Tag: philosophy

Can Moral Obligations be Mandated by Law?

Roger Mitchell1 Comment

I’m going to give Donald Trump a little respite and breather in this post and address something more philosophical and germane to human nature.

I hardly ever watch Fox News and if by some chance I do, it is for never more than a moment or two before I quit, usually out of disgust by whatever clap the commentator is waxing eloquent about. Self-determined and proclaimed moralism is not just a religion of the Left, the so-called conservative Right is also shot through with it.

Nevertheless, a few days ago, I sat down with my wife and watched a segment of news, Laura Ingraham’s interview with Holly (last name unknown), as she was recovering from a severe beating she had endured at the hands of an out-of-control mob in Cincinnati, Ohio. The resultant bruises from the blows she had received were still quite visible, although it appeared that she was well on the road to physical healing.

Holly exuded an air of calmness and patience, and I did not notice any display of anger or rage on her part, which might have been justifiable considering everything she had been through. In fact, she openly expressed an interest, not in revenge and punishment, but reconciliation and understanding to ensure that nothing like this would ever happen to another person. This is an admirable stance. I respect her for it and I said something to that effect to my wife when the segment was over.

“I like her. She is already famous and this will benefit her immensely. The black mob and the Cincinnati officials have not done themselves any good, but Holly will become an important, highly sought-after person, perhaps running for political office or accepting an offer to become a TV news personality of her own.”

Or something like that. As I said, it was a few days ago and my memory is not what it used to be.

There was, however, something that Holly said which I disagree with and it has to do with the moral responsibility of the onlookers, many of whom were actively taking videos, but did not call 911 or the legal authorities to intervene to bring the melee to an end. In essence, she said that this practice ought to be illegal and these people punished according to law. Philosophically, I think she is wrong and, on this, I am going to invoke Walter Block, he of “Defending the Undefendable” fame (infamy?) While it is certain that the inactions of the many people who watched Holly take a “beatdown” were reprehensible and morally despicable, they should not be considered criminal and punishable.

“Every crime is a sin, but not every sin is a crime.”

I have my own differences of opinion with Walter Block, among them his favorable treatment of abortion on demand and his shrill, unwavering support of the nation of Israel, despite the undeniable fact that the ones who suffer the most (unborn babies, already born babies in Gaza) are destroyed outright by people who are more powerful than they are. In these, I find his position on libertarianism and the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP) inconsistent and untenable, and I have written numerous times about his position on abortion. See here and here for examples.1 Still, I find his arguments about people who are repugnant and despicable to be compelling and I cannot, to be consistent with my own philosophy, find any good reason to overturn it, at least, legally. There are moral arguments to be made here, but they ought to be presented to those who are the “active sinners” and not against Block, et alia, who only defend their right to live in such a way.

As it relates to Holly and the mob, numerous questions arise.

  1. Did certain people refuse or neglect to call 911?
  2. Was this refusal/inaction morally reprehensible, thoughtless, and/or selfish?
  3. Should people be punished because they are morally reprehensible, thoughtless, and selfish?
  4. If so, what charges should be brought against them? What should be the prescribed punishment? Would these be based on principles of reason and truth or pure emotion, public will, and political pandering?
  5. Could prosecution under the law ever be considered as running afoul of a person’s religious beliefs, i.e., that everything is pre-ordained and to interfere is going against God’s will, therefore, personally detrimental? Does civil “responsibility” ever trump spiritual submission to one’s higher power? If so, what would it look like and where are the limits, if any?
  6. Etc., etc., etc…..ad infinitum.

More importantly, this argument falls into the philosophical arena known as “positive” law, which basically seeks to make people good by virtue of legislation. I am strongly opposed to the notion as I understand that only God can make people good and that only through the personal acceptance of Jesus Christ and the life-altering influence of the Holy Spirit. Confession of sin, repentance, and change for the better cannot be legislated nor made mandatory, ordered, and enforced, it must be voluntary and freely sought. The first sentence in the description of positive law in Wikipedia (yes, I am citing Wikipedia) describes it quite well and flows with my own version.

“Positive laws (Latin: ius positum) are human-made laws that oblige or specify an action.” — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_law

In our relevant case, Holly would like to see a government mandated ordinance which obliges and specifies an action, such action being that people who see someone being beaten would be compelled by law to make an attempt to correct the situation in some way. Whether this means getting physically involved as Holly did or simply dialing 911 and alerting the officials while maintaining a safe distance really does not matter. The important thing to remember is that action MUST be taken under threat of punishment, i.e., “You will DO good, dammit, whether you want to or not. It is The Law. Doing nothing is not allowed. After all, your brother’s (sister’s) life, health, and well-being are at stake.”2

With all due respect to Holly and the millions of like-minded people around the world, whether to become involved or not is a moral issue, one to be decided solely within the conscience of an individual who knows what is right and what is wrong. It is not, ought not be, a legal issue with sanctions imposed for lack of activity in the event of a traumatic event. To attempt to make it a legal matter would only open up a subjectively interpreted can of worms and do nothing at all to change human behavior.3 “Love your neighbor as you love yourself…” is the operative phrase here which carries the thought of personal self-sacrifice on behalf of your neighbor, even at the risk of your own life and Holly’s action showed this explicitly. However, this is not the same as loving your neighbor under compulsion because you are afraid of the trouble that a disinterested third party might inflict on you if you don’t. The two are worlds apart.

What is really astounding to me are the vast numbers of people (finger-pointing is not necessary, you know them) who are willing to castigate and condemn the bystanders in Cincinnati, yet who do or say absolutely nothing to stop the aggressive actions of the Israeli State against the impoverished, helpless population of Gaza. Where is the outcry from those who think that ‘There outta be a law’? Why do we laud and support Holly in her drive to make human inaction illegal, yet criminalize human action (anti-semitic speech, BDS, street protests, etc.) when it infringes on our own pet issues? The only answer I can come up with is that people are, generally speaking, driven by emotion, but recoil at the thought of applying consistency of thought and action, i.e., reason and repentance, to their own daily lives. The fact that the current situation in Gaza is shot through with religious overtones does nothing to alleviate the situation and, in my opinion, actually makes it more difficult to resolve through rational discourse. “God said it. I believe it. That settles it.”

Only it doesn’t. The beatdowns continue, and will, until morally upright people from all walks of life stop expecting someone else to solve these problems via brute force and become actively involved in them personally, abandoning the idea that man-made laws can overcome and correct the evil-ridden apathy which afflicts human nature.

  1. BC (Before Covid), I was writing essays and articles on abortion, an issue about which I have strongly held beliefs. For instance, I would have no problem at all with prosecuting the “doctors and nurses” who perform them, charging them with first-degree murder and punishing them severely if convicted. I am ambivalent about bringing such charges against women who abort for various reasons which are too numerous and complex to mention here. You can access the postings here. When Covid hit, I made the decision to focus on that as I believed it was the greater and more pressing threat to our lives and liberties. Now that Covid is receding into the rearview mirror (not necessarily over), I may again pick up the thread to preserve innocent, unborn human life. ↩︎
  2. This brings to mind the tragic case of Kitty Genovese, a young woman who was stabbed numerous times and raped as she lay dying in New York City in 1964. At the time, the New York Times claimed that 37 people had witnessed the incident from their apartment windows but did nothing to stop it with the exception of one man who shouted, “Leave that girl alone!”, but did not go to her aid. The Times assertion has since been debunked and it is not known how many (few) people actually witnessed the crime, but the story stuck and still resonates today. The incident resembles what is known as the Bystander Effect and was a strong impetus to the development of the 911 system we have today. ↩︎
  3. Given the prevalence of mobile smart phones today, it would be possible for a zealous prosecutor to geo-locate every single phone which was in the vicinity at the time, identify who owned the phone, and charge them with the crime of “not calling 911 in an emergency”. Untold numbers of people could have their lives turned upside down and wrecked under such a scenario, especially if the prosecutor was prone to using these instances as stepping-stones to higher office, which many are prone to do. ↩︎

Politics, Contradiction, and Lies

Roger Mitchell6 Comments

“In every other science one saw at least a more or less adequate degree of congruence between theory and practice, reason and experience; only in politics was there an eternal contradiction between the dominant doctrines and the state of the world. It is this very contradiction that true science seeks to avoid, by adjusting the theory to the nature of things, while false science seeks to save itself by torturing facts in order to force-fit them into accredited systems.” —Karl Ludwig von Haller, Restoration of Political Science, Preliminary Discourse. (Emphasis mine)

Remember Covid? Writing in 1816, Haller presciently and accurately described the method by which false science was used to impose the narrative on an unsuspecting population. It cannot be emphasized enough that the lies, social manipulation, division, ostracization, and emotional distress caused by irrational fear were all driven by a false science designed for only one purpose: control over the many by a few for a pre-designed agenda. It cannot be denied that the perpetrators of the Covid scam tortured the facts so as to force-fit them into their desired system of total control over all–worldwide.

And money. Boatloads of money. More money than they could ever need or spend. All gained at the expense of the average, common, everyday Joe.

Four years on, there are still those who are clinging tightly to this “false science”, who will not relinquish their hold on it–either because they hope to gain from it by perpetuating it, or because they are afraid to admit they were gulled and bought into it. I see the latter occasionally, on sidewalks, in shops, at events, who have their face masks firmly in place, advertising to the world that they are still gripped by the notion, the false science, that a thin, porous piece of cloth will actually keep them from contracting a virus.

(I am tempted at times to walk up to them and ask them if they are trying to keep their chin warm, but I don’t. It might be like poking a stick into a hornet’s nest. Better left alone. Besides, I am aware of the sage advice in Proverbs 26:4 which tells me not to answer a fool according to his folly. Or as The Message puts it, “Don’t respond to the stupidity of a fool; you’ll only look foolish yourself.”)

Nevertheless, Haller’s point is that in every science based on observation and adjustment, facts count and when theory is not consistent with the facts, then the theory must be adjusted. It is only in the “science” of politics that this does not hold, instead the facts themselves are twisted to fit the theory. It does not matter what the theory is, who promotes it, nor its end purpose, the promoters and adherents of the theory are not at all reticent nor ashamed to push their own version of the “science” to achieve their goal, which is, of course, getting what they want at the expense of everyone else. Anthony Fauci even alluded to himself as “The Science” and baldly asserted that to disagree with him was an assault on science.

The unfortunate reality in all this is that the vast majority of people, across the full spectrum of society, believe that the only way to make things “work”, according to their own preferred belief system, is to engage in politics, twisting and distorting the facts to make themselves look better and their antagonists look worse. What is really sad is the fact, undistorted and wholly reliable, that people fail to learn from their past mistakes, especially in politics. They will swallow virtually any lie so long as it appears to come from an authority which proclaims to have the ability to “save” them from risk, catastrophe, and danger, and in their acceptance of the lie, they attempt to work the world over to bring it to life, to add it into the pantheon of truth.

People never learn, but then someone like von Haller pops up and sheds a little bit of light on the subject.

There is hope.

The Practice of Politics: Continued

Roger Mitchell3 Comments

This was first published as a reply to a comment seen on an article by Donald Jeffries at his Substack. I like Donald Jeffries. He has become, without his knowledge, one of my most-beloved mentors. I have a few others: John Waters, Elizabeth Nickson, Caitlin Johnstone, Edward Curtin, etc., from whom I am learning, not so much about facts and opinions, but how to write lucidly and comprehensively about things that matter. More than anything else, I am learning how to be unafraid in the telling of the truth. If this resonates with you, please leave a comment.

https://donaldjeffries.substack.com/p/the-orwellian-doctors-of-disinformation

I describe politics as the practice of getting what you want by manipulating other people and is always at their expense, to their detriment, which is an adaptation of this quote by Frederic Bastiat–“Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavours to live at the expense of everybody else.”

Most people consider “politics” as having to do with government, law, the State, but most never, ever think about the way that they practice it on a daily basis. For instance, Billy Joel’s waitress in his hit song, Piano Man, made a habit of and living from “…practicing politics as the businessmen (her customers) slowly get stoned.”

Government is only the official recognition that politics is practiced everywhere, at all levels of society, by an overwhelming majority of people, both large and small, who endeavor to get what they want at the expense of everyone else, using every possible means at their disposal. Sometimes they get busted and learn, correcting their ways but, more often than not, they protest that their actions are really only for the benefit of those around them and the good of society. Like supporting the Military-Industrial Complex because it has a factory in their home state or loudly backing the genocidal catastrophes which the “most-favored” nation in the history of the world, Israel, practices on its weaker neighbors.

How do you correct this problem. Quite simple. Vote. Vote harder. Vote more often. Vote until the right people are put into office and all the scheming, conniving, rascally scoundrels are turned out into the street or thrown into a maximum-security prison. Yes, that ought to do it and so many are faithful to the concept, never realizing that voting is an attempt to force others to behave the way that you want them to. Getting what you want at someone else’s expense, to their detriment. Politics.

For those who haven’t already caught on, the paragraph immediately above is sarcastic. The only way to correct the practice of politics is to address the sin within yourself AND to take action to eliminate it from your own life. All of us are guilty. All of us have to change our course. As a succinct example of what I am advocating, I offer another paraphrase from an even greater man than Frederic Bastiat.

“Love your neighbors, don’t kill them.”

Abortion and the non-agression principle, Part II

Roger MitchellLeave a comment

“…libertarianism is not at all a philosophy of life. Rather, it is a very, very, very limited philosophy. It pretty much asks only one question: “when is violence against another person justified?” and pretty much gives only one answer: “only in response to a prior use of violence, or threats.” That is, violence may properly be used only in defense, not offense. When the latter is engaged in, the perpetrator should be punished. That’s libertarianism in a nutshell,…”

Is Libertarianism A Philosophy Of Life? No.

Gasoline on the fire!

Although many people might think otherwise, the debate over abortion is centered on one question—is the unborn fetus a person with an inalienable right to life? Or not? Women’s rights are peripheral to this.

If it is true that a fetus is a person, then Walter Block has exposed a contradiction of the NAP on this issue. Any attempt to terminate a pregnancy through abortion would be an act of aggression against an unborn person.

Of course, the opposing view is that an unborn fetus is not a person and can be treated in any way desired by the woman, without interference from anyone else. If this is true, then there is no inconsistency within the NAP.

This is the question which must be answered. Either the fetus is a person or it is not. Either/or, but not both. There are no other choices. If it can be shown that a fetus is a person with the innate right to life, it will be impossible to defend the “right to choose.” On the other hand, if it can be proven to NOT be a person, the pro-life argument collapses into a quivering pile of nothingness.

If Zager and Evans were correct in their prediction, “…you’ll pick your sons, pick your daughters too, from the bottom of a long, glass tube…”, the personality of the child will be visible from the very beginning. As technology improves, viability will be pushed to an earlier and earlier date, which will erode any claim that the fetus does not become a person until an arbitrary point in time is reached. The use of ultrasound, imaging, and medical science will continue to support and bolster the pro-life position that a live, human, individual with a personality all its own exists. These are going to be extremely difficult hurdles for politics and rationalization to clear, regardless of judicial orders.

The burden of proof rests heavily on the pro-abortion side of this debate. It has the more difficult task of proving its point. Efforts to show that fetuses are not persons will prove, in the long run, to be futile and insurmountable.

The difference between these two positions cannot be reconciled. It will never be settled nor agreed upon. It is an “all or nothing” war of conflicting ideas. The NAP is skewed toward “women’s rights” and, as a consequence, does not allow the right of life to be extended to all unborn persons, only those who are “wanted”.

If libertarianism is a horse carrying its riders to freedom and the NAP is the saddle those riders rest on, then the abortion issue is a burr under that saddle. It will always be there, irritating and counter-productive, until it is removed and ceases to be a problem. When will that be? How will it happen? I don’t know. I can’t predict the future, but I believe it will have something to do with individuals gradually and peacefully changing their minds and then changing their ways. Repentence, in other words. Hopefully, libertarianism won’t end up as Bob Seger put it so brilliantly, “…caught like a wildfire out of control, til there was nothing left to burn and nothing left to prove…”

Where do we go from here? My answer, short and simple–keep moving. Don’t allow this single issue to tear us apart. A solution will appear, sooner or later, and it might be quite a lot later, maybe not until the year 6565. Doesn’t matter. Keep moving.