Burning Down Washington

to "save" America.

   

)

 

Kevin Roberts is President of The Heritage Foundation—a $100M/yr political lobbying business masquerading as a legit IRS non-profit 501(c)(3) "charity." This book had been scheduled for release in September 2024, but they delayed its publication until after the presidential election (likely owing in part to the "Forward" written by Trump running mate JD Vance, he of #HillbillyIshtar renown). They also altered the book cover art, removing the matchstick image and changing "Burning Down Washington" to the somewhat less, well—"inflammatory"—"Taking Back Washington."

 

Nonetheless, the incendiary allusions remain peppered throughout the pages.

 

Yeah...

 

He's on a roll with this riff.

 

 

The Dastardly "Uniparty" being all of us "Woke Libs" I guess.

 

Some encapsulatory le essense du Roberts:

The Permanent Things

What, then, are “the eternal rules of order and right” that Washington saw as being beyond a matter of opinion? They’re what Russell Kirk called “the permanent things.”

Today, the assault on the American way of life is aimed not just at our Constitution and political traditions but more insidiously at the foundations of civilization, which is to say, the permanent things. There is no point in preserving certain political forms if the society they were meant to protect has died.

The Party of Creation needs to get over the old conservatism’s reluctance to “impose” its “values” on others [emphasis BG]. There is no way to avoid taking a stance on the practices that sustain the human race. We can say with certainty what the “permanent things,” the vital tasks of any culture, are. The aegis of every civilization protected them; the best of all that has been thought and said from each distinctive human culture has pointed to them.

Family: Men and women should marry (and do so younger than most do today). They should marry for life and should bring children into the world (more than most do today). Parents have the right and responsibility to raise their children, to educate them, to pass on their traditions, and to make important family decisions (including rejecting experimental medical treatments) in line with their conscience and values. Children owe their parents a measure of obedience and gratitude, and family members should take care of one another. The nuclear family is the foundation of the human order, but it should reach beyond itself to form the fabric of an extended family, community, and local place.

Faith: Mankind is made to worship, and our republic depends on the moral strength and habits of heart brought about by piety. We have in this country a glorious tradition of religious freedom, but it is not freedom from religion but freedom for religion. A man’s religious tradition is a matter of his conscience, but that we have a faithful people is a matter of public concern. Accordingly, the state must not discriminate against religious organizations in government programs, and freedom of religion should take precedence over the enforcement of other rights. Policies that encourage religious observance, such as Sabbath laws and voucher programs that include religious schools, should be encouraged. American society is rooted in the Christian faith—certainly public institutions should not establish anything offensive to Christian morals under the guise of “religious freedom” or “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

Community: Americans’ pride has always been in their communities, the “little platoons” where citizens freely associate with one another and practice self-government. In communities, people from different backgrounds and walks of life orient themselves around the common good in its most concrete and practical form. Communities are places where we lift up one another’s burdens and practice the art of neighborliness, but also where we celebrate the holy days and feast together. If they are well ordered, our communities permit a feeling of comfort and safety at any hour of the day.

Work: Man is Homo faber, the animal that makes. By his labors, man provides for himself and his family. There is deep dignity in work, in the ownership one has of a job well done, that cannot be replaced by simply giving someone something they have not worked for or earned. Moreover, we know that the material prosperity that makes many of the other elements of the human order possible comes from productive human labor and the habits of discipline, skill, and care that undergird that productivity. At the same time, there is an appropriate time to rest from our labors together with our families and communities. The division of labor has also held political significance throughout human history. In the Western tradition, a republican government befitted only men who were masters of themselves, who were economically self-sufficient.

Nation: Man’s gratitude toward all the “little platoons” of human order culminate in his devotion to his broader nation and homeland. In a republic, this is experienced as a duty to safeguard the res publica, literally “the public thing” but better translated as “the common good.” The nation is cemented by a shared national origin story, according to which all citizens are “brothers, and children of the self-same earth” (literally or figuratively). Our deepest traditions about the purposes of government are reflected in the ancient ceremony for crowning England’s kings, when the archbishop of Canterbury hands to his sovereign the Sword of State with these words: “With this sword do justice, stop the growth of iniquity, protect the holy Church of God and all people of goodwill, help and defend widows and orphans, restore the things that are gone to decay, maintain the things that are restored, punish and reform what is amiss, and confirm what is in good order.”

Mix in a bit of blinding-glimpses-of-the-obvious Norman Rockwell-isms (cosplaying at profundities) with Cat 5 Aggrievedness and off you go.

 

Kevin takes some poignant past-their-sell-by-dates stabs at snark.

 

 

What can I say/tweet?

 

apropos, see Project 2025:

A breadth of sneering anti-"Woke Cultural Elites" vitriol. One Convenient Location.

 

JD Vance's "Forward" to Kevin's Burning Down Washington. "Wagons" and "muskets," 'eh?

 

BLOGGER'S NOTE

I typically personally buy at retail and fully read the hundreds of books I cite / excerpt / review here. I rarely get a publisher's comp pre-pub "galley." I then cite lengthy, complete, relevant passages from the works under review. My readers can decide for themselves the worthiness of the content. Implicit in this approach, to be sure, is that my very choosing of the excerpts I do implies my assessment of their value (good or bad).

I don't do this for money, never have. I fall well within "Fair Use."

The Kevin Roberts excerpts set forth above, however, come from the Amazon "Look Inside" preview. I have better uses for the $14.99 Kindle edition, given the breadth of excellent volumes out there, and my extensive prior study of Mr, Roberts (Mr. No-Life here even read his doctoral dissertation. Seriously, I did that.). It can't be defamatory. They're HIS words. And, within his writing you will find no shortage of recurrent, sharp-elbowed, condescending MAGA-resonant vitriol. More broadly, his microphone and video camera lens affinities are matters of ample, lengthy partisan public record.

 UPDATES

"There is no time—or room—for an insurgency. The Left captured the military quickly, and we must reclaim it at a faster pace. We must wage a frontal assault. A swift counterattack, in broad daylight. If we wait for nightfall, they will regroup. If we retreat from the system to rebuild, it's gone. And building another American military is not an option. We have only one Pentagon. One secretary of defense."

Peter Hegseth, Donald Trump's Nov 2024 nominee for US Secretary of Defense.

 

 

TRUMP AG NOMINEE MATT GAETZ

 

 

RFK JR, HHS SECY NOMINEE

 

ODNI

Tulsi Gabbard, nominated for Director of National Intelligence. ZERO experience in the intel field.

The anti-science / anti-intellect cohort is going to wreak havoc for Donald Trump.

Is it too early to start drinking? More in a bit. Crazy news week...

_________

  

Now streaming: The Oaf of Office, Season 2

 

This appeared on TwitterX today, posted by a Trump insider:

1. Restoring Presidential Authority
Trump intends to reissue an executive order from 2020 which would restore the president's authority to remove federal employees, thereby allowing for the aggressive management or dismissal of federal workers.

2. Overhauling National Security and Intelligence
Trump's plan includes removing individuals from national security and intelligence agencies who have engaged in corrupt practices or have used these agencies against political adversaries.

3. Reform of FISA Courts
He proposes a comprehensive reform of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) courts to address issues where judges have ignored misleading information in warrant applications.

4. Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Plans to establish a commission to declassify and make public all documents related to alleged deep state activities like spying, censorship, and corruption.

5. Crackdown on Leaks
Trump plans to pursue legal actions against individuals involved in unauthorized leaks that contribute to misleading media narratives.

6. Independence of Inspectors General
Ensure that inspector general offices are physically separate from the departments they oversee to maintain objectivity and prevent them from becoming part of the entrenched bureaucracy.

7. Independent Auditing System
Establishment of a system to continually monitor intelligence agencies to prevent unauthorized surveillance of citizens or disinformation campaigns.

8. Geographic Redistribution of Bureaucracy
Continue the initiative of relocating federal offices outside of Washington, D.C., to other parts of the country, reducing the concentration of bureaucracy in the capital.

9. Ban on Post-Government Employment
Prohibit federal bureaucrats from taking positions at companies they previously regulated or dealt with to prevent conflicts of interest.

10. Term Limits for Congress
Push for a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on members of Congress, aiming to reduce the influence of long-term incumbents and refresh the political landscape.

Yeah. Blah, blah, blah. We'll see...

_________

  

Project 2025 keeps popping up at DNC 2024 in Chicago

 

Yeah, sure.

 

First, let's hear from the ever-astute Legal Eagle Liz Dye.

 

 

Also, a quick summation from the Wall Street Journal.

 

I've long been way deep into this P.2025 thing. See "A breadth of sneering anti-"Woke Cultural Elites" vitriol. One Convenient Location." See also my July 4th post, "A Republic, if we can keep it."

 

 

One need only peruse to page 4 of 918 to catch the start-to-finish permeating odor.

 

More Photoshop fun with their cover art:

"Dead Before Arrival?"

 

Back to DNC 2024 shortly. Final night. Wednesday night was very nice.

 

UPDATE

 

SOME WEDNESDAY RECAP STUFF

 

My Guv Wes Moore was a primetime speaker.

 

He began by recounting our Baltimore bridge disaster back in March, and the immediate assistance proactively provided by the Biden-Harris administration.

Also speaking: Oprah, and Mayor Pete. Both were marvelous.

Finally the VP nominee, MN Guv Tim Walz,

 

FINAL NIGHT

 

Al Sharpton introduced The Central Pa=k Five, wrongfully, racially targeted by the lifelong bigot Trump.

I come with a bit of personal reflection on racial bigotry.

_________

  

@Heritage Project 2025, DBA

Dead Before Arrival

 

 

 

Severe lipstick shortage, Kevin.

 

 

Not that we buy this "exit" uncritically. Our surveillance wlll continue assidously ongoing.

 

UPDATE

 

Donald Trump went to Chicago for a planned hour-long "Q&A" interview at the National Association of Black Journalists Convention . After 34 minutes of his continuing crass insults and filibustering non-responses, he terminated the interview just as one of the journalists tried to ask about "Project 2025."

No further comment needed.

_________

  

Project 2025 RNC convention update

 

WED RNC CONVENTION NOTE

Moments Are Fleeting

Well, that didn’t last long.

After Saturday’s assassination attempt, Donald Trump signaled that he would focus on unifying the country at the Republican National Convention. He told a Washington Examiner reporter that he had scrapped a speech focused on attacking Biden’s policies in favor of taking the chance to “bring the country together.” “In this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand United,” he wrote on Truth Social the morning after the shooting. And a person close to Trump told The Washington Post on Sunday that the RNC’s planners “want speakers to dial it down, not dial it up.” But that quickly proved impossible for a party that has spent years marinating in grievance.

The mood on day one of the convention was, as John Hendrickson put it in The Atlantic today, “oddly serene.” But there were still signs of latent anger: When Trump walked out yesterday, after the opening prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance, the delegates began chanting “Fight! Fight! Fight!,” echoing Trump’s words after the attempted assassination.

Ron Johnson’s apparent speech mishap was an apt metaphor for the GOP’s inability to set a new tone: Instead of appealing to national unity, the senator from Wisconsin accused Democratic policies of being a “clear and present danger” to the country. Afterward, he blamed the teleprompter operator for not loading the new, more pacific speech he said he had intended to give.

As the night wore on, it became obvious that the problem wasn’t just the teleprompter. Impassioned speeches against Democrats’ policies are par for the course at the RNC, and such discourse is essential to our democracy. But yesterday’s agenda revealed something darker and angrier than policy disagreement. One featured speaker was North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, the state’s Republican nominee for governor, who declared just last week that “some folks need killing.” “It’s time for somebody to say it,” Robinson remarked in an appearance at a local church. “It’s not a matter of vengeance. It’s not a matter of being mean or spiteful. It’s a matter of necessity.”…

And then there is Trump himself. Even as his team seemed to ask other Republicans to tone down their rhetoric, the former president continued to attack his critics in and out of the justice system on social media. The day after he was shot at, Trump was already relitigating his many grievances on Truth Social, and once again appeared to defame E. Jean Carroll, the woman he sexually assaulted.

As we move forward in Uniting our Nation after the horrific events on Saturday, this dismissal of the Lawless Indictment in Florida should be just the first step, followed quickly by the dismissal of ALL the Witch Hunts — The January 6th Hoax in Washington, D.C., the Manhattan D.A.’s Zombie Case, the New York A.G. Scam, Fake Claims about a woman I never met (a decades old photo in a line with her then husband does not count), and the Georgia “Perfect” Phone Call charges. The Democrat Justice Department coordinated ALL of these Political Attacks, which are an Election Interference conspiracy against Joe Biden’s Political Opponent, ME.

For a moment on Saturday, it felt as though we might start to see a gentler, more unifying Republican Party. But in politics, moments are fleeting, and as we were quickly reminded, Donald Trump is still Donald Trump—a man whose core message is incapable of bringing us all together again. [Charlie Sykes]

JD VANCE OOPSIE

 

Hillbilly Ishtar's people deleted this from his website after Trump chose him for VP. Too, late, bro'

 

Live with it, JD Dobbs. 

JUL 17TH EVENING UPDATE

During a campaign swing to Las Vegas, President Joe Biden was diagnosed with COVID-19, and is returning home to self-isolate. Rumors from the right and the left are swirling like mad.

_________

  

Hillsdale College whiffs, big-time

 

   

So, I just got this unsolicited fat snailmail pitch. An envelope containing a quarter-inch of fervent exhortatory materials (replete w/ ill-advised postage-paid return) urging that I contribute $$$ generously to help fight The Increasingly Menacing Evil Woke CRT DEI Marxists.

Wrong guy, peeps.  (Hmmm... what might I put in that envelope to send back?)

CLICK

apropos,

"Required reading for anyone seeking to understand Christian nationalism." —Kristin Kobes Du Mez, author of Jesus and John Wayne

A propulsive account of the network of charismatic Christians that consolidated support for Donald Trump and is reshaping religion and politics in the US.

Over the last decade, the Religious Right has evolved. Some of the more extreme beliefs of American evangelicalism have begun to take hold in the mainstream. Scholar Matthew D. Taylor pulls back the curtain on a little-known movement of evangelical Christians who see themselves waging spiritual battles on a massive scale. Known as the New Apostolic Reformation, this network of leaders and believers emerged only three decades ago but now yields colossal influence, galvanizing support for Trump and far-right leaders around the world. In this groundbreaking account, Taylor explores the New Apostolic Reformation from its inception in the work of a Fuller Seminary professor, to its immense networks of apostles and prophets, to its role in the January 6 riot. Charismatic faith provided righteous fuel to the fire that day, where symbols of spiritual warfare blazed: rioters blew shofars, worship music blared, and people knelt in prayer. This vision of charismatic Christianity now animates millions, lured by Spirit-filled revival and visions of Christian supremacy.

Taylor's unprecedented access to the movement's leaders, archives, internal conference calls, and correspondence gives us an insider account of the connection between charismatic evangelicalism and hard-right rhetoric. Taylor delves into prophetic memes like the Seven Mountains Mandate, the Appeal to Heaven flag, and the Cyrus Anointing; Trump's spiritual advisor Paula White's call for "angelic reinforcements"; and Sean Feucht and Bethel Music's titanic command of worship styles across America. Throughout, Taylor maps a movement of magnetic leaders and their uncompromising beliefs--and where it might be headed next. When people long to conquer a nation for God, democracy can be brought to the brink. [Amazon blurb]

PAGE 1 SNIP

   

SPIRITUAL WARRIORS 2024

THE CHRISTIAN WHITE NATIONALIST FLEA MARKET OF IDEAS

 

Tangentially, heard this while in the car.

 

 UPDATE

From the latest issue of Science Magazine,

Anthropologist and primatologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy’s impressive new book, Father Time, is a natural history that examines the biggest picture of hominim evolution in search of a small but important development in modern society: an increase in the care and nurturing of babies by men. Hrdy’s earlier works on the evolution of mothering and maternal instincts, Mother Nature (1999) and Mothers and Others (2009), also considered much of the paternal side of hominim parenting, but in her telling, the origins of her interest in fathers began with The Langurs of Abu (1977)…

In Hrdy’s analysis, men’s ancient limbic systems have been restimulated to engage more actively in childcare by modern developments that include the increased costs of educating and caring for children, women working in larger numbers, more men engaged in co-parenting, gay marriage, and the many options available to prospective parents, including in vitro fertilization, for creating hybrid families. As she has experienced in her own family, the more time men spend with babies, the more nurturing they become.

       

Ahhh... don't let the Hillsdale peeps (or Mizzou Senator Manhood Hawley) know. Oh, the Horrors!

    

UPDATE

In November, Calvin Hayden spoke to a fringe gathering of “America First” conservatives at a church in Kansas City. He told the crowd at Hope Family Fellowship Church that they were in the middle of a war between good and evil, that the Apple logo reminded him of Eve eating forbidden fruit, and that “a lot of the LGBT stuff and questioning the gender” might really be a Communist Chinese plot to “demasculinize our men and our warriors.” [ HuffPo ]

Calvin Hayden is the Sheriff of Johnson County, Kansas. Good grief.

  

UPDATE:

THE STORM IS COMING.

JASON STORM, WITH, AMONG OTHER THINGS, HIS "MANHOOD RESTORED BOOT CAMPS"

 

Another self-appointed, incoherent Christian Nationalist "Personhood Savior."

 

See allso "Let Us Prey: U.S. "Christian Nationalists" are making plans for us."

___

   

A personal Father Time note:

I have a lot of shortcomings. Failing to be a consistently devoted father is not among them.

CODA

   

Tom Nichols has released a 2nd edition of his excellent book "The Death of Expertise." 

  

   

Well worth your time. I've written him up previously.

 

A bit more Tom:

________

  

A breadth of sneering anti-"Woke Cultural Elites" vitriol.

 One Convenient Location.

   

~ 900 pages [pdf] of what they call their "Opening Salvo."

  

Any logical incoherence in the foregoing paragraph jump out at you?
"Americans' First Amendment rights?" As long as you, minmally, abstain from citing
or writing favorably about the words & phrases fundamental to the "Woke" cohort?
Moreover, your use of such terminology (unless evoked disparagingly)
precludes your eligibility for federal employment in 2025 and beyond.

LATE BREAKING ADDITION, FEB 4:

THE CONCEPT OF FREE SPEECH evolved in the West for 2,000 years, beginning with the Athenians (although not without a few setbacks, such as the death of Socrates). But America was the first country in history to enshrine a formal, legal, and enforceable protection for free expression, ensuring that people have the right to speak no matter who’s pissed off or how powerful they are.

Whenever a society collapses in on itself, free speech is the first thing to go. That’s how you know we’re in the process of closing up shop. Our legal protections remain in place—that’s why so many of us were able to smack the Trump piñata to such effect—but the culture of free speech is eroding every day. Ask an Oberlin student—fresh outta Shaker Heights, coming in hot, with a heart as big as all outdoors and a 3 in AP Bio—to tell you what speech is acceptable, and she’ll tell you that it’s speech that doesn’t hurt the feelings of anyone belonging to a protected class.

Flanagan, Caitlin. On Thinking for Yourself (Atlantic Editions) (pp. 72-73). Zando. Kindle Edition.

On the heels of my prior Dr. Blackstock post, some interesting and timely reading.

 

Lots more shortly. Gotta go fetch Calvin... 

 

UPDATE

Zack De Piero taught writing for four years in the English department at Penn State’s Abington campus. Then he resigned and, in 2023, filed a lawsuit alleging that administrators and other faculty members discriminated against him because he is white. In his telling, the school’s diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by creating a hostile work environment. In response, hundreds of academics signed an open letter calling the lawsuit a reactionary attack on “ongoing efforts in diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.”

The dispute, like so many in higher education, pits a faction that believes that the prevailing campus attitudes toward identity are racist against a faction that believes that they help fight racism. It is hardly unique in raising the question of whether DEI initiatives ever go too far. Still, this case stands out, not only because it resulted in a federal lawsuit, but because earlier this month, a judge denied Penn State’s motion to dismiss De Piero’s hostile-workplace claim. The case can now go to trial.

The ruling comes as backlash against DEI initiatives is growing and questions about when they violate antidiscrimination law remain unsettled. More significant, it establishes a standard that federal judges of varying ideologies could plausibly adopt, and that other plaintiffs can use to bring bias claims to trial.

This isn’t a case where, say, a white Donald Trump appointee who hates academia took an extreme position, like “Any departure from color-blindness is illegal,” that would be overturned on appeal. This particular judge is more difficult for DEI partisans to dismiss. Wendy Beetlestone, a Black district-court judge born in Nigeria, was appointed to the bench by Barack Obama. She was announced last year as the University of Liverpool’s next chancellor; she is clearly not hostile to higher education. And the substance of her ruling is hard for would-be critics to reject in full…
____

Critical race theory was yesterday’s scandal. Today, diversity-equity-and-inclusion initiatives are in the crosshairs of critics across the political spectrum who seek to dismantle any notion that racism is systemic and thus deserving of systemic remedies. Though the crisis at Harvard University began with questions concerning the prevalence of antisemitism and ended with charges of plagiarism against its president, Claudine Gay—who then resigned—for many of Gay’s opponents, D.E.I. initiatives appear to have been the main target. When the conservative activist Chris Rufo wrote in the Wall Street Journal about the role of conservatives, including himself, in ending Gay’s presidency, antisemitism and plagiarism received no meaningful mention. Instead, Rufo focussed on conservatives’ efforts to end D.E.I. in higher education. In his own long statement, Gay’s chief critic, the billionaire hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman, said that D.E.I. was the “root cause” of antisemitism on Harvard’s campus…

There's a ton more. These will serve illustratively apropos of the broad cultural gnashing for the moment.

 

MORE PROJECT 2025 BC PRIOR TO NITE-NITE

OK, whatever your opinion of the breadth of consenting adults' erotica proclivities and indulgences (irrespective of media expression format), this lame willful conflation is, well,—utterly predictable, I guess. First, gauzy as it may be jurisprudentially, it's "obscenity" that crosses the decisis ConLaw line. Moreover, the characterization of porn as "omnipresently manifested" in "transgender ideology and sexualization of chlldren..."

What? Need I really elaborate? Flamboyant adult hetero "swinger" Roger Stone apparently didn't get The Memo. Neither did the FL anti-woke book banners “Moms For Liberty” FFM video hotties.

The foregoing rather exemplifies the aggregate problem with this poignant "Opening Salvo." I am currently close to 400 pages through these ~900 pages.** This crew simply cannot resist larding up even otherwise often relatively unremarkable policy reform propositions (however "illiberal") with their fevered (projective?) visions of innocent toddlers fellating Cultural Elite Woke Trannies.

(** And, I've keyword/phrase-searched most of the principal red-meat straw-gender-fluid fallacies spanning the text in pursuit of their conclusionary contexts. Yeah, the riff is endemic. Don't take me at my word. "Do Your Own Research." Cmd-F is Your Friend.)

** Gotta love SECTION 4(26), by Peter Navarro,
now convicted & sentenced for Contempt of Congress.

TUESDAY UPDATE

...On the right there is constant complaints of the “liberal bias” in the media, and on the left there are complaints of the rise of right-wing media which they feel is biased and radicalizing. The culture wars focus mainly on schools, because those schools teach not only facts and knowledge but convey the values of our society. The left views DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiates as promoting social justice while the right views it as brainwashing the next generation with liberal propaganda. This is an oversimplification, but it is the basic dynamic. Even industry has been targeted by the culture wars… —The Neurologica Blog

MORE PROJECT 2025 BC FUN

 

Hmmm... they're gonna be hiring? (A sort of "temp agency?" I’m seein’ a Netflix Series…) What could possibly go wrong?

 

 

Well, you have to give up personal info to simply get a peek at the application. Congratulations, you are now a donor prospect. ("Your monthly donation commitment will prioritize your application ranking.")

 

Just let me guess as to what kinds of CV/personal "vetting" info you'll have to submit? Will it include a gamut of ideological purity questions? A list of all your social media accounts?

Seriously, kiddies?

Spend a bit of time surfing their website. Draw your own conclusions.

 

THE PROJECT 2025 BC PRESIDENTIAL ADMINISTRATION ACADEMY

Wafts of Trump University in the air?

BRIEF GRATUITOUS OFF-TOPIC ERRATUM

I'm 10 days out from my 78th birthday. I think a new car is in order.

 

arf, arf...

UPDATE

ragion di stato

Get a load of this dude:

...Alternatively, in a formulation I prefer, one can imagine an illiberal legalism that is not “conservative” at all, insofar as standard conservatism is content to play defensively within the procedural rules of the liberal order.

This approach should take as its starting point substantive moral principles that conduce to the common good, principles that officials (including, but by no means limited to, judges) should read into the majestic generalities and ambiguities of the written Constitution. These principles include respect for the authority of rule and of rulers; respect for the hierarchies needed for society to function; solidarity within and among families, social groups, and workers’ unions, trade associations, and professions; appropriate subsidiarity, or respect for the legitimate roles of public bodies and associations at all levels of government and society; and a candid willingness to “legislate morality”—indeed, a recognition that all legislation is necessarily founded on some substantive conception of morality, and that the promotion of morality is a core and legitimate function of authority. Such principles promote the common good and make for a just and well-ordered society.

To be sure, some have attempted to ground an idea of the common good on an originalist understanding, taking advantage of the natural-rights orientation of the founding era. Yet that approach leaves originalism in ultimate control, hoping that the original understanding will happen to be morally appealing. I am talking about a different, more ambitious project, one that abandons the defensive crouch of originalism and that refuses any longer to play within the terms set by legal liberalism. Ronald Dworkin, the legal scholar and philosopher, used to urge “moral readings of the Constitution.”Common-good constitutionalism is methodologically Dworkinian, but advocates a very different set of substantive moral commitments and priorities from Dworkin’s, which were of a conventionally left-liberal bent.

Common-good constitutionalism is not legal positivism, meaning that it is not tethered to particular written instruments of civil law or the will of the legislators who created them. Instead it draws upon an immemorial tradition that includes, in addition to positive law, sources such as the ius gentium—the law of nations or the “general law” common to all civilized legal systems—and principles of objective natural morality, including legal morality in the sense used by the American legal theorist Lon Fuller: the inner logic that the activity of law should follow in order to function well as law.

Common-good constitutionalism is also not legal liberalism or libertarianism. Its main aim is certainly not to maximize individual autonomy or to minimize the abuse of power (an incoherent goal in any event), but instead to ensure that the ruler has the power needed to rule well. A corollary is that to act outside or against inherent norms of good rule is to act tyrannically, forfeiting the right to rule, but the central aim of the constitutional order is to promote good rule, not to “protect liberty” as an end in itself. Constraints on power are good only derivatively, insofar as they contribute to the common good; the emphasis should not be on liberty as an abstract object of quasi-religious devotion, but on particular human liberties whose protection is a duty of justice or prudence on the part of the ruler.

Finally, unlike legal liberalism, common-good constitutionalism does not suffer from a horror of political domination and hierarchy, because it sees that law is parental, a wise teacher and an inculcator of good habits. Just authority in rulers can be exercised for the good of subjects, if necessary even against the subjects’ own perceptions of what is best for them—perceptions that may change over time anyway, as the law teaches, habituates, and re-forms them. Subjects will come to thank the ruler whose legal strictures, possibly experienced at first as coercive, encourage subjects to form more authentic desires for the individual and common goods, better habits, and beliefs that better track and promote communal well-being.

Common-good constitutionalism draws inspiration from the early modern theory of ragion di stato—“reason of state,” which, despite the connotations that have become attached to its name, is not at all a tradition of unscrupulous machination. (Indeed, it was formulated precisely to combat amoral technocratic visions of rule as the maximization of princely power.) Instead the ragion di stato tradition elaborates a set of principles for the just exercise of authority. Promoting a substantive vision of the good is, always and everywhere, the proper function of rulers. Every act of public-regarding government has been founded on such a vision; any contrary view is an illusion. Liberal and libertarian constitutional decisions that claim to rule out “morality” as a ground for public action are incoherent, even fraudulent, for they rest on merely a particular account of morality, an implausible account.

Given that it is legitimate for rulers to pursue the common good,  constitutional law should elaborate subsidiary principles that make such rule efficacious. Constitutional law must afford broad scope for rulers to promote—as the ragion di stato put it, in a famous trinity of principles—peace, justice, and abundance. Today, we may add health and safety to that list, in very much the same spirit. In a globalized world that relates to the natural and biological environment in a deeply disordered way, a just state is a state that has ample authority to protect the vulnerable from the ravages of pandemics, natural disasters, and climate change, and from the underlying structures of corporate power that contribute to these events. Because the ragion di stato is not ashamed of strong rule, does not see it as presumptively suspect in the way liberalism does, a further corollary is that authority and hierarchy are also principles of constitutionalism. Finally, and perhaps most important, just rule emphasizes solidarity and subsidiarity. Authority is held in trust for and exercised on behalf of the community and the subsidiary groups that make up a community, not for the benefit of individuals taken one by one.

How, if at all, are these principles to be grounded in the constitutional text and in conventional legal sources? The sweeping generalities and famous ambiguities of our Constitution, an old and in places obscure document, afford ample space for substantive moral readings that promote peace, justice, abundance, health, and safety, by means of just authority, hierarchy, solidarity, and subsidiarity. The general-welfare clause, which gives Congress “power to … provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States,” is an obvious place to ground principles of common-good constitutionalism (despite a liberal tradition of reading the clause in a cramped fashion), as is the Constitution’s preamble, with its references to general welfare and domestic tranquility, to the perfection of the union, and to justice. Constitutional words such as freedom and liberty need not be given libertarian readings; instead they can be read in light of a better conception of liberty as the natural human capacity to act in accordance with reasoned morality.

...The Court’s jurisprudence on free speech, abortion, sexual liberties, and related matters will prove vulnerable under a regime of common-good constitutionalism. The claim, from the notorious joint opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, that each individual may “define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life” should be not only rejected but stamped as abominable, beyond the realm of the acceptable forever after. So too should the libertarian assumptions central to free-speech law and free-speech ideology—that government is forbidden to judge the quality and moral worth of public speech, that “one man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric,”  and so on—fall under the ax...

Adrian Vermeule

 

After reading up on His Opus Dei-ness in finer depth (he's got a Thing for Monarchism), I tweeted him (he's at Harvard) with a question concerning a couple of core specifics apropos of "the Common Good."

 

His response was simply to block me for my Great Unwashed Temerity.

 

 

Reproductive rights? Suck it up, sistahs.

UPDATE

 

 Watch it all closely.

 

278 days to Nov 5th…

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