Fascism with Free Speech

One of the most difficult challenges people face in convincing people that the United States is far from free is that, for the most part, people still have a considerable amount of the right to free speech as allegedly protected by the first amendment.

There have not been any incidents to truly rival the White Rose Resistance Movement of Nazi Germany, in which the six people who were handing out pamphlets criticizing the government were executed. It is true that compared to Nazi Germany, Americans have pretty impressive free speech rights. Anybody can start a blog, or post to any internet forum, and criticize the leadership of the United States. There is no crime in saying that George W. Bush and Barack Obama are incompetent, idiotic, despotic psychopaths.

But doing so has no impact.

Sometimes internet activity can have an impact. In the case of Michael Nifong, William Anderson’s relentless blogging, combined with the defendants having the resources to defend themselves, not only led to the case being dismissed but to Nifong being disbarred, losing his job, and spending an entire day in jail. It was clear that the trial of Nifong had the entire court staff mystified because it was a prosecutor being put on trial for prosecutorial conduct. But that was an isolated case. Libertarians commenting on the case tried repeatedly to branch the discussion from this particular example to the behavior of the legal system in the United States and the behavior of prosecutors, only to have the audience disappear every time. While this particular case was impacted, the system as a whole was not impacted.

Or there is the case of the Critical Mass Cyclist, where the internet forced the case to not only be dropped but for the officer involved to be stripped of his badge. He was not incarcerated for his crime. This relates to the case of the BART shooting in Oakland, where the officer was convicted of fourth degree manslaughter because of the large number of cell phones recording the shooting - after the police attempted to confiscate all the cell phones in the vicinity of the shooting. In both of those cases, modern technology facilitated free speech to achieve some (albeit insufficient) justice, but libertarians commenting on the cases tried to branch the discussion from isolated incidents to police behavior in general, only to have the audience disappear every time.

In these specific instances, in these specific cases, the specific people involved were impacted by free speech, but the overall system was not impacted. Even so, there is discussion inside Washington on how to regulate blogging, because even isolated incidents show that the power of the elite is not absolute. It is when speech starts having an impact that government officials seem to be more than willing to sacrifice the first amendment. It is already the case that elected officials believe campaign contributions are not a form of speech at all, and have managed to convince many people of that.

Radio personalities John and Ken of KFI640 were unhappy with Congressman David Dreier area over the topic of illegal immigration. So they led a campaign to have him lose his next election, calling it "Fire Dreier" and urging people to vote against him due to his stand on illegal immigration. Their impact was such that, in his safe district, he won by a small margin instead of a large margin. That result was so troubling that the Republican Party filed an FEC complaint against them in a deliberate effort to chill political speech. The FEC has not taken any action against John and Ken or KFI.

Unlike the victory of John and Ken, Julian Heicklen is constantly being abused by those in authority, so that when he is not being arrested by police he is being involuntarily committed to the hospital. He is receiving this treatment for handing out FIJA pamphlets in front of court houses. He is not a major radio personality in a major media market, and that is why the police can continue to get away with this kind of abuse. FIJA pamphlets are a direct assault on the court system which has conspired to prevent people from exercising their full rights as jurors. In some states, such as California, it is currently illegal to hand out pamphlets on court house grounds at all, unlike in the places were Julian Heicklen does his work.

It is clear that free speech is under assault, but in a very careful manner to protect all speech except for speech that may actually make a difference. That way the average American will not ever encounter a situation where he will find his free speech to be limited, and thus will never believe that free speech is limited in the first place.

A second civil war

It comes up every once in a while in libertarian circles, more often in some boards than in others and more often as we near the anniversary of the secession of 1776 - a discussion of a potential future civil war that could theoretically restore liberty in the United States. Although entertaining to think about an uprising can have disastrous consequences, or if it is the wrong uprising can be a disaster itself.

One of the ways it could go horribly wrong is if the conflict is steered into red versus blue, red states versus blue states. Neither the Democrats and their supporters nor the Republicans and their supporters represent greater liberty, but instead offer competing versions of how the government should run the lives of the people. The leadership of both parties believe that they are entitled to rule others. Yet this is a particularly likely form of civil war due to it perpetuating the basic right versus left division that has kept the freedom movement divided against each other instead of the common foe, and kept the people divided so that they do not notice the common foe.

What could undo that possibility is if both a red state and a blue state were to nullify or secede for different reasons at the same time. Supposing California seceded over marijuana legalization while Texas seceded over health care reform, at the same time. By both acts occurring near each other it would prevent those in charge from saying that pulling away is uniquely red or uniquely blue.

Another possibility is a very messy war composed of many factions, both within and outside the government. Although this gives the freedom movement more opportunities, it will take a lot longer to resolve and it will mean many more enemies. This would come about if an over grown government begins to splinter under its own weight. Different areas of the country could come under different rule not by secession but by different agencies or commands declaring different fiefdoms. It is already the case where the military is establishing a command with the special focus of inside the United States, and there are the ever present rumors about FEMA camps.

Then there is the possibility of a groundswell in the form of riots. Some predict that they will be triggered by the depression getting worse, or by a lack of food. Given the success of public education it will take a lot to get to this point. The people have been successfully taught that there are only two respectable sources for answers to political questions, and anything else is fringe and to be ignored. These same people also do not like the answers they are getting from the only two sources they have learned they should listen to. It is a nasty dilemma that the average person is in, and the frustration can lead to chaos. This type of uprising could lead to a revolution more like the French Revolution than either of the American Revolutions.

The only real option for the freedom movement in the face of those possibilities is to try to build strong networks of mutual support. That way if it does come down to people shooting each other the freedom movement will have the advantage of friendly loose organization.

If those in the freedom movement genuinely believe there will be conflict, then the thing that needs to be done is to prepare to ensure it is the right conflict. The wrong conflict could result in a Napoleon or a Lenin seizing control. And even if it is the right conflict, it should be remembered that war is ugly. There may be some opportunity for glory, but there is much more opportunity for gory.

The Temporal Fallacy

Although it really cannot be done, there are those who attempt to find an era in some country in which libertarian ideas reigned. But there are valid attempts to show how certain eras qualify in one manner or another. Part of the problem is that conditions always change.

The United States, for example, has advanced liberty in some areas and degraded liberty in other areas. In the past there was much more economic liberty, but that was before slavery ended and before women and minorities were given the right to vote.

But generally it is assumed that the late nineteenth century in the western world, for all its flaws, had many of the characteristics of a libertarian society.

Many statists will immediately point to the flaws and say that it is the flaws that libertarians advocate. They are not interested in a true discussion or debate, only trying to find some ammunition, no matter how ludicrous, with which to try to tar libertarianism.

Then there's the temporal fallacy.

Due to advances in technology, there are amenities available today that were not available then. But there were advances then that were not available before then. True, compared to a modern factory, an earlier factory from the late 1800s would seem rather crude and dangerous – but it is better than what existed before then.

The fallacy is that everything that happened then is judged by today's standards. Thanks to advances in technology and worker productivity, companies can afford many more safety features than they were able to in the past. Those advances were not available then; therefore they were not implemented then. To the person committing the fallacy, that those advances were not implemented then is an unforgivable sin.

The fallacy is judging a factory from the 1880s by the standards of the 2010s. Of course it won't measure up. The factory must be judged in the proper context.

The factories of the day were, in general although there were exceptions, as safe as they could have been given the resources they had. People worked there because they were safer than other occupations and paid more than other occupations.

Yes, they didn't have closed circuit computer controlled safety systems. Of course those who commit this fallacy, when hard pressed, will admit that they don't expect closed circuit computer controlled safety systems, but then immediately turn around and deplore unmentioned safety protocols available today.

Conditions then were still an improvement over previous conditions. The economic liberty of the late 1800s created greater prosperity. And it is that same prosperity created then that enabled the more advanced technology available today - and the same prosperity that enables people to commit the temporal fallacy.

Tribesman, Barbarian, Citizen … and Libertarian

It is always risky to take a work developed by someone else and try to discover something the original author has not yet developed. William Lind developed the theory about the four generations of warfare, and has since received emails describing a tentative fifth stage of warfare that he reports isn’t actually a fifth stage. But then there are times when building up on the existing framework does indeed add something new, such as when William Lind discovered the fourth generation in the first place.

Jerry Pournelle created a theoretical framework to describe three different stages of cultural advancement. He left open the possibility of discovering what might be the fourth stage of cultural development based upon how the different stages react to each other when the come into contact.

The first described is the interaction between the Tribesman and the Barbarian.

When Barbarism first arises in any area, Tribalism is doomed. The two are mutually exclusive, and there is no possible "peaceful coexistence" between them. To the Tribesman, the Barbarian is Evil Incarnate; the Barbarian has utterly rejected all Good, Moral, and Ethical values. He has rejected the Sacred Traditions, and glories in his absolute defiance of them. He blasphemes not casually, but as a way of life.

To the Barbarians, the Tribesman is a slave, a spineless, gutless coward, a disgrace to human shape. He has no self-respect, no courage to take a risk, no faith in himself. He doesn't respect himself, or any man. He won't fight for any reward, no matter how great and shining! He's a stupid, lazy slug, a disgrace to humanity.

The Tribesman won't fight for reward, he won't take a risk for great gain--because that is not in the Traditions. A Tribesman can't fight an enemy tribe for that enemy tribe's land; his tribal traditions refer to his tribe's land. If he did take the neighboring tribe's land . . . there would be no traditions to tell what to do with it. It would, in fact, be a Change, and therefore Evil.

The "battles" between two ritual-taboo tribes, anthropologists have long since observed, are practically pure rituals, and actually have a vanishingly small casualty rate. Not greatly different--for all the use of spears!--than in modern college football clashes. The spears are hurled while at a range so extreme that it's sheer accident if someone gets hurt.

When Barbarism appears--that situation changes in a hurry. The Barbarian army isn't going through a ritual; they're out for blood and loot. They don't have traditions as guides, nor as limiting fences about them.

The next thing he describes is what happens when a Barbarian meets a Citizen.

When the Barbarian encounters Civilization, therefore, he is going to be enormously confused and baffled. The Barbarians of North Europe, meeting the Citizens of the Roman Republic, were meeting men who allowed others to order them about, to tell them what to do and when to do it. Who obeyed commands they didn't, themselves, agree with. Obviously, a pack of servile slaves!

But these cowardly Roman Legionnaires, for some incomprehensible reason, did not collapse in battle. These Legionnaires, who had no self-respect, who did not fight man-to-man, but used short swords so that no one of them could say, when he returned home, "I killed Urhtoth!" but only, "I am a member of the Fourth Legion,"--these Romans strangely didn't flee before the fiercest Barbarian charges.

To the Barbarians, the Citizen shows the symptoms of all the things the Barbarian rejects as vile and degrading--the essence of cowardice. The Citizen yields his will to the demands of others. He allows himself to be limited, and allows himself to be compelled against his own desires.

To the Barbarian, the Citizen shows the same loathsome abnegation that the Tribesman does.

Which makes it all the more incomprehensible that these sniveling Citizens win battle after battle. They who have sacrificed their Manhood, have given up their right to individual dignity, somehow prove able to fight like maddened demons!

Finally, almost as an afterthought, he describes what happens when Tribesmen meet Citizens.

Notice that the root philosophy of the ritual-taboo tribesman is such that it is inherently impossible to cooperate with him in establishing a colony. So long as the natives are true Tribesmen, Change is Evil--and the colonists are introducing change. There is no such thing as "a good change" in a pure-tradition system: "Change is Evil; Evil is Change."

More immediately, the Tribesman's sense of security stems entirely from having a sure source of Answers. The Tribesman has no answers himself, and has no sense that he can be a source of answers. His sense of security, his defense against the Unknown, is a Source of Answers. He expects to be told what to do, when, and how; if his Tribal Traditions don't do so, then some other source of Answers must. He has no expectation or desire to be responsible for his own acts; that way lies the terror of the Unknown.

If some colonist comes in and overthrows the Tribal Traditions--then the Colonist must be the Source of Answers. The Tribesman cannot cooperate on a man-to-man basis with the colonist, no matter how the colonist may seek to establish such a system. The Tribesman doesn't know he's a man; he knows only that he's a Unit of the System--that he has to be a unit of some system.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. And you can lead a Tribesman to Liberty . . . but you can't make him free.

He includes two references to describe what the next phase of cultural development would be within the framework of Tribesman, Barbarian, and Citizen.

At each stage of cultural evolution, the preceding stage appears loathsome . . . and the succeeding stage appears to partake of those same loathsome characteristics.

As a rough guess, it's highly probable that the next stage of cultural evolution will appear, to us, to be Barbarism, and be a horrible, degenerate, loathsome system indeed.

Just as the Civil system appears, to the Barbarian, to be the Tribal system, in which the individual has no dignity, and a man is not a Man, for he lacks the courage to express his individual worth and will.

. . .

It's also interesting to wonder what will happen if we go in to some planet, and find what seems to be a Barbarian culture ... which isn't. It would certainly be baffling, and almost certainly be disastrous in a way we cannot dimly imagine.

It would mean the destruction of our very souls. Just as Civilization, by merely contacting Barbarians repeatedly, brings about the corruption and degradation of their dignity, their self-respect--their very souls. And turns them into cowardly, weakened, crawling things that actually cooperate with another human being.

We can't, of course, guess just what form of loathsome corruption of our selves, our dignity, looms before us.

It doesn't really matter; we're going to get it anyway, whether from outside, or from our own unwanted, yet inescapable, evolution.

But we won't like it. Any more than a Tribesman likes becoming that essence of corruption and evil, a Barbarian. Or a Barbarian likes becoming that sniveling thing, a Citizen.

The key point to notice is that in any given stage, the immediately later stage will look distressingly like the immediately previous stage. To the Barbarian, the Citizen appears distressingly like the Tribesman. The relationship is superficial, as the citizen takes orders not because he is "not a man" but because after having discovered individualism (and immediately overdoing it as the Barbarian does) they have discovered cooperation. The fact that Tribesmen and Citizens are alien to each other is revealed in the way they interact in the description provided by Mr. Pournelle.

So, to a Citizen, the next stage will resemble all of the features of Barbarism that the Citizen has outgrown and now finds repulsive. The Citizen views the Barbarian as a criminal who has no respect for other individuals. The extreme individualism of the Barbarian would never respect a contract, would never take orders that he feels contradicts his own desires.

That is how a Citizen would view the next stage. He would view the next stage as criminal, and those in it as individuals who have no respect for social order. And, just as the Citizen superficially resembles the Tribesman, the Citizen’s view of the next stage would be superficially accurate.

Which is why it baffles the Citizen that the Libertarian is stricter in upholding the rights of others and the sanctity of the contract than even the Citizen is, that the Libertarian isn’t a criminal the way a Barbarian is. The Citizen is as baffled by the Libertarian as the Barbarian is baffled by the Citizen.

It should be noted here that "Libertarian" in this context has a much broader definition than agreeing with the platform of the Libertarian Party of the United States. In this context it encompasses many different movements with many different ideas. The common ground in this context is the social outlook that differentiates it from Citizen, Barbarian, or Tribesman.

Just as the Citizen took the lessons of individualism learned by the Barbarian and tempered them with cross-linked cooperation, the Libertarian took the lessons of cooperation and tempered them with a respect for, not just the individual, but each other as individuals. This is fundamentally different from the individualism of the Barbarian, as it respects other individuals as individuals. It is cross-linked cooperative individualism, to stretch the descriptions first described by Mr. Pournelle.

That only leaves, if Libertarianism is indeed the fourth stage of development thus far advanced to by mankind, how Libertarianism views prior stages.

Although the Citizen views the Libertarian as similar to the Barbarian, the Libertarian and the Barbarian do not view each other that way. Just as the Tribesman does not understand the Citizen, the Barbarian does not understand the Libertarian. The Libertarian, completely unorganized, is capable of spontaneous cross-linked cooperation to form an organized defense that strongly resembles that of the Citizen. The Libertarian doesn’t simply take what he wants, but fights fiercely against those who would simply take – and eventually even fights against the Citizen on those same grounds. When the Libertarian does fight the Citizen, it is not for the purpose of looting but to stop looting.

The Libertarian would basically ignore the Tribesman. While a Citizen, having discovered cooperation is eager to share it with everyone whether or not they want it shared, the Libertarian, having discovered that people have a right to be left alone is eager to leave people alone. Since the Tribesman is not a looter the way a Barbarian is, or even the more subtle way the Citizen is, the Libertarian has no reason for conflict.

However, the Tribesman will see the Libertarian as completely and utterly alien, even more so than Barbarians (who merely represent absolute evil) or the Citizen (who represents new replacement traditions). The Libertarian could potentially be new traditions, except that he consistently refuses to take that burden. The Tribesman can try to return the favor and politely ignore the Libertarian, but eventually is forced to adapt and move forward to a new stage whether he likes it or not. The Libertarian would try to treat individual Tribesmen as equals, but just as with the Citizen and the Tribesman not knowing he's a man, the Tribesman doesn't know he's an individual.

Fortunately for the Libertarian, according to Jerry Pournelle, any time a later stage encounters an earlier stage, it spells doom for the earlier stage. Libertarianism was birthed with John Locke, midwifed by Thomas Jefferson, and then brought to maturity by Lysander Spooner, Friedrich von Hayek, Murray Rothbard, and other libertarian philosophers. And by their work the idea that people should belong to each other is doomed.