Reflections From a Murky Pond

George Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four. Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World. Both were dire, dystopian works that speculated upon a horrid future. The two great authors were, however, wildly divergent in their fears and warnings.

George Orwell v. Aldous Huxley – Divergent Distopian Predictions

Both Orwell and Huxley feared a future when we would be a captive culture. Orwell feared captivity by the State but Huxley feared captivity by own venality and pleasure seeking.

Orwell depicted a future society where books were banned and where the State would deprive us of information. Huxley posited a future society where would be no reason to ban a book, because there would be no one who would want to read one, but where so much data would be provided that we would be sunk into egoistic pacifism.

Orwell feared that the State would conceal the truth from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned out by the constant nattering stream of irrelevancies.

Simply put, Orwell feared hate and pain whereas Huxley feared love and pleasure. There is grim sense in both men’s fears; both the “carrot” and the “stick” are used to gain and maintain control.
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President Obama’s chosen nominee to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, Elena Kagan has some “interesting” – read as willfully ignorant but not unexpected – views on the SCOTUS’ role in judging the constitutionality and therefor legality of laws, especially when it comes to Americans’ rights to freedom of speech and expression.

Obama’s Mini-me being his nominee makes more and more sense and it seems she bodes as ill for our nation as Obama so far has.

From CNS News:

Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan said the high court should be focused on ferreting out improper governmental motives when deciding First Amendment cases, arguing that the government’s reasons for restricting free speech were what mattered most and not necessarily the effect of those restrictions on speech.

Kagan, the solicitor general of the United States under President Obama, expressed that idea in her 1996 article in the University of Chicago Law Review entitled, “Private Speech, Public Purpose: The Role of Governmental Motive in First Amendment Doctrine.”

In her article, Kagan said that examination of the motives of government is the proper approach for the Supreme Court when looking at whether a law violates the First Amendment. While not denying that other concerns, such as the impact of a law, can be taken into account, Kagan argued that governmental motive is “the most important” factor.

Yes, that’s right; Kagan believes that, while the deleterious effects of laws restricting American’s 1st Amendment right to freedom of speech and expression can be taken into account by the Supreme Court, the government’s motives and intent should be the most important factor in their ruling. Ergo, Kagan believes that the government can limit we, the People’s constitutional rights if it’s in a good cause.

Kagan is, like Obama himself, Harvard educated so their shared belief that the ends justify the means is not in the least shocking, given their shared backgrounds.

It was a graduate and later professor at Harvard, Michael Wigglesworth who is attributed with first adding this sentiment to the body of American writings.

From the university’s founding consequentialism and subjectivism have been entrenched in Harvard’s curriculum and all or most of its graduates have been indoctrinated into these philosophies.

Yes, it makes perfect sense that a President such as Obama, who wants to “fundamentally change” America and has some serious issues with dissent would nominate Kagan, who believes that it’s OK to limit freedom of speech in a cause she or the Court approves of, to the SCOTUS.  However, this “the ends justify the means when the ends are just” mentality of Kagan’s is nothing but the misborn bastard hybrid of ignoratio elenchi and argumentum ad misericordiam, neither of which has any place in logical argument much less the highest court in America.

It does not matter whether it can be proven that the government had “the best of intentions” when enacting laws that impinge upon Americans’ unalienable rights, nor is their “noble” motives a cause to change or lessen the verdict against them. All that matters is whether or not the law or action in question violates the Constitution of the United States of America.

Elena Kagan has never had the chance to directly inflict the evils and stupidity of her views of the law upon Americans because she has never been a judge. It would be best for America if her lack of experience as a judge continued for the rest of her life.

It’s World Earth Day 2010 and, as such, it’s a good day to truly think about the beauty, power, and majesty of our planet. This is a good time to cultivate a little perspective.

Let us all for a moment put aside our pride and hubris and look at the Earth and the stark, raw power She can bring to bear at any given moment.

April 19, 2010 Eyjafjallajökull Volcano Erupting

Nothing short of our profligate use of our arsenal of nuclear weapons could hope to match the power and destructive force of the recent eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, which was a small and relatively mild volcanic eruption.

So when you hear people ranting or whining about Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) or how the Civilized World has caused massive and apocalyptic Climate Change via our CO2 emissions over the last handful of decades think about this picture and recognize that all of this hype is predicated upon people’s pride and hubris.

Love the Earth for she is fair and perilous beyond all of our means to measure. Just don’t delude yourself – or be deluded by other’s vanity or cynical manipulations – into being so confident that mankind can so easily fundamentally change Her so easily.

Both as individuals and as societies we seem very concerned with ourselves and our importance. Each crisis is of horrific magnitude because it impacts us and the world we’ve created with our perceptions and imagining to surround us.

At times it is beneficial to be given a reminder – hopefully a gentle one – that much of this is illusory, and what isn’t, is likely transitory. The universe will continue its stately precession to oblivion long after we and everyone we ever loved or hated has long since died and been forgotten.

While humbling, this should also be a source of comfort for us. True, all of our efforts will eventually come to naught and be erased from the fabric of the universe by the erosion of time. Yet, so too will the effects of the efforts of our enemies and the consequences of our failures fade away, leaving not a trace of themselves upon the universe.

Back on Friday, April 24th, 2009, I made a post, A Moral Atheist, which detailed my view that an atheist, while perfectly capable of being ethical, cannot be moral since an atheist inherently lacks an absolute sense of- or source for morality. The post generated – and continues to generate – some discussion and debate.

One of the prevailing arguments that atheists could, in fact, be moral was that morality can stem from a culture and/or society instead of from a Divine source. This is certainly a seductive argument; who, after all, doesn’t think their society is source of what is Right and Good?

There is a serious problem with that belief though as the philosopher and theologian, Francis A. Schaeffer so very eloquently pointed out:

Here is one simple but profound rule: If there is no absolute by which to judge society, society is absolute.

— Francis A. Schaeffer
How Should We Then Live? p. 224

Think on that for a moment for it is certainly true. In the absence of an absolute – inherently external – source for- and code of morality, a society is absolute in and of itself and the morality of its doctrines, policies, and actions could not be judged.

Of course, the truth of the matter is that this argument of morality stemming from society is a fantasy with no grounding in reality and it never could have any grounding in reality as long as mankind is made up of separate and heterogeneous cultures and societies.

What is sad and more than a little dangerous is that there are apparently a sizable number who either believe this or, at least, are willing to use the idea to rationalize their positions on morality.