Clash of Civilizations, or War of World-views? - Part 3

Part 3

Now, what of Islam and Muslims? Where do they fit in the war of world-views?

All of us – even children of atheists – are brought up in some kind of moral environment. Frequently, this has a religious component to it, whether though our parents or through schools. When we are young and inexperienced, we tend to absorb the religion we are taught, without questioning it very much. But as we mature, many of us come to question, even to reject, the religions we were brought up in. Some pick a different off-the-peg religion. Some go green. Some grow their own religion. Others conclude that religion is a waste of time, and become agnostics, or that it is a scam, and become atheists.

The point I want to make here is that it is silly to condemn people for the religion they were brought up in. It is no more under their control than is the colour of their skin. Therefore it should not count against them. Statements like "Islam is a warlike religion,” whether true or false, are irrelevant to how we should approach Muslims as individuals.

Now, I do not find Islam a very attractive philosophy. I am not comfortable with its central theme, surrender to the will of God. I don't like its attitude to alcohol, or its subjection of women. (Though Western feminism has tipped that particular balance too far the other way). Nor do I like the fanaticism it can engender, or the suspicion it causes some Muslims to show for non-Muslims.

But, as an upholder of Western values, I will not condemn Muslims for being Muslims. Indeed, I have sympathy for moderate Muslims in Western countries, who must be feeling that they are being made into scapegoats. I will uphold their right to have their religion, as long as they behave reasonably. I will be tolerant towards them, as long as they are tolerant towards me.

There are on the other hand some, that I do condemn for their religious conduct. I condemn those that try to foist their religious viewpoint on others, by threats, force or perversion of law. That is intolerant and uncivilized behaviour.

So, I condemn those Muslims that want to restrict my freedom of speech because I might insult their pesky prophet. But I also condemn those Christians that want to censor the Internet on the pretext of protecting my (non-existent) children from porn. I condemn the Islamists that use or support violence against innocent people. But I also condemn the Christians that want to forcibly ban abortion or the teaching of evolution, and the enviros that want to forcibly suffocate the world economy. Who are they, that they claim a right to impose their prejudices by government force, on people who don't even believe in their dubious deity or their climate-change claptrap?

In reality, there are good Muslims and bad Muslims, just as there are good Christians and bad Christians, good Jews and bad Jews, good atheists and bad atheists. Some Muslims are peaceful and tolerant. I know this for a fact, because I have met examples of them. There exist, on the other hand, aggressive, intolerant Muslims. Those of us who uphold Western values should accept the former, and reject the latter.

But our enemies, the subjection thinkers, don't agree. They want us to mis-understand the war we are in. They want to stir up antipathy and mistrust between indigenous Western people and Muslims. They want Western people to see Islam as an enemy. They want us to see Bush, Blair and co as white knights on shining chargers, rescuing Western civilization from the evil Islamic terrorists. And they want us to support and pay for their next murderous assault on a Muslim country, probably Iran or maybe Syria.

The recent affair of the Danish cartoons was a good example of their propaganda. You have to admit, it took a lot of people in. It gave Western people an impression that most Muslims are intolerant. This brought a reaction by unthinking Westerners against Muslims in general, which in some places, like Holland, led to talk of mass deportations.

But the affair also sowed the seed of something else. Did you hear the nonsense about re-introducing a crime of blasphemy? Did you notice the sermonizing about responsibility and codes of conduct? Did you get the feeling that freedom of speech wasn't being properly defended? Not surprising, really. For these were subjection thinkers speaking. Subjection thinkers don't like freedom of speech. Except for themselves, of course.

The subjection thinkers want to kill our freedom of speech, because they know that it is our weapon against them in the war of world-views. If we human beings and our Western values are to win that war, we must never, ever, ever compromise on freedom of speech. Anyone that wants to restrict freedom of speech, however good and reasonable their arguments may sound, is an enemy of Western values.

And aren't those that want to restrict others' freedom of speech, by their very attitude, admitting something? Aren't they admitting that their ideas can't fairly compete, can't stand the test of open comparison, with the ideas of those they want to muzzle?

The first step towards winning a war is to understand that you're in one. And the second is to identify the enemy. That, I think, we have now done. The war is a war of world-views – Western, individual values versus subjection thinking. And the enemy are the subjection thinkers, including the traitors that today pass themselves off as Western leaders.

It may seem as if the war is unwinnable. For our enemies are many and powerful. And our friends in positions of any power are few. History, though, takes strange turns. The short term prospects look bleak for Western values; and yet, there's a feeling in the air that great change is overdue. That there's another Renaissance coming – or a Re-awakening, at any rate.

Isn't it about time? Isn't it time people woke themselves up from the bad dream, which is life in the perverted societies which today pass for Western civilization? Isn't it time for a resurgence of Western values? For a new dynamism, a new confidence in ourselves and in the future? For the restoration of the human individual to his and her rightful place at centre stage? For a rejection of subjection thinking and subjection thinkers? For Western people to provide an example to those in Muslim countries, and in the rest of the world, so they can liberate themselves too?

Well, isn't it about time?

Clash of Civilizations, or War of World-views? - Part 2

Part 2

It is easy for Western people to let themselves be fooled into thinking that Islam and Muslims are the cause of many of the problems in the world today. For, indeed, the regimes in many Muslim countries have become more conservative and Islamist in the last twenty years or so. And some extreme Islamists – partly provoked, it must be said, by the actions of Western governments – want to unleash a holy war on Western people, to force us all to become Muslims. These Islamists like to use a nasty tactic called terrorism. That is to say, the violent and essentially random targeting of people who are merely going about their daily business.

Now, of course we should condemn this terrorism, this targeting of innocent people. And we should condemn those that do it, those that support it and those that condone it. Yet, before we start to condemn Muslims in general, should we not consider how those that claim to be our own Western leaders are behaving? How well do they uphold our Western values and our Western civilization?

No interference with privacy or correspondence… or filming us everywhere we go, and tapping our e-mails? Freedom of movement… or no-fly lists? Trial of accusations without undue delay… or long detention without trial? No torture… except when Bush authorizes it? Freedom from arbitrary search… or stop and search on any excuse? No double jeopardy… no, Blair destroyed that one already. The rule of law… or battering us with more and more bad laws, more and more strictly enforced, so that none of us are safe?

How about recognizing our natural human dignity and goodness, and letting us live as we wish, as long as we don't harm others? Not a chance. Just about everything Blair and co do is treating us as if we were the bad guys. They behave towards us human beings with ever increasing harshness and arrogance. They treat us like animals to be broken to their wills. And they want to reduce us to even less than that – to numbers and DNA samples in a database. Similar things are happening, too, in Bush's kingdom on the other side of the Atlantic.

But, some may say, isn't terrorism such a big problem, that we should accept some loss of liberties in order to beat it?

Well, that depends. First, should we not be very, very suspicious of anyone that wants to give away others' liberties? Second, is terrorism really as big a problem as it's made out to be? Could it not be dealt with like any other serious crime, without damaging civil liberties? And where is the objective, rational analysis of the risks from terrorism versus the costs to human beings of lost liberty?

Third, how can we be sure that, if we did accept any suspension of liberties, it would be temporary, not permanent? Fourth, do Bush, Blair and co really want to end terrorism? Or might they just be using it as an excuse for their own agendas – including trampling on our rights? Fifth, can we be sure that they would not use powers given to them to deal with terrorism, against people who have nothing to do with terrorism? Well, can we?

Sixth, isn't Bush and Blair's condemnation of terrorists a case of the pot calling the kettle black? Isn't their starting a war in Iraq – legal niceties apart – just as bad as what the terrorists do? If not many times worse?

All this is bad enough. But terrorism isn't the only excuse the political classes today are using to bully and squeeze us down into subjection. Health, safety, the environment, climate change – all these they have set up like idols to give apparent justification to their harmful policies. Not to mention that old chestnut, Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

I will give you what I call the Law of Political Explanations. If politicians give you one single reason for a policy or policies, it's probably a lie. But, if politicians give you two or more reasons for something, particularly if it's at different times, you can be damn certain they're all lies.

Come on, are there really any thinking people out there who actually believe any excuse any politician trots out any more?

No, it is plain that Western politicians today don't care a damn about Western values. They claim to be our leaders; but in reality, they are traitors to our values and to Western civilization. It is plain that in the real war today, the war of world-views, the politicians and the terrorists are on the same side – the side of subjection thinking, of intolerance, of hatred of the individual. They are not on the side of us human beings.

And what of democracy, the system which is supposed to give all of us a say? What is the value of a vote, if all those that frame the major parties' policies, and practically all of their candidates, are traitors to our Western values? And how can the consent of 22 per cent of people – and a largely deluded 22 per cent at that – be enough to endow a gang like Blair and co with authority to rule tyrannically over everyone in Britain?

When you understand all this, it becomes hardly surprising that we aren't winning the war of world-views. We haven't even been allowed a chance. Imagine, if you will, what would have happened in the Battle of Britain if Churchill and his cabinet had been closet Nazis.

Clash of Civilizations, or War of World-views? - Part 1

(From the archives - April 9th, 2006. Another 3,500+-word, three-part monster. And very appropriate right now, too.)

Part 1

"This is not a clash between civilizations, but a clash about civilization.”

These are recent words of Tony Blair, current tyrant of a medium-sized group of islands called Britain. I live in those islands. I often wish I didn't; but circumstances do not, in the short term at least, favour my moving somewhere better to live and work.

Now, I have no respect for Blair. Blair is the leader of a gang, that passes itself off as a government. That gang does many bad things to people in the islands called Britain, which no government should ever do. Not to mention what it has done in Iraq.

Yet in this matter I find myself, at least partly, in agreement with Blair's words. And against the received wisdom we are frequently fed, namely, that there is today a clash of civilizations between Islam and the West.

I'll re-state that thesis as it comes over from its supporters. There is a civilization called "Islam.” And there is a civilization called "the West.” There is an irreconcilable conflict between the two. And we, as inhabitants of the West, have a duty to support Western political leaders like Blair and George W. Bush in their fight against Islam and its terrorists.

So, what is this "Islam"? Well, it's a religion. It was begun back in the 7th century by the prophet Mohammed and his followers. For its first two centuries or so, it was a religion of its times – nasty and warlike. First by conquest, later by a mix of conquest and trade, It spread to many parts of the world. Today, from western Africa, Turkey and Somalia, to Pakistan and lands south of Russia, in Bangladesh and from Malaysia to Indonesia, Islam is the majority religion. But Islam's adherents – Muslims – also live in numbers in other parts of the world.

As well as being a religion, Islam is a system of law. A rather conservative one, by Western standards. Indeed, most Muslim governments have departed from the strict interpretation of this system, and adopted at least some Western ideas into their codes of law.

What are the political regimes in Muslim countries like? They vary, but to the Western way of thinking, many of them are not very nice. They include monarchies, military regimes and theocracies.

What, on the other hand, is "the West"? Most people think of the West as a loose association of countries with a particular political flavour, namely, some form or other of democracy. Yet the presence, or pretence, of democracy does not imply Western-ness. Europe west of the former Iron Curtain, Canada, the USA, Australia, New Zealand – it is not controversial to call these societies Western. And there are parts of the world – Russia, China, Japan, India – which most will agree are neither Islamic nor Western. But if we try to define the West as a geographical entity, its borders prove elusive. Are the former African colonies Western? What about South American countries? Is Israel part of the West? Are the former communist countries in Eastern Europe Western?

When we speak of Western values, though, we are on much firmer ground. These are values, which have evolved in Western Europe and societies derived from it over many centuries. Their roots go back to ancient Greece and Rome, as well as to even earlier currents of thought. These Western values have, at times and in places, produced successful societies, societies more dynamic and better to live in than the historical norm. Like Islam, they have been carried, by trade and conquest, to a large part of the world. And they continue to evolve even today.

So, just what are these Western values? They are many. I will list some of them.

To the ancient Greeks, we owe the concept of the rule of law. We also owe to them the ideal of democracy, that individuals should have a voice in the running of the societies they live in. And a sense that there is an order in the world, which we should try to understand.

To the Romans, we owe the development of law and of property rights. To mediaeval times, we owe the ideas of crime as an act outside the bounds of human society; of the mens rea, the guilty mind, which must accompany it; and of the punishment fitting the offence. To mediaeval times we owe also the jury system and the beginnings of rules of evidence.

From the Renaissance sprang several of the important values, which have become Western. A dynamism, a seeking for innovation and discovery. A sense of looking both forward to the future, and back to learn from the past. The ideas of the dignity of Man, and of our mastery over our surroundings. A spirit of free enquiry and criticism.

The 17th century gave us the desire for rational explanations of things, and the scientific method of finding such explanations. It gave us a sense of Man as a creative being. And it brought to the fore the idea that we human beings have rights, which governments must not trample on.

The Enlightenment gave us a sense of the natural goodness of human beings. It gave us a sense that right and wrong are above the arbitrary decrees of rulers. It saw society as being for the benefit of the individual, not the individual for the benefit of society. It set out the idea that government must be for the benefit of the governed.

The Enlightenment also gave us a new optimism and desire for progress. And it celebrated our ability to reason, and our capacity to attain knowledge and understanding.

Enlightenment ideas reached a peak in the US Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights. The inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The idea that governments derive their powers from the consent of the governed. Freedom of religion. Freedom of speech and of the press. Freedom of peaceful association. Freedom from arbitrary search and seizure. No double jeopardy or self-incrimination. No taking of property for public use, without compensation. Speedy and public trial of accusations, by an impartial jury. No cruel, unreasonable or excessive punishments.

The Industrial Revolution, next, gave us a new spurt of technological progress and more confidence in our ability to master nature. Contrary to what socialists will tell you, it produced a wider distribution of wealth. And it gave a sense that the individual's rewards deserve to be in proportion to his or her contribution.

Other Western values have found expression in more recent times, although some of them may earlier have been thought implicit and not needing to be stated. The dignity of the human individual. To be treated as a person before the law. No arbitrary arrest or detention. No torture. The presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Freedom of movement and residence. Freedom of opinion and expression. Freedom of speech, in whatever media. No interference with privacy or correspondence.

I will give you, lastly, two very important Western values. The first is non-aggression – otherwise said, peacefulness unless attacked. If you doubt that non-aggression is a Western value, think back and remember how smugly the media used to tell us, before Bush and Blair did their droppings in Afghanistan and Iraq, that democracies don't start wars.

The second value is tolerance – tolerance of differences between individuals. You can see the rise of this tolerance in the progress, which has been made against racism in the last half century. And in the lessening of prejudice against homosexuals.

What do these Western values have in common? They represent a way of thinking, which places the individual at the centre of things. Many Western values take the form of much-needed safeguards for us human beings against bad government. But the Western way of thinking is also peaceful, tolerant, dynamic and honest. It values objective facts, objective measurements, rational deductions, rational judgements, objective justice. And it desires prosperity and happiness for all who behave well enough to deserve them.

Contrast, if you will, the opposite way of thinking, which I will call subjection thinking. For the subjection thinker, the human individual is not important. Subjection thinkers find dishonesty, corruption, intolerance, violent aggression, mis-treatment and oppression of people to be all OK. They like to exaggerate problems, such as terrorism, or to make them up, like runaway global warming (or is it cooling?) supposedly caused by human activities. They submerge facts and reason in a sea of lies, propaganda and mental manipulation. And all they can offer us is stagnation, poverty, never-ending conflicts and troubles, fear, uncertainty and despair.

There is indeed a clash about civilization going on today. But it isn't the one the pundits would have you believe. It isn't Islam versus the West, or even governments versus terrorists. For what we are experiencing today is a war of world-views. That war pits Western, individual, civilized values against the uncivilized non-values of the subjection thinkers. And… right now, we and our Western values aren't winning the war.

Who Wants War?

(Recent events in Syria have made this one from the archives - March 20th, 2006 was its date - topical.)

If it was put to a referendum of all the world's adult people, should war be outlawed or not, how many would favour war?

I suspect that most people, if they really thought about it, would want to ban war. It's such a drain – on lives, on resources, on freedom, on prosperity, on happiness. So why should we tolerate it?

Come to that, why should we tolerate those that want to subject others to war? Or those that voluntarily take part in an aggressive war? Isn't here something badly wrong with those that have a liking for war?

Now, I'm not saying we should all be reckless pacifists. Of course we human beings need military defence – as the world is now. As long as warmongers like George W. Bush exist, we need to be able to defend ourselves against them.

Bush and co claim to want to bring democracy to the world. So surely they wouldn't object to us human beings having a say, for a change? Surely they would support a world-wide referendum on outlawing war? And on what sanctions we should use against the mass murderers that order wars, and the violent vermin that do their dirty work?

I'm dreaming, of course.

Community? What Community?

(Neil's Note: This one is hot off the press. Long, and quite complicated; but, I hope, well worth the read.)

In recent months, borders and migration have been much in the news. This is a subject, on which I find myself disagreeing with traditionalists, conservatives and even many libertarians. For, as I wrote in an essay on the Libertarian Alliance (LA) forum back in 2013 [1]: “I favour not so much open borders, as no borders – at least, no political borders, and so no barriers to migration.”

So, a few months ago I set myself to try to understand more fully the ideas of those on the other side of this issue. I owe thanks, first, to Keir Martland for his part in a most illuminating discussion in a comment thread on the LA website in late July. And second, to John Kersey for his clear enunciation of a traditionalist position in his speech to the Traditional Britain Group on 12th September 2015 [2]. This essay is, in part, a reply to John’s views as there expressed.

Why bother?

Let me begin by asking: Why should I, an avowed radical, bother what conservatives think? The answer is simple; I share many values with them. For the part of me, which looks to the past for inspiration, sees great worth in the ideas of the 17th- and 18th-century Enlightenment. Some of these values are: Reason and the pursuit of science. Toleration of difference, most of all in religion. The idea that society exists for the individual, not the individual for society. The idea that human beings are naturally good. Freedom of thought and action. Natural rights and human dignity. Government for the benefit of the governed. Formal equality and the rule of law. A desire for human progress, and a rational optimism for the future.

I would hope that most conservatives today, even those on the further right, would agree with many if not all of these values. And, indeed, with many of my views on what constitutes civil or virtuous conduct. Such as: independence and self-reliance; seeking and telling truth; peacefulness and non-aggression; taking responsibility for one’s actions; respect for property, privacy and other human rights; economic productivity and trade; honesty and integrity.

Moreover, conservatives and I share many enemies; socialists and greens the most obvious among them. So, it’s important to me to try to understand why, on the subject of borders and migration, my view is so far away from people with whom I can agree in so many other ways.

Community

I think that one root of the issue, at least, may lie in a difference in our understanding of what community is. One message I took home from my discussion with Keir is that English conservatives feel a strong attachment to something they call the community, or sometimes “the people.” This seems to be, specifically, a political community; and it’s coterminous with, if not exactly the same as, the state commonly called “Britain” or “the UK.”

In contrast, for me, there’s no such thing as the community. I see each human being as a member of many different communities. (For example, the brass band I play in is one. The LA blogosphere is another). No single one among these communities can be dignified with the definite article the.

Here’s my conception of community. I see the word as having two derivations. First, as a group of people who have things in common. And second, from com- and the Latin munire, to fortify, so meaning sharing walls. Thus, I think of a community as being defined by two aspects: binding forces, which hold the people of the community together; and walls, which separate them from those outside.

I recognize communities at several levels. First, the community of one, the individual; bound together by personality, and walled by human rights. Next, partnerships and marriages, bound together by voluntary contract. Then families, bound together by kinship. The marketplace, bound together by mutual trade. And societies, bound together by shared purpose and sense of belonging. (These include communes, the word I use for societies walled in by geographical boundaries as well as by membership. Monasteries and university colleges are examples of communes).

At the highest level comes what I call Civilization. Civilization is bound together by shared values of, and a shared commitment to, civil behaviour. And it’s walled, not by any geographical boundary, but by a strong distaste for uncivility and for those that practise it. If there was anything I could call the community, it would be this – as yet, unrealized – Civilization.

In my scheme, there’s no place for a political community. Indeed, as I put it back in 2007 [3]: “Any community, of which I could feel a part, would blackball most, if not all, of today's politicians, and many of their toadies.” I feel no sense of community or shared culture with Blair, Brown or Cameron, or with any of their cronies or hangers-on. Far from sharing my values like truth, honesty, non-aggression and respect for individual rights, they actively flout them. Blair, Brown, Cameron and their kind are no more my fellows than Hitler or Stalin would have been.

As to the state, I see its claim of sovereignty, and the moral privileges it arrogates to itself, as incompatible with moral equality, and so with the rule of law and justice. Thus, I reject the state as [4]: “a hangover from a way of thinking that pre-dates John Locke by 100+ years.” And that’s why I say, of the UK state: bugger bloody Britain.

Property and land

Now I’ll backtrack a little way, and talk about property; specifically, land. Early in his talk, John Kersey says that freedom and civilization are based on the premise that land should be privately owned. I heartily agree; indeed, I go further. For me, all containable resources both can and should be privately owned; that is, by individuals or by voluntary societies. This includes areas of land and water, goods and chattels, and even some animals. (But it doesn’t include human beings. This is because humans, being moral agents, can’t be legitimately owned by anyone).

Items of real property, including land and buildings, confer on their owners certain rights. The most important of these, for the purpose of this discussion, is the right to set boundaries around and, at need, within the property. That is, to make and to enforce rules on access to the property, including which parts of it may be accessed by whom, when and for what purposes. Where the property is individually owned, these rules are up to the owner. Where the owner is a group of people, the rules will be agreed in some way among the group.

However, property can also place responsibilities on its owners, as well as giving them rights. For example, someone who buys a gun acquires a responsibility not to use it to shoot innocent people! Succinctly put, property must be used with propriety.

This is also important in the case of land. I see an ethical obligation of all landowners, which I call “non-encirclement.” This means that you must not use your property (either alone or with others) to surround someone else’s, and so to imprison them or to prevent them receiving visitors. And more generally, your right in your land is not so absolute that you can forbid others entirely to pass, peacefully and quietly, across your land if they have no other reasonable way to where they want to go. After all, if you stop them crossing your land, there’s nothing to prevent them doing the same thing, tit-for-tat, to you.

Private and public space

In the 2013 essay I referred to earlier, I built a picture of how borders might exist in a world based on libertarian principles. This included a general presumption of freedom of movement along defined routes (easements), even across property owned by others. In fact, this is not far away from how rights of way in the UK evolved in the first place. Bruce Benson has written a most interesting monograph [5] detailing, among much else, how the UK road system came about, and the shambles which on several occasions resulted from political interference by kings and others.

So, as I wrote back in 2013: “In a libertarian world, land (and water, too) would, I think, become divided into two types of space. There would be private (owned) space, with borders and designated easements. And there would be public (open to all) space, made up of those easements. Furthermore, I expect there would be, ultimately, only one public space, which would be connected. That is, any point of it would be accessible from any other without leaving the public space.”

There’s no place, in this picture, for any borders inside the public space. The only valid boundaries are those which arise from the property rights of individuals, groups, societies or communes. And these boundaries are all either at the edges of, or within, private spaces.

Moreover, these boundaries can only restrict movement from the public space (or from others’ private spaces) into private space, not in the opposite direction. Thus, absent good reasons to deny access to it to specific individuals (for example, to those convicted of serious crimes and thereby sentenced to incarceration), the public space must be open to all, without exception. And once an individual is legitimately in the public space, he has the right to go anywhere in the public space.

The city

Next, I’ll give an example of a society which has a border, and controls who may cross it, but in a way which doesn’t contradict libertarian principles.

Consider a group of people living in an area subject to incursions by warlike, marauding tribes. Growing tired of predations, they decide to work together to erect defences. They form a City Wall Society. The purpose of this society is to build, and to maintain, walls for the defence of the people inside, and gates for passage. All those living inside must be members of the CWS, and pay their share for its upkeep. There will be associate members, too. For example, farmers whose lands are outside the gates, but who have the right to take shelter in the city at need.

Here, we have an embryonic city state. The City Wall Society owns the walls and the gates, and sets rules as to who may be allowed to pass into the city, when and for what purposes. These rules would, for example, secure permanent residence for all full members of the CWS and their dependants. They would allow temporary entry to those specifically invited in by inhabitants of the city. And they would allow for visits, regular or one-off, by tradesmen from outside. Moreover, due to the principle of non-encirclement, no-one would ever be denied exit from the city without very good reason, such as a substantiated accusation of a real crime.

This is a political society, in the strict meaning of the word; it’s a society of the city. And such a community, if its walls and its people are sufficiently strong, could last for a long time. For the city brings an important value, defence against external enemies, to each and every inhabitant and associate. And so, every person in the community has a strong incentive to continue as a member of it, and to do what he can for it.

Sovereignty

Now, let’s consider what happens after a most unfortunate occurrence overtakes our city. A besieging king has contrived, perhaps by stratagem, or perhaps by the sheer number and military strength of his warriors, to enter into the city and to take possession of it. He and his cronies have become a ruling class in the city and its environs.

From outside, the city looks little different. As before, some are allowed in, and others not. And the City Wall Society continues to maintain the walls and gates. But inside, there has been a huge change. No longer can individual inhabitants of the city invite in their friends from outside as they wish. The ruling class must approve all such invitations. And no longer is the work of the CWS paid for directly by its members. Instead, the king and his cronies tax the people; then, having taken their (substantial) cut, they pass on to the CWS what it needs to do its work.

Something fundamental and rather nasty has happened here. Property has been replaced by sovereignty.

Let me elucidate. The walls and gates are no longer the property of the City Wall Society. Instead, the king and his ruling class claim ownership of the entire city, including its borders. The property rights of individuals and societies no longer exist. Or, at best, they’re regarded as leases from the king’s “eminent domain.”

And not only have property rights been lost or severely damaged in the transition from a free people’s city to a royal state. But the principle of non-encirclement has been lost, too.

I’ve already written, in no uncertain terms, about what I think of sovereignty [6]. Here, I will add one thing. While boundaries of property are a one way filter, borders of sovereignty are two way. Not only can the king keep out of his city those he dislikes. But he can also forcibly keep in those he chooses to. For example, as Hans-Hermann Hoppe has pointed out [7], prior to 1824 the emigration of skilled workers from England was illegal.

When a king and his ruling class take over a city, the fox is in the hen-house. More; the fox controls the hen-house. Now, it’s true that some of the foxes are a bit less evil than others. On rare occasions, the interests of the ruling class can coincide for a while with the interests of the ruled; the UK from around 1830 to 1901 is an example. To live in a state during an empire-building phase isn’t so bad. But for traditionalists to hark back to such a time, and to claim that going back there is the only way forward, is... the nicest word I can find is myopic.

Nationalism

Living under monarchy palls after a while. People start to ask, why should a king and a ruling class have a right to do to us exactly what they want? And why should we put up with it? So they form a society, with the purpose of overthrowing the rulers. They can readily find two binding forces for such a society. First, a shared culture. And second, to a greater or lesser degree, a common ancestry and shared racial characteristics. Thus, a nation is born. It’s at this point that the idea of “the community” comes into being.

Against a dynamic as strong as nationalism, few monarchies can stand. The king may be unseated entirely, or relegated to a ceremonial role. But, importantly, the power of the ruling class as a whole is not broken; nor is its sovereignty destroyed. Indeed, by exploiting for their own gain the new feeling of “we” among the people, the ruling class can actually increase its power. And as to borders, nationalism makes them more important, not less. The xenophobic nation state is up and running.

Many countries, particularly those in which democracy has not yet been tried or in which it has never been any more than a false front, are today still stuck in this nation state phase. Others, most of all those with a history of liberal values, proceed to the next stage of social disintegration; democracy.

Democracy

In the same spirit as Gary Chartier’s three kinds of capitalism [8], I’ll here offer you my four phases of democracy.

Democracy-1 is the honeymoon period. People are happy to have (at least apparently) a say in how their lives are governed. Everything seems fresh and new, and anything seems possible. I noticed, at a recent conference in Bali, that many Asian libertarians seem to be “in love” with democracy in this way. I’ve also noticed that this phase can often result in political frivolities, such as the Beer Lovers’ Party winning 16 parliamentary seats at the 1991 elections in Poland.

But honeymoons don’t last. It isn’t long before political factions emerge, looking to take advantage of the situation. The result is what I call democracy-2. In this phase, two factions each form a group of core supporters, and promote policies designed to favour their own supporters at the expense of everyone else. People who don’t feel a strong attachment to either of the factions will tend to support whichever side seems less evil at the time. And this, as often as not, is the faction currently out of power.

Minor parties can also attract such people; so, they can flourish for a time. But rarely do they get big enough to acquire any chance of real power. Thus, as long as democracy-2 lasts, power tends to swing from one side to the other and back again. The social fabric becomes more and more stretched, and the tone of politics becomes nastier and nastier.

In the UK, democracy-2 was the norm for a period stretching roughly from the 1920s to the 1980s. It was the norm for several decades in the USA, too. Many people, particularly conservatives, seem to think that we still live under that system. But the reality is otherwise. For in the 1980s – I think I can date it to a particular year, 1987, but that’s a long story and one for another day – in most if not all Western democracies, the transition began to democracy-3.

Under democracy-3, the differences between the political factions become greatly reduced. They may sometimes spout different rhetoric; and they may, perhaps, propose slightly different bad laws. But their ideologies are essentially the same. And their policies are directed, not to the benefit of the people, but for the personal benefit of the political class and their hangers-on, and to satisfy the agendas of special interest groups.

So, under democracy-3, society inevitably descends towards where we are today. Everything is politicized. Government has been hi-jacked by special interests, such as environmentalists, warmongers and the pro-EU lobby. And the interests of the political class and their cronies have become diametrically opposed to the interests of good people. The fox is back in control of the hen-house.

Indeed, the fox is sovereign in the hen-house. It’s this very sovereignty that allows the fox to make the bad laws, and the taxes, and the wars, that harm good people so much. I don’t blame the titular monarch, Lizzie Windsor, for this; my guess is that she’s as much a victim as we are.

Living under democracy-3 is even worse than living under monarchy. For under a monarchy – a hereditary one, at least – you might get a good egg like William IV, or a bad one like Mary. But under democracy-3, those that rise to the top are, almost without exception, the worst, the most dishonest and devious, the most politically hip. It’s a system perfectly made for the Blairs, the Browns, the Camerons and their ilk. Moreover, under democracy-3 the political class and their hangers-on are far more numerous than any king and his courtiers. And so, their interferences with, and predations on, the people will become far more stringent and far more pervasive than those of any monarchy.

There’s a fourth phase of democracy; and it’s a terminal social illness. Democracy-4 is the tyranny of a parasite majority. The Greeks suffer it already; for, as I learned recently [9], 67 per cent of Greeks depend on the state for their existence. It’s ironic that Greece, the so called “cradle of democracy,” is also the first exemplar of its destruction. For the productive 33 per cent of Greeks, there are only two options now: exit (while it’s still available), or revolution.

Multiculturalism and Islam

On to multiculturalism. I confess that, before my discussion with Keir, I didn’t grasp the problem of multiculturalism; or, indeed, why so many people think it’s such a big deal. But now, I think I understand that what they find to be a problem is the idea of having several cultures inside one of these things they call “the community.”

Even knowing this, I still don’t really grok the issue. I look, for example, at one of the most successful countries in the world, Switzerland. Switzerland is a multicultural society, and has been for centuries. Where’s the problem with multiculturalism? Or what about the UK itself? The UK was multicultural long before immigration ever became a talking point. I’ll never forget, on my first visit to North Wales, discovering that they spoke a language I couldn’t make head or tail of, and that the pubs were closed on Sundays!

So, I’m coming towards the view that “multiculturalism” is no more than a label, a convenient euphemism, for something else. Those that decry multiculturalism are really, deep down, saying that they hate immigrants. And often, it’s specifically Muslim immigrants that they hate.

Now, those who know me will be aware that I take a very liberal view towards different religions, and towards Muslims in particular. That doesn’t mean that I’m in any way an apologist for Islam. I find Islam even less attractive than Christianity, which I rejected at the age of 16. I’m not comfortable with its central theme, surrender to the will of a god. I abhor its attitude to alcohol. I'm not too convinced by its attitude to women either. (Though Western feminism, it must be said, has tipped that particular balance too far the other way). Nor do I like the fanaticism it can engender, or the suspicion it causes some Muslims to show for non Muslims. Nor do I approve of the propensity of a minority of Muslims to seek to rip people off.

All that said, back in 1983 I spent two and a half months working in a moderate Muslim country, Indonesia. And it was one of the happiest times of my life. I found the people there, for the most part, to be friendly, helpful and tolerant of Westerners' foibles. (The beer wasn’t so bad, either). And, in England, I have known several fine people, who also happened to be Muslims. So, as an upholder of the values of the Enlightenment, I will not condemn Muslims for being Muslims.

Indeed, I see Muslim immigration less as a problem than as an opportunity. Unlike Protestants, Catholics and Jews, Muslims as a whole haven’t yet been through the process of Enlightenment. Isn’t having so many of them among us a good chance to teach them our Enlightenment values?

In reply to John Kersey

At last, I’m ready to address some points John Kersey raises in his talk.

First, individualism. John says that individualism will cause society “to atomize into multiple and ever-changing identity groups.” I disagree. For individualism, simply put, is a way of thinking that focuses on the individual as opposed to the collective. It concentrates on the rights and responsibilities of individuals and their relations towards each other, rather than on nation states and politics, or on received cultures or religions. It’s a bottom up way of thinking, as opposed to a top down one. And in my view, individualism is a vital part of the way out of the bedlam that is democracy-3 and into a liveable future.

Further, I’d say that if you want to build a worthwhile society, if you want to create institutions to endure into the future, you need individualism at the core of your ideas. The best institutions are always built by people working freely and voluntarily with each other to solve the problems they face. I already mentioned the founding of cities, and the development of rights of way. And there are other traditions, that have grown outside the prevailing political order; the lex mercatoria is a prime example. In contrast, top down systems like nation states can’t build anything, except bureaucracies and war machines.

Second, the “Crown” and its role in setting borders. Now, either this “Crown” is a private landowner, or it is not. If it was something other than a private landowner, that would contradict the assumption with which we came in; namely, that land should be privately owned. But if it’s a private landowner, then it can have no rights over its land that other landowners do not. In particular, it should be expected to keep to the principle of non-encirclement. It should not have a right to prohibit people from crossing its land at, say, the Port of Dover or Heathrow Airport. Nor should it have any right to prevent someone from Slovakia (for example) visiting a friend who has invited him to his home in Kent. The conclusion of my argument is clear: if all land is privately owned, then there can be no national borders.

Third, legal versus illegal immigration. Now for me, what is legal conduct and what is illegal conduct must be the same for everyone. You cannot reasonably claim, of twin brothers Mo and Ahmed, neither of whom has ever committed a crime, that it’s legal for one to be in a particular place in the public space, and illegal for the other.

You can, of course, rightly say that Mo is legally on your property (because he’s a plumber, and you have invited him in to fix a leak), while Ahmed, if he was in the same place, would be trespassing. But to say that an immigrant is legal or illegal is to miss the vital difference between property and sovereignty. All valid claims to set boundaries, across which individuals may not pass, arise from property rights. But if you claim a right to stop individuals from crossing a line in some place you don’t own, like the Port of Dover or Heathrow Airport, you’re not basing your claim on property rights. Rather, you’re arrogating to yourself a sovereignty which neither you nor anyone else has any right to.

Fourth, banning the burqa. However much some of John’s audience might agree with this, I find the idea unlibertarian. In my view, it’s wrong to deny people free expression of their religion, as long as it isn’t intended to be provocative. And moreover, if you’re going to ban the burqa, why not also ban the Sikh turban? Jewish headgear? The papal zucchetto? Catholic nuns’ veils? Or crosses on British Airways uniforms?

Fifth and last, cultural dilution. Here, I’m much more sympathetic to John Kersey’s views. He is discomforted by individuals “whose cultural commitment is to values which are profoundly different from our own.” So am I; and I don’t want them around me any more than John does. But the fact is, that most of them aren’t immigrants. Most of them are British born and bred; yet, far from sharing my values, they commit themselves to socialism, environmentalism, welfare statism, political correctness, warmongering or other uncivil ideologies.

John gives an excellent example of what we’re up against, when he mentions Tony Blair and cronies. He describes their motivations as “short-term, materialistic, self-interested greed and tribalism.” My own view of them is far less kind; definitely not fit to be published on the website of an educational charity!

Let me offer a thought experiment here. Imagine that you have both the right and the power to set an exclusion zone of, say, 100 miles radius around your home. (You don’t, in reality, have either; but this is a thought experiment!) You can set a border around it, and so keep out of your exclusion zone anyone you choose to. Furthermore, you can boot out of your domain anyone you want to, and not let them in again. The question is: who would you exclude?

I know what my own answer would be. Blair, Brown and Cameron would, of course, be the first to go. They’d soon be followed by supporters of Agenda 21, the “humans are causing catastrophic global warming” fraud and other green lunacies. Anyone that supports draconian speed limits or other anti-car policies. Anyone that supports re-distribution of wealth from the productive to the lazy, dishonest and politicized. Anyone that supports any policy intended to tell me how to live, or to subject me to indignity, or to constrain my freedom. Any bureaucrat that ever violated my human rights, for example by stealing a penny of my earnings or intercepting one of my e-mails. Anyone that supports aggressive wars in places like Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria. Anyone that tries to rip me off, or treats me uncivilly or dishonestly. Anyone that lies to me, or tries to mislead or to propagandize me, about any matter of importance.

But to economic migrants – wherever they’re from, be it Syria, or Poland, or Iraq, or Greece, or Libya, or even Scotland – what I would say would be along the following lines. “I know of no harm that you’ve done to me. Therefore, I don’t wish any harm to you. So as long as you are, and remain, peaceful, honest and respectful of others’ rights, I’m happy for you to live your lives in my domain.”

Questions for conservatives

Most conservatives and traditionalists are well meaning people. They like to cling to the old ways, because they believe they work. In normal times and places, there’s nothing wrong with this. But the situation today, in the UK, USA and other democracies, is exceptional. The political system, that everybody knows and some are still stupid enough to love, has failed. As it stands, it has only one way to go; down to democracy-4, the rule of the parasite majority. Therefore, radical change is necessary. And that must start with radical change in people’s thinking.

So, my conservative friends, I think you need to ask yourselves some questions. For example: Why do you venerate the state and its sovereignty? Why do you show any respect at all for politicians that make bad laws, taxes and wars? Why do you even pay lip service to a political system that enables your enemies – and mine – to oppress us all? And why do you not only allow, but encourage, the state to prevent people from crossing certain arbitrary lines?

My vision

My vision is of a world in which property rights are fully respected; but there is no sovereignty. In which there is the rule of law and justice; but there are no politicians to make wars, taxes or bad laws. In which there are boundaries, set by individuals or societies around and within their properties; but there are no national borders, or obstructions to movement within the public space. In which everyone can associate with others to form societies or communes – political, religious or of other kinds; but no-one is forced into the company of those he doesn’t like.

Within that vision, forsooth, there might be an English Traditions Society. They might club together to buy a stately home or several, and form their own communes there. So, they can enjoy long summer Sunday afternoons, watching cricket, eating bacon butties, and drinking warm beer from a bar that doesn’t open until 7pm. And they can deny entry to Muslims; though they may make an exception for members of visiting cricket teams. You never know, I might pop in there from time to time for a pint or two, and to hear how my traditionalist friends are doing.

The vision I’m describing is founded on two ideas. The first consists, broadly, of Enlightenment values, with the rule of law and justice at the centre. The second is the state of nature. That is the condition which John Locke describes as [10]: “a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of Nature, without asking leave or depending upon the will of any other man.”

Locke also says, of the individual under the law of Nature [11]: “He and all the rest of mankind are one community, make up one society distinct from all other creatures. And were it not for the corruption and viciousness of degenerate men, there would be no need of any other, no necessity that men should separate from this great and natural community, and associate into lesser combinations.” Corrupt, vicious, degenerate; these words could almost have been invented to describe the Blairs, Browns and Camerons of today.

There’s a world-wide Civilization to be built out there – a new “great and natural community” of civil people. Those like me, who are doing what we can to bring it about, need as much help as we can get. Do conservatives and traditionalists want to join in?

---

[1] http://thelibertarianalliance.com/2013/08/01/in-defence-of-open-borders/

[2] http://thelibertarianalliance.com/2015/09/13/a-propertarian-speaks-on-the-immigration-crisis/
[3] http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/tactn/tactn030.pdf
[4] http://thelibertarianalliance.com/2015/03/10/nation-state-and-culture-an-individual-view/
[5] http://coss.fsu.edu/d5/economics/sites/coss.fsu.edu.economics/files/users/bbenson/roads_public.pdf
[6] http://thelibertarianalliance.com/2015/06/20/the-unholy-trinity-collectivism-sovereignty-corruption/
[7] https://www.lewrockwell.com/1970/01/hans-hermann-hoppe/on-free-immigration-and-forced-integration/
[8] https://c4ss.org/content/1738
[9] https://mises.org/library/greece-reliance-public-funds-central-problem
[10] Second Treatise of Government, §4.
[11] Second Treatise of Government, §128.

Why Should We Tolerate Bad Government?

(From the archives - January 9th, 2006)

If you hired a private security firm to protect your possessions, and they failed to do what they had promised, what would you do? And what if that security firm demanded huge and ever increasing amounts, which they used for purposes that brought no nett benefit to you?

Would you terminate the contract? Would you look for another firm you could trust better? Would you tell your friends about their misconduct? Would you warn people not to deal with them? Or would you just continue paying up, year after year after year, until they have drained you dry?

Suppose, again, that you hired a private security firm to defend you and your freedoms against violent aggressors. Suppose, then, that a violent aggression happened, that took many lives. Suppose, too, that the security firm had culpably failed to act on the warning signals before the attack. And perhaps even, by their deeds, had encouraged the attack?

Would you sue them for negligence? Would you vow to make sure that they are never again allowed to peddle their less-than-worthless wares? Or would you accept them putting more and more restrictions on you, in the name of protecting you against future attacks? Would you accept them killing the very freedoms you had hired them to defend?

If you hired a security firm to protect you, and they did lots of things that weren't in the contract, what would you do? Particularly if a lot of what they did was hostile to you. Like, re-distributing your earned wealth to others? Trying to ruin your career? Draining the economy? Pressing for any busybody agenda that might bring them an excuse for more power over you? Hemming you in with whatever bad regulations they decided to dream up, often supported by arbitrary limits to make it easier to catch you out? Taking away your rights to enjoy the pleasures you have earned? Putting obstacles in the way of your progress? Spying on you? Stopping and searching you on a whim? Treating you like an object or a number, instead of as a human being?

What if, on top of all that, they did things that no civilized human being would ever do – like murdering innocent people, and covering up what had happened? What if they acted like the very criminals they were supposed to be protecting you against?

And what if they tried to excuse their actions with lies and rationalizations? What if they took noble-sounding ideals – like health, safety, security, the environment, fighting poverty – and set them up as idols, fraudulently making them out to be higher causes that overrode your rights as a human being? What if they tried to scare you, or to manipulate you through propaganda, into believing that what they were doing to you was for your own good?

Would you – beyond suing them for damages, of course – press for harsh criminal penalties against them? Would you censure them for their uncivilized acts? Would you reject their lies and dishonesties, and encourage others to do likewise? Or would you stay silent, and accept their felonies, their ruses and their excuses?

If you hired a security firm to defend you, and they tried to arrogate to themselves rights to do things they denied to you – for example, that their operatives may carry guns, but you may not – what would you do?

Would you point out that you are their subscriber, not their subject? That they are supposed to be your servants, not your masters? Would you make it clear that the only right you have delegated to them is a part of your right of self-defence? Or would you kow-tow to them as if they were a superior species to you, and had rights to do things you didn't?

If you hired a security firm to defend you, and they claimed a right to make armed assaults on other security firms and their subscribers, what would you do?

Would you tell them, in no uncertain terms, to concentrate solely on what they are supposed to be doing – defending you and your fellow subscribers? Or would you encourage and support their assaults, with the deaths and maimings of innocent people they would cause?

If all the security firms in your area got together and formed one huge, lawless cartel, how would you view them? If they purported to compete and to offer you a choice, but in reality were all just part of the same cartel, offering no choice at all, what would you do?

Would you reject their charades? Would you refuse to take part in any scheme that gave them an illusion of legitimacy? Or would you dutifully express a preference for one or another of them? Would you put it on the record that you are satisfied with what the cartel have done and are doing to you? Would you signal your approval of their aggressions, thefts and frauds against innocent people? And would you ask for more of the same?

Do not today's political governments do all these bad things to us? You bet they do. And more. So, I make explicit the question: Why should we tolerate bad government? And I give you my answer. We shouldn't.

More generally, why should we tolerate bad politics? Why should we tolerate a system that is so corrupt, that it cannot produce any government that is anything other than bad? A system that, far from rewarding bullies, thieves and fraudsters with the criminal punishment they deserve, elevates them to positions of power? A system that, far from delivering to human beings the peace, freedom, prosperity and justice we deserve, instead fans wars and conflicts, harasses us, impoverishes us and treats us as less than human?

And I give you my answer again: We shouldn't.

Ah, you may say, I agree with you. But what can we do about it? How do we change things, so governments work for good people, not against us?

For today, I leave answering that question, dear reader, as an exercise for you.

But What If It Isn't True?

(I found this one in the Rhymer's archives. It comes from June 2009 - pre-Climategate. But, with a certain gab-fest coming up in Paris, it's very relevant today.)

They tell us there’s global warming,
They tell us that we’re to blame.
They tell us to cut emissions,
They want us to give up wealth.
But, power is habit-forming,
And lies are a route to fame.
So, why should we trust Green visions?
They don’t care about our health.

We all have already suffered,
Bad green laws, and taxes too.
They’re taking away our birthright!
They don’t want us to be free.
Yet one thought comes through, unbuffered:
“But what if it isn’t true?”
Of course it ain’t. So, be forthright,
And speak truth and honesty.