Home/personal security vs. national security/immigration - A philosophical discussion
About a year ago, I met a man who had just moved in with a female friend down the street. The man had served his jail time, but was on a sexual predator list. Some neighbors tried to fundraise throughout our neighborhood to build a community play set, with the explicit intent to force this man to move out (because he would have been in violation of sexual predator laws). Without my money, the play set was built, and the man moved out.
Since then, I have thought a lot about a) the presumption of innocence, b) whether that presumption should apply to people outside my country, especially when such people are from countries for which background checks are of questionable veracity, c) what the philosophical basis (or bases) is for the presumption of innocence are.
If someone moves to my neighborhood, does that constitute an actionable threat? I think not, but I am willing to listen to the counterarguments.
What if a stranger sits in his car in the street in front of my house? What if that stranger parks in my driveway or knocks on the front door? Think about how you react when you hear your doorbell when you are not expecting visitors.
What do you do for your personal and home security? Do you own a gun (or guns)? Do you have a dog that would be considered threatening to people who ring your doorbell? Do you have a home security system? Can you hit an alarm button manually? Is that alarm very loud or silent?
Now consider people coming to your country. How much does it matter whether or not the visitor's past is verifiable? Is it reasonable to let that person in without interviewing that person carefully?
Does a person's philosophy (or faith?) matter? Especially if a person's faith says that it is OK to lie to infidels in order to accomplish larger objectives? Can persons of faith be reasoned with?
On the other hand, is it worthwhile interacting with non-Objectivists with the hope that such people might eventually change? Should such situations be viewed as opportunities, threats, both, or neither?
Just checking my premises...
Since then, I have thought a lot about a) the presumption of innocence, b) whether that presumption should apply to people outside my country, especially when such people are from countries for which background checks are of questionable veracity, c) what the philosophical basis (or bases) is for the presumption of innocence are.
If someone moves to my neighborhood, does that constitute an actionable threat? I think not, but I am willing to listen to the counterarguments.
What if a stranger sits in his car in the street in front of my house? What if that stranger parks in my driveway or knocks on the front door? Think about how you react when you hear your doorbell when you are not expecting visitors.
What do you do for your personal and home security? Do you own a gun (or guns)? Do you have a dog that would be considered threatening to people who ring your doorbell? Do you have a home security system? Can you hit an alarm button manually? Is that alarm very loud or silent?
Now consider people coming to your country. How much does it matter whether or not the visitor's past is verifiable? Is it reasonable to let that person in without interviewing that person carefully?
Does a person's philosophy (or faith?) matter? Especially if a person's faith says that it is OK to lie to infidels in order to accomplish larger objectives? Can persons of faith be reasoned with?
On the other hand, is it worthwhile interacting with non-Objectivists with the hope that such people might eventually change? Should such situations be viewed as opportunities, threats, both, or neither?
Just checking my premises...
Even a human cell allows the good in, keeps the bad out and releases waste.
The problem is that our nation has philosophical "cancer" and the body politic doesn't seem to be able to discern the difference between normal cells and cancerous tumors (so-to-speak).
You did a very good thing, however, to eschew participation in what was so obviously a set-up. Too bad that you set such a rare example.
Your comments about the "sexual offenders" in your community are illustrative of how easily this can ruin one's life.
Your comments on the origin of the presumption of innocence followed by your personal and home security are what I would have expected. I don't live in a continual paranoia either, but my wife is reasonably concerned given that it would only take one out of the hundreds of students I interact with to drastically affect my life. I am a little on the naive side; that aspect of my personality has been helpful in my interactions with both students and faculty. Consequently, I have not changed that behavior.
You take your personal security seriously, as all of us should. As for dealing with complete strangers in my neighborhood or my country, I am careful, but not paranoid. If that complete stranger were worthy of paranoia, there is a good chance that he/she would have been incarcerated already. While I agree that at least most of the basis for the presumption of innocence is derived from an individual's right to life and property, I will argue that some of the basis for the presumption of innocence is derived from that individual's past history and society's documentation of that past history.
When it comes to strangers from other countries, particularly those coming from countries that cannot, or will not, document that immigrant's history, I consider it to be no different than when "someone rings my doorbell, I look to see who it is before I open my door." Similarly, as I was writing this, an air duct cleaning company called me unsolicited. Am I to presume innocence for the air duct cleaning company, or is there a reasonable probability that this company is a scam? To that point, I think that this air duct cleaning company either bought the customer base of a now defunct air duct cleaning company (or just a renamed version of the same disreputable company) that my wife had integrity problems with during a previous visit. Any sensible person would initiate a call to the company before buying that company's services, rather than doing so unsolicited over the phone. I see the presumption of innocence for strangers from other countries to be as foolish as presuming innocence among telemarketers. Some are legitimate, but because the percentage of bad actors is definitely non-zero, one should be prudent about doing his/her homework.
Regarding the interactions with non-Objectivists at any level, I will certainly agree that "it's nonsense to rely on hope or to think anything will change except on an individual level through example, and that rarely." However, when such rare individual changes happen through my example to some of my students, such times are among my most personally gratifying.
Enjoy your day.
There are actually two sets of responses to what you pose--the first of course is from that of Objectivism and the Founding basis of the nation--Natural Individual Rights, and the second is that from the nation and society as it became in the early 20th century and is at present (and probably will remain, and worsen for at least the foreseeable future).
Your tale of the new guy moving into the neighborhood and your neighbors response to force him out of his home sickens me to the depth of my soul. We've two men in this little community of about 500 that are registered sex offenders. The first is a young man convicted of statutory rape when he was barely 18 for sex with a 16yr old with the morals of an alley cat, and the second is an older man convicted for exposure for peeing in his yard in the evening after drinking several beers outside with friends. Both men have been forced to move from their homes because they can't live within 1 mile of an elementary school property, measured in a straight line radius. Neither individual is in any way a threat to anyone other than themselves, weren't when convicted and given their labels, and won't be in the future--yet they are labeled the same as a pedophile or serial rapist and will carry their labels to their deaths. I think we as a people began that method of continuous punishment for minor errors of judgement during the Dark Ages with scarring(branding) on foreheads, notching noses and ears, cutting out tongues, and lopping off hands-- and carried it into this 'enlightened' land through the Puritans in New England. Apparently, we haven't learned much from their atrocities and failures.
For the remainder of what you pose (Not in such depth):
If you define the right to a 'presumption of innocence' on the quality or presence of a background report, where's your presumption of innocence.
The concept of a presumption of innocence comes from the importance of the Individual Right to life and property (from which all others arise. Before any of that can be altered or taken from a man, there must be no doubt.
If someone moves to your neighborhood, are they suspicious? Are you if you choose to move to another neighborhood?
What do I do for personal and home security? I came of age in a war zone, so I'm always aware and always armed. I own my life and property and I will defend both.
If someone rings my doorbell, I look to see who it is before I open my door.
For others that want to come to this country, I argue against and vote against any sort of gov't support or aid for anyone anywhere without exception.
As to interacting with non-Objectivists at any level, it's nonsense to rely on hope or to think anything will change except on an individual level through example, and that rarely.
As to the bent of your post, I refuse to live my life in fear or with continual paranoia. There's too many small pleasures left in life and too short a time to allow either to be overwhelmed by others stories and fears.
Thanks for the post and the opportunity to interact.
Partial restrictions for life on sexual predators are apparently based on the psychology behind that kind of crime and the prospects for mental rehabilitation. Whether or not they are valid is another matter.
FYI: The man mentioned in this thread is the only person that I have known that I knew was on the sexual predator list. This case changed my opinion some on this topic.
The requirement that felons be regarded as innocent until proven guilty and not arbitrarily punished pertains to government action, not private citizens. You have a right to use whatever information you know about a person and his history in assessing whether or not to trust him as normal or how you relate to him.
Just a musing.
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