The law is written on our hearts for those who choose to be still and set aside their ego. That's why, when we hear truth, it resonates down to our very souls. Looking to any person for guidance to tell us what's right and wrong can lead to a lot of confusion and misinterpretation, and on the extreme end, tyrrany. It can also lead to cult-like organizations that prey on vulnerable, confused people. It's why the best parents are the ones who lead by loving example. It nurtures and brings out the ability to access the best of ourselves and learn to harness the worst of ourselves.
”Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the Lord and depart from evil. It will be health to your flesh, And strength to your bones.“
"The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, races or creeds, nor between political parties either -but right through every human heart."
Thank you so much. Your comment reminded me of a moment -- a tough one -- that involved the woman I adored -- my mother -- and one of the hardest lessons I ever learned from her. It was a lesson that has stayed with me my whole life. It represents what was, IMO, a model of what parenting means. Your comment encapsulated that role and its responsibilities so beautifully. I thought to myself, "Now 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆'𝒔 the intro to that story..."
And watch this, more than once. Sen Joe Biden and Judge Clarence Thomas at his 1990 confirmation hearings. Natural Law vs. Positive Law jurisprudence. We will not be a constitutional republic again until we restore Natural Law jurisprudence. Morality in law. Radical concept, I know. The concept the US Constitution was written for.
Oh, good Lord! I watched the short version and could barely get through it. That lowlife Biden pontificating in front of poor Clarence Thomas. I could not help but think that Mr. Thomas was asking himself, "WITAF are you babbling about, Biden?"
Right! And that was Joe when he was 'smart.' He even admitted how dumb he was then, how poorly he did in school. A blowhard nonetheless.
There's a Clarence Thomas biographical video out there that uses some of that same short clip paired with interview comments he made about what he was thinking at the time. It's actually the most common video search result you'll find for the hearing.
I didn't want to use that version in this comment since it veers off subject, but you could find it easily if curioud enough. I find it interesting in his interview that he claims he had no idea what Biden was talking about related to Natural Law. Either it's clipped without full context or Thomas is being intentionally obtuse.
He wrote many academic papers about Natural Law before he was a Justice. He knows full well what Natural Law is vs. Positive Law jurisprudence. He clearly favored Natural Law earlier in his academic and legal career. I don't know why he claims otherwise in his biography interview about that hearing. I've not been able to put that piece of the puzzle together yet.
No doubt 100% of Christians are imperfect. I wonder what % of non-Christians are imperfect? If these percentages are equal, then perhaps it isn't the Christianity of protesters that you should object to, but rather something else.
Christians should hold themselves and each other to the biblical standard. It is much higher than the common moral bounds. Thereby others should see our standard as higher but that standard has been obliterated by liberal christianity and the grace movement. So the group of people you speak of as being held to a higher standard are odd outcasts and even looked down upon the the church at large. So of the 60 % of Christians in America maybe 10% might fit the idea of being held to a higher standard..
Cults? Please include Christianity too and those miserable abortion clinic protesters who feel their version of morality supersedes a woman's lawful right to the liberty of her own body and the determination of whether or not she wishes to let a fetus exploit its resources if she does not in fact want the child to be born.
Who determines what "best" is? I thought the "loving example" by that best moral guy teaching his kids to protest outside abortion clinics was one of the worst dads ever, in terms of wretched examples being set for children.
IMO that dad is not setting a "loving" example. Love requires listening, compassion, understanding. I would say he is deforming his child's sense of morality. Hopefully that child has other examples to follow, and will at some point reach the conclusion that his father's crusade is not actually moral, but odiously self-righteous.
Nevertheless, trying to legislate for or against his vision of morality would certainly fail. Women should be free to choose (within reason), and he should be free to protest it (also within reason). This is how a true and resilient moral foundation for society can emerge.
I'm a middle school Social Studies teacher and I fight to teach them independent, critical thinking everyday. It's an uphill slog: as you said, the world teaches them to give away their power, to make themselves dependent, to defer to authority on everything that counts. They resist using their brains with every molecule.
I'm lucky to be in a good school, but thinking about the typical school experience for these kids makes me nauseous.
You're a confused individualist if your position is that an individual can avoid responsibility for their free will action by killing an innocent, defenseless and powerless individual.
Is your position that the community has custodial rights over what a woman is growing in her own body and that she has no liberty to determine the use of her body's physical and emotional resources?
I'm making purely an ideological argument. Personal responsibility is a pillar of individualism. Avoiding it by killing another individual should be repulsive purely on an ideological level. We should be coming to the defense of the most innocent and powerless individual. Atheism and ideology are two powerful and independent motivators that're often at odds with each other. I'm always fascinated as to which one gets its way.
Like a pure individualist, you're using "the community" like it's a dirty word. There's no individualism without a community of individuals to stand up and defend the individual. Often the individual is the enemy of individualism and the community is the champion of individualism. This's how it should be. Your best argument is the undeveloped hunan in the womb is not yet an individual and thus has no individual rights. I don't have a non-theological argument against that.
Newsflash: Kids exploit their mother's physical and emotional resources after they are born. Is it your position that she should have no liberty over the things she has created and exploit her body's physical and emotional resources?
I agree with your sentiment. I am forced to pay taxes and there are lots of people in the country exploiting my resources. I should be able to terminate them too.
Yes, yes it’s always those pesky, praying Catholics destroying the moral fiber of America, and breaking bad? But what laws are they breaking? Peaceful assembly? Praying in public? The women may have a right to choose and that choice may not seem ok to some, just as equally the people have a right to choose to pray for those women and unborn children, and that may not seem ok to some, but the the balance of supporting those choices is what we seek to attain in this country. I’m sure the women going in for their abortions feel justified setting the example for their unborn children, just as the man outside feels he is justified setting the example for his born children.
I agree with you, as far as peaceful protests that don't block access in any way. In England, though, you will be done up by the police if you stand near the facility and silently pray, by yourself.
I find it peculiar that the street prayers seem to believe that the efficacy of their prayers can only be achieved within certain geographic parameters.
God doesn't listen to them if they pray in their own living rooms? How strange.
That's a valid point. There are reasons to be closer to the object of your prayer though, in the sense of focusing your prayers more powerfully. I know that many protesters also hold hope that women who see them praying will themselves be moved to reconsider their decisions.
Of course none of this makes sense if you don't believe in the power of prayer.
The problem is that born vs. unborn may not be that big of a distinction as far as the child is concerned. A six-month preemie is born, but a nine-month, healthy baby still in the womb is not. By the logic of the birth distinction, it is immoral to kill the preemie, but perhaps not immoral to kill the nine-month unborn baby. Yet the nine-month is much farther along in development than the six-month.
Born-ness matters a lot to the mother, but it isn't very satisfying as a criterion for defining when a developing human ontogenetic process becomes a person in the meaning of the law, with its own independent right to life. And that is the issue that the anti-abortion people consider self-evidently paramount.
It's no one's business but the woman gestating the child.
As civilized people, there is a point where the woman's liberty becomes unbearably distasteful to the society in which she lives. At that point even a free society must assume a degree of hypocrisy and flouting of its principles of liberty.
We don't have a natural right to prohibit abortion after the point of viability but most normal people, regardless of any devotion to less government and free choice, cannot tolerate for themselves that we might allow abortion past 24 weeks. It is very repugnant at that degree of development since the child has a chance at surviving outside the womb. Of course surviving does not necessarily mean a healthy independent life post-birth and there are always dreadful situations where a post- theoretical viability should not preclude a medical justification for abortion.
Nothing in the governance of human society is tidy and neat.
I would not consider it cultish behavior to question the morality of killing people. If we question Stalin's or Pol Pot's methods, are we too engaging in cultish behavior?
You must live close to me! Imbecile protestors at a clinic that does ZER0 surgery. They do nothing but incite violence, which is probably their agenda. In the name of the Lord of course 🙄.
It would follow from your statement that the community should never be expected to support the woman nor pay for the abortions.
Reality:
Since abortion has been made legal the state has become much more influential in the lives of women and children.
The state is forcibly taking children who are not being raised as the state sees fit. The state has also resumed overt sterilization programs. It has assumed the role of big daddy. This makes some women feel more secure, and perhaps if they came from very unstable upbringing, it is understandable. But this feeling will not last, because the system is crashing.
People swear oaths on the Bible in court as well, as if that ever stopped anyone from lying. You certainly aren't going to follow something you don't really believe in.
Unfortunately, and tragically, no one who's take the Oath has ever been prosecuted for violating our country's most foundational laws, as written in our US Constitution and Bill of Rights. Perhaps we need another amendment in that Bill of Rights, to bring about the enforcement of it.
Neither Virtue nor Freedom lies in the purvue of an outside agency. Both are centred upon individual conscience which supercedes all external "authority". Freedom is the right of every human, not a privilege granted by government or church and Virtue (arête, sometimes translated as “excellence”) ought to be viewed as a state of character, not as an externally imposed Rule or Law.
Exactly and if each of us if left to our own determination of what is virtuous or moral, then morality is completely subjective and you can argue that anything is permissible.
And you ignore the fact that Palestinians, indeed islam has oppressed Jews for 1400 years? When Jews retaliate to the murder, rape and beheading they are the oppressors? Hamas stated clearly, that Israel cannot be tolerated because any land occupied by Islam is Islamic until judgment day. This is a concensus in the Islamic world. They even want Spain and other areas they once conquered back. Sympathising with Hamas and their ideology is similar to supporting what the nazis did. Did you know that the mufti of Jerusalem was with Hitler the architect of the great solution, the killing of al Jews. If you need more information I will gladly give you links.
"Did you know that the mufti of Jerusalem was with Hitler the architect of the great solution, the killing of al Jews. If you need more information I will gladly give you links. "
Despite many years delving into Nazi Germany & Hitler from an economic perspective with heavy focus on corps that became biotech gmo crop giants from IG Farben roots but including Wall Street giants like Ford Motors, Standard Oil etc there has NEVER been any mention of Arabs involved.
It would be great to see your sources because your perspective seems more skewed than MSNBC Trump news. Please share work on par w Antony Sutton's academic history citations ty.
Since the early 1920s unsubstantiated reports have circulated to the effect that not only German industrialists, but also Wall Street financiers, had some role — possibly a substantial role — in the rise of Hitler and Naziism. This book presents previously unpublished evidence, a great deal from files of the Nuremburg Military Tribunals, to support this hypothesis. However, the full impact and suggestiveness of the evidence cannot be found from reading this volume alone. Two previous books in this series, Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution1 and Wall Street and FDR,2 described the roles of the same firms, and often the same individuals and their fellow directors, hard at work manipulating and assisting the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917, backing Franklin D. Roosevelt for President in the United States in 1933, as well as aiding the rise of Hitler in pre-war Germany. in brief, this book is part of a more extensive study of the rise of modern socialism and the corporate socialists.
This politically active Wall Street group is more or less the same elitist circle known generally among Conservatives as the "Liberal Establishment," by liberals (for instance G. William Domhoff) as "the ruling class,"3 and by conspiratorial theorists Gary Allen4 and Dan Smoot5 as the "Insiders." But whatever we call this self-perpetuating elitist group, it is apparently fundamentally significant in the determination of world affairs, at a level far behind and above that of the elected politicians.
The influence and work of this same group in the rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany is the topic of this book.
Strange, isn't it, that no one is calling for the liberation of the Berber territories colonized and settled by the invading Arabs from, you know, Arabia? The liberation of the indigenous people of Indonesia from the oppressive imposed Islam that's turned a multicultural society into the world's most populous Muslim nation?
SubstackLand is full of hysterics insisting Jews aren't really Jews by ethnicity.
And why, tell me, ought Jews to have respected the territorial lines and maps imposed by Western imperial nations to carve up the Middle East?
Arabs settled in the region that used to be known as Judaea until the Romans renamed it were given a full contiguous nation of their own too by the British. It's called Jordan. But the installed king of Jordan didn't want all of them. Not all the clans saw his clan as having any right of rulership over them.
It is quite true that we, especially in the personage of Ronald Reagan, gave them a push. Not just by "Star Wars", but also unleashing the U.S. oil industry. But they no longer had any confidence their system could compete. Good call. And so....a mostly bloodless revolution.
The 1930-1970 Soviet reponse would have been quite different.
On the contrary, though 1940's predate me I was raised by a voting rights activist & have had a front seat to feet in the street driving change ever since. My Flickr has pics from Occupy day one onward w most NYC events around human rights & worker unions. Take a gander then show me where you've been with respect to popular movements thanks.
In the context of the quote it is any oppressive force & clown show by BoJo is close enough to describe a crumbling political hierarchy by historic Empire moniker.
Except India and those who were victims of the African slave trade whose cries were finally heard and amplified throughout western societies, leading to the abolition of the slave trade. And the slow but steady progress of moral development leading up to the reforms of the civil rights era…
Fair point but in my view pressure exerted by informed voters forced elected officials to chase public sentiment not lead in morality. There's an old saying that holds true, "Power concedes nothing without a demand." Massive public demand forces change from the bottom up, civil rights fight was built on civil disobedience eg Rosa Parks at the lunch counter.
"Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them."
In what way are the People of Gaza unFree that was not of their own making? That they might not be quite capable of sustaining their own society _independent_ of Israel is a different thing than being unFree.
If Gaza truly desires a ceasefire, they should make efforts to convince their Hamas Government to turn over the remaining Oct 7 hostages and stop lobbing rockets into Israel.
"In what way are the People of Gaza unFree that was not of their own making? "
That has to rank near the top of the list of stupidest remarks ever made and sounds like the thinking of an abusive spouse. The suffering and abuse doled out is of their own making. If we apply the notion of individuals "getting what they deserve" to 11,000+ Palestinian children killed it's a poor excuse for genocide no flag is big enough to hide.
I didn't ever say they deserved anything. I'm asking specifically: How are they not free and, in those instances, why?
Do abusive spouses have to endure dozens of rocket attacks a day? This is a very poor analogy.
I so very much sympathize with all who've died in this conflict, most all of them not the actual players in the conflict, just the victims. But since Oct 7, this is a war. I don't like wars. Nobody likes wars except Warlords and Munitions Manufacturers.
But it's a war. And Hamas, Gaza's governing body, clearly Decided that the risk that Children Will Die - along with all the non-children - was not significant enough to launch a naked terrorist attack on innocent civilians.
Israel has Decided it's not over until they Hamas is no longer a threat. I wish it could be otherwise.
Once one of them Decide on another path, Children will stop being Killed. And either one could choose that. Gaza could choose to give up the remaining hostages, and stop dropping bombs on innocent civilians.
It is not a war it is a genocide with more civilians, press & aid workers killed in a span of weeks than most years long wars. That warmongering politicians choose who and when to kill and call it policy does not change mass murder of innocents to something else. There are no excuses.
Perhaps there might be genocides within wars but I'm not sure that that's the case here.
Israel has not claimed any desire to eliminate Palestinians. Only Hamas. Not a whole race. Specific people who, not incidentally, might've committed a Couple or Three War Crimes on Oct 7.
There was a Ceasefire on Oct 6. Hamas chose to end it the next day. You say it was justified retaliation. Israel thinks hunting down every last member of Hamas is justified retaliation for raping Saftas and cooking, well, innocent children, Pamela. I'm not sure the numbers matter once you've crossed those lines.
This isn't something new in this region. :
“When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons. Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”
― Golda Meir, A Land of Our Own: An Oral Autobiography
God have mercy on your racist soul. Even Israeli media debunked the lies you cite as some form of earned retribution right. Grayzone has details.
How many dead babies equal one Israeli if this is about keeping score by deaths? There are no words to say more than images of the carnage, suffering and slow painful death by disease and starvation.
Your polite tone reminds me of Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal and damn good character match. Creepy chatting with you so vengeful & ignorant.
”Cast out the scoffer, and contention will leave; Yes, strife and reproach will cease.“
Proverbs 22:10 NKJV
Hamas charter indicates their hatred for Israel and their desire to wipe them off the face of the earth. “From the river to the sea” means exactly that.
How would you deal with someone who wanted you dead and is continually in your face punching you every time you’re within arms reach? How would you deal with that kind of hatred? Hamas continues to put the innocent at risk by hiding behind them. Why do they do that? They are cowards. Your outrage is misplaced.
It's not just a case of whether laws are 'wrong' or not. There's still a touching naivety in the West about the 'independence' of its legal systems....although the current spate of Lawfare might be starting to chip away at those illusions. Ask yourself this; the great majority of graduate class professionals will have gone through 3+ years of an academia rite of passage in leftist 'progressivism'. Few come through all that untarred by it. Will lawyers be any exception? Of course not.
As my constitutional law professor said back in the late ’80s, “law is applied philosophy”. Basically the same principle as the little kitty referred to. Laws are the mechanism to uphold our ideals (including the idea of morality) and ensure their survival.
The problems we are experiencing now is that the new “philosophy” (Wokeism) being used to run our society believes that there is no such thing as “morality”, because everything is subjective/biased. For them, “morality” is whatever the people in power want it to be. That is now the foundation underpinning our laws.
I guess this concept doesn't apply to places like Canada, that were simply colonized by Britain (and France) and then "allowed" to have their own constitutions, pretending to have sovereignty, but still had to pledge loyalty to the Crown (except Quebec). I think it might explain why democracy and human rights became irrelevant so easily in 2020. No history of "treason for good reason".
Another E.D. Quote that applies to today’s Canada: "When Exposing a Crime is Treated as Committing a Crime, You Are Ruled By Criminals." That about sums it up.
Whose morality? Read the beginning of Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis and you will get an idea of whose morality. It's imprinted on our hearts. That many people deny it or try to justify ignoring it doesn't make it less true.
There's also a difference between law and legislation.
Under the common law, law was slowly discovered by judges over decades and centuries of past legal decisions. It was deeply rooted in social custom and mores. It actually existed as law long before it was able to be articulated as such.
Legislation is privilege peddling; favors bestowed upon the highest bidders...
“Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders…and millions have been killed because of this obedience…Our problem is that people are obedient allover the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves… (and) the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.”
Matt Damon from Howard Zinn's speech: The Problem is Civil Obedience
I’m not a fan of Howard Zinn. “Zinn described himself as "something of an anarchist, something of a socialist. Maybe a democratic socialist."” (From Wikipedia.). The quote about civil obedience was from a discussion where he was advocating for wealth redistribution in the socialist sense. A further quote reveals this: “I start from the supposition that the world is topsy-turvy, that things are all wrong, that the wrong people are in jail and the wrong people are out of jail, that the wrong people are in power and the wrong people are out of power, that the wealth is distributed in this country and the world in such a way as not simply to require small reform but to require a drastic reallocation of wealth.”
I have worked with a number of people who have come here legally on visas or whatever and are working very hard and contributing to society but have great difficulty with the process of becoming legal citizens. Sadly, in some cases they are not allowed to stay. When functioning, contributing, hard-working people have great hurdles in the process of coming here to stay, it only encourages illegal immigration since in that way, it's so much easier.
We must not conflate (1). legal and visa immigration with (2.) illegal immigration with (3.) an invasion of a country being financed and encouraged by entities intended to destroy that country. What we have seen happening at our border since 2021 is just that. We have always had illegal immigration, our country could always accommodate or control that. What is happening now is economically an logistically causing immense burden on our country. It is creating an increase in crime. such as child and drug trafficking. It is warehousing millions of people with nothing to do and no path forward which will breed trouble. It has let in uncountable terrorist and military ages solo men. And worst of all it, is inhumane to so callously deceive and use people with unrealizable expectations and make them walk across whole countries facing death, predation, disease, injury, and theft to get here.
Yes, but whose morality? To the extremist, a woman cheating on her spouse should be stoned to death. It says so in the book that is the cornerstone of their right and wrong. The laws allow us collectively to say what behavior is and is not available within our collective perception of morality, and our government (with any hope) allows us the mechanism to address any changes to that. There have been many times across human history when that mechanism has not existed or has broken irrevocably, and the results were often not what the rebellious would have liked. The path to correction of bad laws is the hard road - convincing enough of your fellow citizens to speak up, speak out (sometimes at their financial peril), and create a movement for change. If your right and wrong is shared commonly amongst the land, you (or your successors) will likely succeed. If not, then it will be as the Sheryl Crow song says, “Hard to take a stand”.
Laws buried in dense, immense legislation, passed by dirty legislators under the cover of darkness, or “regulations” that never receive any public scrutiny, much less a vote, can’t be said to reflect any collective will. Their manner of being enacted is testament to the fact that they are likely entirely unacceptable to the man in the street.
The number and effect of “laws” and regulations to which everyone (except the privileged, apparently) is subject is immense and, in practice, is not really knowable until such time as some prosecutor, corrupt or otherwise, decides, for reasons just or unjust, that you have fallen afoul of them.
We’re long, long past the point where we can vote ourselves out of this. When the “law”, twisted and stretched thin, can be used to disqualify political candidates on a whim, it’s obvious that the voting option has been foreclosed.
The question of “whose morality” is interesting, the answer to which at least partially hinges on the distinction between morals and mores. However, if the moral center of gravity is estimated by examining pop culture, then there’s reason for grave concern. But is that the right metric?
There are signs of a resurgence of the recognition of the compelling need for a new ideal, a new supreme value (one from which all other values are derived) that ennobles rather than debases man, that emphasizes loving service over grasping selfishness, that prefers elevation of the soul to gratification of the flesh. Widespread consecration to such a value level is a long time off for we are still at the point where some would even deny the possibility of such a thing. Its realization will be delayed by false teachings and hindered, temporarily, by moral inertia and spiritual indolence, but its day will come.
In the meantime, we had better be prepared for chaos, which will, at best, be punctuated by short periods of relative stability. No social organization can rise much above the lowest common moral denominator among its members (and this refers to a morality based on truth, beauty and goodness, setting aside shallow quibbles along the lines of “whose truth”, which vividly illustrate my point about spiritual indolence). The ratcheting-up of moral fiber and spiritual insight will be matched, albeit after some delay, by commensurate improvements in social conditions. The transitions between regimes are bound to be turbulent. Stay tuned…
The law is written on our hearts for those who choose to be still and set aside their ego. That's why, when we hear truth, it resonates down to our very souls. Looking to any person for guidance to tell us what's right and wrong can lead to a lot of confusion and misinterpretation, and on the extreme end, tyrrany. It can also lead to cult-like organizations that prey on vulnerable, confused people. It's why the best parents are the ones who lead by loving example. It nurtures and brings out the ability to access the best of ourselves and learn to harness the worst of ourselves.
”Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the Lord and depart from evil. It will be health to your flesh, And strength to your bones.“
Proverbs 3:5-8 NKJV
”The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?“
Jeremiah 17:9 NKJV
"The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, races or creeds, nor between political parties either -but right through every human heart."
-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
beautifully articulated! and your words resonate with the truth that my body always detects. thank you 🌞
This is beautiful, Nicol. May I use it as the basis for a newsletter -- anonymously or with attribution?
Wow--yes, I would be honored if you did that. You are a talented and inspired writer and I appreciate all you're doing.
Thank you so much. Your comment reminded me of a moment -- a tough one -- that involved the woman I adored -- my mother -- and one of the hardest lessons I ever learned from her. It was a lesson that has stayed with me my whole life. It represents what was, IMO, a model of what parenting means. Your comment encapsulated that role and its responsibilities so beautifully. I thought to myself, "Now 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆'𝒔 the intro to that story..."
I love that--I bet your Mom is so proud of you. She sounds like a great Mom.
Read this. More than once.
And watch this, more than once. Sen Joe Biden and Judge Clarence Thomas at his 1990 confirmation hearings. Natural Law vs. Positive Law jurisprudence. We will not be a constitutional republic again until we restore Natural Law jurisprudence. Morality in law. Radical concept, I know. The concept the US Constitution was written for.
Short version (00:04:46):
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4887077/user-clip-biden-natural-law
Long version (03:22:58) :
https://www.c-span.org/video/?21107-1/thomas-confirmation-hearing-day-1-part-2
Oh, good Lord! I watched the short version and could barely get through it. That lowlife Biden pontificating in front of poor Clarence Thomas. I could not help but think that Mr. Thomas was asking himself, "WITAF are you babbling about, Biden?"
Right! And that was Joe when he was 'smart.' He even admitted how dumb he was then, how poorly he did in school. A blowhard nonetheless.
There's a Clarence Thomas biographical video out there that uses some of that same short clip paired with interview comments he made about what he was thinking at the time. It's actually the most common video search result you'll find for the hearing.
I didn't want to use that version in this comment since it veers off subject, but you could find it easily if curioud enough. I find it interesting in his interview that he claims he had no idea what Biden was talking about related to Natural Law. Either it's clipped without full context or Thomas is being intentionally obtuse.
He wrote many academic papers about Natural Law before he was a Justice. He knows full well what Natural Law is vs. Positive Law jurisprudence. He clearly favored Natural Law earlier in his academic and legal career. I don't know why he claims otherwise in his biography interview about that hearing. I've not been able to put that piece of the puzzle together yet.
I wish Clarence could have 9 lives, except he’d get tired of us all.
Beautiful Nicol!!
Yes. Agree for the most part.
But I do think Christians on balance failed all of this during c19.
Let's be honest.
No doubt 100% of Christians are imperfect. I wonder what % of non-Christians are imperfect? If these percentages are equal, then perhaps it isn't the Christianity of protesters that you should object to, but rather something else.
"The world isn't split into Good People and Death Eaters, Harry."
https://youtu.be/WQb7XA0Xz0A?si=0THBHFUEdMzL_H5R
Are Christians not to be held to a higher standard?
Christians should hold themselves and each other to the biblical standard. It is much higher than the common moral bounds. Thereby others should see our standard as higher but that standard has been obliterated by liberal christianity and the grace movement. So the group of people you speak of as being held to a higher standard are odd outcasts and even looked down upon the the church at large. So of the 60 % of Christians in America maybe 10% might fit the idea of being held to a higher standard..
Well said
No.
Re-read the good book
Judge not, lest ye be judged. Sometimes, we all judge.
They failed...and they warned they would fail. "Even the elect will be deceived."
I think that their compassion was weaponized against them. It is also one of the levers the pro narrative people try to pull to trip them up.
exactly
Cults? Please include Christianity too and those miserable abortion clinic protesters who feel their version of morality supersedes a woman's lawful right to the liberty of her own body and the determination of whether or not she wishes to let a fetus exploit its resources if she does not in fact want the child to be born.
Everyone wants the government to legislate their version of morality. And that is the problem.
As Nicole said, the best adults teach through loving example.
Who determines what "best" is? I thought the "loving example" by that best moral guy teaching his kids to protest outside abortion clinics was one of the worst dads ever, in terms of wretched examples being set for children.
IMO that dad is not setting a "loving" example. Love requires listening, compassion, understanding. I would say he is deforming his child's sense of morality. Hopefully that child has other examples to follow, and will at some point reach the conclusion that his father's crusade is not actually moral, but odiously self-righteous.
Nevertheless, trying to legislate for or against his vision of morality would certainly fail. Women should be free to choose (within reason), and he should be free to protest it (also within reason). This is how a true and resilient moral foundation for society can emerge.
Yes, I agree with you and that was my point.
But as they say, get the kids young. Those kids are being taught every day not to think for themselves.
I'm a middle school Social Studies teacher and I fight to teach them independent, critical thinking everyday. It's an uphill slog: as you said, the world teaches them to give away their power, to make themselves dependent, to defer to authority on everything that counts. They resist using their brains with every molecule.
I'm lucky to be in a good school, but thinking about the typical school experience for these kids makes me nauseous.
You're a confused individualist if your position is that an individual can avoid responsibility for their free will action by killing an innocent, defenseless and powerless individual.
Is your position that the community has custodial rights over what a woman is growing in her own body and that she has no liberty to determine the use of her body's physical and emotional resources?
I'm making purely an ideological argument. Personal responsibility is a pillar of individualism. Avoiding it by killing another individual should be repulsive purely on an ideological level. We should be coming to the defense of the most innocent and powerless individual. Atheism and ideology are two powerful and independent motivators that're often at odds with each other. I'm always fascinated as to which one gets its way.
Are you asserting that the community should have custodial power over the woman's pregnancy?
Like a pure individualist, you're using "the community" like it's a dirty word. There's no individualism without a community of individuals to stand up and defend the individual. Often the individual is the enemy of individualism and the community is the champion of individualism. This's how it should be. Your best argument is the undeveloped hunan in the womb is not yet an individual and thus has no individual rights. I don't have a non-theological argument against that.
Newsflash: Kids exploit their mother's physical and emotional resources after they are born. Is it your position that she should have no liberty over the things she has created and exploit her body's physical and emotional resources?
Newsflash: Gestation is a unique state of being. It is not comparable to any other state of being.
Nice deflection. Now how about using that logic on a baby. Or a preadolescent child.
I agree with your sentiment. I am forced to pay taxes and there are lots of people in the country exploiting my resources. I should be able to terminate them too.
Specious argument as you know.
How so? Seems the underlying principle is the same. Why should I support others with my resources that I did not consent to support?
Specious argument as you know.
Repeating the same line does not make it true. You don't seem to have an actual argument.
Yes, yes it’s always those pesky, praying Catholics destroying the moral fiber of America, and breaking bad? But what laws are they breaking? Peaceful assembly? Praying in public? The women may have a right to choose and that choice may not seem ok to some, just as equally the people have a right to choose to pray for those women and unborn children, and that may not seem ok to some, but the the balance of supporting those choices is what we seek to attain in this country. I’m sure the women going in for their abortions feel justified setting the example for their unborn children, just as the man outside feels he is justified setting the example for his born children.
If they stuck to praying there would be no problem.
I agree with you, as far as peaceful protests that don't block access in any way. In England, though, you will be done up by the police if you stand near the facility and silently pray, by yourself.
I find it peculiar that the street prayers seem to believe that the efficacy of their prayers can only be achieved within certain geographic parameters.
God doesn't listen to them if they pray in their own living rooms? How strange.
That's a valid point. There are reasons to be closer to the object of your prayer though, in the sense of focusing your prayers more powerfully. I know that many protesters also hold hope that women who see them praying will themselves be moved to reconsider their decisions.
Of course none of this makes sense if you don't believe in the power of prayer.
I would venture to guess in a world with mentally competent people devoid of mental illness, killing your child would be considered immoral.
Killing one's born child is certainly immoral.
The problem is that born vs. unborn may not be that big of a distinction as far as the child is concerned. A six-month preemie is born, but a nine-month, healthy baby still in the womb is not. By the logic of the birth distinction, it is immoral to kill the preemie, but perhaps not immoral to kill the nine-month unborn baby. Yet the nine-month is much farther along in development than the six-month.
Born-ness matters a lot to the mother, but it isn't very satisfying as a criterion for defining when a developing human ontogenetic process becomes a person in the meaning of the law, with its own independent right to life. And that is the issue that the anti-abortion people consider self-evidently paramount.
It's no one's business but the woman gestating the child.
As civilized people, there is a point where the woman's liberty becomes unbearably distasteful to the society in which she lives. At that point even a free society must assume a degree of hypocrisy and flouting of its principles of liberty.
We don't have a natural right to prohibit abortion after the point of viability but most normal people, regardless of any devotion to less government and free choice, cannot tolerate for themselves that we might allow abortion past 24 weeks. It is very repugnant at that degree of development since the child has a chance at surviving outside the womb. Of course surviving does not necessarily mean a healthy independent life post-birth and there are always dreadful situations where a post- theoretical viability should not preclude a medical justification for abortion.
Nothing in the governance of human society is tidy and neat.
I stand by my statement.
As you have every right to.
I would not consider it cultish behavior to question the morality of killing people. If we question Stalin's or Pol Pot's methods, are we too engaging in cultish behavior?
Specious argument. Gestation is a unique state of being.
You must live close to me! Imbecile protestors at a clinic that does ZER0 surgery. They do nothing but incite violence, which is probably their agenda. In the name of the Lord of course 🙄.
Surgery means nothing. They still provide pills that kill a child.
And so does CVS, Walgreens, Target, Kroger, Meijer, ... and they don't harass ppl going into these places. It's a lose lose debate.
Fortunately I myself do not live near any covening of these un-American lunatics.
They are lunatics
All cultists are on the lunatic spectrum.
Murder is murder.
Not quite.
There are other ways to not rent a womb to a little human, besides the killing method.
That is immaterial.
There are people who will continually grow in skillfullness, and some others who will not.
The disposition of a woman's pregnancy is not the business of the State nor of the community. It is solely her own business.
It would follow from your statement that the community should never be expected to support the woman nor pay for the abortions.
Reality:
Since abortion has been made legal the state has become much more influential in the lives of women and children.
The state is forcibly taking children who are not being raised as the state sees fit. The state has also resumed overt sterilization programs. It has assumed the role of big daddy. This makes some women feel more secure, and perhaps if they came from very unstable upbringing, it is understandable. But this feeling will not last, because the system is crashing.
Does anyone remember signing anything agreeing to the laws?
Anyone employed by the government signs an oath to uphold the Constitution because that document places limits on the government.
I would venture a guess that upwards of 99% of things brought up for a vote in Congress involve something that violates that document.
Yeah like selling us out and trading their souls for money
#TeamSnoutsInTrough
Hey man. Have you ever checked out Chris Brays stack?
He's money like Gato. I think you'd like his overall message.
And the commentary there is both hilarious and intelligent.
Do you have a link or user name? I found 6 Chris Brays in substack!
https://open.substack.com/pub/chrisbray/p/the-way-adults-sound-in-peanuts-movies?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=b8jwu
He's awesome Judy. Worth the time.
Sounds familiar. Maybe someone linked him before.
I'll check him out. Thx!
Been meaning to ask you for awhile
I wouldn’t be surprised if many of those who swear to uphold the Constitution have never read it.
Which is why I believe that willful infringement of the Constitution by government employees should be a capital offense.
"I would venture a guess that upwards of 99% of things brought up for a vote in Congress involve something that violates that document."
I wish there was sign over the Main Entrance of Congress that said exactly this.
People swear oaths on the Bible in court as well, as if that ever stopped anyone from lying. You certainly aren't going to follow something you don't really believe in.
Unfortunately, and tragically, no one who's take the Oath has ever been prosecuted for violating our country's most foundational laws, as written in our US Constitution and Bill of Rights. Perhaps we need another amendment in that Bill of Rights, to bring about the enforcement of it.
THIS is the problem with all our problems.
Lysander Spooner on line one. He's screaming, "Word!"
im not american, i had to look him up.
i think we would get along!
Did not realize you were one of our "foreign brethren"! Yes, I am a bit of a fanatical libertarian. Spooner is one of our "heroes," if you will.
ive always considered myself a centrist but i probably just lack research and might find myself to be libertarian :)
Sorta like c19, right Ray?
Neither Virtue nor Freedom lies in the purvue of an outside agency. Both are centred upon individual conscience which supercedes all external "authority". Freedom is the right of every human, not a privilege granted by government or church and Virtue (arête, sometimes translated as “excellence”) ought to be viewed as a state of character, not as an externally imposed Rule or Law.
"...not a privilege granted by government or church and Virtue..."
It is a right, endowed by our Creator. So many people seem unaware of this.
What government or church or any other institution grants can be taken away.
Our rights, granted by God, cannot be removed. Unless we comply.
Exactly and if each of us if left to our own determination of what is virtuous or moral, then morality is completely subjective and you can argue that anything is permissible.
That's what scares me about "revolution" in this country. Or even civil war. The rules that restrained us before no longer exist.
Terrifying.
https://youtu.be/51iohb6sOS8?si=r_DX2oCal_g45FtC
I am so stealing this. Wow.
I promise to attribute to Gwyneth from EGM even as I extend my expression on this.
Everybody should know this but hardly anyone does.
A sign at Sunday's Gaza Ceasefire protest that summed up that tension..
Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.
~ Assata Shakur ~
And you ignore the fact that Palestinians, indeed islam has oppressed Jews for 1400 years? When Jews retaliate to the murder, rape and beheading they are the oppressors? Hamas stated clearly, that Israel cannot be tolerated because any land occupied by Islam is Islamic until judgment day. This is a concensus in the Islamic world. They even want Spain and other areas they once conquered back. Sympathising with Hamas and their ideology is similar to supporting what the nazis did. Did you know that the mufti of Jerusalem was with Hitler the architect of the great solution, the killing of al Jews. If you need more information I will gladly give you links.
"Did you know that the mufti of Jerusalem was with Hitler the architect of the great solution, the killing of al Jews. If you need more information I will gladly give you links. "
Despite many years delving into Nazi Germany & Hitler from an economic perspective with heavy focus on corps that became biotech gmo crop giants from IG Farben roots but including Wall Street giants like Ford Motors, Standard Oil etc there has NEVER been any mention of Arabs involved.
It would be great to see your sources because your perspective seems more skewed than MSNBC Trump news. Please share work on par w Antony Sutton's academic history citations ty.
Wall Street and Rise of Hitler ~ Table of Contents https://web.archive.org/web/20010624140429/http://www.reformed-theology.org/html/books/wall_street/
Introduction...
Since the early 1920s unsubstantiated reports have circulated to the effect that not only German industrialists, but also Wall Street financiers, had some role — possibly a substantial role — in the rise of Hitler and Naziism. This book presents previously unpublished evidence, a great deal from files of the Nuremburg Military Tribunals, to support this hypothesis. However, the full impact and suggestiveness of the evidence cannot be found from reading this volume alone. Two previous books in this series, Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution1 and Wall Street and FDR,2 described the roles of the same firms, and often the same individuals and their fellow directors, hard at work manipulating and assisting the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917, backing Franklin D. Roosevelt for President in the United States in 1933, as well as aiding the rise of Hitler in pre-war Germany. in brief, this book is part of a more extensive study of the rise of modern socialism and the corporate socialists.
This politically active Wall Street group is more or less the same elitist circle known generally among Conservatives as the "Liberal Establishment," by liberals (for instance G. William Domhoff) as "the ruling class,"3 and by conspiratorial theorists Gary Allen4 and Dan Smoot5 as the "Insiders." But whatever we call this self-perpetuating elitist group, it is apparently fundamentally significant in the determination of world affairs, at a level far behind and above that of the elected politicians.
The influence and work of this same group in the rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany is the topic of this book.
https://web.archive.org/web/20010713230339/http://www.reformed-theology.org/html/books/wall_street/introduction.htm
*The Elders of Zion have entered the chat*
So, like, _all_ Jewish People bear the burden of consequences for the actions of a few? Forever?
Well, all white people seem to have that burden, why shouldn't Jews?
It's Burdens All the Way Down.
Slogans are really bad interpreters of history.
Strange, isn't it, that no one is calling for the liberation of the Berber territories colonized and settled by the invading Arabs from, you know, Arabia? The liberation of the indigenous people of Indonesia from the oppressive imposed Islam that's turned a multicultural society into the world's most populous Muslim nation?
SubstackLand is full of hysterics insisting Jews aren't really Jews by ethnicity.
And why, tell me, ought Jews to have respected the territorial lines and maps imposed by Western imperial nations to carve up the Middle East?
Arabs settled in the region that used to be known as Judaea until the Romans renamed it were given a full contiguous nation of their own too by the British. It's called Jordan. But the installed king of Jordan didn't want all of them. Not all the clans saw his clan as having any right of rulership over them.
I disagree with the quote. There are plenty of oppressors who lost their enthusiam for oppression eventually. E.g., The British Empire.
You must have slept through lockdowns, vaccine passports & mandates if you imagine the British Empire lost its oppressive appetites.
You must have slept through world history of the 1940s, 50s, 60s, and 70s.
"British Empire" - I don't think that term means what you think it means.
Another example was the mostly peaceful devolution of the Soviet Empire. It collapsed bascially due to lack of enthusiasm.
It collapsed because we made them broke dicks.
It is quite true that we, especially in the personage of Ronald Reagan, gave them a push. Not just by "Star Wars", but also unleashing the U.S. oil industry. But they no longer had any confidence their system could compete. Good call. And so....a mostly bloodless revolution.
The 1930-1970 Soviet reponse would have been quite different.
On the contrary, though 1940's predate me I was raised by a voting rights activist & have had a front seat to feet in the street driving change ever since. My Flickr has pics from Occupy day one onward w most NYC events around human rights & worker unions. Take a gander then show me where you've been with respect to popular movements thanks.
In the context of the quote it is any oppressive force & clown show by BoJo is close enough to describe a crumbling political hierarchy by historic Empire moniker.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/pameladrew/albums/with/72177720314642153
Except India and those who were victims of the African slave trade whose cries were finally heard and amplified throughout western societies, leading to the abolition of the slave trade. And the slow but steady progress of moral development leading up to the reforms of the civil rights era…
Fair point but in my view pressure exerted by informed voters forced elected officials to chase public sentiment not lead in morality. There's an old saying that holds true, "Power concedes nothing without a demand." Massive public demand forces change from the bottom up, civil rights fight was built on civil disobedience eg Rosa Parks at the lunch counter.
"Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them."
In what way are the People of Gaza unFree that was not of their own making? That they might not be quite capable of sustaining their own society _independent_ of Israel is a different thing than being unFree.
If Gaza truly desires a ceasefire, they should make efforts to convince their Hamas Government to turn over the remaining Oct 7 hostages and stop lobbing rockets into Israel.
"In what way are the People of Gaza unFree that was not of their own making? "
That has to rank near the top of the list of stupidest remarks ever made and sounds like the thinking of an abusive spouse. The suffering and abuse doled out is of their own making. If we apply the notion of individuals "getting what they deserve" to 11,000+ Palestinian children killed it's a poor excuse for genocide no flag is big enough to hide.
I didn't ever say they deserved anything. I'm asking specifically: How are they not free and, in those instances, why?
Do abusive spouses have to endure dozens of rocket attacks a day? This is a very poor analogy.
I so very much sympathize with all who've died in this conflict, most all of them not the actual players in the conflict, just the victims. But since Oct 7, this is a war. I don't like wars. Nobody likes wars except Warlords and Munitions Manufacturers.
But it's a war. And Hamas, Gaza's governing body, clearly Decided that the risk that Children Will Die - along with all the non-children - was not significant enough to launch a naked terrorist attack on innocent civilians.
Israel has Decided it's not over until they Hamas is no longer a threat. I wish it could be otherwise.
Once one of them Decide on another path, Children will stop being Killed. And either one could choose that. Gaza could choose to give up the remaining hostages, and stop dropping bombs on innocent civilians.
It is not a war it is a genocide with more civilians, press & aid workers killed in a span of weeks than most years long wars. That warmongering politicians choose who and when to kill and call it policy does not change mass murder of innocents to something else. There are no excuses.
Perhaps there might be genocides within wars but I'm not sure that that's the case here.
Israel has not claimed any desire to eliminate Palestinians. Only Hamas. Not a whole race. Specific people who, not incidentally, might've committed a Couple or Three War Crimes on Oct 7.
There was a Ceasefire on Oct 6. Hamas chose to end it the next day. You say it was justified retaliation. Israel thinks hunting down every last member of Hamas is justified retaliation for raping Saftas and cooking, well, innocent children, Pamela. I'm not sure the numbers matter once you've crossed those lines.
This isn't something new in this region. :
“When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons. Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”
― Golda Meir, A Land of Our Own: An Oral Autobiography
God have mercy on your racist soul. Even Israeli media debunked the lies you cite as some form of earned retribution right. Grayzone has details.
How many dead babies equal one Israeli if this is about keeping score by deaths? There are no words to say more than images of the carnage, suffering and slow painful death by disease and starvation.
Your polite tone reminds me of Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal and damn good character match. Creepy chatting with you so vengeful & ignorant.
https://thegrayzone.com/2023/12/06/scandal-israeli-october-7-fabrications/
I think India got it's freedom exactly because of that. Uprisings and revolts failed to dislodge the British. Ghandi had a much bigger impact.
”Cast out the scoffer, and contention will leave; Yes, strife and reproach will cease.“
Proverbs 22:10 NKJV
Hamas charter indicates their hatred for Israel and their desire to wipe them off the face of the earth. “From the river to the sea” means exactly that.
How would you deal with someone who wanted you dead and is continually in your face punching you every time you’re within arms reach? How would you deal with that kind of hatred? Hamas continues to put the innocent at risk by hiding behind them. Why do they do that? They are cowards. Your outrage is misplaced.
It's not just a case of whether laws are 'wrong' or not. There's still a touching naivety in the West about the 'independence' of its legal systems....although the current spate of Lawfare might be starting to chip away at those illusions. Ask yourself this; the great majority of graduate class professionals will have gone through 3+ years of an academia rite of passage in leftist 'progressivism'. Few come through all that untarred by it. Will lawyers be any exception? Of course not.
As my constitutional law professor said back in the late ’80s, “law is applied philosophy”. Basically the same principle as the little kitty referred to. Laws are the mechanism to uphold our ideals (including the idea of morality) and ensure their survival.
The problems we are experiencing now is that the new “philosophy” (Wokeism) being used to run our society believes that there is no such thing as “morality”, because everything is subjective/biased. For them, “morality” is whatever the people in power want it to be. That is now the foundation underpinning our laws.
Hit the nail on the head
Thank you. Lots more nails here Ryan: https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/slouching-towards-my-substack-anniversary
Thx Graham. I'll take a look this afternoon when I get freed up.
I guess this concept doesn't apply to places like Canada, that were simply colonized by Britain (and France) and then "allowed" to have their own constitutions, pretending to have sovereignty, but still had to pledge loyalty to the Crown (except Quebec). I think it might explain why democracy and human rights became irrelevant so easily in 2020. No history of "treason for good reason".
Another E.D. Quote that applies to today’s Canada: "When Exposing a Crime is Treated as Committing a Crime, You Are Ruled By Criminals." That about sums it up.
👏👏👏
Indeed. Look up "jury nullification". Take it to heart.
*Pi during Voir Dare*
Lawyer 1: "Mr. Pi, have you ever..."
Pi: "They all deserve The Chair!"
Lawyer 2: "But this is a case where a neighbor build his shed too near..."
Pi: *frothing* "FRY HIM!"
And that, my friends, is how you get out of Jury Duty.
Oh - Nullification? *checks notes* Yeah, if there's No Victim then there should be No Crime.
Whose morality? Read the beginning of Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis and you will get an idea of whose morality. It's imprinted on our hearts. That many people deny it or try to justify ignoring it doesn't make it less true.
That was in reply to AMP, but I messed up the post.
There's also a difference between law and legislation.
Under the common law, law was slowly discovered by judges over decades and centuries of past legal decisions. It was deeply rooted in social custom and mores. It actually existed as law long before it was able to be articulated as such.
Legislation is privilege peddling; favors bestowed upon the highest bidders...
Really starting to like this guy......
More and more with every passing day since 2020. He speaks, I pay attention.
Howard Zinn on civil disobedience :
“Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders…and millions have been killed because of this obedience…Our problem is that people are obedient allover the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves… (and) the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.”
Matt Damon from Howard Zinn's speech: The Problem is Civil Obedience
https://youtu.be/S2li9E_94MA
I’m not a fan of Howard Zinn. “Zinn described himself as "something of an anarchist, something of a socialist. Maybe a democratic socialist."” (From Wikipedia.). The quote about civil obedience was from a discussion where he was advocating for wealth redistribution in the socialist sense. A further quote reveals this: “I start from the supposition that the world is topsy-turvy, that things are all wrong, that the wrong people are in jail and the wrong people are out of jail, that the wrong people are in power and the wrong people are out of power, that the wealth is distributed in this country and the world in such a way as not simply to require small reform but to require a drastic reallocation of wealth.”
So?
Bingo
I have worked with a number of people who have come here legally on visas or whatever and are working very hard and contributing to society but have great difficulty with the process of becoming legal citizens. Sadly, in some cases they are not allowed to stay. When functioning, contributing, hard-working people have great hurdles in the process of coming here to stay, it only encourages illegal immigration since in that way, it's so much easier.
We must not conflate (1). legal and visa immigration with (2.) illegal immigration with (3.) an invasion of a country being financed and encouraged by entities intended to destroy that country. What we have seen happening at our border since 2021 is just that. We have always had illegal immigration, our country could always accommodate or control that. What is happening now is economically an logistically causing immense burden on our country. It is creating an increase in crime. such as child and drug trafficking. It is warehousing millions of people with nothing to do and no path forward which will breed trouble. It has let in uncountable terrorist and military ages solo men. And worst of all it, is inhumane to so callously deceive and use people with unrealizable expectations and make them walk across whole countries facing death, predation, disease, injury, and theft to get here.
Yes, but whose morality? To the extremist, a woman cheating on her spouse should be stoned to death. It says so in the book that is the cornerstone of their right and wrong. The laws allow us collectively to say what behavior is and is not available within our collective perception of morality, and our government (with any hope) allows us the mechanism to address any changes to that. There have been many times across human history when that mechanism has not existed or has broken irrevocably, and the results were often not what the rebellious would have liked. The path to correction of bad laws is the hard road - convincing enough of your fellow citizens to speak up, speak out (sometimes at their financial peril), and create a movement for change. If your right and wrong is shared commonly amongst the land, you (or your successors) will likely succeed. If not, then it will be as the Sheryl Crow song says, “Hard to take a stand”.
Laws buried in dense, immense legislation, passed by dirty legislators under the cover of darkness, or “regulations” that never receive any public scrutiny, much less a vote, can’t be said to reflect any collective will. Their manner of being enacted is testament to the fact that they are likely entirely unacceptable to the man in the street.
The number and effect of “laws” and regulations to which everyone (except the privileged, apparently) is subject is immense and, in practice, is not really knowable until such time as some prosecutor, corrupt or otherwise, decides, for reasons just or unjust, that you have fallen afoul of them.
We’re long, long past the point where we can vote ourselves out of this. When the “law”, twisted and stretched thin, can be used to disqualify political candidates on a whim, it’s obvious that the voting option has been foreclosed.
The question of “whose morality” is interesting, the answer to which at least partially hinges on the distinction between morals and mores. However, if the moral center of gravity is estimated by examining pop culture, then there’s reason for grave concern. But is that the right metric?
There are signs of a resurgence of the recognition of the compelling need for a new ideal, a new supreme value (one from which all other values are derived) that ennobles rather than debases man, that emphasizes loving service over grasping selfishness, that prefers elevation of the soul to gratification of the flesh. Widespread consecration to such a value level is a long time off for we are still at the point where some would even deny the possibility of such a thing. Its realization will be delayed by false teachings and hindered, temporarily, by moral inertia and spiritual indolence, but its day will come.
In the meantime, we had better be prepared for chaos, which will, at best, be punctuated by short periods of relative stability. No social organization can rise much above the lowest common moral denominator among its members (and this refers to a morality based on truth, beauty and goodness, setting aside shallow quibbles along the lines of “whose truth”, which vividly illustrate my point about spiritual indolence). The ratcheting-up of moral fiber and spiritual insight will be matched, albeit after some delay, by commensurate improvements in social conditions. The transitions between regimes are bound to be turbulent. Stay tuned…
Not only their financial peril. Their scalps are often in peril as well!
Perfect.
Does your Kittengarten have any openings? I have a few family members in desperate need of Civics for the self Righteous……
Gatito, thank you for sharing this.