My Nemesis, RIP
Tibor R. Machan
The American radical pragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty has died, on Friday June 8th and although his views where abhorrent to me, I am not pleased. Yes, he advocated ideas that became far more prominent and influential than they should have, certainly much more so that those I find convincing. But he was also a rather civilized adversary—not that he ever acknowledged my own criticism of his views (which appeared both in scholarly and semi-scholarly journals [The American Scholar and Metaphilosophy] and in a book, Objectivity]—who wrote clearly and whose arguments needed to be answered.
Richard Rorty gained his prominence at Princeton University, where he taught philosophy and even led the department of philosophy for many years. His own philosophical guide was John Dewey, most importantly remembered as the advocate of so called progressive education and one of the leaders of the only home grown American philosophical movement, pragmatism.
Pragmatism was fashioned by American thinkers, although it had very little to say about the political ideas of the American Founders, which were taken from the English philosopher John Locke and which actually went quite the opposite direction from those of the pragmatist leaders, such as Charles Peirce, C. I. Lewis, William James and Dewey. The latter held, to put it in a nutshell, that there are no basic truths, no foundations of knowledge; whereas Locke and the American Founders thought that some things are indeed basic and true—for example, our individual human rights. Rorty, especially, scoffed at this notion, thinking that these rights are made up and that truth itself is just what a given community takes to be true, while another community could take something quite the opposed to be the truth.
Indeed, talk about truth, which had concerned most philosophers since time immemorial, was viewed with great suspicion by the pragmatists, especially by Richard Rorty. Even our everyday language reflects this—someone is a pragmatist if he or she refuses to abide by any principles, refuses to take anything as basically true, but is concerned with what works or is expedient. Some have noted that this pragmatist outlook has its roots in the practical, down to earth, not very intellectual style of much of American culture. And there may be something to this, although a philosophy in the old fashioned sense is supposed to figure out what it the case, at least basically, not what is convenient or practical, base on style alone.
I met Rorty once, late in his career, at a meeting of the American Philosophical Association, in the book exhibit, where he and I briefly talked about his most famous book, Philosophy as the Mirror of Nature. In this work Rorty was very critical of the aims of traditional philosophy—or rather of what he understood to be its aims, namely, to arrive at the ultimate, final, and perfect—some would claim impossible—Truth of things. (That had been the aim of some traditional philosophers but by no means all.) So I asked Rorty how come he keeps working in the philosophy department at Princeton. He just smiled at me as if I were a silly kid who doesn’t get it, although not long after he did resign from his position at Princeton ad left to become University Professor at the University of Virginia. (He ended his career and life teaching in the Department of Comparative Literature at Stanford University!)
Rorty’s thinking came to a head for me in a review he wrote for the venerable magazine, The New Republic, in which he declared, not long before the final collapse of the Soviet bloc, that there is no objective difference between the politics of the Soviets and that of Western countries. As he put it, we “cannot say that democratic institutions reflect a moral reality and that tyrannical regimes do not reflect one, that tyrannies get something wrong that democratic societies get right.” That was too much for me, given my own direct experience with both tyrannies—in my home land, Hungary, during its early experiment with Soviet style “communism”—and democracies—in Germany, the United States and Switzerland, where I have lived for various periods of time. I had come to the reasonably firm conclusion that one can, indeed, say that the latter “reflect a moral reality” while the former a definite immoral one!
So I went to work on Rorty’s ideas. And now the man has died. And I am not cheering his death because from what I came to know of him, his bad ideas were not all there was to Rorty. He was also a friend, a husband, and many other decent things in his life and for those of us who do take individual human lives—and human rights—seriously, even the death of an adversary, especially a civilized and intelligent one, is a sad thing.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
What’s the Difference?
Tibor R. Machan
When I was in college ages ago the truth in advertising and lending and such measures were high on the agenda of modern liberals. Oddly, they were the same people, usually, who declared themselves to be loyal champions of free speech, defenders of an absolutist stance on the First Amendment to the US Constitution. But not when it came to commercial speech. You know those people in commerce—all chronic cheats and liars, of course. (The modern liberal’s hatred of commerce trumps their most cherished ideals!)
One time when this campaign against commercial speech was in progress, I walked by a church that featured a huge sign saying “Jesus Saves.” My mind immediately started to consider, well why not truth in religion? Why only commerce? Indeed, isn’t religion far more important to most people than mere business? If modern liberals insist that the task of good government is to be our nanny, to engage in paternalistic—what is now often dubbed “precautionary”—public policies, why don’t they all advocate strong federal regulation of religious speech? After all, nearly everyone believes that those who peddle religious ideas they do not share are charlatans, liars and cheats. And what they peddle, of course, is far more harmful than anything put into an advertisement, something most sensible people realize is filled with hype, gimmickry and not statements of purported truths. All those religious charlatans—I leave it to the reader to pick his or her own list—are misleading thousands, millions of human beings about what is by many people regarded of the utmost importance, namely, how to secure their everlasting salvation in the afterlife. If one is mislead about this, one won’t just purchase hazardous goods or services but lose forever one’s chance to attain the greatest prize of all! Surely this, more than anything else, requires some solid, conscientious federal, state, county, and similar government intervention.
But no. Entirely inconsistently, modern liberals—and, indeed, many folks of all ideological positions—insist that when it comes to this absolutely vital aspects of their lives—actually, their everlasting existence, here on earth and thereafter—people may be trusted to their own resources. They and their family and friends and fellow parishioners and such are entrusted fully with the job of taking care of all this, without introducing the state. Indeed, this last is deemed by most modern liberals—and, again, by many others—as completely anathema to what government’s role is in human community life. Other than outright attacks upon people, deliberately devious fraud and the like, government must stay away. It would be totally perverse to have government act in a precautionary fashion, as it is urged to do when it comes to innumerable other aspects of our lives (most notably, these days, how we related to the environment).
Yet this is totally absurd. And there is also the absurdity, when one considers the modern liberals case of government regulation and licensing and inspection and quality control—the stuff done, at the federal level, by OSHA and dozens and dozens of other agencies—that the profession of journalism ought to be exempt from the precautionary public intervention. Just watch and read the news and commentaries—they are filled with malpractice! Journalists routinely rush into print with items they have only the faintest ideas about, for example, in various branches of the sciences. They report on matters of no importance at all and treat various people as if they deserved the attention of their customers, viewers and readers. Yet, modern liberals and other champions of government’s role as our protector against the possibility of malfeasance do not advocate the establishment of departments of journalism at the various levels of government.
I must be careful. Someone I knew once quite well, the Louisiana attorney and politician Louis “Woody” Jenkins tried to demonstrate the absurdity of government regulation to members of the state government by proposing, of all things, the regulation of water diviners. Lo and behold, too many of them didn’t get the point and nearly enacted the measure into law!
Tibor R. Machan
When I was in college ages ago the truth in advertising and lending and such measures were high on the agenda of modern liberals. Oddly, they were the same people, usually, who declared themselves to be loyal champions of free speech, defenders of an absolutist stance on the First Amendment to the US Constitution. But not when it came to commercial speech. You know those people in commerce—all chronic cheats and liars, of course. (The modern liberal’s hatred of commerce trumps their most cherished ideals!)
One time when this campaign against commercial speech was in progress, I walked by a church that featured a huge sign saying “Jesus Saves.” My mind immediately started to consider, well why not truth in religion? Why only commerce? Indeed, isn’t religion far more important to most people than mere business? If modern liberals insist that the task of good government is to be our nanny, to engage in paternalistic—what is now often dubbed “precautionary”—public policies, why don’t they all advocate strong federal regulation of religious speech? After all, nearly everyone believes that those who peddle religious ideas they do not share are charlatans, liars and cheats. And what they peddle, of course, is far more harmful than anything put into an advertisement, something most sensible people realize is filled with hype, gimmickry and not statements of purported truths. All those religious charlatans—I leave it to the reader to pick his or her own list—are misleading thousands, millions of human beings about what is by many people regarded of the utmost importance, namely, how to secure their everlasting salvation in the afterlife. If one is mislead about this, one won’t just purchase hazardous goods or services but lose forever one’s chance to attain the greatest prize of all! Surely this, more than anything else, requires some solid, conscientious federal, state, county, and similar government intervention.
But no. Entirely inconsistently, modern liberals—and, indeed, many folks of all ideological positions—insist that when it comes to this absolutely vital aspects of their lives—actually, their everlasting existence, here on earth and thereafter—people may be trusted to their own resources. They and their family and friends and fellow parishioners and such are entrusted fully with the job of taking care of all this, without introducing the state. Indeed, this last is deemed by most modern liberals—and, again, by many others—as completely anathema to what government’s role is in human community life. Other than outright attacks upon people, deliberately devious fraud and the like, government must stay away. It would be totally perverse to have government act in a precautionary fashion, as it is urged to do when it comes to innumerable other aspects of our lives (most notably, these days, how we related to the environment).
Yet this is totally absurd. And there is also the absurdity, when one considers the modern liberals case of government regulation and licensing and inspection and quality control—the stuff done, at the federal level, by OSHA and dozens and dozens of other agencies—that the profession of journalism ought to be exempt from the precautionary public intervention. Just watch and read the news and commentaries—they are filled with malpractice! Journalists routinely rush into print with items they have only the faintest ideas about, for example, in various branches of the sciences. They report on matters of no importance at all and treat various people as if they deserved the attention of their customers, viewers and readers. Yet, modern liberals and other champions of government’s role as our protector against the possibility of malfeasance do not advocate the establishment of departments of journalism at the various levels of government.
I must be careful. Someone I knew once quite well, the Louisiana attorney and politician Louis “Woody” Jenkins tried to demonstrate the absurdity of government regulation to members of the state government by proposing, of all things, the regulation of water diviners. Lo and behold, too many of them didn’t get the point and nearly enacted the measure into law!
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Fairness Is a Minor Virtue
Tibor R. Machan
Few ideas serve more wicked purposes as “fairness.” In public policy it is probably the most overused justification for increasing the power of some people over others, for meddling in others’ private lives, and for being guiltlessly resentful.
Yes, there is some virtue to fairness, as when teachers grade and parents divide the desert fairly. In short, fairness is a minor administrative virtue, handy once bigger issues have been dealt with properly, like justice, liberty, and merit.
Unfortunately the childish concern with whether one is being treated fairly by one’s superiors keeps preoccupying the minds of adults after they aren’t supposed to have superiors at all, after they are grown and reached the age of their own reason. At that stage, they are supposed to worry about how to direct their own lives, not whether others are being fair with it. So they keep saying things like “Life is unfair,” as if there were still some parents standing about assigning them tasks, distributing burdens and benefits. But the fact that some of us are too short for reaching the apples on trees is not unfair, anymore than that some are too large to become jockeys even if that is what we would really, really like to be. This is just life, nothing to do with fairness versus unfairness.
Yet by thinking that fairness has to do with such matters, there is a very powerful temptation to campaign for remedies—let’s get Congress, city hall, the welfare state and so on to equalize things out for us all (except, of course, where it comes to the power it takes to become an equalizer). So when some people are very pretty, much prettier—or richer or faster or more talented—than others, they are resented for this—especially for the benefits that may come their way in consequences—and much too much effort is spent on creating that mythical level playing field so many public philosophers demand.
Which, as noted already, produces a class of really unequal folks, unequal in the one matter in which equality should reign, namely, power over others. In that, you see, no one ought to have more or less than the rest because, in the end, no one has the right to rule others past the time of childhood.
Someone I know reasonably well, the philosopher Paul Kurtz—a major leader of the secular humanist movement—has recently made much of the fact that some people make a lot of money but are not taxed progressively enough. (“Progressive,” in taxation, means expropriating not the same percentage but a lot more from those who are wealthy!) He keeps insisting that despite the objection of his libertarian pals, such a policy is only fair. The rich have more, so taking a lot more from them is fair, he thinks.
There is, of course, no end of the ambiguity and vagueness attendant to discussions about fairness. Some rich folks may well have far more important tasks than some poorer ones and thus could use a lot more dough. But never mind—there is no sensible measure of such unhinged fairness, period.
But more important is the fact that when it comes to being the victims of taxation—which is a relic of feudal times and now amounts to plain old extortion—the more who can escape, the better. That is like it was with military conscription. (Come to think of it, quite a few who understood this about the draft just don’t get it when the issue of taxation comes up!) Evil, vicious policies need to be stopped and short of that they need to be escaped, dodged, evaded. So during the draft it was a good thing to “unfairly” escape it.
Yes, Virginia, successful draft dodgers were right and tax dodgers are, as well! The rest of us are just unfortunate victims who aren’t managing to get out from under. There is nothing fair about subjecting us all to equal measures of villainy! Yet that is exactly what Professor Kurtz is promoting: “Tax them all and those with more, tax even more!” That’s just bunk. Tax them none and if it cannot be stopped, applaud those who can skip out on this nasty scheme of extortion of some people by others, not condemn them.
Tibor R. Machan
Few ideas serve more wicked purposes as “fairness.” In public policy it is probably the most overused justification for increasing the power of some people over others, for meddling in others’ private lives, and for being guiltlessly resentful.
Yes, there is some virtue to fairness, as when teachers grade and parents divide the desert fairly. In short, fairness is a minor administrative virtue, handy once bigger issues have been dealt with properly, like justice, liberty, and merit.
Unfortunately the childish concern with whether one is being treated fairly by one’s superiors keeps preoccupying the minds of adults after they aren’t supposed to have superiors at all, after they are grown and reached the age of their own reason. At that stage, they are supposed to worry about how to direct their own lives, not whether others are being fair with it. So they keep saying things like “Life is unfair,” as if there were still some parents standing about assigning them tasks, distributing burdens and benefits. But the fact that some of us are too short for reaching the apples on trees is not unfair, anymore than that some are too large to become jockeys even if that is what we would really, really like to be. This is just life, nothing to do with fairness versus unfairness.
Yet by thinking that fairness has to do with such matters, there is a very powerful temptation to campaign for remedies—let’s get Congress, city hall, the welfare state and so on to equalize things out for us all (except, of course, where it comes to the power it takes to become an equalizer). So when some people are very pretty, much prettier—or richer or faster or more talented—than others, they are resented for this—especially for the benefits that may come their way in consequences—and much too much effort is spent on creating that mythical level playing field so many public philosophers demand.
Which, as noted already, produces a class of really unequal folks, unequal in the one matter in which equality should reign, namely, power over others. In that, you see, no one ought to have more or less than the rest because, in the end, no one has the right to rule others past the time of childhood.
Someone I know reasonably well, the philosopher Paul Kurtz—a major leader of the secular humanist movement—has recently made much of the fact that some people make a lot of money but are not taxed progressively enough. (“Progressive,” in taxation, means expropriating not the same percentage but a lot more from those who are wealthy!) He keeps insisting that despite the objection of his libertarian pals, such a policy is only fair. The rich have more, so taking a lot more from them is fair, he thinks.
There is, of course, no end of the ambiguity and vagueness attendant to discussions about fairness. Some rich folks may well have far more important tasks than some poorer ones and thus could use a lot more dough. But never mind—there is no sensible measure of such unhinged fairness, period.
But more important is the fact that when it comes to being the victims of taxation—which is a relic of feudal times and now amounts to plain old extortion—the more who can escape, the better. That is like it was with military conscription. (Come to think of it, quite a few who understood this about the draft just don’t get it when the issue of taxation comes up!) Evil, vicious policies need to be stopped and short of that they need to be escaped, dodged, evaded. So during the draft it was a good thing to “unfairly” escape it.
Yes, Virginia, successful draft dodgers were right and tax dodgers are, as well! The rest of us are just unfortunate victims who aren’t managing to get out from under. There is nothing fair about subjecting us all to equal measures of villainy! Yet that is exactly what Professor Kurtz is promoting: “Tax them all and those with more, tax even more!” That’s just bunk. Tax them none and if it cannot be stopped, applaud those who can skip out on this nasty scheme of extortion of some people by others, not condemn them.
Friday, June 08, 2007
Do They Understand Democracies?
Tibor R. Machan
Over the years of studying politics I have not been a fan of plain democracy. Just having most people prefer something holds out no hope of getting it right, nor even of giving a measure moral or political authority. And the famous lunch mob example testifies to shared sentiments about this among many of us.
Democrats, especially, on the American political scene do not appear to be all that fond of democracy because whenever the majority rejects their ideas or candidates, they consider the majority to be wrong, even corrupt. You cannot have it both ways, champion democracy but reject it when it goes against you.
On the international front there have been numerous instances when leaders of so called democratic regimes have shown that they care very little for democracy. A recent instance of this is German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s displeasure with the fact that she is not able to get a commitment from President Bush on various environmental measures, such as how much reduction of CO2 must there occur in the USA and by when. If Merkel had a clue about democracy, she would realize that in more or less democratic countries throughout the West political measures may not be shoved down people’s throats but need the approval of the majority of representatives and must go through various procedures of ratification before they can become law. Not that all that will make them good ideas, of course. But democracy means at least that the bulk of the politically active people must want something before it becomes public policy.
Already when the infamous Kyoto accord failed to gain Congressional and related American support, supporters of the accord abroad and here kept bellyaching about this. Don’t they understand that in democratic countries the leadership—like Al Gore who was VP then—have no authority to impose their policies? For leaders of other semi-democratic countries to fail to grasp this shows either colossal ignorance or serious mental disassociation.
Now of course the idea of gaining a commitment from some political leader as to what the population of a country will or will not do is very problematic. In a free society such commitments would have a very limited scope—mostly pertaining to military and diplomatic policies. The idea that George W. Bush can promise Angela Merkel that 300 million people will do this or that—stop using cars of a certain size and the like—is politically obscene. But to demand that even the democratic process be subverted is preposterous. Why is no one in the mainstream media calling Chancellor Merkel on this?
All this talk about committing the United States of America to this or that practice—using so much fuel, spending so much money on exploring alternative energy sources, etc., and so forth—is conceptually confused to start with. America doesn’t use fuel—people in this country do. The use of such language has to be seen as at most expedient—like saying that “the car hit the pedestrian.” Cars do not hit people, people do. And if folks keep in mind how words are used to take shortcuts in meaning, there is no great problem. But what kind of shortcut is to suggest that Bush commit 300 million Americans to using or even exploring alternative fuel? It’s like saying Bush can commit us all to get married or pursue a certain career or physical fitness program. Such commitments are necessarily made by individuals, not by some political leader, not at least in a free society.
Of course this is a problem of diplomacy and today that field is dominated by collectivist, even tribal, language. To try to revise the terms of discourse requires finesse and a dedication to the principles of a free country. In our day, howevere, virtually everyone in the American diplomatic corps shares the collectivist, tribal mindset.
For this reason the kind of demands issued by Chancellor Merkel must be challenged by as many rational folks as possible in the press and other forums, given that American diplomats tend to be chickenhearted about these matters, namely, on stressing the principles of sound discourse vis-à-vis public policy formation in free (or even just in democratic) countries.
Tibor R. Machan
Over the years of studying politics I have not been a fan of plain democracy. Just having most people prefer something holds out no hope of getting it right, nor even of giving a measure moral or political authority. And the famous lunch mob example testifies to shared sentiments about this among many of us.
Democrats, especially, on the American political scene do not appear to be all that fond of democracy because whenever the majority rejects their ideas or candidates, they consider the majority to be wrong, even corrupt. You cannot have it both ways, champion democracy but reject it when it goes against you.
On the international front there have been numerous instances when leaders of so called democratic regimes have shown that they care very little for democracy. A recent instance of this is German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s displeasure with the fact that she is not able to get a commitment from President Bush on various environmental measures, such as how much reduction of CO2 must there occur in the USA and by when. If Merkel had a clue about democracy, she would realize that in more or less democratic countries throughout the West political measures may not be shoved down people’s throats but need the approval of the majority of representatives and must go through various procedures of ratification before they can become law. Not that all that will make them good ideas, of course. But democracy means at least that the bulk of the politically active people must want something before it becomes public policy.
Already when the infamous Kyoto accord failed to gain Congressional and related American support, supporters of the accord abroad and here kept bellyaching about this. Don’t they understand that in democratic countries the leadership—like Al Gore who was VP then—have no authority to impose their policies? For leaders of other semi-democratic countries to fail to grasp this shows either colossal ignorance or serious mental disassociation.
Now of course the idea of gaining a commitment from some political leader as to what the population of a country will or will not do is very problematic. In a free society such commitments would have a very limited scope—mostly pertaining to military and diplomatic policies. The idea that George W. Bush can promise Angela Merkel that 300 million people will do this or that—stop using cars of a certain size and the like—is politically obscene. But to demand that even the democratic process be subverted is preposterous. Why is no one in the mainstream media calling Chancellor Merkel on this?
All this talk about committing the United States of America to this or that practice—using so much fuel, spending so much money on exploring alternative energy sources, etc., and so forth—is conceptually confused to start with. America doesn’t use fuel—people in this country do. The use of such language has to be seen as at most expedient—like saying that “the car hit the pedestrian.” Cars do not hit people, people do. And if folks keep in mind how words are used to take shortcuts in meaning, there is no great problem. But what kind of shortcut is to suggest that Bush commit 300 million Americans to using or even exploring alternative fuel? It’s like saying Bush can commit us all to get married or pursue a certain career or physical fitness program. Such commitments are necessarily made by individuals, not by some political leader, not at least in a free society.
Of course this is a problem of diplomacy and today that field is dominated by collectivist, even tribal, language. To try to revise the terms of discourse requires finesse and a dedication to the principles of a free country. In our day, howevere, virtually everyone in the American diplomatic corps shares the collectivist, tribal mindset.
For this reason the kind of demands issued by Chancellor Merkel must be challenged by as many rational folks as possible in the press and other forums, given that American diplomats tend to be chickenhearted about these matters, namely, on stressing the principles of sound discourse vis-à-vis public policy formation in free (or even just in democratic) countries.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Riveting History of Ideas
Tibor R. Machan
Last weekend I had the good fortune to watch a fascinating, informative, and very disturbing DVD, produced and written by Professor of Philosophy Stephen Hicks of Rockford College in Illinois, titled Nietzsche and the Nazis. (http://www.amazon.com/Nietzsche-Nazis-Stephen-R-C-Hicks/dp/B000JMJQGS.) I am an avid fan of the history channel and other forums where the theme that ideas have consequences can be encountered but this piece of work was better than nearly everything else along these lines I have seen.
The Nazis, who murdered roughly 12 million people—among them the 6 million plus or minus Jews we have all heard of—were a really vicious bunch. But what is more interesting and important is that they were not barbarians but came from Europe’s most educated population, the Germans. Their main theme was that idealization of Das Volk, “The People,” not severally but collectively, as a noble tribe for the welfare and advancement of which everything could be sacrificed, especially individual liberty and independence.
Here was a group of fanatics who wholeheartedly believed in the righteousness of their own zealotry and urged it upon all their followers, of whom there were millions—the Nazi party was voted into power several times and by the end some 90% of Germans voted for it. Hitler came to power democratically, by “the will of the people” (a phrase we have recently heard in these United States as well). Nazism was openly in favor of irrationalism, championing instinct over reason, order over liberty, and self-sacrifice over the pursuit of happiness.
Nazis hated the classical liberal ideals represented by the United States of America; they despised free enterprise and imposed a version of socialism—national socialism, to be precise—wherever they could. The main difference between their version of socialism and that of the Soviet Union was that they advocated socialism for the nation, unlike the Soviets who wanted it spread internationally.
A persistent question that has bothered historians, psychologists, sociologists, and nearly anyone who has given the matter any thought is how could this horrid regime arise in the midst of a relatively civilized place like Western Europe and its crown jewel of a culture, Germany. Among the many hypothesis that have been advanced one has always been both intriguing and controversial. This is that certain ideas that have come to dominate German culture had a great deal to do with the rise to power of Nazism. And the central figure who has been proposed as responsible for these ideas is the 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
I will not give away the story Professor Hicks tells with such clarity and subtlety but I do wish to mention that as far as I can tell—and I have studied some of these matters over my career as a philosophy teacher—he gives a very well balanced presentation of just why Nietzsche did in fact encourage the Nazis and in what way his views different from theirs quite significantly. On first inspection, for example, it is not easy to believe that the Nazi’s demand for subservience and unselfishness fit well with Nietzsche’s ideal of “the will to power.” But if one looks deep enough one will realize that the will to power was not to be put in the service of the individual person but of the tribe or culture. Individual flourishing didn’t interest Nietzsche; collective triumph did. And on this the Nazis fully agreed with him. No wonder they invoked his legacy over and over again in their literature.
On the other hand, Nietzsche would not likely have favored the sort of politicization of the ideal of the superman that the Nazis promulgated. He would have left politics aside concerning how the future of humanity was to unfold so long as it involved a revolution in our moral values. (He deemed conventional—especially Judeo-Christian morality—perverse, an enemy of a fully flourishing, instinct-driven human life!)
Professor Hicks’ presentation is immensely rich with facts, quotations, analysis, and insight. Especially fascinating is the list of very erudite Europeans—Noble Laureates and the like—who eagerly supported the Nazis, as well as the slogans Nazis loved which are often exactly what our own politicians urge us to internalize—for example, about the superiority of the public versus the private interest.
Anyone with just an ounce of interest in recent intellectual and political history will find watching this DVD a disturbing as well as riveting experience.
Tibor R. Machan
Last weekend I had the good fortune to watch a fascinating, informative, and very disturbing DVD, produced and written by Professor of Philosophy Stephen Hicks of Rockford College in Illinois, titled Nietzsche and the Nazis. (http://www.amazon.com/Nietzsche-Nazis-Stephen-R-C-Hicks/dp/B000JMJQGS.) I am an avid fan of the history channel and other forums where the theme that ideas have consequences can be encountered but this piece of work was better than nearly everything else along these lines I have seen.
The Nazis, who murdered roughly 12 million people—among them the 6 million plus or minus Jews we have all heard of—were a really vicious bunch. But what is more interesting and important is that they were not barbarians but came from Europe’s most educated population, the Germans. Their main theme was that idealization of Das Volk, “The People,” not severally but collectively, as a noble tribe for the welfare and advancement of which everything could be sacrificed, especially individual liberty and independence.
Here was a group of fanatics who wholeheartedly believed in the righteousness of their own zealotry and urged it upon all their followers, of whom there were millions—the Nazi party was voted into power several times and by the end some 90% of Germans voted for it. Hitler came to power democratically, by “the will of the people” (a phrase we have recently heard in these United States as well). Nazism was openly in favor of irrationalism, championing instinct over reason, order over liberty, and self-sacrifice over the pursuit of happiness.
Nazis hated the classical liberal ideals represented by the United States of America; they despised free enterprise and imposed a version of socialism—national socialism, to be precise—wherever they could. The main difference between their version of socialism and that of the Soviet Union was that they advocated socialism for the nation, unlike the Soviets who wanted it spread internationally.
A persistent question that has bothered historians, psychologists, sociologists, and nearly anyone who has given the matter any thought is how could this horrid regime arise in the midst of a relatively civilized place like Western Europe and its crown jewel of a culture, Germany. Among the many hypothesis that have been advanced one has always been both intriguing and controversial. This is that certain ideas that have come to dominate German culture had a great deal to do with the rise to power of Nazism. And the central figure who has been proposed as responsible for these ideas is the 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
I will not give away the story Professor Hicks tells with such clarity and subtlety but I do wish to mention that as far as I can tell—and I have studied some of these matters over my career as a philosophy teacher—he gives a very well balanced presentation of just why Nietzsche did in fact encourage the Nazis and in what way his views different from theirs quite significantly. On first inspection, for example, it is not easy to believe that the Nazi’s demand for subservience and unselfishness fit well with Nietzsche’s ideal of “the will to power.” But if one looks deep enough one will realize that the will to power was not to be put in the service of the individual person but of the tribe or culture. Individual flourishing didn’t interest Nietzsche; collective triumph did. And on this the Nazis fully agreed with him. No wonder they invoked his legacy over and over again in their literature.
On the other hand, Nietzsche would not likely have favored the sort of politicization of the ideal of the superman that the Nazis promulgated. He would have left politics aside concerning how the future of humanity was to unfold so long as it involved a revolution in our moral values. (He deemed conventional—especially Judeo-Christian morality—perverse, an enemy of a fully flourishing, instinct-driven human life!)
Professor Hicks’ presentation is immensely rich with facts, quotations, analysis, and insight. Especially fascinating is the list of very erudite Europeans—Noble Laureates and the like—who eagerly supported the Nazis, as well as the slogans Nazis loved which are often exactly what our own politicians urge us to internalize—for example, about the superiority of the public versus the private interest.
Anyone with just an ounce of interest in recent intellectual and political history will find watching this DVD a disturbing as well as riveting experience.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
What Social Responsibility?
Tibor R. Machan
Over the last several decades the field of business ethics has become very popular in colleges and universities, including business schools around the world. Actually, all professional ethics courses have gained entry into the curriculum—medical, legal, engineering, and the other ethics. (Oddly, though, the ethics of education and scholarship have not joined this trend!)
In the field of business ethics the focus has tended to be on what has come to be called the Social Responsibility of Corporations (SRC), as if it were a foregone conclusion that what corporations ought to do is to benefit society. One explanation of this focus is that in the field of economics, which is regarded a social science, it is widely accepted that what corporate managers will do—not so much what they ought to do—is to improve the company’s bottom line.
Back in 1961 the late Milton Friedman did write an article for The New York Times Magazine, widely republished, insisting that the moral responsibility of corporate managers is to strive to make the company profitable. Up until that time it was simply accepted as given that this is what corporate mangers would be doing—this follows from the general assumption in economics that in the market place everyone embarks upon the maximization of utilities, which is pretty much the same thing as trying to make a profit. But Friedman change this somewhat by claiming that this isn’t only what corporate managers do but it is also what they are morally obliged to do. Why? Because that is what they promised to do to the company’s shareholders and investors.
In response to Friedman a great many people who came from the field of philosophical ethics began to write extensively about business ethics and insisted that what corporate managers ought to do is to mange companies so they would benefit stakeholders. Which is to say, the moral responsibility of corporate managers is not to improve the bottom line but to help all those who could benefit from what the company is doing, all those who have a stake in the company’s fortunes. This is what became the SRC movement. And today there are journals, magazines, conferences, and many books that advance the idea that the moral responsibility of corporate managers is to benefit society, not the owners—shareholders, investors, stockholders—of the company.
This line of thinking is a not altogether subtle attack on the nature of capitalist economy. In a capitalist system, companies are owned by those who buy shares and invest in them and their purpose is to succeed in the market place, measured, naturally, by how profitable they are, how good a return they bring in from their owners’ investment. The details depend on the kind of firm in question of course but this is the general understanding of capitalist business.
From the beginning the idea of capitalism has been criticized by many people because it treated profit making as a good thing. Going into the market place with the intention of bringing home a good return on one’s investment just appeared to be too greedy, too avaricious. Never mind that, in fact, once one makes a good return on one’s investment, it is an open question what one will do with the wealth one has accumulated. So the practical impact of rejecting the capitalist model is not so much a rejection of wealth but a rejection of the private allocation of wealth. Critics of capitalist business, in other words, do not want private individuals to be in charge of spending the profits made in business. They would like the public—that is, government—to decide what happens to the wealth.
This used to be called socialism but now that the grand experiment in that political economic system has had innumerable setbacks across the globe, the term “socialism” has been dropped. Instead we have SRC or stakeholder theory. If some such idea can catch on, it will have the same impact that socialism does—undermine the rights of individuals to allocate their wealth and place this power into the hands of politicians and bureaucrats. All this without having to fess up to favoring socialism.
What needs to be debated in the field of business ethics is whether ownership confers the rightful power to allocate resources. There should be no question-begging presumption that companies must serve society—after all, if they do their business well, they do that anyway while they are seeking to make profits. How profits should be used should be left to those who earned them.
Tibor R. Machan
Over the last several decades the field of business ethics has become very popular in colleges and universities, including business schools around the world. Actually, all professional ethics courses have gained entry into the curriculum—medical, legal, engineering, and the other ethics. (Oddly, though, the ethics of education and scholarship have not joined this trend!)
In the field of business ethics the focus has tended to be on what has come to be called the Social Responsibility of Corporations (SRC), as if it were a foregone conclusion that what corporations ought to do is to benefit society. One explanation of this focus is that in the field of economics, which is regarded a social science, it is widely accepted that what corporate managers will do—not so much what they ought to do—is to improve the company’s bottom line.
Back in 1961 the late Milton Friedman did write an article for The New York Times Magazine, widely republished, insisting that the moral responsibility of corporate managers is to strive to make the company profitable. Up until that time it was simply accepted as given that this is what corporate mangers would be doing—this follows from the general assumption in economics that in the market place everyone embarks upon the maximization of utilities, which is pretty much the same thing as trying to make a profit. But Friedman change this somewhat by claiming that this isn’t only what corporate managers do but it is also what they are morally obliged to do. Why? Because that is what they promised to do to the company’s shareholders and investors.
In response to Friedman a great many people who came from the field of philosophical ethics began to write extensively about business ethics and insisted that what corporate managers ought to do is to mange companies so they would benefit stakeholders. Which is to say, the moral responsibility of corporate managers is not to improve the bottom line but to help all those who could benefit from what the company is doing, all those who have a stake in the company’s fortunes. This is what became the SRC movement. And today there are journals, magazines, conferences, and many books that advance the idea that the moral responsibility of corporate managers is to benefit society, not the owners—shareholders, investors, stockholders—of the company.
This line of thinking is a not altogether subtle attack on the nature of capitalist economy. In a capitalist system, companies are owned by those who buy shares and invest in them and their purpose is to succeed in the market place, measured, naturally, by how profitable they are, how good a return they bring in from their owners’ investment. The details depend on the kind of firm in question of course but this is the general understanding of capitalist business.
From the beginning the idea of capitalism has been criticized by many people because it treated profit making as a good thing. Going into the market place with the intention of bringing home a good return on one’s investment just appeared to be too greedy, too avaricious. Never mind that, in fact, once one makes a good return on one’s investment, it is an open question what one will do with the wealth one has accumulated. So the practical impact of rejecting the capitalist model is not so much a rejection of wealth but a rejection of the private allocation of wealth. Critics of capitalist business, in other words, do not want private individuals to be in charge of spending the profits made in business. They would like the public—that is, government—to decide what happens to the wealth.
This used to be called socialism but now that the grand experiment in that political economic system has had innumerable setbacks across the globe, the term “socialism” has been dropped. Instead we have SRC or stakeholder theory. If some such idea can catch on, it will have the same impact that socialism does—undermine the rights of individuals to allocate their wealth and place this power into the hands of politicians and bureaucrats. All this without having to fess up to favoring socialism.
What needs to be debated in the field of business ethics is whether ownership confers the rightful power to allocate resources. There should be no question-begging presumption that companies must serve society—after all, if they do their business well, they do that anyway while they are seeking to make profits. How profits should be used should be left to those who earned them.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Resisting Emotional Over involvement
Tibor R. Machan
Among the innumerable missteps professionals can take, getting emotionally over involved with their clients is one of the major ones. Yet there is no consensus about this. In fact in some professions, such as medicine, it is often argued that professionals need greater emotional involvement with their patients who, in turn, often praise doctors and nurses who have “good bedside manners,” something that suggests serious empathy and fellow feeling for patients.
Even as a college teacher I have at times heard the call for greater personal involvement in my students’ lives. Instead of merely considering their work, it is argued that who they are, where they come from, their families, hobbies and such need to be attended to in order to serve them properly. And there is something to this. After all, students, like patients and clients of other professionals, are human beings with a wide breath of experiences and influences upon their lives, including their work. To encourage them, to understand why they are doing this or that way with their assignments, to have a sense of just what may be expected of them—all these could benefit from a teacher’s greater involvement. And so could the well being of patients gain something from medical professionals who are closely attuned to them.
However, there is an obstacle that stands in the way of such greater involvement by professionals in their clients’ lives. No, it isn’t the problem of losing their objectivity when they have feelings about them, although that is a possibility. The more important problem is with the professional’s emotional capacity.
Doctors, teachers, attorneys, plumbers, car mechanics and all other professionals who deal with clients simply could not become emotionally close to all of their clients. Indeed, most of us find it difficult if not impossible to have more than a few really close friends who may freely count on our attention to their lives. This is actually a major problem with utopian politics, especially the kind forged by communist thinkers, since they envision a society in which we are all intimately related to one another. Their so called humanitarianism is actually a misconceived transference of personal intimacies into the social and political realm. By their vision, everyone will be emotionally involved with everyone else, in that communal fashion that has been the dream of the likes of Rousseau and maybe many hippies.
What’s wrong with this is that friends are demanding creatures so that friendship simply cannot be spread out to great numbers. Just think of this simple thought experiment: if you have more than a dozen really close friends, how could you take part in their joys and sorrows, since they would all have these all the time and you simply couldn’t be a part of it all. Putting it a bit crudely, one would need to pay heed to all these people’s significant events—births, funerals, weddings, promotions, bankruptcies, and divorces—all at once. One’s emotional reservoir would always be depleted, one would be exhausted and in the end able to maintain only the most superficial relationships, ones that do not demand serious emotional involvements.
If doctors took the general malady as distinct from the illness of every one of their patients’ to heart, what about their own family and friends with whom they have a primary connection? Sometimes this issue arises in very practical, concrete terms, as when professionals become estranged from their intimates. No dinners, no breakfasts, no quality personal time because they spread themselves too thin. And this can begin to impinge upon their professional preparedness, in the end, so that what started out to be a gesture of good will toward clients slowly turns into incompetence.
Of course, different people have different capacities for involvement in the lives of others and often those others wish for just a bit of extra attention rather than constant coddling. So generalizations here, as in many other areas, are risky. Still, there is wisdom in the idea of the division of labor—even if it’s the division of the labor of love.
Tibor R. Machan
Among the innumerable missteps professionals can take, getting emotionally over involved with their clients is one of the major ones. Yet there is no consensus about this. In fact in some professions, such as medicine, it is often argued that professionals need greater emotional involvement with their patients who, in turn, often praise doctors and nurses who have “good bedside manners,” something that suggests serious empathy and fellow feeling for patients.
Even as a college teacher I have at times heard the call for greater personal involvement in my students’ lives. Instead of merely considering their work, it is argued that who they are, where they come from, their families, hobbies and such need to be attended to in order to serve them properly. And there is something to this. After all, students, like patients and clients of other professionals, are human beings with a wide breath of experiences and influences upon their lives, including their work. To encourage them, to understand why they are doing this or that way with their assignments, to have a sense of just what may be expected of them—all these could benefit from a teacher’s greater involvement. And so could the well being of patients gain something from medical professionals who are closely attuned to them.
However, there is an obstacle that stands in the way of such greater involvement by professionals in their clients’ lives. No, it isn’t the problem of losing their objectivity when they have feelings about them, although that is a possibility. The more important problem is with the professional’s emotional capacity.
Doctors, teachers, attorneys, plumbers, car mechanics and all other professionals who deal with clients simply could not become emotionally close to all of their clients. Indeed, most of us find it difficult if not impossible to have more than a few really close friends who may freely count on our attention to their lives. This is actually a major problem with utopian politics, especially the kind forged by communist thinkers, since they envision a society in which we are all intimately related to one another. Their so called humanitarianism is actually a misconceived transference of personal intimacies into the social and political realm. By their vision, everyone will be emotionally involved with everyone else, in that communal fashion that has been the dream of the likes of Rousseau and maybe many hippies.
What’s wrong with this is that friends are demanding creatures so that friendship simply cannot be spread out to great numbers. Just think of this simple thought experiment: if you have more than a dozen really close friends, how could you take part in their joys and sorrows, since they would all have these all the time and you simply couldn’t be a part of it all. Putting it a bit crudely, one would need to pay heed to all these people’s significant events—births, funerals, weddings, promotions, bankruptcies, and divorces—all at once. One’s emotional reservoir would always be depleted, one would be exhausted and in the end able to maintain only the most superficial relationships, ones that do not demand serious emotional involvements.
If doctors took the general malady as distinct from the illness of every one of their patients’ to heart, what about their own family and friends with whom they have a primary connection? Sometimes this issue arises in very practical, concrete terms, as when professionals become estranged from their intimates. No dinners, no breakfasts, no quality personal time because they spread themselves too thin. And this can begin to impinge upon their professional preparedness, in the end, so that what started out to be a gesture of good will toward clients slowly turns into incompetence.
Of course, different people have different capacities for involvement in the lives of others and often those others wish for just a bit of extra attention rather than constant coddling. So generalizations here, as in many other areas, are risky. Still, there is wisdom in the idea of the division of labor—even if it’s the division of the labor of love.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Illegal Immigration and Morality
Tibor R. Machan
Paul McGuire, author of the novel The Warning and a talk show host, claims that illegal immigrants impose a $2.2 million burden on U. S. taxpayers and that it is “immoral to make American taxpayers shoulder this burden.” He made his remarks on Neil Cavuto’s Fox News TV program and as with nearly all those utterances, there was no real examination of the facts cited and the implications drawn from them.
Still, it bears noting that the immorality begins not with putting illegal immigrants on the welfare rolls or transferring to them costly services at the expense of American citizens. The immorality lies in the welfare state itself, in the government’s policy of coercive wealth redistribution. In fact, if there were any moral justification to such wealth redistribution, having the wealth go to illegal immigrants could be considered far more morally defensible than having it go to American citizens or legal immigrants.
After all, the argument for coercive wealth redistribution is that those in real dire straits cannot be expected to make it in life so they deserve to be provided with a break from others who are doing well or well enough. Nearly all the books defending the welfare state advance arguments along such lines—the desperate needs of others make it right to have a serious amount of the wealth of those who have it taken from them and handed to the needy.
But if this is so, which it isn’t at all, who but the illegal immigrant is more qualified? Such an individual is nearly destitute. Moreover, such an individual has shown some merit in having done something about his or her dire straits, namely, escaped from a terrible country where virtually no opportunity for advancement exists and come to one where with some effort one can make it. So such people, the reasoning of welfare statists should go, have a greater claim on the taxes collected from well (or well enough) to do Americans than have the claims, in relative terms—judging by global standards—of locals who aren’t all that badly off. It is just those illegal immigrants who can make the most use of “free” healthcare, education, welfare and such, given how badly off they all are.
Of course there is a great deal wrong with this line of reasoning but not because it involves illegal immigrants. The problem lies with coercive wealth redistribution. Yet Mr. McGuire didn’t say anything against that—although perhaps because he didn’t have a chance. Well, I do want to say something about that and how immoral it is to rob reasonably (or even very) well off Peter in order to benefit destitute Paul. Such a transfer is not generosity, of course, because generosity must be voluntary, not coercive. All that the welfare state exhibits is how much bullying people will tolerate before they finally have had enough. And yes, sadly, too many people in America as well as elsewhere are entire too compliant where coercive wealth redistribution and other kinds of governmental intrusiveness are concerned. They are intimidated by those who claim that holding on to what is theirs is greedy or mean, which is bunk.
Those, however, who approve of coercive wealth redistribution have absolutely no case against illegal immigrants obtaining some of the loot that has been confiscated from American citizens. They have no case because illegal immigrants are in general far more in need of what the welfare state hands out than are American citizens or even legal immigrants.
There is a principle in logic according to which when one allows a contradiction into a line of argumentation, nothing can make sense any longer. And this applies to political economy as well. Once the welfare state’s principle of coercive wealth redistribution has become standard public policy, there is no hope of any kind of rational, intelligent solution to the problems that arise.
This is what is evident in the current debate about illegal immigration—the welfare state is the underlying fundamental problem. Until that system is abolished, until a revolutionary change occurs and no Peter is looted for the sake of any Paul—poor, rich, legal or illegal—there will be no solution to the illegal immigration problem.
Tibor R. Machan
Paul McGuire, author of the novel The Warning and a talk show host, claims that illegal immigrants impose a $2.2 million burden on U. S. taxpayers and that it is “immoral to make American taxpayers shoulder this burden.” He made his remarks on Neil Cavuto’s Fox News TV program and as with nearly all those utterances, there was no real examination of the facts cited and the implications drawn from them.
Still, it bears noting that the immorality begins not with putting illegal immigrants on the welfare rolls or transferring to them costly services at the expense of American citizens. The immorality lies in the welfare state itself, in the government’s policy of coercive wealth redistribution. In fact, if there were any moral justification to such wealth redistribution, having the wealth go to illegal immigrants could be considered far more morally defensible than having it go to American citizens or legal immigrants.
After all, the argument for coercive wealth redistribution is that those in real dire straits cannot be expected to make it in life so they deserve to be provided with a break from others who are doing well or well enough. Nearly all the books defending the welfare state advance arguments along such lines—the desperate needs of others make it right to have a serious amount of the wealth of those who have it taken from them and handed to the needy.
But if this is so, which it isn’t at all, who but the illegal immigrant is more qualified? Such an individual is nearly destitute. Moreover, such an individual has shown some merit in having done something about his or her dire straits, namely, escaped from a terrible country where virtually no opportunity for advancement exists and come to one where with some effort one can make it. So such people, the reasoning of welfare statists should go, have a greater claim on the taxes collected from well (or well enough) to do Americans than have the claims, in relative terms—judging by global standards—of locals who aren’t all that badly off. It is just those illegal immigrants who can make the most use of “free” healthcare, education, welfare and such, given how badly off they all are.
Of course there is a great deal wrong with this line of reasoning but not because it involves illegal immigrants. The problem lies with coercive wealth redistribution. Yet Mr. McGuire didn’t say anything against that—although perhaps because he didn’t have a chance. Well, I do want to say something about that and how immoral it is to rob reasonably (or even very) well off Peter in order to benefit destitute Paul. Such a transfer is not generosity, of course, because generosity must be voluntary, not coercive. All that the welfare state exhibits is how much bullying people will tolerate before they finally have had enough. And yes, sadly, too many people in America as well as elsewhere are entire too compliant where coercive wealth redistribution and other kinds of governmental intrusiveness are concerned. They are intimidated by those who claim that holding on to what is theirs is greedy or mean, which is bunk.
Those, however, who approve of coercive wealth redistribution have absolutely no case against illegal immigrants obtaining some of the loot that has been confiscated from American citizens. They have no case because illegal immigrants are in general far more in need of what the welfare state hands out than are American citizens or even legal immigrants.
There is a principle in logic according to which when one allows a contradiction into a line of argumentation, nothing can make sense any longer. And this applies to political economy as well. Once the welfare state’s principle of coercive wealth redistribution has become standard public policy, there is no hope of any kind of rational, intelligent solution to the problems that arise.
This is what is evident in the current debate about illegal immigration—the welfare state is the underlying fundamental problem. Until that system is abolished, until a revolutionary change occurs and no Peter is looted for the sake of any Paul—poor, rich, legal or illegal—there will be no solution to the illegal immigration problem.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
“Must We Mean What We Say?”
Tibor R. Machan
The tile of this column is the title of an early book and the title essay in it by Harvard University philosopher Stanley Cavell. Cavell’s work was to me fascinating because it argued, putting it very roughly, that when one uses words with widely understood meaning, one may not expect that one’s idiosyncratic interpretation of the words should override the former. And there is pretty plain evidence of the acceptance of this in how we treat each other’s utterances. If someone calls you a fool and you take offense, it is no good for the person to say, “But what I mean by ‘fool’ is ‘wise and sensible’.” When one says “fool,” one must mean what “fool” means. If one fails to realize this, that is a failure indeed and no one can escape the consequences by pleading ignorance.
In a recent column I made the point that explaining what Osama bin Laden and his cohorts did on September 11, 2001, by reference solely to the American government’s Middle East misguided, even very possibly immoral, foreign policy, served to suggest that the deed, the attacks of 9/11, was justified. Several people said to me that I am mistaken, some even claimed I was being outrageous in my suggestion and that it constituted a smear against Ron Paul who advanced the explanation in his comments during the South Carolina Republican presidential hopefuls’ recent debate. Others simply expressed polite disagreement with me, while yet others thought I was right. Given that my comment took up two columns of roughly 700 words, I didn’t have the chance to make fully evident my reasons for taking such an explanation to appear to amount to an implicit justification.
Now it is true enough that many times when people explain the conduct of others, they do not mean to justify this conduct. However, it is also true that whenever one does offer an explanation of another’s conduct, conduct that is normally blameworthy, there is the implication that the person involved isn’t really culpable—it is the factors that explain what he or she did that caused what ensued. In other words, in offering an explanation one is pretty much suggesting that the person is not responsible and even allows that inference that the action may have been justified (or made sense).
Consider that in a criminal trial if a psychologist or psychiatrists can explain someone’s unlawful conduct, this most often is done so as to exculpate the accused. “He killed his wife because he was insane” or “He rammed the car because the sun blinded him and he couldn’t see.” These do amount to explanations which are offered to as to eliminate or at least reduce guilt.
So when Representative Ron Paul stated during the debate that “They [bin Laden and others charged with the 9/11 terrorism] attack us because we've been over there, we've been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We've been in the Middle East,” arguably he was at least suggesting that the conduct of those individuals is explainable by reference to what we, that is, the United States government, has been doing in the Middle East. And that, if we must mean what we say, implies that the terrorists themselves acted because of what the U. S. government has been doing and are, accordingly, not culpable.
It is, of course, very likely that what Representative Paul wanted to say or would have liked to have said is that the U. S. government’s Middle East foreign policy plays a significant role in making sense of much of the motivation behind 9/11. He would probably agree that there is a lot more to it, as well, such as the barbaric way bin Laden & Co. went about reacting to that foreign policy, namely, to murder 3000 innocent human beings. In other words, part of what explains 9/11 is bin Laden & Co.’s viciousness in believing that killing 3000 innocent people is what one should do when one considers the American government’s foreign policy ill advised, immoral, wrongful, and injurious.
Nevertheless, what I was commenting upon is what Representative Paul said, in the spirit of Cavell’s thesis in “Must We Mean What We Say.” Saying that they attacked us because we’ve been over there means that is why they attacked us and leaves a great deal that needed to be said unsaid. But I was myself wrong to suggest that this amounted to saying bin Laden & Co. were justified in perpetrating 9/11.
Tibor R. Machan
The tile of this column is the title of an early book and the title essay in it by Harvard University philosopher Stanley Cavell. Cavell’s work was to me fascinating because it argued, putting it very roughly, that when one uses words with widely understood meaning, one may not expect that one’s idiosyncratic interpretation of the words should override the former. And there is pretty plain evidence of the acceptance of this in how we treat each other’s utterances. If someone calls you a fool and you take offense, it is no good for the person to say, “But what I mean by ‘fool’ is ‘wise and sensible’.” When one says “fool,” one must mean what “fool” means. If one fails to realize this, that is a failure indeed and no one can escape the consequences by pleading ignorance.
In a recent column I made the point that explaining what Osama bin Laden and his cohorts did on September 11, 2001, by reference solely to the American government’s Middle East misguided, even very possibly immoral, foreign policy, served to suggest that the deed, the attacks of 9/11, was justified. Several people said to me that I am mistaken, some even claimed I was being outrageous in my suggestion and that it constituted a smear against Ron Paul who advanced the explanation in his comments during the South Carolina Republican presidential hopefuls’ recent debate. Others simply expressed polite disagreement with me, while yet others thought I was right. Given that my comment took up two columns of roughly 700 words, I didn’t have the chance to make fully evident my reasons for taking such an explanation to appear to amount to an implicit justification.
Now it is true enough that many times when people explain the conduct of others, they do not mean to justify this conduct. However, it is also true that whenever one does offer an explanation of another’s conduct, conduct that is normally blameworthy, there is the implication that the person involved isn’t really culpable—it is the factors that explain what he or she did that caused what ensued. In other words, in offering an explanation one is pretty much suggesting that the person is not responsible and even allows that inference that the action may have been justified (or made sense).
Consider that in a criminal trial if a psychologist or psychiatrists can explain someone’s unlawful conduct, this most often is done so as to exculpate the accused. “He killed his wife because he was insane” or “He rammed the car because the sun blinded him and he couldn’t see.” These do amount to explanations which are offered to as to eliminate or at least reduce guilt.
So when Representative Ron Paul stated during the debate that “They [bin Laden and others charged with the 9/11 terrorism] attack us because we've been over there, we've been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We've been in the Middle East,” arguably he was at least suggesting that the conduct of those individuals is explainable by reference to what we, that is, the United States government, has been doing in the Middle East. And that, if we must mean what we say, implies that the terrorists themselves acted because of what the U. S. government has been doing and are, accordingly, not culpable.
It is, of course, very likely that what Representative Paul wanted to say or would have liked to have said is that the U. S. government’s Middle East foreign policy plays a significant role in making sense of much of the motivation behind 9/11. He would probably agree that there is a lot more to it, as well, such as the barbaric way bin Laden & Co. went about reacting to that foreign policy, namely, to murder 3000 innocent human beings. In other words, part of what explains 9/11 is bin Laden & Co.’s viciousness in believing that killing 3000 innocent people is what one should do when one considers the American government’s foreign policy ill advised, immoral, wrongful, and injurious.
Nevertheless, what I was commenting upon is what Representative Paul said, in the spirit of Cavell’s thesis in “Must We Mean What We Say.” Saying that they attacked us because we’ve been over there means that is why they attacked us and leaves a great deal that needed to be said unsaid. But I was myself wrong to suggest that this amounted to saying bin Laden & Co. were justified in perpetrating 9/11.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Buchanan on Ron Paul’s Debate Point
Tibor R. Machan
Shortly after the South Carolina Republican presidential hopefuls’ debate I wrote chiding Ron Paul for suggesting that 9/11 was a blowback in response to the fact that the US government had been in the Middle East for ten years or so. As Paul put the point, “They attack us because we've been over there, we've been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We've been in the Middle East….” My point was that however ill conceived, even evil, US foreign policy in the Middle East may have been, it would not serve to justify the blowback of murdering 3000 innocent working people in the Twin Towers on 9/11.
I showed my column to some Ron Paul supporters and one of them wrote me a very indignant post and said “This is just wrong and grossly unfair to Ron. He suggested no such thing.” And he added, “He never even hinted that what happened on 9/11 was justified. This is a smear.”
In a subsequent column former Republican Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan echoed this criticism of what I said about Representative Paul’s claim (not, however, addressed to my version of the point). He wrote that “When Ron Paul said the 9-11 killers were ‘over here because we are over there,’ he was not excusing the mass murderers of 3,000 Americans. He was explaining the roots of hatred out of which the suicide-killers came.”
What is important to consider in this controversy is just what counts as a justification when we are discussing a terrorist act like 9/11. To say that Paul’s claim during the debate wasn’t a justification and, instead, he “was explaining the roots of hatred out of which the suicide-killers came” fails to appreciate that in explaining human conduct, claiming that “they attack us because we’ve been over there” does amount to saying that it is the conduct of the Americans that serves to make sense of—that is to say, justifies—9/11. Had the Americans not been in the Middle East—or to use Paul’s own wording, had “we not been in the Middle East”—the attack on the 3000 people on 9/11 would not have occurred. Is this implied claim an explanation or a justification?
In human affairs explanations do amount, very often, to justifications. When people act consciously, not reflexively or instinctively, they do so with reasons motivating them. And those reasons serve as their justification for their actions. And if the reasons are true, then they are justified to act as they do. Accordingly, if someone states what Ron Paul stated about bin Laden and his gang, namely, that “They attack us because we've been over there, we've been bombing Iraq for 10 years,” this must mean, like it or not, that bin Laden and his gang acted as they did on 9/11 because “we have been over there.” And that means our having been over there must be seen as a justification for their actions, the reason they believed it right for them to launch the 9/11 attack.
Human beings do not behave mechanically, so saying “because” doesn’t offer an impersonal, causal explanation (as when one explains why, say, a lion devours a zebra or an earthquake happened). When one explains why people do what they do and reference is made to their reasons, and if one considers those reasons to be true, this implies that they are justified to do what they do. In other words, if it is true that America has been over there wrongfully and that is why bin Laden and his gang perpetrated 9/11, this seriously suggests that bin Laden & Co.’s attack was justified.
A far better way to see bin Laden and his gang's conduct is to appreciate that they are part of radical Islam and have been itching to attack America for years, way before the recent American presence in the Middle East. I mentioned the excellent analysis offered by Efraim Karsh in his book, Islamic Imperialism (Yale University Press, 2006), that flatly refutes Representative Paul’s suggestion by showing how hostilities against America and the West in general have been alive for not just decades but centuries and that it is with the new-found power coming from oil that those hostilities could finally issue in 9/11 and other attacks.
None of this is to maintain that US Middle East foreign and military policy has been wise, prudent, or justified, nor that it may not have had contributed to the reasons why bin Laden and others attacked the USA and other Western or Western sympathizing regions of the globe. But since none of this justifies—“explains”—murdering 3000 innocent human beings in New York City on September 11, 2001, it is false that 9/11 is best understood as a response or “blowback” to the way Americans have carried on over the last ten years. To claim such a thing is like claiming that what explains the rape of a woman is that the woman has been wearing provocative garb—something that could well be true and perhaps unwise—rather than that the rapist is someone with corrupt values.
Tibor R. Machan
Shortly after the South Carolina Republican presidential hopefuls’ debate I wrote chiding Ron Paul for suggesting that 9/11 was a blowback in response to the fact that the US government had been in the Middle East for ten years or so. As Paul put the point, “They attack us because we've been over there, we've been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We've been in the Middle East….” My point was that however ill conceived, even evil, US foreign policy in the Middle East may have been, it would not serve to justify the blowback of murdering 3000 innocent working people in the Twin Towers on 9/11.
I showed my column to some Ron Paul supporters and one of them wrote me a very indignant post and said “This is just wrong and grossly unfair to Ron. He suggested no such thing.” And he added, “He never even hinted that what happened on 9/11 was justified. This is a smear.”
In a subsequent column former Republican Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan echoed this criticism of what I said about Representative Paul’s claim (not, however, addressed to my version of the point). He wrote that “When Ron Paul said the 9-11 killers were ‘over here because we are over there,’ he was not excusing the mass murderers of 3,000 Americans. He was explaining the roots of hatred out of which the suicide-killers came.”
What is important to consider in this controversy is just what counts as a justification when we are discussing a terrorist act like 9/11. To say that Paul’s claim during the debate wasn’t a justification and, instead, he “was explaining the roots of hatred out of which the suicide-killers came” fails to appreciate that in explaining human conduct, claiming that “they attack us because we’ve been over there” does amount to saying that it is the conduct of the Americans that serves to make sense of—that is to say, justifies—9/11. Had the Americans not been in the Middle East—or to use Paul’s own wording, had “we not been in the Middle East”—the attack on the 3000 people on 9/11 would not have occurred. Is this implied claim an explanation or a justification?
In human affairs explanations do amount, very often, to justifications. When people act consciously, not reflexively or instinctively, they do so with reasons motivating them. And those reasons serve as their justification for their actions. And if the reasons are true, then they are justified to act as they do. Accordingly, if someone states what Ron Paul stated about bin Laden and his gang, namely, that “They attack us because we've been over there, we've been bombing Iraq for 10 years,” this must mean, like it or not, that bin Laden and his gang acted as they did on 9/11 because “we have been over there.” And that means our having been over there must be seen as a justification for their actions, the reason they believed it right for them to launch the 9/11 attack.
Human beings do not behave mechanically, so saying “because” doesn’t offer an impersonal, causal explanation (as when one explains why, say, a lion devours a zebra or an earthquake happened). When one explains why people do what they do and reference is made to their reasons, and if one considers those reasons to be true, this implies that they are justified to do what they do. In other words, if it is true that America has been over there wrongfully and that is why bin Laden and his gang perpetrated 9/11, this seriously suggests that bin Laden & Co.’s attack was justified.
A far better way to see bin Laden and his gang's conduct is to appreciate that they are part of radical Islam and have been itching to attack America for years, way before the recent American presence in the Middle East. I mentioned the excellent analysis offered by Efraim Karsh in his book, Islamic Imperialism (Yale University Press, 2006), that flatly refutes Representative Paul’s suggestion by showing how hostilities against America and the West in general have been alive for not just decades but centuries and that it is with the new-found power coming from oil that those hostilities could finally issue in 9/11 and other attacks.
None of this is to maintain that US Middle East foreign and military policy has been wise, prudent, or justified, nor that it may not have had contributed to the reasons why bin Laden and others attacked the USA and other Western or Western sympathizing regions of the globe. But since none of this justifies—“explains”—murdering 3000 innocent human beings in New York City on September 11, 2001, it is false that 9/11 is best understood as a response or “blowback” to the way Americans have carried on over the last ten years. To claim such a thing is like claiming that what explains the rape of a woman is that the woman has been wearing provocative garb—something that could well be true and perhaps unwise—rather than that the rapist is someone with corrupt values.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Ron Paul on “Blowback”
Tibor R. Machan
During the Republican presidential candidate debates Ron Paul insisted that 9/11 can best be understood as an instance of “blowback,” meaning the expected reaction of those in the Middle East to the US government’s interventionist foreign policy. To this Rudi Giuliani said he has never heard anything so ridiculous.
In fact, of course, al Qaeda stated virtually the same thing Representative Paul said, namely, that 9/11 was the result of US foreign policy. So on that score former Mayor Giuliani was being disingenuous.
Nevertheless, Ron Paul had it wrong, too. As many have noted, the hostility toward the West in the Middle East has been brewing for many decades, even centuries. One need only read Islamic Imperialism, by Efraim Karsh (Yale, 2006), to appreciate how deep seated is the radical Islamist hatred of West and America. Not that this hatred explains it all, anymore than US Middle Eastern policy can do so. One dimensional explanations rarely if ever work in an attempt to understand geopolitical events—or, indeed, most human behavior.
The most important matter, though, that the exchange between Giuliani and Paul involved, is the claim that 9/11 was the responsibility of the US government’s foreign policy over the past several decades—as Paul put the point, “They attack us because we've been over there, we've been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We've been in the Middle East. I think Reagan was right. We don't understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics.” What about this?
9/11 was the murder of some 3000 human beings by suicide pilots from Saudi Arabia, guided by Osama bin Laden, a radical Islamic leader. The 3000 human beings were not part of the American government, even less the American military, but men and women who were working for a living on mostly peaceful projects. There is no justification for murdering them, regardless of what the American government has done wrong in the Middle East over the last ten or twenty or three hundred years.
So Representative Ron Paul was mistaken in ascribing responsibility for 9/11 to American foreign policy. The responsibility lies with the perverse thinking of Osama bin Laden and his cohorts, people who are willing to inflict death upon innocent human beings because they disapprove of the conduct of the government of those human beings, as if they had personally perpetrated unjustified foreign policy measures upon them. Not only does the crime of 9/11 fail to be justified by any alleged unjust US foreign policy measures. There is then also the question of whether all those measures had in fact been unjust—for example, the US government’s support of Israel.
It is one thing to claim that American foreign policy in the Middle East has been unwise, unjust, even morally wrong. It is another thing entirely to claim that that policy justified 9/11. And that is just what Representative Ron Paul’s claim suggests.
There are problems with Ron Paul’s comment. “They attack us because we’ve been over there,” is too loose—who are the “us” he is referring to? In fact, bin Laden and his cohorts—the “they” in representative Paul’s claim—attacked specific human beings, those who were working in the Twin Towers back on September 11, 2001. Does representative Paul mean that the bin Laden’s gang’s murder of these individuals, even if the American government has been acting unjustly in the Middle East, amounted to just retaliation? If so, he is clearly wrong. And that is how many understood him during the debates.
It might be plausible to say what Ron Paul said, had bin Laden assassinated President Bush or those involved in forging American foreign policy. Even then, this assumes that the policies that had been forged were unjust, which then brings up many issues about just who has been involved in forging this policy, including many other governments around the globe who have fashioned UN resolutions and other measures that were aimed at the various governments in the Middle East. But let us set that aside here.
Representative Ron Paul may well be right to criticize the American government’s Middle East policies but he is clearly wrong to suggest that what bin Laden and his gang did to the 3000 or so individuals who were working in the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, amounted to a proper, justified “blowback.” No, it was murder, period.
Tibor R. Machan
During the Republican presidential candidate debates Ron Paul insisted that 9/11 can best be understood as an instance of “blowback,” meaning the expected reaction of those in the Middle East to the US government’s interventionist foreign policy. To this Rudi Giuliani said he has never heard anything so ridiculous.
In fact, of course, al Qaeda stated virtually the same thing Representative Paul said, namely, that 9/11 was the result of US foreign policy. So on that score former Mayor Giuliani was being disingenuous.
Nevertheless, Ron Paul had it wrong, too. As many have noted, the hostility toward the West in the Middle East has been brewing for many decades, even centuries. One need only read Islamic Imperialism, by Efraim Karsh (Yale, 2006), to appreciate how deep seated is the radical Islamist hatred of West and America. Not that this hatred explains it all, anymore than US Middle Eastern policy can do so. One dimensional explanations rarely if ever work in an attempt to understand geopolitical events—or, indeed, most human behavior.
The most important matter, though, that the exchange between Giuliani and Paul involved, is the claim that 9/11 was the responsibility of the US government’s foreign policy over the past several decades—as Paul put the point, “They attack us because we've been over there, we've been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We've been in the Middle East. I think Reagan was right. We don't understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics.” What about this?
9/11 was the murder of some 3000 human beings by suicide pilots from Saudi Arabia, guided by Osama bin Laden, a radical Islamic leader. The 3000 human beings were not part of the American government, even less the American military, but men and women who were working for a living on mostly peaceful projects. There is no justification for murdering them, regardless of what the American government has done wrong in the Middle East over the last ten or twenty or three hundred years.
So Representative Ron Paul was mistaken in ascribing responsibility for 9/11 to American foreign policy. The responsibility lies with the perverse thinking of Osama bin Laden and his cohorts, people who are willing to inflict death upon innocent human beings because they disapprove of the conduct of the government of those human beings, as if they had personally perpetrated unjustified foreign policy measures upon them. Not only does the crime of 9/11 fail to be justified by any alleged unjust US foreign policy measures. There is then also the question of whether all those measures had in fact been unjust—for example, the US government’s support of Israel.
It is one thing to claim that American foreign policy in the Middle East has been unwise, unjust, even morally wrong. It is another thing entirely to claim that that policy justified 9/11. And that is just what Representative Ron Paul’s claim suggests.
There are problems with Ron Paul’s comment. “They attack us because we’ve been over there,” is too loose—who are the “us” he is referring to? In fact, bin Laden and his cohorts—the “they” in representative Paul’s claim—attacked specific human beings, those who were working in the Twin Towers back on September 11, 2001. Does representative Paul mean that the bin Laden’s gang’s murder of these individuals, even if the American government has been acting unjustly in the Middle East, amounted to just retaliation? If so, he is clearly wrong. And that is how many understood him during the debates.
It might be plausible to say what Ron Paul said, had bin Laden assassinated President Bush or those involved in forging American foreign policy. Even then, this assumes that the policies that had been forged were unjust, which then brings up many issues about just who has been involved in forging this policy, including many other governments around the globe who have fashioned UN resolutions and other measures that were aimed at the various governments in the Middle East. But let us set that aside here.
Representative Ron Paul may well be right to criticize the American government’s Middle East policies but he is clearly wrong to suggest that what bin Laden and his gang did to the 3000 or so individuals who were working in the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, amounted to a proper, justified “blowback.” No, it was murder, period.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Brooke Shield Doesn’t Need Congress
Tibor R. Machan
When Tom Cruise belittled Brooke Shields some time ago for resorting to medication, in her effort to cope with her postpartum depression, it was one celebrity’s meddling in another’s affairs. Shields may well needed some help but, in any case, it wasn’t Cruise’s business. Such matters are not easily generalized and who can tell whether what ailed Shields ought to be dealt with by way of medication. Was Cruise qualified to advise Shields? I doubt it.
Now it is Shields, however, who is doing some meddling herself, asking that the United States Congress provide “an easy gift to give to women everywhere” by way of legislation that would, as one report has it, “address post-partum depression education, detection and treatment.” The lady seems to think that it is Congress’s task to come to the aid of those who are finding it difficult to cope after having given birth. All this following thousands of years of women managing quite well at this task on their own, with help from family and friends instead of politicians and bureaucrats.
What are the sort of problems Congress ought to address in a free country? They have to do with crime—with some people violating the rights of other people. Even there it isn’t the federal government that needs to step in. Rather, it is the business of local law-enforcement to address such problems.
In any case, coping with post-partum depression certainly does not qualify as a problem that politicians and bureaucrats should address. For one, the Constitution doesn’t authorize them to enter this area of concern. More importantly, the Constitution is right about this—a political body has no business meddling in medical matters unless they involve public health concerns, such as might be the case with contagious diseases. Post-partum depression is by no stretch of the imagination some kind of general medical malaise. It is rare and highly individual, differing significantly from one case to another.
What is especially annoying about Ms. Shields’ call for Congressional action is that she herself could do plenty to help those whom she seems to care about. She has experienced this malady and she is a pretty well-to-do citizen with the resources needed to, say, launch a campaign in support of others who are facing the problem. She has connections in the publishing industry, having penned a book or two herself, and could easily write and publish something about the problem that could be read by those afflicted with the malady. Why bother getting all of us involved when the target audience is relatively small? Why promulgate the notion that when some folks need help, they cannot get it from their fellows but must run to the Nanny State for help?
It is specially worrisome that a rich and famous individual like Brooke Shields hasn’t the fortitude to address a problem she knows about with her own ample resources. It must be that she takes it for grated that in our society whenever there is some problem, turning to politicians and bureaucrats is the most natural way to seek a solution. If such a prominent, sophisticated individual doesn’t even consider seeking non-political solutions to such problems, no wonder that millions of others with far less clout will turn to government with every problem they have.
The approach Ms. Shields is taking to this matter is also inconsistent with how so many people in her industry quickly yell “censorship” when others want the government to regulate the content of TV programs and movies, content that they believe contributes to undermining the quality of life in this country. Somehow it is nasty censorship to want government to remedy matters in one area but public service to want to remedy matters in another. In fact, of course, in both kinds of cases citizens in this country have all the opportunities to help themselves and their fellows without bringing in the government.
Ms. Shields could set a fine example to all her fans and others who keep on eye on her by addressing the phenomenon of post-partum depression on her own initiative. Not only would this be a more informed approach but it would also leave those not involved in the problem of post-partum depression free to address issues that they are facing.
Tibor R. Machan
When Tom Cruise belittled Brooke Shields some time ago for resorting to medication, in her effort to cope with her postpartum depression, it was one celebrity’s meddling in another’s affairs. Shields may well needed some help but, in any case, it wasn’t Cruise’s business. Such matters are not easily generalized and who can tell whether what ailed Shields ought to be dealt with by way of medication. Was Cruise qualified to advise Shields? I doubt it.
Now it is Shields, however, who is doing some meddling herself, asking that the United States Congress provide “an easy gift to give to women everywhere” by way of legislation that would, as one report has it, “address post-partum depression education, detection and treatment.” The lady seems to think that it is Congress’s task to come to the aid of those who are finding it difficult to cope after having given birth. All this following thousands of years of women managing quite well at this task on their own, with help from family and friends instead of politicians and bureaucrats.
What are the sort of problems Congress ought to address in a free country? They have to do with crime—with some people violating the rights of other people. Even there it isn’t the federal government that needs to step in. Rather, it is the business of local law-enforcement to address such problems.
In any case, coping with post-partum depression certainly does not qualify as a problem that politicians and bureaucrats should address. For one, the Constitution doesn’t authorize them to enter this area of concern. More importantly, the Constitution is right about this—a political body has no business meddling in medical matters unless they involve public health concerns, such as might be the case with contagious diseases. Post-partum depression is by no stretch of the imagination some kind of general medical malaise. It is rare and highly individual, differing significantly from one case to another.
What is especially annoying about Ms. Shields’ call for Congressional action is that she herself could do plenty to help those whom she seems to care about. She has experienced this malady and she is a pretty well-to-do citizen with the resources needed to, say, launch a campaign in support of others who are facing the problem. She has connections in the publishing industry, having penned a book or two herself, and could easily write and publish something about the problem that could be read by those afflicted with the malady. Why bother getting all of us involved when the target audience is relatively small? Why promulgate the notion that when some folks need help, they cannot get it from their fellows but must run to the Nanny State for help?
It is specially worrisome that a rich and famous individual like Brooke Shields hasn’t the fortitude to address a problem she knows about with her own ample resources. It must be that she takes it for grated that in our society whenever there is some problem, turning to politicians and bureaucrats is the most natural way to seek a solution. If such a prominent, sophisticated individual doesn’t even consider seeking non-political solutions to such problems, no wonder that millions of others with far less clout will turn to government with every problem they have.
The approach Ms. Shields is taking to this matter is also inconsistent with how so many people in her industry quickly yell “censorship” when others want the government to regulate the content of TV programs and movies, content that they believe contributes to undermining the quality of life in this country. Somehow it is nasty censorship to want government to remedy matters in one area but public service to want to remedy matters in another. In fact, of course, in both kinds of cases citizens in this country have all the opportunities to help themselves and their fellows without bringing in the government.
Ms. Shields could set a fine example to all her fans and others who keep on eye on her by addressing the phenomenon of post-partum depression on her own initiative. Not only would this be a more informed approach but it would also leave those not involved in the problem of post-partum depression free to address issues that they are facing.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Soft Pedalling Coercion
Tibor R. Machan
All those of us who travel by air have probably come across those announcements in airports about how smoking is forbidden. If airports were private facilities, I would have no problem with this. And, in fact, since I don’t smoke, I am not personally put out by those bans, either.
What is, however, very irksome is that most of the announcements pretend to be requests. This is evident from how they end, namely, with “Your cooperation is much appreciated,” “We thank you for your cooperation,” or some such thing. And this clearly is a ruse, since when something is a government mandate, cooperation is irrelevant. Compliance is.
When people cooperate, they do this only voluntarily. They freely take part in an endeavor with others who also do it of their own free will. That’s what cooperation involves. When, however, one is ordered by the police or some other government agency that has the legal option to back its order with force, one has no option but to go along. Otherwise one will be fined and if one resists, one can even be shot. Instead of refusal or cooperation, what one faces is resistance or compliance. And the former can come at a very high price.
At commercial airports, for example, one may not even voice one’s negative opinions about, say, the conduct of the TSA personnel. Not long ago I mumbled something under my breath as one of the more eager-beaver uniformed TSA officials ordered me to remove my sandals—I was annoyed since TSA demands this in some but not in other airports. Sure enough, the official heard my indistinct utterance and wanted to have me repeat it so as to learn whether it was anything critical of TSA. I refused to repeat myself and, fortunately, wasn’t bothered further. But had I said anything at which the TSA official took offense, I could have been barred from boarding my flight.
In any case, why don’t those announcements come right out and order people and stop pretending to be making a civilized request of passengers? Why the “Thank you for your cooperation” when, in fact, the officials care not a whit about our cooperation, only about our compliance?
My suspicion is that this pretense at dealing with passengers as if their cooperation mattered comes from the TSA’s and similar agencies's awareness that all this ordering us about is a bit odd in what is often proclaimed to be a free country. (This is also why some people who support taxation keep insisting that in some convoluted fashion paying taxes is done voluntarily.) I do not have the resources for it but I would be willing to bet a sizable sum that a systematic study of this kind of behavior on the part of government officials would show that they want it both ways, issuing their orders and pretending that those aren’t orders but requests. So as to disguise that they are involved in regimenting millions of supposedly sovereign citizens, these officials and their spin doctors sugarcoat the policy with euphemisms and outright linguistic distortions.
Maybe I am making too much of this but my impression is that this fits the picture of a society slowly but surely transforming itself from being relatively free to one where the population will pretty much be regimented around in most realms of life. If we can be convinced that following orders at the point of the gun amounts cooperation, then the police state implications of these policies might be successfully hidden from us. Never mind that in the process the English language itself is being corrupted.
One reason I tend to be on alert about this kind of government behavior is that where I lived in my childhood, in a communist state, the practice of Orwellian language-corruption was rampant. Slavery was called “freedom,” one party rule was called “democracy,” coerced marches were called “parades,” and so forth. I suppose when you have been through that, you become rather skilled at perceiving similar tendencies even while others may simply dismiss them as innocent misuses of words. I suspect they are anything but.
Tibor R. Machan
All those of us who travel by air have probably come across those announcements in airports about how smoking is forbidden. If airports were private facilities, I would have no problem with this. And, in fact, since I don’t smoke, I am not personally put out by those bans, either.
What is, however, very irksome is that most of the announcements pretend to be requests. This is evident from how they end, namely, with “Your cooperation is much appreciated,” “We thank you for your cooperation,” or some such thing. And this clearly is a ruse, since when something is a government mandate, cooperation is irrelevant. Compliance is.
When people cooperate, they do this only voluntarily. They freely take part in an endeavor with others who also do it of their own free will. That’s what cooperation involves. When, however, one is ordered by the police or some other government agency that has the legal option to back its order with force, one has no option but to go along. Otherwise one will be fined and if one resists, one can even be shot. Instead of refusal or cooperation, what one faces is resistance or compliance. And the former can come at a very high price.
At commercial airports, for example, one may not even voice one’s negative opinions about, say, the conduct of the TSA personnel. Not long ago I mumbled something under my breath as one of the more eager-beaver uniformed TSA officials ordered me to remove my sandals—I was annoyed since TSA demands this in some but not in other airports. Sure enough, the official heard my indistinct utterance and wanted to have me repeat it so as to learn whether it was anything critical of TSA. I refused to repeat myself and, fortunately, wasn’t bothered further. But had I said anything at which the TSA official took offense, I could have been barred from boarding my flight.
In any case, why don’t those announcements come right out and order people and stop pretending to be making a civilized request of passengers? Why the “Thank you for your cooperation” when, in fact, the officials care not a whit about our cooperation, only about our compliance?
My suspicion is that this pretense at dealing with passengers as if their cooperation mattered comes from the TSA’s and similar agencies's awareness that all this ordering us about is a bit odd in what is often proclaimed to be a free country. (This is also why some people who support taxation keep insisting that in some convoluted fashion paying taxes is done voluntarily.) I do not have the resources for it but I would be willing to bet a sizable sum that a systematic study of this kind of behavior on the part of government officials would show that they want it both ways, issuing their orders and pretending that those aren’t orders but requests. So as to disguise that they are involved in regimenting millions of supposedly sovereign citizens, these officials and their spin doctors sugarcoat the policy with euphemisms and outright linguistic distortions.
Maybe I am making too much of this but my impression is that this fits the picture of a society slowly but surely transforming itself from being relatively free to one where the population will pretty much be regimented around in most realms of life. If we can be convinced that following orders at the point of the gun amounts cooperation, then the police state implications of these policies might be successfully hidden from us. Never mind that in the process the English language itself is being corrupted.
One reason I tend to be on alert about this kind of government behavior is that where I lived in my childhood, in a communist state, the practice of Orwellian language-corruption was rampant. Slavery was called “freedom,” one party rule was called “democracy,” coerced marches were called “parades,” and so forth. I suppose when you have been through that, you become rather skilled at perceiving similar tendencies even while others may simply dismiss them as innocent misuses of words. I suspect they are anything but.
Monday, May 07, 2007
Hiring Chinese Ball Players
Tibor R. Machan
At times there is near euphoria afoot about China’sgradual entry into the world trade community. Certainly millions ofAmericans must be pleased that millions of Chinese are willing to work forrelatively low wages making sneakers, computer monitors, shirts, shoes andwhatnot.
This euphoria has, however, met with some disappointment.In the business of hiring professional athletes—especially in the field ofbasketball—efforts to hire Chinese players has met up with the reality ofthe official political economy of the People’s Republic of China. It hasbeen found, by scouts, that the Chinese government does not readily permitChinese players to simply hop a plane and leave their native country tostart playing abroad.
When I recently listened to a radio talk show, thosediscussing this hurdle didn’t appear to fully understand what the problemis. Oh, my, how quickly memories fade!
The plain fact of the matter is that in the People’sRepublic of China, which is still officially a socialist countrysupposedly headed toward communism in some indefinite future, human beingsaren’t deemed to be sovereign citizens with rights to their lives, libertyand pursuit of happiness. Not by a long shot. Those living in China are,instead, deemed to belong to the state. So it is strictly speaking onlywith the permission of the state—meaning, of course, the rulers of thecountry, since “the state” is no more than them—that individuals who liveunder the jurisdiction of the Chinese government may leave. The bottomline is that they do not own their own lives, the government does.
Not all that long ago stories of desperate efforts toescape a similar society used to fill some Western newspapers. A good manyEast Germans had tried to scale the Berlin Wall and flee their nativecountry but when they tried, they were often shot and even killed. Whensome naïve Western journalists posed the question to East Germanauthorities why they shoot people trying to come West, one official answerthat was prominent went like this: “These people are thieves. They arestealing the labor of the East German state.” And that is, indeed, theproper socialist reply to the question—under socialism individualindependence or sovereignty is unthinkable because everyone is but a cellin the organism that is society as a whole. Just imagine if your left handtried to leave your body and go it on its own! How ridiculous—the handbelongs to the body! Only a defective one would attempt such a thing andit would have to be repaired and returned to its proper place!
Because the government of China wants to square the circle, namely, havea productive and creative economy while also remaining the ruler of thepeople there, this idea so brazenly embraced in East Germany isn’t thesole guide to forging public policy. However, it will readily raise itsugly head when someone whom the government deems to be very important tothe state, perhaps even irreplaceable, wishes to leave. That would be anathlete or artist or someone other who can make “major contributions tothe society.”
The origins of all this can be found in several different types ofsociety. For example, under many feudal systems the monarch was deemed tobe the owner of the realm and there were no citizens, only subjects, inthe country—people subject to the will of the monarch. A bit of this isstill around in the UK, for example. In Marxism the fact that the mostimportant source of productivity, human labor, is owned collectively, bythe society as a whole, also has the implication that people are owned bythe government.
In the last analysis it is this question, “To whom does a person belonganyway?” that was the ideological basis of the Cold War and still remainssomething of a stickler today in how those of us in the West deal withthose in the People ’s Republic of China. Neither side consistentlyupholds its basic position, of course. So it is going to be interesting tosee just where the adjustments will be more radical. Will China becomemore individualist or will the West turn more collectivist?
Tibor R. Machan
At times there is near euphoria afoot about China’sgradual entry into the world trade community. Certainly millions ofAmericans must be pleased that millions of Chinese are willing to work forrelatively low wages making sneakers, computer monitors, shirts, shoes andwhatnot.
This euphoria has, however, met with some disappointment.In the business of hiring professional athletes—especially in the field ofbasketball—efforts to hire Chinese players has met up with the reality ofthe official political economy of the People’s Republic of China. It hasbeen found, by scouts, that the Chinese government does not readily permitChinese players to simply hop a plane and leave their native country tostart playing abroad.
When I recently listened to a radio talk show, thosediscussing this hurdle didn’t appear to fully understand what the problemis. Oh, my, how quickly memories fade!
The plain fact of the matter is that in the People’sRepublic of China, which is still officially a socialist countrysupposedly headed toward communism in some indefinite future, human beingsaren’t deemed to be sovereign citizens with rights to their lives, libertyand pursuit of happiness. Not by a long shot. Those living in China are,instead, deemed to belong to the state. So it is strictly speaking onlywith the permission of the state—meaning, of course, the rulers of thecountry, since “the state” is no more than them—that individuals who liveunder the jurisdiction of the Chinese government may leave. The bottomline is that they do not own their own lives, the government does.
Not all that long ago stories of desperate efforts toescape a similar society used to fill some Western newspapers. A good manyEast Germans had tried to scale the Berlin Wall and flee their nativecountry but when they tried, they were often shot and even killed. Whensome naïve Western journalists posed the question to East Germanauthorities why they shoot people trying to come West, one official answerthat was prominent went like this: “These people are thieves. They arestealing the labor of the East German state.” And that is, indeed, theproper socialist reply to the question—under socialism individualindependence or sovereignty is unthinkable because everyone is but a cellin the organism that is society as a whole. Just imagine if your left handtried to leave your body and go it on its own! How ridiculous—the handbelongs to the body! Only a defective one would attempt such a thing andit would have to be repaired and returned to its proper place!
Because the government of China wants to square the circle, namely, havea productive and creative economy while also remaining the ruler of thepeople there, this idea so brazenly embraced in East Germany isn’t thesole guide to forging public policy. However, it will readily raise itsugly head when someone whom the government deems to be very important tothe state, perhaps even irreplaceable, wishes to leave. That would be anathlete or artist or someone other who can make “major contributions tothe society.”
The origins of all this can be found in several different types ofsociety. For example, under many feudal systems the monarch was deemed tobe the owner of the realm and there were no citizens, only subjects, inthe country—people subject to the will of the monarch. A bit of this isstill around in the UK, for example. In Marxism the fact that the mostimportant source of productivity, human labor, is owned collectively, bythe society as a whole, also has the implication that people are owned bythe government.
In the last analysis it is this question, “To whom does a person belonganyway?” that was the ideological basis of the Cold War and still remainssomething of a stickler today in how those of us in the West deal withthose in the People ’s Republic of China. Neither side consistentlyupholds its basic position, of course. So it is going to be interesting tosee just where the adjustments will be more radical. Will China becomemore individualist or will the West turn more collectivist?
Sunday, May 06, 2007
America's Government School Woes
Tibor R. Machan
The removal of banners in a high school, which had the words "God" and "Creator" on them, placed there by a school math teacher, have led to a lawsuit against the Poway Unified School District in San Diego. Mostpeople take this to be a confrontation between religion and secularism butit isn't. What it is, however, is a confrontation between government andprivate secondary education.
It is easy to understand that when parents send their children to school,they prefer to have those children exposed to some measure of valueeducation. For some parents this involves having their religion observedand respected at the school. For some it involves some ethicalinstruction. Some want to have a scientific approach to human life taughtto their kids. Among those who want religious teaching in schools,different particular religions are preferred. And even among those whoprefer a secular approach to values different positions may be chosen asthe best way to achieve this end.
All of this is as one would expect it in a pluralistic, diverse freesociety. Alas, that cannot be, despite its reasonableness. Why? Becausewhen governments administer children's education, funded from taxation, avirtual one-size-fits all approach is required, one that is likely toupset many parents who consider that approach wrongheaded. If a government-administered and tax-funded high school has teachers who will stress Christian or Muslim or Jewish values, those who do not share these will very likely object. (Some, of course, have no worry because they consider themselves quite capable of teaching their preferred values at home and thereby counter whatever indoctrination the school may be perpetrating.But not all consider this a good option.)
In a relatively free society, especially one that has a national policy ofnot having government side with any particular form of value-education,religious or otherwise, citizen involvement in religion will be highlydiverse. One need only travel around America a bit to notice the many different types of churches that exist throughout the country's various communities. The last I checked there were 4200 plus different religions in the country, most of them with worshippers who embrace distinct beliefs guiding them and ready to teach their children what they believe. There are, also, quite a few different non-religious organizations that have value-teaching as part of what their membership is being offered from their leadership.
Or take another area of American life where government is largelyforbidden to enter the fray, namely, magazine and newspaper publishing.Here, too, enormous diversity is evident, even if some publicationsdominate while others have small circulations. The principle is the same:where separation between government and a vibrant social or cultural areaexists, the rule is pluralism and diversity as well as considerable peaceand harmony.
Although most Americans take it for granted that education must beprovided by the government, this is by no means proof that it must be so.When decoupling education from government is proposed to them they oftenfind it difficult to think of an alternative but that doesn't mean noalternative exists. Just as some other very important aspects of ourlives, such as religion and journalism, are separated from government,education could be as well. Those who claim that the poor would go withoutschooling fail to consider that schooling can be provided from a greatvariety of sources. Among these could be--and sometimes alreadyare--churches, business firms, research centers, museums, and so forth, a lot of which would emerge only once the government leaves the field.
Of course, radical ideas take time to catch on, even when they makeperfectly good sense. Just consider how tough it is to sell much of theworld on the idea of a constitutional democracy, free trade, and theequality for women. The governmental habit, as I noted many times before,is terribly deeply ingrained in the minds of millions, even in Americawhere the idea of limited government was first embraced officially (thoughnot fully).
Until the idea of the separation of education and government is finallyembraced around the country, there will continue to be such controversiesas we now witness in San Diego where some people want a certain religionin the schools while others do not. So long as schools are part ofgovernment, they will continue to face such basically irresolvableproblems.
Tibor R. Machan
The removal of banners in a high school, which had the words "God" and "Creator" on them, placed there by a school math teacher, have led to a lawsuit against the Poway Unified School District in San Diego. Mostpeople take this to be a confrontation between religion and secularism butit isn't. What it is, however, is a confrontation between government andprivate secondary education.
It is easy to understand that when parents send their children to school,they prefer to have those children exposed to some measure of valueeducation. For some parents this involves having their religion observedand respected at the school. For some it involves some ethicalinstruction. Some want to have a scientific approach to human life taughtto their kids. Among those who want religious teaching in schools,different particular religions are preferred. And even among those whoprefer a secular approach to values different positions may be chosen asthe best way to achieve this end.
All of this is as one would expect it in a pluralistic, diverse freesociety. Alas, that cannot be, despite its reasonableness. Why? Becausewhen governments administer children's education, funded from taxation, avirtual one-size-fits all approach is required, one that is likely toupset many parents who consider that approach wrongheaded. If a government-administered and tax-funded high school has teachers who will stress Christian or Muslim or Jewish values, those who do not share these will very likely object. (Some, of course, have no worry because they consider themselves quite capable of teaching their preferred values at home and thereby counter whatever indoctrination the school may be perpetrating.But not all consider this a good option.)
In a relatively free society, especially one that has a national policy ofnot having government side with any particular form of value-education,religious or otherwise, citizen involvement in religion will be highlydiverse. One need only travel around America a bit to notice the many different types of churches that exist throughout the country's various communities. The last I checked there were 4200 plus different religions in the country, most of them with worshippers who embrace distinct beliefs guiding them and ready to teach their children what they believe. There are, also, quite a few different non-religious organizations that have value-teaching as part of what their membership is being offered from their leadership.
Or take another area of American life where government is largelyforbidden to enter the fray, namely, magazine and newspaper publishing.Here, too, enormous diversity is evident, even if some publicationsdominate while others have small circulations. The principle is the same:where separation between government and a vibrant social or cultural areaexists, the rule is pluralism and diversity as well as considerable peaceand harmony.
Although most Americans take it for granted that education must beprovided by the government, this is by no means proof that it must be so.When decoupling education from government is proposed to them they oftenfind it difficult to think of an alternative but that doesn't mean noalternative exists. Just as some other very important aspects of ourlives, such as religion and journalism, are separated from government,education could be as well. Those who claim that the poor would go withoutschooling fail to consider that schooling can be provided from a greatvariety of sources. Among these could be--and sometimes alreadyare--churches, business firms, research centers, museums, and so forth, a lot of which would emerge only once the government leaves the field.
Of course, radical ideas take time to catch on, even when they makeperfectly good sense. Just consider how tough it is to sell much of theworld on the idea of a constitutional democracy, free trade, and theequality for women. The governmental habit, as I noted many times before,is terribly deeply ingrained in the minds of millions, even in Americawhere the idea of limited government was first embraced officially (thoughnot fully).
Until the idea of the separation of education and government is finallyembraced around the country, there will continue to be such controversiesas we now witness in San Diego where some people want a certain religionin the schools while others do not. So long as schools are part ofgovernment, they will continue to face such basically irresolvableproblems.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Freedom of Association Is No More
Tibor R. Machan
An implication of having a fundamental right to liberty is that one may choose whether to associate with other people. So one may join a club, for examples, if all involved agree but either party may also refuse to do so. As with all rights, this right of freedom of association is capable of being badly exercised. Freedom of speech may be exercised by saying stupid, insulting, or vile things. No one is authorized, however, to ban it, no matter how wrongheaded one’s choice of words. And if this right of freedom of speech is properly protected in a country’s legal system, there will not be any censorship of what people say no matter how objectionable it is to say it. Thus, when Don Imus uttered his racist slur about the Rutgers University women’s basketball players, no government could censor him. Had he been self-employed, no one could have fired him, either. But those who had employed him also had the right to freedom of association and chose to exercise it by disassociating themselves from Mr. Imus.
In a recent episode of the TV program Boston Legal a young woman hired one of the attorneys of the fictional firm on the program because she was rejected by a sorority for reasons that she deemed irrational, wrong. The leadership of the sorority, those who make decisions about who gets to be a member, regarded her undesirable because of how she comported herself—how she looked, dressed, spoke, etc. She was upset and said to one of the attorneys that what was done to her was wrong. And the attorney agreed and the decision was made to sue the sorority.
Of course this fictional case has been paralleled all over the country for decades. Yet there is no justification for applying any legal sanctions against those who, like the fictional sorority, decide not to associate with someone who wishes to associate with them. No one has the right to make another person his or her play or business partner. Having any such right would, basically, amount to legally sanctioning involuntary human associations, conscripting others against their will. Yet, just that kind of authority is implicit in the fictional law suit launched against the fictional sorority on Boston Legal. And, of course, the same is true of forcing people to become trading partners to those with whom they choose not to trade. To employ those whom they choose not to employ. Even if the decision is irrational, wrong. Because no one has the authority to make another one’s associate in anything.
There can be some difficulties when someone goes on record stating that certain qualifications will serve to get one hired and someone who meets them turns up and is nonetheless rejected. This could be legally actionable in certain circumstances, based on the fact that a promise has been made to adhere to given criteria of association. However, when no such promise has been made—when the right not to associate with people is ones’ choice and hasn’t been forfeited by one’s explicit or implicit promise to deal with others on certain terms—no sanction against exercising that right may be imposed on anyone.
Clearly, some reasons for exercising one’s right of free association may well be insidious, immoral—say if one refuses to shop in a store because the clerks there are Jewish or black or something else that has no bearing at all on the possible trade that could otherwise ensue. Racists, sexists, and other prejudicial reason, which have no bearing on what one wants out of an association, are, yes, most often wrong. Yet so could be one’s reason for refusing to date someone or to become one’s dance partner. There is no right to have another as one’s date, etc. And it clearly takes the choices of two people to commence to do the tango together. The same ought to hold for any other kind of human association unless some prior commitment has been made to adhere to specific criteria that have indeed been met.
But this is true about the right of freedom of speech. If one has committed oneself to writing a novel for a publishing house, one may not withdraw unless both parties agree and if one does, anyway, normally some sanctions would apply such as paying damages. (Usually specific performance may not be required of anyone, although this is itself a somewhat dubious tradition. It seems to rest on the idea that none may be forced to do work he or she chooses not to perform, but if rational expectations have been thwarted—expectations based on a promise or contract—some kind of remedy may well be forthcoming.)
In most societies the right to freedom of association is not fully respected and protected, mainly based on the widespread disapproval of some of the reasons why people refuse to enter into associations. But this sets a very bad precedent and can result in the gradual erosion of one’s liberties.
Tibor R. Machan
An implication of having a fundamental right to liberty is that one may choose whether to associate with other people. So one may join a club, for examples, if all involved agree but either party may also refuse to do so. As with all rights, this right of freedom of association is capable of being badly exercised. Freedom of speech may be exercised by saying stupid, insulting, or vile things. No one is authorized, however, to ban it, no matter how wrongheaded one’s choice of words. And if this right of freedom of speech is properly protected in a country’s legal system, there will not be any censorship of what people say no matter how objectionable it is to say it. Thus, when Don Imus uttered his racist slur about the Rutgers University women’s basketball players, no government could censor him. Had he been self-employed, no one could have fired him, either. But those who had employed him also had the right to freedom of association and chose to exercise it by disassociating themselves from Mr. Imus.
In a recent episode of the TV program Boston Legal a young woman hired one of the attorneys of the fictional firm on the program because she was rejected by a sorority for reasons that she deemed irrational, wrong. The leadership of the sorority, those who make decisions about who gets to be a member, regarded her undesirable because of how she comported herself—how she looked, dressed, spoke, etc. She was upset and said to one of the attorneys that what was done to her was wrong. And the attorney agreed and the decision was made to sue the sorority.
Of course this fictional case has been paralleled all over the country for decades. Yet there is no justification for applying any legal sanctions against those who, like the fictional sorority, decide not to associate with someone who wishes to associate with them. No one has the right to make another person his or her play or business partner. Having any such right would, basically, amount to legally sanctioning involuntary human associations, conscripting others against their will. Yet, just that kind of authority is implicit in the fictional law suit launched against the fictional sorority on Boston Legal. And, of course, the same is true of forcing people to become trading partners to those with whom they choose not to trade. To employ those whom they choose not to employ. Even if the decision is irrational, wrong. Because no one has the authority to make another one’s associate in anything.
There can be some difficulties when someone goes on record stating that certain qualifications will serve to get one hired and someone who meets them turns up and is nonetheless rejected. This could be legally actionable in certain circumstances, based on the fact that a promise has been made to adhere to given criteria of association. However, when no such promise has been made—when the right not to associate with people is ones’ choice and hasn’t been forfeited by one’s explicit or implicit promise to deal with others on certain terms—no sanction against exercising that right may be imposed on anyone.
Clearly, some reasons for exercising one’s right of free association may well be insidious, immoral—say if one refuses to shop in a store because the clerks there are Jewish or black or something else that has no bearing at all on the possible trade that could otherwise ensue. Racists, sexists, and other prejudicial reason, which have no bearing on what one wants out of an association, are, yes, most often wrong. Yet so could be one’s reason for refusing to date someone or to become one’s dance partner. There is no right to have another as one’s date, etc. And it clearly takes the choices of two people to commence to do the tango together. The same ought to hold for any other kind of human association unless some prior commitment has been made to adhere to specific criteria that have indeed been met.
But this is true about the right of freedom of speech. If one has committed oneself to writing a novel for a publishing house, one may not withdraw unless both parties agree and if one does, anyway, normally some sanctions would apply such as paying damages. (Usually specific performance may not be required of anyone, although this is itself a somewhat dubious tradition. It seems to rest on the idea that none may be forced to do work he or she chooses not to perform, but if rational expectations have been thwarted—expectations based on a promise or contract—some kind of remedy may well be forthcoming.)
In most societies the right to freedom of association is not fully respected and protected, mainly based on the widespread disapproval of some of the reasons why people refuse to enter into associations. But this sets a very bad precedent and can result in the gradual erosion of one’s liberties.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Boxer’s Confusion about Ownership
Tibor R. Machan
California Senator Barbara Boxer sent around a letter to the editor that was published in The OC Register on April 30th, hoping to clarify “my[!] California Wild Heritage Act.” She states in this letter that “the approximately 2.3 million acres included in the bill are all publicly owned lands. Not one acre of private land is included in the proposal. These lands are now and will continue to be owned and enjoyed by the American people.”
To appreciate the absurdity of Boxer’s idea that the lands “are now and will continue to be owned and enjoyed by the American people,” I wish to recall a story told of the famous early 20th century Austrian philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein. In his memoir of Wittgenstein, the late Professor Norman Malcolm tells the following illustrative story about ownership:
“When in very good spirits [Wittgenstein] would jest in a delightful manner. This took the form of deliberately absurd or extravagant remarks uttered in a tone, and with the mien, of affected seriousness. On one walk he 'gave' me each tree that we passed, with the reservation that I was not to cut it down or do anything to it, or prevent the previous owners from doing anything to it: with those reservations they were henceforth mine.”
The moral of Wittgenstein’s gesture is plain: Ownership without the authority to decide to what use what is being owned will be put is meaningless, absurd. In other words, the American people do not now and will not continue to own and enjoy the lands Senator Boxer’s bill legally transfers to the federal government. No, it will be the administrators of those lands who will own it. They will have the authority to decided what happens to it.
Senator Boxer, of course, is fully aware of this, as is made clear in the caveat she adds, namely, that the “wilderness is not about locking out the public. The uses allowed include hunting, fishing, hiking, cross-country skiing, among other activities.”
Consider, however, that if one owns something one isn’t “allowed” to do one or another thing with it, one has “the right” to do so. If the American people need to be allowed to make certain kinds of use of the lands Senator Boxer’s bill makes public property, they aren’t the owners of such property. So Senator Boxer knows that the American people will not own those lands, since the American people will only be allowed, by the real owners, namely, the government, to carry out certain activities on those lands.
The idea of collective ownership, by the way, is totally anti-American. It belongs within the political-economic framework of socialism in which, as Karl Marx and Frederick Engels made clear in their book, The Communist Manifesto, the right to private property must be abolished. In its place the incoherent idea of public or collective ownership is introduced, and idea that ultimately means that some very few people in society actually own what is called “public property.” Of course, these few people will allow others to make some use of their lands because, well, they need to in order to remain in power. But what they allow, and whom, is for them to decide.
The American idea, laid out in the political theory of John Locke, is the right to private property. It is this right that makes possible, if property defended in the legal system, the freedom of diverse uses of lands and other property, uses that will serve the purposes of a highly diverse population. In fact, if this is rejected in favor of Senator Boxer’s preferred system of public—which is to say government—ownership, a very serious problem of the tragedy of the commons will afflict society. This happens when everyone believes that the so called public property may well indeed belong to him or her and then jockeys to make as much private use of it as possible. In a representative democracy this means that all sorts of special interest groups will send lobbyists and pay off politicians so that they turn out to be “allowed” the use of the lands instead of others.
The idea that some kind of fair general, universal use can be made of public lands is a myth, one identified by, among others, Thucydides. As he observed, when people own things in common, “each fancies that no harm will come to his neglect, that it is the business of somebody else to look after this or that for him; and so, by the same notion being entertained by all separately, the common cause imperceptibly decays.” (Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, bk. I, sec. 141).
Tibor R. Machan
California Senator Barbara Boxer sent around a letter to the editor that was published in The OC Register on April 30th, hoping to clarify “my[!] California Wild Heritage Act.” She states in this letter that “the approximately 2.3 million acres included in the bill are all publicly owned lands. Not one acre of private land is included in the proposal. These lands are now and will continue to be owned and enjoyed by the American people.”
To appreciate the absurdity of Boxer’s idea that the lands “are now and will continue to be owned and enjoyed by the American people,” I wish to recall a story told of the famous early 20th century Austrian philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein. In his memoir of Wittgenstein, the late Professor Norman Malcolm tells the following illustrative story about ownership:
“When in very good spirits [Wittgenstein] would jest in a delightful manner. This took the form of deliberately absurd or extravagant remarks uttered in a tone, and with the mien, of affected seriousness. On one walk he 'gave' me each tree that we passed, with the reservation that I was not to cut it down or do anything to it, or prevent the previous owners from doing anything to it: with those reservations they were henceforth mine.”
The moral of Wittgenstein’s gesture is plain: Ownership without the authority to decide to what use what is being owned will be put is meaningless, absurd. In other words, the American people do not now and will not continue to own and enjoy the lands Senator Boxer’s bill legally transfers to the federal government. No, it will be the administrators of those lands who will own it. They will have the authority to decided what happens to it.
Senator Boxer, of course, is fully aware of this, as is made clear in the caveat she adds, namely, that the “wilderness is not about locking out the public. The uses allowed include hunting, fishing, hiking, cross-country skiing, among other activities.”
Consider, however, that if one owns something one isn’t “allowed” to do one or another thing with it, one has “the right” to do so. If the American people need to be allowed to make certain kinds of use of the lands Senator Boxer’s bill makes public property, they aren’t the owners of such property. So Senator Boxer knows that the American people will not own those lands, since the American people will only be allowed, by the real owners, namely, the government, to carry out certain activities on those lands.
The idea of collective ownership, by the way, is totally anti-American. It belongs within the political-economic framework of socialism in which, as Karl Marx and Frederick Engels made clear in their book, The Communist Manifesto, the right to private property must be abolished. In its place the incoherent idea of public or collective ownership is introduced, and idea that ultimately means that some very few people in society actually own what is called “public property.” Of course, these few people will allow others to make some use of their lands because, well, they need to in order to remain in power. But what they allow, and whom, is for them to decide.
The American idea, laid out in the political theory of John Locke, is the right to private property. It is this right that makes possible, if property defended in the legal system, the freedom of diverse uses of lands and other property, uses that will serve the purposes of a highly diverse population. In fact, if this is rejected in favor of Senator Boxer’s preferred system of public—which is to say government—ownership, a very serious problem of the tragedy of the commons will afflict society. This happens when everyone believes that the so called public property may well indeed belong to him or her and then jockeys to make as much private use of it as possible. In a representative democracy this means that all sorts of special interest groups will send lobbyists and pay off politicians so that they turn out to be “allowed” the use of the lands instead of others.
The idea that some kind of fair general, universal use can be made of public lands is a myth, one identified by, among others, Thucydides. As he observed, when people own things in common, “each fancies that no harm will come to his neglect, that it is the business of somebody else to look after this or that for him; and so, by the same notion being entertained by all separately, the common cause imperceptibly decays.” (Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, bk. I, sec. 141).
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Egalitarian Pretentiousness
Tibor R. Machan
Though I have told of it before, my brief encounter with the late John Kenneth Galbraith has a repeatable moral. At a small bash in Stanford University’s faculty club I met the inordinately tall Harvard economist/social philosopher and said to him, "Given your passion for equality, would you be willing to swap your Harvard professorship for, say, a year or two at a junior college?" Instead of humoring me with an answer, Galbraith just sneered and turned away in a huff.
Over the years that I have been witnessing well-positioned academics, pundits, and celebrities champion egalitarianism—the economic version of which, by the way, even Karl Marx recognized was a non-starter and must lead to the "socialization of poverty"—I have recalled this episode with Galbraith on numerous occasion. For example, every time I read my copy of The New York Review of Books, which champions egalitarianism in political economy whenever someone broaches the subject—say, by the likes of Kevin Phillips or Thomas Frank—I think of just how snooty a publication that is and how it does not permit into its pages but the most "distinguished" crop of academic and literati figures. (None of my friends, nor I, who have attempted to debate ideas and issues with writers for that magazine, have ever been permitted entry there!)
And there is, of course, Princeton University economist and columnist for The New York Times, Professor Paul Krugman. He has tirelessly wagged his index finger at capitalism, even in its thoroughly watered down and compromised version in today’s America and elsewhere, for failing to promote economic equality. He has demeaned the system’s productivity to no end, besmirched it mercilessly, because supposedly it only raises the overall wealth of the nation without leveling it so everyone is an equal participant in its abundance.
Krugman has bought, hook, line and sinker, into the zero sum conception of economic growth, suggesting repeatedly that when the rich get richer, it must be at the expense of the not so rich. As he put it some time ago, "Although America has higher per capita income than other advanced countries, it turns out that that's mainly because our rich are much richer. And here's a radical thought: if the rich get more, that leaves less for everyone else." That this is balderdash—and an embarrassment, coming from a Princeton University professor of economics—should be evident to anyone who just considers that over the centuries wealth has increased phenomenally without leaving the bulk of humanity behind but, instead, raising the standard of living for nearly all the increasing billions (except the most unfortunate who are left out because of certain natural disasters or medical epidemic, not because others are improving their lives).
OK, let’s leave aside the economic and historical incompetence of the likes of Krugman and focus a moment on their morality, like I tried to get Galbraith do at the little bash at the Stanford faculty club. Why do Krugman & Company, who are enjoying such wealth of prominence in the pages of prestigious publications and at academic institutions—getting their books published far more than many others (who often are far more competent than they) and appearing at conferences everywhere peddling their ideas—never offer to equalize that which they enjoy in such abundance, namely, their professional status? How come Krugman doesn’t offer to bring to Princeton some of the community , junior, and other less than most prestigious college and university economic professors and take their place, at least for a few months or years?
We might as well include among these hypocrites those Hollywood stars and starlets who insist on promoting one or another form of egalitarian public policy, some of whom still think the Soviet economic model was swell except for having been deployed a bit too roughly. Why doesn’t Barbara and Susanne and Tim and Bobby and all the rest swap their various starring roles with singers, actors, actresses, and the rest who are yearning, hoping to rise a few steps above their near-obscure status in the industry?
Of course, there is no sense in anyone desiring that this kind of leveling come about, anytime. And, in fact, in the approximately free, capitalist countries of which American is still the leader—although with likes of George W. Bush at the helm probably not for long—there is a far greater measure of relative economic and professional equality than in any of the top-down managed systems in human history or around the globe. (For if nothing else, in a near-free country like this one, the opportunity to swap positions or to join in with those in higher places is far greater than in any monarchy or socialist paradise like Saudi Arabia or Cuba or North Korea!)
Now and then someone ought to sneak up near a bloke like Professor Krugman and remind him of all this. Such people deserve to be reminded of just how morally two-faced they are, just so some of their hubris might be scaled back a bit now and then.
Tibor R. Machan
Though I have told of it before, my brief encounter with the late John Kenneth Galbraith has a repeatable moral. At a small bash in Stanford University’s faculty club I met the inordinately tall Harvard economist/social philosopher and said to him, "Given your passion for equality, would you be willing to swap your Harvard professorship for, say, a year or two at a junior college?" Instead of humoring me with an answer, Galbraith just sneered and turned away in a huff.
Over the years that I have been witnessing well-positioned academics, pundits, and celebrities champion egalitarianism—the economic version of which, by the way, even Karl Marx recognized was a non-starter and must lead to the "socialization of poverty"—I have recalled this episode with Galbraith on numerous occasion. For example, every time I read my copy of The New York Review of Books, which champions egalitarianism in political economy whenever someone broaches the subject—say, by the likes of Kevin Phillips or Thomas Frank—I think of just how snooty a publication that is and how it does not permit into its pages but the most "distinguished" crop of academic and literati figures. (None of my friends, nor I, who have attempted to debate ideas and issues with writers for that magazine, have ever been permitted entry there!)
And there is, of course, Princeton University economist and columnist for The New York Times, Professor Paul Krugman. He has tirelessly wagged his index finger at capitalism, even in its thoroughly watered down and compromised version in today’s America and elsewhere, for failing to promote economic equality. He has demeaned the system’s productivity to no end, besmirched it mercilessly, because supposedly it only raises the overall wealth of the nation without leveling it so everyone is an equal participant in its abundance.
Krugman has bought, hook, line and sinker, into the zero sum conception of economic growth, suggesting repeatedly that when the rich get richer, it must be at the expense of the not so rich. As he put it some time ago, "Although America has higher per capita income than other advanced countries, it turns out that that's mainly because our rich are much richer. And here's a radical thought: if the rich get more, that leaves less for everyone else." That this is balderdash—and an embarrassment, coming from a Princeton University professor of economics—should be evident to anyone who just considers that over the centuries wealth has increased phenomenally without leaving the bulk of humanity behind but, instead, raising the standard of living for nearly all the increasing billions (except the most unfortunate who are left out because of certain natural disasters or medical epidemic, not because others are improving their lives).
OK, let’s leave aside the economic and historical incompetence of the likes of Krugman and focus a moment on their morality, like I tried to get Galbraith do at the little bash at the Stanford faculty club. Why do Krugman & Company, who are enjoying such wealth of prominence in the pages of prestigious publications and at academic institutions—getting their books published far more than many others (who often are far more competent than they) and appearing at conferences everywhere peddling their ideas—never offer to equalize that which they enjoy in such abundance, namely, their professional status? How come Krugman doesn’t offer to bring to Princeton some of the community , junior, and other less than most prestigious college and university economic professors and take their place, at least for a few months or years?
We might as well include among these hypocrites those Hollywood stars and starlets who insist on promoting one or another form of egalitarian public policy, some of whom still think the Soviet economic model was swell except for having been deployed a bit too roughly. Why doesn’t Barbara and Susanne and Tim and Bobby and all the rest swap their various starring roles with singers, actors, actresses, and the rest who are yearning, hoping to rise a few steps above their near-obscure status in the industry?
Of course, there is no sense in anyone desiring that this kind of leveling come about, anytime. And, in fact, in the approximately free, capitalist countries of which American is still the leader—although with likes of George W. Bush at the helm probably not for long—there is a far greater measure of relative economic and professional equality than in any of the top-down managed systems in human history or around the globe. (For if nothing else, in a near-free country like this one, the opportunity to swap positions or to join in with those in higher places is far greater than in any monarchy or socialist paradise like Saudi Arabia or Cuba or North Korea!)
Now and then someone ought to sneak up near a bloke like Professor Krugman and remind him of all this. Such people deserve to be reminded of just how morally two-faced they are, just so some of their hubris might be scaled back a bit now and then.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Some Benefits of School Privatization
Tibor R. Machan
No one in the mainstream media has, to my knowledge, noted that Virginia Tech University is a state institution. But this is crucial for understanding how VT has dealt with someone who was to all appearances a danger to himself and to others on campus.
In a fully free society, where education is in the private sector, the standards for how various problems are dealt with on campus would be highly diverse. One school could have very stringent conditions for entering its premises, another not so stringent, while a third might be quite permissive. It would be a matter of the administration's decision, based on its concerns, local circumstances, history, wisdom, etc.
As it stands, with the government fully involved in all levels of—including most of higher—education, the principles of public administration, including due process, govern how problems must be dealt with. In particular, no one may be treated in ways that could be construed as discriminatory or intrusive because within the public realm all citizens must be dealt with fairly and deemed innocent unless otherwise legally proven. So to subject anyone to special treatment, based on mere suspicion or even prior behavior, would be legally actionable.
The ACLU and similar organizations would stand up for such persons, as would trial lawyers who sue establishments based on laws, for example, which protect people with disabilities (including mental ones). This is because in the context of how governments are supposed to deal with people, there are innumerable so called civil rights that block efforts to have certain standards applied that are not sanctioned by the courts or thought to be unconstitutional.
In contrast, if you wish to come into my home for dinner and I insist that before you eat you must say grace, no one can bar me from this. You either do so or I may prevent you from joining my family for dinner. But should some government funded and administered establishment insist on such a thing, they would be forbidden to do so. It would be deemed a violation of, say, the right to freedom of religion. Similarly, should a private club, in a fully free society, insist that its members undergo a test for mental instability before they join, nothing could be objected about this. No one is entitled to unconditional membership in the club and those who own and run it may impose their chosen standard for admission, be these either sensible or irrational.
Yet, in our society even private establishment have no legal right to set their own terms—the government has usurped their right to do so. It would be deemed some kind of unjust discrimination and forbidden to set such terms, just as it is forbidden in business relations or university admissions. The only place personal discrimination is not yet banned is in ads published for romantic purposes!
But if a private university, which is the only kind there should be in a free society, wanted to imposed stringent requirements having to do with mental instability, predisposition for violence, history of fascination with guns or whatever the owners and administrators would deem to signal trouble, there would be no legal grounds opposing this. No ACLU could holler "foul" if someone suspicious were more severely scrutinized than others. No due process provisions could be required of the school.
There would, of course, be variations of stringency about these kinds of issues, as well as many others, if the largely one-size-fits-all approach now in place were lifted, as it would be in a fully privatized educational system. And no doubt, some of the terms of admission at some of the schools would be undesirable by reasonable standards. But that's the price of liberty—even in our day some private, especially religions, schools impose requirements that only certain applicants can meet, such as membership in a given church.
Let me be very clear. In our system very, very few institutions are free from government regulations. Even private schools, colleges, and universities are held to all kinds of terms imposed by the government—e.g., when students who attend receive veteran benefits (which, irrationally, are deemed to be subsidies rather than payment for services rendered). What I am suggesting is that a radical change in how education is dealt with today—namely, from treating it as an entitlement governments must provide to recognizing that it must be provided voluntarily, in the free market place—would have as one of its benefits that cases such as the one that gave rise to the Virginia Tech massacre could be prevented more easily than they can be now.
Tibor R. Machan
No one in the mainstream media has, to my knowledge, noted that Virginia Tech University is a state institution. But this is crucial for understanding how VT has dealt with someone who was to all appearances a danger to himself and to others on campus.
In a fully free society, where education is in the private sector, the standards for how various problems are dealt with on campus would be highly diverse. One school could have very stringent conditions for entering its premises, another not so stringent, while a third might be quite permissive. It would be a matter of the administration's decision, based on its concerns, local circumstances, history, wisdom, etc.
As it stands, with the government fully involved in all levels of—including most of higher—education, the principles of public administration, including due process, govern how problems must be dealt with. In particular, no one may be treated in ways that could be construed as discriminatory or intrusive because within the public realm all citizens must be dealt with fairly and deemed innocent unless otherwise legally proven. So to subject anyone to special treatment, based on mere suspicion or even prior behavior, would be legally actionable.
The ACLU and similar organizations would stand up for such persons, as would trial lawyers who sue establishments based on laws, for example, which protect people with disabilities (including mental ones). This is because in the context of how governments are supposed to deal with people, there are innumerable so called civil rights that block efforts to have certain standards applied that are not sanctioned by the courts or thought to be unconstitutional.
In contrast, if you wish to come into my home for dinner and I insist that before you eat you must say grace, no one can bar me from this. You either do so or I may prevent you from joining my family for dinner. But should some government funded and administered establishment insist on such a thing, they would be forbidden to do so. It would be deemed a violation of, say, the right to freedom of religion. Similarly, should a private club, in a fully free society, insist that its members undergo a test for mental instability before they join, nothing could be objected about this. No one is entitled to unconditional membership in the club and those who own and run it may impose their chosen standard for admission, be these either sensible or irrational.
Yet, in our society even private establishment have no legal right to set their own terms—the government has usurped their right to do so. It would be deemed some kind of unjust discrimination and forbidden to set such terms, just as it is forbidden in business relations or university admissions. The only place personal discrimination is not yet banned is in ads published for romantic purposes!
But if a private university, which is the only kind there should be in a free society, wanted to imposed stringent requirements having to do with mental instability, predisposition for violence, history of fascination with guns or whatever the owners and administrators would deem to signal trouble, there would be no legal grounds opposing this. No ACLU could holler "foul" if someone suspicious were more severely scrutinized than others. No due process provisions could be required of the school.
There would, of course, be variations of stringency about these kinds of issues, as well as many others, if the largely one-size-fits-all approach now in place were lifted, as it would be in a fully privatized educational system. And no doubt, some of the terms of admission at some of the schools would be undesirable by reasonable standards. But that's the price of liberty—even in our day some private, especially religions, schools impose requirements that only certain applicants can meet, such as membership in a given church.
Let me be very clear. In our system very, very few institutions are free from government regulations. Even private schools, colleges, and universities are held to all kinds of terms imposed by the government—e.g., when students who attend receive veteran benefits (which, irrationally, are deemed to be subsidies rather than payment for services rendered). What I am suggesting is that a radical change in how education is dealt with today—namely, from treating it as an entitlement governments must provide to recognizing that it must be provided voluntarily, in the free market place—would have as one of its benefits that cases such as the one that gave rise to the Virginia Tech massacre could be prevented more easily than they can be now.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
The Entitlement Trap
Tibor R. Machan
When back in the late 1960s and early 70s there was talk around the country about regarding welfare, health care, old age security, and similar government administered benefits as basic rights each of us have, some objected to this on the grounds that such a policy would obligate the beneficiaries to the government which, then, could insist on all kinds of conditions that needed to be met so as to receive the benefits. “Oh, no,” came the answer from the proponents, “these are basic rights and basic rights do not need to be earned and paid for with any conditions.” (Take a look at Henry Shue, Basic Rights [Princeton, 1980].)
Indeed, if you consider the basic rights identified in the Declaration of Independence, there are no conditions one needs to fulfill for having them other than to be a human being. Common sense, too, testifies to this: If one’s right to life is respected by another, there is no payment, nor even thanks due for this. Yes, one needs to pay for the protection of one’s rights, but not for their respect. If you don’t kill me, realizing that I have the right to my life, you don’t deserve gratitude. It is one’s natural due, not a grant or gift from others. That’s true about basic and even all derivative rights—if someone returns a debt, which by right is due you, you don’t need to be grateful, not the way you would be for a generous gift or favor.
But because entitlements involve more than abstaining from intruding on others—namely, making provisions for them—there has of course always been the urge to set terms for receiving them. “You are entitled to receive unemployment compensation, provided you do this, that and another thing—like look for a job and report on your search to the bureaucracy.” There is a term used now, namely, “means test,” to describe the conditions one must meet to qualify for entitlements. No means tests are required to qualify for the possession of one’s basic individual human rights and whatever is implied by them. If you have the right to laugh or sing or clap your hands, no one may impose some qualification for possessing such rights. But consider that when you have the right to education, health care, or old age security payments, you must jump through a bunch of hoops before these may be obtained from the authorities.
Which again pretty much shows, even without elaborate philosophical argumentation, that there is a great difference between one’s negative individual rights and so called positive rights. The former come one’s way by virtue of one’s humanity alone, while the latter are political grants for which one soon gets to pay dearly. Which is to say, they aren’t really basic rights at all but privileges and grants doled out by those in power. And therein lie their fraudulent nature—unlike basic and derivative negative rights, these entitlements must be paid for and earned by doing what those in power demand.
That, too, makes pretty clear that such entitlements do not belong in a free society but have their home in autocracies, dictatorships, monarchies, welfare states, and similar authoritarian regimes. It is only in such political societies that the kind of power needed for handing out entitlements can exist because only in such societies can people’s labor and other resources be conscripted and expropriated so as to fulfill the entitlements. And in olden days this was often done by invading and conquering foreign countries and looting their labor and resources for the benefit of the invading country’s monarch and subjects. But these days the resources for the entitlements are obtained by means of extorting the people via taxes and other forms of “taking.” In effect, of course, the proud status of citizenship, whereby one is deemed a sovereign, is sacrificed for the sake of turning into a de facto subject of the government, a dependent.
Which then brings up the point that the widespread contemporary public policy of wealth or resource redistribution is really not what its champions so often insist it is, namely, progressive. It is out and out reactionary, driving us all back to the era of feudalism. These socialists and communitarians are by no means taking us forward toward a great new age of humanitarianism. No, they are returning us to the times when some few men and women purportedly ruled us for the sake of certain ideals but in fact ruled so as to impose upon the rest of us their agenda, to deprive us of our basic rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
Tibor R. Machan
When back in the late 1960s and early 70s there was talk around the country about regarding welfare, health care, old age security, and similar government administered benefits as basic rights each of us have, some objected to this on the grounds that such a policy would obligate the beneficiaries to the government which, then, could insist on all kinds of conditions that needed to be met so as to receive the benefits. “Oh, no,” came the answer from the proponents, “these are basic rights and basic rights do not need to be earned and paid for with any conditions.” (Take a look at Henry Shue, Basic Rights [Princeton, 1980].)
Indeed, if you consider the basic rights identified in the Declaration of Independence, there are no conditions one needs to fulfill for having them other than to be a human being. Common sense, too, testifies to this: If one’s right to life is respected by another, there is no payment, nor even thanks due for this. Yes, one needs to pay for the protection of one’s rights, but not for their respect. If you don’t kill me, realizing that I have the right to my life, you don’t deserve gratitude. It is one’s natural due, not a grant or gift from others. That’s true about basic and even all derivative rights—if someone returns a debt, which by right is due you, you don’t need to be grateful, not the way you would be for a generous gift or favor.
But because entitlements involve more than abstaining from intruding on others—namely, making provisions for them—there has of course always been the urge to set terms for receiving them. “You are entitled to receive unemployment compensation, provided you do this, that and another thing—like look for a job and report on your search to the bureaucracy.” There is a term used now, namely, “means test,” to describe the conditions one must meet to qualify for entitlements. No means tests are required to qualify for the possession of one’s basic individual human rights and whatever is implied by them. If you have the right to laugh or sing or clap your hands, no one may impose some qualification for possessing such rights. But consider that when you have the right to education, health care, or old age security payments, you must jump through a bunch of hoops before these may be obtained from the authorities.
Which again pretty much shows, even without elaborate philosophical argumentation, that there is a great difference between one’s negative individual rights and so called positive rights. The former come one’s way by virtue of one’s humanity alone, while the latter are political grants for which one soon gets to pay dearly. Which is to say, they aren’t really basic rights at all but privileges and grants doled out by those in power. And therein lie their fraudulent nature—unlike basic and derivative negative rights, these entitlements must be paid for and earned by doing what those in power demand.
That, too, makes pretty clear that such entitlements do not belong in a free society but have their home in autocracies, dictatorships, monarchies, welfare states, and similar authoritarian regimes. It is only in such political societies that the kind of power needed for handing out entitlements can exist because only in such societies can people’s labor and other resources be conscripted and expropriated so as to fulfill the entitlements. And in olden days this was often done by invading and conquering foreign countries and looting their labor and resources for the benefit of the invading country’s monarch and subjects. But these days the resources for the entitlements are obtained by means of extorting the people via taxes and other forms of “taking.” In effect, of course, the proud status of citizenship, whereby one is deemed a sovereign, is sacrificed for the sake of turning into a de facto subject of the government, a dependent.
Which then brings up the point that the widespread contemporary public policy of wealth or resource redistribution is really not what its champions so often insist it is, namely, progressive. It is out and out reactionary, driving us all back to the era of feudalism. These socialists and communitarians are by no means taking us forward toward a great new age of humanitarianism. No, they are returning us to the times when some few men and women purportedly ruled us for the sake of certain ideals but in fact ruled so as to impose upon the rest of us their agenda, to deprive us of our basic rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
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