The Source of Morality

And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion...reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

- George Washington, from his Farewell Address

We have said many times that morality, indeed any issues of right and wrong, must have a God of some sort behind them. Without an objective norm to fall back on, any and all questions of good and evil, even issues of simple prudence, are nothing more than your word against mine. In such a case, problems would be resolved only through might makes right, whether at the hand of a single tyrant or that old saw consensus, which is but a name for the tyranny of the majority. We must do right because it is right on its own terms as instituted by the Creator of the natural law.

Consensus cannot make something right. Consensus is merely what the majority of the people at a given time happen to want, which they are then able to subject upon the minority. Do we honestly believe that such is the best way to create good law and rational public policy?

Obviously it is not. We require a Supreme Being, a supreme and final Law, in order to do well and avoid evil. To those who object, which God?, we say, the one whom philosophy, not religion, insists is there. From that point we can safely speculate on how such a being would expect us to act. It is then when we start to cross into religious principle because at that point we begin to realize that people are special, that doing wrong against them is an evil in itself because it is an affront to their dignity as individuals. A dignity they have by virtue of their humanity, as given them by God. It does not come from them or anything they do.

So there is no reason to base morality and law on anything slippery such as convention, which can and will change as generations do. We need that eternal sense, that eternal reality, if we are to make a good society, and become good people. For any ideal of dignity must come from the religious ideal that everyone deserves proper respect. That cannot come from any simple human act. It can only come from above, overarching each individual. We recognize that and live accordingly, or we slowly perish.

White House presses Ford to end Embarrassing Ads

Ford Motor Company, apparently under pressure from the White House, has pulled ads trumpeting the fact that it didn't take any of the bailout cash offered by the federal government a few years back. The idea of an American corporation sniping at intervention in the economy by the Washington SSR doesn't set well with the current ruling Politboro.

Never mind the pointing fingers which insist that, under different conditions Ford would have taken the money themselves. Never mind either that Ford supported the bailouts before Congress and did indeed take a line of credit from Obamacorp. The most important fact which can be gleaned from this situation is that the Obama Administration doesn't mind suppressing freedom of speech when it may affect their reelection chances in 2012.

While it would be hard to not call Ford somewhat hypocritical considering the background, there comes a point when the bottom line is what really matters. And the bottom line here is that Ford didn't lap up funds from the taxpayers' trough to the degree that GM and Chrysler did. But when it tries to make, ahem, capital of that fact, its rivals and their big government beneficiaries cry foul.

Is it more hypocritical to support something and then back off after better thought, or to claim that you are for the American people yet attempt to restrain their freedom of speech when you find it a political liability? Because like it or not, companies have rights too, including saying what they want so long as it isn't libel. In not taken federal funds to quite the same degree as its competitors, Ford is a better friend than they. Because, isn't it the American Way to make it yourself rather than cry about circumstance?

It seems the new American Way is socialism. At least, we hope only until January 2013.

The Super Committee and Michigan

Three members of Congress from Michigan discussed the so-called Congressional super committee, formed towards finding comprehensive agreement on reducing the federal deficit, in Detroit yesterday before the Detroit Economic Club. All they really had to say was that the disagreed on the matters before the committee.

Representative Candace Miller, a Republican, and Representatives Sander Levin and Gary Peters admitted they liked one another personally but were sharply divided on where to cut spending and where to raise taxes. It is no surprise that the Republican wanted most of the savings to come from budget cuts while the Democratic duo would like to see a mix of added taxes with spending cuts.

Yet they didn't address what might be the most important part of the matter. Why are we having a super committee at all?

Isn't it the job of Congress to handle budget matters? Are we doing a smart thing by essentially funneling the job into the hands of a few people? Or are we merely laying the groundwork for something worse: an oligarchy which, in the long run, will be even father from the people than the local representatives they already have?

As likely as not, the point of this committee is probably to appear bipartisan while giving individual members of Congress a certain deniability. When forced to support things their constituents might not like, they can argue that they had little choice. They had to back the super committee.

This is not good. Not good for the people, not good for Detroit or Michigan, not good for the federal republic we have enjoyed for so long. It is creeping centralized tyranny of the type we objected to in 1776. It is sham democracy and ought to be done away with.

GOP Stalwarts Square off in Mackinac

The 2012 Presidential Race has come to Michigan, at least on the Republican side. As there won't be a race on the Democratic side, we don't count that party yet.

This weekend is the time of the biennial Michigan Republican Leadership Conference on Mackinac Island. The featured players, at least among those of national note, are former Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts (by way of Michigan) and current Governor Rick Perry of Texas. Well, we should add that they are the aspirants most likely to win the GOP nomination, according to the people who make the news.

We mean the media.

But we'll return to that point later. For this second, let us be content with the showing of the presumed front runners.

Romney said some neat things and is probably the prohibitive favorite to win Michigan's primary next February, as former Michigan Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land asserts. It is nice to be among people who 'know what Vernors is' said Romney himself, playing up his home state roots in a predictably hokey, meant to be homespun way. Governor Perry promised to make Washington 'inconsequential' in our lives as Michigan (add your favorite what do we call ourselves suffix) and draw as a hard a difference between himself and President Obama as he can.

Yadda, yadda, yadda. This doesn't mean that we don't like either candidate. It only means that we aren't hearing anything substantial. At this point in time, we could vote for either.

Which brings us to a point which involves both Romney and Perry in a somewhat more dramatic fashion. This may be nothing more than a hunch, an inspiration calling out from the back of our mind which has no significant grounding in reality, but are we the only ones who feel a kind of vibe akin to that of the Reagan/Bush race in 1980? Not that either man could really be a Reagan...but they each could certainly be a Bush, the kind of center right politician with exactly enough established Republican support to have wide appeal within the party and the general populace. Indeed, we will go so far as to say, strictly shooting from the lip, of course, that a Romney-Perry or Perry-Romney ticket might be in the cards in the long run.

Romney would have both midwestern and eastern connections while Perry could hail the south and west. It is something that might just work, especially as Obama policies continue to fail. We're not saying that it will happen. But if it does, you heard it here first. We think.

Going off on a tangent, we see that businessman Herman Cain has won the recent Florida straw poll by about 20% over the next contestant, Governor Perry. Yet as with Ron Paul's finish at second in a similar poll in Iowa a few weeks back, he doesn't seem to be generating much steam. He is pretty much being ignored by the popular media, who apparently believe that anything so modest as an early straw poll means little in a race which will more likely be decided by time and money and not the passion of an individual's supporters.

Let's be fair: such pervasive presumption is probably not out of line. Paul's supporters are significant and loyal but too few to land the GOP nomination. And with name recognition meaning so much it would seem that Cain is out on the proverbial limb. Still, for those who claim to report and not make the news, it is a glaring inconsistency of their journalistic ethic that they effectively ignore the showings of Cain and Paul. We must conclude that they want a 'mainstream' Republican vying for the White House and not someone with ideas beyond that.

Yet if that is not in some way making the news (by effectively attempting to direct people towards whom to support) then we don't know what is. In the meantime, the American voter sees their choice restricted.

Abortion: a Moral Evil

Pope Benedict XVI has said that human embryos are 'dynamic, autonomous individuals.' It is a good and clear statement of what seems a reasonable philosophic position: human beings have human babies.

It is high time that we state things clearly and emphatically where human life is at stake. We aren't talking about potential, we are talking about reality. The sooner we begin to emphasize that, the sooner we might begin to convince all but the hardest hearted that abortion is a great moral evil.

This is not a wholly, or even particularly, religious position, yet many will attempt to dismiss it as such. Concluding that, again, human beings have human children is no more inherently religious than asserting that rape, theft, or kidnapping is evil. Not that the religious aspect of this or any other moral question isn't important, but only that, when trying to convince someone not particularly or even openly hostile to religion that something is wrong we cannot use religion to defend it. We have to play the game on their field until such time as they come around to a more inclusive point of view.

Fortunately their field offers arguments not directly religious. We have defenses based on reason: if they are reasonable people, they will eventually begin to see these for themselves. If they are not reasonable people, well, they face a future of their making, either secular or religious, at their own peril.

Clark Durant's Bid for the Senate

Long time Republican activist and attorney from Grosse Pointe Farms, Clark Durant, will formally announce his candidacy for the US Senate this morning from a poor eastside Detroit neighborhood. He has already filed the paperwork for his run in the GOP Primary, having done so back in August 2011.

No one can doubt his credentials. He worked in the Reagan Administration and has been one of the movers and shakers in the Charter Schools arena in Michigan. He has worked hard for Cornerstone Schools in the Detroit area. He also has served on the Michigan Board of Education; indeed education seems his strongest calling card. His community service record is admirable.

But can he win the GOP Primary, let alone a statewide election? He has virtually no name recognition in outstate areas. He lost his bids for the GOP nomination for the Senate in 1990, losing in the primary as it were. This almost has the makings of someone who hasn't quite made it big in politics staging a final effort for such glory while there's still time.

That's not a bad thing, really, but time doesn't seem on Mr. Durant's side. Although he has some impressive supporters, among them Betsy DeVos, former Senator Spencer Abraham, and auto executive Bob Lutz, can that translate into victory when the GOP party mechanisms appear entrenched for Pete Hoekstra?

No one questions Durant's conservative credentials. It is even speculated that he should draw support from Tea Party types. Yet his race seems decidedly uphill. As always with elections, time will tell, and the final ballot is all that matters. We shall see.

Davis and Brewer

In recent hours we have seen two executions in the United States. One caused outrage both within the nation and the world. The other did not receive anything near the same same amount of, shall we say, notoriety.

Troy Davis was executed in Georgia despite proclamations on his innocence by himself and his supporters. Lawrence Russell Brewer was executed in Texas. Davis was accused of murdering an off duty police officer. Brewer was convicted of murdering a black man. The Davis case has people saying things such as the US system of justice is broken. No similar accusations about US justice seem to have appeared in Brewer's.

This is not to say that Davis may not have been innocent. That, whether we care to admit it or not, is more than we know, and it is fair to point out that twenty years of legal back and forth does seem plenty of time to secure his innocence. Say what you will, the general populace simply isn't necessarily privy to all the intimacies of such a case. Nor is it to support or deny the death penalty as a legitimate option when considering justice. But it is fascinating to note the differences in the approach to the respective cases here. With Davis, who, let's call it what it is, was wanted to be found innocent by the general public, there is hue and cry (which there should be, if he is truly innocent). With Brewer, there are details of the brutal murder he was convicted of committing right within the articles purporting to report only his execution.

The bottom line is that what we have here is a black man protesting innocence of a capital crime, and a white man convicted of killing a black man. In one case the death penalty is severely decried; in the other, not so much. It leaves us to wonder whether justice is really what the American public and the world wants, or if this merely illustrates an avant-garde, knee jerk reaction of a group of people whom it suits to have a cause celebre because it happens to fit their world view, their view of America.

The safest thing to do would be to get rid of capital punishment not because it is morally wrong but simply to prevent gross miscarriages of justice such as executing innocent men and women. We're just not convinced that that is the real purpose of all those who are against capital punishment. The contrasts between the Davis and Brewer cases seem to illustrate that point rather well.