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Notes -
Texas Border Flareup... Again
https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23A607/295564/20240112012220571_23a607%20DHS%20v%20TX%20supplement.pdf
Texas has seized a public park in Eagle Pass to take control of a 2.5 mile stretch of the border(https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-blocks-federal-border-agents-processing-migrants-eagle-pass-shelby-park/). This is a bigger deal than it seems; the only boat launch and main surveillance point for miles is located there, effectively preventing border patrol from operating over a relatively wider frontage.
Context
The State of Texas has long been adding concertina wire to the border to prevent crossings, and has been accusing the federal government of cutting it to allow migrants to cross. Recently Texas won an injunction in court blocking the federal government from doing this, and the federal government has of course appealed, but the injunction includes an exception for if cutting the wire is necessary to assist migrants experiencing a medical emergency.
So Texas seized the main surveillance point and boat launch(in this sector) for the border patrol to prevent them seeing migrants experiencing a medical emergency. For the record, I don't trust the federal government with this "medical emergency" exception either, but this is flatly illegal in, well, pretty much every way you approach it.
https://news4sanantonio.com/news/trouble-shooters/texas-blocks-border-patrol-from-entering-key-area-for-illegal-crossings
Of course the border patrol union is siding with Abbott, which would make it awkward for fedgov if they cared. Although Abbott's justification has nothing to do with the border patrol union's:
And anecdotally his fundraising emails are talking a lot more about state sovereignty than normal. It led to a twitter breakdown by Gina Hinojosa(head of the Texas democrats) accusing him of being a secessionist, and the admittedly low chance of Gina Hinojosa of all people meming Texas independence into the political mainstream through the power of negative partisanship is kind of hilarious.
But back to the topic at hand; it's unclear what Abbott's actual game is; he's an accomplished constitutional lawyer(literally; that's how he became governor) and knows he's going to lose at court. He's also never been the reckless type and so it's unlikely he did this without thinking it through. Angling for a Trump cabinet seat, maybe? It also surprises me that he did this now; primaries are coming up in March, and Abbott endorsed a relatively wide array of candidates to try to shift the house in a more partisan republican direction; taking a political risk like this one is unlike him.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this is the Leviathan-shaped hole.
Abbott strikes me as a savvy guy, and I think he might be trying to position himself as a Ceaser to Trump's Gracchus. I think that he thinks that the Plebs (IE the general public) and the Legions (IE the rank-and-file Cops, National Guard, Border Patrol, etc...) might side with him rather than the Senate, and he's now testing the waters with what is essentially a probing action. The CBP Union taking his side reinforces this impression.
this is gibberish what does this even mean?
It's a reference to the book Leviathan by philosopher Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes claimed that people are inherently selfish and capable of violence. The natural state of man is a "war of all against all," or an anarchic realm of banditry and feuds. Enlightened self-interest leads to the formation of governments, but when those governments act in ways that make people think they would be better of with anarchy, it weakens the power of the state and encourages civil war and criminality.
Hlynka believes (as I understand it) that this is more or less the most important text of political philosophy in Western civilization and that it is underappreciated in the modern world. This is the best source I can find of him explaining his views on the matter.
@HlynkaCG if I've misrepresented your opinions.
Rousseau died long after Hobbes died lmao and I always have hated his posts and even with your explanation I still don't understand what he's saying. If Hobbes was alive and writing today he'd probably call him a leftist from what I've seen from him. One time he told me slavery in the South was inspired by Rousseau and that Southern planters and slave owners were leftists. Just a bizarre view of the world.
The opposition with Rousseau is in the conception of the state of nature which is fundamental to the liberal ideological grounding of all post 1789 politics.
Rousseau believes that humans are naturally good and that people must give away their natural rights in exchange for civil rights to a government that will promote the General Will: a return to the state of nature through the abolition of all social noms, as they are inherently evil.
Hobbes believes that humans are naturally evil and that people must lease their natural rights to a legitimate sovereign so that he may defend them and prevent the War of All Against All. The goal of good government is to avoid tyranny, which is the violation of natural law by anyone because it returns it's victims to the natural state and makes chaos and rebellion legitimate.
These two tendencies are well represented in the French revolution and hereafter in every Liberal project.
Hynkla doesn't have weird views at all, he's merely got the views held by most people who have been in direct contact with violence, your cops, soldiers, etc. People who know that society is rife with violent deviants who would victimize everyone if not for the organized monopoly on force. And he's constantly advocating for the maintenance of order as the core of right wing politics.
I happen to disagree as a perennial traditionalist and reject the idea of a state of nature altogether at this point, but no it's not a weird position. And it makes perfect sense here: there is chaos and lawlessness at the border and anyone who restores order is legitimate regardless of means because legitimacy requires the enforcement of order first.
I'd say that's a reasonably accurate summary of my position.
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Unfortunately, Hobbes's advice to the governed is to bow down and kiss the feet of the sovereign, obey without complaint almost no matter how horrible they are, because whatever they are is better than being in that state of nature, the war of all against all. Unless, that is, you think you can defeat the current sovereign and do better.
It's certainly a convenient philosophy for those who embody the whip hand; it justifies anything they might do.
You're leaving out the big hole that famously makes Leviathan the "Rebel's catechism".
The sovereign must be obeyed absolutely insofar as he is not a tyrant. Is he to declare war onto you you have free reign to blow him and all his agents up.
Hobbes does not believe in limited government, but he does believe in natural law as a limiting principle of all possible action. God himself damns tyrants.
It is not just untrue to say that Hobbes justifies all sovereign action. It is actually the opposite of what he says and he got exiled and censored out of it so I'd like you to take that back.
That said yes, if you can't do better you shouldn't destroy all of society out of spite. I don't think that's an unreasonable moral standard. I oppose communism on those very grounds after all.
I mentioned it. "Unless, that is, you think you can defeat the current sovereign and do better."
He may, but His damnation does those under the tyrant no good.
Or do anything but obey. For an American, that means that if you're not ready, able, and willing to take on the entire United States Government and personally replace it with something better of your own devising, suck it up buttercup.
"Seeing that from the virtue of the Covenant whereby each Subject is tied to the other to perform absolute and universal obedience to the City, that is to say, to the Sovereign power, whether that be one man or Council, there is an obligation derived to observe each one of the civil Laws, so that that Covenant contains in it self all the Laws at once; it is manifest that the subject who shall renounce the general Covenant of obedience, doth at once renounce all the Lawes. Which trespass is so much worse than any other one sin, by how much to sin always, is worse than to sin once. And this is that sin which is called TREASON; and it is a word or deed whereby the Citizen, or Subject, declares that he will no longer obey that man or Court to whom the supreme power of the City is entrusted."
He spent time in exile because he supported the wrong sovereign.
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