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Gadhafi, or any tyrant who violates the human rights of citizens, can be reckoned as weak rather than strong from a Nietzschean standpoint. Such an analysis could embolden (i.e. awaken) protesters around the world who remain under the subterfuge of a ruler's enforcement of his or her assumed dominance.

USA Today reports that “(t)roops loyal to Moammar Gadhafi may be torturing and executing rebel prisoners.” This is according to human rights workers and physicians near the front lines. Such treatment would constitute war crimes under the Geneva Convention. Physicians said the bullet wounds on one man's body weren't meant to kill, but to torture. "When you put a gun to his head, that's execution," said Mohammed Hussain, the head of intensive care at a hospital near the front lines. "When you shoot him here and here and here, that's something else. That's torture. They want him to feel the pain." This last remark struck me as particularly revealing.

What sort of mentality derives a feeling of pleasure from perceiving another person in pain? To what extent is it the other person feeling the pain that is pleasurable to the person watching? Alternatively, the inflicting of the pain could be pleasurable. The inflicting pleasure for the inflictor might involve the pleasure of having power, as in having control of another person against the other person’s will. Such a will to power is a principal motivator, according to Nietzsche. He avers that human beings are primarily motivated to feel the pleasure that comes with exercising power. Yet such pleasure is in the exercise of one’s strength rather than in cruelty itself.  It is the weak, who, in being driven to dominate beyond their innate strength, delight in cruelty as a means to enforce their domination. In other words, the weak who have an irresistible urge to dominate have to instill (or inflict) their dominance because they are not strong and thus naturally to be respected as powers.

Therefore, the troops loyal to Gadhafi were displaying their condition of weakness rather than their strength by devoting time and energy to being cruel.  With the strong, damage is incidental to the charge rather than intended; the strong relish their experience of strength in conquering and therefore they are not interested in cruelty.  That is to say, harm is a byproduct of the vanquishing by the strong, as the latter conquer out of their overflowing confidence of strength. This can perhaps be thought of in terms of stepping outside in the cold after building up a sweat from exercise—the excess heat radiates outward from one’s body such that one does not even feel the cold air. What is the cold to me?  Similarly, what are the parasites to me who fall by the wayside as I take the village?  Any intent to be cruel to a parasite would be a waste or diversion from the strong vanquisher’s self-confident feeling of power that naturally issues out in his or her strength. Only weakness with a relentless instinct to dominate would be oriented to cruelty as a means, for the feeling of pleasure of strength is not available or realizable.

For example, "Col. Gadhafi's militias are brutal," said Mustafa El Gheriany, media liaison for the Transitional National Committee according to USA Today. "They did that probably on purpose to scare our young men, to show them that they are not taking prisoners.” This motivation would be an alternative to simply wanting to inflict pain or to see another person feel it. Even so, the use of cruelty as a means is ultimately to impose one’s dominance, which means that the person’s strength is not sufficient. In other words, the person using cruelty to send a message has an urge to feel more pleasure from power than his or her weakness can proffer in itself.

Essentially then, human rights advocates point to the tactics whereby the weak who suffer from a hypertrophic drive to dominate seek to enforce, or take, beyond their native pith. This investigation can lead to the following questions. Why is it that certain persons of weak constitutions seek to dominate nonetheless, rather than simply to be content with whatever pleasure naturally issues from the power in the strength they do have? Furthermore, is dictatorship as a form of government a weak form in that autocrats do not simply lead, but are almost invariably oriented to efforts to enforce their dominance by intentionally inflicting pain on protesters?  It would be ironic were unarmed protesters in the streets stronger than the rulers whose dominance is being questioned or repudiated.  Indeed, such repudiation strikes at the core of the effort of the weak to dominate; hence such violence as was evinced by Gadhafi should be no surprise.

To the weak who are driven to dominate, the refusal of others to acknowledge the imposition or enforcement of their claim must be utterly intolerable. “How dare they!” the weak dominator is apt to exclaim even though the strong naturally rebuff the pretentions of the weak.  In fact, Nietzsche thought it remarkable that the weak are able to hoodwink the strong into taking the autocratic enforcement mechanisms seriously.  In the case of the mass protests, enough fortitude among enough unarmed protesters could simply overflow the boundaries invented by the tyrants. Were the people itself mobilized, the autocrat might realize that were the entire populous killed, he would have no one to dominate!  There would be no feeling of pleasure in exercising power over a dead city. The strength in the people as a whole lies in simply being able to say no, yet this strength is typically hid from the strong by the weak who benefit from the subterfuge.

Click to add a question or comment on human rights in Libya according to Nietzsche.

Source: Greg Campbell, “Libyan Doctors Suspect Brutal War Crimes,” USA Today, April 12, 2011, p. 6A.

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), was the Tea Party candidate who challenged the Republican establishment to win the party’s Senate nomination in Kentucky on May 18, 2010. A day later, he publically criticized a plank of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Specifically, he said in an interview with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC television that he supported the sections of the Civil Rights Act that applied to public accommodations but had concerns when it came to its applicability to private business. He had raised similar concerns earlier in the day about the Americans with Disabilities Act in an interview on National Public Radio. Asked by Maddow if a private business had the right to refuse to serve black people, Mr. Paul replied, “Yes.”

In citing the rights inherent in private property, Mr. Paul, an eye surgeon, was refusing to recognize the “publicness” in a business being open to the public, as distinct from someone’s house, which is not open to the public. In other words, Mr. Paul was ignoring the qualification to private property that comes into play as soon as said property is opened to the public.  Such property is quasi-public precisely because it is open to the public.  Hence, society, through its government, has a right to dictate the obligations going with that element of publicness.  Mr. Paul would have been on firmer ground had he limited his statement to private clubs, such as country clubs, which do not receive public money and are not open to the public.  However, even here, if people associate in a way that hurts others by intentionally excluding them, there might be an argument in favor of subjecting them to the Act, though such an argument seems weaker than those for freedom of association and on private property not open to the public.

Rand Paul also said on ABC TV that President Barack Obama’s criticism of BP in the wake of the Gulf oil debacle sounds “really un-American.”  Paul said that the president’s response is part of the “blame game” that’s played in the United States. The game, he argued, leads to the thinking that tragic incidents are “always someone’s fault” when sometimes accidents just happen. Sen. Paul was ignoring that BP overrode Transocean in directing its employees not to use “mud” to maintain pressure in the well as cement “corks” were being inserted.  Also, managers at BP claimed to have the technology to stop any leak or spill when no such technology existed. In short, the managers at BP put the Gulf at risk in order to cut corners so as to earn more profit (as if $2 billion a month was not sufficient).  Rather than go after the mentality of shirking amid a “more, more, more” mentality wherein nothing is ever enough, Paul went after the representative of the victim–society as a whole.  That is to say, he added insult to injury by going after the victim rather than the culprit.  In so doing, he ignored key elements of the culpability.

Listening to the candidate the Maddow show on MSNBC, I was more concerned by the way he chose to evade questions than by his failure to take “being open to the public” into account in his view on civil rights law. At one point, Rachel Maddow asked him, “yes or no,”  on whether he would exclude private businesses from the Civil Rights law.  He replied that he was against the violence that took place in the 1960s in association with Walgreen’s lunch-counters. Beyond not answering the question, Mr. Paul seemed to be continuing with what he wanted to say–ignoring the question entirely as a mere interruption to be dismissed. I noticed a few times that after Maddow did indeed interrupt him, he simply picked up with what he had been saying.  Could his ignoring the questions be related to his ignoring the “open to the public” qualification and the risky shirking of BP?  In other words, might it be that Mr. Paul simply does not see what is inconvenient to his world view?  If so, I contend that this character trait is far more alarming than even his evasions and his over-simplified view on private property and the oil spill.  If you have ever tried repeatedly to tell someone something only to have your statement ignored as the other person continues on with what he or she was saying, you know what I mean. Sadly, I suspect that Rand Paul didn't notice it. This character flaw is by no means limited to him. Nor is this an invitation for partisan aspersions on the Republican Party.

Rather, I suspect that not answering questions--even asking one's own instead of given any answer to a question outstanding--is a growing attitude in modern America. I have witnessed it myself in emailing people I don't know on matters involving an actual or potential commercial transation. Does the computer come with Office 2007? Reply: When you would like to come by to look at it?  But what about Office 2007?  Or take apartment hunting:  Are utilities included in the rent? Reply: Call me to make an appointment to see the unit. Nietzsche would have a field day with such a mentality that vaunts itself as superior by "virtue" of its own assumed dominance. The basis of Rand Paul's non-answer, in other words, could have been an attempt to dominate beyond his place on Maddow's show. In other words, his non-answers could have been refusals rooted in a will to power that was biting off more than it could chew on someone else's show.

In terms of having a will to power based on strength, many of the stations or offices in modern society that we view as being entitled to dominate are in fact weak.  Nietzsche points to the modern moralist's thou shalt not as an attempt by the weak to dominate beyond their innate weak constitution. He also points to the attempts of the modern manager to dominate in such terms (and the priest as well). In watching various personalities giving non-answers while being interviewed on television, I find myself wondering if they know they are doing it. If they do, they are indeed rascals; if they do not, their stygian pathology is much deeper than I am equipped to investigate. Perhaps the modern illness is malignant narcissism to such an extent in a personality that the delimited perspective eclipses even awareness of what oneself is doing.

Sources: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/us/politics/21paul.html?ref=politics   http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37273085/ns/politics-decision_2010/

With much power comes implicit responsibility. Hence, on February 21, 2011, the world recoiled when Gaddafi violently turned on his own people--using his power sans responsibility in a selfish attempt to stay in power. So too, the world had been shocked in April, 2010 when BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico and that the Gulf itself was at risk. That a company could ruin something as big as the Gulf of Mexico came as a surprise to many. That a company, or three in this case, could have minimized such a risk by, for example, sending the U.S. Government contingency plans on Gulf clean up that included rescuing sea animals that actually live in the artic, shocked the public just as much. How could people holding such power treat its use with such carelessness concerning any downside?  The defense of having followed company policy or having excuted business procedures pales in comparison with the societal demand that power, whether public or private, be handled responsibly.  In other words, people take it for granted that power is given to adults rather than to children.  I think we would be surprised how often this has not been the case.  The case of Transocean demonstrates this thesis.

Transocean, which owned the Deep Water Horizon that exploded in April of 2010,  was the subject of a criminal investigation into possible tax fraud in Norway. The company indicated in S.E.C. filings that Norwegian officials could assess it about $840 million in taxes and penalties. The filings also contended that a final ruling against Transocean could have a “material impact” on the company. The company was also the target of tax inquiries in the United States and Brazil. Furthermore, drilling equipment from Transocean was shipped by a forwarder through Iran and until 2009 the company had held a stake in a company that did business in Syria. The State Department claimed at the time that Syria and Iran sponsor terrorism.

In reaction to these charges,  a Transocean statement simply claimed that the managers at the company had always acted appropriately and that they would prevail in any investigations. This is interesting, for “always” is quite an accomplishment.  Once I took a self-inventory and one question was “I always tell the truth.”  Of course, no one always tells the truth, so the question was geared to assessing how truthful one is in taking the test.  Had I answered yes, I would have been lying. The transocean statement, taken by itself, indicates a proclivity to lie, for no human being always acts appropriately. Transocean's statement evinces a certain arrogance, as if to say, "We are above reproach."  Such an attitude is dangerous where there is sufficient power at one's disposal that one's actions can do real damage to the planet.

Transocean, which drilled in some 30 countries and employed more than 18,000 people, owned nearly half of the 50 or so deepwater platforms in the world in 2010. “These people are capable and considered the gold standard of deepwater drilling,” said Peter Vig, managing director at RoundRock Capital Management, an energy hedge fund in Dallas.  I contend that expertise in drilling does not sufficiently counter the kind of charges that were brought against the company. To focus only on expertise in operating machinery or in managing a company as though they were all that matters in business is to hold an extremely narrow perspective on what counts. Furthermore, to let blantantly false asseverations stand (such as of always acting appropriately) is to enable a pattern that can literally destroy a major marine ecosystem.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/08/business/global/08ocean.html?_r=1&hp

See related: http://euandus3.wordpress.com/2010/06/10/bp-dividends-to-stockholders/   http://euandus3.wordpress.com/2010/06/17/tony-hayward-sticking-to-script-safety-is-bps-priority/

WASHINGTON - Republican leaders expressed renewed skepticism Tuesday about President Barack Obama’s call for a bipartisan forum on health care, raising questions about how much can be achieved at the televised event later this month. “This is a clever tactic by the president to try to put the Republicans on the defensive,” said John Feehery, a GOP consultant and former congressional aide. With the two sides at such odds, some Republican activists privately worry that their party’s leaders might be walking into a trap on Feb. 25 designed to portray their health care proposals as thin. The House’s top two Republican leaders openly questioned Obama’s sincerity and hinted they might skip the meeting if he uses the Democratic bills as the starting point for discussions.

Analysis: 

The problem may well be that President Obama is trying to have his cake and eat it too—meaning that he is trying to draw on the credibility of a head of state (i.e., a neutral party who is presiding) while at the same time being the captain of one of the partisan teams.  This is a structural conflict of interest that is centered in having the head of state also be the head of one of the contending political parties.  Even in how he characterizes what is not bipartisanship, his bias is palpable. “Being bipartisan cannot mean that Democrats give up everything they believe in, find the handful of things that Republicans have been advocating for, and we do those things, and then we have bipartisanship.”  To make such a statement literally from the presidential podium undercuts the presiding nature of the office.  To consistently side with one side in a house over which one is presiding undercuts one’s credibility to preside.  In presiding, one is looking out for the good of the whole, and coming down on one side or the other can legitimately only be done when the whole is in jeopardy.  Hence, Andrew Jackson came down against Congressional encroachment on the states in vetoing a Congressional appropriation for a road completely within Missouri’s borders; he feared the precedent would ruin the system of federalism (which must be balanced to be viable). Shortly thereafter, he sent the US Army down to South Carolina after it passed the Nullification Acts by which the South Carolina government claimed it could nullify any federal law that was not in the state’s interest.  Jackson’s involvement in taking sides was both for the states and the federal government because his only criterion was the long term viability of the Union.  To take sides on lesser matters tends to reduce one to an ideology, hence to one of the partisan groups.  This undercuts the credibility of the presiding officer for people in the other parties.  To “spend” that credibility for expedient purposes (an ideological agenda)—trying to get the most out of the power of the office—is to lose the kind of power that the office of the US Presidency was designed to have.  No wonder most occupants of the office have failed.  Barak Obama on health care is only the latest. Had Barak pushed the need for health-care reform without taking sides as the legislators debate possible plans, he would be treated as much more credible in hosting a meeting.  In other words, the seriousness of the conflict of interest can be gaged by the trepidation of the Republican leaders.  A partisan evoking the credibility of a figure head is inherently duplicitous and bound to lead to failure.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35313584/ns/politics-health_care_reform/

Secondary Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/us/politics/10obama.html?hpw

On January 5, 2011, John Boehner was sworn in as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. He had promised to decentralize the power that had been so tightly held by the previous Speaker and others further back.  Indeed, it had been Gingrich's micromanaging of Boehner in 1995 that may well have prompted Boehner to want to give more power to lower-level party leaders and committee chairs. Boehner even promised to better provide for the minority party in that proceedings would be more open and fair.  Of course, obstructionism, favoritism, and in general the realities of governing may force the Speaker to consolidate power. The exigencies of his position may well trump any bad memories of having been one of the low men on the totem pole.  It is in the nature of <i>human</i> nature to identify with the present at the expense of the past. Adding to these factors, consolidating power into a few select hands may seem necessary to getting the trains to run on time.

Indeed, Boehner might be tempted to add trains. Noting the inherent difficulty in having one legislature governing an empire-scale union, the anti-federalist (and pro-commerce) Agrippa of Massachusetts wrote in 1787, "A diversity of produce, wants and interests, produces commerce, and commerce, where there is a common, equal and moderate authority to preside, produces friendship." (Agrippa, Letter 8, 4.6.30). Agrippa was bemoaning the consolidation that he feared would ensue from the powers granted by the U.S. Constitution to Congress (at the expense of the state governments). Agrippa was by in large right. The dual-sovereignty in American federalism has largely been eclipsed by decades of encroachments by the general government. It would have taken self-discipline for Congress not to have encroached when it could. Similarly, self-discipline is required for a Speaker of the House, which is a constitutional office, to preside, which is to say, to look to the overall interest of the whole rather than to engage in partisanship.  

In spite of his asseverations to return some power to the states and to decentralize his power in the House, Speaker Boehner is apt to reverse himself in practice. Should he do so, he might find that his tenure is shorter rather than longer, for those who clutch most to power tend to see it slip through their hands faster than otherwise. Despite pushing through a lot of big legislation, both Speakers Gingrich and Pelosi lost their Speakerships relatively quickly. The nature of power may well be paradoxical: those who love it most may well be least equipped to manage it.

Sources: Naftali Bendavid and Patrick O'Conner, "New Speaker Vows to Share Power--a Tricky Proposition," <i></i>Wall Street Journal<i></i>, January 4, 2011, pp. A1, A6.
Agrippa, in Herbert J. Storing, ed., The Anti-Federalist, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985, p. 243