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Thursday, June 02, 2005
Niches And Infestations
Mark Alger's citation of a Kim Du Toit essay got your Curmudgeon thinking about the eco-dynamics that pertain to ideological disaffection from American principles -- in other words, the enabling conditions for the mindset that underlies treason.
Be warned, Gentle Reader: you won't like what you're about to read.
You don't have to be a biologist to learn many useful things from simple observance of the living world. Your Curmudgeon has learned a great deal from watching stagnant pools of water. In any temperate climate, a standing pool that endures for sufficiently long will be infested by mosquitoes. Men may poison the pool to eliminate the nuisance, but the relief will be temporary. Eventually the poisons will break down, or a new generation of immune larvae will come to maturity, and the mosquitoes will return. The only long-term solution is to destroy the enabling conditions: that is, to drain the pool.
This is a special case of an unprovable but as-yet-unrefuted theorem, which your Curmudgeon will call the Law of the Niche:
Stagnant pools of water in temperate or warmer climates are well suited to the natures of mosquitoes. To expect that mosquitoes will not infest some particular pool is to bet against very long odds.
Paralleling that observation is another conjecture, equally unprovable but also not yet refuted, concerning the stability of natural law:
These theorems have theological implications which your Curmudgeon will defer to a future Sunday Rumination. (That Fran person is better at the religious stuff, anyway.) For our current purposes, it is edifying to note how nicely these ecological laws generalize to the realm of ideology and social stability.
Totalitarianism -- that form of statist oppression which claims the privilege of regulating all things in all their aspects -- is always threatened worst by the same mechanism: the black market. Totalitarian states cannot resist the regulation of human production and exchange; it's why they arise in the first place. But such regulation can only be of two kinds:
- It exactly replicates the desires and behavior of free men in a free market;
- It doesn't.
Case 1 is inconceivable; why bother to regulate, then? Case 2 creates the incentives that call forth the midnight merchant and the covert consumer, and causes them to seek one another. No power on Earth can prevent their convergence; this has been as well demonstrated in practice as any proposition in the social sciences.
In other words, the totalitarian state is a niche well suited to the black marketeer. It's no distortion of the language to say that the totalitarian state is doomed to infestation by black marketeers. We may confidently predict their appearance as soon as the guard towers go up. Because totalitarian states are always economically underpowered, their fate at the hands of the black marketeers is assured. Their fall might come sooner or later, according to the degree of privation their masters are willing to enforce and their subjects are willing to endure, but fall they most certainly will.
The free state -- that form of government which attempts to keep order and maintain justice with only minimal interferences in private pursuits -- is always threatened worst by the same mechanism: individuals' freedom to advocate that the state compromise its premises in favor of statism. It's always possible to point to some situation that many would consider undesirable and characterize it as a crisis that requires state action. If the state should act, afterward it's always possible simultaneously to claim that improvements have come about thereby, but that still worse crises loom ahead unless the relevant organs of coercion are enlarged and potentiated further.
Thus, government in a free society, whose structure and operating principles are founded upon popular consensus, offers a niche to the flacksters of power politics that will inevitably call them forth. They will infest a free state quite as naturally as black marketeers infest a totalitarian state, or as mosquitoes infest a stagnant pond; it offers precisely those conditions they require to flourish and reproduce. Historically, they've destroyed many a (largely) free society, simply by insisting -- and persisting.
It doesn't matter where they come from. Some will be "natives" who latch onto a Cause for reasons plain or obscure. Others will be foreign opportunists attracted to vulnerable prey. Once established, they present a great danger to the free republic. The worst aspect of that danger is the Law of the Niche, which tempts us to eliminate the niche in the name of ending the statist flacksters' assaults.
It's critical that Americans' understand that infestation by aspiring dictators is an unintended yet inevitable consequence of freedom. It's equally critical that we resolve not to compromise our freedom simply to be rid of them; that's precisely what they want.
We appear to be caught on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand, tolerating the promotion of statist ideas that clash with our libertarian Constitutional foundation exposes us to the danger that they might be adopted. On the other, forcibly suppressing the promotion of such ideas would be an overt violation of our own most cherished principles, which would lead us directly down the path the statists want us to tread. What, then, must we do?
It starts with labeling.
Treason is a harsh word, disagreeable to use and much worse to be tarred with. But it possesses the distinction of being the one and only criminal offense explicitly defined in our Constitution:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. [Article III, Section 3.]
The stipulation that treason must be made manifest by an overt act removes words, whether spoken, written, or cast upon the airwaves, from the domain of the offense. That would be required by Amendment I anyway. But that's not the same as saying that a statement cannot be conducive to treason, analogously to "an incitement to riot." One whose words or proposals imply the deliberate undermining of our Constitutional foundation, though he's not committing treason, is most certainly advocating it -- and good Americans must be willing to say so.
If the notion is unpleasant, how much worse is the offense? If one is discouraged by the prospect of confrontation with a hairy-eyed statist of whatever description, how much worse would he be discommoded if that statist were to sway enough of our fellows to get his way?
Our normally laudable desire not to give unnecessary offense must sometimes give way to the needs of self-defense and the defense of our republic.
Labeling, though important, is insufficient unless one's use of the label is perfectly comprehensible to those who hear it. Unfortunately, in our present day, to say, "This man is advocating treason, because what he proposes is at odds with our Constitution," is to beg the question, "But why? How does our Constitution clash with his idea?"
Most of the time, simply having read the document would prevent the question from being asked...but most Americans have never read it, and have only the vaguest idea what's in it. Statist flacksters have waged an extended campaign to bring this prevalent ignorance about. It's why they prize their hold over the Old Media and the government-run schools.
Some years ago, author Robert Ringer exhorted his readers to buy great quantities of his libertarian tract Restoring The American Dream and distribute it widely. He subsidized that effort out of his own pocket, and was assisted by such organizations as the Advocates for Self-Government. But Ringer's proposal, though generous, was a level removed from the basic necessity. Before they're tempted to delve into the admittedly difficult waters of libertarianism, Americans must first grasp the basis upon which our country was organized: the Constitution of the United States.
The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) has for some time made available a "pocket" Constitution, including all the other founding documents of our nation. It's priced at a dollar or two, and is excellently well suited to mass purchase and distribution. Your Curmudgeon suggests that we ought to make that little book our constant companion, and perhaps carry a couple of extra copies to be given away when the occasion warrants it.
Yes, there are traitors, and advocates of treason, within our walls, just as Kim Du Toit has said. But the threat they pose our society arises not merely from the obscenities they propose, but also from the temptation we face to abridge our freedom just to be rid of them. They flowed into the niche we offer precisely because we are free. To destroy that niche simply to be rid of the infestation is a danger no less than the shackles they hope to fasten upon us.
Theirs is a long-term campaign. Ours must be no less. Prepare yourself.
Comments
"Our normally laudable desire not to give unnecessary offense must sometimes give way to the needs of self-defense and the defense of our republic.”
I suspect the problem there is failure to contemplate the importance of the word “unnecessary” in that. For if giving offense to some is a side effect of the protection of liberty, I would consider it very much _necessary_ indeed.
Posted by Matt on 06/03/2005 at 01:20 AMThe stipulation that treason must be made manifest by an overt act removes words, whether spoken, written, or cast upon the airwaves, from the domain of the offense.
I realize this is the heart upon which your argument rests, Francis, but I’m not certain it is true.
I believe that the transmission of words can be an overt act of treason. If spies - say, the Rosenbergs - speaks top secrets to the enemies of the nation, are they not committing treason?
If a newspaper publishes top secret data that aids our enemies, is that not treason? Yes, I understand the doctrine of no prior restraint, but nothing in that doctrine I am aware of prevents a charge of treason after the fact of publishing.
There is, I am certain, some sort of line between publishing news that aids our enemies but is covered by the First, news that isn’t covered by the First, and opinion that aids our enemies but would be covered by the first.
But I don’t think that line is a bright, clear one.
By the way, I can’t see your protective code word in Firefox, only in IEX.
Posted by Bill Quick on 06/05/2005 at 03:04 PM
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