Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:01 It does look like it's four o'clock so we can get started and, uh, we'll introduce people. Uh, thank you for joining us today. I'm Scott Schiff hosting the ATLA society, senior scholar, professor Jason Hill. Talking about iron Rand on civil disobedience. Uh, I'd ask everyone to please share the room and also please raise your hand if you wanna join the conversation. Uh, Jason, thanks so much for doing this topic today. Um, can you give us a little background, uh, about what Rand said about civil disobedience and your assessment of it?
Speaker 1 00:00:37 Right. So, thanks. Thanks. Uh, there's going to be a little bit of noise cuz I'm at this. Um, it's not a resort, it's just an off the beat hotel in Jamaica, so there's gonna be some street noise. Um, I'm traveling around. Um, so, um, yeah. Um, so if you hear the noisy traffic and motorbikes, it's like being in Italy with the scooters and so on. Um, so yeah, Rand wrote this essay, um, or she mentioned civil disobedience in the caching in, in the student rebellion. And um, she basically said that civil disobedience is justifiable in some cases, uh, when and if an individual disobeys law in order to bring in court as a test case, uh, she made it very clear that in such a case there was absolute respect for legality and a, and the, the protest was directed only at a particular particular particular law, which the individual seeks an opportunity to prove to be unjust.
Speaker 1 00:01:40 Right. And she said the same is true of a group of individuals when, and if the risks involved are their own, uh, she said that there was no justification for any kind of mass civil disobedience that involves the violation of the rights of others, regardless of whether the demonstrators goal is good or evil. And here, I think she was talking about the sit-ins during the civil rights movement when, uh, blacks would sit at the lunch counters or the Woolworth stores. So she says the forcible occupation of another man's property or the obstruction of a public thorough affairs is a blatant violation of the rights of others that an attempt to justify it becomes an abrogation of morality.
Speaker 1 00:02:21 And, um, so she says the, the, the, the rights rights are not a matter of numbers and there can be no such thing in law or morality as actions forbidden by to an individual, but permitted to a mob. And she said that politically massive disobedience is appropriate own as a prelude to civil war as a declaration of a total break with a country's political institutions. So, um, I sort of want to take that discussion up because I, I think that her discussion on civil disobedience is a little bit limited in scope. That is, I think she's right, that there can be no such thing as civil disobedience when involves occupying another person's private property. That is no matter how much you believe that you have access to another person's private property. If that person doesn't want you on their private property, um, you cannot occupy it.
Speaker 1 00:03:21 So I think in that sense, civil disobedience is, um, is inappropriate. You, you, you do not have the right to occupy somebody's private property. Um, E even on the tenant that they're excluding you on imoral groans. Um, we might call them imoral and unethical, but they do have a legal right to their private property. So, um, Rand, I think was correct on, on that aspect, but I think that a wider discussion of civil disobedience that entails an unjust law or a set of unjust laws that are ensconced in an ilial state or in ensconced in an infrastructure that is itself ilial or varying towards a liberality, uh, a discussion of that order has to take place. So that's where I wanna pick up, because I think ran discussion were limited and presuppose an infrastructure of moral legality, right? That is laws fixed on, uh, a set of moral principles that themselves are protective of individual rights.
Speaker 1 00:04:35 And somewhere in the interpretation of the law or the scope of its application, an abrogation of rights occurred, but here one still shows the basic respect for the legal institutions, because the legal institutions themselves are still protective and are still dedicated to by and large the protection of individual rights. So one does not really engage in massive civil disobedience that violate the rights of others in those cases. Um, because one can ostensibly point to the ways in which there might just be an error of reasoning or a sort of, um, misapplication in the scope of, of, of, of, of particular laws, but ostensibly empirically the, the legislative and the judiciary judiciary are still committed to protecting individual rights. So I think those are the easy cases, but I want to advance a thesis that mass civil disobedience can be morally necessary in order to force the handle the law in a direction that protects individual rights long after say, let's say something like stare diseases has been established, and I'll take two examples, Roe V.
Speaker 1 00:05:54 Wade, which legalized abortion for women, and it's still on the book. So abortion is still legal for women. And let's say loving versus Virginia, which ended the criminalization of interracial marriage in the United States in the landmark case in 1967. So I think both cases involved the protection of the inviable autonomy sovereignty and the ownership in one's body that is, there are the, these are the preconditions, the material conditions that among other things need to be in place for life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to take place. So the idea that the original framing, for example, that Alita said that the original framing that legitimized Roe V Wade was fallacious, uh, is, is problematic because it presupposes among other things that the sovereignty, the autonomy and the UNS saleable ownership of property in a woman's body is negotiable. Uh, if the Supreme court were to overturn, let's say loving versus Virginia, some by some speech form of reason, reason, reasoning that it, uh, I don't know, violated the doctrine of American federalism, that relegated marriage as a subject traditionally reserved for state law.
Speaker 1 00:07:15 I mean, ratification of the 14th amendment, notwithstanding I think here a case ma of mass civil disobedience of such a law would be proper and here the violation would not result in the violation of anyone's individual rights, right? So I think people in that case who want inter marry ought to just rush to the courts, and we would have two forms of mass civil violation, mass civil disobedience, the people who are marrying interracial couples and the couples who are exercising their right to marry a person of their choice. So civil disobedience, I think in that sense would be restorative and corrective. And by the way, we see that despite Roe Wade still being the law of the land that the governor of Oklahoma, Kevin St, has signed into law into law a few weeks ago, banning abortion from the moment of conception. So here, the law has clearly become Tyran despotic, and I think in a completely hegemonic and totalizing manner, a violation of in inability clause vis Avi, a woman's constitutional and individual, right, to have an abortion.
Speaker 1 00:08:28 And he signed this law that makes abortion illegal from the moment of conception, despite the fact that, um, abortion on the federal level is still legal for all women in the United States of America. Um, so one is under no obligation here to respect the notion of legality more than one would be obliged to respect the law that let's say arbitrarily deprived, the man or woman of his or her property, because communally speaking by some sort of norms, communal norms that have been morphed from the standard they have become, uh, caught aside into, into norms. You know, the norms I'm speaking here is that a person owns too many houses. He has too much property. And by the norms of some sort of communal standards, the government is gonna deprive that person of their property. I think that's the same thing with abortion. There are nothing more than communal and religious norms that have been codified.
Speaker 1 00:09:25 Um, so in the case of interracial marriage, for example, a revocation of loving versus Virginia would result in something like the re criminalization of conscience, um, the re criminalization of conscience and the attendant judgment that results from the exercise of, of one's conscience. And also it would result in the, the denial of the right of association. So I think massive disobedience is not appropriate as a prelude to civil, to civil war. It is appropriate as we, as we see a rise in stateism and the concomitant and perversion of a nation's judiciary and legislative bodies. Um, I think the Oklahoma ban, which to me, is a sign of a sort of fright along with Christian nationalism that accompanies it, or that legitimizes, it is a sign of the coming theocracy should be a frightful occurrence to all. So when we have, as we do an extremist, um, activist majority in the Supreme court, who thinks that its job is to fix what it sees as the errors of the past, and to reintroduce more raise of the past as standards, um, and who can reify Morris from the past into a paradigmatic schema for the present, the future?
Speaker 1 00:10:54 I think civil, civil disobedience is, is the ultimate. Um, how can I put it? I think civil disobedience is, um, is utilization. I wanna say of our moral agency to restrain unjust laws that are already evicted from the Ambi of moral legality, right? So as civilized people can have no truck with what I would call outlaw laws that systemically agate their own inability. So Rand says that the advocates of civil disobedience, um, admit, must admit that their purpose is intimidation and this can be true or not, but it can be a good form of intimidation, but I don't think this is any more the case than the establishment of certain laws, um, that result, or are an expression of tyranny, not against the will of a people, but against the honest saleable, inviable and inable rights of the individual. So criminal law, those that are not anti they affect the moral principles or what I would call sinkhole laws, destroy the individuals in inalienable, right, to pursue a life of Liberty and the pursuit of happiness along with life.
Speaker 1 00:12:17 So law enforcement, right, assumes the job of protecting or rights by enforcing the law in any contestation vis V disputes among persons. But I think that some wrongs are so wrong that how that we assume the default duty of enforces ourselves. And I think that the Oklahoma anti-abortion law is so egregious a violation of a woman's right to the ownership of her body. This has to be assumed in order to make sense of the clause by granting personhood status to, I don't know if you can even call it a fetus it's it's it's pieces of protoplasm, um, and allowing status to that conglomeration of cells to supersede the right an indis dispute of a human being, a woman. I think it's so evil phenomenon that a moral principle that secures massive, massive disobedience of such a law, which violates federal abortion law could easily be established.
Speaker 1 00:13:19 So I think what we have here is a confection of hatred for women's rights or a misplacement of personal status to a few human cells, uh, that's going on, that's one of two options. And what we need really is a Confederacy of conscientious objectives and its pregnant women and doctors really disobey the law outright and mass, which would showcase a few things. One would be civil disobedience becomes a way of upholding what I would call the moral dimension of a law that has been overturned or a law that violates the moral principle that secures one's inable, individual rights and two mass civil disobedience. In the above case, I think involves the sovereign mass, becoming the deputy standin for a corrupt judiciary or a legislative body. As in the case of governor state, who's a corrupt human being. I think whose perversion of the law has fallen so low so far below what I would call a decency threshold, that it can be no longer trusted to act in the interest of the individual.
Speaker 1 00:14:30 So the mass cases of civil disobedience involves exercising the law of nature. That is the basis for ones inability and invariability. And we would act as the judge in our own, in our own lives here. So the judiciary has so grievously violated a person's rights that in some cases, I think it's just to burdensome to engage in civil disobedience as a test case against non just law. Because we heard talking about laws that are evil, such as one stripping, we can just point to any number of them. I think the Oklahoma law that criminalizes abortion from the moment of conception is one such law. We could point to laws, stripping Jews of their various rights during the <inaudible> Republic and under Nazi, uh, laws constructed under criminal regime. I don't think hold, um, any proper legal or moral weight upon a people. And so massive civil disobedience in such cases seem to be appropriate.
Speaker 1 00:15:31 They are checks and balances and correctives of judicial activism, judicial extremism, or a reaction court or court or, or courts. In other words, when led to stated body and the judiciary, the judiciary have by means of certain laws declared war on the invaluable sovereignty, autonomy and right of ownership in one's body. I think it has broadly speaking recused or evicted itself from the realm of the proper governance and it's it's egregious laws achieve among other things or results in the cancellation of what I would call the ju personality of the individual. So dation D identification, stripping individual of the stuff that constitutes his or her personal identity that is access to one's values. And the application of them as is the case of, um, would be the case of criminalization of intermarriage. And in the case of anti-abortion laws using one's body in a way to enjoy life Liberty in the pursuit of happiness, by making deliberate choice here regarding a pregnancy, or you just making a choice about one's reproductive apparatus, um, in a manner that would affect one's the rest of one's life.
Speaker 1 00:16:54 So I've gone beyond the mere test case, justification of engaging civil disobedience. And, and I've said that laws, or I'm gonna say that laws are primarily in a free society there to protect individual rights, not invoke communal morals that are justified as being in the public interest and then imposed unrest of society. This is collected as law and totalitarianism and or a sign of radical democracy. So the individual in such a case is living in a state of nature where a powerful minority in this case, five extremists on a, on a, on a Supreme court, uh, get to determine the fate and destiny of millions of women vis Avi, the loss of control of their bodies, or the individual has returned to a state of nature. As in this Oklahoma law, where a majority of would be theocratic residents are invested with the power to authorize their governor, to illegalize abortion from conception.
Speaker 1 00:17:59 So finally wrapping up, I'll just say that ideas and moral Sion have roles to play in a civilized and liberal society, but they take time and the invasive and, um, totalitarian needs activism, or when a state becomes in very invasive and totalitarian in its judiciary and judicial and legislative, um, behavior. So to speak, it needs activism now, not just books and speeches. So something like a legal insurrection against a legislative executive, um, set of bodies on the local level, um, around the judicial level, federally or local, um, that declares a wholesale war is proper as an offensive against such laws that I think they passed they're way past the unjust Monica, they have passed into corruption. So I think just as criminals and rogue nations, that systemically violate right of people have evicted themselves from the ambit of rights, the fiduciaries of the law who act in disagree, this man and vis Avi, the laws have evicted themselves as custodians of the law simplicity. And what we must do is act as their deputies, standing as engagers in radical and massive disobedience to force the moral dimension of a law that's been abolished, uh, via a perversion of the law itself. Uh, there's much more to say, but believe it or not, that was just about 20 minutes of me talking. So I'll stop there.
Speaker 0 00:19:55 Okay. Well, uh, that's great. I have a lot I could, uh, touch on, but I want to, uh, defer to TAs founder, David Kelly. Uh, did you have a question for professor hill?
Speaker 2 00:20:09 Uh, no, excuse me. I think, uh, this is a very interesting, uh, uh, topic and, uh, you know, you know, to my mind, uh, convincing case that Jason has made, I'm gonna, um, but I don't have a particular question at this point. So let me turn the floor back to you and, uh, and to others who may have questions, I'm sure there will be any, thank you.
Speaker 0 00:20:33 Great. Thank you for that. And we encourage you to share the room and raise your hand if you want to get involved with the discussion. A couple of things struck me, um, you know, one, I mean, don't, do we have different criteria for when something is, you know, uh, qualifies? I mean, I, I know obviously abortion's up there, but there are some things that, um, you know, uh, immigration, for example, they're not following federal law to have sanctuary cities or, um, you know, even, uh, marijuana legalization, they're ignoring federal laws in that case, because it's important in some cases they claim it's life saving. And so I'm just curious, you know, is that all because that's a trend we've seen lately where they kind of, you know, change the law by ignoring federal law. And in, in your case with, uh, with abortion, you're saying it warrants the type of, you know, type of civil disobedience, but in, in these cases, it's happening in just a kind of quiet way where the states are facilitating it. And I'm curious if, you know, you see that as valid or if it's the same thing or different.
Speaker 1 00:21:51 Well, I think that, um, there's certain laws that have to, before we engage in civil disobedience, that we, they have to have exhausted all the legal channels that is have to, as ran properly, said, they have to be sort of like a test case. And we engage in civil disobedience as a test case when they have exhaust, they've been exhausted, they've gone through, um, you know, various legal channels and then they have failed. And then we sort of engage in civil disobedience. Um, and then there are certain laws that, um, you know, violate their diseases that is, they've been like abortion. It's been it's it's precedent, um, gay marriage to another such law loving versus Virginia is another such law that, um, we are in, we are morally obligated, I think, to engage in civil disobedience under those conditions when stare diseases is established and an activist set of activist extremist ticket, that the original framing was fallacious or, um, yeah.
Speaker 1 00:22:59 Fallacious, and they're going to correct it, I think with immigration, it does not involve so, so, and let me say another thing, and then there are certain, there are certain laws that are so EVIS of people's dignity and are in such violation of their sovereignty and their autonomy that they're so unassailable that they're just not negotiable, that they, that we, we engage in massive civil disobedience because it's like bargaining with a criminal. It's like, you know, a criminal comes into your house and says your money or your life. If you've got a gun, you shoot him right away. You don't try to negotiate with a thief. Your life is not negotiable. Your sovereignty, your autonomy, uh, the inability of your rights are not up for negotiation. Um, I don't see that as being on par with what's happening on the Southern border with immigration. That is, that's why I use it.
Speaker 1 00:24:04 The litmus test of a, the, of a, um, a decency threshold. Uh, there are certain unas saleable inviable rights that we possess. So I would say something like a seatbelt law, which is clearly an unjust law, but it's not an evil law because being forced to wear a seatbelt is not, it's a violation of your sovereignty, but it's not a of your dignity, and it's not a material it's not such a violation of a material condition that it, it's not so comprehensive a violation of your right, that it really comprehensively interferes with your capacity to call a good life for yourself where certainly something like abortion, uh, legalizing abortion is certainly, uh, a case that not just potentially actually, uh, threatens your capacity to call a conception of the good life yourself. It comprehensively divorce, compromises your capacity to achieve life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Speaker 1 00:25:13 So I think we have to sort of hierarchize these, these, these violations of, of rights that affect us before we engage in something like mass civil disobedience or else we just have anarch and chaos, right? I'm not giving, I don't wanna give Carlan for everything that offends us or every law that annoys us every violation of a law that upsets us. That even is a, it's a violation of our individual rights is grounds for massive civil disobedience. I think we have to think long and hard about which of those laws are comprehen are so comprehensive. And so totalizing that this sty or capacity to exercise our agency to color concept of the good life for ourselves. And I just don't see the immigration issue as being on par with the abortion issue.
Speaker 3 00:26:08 Okay.
Speaker 0 00:26:09 That's fair. Uh, you know, there's some grayer issues that, uh, I, I can't even think of yet that it'd probably be more complicated, but, uh, I wanna get to JP JP, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 3 00:26:20 Thank you, Scott. And thank you, Jason and Jennifer David. Um, I would like to get, um, your thoughts on the parallels to the current, um, trend in authoritarianism and, um, also a characterization of, um, was gouts Gulch, for example, in, um, ATLA route, a very, very shin example of civil disobedience. And also in the end, if you, if there's, you have knowledge of it, there's, um, there's an offer of libertarianism by the name of Samuel Edward clocking that is said to have corresponded with iron ran a lot. And who wrote an essay by the name of an Aris primer primer? I'm not sure if that's correctly, um, spelled, um, which talks about, um, applied economics, applied counter economics, libertarianism and algorithm. Um, so yeah, uh, I, I, I would leave it at that if, if there's anything that, um, makes sense from that, then I appreciate your, your opinions.
Speaker 1 00:27:48 Right. Thanks. Thanks for that. Um, well, as far as the authoritarianism is concerned, I, I do think that the current rush, for example, of certain states to illegalize abortion, um, on the premise that they're sure that the Supreme court will overturn will V Wade is, is thought to be frightening for freedom lovers, uh, or anyone who just, you don't even have to be a freedom lover. You just have to respect individual rights because it, it is not just a, a flagrant violation of the law that is still the law of the land that is Roe V Wade. Um, but it is, um, a creepy form of Christian nationalism that is wielding nothing but religious, more codifying, religious more is, and, uh, norms on, in, into something that is used to justify these, these primitive anti-abortion laws. And so that's one area where I see the creeping rise of a kind of authoritarianism that is trace, go back to communal Mor is religious Mor is, um, I mean, we could talk about other forms of authoritarianism, but I wanna move on to the, the next question David, I want, I wanna invite David because David shared some information with me that he had, uh, already written about regarding whether gold SCO G was a form of civil disobedience.
Speaker 1 00:29:27 My, I mean, my sense is that it's not because just simply not working is not a violation of a law. Like I am a professor. So if I decide tomorrow to resign from my job on the premise that the culture is so bankrupt, which it is, and there's nothing but pu faction and medio mediocrity out there, which there are <laugh>, um, I don't think I'd be engaging in an act of civil disobedience because there's, I don't think to the best of my knowledge and a law on the book that says I have to work, um, as there are laws that says, if I had children, I have to send them to public schools. So if I pulled my children out of government schools and, um, decided not to get them an education, I'd be committing an act of civil obedience. So we have laws in the book that says, you know, all children have to educated or something like that.
Speaker 1 00:30:28 Um, so I'm not sure that GA and his com comrades, if Rand would not want me to use that term is, um, his, his, his fellow fighters in arms were committing civil disobedience, um, because simply withdrawing your talents and withdrawing your services from society. I don't know, constitutes breaking a law unless, um, in the dystopic sense, there are laws that condemn you to work. Um, but in a proper, properly speaking in a semi free society or a free society, I don't think it would. I don't see, I don't see GA or Hank Rearden or any of the others, um, committing civil disobedience as more just, um, committing, um, acts of heroism that is with literally withdrawing their talents from the world, bearing the consequences and their consequences that they had to bear in order to show how much the world really does depend on talent and genius and brilliance, and a set of skills that are indispensable for the advancement of civilization. David, what do you, I mean, I know you've written on this.
Speaker 2 00:31:58 Uh, yes, I I'm. Um, what Jason was referring to was, uh, a talk that I gave, uh, some years ago on, uh, it was called, um, the sanction of the victim, but it was about the strike of Atlas. And I was, uh, you can, I, I think Jason's right, this is not a case of civil disobedience in the, in the usual normal sense that he's describing it. Um, it's, it's more akin to a labor strike, uh, but there are structural parallels. Um, and I developed these, uh, the structure and the, the parallels in this talk, uh, the parallels, not only with the, the, you know, standard kind of labor strike, um, but also with, um, the form of civil disobedience that involves passive resistance of the kind that, uh, Martin Luther king engaged in, where, um, you are violate, you are, you know, violating, um, a law and you are accepting the reaction of the authorities, um, and actually expecting their brutality, uh, with the idea that it will shame the authorities and will generate public support for your cause.
Speaker 2 00:33:22 So in that sense, there's definitely a parallel between the strike and ATLA rug and, um, some of the, uh, broad movements like O DHI or as I said, Martin Luther king. Um, and I'd be happy to share that, uh, uh, the video and, and, uh, PowerPoints with a new one who's interested, but, um, I think this is a, a very high level analogy. Um, and it, you know, when you get down into the nitty gritty of the kind of movement or civil disobedience that, uh, Jason has been talking about, I think, yeah, the, the, uh, the strikers in Atlas did not, um, violate laws. They did it along the way. They just ignored them. Um, and at the end, of course, they fought back, um, to prevent the torture of, of their hero, but the, um, by and large, they were simply withdrawing there on strike. Um, and that's, it, it, it, in fact violated, um, the draconian laws, uh, that were imposed in part two of Valla shrug, like, like, you know, no one made leave his job, um, but they didn't make that public. They just disappeared. No one could find me, they were hidden. So, um, big differences.
Speaker 0 00:34:55 Well, uh, that's good. Now, obviously it seems like you focus a lot of this on, uh, violations of the law. And I can understand that criteria. Um, you know, sometimes I think of civil disobedience is like reacting to the slow boil approach that it seems like society's doing on us sometimes. And it can, you know, so I think of like the FBI agents or they, the guys that were at that protest last year that, you know, became a meme of FBI agents, and now we're laughing at them, or, you know, when they talk about governor Whitmer, uh, being kidnapped and it turned out, it was a bunch of FBI agents that, you know, and maybe like a couple of informants and, you know, we're laughing at that. And I mean, in, on one level, it's terrible that we're laughing about the unraveling of the rule of law, but at the type of civil disobedience, it seems like it anyway,
Speaker 1 00:35:54 You mean what seems like what seems like a type of civil dis
Speaker 0 00:35:58 Just like, uh, laughing at the system, mocking the system. Uh, sometimes it can manifest as like supporting the candidate that they tell us. We shouldn't like,
Speaker 1 00:36:11 Well, yeah. I mean, that's, I mean, that could be a form of civil dis and sort of colloquial sense of term, but I think that civil disobedience for it to have any kind of conceptual traction or upshot has to be distinctly positioned in relation to particular laws. And not just, not just even not, Morriss not even Morriss that have become cultural practices or not even norms let's stick with Morice. Cause I think Maurice are stronger than norms, not even ma is that get codified into cultural practices? Um, I think civil disobedience, um, is really an action that is in defiance of codified law. That one is in disagreement with, I mean, for those of you are interested, this book was written a long time ago. I did write a book called civil disobedience and the politics of identity when we should not get law. And I sort of lay out, I mean, nobody that book anymore, it's so old, but, um, I did sort of lay out the criteria for what counts as civil disobedience and when we should not get along and when we should not have truck with, with, with certain laws.
Speaker 1 00:37:25 So I wanna make a distinction here and say that in the colloquial sense, it does seem often like we're engaging civil disobedience when we mark certain, uh, more areas that have become codified, but are not enacted on the level of policy, but for civil disobedience, um, to really have any kind of resonance and traction, it has to be enact that is in one asteroid to be breaking the law. And that's why I said, you know, I am in disagreement partially with Rand on the idea that engaging in massive disobedience is a prelude to civil war. I, I do think all of us should support, um, those individuals living in Oklahoma, where abortion has been banned from the level of fertilization. I mean, um, um, that, that governor, um, Kevin stood is, is really quite an evil man. And I think in that case, massive or disobedient where any woman who found herself pregnant and any doc, every doctor who's willing to perform an abortion, um, and mass, if there're 10,000 women in a month who won't have an abortion and there're doctors root to perform it, that would be a case of massive disobedience that should be enacted.
Speaker 1 00:38:46 What are they gonna do? Arrest 10,000 doctors and 10,000 people. Well, um, that would be a case of forcing the hand of the law, um, because if you have that many people committing massive disobedience, that's not a prelude to any kind of civil war that is each person, as I've said, we can call them a sovereign mass, but each person acting as a deputies standin for a, for the judge for the judiciary that has failed them for the legislative body. In this case, the governor of, um, the executive body on the local level, the governor who has illegally acted illegally because Roe V. Wade is still the law of the land. He's acted illegally by creating a law, um, authorized by his constituents. Um, his Christian nationalist constituents to enact a law that is in, is in violation of federal law. So I, I, yeah, I'm spending a lot of time on this because I do think that there are certain actions that seem to be accessible disobedience, but it, it, for, to really have its resonance and it has to be an action that is in violation of law.
Speaker 1 00:39:57 What are these pregnant women gonna do in Oklahoma who find themselves, uh, by the way, you don't even know you're pregnant at the moment of fertilization, right? So this is ridiculous. So why are these women gonna do, um, when at six weeks or four weeks, probably they found out they're pregnant. Um, if they decided if a Confederacy of doctors and, and a Confederacy of women decide and mask that they're just going to have abortions, that's massive disobedience. And I'm arguing that that's a kind of massive disobedience. I think we should all support. We should all uphold morally, um, and people should have a right to engage morally in that kind of mess. Massive obedience.
Speaker 0 00:40:40 Okay. Thanks. Uh, Clark, welcome to the stage.
Speaker 4 00:40:45 Yes. Um, thank you, uh, for holding this, uh, presentation, uh, I guess I've always looked at this issue, um, primarily as a private public issue. I'm thinking of course of speakers who were invited to university campus where they're protestors, uh, will invoke, what's often called a heckler's veto. They won't let the speakers speak. And, you know, a lot of universities today, since they don't really understand private property or property rights, the, the way that most of the people in this room today do, uh, they will say, well, you know, the protesters, they have a right to protest. Uh, they have free speech rights. So, you know, we'll give them a warning the first time, but generally, you know, well, we all know that there are instances where speakers just weren't allowed to speak because the, the, the people against their views send so many people to the, to the talks that, you know, it was just impossible to, without the university or place actually resting people, which I think is what they should do.
Speaker 4 00:41:53 If pro if property rights mean anything, uh, they should actually, uh, arrest people who were violating the rights of, of the university or the, the organization that's actually sponsoring the speaker. Those, those person's rights are violated. And I guess the most, um, the most recent instance that I can think of off the top of my head is the protestors who, who visited if that's the correct word, uh, justice Kavanaugh's home, uh, and, and again, you know, on public property, the private, you know, sidewalk, I, I suppose in front of, is in front of his home. That's perfectly legal. Uh, the issue of course today is most people who aren't objective or who don't understand, you know, private property rights, don't think that, you know, that it stops at public property. They think they have the right to go up to, you know, the justices home, knock on his door, you know, stand in his, in, in his property or, or in his, in his private front yard. And of course, we all know those of us in this room that that's, that's completely wrong, but to me, that's where the ISS, that's where the rubber hits the road. So I'm interested, Jason, and, and what are your views on, on protesters who, who did in fact, uh, from what I've heard, you know, they did in fact go to justice, CA justice Kavanaugh's home, uh, and they did pretty much prevent, uh, uh, you know, I mean, they basically violated any sense of privacy he may have had. What, what are your thoughts about that, Jason?
Speaker 1 00:43:20 Well, as I said, I started off the talk by saying, I completely think that Rand is right, that despite the good intentions of those who engage in civil disobedience, that you have no right to access another person's property. Even if you think that accessing their property is the right thing. And you think that they they're, their, their denial of your access is evil, right? Let's say so we're talking about blacks in the 1960s, sitting at the Woolworth counters, demanding to be served. And people saying the owner saying, you know, we don't wanna serve because we don't wanna deal with blacks. I, I think that on a strictly property rights basis on a legal basis, people who all know their private property have a legal, a legal right to, to not have people on their property. You know, I think every one of us in this room would defend the legal, right, but ought to say morally, you're a piece of scum.
Speaker 1 00:44:21 You're a piece of crap because you're using skin colors or criteria and for excluding people from your property, and that's just a heinous, horrible criterion to use. So I think I would, I would use the same principle in arguing that, um, as much as I think I'm told against the five extremists on the Supreme court, who I think are all Christian nationalists who want to take women back to the dark ages, I despise all of them, uh, for philosophically that is, I don't know them personally, but I think their, their, their goals are heinous and reprehensible, especially Lito. Um, you do not have the right to carry your WRA in your rage onto a person's private property, his home, uh, which is where he belongs, carry that pro get a, get a permit like everybody else, March in the street. And, um, and the civil disobedience Clark, I think that I'm championing here is the mass civil disobedience is the breaking of a law that is egregious and wrong.
Speaker 1 00:45:25 That is if you get pregnant, if a woman gets pregnant, uh, or any number of women get pregnant, they, and if they're brave enough to do it, they ought to break a law by having an abortion. And they ought to do this in the thousands, uh, end mass in flagrant violation of an evil law that <affirmative>, that pretends to be writing a wrongful framing of a law that was passed in the, in the seventies. Um, so that's the kind of civil disobedience I'm defending, but I would never defend as much as I think these, these five extremists are repren individuals. Uh, should they overturn Ruby Wade, um, which they probably will, um, they're activists and their, their, their reactionary, um, that doesn't give anyone the right to even threaten their lives. Um, that's, that's, that's not what civil disobedience is about or to occupy their property. That's not what civil disobedience, you don't set foot on some other's private property because you disagree with them. That's, that's not how you, you know, that's just not how you challenge a law at all.
Speaker 0 00:46:39 Clark, have more to say,
Speaker 4 00:46:43 Well, actually, that's, that's great. I, I, I agree completely Jason, uh, and that's, uh, and again, you know, I would just wrap up by saying, yeah, unfortunately today, you know, many, many people, you know, who don't understand these issues, uh, the way you do and, and presumably most everybody else in the room think that, you know, may not, when Roe is overturned and I agree, it probably will be, uh, I think there will be more visits to more Supreme court justices homes and, and such, and, and, but, but you've, uh, yeah, you've, you've stated it, uh, as well as it can be stated. Jason, so, so thank you so much for that.
Speaker 1 00:47:20 Thanks.
Speaker 0 00:47:22 Just to add on to that a little bit. I, I do think that, um, you know, one of the issues is, uh, so they arrested someone outside Kavanaugh's home. And I mean, obviously you're against that. And, and you stated that clearly, but what we saw, for example, in 2020 with the mass civil disobedience, and we were told that it was mostly peaceful protesters, and there was an implication that we basically had to accept the bad, because so many of them were peaceful that we couldn't, you know, stand up against them. And it becomes this kind of sliding scale of, you know, how peaceful you are at what time of day. And that's just, you know, that's something with, I mean, there was a basic call from mass civil disobedience over what happened to George Floyd. And I mean, you can argue that that should have happened or that shouldn't have happened, but either way, I mean, I think everyone agrees it, it got out of control a little bit, and that is something to consider at least logistically,
Speaker 1 00:48:25 Right? So I, I, I think that people, people have a right of assembly and, you know, you, you, you know, if we, we we've had various marches, the hip is, and the hips and the, the million dollar March from men and the women's rights movement and gay activists. So we have a history in this country of, of people seeking petition and license and, and, and, or, you know, granting them permission to March peacefully. And that's that, I mean, whether one agrees that the public star affairs are for cars and public public public passage, or for demonstration is one thing. I, I happen to think that that with the proper procedures, people should be low, so peacefully demonstrate and register the protest. Um, and we've had a history of that in this country, but the idea that somehow that gives you then license to vandalize personal property, that, that, that, that gives other people license to vandalize property and express their, uh, in many cases, understandable rage, um, uh, into some kind of amorphous chaotic, um, violence against people who have not harmed them.
Speaker 1 00:49:44 That is, you know, you're gonna smash a store winner. You're gonna loop the stuff from ding Gana and, and Prada, and say, this is our reparations now, and you're going to burn down black businesses. And, uh, and you know, this is, this is, again, this is a, a, a gross violation of property rights against people who have done your no harm. And, uh, there's not a case of civil disobedience. It's just a case of, of, of want and violence that that should have been dealt with quite seriously. There should have been arrests. Um, and, and, and, um,
Speaker 5 00:50:22 How do you consider civil disobedience?
Speaker 1 00:50:28 What's that?
Speaker 5 00:50:29 What do you personally not judicially, but like, what do you consider, um, disobedience a social?
Speaker 1 00:50:41 Well, I just, I've given, I've been giving a, an entire talk on it. Um, I
Speaker 5 00:50:46 Do you, do you acknowledge classism in capitalistic society?
Speaker 1 00:50:53 So I recognize class, I recognize classism as predating capitalist society. I mean, feudal Europe,
Speaker 5 00:50:59 Most, what about now
Speaker 0 00:51:00 Only give them a chance to finish.
Speaker 5 00:51:02 Yes, sir. Sorry.
Speaker 1 00:51:05 I recognize classism as predate capitalism. I recognize class recognize capitalism as the best, uh, economic system, the best system to eradicate classism at all, to give people a chance to achieve some sort of social upward mobility, where they're not locked into social classes as you are, as they are in, in much of Europe today. But I think classism predates capitalism on a very, very strong, almost nefarious level. And that capitalism gives people the best opportunity to escape from their role identities and their class, the class, the social classes, which they're born. I don't think it's something unique to capitalism at all.
Speaker 5 00:51:51 I have a question, uh, Jason, in your hypothesis, where do you become to measure the trickle down method, uh, in capitalism, where there's like one that has the most eggs and then trickles down to the lesser then?
Speaker 1 00:52:06 Uh, I don't really, I don't ascribe to any kind of social utility as justifying capitalism. I think capitalism is, um, a system of trading among and between persons for mutual advantage and mutual gain. Um, I don't think
Speaker 5 00:52:22 So. Do you believe that individuals should be policed to their, uh, values? So let's say who says that this guy next door to me has the right to own 90% of all the eggs in my city. So I have, I've been forced
Speaker 0 00:52:40 To, well, we're getting off the topic here.
Speaker 5 00:52:42 No, that's exactly capitalism because one guy has all the eggs and I go to him and he decides the price
Speaker 0 00:52:48 Capitalism isn't in the title.
Speaker 5 00:52:51 Well, okay. My bad, my bad, Jason,
Speaker 1 00:52:53 Let me let, let me just, let me just briefly answer if the person in your neighborhood has 90% of all the eggs and you can ostensibly show that he has not acquired those eggs through government health, through force, but through his own or her own, uh, industry and through her own industriousness and through no government help, no franchises, no subsidies, no special protection, but just through her own industriousness and persistence and, and inventiveness, um, she owns 90% of the eggs, uh, by the,
Speaker 5 00:53:37 I love you, Jason. I,
Speaker 1 00:53:41 Yeah, I love you too, hun.
Speaker 0 00:53:42 Sorry about that. I just, uh, I can't stand interrupters. Um, <laugh>, you know, it's like, yeah, the lefties don't have to follow the rules. Um, that actually, um, brings up something there's some, you know, there's some people that are responding to this double standard in the law where it's like, you know, they care about some protests, but not other protests. They, you know, care about historically marginalized groups, but, you know, it's not being applied fairly to everyone. And that's part of like a, a source for anger as well. I'm just curious what you think of that.
Speaker 1 00:54:23 Well, yeah, I mean, most people are not gonna think inconsistently in terms of fundamental principles. I mean, they think sort of incrementally, or they think, um, uh, they think very strategically and they think in terms of what serves, um, a strategic interest at one point, and, and don't sort of apply the they'll don't think comprehensively in terms of, of, of, of unifying principles, the way that Rand talked about think, thinking in terms of fundamental principles. Um, and so they're gonna be at a loss and they're gonna be contradictory, and there's just, just their thinking is gonna be sloppy and messy. I don't think a lot of them are ill-intentioned or ill willed in their approach. They're just at the behest of their emotions and illogical form of thinking, because there there's no unifying principle to tie, seeming a disparate idea that they have together. Um, and so, I mean, that's one of the things that I, I mean, I, I read a lot of things cuz I discovered Rand at 20, almost 2020, but I, and I did discover Bertran Russell K and Nicha, um, before Rand.
Speaker 1 00:55:30 But one of the things I will say about iron Rand is that she really did give me a method of cognition that is this, this, this, this notion of I never got that from KT. I certainly didn't get it from Nietzche and I didn't get it from Berran Russell, um, who my father piled on me when I was 15, but ran did, you know, gave me a method of cognition of, of learning, to think in terms of fundamentals and, and unifying principles. And I think most people in the absence of that are just going to have this sort of Inco. Um, um, it's like Rand said, you know, when, when she gave these examples of someone said, well, um, it's, I can understand why it's bad to nationalize the coal industry, why it's bad to nationalize the coal industry, but what about the oil industry? Why is it, you know, they just couldn't apply the principle and see why ization was bad simplicity <laugh>
Speaker 0 00:56:20 Right. For any industry,
Speaker 1 00:56:21 No for industry. Right. And it's not even, nation's not even real. And, and then when you think even deeper, you're not even nationalizing the industry, you're nationalizing man's brain, uh, because the, the industries are just a product of his thinking or her thinking of one's thinking really. So it's a brain that you're nationalizing, you know, to, to, to take the abstraction to this its highest register. Um, but I think that most people Scott are just, are just, uh, devoid of that method, that amazing method of cognition that Rand, uh, passed on to many of us.
Speaker 0 00:56:53 Sure. That makes sense. Uh, in the final moments, uh, thoughts on the Canadian truckers and their protests?
Speaker 1 00:57:03 Um, yeah, I mean, I, I, I have great sympathy for them. I mean, I, I think we, again, I'm gonna be very principled here and I'm gonna say that if we allow for, um, the protesters to register their, um, their, their, their, their protests or their, um, disaffection with the law in certain cases that the truckers have every right to, um, protest against mandates and all kinds of incursions against their liberties and their freedoms. Um, so I do support the truckers. Um, I think that the way that they have been treated, um, has been disgraceful. Um, they have every right to register their protest as to any other groups and, and really they have behaved comparatively speaking, when you look at how other protestors have used the privilege of the right of assembly and the right to peaceful protest, uh, how that has sort of, um, manifested itself in violence that the truckers apart from just <laugh> committing noise pollution with the awing, um, <laugh>, I've behaved with, you know, a, a, a kind of great care and have not morphed into acts of violence.
Speaker 1 00:58:29 And, and, and so, so I do, I do, I do think that they're sending a message. Um, I happen not to be an anti-vaxer. I, I mean, I, I was born and raised in Jamaica, so I've been, which is a third world country. So I was vaccinated for small parks for tuberculosis, for every everything under the sun, uh, which I think is one of the reasons I've never contracted C. Um, so I, I deeply believe in vaccinations, but I respect and honor those who, who, um, it's like, I don't smoke, but I'm promo here smokers, right? I'll fight to the death for people to smoke. Uh, I don't own a gun, but I'm a second amendment absolutist and I'll never own a gun, but I'll respect the right of those exactly the same way about the truckers that is, um, they have, in fact, they're, they're securing, uh, the freedoms for, for the rest of us. And I think they should be respected. I think they should not just be tolerated. I think they should be respected because I think they're fighting a battle that is actually worth fighting. That is the ownership of your body. Everything that I spoke about to the sovereignty, the ownership, and, um, you as being all of us as being invaluable owners, uh, of, of our bodies. And that's, that's something that's, that's worth taking regardless of how one feels about vaccinations and, and anything else.
Speaker 0 00:59:53 Well, that's a great note to end it on, uh, next week, we'll be back on clubhouse. I'll be hosting a social hour with Lawrence Tuesday at 4:00 PM, Eastern and Thursday at 4:00 PM. Richard Salzman will be doing and ask me anything on capitalism. Uh, Wednesday, the Atlas society asks Marsha Enright. That should be a good one. So, uh, but in the meantime, uh, professor hill, thank you so much for doing this topic and, uh, we'll, uh, look forward to seeing everyone next time.
Speaker 1 01:00:21 Thank you. Thank you very much, Scott. Thank you, Jennifer.
