As Leonard Peikoff argues in his excellent course, “Eight Great Plays,” the stage play as art is literature. Reading Chantecler by Edmond Rostand, who wrote the brilliant Cyrano de Bergerac, is mostly a pleasure, though the play can be esoteric and overwrought. The play in four acts envelops the reader with ease.

Chantecler affirms life with joie de vivre. Though I’m not fluent in French, the translation’s easy to read and comprehend. Now, I’d love to experience Chantecler on stage. This is because I’ve read what Rostand wrote.

Read more

Ilya Somin writes provocatively on citizenship reform at The Volokh Conspiracy.

I found his piece worthwhile because, as he does, I oppose Trump's effort to oppose birthright citizenship, although I have long thought the United States needs immigration and citizenship reform.

Widespread confusion about the nature of civil rights vs. individual rights muddies this debate, as I noted years ago:

[I]t reminds me of a distinction Leonard Peikoff drew on his radio show some time ago between civil rights -- which belong to the citizens of a country and pertain to their participation in its government and legal system -- and individual rights -- which belong to anyone in a society. An example of a civil right would be the right to vote. Freedom of speech would be an example of an individual right (that a proper government would guard for its citizens).

The distinction is interesting to me because I suspect that in addition to the massive confusion there already is among the public about the nature of individual rights (e.g., from the philosophical roots of the concept to their very nature, as evidenced by the plethora of ersatz "rights," like medical care), there is further confusion about the distinction mentioned above. The most glaring instance I can think of where this confusion hampers intelligent debate is in the immigration debate, and specifically when the very idea of open immigration is equated with treating all comers as full citizens. [bold added]

Somin seems to have such a distinction in mind when he proposes (1) changing the ambit of citizenship to not include voting, and (2) making participation in the government, such as by voting, contingent on competence and revocable on such grounds as insurrection:

... In an ideal system, restrictions on voting and office-holding would be based on competence and (in some cases) there might be exclusions based on a demonstrated danger to liberal democratic institutions (as with Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which the Supreme Court wrongly gutted, to a large extent). We already have some competence-based constraints on the franchise, such as excluding children, some convicts, and immigrants who cannot pass a civics test most native-born Americans would fail if they had to take it without studying.

...

... the ideal political system would have a strong presumption against restrictions on migration, while also imposing competence-based constraints on voting rights and office-holding...

Somin also argues for restricted access to welfare benefits, which I can only advocate as a stopgap measure until the full repeal of the welfare state, as I have argued before.

I have not thought deeply about this nor am I a legal scholar, but I like these ideas and agree with Somin that, in the meantime, "Birthright citizenship [is] a second-best policy."

-- CAV