Saxby v. Sunstein - He musta looked 'im in the eye

At the end of June, I posted a brief note about Senator Saxby Chambliss holding up the nomination of Cass Sunstein because Sunstein has advocated for animal rights and the outlandish idea that humans should be able to bring suit on behalf of animals, as well as against the right to bear arms.

I didn't hold out much hope for the block, however, because it was completely devoid of principle. I trust you're not surprised. As I said in that earlier post:

While I applaud Chambliss for blocking the nomination -- at least for now, because he said he wants to talk to him before lifting his blockade, as "He has not had the opportunity to look me in the eye," whatever good that will do -- because he has not done so in any principled fashion ... Chambliss' stand will very likely end in compromise (i.e. failure).

Such is the inevitable outcome of Republicans' inability to understand or stand for individual rights. Unless and until they do, they will continue to fail.

This was not a tough prediction to make. My only surprise is that it has taken over two weeks for Chambliss to compromise and fail (from CongressDaily):

Senate Agriculture ranking member Saxby Chambliss announced Wednesday that he is lifting a hold he placed on the nomination of Harvard Law School professor Cass Sunstein, President Obama's pick to head OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

"I am not gonna keep him from confirmation and I intend to lift my hold," Chambliss said on the Senate floor.

Saxby and Cass had a nice sit down, apparently, which gave Cass the chance to "look him in the eye." Perhaps they even had a nice laugh, talked about the weather, and discussed their favorite sports teams. Oh, and Sunstein also wrote a letter disavowing all of his radical positions on the key issues that Chambliss and his pull peddlers lobbyists were concerned about. From the same CongressDaily piece:

[Chambliss] cited a letter from Sunstein pledging not to "take any steps to promote litigation on behalf of animals" and agreeing the law does not give animals such rights. Sunstein in the letter also says he believes the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms.

This reminds me of the Sonia Sotomayor hearings, and Myrhaf's comments about them. You should read the whole thing, but these snippets are particularly apt:

It’s remarkable to hear Sonia Sotomayor walk away from every postmodern/multiculturalist statement she has made....

It’s pretty obvious to critics from across the spectrum that she is lying. Like the President who nominated her, she will tell any lie in the quest for power. This seems to be SOP for the New Left, and is most troubling. Those capable of destroying the truth are capable of any enormity.

It’s fascinating to me how little integrity radical subjectivists have. If I were sitting before a hearing and I firmly believed a legal philosophy, there is no way I could disavow what I believe to win a nomination. ... But my beliefs are grounded in reality. I hold that there are absolutes, that A is A, and that reason can identify reality. Sotomayor, as a postmodern subjectivist, believes none of this.

Simply replace Sotomayor's name with Sunstein's, and it applies just as well. In fact, I'd guess that nearly every Obama nominee going through confirmation hearings uses the same playbook. What we then witness is the battle between the spineless, soulless, mindless conservatives, and the power-lusting, subjectivist, postmodern, "intellectual" leftists, with the ultimate result of compromise, glad-handing, meaningless theatrics, and the inevitable erosion of our liberties.

Ayn Rand's hero, John Galt, said in Atlas Shrugged that "in any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win." What happens when the compromise is between a little poison and a lot?

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UPDATE: 7/17/09 @2:00pm

A blog at the Atlanta Journal Constitution has the following juicy quote from Chambliss that is too telling, too fascinatingly horrific, to pass up:

Chambliss introduced Sunstein to several agbusiness groups. “Most of those folks have become satisfied that he didn’t really mean what he said,” Chambliss recounted, and that — if he did — the law professor did not intend to pursue his aims. [bold added]

Are you comforted? Sunstein said all of those things, many times, in many books, articles, and speeches, over the course of nearly two decades, but he didn't really mean any of them. This is just like he didn't really mean that we should have an Internet fairness doctrine, or that the Internet is a serious foe of democracy.

If there is anything else that makes you uncomfortable about Sunstein's positions, just have your Senator ask about it, and I'm sure Sunstein will confirm that he no longer thinks what you thought he thought, or that you misunderstood him, and he never thought that in the first place.

Objectivist Roundup Turns Two

Welcome to the July 16, 2009 edition—and 2 Year Anniversary!—of the Objectivist Roundup, your weekly dose of intellectual fuel and ammunition.

This roundup features posts by blog authors who are advocates of Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand. She called it a "philosophy for living on earth" -- as opposed to religious mysticism focused on some non-existent other world, or an ivory tower muddle of conflicting ideas disconnected from reality and the lives of men.

The first Objectivist Roundup happened on the third Thursday of the month, July 19th, 2007, at Kim's Play Place, and contained three posts. Now it regularly contains twenty+, from Objectivists all over the globe. Today, we have an overflow of posts, with some bloggers submitting three or more. I checked out each one, hoping to be able to cull some, but they're all good.

Enjoy Objectivist Roundup #105!

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1. Michael Labeit presents On Sonia Sotomayor and Judicial Craptivism posted at Philosophical Mortician, saying, "Sotomayor on race and guns."


2. Our resident New Zealander gives a rousing huzzah! to America's Independence Day, contrasts it with the bloody French Revolution, and then takes on environmentalism:
   1. Peter Cresswell presents Let Freedom Reign! Happy July 4th! posted at Not PC, saying, "In which I try to persuade New Zealanders -- most of whom prefer to ignore it -- that the events that Independence Day celebrate "are as important to us down here as they to those up there. July 4 isn’t just a day to celebrate American independence, but our own as well.""
   
   
   2. Peter Cresswell presents Quote of the day: Robert Murphy on climate change posted at Not PC, saying, "When the local Green Party talks "in the spirit of economic literacy" about the importance of strangling industry today for illusory effects on "climate change" in the future, it's time to give them and their Greenwash a damn good kicking."
   
   
   3. Peter Cresswell presents It’s Bastille Day! [updated] posted at Not PC, saying, ""It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Peter Cresswell celebrates and considers Bastille Day, and why the French Revolution is something both to admire, and abhor."


3. Jennifer Snow presents Moral Thermostat? posted at Literatrix, saying, "Some commentary on an article that illuminates the psychological consequences of duty-based ethics."


4. Stella continues her blistering attacks on the irrationality of government interference in medicine, presenting:
   
   1. An indication of priorities posted at ReasonPharm, saying, "What Obama's latest choice for Surgeon General reveals about his vision for healthcare in America.", and
   
   
   2. And this is why Princeton gets none of my money posted at ReasonPharm, saying, "I'm submitting a second post this week, due to the scurrying going on in Washington to come up with a rights-violating healthcare plan."


5. Lynne Bourque presents Unexpected Poetry posted at 3 Ring Binder, saying, "Reverence is contagious."


6. Diana Hsieh presents The Demanding Altruist posted at NoodleFood, saying, "Is the altruist who demands sacrifices from others to satisfy his own petty desires a hypocrite--or something else?"


7. Two Tea Party Speeches
   1. Edward Cline presents The New Tea Parties: An Overture to Reclaiming Our Lost Freedom posted at The Rule of Reason, saying, "This is an adaptation of an address I will make at the Richmond, Virginia Tea Party on July 25, 2009."
   
   
   2. Doug Reich presents Tea Party Speech: July 4, 2009, "My America" posted at The Rational Capitalist, saying, "Text of the speech I gave to over 1,000 people at a Tea Party."


8. Ari Armstrong presents Love in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince posted at AriArmstrong.com, saying, "Love is an essential theme of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince."


9. Kirk presents A is A: Values of Harry Potter: Lessons for Muggles (A review) posted at A is A, saying, "A review of Ari Armstrong's clever book in regards to the values upheld in the Harry Potter series."


10. Trey (Flibbert) presents One of my Favorite Things: Alphonse Mucha's The Moon and Star Series posted at Trey Givens, saying, "I've started up my old blog! I like to think it's a good thing. Anyway, for my first carnival submission back at my old domain, I'm submitting a post that talks about some of my favorite art. Enjoy!"


11. Adam Reed presents Three Democides by False Morality - Part II, The Ban on DDT posted at Born to Identify, saying, "Rachel Carson was particularly aghast at the use of chemical pesticides with the potential to eliminate entire non-human species, such as the insect vectors of malaria parasites and other deadly microorganisms, to save the lives of humans. In Carson's view, this amounted to one kind of cell harming the Superorganism for its own benefit - the equivalent of a global cancer."


12. Gus Van Horn presents A Recycled Encyclical? posted at Gus Van Horn, saying, "Note to self: Send the pope a thank-you note for bringing up the moral basis of capitalism."


13. Rational Jenn presents How Did I Miss This One? posted at Rational Jenn, saying, "I was alarmed to learn about a recent statement made by our Secretary of Education. He calls for a longer school week AND a longer school year."


14. Rajesh Dhawan presents Ethics of paying for organ transplants posted at Objective extrospection, saying, "The immorality of organ transplant laws in America and the rest of the world. The prevention of payment for organs is the worst of all violations of individual rights, as the denial of organs is denial of life."


15. US Airman and Noodlefoodler, Roderick Fitts, has a new blog focused on his investigations into induction. I'm looking foward to what he has to say.
    1. Roderick Fitts presents Aristotle on Induction posted at Inductive Quest, saying, "Roderick Fitts presents "Aristotle on Induction," the first stop on his grand adventure to understand induction."
    
    
    2. Roderick Fitts presents Induction's Bad Reputation posted at Inductive Quest, saying, "Roderick Fitts presents "Induction's Bad Reputation," another stop in which I discuss my problems with "induction by simple enumeration." I'm with Francis Bacon on this issue, and suggest that you should be too!"


16. Paul Hsieh presents Feynman on Honors posted at NoodleFood, saying, "Physicist Richard Feynman's first-handed view on the pleasure he derived from his work."


17. Doug was on fire this week, perhaps with pent up anger from missing OCON this year.
    
    
    1. Doug Reich presents Rational Animal Spirits posted at The Rational Capitalist, saying, "This post looks at two opposite approaches to analyzing the financial crisis - the right approach and the wrong approach."
    
    
    2. Doug Reich presents Looking at Obama's "Green Jobs" Through a Broken Window posted at simply Capitalism, saying, "This post debunks the myth that stimulus programs and/or cap and trade actually will "create" employment, so-called "Green Jobs"."
    
    
    3. Doug Reich presents Lethal Exposure posted at The Rational Capitalist, saying, "Given the deadly consequences of implementing the Cap and Trade Bill among other environmentalist and leftist proposals, can anyone argue that these people are "well intentioned idealists"?"


18. Ryan Krause presents Finance Bitch #1 posted at The Money Speech, saying, "What speculators actually are, in case you were wondering."


19. Finally, I present a spirited set of debates I had with a commenter about the Constitution, the motivations of the Framers, the understanding of natural rights at the time, the importance of ideas as drivers of history, and other light topics. It got contentious at times, but was fun and rewarding. See Debates on the Founding Era, Debates... Part 2, and the post that started it all, ARCTV - Ridpath on Patrick Henry.

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That concludes the Second Anniversary Edition of the Objectivist Roundup, #105. Next week's host is Reality Talk. Submit your blog article to the Objectivist Roundup using our carnival submission form.

Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: Objectivist Roundup, blog carnival.

Debates on the Founding Era - Part 2

In the last post, a commenter asked why the "apparent omission" of mention of individual rights in the Constitution, which was also one of the questions Uttles asked all along. My reply was long, so I'm reposting it here (edited slightly). The quotes I pulled bear directly on many of the issues discussed previously, and though they are long, I think all of the text is relevant to the debate.

What follows is part of the political and historical context of what the framers thought and argued for. It is crucial also to keep in mind the explicit and implicit philosophical and moral context of the time, the climax of the American Enlightenment, and the following from Leonard Peikoff's The Ominous Parallelssets that context well:

The Americans were political revolutionaries but not ethical revolutionaries. Whatever their partial (and largely implicit) acceptance of the principle of ethical egoism, they remained explicitly within the standard European tradition, avowing their primary allegiance to a moral code stressing philanthropic service and social duty...

The American Enlightenment, like the European, came to an abrupt end. "Its ideas were soon repudiated or corrupted," writes Herbert Schneider, "its plans for the future were buried, and there followed on its heels a thorough and passionate reaction against its ideals and assumptions." It was a reaction prepared for by the Enlightenment itself, by its own philosophic deficiencies, by the seeds it had nourished and allowed to sprout—the seeds of an irrationalism it was not equipped to combat and an altruism it predominantly endorsed.

With this philosophical context, it is easier to interpret the historical context, and identify 1) what the framers thought about rights, 2) why they thought it unnecessary and perhaps even counterproductive to include specific protections in the Constitution, and 3) that even if they had written a rock-solid defense of individual rights it would have been a floating abstraction, and not a strong enough protection from undermining by their contradictory premises and the mounting philosophic war that was to soon come from Europe.

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I found some good historical quotes and notes in Miracle At Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention May - September 1787 by Catherine Drinker Bowen.This book details the debates, including quotations from all the members of the Convention and other relevant items from the press and other quarters. The following quotes are from the chapter about the rejection of a Bill of Rights (Ch. 21, pp 244-248):

When the Constitution was published in the newspapers… and the Antifederalists gathered their strength for opposition, nothing created such an uproar as the lack of a bill of rights. What had the Convention been thinking of, to neglect a matter so elementary, so much a part of the heritage of free people?

The Convention’s stand, however, was reasonable, if mistaken. No delegate had been against such rights. Merely they considered the Constitution covered the matter as it stood. And when… Pinckney and Gerry moved for a declaration “that the liberty of the press should be inviolably observed,” Roger Sherman said at once it was unnecessary; the power of Congress did not extend to the press. Seven to four the states again voted no.

There is a fascination in reading the delegates’ later defense of their position. To Alexander Hamilton a bill of rights was more than unnecessary. It would be dangerous, he said. “Why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power [in Congress] to do?” Hamilton argued that bills of rights originally were stipulations between kings and their subjects, like Magna Carta, which was “obtained by the barons, sword in hand, from King John.” Whereas in the American government the people, having surrendered nothing and retained everything, have no need of particular reservations.

So here we see it put forth that the specific rights need not be enumerated because it was assumed that the Constitution was a strict bound for action that Congress could take, and nothing more. All rights not mentioned were held by individuals. This is essentially the argument given in the 9th amendment: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

The Constitution was, in their mind, was a basic list of instructions for creating the forms of government, and did not require more grand statements that, as Hamilton said, “would sound much better in a treatise of ethics than in a constitution of government.” Further quoting Bowen:

The new Constitution in [James] Wilson’s view was not a body of fundamental law which would require a statement of natural rights. Rather it was municipal law, positive law… Not a declaration of eternal rights but a code for reference.

Quite evidently the Federal Convention looked on its work as practical, everyday business; all along they had avoided high-flown phrases about the rights of man. Such rights, John Dickinson was to argue… “must be preserved by soundness of sense on honesty of hears.” Compared with these qualities, what, he demanded, are bills of rights? “Do we want to be reminded that the sun enlightens, warms, invigorates, and cheers” or how horrid it would be, to have his blessed beams intercepted, by our being thrust into mines or dungeons” Liberty is the sun of society, and Rights are the beams.”

Liberty is like the sun, and Rights follow naturally as beams of sunshine. They are in the very air, these men said, so why should we list them? The Constitution only describes the very few things that the government may do, and nothing else.

That being said, others did see something insidious afoot, or were prescient about the slow creeping of tyranny.

In Portland, Maine, a printer name Thomas Wait… maintained “there was a certain darkness, duplicity and studies ambiguity of expression running through the whole Constitution which renders a bill of rights peculiarly necessary. As it now stands, but very few individuals do or ever will understand it, consequently Congress will be its own interpreter.”

To this, Bowen says that arguments like this were only responses to ideas that were too new, and “minds offended by novelty are apt to complain of darkness or ambiguity in matters not yet digested.” Of course, we know that Wait was unfortunately very correct.

One of Patrick Henry’s fellow Virginians provides a good conclusion to this investigation. As Bowen writes:

With charity and much perceptive good sense, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, a congressman—no member of the Convention and fiercely anti-Constitutionalist—excused the Convention’s fault concerning a bill of rights. Lee said that when men have long and early understood certain matters as the common concerns of the country, they are apt to suppose these things are understood by others and need not be expressed. … The framers looked upon the Constitution as a bill of rights in itself; all its provisions were for a free people and a people responsible. Why, therefore, enumerate the things that Congress must not do?

In the end, they all thought that individual rights were as plain as the nose on your face, and the culture was such that it was inconceivable that there could come a time when the government would not protect them. Americans had made it out of Plato’s cave. Who in their right mind would go back in?

Of course they were wrong, but also, they simply lacked the knowledge to better ground the theory of individual rights in reality. Ayn Rand said (paraphrasing and recalling from memory… if anyone can find a reference please let me know) that she could not have developed her philosophy without the example of the Industrial Revolution. I take this to mean that seeing the example of near free market capitalism helped concretize the value of liberty that previous philosophers were only able to vaguely imagine.

So I come back to my initial assessment that the Founders accomplished something amazing and they deserve our thanks for the amount of freedom and prosperity their works afforded us. But now, armed with more complete knowledge, we need to carry on the fight if we are to fully secure our liberties.

Debates on the Founding Era

I had no idea posting the video of John Ridpath's talk about Patrick Henry would incite such a debate, but it did. For five days, a blogger named Uttles and I have been debating, sometimes contentiously, the merits of the Constitution and the motives of the men who wrote it.

I think it has been a very interesting exchange of ideas, and so I'm going to reproduce it here so it doesn't languish in the obscurity of buried comments. With some parts of the comments redacted -- where we sniped at each other a bit -- here are the (perhaps ongoing) C. August vs. Uttles debates.

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Uttles said... 7/9/09 5:28 PM
Patrick Henry is my hero. I watched this speech and I don't think it did Henry justice. Yes, it did tell about a lot of the great things he did, but it didn't focus on the great things he's not recognized for. The passage of the Bill of Rights is wholly due to Henry, this is true, but the constitution is still a flawed document that has allowed such things as the Sherman Act, The Federal Reserve Act, the Income Tax Amendment, etc, etc, etc. The constitution did not go far enough to protect individual rights and Henry knew it. He gave a great many speeches before, during, and after the Virginia ratification convention outlining the many reasons that the constitution was itself anti-federal, and why it destroyed individual rights. The great tragedy of our time is that we all think the constitution instituted liberty when in fact it destroyed it.


C. August said... 7/10/09 1:11 PM
Your statement about the Constitution has me wondering if you're not evaluating it in the correct historical and philosophical context. You said that people "think the constitution instituted liberty when in fact it destroyed it," but that statement is based on what I think are some major misconceptions. In my view, that notion ignores the facts of reality and the state of knowledge of the foundation and source of individual rights that the Founders had.

As Peikoff said, to paraphrase, America was founded with an amazingly good political system, but built on a wobbly foundation.

The Founders looked to the natural rights thought of Locke and others, who based their theory of natural rights on their supposed "god-given" existence. So they held an implicit individual rights-respecting philosophy in their politics, but explicitly advocated Christian altruism as the ideal. These contradictions -- ones that weren't resolved until Ayn Rand just 50 years ago -- also showed up in the Constitution.

You can't on one hand laud the Founders for establishing the first moral society and government on earth which sprouted unprecedented freedom and prosperity for generations, and on the other hand fault them for not having knowledge which wouldn't be available for another 200 years. Their accomplishments, Henry's and the rest, were the pinnacle of human achievement at the time. For that they deserve the justice of our deep appreciation.

Their contradictions and the insidious forces of anti-life philosophies proceeded to erode the wobbly base upon which the Founders built the political protections of our liberties, to the point where today they are under great peril. But their ideas and the government they created were vulnerable precisely because they lacked the knowledge that wouldn't come for 200 years.

I agree that this seems tragic... it was so close, so agonizingly close, and the success that did happen was a testament to how close to being right they were. But now we have the knowledge, and it's time to work to fully reclaim the liberties that Henry fought for.

All I'm saying, to sum up, is that we owe the Founders their due, including for the creation of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, but because we are armed with greater knowledge due to Ayn Rand's works, we can identify and fix the problems they couldn't solve.


Uttles said... 7/11/09 12:00 AM
First off, let me say that I do not have the time to study this enough to be considered an expert, but about 6 months ago I did read the Federalist Papers, the Anti-Federalist Papers, and Son of Thunder (about Patrick Henry - my favorite anti-federalist.) It was at that time that I drew my conclusions about the Constitution.

Having said that:

You can't on one hand laud the Founders for establishing the first moral society and government on earth which sprouted unprecedented freedom and prosperity for generations, and on the other hand fault them for not having knowledge which wouldn't be available for another 200 years.

I disagree with this. The founders clearly had the knowledge or the Declaration of Independence wouldn't have been written the way it was. Sure, they didn't identify it as Objectivism and yes they did make reference to a creator but more importantly they identified our rights as natural, inseparable from our lives.

My theory on the chain of events is this: The new found wealth of the gentry class in the colonies was in jeopardy with the crown issuing more and more edicts governing trade, culminating in the stamp act. The ruling elite (who were not capitalists by any means, they were the pull peddlers and pull profiteers using the might of the British governors to their advantage) were fine with that silly college boy Jefferson writing the Declaration of Independence because they had seen in the reactions of the people to "Common Sense" how that language got the regular folks all fired up and ready to fight, but when the war went on for years and the colonists actually won it the reality struck them that they were now faced with a country full of individualists who wanted to have complete control of their lives. This would mean that their most dreaded enemy, an able competitor free of the shackles of government, could take them down.

So a compromise was made. Instead of constructing a government for the sole purpose of protecting individual rights (as the Declaration states so succinctly) they decided to allow each one of the states full sovereignty so that they could in fact govern their people however they wanted to. This is when the Articles of Confederation were instituted. Those articles contained no language whatsoever about individual rights.

It then became apparent that the large monied interests in certain states were not able to effectively control their customers in other states. This was mainly the banks vs the farmers as the banks were using currency manipulation to put the farmers into a state of perpetual indentured servitude (kind of like how everyone in America is now an indentured servant to the government.) So then, they invented a crisis here and a crisis there along with imagined foreign crises to scare the people into amending the original Articles. Never let a good crisis go to waste, right?

Only they didn't amend the Articles. As is what happens in any compromise situation, evil always wins. They came back to the table and pulled a bait and switch. Neither Jefferson nor Henry were able to make it to the new convention, so they had little barriers for their new plan: centralized power completely overruling the state governments and having no specific protections of individual rights: The US Constitution.

To see what I'm talking about in all of its obvious glory, just look at these two intros:

"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

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, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

and

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Now, can you honestly say the constitution was created to protect our individual rights? I say it was created to erode them. Why else would they have had to add 10 amendments to the thing to outline certain rights that the people should have? Because they didn't want the people to actually have them, but they had to get Patrick Henry to shut up somehow, so they "let" us have a few derivative rights, but not the natural rights of free men.


C. August said... 7/14/09 6:38 AM
I have read arguments from both the Federalist and Anti-Federalist (Democratic Republican) sides, and I generally come down on the latter's side of the debate. However, as I have said before, they all suffered under a lack of knowledge of the metaphysical grounding of rights, of the understanding that rational egoism is the only valid and just moral system, and even of the science of economics and that laissez-faire capitalism is the proper political and economic system. Even Jefferson employed mercantilistic policies against the British, restraining trade and thus violating individual American's rights. This is because they didn't fully grasp the contradictions between their explicit (altruism) and implicit (egoism) moral codes.

Where you see some sort of grand plan by the authors of the Constitution (and apparently all the states that ratified it?) to actively destroy the liberties that they had all just fought a long and horrific war to secure, I see honest mistakes and a general context of knowledge that lacked certain fundamentals.

Philosophy and ideas shape history, and we're seeing today the failure of the culture to continue progressing from the contradictions present in the founding era, towards the full, proud embrace of rational egoism. Now that we know, because of Ayn Rand, the proper philosophical foundation for rights and what political system fully protects them, we can pursue it to secure those rights. But pointing to the difference between the Declaration and the Constitution and asserting that everyone should have grasped the true nature of individual rights by reading the Declaration is absurd. It took Ayn Rand, 200 years later, to figure that all out.


Uttles said... 7/14/09 10:17 AM
Your entire argument rests on the notion that the founders had nothing but good intentions and the only reason they didn't explicitly define and protect individual rights in the constitution is that they didn't understand objectivist philosophy and its ramifications.

To me, that argument is clearly false. Obviously they hadn't discovered Objectivism (I wish they had) but they had discovered the importance of individual rights, as well as the consequences. Evidence of this exists in the writings of the day, from Paine to Henry to Jefferson and on. There were many invocations of individual rights throughout the prominent pamphlets and essays of the time, including Brutus, the anonymous Farmer, etc.

So for some reason, the members of the convention that created the constitution decided to omit any such declaration or definition of individual rights (despite Jefferson's great work on the Declaration.) It is not factually correct to say they omitted this because of ignorance. So then why did they?

Look at the circumstances of the individuals who created the constitution and you will see.

Also remember that many scare tactics were used to get states to ratify the constitution, including threats of revolts, indian attacks, British reprisals, etc, etc. Also remember that it wasn't a vote of the individuals within a state that was required for ratification, and that the individuals in each state were represented by those who were voted in by a strictly limited electorate.

Again I am not sure of the mechanisms of this process... conspiracy, fear, lack of conviction, political expediency, debt pressures... I don't know. I doubt much written history of anything negative on the part of the Founders would have been allowed to survive this long anyway - history is written by the winners. The point is that the result, the product of the founders, tells you everything you need to know. The constitution had to be amended immediately to include the slightest notion of individual rights, a patronizingly short list of derivative rights from life, liberty, and property, and this is a tragedy that mere ignorance could not have afforded.


C. August said... 7/14/09 11:14 AM
I understand what you're saying, and you make good points about the conflicting pressures the founders had to address. I'd also add the concern they had in looking at how the ancients fared in creating their governments: they did not want to repeat the mistakes of the Greek city states, or of the Roman republic. And, they were concerned with the very real threat from Europe.

In this situation, the framers of the Constitution set out to figure out how to construct a government that would unite the states which were essentially at economic war with one another, and that would "secure the blessings of liberty." In that context, they held the moral truths of individual rights as self-evident, which means that they didn't need to be fleshed out... they were obvious and everyone agreed on them. Obviously, they were wrong.

They also operated under conflicting moral codes. I think you are simply not giving enough credit to this crucial fact. That is the "wobbly base" I mentioned earlier, and you'll see where I got that idea in the following quote.

Leonard Peikoff wrote, in the Ominous Parallels (p 118, end of Ch. 5):

Such was the American conflict: an impassioned politics presupposing one kind of ethics, within a cultural atmosphere professing the sublimity of an opposite kind of ethics.

The signs of the conflict and of the toll it was to exact from the distinctively American political approach were evident at the beginning. They were evident in Jefferson's proposal for free public education; in Paine's advocacy of a number of governmental welfare functions; in Franklin's view that an individual has no right to his "superfluous" property, which the public may dispose of as it chooses, "whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition"; etc.
...

Philosophically, America was born a profound anomaly: a solid political structure erected on a tottering base.

The Founding Fathers did not know that the era in which they lived and fought and planned was on the threshold of yielding to its antipode. They did not know that they had snatched a country from the jaws of history at the last possible moment. They did not know that, even as they struggles to bring the new nation into existence, its philosophic gravediggers were already at work, cashing in on the period's contradictions: in the very decade in which the Founding Fathers were publishing their momentous documents, Kant was publishing his.

Symbolically, this is America's philosophical conflict, running through all the years of its subsequent history. The conflict is: the Declaration of Independence, with everything it presupposes, against the Critique of Pure Reason, with everything to which it leads.

You may be right that some of the framers of the Constitution had bad intentions -- and here, I can only assume that you have Hamilton fixed in your mind as one of the villains -- but I think even Hamilton actually believed what he was doing was right. And in the absence of a better argument than "rights come from God and are unalienable," there was little more than a conflict of opinions.

Even had they asked Patrick Henry to write the Constitution with a full enumeration of rights, just like we might hope to have, the seeds of philosophical destruction were already sown in the wider culture. Because they could not ground individual rights in their proper metaphysical base and recognize egoism as the proper morality for man, they were vulnerable to attack. A better Constitution may have warded off the decline a bit longer, but that document in itself could not have protected the culture as a whole.

History has shown that calling individual rights self-evident is not a proper defense of them against their philosophic enemies. That "tottering base" is the cause, and we're now dealing with the effects.

More Thoughts on Scipio Africanus

Although the title of this post refers to Scipio, I'm more concerned now with his historians. In my previous Scipio-related post, I described B.H. Liddell Hart as "a good historian." Upon reading Dr. John Lewis' book review of another work on Scipio, I have my doubts as to how good he was.

Dr. Lewis reviewed Richard A. Gabriel's Scipio Africanus: Rome's Greatest Generalin the Michigan War Studies Review, and he has this to say about Scipio, Gabriel, and Hart:

Richard Gabriel, a retired U.S. army officer and a distinguished and prolific military historian, has set out to correct a historical injustice: the misunderstanding and neglect that is often the fate of great military commanders. There is a plethora of books on Hannibal, who launched a war of conquest and was defeated, but no current scholarly biography of the genius who defeated him. B.H. Liddell Hart's 1926 Scipio Africanus: A Greater than Napoleon was written in defiance of the anti-Scipionic, pro-Hannibalic works then flooding the market, but as Gabriel notes, that work is neither scholarly, accurate, nor comprehensive. ... Gabriel has crafted an energetic narrative that remains true to the evidence. He stresses Scipio's stature as "Rome's Greatest General," without falling into conjecture or unsupported encomium. [bold added]

So, while Scipio is still deserving of more positive treatment than he has generally received, it seems that the only historical work I have read about him was overly gushing and inaccurate in places.

Dr. Lewis notes that Gabriel's book "exposes inconsistencies in the major sources—Polybius gets some dressing down, while the poetic Punica of Silius Italicus is given a bit more credence than it deserves—and then presents commonsensical solutions to the problems that arise." I had intended to read Polybius next, but I think I'll get more out of Gabriel's treatment, and will then be better armed to tackle Polybius with a more critical eye.

Considering the positive review by a man I know to be an expert, it looks like I have another book to add to my reading list!

ARCTV - Ridpath on Patrick Henry

Thanks to Myrhaf for making me aware of a video posted to the relatively new ARCTV. (new to me, at least)

John Ridpath, in February of 2004, gave a speech detailing the history and many shining moments of Patrick Henry, one of America's greatest heroes. To paraphrase something B.H. Liddell Hart wrote about the great Roman general Scipio Africanus:

For proof of this claim look at the progressive and co-ordinated steps by which, starting from the valley in America's darkest hour as the storm clouds of the British menace gathered, Patrick Henry climbs steadily and surely upwards to the summit of his aims, and plants America's flag on the sunlit peaks of freedom. Henry is a mountaineer, not a mere athlete of liberty. The vision that selects his line of approach, and the oratorical gifts which enable him to surmount obstacles, are for him what rock-craft is to a climber.

This video by Dr. Ridpath is incredibly moving. He gets choked up speaking about the greatness of the man, and I got choked up watching it. Watch the video by clicking on the image below. You won't regret it.

OCON - Day 5

I'm now regretting that I decided to take this, my first, OCON slowly and not pay for too many classes. After the first class of Craig Biddle's Moral Rights and Metaphysical Law (also attended by Dr. John Lewis who threw in added historical insights -- did you know that Hobbes' first published work was a translation of Thucydides, and that this, combined with the fact that he lived during the English Civil War of the 1640's helps to explain his malevolent view of human life?) I'm kicking myself for not registering for more optional courses.

General Sessions:
Greg Salmieri talked about Atlas Shrugged on the Role of the Mind in Man’s Existence, and it started off a bit slowly. I wasn't familiar with Salmieri at all, and at first he seemed a bit shy presenting to his first large OCON audience. At first. After about 15 minutes, he and the audience were fully engaged, I ended up furiously taking notes and jotting other ideas that his talk made me think of, and he nailed the Q&A session with quick wit, humor, and insight backed by voluminous detail.

John Allison, was, well, an inspiration. He gave the talk that he has apparently given many times before to his BB&T executives about the Objectivism-based core values of the bank. I read these core values a few months ago, and struggled with how they would apply in a corporate setting, where I have seen how useless most mission statements are, and how these particular Objectivist values would work for a non-Objectivist audience. Allison's talk cleared that up right quick. He explained how these 10 core values are fully integrated -- "Fail at one, and you fail at all of them" -- how they are based in reality and the requirements of man's existence, and how they ultimately lead to professional and personal success. I'm sure nearly every person in that room wished they were working at BB&T right then. I certainly did, and do.

Misc.:
In between Salmieri and Allison's talks was lunch. As we three bloggers, LB, Stephen Bourque, and I, discussed where to eat, we were graciously joined by Betty Allison and her son William. We proceeded to walk down to a sandwich shop, via a back way through the WTC and a giant exhibit hall being set up for the Sail Boston tall ship event, where we were summarily kicked out by a large security guard. Once at the restaurant, delightful conversation flowed. William, who will be attending freshman year of college in the fall, mentioned that he has been coming to OCON since 1996. Imagine! Stephen asked Betty if her husband had been speaking a lot because of the financial crisis and she said he definitely had, and relayed a particularly amazing story.

On Friday, May 8, 2009, John Allison gave a keynote address at the Federal Reserve Board of Chicago conference titled "Reforming Financial Regulation." In front of the members of the Fed and a few hundred attendees, he gave essentially the same talk that can be seen here called "The Financial Crisis: Causes and Possible Cures." If you've seen it, you know how damning it is toward the Fed's role in the crisis. (For a journalistic report on this talk in Chicago, see this article at a financial trade website) What was particularly fascinating about hearing it from Betty was her description of the audience reaction. At the end, she said the entire room of hundreds of high-powered financial people gave a rousing standing ovation. While the members of the Fed sat motionless.

"What courage it took to give that speech in that place!" Stephen said. Indeed.

I have a few more thoughts to write about from yesterday, in particular a conversation I had with a young blogger who was born roughly around the time I first read The Fountainhead, and our very different experiences on 9/11. I'll try to get to it today, because it was, from my perspective, a fascinating contrast that recalled some similar experiences from my youth. But I'll leave it at that for now...

OCON - Days 3 & 4

Days three and four were limited, as I'm working partial days during OCON. Since I live and work near Boston, I couldn't justify taking the full week off and using up vacation hours when there were days with little activity. So all I saw yesterday was Tara Smith's talk on objective law. Luckily, it was worth it.

Dr. Smith may not know it, but she is a silent partner in my secret quixotic crusade against Cass Sunstein and all he represents. Her talk on objective law, and how non-objective law is one of the most insidious forms of evil in existence, was enlightening and far too short. She acknowledged at the start that she was condensing a piece she wrote for Essays on Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged". Well, I'll certainly be buying this book, if for no other reason. What she presented could have easily fit two or three lectures, but I'm sure the printed work, with references, will suffice.

This morning, Harry Binswanger presented a talk on objectivity and epistemology, and as I have never seen him live, I didn't know what to expect. The delivery was impeccable, his ad libs and responses to questions were amazing, and the overall depth and quality of thought were inspiring. I'm excited for what he has to say in the second part.

On the social side, last night Kendall J of The Crucible, was gracious enough to introduce me to a number of other regular attendees and bloggers. I had already met Galileo Blogs the night before, so meeting everyone else was a treat. And of course, Kendall was a wealth of information and a damn fine chap in his own right. Also... a Purdue grad, and a fan of the best Boston-area brewery, Harpoon. What more needs be said?

I approached this conference tentatively, having never attended (and being conscious of expense) but all of my concerns have been rendered inconsequential, and I'll relish the last four days, looking forward to next year.

As I was sitting in HB's lecture this morning, working like hell to grasp, remember, and write notes at the same time, I realized I was in a room predominantly comprised of people who were as excited by the prospect of all of it as I was, and it was a wonderful thing. I looked around and saw that they were working as hard as I was to focus, to think, to learn.... and how rare is that? This, perhaps more than anything else, is good fuel for the tanks.

OCON - Day 2

Day 2 was my Day 1, because the 4th was full of family fun, and I couldn't miss it. I was disappointed to miss the two general sessions on Saturday (Tara Smith and Alan Gotthelf) as well as the Tea Parties, but made up for it with a kiddie bike parade, a block party, a full parade (fire engines, clowns, marching bands, horses, etc.) and eventing party, and fireworks. At ages 5 and 3, Dad missing any part of the festivities would have been unacceptable, and for me, their smiling faces are the highest value.

So yesterday's general session was my first exposure to an OCON event, ever. Yes, I've been an Objectivist for nearly 20 years, and this is the first time I've made it. Onkar Ghate spoke on the separation of church and state, its political/philosophical underpinnings, and the threats it faces from the religious right and secular left. It was a fantastic talk.

At the end, Harry Binswanger prodded Onkar to get it published soon, and Onkar responded that he had a book in the making. Harry prodded further and suggested an op-ed so the ideas would be immediately available, which got a big round of applause. I'd actually like to see something in The Objective Standard, with extensive footnotes, because Onkar referred to many works by John Locke and other Enlightenment figures, and it would be a valuable resource.

Last night was the ARI update presentation -- kind of a wrap up of the past year's successes, plus plans for the future -- and it was inspirational. Afterwards, most attendees mingled (open bar!) and I got the chance to meet many of the bloggers and intellectuals I've corresponded with over the past year.

With that brief introduction to OCON, I have high hopes for the rest of the week.