She writes,

The central political problem for conservatives is maintaining virtue; for liberals equality; and for libertarians liberty — or avoiding government tyranny.

She argues against Tyler Cowen’s view that a culture that encourages individual gun ownership goes along with a culture of military adventurism. One point that she could have made is that many of our military adventures have been launched under Democratic Administrations, and those also tend to support gun control.

Recall that the three choices were:

a) I would be concerned that Muslim intolerance of non-Muslims threatens our way of life.

b) I would be concerned that backlash against Muslims will get worse, empowering radicals and provoking more conflict.

c) I would be concerned that the media will blow the incident out of proportion and that politicians will use it as an excuse to expand surveillance, restrict gun rights, or restrict immigration.

Yes, (a) is meant to reflect the Conservative civilization-barbarism axis, (b) is meant to reflect the Progressive oppressor-oppressed axis, and (c) is meant to reflect the Libertarian freedom-coercion axis. However, note that I use the three-axes model to characterize people’s preferred language. People’s thinking is more complex.

That said, I would allocate my own chips this way:

a) 30 b) 10 c) 59

Explanation:

1. Because there are reasonable people who would favor each of the three choices, I do not think it would be wise for me to put less than 10 chips on any one choice.

2. I find choice (c) most compelling. What do media do other than blow incidents out of proportion? What do politicians do other than take advantage of Fear Of Others’ Liberty (FOOL) to expand their coercive powers? Incentives dictate such behavior.

3. I think that many libertarians would rank (b) higher than (a). I imagine that the “liberaltarian” types would. Those libertarians who are descended from Rothbard might want to put a lot of chips on (b). You will find some who fault the U.S. for the Cold War and perhaps even for its role in WWII.

4. Choosing between (a) and (b) depends on what type of error we might be making about “the other.” Usually, you err on the side of thinking that “the other” is worse than what it really is. The accounting people think that the marketing people are out to screw the company, and the marketing people think the same of the accounting people, when both are just doing their jobs as best they can. So I think that looking at the most probable error, (b) wins over (a).

But what if radical Muslims really are like Nazis? Most Muslims are not radicals, but did it help that most Germans were not Nazis? Even if it is unlikely that we are under-estimating the Muslim threat, the consequences of making that mistake could be quite dire. So my own inclination is to weight (a) more than (b). In terms of the axes, I suppose I am more susceptible to civilization-barbarism language than to oppressor-oppressed language.

5. I can understand someone putting the majority of their chips on (b), but I would not trust a progressive who puts 90 or more of their chips on (b). To go that far toward denying the validity of (a) and (c) strikes me as dogmatic. Ironically, a progressive who did put 90+ chips on (b) probably would think of himself or herself as showing superior nuance and sophistication. And, yes, I worry that the President is one of those. And, yes, I also would worry about a President who puts 90+ chips on (a), or even on (c).

Imagine that there is another San Bernardino. This might raise a number of concerns. Three of these concerns are listed below. Decide which ones matter the most to you. Mentally, take 99 chips and place them on the concerns. You could put all 99 on one concern, or you could spread them in varying amounts among the three. You cannot put less than 0 chips on any option. You cannot add a fourth option or modify the wording of the three options. If you don’t like the game, then you don’t have to play.

a) I would be concerned that Muslim intolerance of non-Muslims threatens our way of life.

b) I would be concerned that backlash against Muslims will get worse, empowering radicals and provoking more conflict.

c) I would be concerned that the media will blow the incident out of proportion and that politicians will use it as an excuse to expand surveillance, restrict gun rights, or restrict immigration.

In the comment section, just say how you allocated your chips and how well your allocation lines up with where you see yourself on the three-axes model.* Please do not add other comments. Please do not leave multiple comments. On Sunday, I will give my own answers in the comment section and perhaps add a post with further remarks.

*If you are not familiar with the three-axes model, just say that. If you want to become familiar with it, you can look at previous posts in the category (scroll down to get to older posts) or get the Kindle edition of the book.

Danielle Pletka wrote,

contrary to those waxing nostalgic for Saddam or swooning over Egypt’s Sisi, perhaps next time we can recall that it is these dictators that have spawned the extremist opposition that now threatens Americans and Europeans at home. Isn’t the right answer a more robust form of autonomy and federalism, in which groups that aim for self government have some hope of achieving it? Isn’t the answer a group of federalized, representative governments that allocates shared resources justly, rather than on the basis of ethnic and sectarian cronyism?

She wrote that before the Paris attacks, but those reinforced her views. I see elements of wishful thinking there, but that is hard to avoid when coming up with an endgame for the Middle East that sounds positive.

Suppose that the people in the Middle East are not capable of moving to her preferred endgame at the moment. We might want to think through the pros and cons of a different endgame, or midgame: an American military protectorate in what are now the most disorderly parts of the region. Instead of providing asylum to refugees in the United States, we would provide asylum in place.

There would be no democracy under this protectorate. However, the American military rulers would respect individual rights, including property rights. The protectorate would be run using what I call the Basic Social Rule: reward cooperators, punish defectors. If you show that you want to live in peace and work for a living, you are a cooperator. Otherwise, you are not.

There is a joke that what Israel and the Palestinians need are three states: one for the Jews, one for the Palestinians, and one for the people who want to kill each other. The truth hidden in the joke is that the vast majority of people just want to live their lives. The goal of the protectorate is to protect such people from the militants who want to kill for their ideology. The latter would be killed or deported from the areas under the protectorate.
Continue reading →

Jonathan S. Tobin makes the case that big cities are experiencing a crime wave, in part because of delegitimization of police.

This may or may not be true. However, I think it does reflect the views of those who think in terms of the civilization vs. barbarism axis.

I think that recent developments in the Middle East, starting with the behavior of Hamas during the Gaza war and continuing with the behavior of ISIS, have struck a nerve among those inclined toward the civilization vs. barbarism axis.

Even if you do not believe that conservatives are right, you have to acknowledge that the news cycle suggests that we are in a civilization vs. barbarism wave. In my opinion, that is why Rand Paul is doing so poorly in the polls. You can criticize him as a candidate, but it is hard to argue that the other candidates are so stellar that they outshine him. I just think that the public is more receptive to the conservative axis than to the libertarian axis. This may always be true, but it is particularly true now.

Handle, who is a popular commenter here, wrote a long essay on this post.

I’ll start with my outline/interpretation of Handle’s comment, and then reproduce the comment.

1. Political movements need to coordinate. This requires simplifying messaging. (This may explain why my three-axes model seems to work. While there may be all sorts of subtle nuances to individuals’ thinking, it is easiest for progressives to signal to one another by invoking the oppressor-oppressed axis, or for conservatives to signal using the civilization-barbarism axis, or for libertarians to signal using the freedom-coercion axis.)

2. In a complex world, this sort of simplification can have adverse consequences if one group becomes dominant and tries to cram every issue into its simple framework. We are better off in a society where no one ideological framework takes over.

3. However, the progressive movement seems dominant today. The more that the progressive agenda becomes implemented, the more damage it will cause. Paradoxically, this will lead progressives to become more adamant and less tolerant of dissent.

If you combine Sanders and Warren, what you get is socialism combined with demonization and intimidation of anyone who does not support left-wing views. This is the country that the Democratic left wants to live in?

I take this as a rhetorical question to try and make mainstream elite democrats, who would not be comfortable admitting that they side with Socialist bullies, a little ashamed of not speaking up against them and of belonging to a party increasingly characterized by those types of characters and behaviors.

However, I think the accurate and unfortunate answer is ‘yes’ for a good portion of Democrats, and the reasonable, enlightened and moderate folks for whom the answer is ‘no’, still have no desire or ability to resist it.

Which raises the question as to why that should be, which I think is the most important question about social-psychological dynamics of our era, especially since it could give us some insight into how the near future will unfold.

Please allow me to speculate a little on it. Continue reading →

The crisis du jour is once again aligning people along the three-axis model. The freedom-coercion axis says that borders should be open. The oppressor-oppressed axis says that people fleeing Syria are oppressed, and anyone who would keep them out is evil. The civilization-barbarism axis says that European countries that take in large numbers of refugees are committing cultural suicide. Just one of many examples in this genre:

Few intend or desire to adapt to European society. They may want to ride Europe’s gravy train, but by and large they feel contempt for its values. Many scorn Christians and Jews. They reject freedom of speech and religion. Most openly subjugate women and think that homosexuals should perish. Yet to hear Europe’s political class talk, accepting these newcomers and many more like them constitutes a moral test for liberal and Christian principles.

The author goes on to cite Gibbon on how Rome succumbed to barbarians.

My guess is that:

1. Most of those who support allowing more migration from the Middle East live in affluent neighborhoods.

2. Wherever the migrants from the Middle East end up, it will not be in affluent neighborhoods.

Libertarians should not be so quick to align with progressives on this issue. Be as suspicious about government involvement in “solving” the crisis as you are about government’s role in enforcing borders.

Imagine the decisions about taking in Middle Easterners being made by individuals, rather than by government. That is, imagine that it were up to individual households to take them in.

Or imagine that refugee resettlement had to be funded entirely through private donations. What if the political leaders doing their moral posturing on behalf of refugees had no access to taxpayer money. Instead, suppose that they had to contribute their own money or money that they raised through private charity.

Summarizing a paper by two sociologists, he writes,

The key idea is that the new moral culture of victimhood fosters “moral dependence” and an atrophying of the ability to handle small interpersonal matters on one’s own. At the same time that it weakens individuals, it creates a society of constant and intense moral conflict as people compete for status as victims or as defenders of victims.

The paper is by Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning.

To me, this just sounds like what I call the oppressor-oppressed axis in the three-axes model.* With college campuses dominated by progressives, you would expect them to see things in terms of oppressors and oppressed. But I am not sure that the rest of American culture is going to go this way.

*Well, I’ll be darned. They cite The Three Languages of Politics. They say, though, that non-progressives are starting to use oppressor-oppressed terminology. That may be true (as when one complains that academic life is prejudiced against conservatives), but ultimately I think you have to stick to a different axis to remain a conservative or libertarian.

The authors claim that what preceded our current culture was a culture of individual dignity. Haidt quotes the authors,

Members of a dignity culture, on the other hand, would see no shame in appealing to third parties, but they would not approve of such appeals for minor and merely verbal offenses. Instead they would likely counsel either confronting the offender directly to discuss the issue, or better yet, ignoring the remarks altogether.

Ron Bailey offers a succinct description of the earlier transition from an honor culture to a dignity culture.

In honor cultures, people (men) maintained their honor by responding to insults, slights, violations of rights by self-help violence. Generally honor cultures exist where the rule of law is weak. In honor cultures, people protected themselves, their families, and property through having a reputation for swift violence. During the 19th century, most Western societies began the moral transition toward dignity cultures in which all citizens were legally endowed with equal rights. In such societies, persons, property, and rights are defended by recourse to third parties, usually courts, police, and so forth, that, if necessary, wield violence on their behalf. Dignity cultures practice tolerance and are much more peaceful than honor cultures.

The “honor culture” reminds me a bit of The Rule of the Clan and Mark Weiner’s view that it is the alternative to a strong state.

I would give the paper the Cowenian caveat: “speculative”