Comments Elsewhere

I don’t think that’s true. Can’t the border patrol arrest and restrain people crossing the border illegally?

That depends on what you mean by “can.”

They certainly have the power to do so. But they haven’t got any legitimate right to. Neither they nor anyone else has the right to harass or forcibly restrain peaceful people, who are, after all, simply trying to move into a new town to find work, and aren’t interfering with anyone else’s rights to person or property. Moving should not be treated as a crime.

Jim: Illegal immigrants violate the property rights of all Americans when they cross into our country without our permission.

No, they do not.

Illegal immigrants travel on roads open to everyone, live in places where they have been welcomed by a landlord or by their family, and work for employers who willingly hired them. Or, if they are not, then there is already a law for dealing with trespassers, regardless of nationality.

If an illegal immigrant is barging onto your private property without your permission, then I’ll gladly defend your right to have the trespasser removed from your own property. What I object to is the claim that you have a right to throw immigrants off other people’s property, even if those other people are perfectly happy to let the immigrants stay for love or money. Each American has every right to decide who does or does not stay on her own property. Only belligerent busybodies, on the other hand, think that they ought to have a say in who can or cannot stay on their neighbors’ property.

Jim: Is it considered “assault” to deport illegal immigrants back to their home countries?

Yes. Deportation doesn’t involve a nice man from La Migra walking immigrants back home. It involves using force, or the threat of force, to throw people out of homes that they have been welcomed onto, against their will and against the will of the property owner. Using physical force against people, when you are not defending yourself, is assault. Using assault or the threat of assault to take someone away from their home by force is abduction. The fact that the assaulters and abductors have badges on does not legitimize the attack.

Randy: 1850? Good point. And remember what happened in 1861 when the compromise fell apart.

The compromise actually fell apart in 1854. Not that the aftermath of that was any more pleasant.

Pleasant or unpleasant, though, the compromise fell apart because the terms of compromise were absolutely unacceptable. If your model for desirable political compromise is the god damned Fugitive Slave Act, then I think you need to think a lot harder about what it is you desire and why.

Randy: Peaceful people? That’s an interesting interpretation, but it entirely rejects the arguments of those who are opposed to uncontrolled immigration. The problem for you is that there are a great many such people.

The fact that many people have deluded themselves into thinking that they are being attacked by an Evil Alien Invasion is not my problem. It is theirs.

Randy: At this point in time, the only real alternatives are controlled immigration or mass deportation.

Why in the world do you think that these are the only alternatives? I’m not interested in either form of ethnic cleansing, thank you.

Dr. Althouse:

“I haven’t been reading PoliPundit or, really, any of the debate about immigration in the blogosphere. If I had been, I probably would only write about ‘tone and tenor of the debate.’ I consider immigration a complex policy problem, and I steer clear of ideologues spouting on the topic. I hear the President gave a speech on the subject last night and that he sounded moderate. Good. He’s fending off the ideologues — I hope.”

Dr. King:

“I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action;’ who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a ‘more convenient season.’ Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

“… You spoke of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of the extremist. … But as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a bit of satisfaction from being considered an extremist. Was not Jesus an extremist for love — ‘Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you.’ Was not Amos an extremist for justice — ‘Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.’ Was not Paul an extremist for the gospel of Jesus Christ — ‘I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.’ Was not Martin Luther an extremist — ‘Here I stand; I can do none other so help me God.’ Was not John Bunyan an extremist — ‘I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience.’ Was not Abraham Lincoln an extremist — ‘This nation cannot survive half slave and half free.’ Was not Thomas Jefferson an extremist — ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ So the question is not whether we will be extremist but what kind of extremist will we be. Will we be extremists for hate or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice—or will we be extremists for the cause of justice? We must not forget that all three were crucified for the same crime—the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thusly fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. So, after all, maybe the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.”

—“Letter from Birmingham Jail”

Dr. King wins.

More to come later when I have a bit more time. For now:

Paul,

Yes, I know that our methodological differences spring from the fact of you (and Roderick) being followers of Wittgenstein in this matter and my being a follower of Popperian critical rationalism and his view that “nothing of substance depends on words”.

Doesn’t Wittgenstein rather famously also suggest that “nothing of substance depends on words”? (Cf. for example TLP 4.003, TLP 6.53, etc.)

Maybe the differences that you (and Popper) have with Wittgenstein — and with me and Roderick — actually have to do with something other than this methodological dictum?

I would suggest that our intellect is more fruitfully employed in criticizing and refuting their erroneous theories rather than in designing a more consistent scheme of words with which they can continue to articulate their errors.

The aim of the linguistic criticism isn’t to furnish them with new language for articulating their errors, but rather to furnish us with new language for criticizing and refuting their erroneous theories. You might think that we could save time by just doing so with the old language we already had at hand, but if Roderick’s right about the conceptual misdirections embedded in that old language, then it simply is not useful as a means to that end.

You could say, “common usage can go hang; stipulate meanings for your own terms to get any questions of meaning out of the way as quickly as possible, and then devote your energy to making your case, rather than punching at the tarbaby of other people’s conceptual confusions.” But as a practical matter, common usage really is harder to divorce yourself from than this suggests: even when you make explicit stipulative definitions it can be hard to divorce yourself from the conventional paradigm cases and the connotations you’re familiar with (I think this often actually happens when many libertarians start talking about “market processes,” but that’s another long discussion for another time). And, perhaps more importantly, what Roderick’s doing in the passages you cite is part of a different intellectual task than formulating your own theory: the task that he’s engaged in is in fact criticizing someone else’s false theory (statist political economy), so part of what he needs to do is to engage with what they are actually claiming and how they are supporting it. Otherwise, he is just punching at a strawman. So engaging with the way in which package-dealing language is commonly in framing the theory he’s criticizing, and the way in which that language insulates the theory from criticism (by concealing where, and with whom, the dispute actually lies) is part and parcel of the task you are trying to urge him to devote himself to. Specifically, it involves knocking out one of the supports used to hold up the false theory — e.g. by taking away the state socialist’s ability to rely on the admitted evils of neomercantilism in order to make a case against free enterprise. And by making clearer where the dispute lies, it also makes clearer the sorts of evidence that need to be adduced in order to criticize whatever supports remain.

On the other hand, you could always argue that Roderick’s just saying something false about how the already existing language in the debate is commonly used, and that it is (as Frank claims) really much less ambiguous or incoherent than Roderick is claiming. But then you’re punching at that tarbaby no less than Roderick is, since determining that that’s the case just does involve doing linguistic analysis.

agm:

You can’t implement good laws if you ignore a large chunk of the population, and this includes people who have the jitters about brown-skinned immigrants.

Whether this is true or not, the point I was making had nothing in particular to do with whether or not you should implement new, better laws, or if so, when. It had to do with whether or not you’re obliged in conscience to try to enforce already existing laws that are unjust. (You’re not, because an unjust law has no legitimate authority, and because you’re never obliged in conscience to do an injustice—even if every single person in the country besides you were demanding that you do it.) Admittedly ridiculous laws should not be enforced, and real people’s lives and livelihoods are a hell of a lot more important than making your point about “national sovereignty.”

Kennedy,

Roderick’s a philosopher, and moreover an Aristotelian. He is more optimistic about the possibility of changing hearts and minds than you are, but when he starts talking about conceptual confusions and “anti-concepts” it’s safe to assume that he considers clarity on the matter something desirable in itself, not only for its consequences. Confusions are worth exposing because they are confusions, not just because they serve nefarious purposes (although, in fact, they do).

I think he’s probably right that there is some hope for a renewal of a left-libertarian alliance, but the points he makes about the terms “capitalism” and “socialism” are still worth making whether or not they have any practical impact on the populace at large, movement types, or indeed anyone else at all.

Randy: It is irrational to be upset by the details of a compromise when a compromise is clearly necessary.

Hey, Randy, 1850 called. They want their argument back.

Nativists are calling for peaceful people to be rounded up, restrained, confined, exiled, or shot if necessary, and for real people’s livelihoods to be destroyed, when they have not violated a single person’s rights to person or property. Bush is suggesting that we escalate that violence to the tune of 6,000 soldiers on the border, while implementing a program that will allow a few more people to sidestep that kind of systematic violence against peaceful people.

There is no need and no room for compromise on this issue. Peaceful people should not be assaulted under any circumstances. Anything else is just more of the same old bullshit.

zuzu, nope, but they did it without V.D.’s knowledge or consent, so he still has his own personal copy, Endlösung reference intact, online. You can click through to the original and modified copies via my post linked above.

Glaivester, personally, I’m all for it because I want to overthrow the government and achieve international workers’ control over the means of production. Thanks for trying, though.

Paul,

The issue here isn’t the need for “precise” meanings — as a late Wittgensteinian I think that the quest for those is itself a form of linguistic delusion — but rather for consistent ones. If Roderick is right that “capitalism” and “socialism” as commonly used don’t have a consistent meaning, then even if you regard them as mere “tools” for the formulation and testing of theories, they are not useful tools for that purpose. If you’re interested in getting down to facts then it is in your interest to critique uses of language that obscure them or deflect you from them.

That said, it is a serious error to compare the relationship between clear language and true theories to the relationship between letters and words, or between hammers and nails. Of course it’s true that whether or not to use a particular word to express a particular idea is a purely pragmatic decision that you ought to make on the basis of the audience and the conversational context. But Roderick’s issue is not with the word “capitalism” as such, but rather the way in which that word is commonly used. And that’s quite a different issue. In this sense, language is a means to (among other things) formulate and test theories, but it is not an instrumental means to an end that can be spelled out independently of it. Theories are, after all, made of language, not just made with it, and using language clearly is a constitutive means to an end of which it is itself a part. (In a sense, singing “Tochter aus Elysium” in the second line is only a means to the end of singing the Ode to Joy. But it would make little sense to say “Quit worrying about singing ‘Tochter aus Elysium’ in the second line; just worry about singing the Ode to Joy right, and the second line will sort itself out.” If you fail to use the right means here, then you have also failed to achieve the end.)

Frank:

I think that what Popper is recommending here is that one should try to avoid getting bogged down in definitional disputes and, more controversially, that ultimate precision about terms is not required for most purposes. The rough and ready approximate understanding of these terms does generally suffice.

Roderick’s point has nothing to do either with the alleged need for precise definitions, or with the “right” definition to attach to the words “capitalism” and “socialism.” What he says is that “the rough and ready approximate understanding of these terms” as commonly employed conceals an internal inconsistency. Criticizing common usage, if it is indeed as he says it is, doesn’t turn on any claims about precision in definitions; it turns on the idea that incoherent meanings don’t get you anywhere.

Of course, you also claim that you disagree with him on the way in which the words are commonly used. But then your issue with him is one of substantive disagreement over what the linguistic situation is, not the sort of methodological disagreement that Paul’s quotations from Popper are trying to suggest.

As far as that substantive disagreement goes, I agree with you that it’s usually pretty clear that calling yourself “anti-capitalist” usually conveys pretty clearly that you’re opposed to the free market. But I don’t see how that’s inconsistent with what Roderick said. If your understanding of capitalism is something like “this free-market system that currently prevails in the western world,” then saying you oppose “this free-market system that currently prevails in the western world” will (among other things) commit you to opposing the free market. The problem is that it also commits you to thinking that what you’re opposing is the actually existing political economy in which we live. If your “pro-capitalist” opponents buy into the package-deal that you are employing, then they will think that they are committed to defending the actually existing political economy in which we live as part of defending the free market. But since we don’t live in anything like a free market, it’s foolish for them to do so.

And frankly I simply have no idea what is meant when someone calls herself “pro-capitalist” or “anti-socialist.” Some people tend to use these terms strictly to describe their adherence to free market principles; others tend to ue them strictly to describe their solidarity with actually existing big business; others (probably most) tend to use them to describe the chimerical combination of the two attitudes that they’ve mistakenly bought into. In practice I have seen plenty of people denounce voluntary strikes for higher wages, advocate for “right to work” laws which explicitly violate the right of free contract, endorse explicitly protectionist arguments for copyrights and patents, apologize for government lending agencies such as the IMF and World Bank, endorse state auction “privatization” schemes, etc., all in the name of being “pro-capitalist” or “anti-socialist.” Clintonian liberals, for that matter, often use this sort of language to justify anti-trust interventions and the institution of government-run, completely fabricated “markets,” such as those in transferable political correctness “credits” of various sorts. Of course, whenever someone does that (and they do it very often), you could insist, “But no, you see, ‘capitalism’ really means a free market! Not patronage for big business!” But then it’s you, not Roderick, who’s getting bogged down in semantics. It is precisely by exposing and dealing with the inconsistencies in common usage that we can avoid that kind of unproductive squabbling.

Just for fun, here’s Du Toit specifically addressing gun registration databases (2003-02-26):

One of the basic disadvantages of the State knowing who is armed and who isn’t, is that the State knows who has to be disarmed, if they are to impose any kind of tyranny. …

As we saw earlier in the case of Nazi Germany, by giving the State the ability to identify gun owners, we give the State the ability to disarm us.

This is not a situation of “Trust us, we’ll never do that.” We would be incredibly naïve to fall for that nonsense. In all of history, assumption of government benevolence has been betrayed, sooner or later, and the greater the power of the State, the sooner comes the betrayal.

Gun owners know the underlying motives behind gun registration, and we are not reassured or fooled by the weasel denials of politicians. Licensing and registration constitute infringement, and that’s prohibited by the Second Amendment. Anyway, we know the progression.

Good thing that freedom of speech and association aren’t important rights like gun ownership is, or else we might have a real problem here.