Posted on 05/03/2010 8:38:55 AM PDT by speciallybland
Christian conservative leader James Dobson withdrew his endorsement of Kentucky Senate candidate Trey Grayson Monday, switching his support to Rand Paul’s campaign and accusing “senior members of the GOP” of misleading him about Paul’s record on abortion.
Dobson said in an audio recording that he made an “embarrassing mistake” as a result of misunderstanding Paul’s position on abortion.
“I was given misleading information about the candidacy of Dr. Rand Paul, who is running in the Republican Primary for the U.S. Senate. Senior members of the GOP told me Dr. Paul is pro-choice and that he opposes many conservative perspectives, so I endorsed his opponent,” Dobson explained. “But now I've received further information from OB/GYNs in Kentucky whom I trust, and from interviewing the candidate himself.”
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
CC, a lot of questions don’t lend themselves to simple Yes/No answers. As a lawyer, I coach witnesses to watch out for clever lawyers who try to box them in with “false dilemma” questions that will actually force the witness to misrepresent the truth if a simple Yes/No answer is given.
To show you the difficulty, let me ask what *you* would do if a state, say, Maryland, up and decided to legalize the enslavement of all it’s FReepers, complete with hunting them down, house by house? Is the military response on the table? Would other, lesser options such as sanctions, work for you? What would be your legal justification for any response you might choose? Could you possibly identify a sliding scale of justifications for a continuum of possible responses? If no variance in justifications, how would you choose among options?
And please, feel free to use something other than Yes or No.
Of course Moses presents one concept of the law of God. Paul of Tarsus presents one that’s somewhat different. So does Mohammed. And Joseph Smith for that matter.
If the 14th Amendment has not been repealed, then a simple Appeal of the State Law to the Federal Courts should be sufficient to see the offending State Law struck down as UnConstitutional.
See, the problem that EV and I are discussing doesn't really have to do with the States passing Laws which legally disadvantage one class of citizens (the Unborn, or FReepers, or what have you) -- both EV and I would agree that such Laws should be struck down as UnConstitutional.
The problem is, what is the Federal Government supposed to do if a State repeals a State Law which protects a group of citizens -- that is, presuming that we were to overturn Roe vs. Wade and bring State Laws against Abortion back into effect, then what do you do if a State were to repeal its Laws against Abortion? The Congress and the Courts are not authorized to write laws for the States; and there's really nothing to Appeal to the Courts if a State is simply repealing an existing Law.
So, I think that you need to fine-tune your analogy.
Do that, and I'll be happy to discuss your analogy -- including answering ANY "Yes" or "No" Questions with a straightforward "Yes" or "No". (I reserve the right to provide a full explanation for my answer, but I will happily take a "Yes" or "No" stance to start the discussion).
excellant point from all views.
“I guess Dobson doesn’t read FR or research for himself”
He is too busy thinking God loves him best LOL.
FWIW, I disagree with this statement, Notary.
I do not think that there is any difference between the Law of God set forth by Moses, and that set forth by Saint Paul -- only a difference in the Enforcement of those Laws.
In Romans 13:1-10, Saint Paul does quote the same Laws of God set forth by Moses, but he only delegates Gentile Civil Governments with the enforcement of the Second Table of the Ten Commandments -- the Civil Laws against Murder, Theft, Adultery and other Contract-breaking, Fraud, Abuse and Malfeasance (and that's it: that's the extent of Government's delegated authority). The First Table of the Ten Commandments, the Religious Laws (against Idolatry, Blasphemy, Sabbath-breaking, etc.) Saint Paul does not delegate to the Civil Magistrate, instead leaving the proclamation of these Laws to the officers of the Church.
So the Law of God has not changed since the Theocracy of Israel; it's just that, under the New Covenant, Gentile Civil Governments are only charged with the enforcement of the Civil Laws of God, not the Religious Laws.
Ah, but in a dramatic demonstration of natural law all of the religions you cite agree that the taking of innocent human life is murder. The jihadis excuse themselves for killing civilians because they categorize them as “not innocent.” Naturally, that is deeply flawed reasoning, but on the core premise there is still agreement. That is the basis of natural law, that there are discoverable universal moral axioms, and our constitution is wrapped around three of the big ones, life, liberty, and property. Our founders did not and would not accept as valid the rule of any government that fails its people in regard to those three great natural law axioms.
It may be disagreeable to some that these axioms were “discovered” in the context of western religious traditions, but that is historical fact. Better it is to judge those axioms by the good fruit they have yielded, and to reject any interpretation of federalism which tends to their destruction, especially when the founders, who invented American federalism, can be shown to have based their entire project on those same axioms.
1. The founders plainly saw federalism as sufficient grounds to inhibit federal interference in certain state laws regarding the practice of slavery. To suggest that they would have reacted similarly to abortion, abhorrent as it may be as with slavery, is thus not entirely inconceivable.
2. The "incorporation" doctrine is an invention of modern judicial activism. It was explicitly repudiated by the founders themselves in the case I previously cited (Barron v. Baltimore). It was also repudiated immediately AFTER the adoption of the 14th amendment in the 1868 case of Twitchell v. Commonwealth, to wit:
"And this judgment has since been frequently reiterated, and always without dissent. That they "were not designed as limits upon the state governments in reference to their own citizens," but "exclusively as restrictions upon federal power" was declared in Fox v. Ohio to be "the only rational and intelligible interpretation which these amendments can have." And language equally decisive, if less emphatic, may be found in Smith v. State of Maryland and Withers v. Buckley. In the views thus stated and supported we entirely concur."
It stands to reason that had the 14th amendment been intended to incorporate the bill of rights as is now claimed, the Supreme Court would have been keenly aware of this intention for an amendment adopted less than a year prior yet they ruled the exact opposite, consistent with the founders.
3. You lost all subsequent credibility the moment that you quoted from the discredited and uncredentialed pseudo-historian David Barton's Wallbuilders website.
Well, fine, I understand you reject the 14th (I suspected that from the beginning) and you may if you wish rely upon your view of judicial activism to sustain that position, but the fact remains that the ultimate victory of incorporation demonstrates the power of the natural law dynamic that drove the constitutional project, and that dynamic, not incorporation per se, was my point.
As for Wallbuilders, I would be fascinated to know why you think it is important that you have “outed” Mr. Barton as a pseudo-historian. After all, if you will read my earlier post carefully, you will see I did not quote Mr. Barton at all, unless you count the placement of ellipses. All I did was quote the Founders directly. To which of these signatories to the Constitution do you direct your antipathy? Is Mr. Barton really the problem, or do you dismiss the quotes for their inconvenient content, using Mr. Barton’s controversiality as mere pretext?
but the fact remains that the ultimate victory of incorporation demonstrates the power of the natural law dynamic
Dubious. The incorporation doctrine was a victory for judicial activism and nothing more. It was an explicit repudiation of the doctrine of federalism as ascribed to by the majority of the founders, and it obtained no real sanction of any significance from the court until the 20th century. That alone should cast doubt upon any "natural law" legacy to this insipid doctrine, which has been far more frequently employed to expand the power of the federal government at the expense of individual rights than it has been used to protect them (witness the removal of Christian religion from public places, the erosion of the 4th amendment, and abortion, all of which have been justified under the specious incorporation doctrine). And if you find even that evidence insufficient, at least take note that there is also inherent repudiation of natural law in the life of the main judicial proponent of the incorporation concept, Justice Hugo Black, a doctrinaire FDR New Dealer and former Ku Klux Klansman.
As to Barton's pseudo-history, you are the one who chose to link to the Wallbuilders page - not me. And yes, it casts doubt on your credibility every bit as much as if you were to link to some marxist revisionary like Eric Foner or some regurgitated incorporationist "social justice" crap published in the Nation. And the ellipses are precisely the issue as Barton has a 20+ year history of utilizing them to remove historical quotations (or at least those he hasn't fabricated outright, which he also has a history of doing) from their original context and meaning.
You obviously find authority in the words of the founders on other matters. By what then, other than inconvenience, do you so flippantly dismiss what they had to say against incorporation?
I have already responded to your assertions concerning incorporation. Let me try again. I am not interested in validating the specific steps of incorporation’s judicial evolution. I raised incorporation primarily to show that the Court has repeatedly found it necessary to respond to the pressure of natural law inherent in the constitutional system, a pressure that was designed into the system by the Founders. You are coming at it as if it were a first semester shepardizing problem. I am looking for the dynamo that gave shape to the process as a whole, even if that process involved missteps and suffered abuses along the way (such as the South’s dubious abrogation of free speech against slavery before the war, or on the opposite extreme, Black’s desire to incorporate indiscriminately, without a sense of the hierarchy of rights).
Which is why I am somewhat disappointed you have once again very conveniently dodged the content of the offered quotes, which clearly establish the natural law as framework for the Founders’ constitutional system, including their federalism. I therefore press them upon you in fuller measure and without ellipses to nullify your excuse that Barton also used them:
“As promulgated by reason and the moral sense, it has been called natural; as promulgated by the holy scriptures, it has been called revealed law.”
“As addressed to men, it has been denominated the law of nature; as addressed to political societies, it has been denominated the law of nations.”
“But it should always be remembered, that this law, natural or revealed, made for men or for nations, flows from the same divine source: it is the law of God.”
“Nature, or, to speak more properly, the Author of nature, has done much for us; but it is his gracious appointment and will, that we should also do much for ourselves. What we do, indeed, must be founded on what he has done; and the deficiencies of our laws must be supplied by the perfections of his. Human law must rest its authority, ultimately, upon the authority of that law, which is divine.”
~James Wilson, from Chapter II.: Of the General Principles of Law and Obligation. -, Collected Works of James Wilson, vol. 1 [2007]
In a speech given concerning slavery in the thirteen colonies, Rufus King said, “Mr. President I have yet to learn that one man can make a slave of another; if one man cannot do so, no number of individuals can have any better right to do it, and I hold that all laws and compacts imposing any such condition on any human being are absolutely void, because contrary to the law of nature, which is the law of God, by which he makes his way known to man and is paramount to all human control.”
~Rufus King, The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, Charles R. King, editor. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1900, Vol. VI, p. 276, to C. Gore on February 17, 1820.
In a letter in which the above speech was referenced, Rufus King also said, “…I referred the decision of the Restriction on Missouri to the broad principles of the law of Nature, a law established by the Creator, which has existed from the beginning, extends over the whole globe, is everywhere, and at all times, binding upon mankind.”
~Rufus King, The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, Charles R. King, editor. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1900, Vol. VI, p. 276, to C. Gore on February 17, 1820.
“Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered to contradict these. There are, it is true, a great number of indifferent points in which both the divine law and the natural leave a man at his own liberty, but which are found necessary, for the benefit of society, to be restrained within certain limits. And herein it is that human laws have their greatest force and efficacy; for, with regard to such points as are not indifferent, human laws are only declaratory of, and act in subordination to, the former. To instance in the case of murder: this is expressly forbidden by the divine, and demonstrably by the natural law; and, from these prohibitions, arises the true unlawfulness of this crime. Those human laws that annex a punishment to it do not at all increase its moral guilt, or *
[*43] superadd any fresh obligation, in foro conscientiæ, to abstain from its perpetration. Nay, if any human law should allow or enjoin us to commit it, we are bound to transgress that human law, or else we must offend both the natural and the divine. But, with regard to matters that are in themselves indifferent, and are not commanded or forbidden by those superior laws,—such, for instance, as exporting of wool into foreign countries,—here the inferior legislature has scope and opportunity to interpose, and to make that action unlawful which before was not so.”
~Blackstone, from Section II.: Of The Nature Of Laws In General, Commentaries on the Laws of England in Four Books, vol. 1 [1753]
“This is what is called the law of nature, ‘which, being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is, of course, superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times. No human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid, derive all their authority, mediately, or immediately, from this original.’”
~Alexander Hamilton, quoting Blackstone favorably in The Farmer Refuted, 23 Feb. 1775Papers 1:86—89, 121—22, 135—36,.
As for my use of Wallbuilders, I have seen some of the critiques of his work and find them more biased and less convincing than you apparently do. However, as I do not have time or interest in resolving all possible prejudices, I leave you to yours. Barton’s material helped me find the quotes. I used them fairly to make my point (that correspondence to the natural law, especially the right to life, is inherent in the constitutional design at all levels), and you have once again failed to address their substance and their force, which works out very nicely for you, but does not advance the discussion one whit.
So to clarify, are you saying that something is untrue, simply because Barton, among others, has observed it to be true? What then of the sunrise? If Barton says it is day, will you say it is night? Isn’t this too much like Alynski’s “kill the messenger” tactic to be apropos as among fellow conservatives? I really thought we were trying to be better than that. Am I wrong?
Dear CC, I have had my hands full with other labors, and as I wish to give you a proper answer, I must first get some rest. Please be patient as I think about my response. Thanks, SR.
I raised incorporation primarily to show that the Court has repeatedly found it necessary to respond to the pressure of natural law inherent in the constitutional system, a pressure that was designed into the system by the Founders.
Except you've "shown" no such thing, but rather merely asserted it to be so. Your assertion is similarly suspect as it has been made despite tangible evidence that the incorporation doctrine (which has been used, among other things, to regulate and infringe upon the public exercise of religion, to legalize abortion as a uniform national policy, and to essentially erode away any meaningful value of the entire 4th amendment) has been utilized in a way directly contrary to the expectations of the "natural law" you blather about in vague and apparently inconsequential platitudes.
I'd also add that there is an inherent logical contradiction in asserting the founders "designed" something "into the system" that directly contradicted their explicit words, asserting that very thing NOT to be a part of their system. And that much has been repeatedly demonstrated to you, despite remaining unanswered save for the same repetitive retreat into the aforementioned platitudes.
There is not so much as a word in your "offered quotes" that necessitates the establishment of the incorporation doctrine you apparently seem to see in them, or even intimates at it for that matter. Comparatively, there are many explicit words in my quotes from a leading constitutional figure of the founding that directly repudiate the incorporation doctrine. Therefore you should find no surprise in the conclusion I have drawn as to their relative weakness against the Baron ruling, as well as why I have paid them no more attention than they merit.
Of course, I appreciate your consideration; respond at your leisure.
Very well then, we are wasting our time. And I guess Hamilton doesn’t count as a leading founder either. Fascinating. Well, it’s been fun, I learned a lot. Thank you. SR.
To put it another way, Aaron Burr did this nation a great service by prematurely dispatching Hamilton. The only tragedy of that event is that it did not happen a decade sooner.
Ah, I see now that the elimination of unwanted human lives is something with which you are comfortable, providing the political persuasion of the victim justifies it. This doubtless has some bearing on our inability to see eye to eye on natural law, a concept spread far and wide in the founding generation (via Blackstone and many, many others), but sadly deficient in our own. You are welcome to your revisionism. I will keep to my primary sources.
Ah, I see now that the elimination of unwanted human lives is something with which you are comfortable
Not at all. But I am perfectly okay with the elimination of would-be dictators and other thugs who use government to impose their own petty tyranny upon the rest of us. And I take comfort in the fact that most of the founding generation agrees with me on that.
I should also note the curious irony of your revisionist allegation, considering that I have cited nothing more than the founding generation’s own explicit statement against the incorporation doctrine. Of your “primary sources,” the few that are not heavily excerpted tangential platitudes of little bearing to this discussion are instead 20th century instances judicial activism masquerading as “constitutional law.” That alone speaks volumes of who the real revisionist is.
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