I suppose it is relevant that he was not of the later, babes-in-the-woods generations of innocent liberals. His only comment of which I am aware about his military experience in WWII was that no one could have failed to be affected, which was a very characteristic way to put it.
Michael Bérubé makes this point on pp. 238-239 of What's Liberal about the Liberal Arts?, noting people are prone to
a severe underreading of what it means for Rawls to say that there can be "no discourse" with Hitler. Don't let the language of "discourse" and "argument" fool you: when we decide that someone is "a figure outside the conversation," we might, in fact, be providing grounds for imprisoning or killing him, on the grounds that he advocates--or is actually conducting--genocide. There is nothing flabby about this. Liberals, even liberals friendly to some of the theses of postmodernism, can kill you. But they are duty-bound to exhaust every other rational remedy first, and then to determine that the incommensurability facing them is not merely non-negotiable but deadly. This is not just another prescription for more liberal seminar chatter; the deliberation that the other party is a deadly enemy and an imminent threat may take millennia or milliseconds. But you are not compelled to go on talking--either in the mode of Habermas or the mode of Jules and Vincent [yes, of Pulp Fiction; there was a whole thing]--with someone bent on your extermination.
Gadamer had thoughts about this too, and history has considered him sufficiently anti-Nazi though even if not in a punching way, but I'm too sick to look for references now.
Mote-beam, know thyself, jesus people yo just can't stop
Damn we are so nice, our very niceness in itself, forces us to just exterminate the brutes.
Liberalism: the limited liability philosophy. Not our fault, their fault!
Not our fault even if we kill them. They weren't developing Illinois or South Dakota anyway. Can't talk to savages.
Are you ever going to look in the mirror?
Better than searching for the liberal justifications of murder and genocide, god that is so easy, you have hundreds of years of profound thought to pull from...
...why not imagine that a moral, an ethical response, a response that is selfish or rationalizing or self-serving or flattering, to the unassimilable other...
...is to just die?
I'm confused. Are liberals worse than Nazis, or just as bad?
Also, where do zombie Nazis fit into your analysis?
You in particular, bob, might think what the application of this principle to internet communities said, and then you might piss off. Thanks!
Nazis are a direct existential threat to me and my relatives. There is solid evidence for that. Punching holes all the way through them is nothing I need anyone's approval for.
5 is missing a "not" as in "that is not selfish...etc"
You really don't get it at all, cannot imagine anyone objecting to or being outraged by the post. It's amazing.
Signed, pissed off.
OT: So at some point it would be good to have a thread on Trump's SCOTUS pick Neil Gorsuch.
In particular, I'd like some insight into Chevron deference. Much of the coverage of this with respect to Gorsuch that I've encountered -- e.g. those arguing that Gorsuch is against it and that's good (for reasons that can be spelled out), vs. those claiming that he's against it and that's bad -- seem to suppose that Chevron deference is an all or nothing affair. As though it's a RULE.
It's not, is it? My understanding had been that deference means that in some cases before the court(s), deference to executive agencies is called for, and sometimes it isn't.
Actually, never mind. I need to read more about this first.
I kind of thought the last sentence of the OP would have headed off the need for 7. Fallen times, alas.
Generally, it's a rule that administrative agencies are understood to have specialized expertise and therefore interpretive power over the laws they are empowered to administer.
This
in some cases before the court(s), deference to executive agencies is called for, and sometimes it isn't
would be radically weakened deference, where courts decide whether to defer to the agency or not.
10.last: probably best that you read more, but in the meantime: the point is that the deference is, not absolute, but extremely prejudicial. Unless there's evidence that the agency disregarded the legislation or is otherwise acting perversely, it's their call. Nitpicky arguments about whether some alternate regulation would have also met the legislative intent are dismissed as irrelevant. Obviously at some point there's overreach (The EPA has used the Clean Water Act to take jurisdiction over every watershed in America), but you need to prove gross departure from legislative intent; in the absence of such evidence, the agency rules.
ok, thanks. I'm not sure why "prejudicial" is an appropriate term.
My concern about arguments that deference should be overturned is that some of them, anyway -- forwarded by those of right-leaning persuasion, chiefly -- and at least, those I've run into today -- are suggesting that rules put forward by unelected, 'politically unaccountable' policy-makers (i.e. agencies) should take a back seat to the judgment of those who are politically accountable (i.e. elected members of Congress).
That narrative runs entirely counter to what someone like Ian Millhiser is explaining about the impact of overturning Chevron:
Additionally, Chevron recognized that agencies have democratic legitimacy that courts do not. "While agencies are not directly accountable to the people," Justice Stevens acknowledged, "the Chief Executive is." Thus, "it is entirely appropriate for this political branch of the Government" to make policy choices, rather than leave the matter to judges with no accountability to the electorate.
Yet Gorsuch, in 2016 concurring opinion in Gutierrez-Brizuela v. Lynch, claimed that Chevron "seems more than a little difficult to square with the Constitution of the framers' design." Instead of deferring to agencies, Gorsuch would have judges make their own judgments about with regulations should stay and which should go.
On the surface, this may seem like an apolitical viewpoint. Gorsuch wants to consolidate more power in the branch of government he happens to belong to and reduce the power of another, elected branch.
Off to read more.
I'm taking it that those arguing that agencies are politically unaccountable busy-bodies are engaging in bad faith arguments, attempting to muddy the waters.
Getting rid of Chevron deference doesn't mean giving more power to Congress, it means giving more power to judges. The only limit on Congress's power to control the agencies now is time and attention: there is a human limit on how specific and particular laws can be, and so laws are necessarily fairly general, and the details are worked out in the agencies. In the absence of Chevron deference, Congress doesn't have any more power than it ever did, because it still can't do all the fine-grained regulatory work. But any judge can destroy any regulatory scheme whimsically.
I'm trying to picture Scalia doing something with whimsy, but failing.
Scalia was whimsical af, dude. Awful, but he thought he was a comedian.
Maybe I can't tell him from Rehnquist?
Scalia was the squatty Italian guy flipping you off. Rehnquist was a tall Germanic looking dude designing himself more exciting-looking judicial robes.
You know who else designed himself a more exciting-looking work uniform?
17: The only limit on Congress's power to control the agencies now is time and attention
Except for the pending REINS Act and the Midnight Rules Relief Act, extensions of the Congressional Review Act. About which I have gone on. (Chevron deference is the least of it.)
Just so we're clear: I'm concerned about the balance of power between and among the 3 branches of government. The elephant in the room, if you will.
I'm not sure what you mean by describing acts of Congress as limits on the powers of Congress. Those aren't limits, that's Congress exercising its powers.
Sorry, I spoke badly. I was really responding to this:
In the absence of Chevron deference, Congress doesn't have any more power than it ever did
That's what my mention of the REINS Act etc. was about. Sorry -- just trying to read too many things at once here. Over and out.
So long as they leave Skidmore deference intact!
If you have one of these shields does it confer on you Nazi-punching impunity?
Is this Gorsuch related to the conservative (Reagan's?) EPA director?
27: Congress always has the power to go back and specifically overrule a specific agency decision. But they can't say, "Agencies can only do what we say", because that's nonsensical: you would get Amelia Bedelia results ("You said 'announce to the public', so we opened a window and shouted it out.").
They can try to write laws that say that, but it always leads back to court, and Chevron says that, in every (inevitable) ambiguity, agency expertise is presumed correct.
From the famous album Nebraska by the band Kansas.
People who question the validity of punching Nazis are unfamiliar with Nazis. Nazis pose an existential threat to civilisation and cannot be reasoned with.
Its not the validity of the Nazi punching I question, its the tactics. Nazis want you to punch them because when you punch them, they get stronger.
37: so by that argument we should be encouraging Nazis to punch their enemies?
I don't think it's inappropriate to point out here that, historically, Nazis have not in fact been made stronger by being punched, stabbed, shot, blown up or crushed beneath the tracks of an armoured vehicle. In fact, the more of that stuff we did to them, the less strong they became, until ultimately they all surrendered unconditionally like the pathetic little worms that they were. (See previous remarks on the importance of spreading "Nazis were MASSIVE LOSERS" rather than "Nazis were UNSTOPPABLE ULTIMATE TECHNO TRENCHCOAT EVIL").
In 1939-1945, sure, but we haven't hit that era yet. This is 1933. Its also a pretty bad analogy, and therefore banned.
If Richard Spencer or Milo is an existential threat, then jail them (or have the courage to argue they should be killed and their supporters jailed). Sucker punching or launching fireworks at them does nothing to combat the forces behind them and just indulges people's desire to act out against their enemies.
40: what? This is not an analogy at all. This is actual Nazis we're talking about here. A thing can't be an analogy for itself.
So I just read about Milo whatshisface's talk being cancelled at Berkeley due to protests (with Molotov cocktails. Old school!). What's this guy's schtick, anyway? Does he literally advocate genocide, or is he just a garden variety right wing asshole? Or maybe all of the fashionable right wing assholes are advocating genocide nowadays.
I mean, I know he was banned from twitter, which is saying something considering the shit that twitter tolerates, but what exactly sets him apart? Is he just better at PR than the average troll?
He's gay so I think part of it is that being gay and racist is supposed to blow liberals minds.
maybe mcmmanus should bleach his hair and act way sluttier all the time.
This is actual Nazis we're talking about here. A thing can't be an analogy for itself.
No, that's not right. The Nazis haven't been around since the 1940s. These are people play-acting Nazis.
For PR reasons, both sides find it convenient to call them Nazis, but that gives them too much credit. They have indeed adopted Nazi ideologies and they are definitely a threat, but their existence in 2017 America is fundamentally different from what it was in 1930s Germany. We are a different society, and the socioeconomic and historical undercurrents that lead to the rise of Nazis in that time and place were far stronger than they are in our time and place.
On the other side of that coin, now we have the internet, which can make ideas and images spread like wildfire. This means that they can pass around clips of Nazis getting punched just as well as we can, except when they do it they attach a note that says "look at the liberals oppressing us!" Satisfying as that clip is to watch, turning up the volume will not help the situation.
I think its fine to look back to the historical analogy of the 1930s and 1940s to understand what happens when dangerous, right wing assholes come to power - though we also probably need to spend some time examining pulling lessons from other analogous situations, such as 1970s Chile or 1990s Yugoslavia. And yes, call them Nazis - its good PR - but we shouldn't get so wrapped up in labeling them as such that it channels us into poor tactical and strategic choices. Making this about violent confrontation between liberals and Nazis serves their ends better than it serves ours.
On the one hand, that's the good liberal answer. On the other hand, the other side has normalized using death threats as a way to block events. You can't not protest and you can't have big enough protests without somebody throwing something eventually. It doesn't seem like something I'm going to worry about. Especially after 6 years of people shout "oppression" about things like making employers cover contraception or whatever.
you can't have big enough protests without somebody throwing something eventually.
The Women's March did it. Huge and peaceful.
Probably women should be the ones running point on the anti-Nazi protests. Testosterone is dangerous in such a volatile situation.
Trump is now openly backing Milo against Berkley. I think on the whole that's a good thing. Trump does better when he is allowed to hide the most open racists who support him.
Speaking of Trump. Apparently yesterday Congress made it legal to secretly pay foreign governments for mineral rights.
So, the purchase of arctic oil concessions from Russia can be on the down-low, now?
So they can post-date the one that was already done and make it legal? I don't know. I saw it on somebody's twitter bar and haven't seen a full story.
51 et al.: This is about a fairly recent (last summer) SEC rule requiring publicly traded companies to disclose payments to govts for oil/mineral development in their annual reports, and yesterday the House passed a resolution under the Congressional Review Act to kill it. I think the Senate still has to act on it though. Potential wrinkle is that the rule was a Congressional mandate (in Dodd-Frank), not sure what it means to use the CRA to kill a rule mandated in statute, if you don't also amend the statute.
Well, I'm sure that the African Kleptocrat lobby is very happy now that they can continue to sell mineral rights to American companies without those pesky opposition parties having a way to find out about it.
you would get Amelia Bedelia results
I love this and hope to steal it someday.