The Art Of Spiritual Warfare

Over on the Dems Launch On Catholic Church thread commenter Frank provided a link and some commentary regarding an article by Michael Anton:

The Art of Spiritual War

Anton has a very interesting background. He served for many years in the belly of the beast, so to speak, but then came out as a major supporter of Trump--bridging the gap between the Orange Man and highbrow conservatives of the Claremont Review ilk. This will give you an idea of his background, including the essay than made him famous:

Michael Anton (born 1969) is an American conservative essayist, speechwriter and former private-equity executive who was a senior national security official in the Trump administration. Under a pseudonym he wrote "The Flight 93 Election", an influential essay in support of Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Anton was Deputy Assistant to the President for Strategic Communications on the National Security Council under Trump. He is a former speechwriter for Rupert Murdoch, Rudy Giuliani, and Condoleezza Rice, and worked as director of communications at the investment bank Citigroup and as managing director of investing firm BlackRock.

I found this essay somewhat short on specific recommendations. However, there was one passage that appealed to me, because he identified specific movements usually considered "allies" of conservatism, but which in fact have been very much part of America's problems. FWIW, here is that passage:

This Dem Has Been Reading Voting Data

I lifted this lengthy quote from a NYMag interview of David Shor from Steve Sailer. The title of the interview is David Shor on Why Trump Was Good for the GOP and How Dems Can Win in 2022. The part I've selected is focused mostly on Why Trump Was Good For The GOP. 

I was reading and thinking about this when Tom Verso commented at Have Dems Been Reading The Polls?:

The Democrats would be worried if they thought that the Republicans will use the issues in these polls to challenge them.

But, we have a de facto (de jure?) one party government, so we can expect the Republicans to run on cliché platitudes.

Consider the speech of the Govener of South Dakota at the CPAC convention. 

It was all about “Love of liberty” and the ‘Founding Fathers” and the “Declaration of Independence”. 

Not one of the poll items cited above was a part of her speech; unless she picked up on them after I stopped listening about 2/3 of the way through. 

That capsulized in a lot of ways exactly what Shor is talking about. It also suggested what I've been talking about, that the GOP needs to move beyond Classical Liberal ideology to a philosophy that empowers Trumpian populism. Trump himself did that by appealing to those who still have a lingering cultural Catholic sensibility--which appeals to religious voters of many stripes, as well as to generally cultural conservatives. And so I responded:

Good point, Tom. Those are "platitudes" that tend to appeal to ideological Libertarians--Classical Liberals. The appeal there is to so called "movement conservatives." Those are not, in fact, Trumpian talking points and those weren't the talking points that got Trump elected or got him that huge increase in votes-including from minority voters.

Read these excerpts from Shor with those observations in mind. My takeaway is that what will empower the GOP is not more Libertarian slop about liberty as the major talking points--although I hasten to add that personal freedom does play into the conservative mix. A not very well understood factor in the Trump phenomenon is his pointed attacks on Prog/PC ideology. Conservatives need to follow Trump down that road, while avoiding the ideological Scylla and Charybdis of overt Libertarianism (a turnoff to many women and minorities as well as thinking conservatives) and the inchoate squishiness of Compassionate Conservatism. They need something masculine that also appeals to women. I say the answer is a populism that frames for the masses the realistic philosophy of human nature that is the Western tradition. A perennial philosophy of human thriving and happiness.

Shor:

Briefly Noted: Professions In A Woke Society

Red State today picks up a story from the Daily Wire about an education major at SUNY. Here's the Red State link:

'A Man is a Man and a Woman is a Woman': Student Suspended for Violating Students' Dignity 'Til He Completes a 'Remediation Plan'

Here's the full statement that the young man made on Instagram:

“Hey, everybody. I’m gonna double down on this point right now. I wanna make myself very clear, so hear what I’m saying. A man is a man. A woman is a woman. A man is not a woman, and a woman is not a man. A man cannot become a woman, and a woman cannot become a man. If I’m a man and I think I’m a woman, I’m still a man. If I’m a woman who thinks I’m a man, I’m still a woman. Regardless of what you feel on the inside, [it’s] irrelevant to your biological status. It doesn’t change the biology. The biology is very clear. It’s very, very, very clear. And it’s binary and easy. You fall into either Man or Woman. And if you’re intersex, you either become a man or woman eventually. And that is such a small…group of people that it makes no sense to justify that as statistically significant and apply that to our definition of gender. It wouldn’t make any sense.”

According to the Daily Wire:

Politics And The Family

Yesterday I came across a review of a book that critiques--at least partially--the ideology that lies behind most of what's wrong in American life. You'll quickly recognize that the ideology as described is the same ideology that is described by political philosophers like Patrick Deneen. This is the ideology that grew out of the late medieval nominalism that maintained that there is no such thing as common natures, such as human nature--instead, only atomistic individuals exist. This has in the ensuing centuries become the default ideology of the modern world, and underlies the politics and policies of both Right and Left--whether most persons living under the sway of the this ideology recognize it or not. 

This fact explains the phenomenon that we call the "Uniparty" and the result that the difference between liberal and "conservative" administrations is largely a matter of how quickly we descend the slippery slope. The solution, of course, is to escape from that slippery slope by adopting a true philosophy and rejecting this anti-human ideology. The difficulty in this is that, in the course of centuries, it has become almost impossible for us in the West to think outside the box of this ideology. Even the institutions, such as the Church, that should be most strongly resisting it have largely succumbed--gradually but, at this point, virtually completely.

The book in question is by Scott Yenor, a professor of political science at Boise State University. Yennor's focus is on the harm this ideology has done and continues to do to the family as the key societal institution. His contention is that this harm is in no way coincidental. For our purposes, the difference between Right and Left in this regard is largely in the intent. "Conservatives" adopt the harmful policies mostly without the intent to harm the family as such--they do it because they cannot conceive of a different way of understanding human reality and so are putty in the hands of ideologues. Their goal is simply to continue "moderately", gradually. Not so with the Left.

Life In A Cult

H/T to commenter Cassander. I came across the link to the article I've excerpted below in another link that he provided.

Right now I suspect many of us are feeling a bit groggy--a feeling induced by the bizarre carnival atmosphere of public life in America, in which established liars are suppressing truth in the name of ideological purity. It's as if we were living inside a cult, while resisting full membership in that cult. Already back in 1949 in his The New Science of Politics Eric Voegelin had described this feeling as characteristic of life in the modern West. 

The American republic was established on the basis of a civil theology that reflected a generalized Christian tradition that embodied a philosophically articulate vision of human nature. This generally accepted civil theology is what breathed real life into the institutions established in the paper document we call our Constitution. 

However, as the societal consensus that allowed for a common civil theology broke down, various liberal ideologies began warring to replace Christianity as the new civil theology--Libertarianism on the right and on the left a Progressivism inspired by Hegel's Neo-Gnostic ideology. Both of these ideologies rest upon a radical denial of human nature, and Progressivism has developed into an increasingly explicit gnosticism that espouses a Globalist order to transform humanity--the Transhumanist Global Reset. Their goal is to inform our constitutional institutions with the spirit of that radical denial, as a civic ideology rather than a civic theology (God having been removed from public consciousness).

Ideologies by their nature share characteristics with what we commonly call "cults." Above all, both cults and ideologies engage in a systematic denial of the objective realities embodied in human nature in favor of a desire driven effort to overcome reality and establish a new reality. This manifests itself as a type of libido dominandi in the political sphere, and naturally entails the suppression of WrongThink of every sort--censorship of any expression that contradicts the drive of ideology.

Brilliant: The Road Ahead

Smart people are unfazed by the events of yesterday. After all, as I ... 

mark wauck January 7, 2021 at 8:11 AM

74M voted for Trump, and I doubt they'll repent of their vote. Trump has done the great service to the nation of pulling the masks down off establishment figures. I suspect that those who are now revealing themselves as fair weather conservatives will experience a very large drop in their credibility and influence, analogous to what has happened to Fox on a larger scale and what has also happened to the WSJ over the Trump years.

and commenter Cassander ...

Cassander January 7, 2021 at 8:47 AM

If you count unregistered children and friends and neighbors of Trump voters, maybe he's got 100 million supporters. Maybe more. That's a big number, which would appear unlikely to just apologize for having a different point of view and slink away so that Chuckie Schumer can "Change America".

noted this morning, there is still a future. Mitch McConnell's GOP--based, it seems, on attempting to foist unelectable females of a certain type (McSally, Loeffler, Ayotte ... no Blackburns need apply to Mitch) on an unwilling electorate --is not the model for the future that awaits us, or any successful political party, down the road.

The future happens a lot faster than most people can imagine, so it's best to be ready for it. John Daniel Davidson writes about that this morning:

Patrick Deneen On Amy Coney Barrett

Will Justice Amy be the second coming of Clarence Thomas--only as a white female? I sure hope so! And Patrick Deneen offers some hope in that regard in this teaser. What a concept, hey? America as a project to secure the common good. The point is, for that to be the case there needs to be some basic agreement on just what the common good is. Says Deneen:

So the constitution is not merely a non-aggression pact, as I think it has been increasingly interpreted, for people to do as they wish.

 

In other words, at the time of the founding there was a basic agreement as to the substantive content underlying the notion of a common good. We need to recover that to Make America Great Again. I believe AG Bill Barr is very much on board with that project--of recovering a substantive notion of the common good--and Deneen contends that Justice Amy will be, too. I'm all for it.

"America is a political project to secure the common good."@PatrickDeneen on natural law, the common good, the U.S. Constitution, and Amy Coney Barrett.

Full interview coming soon on @NatConTalk . pic.twitter.com/iLGu4lDXTK

— Yoram Hazony (@yhazony) September 29, 2020

What Happens If Trump Loses?

Many readers will be familiar with Michael Anton's bombshell essay from 2016:

The Flight 93 Election 

The election of 2016 will test whether virtù remains in the core of the American nation. 

by Publius Decius Mus

And it really was a bombshell in conservative and, more generally, GOP circles.

Anton has a book that's due out on September 1, which in a sense updates that earlier essay in the context of the current election: The Stakes: America at the Point of No Return.

Today he gives a preview in a lengthy essay adapted from the book:

A Tyranny Perpetual and Universal? 

Is the leftist dream now within reach? If President Trump loses, we will find out. 

By Michael Anton • August 28, 2020

The essay is, as I say, quite lengthy. What I want to do here is present Anton's essential argument. However, because Anton's writing is quite clear, what I've done is to work up a shorter version of the essay. To do that I've edited it and have also inserted a relatively few paraphrases within brackets that keep the argument moving along, even while condensing the argument. Where there are no brackets the words are all Anton's, but even within brackets I have striven to use Anton's own words (such as "deep state"). To see it all, especially the large portions that I've left out, follow the link.

One thing to be aware of as you read. I've emphasized repeatedly over the months since Bill Barr reappeared on the public stage that Barr's major commitment, the principle that explains all that he does and stands for, is the proper role of the Executive--meaning, the presidency. That commitment is what explains the unrestrained rage of the Neoliberal oligarchs who rule America against Barr--who is the most effective force standing between the oligarchs and the president who would make America great again.

Here we go:

=================

Woke Conservatism--Is Its Time Now?

Sohrab Ahmari is best known for his May, 2019, article Against David French-ism. Here is how Wikipedia characterizes the argument Ahmari presented in that article:

The dispute centered around their differing opinions on how conservatives should approach cultural and political debate, with Ahmari deriding what he calls "David French-ism", a political persuasion he defines as believing "that the institutions of a technocratic market society are neutral zones that should, in theory, accommodate both traditional Christianity and the libertine ways and paganized ideology of the other side". He argues that this belief leads to an ineffective conservative movement, and contends that the best way for culturally conservative values to prevail in society is a strategy of "discrediting ... opponents and weakening or destroying their institutions", which he maintains is a tactic already utilized by progressives, leaving conservatives who adhere to the David French-style of politics impotent in what he views as a waging culture war in the United States. He argues that the political realm should be viewed as one of "war and enmity", and that the power of the government should be directly utilized to impose culturally conservative values on society.

Ahmari has a new article, following up on Against David French-ism. Below I present enough excerpts to outline his argument. I thought this approach is especially relevant in view of what Lee Smith refers to as The Permanent Coup, the "resistance" against not only President Trump but against--in essence--all things American. It's a war, and Ahmari calls on conservatives to recognize that reality.

As you read you'll probably be frustrated at a lack of specific proposals, beyond Ahmari's skepticism that the libertarian "marketplace of ideas" will magically lead to an agreeable solution and his clear view that that "marketplace of ideas" has been jiggered by "private tyrants" in collaboration with entrenched liberal government. Also lacking, or so it seems to me, is any attempt or appeal to ground this critique in what I would call the humane civilizational principles that lay behind our constitutional order. That is particularly unfortunate because those principles are now under increasingly open and explicit attack.

Nevertheless, there is food for thought. A GOPe is part of our current crisis because its accommodationism plays into the progressive usurpation of constitutional institutions for distinctly unconstitutional ends. Ultimately, Ahmari is calling for conservative to wake to the true nature of the threat that our country is facing, to wake--as we face a crucial election--to the fact that this is a war, and wake to what tactics are necessary to preserve our civilization.

In a sense, one could argue that Ahmari is calling on conservatives to wake to the fact that de Toqueville's misgivings, as expressed in Democracy in America, regarding the way democracy would play out are, in fact, coming true:

Tocqueville speculates on the future of democracy in the United States, discussing possible threats to democracy and possible dangers of democracy. These include his belief that democracy has a tendency to degenerate into "soft despotism" as well as the risk of developing a tyranny of the majority. ... 

Tocqueville also outlines the possible excesses of passion for equality among men, foreshadowing the totalitarian states of the twentieth century.

... 

Tocqueville observed that social mechanisms have paradoxes, as in what later became known as the Tocqueville effect: "social frustration increases as social conditions improve". He wrote that this growing hatred of social privilege, as social conditions improve, leads to the state concentrating more power to itself.

De Toqueville's misgivings have turned out to be prophetic warnings. Conservatives must come to grips with that reality if they are to have any chance of winning this civilizational war.

Are Progressivess Today's Real 'Conservatives'?

In a new article--Why Conservatism is the Natural Home for Working-Class Americans--political philosopher Patrick Deneen proposes a sort of ideological judo move, but one which should prove useful for those seeking to expose the true nature of the Left, to break through standard narratives. According to Deneen, Progressives are, by the definition advanced by Progs themeselves, actually the real Conservatives--the defenders of the elite status quo. This is one of the great virtues of Trump, to have exposed exactly the nature of these entrenched interests, as well as the interests that back them:

By the telling of the intellectual classes, conservatism is the ideology of the elite, aligned with those who seek to preserve the wealth, status, and power of the upper classes against the egalitarian longings of the people. 

Conservatism, it is alleged, was born in reaction against the efforts of ordinary people to gain some degree of political influence, economic justice, and social dignity against the brutal and inhumane oppression of the aristocratic classes. ... Per [Corey] Robin, conservatism is the default ideology of those who seek to conserve the status and privileges of the elite. ...
If Robin’s definition is correct, then today’s “conservatives” are that ruling class we typically call “progressive.”  

It is instructive to consider what group in today’s America is driven “by animus against the agency of the subordinate classes.” Those most invested in maintaining the current form of class division—notably through control of elite colleges and universities which relentlessly sift and distill today’s economic winners from losers, along with support from almost all the main cultural institutions such as media, foundations, NGOs, government bureaucracy, public service unions, and corporate board rooms—are wholly controlled by “progressive” elites, people who have little hesitation condemning the backwardness and deplorableness of the lower classes. For a generation, it is progressives who have relentlessly turned to unelected judges and bureaucrats—often with the assistance of corporations—to overturn duly-enacted democratic legislation. Today’s liberal elites studiously avoid considerations of class, having replaced their historic claims to defend the underclass with obsessions over identity politics that, properly implemented through “diversity” initiatives at every university and workplace, are thinly veiled efforts to keep in place the educational and “meritocratic” structures that maintain the privilege of those same elites.

He concludes by sketching out the hopeful signs that conservatives--in this Trump era--are finally finding their true voice and freeing themselves from counterproductive ideological alliances:

A Non-Reality Based Jurisprudence?

If anything good can be said to result from Neil Gorsuch's thoroughgoing deconstruction of America's constitutional order this week, it could be that his exposure of the intellectual and--therefore--moral bankruptcy of Libertarian based  jurisprudence will draw attention to the roots of the West's crisis. The roots of the crisis of the West are to be found in the Nominalist philosophy of the late Middle Ages, and the resultant skepticism that became the default public philosophy of the West. For our purposes, we can sketch the historical roots of this crisis in summary fashion.

The dominant tradition of Christian thought is grounded in the Platonic thought of Augustine. The central problem of Platonic thought, which Augustine introduced into the thought of the Christian West, is the problem of how--or whether--Man is able to know the real world that he inhabits. Suffice it to say that Plato himself never solved that problem and the Christian thinkers who followed in his footsteps had no more success than Plato did, being unwilling to abandon the authority of Augustine. The result was a tension between Christian faith--which is based on a realist philosophy that holds that Man has an objective knowledge of the world he inhabits--and the Platonic derived philosophy that formed the basis of Augustinian thought.

The introduction of the West to the thought of Aristotle in the 13th century led to a crisis in the Augustinian tradition, because it highlighted the inadequacies of the philosophy inherent in the Augustinian tradition. This led to the rise of schools of thought in late medieval philosophy called Voluntarism and Nominalism. Basically, these schools of thought followed out the implications of Platonism and reached the conclusion that Man is unable to arrive at a real, objective, knowledge of the world he inhabits. As a result, morality could no longer be considered to be based on insight into the objective order of human nature (natural law). Instead, they concluded that the moral law is simply drawn from the arbitrary commands of a God who is ultimately unknowable by human reason. Thus, as long ago as the 14th century Western man had arrived at a philosophical position not too different from what we know as legal positivism. The difference is that the Medieval thinkers still professed a belief in God.

In the wake of the Wars of Religion that followed the Protestant Revolt, with the breakdown of a common Christendom, Western intellectuals sought some system that would allow men of different "Christian" beliefs to nevertheless live together peaceably. The solutions that were proposed followed two paths. One sought a common ground among the warring sects--"Mere Christianity", as C. S. Lewis termed it--that prescinded from theological technicalities (as they were considered). This approach was grounded in the recognition of the strong hold that religion, Christianity, still had on most of the West. However, as public life in the West became ever more openly secular and skeptical, this societal modus vivendi. gradually lost support beyond an empty traditionalism. So much so that, today, to even publicly raise fundamental issues of morality and belief is, at best, almost a manifestation of bad taste. In fact, the dominant skepticism is well on its way to banning such speech and, if possible, even the thoughts.

The second, related, approach was more frankly secular. It found its clearest expression in the Enlightenment thought of Immanuel Kant, who abandoned all pretense that Man knows the real world--rather, said Kant, the human mind imposes order on whatever it is that Man thinks he knows. From that position it was a small step--and one which was explicitly taken by those who followed Kant--to the idea that Man creates his own reality. Reality, thus, is viewed as a product of Man's mind.

Sympathy For Mitch McConnell

Mitch McConnell has made his name by accomplishing two things:

1) Shepherding judicial nominees through the Senate confirmation process, and

2) Stonewalling progressive legislative initiatives.

He has accomplished these two things in the face of a relentless drumbeat of vilification--often from both liberals and conservatives--and by persuading Republican senators to close ranks. That's a job a bit akin to herding cats.

I get that federal judges belong to a separate and equal branch of government, even though their nominations are proposed by the POTUS and are confirmed with the advice and consent of the Senate. I get that they're not supposed to tip their hands regarding their views on any particular case or controversy, and that this applies in spades to SCOTUS justices--their decisions are supposed to rise above partisan politics. So I hope I won't sound hopelessly naive or even a bit gauche if I raise an issue of simple personal decency.

Let's put aside the notion that SCOTUS justices don't take sides in politics and don't arrive at their position with policy preferences. That illusion should have been dispelled long ago.

So consider the amount of time and money that conservative groups invested in confirming Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, not to mention--on a slightly different level--the political and, yes, moral capital that the President Trump and other Republican politicians invested in the confirmation of these two judges. Untold time, effort, and many, many millions of dollars went into their confirmations. Would it not have been the decent thing to do to offer a heads up to these people? Not tipping one's hand regarding any specific case or controversy, just a simple, Hey, I may not be who you think I am?

Consider Mitch McConnell's position in particular, in light of this reminder from Josh Hammer (who clerked for a federal appellate judge):

How Matt Bevin Lost Kentucky

Our daughter went to college in Kentucky, but I can't claim any great knowledge of the state, nor do I follow its politics. As I result I didn't know exactly what to think when the GOP trounced the Dems in every statewide office, but had their governor (Bevin) run out. Not exactly, although I had some recollection of Bevin from the time he tried to challenge Mitch McConnell in the GOP senate primary.

Today at The Federalist, Willis L. Krumholz explains what happened in an excellent article that's important for understanding where the GOP needs to be "going forward," as people say now:

Ron DeSantis Proves Matt Bevin’s Conservatism Wasn’t His Albatross

Matt Bevin’s loss doesn’t have anything to do with Trump, and it’s not about ‘conservatives’ versus ‘moderates,’ either. Conservatism embodies middle-class and working-class values. Why not embrace that?

Here's a brief excerpt from the much longer, but very readable, article:

Was Bevin problematic because he was too Trumpian? Not at all. Bevin “governed as a classic libertarian chamber of commerce type Republican.” In Enjeti’s words he was a “typical slash and burn corporatist governor in a solidly white working class state.” According to Enjeti, Bevin had actually “betrayed [working class voters] and the Trump agenda.” That’s because “Simply putting on a MAGA hat and yelling Drain the Swamp isn’t enough, you actually have to walk the walk.” 

Even Bevin’s rhetoric was consistently disconnected from working-class concerns. In one example, Bevin made a video trying to tie his Democrat opponent to Bernie Sanders, who was visiting the state. The video comes off like he made it because his consultants told him to. 

Bevin also sounds like Mitt Romney, talking about the virtues of the job creators as opposed to the people who work to “varying degrees” and want free stuff. “The American dream is a real thing if we the people take it seriously,” he said. He never focused on what conservativism could do for working people. 

A lot of Bevin’s policies weren’t bad. For example, he fought hard to restrict abortion in the state. But he dogmatically pursued Republican Party and supply-side orthodoxy above pragmatism. In one example, he wanted Kentucky to raise its sales taxes and cut income taxes, which would disproportionately affect the poor and working class. He also repeatedly advocated for zeroing out Kentucky’s corporate tax, and had previously called for a 10 percent federal corporate tax and an end to minimum wage laws. 

To top it off, Bevin was rough around the edges. One of his signature policy moves was to cut Kentucky’s hugely underwater teacher pensions to make them more sustainable. When teachers went on strike in response, he blamed the striking teachers for the shooting death of a nine-year-old girl, rather than taking on the unions directly like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, did quite successfully. 

He also said that children staying at home due to the strikes would face sexual abuse: “Children were harmed—some physically, some sexually, some were introduced to drugs for the first time—because they were vulnerable and left alone.” In another example, Bevin once said he was surprised there was a chess club in a majority-black school located in a poor area. 

... 

Given the working-class family is completely broken, and median American wages have been roughly flat for about 30 years, Trump’s emergence isn’t shocking. What’s shocking is how few Republican politicians get what’s going on. 

Here’s to hoping the Republican Party of the future is a lot more like Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley—another conservative with a working-class focus—and DeSantis. Any future conservative party must be nationalist, espouse Middle Class Capitalism, and pursue policies that will actually help families. The alternative is the dustbin of history.

The Wages Of Libertarianism: Huge Government

Harking back to our posts regarding Patrick Deneen's critique of Classical Liberalism (Libertarianism), Nathanael Blake has an excellent article at The Federalist this morning. Blake points out the seeming paradox that Libertarianism leads to exactly the same results as overt Socialism: Not just Big Government but HUGE Government. The reason for this--as Deneen and others point out--lies in the shared philosophical roots of Liberalism and Socialism. Both derive from the philosophical or ideological agnosticism of modernity which argues that, even if there really is such a thing as Human Nature, it's unknowable to us and, therefore, should not enter into practical moral decisions. We should, as Anthony Kennedy would have it--as channeled by Antonin Scalia--each be free to define for ourselves "the sweet mystery of life":

In the 1992 opinion Kennedy included what the editors of First Things dubbed the “notorious ‘mystery passage’”: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” You’d search in vain to find a more apt description of our secular age. It’s not as though Kennedy invented our culture of expressive individualism. No one would fault him for introducing our “age of authenticity,” to borrow a phrase from philosopher Charles Taylor. 

But Kennedy gave language to this age’s turn to self as ultimate authority. And then he codified that authority at the nation’s highest legal level through his interpretation of the Constitution. Without the “right to define one’s own concept of existence” and “the mystery of human life” we would not still today have the legal right to deny existence to babies in their mothers’ wombs. We would not have the right to deny these helpless children, our very offspring, their own chance to define the mystery of human life. Abortion is the fruit of a culture that cannot live for or even imagine anything meaningful beyond the self. Abortion is the cost we pay to ensure the self will not be encumbered by the consequences of its choices. Abortion is the reason Kennedy’s retirement triggered apocalyptic predictions from the gatekeepers of this self-centered morality. 

Kennedy’s “notorious mystery passage” would re-emerge in another age-defining Court decision. Writing for the 6-3 majority in the 2003 decision Lawrence v. Texas, Kennedy once again returned to what fellow Justice Antonin Scalia denounced as the “famed sweet-mystery-of-life passage” that “ate the rule of law.” 

Scalia was absolutely correct about this. Kennedy's doctrinaire, philosophy-for-idiots, version of Libertarianism "ate the rule of law," trumping all other considerations of legal and political principle.

The Power Elite

The Power Elite is an article that Patrick Deneen wrote in June 2015--so, pre-Trump. It's obviously drawing on the C. Wright Mills classic of the same name--which I read as a sophomore in college. It's interesting Deneen's 2015 article with with the results of the 2016 election as well as with what he's writing in 2019. The article was written

As the dust from the recent explosion over Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act begins to settle, ...

Remember that? It was a very big deal in the leadup to the 2016 Presidential elections. Very big.

And Deneen adds, to set the narrative:

Mike Pence, Asa Hutchinson, and the Republican party were not blindsided by opposition to RFRA by gay rights activists. What knocked them back were major corporations, such as Apple, Walmart, and Angie’s List, and organizations such as the NCAA that denounced the law, ..., which was an idiotic miscalculation given the fact that establishment outrage scuttled the Arizona RFRA last year. 

The decision by corporate leaders to take a political stand over a controversial issue is therefore of great interest. Corporations and business leaders almost always avoid political statements and announcements, recognizing that such declarations have the effect of unnecessarily alienating potential customers. Corporations live in constant fear of bad pub­licity that can ruin a brand carefully erected through millions of dollars of advertising and publicity. Why step into a heated political debate and ­unnecessarily turn half of your customers away? Corporations exist to make money, not to advance political and social causes—except for those that help them make money, of course. 

And that’s just the point: The decision by Apple, Walmart, Eli Lilly, Angie’s List, and so on was a business decision—even more, a marketing decision.

But then came the 2016 election. The same companies and cultural groups opposed Trump. And now the GOP looks to be taking a deep dive into the role of Big Tech in attempting to deliver America to a Progressive One Party state. Maybe opposition to RFPA was the beginning of a backfire?

But here's Deneen's reasoning. Understand that what Deneen seems to mean by Republicans is "Libertarians." He also recognizes that Libertarianism is--yes!--ascendant in the Democrat party, as well. As I like to put it, America's default public philosophy is a "mushy libertarianism."