Reblogged: A Pied Piper to Disobey

[Gus Van Horn blog]

John Stossel, a commentator I usually find worthwhile, writes approvingly of a foolish proposal he recently encountered in By the People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission, by Charles Murray:

... Government has become so oppressive, constantly restricting us with new regulations, that our only hope is for some of us to refuse to cooperate.

...

Murray argues that citizens and companies should start openly defying all but the most useful regulations, essentially ones that forbid assault, theft and fraud.

And, a few paragraphs later:

What if we all stopped trying? The government can't put everyone in jail. Maybe by disobeying enough stupid laws, we can persuade judges that only rules that prevent clear, real harm to individuals should be enforced: "no harm, no foul."

Law is not always the best indication of what is good behavior. Riots in places such as Ferguson and Baltimore remind us that even cops sometimes behave badly.

There are many things wrong with this proposal, but I will touch on just a couple here.

First, Stossel (if not also Murray) equivocates between law and regulation and, worse, he does not distinguish between proper laws and improper laws. At the same time, Stossel appeals to popular offense against intrusive, improper laws and regulations (while failing to make this important distinction) by implying that their great sin is "uselessness". Pardon me for pointing out that even the worst offenses against liberty in the books are there precisely because somebody, somewhere, argued that they were useful enough to be put on the books, and enough of the electorate was unconcerned enough to allow them to stay there. Rather than bickering about whether some law (out of an overwhelming number) is "useful" or not, we really need a national conversation about what government is for. If we did that, and proponents of the view that a proper government is that which protects individual rights carry the day, there will be great political pressure to get rid of improper laws and regulations on principle. Many people recoil from a debate over first principles because it seems complicated and far removed from reality, but this is really the only way to economically consign entire swaths of law to the dustbin of history, rather than get mired in bickering over countless particulars. (Or, and this is what this proposal really amounts to, just giving up on the whole idea of creating a proper government or achieving one by an orderly process.)

Second, as this proposal stands, who knows what perfectly legitimate set of laws (e.g., private property) some large faction of people might decide is "useless" and begin disobeying wholesale? Stossel's own examples of the dangerous anarchy in Ferguson and Baltimore show us exactly where this proposal can and will go without the kind of conversation and legal process I just described.

This proposal, which I've seen called "civil disobedience", may seem tempting tactically, but it offends morally and strategically. Ayn Rand's thoughts on that topic should indicate why, in light of some of the problems I have just pointed out regarding acting before thinking in the name of securing liberty:

Civil disobedience may be justifiable, in some cases, when and if an individual disobeys a law in order to bring an issue to court, as a test case. Such an action involves respect for legality and a protest directed only at a particular law which the individual seeks an opportunity to prove to be unjust. The same is true of a group of individuals when and if the risks involved are their own.

But there is no justification, in a civilized society, for the kind of mass civil disobedience that involves the violation of the rights of others -- regardless of whether the demonstrators' goal is good or evil.

The end does not justify the means. No one's rights can be secured by the violation of the rights of others. Mass disobedience is an assault on the concept of rights: it is a mob's defiance of legality as such.

The forcible occupation of another man's property or the obstruction of a public thoroughfare is so blatant a violation of rights that an attempt to justify it becomes an abrogation of morality. An individual has no right to do a "sit-in" in the home or office of a person he disagrees with -- and he does not acquire such a right by joining a gang. Rights are not a matter of numbers -- and there can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions forbidden to an individual, but permitted to a mob.

The only power of a mob, as against an individual, is greater muscular strength -- i.e., plain, brute physical force. The attempt to solve social problems by means of physical force is what a civilized society is established to prevent. The advocates of mass civil disobedience admit that their purpose is intimidation. A society that tolerates intimidation as a means of settling disputes -- the physical intimidation of some men or groups by others -- loses its moral right to exist as a social system, and its collapse does not take long to follow.

Politically, mass civil disobedience is appropriate only as a prelude to civil war

-- as the declaration of a total break with a country's political institutions. [bold added]

I must state my disagreement with the idea implicit in this proposal that it is too late to save our country by legal, civilized means, starting with moral suasion. I shudder to imagine what would result from such a "revolution", when even the best of the insurgents -- the ones wielding the supposedly mighty pens -- don't even achieve clarity for themselves regarding the final objective.

-- CAV

Link to Original

[softwareNerd]

Like so many people, Stossel implies that the U.S. government is doing things that its voter do not like. This is a widely accepted notion, but it is false once you parse it out. From the perspective of any individual voter, the government is doing many things he disagrees with -- often vehemently. However, lots of other voters do agree with the government (not necessarily a majority, but a sizable minority).

 

If a voter thinks taxes are too high, or drugs should be legal, or abortions should be legal, or that he should be allowed to add a back porch without asking his city's permission, or that environmental regulations are too strict, or that the government should not be running schools, ... he must remind himself that these things exist because a large group of voters want them. 

 

It's convenient to blame all the things we don't like on the concrete entity of "government". Indeed people from opposing parties , with opposing views can both agree that this entity of "government" is doing all the bad things to us... instead of blaming each other.

 

I suspect there's an element of psychological alienation here, as in: "I cannot change anything about the way the government works, therefore it ain't me, n or any other single voter... we're all powerless pawns."

Edited May 18, 2015 by softwareNerd

[dream_weaver]

When Miss Rand penned her cameo appearance into Atlas Shrugged, she indicated "that when one deals with words, one deals with the mind." She must have reminded herself often or just had the mindset that the policies and regulations existed because a large enough group of voters want them. Rather than buying into "we're all powerless pawns", she used her opus magnum to describe the idea of seeking out the other characters who concretized the other men of the mind to orchestrate a large enough group to influence the events in the world around them.

 

Consistent with her comments on selective civil disobedience, Hank Reardon stood his ground in court with righteous indignation rather than unearned guilt. Rather than mass civil disobedience, she penned a creative work of art illustrating what a world without mind might look like. Many of the characters asked what was wrong with the world. The protagonists did not blame the "government", but sought to identify what was wrong with the regulatory policies and what motivated the creation of such legislation and enforcement while their adversaries clamored for others to do something about it, seeking solutions via belonging to a P.C. group or faction rather than on the reliance of one's own power to think.

 

The psychological seductiveness of "I cannot change anything about the way the government works" transcending into "we're all powerless pawns" is captured by W. C. Fields. Any dead fish can float with the current. It takes a live one to swim upstream.

 

I can change the way I work. Properly positioned, even the move of a "powerless pawn" can issue the declarative "Checkmate" under a well thought-out strategy.