Category Archives: Natural Law

America Was Never Meant To Be A Raw, Ripe Democracy

Conservatism, Constitution, Democracy, Federalism, Founding Fathers, Natural Law

In the context of last week’s column against democracy, it’s important to remember that, “the reason the American democracy has been more successful than others is precisely because “the fathers of the American Republic devised an instrument of government unparalleled as a conservative power for ordered liberty.” (“The Conservative Mind” by Russell Kirk.)

Everything in the American Constitution was wisely designed to constrain raw democracy. A “great part of that accomplishment results from the wise conservatism of the Federal Constitution,” which avoids “the peril of a single assembly,” recognizes “the rights of several* states and the necessity for limiting the power of positive legislation.”

However, warned Kirk, the father of American conservatism, “[I]f there is a weak point anywhere in this “artificial reservoir,” “the mighty force which it controls will burst through it and spread destruction far and near.”

(“The Conservative Mind” by Russell Kirk, p. 335)

And so it has.

* The meaning of “several” in this sentence is “individual,” I believe. 

** Image is of the guillotine, French democracy in action

UPDATED (10/1): NEW COLUMN: GOP Betrayal: The Cross Examination That Never Was

Constitution, Criminal Injustice, Justice, Law, Natural Law, Republicans

THE NEW COLUMN IS “GOP Betrayal: The Cross Examination That Never Was.” It’s now on WND.com and the Unz Review.

An excerpt:

By the time this column goes to press, Christine Blah-Blah Ford would’ve appeared before the coven once considered the greatest deliberative body in the world: The United States Senate.

At the time of writing, however—on the eve of a hearing conducted by the Senate Judiciary Committee to ascertain the veracity of Blasey Ford’s sexual assault claim against Judge Brett Kavanaugh—I hazard that voter distrust in the Republicans will prove justified.

True to type, Republicans will deliver a disaster to their supporters—to those banking on the confirmation of another conservative to the Supreme Court bench.

To question the two adversaries, the psychology professor versus the Supreme Court nominee, the Republicans chose an unknown, unremarkable quantity—a Phoenix-based prosecutor named Rachel Mitchell. Mitchell heads the Special Victims Division of Maricopa County, which consists of “sex-crimes and family-violence bureaus.”

This slipshod selection seemed forensically tailored to Judge Kavanaugh’s alleged crime. It almost suggested Republicans believe such a crime had occurred. Or, worse: These slithering opportunistic reptiles (with apologies to the reptile community) must feel politically compelled to conduct themselves as if Kavanaugh were indeed culpable.

Days before the hearing, this writer had warned that the Republicans did not have the male bits to defend Kavanaugh themselves: “With their choice of sex-crimes prosecutor Mitchell to quiz Brett Kavanaugh and his nemesis, what are Republicans saying? That they think a sex crime occurred?”

A better choice would have been Olivia Benson, leading lady on TV’s “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.” Actress Mariska Hargitay would’ve put on a better show than Mitchell and consulted with sharper legal minds for her script. Hargitay is a liberal, but she’s a pro.

Mitchell, a humdrum, minor state functionary, was unlikely to effect a cross examination for the ages—which is what was required if Brett Kavanaugh was to have a fair shake.

For his part, Kavanaugh is oddly obtuse for one who is said to be such a great jurist. Meek, mild and emotional, he does not seem up to the task of defending himself.

Had the Republicans, also the laggards who dominate the Judiciary Committee, chosen to meaningfully fight for their candidate; they might have opted for one of two dazzling legal scholars. (Please, gentle reader, do not, in the same breath, mention TV judge Andrew Napolitano. Napolitano is a left-libertarian mediocrity who, predictably, has taken the Left’s position on the violence-against-women sub-science.) …

… READ THE REST. “GOP Betrayal: The Cross Examination That Never Was” is now on WND.com and the Unz Review.

UPDATE (10/1):

Thrown to the wolves: ‘The White House authorizes FBI to expand Kavanaugh investigation.”

Sick society. A well-to-do, whiny Cali prof gets boatloads of money for?

Poor mom.

Blah-Blah’s Year Book:

TV Judge Napolitano’s Nonsensical Indictment Of Trump Border Policy

IMMIGRATION, Law, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Natural Law, UN

Judge Napolitano is a left-libertarian. Always said so. On this site, I have often  exposed and argued against  his lefty exploits. Here he essentially asserts that if X trespasses into your home, you can’t, in natural law, remove him. Crap. I hazard that, were you to research this bit of Napolitano legalism, you’d find he’s hiding/finessing certain aspects of due-process jurisprudence.

UPDATE (7/2): I might not have phrased my words above well. Responses on Facebook certainly indicate so. My bad. I am a huge proponent of natural law. However, I think Napolitano here is not articulating natural justice at all, but is full of it. His is more legalism than natural law. I am sure there is a state-passed law somewhere that judges like him can use to criminalize what President Trump is doing. I doubt it’s natural law. Where in natural law does it imply that trespassers have to be kept in their natural clans and formations? That nonsense would be the purview of the positive law, most certainly “international law.”

Of course, “Libertarian and leftist protest over any impediment to the free flow of people across borders is predicated not on the negative, leave-me-alone rights of the individual, but on the positive, manufactured right of human kind to venture wherever, whenever.”—ILANA (May 1, 2009)

NEW COLUMN: Applauding The Donald’s Ongoing Creative Destruction

Constitution, Democrats, Donald Trump, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Natural Law, Republicans, The Courts, The State

“Applauding The Donald’s Ongoing Creative Destruction” is the current column, now on WND.COM.

An excerpt:

Big Media, the policy veterans and the chancelleries across Europe and Britain are constantly complaining: Donald Trump has had the temerity to defy their international order, summit—and seek peace—with their enemies, and mess with the multilateral maze they call agreements. He even declared, early in June, that the US would be far better off if it negotiated bilateral trade agreements.

Or, in Trump speak, “country-on-country agreements.”

But what does an entrenched punditocracy, a self-anointed, meritless intelligentsia (which is not very intelligent and draws its financial sustenance from the political spoils system), oleaginous politicians, slick media and big money care? They’ve all worked in tandem to advance a grand government—national and transnational—that aggrandizes its constituent elements, while diminishing those it’s supposed to serve.

These political players have built the den of iniquity Trump keeps trampling. Against these forces—NAFTA, NATO, FBI, DOJ, CIA, a whole alphabet soup of acronyms that stands for the Permanent State, national and international—is Trump, still acting as a political Samson that threatens to bring the house crashing down on its patrons.

And his latest. Trump’s judicial appointments, in particular, might just prove to be “his most enduring legacy,” lamented the liberal Economist. These certainly threaten to cement the Supreme Court’s originalist bent:

.. No president has confirmed more federal appellate judges (12) in his first year than Donald Trump. He has also seen six federal district-court judges confirmed, and one Supreme Court justice, Neil Gorsuch. Another 47 nominees await confirmation; 102 more federal judgeships remain open for Mr. Trump to fill. With two of the Supreme Court’s liberal justices, and its one unpredictable member (Anthony Kennedy) aged 79 or older, the president [will] get to name another justice [maybe two] …

Published in June of 2016, “The Trump Revolution: The Donald’s Creative Destruction Deconstructed” made the case that Donald J. Trump is the quintessential post-constitutional candidate.

In the “Opening Statement” titled “Welcome To The Post-Constitutional Jungle,” oldies will recognize a nod to the Guns N’ Roses classic, “Welcome to the Jungle,” as well as to broadcaster Mark Levin’s coinage.

We inhabit what Levin has termed a post-constitutional America. The libertarian (and classical conservative) ideal—where the chains that tether us to an increasingly tyrannical national government are loosened and power is devolved once again to the smaller units of society—is a long way away.

Where the law of the jungle prevails, the options are limited: Do Americans get a benevolent authoritarian to undo the legacies of Barack Obama, George W. Bush and those who went before? Or, does the increasingly ill-defined entity called The People continue to submit to Demopublican diktats, past and present?

The quintessential post-constitutional candidate, Trump’s candidacy was for the age when the Constitution itself is unconstitutional. Like it or not, the original Constitution is a dead letter, having suffered decades of legislative, executive and judicial usurpation.

The natural- and common law traditions, once lodestars for lawmakers, have been buried under the rubble of legislation and statute. However much one shovels the muck of lawmaking aside, natural justice and the Founders’ original intent remain buried too deep to exhume.

The Constitution has become just another thing on the list of items presidential candidates check when they con constituents.

The dissembling words of many a presidential candidate notwithstanding, the toss-up in the 2016 election was, therefore, between submitting to the Democrats’ war on whites, the wealthy and Wal-Mart, or being bedeviled by mainstream Republicans’ wars on the world: Russia, China, Assad and The Ayatollahs. Or, suffering all the depredations listed and more had Candidate Clinton been victorious. …

… READ THE REST. “Applauding The Donald’s Ongoing Creative Destruction” is the current column, now on WND.COM