Liberals Are Imperialists

 

Most people know J. S. Mill as the author of On Liberty--a hymn to human freedom and a classic of Liberal thought.

Most people don't know (or have forgotten) that J. S. Mill spent his entire working life employed by the British East India Company--an imperialist project if ever there were one. 

That inconvenient biographical detail puts On Liberty in a rather different light. The book remains a hymn to human freedom, but only for some human beings--not others. 

Imperialism is in the marrow of Liberalism's bones and distorts the way in which Liberals view the world. For example, Liberals are very often suckers for imperialist wars marketed (a key term) as "wars of liberation."

As a consequence, a war like the current one being waged between Russia and NATO in the Ukraine--which could be fairly described as a proxy war or possibly a civil war among pro-Russian Ukrainians in the country's eastern provinces and pro-NATO Ukrainians in the western provinces--is touted by Liberals as a war of liberation which the Ukrainians (not the cheer-leading Liberals in Europe and North America) are expected to fight to the last man, woman, and child.

The last thing Liberals wish to see happen is a negotiated peace between Ukrainians and their Russian neighbors and siblings--one that ends the conflict and loss of life on both sides.

Why? Because it exposes Liberals for the imperialists that they are. It also makes them morally responsible, in part, for one million casualties and counting. Liberals never want to be held accountable for the havoc their imperialism has wreaked throughout the world over the past few centuries. It's unseemly and calls into question the moral legitimacy of their Messianic politics. 

Let there be peace between the great people of Ukraine and the great people of Russia. And let us never forget that it was the American Liberal Joe Biden who, as President, funded not only the pro-NATO Ukrainians in their war against Russia but also the Israeli (another imperialist project) genocide in Gaza.