Thoughts on Ethics & the modern State

So I have been reading on two thinkers. One was a liberal who became a Calvinist and the other a Calvinist who became a liberal. The former is Abraham Kuyper & the latter John Rawls.

I was struck by Kuyper's notion of the state. Like many Calvinists he saw different spheres in this life and believed that they should be kept separate and distinct. One of those is the state.

Kuyper based his view of the state on the Christian doctrine of the fall. In his view, the state exists as a product of the fall. If the fall had not occurred, there would be no need for government, because human relationships would properly exist between family & neighbor. The fall caused deep alienation & fissure in these critical relationships, and human government is the product. As such, the state is a form of common grace. Laws operate to restrain the evil that man inflicts on his brother & neighbor. Of course, when Christ returns, the state will be unnecessary as the alienation of men will be healed.

It is this foundational notion of the state, based on Scripture, that makes Kuyper's thinking so helpful. He recognized that libertarian ideals push humans to anarchy, because human freedom is a destructive in a fallen world. On the other hand, the temporary notion of the state prevents a believer from excepting statism, because such a concentration of power itself can produce great evil. Thus, Government is not social contract, nor is it a necessary evil. Instead it is a form of grace given during evil days.

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Now to John Rawls. What strikes me about Rawls is his notion that in ethical philosophy, merit is unethical. Men use merit as an excuse for unethical, immoral acts. This idea is strangely consistent with the Christian notion of grace. Merit is not entirely a bad thing in itself, but as an end merit can produce both reliance on self & xenophobia. Merit focuses on what is deserved as a result of labor, rather than what is owed because of ontological realities. Of course, Rawls attended old Princeton and even wrote his undergraduate thesis on the doctrine of original sin. Thus, despite his latter lapse in faith, there is little doubt that Rawls ethical theories were the product of Calvinist presuppositions about human nature & grace.

I need to read more on these two.

A little nonsense

Yesterday, I received my copy of RAT Magazine (Riders Association of Triumph). I get it for free since I bought a Triumph. Thumbing through the magazine I was blown away by how nice their bikes are. Seriously, they just look right. These guys do great work. The bikes have fantastic styling, either modern or retro, are built very well, and are a blast to drive. I've now used a motorcycle as my only means of transportation since 2004. I can't tell you how happy I feel when I am riding my motorcycle. Of course, because Triumph is a British Company all their stories were about riding in Britain & about continental Europe.

That's where my present (pleasant) reality ends & day dreaming begins.

After I become a licensed attorney, hopefully starting off in Chicago, there are three bikes in particular that I would like to add to my garage. all three have retro styling cues & I believe each will be classic, at least among bikers.

first is the the thruxton 900. like my current bike, a speed four, i first saw the thruxton at old town motorcycles in chicago. when it came time to purchase a new bike i went with the speed four because i prefer a sport bike for daily driving. but the thruxton was always in the back of my mind. what a great shop old town cycles is. i remember the first day they rented the space and put out a sign saying "coming soon". the day it finally did open, it was pouring rain. sarah jane & i road up there, in the rain, on a 50cc scooter. i was so stoked walking around that store. & actually it was at old town that we said aloha before she moved to L.A., but i digress. all that to say, a black thruxton has to be in my garage.



second, is the harley davidson nightster. now, i just discovered this bike about a week ago. & i'm not really a harley guy, but to me, this is what a harley sportster should look like. dark flat black, only a little chrome & a way retro style. another must have.



third is the ducati sport 1000s. wow, this whole line of flat back cafe racers is fantastic. i like the model with the full fairing the most, but the naked bike is good too. these came out in 2005 (i think) and i've known i would pick one up ever since.



so there you go. that's part of my plan/fantasy. i can just see it. i'll get a place in east garfield park or the ukrainian village. a single flat and a garage. in the garage i can play records, keep a fridge full of union-made beer, & work on the bikes. pretty glorious vision, eh? i like it.



of course, somedays, i think that there is more out there than chicago. (hard to believe right?) but to move to Cardiff, Wales or Brussels, Belgium wouldn't be too bad either. In the UK I'd have easy access to London, the Isle of Mann, great sports, great beer, great universities. & the continent is a single ferry away. & from there Africa is another ferry away. in either case, motorcycling in the alps would be the best way to spend a holiday.

these are all good thoughts. they make law school a little less dull. of course, southern illinois is fine. the roads are twisty, there are plenty of hills, the mississippi river, & memphis isn't too far away.

on two wheels, its all good.

Yesterday, Obama failed. Democracy helped him.

Majority rule cannot be a proper end.

Perhaps, it cannot be a means to the true good either.

When the leader of a democracy is faced with the polarization of either defending morality or maintaing broad political support: morality will, more often than not, be cast aside.

This has become exceedingly clear in the past forty eight hours, when an enormously popular president choose obstruction of justice rather than investigation and prosecution of American law. Enforcement of law is the function of the executive office, to fail to uphold Federal Statutes is thus inexcusable.

Certainly, to investigate and to prosecute the previous administration is politically unpalatable. Indeed, the severe outcry against the Spanish prosecutor for his warrants stands as condemnable proof of the flimsy understanding of deontological ethics and natural law which has permeated the thinking of the conservative movements in recent years. They have embraced a crude populism that seems proud of ignorance rather than wisdom. Their movement is one only concerned with ends rather than the means; one detached from history, from philosophy, and worst, from Christian theology.*

But my main objective here is to explain why President Obama has lost a great deal of my confidence by his decision this past Thursday. To obstruct justice is itself a Federal offense. He could issue a formal pardon of the past administration. But by condemning the acts but ignoring the actors, he has become an accomplice to his predecessor. This, even as former-Vice President Cheney admits his own (guilty) role in torture before a national television audience. Such an admission leaves no question about what Federal Law requires: prosecution. Cheney himself, deserves the right to fair proceedings, the same human right which he denied to his victims.

Last year, we saw that capitalism is not self-correcting. At its foundation it relies on a misunderstanding of anthropology,
i.e., the falsehood that the majority of men will consistently be rational economic actors. Scripture tells us the opposite, instead that the love of money is the root of all evil, not the maximizer of efficiency and good. Those who love money, pierce themselves with many griefs.

This week, we saw that democracy is not self-correcting. Leaders are supplanted by politicians. The good is amorphous rather than the law, it becomes subject to opinion and the will of the majority.

This is not to say that the Republican party offers a better alternative--no, it is far more immoral. When they co-opted the interrogation techniques of Imperial Japan, North Korea, and Maoist China--they also co-opted those regimes [im]morality. But, by becoming complicit with their crimes our Commander in Chief has failed.

My question is this, should Christians vote?

To what extent are they culpable if they do so? Can they wipe their hands of the blood that inevitably results? Can a vote against torture and unjustified war absolve us the of the abortions that are allowed to result? Can a vote against abortion exculpate us of the bombs that killed more than 90,000 innocent citizens---some of whom were most certainly fellow believers?

No. I don’t think it can. Comfort with either is the result of a deeply scarred conscience. If we choose to ignore sin, how can we repent? If we cannot repent, we cannot be saved.






*In fact, this past weekend Dobson himself admitted the religious right failed, but he did not understand why it failed. It failed because it sought to enforce the natural law through democracy, rather than embracing the Biblical mandate that Believers live as Pilgrims in this world. I can only hope that his era is actually over, though I highly doubt that.