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If no one else is going to link to Scott's latest CW-related post, I guess I'll try to meet the mods' wishes for a top level comment... (Though I didn't re-read it, so...)
Fascism Can't Mean Both A Specific Ideology And A Legitimate Target
I agree, inasmuch we stipulate "Political violence in America is morally unacceptable" means "literally, categorically unacceptable, due to our assessment of the threat of fascism" and "(at the current time)" ignores the possibility of near-future change in the threat-assessment. Though I emphatically oppose political violence, I don't think it would be logically incongruent to leave open the possibility that fascism is bad enough that we're near the point of political violence being acceptable. But I don't think Scott's doing a motte-and-bailey, by using a narrow denotation; just stating a motte, with the expectation his readers take it at face value.
Characteristic of Scott, the post is a neat exercise in logical tidiness. However, it only gestures at the bigger, scarier question: How do societies classify danger and determine when violence becomes permissible? The classification of threats is important, because names carry significant policy weight (e.g., Trump labeling Antifa a domestic terrorist organization...). Label something "fascism" as a distinct ideology, and you direct attention towards connotations and lineage. However, use the same term as a moral epithet (i.e., a catch-all for political enemies) and you alter the rhetorical perception.
All political action is violence... or at least the threat of violence. We've put a nice facade over it and depending at what point in history the majority and even the vast majority do not think about this. In my more argumentative days I figured I'd pierce the facade and instead of people giving up violence for petty thing got more "Fine, I'm OK killing you". Since no one wants to be an anarch-capitalist be careful when piercing the facade with unstable people.
Tags: Libertarian "Gun in the Room", Nothing every happens
This is such a bizarre argument, particularly for one I've seen repeated again and again in different variations with negligible pushback. When they say "This movie may contain scenes of violence", they aren't talking about a parliamentary committee crafting legislation. When the FBI gathers events for inclusion in their "violent crime" statistics, they don't count voter fraud. People with a commitment to "nonviolence" have no problem voting, and they aren't regarded as hypocrites for doing so.
People have no problem with recognizing violence (or the lack of it) when they see it, but this novel expansive definition of violence keeps popping up.
A facade, and a wall, and armor plating, and a maze beyond that. Stalin had a facade of nonviolence as he was genociding Ukrainians, but we (practically) have the real thing. People don't think about the "facade" because there are genuine, strong social barriers to using (normally-defined) violence.
One man’s modus ponens is another man’s modus tollens.
I think this is a different argument from the typical "words are violence". This seems to come from the libertarian view that "government is [a monopoly on] violence", and ultimately that all laws the legislators craft are enforced at the threat of violence. You do something that sounds banal like banning the sale of "loosie" individual cigarettes to enforce tax laws and maybe wave hands about "public health", and ultimately if some of the populace resists this seemingly-nonviolent policy, your enforcers will end up killing them. I doubt there's a single law of the state for which sufficiently determined noncompliance won't end with physical violence.
That said, while I think the libertarians have a mostly-self-coherent ethical view (which is more than many can say), I think some level of civilization is worth the trade off in terms of absolute freedoms.
Do people consider Max Weber to be a libertarian? But yes I'm coming at it from the libertarian traditions. Hence the tag...
In "defense" of my less radical brethren, the vast majority of libertarians agree. Ancaps are - or were - over represented in parts of the internet. There are far more minarchists and those are greatly eclipsed by just self-described libertarians who make all sorts of tradeoffs.
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