Return to Peak CONLAWPROF

It strikes me that there are two possibilities: [1] Professor AAA really believes what he has written, or [2] Professor AAA does not believe what he has written in response to me, and his response is some sort of enterprise in virtue signalling. Hmm. Hmm. Let me think this over.

I’m going to go with door number 2—here is why.

Professor BBB made an analogy to the risks connected with the German election of 1933. When I suggested emigration as a response, among other potential responses, Professor AAA responded by saying that he and Professor BBB were not at particular consequential risk as “affluent white males.” (A fact which was entirely news to me--as I have never met Professor BBB as far as I know.) Now, if Professor AAA is correct, it means that Trump is not planning to detain and/or exterminate all his political opponents. Right? So Hitler and the risks of 1933 are not entirely on-point. If the argument is that Trump, like Nazi Germany, might detain and then exterminate people, not based on political opinion, but in connection with race (other than being white) and other such characteristics, then Professor BBB and Professor AAA should build safe rooms (like the Dutch did in WWII) to hide people. Indeed, people on this list who are not white, but who agree with Professor AAA and Professor BBB, might consider just buying some stand-by plane tickets or a small cabin abroad. But I have no good reason to believe that Professor BBB or Professor AAA or any person on this list (white or otherwise) has done any such thing. (Now, I could be wrong—feel free to respond off list and do so anonymously in order to keep your secret safe! Walls have ears and all that. And in these dark times, who can one really trust? Secret police are everywhere!)

As to broader based political and economic risk … Professor AAA suggests there is “no refuge” from the consequences of the Trump nightmare. If the risk is an economic one, Professor AAA and others might, at the very least, shift some of their liquid assets into land and/or chattel such as precious metals that will preserve value should Trump’s policies destroy the international economic order (as Professor AAA believes will occur). If the risk is a global military one, then surely some areas are relatively safer than others, right? Even in WWII, Switzerland and most of South America went largely untouched by the war. And some areas which saw occupation and actual conflict were more damaged than other such areas. Surely if Trump is the concrete danger Professor AAA believes, Professor AAA could implement some concrete life plan to attenuate those risks for himself, and his loved ones, and others in the orbit of his personal influence, right? How could it be that doing nothing is every bit as good as any other potential option? How is that possible?

Like I said: it is all virtue signalling. Professor AAA, BBB (and CCC too!): if you want more Trump, just continue to do precisely what you are doing. You are (I believe) making and minting Trump voters all the time.

Seth

Seth Barrett Tillman, Return to Peak CONLAWPROF, New Reform Club (Oct. 23, 2018, 12:48 PM), https://reformclub.blogspot.com/2018/10/return-to-peak-conlawprof.html.