12/17/15 – Daniel Sanchez – The Scott Horton Show

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All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
It's my show, The Scott Horton Show.
This idea of a democracy being given up, and in many cases being given up in a time of crisis, you see it throughout history, whether it's Julius Caesar or Napoleon or Adolf Hitler.
You see these democracies under a lot of pressure, in a crisis situation, who end up giving up a lot of the freedoms they have and a lot of the checks and balances to somebody with a strong authority to help get them through the crisis.
It's not the first time a politician has created a war to try to stay in office.
To counter the increasing threats of the separatists.
It is done then.
All right.
So, I'm Scott Horton.
It's my show, The Scott Horton Show.
And yeah, I am a worse Star Wars geek than you.
I don't dress up in costumes and all that, but my entire childhood was consumed by Star Wars.
I'm very happy about that, by the way.
And anyway, so on the line, I've got my friend, Dan Sanchez, who I'm a friend too.
He's at the Mises Institute and Anti-War.com and also Anti-Media.
You can find his articles there.
And he's got a couple here recent about Star Wars.
First, the neocon hunger for universal empire.
And then secondly, the road to galactic serfdom, war, tyranny and terror in the first two Star Wars trilogies.
You find that one right there in the right margin at Anti-War.com.
Welcome back to the show.
How you doing, Dan?
Great.
Thanks.
Good.
Good.
So, you like Star Wars too, huh?
Yeah.
I wasn't a big fan earlier, but I was interested in catching up with a new one coming out.
And I think I wasn't really politically aware the first time I saw it.
So I was able to tease out a lot more this last time around.
Oh, that's cool.
So you just went back, even very recently, watched all through the prequels and all that.
See, that's funny because I grew up on all this stuff and you think a lot more great stuff about it than me that you wrote here.
Maybe that's why I'm still a little kid on the issue.
But yeah, no, I love it.
This is how I learned to prefer a republic to an empire in the first place, which I think was the point as Lucas was saying there.
And this is part of the story was that after Nixon's landslide in 72, there was some talk this before the Watergate thing got too bad.
There was some talk about maybe we need to repeal the 22nd Amendment because of the emergency.
And so that Nixon can stay in office like Franklin Roosevelt did in order to protect us all.
And that was what gave Lucas the idea in the first place that he wanted to do a movie to kind of inoculate people against that, against that kind of thinking that, as Han Solo says, there's no time to discuss this in committee.
If there's not, you're going to lose all your freedom.
You're going to have to figure out something.
Yeah, that's really the key.
I think the prequels especially are a great analogy for, because it's all about the rise of the Sith, and the distinctive way in which the Sith rises is through generating war and crisis and using those wars and crises to justify expanded powers, especially for Palpatine, who later becomes the emperor.
So I really thought it was a great illustration of some important thinkers, specifically three of them, Randolph Bourne, Robert Higgs, and F.A. Hayek.
Now Bourne talks about how war is the health of the state, and especially because people start to clamor for greater powers for the central state in order to feel secure.
That's exactly what you have with all these wars, is that Palpatine is given these emergency powers that he promises solemnly that he will relinquish once the crisis has passed, but of course he doesn't.
As it turns out, again, he was the one who instigated these wars, and that has a great analogy in terms of history, because the state is aware that war is the health of the state, and that's why states love war so much.
And so you see throughout history, states dragging their populace into these wars in order to shore up and expand their own power, and it's worked every time.
It's a part of a more general phenomenon that Robert Higgs talks about, especially in his book Crisis and Leviathan, where crisis in general, including wars, are often used for the sake of expanding power.
And Higgs also talks about something he calls the ratchet effect, where even though after the war or crisis has passed, the emergency powers will be brought down, they never go down all the way to the pre-crisis level.
So with every passing crisis and every passing war, the power and size of the state keeps ratcheting up.
And then finally, F.A. Hayek, there's a great scene where Anakin and Padme are talking about Anakin's ideal governmental system, and Anakin says, we need a system where the politicians sit down and discuss the problems, agree what's in the best interest of all the people, and then do it.
Padme says, that's exactly what we do, the trouble is that people don't always agree, in fact they hardly do.
Anakin says, then they should be made to.
Padme says, by whom, who's going to make them?
He says, someone wise.
She says, that sounds an awful lot like dictatorship to me.
And he says, well, if it works.
This is before he turns to Darth Vader.
And this is basically what Hayek talks about in The Road to Serfdom, when he says that especially this kind of what he calls impatience with the impotence of democracy, that it's a function of democracies being given too broad of a mandate to accomplish society's ends through planning.
So he says that agreement that planning is necessary, together with the inability of democratic assemblies to produce a plan, will evoke stronger and stronger demands that the government or some single individual should be given powers to act on their own responsibility.
The belief is becoming more and more widespread that if things are to get done, the responsible authorities must be freed from the fetters of democratic procedure.
And later on, he talks about how that explains the rise of Hitler, because Weimar Germany had embraced planning.
And so he says that it's important to remember that for some time before 1933, Germany had reached a stage in which it had, in effect, had to be governed dictatorially.
Nobody could then doubt that for the time being, democracy had broken down.
Hitler did not have to destroy democracy.
He merely took advantage of the decay of democracy and at the critical moment obtained the support of many to whom, though they detested Hitler, he yet seemed the only man strong enough to get things done.
So again, that's the phenomenon of a strong man, an Alexander cutting the Gordian knot of the parliamentary discord.
And it's very worrying because you see that today that that's part of the appeal of Trump, that people see him as a strong man.
And but really, all the candidates are are potential strongmen who people might want to empower in order to establish the plan that they desperately want, but are so frustrated that the democratic procedures aren't able to come to a consensus on.
Right.
Yeah.
And then, you know, what's funny is even after all this time, the absolute myth holds that, well, Mussolini did make the trains run on time.
That's kind of actually one of the mistaken messages of all the fascism in Star Wars, I think, is that, hey, listen, if you have a Vader or Palpatine who will threaten death for anyone who fails them, they are very efficient at making and deploying Star Destroyers and, you know, using them effectively and whatever.
That's one lesson that should have been in Star Wars, is that, boy, all the time I spent in government employment, I don't know if any of this is going to work out, you know, seems like my TIE fighter keeps short circuiting and this kind of crap got shocked in the bathroom.
We'll be right back with Dan Sanchez in just one second, y'all.
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Hey, guys, welcome back.
Happy Star Wars Day.
Episode seven finally comes out today.
I'm going to go see it.
Hope everybody's got their tickets in order.
Talking on the line with Dan Sanchez from Mises and antiwar.com, the road to galactic serfdom.
And I always thought it was funny that especially right wingers always thought, or maybe now they finally get it or something in a way, but they always thought that Star Wars was somehow about the Soviet Union.
Really?
Was the Soviet Union a republic that became an empire?
I don't remember that.
I'm pretty sure that George Lucas is from here.
And obviously the lesson is for us and about us.
And you know, as he said in that clip I played at the top of the show, how people willingly give away their liberty to people who frighten them or in circumstances where they're frightened anyway.
So you make some really great points in this article, Dan.
I really hope everyone will go read it.
The Road to Galactic Serfdom.
It's at antiwar.com.
And I like the way you put it in terms of the libertarian heroes, too, to really get people interested here.
Randolph Bourne, war is the health of the state.
Robert Higgs, every crisis, especially war, leads to this ratchet effect where their power increases more and more.
And even when the crisis is over, it never quite goes back to the way it was before, even if it kind of subsides some.
But then the point that I really wanted to pick up on right here was the point about Hayek, or another one you could quote, Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, obviously, like in the title.
But Mises, too, said the middle of the road leads to socialism, by which I think he basically meant communism and government ownership of everything or whatever.
Because the point being that every government intervention only distorts something and makes it worse, only drives up a price, drives down a quality of service, and gives and creates more and more problems and more and more reasons for people to ask for more and more government to solve their problems.
And then as you put it in here, on the Road to Serfdom model, things become such a mess that people, they just won't listen to Ron Paul tell them all we got to do is repeal everything and freedom will take care of everything.
They'd rather listen to a Trump say, give the power to me and I'll whip that bureaucracy into shape.
I'm powerful enough that I can make the engine move the way you want it to move.
And they believe that.
And then of course, boy, what comes after him, right?
Holy crap.
Yeah, and Mises' middle of the road path to socialism is sort of a cyclical path, too.
And it really dovetails with what Yoda says when he says, if once you start down the dark path forever, will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.
And the reason why, in Mises' formulation, is that these interventions, in order to solve a problem, just makes the problems worse and creates greater problems.
And then that, in turn, leads to calls for even further intervention, which just creates more problems and more state control over the economy.
And you just keep going down that path and eventually it leads to complete economic planning, to socialism.
And you see the same thing with war.
And that leads to another Yoda quote where he talks about fear being the path to the dark side.
He says that fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.
And the thing is, is that that loops around, because suffering then leads to anger.
And so it becomes a cycle.
And that is a perfect analogy, I think, for the wars and the terrorism that we've been afflicted with.
So that fear leading to anger, I mean, you see that just as kind of an arbitrary starting point, because it has begun ever since the beginning of the warfare state.
But with 9-11, which itself was blowback, leading to terror, that not only were people struck by terrorists, but they allowed themselves to be stricken with terror to such an extent that – and I think there's a useful distinction between fear and terror, that terror is what leads you to hate.
I mean, fear is a useful emotion, but terror is where it becomes irrational and where it becomes to such an extent that you justify doing evil yourself.
And so you see that throughout the Star Wars trilogies, especially the prequels, that that's Anakin's path to the dark side, that Yoda predicted when he first met Anakin.
Because Anakin is terrified of losing his mother, and Yoda sees that from the beginning, and that does actually lead to his fall into the dark side, because terror does lead to hate.
Because when his mother does die, then he becomes so angry that he admits to killing children, the women and children of the Tusken Raiders who had killed her.
And that's a very good analogy of what America was willing to embrace.
Like Dick Cheney said, that we need to embrace the dark side, and America was willing to embrace the dark side in the form of a million civilian deaths in Iraq, and now four million Muslim deaths in the terror wars in general.
And that only leads to suffering, because that leads to more blowback in the form of terrorism, in the form of the refugee crisis, in the form of the burgeoning police state.
And then that terror then completes the loop, and leads to more anger and hate and more suffering.
And now, so here's the thing too, is you're really explaining how great the prequels could have been, the same story, in the hands of a better screenwriter and a better director, because there's so much there to love about the manipulation of the Sith, and the parallels between the crises created by Palpatine in the movie, along with the history of America's wars that are all in there as well.
The Civil War is well-represented in Episodes 2 and 3, the terror war in Episode 3 especially.
And the thing is, eh, you know, they were successful at getting some of those messages through at the time they came out, back a decade ago, but they haven't stood the test of time, unfortunately, I think, in the minds of most, and I guess I'd have to include myself, but what the hell, I love it anyway, because I have to, because I'm who I am.
Yeah, I agree that George Lucas was good on the broad ideas and the broad themes, he just needed help to execute it well.
Another one that was really applicable to the times when it came out was when Anakin says, if you're not with me, you're the enemy.
That was obviously a direct echo of George Bush when he said, if you're not with us, you're with the terrorists.
And the interesting thing is, is that Osama Bin Laden explicitly endorsed Bush's statement to that effect, that he liked that framework for the conflict, because he wanted everyone to either be with what he called the crusaders, or be with the terrorists.
And now ISIS, with their deliberate strategy in their official magazine, they call that eliminating the gray zone.
They want a black and white struggle between the crusaders and the terrorists, what the neocons call a clash of civilizations.
And so that's why they commit these terror attacks, one of the main reasons is in order to both polarize people into the crusader camp, and to have the response of the western governments be so brutal to Muslims that it drives them into the extremist camp, the extreme Islamist camp as well.
And it's very apocalyptic that the terrorists are similar to the neocons in that they want this clash of civilization, they want this apocalyptic showdown, because each side thinks that it'll end up coming out victorious.
So really, they're kind of allies, they're both allies with the people who want peace, who want coexistence, both the extremists of the empire and the extremists of the terrorists.
Yeah, the analogy breaks down when it comes to the original series, and it's funny to listen to the neocons take the side of the empire, I don't think anybody on our side said or would say that the terrorists make a very good metaphor, or the rebel alliance of Luke and Leia make a good metaphor for the terrorists, it seems more like the parallel for them is the droid army, the big fake threat that's engineered by the republic itself in order to become an empire.
And so, just because the US is the bad guys doesn't mean that Osama is Luke Skywalker or anything like that.
But then what the neocons do is they go, oh yeah, look, see, Luke Skywalker is ISIS.
Luke Skywalker and the rebel alliance, why they're a bunch of terrorists trying to tear down all the Sith's hard work when all they're trying to do is create a little bit of peace and stability around here.
Dan?
Yeah, I call these endless clickbait articles to this effect, the neocontrarians, because they feel so smug and clever that, oh, the empire is actually the good guys and Luke is actually the bad guy.
One of the things that I stress in the article is how Luke really resisted the dark side, of course, but that shows how he's exactly the opposite from a terrorist.
Because that's what terrorists do, is that they yield to their hate to the point where they're willing to commit aggression, because that's another component that Yoda in the original trilogy says is part of the dark side, is he uses the word aggression.
And so I think that's an important parallel you can draw with the libertarian theory of the non-aggression principle, that there's violence, but then there's the initiation of violence, which is aggression.
And violence in self-defense, like Yoda says, is fine, and like libertarians say, but it's when you initiate violence against what you call collateral damage, against innocent civilians, that that's the dark side.
And that's exactly what Luke resisted, and that's why he triumphed where his father had failed, that his father yielded to aggression, that he killed the baby Tusken Raiders and he executed surrendered prisoners, and that led him to the dark side.
But whereas Luke, that he resisted it when the emperor was trying to goad him into executing his own father when he was basically defeated, that he resisted, and he said, I'm not going to yield to the dark side.
And that, in a sense, then his father later says, you already saved me, because he says, I want to save you, and he says, you already have, because in a sense, he redeemed him, that he inspired his own father to also turn against the dark side at the very end, finally, by his example of resisting terror, of renouncing hate, of abstaining from aggression, of not yielding to the dark side.
It's very libertarian for a movie that was originally made up by a guy who, as far as I can tell, is some kind of Bill Clinton liberal Democrat or something.
But that's all you've got to do, that's the whole point of the whole damn story, you just drop the article.
It's not about the force, it's about force, the light side and the dark side of force.
It doesn't preach pacifism, but it says, for knowledge and defense, never for attack, simple as that.
Right, and going back to what you were saying about defending the empire, it really is amazing, because like you say, it was thought of as a Soviet thing, and even just the language that Reagan adopting the term, the evil empire for the Soviets, I mean, that was obviously taken from the earlier Star Wars movie, and calling the Afghan Mujahideen the precursor to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, how Reagan called them the Freedom Fighters, because that was in the opening scroll of one of the original Star Wars trilogy movies too, was calling the rebels Freedom Fighters, and just really co-opting that language.
And then, later on, you have the same neocons defending the empire as this empire that was seemingly representing the hated Soviets, taking that as a good model for America itself, that you have Jonathan Last in 2002 had a defense of the empire, saying that, oh, it's this great force for order and for security, and even to the extent of justifying the destruction of a whole planet with a Death Star, and justifying gunning down Luke's parents, because the planet was a front for rebel activity, and Leia was lying about the planet not having weapons.
I mean, it's identical to, at the same exact time, this was in 2002 that this article was written, when they were saying that Saddam is lying about Iraq having weapons, and so in the same way that he justifies ...
Afghanistan is too remote to make an effective demonstration, but don't worry, we'll deal with them soon enough.
Right, right.
And so, yeah, and they just keep on with that, because just very recently, then Continetti, another William Crystal protégé, penned a defense of the empire, and just again, they ... specifically with the Iraq war, that they justified, well, there might be terrorists in Iraq, and so they justified massacring civilians there, in the same way that they say that Luke's parents might have been harboring terrorist droids in Tatooine, and even how Tatooine is like an arid landscape, it was actually filmed on location in Tunisia, I mean, they think that these examples play into their argument, when they play to the exact opposite of their argument, it just goes to show how much the Star Wars films are an analogy for just the failure of their policy.
Yeah, it is great that they don't ... they're perfectly happy to say, yes, of course, the Emperor and Darth Vader are the good guys, they're trying to centralize all authority, and put everybody under their wise boot heel, everybody knows that's what to do, and they really think that, and I guess there is a small segment of the population that'll go for that, but yeah, no, I mean, and that's always been the good thing about the neocons, is they have no sense of their own absurdity whatsoever, so they'll go ahead and tell you exactly what they're about, all right?
Especially William Crystal, who is just comically known for being wrong about everything, and yet he's the one who keeps tweeting these defenses for the Empire, and he's the one who thinks that the Empire is a model for what he called benevolent global hegemony, in that famous article from the 90s that he wrote, that it's just a model for that.
And it's just so tone-deaf, because everybody knows the Empire is evil, so you keep trying to defend them, but it just keeps reinforcing the association, the correct association, that people have between the neocons and the Empire, which they know is evil.
Yep.
Yeah, that's funny.
You know, I had a friend who didn't like Star Wars, because he said, look, unless your president is shooting lightning out of his hands, then people can't see it for what it really is, because Star Wars has just basically raised the bar of what counts as Empire or not, to such a cartoonish degree or whatever, but that, he wasn't counting on Bill Crystal, and they will outright identify with the guy shooting the lightning out of his hands, the evil wizard from the movie.
That's their guy, alright.
No problem whatsoever, so we can rest assured.
And now, so, no spoilers, because I don't know anything about it, and neither do you, but there's a lot of red, white, and black in the trailers, and looks like a lot of Nazi themes, and this and that, and so what are your hopes for the new one?
If you have time, I'm keeping you way over time here, but are you going to see the movie tonight?
What do you think?
I think I'm going to see it on maybe Sunday or next week, Sunday or next week sometime, but I mean, just from the trailers, there's the scene of the main characters jumping away from a tent in the desert when an airstrike happens, and I think that is potentially an interesting analogy with all the drone strikes, making the rubble bounce in all these desert atmospheres, with launching these multi-million dollar missiles at these five dollar tents throughout the world, and how just horribly imperialistic and obviously evil that is.
Yeah, that really is right there, first and foremost in the trailer, is showing all these stormtroopers with flamethrowers and all their rifles in a full-scale assault against a bunch of lean-to's.
What?
Right, and that's another analogy, a great analogy from the prequels, is the fact that the stormtroopers were clones, and they were bred for docility, that they were bred, bio-engineered to follow orders, basically, and that again plays into Bourne's notion that war is the health of the state, because that's the kind of docility that war breeds among people, because people get so frightened for their security that they become like sheep to the government shepherds, willing to just be regimented the way that stormtroopers are, and follow orders, and then having that standing army is what really backed Palpatine's rise to become emperor.
Yeah, that is a good one.
Hey, listen, I'm sure you've got to go, and I do too, and I kept you away over time here, but thanks for writing this really great article.
Everybody, please go read it.
Actually, there's a couple of them.
They're both at antiwar.com, I'm pretty sure, right?
Yes.
Yeah, they are.
And the other one is also at your own site.
I had it here somewhere here.
Yeah, The Neocon Hunger for Universal Empire, and The Road to Galactic Serfdom by Dan Sanchez, both at antiwar.com.
Thanks, Scott.
It was great talking to you.
Thanks very much, dude.
Really appreciate it.
Yeah, great to talk to you.
Bye.
Hey, Al Scott Horton here.
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