A Good Discussion About the Foundation of Rights

A good and productive discussion about the foundation of rights has broken out in the comments section of my last post. The following is a comment that was left by Chris that sparked the discussion:

"I don't think it's surprising that, at least in primary and secondary schools, the Schoolmen are "forgotten." They have two things going against them: 1.) They were writing within a fairly narrow context (everything was Christian and Paripatetic, and not necessarily in that order since their Christianity was so distinctly Greek), making their work somewhat esoteric to contemporary readers and 2.) While they were undoubtedly influential among the early moderns, the early moderns either altered their ideas or expressed them in a way that is much easier for non-experts today to make sense of; certainly easier than it is for them to make sense of Scotus or Bonaventure directly.

Keeping it Real, the Teeter-Totter, and Rand's Larger Point

Here is a link to a Rand Paul interview with a home state network. I think he explains himself rather well. Most of all I agree whole heartedly that we want and need more authentic and "flawed" people that have the guts to do a live interview on a hostile network leading our nation. I for one have had enough of the actor-like career politicians, their contrived sound bites and handlers. It is not real.

I would also add that if you piece together Dr. Paul's statements that it would go something like this:

Most matters are best solved outside the influence of government. If this does not work the next best thing is a local solution to the problem. This is the rule. If something cannot be solved in the first two venues and is injurious to individual rights then as a last resort the federal government should intervene. This is the exception. The lunch counters at Woolworths are that exception.  Butttttttttt.....   Be very careful when you allow this exception because who knows how many other worms will get out when you open the can. Like when racial quotas become so common place in society that the teeter-totter tips suddenly to the other side and your neighbor falls off.

Dr. Kalivas Responds

The following is a detailed response from Dr. Kalivas to the assertions of myself, Tom Van Dyke, and Dr. Gregg Frazer that when the Constitution was ratified that it "left religion to the states":

"My understanding of Article VI is there does not have to be a conflict for Article VI to be “invoked.” The relevant clause of the Article is quite specific:

“This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.”

Religion Left to the States?

A good discussion broke out in the comments section under my last post American Creation: Time to Move Forward? that I should have brought up to the main page a while back but I got busy.  A commenter named David Kalivas is debating Tom Van Dyke about whether religion was left to the states in the Constitution prior to the 14th Amendment.  Below is part of the dialogue:

David stated:

"This was not a Christian document, it was a statement declaring the dissolution of a social contract with the British Crown. Referring to the DOI as a religious document is not reading it, nor focusing on the men who wrote it. Certainly, given the war had begun, there were other urgencies in mind and the major concern of the Continental Congress was to agree on dissolution and have a declaration that articulated their case against England and then get to the details of funding and waging the war. It is also interesting to note when time came for a Federal Constitution that created the legal framework for the new country,there were no references to divine providence or any such deity."

Book Review: Our Undemocratic Constitution

I have spent the last week reading a book by a man named Sandy Levinson called: "Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong." Mr. Levinson wrote the book in hopes of inspiring an effort to call for a new Constitution Convention to address the issues that he sees need to be dealt with with our current version. Despite my initial suspicions, I actually see some merit in what he was advocating. I cannot say I agree that we need a new Convention, in general, nor do I advocate all that is stated in the book more specifically. Nonetheless, he did make me think.

This is especially true of the point he makes about small states having a disproportionate amount of representation as compared with bigger states. He list a multitude of statistics to back up his point but one jumped out to me more than the others,

"Although it is unrealistic to think that the fourteen senators from the seven smallest states would be united on any given controversial issue.... should that ever occur , they would offset a similarly hypothetical united group of senators from California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas, whose collective population in 2000 was approximately 124 million." p. 51

In his view this is allowed to happen because,

"To be sure, this illustrates an important feature of the Constitution that underscores many of its features: Those who framed the document, and those who VENERATE it today are fundamentally fearful of change...." p. 35 (caps mine)

As I read the latter quote I wrote a few notes in the margin of the book. I asked: 1) Why were they fearful of this at the time? 2) What did they fear would change? 3) Were these fears based on rational concerns about going back to the same type of system that they had just broken from? I am skeptical of change for many of these same reasons that our founders had at the time based on my questions above. However, as I began to think about the veneration of the Founders and the document they constructed he began to persuade this skeptic to listen to them merits of the former quote regarding the disproportionate power of small states in the Senate.

This was because I began to realize that this same argument was had at the Convention and was the subject of numerous arguments on the Federalist and Anti-Federalist side as each state voted for ratification. If they discussed it then why can't we now? If people at the time questioned the men we now venerate why can't we? As my assumptions began to crack apart when I admitted my veneration of the document and the men who wrote it, I soon realized that I was more open to the other problems that Mr. Levinson sees with our Constitution. In fact, I am starting to think his major premise, that it is undemocratic, is probably correct in that our current system does not seem that responsive to the voice of We the People anymore.

Do we need another convention? I am not sure. But I am listening. I have begun to read a similar book by Larry Sabato called, "A More Perfect Constitution." He makes some similar arguments. Both men are self proclaimed Liberals. Though I am no Conservative, this does make me take what they say with a grain of salt considering that most of what they advocate would seem to favor the Democratic Party. Nonetheless, I am intrigued and plan to post more on both books. The next post will be about the similarity of one of Sabato's arguments with those that were made in Centeniel One which was the first Anti-Federalist paper. Both arguments seem to back what Levinson was arguing about the Senate on p. 51 quoted above. Until next time....