tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post4393365487932892970..comments2024-03-19T07:48:54.021-06:00Comments on Gus Van Horn: Faith and XenophobiaGus Van Hornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-17630797754615173152008-01-15T08:03:00.000-06:002008-01-15T08:03:00.000-06:00Jim,Excellent point. You have just made explicit l...Jim,<BR/><BR/>Excellent point. You have just made explicit lots of things that underly (and I see that I was assuming in) my argument that "living somewhere" does not equal "being a voter".Gus Van Hornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-67661428252991318542008-01-14T23:41:00.000-06:002008-01-14T23:41:00.000-06:00I don't blame it on the "mere fact" that people mo...<I>I don't blame it on the "mere fact" that people moved to the UK. However, the best system for protecting individual rights can't prevent millions of new voters from undoing that system.</I><BR/><BR/>Yes it can. It uses something called a "constitution" which constrains the power of government (including the vote) to certain narrow applications. Voters are only dangerous in a democracy, not a free society.<BR/><BR/>Of course, enough immigrants could simply overthrow such a free government, but how huge a buildup that would need to be -- and how deep a sleep the people would have to be to let it come to such a pass. Free societies would have many built-in protections that would kick in long before that could ever arise -- the right to think (recognize the danger), to speak (warn people), to associate (don't hire or associate with the belligerents except on proper terms) and to bear arms (to protect and/or re-establish the civil order). And the government of such a society, with no shortage of its own weapons, certainly wouldn't be sitting there like a duck paralyzed by multi-culturalist dogmas while all this goes on...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-74329242499392633482008-01-09T10:26:00.000-06:002008-01-09T10:26:00.000-06:00Thank you for pointing me to John Locke's argument...Thank you for pointing me to John Locke's argument for religious tolerance.<BR/><BR/>It is interesting how its basis, skepticism, is flimsy enough that it now is used by many multiculturalists to justify tolerating barbaric behavior on the part of Moslems.<BR/><BR/>How dare we claim to know, after all, that their behavior is uncivilized!Gus Van Hornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-78894270905921251232008-01-09T08:11:00.000-06:002008-01-09T08:11:00.000-06:00In England, one of the founders of the 17th Centur...In England, one of the founders of the 17th Century movement for political tolerance of religious differences (among Protestants, at least!) was John Locke.<BR/><BR/>The rationale he offered is based partly on skepticism. In his 1689 <I>Essay Concerning Human Understanding</I>, Book IV, Ch. XVI, sec. 4, he says (with my annotations for greater clarity, I hope): <BR/><BR/>"The necessity of believing [in a religious doctrine, for example], without [rigorously proven] Knowledge, nay often upon very slight grounds, in this fleeting state of Action and Blindness we are in, should make us more busy and careful to inform our selves, than constrain others."<BR/><BR/>(Using his capitalization, spelling and punctuation.)<BR/><BR/>His skepticism in epistemology and two-worldism in ontology show up in phrases such as: "this fleeting state of Action and Blindness."<BR/><BR/>This wasn't his whole argument for rights, but this passage shows that the foundations of tolerance rested historically at least partly in skepticism, the sister of faith. <BR/><BR/>Kant (<I>Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals</I>) and his progeny, such as John Rawls (<I>Theory of Justice</I>), use essentially the same argument: We must respect others because they stand obscurely behind a veil of (our) ignorance. We can't know what they are really like, in their souls, so we need to be fair to everyone.Burgess Laughlinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13865479709475171678noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-54032277930291186282008-01-09T07:46:00.000-06:002008-01-09T07:46:00.000-06:00An immigrant, as such, is not a voter--unless the ...An immigrant, as such, is not a voter--unless the state makes the immigrant a voter and the immigrant actually votes. Voters are citizens. No state has an obligation to make all immigrants citizens.<BR/><BR/>To claim fear of voters as justification for rejecting open immigration of peaceful, honest, responsible individudals (thus attacking immigrants' and their employers' rights) is to create a straw man argument--a fallacy.Burgess Laughlinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13865479709475171678noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-54384032118112485682008-01-09T07:41:00.000-06:002008-01-09T07:41:00.000-06:00You have missed the following point: You have to b...You have missed the following point: You have to be a citizen before you vote. Being careful about whom you make a citizen (and not systematically bribing irrational voters via the welfare state) is how you prevent what you describe from happening. (In addition to successfully passing on one's culture. But this last isn't the job of the government.)<BR/><BR/>Curtailing immigration is, at best a short-term slowing-down of a descent into tyranny. The real problem remains that the general public does not grasp individual rights well enough to elect a proper government. In a sense, they don't need "help" from Moslems.Gus Van Hornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-2697144785266327972008-01-09T07:22:00.000-06:002008-01-09T07:22:00.000-06:00I don't blame it on the "mere fact" that people mo...I don't blame it on the "mere fact" that people moved to the UK. However, the best system for protecting individual rights can't prevent millions of new voters from undoing that system.Neil Parillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11074901258306769278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-35911225787789048072008-01-09T07:06:00.000-06:002008-01-09T07:06:00.000-06:00First, open immigration, which I advocate, is not ...First, open immigration, which I advocate, is not the same thing as simply granting citizenship to any and all comers. (I do not know whether the British include members of the Commonwealth as citizens or have very lax requirements for citizenship, but I regard the question of whom to make a citizen is an integral part of open immigration.)<BR/><BR/>Second, Britain's huge welfare state lured many of these immigrants in the first place and sustains many of them now.<BR/><BR/>Britain may have doomed itself already, but the blame rests on statism and a general failure to make the country hostile to militant Islam by protyecting individual rights, not the mere fact that people moved into Great Britain.Gus Van Hornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-29694056935616580102008-01-09T06:01:00.000-06:002008-01-09T06:01:00.000-06:00Gus,You talk about "the inordinate fear of immigra...Gus,<BR/><BR/>You talk about "the inordinate fear of immigration," but the very situation mentioned here arose because of immigration. Second, if the UK had open borders, it could conceivablly become Moslem in our lifetime.<BR/><BR/>Yes a better case for freedom could be made, but millions of new voters would overwhelm any gradual change in outlook by British intellectuals.Neil Parillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11074901258306769278noreply@blogger.com