-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! * Veritas Vos Liberabit * THE FEDERALIST(r) BRIEF The Conservative e-Journal of Record 22 May 2001 Federalist #01-21.brf To retrieve today's Brief as HTML printer-friendly text, link to -- http://www.Federalist.com/current2001.asp To support or sponsor The Federalist, link to -- http://www.Federalist.com/support.asp ______--------********O********--------______ THIS WEEK'S FEATURED SITE "I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic...." --Congressional Oath of Office. If you want a list of the members of Congress who take this oath seriously, and are acting on it, visit The Liberty Committee, and while there, sign the "Repeal 16 Petition," a drive to repeal the Amendment that created the central government's behemoth tax code. Visit -- http://www.thelibertycommittee.org/ CONTENTS: The Founders Insight Good News ICTUS Imprimis Family Culture Liberty Worth Repeating -- Special Excerpts -- Clarence Thomas at CEI The Gipper Government Political Futures For the Record Policy Pages Reader Comments The Last Word ______--------********O********--------______ THE FOUNDERS "[I]t may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves, convened for the purpose. On the other hand, the effect may be inverted. Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people." --James Madison, Federalist No. 10 ______--------********O********--------______ INSIGHT "The world, especially the modern world, has reached a curious condition of ritual or routine; in which we might almost say that it is wrong even when it is right. It continues to a great extent to do the sensible things. It is rapidly ceasing to have any of the sensible reasons for doing them. It is always lecturing on the deadness of tradition; and it is living entirely on the life of tradition. It is always denouncing us for superstition; and its own principal virtues are now almost entirely superstitions." --G. K. Chesterton ______--------********O********--------______ GOOD NEWS "The tongue of the wise commends knowledge, but the mouth of the fool gushes folly." (Proverbs 15:2) ++ "Better to be lowly in spirit and among the oppressed than to share plunder with the proud." (Proverbs 16:19) ++ "However, as it is written: 'No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him'." (1 Corinthians 2:9) ++ "Ill-gotten treasures are of no value, but righteousness delivers from death." (Proverbs 10:2) ______--------********O********--------______ ICTUS IMPRIMIS "The true way to be humble is not to stoop till thou art smaller than thyself, but to stand at thy real height against some higher nature that will show thee what the real smallness of thy greatness is." --Phillips Brooks (1835-1893) ______--------********O********--------______ FAMILY "The proud claim of the right to decide who is human, and who is not, is the heart of the evil. And the most powerful weapon against it is the truth on which America was founded -- it is self-evident that human beings do not have the power to make or unmake the dignity of our fellow man according to our arbitrary will. To be human, rather, is to belong to a community of creatures who are the common recipients of the endowment, made by a will beyond our own, of an equal and unalienable dignity." --Alan Keyes ______--------********O********--------______ CULTURE "The demonization of the white male is more extreme than the demonization of Jews by German university intellectuals during the 60 years prior to the rise of Adolf Hitler. In California, whites are a racial minority, as they are in the world. But whites are not considered a minority. No one is complaining about their under-representation at Berkeley and UCLA. Whites are considered 'hegemonic' even when they are a minority because the culture and society are white constructs. With the assimilation of whites blocked by deconstruction in the classroom and immigration creating a majority of 'preferred minorities' with privileged legal standing, academic standards will not be the only white construct to bite the dust. America's destiny lies in Third World culture." --Paul Craig Roberts ______--------********O********--------______ LIBERTY "Americans understand the concepts of checks and balances and separation of powers. They are aware of the importance of these ideas to the furtherance of freedom. They know that the American ideal of natural unalienable rights is supported by a profound belief in the significance of individual sovereignty. Within our Constitution there is a point where these principles converge. The people are the ultimate check and balance to any branch, agency or person acquiring a disproportionate amount of power. It is our venerable Second Amendment that fuses the notion of constraint on government to the autonomy of the solitary citizen." --James Hirsen ______--------********O********--------______ WORTH REPEATING Excerpts from Justice Clarence Thomas's speech at the American Enterprise Institute I am going to speak more broadly tonight -- as a citizen who believes in a civil society, and who is concerned because too many show timidity today precisely when courage is demanded. Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist No. 78, "It would require an uncommon portion of fortitude in the judges to do their duty as faithful guardians of the constitution, where legislative invasions of it had been instigated by the major voice of the community." This point is rarely stressed enough. I'd like to reflect upon those two questions: judicial principles and the question of courage in American political life. When interpreting the Constitution and statutes, judges should seek the original understanding of the provision's text, if the meaning of that text is not readily apparent. This approach works in several ways to reduce judicial discretion and to maintain judicial impartiality. First, by tethering their analysis to the understanding of those who drafted and ratified the text, modern judges are prevented from substituting their own preferences for the Constitution. Second, it places the authority for creating the legal rules in the hands of the people and their representatives, rather than in the hands of the judiciary. The Constitution means what the delegates of the Philadelphia Convention and of the state ratifying conventions understood it to mean; not what we judges think it should mean. Third, this approach recognizes the basic principle of a written Constitution. "We the people" adopted a written Constitution precisely because it has a fixed meaning, a meaning that does not change. It became clear in rather short order that on the very difficult issues such as race there was no real debate or honest discussion. Those who raised questions that suggested doubt about popular policies were subjected to intimidation. Debate was not permitted. Orthodoxy was enforced. When whites questioned the conventional wisdom on these issues, it was considered bad form; when blacks did so, it was treason. These "rules of orthodoxy" still apply. You had better not engage in serious debate or discussion unless you are willing to endure attacks that range from mere hostile bluster to libel. Often the temptation is to retreat to complaining about the unfairness of it all. But this is a plaintive admission of defeat. It is a unilateral withdrawal from the field of combat. A good argument diluted to avoid criticism is not nearly as good as the undiluted argument, because we best arrive at truth through a process of honest and vigorous debate. Arguments should not sneak around in disguise, as if dissent were somehow sinister. One should not be cowed by criticism. In my humble opinion, those who come to engage in debates of consequence, and who challenge accepted wisdom, should expect to be treated badly. Nonetheless, they must stand undaunted. That is required. And, that should be expected. For, it is bravery that is required to secure freedom. In September of 1975, the Wall Street Journal published a book review by Michael Novak of Thomas Sowell's book, Race and Economics. The opening paragraph changed my life. It reads: "Honesty on questions of race is rare in the United States. So many and unrecognized have been the injustices committed against blacks that no one wishes to be unkind, or subject himself to intimidating charges. Hence, even simple truths are commonly evaded." Even if one has a valid position, and is intellectually honest, he has to anticipate nasty responses aimed at the messenger rather than the argument. The objective is to limit the range of the debate, the number of messengers, and the size of the audience. The aim is to pressure dissenters to sanitize their message, so as to avoid being subjected to hurtful ad hominem criticism. Who wants to be calumniated? It's not worth the trouble. But is it worth it? Just what is worth it, and what is not? If one wants to be popular, it is counterproductive to disagree with the majority. If one just wants to tread water until the next vacation, it isn't worth the agony. If one just wants to muddle through, it is not worth it. In my office, a little sign reads: "To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing." What makes it all worthwhile? What makes it worthwhile is something greater than all of us. There are those things that at one time we all accepted as more important than our comfort or discomfort -- if not our very lives: Duty, honor, country! There was a time when all was to be set aside for these. The plow was left idle, the hearth without fire, the homestead, abandoned. We all share a reasonable and, in many ways, admirable, reluctance to leave the safety and peacefulness of private life to take up the larger burdens and challenges of active citizenship. The price is high, and it is easier and more enjoyable to remain within the shelter of our personal lives and our local communities, rather than the larger state. To enter public life is to step outside our more confined, comfortable sphere of life, and to face the broader, national sphere of citizenship. What makes it all worthwhile is to devote ourselves to the common good. When one observes the pitched battles that rage around persons of strong convictions, who do not accept the prevailing beliefs of others, it is no wonder that those who might otherwise wish to participate find more hospitable outlets for their civic interests. When one of my friends began feeling the urge to get involved, his spouse glared at him and said, "Don 't even think about it. We love our life the way it is." And that is not an unreasonable perspective, not at all. But is reasonableness always our standard of review on this question? I hope not. During my youth there were many wonderful sayings, now considered trite, that provided cryptic, yet prescient guidance for my life. Among them was one based on Luke 12:48: "To whom much is given of him much is required." Perhaps such sentiments are embarrassing in sophisticated company today, but I continue to believe this with all my heart. I do believe that we are required to wade into those things that matter to our country and our culture, no matter what the disincentives are, and no matter the personal cost. There is not one among us who wants to be set upon, or obligated to do and say difficult things. Yet, there is not one of us who could in good conscience stand by and watch a loved one or a defenseless person -- or a vital national principle -- perish alone, undefended, when our intervention could make all the difference. This may well be too dramatic an example. But nevertheless, put most simply: if we think that something is dreadfully wrong, then someone has to do something. It goes without saying that we must participate in the affairs of our country if we think they are important and have an impact on our lives. But how are we to do that? In what manner should we participate? None of us should be uncivil in our manner as we debate issues of consequence. No matter how difficult it is, good manners should be routine. However, in the effort to be civil in conduct, many who know better actually dilute firmly held views to avoid appearing "judgmental." They curb their tongues not only in form but also in substance. The insistence on civility in the form of our debates has the perverse effect of cannibalizing our principles, the very essence of a civil society. That is why civility cannot be the governing principle of citizenship or leadership. As Gertrude Himmelfarb observed in her book, One Nation, Two Cultures, "[t]o reduce citizenship to the modern idea of civility, the good-neighbor idea, is to belittle not only the political role of the citizen but also the virtues expected of the citizen -- the 'civic virtues,' as they were known in antiquity and in early republican thought." These are the virtues that Aristotle thought were necessary to govern oneself like a "freeman"; that Montesquieu referred to as the " spring which sets the republican government in motion"; and that the Founding Fathers thought provided the dynamic combination of conviction and self-discipline necessary for self-government. By yielding to a false form of "civility," we sometimes allow our critics to intimidate us. As I have said, active citizens are often subjected to truly vile attacks; they are branded as mean-spirited, racist, Uncle Tom, homophobic, sexist, etc. To this we often respond (if not succumb), so as not to be constantly fighting, by trying to be tolerant and nonjudgmental -- i.e., we censor ourselves. This is not civility. It is cowardice, or well-intentioned self-deception at best. Immanuel Kant pointed out that to escape shame and self-contempt we must learn to lie to ourselves. These lies create a formidable obstacle to action on behalf of truth, and one of the greatest human accomplishments is to find a way to shatter those lies. Pope John Paul II has traveled the entire world challenging tyrants and murderers of all sorts, speaking to millions of people, bringing them a single, simple message: "Be Not Afraid." He preached this message to people living under Communist tyranny in Poland, in Czechoslovakia, in Nicaragua and in China -- "Be not afraid." He preached it to Africans facing death from marauding tribes and murderous disease -- "Be not afraid." And he preached it to us, warning us how easy it is to be trapped in a "culture of death" even in our comfortable and luxurious country -- "Be not afraid." Listen to the truths that lie within your hearts, and be not afraid to follow them wherever they may lead you. Those three little words hold the power to transform individuals and change the world. They can supply the quiet resolve and unvoiced courage necessary to endure the inevitable intimidation. The war in which we are engaged is cultural, not civil, it tests whether this "nation: conceived in liberty . . . can long endure." The Founders warned us that freedom requires constant vigilance, and repeated action. It is said that, when asked what sort of government the Founders had created, Benjamin Franklin replied that they had given us "A Republic, if you can keep it." Today, as in the past, we will need a brave "civic virtue," not a timid civility, to keep our republic. So, this evening, I leave you with the simple exhortation: "Be not afraid." ______--------********O********--------______ THE GIPPER "Atheism is as much a part of Communism as is the Gulag. Every kind of roadblock is thrown in the way of religion up to and including imprisonment." --Ronald Reagan ______--------********O********--------______ GOVERNMENT "Public anger has focused on the IRS, and the agency has committed more than its share of mistakes and abuses. But the real culprit is Congress. It has given those who work at the IRS the impossible task of fairly implementing an unfair tax code and unfair tax rates. Does Congress want to cut cheating? It should be frugal with taxpayers' earnings. Give everyone the tax cut that they deserve. And simplify the tax code." --Doug Bandow ______--------********O********--------______ POLITICAL FUTURES "By the logic of some commentators hostile to President Bush's determination to deploy defenses against ballistic missiles, the government should stop trying to develop an AIDS vaccine. Attempts to produce a vaccine have encountered failures and have not yet produced a product that works 'perfectly' or 'fully.' The day Bush announced -- reiterated, really -- his commitment to missile defense, ABC News said: 'He wants to spend a vast amount of money, and it doesn't matter if the system doesn't work perfectly'." --George Will ______--------********O********--------______ FOR THE RECORD "The Urban Institute studied 1998 tax returns and found that the state with the least charitable giving was Massachusetts. Mississippi, however, though forty-ninth in the nation in average income, boasted the country's most generous citizens, followed by other southern Bible Belt states, the Dakotas, and heavily Mormon Utah." --The American Enterprise ______--------********O********--------______ POLICY PAGES & POINTS OF INTEREST (NOTE: For our subscribers with WWW access, if the URL line breaks, please select, copy and paste the entire link address into your browser's target address field.) President's comprehensive energy plan as well as his speech delivered in St. Paul, Minnesota PRESIDENT BUSH http://www.BushEnergy.com Families Do Matter: Some Thoughts On The Latest Adolescent Health Study In Focus Paper http://www.frc.org/papers/infocus/index.cfm?get=IF01C1&arc=yes ______--------********O********--------______ SELECT READER COMMENTS (To submit an editorial comment or read other comments, link to: http://www.Federalist.com/postededs.asp) "Latin motto for Clinton Library -- 'Vidi, Vici, Vini'." "If abortion has a deterrent on crime, imagine what the death penalty would do to reduce crime." "I read the story about the high-school group expelled from the White House after pausing during a tour to pray. Then I saw Lyn Nofziger's quote about the political correctness crowd feeling Christians are no better than smokers. So I guess now there is nothing worse than being exposed to 'second-hand prayer'." "I generally agree with your perspectives and those of many of your contributors, however, I fail to understand how the right to bear arms is, in this day and time, one which I should feel passionate about. There seems to me to be almost no excuse for having guns in a private citizen's home. We are no longer a frontier nation, a cowboy culture, a place where most of us have any need to hunt our own food. Those who do hunt frequently don't even care to eat what they kill. I am not particularly interested in animal rights, so that is not the issue." EDITOR REPLIES: Indeed, your words are taken, almost to the letter, from a speech Bill Clinton gave repeatedly -- and was echoed by candidate Albert Gore. The Second Amendment has nothing to do with "hunting" or the "frontier." That "palladium of rights upon which all others rest" (Madison appointee Justice Joseph Story) is about LIBERTY -- period. Americans who do not understand this most basic justification for the "right to bear arms," have, indeed, lost the fire of their patriot Founders. For shame.... "Freedom of the press should be defined as the separation of press and money." EDITOR REPLIES: Plenty of freedom and not much money around this editorial shop! (That was a subtle solicitation for help!) ______--------********O********--------______ THE LAST WORD "Of all the pols who rave and rant There's none who rants like Traficant. The congressman from Ohio Is filled with bluster and with blow. 'Beam me up,' he likes to say Of stupid things that come his way. A Democrat, but just in name, He won't play the liberal s game. He takes his shots at either side. His missiles scatter far and wide. Because he votes so often wrong He doesn't, say the Dems, belong. And so he sits back all alone, A Party of One on his throne. And now, e'en though he's been forsook, The feds are claiming he's a crook. He's been indicted. Trial's next. And Traficant is vexed, perplexed. Vows he will fight. Says he will win. Says come what may he won't give in. And in the end, though he should lose He's not the type to sing the blues. If he must drink the bitter cup He'll merely say, 'Just beam me up'." --Lyn Nofziger This Week's Leftoons: http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/garner.htm http://www.cnsnews.com/cartoon/welcome.asp -- PUBLIUS -- *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Want to be on our lists? Write at [EMAIL PROTECTED] for a menu of our lists! <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. 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