On the one hand, I was slightly amused - when getting over my initial anger - at the way that an article in the New York Times characterized Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia regarding his minority opinion with respect to the SCOTUS decision regarding the Arizona State 'anti-illegal immigrant' law. The article, headed 'A Dissent by Scalia Is Criticized As Political,' by one Ethan Bronner (on 28 June), quoted, among other left-wing sources, one Richard A. Posner, federal appeals court judge (7th Circuit), as saying that Justice Scalia's focus on pure constitutional originalism was "naive and unrealistic". Ah, yes. The old horse-and-buggy ridicule treatment. Hardly worth commenting on, in today's Brave New World of jurisprudence, where the law is something to be manipulated by smart-ass lawyers - excuse me; where the Constitution is 'a living documen', and therefore needs to be subjected to interpretation by jurists looking through the modern eyes of their personal socio-political proclivities - oops. Precisely what the article accuses Justice Scalia of. How gauche -"naive and unrealistic" - of me...
It reminds me of something I have just read, via the e-newsletter of one Bix Weir, about when a bunch of muscular bankers got irritated with a federal regulator, a woman by the name of Brooksley Born, who was not happy with the opacity of the derivatives 'market', and had the tendency of asking too many questions, and demanding too many answers. Mr. Weir's site mentioned how former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt had been told by said bankers that Ms. Born "was irascible, difficult, stubborn, unreasonable". And, if she had been listened to, there need have been no 2008 meltdown of the banking system, stemming from said (ineffectually-regulated) derivatives market...Now, perhaps that meltdown was a good thing, overall, in highlighting how corrupt the western monetary system had become - and continues in its self-serving ways, and therefore, how it needs to go, now, in a more enlightened, higher-consciousness age.* But the point I wish to make here is how puerile we can be, when we look at others through the prism of opinionated eyes, our vision of them depending on us, not them.
(And how fitting that Ms. Born received a 2009 JFK-institute 'Profiles in Courage' Award. And how disheartening that there haven't been more profiles in political courage in the days since JFK wrote the book on the subject.)
On the other hand, I see how happy Michael Moore is, and others are, regarding the SCOTUS ruling on ObamaCare; and want 'the government' to continue to be similarly inclined. Not to get into the merits or demerits of 'universal health care' and such here; I just want to sound a note of, as I said, caution in these political matters. It's one thing to have differences of political opinion on various such issues. It is another to argue for the Constitution to be ignored in dealing with said issues.
I detect a note of 'direct democracy' in what is going on these days; the Occupy Movement, and so forth. Again: 'participatory democracy' is one thing. And good on people for getting involved, and not leaving 'politics' up to the politicians. A republic - government of, by, and for the people - requires the people to be engaged. But there is a tendency building to manipulate people into 'pure' democratic responses - by which I mean, a mob. Majority rule, without safeguards for the individual. As are guaranteed in and by the American Constitution. And which is being compromised, and ignored, as we speak. By puppeteers, who know precisely what they are doing, in playing people like puppets.
The Left is 'capitalizing' - as it were - on widespread anger towards 'the bankers', in trying to slip the bonds of the Constitution, and make of it a 'positive rights' document, rather than a 'negative' one; as Obama has characterized it, from his position on the Left** - and as various jurisprudence characters, from law school professors to Supreme Court justices, and as an ideological media, want it to become, i.e., a socialist, central-government document, and thus the end of the American Republic. Wanting, in effect, the government to guarantee people the 'right' of education, and health care, and 'living wage' employment, and to institute a major 'redistribution of income', and all the other accoutrements of a large state running things, to within an inch of the lives of the people. And there lie dragons. Just as deadly as the ones on the Right, of an all-powerful state running things from the perspective of a corporate-government complex. Also known as fascism.
An all-powerful state is not the answer to humanity's better future, from either the Right OR the Left.
An all-powerful Self is. In alignment with the Plan in and Purpose to life.
And that ain't to rule over others with an iron fist.
Or even one clothed in a velvet glove.
So: Be careful of personal intimations of 'things being better than they are'. Indeed, that day is needed; and, that day is here. But it should not be clothed in the wardrobe of an all-powerful state, commanding people to 'be good' - or else.
The answer to the future is the power of Love. Not the love of Power.
Been there. Done that.
It's time for something completely different.
Join the club. Don't wield it.
And don't even think to. As in thinking to make all citizens take out health insurance as mandated by the federal government, in their current plan for that process; which combines crony capitalism with crony socialism. There's a better way to accomplish a better health system than this jerry-rigged one.
And it requires not starting from here. But from a higher level of consciousness.
Which is, now, staring us right in the face.
Not down the barrel of a gun.
And believe me: It has a smile on it.
A big, BIG one.
But you have to let go of old patterns, for it to land - and in everybody's' hearts.
Those of the Left. AND of the Right.
Because it's that time.
A time of unity. No longer the duality that we have been living in, long enough.
To learn lessons.
And then move on.
To the sunlit uplands of our better natures.
Coming, to a planet near You.
As we speak.
---
* the New Age. Yes, that old chestnut, object of similar ridicule. How interesting, when people can't deal with things directly, have to resort to ad hominem attacks and such. Must be a built-in tactic, of the likes of an adversarial legal system, or informal debate rules. If you can't argue the law, resort to personal attacks, and so forth.
** I realize that some people won't know what I'm talking about here. It comes from a radio interview (which I have heard) out of Chicago with then (2001) state legislator Obama, wherein he said, in regards to the Warren Court's rulings on civil rights issues, things like: "But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society...[the Warren Court] didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as it's been interpreted, and the Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can't do to you. Says what the federal government can't do to you, but doesn't say what the federal government or state government must do on your behalf..." and so forth in that vein. The vein of a socialist constitution, outlining the powers - and responsibilities - of a central state.
This is all part of Obama's Marxist background, which has been commented on by various sources from his college days. He was a firm believer in a communist revolution. At first, in a violent overthrow of the capitalist system; and then, given the impracticality of a workers overthrow of the established order, in working within the system to accomplish the same end. Which he is doing, in spades, as we speak.
Not that I don't believe that major change is required, now, either, in the 'established order' of things. But not that way. And not in that direction. For more on which, read on.
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