Progressively Doing away with Truth - How Pro-Regressives see Regress as Progress pt. 9c

When I began this series of posts last year, it was just after Halloween, and I was seeing the 1st Monday in October, the opening day of the Supreme Court session, as being far scarier for adults living under the Rule of Law, than what children imagined the ghosts and goblins held for them during the previous week. Their fears, after all, were imaginary, but for adults, the progressive replacement of the Rule of Law, with its evil twin, the Doppelganger's Rule of Rule, was very real, and happening right before their ayes. Now, as I write this, we're two days away from the 2016 election, and that, with the possible election of an actual 'Progressive' as President, that is even more terrifying of a prospect, than what had originally prompted me to start these posts on Progress and Regress in the development of the Rule of Law.

SoOo, with that in mind, let's wrap up this series of posts with a quick look at a snippet of scary quotes from the previous posts, of 'Progressive' leaders from economists, politicians and founders of our modern public school system, in their own words - not mine - making clear what they first believed, and fundamentally still do believe:

• "Each year the child is coming to belong more to the State and less and less to the parent."
• "The tradition of respect for individual liberty, Gladden preached, was "a radical defect in the thinking of the average American."
• "...Individuals, Ross maintained, were but "plastic lumps of human dough," to be formed on the great "social kneading board.
• "...Men as communities are supreme over men as individuals. Limits of wisdom and convenience to the public control there may be: limits of principle there are, upon strict analysis, none...."

, and from a fellow traveler, Marx,
• "In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. "

I could follow those up with far more outrageous quotes from 'Progressives', showing their open hostility to, and mockery of, our Declaration of Independence and Constitution, as well as praise for racism, eugenics and the disregard for individual human life... you name it. But hopefully these are enough to indicate what it is that 'Progressives', which Hillary Clinton identifies herself as being, do believe, and hints at why I refer to them as being Pro-Regressive. The 'progressives' ideology is about denying, and repealing the culminating points of Western Political Philosophy: Individual Rights defended by the Rule of Law under a system of self-government that is limited to that purpose. The Pro-Regressive Progressive, was founded in opposition to that.

I see that as a problem for our continued experiment in self-governance.

These quotes are not from their political talking points, but an expression of the philosophical fundamentals which drive the political policies they do support; they are what has been behind their

Perverting Progress into Poison - the Doppelganger Strikes Back - The Rule of Law in Progress or Regress pt.9b

For most Americans, even today, their natural reaction when they see an error, or a falsehood, or some other wrong, their impulse is to try and correct it. While the belief that they can correct it, is cause for us to hope, the fact that their corrections are so full of obvious errors is cause for despair. But even so, the belief that they can correct it, that comes from our recognition that there are facts and that we can know them, and that because we understand that we can know the facts, and that paying attention to what is, and is not so, will help us to understand what is True, we then presume that we can put ourselves on the path towards understanding what we ought to do, because of what we know to be true.

Which all seems so very obvious, reasonable and commonsensical. Right? And once upon a time in The West, not only would it be thought possible and normal to distinguish between a 'fact' and a 'lie', there would have been no dispute about the wisdom of correcting it with what was Right and True.

But that sort of sense is no longer acknowledged by those in places of intellectual power over the world we are living in. Most such folks will deny that there is any connection between what IS, and what Ought to be done about it (and that definitely depends upon what you think the meaning of 'is' is). To be sure, these 'thought leaders' are exceedingly quick to tell you what is right for you to do, but they will, often in the same breath, also tell you that there is no way to know what is True or Right.

This progressive reversal of perceptions and moral fortunes has been turning the Western world upside down, and has been brought upon us by those who have the nerve to call themselves 'Progressives', and the effects of it reach far beneath those appearances which they prefer to stay above. From academics to policy wonks to media gadflies and political activists, they feel the zeal to tell others what they should do, while also saying that no one can know what is true, and somehow they have the effrontery to call this position 'Progress!'.

The Rule of Law in Progress or Regress

• pt 1: The Lawful scares of October... and beyond 

• pt 2:Why a Govt of Laws, and not of men? 

• pt 3:Who Benefits from transforming Rules into Laws 

• pt 4:We hold these truths to be self evident 

• pt 5:Thoughtful Images - Turning to the Rule of Law without turning away 

• pt 6a:Snapping snap judgments, lest auld acquaintance be forgot 

• pt 6b:Locke's Lab for DIY Political Science Experiments 

• pt 6c:Property - The Progress of Cause and Effect into Life and Law 

• pt 7:Artificial Reason turns the Pen into the might of the sword 

• pt 8:Mutating Justice into injustice: the far reaching properties of Property

• pt 9a:Trick or Treating like it's 1984

• pt 9b: Perverting Progress into Poison - the Doppelganger Strikes Back

• pt 9c: Perverting Progress into Poison - How Pro-Regressives see Regress as Progress

Now for the first time since nearly as far back as Woodrow Wilson, We The People have on the ballot for our President, a self professed 'American Progressive' in the person of Hillary Clinton, who's also supported by numerous others who more than fit the same bill, wouldn't it be wise before choosing whether to cast your vote for Hillary Clinton, or Donald Trump - or to avoid the choice through a 'third party' alternative - wouldn't it be wise to try and understand what it is that they, and she, mean by 'Progressive!'?

Because I've gotta tell you, especially for those of you who do have a negative view of 'Progressives', if you think that their ideology is somehow equivalent to being a corrupt bureaucrat, or a corrupt businessmen, or a crook, or even if you believe that it's equivalent to being an authoritarian 'Statist', or even a flat out 'Tyrant', you are not only greatly mistaken, but your mistake is aiding and abetting that same pro-regressive 'Progressive' agenda that you have such a negative view of, in much the same way a cold blooded murderer would benefit from being treated no more seriously than you would a swindler.

One thing which this series of posts on 'Progress and Regress and the Rule of Law', has been illustrating, is that simple abuse of power, and abuse of the law for political power, is what we've had with us throughout all of human history - but abusive, tyrannical government is not how you identify

Trick or Treating like it's 1984 - The Rule of Law in Progress or Regress pt.9a

Trick or Treat
I began this series of posts at Halloween last year, with the point that the 1st Monday in October (opening day of the Supreme Court) was a far more frightening day, for adults, than Halloween was for their children. For the adults, our 'Trick or Treat!' gives us shocking sights of the Rule of Law being replaced by its evil twin, the Doppelganger's Rule of Rules, and if that's so, and it is, how much more frighteningly true has it become of our Presidential elections? But to understand which candidate is truly the most frightening this year, you can't simply judge from the candidates, their campaigns or the reporting on them - you have to understand what ideas will guide their use of political power over (and in) our lives, and that takes a wee bit more time than saying 'BOO!' - which is about all the media wants to tell you.

In the last few posts of this series, I've been sticking to the nature and development - the progress - of Law, but in order to see where, under a Pro-Regressive ideology, the Law is both leading to, and being generated from, we need to look over in the direction of Education. Why? Because The Law is but a means of binding, and giving order to the use of power in a manner that reflects the philosophy of the times, and on its own it will range somewhere on a scale between judicious restraint and savage barbarity. What informs the direction which that will to power takes, however, mostly enters our past, present and future lawmakers heads through our schools - they are the drinking fountains of philosophy, and directly or indirectly, that is where our culture cultivates itself from.

What is being cultivated is on display in these videos, but keep in mind that these aren't simply a charming new addition to the genre of late night comedy show's 'Stupid Student Tricks'. Take a closer look at these college student videos with an eye, not to laughing or dismissing these people as fools or pansies, or to taking aim at Millennials (as if your generation would've looked better if smart phone video existed then. Please. I actually think they're more likely to outshine us all), or to mock the ignorance that's been educated into them - we do a disservice to ourselves, and to them, when we look at videos such as these and dismissively chuckle at them in that way. Instead, try looking at them as evidence of seeds that are and have been germinating across our land for over a century - and just imagine the harvests that are soon to come. Do that and I think you'll see that laughter is less warranted than a cold chill of fear.

In some ways the outrageous Social Justice Warrior videos are less alarming to me, than those of the more coolly 'reasoned' responses such as these "Georgetown students who say that the Constitution is outdated, overrated’", as they are surer indicators of the shape of the coming establishment, who seemingly have no sense whatsoever of the dangers inherent to the holding of power, or of the need to restrain its use by those who would use it to 'do good, to help you!' even, or especially, against your will. Even worse, they seem so well versed in justifying the abandonment of restraint and of justifying the exercise of political power over others, with little awareness of either the best, or most dangerous methods, of managing and restraining political power; something which used to be one of the central themes of a college education - how is that absent from their minds - yet these students are in college, and no matter how little respect I have for the content of what they are learning, they are there because they are deemed to be the least foolish, stupid or laugh-at-able members of American youth.

I repeat, you should be chilled, not amused, by these videos.

You're going to be tempted to laugh though. Way it is. Don't. These aren't funny. At all. Seriously

Ok, the first video opens with a young lady at Georgetown University stating that:

"Yeah, they definitely take it too seriously. it's not... 250 years ago... when the constitution was about written... I'm not sure what that date is..."

There are several things that come to mind to say to that, on a scale ranging from grammar nazi to chronologist, but what I'd really like to say to these students who are pursuing 'higher education' has more to do with their demonstrating what one of her fellow students unironically states, later on in the same video:

"I feel like sometimes, people use the 'Constitution' as an excuse to not... think."

, with which I completely agree... though in the reverse of what he intended it, of course.

These students, as most students over the past ten+ decades, have had their heads pragmatically

Mutating Justice into injustice: the far reaching properties of Property - The Rule of Law in Progress or Regress pt.8

Mutating Justice into injustice
You’d probably not be surprised to know that I was highly aggravated that the FBI didn’t recommend Hillary Clinton's prosecution for the crimes related to her email server - but for me, that wasn’t the most disturbing part. There was of course plenty to be outraged over, with the FBI stating that her actions had violated the law, that she was extremely careless with classified materials, that she was not truthful about her handling of them, and yet in the face of all of that, the FBI would not recommend that she be prosecuted for those violations of the law (and gave much of her staff immunity from prosecution). They didn't dispute that she’d done what she should not have done, only whether she should be prosecuted for the violations that they’d determined she had made.

What was even more disturbing than all of that, for me, was that Director Comey made a point to say that his conclusions should in no way lead other (meaning someone less important?) govt functionaries (oh ... such as a sailor, for instance, gotcha) to think that the laws won't be applied to them, if, someone else, in a position of power, feels like they should be applied, in their case.

That, my friends, is a demonstration of the Rule of Men, being raised above the Rule of Law. BTW, on a related (by marriage) point, the reason why a person of influence, such as Bill Clinton, tries to get away with questioning what the meaning of 'is', is, is to encourage, exacerbate and exploit this very inversion. When men in positions of power can arbitrarily rule over the application of those laws that rule over all of the rest of us, based upon the power and influential relations of those who are involved in or have an interest in, themselves, that is Might Makes Right, and with little or no effort to conceal it. That is the reign of the Doppelganger (the evil twin of the Rule of Law), which is the default societal baseline that civilizations only become respectable civilizations by fruitfully struggling to progress away from… and yet here we are, busily progressing 'forward!' in the wrong direction, at breakneck speed.

Seeing all of this, many people have naturally asked:

“What is the point of having laws if those who break them at the top never face consequences?”

, and although I get the sentiment, surely they must realize that the question contains its own answer, right? Once upholding and defending Individual Rights for all is no longer the purpose of your laws, then as surely as night follows day, defending the wealthy, powerful and influential few, has already become the point of those rules by default, no matter how persistently we continue in calling such rules ‘laws’ ('LINO'?).

For those wondering how and why this has happened, it's worth considering a few questions which, IMHO, help explain how and why we are where we are today:

1. Can you tell me what it is that connects you to your Property (IOW: if you think you have a Right to it... why)?
2. Do you know what anchors the Law into protecting everyone's Individual Rights?
3. What is it that enables those in power to turn any and all of the laws against whoever they wish, as they wish?

These three are tied together, each dependent upon the other, and if unanswered, result in extra-legal situations such as those we're seeing here, so let's work our way through them from the bottom up, taking it from the present into the past, and so get a glimpse of our future. In considering the last question first, a better question to understand it here and now, would not be 'How does this happen?!', but how could it not happen? And a question that'll help provide the answer to #3 above,

• How much can what is Right and True matter to people, when Lies are acceptable to them?

How we got to where we weren't going to
Have you forgotten about Gruber admitting that Obama’s entire ‘If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor’ line was a lie they’d consciously concocted and told in order to pass ObamaCare over

Artificial Reason turns the Pen into the might of the sword - The Rule of Law in Progress or Regress pt.7

Penning Laws mightier than the sword...
Hopefully over the last three posts on the Three Key Steps required for the Rule of Law, you've not only followed along, but also felt some concern about where I've been going with this. In New Year's Eve's post, I emphasized the importance of Philosophy and questioned the common assumptions that the Big Ideas of the West have little or nothing to do with everyday life, and in New Year's Day post we looked at how, through the ideas of men like John Locke, The Law, in a general sense, functions as applied Philosophy. But then at the opening and close of my previous post on Property, showing how it is central to those steps being completed and a society able to enjoy the Pursuit of Happiness, I cautioned that,

"... you should be uneasy about the "♫ ♪ ♬ it's as easy as 1,2,3...♬ ♪ ♫" nature of these three steps to the Rule of Law that I've given."

And you should be cautious towards anyone promoting the idea that 'Men of Reason know what's best!' - if you know anything about the French Revolution, or even the PC Culture of our Wackademic Universities, that should be cause for serious and well founded alarm. Stick with me, because in this post, as we look at how The Law does have a very real and direct connection into our daily lives through the concept of Property, and the West's Big Ideas, we'll also see that the Rule of Law, as our Founders understood it, provided an antidote to the very real threat of 'those who know best!'.

As we've seen, the initial hardships and innovations of the first colonists in America, were hard and clarifying experiences, which made their way back to the old world through the actions and words of men like Thomas Hooker (see the previous post), and they helped in establishing clearer understandings of what Liberty required, as well as the need for limits to what the Law could and should do. Such experiences had an influence on the pens of men like John Locke, who, decades later, distilled those essential principles of life, liberty and property, into a clearer understanding of the importance of the Rule of Law. Americans drank those ideas in, embodied and refined them even further still, as an 'expression of the common mind' through the pen of Thomas Jefferson, as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but that phrase expressed far more than simply swell sounding words.

In this series of posts, we've traced a line from Aristotle, to Cicero, Coke, Locke and our Founders and have stressed the importance of knowledge and reason, but there is a very real danger in giving the impression that Reason alone is fit to describe or lay down the law - and in fact letting it do so comes dangerously close to violating one of the first maxim's we noted, that above all else,

'No one can be judge in his own cause; Hear the other side'

To ignore that, to put your exalted 'Reason' above that, is the path of self inflated elitism, be it of Kings, Experts or Talking Heads, and it is our Laws themselves, when respected, that save us from that. On the other hand, Reason, when given power to depart from the wider reality of a nations laws, not because an error has been found in earlier judgments (which is a valid basis for overturning precedent), but because a judge, legislator or executive has a 'better idea' for 'the greater good' in spite of their existing laws, that is when 'Reason' becomes just as dangerous a beast as any other predator in the jungle. The French Revolution was a good example of that, where for all its talk of 'Reason!', it brought unreasonable rivers of blood and mounds of severed heads until finally, it provided sufficient reasons for the greatest tyrant since Alexander, Napoleon Bonaparte, to come to power and plunge Europe into a decade of devastating war and conquest.

The English Jurist Edward Coke, understood very well, the dangers of individual men's reason being given power to define or direct the law, and his unique formulation of an answer to that, helped him in holding his own king at bay:

Notes on Coke: 1608 "Then the king said that he thought the law was founded upon reason, and that he and others had reason as well as the judges. To which it was answered by me that true it was that God had endowed His Majesty with excellent science and great endowments of nature; but His Majesty was not learned in the laws of his realm of England, and causes which concern the life or inheritance or goods or fortunes of his subjects are not to be decided by natural reason, but by the artificial reason and judgment of law , which law is an act which requires long study and experience, before that a man can attain to the cognizance of it "

Meaning, that it was not enough for one man, one king, one executive, or even an entire legislature, to consider and declare the law to be this or that, separately from the body of the law - that would be every bit the 'rule of rules' as any other arbitrary whim someone justifies to themselves - it is placing you as a judge of your own cause.

Artificial Reason, as Coke spoke of it, required reasoning along with, and in concert with, preceding judgments that made up the common law, which served as a steadying rudder against the whims of the moment's 'Good Idea!' from steering society in a new, unexpected and rash direction. It is not

Property - The Progress of Cause and Effect into Life and Law - The Rule of Law in Progress or Regress pt.6c

Step Three
I made a claim in my New Year's Eve's post that there were three concepts that were key steps to the Rule of Law, which if missed or denied, would saddle you with its Doppelganger, the Rule of Rules, instead. That post looked at the First Step as being the importance of Philosophy and emphasized the need to question the common assumptions that the Big Ideas of the West have little or nothing to do with everyday life. In the New Year's Day post we looked at the Second Step, how, through the ideas of men like Cicero and John Locke, The Law, in a general sense, functions as applied Philosophy. In this post we'll look at the Third Step, that the revolutionary concept of Property (as opposed to possessions), brings The Law into the very real interests, concerns and smallest details of our daily life - whether that's good or bad, depends upon how well the previous steps are taken. BTW, if you're a little uneasy about the "♫  ♪ ♬ it's as easy as 1,2,3...♬ ♪ ♫" nature of these three steps, good, you should be. We'll get into some of the Why's of that in the next post, but for today, first things first: Step Three, following the reality of our thoughts and actions in the world, and the vital connection between them, Property, the Biggest Ideas of the Big Thinkers of the West, and your ability to live your own life as you choose, and in society with others.

Ultimately what it comes down to when we're talking about the importance of Property to our lives, can be looked at, believe it or not, as a recognition of the unity of cause and effect in human actions.

Think of the concept of Individual Rights as a recognition of those actions which the nature of being a human being requires of us to choose to take, in order to live life as a human being

(Chief amongst those actions being: thinking, acting, speaking, associating, retaining the fruits which those actions produced, and a recourse to arms to defend them all if need be)

; and of the concept of Property as the recognition that, those effects which result from our actions having been taken, would not be as they are, in that way, in that context, without that person's time, decisions and actions having been contributed to it, and that involves that person's life in those effects which resulted from their having taken those actions. That unity of cause and effect is easily observable (whether or not they recognize it) in any people, of any time, and in any place, and it establishes the principle of a man's right, not just to, but in his property (Aristotle's recognition of four causes is better suited to this, but that's a whole 'nother post), rather simply the possession of it.

More simply put, to see a clay pot is to know that it was caused to come to be - someone did build that. The pot is the effect of the potter's thoughts and actions; you get no pottery, the effect, without its cause, the Potter, and to take that pottery by force, is taking away what some portion of that person's life went into creating.

Property, in its original understanding here, wasn't only an indicator of possession, or of monetary value, but the rightful recognition of a relation established between a person and that which they acted upon. Those actions which you legitimately take, establish your Property in your speech, in your actions, in your associations, in your effects and most of all, and first of all, in your life, in your right to it, and in your right to defend it. Importantly, to recognize and respect one person's right to their property, is to implicitly recognize every person's right to take those actions that are required by the nature of being human, and that by virtue of being human, every person shares in those same rights - and each owes

Locke's Lab for DIY Political Science Experiments - The Rule of Law in Progress or Regress pt-6b

Step Two - The American Locke on Liberty
America in the 17th & 18th centuries was a living political 'State of Nature' laboratory, perfect for tweaking old formulas, making observations, and serving as a state of the art lab for carrying out revolutionary real life Do It Yourself Political Science experiments. The philosopher of political science who was the keenest observer, and who contributed the most, and the most sound theories, for unlocking the liberty that America was formed from, was John Locke (1632-1704), who, as a child, lived through the violence of the English Civil War.

Few issues were actually resolved during that conflict, and so as the fatigue of it passed, the political climate began heating up once again, especially with questions surrounding ideas of royal power and the still developing ideas of liberty, even as the Colonies in America were being established abroad. The period that Locke grew up in was rife with political turmoil, executions, persecutions and exiles, which would eventually be resolved with the 'Glorious Revolution', and see England switching out its own monarch, for a pair more open to the idea of putting even the King's power under that of the Law. But up until that point, Royal Power ran rampant in England and those who questioned it, would become the painful focus of it. Locke, together with his compatriot and employer, the Earl of Shaftesbury, felt the sharp focus of royal power because neither one of them believed in the 'divine right of kings', and worse than not believing in it, and worse even than daring to say so, Locke explained why it wasn't so, and that, the exercise of Freedom of Speech, is something which those employing the Doppelganger's Rule of Rules cannot tolerate, and will soon seek to resolve their discomfort with orders of 'Off with their heads!' - and so off Locke and Shaftesbury went, into exile in Holland.

During that six or so years of exile, Locke devoted serious consideration to practical political philosophy (the 1st of the the three steps which we reviewed in the previous post), Richard Hooker's "Of the laws of ecclesiastical polity" found its way into his writing, and he could not have missed the strange new political developments coming from the colonies in America, particularly the likes of Thomas Hooker (possibly related to Richard Hooker) and his Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, with

"...the first written constitution known to history that created a government..."

, establishing representative government with the freedom to think and worship as a person saw fit, without interference from the government. Such ideas percolated for years in Locke's brain, and were refined into principled form, and, helping to give much weight to the adage that 'The Pen is mightier than the sword', would help contribute to that coming revolution, as well as our own, decades afterwards.

The primary work that John Locke ultimately produced, "The Two Treatises of Civil Government [1689]" (published anonymously), was the first to propose and give clear expression to the concept of Individual Rights and the critical importance of Property Rights to them, and on top of that, in his view, upholding those rights were the primary purpose of Govt and its laws (the 2nd key step pointed out in the previous post, and the focus of this one). The linking of those three together: law, rights and property; brought the highest ideas of Law into direct contact with nearly every concern of every person living under it, but now as a benign a promise to defend their actions, rather than as a malignant limitation upon those actions they'd be permitted to take (the 3rd key step pointed out in the previous post). It also established a palpable link from each person's daily concerns to the highest ideals of Western Thought. Locke's ideas found recognition and appreciation in England, but it was in America that they were taken most seriously and were given the most direct application and formal expression and expectations of (see the 1733 Freedom of the Press case of Peter Zenger).

Life in the American colonies had little or no patience for niceties without substance, in thought or deed. It was a place where the matter of a couple careless steps off the beaten path would put you face to face with raw nature and/or hostile peoples, conditions which served to clarify the importance

Snapping snap judgments, lest auld acquaintance be forgot - The Rule of Law in Progress or Regress pt-6a

Give me three steps...
As the old year slips out and the New Year opens up, it's a particularly good time to ask questions that have to do with what is timeless... lest auld acquaintance with them should be forgot. And while it might not seem so, on the surface, these questions we've been asking most definitely involve issues that are timeless - see if you can see how. For instance: Where do you think you fit in, in today's world, are you Pro-Progress, or Pro-Regress? Are you for the Rule of Law, or the Rule of Rules? Are the 'Big Ideas' of Western Civilization something you think much about, or do you mostly shrug them off and just kinda make a snap judgment on various news stories that happen to flit into your view, now and then... and then forget about 'em? Or are you one of the many of us who don't see the point of considering such questions at all, especially not in the midst of the current events raging around us today - ''I'm not getting sucked into THAT mess!'? I hate to cast a pall upon the coming New Year, but I have a sad suspicion that what most people think doesn't matter, isn't going to matter much longer.

Can anyone really think that the precious snowflakes on our college campuses, or the SJW (Social Justice Warriors) brigades in our streets who are openly advocating to eliminate the Freedom of Speech, or 'unbiased' newscasters talking openly of how those they violently disagree with are 'enemies of the state', can anyone really think that these types are going to be tolerant towards those who say 'Oh, I don't pay attention to that stuff' for much longer? How much longer? And when that vocal 'majority' refuses to allow others the choice to either disagree or evade deciding, what do you suppose is going to be the reaction of those who do disagree with them, and what options will they have to do so?

Will the one side have any option left open to them, but to take the other side at their own words, as being their enemies?

No, the time is coming where all will have to decide, one way or the other, where they stand on these issues, because they are what is driving our current events, and your place within them, and brushing them off cannot remain an option much longer. Each person is going to have to choose what they support, and what they will reject. But for those who haven't been paying attention, those - Left, Right, Libertarian and the target rich Moderate center - who've been coasting along on the strength of their snap judgments on this and that - what are they going to base those decisions upon?

A snap judgment? Based upon popular memes? Or a headline? Written by who?

For those who haven't been paying attention, or have, but haven't given much thought to the ideas driving our current events, or even worse than that, those who have been paying attention but have simply assumed that they understood what was best because of what they've familiar with, or comfortable with, or someone dear to them had said was so and so they assumed it was so - however it is that you are coming at these questions, what I hope to do in this post is to prod you to make some of those snap judgments on one of three key positions that, from my own experience in studying and engaging in discussions, disagreements, debates and out and out freak outs with people, I've found to be solid indicators of where their inclinations and assumptions lie, and then I'll toss a little contrast into the mix to hopefully snap your snap judgments open to a perspective you'll find worth considering further.

Especially as the New Year we are entering into, is an election year that will set the course for so many years to come, whether you pursue Progress or Pro-Regress is no light or laughing matter, what you are deciding is whether you will lend moral and physical support to living under the Rule of Law, or to being Ruled by Rules - politically, yes, but intellectually, psychologically and spiritually as well - and your own Progress or Regress will follow as surely as one moment will tick you into the next.

Humming the right tune
Beginning at the beginning, what's your snap judgment on the idea of The West's Big Ideas being somehow important and involved in your everyday life? Far fetched? Pedantic? Outlandish? Duh?

Contrast that question with

Thoughtful Images - Turning to the Rule of Law without turning away - The Rule of Law in Progress or Regress pt-5

Navigating the turns in the fog
How do you bring the clouds down to the ground, without bringing a thick fog along with it? Those higher principles and maxims of law that I sketched in the last post, they've helped define the nature and trajectory of Western thought on law, and the next post is going to have to touch on broader, higher ideals than those... but what do they have to do with our daily lives? How could they have anything to do with your daily struggles to pay the bills, raise the kids right, plan vacations and college, and so on... and on and on and on? Well... not all that much... other than having everything to do with every single bit of every one of those daily concerns.

But who could, would, or will, believe that? Do you?

I'll betcha that when you read "higher principles and maxims of law" a certain mental image came into your mind just at the thought of it. Hold that thought. Hold it, and be aware that many peoples thoughts are full of it. The image I mean. An image, some image, sometimes several images, rather than the thoughts themselves. That's where the fog comes rolling in.

I'd intended to finish this series of posts on the Rule of Law vs its Doppelganger in the Rule of Rules, before Thanksgiving, but I could see that in trying to distinguish between the things as they actually are, and how they are popularly made to appear to be, I couldn't get around taking note of another factor that I'd hoped to leave for later, and that's the mental images which we picture such ideas with, often keep us from actually considering such ideas at all.

For instance, when I say Philosopher, or Roman, Law, John Locke, Founding Fathers...Republic, Democracy, Socialism... there are images that come to mind for you. Such mental images are  normal, useful tools of thought, they serve as the icons or captions in our mental Wikipedia, linking to the judgments we've arrived at as a result of thinking things through, making it possible to mention such topics in conversation and proceed on to further thoughts without having to rehash all of the facts and arguments behind them every time a subject comes up; they guide and speed our thinking.

But if you're not careful about what types of mental images you associate with which ideas, or where those images came from, or even whether there is any of your own thinking behind them, the thinking they are useful for, might not be your own.

What's an image selling you?

Mental images are useful as links or even placeholders, but they are no substitute for information, let alone thinking, yet that is exactly what they are sometimes used in place of. Francis Bacon isn't one of my favorites, but despite differences with the details, I think he would have gotten the difficulty here, particularly with his 'Idols of the Cave', and even moreso with the frustratingly little there is that we can do about it, that is, there's nothing that "We" can do about it, only "I" can.

What you can do about it, begins with noticing the types of mental images you associate with topics - if they take the form of conclusions or ridicule, they tend to divert further thought, rather than encourage it. For instance, the mental image you associate with Socialism might be that of 'Fool!', or 'a threat to a life worth living', or on the other hand 'Ideal!' or 'Making society more fair!'. The first on either hand tends to hurry your thinking along, the second can as well, but they also leave an opening for further thought - 'What makes a life worth living, and how is that a threat?' or 'What is meant by fair, and how does it make society fair?' Either question is useful for further thinking whether you are in favor of or opposed to it, but 'Fool!' and 'Ideal!' guard against any such openings for further thought.

As Bacon said, there's not a lot you can do, but that little bit, drawing your attention to the problem, the failure to question, can help a lot.

Just don't get your hopes up.

For it turns out that when forming their mental images, many people do accept that a picture is worth a thousand words, not realizing that in doing so they accept all of those words meaning without ever really considering or understanding them, all of which helps us to convey much less than words can say, and then conversation and thought can make no further progress, as your go-to mental image steps in to do your thinking for you.

This is less a matter of Left and Right, than of being human.

The mental images you associate with Socialism, for instance,

We hold these truths to be self evident - The Rule of Law in Progress or Regress pt-4

"We hold these truths to be self evident..."
As with the question of 'Who will watch the watchers', one of the driving quests of Western Civilization has been how to have a government of laws and not of men, when it is men who must write the laws? We touched upon a couple of the fundamental maxims of Western Law in the preceding post, and one in particular, which puts us on the right path for that - so long as we follow it. They do so by bringing the concept of external limitations to the law, through reasons that are accessible and comprehensible to all men who have a respectful consideration for reality and to the reality of human nature, yet at the same time are not written by men. The maxim I'm referring to is "No one should be a judge in his own cause" - a truth of human nature which takes only imagining whether a bully should be asked to judge whether he was justified in punching your child, to be grasped - the obviousness of which an English jurist, in a case from the year 1620, noted:

case of Day v. Savadge,5 2, where Chief Justice Hobart declared that

"even an Act of Parliament, made against natural equity, as to make a man Judge in his own case, is void in it self;"

IOW, there are principles and concepts available to us from outside of the Law, which are eminently suitable for applying reasonable limits upon all of the laws that men may desire to write for the 'benefit' of other men. And should those in power ignore those limits and write their hearts desire into law in spite of them, and even succeed in having their entire society voting upon and passing them, even with all of that, such laws will in truth be no law at all, they are empty of substance, they are void.

It is open to any man who dares to look at the emperors nakedness with his own two eyes and honest mind, will readily see that that emperor is wearing no clothes at all, that his so-called laws are nothing of the sort, merely the Rule of Law's Doppelganger, the Rule of Rules, made by those seeking to rule over others, and which should be struck down at the very first opportunity to do so.

In other, other words, the Laws of men, are not exempt from complying with the laws of logic, or of math... or as Jefferson put it '...the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God...', and while such a thought might very well cause the modern Pro-Regressive leftist's head to explode, it was once a common understanding, an understanding that our nation (upon which every comfort and technological delight you possess resulted from) was founded through, and is an understanding that successfully kept the Doppelganger at bay for well over a century.

You can even see an example of this, much to my surprise, in the movie "Lincoln". There's a fine scene (though not without some tarnish, which we'll look at in a moment) where President Lincoln explains to a couple of aids, what he means by Principle, and he quickly demonstrates the great steps that are readily able to be taken by all honest men through their observations of nature, which, for those willing to see them, will lead a man from the geometric principles of Euclid, to Self Evident truths for all men:

“Abraham Lincoln: You're an engineer. You must know Euclid's axioms and common notions. I never had much of schooling but I read Euclid in an old book I borrowed. Little ever found in its way in here, but once learnt it stayed learnt.

Euclid's first common notion is this: Things which are equal to the same things are equal to each other. That's a rule of mathematical reasoning and its true because it works - has done and always will do. In his book Euclid says this is self evident. You see there it is even in that 2000 year old book of mechanical law it is the self evident truth that things which are equal to the same things are equal to each other."

The looming shadows
But even here, we have the modernist skew creeping in, and much as I enjoyed this scene when I first watched it, something about it dragged at my attention. The wording used seemed less like that of Lincoln, than of the modern screenwriter; philosophically it doesn't belong to the Realist school that Lincoln would have been familiar with. Few in Lincoln's day would say that something is true simply because it works, that is a far more modern notion, the darkly pragmatic approach which was still being formulated at that time, and I doubt it would have sat well with him. To be sure, we do confirm that things are true through verifying them, but philosophically, epistemologically, it is only because the reality IS true, that we are able to verify it - verification, logically, has to come after the thing being verified (that is Self-Evident, is it not?) - our experimentation , like the anthropologist's broom, only brushes the dirt from the bones - it doesn't create the skeleton, it only serves as a means to our discovering it. The self evident fact is that it works because it's True, and because it's true, we are able to observe and verify it.

While Hollywood added their spin to the scene, they didn't spin the substance of it from nothing, and minus the pragmatism, that was just the sort of comment that Lincoln often used to make a larger point. In fact, if you do some googling on Lincoln's speech in the movie

Who Benefits from transforming Rules into Laws - The Rule of Law in Progress or Regress pt-3

Is having laws to rule by the same thing as having the Rule of Law?
So a couple key points noted in the preceding post, was that judging the laws by their outward appearances alone led to confusing the Rule of Law, with its Doppelganger, the Rule of Rules, as well as the importance of having laws that are universal in nature, laws that apply to all, rather than to only a favored, or frowned upon, few. That lack of universality, the adding of exceptions and loopholes to the laws, is partly what Ben Franklin had in mind when he declared himself to be a "mortal enemy to arbitrary government and unlimited power". Arbitrary, here, means:

"adjective - based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system."

When government acts arbitrarily, it takes on the assumption of power unrestrained by proper limits, which is the raw status of savagery at the societal baseline, where a ruler (one man or many) exerts power over others by their word alone, and may change form one moment to the next with the desires of that ruler. The chief distinction between whether that power flows directly from the mouth of a single leader, or through a process of extended discussion through councils and representatives to be written down for public display, is the placement of some deliberation and delay upon their execution, but neither puts real limitations upon the scope and reach of that power. Finding what can properly supply those limits, has been the holy grail of Western government since the establishment of the first democracy in Athens.

What can properly limit the powers over those who are living under them?

Other laws?

There are many who do believe that it is enough to have one law that limits the extent of another. Proponents of this, which include most of the law school faculty of the last one hundred plus years, might say (and many do),

"Having an interconnected set of agreed upon laws, publicly available, 'transparent', and written down is sufficient to qualify as Law, eliminates the 'arbitrary' and establishes a Rule of Law."

I disagree.

And so did those revolutionaries who, unimpressed with the fancy red coats and gold braid which that primitive ideal had been dressed up in by the British crown, banished it from our shores, in order to establish a revitalized body of laws in their place on these shores.

But was that all they did? Were the 13 new state's laws, and the later Federal Constitution, limited by nothing more than their own laws? Before asking what those limits might be and where they might come from, lets look a bit closer at what is, or isn't accomplished, when a law is agreed to and written down - and does that act alone make it proper 'Law'?

What is it that writing a law down accomplishes, does it somehow add depth and respectability to them? Certainly not in the act of

Why a Govt of Laws, and not of men? - The Rule of Law in Progress or Regress pt-2

So we left off in the previous post with pointing out that two very different creatures, the Rule of Law, and its Doppelganger, the Rule of Rules, are being mistaken for, and appealed to as being, one and the same thing. Because most people do not distinguish between the two, the resulting confusion spills out well beyond the courtroom and into our daily lives - evidenced by the Mizzou journalism student asserting his rights as protected by the 1st Amendment, and his fellow journalism students and professors asserting their right to 'bring muscle' to silence and banish him - and all will seek to justify their positions through the 'Rule of Law!'.

We're in this situation, because too many of us look no further than surface appearances to support their own passionately held and self justifying beliefs, and if you go no deeper than appearances, then the two do seem to be nearly indistinguishable - both are written in law books, both may be presided over by judges, both embody what people feel to be right, and both will result in a response of force should you violate them - but the fact is that they are in truth as different as night is from day, and our mistaking them for each other is serving as the means for dividing We The People into We The Peoples.

So... how do you distinguish between the Rule of Law and its Doppelganger, the Rule of Rules? If opposing points are given as answers to the same question, then maybe the problem lies less in the answers being given, than with the questions being asked? What is it that even prompts the question which the 'Rule of Law!' is so often given as the answer to? And is it in fact the answer? What's the point of having a Rule of Law? And having chosen to seek such a thing, is 'a nation of laws' a sufficient answer to the question of "What type of nation are we?".

Is the sort of answer that students are typically expected to give in our classrooms - ticking off multiple choice questions, or completing a fill in the blank answer - are they enough to stir an interest in getting beneath the deadly shallows of appearances?

It requires a bit more than that, doesn't it?

Put it this way: We have people offering opposing answers to define the same term, because we accept appearances as being sufficient, and the more shallow the appearances are that we are willing to settle for - multiple choice, fill in the blank - the less likely it is that people will look past the surface, and the more likely it is that the answer we will wind up with will be the Doppelganger, instead of the reality we were seeking.

Our answers are much less of a problem than the questions that we customarily do, and do not, ask of ourselves. Maybe a better approach would be, before asking why the Rule of Law is desirable, we first noodle a bit on why Laws are thought to be desirable at all.

If your answers aren't the answer, ask different questions
It was John Adams who famously stated that we were a ' government of laws, and not of men' - do you accept that as a 'fill in the blank' answer and move on with no further thought, or have you, or do you want to, ask 'Why?' What was the point of that statement? How are the two different? What does it mean to understand that they ARE and SHOULD BE different? The answers are tied up with what we've been looking

The Lawful scares of October... and beyond - The Rule of Law in Progress or Regress

The Lawful scares of October... and beyond....

“It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.” - Edmund Burke

From our vantage point here in mid November, I've got to ask, is the last night of the month really the scariest, spookiest part of October? I don't think so. Halloween's Trick or Treating is ghoulish fun for children but it's typically done and gone by midnight, or at least by the end of the next day (your mileage may vary as per the neighbor's decorations). What else is there, you ask? I realize that this might sound silly, at first, but stick around and you just might be surprised into realizing that while children get their gleeful scares from Halloween, the adults, those who are awake, are in for much spookier fare than they are, beginning at the other end of the month, when on the first Monday in October, the Supreme Court comes back into session. The frights raised up on this day are more tangible and linger on well after that day, last on through the month, and they will haunt those who're paying attention throughout most of the coming year as well.

And of course it's not as if these lawful scares are confined to the SCOTUS alone, no, no, no... that's just the glowing head of the horsemen, frightful spin-offs abound from the Federal courts and agencies, and on down to the State and local levels in often unexpected ways, our educational system for instance - all in the name of the 'Rule of Law' they're sprung on us without benefit of candy, delightful spooks or jack-o-lanterns - Tricks a plenty, but very few Treats.

Boo!

What, not scared yet? Ok, sure, you might scoff, lawful SCOTUS stories are a very different sort of thing than children's ghost stories, and no one after all is ever going to go curl up in the gloom telling SCOTUS stories on All Hallows Eve... but... if they tried to... they just might be surprised at how easily it could be done; and we wouldn't have to dress up the language either, no need for:

"In the land of D.C. where the congress lies, Nine judges robed in black sit upon the highest court - One court to find them, One court to rule them all and in the darkness bind them, in the land of D.C., where the congress lies..."

, nah, that's not necessary, not when there are better, more realistic ways to build suspense and fear - through real fears of:

"...will the lawful ones permit this...? Will they outlaw that...? Will we still be allowed to do...?'

No need for Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen King or R.L. Stine, the NEWS alone will make you want to turn the lights on while listening to its spine tingling tales of those who oppose the Rule of Law, and of those who defend it, and how, like changelings, they are oftentimes one and the same people.

Bwa-Ha-HaHAHAAA!

No? Still not feeling it yet, ok...I get it, but...there's a more significant problem with the thought of turning SCOTUS stories into ghost stories, in that with children, if the story gets too scary, they can turn on the lights. But for the adults... turning on the lights isn't so easy or even all that pleasant to do, after all, while a gloomy SCOTUS story is scary, it isn't make believe.

Turning the lights back on will not only not make the scary things go away, it's likely to bring you face to face with a dilemma that has been standing before you all along, unseen or ignored: the twisted twin images of the body of the Rule of Law, and its Doppelganger, the Rule of Rules. Both possess the same appearances, both are written in law books, both are presided over by judges, both will result in a response of govt force should you violate them, but they are as different as night and day - and which one is actually which? Can you tell? Which one's the body of the good Law and which that of the ghoul of the West whose tale we'd sought to escape from?

I wonder how many would resist the urge as the lights come on, to turn them back off again?

You might wonder if I'm being too dramatic. If so, I wonder if you've been paying close enough attention to the reality around you. For instance, if you were to ask your fellow Americans to help you tell which one is which on any number of recent news stories