Social and Political Philosophy – Page 22

Gun Laws and the Supposed ‘Politicization’ of the Aurora Massacre

Last year, when Republicans were being accused of 'politicizing' the national debt crisis I made the point that one cannot politicize that which is inherently political:

The Republicans were accused of 'politicizing' the debt crisis. But how can you politicize what is inherently political? The debt in question is the debt of the federal government. Since a government is a political entity, questions concerning federal debts are political questions. As inherently political, such questions cannot be politicized.

If to hypostatize is to illicitly treat as a substance that which is not a substance, to politicize is to illictly treat as political what is not political. Since governmental debt questions are 'already' political, they cannot be politicized.

Then I was criticizing Democrats and liberals. But now I find that some Republicans and conservatives are making the same mistake. They are accusing liberals of politicizing the Aurora massacre. Example here.

But as I said, you cannot politicize what is already political. Now guns are not political entities, but gun laws are, whether federal, state, or local. Whether there should be gun laws at all, and what their content should be are political questions.

Now we all agree that we have to have laws regulating the manufacture, sale, transporting, and use of firearms. So we all agree that we have to have 'gun control.' Gun control is not what I display or fail to display at the shooting range, but is a phrase that refers to gun control laws. Since we all want gun control, we all want (enforceable and enforced) gun control laws, even the dreaded NRA.

It is a liberal lie to say that conservatives are against gun control. It is similar to the liberal lie that conservatives are anti-government. If I am for limited government, then I am for government, whence it follows that I am not against government. (Anarchists are anti-government, but no conservative, and few libertarians, are against government.) Likewise, if I am for laws that prevent the sale of guns to felons, and for other such laws, then I am not against gun control.

By the way, the preternaturally obtuse Bill Moyers got a nice and well-deserved slap-down from Bill O'Reilly the other night for his idiotic remarks about the NRA. Bill Moyers is a one-man argument for the federal defunding of PBS and its affiliates such as NPR. (See National Public Radio Needs Your Support!) Listen to the whole of O'Reilly's speech. He is a moderate on gun control, too moderate perhaps. He is moderate on many issues. Is that why the Left can't stand him?

But I digress. We all agree that we need enforceable and enforced gun control laws. But we don't all agree about the content of these laws. Now that is a political question the answering of which presupposes a political theory, a theory of man in his relation to the state. The gun debate is political from the ground up. It is silly so speak of 'politicizing' it.

Here is what I say. I have a right to life, a right to defend my life, and a right to appropriate means of self-defense. No government has the right to interfere with these rights. This is nonnegotiable. If you disagree, I have to put you down as morally and intellecually obtuse, as beyond the pale of rational debate. I will do my best to make sure that you and your ilk are defeated politically.

What's an appropriate means of self-defense? The tactical shotgun is the most effective tool of home defense. Holmes, the Aurora shooter, had one of those. It looked like a Remington 1070. He misused it for evil ends. That is chargeable to his moral and legal account, not to the gun's. Guns lack such 'accounts.' No gun is a free agent. No gun ever lilled anybody. Killing is an action (action-type); actions are actions of agents. Pay attention, liberals.

There will always be massacres and murders regardless of the stringency of gun laws. Norway.

Can anything be done? Yes. Enforce existing gun laws. Execute miscreants such as Holmes, after a fair trial, in a speedy manner. There could a be a judicial fast-track to expedite the execution of such people within a year, at most. Put limits on the quantities and types of vile and soul-destroying rubbish that HollyWeird liberals dish out. Stop attacking religion, that most excellent vehicle for the delivery of moral teachings. If Holmes had internalized the Ten Commandments as a boy, could he have done what he did? Do you think he would have been less likely to do what he did?

But liberals are morally and intellectually obtuse. So they will fight against all reasonable proposals. A liberal would far rather violate the rights of decent citizens than mete out justice to vicious criminals.

Equality of Opportunity Thin and Thick

Will Knowland writes:

Browsing your Money Matters section, I noticed this:

Equality of outcome or result is not to be confused with
equality of opportunity or formal equality in general, including equality under
the law. It is an egregious fallacy of liberals and leftists to infer a denial
of equality of opportunity — via 'racism' or 'sexism' or whatever — from the
premise that a certain group has failed to achieve equality of outcome. There
will never be equality of outcome due to the deep differences between
individuals and groups. Equality of outcome is not even a value. We must do
what we can to ensure equality of opportunity and then let the chips fall where
they may.

I agree that there will never be equality of outcome, but neither will there ever be equality of opportunity, because opportunities at any given moment won't be equal unless outcomes are. And must we do what we can to ensure equality of opportunity? Can does not imply may. Family circumstances, for example, are the biggest determinant of a child's educational success. The State could, as Plato wanted, remove children from their families at birth. That would produce a more level playing field.

As Don Colacho wisely warned, though, "levelling is the barbarian's substitute for order."

BV responds: You say, "neither will there ever be equality of opportunity, because opportunities at any given moment won't be equal unless outcomes are." Your argument appears to be this:

a. There will never be equality of outcome
b. There is equality of opportunity if and only if there is equality of outcome
Therefore
c. There will never be equality of opportunity.

We agree that (a) is true, but I would deny (b). In fact (b) strikes me as plainly false. I enter local road races, but I never win. I don't come close to winning: I am a back-of-the-pack plodder who if he is lucky wins in his age division. So there is no equality of outcome. But there is equality of opportunity: I have exactly the same opportunity to win as the world-class 25 year old who actually wins. In what sense? Well, no one barred me from entering the race; I wasn't forced to pay a higher entry fee; no one verbally abused me before or during the race; no one threw rocks at me; I was not forced to wear weights that would slow me down; obstacles were not thrown in my path; etc. The timing chip even compensated me time-wise for the fact that I could not stand right at the starting line with the top runners.

So I had an equal opportunity qua runner to win, an opportunity equal to that of every other participant. I was not discriminated against on the basis of race, sex, creed, length of hair, or the fact that I insist on wearing the skimpy, slit-up-the-side nylon shorts we wore in the '70s as opposed to those utterly ridiculous, baggy, gangsta-rappa semi-auto concealing, knee-length monstrosities popular now among sartorial know-nothings [grin].

Obviously much depends on the concept of equality of opportunity being employed, and I favor a very 'thin' conception. Clearly, one one can plump for 'thicker' conceptions. But the thicker the conception, the less the contrast with equality of outcome/result. I grant that there is no real chance of me winning any (well-attended) road race. But that is irrelevant. Relevant alone is whether I am being excluded on the basis of irrelevant criteria, such as my sex or the color or skimpiness of my running shorts.

As for ensuring equality of opportunity, I would say that we must do what we can to ensure equality of opportunity in my thin sense. But on your exceedingly thick conception, according to which equality of opportunity is equivalent to equality of outcome, then we, collectively, deploying the awesome coercive power of the State, should not do anything. That's what I meant above when I said: let the chips fall where they may.

As for the liberal-left phrase 'level playing field,' we conservatives should avoid it. If you are a conservative, don't talk like a liberal. It's a metaphor whose application is severely limited.

If we are playing soccer or basketball (and there is no handicapping going on), then there must be a level playing field if there is to be a fair competition. But suppose Tom was born with two good eyes and Sally with none. Should we intervene to right that cosmic unfairness, to 'level the playing field' as between Tom and Sally, by transplanting (if we could) one of his eyes into her head? No.

Tom does not deserve his two good eyes, his intelligence, his height, his being born in the USA, in a good, two-parent, loving family, not in a war zone, not with crack cocaine in his system, etc. But he has a right to his advantages despite not deserving them, and no one and no State has the right to violate his rights.

We are just scratching the surface of a whole cluster of thorny and bitterly controverted questions.

Addendum: Knowland sends use this quotation from John Kekes, The Illusions of Egalitarianism, (Cornell, 2006), p.84: ". . . equal opportunity tends to produce unequal outcome, and equal outcome
requires making opportunities unequal by increasing the protection of some at the expense of others."

Is Political Science Science?

The answer depends on what counts as science. The so-called 'hard' sciences set the standard. This useful article lists the following five characteristics of science in the strict and eminent sense:

1. Clearly defined terminology.
2. Quantifiability.
3. Highly controlled conditions. "A scientifically rigorous study maintains direct control over as many of the factors that influence the outcome as possible. The experiment is then performed with such precision that any other person in the world, using identical materials and methods, should achieve the exact same result."
4. Reproducibility. "A rigorous science is able to reproduce the same result over and over again. Multiple researchers on different continents, cities, or even planets should find the exact same results if they precisely duplicated the experimental conditions."
5. Predictability and Testability. "A rigorous science is able to make testable predictions."

These characteristics set the bar for strict science very high. For example, is climate science science according to these criteria? I'll leave you to ponder that question. There are branches of physics that cannot satisfy all five criteria. But most of physics and chemistry meets the standard.

Is political science science according to these criteria? Obviously not. Political Scientists are Lousy Forecasters.

Am I suggesting that the only real knowledge is rigorously scientific knowledge? Of course not. Consider the knowledge we find in the first article to which I linked. There is no doubt in my mind that each of the five criteria the author mentions is a criterion of science in the strictest sense. (I leave open the question whether there are other criteria). Now how do we know that? By performing repeatable experiments in highly controlled conditions? No. By making testable predictions? No.

We know that (1)-(5) are criteria of genuine science by reflecting on scientific practice and isolating its characteristics. When we do that we engage in the philosophy of science. Since some of the philosophy of science gives us genuine knowledge about natural science, knowledge that it not itself scientific knowledge, it cannot be the case that all genuine knowledge is scientific knowledge.

That all genuine knowledge is scientific knowledge is the thesis of (strong) scientism. Therefore, (strong) scientism is false.

Mayor Bloomberg on the Purpose of Government

(CBS News) New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg shrugged off criticism of his controversial public health initiatives, saying that "if government's purpose isn't to improve the health and longevity of its citizens, I don't know what its purpose is." [emphasis added.]

Bloomberg most recently put forth a plan to ban the sale of sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces from the city's eateries, street carts and stadiums. The proposal has been sharply criticized, in some cases by beverage and fast food companies as a case of government overreach.

He's also been criticized for previous efforts to, among other things, ban smoking in public places and the use of trans-fats in restaurant foods. Some have gone so far as to mock has as being like a "nanny."

But on "CBS This Morning," Bloomberg fired back, saying, "We're not here to tell anybody what to do. But we certainly have an obligation to tell them what's the best science and best medicine says is in their interest.

In this startlingly incoherent outburst, Bloomberg betrays the liberal nanny-state mentality in as direct a way as one could wish. And it is incoherent. He wants to ban large drinks, pop corn, milk shakes and what all else while assuring us that "we're not here to tell anybody what to do." He blatantly contradicts himself. Does the man think before he speaks?

But the deeper problem is that he has no notion of the legitimate functions of government. Apparently he has never heard of limited government. Border control is a legitimate constitutionally grounded function of government. One reason the borders must be controlled is to impede the spread of contagious diseases. So government does have some role to play in the health and longevity of citizens. Defense of the country against foreign aggressors is also a legitimate function of government and it too bears upon health and longevity: it is hard to live a long and healthy life when bombs are raining down.

Beyond this, it is up to the individual to live in ways that insure health and longevity if those are values for him. But they might not be. Some value intensity of life over longevity of life. Rod Serling, for example, lived an extremely intense and productive life. Born in 1925, he died in 1975 at age 50. His Type A behavior and four-pack a day cigarette habit did him in, but was also quite possibly a necessary condition of his productivity. That was his free choice. No government has the right to dictate that one value longevity over intensity.

A government big enough and powerful enough to provide one with ‘free’ health care will be in an excellent position to demand ‘appropriate’ behavior from its citizens – and to enforce its demand. Suppose you enjoy risky sports such as motorcycling, hang gliding, mountain climbing and the like. Or perhaps you just like to drink or smoke or eat red meat. A government that pays for the treatment
of your injuries and ailments can easily decide, on economic grounds alone, to forbid such activites under the bogus justification, ‘for your own good.’

But even if the government does not outlaw motorcycling, say, they can put a severe dent in your liberty to enjoy such a sport, say, by demanding that a 30% sales tax be slapped on all motorcycle purchases, or by outlawing bikes whose engines exceed a certain displacement, say 250 cc. In the same way that governments levy arbitrary punitive taxes on tobacco products, they can do the same for anything they deem risky or unhealthy.

The situation is analogous to living with one’s parents. It is entirely appropriate for parents to say to a child: ‘As long as you live under our roof, eat at our table, and we pay the bills, then you must abide by our rules. When you are on your own, you may do as you please.’ The difference, of course, is that it is
relatively easy to move out on one’s own, but difficult to forsake one’s homeland.

The nub of the issue is liberty. Do you value it or not?

Does Bloomberg even see the issue?

Social Justice or Subsidiarity?

Just over the transom from James Anderson:

I appreciated your recent posts on "social justice." I agree that the phrase is a mendacious rhetorical device and that conservatives should refuse to use it. But what should we use instead? In one post you asked what's wrong with "plain old 'justice.'" One problem is that the phrase "social justice" has now become so depressingly commonplace that many folk, unaware of this conceptual revisionism, understand "justice" as shorthand for "social justice". So conservatives need their own distinctive qualifier. Fight fire with fire. What would be your suggestion?

One possibility is "natural justice". Not only does it tip its hat toward the venerable natural law tradition, it also communicates the idea that justice is inextricably tied to the intrinsic nature of things (specifically, the nature of human beings) as opposed to being a mere social construction (as, perhaps, "social justice" suggests). And like "social justice" it has the virtue of being unobjectionable on the face of it. To adapt the opening sentence of one of your posts: "How could any decent person be opposed to natural justice?" What would be the alternative? Unnatural justice?

I'd love to read your own thoughts on this, if you're inclined to share them.

I wish I had a worked-out theory and I wish I had a good answer for Professor Anderson. But I won't let the absence of both stop me from making a few remarks. Nescio, ergo blogo.

As a sort of joke I might suggest that 'subsidiarity' be used by conservatives instead of 'social justice.' The trouble with that word, of course, is that it conveys no definite idea to the average person whereas 'social justice' seems to convey a definite idea, one that the average person is inclined to embrace. It sounds so good! Who could be opposed to social justice and a just society? But once one understands what 'social justice' means in the mouth of a leftist, then one has excellent reason to oppose it. The Left has hijacked the phrase and now they own it; it would be quixotic for a conservative to try to infuse it with a reasonable meaning and win it back. Let the Left have it!

Anderson and I therefore agree that we conservatives should never use 'social justice,' or 'economic justice' for that matter. Beyond that, we might take to using 'socialist justice' as an informative and accurate way of referring to what leftists call social justice. But what word or phrase should we use? How about 'local justice'? That's not very good, but at least it points in the the subsidiarist direction. Plain old 'justice' is better. Anderson's 'natural justice' is serviceable. It has the virtue of combating the notion that justice is a social construct. But it doesn't combat the top-down control model of socialists and collectivists. This brings me to subsidiarity.

David A. Bosnich, The Principle of Subsidiarity:

One of the key principles of Catholic social thought is known as the principle of subsidiarity. This tenet holds that nothing should be done by a larger and more complex organization which can be done as well by a smaller and simpler organization. In other words, any activity which can be performed by a more decentralized entity should be. This principle is a bulwark of limited government and personal freedom. It conflicts with the passion for centralization and bureaucracy characteristic of the Welfare State.

The principle of subsidiarity strikes a reasonable balance between statism and collectivism as represented by the Obama administration and the libertarianism of those who would take privatization to an extreme. By the way, one of the many mistakes Rick Santorum made in his campaign was to attack all government-sponsored education. He was right to question whether the Federal government has any role to play in education, but to question the role of state and local government in education was a foolish extremism that befits a libertarian, not a conservative.

I take it that subsidiarity is easily detachable from other Catholic doctrines. Professor Anderson needn't fear that he will be driven in the direction of papal infallibility or Transubstantiation. In any case, Catholics don't own subsidiarity. In the ComBox to this excellent post, we find:

"SPHERE SOVEREIGNTY: A principle of Reformed Christian social ethics, usually associated with the thought of Dutch Prime Minister Abraham Kuyper*, that identifies a number of God- ordained creational spheres, which include the family, the state, culture, and the church. These spheres each have their own organizing and ruling ordinances, and each maintains a measure of authority relative to the others. Just social and political structures, therefore, should be ordered so that the authority of each sphere is preserved (see Limited Government and Subsidiarity, The Principle of)."

Subsidiarity also fits well wth federalism, a return to which is a prime desideratum and one more reason not to vote for Obama come November. By the way, 'federalism' is another one of those words that does not wear its meaning on its sleeve, and is likely to mislead. Federalism is not the view that all powers should be vested in the Federal or central government; it is the principle enshrined in the 10th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Permit me to coin 'malaptronym.' If an aptronym is a name that suits its bearer, then 'federalism' is a malaptronym, a name that not only does not suit its bearer, but misleads as to the nature of said bearer. And the same, of course, is true in spades of 'social justice.'

I say we consign it to the dreaded index verborum prohibitorum!

What is Social Justice?

How could any decent person be opposed to social justice? Don't we all want to live in a just society? But as Barry Loberfeld points out,

The signature of modern leftist rhetoric is the deployment of terminology that simply cannot fail to command assent. As [George] Orwell himself recognized, even slavery could be sold if labeled "freedom." In this vein, who could ever conscientiously oppose the pursuit of "social justice," — i.e., a just society?

One of my criticisms of Bill O'Reilly is that he will use the phrase 'social justice' without explaining what it means. He will say something like, 'Obama is for social justice.' The average person who hears that will think, 'Well, what's wrong with that?' This is where the lately lamented (here and here) anti-intellectualism of conservatives comes back to bite them. Too many conservatives fail to realize the importance of defining one's terms before launching into a debate. Of course, I am talking about ordinary conservative folk and their political and talk-show representatives; I am not talking about conservative intellectuals.

Define your terms! This is is such an obvious demand that I feel slightly embarrassed to make it; but given the low level of culture one must make it and make it again.

Walter Block, here, offers a characterization that Mr O'Reilly should be able to wrap his 'no-spin' head around:

First, this concept [social justice] may be defined substantively. Here, it is typically associated with left wing or socialist analyses, policies and prescriptions. For example, poverty is caused by unbridled capitalism; the solution is to heavily regulate markets, or ban them outright. Racism and sexism account for the relative plight of racial minorities and women; laws should be passed prohibiting their exercise. Greater reliance on government is required as the solution of all sorts of social problems. The planet is in great danger from environmental despoliation, due to an unjustified reliance on private property rights. Taxes are too low; they should be raised. Charity is an insult to the poor, who must obtain more revenues by right, not condescension. Diversity is the sine qua non of the fair society. Discrimination is one of the greatest evils to have ever beset mankind. Use of terminology such as "mankind" is sexist, and constitutes hate speech.

Now I refer you to an excellent First Things article by Michael Novak which you should carefully study. Excerpt:

From this line of reasoning it follows that “social justice” would have its natural end in a command economy in which individuals are told what to do, so that it would always be possible to identify those in charge and to hold them responsible. This notion presupposes that people are guided by specific external directions rather than internalized, personal rules of just conduct. It further implies that no individual should be held responsible for his relative position. To assert that he is responsible would be “blaming the victim.” It is the function of “social justice” to blame somebody else, to blame the system, to blame those who (mythically) “control” it. As Leszek Kolakowski wrote in his magisterial history of communism, the fundamental paradigm of Communist ideology is guaranteed to have wide appeal: you suffer; your suffering is caused by powerful others; these oppressors must be destroyed. We need to hold someone accountable, Hayek notes, even when we recognize that such a protest is absurd.

Novak seems to think that there is such a thing as social justice "rightly understood." I am not convinced that right-thinking people should use the term at all. The Left has destroyed it and now they own it. Anyway, what is wrong with plain old 'justice'? How could justice fail to be social? 'Social justice' as currently used carries a load of leftist baggage.

As I have said many times, if you are a conservative, don't talk like a (contemporary) liberal. Don't use question-begging phrases and epithets such as 'social justice,' 'Islamophobe,' and 'homophobe.' Never acquiesce in the Left's acts of linguistic vandalism. If you let them command the terms of the debate, you will lose. Insist on clarity of expression and definition of terms. Language matters.

'Social justice,' then is a term that our side ought to avoid except when criticizing it. Novak, however, thinks that the phrase has a legitimate use:

Social justice rightly understood is a specific habit of justice that is “social” in two senses. First, the skills it requires are those of inspiring, working with, and organizing others to accomplish together a work of justice. These are the elementary skills of civil society, through which free citizens exercise self–government by doing for themselves (that is, without turning to government) what needs to be done. Citizens who take part commonly explain their efforts as attempts to “give back” for all that they have received from the free society, or to meet the obligations of free citizens to think and act for themselves. The fact that this activity is carried out with others is one reason for designating it as a specific type of justice; it requires a broader range of social skills than do acts of individual justice.

Ron Paul and Libertarian Extremism

Ron Paul made a strong showing in Iowa last night despite his coming in third behind Santorum (second) and Romney (first). But there is no way that Paul will receive the Republican nomination. His irresponsible foreign policy positions alone disqualify him. You may disagree with that, but most agree with me, and that includes the better pundits such as Krauthammer. So Paul's electability is zero. It is too bad because Paul and libertarians generally have many good ideas which serve as correctives to the socialist drift of the country and can help us move back in the right direction towards limited government, self-reliance, and individual responsibility. But libertarians cannot seem to control their tendency towards extremism. This is why the Libertarian Party will always be a losertarian party. Paul had the good sense to join the GOP, but he hasn't had the good sense to rein in the extremism that seems bred-in-the-bone with libertarians.

Paul is right that the the U.S. is overextended abroad, but he can't seem to make the point in a moderate and nuanced way. He has to say, foolishly and irresponsibly, that Iran is no threat. And so he comes across as a crazy old man who cannot be trusted with the power of the presidency. His 19th century isolationism was already outmoded in the 19th century.

The extremism of libertarians is connected with their being doctrinaire. It is good to be principled but bad to be doctrinaire. It requires the subtlety of the conservative mind to understand the difference and the dialectic between the two, a subtlety that is often lost on the adolescent mind of the libertarian who wants nice clear exceptionless principles to cling to.

I'll give an example of how libertarians, most if not all, are extreme and doctrinaire. Individual liberty is a very high value. One of the pillars of this liberty is the right to private property. The defense of private property against collectivists is essential to both libertarian and conservative positions. So far, so good. The tendency of the libertarian, however, is to absolutize the right to private property. He has a hard time grasping that principles and values often butt up against competing principles and values that also have a serious claim on our respect. So he cannot see that well-crafted eminent domain laws are right and reasonable. He cannot see that there is something we can call the common good which is in tension with the right to private property.

A second example is how libertarians typically absolutize the value of liberty while ignoring the claims of such opposing values as security and equality. For more see my post, Liberty and Security.

Vote ‘No’ on Mandatory Voting

The following, from the Powerblogs site, was written in August of 2006 and is here re-published in redacted form.

In a New York Times opinion piece, Norman Ornstein advocates mandatory voting:

     In the Australian system, registered voters who do not show up at
     the polls either have to provide a reason for not voting or pay a
     modest fine, the equivalent of about $15. The fine accelerates with
     subsequent offenses. The result, however, is a turnout rate of more
     than 95 percent. The fine, of course, is an incentive to vote. But
     the system has also instilled the idea that voting is a societal
     obligation.

There is, however, a reason not to go the way of the Aussies and make voting mandatory. As it is here in the USA, roughly only half of the eligible voters actually vote. This is arguably good inasmuch as voters filter themselves similarly as lottery players tax themselves. If I were a liberal, I would say that eligible voters who stay home 'disenfranchise' themselves, and to the benefit of the rest of us. (But of course I am not a liberal and I don't misuse words like 'disenfranchise.')

What I mean is that, generally speaking, the people who can vote but do not are precisely the people one would not want voting in the first place. To vote takes time, energy, and a bit of commitment. Careless, lazy, and uninformed people are not likely to do it. And that is good. I don't want my thoughtful vote neutralized by the vote of some dolt who is merely at the polling place to avoid a fine. And if you force a man to vote, he may rebel and vote randomly or in other ways that subvert the process.

Of course, many refuse to vote out of disgust at their choices. My advice for them would be to hold their noses and vote for the least or the lesser of the evils. Politics is always about choosing the least or the lesser of evils. The very fact that we need government at all shows that we live in an imperfect world, one in which a perfect candidate is not to be found. Government itself is a necessary evil: it would be better if we didn't need it, but we do need it.

I support the right of those who think the system irremediably corrupt to protest by refusing to vote. Government is coercive by its very nature, and mandatory voting is a form of coercion that belongs in a police state rather than in a free republic.

If you think that a higher voter turnout is a good thing, that is happening anyway as divisions deepen and our politics become more polarized. The nastier our politics, the higher the turnout. And it will get nastier still. So why do we need mandatory voting?

Fact is, we are awash in unnecessary laws. We don't need more laws and more government interference in our lives. And will this law be enforced? How? At what expense? Isn't it perfectly obvious to everyone with commonsense that we need to move toward less government rather than more, toward more liberty rather than less?

If you think about it, 'One man, one vote' is a very dubious principle. I think about it here. Voluntary voting is one way of balancing the ill effects of 'One man, one vote.' But isn't voting a civic duty? I would say that it is. But not every duty should be legally mandated.

Addendum: Re-reading the quotation above, I notice that Ornstein reports that registered Aussie voters who do not vote are subject to a fine if they don't have an excuse for not voting. One wonders if those eligible to vote are also legally required to register. If not, their system is a joke: one could avoid voting by simply failing to register! It sounds like an expensive bureaucratic mess to me in which the negatives outweigh the positives.

References

1.http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/10/opinion/10ornstein.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

2.http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/opinion/sunday/telling-americans-to-vote-or-else.html?_r=1

9/11 Ten Years After: Liberty and Security

Liberty and security stand in a dialectical relation to each other in that (i) each requires the other to be what it is, and yet (ii) each is opposed to the other. Let me explain.

Ad (i). LIberty is something worth having. But a liberty worth having is a liberty capable of being exercised fruitfully and often. Liberty in this concrete sense requires security to be what it is. My liberty to leave my house at any time of the day or night would be worth little or nothing if I were to be mugged every time I stepped over the threshold. On the other hand, a security worth having is a security that makes possible the exercise of as much liberty as is consistent with the liberty of all. The security of a prison or of a police state is not a security worth having. A security worth having, therefore, requires liberty to be what it is, something worth having.

Ad (ii). Nevertheless, liberty and security oppose each other. The security of all requires limitations on the liberty of each. For if the liberty of each were allowed untrammelled expression, no one would be secure in his life and property. Thus security opposes and limits liberty. Equally, liberty opposes and limits security. The right to keep and bear arms, for example, poses a certain threat to security, as everyone must admit whether liberal, conservative, or libertarian. The question is not whether it poses a threat, but whether the threat it poses is acceptable given the desirability of the liberty it allows.

Ad (i) + (ii). The situation is complex. Liberty requires the very security that it limits, just as security limits the very liberty that it requires. It follows that any attack on our security is also an attack on our liberty. It seems to me that this is a point that liberals and leftists do not sufficiently appreciate, and that some of them do not appreciate at all. The 9/11 attack on the Trade Towers and the Pentagon did not merely destroy the security of those working in them, it also destroyed their liberty, while impeding to greater and lesser degrees the liberty of all the rest of us. But it must also be said that any restriction on our liberties also negatively affects the value of our security — a point conservatives need to bear in mind.

In the present circumstances, however, when the threats to our security are grave indeed, it is reasonable to tolerate greater than usual restrictions on our liberty. Any liberal or leftist who
disagrees with this should be unceremoniously confronted with the question: How much liberty did the victims of the 9/11 attack enjoy while they were being crushed under girders, burned alive, or falling to their deaths?

I now hand off to Charles Krauthammer, The 9/11 'Overreaction'?

On Private and Public Morality

Many liberals have the bad habit of confusing private and public morality. They think that moral injunctions that make sense in private ought to be carried over into the public sphere. Such liberals are dangerously confused. There are those who, for example, take the Biblical injunction to "welcome the stranger" as a reason to turn a blind eye to illegal immigration. Or consider the NT injunction to "turn the other cheek."

Although it is morally permissible for an individual to "turn the other cheek," "to resist not the evildoer," etc. in the letter and spirit of the New Testament, it is morally impermissible for government officials in charge of national defense and security to do the same. For they are responsible for people besides themselves. Consider the analogy of the pater familias. He cannot allow himself to be slaughtered if that would result in the slaughter of his spouse and children. He must, morally speaking, defend himself and them. With a single person it is different. Such a person may (morally speaking) heed the advice Ludwig Wittgenstein gave to M. O'C. Drury: "If it ever happens that you get mixed up in hand-to-hand fighting, you must just stand aside and let yourself be massacred." (Recollections of Wittgenstein, ed. R. Rhees, p. 149) That was presumably advice Wittgenstein gave himself while a combatant in World War I.

It is a serious mistake, and one oft-made by liberals, to confuse the private and public spheres and the different moralities pertaining to each.

Imagine a society that implements a policy of not resisting (apprehending, trying, convicting, incarcerating, killing) rapists, murderers, foreign invaders, 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.

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 Islamic enemies who would blow it off the face of the map at the first opportunity?

Once your enemy has reduced you to the status of a pig or a monkey 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. And even if you in particular do not care to preserve your existence, if you are a government official charged with a defense function, then you are morally obliged to resist with as much deadly force as is necessary to stop the attacker even if that means targeting the attacker's civilian population.

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. And bear in mind that a part of the liberty the State protects is the liberty to practice one's religion or no religion.

There is no use denying that the State is a violent and coercive entity. To function at all in pursuit of its legitimate tasks of securing life, liberty, and property, it must be able to make war against external enemies and impose discipline upon internal malefactors. The violence may be justified, but it is violence nonethless. To incarcerate a person, for example, is to violate his liberty; it is to do evil to him, an evil necessary for a greater good that can be attained in no other way.

The problem 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 the 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 raised in Christianity, 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 many of whom are woefully ignorant of the simple points Arendt makes in the passage quoted. So, as Arendt points out, the Socratic and Christian admonitions are not applicable in the public sphere.

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 law breaking, I would not be "rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's" as the New Testament enjoins us to do.

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