Culture War, or Holland With Nukes?
Moral reasoning, or lack thereof, in the USA .
–Maclin Horton
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Maclin Horton writes: “No one believes that a state has the right to do anything that is in flagrant violation of the Constitution.”
Not quite “no one” State sovereignty supersedes Federal authority. The constitution places limits on the federal government, it does not place limits on the States.
The example you give may be unjust, but the federal government does not have purview over State law to rectify such injustice. Lincoln’s tyrannical war of southern aggression may have made such notion as you contend a fait accompli, but it remains tyranny none the less.
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Maclin Horton writes: “They have no means, no vocabulary, with which to discuss the foundations of matters in the first class, thus no means of responding to a challenge to their beliefs on those matter”
Actually they do have a ‘means’. A means written into their heart, i.e. the natural law. Thus it is not “religious people who have a very clear set of first principles”, but every person. The attempted problem is not first principles, but the application of those first principles when the application starts to become remote.
It is obvious that walking around the neighborhood shooting all the children is unacceptable behavior because it is not remote, that is, it is not far removed from the law which is written into our hearts. Anyone can see the obvious connection between the act of shooting children and the law written into our heart against murder.
This remoteness is the reason why the abortion industry attempts to portray babies in the womb as tissue; they are attempting to cause a disconnect between the law written into our heart against murder and the act of abortion. PVS, persistent vegetative state, is another example of attempting to cause a disconnect. The argument is that someone in such a state is somehow less than human, and thus it’s ok to kill that person in such a state because such a person is ‘brain dead”. Note the use of the term “dead”. How can you kill a person who is already dead? The use of the term ‘dead’ is an attempt at causing a disconnect from the law written into our heart.
Arguments surrounding PVS reduce down to the same argument mothers use when telling children to squish bugs that are injured. It’s the merciful thing to do. Thus mercy killing. This “mercy killing” is another example of attempting to cause a disconnect because it attempts to separate the law written into our hearts from the act of killing someone who is PVS.
Of course its rather obvious that Terri Schiavo is not “brain dead” and is not in a persistent vegetative state. It is also obvious to anyone who thinks about it for more than a minute that denial of food and water is murder. Babies, for instance, cannot feed themselves, and few people would consider not feeding a baby to be anything less than murder.
Thus, because the means for murder is so obviously murder, the issue is not remoteness from the first principle, i.e. the natural law which is written into our heart, but an issue of corruption. A corruption of men’s souls which make them blind to that same law which is written in their heart.
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Maclin Horton writes: “Even those of us who believe the USA to be in general and on balance a force for good in the world”
The US has long been an exporter of Dispensationalist , American exceptionalist, conquest in the name of America the New Israel’s manifest destiny; of which Pox Americana is but another expression of the same.
Add to the above: American hegemony, and exporter of eugenics and pornography, and warfare to make the world safe for socialism and socialist capitalism of the American System variety, just to list a few of the US’s tentered mercies and thus I am forced to wonder what are these goods which counter balance as “force for good in the world”?
Correction: That should read “War of ‘Northern’ Aggression.” The aggression was Northern not Southern.
The North committed unjust aggression on the Southern States who had every right to leave the Union.
I’ve always tended to believe that the South had the better of the constitutional argument as regards leaving the Union. But “fait accompli” doesn’t even suffice to convey the fixity with which the contrary view has now been cemented into place throughout. That argument is over. It may have been settled wrongly but it’s over.
Right principle, wrong issue. To claim state’s rights to protect an injustice was asking for it…
Dan Nichols writes: “Right principle, wrong issue. To claim state’s rights to protect an injustice was asking for it…”
What injustice are are you referring to?
Uh, slavery. What kind of question is that? What do you think the issue was, bourbon vs scotch?
And please, do not respond with an Aristotelian defense of slavery. When will TACers get it through their heads that Aristotle was not the recipient of divine revelation, and that his reasoning was darkened by the Fall?
I’ve always found intriguing the question of whether it is licit to torture a slave accused of usury.
I don’t think it I asked such an absurd question when one takes into account that your comment was in past tense, and abolition of chattel slavery was not the cause for aggression against the Confederacy, but preserving the Union.
“My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it.” Lincoln
By the way, the Church does prohibit bondage, only certain forms of it.
I left out a qualifying “NOT”
My last sentence should read:
By the way, the Church does NOT prohibit bondage, only certain forms of it.
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Maclin,
Although the language in the catechism is squishy, just as it is on whether unbaptised babies go to heaven, I think we can at least say that in most instances such torture would not be licit.
I should add,
Neither did the Southern States secede from the Union over the issue of chattel slavery, but over tariffs of which the South was paying 87% in order to finance Clay’s American System. The fight really began over the tariff of abomination. Lincoln promised to “collect the duties and imposts” which forced the South to secede or accept an expected more burdensome bondage to the North since Lincoln was in the pocket of the magnets who were bleeding the South..
So in a way you are correct, the war was over bondage, that is: Southern bondage to the North. But not bondage in the manner you implied.
I realize, Franklin, as a contrarian you take delight in espousing shocking positions. You are right in asserting that slavery was not the only issue in the conflict between the States. It is absurd to contend that it was not the primary issue.
I grant that slavery in Catholic cultures took on a more humane face, under the influence of the Church: slaves did not have to work on holy days, of which there were many, and were free on those days to cultivate their own crops or pursue their own crafts, sales of which could be used to buy their freedom. Further, their families could not be broken by the sale of members.
None of this was true in the South; it was a racially based form of slavery that treated slaves as subhuman, possessing no rights. It was by any measure an injustice.
And the Church certainly condemns the idea that human beings can be bought and sold, whatever you are contending as a contrarian…
Daniel Nichols writes : “It is absurd to contend that it was not the primary issue.”
Why do you say it was the primary issue when both Calhoun and Lincoln, as well as historical evidence until more recent revisionism, say it was not?
If it was the primary issue, then why did the Emancipation Proclamation only free slaves in those territories not under control by the Union? Why is it that when Grant had conquered Virginia that the only slaves remaining in bondage were those in the union army, including Grant’s own personal slave? Why did not all slave states secede? Why did the Kansas slave law prohibit North Carolina freed blacks slaves from entering Kansas Territory? Why did the Northern newspapers write numerous articles of Lincoln’s betrayal when he made slavery an issue so as to keep Europe from coming to the South’s aid? That is, they wrote about it until they were hung, shot or imprisoned until driven into submission by the Great Emancipator, if it was not common knowledge that slavery was not the primary issue?
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By the way, I did not defend chattel slavery which was the practice in North America, nor would I.
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Daniel Nichols writes:
And the Church certainly condemns the idea that human beings can be bought and sold, whatever you are contending as a contrarian…”
That’s not quite true, their labor can be bought and sold. Prisons are not prohibited from contracting out the labor of those who have forfeited their liberty, whether the forfeiture be via unjust aggression in war or forfeiture via the committing of civilian crimes.
http://www.nationalcenter.org/CalhounClayCompromise.html
Note Calhoun’s reference to the “primary cause”
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http://www.tysknews.com/Depts/Constitution_Issues/genesis_civil_war.htm
Lew Rockwell is always insightful,as are most of the paleo-libs. And since they despise Lincoln and the Republicans as much as I do, they are always a good read. WorldNetDaily is a travesty, but I’ll let that slide.
Franklin- you evade the point: human beings, persons, cannot justly be bought and sold. Period.
And I suppose you believe the neoconservatives when they say that oil is not the primary issue driving American Middle Eastern policy?
You can’t trust the politicians to state the obvious.
Daniel,
Since you introduced slavery as the primary cause, the burden of proof falls on you to produce evidence to back up your assertion. So far all you have done is assert that those who were in a position to know, on both sides, Lincoln and Calhoun, were lying when they said it was not the primary cause. Where is your proof for this assertion. And also use the term ‘absurd’ a couple of times, which is not a proof either.
Whether or not the US went to war against Iraq for oil as a hidden agenda is irrelevant since words signify intent when claiming title to war. And the words of the US clearly signified that the intent was preemptive warfare to remove a threat of weapons of mass destruction. And the US will be judged by that signified intent. Likewise, the Union clearly signified preservation of the Union as title to war. Lincoln’s words concerning intent could not be more clear.
If abolition of chattel slavery was the hidden reason for the Union going to war, why did the Union persist in preserving chattel slavery in the Union and in all lands held by the Union? It’s a rather odd, ( and need I say irrational?), ideology which persists in engaging in chattel slavery while at the same time it’s willing to wage warfare, with all the consequences of warfare, in order to remove chattel slavery from a foreign land. Can you explain this irrationality without enlisting Gnosticism as the Claremont Theocons do?
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Lastly, I did not “evade the point”, but clarified it. And you are straying from the issue at hand, because the discussion is not over whether or not men can be bought and sold, but over the cause of the War of Northern Aggression and the need for you to prove your assertion. I have not made an assertion one way or the other whether men can be bought and sold, nor shall I since it is outside the scope of this discussion. If you wish to start another thread on the subject, I would be glad to throw in my 2 cents. But adding it to this thread shall only tend to muddy the water since it is not pertinent.
Daniel,
Since you introduced slavery as the primary cause, the burden of proof falls on you to produce evidence to back up your assertion. So far all you have done is assert that those who were in a position to know, on both sides, Lincoln and Calhoun, were lying when they said it was not the primary cause. Where is your proof for this assertion. And also use the term ‘absurd’ a couple of times, which is not a proof either.
Whether or not the US went to war against Iraq for oil as a hidden agenda is irrelevant since words signify intent when claiming title to war. And the words of the US clearly signified that the intent was preemptive warfare to remove a threat of weapons of mass destruction. And the US will be judged by that signified intent. Likewise, the Union clearly signified preservation of the Union as title to war. Lincoln’s words concerning intent could not be more clear.
If abolition of chattel slavery was the hidden reason for the Union going to war, why did the Union persist in preserving chattel slavery in the Union and in all lands held by the Union? It’s a rather odd, ( and need I say irrational?), ideology which persists in engaging in chattel slavery while at the same time it’s willing to wage warfare, with all the consequences of warfare, in order to remove chattel slavery from a foreign land. Can you explain this irrationality without enlisting Gnosticism as the Claremont Theocons do?
___________________
Lastly, I did not “evade the point”, but clarified it. And you are straying from the issue at hand, because the discussion is not over whether or not men can be bought and sold, but over the cause of the War of Northern Aggression and the need for you to prove your assertion. I have not made an assertion one way or the other whether men can be bought and sold, nor shall I since it is outside the scope of this discussion. If you wish to start another thread on the subject, I would be glad to throw in my 2 cents. But adding it to this thread shall only tend to muddy the water since it is not pertinent.
Sorry for the double posting, please remove one of them.
T”he second condition is a just cause; for war cannot be declared for any offense at all, but only for the purpose of warding off an injury. Thus St. Augustine says: “Just wars are usually defined as those in which injuries are avenged, when any nation or city which is to be attacked in war has either to satisfy for what has been wickedly done by it, or to return what has been unjustly taken.”248
The reason for this is that a ruler is the judge of his own subjects only, therefore he cannot punish any crimes committed by the subjects of others, but only those which happen to the harm of his own subjects; for even if he is not the ordinary judge of others, yet he is the defender of his own people, and by reason of this obligation it comes to pass that he is also to a certain extent the judge of those who do harm to his people, so that he can punish them with death.”
http://www.catholicism.org/pages/Laity.htm
In case the reason for my last post is not apparent: Even if the southern States left the Union over the issue of slavery as primary cause, which it wasn’t, they were not“asking for it”in a manner which meets the standard of title to just war by the Union since the Confederacy they waged war against was not under the Union’s jurisdiction. Even second title to war requires first title, thus the Union could not justly wage war for a grievance which did not affect its own citizens.