Republican Debate Highlights on Foreign Policy and National Security

Its been long since the last time I heard a candidate from the GOP really defending the values of fiscal conservatism, respect for individual freedom and a non-interventionist foreign policy for the US in a debate. I have heard it in some Democrat candidates from past debates but never in a Republican debate. Luckily, I was happy to hear Ron Paul doing so and getting my support and applauses.

Last night, November 23th 2011, CNN, the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation sponsored a debate on foreign policy. I leave you now with an interesting summary and some notes done by CBS of the most relevant candidates:

WINNERS:

Ron Paul

This was the Texas lawmaker’s strongest debate, getting lots of airtime and challenging many of his rivals about U.S. foreign policy. His views are not in the mainstream of Republican orthodoxy, but he is consistent in his beliefs and not afraid to tell voters what he really thinks. His fundraising numbers could go up in the short-term, based on his debate performance Tuesday night, even if long-term it may be hard for him to broaden his support.

Newt Gingrich

Success begets success. Newt has done well in past debates and it has helped him in the polls. With his polling success, moderators gave him more airtime, which allowed the one-time afterthought and current front-runner to show off his debating skills. He took a risk by going against conservative Republican orthodoxy on immigration, and that could backfire, but overall Gingrich showed that he has been thinking about these issues for decades. And since it was a debate focused on foreign policy, no one asked him about his relationship with mortgage giant Freddie Mac and the $1.6 million he earned, which also helped the former House speaker.

Jon Huntsman

As the former ambassador to both China and Singapore, Tuesday’s national security debate was Jon Huntsman’s moment to shine. And for the most part, he succeeded: Huntsman, who touted throughout the debate his experience living abroad, presented clear policy positions on Pakistan and Afghanistan – at one point getting into a heated debate with Mitt Romney over the Afghan troop drawdown ¬- and even managed to bring the conversation back around to the American economy. Perhaps for the first time in the campaign, the former Utah governor was able to set himself apart from the rest of the GOP crowd.

Michele Bachmann

Despite having largely been written off as a major player in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, Rep. Michele Bachmann delivered a strong performance in Tuesday’s debate, demonstrating her confidence discussing policy issues, and taking her competitors to task when they faltered. In a heated exchange with Rick Perry over providing aid to Pakistan, the Minnesota lawmaker blasted the Texas governor for what she described as his “highly naïve” take on the issue; later, she sparred with Newt Gingrich for his stance on immigration. Whether or not Bachmann’s performance was strong enough to get her back in the game remains to be seen – but she certainly earned more screen time than in recent debates.

Mitt Romney

Romney had one of his worst performances of the 11 debates so far, but he still managed to do fairly well. Romney is a front-runner for a reason: he has been running for president for five years and that practice has paid off for the former Massachusetts governor. Romney skillfully turned questions about foreign policy into answers about domestic issues where he was able to contrast his own positions with those of President Obama, cementing the idea that this race is going to come down to Romney and one other candidate.

Rick Santorum

Rick Santorum is still widely considered a long-shot candidate, but he earned his fair share of airtime in Tuesday’s debate. And while the former Pennsylvania senator may not have said much to change how America feels about him – he endorsed racial profiling Muslims and mistakenly referred to Africa as a country – he made his best effort to make his way back onto the public’s radar.

LOSERS

Herman Cain

Herman Cain did not have the standout moment he needed to prove to voters he has a command of foreign policy. After surging in the polls, Cain’s campaign has lost momentum in recent days, most notably after stumbling over a question regarding Libya. The only memorable moment from Cain in this debate came when he flubbed debate moderator Wolf Blitzer’s name, calling the CNN anchor “Blitz.”

Rick Perry

The Texas governor took some bold positions during this debate, but his policy stances were vigorously challenged by his colleagues. Perry almost seemed to immediately backtrack on the tough stance he took against foreign aid to Pakistan after Michele Bachmann called his position “naive.” Perry was also on the defense when other candidates — Mitt Romney, Herman Cain and Ron Paul — said they disagreed with Perry’s assertion that the U.S. should consider a no-fly zone over Syria.

Republican Foreign Policy Debate Post-Mortem (outsidethebeltway.com)
GOP presidential debate: National security discussed as Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney fend off challenges (nj.com)
Republican debate: Winners and Losers (cbsnews.com)
Foreign-policy debate gives GOP voters a tough choice (hotair.com)
Wrap-up of 11/22 CNN GOP Presidential debate on Foreign Policy (diglotting.com)

PPs, from Spain to Guatemala

The PP’s have just won the executive elections in two very distinct cultural, political and economical contexts in Spain and in Guatemala.

The PP’s (The Partido Popular in Spain and the Partido Patriotain Guatemala) implemented a ochlocratic discourse with which they won the support of the majorities. In Spain, the Partido Popular discourse appealed to the masses by claiming that the Socialist Party (PSOE) had failed to be responsible in managing the economic crisis and that the solution was a paternalistic leader like Mariano Rajoy who was to bring order. In Spain, the current economic and social crisis raised the unemployment rate from 8.1% in 2006 to a historical level of 20% by 2010 an 21.5% by September, 2011. More so, the increasing financial crisis in the region continued to debilitate the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (PSOE) whose premiership policies of raising taxes and the lack of a coherent economic plan were ineffective to tackle unemployment and reducing the government deficits from two digit numbers.

In Guatemala, the same ochlocratic discourse won the support of the masses by criticizing the Party Unión de Esperanza Nacional (UNE) and its irresponsibility to stop the organized crime elites that control most of the government’s structures (corruption with money from organized crime has captured the local, judicial, legislative and executive powers). Their campaign also identified in the figure of Otto Perez Molina (known as Mano Dura ‘hard fist’) the leader that was going to stop the advance of corruption and organized crime.

Independently of the achievements that either of these political programs will have in their countries; it is evident that the paternalist and populist discourse is again an effective tool to manipulate the masses in moments of economic and social crisis. Unfortunately, these discourses implemented by the “Conservative/Right” movements in their respective contexts have historically failed to solve the problems they aimed to fix. The long-term effects of these discourses have led to an increased disenchantment with the economic elites (usually linked to right movements) and to the reelection of leftist movements after the end of the “conservative/rightist” terms.

The problem with these discourses is linked to one single philosophical concept. That is the concept of Collectivism that has caused for several centuries so much poverty, hunger and suffering around the globe,

“The political expression of altruism is collectivism or statism, which holds that man’s life and work belong to the state—to society, to the group, the gang, the race, the nation—and that the state may dispose of him in any way it pleases for the sake of whatever it deems to be its own tribal, collective good.” Ayn Rand

Let us hope that Spain and Guatemala will find a right philosophy sooner than later.

New center-right Spain leader: Master of ambiguity (sfgate.com)
Spain’s likely new leader: A master of ambiguity (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
Spain fears for turning back clock on liberal reforms (telegraph.co.uk)

Book Reco: El amanecer de la libertad by Carlos Sabino

Carlos Sabino‘s latests book composes an historiographic evaluation of Latin American history and its heroes from a pro-libertarian, free market perspective. The book is an evaluation of the intellectual influences behind the Independence Movements in the region and how they still influence current political structures. I invite you to listen to this lecture by Prof. Sabino, (audio in Spanish)

Presentación del libro “El amanecer de la libertad”

New M.A. in History at Universidad Francisco Marroquin, Guatemala. (capitalisthistory.wordpress.com)

Free Webinar: Is there a moral way to go to war or fight a war?

When: Thursday, November 17th
Time: 1 PM Eastern (7 pm +1GMT)
Hosted by: Atlas Society

The Iraq war is winding down, but NATO remains heavily engaged in an ugly guerrilla war in Afghanistan. And the U.S. launches drone strikes against civilians world-wide as part of the “War on Terror.”

In this webinar, William R Thomas will discuss justice in the context of war-fighting.

Should there be restrictions on weapons or tactics?
Is there a workable distinction between combatants and non-combatants?

To answer these questions we need to ask what the goals of war-fighting are and how justice in wartime differs from justice in the normal context of life.

This interactive webinar will consist in a live slide-show with audio presentation that will run about 30 minutes. Then William Thomas will discuss questions from the audience. There’s time for everyone’s questions to be answered.

Space is allocated first-come, first-served.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at: www3.gotomeeting.com/register/199696406

Protect IP Act and Internet

A copyright protects a men’s mind contribution in The purest form: ie. in the the origination of ideas. This protection allows for men to freely decide what to do with his creation: give it for free, authorize some uses of it (Creative Commons), prohibit any use of it, sell the rights to the use of the idea.

Now, this recognition of Intellectual Property automatically gives to the owner a value that he can exchange for a specific amount of money and/or recognition. To the owner, this may be the stimulus for which he made the effort of creating and innovating. Also, there are many other retributions and stimulus for men to create. F.A. Hayek mentions that it is for the sake of creation that some intellectuals work and not only for the $. He made a valid point and usually this creator give for free or with some free of charge rights the use of their ideas (via CC like in this blog).

I was shared a video that claims that,

“PROTECT-IP is a bill that has been introduced in the Senate and the House and is moving quickly through Congress. It gives the government and corporations the ability to censor the net, in the name of protecting “creativity”. The law would let the government or corporations censor entire sites– they just have to convince a judge that the site is “dedicated to copyright infringement.”

The government has already wrongly shut down sites without any recourse to the site owner. Under this bill, sharing a video with anything copyrighted in it, or what sites like Youtube and Twitter do, would be considered illegal behavior according to this bill.”

Now, censorship is “the suppression of speech or other public communication which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the general body of people as determined by a government, media outlet, or other controlling body.” You could argue that it is censorship what government officials do when they put fines or take to jail those who are violating copyright rights. But also, you can argue in a higher hierarchy that yes, the officials are taking your right to “disseminate” speech and knowledge because you are violating the rights to property of other members of society. (Remember that private property is stil one of the rights that Americans haven’t managed to completely destroy… but after Patriot Act passed, anything is now possible and the socialization of Property is soon to happen there if nothing changes.)

Now the fallacious error of this video and of the claim of those who consider that Acts like this are violating men’s right to Speech can be found in the initial argument: “PROTECT IP Act is breaking internet”

Why is this fallacious?

It is a false argument because it starts by considering “Property as a non essential characteristic of the entity “Internet“. ie. They start by giving for granted that Internet lacks property rights and that it is only “Internet” when access is collective and a so called public good”. Now, the property rights or non property rights of internet are accessorial characteristics that are determined in context. For example, a chair could have different colors and still be a chair; internet could have private rights in some things and lack property rights in others but still be Internet.

Just as in radio-telecommunication spectrum legislation; If someone (a company) pays the rights of use of internet from other company or government grant and this company decides to restricts the access to the network, connections, websites, etc they have acquired a right to do so.

This private right to do whatever you please in your website enables you to do anything except violating other people’s rights. Since we still consider IP to be an inalienable right, those websites that violate it should be held responsible. That would not be censorship but the recognition of a violation of rights done by a website. That is what the PROTECT IP Act aims to do.