> I think we can see there is a difference between Nazi Germany and
antebellum America, despite the lack of universal suffrage and the existence
of slavery, America was a sort of democracy and its laws, even its bad ones,
received some democratic legitimacy insofar as it was one.
^^^ CB: I'm not sure why we would want to find any legitimacy in the Fugitive Slave Law. That a theory would give the result legitimizing the Fugitive Slave Law merely discredits the theory, rather than legitimizing the FSL.
^^^^
My paper started from the observation that many strongly antislavery judges wrestled mightily with the issue -- Justice Story, for example, whose Amistad opinion, among others, condemns slavery in the strongest possible terms -- and found themselves unable to reject the FSA on _legal_ grounds. Lincoln, too, btw (remember he was a lawyer) -- before the Emancipation Proclamation, based on his executive powers as CiC. So starting from the real world fact that good judges thought the FSA were utterly immoral and still legally binding, I wondered, how can this be? The paper is an attempt to answer that. "Legally legitimate," btw, isn't legitimate tout court; a law may be legally legit and still not morally legit -- at least in my view. In fact that was the puzzle that got me going.
^^^^^ CB: My paper for Don Regan in philosophy of law was on civil disobedience by a judge against an immoral , racist law. It was based on an essay by Rawls
^^^^^^ There are circumstances on which I think that would be fine. Nazi Germany or Apartheid SA for sure. Antebellum America-- well such an action might be morally justifiable. (The "might" is because judges in particular have special institutional obligations that have a moral dimensions -- it is at least arguable that they are required make a noisy withdrawal from the bench rather than knowingly violate the law.) But not, I think, _legally_ justifiable. And you seem to agree, or you wouldn't call such action, civil disobedience -- otherwise it would just be legal interpretation.
^^^^^ CB: Nah, Cuba has democratic mechanisms as democratic as the U.S. , especially the U.S. antebellum. The U.S. model of the core democratic procedures is not the only legitimate one. It is not accurate to describe Cuba as a dictatorship in comparison with the U.S. Flat out: calling Cuba a dictatorship is slander.
Democracy's first principle is popular sovereignty. A country's democratic level must be tested against this principle first.
^^^^^^
Cuba is a one party state where dissidents get thrown in the can, are not permitted to publish their views, and where the political police keeps the populace in line. These are _facts_, Charles -- they are facts you support, matter of fact. And truth, as you know, fellow counselor, is an absolute defense against a charge of slander. ;_> That makes Cuba a dictatorship in my book. As I said, I am not sure that the Cubans have a very good alternative to this, given that if they established a liberal democracy the US would abuse it to destroy the revolution the way it did in Nicaragua. And that would be bad. But if Cuba has to be a dictatorship, that doesn't mean its laws are legally illegitimate -- it's only where lib dem is a real possibility that it is also a requirement for legal legitimacy in my book.
^^^^^^ CB: I wouldn't measure countries' democracy quotient in isolation from the rest of the world and history. It's like the descendants of a mafia don who have gone legitimate. NOW theyre fine people. But their abiliity to be nice now is built on the bones of their ancestors' victims. They owe reparations.
JKS: So? This is irrelevant to my point, which is that if one supported capitalism, which I don't, particularly, there are now much nicer versions of it to support than the American sort.
CB: Venezuala: So the liberal proceduralism is premised on military strength, which is not liberal proceduralism.
^^^^^
Liberals aren't necessarily pacificists. I've already said it took lots of fighting to win LP, and it's still worth fighting to keep. Sometimes LP fails and you have to fight. That doesn't mean that among the alternatives for government, LP isn't, otherthings being equal, the best form we know.
jks
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