Month: September 2023

More on the Politics of Abortion: Ron Paul and Subsidiarity

Ron Paul. M.  D.:

I strongly believe that the more difficult the issue is, the more local should be its solution. That is the real success of the Dobbs decision, because abortion should have never been a federal issue in the first place. Overturning Roe v Wade returned us to where we belonged, with state and local laws governing all issues not Constitutionally reserved for the Federal Government.

Bigger problems are best decided closest to home. Look for example at what happened when parents started going to school board meetings and demanding accountability on everything from Covid restrictions to transgenders in school bathrooms. Parents were extremely effective because they only had to travel to the local school board meeting to demand – and get – results. Does anyone think they would have been able to get the same results at the Department of Education in Washington DC?

Similarly, immigration is much better handled by those closer to the action. Ideally it would be a property rights issue, but at the least states like Texas should be taking an active role in preventing a foreign invasion into its borders rather than waiting for Washington to make a move.

Ron Paul is urging something very much like the Catholic doctrine of subsidiarity. David A. Bosnich, The Principle of Subsidiarity:

One of the key principles of Catholic social thought is known as the principle of subsidiarity. This tenet holds that nothing should be done by a larger and more complex organization which can be done as well by a smaller and simpler organization. In other words, any activity which can be performed by a more decentralized entity should be. This principle is a bulwark of limited government and personal freedom. It conflicts with the passion for centralization and bureaucracy characteristic of the Welfare State.

The principle of subsidiarity strikes a reasonable balance between statism and collectivism as represented by the manifest drift of recent Democrat administrations, on the one hand,  and the libertarianism of those who would take privatization to an extreme, on the other.  

Subsidiarity also fits well with federalism, a return to which is a prime desideratum and one more reason not to vote for Democrats.  'Federalism' is  one of those words that does not wear its meaning on its sleeve, and is likely to mislead.  Federalism is not the view that all powers should be vested in the Federal or central government; it is the principle enshrined in the 10th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Whether or not you are Catholic, if you accept the principle of subsidiarity, then you have yet another reason to oppose the Left.  The argument is this:

1. The Left encroaches upon civil society, weakening it and limiting it, and correspondingly expanding the power and the reach of the state.  (For example, the closure of Catholic Charities in Illinois because of an Obama administration adoption rule.)

2. Subsidiarity helps maintain civil society as a buffer zone and intermediate sector between the purely private (the individual and the familial) and the state.

Therefore

3. If you value the autonomy and robustness of civil society, then you ought to oppose  the Left (and the Democrat Party which is now hard-leftist to the core.)

The truth of the second premise is self-evident.  If you wonder whether the Left does in fact encroach upon civil society, then see my post Obama's Assault on the Institutions of Civil Society.

The Politics of Abortion Again

Tony Flood writes and wants my response:

What if we gain the presidency and lose our soul?

I believe the conceptus (a fortiori, the embryo, the fetus) is an immature, but complete, human being with all the rights accruing thereto, including the right not to be wantonly destroyed. Most of the electorate, however, disagrees and will not extend protection to a human fetus younger than 15 weeks, or so Trump calculates. If Republicans insist on such protection, as I interpret his calculus, the majority will electorally complete America's descent into a one-party tyranny. In the American gulag we will reflect on the price of principle. Trump will not (because he cannot) provide the analytical rigor we need now to weigh life against liberty.

Our topic is not the morality of abortion, but the politics thereof. Tony and I agree that abortion is a grave moral evil, from conception on.  (For arguments, see my Abortion category.) But as Tony rightly points out, most of the electorate disagrees.  As for Trump's calculation, I will assume that it is correct.  And I suspect that Trump is right that if Republicans say the kind of stupid things that Mike Pence said in the first debate, the chances of a Republican return to the White House will be appreciably lessened.

I will now reproduce portions of something I wrote earlier which Tony may not have read.

The overturning of Roe v. Wade returned the abortion question to the states. That means that each state is now empowered to enact its own laws regulating abortion. Some states will permit abortion up to the moment of birth. Others will not. Different states, different laws.

What then are we to make of Mike Pence and Senator Tim Scott and their  call for a Federal law that bans abortion (apart from the usual exceptions) during the last 15 weeks of pregnancy? 

Am I missing something? [. . .] It strikes me as obvious that if the abortion issue is for the states to decide, then there cannot be any federal abortion laws. 

Nikki Haley and Pence danced around this issue but their heated tango  was irrelevant blather. [. . .]

The precise question is: How is a federal abortion restriction consistent with the states' right to decide the abortion laws? [. . .]

The answer to the precise question is that a federal restriction is not consistent with states' rights. It is unconstitutional.

This is not a very satisfying answer given that abortion is a moral abomination. (See my Abortion category for arguments.) But arguments, no matter how good, cut no ice in the teeth of our concupiscence. This is explained in my Substack article, Abortion and the Wages of Concupiscence Unrestrained.

Now Tony, you must respond directly to what I said above, in particular, to the third paragraph. Am I right or am I wrong? If you think I am wrong, explain why.

I now add a couple of further points that I consider very important.

1) Politics is a practical game. It is not about perfect versus imperfect. It is (almost) always about better or worse. If you sit on the sidelines waiting for the perfect candidate, you are a fool.  Trump is flawed, but he is far better than Biden or anyone else the Dems are likely to replace him with. So if Trump gets the nod, the conservative must vote for Trump; if De Santis, then De Santis. 

2) Abortion is just one issue of several. Here are some issues that are equally if not more important. Crime.  No doubt, unborn lives matter.  But then so do born lives.  A little old lady should be able to walk down the street to buy groceries without fear of being beaten to death with a tire iron. Democrat policies have led to an unprecedented upsurge in unspeakably vicious forms of violence against persons and property. National sovereignty. The Biden administration is guilty of utter dereliction of duty in intentionally allowing the invasion of the country by drug cartels, human traffickers, terrorists, people bearing sub-tropical diseases, etc.  Financial collapse.  Assaults on constitutionally-guaranteed liberties. I could go on. 

My suggestion is that presidential candidates should shut up about abortion. There is nothing that they can do about it at the the federal level. This issue has been returned to the states.  

Tony asked: "What if we gain the presidency and lose our soul?" 

My answer is that if we don't gain the presidency then we lose everything including our soul. Think about it. If the Left wins, then they will pack the Supreme Court and reinstate Roe v. Wade.

And Tony, haven't we already lost our collective soul? You admit that the majority of the electorate has no moral objection to abortion on demand at any stage of fetal development.  A soul that has already been lost cannot be lost a second time.

Where am I going wrong?

Agnosticism and Religiosity

There is an element of agnosticism at the heart of true religiosity. The atheist knows the god he denies; the theist hesitates to claim knowledge of the God he affirms. The god of a Christopher Hitchens is a cartoonish construct that lies open in every respect before the mind of the cartoonist. But the god that Hitch denies is not the one we affirm.

The Ultimate Replacement

The ultimate replacement, I fear, will not be the ethno-masochistic self-replacement of whites who have lost the will to preserve and defend Western culture, but the replacement of humanity itself by soulless robots. I fear the robotic erasure, not just of human animals, but of humaneness, of spirit, of the imago dei in and around the third stone from the sun.

And to make the dark thought darker, there appears to be little we can do about it. 'Our' technology has been for some time now been living a life of its own. What was created by us to serve us will master, and then replace us. Sublunary humanity will come to an end.

This one belongs in the Dark Thoughts file.

The End of Liberty is Nigh: The Digital Pound and Cancel Culture

And to add insult to injury, irony to outrage, the end of liberty is being ushered in by the mother country.  Here:

The digital pound would be a new type of money issued by the Bank of England for everyone to use for day-to-day spending. You would be able to use it in-store or online to make payments. 

This type of money is known as a central bank digital currency (CBDC). You may also hear it being called ‘digital sterling’ or even ‘Britcoin’. We call the UK version of CBDC the digital pound.

The digital pound would be denominated in sterling and its value would be stable, just like banknotes. £10 in digital pounds would always have the same value as a £10 banknote.

If we introduced it, it would not replace cash. We know being able to use cash is important for many people. That’s why we will continue to issue it for as long as people want to keep using it.

And you can take that italicized paragraph to the bank! (Italics added.)

In a parallel assault on liberty, the Brits are going cancel-crazy. Dreher:

It’s a country that gave the world George Orwell, but now, it’s a ‘Brand’ new world for free speech in once-great Britain, which these days specializes in doling out the unwelcome gift of Orwellianism.

Dame Caroline Dinenage, the chair of a British Parliamentary committee, has been writing to social media platforms Facebook, TikTok and Rumble, asking them if they plan to follow YouTube’s lead and demonetize the accused sex pest Russell Brand. On committee letterhead, Dame Caroline wrote to express the committee’s concern that Brand will not be able to make money on the platform and thereby “undermine the welfare of victims of inappropriate and potentially illegal behavior.”

Potentially illegal. This Conservative MP is using her powerful position to attempt to crush Brand’s ability to make a living, even though he denies the allegations, and they have not been subject to any sort of trial. This member of the British government is attempting to demonetize Russell Brand himself, based solely on allegations.

If this outrageous intimidation is allowed to stand, no one is safe in Britain. All it takes is for the right people to level fashionable accusations against you—ones having to do with racism, sexism, LGBT-phobia, ‘toxic masculinity,’ and whatnot—and you could see your livelihood evaporate overnight. You could even see your own government persecute you, as the committee headed by Dame Caroline, Baroness Lancaster of Kimbolton, is doing to Brand.

The Anglosphere is lost, and America is no exception. The push-back is too little, too late. But it ain't over 'til it's over.

We fight on in the gathering gloom. No defeatism! On the other hand, don't be a fool who sacrifices his life on the altar of activism. We have but one night to spend in this bad inn.  But a night is not nothing. I'll leave it to you to figure out the right mix of commitment to the fight and Gelassenheit. And it is up to you to balance praeparatio vitae and praeparatio mortis.

"So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late."

"War, children, it's just a shot away."