Ronaldus Magnus: RIP
Shawn:
In case you haven't heard the news, America has just suffered the death of argualbly the greatest President of the 20th century. Ronald Reagan passed away today at his home in CA. He was 93.
Another strong influence on my early intellectual formation has passed away. I would say in twentieth century presidents he was second only to Theodore Roosevelt.
May the Lord bless him for all he did to bring freedom and healing to a wounded and enslaved world.
Indeed.
Eternal rest grant unto him O Lord and let perpetual rest shine upon him. May his soul and the souls of all the faithfully departed rest in peace.
Amen.
Thursday, June 03, 2004
"TCR" Dept.
Part of the reason it is customary to celebrate anniversaries is because they are a good time to look back on what has transpired over the course of a given period of time. Having noted that, it has come to the attention of Us at Rerum Novarum that TCR is on the verge of their fifth anniversary as a faithful contributor to the New Evangelization. At this time it seems appropriate therefore to reiterate anew Our appreciation for what they do and wish them many continued years of faithful service to the Church. Much as We do, they strive for loyalty at all times to the Magisterium of the Church. For that reason above all else, they are to be commended.
Lest there is any question on the matter, it is noted here that there is no hesitation on Our part to exhort the readers of this humble weblog to check out their site -situated as it has long been amongst the recommended websites at Rerum Novarum. We recommend TCR very highly and have for a long time.
In closing, thank you Stephen (and the other contributors to TCR) for all that you have done.{2} May you and TCR have many successful years ahead. Also know that despite disagreements that we may have (even some significant ones at times) that you have Our support here at Rerum Novarum for the work that you do -which in some areas{3} is better than anyone else out there. You have our prayers, our support, and also our thanks. Hopefully, this entry is adequate enough to declare where Rerum Novarum and your weblog host stand viz. Our view of TCR.
Notes:
{1} There is (We believe) a healthy respect between TCR and Rerum Novarum despite some (occasionally) significant theological differences in viewpoint or emphasis. (In areas where such differentiation in views is viewed as acceptable by the Magisterium.)
{2} Readers of this weblog are not unaware of the admiration that We have for TCR -particularly in the area of social justice where they are arguably the most eloquent expounders of Catholic doctrine and principles in cyberspace.
{3} See footnote two.
[Update: Unfortunately, some disturbing trends that We detected at the time the above tribute was written became more pronounced in the months subsequent to the above posted material. We observed them with discomfort for a long time -even confuting some of the subject matter indirectly at this weblog on occasion to try and avoid having to confront our straying friend publicly on certain subjects where he was not showing proper discernment on. It finally reached the point to where We felt an intervention was needed so a friend of Rerum Novarum (Greg Mockeridge) wrote a guest editorial at Our invitation on these matters which was posted on April 29, 2005 and which covered in reasonable detail the primary problems that TCR had succumbed to under the leadership of their webmaster Mr. Hand.
Originally We suggested to Greg (around January of 2005) the idea of writing a guest editorial in order to find a way of avoiding the airing of the problems with Mr. Hand's imbalanced opinions in a public fashion. (We honestly did not think Greg would do it.) But Greg did and We were therefore in the position of having to honour Our previous promises.
To avoid giving any impression that what was noted in Greg's editorial was solely his own view of the matter (since We need not agree with the contents of a guest editorial to post it here at Rerum Novarum), it seemed appropriate to Us to compose an accompanying commentary on the material covered in the aforesaid editorial which was then posted on the same day as the editorial itself. (To show Our solidarity with Greg with regards to certain trenchant criticisms of Mr. Hand and TCR which he had made in the editorial.) We had hoped that this would serve to recall Our erring friend to recognize the excesses of his rhetoric and to return to a proper sense of balance and discernment on the issues noted in those writings. Unfortunately, this did not happen and a very ugly side of Mr. Hand was revealed. And though We withdrew from public confrontation after saying all that needed to be said -and after Mr. Hand gave no evidence whatsoever that he was actually listening to what We said, it was judged by Us that the time had come to affix a notation to Our previously written tribute...something that for various reasons We were deficient in doing for about a month.
Though We may make the occasional adjustment to previously written material (in virtually all cases to correct spelling and grammar glitches, transfer some post material to footnotes for easier separation of texts, etc.) we never erase anything from Our archives. The reason for that is so that Our generally very accurate statements, trenchant social commentary, and predictions remain tempered a bit by the occasional blemishes...be they missed predictions or certain moments which (We judge in retrospect) could have been handled better. It helps Us retain a proper sense of balance and also give the readers a true sense of Us and not the fabricated one whereby We seek to purge Ourselves of past materials as certain parties (such as Mr. Hand) seem to want to do.
Our refusal to remove positional blemishes from the archives is why you will see this tribute remain as it was written with no corrections in the original text. It is Our hope that someday We will be able to remove this notation and allow the original text to remain as it was once written. Until then this note will remain affixed to the previously written text in perpetuity all things to the contrary notwithstanding. -ISM 6/17/05 11:33 am]
Part of the reason it is customary to celebrate anniversaries is because they are a good time to look back on what has transpired over the course of a given period of time. Having noted that, it has come to the attention of Us at Rerum Novarum that TCR is on the verge of their fifth anniversary as a faithful contributor to the New Evangelization. At this time it seems appropriate therefore to reiterate anew Our appreciation for what they do and wish them many continued years of faithful service to the Church. Much as We do, they strive for loyalty at all times to the Magisterium of the Church. For that reason above all else, they are to be commended.
Lest there is any question on the matter, it is noted here that there is no hesitation on Our part to exhort the readers of this humble weblog to check out their site -situated as it has long been amongst the recommended websites at Rerum Novarum. We recommend TCR very highly and have for a long time.
In closing, thank you Stephen (and the other contributors to TCR) for all that you have done.{2} May you and TCR have many successful years ahead. Also know that despite disagreements that we may have (even some significant ones at times) that you have Our support here at Rerum Novarum for the work that you do -which in some areas{3} is better than anyone else out there. You have our prayers, our support, and also our thanks. Hopefully, this entry is adequate enough to declare where Rerum Novarum and your weblog host stand viz. Our view of TCR.
Notes:
{1} There is (We believe) a healthy respect between TCR and Rerum Novarum despite some (occasionally) significant theological differences in viewpoint or emphasis. (In areas where such differentiation in views is viewed as acceptable by the Magisterium.)
{2} Readers of this weblog are not unaware of the admiration that We have for TCR -particularly in the area of social justice where they are arguably the most eloquent expounders of Catholic doctrine and principles in cyberspace.
{3} See footnote two.
[Update: Unfortunately, some disturbing trends that We detected at the time the above tribute was written became more pronounced in the months subsequent to the above posted material. We observed them with discomfort for a long time -even confuting some of the subject matter indirectly at this weblog on occasion to try and avoid having to confront our straying friend publicly on certain subjects where he was not showing proper discernment on. It finally reached the point to where We felt an intervention was needed so a friend of Rerum Novarum (Greg Mockeridge) wrote a guest editorial at Our invitation on these matters which was posted on April 29, 2005 and which covered in reasonable detail the primary problems that TCR had succumbed to under the leadership of their webmaster Mr. Hand.
Originally We suggested to Greg (around January of 2005) the idea of writing a guest editorial in order to find a way of avoiding the airing of the problems with Mr. Hand's imbalanced opinions in a public fashion. (We honestly did not think Greg would do it.) But Greg did and We were therefore in the position of having to honour Our previous promises.
To avoid giving any impression that what was noted in Greg's editorial was solely his own view of the matter (since We need not agree with the contents of a guest editorial to post it here at Rerum Novarum), it seemed appropriate to Us to compose an accompanying commentary on the material covered in the aforesaid editorial which was then posted on the same day as the editorial itself. (To show Our solidarity with Greg with regards to certain trenchant criticisms of Mr. Hand and TCR which he had made in the editorial.) We had hoped that this would serve to recall Our erring friend to recognize the excesses of his rhetoric and to return to a proper sense of balance and discernment on the issues noted in those writings. Unfortunately, this did not happen and a very ugly side of Mr. Hand was revealed. And though We withdrew from public confrontation after saying all that needed to be said -and after Mr. Hand gave no evidence whatsoever that he was actually listening to what We said, it was judged by Us that the time had come to affix a notation to Our previously written tribute...something that for various reasons We were deficient in doing for about a month.
Though We may make the occasional adjustment to previously written material (in virtually all cases to correct spelling and grammar glitches, transfer some post material to footnotes for easier separation of texts, etc.) we never erase anything from Our archives. The reason for that is so that Our generally very accurate statements, trenchant social commentary, and predictions remain tempered a bit by the occasional blemishes...be they missed predictions or certain moments which (We judge in retrospect) could have been handled better. It helps Us retain a proper sense of balance and also give the readers a true sense of Us and not the fabricated one whereby We seek to purge Ourselves of past materials as certain parties (such as Mr. Hand) seem to want to do.
Our refusal to remove positional blemishes from the archives is why you will see this tribute remain as it was written with no corrections in the original text. It is Our hope that someday We will be able to remove this notation and allow the original text to remain as it was once written. Until then this note will remain affixed to the previously written text in perpetuity all things to the contrary notwithstanding. -ISM 6/17/05 11:33 am]
Wednesday, June 02, 2004
On Marriage, the Supreme Court, Law in General, Etc.
(Dialogue With Charles de Nunzio)
This is the third of the four planned responses that I noted in early April that I would be getting to. That leaves the dialogue with Tim Enloe (on foundational presuppositions viz. the existence of "universals") as the last to tend to. When that will be tended to will depend a lot on Tim's availability for that dialogue as well as his willingness to have it. But that is neither here nor there at this time.
To some extent, the principles that guide this response have long been inculcated at this weblog at sundry times and divers manners -most recently HERE. In this post that you are about to read, the words of my dialogue associate will be in red font and my words in regular font. When he cites my previous writings, the text will be in darkgreen. My sources will be in darkblue font. Without further ado, let us get to it...
Dear Mr. McElhinney:
My friends call me Shawn.
By way of directly introducing myself to you, please allow me to bypass the points of disagreement between our perspectives (I understand that you are at least tangentially aware of the existence of my writings) and instead focus upon the entry "On the 2004 Election" in Rerum Novarum last February 26th, with which I largely concur:
... All of this weblog writer's defenses of the three fundamental rights of man (life, faculties, and production essentially) — both in past as well as any future applications of the principle — hinge on the recognition of the importance of considering with any proposal the factor it plays on the public order of society as well as society's common good. Homosexual so-called "marriage" would be a millstone around the neck of the public order and it would kill this civilization as promoting homosexuality to the detriment of marriage has in every extinct culture that preceded us.
You explained this in a little more detail in a later post, and I think I get the idea, although my own emphasis might be different. You observed on March 30th that "civilizations have previously survived contraception and abortion/ infanticide (indeed not without damage), but redefining or undermining marriage as the cornerstone of civilization has always (and will always) result in that civilization not only undergoing damage but also dying out." Noteworthy in this respect is the fact that whereas in previous civilizations it was a case of marriage being undermined, we now behold (thanks to two centuries-plus of egalitarian propaganda emanating from a man-as-god mindset) an effort to redefine it, worse yet, as undermining is a moral perversion, but redefinition is an intellectual perversion besides.
Indeed. Though you may not like the examples I use in an August 2003 blog entry on the underlying weltanschauung of language control, I have a strong sense that you would concur with my main premise which was that [W]hen we get down to brass tacks, all forms of engineering - be it social, philosophical, theological, political, medical, scientific, legal, or otherwise is preceded by verbal engineering. My application of this principle is consistent across the board. Or to quote myself again from August of last year:
[W]hen we let counterfeit philosophies or outlooks coin their own noble terminology, we provide them with a shibboleth of their own to mindlessly parrot and/or cloak themselves in to with greater ease attempt to (and potentially succeed at) confusing the unwary. Allowing them to control the language and eventually they will control the terms of the battle.
And another reason I take this approach was noted in that post as well:
[O]ften those opposed to the view will caricature it in a gross manner and those sympathetic often embrace and magnify the caricature. I for my part want nothing to do with this scuffling nor will I allow others to label me - even if they attempt to do so as a kind of "reference point" in a discussion.{2} Again, I either control the vernacular or we relegate it to a stalemate. The moment I as a rule allow others to do so{3} is the moment that I begin to give control of the arena to someone else. And that my friends is (i) not something I have ever done and (ii) it simply is not going to happen at any time in the future.
The footnotes in the above text read as follows:
{2}To give one example of this, Kevin Tierney sought to do so for categorization purposes in the dialogue I responded to back in early August at this humble weblog.
{3} Barring of course the very rare exception sometimes necessary to establish foundational points for discussing a particular subject matter. However, this is only in the case of interaction with the work of others who cannot be reached - or at least not without profound difficulty. See my essays contra Cardinal Stickler and Fr. Chad Ripperger for examples of this very rare exception to the afore-enunciated rule.
Obviously that I recognize (for tactical or other reasons) certain exceptions is an indicator that there is no such thing as an immutable rule on these matters. There are however principles that construct my rule of discourse if you will and one of them is not ceding to opposing viewpoints the right to define the terms of dialogue. It might sound arrogant but I insist on defining those terms myself or (at the very least) relegating that to a stalemate in finding terms that each party can concur with. It sounds petty but propaganda is a matter of language and perceptions which are generated by images or concepts play a strong role in the matter. I am not saying that I am a propagandist of course{1}; however, as one who knows how propaganda works, I do what I can to not allow myself to be so caricatured by those who disagree with me.
You are right to identify the prospect of radical redefinition of marriage as a primary threat to a civilization's survival, for while the "life issues" (which certainly have their social dimensions) are fundamentally issues of the preservation or extinction of individuals, the institution of marriage exists to foster the perpetuation of the species in the context of a social order, and is therefore of its essence a matter of the common good.
Indeed. And more than the common good (which in and of itself is important) the positive promotion of marriage contributes to the public order of society. By contrast, the denigration of marriage contributes to the denigration of society's public order which is not beneficial to the common good. I am a realist in recognizing that vices of any kind require some kind of outlet lest they cause a greater degree of damage to a society than they would if they were not tolerated. However, tolerance is not the same thing as promotion by any means.
Men can and have lived in inferior degrees of civilization, but there is always something of a vitiation in the quality of life when this happens. (I know well that this is why the last several centuries of the First Millennium in the West are called the "Dark Ages.")
True. However, part of it is also a degree of propaganda against the Catholic Church as a force of stability in that period.{2} There is also the criteria utilized whereby advances in scientific or technological, etc. progress is the core barometer of measurement. I have a problem with this approach in that not all periods of history involve the same degree of genuine progress. And if we utilize progression as the primary criterion of measurement, we are stuck bowing to the altar of the so-called "enlightenment" period of history which has a significant amount of dross mixed in with the gold as I see it.
The rare individual exceptions notwithstanding (and even Eric Rudolph could take but only so many years of isolation), Donne is right: "no man is an island," hence the critical stake any human being has in the fate of the civilization in which he exists.
Yes. Man is a social animal. I noted towards the end of my essay on Christian Unity and the Role of Authority (circa January 2001) this factor as it pertained to religious subject matter in the following words:
Environment, culture and other factors shape us all and mould our thinking in different ways. Because of the necessity of unity as an identifiable trait of truth, religious convictions in a large part depend on the social influences that shape us from the time we are born and throughout our lifetimes. It is foolish to claim that we are in any way free from these and other influences impacting our paradigms of thought... All too often the presumption is made that outside influences are not factors in how we view issues. I used to reiterate to the atheists and agnostics that I was dialoguing with in 1999-2000 (on message boards) that "no one's philosophical, scientific, theological, sociological views (or any other subject matter) is formed in a vacuum." The sooner people recognize this, the easier it is to dialogue with them productively.
Where I might differ with your analysis is in my belief that this process of redefinition has already long ago begun, in which, interestingly enough, I find support from a Methodist minister's recent column in The Wall Street Journal.
I presume you are referring to this column.
In our culture, the decomposition of marriage began with the acceptance of divorce and contraception, for already with these things came the first redefinition of marriage, from its Christian conception of an irrevocable sacramental bond primarily oriented to the common good of society (namely through the begetting and competent rearing of offspring), to an at-will contract between a man and a woman oriented to the (perceived) private good of the two individuals, which may or may not (at their discretion) involve progeny. (Herein we see the advent of abortion as the extension of contraception.)
What I see it as is essentially one imbalanced notion of marriage being replaced with another. It became a matter of redressing one imbalance via overstressing an area of common neglect to the detriment of one area where there was no shortage of historical emphasis.{3} And because the area of newer emphasis was not viewed as necessarily connected with the previous area of emphasis, an unnecessary dichotomy was created which has fostered so many of the problems we have seen in recent decades. So while I do not disagree with your stated position in its essence, there may be some details I see in the matrix that you do not. I say "may" because if memory serves, you do not take the garden variety viewpoint on this issue in all of its parameters that the more extreme of the self-styled "traditionalists" do.{4}
Now, the fact that it remained, in this view, a matter involving one man and one woman not otherwise contracturally obliged, served to preserve a fair resemblance of the institution's façade, thus, in effect, a "transsubstantiation" of sorts: the externals remained (somewhat) as before, but the substance thereof, i.e., in the order of principle, entirely gutted and fradulently substituted.
Agreed. I was actually pondering the "transubstantiation" analogy myself before reading your enunciation of it in print.
Alas, it would only be a matter of time before the rigor of logic would assert itself and force the process of this redefinition to its completion.
The redefinition left in a nebulous formulary many areas of previous emphasis as you note but without logical connexion to one another. In short, again we concur.
Hence, given the fact of the sodomite movement's rise in the context of our culture's previous divorcement of sex, marriage, and progeny each from the integral economy these elements share in sane societies (this "Lambda rising" explainable by the fact that with Divine and natural law discredited, and sex redefined as an instrument of the individual's gratification, there was no cogent objection remaining to any method of such gratification, whatsoever it may be), it is unsurprisingly this unsavory element that is leading the charge to the second and final stage of this redefinition of marriage, one that utterly demolishes the institution's externals to more perfectly and logically match with the ersatz internal principles already accepted.
I cannot disagree with your take there. I view it essentially as previously certain deviant behaviours were given societal outlets but were not at the same time promoted or given anything resembling a platform of equivalence with marriage in society. Once marriage became seen as "one option among many of equal value" if you will, where we are at now was an inevitability.
It is precisely this effort of reconfiguring the externals of the institution of marriage, therefore, that is provoking alarm. Rightly so, and the trauma and collective disorientation resulting from the sense-perceptible reality of the equivocation of unnatural vice with virtue, alongside the ugly realities that shall pertain to these perverse permutations of "family," will surely be our societal coup de grace, as you say. But indeed, there needed to be alarm and resistance when this process began some 40-odd years ago.
Spoken with the precision of 20-20 hindsight of course. We cannot discount that there was an attempt made by some people who were well-intentioned to redress a historical imbalance in light of contemporary situations. I do not feel that such radical paradigm shifts are necessary if people are more ressourcement oriented. However, such approaches are unfortunately rare it seems and most people's lack of interest in history means (as Santayana's dictum well noted) that history will repeat itself.
We now behold something akin to a fire well into its advanced stages, after it has thoroughly consumed the interior but provoking alarm only when the exterior shell is at last threatened!
[N.B. By "externals" here I do not mean accidentals, such as is the normal usage. Three elements comprise the essence of marriage: who does what for what purpose. By "externals" I refer here to the who element, which is the first thing perceived and more readily registers in one's sensibilities than the what and the what for, these latter requiring progressively more reflection to realize. These last two were entirely changed in the first redefinition of marriage, but the who was left intact... until now.]
I agree that separation of progeny as the root and matrix of marriage is what caused the problems we see today. However, it is difficult to understand what the forces were that resulted in this paradigm shift if all constituent factors in the equation prior to four decades ago are not taken into consideration.{5}
Whatever his convoluted rationale for coming to the defense of marriage is, President Bush has nonetheless done so and no one else with any reasonable chance of being president has taken his stance on this crucial issue. And while Professor Miller is wrong about making abortion the defining issue over and against numerous other issues that more directly impact the existence of this nation; nonetheless marriage is not only the defining issue for defending the existence of this nation but it also is the issue for defending the existence of all civilization. Therefore, it requires a circling of the wagons and no concessions of any kind whatsoever.
Mindful of what I just said above, it is nonetheless true that "better late than never" for this effort at defending civilization.
Indeed.
Furthermore, while abortion is perhaps the most blatant example of our society's institutionalization of murder — one of the "sins crying to Heaven for vengeance," after all; hence easy to see why so many people are inclined to put such emphasis on it — I agree with you that the forthcoming institutionalization of sodomy is yet worse and may well seal our society's fate, and not just from natural causes alone.
Yes.
I have long held our society's greatest problem to be its now-total refusal of the rights of God [here leaving aside polemics concerning the original intent of the Founders and the Catholic confessional state], which in combination with "completing the collection" of the Sins Crying to Heaven for Vengeance (we already have abortion and the euthanizing of the Terri Schiavos of the world; the tax laws and P.C. social re-engineering policies do much to oppress the poor and defraud the laborer of his just wages) by the formal and unconditional acceptance of sodomy that a redefinition of marriage to its benefit would occasion, would give us no ready reason to expect the hand of Divine Justice to continue to be stayed in regard to us anymore.
True. However, I am sure you recognize that large movements are usually the result of small shifts in philosophical paradigmatic presuppositions. Another way of saying it is that small adjustments in how things are viewed a priori have a way of causing a ripple effect throughout society. And this is a core issue with deep ramifications for society. Ergo, if we right the ship of society onto proper course in this area, it could be the catalyst for the kind of profound societal reflections that result in constructive positive change for the better. And a proper (and integrated) understanding of the role of God in society cannot be but a boon to the public order of society and its common good as well. As I have noted in a more recent response to my friend Kevin Tierney:
Years of dialogue with people of every conceivable outlook have emphasized to me that precision in the absence of workable definitions is needed. And this issue needs to be approached anthropologically more than anything if it is to be decisively confuted.
But I view this as an adjunct to religious beliefs as well. In short, we can approach this anthropologically with all people -even those of good will who are not religious in nature. And in doing this, we can formulate the strongest possible opposition. At the same time, the anthropological approach to this subject is easily congruent with religious sensibilities as well. I have a strong hunch that this is the reason why JP II approaches the subject of sexuality in his Theology of the Body anthropologically. Like me, he appears to see this as the soundest of foundations for approaching this issue in a society increasingly bereft of its religious moorings.
Frankly, your weblog host's Constitutional mind is appalled at the idea of having to amend the Constitution on such a self-evident matter. Nonetheless, whatever will kill this demon and bury it six hundred and sixty feet underground (as opposed to a mere six feet) will receive his concurrence. The natural instinct of Us at Rerum Novarum is admittedly to oppose a Constitutional amendment on this issue. However, if it is not subordinated to the common good of society and right public order — which appear to require it if there is to be any stopping of the lawlessness on the part of judges and mayors — then We are not being true to the very principles that this weblog seeks to inculcate.
For fidelity to principles is a requirement of this weblog writer — as is the fact that the judges and mayors who are violating federal and state laws in granting such recognition of this abomination will not be adequately checkmated without such a stance being taken by a s ignificant number of people. Ergo, it must be done here as much as anywhere else.
A constitutional question, if I may.
You may.
During my sojourn as a Bircher more than 20 years ago,
For those who are reading this, the person I am dialoguing with was at one time into conspiracy theories. My regular readers are not unaware of my previous allegience to such theories so there is some more common ground between this individual and myself.{6}
I remember an argument made that a restriction of the power of the Federal courts is provided in Article III, Section 2, Clause 2. (This editorial in the Washington Times makes the same point.)
Article III, Section 2, Clause 2 reads as follows:
Clause 2: In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.
The reference to all the other cases before mentioned would it seems to me refer to the areas outlined in the first clause of Article III, Section 2 which reads as follows:
Clause 1: In The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;--to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;--to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;--to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;--to Controversies between two or more States;--between a State and Citizens of another State; --between Citizens of different States, --between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.
This clause was modified by the eleventh amendment which reads as follows:
The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.
Essentially it clarifies the extent to which the United States' judicial power extends and how this does not extend to suits commenced or prosecuted against a United States citizen by a foreigner or someone subject to a foreign nation. That of course does not reflect upon the part of second clause which you are probably referring to: the part about the second clause giving the Congress the authority to enact certain exemptions or regulations on the court's jurisdiction in certain areas as outlined in clause 1 of Article III, Section 2.
Nonetheless, I do not offhand see how this qualifies as a check ordinarily speaking. It would seem to me that it only works as a check when said areas are determined in advance if you will. Otherwise, the judiciary is at the mercy of the legislature and does not function as a balancer in the three branches of government. The check on the judiciary it seems to me is as much self-imposed than anything else. The problem then arises as to what happens when the courts go beyond their boundaries as has become common since the constitutional boondoggle that was Brown vs. Board of Education.{7} But that is a subject for another dialogue perhaps.
However, there is the fact that the judiciary cannot invent law but instead must interpret it. Alexander Hamilton, my closest mirror among the Framers,{8} declared that:
There is no position which depends on clearer principles, than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this, would be to affirm, that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers, may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid. [Federalist Papers #78]
This same principle logically applies to the Supreme Court as well. It would seem to me that the legislature would have the authority as you note to declare a certain judgment by the Supreme Court that so obviously controverted the Constitution as understood by the Framers by a kind of decree akin to a church tribunal declaration of nullity of a marriage. It would essentially be a declaration that the decision so outlined was null and void. And it bears noting that as the judiciary requires the executive branch to enforce its decrees, that a declaration of nullity as I outlined which passed both houses of the legislature and was signed by the President would effectively put a check on the Supreme Court. It would be easier to impeach a couple of justices starting with Ruth Bader Ginsberg. She is easily the most incompetent Supreme Court Justice in the history of the United States.
Part of me would like to see all the justices except Rhenquist, Scalia, and Thomas impeached but I am not sure that is expedient. Nonetheless, at least one of the Court "termites"{9} needs to be impeached if not all three of them. In the case of the Court "whores"{10} it is more difficult to build a case for their impeachment -and to do so would weaken any effort to remove the most notorious of the court termites from office.
Why, in your view, is this clause never invoked as a check on an obviously corrupt judiciary?
I think it is mostly a result of there being a general ignorance of the Constitution all around. How else do you explain the habitual violation of the Tenth Amendment in recent decades??? (Not to mention the simple ignoring of the Ninth Amendment.) When at least seventy-five percent of the federal budget is blatantly unconstitutional and most people have the erroneous belief that something is permissible in Constitutional law simply because the Supreme Court says so,{11} it does not surprise me that recourse to the Constitution on these matters is rare. However, that may be changing in upcoming years as the judicial perversions become more and more blatantly evident.{12} At least I hope so and as long as I have a pulpit of some sorts, I will do my part to encourage that trend of opposition to judicial tyranny from these kinds of domestic enemies of the state.
Why, indeed, do people so readily swallow the notion that the judiciary is indeed entirely exempt from the system of checks and balances? (Muddle-headed conservatives have fallen for this notion as well.) What true harm (besides the propaganda leverage that the agitators of perversity would have upon the mush minds of the perverse and the apathetic) would come to our political order if someone in the Executive Branch of government, either at the Federal or State level, simply refused to enforce any and all unconscionable court orders? After all, who are truly the lawless ones here?
I am of the view that the less the government at any level is involved in the day to day lives of its citizens the better. Therefore, if those who are continually utilizing the courts to promote their private agendas are removed from office or have their decrees rendered as unenforceable, I cannot see what the problem is. As Claude Frederic Bastiat noted, when law and morality contradict one another, the result is a case of a kind of Scylla and Charbydis conundrum:
When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. These two evils are of equal consequence, and it would be difficult for a person to choose between them. [Claude Frederic Bastiat: The Law (c. 1850)]
We are at that very crossroads in this nation now and have been there for some time. (Arguably at least five decades if not longer.)
For the reasons noted above, We at Rerum Novarum will be supporting not only George W. Bush for president this election but also a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. These are two notions which repel this writer by his own admission. Nonetheless, they have been judged by him as necessary if we are not to throw up a serious roadblock on the route to going the way of ancient Rome.
I feel the same way (including holding my nose for Bush as I did in 2000), but given the perversity of these courts, what are even these measures but a stopgap in the end?
Good question.
After all, there are other provisions already in the Constitution that have been long ignored (the 9th & 10th Amendments, which were rendered meaningless in 1865) or conveniently redefined (the 2nd Amendment, but in all fairness, this is a moot point given the modern-day extreme disparity between the weapons that government and citizens respectively have at their disposal).
With regards to the first point, I question your claim that the ninth and tenth amendments were "rendered meaningless in 1865." I am not sure what event you are referring to with that date unless it is the ratifying of the thirteenth amendment abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude in all cases except except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted. If you are thinking of another event or circumstance from 1865 then by all means let me know. As far as the Second Amendment goes, I am quite libertarian on that one but that is a subject for another time perhaps.
These judges will turn a blind eye with impunity towards a "marriage amendment," if there is no serious effort to check them by legislation, refusal of enforcement, or impeachment. I think these latter means would suffice for the job anyway and moreover be far more effective than a Constitutional amendment process, which promises to expend a lot of precious energy for what could well be a Pyhrric victory... .
Well, an effort must be made nonetheless. My puritan notion of the Constitution is offended by preservation of the public order and the common good of society means in order to retain internal consistency in my philosophical weltanschauung that my personal opinion on the matter is to me irrelevant. That probably sounds strange to many of the readers of this note but I am sure that you understand that kind of rationale.
Should any of the foregoing interest you enough to replicate online, please ask me about it first, unless it's just a matter of replying to my constitutional queries publicly. In any case, I wish not to be identified, though I observe that non-identification is your normal policy anyway. (A modified Welborn Protocol request, I guess. For my own part, I have no immediate plans to post this [text] anywhere publicly.)
As you well know, I adjusted your emailed text to conform to your requests on this matter. The areas of more personal nature have been omitted as has your identity at your request. I also took the liberty with part of your previous paragraph (and the subsequent one) to adjust your words so that they did not appear to hint towards your identity by changing a word I detected that you use at times in your public utterances.
Now that I've demonstrated my own capabilities in the loquaciousness department, I will close. (This is the most writing I've done in a while, and I better get back to [my studies] for the time being.) Thank you for your attention. Blessed Triduum and Eastertide.
My pleasure. Thank you for a lucid and well-written email to respond to.
PS With a wry smile I also note the irony of your classification of me just after referencing, in footnote 4, your own loathing of categorizing! But I take no offense whatsoever. To return the irony, inasmuch as I've come to be an "out of the box" person myself, I do see (as I think everyone instinctively sees to some degree or another) not only the utility but the necessity of stereotypes and other generalizations. For what are these but synonyms or approximations of quidditas, and is it not imperative to human intellection to be able to have some answer to the question "quid est?" before one is able to intelligently process the matter in any way?
I agree with this to a point; ergo my qualification of the subject of "language control" earlier in this post.
There is, of course, a danger in their univocal (over)application, as well as the related danger of thinking that everyone's persona is encapsulable under one or a mere few classifications. (Which is doubtlessly why you protest categorizations made of yourself. But you don't need me to remind you of the truly one- or two- dimensional folks out there. Perhaps you've hitherto figured me to be such.)
You have intuited my protestations in this area accurately. And no, I sensed somehow that you are not the average run-of-the-mill trad. I cannot say precisely how I sensed this because I do not know. But over time with interactions with people of divers outlooks, one gets pretty good at intuiting these kinds of things perhaps.
But the opposite extreme, the rejection of stereotypes and generalizations outright, is the greater error, as this negates the process of abstraction that is the essence of human intellection. This society has made a perverse dogma out of anti-generalization — in fact, doubly perverse, since not only does it theoretically reduce the human intellect to the level of animal sense-knowledge, it is also hypocritically and selectively applied only against defenders of the Christian and common-sense Weltanschauung.
As hopefully this post makes clear, I do not disagree with this outlook at all. I see the rejection of categorization to be a rule to follow and one that I adhere to strictly. But that does not mean that there is not an exception to the rule of course. (Even if I do consider such exceptions to be rare by my own admission.) However, my application of this is not one-sided as hopefully my various weblog entries (not to mention other public writings) have made eminently clear.
Notes:
{1} Which is not to say that I lack conviction or the intention to manifest a particular outlook of my own in sundry ways and divers manners of course. (Heck, what would be the point of public discourse if not for the fact that I am expressing a particular point of view???)
{2} To the extent that the period you refer to had any stability of course.
{3} Too complicated of a subject matter to go into here.
{4} This is a subject best dealt with another time.
{5} I am not implying here that you personally are neglecting to do this lest anyone wonder.
{6} I was never a Bircher but I *did* ascribe to a good amount of their viewpoint for a few years.
{7} See this link for some of my views on this linchpin court decision and this link for more on the views of Alexander Hamilton on the role of the judiciary. I plan to do more of these series threads at some point in time. My main focus of them will be from The Federalist Papers on the role of the judiciary in the minds of the Framers. But I digress.
{8} See this link for details.
{9} See this link for details.
{10} See footnote nine.
{11} This is a corollary of one of Claude Frederic Bastiat's observations as I noted in a recent response to my friend Kevin Tierney on the function of law in a just society:
No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree. The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. These two evils are of equal consequence, and it would be difficult for a person to choose between them.
The nature of law is to maintain justice. This is so much the case that, in the minds of the people, law and justice are one and the same thing. There is in all of us a strong disposition to believe that anything lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so widespread that many persons have erroneously held that things are "just" because law makes them so. [Claude Frederic Bastiat: The Law (c. 1850)]
This is the same principle that impairs the view of the average person towards the activism of recent Supreme Courts. Hopefully, people like us can do our parts to ignite a fire among those who are useful for the preservation of our society against this kind of tyranny from the bench.
{12} See this link for one such example of many which could be noted.
(Dialogue With Charles de Nunzio)
This is the third of the four planned responses that I noted in early April that I would be getting to. That leaves the dialogue with Tim Enloe (on foundational presuppositions viz. the existence of "universals") as the last to tend to. When that will be tended to will depend a lot on Tim's availability for that dialogue as well as his willingness to have it. But that is neither here nor there at this time.
To some extent, the principles that guide this response have long been inculcated at this weblog at sundry times and divers manners -most recently HERE. In this post that you are about to read, the words of my dialogue associate will be in red font and my words in regular font. When he cites my previous writings, the text will be in darkgreen. My sources will be in darkblue font. Without further ado, let us get to it...
Dear Mr. McElhinney:
My friends call me Shawn.
By way of directly introducing myself to you, please allow me to bypass the points of disagreement between our perspectives (I understand that you are at least tangentially aware of the existence of my writings) and instead focus upon the entry "On the 2004 Election" in Rerum Novarum last February 26th, with which I largely concur:
... All of this weblog writer's defenses of the three fundamental rights of man (life, faculties, and production essentially) — both in past as well as any future applications of the principle — hinge on the recognition of the importance of considering with any proposal the factor it plays on the public order of society as well as society's common good. Homosexual so-called "marriage" would be a millstone around the neck of the public order and it would kill this civilization as promoting homosexuality to the detriment of marriage has in every extinct culture that preceded us.
You explained this in a little more detail in a later post, and I think I get the idea, although my own emphasis might be different. You observed on March 30th that "civilizations have previously survived contraception and abortion/ infanticide (indeed not without damage), but redefining or undermining marriage as the cornerstone of civilization has always (and will always) result in that civilization not only undergoing damage but also dying out." Noteworthy in this respect is the fact that whereas in previous civilizations it was a case of marriage being undermined, we now behold (thanks to two centuries-plus of egalitarian propaganda emanating from a man-as-god mindset) an effort to redefine it, worse yet, as undermining is a moral perversion, but redefinition is an intellectual perversion besides.
Indeed. Though you may not like the examples I use in an August 2003 blog entry on the underlying weltanschauung of language control, I have a strong sense that you would concur with my main premise which was that [W]hen we get down to brass tacks, all forms of engineering - be it social, philosophical, theological, political, medical, scientific, legal, or otherwise is preceded by verbal engineering. My application of this principle is consistent across the board. Or to quote myself again from August of last year:
[W]hen we let counterfeit philosophies or outlooks coin their own noble terminology, we provide them with a shibboleth of their own to mindlessly parrot and/or cloak themselves in to with greater ease attempt to (and potentially succeed at) confusing the unwary. Allowing them to control the language and eventually they will control the terms of the battle.
And another reason I take this approach was noted in that post as well:
[O]ften those opposed to the view will caricature it in a gross manner and those sympathetic often embrace and magnify the caricature. I for my part want nothing to do with this scuffling nor will I allow others to label me - even if they attempt to do so as a kind of "reference point" in a discussion.{2} Again, I either control the vernacular or we relegate it to a stalemate. The moment I as a rule allow others to do so{3} is the moment that I begin to give control of the arena to someone else. And that my friends is (i) not something I have ever done and (ii) it simply is not going to happen at any time in the future.
The footnotes in the above text read as follows:
{2}To give one example of this, Kevin Tierney sought to do so for categorization purposes in the dialogue I responded to back in early August at this humble weblog.
{3} Barring of course the very rare exception sometimes necessary to establish foundational points for discussing a particular subject matter. However, this is only in the case of interaction with the work of others who cannot be reached - or at least not without profound difficulty. See my essays contra Cardinal Stickler and Fr. Chad Ripperger for examples of this very rare exception to the afore-enunciated rule.
Obviously that I recognize (for tactical or other reasons) certain exceptions is an indicator that there is no such thing as an immutable rule on these matters. There are however principles that construct my rule of discourse if you will and one of them is not ceding to opposing viewpoints the right to define the terms of dialogue. It might sound arrogant but I insist on defining those terms myself or (at the very least) relegating that to a stalemate in finding terms that each party can concur with. It sounds petty but propaganda is a matter of language and perceptions which are generated by images or concepts play a strong role in the matter. I am not saying that I am a propagandist of course{1}; however, as one who knows how propaganda works, I do what I can to not allow myself to be so caricatured by those who disagree with me.
You are right to identify the prospect of radical redefinition of marriage as a primary threat to a civilization's survival, for while the "life issues" (which certainly have their social dimensions) are fundamentally issues of the preservation or extinction of individuals, the institution of marriage exists to foster the perpetuation of the species in the context of a social order, and is therefore of its essence a matter of the common good.
Indeed. And more than the common good (which in and of itself is important) the positive promotion of marriage contributes to the public order of society. By contrast, the denigration of marriage contributes to the denigration of society's public order which is not beneficial to the common good. I am a realist in recognizing that vices of any kind require some kind of outlet lest they cause a greater degree of damage to a society than they would if they were not tolerated. However, tolerance is not the same thing as promotion by any means.
Men can and have lived in inferior degrees of civilization, but there is always something of a vitiation in the quality of life when this happens. (I know well that this is why the last several centuries of the First Millennium in the West are called the "Dark Ages.")
True. However, part of it is also a degree of propaganda against the Catholic Church as a force of stability in that period.{2} There is also the criteria utilized whereby advances in scientific or technological, etc. progress is the core barometer of measurement. I have a problem with this approach in that not all periods of history involve the same degree of genuine progress. And if we utilize progression as the primary criterion of measurement, we are stuck bowing to the altar of the so-called "enlightenment" period of history which has a significant amount of dross mixed in with the gold as I see it.
The rare individual exceptions notwithstanding (and even Eric Rudolph could take but only so many years of isolation), Donne is right: "no man is an island," hence the critical stake any human being has in the fate of the civilization in which he exists.
Yes. Man is a social animal. I noted towards the end of my essay on Christian Unity and the Role of Authority (circa January 2001) this factor as it pertained to religious subject matter in the following words:
Environment, culture and other factors shape us all and mould our thinking in different ways. Because of the necessity of unity as an identifiable trait of truth, religious convictions in a large part depend on the social influences that shape us from the time we are born and throughout our lifetimes. It is foolish to claim that we are in any way free from these and other influences impacting our paradigms of thought... All too often the presumption is made that outside influences are not factors in how we view issues. I used to reiterate to the atheists and agnostics that I was dialoguing with in 1999-2000 (on message boards) that "no one's philosophical, scientific, theological, sociological views (or any other subject matter) is formed in a vacuum." The sooner people recognize this, the easier it is to dialogue with them productively.
Where I might differ with your analysis is in my belief that this process of redefinition has already long ago begun, in which, interestingly enough, I find support from a Methodist minister's recent column in The Wall Street Journal.
I presume you are referring to this column.
In our culture, the decomposition of marriage began with the acceptance of divorce and contraception, for already with these things came the first redefinition of marriage, from its Christian conception of an irrevocable sacramental bond primarily oriented to the common good of society (namely through the begetting and competent rearing of offspring), to an at-will contract between a man and a woman oriented to the (perceived) private good of the two individuals, which may or may not (at their discretion) involve progeny. (Herein we see the advent of abortion as the extension of contraception.)
What I see it as is essentially one imbalanced notion of marriage being replaced with another. It became a matter of redressing one imbalance via overstressing an area of common neglect to the detriment of one area where there was no shortage of historical emphasis.{3} And because the area of newer emphasis was not viewed as necessarily connected with the previous area of emphasis, an unnecessary dichotomy was created which has fostered so many of the problems we have seen in recent decades. So while I do not disagree with your stated position in its essence, there may be some details I see in the matrix that you do not. I say "may" because if memory serves, you do not take the garden variety viewpoint on this issue in all of its parameters that the more extreme of the self-styled "traditionalists" do.{4}
Now, the fact that it remained, in this view, a matter involving one man and one woman not otherwise contracturally obliged, served to preserve a fair resemblance of the institution's façade, thus, in effect, a "transsubstantiation" of sorts: the externals remained (somewhat) as before, but the substance thereof, i.e., in the order of principle, entirely gutted and fradulently substituted.
Agreed. I was actually pondering the "transubstantiation" analogy myself before reading your enunciation of it in print.
Alas, it would only be a matter of time before the rigor of logic would assert itself and force the process of this redefinition to its completion.
The redefinition left in a nebulous formulary many areas of previous emphasis as you note but without logical connexion to one another. In short, again we concur.
Hence, given the fact of the sodomite movement's rise in the context of our culture's previous divorcement of sex, marriage, and progeny each from the integral economy these elements share in sane societies (this "Lambda rising" explainable by the fact that with Divine and natural law discredited, and sex redefined as an instrument of the individual's gratification, there was no cogent objection remaining to any method of such gratification, whatsoever it may be), it is unsurprisingly this unsavory element that is leading the charge to the second and final stage of this redefinition of marriage, one that utterly demolishes the institution's externals to more perfectly and logically match with the ersatz internal principles already accepted.
I cannot disagree with your take there. I view it essentially as previously certain deviant behaviours were given societal outlets but were not at the same time promoted or given anything resembling a platform of equivalence with marriage in society. Once marriage became seen as "one option among many of equal value" if you will, where we are at now was an inevitability.
It is precisely this effort of reconfiguring the externals of the institution of marriage, therefore, that is provoking alarm. Rightly so, and the trauma and collective disorientation resulting from the sense-perceptible reality of the equivocation of unnatural vice with virtue, alongside the ugly realities that shall pertain to these perverse permutations of "family," will surely be our societal coup de grace, as you say. But indeed, there needed to be alarm and resistance when this process began some 40-odd years ago.
Spoken with the precision of 20-20 hindsight of course. We cannot discount that there was an attempt made by some people who were well-intentioned to redress a historical imbalance in light of contemporary situations. I do not feel that such radical paradigm shifts are necessary if people are more ressourcement oriented. However, such approaches are unfortunately rare it seems and most people's lack of interest in history means (as Santayana's dictum well noted) that history will repeat itself.
We now behold something akin to a fire well into its advanced stages, after it has thoroughly consumed the interior but provoking alarm only when the exterior shell is at last threatened!
[N.B. By "externals" here I do not mean accidentals, such as is the normal usage. Three elements comprise the essence of marriage: who does what for what purpose. By "externals" I refer here to the who element, which is the first thing perceived and more readily registers in one's sensibilities than the what and the what for, these latter requiring progressively more reflection to realize. These last two were entirely changed in the first redefinition of marriage, but the who was left intact... until now.]
I agree that separation of progeny as the root and matrix of marriage is what caused the problems we see today. However, it is difficult to understand what the forces were that resulted in this paradigm shift if all constituent factors in the equation prior to four decades ago are not taken into consideration.{5}
Whatever his convoluted rationale for coming to the defense of marriage is, President Bush has nonetheless done so and no one else with any reasonable chance of being president has taken his stance on this crucial issue. And while Professor Miller is wrong about making abortion the defining issue over and against numerous other issues that more directly impact the existence of this nation; nonetheless marriage is not only the defining issue for defending the existence of this nation but it also is the issue for defending the existence of all civilization. Therefore, it requires a circling of the wagons and no concessions of any kind whatsoever.
Mindful of what I just said above, it is nonetheless true that "better late than never" for this effort at defending civilization.
Indeed.
Furthermore, while abortion is perhaps the most blatant example of our society's institutionalization of murder — one of the "sins crying to Heaven for vengeance," after all; hence easy to see why so many people are inclined to put such emphasis on it — I agree with you that the forthcoming institutionalization of sodomy is yet worse and may well seal our society's fate, and not just from natural causes alone.
Yes.
I have long held our society's greatest problem to be its now-total refusal of the rights of God [here leaving aside polemics concerning the original intent of the Founders and the Catholic confessional state], which in combination with "completing the collection" of the Sins Crying to Heaven for Vengeance (we already have abortion and the euthanizing of the Terri Schiavos of the world; the tax laws and P.C. social re-engineering policies do much to oppress the poor and defraud the laborer of his just wages) by the formal and unconditional acceptance of sodomy that a redefinition of marriage to its benefit would occasion, would give us no ready reason to expect the hand of Divine Justice to continue to be stayed in regard to us anymore.
True. However, I am sure you recognize that large movements are usually the result of small shifts in philosophical paradigmatic presuppositions. Another way of saying it is that small adjustments in how things are viewed a priori have a way of causing a ripple effect throughout society. And this is a core issue with deep ramifications for society. Ergo, if we right the ship of society onto proper course in this area, it could be the catalyst for the kind of profound societal reflections that result in constructive positive change for the better. And a proper (and integrated) understanding of the role of God in society cannot be but a boon to the public order of society and its common good as well. As I have noted in a more recent response to my friend Kevin Tierney:
Years of dialogue with people of every conceivable outlook have emphasized to me that precision in the absence of workable definitions is needed. And this issue needs to be approached anthropologically more than anything if it is to be decisively confuted.
But I view this as an adjunct to religious beliefs as well. In short, we can approach this anthropologically with all people -even those of good will who are not religious in nature. And in doing this, we can formulate the strongest possible opposition. At the same time, the anthropological approach to this subject is easily congruent with religious sensibilities as well. I have a strong hunch that this is the reason why JP II approaches the subject of sexuality in his Theology of the Body anthropologically. Like me, he appears to see this as the soundest of foundations for approaching this issue in a society increasingly bereft of its religious moorings.
Frankly, your weblog host's Constitutional mind is appalled at the idea of having to amend the Constitution on such a self-evident matter. Nonetheless, whatever will kill this demon and bury it six hundred and sixty feet underground (as opposed to a mere six feet) will receive his concurrence. The natural instinct of Us at Rerum Novarum is admittedly to oppose a Constitutional amendment on this issue. However, if it is not subordinated to the common good of society and right public order — which appear to require it if there is to be any stopping of the lawlessness on the part of judges and mayors — then We are not being true to the very principles that this weblog seeks to inculcate.
For fidelity to principles is a requirement of this weblog writer — as is the fact that the judges and mayors who are violating federal and state laws in granting such recognition of this abomination will not be adequately checkmated without such a stance being taken by a s ignificant number of people. Ergo, it must be done here as much as anywhere else.
A constitutional question, if I may.
You may.
During my sojourn as a Bircher more than 20 years ago,
For those who are reading this, the person I am dialoguing with was at one time into conspiracy theories. My regular readers are not unaware of my previous allegience to such theories so there is some more common ground between this individual and myself.{6}
I remember an argument made that a restriction of the power of the Federal courts is provided in Article III, Section 2, Clause 2. (This editorial in the Washington Times makes the same point.)
Article III, Section 2, Clause 2 reads as follows:
Clause 2: In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.
The reference to all the other cases before mentioned would it seems to me refer to the areas outlined in the first clause of Article III, Section 2 which reads as follows:
Clause 1: In The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;--to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;--to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;--to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;--to Controversies between two or more States;--between a State and Citizens of another State; --between Citizens of different States, --between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.
This clause was modified by the eleventh amendment which reads as follows:
The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.
Essentially it clarifies the extent to which the United States' judicial power extends and how this does not extend to suits commenced or prosecuted against a United States citizen by a foreigner or someone subject to a foreign nation. That of course does not reflect upon the part of second clause which you are probably referring to: the part about the second clause giving the Congress the authority to enact certain exemptions or regulations on the court's jurisdiction in certain areas as outlined in clause 1 of Article III, Section 2.
Nonetheless, I do not offhand see how this qualifies as a check ordinarily speaking. It would seem to me that it only works as a check when said areas are determined in advance if you will. Otherwise, the judiciary is at the mercy of the legislature and does not function as a balancer in the three branches of government. The check on the judiciary it seems to me is as much self-imposed than anything else. The problem then arises as to what happens when the courts go beyond their boundaries as has become common since the constitutional boondoggle that was Brown vs. Board of Education.{7} But that is a subject for another dialogue perhaps.
However, there is the fact that the judiciary cannot invent law but instead must interpret it. Alexander Hamilton, my closest mirror among the Framers,{8} declared that:
There is no position which depends on clearer principles, than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this, would be to affirm, that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers, may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid. [Federalist Papers #78]
This same principle logically applies to the Supreme Court as well. It would seem to me that the legislature would have the authority as you note to declare a certain judgment by the Supreme Court that so obviously controverted the Constitution as understood by the Framers by a kind of decree akin to a church tribunal declaration of nullity of a marriage. It would essentially be a declaration that the decision so outlined was null and void. And it bears noting that as the judiciary requires the executive branch to enforce its decrees, that a declaration of nullity as I outlined which passed both houses of the legislature and was signed by the President would effectively put a check on the Supreme Court. It would be easier to impeach a couple of justices starting with Ruth Bader Ginsberg. She is easily the most incompetent Supreme Court Justice in the history of the United States.
Part of me would like to see all the justices except Rhenquist, Scalia, and Thomas impeached but I am not sure that is expedient. Nonetheless, at least one of the Court "termites"{9} needs to be impeached if not all three of them. In the case of the Court "whores"{10} it is more difficult to build a case for their impeachment -and to do so would weaken any effort to remove the most notorious of the court termites from office.
Why, in your view, is this clause never invoked as a check on an obviously corrupt judiciary?
I think it is mostly a result of there being a general ignorance of the Constitution all around. How else do you explain the habitual violation of the Tenth Amendment in recent decades??? (Not to mention the simple ignoring of the Ninth Amendment.) When at least seventy-five percent of the federal budget is blatantly unconstitutional and most people have the erroneous belief that something is permissible in Constitutional law simply because the Supreme Court says so,{11} it does not surprise me that recourse to the Constitution on these matters is rare. However, that may be changing in upcoming years as the judicial perversions become more and more blatantly evident.{12} At least I hope so and as long as I have a pulpit of some sorts, I will do my part to encourage that trend of opposition to judicial tyranny from these kinds of domestic enemies of the state.
Why, indeed, do people so readily swallow the notion that the judiciary is indeed entirely exempt from the system of checks and balances? (Muddle-headed conservatives have fallen for this notion as well.) What true harm (besides the propaganda leverage that the agitators of perversity would have upon the mush minds of the perverse and the apathetic) would come to our political order if someone in the Executive Branch of government, either at the Federal or State level, simply refused to enforce any and all unconscionable court orders? After all, who are truly the lawless ones here?
I am of the view that the less the government at any level is involved in the day to day lives of its citizens the better. Therefore, if those who are continually utilizing the courts to promote their private agendas are removed from office or have their decrees rendered as unenforceable, I cannot see what the problem is. As Claude Frederic Bastiat noted, when law and morality contradict one another, the result is a case of a kind of Scylla and Charbydis conundrum:
When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. These two evils are of equal consequence, and it would be difficult for a person to choose between them. [Claude Frederic Bastiat: The Law (c. 1850)]
We are at that very crossroads in this nation now and have been there for some time. (Arguably at least five decades if not longer.)
For the reasons noted above, We at Rerum Novarum will be supporting not only George W. Bush for president this election but also a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. These are two notions which repel this writer by his own admission. Nonetheless, they have been judged by him as necessary if we are not to throw up a serious roadblock on the route to going the way of ancient Rome.
I feel the same way (including holding my nose for Bush as I did in 2000), but given the perversity of these courts, what are even these measures but a stopgap in the end?
Good question.
After all, there are other provisions already in the Constitution that have been long ignored (the 9th & 10th Amendments, which were rendered meaningless in 1865) or conveniently redefined (the 2nd Amendment, but in all fairness, this is a moot point given the modern-day extreme disparity between the weapons that government and citizens respectively have at their disposal).
With regards to the first point, I question your claim that the ninth and tenth amendments were "rendered meaningless in 1865." I am not sure what event you are referring to with that date unless it is the ratifying of the thirteenth amendment abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude in all cases except except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted. If you are thinking of another event or circumstance from 1865 then by all means let me know. As far as the Second Amendment goes, I am quite libertarian on that one but that is a subject for another time perhaps.
These judges will turn a blind eye with impunity towards a "marriage amendment," if there is no serious effort to check them by legislation, refusal of enforcement, or impeachment. I think these latter means would suffice for the job anyway and moreover be far more effective than a Constitutional amendment process, which promises to expend a lot of precious energy for what could well be a Pyhrric victory... .
Well, an effort must be made nonetheless. My puritan notion of the Constitution is offended by preservation of the public order and the common good of society means in order to retain internal consistency in my philosophical weltanschauung that my personal opinion on the matter is to me irrelevant. That probably sounds strange to many of the readers of this note but I am sure that you understand that kind of rationale.
Should any of the foregoing interest you enough to replicate online, please ask me about it first, unless it's just a matter of replying to my constitutional queries publicly. In any case, I wish not to be identified, though I observe that non-identification is your normal policy anyway. (A modified Welborn Protocol request, I guess. For my own part, I have no immediate plans to post this [text] anywhere publicly.)
As you well know, I adjusted your emailed text to conform to your requests on this matter. The areas of more personal nature have been omitted as has your identity at your request. I also took the liberty with part of your previous paragraph (and the subsequent one) to adjust your words so that they did not appear to hint towards your identity by changing a word I detected that you use at times in your public utterances.
Now that I've demonstrated my own capabilities in the loquaciousness department, I will close. (This is the most writing I've done in a while, and I better get back to [my studies] for the time being.) Thank you for your attention. Blessed Triduum and Eastertide.
My pleasure. Thank you for a lucid and well-written email to respond to.
PS With a wry smile I also note the irony of your classification of me just after referencing, in footnote 4, your own loathing of categorizing! But I take no offense whatsoever. To return the irony, inasmuch as I've come to be an "out of the box" person myself, I do see (as I think everyone instinctively sees to some degree or another) not only the utility but the necessity of stereotypes and other generalizations. For what are these but synonyms or approximations of quidditas, and is it not imperative to human intellection to be able to have some answer to the question "quid est?" before one is able to intelligently process the matter in any way?
I agree with this to a point; ergo my qualification of the subject of "language control" earlier in this post.
There is, of course, a danger in their univocal (over)application, as well as the related danger of thinking that everyone's persona is encapsulable under one or a mere few classifications. (Which is doubtlessly why you protest categorizations made of yourself. But you don't need me to remind you of the truly one- or two- dimensional folks out there. Perhaps you've hitherto figured me to be such.)
You have intuited my protestations in this area accurately. And no, I sensed somehow that you are not the average run-of-the-mill trad. I cannot say precisely how I sensed this because I do not know. But over time with interactions with people of divers outlooks, one gets pretty good at intuiting these kinds of things perhaps.
But the opposite extreme, the rejection of stereotypes and generalizations outright, is the greater error, as this negates the process of abstraction that is the essence of human intellection. This society has made a perverse dogma out of anti-generalization — in fact, doubly perverse, since not only does it theoretically reduce the human intellect to the level of animal sense-knowledge, it is also hypocritically and selectively applied only against defenders of the Christian and common-sense Weltanschauung.
As hopefully this post makes clear, I do not disagree with this outlook at all. I see the rejection of categorization to be a rule to follow and one that I adhere to strictly. But that does not mean that there is not an exception to the rule of course. (Even if I do consider such exceptions to be rare by my own admission.) However, my application of this is not one-sided as hopefully my various weblog entries (not to mention other public writings) have made eminently clear.
Notes:
{1} Which is not to say that I lack conviction or the intention to manifest a particular outlook of my own in sundry ways and divers manners of course. (Heck, what would be the point of public discourse if not for the fact that I am expressing a particular point of view???)
{2} To the extent that the period you refer to had any stability of course.
{3} Too complicated of a subject matter to go into here.
{4} This is a subject best dealt with another time.
{5} I am not implying here that you personally are neglecting to do this lest anyone wonder.
{6} I was never a Bircher but I *did* ascribe to a good amount of their viewpoint for a few years.
{7} See this link for some of my views on this linchpin court decision and this link for more on the views of Alexander Hamilton on the role of the judiciary. I plan to do more of these series threads at some point in time. My main focus of them will be from The Federalist Papers on the role of the judiciary in the minds of the Framers. But I digress.
{8} See this link for details.
{9} See this link for details.
{10} See footnote nine.
{11} This is a corollary of one of Claude Frederic Bastiat's observations as I noted in a recent response to my friend Kevin Tierney on the function of law in a just society:
No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree. The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. These two evils are of equal consequence, and it would be difficult for a person to choose between them.
The nature of law is to maintain justice. This is so much the case that, in the minds of the people, law and justice are one and the same thing. There is in all of us a strong disposition to believe that anything lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so widespread that many persons have erroneously held that things are "just" because law makes them so. [Claude Frederic Bastiat: The Law (c. 1850)]
This is the same principle that impairs the view of the average person towards the activism of recent Supreme Courts. Hopefully, people like us can do our parts to ignite a fire among those who are useful for the preservation of our society against this kind of tyranny from the bench.
{12} See this link for one such example of many which could be noted.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)