of foreign policy is acute. And with two unfinished wars in the Middle East and new threats elsewhere, seemingly confident voices can be heard in the realm of foreign policy. They have given many people hope and fired up their patriotism. What these voices have said comes as a refreshing contrast to the anti-American climber we heard in the run-up to the Afghan and Iraq wars. And continue to hear from many quarters almost every day. Proud of our nation's greatness, these intellectuals strike a bold pro-American cord, which has resonated powerfully with the public. These intellectuals are the neoconservatives, armed with a clear articulate foreign policy. The neocons stepped into an intellectual void exposed after 9-11. The purely pragmatic Republican and Democratic realists, as they're called, who had been appeasing terrorists and the regimes that support them for decades, had no answers for September 11th. Noted other conservatives, such as Pat Buchanan type isolationists, who hopelessly called for pulling up the drawbridge to fortress America. Nor, of course, the pacifist left. Filling this intellectual vacuum, neocons gained influence in the White House. They were well positioned, having come to dominate the intellectual life of the Republican Party. Now, not all the administration's policies adhere to the neocon vision, and many of the important decision makers are not purely neocons, of Rumsfeld and Powell, for example, are not. But much of 9-11 foreign policy has followed their recommendations, in particular the invasion and aftermath of Iraq. Charles Krauthammer, a neoconservative columnist, has triumphantly defined the Bush administration's foreign policy as, quote, neoconservatism in power, unquote. Krauthammer observed that, quote, neoconservatives have long been advocating, is now being articulated and practiced at the highest levels of government by a war cabinet composed of individuals who, coming from a very different place, have joined the neoconservative camp, and are carrying the neoconservative idea throughout the world, unquote. So who are the neoconservatives? Now, when the term neoconservative was coined by one of their critics in the 1970s, what united these intellectuals was that they all had started out as radical leftists, even communists, who had undergone a conversion. Initially, they became liberal anti-communists, and through the 60s, actively opposed the new left. Their experiences with the new and old left, with welfare programs and with Vietnam, had made them move closer to conservatism, and became increasingly critical of American liberals. Irvin Crystal, considered the godfather of neoconservatism, described the group as, quote, liberals mugged by reality. They detested the explicitly anti-American, anti-capitalist, nihilistic views of the new left. Supposedly learning from the failures of communism and socialism, they claimed to have a deep appreciation for the benefits of capitalism and the virtues inherent in America's political system. If in 1972, most neocons reluctantly voted from a govern, by 1980, all voted for Reagan. Since 1980, they have become a leading voice within the Republican Party. Today, neoconservatives are loosely connected through their affiliation with several think tanks, notably the American Enterprise Institute and magazines, such as the weekly standard, commentary, the national interest, and the public interest. Neoconservatives can be divided into two broad groups. Those who underwent a transition from left to right in the 60s and 70s, and another group who adopted neoconviews from the beginning. The converts include Irvin Crystal, Norma Pothoretz, Gene Kirkpatrick, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. The second group, some of whom are children of the older generation, include William Crystal, Robert Kagan, Marks Boot, Robert Bork, Leon Kass. Now, later on, I'll name and quote from several other neoconservatives. Now, there was disagreement regarding who is or isn't a neocon. I've used sources that are clearly identified by all as neoconservatives. There is also disagreement among neocons about specific topics, specific policies. I will consider the more principled representatives and the ideas that I think they all share. Now, what makes their foreign policy so appealing to so many people? Partially, it is that they have the President's ear and have been very influential. Broadly, their appeal rests on their seemingly unabashed pro-American stance. They regard America's political system as the best. They champion the defense of liberty. They favor ousting hostile regimes. They favor boosting military spending and building a missile defense system. Moreover, they are adamant about the role of morality in foreign policy and claim to be doing the right thing. Their morally toned pronouncements make them sound principled. You've heard echoes of this in, quote, we're with us, you're either with us or with the terrorists or axis of evil or in states who sponsor terrorism. This is in sharp contrast with the entrenched false alternative that pervades a lot of thinking on foreign policy. You can be for morality or practicality. The advocates of so-called morality are typically the liberals who reject America's national interests as irrelevant to policymaking. They are moved by grand notions of global unity and other nebulous ideas. That is what President Carter advocated and Clinton gave lip service to. On the other hand is the amoral, allegedly practical policy of conservatives like Kissinger and Nixon who will cut a deal with and accept the word of evil regimes if it's expedient to do so. Neoconservatives, however, claim that foreign policy should be guided by principle, not by short-term expediency, that there is no conflict between morality and practicality. That is, they claim that we should pursue our national interests and that is moral. Now, here's a group of amazingly prolific intellectuals and scholars who have gained a real following in Washington with a distinctive and seemingly patriotic foreign policy. They argument sound as pro-American as you can find in the last 50 years. On an emotional level, they project what to many is an attractive image of a self-confident cowboy, rooting out evildoers. They portray themselves and are seen to be standing up for America in a world so eager to blame and vilify it. And to many people, they really sound good. Now, my purpose in this talk is to evaluate their foreign policy as implemented since 9-11 and answer the question, can their foreign policy actually defend America's interests? As for my frame of reference, I'll make my views known as we go along. I'll say now that I regard foreign policy as a derivative of political philosophy, which itself is an application of ethics to a social context. The philosophy that informs my ethics and politics is objectivism, which holds reason as man's source of values and his own happiness, man's own happiness, as his highest purpose. In foreign policy, I hold that it is the government's proper function to protect the rights of its citizens from threats both domestic and foreign. The point is to ensure that each American is free to pursue his own values. I advocate that America pursue its national interests, and that is that the government do whatever is necessary to defend the rights of its citizens in the face of attack. Now, the Neocons also claim to be dedicated to pursuing our national interest in foreign policy. But this term's meaning is informed by one's moral political principles. So what do Neocons mean by America's national interest? Read the books and essays of Neoconservatives and you'll find them rejoicing in America's ascent to the role of the world's only superpower after the Cold War. A fact bemoaned by the left and acknowledged somewhat guiltily by mainstream conservatives. This unique position, they believe, enables the U.S. to assert its strength in the service of its national interests. And Neocons believe that America should assert itself by force if necessary to rid the world of hostile regimes. For example, after September 11th, Neocons urged a forceful military response. According to Neocons, besides eliminating foreign threats, two foreign policy imperatives are crucial to America's national interests. Deterrence and spreading democracy. But are they? Assuming they're implemented as the Neocons suggest, will they serve U.S. interests, deterrence and spreading democracy? That is, will they serve our self-defense? Now, consider the idea of deterrence. In a certain context, it is obviously good for a country to forestall conflicts and discourage would-be aggressors by a massive show of force. This can work to make a country more secure. But how would it be implemented? Deterrence requires that one strike at the enemy with overwhelming force and with a more confidence that suggests that you will do it again. For example, in World War II, we deterred the Japanese from continuing to fight by dropping nuclear bombs on two of their cities. These bombs decisively ended the war, saving the lives of untold Americans. Take another example. Since 1979, Iran has funded and incited terrorist attacks against Americans and for years has topped the CIA's list of the most active terrorist-sponsoring states. Had we crushed the Iranian theocracy in the 1990s, we probably would have deterred Iraq and the Taliban, which are materially and ideologically weaker enemies than Iran is. That is how I think deterrence can work. Now, how did the neocons construe deterrence? Well, one conflict in particular stands out because it did so much to galvanize the neocons. That was the war, if you remember, in Kosovo in the 1990s. U.S. military intervention in Kosovo they held was justified because it served the purpose of deterrence and most important, if done right, it would bring freedom that is liberal democracy to the Balkans. At the time, the non-pacifists left predictably advocated U.S. involvement in this humanitarian disaster. Most conservatives disputed that any U.S. interests were at stake and urged President Clinton to stay out of the conflict. But the neocons rejected the conservative position as isolationist, representing a very narrow and short-term view of Americans' interests. Now, why did the neocons believe that such intervention would advance our national interests? Well, as you may recall, the conflict in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s was a bloody ethnic war. Neocons believed that the warlord Slotovan Milosevic must be stopped. Their argument was if the United States had acted decisively and with significant ground troops and bombing against Milosevic, if the U.S. had proved its willingness to depose Milosevic, there would have been two benefits. One, the lives of hundreds of thousands of Syrians and Kosovars would have been saved. Two, other dictators around the world, like Saddam Hussein, would hesitate to threaten the U.S. or their citizens. So this was deterrence. Now, was Milosevic a direct or immediate threat to U.S. lives, property, or national security? No, and that doesn't matter. The neocons would return. Removing the tyrant from power and resolving the ethnic conflict in the Balkans would serve America's national interests by its deterrence effect on other tyrants who might become serious threats to the United States. In the short term, by spelling some U.S. blood in the Balkans, we could ensure a more peaceful world for America tomorrow. So we gained by it, after all, they claim. Now, why the neocons were so eager to intervene in Kosovo will become evident in a little while. But Kosovo didn't go the way the neocons had wanted, because Clinton was in office. But throughout the 1990s, they argued for military operations, again in the name of deterrence in another country, Iraq. Here, they had to hold on plausibility, because Saddam Hussein was suspected of developing weapons of mass destruction and was clearly hostile to the United States. He was also, they emphasized, a vicious dictator whose treatment of Kurds and others was horrifying. Outsting Saddam Hussein, the neocons argued would deter Iran, Syria, and international terrorism. Now, after 1911, neocons renewed their advocacy for a military strike against Iraq, and the White House adhered to a neoconservative battle plan. Now, has this war deterred our enemies? Observe Iran and Syria's utter contempt for American power. With the most powerful military force in the history of man at their doorsteps, Iran and Syria are undeterred. Iran continues to chase nuclear weapons technology and plays diplomatic games with the West, while both Iran and Syria aid militants in Iraq in killing U.S. troops. Iraq today is the worldwide epicenter of terrorism, right with bomb factories and serving as a training ground for new recruits. However dangerous a threat Saddam Hussein's regime was, it pales in comparison to the mess that Iraq has become and where our soldiers are perishing daily. Neither Kosovo nor Iraq has deterred any of our enemies. Why? Deterrence requires targeting real threats and crushing them with massive force. Kosovo was a failure, not because Clinton was too soft, but because it was not even a plausible threat. Now Iraq was a plausible threat, if only a minor threat relative to Iran. But being a minor threat, ideologically and materially, it could not serve as a deterrent for a much stronger country like Iran. Picking a weak adversary to beat up on does not deter the bully. Instead it emboldens him because he concludes that you're not strong enough or morally courageous enough to go after him. Moreover, rather than mounting a shock and awe campaign in Iraq, from the outset our forces were constrained by Washington, whose real purpose was evidently to establish a democracy in Iraq. Hence the delicate bombing to spare the country's infrastructure, the spectacle of our troops being made to tiptoe around holy shrines and risking their lives to rebuild sewer systems, open schools and guard voting booths, all to curry favor with the Iraqis. Now this brings us to the Neoconservatives' advocacy of spreading democracy, a policy they claim that benefits the U.S. in the long run. Does it? Neoconservatives note that the surface of the globe is crawling with dictatorships of various stripes, totalitarian governments and autocratic monarchies, regimes, which are potentially actual threats to America. Our national interest requires not only that we topple dictatorships, we are to find, we are to finish the job by erecting solid liberal democracies in their place. Now by this term they mean a system with democratic voting, some minimal protection of rights and an economy with some freedom and some government controls. Pointing to centuries of political history, Neoconservatives observe that democracies don't start wars. They tend not to ally themselves with regimes hostile to America and they sell them if ever commit atrocities, such as military executions, genocide, for which dictatorships are notorious. The more liberal democracies in the world, the safer America will be in the long run. That is the argument. Now leave aside the question of the value of democracy as majority rule. Let's assume that the Neocons wants some kind of real constitutional government that to some degree really does protect rights. Is it proper for America to wage wars to spread liberal democracy? Now my answer to that is never. Freedom in other countries is a value to America in a certain context. It is appropriate for the US to advocate for freedom, to provide moral support to genuine freedom fighters, to help already free countries like Taiwan and Israel to protect themselves against our common enemies. This is essentially an intellectual enterprise of applying America's moral sanction. It is a derivative of the fundamental purpose of government protecting its citizens' individual rights. In foreign policy, that task first and foremost requires eliminating any objective threats to our security. The only goal of war must be victory, the total defeat of the enemy, the elimination of the threat. Defeating Japan and Germany in World War II was properly the focus of that war. Now once an enemy is defeated, its political future can be considered. Note that in post-war Japan, not one American soldier died from a Japanese insurrection. If such an insurrection had arisen, I have no doubt that General MacArthur, who administered Occupy Japan, would have crushed it ruthlessly and only then engaged in political reform. Of course, making fundamental changes quickly to a country's culture and political system is probably only possible after that culture's complete and thorough defeat and humiliation. What the Neoconservatives advocate, however, is something else entirely. They offer spreading democracy as the primary, in fact as a substitute for destroying hostile forces. This is manifest in the Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq. The proper goal of subduing hostiles was subordinated to the humanitarian goal of rebuilding the society's infrastructure. Witness the frenzy a year ago to hand over authority to interim Iraqi leadership. Witness the headlong rush in January to hold representative elections. Observe that we hear only about liberating Iraq, not about crushing our enemies. Neoconservatives insist that a democratic Iraq will serve as an exemplar and so freedom will somehow sweep across the Middle East. Now, this is sheer fantasy, politics, as Ayn Rand observed decades ago. It's not a starting point, but an end product of one's deeper moral philosophical premises. To achieve the value of freedom and economic success, one must have a specific type of political system, one that respects individual rights, which can only come into existence and survive if it is based on individualism, which in turn can ultimately only survive if based on the right ethics and on a rational view of man's fundamental nature. It is precisely this kind of intellectual foundation that the Iraqis lack. While we hear ad nauseam about the rights of various Iraqi minorities, Kurds, Shiites, and tribal groups, have you heard a peep about the rights of the smallest minority, the individual? A glance at the draft Iraqi constitution is enough to see that it is a mass of contradictions that makes a mockery of individual rights while laying the groundwork for a collectivistic, perhaps theocratic, state. Now that should come as no surprise. Iraqis, like so many people in the Middle East, hold philosophical values that in fact contradict the base of political freedom. For them the individual is defined by and owes his loyalty to his membership in some group. Observe who ran for elections. There was a spectrum ranging from advocates of secular collectivistic ideologies, communists and barthists, to those defined by bloodlines such as Kurds and Turkmen, to members of various religious sects like Shiites and Sunnis. Government for them is not a means of protecting rights, but a tool for dominating over the lives of others. Observe the unconcealed and appalling power grab among the tribal leaders as they drafted a new constitution for Iraq. This pretends a resumption of tribal and sectarian strife as the group in power seeks to extract its revenge for some long ago blood feud. Now you might ask, isn't it enough for a country to have decent political institutions, even if it lacks the proper philosophical framework? The answer is no. Contrary to what the neo-conservatives might argue, even the best political institutions, including a formal, good constitution, cannot on their own safeguard freedom. You can see this in the history of the United States, the first nation deliberately founded on the principle of individual rights. To protect rights, my father's wrote a magnificent constitution and created a brilliantly integrated system of checks and balances to curb the power of the state. And yet today, Americans increasingly act, live, and own property, not by right, but only by permission of government bureaucrats. Just try applying for a business license, or consider the ever-growing maze of regulations that businesses contend with, and consider the recent decision by the Supreme Court in the Kello case that totally eviscerates property rights. The gradual erosion of rights happened because this nation lacks the proper moral philosophy to sustain its political system. Without that moral philosophical underpinning, America saw the rise of statism, the view that the individual belongs to, and serve the state, not his own interests. It is philosophy that ultimately shapes the course of history, not economics, and not politics. Now, of course, Iraqis, like all human beings, do have free will, and they can change their views. True, there has been an intellectual revolution sweeping them at least, and it did not begin with Iraq war, nor has it been sparked by U.S. efforts to spread democracy. It began half a century ago, and I am referring to the fiery upsurge of radical Islam. Its first major victory was the establishment of Islamic theocracy in Iran. This ideology seeks to impose Islamic rule throughout the world, with varying degrees in Nigeria, Sudan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere. Radical Islamists have successfully imposed Sharia, Islamic religious law, as the foundation of law and government, in Iraq. Not only is Islam recognized by the draft constitution as the official religion of the state, and the basic source of law, Islamists have already taken over big chunks of the south, in the city of Basra, turning it into a theocracy akin to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, all under the noses of the British and Americans. Yet neo-conservatives vow to bring democracy toward ignorance of individual rights, of reason, of what capitalism is and should be. This improbable effort, depending on the specific case, might deliver temporary respite and maybe a little freedom, but it won't last. In a place like Iraq, mystical and tribal to the core with no history of respect for reason or the individual, freedom, even in the short run, is impossible. People can vote as they did in Iran this summer. Voting does not make for a free country. As Einran noted regarding Vietnam, quote, the right to vote is a consequence, not a primary cause of a free social system, and its value depends on the constitutional structure implementing and strictly delimiting the voter's power. Unlimited maturity rule is an instance of the principle of tyranny. Outside the context of a free society, who would want to die for the right to vote. Yet that is what the American soldiers were asked to die for. Not even their own vote, but to secure that privilege for the South Vietnamese, who had no other rights and no knowledge of rights or freedom, unquote. Now just to replace South Vietnam with Iraq, there is no difference. The blood of American soldiers did not fertilize the growth of South Vietnam in Vietnam, nor can it do so in the intellectually barren soil of the Middle East. Should Iraq and other supposed democracies fall into the hands of our real enemies in the Middle East, totalitarian Islam, it would be a disaster. This could happen without elections, but imagine the tragedy of American troops dying so Iraqis can vote in Islamists. If this happens democratically, such regimes will gain legitimacy in the eyes of the world. President Bush has confessed as much. If Iraqis or Lebanese or Palestinians elect radical Islamists, he will respect their vote because he said, quote, democracy is democracy, unquote. To sum up, neoconservatives advocate using a military-military force in the name of deterrence and to spread freedom for the sake of our national interest. But this policy does not in fact serve our national interest. It has cost us the irreplaceable lives of thousands of American soldiers and left real threats principally Iran undeterred. Now it is not an accident that the neoconservatives found policy fails to achieve security for the United States. That it is impractical, cannot be blamed on the Bush administration's application of the policy. I would argue, as Krauthama does, that the administration has been applying neoconservative policies consistently. No. It is impractical because it is based on an impractical philosophy which despite advocating for the national interest is thoroughly self-sacrificial. Now we call the neoconservatives advocacy of military intervention in Kosovo. The primary reason for risking the lives of American troops in the former Yugoslavia was that one ethnic tribe was attempting to cleanse the land of another group. That is, human beings were suffering and dying in vast numbers. It was a humanitarian disaster. This imperative surfaces repeatedly as a theme running through neoconservative writings. For example, many neocons supported our intervention in Somalia and objected when we left. Some of them regret that the U.S. did not send troops to prevent the horrific massacres in Rwanda. And today they are calling for U.S. intervention in Sudan or in any place in the world where there happens to be a massacre. As Robert Kagan and Vance Surchick explained, quote, suddenly Sudan's barbarity almost certainly will continue in the absence of effective action in U.S. leadership. The failure of world nations to force Sudan to change its behavior is merely the latest reminder of a fact we should have learned since the end of the Cold War in the Balkans, in Rwanda, and in Iraq. They continue, quote, for months it has been obvious that stopping Sudan's campaign in defer will require putting foreign troops on the ground. It has been obvious that some of these troops will have to be Americans, unquote. Such interventions are, of course, pitched as advancing U.S. interests. Observing this connection how Iraq and Afghanistan were initially sold as self-defense wars was some plausibility. But the alleged goal of serving U.S. interests and implying deterrence to the hostiles was indeed a fig leaf. And having served its purpose, the fig leaf has been discarded. The neocons, along with the Bush administration, celebrate the humanitarian angle of rebuilding these nations. In their book and Enter Evil, David Frum and Richard Perl extolled the American people's response to September 11th, quote, they have fought two campaigns on the opposite sides of the globe saving millions of Afghans from famine and the nation of Iraq from tyranny, unquote. It is not surprising that both wars have become long-term commitments to the new regimes, with Americans as peacekeepers and food suppliers. We want a war not to protect America, but to mount operation Iraqi freedom to liberate the Middle East. For neoconservatives, American humanitarian intervention is a moral obligation. In a book selling the Iraq war before the war, Kaplan and Crystal, right, quote, America cannot escape its responsibility for maintaining a decent world order. The answer to this challenge is the American idea itself, and behind it is the unparalleled military economic strength of its custodian, unquote. The United States has a duty to protect the poor, the suffering, the downtrodden. Why? Because of its strength, its virtue, its wealth. As Max Boot, former editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page, writes, after all, quote, why not use some of the awesome power of the US government to help the downtrodden of the world, just as it is used to help the needy at home, unquote. Now, this, in essence, is global welfare. Now, do you protest that this requires imperiling countless American lives that no real US interest is thus served? Again, to quote Max Boot, who offers a revealing answer, quote, it is a curious morality that puts greater value on the life of even a single American pilot, a professional who has volunteered for combat than on hundreds, even thousands of Kosovo lives. Now, did you catch that monstrous statement? On this vicious premise, American lives, if they're soldiers, are disposable. It is immoral to value our lives more than the use of the poor Kosovo's. Now, the same premise underlies the neo-conservatives flippant observation that Iraq has so far cost us a trivial 1,800 US lives. The implication being that the plight of Iraq justifies spilling rivers of American blood, that we should be willing to keep adding zeros to the end of this death toll. In morality, neo-conservatives advocate of self-sacrifice, altruism. Now, do not confuse altruism with generosity or compassion towards others. Altruism is the moral code that holds self-sacrifice as the highest moral duty. When I say sacrifice, I don't mean the rejection of the worthless, but of the precious. It does not mean helping your friends, but selling them out to your enemies. It means the surrender of a greater value for the sake of a lesser or non-value. Neo-conservatives are for the wholesale sacrifice of our wealth and lives for the sake of Kosovo's, Iraq's, and anyone else deemed needy. It is not just with regard to Iraq or Kosovo, Sudan, or Rwanda. It is not just an occasional aberration that they urge self-sacrifice. This is a moral principle underlying their foreign policy. As one neo-con scholar has observed, quote, Americans had nothing to gain from entering Vietnam. Not land, not money, not power. According to the neo-conservatives the American effort in Vietnam was a product of one of the noblest traits of the American character. Altruism in the service of principles. Unquote. Sacrifice, however, cannot be sold to the American people at face value. They would find a blatant call to selfless service repundant. Instead, neo-conservatives seek to smuggle in their altruism by making it seem beneficial to the victim, the American people. This is why they invoke the national interest. Because it suggests that there is some practical benefit to us. Of course, we saw that as a fraud. It is merely a fig leaf to make respectable, selfless humanitarian interventions in Kosovo, Sudan, Liberia, and Iraq. Part of the fraud entails appearing to be reasonable. After all, an outright call for policing every dictatorship or bringing relief to every famine would rightly strike the American public as impractical and evil suicidal. There is, after all, a long, long list of so-called rogue regimes. So the U.S. should be a reluctant sheriff. To quote, prioritizing targets according to how serious they are and the costs of military intervention. But altruism is just beneath the surface. What would arouse this reluctant sheriff? Quote, when the threatened townsfolk turn to it in desperation. In other words, the desperate need of others, regardless of whether their plight is deserved or not, will claim on American lives. Now listen to Condoleezza Rice pitching the same idea, relying on the pretense that selfless service to others is actually somehow egoistic. Quote, as the president has said, we have a responsibility to build a world that is not only safer but better. The United States will fight poverty, disease, and oppression because it is the right thing to do and the smart thing to do, unquote. Fighting our enemies to make the world safer for Americans is egoistic. Fighting poverty, disease, and oppression of others is not. Yet she presents the right thing to do, selfless service to others as the smart thing to do, the practical way of building America's interests. Now this massive deception is what neocons count on when they argue that we should use American troops as global policemen preventing mass killings, helping to topple dictators, encouraging and if necessary actively building democracies. Now of course presenting altruism with a veneer of self-interest is not a new gimmick. The same gimmick, altruists, particularly liberals have long used to justify status programs. For example, to prevent crime everyone must be taxed to help the poor because if you don't you might one day be a victim of a crime resulting from poverty. That's how it's pitched. A proper response to crime in a free society is to incarcerate and punish criminals, not to have the state do the criminal's job of stealing wealth from those who earned it and give it to those who did not. And for our policy the response to hostile nations is to make them non-threatening by whatever means necessary in order to protect American lives. Now I would add that flushing millions of dollars down the welfare sewer is less heinous than more crime than sacrificing our troops' lives in an attempt to install democracy across the globe. The argument regarding crime rests on the notion that society is a collective. Some sort of super-organism apart from its superior to the sum of individual members. The same is true on a larger scale of the neo-conservative argument for making the U.S. a global policeman. Underlying it is the premise that every country in the world is somehow interconnected. That immorality anyway will somehow be detrimental to the U.S. sometime in the future. On this view a short-term sacrifice will bring rewards in the future. But to whom? For what? We will see in a moment but obviously not to individual Americans. Indeed, the neo-conservatives seldom talk about life, liberty, and the pursuit of each individual's happiness. The concept of individualism is seldom discussed in their voluminous literature. As befits their collectivism when they do talk about individual freedom they regard it as a threat to the community. Individuals are mindless beasts and it is dangerous to give them too much liberty. Gertrude Hebofab explains A liberty that is divorced from tradition and convention from morality and religion that makes the individual the sole repository and arbiter of all values such a liberty is a grave peril to liberalism itself. Recall that many neo-conservatives begun as socialists and trotskirts and converted gradually to conservatism. In essentials though nothing has changed. Like the left they hold that it is immoral to serve one's own interests but moral to sacrifice for others. Like the left they hold that one has duties to his community but on a global scale in their ethics they need to let your blood brothers of the left. Now there is one important difference however the neo-conservatives are not explicitly anti-american on the contrary as I have emphasized they are staunch defenders of American greatness and they portray themselves as patriots which raises the question what animates the seeming patriotism. Now they not only claim to be patriotic the neo-cons have a mission. Now that is what makes them so dangerous. As Kaplan and Krystal write quote promoting democracy is a pragmatic goal in that it makes the world more congenial to America but while it is a sound strategy it is also America's particular inheritance Now what exactly is this inheritance and what does it mean in practice? Neo-cons take their inspiration from among others Theodore Roosevelt at the turn of the 20th century he called on America to find a higher purpose to take on global responsibilities quote a nation's first duty is within its borders Roosevelt said but it is not thereby absolved of its duties in the world as a whole and if it refuses to do so it merely forfeits its right to struggle for a place among the people to shape the destiny of mankind unquote For neo-cons America's quote sense of responsibility to a world community beyond our own borders is a virtue unquote we will need a president who can summon Americans to meet their great destiny as a people who can appeal to their unique sense of idealistic patriotism and inspire them to engage in present sacrifice when necessary to promote future security unquote war a mission to bring freedom to the world will inspire the American people imbue them with national pride again and again American global leadership based on American principles reinforces our commitment to common ancient honorable ideals and reminds us of who we are unquote by accepting quote a great destiny as a people unquote according to neo-cons by embracing our national inheritance America would be lifted quote into a place of honor for the world's great powers now this seeming love of country is intoxicating to many Americans who truly value this nation neo-cons thus have the means to rally mass support for their vision and this is what makes them so dangerous now what facts of reality give rise to the concept of an American inheritance or an American destiny the term has no rational meaning a society is merely a collection of individuals a nation can have no goals only individual citizens do a destiny is an inevitable fate that is ordained, determined imposed by forces outside one's control accepting a destiny means recognizing and obeying whatever force is supposedly in charge, not yourself according to neo-cons it is our duty to fulfill this American destiny but what is duty what facts of reality give rise to a legend duty none a duty is an unchosen moral obligation it means quote the moral necessity to perform certain actions for no reason other than obedience to some higher authority without regard to any personal goal motive, desire, or interest unquote the source of this malignant concept is not reality, but some alleged power that wipes out rational judgment as iron hand observed quote duty destroys reason it supersedes one judgment one knowledge and judgment making the process of thinking and judging irrelevant to one's actions unquote of course the neo-cons not the only ones who call upon people to fulfill a moral duty communists used to invoke the duty of the productive to sacrifice and submit to the demands of the needy Nazis invoked the duty to serve the German volk or nation the superior race in religious ethics man owes duties to a supernatural god whether the duty is to serve the poor once parents the race or mankind as a whole or whether it is for the sake of god or another supernatural being the source of duty is always mystical and non-rational now what to make of a duty to fulfill American destiny this alleged American destiny is nationalist collectivist myth now we Americans and noble people is the great tradition but what does that mean it means according to the neo-cons that we have a responsibility to the world give your wealth give of your wealth of your life for the sake of the nation's honor why because it is your duty to fulfill to help fulfill our world historical destiny now this in essence is a fascist call for sacrifice in the name of the state with a mystical ideal destiny as the motivator it is a demand for nationalist submission in fact cloaked in appearance of upholding individual freedom the goal of inspiring the populace with an unquestioning nationalist zeal flows directly from the neo-conservatives collectivism the collectivist regards man as an incompetent, helpless mindless creature who must be fooled and ruled he must be made to serve the alleged needs of the group now you might be thinking that this rhetoric of destiny and duty must be limited to the fringes of the neo-conservatives of the neo-conservative movement well think again consider this recent pronouncement I am confident too that history has an author who fills time and eternity with this purpose we know that evil is real but good will prevail against it we did not ask for this mission yet there is honor in history's call from the same speaker advancing these ideals is the mission that created our nation it is the honorable achievement of our fathers now it is the urgent requirement of our nation's security and the calling of our time speak of course is President George W. Bush who is shameless about his religious faith he replaces American destiny with a religious calling now the religion does not come up explicitly in the neo-cons discussion of foreign policy the writings lean heavily on religion it is central to their intellectual outlook for them religion is the means of ordering society of inducing men to be moral of creating a stable world I'll let the godfather of neo-conservatism urban crystal explain this point he writes quote it is crucial to the lives of all our citizens that they encounter a world that possesses transcendent meaning in which the human experience makes sense unquote in other words people need a transcendent destiny a religious calling to give their life meaning one of the philosophical inspirations for the neo-conservatives Reinhold Niebuhr a theologian writes quote religious ideas and traditions are the ultimate sources of the moral standards from which political principles are derived in any case both the foundation any cultural structure are religion unquote the neo-conservatives may have discarded communism and socialism as impractical but they did not renounce communism's moral premise they claim to be pro-capitalists who cherish America but not because it is the system capitalism the system of individualism and egoism they want to harness America's equal economic political power as a practical means to their altruistic ends making the able, prosperous, productive sacrifice for the sake of the weak, poor, needy of the world the justification for this is not Marx's historical determinism but another alleged mystical force religion it is religion that imposes a duty to fulfill its nationalist destiny when neo-cons talk of boosting the greatness of America a purpose that resonates with many people they mean enforcing America's destiny that is enforcing a supposed moral duty to self-sacrifice like communists who foisted their ideological yoke on country after country unlike religious zealots who imposed the word of God on others some neo-cons now granted a minority have called for the establishment of a U.S. empire this empire would require stationing U.S. troops all over the world to safeguard peace and ensure American dominance it would also increase our ability to encourage peacefully or by force regime change and democracy some neo-cons contend that we already are a de facto empire with up-teen far-flung military outposts and call for the administration and the American people to embrace this now how can an empire be accomplished when our military is already stretched thin while they have not called for a military draft they are not intellectually opposed to one after all they are not truly advocates of individual rights if their plans are not met through voluntary enlistment I have no doubt they will start advocating for a draft and why not even as it blatantly violates the rights of our young men a draft would serve the nation's destiny it would be patriotic neo-conservatives are an insidious intellectual force they endanger America's survival if they win America may still be here but it will not be the America that a rational person values the nation of whose ideals defining father's stake their lives in sacred honor the short-term dangers are evident in the newspaper headlines Iraq is a mess billions of dollars squandered hundreds of our troops dead thousands injured and for what so that the various tribes ethnic groups and sects can fight for the spoils so that the supreme council for the Islamic revolution in Iraq can win an election so that Iran can have more influence so that terrorists can hone their skills in killing American troops Iraq is a precedent for future campaigns to spread freedom on the self-defeating approach of hurting peasants into voting booths this needlessly risks American lives our overextended military may well become demoralized as these missions drag on and as further interventions become necessary to keep warring tribes from slaughtering each other with their democratically acquired power as I noted some neoconservatives have pushed for the government to send troops to Sudan other such missions will arise and so will the cause for sending our forces to police the world in the name of fulfilling our unique destiny all the while real threats mount we've completely neglected Iran and Saudi Arabia the two countries most responsible for it are in Islam a real enemy they, Iran, Saudi Arabia terrorists are emboldened by the shameful sight of American forces acting as international social workers turning to the long term the dangers are enormous neoconservatives cash in on the remnants of America's self-confidence and patriotism Americans justly rejected the neilism of the radical left Americans do not believe we are as evil as the terrorists that our soldiers are monsters that war is always wrong and that we are an immoral country neoconservatives count on the appeal of a self assertive foreign policy they portray themselves as patriots what they actually value though is not that America that defends at home and abroad individuals right to life, liberty property in the pursuit of happiness but America is a collectivistic nation endowed by history or by God with a heroic mission with a fig leaf of advancing America's national interests neoconservative smuggle into foreign policy that demands a sacrifice of wealth and lives for our alleged destiny all of this paves the road for worse more mystical and collectivistic political movements everything that the neocons push for also advances the goals of the more consistent mystics and collectivists to the extent that the neocons sell themselves as pro-America they must appear to be pro-self-interest and try to put a humane face on the cannibal morality of altruism but this will make them seem inconsistent and mealy mouthed by comparison with more ardent and unabashed advocates of nationalistic collectivism those more aggressive mystics will feel emboldened to declare themselves outright advocates of altruism and self-sacrifice for the sake of American destiny or for the sake of the charismatic supreme leader to the extent that the neocons foreign policy fails to the extent that American sacrifices failed failed to yield security as they must fail so the more consistent nationalists will come forward the American people will rightly feel that a policy of self-interest as the neoconservative sold it was indeed a failure because it was not bold enough the solution of a strong man who compels obedience and the surrender of freedom in America to achieve the global triumph of so-called liberty in the rest of the world by such means the road is paved America's fall will not be brought about America's fall will be brought about not by those advocating hatred for America not by those professing love for it not by those denouncing capitalism but by those professing admiration for it not by those denying America's right to self-defense but by those claiming to support it but I do not want to end on a note of despair America is not yet lost there is still time in my view to help save America America we who value this country and our own lives we who rightly oppose the corrupt morality of self-sacrifice we must oppose the neoconservatives for the future of this country their foreign policy is not better than nothing it is worse it is immoral and we must not give them our sanction at every step we must challenge them Ayn Rand the greatest opponent of communism ever did not support America's wars in Korea and in Vietnam she did not regard them as better than the alternative in combating communism she identified those wars for what they were immoral and urged that the troops return home and that America embrace the real principle of self-defense injustice to our troops and to our own values it is time we called for a stop of the sacrifice of American servicemen in Iraq let's fight this war properly target our real enemies Islamic totalitarianism and recommit ourselves to the principle of self-defense or else bring the troops home our soldiers are not expendable animals to be sacrificed on the altar of it's better than nothing we must expose the neoconservatives and their disciples in Washington for the altruists and collectivists that they really are we must present the American people with a consistent true philosophy we must fight for reason and against religion for egoism and against altruism and against collectivism for capitalism and against fascism now such a philosophy exists and you know it's originator Ein Rand if you desire to save America you will find the necessary ammunition in her books arm yourselves with a philosophy grounded in reality and intended for life on this earth the neoconservatives win by default and deception we have reality on our side let us fight for what is true and refuse to support our destroyers America does not have a destiny its future lies in the choices we in this room make in our success in the battles we face we'll take Dr. Goethe Dr. Goethe now we'll take questions now if you will come to the mic in the middle and I emphasize questions we've got one Richard can I ask you to comment briefly on the effect of a lack of rational ideologies a foundation for public policy in some other countries one example might be they're trying to build a basis for policy on the British labor party or recently when I saw the media coverage of the Gaza settlers being dragged out of their homes at least the way the media covered it none of them are quoted as saying this is a a vain attempt at appeasement to get Palestinians to love Israel or even that they were defending western civilization in individualism and values they were wearing phylacteries and making basically an argument of escaping from Queens to live in the Zionist state do you have any comments on how that how similar problems play out in other countries yeah I mean they all play out pretty much the same that is that in all the examples mentioned and really in every country across the world the even the best people the ones who sound the best like Tony Blair sometimes sounds about terrorism are completely inconsistent and ultimately undercut the good stuff that they say and do once in a while so I think the best example of Tony Blair was the response to the London bombings what was the response to the London bombings well in the immediate aftermath I mean I think the next day the G8 was meeting in Edinburgh I think in Scotland and they immediately had a press conference and what did they say they said okay in order to fight terrorism what we're going to do is we're going to give was it 40 billion dollars to Africa and 9 billion dollars to the freedom loving peaceful Palestinians in other words in order to stop terrorism in London we are going to appease the poor and the violence of the world we're going to help terrorists get funding so in order to stop terrorism that is altruism we're going to take the hard-earned wealth of our citizens and dish it out to the Hamas which is where it's going in order to stop terrorism now those are the kind of contradictions that are inevitable when you hold a false morality and a false political philosophy there is no possibility of consistency in that case now of course in Israel the same thing happens you're either in Israel an appeasing leftist who wants to give the Palestinian everything they want including money to fund terrorism like Tony Blair or you're a mystic fanatic who has no whose only reason for fighting is because the Old Testament tells you to do so there is no rational approach to politics in Israel and you can see it in the mishmash of policies that result from that there is no coherent positive agenda that any Israeli any Israeli politician has and it's because of their flawed philosophical premises they're all altruists, they're all collectivists how do you fight Palestinian collectivism with Israeli collectivism well you can't in spite of the fact that the Israelis are better whites more they are peaceful, they are black they are white as compared to the Palestinians black in terms of a contrast that white is suicidal turns itself I guess into red by committing suicide because of a lack of a coherent rational consistent philosophy and therefore every free country without such a philosophy is destined to deteriorate and ultimately to commit suicide unless the philosophy changes I mean if I can if I take what you're saying you're saying that it's the same essential contradiction that the U.S. held but in diluted form so that you have the American sense of life which is pro-reason, pro-individualism and pro this world and they sense that there's something evil about these terrorists and when you hear Tony Blair speak occasionally he'll do it in a kind of moral outrage terms that there's something really evil about these people but they can't advocate the good the moment he has to say well what are we going to replace it with well we're going to replace it with altruism we're going to replace it with aid to Africa aid to the Palestinians etc so it's the same in diluted form because they're still westerners and to the extent that the British-Israelis are still westerners they have some inkling that there's something good about reason there's something good about freedom there's something good about individualism but they have no intellectual or moral voice with which to defend that and they can't have it, absent objectivism I think and therefore they don't act based on it so it's a voice and then the actions contradict that remnant of a sense of life that they have Dr. Brooke you talked about the cost of this global democracy in terms of dead US soldiers and billions of dollars but can you quantify that more to the individual American what this is going to cost them in the next 10 years in reality what's it going to cost for an individual American in the next 18 years I cannot put a dollar sum but it's a huge dollar sum for every individual American but it's much more than that it's going to cost us our children it's going to cost us freedom in this country but it's going to cost us the lives of our children it's going to cost us huge amounts of money and therefore it's going to cost us in a standard of living but ultimately it's going to cost us freedoms I mean look at the Patriot Act which in many ways is a places huge restrictions on our individual rights now it would be okay in an emergency for a period of time where war is fought and then it's repealed after the war but this war has been set up in such a way that it's never going to be over I mean President Bush just said this war will never be won therefore the Patriot Act and I fear for much worse than the Patriot Act coming down the pike because they're not willing to fight a war that is winnable and therefore will suffer Patriot Act like violations of rights for the for the indefinite future you know maybe forever hopefully not but that is the downside so it is going to affect each one of our lives in dollars in the life of our friends, families children and in our rights and our freedoms I just don't see it in the media as being filtered down to everyday life for American people for instance the falling the value of the dollar falling and the real cost of this war we're just really not getting it quantified sure but how could the media do it I mean A they agree with the policy well I could say they're mortgaging your children yeah but the media is not going to do it because A they agree with the policy is ultimately most liberals agree with the idea of democracy being democracy and helping in Kosovo and helping in all these other places it's consistent with the altruism and secondly in terms of economics these people can't even understand what raising taxes does to our economy this is much more abstract and difficult and some of them even believe that wars I mean there's still the mythology that wars create economic activities so I mean there's all kinds of weird economic ideas out there in the culture thank you it seems that Americans in the west are very well educated in being able to take care of themselves being able to make a good living and look out for their own interest to a certain extent why do you think they are so easily deceived by the neocons and what would it take since objectivism does have truth and reality on its side for them to actually see it and what would be your prognosis I don't think it's a question of being so easily deceived the assumption of the question is that selfishness is obvious and that while Americans go out they earn their living they work hard and so you have to do something to pull one over on the Americans I think it's much more fundamental than that it's that the only morality that has been preached for the last 2000 years is altruism and that is what resonates in people's mind as what it means to be moral the other activities are relegated to the practical side while you have to do that to stay alive to make a living so when you get intellectuals like the neoconservatives who preach altruism but say well in the long run this is going to benefit you that okay someone rational can think okay this is what morality means and they're saying well if I practice morality I'm going to benefit from it and that is there to lose but what you need for the American people to grasp and it takes a long effort is that there is another morality that rejects the whole concept of sacrifice and that you have to give up for 20, 30, 50 years and then somehow in some distant future you're going to achieve utopia which is what all the altruists preach in one form or another from religion to the secularization of religion with Nazism, Communism it's wrenched in the culture it's not something well they've somehow pulled some media coverage and got on Fox News or something like that and now everyone's deceived by them it's that they preach altruism in its most palatable form and that's why it's been swallowed by the American people yeah and there's nothing unique about this I mean American people are swollen income tax they've swollen the welfare state they've swollen Social Security they've swollen exactly the same recipe they've sold to you it's not sold as you shall sacrifice for the sake of the greater good it's sold as look you have to sacrifice a little bit today by getting less income but in the long term it'll benefit you somehow and at the same time it's good for society you know so everything in American culture politics is today sold like that there's nothing unique about foreign policy but actually we're gonna take to have the Americans see this I actually think that the war is an opportunity in a sense to show the American people the consequence of altruism in a way that is you know more real to them than it would be with taxes with welfare with you know things like that because it's a life and death issue people are actually dying and I think it's incumbent on us those of us who support objectivism to point this out all the time on an active in an active way that's why this issue of foreign policy in Iraq is so important for example to bring up all the time because it is a real you know blood and guts example of the consequence of altruism which is often difficult to explain to people in abstract form here it is people are actually dying in Iraq people are questioning people don't understand on the one hand they're pro-American and they wanted to go to war with Iraq because Saddam Hussein was a bad guy on the other hand it isn't working out the way they expected so there's confusion it's a wonderful opportunity for us to step in and say this is why it's not working this is the problem we went to Iraq for the wrong reason this is what we should have done and I get very positive responses from Americans when I do that opportunity of bringing up altruism and rational self-interest as an alternative to altruism they can see it in a much more concrete way than I think for other issues because it's life or death it's immediate assuming that we attack and crush a legitimate threat under what conditions if any do you advocate that we stay and spend time and money to impose a secular rational government of a nation? that's a really good question under what conditions would I advocate actually staying and helping the country become a free country and I think that as you said I think that a necessary step is to crush the culture to humiliate it to make it clear and obvious to it and that it needs to look elsewhere for solutions the second is there has to be some reason to think that this culture is open to reason and individualism or some sense of individualism there has to be something in the culture that is pro-reason or there has to be some you know pattern in its history that suggests that they're interested in pursuing reason so take for example Japan Japan when we defeated it was a pretty impressive industrial power it built the most powerful aircraft carriers and military machinery known to man before they attacked Paul Harbour and got us really mad and we started building even better ones but up to that point they built stuff they had a real industry they had a real economy and why why did they have that because in the middle of the 19th century they were opened up to the west was it Admiral Perry I think it was Captain Perry opened up Japan to the west and they started taking western values they introduced western schooling they introduced western industry they even had during periods in the 19th century elements of political freedom and I'm not an expert in Japanese history but you can tell there must have been something about Japan that allowed people to be free enough at least to create the kind of stuff that they built in the 20s and 30s and 40s that led up to the war and then they were taken over by you know by maybe a more ancient tradition in Japan which is military kind of imperialism the same in Germany Germany had a certain culture pre-World War II there were elements within Germany that respected reason it could have never become the kind of economic power that it became during the 19th and early 20th century without elements of reason within that culture now take the Middle East in contrast to that there is not a thing not one thing that the Middle East actually produces that any country in the Middle East they don't build the weapons that they fight us with they bought them from the Russians and from the Americans they don't have an industry they don't have a culture there is no indication that there is any pursuit of reason or any kind of individualism at least since 1200, 80 I mean it's true in that era there was the pursuit of reason I mean they had a glory era which was a very good period of time but since then they've been mystical they've been collectivistic tribal barbaric and there's no indication over the last 50 years that that has changed in any significant way so in a culture like that I think the probability of being successful after one crushes them the probability of anything good coming out of it and committing oneself to staying there for a generation is minute and therefore I don't think there certainly is not philosophy talking philosophy doesn't I don't think have a principle here in terms of when and how long I don't think it's legitimate for America to stay in a country like that for 50 years in order to wait and educate and pour money into a culture in order to reeducate it which I think is what it takes it takes a generation to give you you destroy the enemy in a culture like that and you get out of there and you make it clear that if they raise their heads again you will destroy them again I think in Japan it was more optional that is there was some basis from which to work with and then of course when you do do it you cram a constitution down their throat you force them to change you don't ask them to draft a constitution you don't bring the tribal chiefs to gathering to choose a constitution you write the constitution and you force them to implement it if you're going to do it at all so those would be might be conditions they would have to be a good reason to believe that you're going to be successful quickly so it's an issue of what is going to be the cost and if the cost minimal then I can see one doing it like in Japan but if the cost is substantial and the cost is in terms of what is the likelihood of them becoming a threat again but you know you could turn you walk into such a wasteland that they would never be a threat to the United States not in many generations and that I would advocate that over what we're doing right now maybe just briefly Iran is Iran did you want to answer that? yeah I was going to just say one thing so Iran is discussing the preconditions that would make it possible to instill a better regime and turn it into a free country and that they don't exist in Iraq but I think you would agree with this part that to do it where it's possible to do it it still has to be in your self interest and I think it seldom is and I think both Japan and Germany were not cases and Iran for instance was against the Marshall Plan against all the aid being poured into western Europe after the war of their own irrationalities and I think that is almost always the case I mean it's hard to dream up a scenario where it would be necessary to impose a free regime on a country you were asking about what Iran? I was just wondering about Iran if there was any possibility like I've heard mention of the groups there's a whole school of thought out there I'm not an expert so I don't know but let me just speculate there's a lot of people out there that claim that Iran has the solid pro-democracy pro-western pro-individualism majority you know it's not even a minority or a substantial student movement or whatever I am becoming more and more skeptical with time about whether there truly is a pro-western significant group in Iran I think it's wishful thinking I understand on the part of Iranians in the United States who would like to believe that that's what their country is like so in my view when you go into Iran there are two options when, if you go into Iran you go in there and after you crush them and so on either there is this large pro-western significant group that you can hand control over and get out of there quickly or if there isn't if it turns out there isn't then I think the Iranians we should provide the Iranians make sure the Iranians have the infrastructure the philosophy deserves in other words I think we need to bring them back to the stone age and leave you destroy every piece of infrastructure that was built with western ingenuity and engineering and so on and you get out of there and let them rot it's not our responsibility I agree completely with Dr. Gutter it's not our responsibility certainly to establish democracy to establish freedom anywhere even after we've defeated a culture it is a completely an issue of our self-interest at that point in time and I think it's rare where you would envision the necessity of spending lives and resources in order to stay in a country needed properly in order to achieve that now you might stay for military occupation in order to secure the place for a while but then you leave them and let them by their own resources get back on their feet it's not your responsibility to do that it's indeed a moral travesty to take from the Americans who've just suffered through a great depression a World War II hundreds of thousands of deaths in order to free Europe from the Nazis and then we send them billions of dollars on top of that I mean that is a moral travesty towards the American people I think it was in a New York State senatorial race 30 years ago or so that Einran commented about it being a crime against the president to vote for the liberal Democrat candidate a crime against the future to vote for the conservative candidate and I think that was James Buckley was that his race and I just wondered do you think that is well was it true then and more importantly is it true now generally speaking that it's worse probably to vote for a conservative candidate particularly a neo-conservative candidate and what do you see as being the worst threat the neilist left or religious right or neo-conservatives let me put elections aside we're a non-for-profit and we can't comment on elections so let me just let's put that aside and let's deal with you which one is a bigger threat and you can conclude from that what you will I think in my view the threat to the future of America today is from religion there's no question that the neilistic left is awful it's dangerous it's suicidal it's nuts and would incredibly damage the United States but I don't think that long term the neilist left can come to dominate America Americans because of their positive sense of life are not attracted to the zero which the neilist left represents the nothingness the emptiness the destruction for the sake of destruction that the left today represents Americans don't hate this country they don't hate their own lives they don't hate they don't want to go back to the caves they don't want what the neilist left wants and they Americans for the most part believe in some sense that there's good and evil that there's right and there's wrong and the left doesn't stand even the non-neilist radical left the rest of the left doesn't stand for anything there is nothing so the left the left has become a void the right is where you get fresh ideas the right is where you get excitement and passion because they believe in good and evil because they believe in right and wrong so they get passionate about something they get passionate about their view of what is right and they are much more likely to inspire the American people to move in that direction towards a direction of mysticism today the option is either you believe in complete subjectivism there's no such thing a right or wrong or you believe in the Ten Commandments that's it those are only two alternatives presented out and therefore if you had a you know if you have to choose which one is long term going to have a bigger damage on the United States I think it is the right I think the neocons are setting the stage for the much more vicious right the much more religious and mystical right to gain power so the neocons are in my view a transition between where we are today and the more if you will fascist right and that is the real danger because they are intellectual they give a kind of intellectual legitimacy to religion they give an intellectual legitimacy to Jerry Falwell and that part of the conservative right and that is part of their danger so I view the right as far more dangerous there are several seemingly positive pro-freedom political changes that have occurred say in Lebanon and Libya which are said to be the effect of our policy in Iraq how should we evaluate those changes well let's see what happened in Lebanon okay the Syrians blow up a previous minister people go out into the street by the way Lebanese didn't call it a cedar revolution that was the name the CNN gave it you know what they called it they called it I can't remember what the first word was but something intifada representing their sympathies with the Palestinian intifada they go into the streets the Syrians symbolically leave which is I guess a marginally good thing their troops are not there and still in Lebanon and Lebanon has an election an election in which it returns to its old tribal roots of electing this particular Shiite and this particular Sunni and that particular Christian and informing a coalition government to Hezbollah gains power and gains the seats on the cabinet so now you have in my view the most the most dangerous, well-equipped terrorist organization in the world sitting as a cabinet member on the government of the state of Lebanon to which Condoleezza Rice goes to visit while saying oh we don't like the Hezbollah on it but she still recognizes the government and gives it its full sync so is that it you know before the Syrians were in Lebanon Lebanon was part of Syria in a sense you know Syria was never was not a threat to the United States I mean Lebanon was not a threat to the United States Lebanon was not a threat to Israel now the Hezbollah has real political power in Lebanon I believe that today Lebanon is more of a threat to Israel and to the United States than it was before so net in terms of American self-interest I think will worsen you know Libya Muammar Gaddafi after the invasion of Iraq handed over his supposed programs of weapon mass destruction if we were to believe him he's cleaned out the place he's not going to follow weapons maybe Iraq did cause him to do that imagine what he would have done if they'd done what I advocate he would have become groveling and handed over the oil as well together with his weapons and mass destruction and I think to a large extent why he did it notice what happened immediately after he did that the US lifted restrictions in all companies and we went over there to pump more oil so Libya could make more money to hand over to more terrorists in more countries around the world where else is there being freedom because of Iraq Ukraine I mean let me just say for the record Ukraine might have been marginally impacted by the elections in Iraq but I believe that the Ukraine is the consequence of a what is it 15 years 16 years movement since the fall of the Berlin Wall of freedom slowly creeping through the former communist countries it was going to become the orange revolution was going to happen one way or another maybe it would have taken longer without Iraq I don't think so I think it would have happened anyway it's a sudden historical not destiny but it's a sudden historical movement communism is dead it's just a question of these people slowly rebelling against their local little dictators as the countries next door to them have and as they see the relative freedom overseas look what a mess I don't know if you've been following over the last couple of weeks the mess that's created in the Ukraine so you know I think that Iraq has not really done anything to promote freedom in the rest of the world and indeed it's a long-term consequences that are crushed freedom and to promote Islamic fundamentalists dominating governments of countries all over them starting not dominating but starting with the presence in the Lebanese government but they're going to dominate Iraq's government I mean the supreme council for the Islamic revolution in Iraq did win their election they are the people in charge in Iraq today they're one of the coalition partners the largest coalition partner in the Shiite coalition alliance so Islamic in my view to tell a term Islam is on the march in the Middle East it is getting more and more powerful it is getting more and more emboldened with every day that we spend in Iraq doing nothing to crush the real enemy that we face and watching American soldiers die in the hands of totalitarian Islam and us doing nothing which just embolders them to do more so Iraq is in my view a disaster for the Middle East and will only bring more pressure and more danger to the United States more pressure to Middle East countries and more danger to the United States thank you I'll just add a point I think this was covered in the lecture in the sense that he said that they want moral legitimacy and in the eyes of America this is what it takes to be legitimate and holds elections look we're moving towards freedom we're holding elections that will stop the bombs from falling us it's the easiest thing in the world to do so to view that I know there's many people who view it even within objectivism as this is evidence for the spread of freedom I think is bizarre it's a really important point this issue of sanction this gets every country that holds elections now has two points from the United States and Europe they are now joining the civilized world because they've held elections even if they elect those elections result in the same old regime coming to power like in Egypt with Mubarak now or a worse regime coming to power like in Iraq or potentially in Syria or potentially in Egypt if they really held true elections Mubarak held this election very close to the vest but if they really ran in Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood would win and you know who the Muslim Brotherhood is they're the intellectual founders of this entire totalitarian Islamic movement it all started in Egypt in the 1920s and 30s them and the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia and they would say hey we won democratically and Bush has already said if you win democratically you're okay and join the United Nations we'll give you most favored nations Saudi Arabia I think is now joining the World Trade Organization I mean there's no end to probably because they held municipal elections Drs. Brooks Ngaute if I could please get both of your opinions on this what do you think the mechanism will be for the United States becoming an actual capitalist society do you think it will be an intellectual revolution like a physical revolution sort of like a shrugging event or do you think another nation will become capitalist and sort of outpace us and for you know I don't think another country will become capitalist and outpaced although let me know if there's a candidate out there maybe we should move the institute you know I don't know what the exact mechanism is going to be I just don't know but I'll tell you this that it will definitely be an intellectual revolution how it actually plays out is hard to tell whether it gets to the point where it's an armed revolution it might at some point have to be a physical revolution in that sense I just don't know I hope not but the way the way I see it is that more and more professors at universities are teaching INRAND more and more students read INRAND in high school and in college more and more people are exposed to INRAND's ideas through lectures like this and through the media that INRAND's slowly seep through into the culture and start having an effect on the journalists who write in the newspapers on the talking heads on the TV shows in the movies and the art that is being created that slowly has that kind of effect and yeah at some point the right and the left will look around and say these guys are the enemies the real enemies and they'll come after us and then you know they'll get heated and there'll be big debates but the debates will be on fundamental intellectual philosophical issues they'll be about altruism vs egos and they'll be about reason vs faith that's what it's going to boil down to those debates when they're out in the open when a debate like that attracts huge numbers of people whether it's on TV or whether it's in a hall like this that's when you know the revolution is coming so we at the institute our goal is to make that happen and to make that happen within our lifetimes that is to bring Einren's ideas into the culture to make them prevalent so that nobody will not know who Einren is and what she stood for to present an alternative to faith and to altruism whether it's the fact that we will be in this next school year distributing 300,000 books to teachers who want to teach Einren in the classroom so 300,000 well actually if you count the books we've distributed in the past couple of years almost half a million kids will be reading Einren this coming year and with your help I want that to be 2 million kids which would make it close to 20% of all high school students if we can get 20% of all high school students reading the books train your intellectuals at the institute if we can then open up universities and the universities are opening up to objectives place professors then we will change this culture I mean look what the left did with a much less coherent goal just because they had the ideas from the 19th century through today how they've dominated and taken over the culture that's what we need to do we need to start at the universities and at the high schools and slowly take over the culture I can't see it happening anywhere else in the world primarily because they don't have Einren they don't have the right philosophies they can become for a while more capitalistic even maybe than we are but for a while because without the right ideas that won't survive I mean I agree completely with what you Ron said and just to look at the first part of the question of and you Ron's answer that well you can't predict what is going to happen and exactly how freedom will regain its foothold in America if you were transported back in time to the start of the renaissance when the Christian philosophy is being replaced by a philosophy of reason and if you ask well how are we going to get a nation that's founded on what became the enlightenment ideas of reason, individualism secularism, science there's no way to predict that it's going to happen in America and it's going to be through a revolution amongst the two freest nations the U.S. and Britain to get the freest country there has ever been the United States and its founding I mean you couldn't predict that at that time and I think it's the same here you can say yeah it's definitely will require an intellectual revolution but when the ideas are out there how exactly people act on them and move towards freedom I don't think you can predict that. Thank you. Dr. Brook you gave some mention to the new Iraqi constitution as being a jumble of self-contradictory elements I would like to know a little bit more for example one prominent mullah said as the constitution was being drafted that whatever it says it must not be out of phase with Quranic teaching or the teaching of the sharia so my first branch of my question is what was the final outcome it seems to me you've probably read the thing or read about it and the other question which goes along with it is is there anything that even resembles a bill of rights in that constitution. Well Dr. God has actually recently read it so he probably knows in more detail than I do. Yeah I mean it's the worst possible document you could and if you put the left and the religious right in a room and told them to write a constitution this is what you would get so I mean not seriously so everything that the left and they had a lot of westerners advising them on the writing of this constitution and you can see it's the kind of tribal mentality that exists in Iraq elevated with western sounding language and what the left advocates and what the religious right advocates so take the left side it's a complete government control of national healthcare insurance private property can be taken for the public interest with just compensation but public property is sacrosanct there's tons of things about diversity about protecting the environment all the causes of the left so it's a complete material control of the economy public oil and then it's what the religious right wants it's that it's in terms of the spiritual side of life it's controlled by religion so religion is to be a basic source of the law there's religious leaders sitting on the supreme court and on and on I mean there's tons so it's religion controlling the spiritual side and it's the left's view of well we need to control the body we need to control matter it's that fused together into what they call a constitution so I mean it's the worst document you could possibly imagine thank you very much and that we fought to do this I mean well still dying to do this I mean that's a tragedy and there is no I don't think there's any semblance of a bill of rights and to the extent that they use the law of rights you know there's something about you have the right to speech as long as it doesn't offend anybody it doesn't offend public morality it's not against religion so it's a horrific document and just a more travesty that it's been done under the auspices of America and is being sanctioned by America you know and it's hailed by an American president and really all are intellectuals thank you gentlemen yeah I guess I have a question just thinking about what we've talked about tonight seems like the what we're really needing to fight is irrationality seems to kind of the core of the issue whether you look at you know radical Islam or really teachings of probably most religions ultimately you're dealing with the rationality the rationality issue and I guess I was wondering a little bit about the basis for rationality is there would there not be a good a good thing to support would be the basis for thinking rational thinking maybe epistemology I guess is what I'm thinking of isn't that kind of a fundamental thing we could support that might eventually in the next generation help to maybe solve a lot of this if we could try to impart that type of basis for rationality yeah I mean I think if we go back to what the institute does one of the things that we do is we train do in what I ran called the new intellectuals and there to be advocates of reason so the the foundation of the training is to help them understand what reason is and then to become teachers of this of a proper view of the human mind of how it gains knowledge and it's it's to advocate reason but also that there's a rational morality that and I think that's part of what is tearing apart America it's the split between the practical side we follow reason but the moment we get to morality reason is gone we have to have faith we have to believe in God etc what you need to do to restore this culture to what it was when it was founded when America was founded is to to get out the idea that there is a rational morality that is one of Iran's tremendous achievements to advocate reason and morality all the way down to defining values, virtues it's reason everywhere so I mean we certainly agree I think that that's what this culture needs and that is the primary activity of the institute it's to get reason out into the culture I'm puzzled with maybe the logic that's been laid out so let me ask the question this way if suddenly the neo-conservatives got your message and woke up the next day and said okay we'll stop being altruistic we'll stop paying for all the billions of dollars we've been sending to Israel for the last 50 years in your view what would happen to Israel and how might that affect this entire Middle East situation well I mean there's a big difference between the dollars to Israel and between sending to Iraq Israel is an ally fighting the same war that we're fighting they're helping in the same mission that we're advocating for granted that I don't think America should send a dime to Israel not unless it's clear cut in some way in itself interest and it's not and in my view it's not in Israel's interest just like any welfare recipient Israel's economy has been handicapped by the fact that they receive all this aid it's being devastated now that's not the reason America shouldn't give it aid it shouldn't give it aid because it doesn't need it and it shouldn't get it they shouldn't be taking our money and giving it out to Israelis or to anybody else our money's ours now if we all want to get together and give Israel money that's great we should all get together and give Israel money all America has to do in order for Israel to thrive and to beat the enemy is to sell Israel weapons and to sell Israel any weapon that Israel wants any weapon that Israel wants it doesn't have to give Israel a dime a dime and as I said indeed Israel is crippled by American financial support by taxpayer support it could become more capitalist and free probably I mean it could have self-destructed if it had been allowed to suffer the consequence of its own socialist policies and hopefully turn around from them so I don't advocate supporting Israel financially by the US government I don't think that's that's the right use of our money if again individuals who support Israel that's fine but it's also important to understand the distinction between Israel and Iraq Israel is our ally he's our friend in this battle Iraq is our enemy there's nothing in the culture of Iraq that is supportive of our goals in the Middle East I actually had an issue to address you stated earlier that religion is actually an attack on reason and rationale and that we must move it out of the way it's only here for morality a sort of faith based only but from my studies from school all the major philosophers were Christian where that would be Isaac Newton scientist or C.S. Lewis in addition morality this abstract notion of morality by faith only is actually supported through something called natural law I'm sure you gentlemen are aware of it whereby some things which are said about by a religion reflect like a healthy lifestyle I think this is actually across many religions not just Christianity or Judaism for that matter could please address that issue and the correlation with religion and rationale well first take the essence of religion and religious morality which is basically the idea that it's right because God says so or that you should do it because God says so so you can take the story of Abraham and Isaac which reveals the essence of religious morality God commands him to sacrifice a son to kill his son now why should he do it this command is unintelligible to him but he's to do it anyway what possible value could he gain in killing his own son he can't figure out any but he's to do it anyway so he has no rational of why this is right and he can see no value to gain and yet he's to do it because God says it's right so it must be right so it's to toss out your judgment and your choice of values and that's to toss your rational judgment and your rational choice of what is in my self interest it's to toss reason aside and to obey to have faith to do your duty to decide and have faith whether you're looking in the field of knowledge or the field of morality so it's one or the other it's either I go by my rational judgment and my rational selection of values or I abandon that and go by what someone commands me some alleged being in another dimension through the voices of whatever religious prophet or leader he's supposed to follow so it's faith versus reason and there have been in the history of the West rational approaches to science to morality that are non-religious and that's what you find in ancient Greece it's only after the rise of Christianity and the attempt then from the Renaissance onwards to secularize the human mind to get rid of religion that you find on what you're calling a fusion of reason and faith and these are thinkers who are trying to get rid of faith they're trying to go by reason but they're unable to do so and there are many tragedies in philosophy post-Renaissance I mean you can look at Descartes Leibniz Newton Locke Hume in one way or another they're trying to get faith out and to go by reason but what always ends up happening is it collapses into skepticism that we can't gain knowledge and we can't find a moral code and if we go by reason anything goes so they're unable to do it but that is not the same as saying there's a fusion of the two it's an attempt to secularize the human mind and it fails and that again is precisely one of Einren's great achievements who advocates reason and doesn't collapse either into skepticism or subjectivism into this kind of anything-goes mentality that you see on the left but it takes a lot of intellectual work in order to be able to do that so in the principle faith and reason are distinct their opposites even if they're found commingled in a particular thinker which you see all over the west after the rise of Christianity and to the extent that these thinkers really do achieve something like Isaac Newton it is in that realm of their life where they are completely dedicated to reason and they don't let faith in so nothing that Isaac Newton really achieved came as an inspiration from God to him it was all worked out from the facts of reality looking at reality and using his reason in order to induce truths about the real world it was not through mystical revelation you don't get science, you don't get calculus which he was one of the people invented I think from meditation you get it from applying your mind to reality to facts so to the extent that there were achievements even by people who advocated for Christianity is the extent to which they didn't allow Christianity didn't allow faith to enter into their lives and the more dedicated they truly were to faith and to Christianity the fewer achievements they could have had and the less success they could have had you mentioned earlier that religion well you were talking about altruism but also you mentioned 2000 years of religion that it's so intrinsically ingrained in cultures all over the world and by objectivism discarding religion don't you see that as a huge obstacle to the spread of the objectivistic ideas just because people almost instinctively react adversely to concepts that discard religion and I want to say this because I for example I believe in God but at the same time I think that religion is a really bad thing and do you think that it is a valid concept to think that we can apply objectivism without giving up the idea of believing in God because there are we can look at God not as religion but as separate from it as an entity that created all these natural laws that rule our existence in that objectivism is the most efficient way to live by those rules no I don't think it's possible to mix objectivism with any advocacy of the supernatural and when you talk about a God who creates the world you're talking about something that transcends the natural world the world that we know exists that it is what it is that obeys causal law there's some entity sitting above this that controls that that can change it at its will if you actually believe that then you have to deny that reason has validity because he can change the rules anytime the only way you can know the universe is to know God and how he created which is what all the thinkers then focus their whole attention on we have to turn our attention away from the natural to its source and to its creator and if you believe that you've jettisoned you jettisoned both reason you jettisoned this world this reality we're to focus by some non-rational means on some superior dimension so objectivism is a philosophy that advocates reality as an absolute and reason as an absolute the universe is all there is it's what exists it's where you live and it's what you have to know in order to stay alive and your means of knowing it is reason period so there's no room for the supernatural in such a view don't you find that a lot of the concept most advanced concepts in physics such as the unified theory the unified force and leads towards something per se unifying that could be defined by some as God no and I mean leave aside the state of modern physics no genuine scientific investigation into the natural world could lead you to posit a world that transcends and contradicts the natural world which is what the supernatural world is all the scientific investigation leads to is more knowledge of the natural world so there's again no opening for a supernatural dimension I guess I just identify the natural world with a transcendental world I guess I mean we can talk about that after I mean that's a complete contradiction thank you for your answer if I may just piggyback on the last two or three questioners without relying on and I like the differentiation that one of them made between religion and God without reliance on the concept of supreme being God on what do you base you had mentioned the concept of right and wrong and good and bad now what becomes the standard by which you evaluate those concepts I mean the standard becomes your life and its requirements or put more abstract abstractly man's life so let's step back why does one need a morality that is the question that I ran begins with in her investigations into the field of ethics and developing her theories it's not what moral code should I adopt but why do I need one in the first place and the reason you need one is that you're a living being who has to survive but unlike other animals that does not come in built in you you don't know what values to pursue or how to pursue them I mean just take simple things like food, clothing, shelter when you're born you don't know that you need these things or how to achieve them there's many more values of that from advanced industrial civilization to the need of friendship to the need of love of a living organism, of a man of a human being yet you don't know how to achieve them and you don't even know that there are values in the first place and those are the types of things that the science of ethics teaches you they teach you what are the requirements to live and prosper and to achieve happiness so what are they and then how do I achieve them by what principles do I have to act and live by in order to achieve my life and my happiness and that in essence is what morality as a field as a scientific field is devoted towards and so the standard becomes the requirements of human life that which furthers life human life is good that which threatens and destroys it is evil so I mean there's much more to say but that gives you at least the headway into Ayn Rand's approach to ethics now just as an aside to think that religion can give you an answer to right and wrong so it's up hold as well the only way to have absolutes in morality is through religion that I mean is a bizarre notion and it go back to the story of Isaac and Abraham the whole point of the story and religious figures take this as revealing the essence of morality is that it's whatever God says it is if he tells you to kill your son that's good if he tells you later on I was just kidding then now are we bad to kill your son there is no absolute here it's your dependent on God's will it's supernatural subjectivism there's no difference between that and a kind of personal subjectivism of an Al Capone coming along and saying what's right it's what I say it's what I say goes and you just have a supernatural version of that same mentality and to view that as giving you absolutes in ethics is I mean it's a complete reverse of the truth the only way you can have absolutes in ethics if it's based on reality which is an absolute the requirements of staying in reality of living and achieving happiness and that is what a scientific approach to ethics that's where it begins just to add to that I recommend if you're interested in the virtue of selfishness read the virtue of selfishness written by Ayn Rand where she goes into a lot more detail about you know a rational approach to morality just to tie this back to the subject of Iran's talk the essence of the ideological enemy that we are fighting is reduced to a fairly simple statement and that is God has spoken to me and God has told me what you have to do God has also told me that if you don't do what I have told you to do I should kill you what is the only proper rational response to such a statement in such a policy well obviously anybody who wants to kill me we need to kill him first but I think the broader point is that there's no that the fundamental character of Islamic fundamentalism as God has told me therefore X is fundamentally the same as any religious character you know God has told the Jews something else and God has told the Christians something else but it's still the same arbitrary decisions and indeed Christians if you go far enough back into the past were told by God to kill people during the Inquisition and indeed Jews in the Old Testament carefully Jews are told by God to wipe whole people out you know not a seed among them shall remain you should kill every man woman child and animal that's in the Old Testament that's what God told the Jews now he's telling it to the Muslims once you accept that kind of completely arbitrary otherworldly unreal guidance is possible and it doesn't matter what the name of the particular religion is the fundamental problem is religion is the acceptance of that arbitrary statement and it's exactly what absolute right or wrong well absolute right or wrong based on a Protestant, a Catholic, a Jew a Muslim what kind of Muslim a moderate Muslim a fundamentalist Muslim you know where is the absolute right or wrong that religion provides or that God provides anybody not because the only way to communicate with God well what is it I mean there is no way to communicate with God so you're dependent on some Messiah and each Messiah is going to interpret it differently and each interpreter of the interpreter is going to interpret it differently but they're all fundamentally the same sacrifice sacrifice sacrifice for nothing for zero I got a couple comments and a question gentlemen first thank you for your comments today I learned quite a bit and I found myself actually agreeing with many of your comments but let me get back to what the topic was which was the critique of U.S. foreign policy post 9-11 specifically dealing with neoconservatives help me understand how 50 million people being liberated from oppressive regimes especially in Afghanistan like you mentioned not in America's self-interest given the terrible strategy of four years ago there is because what you forget is the 2500 American lives that had to be that were lost in order to supposedly liberate these people I mean I don't think any of them are liberated Afghanistan will not survive 10 days after the Americans leave as a liberated country and neither will we work the point is this the responsibility of the American government and the American military is one and one only and that is the protection of the individual rights of Americans of free Americans of this country and that does not require liberating Afghans it requires killing killing every last one of those people who threaten the lives of Afghans period so you don't let the tribal lords of Afghanistan fight a war that you should be fighting and therefore let bin Laden escape from Torah Bora you should read the article in this weekends New York Times in the magazine section about what happened in Torah Bora and how our US military sent a dozen special forces troops to Torah Bora and let Bin Laden escape in spite of the fact that a Marine general wanted to put 5,000 Marines there and he would be dead today dead with 2,000 terrorists the point is this the point of a war is to destroy your enemy the point of the war is to kill the bad guys the point of a war is to make sure that nobody ever threatens the United States again not to liberate Afghans not to liberate Yorkies if after you've done that you've killed the bad guys who threaten you the Afghans are liberated and they establish their own free country wonderful for the Afghans I will rejoice with everybody else but not one drop of American blood should be spilled in order to liberate the Afghans or in order to liberate the the Iraqis American soldiers should be placing their life at risk for one purpose to protect their and our lives war is a selfish should be a selfish pursuit of self defense I agree that is fantastic we're not going to be made safer by liberating you're right Afghanis, Iraqis whoever but we are charged this nation and the soldiers that defend us with protecting us against enemies we're not against war I've never been against war I mean I mentioned we should have fought the war in Afghanistan to win not to appease the Afghani tribal lords we should have fought the war in Iraq we didn't need to fight the war in Iraq Iraq was an enemy, the Iranians are the enemy we should have fought the war in Iraq in a way they would have stopped Islamic terrorism against the United States forever they would have stopped fighting them social services and water but destroying any remnants of infrastructure that provides them with water so the way to fight a war is to destroy your enemy not to provide them with social services and democracy so that is my complaint about the neocons not that we went to war but that we went to war for the wrong reason and as a consequence fought the war in the wrong way and we continue to do that by the way every day American troops are dying why? because we're not willing to do what is necessary to end the insurgency which has become a lot tougher than we are today thank you sir just a little follow up on some of the conversation that went on earlier regarding as you pointed out the problems some of the problems are with religion and the fact that our enemy is if the terrorists are very intrinsically religious religion is being used to motivate them going back to the you know the jade or christian tradition here in America I don't think there's any problem with using reason to come up with commandments two through ten true? let me first address your first comment because let me make this very clear the terrorists are the epitome of their religion it is not true that they don't represent religion and they are somehow distorting a great religion or not a great religion it doesn't matter they are the epitome of self sacrifice they do this because they believe that there are 72 virgins waiting for them they do this because religion has told them that this is a good thing to do let's not hide behind it's being religion is being used here in some sub votive way in order to inspire these people this is part of who they are and what they are and they truly believe in this religion when they fly airplanes into building now as to the second to the tenth commandments and I'm not up on my tenth commandment so I don't remember but I did as a child study them quite thoroughly so I should be familiar with them but I'm not no reason does not come to the same give you an example why? what if my father abuses me what if he is a abusive father what if he is a nasty father what if he is a lousy human being he is just a crummy person why should I honor him by what rational reason does it make sense for me to honor my father what are some of the other ones thou shalt not steal the point is that why shouldn't you steal why? now I don't think you should steal but the Old Testament gives me no reason not to steal other than God said so God said they should not steal God said you should kill your elder son so kill your elder son God said to jump off the empire so you jump off the empire that is not a basis for action in life I want to know why I'm still at the three year old stage why and the Old Testament and I've read it several times gives no answers to the question of why other than because God said so and therefore you should do it I want rational reasons for that and therefore no rational philosophy is going to provide you with ten commandments it's going to provide you with values that you should pursue why because this is a way for you to gain happiness and life and success and prosperity and everything else associated with a successful life I guess my question was just so maybe misinterpreted by you it was the fact that two through ten let's put aside we can maybe have a longer discussion on out of the ring your father and your mother but thou shall not steal, thou shall not kill I take objection with I shall not kill because I believe we should be killing militant Islamists exactly so there are let's use a leftist term there are nuances to thou shall not kill obviously you're going to kill somebody who you think is going to or is trying to kill you right and we kill a lot we kill to live don't we so I think in a certain way the ten commandments are an abbreviated simple version of a code of conduct that you can give to a five year old however later on when you're using your reason I don't really see a problem with let's call them the rules two through ten in arriving at those through reason and it's true there's more to it than thou shall not kill there are variations right but you can't call a variation thou shall kill I mean there's a difference between manslaughter well show the variations especially it's a bad translation in Hebrew it's so you've got that too the point is you don't need them you don't need them that is I can teach my five year old kid morality without inventing a supernatural being and scaring the kid into believing that if he doesn't follow these commandments he's going to go to hell there is much better more reality oriented to teach ways easy ways it's not hard to teach a kid not to steal that murdering is a bad thing that lying is wrong there are easy ways to do that without invoking a supernatural being which doesn't exist so lying to your kid in order to teach them not to lie so the thing is that you don't need any of that because reason supplies you much better with a correct a correct code of ethics that is meaningful in life that is real, that is true and that is aimed not at satisfying the whims of a god but is aimed at your own success your own happiness, your own life I mean it's more it destroys the idea of morality in a rational child's mind but he gets the idea that there's no earthly reason why I shouldn't steal why I shouldn't lie I mean leave aside that these are not actual principles they're just out of context commandments but he gets the idea that if he was following reason I shouldn't be moral the only reason I should be moral is that there's this supernatural being floating around me who's going to send me to hell if I disobey morality so it pits morality against reason so it's far more than just you're not teaching them the right thing you're teaching them a profoundly wrong idea and for any rational kid who says I'm going by reason it becomes in his mind to hell with morality if it's based on the supernatural in commandments I think that's a because they haven't thought about it absolutely but it's not a flaw no I'm saying I mean that's what we need to educate people is not in how do you arrive at those 10 commandments but in chucking the 10 commandments and coming up with a rational system of ethics that is pro-life and pro-happiness and it is based on a scientific examination of the nature of man on the nature of life and that's what we need we need to stop lying to our kids and distorting their ability to be moral there's a lady behind you wow can I comment on North Korea it's a mess and it's a mess because of years and years and years of appeasement whether it was under Korea's situation started like in 1978 I think it was and it's a series of appeasement by the card administration and the Reagan administration and the Bush administration of course the Clinton administration which we all familiar and now the Bush administration we continuously appease this dictatorship we continuously feed them help them, assist them and they keep blackmailing us more and more and more and we keep buying into that so the first thing that has to be done is not I mean they talk about should we have bilateral meeting or multilateral meetings no meetings not a single meeting, no Americans should meet any North Korean and no American allies should meet any North Korean, none whatsoever and let them starve and then if we perceive them as a real threat then we should take out the threat now it's complicated because they have missiles aimed at South Korea and Seoul might be really damaged and so on that's why it has to be a real threat we really believe they're going to launch an attack against the West before we launch a military attack but there's so many things we could do that are non military not feed them for example tell the Chinese that if they continue to cooperate with them we won't trade with them you know tell the Chinese that we won't let them go and get into the world trade organization if they keep helping the North Korean, there are lots of things that could be done and of course the neocons you know don't really have a North Korean policy so we see what Bush is doing it's they call them evil but they don't really do anything about it they talk to them but they don't talk to them they're multilateral talks but not bilateral talks will appease them but not too much I mean that's what it comes to there is no coherent strategy with regard to North Korea other than appeasement okay last question in that last response you talked about not trading with China could I please get you to elaborate on that and talk about the moral status of embargoes well I think that embargoes are completely moral if a country is an enemy of yours nobody in your country should be trading with that country that is if a country is a cliff threat to you and has threatened you and has aimed nuclear weapons at you like the Soviet Union was clearly then you should not allow private individuals within your country to trade with that country because they are they're basically committing treason there hoping a country that is threatening the lives of your citizens and as part of your responsibility defending the individual rights of your own citizens that's what you should do so I think it's as an act of self defense embargoes are completely appropriate and I think the Soviet Union was one example of an embargo that should have been enforced and of course it wasn't we fed the Soviet Union I mean they couldn't grow wheat in the richest most fertile land on earth they couldn't grow wheat so we provided them with wheat for decades and decades even before the taunts so that's when I think embargoes are appropriate where the government the only situation where the government tells private individuals that they cannot trade with an enemy it would be like well I can't think of a domestic similarity it would be like allowing people to help a serial murderer but of course you would immediately arrest a serial murderer and put him in jail but given that you can't in the case of the Soviet Union you wouldn't go to war with the Soviet Union necessarily you cannot have your own citizens helping the Soviet Union at the same time but you do economic support for cases like that if the intellectual support is specifically you know advocating the use of force against America against your own country then yes so I think it was completely appropriate for example for congress to investigate the communist party in the United States and to make it illegal when communism was a physical threat to the United States and I think it is completely appropriate for the United States to monitor and in some cases in prison of imams that are advocating for violence against the United States you don't have a right of speech when that speech is to advocating for murder you don't have a way to advocate for murder so yes I mean the line is when speech and effect becomes action when you start calling for more murder or when you join the communist party it is much more than advocating a particular idea you are becoming part of an action against either specific individual in the case of murder in your whole government in the case of joining the communist party or any other group whose goal is the overthrow of your government it is gone from speech to action and the government is to police action and the threat of force is itself force thank you