No Nukes- No Consistency; F. Foote

Frederick C. Foote NO-CONSISTENCY "So what have you got against nu clear holocausts," I recently asked a student friend of mine wearing a lit tle, orange "No Nukes" button. We both laughed, the message was clear: Nobody, obviously, wants a nuclear holocaust. Nor does anybody delight in spending the billions of dollars needed to protect this country from the Soviet Union. I'm a little dis mayed, then, by those "peaceniks" whose little buttons seem to imply that they have come to the consci entious realization that amassing weapons that can destroy the world is undesirable, whereas President Reagan and others, presumably, have not. Rather than simply lamenting the arms race, though, there is a deeper issue here that I would like to ad dress, and this issue seems to evade Fred Foote is the editor of Prospect magazine pub lished for Princeton University Alumni. He will be en rolled next year in Harvard Law 8<:0001.

460 the consciences of the button bear ers. What is the philosophical basis of the arms race from the Soviets' point of view? It is this: that the use of aggressive force against some is un avoidable, or justified in the inter ests of the "greater good." I call it the "socialist premise" and it is the bankrupt yet uncontested philoso phy of our day. The Soviet Union provides the boldest expression of this philosophy in the modern world. For the "greater good" it is justified that the lives and properties of all Russians be subju gated to the State. Millions of indi viduals who would prefer to live for themselves, their children, or even their God are brutally murdered, detained in labor camps, or forced to lead lives of desperate servitude. And Soviet "leaders," moreover, do not limit their warfare to the inhab itants of their country. Today, the Red Army is poisoning and slaughNO NUKES, NO CONSISTENCY 461 tering innocent Afghans, letting the lifeblood of the Polish people, and, clearly, continuing its crusade to ad vance Soviet hegemony until it im prisons the entire free world.

The fuel that runs this machine is the philosophy that has caused wars in the past, and will cause them in the future: the philosophy that some individuals (blacks, Jews, the rich, whoever) are wholly or partially ex pendable for the benefit of others. There is something obscene, therefore, in that those most vehe mently opposed to the arms race have accepted the doctrine that has pre cipitated it: the socialist premise. Consider the people who are most frequently seen wearing the "No Nukes" buttons. Are they not the same ones who argue for federal money to subsidize their educations, abortions, contraceptives, hospital bills, food stamps, fuel costs, retire ments, camping trails, and solar roofs? Are they not the same ones who argue, in fact, on behalf of nearly every new federal program that comes down the pike, and ignore (or perhaps relish) the fact that these programs must be force-funded, at least in part, by the taxes of others?

Where there are "No Nukes" but tons, there often seems to be no con sistent thinking either. Advocates of Marxist or even mixed economies cannot deny the philosophical prem ise they share with the Soviet Union. Nor can they deny that this premise similarly involves the sacrifice of other men's Iives and properties in the name of the "greater good." Laissez-faire capitalism, in con trast, is the only social system that consistently upholds individual rights and bans the use of force against peaceful citizens. It is the only system under which no group, however large, can use force against another group, however small. In theory and in practice, laissez-faire capitalism is the only social system fundamentally opposed to war. Yet, blinded by their envy of the productive and the industrious and the deserving, the "peaceniks," their professors, and republicans and democrats alike, refuse to acknowl edge the unprecedented material benefits and unparalleled moral jus tification of laissez-faire capitalism.

Instead, they doggedly adhere to the socialist premise. They avert their eyes from the plunder and misery that cruelly scars the face of every socialist scheme from the command economies of the Eastern Bloc to the Indian reservations of America. And they wish, with their referendums, buttons, and marches, to outlaw war with armed enemies as they advo cate war with the unarmed and in nocent citizens of this country. I'm looking for a little, orange button of my own: "No Force." Don't expect most "peaceniks" to snap them u~ @ E. C. Pasour,Jr. PRIVATIZATION: Is It the Answer? DURING the past 50 years, there has been a pronounced shift in economic activity from the private to the pub lic sector as government expendi tures (local, state, and federal) in creased from an eighth to a third of Gross National Product. In recent years, mounting budget deficits and dissatisfaction with both the quality and cost of governmentally provided goods and services-including edu cation, law enforcement, roads, mail service, health care, public util ities, and welfare programs-have heightened interest in the appropri ate role of government at all levels.