Musings on tyranny, rebellion and national sovereignty

The recent events in the Middle East and Africa – Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Oman, Bahrain, etc. - have me wondering about the right of sovereign nations when it comes to internal rebellion.

Many southern contemporaries considered Abraham Lincoln a tyrant. In fact, after shooting him, John Wilkes Booth famously jumped to the stage and shouted, “Sic semper tyrannis” (Latin for “Thus always to tyrants” and also the state motto of Virginia). To this day, there continues to be a slow simmering debate on the topic, as illustrated by Dave Gibson’s article from 2005. Brad Schaeffer rightly referred to “Lincoln the ‘tyrant’ – the Libertarian’s favorite bogeyman”. At the very least, it can be agreed that Lincoln suspended aspects of the Constitution in order to save the whole of it. To his defense, his was neither the first nor the last administration to take such measures during wartime and that historically seems to be within the authority of the Executive under our system. 

Clearly, I’m neither equating Gadhafi with Lincoln, nor coming out in favor of tyranny generally here. Many of the leaders in these country were at best benign dictators and often far worse. Rather my point is to what extent the recognized government of a sovereign nation has the right to put down uprisings – particularly organized and armed uprisings – within its own borders. Despite press reports – which seem forever drawn to the romanticism of the “peasant uprising” – when the “protesters” start to look like the ones in this picture manning the anti-aircraft gun, they stop being civilians and start becoming legitimate military targets.

In all the political debates about Libya, no one is debating that Gadhafi is the recognized head of state of the recognized government of Libya and has been, unfortunately, for decades. And yet, there seems to be a strange level of comfort with other nations telling that government what they should do – perhaps at threat of force. As US Defense Secretary Robert Gates called out in Congressional testimony today, even imposing a no-fly zone requires a military attack against Libya.

Consider, though, if today South Carolina attacked Ft Sumter and seceded and the US federal government moved against them, would the UN put a no fly zone in-place and urge restraint? Would Lincoln have listened? Should he have?

One genius of the US as a federal republic is that it is NOT a democracy. Thomas Jefferson famously regarded democracy as “mob rule”. Plato, in his criticism of democracy, quoted Socrates:

“Democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequaled alike.”

Nation-states are not required to commit governmental suicide in order to legitimize every form of popular protest. If this were the requirement, we’d have had no recourse against the Confederacy, slavery would not have been abolished, and other portions of the United States would probably have seceded in subsequent years for other reasons.

When there is sufficient energy in a society to stand up for themselves and force a change (for better or worse), then those people and groups need to be willing to take the risks and establish their own legitimacy before other nations rush in to make things “right”. In fact, it is this very type of well intentioned external meddling that has led to long term instability in countries from Cuba to the Philippines to just about every country in Latin America. As a society, these countries were bestowed with representative governments before they had attained the level of literacy, education, and financial stability to prevent them from sliding into corruption – which is the tendency of all forms of government.