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Thursday, April 10, 2014

Illegal vs Immoral ... And the Leftist War On Liberty

This post is prompted by a comment I recently posted on Victor Reppert’s blog. The context has to do with the leftist-gay alliance’s current moral enthusiasm to label as bigotry not just opposition to “the gay agenda”, but also insufficient enthusiasm for it (see the next-to-last paragraph).

My comment n Victor Reppert’s blog is this --
ozzielionel: "… everything that is legal is not necessarily moral."

And likewise, not everything that is immoral can reasonably-and-practically be made illegal.

And further, since all human laws – all of them that command “Do this” or “Do not do that” – are *always* backed up by the threat of state violence and state-sanctioned violent death, it is incumbent upon a sane, rational, and moral people, who cherish liberty, to keep laws to a minimum.

The root-cause of the problem here -- and most of you reading this will *refuse* to understand this … which is to say, you will *refuse* to move to the intellectual ground from which you can defend your own liberty – is that when the Republicans finally overturned the Democrats’ Jim Crow laws, they didn’t *merely* end the state demand-under-threat-of-violence that some citizens behave toward other citizens as though they were bigots, whether or not they would have behaved that way absent the state threat. Oh, no, not they! Not being content simply to end an injustice, the self-congratulatory civil-rights politicians had to go on and create a new injustice: using the threat of state-violence-unto-death to compel bigots to treat those against whom their bigotry ran as though they loved them.

The *reason* that the leftists are now so easily able to label simple people who simply wish to be left alone (*) as “bigots” who must be persecuted with all the resources of The State is because you, Mr and Mrs America, have already surrendered. You already subscribe to the twisted presuppositions from which they reason – no matter how much you whine about “political correctness gone wild”, all this is just the out-working of the twisted logic to which you already have surrendered.

(*) that would be *you*, Mr and Mrs America
Gentle Reader, until you are willing to defend the legal right of the “bigot” (whether real or so-called) to *be* a bigot, then you are not willing to defend your own legal and moral right to the liberty known as “freedom of association”, which just happens to be one of the fundamental liberties upon which all other liberties, and civil rights, depends. If you are not willing to demand that The State leave the “bigot” the hell alone, then you are not willing to assert your own liberty. Nor deserving of it.

Now, as a moral being, and as a member of society, it is certainly within your sphere-of-concern whether this person or that is a “bigot”. And if you think he is, then don’t deal with him. That’s all you need do … and that’s all you have the moral right to do.

But, as a citizen, it is generally not your business (*) whether someone is a “bigot”. What you do not have the moral right to do is to use the violent power of The State to crush the “bigot”.

(*) One of the few exceptions would be the allocation/spending of tax monies.

5 comments:

planks length said...

Ilion,

Not sure what you are getting at. Are you saying it's all right (as an example) for realtors to get together and agree to not allow non-whites to buy properties in certain neighborhoods?

Nick said...

"Are you saying it's all right (as an example) for realtors to get together and agree to not allow non-whites to buy properties in certain neighborhoods?"

What Ilion is defending (I think) is freedom, including freedom of association, which includes the right to "discriminate", whether that discrimination is considered right or wrong (so long as there is no coercion involved). As a libertarian, that is the position I hold, and I oppose ALL Federal "civil rights" laws that violate the right to voluntary association.

planks length said...

Nick,

I'm a great believer in drawing lines, and I abhor most "all or nothing" approaches. That's the big beef I have with both Libertarianism and contemporary Progressivism - both have rejected the lost art of compromise. Clarity of purpose and principle may be appropriate for an individual, but a country as large as the USA simply has to accommodate all sorts of viewpoints and widely differing philosophies in order to function at all.

The 20th Century writer E.R. Eddison wondered in print whether it was even possible to govern a political entity larger than a city state without resorting to some form of tyranny. I wonder too.

But realistically, I cannot conceive of dividing up today's world into a million or so independent city states without the global economy collapsing and 10,000 plus Renaissance-style wars breaking out everywhere.

Ilíon said...

a pox on both their houses: "I'm a great believer in drawing lines, and I abhor most "all or nothing" approaches."

That's way contradictory.

a pox on both their houses: "I'm a great believer in drawing lines, and I abhor most "all or nothing" approaches. That's the big beef I have with both Libertarianism and contemporary Progressivism - both have rejected the lost art of compromise."

Compromise is possible only with respect to things that don't matter all that much. For things that really do matter, "compromise" *always* means that "the good guys" surrender to "the bad guys".

Worship of compromise is not simply foolish, it is sin. Worship of compromise is a combination of implicitly asserting that nothing really matters and a stealthy ploy to ensure that "the bad guys", or at least the most stubborn guys, always get their way.

Nick said...

"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!"-Barry Goldwater