Bizarre Equivalence Watch of the Day...
Noam Chomsky asserts equivalence between Osama bin Laden and... himself:
Guernica / Noam Chomsky: My Reaction to Osama bin Laden’s Death: There is much talk of bin Laden’s “confession,” but that is rather like my confession that I won the Boston Marathon. He boasted of what he regarded as a great achievement...
Peter Boettke asserts equivalence between Augusto Pinochet and Bill Clinton:
Friedman, Pinochet and the Moral Responsibility of Those Giving Economic Advice: Friedman's letter [to Pinochet] is limited to economic advice on debt, inflation, and economic freedom. Why does this indict Friedman? I mean this seriously, as I am not sure what the inference is supposed to be. As I said in the comments, should Brad DeLong be held responsible for Clinton's foreign policy in Bosnia; or Clinton's personal policy with respect to female interns; or only the Clinton economic policies that Brad was involved in designing?...
Some people are off their meds.
Just saying.
UPDATE: Note that Pinochet is likely to have read this paragraph from Friedman's letter to him as more than mere economic advice, but as an endorsement of his murders:
The problem... arises from trends toward socialism that started forty years ago and reached their logical--and terrible--climax in the Allende regime. You have been extremely wise in adopting the many measures you have already taken to reverse this trend.
I am undecided as to whether this was merely an extraordinarily infelicitous way of expressing himself on Friedman's part--I would have said that the "terrible climax" was people being gunned down in soccer stadiums, not land takeovers and inflation--or a nudge-nudge-wink-wink-say-no-more-say-no-more on Friedman's part.
The stench is much fouler from Friedrich von Hayek:
[I]n some historical circumstances personal liberty may not have been better protected under an authoritarian than democratic government. This has occasionally been true since the beginning of democracy in ancient Athens, where the liberty of the subjects was undoubtedly safer under the ’30 tyrants’ than under the democracy which killed Socrates and sent dozens of its best men into exile by arbitrary decrees.... More recently I have not been able to find a single person even in much maligned Chile who did not agree that personal freedom was much greater under Pinochet than it had been under Allende...
and:
Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism. My personal impression — and this is valid for South America – is that in Chile, for example, we will witness a transition from a dictatorial government to a liberal government...
Echoes of Ludwig von Mises's claims that Mussolini's crimes were all really Lenin's fault:
It cannot be denied that Fascism and similar movements aiming at the establishment of dictatorships are full of the best intentions and that their intervention has, for the moment, saved European civilization. The merit that Fascism has thereby won for itself will live on eternally in history. But though its policy has brought salvation for the moment, it is not of the kind which could promise continued success. Fascism was an emergency makeshift. To view it as something more would be a fatal error...
and:
Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism, 1.10: The Argument of Fascism: Only when the Marxist Social Democrats had gained the upper hand and taken power in the belief that the age of liberalism and capitalism had passed forever did the last concessions disappear that [social democracy] had still been thought necessary to make to the liberal ideology. The parties of the Third International consider any means as permissible.... The frank espousal of a policy of annihilating opponents and the murders committed in the pursuance of it have given rise to an opposition movement.... The militaristic and nationalistic enemies of the Third International felt themselves cheated by liberalism. Liberalism, they thought, stayed their hand when they desired to strike a blow against the revolutionary parties while it was still possible to do so....
The fundamental idea of these movements—which, from the name of the most grandiose and tightly disciplined among them, the Italian, may, in general, be designated as Fascist—consists in the proposal to make use of the same unscrupulous methods in the struggle against the Third International as the latter employs against its opponents. The Third International seeks to exterminate its adversaries and their ideas in the same way that the hygienist strives to exterminate a pestilential bacillus.... The Fascists, at least in principle, profess the same intentions.... Only under the fresh impression of the murders and atrocities perpetrated by the supporters of the Soviets were Germans and Italians able to block out the remembrance of the traditional restraints of justice and morality and find the impulse to bloody counteraction. The deeds of the Fascists and of other parties corresponding to them were emotional reflex actions evoked by indignation at the deeds of the Bolsheviks and Communists. As soon as the first flush of anger had passed, their policy took a more moderate course and will probably become even more so with the passage of time....
Now it cannot be denied that the only way one can offer effective resistance to violent assaults is by violence. Against the weapons of the Bolsheviks, weapons must be used in reprisal, and it would be a mistake to display weakness before murderers. No liberal has ever called this into question.... The great danger threatening domestic policy from the side of Fascism lies in its complete faith in the decisive power of violence.... What happens, however, when one's opponent... acts just as violently? The result must be a battle, a civil war. The ultimate victor to emerge from such conflicts will be the faction strongest in number.... The decisive question, therefore, always remains: How does one obtain a majority for one's own party? This, however, is a purely intellectual matter. It is a victory that can be won only with the weapons of the intellect, never by force. The suppression of all opposition by sheer violence is a most unsuitable way to win adherents to one's cause. Resort to naked force—that is, without justification in terms of intellectual arguments accepted by public opinion—merely gains new friends for those whom one is thereby trying to combat. In a battle between force and an idea, the latter always prevails. Fascism can triumph today because universal indignation at the infamies committed by the socialists and communists has obtained for it the sympathies of wide circles. But when the fresh impression of the crimes of the Bolsheviks has paled, the socialist program will once again exercise its power of attraction on the masses.... There is... only one idea that can be effectively opposed to socialism, viz., that of liberalism....
It cannot be denied that Fascism and similar movements aiming at the establishment of dictatorships are full of the best intentions and that their intervention has, for the moment, saved European civilization. The merit that Fascism has thereby won for itself will live on eternally in history. But though its policy has brought salvation for the moment, it is not of the kind which could promise continued success. Fascism was an emergency makeshift. To view it as something more would be a fatal error.
