Friday, March 12, 2010
Terrorist-enabling attitudes?
It's not the job of the government to keep us safe from every single criminal. If we would just stop expecting the government to do that, and rely more on each other and our second amendment rights, we could get a lot more done and be a lot less afraid. A "classic" terrorist tactic that has been used in several conflicts has been to attack innocent people and even law enforcement and government offices to impress people that "the government can't keep them safe" and therefore reduce the government's credibility and eventually topple the government. That tactic works like a charm when both the government and the people let themselves be persuaded that a government is expected to "control the security situation". But it's not true!! The underwear bomber of last year succeeded in terrorism without causing physical damage because he caused many people to panic, he caused us to spend a lot of money on answering his specific tactic, and he caused our media to publish great morale boosting stories for the other terrorists. If we just take a different attitude about it the terrorists would be a lot less effective. Underwear bombing is shameful for a lot of reasons :) We have to say "Hey, this guy was a crazy idiot and a shame for all Muslims" and then change nothing because our security measures did work to prevent other things he might have tried and our new "kill 'em so they don't crash our plane" posture worked too. So just continue on with our lives. Yes, eventually the terrorists will kill someone again... but American criminals are killing people every day and we don't spend millions of dollars every time a murder happens.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Society
I define a society generally as a set of values and rules for people.
What makes societies different than other associations is that membership is not entirely optional -- a person who lives in a village is part of the society of the village just by being there. If that person breaks the rules he will be punished or exiled. The historically accepted way to opt-out of a society is to impose exile on oneself and leave. If a person stays then he or she will be held accountable to the society's values and rules.
I think the sharp difference between society and slavery is that a society will allow a person to leave whereas slavery does not.
In our society we value life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
In our society we value a person's freedom of movement, but we don't guarantee it.
In our society we generally like to shelter people who are escaping other societies that oppress them. However, we need to be clear about one thing: we can only give asylum to people whose values are compatible with our own society. Anyone else who seeks shelter here must be denied.
A concrete example of this is a person who is known to have criminally murdered someone in another country and has escaped that country's authorities by entering the United States. Forget what you know about international treaties and so on for now. Can we give asylum to this person?
Let's assume the criminal murder is a known fact and not just alleged nor was it self-defense etc. We know the person has murdered someone and we know that our first value is life. Therefore this person's values are not compatible with our own. We have only two according options: to refuse asylum and force the person to leave the country, or to punish the person as if the crime was committed in our own society. The first option, to refuse asylum, will likely be appreciated by the society from whence the person escaped because they will likely take the opportunity to catch him and punish him. The second option may be appreciated by the other society if our punishment for this person is the same as theirs. However, if our punishment is different than theirs, or if they simply want the satisfaction of punishing the person themselves, our choice to keep and punish the person can cause tension between our society and the other society.
What if the criminal murder is not a known fact? It may not have been criminal, or it may not have happened at all. If, other than the alleged murder, the person's values are compatible with our society, we have two according options: to value the person's life and let him stay without punishment, or to refuse asylum.
What makes societies different than other associations is that membership is not entirely optional -- a person who lives in a village is part of the society of the village just by being there. If that person breaks the rules he will be punished or exiled. The historically accepted way to opt-out of a society is to impose exile on oneself and leave. If a person stays then he or she will be held accountable to the society's values and rules.
I think the sharp difference between society and slavery is that a society will allow a person to leave whereas slavery does not.
In our society we value life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
In our society we value a person's freedom of movement, but we don't guarantee it.
In our society we generally like to shelter people who are escaping other societies that oppress them. However, we need to be clear about one thing: we can only give asylum to people whose values are compatible with our own society. Anyone else who seeks shelter here must be denied.
A concrete example of this is a person who is known to have criminally murdered someone in another country and has escaped that country's authorities by entering the United States. Forget what you know about international treaties and so on for now. Can we give asylum to this person?
Let's assume the criminal murder is a known fact and not just alleged nor was it self-defense etc. We know the person has murdered someone and we know that our first value is life. Therefore this person's values are not compatible with our own. We have only two according options: to refuse asylum and force the person to leave the country, or to punish the person as if the crime was committed in our own society. The first option, to refuse asylum, will likely be appreciated by the society from whence the person escaped because they will likely take the opportunity to catch him and punish him. The second option may be appreciated by the other society if our punishment for this person is the same as theirs. However, if our punishment is different than theirs, or if they simply want the satisfaction of punishing the person themselves, our choice to keep and punish the person can cause tension between our society and the other society.
What if the criminal murder is not a known fact? It may not have been criminal, or it may not have happened at all. If, other than the alleged murder, the person's values are compatible with our society, we have two according options: to value the person's life and let him stay without punishment, or to refuse asylum.
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