Law and Order, Democracy, Civil Liberties and the Prevention of Civil War
Introduction
I was chatting with cutelildrow, and she mentioned that Sweden has apparently decided to simultaneously continue its curbs on freedom of political speech while opening up its government posts, including decision-making offices, to non-citizens. And I commented to her that it seemed as if Sweden were trying to assist a foreign subversion campaign leading to a nativist uprising and civil war. So that led me to think about why I automatically thought "nativist uprising and civil war," and in turn about the way in which the institutions of a well-ordered Republic prevent civil war, and are in fact designed to do so.
I. Violent Factionalism
Any state, at any given moment, contains many factions. Even if it has an effective two-party systems, the smaller factions are either subsumed into one of the two main parties, or are effectively marginalized because they don't pose enough of a third-party threat to induce one of the major parties to concede to and absorb them.
Now, at any given moment, some of these factions would, if they thought it best and believed that they could get away with it, resort to violence to promote their causes. Does this statement really need proof? Cast your eyes about, consider what the most radical people you don't like say, and note that they do sometimes resort to violence even under our current systems.
II. The Role of Law and Order
Let's pick my statement apart a bit here. If they "believed they could get away with it" refers to the deterrent effect of law and order in a well-governed society. Note that factions do sometimes resort to deniable violence (staging "protests" and "demonstrations" at which some of the participants commit violent or other crimes). If it were not for the fact that the authorities would arrest the party leadership, what would prevent them from actually forming militias and partisan groups and marching out to physically attack opposition headquarters?
In fact we have (many) demonstration proofs of this. When we look at States a bit less well governed than America and most of the West, we do see factions forming armed and organized bands to physically attack their political opponents, and in extreme cases even create "no-go" or "liberated zones" into which their opponents (and governmental forces, sometimes!) dare not venture. We can see a continuum of this, from better to worse, ranging from the "no-go" zones being formed by Muslims in some European cities, to the occasionally-violent politics of Latin American Republics, to the eternally-violent, chaotic and lethal politics of African countries.
So is the solution to political violence simply to impose law and order as strictly and tightly as possible? Should we cast aside civil liberties and democracy in the pursuit of this end? No, and I say "no" not merely for moral reasons, but for pragmatic ones as well. Here's why.
III. The Role of Democracy
The other half of the equation is "if they thought it best." Imagine yourself the leader of a political faction. You believe in your goal strongly, so strongly that you hate those who disagree with you and consider yourself morally entitled to eliminate them in order to achieve your goal. Do you act on this perceived moral entitlement?
Maybe not, if you live in a democracy with strong civil liberties. Because to eliminate your enemies, you would have to fight and WIN a civil war against them. But you can only do this if you have superior numbers to them. Wouldn't it be great if you could tell beforehand who had the numbers, hence the might, and thus transfer power to the larger group without actually fighting the civil war?
There is a method of doing so. It is called a "democratic election." The supporters of all factions vote, and the faction which receives the most votes gets to take power. The loser, even if he considers himself morally justified in refusing to recognize the results of the election, and starting a civil war to take power, rarely does so because the election itself has shown that his faction is too weak to win the resultant civil war.
In fact, a better strategy for the losing faction is to try and argue its case better to the electorate, or make alliances with other factions to increase their combined strength. If the faction can do this, it doesn't need to launch a (dangerous, harmful) civil war, but can instead win (safe, harmless) elections. Consequently, in a democracy, even fanaticism is induced to take a moderate course.
IV. The Role of Civil Liberties
But the maintenance of strong civil liberties is crucial to the process of democratic election. Imagine that whoever controlled the State could squelch all open dissent and punish dissenters. If that happened, then his faction might actually be in the minority, but able to hold onto power through the misuse of State power which derived from the majority.
This would clearly be an unstable situation, however. Once the other factions realized that the dominant faction did not command a majority, they would be tempted to violently rise and overthrow that dominant faction, for in an outright civil war, the dominant faction might not even be able to count on the State military (which would contain troops who personally might belong to other factions).
Thus, even though abrogating the civil rights of members of other factions looks superficially like a winning strategy for a temporarily dominant faction, it is a long-term loser. This is because it creates a volatile political situation, very likely to erupt in civil war at some point, and when the dust has settled, there is no reason to assume that "Augustus" will support any of the political factions that started the civil war, or indeed that your State will be lucky enough to wind up with an Augustus rather than a Caligula or Nero in charge!
Conclusion
Hence, quite aside from the concept of civil rights and democracy as moral, there is a strong logical reason to maintain them. They help prevent civil wars. We may take this for granted in America and Britain, since our last civil wars ended 145 and 265 years ago respectively (the American Civil War and the Rising of Forty-Five), but it is in fact our civil rights and democracy which is responsible for what is a remarkable record of internal peacefulness for large and diverse polities.
But we must remember that civil rights and democracy cannot be kept passively. They must always be maintained through enforced law and order, else they will become dead letters. And then the tanks will roll through our towns.
I was chatting with cutelildrow, and she mentioned that Sweden has apparently decided to simultaneously continue its curbs on freedom of political speech while opening up its government posts, including decision-making offices, to non-citizens. And I commented to her that it seemed as if Sweden were trying to assist a foreign subversion campaign leading to a nativist uprising and civil war. So that led me to think about why I automatically thought "nativist uprising and civil war," and in turn about the way in which the institutions of a well-ordered Republic prevent civil war, and are in fact designed to do so.
I. Violent Factionalism
Any state, at any given moment, contains many factions. Even if it has an effective two-party systems, the smaller factions are either subsumed into one of the two main parties, or are effectively marginalized because they don't pose enough of a third-party threat to induce one of the major parties to concede to and absorb them.
Now, at any given moment, some of these factions would, if they thought it best and believed that they could get away with it, resort to violence to promote their causes. Does this statement really need proof? Cast your eyes about, consider what the most radical people you don't like say, and note that they do sometimes resort to violence even under our current systems.
II. The Role of Law and Order
Let's pick my statement apart a bit here. If they "believed they could get away with it" refers to the deterrent effect of law and order in a well-governed society. Note that factions do sometimes resort to deniable violence (staging "protests" and "demonstrations" at which some of the participants commit violent or other crimes). If it were not for the fact that the authorities would arrest the party leadership, what would prevent them from actually forming militias and partisan groups and marching out to physically attack opposition headquarters?
In fact we have (many) demonstration proofs of this. When we look at States a bit less well governed than America and most of the West, we do see factions forming armed and organized bands to physically attack their political opponents, and in extreme cases even create "no-go" or "liberated zones" into which their opponents (and governmental forces, sometimes!) dare not venture. We can see a continuum of this, from better to worse, ranging from the "no-go" zones being formed by Muslims in some European cities, to the occasionally-violent politics of Latin American Republics, to the eternally-violent, chaotic and lethal politics of African countries.
So is the solution to political violence simply to impose law and order as strictly and tightly as possible? Should we cast aside civil liberties and democracy in the pursuit of this end? No, and I say "no" not merely for moral reasons, but for pragmatic ones as well. Here's why.
III. The Role of Democracy
The other half of the equation is "if they thought it best." Imagine yourself the leader of a political faction. You believe in your goal strongly, so strongly that you hate those who disagree with you and consider yourself morally entitled to eliminate them in order to achieve your goal. Do you act on this perceived moral entitlement?
Maybe not, if you live in a democracy with strong civil liberties. Because to eliminate your enemies, you would have to fight and WIN a civil war against them. But you can only do this if you have superior numbers to them. Wouldn't it be great if you could tell beforehand who had the numbers, hence the might, and thus transfer power to the larger group without actually fighting the civil war?
There is a method of doing so. It is called a "democratic election." The supporters of all factions vote, and the faction which receives the most votes gets to take power. The loser, even if he considers himself morally justified in refusing to recognize the results of the election, and starting a civil war to take power, rarely does so because the election itself has shown that his faction is too weak to win the resultant civil war.
In fact, a better strategy for the losing faction is to try and argue its case better to the electorate, or make alliances with other factions to increase their combined strength. If the faction can do this, it doesn't need to launch a (dangerous, harmful) civil war, but can instead win (safe, harmless) elections. Consequently, in a democracy, even fanaticism is induced to take a moderate course.
IV. The Role of Civil Liberties
But the maintenance of strong civil liberties is crucial to the process of democratic election. Imagine that whoever controlled the State could squelch all open dissent and punish dissenters. If that happened, then his faction might actually be in the minority, but able to hold onto power through the misuse of State power which derived from the majority.
This would clearly be an unstable situation, however. Once the other factions realized that the dominant faction did not command a majority, they would be tempted to violently rise and overthrow that dominant faction, for in an outright civil war, the dominant faction might not even be able to count on the State military (which would contain troops who personally might belong to other factions).
Thus, even though abrogating the civil rights of members of other factions looks superficially like a winning strategy for a temporarily dominant faction, it is a long-term loser. This is because it creates a volatile political situation, very likely to erupt in civil war at some point, and when the dust has settled, there is no reason to assume that "Augustus" will support any of the political factions that started the civil war, or indeed that your State will be lucky enough to wind up with an Augustus rather than a Caligula or Nero in charge!
Conclusion
Hence, quite aside from the concept of civil rights and democracy as moral, there is a strong logical reason to maintain them. They help prevent civil wars. We may take this for granted in America and Britain, since our last civil wars ended 145 and 265 years ago respectively (the American Civil War and the Rising of Forty-Five), but it is in fact our civil rights and democracy which is responsible for what is a remarkable record of internal peacefulness for large and diverse polities.
But we must remember that civil rights and democracy cannot be kept passively. They must always be maintained through enforced law and order, else they will become dead letters. And then the tanks will roll through our towns.