So I happened to notice the Debbie Downer note of Elise’s last post, and I wanted to focus specifically on the question of whether “it jibes with even his progressive values to stand for one set of rights at home and another one abroad.” That’s actually not a helpful way to phrase the question, for it elides the disconnect between domestic and international politics.
I think a genuine commitment to constitutional democracy involves guaranteeing a certain number of rights to your citizens at home, basically framed by the belief that people ought to be maximally free. This can be formulated in two basic ways: negative and positive freedoms. Negative freedom is the Jeffersonian formulation, where it means limitations on the power of the government. Positive freedom is a more modern notion, famously articulated by FDR in his Four Freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of worship (both negative), and freedom from want and fear. The latter two are positive freedoms, where the idea is that government intervention is meant to preserve the practical freedom of action of the individual. While many Americans disagree over the relative importance of those two types of freedom, the general principle is clear: freedom is good.
It is less clear how that ought to apply outside of our own borders. One may interpret it as demanding a commitment to extend our ideas of basic human rights to all citizens of the world. Conversely, one may interpret it as respecting the right to self-determination and thus interfering minimally in the internal affairs of other nations. Both of those international postures are fundamentally compatible with small-l liberal values, and both are equally capable of seeing their converse as fundamentally violating those same small-l liberal values. I think this is why there is a continual exchange of international beliefs, wherein a party very united on domestic politics (say the Republicans, which are far more united than the Dems) can span the whole range of international viewpoints, and why there’s no contradiction between the hawkishness of 60s liberals and the neo-realist beliefs of modern liberals like Obama.
I wonder whether the project of constructing a morally acceptable international policy is really feasible. If I were to attempt one, it would be oriented around the criteria of harm reduction. But then, that too is a guiding principle that could accomodate a wide range of practical policies. It could just as easily justify total isolationism as it could a massive broadening of American hegemony. I’m just not really sure where, if anywhere, the quest for a “more liberal” foreign policy can take us.
