What? Me blog?

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When discussing "liberty" and "freedom," it seems some clarification of terms is in order. The founders' vision for America was not about unfettered freedom, but, rather, a particular type of ordered liberty. "Freedom" without a strong moral basis is an empty promise. The founders - admittedly an ambiguous term, but for the purpose of this post can be described as the founding generation of the United States, steeped in the Judeo-Christian tradition (if they weren't themselves orthodox, ie: trinitarian, Christians) and natural law - understood the problem of liberty quite clearly. The problem, stated simply, was how to keep liberty from degenerating into mere license. The solution, as many of the founders saw it, was to encourage the practice of religion among the American people under the assumption that the Christian religion helped make citizens fit for republican government. Meaningful freedom required the exercise of virtue on behalf of citizens and the connection between the Christian religion and virtue was obvious.

The problem inherent in a free society is that immoral actors take advantage of moral ones. If everyone quite rationally suspects everyone else of immoral behavior, then in order to protect themselves in any given transaction the value of exchange is necessarily undercut by the cost of self-protection. As actors become more immoral in their transactions, it becomes necessary to ease the expense of self-protection by enlisting the aid of government in the form of regulation, thereby undermining the entire libertarian idea. The key to breaking the cycle of immoral action and regulation is to change the nature of the actors. This not a new concept, as would-be social engineers and progressives of every stripe have been attempting this with various degrees of failure to show for their efforts for more than a hundred years. The more virtuous actors in an exchange are, the less opportunistic their behavior, then the more trust all actors can have at the outset of exchange. With trust, the costs of transaction rapidly decline and the need for government regulation and enforcement eases also. Absent trust or government intervention, exchanges are only regulated by the relative strength of the actors, a situation that can be readily observed in criminal activity.

"Because the founders had the wisdom and imaginative power to predict what evil a man might conjure up with unrestrained liberty, they grounded liberty in the context of order. Prudence is generally scorned today, but in the days of the Constitutional Convention it was a highly regarded way of life. Mores and honorable social tradition constituted what it meant to be a liberated man. They held as self evident that when confronted with liberty ungrounded in order, men create a world of chaos with respect to themselves and a world of tyranny with respect to others. In contrast, some think today that unrestrained liberty constitutes what it means to be a liberated man. A deep reverence for the Founders' ideal of a liberated man, exercised through right reason, defines the proper relationship between order and liberty and altogether defines what it means to be a conservative." - Christa J. Byker

Religious social conservatives press for public policies that tend to increase social capital by improving citizens. The difference between what social conservatives and humanistic socialists are after in the transformation of the individual into a good citizen lies in the nature of their different approaches. The Christian sees the development of virtuous behavior as a "bottom up" enterprise, meaning that society is perfected as its individual members are, whereas humanists tend to work from the top down, defining the ideal and coercing the individual to its vision. True liberty lies in the freedom to do as one ought, that "ought" as realized by a properly formed actor.

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For more on natural law - http://www.acton.org/research/reading/research_reading_natural_law.php

On Virtue - http://www.idehist.uu.se/distans/ilmh/Ren/civic-virtue.htm

On ordered liberty - http://www.isi.org/spotlight/essay_contest/order_liberty_05/2.pdf

See also: Samuel Gregg's excellent book "On Ordered Liberty: A Treatise on the Free Society (Religion, Politics, and Society in the New Millennium)" http://www.amazon.com/Ordered-Liberty-Treatise-Religion-Millennium/dp/0739106686/ref=sr_11_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1239073034&sr=11-1

Labels: law and order, liberty, politics

From Liberty File reports, Friday, February 20, 2009

Indiana State Senator Greg Walker (District 41) is reported to have filed
some form of what has recently come to be referred to as a "Sovereignty
Resolution" whereby a state reasserts its rights under the 10th Amendment
to the U.S. Constition and reminds the Federal Government of its
constitutionally limited powers.

Although details are still pending a posting of the bill it is
believed to be Senate Concurrent Resolution 37 (2009-2010) and that
Senator Dennis Kruse (District 14) and popular Senator Mike Delph (District 29)
might also be working with or supporting Sen. Walker's effort.

As many as twenty states are believed to have had similar resolutions
introduced in 2009 including Arizona, New Hampshire (HCR 6) and Oklahoma.


UPDATE 1:45 PM FEBRUARY 22, 2009: It is now confirmed that State Senators Walker, Kruse and Stutzman have introduced Senate Concurrent Resolution 37.


UPDATE 11:20 AM FEBRUARY 26, 2009: Senator Mike Delph (29th District) has been confirmed as the 'second author' on the bill and there are now 14 total authors/co-sponsors.

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Text of the Resoulution:

First Regular Session 116th General Assembly (2009)

SENATE CONCURRENT
RESOLUTION No. _____

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A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION urging the honorable Barack Obama, President of the United States, the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States, in Congress assembled, and the President of the Senate and Speaker of the House of Representatives of each State's legislature of the United States of America to cease and desist, effective immediately, any and all mandates that are beyond the scope of their constitutionally delegated power.

Whereas , The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States specifically provides that, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people ”;
Whereas , The Tenth Amendment defines the total scope of federal power as being those powers specifically granted to it by the Constitution of the United States and no more;
Whereas , Federalism is the constitutional division of powers between the national and state governments and is widely regarded as one of America 's most valuable contributions to political science;
Whereas , James Madison, “the father of the Constitution, ” said, “The powers delegated to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the state governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, [such] as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce. The powers reserved to the several states will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people ”;

Whereas , Thomas Jefferson emphasized that the states are not “subordinate ” to the national government, but rather the two are “coordinate departments of one simple and integral whole. The one is the domestic, the other the foreign branch of the same government ”;
Whereas , Alexander Hamilton expressed his hope that “the people will always take care to preserve the constitutional equilibrium between the general and the state governments. ” He believed that “this balance between the national and state governments forms a double security to the people. If one [government] encroaches on their rights, they will find a powerful protection in the other. Indeed, they will both be prevented from overpassing their constitutional limits by [the] certain rivalship which will ever subsist between them ”;
Whereas , The scope of power defined by the Tenth Amendment means that the federal government was created by the states specifically to be limited in its powers relative to those of the various states;
Whereas , Today, in 2009, the states are demonstrably treated as agents of the federal government;
Whereas , Many federal mandates are directly in violation of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States;

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Whereas , The United States Supreme Court has ruled in New York v. United States , 112 S. Ct. 2408 (1992), that Congress may not simply commandeer the legislative and regulatory processes of the states; and
Whereas , A number of proposals from previous administrations and some now being considered by the present administration and from Congress may further violate the Constitution of the United States; Therefore,

Be it resolved by the Senate of the General Assembly

of the State of Indiana, the House of Representatives concurring:

SECTION 1: That the State of Indiana hereby claims sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States.
SECTION 2: That this Resolution serve as a Notice and Demand to the federal g overnment to maintain the balance of powers where the Constitution of the United States established it and to cease and desist, effective immediately, any and all mandates that are beyond the scope of its constitutionally delegated powers.
SECTION 3: That the Secretary of the Senate immediately transmit copies of this Resolution to the Honorable Barack Obama, President of the United States, the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives of each state's legislature of the United States of America, and each member of Congress from the State of Indiana.

Labels: liberty, politics

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I originally received this in an e-mail message in October of '04. Given the approaching primaries and election and the ever increasing hostility to religion in the public sphere as seen in the recent rise of the "new atheists" - Dawkins, Harris and their ilk - I thought this was worth dusting off:

Our motivation in beginning the work of the Acton Institute almost 15 years ago was to make a concerted, intelligent and faithful effort to promote and secure what we have repeatedly called 'the free and virtuous society.' It is my conviction that both these elements are necessary if we want society to be worthy of human dignity.

The element of freedom is critical because the human person is created with a destiny beyond this world, which requires his liberty to seek and pursue. It seems to me to follow logically then that interventions of a political nature must be limited, not merely for reasons of efficiency - that things would work better - but also, and more importantly, for reasons of morality. Man must be free to pursue his destiny because that is what he was created for. Religious freedom, as well as the freedom of enterprise, logically flow from this idea. We call for the minimization of taxes, regulations and other forms of control, at the same time as we call for the freedom of expression and assembly and the like, even when, at times, we do not agree with those expressions.

This is where virtue comes in.

It is not enough for people to be free; the more profound question is: What ought I do with my freedom? In many ways, religion, faith, commitment to God and lives of integrity and virtue, help in the construction of a society that promotes generosity, moral accountability, stability and peace. For these reasons, it is astounding to me that in the course of the political discussion over the past few months, and especially in the last few days, numerous intellectuals, editorial writers and journalists insist on identifying the integration of faith, character, values and morality with theocracy.

There appears to be a literal panic in some quarters that if religion influences the social and political decisions that Americans make in the coming days, the values of tolerance and pluralism (rightly understood), will disappear. I believe the opposite is the case and that in order to protect so free and prosperous a society, a clear moral vision and commitment is an essential part of the political debate. In a land where liberty is prized, only the intolerant would forbid the expression of this clear moral vision.

I know enough about politics (though I am not a member of any political party) to know that you cannot bring the kingdom of God to earth by means of it; and as valuable as democracy is as a process, a majority vote cannot determine the truth of a thing.

So my rule of thumb in evaluating platforms, policies and candidates is: Will this promote liberty (which is the highest political end of man)? And will it protect human life, especially when vulnerable? This leaves lots of room for prudence, of course, and Lord knows, plenty of room for debate.

One of the greatest models of how to live the tension of being in the world yet not of it, was Thomas More, the great English statesman. In his life, writings and martyrdom we see a man who witnessed to the "inalienable dignity of man's conscience" while remaining faithful to legitimate authority and political institutions. It was he who said that "man cannot be separated from God, nor can the affairs of state be separated from morality..."

Rev. Robert Sirico

President & Co-founder

The mission of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty is to promote a free and virtuous society characterized by individual liberty and sustained by religious principles.

Copyright (c) 2004 Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and LibertyActon Institute * 161 Ottawa N.W., Suite 301 * Grand Rapids, MI 49503Telephone: 616/454-3080 * Facsimile: 616/454-9454

Labels: Acton, economics, election, liberty, religion