Racism as Idea

Let's assume I've made the idea that government should not dictate what people believe except if it harms or if the idea promotes (not merely increases the risk of) harm to others. The individual should be able to choose from the range of lifeviews available in his or her free society. The government should not coerce someone into various religious, social, or other views.

What about the idea of racism? It's bad, right? We'll take the racism of Whites against Blacks as an example. Racists are prejudiced against other people simply due to the color of their skin. That's unfair and wrong. Skin color has to do with how much melanin is in one's skin; the level of melanin in a person's skin is no basis for a judgment of their person or a reason to look with disfavor or hate on them.

Should the government criminalize racism? It depends. The government should criminalize racism of the type that leads to groups of White citizens hanging Blacks. However, there are other types of racism that do not meet the harm requirement. Some people see Blacks with disfavor because they are Black. This will affect their choices in employment, housing, and other areas. As citizens conducting their private lives with their own property, however, not giving someone something does not meet the harm principle. People are not (should not be) obligated to rent to, employ, or otherwise deal with anyone (excepting binding contracts and the like). People should be free to dislike, hate, ect. other people, as long as their views do not advocate inflicting harm on them.

So, am I saying the government should not take a stance on racism? No, absolutely not. Remember equality before the law. Government should be against all racism in all its actions, not favoring or penalizing based on skin color. However, the government should not criminalize its citizens racism and racist actions--as long as they do not inflict harm on others or have something that strongly encourages the inflicting of harm on others.

Morality is Not an Ultimate Justification for Legality

In a society which respects the right of citizens to think for themselves, moral claims cannot be the ultimate justification for outlawing certain actions. We begin to erode individual liberty of thought if we begin justifying laws based on our own moral structures. We still, however, need to make certain things illegal. Why should some acts be illegal?

In order to preserve the autonomy of individuals and the freedom to think for oneself, the government should embrace something like the harm principle. Mill and others have written about the harm principle. I understand it as saying that the only reason for the infringement of liberty is to prevent harm to others. This infringement takes place in the creating of laws and the punishment of those who break these laws.

If the government criminalizes anything but acts of positive harm, i.e., inflicting harm on others, (or perhaps believing things which promote the positive harm of others, e.g., believing that all race car drivers are evil and it is the responsibility of good people to assassinate them), it is showing disregard for equality because it limits the autonomy and freedom of thought among its citizens. This goes against equality before the law.

Equality Before the Law - Enlightenment and Autonomy of Thought

The idea that government should not interfere with its citizens holding certain ideas, except ideas which advocate or incite the violation of others' rights, can be recognized from an Enlightenment-valuing perspective.

The Enlightenment, as I understand it, had as its central tenet that it is up to individuals to decide what to believe. The king does not have the right to tell his people what to believe, nor is truth determined by what he says. Neither can priests and religious institutions. "Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another" (Kant, What is Enlightenment?). One must decide for oneself what one believes because one is responsible for one's beliefs.

What we have lost to a large degree in America is our respect for individual responsibility for one's ideas (both that it is X's place to determine what he believes and it is X's fault if he chooses to embrace false ideas). As long as ideas are not advocating or inciting harm of others, neither the law nor the government should exert influence on which political/religious/social beliefs people hold.

With this in mind, those who appreciate Enlightenment ideals should agree that the government should neither condone nor outlaw ideas for its citizens. The government should stay as far away from prescribing a set of beliefs for its citizens as possible.

Equality Before the Law - Christianity and Religion

This idea of equality before the law applies to people's ideas themselves, in the sense that the law ideally does not make religious decisions (i.e. which ones are good, which ones are bad)--except for those which call or incite violence or other harmful actions. (Harmful actions are violations of legitimate rights.)

Those coming from a Christian perspective ought to agree with this because of the basics of Christianity. Christianity focuses on the relation between our ideas, beliefs, etc. and God, primarily. We believe (truly, not just a profession) and are saved. We merely profess to believe or believe something importantly different from the Truth and are not saved.

Under a right Christian perspective, ideas and beliefs are primarily between God and man. Christianity's emphasis on true belief, and not mere profession, should persuade Christians (1) that we should oppose a government's promoting Christian beliefs and ideas because that would encourage hypocrisy and (2) that we should certainly oppose a government which represses Christian beliefs because that would scare people away from Truth and make our job of telling others about Christianity much more difficult.

I think this should apply to all ideas. The government should not interfere, except to keep citizens from infringing on others' rights to gather information about ideas and decide for themselves.

Humans' Equality Before the Law

What is equality before the law?

'Before the law' must be taken seriously. This principle is focused on the laws' equal treatment of the nation's (state's, community's, etc.) people. The law cannot justly favor rich people over poor people. The government's treating its citizens equally does not mean it should enforce equality of circumstances; that would be doomed to fail. One's equality is not one's being equal. All humans were created equal--but they are not the same.

It is natural and right for a government to attempt to procure the maximum amount of equality among its citizens. Rights emanate (at least) from the equality of constitution. No individual is naturally justified in harming his fellow human. No individual is naturally more deserving of being harmed by fellow humans. The government has a right to protect its citizens from those who seek to harm or actually do harm fellow citizens.

The matter is different when considering equality before the law regarding ideas. Our equality of constitution does mean we are not to infringe on others' bodies (and property), but our equality also means we are all seekers of truth. We have our own minds as well as our own bodies, and it is proper that we are allowed to think what we will as long as we do not infringe on others' bodies or minds.

Since people under a government are in a social context and because we are influenced by the ideas around us, infringing on another's mind would have to be intense in order to justify action by the government; it would have to be something along the lines of one's forcing another to believe certain things (e.g., hooking another's brain up to a brain programmer). Otherwise, the government's curtailing of liberty to think certain thoughts due to the effect on others' brains is curtailing the liberty to think of the one 'causing the problem' in the first place.

Much value can be seen in 'equality before the law'. If equality before the law were a fundamental principle of the government in the United States, we would be much better off.

The Intolerance of Tolerance, Don Carson

"I have to disagree with [an idea] before I can use the word 'tolerate'."

Deterrence

When people debate what type of sentences should be given to criminals in the United States, it seems many in criminology suggest that 'harsh' sentences do not deter. Sentences which might be regarded as retributive or used for deterrence are said to be ineffective at what we should really be seeking, which is deterrence and/or 'rehabilitation'. They say that criminals are generally not so calculating as to consider the possible punishment for their actions. A crime which will receive two years in jail will not be avoided more than if the same crime will receive twenty years in jail. Criminals commit crime, largely disregarding the potential sentence(s) against them.

People who talk like this seem to be limiting their thought to the slice of humans who are criminals now. Those arguing for lesser or less-costly sentences (e.g., community service instead of jail time)--which also tend to be less scary--assume that those who are calculating are not committing that many crimes. This suggests that the 'harsh' sentences in place in the US are deterring, quite effectively, one significant part of the population--those who calculate. If lesser sentences were imposed, it would seem that we would still not deter many non-calculating individuals, but we would deter fewer calculating people who, e.g., would be willing to clean a highway if caught speeding but who would not risk being sent to jail for speeding.

Policy decisions about sentencing and deterrence need to take into consideration new groups of people who will commit crime under new practices.

Tolerance

Tolerance is one of the most-prized social virtues in America today. What is it? Is it accepting other's views, giving assent that their beliefs are right for them? Or is it being accepting of others with views different than one's own?

I think it is closer to the latter. Toleration in the former sense leans towards complete subjectivism and cannot include tolerance for objectivism (Stetson and Conti, 'The Truth about Tolerance'). Since tolerance cannot be acceptance of all views as correct (due to the contradiction presented above), it seems toleration must be about our relation to people, rather than ideas.

Tolerance, well-understood, is a term for a political and social stance and activity emanating from that stance. It is a term that is seen in one's actions, not in one's beliefs about a contended issue, e.g., gay marriage, ultimate truth, religion, etc. Those who positively believe that God exists can be tolerant of those who positively believe that no God exists, and vice versa. Each can deeply believe contradictory things, and still be tolerant of the other. This is not done by keeping one's beliefs to oneself or by acknowledging that one might be wrong in one's beliefs, but it is done by not harming those who hold beliefs opposed to one's own beliefs.