One thing I've noticed during debates over the past year or so, is that those on the Left are particularly keen on the concept of Rule According to Higher Law. When they lose elections they always want to appeal to some higher body to stop any changes being made by the winners. (This seems Kantish in origin - perhaps the philosophers can shed more light?)I don't think that this is remarkable since liberalism is dominant politically in the West since the Enlightenment and especially with the end of political monarchies and aristocracies after WWI. The Left and Right hold competing views of liberalism.
It's a paradox of liberalism that liberalism seeks to make itself the only acceptable political paradigm once it is installed. Moreover, different views on the spectrum of liberalism take themselves to be the very definition of liberalism and therefore seek to install themselves as the optimal alternative within a liberal contexts when they accede to power.
The tension is between freedom and control. In engineering design, it is generally assumed that an optimal balance between freedom and control needs to be achieved in order to produce the highest level of capability consistent with getting the work done.
So it's likely explicable through a combination of optimizing and preferences in articulating the design problem. Preferences is where the normative aspect comes in, and it is arguable that "higher law" is Kantian, or deontological rather than consequentialist.
I don't see this as problematic in that humans tend to rationalize their preferences in terms of values. Humans also disagree over what constitutes values to some degree and quite a bit over prioritizing values, especially when they conflict in situations.
This is especially the case in political and legal affairs since positive law and institutional arrangements, which are human constructs, are inherently normative owing to the human context in which they are embedded.
The difference in liberal political theory tends to be over competence. The Right is conservative and conservatism is based on the principle that some are better than others. So this is reflected in the conservative approach to liberalism, which prefers republicanism, in which elites control the levers of power and are the final arbiters.
On the other hand, the Left generally subscribes to the wisdom of crowds and prefers democratic decision-making and determination of criteria.
But just because someone or some party adopts a label doesn't imply that they are actually going to behave like that. Presently, the Right is more or less consistent but the Left, no so much, at least with respect to the political leadership.
22 comments:
Neil covers a lot of ground in this essay. It's interesting to see how an Englishman views things, but few Americans will agree with him.
"There are no rights other than those granted by your peers in society .... Laws are ultimately enforced by people .... The question always arises of who does the enforcing and where does their power come from."
America was founded -- however imperfectly -- on the concept of natural rights, and particularly natural individual rights -- as espoused by those Englishmen John Locke and Thomas Paine! The American founders viewed democracy as two wolves and a sheep voting on what to eat for dinner. Government should recognize your natural rights, but those rights would still exist whether government recognized them or not.
As for enforcing your rights, yes that matters a lot. As Ian Welsh put it, we keep precisely, and only, the rights that we are able and willing to fight for. Any other rights we have in excess will eventually be taken away from, awaiting only someone with enough power to gain the opportunity and motive to do so.
I don't fancy England as some sort of Utopia that I wish to emulate, other than what's left of their public health system.
Yet we don't have equality before the law, because money.
Precisely my point Bob. There are no natural rights in the enforcing law. There are only rights granted by your peers because all law is enforced by people. You can appeal to higher aspirations, but if the people around you have changed their mind you don't get it. Now you can pretend that you do, or you can accept reality.
Without that approach the institutions of government ossify and cannot change themselves because 'written constitution'.
Mistakes cannot be corrected - so you have 10s of thousands dead every year because of guns, and the written documents are used to allow all sorts of abuses - like corporations being treated like they have a vote.
We don't have that problem in the UK where the institutions alter themselves quite radically as required over time.
The UK works pretty well. It is no Utopia, but it sort of works because it bumbles along updating itself. The Mother of Parliaments may be old, but it's got experience on its side.
Always remember that here we have public washrooms built before Canada existed.
And that the construction of the Islamic State is based upon 'natural laws' written down about 800AD in Saudi Arabia.
Liberals’ belief that they have some sort of divine authority extends to arresting those with political views they don’t like. Marine Le Pen has had her immunity from prosecution (normally enjoyed by European Members of Parliament) removed, and she’s being threatened with arrest for comparing the Muslims who block the streets of Paris while saying their prayers to German soldiers who occupied the same streets in WWII.
Given that calling those you disagree with a Nazi is commonplace nowadays, Le Pen’s remarks are hardly out of the ordinary.
Plus in the UK, people have been arrested and removed from their jobs for holding the wrong political views (i.e. anti-immigration views).
@Neil seems to assume that we live in a democracy and that the population thinks for itself.
The US is definitely not a democracy and from what I observe neither is the UK. This is not merely my opinion, it has been verified by several studies.
Very few people think for themselves. Their opinions are shaped by the media, and before there was mass media, by the culture. So who controls the media? The oligarchs. Who controls the culture? In the US religion is very influential, and most religious leaders are oligarchs. Also Hollywood (controlled by oligarchs) influences our culture.
10's of thousands dead by guns? Perhaps the media told you that, but actually only 8583 Americans were murdered by guns in 2014, and a disproportionate number of those murders were the descendants of black slaves who have serious cultural and economic issues that are absent in the UK. The murder rate for white Americans is similar to Canada and the UK. Americans are more likely to be killed by alcohol, or by prescription medicines, than murdered by a gun.
But for what it's worth polls show that the American public supports gun ownership. So you can't blame higher law for that. And if people really think for themselves as opposed to being brainwashed by media and culture, then why do Americans think different than Brits?
Corporations receive special treatment in the US because that is what the oligarchs want. There is no mention of corporations in our Constitution or Bill of Rights, so don't blame higher law.
Sorry Ralph, but freedom of speech does not equal freedom from consequences. That is, not until your political views are represented by a majority government.
Canada has a parliamentary system, but it appears ossified. Power is now concentrated in the PMO (Prime Minister's Office). That has been a disconcerting development.
"The US is definitely not a democracy and from what I observe neither is the UK."
So what. It is still the people in charge enforcing your 'higher law'. And the even weaker oversight on the higher law means that they can corrupt it to their will even easier by appealing to it.
We get the same effect in the UK by the appeal to EU law, and the constant push of the ECJ to widen provisions and weaken restrictions.
People don't think for themselves, and are easily persuaded. Democracy is definitely the worst form of government - except for all the others.
"There is no mention of corporations in our Constitution or Bill of Rights, so don't blame higher law."
Doesn't need to be. Link corporations to persons and then individuals and then you can trigger the Supreme Court override of the legislature.
As the Citizens United case shows.
That is where your belief in higher law leads. Not much difference between it and Sharia really.
"...But for what it's worth polls show that the American public supports gun ownership. So you can't blame higher law for that. And if people really think for themselves as opposed to being brainwashed by media and culture, then why do Americans think different than Brits?...."
No higher power needed to conclude that guns save lives--lots of lives:
http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com/search/label/gun%20issues
"guns save lives--lots of lives"
Guns don't kill people, people kill people. Guns save lives, people do not save lives…
Bob,
So speech has consequences does it? I think we all gathered that. Trump, Clinton etc are currently making lots of statements with a view to achieving a consequence: getting themselves into the White House. Personally I don’t see anything wrong with that.
Re your point about “your political views are represented by a majority government”, I’m not clear what your point is. Are you saying that no one should be allowed to say anything unless it’s supported by a “majority government”?
Guns neither save or kill people, we should cut down the stupidity on this one already...
Access to guns though, is an other question, compare the wild west (USA) to the rest of the world on this. The data is there, is not hard, if you drop the stupid biases.
Ralph,
If you enjoy the consequences (such as getting sacked from your job or being arrested), then keep stating your views. If you don't, there are alternative courses of action: gaining political power or keeping your mouth shut.
I'm not saying you should or shouldn't exercise your free speech rights, but here's an example of when you shouldn't:
https://www.rt.com/usa/327688-racist-american-loses-his-job/
@Ignacio, I live in the Wild West where everyone is armed to the teeth. Boise's murder rate is lower than Glasgow, Scotland or Winnepeg, Canada. In fact for the US as a whole the white murder rate is similar to Canada or Europe. Ask yourself why the murder rate is so much higher in Baltimore or in New Orleans compared to Austin or Boise?
I agree with Ralph's last point. For example, if you were a black person in Mississippi, would you rather be bound by the majority of your state, or by what Neil calls a "higher law?"
If you were an atheist in the bible belt, would you rather be bound by the will of a local majority, or a by a "higher law?"
What Neil calls "higher law" we Americans would call "natural law." I.e. the right to defend yourself is considered a natural law [unless you are in modern day England, in which case you may get in trouble for defending yourself. ;-) ]
There is a reason for the existence of our Bill of Rights and that reason still holds -- the U.S. has always been a fractious society, distrustful of other parts of the country and distrustful of government. The states refused to join the union until a Bill of Rights was passed guaranteeing that certain "higher" laws were sacred. Were the Founding documents perfect? Certainly not, especially the part about slavery. But the rest has held up well.
Perhaps simple majority rule would work well in a homogeneous country like Finland, but "higher law" may be the only thing keeping America from civil war. You must have sacred laws to protect the interests of minorities and of rural areas, otherwise democracy is 2 wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner and the minorities will rebel.
Speaking of the Wild West:
Armed militia, incl. Bundy bros, occupy forest reserve HQ in Oregon, call ‘US patriots’ to arms
Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s three sons and “about 150” militiamen have occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge HQ to protest the pending imprisonment of two Oregon ranchers accused of arson, arguing the federal government has no authority in local cases.
"We’re going to be freeing these lands up, and getting ranchers back to ranching, getting the loggers back to logging, getting the miners back to mining where they could do it under the protection of the people and not be afraid of this tyranny that’s been set upon them,” Ammon Bundy, who appears to be the leader of the group, said in a Facebook video posted by Sarah Dee Spurlock on Saturday.
Because 'Murica.
Will President Obama take up the challenge, or cave to the insurgents?
Yep, and I hate to say "I told you so" but I predicted the Western rebellion would escalate after Obama failed to nip it in the bud.
Many rural Westerners think of themselves as "sovereign citizens" and the only thing that keeps them in line is the threat of going to jail. If Cliven Bundy doesn't have to follow the rules, why should they? Any fool can observe that Obama will back down if confronted. Obama is probably burning up the clock, hoping to pass the mess on to his successor to deal with. No one wants to preside over another Waco or another Ruby Ridge.
Mind you I have little sympathy with Western welfare ranchers. Most of them are millionaires who inherited their ranch and mooch off the Federal government that they love to hate.
FYI the press has not done a good job of explaining the background in the Oregon case, that the rancher in question has a long history of setting fires that destroyed public property and sometimes endangered lives. Some background here.
“Light the whole countryside on fire,” Dusty said his uncle told him. ... the father and son ranchers illegally burned public rangelands, a practice used to reduce juniper growth and improve grazing areas. The indictment also alleges a fire the pair started in 2006 threatened to trap four BLM firefighters,
Re. "higher law" discussion. It's all arbitrary, the concept of natural law is much older than the USA and predates even the first civilizations. It's part of humanity since the first tribes.
All forms of law, including the foundational ones (religions) are based on some metaphysical assumptions, the distinctions we make are cultural and contextual, nothing more. They are convenient lies we tell ourself so society can function, and the expression of our inner emotions and desires. They are formalizations of our own conflicts and emotions, they are ex-post, and they are not real.
In this case, is really binary: either you come to believe in some sort of established law for whatever bullshit reason, or is everyone for himself. There is no discussion on the substance and distinction between different systems, they are product of social and cultural evolution, but all come back to the same axioms we give for granted, because they are convenient (not because they are true, which deep inside we know they aren't).
Due to the liberal bias of history we have been ever expanding the set of 'natural rights', with certain periodic setbacks (sometimes of centuries or even millenniums), or what we as society consider right. Nowadays in Europe there are not many differences in constitutions amongst the different nations with USA regarding many of those "natural rights".
From a practical point of view, though, is just as Neil says: "There are no rights other than those granted by your peers in society .... Laws are ultimately enforced by people ...."
There is no exception to this, and certainly USA is not different. In my country constitution there are several rights established, amongst them: home ownership and a worthy job. Are those being enforced? No, yet they are part and at the same level than other "natural rights", theoretically. In fact, one of the ex-heads of Izquierda Unida (now practically gone), a communist party, used to say (and still says in is op-eds in different papers) that what he was asking not Marxian paradise: he was just asking for the Spanish Constitution to be enforced!(appeal to high order law). The same things is going on from the left parties in Spain nowadays as said by Neil here. This discussion is so current everywhere in Europe now ... OFC we know it's practically impossible to guarantee a worthy job and home ownership with built-in balanced budgets laws now ingrained too in the constitution by EU mandate none the less (all passed in an quick and shady fashion over a very short period during the sovereign risk crisis a couple years ago). However, neither that is being enforced as the budgetary limits are not being enforced either lol.
Re guns: I'm not against gun ownership, but unrestricted access to military grade (in practice) weaponry is stupid. Access to guns kill people, period. The lethality of a knife over an action bolt hunting rifle over a pistol over an automatic rifle is quite different. Kill rates and lethality matter. Yes, you are not going to solve the problems of high unemployment, extreme poverty, poor opportunity and high crime density zones by restricting weapons just like you cannot solve the problems of starving Syrian families joining ISIS by dropping bombs over them. But you can contain the damage done, ofc makes no sense to compare to homogenous rural zones with conservative economies.
The notion that gun ownership is going to save you from an oppressive state and government is ignorant of history, a handout of hypocrite State tit-suckers nutjob militia uprising to confront the Federal government just because they want to establish their own fascistic form of government makes no difference, as if the State and TPTB have all the military means to slaughter them up without lifting a finger. "Freedum" is not won that way, and it takes a lot more than 'gun ownership' to protect the supposed rights.
The debate should be over the practicality of policy, instead of giving excuses for an ever rising militarized police force, federal military interventions and not preventing a rising conviction rate with one of the highest convicts headcount per capita in the world.
"The debate should be over the practicality of policy, instead of giving excuses for an ever rising militarized police force, federal military interventions and not preventing a rising conviction rate with one of the highest convicts headcount per capita in the world."
Just make gun control laws dependent on reductions in police power. Why haven'ts the "left libertarians" in the Dem party done this? Mr hickey?
Why haven'ts the "left libertarians" in the Dem party done this?
What left libertarians in the Democratic Party. I am not aware there are any. Is Noam Chomsky A Democrat?
For those not familiar with US politics and its history, some time previously the Democratic Party was civil rights, anti-war, and opposed to authoritarianism, including wrt the domestic security forces. This resulted in their being tarred by the GOP as trying to make America weak abroad and being soft on crime domestically. It was hurting Democratic candidates so the Democrats decided to compete with the GOP over who is the most macho. Democrats are still very sensitive to this criticsm, including the president.
Mind is complex and compartmentalises. It seeks a Key by which it may unlock and communicate freely between all compartments, synthesising and hopefully, creating new knowledge. It has little idea of its boundaries, although that doesn’t stop it being extraordinarily proud. Mind always creates more questions than answers, more problems than solutions. In the mind, we have unfolding - pools of thought, notions - such as rule according to a higher law, natural law, divine law, positive law, scientific law, the laws of thought, emotional and intuitional intelligence; and in the instinctive mind, below the level of consciousness, there remains the vestiges of the law of the jungle. At the level of consciousness with which we are all familiar, intellect works on these laws as best it may. For the esotericist or occultist, these laws exist in the mind because of nascent contact (feeling) with an aspect of human existence above the level of consciousness. At this point, most intellectuals will insist that nothing like this exists. They are right, because that is their experience. Why would anyone study, for example, telepathy? Or the effect of different force fields upon the human constitution; or quality of energy coming from this higher aspect, on consciousness. But our experience is individual.
Some people, like blenders, churn everything into some kind of mind-borne-mixed-mush. Some, like colanders, strain out what is important to them, weaving these into a deeper, perhaps more synthetic and interesting understanding – a wall-hanging in the mind and work in progress. It keeps them in touch.
But, I think it is a matter of consciousness, elevation. The landscape need not alter so much, but is seen from an entirely different perspective.
And I think the ‘light’ by which this landscape is seen and experienced, is the more important and revealing factor: - the elevation must be attained, but it is the raw, transformative and illuminating energy of LOVE (not concepts) that bathes in beauty and reveals in nature, the landscape as it is. Only, the heart sees clearly. People do not really get how different it is to view this landscape through a veil, a mist of concepts and emotional morass, whilst shackled to the ‘I’ in the realm of the mind, as opposed to from the realm of the heart. The two views are more than diametrically opposed: - it is more like a triple change in state, the ancient struggle in man – vision as seen through the eyes of the persona and vision as seen through the ‘eye’ of the soul. It gets tricky where the two worlds collide: the eye of the human soul (heart) is the mind, free of all of the conditioning of the world and completely under control; whereas mind is usually more chaotic, under the control of the ‘I’ with its limited and conditioned interests, mental illusion, and emotional glamour. Love is energy, an entity, just as real as the forces that flow in physical matter; and a higher energy, once established, commanding through sovereignty the lower. It affects vision. Absolutely.
Imagine some form of transition in consciousness from a horse to the human that rides it, to establish the kind of elevation and perspective I have in mind. Once the horse aligns itself with the rider, a working union is formed. Once, the horses ran free, spirited, on the wind. But they wanted more.
(continued)
Esotericism considers mind to dwell under the developmental forces of the Law of Economy.
This Law effects matter as atomic disassociation and distribution of atoms, their vibratory rhythm, heterogeneity, and inherent rotatory activity. Subsidiaries are the laws of vibration, adaption, repulsion, and friction. If you look at the mental world of humanity you will see all of these forces at work, because mind is refined matter, and force. It is the world of the human persona; hence the conflict - only resolved via the higher energies of the Law of Attraction. It is the ‘I’ that is the systemic Sun of mind; evolving through selfishness, selflessness, and at the end of its evolutionary cycle, a tiny little naked flame - nothing more than a candle, an outpost freed, for consciousness and Life.
The human heart dwells under the developmental energies of the Law of Attraction.
Its subsidiary laws effect matter as chemical affinity, progress, sex, magnetism, radiation, ‘the lotus effect’, colour, gravitation, planetary affinity, solar unity and the ‘law of schools’ (to complete the esoteric listing). In the inner world (non-existent as far as the persona is concerned, until that changes), the power of the soul to radiate and attract, use energy of a different quality, grow, serve, and find its way back to its Source, has paralleling effects – as above, so below. Love is both radiant and attractive in essence. It holds within it, through direct contact, the awareness and wisdom, path-related knowledge of the inner worlds. Spirit (formless) and matter, are just opposite poles of the same thing; the soul at the midway point, is energy, consciousness, and the highest form. It puts forth attributes of itself, descends, changes state in the persona - but most of its potential remains hidden until the vessel is ready.
A third aspect is the Law of Synthesis which really is the growth of the evolutionary Will, as a third and higher energy once the lower two are evolved.
As improbable as this may all sound to the modern western mind, the inner record persists in human history, if one knows where to look. Doubt is necessary, realistic, practical, and efficient (it is better to know than believe). But mind is reaching its limitations in our world and creating huge problems. We should at least recognise it is the human heart holds the key to our potential, unlocking the mind. Even if it just to recognise that unless human beings find something within themselves that is worthy of their genuine respect, they will never be able to respect themselves, or each other. $money and social status, even knowledge of the world, technology, are flimsy clothes. Or recognise the incredible potential of human kindness and compassion. Peace is necessary for this earth and our world, if we want to grow and unfold our real human potential; beyond the social expectations. When the soul knows itself as extant, beyond the persona (body, emotions, and mind – a living evolving spacesuit) then laughter rings out amongst the stars! The words ‘father’ means something to that soul. If there has been a connection forged back down to the persona, the experience is communicated. For each of us we only need be ourselves, and listen to the heart. We spend so much time listening to the mind – why not just a little time for the heart? Grab a hold of it like a rope, and see where it takes you. See how it leavens the mind and brings you closer to yourself. So close, that you come to a ‘door’ within yourself and you need a different Key altogether. There is always someone to help. The heart will know. Mind may take a little while to catch up!
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