Category: Politics

Because the rulers of my adopted state of Florida hold freedom expression as so precious that they must decide who can exercise it and how one may do so, I must begin by stating that I condemn the use of political violence between Americans. I also, in general, condemn violence. I am, after all, a Christian and a philosopher. Hence, I’m all about talking and believe we should not kill.

As I am writing this, Dr. Mark Bray and his family are fleeing the United States in the face of death threats. Dr. Bray’s first attempt failed, and it appears someone cancelled his family’s reservations as they were about to board. Dr. Bray has been dubbed “Dr. Antifa” because of his scholarly works on anarchism and antifascism. He has also been accused of being a threat to conservative students at Rutgers and a petition has been created to remove him to “protect conservative students from political violence.” Despite Antifa being a political philosophy and not an organization, President Trump has attempted to declare it a domestic terrorist organization.

Following the brutal assassination of Charlie Kirk, the right has professed an abhorrence of political violence and Republican leaders have pledged that action will be taken against people making threats or celebrating violence. Because of this, one might think that the threats against Dr. Bray would result in some action by the state. But the White House responded by claiming that “examples of Democrat violence are plentiful” and presented the murder of Kirk as an example. While the statistical data shows that right wing violence is more common (though all violence is to be condemned), the White House asserted that “The Trump Administration is focused on stopping this violence — Democrats are fueling it.” While it is odd to blame the Democrats for threats made against Dr. Bray, a red herring tactic and perhaps also some “whataboutism” are being used here. While there are some differences between the two rhetorical devices, the tactic is to shift attention from the original issue or question and thus not address or answer it. In this example, when folks on the right are asked about specific threats or violence against people on the left (or center), the tactic is to shift to talking about alleged threats or violence from the left. They are, in effect, saying “what about the left?”

While real left-wing violence and threats are matters of concern, the use of a red herring or whataboutism obviously does not address concerns or questions about right wing threats and violence. In the case at hand, saying that the left is violent does nothing to address the threats made against Dr. Bray.

These rhetorical techniques can be effective in that they can mislead people from the real issue and provide an opportunity to persuade people that the left is to blame even when the violence and threats are against people on the left (or center). The defense against this is easy: just ask yourself if the original issue or question has been addressed.  In this case, it has not. Ignoring right wing violence and blaming the left does not address the problem of right-wing violence. At this point someone who has heard of Dr. Bray might bring up the claim that he seems to have advocated violence and perhaps is reaping what he has sown. This takes us to the straw man technique.

In 2017 Dr. Bray appeared on Meet the Press and claimed that “when pushed, self-defense is a legitimate response to white supremacist and neo-Nazi violence.” For additional context, he added that “We’ve tried ignoring neo-Nazis in the past. We’ve seen how that turned out in the ’20s and ’30s.  A lot of people are under attack, and sometimes they need to be able to defend themselves. It’s a privileged position to say you never have to defend yourself from these kinds of monsters.” This view puts Dr. Bray in such radical company as the English philosopher John Locke. Locke presented a moral justification for self-defense that serves (knowingly or unknowingly) as the basis of moral arguments made for self defense by most Americans. Roughly put, because people have the God-given right to protect their life, liberty and property, they have the right to self-defense against unjustified attacks. If Dr. Bray had simply said “people have a right to defend themselves when attacked”, most Americans would be hard pressed to disagree with him. But he specified that this general right of self-defense would also apply to attacks from white supremacists and neo-Nazis and this triggered some of the right. As they also advocate self-defense, they had to mischaracterize his claims and use the straw man and present a distorted version of his claim.

The conservative site, Campus Reform, claimed he had “endorsed antifa’s violent protest tactics.” The President of Dartmouth at the time issued a statement that was also a straw man, saying Dr. Bray was “supporting violent protest.” Dr. Bray’s colleagues defended him by pointing out that Dr. Bray’s claim had been made into a straw man of his actual position.

Straw man tactics can be effective because they, by definition, contain a sliver of truth. Dr. Bray did advocate self-defense and did so in the context of defending against white supremacists and neo-Nazis. He also noted how peaceful efforts to resist such threats failed. But taking this to be advocating violent protest is like claiming that anyone advocating self-defense is thus advocating violence. While there is a sliver of truth, it ignores the full context and thus creates a strawman. As such, those who attack his view seem to be angry that someone would say that people being attacked by white-supremacists and Neo-Nazis have a right to self defense against their violence. This certainly helps explain why white-supremacists and Neo-Nazis would be mad at him.

As always, the defense against straw man tactics is to find the truth; although this is becoming increasingly difficult as independent journalism and fact checking is under ongoing and increasing attack.

Like almost everyone, I would prefer that there were far fewer abortions. While this might seem like a problematic claim, it is obviously true. People who oppose abortion obviously want there to be fewer abortions. However, those who are pro-choice are not pro-abortion. That is, they do not want abortions to occur as they would prefer that women did not end up in situations where they see abortion as the best or only option.

While I do not fall into the pro-life camp in terms of political labelling, I do take a position in favor of life. To be specific, I prefer to avoid killing whenever possible and I accept that killing anything is an act of some moral significance. In some case, the ethics of killing are easy: I have no issue with killing bacteria if they are working hard to kill me and I accept the need to kill other living things to use them as food. Meat and salad are both murder.

 In other cases, like abortion, the ethics are more complicated. After all, abortion involves killing a potential human being and this is clearly an act with great moral significance. Because I have a general opposition to killing, I have the obvious general opposition to abortion. However, I do accept that killing can be morally justified and believe this does apply to certain cases of abortion. As such, I favor reducing the number of abortions and support certain means of doing so. I do not, however, favor it being banned.

For those who follow abortion in American politics, the usual means of reducing abortions are aimed at making it harder for women to get abortions. Numerous states have passed laws requiring waiting periods and have imposed medically unwarranted restrictions on abortion clinics aimed at closing them. I am completely opposed to these means of reducing the number of abortions. While I have various reasons supporting my view, my main reason is that these approaches put the burden almost entirely on the woman. Roughly put, it is the woman who bears most of the cost of the moral and religious views of those who impose such restrictions. These costs can be extremely high and not only in terms of financial cost.

The moral foundation for my opposition to this method of reducing abortions is based on the fact that such imposition is unfair and the fact that this method imposes an extremely high cost on women and society. It is the wrong way to reduce the number of abortions. As such, I favor approaches that would reduce the number of abortions while distributing the cost more fairly and reducing the cost to women and society as a whole. To this end, I offer the following general proposals.

The first is doing what is required to reduce sexual violence against women as this would reduce the number of abortions and, rather importantly, make the world safer for women.

The second is to mandate effective and realistic sex education for the youth and make effective contraception readily accessible. If people have a better understanding of sex and have access to the means to prevent pregnancy, there will be fewer unwanted pregnancies and hence fewer abortions. This has other obvious benefits, although some people do oppose birth control for usually unexplained “religious” reasons.

The third is to provide greater social support for mothers and children. This would include such things as affordable day car for all working mothers, financial support for lower income mothers, and other support that would make raising a child less of a financial burden. This would reduce the number of abortions by making the choice to have the child more viable.

The third is to address the gender inequalities that burden women. These include wage inequality, the glass ceiling, and other such things that contribute to making it difficult for women to have a family and a career. This would lower the number of abortions by making being a woman and a mother less of a career handicap, thus giving women a greater opportunity to choose to continue an unplanned pregnancy.

There are, of course, some obvious objections against these proposals. The first is that doing so would require the use of public money. The “advantage” of the usual approaches is that they are initially free for the state and the cost is imposed upon the women. Such cost shifting is beloved by the morally shifty. As such, it comes down to the ethics of deciding who should bear the burden and cost. Being pro-life rather than anti-abortion, I hold that the cost should be shared and I am willing to pay a price for my principles rather than expecting others to bear that cost.

The second objection is that these approaches require some radical changes to society. Those who oppose fairness and prefer the “traditional” approach of oppressing and burdening women will find this problematic. However, they would be wrong about this and morally defending unfairness is rather challenging.

The third objection is that this approach will still allow abortions to occur as there is no proposal to impose new restrictions or ban abortion. My reply is that I do acknowledge that it would be preferable to have no abortions, just as it would be preferable to never have to harm anyone or anything ever. However, if it is accepted that a person’s interests can warrant harming another living being, then there are clear grounds for warranting abortion in many cases. As such, while I favor reducing the need for abortion, I cannot favor eliminating it, any more than I can support a total rejection of ever doing harm. I do, of course, recognize that such complete pacifism could be morally commendable and someone could consistently oppose all abortion if they embraced it.

As this is being written, the government of the United States is shut down. The Republicans, who control all three branches of the federal government, are blaming the Democrats. The Democrats currently have enough votes to prevent the Republicans from simply doing whatever they want but there is the question of why the Democrats are not simply rolling over for the Republicans.

The Democrats have claimed they want to extend the tax credits that make purchasing health insurance more affordable for those using the “Obamacare” marketplace. They also want to undo the Medicaid cuts in Trump’s “big bill.” Given the high cost of insurance premiums and how much people, especially those in many Republican states, depend on Medicaid, the Democrats’ goal seems morally commendable. The Republicans understand that saying they are shutting down the government because the Democrats want to help people afford health care would make them look bad, so they falsely claim that the “Democrats shut down the government because they want to give free health care to immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally.”

But people in the United States illegally are not eligible for federal health care programs, which obviously include the insurance provided by Obamacare and Medicaid. Hence, the Republicans in question are either in error or lying. But there is a small slice, a sliver, of truth embedded deep within these untruths.

From a rhetorical standpoint, this technique allows untruths to be “anchored” to a true claim. This can allow a deflection tactic to be used against critics by insisting that the critics are denying the true sliver when they are, in fact, criticizing the untruth. From a psychological perspective, this method might also allow people to feel better about lying as they can rationalize their lies by telling themselves they are saying something true. As Christianity condemns lying, anyone who professes to be a Christian might find this tactic useful, should they wish to deceive themselves and others. But, of course, God cannot be deceived. Morally this method is also problematic, since it involves both lying and attempting to misuse the truth as part of a deception. But what is the sliver of truth behind these untruths?

The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1986 requires hospitals that receive Medicaid funds to provide emergency care for which they are compensated (and rightly so) by Medicaid. A person in the United States illegally, but who meets the requirements of the act, can thus receive emergency medical treatment and the hospital providing the service can receive compensation from Medicaid. As such, by wanting to reverse the cuts to Medicaid the Democrats do want more funds to be available and a minute fraction of which might go to compensate an American hospital that treated someone here illegally. But this is required by a 1986 law from when Reagan was President, so blaming the Democrats for the shutdown because of this law would be absurd. Also, this act should be supported by any Christian who professes to be moved by the tale of the good Samaritan. From a non-religious perspective, it is also an ethical law. To let people suffer or die simply because of their legal status would be morally monstrous. It is also reasonable that the hospitals be compensated for these services, especially given how underfunded many community hospitals are. As such, it is also clear why Republicans are not focusing on this act and are instead offering straw man attacks on the Democrats.

Trump claimed that “We’ll probably have a shutdown because one of the things they want to do is they want to give incredible Medicare, Cadillac, the Cadillac Medicare, to illegal immigrants.” Then he added “they want to have illegal aliens come into our country and get massive health care at the cost to everybody else.” This claim was echoed by Vance and Mike Johnson. This is an obvious straw man, even laying aside that there is no such thing as Cadilac Medicare. But this is rhetorically effective move since it appeals to fears famously exploited by President Reagan that the wrong people are getting public money. This version has the added power of appealing to xenophobia; that people from somewhere else are taking what should be going to Americans.

While some people might believe the lies, even those who know better might still support the Republicans even if doing so would hurt them personally. Many Republicans rely on the tax credits, and many Republican states depend on Medicaid dollars. But there are those who are willing to hurt themselves if doing so hurts people they do not like. A good (or bad) example of this is how racism drained public pools, support for universal healthcare and other policies. Racism is a powerful force in the United States as is xenophobia; combining these two is an effective way to get some people to act against their own interest and thus hurt everyone. Which seems to be a goal of the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress, something that even MTG seems to recognize.

While all states allow concealed carry, most states forbid carrying guns on school grounds. Over the years, the Republican rulers of my adopted state of Florida have considered bills that would allow concealed carry on the campuses of the state’s public universities. Other states have already passed such laws. While there is the issue of whether this is a good idea, my focus is on professors who might refuse to allow guns in their classrooms and offices.

While I am not a lawyer, it is likely that professors lack the legal authority to impose such bans. Since I am not a lawyer, I will leave the legal matters to the experts. Instead, I will focus on the moral aspects of such bans.

One moral argument in favor of the professors is based on an assumption that they have the right to ban things they regard as morally offensive from their classrooms and offices. So, a professor who is morally opposed to guns could refuse to allow them. This is analogous to religious freedom arguments used to justify a business not providing coverage of contraception or denying services to same sex-couples. The idea in all these cases is that the moral interest of one person overrides that of another, thus justifying the rights of one person overriding that of another. In the case of guns, it is the right of the professor to teach and hold office hours in a gun-free environment that overrides the right of others to carry guns.

A reply to this argument, as can be used in the religious “freedom” cases, is that the right of the professor to restrict the right of students is not justified: their right to carry a weapon trumps the professor’s right to be in a weapon free zone. This would be somewhat like how the right of a same-sex couple to marry trumps the “right” of religious people to live in a country without same-sex marriage.

Another reply is to draw an analogy aimed at showing the absurdity of such a professorial ban. Imagine a professor who has a deep and abiding moral opposition to birth control and wants to ban them from her classroom and office. This includes birth control that is being “concealed” in the body (for example, a woman on the pill). While the professor cannot see it, she claims that its mere presence is morally intolerable to her.  But it would be absurd to claim that the professor has the right to ban the presence of birth control. A similar argument could be made with smart phones: a professor can forbid their use in class because they can be disruptive and be used to cheat, but they cannot refuse to allow students to have them. As such, professors do not seem to have the right to ban guns simply because they are morally offended by them.

A better moral argument is the safety argument: a professor could be concerned about people being shot (intentionally or accidentally). Some of my colleagues have claimed there would be a chilling effect if guns were allowed on campus: people might be afraid to discuss contentious issues out of fear of being shot. Some also considered that professors might be inclined to grade easier to avoid getting shot.

There are legitimate safety concerns about allowing guns on campus. However, there are two obvious points to consider. The first is that guns are already allowed in many places and people do not seem especially disinclined to engage in contentious discussions or to not do their jobs properly because someone might shoot them with a legally carried gun.  As such, unless campuses are simply special places, this concern does not warrant a special ban on campus carry. Put another away, if guns are allowed almost everywhere else, then without a relevant difference argument, they should be allowed on campuses. Secondly, as I point out to my colleagues, people can easily carry guns illegally on campus. If someone intends to kill a professor over a bad grade or a heated discussion (which has happened) they can just illegally bring a gun to campus to illegally shoot someone. In contrast with the prison style K-12 schools, college campuses are usually open places. A professor’s ban on guns would not provide a greater degree of safety, even if the professor was able to enforce such an almost certainly illegal ban.

Interesting, the state legislatures who pass concealed carry on campus laws almost always forbid people to bring guns to the legislature where they work. While this shows inconsistency, it does not show the law is wrong. It does, however, point towards a relevant difference argument: perhaps the campus is relevantly like the legislature. My view is that whatever arguments the state legislature advances for allowing guns on campus should also apply to carrying guns into the legislature. If they are worried they might be shot, then the same concern would apply to campuses and, one must think, everywhere else.

One stock argument against increasing taxes on the rich to address income inequality is a disincentive argument. The gist of the argument is that if taxes are raised on the rich, they will lose the incentive to invest, innovate, create jobs and so on.  Most importantly, in terms of income inequality, the consequences of this disincentive will have the greatest impact on those who are not rich. For example, it has been claimed that the job creators would create fewer jobs and pay lower wages if they were taxed more to address income inequality. As such, such a tax increase would be both harmful and self-defeating: the poor will be no better off than they were before (and perhaps even worse off). As such, there would seem to be good utilitarian moral grounds for not increasing taxes on the rich.

Naturally, there is the question of whether this disincentive effect is morally justifiable. If the rich retaliated from spite, then the moral argument would fall apart. While there would be negative consequences for such a tax increase, these consequences would be harms intentionally inflicted. In this scenario, not increasing taxes because of fear of retaliation would be morally equivalent to paying protection money so that criminals do not break things in one’s business or home. While there could be a practical reason to do this, the criminals would be acting immorally.

If the rich responded not from spite but because the tax increase was an unfair burden inflicted upon them, then the ethics of the situation would be different. To use an obvious analogy, if wealthy customers at a restaurant were forced to pay some of the bills for the poor customers, it would be hard to fault them for leaving smaller tips. While the matter of what counts as a fair tax is controversial, one approach would be to define unfairness in terms of the taxes cutting too much into what the person is entitled to based on their efforts, ability and productivity relative to what they owe the country. This seems reasonable in that it provides room for debate and does not beg any obvious questions (after all, the amount one owes one’s country could be nothing).

Interestingly, the fairness argument would also apply to workers in regard to their salary. When a worker produces value, the employer pays the worker some of that value and keeps some of it. What the employer keeps can be seen as analogous to the tax imposed by the state on the rich. As with the taxes on the rich, there is the question of what is fair to take from workers. Bringing in the disincentive argument, if it works to justify imposing only a fair tax on the rich, it will also do the same for the less rich. So, those who argue against raising taxes on the rich using the disincentive argument should also accept that workers should be paid in accord with the same principles used to judge how much income should be taken from the rich.

The obvious counter to this approach is to break the analogy between the two situations: this would involve showing that the rich differ from other people in relevant ways or that taking income by taxes is relevantly different from taking money from employees. The challenge is, of course, to show that the differences really are relevant.

Way back in 2016 Ammon Bundy and fellow “militia” members occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon as a protest of federal land use policies. Ammon Bundy is the son of Cliven Bundy, the rancher who was involved in another armed stand-off with the federal government. Cliven Bundy once owed the American taxpayers over $1 million for grazing his cattle on public land.  While the right usually condemns what they see as freeloading,  he became something of a hero for the right. While that itself is an interesting issue, my focus will be on discussing the ethics of protest through non-violent armed occupation.

Before getting to the main issue, I will anticipate some concerns about the discussion. First, I will not be addressing the merits of the 2016 Bundy protest. Bundy purported to be protesting against the tyranny of the federal government’s land-use policies. Some critics pointed out that Bundy benefitted from the federal government, something reminiscent of the infamous cry of “keep your government hands off my Medicare.” While the merit of the content of the protest is relevant to its moral status, my focus is on the general subject of occupation as a means of protest.

Second, I will not be addressing the criticism that if federal land were non-violently seized by people protesting Trump’s immigration policies, then the right’s response would be very different. While the subject of race and protest is important, it is not my focus here. I now turn to the matter of protesting via non-violent armed occupation.

The use of illegal occupation is an established means of protest in the United States and was used during the civil rights movement. But, of course, an appeal to tradition is a fallacy, the mere fact that something is well-established does not entail it is justified. As such, an argument is needed to morally justify occupation as a means of protest.

One argument for occupation as a means of protest is that protestors do not give up their rights simply because they are engaged in a protest. If they wish to engage in their protest where they would normally have the right to be, then it would seem to follow that they should be allowed to protest there.

One obvious reply to this argument is that people do not automatically have the right to engage in protest in all places they have a right to visit. For example, a public library is open to the public, but it does not follow that people thus have a right to occupy a public library and interfere with its operation. This is because the act of protest would violate the rights of others in a way that would seem to justify forbidding the protest.

People also protest in areas that are not normally open to the public or whose use by the public is restricted. This would include privately owned areas as well as public areas that have restrictions. In the case of the Bundy protest, public facilities are being occupied. However, Bundy and his fellows used the area in a way that would normally not be allowed. People cannot, in the normal course of things, just take up residence in public buildings. This can also be regarded as a conflict of rights, the right of protest versus the right of private ownership or public use.

These replies can be overcome by showing that the protest does more good than harm or by showing that the right to protest outweighs the rights of others to use the occupied area.  After all, forbidding protests simply because they might be inconvenient or annoy people would be absurd. However, accepting protests regardless of the imposition on others would also be absurd. Being a protestor does not grant a person special rights to violate the rights of others, so a protestor who engages in such behavior would be acting wrongly and the protest would thus be morally wrong. After all, if rights are accepted to justify a protest, then this provides a foundation for accepting the rights of those who would be imposed upon by it. If the protester who is protesting tyranny becomes a tyrant to others, then the protest loses its moral foundation.

This provides the theoretical framework for assessing whether the Bundy protest was morally acceptable or not: it is a matter of weighing the merit of the protest against the harm done to the rights of other citizens (especially those in the surrounding community). The same applies to other protests by occupation.

The above assumes a non-violent occupation like civil disobedience of the sort discussed by Thoreau. That is, non-violently breaking the rules (or law) in an act of disobedience intended to bring about change. This approach was also adopted by Gandhi and Dr. King. Bundy  added a new factor while the occupation began as peaceful, the “militia” on the site was well armed. They claimed the weapons were for self-defense, which indicates that the “militia” was willing to escalate from non-violent (but armed) to violent occupation in response to the alleged tyranny of the federal government. This leads to the matter of the ethics of armed resistance as a means of protest.

Modern political philosophy does provide justification of such resistance. John Locke, for example, emphasized the moral responsibilities of the state in regard to the good of the people. That is, he does not simply advocate obedience to whatever the laws happen to be but requires that the laws and the leaders prove worthy of obedience. Laws or leaders that are tyrannical are not to be obeyed but are to be defied and justly so. He provides the following definition of “tyranny”: “Tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right, which nobody can have a right to.  And this is making use of the power anyone has in his hands, not for the good of those who are under it, but for his own private separate advantage.” When the state is acting in a tyrannical manner, it can be justly resisted, at least on Locke’s view. As such, Bundy does have a clear theoretical justification for armed resistance. However, for this justification to be actual, it would need to be shown that federal land use policies are tyrannical to a degree that warrants the use of violence as a means of resistance.

Consistency does, of course, require that the framework be applied to all relevantly similar cases of protests, be they non-violent occupations or armed resistance.  Be they about land use or immigration policy.