- John Jay (1745-1829), American Founding Father and first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
On a related note, there's a great post on John Jay over at the American Creation blog. Well worth a read.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Quote of the day: on the right to property
- John Jay (1745-1829), American Founding Father and first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
On a related note, there's a great post on John Jay over at the American Creation blog. Well worth a read.
The foundation of modern constitutional government: Magna Carta
The Western Confucian blog has a very good post quoting the late Russell Kirk on the origins of the Anglo-American concept of constitutional government and the rule of law: Russell Kirk on the Great Charter. Well worth a read.
As Kirk was wise to point out, and not just on this topic, American institutions and American approaches to law and politics are grounded in the English experience that the original American colonies were built upon. That history is part of the web and woof of our country's laws, customs and traditions. To be ignorant of that history is to be ignorant of ourselves.
If interested, here's an online English translation of the original Latin text of Magna Carta, available through Fordham University's website.
As Kirk was wise to point out, and not just on this topic, American institutions and American approaches to law and politics are grounded in the English experience that the original American colonies were built upon. That history is part of the web and woof of our country's laws, customs and traditions. To be ignorant of that history is to be ignorant of ourselves.
If interested, here's an online English translation of the original Latin text of Magna Carta, available through Fordham University's website.
How secular is British culture?
Not as secular as many think: Most Britons Still Identify as Christian. They may not go to church in large numbers, but according to that story, British culture as a whole retains a strong attachment to its Christian roots -- 71% of the British people identify with the Christian faith.
While there is no question that Christianity in Britain is in far from an ideal or optimum condition, it appears that predictions of its eminent demise there are overstated.
Related item: Jeffrey Steel over at De Cura Animarum reports on a petition circulating to thank Pope Benedict XVI for his visit to Britain earlier this week. An interesting development, I think.
While there is no question that Christianity in Britain is in far from an ideal or optimum condition, it appears that predictions of its eminent demise there are overstated.
Related item: Jeffrey Steel over at De Cura Animarum reports on a petition circulating to thank Pope Benedict XVI for his visit to Britain earlier this week. An interesting development, I think.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Quote of the day on tending the home fires
- John Adams (1735-1826), founding father and second president of the United States.
Mandatory prison sentences and the separation of powers doctrine
That's the subject of this post over at From Burke to Kirk and Beyond. I don't see, though, if the legislature has the right to determine if an action should be punished via the criminal law, why the legislature can't stipulate what the punishment for that crime should be?
The power to determine if an act is criminal or not includes, it seems to me, the power to determine its punishment. The authority of judges to pass sentence does not include the power to pass any sentence on any crime -- otherwise we would be set with judges handing down the death penalty for jaywalking. The legislature is perfectly within its rights to mandate certain sentences for certain crimes.
Whether that is a good idea for the legislature to do so is a legitimate subject for debate, but whether the legislature has that authority, well, not so much.
The power to determine if an act is criminal or not includes, it seems to me, the power to determine its punishment. The authority of judges to pass sentence does not include the power to pass any sentence on any crime -- otherwise we would be set with judges handing down the death penalty for jaywalking. The legislature is perfectly within its rights to mandate certain sentences for certain crimes.
Whether that is a good idea for the legislature to do so is a legitimate subject for debate, but whether the legislature has that authority, well, not so much.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
The brothers Hitchens on secular justice and the clerical sexual abuse scandals
There are two interesting posts out there on the interwebs right now regarding the sexual abuse scandal and the Catholic Church. The first one, written by "new atheist" writer and foe of all things Catholic Christopher Hitchens raises a good point, I think, in this article: Holding the Catholic Church accountable for its crimes. While I would disagree with him that Benedict XVI is part of the problem rather than part of the solution, one of the basic questions he raises in the article is worth some serious thought: why haven't the secular criminal authorities been more vigorous in prosecuting clerical sexual abusers?
After all, the rape or molestation of a child or a teenager is a crime throughout the Western world. Why weren't the vast majority of these cases subject to reporting to the authorities, and then prosecution?
The answer, correctly pointed out by Mr. Hitchens, is that the system was corrupted, both internally within the Church and externally in terms of the legal authorities. And it is a shame to both the Catholic Church and the secular governments of the West that such corruption has been allowed to fester for as long as it has.
The second post is by Christopher's younger and wiser brother Peter Hitchens: Question -- who said 'not all sex involving children is unwanted and abuse?' Answer -- The Pope's biggest British critic. Peter Hitchens makes two points in this piece. First, most of the charges leveled against Benedict (by folks like his brother Christopher, for instance) are simply not true. Second, he points out that some of the most prominent leaders of the effort to condemn Catholicism toot court are themselves guilty in the past of advocating or at least taking a soft line towards the sexual abuse of children. Hitchens' post is well worth a read.
After all, the rape or molestation of a child or a teenager is a crime throughout the Western world. Why weren't the vast majority of these cases subject to reporting to the authorities, and then prosecution?
The answer, correctly pointed out by Mr. Hitchens, is that the system was corrupted, both internally within the Church and externally in terms of the legal authorities. And it is a shame to both the Catholic Church and the secular governments of the West that such corruption has been allowed to fester for as long as it has.
The second post is by Christopher's younger and wiser brother Peter Hitchens: Question -- who said 'not all sex involving children is unwanted and abuse?' Answer -- The Pope's biggest British critic. Peter Hitchens makes two points in this piece. First, most of the charges leveled against Benedict (by folks like his brother Christopher, for instance) are simply not true. Second, he points out that some of the most prominent leaders of the effort to condemn Catholicism toot court are themselves guilty in the past of advocating or at least taking a soft line towards the sexual abuse of children. Hitchens' post is well worth a read.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Quote of the day: conservatism looks to context in determing proper policy
- Edmund Burke (1729-1797), British statesman and the grandfather of modern conservatism.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Quote of the day: a reminder that conservatives aren't utopian
- Russell Kirk (1918-1994), American political theorist and social critic, one of the fathers of the modern conservative revival.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Christianity shouldn't be respectable
That's the point made by Arturo Vasquez in a post linked to by the Western Confucian: Arturo Vasquez's Religion. Well worth a read.
Vasquez is certainly on to something when he points out the urge in modern Catholicism to either conform completely to the dominant secular culture or to create a kind of bunker Catholicism with its own version of political correctness. The Catholicism that I am most interested in is the Catholicism of saints and mystics, of people who were definite non-conformists while remaining deep and faithful Catholics. The Catholicism of my Bavarian-American grandmother, of my wife's Chamorro-Filipino family, the Spanish Catholicism of St. John of the Cross (a guy who was imprisoned by the Spanish Inquisition on suspicion of heresy), the Catholicism that shines so brightly in the Little Flowers of St. Francis. That's the kind of Catholicism that both nurtures a stronger relationship with Christ and creates vibrant culture.
The rationalized and politicized and thus secularized Catholicism that is prevalent today in so much of the West? Not so interesting to me. At best, it is simply a Catholic frosting on a toxic cake of modernity. At worst, it makes an idol of a past that never existed.
Vasquez is certainly on to something when he points out the urge in modern Catholicism to either conform completely to the dominant secular culture or to create a kind of bunker Catholicism with its own version of political correctness. The Catholicism that I am most interested in is the Catholicism of saints and mystics, of people who were definite non-conformists while remaining deep and faithful Catholics. The Catholicism of my Bavarian-American grandmother, of my wife's Chamorro-Filipino family, the Spanish Catholicism of St. John of the Cross (a guy who was imprisoned by the Spanish Inquisition on suspicion of heresy), the Catholicism that shines so brightly in the Little Flowers of St. Francis. That's the kind of Catholicism that both nurtures a stronger relationship with Christ and creates vibrant culture.
The rationalized and politicized and thus secularized Catholicism that is prevalent today in so much of the West? Not so interesting to me. At best, it is simply a Catholic frosting on a toxic cake of modernity. At worst, it makes an idol of a past that never existed.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Book review: Unlikely Allies by Joel Richard Paul
Truth, as the saying goes, is often stranger than fiction. That maxim certainly applies to Joel Richard Paul's book Unlikely Allies
(Riverhead Books, 2009). A delightful telling of the diplomatic
machinations behind the Franco-American alliance during the
Revolutionary War, Paul's book is a helpful reminder that the success of
the American Revolution was dependent not only on the actions of great
men on the public stage, but on countless patriots who worked behind the scenes or in obscure posts to make American independence a reality.
Paul focuses his story on three major characters -- American merchant and diplomat Silas Deane, French playwright and government go-between Caron de Beaumarchais (who wrote the Barber of Seville), and Chevalier d'Eon, an eccentric, cross-dressing French noble who inadvertently pushed the French king Louis XVI into an alliance with the Americans. Paul weaves the story of how these three interacted, building piece by piece, in fits and starts, the partnership between France and America that eventual led to the French intervention in our war for independence. In the process, Paul introduces us to a host of other players - including one memorable Scottish pyromaniac who was caught while executing a scheme to burn down all the shipyards in Britain in an effort to aid the American patriots. All in all, Paul's writing is fast paced and evocative, and he brings a very subtle eye to observing the complex diplomatic endeavors both before the formal American declaration of independence and after.
Aside from being a delightful story, Paul's book serves another function, one that is sorely necessary whenever we study the Founding period. As Americans, we tend (regardless of our political ideology) to look upon the Founding period as a time of giants. Great men strode the country then, our pantheon of Founding Fathers (and the occasional Founding Mother like Abigail Adams). There are the gods like Washington and (depending on one's ideological proclivities) Jefferson. Then there are the attending angels like Madison and Hamilton. There's even a devil or two -- Benedict Arnold during the Revolution, Aaron Burr during the early Republic. The great ideas of our revolutionary period -- scientific, religious, philosophical -- get lots of attention as well. But what Paul's book emphasizes is that the success of the Revolution depended just as much on people outside the elite circles of power, motivated not by grand Enlightenment principles or solid Christian beliefs, but by simple love of country (whether of America or of France). As Paul himself puts it in the introduction to his book:
[Cross-posted at American Creation.]
Paul focuses his story on three major characters -- American merchant and diplomat Silas Deane, French playwright and government go-between Caron de Beaumarchais (who wrote the Barber of Seville), and Chevalier d'Eon, an eccentric, cross-dressing French noble who inadvertently pushed the French king Louis XVI into an alliance with the Americans. Paul weaves the story of how these three interacted, building piece by piece, in fits and starts, the partnership between France and America that eventual led to the French intervention in our war for independence. In the process, Paul introduces us to a host of other players - including one memorable Scottish pyromaniac who was caught while executing a scheme to burn down all the shipyards in Britain in an effort to aid the American patriots. All in all, Paul's writing is fast paced and evocative, and he brings a very subtle eye to observing the complex diplomatic endeavors both before the formal American declaration of independence and after.
Aside from being a delightful story, Paul's book serves another function, one that is sorely necessary whenever we study the Founding period. As Americans, we tend (regardless of our political ideology) to look upon the Founding period as a time of giants. Great men strode the country then, our pantheon of Founding Fathers (and the occasional Founding Mother like Abigail Adams). There are the gods like Washington and (depending on one's ideological proclivities) Jefferson. Then there are the attending angels like Madison and Hamilton. There's even a devil or two -- Benedict Arnold during the Revolution, Aaron Burr during the early Republic. The great ideas of our revolutionary period -- scientific, religious, philosophical -- get lots of attention as well. But what Paul's book emphasizes is that the success of the Revolution depended just as much on people outside the elite circles of power, motivated not by grand Enlightenment principles or solid Christian beliefs, but by simple love of country (whether of America or of France). As Paul himself puts it in the introduction to his book:
We are accustomed to reading about the great men who won our Independence. We know that the Revolution was also inspired by the ideas of the Enlightenment and realized by mass social movements. While it is true that great men, great ideas, and great movements all influence history, history is never so predetermined. We know from our lived experience the impact of random events, chance meetings, and peripheral characters. So too, the arc of history is often diverted from its intended trajectory.Paul's study of Deane, Beumarchais and d'Eon demonstrates his point quite well. The book is well worth reading for its broader perspective on what made our Revolution successful.
[Cross-posted at American Creation.]
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