Wednesday.....Culture.....Intellectuals And Society (6)

If one meditates on what had transpired in the halls of Congress over this past weekend, it should be evident that the warnings of the past year were accurate. We are heading like a locomotive towards a totalitarian state. The group of people who have commandeered seats of power in America had forced legislation down the throats of the American people. They had absolutely no qualms about their actions for they are convinced that ethics do not enter into the mandate given to the elite, the anointed, by the Fates. If you listen closely, you can hear from the celebratory comments, their true intentions. Nancy Pelosi admitted this legislation is the foot in the door necessary to greater (Socialist) ambitions. Vice President Biden admitted that this was the beginning of controlling the insurance companies. Representative John Dingell admitted that the goal was to control the people. Another official nonchalantly admitted that they make up the rules as they go along. I implore you to question their tactics and their accusations towards those who oppose them for it is their modus operandi to make outlandish statements and simply rely on the gullibility of the American public to believe the accusations and then click the remote to American Idol or NCAA basketball. Thomas Sowell's book Intellectuals and Society (978-0-465-01948-9) is so very important for it describes in detail how the intellectual wing of the radical left has developed its destructive beliefs and systems and then commissioned their political wing to institute them, and hold onto your hats for the enforcement part. I have previously reviewed the first five chapters of Sowell's book. Chapter six is Intellectuals and the Law. Sowell starts off with just as a free market economy puts severe limits on the role to be played by the vision of the intellectuals, so too does strict adherence to the rule of law, especially Constitutional law. If the law does not come from words on paper, then it must come from the minds of the anointed. Sowell refers to comments from a previous chapter in that when someone has expertise in one area (engineering or chess for example) it does not guarantee that this same capability applies to other areas of life, yet this is the garland that the intellectual bestows upon himself. Numerous academics and judges are quoted in the chapter. Professor Ronald Dworkin of Oxford dismissed the systematic evolution of the law as a "silly faith" based on the "chaotic and unprincipled development of history." Sowell continued, law-in the full sense of rules known in advance and applied as written-is a major restriction on surrogate decision-making, especially when it is a Constitutional law, not readily changed by a simple majority of the moment. Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson are mentioned as part of the early 20th century Progressive movement and Roscoe Pound (Dean of Harvard Law School) referred to the desirability of a "living constitution by judicial interpretation," called for an "awakening of juristic activity," and condemned mechanical jurisprudence for "its failure to respond to vital needs of present-day life." Louis Brandeis wrote an article titled The Living Law where he asserted that there had been "a shifting of our longing from legal justice to social justice." Sowell spends a good bit of time on how the Left then casts accusations of judicial activism on those who simply interpret the law as it is written. A number of historical cases are mentioned in this chapter including a description of original intent, "property rights" being one example given of present day attacks on that original intent. Another focus is crime and how here also the intellectual departs from common sense. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes is quoted as one who exemplified the legal philosophy on the way out in that the role of the judge is to see that the game is played according to the rules whether I like them or not. It is difficult, not exciting, living in a time like this. Will we even learn anything if we right this ship of state? Regardless, we have a responsibility and that responsibility begins with rejecting this sound-bite culture and accepting the task and challenge at hand.