Originalism and Obama

Ontology distinguishes between entities, draws distinctions in their qualities that set them apart from other entities, and qualifies the relationships of those qualities to the qualities of other entities. Entities are defined by their qualities, e.g., the primary distinquishing characteristic of "man" is not his opposable thumb, nor his linquistic ability, since chimps have rudimentary language, and elepephant, whales and other species may also have rudimentary language. The distinguishing characteristic of "man" is "rational animal."

So when I read the November 8 edition of American Thinker http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/americas_third_republic.html I knew the subject was drawing the lines of distinction between the Constitution before and after the administration of FDR, and comparing it to the coming administration of Barak Obama:

"Theodore Lowi, a political science eminence at Cornell University, years ago drew a bead on what was wrong with the American polity. In his The End of Liberalism: The Second Republic of the United States, he claimed that the Founder's constitution of 1787 had been surreptitiously replaced with a new one by the FDR administration, and no one had actually noticed it for seventy-plus years."

The idea that no one had noticed it is so badly wrong I am surprised Lowi's editors didn't stop him from saying it.

In the blog "No Exit," Fitz Brundage wrote in Opposition to the New Deal that, "the policies of [FDR's] administration inevitably aroused opposition. The evolution of Roosevelt’s New Deal cannot be understood apart from the opposition that it aroused. [A] coalition of conservative opponents emerged and systematically curtailed the most ambitious plans of the New Deal. [ ] By early 1935, the New Deal legislation of the previous two years had aroused growing voices of criticism on the left and right of the political spectrum, and by several important Supreme Court rulings." http://david-sullivan.blogspot.com/2007/09/opposition-to-fdr-and-new-deal.html

"Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist No. 84, argued against a 'Bill of Rights,' asserting that ratification of the Constitution did not mean the American people were surrendering their rights..." http://david-sullivan.blogspot.com/2008/09/wwagd-what-would-andy-griffith-do.htm

Yet it seems as if we have done just that. Harold Kildow argues in the American Thinker about the differences between post-FDR, and the incoming administration of Barak Obama. Kildow says the Constitution post FDR was "Constitution 2.0" and now we may be in for "Constitution 3.0" without anyone ever voting to change the Constitution.

As a matter of fact, it has been an accepted fact of American politics since the publication of Emmerich de Vattel's text, "The Law of Nations" that the legislature does not have the power to change a constitution:

"American writers quoted {The Law of Nations} on constitutional law, almost immediately after the book's publication. [ ] Boston revolutionary leader Samuel Adams wrote in 1772, 'Vattel tells us plainly and without hesitation, that "the supreme legislative cannot change the constitution," that "their authority does not extend so far," and "that they ought to consider the fundamental laws as sacred, if the nation has not, in very express terms, given them power to change them." " http://east_west_dialogue.tripod.com/vattel/id4.html

This is the reason that Originalism, or original intent reading, of the Constitution is necessary. It is the only objective means of determining the qualities of the written law and the relationships between those qualities and what the Framers intented.

"In the context of United States constitutional interpretation, originalism is a family of theories central to all of which is the proposition that the Constitution has a fixed and knowable meaning, which was established at the time of its drafting. [It is] a formalist theory of law and a corollary of textualism. Today, it is [ ] most prominently associated with Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Robert Bork. However, some liberals, such as Justice Hugo Black and Akhil Amar have also subscribed to the theory." Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Originalism

The coming administration of Obama will do nothing toward Originalism, and may reverse the the idea, depending on whom Obama is able to nominate to the Supreme Court and get approved in the Democrat-controlled Congress.

Modern liberals and many conservatives believe the contrary of Originalsm. It is called the Living Constitution, and is a concept which proposes the Constitution should be interpreted to evolve with the society that implements it.

The very fact that Originalism is disavowed by American liberals, democrats and others, as the proper method of interpreting the Constitution, and their reasons for that disavowal, is proof positive that we are indeed headed for Constitution 3.0, and the only people taking note of it are Originalists. The rest of the nation sees nothing wrong in impressing our own ideas "between the lines," as it were, of a document meant to be taken literally: Change it if you don't like it. The Founders never said ignore it and do what you will by pretending we meant something we didn't mean at all and wouldn't approve of if we were asked.

But "Originalism does not in any way prevent it from being applied to American law in any decade or any century. The original intent can--and ought--to be applied because that was the intent of those who wrote it. They provided us with the means to change their intentions, and that means was not to ignore their intentions. That means was not to place any meaning on their words that fit our purposes. That means which they provided was to either nullify by Amendment where necessary, or alter by legislation where allowed, the intention of their words." http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/2008/10/free-assemblage-of-metaphysical.html

If Obama is as Marxist as he appears to be when he speaks and has his positions published, e.g., when he talks of "windfall profits," and "redistributing" profits from the capitalists to the consumers, he has no intention of Originalism in his political philosophy (except perhaps where it may serve his own policies; we shall have to wait to see.)

Neither Obama nor the Democrats are liberals in the originalist meaning of the word. The drafters and signers of the Declaration were such liberals, formed from Renaisssaince thinking, because the original meaning if not definition of "liberal" was "secular liberation of reason."

Liberating reason from the constrictions of secular law as written, in order to corrupt and destroy it, rather than changing it by the methods built in to it in order not to destroy it, is not liberalism; it is at time collectivist, at times fascist, and at times anti-reason.

But ontologically it is not Originalism, the integrity of changing the Constitution by the means provided within that document. Any other means is sabotage. It is the breaking of the oath taken by every public servant to uphold the Constitution, and it should be punishable by law. The fact that liberals scoffed--even laughed, as Joe Biden did--at the idea of the Marxism of Obama's rhetoric tells us that we are indeed getting ready for the Constitution 3.0, through subterfuge, through reading it as "living", and through previous abuses of it that were gotten away with.

The fact that Obama is an accomplished Constitutional law professor only makes the outcome of his administration darker for the liberty given us by the Minutemen and others who gave their lives in the war for freedom, the war they afterward declared was to "secure the Blessings of Liberty upon ourselves and our Posterity."

Their posterity have let them down.

Congress Shall Make No Law...Prohibiting the Free Exercise of Religion: First Amendment

"The
proposition that Muslims have special privileges in American society, to which
others are not privy, is now enshrined in precedent."

But it also may make no law establishing a religion, and giving to Muslims what is not given to Christians, Jews, and the faithful of other religions --including to Atheists who are protected under precedents set in courts http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/2008/09/atheism-is-protected-by-law-austin.html --is the establishment of the rites of religion. Click on the blue sentence for more.

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Naturalism Denies Free Will; Assumes "Locality" of Abstractions

Liberalism and "Spatial Locality" of Abstractions

On the website Objectivism Online.Org, a young man asked a question about "spatial locality of abstractions" within the brain. It was an insightful question. Not many people would think about such a thing.

In spite of the fact that Ayn Rand was specifically asked about such a thing in her book "Philosophy: Who Needs It", I wasn't thinking of placing that "spatial locality" in the brain. I thought, "Of course its in the brain. The philosopher in the book who asked about it has to mean something else." What that "else" was I didn't give a second thought. I just knew that abstractions were not "out there"; they were in my head.

After all, Rand said as part of her answer that abstractions "are mental entities [,] or put it this way: a phenomenon of consciousness."

That is what I would have answered myself, that abstractions exist, but not in any empirical way unless they related directly to an object about which one drew the abstractions; even then, it's not the abstractions that would have empirical existence. Abstractions are in the mind.

She also said, "[W]e can call them 'mental entities' only metaphorically or for convenience. It is a 'something.' For instance, before you have a certain concept, that particular something doesn't exist in your mind. When you have formed the concept of 'concept,' that is a mental something; it isn't a nothing."

But in the conversation string, someone who calls herself "Dragon Lady" answered the question about "spatial locality" this way:

"When you're talking about a memory, a thought, or an emotion, you're talking about the *experience* of that mental entity. You don't *experience* any of those things as a conscious awareness of neurons firing in a specific location in your brain. The *thought* is conceptually distinct from the neurons just as the mind is conceptually distinct from the brain."

Well, that is precisely what I would not have thought to ascribe to "a phenomenon of consciousness." But that is what the young man was asking.

The Dragon Lady was right. But her answer led me to add an answer of my own to the string, one that I think raises the spectre that there are famous and respected philosophers who take the other view, and who have the power to cause such a question to be asked--and answered--the wrong way.

I once answered a similar question, without having the same understanding of the "spatial" element I now have after reading the question, Rand's answers, and the response by the other reader of the string. That first answer of mine was published two months ago in Memes, Free Will, Strong Naturalism, and Toilet Paper. It isn't incorrect. It just didn't go far enough.

Yet that was a very long answer. Looking at it today I'd say I could probably re-write it to be shorter, but what writer doesn't go back and look at his/her work and see where it could be reworked--over and over? In it's essence it is correct from a metaphysical naturalist view, and I will say from the view of a "student of Objectivism."

go to Liberalism and "Spatial Locality" of Abstractions, cont.

Bigoted, Lying James Dobson to be Honored

I once had a revealing conversation with an A-list news reporter, when I was trying to convince him to cover the scientific distortions of Focus on the Family's James Dobson. He declined to do so because he felt that Dobson lies so frequently that it wasn't news. Wayne Besen - Daily Commentary

Truth Wins Out (TWO) launched a new website today, DumpDobson.com, that calls on the Museum of Broadcast Communications to reverse its decision to honor Focus on the Family’s James Dobson in its Radio Hall of Fame. Unless the museum withdraws its pledge to induct Dobson, TWO will join Equality Illinois and the Gay Liberation Network to protest the awards ceremony, Saturday, Nov. 8, (5:30 PM – 7:30 PM), at the Renaissance Chicago Hotel. MORE

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC.
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism TM,
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of the LLC and are:

© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®
mailto:freeassemblage@gmail.com

http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/