No such thing as “National Interest”
Published by Yazad Jal June 28th, 2003 in Libertarian, GovernanceGene Callahan is someone whose opinion I respect a lot. The National Interest, his latest piece, is a must read. He writes regularly on libertarian issues, largely for LewRockwell.com.
. . . nations are not the sorts of entities that have interests, just like they don’t have crushes or daydreams or urges to go out for a beer. It is individuals who have those things. All thoughts, of which interests are a sub species, occur in the minds of particular people, and do not float around in some sort of “national consciousness.”
Superb. Should be read by all those who think patriotism is a panacea and playing the national anthem in theatres and colleges is it’s climax.
The example he gives at the end is a non-sequitor…
well because
1) He claims that there is no such thing as national interest because most of the time the interests of citizens conflict with one another
2) The example he gives puts the family in the wrong for other reasons, not because the action is not in the family interest. It is wrong for the family to go and burn down another family’s house, but the action may still be in the first family’s interest (depending on how it turns out)
So finally he ends up making the point that the Iraq war may have benefitted the Americans (i.e the first family) but is still wrong because it hurt the Iraqis. Even if this were true, it has nothing to do with his point that there is no such thing as national interest