[4891]

Thank you - this is the most sensible comment I've seen in this thread.

Many thinkers throughout history have noted that states and criminal gangs are effectively the same. They are both inherently violent organisations. Criminal gangs are tiny states; states are large, settled criminal gangs.

The Yakuza in Japan or the Cray family (when they ruled half of London) are examples of intermediate forms: criminal gangs that have taken on some of the role of the state. Rather than arbitrarily robbing people, they instead ask for protection money. This is more than just a polite form of robbery: they legitimately protect you from other criminal gangs. Though I doubt anyone here has had to make the decision, I think everyone would prefer to deal with one predictable criminal gang than many competing unpredictable gangs.

Eventually the gang leaders realise that it's in their own interest to build a stable, prosperous society: its better to be a Caesar than a barbarian warlord. If nothing else, the wine is nicer. Passing laws and promising that even the leaders will abide by them makes the citizens comfortable dealing with one another and makes everyone richer. Once everyone is comfortable with the idea of the law being supreme, the mob might realise they can do away with kings and bring in constitutions and parliaments and so on. Democracy works (and only works) because the mob agrees that these are the set of rules they will live by, and that therefore it's not wise to ignore them.

Still, rights and laws remain contingent on power. Human rights only extend as far as the military reach of states that support human rights. Until we build a world government, the only universal law over humanity is the same as it was in 10000 BC: raw power, physical force, violence. The world as a whole is essentially a lawless realm consisting of about 200 gangs; the only thing that stops everything turning into bloods vs crips is a shaky system of alliances, treaties and, ultimately, mutually assured destruction.

One obvious counterpoint is that France no longer needs to fear Germany because the Germans and French are suddenly BFFs and neither will vote to go to war with the other. The "international community" is slowly coming to resemble a federated state, with one set of laws. But this community is not truly international. Russia and China can violate your right to privacy all they want. Ultimately, this is because they have H-bombs. Likewise, we can violate Sharia Law as much as we like and Iran can't stop us.

My point is this: most of these complaints would make sense if America truly was a world government, achieving legitimacy via just consent of the 7 billion governed. But it's not, and it can limit its citizenship however it pleases. The fact that America was historically built on immigration doesn't give me, a foreigner, the "right" to live there. The very concept is nonsensical - the USG has more guns than me, and so they can decide who's in and who's out. The idea that people should be able to live wherever they want is a beautiful dream but is entirely counter to the way the world is going, and is also horrendously impractical.

I've travelled to China a few times over the last few years and each time the visa requirements have gotten stricter. They've decided they don't need any more foreigners, and I can't contest the morality of this with the CPC because again, they have more guns than me. As the world gets more crowded, other middle income countries will follow suit. The walls are going up everywhere. As much as I, personally, would benefit from the US tearing down its borders and letting me live there without restriction, it doesn't make a lot of sense if they do so and other countries don't.

Americans can constrain their intelligence agencies and open their borders as much as they like. They can't force other countries to do the same, which means that these policy proposals are equivalent to "we should make our intelligence gathering less capable than that of China and Russia" and "we should import Latin Americans until our quality of life is equal to that of Honduras". If America wants to reenact the fall of Rome, that's their prerogative, but as a foreigner I wish other foreigners would not cheerlead them as they do so. No America means no "international community" (what can the EU do against China and Russia?), and good luck petitioning China to respect your human rights as a global citizen.

Although you might not believe it, I'm not actually a cynic about human nature or pessimistic about our future. We built stable, peaceful societies in a violent world. Go humanity! But we have to remember that this was not achieved by the divine intervention of the Great God Human Rights, but by working within the universal laws of power. Good can triumph over evil, but as even Jesus said, it needs the "cunning of snakes" to succeed.

[angersock]

Absolutely fantastic post, sir or madam.

I very much agree that the rest of the world is being a bit two-faced, on the one hand enjoying immensely the pax americana which we have wrought and on the other decrying the evils of American imperialism--despite doing damned little to act in a similarly noble fashion.

As much as we may, for example, decry the surveillance of foreigners by the .gov and bemoan the lack of open immigration policies, we cannot do so without also acknowledging that the US is still very much better in these regards than many of the other first-world nations.

The failure of the US is perhaps a sadness, but the failure of the American Dream--were it to come to pass--is far, far worse.

[grey-area]

To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.

Your apologia is as old as the Roman Empire, and made as little sense then - as Tacitus points out using Calcagus above.

The concept of a 'Pax Americana' is an absurdity given the wars instigated by the US just in the last few decades and manipulation of client states, and while other nation states are no different in many ways in being run for the benefit of those in power, I certainly wouldn't say the US is better in these regards than the majority of western states.

I'd condemn this sort of widespread surveillance no matter who the actor is (and in fact it seems the UK has been just as cavalier in their actions, to take one example). It's a very dangerous centralisation of power and will lead to the growth of a secret state, inimical to the values you appear to find admirable (though the American dream is a rather vague concept and could really mean anything).

Empires are not forces for good, on the contrary normally they civilise the world by subjugating it to their will. In our increasingly connected and mobile world, we should try to see past the concept of a nation state or empire building to universal values of human rights to basic needs, among which I'd place individual privacy fom state intrusion.

[angersock]

And once the Empire was gone, I believe a great many people missed it.

We've seen the people voluntarily subject themselves to cataloging and surveillance on an unprecedented scale--Facebook, Twitter, Google, and so forth.

So, honestly, to hell with "the people". You claim that this information gathering is an outrage, that this invasion of privacy is an affront to all things decent.

Fact is, amigo, that fully a sixth of the human race has voluntarily given up their privacy to Facebook and the like in exchange for a cute little garden to play in and communicate with. Sadly, we seem to have forfeited the right that we otherwise would've claimed.

The people have spoken.

[grey-area]

I disagree about nostalgia for Empire - that tends to be connected with apologies for contemporary empire building, while ignoring the constant warfare, massive slavery, brutal subjugation of conquered peoples, venality and corruption of Ancient Rome. It's a fascinating period, but hardly one to feel nostalgia for.

I agree that frequent and public sharing of information via twitter etc will in future be considered dangerous, and some people are sharing far too much, much of it out in public. That has no bearing on my individual right to privacy though - just because lots of people engage in public sharing of trivia, news, and opinions doesn't mean they are abdicating the right to privacy on more substantial matters - not many would agree to sharing all their email publicly for example.

The more important point for me is that there is a big difference between me sharing some info publicly, some info semi-anonymously, and then separately private financial info with my bank, numbers called with my phone company, email with google etc, and intel agencies of my country demanding access to all this information in aggregate for everyone, in perpetuity, and sharing it with other agencies and countries, with no effective oversight or even permission.

I see no justifiable excuse for that, not the mirage of a Pax Americana, Islamist terrorists, or any future threat.

[pyre]

  | the US is still very much better in these
  | regards than many of the other first-world
  | nations.

Should the USG continue to push the envelope until such a point as this is no longer true? How far should the envelope be pushed before it is 'too close' to the edge?

[akiselev]

Just to reinforce this point and the fact that it is not going away: this is literally natural law.

Our weapons are no different than bacterial antibiotic resistances and all the other genetic mutations that have led to what life is today. It does not matter if all seven billion people consented, all it would take is one willing person with a weapon strong enough to subdue the rest of civilization to take power. That weapon doesn't even need to be technology, it could be as simple as blackmailing the people holding the power.

The struggle for life, let alone liberty and privacy, has always been an arms race and it always will be.

[jpatte]

For anyone interested, Norbert Elias (1897-1990) wrote a very enlightening book "The Civilizing Process" describing how these small social structures evolved into States as we know them in Occident [1]. Excerpted from a summary [2]:

According to Elias, monopolization, and especially the monopolization of physical force and violence warranted more self-restraint from both the government and the individual. In "The civilizing Process" Elias talks about "a chain of mutual dependence" which makes people dependent upon each other in order to perform various tasks and achieve their goals. This, according to Elias, explains why societies required more stability, regularity and supervision. Transportation and the development of markets increased human interactions between people who found themselves dependent on each other even without direct contact. This according to Elias has led for the need to coordinate actions and establish the "rules of the game". Playing by the rules meant a growing demand for self restraint.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Civilizing_Process

[2]: http://culturalstudiesnow.blogspot.fr/2012/04/norbert-elias-...

[abraininavat]

I addressed your us-versus-them mindset in my reply to Goladus, but I couldn't help but point out how disingenuous this is:

Good can triumph over evil, but as even Jesus said, it needs the "cunning of snakes" to succeed.

The whole quote is: "I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves."

You conveniently forgot the "innocent as doves" part, obviously because it doesn't fit in with the rest of your argument that America must act like a cirminal gang to secure peace. I feel unfortunate to live in a world filled with others who feel the same as you.

[4891]

You misunderstand my argument. Obviously Jesus says that you should do good. Apparently that was a big part of his shtick. But if you want to actually do good you need to have a pretty fucking clear idea of how the world works. Because, y'know, wolves. It's not that America must act like a criminal gang, it's that it lives in a neighbourhood patrolled by a number of criminal gangs, so even if its ultimate goal is to kumbayah the world into submission it should probably keep a few guns in reserve, just in case.

"I feel unfortunate to live in a world filled with others who feel the same as you."

Judging by the comments here, I think its filled more with people who feel the same as you. It's not since the 19th century that people like me have been common, though the ideas I'm riffing on were already old during the Roman Empire, who succesfully implemented the only known formula for world peace discovered to date (si vis pacem, para bellum). The 20th century was full of idealistic visionaries who tried flipping this ancient wisdom, with predictable results.

You should feel unfortunate in about two or three decades though: that's when I forecast the West's technological and economic boons peter out and its various infringements of natural law finally catch up with it, and the east Asian nations bring back the old order: national sovereignty over world policing, mercantilism over outsourcing, savings over debt, and good governance over democracy.

[rohamg]

I agree with abraininavat; your perspective is an unfortunate one. Or you're being disingenuous. Roman empire and world peace? The Roman empire a) was at constant war, and b) governed over a tiny sliver of the world. And "keep a few guns in reserve just in case" != more military spending than next 20 countries combined; massive spying on allies, enemies, and citizens alike; etc.