Politics – Page 60 – Maverick Philosopher

The Politics of Gold

The price of gold has topped $1300 an ounce. And this while inflation is low. The upswing is driven mainly by the fear of inflation. In order to handle otherwise unsustainable levels of debt, the government will resort to 'monetizing' it, i.e., printing money and causing inflation. By counterfeiting its own currency, a government steals real wealth from its citizens. Is this acceptable to you? If not, you may wish to register your disapprobation come November 2nd.

For more insight, see Thomas Sowell's Politics Versus Gold.

What Explains Islamist-Leftist Collaboration?

An analysis by Daniel Pipes. Excerpt:

Why, then, the formation of what David Horowitz calls the Left-Islamist "unholy alliance"? For four main reasons.

First, as British politician George Galloway explains, "the progressive movement around the world and the Muslims have the same enemies," namely Western civilization in general and the United States, Great Britain, and Israel in particular, plus Jews, believing Christians, and international capitalists. In Iran, according to Tehran political analyst Saeed Leylaz, "the government practically permitted the left to operate since five years ago so that they would confront religious liberals."

Listen to their interchangeable words: Harold Pinter describes America as "a country run by a bunch of criminal lunatics" and Osama bin Laden calls the country "unjust, criminal and tyrannical." Noam Chomsky terms America a "leading terrorist state" and Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, a Pakistani political leader, deems it "the biggest terrorist state." These commonalities suffice to convince the two sides to set aside their many differences in favor of cooperation.

Second, the two sides share some political goals. A mammoth 2003 joint demonstration in London to oppose war against Saddam Hussein symbolically forged their alliance. Both sides want coalition forces to lose in Iraq, the War on Terror to be closed down, anti-Americanism to spread, and the elimination of Israel. They agree on mass immigration to and multiculturalism in the West. They cooperate on these goals at meetings such as the annual Cairo Anti-War Conference, which brings leftists and Islamists together to forge "an international alliance against imperialism and Zionism."

Third, Islamism has historic and philosophic ties to Marxism-Leninism. Sayyid Qutb, the Egyptian Islamist thinker, accepted the Marxist notion of stages of history, only adding an Islamic postscript to them; he predicted that an eternal Islamic era would come after the collapse of capitalism and Communism. Ali Shariati, the key intellectual behind the Iranian revolution of 1978–79, translated Franz Fanon, Che Guevara, and Jean-Paul Sartre into Persian. More broadly, the Iranian analyst Azar Nafisi observes that Islamism "takes its language, goals, and aspirations as much from the crassest forms of Marxism as it does from religion. Its leaders are as influenced by Lenin, Sartre, Stalin, and Fanon as they are by the Prophet."

Moving from theory to reality, Marxists see in Islamists a strange fulfillment of their prophesies. Marx forecast that business profits would collapse in industrial countries, prompting the bosses to squeeze workers; the proletariat would become impoverished, rebel, and establish a socialist order. But, instead, the proletariat of industrial countries became ever more affluent, and its revolutionary potential withered. For a century and a half, author Lee Harris notes, Marxists waited in vain for the crisis in capitalism. Then came the Islamists, starting with the Iranian Revolution and following with 9/11 and other assaults on the West. Finally, the Third World had begun its revolt against the West, fulfilling Marxist predictions—even if under the wrong banner and with faulty goals. Olivier Besancenot, a French leftist, sees Islamists as "the new slaves" of capitalism and asks if it is not natural that "they should unite with the working class to destroy the capitalist system." At a time when the Communist movement is in "decay," note analyst Lorenzo Vidino and journalist Andrea Morigi, Italy's "New Red Brigades" actually acknowledge the "leading role of the reactionary clerics."

Fourth, power: Islamists and leftists can achieve more together than they can separately. In Great Britain, they jointly formed the Stop the War Coalition, whose steering committee includes representation from such organizations as the Communist party of Britain and the Muslim Association of Britain. Britain's Respect Party amalgamates radical international socialism with Islamist ideology. The two sides joined forces for the March 2008 European Parliament elections to offer common lists of candidates in France and Britain, disguised under party names that revealed little.

A Tea Party Manifesto

Here. The authors, Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe, make it clear that fiscal responsibility and limited government are the central concerns of Tea Partiers.

The criteria for membership are straightforward: Stay true to principle even when it proves inconvenient, be assertive but respectful, add value and don't taking credit for other people's work. Our community is built on the Trader Principle: We associate by mutual consent, to further shared goals of restoring fiscal responsibility and constitutionally limited government. [. . .]

The big-government crowd is drawn to the compulsory nature of centralized authority. They can't imagine an undirected social order. Someone needs to be in charge—someone who knows better. Big government is audacious and conceited.

Note that the opposition is to big government, not to government as such. This simple point needs to be repeated again and again in the teeth of liberal-left slander.

By definition, government is the means by which citizens are forced to do that which they would not do voluntarily. Like pay high taxes. Or redistribute tax dollars to bail out the broken, bloated pension systems of state government employees. Or purchase, by federal mandate, a government-defined health-insurance plan that is unaffordable, unnecessary or unwanted.

This is perhaps OK for a manifesto. But surely government cannot be defined in this slanted way. But the authors are right to point out the coercive nature of government. They should have gone on to say that government and its coercion are necessary and legitimate when properly limited.

For the left, and for today's Democratic Party, every solution to every perceived problem involves more government—top-down dictates from bureaucrats presumed to know better what you need. Tea partiers reject this nanny state philosophy of redistribution and control because it is bankrupting our country.

Spot on. The main reason the Tea Partiers reject the liberal-left vision of an omnicompetent, omni-intrusive government is purely pragmatic: it is leading us to financial ruin. This is reason enough to oppose the fiscal irresponsibility of both major parties. We don't even need to get into the injustices of progressive taxation and redistributionism, and the assault on individual liberty — though these are powerful additional arguments.

Gallup Poll: Americans Oppose Federal Suit Against AZ Immigration Law

Here. The notion that the Obama Justice Department would waste millions suing a state for passing a law that mirrors the content of a Federal law is absurd on the face of it, especially when the same Justice Department turns a blind eye to sanctuary laws which actually do violate the Supremacy Clause; but also from a purely political standpoint the suit is idotic harming as it does the Dems' chances in the November elections and beyond.

By the way, did you see Sarah Palin on The O'Reilly Factor tonight? Mr. Bill did a good job grilling her and exposing the shallowness of her thinking about illegal immigration. She has obviously given little thought to the problem of the 12 or so million illegals already in the country, many of whom stay out of trouble, have jobs, and have children who are U. S. citizens.

Terry Goddard

He is the Arizona Attorney General. I just watched Greta van Susteren ask him repeatedly whether the DOJ should drop the inane lawsuit against the state of Arizona anent S. B. 1070, and he would not answer the question. What a weasel! Of course, he's a Dem. Perhaps the weasel should replace the jackass as the emblem of that sorry party.

Did Holder, Napolitano, Obama, et al. Lie When They Said They Hadn’t Read the Arizona Law?

J. O. e-mails:

A caller on the Dennis Miller Show called in and said something very insightful I thought you would like. Miller was asking callers to call in about Eric Holder et al. not reading the Arizona Illegal Immigration law, and the caller said that he thought they HAD read it and were lying about not having read it. Why? Because there isn't anything in it that could possibly be unconstitutional. If there was, it would be plastered all over the news, the exact offending line. Of course they've read it, but by saying they haven't they can criticize it without actually having to show what is wrong with it.

I thought this was insightful, and so I shared it with you.

Now I hadn't thought of that, perhaps because I have more respect for these people (Attorney General Holder, et al.) than I should have. But now that you mention it, the caller's supposition is very plausible. How could they fail to have read it? First of all, all three are legally trained. Their reading comprehension extends to legalese, and they have staff members who could have summarized it for them. Second, SB 1070 and the clarificatory HB 2162 are very short as laws go and easily accessible to anyone with Internet access. Third, one of them, Homeland Security 'czar' Janet Napolitano (not to be confused with the astute Judge Andrew Napolitano), is a former governor of Arizona, and one would think she would have a keen interest in any laws enacted there, especially laws that have a direct bearing on national security. Or is Napolitano of Homeland Security unfazed by the possibility of terrorists entering the country via the southern border?

The more I think about it, the more preposterous it sounds for the Attorney General of the U. S. to show no interest in the content of a law when said law mirrors at the State level Federal immigration law. Would he not want to check whether the law perhaps is inconsistent with Federal law? How can he not have an interest in the content of a law that is being debated on the international stage?

The caller's surmise seems quite credible. Why not lie, if it serves your purpose? The purpose being to prevent anything serious being done about the problem of illegal immigration. Bear in mind that, for the Left, the end justifies the means, and 'bourgeois morality' be damned.

Illegal Immigration, The Catholic Bishops, and the Misuse of Scripture

(Written 26 April 2006, revised 23 May 2010)

At the website of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, we read:

Why is the Catholic Church involved in the immigration issue? There are several reasons the Catholic Church is involved in the immigration debate. The Old and New Testaments, as well as the encyclicals of the Popes, form the basis for the Church's position. In Gospel of Matthew, Jesus calls upon us to "welcome the stranger,for what you do to the least of my brethren, you do unto me. " (Mt. 25-35, 40).

There is a deep mistake being made here, and we should try to understand what it is. The mistake is to confuse the private and public spheres and the different moralities pertaining to each.

Note first that if one scriptural passage can be invoked as a basis for public policy and law, then any can. We are enjoined in other New Testament places to "Resist not the evildoer," "Turn the other cheek," and the like.

Injunctions such as these cannot be made the basis for public policy whatever value they have in the private sphere.

Imagine a society that implements a policy of not resisting (apprehending, trying, convicting, incarcerating) rapists, murderers, and miscreants generally. Such a society would seal its own death
warrant and cease to function. It is a fact of human nature that people, in the main, behave tolerably well only under threat of punishment. People for the most part do not do the right thing because it is the right thing, but out of fear of punishment. This is not pessimism, but realism, and is known to be true by all unprejudiced students of history and society. Conservatives know this 'with their bones'; liberals need to learn it the hard way. Therefore not even a 'Christian' society can afford to make "Resist not the evildoer" a principle of public policy.

As for turning the other cheek, it is a policy that works well in certain atypical circumstances. If a man has a well-formed conscience, and is capable of feeling shame, then turning the other cheek in the face of his affront can achieve a result far superior to that achieved by replying in kind. Nonviolence can work. Gandhi's nonviolent resistance to the British may serve as an historical example. The Brits could be shamed and in any case Gandhi had no other means at his disposal. But imagine what would happen if Israel turned the other cheek in the face of its Islamist enemies who would blow it off the face of the earth at the first opportunity?

Once your enemy has reduced you to the status of a pig or a dog fit only to be slaughtered, then there is no way to reach him, shame him, or persuade him by acts of forebearance and kindness. You must resist him, with deadly force if necessary, if you wish to preserve your existence. The evil triumph when the good fail to defend themselves.

But is it not better to suffer wrong than to inflict it, as Socrates maintained? Would it not be better to perish than to defend one's life by taking life? Perhaps, but only if the underlying metaphysics and
soteriology are true. If the soul is immortal, and the phenomenal world is of no ultimate concern — being a vale of tears, a place through which we temporarily sojourn on our way to our true home —
then the care of the soul is paramount and to suffer wrong is better than to inflict it.

The same goes for Christianity which, as Nietzsche remarks, is "Platonism for the people." If you are a Christian, and look beyond this world for your true happiness, then you are entitled to practice
an austere morality in your private life. But you are not entitled to impose that morality and metaphysics on others, or demand that the State codify that morality and metaphysics in its laws and policies. For one thing, it would violate the separation of Church and State. More importantly, the implementation of Christian morality would lead to the destruction of the State and the State's ability to secure life, liberty, and property — the three Lockean purposes for which we have a state in the first place.

The problem of confusing private and public morality is well understood by Hannah Arendt ("Truth and Politics" in Between Past and Future, Penguin 1968, p. 245):

The disastrous consequences for any community that began in all earnest to follow ethical precepts derived from man in the singular — be they Socratic or Platonic or Christian — have been frequently pointed out. Long before Machiavelli recommended protecting the political realm against the undiluted principles of the Christian faith (those who refuse to resist evil permit the wicked "to do as much evil as they please"), Aristotle warned against giving philosophers any say in political matters. (Men who for professional reasons must be so unconcerned with "what is good for themselves" cannot very well be trusted with what is good for others, and least of all with the "common good," the down-to-earth interests of the community.) [Arendt cites Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI, and in particular 1140b9 and 1141b4.]

There is a tension between man qua philosopher/Christian and man qua citizen. As a philosopher/Christian, I am concerned with my soul, with its integrity, purity, salvation. I take very seriously indeed the Socratic "Better to suffer wrong than to do it" and the Christian "Resist not the evildoer." But as a citizen I must be concerned not only with my own well-being but also with the public welfare. This is true a fortiori of public officials and people in a position to influence public opinion, people like Catholic bishops. So, as Arendt points out, the Socratic and Christian admonitions are not applicable in the public sphere.

A Catholic bishop, therefore, who is pro illegal immigration on the strength of the "welcome the stranger" passage demonstrates a failure to understand the simple point that Arendt undescores.

What is applicable to me in the singular, as this existing individual concerned with the welfare of his immortal soul over that of his perishable body, is not applicable to me as citizen. As a citizen, I
cannot "welcome the stranger" who violates the laws of my country, a stranger who may be a terrorist or a drug-smuggler or a human-trafficker or a carrier of a deadly disease or a person who has no respect for the traditions of the country he invades; I cannot aid and abet his law-breaking. I must be concerned with public order and the very conditions that make the philosophical and Christian life possible in the first place. If I were to aid and abet the stranger's lawbreaking, I would not be "rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's."

Indeed, the Caesar verse provides a scriptural basis for Church-State separation and indirectly exposes the fallacy of the Catholic bishops who cannot comprehend the simple distinctions I have tried to set forth.

I Was Forced to Show My Papers!

Things are really getting bad here in the fascist state of Arizona. Why just this morning I was forced to show ID when I went to vote. I strolled into the polling place looking a fright after several hours of hiking. I introduced myself as 'King Blog' but that cut no ice with the old ladies who manned the place. They asked to see my driver's license! What chutzpah! What bigotry! A bunch of damned Nazis, if you want my opinion. What if I forgot it, or never had one? Then the Nazi bastards would have disenfranchised me! The very act of requesting ID is an act of disenfrachisement and intimidation. Besides, it prevents me from voting twice, which I have the right to do. I should have adapted a line from B. Traven's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Papers? I don't need no stinkin' papers! I'm a human being. You just hate me because I smell like I spent the night under a bridge. I have the right to do whatever I want, wherever I want, and vote wherever I want and as many times as I want.

I'm gettin' the hell out of this rattlesnake infested inferno of gun-totin' yahoos, rednecked racists, and xenophobic immigrant-bashers. I'm going where a man can be free. I'm headed for the People's Republic of China. "Live free or die," as I always say.

Michael Scarpalanda on Arizona Senate Bill 1070

Craig M. Thompson writes:

I have enjoyed your commentary on the current situation in Arizona. I ran across an interesting article at The Witherspoon Institute on illegal immigration called Arizona, Congress, and the Immigration Mess. And I was hoping that you might comment on some of the points that he makes against SB 1070. Thanks for the consideration!

And thank your for alerting me to this article by Michael Scarpalanda, who holds the Gene and Elaine Edwards Family Chair in Law at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. Here are some comments.

The article begins unpromisingly by referring to "Arizona's draconian response" to the problem of illegal immigration. I must immediately protest. To refer to SB 1070 as "draconian" is an egregious misuse of language. One should not toss this word around without knowing what it means. It derives from the name of the first legislator of written laws of Athens, Greece. The harshness of Draco's code gave rise to the adjective 'draconian' which is properly applied only to laws and sanctions that are harsh, cruel, and unreasonable. Now there is nothing draconian about SB 1070 as you may verify for yourself by simply reading it. See also the fact sheet.

Turning now to the article, we read:

On April 30, 2010, Arizona’s governor signed SB 1070 into law, setting off waves of hyperbolic reactions and counter-reactions. Among other things, the law states that “for any lawful contact made by a law enforcement official or agency . . . where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made . . . to determine the immigration status of the person.” An alien unlawfully present can be taken into custody, charged with a state crime, and transferred to federal custody.

Several questions immediately arise. What is “lawful contact”? What constitutes “reasonable suspicion”? How will immigration status be determined?

Scarpalanda fails to mention that a week after Governor Brewer signed into law SB 1070, she signed into law House Bill 2162 which modifies and clarifies the language of 1070, in particular, the phrase "lawful contact." For more on this, together with quotations from 2162, see this post of mine.

When cavils like those that Scarpalanda raises are made it is pretty good evidence that one is dealing with a liberal who simply does not want immigration laws enforced. Not knowing anything about Scarpalanda, I cannot know whether this is true in his case. But in the vast majority of cases of liberal-leftist hyperventilation over 1070 it is spectacularly clear that one is dealing with open borders types who do not respect the rule of law except when it can be invoked to further the leftist agenda.

Although the law forbids using race as the sole determining factor in forming “reasonable suspicion,” the law will undoubtedly have a disproportionate impact on Arizona’s Hispanic population, including those who are United States citizens or lawful permanent residents. How could it not? Race, ethnicity, and accent will almost surely be factors in deciding whether to verify a person’s immigration or citizenship status.

Again, Scarpalanda ignores the 2162 modifications of 1070, in particular, this one: "A law enforcement official or agency of this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state may not solely consider race, color or national origin in implementing the requirements of this subsection except to the extent permitted by the United States or Arizona Constitution."

Scarpalanda is worried that the new law will have a "disproportionate impact on Arizona's Hispanic population." But how could it fail to? The majority of illegal aliens are Hispanic! Here we note the twisted logic of the Politically Correct. These people display an unthinking quota mentality: they think there is something unfair about a law if , when it is enforced, it affects more members of one group than another, or affects a group 'disproportionately.' But to think in this way is to show that one is morally obtuse. Vastly more men than women abuse their spouses. But it is surely no valid argument against laws prohibiting spousal abuse that they disproportionately 'target' men. Because more men commit this crime than women, it is to be expected that more men will be 'targeted.' Similarly, because more Hispanics than Asians or Blacks or Caucasians violate immigration laws in such southern border states as Arizona, it is to be expected that Hispanics will be disproportionately affected by the enforcement of immigration laws. It is only to be expected, and there is nothing unjust about it.

Despite the shoddiness of most of Scarpalanda's article (failure to link to the relevant documents, failure to take into consideration the House bill's modification of the Senate bill, use of the bad argument just exposed), his positive proposals near the end are actually quite reasonable: secure the borders to stem the tide of future illegals; provide for the legalization of the the large numbers of productive, non-criminal illegals already here; adopt a temporary worker program.

But Job One is to secure the border by building and maintaining a physical barrier that stretches from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. All the better heads agree on this.

Heidegger: Nazi Philosopher or Nazi Philosophy?

My old friend Horace Jeffery Hodges over at Gypsy Scholar comments on a New York Times book review by Adam Kirsch entitled The Jewish Question: Martin Heidegger. One of the books reviewed is Emmanuel Faye's The Introduction of Nazism Into Philosophy in Light of the Unpublished Seminars of 1933-1935 (translated by Michael B. Smith). Hodges writes,

I'd be interested to know what my philosopher friend Bill Vallicella thinks about this matter, for I can mostly just direct attention to a matter outside my expertise. Heidegger's personal culpability is beyond question, but the question concerning the culpability of his philosophy remains, and I think it an important one, intellectually, for Heidegger the philosopher is considered a major thinker of the 20th century, and his ideas have influenced the intellectual left, continental philosophy, literary criticism, theology, and many other fields.

I thank Jeff for the link and for his interest in my opinion. As it turns out, I had already commented on an earlier NYT article on Faye's book and so I will now repost with some additions and deletions my commentary on that earlier article. In so doing I will engage Hodges' question concerning whether culpability is as it were transmissible from a thinker to his thought.

I should begin by saying that I haven't yet read Emmanuel Faye's Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy. But if the earlier NYT article is to be trusted — a big 'if' — Faye's book

. . . calls on philosophy professors to treat Heidegger’s writings like hate speech. Libraries, too, should stop classifying Heidegger’s collected works (which have been sanitized and abridged by his family) as philosophy and instead include them under the history of Nazism. These measures would function as a warning label, like a skull-and-crossbones on a bottle of poison, to prevent the careless spread of his most odious ideas, which Mr. Faye lists as the exaltation of the state over the individual, the impossibility of morality, anti-humanism and racial purity.

If this is what Faye is saying, then his book is rubbish and ought to be ignored. Hate speech? That's a term leftists use for speech they don't like. No one in his right mind could see Heidegger's magnum opus, Sein und Zeit (Being and Time), published in 1927, as anything close to hate speech. The claim that it is is beneath refutation. Nor can his lectures and publications after 1933, when Hitler came to power, be dismissed in this way.

Heidegger undoubtedly inspires violent passions: he was a National Socialist, and what's worse, he never admitted he was wrong about his political alignment. But according to Michael Dummett, the great logician Gottlob Frege was an anti-Semite. (Dummett says this in either the preface or the introduction to Frege: The Philosophy of Language. ) Now will you ignore Frege's seminal teachings because of his alleged anti-Semitism? That would be senseless. And let's not forget that the later Jean-Paul Sartre was not just a Commie, but a Stalinist. Should Critique of Dialectical Reason be dismissed as hate speech? Should we deny Sartre the title 'philosopher' and re-classify him as a Commie ideologue? Of course not. And please no double standard. Why is being a Nazi worse than being a Stalinist? Why is murdering people because of their ethnic affiliation worse than murdering people because of their class affiliation?

You have two highly influential philosophers. One aligns himself politically with the mass murderer Hitler, the other with the mass murderer Stalin. That is extremely interesting, and no doubt troubling, but in the end it is truth that we philosophers are after, and in pursuit of it we should leave no stone unturned: we should examine all ideas in order to arrive as closely as we can to the truth. All ideas, no matter what they are, whether they come from a Black Forest ski hut or a Parisian coffee house, or the syphilitic brain of a lonely German philologist. Haul them one and all before the tribunal of Reason and question them in the full light of day. To understand the content of the ideas it may be necessary to examine the men and women behind them. But once a philosopher's propositions have been clearly set forth, the question of their truth or falsity is logically independent of their psychological, or sociological, or other, origin. To think otherwise is to commit the Genetic Fallacy.

Sartre claimed that man has no nature, that "existence precedes essence." He got the idea from Heidegger's Sein und Zeit, p. 42: Das 'Wesen' des Daseins liegt in seiner Existenz. It is an interesting and influential idea. What exactly does it mean? What does it entail? What does it exclude? What considerations can be adduced in support of it? Questions like these are what a real philosopher pursues. He doesn't waste all his time poking into the all-too-human philosopher's dirty laundry in the manner of Faye and Romano. Are people in this Age of Celebrity incapable of focusing on ideas?

And then there is Nietzsche. If the Gesamtausgabe of Heidegger ought to be marked with a skull-and-crossbones, then a fortiori for the Gesammelte Schriften of Nietzsche. There are dangerous ideas in Nietzsche. See my post Nietzsche and National Socialism. Indeed, Nietzsche's ideas are far more dangerous than Heidegger's. Should we burn Nietzsche's books and brand The Antichrist as hate speech? Stupid!

The Nazis burned books and the Roman Catholic Church had an index librorum prohibitorum. Now I don't deny that certain impressionable people need to be protected from certain odious influences. But Heidegger writings are no more 'hate speech' (whatever that is) than Nietzsche's writings are, and they don't belong on any latter-day leftist's index librorum prohibitorum. Are they both philosophers? Of course. Are they on a par with Plato and Kant? Not by a long shot! Are their ideas worth discussing? I should think so: they go wrong in interesting ways. Just like Wittgenstein and many others.

According to Carlin Romano in "Heil Heidegger!"

Faye's leitmotif throughout is that Heidegger, from his earliest writings, drew on reactionary ideas in early-20th-century Germany to absolutely exalt the state and the Volk over the individual, making Nazism and its Blut und Boden ("Blood and Soil") rhetoric a perfect fit. Heidegger's Nazism, he writes, "is much worse than has so far been known." (Exactly how bad remains unclear because the Heidegger family still restricts access to his private papers.)

From his earliest writings? Absurdly false. Heidegger's dissertation was on psychologism in logic, and his Habilitationschrift was on Duns Scotus. No exaltation of the State or Blut und Boden rhetoric in those works. Trust me, I've read them. Have Faye and Romano?

One more quotation from Romano: "The "reality of Nazism," asserts Faye, inspired Heidegger's works "in their entirety and nourished them at the root level." That is an absurd claim. The ideas in Being and Time were worked out in the 1920s, long before Hitler came to power in '33, and are a highly original blend of themes from Kierkegaard's existentialism, Dilthey's Lebensphilosophie, Husserl's Phenomenology, Kantian and ne0-Kantian transcendental philosophy, and Aristotelian-scholastic ontological concerns about the manifold senses of 'being.' There is no Nazism there. The rumblings of Nazi ideology came later in such works as Introduction to Metaphysics (1935). But even in these works from the '30s on, what is really going on is a working out of Heidegger's philosophical problematic concerning Being. The notion that Heidegger's work is primarily an expression of Nazism is delusional and not worth discussing.

So why did I discuss it?

More on Immigration Law: Arizona House Bill 2162. Response to Reppert

On Friday, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed HB 2162 which modifies and clarifies SB 1070 which was signed into law the week before. Here is a passage from 1070 which is constantly misrepresented in the liberal press, including the Arizona Republic newspaper:

FOR ANY LAWFUL CONTACT MADE BY A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE WHERE REASONABLE SUSPICION EXISTS THAT THE PERSON IS AN ALIEN WHO IS UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES, A REASONABLE ATTEMPT SHALL BE MADE, WHEN PRACTICABLE, TO DETERMINE THE IMMIGRATION STATUS OF THE PERSON. (lines 20-26, p. 1)

The misrepresentors leave out (intentionally?) the bit about 'lawful contact.' Where the bill has 'lawful contact,' the 1070 fact sheet has 'legitimate contact.' It amounts to the same: lex, legis, is Latin for 'law.' Now 'lawful contact' would naturally be interpreted to refer to contact between a law enforcement officer and a person during the course of a traffic stop and similar situations where a law has been broken. Victor Reppert, in his response to me, makes a good point. Because 1070 makes it a state crime to be an illegal alien, "it would seem to me that any attempt to determine whether the crime of being here illegally had been committed would constitute a legitimate [lawful] contact. " Whether or not this is so, the house bill provides clarification of 'lawful contact' and removes Reppert's worry:

Continue reading “More on Immigration Law: Arizona House Bill 2162. Response to Reppert”

More on Arizona Senate Bill 1070

Joseph A. e-mails:

I greatly admire Victor Reppert for a number of reasons – I think the Argument from Reason is pretty amazing and effective when formulated and defended well, and Victor remains one of the most soft-spoken and polite bloggers around.

Agreed.

But a number of thoughts occurred to me when reading his and your post.

Victor shows some deep distrust of law enforcement officials – he mentions how there's plenty of Mark Fuhrmans on the police force, and basically asserts that he doesn't trust them to enforce laws like this appropriately.

Continue reading “More on Arizona Senate Bill 1070”

If You Lie About Us . . .

. . . we will tell the truth about you.

Arizona Senate Bill 1070

Arizona Senate Bill 1070 "requires a reasonable attempt to be made to determine the immigration status of a person during any legitimate contact made by an official or agency of the state or a county, city, town . . . if reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the U.S." See here and here for the full text.

That illegal aliens and those who profit from them should object to this legislation comes as no surprise. But it does come as a bit of surprise to find native Arizonan Victor Reppert, who to my knowledge neither employs, nor defends in courts of law, nor otherwise profits from illegal aliens, saying this at his blog:

Police in our state have now been given the authority to demand papers on anyone of whom they have a reasonable suspicion that they are illegal aliens. The trouble is, about the only reason for suspicion that I can think of that someone is in the country illegally is if they have brown skin, or speak Spanish instead of English, or English with an Mexican accent.

I'm afraid Victor isn't thinking very hard. He left out the bit about " during any legitimate contact made by an official . . . ." Suppose a cop pulls over a motorist who has a tail light out. He asks to see the motorist's driver's license. The driver doesn't have one. That fact, by itself, does not prove that the motorist is an illegal alien; but together with other facts (no registration, no proof of insurance, speaks no English . . .) could justify an inquiry into the motorist's immigration status. Hundreds of examples like this are generable ad libitum.

S. B. 1070 is a reasonable response to the Federal government's failure to enforce U. S. immigration law. Border control is a legitimate, constitutionally-grounded function of government. (See Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution.) When the Feds fail to uphold the rule of law, the states, counties, etc. must do so. If you don't understand why we need border control, I refer you to my longer piece, Immigration Legal and Illegal.

According to one 'argument,' Arizona Senate Bill 1070 disproportionately targets Hispanics and is objectionable for that reason. That's like arguing that the RICO statutes disproportionately target Italians. I don't know whether people of Italian extraction are disproportionately involved in organized crime, but if they are, then that is surely no valid objection to the RICO statutes. The reason Hispanics will be disproportionately affected is because they disproportionately break the immigration laws. The quota mentality is behind this 'argument.'