Dark Horses

Having been discovered only late in human history the issue of international human rights is always with us, even if the subject is treated less and less in terms of Human rights: who lacks them and what is to be done about it? than in the context of the question Who possesses the moral standing to speak for them? Although the Reagan Administration’s distinction between authoritarian and totalitarian regimes has been treated by liberal critics as if it were the sinister basis for all future policy considerations on the matter, it is of course a side-issue. For the chief issue is not, Whom shall the United States support abroad? but Shall it support anyone? People who answer the question in the negative are almost exclusively those who subscribe to what Samuel P. Huntington calls “the myth of American repression”—that is, “the view that American involvement in the politics of other societies is almost invariably hostile to liberty and supportive of repression in those societies.”

In The Dilemma of American Ideals and Institutions in Foreign Policy (American Enterprise Institute, 1150 17th St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036; $3.75) Huntington argues that precisely the opposite is true: that while “the expansion of American power is not synonymous with the expansion of liberty … a significant correlation exists between the rise and fall of American power in the world and the rise and fall of liberty and democracy in the world.”

CW

About the Author

Chilton Williamson Jr.

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Having been discovered only late in human history the issue of international human rights is always with us, even if the subject is treated less and less in terms of Human rights: who lacks them and what is to be done about it? than in the context of the question Who possesses the moral standing to speak for them? Although the Reagan Administration’s distinction between authoritarian and totalitarian regimes has been treated by liberal critics as if it were the sinister basis for all future policy considerations on the matter, it is of course a side-issue. For the chief issue is not, Whom shall the United States support abroad? but Shall it support anyone? People who answer the question in the negative are almost exclusively those who subscribe to what Samuel P. Huntington calls “the myth of American repression”—that is, “the view that American involvement in the politics of other societies is almost invariably hostile to liberty and supportive of repression in those societies.”

In The Dilemma of American Ideals and Institutions in Foreign Policy (American Enterprise Institute, 1150 17th St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036; $3.75) Huntington argues that precisely the opposite is true: that while “the expansion of American power is not synonymous with the expansion of liberty … a significant correlation exists between the rise and fall of American power in the world and the rise and fall of liberty and democracy in the world.”