Cucking on Free Speech

The Network Contagion Research Institute has published an important report on the online dissemination of anti-Semitic disinformation. Here's the text to the Foreword I wrote to the report.https://t.co/UwaGzMfTtH

— Robert P. George (@McCormickProf) December 15, 2020

Milo Being Milo

Paul Gottfried on the Loss of Free Speech on College Campuses

Then and Now in Academia by Paul Gottfried

Andrew Bacevich on the First Amendment

God and Country

Will he be a regular contributor to FPR?

Anyway, would there be such a problem if the Federal national military were not such a large institution? If we still followed the Constitution and recognized that the states have the right to "establish" church, along with the stipulation that the states would provide for the bulwark of defense through their military units, would this be such a problem?

Even with a national military that is limited in size, what do we do about its members' spiritual needs? This could officially be left to the states or the established churches of the states? Or to independent churches or ecclesial communities ministering to the members. (At present, our military chaplains have to be under the authority of the military, for whatever reason, and hence the necessity of the Archdiocese of the Military?)

Items of Interest, 5 May 2012

Libertas et Memoria: Mel Bradford on the Founders, religious establishment and the First Amendment

Nicholas C. Lund-Molfese, Peter Maurin, The Distributists and the Nature of Work

Driving Britain to ‘Popular Capitalism’ with the Social Franchising Co-operative Model

Global civil society and the rise of the civil economy by Robin Murray (EB)

Mish: China's Population Poised to Crash in Perfect Demographic Storm

From Republic to Empire - a leftist perspective

6 People You Need to Start a Revolution
Farmers markets move online by Katherine Gustafson (EB)
Food, Inc. Chicken Farmer has a New Humane Farm

Catholic:
Pope: 'Sound education in faith' is 'most urgent challenge' of the Church in America
Our Lady of Atonement Parish Withdraws Request to Enter Ordinariate

Archbishop Sheehan of Santa Fe: recovering Catholic identity
(mp3)
Does he go far enough in diagnosing the problem?

Chant Before and After the Solesmes Revolution

Feminism:
Obama Campaign: Women are Helpless
The same line of attack that Michelle Malkin takes, grounded in feminist strength and autonomy?

Army opens combat positions to women
Men in the military are being thrown into the meat grinder, and when invariably bad incidents happen when men and women are thrown together in stressful (or boring) situations, men will be thrown under the bus. The Pentagon is a bunch of perfumed princesses seeking to appease the feminists in control. What more evidence do men in the military need that their leadership hates them? After all, if there is a serious lack of qualified men for these positions, then maybe we can make military service more popular by limiting imperial misadventures overseas. And if there isn't a lack of qualified men, then how can we justify their displacement by women in the name of facilitating their career advancement and a better representation of women in the military? What a joke. Soon any true patriot will have to avoid anything to do with the National Government, which does not serve the common good but actively seeks to subvert it for private interests.

History:
Roanoke found? N.C., British researchers find clue to location of Lost Colony

Why All The Fuss About the Body: A Medievalist's Perspective
Eh?

Popular Ethics:
Rory Sutherland: Perspective is everything



Music:
Doc Watson & Earl Scruggs Play At Doc's Home


TV:
Jim Caviezel on Person of Interest

Larry Vickers:
Speed is Fine, Accuracy is Final

Christopher Mannion, The Coming Age of the Laity

Crisis (via Patriactionary)

I believe Mr. Mannion is a paleolibertarian, or leans in that direction. He quotes Pope Benedict XVI, who has adopted the proposition nation understanding of the United States, which holds the Declaration of Independence to be primarily a statement of natural law and a key by which the Constitution is to be interpreted:

At the heart of every culture, whether perceived or not, is a consensus about the nature of reality and the moral good, and thus about the conditions for human flourishing. In America, that consensus, as enshrined in your nation’s founding documents, was grounded in a worldview shaped not only by faith but a commitment to certain ethical principles deriving from nature and nature’s God. Today that consensus has eroded significantly in the face of powerful new cultural currents which are not only directly opposed to core moral teachings of the Judeo-Christian tradition, but increasingly hostile to Christianity as such.

While the bishops do need to man up and deal with politicians who are Catholic in name only, I think Mr. Mannion underestimates the gravity of the problems confronting the laity if they seek to strengthen their families and parishes. But it is the beginning of a response to "Catholics" like Rick Santorum who claim to be conservative.

Too much accomodationism?

The Dangers of Anti-Sharia Laws by Robert K. Vischer

The author appeals to the First Amendment to defend a certain notion of religious liberty. Can his argument be harmonized with a correct understanding of the Constitution in which the First Amendment is seen as applying only to the Federal Government and not the states?

Modernizing the U.S.Army

Which has to keep up with the rest of the world --

From its FB:

Today is Earth Day, a day that inspires awareness and appreciation for the Earth's natural environment. The Army is making great strides to help the environment through its Net Zero initiative. The Net Zero approach is comprised of five steps: reduction, re-purpose, recycling and composting, energy recovery, and disposal. What are you doing to celebrate Earth Day? To learn more about Net Zero, check out this article: http://goo.gl/Y4ILU

Wrt the First Amendment and the National Government... I suppose it's one more reason to not have a standing army, if the First Amendment is going to be interpreted in such a restrictive manner. Even if this lack of appreciation for Good Friday were not due to the First Amendment, what would we expect from a national institution of a post-Christian society?

Tom Piatak: Good Friday, Bad Earth Day

Reactions to SCOTUS on the Westboro Baptist Church Decision

Free Speech or Federal Tyranny? by Thomas Fleming

The Limits of Free Speech: Whatever Happened to Common Sense? by William Murchison
Russell Arben Fox, Alito Gets it Right about Free Speech
MOJ: Military Funerals and the Failure of Chief Justice Roberts and The Good and Evil of Speech
Volokh Conspiracy
Scotus Blog

Snyder v. Phelps
Time

Thomas Fleming, Tyranny Over Religion

Building upon the comments he left at Mr. Murchinson's column on the Ground Zero Mosque, Dr. Fleming revisits the question of religious freedom and the place of religion in a community: Tyranny Over Religion.

Donald Drakeman on the Establishment Clause

Lee J. Strang, Church, State, and Original Intent:

Drakeman’s work bolsters that of other scholars, such as Philip Hamburger in his Separation of Church and State, who have shown that many aspects of the Supreme Court’s strict-separationist interpretation were, as Justice Clarence Thomas described it in Mitchell v. Helms (2000), the product of anti-Catholic animosity. His exposition of the Everson court’s flawed history is both a cautionary tale for originalists and a lesson that today’s sophisticated originalism is a viable project.

First, originalism’s critics have frequently argued that originalism is a flawed interpretative methodology because it requires honest historical analysis of issues of great import and this is simply too much to ask of judges. There is a significant amount of truth to this criticism. Everson shows that judges can construct a plausible case for mistaken historical claims to achieve desired policy outcomes.

This brings us to the second lesson: Originalists, recognizing this criticism, have rearticulated originalism to overcome it. For example, today’s originalism focuses on the constitutional text’s publicly understood meaning when it was ratified, instead of the purported “intent” of the Clause’s framers. This makes it harder for justices to cherry-pick “framers” to reach their desired result. Justice Scalia’s majority opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), exemplifies this approach.

Another move made by originalists, one followed by Drakeman, is distinguishing between constitutional interpretation and constitutional construction. Interpretation is the activity of recovering the Constitution’s determinate original public meaning. Construction is the activity of creating constitutional meaning when the original meaning is indeterminate. This distinction permits originalists to acknowledge when history “runs out.” It makes originalists modest in their historical claims by relieving them of the task of finding all the answers in history.

Given the Supreme Court’s historical focus and, more importantly, the stakes for the contending sides in the church-state debate, it is not surprising that Everson “created a cottage industry populated by prolific originalists.” Drakeman groups them into nonpreferentialists, strict-separationists, and the “enhanced federal[ists].”

Nonpreferentialists claim that the Clause permits nondiscriminatory aid to religious groups and activities, while strict-separationists contend that it forbids governmental aid to religion. Enhanced federalists make the more limited claim that the Clause preserves state jurisdiction over religious matters and denies jurisdiction to the federal government.

Drakeman gives each camp a fair hearing and, in doing so, performs his own historical analysis. He concludes—noting that this conclusion does not fit his policy preferences—that the Clause’s “original meaning was to forbid the establishment of a single national religion.” (Call this the “no-national-church” interpretation.)

The most important historical fact, he writes, is that the Clause’s adoption engendered little controversy or debate. The strict-separationist interpretation, which would have, is therefore implausible. Only the no-national-church interpretation, which was widely accepted by Americans in 1791, can account for this lack of significant debate.

The enhanced federalism position fits the absence of controversy and is therefore a plausible reading of the Clause’s text, but Drakeman rejects it. It “is arguably consistent with the language but unsupported by the documentary record [while the] no-national-church reading [has] a great deal of evidence in the records of all of the relevant events.”

Other historical evidence, he argues, makes his no-national-church interpretation superior to the strict-separationist and enhanced federalism interpretations. For example, both state and later the federal governments aided religion, while the primary substantive concern behind the Clause was that a Protestant denomination would become the established national church.

How does the enhanced federalism interpretation differ from the no national church interpretation? It seems to me that the former can be understood as being a version of the latter. The difference would be that the former explicitly gives states the right to establish a church, while the latter does not explicitly deny this right to the states.

How do we understand the First Amendment?

CNN: Georgia judge bars release of photos of hiker's nude, decapitated body

Atlanta, Georgia (CNN) -- Photos of the nude and decapitated body of a murdered hiker, sought by a writer on assignment for Hustler magazine, will not be released, a judge in Georgia ordered Wednesday.

The decision came as state lawmakers considered legislation that would ban public release of graphic photos of crime victims. First Amendment lawyers say the legislation could have a chilling effect on open records requests.

Even if the First Amendment to the Constitution is as expansive as some suggest, it does not apply to the state governments. The question is then whether the state constitution has something equivalent to the First Amendment, and if how it is to be understood.