I’ll first provide links and summary quotes to two of my earlier posted essays: In Is God’s Creation Compatible with Centralization of Authority and Power?, I concluded: …that God’s Creation isn’t compatible with anything approaching complete centralization of power and authority, though centers of power and authority do exist and have their own role, often … [Read more…]
Mostly. That is, decentralization creates lots of opportunities for dynamic efforts of various sorts, some of which might well be very successful. By “successful in human history”, I write of both history proper (written narratives based upon facts) and also prehistory (the reconstructed narratives of pre-literate men and even of apish ancestors of men). By … [Read more…]
Let’s consider one historically important central power: the Papacy. The history of the Papacy was actually quite complicated but we can pass over those complications for my current purposes. I choose the Papacy for several reasons. Firstly, I entered the Catholic Church as an adult and am currently an (excessively?) active Catholic parishioner. I hold … [Read more…]
In a discussion of a recent speech by President Trump, Robert Merry gives a short summary of one aspect of our current political mess—see Trump’s Warsaw Speech Threw Down the Gauntlet on Western Civilization: Is America just `an idea’?. In Merry’s discussion, we can read: In his Warsaw speech on Thursday, Donald Trump threw down … [Read more…]
In my last post, What is the Totality of a Human Life?: Individual and Communal Intent, I proposed that `intent’ in the sense used by Thomas Aquinas and by biologists and lawyers is a way to help us understand human being in its totality, encompassing individual and communal manifestations of human being—and probably divine human … [Read more…]
In my previous post, What is the Totality of a Human Life?: Individuals and Communities, I explored some issues related to meaningfulness, using terms which might allow a slightly more disciplined discourse and thought than what is currently used by knowledgeable and insightful thinkers as well as many others. I think it necessary to delve … [Read more…]
A life is made up of moments and events but it’s not merely the sum of the moments and events in the way that a universe isn’t just the sum of the matter and energy and other specific things it contains and a community isn’t just the sum of its members and their individual to … [Read more…]
You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. [Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell.] As Western Civilization is decaying, we still don’t know what we had and there’s a good reason for that. As I’ve stated repeatedly, a civilization is mostly inside of its members: our understanding of ourselves and others, of Creation and Creator. … [Read more…]
Let me expand upon the title: Self-government isn’t government structure, it’s a claim for (positive) rights successfully made by a morally well-ordered population; that is, a claim for rights not magically granted to us but earned by real-world efforts and made possible by a bit of luck. We, the American people and our government, can’t … [Read more…]
Introduction On 2017/04/20, Judge Andrew Napolitano published: What if We Don’t Really Govern Ourselves?, a simple and coherent article questioning whether democracy exists in the United States and whether democracy is, in any case, an absolute good or an answer to our various political problems. Napolitano’s essay is in the form of questions which move … [Read more…]