Doublethink

From George Orwell's 1984:

The Ministry of Truth—Minitrue, in Newspeak—was startlingly different from any other object in sight. It was an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace, 300 metres into the air. From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party:

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

The fragility of black existence

“Everything is gone.” Philadelphia’s 52nd Street corridor, mostly made up of African-American and immigrant businesses, was among the worst hit by looting. https://t.co/JXBkoo6eZ4 via @WSJ

— Kate Milani (@KateMilani) June 4, 2020

Too many black progressive voices out there on the "property can be replaced; lives can't" bandwagon. If you accept the fragility of black existence under the status quo, why would you give even a hint of support to this sort of destructive behavior? https://t.co/Q3npllzvPd

— Robert A George (@RobGeorge) June 4, 2020

2nd degree murder

Looking at the legal descriptions of third-degree and second-degree, elevation of the Floyd killing to second-degree is quite risky. It requires proving intent to kill, rather than depraved indifference to human life. That's a heavy legal burden.

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) June 3, 2020

Some observations about the riots

(Thanks to Jitt Teng for helping to restore this post!)

1. Will people be as outraged about 77 year old retired police captain David Dorn's death as they are about George Floyd's? Will, say, CNN cover the brutality of rioters as much as they cover police brutality? Otherwise it sounds like some black lives matter less than other black lives. (Not to mention other injuries and fatalities.)

2. Also, I guess property damage is acceptable, but not when it hits too close to home.

3. As others have noticed, it may be one thing if the rioters are the poor who have no voice, or if looters are stealing out of hunger, but many rioters appear to be from affluent backgrounds and stealing high-end goods. It's not as if they're all stealing bread because they're starving.

4. Related, many of them are taking selfies of themselves participating in the protests with their own smartphones, then immediately posting their photos or videos on places like Instagram or TikTok. I guess to show that they've done something? I guess they're virtue signaling? Some of it may even be fake. Like this woman.

5. Many rioters seem to be led by liberal whites from middle class or better socioeconomic backgrounds. This makes one wonder if liberal whites are the ones really in charge. Consider Antifa.

6. If it's really the fact that there's systemic racism against blacks by whites, then it'd make sense to think the racism is largely led by rich and powerful whites. As such, why not call for protests at places where rich and well-connected whites live, like Beverly Hills and the Hamptons? Why not destroy their property, like slaves destroying their masters' plantations (cue Django Unchained)? Why not call for the overthrow of rich and powerful politicians? Leftist politicians, professors, and Hollywood entertainers are more than willing to support the "revolution", but why couldn't they be viewed as part of the system and part of the problem too?

7. Finally, it looks like liberals regard large crowds gathered to "protest" as necessary and morally justifiable, but church services are somehow "non-essential".

America's Tiananmen square

(Thanks to Jitt Teng for helping restore this post!)

I notice some people are comparing the riots to Tiananmen square. I suppose the idea is Trump's administration, the military, and the police are akin to the communist Chinese government, while the "protesters" are akin to the democracy-loving Chinese people. I guess George Floyd is Tank Man.

1. The Chinese people couldn't and didn't fight back against their government. Rather, the communists government massacred the people. Men, women, and yes even children were murdered. They were gunned down. Tanks rolled over them. Tiananmen square literally ran with blood. The entire area was aggressively "cleansed" by an army group that was notoriously vicious. It was called upon by the CCP leaders precisely because the army group was known to be so vicious.

2. By contrast, protesters are allowed to protest. The Trump administration hasn't silenced their voice. If anyone wants to see silence, then consider how China has ended Hong Kong's democracy just days ago. And consider what's still happening in Hong Kong:

It starts; so soon. For the first time in 30 years, Hong Kong authorities denied permission to hold the #TiananmenVigil. If there is any doubt about Beijing’s intent, it is to deny Hong Kongers a voice and a choice, making them the same as mainlanders. So much for two systems.

— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) June 2, 2020

Trump hasn't unilaterally sent in the US military. And the US military certainly hasn't massacred anyone.

3. No doubt police brutality is a legitimate concern. It should be dealt with. But how is "protesting" by rioting helping deal with police brutality? The rioters are behaving anything but peacefully. They're looting stores, burning down buildings, and violently attacking innocents. They're shooting police officers (e.g. here, here).

4. I don't know if rioters in general have any sort of ideology. (However, I think organized groups like Antifa do have an ideology.) At the very least, rioters aren't respecting democracy. In fact, I suspect many if not most rioters are ignorant about our system of government. That's quite unlike the student-led protests at Tiananmen square. Many of these students were well-versed in the intellectual history of democracy. Many of them could argue for democracy, but how many rioters have ever read the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, even some of the Federalist papers?

5. If anything, the rioters seem to want anarchy. Evidently they want to live out Alan Moore's twisted vision in V for Vendetta and Watchmen.

6. Some intellectuals are defending the riots. However, as George Orwell said: "Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them".

The Navy SEAL that killed Osama bin Laden may have a truer perspective when he calls the protesters "terrorists".

7. It looks like the left is actively supporting and perhaps inciting rioters like Antifa (e.g. here, here). If so, I presume the short-term goal is to bring down Trump. To make his administration seem impotent to do anything.

Yet leftist politicians like Biden may be playing with fire. If they start a revolution, the revolution may not necessarily end with them in charge (e.g. here, here). Consider whether Bernie bros ever wanted Biden. Even Robespierre the guillotiner was guillotined.

The military has no role in stopping the riots

To those who claim the military has no role in stopping anarchists and other criminals from tearing apart our cities: read a book.

The military has intervened to maintain public order since the Whiskey Rebellion. Here are a few recent examples.

— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) June 2, 2020

In 1957, President Eisenhower ordered soldiers to enforce integration of Little Rock schools against a racist mob.

This was a dark episode in my state’s history, but Ike was right:

“Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the decisions of the courts.”https://t.co/WOo6Fyep9x

— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) June 2, 2020

In 1967, President Johnson ordered the 82nd and 101st Airborne to stop deadly race riots in Detroit.

LBJ: “We will not tolerate lawlessness... This Nation will do whatever it is necessary to do to suppress and to punish those who engage in it.”https://t.co/ICyQ7JfbmH

— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) June 2, 2020

The next year, 13,000 troops were called to protect Washington, D.C. from riots that erupted after the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr.

The city didn’t recover for decades, but federal troops staunched the bleeding.https://t.co/jw2L27DNmu

— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) June 2, 2020

In 1992, President George H.W. Bush ordered the Army’s 7th Infantry and 1,500 Marines to quell the Rodney King riots burning down LA.

Bush 41 knew that King had been unjustly treated—“what I saw made me sick”—but he knew deadly riots would only multiply the victims.

— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) June 2, 2020

The carnage caused by domestic terrorists and other criminals threatens all law-abiding citizens, including peaceful protestors.

We must do everything possible within the law to restore peace in the streets—that mission can and should include our troops.

— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) June 2, 2020

Are white cops more likely to shoot minorities?

https://phys.org/news/2019-07-white-police-officers-minorities.html

The Arbery case

I haven't followed the Arbery case closely, so this post is discussing the issues more from a hypothetical standpoint: 

1. It's a problem when pundits default to a racial motive. This assumes, and pundits are usually explicit about this assumption, that nearly all whites are racist to some degree or another. Ironically, that's a bigoted assumption. It stereotypes whites as a class. A paradigm example of prejudice. 

In addition, it can be a self-fulling prophecy. If you constantly blame whites for racism without specific evidence for specific individuals, that foments racial animus. That foments racial resentment.

Since white folks kill other white folks and black folks kill other black folks, I don't think there's a presumptive racial motive when the assailant is white and the victim is black, or vice versa. 

It's like, suppose I bet on sports teams. If I normally bet on one team, then there's a pattern or bias. If, however, I normally bet on two different teams, if I alternate, then there's no discernible pattern or bias. 

2. Different people have different motives for inspecting a house under construction. In some cases they are looking to buy a house, and they want to see if this is a house they'd consider buying. 

In other cases, they're just curious. For instance, a house might be way outside their price range, and they like to see how the other half lives. This is their chance to see the kind of mansion rich folks live in. 

And in other cases, they're up to no good. 

3. This also raises the question of when we should be prepared to kill someone. We have a right to protect our life and livelihood. We have a right to protect our home and business. And just in general, if someone pulls a gun on you, that justifies killing them. They've threatened your life.

If someone commits armed robbery or armed burglary, I think they forfeit the right to life in relation to the victim because they forfeit the presumption that they won't murder the victim. They forfeit the presumption that they won't carry out their threat. Armed robbery or armed burglary carries the explicit or implicit threat to murder the victim. 

But to kill someone because they may be trespassing on someone else's property or robbing someone else's business is hardly justification to kill them. That's both literally and figuratively none of our business. You might report them to the police, but that's it. Same thing with merely suspicious activity. 

Ahmaud Arbery

I haven't paid close attention to this story, so I could be mistaken, but here's my opinion at this point:

1. Thanks to Steve for sending along what I think is a helpful analysis. I agree with what Laurie Higgins says here.

2. Many people are alleging it's racism (it seems) primarily because it took such a long time to investigate, bring charges, and make arrests. However, I don't know that's necessarily the case. For example, I've read the father was an ex-cop. If so, then that might be the main reason it took such a long time, i.e., the blue wall of silence. This in turn could imply corruption among the police, but not necessarily racism.

3. Of course, it's possible it could have been both racism and the blue wall. However, at least from what I've read, I don't see anything that points to racism as the main or sole motivation. Other than the fact that Arbery happens to be black and this happened in Georgia where there are supposedly a lot of racists. At best, wouldn't that just be circumstantial and guilt by association?

4. I'm no lawyer, so what do I know, but I guess the McMichaels' best defense is they were attempting to make a citizen's arrest in light of witnessing Arbery come to a home (under construction) multiple times in the past, Arbery grabbed hold of their gun, there was a struggle, then they either shot their gun in self-defense or it accidentally went off during the struggle.

I doubt this would hold up. It looks like they were chasing down a man and picking a fight. They could have been acting like vigilantes. As far as I know, Arbery wasn't actively committing a crime when the McMichaels' approached him. Maybe the McMichaels thought they had reasonable cause that Arbery had committed crimes in the past, but even if so Arbery's crime would have been trespassing, but does that justify a citizen's arrest? Or why not just call the actual cops in that case? And Arbery could have been scared for his life and acting in self-defense too.

Face masks

The National Association of Armed Robbers applauded edicts by public official requiring all citizens to don face masks when going outside. Face mask disguise the identity of armed robbers, but normally it's considered a tad suspicious or even provocative to walk into a bank or 7/11 with a face mask. Apt to make cashiers and security guards trigger-happy. But now that every customer looks like an armed robber, the pros blend right in without fear of raising alarm. 

Why are gun sales up?

@RandalRauser

Just for the record, you can't kill #COVID19 with bullets:

About 2 Million Guns Were Sold in the U.S. as Virus Fears Spread

A New York Times analysis shows that March was the second-busiest month ever for gun sales, fueled by worries over the coronavirus.

nytimes.com

https://twitter.com/RandalRauser/status/1246095179645202432

1. Progressive theologian Randal Rauser is such a phony. On the one had he has sanctimonious tweets about how you haven't accurately represented a position you disagree with unless your opponents recognize their position in your representation. But he never makes a good faith effort to be consistent with his own advice when respenting groups and positions he viscerally disagrees with. Rather, he reaches straight for the caricature. 

2. I don't know for a fact why gun sales are up. I have't read the stories. I do know for a fact, and so does Rauser, that it's not because gun owners think you can kill a virus with bullets. 

3. Having said that, you can kill the carrier with bullets, and it's not hard to imagine secular regimes gunning down COVID19 carriers if the pandemic spirtals out of control. Consider a 28 Weeks Later scenario where a quarantine area is firebombed when it becomes contaminated.

Other reasons gun sales may be up:

4. If the pandemic causes a breakdown in civil order, then it's every man for himself. You can't expect the police to be able or willing to protect you. 

5. As a matter of fact, some Democrat officials have already said that police won't protect private property. They won't make arrests for property crimes. In that event, it's up to homeowners and businessman to defend themselves.

6. On the one hand, Democrat officials are putting all the law-abiding citizens in entire cities and states under house arrest. On the other hand, they are releasing convicted sex offenders into the community.

7. Democrat officials are using the crisis as a pretext and cover to shut down gun shops.

8. The police themselves become a threat to the public. Consider news footage from English of policemen and police drones harassing and fining private citizens for simply walking in the countryside. 

9. Likewise, if you had an economic collapse, and law enforcement officers weren't paid, they might resort to shakedowns. 

Never vote for Democrats

So according to NYC and Philadelphia, you may be arrested if you open your restaurant today, but you'll be fine if you break into that restaurant and shoplift some goods. Seems smart.

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) March 18, 2020

Due to the coronavirus crisis, Philadelphia police will no longer be making arrests for all narcotics offenses, theft from persons, retail theft, theft from auto, burglary, vandalism, bench warrants, stolen autos, economic crimes such as passing bad checks, fraud, & prostitution. pic.twitter.com/R2OZSPMKHO

— Rob O'Donnell (@odonnell_r) March 17, 2020

How Do You Stop a Bad Guy With a Gun?

Justice is done

J. I. Packer:

Christian fairy tales, with savior heroes and plots that end in what Tolkien called a eucatastrophe – whereby things come right after seeming to go irrevocably wrong. Villains are foiled, people in jeopardy are freed, justice is done, and the ending is happy...The gospel of Christ is the archetype of all such stories. Paganism unleavened by Christianity, on the other hand, was and always will be pessimistic at heart.

Roger Nicole:

Mysteries represent a tremendously optimistic outlook on the place of justice in life. In mysteries the guilty are always brought to justice, which is not always the case in life at this level. It will be the case at the last judgement. But at this level there are people who escape the tentacles of the law. But the mystery situation demands there be a sleuth to bring the criminal to justice. That is the thing that is so deeply satisfying. Every time the force of justice wins.

From son of Sam to son of God

https://world.wng.org/2020/01/finding_life_in_a_life_sentence

Transgenderism enables pedophiles

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/crime-and-courts/2020/01/16/felon-no-longer-deemed-threat-after-sex-reassignment-treatment/4479275002/

Sheepdog

BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — Jean-Paul LaPierre always seems to be in the right place at the right time.

The Boston boxer helped rescue a one-year-old baby who was trapped in a crashed car a few years ago. This summer, after authorities in Newton warned the public about an escaped python, he was the one who tracked it down.

And this past weekend, while LaPierre was in Chicago to run a marathon, he disarmed a robber on a city train.

(Source)

So LaPierre disarmed an armed robber on a city train, then ran a marathon, then spoke to the news crew!

LaPierre held the robber at bay after disarming the robber. The robber had been going around mugging people on the Chicago train. As an eyewitness in the video said, everyone else on the train was "frozen", but LaPierre acted.

And LaPierre acted despite a woman telling him: "Please don't make this any worse!"

Many people would react like this woman. They think it's better to give the perpetrator what they want and hope they're not harmed but left alone. They would never confront wrongdoers. I guess this is the strategy of appeasement in international politics.

Reminds me of this quotation:

Most people are like sheep. Nice, harmless creatures who want nothing more than to be left alone so they can graze.

But then of course there are wolves. Who want nothing more than to eat the sheep.

But there’s a third kind of person. The sheepdog. Sheepdogs have fangs like wolves. But their instinct isn’t predation. It’s protection. All they want, what they live for, is to protect the flock.

"Assault rifles" and self-defense

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9AfhdKLNDA

Never ascribe to malice what may be explained by stupidity

There's a raging debate about how Jeffrey Epstein died: was he killed or did he kill himself? 

1. One explanation appeals to Hanlon's razor ("Never ascribe to malice what may be explained by stupidity"). Given overworked, underpaid prison guards with a low-prestige job, there's not much incentive to give it their best effort. And if they belong to public sector unions, which makes it virtually impossible to fire them, there's even less incentive to do a good job. All things being equal, incompetence is the default explanation. And I think that may well be the right explanation in the case of Epstein.

2. There are, however, other considerations:

• He was a sex-trafficker for the power elite. He had many powerful, well-connected clients who stood to benefit from silencing him before he could finger them. If you're doomed, you might as well take some others with you on the way down. You have nothing to lose. Let them share your fate. 

• A bombshell document was released the day before, naming some of his clients, with teasers about another anonymous clients. Naturally there was curiosity about the next names to drop. 

• I imagine it's not hard to put a hit on someone in prison. Heck, we read about drug lords who continue to run their operation behind bars. Prison guards are easily bribed.

3. So the timing of his death was very suspicious. But perhaps that was a coincidence. Coincidences happen in real life. 

4. Ordering a hit on a witness is risky. There's the danger that the hit will be traced by to the culprit. However, that's a comparative risk assessment. There's the opposite danger that the witness will implicate the culprit. So despite the risk, some witnesses are in fact bumped off. 

5. The ways to kill yourself in a prison cell must be quite limited. Since these are so limited and so well-known, they are easily eliminated. Don't architects  take that into account when designing prison cells? 

6. Thus far the official story is bureaucratic bungling. If, however, it was an inside job, then it's not surprising that culprits have a cover story. 

Mind you, that illustrates a danger of conspiracy theories, since almost anything can be made consistent with a conspiracy theory. So we need more than consistency to make it plausible. 

7. In addition, there are different ways a hit might be carried out. In the case of a suicidal witness who already has the motive to off himself, you just provide him with the means, and opportunity (unsupervised time). That's easy to cover up. If he doesn't take the bait, you might have a backup plan: bribe a prisoner serving a life sentence to kill him, in exchange for certain favors.

Was his death the result of foul play? Not having firm opinion one way or the other, I suspend judgment. 

God, guns, and tipping-points

1. Every time there's a mass shooting in the USA, the anti-gun lobby tries to make political capital out of that tragedy. In my experience, those opposing private ownership of guns suffer from self-reinforcing ignorance. They have no idea what the gun-right arguments are because they don't study the other side of the argument. Indeed, they think it's inconceivable that there ever could be good arguments for private ownership of guns. So their incredulity is circular. 

Someone might object that I'm burning a straw man. They don't oppose private ownership of guns. Rather, they advocate "sensible gun control". But that's just a euphemism. A ruse for an incremental strategy that terminates in a total gun ban and mandatory confiscation of guns in the possession of private citizens. They think that ultimately the only people who should have guns are agents of the gov't. 

2. When anti-gun opponents make political capital out of the latest mass shooting, the assumption is that this issue ought to have a tipping-point. How many mass shootings does it take before gun-right advocates change their minds? 

Keep in mind that any figure for what constitutes a mass shooting is arbitrary. That will be a stipulative definition.

I think for many gun-right supporters, the answer is: there is no tipping-point. That's why each new "mass shooting" doesn't move the needle. Each new shooting doesn't change their minds because their support for private gun ownership was never a quantitative calculation. 

Of course, it's easy to posit extreme hypotheticals that put a strain on that position, but hypotheticals cut both ways. It's just as easy to posit hypotheticals that put a strain on the anti-gun position. So that philosophical strategy is self-canceling. 

4. I'll comment on the gun-right position directly in a moment, but first I'd like to draw a comparison. Every time there's a natural disaster that kills lots of people, atheists try to capitalize on that tragedy by asking, "What's the tipping-point?" How many more natural disasters does it take before you change your mind about God? And the answer for sophisticated Christians is: there is no tipping-point. 

Whether it's one more natural disaster or one less natural disaster makes no difference, since the position wasn't quantitative to begin with. Rather, it's a matter of principle. If we have adequate theodicies to cover one natural disaster, then the same theodices are adequate to cover more than one. There's no logical cutoff. 

It's really not about the number of examples, but the kind of examples. One more example or one less example doesn't affect the kind of example. If God's existence and benevolence are compatible with certain kinds of evil, then it's not a question of percentages. 

The only tipping-point would be a hypothetical world containing sheer evil with no redeeming values. But that's irrelevant to the actual situation.

Moreover, the objection cuts both ways. If it's a question of how much evil is permissible, then by the same token it's a question of how little evil is permissible. You can go from the horrific end of the continuum to the slight end of the continuum.  

5. To take another illustration, I think there's a tipping-point when it comes to "torturing" terrorists. Take the ticking timebomb scenario. I think it's possible for some people to forfeit their prima facie immunity not to be harmed. The rights of a terrorist don't supersede the rights of innocent victims.

However, some critics of the ticking timebomb scenario take it to the next step: if the terrorist doesn't break under torture, is it permissible to torture his 5-year-old son, in case he will break when he sees his son subjected to torture? In contrast to the first situation, my response in that situation is: there is no tipping-point. 

And the logic is the same. Protecting the innocent from harm was never a sufficient condition to torture someone for information. The individual had to do something to forfeit his prima facie immunity. And, of course, the 5-year-old hasn't done that. It would be morally contradictory to torture the innocent to spare the innocent. It was never a merely quantitative calculation. 

We could also use the thought-experiment from consequentialism: is it justifiable to harvest the organs of one healthy person to save five deathly ill patient? Most people balk. 

Sometimes there's a tipping-point and sometimes not. Adding more examples doesn't automatically shift the moral considerations.  

6. One reason cumulative mass shootings don't make a dent in the gun-right position is because the position is a matter of principle. A moral obligation. It's not primarily about gun rights but the right of self-defense. Guns are just a concrete means to enable that right. And I'm using "self-defense" in a broad sense: not just protecting yourself from harm but protecting others from harm. Protecting the innocent. That's a standing duty.

In addition, social obligations are concentric. I have a greater duty to protect my mother than your mother. 

Mass shootings can never abrogate the right of self-defense. They can't override the right of a woman to have a gun or carry a gun to protect herself from muggers, or rapists, or a homicidal ex-boyfriend. The common good doesn't obviate individual rights. While there may be a balance between the good of the one and the good of the many, individuals have certain inalienable rights.

Indeed, since the common good is just a collective, the common good presupposes a minimal threshold of individual rights. The common good is just a collection of individuals. You can't logically say individuals have no rights, while only collectives have rights. Group rights make no sense if no one in the group has rights. 

7. In addition to the argument from principle there's a pragmatic argument. Just as there's a pragmatic argument for banning and confiscating civilian guns, there's a pragmatic argument against it. 

i) To begin with, there's the deterrent value of private gun ownership. Although guns are used to commit crime, guns are used to deter crime.

ii) Furthermore, when it comes to curtailing or eliminating social evils, there are tradeoffs. Suppose, for argument's sake, that a blanket gun ban and mandatory confiscation drastically reduces the number of mass shootings. While that would eliminate one evil, the cost of eliminating some evils is to replace them with different or even worse evils. Gun opponents myopically focus on mass shootings, but giving gov't a monopoly on gun ownership creates an opening for a much more oppressive and pervasive evil than mass shootings, which–however horrifying–are statistically negligible. It creates a police state, a totalitarian regime that poses a far greater danger than mass shootings. It empowers the few, who use their unchecked power to engage in systematic abuse of authority. And this isn't hypothetical. There are many examples. That includes Communist regimes.

But to take a less overt example, consider modern-day England. It's a surveillance state with ubiquitous security cameras. Yet disarming the public hasn't made the public safer. The police don't protect the public. Crime spirals out of control while the police monitor and prosecute political dissent. 

It's very shortsighted to fixate on one social evil in particular without regard to how the means necessary to eradicate or curtail that evil is offset by evils on a far larger scale. You create a monster that can't be contained.