Americans have more freedom and broader rights than citizens of almost any other nation in the world, including the capacity to criticize their government and their elected officials. But we do not have the right to resort to violence — or the threat of violence — when we don’t get our way. Our founders constructed a system of government so that reason could prevail over fear. Oklahoma City proved once again that without the law there is no freedom.As some are evidently still confused about the proposition that states claim the sole legitimate use of force, here is Bill Clinton ably demonstrating the exact nature of this claim. We do not have any right to resort to violence, nor yet the threat of violence. As proof, he reminds us that competing claims to legitiamte violent recourse will be crushed by the state's instruments of coercive violence.
Criticism is part of the lifeblood of democracy. No one is right all the time. But we should remember that there is a big difference between criticizing a policy or a politician and demonizing the government that guarantees our freedoms and the public servants who enforce our laws.
We are again dealing with difficulties in a contentious, partisan time. We are more connected than ever before, more able to spread our ideas and beliefs, our anger and fears. As we exercise the right to advocate our views, and as we animate our supporters, we must all assume responsibility for our words and actions before they enter a vast echo chamber and reach those both serious and delirious, connected and unhinged.
Civic virtue can include harsh criticism, protest, even civil disobedience. But not violence or its advocacy. That is the bright line that protects our freedom. It has held for a long time, since President George Washington called out 13,000 troops in response to the Whiskey Rebellion.
-America's First Black President
On the other hand, I'm a bit bemused by: "Oklahoma City proved once again that without the law there is no freedom." Proved it how exactly? There are some understandable, if weak, claims that law backed by coercive force is necessary in order to protect citizen-subjects from the greater infringements of the Hobbesian all-against-all state of nature that would obtain [IOZ: it would not necessarily obtain] in the absence of government. The minor infringement of municipal police force prevent the greater infringements of epidemic purse-snatching, or what have you. Like I said, these are weak claims, but they cohere and they have an internal logic. On the other hand, Timothy McVeigh's attack did not occur in a lawless environment. I mean, it was plainly a violation of extant laws; it was clearly illegal. How that is dispositive evidence of the inextricable link between law and liberty is beyond me. If a deranged violent criminal breaks into your home and slaughters your family, then does that also prove an equation of law and liberty? There is, literally, Joe Biden, no logical connection between Oklahoma City, the law, and "freedom." Like, instead of saying, "If A, then B, and if B, then C; thus therefore if A and B, then C," Bill Clinton is saying, "If A, then Cow, and if Cow, then Blammo!; thus therefore 10." Well, I mean, okay, Groucho. The party of the first part shall be known in this contract as the party of the first part.
What Oklahoma City teaches is that claims to the unique legitimate right to exercise violence are not the same as an actual monopoly on violence, and that those who reject the uniqueness claim may come to exercise what they too believe to be legitimate force. This, by the way, is why the state's interlocutors persistently call terrorism an "existential threat." It is not actually a crisis of existence, but a frightening legal challenge. Think of al Qeda et al. not as "militants," but as trust busters.
19 comments:
The labeling seems to be an after-the-fact matter to me. The state claims legitimacy of force, sure, but so does the mob. The reason that one is labeled "the state" and the other is "organized crime" is because the one's been successful at it. If that's what you mean by legitimacy. Is the state always just the political manifestation of the most powerful groups or classes? I could be convinced of that.
I suppose the existential thing would explain why they hate unions so much too. And the church is impotent enough as a violent political power these days, at least in the U.S., so those bedfellows don't yank the sheets much. (On the other hand, it makes their love of mercenary organizations a little puzzling. Didn't they all read their Machiavelli?)
...If there was an argument in that baffling thread (civilization's been recognized as something of a tradeoff for, like, 10000 years now, right?) that the state does or doesn't claim that sole power, then I haven't read that far yet.
Exasperation sets in. Of course this type of taxonomy follows existence. That's usually the case. "Labeling after the fact"? Come on, buddy. It is defining the attributes of a thing which exists. It's like ponderously musing, "Well, I'm pretty sure that there were house cats before biologists defined Felis catus." Ya think?
Now, if you can't trust a fix, what can you trust? For a good return, you gotta go bettin' on chance - and then you're back with anarchy, right back in the jungle.
Yeah fuck it, I find it pretty tiring too.
K (Classy save, there, Keifus. I've got a gift.)
It's fucking beyond hilarious to read an essay about "law" from the perjurer who killed the independent counsel statute.
What a country! What a mainstream media!
Did you really just question his legal logic based on having lied about a fucking blow job? That right there, is sound logic. Let me come to you next time I need a legal brief drafted.
Yeah man, the "State of Nature" is such a bullshit strawman.
Nutella:
When will you proggies ever learn just how cretinous it is to prate, "He lied about consensual fellatio. So what?".
Liars lie, and they keep on lying. Liars who will lie under oath are especially dangerous liars. What's the logic here, Nutella? "Well, he might lie under oath in his own perceived self-interest about Something Unimportant, but golly, he'd NEVER countenance self-serving lies if it's about Something Important!".
Also, a single, disconnected act of terrorism cannot "prove" anything. At best, it's a demonstration, but without further data (and pretty sure he's not asking for that) it's pretty weak as a demonstration.
Lying [about a blowjob] under oath, while both a member of the bar and the president of a nation-state that kills huge numbers of people in the name of the rule of law.
Intentional lying under oath. It's perjury.
And repeating the Democratic Party Line is no way to go through life, either.
And, did you find the indendent counsel law of any potential value? Your blow-job received and his bought-and-paid-for party nuked it.
Yeah, you'd think the etymology of the word would've grabbed me before now. Calling the state a general condition of human organization is kind of satisfying (like in the thermodynamic sense: just the condition of stuff as defined by a bunch of relevant variables), but it makes thinking about challenges to its claims of legitimacy of violence feel that much more tautological.
"Liars who will lie under oath are especially dangerous liars. What's the logic here, Nutella?"
Probably more like "holy shit, the President lied! Also, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead." As in not unusual or noteworthy.
"And, did you find the indendent counsel law of any potential value?"
No. Scalia nailed it in his dissent in Morrison v. Olson.
Rowan---
That single act in Oklahoma City "proves" what Clinton and his MSM acolytes want it to prove, in Newspeak, anyway: that right-wing opposition to Obama can and should be conflated with organized racism and dangerous ideological groupthink. Now with Major Hasan, the D.C. snipers, the Arkansas recruiter killer, and even the Twins Towers, on the other hand, it's racist and paranoid to even cite vigilance against ideological groupthink and organized incitement of violence in the first place. Meanwhile, McVeigh blew up Murrah on the second anniversary of Clinton and Reno immolating a bunch of women and kids in order to save them from the bad influences in their lives. Torquemada himself might have approved.
Anon @ 6:43---
Agreed in general. Presidents fib.
That doesn't render any less specious the minimizing of Presidential lying under oath, based on the relative insignificance of the subject-matter.
I'll grant that the independent counsel statute was flawed, insofar as it was a statute and not a constitutional mandate. But the remedy to that is not to bury it.
As to perjury, you either find it to be a crime, or you don't. The topic on which the perjury occurs is irrelevant, especially when the perjurer is a high office holder and is speaking on the core issue for which s/he is in jeopardy.
I won't say sneezing at perjury is a slippery slope. It's a step off a cliff.
That reminds me of Steve Pinker's anecdote about the police strike in Canada (I forget which city, it's all Canada to me) which refuted his youthful Bakuninism. I immediately thought, "What? The failure of state-provisioned security is a mark against anarchy?". And I don't even consider myself an anarchist most days of the week.
Atomic weapons put tremenduous power in the hands of small entities. A community of less than 10 million people could easily afford 10-20 nuclear warheads. And with various boosting methods now in place, it doesn't have to be H-bomb behemoths. An 100 kt warhead can turn a significant portion of an invading force into a mass of molten metal and burning flesh.
"Te-horrorists" wielding nuclear weapons creep beyond a legitimacy threat and inch towards an existential threat to the modern Leviathan.
Capt'n Obvious
It's also the anniversary of Waco, Bill. What were you saying about law?
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