WikiLeaks and National Insecurity By William L. Anderson
(2011-01-04 at 20:04:33 )

WikiLeaks and National Insecurity By William L. Anderson

An overused term in this age of the overwhelming state is "national
security," and I always am amazed at how people who think clearly on
other subjects fall all over themselves when someone manages to breach
the secrecy of government agencies. Not surprisingly, when this flimsy
"security" line actually is crossed, the typical response is to try
to kill the messenger.

One of my favorite bloggers is Tom Kirkendall, a Houston attorney who
also runs the Houston Clear Thinkers blog, and Kirkendalls comments on
the latest WikiLeaks release of hundreds of thousands of documents
involving international wheeling and dealing is on the money. Before
looking at his comments, however, I have a few of my own.

The Progressive Era, which really was a massive assault on the
constitutional order of the former American Republic, was based upon a
belief that "intelligent experts" should be in charge of the daily
lives of everyone else. People at the end of the 19th Century tended to
understand that politicians were corrupt, governments generally wasted
tax dollars, and that elected off icials could not be trusted.

Furthermore, while they did not like that situation, nonetheless they at
least could be assured that they could live their lives apart from most
governmental influence.

Progressives, however, believed that they could create what everyone
else thought to be an oxymoron: "Good Government." This would be
government which had permanent agencies staff ed by brilliant and loyal
"public servants" who could - and should - make decisions for everyone
else.

The Progressives also believed that the Constitution was terribly f lawed
because it gave that corrupt Congress too much authority and did not
give the executive branch the free hand that was needed to
institutionalize the bureaucratic state. Thus, they sought to change
that state of aff airs, and what we have today is the result:
Bad Governance By The "Good Experts."

(As an academic economist, I always marvel at just how the "brilliant"
policy "experts" in the executive branch have managed to run the
once-powerful U.S. economy into the ground, and now claim they can
"f ix" everything by injecting bouts of inf lation. For once, I really
wish that someone like Ben Bernanke, who was on the elite Princeton
economics faculty before coming to the Federal Reserve System, would
admit that by appealing to inf lation, he has no answers at all.

Instead, we get nonsense like "Quantitative Easing," which is nothing
more than a euphemism for printing money.)

The arena where we most likely will see "rule by experts" is in foreign
policy, and the WikiLeaks document release demonstrates just how cynical
and dishonest the entire process has become. Furthermore, the release
demonstrates how truly mediocre yet egotistical people have come to
dominate the process, and how they put millions of people on the hook
just to pad their own ego trips.

It is here that Kirkendall really presents some good insights. He writes:

To get at the value of WikiLeaks, I think it is important to distinguish
between the government-the temporary, elected authors of national policy-
and the state-the permanent bureaucratic and military apparatus
superficially but not fully controlled by the reigning government. The
careerists scattered about the world in Americas intelligence agencies,
military, and consular off ices largely operate behind a veil of secrecy
executing policy which is itself largely secret. American citizens
mostly have no idea what they are doing, or whether what they are doing
is working out well. The actually-existing structure and strategy of the
American Empire remains a near-total mystery to those who foot the bill
and whose children f ight its wars. And that is the way the elite of
Americas unelected permanent state, perhaps the most powerful class of
people on Earth, like it.

If secrecy is necessary for national security and eff ective diplomacy,
it is also inevitable that the prerogative of secrecy will be used to
hide the misdeeds of the permanent state and its privileged agents. I
suspect that there is no scheme of government oversight that will not
eventually come under the indirect control of the generals, spies, and
foreign-service off icers it is meant to oversee. (Emphasis mine)

What passes for "national security" really is nothing more than a veil
of secrecy created to protect the "insecurity" of the bureaucrats and
clueless, short-term-thinking policymakers who obligate Americans and
others to pay for destructive schemes. Not surprisingly, in the end,
the Permanent Ruling Class that the "Progressive" system has created
respond by wanting to throw the messenger into prison.

(Since we do not have television reception at my home, I have not
watched any of the talking heads on the various cable shows, but I am
sure that the word "treason" has been thrown around carelessly by both
liberals and conservatives. As I see it, however, Julian Assange simply
has opened our eyes to the egotism and folly of people who believe they
are entitled to make decisions for billions of people.)

As if on cue, the New York Times, which really is the Godfather of
Progressivism, provides comic relief in the form of claiming that the
leaks show just how skillful and brilliant the Obama Regime really is
in contrast to the Bush administration. Once again, we see that
Progressives tend to be bifurcated in their thinking, claiming that this
latest release of documents falls into both the "Are We Not Brilliant?"
AND "Move Along, Folks, Nothing To See" categories, and the NYT misses
the larger point.

What is that bigger picture? In the post-World War II era, the "experts"
that run our Administrative State not only have Bankrupted This Country,
they have driven out productive people and productive entities, involved
our armed forces in intractable wars (none of which have been declared
by Congress, as the Constitution requires), put troops all over the
world, and Created a Police State at Home.

Furthermore, they have managed to get away with it and have convinced
Americans that any attempt to do away with this sorry state of aff airs
is an Act of Treason.

And what is the response when this folly is exposed? Yes, arrest those
who have exposed it and give more power to those people who have been
destroying our economy and our future.

December 1, 2010

William L. Anderson, Ph.D. teaches economics at Frostburg State
University in Maryland, and is an adjunct scholar of the Ludwig
von Mises Institute. He also is a consultant with American Economic
Services.

Copyright © 2010 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or
in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.