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The Deprivation of Defense

By Gordon Francis Corbett

    Theodore Roosevelt wrote a behavioral definition of patriotism which should govern support for any policy.

    "Patriotism means to stand by the country.  It does not mean to stand by the President or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country.

    "It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country.  It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country.

    "In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth--whether about the President or anyone else--save in the rare cases where this would make known to the enemy information of military value which would otherwise be unknown to him."

    I support the United States Government when it stands by the country.  I oppose it when it does not stand by the country.  I infer support for the country from its obedience to the Constitution, and I infer lack of support for the country from its disobedience to the Constitution.  When the Constitution's provisions do not pertain in any way to a governmental policy, I evaluate it according to Objectivist philosophy.  When Objectivism seems not to apply, I use common sense.

    The noun, "government," as an institution, is a misnomer.  There are only public guardians, whom we hire to protect our rights according to strictures set down in the Constitution.  They are our servants, and we masters must constantly watch them to ensure that they perform properly.

    Take disarmament, otherwise known as "gun control" or "arms control."

    "Gun control" prevents individuals from obtaining the tools they need to defend themselves against deadly assailants.  "Arms control" prevents public guardians from obtaining the tools they need to defend citizens against foreign invaders.  For obvious reasons, both are moral obscenities.

    Some days ago, on television, I saw a United States soldier blow up a captured Soviet-made Iraqi tank.  A few days later, I saw a Bradley vehicle roll over large numbers of captured Iraqi rifles and machine guns that deliberately had been placed in its path.

    Those sights opened my eyes and reminded me of something.

    The Bush Administration's policy toward civilian Americans' ownership of firearms seems, at least for the moment, to be passively benign;  but, its foreign policy firmly opposes what it calls the "illicit" trafficking in weapons.  C. F. R. member and Assistant Secretary of State Lincoln Bloomfield has written, "The uncontrolled proliferation of small arms and light weapons (SA/LW) in regions of the world suffering from political instability and violent conflict has proven a major obstacle to peace, economic development, and efforts to rebuild war-torn societies."

    Fertilizer.

    Consider this.  Once the war is over and our occupation is ending, we could give some captured weapons to individual Iraqis, and deliver others to the new Iraqi government.  Any Iraqi desiring to emulate Saddam Hussein would not have to exert himself to imagine a big bull's-eye painted on his chest.  What would be wrong with that?  Nothing!

    That is, the answer is "nothing," if we want the Iraqis newly freed to be able to defend their homes, and their new public guardians to be able to defend their nation.

    On the other hand, if we want to replace Saddam Hussein with a human oil spigot, we would keep Iraqis and their new government weaponless.

    Therefore, we destroy Saddam Hussein's weapons.

    Confucius was right.  In a famous statement, he said that no person can truly conceal himself, because, day by day, in his words and deeds, he will reveal his true nature.

    President Bush is revealing his.

http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itps/0601/ijpe/ijpe0601.htm

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