First: Listen to the first fifteen minutes (at least) of yesterday’s Mark Levin show. Second: come back and tell me if you believe Levin is overstating things.
I have one nitpick: when Levin talks about the ways progressives “interpret” the Constitution, he doesn’t allow for the fact that they are, from a linguistic perspective, doing more than merely “manipulating” it. They are in fact rewriting it.
One cannot simply bracket intent and then pretend s/he is interpreting a document. What s/he is doing is resignifying it — adding whatever significance s/he wishes to the marks on offer in order to create the very signs s/he wishes to see. That’s not interpretation. That’s a form of linguistic masturbation.
James Madison saw this coming. He just didn’t count on the fact that many who claim to be constitutionalists would support and defend an idea of language that undermines its ability to constrain interpretations as such.
Pragmatism.
Actually, he said at best they are manipulating it, so I think you’re covered.
You should try to call into his show and expound on the true depths and dangers to what’s going on. Twain and the Constitution are the battles today, but the war is against the basic concept of language and communication, the very basis of civilization.
OK, that may sound a little dramatic. You’re the man to do it Jeff.
I’m just at the 16 minute mark now, and I don’t think he overstates things at all.
Well thank God the Republicans read the constitution out loud. Well, not all of it, of course. I tried to follow, but got distracted when Boehner held a press conference at the same time as the reading.
You tried to follow a reading of the constitution?
So Levin’s thesis is intensely interesting, at least to me, this general point that he makes about the honest (albeit, unspoken) stance of the leftist vis a vis a Constitution with which his veritable principles, whatever they are, are in stark conflict with. First though, allow me to set aside the lie inherent in the false swearing allegiance that has Levin’s righteous ire up, for strictly theoretical purposes of examination.
Let that be so, in other words, but let’s consider the dilemma in dissent such a person does find himself in. Indeed, for the purpose of the question, let’s broaden the category of the theoretician out — from leftism as such — to any and all potential political theories held in conflict with the bedrock assumptions of modern liberal natural rights theory: what is he to do living under any such regime? Does the modern liberal natural rights theory itself offer us guidance as to his proper and just behavior while standing in dissent yet holding to its principles in his acts? And would that guidance allow, permit or encourage any such dissent, or would it cut it off ab initio?
One obvious path is simply to not participate directly in politics at all — that is to say in the action of politics as distinguished from the theory of it — restricting himself to merely indirect participation, confined say, to private or semi-public discussions of the grounds of the political theories in conflict, voting for others who he believes fit to conduct government but not standing for office himself. (A reasonable position, I think, and possibly a wise one, as far as staying well wide of self-contradiction goes, not to mention the dangers of discovery should false oaths be exposed and punished.)
A more complex possibility, it seems to me, is to fully grasp the reigning assumptions of modern liberal natural rights theory, those that is, which animate the American Constitutional system, and hewing closely to them, to sever or bracket one’s theoretical stance from one’s active stance, thereby attempting to participate actively in direct politics under those faithful assumptions, taking the oath to them and respecting that oath and those principles, while yet holding strictly theoretical dissent aside and apart from one’s actions, never attempting to advance those theoretical positions in law or other action. This might be possible to do, I guess, but it’s damned tricky from the point of view of a fallible human psychological expectation. I mean, such an attempt would demand an extreme self-awareness (and the self-control to go with it) in order to avoid a violation of the letter and intent of the oath. Still, I think it might be possible — albeit in the embodied person, near unimaginably rare — to honorably uphold the Constitutional principles against personally held theoretical positions, if not in absolutely every tiniest detail, at least in the more important main.
Surely those two don’t exhaust the possible just or reasonable modes of conduct (again, setting aside the falsified, unjust and therefore unreasonable resorts), do they?
I give him credit for trying, though I suspect that the Constitution as a document, and the importance of reading and respecting it, are just two more things to add to the Long List.
It’s not as if he could read it himself, you know. The only known copy is in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory in a sub-basement of the Supreme Court building, with a sign on the door saying “Beware of the Leopard.”
But first we should put aside the lies inherent in the loyalty of perjury that the righteous wrath of Levin has, for its rigorous theoretical end of the test. That this is so, in other words, but we believe that the dilemma, is to see dissent, by the dawns early light, as a person is rational to the issue itself. For to stand for election himself espouses to expose the identity to dangers of false oaths where discovery must be brilliantly illuminated by the rockets’ red glare, as it were.
Wouldn’t you agree, #5?
shit. don’t need that second “with” in the first sentence there, but I reckon the gist is intact in spite of my stupidity.
I hate to break it to you sdferr, but no one even read all of that. The gist may be intact, but you’ve obscured it under such a mound of unnecessary language that the effort required to get your gist exceeds its value.
But maybe I’m wrong. Please, someone, expound on #5 if I’m being too harsh.
Well I lost my place when they left parts out, and then FOX cut over to a press conference with Boehner, so it’s actually harder than it sounds.
I’m sure you know alex, being the imaginative person you are. But then, I probably wasn’t aiming at knowing imaginative persons such as you, so whether anyone like that happens to read it isn’t really the question, is it?
president bumblefuck so far has governed far far far to the right of his theoretical positions
god help us
Well I lost my place when they left parts out, and then FOX cut over to a press conference with Boehner, so it’s actually harder than it sounds.
Fortunately, few people are stupid enough to rely on people engaged in a symbolic gesture to avail themselves of the text of the constitution.
Please, someone, expound on #5 if I’m being too harsh.
Don’t you think you’ve wasted enough of other peoples’ time already?
sdferr, I can’t believe there are that many leftists that seriously consider the issue at all, even the honest ones. Certainly most that I’m familiar with aren’t even aware of the foundational principles of the republic.
Alex is being a good little footsoldier, pushing the leftist talking point of the day. That you cannot understand sdferr, nor attempt to do so is no surprise.
Granted all Silver Whistle. It’s my poor expressive power that’s the trouble here I think.
By honest, I mean rather our assessment of their honest position, as opposed to the question whether they are personally honest or not. If, in other words, as Levin holds, a leftist were outspoken and forthright, he would say, my principles don’t accord with the theoretical assumptions underlying the Constitution as written.
The question remaining, I assume, is how such an honest person should approach participation in his own government under a scheme to which he deeply dissents. Which is kinda why I wanted to broaden the category: to generalize the question away from our disgust at the liars who can’t be honest about their positions, yet still to consider the position in which they (or other dissenters from other positions) would otherwise stand.
“I hate to break it to you sdferr, but no one even read all of that.”
I read it all, but I find it amusing that you didn’t, yet still felt compelled to respond.
“The gist may be intact, but you’ve obscured it under such a mound of unnecessary language that the effort required to get your gist exceeds its value.”
Admittedly sdferr’s prose tends to be a little thick, but any reasonably intelligent person can find the “gist” without undue effort.
I see your problem.
“But maybe I’m wrong. Please, someone, expound on #5 if I’m being too harsh.”
Harsh? the word you seek is “ignorant”. You’re the proverbial horse that doesn’t want to drink. Don’t worry, no one can make you (and I doubt anyone has an interest in trying).
It keeps coming here and pooping on the carpet. Would someone please hit it with a rolled-up newspaper?
I’ll admit to taking a small measure of enjoyment from watching poseurs trying to punch above their weight.
Indulge me only a bit further, in another attempt to scratch my way down to the bedrock?
Paul Ryan, taking a critical theoretical stance awhile back, expressed his belief that our political arguments used to be over means to agreed upon common ends, whereas today our political arguments are decidedly not about means to commonly agreed ends, but are about what the ends of American government themselves ought to be. (And who knows, he may be right or he may be wrong — I happen to think he’s right but that’s neither here nor there as regards the issue.)
That we no longer have common agreement in the ends of government he takes as a necessary indicator of a crisis of government, an argument which will determine, once decided, profoundly different consequential courses of events. As he puts it in the Hewitt interview today:
Where Ryan is wrong is that we don’t need alternatives with respect to choosing individualism and collectivism. Collectivism is, by dint of the Constitution, un-American, in the strictest founding sense.
If we choose the collectivist alternative, we will have chosen to kill off America. And I’m not certain we should have that choice — one where just over half the electorate can vote us into a Brazil-like bureaucratic slave state.
As with interpretation, the foundation is not meant to be “democratic.” It just is. As a bedrock term of the compact.
ot
January 2011
Dependence Day
by Mark Steyn
On the erosion of personal liberty.
I suppose, sdferr, it would be rather like those Sinn Féin politicos elected to Westminster, but who never took the oath and declined to sit in the House; complete and utter scumbags one and all, but they refused to participate in what they regarded as an invalid system. Honesty, as far as it went.
I am just amused by the idea that reading it aloud after you have just sworn to uphold it is considered “a gimmick”
Jeff, I’m not sure from Ryan’s theoretical point of view that it is a question of need, so much as a practical question of necessity, given the relative powers in the hands of collectivists — whether those powers have been rightly or justly seized being beside the point practically speaking — to the extent that these too, these powers, in the hands of those who hold them today, simply are.
Sure, my preference and his, I don’t doubt, as much as yours, would have been that the nation had never taken the first step on the path to an acceptance of collectivism in whichever of its many flavors, whether made as a choice of informed conscience or as an error under the deceptions of sophistic promises.
Still, how to reconcile the absence of any choice at all with the freedom to choose the founding principles today from faithful insight into the founding principles themselves: i.e., choosing those founding principles over again for their own sakes alone? I’m uncertain.
“A more complex possibility, it seems to me, is to fully grasp the reigning assumptions of modern liberal natural rights theory, those that is, which animate the American Constitutional system, and hewing closely to them, to sever or bracket one’s theoretical stance from one’s active stance, thereby attempting to participate actively in direct politics under those faithful assumptions, taking the oath to them and respecting that oath and those principles, while yet holding strictly theoretical dissent aside and apart from one’s actions, never attempting to advance those theoretical positions in law or other action. “
“I don’t see my motivation”, says the actor struggling with his lines.
Is it a possibility one could guide all his actions contrary to his core beliefs? Anything is possible. The purpose of the oath, however, is to signify requirement to protect and defend the object of this hypothetical persons dissent. Why would any honest person do that?
If I understand the question right, (and I may not!) for much the same reason we would seek to interpret speech according to the intent of the speaker as opposed to our own desires running counter to his intent. It’s hard to do, sure, but I think for the sake of maintaining the possibility of communication at all, to say nothing of the possibility of honest government, we have to accede to the possibility at least.
In my own defense, I hasten to note, I did hedge that fellow round with all manner of limiting “rarities” and such though. He don’t grow on trees.
Paul Ryan livestreamed from the National Press club right now. Just ran into this, don’t know how long it’s been going on, don’t know how much longer it will go on. Anyhow, he’s taking questions from the hostile press on the Budget committee.
“If I understand the question right, (and I may not!) for much the same reason we would seek to interpret speech according to the intent of the speaker as opposed to our own desires running counter to his intent.”
All I can say is, it would be a rare Frey indeed that would contribute to this blog when he’s got a consensus of “reasonable people” telling him he shouldn’t.
Ah, sorry, the full program with Ryan, taped.
I’m not sure I get what rare Frey you’re alluding to LBascom, to the extent that I don’t think Frey’s, or those who take his position regarding interpretation all that rare. But y’know, I’m kinda slow today, so forgive my dumbitude.
– The Left routinely lies concerning at least one section of the oath, “…[without] reservation, or purpose of evasion…”.
– There’s really no remedy for that. The framers never imagined that a large enough group of people would be that perfidious, and so devoid of personal honor that it would ever be important in the scheme of things. In retrospect, and given the human passion for anything free, that was probably naive’.
I happen to agree with Ryan wholeheartedly.
Practically speaking, regardless of the insidious route taken to get to where we are now, there is a signifigant portion of our population that is held in the thrall of the collectivist “utopian” vision. And, as he says, unless we reclaim the type of government, social, and economic system that our founders laid out for us, then it will be a foregone conclusion; we will be like the Euro-socialists, or worse, a dictatorship of the state, with little hope of reclaiming what we once had as individuals and as a nation.
And sdferr, I personally think that there would have to be fundamental dishonesty, or willful misunderstanding, in play for one to be able to take an oath to uphold and defend a way of life that the same person intended to change in a manner antithetical to that he swore to protect. Otherwise the dissonance would be maddening-literally.
But that’s just me, because I belive in promises, oaths, honor, and integrity.
I guess though, if one truly believes in the tenet expressed via the cliche, “by any means necessary”, and finds the notion of the necessary lie palatable, then all bets would be off.
Maybe here, or at least in between the lines, lies the heart of the question though Bob. That is, what if the assumptions turn out to be untrue in some respect? What then? Or, are we suggesting we are already in possession of absolute truth with regard to any and all questions involved in those assumptions? I doubt that would be our position, honestly. We take these truths tacitly, I think, though we stick to them until such time as we are shown that they are untrue if only because we find those assumptions to be the best we have to hand. Again, then what? Or, to put it another way, how do we even get to a position to re-think our assumptions to discover that they are in some respect untrue, unless we are free to examine them in an open way?
Flummery, signed, sealed, and delivered. Incoherence masquerading as thoughtful discourse. Expanded to a thousand words it would pass for a typical “studies” academic paper.
Arrogance too. Quite a package.
sdferr,
I presume you’re talking about the assumptions of liberal natural rights theory, correct?
I think that when there is discovery of some incongruency or untruth that it has to be addressed. Kind of like the incongruency of slavery in the early years of the nation. God forbid that all such redress be remedied in such a bloody fashion, but that’s an example, I think, of re-examining and correcting our civic order in a way that our nation’s founders would have agreed with.
I think the key is rational discourse and convincing discussion as the vehicle of eliciting meaningful change in our system, and not a hammer-fisted cram-down like Obamacare was, for instance, or even the velvet-gloved new deal variety.
That leads to another intellectual dilemma, one in play today, that’s not unrelated; when does political persuasion become bribery? That is, when is material gain, or comfort, being proffered in exchange for a reduction of personal liberty? And is the imposition of such, at the hands of a majority that includes the lion’s share of that part of the population that’s on the recieving end of the bribe, another form of tyranny altogether? Tyrrany by proxy, perhaps.
This is where the leftist’s road leads to, at least in the beginning, and for them to try and subvert the system to arrive at that destination, while all the while crowing about that being the American way and such, and taking oaths to uphold and defend the Constitution with a straight face, is maddening to those of us who take such oaths, and our liberty, very seriously.
Interesting questions, as always.
Well, yes and no.
On the no front, we only have to put ourselves into the shoes of James Madison, say, living under the regime of the Articles of Confederation, having taken an oath to uphold them etc., yet thinking, hey, something’s screwy here? I wonder whether we can’t do better? Then does my theory of doing better comport with every assumption made under the Articles? Hmmm, maybe not. Better I should keep my oath and drop these dissenting and possibly dangerous thoughts.
On the yes front, we may as strictly honest political thinkers, have a responsibility to make an attempt to examine in detail the now largely obscure assumptions at the foundation of modern natural right theory. So obscure are these sources to us, generally speaking, today, there may be some surprises in store for us, should we undertake the effort. It isn’t simple. It isn’t easy, and it may be, it won’t be comfortable. But that’s largely a speculative enterprise the ends of which I don’t know fully.
I think I see more clearly, sdferr.
To some extent, the very nature of our Constitution, and the mechanism to amend it, serves the refining purpose you mention; as in the example of the correction of slavery that I mentioned. I think in that context one could take the oath in good conscience, since ultimately the larger intent of the compact is being upheld through the refinement.
Changes that result in greater, or more widespread, enjoyment of liberty should be one of the yardstick by which prospective change should be measured. Which is why your second point is important; and why the reading of the Constitution after convening the new congress is not an altogether empty or posing act.
And why I’m suspect of the notion of statists working from the inside on disingenuous changes that increasingly rob us of liberty.
“I think the key is rational discourse and convincing discussion as the vehicle of eliciting meaningful change in our system,…”
– That would certainly be the normal, intelligent approach, but based on the one hand of the Left’s refusal to debate honestly (I suspect because they know full well the whole Utopian scheme is nothing more than another way to get free shit by shaking up an otherwise fairly well ordered and stable system), and on the other, that the child moron’s of the Leftist gaggle have been given their 15 minutes to show all the wonders of the Utopia, and have failed utterly to such a degree they’re down to “love me or hate me, just don’t leave me” levels of desperation, I’m to the point where I’m not sure it really matters anymore, at least not in terms of their political effectiveness or future.
– At this point it’s only to wonder how much longer they’ll hang on to any sort of viability. So with all that in mind, I’m thinking of the saw “Don’t need to do nothin’, cause it ain’t gonna be nothin'”. It’s probable that they’ve done such a remarkable job of cutting their own throats, we only need to focus on putting Humpty Dumpty America back together again.
Bob, speaking of the bribery of a citizenry, I can’t help but to recommend Strauss’s On Tyranny, a study of Xenophon’s dialogue Hiero here.
“I’m not sure I get what rare Frey you’re alluding to LBascom”
Agh, I’m trying to be too clever. Sorry.
Why would anyone protect and defend something they disagree with? There must be, I think, a fundamental dishonesty, even if just to their self.
If you’re now saying the hypothetical person is giving the oath and serving while harboring questions, or doubt, about certain aspects of the Constitution, that’s different than someone taking the oath while already holding theoretical positions hostile to that which they swore to serve.
I can maybe imagine the first having good faith, but not the second.
If, however, the former wants to change something, he must follow his oath and change it the way designed by the framers, who anticipated your question if I understand it. Get enough support from the people to amend. Any extra Constitutional way is a violation of their oath.
BBH, you may be right; they’ve done such a good job killing themselves that we needn’t intefere, for fear that it might derail the process! I certainly hope so, but they won’t go quietly, that;’s for sure. Perhaps when they run out of other people’s money in the near future…
The putty Humpty back together again part might be an arduous, but necessary, labor. I think that’s what Ryan’s alluding to; we’re at the deicision point where the left has already begun to contemplate Humpty over easy!
Thanks for the referral sdferr, I’ll check out the local library and see if they have a copy. It sounds like perfect reading on a winter’s eve.
As with much of the fight against leftists, the first rule for winning is refusing to accept their premise.
Point out, like Levin does, that the left simply doesn’t get to take our liberties. We won’t allow it, because to do so is to deconstruct the country itself.
Make the argument often and public: this is not about competing policy; it is about American vs not- or un- American.
I think that’s right Jeff. Still, I don’t think Ryan was suggesting we do accept their premisses, as opposed to simply recognizing that they’re standing there asserting them (hence the rubric of “alternative” he uses, too loosely perhaps).
Jeff, the problem with making that argument is that the next logical step is you will have to persuade the non- or un- American to do one of two things: become American, or leave. Failing that persuasion, the only remaining remedy is to remove them from any authority (including voting) over any American by force. Dead, gone, or surrendered: the same choice given the Tories after the Revolution.
Most people don’t want to confront that choice squarely in their own minds, let alone in the real world.
Jeff! Give yourself a one-ton 24 karat Gold Star for the Madison quote!!!