Monday, January 16, 2006

Correcting Your Own "Side"s Errors

Eugene Volokh via Mark Kleiman.

Despite the fact that I'm about half libertarian (the civil half), I'm usually not that impressed with the Volokh Conspiracy. It's usually a little too PHIL101-y for my taste. Still, I have occasionally been impressed--FWIW--with their willingness to take sensible yet wildly unpopular positions from time to time.

Anyway, there's nothing that great about the post I've linked to here, and certainly nothing new. But it's an important subject, and I just wanted to add that:

THE REAL PROBLEM HERE IS SEEING YOURSELF AS HAVING A SIDE.

If you really think that those with whom you tend to agree generally have reason on their side (and if you didn't think that why would you tend to agree with them?), then you should think that, when criticism is distributed as it ought to be, those with whom you tend to agree will come out ahead.

Volokh's post and comments thereon make me think that I ought to think about the ACLU a bit more. I resisted joining for a number of years because of their (seemingly in-principle) anti-death penalty stance. And because the ACLU isn't really interested in protecting our constitutional rights per se--if they were, they'd defend the Second Amendment. But they don't. Anyway, my membership lapsed recently, and I have to decide whether to re-up.

Though, speaking of libertarians: anybody know why so many libertarians tend to side with the Republicans? It's the Democrats who have been more willing to protect civil liberties, which are the ones you'd ordinarily think are more important. Republicans only agree with libertarians on certain economic matters, which one would think would be secondary. That is, you'd think that libertarians would care more about things like the separation of church and state, free speech (including flag burning), privacy and abortion rights. Sure, some libertarians are just crypto-conservatives, but even real libertarians of my acquaintance seem to be cozier with the GOP than seemed reasonable.

14 Comments:

Blogger rilkefan said...

"And because the ACLU isn't really interested in protecting our constitutional rights per se--if they were, they'd defend the Second Amendment. But they don't."

Shouldn't this be, "they'd defend my non-standard interpretation of the 2A"? As far as I understand, the ACLU believes in the 2A - the one with the stuff about militias in it - in the same way US Att. Gens. have up until Ashcroft. If you're talking about the right to bear bazookas, maybe the ACLU isn't so hot.

3:09 PM  
Blogger Tom Van Dyke said...

I get the libertarian mouthpiece, Reason magazine. All I can say is you're right, except that free markets and economic freedom seem paramount to them.

And the Democrats have their share of social engineering schemes, too.

3:40 PM  
Blogger Mike Russo said...

For reference, the ACLU policy on the 2nd Amendment, current as of 2002:

"The ACLU agrees with the Supreme Court's long-standing interpretation of the Second Amendment [as set forth in the 1939 case, U.S. v. Miller] that the individual's right to bear arms applies only to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia. Except for lawful police and military purposes, the possession of weapons by individuals is not constitutionally protected. Therefore, there is no constitutional impediment to the regulation of firearms."

Link

I'm not particularly well-versed in 2nd Amendment constitutional law, but my understanding is that the idea that the 2nd Amendment protects an individualist right has historically been rather a fringe position in the legal academy and the courts. As rilkefan points out, when Ashcrofts DoJ started filing briefs containing the contrary contention, it was definitely newsworthy.

(All of this leaves aside the question of whether the 2nd Amendment remains rational, as a policy matter -- it's hard to argue that a "well regulated militia [is] necessary to the security of a free state" these days, after all, so what does that do the second clause of the Amendment, which appears to depend logically on the first?)

5:20 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Real" libertarians shouldn't cozy up to either the reublicans or the democrats (or any other political party). Instead, they should think their libertarian thoughts through to anarchistic conclusions. The state, any state, is the enemy of liberty.

7:29 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I must say that it astonishes me how widely held among my fellow liberals is this nonsensical position that the 2nd Amendement "right of the people" does not refer to an individual right. Clearly this wide spread foolishness among my fellow liberals should go to show us all that we liberals are just as subject to the dangers of echo chambers as are our conservative opponents.

Adrian

8:13 PM  
Blogger Tom Van Dyke said...

Ah, Mr. Koepp, but the state also becomes the guarantor of liberty. Think property rights.

9:05 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Personally, though I'm an ACLU member, I do think there is probably an individual right to bear arms.

The question that is begged, though, is this: Is there any right that is completely unlimited and unfettered in any way?

To put a fine point on it for this case, I would say that yes, absolutely, a person has a right to bear arms. But I also don't think that registration or some forms of limitation (i.e. no assault weapons, cop killer bullets etc.) represent an extirpation of that right.

10:28 PM  
Blogger rilkefan said...

I should note, as an ACLU member, that I believe there is generally a right to own arms, as there is a right to own sex toys, and that the 2A makes that point stronger, but not that much (cause that militia stuff is a weakener).

1:36 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Winston,

For an example of someone who clearly declares he has a 'side', but who nevertheless is intellectually honest enough to criticize it when it strays from its principles, I would suggest you check out Eric Alterman's book WHEN PRESIDENTS LIE.

Alterman's point is particularly poignant now given the brazen power grab the current administration is engaged in.

12:45 PM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

Temporarily ignoring all the other interesting stuff here, I just want to disagree with the narrow reading of the Second Amendment that Mike R says the ACLU accepts.

This is a tough issue and I've gone back and forth on it, but my current interpretation of the 2A is that it doesn't make owning firearms contingent on their use by militias.

It's not best interpreted like this:

If arms are needed for a militia, then its legal to own arms for use in said militias.

But rather, it makes two assertions:

(1) Militias are necessary
(suggested 'therefore')
(2) It's legal to own 'em

It's (2) that's important. The right seems to be granted, and an explanation seems to be given, but the right is in no way contingent on the truth (or anything else) about the explanation.

But, as I said, I've gone back and forth on this in the past.

1:01 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Winston and Tony:

Exactly. I think Anonymous got to the heart of the matter in a thread awhile back when he/she said this:

"What is infuriating about the press reaction to this whole affair is their near universal stuffing of the issue into the privacy vs. security box. Even supposing the the President's defenders are right, and this is a new kind of situation that demands additional power of suveilance, the administration simply never asked for it. Instead, they *told* the legislative and judicial branches of the government what they were going to do, and then ordered them to keep it secret from the public. Basicly, the President treated both Senators and federal Judges like employees in some buisiness that he owned. This would be a gross usurpation of power even if the law the Prez wanted to break was genuinely stupid and dangerous. To make as if what is wrong with all this is that the administration has stayed too far along some safety/liberty continuum is to miss the point entirely. Unfortunately, that is the way the question is couched in the Post poll, and we cannot be surprised at the numbers that came back."

2:08 PM  
Blogger Scorpio said...

I have a libertarian friend who claims I can't possibly be a lefty nutjob since I agree with him so often -- so some libertarians obviously agree with the liberal point of view.

3:31 PM  
Blogger Demosthenes said...

Forgive my flippant response, but my experience is that most "Libertarians" are either conservatives who aren't especially religious or simply people who want to stop paying taxes and let poor people go hang.

The basic political philosophy is rarely followed through to its logical conclusion: if power over others is illegitimate, what about the power of private ownership of the means of production?

Most Anarchists are not anarcho-capitalists for a reason.

11:20 AM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

Yeah, I think you're right about a lot of "libertarians", Demosthenes...but I wish we had some stats that would let us determine what percentage of libertarians that covers. I have at least one smart libertarian friend who tends to vote Republican on the following grounds:

If you still have your money, you can leave the country if the civil rights situation gets too bad.

11:25 AM  

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