ashthomas//blog

ashthomas//blog

Tuesday, March 16, 2004

Muravchik on treason. While I was at the AEI site reading the Ferguson speech, I came across an article that was written by Joshua Muravchik for the March 4 issue of the Jerusalem Post called "The Betrayal of Democracy". Muravchik makes some claims that I took issue with. He writes that "In any society, nothing is worse than the deliberate exposure of one's countrymen to its enemies, for it not only amounts to attempted mass murder, but to the mass murder of those to whom one owes the fundamental obligation of fellowship."

And yet at the beginning of the article he says that "morally", traitors against oppressive regimes "would better be judged a noble spirit than a malefactor". He goes on to acknowledge that the argument leads itself to the conclusion that, for example, communist or fascist spies working to overthrow a democracy could be similarly be seen as heroes.

Here is where he makes his paradox: "such reasoning is not legitimate for citizens of a democracy," he writes. Traitors, in Muravchik's argument, are noble if they are democrats overthrowing communists, and villains if they are communists overthrowing democrats. These two traitors, hero and villain, are committing the same act. Muravchik ends his article by claiming, "in any society, there is nothing worse" than treason.

There is the inconsistency. First line: "Treason is often thought to be among the highest of crimes. But is it? Not always."
Last line: "In any society, nothing is worse than the deliberate exposure of one's countrymen to its enemies"

Other than that, he makes his interesting comments about the duties that one owes to one's fellow countrymen.

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