Social and Political Philosophy – Page 3

Democracy and Toleration

Jesus and the Powers (N. T. Wright & Michael F. Bird, Zondervan, 2024):

Democracies are compelled to tolerate and enfranchise [give the vote to] people who stand in resolute opposition to the very idea of democracy itself. (164)

This sentence implies that a democracy is a system of government in which the will of the majority decides every question. If so, then in such a system the majority may democratically decide that their system of government cease being a democracy and become, say, a theocracy. If so, a democracy may democratically decide to commit political suicide. Democracy taken full strength cancels itself, or al least allows the possibility of self-cancellation. One reasonable inference is that it must not be taken full-strength: it needs support from an extra-democratic source.

Now the authors aim to make a case of "liberal democracy." (p. xvi) But no democracy worth wanting could have the self-destructive feature I have exposed in the preceding paragraph. A democracy worth wanting must rest on principles that are not up for democratic grabs. I mean such principles as are enshrined in our founding documents: that all men are created equal, that they have unalienable rights, and so on. For example, the rights to life, liberty, property, and free speech. These rights do not derive from any collective human decision: they are not up for democratic grabs. The same goes for what I will call political meta-principles such as the rule of law. The rule of law is not itself a law, but a principle that governs the application of laws. It the normative principle that no man is above the law, that all are subject to the same laws, and that everyone is to be treated equally under the law. ABA definition: " no one is above the law, everyone is treated equally under the law, everyone is held accountable to the same laws, there are clear and fair processes for enforcing laws, there is an independent judiciary, and human rights are guaranteed for all." If I understand due process, it is part and parcel of the rule of law: the latter subsumes the former. It should bother you that prominent leftists have questioned due process.

And so I say: no democracy worth wanting can tolerate those who would work to undermine the principles upon which a democracy worth wanting must rest. This is why I wrote two days ago:

Any sane person who does not intend the destruction of our [democratic, constitutionally-based] republic should be able to see that the values of Sharia [Islamic law] are incompatible with American values, and that no Muslims should be allowed to immigrate who are unwilling to accept and honor our values [and Anglo-American system of law, and renounce Islamic law].

The authors, apparently, disagree:

We need a political framework that exhibits . . . a willingness to endure strange and even offensive ways of life. [. . .] Victory in liberal democracy is not vanquishing our opponents, but winning their respect, living in peace with them, and affirming their right to their opinion. That means LGBTQ+ people have the right to be themselves, Muslims can be Muslims, Christians can be Christians, Socialists can be Socialists, Greenies can be Greenies. (172)

If so, then Communists can be Communists and must be tolerated. But surely toleration, the touchstone of classical liberalism, has limits. Communism, which aims at the overthrow of the American system of government, cannot be tolerated. Is that not obvious? But then neither can Sharia-based Islam. For both Communism and Islam are antithetical to our founding principles.

At the very end of Article VI of the Constitution, we read:

. . . no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

But of course Communism is not a religion in any reasonable sense of the term as I have argued elsewhere. What about Islam? Isn't it a religion? Some say it is a Christian heresy (Chesterton). Others say it is a political ideology masquerading as a religion. I say it is a hybrid ideology: both a religion and a political ideology. I would argue that, since its political commitments are antithetical to American principles, values, and presuppositions, Islam does not count as a religion for the purposes of the application of Article VI, paragraph 3.

But it will take another 9/11-type event to convince most people of this. Most people are impervious to reasoning such as I am engaging in here; it strikes these sense-enslaved denizens of Plato's Cave as 'abstract' and 'unreal.' But when they are smashed in the face, they will begin to get the point, as they expire in the rubble.

That event is coming.

Resuming the “Never-Trump Mentality” Thread

Tom Tillett often leaves very good comments, but he is 'slow on the trigger.' As a result, his contributions often get buried and go unread. I get the impression that he is someone who actually works for a living [grin]. Today he left two long but very good comments on the Never-Trump Mentality post. Here is the first, and here is the second which I now reproduce:

Bill writes to Malcolm, >>are you prepared to endorse extra-political means to defeat our political enemies?<<

Malcolm writes, >>This is war, and we should do what we can to win, rather than do only what we may, and lose. <<

A difficult question for me, but I am on Malcolm's side on this. I think the question depends on what time you think it is. Attacking and boarding a ship under another nation's flag is an act of piracy and the crew of the attacking ship is subject to criminal prosecution. However, any crew that does the same in a declared war cannot be prosecuted because such actions are under a completely different set of rules and laws.

Likewise, what tactics we adopt from the Left's arsenal depends on whether you think the Left has declared all-out war on the rest of us. I think it's clear that they have, and I believe Malcolm agrees. If so, then this is not normal politics and different, more flexible rules apply as to how we should respond.

How flexible? I dunno. But the clearest case is the reprehensible lawfare the Democrats are engaged in. I think Republican state AGs need to crank up the lawfare against Democrats. How about Adam Schiff running for the Senate in California? Since the DC Courts have stripped Trump of his presidential immunity for acts taken as President, then Schiff has no immunity for his acts and outright lies to the American public while in Congress. Surely there is an obscure statute somewhere that can be misinterpreted to hold [place?] Schiff in the docket.

Bullies need to be punched in the mouth or they will continue to punch the rest of us in the mouth – or worse.

BV agrees with Malcolm and Tom that we are at war with the Left, and he agrees with Tom's use of the phrase, "declared all-out war." The war is over the soul of America. The question concerns whether we should (i) preserve what remains of America as she was founded to be, and (ii) restore those good elements of the system bequeathed to us by the Founders, while (iii) preserving the legitimate progress that has been made (e.g. universal suffrage), OR whether we should replace the political system of the Founders with an incompatible system which can be described as culturally Marxist.

(This formulation of what the war is about may ignite some dissent among us friends. My approach is restorationist, not reactionary. There is the danger, however, of a merely semantic quibble. The combox is open.)

Tom implies that there are certain rules of engagement in the conduct of our war with our political enemies and that it is not the case that any and all means can be employed to defeat them. Here is where it gets very interesting.

I used to say, "You lie about us and we'll tell the truth about you." Now I am inclined to say, "You lie about us, and we'll lie about you." Slander us, we slander you. Smear us, we smear you. Shout us down, we shout you down. And so on.

So here is something we need to get clear about. Given that there are some rules of engagement with our political enemies, and that we cannot, or rather ought not, do just anything to win, what are the rules in this supersessionist (not secessionist, and not successionist) civil war in which we are now combatants?

Realpolitik and What it Excludes

It has been said that war is politics with bloodshed while politics is war without bloodshed. The saying is strongly reminiscent of Carl von Clausewitz: "War is politics by other means." Both exemplify Realpolitik. What does Realpolitik exclude? It excludes any politics based on otherworldly principles such as Christian principles. Does it not?

The exclusion is implied in the following passage from 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.]

"Aristotle warned against giving philosophers any say in political matters." Nietzsche says something similar somewhere in his Nachlass. I paraphrase from memory. (And it may be that the thought is expressed in one of the works he himself published.)

The philosopher is like a ship with insufficient ballast: he rides too high on the seas of life for safe navigation. Bobbing like a cork, he capsizes easily. The solid bourgeois, weighted and freighted with the cargo of Weib und Kind, Haus und Hof, ploughs deep the waves and weathers the storms of Neptune's realm and reaches safe harbor.

The philosophers who shouldn't be given any say in matters mundane and political are of course the otherworldly philosophers, those I would dub, tendentiously, the 'true philosophers.' There are also the 'worldly philosophers' discussed by Robert L. Heilbroner in his eponymous book, such thinkers as Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and John Maynard Keynes.

The 'true philosophers,' which include Plato and his opposite number Nietzsche, have something like contempt for those who would occupy themselves with the human-all-too-human alone.

I am of the tribe of Plato, more a spectator of all time and existence than a participant in the flux and shove of the order of impermanence. It is this perch above the fray that enables the true philosopher to see the nature of the political that is hidden to those in the grip of the vita activa.

Civil Courage and Practical Dissidence

This just over the transom from Malcolm Pollack:

The problem, Bill, with your call for prudence is that courage is what encourages courage in others, and vice versa.

But it's true also, as both you and Moldbug remind us, that in a predatory environment we should remember that we are prey. I agree with you about the confrontational folly of open carry, and the value of ketman. Genuine martyrdom is hard to achieve: most are simply destroyed and forgotten, and what good does that do anyone (least of all, oneself)?

These are difficult times. We live under exactly the soft, smothering power that Tocqueville saw coming, so long ago.

Malcolm has the dialectical savvy to realize that his first point, with which I agree, is balanced by his second. I thank him for the reference to Moldbug's idea-rich article. As for martyrdom, perhaps we should distinguish between secular and religious martyrdom, and within both between effective and ineffective. Malcolm is right: most martyrs for a secular cause simply throw their lives away, are soon encairned in oblivion, and accomplish nothing. But suppose Christianity is true and that the Christian martyrs who went to their deaths in the Coliseum and elsewhere won the eternal crown. Whether they achieved anything for Christianity in this world, they achieved the ultimate for themselves in the other. If Christianity is false, however, then they too threw away their lives. The problematic here is a lot deeper and trickier than I am making it out to be, but I want to get on to Moldbug's warnings, insights and tactical suggestions.

He warns again confronting the powers that be. "When the weak step on the toes of the strong, the strong step on their face." Don't fancy yourself an enemy of the state. "Dissidents are prey of the state." The regime should be thought of as a predator rather than as an enemy. In the wild I do nothing that might attract bears such as sleep with my food in the tent, nor do I bait them; if one shows up I will try to evade him, and shoot him only if absolutely necessary. Given what we are up against, "the immediate tactical goal of the dissident is to maximize the product of independence and security." So: don't react in a threatening or violent manner. Your impotent reaction will provoke Power's potent action. (Have you learned anything from J6?) That's what they want you to do so that they can justify their jackboot tactics and middle-of-the-night full-auto intimidation. Quietly prepare, and bide your time.

I'll leave you to read for yourself the rest of his article. An excess of cleverness impairs its readability, but there is a lot of fresh thinking here. And do bang on the Tocqueville link which features an astonishingly prescient passage from Alexis as well as an impressive defense of Donald Trump by Malcolm.

If you are interested in the origin of my dissidence, take a gander at my From Democrat to Dissident in T. Allan Hillman & Tully Borland (eds.), Dissident Philosophers: Voices Against the Political Current of the Academy. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield. pp. 261-277.