Social and Political Philosophy – Page 2

Is Trump’s Order to End DEI Conservative?

From the Independent Institute:

President Trump signed a flurry of executive orders last week, leaving media pundits breathless in their efforts to cover it all. One of the most controversial orders was titled “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing.”

Yes, conservatives applauded loudly the government’s suspension of its commitment to DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion)—but the order wasn’t conservative. The history of colorblind meritocracy is a classical liberal one that originated from neither the Left nor Right.

I beg to differ. Commitment to race-neutral meritocracy is indeed classically liberal, but classical liberalism is an essential ingredient in American conservatism. This is more than a terminological quibble: it is a disagreement over the nature of American conservatism.

For many of us who reject leftism, and embrace a version of conservatism, there remains a choice between what I call American conservatism, which accepts key tenets of classical liberalism, and a more robust conservatism. This more robust conservatism inclines toward the reactionary and anti-liberal. The difference emerges in an essay by Bishop Robert Barron entitled One Cheer for George Will's The Conservative Sensibility. The bolded passages below throw the difference into relief.

And so it was with great interest that I turned to Will’s latest offering, a massive volume called The Conservative Sensibility, a book that both in size and scope certainly qualifies as the author’s opus magnum. Will’s central argument is crucially important. The American experiment in democracy rests, he says, upon the epistemological [sic] conviction that there are political rights, grounded in a relatively stable human nature, that precede the actions and decisions of government. These rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are not the gifts of the state; rather, the state exists to guarantee them, or to use the word that Will considers the most important in the entire prologue to the Declaration of Independence, to “secure” them. Thus is government properly and severely limited and tyranny kept, at least in principle, at bay. In accord with both Hobbes and Locke, Will holds that the purpose of the government finally is to provide an arena for the fullest possible expression of individual freedom. [. . .]

With much of this I found myself in profound agreement. It is indeed a pivotal feature of Catholic social teaching that an objective human nature exists and that the rights associated with it are inherent and not artificial constructs of the culture or the state. Accordingly, it is certainly good that government’s tendency toward imperial expansion be constrained. But as George Will’s presentation unfolded, I found myself far less sympathetic with his vision. What becomes clear is that Will shares, with Hobbes and Locke and their disciple Thomas Jefferson, a morally minimalistic understanding of the arena of freedom that government exists to protect. All three of those modern political theorists denied that we can know with certitude the true nature of human happiness or the proper goal of the moral life—and hence they left the determination of those matters up to the individual. Jefferson expressed this famously as the right to pursue happiness as one sees fit. The government’s role, on this interpretation, is to assure the least conflict among the myriad individuals seeking their particular version of fulfillment. The only moral bedrock in this scenario is the life and freedom of each actor.

Catholic social teaching has long been suspicious of just this sort of morally minimalist individualism. Central to the Church’s thinking on politics is the conviction that ethical principles, available to the searching intellect of any person of good will, ought to govern the moves [sic] of individuals within the society, and moreover, that the nation as a whole ought to be informed by a clear sense of the common good—that is to say, some shared social value that goes beyond simply what individuals might seek for themselves. Pace Will, the government itself plays a role in the application of this moral framework precisely in the measure that law has both a protective and directive function. It both holds off threats to human flourishing and, since it is, to a degree, a teacher of what the society morally approves and disapproves, also actively guides the desires of citizens.

I applaud the idea that the law have both a protective and a directive function. But to what should the law direct us?

On a purely procedural liberalism, "the purpose of the government finally is to provide an arena for the fullest possible expression of individual freedom. " This won't do, obviously. If people are allowed the fullest possible expression of individual freedom, then anything goes: looting, arson, bestiality, paedophilia, voter fraud, lying under oath, destruction of public and private property, etc. Liberty is a high value but not when it becomes license. Indisputably, ethical principles ought to govern the behavior of individuals. But which principles exactly? Therein lies the rub. We will presumably agree that there must be some, but this agreement gets us nowhere unless we can specify the principles.

If we knew "with certitude the true nature of human happiness or the proper goal of the moral life" then we could derive the principles. Now there are those who are subjectively certain about the nature of happiness and the goal of life. But this merely subjective certainty is worth little or nothing given that different people and groups are 'certain' about different things. Subjective certainty is no guarantee of objective certainty, which is what knowledge requires. This is especially so if the putative knowledge will be used to justify ethical prescriptions and proscriptions that will be imposed upon people by law.

For example, there are atheists and there are theists in almost every society. No atheist could possibly believe that the purpose of human life is to know, love, and serve God in this world and be happy with him in the next. From this Catechism answer one can derive very specific ethical prescriptions and proscriptions, some of which will be rejected by atheists as a violation of their liberty. Now if one could KNOW that the Catechism answer is true, then those specific ethical principles would be objectively grounded in a manner that would justify imposing them on all members of a society for their own good whether they like it or not.

But is it known, as opposed to reasonably believed, that there is a God, etc.? Most atheists would deny that the proposition in question is even reasonably believed. Bishop Barron's Catholicism is to their minds just so much medieval superstition. Suppose, however, that the good bishop's worldview is simply true. That does us no good unless we can know that it is true. Suppose some know (with objective certainty) that it is true. That also does us no good, politically speaking, unless a large majority in a society can agree that we know that it is true.

So while it cannot be denied that the law must have some directive, as opposed to merely protective, function, the question remains as to what precisely it ought to direct us to. The directions cannot come from any religion, but neither can they come from any ersatz religion such as leftism. No theocracy, but also no 'leftocracy'! Separation of church and state, but also separation of leftism and state.

This leaves us with the problem of finding the via media between a purely procedural liberalism and the tyrannical imposition of prescriptions and proscriptions that derive from some dogmatically held, but strictly unknowable, set of metaphysical assumptions about man and world. It is a dilemma inasmuch as both options are unacceptable.

I'll end by noting that the main threats to our liberty at the present time do not emanate from a Roman Catholicism that has become a shell of its former self bereft of the cultural relevance it enjoyed for millennia until losing it in the mid-1960s; they proceed from leftism and Islam, and the Unholy Alliance of the two.

And so while the dilemma lately noted remains in force, a partial solution must take the form of retaining elements of the Judeo-Christian worldview, the Ten Commandments chiefly, and by a restoration of the values of the American founding. Practically, this will require vigorous opposition to the parties of the unholy alliance.

Steve Bannon and Megyn Kelly on FAFO

Here.

Megyn Kelly, being relatively young, may be forgiven for referring to Elliot Ness as Elliot Nest (ouch!), but Steve Bannon, whose superannuation shows, and who ought to know better, either missed her mistake or let it pass, being the gentleman that he is.

In all other particulars, however, the short video is delightfully on target.

As for the man himself, what Kennedy said about Nixon could also be said about Trump: "The man has no class."

But what is more important, both domestically and internationally, class or the ability to kick ass?* We conservative quill-drivers do some good, I suppose, but none of us are positioned to bring about decisive, world-shaking, change. While we sit at our ink wells and drive our quills, great men stand at the ramparts and drive history.

But we the people must keep an eye on them. It is not that power corrupts; it does not. It is that we who are all morally defective and susceptible to the blandishments of power, abuse it. Power itself, however, is good. If it were not, why would all-power count among the omni-attributes of deity?

The Founders understood how easily fallen natures are suborned by the possession of power. So they designed a constitution-based republic with built-in safeguards to check and balance the executive's power lest it issue in tyranny.

Long live the Republic, the republic our political enemies aim to tear down. They will not succeed. The right man came along at the right time, whether or not by divine design.

But one thing troubles me. Government by executive orders cannot be what the Founders had in mind. Given our current predicament, however, such orders are a necessary evil. If Congress did its job, they would not be necessary.

An executive order is an edict. 'Edict' and 'dictator' share the PIE root, deik-. And so, true to his word, Donald Trump was a dictator on Day One, reversing the pernicious edicts of his corrupt predecessor, Joseph Biden who on his first day, playing the dictator, viciously and stupidly reversed Trump's wise 2017 border policies. Biden ought to have been impeached and removed from office on the grounds of dereliction of duty and failure to uphold the Constitution he swore to uphold and protect. But so divided have we become, that Biden's removal could not be brought about.

And so here we are. If in the unlikely event that the Dems take back the White House in 2028, the cycle of reversing and promulgating edicts will begin again. A suboptimal outcome, that.

One more thing. We need an opposition party as part of the system of checks and balances. The Dems would do just fine if they could be restored to sanity, the Camelot sanity of the early 'sixties, say. But that is a big 'if.' Kamalot would be a disaster. If the Dems persist in their subversive ways, however, serious thought will have to be given to the question whether their party should be outlawed.

I'm serious. The CPUSA was never outlawed, as far as I know.** There was no need to, because of their relative lack of political clout. Outlawing them would only have given them attention and brought them supporters. But the transmogrification over the last decades of the Dems into a hard-Left subversive outfit with real chances of winning puts a different complexion on the matter.

Toleration is the touchstone of classical liberalism. But toleration has limits: it negates itself when extended unto political suicide.

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*To put it politely and allusively, 'kick donkey.'

**I'm not an historian, so correct me if I am wrong or omitting pertinent facts.

MAGA, Majority Rule, and Consent of the Governed

Here:

In short, the political battle between the Left and Right is best understood as an existential fight over what America will be. The Left pushes for a metanoic transformation, while the Right tries to catalyze an epistrophic one.

Metanoia is a forward-looking change — a recognition that one’s past way of life was flawed in some fundamental way. Regret precipitates a self-rejection that drives the transformation, which is a deliberate turning away from one’s previous identity. In contrast, epistrophe is a backward-looking change — a realization that at some point one betrayed the true self and embraced a false mode of being. Epistrophic transformation, then, is a return to one’s essential identity — a return to a previous (and more authentic) way of life.

Under the second Trump administration, America will be transformed — and it will be an epistrophic transformation. The citizens of the country have unmistakably rejected the Left’s claim that our traditional identity was morally untenable.

Very good over all, but is the last quoted sentence true?

The concept democracy includes at least four sub-concepts: majority rule, universal franchise, equality before the law, and consent of the governed. Consider the first and the fourth. They are in tension with each other. Trump won both the Electoral College and the popular vote, but he won the latter only by about 2%. So almost half of the voters did not give their consent to be governed by Trump and his entourage and to be subjected to his and their agenda.

As a citizen and a patriot, I am very happy with the outcome: I want to see our political enemies soundly defeated and demoralized. As a philosopher, however, one who values truth above all else, and along with it, the ancillary virtues of precision in thought and speech, I must point out that that it is false that the citizens have unmistakably rejected the depredatory Left's signature allegation.

The false claim is being thoughtlessly repeated by too many media pundits on our side. Widely bruited as it is, it may have the negative effect of causing complacency. We are in a war with the Left and it won't be over soon, if ever. The National Sanitation Project, as I have been calling it, may take a generation or more. All of our institutions need the political equivalent of fumigation. That includes, of course, the RCC which, though not part of the state apparatus, is an institution that affects the course of the ship of state.

Emma Goldman on Anarchism

The topic of anarchism surfaced in an earlier thread. Dmitri and Hector introduced us to David Graeber. But let's go back a century or so for a bit of historical perspective. Herewith, a brief examination of Emma Goldman's definition of anarchism.

ANARCHISM: the philosophy of a new social order based on liberty unrestricted by man-made law; the theory that all forms of government rest on violence, and are therefore wrong and harmful, as well as unnecessary. ("Anarchism: What it Really Stands For" in Anarchism and Other Essays, Dover, 1969. p. 50. The Dover edition is a republication of the third revised edition originally published in 1917)

Goldman is advancing five claims, either explicitly or tacitly. By 'government' she means "the State." (p. 52) That's what I mean by it too. She does not mean a mutually beneficial form of social order that arises spontaneously and thus without coercion or authoritarian regulation. One could mean that by 'government.' The word is ambiguous as between those two meanings. (See Richard Sylvan, "Anarchism" in A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy, Blackwell 1993, pp. 216-217.)

I will now state and comment on five assertions I extract from the passage quoted:

1) Anarchism aspires to promotes the liberty of the individual.

So far, so good. I'm all in! Liberty is a very high value. "Give me liberty, or give me death!" (Patrick Henry)

2) Liberty is unrestricted by man-made law.

Our anarchist is telling us that liberty cannot exist under man-made law, that liberty and law are mutually exclusive. Here is where she begins to go off the rails. What she is saying would be true only in an ideal world, which is to say, a world that does not actually exist. In the world that actually exists, with human being as they actually are, (2) is false. It is blindingly evident that her ideal world does not exist, which is not to say that it cannot exist. But if her ideal world cannot exist, then her (2) is impossible. Now I cannot prove (demonstrate, conclusively establish) that her ideal world is impossible, but there is nothing in our past experience to show that it is possible. In fact, all of our past experience suggests the opposite.

I say that liberty, to be liberty, must be (i) attainable, and (ii) attainable for all. Attainable liberty is possible society-wide, or for all, only under man-made laws. This is because people inevitably come into conflict, for all sorts of reasons (scarcity of resources, innate bellicosity, etc.) and there can be no conflict resolution without laws. Now laws are laws only if they are enforceable and enforced. (The mere possibility of enforcement is insufficient.) There is therefore need for agents of enforcement. The practical necessity of the state follows from the need for agents of enforcement who will equitably enforce the laws.

3) All forms of government rest on violence.

This is in the vicinity of a truth, but one better expressed as follows: there cannot be government without coercion. What this means is that to countenance government is to countenance situations in which some people will be compelled to do things they don't want to do, and compelled to desist from doing things that they want to do. This coercion, without which there cannot be government (a state), will involve either violence or the credible threat of violence, violence which in many if not most cases will be physical, e.g., throwing a man to the ground and handcuffing him.

In sum: No attainable liberty for the greatest number without man-made (positive) laws that are both enforceable and enforced. No enforcement without enforcers. No enforcers without a state apparatus. No state apparatus without allowance of the possibility of coercion. No possibility of coercion without the credible threat of violence, which, given the stupidity, ignorance, selfishness, and bellicosity of human beings in the state of nature, will inevitable result in the actual use of violence against malefactors.

4) Governments, since they "rest on violence" are "wrong and harmful."

Goldman thinks they are "wrong and harmful" presumably because governments cannot exist without coercion, and thus cannot exist without the threat if not the execution of violence, where all violence, whether threatened or actual, is deemed morally wrong.

To my way of thinking, however, (4) is obviously false. While is is true that governments "rest on violence," the violence that they sometimes mete out is not "wrong and harmful," but right and helpful. The state is a 'necessary evil.' A necessary (needed) evil is not something evil, full stop, but something that it would be better not to need, but something we do need given the actual state of things. For example, a cancer treatment consisting of chemotherapy and radiation that partially destroys one's salivary glands and taste buds is a necessary evil. That partial destruction is evil, but it is necessary (needed) to prevent a worse evil, namely, death. A rational man, such as your humble correspondent, will in such a predicament choose to undergo the nasty protocol despite its being nasty. He is rational in the means-ends sense: he chooses means conducive to his end in view, namely, to live a few more years. This is all predicated upon the actual state of things which a rational man takes into account.

5) Government is unnecessary, which is to say, not needed for human flourishing.

This too is plainly false. It would be true if men were angels. But men are not angels. They are not demons either. They are beings capable of great good and of great evil. And some are better than others, both intellectually and morally (and in other ways too). And the same goes for governments: some are better than others, both in their form and in their matter (the people who wield power). Formally, the U.S. system of government is the best the mind of man has yet devised, but materially, the current regime, headed by Biden and Harris and their appointees and hidden puppet-masters is arguably the worst in the history of our great republic. But the times they are a'changin.

So we need the state. We need government, limited government. For we of the Coalition of the Sane and the Reasonable, who love liberty and hate tyranny, want only as much government as is necessary to secure ordered liberty, domestic tranquillity, and international peace. And note: we need government whether or not we can solve the problem of its moral justifiability. The state is practically necessary whether or not anyone can show on the theoretical plane that it is morally justifiable.

To understand the justifiability question, see my Substack articles on Robert Paul Wolff:

Notes on Anarchism I

Notes on Anarchism II

Notes on Anarchism III

Robert Paul Wolff on Anarchism and Marxism

We Have a Problem . . .

. . . and according to Malcolm Pollack, there's no fixing it:

We have a problem, and as far as I can see, it isn’t going away; indeed, I expect it will get sharply worse in the wake of next month’s election. The problem, simply put, is that although the bedrock principle of the American political formula is “consent of the governed”, we have now reached the point where whichever faction comes to power will govern entirely without the consent of half the population.

This was not always the case. Once upon a time — within my own memory — there was enough commonality on social, political, and moral axioms that those out of power would subordinate their dissatisfaction to the importance of playing the game, and would look at political setbacks as little more than a bad year for the home team. “Next season” was never too far off, and meanwhile we could live with the opposition temporarily in power because we knew that, despite some differences about policy, we more or less agreed on the fundamental axioms of American life.

Now, things are different. For the losers in the next election (whichever side that is), being governed by the victors isn’t going to feel like like losing a round; it will feel like being subjugated. It’s going to be like having their homeland pillaged and their altars desecrated by a despised and unholy enemy before whom they will be made to kneel. And that is going to get worse, not better, as time goes by.

The two factions, the Cloud People and the Dirt People, each have power, but very different kinds of power (the power of the latter is still mostly latent and unorganized, but it is real). Clearly, we can’t live together, and neither is willing to be ruled by the other — but we can’t get away from each other, either.

The problem is summed up perfectly in the final sentence. I don't have a real solution but a return to federalism may help mitigate tensions, as I suggest in my latest Substack upload.

Slouching Toward Totalitarianism

Can Trump save us?

Klingenstein: Is our regime totalitarian, emerging or otherwise? What makes it so? How far along are we? Can we fight back?

Ellmers: I think the essay that Ted Richards and I wrote for your website, and the several excellent responses that you published, cover this pretty well.

Klingenstein: How much can Trump fix it?

Ellmers: Very hard to say. Showing up, as they say, is half the battle. Or, as you have noted, the first step in winning a war is to know that you are in one. Trump knows this. He has to keep making the case to the American people that they are true sovereigns, and the arrogant ruling class is illegitimate. The outrageous incompetence of the Secret Service, which failed to prevent the attempted assassination of President Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, is a good way to remind people that our so-called experts have no expertise. These bureaucrats are mostly blowhards, grifters, and phonies.

I agree with Trump’s decision not to talk any more about how he was almost murdered, but incoming Vice President Vance should… a lot. In fact, I hope that Trump will continue to do what he does best as president — using his wit and populist rhetoric and negotiating skills to good effect — while the vice president’s office acts as the day-to-day juggernaut that ruthlessly dismantles the administrative state.

Klingenstein: Will Trump win? What does it depend on? If you were his political consultant, what would you advise him to do?

Ellmers: I think he will win by a significant margin — too big, as people are saying, for the Democrats to steal. My friend Jim Piereson, writing in The New Criterion, has predicted that Trump will win the popular vote by six points, take all the swing states, and get 339 electoral votes. That sounds right to me.

He seems to have been changed somewhat since he nearly took a bullet to the head. I would encourage him to remain upbeat and positive.

Klingenstein: What will happen after Trump if he is elected in 2024?

Ellmers: Again, hard to say. Of course the Left will launch its resistance campaign, but I don’t think anyone knows how much support it will have outside the radical fringe. Some of my friends think I’m too optimistic, but I suspect that some energy and panache has gone out of protesting and rioting since the 2020 Summer of Left-wing Love. There will still be violence by Antifa and others, but I don’t think it will have the same mainstream support. And we should not discount the anger the hard Left will direct at the Democrat party. The media and the Beltway establishment really screwed up this election by lying about Biden, and I think the radicals will not take kindly to having their agenda thwarted by the complacency and arrogance of the Democrat’s leadership.

Klingenstein: Is Vance MAGA? Is he the right choice for VP? He abhorred Trump before he lauded him. Does this make you hesitate?

Ellmers: It’s extremely important that Trump 1) went outside the decrepit establishment and picked someone who will help him fight the Beltway blob head-on; and 2) picked someone young and energetic who can carry on the MAGA agenda. That means Trump is thinking long-term. It was a good choice.

Having just finished Hillbilly Elegy, I would say that Trump's VP pick was an outstanding choice, the best he could have made from the outstanding candidates on his short list. A second brilliant move was his welcoming of RFK Jr. into his coalition. Here is the Kennedy clan's black (red?) sheep's Arizona Trump endorsement.

Trump and the ‘Losertarians’

The Libertarian Party is for losers. If you are a conservative who votes Libertarian, you are behaving foolishly. You say you stand on 'principles'? Principles are great. And some of the Libertarian ones are salutary. But principles without power are just paper. Politics is a practical game. Wise up and get with the program. Don't throw away your vote on unelectables. If it comes down to Trump versus Biden, you must vote for Trump. Nikki Haley gets it. To paraphrase her recent endorsement: Trump is not perfect, but Biden is a catastrophe.

You have heard me say many times that politics is a practical game. I don't mean that it is unserious. Some games are serious; chess is one, life is another.* Life is as serious as cancer, and the wrong people in power can put a serious dent in your living of your life. You know who these are at the present time.

Politics is not about perfect versus imperfect, but about better versus worse in the concrete circumstances in which we find ourselves. That's what I mean when I say that politics is practical. I'm a theoretician myself, and unlikely to do much in the political sphere beyond vote and exercise my free speech rights. But you must understand the political if you are to have any chance of ameliorative action within the political sphere. Ameliorative praxis presupposes true theory. Libertarians, standing on 'principle,' have as little understanding of the nature of the political as do integralists. (See my Substack entries on integralism, here and here.) Their respective candidates are unelectable.

Practically, you are a fool if you let the best become the enemy of the good by supporting candidates the probability of whose election is near zero. Don't waste your time with third parties, which are nothing more than discussion societies in political drag.

Old Karl said that whereas the philosophers have variously interpreted the world, the point is to change it. He got it backwards. Job One is to understand the world; only then will you have any chance of changing it for the better. I hope you all agree that the commies changed things all right, but for the worse. Pace Barack Hussein Obama, progress is not change; progress is change for the better. And to repeat myself, in the realm of praxis the realizable better is to be preferred over the unattainable best.

Politico reports here on foolish 'losertarian' opposition to Trump.

“The vast majority of Libertarian Party members are not happy with this invitation,” said Bill Redpath, a 40-year veteran of the Libertarian Party and a former national party chair who’s helped organize their presidential ballot access for decades. “There are some people who call Trump the most Libertarian president of our lifetimes. That’s utterly ridiculous.”

What is Redpath's point? That Reagan was more libertarian than Trump? Maybe so. But Reagan is long gone. What is practically relevant is that Trump is more libertarian than any other electable candidate at present. Who will stand up for 2A? Joey B.? RFK Jr.? Gavin Newsom? 2A is the lead that backs up the paper of the other ten. Catch my drift?

Do libertarians really value liberty? Or do they just like to talk? In his address at the Libertarian National Convention, Trump said that if the libertarians are not happy with their usual 3% of the vote, they should nominate or at least vote for him. They nominated some unknown by the name of Chase something. Oh yes, Chase Oliver. I'm already having trouble remembering a name I first heard two days ago.

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*Bobby Fisher famously said, "Chess is life." But we needn't go that far!

UPDATE (5/29) Walter E. Block: Libertarians should vote for Trump. https://www.wsj.com/articles/libertarians-should-vote-for-trump-4ef84994?mod=opinion_lead_pos8 But of course! Block has his head screwed on Right even if he is a libertarian.

If we pull the lever for Mr. Trump in these swing states, we may get a slightly more libertarian president and help free Mr. Ulbricht. If we vote Libertarian everywhere else, we make a statement and help preserve our ballot access.

Some Libertarians find Mr. Trump unacceptable on grounds of principle. True, he is no libertarian, but Mr. Biden—the wokester, the socialist, the interventionist—is much further from us on the political-economic spectrum than Mr. Trump.

Others are put off by Mr. Trump’s obnoxious behavior. He engages in name-calling. He puts ketchup on filet mignon.

Mr. Trump grew up in Queens. I’m roughly his contemporary and come from Brooklyn. I assure you that everyone in New York City is personally unbearable (except Staten Islanders). It is a geographical-genetic disposition. Ignore it. This act of his is mostly tongue-in-cheek. New Yorkers actually have contests to see who is the most insufferable. Prizes are given out.