by hilzoy
Yesterday our own Charles Bird linked to this comment by Paul Cella:
“The principle behind the idea of the Open Society is this: all questions are open questions — even the question of whether the open society should endure. On its own logic, the Open Society cannot silence any opinion, no matter how heinous. It cannot say to the Islamist: “your opinions are not welcome here.” It cannot say to the Communist: “we will not protect your freedom to advocate the overthrow of our society.” It cannot say to the Nazi: “you will keep silent about your views or face various legal disabilities.”
The moment that the Open Society decides that certain opinions are unacceptable, and thus worthy of social, political and legal sanctions against them, it ceases to be an Open Society. It has closed certain questions and renounced its creed.
The basic problem with the Open Society is that it will allow a polity to simply talk itself into civil war. The examples we have are not pretty: Spain before her Civil War and Weimar Germany.
Fortunately, the United States never has been, is not, and (please God) will never become an Open Society. We have always been willing to proscribe certain opinions, to place a high enough price on holding certain views that most people simply give them up; we have, in short, always been willing to offer to subversives the choice that Athens gave to Socrates: silence, exile, or death.
That George Soros is trying to overturn this American tradition does not speak well of him. “
Charles described this comment as an “astute observation”. I respectfully disagree, and I want to explain why.
To be clear at the outset: I take the argument to be about whether the state should make it unlawful to hold certain opinions, not about whether individuals can or should reject those opinions as false or immoral. I do so for several reasons: first, Cella claims to be disagreeing with Soros, and Soros has never (as far as I know) said that individuals are not entitled to reject the views of others; second, he talks about ‘proscribing’ opinions, and ‘proscribe’ means ‘prohibit’; and third, his examples in the comments yesterday were of our government outlawing opinions. If he simply meant that I should feel free to try to shun Nazis, then he is arguing against a nonexistent opponent, and describing his position in seriously misleading ways.
I do not want to get into an argument with Paul Cella about whether or not suppressing dissent is an “American tradition”. Our history contains all sorts of episodes, some glorious and some not. Someone could cite historical episodes in support of (for instance) the claim that it’s an American tradition to enslave, intern, or kill people who are of (what a majority of Americans then take to be) ‘the wrong race’, and if I wanted to argue instead that our history is best read as an admittedly imperfect attempt to live up to ideals that are flatly opposed to (for instance) slavery, the argument would either get more deeply into the nuances of our history than I currently wish to go, or else degenerate into name-calling. I will therefore just state that my reading of our history is antithetical to his, and that part of the reason I love my country is because I take it to endorse higher ideals than those Paul Cella attributes to it. Rather than getting into the history, I want to try to explain why I disagree with his claim that we ought not to be an ‘open society’, as he describes it.
Cella writes: “The basic problem with the Open Society is that it will allow a polity to simply talk itself into civil war.” This is not true. An open society will allow a polity to talk itself into serious disagreement. But prohibiting citizens from actually starting wars with one another — from taking up arms against their fellow citizens or their government — has always been illegal. And nothing about respecting freedom of speech implies that this should change.
In some countries, however, when citizens talk themselves into serious disagreement, civil wars ensue. Cella cites Weimar Germany and Spain before its civil war as examples. But I think these are not good analogies, since neither country had any substantial experience with democratic government. We might instead consider our own country’s response to the militia movement, which allows us to see what happens here and now when we decide to tolerate the intolerant. Large chunks of the militia movement regard our present federal government as an instrument of tyranny, and prepare for armed conflict with it. Thus far, we have allowed them to believe whatever they want to believe, but we have prosecuted them when they engage in violence, or when in other ways their conduct (as opposed to their beliefs) violates the law. This has not led to civil war or anything like it. Moreover, as soon as the violent implications of their views became clear to people as a result of the Oklahoma City bombings, most of the people who had previously been inclined to give them cover, or to minimize their basic nuttiness, disowned them. As a result, they are now even more marginalized than they were before. This is, I think, an indication that our society is a lot more resilient than Paul Cella seems to think.
This is my first problem with Paul Cella’s view: I believe that we should only so much as consider abridging our fundamental rights and liberties when there is clear evidence of a pressing need to do so. There is no such evidence now. And one thing that disturbs me about Cella’s comment is this: he is willing to abandon some of our most fundamental principles not as a last resort, after thinking seriously about the question whether the steps he endorses are absolutely necessary, but on the basis of a few offhand comments about liberal society. My response to this is like my response to those commenters on right-wing blogs who seem ready to endorse torture without stopping to consider either whether it actually works or whether we have exhausted all other alternatives: I feel that there are certain principles that we should be willing to abandon, if at all, only with deep reluctance and in desperate circumstances; and when people are willing to toss them aside without any such reluctance and without so much as asking whether there are better alternatives, I find it deeply disturbing.
More importantly, the idea that if we do not “proscribe” certain opinions, we will in fact end up with citizens who want to make war on one another or on their government would, I think, seem true only to someone who had no faith in the basic decency of his or her fellow citizens. It is generally true that if we allow certain opinions to be expressed, someone, somewhere, is likely to be persuaded to adopt those opinions. But the fact that the odd person here or there accepts some undemocratic view does not itself constitute a threat to our country or its system of government. We are threatened only if a substantial number of our citizens are convinced by them. And to think that if we allowed undemocratic views to be expressed, substantial numbers of our citizens would be convinced by them — convinced enough to try to overturn our system of government — is to say that one has no faith in the basic decency or trustworthiness of one’s fellow citizens.
(Milton said it better (surprise, surprise): “Nor is it to the common people less than a reproach; for if we be so jealous over them, as that we dare not trust them with an English pamphlet, what do we but censure them for a giddy, vicious, and ungrounded people?”)
The people who founded this country took a different view. They had the odd idea that citizens should be trusted to make up their own minds who their leaders should be. They were aware that some of their citizens disagreed with them — at the time, a significant number were Tories who had opposed the Revolution. Being astute observers of human nature, they were also aware that some citizens were credulous or ignorant. But they thought that giving citizens the right to decide for themselves would be better than allowing some elite to decide who would govern them or what views they could legitimately express: better both in the sense of producing, in general, better government and in the sense of being more in keeping with the fundamental dignity of human beings.
To have the kind of faith in one’s fellow citizens that’s needed to underwrite freedom of speech, you don’t have to believe that they will always get everything right. I do not believe this: I think, for instance, that a majority of my fellow citizens just voted for the wrong candidate. But I do believe that the overwhelming majority of my fellow citizens will reject the sorts of views that would lead to civil war or a dismantling of our government; and for that reason I also believe that allowing them to consider the views of those who oppose our system of government does not threaten our country.
On the other hand, I have real doubts about whether, if we gave our representatives the power to decide which views we should be allowed to hear and which we should not, they would use those powers wisely. It is easy (though, as I will argue later, wrong) to argue that someone should have the power to make such decisions if you assume that that someone will always make the right calls. But if our history teaches us anything, it is that our government will often get it wrong. During the McCarthy era, our government did not restrict itself to going after actual members of the CPUSA. It went after all kinds of people whose views were not subversive, and ruined their lives. During the 1960s, our tax dollars were spent keeping the likes of Martin Luther King, Jr. under surveillance. Under Richard Nixon it came closer to (my) home: my Dad was on the enemies’ list, and I am reasonably sure that our phones were tapped. (The horrible, dangerous, subversive action that got him on the enemies’ list was testifying before the Senate against one of Nixon’s Supreme Court nominees. Which is to say: he expressed an opinion publicly, on a subject he knew a lot about, and in a way that you’d think was a civic duty, not an act of hostility to the state.) And the point of this is not that he’s, well, my Dad; it’s that he is one of the most decent, public-spirited, play-by-the-rules, honorable people I have ever known. A less likely ‘dangerous subversive’ would be hard to imagine. If my government was sufficiently interested in him to put him on its enemies’ list, it could easily have figured this out as well.
I have to say that I find it amazing that I should need to point this out to a conservative. But I want to say this clearly: the idea that the people need to be protected from hearing certain views is condescending; it shows a real lack of faith in your fellow citizens’ basic decency. Likewise, the idea that the government should have the power to decide which ideas can be expressed and which cannot reflects a trust in the wisdom of government that I think is just unwarranted. Some conservatives say that liberals are elitists who have disdain for ordinary citizens, and that we think that the government, not ordinary people, knows what’s best for us. That view of liberals is, I think, wrong in general; but it’s especially wrong here.
But even if we could count on the government always to display perfect wisdom and restraint in deciding which opinions to proscribe, I think it would be wrong to do so. To confront views we disagree with strengthens and deepens our convictions. It forces us to recognize any good points that our opponents are making, to figure out clearly where we disagree with them, and to defend our own views in response to those disagreements. It makes us think through the sources of our own convictions in ways we might not otherwise do, and this makes us better and wiser than we would be if we never encountered people who hold those views. This is so even when we think there is no real prospect that we will end up being convinced that the view we disagree with is right.
For instance, here’s a story I’ve told before: when I was a teenager, Boston was going through its busing crisis, and it was extremely ugly. People in some neighborhoods were implacably opposed to having black kids in their schools, and they didn’t just say so; they stoned the busses and in one case beat a kid with an American flag (or rather: a pole to which a flag was attached.) I got into conversation with someone who was opposed to the busing. I was really not going to be convinced that he was right (and it’s worth noting here that before the courts ordered busing, more normal political avenues had been tried and exhausted, so this was not judicial activism coming out of the blue; it was a court case undertaken only after every other means of trying to bring a recalcitrant school board to devote anything like adequate resources to predominantly black schools had failed. It’s also worth noting that those political efforts had been blocked by school board members whose base was the neighborhoods in which black kids were now being beaten.) But in the course of this conversation I came to realize for the first time how much of this fight had to do with a sense of victimization in some of the poor white neighborhoods of Boston: a sense that liberals like me were tripping over ourselves to express guilt about poor blacks while completely disregarding poor whites, and that we could do this in large part because our children (e.g., me) were safely ensconced in private schools, and would never have to actually live through integration. There were things that were very wrong with this way of looking at things — in particular, a denial of these communities’ own role in creating the problems in the schools — but there was also something very right about it, something that stuck with me for good, and that I do not think I could have learned in any other way: namely, how the likes of me looked to people in South Boston, and why they resented the role of rich suburban liberals so much.
I mention this story because it’s a case in which I was dealing with an illiberal view which led to real civil strife, and which might therefore have been a candidate, in Paul Cella’s America, for suppression. Moreover, it was a view that I have a hard time imagining my coming to agree with. But that didn’t prevent me from learning something really important by being willing to talk to people who held it, and to try to understand why they thought the way they did.
And that, presumably, is what a lot of us are doing here at Obsidian Wings. If we wanted to be among people who share our views, we could just head off to dKos or Redstate and not bother trying to engage with people who disagree with us. But here we are, arguing with one another. Why? Maybe, for some of us, it’s because we want to convert our opponents; but for me, at least, that’s not really the main thing. I think that arguing with people I disagree with on topics that seem to me to be incredibly important, and doing it without trying to shut people up or belittle them, makes me a better person, and strengthens my own hold on what really matters to me. And I hope that just as I draw strength and (I hope) some degree of wisdom from explaining what I believe to the people I disagree with, even when they do not convince me and I do not convince them, they get something from arguing with me, despite what must surely seem, at times, to be my obstinate refusal to see the light of reason. And it’s because I think that we are better people when we argue for our views against all opponents, rather than trying to protect ourselves from views we think might be dangerous, that I would not give the power to proscribe beliefs even to an omniscient and benevolent tyrant.
Or, to quote Milton again:
“Good and evil we know in the field of this world grow up together almost inseparably; and the knowledge of good is so involved and interwoven with the knowledge of evil, and in so many cunning resemblances hardly to be discerned, that those confused seeds which were imposed upon Psyche as an incessant labour to cull out, and sort asunder, were not more intermixed. … As therefore the state of man now is; what wisdom can there be to choose, what continence to forbear without the knowledge of evil? He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true wayfaring Christian.
I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world, we bring impurity much rather; that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary. That virtue therefore which is but a youngling in the contemplation of evil, and knows not the utmost that vice promises to her followers, and rejects it, is but a blank virtue, not a pure; her whiteness is but an excremental whiteness.”
Our country was not founded on a desire to protect us from our own thoughts, or to try to preserve in us a blank virtue. That is one of the things that makes it great. For us to renounce its principles, especially without any clear demonstration that we need to, would make us unworthy of the Constitution the founders gave us.
What a magisterial, thought-provoking post! Thank you, hilzoy.
I, for one, don’t feel particularly threatened by people who disagree with me. If I did I’d feel pretty darned threatened, let me tell you.
Marvelous post. Every word of it.
All of that having been said I guess I think that there’s more of a divide between thought and speech on the one hand and action on the other than seems to be popular these days. I’m skeptical about freedom of expression being extended too far beyond actual speech. For example, placing an advocacy sign on one’s front lawn (subject to local zoning ordinances) is, reasonably, protected. Defacing that sign shouldn’t be although there’s not much difference between the expression issues involved.
Lovely post, Hilzoy.
I found another quote from Socrates, directly contradicting Paul Cella’s assertion that Socrates approved of being condemned to choose between “death, silence, or exile” (though the whole Apologia contradicts Paul, dammit):
A not-to-be-missed post on freedom of thought
There’s a wondeful, not-to-be-missed post on freedom of thought and freedom of speech over on Obsidian Wings, penned (or keyed?) by the always-thought-provoking hilzoy. I’m sure the ensuing discussion will also be intriguing. If you’ve never been over …
Hear! Hear!!!
And it’s because I think that we are better people when we argue for our views against all opponents, rather than trying to protect ourselves from views we think might be dangerous, that I would not give the power to proscribe beliefs even to an omniscient and benevolent tyrant.
Nothing is lost in debating an issue opnely that shouldn’t be lost (e.g., misperceptions, unjustified bias, undue arrogance). If you’re right, a debate will confirm and solidify that. If you’re wrong, you should want to know that. If you don’t, consider donating your brain to science asap.
I’m very glad to see this on the front page. And from the reasonable eloquence of the prose, I knew it was you, Hilzoy, despite the lack of byline.
You might want to clarify this sentence in the fourth paragraph, however: “But prohibiting citizens from actually starting wars with one another — with taking up arms against their fellow citizens or their government — has always been illegal.”
I too find something valuable in debating–or rather, more often, watching the debate–between civil people with diverse opinions. There aren’t many blogs where real conversation happens.
If I might offer a bit of advice to main-page posters? Some of the less productive comments threads seem to result from posts that have been imported whole from other sites. On Sebastian’s excellent “exhortation” post, some not-so fruitful argument arose from rhetoric that Sebastian was willing to admit had been aimed at his RedState readers. And I was interested to see that Bird’s Stewart-Soros post had, last night at least, only generated six or so comments at RedState, unlike the 150+ comments of mixed condemnation and qualified defense here.
I’m not sure what I’m advocating here. Obviously, if you offer two different versions of the same argument, we readers will find out the discrepencies soon enough. But the readers–and the overall intent of this blog–do merit some rhetorical considerations. Arguments phrased for a more partisan audience won’t serve this community well. At the least, we deserve some warning if an argument was written for another crowd. I didn’t pay much attention to Sebastian’s “clintonesque” because of his caveat. Anyway, an observation.
Excellent post. I found the cite of Milton quite moving. Currently rewatching Schama’s series on the History of England, and last night was the episode on Cromwell and Charles I. Religious tolerance as expressed by Milton developed in a context, and with a cause.
I agree with the content. Part of my method of reasoning is to look for the best case in opposition to my beliefs, and the fact that so many societies have resisted pluralism may prove nothing, but may also indicate that a counter-argument, however weak, may exist out there. I will do some research and thinking.
“I think that arguing with people I disagree with on topics that seem to me to be incredibly important, and doing it without trying to shut people up or belittle them, makes me a better person, and strengthens my own hold on what really matters to me.”
This is an excellent reminder of why I am here, which is good because I had been wondering lately.
Ah — no byline? That’s because I was trying to add one and hit the return key, hoping to add another line in the title, and the program decided that this meant “oh, post it now!” So I had to go back and add both thee byline and the last para., which for some reason didn’t take. Oh well. — Thanks, everyone.
psst…Cella should have an upper case “C” in title.
I just want to point out that this is how it’s done, folks. Although (no slam against hilzoy, here) one can accomplish said disagreement using fewer…notes, as it were.
Thank you, Hilzoy, for your eloquent post.
Let me add, I don’t think it is practical any longer for the government really to proscribe communication of ideas, however repugnant. In the old days of the Soviet Union it was illegal to own a mimeograph machine. Imagine trying to enforce that kind of edict nowadays. During the fall of the Soviet Union the regime’s opponents employed e-mail.
To be sure, technical advances also can be used for surveillance and repression, and John Poindexter’s ideas will no doubt be pursued, but the draconian measures that would have to be employed to effectively squelch free expression are probably not feasible.
I have read speculation about how the United States might respond to a more serious terrorist attack such as a nuclear weapon, and whether that would be the end of constitutional government. Tommy Franks voiced that idea, I believe.
Of course the prospect is horrible to contemplate and some of the arguments expressed about free speech lately are worrying. Yet what I have read recently here including your response above gives me cause to believe that the ideals our country stands for are still strong.
Edward: Yeah, I know, but for some reason the program doesn’t let me edit titles. (I type in the changes, all seems well, and then it doesn’t take.) Yet another casualty of the fact that I posted this when I was just trying to hit return, i.e. before proofreading.
Oh, and bravo, hilzoy. As always, said much better than I could hope to aspire to.
Thank you Emperor Joseph II, err, Slartibartfast.
hilzoy,
Login as Moe and it should…I just tried it…and it seemed to work.
Hey, I’m not demanding fewer notes. Not even suggesting it; just saying that one can respectfully disagree without going all hilzoy on us.
aHA! So that‘s where the Stick of Power is!
“Oh, and bravo, hilzoy.”
Slart, you’re not an opera fan?
This is an excellent reminder of why I am here, which is good because I had been wondering lately.
I sure hope I’m not in part to blame for that feeling, Sebastian. I’ve enjoyed our debates, however heated they might get at times.
Then there’s always this way to disagree with someone:
At least let the man lie first. Geeez.
Edward — clever me read the first part of your post, thought ‘aha!’, logged in as Moe, and found the title all corrected. Thanks!
Throwing shoes! Wow. That’s maybe a half-step up from rotten cabbage–and of course not nearly as refined as throwing cream pies.
Edward: At least let the man lie first. Geeez.
Oh, Perle’s been telling lies about the Iraq war at least since May 2003 – and I’m sure he was lying for Bush before then, too, I just can’t be bothered to go dig up the evidence on Friday evening.
That said, I tend to find hecklers with intent to disrupt the debate (rather than contribute to it) irritating when they’re the opposition, and irritating/embarrassing when they’re theoretically on my side.
Since we’ve waxed musical — maybe he was under the misapprehension that he was in the Nutcracker.
Rather, this brings to my mind the famous image of Khrushchev at the U.N.
Ah, those Russians. So dramatic.
Hey look only playing Devil’s advocate here, y’all keep giving hilzoy the justly deserved praise. A start:
“To be less parochial, non-theologically minded conservatives have equally dubious grounds for adhering to a doctrine of human rights. Conservative thought holds that moral and political truths can be known, and that certain natural constraints (or revealed ones) govern human behavior. But the notion of human rights arose precisely because these ideas were rejected. While Locke attempted to soften the edge of this “strange new doctrine,” the only internally coherent system of rights is that of Hobbes. If one cannot accept, with Hobbes, that “every man has a Right to every thing; even to one another’s body . . . because there is nothing to which every man had not Right by Nature,” then one cannot accept a rights framework. I know of no coherent case that can mitigate this harsh, but internally consistent, notion of the rights of non-political man.
Moreover, Hobbes’s “warre of every man against every man” also denies the fundamental precept of conservative thought that man is a naturally political–a politikon zoan–and that the natural order is one of harmony, not war. Christians believe that the Fall has upset this harmony, but the orginal “state of nature,” that state of man as created, is one of natural harmony and sociability. A rights doctrine rejects a view of natural harmony for one of strife, enmity and conflict. Within a rights paradigm, harmony is conventional, the result of contract among individuals, all of whom fear the other’s right to take whatever they will by whatever means.
Nor does it do for conservatives to try to cling to a category of negative rights. One of my teachers at Boston College, Frederick Lawrence, has shown how the idea of “negative” rights is kith and kin with liberal positive rights. The notion of rights, from the Left or the Right is “the product of an attempt to define human equality independently of any religion or metaphysics.” Rights theories of all political persuasion “are signaled by the notorious modern dichotomies between nature and freedom, nature and history, and nature and art, which were exploited till our own day by the movements of idealism, historicism and romanticism.”
. …..Kenneth Craycraft, Intercollegiate Review, Fall 1991″
Craycraft
it should be everyone’s civic duty to throw a shoe a Richard Perle.
well said.
debating only with those who agree with you isn’t debating; it’s cheerleading.
here, we debate some of the most critical issues facing us as citizens: the balance between liberty and security, the appropriate role of government in providing pensions; war.
The best threads and posts force us to examine our most basic assumptions and question how the topic of discussion interacts with those values.
like this post.
Thanks
Francis
Bob M: Actually, I do not think that human rights require as a foundation the idea that moral truths can be known. I, for instance, believe that they can, and yet I wrote this post. More to the point, many of the central figures of the Enlightenment thought that moral truths could be known too, but that didn’t stop them from believing in toleration. (And even before the Enlightenment, consider Milton, who surely believed that moral truths are knowable.)
Too make a detailed argument on this would require what Slart would call ‘too many notes’, but three quick points:
First, the view that we should respect human rights is itself a moral claim, and anyone who didn’t think that moral claims are knowable would have to think that we didn’t know this one to be true either.
Second, one reason for believing in human rights (not the only one) is that you think not that moral claims are unknowable, but that they are not so obvious, in their detailed application to our world, that everyone who is not willfully blind will agree on them. (That there are rocks on our planet: obvious. That a given interpretation of quantum mechanics is true: maybe knowable, but not obvious enough for us to condemn those who don’t accept it as unreasonable.)
Third, my last argument in favor of freedom of speech is all about moral improvement, and would be hard to reconcile with serious moral relativism.
Eek: Make that first sentence: I do not think that human rights require as a foundation the idea that moral truths cannot be known. Duh.
Damn it, as long as we’re going into that, I’m going to link this.
“I think that arguing with people I disagree with on topics that seem to me to be incredibly important, and doing it without trying to shut people up or belittle them, makes me a better person, and strengthens my own hold on what really matters to me.” …to quote hilzoy
The point being (perhaps of Cella and Craycraft, I can’t speak for them), do we listen to other’s opinions on this blog because we have contracted to do so, or because we have formed a community. The arguments over Charles Bird, and the hosts’ defense, might have more to do with a freely chosen association which would be negated by an authority (blog-king?) commanding Bird’s right to speak.
Tacitus was banned, in part because he “broke the rules”, but also in part because some people chose not to associate with him in this forum.
Working up a sweat on this, not my natural inclination, not really smart enough or educated enough to handle it, and trying not to link or get help from Cella. Hopefully, he can come around himself.
A community that cannot exclude is not a free community. It is a collection of atomistic individuals forced together by authority or contract. A “Rights Doctrine” even including free association cannot create communities or a polis. Speech that brings into question the identity of a community to the degree that its internal cohesion is endangered may be restricted.
As an example, an LGF or Freeper taken on as a poster at Obisidian Wings might well destroy it.
From Slart’s link:
He’s attributing this to the AP? That’s lovely.
The “he” being the author, not Slartibartfast, in case of confusion.
Interestingly “cella” in the title of this post seems to have reverted to lowercase.
Bob M: “A community that cannot exclude is not a free community. It is a collection of atomistic individuals forced together by authority or contract.”
Why not? Can’t a community come together on the basis of a shared view that it should allow all views to be expressed? And might it not maintain itself, even though it contained some people whose views were antithetical to that community? If it couldn’t wouldn’t that say more about the commitment of its members to their supposedly shared norms than anything else?
We can exclude people from our society. If they break our laws, we can send them to jail, and under current law we can kill them. The question is whether we should prohibit not just conduct, but the expression of certain views. I don’t see why the answer ‘no’ makes us atomistic, or a collection of people forced together by authority or contract. We are, as a community, strong enough to tolerate dissent. And we are better for it.
Of course, a doctrine of rights cannot all by itself create a community; no mere doctrine can do that. It takes people who are committed to it, and want to live by it. The idea that this particular doctrine is inconsistent with the existence of such a community would be true only if dissent actually produced civil war. I have argued that it doesn’t. And to me, if I worried that it might, my first response would be to go out and try to argue with people, not to curtail freedom of thought and expression.
Fine post, hilzoy.
Either the AP needs to fire someone(s) (for the original and the scrubbing) or I’m going back to avoiding that blog.
Either the AP needs to fire someone(s) (for the original and the scrubbing) or I’m going back to avoiding that blog.
From the comments:
You may want to correct the post because it appears as though the AP story itself has the “Perle is a Jew” remark. I did a double take.
Posted by HH
I know. I put that in there to see if people were paying attention. But I provided a link to the complete text for people to check it.
Posted by Jeff Goldstein
The last time I recall “I just wanted to see if you were paying attention” being an acceptable justification for that kind of stunt was in high school.
Well, again, that freeper you could not silence or ban.
This community(ObsWi) is founded on a shared set of values that differ somewhat from(if only in degree or breadth of the committment) the values that hold at RedState or DKos. A committment to pluralism and free expression being high among them. A kindness and sympathy/empathy in times of loss or stress another.
The cases and examples Paul Cella cites are mostly those who lack that committment to pluralism or desire to form a universal community(Nazis,Communists,Klansemen), or lack that empathy, or damage cohesion when it is necessary(time of war). The man who laughs at a soldier’s funeral will be gently escorted away. People who celebrate 9/11 may generate violence.
The deeper argument is that a community whose only shared value is tolerance is not a community. And a pluralism where all values are treated equally under the law will soon disintegrate or necessarily descend into anarchy. I read a comment this week about Europe, and how its lack of assimilation has created a continent of enclaves and uncommunicative neighborhoods. Can’t vouch for accuracy.
The people who founded this country took a different view. They had the odd idea that citizens should be trusted to make up their own minds who their leaders should be.
hilzoy, I really hate to bring up this history thing again but I have several questions regarding the above.
Why a Constitutional Republic?
Why the indirect election of both the President and the members of the Senate?
TTWD:
as to question 1, to protect the minority’s inalienable rights.
as to 2a, to reflect the federal nature of our polity.
as to 2b, we don’t do that anymore.
Francis
Great post Hilzoy
I would like to point out the converse of allowing opposing opinions (especially those considered beyond the pale)is good for those who hold those opinions. Because they will have to defend those opinions in an open forum. It might even change some minds. But if we proscribe opinion X. Anyone holding X is unlikely to hear (not X) because the people who support not X have nothing to respond to.
For example if the Mad Midnight Bomber (What Bombs at Midnight) was going around extolling the benefits of midnight bombings. The Govt then says no one can talk about midnight bombings. As an enforcment issue you will never get the MMB (WBAM) to stop talking about it, he will only stop talking publicly. He still might convince others that midnight bombings are a good idea. Yet because no one is talking in public in favor midnight bombings, people will see no need to talk about why this is not such a good idea. And the MMB (WBAM) will go on secretly gathering supporters without opposition.
(yes I know, calling for midnight bombings is probably incitement (and therefore prohibitied) I just wanted to include a Tick reference)
we don’t do that anymore
I believe fdl that hilzoy referenced the “people who founded the country” in her comments.
The founders decided to include certain property as three fifths of a citizen. Why?
The very end of the “Bill of Rights” includes the Tenth Amendment. Why?
Certain of the founders enacted the Alien and Sedition Act(s). Why again?
Was the United States of America an “Open Society” at its founding? If it was, you will have to explain why so many of its “citizens” didn’t have the right to vote at the very beginning. The right to vote was held by the minority, which doesn’t mean that this was not a great country, it just wasn’t an “Open Society”.
I really don’t believe you want me to go on because there is more. Ultimately the initial compromise failed, the Civil War ensued and “radical Republicans” passed the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. Many of you know how much I enjoy discussing “civil liberties” and Lincoln but….
Bob, I’ve got to say that I don’t really see how this follows:
And a pluralism where all values are treated equally under the law will soon disintegrate or necessarily descend into anarchy.
For one thing, the law enshrines certain values. American law in particular is not a simple list of what an individual can and cannot do.
Secondly, I would hope that pluralism wouldn’t lead inevitably to chaos and anarchy because there really hasn’t been a singular, unitary culture in the United States for many, many years.
I’ve been thinking about Burke recently, and so much of what he had to say about positive cultural associations–habits, prejudices, customs, what he sometimes calls the “English character”–happens beneath the surface of the law and the social contract. While his argument does get shrill in the Reflections on the Revolution, the sensible thing to take away from him, I think, is that these cultural values get mediated into Anglo-American common-law in the form of precedent. In a local community, individuals, memories, landmarks might form cultural values, in addition to the law. In national institutions, foundational law and precedent reflect cultural values. When the values of these precedents and institutions no longer reflect those of enough of the (armed) population, then you have a revolution.
This thought isn’t really finished, but then, neither is my dissertation…
To put it another way, suppose we allowed the government to go into the business of outlawing certain opinions. For the sake of argument, I’ll posit the form that this would take as passing a law proscribing the endorsement of or membership in a given ideology. If someone else can think of a better way to frame this, I welcome it, but I think that in order to debate the merits of this we have to first set out what it is we’re debating /doing/ about /what/.
The first target of this law, we’ll say, is communism. Congratulations, it is now illegal to advocate communism as being preferable to capitalism, or to hold membership in any organization that espouses such. We’ll assume that “communism” is exhaustively defined in said law.
So who gets prosecuted? The members of the socialist workers party? The students who have a class debate about the merits of each system? Two people on the net discussing the Soviet Union? Someone handing out flyers about the evils of consumerism and excess capitalism? Someone wearing one of those now-fashionable shirts with a hammer-and-sickle on it? A collector of Soviet memorobilia?
The law is unenforceable without either being inconsistently applied or turning the country into something that is no longer America. And that’s just the problem in deciding where to draw the line on one subject. Once you’ve given the government the power to decide that a given ideology or opinion is so dangerous to the fabric of the country that it must be proscribed, it demands that the next question be asked: who decides? To hear the GOP leadership right now, you’d think that the most pressing danger to our country behind Islamic terrorism is the thought of two gays marrying each other. Are we to make espousing gay marriage a crime? I’ll guarantee you that the theocon wing of the party would raise a cheer if it were so, and they wouldn’t stop to think about what happens when the pendulum swings the other way and we have a Democratic Congress and President.
This is not a power I want any elected leader, Democrat or Republican, to have. It is anathema to what this country stands for.
As a response to Cella and obliquely to BD, I agree with this wholeheartedly. But in keeping with one of my obsessions, I think there is an interesting point here that is being skipped over.
We look at the various words of the Founding Fathers, I am always struck by the radical nature, the notion of complete equality. However, in their context, equality was for male landholders. The nature of complete equality is a bit like a universal solvent, dissolving whatever social structure it is contained in.
Fortunately, social structures have evolved to recontain the genie of equality. I feel a certain sympathy towards conservatives who complain that things are not like they were in the old days. It is as fundamental a human opinion as any I can think of, and I don’t begrudge them for holding it and if there is not a true committment to equality, it is very easy to rationalize.
Unfortunately, my feeling is that the evolution in social structures has been reactive, so that it is a zero sum game. What also disturbs me is that to be granted the level of individual autonomy that we demand, we have to cede more and more of our privacy. This whole discussion arose because of questions of terrorism, but there are a number of aspects that, at first glance, are unrelated, but I think are tied to this. It is not simply the increasing power of the state, it is the usage of public opinion and media to ostracize and the increased willingness of the courts to accept that we can penalize people for their thoughts as well as retroactive penalties for acts done.
I suppose that this plugs into Bob McManus’ musings, but I think that if we look at this historically, Bob’s notion of ‘atomistic individuals’ arises from our push for equality and space.
Jackmoron: as someone who lived thru the sixties, all I can is that it sure felt like there was more a single unified culture at the beginning than at the end. This unified culture was not necessarily a good one. The sixties were also an era in which speech generated violence; we can say that Lester Maddux and the Weathermen were the bad guys, but the violence was better avoided, and the community and sense of community broke down.
2)As far as societies under stress, I was trying to think about Iraq, and son-of-a-gun, I don’t think there are many more restrictions in Iraq than there are here. Sadr can say a lot without getting arrested. Hmmm.
3) I think micro-examples can help in thinking about this. I gave the blog as an example. I’ll give the US Senate as another. Where a Senator is not allowed to speak ill of another. Where there are no external rules, and any rules must arise out of an ad-hoc community built by people of wildly opposing ideologies. Speech is restricted in many formal and informal ways.
Magnificent, hilzoy. Brava.
Is there a message in the dropped second “m”? (You’re not the only one, Bob, but maybe it’s time I said something.)
I didn’t live through the sixties, so I can’t really gauge what you felt. But my reading about the period suggests that there was a more unified public culture underneath which teemed many diverse cultures that had little access or identification with the public one. Maybe I’m wrong about this, maybe I’m doing a post hoc ergo ante hoc fallacy.
It seems to me that the idea of a community needs some tightening up. I have some discomfort with the idea of US culture(s) as a single community, at any time. Our country is simply too large for me to think of it as a community without some clearer definition.
The micro-communities you refer to, this blog and the Senate, might be bad examples in this regard: they are both artificial communities, built with purposes in mind. Your average Springfield is a just a place where people live. In order to make the step from saying hi to their neighbors and enjoying the scenary for personal pleasure to feeling a moral obligation or civic duty, there’s usually some idea of exchange or contract implicit.
In times of stress, it’s the law of the strongest against the law of the contract. This was Burke’s whole point: if you let the strongest rewrite the contract from scratch, everything that people liked about the old contract is void, and the new terms will be intrinsically unstable. Better to allow more people into the old contract, to modify it from within the existing framework, if necessary. (Burke really, really hated violence.)
This is one of the many reasons that suspending certain rights guaranteed by the old contract in times of stress should be weighed very very carefully. By doing so, you are implicitly using force to trump the contract, thus undermining the validity of the agreed-upon law. Which trickles down into a diminished sense of civic duty…
Ach, too long.
Damn hilzoy, you Rock!!!
The only conclusion one can reach after reading this communist propaganda is that you are in bed with Osama Bin Laden.
One of the ironies of BD’s post lauding Cella was that he lamented Soros’ “waste” in spending money on improving America when there was so much tyranny overseas that needed to be worked on.
Well, it seems that if Cella’s view is the growing majority view in this country, then Soros’ money is well spent here combatting a budding tyranny.
Another example of why this is the best group blog. Bravo, Hilzoy.
[b]TTWD[/b]
What’s your point? Seriously? You’re doing a lot of alluding some kind of grand beard-strokey AHAAAAAA idea, but you’re not explaining what it is or why, exactly, it’s relevant to the thread.
If you need someone to explain why representative democracy is better than direct democracy, then you’re really arguing basic political fundamentals I’d have thought anyone with half a brain could grasp, so given that you obviously think you’re clever and you’re not just posting a long winded version of “duuuh?” I think everyone here would appreciate it if you came out and made the point you’re trying to make, rather than posting all those rhetorical questions and making us guess what you’re talking about.
Incidentally, if your point is “even the founding fathers believed that sometimes it was necessary to ignore the will of the people and that’s why they made a representative federal republic rather than a direct democracy,” well, y’know, I’ll gladly take the paragraph out to explain it to you. I just don’t to insult your intelligence by explaining the obvious until I’m sure you genuinely don’t get it, and aren’t just taking the piss.
Dammit! HTML not BBCode!
Friendly PseudoMoe fix pls!
McDuff,
Timmy is not Macbeth, despite the fact that he may hold on to the idea that whoever first yells “uncle” is going to hell and despite any desire on your part to yell ‘Turn, hellhound, turn!” Besides, Macbeth was apparently no hellhound…
McDuff, actually I was trying to gently point out that the start of this country was a compromise on several different levels resulting in the constitutional construct we had until the “radical Republicans” changed it and those changes carved out a significant portion of the people in the decision making process.
If you don’t understand the above, then you don’t understand our history, please carry on.
Timmy – since you can say what you mean (as you just did in this comment at February 19, 2005 08:09 AM), why don’t you do it more often? You made two incomprehensible comments on this thread earlier – if this is what you meant to say, why didn’t you just say it?
Jes, I did say it, in my opening comment to hilzoy. The subsequent retorts were just blow back to someone’s snarky comment.
I did say it, in my opening comment to hilzoy
No, you didn’t.
actually I was trying to gently point out
Timmy, you may feel that rhetorical questions are gently pointing things out (along the lines of ‘could you pass the salt?’) but I think I speak for a number of people when I say that they make it appear that you don’t want to actually put any flesh on your thoughts and therefore are trying to avoid taking positions you have to defend. I’m sure that’s not the case, so perhaps you might want to avoid rhetorical questions if you don’t want to give that impression.
TTwD
I just don’t see what the fact that America initially limited its franchise to white males tells us about it being an “American tradition” to offer subversives the choice of “silence, exile or death.” Were non-white males subversives? Was their speech limited by statute in other ways? What’s your point?
Interesting eighth-of-a-point about the Alien & Sedition Acts, but, if I recall correctly, these laws were a huge flashpoint for the 1800 elections – TJefferson campaigned on their repeal, and won, overwhelmingly. No one was ever charged under the Alien Act, and Jefferson pardoned all those convicted under the Sedition Act, while Congress restored all fines paid with interest. (source) So…what? Speech controls are instituted and then completely rejected as unconstitutional by Thomas Jefferson, who ought to know. Tell me again about the “American tradition?”
Two thoughts:
First, although I am a “Cella fan” in many respects, excellent post Hilzoy. I’ve heard of praising Athens to the Athenians, but this — “we have, in short, always been willing to offer to subversives the choice that Athens gave to Socrates: silence, exile, or death” — is ridiculous.
Second, however, Timmy the Wonder Dog‘s point in his February 18, 2005 (07:23 PM) post is absolutely correct. The founders did not envision the America we see today (well, Hamilton may have, but it’s not reflected in the Constitutional text). Today’s society is a direct result of the Civil War and the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. This really was a second “war of independence” and a second “constitution” — and we all should appreciate it as such.
BTW, a quick piece of advice: Although I disagree with TtWD with some frequency, the man knows his history. I’ve come to discover that many times when he says something seemingly oblique, it’s simply because he’s at a deeper layer of the onion than I’m at.
von –
TTwD’s comment is arguably correct, but that doesn’t make his comment relevant to Cella’s ridiculous assertion that Soros is bucking an “American tradition” of silencing, deporting and killing subversives, and little to do with any pro/con argument about “open societies” as such. It’s just a hobby horse Timmy likes to ride.
von:
Not to want to make this thread – which should be centered around hilzoy’s most excellent post on the notions of an “Open Society” – into a Wonder-Dogpile; but Timmy’s interjection of American History 101 discussion-points into the thread (per his 2/18/05 7:23 comment) does read poorly, since his main point [I suppose]- “Was the United States of America an ‘Open Society” at its founding” – is, in typical Timmy style, garnished with a couple of generalized historical questions, and a seeming OT comment about Lincoln (complete with baffling reference to “radical Republicans”). All good questions, to be sure (and you -and Timmy- are quite correct about the major differences in the pre- and post-Civil War political structure of America), but what this has to do with the main thrust of hilzoy’s rejoinder to Paul Cella’s remarks about “subversives” is not at all clear.
It does, however, lead to another question which is probably more suited to a separate post: if we are indeed (or not) an “Open Society” how much of our present attitudes towards the level of “openness: that we are willing to tolerate is a historical artifact, and how much is a creation of modern times?
This is an excellent post. But I don’t think Paul Cella’s remarks actually deserve respectful disagreement. Sometimes the only appropriate response is “not only no, but hell no”, and “what the hell is wrong with you?”
I would like Charles Bird to give a straight answer as to whether he agrees with Cella or not, and if not, why he approvingly quoted him.
Timmy, you may feel that rhetorical questions are gently pointing things out (along the lines of ‘could you pass the salt?’) but I think I speak for a number of people when I say that they make it appear that you don’t want to actually put any flesh on your thoughts and therefore are trying to avoid taking positions you have to defend. I’m sure that’s not the case, so perhaps you might want to avoid rhetorical questions if you don’t want to give that impression.
Oh my God, that’s what I do!
I think it is particularly disgusting to diagnose the cause of fascist Spain and Nazi Germany as “too much free speech,” given that it was precisely the idea that some speech was too dangerous to be permitted that the fascists rode to power. Martin Niemoller’s famous quotation begins, in most versions, with “first they came for the Communists”; the Nazi party was, in the 1930s, more openly anti-Communist than anti-Jewish.
The majority isn’t going to outlaw speech it LIKES. If the majority condemns speech enough to want to jail people for uttering it, you are not in any danger of the same majority voting those people into office. If you are in any danger of the majority voting those people into office, it’s certainly not going to send them to jail for their speech. No one tried preventing the KKK from marching in the 1920s when they were terrorizing the entire South.
On the other hand, if you give it the power a majority WILL jail its non-violent political opponents, who present no danger and may even be right. This has been proven time and again.
A minority can still endanger a country through acts of violence or betrayal. But violence, treason, conspiracy to commit acts of violence, and direct incitement to violence are illegal already.
I have said, and will say again: the Bush administration has done much less to punish dissent than Nixon in the 1970s, Mayor Daley in 1968, Joe McCarthy & pals in the 1950s, and the Wilson administration during World War I, and that’s just off the top of my head–I would be pretty surprised if there weren’t many other examples this century. (Note that I’m talking specifically about punishing dissent–they have done their best to insure that dissent was ignored; and that dissent did not reach the President’s precious, delicate, ears. As far as mistreating immigrants they hold their own and as far as mistreating suspected enemy forces they more than hold their own. But those are all separate questions.)
I had thought this had less to do with Bush’s good will than with the American public’s unwillingness to put up with some things. I figured that if Ashcroft’s DOJ had done to Howard Dean or Ralph Nader what Mitchell Palmer’s DOJ did to Eugene Debs, the entire country would have flipped out. But combine Cella’s remark, and Charles’ approval of it, with the ever-more-common characterization of Democrats and liberals and people who opposed the Iraq War as “traitors” and “on the other side”, and…this is starting to freak me out a bit. You are also starting to freak out Matt Yglesias, Kevin Drum, and many many other people.
Because look, this is after a longer period without a terrorist attack than I thought possible after 9/11. That period will probably end one day. If the leaders of the right are becoming vicious now, what will they do then?
This is from a speech by Abraham Lincoln that Digby linked to:
(I’m not, obviously, seeking to compare the Bush administration’s policies to slavery. They are wrong, in certain cases horribly wrong, but they are very clearly not that wrong. I am saying that the leaders of today’s Republican party, the most vocal supporters of Bush and the Iraq war in the media–they will not be satisfied until we are “avowedly with them.”)
Because look, this is after a longer period without a terrorist attack than I thought possible after 9/11.
Really? I assumed that we’d be unharmed for about ten years. Long enough for Al Qaeda (or whichever band of merrie men decided to go for broke) to plan, long enough for them to suss out our defenses… and long enough for us to forget.
Was the United States of America an “Open Society” at its founding? If it was, you will have to explain why so many of its “citizens” didn’t have the right to vote at the very beginning. The right to vote was held by the minority, which doesn’t mean that this was not a great country, it just wasn’t an “Open Society”.
Short answer. Clearly, the ideal of the founding fathers was an open society, although their expression of it was still full of flaws. The fact that those flaws existed does not mean that the ideal did not exist, or that they did not seek to make it the central principle of this country. Sometimes you just have to fix a few things at a time, and hope the next generation carries the fight to the next level — rahter than rejecting the ideal because the founders were not perfect (which seems to be your point).
Many of the writers of the Constitution owned slaves — does that put them on par with Stalin or some other despot? No — it just made them hypocrits to some extent (which they knew, but their conscience had only enough guilt about it that they frequently only freed those slaves at the master’s death). But fortunately their vision and ideal is want endured — which is why the principle of an open society has endured and shaped our country for the last two centuries, rather than its slave-holding legacy or disenfranchisement of women.
I for one, demand that we all wear powdered wigs in public to reflect the original intent of the founders.
I want to add on to Katherine’s wonderful post upthread. I have been thinking about my strong negative reaction to Charles’s two posts about the Nutty Professor and Sebastian’s post from jane Galt. Why do I find those posts so offensive? it isn’t because I agree with either the nutty professor or the reporter. Katherine’s post helped my clarify my feelings: I think such posts are (consciously or unconsciouusly) part of a larger pattern of truly reprehensible behavior displayed by the right over the last five years or more.
This is the patterrn i see: the media is used by the Bush administration or its supporters for intimidation, the dissimination of untruths, slander, disinformation campaigns and the distribution of propaganda paid for with tax dollars. The rightwing rank and file and the rightwing blogisphere either ignores or supports this behavior. At the same time the rightwing bloisphere and media is used to hunt down, target, and harasse inndividuals for the “crime” of making one imprudent remark. A mountain is made of a mole hill. The amount of outrage is not porportional to the importance of the remark, leading me to conclude that the real agenda is either to intimidate or distract the public attention from the far more widespread and harmful remarks coming from the right.
When i assess someone’s comments i use a scale that includes the truthfulness of the comment, the amount of harm or good done, and the importance or relevance of the comment. The amount of harm or good is of course related to the audience size and crediblity of the commenter. In orther words when my wingnut co-worker says thhat Democrats have betrayed America, i do not think his comment merits widespread publicity or critism. His comment isn’t rue, it comes from a person wh has no audiance or credibility and the only harm done is to hurt my feelings. On the otherr hand when George Bush lied in his first State of the Union address i do think he statement deserrved widespread comment and criticism because the staement wasn’t true, he has an enormous audiance, he has crediblity with many people, and his lie had huge connsequences.
Using my scale of values the nnutty professor and tth reporter do not desserve widespread notice, let alone that they be houunded out of their jobs. The nutty professor’s statement was stupid, but, until the rightwing blogishaerre and media chose to broadcast him, he had a very limited audiance and only the credibilty a few individuals might or might not choose to invest in him. The very worst his statement could do is hurt the feelinngs of a 911 survivor (in a very periferal way I’m one). so what is the point of perseverating on and on about him? What scale of values is being used that would make him important? i really wouuldlike Charles to answerr this questtion, especailly given his supprt for Rush Limbaugh. After all Rush says things that are evverry bit as offensive as the nutty Professor, buut Rush has ahuge audiance, credibility with a cerrtian subset, and has been spewing hate and slander for years. If only thethinn-skinned wouuld object to Rush, why shuuld we get excited by one remark from an obscure professor? What is the agenda here?
jane Galt presents herself in a reasonable sounding way. i used to read herr regularly because i wanted to acquaint myself with a differnt point of view. But what scale of values is she using when she joins in the feeding frenzy now focused on the reporter? he made one statement, quickly retracted, to a restricted audience. Even if the worst possible construction is put on his statement its worst effect would be to hurt soldiers’ feelinngs and to reinforce the perception some Arab reporters havve of being targets. He had only a miniscule audience dbefore the rightwing blogisphere decided to pile on and and make a big noise about him… Since he repudiated his own statement i douubt his statement ever would hhave been widely acepted. so by my scale he was wrrong but not important. jane thinks he’s important. In contrast she stated clearly without reservation that she knew Bush hhad decieved the public about his reasons for going to war. And she added that she did not think he was obligied to be honest either with the taxpapyers woh pay for the war or the soldierrs who died in it. (that’s not how she phrased it, of course, but I have correctly conveyed her meaning) She also wrote an apologia for the Swift Boat Liars. What scale fo values is she using?
Why are isolated remarks by relatively unimportant indiviuals the focue of so much outrage while years of slander, dishonesty, intimidation, and disinformation is ignored.minimized, or rationalized away?
(please excuse the typos. i can’t see the screen well ehough to edit and my hand tremor is particularly bad today)
Kathrine,
Thanks for the Lincoln quote, I think it is the 2nd best response to Cella. Also, I’d like to hear this mysterious issue TtWD has w/ ole Abe and freedom.
Von: I’ve heard of praising Athens to the Athenians, but this — “we have, in short, always been willing to offer to subversives the choice that Athens gave to Socrates: silence, exile, or death” — is ridiculous.
It’s still more ridiculous to claim that Socrates approved of this choice.
Although I disagree with TtWD with some frequency, the man knows his history.
Perhaps he does. But my question still stands: why can’t he simply say what he means? His habit of dropping in rhetorical questions or oblique historical references without explanation convey the impression that his intent is to disrupt the thread, rather than contribute to the conversation. If that’s not his intent, perhaps next time he wants to join the conversation, he could try simply saying what he wants to convey.
Many of the writers of the Constitution owned slaves and wanted to keep them. This issue alone, explains a good portion of the construct of the US Constituion.
Katherine, have you ever heard the phrase “Albany Democrats”? Abe was eloquent, he also didn’t tolerate dissent, was ruthless in the prosecution of the war and embraced the concept of total war just ask the people of Georgia.
But my question still stands: why can’t he simply say what he means?
I’ve assumed that by making historical analogies, I expand your horizons Jes.
As an example, were the presidential elections of 1864 and 1868 within the framework of the constitution given that certain southern states were not allowed to participate. Is that concept in line with an open society?
Lincoln won the election of 1860 with only 35% of the vote. Did Lincoln have the mandate to save the Union?
Lincoln is viewed by many historians as this country’s greatest president, despite violating the constitutional rights of many of its citizens.
Jes, should I go on or have I made my point.
Timmy: I’ve assumed that by making historical analogies, I expand your horizons Jes.
But if you don’t bother to explain what you’re talking about, or how the historical analogy you think you’re making works, how on earth do you expect to expand anyone’s horizons? Again, why not just say what you mean, illustrated, if you like, by historical analogies/references? It might take longer, but it would mean your comments actually contributed to the discussion.
Timmy the Wonder Dog: As an example, were the presidential elections of 1864 and 1868 within the framework of the constitution given that certain southern states were not allowed to participate. Is that concept in line with an open society?
Why wouldn’t it be? Those states didn’t simply threaten rebellion. They actually took up arms against their fellow countrymen, spilling a whole lot of blood in the process. Where do the principles of an open society say that the act of rebellion must be tolerated?
How about a TtWD rhetorical question watch? I count 9 in this thread.
with the ever-more-common characterization of Democrats and liberals and people who opposed the Iraq War as “traitors” and “on the other side”, and…this is starting to freak me out a bit.
Free speech means that you and I will hear or read things that we disagree with so strongly that they are frankly shocking. I don’t know who exactly characterized Dems as “traitors”, but I do not think that it was party leaders as was the case in these incidents:
****
(from COMMONDREAMS.ORG, btw)
NASHVILLE, Feb. 8 — In a withering critique of the Bush administration, former Vice President Al Gore on Sunday accused the president of betraying the country by using the Sept. 11 attacks as a justification for the invasion of Iraq.
“He betrayed this country!” Mr. Gore shouted into the microphone at a rally of Tennessee Democrats here in a stuffy hotel ballroom. “He played on our fears. He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to our troops, an adventure preordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place.”
The speech had several hundred Democrats roaring their approval for Mr. Gore, the party’s 2000 standard-bearer.
****
(from BBC online)
“By putting us in the first ranks of the hated in the earth, Tony Blair is the one who has betrayed this country, not me and not you.
“If there’s a treason in this picture it is those who have sold our country to a foreign power, who have decided that it is our fate to be the tail of a dog whose head is the virtually imbecilic right-wing republican fundamentalist George W Bush.” – George Galloway
****
“When I hear this coming from Dick Cheney, who was a coward, who would not serve during the Vietnam War, it makes my blood boil,” said Harkin.
****
And I’m happy that there is an admission that the Bush admin did not suppress opposing views.
Note that I’m talking specifically about punishing dissent–they have done their best to insure that dissent was ignored; and that dissent did not reach the President’s precious, delicate, ears.
I am thrilled that President Bush has such thick skin. I think that he knew all about the various movies, music videos, plays, 60 minutes shows, NOW with Bill Moyers episodes (paid for in part by my taxes), NPR shows(tax again), Tim Robbins claiming on the Today show that his freedom of speech was being suppressed, etc, etc.
Oh and the books. Oh so many books, with their characterization of Republicans and conservatives and people who supported the Iraq War as “deserters” and “liars” and “theives” and “War Profiteers”
Let’s look and see what we can find on some online book sellers:
Deserter : George Bush’s War on Military Families, Veterans, and His Past
by Ian Williams
Editorial Reviews
…Deserter strips away the illusion of Bush as “commander-in-chief” to reveal a hypocrite who has betrayed his troops and his country.
Customers who bought this book also bought
* Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush by John W. Dean
* Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror by Richard A. Clarke
* House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World’s Two Most Powerful Dynasties by Craig Unger
* Bush Family Fortunes – The Best Democracy Money Can Buy DVD ~ Greg Palast
* The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception by DAVID CORN
* Chain of Command : The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib by Seymour M. Hersh
American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush
by Kevin Phillips
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right
by Al Franken
Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy
by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill
by Ron Suskind
The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy
by David Brock
Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror
by Anonymous
The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and The Media That Love Them
by Amy Goodman and David Goodman
The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century
by Paul Krugman
Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush’s America
by Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose
Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency
by Robert C Byrd
Imperial Overstretch: George W. Bush and the Hubris of Empire
by Roger Burbach
Bush Versus the Environment (04 Edition)
by Robert S. Devine
The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies That Led to War and Betrayed My Wife’s CIA Identity-A Diplomat’s Memoir
by Joseph Wilson
The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq
by Lakshmi Chaudhry and Christopher Scheer and Robert Scheer
Thieves in High Places: They’ve Stolen Our Country and It’s Time to Take It Back
by Jim Hightower
Dude, Where’s My Country?
by Michael Moore
Publisher Comments
“When the powers-that-be succeeded in ignoring and then silencing the nation’s widespread dissent over war, one man stood on an Oscar stage and, in front of a billion people, outed the commander in chief for his fictitious presidency and his fictitious…”
***
Look, I voted for Carter, Mondale, Bush, Clinton and Bush. I pointed out to my young son that the movie “Wag The Dog” was NOT TRUE. This movie was made in 1997 before Kosovo happened, and was not a deliberate attempt to derail Prsident Clintons election – he was well into his second term – it was just an unfortunate coincidence. On the other hand, “Farenheit 911” did deliberately misrepresent many facts.
That’s just the way of the world. We’re going to have to just deal with it. If you must, you can ban Bird Dog or tacitus, (I don’t think any of the bigshots are thinking of banning BD even though that post was a pretty weak cut and paste – though much better than what I could do.) but the cat’s out of the bag with talk radio and blogs, and the genie can’t be put back in the bottle. We aren’t going back to the halcyon days where the evening news and Time and Newsweek were the gatekeepers of all news. (and the Post and the Times) This Pandora’s Box of dissent from the right has been opened, and metaphors and accusations will tend to fly around without anybody who can control all of them.
I was going to make a point, but I forgot what it was. Hilzoy that was great writing that you just did, and all the main posters at ObWi are way cool, I’m not quite as p/o ‘d as I was when I swore that I’d never read it again, and well yeah I do sneak a peak now and then, but really really I am going back to only lurking, I think I’ve had too much coffee.
Oh, now I remember what I wanted to ask about
Charles Bird, who IS your number 1 favorite conservative talk show host.
I don’t listen to Rush very much, but I will tune in momentarily to see if Walter Williams is a guest host. He is a hoot!
Also Hugh Hewitt is pretty funny, and he has discussions, for instance, with Bill Press (author of one of them there anti-Bush books) and they actually like each other. Plus, he has Lileks (and other Northern Alliance guys) and Steyn, etc. How can you beat that?
Well, go right to Milt Rosenberg on the internet:
http://wgnradio.com/shows/ex720/audio/index.html
OMG Professor Rosenberg is AWESOME!!!
Hilzoy, Edward_, etc., I’m asking you all to give it a listen. There is nobody better, and he is not really a right-winger, but a smart guy who reads books and loves good conversation.
Now, back to the lurker cave.
They wouldn’t be rhetorical if you had a sensse of history.
Ahh, but Timmy, if you read my 8:06 post, you might have realized that I’m noting basically the same thing others are arguing you are (though you haven’t actually come out and state what you are defending). I guess I was wrong, you are afraid of taking positions you have to defend. That, or your sense of history doesn’t actually extend to keeping track of what arguments people actually make.
Paul Cella’s argument sounds, very, um, dare I say it – European. Specifically German but other continental Europeans also have that sort of view point ingrained into their constitutional and political system. It is a direct result of the 1930’s and the rise to power by democratic means of the Nazis. The Germans even speak of being a vigilant democracy. Anti-constitutional speech is a crime. Parties that are deemed to not respect basic constitutional values of democracy are banned. Not coincidentally the German (rough) equivalent off the FBI is called ‘the Office for the Protection of the Constitution”
But I’m surprised at an American conservative like Cella making an argument that is the basis of hate speech laws – does he really believe that someone like Prof Thomas Woods of the Politically Incorrect history should be waiting for his trial? Does he want all those neo-confederates in jail? Does he want fundies who argue that god’s law trumps American law like Judge Moore under federal felony charges? I assume he would like that for the extreme left but this concept is a double edged sword.
Timmy: They wouldn’t be rhetorical if you had a sensse of history.
Well, Von said (above) that you “know your history”. So I presume you have a detailed knowledge of [American] history, to which you are mentally referring when you ask your questions, and inside your mind, the questions look like clear points you’re making, not rhetorical questions, and certainly don’t look incomprehensible.
The rest of us don’t have that benefit. We don’t know what point you’re trying to make, because you don’t tell us. Many of us don’t have a detailed knowledge of American history, and while I’m always happy to learn, I know I’m not going to learn anything from someone who doesn’t bother to explain what he’s talking about.
Say what you mean. Illustrate what you’re trying to convey with examples from American history, if you like.
But again, if you simply throw in a rhetorical question based on a reference to American history that you virtually have to be you to understand, you’re not contributing to the discussion, and indeed, it looks like you’re trying to derail it.
should I go on or have I made my point
Timmy, you have made one point very clear: many incidents of American history do not reflect our expressed ideals. But this much has always been obvious.
What’s not so clear is how you think this all fits in to the larger question of how should we act now. Is it worth the effort to continue to move toward those ideals? Or do we want to say, freedom of thought is all well and good, but we can’t afford it right now, and, look over there! Jefferson and Lincoln had feet of clay too!
For myself, I think that if we want to call ourselves the shining city on the hill (and I, for one, do) we have to live up to our ideals. That’s what makes the shine. If we want to preach American exceptionalism, and claim to be the guardian of freedom and democracy around the world, we have to practice it at home. And that means putting up with intolerant or nasty opinions, as our Constitution says we should, and punishing only actions, not thoughts or speech.
DaveC
Thanks for the recommendation to Milt Rosenberg’s show, some interesting stuff there. I found that he has a blog that is an old school blog, which just has links to other interesting things with very little opining. Good stuff.
What’s not so clear is how you think this all fits in to the larger question of how should we act now.
Well we should first act in our national interests which I’ve said many times before. An Open Society is a fine objective as long as you separate liberty from license.
Our Constitutional Republic is a sound example of the overall practice of democracy but don’t make it into something it never was. When one talks about civil liberties in a time of conflict historical analogies are always apt in discussing the swing of the pendulum.
Our Constitutional Republic is a sound example of the overall practice of democracy but don’t make it into something it never was.
I think we have an obligation (if not a historical license, per se) to do exactly that though. Make it into something it never was, something better.
I think we have an obligation (if not a historical license, per se) to do exactly that though. Make it into something it never was, something better.
Excellent response, Edward.
“Well we should first act in our national interests which I’ve said many times before. An Open Society is a fine objective as long as you separate liberty from license.”
Sentiments, Timmy to which I am sure we would all concur (I know I do) – there’s really not much to argue.
However, the main thing, IMO, and I think a point off of which the thread has wandered, is more one of execution, not concept. Separating “liberty” from “license” (and the consequent definition of how much, and what sort of “license” is bad enough to warrant official suppression) is a tricky decision, and has to done (when it must be done) by someone.
Exactly who it is who we (as a nation/society/polity) empower to make these kind of decisions, and what type of constraints they must work under, in order not to “go to far” in limiting political expression is, I think, the hardest decision to make.
I posed this question to Paul Cella in Thursday’s thread (somewhat sarcastically, I must admit), and his response was a flat comment that he trusted “We The People”‘s elected representatives to do that job. A position with which, btw, I highly disagree, much for the same reasons that hilzoy referred to in her main post.
A reading of our history, and the inescapable fact that said representatives are human beings like the rest of us, with all human failings, including those like fear, prejudice, intolerance, ideological bindness,lust for power, etc. leads me to think that the less power we give to Government to regulate what we can say, publish, or post the better off we are.
Reading through Lincoln’s Cooper Union address that Katherine linked to above (2/19, 12:02pm) – I noticed that he touched on this very point: on the issue of slavery, its proponents, through the mechanism of their representatives in government, were attempting to further their cause by putting severe legal constraints on any expression of anti-slavery advocacy, wherever and whenever they could. Lincoln pointed out that, in effect, banning the expression of a viewpoint was highly unlikely to make it, thereby, just go away.
So far as I can, the USA has managed to prosper pretty well, economically, politically, and intellectually by operating under a system of relatively liberal regulation of expression, even if such expressions are occasionally offensive to one bloc or another, and I see no reason to change it, regardless of the opinion of ideologues as what dangers such-and-such a “subversive” ideology may or may not pose.
Jay C., I assume by “relatively liberal regulation of expression” you actually mean either “relatively limited regulation of expression”. Am I off base?
Oops, strike the “either”. Bad proofreading.
A couple of points, hilzoy.
I take the argument to be about whether the state should make it unlawful to hold certain opinions, not about whether individuals can or should reject those opinions as false or immoral.
I think your premise is wrong, and that flawed premise permeates through your entire post. Paul very clearly said, “The moment that the Open Society decides that certain opinions are unacceptable, and thus worthy of social, political and legal sanctions against them, it ceases to be an Open Society.” Since the term “legal” was already mentioned, I understood “political” to be taken in a broad sense, such as office or coffeehouse or church or blog politics.
At 3:15pm in the post in question, Paul said, “Most often what we are talking about is social in nature. Legal measures have only been used rarely.”
As I understand Paul’s words, his concern with the Soros concept is not so much that all questions be raised, but that all questions are given equal value and importance. The fact is that questions and opinions are always given value judgments both here and pretty much anywhere else for that matter. If I were to opine that blacks and Mexicans are subhumans, for example, Paul’s statement that “we have always been willing to proscribe certain opinions, to place a high enough price on holding certain views that most people simply give them up” is entirely apt, because the social and political price for my having these views would be intolerably high. The legality of it wouldn’t even enter the picture, so I’m a little baffled by some who claimed that Paul supports some form of governmental thought police.
On the “legal” plane, Paul said this at 3:59pm: “The legal measures have tended to come into play when the faction in question is perceived to constitute a pressing threat to the security of the nation. Thus, we socially ostracize neo-Nazis, because there is little reason to fear that they might actually take a shot at violently overthrowing the country. But we went farther with Communists because they were (rightly, in my view) perceived as an immediate threat; and we go further with radical Muslims, for obvious reasons.” I don’t see how or why that is so disagreeable, hilzoy. Given that, I think that the object you’re slapping is reddish and fishy in nature.
I find it ironic (is that the right word?) that my questions and opinions of Soros and Stewart have caused some people to want to make the price high enough for me to simply give them up. Furthermore, I am left to conclude that this very weblog is far from an open society concept since my raising an issue in a post has caused some to want me to be banned from editorship. Not very open in my view.
Another thought. JerryN brought up this paragraph:
Jerry didn’t provide a link to the paragraph and I couldn’t find it on my own, but if the quote is accurate, Paul may very well be misunderstanding what the OSI philosophy is about, since OSI has clearly judged what its preference is, and it may not be as open as Paul would believe.
Furthermore, I am left to conclude that this very weblog is far from an open society concept since my raising an issue in a post has caused some to want me to be banned from editorship. Not very open in my view.
Nonsense. Believing that someone has a right to hold and espouse a given viewpoint without legal repercussion is entirely different from wanting one’s community to welcome them, or give them a platform for spreading their viewpoints.
You are comparing your editorship, it seems, to the right of an individual to have an espouse an opinion. I am comparing it to the desirability of a paper granting someone with noxious, extremist viewpoints a job writing editorials.
I find it ironic (is that the right word?) that my questions and opinions of Soros and Stewart have caused some people to want to make the price high enough for me to simply give them up.
That’s because your questions were based on false premises, your opinions were not grounded in fact, and your post was nothing but a transparent attempt to smear Soros by linking him with Stewart’s negatives, all your post facto justifications to the contrary. There’s no victimization here, you’re simply the recipient of precisely the kind of community pressure and ostracism that an advocate of open societies believes is appropriate for offensive viewpoints.
Furthermore, I am left to conclude that this very weblog is far from an open society concept since my raising an issue in a post has caused some to want me to be banned from editorship. Not very open in my view.
BD, I brought that up so you would not have to.
Look, Edward_ and hilzoy are really, really liberal thinkers. Thats why they got you and slart and sebastian on the blog. They made a concious effort to do that. The folks who want you off are regular commenters that are not allowed editorial priveleges.
You are a good debater. Write some humongo original posts, like hilzoys, as well.
Back to lurking. I type slow and only on weekends.
Charles Bird: I think your premise is wrong, and that flawed premise permeates through your entire post. Paul very clearly said, “The moment that the Open Society decides that certain opinions are unacceptable, and thus worthy of social, political and legal sanctions against them, it ceases to be an Open Society.” Since the term “legal” was already mentioned, I understood “political” to be taken in a broad sense, such as office or coffeehouse or church or blog politics.
Charles, did you read any of the rest of the paragraph you quote? Hilzoy specifically addresses your criticisms with regard to the social component of Paul’s comments thus:
Huh. Did you miss this part of Cella’s comment?
“Fortunately, the United States never has been, is not, and (please God) will never become an Open Society. We have always been willing to proscribe certain opinions, to place a high enough price on holding certain views that most people simply give them up; we have, in short, always been willing to offer to subversives the choice that Athens gave to Socrates: silence, exile, or death.
That George Soros is trying to overturn this American tradition does not speak well of him.”
Again: Straight answers please. Do you agree or disagree with this?
Do you think that it was or would have been right during the Cpld War to jail people, or fire school teachers and college professors and low-level government bureaucrats, for belonging to the Communist party, or for being suspected of belonging to the Communist party, or for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee & name other suspected members of the Communist party, or for refusing on First Amendment grounds to take a loyalty oath? Do you think it is right to take analagous actions in the war on terror?
I am talking about cases where there are no serious allegations of violence, espionage, direct incitement to violence, or conspiracy or complicity in any of these crimes.
If so, how do you propose to determine which groups are so dangerous that legal sanctions against their speech are necessary? Radical Muslims don’t actually stand a chance of overthrowing the U.S. government. They might try, and they might murder people in the course of trying, but so might people like Timothy McVeigh, and Eric Rudolph, and the perpetrators of the small handful of murders and rapes committed every year on account of the victim’s sexual orientation. What’s the cut off # of murders? Is it in the dozens, the hundreds or the thousands? Is there a statute of limitations?
Or do you merely object to indirect incitement to violence when it threatens you? (Given that if I remember correctly, you oppose sentence enhancements for hate crimes–not penalties for speech, but the sort of sentence enhancements based on motive that we use all the time in the criminal justice system–I suspect this is the real test.)
If so, should people accused of these things receive the normal procedural protections before they are sent to jail, or will those be suspended too? If they are suspended, how do you propose to separate the innocent from the guilty? Should we just take Congress’ word for it? Or should we just take the President’s?
If you don’t propose sending them to jail but you do propose firing them–again, what sort of chance do they get to prove they are not subversive? Or is the burden on the government to prove that they are?
Whether we’re talking jail or loss of employment, where exactly would you draw the line? Do they have to endorse violence personally? What if they opposed violence against civilians but supported it against military targets in Iraq, or they opposed violence against the United States but supported it against Israel? What if they did not endorse violence of any kind but they belonged to an organization whose other members had endorsed violence, or if they disagreed with terrorists’ means but agreed with their ends? What if they opposed the terrorists in every way, but took a position, such as oposition to the Iraq war or the administration’s treatment of terrorism suspects, that was deemed “objectively pro-terrorist”? Where would you draw the line, and why do you trust Congress and/or the executive to draw it in the right place? (You seem to be rejecting the Supreme Court’s means of drawing the line as set forth in Brandenburg v. Ohio, so I assume you want them to those unelected judges to stop being so gosh-darned activist. Perhaps I’m wrong about this.)
“I find it ironic (is that the right word?) that my questions and opinions of Soros and Stewart have caused some people to want to make the price high enough for me to simply give them up.”
It is not ironic or surprising or in any way noteworthy that people who strongly disagree with your opinions would like to convince you to change them.
“Furthermore, I am left to conclude that this very weblog is far from an open society concept since my raising an issue in a post has caused some to want me to be banned from editorship. Not very open in my view.”
Well, did it happen? People asking for it to happen doesn’t prove anything about this weblog, just as your expression of your desire to see the United States cease to be an open society doesn’t actually make it so.
If hilzoy, Edward, von, Sebastian, & Slarti had decided not to have you continue as an editor, you’d have the beginning of point. They haven’t though. Not a single one of them has suggested they’re so much as considering it.
But, of course, no weblog or publication of any sort is entirely open. Only some people are given posting privileges, always. And a few people are banned from commenting. So it’s not entirely open. I’m okay with that. I admit: I don’t think every weblog or newspaper should follow the same guidelines for publishing people’s work as the United States follows for imprisoning or denaturalizing or deporting people.
(I’m not taking any position at all on whether it would be justified, now or ever. I’m just saying, being exiled from authorship at one small obscure weblog is so much less extreme than being stripped of United States citizenship as to make the comparison silly.)
Gromit:
Yes, “limited” rather than “liberal” would fir my meaning just as well, if not better. Thanks.
Do you think that it was or would have been right during the Cpld War to jail people, or fire school teachers and college professors and low-level government bureaucrats, for belonging to the Communist party, or for being suspected of belonging to the Communist party, or for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee & name other suspected members of the Communist party, or for refusing on First Amendment grounds to take a loyalty oath?
Probably the opposite is the case now. I’d venture to guess that more teachers, college professors, government beaureaucrats. and journalists are fired or never offered jobs because they have conservative beliefs. For instance in Illinois where Gov Blagoyavich (sp?) has to cut jobs, a lot of those jobs are cut first in downstate and collar counties that tend to be Republican – Case in point Volo Bog state natural area. That’s ok. What’s not ok is drumming Larry Summers out of his job. But that’s another topic.
Would it be better to get rid of Bird Dog, or bring harley on to harrass him all the time? Hi harley wherever you are.
(I am actually looking at changes on a little microprocessor thingy, so I am in the midst of some CPLD wars myself. If I pick on little mistakes too much, I am not concious of it.)
Dave — I don’t think that your Illinois example quite proves the point you’re trying to make. Assuming arguendo that the facts are as described (since I know relatively little about Illinois state politics), wouldn’t that more be a case of a politician trying to keep the pain of unpopular belt-tightening away from his supporters? That’s subtly different from laying people off because of their conservative beliefs.
More generally, I don’t think Katherine by her comment meant to get into a who-is-oppressed-worse debate — the comment about Communists, AFAICT, is relevant as an example of historical proscriptions of people holding minority beliefs.
Charles, did you read any of the rest of the paragraph you quote?
Yes, I did, Gromit. Proscribe also means “denounce or condemn”. That is the context of what I understood his sentence to mean.
I think though that, dictionary definitions aside, that the most commonly understood connotations of proscribe are related to prohibition rather than denunciation (cf. proscription).
Luckily, Cella is available around the corner and good about specifying his meaning on request.
Of course, when an author uses a particular word and intends a meaning other than the most commonly understood connotation, it’s generally incumbent upon him or her to do so right up front, don’t ya think?
Again, Charles, do you agree with this or not?
Fortunately, the United States never has been, is not, and (please God) will never become an Open Society. We have always been willing to proscribe certain opinions, to place a high enough price on holding certain views that most people simply give them up; we have, in short, always been willing to offer to subversives the choice that Athens gave to Socrates: silence, exile, or death.
That George Soros is trying to overturn this American tradition does not speak well of him.
It seems like he himself defines proscribe as “to place a high enough price on holding certain views that most people simply give them up.” And as far as what the high price is, “silence, exile or death” seems pretty unambiguous to me, especially when combined with the Socrates reference. I guess you could interpret exile to include prison as well as denaturalization/deportation, but interpreting it as “social ostracism” seems like so much of a stretch that it’s not even plausible.
“Of course, when an author uses a particular word and intends a meaning other than the most commonly understood connotation, it’s generally incumbent upon him or her to do so right up front, don’t ya think?”
No. Esp. since “common meaning” so often depends on who the common is.
Straight answers please. Do you agree or disagree with this?
I agree with it, Katherine, but not in the manner that you interpret it. Again, Paul was talking mostly in social and broadly political spheres.
I am talking about cases where there are no serious allegations of violence, espionage, direct incitement to violence, or conspiracy or complicity in any of these crimes.
We don’t disagree, although I would add that those who are or were in purposeful contact with Soviet operatives or al Qaeda members may be subject to prosecution. Again, in Paul’s words, “The legal measures have tended to come into play when the faction in question is perceived to constitute a pressing threat to the security of the nation.” Those who were victimized by the McCarthy witchhunts were not part of that “pressing threat” to national security. Nor were most or all of those Japanese who were interred during WWII. Nor are those who practice Wahhabism or Qtubism but have no deliberate contact with known terrorist organizations.
Or do you merely object to indirect incitement to violence when it threatens you?
I have no idea what you’re talking about.
should people accused of these things receive the normal procedural protections before they are sent to jail, or will those be suspended too?
Do you really have to ask?
If you don’t propose sending them to jail but you do propose firing them–again, what sort of chance do they get to prove they are not subversive? Or is the burden on the government to prove that they are?
Too hypothetical. Note that when I wrote about Ward Churchill, I did not say that he should be fired for his aberrant views, but because he defrauded the university, claiming Indian ancestry that he could not prove, and because of shoddy and misleading scholarship.
Whether we’re talking jail or loss of employment, where exactly would you draw the line?
Too vague and hypothetical. It would take too much time and too many words to draw lines on situations that may or may not happen.
Do they have to endorse violence personally?
Endorse? No. Incite? Yes. In 1995, Lynne Stewart said to the NY Times, “I don’t believe in anarchistic violence, but in directed violence. That would be violence directed at the institutions which perpetuate capitalism, racism, and sexism, and at the people who are the appointed guardians of those institutions, and accompanied by popular support.” She was endorsing violence, and she was rightfully not jailed for it. But had she said those same words to a group of bomb-carrying anarchists on the eve of a WTO conference, that may be another issue.
just as your expression of your desire to see the United States cease to be an open society doesn’t actually make it so.
You’re mischaracterizing me. The United States is already the most open society on earth, and I have no desire to “cease” that. Paul’s point was that Soros was attempting to overturn an already existing American tradition with his OSI concept which, as Paul pointed out, has to do with the abdication of assigning any value to questions and opinions raised. As I wrote at 1:58pm, Paul may have misinterpreted the OSI mission if Jerry’s cite is accurate (which I can’t confirm).
Bird: That is the context of what I understood his sentence to mean.
From where did you get that understanding, when Paul Cella specifies in the very same sentence that he doesn’t mean “denounce or condemn”: he means the choice the Athenians gave Socrates, of legally-enforced “silence, exile, or death”?
Bird: Soros was attempting to overturn an already existing American tradition with his OSI concept
Are you asserting, then, that America has a tradition of offering people who hold “certain views”, “silence, exile, or death”? And that this is a tradition which ought not to be overturned?
Would you care to suggest some examples of how this American tradition has been carried out?
Okay. I think we are in agreement on many basic principles. I also think you are interpreting Cella’s comments very differently from the way almost all of the rest of us understood them. Again, “silence, exile or death” for “subversives” as a “proud American tradition” seems completely unambiguous to me. So does “to place a high enough price on holding certain views that most people simply give them up”–losing friends would presumably not be a high enough price; this would have to mean loss of employment at an absolute minimum and would probably mean imprisonment. As for this:
The legal measures have tended to come into play when the faction in question is perceived to constitute a pressing threat to the security of the nation. Thus, we socially ostracize neo-Nazis, because there is little reason to fear that they might actually take a shot at violently overthrowing the country. But we went farther with Communists because they were (rightly, in my view) perceived as an immediate threat; and we go further with radical Muslims, for obvious reasons.
suggests to me that when a FACTION, as opposed to an individual, becomes a real threat, we criminalize speech as well as violence. That’s what we’ve been talking about for the whole thread. I’m not sure anyone here thinks violence, espionage, treason, direct incitement to violence, or conspiracy to commit violence or espionage, or being an accomplice in any of the above, should not be illegal, and I’m not sure anyone of us thinks it’s wrong to refuse to sit next to neo-Nazis at dinner parties, and I don’t see how either of those things would make this not an open society. Cella is arguing something else.
Note also these statements from Cella’s post:
And, while he listed political and social sanctions, he also said “legal” and he included it for a reason.
It seems crystal clear to me that he is in favor of jailing people for speech that the Supreme Court has agreed for forty odd years that the First Amendment protects.
You may honestly disagree, you may even be right (though I really doubt it, and even if he claims that you are right I might not be convinced–as I said, it seems completely unambiguous to me), but that is how 95% of us including hilzoy interpreted his words.
Would you care to suggest some examples of how this American tradition has been carried out?
And moreover, even assuming that this is in fact an American tradition, is it really one we want to continue? History abounds with examples of traditions and majority beliefs that we have long since renounced and been a better people for it.
To put it more briefly: I think there is confusion between two propositions
1) Certain beliefs should not be “open questions”, meaning that they are so unacceptable that it ought to be illegal to express them.
2) Certain beliefs should not be “open questions,” meaning that they are so unacceptable that it is morally wrong to express them & I would have a hard time being politicallty or socially associated with someone who did.
I agree with #2. I strongly disagree with #1.
I’m pretty sure that:
a) George Soros agrees with #2, and strongly disagrees with #1.
b) You agree with #2, and disagree with #1.
c) hilzoy agrees with #, and strongly disagrees with #1.
d) Paul Cella agrees with both #1 and #2.
And to make it really complicated:
for many of us, #1 is one of the beliefs that should not be “open questions” as defined in #2.
Yep. I strongly disagree with #1, and agree with #2. With the caveat (in the case of #2) that i sometimes try to talk to people who hold beliefs that I find repellent, on the grounds that I don’t know how they’re ever going to change their minds if no one who disagrees with them ever tells them why, but in some cases I have found it impossible to go on associating with them, for reasons related to their beliefs, but that aren’t exactly just my saying, I cannot go on associating with someone who holds these beliefs!
I interpreted Cella as accepting not just 2 but also 1, for the reasons I gave (and that other people have expressed.)
The Open Society Institute explains what an open society is here:
“An open society is a society based on the recognition that nobody has a monopoly on the truth, that different people have different views and interests, and that there is a need for institutions to protect the rights of all people to allow them to live together in peace. Broadly speaking, an open society is characterized by a reliance on the rule of law, the existence of a democratically elected government, a diverse and vigorous civil society, and respect for minorities and minority opinions.
The term “open society” was popularized by the philosopher Karl Popper in his 1945 book Open Society and Its Enemies. Popper’s work deeply influenced George Soros, the founder of the Open Society Institute, and it is upon the concept of an open society that Soros bases his philanthropic activity.”
Popper was a philosopher of scientist who held, basically, that in science the best we can hope for in a theory is not that it should be verified, but that it should never be falsified; and that the process of experiments is basically a rigorous way of subjecting hypotheses to as many different sorts of occasions on which they might be falsified as possible. The relation to political theory is basically: progress is made by testing your beliefs against challenges, by opening them up to criticism and the opportunity for disproof. Open societies are set up to allow this to happen; closed societies insulate their core beliefs from these sorts of challenges, thereby ‘protecting’ themselves from exactly the sorts of things that allow us to make progress.
Katherine, thanks for the clear statement – I happen to be a bit scared of Cella a la bob mcmanus and clarity helps settle the matter.
Though actually where do you think he stands in your division re atheists? “Against” regarding public office, but surely not “against” in sense 1) – but the former already makes me uncomfortable.
rilkefan, I may be misremembering, but ISTR Cella going so far as to say he didn’t think atheists should have the right to vote, let alone hold office. Again, my own mind may be just making that up, and I’m too lazy to search the ObWi archives.
Phil, I don’t see that in the archives. On the other hand I spent a while this morning fruitlessly trying to find a link from hilzoy to a site where one can enter an image and change its sex, ethnicity, painting style, etc.
Phil, I don’t see that in the archives (or in google – maybe I should try to check the office-holding point as well). On the other hand I spent a while this morning fruitlessly trying to find a link from hilzoy to a site where one can enter an image and change its sex, ethnicity, painting style, etc.
bird dog wants to equate calls by commentators for his removal from front page posting privileges with a rejection of what an Open Society means, therefore implying hypocrisy. Cute rhetorical move, and maybe BD believes it to be true. But it ain’t. BD suggests that Soros is an outsider bent on destroying the system, which seems to be an attenuated version of RW talking points.
but I hope it is a rather weak attempt to deflect rather than a revelation of true practices. However, the question arises because BD’s citations often seem not to show how he came to his view, but merely to provide post facto justification of what he writes.
With the ‘power’ of frontpage posting comes responsibility. BD seems to think that he was given a license to reproduce his Redstate and Tacitus posts at ObWi. This would relate to what assurance von and Ed gave to BD, but in some of his discussion here on what he feels his role is here, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
I called for BD to be asked to leave as a front page commentator not as a knee jerk reaction to what he wrote (I first suggested ignoring it), but because of his inability (which continues even now) to acknowledge fundamental observations that approach the realm of facts and make appropriate notice in the front page post. It’s no one’s responsibility but his, and if he can’t live up to it, he should be asked to leave. His shifting this to a tortured reading of Cella’s post in order to defend his position is, as one might say, Clintonesque.
Phil, I have a vague recollection of Paul Cella saying something like that – atheists being unfit to hold public office – so it’s not just you making it up. But I can’t remember anything else about the discussion, and searching on Google (the easiest way of searching Obsidian Wings) only found a comment Cella made in May 2004 about Muslims, in which he repeats his favorite quote about Athens; “In short, Socrates’ choice: submission, exile or death.”
It’s very odd: I don’t think I ever encountered anyone before who thought that the trial and execution of Socrates was the best that Athens had to offer. 😉
rilkefan
here you go.
lj – ta.
Jes, not to mock anyone’s death, but from what I’ve read of Plato, S’s main talent was out-sophisting the Sophists; the Athenians were just inadvertantly advancing the cause of knowledge aka Aristotle.
Let me just add myself to the list of those who strongly disagree with Katherine’s proposition #1 and strongly agree with #2, and to those who interpreted Cella’s post as approving legal sanctions for expressing certain beliefs.
That he did so is absolutely clear from the passage BD quoted in the post, and from Cella’s subsequent comments, where he suggested, among other things, that Congress and the state legislatures should have the power to determine acceptable expression.
“the trial and execution of Socrates was the best that Athens had to offer”
Then a close reading of Friedrich Nietzsche might do you some good 🙂 And perhaps some Thucydides and Xenophon in order to acquaint yourself with the external conditions and recent history of Athens. Like, it got destroyed not long after. Never to return to its previous heights.
….
that Congress and the state legislatures should have the power to determine acceptable expression. …Bernard
I don’t know what Cella believes, but this weekend I have been considering a hypothetical that has attraction for some on the right, involving the weakening of the judicial branch:
1)Marbury vs Madison a bad decision;2) Congress has at least an equal right to Constitutional interpretation, and the right to limit jurisdictionn, 3) “Incorporation” (13th,14th,15th) an unsupportable and generally bad thing
Been doing thought-experiments on what such an America might look like, rather than recoiling in reflex horror, actually trying to make it work in a “some things lost, some things gained” kinda way.
The left is far too comfortable in having the courts protect us. SCOTUS has no army.
bob, are you the editor of the NY Post?
Bob, I think you could build a (more or less) decent society on a foundation that did not include a written Constitution and strong judicial review–see, e.g., England today. But I think we in the United States have built a (more or less) decent society on precisely those foundations, and I don’t want us to go kicking away the foundations now.
I also think the Constitution is fundamentally illegitimate without the 13th, 14th, 15th and 19th amendments, so I want them interpreted broadly.
It is precisely because the Supreme Court has no army that I am okay with a broad power of judicial review. “The least dangerous branch”, “neither the purse nor the sword”, yadda yadda. The public doesn’t like it when Congress, and especially the President, refuses to abide by a Supreme Court decision. That wasn’t always true but it’s true now. We haven’t had a “Justice Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it” moment in some time. Lincoln did without a penalty, Roosevelt had one he got away with and one he didn’t, Nixon really didn’t get away with disobeying the courts, and Bush–who doesn’t lack chutzpah– hasn’t yet tried openly defying the Supreme Court. Gore didn’t even consider it in Bush v. Gore, and to a lot of liberals they’ve largely redeemed themselves for that decision with Hamdi and Rasul.
Whereas Congress has totally abdicated when it comes to protecting people’s rights. Maybe that’s partly because of strong judicial review, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to end if we take away strong judicial review. Tom DeLay and Dennis Hastert and Bill Frist are Tom DeLay and Dennis Hastert and Bill Frist. And for God’s sake, the House isn’t really democratically elected anymore. We’ve gone down this road; I think it’s too late to go back, and even if it’s not, now is about the last time in the world you’d want to risk it.
For reference, I’m linking to the key Warren Court decision on when political speech can be banned as incitement, . This is the key line:
People have their issues with the Warren Court, but this decision has been widely accepted by the left and right alike. Charles, I think, was trying to get at precisely this distinction in one of his responses to my questions:
I read that and thought, “yeah, the Brandenburg test”, which is what led me to believe that there was a fundamental misunderstanding more than a fundamental disagreement.
I kind of want to quote from noted subversive I.F. Stone’s book, The Trial of Socrates, but I’ll restrain myself for now.
gah. The decision’s name is Brandenburg v. Ohio. The link still works though it’s obviously screwily formatted. And preview is my friend.
“Incorporation” (13th,14th,15th) an unsupportable and generally bad thing
“Generally bad,” you say? So it would be OK for the State of Alabama, for example, to declare evangelical Christianity the state religion, impose disabilities on those who do not adhere to it, etc. And while they are it they might outlaw criticism of the law establishing the state religion.
Thought experiments? Right. How do they come out, Bob?
I am no lawyer or expert on the Constitution, but it seems absolutely clear that if the guarantees in the First Amendment are to have any force whatsoever then incorporation is a necessity. One could almost say (I would say) that incorporation is implicit in the Bill of Rights from the beginning, since otherwise it is useless.
I am no lawyer or expert on the Constitution, but it seems absolutely clear that if the guarantees in the First Amendment are to have any force whatsoever then incorporation is a necessity.
That only follows if you think the only mechanism of force is the (federal) Congress and the (federal) executive branch. All the removal of incorporation would mean — and it’s a pretty big “all” — is that the making and enforcing of such prohibitions would devolve to the individual states. It would make things… well… different.
[I, for one, would likely get the f*** out of Dodge but it’s not clear to me that such a change would inevitably result in the devolution of the United States.]
Anarch,
I’m not sure what you are getting at. Is it that we then would have to rely on the individual states to protect religious freedom, say? And that if a particular state chooses not to protect it, then too bad for its residents?
In effect this means the First Amendment is not a guarantee of individual liberty at all. It is just a statement that various restrictions will be left to the states.
“In effect this means the First Amendment is not a guarantee of individual liberty at all.”
Well, it is what we fought a civil war about, whether the Const guaranteed individual liberty or state freedom from federal interference.
Look these are not my views. I don’t mind the last 100 years of SCOTUS decision.
But it is not an inconceivable nightmare that Utah be a Mormon State, Illinois Catholic, New York Jewish. Nor does it seem to be a necessary federal guarantee that everyone has the right to live anywhere, without any difference in local laws and conditions. I don’t believe religious freedom was strongly enforced during our first century, nor do I remember many horror stories.
bob: Then a close reading of Friedrich Nietzsche might do you some good 🙂
Tried it. Gave me a headache.
And perhaps some Thucydides and Xenophon in order to acquaint yourself with the external conditions and recent history of Athens. Like, it got destroyed not long after. Never to return to its previous heights.
Read Xenophon, though it was years and years ago. Never Thucydides, though I’m more-or-less familar with the events he describes.
Still, Cella’s repeated championing of the trial and death of Socrates as an admirable example of how to solve the problem of what to do with a troublemaker who has committed no actual crime, is unique in my experience.
Thucydides is absolutely glorious, though I am not sure how it would help Paul Cella rescue his bizarre reading of the Apology, crito, et al. Likewise, I have read Nietzsche, at various distances, and I’m not sure how he advances the argument either. (Although this may be because Nietzsche, for me, falls in the category of “people my attitude towards whom absolutely disproves the idea that you have to agree with someone to think he is really, truly great.” My reading of Nietzsche is also heterodox at times. I think that if he came back to life and read some of his commentators, he’d think seriously about killing himself again, and only his belief in affirming life no matter what would stop him.)
I truly can’t imagine reading the relevant Platonic dialogues and concluding that Athens is the example you want to emulate.
“Thucydides is absolutely glorious”
The Melian Dialogue is something – not sure I’d call it glorious though.
I cannot possibly answer all the objections that have been brought against me, but perhaps I can help to clarify our disagreement here with a few remarks.
(1) The Open Society ideal was formulated by J. S. Mill and brought into American politics by early 20th century liberals. It is, I contend, an alien system, with no roots here. Philosophically, my critique of Open Society liberalism is that it is incoherent. It declares that, because “no one has a monopoly on truth,” all questions must remain open questions. But this proposition cannot stand, even on its own merits; for one question is not open — one question is emphatically closed — and that is the question of whether, in fact, all questions are open. Open Society liberalism appears to rest on a certain reticence about truth — but it is very aggressive in pronouncing one truth: that truth cannot be arrived at by men.
Another way to put is to say that all societies must have orthodoxies, public truths to which the community has committed itself. There is no way around this. Open Society liberalism elevates freedom of thought or speech as the highest public truth. Its orthodoxy is anti-orthodoxy. Its truth is the denial of public truth.
Again, this is an alien system to a polity which began its life with the words, “We hold these truths.”
(2) My interpretation of Athens and Socrates comes mainly from the Crito, and I never said that Socrates “approved” of the Athenian Assembly’s decision. What I said was that he did not begrudge them their decision. He was not, in short, an Open Society liberal. He believed that, as Mr. McManus so elegantly phrased it, “a community that cannot exclude is not a free community.” (ObWi, I think it’s worth noting, is not an Open Society. If it were, there could be no bans.)
(3) Without getting into specifics, I was never talking about run-of-the-mill political discourse. I agree wholeheartedly that the American tradition has usually reposed on the “let ’em speak” side. We have always been inclined to give men their fair opportunity to make their case, to have their say. But what we have not done — what we have hardly even contemplated doing — is imposing the rigid code of the Open Society upon ourselves. We have not made that strange philosophy of anti-orthodoxy our orthodoxy. We have always reserved the right to say, if we must, “that will be enough.”
(4) As a matter of political philosophy, I am indeed a (small “r”) republican. The question of when free speech can no longer be extended to a certain faction is one that must be decided by the people’s representatives sitting in legislative assemblies. I make no apologies for this.
(5) Hilzoy writes, The people who founded this country took a different view. They had the odd idea that citizens should be trusted to make up their own minds who their leaders should be.
Yes. And they also were influenced by the equally odd idea that the people should be trusted to determine the character of their society — even unto excluding those who are antithetical to it.
I have been accused repeatedly of a lack of faith in the strength of this country. I submit to you that there is a striking lack of faith among my opponents, who seem to believe that if they concede to We the People this power to, off at the end, silence speech we find sufficient dangerous or repugnant, then a marching tyranny of the oppression will descend upon us. Many commenters seems so frightened by the idea of a republican (again, small “r”) self-government extending into the realm of political expression, that one cannot but suspect that they fear their own countrymen.
“Well, it is what we fought a civil war about, whether the Const guaranteed individual liberty or state freedom from federal interference.”
And my side won, damn it, and changed the Constitution accordingly. I don’t think the First Amendment applied to the states before the civil war, but I sure as hell think it does now. The privileges and immunities clause works more neatly than the due process clause, but there are good arguments for both. Anyway, religion ought to be treated as a suspect class under the equal protection clause even if you do away with incorporation doctrine.
Not even Clarence Thomas wants to do away with incorporation entirely, though he and Scalia would overturn Gideon v. Wainright (right to counsel) if they could and he would not incorporate the establishment clause because he doesn’t think it protects individual rights. Janice Rogers Brown apparently agrees with Cella, but even if she makes the Supreme Court she’s one of nine.
A more likely scenario is that Congress uses a lot of jurisdiction stripping statutes. The Constitution would still bind the states, but instead of one Supreme Court ruling on how it binds the states you’d have 50 state supreme courts doing it.
New York wouldn’t be a Jewish state; even New York City is only 1/5 or 1/6 Jewish these days. The suburbs are probably noticeably more so, but upstate is way less.
But I wouldn’t expect true horror stories based on establishment of religion. I’d expect a bunch of students who don’t learn about evolution properly & to have to learn the Lord’s prayer but that may already be true. It presents a problem if you want to raise your kid Jewish and knowing his biology, of course, and I’d be even more concerned if I were Muslim, but the things that would have my bag packed and ready to move to Massachusetts at a moment’s notice would be gay rights, access to birth control including emergency contraception, and the criminal justice and mental health and prison systems going from awful to nightmarish. Restrictions on political speech could also be a problem but that, I find harder to predict. If it’s a jurisdiction-stripping situation you could also end up with the state courts gutting the legal protections of racial minorities; again, I find this harder to predict.
Intersting note: the high population states, which tend to be the liberal states, are systematically underreprsented in the federal government except for the courts. Most obviously in the Senate and the amendment process, but also in the House (since every state gets at least one representative and they refuse to increase the size of the house–not to mention the redistricting meshugas) and the electoral college (underrepresentation in the house + underrepresentation in the senate + gross underrepresentation of both very liberal and very conservative states.) Texas gets screwed too but it’s not much consolation.
I suppose this should make me more pro-federalist but in reality, it’s totally possible for us to be screwed over on the big issues, and the more important states are as a political unit and the greater the geographical differences, the more unfair these differences start to seem. Our tax burden will remain disproportionately high; our services disproportionately underfunded; our cities remain at the greatest risk of terrorist attacks because of an incompetent foreign policy; our air polluted by the dinosaur coal plants in the Ohio valley that have been running for decades….sure, now we can violate the bill of rights but we never wanted to do that anyway. Whoop di doo. And of course the push for a marriage amendment will continue unabated, and the Bush administration will still argue that federal statutes pre-empt New York and California’s environmental laws.
If you end incorporation or strip the federal courts of jurisdiction, there is a real possibility that you get a pretty decent sized migration from the conservative states to the liberal states and a smaller migration in the opposite direction. This increases state polarization, which makes the underrepresentation of the liberal states feel that much worse. If you think we’re bitter now….
Paul Cella: Thanks for your reply. I am curious about this bit: “It declares that, because “no one has a monopoly on truth,” all questions must remain open questions. But this proposition cannot stand, even on its own merits; for one question is not open — one question is emphatically closed — and that is the question of whether, in fact, all questions are open. Open Society liberalism appears to rest on a certain reticence about truth — but it is very aggressive in pronouncing one truth: that truth cannot be arrived at by men.”
First, what do you mean by a question ‘remaining open’? If you mean: that it is taken to have no answer, or that all answers should be seen as equally good, then I don’t see any reason to think that an open society, or a liberal society in Mill’s sense, has to presuppose this at all. Mill certainly did not think this — he had quite definite views about all sorts of things, and one of the reasons he favored freedom of thought and expression was that he thought that the best way for people to figure out the truth about how to live was to allow them to carry out what he called ‘experiments in living’. This idea would make no sense on the assumption that one view is as good as another.
That you do read it this way is suggested by your statement that the open society rests on a ‘reticence’ about truth. As I’m sure you know, lots of liberal theorists have explicitly denied this. Mill is one; John Rawls is another. (Rawls relies instead on the idea that for certain important questions about religion, morals, and so forth, the truth may be knowable, but it is not sufficiently obvious that we can expect all reasonable people to agree on the answers to these questions. This being the case, he argues that we could produce consensus on these questions, if at all, only by the use of coercive state power. But that’s completely different from saying that there are no right answers, or that they are not knowable.) For what it’s worth, I am a third. If you do mean that an ‘open society’ must rely on the idea that the truth is unknowable, it would be interesting to hear why.
If, on the other hand, when you say that a question is ‘open’ you mean that it should be legal to advance different answers to it, then that’s what Soros seems to have in mind. But then it’s not clear why you say that in an Open Society the question whether all questions are open is itself closed: an Open Society can perfectly well exist even if it’s legal to say that it should be closed, and to advance different arguments for and against that claim. In fact, our own society would seem to be living proof that an open society need not criminalize dissent.
Possibly you mean a third thing: that there must be a strong social consensus in support of an open society if it is to endure. This is true; but (again) what the consensus need to support is freedom of expression, not the idea that any claim is as good as any other. That being the case, I don’t see that there can’t be a strong social consensus in favor of freedom of expression: e.g., a lot of people who firmly believe that expression should be free. Nor does this require making dissent from this claim illegal; again, this country stands as an example that one can have a strong consensus without making dissent illegal.
I’m inclined, therefore, to read your view as equivocating on this term: you say that an open society has to treat at least one question as closed ( = as having an answer), and take this to imply that a completely open society ( = one in which all views can be voiced) is impossible. But I’m probably just missing something; in which case just let me know what it is.
Is it that we then would have to rely on the individual states to protect religious freedom, say? And that if a particular state chooses not to protect it, then too bad for its residents?
Well, yes. I agree with Katherine, more or less, that that changed in the postbellum era, but prior to that I’d say that’s exactly right. The fault lies not with the Constitution but with our overly-pat summation of, say, the First Amendment as “protecting freedom of the press”. It didn’t. It protected the freedom of the press from Congress but left open the question of whether the various states could choose to abridge it.
On which note, does anyone know of any major cases in which the states did choose to abridge, say, the First Amendment?
Mr. Cella,
As Hilzoy said, you misinterpret Mill — he did not say that all questions were or could be open, but that we cannot be assured enough that our personal opinion is the true one to justify legal prohibitions against those opinions with which we disagree. The two are very different, and your discussion of Mill elides that difference.
Further, I’m interested to hear how your point (5) is consonant with the First Amendment. 2) You argue that worries about tyranny and oppression of dissent and minorities in a non-Open Society implies a striking lack of faith in one’s countrymen. I would say rather that it suggests that we have read Madison’s Fed. 10 on the dangers of faction (and persons of factious temperament gaining political power) and Tocqueville on the dangers of tyranny of the majority.
When you ascribe the idea of an Open Society to Mill and his 20th Century followers, you do a great disservice to Tocqueville, who was very clearly concerned in Democracy in America with the _dangers_ of tyranny of majority opinion, and the extent to which that _problem_ could and did exist in American life. While I can’t say as I agree with everything in Tocqueville, the issues and concerns he raises are certainly still relevant to contemporary American life.
Paul Cella–
You don’t understand at all what liberals think.
I don’t say there is no truth or right; I am convinced there is. I don’t say that man cannot discover what is true or right; I am convinced he can, though he does so haltingly and rarely. I am arguing that what is true and right cannot be resolved by taking a vote about it and letting the ayes have it. I am arguing that the government absolutely cannot be trusted to discover what is true and right, and imprison people for speaking or thinking what is false and wrong–even what is most false and most wrong. If you give it this power, it will misuse it. It always has and always will.
And Thomas Jefferson agreed with me about this:
“The error seems not sufficiently eradicated, that the operations of the mind, as well as the acts of the body, are subject to the coercion of the laws. But our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. If it be said, his testimony in a court of justice cannot be relied on, reject it then, and be the stigma on him. Constraint may make him worse by making him a hypocrite, but it will never make him a truer man. It may fix him obstinately in his errors, but will not cure them. Reason and free enquiry are the only effectual agents against error. Give a loose to them, they will support the true religion, by bringing every false one to their tribunal, to the test of their investigation. They are the natural enemies of error, and of error only. Had not the Roman government permitted free enquiry, Christianity could never have been introduced. Had not free enquiry been indulged, at the aera of the reformation, the corruptions of Christianity could not have been purged away. If it be restrained now, the present corruptions will be protected, and new ones encouraged. Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now. Thus in France the emetic was once forbidden as a medicine, and the potatoe as an article of food. Government is just as infallible too when it fixes systems in physics. Galileo was sent to the inquisition for affirming that the earth was a sphere: the government had declared it to be as flat as a trencher, and Galileo was obliged to abjure his error. This error however at length prevailed, the earth became a globe, and Descartes declared it was whirled round its axis by a vortex. The government in which he lived was wise enough to see that this was no question of civil jurisdiction, or we should all have been involved by authority in vortices. In fact, the vortices have been exploded, and the Newtonian principle of gravitation is now more firmly established, on the basis of reason, than it would be were the government to step in, and to make it an article of necessary faith. Reason and experiment have been indulged, and error has fled before them. It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors? Fallible men; men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons. And why subject it to coercion? To produce uniformity. But is uniformity of opinion desireable? No more than of face and stature. Introduce the bed of Procrustes then, and as there is danger that the large men may beat the small, make us all of a size, by lopping the former and stretching the latter. Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor morum over each other. Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.”
As did James Madison:
“I should therefore wish to extend this interdiction, and add, as I have stated in the 5th resolution, that no state shall violate the equal right of conscience,
freedom of the press, or trial by jury in criminal cases; because it is proper that every government should be disarmed of powers which trench upon those particular rights. I know in some of the state constitutions the power of the government is controuled by such a declaration, but others are not. I cannot see any reason against obtaining even a double security on those points; and nothing can give a more sincere proof of the attachment of those who opposed this constitution to these great and important rights, than to see them join in obtaining the security I have now proposed; because it must be admitted, on all hands, that the state governments are as liable to attack these invaluable privileges as the general government is, and therefore ought to be as cautiously guarded against.”
(Speech on Amendments to the Constitution, 1789. He lost that vote at the time, but he was right, and after his death he got his way through the 14th amendment)
“Because finally, “the equal right of every citizen to the free exercise of his Religion according to the dictates of conscience” is held by the same tenure with all our other rights.
If we recur to its origin, it is equally the gift of nature; if we weigh its importance, it cannot be less dear to us; if we consult the “Declaration of those rights which pertain to the good people of Virginia, as the basis and foundation of Government,” it is enumerated with equal solemnity, or rather studied emphasis.
Either then, we must say, that the Will of the Legislature is the only measure of their authority; and that in the plenitude of this authority, they may sweep away all our fundamental rights; or, that they are bound to leave this particular right untouched and sacred:
Either we must say, that they may control the freedom of the press, may abolish the Trial by Jury, may swallow up the Executive and Judiciary Powers of the State; nay that they may despoil us of our very right of suffrage, and erect themselves into an independent and hereditary Assembly or, we must say, that they have no authority to enact into the law the Bill under consideration.”
–Memorial and Remonstrance
Madison also wrote the Virginia Resolution in opposition to the Sedition Act.
(All of this is particularly true when you’ve got an incompetent press and a system of elections that:
1) allows House members to choose their voters instead of voters choosing their House members
2) systematically underrepresents the large population states in the House, and the Senate, and the electoral college, and the Constitutional amendment process
3) does not give any vote at all to the people who have been imprisoned (disproportionately racial minorities) or can be deported. There’s a very good argument for denying the franchise to non-citizens and a not-so-good argument for denying it to felons, but the fact remains that elections will do absolutely nothing to protect those groups.
4) is so heavily influenced by money from the richest and most powerful people and corporations.
But it would be true regardless; that’s just the icing on the cake.)
Anarch–sure.
Alabama’s 1833 Slavery Code:
“Any person who shall attempt to teach any free person of color, or slave, to spell, read or write, shall, upon conviction thereof by indictment, be fined in a sum not less than two hundred fifty dollars, nor more than five hundred dollars.”
“If any slave or free person of color shall preach to, exhort, or harangue any slave or slaves, or free persons of color, unless in the presence of five respectable slave-holders, any such slave or free person of color so offending, shall, on conviction before any justice of the peace, receive, by order of said justice of the peace, thirty-nine lashes for the first offence, and fifty lashes for every offence thereafter”
I assume that there were similar laws in most of the slave states. It was also pretty common for abolitionist literature to be banned, and the justification for this was often that it would incite slaves to violence.
(The other approach of course was to just burn down the newspapers. See Elijah Lovejoy. William Garrison also almost got killed one time, and was imprisoned for libel another time.)
Paul Cella: My interpretation of Athens and Socrates comes mainly from the Crito, and I never said that Socrates “approved” of the Athenian Assembly’s decision.
Yes, you did. (To be precise, you said he thought it was a good idea.)
I pointed out statements made by Socrates that contradict your assertion in both the Apologia and the Crito in the thread I’ve linked to.
What I said was that he did not begrudge them their decision.
He protested it at length, and eloquently, in the Apologia, and he explicitly said that it was an evil act in the Crito. I have quoted the relevant passages in that other thread.
If you give it this power, it will misuse it. It always has and always will.
Did Abe misuse this power, just for starters?
Nice! My own response would have been something to the effect that it’s a self-pruning decision tree: choosing “no” as an answer to the question of whether, in fact, all questions are open pretty much ends the entire inquiry. Intelligent people will anticipate this and never take that path. So it’s not precisely as if that question isn’t open, it’s that it’s obvious that it’s a dead end. One might as well choose death in response to the question is life worth living?, just as an experiment.
Liberalism? The insistence on keeping an open mind about things is liberalism? Hopefully I can count myself as a liberal in your estimation*, at least in that sense. The point of keeping questions open is not the shedding of any values whatever, but rather to keep society from calcifying. Imagine if we’d closed off lines of inquiry previously thought to have been resolved. Where would we be now?
*It’s probably not necessary for me to note that I’ve never EVER typed a sentence remotely like this.
Did Abe misuse this power, just for starters?
Liberal Japonicus said it best: “Timmy, you may feel that rhetorical questions are gently pointing things out (along the lines of ‘could you pass the salt?’) but I think I speak for a number of people when I say that they make it appear that you don’t want to actually put any flesh on your thoughts and therefore are trying to avoid taking positions you have to defend. I’m sure that’s not the case, so perhaps you might want to avoid rhetorical questions if you don’t want to give that impression.”
Several points in response to Paul. First, I don’t agree with his point #4. For me, the 1st Amendment and resultant case law set the proper boundaries for free speech. I get nervous when legislatures infringe on those boundaries. Tyranny of the majority and all that. Second, because of this, I’m having second thoughts on the Athenian Way that he referenced. This is a sufficient enough difference to cause me to update my earlier post.
I do agree that the Open Society FAQ is contradictory. It is more than a little strange that they claim there is no monopoly on truth, and then in the next sentence they proclaim their own truth.
It’s belated, but thank you hilzoy for your crafting of an honorable dissent.
they proclaim their own truth
By saying ‘Open societies are characterized…’, they are not ‘proclaiming their own truth’, but identifying the points where the OSI is going to support countries that don’t have such features or such features need strengthening. If they said that an open society is X, they would be doing what you suggest, but they are not doing that.
About the Soros FAQ: they say that “An open society is a society based on the recognition that nobody has a monopoly on the truth, that different people have different views and interests, and that there is a need for institutions to protect the rights of all people to allow them to live together in peace.”
That nobody has a monopoly on the truth is consistent with the claims: (a) that there are truths, (b) that they take this to be one of those truths.
I mean: I don’t think that I have a monopoly on the truth. I also think that any number of my beliefs might be wrong, and that it behooves me to keep an open mind. How does this conflict with my having beliefs, even beliefs I feel strongly about?
“Timmy, you may feel that rhetorical questions are gently pointing things out (along the lines of ‘could you pass the salt?’) but I think I speak for a number of people when I say that they make it appear that you don’t want to actually put any flesh on your thoughts and therefore are trying to avoid taking positions you have to defend.
Actually it wasn’t a rhetorical question. Katherine makes an absolute statement which I question by raising a historical fact. That is, was Abe out of bounds with his actions. I expect an answer. Maybe Jes you would care to try.
As Von pointed out, we materially changed the Constitution (13th, 14th and 15th Amendment) while excluding a material portion of US citizens while doing so.
These are relevant historical points to the overall discussion. Our current construct of a constitutional republic isn’t an open contract, it places many responsibilities on its citizens and with responsibilites come constraints (the difference between liberty and license). I continue to lay out historical examples which apparently many here, including you Jes, struggle with but so far none have been refuted. You many not like the analysis Jes, but it is relevant to the overall discussion. Accordingly, I will continue to use them. Jes, so much for your “open society” or do you struggle with those things that you have no understanding of.
Timmy, as has already been said to you, if you want to make a point, why not make it, instead of asking rhetorical questions?
Katherine makes an absolute statement which I question by raising a historical fact.
No, you didn’t. Asking “Did Abe misuse this power, just for starters?” is not “raising a fact”: it’s asking a rhetorical question. If you have some illustration to make from US history about misuse of power that you feel is an appropriate response to Katherine’s comment, why don’t you just say what you mean, instead of asking a rhetorical question and then getting miffed?
Hmmm…and all this time I had thought a rhetorical question is that which one doesn’t want to have answered.
And for those of you keeping score at home, the TtWD RQS (Rhetorical Question Scoreboard) has just gone to double digits! How many more until he asks what the GDP of China is? Place your bets!
Hmmm…and all this time I had thought a rhetorical question is that which one doesn’t want to have answered
Why would you think that??
Not that it isn’t fun to watch Timmy and Jesurgislac go at it over historical issues of abuses-of-power, but just to get the ground rules straight: Timmy, could you please, for once, clarify a point on one of those “rhetorical questions” you so often plant on comment threads? To wit:
“Did Abe misuse this power, just for starters?””
Is this question just a simple yes-or-no case, like:
1. Does Katherine (or whoever) think Abraham Lincoln misused his Presidential powers during the Civil War?
Or is there some more complex question meant here, like:
2. Do “you” think Abraham Lincoln misused his powers, but should still be admired as a great President?
3. Do “you” think Abraham Lincoln misused his powers and should be vilified for it?
4. Do “you” think Lincoln’s use/misuse of powers is a relevant example to our discussion?
Or is there some other point you are trying to make?
Definition: “The rhetorical question is usually defined as any question asked for a purpose other than to obtain the information the question asks. For example, “Why are you so stupid?” is likely to be a statement regarding one’s opinion of the person addressed rather than a genuine request to know. Similarly, when someone responds to a tragic event by saying, “Why me, God?!” it is more likely to be an accusation or an expression of feeling than a realistic request for information.”
When TtWD posts questions like ‘What is China’s GDP?’, it strikes us as rhetorical since (usually) China’s GDP has not figured in the conversation. So we assume that he’s basically saying: if you knew the answer to this, you would abandon or modify the point you’ve been making in some way. We just wish he’d make his criticism directly, since then we don’t have to spend time figuring out what he’s getting at.
Oh, and Charles: you’re welcome.
Slarti: Hmmm…and all this time I had thought a rhetorical question is that which one doesn’t want to have answered.
What’s a rhetorical question? Answer
Example:
Katherine you can be remarkable and compelling.
Does anyone want me to make that pesky blockquote
go away?
I’m not seeing anything that leads me to believe that Timmy didn’t want an answer, Jesurgislac. Would it be faster for Timmy to just come out and say what’s on his mind? To me, unquestionably. Then again, I think it’d have been much quicker for you to have simply answered the question rather than making style critiques.
Slarti: I’m not seeing anything that leads me to believe that Timmy didn’t want an answer, Jesurgislac.
Well, if you think so. So it’s your impression that Timmy is ignorant of, and seeking information on, the following questions:
Will this blockquote never
go?
Slarti — I didn’t mention TtWD’s rhetorical question thingo until after I had, several times, gone to the trouble of finding estimates for China’s GDP, none of which prevented him from asking about it again and again. I’d also add that answering some of the questions Jes cites, like “why a constitutional republic?’, would take a while, if done right. It’s a lot of trouble to go to if he doesn’t actually want to know.
I think you might consider that the information he seeks is not the answer to the question so much as how well you answer it. This seems obvious to me, but that could just be the common VRWC heritage between Timmy and I.
I think you might consider that the information he seeks is not the answer to the question so much as how well you answer it.
Um. How does suggesting that Timmy likes to make people jump through hoops before he’ll engage with them make his behavior any more palatable?
Well, yes, but then I ask myself: why does TtWD assume that it’s OK for him to be endlessly setting the rest of us these little tests that require (sometimes significant) effort on our part, rather than assuming that we are reasonable and making his point?
Slarti: I think you might consider that the information he seeks is not the answer to the question so much as how well you answer it.
But (if you’re right in your guess as to why he asks) why should anyone care what Timmy thinks about how well we answer his questions?
As Hilzoy pointed out above, she went to the trouble of finding an estimate for the GDP of China several times, which Timmy never seemed to be interested in or to comment on.
In any case, Timmy seems to think that he’s “laying out historical examples” – and he persistently ignores the point that he is not actually laying them out: he is asking rhetorical questions. (Or, if you’re right, setting tests for a class that he seems to believe we are all enrolled in.)
Now that we’re all agreed that the questions aren’t rhetorical, my work here is done.
Sorry I abused the notion of a rhetorical question. Perhaps a better name would be a phatic question, but phatic is something like ‘don’t you love this weather’ that is set forth to establish, rather than undermine a mood of sociability.
And FWIW, I believe that asking questions not because you wanted to find out the answer but because you wanted the person to prove how well they knew what you talking about is disrupting the conversation for its own sake and therefore prohibited by the posting rules. Plus it reminds me of the SATs.
As to the Lincoln and the First Amendment specifically (as opposed to the more generally known suspension of habeas corpus–which is related but not the exact same thing): I’ve read reports that he censored telegraphs and newspapers and it sounds like he did abuse that power. But I cannot find any account of this that is both detailed, and reasonably neutral–it’s either vague or it’s from sites about “the REAL Abraham Lincoln” and “Abraham Lincoln’s Culture of Death.” If you would like a detailed response please provide me with more details.
It does not really surprise me all that much when good Presidents or good countries or good people do bad things. I have said repeatedly here that FDR, who I think was the best president of the 20th century, committed two sins–one of omission and one of comission–that are worse than anything George W. Bush has done wrong. Bobby Kennedy, another one of my heroes, worked for Joe McCarthy near the beginning of his career. Madison and Jefferson were terrible hypocrites about slavery. Harry Truman, who I think did a truly amazing job in the early days of the cold war, I also think made a horrible mistake that killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people in bombing Nagasaki. I could go on like this. In the cases of Lincoln, Roosevelt, RFK, Truman, Madison, Jefferson, I think they gave things to this country and the world that ended up mattering more than the things they did wrong. In the cases of Andrew Jackson, Woodrow Wilson, and George W. Bush, I don’t think so.
If we’re talking specifically about civil liberties in wartime, I’ll note that Lincoln is also partly responsible for the Lieber Code, the precursor to the Geneva Conventions–which the Union adopted though the Confederacy did not.
Slarti: Now that we’re all agreed that the questions aren’t rhetorical, my work here is done.
Who says we’re agreed? I still think Timmy is asking rhetorical questions, since he doesn’t seem to want answers, or to be interested in them when he gets them. You’ve argued that he’s setting tests for the rest of us: the only person who can really answer this question is Timmy. 😉
But it is not an inconceivable nightmare that Utah be a Mormon State, Illinois Catholic, New York Jewish.
That’s a bit glib, Bob. Don’t centuries of history that tell us that what happens when religious groups have the power of government at their disposal can easily be a nightmare?
Nor does it seem to be a necessary federal guarantee that everyone has the right to live anywhere, without any difference in local laws and conditions. I don’t believe religious freedom was strongly enforced during our first century, nor do I remember many horror stories.
Depends on your definition of “horror stories.” Some states had religious requirements for holding office, for example. It is also relevant that the country was overwhelmingly Protestant during its first century, so even things that would be regarded as highly objectionable today might have met with little objection. The immigrations that brought Catholics and Jews in large numbers occurred after the Civil War. And of course, adherents of other religions were not present in significant numbers until even more recent times.
No horror stories? Oh, I don’t know:
From the Wikipedia entry on Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church:
From the general Wiki entry on the history of the LDS Church:
From a PBS bio of Brigham Young:
Is that horrible enough? (Certainly it’s more than long enough–sorry.)
Perhaps Bob does not remember horror stories because Bob is not a Catholic, a Mormon, or a Jew?
Gotta love that fair-n’-balanced majoritarian view of the world. Nothing bad happened to MY folks, so nothing bad really happened.
Now to be fair, the Jews and the Catholics had troubles as much because of their ethnic divergence from the norm as because of religion. See, e.g., the Leo Frank lynching, or the interminable Catholic-Protestant street-gang wars in NY, Pittsburgh, Boston, et al. So let’s just talk Mormons–completely mainstream ethnic Americans, led by, believe it or not, a guy name of Joe Smith. Can’t hardly get more whitebread than that. Good old Joe was shot by a lynch mob after being jailed on trumped-up charges. His people fled, abandoning property they had lawfully settled and built up, to avoid more of the same.
Nope, no horror stories here, move along, nothin’ to see.
I see Katherine anticipated my point, sorry for the redundancy.
The question of when free speech can no longer be extended to a certain faction is one that must be decided by the people’s representatives sitting in legislative assemblies. I make no apologies for this.
Many commenters seems so frightened by the idea of a republican (again, small “r”) self-government extending into the realm of political expression, that one cannot but suspect that they fear their own countrymen.
By this argument anyone who favors any restriction on legislative power “fears their countrymen.”
And of course, I do fear my countrymen, in the sense that I fear they will elect people to office who will abuse their power. I suspect that you have the same fear. Certainly the Founders did. Hence there are restrictions on what legislatures can do. These are not absolute – the Constitution can be amended – but they are very difficult to overturn, and rightly so.
I think the first paragraph I quote largely refutes Charles’ defense of your views: that you were speaking primarily of social sanctions, not legal ones. And though it describes your views, that does not mean, as you seem to claim, that it describes American tradition.
(1) I do not think I am misinterpreting Mill. In his On Liberty he wrote “. . . there ought to exist the fullest liberty of professing and discussing, as a matter of ethical conviction, any doctrine, however immoral it may be considered.” This is not some throwaway line: he dedicates an entire chapter to defending this proposition. I merely do Mill the honor of believing he meant what he said. (And let me also note here that Mill, unlike his later followers, had no illusions about the radical nature of his project.)
(2) It may be that the phrase “Open Society” has obscured more than it has clarified. I am perfectly willing to part with it if necessary. But the point is that when a society has elevated freedom of thought and speech to the level of its highest good, freedom of thought and speech ceases to be merely freedom of thought and speech, but becomes that society’s highest standard of order. It becomes its orthodoxy. It is this philosophy that I object to. It is this philosophy that I regard as quite alien to our political tradition. Hilzoy writes, I don’t think that I have a monopoly on the truth. But you do: on the issue of free speech, you think it is simply true that the good society is the society which gives free reign to all political discussion, “however immoral it may be considered.”
(3) I find the contention that the Founders were Millian liberals in their views of free speech verging on preposterous. How is it, I wonder, that the same Congress, in the same generation, that passed the Bill of Rights also passed the despised Alien and Sedition Acts? Some will reply, of course, that this was an unfortunate lapse, but if the Founders really were Millian liberals, it was more than a mere lapse — it was apostasy; it was a betrayal of their deepest commitment. And yes the Alien and Sedition Acts provoked widespread outrage, but this outrage, for the most part, was based not on free speech grounds, but on the question of state vs. federal authority. Indeed, the doctrine of Nullification — that a state might simply refuse to abide by some egregious federal law — was first formulated in reaction to the Alien and Sedition Acts. In short, the whole debate surrounding these acts dealt not with questions of political expression, but with the ever-vexing issue of state vs. federal power.*
(4) On the question of my small “r” republicanism, allow me to clarify. I do indeed admire and cherish the various checks on majoritarianism that the Framers included in the Constitution. I believe they were, for the most part, wise to do so. And I think that Tocqueville’s nightmare vision of “regulated, mild, peaceful servitude,” which might arise with the decay of democracy, is a profound insight. It is positively prescient in describing the bureaucratization of American life. But in the end, this is a republic, and if we wish to remain so, then we must allow the big decisions — those touching on who we are as a people, our character and destiny as a nation — to be answered by the people’s representatives.
(5) Let me just say this here as well: I am impressed with the civility and thoughtfulness of the discussion of this difficult topic. The community here at ObWi, in this debate, honors its liberal heritage.
_______
* So as to not be coy, I will say something about the merits of these infamous laws. I myself do not see much to despise in the Alien and Sedition Acts. They do not strike me as particularly horrifying. They are, in fact, significantly less restrictive than, say, most campus speech codes of today: they retain the absolute defense of truth, trial by a jury of one’s peers, and they were marked to expire — which they ultimately did. So no: I do not see them as some stain upon our history. But then again, I am not a Millian liberal.
For the record, I was raised weak Catholic, never confirmed, with some Methodist influence and a lot of Amish relatives. It was a majority Catholic community, but not ethnic in any noticable way. My Catholic marrying my Methodist mother was the norm, or at least not unusual. OTOH, I remember 1 Jew, 3 blacks, and 1 Muslim in my first twenty years. 🙂
I knew of the Mormons, and yes, it is certainly an example of violent religious persecution. That most of us have heard of it possibly marks how unusual it was. The period was one of religious revival, religious and social experimentation, and there were many unusual communities around the country. Amish, Mennonite,Quaker,Oneida. Yet the Mormons are the only example I can think of. Maybe I am just ignorant.
Again, “monopoly on truth” to me means: “only I (or this group I belong to) know the truth about everything”, not “I am utterly convinced that this specific statement is true.”
“I find the contention that the Founders were Millian liberals in their views of free speech verging on preposterous. How is it, I wonder, that the same Congress, in the same generation, that passed the Bill of Rights also passed the despised Alien and Sedition Acts? Some will reply, of course, that this was an unfortunate lapse, but if the Founders really were Millian liberals, it was more than a mere lapse — it was apostasy; it was a betrayal of their deepest commitment”
1) The founders disagreed. I quoted Jefferson and Madison, who had nothing at all to do with passing the Alien and Sedition Acts, and who went into exquisite and eloquent hysterics about it. “The reign of witches” and all that. I think of Patrick Henry and Sam Adams as being big on free speech and the bill of rights. I’m less certain about Hamilton and Adams.
2) Of course it’s possible for them to betray their deepest commitments. Half of them owned slaves, and they denied the vote the a majority of Americans.
3) It was not actually the same Congress, it’s three or four Congresses later. The Congress that passed the 15th Amendment in 1869 was not the same Congress that negotiated the end of Reconstruction as part of the compromise of 1877.
4) A supermajority of Congress voted for the Bill of Rights. The Sedition Act passed 44 to 41.
5) The bill of rights was also ratified by a supermajority of the public. The Alien and Sedition Acts were actively unpopular and contributed to the Federalists’ defeat in the 1800 elections. Adams lost the presidency and the Federalists lost 40 seats in Congress (out of 106)–while the Republican Congressman convicted of sedition who campaigned from his jail cell won easily.
6) As to the content of the acts: The Sedition Act applied to opinion as well as to fact, so truth was not a complete defense. There were relatively few prosecutions (25 according to some sources, 17 according to others) and fewer convictions (10ish) but charges were brought for ridiuclous things like this:
“In April 1798, for instance, Bache had referred to the president as “old, querulous, Bald, blind, crippled, Toothless Adams.”
“As the procession made its way past a local tavern owned by John Burnet, one of the patrons remarked, “There goes the President and they are firing at his a__.” According to the Newark Centinel of Freedom, Baldwin added that, “he did not care if they fired thro’ his a__.” Burnet overheard the exchange and exclaimed, “That is seditious.” Baldwin was arrested and later convicted of speaking “seditious words tending to defame the President and Government of the United States.”
“In the summer of 1798, [Congressman Matthew Lyon] wrote an article criticizing President Adams’ “continual grasp for power” and his “unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, and selfish avarice.” During his fall re-election campaign, Lyon also quoted from a letter that suggested Congress should dispatch the president to a “mad house” for his handling of the French crisis. In October, a federal grand jury indicted Lyon for stirring up sedition and bringing “the President and government of the United States into contempt.”
You get the idea. It’s not many prosecutions, and Jefferson pardoned everyone in the end, but if the law had been popular who knows.
Unlike campus speech codes it involved trial by jury, but violating campus speech codes never ever results in imprisonment and in fact I’m not sure what if any punishments do result. Also, campus speech codes are implemented by private parties and many conservatives would consider restrictions on such things a violation of property and contract rights.
I’m sorry I wrote this quickly to track all of my sources but this link is not a bad start.
I don’t feel threatened by people who disagree with me. I feel threatened by people who would like to enforce their disagreement by legal sanctions to shut me up.
I admire hilzoy’s post, and her ability to maintain a respectful tone while in sharp disagreement. But my heart is with Katherine’s response: Sometimes you have to say “Not only no, but hell, no!”
This is particularly true for Cella’s insidious characterization of open society as an “alien” notion. Thankfully, K’s citations from Jefferson and Madison very effectively put the lie to that characterization.
But, reassured as I am by the strength of the argumentation here against Cella’s points, the context in which Charles B. cited them approvingly creeps me out.
Every day seems to bring a new erosion of principles I’d considered fundamental to our legal system and democracy, and every week the language from the right grows more scapegoating and eliminationist. Charles imports more of that onda onto this blog than anyone else, by far. I’m not joining Liberal Japonicus in his call to revoke front-page posting privileges, but I share his assessment of CB’s value to the blog.
Paul Cella: you wrote: “(1) I do not think I am misinterpreting Mill. In his On Liberty he wrote “. . . there ought to exist the fullest liberty of professing and discussing, as a matter of ethical conviction, any doctrine, however immoral it may be considered.” This is not some throwaway line: he dedicates an entire chapter to defending this proposition. I merely do Mill the honor of believing he meant what he said.”
This would be a good reply had I said that your misreading of Mill consisted of saying that he was in favor of freedom of thought. But this is not what I said. I wrote:
“First, what do you mean by a question ‘remaining open’? If you mean: that it is taken to have no answer, or that all answers should be seen as equally good, then I don’t see any reason to think that an open society, or a liberal society in Mill’s sense, has to presuppose this at all. Mill certainly did not think this — he had quite definite views about all sorts of things, and one of the reasons he favored freedom of thought and expression was that he thought that the best way for people to figure out the truth about how to live was to allow them to carry out what he called ‘experiments in living’. This idea would make no sense on the assumption that one view is as good as another.”
And Mark Shawhan, who also said you misread Mill, wrote: “As Hilzoy said, you misinterpret Mill — he did not say that all questions were or could be open, but that we cannot be assured enough that our personal opinion is the true one to justify legal prohibitions against those opinions with which we disagree. The two are very different, and your discussion of Mill elides that difference.”
In both of these quotes, it is quite clear that the supposed misreading of Mill is not (1) taking him to favor freedom of expression — which of course he did — but taking him to say that any claim, on any matter, has as much claim to be true as any other. Mill did not hold this; you say he did; and pointing out that you are not guilty of a misinterpretation that no one attributed to you does not change this.
“Did Abe misuse this power, just for starters?”
Katherine makes a statement about government. I question if Katherine truely means it using Abe’s tenure as President to frame the question.
Katherine, notes that a “super majority” passed the “Bill of Rights” which includes the 10th Amendment. Whereas, the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th was obtained while a good portion of the country didn’t have a voice. As Von correctly points those three amendments changed the construct of the Bill of Rights without a “super majority”. Would those Amendments have passed if the “Radical Repulicans” had operated under the framework of an “Open Society” (probably not). Yet, I would argue that those three Amendments are “liberal” in their construct but they were not passed under the framework of an “Open Society” not even close.
Finally, did Lincoln lie when used the battle cry “Save the Union” when the mandate was expanded as the war moved on. One might ask the same question of FDR using the rhetoric of the “Arsenal of Democracy” given what happened to Eastern Europe.
You see, the proper question raises a whole host of issues if you have any understanding of history.
Finally, the framework of the Constitution was designed to empower the South and that struggle dominated politics until 1860 when a Civil War ensued.
“”Did Abe misuse this power, just for starters?”
Katherine makes a statement about government. I question if Katherine truely means it using Abe’s tenure as President to frame the question.”
The Supreme Court certainly thought so. Ex Parte Milligan, (using military tribunals to try civilians accused of aiding the South held unconstitutional) among other cases.
The Supreme Court certainly thought so
Well after the fact, btw it didn’t stop Wilson or FDR from pursuing similar actions JFTR.
The Supreme Court certainly thought so
Well after the fact,
That’s what really pisses me off about the Supreme Court, they are always waiting until after something happens before they make up their minds. Why don’t they get in front of the curve for a change?
Look at the date of the decision but more importantly what impact did that decision have on Wilson or FDR?
oh, see I assumed you were talking about something directly relevant to what I said about imprisoning and censoring political speech–the specific power I said governments always misuse. My mistake.
TtWD RQW moves up to 13. (the 11th and 12th are hidden in Timmy’s 8:09)
what impact did that decision have on Wilson or FDR?
You might want to read Greg Robinson’s _By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment_ for some interesting ideas about what led to FDR’s decision. Of course, if you think that Presidents are soley driven by the binary choice of ‘yes, I agree with that Supreme Court decision/no I don’t’, I can see why you don’t want to defend your positions.
Timmy the Wonder Dog: Katherine, notes that a “super majority” passed the “Bill of Rights” which includes the 10th Amendment. Whereas, the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th was obtained while a good portion of the country didn’t have a voice. As Von correctly points those three amendments changed the construct of the Bill of Rights without a “super majority”. Would those Amendments have passed if the “Radical Repulicans” had operated under the framework of an “Open Society” (probably not). Yet, I would argue that those three Amendments are “liberal” in their construct but they were not passed under the framework of an “Open Society” not even close.
Timmy, you seem to have missed this the first time I asked it, so I’ll ask again:
Where do the principles of an open society say that the act of rebellion must be tolerated?
Gromit, the rebellion was over when those Amendments were passed JFTR.
So?