- Filmmaker Michael Moore insists that corporations are evil and claims he doesn’t invest in the stock market due to moral principle. But Moore’s IRS forms, viewed by Schweizer, show that over the past five years he has owned shares in such corporate giants as Halliburton, Merck, Pfizer, Sunoco, Tenet Healthcare, Ford, General Electric and McDonald’s.
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Staunch union supporter Rep. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) has received the Cesar Chavez Award from the United Farmworkers Union. But the $25 million Northern California vineyard she and her husband own is a non-union shop.
The hypocrisy doesn’t end there. Pelosi has received more money from the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union than any other member of Congress in recent election cycles.
But the Pelosis own a large stake in an exclusive hotel in Rutherford, Calif. It has more than 250 employees. But none of them are in a union, according to Schweizer, author of “The Bushes: Portrait of a Dynasty” and a regular contributor to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and other periodicals.
The Pelosis are also partners in a restaurant chain called Piatti, which has 900 employees. The chain is – that’s right, a non-union shop.
- Ralph Nader is another liberal who claims that unions are essential to protect worker rights. But when an editor of one of his publications tried to form a union to ameliorate miserable working conditions, the editor was fired and the locks changed on the office door.
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Self-described socialist Noam Chomsky has described the Pentagon as “the most vile institution on the face of the earth” and lashed out against tax havens and trusts that benefit only the rich.
But Chomsky has been paid millions of dollars by the Pentagon over the last 40 years, and he used a venerable law firm to set up his irrevocable trust to shield his assets from the IRS. - Air America radio host Al Franken says conservatives are racist because they lack diversity and oppose affirmative action. But fewer than 1 percent of the people he has hired over the past 15 years have been African-American.
- Ted Kennedy has fought for the estate tax and spoken out against tax shelters. But he has repeatedly benefited from an intricate web of trusts and private foundations that have shielded most of his family’s fortune from the IRS.
One Kennedy family trust wasn’t even set up in the U.S., but in Fiji.
Another family member, environmentalist Robert Kennedy Jr., has said that it is not moral to profit from natural resources. But he receives an annual check from the family’s large holdings in the oil industry.
- Barbra Streisand has talked about the necessity of unions to protect a “living wage.” But she prefers to do her filming and postproduction work in Canada, where she can pay less than American union wages.
- Bill and Hillary Clinton have spoken in favor of the estate tax, and in 2000 Bill vetoed a bill seeking to end it. But the Clintons have set up a contract trust that allows them to substantially reduce the amount of inheritance tax their estate will pay when they die.
- Hillary, for her part, has written and spoken extensively about the right of children to make major decisions regarding their own lives. But she barred 13-year-old daughter Chelsea from getting her ears pierced and forbid the teen from watching MTV or HBO.
- Billionaire Bush-basher George Soros says the wealthy should pay higher, more progressive tax rates. But he holds the bulk of his money in tax-free overseas accounts in Curacao, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.
JamesK, Note 49 I would love to turn my law degree in for an apron.
After a couple of decades of practicing law, let’s just say that the romance has worn off. There is something depressing about being exposed to the very worst in human nature day after day. You develop what some people call a “cop’s mentality.”
As for aprons, I love to cook. I own a ridiculous number of cookbooks and kitchen gadgets. I love to prepare formal, multi-course sit down dinners for 2 to 4 couples. Best main dish: Chicken Marsala, best dessert: Irish Cream Chocolate Mocha Cake (banned by the American Heart Association) I don’t get do this more than 4 to 6 times year. I would love to trade in my law degree for an apron but there is this little matter of the mortgage and the car payment.
#48 Jim Holman said, “What I don’t understand is why it is thought by some that positions derived from religious faith are somehow superior to those arrived at by rational or other means.
Does anyone act as if they are? For example, I don’t believe that murder is right, and I would not believe it was, regardless of my religious faith. I would hope to live in a culture where everyone had the same regard for innocent life, regardless of their faith or lack thereof. By and large, people in this country seem to feel this way.
I guess the question gets difficult when people are talking about embryos and fetuses. My opinions in this regard come more from my basic knowledge (accessible to anyone) of embryological development than from my religious faith. I know, even apart from faith, that murder is wrong. Knowledge of biology is what tells me that elective abortion, particularly late-term, elective abortion, is not different from any other murder.
Jim, you honestly don’t grasp the irony of Michael Moore owning stock in Haliburton?
We know murder is wrong because of the commandment “thou shalt not kill.” The commandment has become so enculturated in the Christian West that it appears second nature to us. When the cultural memory grows dim however, and the connection between religion and moral values are split, then the proper context for the interpretation and application of the commandment becomes subject to the shifting social mores. Take Terri Schiavo for example. Some people argue that the removal of her feeding tube was not really killing, a tortured argument to avoid the moral opprobrium of the commandment.
If you lived in a predominantly Moslem country, as a Muslim, the line between killing and murder would be different. Suicide bombers are hailed as martyrs for example, sisters/daughters are routinely killed for offenses that offend the honor of their families, etc.
Religion, the context from which these commandments are drawn also shape our perceptions about how to apply them in the rough and tumble of real life. People might not make a specifically religious argument when discussing certain issues (killing Schiavo, unborn children, etc.), particularly when the biological facts are so compelling, but the moral value posited still has religion as it source.
Chipping Away at the Prohibition Against Murder by Going After the Weakest People
The prohibition against murder is chipped away bit by bit. It is the weak and inconvenient that are the first to die with social approval: inconvenient babies, inconvenient sick people, inconvenient old people. There are reasons and rationales given by people with academic degrees, of course, but it all boils down to the fact the victims are weak and inconvenient and society is tired of taking care of them.
Jacobse, I think it’s clear enough that the Bible justifies killing in certain contexts, and that what was meant was “thou shalt not murder.” Otherwise we’d all be vegan.
Note 51: It’s interesting you say that, Missourian. I have often wondered whether your perspective isn’t often founded on having to deal with people who are not all that nice, to say the least. So, yeah, I think I get why your stances often ring harsh to my ears.
My father was a police officer for over 20 years. He did have to deal with some real nutcases, but somehow his personality never turned hard-edged. Perhaps it was because he worked in a smaller town where real problems were infrequent or because he worked as a DARE officer for the last few years and worked mostly with kids, I don’t know.
I guess somewhere between putting the “smack down” on everyone and letting everything slide as “no big deal” there exists a happy medium. Sometimes severity is needed, but I still like to think it’s a rarity, however.
Point well taken, Father.
My point is that our ethics and laws, even though they derive from religion, are respected and followed by many more people than just those who are religious. That’s a good thing.
I repeat, that is a good thing.
For example, where I live, only about three people in ten have anything to do with organized religion. I’m very glad that the other seven out of ten, even though they aren’t churchgoers, obey the injunction “thou shalt not murder” (the correct translation, I believe). I would be very upset if someone tried to convince those other seven that, because they aren’t religious, they should go out and start murdering people. Yet that is the logic of the folks who are intent on deconstructing our culture: if it has a religious origin, it’s not valid in culture or law.
By the way, part of the deconstruction is always that the practices objected to are not “fair.” I suppose it’s not fair that one must go medical school to perform surgery, but I’m glad we have that bit of unfairness. Part of the deconstruction is that there is something wrong with people who are averse to change. No there’s not. I mention this parenthetically as a reminder that it is possible to become immune to this prattle once you recognize how pervasive and destructive it is.
My religious beliefs are personal. I do not expect other people to agree with them. However, the prohibition against murder has, fortunately, become a part of our culture — and a part worth defending. A part worth defending independently of its religious origin and independently of one’s religious beliefs. So are other parts of our culture. Unfortunately, sometimes when we emphasize the religious basis of a practice, it is seen as de-legitimizing it as part of the common culture. That is not a good thing.
Pete writes: “Jim, you honestly don’t grasp the irony of Michael Moore owning stock in Haliburton?”
I have a hard time grasping anything about Michael Moore. I guess he has a following, but to me he’s a fellow who makes movies that are kind of like documentaries, but without any kind of journalistic sensibility to them. He’s kind of like a kid who collects ugly bugs — you view the collection of ugly bugs and say “yup, those sure are some ugly bugs” — but at the end you haven’t really learned anything. While there is certainly a lot that should be reported about corporate America, the Bush administration, etc., I don’t find Moore’s stuff very informative or interesting. To the extent that Moore’s work is informative, it’s only because journalists and Democratic politicians have been missing in action. Recently it seems that journalists have rediscovered their profession, and a few Democrats have even been seen in public sporting both spines and cojones. If that continues I don’t think Moore’s style of filmmaking has much of a future.
But remember, when _Fahrenheit 9/11_ came out, most of the Democratic leaders were AWOL, and many people, myself included, felt that there was a whole other side to the issue that no one was talking about. In that sense, Moore’s movie articulated the popular rage, to borrow a phrase from the movie _Network_.
I don’t know if Michael Moore owns stock in Halliburton. But if he does . . . well, I don’t have much interest in the dude’s vices or virtues to begin with. I suppose it would be ironic. But in order for irony to have full effect, you have care about the person in the first place. I don’t. I’ve rented a couple of his movies from the discount shelf of the local video store. Beyond that I have no connection to him or interest in him.
Holman wrote: “What I don’t understand is why it is thought by some that positions derived from religious faith are somehow superior to those arrived at by rational or other means.”
Augie responded: “Does anyone act as if they are?”
Well, yes. The thing now is for politicians to be “people of faith,” and the more conservative the faith the better. In other words, it’s not even just faith per se, but the idea that faith based on conservative religion has a kind of authenticity that other kinds of faith don’t have.
If a Democratic candidate opposes the death penalty for philosophical reasons, his position is dismissed as merely “liberal,” and he himself is dismissed as a knee-jerk liberal. (In the conservative world, to label something as “liberal” is a discussion-ender. Once you’ve applied the “liberal” label you’re done for the day and it’s Miller Time.)
If a Democratic candidate opposes the death penalty for religious reasons based, say, on his life in the Episcopal church or the Jewish Renewal synagogue, his position is dismissed as nothing more than liberalism with a religious paint job, and he is dismissed as a liberal, albeit one who subscribes to The Christian Century, Sojourners, or Tikkun magazine.
But if a Democratic candidate opposes the death penalty for religious reasons based on his Catholic faith, then a kind of reverent hush falls over the discussion, and his position is practically beyond criticism. His position has gravitas, substance, profundity, authentcity, and to criticize it would be like throwing eggs at the Pope.
Given that religious conservatives tend to be politically conservative, what happens is that religious sentiment becomes attached to conservative political positions. I’ve heard fundamentalist Christians say that their mutual agreement on political issues is evidence that they are all being led by the Holy Spirit. I’ve heard fundamentalist Christians even talk about the non-Christian talk show host Michael Savage in reverent terms. The fundamentalists kind of wink at each other and say, well, Michael Savage may not be a Christian, but when the Rapture comes, he’ll be there with us.
This is the kind of nutty stuff that happens when religion becomes attached to politics.
Fr. Hans writes: “People might not make a specifically religious argument when discussing certain issues . . . but the moral value posited still has religion as it source.”
Well, sure, but that’s because traditional religion (Christian or pagan) was an organic part of the culture. Religion was a part of everything, and everything was a part of religion. Science, epistemology, mathematics, metaphysics, art, ethics, were all religious, and all of these were mediated by a religious understanding of the world.
You can say that morality has its source in religion, but it would be just as true to say that geometry has its source in religion. But so what? We don’t live in that world any more, and ethical reasoning no longer depends on religion any more than geometrical proofs depend on religion.
I mean, one of the big challenges of modern life is to understand the place of religion when it is no longer ontologically part of everything, but is floating around as one of many “lifestyle options” or “worldviews.” It’s a hell of a thing to be stuck here in modernity, but here we are, and there’s no going back to the way things were.
JamesK: Ad hominen attacks are an admission that you have no argument
My post about the Robinson lectures was, in part, a response to some of your less than well-informed posts on constitutional and legal history. If you post comments about constitutional law, in an arch professioral tone, you may encounter someone who has studied constitutional law, and you run the risk of correction. For instance, you had no idea that your “camera in private homes” hypothetical was resolved under the Fourth Amendment search and seizure jurisprudence. This gaping hole in your knowledge didn’t stop you from pontificating about the topic. I didn’t think it was worth discussing if you didn’t take the Fourth Amendment into account. Had your tone been less professorial, and had you been better informed, I may not have responded at all.
I have noted a book on the Bill of Rights, you might start reading there. You could find any number of books on the same topic written by reputable authors in any library. Robinson’s lectures provide a good historical overview, but, he isn’t the only reputable scholar out there. Again, any librarian will help you with this. My suggestion: read first, then think, then post.
By the way, ad hominen attacks are an admission that you have no response on the merits.
Note 56 Perspective
No, JamesK, you are misreading me. First, I generally try to identify the nature of my posts. I try to point out whether I am simply passing on an OBSERVATION from my experience OR whether I am passing on FACTUAL DATA from various sources OR whether I am actually making a LEGAL ARGUMENT. Second, I generally do not comment on theology or Scripture even though I have an interest in those topics because I don’t consider myself sufficiently well-read to make public comments.
You consistently waded into legal and constitutional issues with nary a thought or concern about the adequacy of your background. Case in point, the fact that you didn’t know the Fourth Amendment applied to your “camera in the bedroom” hypothetical. Why discuss such an issue with you without addressing the Fourth Amendment. If you didn’t know that the Fourth Amendment was implicated why bother to discuss your opinion?
People have been debating political and legal philosophy since the Greeks. Your comments consistently fail to take into account the constitutional structure of American law. You make the mistake of thinking that MOST of American law is open to debate and revision. In fact, it is not. The majority of the law that actually runs America on a day to day basis is settled. People are arguing around the edges.
I am just holding you to the same standard that I hold everyone else. If you are not informed about the topic under discussion, I don’t give your opinion much weight. You just don’t like me pointing out the disconnect between your ideas and the structure of the American constitution and legal system there isn’t much I can do about it.
Note 58. Micheal Moore is a the left’s counterpart to Pat Robertson. The only difference is that you will never see Pat Robertson sitting next to a former president in the place of honor at a national political convention. Put another way, the reason Moore has impact on the culture is because the hard left has appointed him as spokesman (er..spokesperson).
As for religion and culture, the argument is not that religion no longer shapes culture, it is that a new set of religious ideas are in conflict with the received tradition. Put another way, religious ideas always inform and shape culture. The relevant question is which religious ideas are prevalent? This conflict is what lies at the heart of the “culture war.”
Thus your point that religion was once a part of culture is only partially correct. A more accurate statement is that the authority of the received tradition has waned in some quarters of society and replaced by another.
In our day a locus of this shift is anthropological. Our culture is trying to define the nature and destiny of the human person, a conflict engendered in some measure by the lightening fast changes our technological prowess has brought about.
We argue about what defines the instrinsic worth of a human being, resulting in conflicts over abortion, euthanasia, and other questions about when killing (in a strictly biological sense) constitutes murder. It’s an argument about what moral judgments should ultimately prevail as we apply our new technologies.
And, because the questions are ultimately moral, they inescapably draw from a universe of ideas that must necessarily transcend the immediate circumstances in which these decisions are made. These ideas posit unquantifiable intangibles like meaning, purpose, sacrifice, love, creativity, beauty — all the constituents of human experience that separates man from the animals. In other words, religious ideas.
The conflict between these competing moral visions — these two religions — affects language. Language creates meaning, ideas flow through a culture through language, thus whoever commands the language determines meaning and influences the culture — at least for the time being.
For example, recall the arguments used to justify abortion just a mere decade ago. “The fetus is not a person” was a battle cry heard from many quarters until we started operating on babies in utero. Gee, it sure looks like a person more sober minded people realized. “It’s not a human life, it’s just potential human life” we heard elsewhere. Never mind the philosophical contradiction in the phrase (potential can never exist apart from its object, ie: that very fact that the “fetus” was only a “potential” human being actually confirmed it’s humanity rather than negated it). “We declare it and so it is!” the proabortionists decreed. This has since fallen by the wayside as well.
More recent manifestations of this corruption of language were evident in the Schiavo murder, particularly the attempt to redefine the cessation of hydration and nutrition as “medical treatment” — no more benign than, say, witholding a vitamin tablet. It’s not really killing if a doctor ordered it the implication reads. Recategorize the cessation as medical treatment, and the moral onus of the decision disappears — or so the euthanasia advocate hopes. In reality of course it falls on the people who pulled Terri Schiavo’s feeding and hydration tubes and their apologists.
No decision like this can be made apart from drawing on a larger constellation of ideas that, as I said above, are inherently religious because they are necessarily transcendent. Justifications for abortion, killing the infirm, abusing the poor, whatever manifestation man’s inhumanity to man might take, require reference to these transcendent ideas. The human conscience is such that it can be no other way. However, when the conscience is darkened to such a point that such justification is no longer necessary, the culture becomes vulnerable to great cruelty.
This culture of death has its theorists who characterize it in the language of Christianity — as light and progress — thereby inverting the meaning of words and casting their gullible and confused hearers into a terrible darkness. The Nazi’s did it. The Communists did it. Now the secular materialists are busy recreating it.
But Nazism was not without religion. Neither was Communism. And neither are the secular materialists. Secular utopianism is an intoxicating elixir, precisely because of its religious dimension. Denying this religious dimension merely shows an impoverishment of awareness.
Jacobse’s put his finger on it, Jim. Moore is a secular televangelist, and more influential than Dobson and Robertson put together.
What you say may be true for the death penalty, but that doesn’t say anything about how we treat religion and liberalism in general. If someone *supported* the death penalty because of her religious beliefs, I don’t think that he’d get treated with the same respect.
Same-sex marriage is the reverse. It’s OK to support ssm because of your religion, but the biggest attack on ANYONE who opposes ssm is to pretend that they are opposing it only for religious purposes. Even someone like Maggie Gallagher who brings up purely secular arguments against ssm, is routinely strawm-manned into religious arguments.
OTOH, Jacobse, I think you’ve missed the point of the pro-choice logic. To be sure, “pro-choice” often masks the pro-abortion logic that a fetus is not a person.
On the other hand, there is a genuine “pro choice” argument that the government simply lacks jurisdiction over the womb. The Nazis gave the state that kind of power, and filled baby-making camps like the Lebensraun. We arguably have not given the state that kind of power. We have good reason to not trust the state with that kind of power. That’s not a “justification” for abortion. Not at all.
Let me see if I understand this. Are you saying that laws restricting abortion will lead to Nazi-like baby making camps?
Note 61: Missourian, you also state the opinions of SOME as fact. You just give more weight to the opinions of some over others. There are a plethora of other opinions (from legal scholars, mind you) that directly contradict your own. I quoted a Constitutional scholar whom you completely disregarded as irrelevant, despite the fact that he held positions within the Reagan administration and is a Director of Constitutional Studies.
As far as whether “cameras in one’s home” directly violates the 4th Amendment, who says so? If *any* type of conduct can be made illegal, how in all rationality can a search by deemed “unwarranted”? This is a question of logic to me, not legalities. In addition, is wiretapping all that different from a video camera? One is audio, one is visual right? Yet, the Patriot Act has allowed the government to use nationwide roving wiretaps going from “phone to phone, computer to computer without demonstrating that each is being used by a suspect or target of an order”. (See here).
You act like these issues are so cut-and-dried, so simple. Were that true, Constitutional “issues” would never need debated among anyone. It’s just that you find your own opinion so solid that you yourself no longer question it.
I’m afraid you do not understand. I said that reserving certain powers from the state prevents the state from abusing those powers.
As a Christian, I’m more interested in preventing abortion, than merely making it illegal. If we admit that a fetus is a person, and therefore the state HAS an interest in saving the life of such persons, but note that the state has no coercive power over the womb, we leave the window open for state programs to foster a culture of life, that ultimately would save more lives than any coercive program.
I’d have thought that would interest you, Jacobse.
There is room for some legal restrictions concerning abortions. Take partial-birth abortion for example. Legal restrictions should be imposed against such barbarism. You are right in that eradicating abortion ultimately requires a change of mind and heart, like what occurred with the eventual outlawing of slavery for example, but it doesn’t follow that all restrictions should be avoided.
Agreed that there is room for some legal restrictions on abortion, but I think that the partial birth procedure is misnamed. It’s not a form of abortion at all; it’s infanticide pure and simple. Once the birth process begins, simulated or naturally, the child is no longer a “fetus” by any scientific description. It’s a child, FULLY in the law’s jurisdiction, and anyone who kills a child while it’s coming out of the womb had better have a pretty good reason for it, e.g. to save the mother’s life.
I recognize that the distinction that I’m laying out may seem arbitrary, but so is a legal border. It seems arbitrary that the same act might be murder in one jurisdiction, and yet not prosecutable if committed just ten feet away. But history has shown us what happens when we fail to set limits and boundaries on legal power.
Partial birth abortion is not necessary to save the life of the mother. In fact, it is more dangerous for the mother to kill the child partially born than to allow natural delivery to take place.
I still think you idea about legal restraint are muddled however. Partial birth abortions came about because no legal restraints existed, not because of them.
Missourian may want to weigh in here.
“Partial birth abortion is not necessary to save the life of the mother. In fact, it is more dangerous for the mother to kill the child partially born than to allow natural delivery to take place.”
As far as I know, you are right. However, it’s an established principle of triage that when there’s choice between saving the mother and saving the baby, that you save the mother. That’s what I was taught in EMT training. The mother might have other children relying on her for their lives. That’s why as a matter of legal consistency, we have to allow the existence of the possible justification. You can require the physician to prove that it was necessary to save life before a panel of other physicians, if you like, but you can’t rule it out.
Partial birth infanticide came about because of the specific logic that removed legal restraints, i.e. that a fetus was “not a person.” I propose that the logic of the law should be jurisdiction, not personhood. Obviously, a fetus is a person.
Note 62:
If the left takes the bait and engages in a debate with the right using the latter’s vernacular, it’s a fight they’re going to lose. Perhaps this is the intention. When you begin talking in the language of ethics and spiritual values, there is indeed a consensus in America on what those values are, even among those who claim to not be guided by them. These ideals of upright behavior, thought and speech are universal and are understood (even where not followed) by agnostics, atheists, Buddhists, Muslims and Christians. Perhaps there are some on the fringe who actually believe that infanticide is somehow a moral good, but I think it’s not many.
The problem is that our government (at least as it is currently) is not governed solely by these principles. Other values often compete with these ideals. They do overlap, but it’s a matter of emphasis (or which values take precedence).
IOW, it seems that the Right wishes government to use the notion of “morality” as the foundation of law. Laws can be created or built based on a popular definition of moral conduct, or at least on the “received tradition’s” definition (as Fr. Hans suggested). The Left wishes government to emphasize individual “rights” over “morality”. These rights will sometime extend into behavior that is clearly morally questionable, to be sure, but the values of “rights” take precedence.
Example: take freedom of speech and censorship. When seen from the pov of “morals”, of course, certain offensive speech seems to be something unworthy of protection. Liberals are then backed into a corner by seeming to defend the more unpleasant types of opinions. “Why are you defending such garbage?” becomes the question. Thus, liberals are (often unfairly) portrayed as smut-peddlers. Conversely, conservatives who decry hate speech laws are classified as bigots. Of course, neither characterization is really true. The problem is that neither side gets it: you can’t protect one and not the other. You can’t protect Fred Phelps and not Howard Stern (and vice versa). In that case, you may as well toss the free speech protections out the window.
Now, if this country wishes to rewrite the philosophies of how our country is governed and truly make it a “Christian nation” such as Spain once was under the Catholic Church, that’s a different story.
They aren’t going to do that, any more than they are doing that with “marriage.” The religious left is going to co-opt your terms, just as they coopted the history of slavery, women’s emancipation, and just as they are trying to co-opt the term “marriage.” In the Boy Scouts case, we saw four members of the Supreme Court try to co-opt the word “morality” and reinterpret the Boy Scouts what the term Morality should mean within the BSA’s own code of honor.
They will enforce the religious establishment rules on you, but not enforce it on the leftist-church rhetoric, which will become more political than yours has ever been. C.S. Lewis, in the Screwtape letters, talked about Screwtape’s ultimate fantasy, the rationalist magician. I think that we’re about to meet that character.
To be clear, Pete, I do not believe that any “right” is absolute. By this I mean, the right of free speech may take precedence over another’s “right” not to be offended or above some abstract notion of “moral speech”, but there are limits. (Where the exact parameters are, I wish I could more clearly delineate. I’ll leave that to the more experienced.)
I don’t recall ever seeing photos of Hitler with a gun. I don’t recall seeing him ever being even near Auschwitz to light a match to ignite the ovens. He nevertheless managed to successfully enrage a nation with words to the degree that they had no moral qualms over the torture and murder of millions. Clearly, there are limits. Whether that depends on the words themselves or on one’s position (less freedom with more power), I don’t know.
James, I think that you’ll find that most intellectuals on the left agree with you that no one right is absolute. Beneath the veneer of individuality, they are far more collectivist than you give them credit for. Many of the leftist appeals to individuality simply exist in order to break the way things work, to justify bigger government to fix it.
I personally advocates a number of huge government programs to meet real existing needs such as health care and transportation, but I’m horrified by those that want big government for its own sake, and are willing to deliberately encourage broken families in order to sell it.
Hitler didn’t create Auschwitz through Free Speech, JamesK. If others had had free speech, he’d never have been able to create those places. He used the burning of the Reichtag to justify stripping powers. I decry those who compare Bush to Hitler over small things, but I’ll never take my eye off the comparison until the crisis is over and PATRIOT repealed. While many of the provisions may indeed be necessary, we cannot forget that Hitler used a crisis that looked like this to seize power. Fortunately, I don’t consider most of Bush’s subsequent actions to pose that kind of threat. Hours after the bombings he showed up on TV with muslim clerics pleading for tolerance. That’s not exactly reminiscient of Hitler. But I shall not let down my guard.
Note 66,JamesK Your “cameras in the home” post
Shall we return to the post which started the argument? Here is it
JAMESK START QUOTE:
Missourian: I was purposely being overly simplistic, but I think it’s a useful yardstick nonetheless. The question is how pervasive the government can be in regards to the realm of individual autonomy. Is there nothing off limits? Can anywhere be deemed sacrosanct? Why not put surveillance cameras in the homes of every individual whether there is sufficient cause or not?
Most laws seem to regulate human interactions. No interaction, no law. I’m not sure how one is to define “liberty”, but this seems to imply that there is a realm that exists that cannot be intruded upon by legislation, no matter much it is desired by the ever-roving eye of a voyeuristic majority. It is the area that is known between an individual and their Creator only â?¦ no one else. So long as it involves no one else, I don’t see what “public interest” there is in creating legislation around it. What purpose does it serve? And if there is nothing we are free to do, say or think, what’s the point of pretending we have this freedom in the first place? The phrase as it’s mentioned in our Constitution and laws becomes meaningless.
JAMESK STOP QUOTE
MISSOURIAN REPLIES:
This can be found on the October 9, 2005 blog entry titled Cardinal Would Ban Communium for Lawmakers.
It is note 45.
AGAIN, JamesK, my observation holds true. You didn’t have the fogiest idea that the Fourth Amendment would be implicated in your “cameras in the homr” hypothetical. Here you are throwing about miscellaneous ideas, having no grounding in the structure of American law. I particularly like the phrase” most laws seem to regulate human interactions.” For about the tenth time, I have informed you that this proposition has been addressed by American Courts and it is clear that American law regulates “conduct” not “human interactions.”
There is no reference to any Constitutional scholar here. Please bring that scholar to my attention and I’ll take a look at whatever you think he/she said. I have no memory of the scholar you claim that you brought to my attention. I’ll need to see the blog reference you claim you made.
Your words are still on the blog and they make as little sense as they did in the beginning. In another note, I provided some reputable references which you could use as start in your quest to learn something about American constitutional and legal history. There is no good reason to give your legal theorizing any weight.
Missourian,
Allow me to rephrase.
1) The foundation of law is not “personal relationships”. I did not say that (also for the 10th time). What I have observed is that most laws are centered around the types of conduct that somehow infringe on others’ property or persons or possessions. This is an observation. There are laws about drinking and driving, but none (at least now) about drinking a bottle of vodka in your basement. There are laws about smoking in a public place, none (at least now) about smoking in your den. There are laws about public indecency, but none about swearing at your dog in the garage. Now if you care to point out laws regarding conduct that affects ONE AND ONLY ONE PERSON, I’m all ears. There may be a few, but generally, these types of laws appear to be the exception.
2) The scholar I had quoted was Roger Pilon. His essay can be found here.
Quote: “It is especially important to note that the Founders couched their moral vision in the language of rights, not in the language of virtue or values or any other moral concept.”
Before you argue that we can’t apply their moral vision to today because colonial period Americans were, as a rule, more virtuous or moral than Americans of the 21st century, try to keep in mind (or at least do some research on) what life back then was actually like, not what modern day revisionists pretend that it was. In addition, if you have a reference to our Founding Fathers supporting the primacy of enforcing a specific set of “cultural values” via law, please find it.
3) Finally, my point about being under constant surveillance was not because I actually think that the gov’t has an interest in putting cameras in our homes (although I have heard of implanted RFD chips — these are already being considered). Let’s put this another way. Is the Fourth Amendment protecting a right that has some underlying and even more basic right than simply “unwarranted searches”? What is so offensive about allowing someone to randomly search your possessions for no apparent reason, especially if you have “nothing to hide”? Why bother with this Amendment if there wasn’t some concept of respect towards one’s “private space”?
No, I do not have a degree in law. So what? Personally, I think it’s better to ask than to sit back and say, “Well, gee, they told me everything’s okay. Best to just shut up and mind my business.”
JamesK: There is no such thing as an act that affects only ourself. Every act we take, every movement of our being has an affect on someone outside ourself. The presumptions of individualism that are at the foundation of much of todayâ??s culture are simply untrue. Human beings are unique because of Godâ??s love for us yet that same love binds us not only to Him but also to every other human being. By leading a life of repentance and partaking of His Body and Blood, both our commonality and our uniqueness is enhanced while at the same time our individuality is lessened. Being an individual, cut off from others, is the product of the fall.
IMO law exists to do its best to regulate peopleâ??s actions in such a way that community is possible. Remember the Preamble to the Constitution begins, â??In order to form a more perfect Union….â?? Certainly, an important part of the Union of the United States is freedom from unnecessary government controlâ??a prime reason behind the creation of the Bill of Rights. At the same time, the Constitution recognizes the necessity for a strong, active central government as the best method for establishing the common freedoms of a nation.
Individuals, in fact, have no freedom. Freedom is the result of responsible, regulated activity within a community. Much of the liberal agenda seems intent on breaking down the laws that allow for common freedoms, substituting individuality in their place, subsidized by the governmentâ??a prescription for anarchy. Libertarianism is no different except it generally eschews the government subsidies.
Note 77 JamesK, Point, Set, Match
ISSUE A: Was JamesK even aware that the Fourth Amendment was implicated in the cameras in the house hypothetical. Clear answer, no.
ISSUE B: Was JamesK aware that American court have expressly addressed the scope of American law and concluded that American law properly addresses “conduct” not belief, not faith, not relationships, not interactions. Clear answer. No
ISSUE C: Is there any point in reading legal THEORIZING by someone who is unsullied by the any knowledge of American constitutional law. Clear answer no.
Example: Once again, JamesK jumps into the ocean without a life preserver. He asks “Is the Fourth Amendment protecting a right that has some underlying and even more basic right than simply “unwarranted searches”? Answer, yes. The fact that JamesK asks this question shows that he hasn’t read a single reputable author on the Fourth Amendment. Again, theorizing in a vacuum.
ISSUE D: What, IF ANYTHING, does the essay by Mr. Pilon have to do with the discussion between JamesK and I.
Clear answer. Nothing.
The point of all of my comments is the JamesK, not Mr. Pilon, is operating in an intellectual vaccum regarding American constitutional law. Nothing Mr. Pilon has written could affect that conclusion.
ISSUE E. The assertion made by Mr. Pilon quoted here:
Quote: “It is especially important to note that the Founders couched their moral vision in the language of rights, not in the language of virtue or values or any other moral concept.”
First, it is not difficult to find voluminous references to the role of “virtue” in public life by any number of influential thinkers in the American colonial period. There are libraries full of literature on this period of intellectual history, virtually all of which remain unexamined by JamesK. Here is a short quote from Prof. Robinson
START ROBINSON QUOTE:
For the Founders, there is an inextricable connection among moral freedom, political liberty, and that form of self-cultivation that results in a person of virtue.
END ROBINSON QUOTE
This is from the outline of the First Lecture in the series that I pointed out. Clearly we could engage in a battle of dueling quotes for quite some time, to no real avail.
CONCLUSION: While it might be worth my time to engage in a discussion with Mr. Pilon, it is most assuredly not worth my time to engage in a theoretical discussion of constitutional principles with JamesK.
Have a nice Thanksgiving.
Note 78, I agree that there are numerous things that we do that may positively or negatively affect others and can thus be deemed moral or immoral. Nevertheless, they’re protected as rights, and well they should be. It may be wrong to insult someone, to satirize their beliefs or simply call them names: nevertheless, I don’t want to live in a country where we are fined or imprisoned for doing so. Do you? It would only guarantee that absolutely no discussion takes place whatsoever.
But of course, everything we do has an impact.
Note 79: What was that?
Look, I’m more than happy to reassess my pov if provided facts to the contrary. I’ve even modified my positions on some things over the last couple of years. Notice also that I preface my comments with “it seems” or “it appears”. However, I can assure you that when you completely ignore perfectly valid observations (based on *reality*) and questions derived from the work of reputable scholars before hurling a bunch of silly insults, you’re not going to garner much of my consideration. I’m just going to write you off as a hysterical person whose hair is obviously in too tight of a bun.
It’s a blog, and it’s called a “civil discussion”. Lighten up.