Jason and I had an exchange in the last open forum over the individual who flew a plane into an IRS office killing himself and an IRS employee.
Sinclair
This guy attacked the IRS. Waging war against the government over tax is the foundation activity of the US republic.
Jason
And tax is a necessary evil. No taxes, no civilisation, no military or cops or other things that everyone but nutty anarchists think should be provided by government.
Innocent people died in this act of domestic terrorism. You’re not seriously suggesting his actions are any less worthy of condemnation than that of the other nuts.
Sinclair
No I’m not suggesting that the deaths of innocent people is ever acceptable. I am suggesting that the US government is in an interesting place when it’s own tax collecting agency is targeted given the US government itself is a consequence the largest tax revolt in history.
Jason
nothing particularly interesting about it. The US isn’t an anarchy. whatever revolt it had in the past it still has to collect taxes
I actually agree with what Jason says, but I also think there is a more interesting story here. I’m going to start off by quoting that great libertarian document, the US Declaration on Independence.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
This raises an interesting problem. You don’t have to be an anarchist to recognise that situations can and do arise where violence is an appropriate solution to some problems. Violence is also an extremely expensive solution; investment in violence is also extremely risky. This is true at both the macro and the micro levels.
Economists and political scientist often think in terms of ‘voice’ and ‘exit’; violence can be a form of voice. Democratic societies create more scope for voice. Successful societies would create incentives for mutually beneficial trade and disince tives for violence. In those societies we might expect political elites to be more responsive to non-violent protest than in non-democratic societies. This point may well be somewhat trivial. Maximising the scope for voice to resolve differences is almost the definition of democracy. What of exit?
Many societies have less reliance on exit. For example, aggrieved citizens may freely emigrate but not secede. Few political entities recognise the right to secede. The Australian constitution has that right for Western Australia but not the other states. Contrary to popular libertarian opinion US states have no right to secede either. Whether they should have that right is another question. One of the problems with running that argument is that the types of people who have wanted to secede have undesireable traits. As Samuel Johnson asked
How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?
Good question.
From a Public Choice perspective we might believe that there is an undersupply of protest and rebellion against government. The personal cost of waging war against the State is borne almost entirely by the individual, while the benefits (assuming there are any) is spread out over the community. This type of argument assumes that rebellion leads to better government – but that assumption is very strong. Taking the argument at face value, political violence is undersupplied by the market (so to speak) and this then is a negative externality. Consistent with this view governments’ do subsidise political violence. Not at home, of course, but abroad. This just becomes a process of picking winners and often ends in tears. I think there can be little doubt that the US oversubsidised the Afghan rebels in the 1980s. That episode simply reinforces the libertarian prespective of not getting involved in other peoples civil wars.
So this has been a somewhat rambling post, but I think there is a discussion to be had about the limits of legitimate protest and political violence. I know Skepticlawyer ponders these issues from time to time and she might have a jurisprudential take on this. I haven’t read it yet, but Douglass North, John Wallis and Barry Weingast have a book that looks like it might touch on these issues.
All societies must deal with the possibility of violence, and they do so in different ways. This book integrates the problem of violence into a larger social science and historical framework, showing how economic and political behavior are closely linked. Most societies, which we call natural states, limit violence by political manipulation of the economy to create privileged interests. These privileges limit the use of violence by powerful individuals, but doing so hinders both economic and political development. In contrast, modern societies create open access to economic and political organizations, fostering political and economic competition. The book provides a framework for understanding the two types of social orders, why open access societies are both politically and economically more developed, and how some 25 countries have made the transition between the two types.
Mark Steyn has a column today that essays the West’s effete unwillingness and inability to protest, stare down or fight for anything. From the leftist police state of Britain, it’s centerpiece anecdote concerns the traditional St Albans Shrove Tuesday Pancake Race. Last week, “health and safety” authorities banned running in the race because of the light rain. St Albans City Council official Charles Baker made sure there was no running. Three teams were disqualified for not walking as ordered. (That’s him in the bright yellow safety vest).
C.L.
21 Feb 10 at 2:54 pm
The problem with ‘legitimate protest’ is that it is legitimate protest. It’s dissent within pre-established parameters that achieves almost nothing unless its conducted en masse, or unless its proponents act as petitioners to the powers-that-be, and get the latter to act on it.
An example that’s slightly hazy for me now was a few years ago when Condi Rice was greeted by a bunch of anti-war protestors. Her response was something along the lines of – ‘See, isn’t it great that you all have the right to express yourselves within a democracy’. In this case, ‘legitimate protest’ was not merely impotent, it was co-opted into the ruling ideology.
Another example – several years ago, some protesters (in the UK, I believe) destroyed some bombs before they could be sold. They did this as a means of preventing a crime. The State believed this was not legitimate – they were charged – but I believe the judge bought their excuse, and they were let off. In this case, violence against private property was ‘legitimised’ (though unfortunately, the example has not necessarily been followed).
This is not an advert for wanton violence. This IRS fellow was clearly an idiot, and god knows what he thought he’d achieve.
From a Public Choice perspective we might believe that there is an undersupply of protest and rebellion against government. The personal cost of waging war against the State is borne almost entirely by the individual, while the benefits (assuming there are any) is spread out over the community.
These Public Choice people have it completely wrong. First and foremost, they conceive of rebellion as a merely individual act. Only an idiot would attempt to take the great rebellions of history and try to boil them down to individuals doing a cost-benefits analysis.
Finally, different societies at different points offer different means to protest. No political movement would get very far in contemporary Australia if it based itself on violence. This isn’t the case elsewhere. The ‘bloodless coups’ and ‘colour’ revolutions of Czechoslovakia and elsewhere only occurred relatively peacefully as the ruling clique knew the jig was up, and they had nobody to back them. Contrast this with a hypothetic revolution attempt in, say, Egypt. It’s conceivable (though not likely) that a coalition of the Muslim Brotherhood and various leftists could attempt to overthrow the Mubarak regime by way of peaceful protest. However, Mubarak and his cronies would hardly accept this passively, so the protesters could reasonably expect to face a wave of US-sponsored atrocities against them. In this instance, ‘legitimate’ protest is slightly delusional, and violence would not only b necessary to see a rebellion through, it would be entirely justified, and an act of self-defence.
THR
21 Feb 10 at 3:07 pm
Real ‘dissent’, by definition, has to be illegitimate. That is one rational point “The Last Superpower” crowd makes about its support for the US/COTW invasion of Iraq. To all those who say, ‘oh, but it was against international law’, they rightfully respond that ‘all revolts/revolutions must be illegal.’
Peter Patton
21 Feb 10 at 3:12 pm
I agree Peter. The claim that Iraq was a bad war because it was illegal completely misses the point. As if the laws aren’t written and enforced by the elites in any case. A legalised form of mass-murder in Iraq wouldn’t change anything one iota.
THR
21 Feb 10 at 3:15 pm
And yet if Greenies chain themselves to trees they are regarded as lunatics but it is okay to kill innocent people in the name of “protest”. A more striking example of bias could not be demonstrated. Catallaxy does it again.
John H.
21 Feb 10 at 3:15 pm
JohnH
If you really looked into your argument you’d see there isn’t any bias.
Greenie fuckheads who ostentatiously chain them self to a tree is nearly always committing an act against private property. The same applies for the government steeling money from the citizens. There’s really no bias as the Greenie fuckhead creep is doing essentially what the government does.
JC
21 Feb 10 at 3:20 pm
Yes, as regards the actual case at hand, the IRS bomber was a leftist loser, an anti-Bush fanatic and an anti-Catholic weirdo. No sympathy for this deadbeat whatsoever.
C.L.
21 Feb 10 at 3:20 pm
John H
I use “legitimate” in the sense of being ‘legal’ or within the bounds of acceptable behavior. Saying that an action is ‘illegitimate’ does not mean one disapproves or is against it. After all, “The Last Superpower” crowd applaud the US/COTW’s invasion of Iraq precisely because it was illegitimate. In TLS eyes, it was only ever going to be illegitimate revolutionary action that would ‘drain the swamp’ of the middle east.
Peter Patton
21 Feb 10 at 3:27 pm
Sinclair stated “waging war … ” That is violence. That is not acceptable. That is bias. End of.
“You don’t have to be an anarchist to recognise that situations can and do arise where violence is an appropriate solution to some problems.”
There is a good reason we should never tolerate violence against innocents, it’s called terrorism.
John H.
21 Feb 10 at 3:33 pm
The problem with ‘legitimate protest’ is that it is legitimate protest.
Really? Does anyone believe that ‘illegitimate protest’ is any more effective than legitimate protest? I wouldn’t condone any sort of violence in our polity in the circumstances that I find it now and would only entertain it in the most extreme of circumstances.
dover_beach
21 Feb 10 at 3:34 pm
It is irrelevant to discuss whether the IRS plane guy’s were ‘legitimate’ or not, as he does/didn’t give a toss, and there is not a thing that can be done about it. He intended to top himself and cared not who he took with him. Lectures and outrage will matter not a jot.
Peter Patton
21 Feb 10 at 3:36 pm
db
Invading Iraq has made a hell of a “difference.”
Peter Patton
21 Feb 10 at 3:37 pm
There is a good reason we should never tolerate violence against innocents, it’s called terrorism.
Or, as Sinclair noted, it’s called US foreign policy.
Does anyone believe that ‘illegitimate protest’ is any more effective than legitimate protest? I wouldn’t condone any sort of violence in our polity in the circumstances that I find it now and would only entertain it in the most extreme of circumstances.
Dover, violence isn’t the only form of illegitimacy (i.e. sabotage, passive resistance, etc). Secondly, I made perfectly clear that violence would not be justified in Australia, but that the same could not be said elsewhere.
THR
21 Feb 10 at 3:38 pm
John H – you’re making a subtle point that I’m not following. The American colonists went to war against the British – how is pointing to that fact ‘bias’?
Sinclair Davidson
21 Feb 10 at 3:46 pm
He had a seemingly legitimate grievance (his class of profession being singled out for additional taxation) but he was a bloody idiot with bizarre biases who went totally the wrong way about his grievance.
Semi Regular Libertarian
21 Feb 10 at 3:49 pm
THR, you dismissed the crimes of the worst mass murderer in history – Mau Tse Tung – as a bit of bad luck caused by the weather. Please spare us your baloney about US foreign policy.
It suffices to say, I think, that Western governments (notably, America’s and Britain’s) are now run by treasury theives and ideological gauleiters who have a profound hatred for their own citizens and a police state mentality regarding the culture, habits, idiosyncrasies and vices of those citizens. The US senatorial class and the Whitehall brigade are also criminal thieves – both in legal actuality (in many instances) and in a wider moral sense. The warmening hoax is but the latest and perhaps greatest attempt to suspend accountable government and steal money from taxpayers to effect a totalitarian end. Violence is unacceptable but is, without question, being courted by these governments. The recently exposed British Labour policy of secretly ramping up immigration to create a new generation of pliable rent-seekers and constituencies exemplifies all of these pathologies.
C.L.
21 Feb 10 at 3:52 pm
CL, I’ve never ‘dismissed’ Mao’s atrocities. I’ve pointed out that firstly, they tend to be exaggerated, stripped from context, and used merely for propaganda purposes. Secondly, whilst I realise that history is written by the victors, actually existing communism appears to be poorly understood – it was not all famines and gulags. Thirdly, I’ve repeatedly made the point that its pretty much only for communism that we even bother counting the dead. Those who die under capitalism, for nationalism, colonialism or whatever are totally ignored. So Indians died under British rule on a scale that makes Stalin look like a rank amateur, but we’re supposed to ignore that, and pretend that a progressive income tax leads straight to the gulags.
As for US foreign policy – Sinclair himself acknowledged it’s problems, albeit extremely euphemistically (i.e. ‘picking winners’). In point of fact, ever modern US president is responsible for mass murder via foreign policy. We had this debate regarding Reagan a while back. The guy never turned down an opportunity to have civilians killed if he thought it would advance some narrow interest or other. We can’t begin to talk sensibly of terror without acknowledging that the actions of even Al-Qaeda are small beer compared to what the US military and CIA would get up to on any given year.
THR
21 Feb 10 at 3:58 pm
THR – not all US foreign policy bits and pieces of it.
Sinclair Davidson
21 Feb 10 at 3:59 pm
I’ve pointed out that firstly, they tend to be exaggerated, stripped from context, and used merely for propaganda purposes.
They haven’t been exaggerated at all, the only “context” is Mao’s communist lust for mass murder and they have been rightly used for didactic reasons. As in: embrace this system and you too will end up with a sky-high pile of corpses.
Reagan did indeed hunt down and kill communists. This is morally the same as bombing the headquarters of the SS.
C.L.
21 Feb 10 at 4:02 pm
They haven’t been exaggerated at all, the only “context” is Mao’s communist lust for mass murder and they have been rightly used for didactic reasons.
Cartoon communism. Fail.
Reagan did indeed hunt down and kill communists. This is morally the same as bombing the headquarters of the SS.
Except that the ‘communists’ turned out mostly to be civilians. And ‘hunting down’ included such activities as paying death squads to rape and murder Christian aid workers, not to mention unmitigated support for Saddam Hussein.
THR
21 Feb 10 at 4:09 pm
One of the problems here – and all the cognate debates – is the inadequacy of notions like “law” and “crime/criminal.” It really is quite silly to talk about Bolshevik/Maoist politicide/democide/genocide using the language of ‘the law’ or ‘crime’ as though we were talking about a rapist, or murderer or even Ivan Milat or Martin Bryant.
Peter Patton
21 Feb 10 at 4:30 pm
Invading Iraq has made a hell of a “difference.”
PP, I don’t think we should be comparing what happens domestically with what happens between states for the simple reason that internationally, what is law, is normally difficult to discern.
Dover, violence isn’t the only form of illegitimacy (i.e. sabotage, passive resistance, etc). Secondly, I made perfectly clear that violence would not be justified in Australia, but that the same could not be said elsewhere.
THR, sabotage is simply violence against property and thus properly illegal. Passive forms of resistance, to the extent that they interfere with the normal course of business are indirectly violent and thus also properly illegal. Finally, I wasn’t suggesting you were.
dover_beach
21 Feb 10 at 4:32 pm
db
I agree. I was using Iraq more as a heuristic. But strictly speaking – if we wanted to use international ‘law’ as our gauge of ‘legitimacy’ – then yes, the invasion was both illegitimate and revolutionary.
Peter Patton
21 Feb 10 at 4:37 pm
For example, how do we even begin to think of what is “right”, “wrong”, “legitimate”, “revolutionary” in the Arab-Israeli conflict?
Peter Patton
21 Feb 10 at 4:39 pm
THR
There is a bit of logical asymmetry in your argument; a lack of paralellism.
CL, I’ve never ‘dismissed’ Mao’s atrocities. I’ve pointed out that firstly, they tend to be exaggerated, stripped from context, and used merely for propaganda purposes… Those who die under capitalism, for nationalism, colonialism or whatever are totally ignored.
OTOH, you identify a real active subject – Mao – but on the other, a variety of ‘Isms’ are the active subject.
Peter Patton
21 Feb 10 at 4:43 pm
But strictly speaking – if we wanted to use international ‘law’ as our gauge of ‘legitimacy’ – then yes, the invasion was both illegitimate and revolutionary.
Can I be a pedant here and say that ‘legitimacy’ is strictly speaking a political concept rather than a legal one. Iraq may have been arguably ‘illegal’ but I don’t think it strictly follows that as a result of its purported illegality it was also ‘illegitimate’.
dover_beach
21 Feb 10 at 4:44 pm
db
Actually legitimate does mean lawful from the Latin, lex. Sure, it is used more freely in everyday conversation, but even then you can always trace the usage back to ‘lawful’. When folks discuss the ‘legitimacy’ of the Iraq invasion, it always gets back to international law.
Peter Patton
21 Feb 10 at 4:48 pm
Does anyone believe that ‘illegitimate protest’ is any more effective than legitimate protest?
.
I don’t think the British parliament or King George III thought the American Revolution was legitimate.
Adrien
21 Feb 10 at 5:01 pm
But, PP, the meaning that is attached to ‘legitimacy’ and its use in the modern context is far broader than the narrow meaning and use it enjoyed in antiquity or during the medieval period. And though it might always get back to “international law” in everyday conversation it is never entirely clear what this is, and sometimes I get the feeling that what they want to get back to is not simply what is ‘law’ but what is ‘right’; so they’re not so much concerned with lex but with jus. I will admit, however, that I may have been a little cavalier in my previous statement. Good job keeping me on my toes.
dover_beach
21 Feb 10 at 5:03 pm
Violence is usually a bad solution because it ramps up the conflict from individual dispute to one of Society versus The Enemies Of Society. That is, if you’re flying planes into buildings, you’re an enemy of society. It no longer matters if some middle-ranking bureaucrat miscalculated your tax return. It no longer even matters if you’re right.
daddy dave
21 Feb 10 at 5:04 pm
Peter, I think you’re letting your nominalism get the better of you. The broader context here is one in which “communism” is accused of killing eleventy billion people. If you’re not happy with capitalism, imperialism et al. getting blamed for anything on the basis they they’re ‘isms’, it follows that the same applies to communism or socialism.
THR
21 Feb 10 at 5:27 pm
For example, how do we even begin to think of what is “right”, “wrong”, “legitimate”, “revolutionary” in the Arab-Israeli conflict?
Around here, it’s reasonably simple. Everything done by the Israelis is legitimate, and in self-defence with hand on heart. Everything done by the Palestinians is illegitimate, and indicative of the genocidal intent which is universal to all Palestinians, and for which they must all be punished.
THR
21 Feb 10 at 5:31 pm
THR:
Name one thing, one murderous the Palis have done that you think is illegitimate.
JC
21 Feb 10 at 5:34 pm
Let’s not turn the thread into an Arab v Israeli debate. That conflict is just one example of the broader issues that we should think about.
Sinclair Davidson
21 Feb 10 at 5:36 pm
I don’t support suicide bombings of civilians.
Now, what do you think would be a legitimate means of protest for palestinians? Play dead? send the IDF a strongly-worded letter?
THR
21 Feb 10 at 5:36 pm
Sinc, I agree, and sorry for the potential diversion.
Peter Patton
21 Feb 10 at 5:52 pm
“communism” is accused of killing eleventy billion people.
Nice try at comical diversion. It killed about 100,000,000. Communists were the worst mass murderers in human history. Mao alone made the SS look like the Girl Guides.
C.L.
21 Feb 10 at 6:18 pm
We’ve been over this, CL, and we only arrive at 100 million if we take exaggerated figures and then add a few tens of million. None of this is to say that the actions of a Mao or Stalin ought to be condoned, but a little accuracy would be nice.
THR
21 Feb 10 at 6:20 pm
THR
But Mao, the Bolsheviks, and the er, er, Communists acted precisely in the names of Marxism and Communism.
Peter Patton
21 Feb 10 at 6:24 pm
So what? Bush and Rumsfeld condemned hundreds of thousands to death (and millions to injury and displacement) first, in the name of self-defense, and subsequently, in the name of humanitarian intervention. So, were those deaths really ‘humanitarian’, or are we allowed to use some other terms here?
THR
21 Feb 10 at 6:31 pm
I don’t support suicide bombings of civilians.
Now, what do you think would be a legitimate means of protest for palestinians?
.
The second sentence negates the first. Or to translate:
It’s wrong. But it’s not really wrong.
daddy dave
21 Feb 10 at 8:19 pm
The second sentence is a question. Largely a rhetorical one, since opponents of the palestinians don’t really allow for any form of resistance without dubbing it terrorism or genocide.
I’m trying to avoid an idiotic condemnathon here, since nobody is going to denounce the homicide bombings against pali civilians that are far more frequent than the suicide bombings.
I’ll also note Sinclair’s request for this thread not to degenerate into the well-worn topic of Israel vs palestine.
THR
21 Feb 10 at 8:24 pm
yeah I know it was rhetorical, THR, that’s why I treated it as a statement. What I said earlier applies to that situation also. Once you engage in, say, suicide bombings, the original grievance becomes of secondary importance and you have entered, literally, a fight to the death. If your objective is either total victory or at minimum to inflict the most amount of damage on your opponent, then this strategy will do the trick, but if its to seek any kind of resolution then it’s the worst possible thing you can do.
daddy dave
21 Feb 10 at 8:35 pm
Motives are different to aims. You’re right – a suicide bombing (or an act of terrorism of the sort committed by this IRS guy) is unlikely to ‘resolve’ anything. It may be worth asking about the motives, however. In any case, those who conduct suicide bombings probably already feel that they are in a fight to the death.
THR
21 Feb 10 at 8:40 pm
In answer to the post, it really depends on the direction of the violence. If it is in defense of property rights, and therefore directed against the state or Communist aggressors against property rights, then violence is legitimate*. On the other hand, if it is violence directed against property rights, which again means either state violence or Communist usurption, then it is illegitimate.
*Which must be assumed to be the case unless the State or Communists have any solid evidence to the contrary – which they generally won’t.
Michael Fisk
21 Feb 10 at 8:56 pm
So property is worth more than a human life, Fisk?
THR
21 Feb 10 at 9:00 pm
MF – that seems to be an interesting dichotomy, but you need a theory on the origins of property rights to make it work.
Sinclair Davidson
21 Feb 10 at 9:01 pm
By “legitimate”, I mean unless the state or Communists have evidence that property was not legitimately acquired, which they won’t, they have no case for expropriation and thus deserve to suffer violence.
Michael Fisk
21 Feb 10 at 9:02 pm
No, obviously aggression against human life is verboten too. But most people don’t kill for the fun of it – they kill because they want to acquire something, such as someone else’s land.
Michael Fisk
21 Feb 10 at 9:08 pm
Sinc – unless someone can show that I have stolen something from the legitimate owner or inheritor of a good, it should be considered mine if I have it in my possession. That’s the basic principle.
Michael Fisk
21 Feb 10 at 9:11 pm
…those who conduct suicide bombings probably already feel that they are in a fight to the death.
There is actually a good deal of evidence now that many Islamic suicide bombers are psychological misfits and sexually frustrated losers. People with Down syndrome have also “volunteered” for “martyrdom.”
C.L.
21 Feb 10 at 9:14 pm
CL, most suicide bombers of the past few decades have not been Islamic. Reducing the problem entirely to religion or pseudo-psychology is not likely to shed any light on it as a political phenomenon.
Fisk, I take it that you are now coming out in favour of Palestinian attacks on the Israeli state, since the latter clearly tramples on the private property of Palestinians?
THR
21 Feb 10 at 9:22 pm
Ah, the old ‘blow out the study to “past few decades” trick.’ Voila, not many Muslims to see here!
“Palestine” is a dysfunctional toilet created by weirdos like closet queer Yasser Arafat and the Hitlerian exterminationists who have succeeded him. All they have to do is meaningfully and verifiably repudiate their exterminationism and stop trying to kill Israelis and maybe something could be done for them. Instead, they bring up their children to be good little Islamist nazis.
C.L.
21 Feb 10 at 9:36 pm
You’re losing the whatever tenuous links to rationality you had left, CL.
If we accept Fisk’s ‘defense of property’ argument, then Palestinian aggression against Israel is clearly justified.
Perhaps you could elaborate on how precisely Arafat’s sexual preferences make one iota of difference here.
Or how, exactly, Palestinians are ‘Hitlerian’? Have the Palestinians started invading Poland?
All they have to do is meaningfully and verifiably repudiate their exterminationism
Who is ‘they’ in this sentence? All Palestinians, or just the small minority who advocate rhetorical ‘exterminationism’ in the context of ethnic cleansing of their own people?
As for killing – the Israelis have killed thousands in recent years, the Palestinians a handful. The empirical evidence utterly demolishes your argument.
Now, if ‘libertarians’ are willing to defend the likes of Mr Anti-taxman above, why then would they oppose Palestinian resistance, which is predicated on far more tangible invasions of property rights?
THR
21 Feb 10 at 9:48 pm
Oh, and two can play the picture game:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_JNlxgs6qm2M/SmTl-0G-0AI/AAAAAAAACp0/cXGKNle5eHk/s1600-h/reagan_neshobafair.jpg
THR
21 Feb 10 at 9:49 pm
Fisk, I take it that you are now coming out in favour of Palestinian attacks on the Israeli state
I have no objection whatsoever to Palestinian attacks on IDF personnel who have inserted themselves into the West Bank. Military units are always fair game. However, I don’t support Hamas, a genocidal organisation whose platform exalted in the extermination of the Jews.
Michael Fisk
21 Feb 10 at 9:53 pm
THR, as someone who has repeatedly blamed the weather for Mao Tse Tung’s death toll, it’s probably not a good idea to discuss others’ rationality. I also seem to recall you saying that rocket attacks on Israeli children were no big deal because the rockets were “home made.” The leadership figures of “Palestine” are Hitlerian exterminationists who believe, doctrinally, in the destruction of Israel and the Jews. They refuse to abandon this worldview and, as such, deserve no particular sympathy from Westerners. It’s a shame the people cannot overthrow the Nazi thugs in charge but, sad to relate, it seems those neanderthals do – to a very significant extent – accurately project the ingrained hatreds of their population.
C.L.
21 Feb 10 at 10:05 pm
Or how, exactly, Palestinians are ‘Hitlerian’? Have the Palestinians started invading Poland?
On the basis of death tolls alone, you could make the mistake of excusing Operation Barbarossa on the grounds that Stalin had up until 1941 killed an order of magnitude more people than Hitler. Regardless of this, the Soviets still had the right to self-defense – Hitler wanted to wipe them off the map. For exactly the same reasons, Israel, in spite of its numerous flaws, has the right to self-defense against Hamas, a Hitlerian organisation.
Michael Fisk
21 Feb 10 at 10:13 pm
They refuse to abandon this worldview and, as such, deserve no particular sympathy from Westerners
So Palestinians as a whole deserve extermination and oppression because some of them hold an unpalatable ‘worldview’?
THR
21 Feb 10 at 10:18 pm
Michael
For your violence against the state (whatever that might mean) to be legitimate you will have to identify a constitutional exception to the otherwise monopoly the state has on the legitimate use of violence. If you cannot identify such as exemption, you are toast, no matter how noble and brave you and your allies think your act was.
Peter Patton
21 Feb 10 at 10:21 pm
Oh, and for the record. At this point in time, the FBI’s number one domestic terrorism risk? Animal rights activists!
Peter Patton
21 Feb 10 at 10:22 pm
And no, sorry, it doesn’t “demolish” my argument that when Palestinian turds start a war and then hide behind women and children like the cowards they are, that more Palestinians than Israelis die as a consequence. It is an inevitable corollary of their action – one they anticipate and, indeed, engineer for propagandistic purposes.
C.L.
21 Feb 10 at 10:24 pm
So Palestinians as a whole deserve extermination and oppression because some of them hold an unpalatable ‘worldview’?
No they don’t, and they do not face extermination under the Netanyahu government. But if the reverse were the case, with Hamas controlling all of Israel, there would be a very high probability of genocide. They are a genocidal militia. For some reason, many on the Left, who cut their teeth on anti-fascism, are now prepared to give fascism another chance.
Michael Fisk
21 Feb 10 at 10:25 pm
daddy dave
There is nothing “revisionist” let alone “feminist” about it. Their are fewer historical subjects where the evidence is so abundant as marriage arrangements. And the historical record is clear on the role of property in marriage – overwhelmingly via dowries.
Peter Patton
21 Feb 10 at 10:26 pm
“…Palestinians as a whole deserve extermination and oppression.”
This could have been written by one of Yasser’s speech writer boyfriends. No, they’re the ones with the exterminationist doctrine – which you quaintly describe as “unpalatable.”
C.L.
21 Feb 10 at 10:27 pm
Peter, the state does not have a monopoly on legitimate violence. If somebody attacks me in the street, I have the right to use reasonable force to repel them. What the state DOES have is a monopoly on the right of illegitimate force. This includes police brutality, invasion of property, and other authoritarian “rights”. I advocate their repeal.
Michael Fisk
21 Feb 10 at 10:28 pm
Yes, good point CL. Genocidal poison is now merely “unpalatable”.
Michael Fisk
21 Feb 10 at 10:29 pm
A little off topic, if it is indeed true that Mossad were behind the assassination of Hamas military commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, I will have to raise my glass in toast to their bravery. Killing fascist and communist military commanders is always justified.
Michael Fisk
21 Feb 10 at 10:32 pm
It is an inevitable corollary of their action – one they anticipate and, indeed, engineer for propagandistic purposes.
Ah yes, the Hamas in collaboration with the Comintern media. You’ve obviously been drinking the same moonshine as Graeme Bird.
No, they’re the ones with the exterminationist doctrine – which you quaintly describe as “unpalatable.
let’s stick to the facts, shall we? We know that the IDF murders far more Pali civilans than the converse, by many orders of magnitude. You initially justified this on the basis of ‘worldview’. You’ve now stepped it up a notch and said they deserve it on the basis of their ‘doctrine’ (a doctrine which, due to ‘ingrained hatreds’, you attribute to every Palestinian man, woman and child). Are the IDF then justified in ad hoc murder on the basis of thought crimes? According to you, they clearly are.
THR
21 Feb 10 at 10:32 pm
Michael
You are correct on proportionate self-defence. But that is not the same as a positive right to violence. And even then you only hold that right to the extent the state agrees.
Advocate away for their repeal. ‘Legitimate’ political agitation often works. Only very occasionally does illegitimate advocacy work.
Peter Patton
21 Feb 10 at 10:35 pm
There is nothing “revisionist” let alone “feminist” about it. Their are fewer historical subjects where the evidence is so abundant as marriage arrangements.
wrong thread, PP. I’ll respond over there.
daddy dave
21 Feb 10 at 10:35 pm
On that point re the police, Fisk, I suspect the reason that yahoo in Perth was acquitted by a jury for attacking a Taser-wielding copper last year was that they didn’t accept police had the authority to administer electric shock therapy to citizens just because they happened to be breaking up a brawl. Rather than attacking the jury and declaring an intention to legislate away all room to move in future cases, the government should instead have banned Tasers.
C.L.
21 Feb 10 at 10:38 pm
We know that the IDF murders far more Pali civilans than the converse, by many orders of magnitude.
And Stalin had killed an order of magnitude more people than Hitler before 1941. So what? That doesn’t change the fact that any war with Hitler, a man who advocated “wiping countries off the map”, as Hamas and the Iranian mullahs would say, was necessarily one of survival. Ditto any war against Hamas.
Michael Fisk
21 Feb 10 at 10:45 pm
CL, I wasn’t talking about any specific example of police brutality, but police brutality in general. It happens even in this country.
Michael Fisk
21 Feb 10 at 10:46 pm
Fisk, Hamas don’t occupy Israel. Nor have they sent out any suicide bombers for years. If there’s a ‘Hitlerian’ party in all this, it isn’t Palestinian…
THR
21 Feb 10 at 10:51 pm
Hitler didn’t occupy anyone till 1938*. According to you, Hitler’s ideology was therefore nothing to get worked up about.
*This is not a very good analogy. Hitler had only killed political opponents before he got too cocky. Hamas have already attacked Israel, murdered political opponents, and carried out a vicious homocide-bombing campaign against bus passengers and ice-cream patrons. They advocate, and have attempted to carry out, genocide.
Michael Fisk
21 Feb 10 at 10:59 pm
Yes, I know, Fisk. I was just discussing an actual case. Administering electric shock therapy to citizens in the street is police brutality. In Perh last year, a policeman was poised to deliver such treatment to the father of a man involved in a brawl. The young man attacked the policeman (sickeningly so). He was acquitted by the jury, causing much tut-tutting from commentators. I have a great deal of sympathy for the policeman involved but, then again, a young policeman (or six) who can’t physically arrest a man in his late 50s without torturing him should perhaps consider another line of work.
C.L.
21 Feb 10 at 11:02 pm
Indeed. Policemen somehow got by without tasers back in the 1950s. Citizens, such as my father, could even carry guns in public, within reason.
Michael Fisk
21 Feb 10 at 11:05 pm
LP piles on – we’re all lunatics apparently.
Sinclair Davidson
22 Feb 10 at 7:59 am
Those nancy boys should go back to their homoerotic obsession with Tony Abbott’s budgie.
Jason Soon
22 Feb 10 at 8:01 am
Jason
Their complete silence of Bob Hawke’s being photographed in speedoes, taking meetings completely starkus, adulterous womanising, alcoholism, and media divulgences of his daughter’s private life and heroin addiction, all the while being the most effective – and popular – PM in Australian history seems lost on those androphobic puritans, wowsers, and hypocrites.
Peter Patton
22 Feb 10 at 8:25 am
LP are right – this is terrorism. So is every hare brained, semtex wearing dimwit they’ve ever given moral suppoprt to.
Semi Regular Libertarian
22 Feb 10 at 9:17 am
LP are right – this is terrorism
and I said as much im the exchange with Sinclair who doesn’t disagree with me and so did CL.
jtfsoon
22 Feb 10 at 9:20 am
I think we’re in agreement – this is an act of terrorism. Although I heard on the news the US don’t want to say that.
Sinclair Davidson
22 Feb 10 at 10:52 am
Of course it’s fucking terrorism.
What’s to discuss?
If there were any substance to this “debate” it wouldn’t have descended once more into left vs right-wing mass murderisin’ league tables.
FDB
22 Feb 10 at 11:26 am
So Palestinians as a whole deserve extermination and oppression because some of them hold an unpalatable ‘worldview’?
.
No, we dehumanize them out of pure expedience. The worldview riff is just a convenient smokescreen.
Adrien
22 Feb 10 at 11:27 am
This blog used to be worth reading. Now it’s just full of abuse and stuck-up dickheads. CL, you’re one boring person to read. Left vs Right is university politics. Seriously, grow the fuck up. And that a “libertarian” blog is so partisan in its politics says it all really. I’d politely suggest that if you mob had to fend for yourself without the support of the middle-class world you inhabit you wouldn’t last a week.
Norman
22 Feb 10 at 11:42 am
Norm:
(Did your parents choose the name, or did you do that yourself?)
Tell us what you really think. By the way can you give us a list of other blogs that find are up to your high standards?
JC
22 Feb 10 at 11:49 am
Like any blog catallaxy has had some crap posts. This isn’t one of them.
As far as I can see all Sinkers did was use our exchange about the IRS suicide killer to segue into a discussion about the various methods of changing government.
Kim and co somehow twist and turn this into a potentially actionable implication that everyone on this thread including me and CL who called the guy a ‘domestic terrorist’ from the start (in fact it’s even reproduced in the post) are David Koresh adherents.
jtfsoon
22 Feb 10 at 11:50 am
JC
I chose that name myself. Sadly i can’t really name any that are up to high standards. Left vs Right is pretty tedious to read, and CLs hatred of the Left makes him more tedious than most. I used to enjoy reading the libertarian theory on here. Helped me demolish Robert Nozick’s argument at uni a while back. But i simply don’t understand why libertarians are politically partisan; and why are they are such supporters of economic rationalism; and why anyone takes Sinclair Davidson seriously at all!!!
Norman
22 Feb 10 at 12:04 pm
“This guy attacked the IRS. Waging war against the government over tax is the foundation activity of the US republic.”
Oh and Sinclair, that is a seriously dodgy thing to say when a man has just murdered an innocent person. He didn’t attack the IRS, he murdered an office worker trying to earn their keep.
Norman
22 Feb 10 at 12:07 pm
‘Norman’ – you’ve been crapping on for at least 18 months about how catallaxy used to be good and is now crap. If you don’t like it, fuck off.
Sinclair Davidson
22 Feb 10 at 12:12 pm
Ouch!!!!
tal
22 Feb 10 at 12:14 pm
Kim and Mark: the voices of civilisation and reason.
This is the woman who famously said of female genital mutilation that it shouldn’t be denounced.
Then there was Mark Bahnisch who seemingly enjoyed the story (eventually revealed as a hoax) of six Iraqis being incinerated to death during the war. “War’s going well,” he triumphantly giggled.
C.L.
22 Feb 10 at 12:44 pm
Arts academic Lefty E says of me (nice to know he’s still obsessed with me after all these years): “He sounds like a slavering racist psychopath, baying for Palestinian blood.”
What he means is that I have defended Israel against the baying of actual racist psychopaths whose doctrine calls for the extermination of the Jews. Lefty E is known to be pretty comfortable with that agenda, of course. If an example of me “baying for Palestinian blood” can be produced, I invite this effete coward to leave the LP sheltered workshop and point it out.
C.L.
22 Feb 10 at 12:52 pm
And “Norm,” (who sounds like Harry), I can’t be too boring to read because it’s pretty obvious from your stalker-like comments that you read me religiously. I’m heartened to learn how wounded you as a consequence.
C.L.
22 Feb 10 at 1:24 pm
Wasn’t Lefty E the guy who said that Israel should send the gendarmes into Gaza and try to arrest Hamas terrorists?
Michael Fisk
22 Feb 10 at 1:26 pm
Lefty Kim also declared that Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s criticisms of female genital mutilation should be discounted because she was ‘excessively coloured’ by her own experience.
jtfsoon
22 Feb 10 at 1:28 pm
Palestine?
Simple. Israel needs to get rid of settlements, Iran and Syria need to stop using Lebanon and Palestine as pawns in their bizzare anti Israel manoeuvres.
I am sure there are plenty of Israelis and Palestinians who just want to work and buy a home etc.
Semi Regular Libertarian
22 Feb 10 at 1:28 pm
Norman:
Lots of Libertarians currently despise the left because we’re seeing it return to its roots of fucking up economies in major way.
We have an administration here that is frankly incompetent aggressively matched by the incompetence in the US.
JC
22 Feb 10 at 1:31 pm
Yes, and there’s the rub. We happen to have left-of-centre governments in those great Anglophone nations which commentators conventionally discuss and analyse: here, the US and the UK. When it was Howard and Bush, the criticisms of their policy at Catallaxy were made on a daily basis. And I have yet to read one positive comment about David Cameron – who, by common consent, is Gordo Lite. We’re seeing a kind of emotional crackup on the left at the moment because the heady, gullible days of “Kevin-07″ and “Yes, We Can” have come to a screeching, catastrophic halt. As has global warming – which is now an international joke.
C.L.
22 Feb 10 at 1:37 pm
CL, you’re one boring person to read.
hhhahhaha But Norm still reads him though. Can’t be too boring.
JC
22 Feb 10 at 1:45 pm
Do we have a workable set of rules to decide when violence is justified and when it is not?
Popper made a stab at some rules in the chapter on revolution in The Open Society.
(1) Democracy cannot be fully characterized as the rule of the majority, although the institution of general elections is most important…the powers of the rulers must be limited; and the criterion of a democracy is this: In a democracy, the government—can be dismissed by the ruled without bloodshed. Thus if the men in power do not safeguard those institutions which secure to the minority the possibility of working for a peaceful change, then their rule is a tyranny.
(2) We need only distinguish between two forms of government, viz. such as possess institutions of this kind, and all others; i.e. democracies and tyrannies.
(3) A consistent democratic constitution should exclude only one type of change in the legal system, namely a change which would endanger its democratic character.
4) In a democracy, the full protection of minorities should not extend to those who violate the law, and especially not to those who incite others to the violent overthrow of the democracy.
(5) A policy of framing institutions to safeguard democracy must always proceed on the assumption that there may be antidemocratic tendencies latent among the ruled as well as among the rulers.
(6) If democracy is destroyed, all rights are destroyed. Even if certain economic advantages enjoyed by the ruled should persist, they would persist only on sufferance.
(7) Democracy provides an invaluable battle-ground for any reasonable reform, since it permits reform without violence. But if the preservation of democracy is not made the first consideration in any particular battle fought out on this battle-ground, then the latent anti-democratic tendencies which are always present may bring about a breakdown of democracy.
http://www.the-rathouse.com/OpenSocietyOnLIne/Chapter19-2-TheSocialRevolution.html
Rafe
22 Feb 10 at 1:52 pm
I’d politely suggest that if you mob had to fend for yourself without the support of the middle-class world you inhabit you wouldn’t last a week.
.
I gave that up when I was 19.
Adrien
22 Feb 10 at 2:14 pm
For the bleeding hearts at LP.
Sinclair Davidson
22 Feb 10 at 3:14 pm
Sinclair and CL
it’s only the 3rd or 4th time i’ve commented on this site. Must be another Norman. Not boring CL, more like childish, like a socialist. We know what right-wing socialists are don’t we?
And JC, i’m not arguing with your criticism of the Left, merely why is a libertarian partisan. It’s an oxymoron surely.
Norman
22 Feb 10 at 7:00 pm
Not sure if this has been raised by comments to date, but my impression of the US independence struggle is that it was encapsulated by the catchcry, ‘no taxation without representation’. Taken from this view, the tyranny lay in not taxation of private property itself, but the lack of a democratic process allowing for citizens to set a level appropriate to their needs.
In effect, the colonists felt their local legislatures (or their delegates to London) should set American tax powers and it was this that gave rise to the charge of tyranny against the King.
Flying a plane into the IRS does on its face appear to be frustration by an individual with their particular circumstances rather than an absolute lack of democratic process and hence is a form of domestic terrorism directed at the state and its institutions, not a continuation of republican ideals.
Peregrine
22 Feb 10 at 8:35 pm
THR pointed to this very early – institutional context is very important when considering the scope and legitimacy of violent protest against the state.
Sinclair Davidson
22 Feb 10 at 8:38 pm
Norm:
the left at the moment thoroughly deserves the shit that is being piled on from libertarians.
This isn’t just here. Take a look at the Libertarian bible- Reason mag- and see the way they’re piling on against the American left.
The lying, the dishonesty, the innumeracy, the spending, the hypocrisy, the trog like behavior towards economics.
Where would you like me to start.
The Tea party movement in the US is an agglomeration of various disaffected groupings, but one sub-group are the American libertarians who are totally out of their minds pissed with the American left.
A good number don’t even blame Obama as much as they blame the stupidity and senselessness of leftwing voters in the primaries for putting an albeit decent man into a job he’s not qualified for.
As for Australia. Look at the mess Rudd is quickly getting us into. In one year he’s moved us from a surplus of around 60 billion to running a deficit that will end up peaking according to that noted right newspaper – the SM- of around $160 billion.
Tell me if libertarians should be pissed?
Even noted non-big-party-committed libertarians like John Humphreys are pissed at what has been going on.
JC
22 Feb 10 at 8:48 pm
Oh bullshit. You’re just a lefty who’s been offended by something I wrote. Good.
Getting back to Larvatus Prodeo – where it’s policy not to condemn female genital mutilation and where Noel Pearson is a “coconut” – infamous weirdo “Katz” has announced that the civilians in Austin Texas who fired on mass murderer Charles Whitman in 1966 were “loonies” and “terrorists.” Taken to task by Steve, Katz doubled down and described the Austin police officers who took Whitman out as “racist loonies” and “racist hick bigots.”
No folks, I’m not joking.
C.L.
22 Feb 10 at 9:07 pm