Who was David Starr Jordan? He was a political activist that I suppose did more good than harm. Although I don’t know how much we would have agreed, I do like his observation on the relationship between wisdom and virtue. It makes clear that whereas wisdom requires understanding, virtue requires courage and perseverance.

In our era I fear we have too little understanding of either wisdom or virtue. The understanding required for wisdom involves religious instruction, and that is now rare. The courage and perseverance needed to be virtuous too many have set aside as something other people do. Instead, we substitute momentary pleasure for virtue. So even as we speak our society is teetering, threatening to collapse into rubble.

Perhaps that is why Judge Napolitano wrote What if government rejects the Constitution?

What if the government never took the Constitution seriously? What if the same generation – in some cases, the same individuals – who wrote in the First Amendment, “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech,” also enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts, which made it a crime to criticize the government? What if the feds don’t regard the Constitution as the supreme law of the land?

What if the government regards the Constitution as merely a guideline to be referred to from time to time, or a myth to be foisted upon the voters, but not as a historic delegation of power that lawfully limits the federal government? What if Congress knows that most of what it regulates puts it outside the confines of the Constitution, but it does whatever it can get away with? What if the feds don’t think that the Constitution was written to keep them off the people’s backs? (continued here)

Napolitano asks many questions, but his editorial does not suggest a solution.  So what is the solution? We The People have to work to understand the choice we are making. We must gain the wisdom to understand the distinctions between the alternatives, and we must choose courageously and persevere in our choice.

In his latest book, Ameritopia, Mark R. Levin considers what the Founding Fathers understood about government. By reviewing what they had read before the American Revolution, Levin helps us to understand the choice we must make today. Here is an excerpt.

Montesquieu wrote of the nature of governments. “There are three kinds of governments: the republican, the monarchical, the despotic. To discover the nature of each, the idea of them held by the least educated of men is sufficient. I assume three definitions, or rather three facts: one, republican government is that in which the people as a body, or only a part of the people, have sovereign power; monarchical government is that in which one alone governs, but by fixed and established laws; whereas, in despotic government, one alone, without law and without rule, draws everyone along by his will and caprices” (1, 1, 2). In republican government, Montesquieu explains, the people must be able to vote in elections. “A people having sovereign power should do for itself all that it can do well, and what it cannot do, it must do through ministers. Ministers do not belong to the people unless the people name them; therefore, it is a fundamental maxim of this government that the people should their ministers, that is, their magistrates” (1, 2, 1).

Montesquieu points out, “There is this difference between the nature of the government and its principle: its nature is that which makes it what it is, and its principle, that which makes it act. The one is its particular structure, and the other the human passions which set it in motion” (1, 3, 1). He explains, “There need not be much integrity for a monarchical or despotic government to maintain or sustain itself. The force of laws in one and the prince’s ever-raised arm in the other can rule or contain the whole.” As for republican government, Montesquieu asserts that “in a popular state there must be an additional spring, which is Virtue. What I say is confirmed by the entire body of history and is quite in conformity with the nature of things. For it is clear that less virtue is needed in a monarchy, where the one who sees to the execution of the laws feels that he is subject to them himself and that he will bear their weight….But in a popular government when the laws have ceased to be executed, as this can come only from the corruption of the republic, the state is already lost” (1, 3, 3). In a despotic government, “virtue is not at all necessary to it” (1, 3, 8).

In fact, from another translation, I found that Montesquieu put it succinctly this way.

As virtue is necessary in a republic, and in a monarchy honor, so fear is necessary in a despotic government: with regard to virtue, there is no occasion for it, and honor would be extremely dangerous. (from here: 1, 3, 8).

Is our republic already irreversibly corrupt? Because instruction in religion is not permitted, virtue is not something we can readily learn about in the public school system. Nonetheless, if our republic is to continue – and for sake of our immortal souls — we must learn that which enabled the people who founded this nation to be virtuous.

Reason for repost: I first posted this extract from Democracy in America December 14, 2009. Nonetheless, some thoughts stick in the mind. So when I got into a furious debate with Tony at this post, SHOULD CHRISTIANS PARTICIPATE IN POLITICS?, Alexis De Tocqueville‘s words came to mind.

We live in an era almost like any other in America’s history. Our flesh tempts us to shout our opponents down or make our opponents look like fools. In the extreme, when we allow our pride and our fears dominion, we will name our opponents the enemy of the People. 

What we believe becomes a part of us. So when another disagrees, we feel rejected, and we angrily return that rejection. Therefore, this rejection of another human being is the instinctive and predictable response of our animal nature. What can we do to resist?

Usually we do not think of majority rule as tyrannical.  Alexis De Tocqueville, however, had no such illusions.  He understood that more than one republic had passed into despotism because of majority rule.  And from his observations of 1831-32 America, he also understood just how tyrannical the majority might be.

What follows is an excerpt from  Democracy in America, Chapter II, Section 1 Volume 2 (of 2).  In this excerpt, Tocqueville explains the frightful power with which the majority can enforce its will.

When the ranks of society are unequal, and men unlike each other in condition, there are some individuals invested with all the power of superior intelligence, learning, and enlightenment, whilst the multitude is sunk in ignorance and prejudice. Men living at these aristocratic periods are therefore naturally induced to shape their opinions by the superior standard of a person or a class of persons, whilst they are averse to recognize the infallibility of the mass of the people.

The contrary takes place in ages of equality. The nearer the citizens are drawn to the common level of an equal and similar condition, the less prone does each man become to place implicit faith in a certain man or a certain class of men. But his readiness to believe the multitude increases, and opinion is more than ever mistress of the world. Not only is common opinion the only guide which private judgment retains amongst a democratic people, but amongst such a people it possesses a power infinitely beyond what it has elsewhere. At periods of equality men have no faith in one another, by reason of their common resemblance; but this very resemblance gives them almost unbounded confidence in the judgment of the public; for it would not seem probable, as they are all endowed with equal means of judging, but that the greater truth should go with the greater number.

When the inhabitant of a democratic country compares himself individually with all those about him, he feels with pride that he is the equal of any one of them; but when he comes to survey the totality of his fellows, and to place himself in contrast to so huge a body, he is instantly overwhelmed by the sense of his own insignificance and weakness. The same equality which renders him independent of each of his fellow-citizens taken severally, exposes him alone and unprotected to the influence of the greater number. The public has therefore among a democratic people a singular power, of which aristocratic nations could never so much as conceive an idea; for it does not persuade to certain opinions, but it enforces them, and infuses them into the faculties by a sort of enormous pressure of the minds of all upon the reason of each.

In the United States the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own. Everybody there adopts great numbers of theories, on philosophy, morals, and politics, without inquiry, upon public trust; and if we look to it very narrowly, it will be perceived that religion herself holds her sway there, much less as a doctrine of revelation than as a commonly received opinion. The fact that the political laws of the Americans are such that the majority rules the community with sovereign sway, materially increases the power which that majority naturally exercises over the mind. For nothing is more customary in man than to recognize superior wisdom in the person of his oppressor. This political omnipotence of the majority in the United States doubtless augments the influence which public opinion would obtain without it over the mind of each member of the community; but the foundations of that influence do not rest upon it. They must be sought for in the principle of equality itself, not in the more or less popular institutions which men living under that condition may give themselves. The intellectual dominion of the greater number would probably be less absolute amongst a democratic people governed by a king than in the sphere of a pure democracy, but it will always be extremely absolute; and by whatever political laws men are governed in the ages of equality, it may be foreseen that faith in public opinion will become a species of religion there, and the majority its ministering prophet.

Thus intellectual authority will be different, but it will not be diminished; and far from thinking that it will disappear, I augur that it may readily acquire too much preponderance, and confine the action of private judgment within narrower limits than are suited either to the greatness or the happiness of the human race. In the principle of equality I very clearly discern two tendencies; the one leading the mind of every man to untried thoughts, the other inclined to prohibit him from thinking at all. And I perceive how, under the dominion of certain laws, democracy would extinguish that liberty of the mind to which a democratic social condition is favorable; so that, after having broken all the bondage once imposed on it by ranks or by men, the human mind would be closely fettered to the general will of the greatest number.

If the absolute power of the majority were to be substituted by democratic nations, for all the different powers which checked or retarded overmuch the energy of individual minds, the evil would only have changed its symptoms. Men would not have found the means of independent life; they would simply have invented (no easy task) a new dress for servitude. There is—and I cannot repeat it too often—there is in this matter for profound reflection for those who look on freedom as a holy thing, and who hate not only the despot, but despotism. For myself, when I feel the hand of power lie heavy on my brow, I care but little to know who oppresses me; and I am not the more disposed to pass beneath the yoke, because it is held out to me by the arms of a million of men.

“For nothing is more customary in man than to recognize superior wisdom in the person of his oppressor.”  Consider some examples.

• Do you believe in global warming?   Are you familiar with the argument that global warming must be true because it is supposedly the overwhelming consensus of scientists?  Consensus?  Is that the way science is suppose to work?
• Do you think the two-party system consisting of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party is best?  Why?  What would be wrong with a multi-party system?
• What is the importance of polls?  Do you feel reassured that you are right only when you are in the majority?
• Why was the idea of Negro inferiority so difficult to overcome?
• What is the basis for the argument supporting same-sex marriage?  Does it have anything to do logic or “majority consensus”?
• Why do political advocates work so hard to “prove” the majority sides with them?

Here is how Tony phrased his request.

I wrote this as a book review.  Feel free to post it on your blog if you want an opposing viewpoint.  In any event, I think that you would enjoy the book.

tony

I did not post Tony’s book review just to put up an opposing view. None of us are under any obligation to give equal time to our political opponents. When they offer their thoughts with care and respect, however, we should listen to the other side.

Who is the author The Origins of Political Order? Wikipedia provides a writeup on Francis Fukuyama?

The Origins of Political Order by Francis Fukuyama

Just finished reading the first volume of what Francis Fukuyama says he plans as a two volume set titled “The Origins of Political Order”, and I can definitely recommend it as an excellent and enlightening read.

In this first volume Fukuyama tracks the evolution of centralized modern states as each developed in fits and starts, through expansion and sometimes total dissolution, around the world on various continents and civilizations, from the first modern states in China around 350 B.C. to the start of the French Revolution. In so doing Fukuyama explains the various theories as to how and why large states develop and what often makes them stagnate or disintegrate and fail. Although the work is a study of centralized state formation in general, it is evident throughout that the driving force behind Fukuyama’s comparative look at the history of state development in every major world civilization is the question of why some states developed modern liberal democracies and why others remained or reverted to centralized totalitarian regimes or decentralized tribal or oligarchic instability.

In tracking the rise of these modern states in each world civilization, Fukuyama measures each example in terms of three important institutional criteria: (1) an actual sovereign governing centralized state (as opposed to dispersed tribalism or patrimony); (2) the rule of law (as opposed to absolutism); and (3) accountable government (or in other words, the state is accountable to all or some classes of citizens through established institutions such as elections). According to Fukuyama, a “modern successful liberal democracy combines all three sets of institutions in a stable balance” (emphasis mine). (Before you conservatives get all turned off by the term “liberal” here, you should know that Fukuyama is using the broader social science and economic connotation, and not the narrow polarizing political idealism of recent American politics).

Of significant note is the idea of “balance” in each institutional criteria and between criteria. For example, a strong centralized state that is not balanced by and held accountable to opposing political factions, which are sometimes local and sometimes interest based (majoritarian, economic, social, religious, etc.), will revert to totalitarianism. In contrast, a weak central state that is dominated and usurped by special interest groups or cedes all power to local or economic power bases will ultimately succumb to tribalism and/or oligarchy, or worse, degrade into internecine warfare and/or become exposed to foreign invasion and domination. Therefore, at one extreme a too powerful centralized state becomes susceptible to totalitarian tyranny, and at the other, as has often become necessary, particularly in American history, the centralized state steps in and protects individuals and groups from the tyranny of local majorities and powerful special interests.

In this first volume, Fukuyama has not gotten to our Civil War yet, but he does mention, by way of an example of a fundamentally corrupting local tyranny, the Jim Crow Laws and the balancing role of federal state authority in creating and enforcing the Civil Rights Acts. However, for ideologues on both sides of the political spectrum, the study and extrapolation of Fukuyama’s balanced democratic model to our own past history and to our recent political polarization could be very enlightening, especially when it comes Tea Party fears about federal expansion, and, in my opinion, their often myopic and revisionist understanding of our American Constitution.

As Abraham Lincoln so famously quoted in referring to the mostly Southern local institution of slavery, “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” In their efforts at constitutional fundamentalism, Tea Party originalists would do well to remember that the slavery institution was a flaw in the original Constitution so horrendous to the balance of institutional power, and a tyranny of the local majority over an entire group of people that was so egregious to our ideological principles (and yes, including our Protestant Christian principles) that either we needed to break into numerous separate nations or the federal government by necessity had to extend (one could even argue “usurp”) sovereign power over the states to protect individual rights from corrupt, powerful local state interests. This struggle began with a bloody civil war, but ultimately did not end until the enforcement of the post Civil War Amendments through enactment of the Civil Rights Acts.

Prior to the Civil War, our Constitution (especially the Bill of Rights) was written by our Framers mostly as a check on federal tyranny which, at that time, they feared more than they feared local tyranny. The individual states (which are more majoritarian and directly accountable by definition) were seen as the protectors of our rights. The post Civil War Amendments, particularly the 14th Amendment, essentially turned this notion on its head and made the federal government the controlling sovereign and protector of individual liberties able to preempt state laws and actions when those laws and actions deny federal rights or due process.

You cannot understand our Constitution and with it the constitutional balance that has made our system of government, both successful on a world scale and inherently stable despite its many competing interests, without studying the legislative, judicial and actual history of the post Civil War Amendments to the Constitution. What you find when you do so is that most advances in the freedom and prosperity of the majority of average individuals in this country has come about through strong federal action, often in opposition to the tyranny of local majorities, corrupt organized groups and powerful monied interests.

While I applaud the libertarian aspects of the Tea Party when they seek to limit federal overreach, such as in the Patriot Act and the Executive Branch’s ignoring of habius corpus rights for suspected terrorists, I also think that Tea Partiers might do a little more study of our entire Constitutional history, not just original (fatally flawed) document, and realize that the current Constitution, as it is now amended and has been historically adjudicated and enforced, gives the federal government preemptive sovereignty as the protector of individual liberty and rights, and it has been successfully so for over a hundred years.

Before enacting slogans into law that may ultimately degrade the institutions that protect average people, maybe a little study about “balance” would be in order. Fukuyama’s “The Origins of Political Order” might be a great place to start understanding that precarious balance.

We do need to know how we got into our current mess. We need to understand what the Founders, the framers of our Constitution, intended. The Founders did not intend a highly centralized government. Look it up in the Federalist Papers.  Search on the word “confederacy”. You will get over 80 matches. The Founders wanted a federation. They believed a federation would prevent the concentration of power.

And yes, the Founders did worry about balance. Too strong a central government threatened tyranny. Too weak a central government threatened warring confederations of states.

Consider Article IV, Section 4 of The United States Constitution.

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

What the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments did in large measure is define the nature of “a Republican Form of Government”. What the modern Liberal Democrat has done, however, is use more recent interpretations of those amendments and the commerce clause (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3) to centralize federal power far beyond the expectations of either 18th or 19th century Americans.

What is the problem with our Constitution? Wasn’t it a good document? Yes, but even though the Founders produced a great document, that document alone could not and cannot stop factional rivalries. Even nations with strong central governments form factions, and such factions can fight over many things. During our nation’s last civil war, we came to blows over slavery. Was this a problem created by our federal system? No. Slavery was simply a problem the framers of the Constitution did not know how to resolve peacefully.

Now we fight for control over the contents of our nation’s treasuries and to secure advantages through our nation’s laws. Competing factions strive to divert trillions and trillions of dollars to special interest causes, that is, their own pockets. Instead worrying about what we can do for our country, too many of us worry about what our country can do for that person we call “me”. In consideration of ”me’s” welfare, too many of us would give our government the power to strip our neighbors of everything they own.

Too many have forgotten we need government to protect each other’s rights, not to rob and abuse each other.  So once again the balance is failing. Once again we find reason alone insufficient. Once again we risk leaving our dead and wounded on countless foreign or domestic battlefields. Once again men will die until remorse turns their eyes and hearts towards heaven, and God has pity on us.

H/T to Thatmrgguy’s Blog (The Decline and Fall of America (via Boudica BPI Weblog))

In the The Decline and Fall of America, Boudica BPI Weblog posts a video of a book interview with Thomas Sowell. The man is brilliant! In particular, listen to his description of a community organizer; its about three minutes into the interview.

Read the post at The Sheeple’s Wake Up Call. Most Americans remain unaware of what’s taking place right under their noses. They continue to go through the motions of living completely ignorant that their very existence is, on a daily basis, being altered. Interestingly enough, William F. Buckley Jr. asked in an essay, “If you lived in a declining society, could you know it?” By the time the Roman Empire died in 476 AD, few noticed, few cared and … Read More

via Boudica BPI Weblog

• Part 1: What makes a book worthwhile?
• Part 2: The Issues Raised By Rosetta 6.2

Is Rosetta 6.2 a worthwhile storybook?

Is Rosetta 6.2 a worthwhile storybook?

The answer, of course, is yes. The plot and the subplots are carefully written. The characters are believable, and, as the Culture War intensifies, Rosetta 6.2 raises issues we must consider. 

As a pretext for the plot, Rosetta 6.2 asks us to believe our government could take over the Internet and manipulate our computers. In addition, Rosetta 6.2 speculates that the introduction of a new drug, one more addictive than any now sold to addicts, would allow evil men to radically increase their power and influence. Unfortunately, both of these two propositions are likely occurrences.

How would one control the Internet?

How would one control the Internet? What would stop us? 

• We would need sufficient computing capacity.
• We would need software capable exercising control.
• We would have to quickly surmount any security barriers.

Since no such system presently exists (at least no government admits to it), Rosetta 6.2 does not provide technical details. Of course, the absence of technical details is something it has in common with most techno-thrillers. Rosetta 6.2 also considers this problem with respect to a free society. Where governments can coerce cooperation from software companies and Internet service providers, controlling the Internet becomes relatively simple.

• Industry provides the computing capacity.
• Industry writes its software to permit government monitoring and control.
• Industry provides a backdoor with pass codes that permits government agents to easily surmount any and all security barriers.

Therefore, if an authoritarian state wishes to control the Internet (including a United States drifting towards tyranny), it must only exercise the will. Then, as a condition for using the Internet, any user must of necessity submit to government monitoring and control.

What is the likelihood of a far more additive drug?

Scientific discovery can be used for good or ill. Therefore, every discovery carries risk. That is, a drug that can be used to treat mental problems can also be abused.

Over the last several years, for example, scientists have experimented with brain stimulation. Various sources report that researchers have developed a bionic ‘sex chip’ that stimulates the pleasure center in the brain.

• Bionic ‘sex chip’ that stimulates pleasure centre in brain developed by scientists
• Treating Depression by Stimulating Brain’s Pleasure Center
• Pleasure center

So it is possible that a more addictive “drug” might be a chip. Nonetheless, drugs still to provide more effective psychiatric treatments and create more addiction problems. We can only hope nobody will come up with a device or a drug more addictive than what we already have. Yet what if someone does? What will we do? What should we do about the addiction problems we already have?

Why did James Atticus Bowden write the Rosetta 6.2?

When we consider reading a book, it is useful to know why its author wrote it. Here is how James Atticus Bowden ends the preface to Rosetta 6.2.

If Rosetta 6.2 serves properly, someone will come to know the Lord or someone will find a deeper, personal relationship with the living Jesus Christ. Other insights, if they happen, are merely interesting. I understand the suffering drug abuse and Islamist terror cause and write against them. I’ve seen the power of prayer to save and heal. I give praise to Lord Jesus, because God is good, all the time—no matter what. (from here)

When Bowden looked into the future, he grew concerned. So he wrote Rosetta 6.2, and he told the story of Jack Tillman. Like every man, Jack Tillman is a man who needs saving. Bowden explains how Jesus saved that man.  

Jack cried in free-flowing tears and smiled at the same time. He felt more overwhelmed than he had ever been in his entire life. Jack started to cry so hard his body shook with each cleansing sob. He wasn’t sad, and he didn’t feel guilty. He was overcome by the joy, the disbelief of actual believing and feeling so sure of it, like a criminal receiving a last-minute pardon. “I can’t believe it. It’s true. He died for me. He rose again so I will too. Jesus is alive now.” (from Chapter 7, page 274 of Rosetta 6.2)

No one is born a Christian. Every Christian must first have accepted Christ’ gift of salvation. To know the certainty of salvation brings great relief and joy. That joy we must share. By creating Jack Tillman and telling the story of his redemption, Bowden shared his faith and joy in Jesus Christ.