A Question of Libertarian, Conservative, and Liberal Ethics

The question: When does a thoroughly distasteful position by one of an organization’s leading staff, although other organization positions are satisfactory, justify endorsing that organization?

The matter at hand: The CATO-ish libertarian The Independent Institute’s Director of its Center on Peace and Liberty, Ivan Eland, goes beyond even moral relativism, and beyond what he calls “grossly disproportionate action” (the falsity of which I dealt with here) to directly contradict the leaders of the G-8, most hardly friends of Israel or the U.S. for that matter, and to lay primary blame on Israel for the war and that Israel is the bigger terrorist. This goes even beyond the pale of mere isolationism to sheer extremism.

Eland says that Israel’s going after terrorists in Gaza launching rockets into Israel is the cause of the current wider conflict:

So the capture of the Israeli soldier by Hamas, on which the G-8 leaders and world press have focused, was not the beginning of the chain of events that have led to the current war.

Eland goes further, calling Israel, and the U.S. (and G-8) support, terrorism :

For instance, any time power is shut off to hospitals, some patients die. Thus, this response has to be labeled a terrorist act, rather than a defensive one as President Bush has claimed.

[Hezbollah] launched the latter inaccurate rocket salvos en masses only after Israel began committing terrorist acts on Lebanon…Since Israel withdrew its occupation forces from Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah had exhibited restraint…

The total civilian casualties on each side also indicate that Israel’s attacks have strayed into terrorism…

Eland concludes by calling Hamas and Hezbollah “rag-tag groups,” that “no one can excuse [for] genuine terror acts,” downplaying by no further mention and thus ignoring their holding two states in their power, numbering tens of thousands of armed forces, and possessing and using advanced weaponry.

Eland then emphasizes his comparative emphasis by saying, “the great power…the United States [should not] look the other way while the governments – read Israel – systematically kill more civilians under the guise of a disingenuous claim of offensive self-defense.”

One might dismiss Eland’s extremism, as an individual and his right of free speech. But, when he is a key leader of a major think tank, whose Advisory Board includes some of the leaders of libertarian, conservative and liberal activism in the U.S., such words are given weight.

Below are the names of the Board of Advisors of The Independent Institute. I encourage all of you, particularly those who know any of them, to contact them politely and request that they disassociate themselves to fellow Advisor Board members from Eland’s extremism. Whatever they care to do then is up to their conscience.

This is a matter of conscience, of core ethics. No more than any self-respecting conservative could fail to disassociate themselves from Welsh, McCarthy or Buchanan, or liberal from Kosites, should any self-respecting Advisory Board member fail to disassociate from Ivan Eland. Being on the masthead of an Advisory Board may be prestigious, and meeting fellow luminaries fun, but this does not excuse lending one’s name to positions fundamentally at odds with one’s beliefs, at least if they mean anything.

Here’s more from Eland, as he expounds his position:

… could the tragedy of September 11th have set in motion a chain of events even more ominous than the attacks themselves?
… Meanwhile, the U.S. has pursued a pre-emptive war and military occupation in Iraq, and the Middle East is increasingly unstable. World leaders in Europe, Asia, Africa, and around the world view U.S. military intervention with increasing alarm, and international sentiment indicates that the U.S. is more hated than ever. Could U.S. policies be provoking much of this hatred and further threats to the safety of Americans and people around the world? If so, the broader war against the “axis of evil” has played right into bin Laden’s hands.
… Will the Orwellian USA PATRIOT Act—legislation still being written when it was passed by Congress—really hinder terrorists or simply enable militant fundamentalists to destroy American liberty as the U.S. itself shreds the Bill of Rights?

If any of the Advisory Board agree with these New York Times clone positions, they are in the right place, but those who disagree must not stand idly by.

The Independent Institute’s Board of Advisors:
· Herman Belz
Professor of History, University of Maryland
· Thomas Bethell
Columnist and Author, The Noblest Triumph: Property and Prosperity Through the Ages
· Thomas E. Borcherding
Professor of Economics, Claremont Graduate School
· Boudewijn R. A. Bouckaert
Professor of Law, University of Ghent, Belgium
· James M. Buchanan
Nobel Laureate in Economic Science University Professor, Center for the Study of Public Choice, George Mason University
· Allan C. Carlson
President, Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society
· Robert D. Cooter
Herman F. Selvin Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley
· Robert W. Crandall
Senior Fellow, Economic Studies, Brookings Institution
· Richard A. Epstein
James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law, University of Chicago
· A. Ernest Fitzgerald
Author, The High Priests of Waste and The Pentagonists: An Insider's View of Waste, Mismanagement and Fraud in Defense Spending
· B. Delworth Gardner
Emeritus Professor of Economics, Brigham Young University
· George Gilder
Senior Fellow, Discovery Institute
· Nathan Glazer
Professor of Education and Sociology, Harvard University
· William M. H. Hammett
Former President, Manhattan Institute
· Ronald Hamowy
Emeritus Professor of History, University of Alberta, Canada
· Steve H. Hanke
Professor of Applied Economics, Johns Hopkins University
· Ronald Max Hartwell
Emeritus Professor of History, Oxford University, England
· James J. Heckman
Nobel Laureate in Economic Science, Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor of Economics, University of Chicago
· Wendy Kaminer
Contributing Editor, The Atlantic Monthly; Member, Board of Directors, ACLU
· Lawrence A. Kudlow
Chief Executive Officer, Kudlow & Company; Co-Host, Kudlow & Cramer, CNBC; Former Associate Director for Economics and Planning, Office of Management and Budget
· John R. MacArthur
Publisher, Harper's Magazine
· Deirdre N. McCloskey
Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Illinois, Chicago
· J. Huston McCulloch
Professor of Economics, Ohio State University
· Thomas Gale Moore
Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University
· Charles Murray
Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
· Michael Novak
George Frederick Jewett Chair in Religion and Public Policy, American Enterprise Institute
· June E. O’Neill
Director, Center for the Study of Business & Government, Baruch College; Former Director, U.S. Congressional Budget Office
· Tom Peters
Co-Author, In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies ; Author, Liberation Management and A Passion for Excellence: The Leadership Diffference
· Charles E. Phelps
Provost and Professor of Political Science and Economics, University of Rochester
· Paul Craig Roberts
Chairman, Institute of Political Economy; Former Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy, U.S. Department of the Treasury
· Nathan Rosenberg
Fairleigh S. Dickinson, Jr. Professor of Public Policy, Stanford University
· Simon Rottenberg
Professor Emeritus of Economics, University of Massachusetts
· Paul H. Rubin
Professor of Economics and Law, Emory University
· Bruce M. Russett
Dean Acheson Professor of International Relations, Yale University; Editor, Journal of Conflict Resolution
· Pascal Salin
Professor of Economics, University of Paris, France
· Arthur Seldon
Founder-Director, Institute of Economic Affairs, London, England
· William F. Shughart II
Robert M. Hearin Chair in Economics and Finance, University of Mississippi
· Vernon L. Smith
Nobel Laureate in Economic Science; Professor of Economics and Law, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science, George Mason University
· Joel H. Spring
Professor of Education, State University of New York, New Paltz
· Richard L. Stroup
Professor of Economics, Montana State University
· Thomas S. Szasz
Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus, Health Science Center, State University of New York, Syracuse
· Robert D. Tollison
BB&T Senior Fellow and Professor of Economics, Clemson University
· Arnold J. Trebach
Professor of Law, American University
· William Tucker
Author, The Excluded Americans: Homelessness and Housing Policies
· Gordon Tullock
University Professor of Law and Economics and Distinguished Research Fellow, George Mason University
· Gore Vidal
National Book Award-Winner, Playwright, Screenwriter, and Author of the “American Chronicle” Series of Historical Novels
· Richard E. Wagner
Hobart R. Hobart Professor of Economics, George Mason University
· Alan Walters
Vice Chairman, AIG Trading Company
· Paul H. Weaver
· Walter E. Williams
Distinguished Professor of Economics, George Mason University
· Charles Wolf
Senior Economist and Corporate Fellow, International Economics, RAND Corporation