Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Speech of Janice Rogers Brown
AssociateJustice, California Supreme Court
The Federalist Society
University of Chicago LawSchool
...we are living in a world where words have lost their meaning. Suffice it to say that this phenomenon accounts for much of the near hysterical tone of current political discourse. Our problems, however, seem to go even deeper. It is not simply that the same words don’t have the same meanings; in our lifetime, words are ceasing to have any meaning. The culture of the word is being extinguished by the culture of the camera.
...It is my thesis today that the sheer tenacity of the collectivist impulse — whether you call it socialism or communism or altruism — has changed not only the meaning of our words, but the meaning of the Constitution, and the character of our people.
..."The Framers understood that the self-interest which in the private sphere contributes to welfare of society — both in the sense of material well-being and in the social unity engendered by commerce — makes man a knave in the public sphere, the sphere of politics and group action. It is self-interest that leads individuals to form factions to try to expropriate the wealth of others through government and that constantly threatens social harmony.”
...Collectivism sought to answer a different question: how to achieve cosmic justice — sometimes referred to as social justice — a world of social and economic equality. Such an ambitious proposal sees no limit to man’s capacity to reason. It presupposes a community can consciously design not only improved political, economic, and social systems but new and improved human beings as well.
The great innovation of this millennium was equality before the law. The greatest fiasco — the attempt to guarantee equal outcomes for all people.
...In between, came the reign of socialism. “Starting with the formation of the Fabian Society and ending with the fall of the Berlin Wall, its ambitious project was the reformation of human nature. Intellectuals visualized a planned life without private property, mediated by the New Man.” He never arrived. As John McGinnis persuasively argues: “There is simply a mismatch between collectivism on any large and enduring scale and our evolved nature. As Edward O. Wilson, the world’s foremost expert on ants, remarked about Marxism, ‘Wonderful theory. Wrong species.’” ...switching from slavery to a tribal chieftain into slavery to the tribe.
...Instead of celebrating capitalism’s virtues, we offer it grudging acceptance, contemptuous tolerance but only for its capacity to feed the insatiable maw of socialism. We do not conclude that socialism suffers from a fundamental and profound flaw. We conclude instead that its ends are worthy of any sacrifice — including our freedom.
...Revel warns: “The totalitarian mind can reappear in some new and unexpected and seemingly innocuous and indeed virtuous form. [I]t ... will [probably] put itself forward under the cover of a generous doctrine, humanitarian, inspired by a concern for giving the disadvantaged their fair share, against corruption, and pollution, and ‘exclusion.’” ...What started in the 1920’s; became manifest in 1937; was consolidated in the 1960’s; is now either building to a crescendo or getting ready to end with a whimper.
...At this moment, it seems likely leviathan will continue to lumber along, picking up ballast and momentum, crushing everything in its path. Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates, and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible.
...I have argued that collectivism was (and is) fundamentally incompatible with the vision that undergirded this country’s founding.
...Politically, the belief in human perfectibility is another way of asserting that differences between the few and the many can, over time, be erased. That creed is a critical philosophical proposition underlying the New Deal. What is extraordinary is the way that thesis infiltrated and effected American constitutionalism over the next three-quarters of a century. Its effect was not simply to repudiate, both philosophically and in legal doctrine, the framers’ conception of humanity, but to cut away the very ground on which the Constitution rests. Because the only way to come to terms with an enduring Constitution is to believe that the human condition is itself enduring.
..."From the Progressive era to the New Deal, property was by degrees ostracized from the company of rights. Something new, called economic rights, began to supplant the old property rights. This change, which occurred with remarkably little fanfare, was staggeringly significant. With the advent of “economic rights,” the original meaning of rights was effectively destroyed. These new “rights” imposed obligations, not limits, on the state.
...It thus became government’s job not to protect property but, rather, to regulate and redistribute it. And, the epic proportions of the disaster which has befallen millions of people during the ensuing decades has not altered our fervent commitment to statism. The words of Judge Alex Kozinski, written in 1991, are not very encouraging.” ‘What we have learned from the experience of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union ... is that you need capitalism to make socialism work.’ In other words, capitalism must produce what socialism is to distribute.”
>>>>>>>>>Lionel Tiger, in a provocative new book called The Decline of Males, posits a brilliant and disturbing new paradigm. He notes we used to think of a family as a man, a woman, and a child. Now, a remarkable new family pattern has emerged which he labels “bureaugamy.” A new trinity: a woman, a child, and a bureaucrat.” Professor Tiger contends that most, if not all, of the gender gap that elected Bill Clinton to a second term in 1996 is explained by this phenomenon. According to Tiger, women moved in overwhelming numbers to the Democratic party as the party most likely to implement policies and programs which will support these new reproductive strategies.
Professor Tiger is not critical of these strategies. He views this trend as the triumph of reproduction over production; the triumph of Darwinism over Marxism; and he advocates broad political changes to accommodate it. <<<<<<<<<<<<
..."when people accept futility and the absurd as normal[,] the culture is decadent."
...We find ourselves… in a situation that is hopeless but not yet desperate. The arcs of history, culture, philosophy, and science all seem to be converging on this temporal instant. Familiar arrangements are coming apart; valuable things are torn from our hands, snatched away by the decompression of our fragile ark of culture. But, it is too soon to despair. The collapse of the old system may be the crucible of a new vision. We must get a grip on what we can and hold on. Hold on with all the energy and imagination and ferocity we possess. Hold on even while we accept the darkness. We know not what miracles may happen; what heroic possibilities exist. We may be only moments away from a new dawn.
.
President Franklin Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” of speech, religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
Exhibit ‘A’
John D Podesta, Center for American Progress; “progressive ideas for a strong, just and ...what’s that other word… “fried?” “faddish?” oh, yeah, free America": But this [filibuster kerfluffle] victory comes at a heavy price: the near-certain confirmation of at least three nominees whose contempt for constitutional liberties and disregard of precedent make them manifestly unworthy of judicial office.
...Only [[if] the president will take to heart the advice he has been given by these senators: “to consult with members of the Senate, both Democratic and Republican, prior to submitting a judicial nomination to the Senate for consideration ,"] can the Senate perform its proper role of ensuring that nominees will uphold the Constitution and the rule of law.
/dripping irony
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