Another Threat

The threat from America’s authoritarian left is both serious and well known, and it is good that people pay attention to it and oppose the leftists. However, there is another threat that many friends of liberty have missed or failed to take seriously – the threat from the authoritarian, traditionalist right. It is a smaller one, but it still deserves some attention. There are influential conservatives who have rejected enlightenment liberalism and its tolerance in principle and argue for an illiberal society ordered and controlled to promote religion, stability, family, traditional morality, and national  identity. They often present Viktor Orban’s government in Hungary as an example of what they want. Some of them are trying to change the Republican party into one similar to some of the rightist, authoritarian parties of the last hundred years in continental Europe. They have not succeeded or even come anywhere close to succeeding, but it is worth spending some time and effort to make sure they do not get any closer. It is an understatement to observe that such people probably are more dangerous and likely to be listened to in a party influenced by Donald Trump than in one influenced by Eisenhower, Bush, or Reagan.

(As an aside, there was an interesting article Monday on the Bulwark’s website pointing out that in the 1950s and 1960s William F. Buckley and some of his associates were at least apologists and sometimes enthusiasts for Franco’s fascist dictatorship in Spain.)

Enemies of the State

 Earlier this year federal officials announced they will sic their enforcers on, among others,  people with “anti-authority ideologies”. We had a holiday Monday honoring a man whose ideology vigorously opposed authority in the segregated and oppressive south. We will have another in a few weeks honoring one man whose ideology led him to lead a  rebellion against authority and to refuse to accept the authority of a king when he could have had it and another man whose ideology led him to a life of opposing and finally defeating  the authority that allowed some people to own others as slaves.  We honor these men and others such as Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, and Frederick Douglass whose ideology put them in opposition to both the authorities of their time and the idea of a dominating, controlling authority over the lives and actions of human beings. Anti- authority ideology, explicit or otherwise, is a basic  American characteristic.  The country was founded on the anti-authority ideology that people have unalienable rights that governments may not violate. Its best citizens have worked and struggled to live up to the ideas of that ideology ever since.   

So  I expect the new task force or whatever the feds  call it will have to be a large outfit. They have a whole lot of ground to cover – everyone in the country who believes in the liberal principles of liberty, individual rights, and limited government.  Of course one could argue that this is not what our civil masters meant at all, that they were really talking about only people committing or inciting others to commit crimes for political reasons and never intended to go after political dissenters for their beliefs. Well, that is not what they said, and it surely would have made better political sense for them to have done so, if they meant only that.  The prudent thing is to assume that the meant what they said, that they meant it as a threat, and that they want to treat those with political beliefs they disapprove of as enemies of the state.  The Twentieth Century should have taught people that if someone says he is out to get you, it is a good idea to take him at his word, just in case.

 

Not Stolen Lands

 It is an article of belief  among many leftists in this country that all of the land in the United States and Canada is held illegitimately because immigrants and settlers stole it from the “indigenous peoples” who were there first. (This seems to be a specific opinion covering one case only rather than an instance of any general principle. The leftists  seem to have no such concerns, for example,  about China’s present activities in Tibet or its northwest, and they did not question the rightness of  the Russian Soviets’ empire in Siberia, central Asia, or the Baltic states.)

People acquire valid ownership to land in a wilderness by settling it – by building permanent dwellings such as a town or village on it or by farming , ranching,  mining, or otherwise developing it.  They acquire an invalid control over land by taking it away from the people who settled it or those who obtained it from them by (one or a series of) gifts or trade. Some parts of North America above the Rio Grande were settled by Indians before the first Europeans arrived. There were villages and agriculture in places, but most of the continent was unclaimed wilderness belonging to no one. The Europeans who settled that wilderness acquired valid ownership to it, stealing it from no one. Hunting or passing nomadically through a body of land does not establish ownership any more than Coronado’s marching through the American southwest made it the property of the king of Spain.

Cases where settled land of Indians was taken by fraud or force were crimes, but in most of them  it would be too late to do anything about them in the way of restitution. Finding out which present day individual descendants of which individual robbed Indians who lost which property under which circumstances and in which state of development at the time of the theft and what connection any present owners of that property have to those who committed  theft probably usually would be impossible. In the absence of specific knowledge to the contrary, the default should be that present titles to such land should be considered valid.

Some bad things were done along with a good many dodgy or shifty ones (often having nothing to do with Indians), but the continent was not stolen.

 

Trump's Coup

 A lot is being written about the riot at the Capitol last January 6^th, and I think a lot of it misses the point. The real attack on the republic was the stuff Trump did after December 14^th  to try to stay in office. The real attempted coup on January  6^th was not anything the poor, deluded people he sent over the Capitol did. It was Trump’s order to Pence block the final certification of the results of the election. The house impeached him for the wrong thing.  He should have been impeached and convicted in the days after January 6^th and before he left office for trying to overthrow the government and constitution of the United States. From December 14^th on and especially on January 6^th, he was an enemy of the republic.

He’s also to blame for the riot. A reasonable person with some experience in life would have been able to see  that if the president of the United States stirred up a mob of his ardent, angry, frightened  followers with talk about his reelection having been illegally overturned by his criminal opponents and then told them to go over to the Capitol and do something about it, things would get out of hand. His remark about staying peaceful might protect him legally, but it does not change his guilt.  

The suckers who broke into the Capitol are guilty too, but, unlike him, they deserve some compassion. They had been duped by a vicious con man. They should be punished, but theirs should be condign punishment. Their crimes were trespass, vandalism, petty larceny, and perhaps brawling with some cops. Probably most are first offenders. They should have been treated in the same way as others committing similar offenses instead of being locked up for a year without bail or trial and in some cases receiving long, unjustified sentences. They are getting politically motived excessive punishment. That is both wrong and foolish. The Dems should not want to help Trump and his gang by manufacturing martyrs for them.  

Meanwhile Trump has had no consequences at all.  Officials  should  be thinking about correcting that. His behavior was criminal. Garland and company should spend some time deciding if it was also illegal. 

Hail to the Vandals

 

The Washington Redskins are looking for a new name, the old one having been judged insensitive to the sensibilities of many white leftists posting on social media and/or working in the traditional media and of perhaps a few real or pretend Indians working a victim grift.  Judging by  the names that have appeared in print, the people running the team need some help with this. An obvious choice, given the way the team has played recently, would be the Washington Generals. But that one is probably trademarked by the Globetrotters and so not available. Fans who dislike the Redskins have offered a number of rude and unhelpful suggestions. Neither the Washington Soviets nor the Washington Weasels nor the Washington Swamp Rats nor the Washington Woke Wimps would be appropriate.

People like to give  football teams names suggesting something  powerful  - such as patriots, lions, bears, titans, Vikings, giants, rams, chargers, chiefs, falcons, jaguars, Bengals, and broncos. They sometimes also like to give teams names saying something about  the city they came from – such as steelers, cowboys, 49ers,  or packers.

There is a way for the Redskins to do both. The basic business of their city is tax collecting, and the outfit doing it is surely powerful.  Calling the team the Washington Tax Collectors would be appropriate but would mess up the team’s song. So I suggest the Redskins become the Washington Vandals, which would fit in just right with the song and other things too.