The state has lost its legitimacy. After today, there is The Law, but there will be no Rule of Law. 'The Law' is nothing more than taking from one and giving to someone we like a little better. That's no law, it's theft, and you have no moral duty to support it.
Sarah Hoyt, at InstaPundit, asks:
I HAVE QUESTIONS: We’re not a country of land or blood. We’re a country of beliefs. If we’ve lost that, who are we? Who am I? And where do I go?I've an answer to that, but let's talk it through. Answer it for yourself. Who are you? Are you ready to go where you are being asked?
UPDATE: Confer.
Are you ready to go where you are being asked?
ReplyDeleteI do not know what you mean by this question, and therefore can't answer it. No one's asking me to go anywhere, as far as I know.
I don't approve of where the laws have gone and are going. I don't see that means I get to disobey them -- that principle works far more against everything I believe in than for it.
Robbins' article makes no sense to me -- I hear a lot of rhetoric about the parties becoming "more extreme" but I see no evidence that the party that once nominated Goldwater and won a national election with Reagan is "more extreme" now than it was then; quite the contrary. Look at this slippery language --
...contemporary American politics, a ceaseless war for supremacy with no quarter asked or given. Barack Obama and George W. Bush stand as the most divisive presidents in recent history...
...well, they stand as the most recent presidents in history, but what was there in Bush's governing style that can be described as "a ceaseless war for supremacy with no quarter asked or given"? Nothing, as far as I can tell. And there was nothing "extreme" about him except the hatred he drew from his opponents (from day one). He was "divisive" in the sense that he was hated, not in the sense that he was extreme or refused to work with the opposing party.
We’re not a country of land or blood. We’re a country of beliefs. If we’ve lost that, who are we?
The world's largest marriage of convenience, perhaps? Secession has been delegitimized in the public imagination becauase the last group of states that tried it did so to preserve slavery. Whether that can change I do not know.
(Alaska, interestingly, does field candidates for the Alaska Independence Party, though they don't do all that well.)
Fate is calling you, my friend: You will choose one thing or another, and soon.
ReplyDeleteLet us read Aristotle's Politics. The time has come to rethink many fundamental matters.
We're the same people now that we were before the election. Because of who we are, we are still called on to stand for what is right, even if the state is wrong. Honor demands it. If that means we are called upon to spend ourselves without effect, that's a tragedy, but we decide whether or not it is a beautiful tragedy.
ReplyDeleteJust read Part I from your "Aristotle's Works" link - which is not bad for this hour as I must soon go home to bed. I would be glad to work through the rest at a reasonable rate.
ReplyDeleteThough I already have quibbles even with the first paragraph of this Part I (though not so much with the next two paragraphs).
Take your time. It's a worthy subject for consideration. Perhaps we will devote a little while to it here; the hour seems right.
ReplyDelete"I don't approve of where the laws have gone and are going. I don't see that means I get to disobey them -- that principle works far more against everything I believe in than for it."
ReplyDeleteSo then you're against civil disobedience? One should observe the law no matter it's moral implications? I don't think you mean that, but then I'm not sure where that leaves things. Are you saying it's right to support a government that steals? That is where we're left, isn't it?
I wish I were in a better mood, but I'm closer to Sarah Hoyt right now.
I think I would enjoy consideration of Aristotle guided by you, Grim. Certainly, I need to get my bearings back after this evening.
I'll enjoy it. The missus is out of town so I forged further ahead. I don't consider a work like this "discredited" even when I violently disagree with a part of it so I am not shutting my mind to it. I see he's weak on animal psychology, but I suspect the rest of his argument isn't going to rest on that part anyway.
ReplyDeleteDouglas - I'm against "uncivil" disobedience. The excitable lads who took part in the Rodney King riots were dissatisfied with the laws, the laws that said they should not smash the shops or hurt the bodies of their supposed racial and economic enemies. From the looks of things, they were quite dissatisfied. That kind of violent tribalism is where you're left when the rule is Everyman His Own Nullification Proclamation...
ReplyDelete(This is a subject we discussed a while ago under the heading of "jury nullification.")
I don't see any need for even civil disobedience in a country like this; there are other channels to challenge or change a bad law. If the problem is that the wrong ideas are too popular - it's down to persuasion or secession. I dislike legal plunder quite as much as Grim - that's why Bastiat's The Law is over there under my Favorites link - but no more than he do I think lawlessness is the answer.
Lawlessness is not a proposal before us in any case; the question is how to live by the moral law, when the state increasingly compels otherwise via its positive law. I suspect you are going to find yourself an outlaw according to the second law, precisely because you (and I) have strong beliefs about the content of the first law.
ReplyDelete...well, they stand as the most recent presidents in history, but what was there in Bush's governing style that can be described as "a ceaseless war for supremacy with no quarter asked or given"? Nothing, as far as I can tell. And there was nothing "extreme" about him except the hatred he drew from his opponents (from day one). He was "divisive" in the sense that he was hated, not in the sense that he was extreme or refused to work with the opposing party.
ReplyDeleteBingo.
We need to think through our reactions and learn from this defeat - adjust our strategy, hone our arguments, and most importantly, begin to deal with the reality on the ground.
Obama may not be a good president but he's a very good campaigner with a shrewd understanding of electoral politics. What worked for him can be made, with adjustments, to work for us. The difference is that we must find a way to address the disparate factions and coalitions that make up our increasingly polarized nation in a way that makes factions *less* rather than more powerful.
You'll be joining us in reading the Politics, I hope?
ReplyDeleteI an intrigued that (according to the Wall Street Journal) while exit polls show most people were worried about the economy and employment, enough of a majority voted in opposition to private-sector jobs and a national economic recovery to reelect those currently in power.
ReplyDeleteI'll stop there. The election's results mean that my chances of getting even part-time work have just dropped like a stone, at least in the sense of working for an academic institution or a local business. My mood is not the best this morning.
LittleRed1
You can be part of my new effort. Obamacare requires $125 billion a year be spent on anti-depression efforts. I'm going to start a firm based on philosophical counseling, and demand government grants to support it. They have to spend the money, so they may as well support me as anyone else.
ReplyDeleteYou'll be joining us in reading the Politics, I hope?
ReplyDeleteI will try, Grim.
I woke up at 4 am this morning and have had to use up two injections just to get myself out of bed. I read here every day, even if I don't have time to participate in the discussions as much as I want to.
I'll also link to your discussion (not that I have all that many readers anymore) later today :)
Nor have I. We aren't -- what did Tennyson say? -- "that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven[.]"
ReplyDeleteBut that which we are, we are.
A nation dies when its people no longer have anything they feel is worth dying or killing for.
ReplyDeleteAmerica still has hope. Unfortunately, that would lead to civil war as the least, worst, of all possible outcomes, in the near but inevitable future.
Yet it was curiously politics, the need to avoid civil war, the desire to avoid either killing or dying for a belief, that has allowed the Left to take ownership of this country.