I'd like to focus a bit on the broader question of when speech during wartime is harmful to the war effort -- not necessarily when it's immoral, but only when it harms the war effort. To do this, let's first shift the discussion from the war on Iraq to World War II.
What speech (if any) by Americans during World War II do you think would have been harmful to the war effort, even if it weren't deliberately aimed at helping the Nazis win? If you think some such speech would have been harmful to the war effort then, but are skeptical about similar claims related to speech related to the war in Iraq now (as many commenters on this thread seem to be), why do you think there's a difference? (I should stress that I don't think that all antiwar speech is harmful to the war effort, and -- as I noted below -- that I don't think that even antiwar speech that harms the war effort is necessarily immoral. I do think, though, that a considerable amount of such antiwar speech is indeed harmful, and that people sometimes underestimate these harms.)
Related Posts (on one page):
- When Is Anti-War Speech Harmful to the War Effort:
- More on Speech That Causes Harm:
- When Is Anti-War Speech Immoral?
- When Is Anti-War Speech Immoral?
The difficulty in comparing anti-war speech about WW2 with anti-war speech about Iraq is that (IMO) the criticisms that apply to Iraq don't apply to WW2. We could imagine an alternate universe in which the parallels would be stronger, perhaps, but that doesn't help.
Speech can be any of these things without the speaker deliberately seeking military defeat. In fact, some speech might be helpful overall (or helpful in intent) but harmful in some aspects (or harmful in unintended effect). Some speech may also be entirely legitimate but militarily harmful, e.g. fairminded criticism of one's pro-military political opponents.
For example, speech during WWII revealing the need to obtain rubber from new sources, and how those sources were being tapped, would have been helpful to the U.S.'s opponents by facilitating interruption of the new supply -- but it might occur as a side-effect of national debate over military priorities. Rhetoric calling for the U.S. to sit out the war was probably helpful to enemy morale and harmful to U.S. recruitment efforts and to civilian committment to victory. Some such rhetoric may be legitimate, but still eschewed by patriots who value U.S. success over political point-scoring.
Those are my initial thoughts, anyway. Is that about what you're looking for, Eugene, or did you want something more specific?
The latter, at least, is a good example.
Tokyo Rose &Axis Sally &Lord Haw-Haw, IIRC, were splendid examples of pro-enemy speech that made no impression whatsoever on our troops. Not to forget Ezra Pound on fascist radio, railing against Jewish usurers. Those are examples of how what seems "objectively harmful" may be no such thing.
Then there's active incitement to resist the draft (as opposed to, say, an op-ed column on the subject). I think that's probably a good example.
Speeches about what a fine fellow Hitler is, &how it's a pity we're not fighting the Soviets alongside his troops, would surely be inspirational to the enemy to some degree. But how much, really? Enough to justify punishing the speaker? (And is really that much more unthinkable to (1) join the Nazis in fighting the Commies than to (2) join the Commies in fighting the Nazis?)
So I think the secret-codes and draft-defying examples are the only ones that plausibly fit.
The purpose of anti-war speech is to harm the effort, not to help it, so it seems like a no-brainer. It's successful when it achieves its intended purpose. (Perhaps I misunderstood?)
I disagree with asdf's claim that valid criticism is more damaging than invalid criticism. This assumes that the impact of a statement is dependent only on the validity of the statement. But if we look at the history of sophistry, rhetoric, and plain old dishonesty, it's clear that this isn't true. So why would it be uniquely true in application to war?
Offhand, here are a few criteria for significant harm:
- it must reach a widespread audience
- it must be believed (or at least not disbelieved) by a large part of the audience
- and it must at least cause either some new people to oppose the war or cause former supporters to stop supporting the war.
Of course, that ignores statements that reveal classified troop movements, tactics and strategy, etc.There's one form of anti-war speech that's difficult to predict by effect: criticism of incompetency in the management and conduct of the war. Such criticism could harm the war effort, or it could be used to improve the war effort.
But if this criticism was employed by the anti-war movement it's logical to conclude that their goal is to harm the war effort, not to help it. (Perhaps by implying that the leader shouldn't be thought able to conduct a war, but that's just a guess.)
(Doubtless there were very real cases of WWII corruption, but allowing isolated cases to be made into a "meme" of rampant corruption, poisoning worker morale, would not be wise.)
As I recall, there was in WWII a Truman Commission (HST then being a congressman) which rooted into corruption and inefficiency. The theme was not that such was pervasive, but rather that it needed to be rooted out in order to advance the war effort. Likewise during the Civil War there were on the northern side much criticism of the sleezy makers of "shoddy" equipment -- and the southern side could probably have benefited the same critique.
A standard tool of propagandists, at least since WWI, has on the other hand been to argue that opposing troops are the tools of war profiteers.
Many in this country believe that WWII was worth the effort, whereas the current war isn't.
No, wait, no I don't.
One sense is "puts significant political pressure on the government to end the war." This is the aim of all anti-war speech, which is why it's anti-war speech and not pro-war speech. In this sense, there's obviously nothing inherently wrong with "doing something harmful to the war effort."
The other sense is "doing something that increases the probability of American military defeat." Aside from speculation about "emboldening the enemy" and "reducing troop morale," there isn't much in this category other than speech that provides the enemy with access to classified or otherwise hard-to-obtain information. That kind of speech war harmful to the war effort in WWII and would be harmful to the war effort today.
The problem with this term having two senses is that it's very easy for people who want to smear war opponents to conflate them rhetorically. Prove the first sense (easy to prove, but not bad), conflate it with the second (hard to prove, but bad) and Q.E.D., your opponents are hoping for U.S. defeat.
Obviously Volokh is not proposing a legal test for when speech is protected because "harmful effect" just doesn't do it. That's a post-World War I test which wouldn't pass constitutional muster today. And Volokh himself disclaims proposing a morality test; he admits he doesn't "think that even antiwar speech that harms the war effort is necessarily immoral."
So what's the purpose of the question? Is it to discourage people from speaking against the war effort? Is it to make it easier to criticize such people? Or what?
As one who spoke out against our last few wars, I think any speech that prompts people to question the war effort on any ground harms the war effort. And, since war protesters want their speech to be effective, that is precisely their purpose. Not all anti-war speech is effective, of course, because some of it presumably fails, i.e., doesn't lead its audience or any part of it to question the war effort.
I leave out the obvious, speech that reveals the details of a proposed military attack or ship movements or a new weapon and the like. I would also imagine that telling 18-year-old troops about to embark for the theater of war that they are murderers of innocent civilians might sap their morale. But not as much as the actual killing of innocent civilians that ensues. And they have their officers to
It is advisable to go to war only when the overwhelming majority of the populace supports the war. It is also advisable to go to war without misleading the populace about the reasons for going to war. These little things ensure that criticism of the war will be minimal.
When is the government doing things that inspire and justify anti-war speech harmful to the war effort?
It seems to me that is the real "threat"--otherwise, anti-war speech during a just war would remain marginalized and unheeded.
How could it be otherwise? War is nasty business, involving the deliberate, crafty and unannounced mass murder of other human beings, almost none of whom have caused any of us direct harm. The only organized murder campaigns a.k.a. wars that are ever going to have clear and strong majority support in all aspects are toy wars, wars that are so small, so absurdly easily won, and with such obvious benefits that one can only wonder what the other side was smoking when they agreed to the match.
Against a crafty and resourceful enemy, with a good appreciation for the psychological strategy of warfare, and one who has at least a few solid good arguments on his side (even if, on balance, he is wrong) -- against this fellow the nice broad feelin' good about ourselves consensus is flat impossible. (Actually, the idea of a wishing to build a warm community-spirited consensus before embarking on a killing spree sounds psychotic to me, but I leave it to the mavens of "can't we all just get along?" to sort that out.)
This question may be one of those imponderables answerable only be each individual in his own heart. The historical record is not encouraging: the most necessary war the United States ever fought (the Civil War) provoked dispute surpassing in bitterness and violence anything seen before or since. The most "consensus in favor" recent war we can think of now (although it seemed less so at the time), the Second World War, was arguably one of the least necessary to national survival. (That either Hitler or Tojo could have successfully occupied the continental US before their house of cards at home collapsed seems unlikely to me. Hence this war could probably have been avoided by a cynical policy of tactical retreat, economic warfare, and limited military containment. Too bad for the Europeans, Jews and Hawaiians, of course.)
One of the weirdly naive assertions of the present anti-war body is that only wars of clear and desperate national emergency should really be fought. This seems just about as sensible as ignoring small grease fires in your kitchen, hoping they burn out by themselves, and fighting with industry only those conflagrations that are room-sized or bigger. Maybe these people are those who pulled all-nighters to pass their final exams in college?
A historical case can be made that a great power that forcefully (even viciously, cf. the Romans) prosecutes small wars teaches its enemies to abandon modest-scale warfare as a means of resolving modest differences. (Note for the No Blood For Oilers: I distinguish here between a brutal prosecution of wars when they come and a longitudinal peacetime policy of oppression, which can midwife violence all by itself.)
Japan is an interesting case because American anti-war speech before Pearl Harbor did encourage the Japanese to attack--they apparently believed, based on reading the newspapers, that Americans opposed war and would respond to an attack by suing for peace on Japanese terms. Not an intelligence triumph. But the question is, by encouraging the Japanese to attack, did anti-war speech before Pearl Harbor actually advance the anti-axis cause?
Further, if you talk to servicemembers in the current conflict, those who support the war don't seem particularly bothered that people are protesting it.
Where is the evidence that what bad morale that does exist is caused by speech at home, as oppposed to intolerable conditions on the front, bad military planning, lack of leadership or the lack of a strategy.
This business about anti-war speech harming the war is nothing more than a longstanding hawk's talking point. Wherever there has been anti-war speech, there have been other things affecting troop morale-- unfair conscription, maltreatment of the troops, bad conditions, poor planning, an unattainable objective, etc. Eliminate the source of the complaints, and the anti-war speech ebbs as well. Attributing the problems to anti-war speech is mislabeling a symptom as the cause.
Building on this thought (well, sort of) can't we suppose that a combatant's decision to continue to fight or not to continue to fight is partially predicated on his estimation of his enemy's willingness to continue to the fight? That is, if the enemy looks as though he could win, but is unwilling to accept the increased costs of victory, wouldn't that combatant correspondingly upgrade his estimate of his own chances of victory, and be willing to spend more (in men, material, etc.) to realise that higher expected value?
That is to say, by making it look as though Americans may back out (or telegraphing that there is a substantial chance that Americans will just walk away without finishing things), anti-war speech probably encourages stiffer resistance to our war-aims at the margins, increasing the costs of our victory, both on our side and on the enemy's.
I suspect it had the same sort of effect in WWII -- Hitler was convinced, wasn't he, that Roosevelt was the driving force behind American intervention in the European theatre or something, such that he thought the Reich had a fighting chance again, when he heard Roosevelt was dead. Of course, it was rather late for new hopes at that point, but there were probably other examples of the same scattered throughout the course of the war.
I'm not sure that effect is the most significant here -- it may also increase the costs of occupation. To the extent that foreign populations we conquered during WWII (Pacific islanders, the French, etc.) were told by the Japanese and the Germans that Americans would be barbarous and cruel occupiers, and then Americans repeated the charge (I don't know whether they did--only that they could have done) that would -- again, on the margin -- influence more people to resist our occupation. Raises costs of war, etc. etc.
Of course, disclosing troop movements might be done with the intent of causing a calamity and eroding public support, but that intent doesn't change what's going on: working for one of the sides of the war.
- Josh
How many people were jailed during the War of 1812 for being involved in the Hartford Convention? None that I am aware off. And this during an actual invasion.
Then, how many people were jailed in WW1 and during Lincoln's War? Remember Vallandighan of Ohio?
Is discouraging people to voluntarily join the military because of an unconstitutional/undeclared "war" protected speech?
The dangers of the Central government violating the 1st amendment are far greater than any percieved comfort the enemy might feel.
War is the health of the State.
-- Randolph Bourne
The more interesting point is the irony shown in the blogs of right wing intellectuals like Volokh. Scrolling through this blog over the the last few weeks, it is fascinating to see the the schizophrenic pattern. On the one hand, posts that express ridicule/express righteous indignation at attempts to shut down right wing speech. Yet on the other hand, here we have attempts to shame/intimidate those who choose to express anti-war speech.
Now before you all jump down my throat, I'm not trying to defend some of the excessive measures taken against those who were expressing, through legal speech, their right wing views.
What I'm saying is that the lack of consistency in defending ALL points of view, including all anti-war speech (as opposed to obviously treasonous actions, such as giving money or secrets to or fighting alongside people who are trying to kill Americans or their allies), with equal vigor (in other words, Volokh's "It's not that I think that anti-war speech is necessarily immoral, BUT..." snide comments don't cut it as defending speech with vigor) make it impossible to take a person seriously as someone who cares about free speech.
Defending everyone's speech (not just the speech you happen to agree with) is not easy. I'm sure everyone who is reading this (including yours truly) has struggled to stay honest on this at one point or another. I guess I'm just disappointed at the state of the American inellectual community when I see that several law professors are such miserable failures at it.
I hope that makes a few people uncomfortable, because it makes me uncomfortable. I think there's a fine line between protecting civil liberties and automatically adopting Al Qaeda's talking points on how America lacks the moral authority to hold any terrorist. And it seems to this humble legal drone that the noble ACLU and the folks in the press have pretty much taken the position that every terrorist captured on the battlefield should be granted a trial or released, and they have adopted it knowing full well that the government will be unable or unwilling to do so and would be required to release the enemy--where the enemy would presumably return to his previous profession of trying very hard to kill Americans. Hard for me to conclude that this position is not purposefully designed to harm the war effort, contributing to the deaths American servicemen. Then again, my confused mind isn't as sharp as it once was, and it's possible that I'm simply not paying enough attention to the wonderful principles of freedom involved in killing my own countrymen.
Encouraging resistance to the war or calling for its end pretty clearly actively aids one side or the other.
What I'm saying is that the lack of consistency in defending ALL points of view, including all anti-war speech ... with equal vigor ... make it impossible to take a person seriously as someone who cares about free speech.
Not all points of view are equally valid, and thus not all points of view should be defended with equal vigor.
Let me see if I follow your reasoning correctly.
Suppose someone argues, either as a legal or policy matter, that we should treat all detainees captured in Afghanistan or Iraq as POWs. This would not require "trials" for POWs. But it would require initial status hearings before military tribunals, and if we wanted to charge these POWs with ordinary crimes or crimes against international law (including against the laws of war), but we would at least have to try them according to the Manual for Courts Martial. Alternatively, these people could be remanded to the civilian criminal justice system.
Now, we know that the Bush Administration could in fact do this (just like the Brits are, actually). But suppose the Bush Administration is "unwilling" to do this. In fact, suppose they are so unwilling to do this that in certain cases that they would rather just release some of their detainees (an interesting decision, I might note).
Is your thesis that people advocating this policy are deliberately aiding the enemy because the Bush Administration would insist on releasing some detainees rather than follow these procedures? Why aren't you instead saying that the Bush Administration is deliberately aiding the enemy because they would insist on releasing some detainees?
In other words, you treat the "unwillingness" of the Bush Administration to do certain things as an immutable fact, but isn't that just a policy decision?
I think you are missing EV's point in an effort to engage in partison bashing.
No one is suggesting that anti-war speech that is non-treasonous should be limited by the law.
We are discussing what kinds of speech may be "unhealthy" for the prosecution of a conflict. However, "unhealthy" doesn't mean it is or should be illegal.
Since when do your free speech rights to engage in anti-war rhetoric prevent me from criticizing your speech? Answer, never.
Would the promulgation of this information "aiding and abetting?"
What part of "Congress shall not ..." is unclear?
I'm not certain how advocating that both sides of the partisan divide defend each other's right to speak with equal fervor qualifies as engaging as partisan bashing.
Of course you are not prevented from criticizing anti-war arguments. But I have yet to see, on this site, criticisms of the anti-war arguments on the merits of those arguments. What I have seen are subtle (Volokh) and not-so-subtle (some of the comments) attempts to insinuate that those who make anti-War comments are committing treason and/or being immoral.
You keep conflating two different things. Since when have any of us conservatives advocated using the law to restrict your speech? Never.
We avidly defend your right to say what you want; however, we just as strongly criticize what you have to say. There is no hypocrisy between the two, as you seem to imply.
You keep trying to assert some kind of "deviousness" to conservatives by purposefully conflating "making anti-war speech illegal" and "making lawful criticisisms of speech."
I think part of the problem is that people like Eugene are not just engaging in criticism of the substance of the speech. That, of course, is unobjectionable--the basic notion being that the best cure for bad ideas and falsehoods is to argue for good ideas and the truth. In other words, this approach places a very high value on rational discourse.
Rather, Eugene and Co are trying to suggest that the very acts of speech themselves are immoral (as opposed to merely being wrong in the substance of what they say). Although he falls short of arguing that such "immoral" speech should be illegal, this entire line of analysis leads us away from rational discourse, and toward some sort of system in which the content of speech does not matter, but merely the consequences. Indeed, as I commented elsewhere, it is amazing how little the actual truth of the speech seems to matter in Eugene's analysis of the morality of the speech acts in question.
Fortunately, our Constitution has in fact already taken a stand on this issue, and it has found that a society based on rational discourse--a society that gives what I might call deontological protection to free speech--is preferable to a society which treats speech acts as just another ordinary part of a purely consequentialist moral system. But it is indeed distressing that apparently without pause, some people are willing to cast aside these basic principles.
How is discussing the issue leading to anything?
Is it illegal, or immoral, or unseemly to discuss the consequences of speech?
I believe that people whose actions have a likely result can be presumed to will that result. They may have that result as their primary goal, or they may have it as a consequence of something else they are trying to do. In either case, they have some responsibility for it.
It would be a convenience for those who will a result if they could insist they be believed when they claim they have no responsibility, especially when the result is considered undesireable by most of their fellow citizens.
I don't understand the resentful "how dare he even ask" responses.
Here's what I have: Whether anti-war speech is harmful and immoral depends upon perception by the enemy, status or influence of the speaker, and timing. I think harmful is more easily discerned than immoral, but that may be because I am really bad at understanding moral philosophy. Of course, this is all in absence of clear evidence that the speaker was actually intending harm and more death and destruction (which would make this discussion unneccesary in that specific case).
Perception by the enemy: It does not matter what the person making the comments thinks or has as their motivation. The enemy's finding of comfort or support determines if the speech is immoral or harmful. After all, if the enemy does not think they have lost a war, then you have not won. So the questions are -- Does the enemy take support from the comments? Do the comments seem to support the express war aims of the enemy? Does the enemy take the comments in toto and use them in their propaganda?
Authority of the source: The higher the status of the speaker, the more likely their speech will be harmful or even traitorious. I do not think this point bears as much on the morality as it does on the harm or lack thereof.
Timing: If your country's troops are engaged in active battle, comments opposing the war aims or questioning the strong core values of the troops in that battle would be harmful, and could very well rise to immoral. I think there is a place for opposition speech to be heard before the battle is joined and after battle is completed, but during a battle the opposition speech generally has the effect of undermining troop morale and possibly causing harm due to lowered morals. This question seems to be where the locus of morality vs immorality resides.
The best example I could think of: If Hermann Goering made a speech to the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Stalingrad calling for mass withdrawal of German troops from the USSR and negotiating a peace settlement, that would have been definitely harmful. I'm having difficulty on the morality part, since I would have taken great comfort in this sort of speech. (Let's ignore for the moment that Goering would have been shot on sight if he did such a thing)
Two examples I ponder from WWII: The support of Lord Londonderry for Hitler and Germany, and the flight of Rudolf Hess to Scotland in 1941. The actions of these two men were definitely harmful to their countries; were they immoral?
Thanks Code Pink.
I assume that you don't agree that "Maimed for a Lie" is a true statement. But, for a moment, just for the sake of argument, assume that it is a true statement. Would you still be so quick to say what you said? Or, might you then be less concerned whether or not the statement does or does not hurt the war effort, and more concerned with hoping that by making the statement you will help to end the war and thus actually minimize the harm to the troops by getting them out quicker.
Now, maybe you are riled up by the assumption I am asking you to make. That's fine, let's all debate that assumption. As Medis so eloquently explained above, that would be the "rational discourse" upon which our society is based.
Before exploring some theoretical discussion of what might have been harmful during WWII, there needs to be some reason to compare these two absolutely opposite campaigns.
Even running through a cursory list of the differences between the "war" in Iraq and WWII would be an insulting and inane exercise.
And by "harm" what do we mean?
Does this mean that being a Quaker is harmful to the war effort?
And if we are going to keep up this exercise, are we then going to be asked what speech might be harmful to the "war" on terrorism.
This is Orwellian to the extreme: using a revisionist analysis of the past, i.e. conjuring up past harms to the war effort (which even if there were harms, the effort in WWII seemed not ultimately to be "actually" harmed given the outcome), and then by some analogizing or inferential reasoning, conjure up the rules to apply to the conflict in Iraq.
I think that discussing the debasement of the term "war" would be a much more productive analysis to conduct. Because unless someone is giving the positions of troops or information to disable critical technology, simply having an opinion should never be seen as harmful to a political act, at least in a democracy. That is a slippery slope that noone should be around.
Is this really a serious question? And if so are we suggesting that some remedy is requiring to root out and stifle these "harmful" ideas and statements?
I personally worked against the re-election of President Bush, but I have to say, if it's a question of trusting Bush or the ACLU as to the national security impacts of the decision to put a terrorist on trial or allowing him to go free, I'm going to have to go with Bush and the DoD on that one.
I understand your position, Bush is scummy, and I would love to join you in calling him a traitor, but it simply wouldn't be true, and I feel a little more strongly about this than to treat it so trivially. While trying terrorists might be possible, I fail to see how it would not harm national security and endanger Americans if we started forcing DoD to pull soldiers from the line to participate in trials, revealed potentially useful intelligence to the enemy to aid him in his defense, and allowed terrorist defendants to use our presumptions of innocence and "prophylactic" protections to get themselves right back onto the battlefield. Geez, I don't even want to think what a "revolving door" would do to the morale of men in the field, let alone their response to offers of surrender by the enemy.
Like I said, it makes me uncomfortable, but you can't deny that the current anti-war talking points do not advance a policy that would increase the chances that our friends and neighbors will die at terrorists' hands.
You state "help to end the war and thus actually minimize the harm to the troops by getting them out quicker." The fastest way to "end the war" is to lose. Hoping that your country loses a war may not be treason, but I'm not sure what other term would apply.
Code Pink, and it appears you, want to go back to the good old days of: feeding people into shredders, rape rooms, bounties for suicide bombers, and poison gas used against general populations.
As an aside, I mean "leading" in the intellectual sense--certain ideas leading to other ideas.
Anyway, I would say that a consequentialist approach to evaluating the morality of speech is "unwise". I use that term in order to embrace a wide variety of possible rationales for taking a more deontological approach to the morality of speech. For example, I don't want to exclude rationalist arguments (eg, something like a Kantian argument about lies and telling the truth), nor pragmatic arguments (eg, a rule utilitarian or Burkean argument about lies and telling the truth). And I am inclusive on this issue because I personally find some truth in a variety of different moral theories.
A Rude Guest,
Of course, that is a false dichotomy--I would place blind faith in neither the Bush Administration nor the ACLU.
Similarly, I am not tempted to call either Bush or the ACLU "traitors". Insofar as I disagree with their policy and legal arguments, I can express my disagreements without claiming that they are committing such a crime.
Finally, you identify some of the likely costs of adopting such procedures. But you do not discuss any of the possible benefits, including the possible benefits to military morale, popular domestic support for the war, support among our allies around the world, intelligence gathering, and, most importantly, support within Iraq itself. Similarly, you do not discuss any of the possible harms to the current approach, again in all those areas and perhaps more.
Which is not to say that you are necessarily wrong about where the best balance of costs and benefits ultimately resides. But it is certainly not clear that the Bush Administration has made the best choice, and so one cannot assume that advocating for another choice means the advocate wants to damage the "the war effort".
dk35, don't do that if you're planning to run for president in 30 years ... I have a feeling it will haunt you. (Does Karl Rove have a son?)
What a solution. What nonsense.
Imagine Usama bin Laden coming out in support of Bush and the Republicans because they got rid of Saddam, something that Bin Laden wanted to do. Then, will it be "aiding and abetting" to support Bush and the Republicans?
What part of "Congress shall not ..." is unclear?
More harmful than what actually happened to the German army?
And thus the folly in trying to determine the harm of strategic speech agsinst the war (as opposed to, say, disclosing troop locations and movements). Who is to say that the alternative to the current course is not better for the nation?
Interestiing picture you paint.
The point you miss is that Goering wasn't in a position to make the Germans retreat before they got involved in Stalingrad. He could only make noise.
The question is what would have happened in reality--we're speculating about alt-hist as if it's reality, here--if Goering had said that moments before being shot.
Maybe a more competent Luftwaffe guy would have taken over. Bad for the Allies. Since Germany was not in any sense a democracy, the effect on the population and its effect on the war would have been difficult to follow. Perhaps it would have led to the German generals having more brass and convincing Hitler not to attack at Kursk, thus saving massive combat power for the long, horrendously bloody defensive fighting that followed. Worse for the Allies and the Germans.
Maybe it would have cowed the the staff even more and made them less likely to give advice, good or bad, to Hitler.
There's not much use in comparing a speculation about Goering with our current situation.
I think your speculating about all the possible outcomes proves my point.
I would hope in the U.S. that we are not going to "immediately" shoot those who disagree with the way the supreme leader is conducting the war.
To follow the original example you proposed, had Goerring not been shot, but rather had been able to convince Hitler that this his was a better course of action, would it still be harmful?
If not, then is the determining factor whether or not those in power agree?
We're not going to shoot anybody at all for any kind of speech.
I know you didn't mean it literally, but when people talk that kind of crap, it makes it difficult to bother with them.
You are, outside the obscenely stupid comment about shooting, implicitly crying victim when somebody disagrees with you.
Get a thicker skin.
I'll say this, which I have said before. It is most useful to consider the likely result of a course of action to be the willed result, the intent.
This is particularly true when the likely result is seen as undesireable by many people AND when the actor in question claims it is the farthest thing from his mind and all he wants is milkshake fountains in schools and peace flowing like a river and baby bunnies and so forth. The smartest thing to do is to look at the likely result and if the actor claims he wants something else, to presume he lies about his intent.
This saves a lot of time.
Whether or not those in power agree with some speech is irrelevant.
That is not the issue. The issue is the government going after you to throw your rear end in jail for saying soemthing they deem "unpatriotic" and "treasonous" because they deem it as "aiding and abetting" the enemy.
That's actually easy to deny. Harsh treatment upon capture
tortureenhanced interrogation, secret detention, no due process, etc. all encourage the enemy to fight harder - if they knew they would be treated humanely upon capture, that is sure to play into calculations about how hard to fight. There's a strong case to be made that the Iraq army was rather half-hearted about the fight, due to the U.S.'s reputation before recent revelations.Thus, the argument would be that the ACLU, etc. are attempting to help the war effort by restoring our reputation for humane treatment for POWs.
This is before one gets into the hearts and minds discussion, but based on many of the same principles.
What you are basically describing is an "ad hominem" attack. I don't think one can categorically say that such attacks are unwise, but they are usually not very effective, and can often be counterproductive. I'd also suggest that they are actually immoral in some circumstances (eg, when your ad hominem attack is misleading or baseless).
This saves a lot of time."
And thought.
Is that really the best course to take? I think it presupposes something that is probably not true -- that their worldview operates according to the same rules as yours. Especially when it comes to something like this, where the chains of causation are awfully hard to entangle, doesn't it seem quite likely that they don't think their activities will produce the result you see as likely?
To take an example -- many people think homegrown revolution (Communist, anticolonialist, whatever) is the best thing since sliced bread. Oppressed people rising up against their oppressors and speaking truth to power and whatnot. Now, I think revolution has a pretty poor track record, and tends to make things worse (often much, much worse) than they were before. But for me to go and assume that because Communist or socialist revolution produces misery, squalor, and the most abominable deprivation -- all very naturally and likely in my worldview -- that therefore Communists and Socialist and their ilk want to increase the deprivation, squalor, and misery in the world? It would be rather uncharitable so to imagine.
To take yet another example -- consider affirmative action. The effect of affirmative action in college admissions (and this much, I think, is not really in doubt) is a reduction in the proportion of Asians at a given college. Should I conclude from that, that the people who argue for affirmative action secretly do it because they're afraid hypercompetitive Asians will kill the curve for their sons and daughters? Now, I may think that, in the darkest recesses of my mind, but to accuse supporters of affirmative action of harbouring an anti-Asian animus would be unfair.
And on the flip side, many people who disagree with me are devotees of a sort of "blowback" model. Now, I happen to think "blowback," as it is usually used (in casual argument) is basically a kind of gussied up karmic thinking, a high level heuristic that gets predictions wrong as often as right, and is basically useless as a grounds for decision. But other people think my policy preferences lead (likely, probably, inevitably, etc.) to blowback. Is it fair for them to conclude that I want blowback against the US? I don't think so.
So really, I don't think your approach is particularly useful.
You said: "Just because the Professor supports free speech doesn't mean he can't use all his rhetorical powers to cast the speaker he disagrees with in the most unflattering light."
You were explicitly talking about casting the SPEAKER in an "unflattering light," as opposed to his CONTENTIONS. And I am interested in your distinction between attacking a person's character and calling them unpatriotic.
Anyway, regardless of what you want to call these "rhetorical" techniques, I would repeat my same claims: use of these tactics is usually ineffective, often counterproductive, and sometimes immoral.
Honestly -- is patriotism a necessary aspect of good character? It seems more incidental than that. I mean, I happen to support the US in most things, but I'm only mildly patriotic at best, and downright unpatriotic in some areas (for example, I think we have a flag that looks like it was designed by committee, and our national anthem is silly). Our national ceremonies leave me cold.
Being unpatriotic is, in the ranks of bad character indicators, pretty minor. It's nothing like being a murderer, or a pederast, or anything like that. It's not like being an oathbreaker, a liar, a cheat, or an adulterer. It's nothing like being a traitor. This notion that "unpatriotic" is somehow this most horrible aspersion to cast on someone's character is, to be quite frank, more than a little bizarre to me.
I can understand why, from a strategic perspective, one wants to avoid being labelled unpatriotic (at least if one is a politician). That's because Americans are patriotic, by and large, and lots of swing voters regard those who are not with a certain contempt. But as an attack on character? Err . . . no. I think it falls somewhat short.
Really, I think it's closest to accusing someone of being an atheist. In years past, certainly, this was a damaging accusation . . but atheism doesn't tell us anything about a person's good character (in my opinion, at least, but then, I am biased). So also, pretty much, with unpatriotism. I mean -- so someone thinks you don't love your country.
So?
I think your analysis supports my contention that this sort of rhetoric is generally ineffective. But mild or not, I think it is clearly an attempt to attack the character of the speaker (you don't love your country enough!) rather than an attempt to attack the content of the speech (that is a terrible idea, and here's why!).
Oh, to be sure. Or rather, well, for values of "ineffective" meaning "unfair." It doesn't really attack people's motivations (as opposed to their arguments) so much as insinuate that they lack a motivation.
But it's not personally insulting in the way an attack on character would be. And less hurtful than accusations of racism.
On the other hand, I would temper that by saying that one can draw inferences about peoples' motivations from their public pronouncements and their policy positions. Calling something anti-Semitic, for example, impute motive to an act, rather than letting it stand alone. But it is quite possible, I think, to take someone's positions (or take a particular position), and strip away the possible (or proffered) explanations, until at the end, all that is left is bare animus. In the same way, I think it's possible to infer that someone is unpatriotic. And in an election -- for an elected official, that is -- that's a perfectly proper thing to consider, I think. I wouldn't vote for lukewarm me for high public office, to be sure.
But it is less so (less proper, that is) in a discussion amongst the laiety (e.g. on this board).
Not that this matters, but I was think of "character" in basically an Aristotelian sense. That would include something like our dispostions to feel certain ways about certain things, which would include how we feel about our country, Jewish people, or so on. So, in that sense accusations of insufficient patriotism or Anti-Semitism would be attacks on character.
Of course, "ad hominem" attacks as a rhetorical device include more than just attacks on "character" ... they include any attacks on the speaker rather than the content of the speech. And as I noted, I don't think they are always unwise. Just usually.
Second, I agree that the question has a cert "have you stopped beating your wife" quality to it. Just the mere asking of it somehow gets a point across. I think it's a thinly veiled attempt to guilt those who are against the war effort.