Reasonable Men

It's getting to be time to be unreasonable.

For example, Americans have long agreed that governments must have some degree of coercive taxing power if they're to function. We've long agreed that certain persons must not be allowed to have weapons, and that there are certain weapons no one outside our professional military should be allowed to have. And we've long agreed that governments must be conceded the power to ensure against certain hazards to public health, safety, and reliably trustworthy commerce. We were told that a "reasonable man" couldn't possibly object -- that such powers, placed in the hands of "reasonable men," would never be abused, and that if they were, the corrective action would be swift and definite. And indeed, it all seemed quite reasonable at the time.

In each of the above cases, and many others beyond my power to enumerate, we were had by our own "reasonableness."

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Writers on law and jurisprudence often refer to the "reasonable man" standard, a shorthand way of referring to what "everybody" would agree is "necessary and proper." The "reasonable man" standard doesn't make actual reference to reason -- i.e., the accumulation of facts over time and the application of deductive and inductive logic to them. It merely decorates the "everybody knows" pseudo-standard with the term "reasonable" in the hope of discouraging dissent.

No doubt you've encountered the term "proof beyond a reasonable doubt," which is supposed to apply in criminal trials. A thinking person would want to ponder that standard for a while. What, after all, constitutes "reasonable doubt?" Doubt of the defendant's guilt arises when there are one or more alternative explanations for the case put forward by the prosecution. But when does an alternative explanation for the commission of a crime cease to qualify as "reasonable?"

If counsel for the defense introduces evidence that other persons, known to have harbored a deep animus against the victim, were observed in the immediate area of the murder at the time of its commission, while the circumstantial evidence against the defendant remains inconclusive, a juror might find that he can reasonably doubt that the defendant was the murderer. On the other hand, if the circumstantial evidence is broad and trustworthy, while counsel for the defense contends that the victim was death-wished by a malevolent gel from Pluto that happened to be visiting Weehauken at the time, a juror -- even a science fiction aficionado -- should demand somewhat more substantiation, perhaps reportage of the gel's recent audience with the Pope. But between those two poles are positions where even "reasonable men" may disagree -- reasonably.

The "reasonable man" standard has proved acceptable for criminal justice, largely because juries seldom include persons willing to believe without evidence, or in contradiction to the patterns of behavior that characterize men's lives. But it goes horribly wrong when used as a prop for legislation.

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It's one thing to point to egregious abuses and misuses of power; God knows, we've endured enough of them. It's quite another matter to establish -- beyond a reasonable doubt? -- that the "reasonable man" standard is the key to the lot of them. I'm not sure an airtight case can be made. However, someone has to attempt it, and I'm at Liberty's Torch to tackle exactly this sort of tough nut.

Marshall Fritz, founder and guiding light of the Advocates for Self-Government, attempted to cast light on one of our core fallacies with a presentation titled "Does Wrong Become Right if the Majority Approve?" That presentation focused on the moral barrier between theft and "legitimate" government seizure of private property (e.g., taxation). In one iteration of his talk, he asked specifically, "If N persons saying that it's right aren't enough, but N+1 would make it so, what's the value of N?" Needless to say, no one in the audience could solve the equation.

It's an undeniably brilliant approach to the question, to which the only possible rejoinder is a deflection to "reasonable man" criteria: "Everybody knows governments have to have the power to tax!" That what "everybody knows" has so often been proved false seldom persuades an adherent to the "reasonable man" standard.

With that, we turn to one of the topics concomitant with such conundrums: the misuse of words to promote a fallacious position.

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Just as "reasonable" has been used to camouflage "everybody knows," the critical term "rights" has been redefined to include "needs," "desires," and worst of all, "permissions."

Contemporary political cant includes many pernicious uses of "rights:"

• The "right" to vote;
• The "right" to a job;
• The "right" to housing;
• The "right" to "health care;"
• The "right" to an "education;"
• The "right" to the approval of others;

...and still more. Yet none of the above are rights. The first assertion in the above list is no less absurd than the last. They've been shoved under the rhetorical cover available from the term "right" because it serves the agenda of the political Left.

The demonstration requires a firm insistence upon a strict definition of "rights." Such a definition must distinguish rights clearly from permissions, needs, and desires; if there is no distinction, there's no need for the highly charged, heavily laden term.

In this connection, a statement from the great Herbert Spencer is most apposite:

I asked one of the members of Parliament whether a majority of the House could legitimize murder. He said no. I asked him whether it could sanctify robbery. He thought not. But I could not make him see that if murder and robbery are intrinsically wrong, and not to be made right by the decisions of statesmen, then similarly all actions must be either right or wrong, apart from the authority of the law; and that if the right and wrong the law are not in harmony with this intrinsic right and wrong, the law itself is criminal. [From The Proper Sphere of Government]

A right must be intrinsic to the moral order of the universe. It must conform to the innate moral understanding with which we are all equipped. In other words, a right cannot be a wrong. There must be a clear, unbreached demarcation between them.

The tale of Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe's great exemplar of faith and perseverance in the face of intense personal trial, is highly relevant. While he was alone on his island, Crusoe could do whatever he was capable of doing with whatever he found around him. He could not demand food, clothing, shelter, medical care, or anything else be given him as his "right;" there was no one to whom to put such claims, which made it clear that they could not be morally mandatory. Indeed, he needn't concern himself with "rights" at all, for one cannot commit a wrong against inanimate objects and subhuman creatures. Only when Friday arrives upon the scene do rights make even a tenuous appearance, for Crusoe recognizes Friday as a human kinsman -- an entity capable of apprehending the moral order, and thus a possessor of whatever rights inhere therein.

But we have been so propagandized about rights, in particular about assertive pseudo-rights that require violence or the threat thereof to effectuate, that the distinction has been effaced...even though when we view and evaluate on an individual level, that distinction becomes crystal clear. And when we attempt to transpose our individual understanding about right and wrong to the actions of government entities, we're told, as if by reflex, that there are needs to be met, that it's always been this way, that we're arguing against what "everybody knows"...in short, that we have to be "reasonable."

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The time has come for clarity, for an absolute insistence upon clarity, and for the rejection of the demand from our political shepherds that we submerge ourselves in the great pullulating flock of the unthinking and petulant. The time has come when firm meanings must be attached to the words we use, most especially our terms of public discourse. The time has come when he who dares to twist language to make it serve his power-lust must be dragged down from his perch and taught clarity with bastinado cruelty. The time has come that what "everybody knows," when put forth as an argument for intrusive, anti-Constitutional changes in law or policy, be rejected with extreme prejudice.

The time has come for the demise of the notion of "reasonable men."