That's from "National Conservatism: A Statement Of Principles/A world of independent nations is the only alternative to universalist ideologies seeking to impose a homogenizing, locality-destroying imperium over the entire globe" by The Edmund Burke Foundation (published at The American Conservative).
There’s a lot to like about the burgeoning “national conservative” movement, which stands against the increasingly stale, pre-Trump intellectual orthodoxy on the right....... but quickly switches to criticism. Trump is, of course, awful, so hooray for the alternatives that might lure conservatives away from Trumpism, but any alternative that works will swiftly become the new target.
We recommend a drastic reduction in the scope of the administrative state and the policy-making judiciary that displace legislatures representing the full range of a nation’s interests and values. We recommend the federalist principle, which prescribes a delegation of power to the respective states or subdivisions of the nation so as to allow greater variation, experimentation, and freedom. However, in those states or subdivisions in which law and justice have been manifestly corrupted, or in which lawlessness, immorality, and dissolution reign, national government must intervene energetically to restore order.
The right to freedom of religion — though not separation of religion and government — is stressed:
Where a Christian majority exists, public life should be rooted in Christianity and its moral vision, which should be honored by the state and other institutions both public and private. At the same time, Jews and other religious minorities are to be protected in the observance of their own traditions, in the free governance of their communal institutions, and in all matters pertaining to the rearing and education of their children. Adult individuals should be protected from religious or ideological coercion in their private lives and in their homes.
The statement of principles highlights economic freedom:
We believe that an economy based on private property and free enterprise is best suited to promoting the prosperity of the nation and accords with traditions of individual liberty that are central to the Anglo-American political tradition.
But it is openly hostile to liberties that run counter to the institution of the traditional family:
Among the causes [of the disintegration of the family] are an unconstrained individualism that regards children as a burden, while encouraging ever more radical forms of sexual license and experimentation as an alternative to the responsibilities of family and congregational life.Finally, the statement strongly supports the right to racial equality:
We believe that all men are created in the image of God and that public policy should reflect that fact. No person’s worth or loyalties can be judged by the shape of his features, the color of his skin, or the results of a lab test.... We condemn the use of state and private institutions to discriminate and divide us against one another on the basis of race. The cultural sympathies encouraged by a decent nationalism offer a sound basis for conciliation and unity among diverse communities. The nationalism we espouse respects, and indeed combines, the unique needs of particular minority communities and the common good of the nation as a whole.
But Olsen says that isn't a statement of a belief in equality. He says:
It contends that “all men are created in the image of God” but says nothing about being created equal. Indeed, though it frequently praises nations and liberty, it never states the basic truth of human equality, which is the starting point for America’s founding principles. This is not an accident.
Olsen doesn't go on to explain why he thinks it's not an accident that the statement never explicitly refers to equality. But it is true that the statement never uses the word "equal" (or "equality"), and that's such an obvious word that we might infer that it would surely have popped up if they were not straining to exclude it.
Perhaps true equality is such an advanced goal that you wouldn't want it in your founding statement. Yes, our Founders put it in the Declaration of Independence, but they weren't anywhere near to making it a reality, and we're still not there. We don't even agree about what equality is. Perhaps a little circumspection is appropriate.
१०२ टिप्पण्या:
It always comes back to Trump.
Every fucking time.
Are libs still buying papers because of this mental illness on the part of so many writers?
Lucy (and her football) are laughing...
Olsen is onto something. Rights are in fact missing. The circumspection is also an evasion.
The statement evades a dilemma for national conservatives: to embrace the American founding or not. Cuz in some ways it announced an "imperial" doctrine of its own that potentially undermined national traditions and cultural sovereignty. To some conservatives, "natural rights" are part of the problem of Western dissolution.
This is 40 years too late. The Left is too dug in. I’m very pessimistic.
A bunch of "conservative intellectuals" are no better than their progressive counterparts. They're losers and grifters. To hell with them all.
Somewhat related, over a Ruy Teixeira's The Liberal Patriot SubStack, Brian Halprin uses Matthew Continetti’s The Right to launch into a prescription for a post-Trump Republican Party largely drawn from Ronald Reagan.
Both of these are very much 'free beer yesterday, free beer tomorrow, and never free beer today'. I was around when Reagan was in office, and I was around when Reagan got out of office, and I've learned exactly what most Trump-tolerant conservatives have since 1980. The only good Republican is either dead, literally or politically, or not in office yet.
Finally, the statement strongly supports the right to racial equality:
There is a huge difference between a society where race is not an issue and one where ensuring the equality of all races is central to society.
Do not confuse the two.
I imagine the National Conservative guys are very happy about the attack in WaPo, since the rest of us have never heard of them and probably never will again.
Althouse writes, "We don't even agree about what equality is."
Let's repeal the 11th and then ask Merrick Garland what he thinks of equality.
Is this the same thing as Civic Nationalism?
"...but they weren't anywhere near to making it a reality, and we're still not there"
Hint hint, we will never get there. Equality is not a universal value in any configuration of this space/time continuum. To be frank, the universe doesn't care. The equality so many people talk about would actually do quite the opposite, and amplify natural inequality between people, things, classes, and categories across the board.
Before you criticize God's work or the universe, think first about what it takes to make straight what it has made crooked. The founders knew all too well enshrining such a bogus concept into law wasn't just impossible, it's dangerous.
If I had to point to a single word summing up the globalist assault on national borders and traditional cultures, it would be "equality."
I wonder if the "omission" of "equal" or "equality" (if it was - "omission" implying that it's purposeful that it's not present) is because the world has been so coopted by the Left to imply outcomes that these folks don't want to go there.
It reminded me of the wedding scene in The Princess Bride in which Prince Humperdinck knows that Westley is coming to disrupt the ceremony and rescue Buttercup, so he demands of the minister, "Say 'man and wife'!"
Confused, the minister says, "'Man and wife'...?"
And then Humperdinck is like, "Cool, now we're married!"
The more I read, the more annoyed I am by this crap. It's basically the same boilerplate conservative language that the GOP has pushed for fifty years. It has no value or substance.
The only administrative reduction the left are interested in?
Defunding the Police.
Anyone who claims to be a conservative, but then goes on to trash "Trumpism" is someone who is trying to preserve the GOPe grift.
To some conservatives, "natural rights" are part of the problem of Western dissolution.
Really? Who? As a Christian I believe in natural rights, which come from the creator. Christians believe in natural law, and natural rights would be a subset of that.
Three possibilities for excluding the word equal:
1. As Althouse suggests it is not easily defined in terms we can all agree with.
2. Avoiding “equal” also avoids being derailed into a debate about using “equity” instead
3. Avoiding “equal” also means those who favor outcome based goals cannot pounce on “equal” and claim expected results are not equal.
Trump freed us in many ways. Even Despite his own mistakes that gave his enemies ammunition.
The left are are so filled with mindless hate, they cannot see straight.
Once Trump is gone, they will focus on the next person to offer freedom.
We cannot have freedom under Soviet left rule - (unless it comes in the form of massive abortions up to birth.)
Ideological movements just end up talking to themselves, repeating familiar rhetoric that has less and less to do with reality.
Outside of mathematics the word equal quickly loses its usefulness as one is hard pressed to find any two things that are indisputably “equal.”
The Founders said "created equal," not "turn out to be equal," which is an impossible absurdity. And even "created equal" is obviously false except as implying equal rights. Equality in the eyes of the law, not in outcomes.
For decades preceding the Civil War, Americans debated the meaning of the phrase "created equal." Now we are back for another round in preparation for another war, I suppose.
I believe that the phrase is a link in an anti-aristocratic argument addressed to the King of England that all men, being born the same, owe their varying stations to social arrangements that society is free to change (rather than owing their stations as King or subject to God). I understand this conception as being fundamentally Puritan and associate it with Massachusetts.
Plucking the step out of the Jefferson/Adams argument and demanding society be arranged to preserve this presumed original equality is not fidelity to the meaning of the Declaration but a form of American Utopianism.
Sebastian said...
"To some conservatives, "natural rights" are part of the problem of Western dissolution."
Which conservatives? And what did they say/write?
Equality is moral, in the eyes of God, which means in everybody's eyes.
It's why teaching good character (you can have it with no family or church) is a solution slightly outside the institutional conservative ken.
The church touches on it every now and then but they're more interested in money. Augustine: charity is thinking the best of people instead of the worst. The old meaning of candid. How far ahead would blacks be with that idea instead of its opposite.
Hmmm...I listened to Megyn Kelly interview Kari Lake yesterday. Lake is the former news anchor running in the AZ GOP primary for governor as a total Trump supporter. She has a great personal presentation--looks, voice, self-assurance--right up until you listen to her completely contradict herself within three consecutive sentences and go on at length about the 2020 election in AZ and how it was "stolen" from Trump. But as with all this stuff, she never closes the circle. She just blasts away with a whole bunch of assertions. She very quickly sounds like she is flailing. Her GOP opponent is a RINO. The incumbent GOP governor (Ducey) is a RINO. Anyone can beat the Dem nominee. Only she can beat the Dem nominee. Her polling shows her way ahead, but the published polls that show her behind are Dem push polls.
The GOP is a coalition of folks that know a lot of things have gone wrong, but disagree about how to fix them. National Conservatism is another approach to try to get the team together. Not bad, but not fully baked either.
Politics is about addition, not subtraction. Reagan understood that. The GOP is still floundering around in the swamp.
The statement "never states the basic truth of human equality, which is the starting point for America’s founding principles. This is not an accident."
Equality is pretty ambiguous term. It probably wasn't a mere accident that the statement authors avoiding using it, for that reason. I gather Olsen thinks that equality, as used by the Founders, means every individual in society has the same measure of good and bad as everyone else, the same talents, and is entitled to roughly the same outcome in life. However, it's clear that the Founders didn't consider all men to "equal" at that level of granularity. They were talking about equality in terms of everyone's having been born with the same moral and political standing in society (i.e., they should not be classified and limited according to class or caste) and having the same rights as everyone else to make the best of what gifts God chose to endow them with.
Just for fun, I decided to read Black Lives Matters statement of guiding values. So I went to their website, and guess what. I couldn't find any. The best I could do was a one paragraph vision statement that was pure mush and a list of 7 goals which centered around sending Trump to jail. Lots of fundraising links though.
America had been the most welcoming and safest home for Jews in the last 2,000 years precisely because America was a Christian nation. G Washington laid it out in his letter to the RI synagogue. (The slights and Ivy college refusals and restricted country clubs, etc., fall into a different category than safety and ability to rise economically.)
But as it's become increasingly less Christian over the last 25 years or so, Jews are in increasingly greater danger. Just recently the FBI reported (predictably without headlines) that Jews, 2% of the population, were half of country's 1500 or so religiously/ethnically motivated hate-crimes victims.
It's not good Christians doing this.
"All men are created equal."
Yes they are. That does not mean you'll be treated equally. For instance. If you are the wrong political color you will not be treated equally under the law. And there is a whole large segment of our population that views that as a benefit. Conservatives, for the most part, will treat their political opposites more equitably than the other way around.
Conservatives never get it. black folks don't want to live in a "Color blind" society. They want their past GROUP oppression be recognized and reparations made. You can agree or disagree, but their feelings exist. And need to be addressed.
Other people pf color, and non-Christians, feel the same way. Just because white people (who are the target of this article) don't feel any group solidarity and feel "race doesn't matter" or "religion should be part of society" doesn't mean other Americans feel the same way. Many non-christians feel any public expression of "religion" as a theat to them. Again, you can agree or disagree, but that's the way they feel.
"Equal" or "equality" is less precise than "created in the image of God." What does "equality" mean? The word has come to mean too many different things. It can't refer to ability because then the statement would be obviously untrue. It can't refer to outcomes because that would be inconsistent with the other principles they've outlined. So how are people equal? They are equally created in the image of God.
The word 'equal' has been so misused over the past decade or two, particularly since Biden took office, that to use it now is to jump into the same arena with those who destroyed it's meaning. It would also invite unending demands for further clarification and specificity. Who is equal to whom? Please list them all. I thought the declaration was very clear. I see no need for additional words to ease the fears of those who believe the Right is nothing but White Supremacists. I don't think there are enough words to change the thinking of most of those on the Left and to ease their minds.
Further- we are not, and never will be equal. That very concept is absurd. That we should be treated in an equal manner or viewed by equal factors is another thing. And I believe the words written in that section were enough.
Conservative intellectuals haven't conserved anything. They're completely worthless as Rush Limbaugh recognized. Conservatives need to use Governmental power to fight the left. Conservatives don't dominate the Law, Colleges, or the media. They don't even dominate Big Business anymore. Their only avenue to fight back against the Left is the Government.
Yet, when anyone wants to use Government power to protect American workers, or secure the border, or limit immigration, or rein in Big Business, the Conservative intellectuals are either AWOL or opposed to it. They blather about "Small Government" or "Getting the Government out of our lives", which is pure fantasy in the 21st Century. A perfect of example of their nonsense? Instead of reforming the Judiciary (which is dominated by the liberal/left) they LARP about repealing the 17th admendment. Pure idiotcy
"As a Christian I believe in natural rights, which come from the creator. Christians believe in natural law, and natural rights would be a subset of that."
Is there any mention or description of "natural law" in the New Testament? What is "natural law" as defined by Christianity?
"America had been the most welcoming and safest home for Jews in the last 2,000 years precisely because America was a Christian nation."
America is not a Christian nation. It is a nation in which Christianity is the predominant religious affiliation among those who profess religious beliefs. That is not the same thing at all.
Outside of mathematics the word equal quickly loses its usefulness as one is hard pressed to find any two things that are indisputably “equal.”
That's a feature, not a bug, to those wishing to remake society.
"So how are people equal?"
We are equal in our right and claim to be sovereign persons, to hold our own beliefs, to be free to pursue our own ambitions, to live as we please and to associate with those whom we choose, and not to be differentiated and thereby unequally hindered or oppressed by law, custom, or prevailing religious tenets on the basis of our race, class, gender, caste, or other personal characteristics.
It can be expressed in a well-known pithy axiom: "What's good for the goose is good for the gander."
Mr Wibble said...
A bunch of "conservative intellectuals" are no better than their progressive counterparts. They're losers and grifters. To hell with them all.
Trump has pulled the masks off the whole lot of them.
And he is also showing that a lot of talkers don't actually care about making society better.
They care about how smart they think they look and tribal affiliations.
This would be the "true conservatives" and the "cruelly neutral" tribes who are demonstrating daily that most people in this country don't really deserve what they were born with.
The problem with the term “equality” is that it quickly and almost always becomes corrupted into a discussion of equality of outcomes. So it’s very difficult to talk about general equality. You can talk about equality under the law, for instance, but even then it is not always practically realized simply because those with superior economic means can purchase superior legal representation, even if everyone is entitled to minimally qualified legal representation at no cost.
Uh-oh . . . "unconstrained individualism." Obviously someone is in the mood to constrain me. I can almost hear the metallic clinks of guns being loaded, bayonets being fixed, chains being forged. Usually those are sounds coming from the Left; here, from the Right.
Amadeus 48 said...
The GOP is a coalition of folks that know a lot of things have gone wrong, but disagree about how to fix them. National Conservatism is another approach to try to get the team together. Not bad, but not fully baked either.
Politics is about addition, not subtraction. Reagan understood that. The GOP is still floundering around in the swamp.
Trump got 75 million votes. More than any other person in history. Trump had higher approval ratings among Republican voters than Reagan. He was more successful in every metric electorally than Reagan.
Kari Lake is a very good speaker and she is smarter than you are.
People like you that give Biden credit for 81 million votes are just stupid and refuse to understand the math involved in the 2020 election.
It is people like you that gave us Bush, McCain, Dole, Bush, and Romney as nominees.
The Republican party was never more unified than it was under Trump. There are just a few never trumpers out there squawking and warbling and they just tend to be loud and officious about it.
Just go talk in a hole. The "true conservative" pecksniffs have lost all credibility.
I hope Kari Lake is Trump's VP pick.
Equality under the law is a low bar, but still difficult to clear. Other conceptions are utopian.
The fact is, the vast majority of human beings are a compound of stupidity, conformity, insanity, and evil, equal only from the neck down.
Conservatives, for the most part, will treat their political opposites more equitably than the other way around.
Not once have I seen the progressives on this site wish all conservatives dead, advocate stringing conservatives up on lampposts, or have an extended post about the best ammo load to take them out.
But if you can convince yourself that you treat political opposites more equitably, then continue to live in your fantasy world.
Equality; in the context of the article, is equality of opportunity. Leftist hate that. Leftist demand equal outcomes. Morphed into an undefinable 'equity'.
While some may think more needs to be done about equality of opportunity, but millions of immigrants and illegals, come to the united States and thrive. Succeed beyond their wildest dreams. I like the story of a Bosnian immigrant coming to Des Moines. He spoke no English. He was sponsored by a church (how many atheist organizations are sponsoring these immigrants?) They found him a job at a large hotel, laundry. He went to night school to learn English, and started getting promoted. Last I heard he made it to the Hotel manager position.
A person with nothing but hurdles in front of him succeeded. Now tell me why any us born person does not have the same equal opportunity demonstrated by this Bosnian.
"Sebastian said... "To some conservatives, "natural rights" are part of the problem of Western dissolution." Which conservatives? And what did they say/write?"
Burke to Kirk, for starters. Anti-liberal cons like Deneen also want to go back behind the founding. Of course, there is older Christian natural rights doctrine they can appeal to. But declaring certain rights to be inalienable in the way the Declaration did was a revolutionary act. Most American conservatives want to conserve that, and the framework it entailed--see Will's big book--but not all. National conservatism as a transnational movement certainly will not take the Declaration as its guide--the point of national conservative traditions in much of Europe was an is to be anti-revolutionary.
It's interesting to me, after reading all the comments, that no one seems to recognize the difference between equal opportunity and equal outcomes. The left and the BLM segment of it are all about equal outcomes. I remember years ago, when Willie Brown was Speaker of the CA Assembly, he tried to get a bill passed that required the U of C to graduate all blacks accepted for admission. We aren't quite there yet but close. Affirmative Action is about equal outcomes. It's not explicit but understood by all the professors who manipulate grades. UCLA fired a professor who refused to grade black students on a different scale.
Too many of us begin our citation of the Declaration of Independence with "We hold these truths..." In fact, there is a vital paragraph before that puts those "truths" and the particular claims of truth into a context more in keeping with the latest idea of national conservatism than the woke idea of individual rights.
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for *ONE PEOPLE* to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another [people]..."
So, the phrase that prefaces "all men are created equal" as well as a sentence following:
"it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government..." Are all about "PEOPLE" collectively.
We the People of the United States are created equal to the people -- King or Duke or Lord or yeoman or serf -- of the Empire of Great Britain. Not that Button Gwinn is the equal of John Adams, or anybody else living at the time was the equal of Ben Franklin.* But on average and under law, the *people* of one region may when necessary SHOULD "assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and *equal* station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them.
Given how often we heard the left insist the 2nd Amendment applies only to collective rights of a state's militia it's odd that we don't see "equal rights" restricted to 'people' collectively, and statistically, rather than focusing on individual anomalies.
* I am willing to entertain discussion of Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford.
@9:08
However, it's clear that the Founders didn't consider all men to "equal" at that level of granularity. They were talking about equality in terms of everyone's having been born with the same moral and political standing in society (i.e., they should not be classified and limited according to class or caste) and having the same rights as everyone else to make the best of what gifts God chose to endow them with.
This is very well said. Thank you. I especially note the absence of class or caste. Our Founders were keen on the notion of addressing what flaws the saw in Great Britain. In Great Britain, all were not born of equal station in life. America, eliminated that. Dukes and Earls hand no interest in crossing the pond, as they would lose status. Status they were born with, not earned.
Maybe Olson should read a few Trump speeches.
The reason the Burke people (or the drafters of the Constitution) don't go big on "equality" is because "equality" as a result is the opposite of freedom. (See Revolution, French).
Olsen is another WaPo "conservative."
Reading through the full list of signatories I only see a few who have anything close to the backbone to put their vision into effect against a determined opposition that lies, cheats and steals their way to power.
Thus, though I am in almost full agreement with their statement of principles, I am a Trump supporter.
Trump’s policies were all about “recovering and maintaining our freedom, security, and prosperity.“ Emphasis on “recovering”. Or MAGA, in other words. So I see a lot of alignment here with Trumpism.
Republicans in Arizona will probably nominate Kari Lake, and throw away a winnable governorship. They will also throw away a winnable Senate seat, continuing a nationwide GOP tradition stretching back for decades. Rabble-rousers win primaries; more level-headed candidates (often called RINOs) win general elections.
This is the state that elected Doug Ducey, John McCain, and John Kyl, multiple times each. Candidates like Kari Lake are not electable here. We will have a George Soros governor, and we will see the damage she can do in four years.
People like you that give Biden credit for 81 million votes are just stupid and refuse to understand the math involved in the 2020 election.
Well then, maybe you can explain the math to us. But you can't. The fantasy that it was mathematically impossible for Biden to have gotten 81 million votes is complete bullshit and has been thoroughly debunked.
The word "all" denotes equality.
The Pledge of Allegiance also doesn't use the word "equal." It uses "all."
" has been thoroughly debunked."
"By other people, of course, trust me bro, they have. I won't repeat the arguments here because reasons, yeah, that's the ticket! Reasons!"
Is there any mention or description of "natural law" in the New Testament?
"Paul spoke of natural law in Romans 2:14-15: "For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them." God made His law evident in the hearts of all mankind. But, because we live in a fallen world with a sin nature, we are incapable of completely knowing what God’s law is, and we cannot follow it (Romans 7:14-25). Therefore, God gave us His revealed law, inspiring the prophets and the writers of the Bible to explain how to live according to the natural law that we catch glimpses of, but can never really grasp."
https://www.gotquestions.org/natural-law.html
Oh brother, people like Kari Lake. She was one half of the most watched news team in the state for a decade.
Stop fear mongering.
“Kari Lake is smarter than you are”
She didn’t hit me that way. She seemed to be flailing. Maybe that will work. Accusations and assertions impress some people. She hit me as being really divisive. If she wins the primary she is going to need a lot of voters that she is attacking. Her enemies even in the primary are the Democrats, not other Republicans. She could deliver her message without the accusations.
"Paul spoke of natural law...."
BUZZZZZ...FAIL!!!
Did Jesus have anything to say about "natural law?"
Also, this passage really doesn't describe what god's "natural law" consists of. It just says that, as we cannot really know God's law is, we must rely on "prophets and writers of the Bible" to tell us what it is. In other words, Paul is stating his rationale for creating a "Christian Bureaucracy" of special wise men who will tell we, the ignorant people, how we must live.
Nope. All that we need to know about Christianity comes from the words credited to Jesus. The rest is just commentary, editorializing, and special pleading.
Why only Jesus? Not Mohammad? Not Prophets?
"Nope. All that we need to know about Christianity comes from the words credited to Jesus. The rest is just commentary, editorializing, and special pleading"
BUZZZZZ...FAIL!!! Because of course Cookie thinks he knows better than thousands of years of far smarter and wiser people who followed Christianity.
"...as we cannot really know God's law is..." Paul says nothing of the sort. Only the Gospel According to Cookie would say something as stupid as this.
Did Jesus have anything to say about "natural law?"
Regarding conduct, in its essence, the natural law - which is discernible to all by right reason - is "to do good and avoid evil." That is, to live according to truth. Failing to conform to this law disrupts the natural order. Of course, that natural law is violated all the time, which is why the world is such an unjust miserable place.
Meanwhile, EVERYTHING Jesus spoke about was about doing good and avoiding evil. His entire teaching was for people to more fully realize their human nature, to be the people that God made and intended them to be, rather than the self-centered jerks that we too often are.
Not once have I seen the progressives on this site wish all conservatives dead
Know why? No need to do it here when they/you can do it on thousands upon thousands of other sites. Not to mention the times when they're away from their keyboards and acting on those death wishes.
this passage really doesn't describe what god's "natural law" consists of. It just says that, as we cannot really know God's law is, we must rely on "prophets and writers of the Bible" to tell us what it is.
Actually, it says the exact opposite of that. Did you even read it? And I don't think Paul spent a lot of time setting up a "Christian Bureaucracy" before he was martyred instead he helped organize small house churches and resisted the efforts of others to set up such a bureaucracy.
The fantasy that it was mathematically impossible for Biden to have gotten 81 million votes is complete bullshit and has been thoroughly debunked.
I got tired of reading your bullshit at Hawkin's site 20 years ago and I'm tired of reading your bullshit here.
There is no way Joe Biden - campaigning from his basement - got 12 million more votes than Obama in 2008. No. Way. Not a chance.
In other words, it's complete bullshit.
And before you (freder) trot out the U.S. population is larger in 2020 than 2008? Big whoop.
There were more people in 2012 than 2008, too. And Obama received four million less than 2008.
No way Biden got 81 million voters to cast their ballots for him.
Blogger hawkeyedjb said...
Republicans in Arizona will probably nominate Kari Lake, and throw away a winnable governorship. They will also throw away a winnable Senate seat, continuing a nationwide GOP tradition stretching back for decades. Rabble-rousers win primaries; more level-headed candidates (often called RINOs) win general elections.
I am also concerned about this but Kari Lake seems electable. The Democrats will have Katie Hobbs, a Soros creature in a year that seems a Republican wave. The Senate is another matter. Kelly has gotten tons of out of state money but has no accomoplishments aside from his wife.
"National conservatism" will mean different things in different countries, and even different things in the same country. If you want to talk about the American Revolution or the French Revolution, those also mean different things to different people, and people who accept the revolution may have very different ideas about what government should be like now (the same is true of those who reject the revolution).
I'm not interested in new movements and new ideologies (or in old movements and old ideologies). Most articles about them are just excuses to bash people and don't have much to do with our real problems today. I suppose ideological battles eventually do affect the direction the country takes, but in the short and medium run, they mostly affect who gets the seats at the front table, who gets the grants and donations and jobs.
US citizens have rights as individuals that government must not infringe.
The US government has authority, or without that, just power.
Keeping this difference in mind helps a lot when dealing with people shouting about their rights - when they just want to abuse their authority or power - and when dealing with government, when it claims a "right" to do something for, or to, you - when they just want to abuse authority or power.
TLDR: Don't let people or govvernments abuse authority or power in the name of rights.
Coulda 'sworn my old Con Law prof referred to "created equal" as a "juridical' concept, referring to equality under the law.
That alone was a huge step forward for Americans accustomed to Royal tyranny.
I suspect the Framers would be stunned to see the concept utterly collapse under the Democrat=controlled Congress, the addled and mean-spirited POTUS and his viciously-partisan Attorney General.
Without natural rights, rights that inherit to a person and not provided are the core of a constitutional republic democracy. Those who believe that rights are given are either Communists, Fascists or idiots.
Funny how all the NeverTrumpers were never concerned about "electability" in 2016 or 2020. Then it was "Country over Party".
The dumb Republican establishment types never learn. They've been wrong for 50 years. Ford was electable, Reagan wasn't. Dole, Romney, and McCain were "electable". Trump wasn't.
Anyway,if you like the way thinga are now, and like our present course, keep just electing the same ol' "electable" Republicans. Because even if they win, they won't change a damn thing.
my old Con Law prof referred to "created equal" as a "juridical' concept, referring to equality under the law
Well, since "juridical" pertains to government, and since people exist in a state of nature before government exists, and are equal in that state of nature, being created by their Creator as equal, then "created equal" really cannot refer primarily to juridical, can it?
Now, "equal protection of the laws" may be a different matter.
I prefer the forthright integralists, myself, but there is a congruence of aims between them and many of the National Conservative folks so let a hundred flowers bloom, I say. The practical problem that I see is that while the intellectual and philosophical foundation is important, you have to have actual politicians to get anywhere and I don't see any candidates at the moment; maybe in time, and after Mr Trump takes himself away to retirement. On the other hand, he accomplished a good deal that others running under the GOP banner didn't so being a 'true believer' isn't necessary for at least a certain measure of success.
47 Republicans voted in the House today to enshrine Obergefell etc in federal law. On the other hand, +150 didn't.
Is there any mention or description of "natural law" in the New Testament? What is "natural law" as defined by Christianity?
"In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God....In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind....The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us...For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." John ch. 1.
My 8:23 PM quote is in answer to both questions by the way, if you didn't catch it.
But Olsen says that isn't a statement of a belief in equality. He says:
It contends that “all men are created in the image of God” but says nothing about being created equal. Indeed, though it frequently praises nations and liberty, it never states the basic truth of human equality, which is the starting point for America’s founding principles. This is not an accident.
Damn, and here I thought he wasn't an utter idiot.
All men are not created equal, other than "in the eyes of God." We do not have the same intelligence, same physical, mental, and or emotional abilities. The same looks, the same genetics. Freddie deBoer has a nicely comprehensive article about the reality that education won't "level the differences" https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/education-doesnt-work-20
If you're someone who thinks that almost all Americans are still people worthy of value, then you can either be a lying moron and make the obviously false claim that "all are equal", like Olsen does, or you can make the "all are equal in the eyes of God" claim, that says that even people who didn't get a certificate from your favorite institute of higher indoctrination still have value.
For example: Do you believe the "experts" of the Administrative State should be running the show? Or do you believe the elected officials should be running the gov't?
The former, Olsen supported, view is a claim that "those without certificates aren't important, and should be ignored"
The later view, the view that people's votes should matter? That's the "all are equal in the eyes of God" view.
You can't support rule by experts / the elite / the Administrative State (so, you can't complain about the rulings in WVa vs EPA, or Dobbs) and actually value "equality" in any meaningful sense of the word
Marc in Eugene said...
47 Republicans voted in the House today to enshrine Obergefell etc in federal law. On the other hand, +150 didn't.
Um, no, because they can't do that. What those 47 did was to vote to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, because that's all that's within Congress's power to do.
So, you could say they voted to "enshrine Windsor in Federal law". but Obergefell is beyond their reach, and any ruling nuking Obergefell would also block Congress from imposing it.
Windsor and Obergefell were and are illegitimate decisions from Kennedy. Congress voting to overturn the DoMA might be wrong (it also might be right), but it's not illegitimate, any more than the DoMA was.
Sebastian said...
Olsen is onto something. Rights are in fact missing. The circumspection is also an evasion.
Yeah, he's on to LSD.
Some "rights" that you like are "missing". That's because they dont' agree with them
Gee, political statements that engage in circumspection over non-core issues?!? What a concept! That's only been the norm for, what, 5000 years?
Kevin said...
There is a huge difference between a society where race is not an issue and one where ensuring the equality of all races is central to society.
Do not confuse the two.
There is a huge difference between "equality of opportunity" (which is good and reasonable) and "equality of outcome" (which is vile, impossible, and supported by the Left).
Do not confuse the two.
Freder Frederson said...
People like you that give Biden credit for 81 million votes are just stupid and refuse to understand the math involved in the 2020 election.
Well then, maybe you can explain the math to us. But you can't. The fantasy that it was mathematically impossible for Biden to have gotten 81 million votes is complete bullshit and has been thoroughly debunked.
Which of these have ever been debunked Freder?
1. Late on election night, with Trump comfortably ahead, many swing states stopped counting ballots. In most cases, observers were removed from the counting facilities. Counting generally continued without the observers.
2. Statistically abnormal vote counts were the new normal when counting resumed. They were unusually large in size (hundreds of thousands) and had an unusually high (90 percent and above) Biden-to-Trump ratio
3. Late arriving ballots were counted. In Pennsylvania, 23,000 absentee ballots have impossible postal return dates and another 86,000 have such extraordinary return dates they raise serious questions
4. The failure to match signatures on mail-in ballots. The destruction of mail-in ballot envelopes, which must contain signatures
5. Historically low absentee ballot rejection rates despite the massive expansion of mail voting. Such is Biden’s narrow margin that, as political analyst Robert Barnes observes, ‘If the states simply imposed the same absentee ballot rejection rate as recent cycles, then Trump wins the election’
6. Missing votes. In Delaware County, Pennsylvania, 50,000 votes held on 47 USB cards are missing.
7. Non-resident voters. Matt Braynard’s Voter Integrity Project estimates that 20,312 people who no longer met residency requirements cast ballots in Georgia. Biden’s margin is 12,670 votes.
8. Trump won 95% of the bellweather counties.
Joe Biden got about 60-63 million legitimate votes and about 20 million mail in bullshit ballots.
And Your demented piece of shit is not going to finish his term. The illegitimate regime is going to doom the democrat party for a generation.
rcocean said...
Conservatives never get it. black folks don't want to live in a "Color blind" society. They want their past GROUP oppression be recognized and reparations made. You can agree or disagree, but their feelings exist. And need to be addressed.
Here, I'll address it:
Tough shit.
You can have a society where it's wrong to treat people differently based on the color of their skin, where you can stop obsessing about past grievances and try to build a good life
Or you can have a society where skin color matters. In that case, since the majority of us are "white", "white" gets the best and everyone else (other than Asians) can FOAD.
There's no third option. If your skin color matters then so does mine. As I wasn't even alive before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, I bear no guilt for any harms done to you or your ancestors. So I will not accept any punishment for them.
If you want Jim Crow back, keep on fighting for people to be treated differently based on the color of their skin (which is what you do when you say "I'm owed reparations because I'm black").
If you don't, then STFU about "race".
rcocean said...
Many non-christians feel any public expression of "religion" as a theat to them. Again, you can agree or disagree, but that's the way they feel.
Feelings are like assholes, everyone's got them.
IOW, so what? There's at least as many Americans who "feel" that that hostility to religion is a threat to them.
So the non-religious can grow the fuck up and get over the reality that people disagree with them, and are allowed to do so in public, or they can be the enemy. There's no actual Constitutional justification for their preferences. There is significant Constitutional protection for those who wish to practice their religion in public.
You are free to try to get together a Constitutional Amendment to change that. you are free to leave America and find a place you like better. You are not free to impose your feelings on the rest of us in violation of the US Constititon
Robert Cook said...
"America had been the most welcoming and safest home for Jews in the last 2,000 years precisely because America was a Christian nation."
America is not a Christian nation. It is a nation in which Christianity is the predominant religious affiliation among those who profess religious beliefs. That is not the same thing at all.
America was founded as. Christian nation.
Up until the 1950s, at least, America was a Christian nation
I'm not myself Christian, but I can make a strong argument that America would be far better off going back to being a Christian nation.
The VAST majority of threats to Jews in America come from the anti-Christian Left
Robert Cook said...
"So how are people equal?"
We are equal in our right and claim to be sovereign persons, to hold our own beliefs, to be free to pursue our own ambitions, to live as we please and to associate with those whom we choose, and not to be differentiated and thereby unequally hindered or oppressed by law, custom, or prevailing religious tenets on the basis of our race, class, gender, caste, or other personal characteristics.
It can be expressed in a well-known pithy axiom: "What's good for the goose is good for the gander."
I do not believe I've ever agreed more with something Cook wrote.
However: "to live as we please". Nope. Pedophiles don't get to "live as they please", and shouldn't. The polygamous don't get to "live as they please", and it's entirely proper that the majority be allowed to make laws that enforce that. Unlike with the pedos, the majority could equally well make laws that did allow the polygamous to live as they please.
So there's a couple of places in there where "within reasonable limits" need to be added, but other than that spot on
hawkeyedjb said...
This is the state that elected Doug Ducey, John McCain, and John Kyl, multiple times each. Candidates like Kari Lake are not electable here. We will have a George Soros governor, and we will see the damage she can do in four years.
If you all are indeed so stupid that you'd rather have a Soros Governor than. Trumpets one, I wish you all the hell that brings.
Now, I believe that you are wrong, and that the Dems are going to get crushed in Nov, and that the "Trumpets" will win.
But if I'm wrong, and you're right, I will greatly enjoy watching you all suffer for your choices.
Robert Cook said...
"Paul spoke of natural law...."
BUZZZZZ...FAIL!!!
Did Jesus have anything to say about "natural law?"
Ah, from the high to the low. You never fail to disappoint, Cookie.
Your original question was this:
Is there any mention or description of "natural law" in the New Testament? What is "natural law" as defined by Christianity?
The "New Testament" most certainly DOES contain more than just the 4 Gospels
In particular, it includes' Paul's letters. So he correctly answered your question.
rcocean said...
Conservatives never get it. black folks don't want to live in a "Color blind" society. They want their past GROUP oppression be recognized and reparations made. You can agree or disagree, but their feelings exist. And need to be addressed.
Here, I'll address it:
Tough shit.
You can have a society where it's wrong to treat people differently based on the color of their skin, where you can stop obsessing about past grievances and try to build a good life
Or you can have a society where skin color matters. In that case, since the majority of us are "white", "white" gets the best and everyone else (other than Asians) can FOAD.
There's no third option. If your skin color matters then so does mine. As I wasn't even alive before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, I bear no guilt for any harms done to you or your ancestors. So I will not accept any punishment for them.
If you want Jim Crow back, keep on fighting for people to be treated differently based on the color of their skin (which is what you do when you say "I'm owed reparations because I'm black").
If you don't, then STFU about "race".
"America was founded as. Christian nation."
No, it was not.
"Up until the 1950s, at least, America was a Christian nation."
No, it never has been...except, as I mentioned, in the unofficial sense that of Americans who hold religious beliefs, a majority were Christianity.
"The "New Testament" most certainly DOES contain more than just the 4 Gospels
In particular, it includes' Paul's letters. So he correctly answered your question."
Well, then...I presumed too much to think you would know I meant, namely: Does Jesus have anything to say about "natural rights?" Nothing said by any other person than Jesus in the New Testament is relevant if we're looking for Christ's/God's standing on any question.
Plus, Paul didn't define "natural rights, but made a circuitous and obfuscatory remark that ended up saying Man could not know God's will so learned scholars and other bumfucks were necessary to "mediate" God's message to we lowly know-nothings.
But what about Unnatural Rites?
The FF were Christians of one ilk or another, who emphatically did NOT want a sectarian government--thus the prohibition of religious tests in the Constitution. They knew very well where those easily could lead--one of the worst aspects of American historical education and imagination is the lack of understanding of what secularism and secular governments were up against back then.
The elite churches of 19th C Europe were full of excoriations of rebellious, republican, heathen, money-mad, unChristian Americans--which no doubt motivated a lot of great people to come here, Gottseidank.
Robert Cook said...
"The "New Testament" most certainly DOES contain more than just the 4 Gospels
In particular, it includes' Paul's letters. So he correctly answered your question."
Well, then...I presumed too much to think you would know I meant, namely: Does Jesus have anything to say about "natural rights?"
Why no, Robert, I do not read your mind, and I'm very happy in that state. I read the words you write and respond to them.
So, does the New Testament say something about "natural law"? yes it does. Does that make "natural law" part of Christianity? yes it does.
Does Jesus speak about "natural law"? He regularly speaks about "God's law", which is supposed to determine the vast majority of your actions, Ranging from "render unto Caesar that which is Ceasers" to "love one another as I have loved you."
Could you find "natural law" in the Gospels? Probably. It's been a long time since I was a Christian, so I can't thoroughly answer that question.
But the question of "is natural law a Christian thing" has already been answered. I guess you are the kind of person who digs in when he's shown wrong, rather than moving on to more fertile fields
And yet, "natural law" and "God's law" are not defined, as we must rely on the church bureaucracy to interpret and dictate it to us.
Only the words from Jesus should be paid attention to...if you want to follow Christ's lessons.
Robert Cook said...
And yet, "natural law" and "God's law" are not defined, as we must rely on the church bureaucracy to interpret and dictate it to us.
If your'e a Catholic, that's true.
Various Protestant denominations completely disagree with you on that interpretation
Only the words from Jesus should be paid attention to...if you want to follow Christ's lessons.
Wow, so now Cookie is a Christian Fundamentalist!
Which "words from Jesus" do you follow, brother Robert?
You are aware that there were more than 4 "Gospels", right? That it was the "church bureaucracy" that decided that the current 4 (AKA the synoptic Gospels) were the only true ones?
You understand that Jesus usually spoke in Aramaic, that whether or not the Gospels were originally written in the language he used, the earliest copies we have are in Greek, and that all our arguments about them are taking place in English, right?
So that every single bit of those "words from Jesus" came to us via the "church bureaucracy" that you now wish to ignore?
You're really cute when you decide to let your freak flag fly
Robert Cook said...
And yet, "natural law" and "God's law" are not defined
Going by member here, but the version I remember is: "My Father gave you ten laws, I give you but one: love one another as I have loved you."
And you are correct that Jesus was not Mohamed, and so didn't give us a complete detailed list of exactly how we should live our lives.
But I'm sure if he had, you'd be following every single jot and title of that, right?
You can keep on arguing in bad faith, and I can keep on pointing out that your'e arguing in bad faith.
You asked if "natural law" is part of Christianity. the answer is a resounding "yes"
You then demand that Christians provide a complete set of rules from the New Testament (ignoring all the ones in the Old testament, which is still part of Christianity) to define exactly what is IN "natural law".
That's Islam, not Christianity.
Christians, see, are allowed to "listen to God's voice in their own hearts", and go from that to believing that X is part of natural law, and Y isn't.
Which is why the only person in this argument who has fought for the position that "Christianity defines exactly what natural law is, and ever good Christian should believe exactly that" is you
"You asked if 'natural law' is part of Christianity. the answer is a resounding 'yes'"
And yet you haven't been able to define it or show where it is defined in the New Testament by Jesus Christ's own words, (or by anyone else, for that matter).
So...still FAIL.
"Regarding conduct, in its essence, the natural law - which is discernible to all by right reason - is 'to do good and avoid evil.'
"Meanwhile, EVERYTHING Jesus spoke about was about doing good and avoiding evil."
Now here is someone who actually responded with a helpful answer, and he points out he is drawing his answer from Jesus' preaching.
That's fair: natural law is to "do good and avoid evil."
However, it is so broad and open to interpretation that it isn't really very helpful, given how prone humankind is to interpret that which is "good" as that which aligns with one's self-interest (of a person, a state, tribe, nation, other populations of people who share common material interests), and that which is "evil" as that which conflicts with one's self-interest. "Natural law," so-called, is so amorphous as an idea that it is simply aspirational rhetoric. Humankind has to do the hard work of translating the large concept into workable and specific laws, and individual persons or factions will always disagree, often passionately or even violently, over what "natural law" is and how it should be implemented. Jesus preaches that we should turn our cheeks to injuries inflicted on us by others, and to help those who not our natural friends. This is not "natural," at all, but requires that we learn to see beyond ourselves and our fear of and antagonism to strangers to understand why welcoming, helping, and sharing with others is good for the larger community than just our own small tribe.
I think it more accurate to admit there is no "natural law," as such, but adaptive behaviors developed over time that tend to better enable and prolong the survival of human societies, (as with any herd or pack animals), as opposed to behaviors that tend to undermine and bring about the failure of human societies to thrive and survive.
I just saw this:
"However: 'to live as we please.' Nope. Pedophiles don't get to 'live as they please,' and shouldn't. The polygamous don't get to 'live as they please,' and it's entirely proper that the majority be allowed to make laws that enforce that. Unlike with the pedos, the majority could equally well make laws that did allow the polygamous to live as they please.
"So there's a couple of places in there where 'within reasonable limits' need to be added, but other than that spot on."
Thank you, but "within reasonable limits" goes without saying. It is not inherent in the idea that we are all born equally free that we each have license to behave completely as we wish, without limits, especially if it will harm others. After all, others have rights equal to ours, and thus their rights should not be infringed by our behavior.
Robert Cook said...
"You asked if 'natural law' is part of Christianity. the answer is a resounding 'yes'"
And yet you haven't been able to define it or show where it is defined in the New Testament by Jesus Christ's own words, (or by anyone else, for that matter).
So...still FAIL.
Wow, so your'e not asking "is natural law part of Christianity", you're asking "did Jesus sit down and completely define the contents of natural law, and have that rule making pass on to us via one or more of the Synoptic Gospels?"
No, that didn't happen.
No one has ever claimed it did.
So, have fun beating up your straw men
Thank you, but "within reasonable limits" goes without saying.
No, when dealing with the Left, that never goes without saying.
Esp since some of the reasonable limits, like refusing to support polygamy, are not reasonably justified on a "you can't do that because then you'd be violating my rights" argument.
They're instead supported on a "societies that allow that almost always are shitty societies, so we're not going to allow that" basis.
"However, it is so broad and open to interpretation "
Well no shit, Sherlock.
We've got a written US Constition that says "the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed", and we have massive fights over that.
WTF powers you to claim sny other "law" will be different?
Edmund Burke, the great defender of American, Indian, and Irish liberty, rejected the theories of French philosophes of natural rights, as did Sir William Blackstone. Burke believed that “chartered rights” guaranteed by cultural and traditions, such as the English constitution, are better than natural rights, which are undefinable abstractions. Likewise, “equality” is a mathematical term which has no philosophical meaning. Therefore, equality is more of a political slogan than defined and consistently enforced public policy.
E.g., which are more effective over two a half centuries, the negative rights of the USBill of Rights- “Congress may not-“ or the hundreds of positive rights in hundreds of other republican constitutions?
टिप्पणी पोस्ट करा