Justice Barrett Explains the Message Americans Should Take Away From the Supreme Court's Trump Ballot Ruling

Townhall ^ | 03/04/2024 | Katie Pavlich

[poconopundit]

KC Burke,

I really enjoyed reading your FR Profile with its many quotations about conservatism and the task of preservng a vibrant Republic such as ours.

I read several great quotes there from people such as Edmund Burke, John Adams, T.S. Eliot, President Taft to name a few.

One quote I particularly liked which I find very appropriate for our times: it's from Frederick Douglas in 1857:

The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle.  The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence.  It must do this or it does nothing.

If there is no struggle there is no progress.  Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning.  They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle.  Power concedes nothing without a demand.  It never did and it never will.

Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.

The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

And you also added a fine passage of your own as follows:

You can have all the democracy you want, all the free trade you can foster, all the metaphysical Rights you can write on volumes of paper, but if you don't have Prescriptive Property Rights enforced by a Settled Order and formula for recognition under the Rule of Law, and of course, the type of Ordered Liberty that is translating day-by-day into Justice, you will have no prosperity and no liberty.

When you have time, it would be great if you could clarify what you meant by the terms "Prescriptive" Property Rights and Ordered Liberty because I am not familiar with those terms.

Am I right that these are special Judicial terms?

Many thanks.

[GOPJ]

If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

Great find pundit.

[Liz]

CNN.com Fact Checks Biden's Loud, Whiny and Divisive SOTU "Campaign" Speech

Biden's intellectually facile words on the corporate minimum tax From CNN's Daniel Dale

Joe Biden whines as he delivers the annual State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress in the House chamber on March 7.

During his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden cited a 2021 report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy think tank that found that 55 of the country’s largest corporations had made $40 billion in profit in their previous fiscal year but not paid any federal corporate income taxes.

He said, “Remember in 2020, 55 of the biggest companies in America made $40 billion and paid zero in federal income taxes. Zero. Not anymore. Thanks to the law I wrote and we signed, big companies have to pay a minimum of 15%.”

Facts First: Biden’s “not anymore” claim is false, an exaggeration. While his 15% corporate minimum tax will reduce the number of big companies that don’t pay any federal taxes, it’s not true that “not anymore” will any big company – such as the ones on the list of 55 companies Biden mentioned – ever do so. That’s because the minimum tax, on the “book income” companies report to investors, only applies to companies with at least $1 billion in average annual income. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, only 14 of the companies on its list of 55 non-payers reported having US pre-tax income of at least $1 billion.

In other words, there will still be some large and profitable corporations paying no federal income tax despite the existence of the tax. The exact number is not known.

Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, told CNN in 2022 that the new tax is “an important step forward from the status quo” and that it would raise substantial revenue. But he also said: “I wouldn’t want to assert that the minimum tax will end the phenomenon of zero-tax profitable corporations. A more accurate phrasing would be to say that the minimum tax will 'help' ensure that 'the most profitable' corporations pay at least some federal income tax.”

[Lazamataz]

When CNN calls you a liar, it’s over.

But can we really say he’s even lying? He has no grasp on reality at all.

[GOPJ]

Biden mentioned – ever do so. That’s because the minimum tax, on the “book income” companies report to investors, only applies to companies with at least $1 billion in average annual income. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, only 14 of the companies on its list of 55 non-payers reported having US pre-tax income of at least $1 billion.

CNN fact checked Biden in a fairly honest fashion? That's news... and strange. Thanks for the ping Liz. Something to think about.

[GOPJ]

Why do I contend that you may ask? Well from history, I would reply. If you look at all of modern society from the French Revolution on, liberals or as I would have it, militant leftists, have in country after country, age after age, done nothing more than force their views onto others through centralized legislation or decree. Leftist law is (1) centralized; (2) always expressed as the "will of the people", the only answer, or Majority Rule; and (3) always rationalistic and formed fresh from metaphysical opinion, leaving society disrupted and unsettled.

Interesting and thoughtful.

[poconopundit]

Glad you liked it.

And when you think about the phrase “Power concedes nothing without a demand”, that applies equally to being either a government watchdog or consumer watchdog.

Tyranny is all around us. The point of being a good citizen then is to complain. To not let the store owner or merchant off the hook. It’s all about being mindful and attentive to what’s going on around you and complaining about things that are not right.

Also as an employer, you complain if you’re not getting good service from your employees.

So there’s a cosmic principle going on here! Cheers...

[Liz]

Good point........he’s so detached from reality he makes it
up out of thin air.......says whatever might give him a thrill.

[KC Burke]

Those two terms come largely from the writings of Russell Kirk. He was one of the main intellectual anchors of conservative thought from 1950 until his death in the late 90s.

I ill dig up something for it’s explanation.

[KC Burke]

Here from a late summary of his Ten Principle of Conservatism is his summary:

conservatives believe in what may be called the principle of prescription. Conservatives sense that modern people are dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, able to see farther than their ancestors only because of the great stature of those who have preceded us in time. Therefore conservatives very often emphasize the importance of prescription—that is, of things established by immemorial usage, so that the mind of man runneth not to the contrary. There exist rights of which the chief sanction is their antiquity—including rights to property, often. Similarly, our morals are prescriptive in great part. Conservatives argue that we are unlikely, we moderns, to make any brave new discoveries in morals or politics or taste. It is perilous to weigh every passing issue on the basis of private judgment and private rationality. The individual is foolish, but the species is wise, Burke declared. In politics we do well to abide by precedent and precept and even prejudice, for the great mysterious incorporation of the human race has acquired a prescriptive wisdom far greater than any man’s petty private rationality.

go: https://kirkcenter.org/conservatism/ten-conservative-principles/

For a much more detailed analysis on prescription in political thought go to this link:
https://isi.org/intercollegiate-review/the-politics-of-prescription-kirks-fifth-canon-of-conservative-thought/

Ordered Liberty for me harkens back to Edmund Burkes Reflections on the Revolutions in France and I will post some links below.

[KC Burke]

I probably first saw the term Ordered Liberty in Russell Kirk’s book, Roots of American Order. But a good usage is given here:
https://kirkcenter.org/reviews/the-sinai-revolution-and-american-ordered-liberty/

Kirk gives a good talk on Lord Acton’s views on Liberty which leads one to understand how the “wild gas of freedom” (Reflections...) is best captured for real use as ordered liberty:

https://rlo.acton.org/archives/104400-audio-russell-kirk-on-lord-actons-approach-to-liberty-and-revolution.html

[KC Burke]

While I have to say that a lot of my thought grows from reading Russell Kirk, a good bit of that is from reading Thomas Sowell and Hayek and that paragraph looks back to their thought to a great degree.

Sadly we have lived the last dozen years in the time of destructive chaos and needed a curative of popularistic resistance such as Trump MAGA. In earlier years we discussed conservatism on this site and it is hard to do that without extensive investigation into Cicero, Edmund Burke, John Adams, TS Elliot, Russell Kirk, Richard Weaver, Eric Voegolin, and others. Voegolin is the source of Buckleys usage of “Don’t Immanentize the eschaton”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanentize_the_eschaton

[GOPJ]

Sadly we have lived the last dozen years in the time of destructive chaos and needed a curative of popularistic resistance such as Trump MAGA. In earlier years we discussed conservatism on this site and it is hard to do that without extensive investigation into Cicero, Edmund Burke, John Adams, TS Elliot, Russell Kirk, Richard Weaver, Eric Voegolin, and others. Voegolin is the source of Buckleys usage of “Don’t Immanentize the eschaton”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanentize_the_eschaton

Maybe FreeRepublic should have a 'classics' section for posting the historic underpinnings of MAGA conservatism... Thanks for getting back up with me so quickly.

[GOPJ]

“Power concedes nothing without a demand”, that applies equally to being either a government watchdog or consumer watchdog.... there’s a cosmic principle going on here

You're right... insightful comments pundit.

[poconopundit]

First of all, KC, thank you for turning me on to Russell Kirk.  In my ignorance, I had never heard of this American scholar of history, politics, and the preservation of the wisdom and restraint we inherited from our forefathers and foremothers.

I am beginning to understand what's meant by quotes on "prescriptive" rights and "ordered liberty" on your FR profile.

It begins by understanding a world existed before the internet.  Our laws and rights were handed down to us by traditions and wise people for hundreds and thousands of years.  The people who wrote the Constitution crystallized the wisdom of the ages.  And the Constitution is our guiding light which we shouldn't take lightly.  We take our prescription from the doctor in good faith to swallow 2 tablets every morning for two weeks.

Nor is prescription of government formed upon blind unmeaning prejudices — for man is a most unwise, and a most wise, being.

The individual is foolish.  The multitude, for the moment, is foolish, when they act without deliberation; but the species is wise, and when time is given to it, as a species it almost always acts right.

Edmond Burke 1792 British statesman and political philosopher (Wikiquotes)

One of our biggest problems in America is that the Leftist Anti-Fa etc. have already been fully indoctrinated into Mao America's communist creed.  And each of them are deathly afraid of being scorned by their Maoist peers.

See Tucker Carlson's interview (a fast 45 minutes) on X with the Chinese author of Mao's America. Awesome.

[cornelis]

That would be Eric Voegelin. You never know, he might be watching us.

[GOPJ]

See Tucker Carlson’s interview (a fast 45 minutes) on X with the Chinese author of Mao’s America. Awesome.

https://twitter.com/tuckercarlson/status/1762249935116963993?s=46&t=oXM3QUNDayEotvdo1W-zQA

Saving for later...

[KC Burke]

One never knows who might be still around.