Unobstructed law enforcement is vital. So is lawful protest. Racism is a blight on it all.
A lot has been said in the last week about the tragic, deadly confrontation between protestors and ICE in Minnesota.
For ‘liberal democracy’ to survive, democratically-elected Governments must be able to carry out law enforcement unobstructed. The social contract is not pacifist. Citizens do not always realise that the potential for righteous violence is something we agree on. It’s just that we agree citizens may not use violence to enforce the law, only to act in self-defence (minimum, reasonable, necessary). We agree to contract that physical enforcement/violence out to our democratically-elected Government as a ‘monopoly of violence’ over us – the State providing the necessary minimum violence or physical force to enforce law and order. In most cases such disputes end in zero violence, but yes, the threat is there (eg prison for not paying fines; injury during rioting etc).
The other part of the social contract is that we can protest against bad laws or bad implementation of laws. We can do this within the law, or illegally if we are willing to be arrested, tried and put in prison if necessary, ie to face the physical force of the law. We do it to get noticed, and voter awareness is increased in time for the next election, at least.
If co-ordinated obstruction efforts prevent ICE’s ability to operate, for example, we can simply expect the penalties for obstruction to be exponentially increased to reassert formal authority. This would be a sad loss of individual freedoms across society and therefore unwise, despite the urge to do so. The obstructors would be strategically responsible for this narrowing of individual freedoms on us all.
Barack Obama deported 3 million illegal immigrants.
But a problem remains that is linked to racism.
Law enforcement in liberal democracies is historically racially asymmetric despite the actual and theoretical freedoms of ‘classical liberalism’, and some marginalised groups still trust the law less. Recent anti-racism efforts may have reduced this, at the cost of ‘two-tier’ or ‘reverse racism’, leading to a reduction – but nowhere near elimination – of racism in the traditional directions, but now with more discrimination and unfairness to individuals happening in more directions.
This is a problem solved only by two things together.
a) ‘Freedom’: a widely-held cultural belief in ‘freedom’ that leads to the establishment and maintenance of a constitutional democracy; and
b) ‘Responsibility’: a cultural belief in using that freedom wisely, ie with a constant downward pressure on unfairness including conscious racism. Majority rule is not enough – the vulnerable need protections.
Without both of these together, we may not deserve – or get or keep – our desired constitutional, liberal, open democracy.
So a continuation of racism is not acceptable. However, as a cultural phenomenon, a State cannot achieve non-racism quickly even with formal power, and it takes long effort to keep reducing it. Anti-racism initiatives (with Kendi’s ‘discrimination in the present’) can create other injustices and induce some new and greater divides in other directions. We just have to keep calling racism out so that the unfairness is recognised and the cost is reputational to the speaker. This largely works, even if we are frustrated and impatient. Statistically, very few people even want to use particular racial words in the UK. That shows something significant at least.
Even here we need to be careful – if we exaggerate accusations of racism, then there will rightly be a loss of reputation to the accuser. So the only way is to stay proportionate and steadfast, however annoying this temperance may feel.
And here below is an example from a commentator with a lot of followers. Even with sympathy for ICE to do its job; even with sympathy for deporting illegal immigrants; even with an attitude of ‘family’ before ‘criminal strangers’; even then there is this reference to such people being ‘brown’. So what if they are white, brown or other descriptor? 42% of Americans are non-white. The point is whether immigrants follow the country’s laws, and support a free society with personal responsibility, not what level of melanin they possess.
This kind of commentary below, with its casual racism inserted into the narrative, should be called out louder by moderate conservatives who want to retain their liberal democracy. Research shows moderate conservatives tend to be quieter than left-wing voices on social media, but need to speak up to be seen as decent and not ‘far right’ but just ‘right of centre’. If not, we end up with democratic power in the hands of those who have given up on ‘classical liberals’ and ‘liberal democrats’ in favour of illiberal societal organisation – and we know where that leads