"Of course, Schmitt’s analogy between the collective and the individual interest in self-preservation papers over an important difference between the two cases. A political community does not enjoy simple biological existence. It might die though all of its individual members continue to live. The drawing of a friend-enemy distinction, therefore, is never a mere reaction to a threat to a form of existence that is already given (but see Mouffe 1999, 49–50). Rather, it actively constitutes the political identity or existence of the people and determines who belongs to the people. To belong one must identify with the substantive characteristic, whatever it may be, that marks the identity of the people, and one must agree that this characteristic defines a form of life for the preservation of which one ought to be willing to sacrifice one’s own life, in the fight against those who don’t belong (CP 46).

Schmitt realizes, of course, that it is possible for people who are not willing to identify in this way to be legally recognized as citizens, and to live law-abidingly, under the norms authorized by some positive constitution. Liberal states, in Schmitt’s view, have a tendency to fail to distinguish properly between friends and enemies, and thus to extend rights of membership to those who do not truly belong to the political nation. In a liberal state, Schmitt fears, the political nation will slowly whither and die as a result of spreading de-politicization, it will succumb to internal strife, or it will be overwhelmed by external enemies who are more politically united (CP 69–79; L 31–77). To avert these dangers, Schmitt suggests, it is necessary to make sure that the boundaries of the political nation and the boundaries of citizenship coincide. This demand explains Schmitt’s claim, in the first sentence of The Concept of the Political, that the concept of the state presupposes the concept of the political (CP 19). The point of this remark is that a state can only be legitimate if its legal boundaries embody a clear friend-enemy distinction."

really makes you think

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4621703&forum_id=2...id.#40899502)

no wonder i've never heard of this guy

libs must hate him

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4621703&forum_id=2...id.#40899513)

he believed he was untouchable because Hitler cared about having a firm jurisprudential foundation to his regime. this turned out to be not exactly true.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4621703&forum_id=2...id.#40899687)

Shame he got wrapped up with the nazis

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4621703&forum_id=2...id.#41642377)