An argument against drug legalization

Provided by Peter Hitchens, Christopher Hitchens' younger and wiser brother, over at his blog at the London Mail Online:  The Barmy Logic of the Drug Legalizers. As our own culture seems to be slouching every more closely to the point of drug legalization, it is ever more important to remind folks of the real dangers posed by drug abuse -- even so-called "soft drugs" are not trivial things.

What should conservatives conserve?

Pat Buchanan asks that question in an insightful op-ed piece available here:  What Is It We Wish to Conserve?  Back in the day, Frank Meyer criticized Russell Kirk's approach to conservatism because to Meyer it seemed unable to distinguish the positive aspects of a patrimony from the negative ones.  We are now at a point in our culture and society where conservatives are faced with that same basic critique. Not everything in American society is worth conserving -- much of our current culture is in fact blatantly destructive. Of course, where Kirk was right was in his insistence that ideology cannot be the litmus test by which the winnowing of a culture is carried out. Principle, yes -- the Permanent Things, yes -- but not ideology.

The sad state of conservative intellectualism

That topic is explored by Spengler in this post:  The Scandal of the Secular Mind.  As he puts it:

The fact is that the conservative intellectual elite is sadly out of touch with the conservative base, and especially the evangelical Christians who comprise just over a quarter of American voters. During the past couple of weeks I have spent a good twenty hours on the air talking about my new book, How Civilizations Die (and why Islam Is Dying, Too), mostly on self-described Christian stations. And I’ve been talking to a lot of Orthodox Jews as well, my home audience.

Talking to religious conservatives is like breathing pure intellectual oxygen. They know that there is a basic difference between a nation committed to the biblical concept of individual sanctity, and one based on mere submission. They may or may not not know Thucydides, but they know the Bible, which is a far better source-book for statecraft. In short, the religious have a better education in political philosophy than their secular counterparts. They get the joke right off, while the secular types waste the declining days of their careers trying to defend the indefensible.

Indeed, a working knowledge of the Old Testament provides a fantastic education not only in politics, but in the workings of the human heart -- one of the key components sorely lacking in most political commentary these days.  And the point that Spengler makes about individual sanctity is spot on.  Observant Christians and Jews understand that human dignity comes from the hand of God, who made humankind in His image.

Without that understanding, it becomes very hard not to fall into tyranny.  Virtually every modern society that has abandoned that premise has eventually moved away from the notion of individual rights and toward the twin notions of social engineering and government control.  Freedom for its own sake is license.  Freedom bounded by custom & tradition grounded in the Judeo-Christian experience & the concept of the rule of law is ordered liberty.  And ordered liberty is the only kind of freedom that doesn't eventually degenerate into tyranny or chaos.

Update #1:  the idea that the rights of human beings originate not with the state but with God used to be understood across the political spectrum, as demonstrated by this portion of the inaugural speech by the last Democrat president with Burkean tendencies:



Our entire political class used to embrace that truth. Our Founders certainly did. But today? Not so much. And that is the ultimate root of the intellectual and moral decadence that plagues our society, decadence that afflicts not only the Left, but increasing the Right as well.

Update #2:  I've been linked to by The Other McCain!  Thanks for the link, Smitty! This blog is now experiencing what I like to call a "Smitty-lanche!"  Welcome to the readers of The Other McCain blog.  If you liked this post, explore around here a bit and you'll find more like it.

Viewpoint discrimination and the question of religious worship

There's an interesting case trying to get to the Supreme Court for review regarding the limits of the Establishment Clause.  Here's a summary of the case from SCOTUSblog. Bears watching to see if the Court will accept review of the case.

Could legal education improve with a moneyball approach?

The TaxProf law blog raises that question and provides some very interesting analysis on the subject.  The simple fact is, legal education and the lawyer marketplace has taken a huge hit since the downturn of 2008, and the old model of both is in need of some adjustment.  I don't know if the moneyball approach is the way to go, but I'm glad to see that people are talking about how to reinvigorate the profession and its educational system in an inventive way.

Benjamin Franklin's version of the Lord's Prayer

Like Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin was fascinated with the New Testament; Franklin had on occasion considered bringing out his own edited edition of the New Testament, but that idea, sadly, never came to fruition. Franklin did, however, edit the Lord's Prayer, commonly known as the Our Father, to better reflect what he thought the true meaning of the prayer was. Those who consider Franklin to be a deist would do well to ponder the words he chose to use in this prayer, words that indicate that God is both our provider and our judge:

1.  Heavenly Father, 

2.  May all revere thee, 

3.  And become thy dutiful children and faithful subjects. 

4.  May thy laws be obeyed on earth, as perfectly as they are in heaven. 

5.  Provide for us this day, as thou hast hitherto daily done. 

6.  Forgive us our trespasses, and enable us to forgive those who offend us.  

7.  Keep us out of temptation, and deliver us from evil. 

Taken from In God We Trust:  The Religious Beliefs and Ideas of the American Founding Fathers, edited by Norman Cousins (Harper & Brothers: 1958), pg. 21.

Catholicism, classical liberalism, and the American Constitution

An interesting take on those topics can be found in this post over at the Ius Honorarium blog: Catholicized America. (Hat tip to The Pittsford Perennialist.) The author takes aim at theories that attempt to demonstrate that the federal Constitution is an embodiment of traditionalist natural law ideas, while at the same time noting that the framers of the Constitution were shaped by such ideas, even if the authors of the document were themselves often unaware of those those ideas influence on the text they were drafting.  Here's a passage to inspire you to head over and read the whole thing:

I remain skeptical of the Catholic project of rehabilitating the Constitutional text in the hope of defeating the individualism and other excesses which many lament as a cancer on society. At the same time, an “originalist” approach to the Constitution is probably more likely to yield results favorable to traditionalist Catholics than otherwise. This is mainly because the Constitution, according to most originalists, does not contain binding prescriptions on many of the hot-button social and moral issues which concern Catholics. The “original Constitution,” generally speaking, leaves more room for the states to experiment and could, in theory, give rise to the type of localism which many traditionalist Catholics believe to be, on the basis of Catholic Social Teaching, more legitimate than our current, centralized form of government. But all of this still falls far short of turning the U.S. or any of its states into a confessional stronghold. Despite revisionist claims to the contrary, America was never on the verge of becoming a “Catholic country.” That fable, which seems to have some purchase amongst certain traditionalists, is more often deployed to decry Vatican II than paint an accurate picture of historical reality.

The post also has a delightful little dig at the more dogmatic fringes of libertarian constitutional theory at the end, which I consider an added bonus! Well worth a read.

Why Catholic churches should be beautiful

"Beauty is the language of worship.  Beauty is the language of the soul, and how can our religion penetrate to the heart of our soul unless it is beautiful? How can the liturgy be celebrated beautifully in a church that is harsh, utilitarian, nasty and cheap?" So asks Fr. Dwight Longenecker in this post over at his always worth reading blog: Why Catholics Should Build Beautiful Churches. Go read it all.

My objections to libertarianism

Serge over at A Conservative Blog for Peace has generously linked to a number of my recent posts -- thanks Serge! -- while commenting on my own critical views about libertarianism. In summary, Serge says that I think that libertarianism is selfish. I would phrase things a bit differently. I concede that many libertarians are fantastic people, self-giving, concerned with the well-being of their neighbors and committed to helping others. It is beyond question that some libertarians fall into the trap of selfishness, however in this they are far from alone. All human beings and all human philosophies are tinged with selfishness, a result of original sin. That sinful condition is, unfortunately, part and parcel of the human consideration.

Libertarianism's problems are more extensive than the intractable problem of human selfishness, a problem with which everyone, even conservatives, are afflicted. Yet, there is one way in which the problem of selfishness poses a unique difficulty for libertarianism:  libertarianism elevates that sin from a vice to a virtue. That is the spiritual problem undergirding libertarianism, it fails to correctly discern vice from virtue.

Libertarianism's intellectual problems stem from this spiritual deficiency.  Once the understanding of virtue is lost, libertarianism falls into the pit of denying that the government has a positive, if limited, role to play in protecting the common good of society.  This idea -- the bedrock principle of Catholic social teaching (which, contra Serge, is in fact part of the doctrine of the Church) -- flows directly from another principle of Catholic social teaching, the idea of social solidarity. We are not rugged individualists going through life, but are instead all connected by the bonds of community.

These two principles, the common good and social solidarity, are the keys to both Catholic social teaching and the conservative approach to politics.  One merely has to read Burke or John Adams to see that.  Unfortunately, this Burkean (and I would argue Catholic) approach to political order is anathema to libertarianism. Unable to correctly discern the proper role of government as a protector of the common good and a protector of social solidarity, libertarianism is unable to discern proper government action from improper government over-reach. It becomes an ideology flailing wildly against both government abuses and critical government functions. Its capacity for nuanced discernment is blighted.

Now, there is an additional principle of the Burkean approach to political order that has some overlap with libertarianism, namely, the principle of subsidiarity.  This idea posits that government should consist of multiple decentralized layers of government, with each tier of government dealing with the problems proper to its sphere of authority.  Hence, local problems should be resolved by local governments, regional problems resolved by regional governments, national problems by national governments.  In American politics, this principle of subsidiarity manifests itself in the concept of federalism, in the division of powers between the state and federal govenrments.

As a Burkean conservative, I affirm all three concepts:  the common good, social solidarity and subsidiarity.  My truck with libertarianism involves that ideology's denial of the first two principles. By denying the notion of the common good and social solidarity, libertarianism reveals itself to be a non-conservative political philosophy -- and one that is incompatible with Catholic social teaching.

That said, I find libertarian writers to be well worth reading, particularly in their defense of the principle of subsidiarity. It is on that principle that conservatives and libertarians can agree.  But regarding where libertarianism diverges from the principles of the common good and social solidarity, a Burkean conservative must stand and issue a respectful but firm dissent to such ideological errors.

Physics, Thomas Aquinas and the big questions

That's what discussed in this thoughtful post from the always interesting Tertium Quid over at From Burke to Kirk and Beyond...: Dark energy, accelerating expansion of the universe, etc.  Far from being a sterile & cold discipline, physics partakes of the great humanistic undertaking of understanding the universe and our place in it, as Tertium Quid explains so well.  Well worth a read.

Reagan's agenda in his own words

As the Republican campaigns continue, it might be helpful for Republicans, conservatives and libertarians to consider the public ideas and principles of the most successful Republican president in recent memory, Ronald Reagan.  With that in mind, no better introduction to those concepts can be found that Reagan's own key public addresses.  Here are three addresses from across Reagan's political career, starting with his 1964 address in support of Barry Goldwater's presidential candidacy and ending with Reagan's Farewell Address in 1989.

Reagan's "Time for Choosing" Speech, 1964:



Reagan's First Inaugural Address, 1981:



Reagan's Farewell Address, 1989:

How North Dakota became an energy producing powerhouse

The transformation of that state into one of the major energy producers in the world is detailed in this article over at the Wall Street Journal online:  How North Dakota Became Saudi Arabia.  (Hat tip to Instapundit.) Well worth a read. The key to North Dakota's success has three characteristics: new exploration, new drilling techniques and the will to develop the resources that are there. Imagine that!

Related item:  the Pittsford Perennialist wonders if the whole "peak oil" thing is essentially a fraud concocted by big oil and its enablers to justify high prices for fossil fuels.  Here's his post on that topic:  Alexander Cockburn on "Peak Oil."  Given what we're seeing about new oils finds in Canada, the American midwest, the Gulf Coast and off both shores of Latin America, not to mention places like Israel and Vietnam, that doesn't sound like the craziest theory I've ever heard.