Won't a McCain/Lieberman ticket appoint judges according to its own postmodern, neoconservative vision?

What a politician says to a special interest group and how she or he actually conducts such choices may likely be two different things.

Lots of people want to see the law take sides before they decide. That's why the Republicans have attempted to pack the Justice Department. Some might say that a political alliance of any kind, even membership in a political party, should disqualify a lawyer from serving as a jurist. It couldn't make things worse.

Ignorance Is Strength. If the people are kept ignorant, they will not realize they are being used. Then if you can change the way people think, teaching them to think "emotionally" disregarding objective truth then you have them eating from the palm of your hand, as long as media can be controlled.

Obama thinks that the "proles" will sell their freedom for drugs, corn, sex and TV. Once they are reduced to a form of pseudo-intellectual stupidity they can be manipulated like a herd of animals or rather like the members of a cult. Emotional thinking is the key.

For those of us who resist that plan, there is Room 101 where everything we fear will occur to us, so we can learn to love Obama like the good guys of the Politically Correct Thought Police do.

The only thing the Democrats and the Republicrats are forgetting is this:

Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, "Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us." He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the LORD shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.

How about a judge that can empathize with the unborn baby?

This brings to mind a quote I heard once, I'm not sure who it's from: "If you're not a liberal by the time you're eighteen, you have no heart. And if you're not a conservative by the time you're thirty-five, you have no brain."

The intellect is clearly the most important part of being a judge. That Obama would stress the heart (i.e. the emotions) over the brain when it comes to judges is particularly troubling, and speaks to the immature, no-nothing approach required to advance a "progressive" agenda.

Hi August,

It's usually attributed to Churchill, but according to the Churchill Centre, there's no record of him having said it.

I'm sure he wished he had.

It is impossible for mere humans to be objective or neutral. All earthly judges are influenced by their own overt or covert biases, whether political, religious, cultural, etc. It is part of the human condition we cannot escape. The suggestion that a particular political party or president will appoint judges based upon subjective criteria, but another political party or president would appoint judges objectively, is itself totally subjective and proves the point that all humans are biased. ALL judges are "empathetic," just to different biases.

RK, of course, there is no difference. "Liberal" judges advance the liberal agenda. "Conservative" judges advance the conservative agenda. It's always been that way. Some things never change. Any judge who believes that s/he is objective is, well, biased.

Aaron, certainly bias shows up in our judgments, but there are safeguards built in to the judicial system to guard against them. I'm not claiming the system is perfect, but there are some clear lines over which we cannot cross, e.g., the legitimacy of slavery, etc. If, however, a judge has a judicial philosophy in favor of bias then we have a big problem.

Obama is campaigning on the pop culture's penchant for nauseating sentimentality in its politicians' message. Obama can say anything, no matter how outrageous, and the 'ladies' of both genders will fall down in adoration. Weird.

The postmodern political landscape, if you will, is defined by political correctness as far as anyone can tell. Every judicial nominee is vetted by the Senate judicial committee, media scrutiny, etc. In recent times Robert Bork was the nearest we've had to an independent thinking nominee who spurned judicial activism as much as he refused to capitulate to political correctness. His "vision" was deemed unacceptable. It seems clear that no president would appoint a judge who couldn't get through the aforementioned gauntlet of scrutiny. Neither Scalia, Thomas, Roberts or Alito are made from the stuff to try to overturn Roe vs. Wade. Nor will any future Court appointees.

The arguments being put forth by James, Aaron, and RK are just pure relativist bunk. There is something called objective truth that we all must strive for. This is particularly important for someone in a judicial role. Certainly we all can have our biases, but the measure of a great judge should be someone capable of overlooking their bias in favor of objective truth and the written law. Obama's litmus test seems to be the exact opposite. Like all liberals, he wants judges who share his bias and will rule accordingly. This requires a personality ruled by their emotions rather than their intellect (code word "heart"). Of course, if one wants to argue that recognizing life to begin at conception, or sodomy to be outside the natural moral order is bias, then that would just simply make you a relativist. Heart is a great word, and we are called by the Church to unite our minds and hearts. But we mustn't be governed by our emotions or our biases. We should be governed by God, and when we are, we can say that we are submitting to objective truth to the best of our abilities.

RK,
I would agree with your last statement, but take issue with your previous characterization of everyone being biased. I don't think Bork was biased, I think he was honest. The conservatives on the court go too far in ruling out the natural moral order. I believe their positions would be characterized as legal positivism, meaning that whatever laws we create are inherently just. They should recognize the natural law above all things, and rule accordingly. But they should leave all matters of prudential judgment to the legislature. The liberals have it backwards. They want no foundational truths to be recognized, and they want judges to have free reign in overriding the legislature on matters that should be decided democratically.

......is a good description of the judicial philosophy of the Court's conservatives. Neoconservatives are their equivalent in the political and foreign policy realms. The ends justify the means for people like McCain, Lieberman, Bush, Perle, etc. Catholics have no friend in either of the major party's candidates. Divinely revealed truth, the natural law, objective morality and other crazy Catholic ideas have long been casualties in the civil-religion swamp of post-christian America.

Well, perhaps Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito are flawed in this sense, but they are much safer judges to have on the bench than the no-nothing, ruled-by-emotion, liberals Obama will appoint. McCain has promised to appoint Conservative judges, and his VP will not be Lieberman. So if you want to call this election about the lesser of two evils, than still the lesser is quite clear.

That would be know-nothing, and I count myself as one quite frequently.

Brian,
Thanks for that. I had previously heard speculation that it might be Chesterton, but that seems to have been ruled out. Churchill sounds like a logical alternative. But if the Churchill Center is claiming no record, perhaps I'll remove the quotes next time and lay claim to it myself. I'll have to work on my spelling before I can pull that off convincingly, however.

James,

You say: "It is impossible for mere humans to be objective or neutral(...)ALL judges are "empathetic," just to different biases."

Your statement--if we are going to take it seriously--invokes and necessitates the existence of objective truth. If human beings are incapable to define certain truths objectively, then: what is the value of your statement compared with something like "All judges are frogs"?

Some examples of the same nonsense:

"There is no objective truth" (except for this one I just exposed, of course)

"All generalizations are bad" (except for mine)

You need to be reminded that Plato solved the problem many centuries ago when he pointed at the difference between "doxa" and "episteme".

For your penance read our beloved Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, on relativism:

http://tinyurl.com/76f3h

You are welcome.

Problems in philosophy do not die or fade away. They get posed differently.

I agree with Thomas Hobbes, who once stated that if gemoetric axioms affected human interests, they would be disputed. I do believe in objective truth - but I believe it is much easier to reach when we are talking about non-political or non-spiritual matters. We have no reason to quarrel over the fact that 1+1=2.

I have prepared an article on this topic for this blog and I hope it will be published soon. Let's try not to forget that the current fad of New Atheism, which is really scientism, which holds that only scientific knowledge is valid, also claims to have found "objective truth" - and that we are all inexcusable fools for rejecting their interpretations of the evidence.

I think James point is perfectly valid; humans will always be biased, and bias will always influence the route we take to arrive at the truth. That doesn't mean that the truth itself does not exist outside of human perceptions. What it does mean is that we would be rational to remain skeptical until we have carefully identified the biases and sorted them out.

Just as the New Atheists ridicule a strawman caricature of religion, some here seem to be ridiculing a strawman caricature of post-modern though. Sure, some of it is ridiculous, but some if it isn't, some of it has valid points to make.

Hobbes was barking at the wrong tree. He did it often.

Plato affirmed that there are two ways to examine a problem: The first from the "doxa", that is to say an opinion based in our own judgment of the situation, that may not be related to reality.

So when two people have a discussion and both express their points of view from the platform of their own opinions, it is unlikely that they will come to an accord because the arguments by themselves are not strong enough to demonstrate something empirically.

The other position is that of the episteme, that is to say knowledge that is directly connected with a verifiable reality. This requires that I subordinate my thoughts to reality. Aristotle, later on added that the perception of truth is the acceptance of reality by the human mind.

The problem here is basically a problem of opposing doxa (is doxau the plural of doxa? Greek anyone?) in which the modern/post-modern world has trapped itself. Hegel said once: "if reality is not how I imagine it... then reality be damned!" (paraphrased). Therefore, in the last few centuries human thought has effectively dissociated itself from reality. We cannot communicate objective truth. We can only inform each other of our opinions. "Knowledge is a deadly friend if no one sets the rules." (Sinfield, Epitaph)

Knowledge puts us in touch with reality and therefore with truth. Those who sincerely seek truth can only enrich themselves when they communicate.

The relation between faith and reason that Catholic thought presents is a case of episteme, that is a knowledge that has God as the real object. It is not a subjective opinion because faith is the response to a revelation that requires faith to be accepted but that is not less real because of that requirement. That reality is, by definition, something humans cannot fully understand but in part. We have it because the grace of God has willed to reveal it to us.

So if the matters of faith are non-negotiable is only because they are true just like any scientifically ascertained fact is true. For example if I say that 2+2=5 that is as wrong as saying that Christ IS NOT the Son of God. Both statements refer to actual realities but the first I know by reasoning and the second I know by divine revelation.

In this, we see that the ways of knowledge are different in nature. I cannot claim that 2+2=5 is true because it was "revealed to me" because it contradicts the reality observable in this realm of the universe.In the same manner I cannot claim the Christ IS NOT the Son of God arguing that "I cannot execute a paternity test on Him" (or some other similar proposition) because that would be absurd. We do not have access to the realm where those truths can be verified. What we know, we do know by divine revelation and not by any observation whatsoever.

I do not mean to initiate a debate on this issue. Good night.

You say you don't want a debate so let's call it a discussion instead :)

What you don't say is why you think Hobbes was wrong. I personally don't think he was wrong at all.

Albert Einstein and Werner Heisenberg were two of the greatest scientists of the 20th century and stood on different sides of the debate in quantum physics. In their own ways they affirmed what Hobbes observed. Einstein, writing on social science, warned us that there were definite limits to what science could contribute to an understanding of purely human matters.

Heisenberg demonstrated that in the act of measuring quantum reality, we affect that reality. Some have reduced Heisenberg's uncertainty principle to a mere problem of the physical instrument used to do the measuring but I think his argument was a little deeper than that. Others argue that his findings cannot be extrapolated to the world of "classical physics", which we encounter in our daily lives. But extrapolated to the social sciences and the humanities in particular, they make perfect sense.

I wonder what the context of your Hegel quote is; I find it hard to believe it was anything other than tongue-in-cheek. Hegel was certainly not some sort of pre-cursor to what we know as post-modern thought today. In fact he is often criticized by postmodernists for being an Enlightenment modernist par excellence.

You write of Christian faith, "It is not a subjective opinion because faith is the response to a revelation that requires faith to be accepted but that is not less real because of that requirement."

Is this not tautology, though? It is because it is. It is not because it is not. Our beliefs are not subjective opinion because they are real, in other words, not subjective opinion. How do we know this? It was revealed to us.

Some might argue that divine revelation is a subjective <i>experience</i>. Yes we have been given the Gospels, the whole of Scripture - but our belief in them is a choice in a way that our belief in 1+1=2 is not a choice. We can say it = 3 but when we go to practically apply mathematics to a real human project we simply will not be able to do it.

Faith is a subjective choice, for many of us who are not born into it or who leave it and come back at a later time, hopefully even for those who are born into it, they consciously choose to stay in it rather than simply plod along without thinking about it.

If by divine revelation we mean the Scripture how is its truth verified? You say in your post "like any scientifically ascertained fact is", but science follows a specific method to arrive at truth; what is your method? It can't be true simply BECAUSE we have faith in it, or simply because it is written on a page.

There is at the end of the day a deep subjective, personal component to religion which cannot be explained or accessed by methods of inquiry aimed at establishing "objectivity", empirical methods, rational methods, etc. I don't see why we ought to be ashamed of this. I am proud of it; it is needed in the face of the onslaught of scientistic and materialistic ideology.

Final note: The question that may trouble some is, what are the logical consequences of a truth claim? That those in error must be dragged, kicking and screaming into the light?

My objective was not to convince you or disprove Hobbes' body of work, Joe. I am afraid the example you mentioned (Einstein v. Heisenberg) only shows that you did not read or did not understand what I wrote (perhaps because English is not my first language and I may not have expressed myself clearly).

I shall explain why your example proves my point.

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is something we cannot observe happening in a lab. As a matter of fact the principle defines the impossibility of observing certain phenomena at quantum level. Schrödinger proposes the now famous 'pussycat in a box' trick to expose the paradox that the imaginary cat could be dead AND alive at the same time- -for those who don't know what I'm talking about, Google Schrödinger's kitty cat or watch Fr. Robert Spitzer's excellent EWTN program on the proofs existence of God.

Quantum physics, and even further, string theory etc. are hard to explore in a lab, no matter how well equipped that lab can be. Even giant particle accelerators can only reveal certain things indirectly by provoking those small sub-atomic cataclysms at random. From those random events, certain phenomena can be inferred but not actually observed in depth (that problem is the very core of Heisenberg uncertainty principle).

Now, having refreshed your memory on the limitations of proofing quantum phenomena in a laboratory let us go back to Plato's epistemic thinking and divine revelation. Replace the divine revelation side in my example with any of the experiments in quantum physics and you will understand my example better.

Applying Plato's episteme in the quantum realm leads us to places where the principle of non-contradiction breaks down. We are faced with paradoxes like that of Schrödinger's cat. Therefore a whole new set of rules has to be constructed to understand creation at the quantum level and perhaps, if we can ever peek that far, we will have to create another set of rules to understand creation at the levels proposed by string theory.

The same applies to those truths we know by divine revelation. Those truths belong to a different realm just like the quantum realm it has different rules and you cannot apply the proofing methods of one realm to another.

In Physics we have to deal with at least to methods these days: one to measure and explore the very large and other for the very small. We simply ignore why Relativity breaks down at the quantum level. If you can figure that out, there's a sure Nobel prize for you. But "extrapolating" methods from one side to the other is not going to get you anywhere. It is simply nonsense to claim that, for example, black holes cannot exist because Relativity breaks down at quantum levels. I can use Relativity to predict events in the "large" part of the universe but the same is useless at quantum level. Yet, it is useful to predict what happens in a black hole. See the problem? If you know Physics and you are not copying and pasting stuff you don't know nothing about, you will understand what I am saying.

Yet there is that strange phrase of St. Paul in Ephesians 2:6 "[God] raised us up with him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly realm..." In the original Greek one is left with the impression that "we" (as St. Paul puts it) are here and there at the same time. The same seems to happen when we try to understand all the paradoxes generated by the ὑπόστασις, "hypostasis" or hypostatic union.

I apologize for the long comment that surely includes a lot of bad grammar.

First of all, you were quite clear in your original post. I wanted to bring in a new topic, as well as address some of the points you made. The talk about physics wasn't meant to be any sort of direct reply to anything you wrote. The last few paragraphs were though, and you didn't respond to those.

You don't HAVE to say why you think Hobbes is wrong, but I would like to know why, as an act of courtesy, if you don't mind.

I think you took my introduction of the physicists further than I intended. I'm not a physicist, btw, just someone who is interested in the philosophy of physics, so I've read for instance Heisenberg "Physics and Philosophy" but I've not taken a physics class. If that means you don't take me seriously, so be it.

You've done something I'm not sure I accept - a comparison of the quantum level with the spiritual realm. The uncertainty principle simply raises the problem of measuring it accurately. It does not require an act of faith in electrons and quarks.

My only point is that the uncertainty principle has a way of working in the social sciences as well (if you read my paragraph on it again, that is all I was trying to say), and any other discipline directly related to "human interest"; the "human instrument" is flawed and changes the social or even the intellectual reality it observes in various disciplines.

Everyone likes to fancy themselves an objective observer of events, everyone likes to think that they assimilate all of the relevant data before making an informed decision, and I am simply saying that the vast majority of the time, even among supposedly educated and well-read people, even among scientists themselves, this is false. And sometimes it is false because otherwise well-meaning people don't even realize how THEY change the realities they observe and analyze. Most of the time it is because of "human interest", directly or indirectly.

Now, what about the rest of my post? What is your method for arriving at truth, especially spiritual truth? I believe it needs to be experienced; I don't believe it can be rationalized intellectually and "proven" objectively, though I understand why many personality types have a deep need to do so.

If something happens to me, an extraordinary event - like coming to know that God exists - it isn't false simply because I may be the only one who believes it to be true. The only problem it presents is that I still need to have secular arguments for policies that I think reflect the will of God.

OK Joe. Here you say:
And sometimes it is false because otherwise well-meaning people don't even realize how THEY change the realities they observe and analyze. Most of the time it is because of "human interest", directly or indirectly.

I don't have time to teach Philosophy for free. Suffice to say that the preceding quote is nonsense. Why? Because no one can "change" any observed reality. That is crock. We may misinterpret, we may distort but there is always something that is ultimately objective and verifiable within the confines of our knowledge. To apply the rules of our realm to realities beyond that confine is simply a mistake. You seem to confuse perception, interpretation and knowledge.

May I refer you to "The Abolition of Man"? I strongly recommend that you read it (again, if you already have).

Of course I compare the spiritual and the quantum realms! And it takes more than faith to believe say, in String Theory and some of the fringe assertions of quantum physicists. but, again, you are not into physics: you simply dropped the names of two physicists. I understand now.

I must go. You have the last word. I'm sorry I do not have the time comment on the rest of your writing. C. S. Lewis answers you in "The Abolition of Man". But you have to do some thinking.

Cheers

If anyone wishes to revisit C.S. Lewis prophetic work, it can be found here (almost complete):

http://tinyurl.com/5mec2f

Nothing I can say will prevent some people from describing this lecture as an attack on science. I deny the charge, of course: and real Natural Philosophers (there are some now alive) will perceive that in defending value I defend inter alia the value of knowledge, which must die like every other when its roots in the Tao are cut. But I can go further than that. I even suggest that from Science herself the cure might come.

C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

Carlos,

I didn't start this discussion to pick a fight, and I find your attitude most uncharitable.

First of all, strictly speaking, we can and do change reality every second of every day. That is a truism and should go without saying.

Secondly, maybe you should go back and take some basic methodology courses before suggesting that you should be paid to teach philosophy; it is a well known problem of scientific observation that the observer CAN change the reality he observes, especially when he or she is observing human beings who know they are being observed. Have you ever heard of the Hawthorne effect?

I didn't "drop names" in an effort to fool anyone into thinking I knew anything about physics (why would I admit that I haven't studied physics!?) - I had a specific reason for bringing them up and it isn't my fault if you're too dense to grasp that reason.

I suggest you do some thinking about the way you conduct yourself in an exchange. Nothing I said could have possibly been interpreted as hostile or unfriendly. I'll accept your apology whenever you're ready to give it.

Joe,

Uncharitable, arrogant? Well... I'm sorry. May be you are pissed off because you cannot pontificate your liberal ignorance against the facts. Since dropping names and concatenating blah-blah did not work... we resort to the ad-hominem. Nothing new there, Obama.

Do me a favor. To prove your assertion (that you can change reality): change the orbit of Mars or the number of electrons in a Uranium atom. Make it a "choice" to die or to survive of a blunt 300 kg. hit on the unprotected head.

Any of those will convince me.

Change "reality" and prove there is no episteme only doxa. That is, by the way, what you are trying to prove.
Then we can burn Plato's books and listen to you in rapture.

Cheers!

Alright guys, let's all take a breath. Contentious issues tend to get contentious, but I think we can do better.

At the end of the day, we're just a few Catholics talking on the Internet. If we can't be civil with one another, what hope does anyone else have?

I'm going to use nicer language than my instincts would like.

I didn't start the attacks, Carlos. You called my point "nonsense" and contemptuously dismissed everything else I wrote around it. You were incredibly rude and condescending, with your "I don't have time to teach philosophy for free" comment.

I never suggested that we humans had God-like powers to change any reality we wanted; either you made a straw-man caricature of my point, or basic logic failed you and you made the leap from "observer changes reality" to "any observer can change any reality in any way" - things you would have been trained not to do in any philosophy program. At the least you could have asked me for clarification before you decided to condescend to me.

All I suggested was that in observing reality, we can change it, and I referenced a well-known study that had that as one of its unintended findings. It is an example of the uncertainty principle at work in the social sciences. It doesn't mean we can willfully change whatever we want; the study refers to observation of human activity, and the impact that expectations can have upon performance. It has also been shown, for instance, that students perform better when they are expected to perform better. Thus even measuring academic performance could have an impact on that performance, even if it were unintended.

People wonder why political and intellectual discourse in this country is so low, why the average citizen is ill-informed and turned off from the serious issues of our time, why we can't seem to come together and try to solve our common problems when they are so pressing and urgent. This is why. Your attitude is why. You're a part of the problem right now, and I urge you to try and become part of the solution. That's why I'm "pissed off".

Do you even know what it means to make an ad homoinem attack? It means to suggest that your argument is invalid due to some personal problem or failing. I certainly never did that to you, I don't know anything about you and never pretended to.

But you did it to me, assuming that I am some sort of Obama-loving liberal.

I'm not.

Anyone who has paid you to teach philosophy would do well to ask for a refund.

It is "ad hominem" and you did not respond to my argument, You just said that I ("hominem Carolos") was uncharitable and arrogant. Your initial pontification is what is, not only ignorant but uncharitable, because it misleads the simple.

You sound like Obama to me. Long on words, short on substance. I am glad you won't vote for him. No one has paid me to teach Philosophy but may be you should consider paying for someone to teach you a bit. At least the basic principles. I do not say this in anger.

You seem to have your own musings in great esteem. And it shows. When you call me arrogant and uncharitable, you are only projecting your frustration. That frustration comes from your inability to form coherent statements that can impress people.

First you say reality can be changed, you say that is a truism, something evident by itself. Really? Well, if that is true you should go to the newspapers and present your thesis so we can ditch Plato and Aristotle once and for all. When challenged you say that you did not mean to say that reality but some other. Well... what is it that you are trying to say? I am struggling here with a foreign language and an old brain. You are likely to be younger and in full command of American English.

What reality Joe? What are you talking about? Could you please express yourself clearly?

Going back to the theme: We need judges that can assess a judicial problem impartially. Human impartiality is possible when knowledge and reason informed by truth come together in an intelligent, coherent manner. There is no such thing as "it's your thing, do what you wanna do." Just laws are not mere opinion open to interpretation. We need formed jurists and not romantics.

I don't know how you are reading this but I am certainly not writing it in anger.

Cheers

This entire site is the best example of why we need separation of church and state.

The use of the "liberal" label, code words and all the rest of pseudo-intellectual sniping has gone nowhere, except terse exchanges between Joe and Carlos, and a headache.

Go to bed.

I called you arrogant and uncharitable because I do understand the meaning of words. And I don't believe for a second that your supposed lack of familiarity with the English language somehow makes you ignorant of the meaning of the words you choose.

You took an isolated part of my argument and called it "nonsense." How should one react to that? Should I have thanked you for calling my opinion "nonsense", when what you should have done, if you were being charitable, was simply to try and understand where I was coming from and state your criticisms in a respectful manner?

What does the word charity mean to you, Carlos? Can you honestly use it to describe the way you addressed me in post #24? I'm going to ask you to think about that.

I don't get angry about ideas - I get angry about attitudes. There is a big difference. There is nothing I appreciate more and nothing less likely to make me angry than an idea simply stated, an argument simply made, a criticism simply presented. You could have done that.

I took the time to make thoughtful replies to every one of your points, and you could barely take the time to address mine. You use the excuse that you don't have the time - yet it appears you have the time to engage in this tit-for-tat distraction from the original topic.

As for my ability to form coherent statements, I have written, and have been asked to write more, for this very site precisely because I can make a coherent argument. And I don't doubt your ability to do so either. But you are right about one thing, I am most certainly frustrated - because I showed you nothing but respect and you spat in my face. Yes, that sort of thing tends to frustrate me.

"Reality" encompasses a great many things, Carlos. I was pretty clear in my original posts that I was talking about specific realities that can be changed in the act of observation, both at the quantum level and at the level of social research. That does not mean - and I assumed that no intelligent human being would ever take it to mean - that anything can be changed by simply thinking about it differently. It is just as self-evident that we do not have unlimited powers to alter reality, as it is that we do have limited powers to alter certain realities we observe. Your criticism at this point resolves itself into nitpicking and hairsplitting for its own sake.

As quickly as I am angered by these ridiculous distractions and condensing remarks, I am willing to forget about them if the focus can return to the issue at hand.

Regarding your last paragraph, and I don't write these words in anger either, knowledge and reason are never enough - two people can know the same things, and reason in the same manner, and yet begin from two very different sets of values, of moral priorities.

Reason, logic, knowledge - these are means to a given end, but they are not ends in themselves. The differences between good and evil cannot be reduced to differences in knowledge, reason, or logic. Evil relies on knowledge; evil reasons; evil utilizes logic. Good or evil are a choices dependent upon our free will, which is ultimately arbitrary.

Christians are called to love one another and to love God; good is what fosters this love, evil is what destroys it. But we choose whether or not to love, and if love is imposed upon people as some sort of "objective" truth in the same way that the Earth's orbit around the Sun is, then it loses its meaning and significance. It becomes another quantifiable fact to be cataloged and recorded. It is meaningful because it is subjective, because it is chosen, not forced upon us by the iron dictates of a logical argument. We needed a Nietzsche to remind us of that. In Christianity's greatest critic I believe we find an even greater reason to embrace its doctrines.

I also happen to believe that this moral law is objectively true, but I don't pretend that it is anything more than my belief. I am very skeptical of the claim that in matters of morality or spirituality or even a subject like economics that there is one chain of logic that any person using their reason can follow to arrive at the "correct" conclusion. This is one of the big claims of the Enlightenment and I think one of its most naive and arrogant suppositions. To me faith is a battle, a constant struggle, that each person must fight in their own way.

When you speak of knowledge, I have to ask, what knowledge? The so-called experts cannot agree upon what is true, and everyone has a personal interest which colors not only their interpretation of the knowledge, but even their assembly of it for dissemination to others. Ultimately we have only a distorted picture, at best, of reality and even of our own perceptions.

Now, you can dismiss all of this as mere words, or you can listen to what I am saying. I'm not trying to drown a simple point in a deluge of rhetoric, but trying to get to the bottom of a complicated matter. If you don't appreciate it, just don't respond. You don't have to belittle me. These aren't trivial matters to me. And when I take something seriously I put time into it.

I don't insist that you agree with me, or even that you like what I have to say. I only insist that you show some respect or walk away. Is that SO much to ask?

Joe,

Take it easy Joe. Make believe I am Bill O'Reilly. I am one of those testosterone men of yore. I am frustrated to no end by people who play fast and loose with definitions.

Someone said a few days ago in this venue "I am an Irish Catholic and I have studied in Catholic schools" (paraphrased). Apparently that was supposed to establish the authority of that person to justify abortion. Sure, that is civil discourse! Sure that's not "arrogant", ha! So, since I am not Irish, I am wrong (that's the implication).

If anything in this comment is offending, be assured it was not my intention to offend. I am all for civic discourse but let us start by not patronizing, like many of you do here, including some writers. There are many of us darkies that can teach you a thing or two even when we are not "Irish" and have not attended "Catholic schools" (laugh!) That is my "bigoted" commentary of today.

Your question: When you speak of knowledge, I have to ask, what knowledge?

Take any well established fact that admits not an alternative. Like the laws of thermodynamics, or the boiling temperature of water at sea level. In the realm where we exist there are many definite things that are not "open to interpretation". They are nearly absolute, like the speed of light.

That is what Plato called episteme (the way of knowledge as opposed to the way of opinion). We can be like Hegel ("If reality is not what I think, then reality be damned") or like Aristotle ("Truth is the acceptance of reality by the human mind"). It is obvious to me that the Greek is in better shape. Schelling, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer agree with me in that. Nearly all philosophers have been wrong on something: Hegel is wrong on that. Einstein was wrong too, Heisenberg was right.

The problem you express: Ultimately we have only a distorted picture, at best, of reality and even of our own perceptions. is classic. In fact, that is the theme of Plato's "Republic". But we cannot toss reason overboard and start proposing emotional behavior as the norm. That is the twisted road that leads to having "compassion" on the aborting mother and mercilessly kill the baby, like the would-be Obama appointees are sure to do. We are so screwed up that we have US Senators saying "compassion" when they mean "murder".

I still beg you to read Lewis' "Abolition of Man". It is not arrogant to ask you that, I hope. And he is Irish, that would make that lady happy, I suppose.

One of the biggest problems we have in America today is a serious lack of leadership in the Presidency and Congress. They fail to realize they have as much of a right and a duty to evaluate actions of the other branches on constitutionality as the courts. The problem therefore it not just who is put on the bench but who is in congress and who is in the white house.

Our courts today make unconstitutional decisions like Roe Vs. Wade and recently granting US Constitutional Protections to non-citizens and instead of our congress and our President standing up to them and saying, “I am not bound by unconstitutional rulings from the court,” they publicly declare they will abide by these unlawful rulings. That is a problem few will discuss and even fewer understand.

It is a serious issue today that people actually believe our court is the final say, the last arbiter of all things and therefore the unelected rulers of our land. This is NOT how the founders intended our country to be run with 9 unelected fools appointed for life to have final say over what is and is not law in this country. The men and women on the Supreme Court are not direct representatives of the people, not responsible to anyone and therefore not the right place for the kinds of decisions they are being allowed to impose on all of us to take place.

That is the problem with the article and most of the responses here, it assumes our President and our Congress do NOT have equal power to evaluate the constitutionality of laws and it assumes therefore that the court passes laws when that is only true if the cowards in leadership let it be.

Darwyn,

You summarized that well. Electing incompetents has not helped us. There is however a more serious failure: our Constitution was meant to be a contract between moral people that believes in God.
Once the supporting beam of religion gives way, there is no amount of legislation that can keep society together. See this article here, believe me it is worth reading it, although the author is not a scholar, he is still right.

http://tinyurl.com/5n52mt

I just want this to be as straightforward as possible.

You state, in response to my question, "what knowledge"?

"Take any well established fact that admits not an alternative. Like the laws of thermodynamics, or the boiling temperature of water at sea level. In the realm where we exist there are many definite things that are not "open to interpretation". They are nearly absolute, like the speed of light."

Now these are all very interesting examples, but you were originally speaking of moral knowledge, of knowledge of what is just, knowledge that a judge could and should have, knowledge our lawmakers could and should have.

If your argument is that there is no substantial difference between the laws of thermodynamics and morality, then I'm going to have to challenge that. There is a definite scientific method that is used to establish the boiling temperature of water or any number of scientific hypotheses. There is no such method for determining moral truth.

Morality cannot be measured because our souls cannot be measured - morality is a free choice, and freedom, I should say spirit, obeys completely different laws than matter. We can define good and then develop a logical, rational method to attain good - but this definition will always be arbitrary, always based upon unfalsifiable, empirically unverifiable assumptions.

That is the problem with freedom - it simply won't subordinate itself to determinism, to the chain of cause and effect that governs material processes. Meanwhile freedom and the individual soul are the best arguments for the existence of God.

You keep bringing up Plato and Aristotle, and there are problems with this approach. It isn't enough to simply declare that there is "doxa" and "epistime" - I mean, seriously, every educated person knows the difference between opinions and facts, between subjectivity and objectivity. It isn't enough to say that we ought to subordinate our minds to reality; the problem is, how do you know what is real?

The danger is that some people truly, honestly, in their hearts believe that they ARE "subordinating their minds to reality" when they are not. So they are really using "doxa" when they think (not just claim to be in a lie, but really, really believe) they are using epistime.

I see it all the time. People create ideological or methodological boxes for themselves, sometimes over a long period of time, and they can't get out of them. Everything they do becomes subordinated to the ideology, and they don't even know it! Yet they may wear a white lab coat or have an office in a university; they may be employed by a prestigious think tank or be the editor of a national magazine - and therefore they are presumed to know what they are talking about. They may be responsible for shaping the realities of millions of people who rely on their output for their understanding of the world.

I would rather say that my positions follow from my values, my freely chosen, subjective values, and you can either agree with them or not, and if you do lets work together and realize them and if you don't let's try to work out our differences in a civil manner. Of course I feel that it is important to have data and evidence to give my positions substance, but I also recognize that others have data and statistics too - how the relevance of different data is weighed and ranked is going to vary from person to person.

Hence my problem with Obama and most po-mos is not that they are skeptical of truth claims but because they too are in an iron ideological cage that causes them to irrationally oppose traditional morality, even when that morality is obviously good for the health and well-being of society and individual souls.

And I will repeat, once again, that I do not think that Hegel really believed "reality be damned" - I think in fact he was ridiculing people who actually believed that. I would like to know where Hegel allegedly argued this, so I can see for myself. I haven't read all of his work unfortunately, but I have read enough of it that I have some doubts about this claim.

Finally, I just wanted to address you abortion example. As you say, "compassion for the mother" who wants to kill her child is morally disordered. And I wouldn't be pro-life if I didn't think abortion should be against the law.

But do you really believe that reason is going to settle this debate? That the other side is going to listen to our reasons, when they are pretty well convinced of their own? Reason didn't prevail in the debate over slavery - armed struggle determined the outcome of that question. Reason is not a panacea; it is a tool with definite limits and should not be uncritically worshiped.

We have to admit that the value we place on every human life is again, something freely chosen - I don't believe it is a logical conclusion that is imposed our reason, but something we can accept or reject depending on the value we place on human life.

It is popular for instance in the debates with the New Atheists to make the point that respect for human life is a Christian value, that it was introduced to the world by Christianity (Dinesh D'souza makes this point in his debates with Hitchens and Shermer). I agree with this. But that also means that isn't some logical deduction; it is a change in human thinking inspired by the example of Christ, which people chose to follow because it touched their hearts and souls as well as their minds. If we identify the change in the mind alone, (they saw so they must have believed, i.e. used their reason), then it is reduced to a rational calculation unworthy of love.

Related to that is the use of reasons and evidence. American society as a whole, whether there was an Internet or not, is very sophistic, and encountering an argument based upon logic, reason and evidence blows most Americans' minds, so they react in anger.

Written by JC on a different post.

Read "The Abolition of Man", Joe. Seriously and I say this very charitably with cotton puffy clouds and rosy hearts all over the place.

Joe,

Thank you for taking the time to write all of those responses. They are sophistic, to use JC's words. I don't have space to answer here but I will do in my own website. I must admit that you dispense crock at a speed and volume unseen even in this place.

Charitably, goodie-two-shoey, sweetly and compassionately said with violins and sweet roses.

I issued a warning, and now unfortunately a ban.

I don't know what happened or what went wrong. I'm sorry to see someone get banned.

But still, Carlos, if you're reading this, why would you want to take the debate somewhere else? Am I going to get a chance to defend my views or am I going to be tried and convicted on your blog in absentia?

Republican presidents, as a rule, tend to appoint judges who are constitutionalists. This is yet another critical reason to vote for John McCain this November.
The main criterion for all judges, but expecially a Supreme Court judge, is that he/she be an impartial arbitrator. One who makes decisions based on the rule of law as set forth in our constitution -not one who judges according to a particular bias.
Our constitution is not a living, changing document, as many claim according to their own individual prejudices. The constitution is a static overning document that sets forth the rule of law by which America is governed. Those judges who are charged with interpretintg the constitution are ogbliged to do so within the confines of the constitution. Impartial arbritation, based on the constitution and not on personal biases, insures justice for all and prohibits the judicial branch of our government from 'making laws from the bench'.
A three-segment government offers a check and balance protection for the governed - judicial, legislative, executive. If one branch usurps the duties of another branch the protection of the governed is violated. That is why judges must not be permitted to judge according to their 'heart' but must judge according to the law of the land.