Arguing with absolutists is a tiresome thing. After all people have a right to be wrong if they really insist on it, eh? When I wrote in my last blog entry about the riot in Toledo, Ohio this past Saturday I was pilloried by a number of libertarians and ACLU types. To wit:
“People got a right to march and stuff Ali, even %$@(*% Nazis!” they explain with an air of frustrated condescension. I however disagree here. Communities, neighborhoods, and groups have rights too. And they should get more respect from the courts and popular culture.
I am surprised that libertarians and civil liberties-oriented Leftists don’t understand why though. If I want to march through an African-American community in a KKK robe should I be able to? Sure, in the pure existential view of things I suppose. To Jean-Paul Sartre and other existential philosophers you can do anything that is actually possible for you to do. With this caveat however: You bear the full consequences for your choice of action.
This is where I stand apart from my more tolerant friends. In order to actually do such a thing (as mentioned above) and survive without a serious ass whipping from the locals who you have mortally offended, what conditions need to exist? A powerful state and that state’s armed police to step in and protect you, that’s what. So your “freedom” to march around pissing people off is only extant if there exists a state to tax you (take your money), form an enforcement apparatus (hire cops) who can then protect your rights (such as the state allows). Which is all very nutty it seems to me.
I’d do with a little less of this sort of “freedom” if it meant no state, no taxes, and no cops. Is having a state with all its attendant theft and coercion worthwhile so that Nazis and such can speak and march freely any time and any place they choose? I say, nope.
--Ali Massoud