printNEW COLUMN: “Barcelona and Beyond: How Politicians & Policy Wonks Play God With Your Life.” An excerpt:
… On TV, June 1, 2017, Alex Nowrasteh, immigration expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, argued that “foreign-born terrorism is a hazard,” but a “manageable” one, “given the huge economic benefits of immigration and the small costs of terrorism.”
Spoken like a collectivist, central planner and utilitarian rolled into one.
This is the Benthamite “utilitarian calculus” at its cruelest. It requires, first, for someone to play God. Whether she sits in Downing Street, D.C., Brussels, or Barcelona; the Godhead has determined that Muslims in our midst are a must in bringing “the greatest good to the greatest number of citizens.” Along the way, a few people will die. For the greater good.
In the words of “Stalin’s apologist” Walter Duranty, ”You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”
However, a natural-rights libertarian values the life of the innocent individual. Only by protecting each individual’s rights—life, liberty and property—can the government legitimately enhance the wealth of the collective. Only through fulfilling its nightwatchman role can government legitimately safeguard the wealth of the nation. For each individual, secure in his person and property, is then free to pursue economic prosperity, which redounds to the rest.
See, statistics are silly unless given context. If you have one foot in fire, the other in ice, can we legitimately say that, on average, you’re warm? Hardly.
Probabilities, in this case the chance that any one of us will die-by-Muslim, are statistically insignificant—unless this happens to you or to yours, to me or mine. …
… READ “Barcelona and Beyond: How Politicians & Policy Wonks Play God With Your Life” at American Thinker.
This column can generally be read on Townhall.com, Unz Review, Daily Caller, American Thinker, and others, where The Mercer Column usually appears. And it’s always posted, eventually, on IlanaMercer.com, under Articles. Please share.