Ron Paul: Good for “the Blacks”?
I’m more than a bit baffled by this idea:
Despite the fact that Ron Paul, through his profitable, base-building newsletters, has actively spread and reinforced racist ideas, the really important thing here is that an end to the war on drugs would do more good for African American men than anything else. And since Ron Paul would, if elected president of the United States, end the drug war, anyone concerned for the welfare of African American men really ought to be in his corner, whether or not he has cultivated financial and political support through racist agitprop.
One obvious difficulty with this line of reasoning is that Ron Paul will never be elected President of the United States, and has about as much chance of ending the drug war as I do. He is little more than a symbol for a set of ideas—ideas his complicity with racism has tainted in many people’s minds, whose prospects he may have damaged. I want to end the war on drugs, therefore I’d rather people not associate that idea with Ron Paul.
One of the embarrassments of the American libertarian movement is its failure to sufficiently acknowledge how collective bias against blacks, women, gays, immigrants etc. deprives blacks, women, gays, immigrants, etc. of their freedom. To my mind, serious forms of structural discrimination are much worse for liberty than certain kinds of coercion. Libertarians make themselves look ridiculous when they claim that everyone is fully and equally free as long as no one is coercing anyone. Now, this isn’t obvious. At least it wasn’t to me. It took me a good while to come around to this view—to see just how much structural bias does deprive people of their freedom or of the value of their freedom. But I am embarrassed that it took me as long as it did.
Here’s where I’m coming from philosophically. I am no Rothbardian or Randian. I do not understand the argument that concludes in the categorical prohibition of all coercion, but which permits some other things far more harmful to the pursuit of happiness than most ticky-tack government regulation. I agree with some aspects of the 19th century criticism of classical liberal freedom as “merely formal.” I believe that the liberty most worth caring about is positive liberty—the ability effectively to enact one’s plans, to achieve ones ends. In my judgment, a regime of strong negative rights is the best guarantee of positive liberty. Government attempts to guarantee the worth of our liberties by recognizing positive rights to a minimum income or certain services like health care often (but not always) undermine the framework of market and civil institutions most likely to enhance liberty over the long run, and should be limited. But this is really an empirical question about what really does maximize individuals’ chances of formulating and realizing meaningful projects and lives.
Within this framework, racism, sexism, etc., which strongly limit the useful exercise of liberty are clear evils. Now, I am ambivalent about whether the state ought to step in and do anything about it. Maybe I’ll get into the complexities of that question some other time. What I am not ambivalent about is that racism and sexism, etc. deprive many millions of Americans of the full value of their freedom. Insofar as Ron Paul’s racist newsletters propped up and encouraged racist norms, he has actually helped cultivate a cultural climate hostile to the prospects of “the blacks”, whether or not he would end the drug war in the miraculous event of his presidency.
In my opinion, it is the responsibility of decent people concerned with liberty to at least denounce, if not actively work to tear down, the racist beliefs and norms that enable liberty-killing structural discrimination. If you don’t think ending discrimination is the government’s job–that this is the sort of thing that should be done by persuasion, not force—then you should take this responsibility extra seriously. It’s your job to persuade. If you think the government should do nothing but stay out of the way, but you are indifferent to racism and people who publish racist newsletters for financial and political gain, then it is not unreasonable to conclude either that you don’t really care about other people’s liberty, or think racism has nothing to do with it. In either case, you would be wrong.
January 15th, 2008 13:29
Great stuff, as usual, Will. But there is another empirical question: to what extent will these newsletters from twenty years ago actually taint the image of Ron Paul, and by association, libertarians? The assumption you make here is that the taint will be serious and ineradicable; therefore we all should distance ourselves from Paul as much as possible. I’ve been following the Paul message boards and forums, and I haven’t seen anyone dropping out, or even much of a discussion about it, aside from people posting pointers to the reams of evidence that Paul is not racist or homophobic at all (e.g. the head of the Austin NAACP vouching for him). (Paul’s supporters are much more interested in the issue of a recount in New Hampshire.) The major news programs have been mostly silent on Paul for the past week or so; they seem to regard this whole thing as a non-story. Paul’s poll numbers in Michigan and Nevada and SC do not seem to have been hurt by the issue. Now, all this could certainly change in a week or a month; but so far I don’t see any evidence that Paul has tainted the public’s perception of libertarians, and I don’t see any reason for us to distance ourselves from him.
January 15th, 2008 13:40
I think you made a statement which is not only wrong but could be libelous. Since those newsletters were not written by Dr Paul himself, he was NOT ’spreading racist ideas’. Some of those statements were simply observations…so be it. That does not make them racist.
ON the other hand I would think people would want to distance themselves from someone who belongs to a black separatist church (Obama) or who has shouted anti-semitic rhetoric AND has hired LARAZA, the largest organized group of racists in the country for her campaign staff, as Hillary has done!
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=%7BB25E7C64-01FB-46F2-A1D1-36E3EB1768DB%7D
Hillary Picks La Raza Leader As Campaign Co Chair
Thu, 04/12/2007
The former president of an extremist group that organized many of the country’s disruptive pro illegal immigration marches and advocates the return of the American Southwest to Mexico will co-chair Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
Best known for his radical pro Chicano work during 30 years as president of the National Council of La Raza, Raul Yzaguirre is being promoted by the Clinton campaign as a prominent Hispanic activist who will lead the New York senator’s outreach to Hispanic voters.
The reality is that Yzaguirre alienates many American citizens of Hispanic descent (in other words, those qualified to vote) with his so-called La Raza rhetoric, which has been repeatedly labeled racist.
The National Council of La Raza describes itself as the largest Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States, but it caters to the radical Chicano movement that says California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and parts of Colorado and Texas belong to Aztlan.
The takeover plan is referred to as the “reconquista” of the Western U.S. and it features ethnic cleansing of Americans, Europeans, Africans and Asians once the area is taken back and converted to Aztlan.
While this may all sound a bit crazy, this organization is quite powerful (thanks to Hillary’s new campaign co-chair) and annually receives millions of dollars in federal grants. Its leaders also managed to get included in congressional hearings regarding immigration. Last year alone, the National Council of La Raza received $15.2 million in federal grants and one senator gave the group an extra $4 million in earmarked American taxpayer dollars.
The organization uses the money to support projects like a Southern California elementary school with a curriculum that specializes in bashing America and promoting the Chicano movement. The school’s founder and principal, a Calexico-educated activist named Marcos Aguilar, opposes racial integration and says Mexicans in the U.S. don’t want to go to white schools or drink from white water fountains.
Hillary also is known for having a foul mouth and hurling anti-semitic language at Jews.
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/07/16/hillary.book.response.02/
January 15th, 2008 13:40
Jeff, For one thing, I don’t think Paul is going to be able to spend all his money, and I’m worried some of it, in addition to mailing lists, will end up with Lew Rockwell at LvMI.
January 15th, 2008 13:48
This is a dumb article.
If Ron Paul has no chance to be president, why would anyone give a shit about his old newsletters?
The fact is, he does have a chance, and is one of 6 contenders for the GOP nomination. At this writing he is 4th in total votes (ahead of Ghouliani & Thompson), and first in cash on hand (has more than the other 5 combined). He also has the strongest, most appealing message.
Now getting back to the racist war on drugs. If you and the media persist in attacking Dr. Paul, all you will do is provoke a national all-out debate on the merits of the drug war. Such a thing has not been done since we repealed prohibition.
If such an all-out debate occurs, it won’t be pretty for the drug warriors.
Those who try to stop Ron Paul from ending the drug war are enabling racism.
January 15th, 2008 14:11
Have you done any research on the man who wrote the story? I doubt it. I would think it the first logical step, but all the media seemed to have missed that. In my opinion the people whom have been outraged by this are the ones looking for a reason to be. MLK Jr. was himself called a racist among other things.
One other point that needs to be made is about your statement that “One obvious difficulty with this line of reasoning is that Ron Paul will never be elected President of the United States”
Can you please back up this information?
Thanks
January 15th, 2008 15:14
Marvelous post.
January 15th, 2008 15:24
Will,
Let me start off by saying that you are very well written. Your opinions and views are sound and well versed.
However, your stances on Libertarian structuralism confuse me. How would a smaller Fed create a larger structural bias? Your position on the end of the drug war, implies that without a fight against drugs all African-Americans would succumb to the drug trade, sounds very elitist, apathetic, and probably the most racist statement I’ve heard yet.
I’m sure I’m missing the point here but your comments sound very class oriented and close-minded. How can the reduction of civil liberties cultivate a fully democratic system? Whether or not Dr. Paul wins or losses, the ideas of liberty and free markets have caught the attention of the American Public. I don’t believe I would need to prove that statement either.
This blog is the kind of back-seat “throw more money at and see if it goes away” politics that have put Americans in their current position. The Neo-con route to democracy only works in small doses and never lasted long enough to even point out in history. We as a country have taken the ideas of democracy, created a world super-power, and then sold it to the highest bidder.
Libertarians want their country back plain and simple. The American Dream should not consist solely on a credit check and a Chinese Mortgage. I would suggest actually reading into Libertarian views. To be Libertarian is to denounce racism and all forms of bondage. To call Ron Paul a racist would be akin to Gandhi serving as Alabama’s Grand Dragon of the KKK.
Go back to Rothbard and Rand and stop skimming, read the whole thing. It will change your life! Sorry I got a little ranty there at the end…
Thanks for your time,
Scott
January 15th, 2008 16:19
“Libertarians make themselves look ridiculous when they claim that everyone is fully and equally free as long as no one is coercing anyone.”
Not at all. That’s precisely the definition of ‘fully and equally free.’
“I believe that the liberty most worth caring about is positive liberty—the ability effectively to enact one’s plans, to achieve ones ends.”
Hey, that’s great. Right up to the point where enacting your plans, or achieving your ends, necessitates (through a failure in accomplishing these ends through non-coercive means) coercion of others.
More simply put, if you can’t get done what you what to get done without violating the rights of others to do so, then too bad. Can’t enjoy the ‘full value’ of your freedom without being admitted to a certain all-white-male club, and think the government should ‘rememdy’ this? Then you’ve confused ‘rights’ with ‘interests’. The ‘full value’ of freedom has nothing to do with coercing others so you can feel fulfilled or happy.
“I am ambivalent about whether the state ought to step in and do anything about it.”
Good luck trying to justify that within a framework of liberty.
January 15th, 2008 16:40
Positive freedom is “given” to you by someone else. And that someone can always take it away.
January 15th, 2008 16:51
He can’t give the money to LvMI, he could use it for his congressional campaign, or he could use it for another candidate (like murray sabrin).
Really this whole leaning-on-paul-to-out-rockwell-because-the-cosmotarians-hate-him thing is totally transparent.
January 15th, 2008 16:56
Your last paragraph is especially good here Will. I think your point about the extra burden on those of us, and I include myself here, who do not think the state should be restricting private choices about association but who also find racism etc. to be utterly unacceptable, is an excellent one. If libertarians believe that reducing racism is consistent with, if not required by, our liberal values (which I do) and we further believe that using persuasion not force to do it is the only means to do so consistent with those same values (which I do), then we should indeed be shouting from the rooftops about the problems with the Paul newsletters and those who share those views.
January 15th, 2008 17:03
Gorak, This positive/negative stuff is confusing, I know. By positive liberty here, I mean the actual ability to do things–the range of real opportunity. That’s what I think is ultimately important. My argument is that government attempt to give people things under the rubric of “positive rights” tends not to increase the range of real opportunity, in part for the very reason you mention.
January 15th, 2008 17:07
I’m gonna have to go with Bob on this one, and take it an explicit step further (which Bob may or may not agree with, so don’t tar him with my brush). Racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, and every other vile form of hatred out there is as much a part of liberty as “the ability effectively to enact one’s plans, to achieve ones ends.” If you imfringe on a person’s freedom of thought, or putting that thought into action so long as it doesn’t infringe on the freedom of others, you are assaulting liberty itself.
If someone’s plans or ends include hating the person living next door because she’s a black Jewish lesbian, so be it. He get to live his life, so does she. He can refuse to allow her in his house, in his car, or in his club for any reason or no reason at all. That’s what makes them his. He decides what happens with his property. The moment he tries to take away or damage her property, or deny her the fair use of that property, he crosses the line.
But that sword cuts both ways. The right to assemble, freedom of association, includes the right to exclude. To say, “I don’t like you because of [insert attribute here]“. In the same way Curves Health Club can exclude me because I’m male, I should be able to exclude anyone for any reason, so long as it’s private property.
We may attempt to convince others of our point of view, but it is in no way ethical or moral to force that view on them.
January 15th, 2008 17:11
The hypothetical President Paul would not end the War on Drugs — only the federal War on Drugs.
RICO and the Coast Guard and block grants and such notwithstanding, the WonD consists mostly of state & local undertakings, and Paul, as a radical neoconfederalist, would as a matter of policy not interfere with such efforts. Indeed, there’s no evidence to suggest that he wouldn’t eagerly embrace them.
January 15th, 2008 17:18
What the hell does “non-coercive” vs. “coercive” mean anyway? What about shunning? Excommunication? Crosses burned on public property? Epithets on walls? As far as I interpret this, libertarians would be perfectly happy with a society where people went around scrawling swastikas and anti-semitic slogans on the walls and chalk it all up to Free Speech. The fact that Jewish people might feel rather, um, THREATENED by such material and want to move away completely seems to have totally slipped their minds….
January 15th, 2008 17:24
The Gaunt Man,
You are entirely correct. And so is Will. The difference lies in opposing conceptions of liberty. You have a thin conception of liberty, one that requires noncoercion and nothing else. Will has a thick conception of liberty, one that places a certain amount of (but not infinite) value on non-coercion, but ultimately for instrumental, human flourishing reasons. The argument for thickening one’s conception of liberty is that a healthy theory of politics in the social, non-governmental realm is both necessary and mutually reinforcing with a healthy theory of politics in the governmental, nonsocial realm. So writes Rod Long and Charles Johnson in “Libertarianism Feminism: Can This Marriage Be Saved?“:
January 15th, 2008 17:25
The problem I’m having with this whole thing is that even if RP hates blacks with a passion… isn’t he still better than those that want to murder millions of arabs? isn’t murder/genocide the worst form of racism?
What are my alternatives? EVERY candidate left in the race supports the war, voted for the war (or its funding) and have consistently voted for curtailing civil liberties.
What should I do here? Drop my support of RP and not vote? that doesn’t seem right to me. I’m really asking here… If I can’t actively support RP, because I think racism is abhorrent… but I feel war is AT LEAST as bad as racism and intolerance… where do I go? The LP? please… It seems like in an election full of racist war mongers, there is only one choice….
please help me… I’m so confused…
January 15th, 2008 17:27
Well GR…
1. Whose walls? Public property? Not acceptable. The state may not engage in discrimination. The property of the targeted group? Why that’s a tort and unacceptable to libertarians. Their own property? Different story. If I don’t want blacks in my house, that’s my business. I’d say the same about someone’s firm. What I would NOT be is “perfectly happy” about it. I’d protest that behavior in all the ways I could. (A trickier case if someone puts a giant swastika on their lawn where all I can see it. Like every other political philosophy, libertarianism doesn’t have and shouldn’t promise definitive answers to very tricky questions.)
2. Shunning and disassociation are legitimate behaviors, whether done by the racist or to the racist. I don’t think those are coercive. I do think some forms are illiberal (e.g., shunning people on the basis of race) and should get an equally strong disassociating response by libertarians.
3. This Jewish person would feel threatened by the Nazi next door, but feels more threatened by giving the state the power to decide what speech is okay and what isn’t.
January 15th, 2008 17:30
Will,
I think you may have lost perspective here.
The idea you quote (where is it from?) seems to have a point.
I agree that Paul’s association with people who wrote like bigots in Paul’s name decades ago is a bad thing; but I don’t understand how it does more to support structural biases and cultivate hostility to blacks than his explicit, personal, arguments, during a presidential campaign, to end the war on drugs will do to help blacks.
He’s not going to win. But, both the harmful structural racist biases and the harmful drug war depend on cultural norms for their survival.
Which do you think is really the greater effect of Paul’s candidacy?
I think we should be sensitive to these things, but we should try to keep them in perspective.
I respect your opinion, but I think you’re contributing to the problem by emphasizing the negative beyond all proportion and diminishing the positive aspects of his past and present activities.
January 15th, 2008 17:31
“I am no Rothbardian or Randian. I do not understand the argument that concludes in the categorical prohibition of all coercion, but which permits some other things far more harmful to the pursuit of happiness than most ticky-tack government regulation.”
Translation: “I cannot be free until you are my slave. If you can choose to associate with me or not, you might choose ‘not’, and I’m not free if you can choose ‘not’.”
Whenever anyone wants to talk about “positive liberty” I offer the following thought experiment:
Consider a man who is extremely wealthy, and who has six complete bums for nephews. The nephews have never worked and have no desire to work. One day the wealthy man decides that he will tell his worthless nephews that he will not support them anymore.
Now, if what matters is “positive liberty—the ability effectively to enact one’s plans, to achieve ones ends”, the wealthy man should be prohibited by law from doing this. After all, he is wealthy enough that he won’t really miss the money, and limiting his autonomy slightly - by telling him that he can’t stop supporting his nephews - enhances the “positive liberty” of six other people by a very great deal.
If all we were going to consider was “positive liberty”, we’d have to side with the nephews.
Of course, doing so would be almost comically and laughably unjust. The “positive liberty” of the nephews has absolutely no value compared to the “negative liberty” of the uncle - and compared to the sheer absurd injustice of intervening on their behalf.
I also find it a bit disturbing that you have chosen the occasion of the Paul newsletter controversy to try to lump in standard libertarian ideology about property rights with the sort of racist language that appeared in the newsletter. They are completely different topics. You are trying to smuggle in an argument that is not pertinent to the dispute at all. The fact that Lew Rockwell wrote [or bought from a freelancer] some offensive material about blacks has absolutely no bearing on the question of whether or not the public accomodations sections of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 are just.
January 15th, 2008 17:33
danb,
Yes, you should drop your support of RP and not vote. Or if that feels to weird for you, vote for the LP. Or hell, vote for Kucinich. Keep in mind, though, that your individual act of voting does not matter, except for emotive reasons. If there was a snowball’s chance in hell that your decision to vote would be the decisive vote in an election, then you might legitimately have a problem deciding between the lesser of many evils. But, fortunately, you don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of casting the decisive vote, so you have nothing to worry about.
January 15th, 2008 17:41
Good god, this just confirms my opinion that so-called libertarians have no bloody knowledge of history, society, or rights’ theory. “Passive rights” have a very very old history going back to the Thomists.
And libertarians seem to understand absolutely nothing about the difference between Freedom of Speech and Right to Make Threats. If I’m a woman and see “Kill the Bitches!” scrawled all over the walls near my house, can you possibly understand why I might not feel welcome in that neighborhood? (Yeah, I know–”buy a gun”)
January 15th, 2008 17:53
Why should I give a damn what the Thomists thought?
January 15th, 2008 18:00
By the way, Mr. Grumpy:
If a man was handing out leaflets in a public place, and one version of the leaflets said, “Kill the commies!” and the other version of the leaflets said, “Please join us in pursuing legislation that would make membership in the Communist Party a capital offense,” on what basis could we declare one of them protected political speech and one of them unprotected? They are [except in instances of direct incitement against specific, present individuals] nearly identical in content, and differ only in phrasing.
Now, you may think that neither of them should be protected, but that would pretty much put you well outside of any system [not just libertarianism] that respects the freedom of political speech.
You might say, “Well, one of them would feel like more of a threat,” but that’s really no good basis for anything. Our legal and political discourse would be infinitely improved if we would just establish that people can take their feelings and place them up their asses.
January 15th, 2008 18:06
Fluffy, your thought experiment demonstrates the follow of pure act consequentialism, but Will is not arguing for pure act consequentialism. He is arguing for something much closer to rule consequentialism, or institutional consequentialism, when he writes,
Now, in defense of positive liberty, consider the following thought experiment:
You are deciding between two places in which to live: Let’s call the first place Somalia, and the second place Sweden. In Somalia, there is little to no government, little to no coercive rights violations (this thought-experiment Somalia is not identical to our real-world Somalia, and massive poverty. People do their best to get by, and many fail. Sweden, by contrast, has lots and lots of government, lots and lots of coercive rights violations, and massive wealth. People are generally happy, healthy, and prosperous, despite the unfortunate redistributionist policies of their government.
In which country would you prefer to live? Is negative liberty all that matters, or is pure economic freedom just another word for nothing else to do?
January 15th, 2008 18:07
follow=folly. I wish this blog comment software had a preview/edit function.
January 15th, 2008 18:07
“If you don’t think ending discrimination is the government’s job–that this is the sort of thing that should be done by persuasion, not force—then you should take this responsibility extra seriously. It’s your job to persuade”
No, it is absolutely not my job to persuade. I think most decent people agree racism is wrong and many people might decide to help out, but it isn’t my job to eliminate this bad thing called racism anymore than it is my job to eliminate other bad things, such as un-insured single mothers and her un-insured kids. Otherwise when the government forces you to pay 75% of your income to support the coming social program budget crunch in the future I don’t want to hear a word of it - it will just be somebody else making it your job to make reality their conception of good.
January 15th, 2008 18:09
Addendum: I realize you are not suggesting the government make it anybody’s job, but I hope my point still gets across. You have your conception of the good, other people have theirs. If you want them to leave you alone than don’t suggest they have any type of obligation to support your good.
January 15th, 2008 18:21
Equality is not freedom. We can all be equal and not be free. Pushing equality at the expense of freedom just isn’t a valid solution, and never will be. Because equality isn’t what people want, Freedom is what they want.
It is a lack of freedom that drove the civil rights movements, not simple equality. While being able to show some people have rights others don’t, is the basis for the equality argument, taking the rights away from the ones that had wasn’t the idea. And that is what is going on today.
What Ron Paul stands for is that freedom. And for giving that freedom to everyone. Did you happen to actually read the newsletter, or did you just read the quotes provided and make an opinion? Honest question, but I know at least one of the quotes was actually a quote from a government report in the newsletter.
And the basis of the so called racial article was actually talking about how bad and screwed up the judicial system is, and the numbers were pointed out as evidence of the bias in the judicial system, yet in the hit piece it was made out as if the other way around. The only thing I seen anyone guilty of in those newsletters was bad wording.
As an intellectual, I like to think I look at all the facts before making a decision. And I encourage you to do the same. Especially since we basically have 1 candidate with a chance in hell of representing anything remotely close to what America was founded on this election.
If I truly thought for a minute that Ron Paul was racist, or would do anything with the purpose of promoting such, he would lose my support in a heartbeat. But excuse me if I don’t fall for hit pieces and quotes by another author taken completely out of context. The timing of these articles, the lack of real evidence and many flat out lies just isn’t going to cut it.
I hope you take a better look at what your choices are here.
January 15th, 2008 18:44
Micha:
The “Somalia vs. Sweden” argument [or the "Manhattan vs. Kansas" argument, as it has been offered elsewhere] would only be relevant if the difference between Somalia and Sweden existed because of Sweden’s statism.
There are an infinite number of historical variables that make up the difference between Somalia and Sweden that have nothing to do with our liberty debate, per se.
Why not ask, “Where would you rather be - exposed on the surface of Mars with no equipment, or in a Soviet-era labor camp?” and then offer the fact that the latter is preferable as an endorsement of the gulag? It’s not a “liberty” question.
I would tend to look at places like Sweden and Manhattan as places where the wealth of the underlying society has allowed the populace to toy with statism in ways that have [so far] failed to destroy the polity. And places where I would tolerate a certain amount of injustice in order to participate in the economic, social and cultural life of the area. You are asking me to consider the statist tendencies of these places as instrumental and as fundamental, and I don’t think that they are.
January 15th, 2008 18:48
“…but you are indifferent to racism and people who publish racist newsletters for financial and political gain…”
This shows how little you know about Ron Paul. Do a search on the minorities who have come forward saying that Ron Paul is the “least” racist of any candidate. These are people who have known him for decades, worked with him daily, witnessing his life-long conviction of constitutional freedom for all.
It’s a nice article, but it’s obvious you already have your mind made up. It’s a shame that you could be using your influence for good in the last election to save America as we know it. But it’s ok. Your choice to voice your opinion is exactly what Dr. Paul has stood for all these years.
January 15th, 2008 19:01
badmedia,
It depends on how you define the terms. Equality, if understood as equality in authority, is not only compatible with Spencerian maximum liberty, but both are required by and mutually reinforce each other.
Have you ever met a committed (in every sense of the word) Marxist? You speak as if the world was already populated with thoroughgoing Randians. If only.
Mein Kampf would have been far more persuasive if Hitler had made better use of a thesaurus and a public relations agent.
January 15th, 2008 19:07
Fluffy,
You miss the point I was trying to make, or perhaps, more charitably, I should have done a better job of making it. Mine was not a causal argument, attempting to explain why my imaginary Somalia and Sweden are the way they are. I completely agree with your analysis on this point. My argument, rather, is that, if given the choice, most of us do not place negative liberty as our sole, overriding value. Other things, like culture and wealth, can be just as important to us as the absence of coercion. This is Will’s point about positive liberty.
January 15th, 2008 19:12
The sky is falling! The sky is falling! Black Helicopters! Bilderbergers!
Where is Marshall Applewhite when you need him?
January 15th, 2008 19:25
GR,
I know the difference between free speech and a threat. You are just more certain than I am that a swastika on my neighbor’s lawn constitutes an actionable threat against me. Standing up and saying “I’m a Nazi and think all Jews should die” is not the same as “I’m a Nazi and think Horwitz should die.” I’ll protect the first one but not the second.
January 15th, 2008 19:25
Jeff, For one thing, I don’t think Paul is going to be able to spend all his money, and I’m worried some of it, in addition to mailing lists, will end up with Lew Rockwell at LvMI.
I promised myself no more $ to Ron Paul until he places 3rd of better in a GOP primary.Now I have to break it Will.
January 15th, 2008 19:32
Paul ratcheted up his “not-to-be-taken-seriously” factor all himself, by his association with cranks. By doing this, he’s jeopardized expanding his base to reasonable folk. His loss.
The first step to being good for “the blacks” is to actually pique their interest. In a positive way.
January 15th, 2008 19:52
>>One obvious difficulty with this line of reasoning is that Ron Paul will never be elected President of the United States, and has about as much chance of ending the drug war as I do. He is little more than a symbol for a set of ideas—ideas his complicity with racism has tainted in many people’s minds, whose prospects he may have damaged. I want to end the war on drugs, therefore I’d rather people not associate that idea with Ron Paul.
I think this sort of reasoning is exactly right. But I’d like to change the wording to generalize it somewhat and swap out one other thing:
>>One obvious difficulty with this line of reasoning is that Thomas Jefferson will never again be elected President of the United States, and has about as much chance of ending the current authoritarian state as I do. He is little more than a symbol for a set of ideas—ideas his complicity with racism (you know, with the actual owning slaves and all) has tainted in many people’s minds, whose prospects he may have damaged. I want to end the current authoritarian state, therefore I’d rather people not associate that idea with Thomas Jefferson.
There. That looks pretty good.
January 15th, 2008 20:24
So who are you voting for, if anyone? What will you be signaling if you vote for one of the other candidates?
It seems to me that the results of the ideology actively promoted by the other Republicans–pre-emptive war, torture, the surveillance state, and unchecked growth of government–are at least as objectionable and more of a realistic threat than Paul’s bigotry.
Whatever Paul’s newsletter said in the past, he’s campaigned on a platform advocating extremely limited government, the restoration of civil liberties, and a humble foreign policy. Knowledge of the racist newsletters wasn’t even widely known until after the New Hampshire primary.
Given that, will Paul’s success in the elections be seen as an endorsement of racism? Or as dissatisfaction with the Iraq war and unhappiness with the loss of freedom?
In my opinion, it will be the latter. Therefore, Paul is deserving of our support, whatever mistakes he’s made in the past.
January 15th, 2008 20:29
Please stop trying to redefine “liberty” so that it encompasses everything you think is good. If you want to say, “Liberty is usually, but not always, the best policy, because it’s usually the best way to promote human flourishing,” or “Liberty is a good thing but it’s not the only good thing,” then say that. Corrupting perfectly clear ideas like “liberty” creates confusion and makes it easier for the enemies of liberty to advance their cause. (Remember “libertarian paternalism?”)
If you’re not convinced, I recommend reading Dan Klein’s article “Mere Libertarianism.”
January 15th, 2008 20:51
guys, guys, guys,
very interesting arguments.
i’m sure we could have a wonderful time discussing all these issues over a nice Italian dinner with some red wine, but it seems to me most of you are entirely missing the point.
Why focus on 15-year old posts (especially if Dr. Paul did not write them, as he does not strike me as a racist) when all the other candidates (republicans and democrats) are unrepentant warmongers NOW and want to continue the war in Iraq (150,000 innocent Iraqi civilians have died so far) and possibly attack Iran?
are 15-year old writings more important than an unjust war that all the other candidates want to continue? are 15-year old words more important than 150,000 Iraqi lives?
Hello? Hello? HELLO?
are you to tell me that i should drop Ron Paul and vote for any of the other candidates? Dude, are you serious?
Besides, if this is all that the Establishment has found on Ron Paul to attack him, that’s pretty good. I would not want to know what skeletons all the other candidates have in their closets.
Nobody ever said tha Ron Paul is perfect. He’s not. noboby claimed is Jesus reborn. Okay, granted.
But dude, have you seen the other candidates? have you listened to their policies? have you seen that they are all backed by the CFR? have you seen them?
Dude, RP is all we’ve got, and besides, John McCain once said RP is the most honest person in congress. that’s pretty good. good enough for me.
January 15th, 2008 20:55
Will,
Libertarians make themselves look ridiculous when they claim that everyone is fully and equally free as long as no one is coercing anyone. Now, this isn’t obvious. At least it wasn’t to me. It took me a good while to come around to this view—to see just how much structural bias does deprive people of their freedom or of the value of their freedom. But I am embarrassed that it took me as long as it did.
Setting aside that liberty is the absence of coercion, I’m curious to know the path you took to come to a more positive rights approach. I found this section of your post a bit circuitous and could never really tell whether you were advocating a ‘minimum existence’ provided by the state or not.
If you could share a bit about the journey towards the realization that structural bias deprives some of their freedom (and perhaps define/elaborate on what you see as structural bias), I’d love to read about it. Was the journey experiential, philosophical, etc.?
January 15th, 2008 22:52
Lots of comments here at the Distributed Republic.
he has actually helped cultivate a cultural climate hostile to the prospects of “the blacks”
I never came across any of those newsletters in meatspace and don’t know how prevalent they were, but my suspicion is that they had negligible impact on cultural attitudes towards African Americans. If you’re going to diminish Paul’s stand against the drug war by the possibility that he will get elected, might as well take a similarly utilitarian attitude toward the newsletters.
Horwitz, regarding whether someone should be allowed to say something that may or may not result in harm to you, I would point out Kinsella’s Causation and Aggression.
January 16th, 2008 09:36
Will,
Interesting post. I wonder, could you clarify how you distinguish liberty from freedom? It has always seemed to me that when we’re wading into political philosophy, we use freedom to refer the total range of possible free action available to an individual, while we use liberty to refer to the range of action in which the state refrains from meddling.
To be sure, the question of where to draw the bound for liberty is an empirical question, but it’s a question of how best to bound liberty, not how to expand freedom. While we generally hope to expand both liberty and freedom as much as possible, the expansion of liberty is necessarily political and the expansion of freedom essentially private.
Thoughts?
January 16th, 2008 11:02
Good post! Basically the same thing I said at The Free Liberal.
January 16th, 2008 13:06
[...] racism/sexism etc. nor about standing up and loudly opposing it through non-coercive means. Will Wilkinson offers a different version of a similar theme in the context of the Paul newsletters. Second, [...]
January 16th, 2008 22:22
Will,
Does this mean you are going to become a social liberal? You know positive rights and all.
January 16th, 2008 22:45
Will, I fell out with libertarianism a while ago because based on my exploration of the concept of morality I found that there were certain rights that went beyond purely negative ones yet were not truly positive rights.
I discussed this over a catallarcy once with regard to good Samaritan law, and in quite a bit of detail.
I’ve aways disagreed with those libertarians who have claimed that individuals have a right to discriminate against others based on race. I don’t have lots of time to discuss it but I think it should be clear that within a society a person of one race can buy a piece of property from someone of another race and then turn around and place some kind of deed restriction on future owners not to sell to that other race.
This obviously violates reciprocity and therefore is not moral. Furthermore it violates others rights to free association and the like.
The problem I see with this however is that if you take a wrong turn it can lead one into the realm of positive rights. Which I believe is a mistake. As much as these rights may look like classical positive they are not.
January 17th, 2008 14:08
Although I have read your bio page, I am otherwise unfamiliar with anything else you may have written to the points addressed here, and am responding only to his post.
I agree with your perspective that “a regime of strong negative rights is the best guarantee of positive liberty,” and in your assessment that “this is really an empirical question about what really does maximize individuals’ chances of formulating and realizing meaningful projects and lives.” Although such goals are highly subjective in nature, it does seem safe to say their chances face a net opportunity loss when confronted with an organized belief that the aspirant is inherently worthless, and that such beliefs therefore represent “clear evils.”
Perhaps I misunderstand the positions, but it would seem to me that an argument which categorically prohibits all coercion necessarily permits all voluntary association, an ugly manifestation of which could be some form of “structural discrimination”. You said that you are ambivalent about the state stepping in - but why? How could voluntary association - however structured - be more harmful than the coercion of government regulation - however “ticky-tack”? After all, as you and others at Reason are well aware, “Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force..” Without this force (e.g. in the form of a century of Jim Crow laws), racism, sexism, etc. are just ideas that, like all others, must stand ultimately on their own merits - which, of course, they can’t.
As a self identified decent person concerned with liberty, I also agree with the responsibility to denounce, “if not actively tear down” (assuming sans coercion) “racist beliefs and norms that enable liberty-killing structural discrimination.” However, I also believe that among the most pernicious liberty-killing beliefs and norms is the status quo opposite to our shared perspective about negative rights. Whatever the intention, Government almost always couches its’ intervention as “attempts to guarantee the worth of our liberties”. The belief and norm that to so save us from ourselves is the just purview of Government enables such horror shows as the “drug war”. It seems clear that this belief strikes much closer to the root of liberty than beliefs which foster discrimination, as I am sure that any individual - whatever their race, gender, creed - would readily consider the four walls of the prison cell a far greater obstacle to their “chances of formulating and realizing meaningful projects and lives.”
Lastly, you say that “serious forms of structural discrimination are much worse for liberty than certain kinds of coercion,” and that “Libertarians make themselves look ridiculous when they claim that everyone is fully and equally free as long as no one is coercing anyone.” To my mind, for reasons mentioned, all forms of structural discrimination are serious. However I disagree in principle, again for reasons mentioned, that they are worse - let alone much worse - than “certain kinds” of coercion. There is only one kind of coercion: “persuasion” through force or threats of force. As for libertarians looking “ridiculous when they claim that everyone is fully and equally free as long as no one is coercing anyone,” I can only say that from what I’ve seen, they more accurately and often say that everyone is as fully and equally free as possible so long as this is the case.
Ron Paul has a clear track record as a decent person concerned with liberty. Whatever incidental enabling his negligence or supposed closet racism* has provided for liberty-killing racist beliefs (*his repeated reference to racism as “an ugly form of collectivism” and a “spiritual malady”, as well as his repeated championing of MLK, Gandhi, Rosa Parks, etc. as heroes, suggest a piss-poor record as a closet racist), it clearly pales in comparison to the enabling that his voluminous efforts, over decades, have provided for beliefs which promote that very positive individual liberty you believe “most worth caring about”.
January 17th, 2008 21:55
[...] denouncing racism and the recently revealed Ron Paul newsletters. One of the best pieces comes from Will Wilkinson, who explains why racism is not merely distasteful, but fundamentally opposed to libertarian [...]
January 18th, 2008 11:00
Brian Macker writes,
As I recall, you’ve also disagreed with those libertarians who have claimed that individuals should have a legal right, but would be committing a moral wrong, to discriminate against others based on country of origin.
January 20th, 2008 17:26
“He is arguing for something much closer to rule consequentialism, or institutional consequentialism”
Either rule consequentialism collapses into act consequentialism or its not really consequentialism at all.
January 22nd, 2008 02:12
[...] in further doodle-flapping on the subject at Across Difficult Country, Distributed Republic, Will Wilkinson’s fly-bottle, EconLog, Mencius Moldbug’s Unqualified Reservations, FormerBeltwayWonk, IOZ, Brink [...]
February 10th, 2008 18:51
All this just shows that libertarianism can work well only in a monoracial society. Which is why is stands no chance in the USA.