Julian Assange and the Sins of the World

There’s only been one person – so far – who suffered for the sins of the world and either saved us a lot of trouble or else caused us a lot of unnecessary grief. All I know is that a lot of people are hoping for His return – and for a better outcome.

As for myself, I fully expect a repeat of the previous scenario: the message, the betrayal, the persecution, and a torturous death.

They isolated Julian in the days before they hauled him out for the public display of his martyrdom. No crucifix this time. No crown of thorns. Just a penumbra of the deepest silence, which grips the very air: yet still he remains unbowed, his head held high.

The liberals who claim to be sympathetic to his cause seem more concerned about his persecution’s effect on their careers, that is on their ability to publish, than on Assange personally. Seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy, pursued around the globe by governments eager to win Washington’s favor, denounced by leading Clintonite apologist Neera Tandem as a "fascist," and excoriated by conservatives as a "traitor." He is a man alone.

One day these spoiled children of the oligarchy are going to have to face down some real fascists, and it isn’t going to be pretty.

As for Trump, his attitude toward WikiLeaks is ambiguous, at best. During the presidential campaign when he was attacking Hillary, proclaiming "I love WikiLeaks," and reading the most embarrassing passages from John Podesta’s e-mail, the MAGA mobs were chanting "Free Julian Assange!" What will they chant next week?

The Deplorables didn’t vote for military intervention in Venezuela. They didn’t vote to jail Assange. They didn’t vote for any of this. They voted against the "invade the world, invite the world" policy that has been the course set by our "conservative" governments since the Reagan era.

The Trump movement is a rebellion against the oligarchs, who have gained so much while the rest of the country has stood still or gone backwards. The country opposes all the wars of "liberation" the elites are planning for us, while Lindsey Graham bloviates practically every Sunday how we’re going to free the known universe. Our rulers want a regime exactly the opposite of what they’ve been getting.

Therefore – Trump!

There’s one libertarian politician who knows how to deal with Trump, and that is Rand Paul. Support his "America First" foreign policy, oppose his domestic policies when they’re wrong.

Unlike the average libertarian activist, Sen. Paul realizes that a noninterventionist policy will automatically reduce the size, the scale, and cost of the Welfare-Warfare State. Sheer attrition will destroy it. Think of all the government activity as supposedly necessary due to "national security."

Taking the long view is the only road to victory. It doesn’t mean compromising our principles or advocating a single statist measure. It simply means that foreign policy is the central issue of our time, not the peripheral matter libertarians have treated it as.

Now you’re getting an inkling of what Antiwar.com is all about.

NOTES IN THE MARGIN

You can check out my Twitter feed. But please note that my tweets are sometimes deliberately provocative, often made in jest, and largely consist of me thinking out loud.

I’ve written a couple of books, which you might want to peruse. Here is the link for buying the second edition of my 1993 book, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement, with an Introduction by Prof. George W. Carey, a Foreword by Patrick J. Buchanan, and critical essays by Scott Richert and David Gordon (ISI Books, 2008).

You can buy An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000), my biography of the great libertarian thinker, here.