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

Happy Columbus Day!

Happy Columbus Day!

"In fourteen hundred ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue..."

If you don't know the rest, or refuse to repeat it, your ignorance is too deep for me to fix in so little time and space. I won't bother a protest, qualification, any hint of apology or take any other sort of a defensive stand on what is and should be recognized and celebrated on this day. What we like to think of Captain Kirk doing, Christopher Columbus actually did, and he did it without electronic wizardry, without science officers or communication specialists or even replaceable extras in red shirts, but with only wooden boats, a compass and a number of guesses about how the extent of the world might be shaped. He and some ninety crew, set out on an uncharted ocean with the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, and it was incredibly brave and bold, and resulted in Western Civilization expanding westward around the globe, and even entertaining the notion that we today need to defend or justify that, is not only stupidity on stilts, but a repudiation of all that is good. If that isn't laudable and self-evident bad-assery to you, begone and darken my door no more.

In fourteen hundred ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean blue. He had three ships and left from Spain; He sailed through sunshine, wind and rain. He sailed by night; he sailed by day; He used the stars to find his way. A compass also helped him know How to find the way to go....

Does this flag make our But look big? Damn right, yours, mine and everyone else's.

Does this flag make our But look big? Damn right, yours, mine and everyone else's.
You can't have been lucky enough to miss out on the on-going Confederate Flag controversy, nor, if you have any form of electronic communication, the memes supporting/opposing all sides of the 'issue', not to mention the arguments that your friends are having over it.

As Hate vs Hate - KKK meets New Black Panthers...
Decency comes out on top

Good times, right? I'd hoped I could avoid it all together, not because it's controversial - if anything that has a certain attraction - but because it's one of those 'issues' that are actually multiple issues, each with at least two possible positions on it, rolled up under one deceptively simple heading of "Do you support or oppose the Confederate Flag?!". Add to that, that several of those issues, not to mention the possible positions on them, range from being simply wrong to being purely disgusting, and several others that range from fairly neutral to being critical to the preservation of Liberty itself, and you begin to get a sense of what a fly trap this thing is.

Which is the point of it.

But wait, there's more: for every position you might take on any one of the 'But...'s, it is the simplest of things for those who disagree with you, to cast you in the worst possible light, and to see you as sympathizing with what they see as being as bad as it gets.

And that's amongst your friends. Your enemies? Licking. Their. Chops.

As I said, I'd hoped to dodge it all together, as few have the patience to even begin to go through the positions on any one of the issues, let alone most or all (is there an 'all'?) of them, I've started and stopped this post several times in hopes that the news cycle would let it fade away, but apparently, I'm to have no such luck with that. In a weak moment, as I began to realize there was no avoiding it, and tired of Conservatives being suckered into the patsy position, I let slip a comment last week on a GOP Conservatives post that:

"Why the hell the GOP feels defensive about one of the flags of the Democrat Confederacy, I can't imagine."

His reply was accurate, in that very GOPish, and very non-Donald Trumpish sort of way that conservatives typically have of speaking:

"The GOP feels defensive because it's mainly our activists who are defending the confederate flag!! As we saw yesterday, the Democrats will try and associate Republicans with that flag for political advantage in '16. Is this really that difficult to comprehend?"

Way to make sure that making the best of a bad situation, is the best you have to hope for. He was correct as far as that goes though, it is conservatives who've been drawn into strangling themselves with the Confederate flag issue, but it does nothing to help them to stop doing that to themselves. Exasperated, I replied,:

"[Difficult to comprehend...] That the Left would capitalize on the Right's weakness and willingness to assume guilt? No, that's not difficult to comprehend at all. That the Right accepts the guilt they have no part in, that the Right is willing to allow the Left to even open their mouths on the subject without pasting them with their historical guilt, without reviling them for their still evident rejection of the Individual Rights of the Declaration of Independence, and without drubbing them for their still active hatred for the Constitution they actually rebelled against 150+ yrs ago... yeahhh THAT I have a hard time comprehending."

In fairness to him though, as I said, the supposed issue is such a target rich environment because there are so many sides to take upon it, that for every 'But' given, at least two others butt in afterwards. And far from going away anytime soon, it seems that however many Buts are offered and however big they become, the issue not only is Not going to go away, but is being allowed to metastasize.

So.

With the idea that the first step in helping conservatives to stop strangling themselves with the Confederate Flag issue, is identifying what the various issues surrounding it actually are, I'll go ahead and address a few of the more common Buts that I typically come across. Ok, here we go, and in no particular order:

1. But...The Confederate flag is the flag of conservatives and the GOP!
2. But... Which flag are you talking about?!
3. But...Conservatives defend the Confederate flag
4. But... it's a symbol of the "State's Rights"
5. But... it's a symbol of racism
6. But... the Civil War wasn't about Slavery, but 'Northern Aggression'"
7. But... it's honoring the valor of ancestors
8. But... it's just a vague symbol of rebellion and good ol' boys, ala The Dukes of Hazard
9. But... if you ban that flag, you are banning ideas and freedom of speech

1 - "The Confederate flag is the flag of conservatives and the GOP!" This might be the biggest, fattest, dumbest But of them all. On terminology alone, there is nothing conservative about rebellion, and the Confederacy was all about rebelling against both the political structure of, and the principles of, America. On top of that, the Republican Party was explicitly formed in opposition to the idea of either preserving or extending slavery... I mean, c'mon, its early leader and president was Abraham Lincoln for Pete's sake! As I said in the comment above, the Confederate Flags, ALL of them, belonged to the Democrat party - those in the South formed the Confederacy, and those left behind in the North became the Democrat 'Copperheads', all of whom put States and power over the Rights of Individuals.

Fast forward a hundred years and you'll find that little had changed, with Democrats filibustering the Civil Rights bill in 1964; not because of concerns over Individual Rights, but because of the desire to assert their racist, collectivist lust for power over others. And on top of that, it was a Democrat Governor, with a Democrat legislature, that raised the Confederate flag over the capital of South Carolina in 1961.

Here's a fun exercise, this link tells the oh-so dramatic tale of the raising of the flag over South Carolina's Capital - guess what word you won't find in it? D-E-M-O-C-R-A-T. Guess what party each of the pro-confederate flag politicians mentioned in the story belonged to? The D-E-M-O-C-R-A-T Party. Go ahead and google the story. On ABC, Politifact, CNN, Newsweek, TIME, Reuters, The Atlantic, MSNBC, USA Today... guess which party's name won't be mentioned in connection with raising the flag? That's right, the D-E-M-O-C-R-A-T Party. That ought to tell you something, both about the Democrat party, the Media, and about the incompetence of the GOP.

Now here's a question you should be asking yourself, and them, seeing as the Democrat party was the party of the Confederacy, the party of segregation - Democrat President Woodrow Wilson issued orders and directives to segregate the military and civil services - as well as the party that founded the KKK - and remember that, well into the Obama Administration, the Democrat Senator Robert Byrd, the 'conscience of the Senate', was a former leader in the KKK - and that they opposed both segregation and civil rights for reasons of race... what is it, do you suppose, that happened to make them and their party almost synonymous with the plight of inner city minorities? Can you point me towards that political 'Damascus Moment' where they suddenly rethought and repented of all their past beliefs and actions (other than LBJ's infamous chortling, I mean)? No? So what accounts for their stark change of 'heart'?

If you haven't guessed, it was, is, and always will be, for the Democrat party, about power. And for those of you looking to them for handouts and grants of power and privilege (aka: 'rights', in their mind anyway), that should give you great pause. For despite their own traditional and long held beliefs and positions, much of which they surely still hold, those couldn't hold a candle to their allegiance to advantage, position and power.

Now think about that.

For well over a century, not only were racist policies, and opposition to the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, ingrained into the Democrat Party mindset (the 'living constitution' was Woodrow Wilson's phrase for dispensing with and 'moving past' the Constitution, and Democrats have always sought to minimize the importance of the Declaration to our laws),but they were indisputably deeply invested in all of that, and yet, in a blindingly quick flash of time, less than a decade, they abandoned all of that, in order to be seen embracing minorities, not because of discovering the error of their ways, or even of publicly apologizing and renouncing them, but for perceiving the electoral advantage which that new embrace could deliver for them.

And so given that, ladies and gentlemen, just how solid and lasting and secure can all of the 'rights' and privileges that they've been extending and enticing you with, be with them? How long do you think that their allegiance to what lures you into supporting them, will last once they perceive greater advantage elsewhere? The truth that should be plain to see, is that the moment that it no longer benefits them, they will abandon those promises, and you, for whatever offers greater advantage and power for them.

The Democrats then, as now, chose and do choose, the side of Power over that of Truth and Individual Rights, just as they chose intellectual and military rebellion against the very founding ideals of America, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence (see below), and adhered to by the Constitution, and as then, as now, they immediately sought to deflect guilt, rewrite history, and avoid responsibility for their actions, through extensively lying by omission as well as by lying flat out into the faces of the American people, in order to get the power and position they desire.

Sorry, if our 'Southern Cause' has anything to do with the party whose cause it was, and is, I've zero sympathy for it or you, as then, as now, it was a thoroughly anti-American enterprise.

2 - "But... Which flag are you talking about? The Confederate flag or the Battle Flag?!" Well I suppose that's a reasonable question, which flag are we talking about? Georgia's? The Palmetto blue? The Battle flag? South Carolina's? The Clinton-Gore campaign flag? Take a look at the graphic I put together, there's lots of options to choose from, which one would you care to argue for?

Some of the flags of the Confederate... pick your poison

Go ahead, take your time, I can wait, I mean, it's not as if your choice will alter my answer much.

Got it picked out? Good. Here's my answer: Personally I don't care which flag you choose to cite, revile or defend, in what is important to me, I see no meaningful difference between them.

Why?

Because any and all of them were symbols used in rebellion against the Constitution of The United States of America and the principles for which it stands, and as such, just as anyone involved in a riot is as guilty as everyone else for any crimes committed during that riot, by their chosen associations in the Confederacy they All partook of disavowing and repudiating the Constitution and the ideas behind it. They were all equally involved in what was central to the formation of the Confederacy (more on this below), explicitly repudiating the central ideals of The Declaration of Independence. To be in the Confederacy meant denying the idea that,

"...We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...."

, and in so doing they all participated in rebellion against Individual Rights, The Rule of Law (as opposed to unabashed codifications of power for power's sake), and they all participated in corrupting and sullying the concept of Property Rights (more on that in a moment).

3 - "But...Conservatives defend the Confederate flag" I'm sorry, I can't fix stupid. Next.

4 - "But... it's a symbol for 'State's Rights'" It certainly is, and I can think of few things more worth condemning and spitting upon, than that. Oops, sorry, Does that make my 'But' look really big?! Here's why: when you say that the Civil War "... wasn't about slavery, but State's Rights!", that doesn't help your case because the one could not continue without the other. And for those on the Right who like to use the phrase "State's Rights", including several people I very much respect, allow me to clarify this point further:

To use the phrase "State's Rights" as a stand-in for Federalism and the 10th Amendment, is not only intellectually lazy, but it also serves to undermine Federalism and to repudiate Individual Rights, the Constitution and the Rule of Law.

I suppose I need to say a bit more than that, eh?

Individuals have both Powers and Rights, but States have only powers, not Rights, see the 9th Amendment and the 10th Amendment for the Constitution's agreement with me on that point. Only individuals can have Rights, as Rights properly exist to protect those actions which a human being, as a consequence of having to reason to survive, requires the ability to take in order to live as a Human Being; Rights serve to shield individuals through law, from the impositions of Power that would prevent them from living their own lives.

States, on the other hand, don't think. States are institutions of organized power, which, if legitimate, are organized around the idea of instituting Laws to protect the lives, Rights and Property of its citizens - that's their point. You know:

"... to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."

States have the Power to take actions, but they have no Right to take those actions, except as a means of upholding the rights of its citizens. The State's powers must always be subordinated to upholding the Rights of those which its powers exist to protect.

Assigning Rights to States, would shield its ability to act in its own interests, putting its original purpose, that of shielding the rights of its citizens, in second place to them. 'State's Rights' reverses the order of who serves who, which is what the creators of 'State's Rights' had in mind, as it was (and is) the only way to 'justify' slavery, welfare, a state managed economy, state mandated healthcare, etc. And of course, as a State is only a legal fiction, that means that the interests of those individuals who are in positions of power within it, who hold power over everyone else, are able to use its power, not as a shield, but as a sword, doing whatever they can get the power to do, usually through stoking public opinion, in order to justify their actions, as being for, not the good of Individuals, but for 'the greater good'. And with Individual Rights subordinated to them, there can be nothing left to stop them from doing just that.

If you use the phrase 'State's Rights' as a casual reference for Federalism, intentionally or not, you undermine and repudiate the very concept of states being limited bodies under law, and limited to the protection of Individual Rights.

5 - "But... it's a symbol of racism" This comment is usually met by apologists for the Confederacy with rolled eyes and assurances that they have gotten things wrong, that the 'truth' has been hidden by those who won the war. Uh-huh. Well, here's a truth that somehow hasn't managed to be hidden all that well, from Article 4, Section 3, Clause 3 of the Confederate Constitution,

"...the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States...."

And here's a dazzling little snippet from the Vice-President of the Confederacy, Andrew Stephens, from his "Corner Stone" speech, of March 21, 1861, speaking of the new Confederate Constitution. In it, he states clearly, as does their new constitution, exactly what they found to be important to state:

"...But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. ..."

I'd happily supply you with more, but my stomach is feeling a bit tender today. Suffice to say, that whatever pretexts the confederacy deluded itself with, or with which its apologists today delude themselves with for its sake, central to its existence, was the glory of preferential treatment for some, and the denial of the principle of Individual Rights to all of mankind, with the aim of re-establishing the ancient rule of power for power's sake, upon American soil. No matter what other pretty wordlings they might have tossed together as a pretext for defending that, denying Individual Rights and equal treatment before the law to any, is a denial of them to all, and there is NO POSSIBLE 'principle' that could possibly render that a secondary or minor issue.

That was the reality they stood for. Thank God they lost, and when the last apologist for them has faded away, that much at least, will be a good thing.

6 - "The Civil War wasn't about Slavery but about 'Northern Aggression' To the extent you might feel that I didn't already answer this above, whatever the individual particulars were that helped cause the guns to fire, and there were many, from trade, to concerns over territory, to tipping the political balance of power, etc., the notion that Northern Aggression initiated the war, is poppycock. The southern states, without so much as a "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind...", without a negotiation of terms, or an attempt to divvy up mutual property, etc., they declared that they were seceding from the Union even before President Elect Lincoln was sworn in to office. They then besieged and fired upon United States personnel at Fort Sumter - that is pure aggression across the board. Whatever tinder had been laid up from either side, the Confederacy aggressively lit the match and wound up burning themselves at the stake.

And why?

Whatever pretexts that might be claimed, the driving reason for the Democrats to create the Confederacy was Slavery, just as the driving reason for the creation of the Republican party, was to oppose it. Any other answer is but an evasive attempt to focus attention upon secondary considerations, at the expense of primary ones.

Yes, I'm aware that there actually were Blacks fighting for the Confederacy, and also that some even owned slaves themselves. Equally relevant, there were some Jews who fought for the Nazi's. Doesn't mean a damn thing other than human nature, especially in the context of struggles for power, is a damned difficult thing to get a handle on.

That being said, was the North divided from the South by Non-Slave State vs. Slave State? No. There were several border states that remained with the union, and which continued to practice slavery even during the Civil War. If you didn't know that... why didn't you? But for those states which remained in the Union and still had slavery, it was because, like the Founders themselves, they hadn't yet figured out how to end slavery. Despite our modern conceits, it is a difficult thing to be holding “a wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go.” (for you conservatives who find this difficult to accept, imagine a relative trifle, such as attempting to end Social Security, which many consider to have some enslaving aspects to it, and then amp that up by multiple factors of 10, and you might begin to glimpse the difficulties of ending what you've allowed your culture to accept as 'normal').

But it should also never be forgotten, that for all of human history, everywhere, slavery was considered a norm, and for all of that time it was understood that any turn of circumstance could find you becoming enslaved. It was here, in America, that Slavery was for the first time ever, discontinued and outlawed (yes, even before Wilberforce in England, Vermont banned slavery in 1777 , followed by several other northern states, albeit imperfectly; while Wilberforce ended only the Slave Trade in 1807, and freed all slaves only in 1833. Even so, there is a difference between ending the legality of something, as Wilberforce accomplished, and making it into a moral evil, as was finally completed with the Civil War amendments.) as wrong and evil that would be impossible to legalize. The fact that our Constitution was not able to end the practice when written, is a lamentable fact, but it did provide for, they'd hoped, its scheduled demise. The Confederacy, on the other hand, sought not only to escape that scheduled demise, but to repudiate even the desirability of it, and while those states who remained in the Union may not have understood how to end it altogether, still they did desire it to end, and they remained standing with the idea of all men being equal before the law and in each possessing Individual Rights. That was the vital difference.

Let me state that point again: The notion that Individual Rights, the owning of human beings, could EVER be a secondary consideration among such concerns, is both a confession against, and an insult to, the primary role that Individual Rights for all must hold for there to truly be a Rule of Law. That must be primary amongst reasonable peoples, for there even to be a possibility of their being reasonable peoples; respecting that is the direction of Progress, and denying it, that of Regress.

The idea that it was ok to think of human beings as Property - the very notion of which discards the concept of Property, substituting for it that of 'Possessions held through power' - has to crowd out the very concept of Individual Rights along with it - as discarding one must always do to the other.

Sorry, but not sorry,'State's Rights' is not only wrong, but anathema to the concept of Liberty, and one that disgusts, irritates and infuriates me.

7 - "But... it's honoring the valor of ancestors" Can a reasonable person see the [pick your favorite] Flag as a symbol of valor? Can a reasonable person think only of that, without also thinking positively of, or endorsing, those negative aspects I've mentioned here?

Of course they can.

Not only is that possible, but doing so forms a necessary part of looking at things and events of the past in a historical manner, as opposed to looking at them as templates for an active and forward looking political vision. It is quite possible for someone to have statues and paintings of Caesar, Alexander the Great, even Genghis Khan, and feel some admiration for their 'Greatness', without supposing that they'd also like to see their more murderous ideas and practices in place in the world around them.

Is it possible for someone to admire them for their baser and more evil aspects? Again, of course, but you can't deny the possibility of perfectly reasonable behavior to all, on the basis that some might hide their unreasonable behavior behind it; to do so would mean you'd have to outlaw History itself - not to mention the possibility of learning from it. How will you learn lessons from the past, if you expunge them?

And if you add to that historical view, the fact that some of those figures, still relatively recent, historically speaking, might even have been that person's ancestors who fought under that [pick your favorite] flag, I personally would have no difficulty whatsoever in imagining that any one of those flags could hold, and signify, a special place for them, without also implying their agreement or sympathy with those fouler aspects which I associate with it.

And so to the ridiculous question of whether or not someone can own a [pick your favorite] flag, or any other associated memorabilia, as historic references to historic times, yes of course you can, you absolutely have a right to, and you can and should be able to do so without being slurred as a racist yourself.

But.

But if you choose to display it, and yet can't see why others, and most obviously included in that would be Blacks (not necessarily, but justifiably), whether descended from slaves or later immigrants from anywhere else, might be at the very least concerned with, or on edge at seeing any one of the flags of the Confederacy flying, or as displayed in some other manner, then you are being either disingenuous, obtuse, stupid, or more probably a mixture of each.

The fact remains, that the flag of your choice was used as a symbol in a war that sought the eradication of Individual Rights, an abstraction that was made viciously real upon the flesh of Blacks, because they were black.

That could be tough to get past.

You have a Right to do with that flag what you will, but you have no reason for surprise or shock over the fact that others might see it as an endorsement of racism, or as a thumb in the eye, or even as open hostility to Individual Rights, Liberty, and America itself.

On the other, other hand, once you explain your position to them, it's reasonable to expect them to not equate you with it.

Just be prepared to have to do that over, and over, and over again.

8 - "But... it's just a vague symbol of rebellion against authority and good ol' boys, ala The Dukes of Hazard" If that's all the depth you care to reach on the issue, may your ignorance be blissful, go in peace. No one has a right to stop you from splashing about in the shallows, just try not to be offended at their lack of regard for your regard. Deal with it and enjoy.

9 - "But... if you ban that flag, you are banning ideas and freedom of speech." Would banning the flag be equivalent to banning ideas and suppressing freedom of speech? Yes, it absolutely would.

Personally, I believe that any and all of those flags should have been excluded from being flown in any official governing capacity within the United States of America, from the moment the South lost the Civil War, on down to today, because they were standards repaired to in violent opposition to the government of the United States of America.

No Buts about it.

But. That does not mean, in any way, shape or form, that individuals, or their companies, or their products, or for God's sake their Graves! can or should be banned from owning, flying or being decorated with any of those flags, or any other artifact or symbol of them.

Yes, you absolutely have a right to see things your way, no matter how unpopular, or even entirely corrupt that may be. But banning the symbols of ideas is every bit as bad as banning ideas or speech about them.

Those attempting to persecute those who choose to fly these flags, to expel them from grave sites, to exhume bodies, remove statues, or break into private property to steal their [pick your favorite] flags, are, in terms of principles, on a par with that Confederacy they are so energetically posturing about opposing.

Such actions are... that's right. D-E-M-O-C-R-A-T-ick.

Conclusion. I wish.
The biggest But to realize here, is that all of the Buts serve one purpose over all others: Division. The strategy and motive power of the Saul Alinsky trained community organizer, is to apply power, to divide and conquer, and increase power, and few things do that better in America than race, or symbols of it, as those divisions are sure to inflame those they'd like to organize against her.

Score one for the dark side, because every single But, mine included, only serve to deepen the divisions among us.

Edit: An anonymous commenter, who didn't read the entire post, nevertheless reminded me of something I should have emphasized more, which is this:

The important thing to realize here, is that this 'issue' is entirely arbitrary, it is a baseless, non-issue,  and it cannot be responded to as if it were worthy of a response.  This issue is being raised, not because it is a real issue, but because to respond to it means to create, and inflame division among Americans, by means of creating this non-issue, and making an issue of it.

At best there are two options:
Option One (and by far the best): Laugh derisively, and walk away.

Option Two (less good but more likely): Laugh derisively and say: "The Confederacy was a creation of the Democrat Party. All of the Confederate flags belong to the Democrat party. The child of the Democrat party, the Confederacy, was defeated by the Republican north in the Civil War. A century later, in hopes of maintaining is racist policies,  the Democrat party raised the Confederate flag over the South Carolina capital in 1961, which the Republican governor removed in 2015, because then as now, Republicans have to clean up the messes that Democrats inflict upon America."

They deserve nothing more.
/edit.

In fact the only party involved with the latest flare up of this controversy who had it right, following the murder of nine members of a South Carolina church, were the ones who actually rose above the mess, the congregation of those who were murdered in that South Carolina Church.They didn't seek division or justice, but only to stand against the darkness, choosing instead to rise above those horrible events in painful love for the ideals of goodness that mankind can and should embrace; they sought The Light.

Score one for the Bright Side.

No buts about it.