Liberal Lesson of the Day...

[eyer]

...and when I post Liberal, I actually mean "liberal" in its natural and classical political sense (a political concept both progressives and conservatives can't seem to inherently comprehend).

Today seems to be an apt day to launch this thread, since it is written that liberation from death itself was eternally achieved by the mother of all Liberals on this traditionally celebrated day...

...I know, I know: progressives love to associate the Nazarene with their own statist ideals by tagging him a socialist; but the fact of the matter is, again, as it is written, his entire purpose was/is to redeem mankind onto God, and there is no such spiritual thing as social/collective salvation - it's all individual.

Thus, as the Word implies, individual liberty from God's wholesale sentence of death on mankind is gained when that individual honestly chooses to nail himself to the Cross, too, and his old, sinful self dies and is buried, and then is resurrected - on this, the third day - by the power of God into "a new creature", instilled with the Spirit of God himself.

Such a "born again" individual lives then bound by "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God", and no longer is subject to the arbitrary, subjective laws of man...

I know, I know: the panties of you statists - progressives and conservatives, alike - just got all twisted-up upon reading that, that some dare believe they are above the laws of man, that championing individual liberty is fine, but as soon as that token notion begins threatening to start pulling a thread of the collective security/comfort blanket then that bullcrap must be stopped...

...exactly like the Nazarene had to be stopped.

Reverence for individual liberty naturally includes the same reverence for every individual's liberty - liberty that is the natural blessing of God, not the granted privilege of any man or government or group or majority or mob. And it is that godly reverence for liberty that tempers each individuals' actions in this world as they live above man's laws...

...eg, let's take a mundane issue like drunk driving: as an individual who cherishes individual liberty literally more than anything else on this entire planet, I cannot even bear the thought of depriving another individual of their equal liberty by affecting their life in any way because of friggin' alcohol - especially the absolutely senseless, and many times deadly, act of driving drunk.

(Keep in mind about half of all automobile-related deaths involve alcohol; then think of all the problems caused in this life fueled by alcohol, crimes covering virtually every nature, with alcohol almost always involved - like domestic violence...but, back to just drunk driving.)

This world is full of ordinary men who also think (or least say) driving drunk shouldn't be tolerated. This world is also full of man-made laws which command drunk driving will not be tolerated...

...yet, folks all over the world are being killed right now because men and their laws have absolutely no power whatsoever to prevent free man's God-given liberty to do whatever he wants - despite what he may "think" or "say" or whatever laws he may enact.

It has been said that earthly issuance of God's laws is simply to prove to/show man that he was born a lawbreaker, and that an individual whose heart naturally longs for the righteousness of God's truths needs more than himself to appeal to in order to follow them; ie, post a sign that reads Don't Walk on the Grass and individual man will always walk on the grass just because he's lawbreaking man and God gives him the liberty to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants.

Why does God give us such universal liberty?

Because without being completely free to make our own decisions - no matter the consequences - we can never make the true decision that we want a relationship with him above all else. Do you prefer a person to "love" you for the things you provide, or do you only want the love of an individual who wants you just as much as you want them - freely?

When an individual realizes that the only hope for true goodness can only be found outside of lawbreaking/lawenacting man, then s/he opens his/her heart up to the spiritual power of God's greatest political gift to man:

Self-government.

Self-government is only - naturally - available to those individuals who 1) believe in the Creator, and 2) inherently understand that, alone, they are no different than any other godless man. With those two conditions met, then the individual is able to begin understanding that by revering "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God", man's laws are totally inferior...

...thus, a believer is wholly saved from the Supreme law, death, and spends the balance of his worldly existence above the laws of man.

I live above man-made laws regarding drunk driving because I cherish the individual liberty God blessed me with so much so that I don't drink - PERIOD...

...thus, man's laws regarding drunk driving do not apply to me because I revere God's love for his own creation and, in turn, he allows me the power to live that truth - man be damned.

Sorry for all that (in a way ) if you found it all incoincidental...

...but I believe Andrew P. Napolitano to be one of the few political philosophers I've ever read who actually understand the gist of natural law - modern time and/or classical - and the following Liberal Lesson of the Day is authored by him; in fact, I'm listing 2 pieces by the Judge because both are totally relevant to my individual liberty way of thought on the respective political issues:

 

[eyer]

Immigration and Freedom

By Judge Andrew P. Napolitano
Published January 31, 2013

As President Obama and Congress grapple for prominence in the debate over immigration, both have lost sight of the true nature of the issue at hand.

The issue the politicians and bureaucrats would rather avoid is the natural law. The natural law is a term used to refer to human rights that all persons possess by virtue of our humanity. These rights encompass areas of human behavior where individuals are sovereign and thus need no permission from the government before making choices in those areas. Truly, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, only God is sovereign -- meaning He is the source of His own power.

Having received freedom from our Creator and, in America, thanks to the values embraced by most of the Founding Fathers, individuals are sovereign with respect to our natural rights. St. Thomas Aquinas taught that our sovereignty is a part of our human nature, and our humanity is a gift from God. In 1776, Thomas Jefferson himself recognized personal sovereignty in the Declaration of Independence when he wrote about Nature’s God as the Creator and thus the originator of our inalienable human rights.

The rights that Jefferson identified consist of the well-known litany of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. By the time his ideological soul mate James Madison was serving as the scrivener at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, the list of natural rights had been expanded to include those now encompassed by the Bill of Rights. Yet again, the authors of the Constitution and its first 10 amendments recognized that the rights being insulated from government interference had their origin in a source other than the government.

This view of the natural law is sweet to the heart and pleasing to the ear when politicians praise it at patriotic events, but it is also a bane to them when it restrains their exercise of the coercive powers of the government. Thus, since the freedom of speech, the development of personality, the right to worship or not to worship, the right to use technologically contemporary means for self-defense, the right to be left alone, and the right to own and use property all stem from our humanity, the government simply is without authority to regulate human behavior in these areas, no matter what powers it purports to give to itself and no matter what crises may occur. Among the rights in this category is the freedom of movement, which today is called the right to travel.

The right to travel is an individual personal human right, long recognized under the natural law as immune from governmental interference. Of course, governments have been interfering with this right for millennia. The Romans restricted the travel of Jews; Parliament restricted the travel of serfs; Congress restricted the travel of slaves; and starting in the late 19th century, the federal government has restricted the travel of non-Americans who want to come here and even the travel of those already here. All of these abominable restrictions of the right to travel are based not on any culpability of individuals, but rather on membership in the groups to which persons have belonged from birth.

The initial reasons for these immigration restrictions involved the different appearance and culture of those seeking to come here and the nativism of those running the government here. Somehow, the people who ran the government believed that they who were born here were superior persons and more worthy of American-style freedoms than those who sought to come here. This extols nativism.

Nativism is the arch-enemy of the freedom to travel, as its adherents believe they can use the coercive power of the government to impair the freedom of travel of persons who are unwanted not because of personal behavior, but solely on the basis of where they were born. Nativism teaches that we lack natural rights and enjoy only those rights the government permits us to exercise.

Yet, the freedom to travel is a fundamental natural right. This is not a novel view. In addition to Aquinas and Jefferson, it has been embraced by St. Augustine, John Locke, Thomas Paine, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Pope John Paul II and Justice Clarence Thomas. Our fundamental human rights are not conditioned or even conditionable on the laws or traditions of the place where our mothers were physically located when we were born. They are not attenuated because our mothers were not in the United States at the moment of our births. Stated differently, we all possess natural rights, no more and no less than any others. All humans have the full panoply of freedom of choice in areas of personal behavior protected from governmental interference by the natural law, no matter where they were born.

Americans are not possessed of more natural rights than non-Americans; rather, we enjoy more opportunities to exercise those rights because the government is theoretically restrained by the Constitution, which explicitly recognizes the natural law. That recognition is articulated in the Ninth Amendment, which declares that the enumeration of certain rights in the Constitution shall not be used by the government as an excuse to deny or disparage other unnamed and unnamable rights retained by the people.

So, if I want to invite my cousins from Florence, Italy, to come here and live in my house and work on my farm in New Jersey, or if a multinational corporation wants the best engineers from India to work in its labs in Texas, or if my neighbor wants a friend of a friend from Mexico City to come here to work in his shop, we have the natural right to ask, they have the natural right to come here, and the government has no moral right to interfere with any of these freely made decisions.

If the government can restrain the freedom to travel on the basis of an immutable characteristic of birth, there is no limit to the restraints it can impose.

Copyright © 2013 Judge Andrew P. Napolitano

 

[eyer]

No More Asking for Permission To Speak

by Andrew Napolitano

In 1798, when John Adams was president of the United States, the feds enacted four pieces of legislation called the Alien and Sedition Acts. One of these laws made it a federal crime to publish any false, scandalous or malicious writing — even if true — about the president or the federal government, notwithstanding the guarantee of free speech in the First Amendment.

The feds used these laws to torment their adversaries in the press and even successfully prosecuted a congressman who heavily criticized the president. Then-Vice President Thomas Jefferson vowed that if he became president, these abominable laws would expire. He did, and they did, but this became a lesson for future generations: The guarantees of personal freedom in the Constitution are only as valuable and reliable as is the fidelity to the Constitution of those to whom we have entrusted it for safekeeping.

We have entrusted the Constitution to all three branches of the federal government for safekeeping. But typically, they fail to do so. Presidents have repeatedly assaulted the freedom of speech many times throughout our history, and Congresses have looked the other way. Abraham Lincoln arrested Northerners who challenged the Civil War. Woodrow Wilson arrested Americans who challenged World War I. FDR arrested Americans he thought might not support World War II. LBJ and Richard Nixon used the FBI to harass hundreds whose anti-Vietnam protests frustrated them.

In our own post 9/11 era, the chief instrument of repression of personal freedom has been the government’s signature anti-terror legislation: the Patriot Act. It was born in secrecy, as members of the House of Representatives were given 15 minutes to read its 300 pages before voting on it in October 2001, and it operates in silence, as those who suffer under it cannot speak about it.

The Patriot Act permits FBI agents to write their own search warrants and gives those warrants the patriotic and harmless-sounding name of national security letters (NSLs). This authorization is in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which says that the people shall be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects from unreasonable searches and seizures, and that that security can only be violated by a search warrant issued by a neutral judge and based upon probable cause of crime.

The probable cause requirement compels the feds to acquire evidence of criminal behavior about the person whose records they seek, so as to prevent politically motivated invasions of privacy and fishing expeditions like those that were common in the colonial era. Judges are free, of course, to sign the requested warrant, to modify it and sign it, or to reject it if it lacks the underlying probable cause.

The very concept of a search warrant authorized by law enforcement and not by the courts is directly and profoundly antithetical to the Constitution — no matter what the warrant is called.

Yet, that’s what Congress and President Bush made lawful when they gave us the Patriot Act.

When FBI agents serve the warrants they’ve written for themselves — the NSLs as they call them — they tell the recipient of the warrant that he or she will commit a felony if he or she tells anyone — a lawyer, a judge, a spouse, a priest in confessional — of the receipt of the warrant. The NSLs are typically not served on the person whose records the FBI wants; rather, they are served on the custodians of those records, such as computer servers, the Post Office, hospitals, banks, delivery services, telephone providers, etc.

Because of the Patriot Act’s mandated silence, the person whose records the FBI seeks often never knows his or her records have been seized. Since October 2001, FBI agents and other federal agents have served more than 350,000 search warrants with which they have authorized themselves to conduct a search. Each time they have done so, they have warned the recipient of the warrant to remain silent or be prosecuted for telling the truth about the government.

Occasionally, recipients have not remained silent. They have understood their natural and constitutionally protected right to the freedom of speech and their moral and fiduciary duty to their customer or client, and they have moved in federal court either to suppress the warrant or for the right to tell the customer or client whose records are being sought that the FBI has come calling. Isn’t that odd in America — asking a judge for permission to tell the truth about the government?

What’s even more odd is that the same section of the Patriot Act that criminalizes speaking freely about the receipt of an agent-written search warrant also authorizes the FBI to give the recipient of the warrant permission to speak about it. How un-American is that — asking the FBI for permission to tell the truth about the government?

Recently in San Francisco, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston held that the section of the Patriot Act that prohibits telling anyone about the receipt of an FBI agent-written search warrant and the section that requires asking and receiving the permission of the FBI before talking about the receipt of one profoundly and directly infringe upon the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment. And the government knows that.

We all know that the whole purpose of the First Amendment is to encourage open, wide, robust debate about and transparency from the government. Our right to exercise the freedom of speech comes from our humanity, not from the government. The Constitution recognizes that we can only lose that right by consent or after a jury trial that results in conviction and incarceration.

But we can also lose it by the tyranny of the majority, as Congress and the president in 1798 and 2001 have demonstrated.

Copyright © 2013 Andrew P. Napolitano

 

[IndieSnob]

Bwhahahaha!

Oh, that's fucking rich. Calling Napolitano a political philosopher.

Thanks, I needed a good laugh.

 

[eyer]

Thanks for the input, doughboy.

 

[Sean Renaud]

I just find it funny that someone thinks manmade laws have no control over the free will man was "given".

 

[KingOrfeo]

The Romans were the masters
When Jesus walked the land
In Judea and in Galilee
They ruled with an iron hand
The poor were sick with hunger
And the rich were clothed in splendour
And the rebels, whipped and crucified
Hung rotting as a warning
And Jesus knew the answer -
"Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's"
Said, "Love your enemies"
But Judas was a Zealot and he
Wanted to be free
"Resist", he said, "the Romans' tyranny"

CHORUS: So stand up, stand up for Judas
And the cause that Judas served
It was Jesus who betrayed the poor with his word

Now Jesus was a conjuror,
Miracles were his game
He fed the hungry thousands
And they glorified his name
He cured the lame and leper
He calmed the wind and the weather
And the wretched flocked to touch him
So their troubles would be taken
And Jesus knew the answer -
"All you who labour, all you who suffer
Only believe in me"
But Judas sought a world where no-one
Starved or begged for bread
"The poor are always with us", Jesus said

Now Jesus sowed division
Where none had been before
Not the slave against the master
But the poor against the poor
Caused son to rise up against father
And brother to fight against brother
For "He that is not with me
Is against me" was his teaching
Said Jesus, "I am the answer
You unbelievers shall burn forever
Shall die in your sins"
"Not sheep or goats" said Judas but
"Together we may dare
Shake off the chains of tyranny we share"

Jesus stood upon the mountain
With a distance in his eyes
"I am the Way, the Life" he cried
"The Light that never dies
So renounce all earthly treasures
And pray to your heavenly father"
And he pacified the hopeless
With the hope of life eternal
Said Jesus, "I am the answer
And you who hunger only remember
Your reward's in heaven"
So Jesus preached the other world
But Judas wanted this
And he betrayed his master with a kiss

By sword and gun and crucifix
Christ's gospel has been spread
And two thousand cruel years have shown
The way that Jesus led
The heretics burned and tortured
And the butchering bloody Crusaders
The bombs and rockets sanctified
That rain down death from heaven
They followed Jesus, they knew the answer
All unbelievers must be believers
Or else be broken
"So place no trust in saviours"
Judas said, "for everyone
Must be to his or her own self a sun"

-- Leon Rosselson

 

[fgarvb1]

I just find it funny that someone thinks manmade laws have no control over the free will man was "given".

Never met an "outlaw" who deep down didn't think so.