Nationalism
However its boundaries may be constituted, a nation [is] a presumptive locus of sovereignty, and it has functioned in this way for much of world history, particularly during the modern era. Nations are said to have the “right” to secure their own borders, the “right” to govern themselves as they see fit and even—rather mystically—the “right” to determine their own destinies, as philosopher G. W. F. Hegel contended. Hegel’s tremendously influential Philosophy of Right argued that a nation was morally obliged to consummate its own destiny through the creation of a nation-state—that is, a state that encompassed all of the members of a nation and the territory that they traditionally occupied. Hegel argued that such an entity embodies the collective will of the nation…
Nationalism declares that one’s particular nation has rights and interests superior to those of other nations and that these rights are to be attained by force.
Yet the sovereignty of a nation—that is, of a collective—raises profound problems for libertarians, who overwhelmingly regard the individual as the only morally salient element of society and who place individual rights ahead of group rights or group obligations. Indeed, libertarians tend strongly to deny that collective rights or obligations exist at all. Thus, many libertarians regard nationalism as a profound curse on humanity. Although libertarians are by no means immune to national self-identification, and although many may feel patriotic or even nationalistic allegiance to various nations, they also recognize that nationalism can be a profoundly dangerous force, and that individual rights are universal, not national…
Nationalism on the whole represents one of the key forces inimical to liberalism in the modern world. Even those nationalisms that profess liberty or peace as the key to national identity are rooted in ethical collectivism. Thus, individualist philosophies have always been skeptical of nationalism, and libertarianism particularly so… — The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism, s.v. “Nationalism.”
That’s all I’ve got for now, aside from the observation that when one quotes John Stuart Mill peaceably, one is a liberal. When one quotes John Stuart Mill and murders dozens of people, one is a libertarian. Obviously. (Say, liberals, can we work out maybe a better John Stuart Mill timeshare system? Make it part of that whole liberaltarian project? Just asking.)
Obviously you hate brown people and the poor.Report
Cue: persecution complex. Why, it is as if the very lack of courtesy in making such a sordid implication, had by itself shown how utterly false any such notion implied really was.Report
All I’m saying is that if he called himself a libertarian, he was pretty clearly mistaken. Libertarians don’t go for nationalism. Or religious or racial intolerance.
Why is it, do tell, that we have to take him as the authority? Seems like some special pleading to me, because usually we exclude the reasoning of homicidal lunatics from all consideration.Report
And real conservatives can’t be racist!
Or so I hear on Fox News. It must be nice to have a political ideology that by definition excludes all the people who would use that same ideology to oppress and kill others.
Communists also say such things. Ever notice how political extremists always get defensive when the rubes imbibing their poison take the ideology seriously?Report
No, real conservatives most certainly can be racists.Report
Well, you’re halfway to being no true scotsman curious there, Jason, don’t you agree? But sure, I don’t really think that being libertarian was the core tenet of Brevik’s political identity. I think he was a bigot and a winger first and last.
But this guy doesn’t seem like your average loony and he does seem to have been a fairly active “Counter-Islamist” netroot. Trying to put distance between american conservatism with ideas that get a lot of currency within the Teaparty movement (Herman Cain!), and Brevik, at this point looks like a partisan move.Report
I wouldn’t call this an issue of “no true Scotsman”. Adhering to a political philosophy is different from being Scottish, or American, or Canadian, or English.
A libertarian can certainly go on a shooting rampage; so can an adherent of any other political philosophy. But it’s legitimate to say that certain political positions are incompatible with being a libertarian.
This guy was certainly a right-winger, and thus conservative based on current political terminology; and the rhetoric of the far right and that of mainstream Republicanism are scarcely differentiable these days. But nothing about the killer’s reported political views indicates libertarianism to me. I wouldn’t call the tea partiers libertarians anyway – they only want liberty for themselves; they have no interest in reducing the security state or dismantling the empire. They’re just Republicans with a new name.Report
No, but really, what a freaking kick in the teeth it must have been: first jumping the gun assuming the mooslems did it. Then finding out it was actually a blond & blue eyed self professed libertarian and connoisseur of the austrian school who gunned down 80+ social democratic kids in cold blood.
All at the same time that a throng of wild eyed libertarians in congress are hard at work defaulting on US obligations and creating a new recession.
Makes you wish for those halcyon days back when Libertarianism was just some pie in the sky crazy shit that no-one ever had been stupid enough to try out in real life…
😀Report
You know, what I find interesting is that a bunch of innocent people are killed by some lunatic in another country and what you immediately think of is how this affects partisan politics in the US.
There are a lot of unpleasant stereotypes about Americans that float around. One of them is that you’re provincial to the point of narcissism. The stereotype would have it that Americans are incapable of thinking of the rest of the world as actual places, but are just a backdrop to your country with no other relevance. To give you an example, one of my colleagues has this posted up by her desk. The stereotype is common enough that everyone gets the joke.
Now I happen to think that this attitude to Americans is unfair in general, and yet you are displaying that exact attitude here. Could it be that one crazy Norwegian is reacting to political factors in Norway that have nothing to do with the US? Surely not, that would imply the US isn’t the centre of the world. Obviously the Tea Party is to blame! The fact they’re already your political opponents is nothing more than an indication of how morally pure you are. You always new people who disagreed with you are evil, and now you have proof!
Don’t concern yourself with the fact that conservatism is an ideology that by its very nature is idiosyncratic to the culture in which it exists, that sort of detail will just get in the way of your point scoring.
On behalf of the rest of the planet – grow the fish up.Report
That’s a nice juicy strawman you built up there, but why did you need to spend that many words knocking it down? I suggested no further connection than Breviks documented frequenting of various Counter-Jihad blogs, e.g. Geller, Jihad-Watch, etc, and him being a general run-of-the-mill conservative rightist.
In fact, the only stuff about the US in the post you’re replying to is about the Teaparty weirdos wreaking havoc in congress ATM.
Do you for some reason assume that libertarianism and conservatism are exclusively american concepts? Ah, the narcissistic provinciality!Report
him being a general run-of-the-mill conservative rightist.
That’s the thing white nationalists and other right wing extremists like to call themselves run-of-the-mill conservatives. They’re not going to call themselves radical fascists even if that is precisely what they are.
In fact, the only stuff about the US in the post you’re replying to is about the Teaparty weirdos wreaking havoc in congress ATM.
It is you who brought it up in the first place, as though his self identification as libertarian had anything to do with tea-partiers self identifying as libertarian.
Do you for some reason assume that libertarianism and conservatism are exclusively american concepts? Ah, the narcissistic provinciality!
James K is from New Zealand. He is hardly likely to think that libertarianism is a uniquely american philosophy.Report
My point stands.
With the raised profile of Libertarianism these kind of things are bound to continue. Teabaggers considering themselves libertarian; Breivik considering himself a libertarian; Glenn Beck considering himself a libertarian; Ron Paul considering himself a libertarian. All nutters. “True” Libertarianism is – as we all know – not really a serious political ideology that can be applied to real world scenarios and since it wont ever be applied we’re gonna continue seeing various loonies such as the Teabaggers and Breivik carry out their misguided ideas in the name of Libertarianism. Just like the equally unworkable Marxism was acquired by Lenin, Trotsky, the Rote Arme Fraktion, etc. And guys like you or over at Reason are gonna be busy arguing No True Scotsman, just like countless marxists in colleges around the world have been doing for decades:
– “True Libertarianism is for Open borders! True Marxism is against nations and armies!”
That’s the problem with subscribing to ideas that are completely unworkable in the real world; any old idiot can sign on, and you got plausible deniability to keep on doing the stupid shit you do, long after you should have woken up and smelled the coffee.Report
Condemning everybody else does not make you right about anything, brother. It’s douchebaggery, and douchebags are as common as dirt here, there and everywhere.
As Stephen Stills put it, nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong. I’d put it that everybody’s right about something. The wise man listens and learns, the fool condemns.
Good night. I’m up late to listen to the cricket, England have the upper hand on India on Day 4 at Lord’s but still need to bowl out Tendulkar again, who’s going for his 100th Test century.
Nationalism writ large.
😉Report
I ain’t saying everybody’s wrong. Normal, moderate, capitalist societies with strong governments and progressive taxation is a proven success story all through the 20th century. Marxism was tried, and failed. No-one’s ever been crazy enough to dare try full out Libertarianism, but the more real world exposure it gets, things seem to go plenty crazy, just saying. Glenn Beck, Ron Paul, Teabaggers and now Breivik – doesnt look promising.Report
Emphasis on “capitalist societies,” not so much on “strong government” and “progressive taxation.” I mean, yeah, most successful societies have these things, but there’s no compelling evidence that they caused the success, rather than the other way around. If you look at the canonical big government states of Western Europe, they’re doing all right, but the energy-rich Norway is the only one that’s really competitive with the US, Hong Kong, and Singapore on per-capita GDP. Even Taiwan is now richer than France.
I’ll say that again: Taiwan is now richer than France.
I mean, if your definition of “success” hinges on a person being able to have a pretty decent standard of living without lifting a finger, then yeah, a big welfare state is going to be a pretty critical part of that. But beyond that, the best you can say of the big-government model is that the evidence that it impedes growth is not yet 100% conclusive. I don’t think there’s any evidence at all that it actually contributes to growth.Report
That’s the problem with subscribing to ideas that are completely unworkable in the real world
That’s the thing it is not unworkable. All of us whichever country we are in can afford to take policy in the following directions
1. Liberalise immigration requirements (either for citizenship, permanent residency or both)
2. Reduce or abolish guest worker passes
3. Simplify the regulatory structure
4. Reduce the corporate tax
5. Reduce the income tax
6. Means test all welfare services
7. Increase the efficiency of the public sector
and the best for last…
8. Treat minorities like gays more fairly and afford them the full scope of rights.
There could probably be more points on the list and leaving something off the list does not mean that it isnt important. Anyway, all of these are workable policy solutions. Of course it is the neoliberal/libertarian contention that these policies are to the benefit of the worst off (in absolute terms) whatever their effect on inequality.
The issue of workability then is not a matter of whether there are concrete and reasonable policy measures that can be taken that are recognisably libertarian.
Your idea of completely unworkable, if I may presume, then just refers to the probability of said policies garnering enough political support (in the US) to be enacted.
A lot of these policies have a larger probability of being enacted in Singapore (except for the gay rights one, I blame that on democracy. politicians who ought to know better continue to demagogue the issue to garner support)Report
There’s also drug liberalization. I gather that that wouldn’t go over so well in Singapore, either.
By the way, is it true that in Singapore prostitution is legal but pornography is not?Report
James K FTW.Report
My heart goes out to my oppressed libertarian brethern!
Who could have know extreme anti-government rhetoric could lead people to take up arms against the state?
Whoocouldanode!!!Report
He appears to have thought he was standing up for his race and his religion. I have nothing but contempt for folks like that, and I’m not at all surprised that yet another of them has gone off the deep end.
But those still don’t make him a libertarian. Quite the opposite, in fact, but I don’t expect I’ll be able to pry you away from your sweet, sweet confirmation bias. It feels good to be right!Report
He appears to have thought he was standing up for his race and his religion. I have nothing but contempt for folks like that, and I’m not at all surprised that yet another of them has gone off the deep end.
You’re not sayiing this is nationalism, though are you? I tend to expect people with these views about race and religion to tie them up with their nationalism, bt I’d rather like to not simply lump all nationalism in with these kinds of extreme views on race and religion. Racial, ethnic, and religious nationalist extremisms were of course the most destructive forces of the last century, and I prepared to concede they have gotten a good start in this one. And I don’t nationalism full stop hasn’t been a problem when it has become violent, either. But violent, extreme racial, ethnic, or religious nationalisms are very different things than simple nationalism alone is in its essence is. Nationalism alone can become violent (see: most U.S. wars), but attitudes as simple as “I care more that workers who are citizens of my country benefit disproportionately from any trade deals my government negotiates than that the deals improve average individual welfare the world over” also embody nationalism. And it is the case (I presume to understand) that libertarians have a problem with both these things: extreme, violent racial, ethnic, or religious nationalism; and simple nationalism full stop of the kind I have just described. But just because libertarians have problems with both, I’d prefer not to have to field implications that they are the same thing, or some kind of threateningly close cousins to each other. They are not; they are fully distinct phenomena, one being a mainstream and generally peaceful attitude (though certainly with exceptions, as people have formed nations for the purpose of protection, and their assent to the use of violence to that end has been frequently abused by rulers [At this point the discussion turns to whether imperialism is something more than simple nationalism – which it is.]), the other being a virulent social malady that, wherever it is found, has as its primary aim causing great carnage and death.Report
sorry for the multiple syntax errors.Report
Actually, it wasn’t so much arms against the state. What he did was to shoot and kill dozens of young children at a summer camp. I mean, the ones who didn’t drown trying to escape, of course. He did this over the course of 90 minutes, while rescue crews were unable to get to the island and stop him from killing young children. If you want to posit this as some sort of sane and logical response to “rhetoric”, go ahead. But he certainly didn’t help any cause or further any agenda. Instead, he killed dozens of children.Report
He did blow up government buildings.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2011/0723/In-Norway-a-sense-of-bewilderment-and-vows-to-stand-together
Do your really want to split hairs about primary v secondary targets? It seems kind of silly to claim the perpetrator didn’t have an anti-government ideology; Breivek drew strongly from the foul odors emerging out of the libertarian right.Report
Do your really want to split hairs about primary v secondary targets?
You’ve spectacularly missed the point.Report
I hear you loud and clear: “When extremists take my extremist rhetoric seriously, I bear no personal responsibility. After all, I advocate extremism by PEACEFUL means.”
I’m sure the “respectable” anti-Semites in 1930s Germany were horrified to see how it all turned out… kind of like how genteel Cato-Institute Georgetown cocktail-circuit libertarians “tut tut” everytime an anti-government radical blows up a government building or shoots an abortionist.Report
First off, I’m not a fucking libertarian.
Secondly, any species in which the logical, rational, and justifiable response to “taking rhetoric seriously”- ANY rhetoric- is to massacre children at a summer camp is not one that I want to belong to. You want me to say, “Hey, it does kind of make sense what this guy did. I mean, if you read those books or listen to those speeches, of course you’re going to murder children. It’s not like you can entirely blame the guy.” Fuck that. I don’t want to live in a species in which massacring children at a summer camp kinda makes sense if you think about it.Report
If you read John Stuart Mill and take him seriously, then obviously he wants you to go out and kill children.
Didn’t Charlie Manson say that about the white album?Report
Another kink shows up here.
It seems that Breivik thinks/thought that Libertarians are soft on multiculturalism.
You can still salvage this, though. Maybe Breivik thought that because he didn’t really understand Libertarians.Report
Jaybird, are libertarians incapable of committing any harms? Are they immune to the normal conflicts that define the human condition? Are the above the whim and fancy of human emotions?
Are they perfection personified?
Whew, that felt good just to ask that question because it brought me that much closer to something sacred.Report
Oh, I’m sure I hurt my wife’s feelings all the time. I’m sure I’m insensitive to my mom. I was even a bit late to my nephew’s birthday party today (I wasn’t goofing off, I had to get rid of a couch) and that let him down.
When it comes to killing children en masse, Libertarians are far more likely to do it via defunding of fire departments or setting up PCP vending machines in (private) schools than picking up a gun and shooting them, though.
Well, the ones I know, anyway.Report
When it comes to killing children en masse, Libertarians are far more likely to do it via defunding of fire departments
But there’s still a way to do it. Nice.Report
It’s more subtle than abortion but it gets the job done.Report
Yes, of course…”what about the children?”
BTW, if this fellow was a crazed, right-wing ‘Christian’ murdering, libertarian, nationalist, why did he murder white kids and not brown, foreign kids?Report
Because they were the liberal children of liberal politicians.Report
When the not shut up the discovery channel last year did you hold environmentalists responsible? Or do you have a different standard when people agree with you.Report
When the leftist shot up the school board in Florida did you feel the same way. What’s your opinion on the violence that breaks out whenever the AFL/CIO protests the G8/G20/WTO conferences? What’s your opinion on the riots in Greece?Report
He killed dozens of children, and he did so with the intent of furthering a political agenda. I don’t think there can be any doubt as to that. He didn’t attack a random summer camp; he attacked a Labour Party teen gathering and bombed a government building. You can’t look at that and say the motive wasn’t political.
The targets suggest it was against the governing Labour Party rather than the state in general, though.Report
and he did so with the intent of furthering a political agenda
Go figure as to what his conception was of the relation of ends to means.Report
Watching all these fuckers gloating about the identity of the shooter or whining like they’re being persecuted makes this massacre that much more nauseating.Report
Same as the Giffords shooting—they’ll exploit anything for cheap points.Report
Hey I got a great offer for you guys. Palmetto State Armoury AR-15 Lower Receiver, engraved with Joe Wilson’s eloquently expressed sentiment “You Lie!” (about the current POTUS).
http://www.palmettostatearmory.com/1750.php
On sale in South Carolina right now. Perfect for dealing with troublesome libruls and other carpetbaggers.Report
Joe Wilson said “You Lie!”
People die.
QED.Report
Do you see any problem at all with a business in South Carolina of the old Confederacy selling rifle parts engraved with the sentiment that the current black POTUS is a liar?
Do you think that perhaps the US representative that threw that sentiment in the POTUS face, interupting him while he was holding a speech before congress, should demand Palmetto State Armoury of his home state to, perhaps, discontinue that product?
And yet, it’s been on sale for more than a year. No-one seem to care much…
Until the day you kick Dixie out of the GOP you can take your persecution complex and kindly go scr-w yourselves.Report
As a matter of taste, I find it odious.
As it pertains to Norway or future violence here, I find it largely irrelevant.
Beyond which:
UPDATE 2: CNN reports that Congressman Wilson is happy the company has suspended sales of the “You lie”-engraved part.
http://www.free-times.com/index.php?cat=1992209084141467&act=post&pid=11861101110850039
(Since it’s still available on the site, I would guess that they started selling it again or they modified the engraving.)Report
“Same as the Giffords shooting—they’ll exploit anything for cheap points.”
And without going too far down this wormhole, their argument for Giffords was way better.
Stillwater should be embarrassed, not so much for bad faith as stupidity.Report
And without going too far down this wormhole, their argument for Giffords was way better.
Are you just damning by faint praise? Because it actually came out some time after the fact that Loughner had for some time held a personal grudge against Giffords because she wouldn’t give a straight answer to an incoherent question he had asked her at a prior public appearance.
There’s really no evidence that Loughner’s attacks were motivated by any sort of coherent political ideology.Report
when one quotes John Stuart Mill peaceably, one is a liberal. When one quotes John Stuart Mill and murders dozens of people, one is a libertarian. Obviously.
When the liberal asks for remedies to governmental injustices, the libertarian shrugs. The liberals persists: well, what about elections? No, the corruption is too entrenched in the political system. What about regulations? No, all the regulators get captured and promote even more state corruption. What about grass roots initiatives that promote better institutional structures. No, see point one. What about the violent dismantling of governmental institutions? That’s what the second Amendment is for.
It may have to do with the fact that libertarians are anti-governmental, with a specific emphasis on unjustified coercive uses of that power. But they have no remedies. For the libertarian, in general, there is only bitching about how shitty things are without any solutions for making things better. Except violence.Report
I really do think it’s sad that this tragedy has been twisted around to function as an attack on libertarianism and libertarians of all people. It’s a lesson in intolerance and the wickedness of racism and nationalism. It’s not a lesson in American politics by any stretch of the imagination. This whole line of discussion needs to stop. Scoring cheap points (or attempting to score them, as it were) is pretty petty in the face of such tragedy.Report
But didn’t you start the whole accusatory line?
Isn’t it interesting how quick people are to abandon that line when the accusations get turned against themselves?Report
It’s almost as interesting to see who picks it up when it gets free.Report
You re-confirmed my point. Thanks!Report
I said “almost”.Report
Lulz.
Wait, what?Report
Well said, Katherine. Apologies again for my snarky and rude response to you yesterday.Report
That’s okay. You were getting [deservedly] jumped on all over that thread, which tends to make anyone defensive. What matters is that you acknowledged you were wrong, which is all too rare in political circles.Report
Stillwater, I jumped to conclusions about Al Qaeda. I never ascribed blame to people of a different political persuasion than myself. I also walked that back in light of evidence. Yet here we are with you and yours trying to pin this tragedy on your fellow Americans who have libertarian beliefs. I find this wife cynical and dishonest. I walked my poor judgments back and apologized. Will you? Will any of you?Report
I’m not trying to pin it on libertarians. I’m only pointing out that now that it’s clearly not Muslimo-stremists, you’re on the defensive, trying to prevent anyone from connecting this guy’s beliefs to libertarianism. Why is that?
I’ve said before on this very thread, I have no idea what his ideology was, or what his motives were. I just find the preventative defense thing quite interesting, especially in light of some the evidence-free accusations passed yesterday.Report
From what I can see, the issue is that Erik erroneously thought that the Norway incidents were committed by AQ or some other Islamist group. Is the handwringing anything other than PC crap? Maybe there’s something else here and I missed it.
Of course when you hear about a terrorist incident in Europe, the first thought is to assume that Islamists did it. I promise you that if I wrote that I wouldn’t be apologizing for it.Report
I promise you that if I wrote that I wouldn’t be apologizing for it.
I do not for a moment doubt you.Report
Is the handwringing anything other than PC crap?
That’s a good point. Erik’s hand wringing about how this guys ‘ideology’ isn’t a form of libertarianism is crap.Report
I expected better of you, Stillwater, I really did. I’m not really sure why.
Explain to me how a xenophobic, mass-murdering racist who wanted to close borders and deport Muslims based on their religious views fits any definition of libertarian. Please. Because libertarians by and large (at least those who are actually libertarian and not just rightwingers who don’t like the term conservative) tend to believe in very loose border laws, religious tolerance, and non-violence.
This contortionism of yours, attempting somehow to fit a nationalist white supremacist into the libertarian box is bizarre. I initially thought the attacks were Islamic extremists. Now I don’t and I’ve said as much and more. What is the fucking point of continuing this charade? What is the point of engaging us here if you won’t do so honestly and with some tiny bit of respect?
Because frankly I’m tired of these swarms of people whose only aim is to accuse, badger and take nobody in good faith. If you want to be one of those people, please don’t come back. I’m done with it. Either attempt to stick to the purpose of this site and its commenting policy and operate in good faith, or go back to sites where good faith is of no value and tribalism and accusations are paramount virtues.
The internet is a big place, why waste your time here?Report
Seconded. Libertarians support religious tolerance and open borders, and are very suspicious of nationalism.
But hey, it’s fun to demonize. So fun!Report
Agreed, with the caveat that there are no two belief system so opposed that someone, somewhere won’t claim to be an A while exhibiting all the characteristics of a B. So I will not be shocked if the murderous SOB claims to be a libertarian (or just about anything else.)Report
You know, both – at least – supports open borders and suspicious of nationalism could have been said of Communism before someone tried to implement it in the real world. But after e.g. Stalin, Mao and the various Kims we cant really claim that with a straight face anymore. IOW, It’s close to meaningless to say libertarians supports this or that and say someone can’t be a libertarian if they’re e.g. Counter-Jihad, when Libertarianism remains a pipe dream. That’s exactly what academic marxists been arguing for close to a century now: Oh but Stalin was a nationalist, he isnt an example of true communism.Report
And isn’t it ludicrous to associate all socialists with Stalin? I think it is.Report
That’s completely unresponsive. That wasn’t the point.
Even if you can’t be bothered to actually spell out exactly what you’re on about, it’s plain from a mile away that it doesn’t tie in with what I wrote in any way whatsoever.Report
Don’t know what I did to deserve this response. Have I gone over the boundaries of civility? Or merely content?
Also, I haven’t ever (EVER) claimed this guy was a libertarian. I’ve mentioned that some people on this thread are trying to preventatively deflect the judgment that he is. And I’ve answered a rhetorical query about how people come to judge libertarians as being advocates of violence as a solution to political problems.
I admit to being a bit over-the-top in some of my comments in this thread. The violence effects me just as it does you. Ban me if you must. But I not because I’ve been hoisting false accusations on the host and smearing other posters. That isn’t accurate.Report
I’m not going to man you. I’m asking you to operate in good faith. So what are you trying to say?Report
I will. Thanks for the reminder.Report
You know what the problem is? Whenever there is an act of political violence, regardless of the motives of the perpetrator the left uses as a weapon against their opponents. A Leftist shot JFK but many on the left still blame the right 50 years later. When a movement constantly uses events like this to silence dissent, people are going to be defensive.
Let’s look at the JFK assassination in depth, the left killed JFK the leftist media immediately started blaming “right wing nuts”, the leftist LBJ exploited the assassination the force his leftist agenda through congress, 40 years later many people still blame the right. Now do you understand why people are so defensive?Report
Stills, have you noticed that there is at least one person who is arguing for something akin to the position that this guy is the intellectual brethren of the libertarians?
It’s cool if you haven’t, of course.
Let’s posit that *IF* there is a guy in this thread that is arguing this position, would it make more sense that there are people deflecting the judgment that he is (and, indeed, they would not be doing it “preventatively” at that point)?
Could you also see how defending the (rhetorical, granted) position that libertarians are advocates of violence might be construed as someone holding the position that libertarians are advocates of violence and, thus, argue against this position?
Is your assumption that you would be banned projection on your part because leftists/marxists have traditionally dealt with dissent with gulags? (See what I did there?)Report
Jaybird, Good points. All of em. The points I was making were easily miscunstrued because I was being a bit of an a-hole while making them. And of course, I may have been completely effing wrong. EDK did a good job slapping me around for it.
My Marxist informants have assured me that only Trotskyites get banned around here.Report
Dude, I have nothing against being a bit of an a-hole when making arguments that one feels strongly. Sometimes that is all one can do.
It’s when there never is a sometimes that one can *NOT* do it that there is a problem.Report
Of course when you hear about a terrorist incident in Europe, the first thought is to assume that Islamists did it.
Of course, that’s what anyone would assume. After all the odds have got to be, what, 293 to 1 against it. Yes, you read that correctly. Of 294 terrorist acts that took place in Europe in 2009, exactly one was linked to Islamic groups.Report
I don’t know what happened in 2009, but we’ve had Madrid, London bombs, honor killings, and now this. It doesn’t seem like something for the IRA, the ETA, Baader-Meinhof, etc, so what do you suppose it is?
On another note, if this is a trend of anything, Europe is in very sad shape.Report
what do you suppose it is?
A murderous SOB who hates the Labour Party. Whether he’s part of a group of like-minded murderous SOBs I don’t know.Report
Here’s a link that breaks terrorist attacks between 2006-08:
http://www.loonwatch.com/2010/01/terrorism-in-europe/
The vast majority are separatists in Spain and France. Leftist groups have more than a few. Islamists (and rightwing groups) have very few.
I should point out that the same site has a link from the FBI with numbers for the US (94% non-Islamic). However, it counts 9/11, OKC, and a bombing with no casualties (injuries or fatalities) the same. So the numbers are not what you’d expect, with left-wing and “Latino” (Puerto Rican separatists, as best I can tell) terrorism swamping right-wing and Islamic.
It’s likely that the actions of the Earth Liberation Front and Jewish Defense League don’t register because there were no casualties, in the US. The same may be true of Europe.Report
Is 2009 representative of 2000-2009?
I ask because I remember a handful of really interesting essays written about the attacks on Theo van Gogh, a handful of really interesting news articles written about various protests against some political cartoons, a handful of articles about a particularly wacky summer in France, and an article or three about something that happened in London.
The problem is that many of those things listed above are really gaudy and noticable. Hey, if someone blows up something on the subway resulting in city-wide panic, that’s a particularly interesting attack, even if only 50 people were killed.
Heck, look at the abortion debate in the US. How many attacks on aboriton clinics were there in 2010? How many attacks on abortion providers?
If I said “hey, there weren’t any worth mentioning”, would you think about 2009?Report
What I linked says 4 in 2007, 0 in 2008. I didn’t research it any further back.
What I remember about the wacky summer in France is widespread rioting, thousands of cars set on fire, and a total of two deaths, one from smoke inhalation. That doesn’t feel to me like terrorism, it feels like the French version of Watts, with Al Qaeda not only not the instigator, but not even around to take advantage of the situation.Report
I agree – that wasn’t terrorism. That was Paris being Paris, the same as in 1789, 1830, 1848 and 1870. The fact that the lower classes now include a significant number of North Africans doesn’t suddenly make the riots Islamist.Report
>Scoring cheap points (or attempting to score them, as it were) is pretty petty in the face of such tragedy.
>It’s a lesson in intolerance and the wickedness of racism and nationalism.
>Scoring cheap points (or attempting to score them, as it were) is pretty petty in the face of such tragedy.
>It’s a lesson in intolerance and the wickedness of racism and nationalism.Report
But what’s even more rich is the shoulder patch on Brevik’s diving gear:
Marxist Hunter
http://static.vg.no/uploaded/image/bilderigg/2011/07/23/1311451959431_33.jpg
There’s a patriot who won’t cave in the face of the tyranny of Statism!Report
Well Erik, I consider myself an ideological Social Democrat. O.K. with you if I allow myself to get somewhat pissed at the f-ckers who filled this guys head with bullshit to the point where he blew up half of Oslo and then went shooting down 80+ 15-year old kids because they happened to be Social Democrats? Do I have permission to be somewhat peeved?Report
You mean the Nazis?
I will speak for the Libertarians (yes, all of them) and give you the permission to be peeved about the Nazis.
Let it be done.Report
But didn’t (the libertarian) Jonah Goldberg and (the libertarian) Glenn Beck teach us just now that National Socialism is a left-wing movement, because duh Statism. So shouldn’t I really be pissed at the leftists, e.g. the Social Democrats seeing how they’re Socialist Democrats, ergo == Nazis?Report
Ohh… you’re one of those.
Never mind.Report
No but really, did you notice how it’s O.K. for Nazis to be rightwing – but a different kind of rightwing – when it’s convenient…Report
No Danny, it’s always more convenient for the Nazis to be socialists. All the bad guys are on the left.Report
Do I have permission to be somewhat peeved?
Just don’t mention the ‘L’ word when expressing it. Then it’s all good.
It’s fucking disgusting to see EDK trying to deflect what might be genuine, accurate criticisms of this guy’s motives – as opposed to the fairy-dust accusation made by him only yesterday – in an obvious purity power play, facts be damned.
It’s enough to make you wanna throw up. On him.Report
You really mean to pin this on libertarians.Report
Maybe just the “libertarians” of the Pamela Gellar stripe?Report
You really mean to pin this on libertarians.
Ah Christ! Talking to you is like talking to a painted rock. I’m pointing out that you’re reflexive desire in the absence of further evidence to prevent people from saying this guy’s a libertarian is exactly what you did yesterday. Only now, you don’t like being the branded party.Report
I would spend just as much time and spill just as much ink defending socialists or liberals or progressives from similarly scurrilous attacks. Once it became apparent this was not the work of Al Qaeda I wasted no time saying it was. I snarkily suggested that just because the guy was white didn’t mean he wasn’t Muslim – yes, that was in poor taste, perhaps. But the fact is I would defend liberals just as much if people were attributing this violence to them. This was the work of racist, white supremacist nationalist(s) – or it certainly looks that way.Report
But not islamists, huh? I’ll believe it when I see it buddy. You already screwed up on this one, and there’s been no more “scurrilous attacks” on libertarians than your firsts post was a “scurrilous attack” on muslims. First f-cking up; then going for full out persecution complex. It is pretty sickening actually.Report
Why would anyone defend Islamists? I would not defend fascists either or any other group whose purpose was to cause violence in order to elevate their own status and power.Report
You’re aware of the difference between “Islamists” (e.g. The Muslim Brotherhood) and Takfiri Salafists (e.g. Al Qaeda)? The latter is a subset of the former, fyi. Do you think that all muslims that subscribe to some (not necessarily violent) form of “Islamism” share blame for Al Qaeda’s various misdeeds?
But your willingness to equate between Islamism and Fascism is of course straight out of the Daniel Pipes playbook. I’m starting to suspect you actually might deserve everything you’re getting here, Erik.Report
What’s your take on Christianists?
I’m personally against any group that wants any sort of theocratic rule, including Islamists. I think it is inherently fascistic.Report
I fail to see that there’s some reasonable line you can draw between socialists, liberals, libertarians and progressives on the one hand who apparently prima facie deserve to be defended against “scurrilous attacks” against culpability in what their adherents do, and “islamists” who prima facie don’t deserve it.
Between “socialists”, “libertarians” and “islamists”, I’d say that the former group includes people like Hugo Chavez and Mohammar Gaddafi and I’m pretty damn sure you’re not being absolutely forthcoming when you assert that you’d defend socialism from anything that they did in it’s name.
When it comes to “Libertarianism”, well that’s a toy philosophy, never tried out at all. If it ever was to be taken for a test drive i fully expect it to end in horror and misery.
Furthermore, Libertarianism preaches antagonism towards the “state” much in the same way marxism teaches antagonism towards the “bourgoisie”. It should come as no surprise – given that both are fantasies – that some unhinged individuals now and then may take up arms against the state (like the RAF) or against the state (like McVeigh), to some extent inspired by those fairy tales.
In this particular case of Breivik, I don’t consider it in any way proven that Breivik considered himself a libertarian – someone said so in the comments to your previous post, but that’s slim proof. I consider it even less proven that “libertarianism made him do it”. Of course, I rather doubt that.
But there’s nothing – nothing! – at this point suggesting we should rule anything out. Your anxiousness to do exactly that shows your unwillingness to kill your proverbial babies.Report
I’ll ask you when the man shot up the discovery channel last year did it raise legitimate concerns about the environmentalist movement? When the man shot up the school board in Florida did it raise legitimate concerns about progressives? Or do you have different standards when the perpetrators of political violence agree with you?Report
Of course it brought up legitimate concerns about those organizations and the ideological commitments they embrace. So you’re actually making my point.
But that’s not what’s happening here. In fact, it seems to me to be the opposite. That’s the case I laid out upthread. It wasn’t even an argument – merely an observation. I may be wrong about this – especially given some of Jaybird’s good points. And in fact I’m happy to be wrong. But all I’ve gotten from people is the accusation that I’m blaming libertarianism for the Norway acts.
If I honestly say that I don’t know nor do I care if the guy was a libertarian, would that cause you to understand that I’ve been saying something entirely different than you – and other people – think I am?Report
somewhat pissed at the f-ckers who filled this guys head with bullshit
The only active agent in this whole business was Breivik himself. Nobody ‘filled’ him with anything.Report
Did you feel the same way when the man shot up the school board in Florida last year? Were you upset at the people who poisoned his mind with hatred of rich people?Report
Have we hammered out whether he’s gay or straight yet?Report
If I could choose I’d like to see him be Marcus Bachmann gay. That way we get to shame both gay, straight, and evangelicals all at the same time 🙂Report
Ha, haReport
What kind of low-grade moron doesn’t know that libertarians are for open borders?Report
Glenn Beck?Report
(grim laughter) I’m the Liberal who’s been teaching JSMill to Tea Partiers.
No, you may not have Mill, Libertarians, not under any circumstances.Report
Psst. You probably want to add something about keeping him from the grubby hands of the Nazis as well.Report
I hope you’ll inform the blogosphere at once: the terrorist is a liberal.
Thanks much, Blaise.Report
No, you still don’t get Mill. Nor does this little Nordic weirdo.
The chief failing of the Libertarian, Jason, is his dogmatism. Food for thought.Report
Replace “libertarian” with “partisan” – of any stripe – and your statement remains true.Report
I’m not an expert, but when someone quotes JS Mill and then kills dozens of people, the best conclusion is that they’ve utterly misunderstood Mill.
But then, I just know of Mill from his quotation on free speech, which is one of my favourites.
We seem to be jumping on the wrong group here. The killer is a right-wing, xenophobic, racist nationalist. The US certainly has enough of those to blame. Maybe some of them even call themselves libertarians. But I haven’t seen any indications from the news that libertarianism as an ideology is the culprit here.Report
It’s being reported that Brevik will “explain himself” on Monday. My guess is that the result will be an incoherent mish-mash held together only by hatred. But we’ll have to wait and see.Report
You don’t have to wait, dude wrote a 1,500 page manifesto.
(I feel kinda uncomfortable posting this as he was probably hoping to use his crimes as a springboard to disseminate his “thought”.)Report
Lovely, Breivik is a Robert Bork supporter:
Erik, mind explaining again how this is a case of European White Nationalist Crazy Dood with no connections whatsoever to movement conservatism?Report
More wise thoughts:
Report
I must admit I’m sorely amused at all this, for reasons too numerous to explain. What goes around comes around: the love of fair play is mostly unrequited. I’d otherwise be happy to take this twat off EDK’s hands but it’s off to the cricket for me.Report
You calling me a twat, cunt? 🙂Report
Danny – as I said in my last comment, this is the last of this nonsense I’ll tolerate from you. If the man loved Star Trek that would not condemn its cast, crew or creators in his murders – unless Star Trek somehow inspired those killings directly.Report
Do you think it’s warranted at this point to rule out Breivik being influenced by libertarian and / or mainstream movement conservative thought and it shaping his political identity, the identity that in the end made him seek out and kill teenage social-democrats?
I fail to see how you could rule that out at this point. Seems premature to say the least.Report
I never said we should rule out conservative influence on Breivik. I do think that if he read advocates of non-violence like Milton Friedman and decided the proper response was to shoot a bunch of kids, then he fundamentally misunderstood libertarianism to the point of it no longer being distinguishable as such.
But movement conservatism in the US is by and large a non-violent movement except for some fringe figures. Obviously there are members of the movement who should be condemned. Part of free speech is speaking out about the speech of others that you find reprehensible.Report
So I finally got around to doing some keyword searches on that interminable manifesto.
He appears never to have read Milton Friedman, whom he quotes only once, badly out of context and secondhand via Naomi Klein.
He does cite Hayek a few times, mostly to the effect that socialism is evil. Ayn Rand gets a couple of mentions, again to the same effect.
There is one fairly trivial reference to von Mises. And there are no mentions at all of Murray Rothbard, Robert Nozick, David Friedman, Roderick Long, Randy Barnett, David Boaz, the Cato Institute, or Ron or Rand Paul. His attitude on libertarians seems summed up in the following paragraph:
I’m happy — delighted, even — to be a useful idiot in his book.Report
Well there you go. Furthermore, in the F.A.Q.:
So he was a libertarian at one point, but fell out.Report
Important to note that according to that passage, he “fell out” specifically because it “completely collided” with his interest in cultural identity and that it incorporated multi culturalism.
IOW, libertarianism was directly at odds with the issue he seems to have been primarily obsessed with.
Now if you want to talk about the problems that arise when libertarian economic thought mixes with social conservatism…that might be a worthwhile topic (and indeed one which has been frequently discussed on this site).Report
Well, sure. But I don’t think it’s correct really to interpret him as saying that Multiculturalism is necessarily a part of Libertarianism. What he is in fact saying is that he considers Libertarianism “in combination with the
doctrines of multiculturalism” unsustainable. Doesn’t mean really that he has a problem with Libertarianism in the absence of those doctrines.
I’ll take a wild guess and say that he considers Multiculturalism something imposed on europe as part of “Cultural Marxism”; Cultural Marxism being a rebranding of The Frankfurt School, made by american conservatives (e.g. The Free Congress Foundation) and acquired as part of a conspiracy theory about Multiculturalism and Political Correctness by various xenophobic right-wing movements on both sides of the pond.
A primer on Cultural Marxism from the Free Congress FoundationReport
Is it fair to say that he would consider multi-culturalism part of “extreme liberalism” then?
If so, let us look at how he has defined libertarianism.Report
Haha, touché. No, I don’t think so.
Check out the Manifesto. Here is Breivik from “About the manifesto”:
Read it for yourself, if you have the stomach. Or just search for “Cultural Marxism”. Or watch the Youtube link. There are a lot of guys out there who really think/pretend that tolerance / multiculturalism is stealth marxism.
In addition, here are Crooks and Liars reporting on Cultural MarxismReport
My point of course was that “cultural Marxism” would be part and parcel of “extreme liberalism” to one who defined themself as a conservative, especially a traditionalist consevative.Report
Well, yes, if the term “liberalism” had the same connotations in europe as it has in the US. But it doesnt; e.g. in europe “liberalism” usually refers strictly to the philosophical school and not to general “leftism”. E.g. “liberal” and “progressive” are not synonymous in europe, even if they pretty much are in the US.
Exemplified by Breivik explaining libertarianism to his (presumeably european audience) as “extreme liberalism” – which sounds strange to americans for exactly that reason.Report
I am quite aware that terms on the other side of the Atlantic have different meanings. This indeed is also a subject I have discussed at length on earlier occasions, usually in the context of explaining how I consider certain western European nations to be more libertarian than the US.
I am however unaware of any definition of liberalism in any context, much less “extreme liberalism”, that does not put as a core tenet thereof the notion of “tolerance,” which you have been using interchangeably with “multiculturalism.”Report
You should check out some of the things Rand had to say about libertarians (hippies, she said). Especially the part about how her biggest problem was their interest in having an “amoral political program.”. In other words, a political program based on not passing moral judgment, a political program based on the evil known as “tolerance.”Report
Well, sure, I pretty much agree about your characterization of the liberal tradition w/r/t tolerance.
But do you know of a reasonable way to fit Marxism – economic, historical, cultural or whatever – within the liberal tradition?
It’s only in a US context that you could get away with implying that marxist and liberal is the same thing without being laughed out of the room.Report
1. Doesn’t it seem clear that this guy was in fact heavily influenced by precisely those who would use Marxist and liberal interchangeably?
2. I am not at all certain that I would place Marx outside of the liberal tradition. And I consider myself well within the liberal tradition. I also do not think Europeans would necessarily place him outside the liberal tradition.Report
The thing is far too long to read in toto, so I also did some scanning and searches.
Brevik is not. as has been suggested here, a neo-Nazi. There is no apology for or denial of the Holocaust [1], nor any suggestion that Jews are foreigners or outcasts, and he never mentions Nazism in any even remotely positive light. Though much of it reads like a Nazi screed with “Muslims” and “Islam” substituted for “Jews” and “Judaism”.
1. Or the slaughter of Jews that accompanied the Crusades, though he rushes to point out that Islam was worse.Report
mind explaining again how this is a case of European White Nationalist Crazy Dood with no connections whatsoever to movement conservatism?
Wait, is reading a guy and liking him a connection???
Hurray! Mohammed is a terrorist again!
Man, and I was worried there.
As for the Nazi, lemme tell ya: YOU CANNOT TRUST PEOPLE WHO THINK THAT THE 9TH AMENDMENT IS AN INKBLOT.Report
He jackass, what I wrote meant exactly what it said. EDK jumped the gun in the comments to the last thread and asserted that the european right wing movements and american ones were to different, and that there was likely no connection from Breivik to movement conservatism.
My point has been all along that it’s premature to make any such assertions. In fact, what we know up to this point is that the guy frequented anti-islamic websites Atlas Shrugged and Jihad Watch. His manifesto clearly shows that he’s quite proficient on several pillars of movement conservatism and in fact one of the central tenets of his manifesto is the belief that the western world has been indoctrinated with Cultural Marxism – which is a neat right wing conspiracy theory made up by the Free Congress Foundation, and championed in recent years by e.g. Anrew Breitbart.
Doesn’t mean that “Movement Conservatism made him do it” or that “Movement Conservatism is responsible” or “Libertarianism is responsible”.
It only means that it’s absolutely premature to rule out him being involved in and influenced by those ideas. And if you’re very anxious to rule it out, well that speaks volumes.Report
He jackass, what I wrote meant exactly what it said.
I cannot reiterate this enough:
If you are going to engage in crude insults at least have enough dignity to not include typos.Report
Which is especially delicious when the typo comes in the midst of yelling about how they mean every word they write.Report
Straight out of the Teabagger handbook…Report
Danny, I’ve warned others as well, but I’ve had enough of this. This blog is not set up to sit around condemning people and acting like shits. You’ve said your piece. I want no more “teabagger” comments and I want no more accusations that simply because a mad killer may have read a book in common with a libertarian or a conservative that this implies that forever more all libertarians or conservatives are guilty for his sins. This is simply stupid and immature. Leave off or ship out, I could care less.Report
I don’t think I really ever implied that “forever more all libertarians or conservatives are guilty for his sins”. So I’ll just keep up not implying that then. How about you implying that “islamists” forevermore are guilty for Al Qaeda’s sins, asserting all “islamists” are “fascists” even? Seems to me you did exactly what you falsely accused me of doing there, just now…. But I guess we could write that one off to ignorance to the difference between Islamism and Takfiri Salafism. And that’s certainly an understandable mistake if one spends to much time reading e.g. The Corner, et al.Report
Instead of reflecting on the mistake on immediately jumping on the EVIL MUSLIMS bandwagon, people are going full on persecution complex defending libertarianism. Nice. I think Danny is wrong to put this on libertarian, myself (he’s a right wing, xenophobic nationalist), but it’s amazing how much effort is being to put to defend libertarianism and how little in reflecting on the former mistake of jumping to conclusion. People are being all over Danny for jumping to conclusion in blaming libertarian, but forgot about their own folly in jumping to conclusion and blaming Muslims. Oh well, I guess that’s what happen when one group have more supporters among the elites.Report
PJH – the implication that this is the fault of libertarianism didn’t start with the libertarians, obviously. Do your own self-reflecting. I have walked back my initial rush to judgment (though it has certainly fallen on deaf ears – much more fun to keep pouncing, I realize).Report
Instead of reflecting on the mistake on immediately jumping on the EVIL MUSLIMS bandwagon, people are going full on persecution complex defending libertarianism. Nice. I think Danny is wrong to put this on libertarian, myself (he’s a right wing, xenophobic nationalist), but it’s amazing how much effort is being to put to defend libertarianism and how little in reflecting on the former mistake of jumping to conclusion. People are being all over Danny for jumping to conclusion in blaming libertarian, but forgot about their own folly in jumping to conclusion and blaming Muslims. Oh well, I guess that’s what happen when one group have more supporters among the elites.
This argument might fly if
(a) If I’d blamed Muslims. But I didn’t.
(b) If Erik and I were the same person. But we aren’t.
(c) If I’d spent “much effort” on the original post. But it took me less than five minutes, and most of that was just transcribing something out of a book.Report
And Mr Kain, I’m eager for a fuller understanding regarding your use of the word “host nation” and “Islamic immigrants” in your post yesterday (something more substantial than just “and non-immigrants, too!). Do you believe that:
1) The status of Muslims in European countries (heck, let’s include the US as well) will always remain as “visitors”, as implied by the words “host nation”>
2) After what generation can someone be considered a non-immigrant? Is there a statue of limitation for the immigrant status? Or like I asked yesterday, will Muslims in Europe (and maybe in the US too) always be considered immigrants because they don’t belong to the Judeo-Christian tradition in some countries and secular tradition in others?
I eagerly await for your response on this.Report
PJH – I’m getting pretty tired of you commenting here. It’s time for you to start acting in good faith or to pack your bags. This blog is not a forum to attack its bloggers – yours truly included. I have updated my post several times with the updates you initially “requested” and apologies. If that is not enough for you, you can move along. Nobody will be sorry to see the back of you.
But to humor you one last time:
1) No, but much of the radicalism (at least that I have read about) in Europe comes from recent immigrants, not long-time Muslim residents and citizens.
2) Second generation obviously. I’m an open-borders advocate. I would tear them all down if I could.
I hope you did not eagerly wait too long for my answer. Your decision to operate in good faith in these threads is what I am now eagerly awaiting myself.Report
To the extent that Muslim immigrants remain immigrants forever, down through the generations, it is purely the fault of the European governments, which offer them no route to citizenship. This gives the Muslim minority no incentive to care very much about the society that surrounds them, because that society is constantly treating them as aliens.
This is why I’ve long been a supporter of the U.S. policy of birthright citizenship, which guarantees that we will have no such permanent outsider class here. Muslims who come to the United States from a foreign country may apply for citizenship in the first generation, and the second will get it automatically. Which is pretty much how things should be, I think. (We can quibble about the details of the citizenship test another time. Let’s not right now.)Report
Yes, exactly. Very well put.Report
Which European governments? Germany has a high bar to naturalization, but permits it. Who else?Report
The countries that have language law requirements? Europe is getting more and more of them…Report
What’s wrong with a language requirement for a residency permit?Report
What is right about them?Report
BSK:
What is right? Let me see, folks want to come to our country and take advantage of everything it has to offer to improve their lives but not learn he language. Learning the language seems like a small thing to ask. Is there any other country that bends over backwards as our does to let folks continue to speak their old tongues? This country doesn’t have much in common, no common religion or ethnicity, so it seems like a common tongue is a small thing.Report
We have no national or official language. Yes, English is the most common one, but it is not official. If it were the official language, maybe you have an argument. But it’s not. Furthermore, how does one administer such a test? Do people have a certain amount of time to learn the language or do they have to come here knowing it? Do they need only basic conversational language or more? One of the issues with language acquisition is that, contrary to many common misconceptions, it is individual in terms of how one best learns it. Some people thrive in immersion situations, others need explicit instruction. Some will pick it up in mere months, others will take years. The areas of the brain that specialize in language acquisition are not the same for everyone. Such a test risks limiting the opportunities for citizenship for people who are not positioned for success gaining a second language.Report
I would venture to guess that those arguing that immigrants should learn our language would also make it our national language.
To me, a national language is a solution in search of a problem, but if we had to make a national language a condition for citizenship, that would neatly give it a problem to be the solution to.
Personally, I don’t have a problem requiring immigrants to learn English in order to become a citizen. I would like us to help them learn, but there’s no reason they can’t stay here as non-citizens in the meantime (unless they’re here illegally, which is another can of worms, and as long as their children have access to our schools where they will be taught English). Their kids will be citizens, and as long as we teach them English, we’ll be okay. That’s where we need to focus our efforts.Report
Personally, I don’t have a problem requiring immigrants to learn English in order to become a citizen.
I tend to agree. If you’re going to vote, you should have access to a wider variety of information than the foreign-language media generally provide.
Of course there’s no requirement for a native to know anything about what’s going on in the world, but this wouldn’t be the first place we require more of immigrants than of ourselves.Report
Mike-
Your last point is a great one: we often ask more of immigrants than we do native-born citizens. Perhaps this is proper, but it always strikes me as odd.
Would such a law only apply to immigrants? What if I, an American-born citizen of Italian ancestry, decide to teach my children Italian and only Italian? Would they be in violation of the law?Report
No. You (and your children) already have citizenship. If citizenship can be easily revoked, it weakens the very concept of citizenship in a way that withholding it from someone that doesn’t have it does not.
Refusing to teach your child English would not cost you (or him or her) citizenship, but it would be eminently unwise. You should (and would, I’m sure, because I know this is a hypothetical) want your children to succeed in this country. Fortunately for everybody, there already are incentives aplenty to learn English.Report
Do people have a certain amount of time to learn the language or do they have to come here knowing it?
They take the test if they want a visa, take a number, and wait.
Do they need only basic conversational language or more?
They need to score at or above the 12th percentile of the native population on a written and oral examination.Report
Will-
And that sort of gets back to Mike’s point, that we ask more of immigrants than we do of citizens.
It certainly would be unwise, in very much the same way immigrating here and never learning English would be unwise. Does it happen? Yes. But probably with far less frequency than most people realize. When folks talk about immigrants learning English, what they often mean is that immigrants should immediately learn perfect, non-accented English. And that is simply not going to happen.Report
Another thing that happens with language laws is that there is a great deal that is *NOT* said in them in practice.
I couldn’t find the example I was thinking of on the Google (SO MAYBE IT DOESN’T EXIST!!!) but one of those European Countries has two different official languages and 4 official sub-dialects (or something like that).
Pretty much it reads as if they wanted to say “Not Urdu.”
But they couldn’t say that. So they said that there were two official languages and four official sub-dialects.Report
When folks talk about immigrants learning English, what they often mean is that immigrants should immediately learn perfect, non-accented English.
No, they don’t. That’s a slander on the American people. Language skills are rated as heard by a “sympathetic listener,” and in America we’re used to hearing English spoken everywhichway and we rate at the top of the world’s societies on this.
We don’t look down on anybody who makes the effort, we respect it and welcome it. This is America, dammit, not England or France. What a man says means more than how he says it.Report
Switzerland, maybe? They have four official languages: French, German, Italian, and Romansh. But their official version of German is Standard German, while what people speak is a collection of dialects united only by the fact that they’re not much like Standard German. It’s as if the official language of the UK were Texan.Report
BSK
Thanks for advocating a false proposition on behalf of English proponents. I guess it helps your argument when you falsify state my position. Maybe in your fantasy world folks are demanding that immigrants speak perfect English but I would settle for high school comprehension or maybe even 6th grade.Report
Is there any other country that bends over backwards as our does to let folks continue to speak their old tongues?
Yes, Singapore does more.Report
Canada too.Report
And the aqueduct.
The what?
Sorry, wrong sketch.Report
Singapore is hardly comparable to the US. Interesting enough Singapore does have 4 official languages on of which is English.
Canada is more comparable to the US but has its own Balkanization issues and is hardly an example for encouraging immigrants not to assimilate.Report
Also, I forgot to add that Canada has two official languages, English and French, how odd. If an official language is good enough for those countries then why isn’t it good enough for the US?Report
Mr. Murali, pls stop the fronting: the Singapore govt wants more ethnic-Chinese babies to preserve the ethnic-Chinese demographic majority.
The local birthrate is in the toilet and you’re being swamped by immigrants of everything but. Your civilizational ethos is at risk no less than Norway’s and don’t yr govt know it.
2011:
http://www.asiafinest.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=254082&pid=4729524&mode=threaded&start=
SINGAPORE — Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Wednesday urged Singaporeans to have more babies in the new Year of the Rabbit, saying additional children would bring “more joy” to families.
Lee, a father of four, said in his Lunar New Year message that getting Singaporeans to produce more babies has been a challenge but he hoped more would be born during the Rabbit year.
Singapore’s resident fertility rate — the number of babies born per woman — fell to an all-time low of 1.16 in 2010 during the Year of the Tiger.
While immigrants have filled in the population shortfall, “we also need Singaporeans to produce enough babies to replace ourselves, and that has proved extremely challenging,” he said.
“I hope more couples will start or add to their families in the Year of the Rabbit. Chinese New Year is the time for families to come together in celebration, and more babies can mean only more joy in the years to come.”
Local-born Singaporeans must maintain a clear majority in the population mix so they can “set the tone of our society and uphold our core values and ethos,” the prime minister said.
With falling birth rates, Singapore rolled out the welcome mat for foreign workers during the 2004-2007 economic boom.
But after the 2008 global financial crisis, the government took a fresh look following complaints from citizens that foreigners were increasingly competing for jobs, housing, medical care and even space on metro trains.
http://articles.cnn.com/2011-02-02/world/singapore.pm_1_singaporeans-minister-lee-hsien-loong-fertility-rate?_s=PM:WORLD
C’mon, dude. Play it straight.Report
Okay, how about English and Spanish as our two national languages? Because you know, it will take about two minutes after declaring English the national language before some will start lobbying for a second. Just like Canada has. If it’s good enough for the Canadians…Report
Singapore may have 4 official languages, but said languages do not reflect any restrictions on immigration. In fact, with a mojority (or if not a very significant minority ) of migrants are not effectively conversant in english.
Singapore still has among the most liberal guest worker policy in the world. The migrants comprise 40% of the resident population.
Singapore is hardly comparable to the US.
Singapore is a much smaller country with a comparable level of diversity. Cultural differences in between the residents have to be tolerated. In the US where population density is much lower, there is always the option of setting up shop somewhere out there in the vast empty spaces.Report
Okay, how about English and Spanish as our two national languages? Because you know, it will take about two minutes after declaring English the national language before some will start lobbying for a second. Just like Canada has. If it’s good enough for the Canadians…
So what? Legislative bodies are perfectly capable of ignoring lobbies when it suits them, particularly when there isn’t any swag in it for legislators.
Monolingual hispanophones are a small minority in the United States. They are fairly common only in greater Miami, greater Los Angeles, and a scatter of counties proximate to the Mexican border. Bar in Puerto Rico – a possession of the United States not a part of the United States – there presence is almost entirely due to comparatively recent immigration streams.
The Francophone population of Canada forms a third of the total, forms 5/6th of the population of Quebec and a third of the population of New Brunswick, and has a history extending back 400 years. Its status and claims are not analagous to those of voluntary chicano immigrants whose history here extends all the way back to…1965.Report
As far as I know, in the scandinavian countries you’re either in the process of seeking asylum or you’re a citizen. What countries are you talking about?Report
I was thinking of Germany.Report
I might be mistaken but i don’t think the scandinavian countries have a guest worker system (without citizenship) to the extent i believe germany has..Report
Another point that I saw the other day.
Right wing in America and Right wing in Europe means two entirely different things.
The roots of the right-wing in America dates back to the attitudes at the time of the founding. This can manifest in laissez-faire (though it can also manifest in, ahem, “States’ Rights”).
In Europe, however, conservativism’s roots do not include a Delaration of Independence. They do not include a long list of reasons that taxation ought to include representation. Conservativism’s European roots involve Catholicism, Strong Leaders, and most decidedly *NOT* democratic representation and an attitude that all men are equal in the sight of God.
So to say that they are both “right wing” is to misunderstand the different evolutionary branches they’ve taken and the different ancestors whose genes they’ve inherited.
Evolutionary diversification is real.
They may share a phenotype of sorts… but to assume that they share a genotype is to misunderstand the way the world works.
I can understand how this might matter less to the political equivalent of Creationists, however.Report
Yup, there’s no strain of authoritarianism in the right-wing politics of America. None at all. They’re all just precious little laissez-faire capitalists. Come on now.Report
If you beat that strawman with a little more finesse, you’ll be able to get it to spread its legs. You’ll really be able to have your way with it then!Report
While we’re politicizing and “big-picturing” this, let’s note the most plausible extrapolation has to do with criminality and guns. Note this guy had 92 or whatever victims not three. One guy with a gun and ammunition is hard to take down if there aren’t any other guns around (or any other effective police presence).Report
Also, I meant to mention there’s an odd reversal of criminality in Europe relative to America. For Americans, in imagination if nothing else, we think that crime is an urban phenomenon and that rural America is largely (violent) crime-free. For Europe, it tends to work the other way around.
The population is unarmed and and the police presence is very thin.
There was a case in England a few years ago that drew some notoriety in America where an English farmer shot an intruder was charged with firearm offenses. There was, to me at least, a surprisingly large part of English and Continental opinion supporting this.Report
Who had 7/24 at 1:57 in the pool for the first instance of they, “if they only had guns” line?
Guess what? Most summer camps (which this effectively was) don’t have guns.Report
For once, I think it’s a good point. Summer camps don’t have guns, but usually there are police stations nearby that do. I don’t think Koz is suggesting that the kids be armed, but someone on the island should be ready to respond to emergencies.Report
I doubt the homicide rate in the Norwegian countryside is (as a rule) such that people benefit from carrying sidearms. Not much point in attempting to plan for black swan events.Report