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Excerpt:
Speaking of the horrific slaughter of infants, and the depravity of mind necessary to tolerate it, it appears that PBS will go ahead with broadcasting fiendish propaganda designed to “humanize” late-term abortionists. [Could this broadcast be more offensive than this Slate article favorably comparing late term abortionists with brave veterans of foreign wars].
Now “late-term abortionist” is just a feeble, unmanly euphemism for “legally-sanctioned serial killer.” [GREAT sentence] His wicked business consists in nothing less than this: by direct impalement, precision throttling, dismemberment, or poisoning, to snuff out the life of wholly viable, and often fully mature, infant human beings. It is an undisguised assault upon all innocence superadded to an exploitation of the vulnerable, easily-led, and desperate. Torments and agonies that we would hardly countenance for the most pitiless sociopaths, convicted of ghastly murders and rotting on death row, we suffer to be inflicted on helpless babes maturing in the womb.
Supposing this vile film is indeed broadcast, a morally sound Republic would, without the slightest delay, disband the Public Broadcasting Corporation, retrieving every last available dollar of funding, and dismissing every last employee. A morally sound Republic would consider very carefully, and with deadly seriousness, whether a film produced to bring sympathy and fellow-feeling to the likes of these wicked “doctors” of baby-killing, can possibly be tolerated among a people dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Perhaps the weight of prudence, in the end, tells against outright censorship, and the film’s existence would be permitted. But let us have no illusions that there is any good in it. No one should watch it, no one should distribute it, no one should utter a word of qualification against righteous hatred of it. It is altogether evil.
[Snip]
We will not name this snuff film, but its title refers to a late-term abortionist who was shot dead five years ago. Now the only thing bad about that is its lawless vigilantism. Only the duly-constituted public authority may undertake lethal violence to restrain wickedness. [Why think that is true? No self-defense? No assassinations of Hitlers? No vengeance, sure, but no violent means to restrain?] These killers should be executed by the state for premeditated homicide.
followed you from W4. An answer to your query is provided in The Story of Henri Tod by WB Buckley.
ReplyDeleteThing is one's attitude towards the "duly-constituted authority". If you regard yourself as a citizen, then W4 authors are correct and your actions would be wrong.
But if you regard the Govt itself as evil, akin to Nazis, then of course, you may morally pursue a policy of individual attention towards abortionists.
Even here, morality requires that due process must be followed in each case.
Bedarz,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip. I hadn't heard of that story before.
I suspect that you are correct in thinking that the moral wrongness of killing a late term abortionist has something to do with the moral authority of one's government. But my regarding the government as legitimate (or illegitimate) cannot be sufficient for making my action a morally permissible one since I could be wrong about the legitimacy. For instance, if a Nazi sympathizer convinced himself that the Nazi government was legitimate, it would still be morally wrong to follow orders exterminating Jews.
Well, given such skepticism, no police or army could function.
ReplyDeleteYou see, killing to stop a murder is not wrong per se, The wrongness lies precisely in taking upon yourself the civic authority, this is the W4 argument.
"I could be wrong about the legitimacy"
this is one thing you can never be wrong about.
Thing is, a man is always free to secede. And secession is neither moral or immoral, in itself.
Given that your State justifies murder of innocents, I would say that secession is justified.
Berdarz,
DeleteI don't know why you think that one couldn't be wrong about the legitimacy of one's government. Take Nazi Germany. There were plenty of ignorant Germans (at least at first during the war) who though wrongly that their government was a morally legitimate authority. But they were wrong. (I won't get into WHY they were wrong or what constitutes a morally legitimate/illegitimate political authority, but they were wrong).
Isn't the legitimacy of a Govt obtained from the consent of the governed themselves, in the right-liberal theory?
DeleteSo, either you consent or you withdraw the consent. And your consent defines the legitimacy of the Govt (in your eyes).
It am curious as why you think the Nazi Govt was not a legitimate authority. It did came into power by democratic means, it did conduct many plebiscites and referenda (and won all of them).By all accounts, it was popular till the very end. Other nations did treat the Nazi regime as entirely legitimate. So when did it lose legitimacy?
I don't think the moral legitimacy of a Govt is obtained solely from the consent of the governed. If you and I and some other members consent to be ruled by me, and I end up ordering you to give me all your money, provide me with sex slaves, and finally order you all kill yourselves, you have no moral duty to do so. My commands do not generate in you a moral duty in any of these cases. I am morally bankrupt. I have no concern for justice or the common good.
DeleteIn addition, I don't think consent is a necessary condition for having a morally legitimate government. This complaint goes back at least to Hume: I've never consented explicitly or implicitly to be ruled by any government; nonetheless I am subject to some moral duties with respect to the government.
If you want to know what I think is a plausible account of political authority see Nic. Wolterstorff's resent book of essays.
In you example, I could withdraw consent at any time.
DeleteBut you are right partly. Legitimacy derives from common good. But consent generates the "common" in the common good.
That is, the political community whose common good we are considering is the product of consent. One consents to be a part of a particular political community.
In this sense, you have been consenting all your life to be an American (if you are an American). One can emigrate and withdraw consent from one community and give to another.
So the right-liberal political theory is incomplete.
Well, I'm inclined to something like the "right-liberal political theory" but I think "consent theories" are misguided and that consent is overrated. Sure, legal immigrants consent to be a subject and have the U.S. as their sovereign. But my kids have never consented. And neither have I. Sure, I've lived here all my life (vacations aside), but why should my living here be taken as an act of consenting to be ruled? Maybe I've harbored ill-will towards the U.S. like my liberal friends and secretly hope for it's destruction.
DeleteConsent could be PART of an explanation for the existence of the subject-to-sovereign relation, but I don't thinks it's necessary. A subject can be ruled by a legitimate authority even if the subject doesn't consent (the paradigm case being a person's relation to GOD).
if you like we could continue this interesting discussion.
Deleteyou say
"why should my living here be taken as an act of consenting to be ruled?"
Again, my point is you have consented, not merely by living here, to be a part of the American people. It is not consent to be ruled but a consent to belong.
the human organization is built of three irreducible levels- the individual, the family and the City (the polis or the nation). None of them could be reduced to the others. So, i part company with the liberal theories that always seek to reduce the City or the political authority to individual or family authorities. There was W4 post a short while ago where it was discussed whether the political authority derives from patriarchal authority or not.
Now. the City exists by nature, in other words, man is a political animal. That is, mankind is organized into particular, self-ruling morally authoritative units we call Cities (or nations). Each City is a particular entity, having its own particular history, laws, mores.
The City is a particular bit of mankind organized for long-term flourishing --meaning over generations and generations. Families and individuals do not exist apart of some City, naturally speaking. In other words, it is natural for humans to live in a City. Families are not stable enough to maintain and sustain themselves over generations.
There is a lot to be added. In particular, the notion of property is involved with the rule of law that obtains within Cities.
"Again, my point is you have consented, not merely by living here, to be a part of the American people. It is not consent to be ruled but a consent to belong."
DeleteLet me just briefly sketch Locke's answer to this question: what MORAL reason is there for me to follow the laws of the sovereign? In virtue of what do I have a duty to obey the sovereign in a democratic land? Answer: You have made a PROMISE, and promise breaking is immoral. You have tacitly (or in a few cases explicitly) given your consent to be ruled. How have you tacitly consented? What actions have you done which constitute this act of consent or promise? You have lived in the land and enjoyed its benefits.
My problem with tacit consent is (a) there may be no such thing as TACIT consent and (b) the acts that Locke describes don't count as acts of consent. Living in a land and enjoying its benefits are not the sorts of actions that by themselves constitute my consent to be ruled. One of my kids has lived in the U.S. for over a decade; but she's never given her consent to be ruled by living here. She's never even considered the issue! Now, we could go looking for other actions that count as consenting OR (my favored option) we could give up thinking that tacit consent is that by virtue of which one has a moral obligation to obey the state and instead look elsewhere.
"the human organization is built of three irreducible levels- the individual, the family and the City (the polis or the nation). None of them could be reduced to the others. So, i part company with the liberal theories that always seek to reduce the City or the political authority to individual or family authorities."
I'm not exactly sure what it means to reduce one of these to the other. But here is how I'd put it: there are some organizations/societies which contribute to human flourishing and as such afford its members certain rights and duties which are NOT conferred on them by the state. Marriage is one of those. Certain clubs and organizations are others. Moreover, the state government itself is another. And I agree with you, government is natural. It's a part of the natural human good that there be government, though it is probably not part of the natural good that it be coercive. In a perfect government the sovereign will be wise and have the common good in mind and the subjects will willingly comply to be governed.
But the tricky business is explaining how the natural rights and duties arise, how the sovereign-subject duties/rights arise, the necessary and sufficient conditions under which the sovereign-subject relation dissolves, etc.
"never given her consent to be ruled by living here'
DeleteDoesn't the process of immigration itself involve due recognition of authority? . a pretty explicit consent.
again, i point out it is not consent to be ruled, but a consent to belong to a particular community.
I would cite Belloc who follows Rousseau (see the first chapter of The French Revolution) which begins as
"The political theory upon which the Revolution proceeded has, especially in this country, suffered ridicule as local, as ephemeral, and as fallacious. It is universal, it is eternal, and it is true.
It may be briefly stated thus: that a political community pretending to sovereignty, that is, pretending to a moral right of defending its existence against all other communities, derives the civil and temporal authority of its laws not from its actual rulers, nor even from its magistracy, but from itself."
______________________________________________________________________
Political authority is the claim a community makes on individuals while "private property" is the claim individuals make on the community.
Now, as an individual, we may be citizens of the community, full loyal and in harmony with the community. Or we may be sojourners, having lesser loyalty and this lesser rights and duties. Or we may be discontented elements, having no loyalty or we may come as invaders, having explicit disloyalty. The political theory has to keep all these things into account. It is not just straightforward sovereign /subject relation.
Real quick and then you can have the last word:
Delete"Doesn't the process of immigration itself involve due recognition of authority? . a pretty explicit consent."
Correct. Legal immigration requires consent to be ruled. So one's consenting could be part of the reason that one has a duty to obey an authority. But the problem with generalizing this that most citizens aren't legal immigrants. Children born under an authority can live their whole lives without consenting to be a member of a society or consenting to be ruled BUT still they have a duty to the sovereign (provided the sovereign is legitimate, etc.)
W4 authors do not countenance secession but are in a hard position intellectually.
ReplyDeleteOn one hand, they must justify the American secession and on the other hand, they come down hard against all later secessions, actual or imagined. They do not have a consistent theory of secession.
again, they would find armed resistance against nazis to be unobjectionable, even an assassination of Gestapo officer, but they draw a firm line at actions that may be contemplated within America.
For them, all and every possible present-day abuse must be resolved within the political process. They do not agree that some issues simply can not be thus resolved.
Bedarz (sorry for the misspelling above),
DeleteI check in on W4 sporadically so I don't know their views on secession. Moreover, I haven't thought about the issue enough to have much worth saying.
I do think, however, that it's reasonable to think that armed resistance against the Nazi's is unobjectionable but that it is also reasonable to think that it is objectionable (as things stand) to do so against the U.S. government. For one, the U.S. government is very much divided on many issues (e.g. whereas it's obvious that the Nazi government was taking active measures to exterminate Jews, the U.S. government is not taking active measures to exterminate babies. Some permit it, others oppose it and most widely oppose late-term abortions even if some actively afford certain protections for abortionists.)
Tully, maybe this will help: http://wluse.blogspot.com/2003/09/just-punishment-my-answer.html
ReplyDeleteAnd maybe not. It was written a long time ago, and I don't know if I'd stand by everything in it without re-reading.
Thanks. I'll check it out when I get the chance.
Delete