Tom Flanagan Shows Why Idle No More Will Be the Death of Anything It Touches

Is Idle No More really still a thing? Really?

For the moment, let's take their word for it and pretend that it is -- even though this so-called "movement" is obviously dead as a door nail. Anyone who encounters an Idle No More activist in nearly any context ought to tread very, very carefully. Idle No More has been out to be the death of anything or anyone it touches. If you need any proof of this, look no further than Tom Flanagan.

In an understandably-combative interview with Macleans magazine, Flanagan manages to do something quite remarkable. It doesn't seem like he really means to, but he actually manages to pinpoint just why the Idle No More movement is so utterly toxic, not only to race relations in Canada, but to anything and anyone it reaches out and touches.

To whit:

"I was posing a question. And that was the wrong way to go about it in that forum. But in the classroom, I would pose the question the same way again. I’d say, 'What’s the harm?' And the student would say, 'You’re building a market for it.' And I’d say, 'Yeah, that’s a harm,' and dialectically, we’d go somewhere together."

Therein lies the rub. From actually watching the video of the interaction, one thing becomes crystal clear: this particular individual was unequivocally not trying to go anywhere with Flanagan, dialectically or otherwise. Regardless of whether or not Flanagan's detractors are willing to admit to it -- and it's clear that the sheer bombast of their malicious triumphalism has backed them into a corner where can't afford to admit to it -- it very much was a trap. The individual in question was trying to draw Flanagan into saying something that could be used to destroy him. Then they attempted precisely that feat. Whether or not they actually succeeded remains to be seen.

Later in the interview, Flanagan notes that the response to his comments has already worried many academics across the country. Suddenly, the prospect of an angry student attempting to tear them down by similarly trapping them may well become a more enticing idea, now that it's already been done. The chill, as it were, is in.

This is where it becomes necessary to consider the petty triumphalism of certain Idle No More-linked "academics." Suddenly, the apparent disgrace of Flanagan has spared them the hard work of having to lock horns with him over ideas. Ever eager to take such shortcuts -- and desperately in need of them because they aren't capable of it -- such individuals have apparently not spared a single thought for what such an academic chill might mean for them.

There are certainly various reasons for it. They've seemingly managed to convince themselves that their fringe ideas are in vogue in academia, and so no statement they could make, regardless of how outrageous -- and frequently racially-charged -- could be seen as so.

But really that's neither the long nor short of it. In reality, these individuals are not real academics at all. They're bullies who have donned the guise of the professional egghead. They see academia as nothing more than another schoolyard, and even if Idle No More were able to destroy academia as a whole, as opposed to merely diminishing it, they'd just find themselves another playground to rampage in.

Hey Rabblers and Babblers: Lookie What I Found

Who doesn't love a good pile-on? I'm not sure I have the answer to that question. But I'll tell you who does love a good pile-on: Rabble.ca.

In the days since Tom Flanagan's outrageous comments on child pornography, many Rabble commentators have taken it upon themselves to gloat about it. Flanagan has since explained his comments -- an explanation that I find satisfactory only to degrees -- something that the pile-on artists at Rabble will certainly ignore.

You would almost think that on the subject of child pornography Rabble.ca was pure as the driven snow. If you actually believed this, you might have been stunned to stumble upon this on their "Babble" forum, as I did:

It's hard to say what's more stunning about this: the paranoid idea that legislating against child pornography is a means of indirectly targeting the LGBT community, or the tacit suggestion in these comments that it's a-OK for the LGBT community to depict children sexually, even if that were something especially prevalent within that community. Personally, I severely doubt that it is.

Certainly, it could be argued that Rabble isn't responsible for everything posted on its forums. Personally, I wouldn't accept that argument -- it's well-known that Rabble moderators can be downright stormtrooper-ish when expunging anyone who doesn't slavishly share their personal views.

So is Rabble soft on child pornography? Soft on producers? Based on the comments above, it may seem that it depends on who they think is producing it.

The Two Faces of L'Affair Tom Flanagan

Did you hear? University of Calgary political scientist Tom Flanagan said something abominable.

He really did.

It's been enough to sever his ties with the Conservative Party of Canada, the Wildrose Alliance Party, and the CBC. It's also been enough to put him on leave from the University of Calgary.

In a sense, it's all justifiable. But there's also more to it than those braying most loudly about it -- the left -- are saying.

First off, here's what they're unquestionably right about: what Flanagan said was truly awful. More than anything, it was truly idiotic. Looking at child pornography is not really a victimless crime. Possession of it is prohibited for an and obvious excellent reason. For most people, this goes without saying, mostly because the reasons are so utterly and perfectly self-evident.

Flanagan is entitled to his opinion, and there is even an argument for it, even if that argument is incorrect. Yet it's an argument that could, from time to time, be heard from a libertarian. The argument, as Flanagan presents it, is that the act of looking at child pornography does not itself harm anyone. So as such, it does no good to punish someone for the mere possession of child pornography.

Right? Right?

Wrong.

To make this argument is to overlook the fact that the consumption of child pornography is reflective of the demand for child pornography. Flanagan is certainly enough of an economist to know that demand drives supply.Ergo, the consumption of child pornography directly encourages the sexual abuse of children by creating the demand for it. Separating the harm done by the producers from the appetites of the consumers is where Flanagan's argument meets its ultimate moral failure.

So is the Canadian left -- who despise Flanagan as they despise few others -- at liberty to condemn him? Certainly, they are. Are they in any position to?

Actually, no.

As it turns out, Flanagan's argument in opposition to the punishment is not that different than the one that the left frequently applies to drug users: that the use of drugs shouldn't be punished. The use of drugs harms no one aside from the user. This is the portion of the argument that they share with libertarians. But the left takes it one step further: that the user is themselves also a victim, and so should be largely excused from any criminal sanction.

But is a drug user any more insulated from the harm associated with the production of their product than is the user of child pornography? At least in terms of hard drug users, they can't. People are often killed by the cartels that produce hard drugs. They aren't above using slave labour. Those locals who they cannot buy off with a few baubles live under a state of constant intimidation.

So if the child pornography user is not insulated from the harm their product does, nor should hard drug users. Yet we provide safe injection sites for drug addicts in the name of "harm reduction." We certainly don't provide pedophiles with access to previously-existing child pornography in the name of preventing the continuing harm of children. Nor should we.

So is the left justified in the sheer bombast of their outrage over Flanagan's remarks? I don't think so. When you look at what Tom Flanagan has to say about child pornography -- as wrong as it is -- it isn't all that different than what the left says about drugs.

Of course, they gain no rhetorical advantage whatsoever from that. So of course they'll never admit it.

When You Peel Back the Layers of Junk, They Show You What They're All About

Ah, Tobold Rollo. Always on the run.

Oh, he puts on a brave face for his followers. But as it turns out, a recent blogpost I wrote dissecting a blogpost that he wrote -- and using the language of his chosen field, no less -- stung him far more than he would like to let on. He did try to make it seem as if this wasn't so. He actually dismissed the post as "researched on Wikipedia..." a patently false claim, as the sources for the post were linked with in it. For the record, it was the Standford University Online Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Which is hardly Wikipedia. (Nice try, Blinky.)

But it turns out that he was rather disturbed by the meticulous dismantling of his bad faith arguments that he actually went so far as to update his blogpost. It seems he may have had some additional points that he thought may have made up for the errors in his blogpost, errors that not even the greenest poli sci 100 student would ever make. (It's nearly day one stuff, after all.)

How much more did he have to say? Well, let me put it to you this way: not much more than he had to say in the first place. Which, as you may recall, wasn't very much at all. But I'd like to draw your attention, in particular, to his new concluding line::

"(My apologies if you were hoping for an academic critique, but the Calgary School’s errors aren’t a matter of scholarship – they are ideological.)"

 So there you have it. There, in one sentence, everything that Tobold Rollo's "scholarship" seems to be about: ideology. And ideology alone.

Apparently Rollo admits that he takes no issue whatsoever in the facts that Tom Flanagan and Barry Cooper cite. He has no problem with their analytical rigour. Rollo's single and sole objection is that Flanagan and Cooper do not share his ideology.

Suddenly, it all makes sense: the conceptual shakiness of his online offerings. The scant references to anything even remotely resembling a source or even a fact. And the spectacularly wanton resorting to logical fallacies of every sort imaginable to sweep any criticism -- that blasted criticism! -- away.

Because to Tobold Rollo it seems that this isn't about conceptual soundness. It isn't about facts or sources. It certainly isn't about good-faith debating tactics. It's all about ideology, and ideology alone. There's nothing else. Rollo has drawn a line in the sand of academia: on one side, he and those who share his ideology, or at least ideologies that he is willing to give some sort of approval, however, begrudging. On the other side is everyone else.

From a scholastic standpoint, that's a serious problem. For one thing, it actually precludes defending a position with facts or logic. Ideas promoted by those adhering to one particular ideology are automatically granted merit, regardless of whether or not they withstand academic muster. Ideas promoted by those adhering to another particular ideology are immediately discarded, regardless of whether or not they withstand scrutiny. That makes for an extremely toxic scholarly environment, but as it turns out that isn't even the most striking thing about this stance.

There are various theories about what ideologies are, how they are formed, and whether or not those who hold such ideologies are aware that they hold them. I won't go into them at length here because quite frankly it can get quite boring. But I will mention this important concept: many theorists have held that virtually everything about the way people are socialized within any particular society is ideological. The argument holds that one way or another, everyone adheres to some sort of ideology regardless of whether they recognize it or not. In one way or another, that ideology guides virtually every decision that a person makes.

Now clearly, awareness of his personal ideology is not an issue for Rollo. He's fully aware of it, and it seems he allows it to guide how he judges and responds to work by other scholars. Considering this, it's not hard to draw the conclusion that, for Tobold Rollo, the conclusion is always foregone. The result of a study or research project always decided in advance. And that no conflicting piece of evidence will be allowed to change his mind so long as it leads him in the "wrong" ideological direction.

Suddenly it all makes sense. How Rollo could entirely skim over the most obvious shortcomings in Barry Cooper's original column -- and make no mistake about it, I feel there are logical and conceptual shortcomings in Professor Cooper's article -- and instead resort to the bad-faith tactics of which he appears to be so fond.

I peeled back the layers, revealed his offerings to be utterly hollow, and in response Tobold Rollo simply came out and revealed what he's all about. And in Tobold Rollo's case, there's nothing there but ideology.

I won't pretend to be more Catholic than the Pope here. I'm no less ideological than most people. But I do take the time to challenge my ideological assumptions on a regular basis, and in doing so I at least strive to give you more than mere ideology. Troll-bold doesn't, and he makes that perfectly clear.

Indigenous Nationhood and Political pseudo-Science

Tobold Rollo is a man with a problem.

He aspires to be an "ally" to the Idle No More movement. Unfortunately for him according to the standards of "alliance" he himself espouses this reduces him to little more than one of the movement's white mascots. He longs to be taken seriously, but when he finally lands himself an appearance on TVO's The Agenda (with the excellent Steve Paikin), they're only barely interested in what he has to say.

But neither of these problems are the problem Rollo chooses to address. Instead, he decides he has a problem with a recent op-ed written by University of Calgary Political Science professor Barry Cooper, and attempts to solve that problem with a blogpost rebuttal that seems to aspire to pithiness but never really advances beyond baleful whining.

In Rollo's favour, I will say that I consider Cooper's column to be flawed in a number of respects. More on that very shortly. But Rollo's erstwhile rebuttal is nothing short of a trainwreck. This particular disaster begins by Rollo very much being himself. To whit, Rollo's whining:

"To evidence this grand deception for the lay public, Cooper cites an immense body of scholarly literature that has withstood the most demanding levels of interdisciplinary academic scrutiny. Just kidding, he cites 'a classic study [sic] published in 2000 by my longtime colleague and even longer-time friend, Tom Flanagan, called First Nations? Second Thoughts.'"

With an objection like that you'd almost expect that Rollo would himself cite an "immense body of scholarly literature that has withstood the most demanding levels of interdisciplinary scrutiny." His own standard, after all. But predictably, he doesn't. His counter-argument never rises above the level of the genetic fallacy, which is and should be unsurprising from someone who once responded to Andrew Coyne by calling him "a confused white guy."

Now to be entirely forthcoming, there are many things within Cooper's column that I disagree with. For example, the idea that First Nations, not having emerged from the European diplomatic regime that produced the idea of Westphalian sovereignty -- which remains the gold standard of sovereignty, even if it doesn't itself encompass the entirety of the concept -- cannot expect to benefit from consideration under that concept.

Ideas such as sovereignty are not, and never have been, the exclusive preserve of their progenitors. Absolutely nothing prevents First Nations from invoking the notion of sovereignty. To treat the legal concept of sovereignty as a "legal advantage" enjoyed by European civilizations is, in my opinion, a severe mischaracterization of the concept. Understanding of this concept can be a tremendous advantage, particularly where there is such a marked imbalance of power as between First Nations and the Europeans who first arrived to settle North America, but not the concept itself.

To be entirely charitable to Professor Cooper, sovereignty was certainly conceptualized around existing European states.But even with that being said, this does not strictly reserve sovereign rights for states. It just so happens that the traditional state is the entity best equipped to have its sovereignty recognized, and -- more importantly -- to exercise sovereignty.

Had Rollo followed this very simple and very fundamental track, few individuals with any training in political science would have any grounds on which to disagree with him. But as it turns out, Rollo seems unprepared to be forthcoming about precisely how he strives to define sovereignty. He notes that "when Indigenous peoples speak about nations and sovereignty they are not referring to First Nations bands or their reserve lands under the Indian Act. Nor are also not talking about Westphalian state sovereignty."

For the moment let us say that this is fair enough and take him at his word. First Nations are not laying claim to Westphalian state sovereignty. Very well. You may then ask: what other kinds are there?

Well, I'm glad you asked. There are essentially four separate measures of sovereignty. I'll take this opportunity to explain them, as Rollo himself declines to.

The first we'll examine is "domestic sovereignty." This amounts to control over a geographic area -- usually referred to as a state, but my contention remains that sovereignty is not necessarily reserved for states -- by an internal authority. One of the most basic manifestations of this control is a presumed monopoly over the use of force.

The second we'll examine is "interdependence sovereignty." This presumes that known borders exist, and that the sovereign entity can protect those borders and control movement across them.

The third we'll examine is "international legal sovereignty." It's embodied the answer to a very simple question: do other sovereign entities recognize the authority of the alleged sovereign entity?

The fourth we'll examine is the measure of sovereignty that Professor Cooper remains preoccupied with: "Westphalian sovereignty." Established by the 1648 Peace of Westphalia that effectively ended religious warfare within Europe, Westphalian sovereignty refuted any authority over a particular geographic area other than the recognized sovereign authority.

So given these four measures of sovereignty, can First Nations in Canada really lay claim to sovereignty? The answer seems to be maybe, maybe, no, and no.

Can they lay claim to domestic sovereignty? Certainly, First Nations do have governments of their own: band councils on individual reserves and various national assemblies. They're recognized as having control over reserve lands, and effectively self-governing over those lands. Sadly, even in Rollo's analysis it isn't nearly so simple as this. It's bad enough that we're already classifying this as a solid "maybe."

Can they lay claim to interdependence sovereignty? Well, the boundaries of reservations certainly could be treated as borders of a sort. They don't appear on your standard roadmap but nonetheless they do exist. (Israel doesn't appear on many roadmaps produced in Arab countries, so this is by no stretch of the imagination a measure of sovereignty.) They don't actively defend or patrol those borders, but on-reservation legal authorities do have the power to remove non-aboriginals and non-residents from them. We'll call this another solid maybe.

Can they lay claim to international legal sovereignty? The short answer is no. A slightly longer answer is no, but there is a United Nations Declaration on Indigenous Rights... to which Canada is not a signatory. Which doesn't amount to a full recognition of international legal sovereignty.

Can they lay claim to Westphalian sovereignty? Unfortunately, no. Under the Indian Act the federal government of Canada has been granted specific areas of authority. Band Councils have to receive approval from the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development for specific expenditures. This leads us to one of two conclusions: first, either the band council is not the recognized sovereign authority -- which would slide the question of domestic sovereignty from the "maybe" into the "no" column -- or, there is another authority over the territory in question other than the alleged domestic sovereign entity. Both of these answers preclude Westphalian sovereignty.

As we ponder these issues, we must remember all the while that Rollo contends that aboriginal sovereignty is not embodied in their band councils or reservations. So what precisely are they embodied in? Well, he declines to say. This is a classic bad-faith argument, and Rollo's analysis may well be the first time I've ever seen someone who purports himself to be a self-respecting academic attempt to raise bad faith argumentation to the level of serious academics.

Overriding our questions regarding the four measures of sovereignty is one great, big commanding "no." The treaties signed by Canada's first nations -- at least those that actually signed such treaties -- specifically surrender any claims to sovereignty. While there do remain some First Nations that have yet to sign any such treaty -- Alberta's Lubicon Cree come to mind -- none of those who have retain any claim to sovereignty. As such, it is precisely as Cooper says it is -- the treaties extinguish, not affirm, claims to aboriginal sovereignty. RCAP's vivid imagination notwithstanding, the only way to imagine that the treaties affirm aboriginal sovereignty is to strip the concept of virtually any meaning whatsoever.

"Sovereignty" would not be the first time Rollo has done something of the like. During his ill-fated appearance on The Agenda, Rollo droned on about "paternalism," only to note that the single most paternalistic element of the Indian Act -- the federal government's fiduciary duty to First Nations, which leaves it holding enormous power over the fiscal affairs of First Nations -- must remain entrenched in any future legislation. Accordingly, "paternalism" is a word that, in Rollo's mouth, begins to lose any and all meaning. In the wake of his "critique" of Cooper we can now say the same thing for the concept of "sovereignty."

Tobold Rollo will, of course, try to write all of this off as the ramblings of an "unqualified" individual. He, after all, is a PhD candidate. I'm an individual who, for reasons largely out of my own power, was forced to suspend his studies, however temporarily.

Of course, therein lies the rub. Tobold Rollo may be a PhD candidate but Tom Flanagan already has one. Accordingly, by his own logic, Rollo is unqualified to dismiss the conclusions of First Nations, Second Thoughts.

That, of course, is presuming that Rollo's logic is actually logic. To consider it so risks stripping that word of all meaning.