Category Archives: Natural Law

A Republic, if You Can Keep It

America, Constitution, Federalism, Founding Fathers, Individual Rights, Law, Natural Law

Yesterday Bush signed “The Military Commissions Act of 2006.” I went in search for a libertarian analysis, but found only a few splenetic screeds. While perfectly understandable, these execrations do nothing to dissect the implications of the Bill for Americans. As I read them, I knew I ought to be furious about torture. However, too little was being said about the erosion of due process, constitutional protections and the accretion of executive power.

Libertarians need to cite chapter and verse in the actual Bill and then logically and calmly explain its implications for Americans. (It is very possible that, because of his visceral contempt for the Constitution as a so-called statist document, the anarchist can’t rise to the occasion. However, he may want to bear in mind that to the extent the Constitution comports with natural law, it’s both laudable and legitimate.)

In any case, right or wrong, to security-crazed Americans, the constant squealing about torture is a signal to switch off, as it conjures the namby-pamby liberal whose concerns are, overwhelmingly, with the “evil doers.” Readers are likelier to be swayed by arguments that address the possibility of detention without trial of US citizens and the sundering of habeas corpus and the separation of powers.

Finally, I found this, which does just that. This piece from Reason offers a gist of the administration’s impetus vis-a-vis the Bill. This next piece, however, is unhelpful. Libertarians will get its Bastiatian thrust, but, bar some left-liberals, the rest will find it smarmy and juvenile. You don’t have to agree with everything Jonathan Turley says to find him inspiring. (I certainly don’t. Contra Turley, America is a republic, not a democracy, and hence not meant to manufacture “majoritarian” outcomes. And France’s centralized system is the truly ugly system.) There’s a precis of a talk he gave here. Or you can listen to him here.

Letter of the Week: Natural Rights Vs. Sharia

Islam, Natural Law

I have been thinking quite a bit about Islam. One difference, I think, boils down to this: Catholic Christian thinkers eventually reached a consensus that natural law must be derived, at least to some significant degree, from the nature of man—that is derived through reason, from the very nature of God’s creature or God’s creation. While there was no unanimity, Catholic thought—which WAS western philosophy because theology and philosophy were not split, but rather were merged essentially from the beginning of Christendom until perhaps about 1600 years after Christ—eventually moved in this general direction.

It was not always clear that the Church would move in this direction. Certainly Duns Scotus and William of Occam and others tended to see natural law as something imposed from above by the wording of scripture. But they lost out. Aquinas and the Spanish scholastic Francis Suarez were important in this debate and indeed Gabriel Vasquez, who was a Spanish contemporary of Suarez, viewed the rational nature of man as the primary source of natural law and man’s obligation to obey the natural law. You move from that base easily along to Grotius, Pufendorf and Locke, and the idea of rights, freedom, and so forth.

Islam clearly did not follow that road. Law was a product of the word of God—certainly this is how I understand Sharia. While there are other factors—e.g. Christ’s standing outside the state, being neither a ruler nor a military man, and Mohammed being within the state as it were, a ruler and a military man—certainly the view of law is an important distinction. Islam, I think, views law as something that is imposed from the top down, that is they believe in something consistent with legal positivism; law is set out by the authority, and it must be followed or punishment follows. Whereas Catholic thought laid the critically important groundwork for the notion that law comes—in some significant way—from the bottom up; that is that the rules that should govern society come from the nature of man as derived by human reason, thereby placing reason in the forefront of Catholic political and legal thought.

— M.S., Canadian lawyer, friend

The Liberal Worldview: We’re all Just Monkeys

Ethics, Morality, Natural Law

When liberals fought tooth and nail to dehydrate and starve Terry Schiavo for her imperfections, I wrote that “What distinguishes civilized beings from animals, primitive societies, and liberals is that they don’t see nature as an exemplar of all that is fine and good.”

Watch this hateful little video doing the rounds on the Internet. Its narrator—Ernest Cline—has a tinny robotic voice, which you just know is attached to a smug mug with trendy eyewear. He goes through a litany of human achievements and their alleged, attendant evils, and concludes contemptuously: “We’re all just monkeys.”

Note how irrational the liberal philosophy is: This primate (Ernest Cline) can’t tell you logically why he thinks the specimens that designed the microchip and painted the Mona Lisa are no better than monkeys—creatures that have never created anything, live in trees, throw coconuts, and hoot to communicate. There is no rational basis upon which to equate man and monkey. Since the position is irrational, it is also manifestly false. Feelings—not reason—inform this hackneyed and deeply silly narrative (disguised as sophisticated, like all liberal dogma).

Ergo, the reason Cline feels (for he can’t be thinking) that man is merely a glorified ape is because he hates people and civilization and idolizes animals and primitive life.

Refresher readings on human rights and animals are here:

a href=”http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35022″ target=”_blank”>No Rights for Animals

How Much is that Doggie in the Window?

Gaga for Gaia

Shark Tales