Angilbert (fl. ca. 840/50), On the Battle Which was Fought at Fontenoy

The Law of Christians is broken,
Blood by the hands of hell profusely shed like rain,
And the throat of Cerberus bellows songs of joy.

Angelbertus, Versus de Bella que fuit acta Fontaneto

Fracta est lex christianorum
Sanguinis proluvio, unde manus inferorum,
gaudet gula Cerberi.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

How Liberalism Cuts Out the Natural Law: John Rawls's Sleight of Hand, Part 3

JOHN RAWLS USES THE ISSUE OF ABORTION to illustrate how his "political liberalism" based upon "public reason" is supposed to lead to "strictly political conception of justice." It is perhaps fortunate that Rawls chose this issue, which is darling among the liberals, as it shows that the Rawlsian "justice as fairness" is hardly fair. Rather, the formula touted as neutral is in fact calculated always to hush the natural law in favor of comprehensive liberalism. There is something rotten in a conception of justice that allows for the killing of one group of human beings for the benefit of another, which prevents the state from interfering to protect a group of human beings, and which, moreover, has the audacity to suggest that this result is morally compelled.

The Unapologetic Advocate of Political Liberalism: John Rawls


Rawls's suggestion that "any reasonable balancing" of "political" values of the respect for human life, the "ordered reproduction of political society over time," and women's equality would necessarily result in giving "a woman a duly qualified right to decide whether or not to end her pregnancy during the first trimester," and maybe even beyond that boundary. (George, 93 (citing PL, 243). In this area, to suggest (as the natural moral law, science, inherited cultural traditions would suggest, and the law, at least until 1973, itself suggested) that reason would require there to be a law that must protect human life from the moment of conception, and so exclude any law that would leave that life unprotected and subject to private assault with impunity, is, in the Rawlsian construct, to import a "comprehensive doctrine" into the debate. And this, Rawls would insist, defies the fundamental ground rules of political realism, and violates political justice. George, 93.

It is all very convenient for the liberal. Rawls need not even listen, much less answer, the dissenting voices, the voices that cry out that a fundamental injustice is being carried out upon the unborn. They are voices crying in the political wilderness, a desert caused by Rawls's refusal to allow the waters of "comprehensive doctrines" to rain upon the political landscape. These voices are therefore the voces clamantes in deserto Rawlsianorum. (Rawls does not only want to not listen to these natural-law voices of the victims' advocates, he apparently is deaf to the voices of his slaughtered brothers and sisters, whose voices cry out to heaven for vengeance, and this only after the liberals have failed to hear their voices pleading for justice, and when justice was denied them, for mercy. All they wanted was a chance to live, a chance denied them by the bloodthirsty liberal Huitzilpochtli of whom Rawls is such a devotee.)

St. John the Baptist: Vox clamantis in deserto

The Rawlsian formula is a very convenient cover for the liberal partisans of abortion "rights." They need not even answer the reasonable arguments of their political opponents. In other words, the Rawlsian "political liberalism" construct allows the liberal to insist that the political process, and hence laws passed during the course of that political debate, be unreasonable. And, of course, an unreasonable law is a bad law, in fact, if Sts. Augustine and Thomas are to be followed, no law at all, and certainly no law worthy of the name, ranking as it does with immorality. And a political process that is calculated to promulgate bad laws is a bad political process. As Robert P. George summarizes it:
Rawls offers no argument as to why the developing human being should or even may be excluded from the laws' protection on the basis of age, size, stage of development, or condition of dependency. He does not offer reasons to rebut those "secular" (i.e., scientific and philosophical) arguments and fully "public" reasons offered in defense of the rights to the unborn prof-life citizens--Catholic and non-Catholic alike.
Rawls even admits that what is involved in this issue is his opinion and not reasonable argument. George, 93 (citing PL, lv). Rawls believes, nevertheless, that the person who believes, based upon sound reason, that a law that fails to protect the life over a substantial portion of human beings is execrable is compelled to support that law. True, Rawls magnanimously allows that such a person need not personally participate in an abortion, and need not avail himself of that right. Rawls also allows for free speech, even political speech on the issue. But the thought may never be put into law. Rawls insists that that person recognize the law that allows abortion as not only legitimate but just and demanding obedience. So the Rawlsian construct is clearly anti-Theaetetian: he stresses political opinion (doxa) over political knowledge (episteme). Both Plato and St. John the Baptist are given cold shoulder by Rawls. Instead of spirit and right reason governing law, we have the naked and arbitrary will of Rawls and those that think alike him: Rawls advocates the tyrannous enforcement of liberal dogma.

Plato in Athens
That is why . . . there is something scandalous in the self-styled "liberals" and "democrats" . . . to remove such issues from public debate by arbitrarily restricting the presentation or saliency of reasons and arguments on one side of debates over the nature, dignity, and destiny of the human person quite irrespective of their soundness, reasonableness, or truth. There is nothing "liberal," "democratic," "reasonable," "moral," or "ethical" about doing that.
George, 95. Indeed. It is manifest that the Rawlsian theory is rotten and anti-natural law and anti-natural rights at the core. We ought not be lulled by the Rawlsian calls to "political liberalism" (one recalls Barack Obama's great Rawlsian speech at Notre Dame), as ultimately these calls are neither calls to a reasoned public discourse nor calls for a non-partisan formula for fair political debate in a pluralistic society. Rather, the Rawlsian theory is a fancy theoretical muzzle designed to harness the minds and thoughts of its opponents. It is, in fine, a political filter designed and shamelessly proposed by Rawls. It is a political filter calculated to keep the natural law out of the political debate, to squelch its influence, and therefore shut it out from the process of fashioning of positive law. More ominously, it allows the silencing of the voices of liberalism's human victims. It virtually assures the continuing sacrifices to the liberal god Moloch or whatever else the liberal god's name may be. This liberal god is as bloodthirsty a god as ever there was, as ravenous a god as the Aztec's Huitzilopochtli. Rawls was one of this bloody god's servitors and great high priests. And when John Rawls died and faced the true God that he denied, he had stain of his brothers' blood on his hands, the smell of it on his breath, and the justifying thoughts of the crime in his head. May the Lord God have mercy on his soul, a mercy Rawls, in his liberal Havardian hubris, never gave to the diminutive victims of his comprehensive and political liberalism whose voices now accuse him.


The Bloodthirsty Aztec god Huitzilopochtli,
Demonic predecessor of Rawls's god of Liberalism



Note: In this series of blog entries relating to the Rawlsian critique, I have relied heavily on Robert P. George, "Restricting Reasons, Attenuating Discourse," in Human Nature in its Wholeness: A Roman Catholic Perspective (Washington, D.C.: CUA Press, 2006), 80-94, cited here as "George."

4 comments:

  1. The Rawlsian formula is a very convenient cover for the liberal partisans of abortion "rights." They need not even answer the reasonable arguments of their political opponents.

    See this gives up the lie--"they need not answer". They are not amenable to listen in the first place to the opposite side. This gives the lie that a "Pluralistic" society can work. It can not. Is this why Jonah Goldberg wrote his book Liberal Fascism which is an actual term used by George Orwell. But this "fascism" they are talking about is economic fascism but not the true total picture of fascism, i.e. national socialism, because national socialism does not teach political correctness which is done in this country. All socialisms borrow from each other in the Hegelian dialectic; it is a mix-n-match system. What is being practiced is Liberal Communism or Democratic Socialism.

    In the first post of this series, it was written that The political climate is largely Rawlsian. In light of the Rawlsian prejudice against natural law and its affinity for a secular, philosophical liberalism,

    Wrong. It is Judeo Masonic Bolshevism. That is an old Catholic term. The same enemy that uses liberalism to break up Christendom and provide a new ground, a new culture, for them to work their mojo. All the revolutions, the American, French, Italian (Garibaldi) were all Masonic and Freemasonry incorporates much of the Kabbala and prides itself on its Jewish connections. Karl Marx, educated by Moses Hess, advocated the same thing. Liberalism is the first stage. It is all about created an Open Society, a Pluralistic Society in which religious, racial and philosophical comprehensive systems must be watered down. In a Pluralistic society, such as America, Compromise must work! This is the aim of liberalism, to compromise one's principles. Principles and Laws must NOT be absolute. Therefore a Pluralistic society must be engineered.

    The first rule of War by Sun Tzu is "Know your enemy". You can't fight something you don't know and one is swinging everywhere, if one doesn't know where to concentrate on. Rawls is only giving a legal/law sophistry to this Judeo Masonic Bolshevism.

    Another name for this Pluralistic society is Globalization. That is the real goal and both Marxism and Masonry teach this goal. The Bahai' Faith which is headquartered in Israel is the religion of this movement. Tolerance and Diversity are the key words. The basis of Diversity is to water down and diversity lays the groundwork for tolerance which is the compromising of laws and principles! That is the goal. No absolutes!

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  2. John Rawls shows his hypocrisy in that liberalism is overriding, itself comphrensive, and won't share the limelight. It can't have competitors. All evil is hypocritical. And Mr. Rawls is one of the most hypocritical. America is an ideological country different by design from the rest of the world. It is meant so. As Goetz in his book about America, America is the seat of world revolution.

    Furthermore, be very beware, J. Salwyn Schapiro writes that "England is the classic land of MODERN liberalism". He quotes Bertrand Russell to say that


    "the Conservatives are liberals on the right, and the Laborites are liberals on the left". (ibid, pg 21)

    The so called "conservatives" in America are really Liberals! I call myself a Loyalist. The Loyalists are and were the true conservatives. Benjamin Disraeli also changed the definition of conservativism in the Anglo-sphere. So again, what you think is "conservative" is not! The FFofA of America were Liberals! Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and the others, are all just Liberals of the right. Remember the term "conservative" in the Anglo-sphere is different from meaning of the Continental meaning of Conservative. There is a big difference and when you think you are defending the conservatives of America as righteous---one is sadly mistaken.

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  3. If different groups are to live together, there is a model to go by which is traditional and in accord with the Natural Law, that is the Medieval city of Jerusalem. There was an Armenian quarter, a Jewish quarter, a Muslim quarter and a Latin quarter with a Christian King and later a Muslim caliph in charge of it all. This is the model of a mixed society that does not devolve into Pluralism.

    19 and early 20th century America was approaching that goal just like medieval Jerusalem. Segregation is in harmony with the Natural Law. This is how nature works. This is the Natural Law at work.

    When you have certain people calling segregation as evil, you've got to wonder how they can teach the natural law.

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  4. You will notice that my blog is dedicated to the law of the Christian peoples. I have yet to explore it, but I am fascinated by the notion of law of peoples. Until the rise of nation states, there was such a notion as "law of the peoples." So, for example, Jews operated under their own laws, the Burgundians, the Visigoths, the Muslims each operated under their own tribal or religious laws. There was the overriding ius gentium that governed the relationship between peoples. With the loss of any homogeneity in our country, I am thinking this may be one way to have a real modus vivendi. This would be similar to your Jerusalem model. Only my thought is not to segregate by geography, but to segregate by law.

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