Shocked, Shocked!

Apparently, things are going so well for Keith Olbermann and his bosses at his new network, the Al-Gore-progressive-inspired Current TV, that Olbermann is not scheduled to be anchoring any of the upcoming election coverage.  According to anonymous sources inside the network, Olbermann has refused to speak with executives and is "disgruntled." (Wait, how is that different from his normal behavior?) And since coming to Current TV, his show Countdown is continuing counting down to the day it has no viewers.

The Philosophical Origins of the Left and Right, Part IV

In the fourth installment of the series, and maybe the best one in this series so far, Steven Hayward focuses on the part that moral reasoning has to play in both liberalism and conservatism:

The conservative’s innate caution rooted in the anchor of human nature and established experience leads him to evaluate any ideas according to the potential consequences, and especially with regard to the often counter-intuitive unintended or perverse consequences.  Many liberals are averse to this mode of thought, guided instead by an often unacknowledged Kantian moral framework that values the purity of intentionality over consequences, or who think that potential adverse consequences can be overcome through the assertion of a morally pure will.

This is a crucial point to understand.  For example, when studying the Founders and slavery, most students today come away with the idea that, at best, the Founders were morally suspect when they let the institution of slavery subsist during the American Founding.  It is implictly, or explicitly, taught in most classrooms that we are obviously superior to them in moral understanding because we would have done what they couldn't see or comprehend.  (They were after all just men of their times, right?)

But it's harder than that, much harder in fact.

In the original Constitution there are three concessions to slaveholders, though the Constitution always uses the euphemism persons to describe those persons held against their will in bondage.  As Lincoln said, though the Founders compromised with slavery in the Constitution, they set the country on a course toward its ultimate extinction.  Surely if the Founders would not have compromised, the South would have organized as a separate country, forever out of the control of the U.S.  The Founders saw that Union and the withering away of the institution like slavery, which were at its heart, was against the principle of all men are created equal, were inextricably linked.  They had the practical wisdom, or prudence, to have not only the ends in mind but the most just means to achieving those ends (this is what used to be called statesmanship).  The classic philosophers, among them Aristotle and Plato, taught these lessons, and, luckily for use, the Founders listened.

Hayward goes on:

The conservative argument against a liberalism of moral intentions is that it has no logical or practical stopping point—there is no discernable “limiting principle” to liberalism; hence liberals can never say “enough” to its political interventions on behalf of reform and equality.  But while liberals have no stopping point, consequence-minded conservatism has no starting point.  There are few social problems for which the default conservative attitude isn’t to proceed very slowly, often with the tacit assumption that the problem will “solve” itself if just left alone. 

As Hayward shows, this conservative tendency to just let things take care of themselves has, in the past, led conservatives greatly astray in certain areas.  In the 50s and 60s many conservatives,e.g., William F. Buckley (who would later disavow this position), Willmore Kendall, M.E. Bradford, and others railed against civil rights laws because they constricted liberty and let the government grow outside of its constitutional strictures.  This is an important tension within American conservatism and it has not yet gone away.  It reared its head lately with Ron Paul and his lone vote against the resolution celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  I definitely plan on saying more about this at a later date because it is a point worth pondering.

The Problem with Romneycare

Paul Rahe describes the problem with Romneycare that, in principle, makes it no different than Obamacare:

Romneycare and Obamacare, with the individual mandate, changes radically our relationship vis-a-vis the government. The former presupposes that state governments have the right to tell us how we are to spend our own money, and the latter presupposes that the federal government has that right as well. Both measures are tyrannical. They blur the distinction between public and private and extend the authority of the public over the disposition of that which is primordially private. Once this principle is accepted as legitimate, there is no limit to the authority of the government over us, and mandates of this sort will multiply -- as do-gooders interested in improving our lives by directing them encroach further and further into the one sphere in which we have been left free hitherto.

And in the same post he links back to a very prescient post he wrote six months ago on what a Romney Presidency would mean to Founding principles.  Here is Rahe at that time:

The reason why I oppose Mitt Romney is simple, He was born to destroy everything that we have accomplished since the Tea-Party Movement emerged in the Spring of 2009. Romney is the very model of a managerial progressive. He has one great virtue. He knows how to run things; he knows how to organize things. He would make a good Secretary of Commerce. He has no understanding of the principles that underpin our government. And, in fact, like most businessmen, he is a man almost devoid of political principles. Give him a problem, and he will make a highly intelligent attempt to solve it. Ask him to identify which problems should be left to ordinary people and what are the proper limits to government’s reach, and he would not understand the question. He is what you might call a social engineer; and, in his estimation, we are little more than the cogs and wheels that need to be engineered.

It's scary how much more true this has become since that time.  But Rahe, in a devastating and mostly true critique of the Republican presidents since Coolidge, offers a prescription on how to get us out of the progressive malaise that far too many Americans have absorbed and, whether they know it or not, are now working within:

Since 1928, when Calvin Coolidge relinquished the Presidency, the office has been held by a number of Republicans – Herbert Hoover, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush. Only one of these has displayed an understanding of the problem we face, and he was, for understandable reasons, too preoccupied with wining the Cold War, to confront that problem with all of his energy. Hoover, Eisenhower, Nixon, Bush père, and Bush fils were all what I call managerial progressives. Their claim over against the liberals was that they could manage the administrative state more efficiently and effectively than their counterparts. Rarely if ever did any of them mention the Founders. Rarely if ever did they appeal to the first principles of our form of government as they are expressed in the Declaration of Independence. Rarely if ever did they appeal to the Constitution in opposition to the jurisprudential drift of the Supreme Court. Limited government was not part of their vocabulary. They were without clue.

The reasons are simple enough. Not one of these men was properly educated in the principles of American government. They had their virtues. They were practical men, can-do sorts with a pretty good understanding of how to get from here to there. In terms of moral understanding, as it is applied to political matters, however, they were bankrupt or pretty nearly so. The ordinary senior at Hillsdale College these days has a better grasp of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the conditions of freedom than did any of these men.

In order to become once again a people more capable of self-government, we have to again become familiar with the language and, ultimately, the principles of Founders; in other words, we have to again become The People as the Constitution presupposed.  This kind of education, thankfully, is already taking place at Hillsdale College, the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University, and other centers for higher learning around the U.S.

The Philosophical Origins of the Left and Right, Part III

In this installment of Steve Hayward's continuing series on the philosophical origins of the Left and Right (here are the first and second), he discusses how each side views equality which, for Americans, is most important because, as Lincoln maintained, it is the central principle from which all minor thoughts radiate.  Here is Hayward:

The liberal at his extreme may believe in nearly perfect equality; the conservative at his extreme may believe human beings are profoundly unequal, and that social stratification based on this fact are not only necessary but desirable.  Most actual liberals and conservatives inhabit a world well inside of these extreme poles, but the undertow of the consequent logic of the extreme positions colors most controversies on particular issues where the principle of equality is in play.  Although the Declaration of Independence sets out the principle that “all men are created equal,” the conservative, while accepting the idea of equal rights, is much more oriented toward James Madison’s axiom that the protection of the “different and unequal faculties of acquiring property” is “the first object of government.”  (Emphasis added.)  In other words, a regime of equal rights will recognize, and protect, unequal results.

The Declaration of Independence asserts that all men are created equal with respect to certain natural rights that all hold by nature, among those being life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (notice that the Declaration does not list in full all of the natural rights that all men share).  Government is then created by social compact for the principal reason of protecting the naturally insecure natural rights of everyone who is party to that compact (in fact, the only reason the social compact is the vehicle for legitimate government is that it implicitly recognizes a priori the principle of equality).  Only by grounding our politics on the laws of nature, or what is equally accessible to every human being because of our capacity for reason, can we move beyond regimes founded on force or fraud.

Or you can take Lincoln's word for it:

Chief Justice Taney, in his opinion in the Dred Scott case, admits that the language of the Declaration is broad enough to include the whole human family, but he and Judge Douglas argue that the authors of that instrument did not intend to include negroes, by the fact that they did not at once, actually place them on an equality with the whites. Now this grave argument comes to just nothing at all, by the other fact, that they did not at once, or ever afterwards, actually place all white people on an equality with one or another. And this is the staple argument of both the Chief Justice and the Senator, for doing this obvious violence to the plain unmistakable language of the Declaration. I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men, but they did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness, in what respects they did consider all men created equal-equal in "certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This they said, and this meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth, that all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet, that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere. The assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain; and it was placed in the Declaration, nor for that, but for future use. Its authors meant it to be, thank God, it is now proving itself, a stumbling block to those who in after times might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant when such should re-appear in this fair land and commence their vocation they should find left for them at least one hard nut to crack.

What Ron Paul Believes

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!

Although I was not planing to devote more time to this, Eric Dondero, former Chief of Staff for Rep. Ron Paul, just put out a statement regarding the charges of racism, bigotry, homophobia, and anti-semitism that have been popping up on conservative blogs and increasingly in the mainstream media concerning his former boss (see this New York Times front page story over the weekend).  Here are some highlights:

Is Ron Paul a “racist.” In short, No. I worked for the man for 12 years, pretty consistently. I never heard a racist word expressed towards Blacks or Jews come out of his mouth. Not once. And understand, I was his close personal assistant. It’s safe to say that I was with him on the campaign trail more than any other individual, whether it be traveling to Fairbanks, Alaska or Boston, Massachusetts in the presidential race, or across the congressional district to San Antonio or Corpus Christi, Texas. 

On Ron Paul's foreign policy views, or what Mr. Dondero believes should be the real controversy surrounding Mr. Paul's run for president:

Is Ron Paul an Anti-Semite? Absolutely No. As a Jew, (half on my mother’s side), I can categorically say that I never heard anything out of his mouth, in hundreds of speeches I listened too over the years, or in my personal presence that could be called, “Anti-Semite.” No slurs. No derogatory remarks.

He is however, most certainly Anti-Israel, and Anti-Israeli in general. He wishes the Israeli state did not exist at all. He expressed this to me numerous times in our private conversations. His view is that Israel is more trouble than it is worth, specifically to the America taxpayer. He sides with the Palestinians, and supports their calls for the abolishment of the Jewish state, and the return of Israel, all of it, to the Arabs.

Paul on WWII:

Ron Paul is most assuredly an isolationist. He denies this charge vociferously. But I can tell you straight out, I had countless arguments/discussions with him over his personal views. For example, he strenuously does not believe the United States had any business getting involved in fighting Hitler in WWII. He expressed to me countless times, that “saving the Jews,” was absolutely none of our business. When pressed, he often times brings up conspiracy theories like FDR knew about the attacks of Pearl Harbor weeks before hand, or that WWII was just “blowback,” for Woodrow Wilson’s foreign policy errors, and such.

And on 9/11:

Ron Paul was opposed to the War in Afghanistan, and to any military reaction to the attacks of 9/11.

He did not want to vote for the resolution. He immediately stated to us staffers, me in particular, that Bush/Cheney were going to use the attacks as a precursor for “invading” Iraq. He engaged in conspiracy theories including perhaps the attacks were coordinated with the CIA, and that the Bush administration might have known about the attacks ahead of time. He expressed no sympathies whatsoever for those who died on 9/11, and pretty much forbade us staffers from engaging in any sort of memorial expressions, or openly asserting pro-military statements in support of the Bush administration.

Calvin Coolidge on Christmas

In 1927, President Calvin Coolidge penned the following letter, the first of its kind from the president to the American people on Christmas:

Christmas is not a time or a season but a state of mind. To cherish peace and good will, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas. If we think on these things there will be born in us a Savior and over us all will shine a star sending its gleam of hope to the world. 

I hope that during this Christmas season we all remember the true reason why we celebrate this time of year.

Newt's Proposals on the Courts, Cont.

Yesterday, George Will took Newt to task over his proposals on the courts (my first post on Newt's take is here).  Here is Will in his column, "Gingrich, the anti-conservative":

[Gingrich] says that the Founders considered the judiciary the “weakest” branch. Not exactly. Alexander Hamilton called the judiciary the “least dangerous” branch (Federalist 78) because, since it wields neither the sword nor the purse, its power resides solely in persuasive “judgment.” That, however, is not weakness but strength based on the public’s respect for public reasoning. Gingrich yearns to shatter that respect and trump such reasoning with raw political power, in the name of majoritarianism.

But Hamilton does say elsewhere in Federalist #78 that "the judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power."  And the kicker:

Gingrich’s unsurprising descent into sinister radicalism — intimidation of courts — is redundant evidence that he is not merely the least conservative candidate, he is thoroughly anti-conservative. He disdains the central conservative virtue, prudence, and exemplifies progressivism’s defining attribute — impatience with impediments to the political branches’ wielding of untrammeled power. He exalts the will of the majority of the moment, at least as he, tribune of the vox populi, interprets it. 

While I do agree with Will on some of Gingrich's foibles (especially about the part on majoritarianism which too often ensnares conservative legal jurisprudence), I think Will, in his fury directed at Gingrich, overlooks something very important:  the basis for a proper conservative jurisprudence.  Steven Hayward sums this up perfectly when, in a post on Powerline, he stated that Will's critique "elides recognition of the proper ground of criticism of the contemporary jurisprudence (namely, that our judiciary has become wholly positivist and has abandoned any reasoning from the first principles of natural law and natural right)..."  This is what conservative jurisprudence has been missing ever since the "original intent" debates in 1985 between Edwin Meese III and Justice William Brennan:  a proper grounding on those principles antecedent to the Constitution itself, the natural law and natural rights principles of the Declaration of Independence.  Constantly talking about the ravages of judicial activism educates no one on what that activism actually is or, to say it another way, how to tell between activism and proper jurisprudence.  It is no wonder, then, that Democrats have lately been able to get away with accusing Republican appointees to the Supreme Court of judicial activism. 

I recommend reading this, this, this, and this for some further study.  Also, Edward Erler has some great extended essays on this topic here, here, and here.

The Most Arrogant President

Michael Ramirez has some thoughts on President Obama's statement during a 60 Minutes interview that besides the "possible" exceptions of LBJ, FDR, and Lincoln, he has accomplished more during his first term than any other modern president. 

Newt's Proposals on the Courts

Newt Gingrich's ideas on what to do to reign in activist courts have been gaining a lot of fire from both the Left and Right.  In a White Paper recently released by his campaign, Gingrich argues for repealing certain federal courts, ending the concept of judicial supremacy, stopping the influence of foreign law in interpreting the Constitution, and having judges come before Congress to explain their decisions.  From the Right, Michael Mukasey has attacked Gingrich's arguments as outrageous; commentators on the Left have assailed the Gingrich plan as destroying the principle of separation of powers.  Apart from this loud noise on both sides, Gingrich raises important questions and arguments that are worthy of closer study.

His argument against the doctrine of judicial supremacy is needed today more than ever.  In the vein of Lincoln's argument against adhearing to the principles articulated by the Supreme Court in Dred Scott v. Sandford, Newt argues that the High Court was never meant to have the final say over all things constitutional.  Alexander Hamilton said as much in Federalist #78 when, ameliorating concerns over the potential power of the judiciary, he stated that the courts have "neither FORCE nor WILL but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments."  Gingrich correctly points to the Supreme Court's opinion in Cooper v. Aaron (1958) when the Court declared themselves the final arbiter of the Constitution.  As some have argued, Gingrich is not arguing against the concept of judicial review, which was articulated by Chief Justice John Marshall in Marbury v. Madison (1803) and rises out of the logic of the law:  He is arguing that the executive and the legislature are co-equal in their ability to interpret the Constitution.

Also, as Matt Frank and Ed Whelan argue on Bench Memos, Gingrich is correct to assert "that judicial misbehavior–the abuse of judicial power itself in the course of decision-making, not merely the use of its possession as an opportunity for corruption or criminality of other kinds–is potentially an impeachable offense."  They bring up a great example:  What if a justice decided opinions by something as arbitrary as flipping a coin?  Surely how a justice interprets the Constitution is important, even sometimes more important, than the final decision that they may come to. 

Gingrich's proposal to put judges who have been thought to have issued unconstitutional opinions before Congress is less convincing.  Here is Andy McCarthy, who has really been on fire lately, with more on this topic:

Consuming all the oxygen, and thus distorting the proposal, is the sideshow prospect of hauling federal judges before Congress to compel them to explain particularly atrocious rulings. That this would violate separation of powers is obvious. The worst aspect of this tempest, though, is its pointlessness. Judges always explain their rulings in written opinions. The problem is that the explanations depart grossly from the original understanding of the Constitution and the modest role of judges in a free society — not that we don’t know what the explanations are and can’t grasp them absent some theater of the absurd.

And in his latest column, Hadley Arkes argues that Newt's promise to not overturn Roe v. Wade is puzzling considering his prior argument regarding the power of the co-ordinate branches in interpreting the Constitution.  Here is Hadley:

Newt’s White Paper recalls that understanding of Lincoln’s. Gingrich would apply it in countering the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission if the courts hold that this agency has the authority to interfere with the firing of “ministers” in churches. The Gingrich paper makes no connection on this point to abortion. And yet the connections are many. 

A decision had to be faced years ago as to whether research in the National Institutes of Health could be confined only to tissue drawn from fetuses in spontaneous abortions. But a committee appointed by the Reagan administration did not think it could rule out the tissue that came from elective abortions. 

And yet, if Lincoln’s view was right – and I can’t see how it could be wrong – a new administration could say that it doesn’t accept the principle articulated in Roe v. Wade; that this administration will not affirm a right to kill offspring in the womb and withdraw them from the protections of the law.

Although Gingrich does overreach in some of his arguments along the way, he is at least serious about beginning an important and much-needed conversation about the role of the courts in our constitutional republic.

Ron Paul the Conspiratorial, Cont.

Both Ramesh Ponnuru and Rich Lowry put out essays today cataloging the various absurd and wrong-headed positions that Rep. Ron Paul has taken over the years and why he should not be considered for the Republican nomination.  Rich perfectly encapsulates Mr. Paul in this statement: "Throughout his career, Paul hasn’t been able to distinguish between fringy cranks and aboveboard purists. He has taken a principled anti-government position and associated it with loons and bigots."

Ramesh brings up a 2004 vote in the House that was passed by the count of 414-1.  As you can guess, Paul was the single "heroic" vote against the resolution.  And what was the resolution in question?  The celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act.  In his speech on the floor explaining his no vote, Mr. Paul stated the following:

The federal government has no legitimate authority to infringe on the rights of private property owners to use their property as they please and to form (or not form) contracts with terms mutually agreeable to all parties. The rights of all private property owners, even those whose actions decent people find abhorrent, must be respected if we are to maintain a free society.

So under this reasoning, it was perfectly justified that owners of restaurants and lunch counters deny service to blacks.  And this was all supposedly within the confines of the high principles of the Founders.

And finally, going back to the newsletter fiasco that should be getting more attention than it is, today on the blog for Commentary Magazine, Alana Goodman (obviously a Jewish conspirator against Mr. Paul) notes this interesting fact:

Even if Paul didn’t write the newsletters, he defended the content when it was first exposed in 1996. At the time, he even took responsibility for writing the bigoted comments himself, and blasted his opponents for taking his words “out of context.” A few years later, he backtracked and claimed he never wrote them, demanding the media move on.

 

Headline Writers Strike Again

I just saw this headline among the mindless headlines featured on Yahoo!'s homepage today:  "Star 'hopeless' without nonfamous wife."  The story is on the relationship that Matt Damon has with his wife, whose status as "nonfamous" I guess says something her as a human being.

Ummm...so let me get this straight, so only famous people can give out hope to others?  Who writes this stuff??

Ron Paul the Conspiratorial

There is a story that has been growing for some time on Ron Paul and newsletters that were published under his name in the 80s and 90s.  The newsletters over that time contained such topics as "The Coming Race War" and, only three months before Waco, they offered advice to militia groups to "'Keep the group size down,' 'Keep quiet and you’re harder to find,' 'Leave no clues,' 'Avoid the phone as much as possible,' and 'Don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.'"  James Kirchick has more in the coming edition of The Weekly Standard:

No conspiracy theory was too outlandish for Paul’s endorsement. One newsletter reported on the heretofore unknown phenomenon of “Needlin’,” in which “gangs of black girls between the ages of 12 and 14” roamed the streets of New York and injected white women with possibly HIV-infected syringes. Another newsletter warned that “the AIDS patient” should not be allowed to eat in restaurants because “AIDS can be transmitted by saliva,” a strange claim for a physician to make. 

Kirchick first reported on this story four years ago in The New Republic and this story has slowly been gaining traction since that time.  Here is Kirchick on Paul's somewhat close relationship with the conspiratorial Alex Jones:

In the four years since my article appeared, Paul has gone right on appearing regularly on the radio program of Alex Jones, the most popular conspiracy theorist in America (unless that distinction belongs to Paul himself). To understand Jones’s paranoid worldview, it helps to watch a recent documentary he produced, Endgame: Blueprint for Global Enslavement, which reveals the secret plot of George Pataki, David Rockefeller, and Queen Beatrix, among other luminaries, to exterminate humanity and transform themselves into “superhuman” computer hybrids able to “travel throughout the cosmos.” There is nothing Jones believes the American government isn’t capable of, from “[encouraging] homosexuality with chemicals so that people don’t have children” to blowing up the Space Shuttle Columbia, a “textbook psychological warfare operation.”

In a March 2009 interview, Paul entertained Jones’s claim that NORTHCOM, the U.S. military’s combatant command for North America, is “taking over” the country. “The average member of Congress probably isn’t a participant in the grand conspiracy,” Paul reassured the fevered host, essentially acknowledging that such a conspiracy exists. “We need to take out the CIA.” On Paul’s latest appearance on the Jones show, just last week, he called allegations that Iran had attempted to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States a “propaganda stunt” of the Obama administration. In a January 2010 speech, Paul announced, “There’s been a coup, have you heard? It’s the CIA coup” against the American government. “They’re in businesses, in drug businesses,” the congressman added. 

Now it is important to note that Paul himself as always denied any influence over anything written in these newsletters.  He has maintained that it was his mistake that he did not more closely look at what was being sent out under his name.  In an interview with Wolf Blitzer who asked Rep. Paul about this, Paul responded that the it is the job of the editor to approve everything in the magazine and is the one "responsible for the daily activity."  Conservatives News, a blog, and The American Spectator has found that there may be clear evidence that Paul himself approved what was in these letters (go to the links here and here).  Who is named as editor in every magazine?  Ron Paul. 

The Death of a Tyrant

In the wake of the death of Kim Jong-Il, below is a famous picture of North Korea that pretty much sums up his and his father's tyrannical reign:

I will let Christopher Hitchens, who was one of only a handful of Americans to ever have stepped inside North Korea under the current tyranny, have the last word on Kim Jong-Il:

Yet there is one place on earth that is home to all these forces of misery: the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Into this tiny space has been packed the worst combination of absolute despotism and utter breakdown -- a weird coincidence of totalitarianism with state failure.

It's the totalitarian aspect that strikes you first, as it did me when I visited North Korea last winter. Fifty years of ultra-Stalinism have made the very idea of a private life almost unthinkable. Every move and utterance is planned and scripted, with an entire people endlessly mobilized for a cult of hysterical adulation. The president of the country is a dead man named Kim Il Sung, whose rotund visage glares from every wall. All other official leadership posts are held by his son Kim Jong Il, whose birth is said to have been attended by miraculous signs and portents. All films, all books, all newspapers and all radio and television broadcasts are about either the Father or the Son. Everybody is a soldier. Everybody is an informer. Everybody is a unit. Everything is propaganda. 

The Philosphical Origins of the Left and Right, Part II

Steve Hayward continues the series of essays on the basis of the Left and Right by exploring how each deal with nature and convention.  Here is Hayward:

Conservatives harken to nature, especially human nature, which they we understand to be mostly fixed in important respects.  The relative fixity of human nature prescribes limits to human freedom and bounds to social structures.  These limits and boundaries are neither self-evident nor unchanging, but must be discovered, a slow process not easily understood or modified at will.  Conservatives see authority and tradition as guardians of hard-won knowledge—knowledge not always susceptible of explanation or restatement, whose origins are often half-forgotten or completely forgotten.

And on Liberals:

The starting point of liberalism offered here (individuals should be free to pursue their self-chosen purposes) leads liberals to challenge conventions that constrain individual autonomy—to “question authority” in the popular graffiti.  The logical consequence of the imperative to expand the domain of individual autonomy naturally compels liberalism to be reformist, to embrace progress as the essential process to accomplish reform, and to employ reason to guide the progressive reform process.  Above all, the imperative of individual autonomy necessarily places the principle of equality at the center of liberal thought.

In conclusion:

...conservatives use the term “ordered liberty” to distinguish a conservative perspective on individual freedom.  Thomas Sowell’s serviceable shorthand for this distinction between right and left (in his book Conflict of Visions) is the “constrained” versus “unconstrained” vision of how the world works.  At its purest or most extreme form, liberalism tends toward the belief that all or most constraints on humans are artificial and therefore illegitimate.  The conservative is not sure reform necessarily represents progress, and is doubtful in any case that progress or reform, however understood, can be produced primarily through reason.  

Another very crucial point that Hayward begins to develop in this essay in on the Declaration of Independence and how liberals and conservatives views that document.  Hayward notes that the Declaration of Independence "can be read as both a liberal and as a conservative document; the Declaration justifies revolution ('the right of the people to alter or abolish' forms of government) but also advises moderation ('Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes')."  I will leave more discussion about this until the next essay, but I will note on the outset that, rightly understood, American conservatism is different from any other form of conservatism in the world.

The Virtues of the Primary Season

I haven't gotten to this story until now but this past Thursday, National Review Online published a controversial editorial on Newt Gingrich that will appear in the upcoming edition of National Review.  The editors have already come to the conclusion that though the caucuses and primaries have not yet started, Newt Gingrich should be disqualified from being considered for the Republican nominee for president (they also disqualify Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry as well but the focus of the editorial in on Newt).  This has obviously set the conservative media and blogosphere ablaze as the editorial itself has already generated almost 1000 comments on NRO's webpage.

Jonah Goldberg, in a blog post defending the idea of NRO already disqualifying a Republican candidate, writes, countering charges that since the death of William F. Buckley the magazine has become less reliably conservative, that even under Buckley, NR made many questionable endorsements.  But to point out, as Andy McCarthy does in his great piece that admonishes the editors for this move, NR did that in the general election, not before the primaries when the field was still relatively large.  McCarthy goes further:

The Editors believe, unwisely in my view, that before the first caucuses and primaries begin in early January, it is important to make known their insights — not merely views about the relative merits of the candidates but conclusions that some candidates are no longer worthy of having their merits considered. Like many other voters, I haven’t settled on a candidate. What I want at this very early stage is information about the candidates so I can consider them, not a presumptuous and premature pronouncement that good conservatives do not even rate consideration. 

You really should take some time to read the editorial, Jonah's take on it, and McCarthy's repsonse to it. 

I, like McCarthy, have not yet fully decided on which candidate would be the best, but I think it would be wise to stand back and let the primary season begin.  This is not an edorsement of Newt while who has some virtues also has some serious drawbacks, e.g., his world-historical language about himself, his past marriages, his strange combination of the latest technology and feel-good talking points found in leadership manuals, his Huntsman-like statements tearing down fellow Republicans, etc.

The focus should be on the current president, not on intra-party fighting.  With the exception of two candidates, every other candidate at this stage would be better than the current president.

The Death of a Contrarian

Christopher Hitchens passed away today at the age of 62 from a complication from esophageal cancer.  Hitchens, one of the great writers and linguists of the twentieth century, focused his biting wit and sharp insight on anyone who displayed a hypocritical bent in their character or actions.  A former Trotskyite, and later, a defender of the George W. Bush after 9/11, Hitchens was a man of the Left, but he displayed no qualms about taking down with his pen the evils he saw perpetrated in the world by tyrants in power.

He also became famous earlier in this decade for reasons other than his politics:  he was a die-in-the-wool atheist--an interesting amalgamation with the morality that he so often displayed in his writing.

The following is from Christopher Buckley's eulogy of Hitchens in The New Yorker:

We were friends for more than thirty years, which is a long time but, now that he is gone, seems not nearly long enough. I was rather nervous when I first met him, one night in London in 1977, along with his great friend Martin Amis. I had read his journalism and was already in awe of his brilliance and wit and couldn’t think what on earth I could bring to his table. I don’t know if he sensed the diffidence on my part—no, of course he did; he never missed anything—but he set me instantly at ease, and so began one of the great friendships and benisons of my life. It occurs to me that “benison” is a word I first learned from Christopher, along with so much else.

Here is Hitchens at his best in a devastating critique of Frank Rich of The New York Times in the Claremont Review:

Mr. Frank Rich began his career as a theater critic: Broadway is his milieu. It comes naturally to him, perhaps, to conflate a world-historical calamity with a catchy tune from a subsequent smash-hit, and then to cleverly re-deploy the idea to ridicule "Shock and Awe." The problem is that his book is supposed to be a critique of showbiz values in public life. But, with its Hollywood-echo title, it is instead an example of how universal those very values have now become.

Here is a link to most of Hitchens more recent essays at Slate.com.  Although some his opinions were ultimately misguided, he brought discussion and debate to a much higher level.  His writing and mind will most certainly be missed.

Historical Confusion

In light of Americans' general lack of knowledge when it comes to their own history, the Republican majority in the Ohio Senate put forward Senate Bill 165, which would amend the Ohio Revised Code to require that, between grades 4-12, students read and study the Declaration of Independence, the Northwest Ordinance, the U.S. Constitution with an emphasis on the Bill of Rights, and the Ohio Constitution.  This legislation passed the Senate and made its way through the House Education Committee and was put up for a full vote before the House on Tuesday this past week.  You would think that this legislation would have been completely unobjectionable and would have passed the House in a bipartisan fashion:  you would be wrong.

Objections from House Democrats ranged from the typical modern argument that "the Founders thought blacks were 3/5s of a person" to charges of Republicans hypocrisy because this legislation would effectively "mandate" that teachers teach certain curriculum.  The most typical charge that was voiced by most of the objecting representatives centered on the Founders' inability at the time to outlaw slavery.  In the proto-Kantian-historicist center of their argument, the objectors either openly or implicitly condemned the Founders for not being absolutists on the problem of slavery and throwing prudence aside.  You can watch the full video of the debate in the House here. 

This has to be one of the most ironic debates of all-time because the viewpoints expressed by the objecting representatives show exactly why this legislation is needed in the first place.

Here is Madison in the Federalist 54:

In being compelled to labor, not for himself, but for a master; in being vendible by one master to another master; and in being subject at all times to be restrained in his liberty and chastised in his body, by the capricious will of another—the slave may appear to be degraded from the human rank, and classed with those irrational animals which fall under the legal denomination of property. In being protected, on the other hand, in his life and in his limbs, against the violence of all others, even the master of his labor and his liberty; and in being punishable himself for all violence committed against others—the slave is no less evidently regarded by the law as a member of the society, not as a part of the irrational creation; as a moral person, not as a mere article of property. The federal Constitution, therefore, decides with great propriety on the case of our slaves, when it views them in the mixed character of persons and of property. This is in fact their true character. It is the character bestowed on them by the laws under which they live; and it will not be denied that these are the proper criterion; because it is only under the pretext that the laws have transformed the Negroes into subjects of property that a place is disputed them in the computation of numbers; and it is admitted that if the laws were to restore the rights which have been taken away, the Negroes could no longer be refused an equal share of representation with the other inhabitants.

 And Hamilton:

The first thing objected to is that clause which allows a representation for three fifths of the negroes. Much has been said of the impropriety of representing men who have no will of their own. Whether this be reasoning or declamation, I will not presume to say. It is the unfortunate situation of the Southern States to have a great part of their population as well as property in blacks. The regulation complained of was one result of the spirit of accommodation which governed the convention; and without this indulgence no Union could possibly have been formed. But, sir, considering some peculiar advantages which we derive from them, it is entirely just that they should be gratified. The Southern States possess certain staples--tobacco, rice, indigo, etc.--which must be capital objects in treaties of commerce with foreign nations; and the advantage which they necessarily procure in these treaties will be felt throughout all the States. But the justice of this plan will appear in another view. The best writers on government have held that representation should be compounded of persons and property. This rule has been adopted, as far as it could be, in the Constitution of New York. It will, however, be by no means admitted that the slaves are considered altogether as property. They are men, though degraded to the condition of slavery. They are persons known to the municipal laws of the States which they inhabit, as well as to the laws of nature.

I could go on and on but I will finish with this concise and perfect summary offered up by Justice Clarence Thomas in a speech commemorating Harry Jaffa:

For, in the Founders' political judgment, only a union of all the states — even one tarnished by a compromise with slavery — offered the prospect of putting slavery on the course of ultimate extinction.

Without the national union, a confederation of the slave-holding states would have been likely — a confederation based not on the self-evident truth of human equality, but on that awful maxim followed throughout most of human history that it was acceptable for one man to rule another without the other's consent and to live off the sweat of that man's brow.

The South had their slaves anyway. What did the constitutional compromise with slavery accomplish, other than to tarnish the whole nation, rather than merely the southern part? Certainly, from the point of view of the slaves, it did not matter whether they were the slaves in a southern confederacy, proclaiming that slavery was a "positive good," or whether they were slaves in a national union that purported to be based on the equality of all men. In any case, they were slaves. Would it not, thus, have been better for the North to break away clean, to establish a government in the North that was pure in its devotion to the principle of equality?

That answer, too, called for the exercise of political judgment. The North had to ask itself: "What would be the likely result of such an endeavor?" One likely consequence was that neither North nor South would survive — that, once divided, they would prove no match for the European powers that still had envious eyes on the New World — and that all, not just a part, of the continent would be enslaved.

Another possible consequence was that the South would flourish, expanding the hated institution of slavery beyond its borders into the as yet largely unsettled lands beyond the Appalachians, threatening the free states of the North every step of the way. Only through a national union could these principles be avoided and the principles of liberty and equality articulated in the Declaration of Independence given a fighting chance for full vindication.

In other words, the Founders made the political judgment that, given the circumstances at the time, the best defense of the Declaration's principles and, ironically, the most beneficial course for the slaves themselves was to compromise with slavery while, at the same time, establishing a union that, at its root, was devoted to the principle of human equality.

A Very Claremont Christmas

Every year around Christmas, the Claremont Institute issues a list of recommended books to read during the coming year.  Here is their list.

Enjoy.

More Reagan Than Reagan

Victor Davis Hanson has a great post at the NRO blog on his hope that "the present primary race does not keep descending into monotonous boasts of who is the more Reaganesque of the candidates."  As VDH points out, Reagan as president did make mistakes and there were some things that "he was sometimes just plain naive or wrong about."  Here is more:

George Bush’s Alito and Roberts appointments were far more conservative than either Reagan’s O’Connor or Kennedy. In a matter of a few years, Reagan’s disastrous 1986 blanket amnesty for illegal aliens changed the very fabric of the American southwest and was the source of much of the present financial and legal mess. Well apart from Iran-Contra, he was lax in going after the bombers of the Marine barracks in Lebanon and had utopian spasms about nuclear disarmament. As far as taxes and big government, he signed payroll and gas tax increases, and added a secretary of veterans’ affairs. He was not a budget balancer in the Ike mode. His earlier record as California governor — especially on abortion and taxes — was often flip-floppy. Haig, Regan, Deaver, MacFarlane, Poindexter, and others were not always models of White House unity or even, in some cases, probity. So we have reached the surreal when a present flip-flop is derided as something Ronald Reagan would never do.

One thing to point out would be that Reagan also nominated Antonin Scalia and unsucessfuly tried to nominate Robert Bork who, even with his adherence to legal positivsm, would have made a much better justice than Kennedy.  The fury that the Left laid upon Bork most definitely affected the Reagan Administration's tactics and unfortunately caused them to nominate a judge of a lesser caliber than what Reagan originally had in mind. 

On a larger point, I think we loose something important when in virtually every Republican debate thus far most, if not all of the candidates, seem to hold Reagan and everything he did in office as the standard of what it means to be a true conservative.  I think something is lost when we do that because, as VDH rightly points out, Reagan would have failed his own test.  Even with that said, this is not to diminish Reagan in the least because even with his flaws and failures, he was still one of the greatest presidents in American history.  I think Reagan probably would not have wanted himself to be the political standard for the Republican party; rather, he would have wanted the standard to be what he based his politics on:  the laws of nature and nature's God.

The Philosophical Origins of the Left and Right

In the first of a new series of essays on political thought, Steven Hayward discusses the philosophical roots of the Left and Right.  This essay is truly a must read, as I am sure all the others will be too.  Here is how Hayward frames the fundamental issue:

The divisions between left and right are fundamental and unbridgeable.  A frequent trope of political rhetoric is that everyone agrees about the ends; we merely disagree about the means.  Although this is often true at the level of a discrete policy issue (for example, how to broaden access to health care), it is wrong at the deeper level of what might be called the “tectonic plates” that drive the individual political battles.  Reducing left-right differences to disagreements only over means has a numbing effect on clear thinking, and is an obstacle to grappling with some of the larger problems that now need reform that goes far beyond the business-as-usual tinkering around the edges, such as entitlement spending.  Liberals tend to believe in old-fashioned leveling egalitarianism; conservatives do not.  (Much more on this point in due course.)  Rather than evade or gloss over fundamental differences, highlighting them is the vital pre-condition to finding any middle ground for possible compromise.

 The lessons contained here are very worthwhile, especially today when the study of political science is mostly about social science and searching through empirical data.  I am not denigrating everything modern political science has to offer because some of it is definitely useful, but I am pointing out that there has to be a foundation on which to view all of that information in the right way.  Larry Arnn, President of Hillsdale College, once used a great example that perfectly illustrates this point:  Is the technical knowledge needed to build the atomic bomb more important or is the kind of knowledge needed to know how to use the atomic bomb more important?  Modern education, which is career-driven, would most likely answer the former is more important.  Aristotle, Plato, and the American Founders would all agree that the latter kind of knowledge is without question superior. 

Tim Tebow as a Mirror for Ourselves

Today Tim Tebow led the Broncos to another last minute comeback as they beat the Jay Cutler-less Chicago Bears at Soldier Field.  Since being giving the starting jobs early in the season, Tebow has led the Broncos to a 7-1 record, the second highest winning QB percentage only to Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers.  NFL analysts and ESPN commentators alike have had a hard enough time with how Tebow wins--including myself because I think it will eventually catch up to him, maybe even as early as next season--but even more people seem to have a hard time with what they describe as Tebow's "beliefs."  Rich Lowry, the editor of NRO, describes this phenomenon:

Tebow is respectful, wholesome, and a man of God. He has no obvious failings besides an inaccurate throwing arm. If Disney were to concoct the plot of a movie about an altogether admirable young man who joins the NFL and is scorned by all the experts for his unorthodox style, yet wins week after week, Tebow would play the lead. In fact, at this point Disney could make it a documentary.

Nonetheless, Tim Tebow is considered “controversial.” It’s now cutting edge to be a straight arrow. It’s countercultural to be an outspoken Christian. A player who embodies everything meant by the cliché “role model” is for his critics a figure of fun, or even hatred.

Dan Foster, in another great piece on Tebow on NRO, finishes Lowry's thought and hits the nail on the head:

[Tebow's life] is way too much earnestness for the ironic. It’s way too much idealism for the cynical. And it’s way too much selflessness for the self-absorbed. In short, people aren’t upset at Tebow’s God talk. They’re upset that he might actually believe it.

When people meet someone like Tebow, who in all accounts believes what he says and lives his life accordingly, they get mad, angry, and maybe even scared.  Great example like Tebow often make us reflect on ourselves, what we are doing wrong, and what we need to do in order to make ourselves better.  People in general usually don't like that sort of thing. 

Who is Fact Checking the Fact Checkers?

The guys over at Powerline have been doing a great on-going series for some time now on the current new wave of media:  the emergence of "fact checking" columns.  In their newest post in this continuing saga, they highlight the cover story in the upcoming edition of the Weekly Standard by Mark Hemingway.  Hemingway rips the whole fact checking obsession to shreds and exposes it for what it is:  an attempt by the media to muddy the waters between fact and opinion for the benefit of the Democrat Party.  Hemingway gives a classic case study of everything wrong with the fact checkers:

Here’s a not-atypical case study. On November 7, 2010, newly elected Senator Rand Paul appeared on ABC’s This Week with Christiane Amanpour. One of the topics of discussion was pay for federal workers. “The average federal employee makes $120,000 a year,” Paul said. “The average private employee makes $60,000 a year.”

Given that the news these days often boils down to debates over byzantine policy details, Paul’s statement is about as close to an empirically verifiable fact as you’re likely to hear a politician utter.

And the numbers are reasonably clear. According to the latest data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis​—​yes, that’s a government agency​—​federal workers earned average pay and benefits of $123,049 in 2009 while private workers made on average $61,051 in total compensation. What’s more, the pay gap between the federal and private sectors has been growing substantially. A decade ago, average pay and benefits for federal workers was $76,187​—​federal civil servants have seen a 62 percent increase in their compensation since then, more than double the 30.5 percent increase in the private sector.

So federal workers are paid twice as much and their income has been rising over twice as fast. If that’s not out- rageous enough, from December 2007 to June 2009, the federal workforce saw a 46 percent increase in the number of employees with salaries over $100,000, a 119 percent increase in the number of those making over $150,000, and a 93 percent increase in the number of federal civil servants making over $170,000. Note that these figures do not include benefits, overtime, or bonuses.

Not only that, during Obama’s first two years in office, while the unemployment rate hovered near or above double digits, the size of the federal workforce increased by 7 percent. The president called for a federal pay freeze at the end of 2010; however, under the president’s supposed pay freeze, 1.1 million civil servants​—​the majority of the federal workforce​—​are still slated to get $2.5 billion in pay increases. And with the country on the verge of recession (again), 5 of the 10 richest counties in America now surround Washington, D.C. Given who the largest employer in the area is, this is hardly surprising.

Not only is what Senator Paul said about federal pay verifiably true, his simple recitation of the most basic facts of the matter doesn’t even begin to illustrate the extent of the problem.

Yet PolitiFact rated Senator Paul’s statement “false.” According to PolitiFact’s editors, because Paul did not explicitly say the figures he was citing include pay and benefits, he was being misleading. The average reader would assume he was only talking about salary. “BEA found that federal civilian employees earned $81,258 in salary, compared to $50,464 for private-sector workers. That cuts the federal pay advantage almost exactly in half, to nearly $31,000,” writes PolitiFact.

So the average federal employee makes a mere $31,000 more a year in salary than the average private sector worker​—​but also gets a benefits package worth four times what the average private sector worker gets.

PolitiFact further muddies the waters by suggesting that the discrepancy between public and private sector averages isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison. Again, Andrew Biggs, the former Social Security Administration deputy commissioner for policy, and Jason Richwine of the Center for Data Analysis, writing in these pages (“Yes, They’re Overpaid: The Truth About Federal Workers’ Compensation,” February 14, 2011), observed that the most favorable studies of federal worker compensation “controlling for age, education, experience, race, gender, marital status, immigration status, state of residence, and so on” still find federal workers are overpaid by as much as 22 percent.

And another, shorter example:

At the most basic level, the media’s new “fact checkers” remain obdurately unwilling to let opinions simply be opinions. Earlier this year the AP fact checked a column by former GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty in which the former Minnesota governor asserted that “Obamacare is unconstitutional.” Contra Pawlenty, the AP intoned, “Obama’s health care overhaul might be unconstitutional in Pawlenty’s opinion, but it is not in fact unless the Supreme Court says so.”

Hemingway points out the obvious right away:  the AP fact checker falls into the predictable error of touting the erroneous doctrine of judicial supremacy.  The Supreme Court is not the final arbiter of the Constitution.  The Founders, Andrew Jackson, and Lincoln, to name a few authorities, thought every branch of government had the duty to interpret that document as they saw it.  Otherwise, swearing an oath to uphold the Constitution would be rendered meaningless.  I have a feeling that the AP fact checker would be screaming about conservative activism and the blatant unconstitutionality of it all if, say, Roe v. Wade was overruled.

I think we need to go back to third grade and study again what is a fact and what is an opinion.

Newt Gingrich's Conservatism

In an op-ed today, David Brooks makes the case that even with all his political faults, Newt Gingrich does not have the temperament and character to be president.  This sentence is really scary, especially coming from a guy like Brooks:  "In the first place, Gingrich loves government more than I do."  At No Left Turns, Ken Thomas rightly sees that in making the case against Newt, Brooks "winds up moderating him in many ways."

But that's not ever the most important criticism of Newt. 

Brooks also recounts something Gingrich said in 2007, which is even more interesting in light of Obama's new "New Nationalism" speech: 

As [Gingrich] said in 2007, “It’s not a point of view libertarians would embrace, but I am more in the Alexander Hamilton-Teddy Roosevelt tradition of conservatism. I recognize that there are times when you need government to help spur private enterprise and economic development.”

Whatever their political similarities, Hamilton and Teddy Roosevelt surely cannot be in grouped together as conservatives.  Roosevelt rejected the principles and constitutionalism of the Founders in favor of gradually shifting government towards one of general powers, which would be constrained only by certain prohibitions expressly mentioned in the text of the Constitution.  Moreover, following in the footsteps of other progressives like Frank Goodnow and Herbert Croly, TR rejected the natural rights foundation on which the government was erected.  If Gingrich still sees himself in this way, that should tell you everything you need to know about his conservatism.

Dumb as a Rock

A couple of days ago, Alec Baldwin was kicked off an American Airlines flight for not turning off his phone while his plane sat at the gate.  Baldwin went to the Huffington Post yesterday to clear the air and apologize blame everyone else for his actions.  Here is Mr. 99% with the valuable lesson he took away from the experience:

However, I have learned a valuable lesson. Airlines in the US are struggling with fuel costs, labor costs, bankruptcies, you name it. It's no secret that the level of service on US carriers has deteriorated to a point that would make Howard Hughes red-faced. Filthy planes, barely edible meals, cuts in jet service to less-traveled locations. One of the big changes, in my time, is in the increase of the post-9/11, paramilitary bearing of much of the air travel business. September 11th was a horrific day in the airline industry, yet in the wake of that event, I believe carriers and airports have used that as an excuse to make the air travel experience as inelegant as possible.

So it was all the airlines fault?  The federal government played no role?

More words of wisdom and lessons from on high:

Most of the flight attendants I have ever encountered still have some remnant of the old idea of service. Add to that the notion that in this day and age, many people have a lot of important work to do, by phone, and would like to do so till the last possible minute. But there are many now who walk the aisles of an airplane with a whistle around their neck and a clipboard in their hands and they have made flying a Greyhound bus experience.

Interesting.  Greg Pollowitz at NRO notes that the "important work" Baldwin had to attend to was playing the "game 'Words with Friends' on his phone" which he freely admitted shortly after the ordeal.

Old Nationalism

Yesterday, President Obama gave a speech in Osawotomie, Kansas, and among otherwise dull and uninteresting rhetoric, he claimed to be following in the footsteps of that conservative Republican, Teddy Roosevelt.  It was in Osawotomie in 1910 that TR gave his famous "New Nationalism" speech in which he declared, among other things, that there was a "general right of the community to regulate" both the earning of income and attainment of private property "to whatever degree the public welfare may require it."  As Ronald Pestritto has shown, TR was by no means a conservative in any sense of the word, and in fact, he worked to overturn much of what the Founders had set in place.  Here is Pestritto:

The fact that conservative politicians such as John McCain and writers like William Kristol and Karl Rove are attracted to our 26th president is strange because, if we want to understand where in the American political tradition the idea of unlimited, redistributive government came from, we need look no further than to Roosevelt and others who shared his outlook.

Progressives of both parties, including Roosevelt, were the original big-government liberals. They understood full well that the greatest obstacle to their schemes of social justice and equality of material condition was the U.S. Constitution as it was originally written and understood: as creating a national government of limited, enumerated powers that was dedicated to securing the individual natural rights of its citizens, especially liberty of contract and private property.

On TR's rejection of the enumerated powers of the Constitution:

In his "Autobiography," Roosevelt wrote that he "declined to adopt the view that what was imperatively necessary for the nation could not be done by the President unless he could find some specific authorization to do it." The national government, in TR's view, was not one of enumerated powers but of general powers, and the purpose of the Constitution was merely to state the narrow exceptions to that rule.

This is a view of government directly opposed by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 84. Hamilton explains there that the fundamental difference between a republican constitution and a monarchic one is that the latter reserves some liberty for the people by stating specific exceptions to the assumed general power of the crown, whereas the former assumes from the beginning that the power of the people is the general rule, and the power of the government the exception.

Far from Roosevelt being the shining example of a true conservative, he was a progressive who rejected the principles of the Founding and helped set in motion what would become the administrative state.  Unlike his constant self-comparisons to Abraham Lincoln, Obama's use of the politics of TR is really much more on point.

A Man Who Has Been Speaking Prose All His Life

In his latest column, Hadley Arkes writes about Justice Antonin Scalia's wit and wisdom that he has extolled during his years of service on the Supreme Court.  In particular, Arkes points out that Scalia, a self-declared debunker of the natural law, has curiously been drawing from natural law teachings all along.  Arkes explains more:

In the banter and laughing – and arguments – over the years, he has tilted with some of his friends over the matter of “natural law.” The Justice has been famously dubious, at times scathing. My own argument has been that he has shown us handsomely, in his work, how a jurisprudence of natural law may be done, even while professing up and down that it cannot be done. As Aristotle noted, the distinct nature of human beings is marked by the capacity to give and understand reasons over matters of right and wrong. As Aristotle saw, there is something approaching the divine in the capacity to grasp propositions not bounded by space and time, truths that would hold in all times and places and not decompose, as all material things decompose. 

The natural law may be shown in the disciplined engagement of the “laws of reason” in the cases that come before us. My friend has boasted that he had never taken a course in logic, and yet he has been the most relentless logician on the Supreme Court. And he has done the most important work of natural law as he has challenged, in the most demanding way, the premises that the Court has put in place as it removed protections of the law from unborn children, created novel licenses in sexuality, and undermined support for marriage as an institution.

While not every single opinion and dissent authored by Scalia is in line with the natural law--and in fact, much of his public teachings contradict the natural law--, he nonetheless shows the beginnings of what a natural law jurisprudence should look like (Clarence Thomas's jurisprudence is much closer in line with the natural law, e.g., see his concurrence in Adarand v. Pena where he quotes directly from the natural law teachings of the Declaration of Independence).

Newt Trumprich

Donald Trump will be moderating a GOP debate on December 27th, and already, Jon Huntsman and Ron Paul have stated that they will not be attending.  Trump had a conference call with the media this afternoon about that subject and what resulted was comedy gold:

In response to Jon Huntsman’s critique, Trump said, “Well, he could use a little show business to get his ratings up, because his poll numbers are terrible … he has no chance whatsoever of getting the nomination, so it’s actually a good thing if he’s not there.”

Trump said that Ron Paul, who is not attending the Trump debate, has “zero chance” of becoming the GOP nominee. “I wonder how he would do in the private sector. He probably wouldn’t have made ten cents,” Trump remarked.

In response to Karl Rove’s criticism on Fox this morning that Trump, who is considering an independent presidential run, shouldn’t be moderating a GOP debate, Trump blasted Rove as responsible for the GOP’s woes in recent years.

“I don’t think that Karl Rove is a smart person. I think he’s highly overrated.  … He’s a man who’s only after Karl Rove,” Trump said, adding that Rove was “part of the problem with the Republican party.”

Even though Huntsman and Paul are probably right not to attend, Trump got off some of the funniest lines yet this election season.  The most interesting part though was what Trump said about Newt Gingrich, with whom he had just met before the conference call:

 “Newt Gingrich just left my office,” Trump said. “He’s a very smart man. He thought it was great. And one of the things he says was because we’ll get tremendous ratings. I happen to get great ratings, okay, if you’ve noticed.”

The great humility shown in that statement curiously mirrored another, less notable one that occurred about a year ago.  When Michael Barone asked Gingrich about the possibilities of him running for president, Newt turned to him and said, “Why wouldn’t I?”  It is striking the ways that Newt and Trump are alike...

Romney's Interview

Also, in case you missed it, below is the video of Romney's now-famous interview with Bret Baier that occurred earlier this week.

  I think Scott Johnson from Powerline sums it up perfectly:

It is an unimpressive performance. Baier conducts himself in a perfectly professional manner. When challenged with predictable questions by Baier, Romney is by turns discombobulated and even petulant (great line: “We’re going to have to be better informed about my views on issues”) before he recovers his footing toward the end of the interview.

Mitt Romney: Managerial Progressive

In a blistering post, Paul Rahe, Professor of History at Hillsdale College, finds Mitt Romney to be a managerial progressive, who is a adept at changing his political positions and sees that the major problems as he sees them are to be solved by government at the expense of securing the individual rights of the governed.  Here is more:

[Romney] has virtues. He is managerial and not a utopian progressive.  If elected, he will for a time be mindful of the commitments he has made. He will fight for the repeal of Obamacare, for, If he does not do so, he will be toast, and he knows it. He will also work hard to put our fiscal house in order, for he really does believe in managerial competence, but I would not rule out tax increases. After all, he agrees with Barack Obama that those who take in more than $200,000 a year should pay more than they do now. If there are any openings on the Supreme Court in his first couple of years in office, Romney will probably nominate conservatives. But, after the midterm elections in 2014, all bets are off. Managerial progressives see elections as problems to be solved. They re-tailor their positions to the tastes of the electorate they expect to face (at least, as they understand that electorate).

Even more problematic is Romney's lack of clarity on first principles, especially at a time when the public mind is turning against liberalism and open more than ever to the conservative argument:

Even more to the point, Romney is not going to make the conservative argument – and that matters enormously. When Lincoln said, “Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed,” he spoke the truth. In my lifetime, there has never been a moment when the American public was more open to the conservative argument than it is now. Barack Obama, his “stimulus” bill, Obamacare, and Dodd-Frank have given liberalism a very bad name. This could be the turning of the tide. It could be the moment in which we begin to pare away at the administrative entitlements state. But that can only happen if we win the argument over its legitimacy. And if we do not make that argument, we certainly cannot win it. Nothing that Romney has said in any of his speeches to date or in any of the debates suggests that he believes that there is anything fundamentally wrong with the administrative entitlements state. It needs a bit of tweaking here and there. Expenditures and revenues must be brought into balance. But it is in principle sound. That is what he believes. That is the position he will espouse.

The reason why Lincoln is the greatest president is that during the greatest struggle the country has ever faced, he returned time and time again to the natural rights and natural right principles of the Founders.  He began the process of recovering the public mind, which at the time was slowly drugging itself with theories of secession and slavery as a positive good.  He knew the only way to argue against the evils of slavery was to base his argument on principles that are universal in scope, principles that existed before the creation of any government.  Lincoln could never explain the wrong of slavery if he based his argument upon the opinion of the majority.  He could never explain that wrong if he based his argument on possible "inefficiencies" that slavery posed (in fact, slavery prospered because of the invention of efficient machines such as the cotton gin).  He had to go to the root of the problem.  He had to explain why it was wrong for anyone to enslave anyone else without that man's consent.  To do this is to go to the level of principle, something which Romney will not do publicly or otherwise, because if he were to do that, he would have to explain the wrong in principle created by Romneycare in Massachusetts--a wrong that is present no matter if it were confined within a single state or the policy of the federal government.

I will leave with this:  it is important to remember that Rahe's critique, however, does not apply just to Romney:  it can be aimed at most the presidents who served during the twentieth century. 

Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln

Two-time academy award winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis was recently photographed in a restaurant in Richmond, Virginia looking rather much like our 16th President.  He is currently filming Steven Spielberg's Lincoln which is based on Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals.  I am most definitely looking foward to this movie, mostly due to seeing Day-Lewis's performance as Lincoln (if any actor today could do it, it is him). 

Churchill on America

Yesterday was Winston Churchill's birthday and in commemoration of the event, the Claremont Institute featured essays from their archives on the great man.  Steven Hayward's review of Sir Martin Gilbert's book, Churchill and America, was among the essays unearthed.  It is particularly relevant considering the current president's disdain for any talk touching on American exceptionalism.  Churchill championed American exceptionalism and "was one of the few foreign statesmen of the last century who embraced American exceptionalism and understood its importance for the world."  Here is more on Churchill:

Churchill's appreciation of American exceptionalism was arguably hereditary; he was half-American ("half-alien and wholly reprehensible," his critics liked to say). "What an extraordinary people the Americans are!" he wrote to his American mother during his first stateside visit in 1895 at age 21. Beyond America's democratic character, Churchill came to believe in what we call the American Dream. As he told Harry Truman en route to Fulton, Missouri in 1946, "If I were to be born again, there is one country in which I would want to be a citizen. There is one country where a man knows he has an unbounded future—the USA."

Churchill's thoughts on the Constitution and the principles of the Declaration of Independence are very  interesting and are worth close study.  Here is Churchill from a speech given on the 4th of July, 1918:

The Declaration of Independence is not only an American document. It follows on the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights as the third great title-deed on which the liberties of the English-speaking peoples are founded.... The political conceptions embodied in the Declaration of Independence are the same as those expressed at that time by Lord Chatham and Mr. Burke and handed down to them by John Hampden and Algernon Sidney. They spring from the same source; they come from the same well of practical truth....

As Hayward notes, this statement is good as far as it goes but the Declaration wasn't just a document for Englishman; it was a document for all men, regardless of tradition and geographic location.  Churchill may very well have believed that to be true, and his appreciation for the political science of the Federalist certainly gives credence to this view (Harry Jaffa recently recalled when, sometime in the late 1920s, Churchill was given a copy of Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics by his friend, Lord Birkenhead.  He returned it some weeks later saying that it was all very good but that he already had thought most of it out for himself.  It is one more reason not to underestimate the man and that we always try to understand someone as they understood themselves.).

Churchill was one of America's great champions.  I certainly hope that the next person to take the White House continues on that tradition.

What Makes Us One People

In today's Letter from an Ohio Farmer, the Farmer talks about what makes us one people, in the sense as it was understood by the Founders when they appealed to the authority of the "one People" in the opening sentence of the Declaration of Independence and the "People" in the Preamble of the Constitution.  Here is the Farmer on what unites us: 

As I recalled in a previous letter, Thomas Jefferson once described the Declaration of Independence as an "expression of the American mind." He didn't say the American "heart" or even the American "character"—but the American mind. That’s important. Our heart feels emotion; character is made up of habits and dispositions. But the mind holds our ideas and principles—the ideas and principles that shape our characters and govern our emotions and lead us to choose to live as we do. That is what unites Americans at the deepest level, binds us together as "one People," and makes us the distinctive people we are.

Americans do certainly have important emotions and habits in common. We are famous for loving our country, for example, in a way that strikes some other people as too exuberant. And we are known to be habitually optimistic: for an American, the glass is almost always half full. But those sentiments and attitudes are the products of the ruling principles that united us in 1776 and still do today. We love our country because it stands for freedom. We are optimistic because freedom makes us think that we can do anything we set our minds to.

As Lincoln showed us, we could not simply narrow the principles enunciated in the Declaration to apply only to Englishman and English speaking peoples; that would render the principles of the Declaration nothing more than statements of custom and tradition and make it no permanent standard by which to judge anything true of false, right or wrong.  What makes us one people is our adherence to these principles, no matter our race, gender, or religion.

Evil Still Exists

Over at Ricochet, Mollie Hemingway offers up an important point that tends to be purposely glided over today:  evil still does exist.  The media seems to have a propensity to call anyone who does anything that used to be regarded as an evil act as insane; this is especially true in the case of the Norway mass murdered Anders Breivick.  In Breivick's case, however, the worst charge the media could level against him was that he was a "Christian" (Ann Coulter promptly destroyed this argument here).  Here is more on the important distinction between evil and insanity:

I've noticed how quickly reporters try to claim that any terrorist is mentally imbalanced or alienated. In a world where everyone is diagnosed as mentally ill and we pathologize what used to be called sin or evil, this is what you do. It's so much easier to call someone crazy or a victim of a child abuse or something than to deal with their evil.

But a society that is incapable of properly responding to evil, to sin, is one that worries me. [Anders] Breivik didn't start the movement that he hoped to, thankfully, but evil people will use terror even more if we don't refute it and respond to it. Norway is choosing an easy route out of this, but at what cost?

The slow elimination of the idea of evil tacitly takes away any grounding of condemnation of any act, and instead, we are lead to sympathize with the perpetrators because of the environment they grew up in or their bad upbringing.