Weekly Column - 12/14/2010

This week's column was deemed publishable:

"In a society where truth becomes treason, we are in big trouble." – Congressman Ron Paul

It is a common misconception that there is little difference between the conservative and the libertarian. While the former is critical of some aspects of government, only the latter is consistent in wishing the State to be severely limited. Conservatives are on solid ground when they criticize the government for its inefficiencies and its propensity to violate the rights of the citizenry. But when it comes to the military, for some reason, these principles—if we can stretch the term to include something which is abandoned so readily—are renounced in favor of a fervent defense of all things Empire.

The latest incident involves Julian Assange, editor of WikiLeaks. Assange has released about 900 formerly secret cables—the 250,000 number which is being reported is false as the rest of the cables are encrypted, and therefore unreadable—which paint a sordid picture of the inner-workings of the American government. Many of the cables are still encrypted, and the sheer enormity of the material has made it difficult to cull the documents for details—though Antiwar.com and Glenn Greenwald, have been doing good work on this front. Nonetheless, conservatives are up in arms over the revelations, which allegedly hurts the mission of "the troops", the sacrosanct symbol of modern conservatism.