XXVIII – Everything I Just Said Was Wrong (No. 2)

I only started reading Zippy after I learned he passed away. So I’ve only been scratching the tip of the iceberg of his full body of work. So my discussion about his views of voting has been hindered somewhat, as T. Morris appropriately intimated in a comment on a previous post. I discovered two articles from Zippy, and an affirming analysis on Orthosphere, that I wanted to explore and condense into Scoots Layman Terms^TM and then attempt to refute using what discussions I’ve already had, if they are still salvageable.

Zippy: Virtue’s Silver Medalist
Zippy: The Bus Stops Here (Originally a comment on the preceding, with some added info)
Ortho: Render Unto Caesar

Before I get too deep, my ‘victory condition’ is this: Either I am satisfied that my refutation of Zippy’s thesis is adequate and I can successfully defend that thesis; OR I grok his ideas enough to follow them and ease my troubled conscience. But my argument must thread the needle of having not been addressed by any of his prior refutations, AND must also adequately address those common disagreements.

So, without further ado: lets Dig in!

The Bus Stops

I’m going to start here because this is a summary and provides a rubric for evaluating. He also helpfully includes refutations to common disagreements, some of which I’m embarrassed to say I have leaned on.

Zippy organizes his arguments about not voting in a sequential order he refers to as ‘Bus Stops’. Each stop has a premise. If you disagree with that premise, you can get off the bus. If you make it to the end, you agree with Zippy about not voting. Lets tackle them in order.

The First Stop: We have an obligation to avoid mortal sin. This one is fairly straight forward, and I need to eat crow a bit. Because Zippy is not saying that voting is mortal sin in and of itself, and that is how I have been characterizing his arguments. I am wrong. He agrees with me that voting is not formal cooperation with sin, and thus whether one should vote is a prudential judgement. That implies intent matters, and I believe Zippy’s thesis is that people’s intent is focusing on the wrong thing. That’s not material to this bus stop. if you agree that whether or not one should vote is a prudential judgement, you can remain on the bus.

The Second Stop: So voting is a prudential judgement. What does that mean, exactly? This stop is all about what it doesn’t mean. Prudential Judgement isn’t a free pass to come to whatever conclusion your heart desires. As Zippy describes it, Prudence is right-liberal code for the left-liberal idea of ‘conscience’, and both treat it like an unquestionable sacrament. Prudential Judgement doesn’t mean “it’s subjective and therefore I am free to decide”. If you agree that prudential judgement is a call to raise the analytical bar for your decision making, you can stay on the bus.

The Third Stop: The Church doesn’t require us to vote. This follows logically from the first and second stops. The Church is simply silent on how you participate in your local government, whatever form that government may be. It is not a moral choice, and it is not a blank check. If you agree that the Church has no guidance on whether or not to vote, you can stay on the bus.

The Fourth Stop: This is a bit more of a logical leap from the Third Stop. Zippy describes elections as game-theoretic contests and civic rituals which have negligible impact on the outcome of the election. The Church makes no statements about exercises of game theory, nor does it comment regarding forms of governance, so it’s up to our prudential judgement. Our prudential judgement MUST take into consideration the outcomes. Zippy says our action (voting) has no material outcome-dependent effects, and thus cannot be a pragmatic act. It must be idealistic because it is the hope for some outcome without any reasonable expectation of achieving it because you took that action. If you agree that your vote has no correlation to whether the desired outcome is achieved, you can stay on the bus.

The Fifth Stop: Because there are no outcome dependent expectations to effect change by voting; and all the outcome-independent effects apply to everyone whether they vote or not, there is no proportionate reason to vote, and at this level, any reason, however trivial, to vote is negated by the presence of Scandal. Zippy even says there are enough people that are formally cooperating by intentionally voting for abortionists that scandal applies at the very first bus stop. If you agree that, since your vote doesn’t matter, there is no reason to vote and that if you vote at all, it causes scandal, then you can stay on the bus.

You Have Arrived: If you made it this far, you agree with Zippy Catholic, and you probably don’t vote.

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Selected Objections

Objections by Ignorance

The first three objections on Zippy’s list of ten deal with people being fundamentally wrong about the purpose or consequence of voting. No, voting is not a license to complain. People that live in a society can complain about that society. No, the Church doesn’t say you have to vote. No, the government isn’t illegitimate and the non-voter isn’t a traitor. These are simple. I refer you to Zippy’s more detailed discussions of those arguments.

Objections by Misunderstanding

No. 4 on his list is a misunderstanding I myself was laboring under: “Aren’t you saying that everyone who votes will go to hell?” – No, that’s not what he’s saying at all. Those who vote intentionally for abortionists are formally cooperating in evil and as such are committing mortal sin. Those who don’t vote or who vote against evil are sufficiently removed to be considered remote, and thus the act of voting falls under the purview of prudential judgement (See Bus Stop #1).

No. 5 is addressed in Bus stop #2 – it’s not license to do whatever you want. Prudential Judgement calls you to a higher bar.

No. 6 is an objection I labor under and reserve the right to continue to do so. The objection is that “If enough people do as you do, then the bad guys will win!”. Zippy argues (poorly paraphrased through my limited understanding) that right-liberal conservatives do more to preserve the evil institutions than the evil institutions themselves. The issue here is with the idea ‘bad guys’ but I do still think there is a point here. I will elaborate later on.

Objections by Fallacy

No. 7 is objection by the fallacy that morality is supposed to be simple and easy. Appeal to ignorance, in other words: These ideas are worth exploring, and shouldn’t be dismissed because they are difficult. That’s why you come here, and let me do all the footwork to try to translate and help you understand!

No. 8 is a re-casting of Error No. 2, trying to put responsibility on the church for your actions of voting. The church is intentionally silent, prudential judgement requires us to evaluate for ourselves.

No. 9 is a fallacy by false comparison: Legislators have options, but we are voting for presidents and legislators, we can and should be more discerning, or (as zippy argues) just not vote! The exceptions for legislators do not apply to us.

Objections by Ad-Hominem

No. 10 is the accusation that Zippy is a sociopathic nut, which I don’t agree with. Zippy is many things but crazy is not one of them. He has a strong sense of Ethics and we have a lot to learn from him. My whole blog is essentially me trying to study at his feet, posthumously. So this isn’t valid.

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Scoots Rebuttal

I believe Zippy has created a false premise. Taken as a whole, it is hard–nay, impossible! to see value in voting. If you have 120 million people voting, and one person does or does not, what’s it matter? Zippy’s thoughts on voting I believe can be condensed to three broad points.

1- There is no practical reason to vote.

2- The system itself is a bad system (dare I say, an evil one), and should not be encouraged.

3- Scandal destroys any remaining reasons that may exist to vote.

Finding a Reason

The idea that I will propose to rebut Zippy’s methodology is that he is looking from the top down at voting as a whole. Personally, I believe that is an antiseptic approach and depersonalizes our participation in government. Government is not transactional, per se, all interactions do not have to be weighed by cost/benefit.

The catechism suggests that a persons deeds are weighed according to circumstance, if we assume that the rubric for mortal sin applies to other deeds as well. Is the matter grave? Is the deed made with knowledge of the grave matter? Is the deed made with full consent of the will (culpability)?

God values each person, individually. So I think it is fair that we can evaluate voting on a personal, micro scale.

When I was discussing this with my friend and brain trust, he presented the following scenario:

Let’s say there is a geyser outside a town that is flooding it with water and destroying it. Each of us drops pebbles in the geyser and eventually it fills up and saves the town.

I added the following modification:

A crowd gathers at the geyser and some people throw pebbles in and some fish pebbles out, and there’s no way of knowing the ratio of pebbles in to pebbles out.

Imperfect though the analogy may be, voting is like throwing the pebbles in. There’s no real way to tell if you’re doing any good, your pebbles could be the only ones being fished out. But throwing the pebble is doing an iota of good. Zippy seems to be saying that it is preferable to not participate in something without certainty about positive outcomes, and would rather you do something actually helpful like find a boulder to put in the geyser. In this case, not voting is predicated on the substitution. You’ll note that Zippy is not saying that voting is inherently bad, but rather that there is so little good that its indiscernible from the base noise distribution. But I would argue that God can discern, and if the amount of good is not zero then there is an iota of good. Is there MORE good that can be done through other means? Yes, absolutely. But I would argue that not voting deprives the system of that iota of good unless it is substituted with something which is known to effect more good.

You might argue that this looks like an elaborate version of Objection No. 6, that “if you don’t vote then the bad guys win”. I draw the distinction that i’m not arguing that not voting causes negative outcomes; I’m saying that not voting deprives positive inputs. No good can happen if no one does good. Bad things CAN happen if no one does good, but for good things to happen, people need to do good things. For bad things to happen, people need to do bad things.

Claiming that there is no practical reason to vote, then, is to ignore some fundamental information. It ignores first that voting does offer an iota of good. It ignores that voting is the only mechanism at our disposal to effectuate positive civil outcomes unless we do something else, which Zippy does not prescribe (an omission which neither helps or hurts his case). This is my retort to the idea that there is no practical reason to vote.

A Bad System

“How do you vote against voting” is a quip I saw from a commenter in one of the articles. This is where prudential judgement comes in. Zippy’s judgement is that he should not vote, my judgement might be that I should. Zippy and I already agree that voting is remote, non necessary participation, and either voting or not voting is a negligible difference. If the system itself is EVIL then we are obliged to overthrow it. But the system is not inherently evil. The people who use it might be, in some cases. So to rebut claims that the system is bad or broken or evil, I would simply point to my earlier article or even to Zippys own: We are distant enough from cooperating that it is negligible.

You might argue that this looks like an elaborate version of Objection No. 5, that ‘prudential judgement’ means we can do whatever we want. If we accept the premise that Voting can contribute some good, and not voting doesn’t contribute any good through that mechanism, regardless of outcome, between those two options taken independently, the one that contributes some good is preferable. If there is a mechanism for contributing more civil good into the system of Government, then let us know and we can do that instead of voting!

The Price of Scandal

I already kind of addressed this in my article about the proximity and necessity of cooperation. Scandal only happens when people know what you did, and what you did is or is perceived to be out of line with Catholic values. Anonymously standing in line at a polling place doesn’t inflict scandal. Not talking about your vote, or casting aspersions on other votes doesn’t invite scandal. If you want to talk about politics, it might be best to not vote. If you don’t care about talking or don’t want to, you can. But if you accept my previous premises, both options are equal in terms of prudential judgement.

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In Conclusion

Sitting atop a democracy, looking down at all the people, it can be hard to perceive the marginal value of a single vote. But God judges us all individually. A single good deed might not do anything to save the world, but at least it is a good deed. I believe a single vote, too, can contribute an iota of good into a system which has many faults. Enough of those votes can perhaps effectuate some kind of positive outcome. But it requires us to first believe that voting contributes good and second that we can convince others of this fact. Zippy, believing that a single vote can’t rise above the signal noise baseline, finds it to be impractical and with deleterious effects in the form of scandal or endorsement/participation in a system which is broken. However, the system itself is not inherently evil, and we can do good to counter the evil through means other than voting. But if Voting is a means of effectuating some good, even if just an iota, then I believe we should utilize it.

I set out my victory condition as either accepting Zippy’s thesis, or crafting a rebuttal which threads the needle in his already thoroughly reasoned argument. Zippy (God rest his soul) probably would disagree with me on the basis that I don’t answer the signal noise problem; but I don’t believe I have to. We will probably remain at odds!

Please let me know what you think of my reasoning and point out where you feel it is lacking. I invite criticism, to either encourage me to strengthen my argument or to force me to abandon it and accept Zippy’s argument.

AMDG

XXVII – AMERICAN EMPIRE PART 1

Introduction

In this series I will be explicitly comparing two empires, to inform an implicit comparison with a third. I will be looking at historical patterns of society and political principles that guide them. The explicit subjects of this series will be the United States of America and Ancient Rome. The implicit subject is the Catholic Church and Christendom.

How can you compare Rome to the USA?

The United States and Rome are valuable points of comparison. The former because it is a current political power with global influence and a historical arc that has taken it through many forms of de facto government, though it’s de jure government has remained the same. Rome shared with the USA many traits, including global influence, some form of democratic politics, and political evolutions over time. Rome is, perhaps, the best documented of the Ancient Empires, and so serves as an effective baseline for comparison. Always the question must be asked: Is this circumstance unique to Rome, or can it be properly applied to a contemporary political power? This will be be baseline for my consideration through this series.

And how does the Church come in?

Once some principles are established that can be shown to apply to two disparate political systems separated by time and space, I will attempt to apply those principles to a political-religious system which bridges the time and space between both political powers. The Church, after all, is manned by Men, and therefore is subject to the same challenges of an empire, with the distinct difference that ultimate authority is unquestionably derived from God. The Church can get sick, even die and be given new life. But the point of authority is not subject to our temporal whims. Determining what principles exist and how they apply will be essential in understanding how to tackle issues in the Church, and aid consideration of political regimes today and into the future.

Fundamental Assumptions

To begin at the beginning, we must ensure we have a common understanding of definitions and assumptions that will go into this analysis.

Regarding forms of government:

Anarchy – absence of rule. An (lack) + Arkhein (to rule). This word will be used to describe any system which is ungoverned.

Monarchy – rule by one person. Monos (Alone) + Arkhein (to rule). This word will be used to describe any system which is ultimately governed by one person.

Republic – Rule by representatives. Res (regarding) + Publica (the public), i.e. ‘regarding the people’. This word will be used to describe any system which is ultimately governed by a small group of people.

Democracy – Rule by the people. Demos (common people) + kratos (rule, strength), i.e. ‘rule of the common people’. This word will be used to describe any system which is ultimately governed by the populace.

Regarding the type of governance:

Empire – Dominion of an Emperor. in (in) + parare (order, prepare), i.e. ‘to put in order’. This word will be used to characterize the type of governance, regardless of rule, as centralized and highly structured.

Federal – Covenant / Treaty. From Foederis (treaty or alliance). This word will be used in the context of ‘federalism’, that is, to characterize the type of governance, regardless of rule, as distributed and decentralized.

Regarding the people who govern:

Sovereign – the one who rules

Tyrant – A cruel or unjust sovereign

Lyrant – A compassionate or just sovereign (invented word)

Regarding means of governance:

Authority – Capacity to oblige a subject to make a specific choice.

Validity – Following the form prescribed by an authority

Licity – being permitted by authority

Legitimacy – Authority which is validly and licitly transferred by a higher authority.

Power – the actual ability to oblige specific outcomes

Enforcement – The power associated with authority to offer incentives and penalties for compliance/noncompliance with authority.

Fidelity – the duty of authority to exercise power in a way that is valid and licit.

Tyranny – the invalid and/or illicit exercise of power / the state of infidelity of an authority In violation of spiritual law and sometimes in violation of civil law.

ADDITIONAL ASSUMPTIONS

In addition to the above definitions, I will also be assuming the Human nature remains the same across time. I will be assuming that what we commonly refer to as “Rights” are really things that fall under Natural Law (Things granted to us directly from God) and things that fall under privileges (Things that government lets us do). I will also not be assuming that what a government is called (it’s de jure government) has any correlation for what a government is (it’s de facto government).

Setting the Stage

Roman history is known to have gone through several periods. When Rome as we know it was founded, it was a Kingdom (753 – 509 BC). Then followed the Republic (509 – 27 BC). When Caesar crossed the Rubicon and took control, so began the Empire period (27 BC – 395 AD). Thereafter Rome began a period of Decline, where the West utterly collapsed in the early 400’s and the East (Byzantium) steadily degraded until it succumbed to the Ottomans in 1453. This traces the de jure history of Rome. At the end of each epoch, there was not a discrete transition. The transformation to Empire began during the republic; the foreshadowing of the decline can be seen at the peak of Roman power. The facts of Rome, it’s nature during these periods, are what tell us about the patterns of it’s subjects and sovereigns.

American history is closer in both time and space and thus subject to the vicissitudes of contemporary bias. Historians categorize American history thus: The Colonial Period (15th century to the American Revolution). There followed the Republic, from victory in the Revolutionary war to the War of 1812. Then what I will call the “Civil War Era” which includes the antebellum (1812-1861), Civil War (1861-1865) and Reconstruction (1865-1914) periods. Following the Civil War Era is the period of American Supremacy, from the outbreak of the First World War, through World War Two, and including the nuclear age through the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The current age has not yet matured so I will call the period from 1991 to the present the ‘Post-Cold War Era’.

This is how I will continue my analysis. In the next part, we will begin our dive into the comparisons between the United States and Rome.

AMDG

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See American Empire, Part 2 here.
See American Empire, Part 3 here

XXV – Give unto Caesar your Rose Colored Glasses

We’re going to approach a complex topic in a roundabout way.

A Reality Filter is a concept coined by Scott Adams, defined as a way of viewing the world that helps you easily contextualize and understand it. Of course, a reality filter is only as good as the eye that beholds it, and a Reality Filter is only good for understanding things a certain way. An Atheist has a different reality filter than a Catholic, a Left Liberal has a different reality filter than a Right Liberal. My reality filter is different from yours.

A reality filter is a means to an end. With this in mind, my recent article on Legitimacy and the core concepts that make legitimacy work serves as an important reality filter for figuring out where authority comes from. We can use this reality filter to break down questions of authority and legitimacy.

Follow the Rubric Road

Lets imagine a venn diagram, with the two overlapping circles. Make one of them smaller, and push it most of the way into the bigger one. This smaller one contains all things pertaining to civil life. The larger one contains all things pertaining to spiritual life. If Church and State were unified, our civil leaders would fall squarely within the area of overlap, because they would accept their responsibility as both spiritual and civil. You don’t just want to lead a positive society, you want to make positive people.

Separation of church and State segregates the leaders. It moves the spiritual leader to the ‘spiritual life’ side of the diagram; and the civil leader is removed to the tiny space outside of the spiritual life.

Considering a nation like the United States of America, current civil leaders are not responsible for their own separation from their spiritual responsibilities. As such, Civil Society can be said to be distinct from spiritual society, but they both have a common cause in what is known as the ‘common good’.

Tyranny is a term that describes the condition of the leader, in whichever sphere. A civil tyrant is one who is cruel or unjust or illegitimate in his exercise of his civil authority. A spiritual tyrant is likewise cruel or unjust or illegitimate in his exercise of spiritual authority. One could argue that unification of Church and State means one person could do twice the damage, but that’s really still the case with a civil leader. While a civil leader lacks the explicit authority to act on spiritual matters, they do have a responsibility as a steward of spiritual affairs of their subjects. Therefore a civil tyrant can do damage in both spheres.

Tyranny then, defined as cruel or unjust or illegitimate exercise of authority, has implicitly a civil and spiritual component. Tyranny is the violation of civil and spiritual law. A true tyranny must violate both.

Consider a ruler who violates civil law but is in unity with spiritual law. In order to be in unity with spiritual law, it necessarily implies that the civil laws were unjust. While they might violate civil law, they could still be said to be acting for the common good.

Consider a ruler who violates spiritual law, but is in unity with the civil law. Their deeds are illicit, but valid. They probably cannot be said to be acting for the common good, but they cannot be said to be behaving illegally.

I’ll amend the definition then. A true Tyranny must be in violation of spiritual law, and can be in violation of civil law.

Consider a ruler who violates spiritual law, and is in violation of civil law but subsequently amends the law. The overriding factor is the moral element, their violation of spiritual law. Tyranny then is defined by violation with some authority other than the civil law.

Potential and Kinetic Virtue

We have an obligation, as spiritual creatures, to grow in holiness and virtue. Our civil obligation is obedience where it is in compliance with spiritual law. Spiritual law supersedes all others. So when we are told to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, that is an admonition to respect the sliver of civil authority which is exclusively exercised by civil leaders. To obey the civil authority, but obey them second. Obeying the letter of the law is not virtuous in and of itself, but if the law is formed by virtue, it drives people to virtue.

Potential energy is when an object is at rest, kinetic energy is when an object is in motion. So too with Virtue: When a person is not motivated to be virtuous, they will remain the way they are, whatever state they happen to be in. The civil law ought to motivate kinetic virtue, to make people be active and change their state of virtue and holiness. The civil authority, however, is that of steward and not that of sovereign over the individual. So their authority over a ‘person’ is partial. Only spiritual leadership has authority over an entire person. Disunity of Church and State also means disunity of authority over persons within a nation. They can, but do not always, take the position of rivals. This is further evidence that a Civil authority has a responsibility to promote virtue: it prevents and even inoculates against being placed in rivalry with a spiritual authority, and creates stability with the authority that they wield.

Where do We Stand?

This reality filter helps us understand that civil authority does not always have to be in union with spiritual authority, though the disunity between the two does create some instability. A nation would be aided if Church and State were united, but a nation can succeed without. It must be acknowledged that the conditions for tyranny are more readily available when Church and State are separate, and is liable to be more dangerous. This helps us focus our definition of tyranny, but does not help us answer the question of redress, or even help us apply this definition to contemporary society and the complex problems therein.

More to come.

AMDG

XXIV – A Prelude to a Bigger Discussion

Kristor Says, in response to a question of mine on a backdated article:

“Can a government that separates church and state be said to have ever had the mandate of heaven?”

Only by accident. By analogy, we can do the will of God, and enact his Providential plan for the created order, even when we sin; for, our deluded clouded desires can happen to congrue with the divine will.

“How do we reconcile a secular society with our spiritual obligations?”

Render unto Caesar.

“Can a government which does not uphold a responsibility to promote virtue be considered a Tyranny?”

I don’t think so. In practice, every government upholds some vision of the good. This is so even of tyrannical governments. It is true also of governments that profess amorality. In practice, there is no such thing as amorality, except among dead bodies. For, some means of parsing moral decisions – which is to say, simply, decisions per se – is needed in order to proceed with the conduct of life, ergo of government.

“What is our obligation to address [an “amoral” government]?”

Render unto Caesar.

T. Morris Says, in response to an article of mine, here:

Now ask yourself this question: “What proportion or percentage of today’s electorate is well versed in classical literature?” and let that be your answer as to how insane the whole concept of “one man, one vote” universal suffrage is.
Meanwhile (and this is getting into some of the finer points), when a man or woman votes in our elections (or even when (s)he registers to vote in our elections), (s)he is lending a sense of legitimacy to an illegitimate process that is rigged to produce a certain kind of result from the gitgo. Meanwhile as well, (s)he is participating in evil, but (s)he usually doesn’t know (s)he is participating in evil, so to that extent the sin is not chargeable to him/her. But to those who are aware that the system is rigged, that it is illegitimate and therefore evil, participation therein – lending such a system credibility – is sin. So just keep that in mind if ever you are told that it is somehow your “Christian duty” to vote in our elections. Nonsense! The truth of the matter is that it is highly highly probable, due to reasons aforesaid and others I can’t get into at this moment, that your Christian duty as far as voting in our elections goes, is to not participate. Hence the post title.
Were the franchise limited in a way or ways that makes sense, I might consider participating in our elections again, if in fact I were deemed qualified. Democracy is clearly an illegitimate form of government, to my mind, because it is nothing short of mob rule, and mob rule can only serve the common good by mere chance or happenstance. Our system *might have been* more legitimate when it actually incorporated the federal principle and subsidiarity, but that all ended with Northern victory in the Civil War, albeit it took some time (decades) to eliminate the federal principle *in actual practice*. Nevertheless, that was always the goal (to eliminate the federal principle altogether); what we modern Americans refer to as the “federal government” is a national government, there is nothing federal about it; and a purely national government is in fact a tyranny in a country like the United States because the various States (and the peoples who inhabit them) can in no way govern themselves unless given permission from on high, which is to say from the national government. Hence, we *must* accept the wholesale murder of the unborn as some sort of fundamentally inviolable human right; we *must* accept homosexuality and other forms of freakish anti-social behavior as yet another inviolable human right. And so on and so forth. No State or local government may declare any of this as the self-destructive insanity that it is and refuse to participate in it, and your participation or my participation (or anyone else’s participation, for that matter) is never going to change that.

He continues:

At VFR the subject of limiting the franchise was discussed on numerous occasions, and the consensus view amongst that learned group, in my recollection, was that the franchise should be limited to net taxpayers. Which is to say persons who pay more in real taxes than they derive in government benefits. This would exclude retired military men since, as with any other government profession, professional soldiers generally receive a great deal more in “compensation” over the course of their lifetimes than they contribute in actual taxes. So there is a very real and ever-present conflict of interests within that community. But I think the consensus view was even more specific, or limiting, than net taxpayers, in that it also stipulated that only married men who are also net taxpayers should be given the ‘sacred franchise.’
The issue of whether or not one is a net taxpayer is sort of complex in a sense, and people have a very hard time understanding it in my experience. But it is fairly obvious, at least to my mind, that he who is employed in public sector work, from whence he derives all of, or at least the great bulk of, his income and related benefits, cannot possibly be a net taxpayer, quite the contrary.
So you see that limiting the franchise to married men who are in fact net taxpayers would, at least in theory and to a great extent, eliminate the conflict of interests problem that is pervasive under the current “one man, one vote” ideology.

Quick Thoughts In Response:

1. One of the fundamental assumptions of the Tyranny Problem is that an immoral government is Tyranny. Kristor questions the assumption in my reasoning.
2. T. Morris suggests one solution is limiting suffrage in some way
3. T. Morris adds additional information to the idea I originally discovered at Zippy Catholic, that voting is a sin.

Questions I mean to answer:

1. What is the root of authority for a Democracy, following the rubrick of the chain of authority described here?
2. What is the responsibility of a citizen in a nation which is, at worst, a tyranny; at best, immoral?
3. Can we envision a perfect solution, using our hypothetical states of Edeny and Anakay?
4. Having answered these, does it fit the Catholic Sociological ideas of Distributism? Where are the discrepancies?

These ideas are nebulous and I need to precipitate them. Big thank you to Kristor and T. Morris for adding kindling to my philosophical fire.

AMDG

XIX – Everything I Just Said Was Wrong

There are a lot of concepts wrapped up in the proper exercise of Authority, so it is extremely important to get it right. My definition of legitimacy was flawed, and lacks nuance. What I hoped to capture is a number of things: Obligation to authority, a pretense for exercising authority which is recognized, and conditions on that exercise. That cant be captured in one word. So here are four words:

VALIDITY – A deed which follows the form prescribed by Authority

LICITY – A deed which one has the authority to perform

LEGITIMACY – Authority which has been validly and licitly transferred from a higher Authority

FIDELITY – The duty to validly and licitly exercise Authority

Let me submit for your consideration a proof by reduction.

Legitimacy without validity, i.e. Authority invalidly transferred, is not really legitimate Authority at all. If the rules say the Lady of the Lake must crown a king, then the lady of the forest cant claim to have made any kings. Legitimacy conceived independently of ideas of validity also cannot stand. If Legitimacy can be established–that is, if authority can be transferred–in a way outside of the norm, then there’s nothing stopping Huey Long from making every man a king. Authority only has value because it can only be achieved a specific way. In other words, legitimate authority has a high barrier to entry ONLY THROUGH structured ideas of what is valid or invalid.

Legitimacy that illicit–authority which has been illicitly transferred–is not really authority at all. Huey Long cannot beknight a friend because it is not in his authority to do so; it is illicit. Legitimacy cannot be conceived independent of this idea of licity because it defines what legitimate authority can, in fact, do; and because no one but legitimate authority can do it, it has value. People honor and respect knights because only the King can beknight them.

Legitimacy without fidelity is not really legitimacy at all. Can you be said to be an authority figure if you refuse to exercise power or if, in exercising it, you do so invalidly or illicitly? Authority has obligations to abide by the source of authority, which is the next highest authority. The hand which giveth, can also taketh away. One cannot claim authority and abuse that authority at the same time.

Finally, Authority must have legitimacy, otherwise it isn’t authority at all. I can declare myself the King of England right now, but no one will listen to me. It is illicit for me to declare myself king; my ascension to the “throne” is invalid because i have no relation to the royal family; i certainly cannot be fidelitous to a title i cannot attain, therefore i am illegitimate. If i continue to press my claim, i am a Usurper or Pretender to the throne, and it would be licit for the current monarch to deal with me harshly.

There are many consequences to these definitions which will be explored in due course.

This was on my mind, and I wanted to get it out before Christmas. More to come!

AMDG

XVII – The Lady of the Lake Throws an Anchor at the King

Update: A new article has ideas which substantially modify the ideas presented herein.

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It occurs to me that there are some consequences to this new conception of legitimacy. Traditionally, Legitimacy has been considered a thing leaders have. However, much like responsibility, or fortitude, or other virtues, instead it’s a trait leaders must maintain. The old idea is the Lady of the Lake giving a sword to King Arthur, and now that he has the sword of legitimacy, he can assert his right as King of England. Now the Lady of the Lake gives him an anchor, and the chain spools all the way back to God, and he’s got to carry it around with him.

Chain Chain Chaaaaiiinnnnn^[1]

This idea helps me to grok a concept Zippy wrote about that I struggled with for a while. Lets start at the beginning: Legitimacy is a chain of Authority that starts at God and goes all the way down to you and me, the humble citizens of a given nation. As described: If that chain of authority is broken, it is the responsibility of the surrounding links to join themselves either to each other, or to look to God for guidance. But it stands to reason that we are all in the line of authority. We might be 200-millionth in line for the Throne, but if everything broke down, we would indeed be obliged to step up to the responsibility of governance. You see this in post-apocalyptic scenarios on TV, movies, etc. In the absence or breakdown of civil society, leaders rise and take responsibility for small communities until the link can be reformed with legitimate authority. In the meantime they are acting under the direct authority of God.

Zippy described this in the context of subsidiarity^[2], the principle that problems ought to be solved at the smallest or most local level possible.

Thus, we come to Zippy’s thesis regarding the 2nd Amendment:

An armed populace may thus be a good and natural thing when viewed from the standpoint of subsidiarity. Nobody is in a better position to defend a family or classroom, in the immediacy of an armed attack by a criminal, than the particular authorities literally closest in space and time to those defended: fathers and teachers, respectively.

But this depends upon viewing the authority of fathers and teachers in a context of subsidiarity: specifically not as rivals to or as the source of higher authority. The police may be slower and more distant than teachers; the courts may be slower and more distant than the police. But they are all integral parts of the same organic hierarchy of authority resting on a custodial relationship with the common good.

A ‘consent of the governed’ view pits the people against government. A ‘Chain of Legitimacy’ or ‘Consent to be governed’ view puts people in the chain of command. To wit: In an active shooter situation, a citizen could be deputized^[3] to respond to a grievous violation of the law and act to subdue the offender^[4]. A citizen can step into the chain of command to bring the Law where it’s proper enforcers may not be present.

Chain of Fools

This again requires a population of Edenites to work perfectly. You don’t want someone who places themselves in personal rivalry with government to step into the chain of command and do damage. There is a responsibility to both act in the preservation of legitimate authority and to prevent scandal. We live in a society where there is no guarantee of that. This is where we reach the problem of liberal society, epitomized by the Presidential Campaign Slogan of the tragic socialist Huey Long: Every Man a King. Liberalism could be summarized essentially as the supremacy of the individual over the sovereign, which leads to this fallacious argument that every man is a King or Kingmaker.

Liberal society is designed to break legitimacy, because it views all government as Tyranny. With no legitimacy, and no one to inform them of a true conception of legitimacy, every man begins to view himself, indeed, as a king. Absent a million swords of Damocles hanging over their heads, they abdicate both their responsibility to subordinate persons and their own subordination to greater authority.

The result being a crowd of usurpers, with the affectations of legitimate authority, but none of the heavy burden that comes with it. All of the credit, none of the blame, so to speak.

Which returns us to the grand question: How does one begin to encourage a population to become formed in virtue?

AMDG

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^{[1] Chain of Fools – Aretha Franklin}

^{[2] Note to self, add to dictionary.}

^{[3]Quote from Zippy: “Setting aside the multivocity of the term “free State” it is possible to propose an (illiberal, explicitly authoritarian, and thus unusual) interpretation of the second amendment as deputization. Armed citizens are viewed as loyal subsidiary agents of the sovereign, a militia very much loyal to and subject to the sovereign, against proximate threats posed: not threats posed by the sovereign, but by criminals and foreign belligerents in that crucial quick minute and last mile.” Emphasis mine.}

^{[4] Every care must be taken not to take a human life. The ‘Right to bear arms’ (or, the Privilege granted by government to own and keep arms) is not a license to kill. Every Human Life has a certain dignity. A life can not and should not be taken lightly.}

XVI – Legitimate Consent

Update: A new article has ideas which substantially modify the ideas presented herein.

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I added a definition to my dictionary related to Zippy’s guide to Authority. The word I added was ‘Legitimacy’. I defined it as follows:

LEGITIMACY – Acceptance of any authority higher than your own, and acceptance of responsibility for anyone subject to your authority.

Legitimacy works in both directions. Consider a Governor. A Governor could not govern if he did not recognize responsibility to his citizens under his direct authority. He also could not govern if he did not recognize the President of the United States as a higher authority whose pronouncements he must accept.

God, properly contextualized as the source of all Authority and the King of all creation, is thus the pinnacle of authority. A Legitimate ruler must recognize God as the highest authority and furthermore must recognize the responsibility to all those under his immediate control.

God’s pronouncements, as a result, must be accepted by the highest temporal authority in any given area. Anyone who does not accept the authority of God is not a legitimate leader. Anyone who does not accept the responsibility to the people is not a legitimate leader.

This is why ‘Government by consent of the governed’ is rationally incoherent. It is an inversion of the logically reasonable definition of legitimacy, and thus breaks the chain of authority.

The ‘Government by consent of the governed’ definition is as follows:

LEGITIMACY – Acceptance of authority of anyone subject to you, and acceptance of responsibility for any authority higher than your own.

In other words, ‘you must accept the will of the people; and if someone above you does something we don’t like, we will hold you accountable.’ This is no way of governing, but it is the hallmark of the rationally incoherent tropes of Classical Liberalism. Citizens must consent to be governed rather than provide consent for those governing.

Our First Trip Away

Edenites accept the proper chain of Authority. If an Edenite gets power, he first accepts that he is under the authority of the next person up the chain, and that he is responsible for everyone below. If that chain of command is broken, an Edenite need not despair: The chain is restored at the point of the Edenite and virtuous judgement has a restorative effect. It is analagous to a wartime scenario cut off from the immediate commander. A company of soldiers doesn’t stop and wait; they proceed with the mission. They may have radio contact with the command-and-control base, but not their battalion commander. So an Edenite, faced with illegitimate authority above them, still subjects themselves to the authority of Christ, and thereby can function effectively in a broken machine. This function is conditional on their responsibility for all parties subject to their own authority. If an Edenite cannot be sure their authority is producing the desired outcomes down the chain, outcomes which they are personally responsible for, they have a responsibility to act to correct it or to prevent scandal by removing themselves from association with the illegitimate authority. By analogy, imagine a Pharisee who believed Christ was Lord but refused to leave the company of Caiaphas et al.

Anakites, in contrast, believe they are the only proper source of legitimacy. Government by consent of the governed, and the right to self determination. They are their own arbiters of Truth. Therefore an Anakites is not bound to accept any authority higher than them, if they deem it to be illegitimate; and further are not obliged to accept responsibility for those subject to their authority if there are intervening steps between. If the chain of command is broken by real or perceived illegitimacy above them, they may act unilaterally to restore whatever order they feel appropriate; as they are not bound by any authority higher than themselves. Consider again the wartime scenario, where a company of soldiers are cut off from immediate command. Anakites discard previous orders and create new ones for themselves. They treat the absence of rule as freedom to create rules; rather than an opportunity to seek higher rules.

Edenites, in pursuing virtue and subordinating themselves to Christ, bring order to any system of which they are part. Anakites may bring the appearance of order, but it is prone to break down when stressed or challenged. The absence of subordination to Christ sows disorder into any structure of authority.

AMDG

XIV – A Travel Guide to Edeny and Anakay

I often refer (or will refer!) to this idea of a ‘population of perfectly formed Christians’, or to an individual ‘perfectly formed Christian’. In order to simplify reference to this idea, I am going to refer to a fictional utopian state I will call ‘Edeny’ (IPA: idɛni) after our original utopian society in Eden. Residents of Edeny I will refer to as Edenites. Adjectival form of Edeny will be ‘Edenic’.

The traits of the Edenites are simple: They are a virtuous people who follow the teachings of Christ to the letter. They are still human, but they respond perfectly to human trials. I might refer to a certain political system being applied in Edeny, and explain the impact it would have on Edenites based on this fiction.

I, of course, do not have a perfect understanding of Christianity, so naturally my description of Edenites will bear all of my hubris and human error. The intent is not to perfectly represent Edenic society, but rather it is to illustrate and symbolize how a perfect society might operate given certain parameters.

The inspiration of this comes from a concept first discussed with a friend of mine: He argued (and I agreed) that a sufficiently formed populace could make any political system work. The real challenge is in cultivating ‘sufficient formation’.

While i’m here, why don’t I create an antithesis to help with our hypothetical explorations of philosophical, theological, and political concepts.

Lets create a land of perfectly unformed people. A land of Anarchy and Instinct, a perfect ‘Dystopia’. Lets call it Anakay (IPA: ænake). The residents will be called Anakites and the adjective form will be Anakish.

Lets draw some parallels, shall we?

On Authority of a Sovereign: Edenites perfectly accept Authority. Anakites perfectly reject authority.

On Truth: Edenites believe Truth is objective and extrinsic. Anakites believe Truth is subjective and intrinsic.

On Morality: Edenites believe Morality is a component of Truth. Anakites believe morality is subjective based on circumstances.

Those are some key elements.

I will be revisiting this concept often. It will expand and grow as I apply it.

AMDG

 

VII – “At What Point Then is the Approach of Danger to be Expected?”

How does one live in a society wherein the Government grants privileges and God handed down Natural Law. The world I have described is one in which we, as individuals, do not have a lot of control. How does that work?

The Divine Right of Presidents

In order to understand our role within society, we must understand the Governments role within society, and more so, how to see past the facade of what it looks like and see what it is.

The way to begin to approach this is to consider what government really is. We as individuals are caretakers of souls which God made just for us. Within our families, we are collectively called to help preserve our families souls. Within our communities, we are called to shepherd as many souls as possible towards God. So follow that chain all the way up: Government is responsible for the souls of every citizen with allegiance to that government.

Lets restate this following Zippy’s methodology: Power is the capacity to make certain things happen. Authority is the moral capacity (I might paraphrase that to moral power) to oblige a subject to do certain things. So Governments have Power, and the Authority (as a moral responsibility) comes from the fact that they are, by definition, caretakers of souls.

Continuing: Enforcement is power associated with Authority to punish those who disobey authority. Tyranny is the false pretense of Authority. I will also go so far as to say Tyranny is the misuse of authority or an abdication of moral responsibility.

The main innovation here is viewing Government as a moral authority: not to define what is right, but instead to preserve and promote what is right. As a Christian and a Catholic, I believe what is right is an objective standard, I believe in Natural Law. So a government which does not abide or promote Virtue, Natural Law, etc, is, in fact, Tyranny.

The Tyranny of the Mob

Part of the problem is that we contextualize ‘Government’ as a monolithic thing which moves and acts as a singular unit. Government is composed of groups of people. In fact, it nests fractally all the way down so as to make it impossible to hold one person responsible for any act of Government. This is true in American government and in any Liberal Democracy the world over. Liberal democracy exists to eschew individual responsibility and promote monolithic collective responsibility.

As an Individual, our actions have immediate and realizable consequences. If those consequences are hidden from us or disguised, then we lose the Moral Hazard of decision making. When we can hide in a group to promote immorality, this is the classic Tyranny of the Mob. Every individual abdicates their moral responsibility because there are no consequences for moral or immoral behavior.

This works upstream from the masses, too. If the populace in a Democratic society don’t feel responsible for the leaders they elect, they don’t feel consequences when those leaders behave immorally. Democracy similarly functions as a shield.

There Has to be a Better Way!

Again, I’ve spent a lot of time extolling the vices of the improper exercise of Authority. So how do we, as Individuals, fit into this system? We need to understand our individual responsibilities as units within families, and as family units within society. The most succinct way I can think of describing our individual responsibilities is through the Cardinal Virtues:

• Justice
• Temperance
• Fortitude
• Prudence

These are the foundation of society, and defined within Natural Law. All men have a sense of the Cardinal Virtues inherent to us; we must refine and sharpen our virtues in order to form Virtuous societies. Similarly those individuals within Government, hiding from consequences, would behave differently if they cultivated these Cardinal Virtues as well.

The next level of Virtue are the Theological Virtues:

• Faith
• Hope
• Charity

These are virtues that come only from the grace of God. An individual, formed in a Christian way, sharpens their Cardinal virtues and pursues their Theological virtues. Again: If individuals were sufficiently formed in Christian teaching, then their direct relationship with God would supersede whatever their relationship is with Government. There would be no pretending that you can hide from consequences.

We, as individuals, do not get to choose how our Government operates. We do, at some level, get to choose the people that work within Government. Our responsibility is to select people formed in virtue so they can make virtuous decisions when in office, and select virtuous people to surround them, so that our Government can begin to uphold it’s responsibility to preserve and promote virtuous society, for the betterment of the souls of the people in the governments care.

AMDG

VI – Human Rights, and other Bedtime Stories

You Really Don’t Have the Right

Since we’ve established that Rights are a way of disguising Liberalism as Natural Law, we need to figure out what we actually mean when we talk about Rights; and also how to talk about them accurately.

The first thing to do is to expunge from your mind the idea that you have any rights, in fact, at all. Let’s look at this with a classic example of rights:

You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed to you by the court. With these rights in mind, are you still willing to talk with me about the charges against you?

Rights are things the Government is willing to let you do. Replace “You have the Right” to “The Government will allow you” and you get the real meaning of Rights. In fact, lets re-examine the Miranda Rights with this modification.

The government will allow you to remain silent. Anything you say will be used against you in a court of law. The government will allow you to have an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed to you by the court. With this in mind, are you still willing to talk with me about the charges against you?

The government can just as easily not allow you any of these rights. But the government has voluntarily limited itself with these rules.

So in essence, we are talking about two things when we are talking about Rights.

1. Natural Law, those things granted to us by God and not authorized or permitted by anyone except God, the infringement of which is an offense not just against Man, but against God.
2. Those things that the Government voluntarily allows it’s citizens as a method of limiting itself and granting deference to the populace.

And these ideas should not be commingled. So I am going to refer to Natural Law as Natural Law since there is already a word for that and it makes sense. I’m going to refer to the second definition as “privileges”, because that more accurately captures the idea that this is something the Government doesn’t have to allow, but does.

Exploding a perfectly good idea

Now let’s take this idea of privileges and put it in the context of so-called human rights. When people talk about human rights, they are trying to talk about privileges tolerated by government and disguise them as Natural Law. The Natural Law is indeed endowed by God and granted to all people regardless of belief, nationality, etc. All humans, after all, have a certain dignity. But the privileges can only be granted by government. Human Rights are often discussed in international contexts as a way of condemning a certain authority. Like Saudi Arabia, or Israel. the UN in particular likes to complain that those two countries are violators of Human Rights for various reasons. They are saying one of two things:

1. You do not grant your citizens the same privileges that we grant our citizens, and therefore you should be condemned.
2. You do not grant your citizens those privileges we as a governing body insist you grant your citizens, and therefore you should be condemned.

You see the problem, now. If they are speaking from the first perspective, they do not have the authority to compel nations to comply with their conception of citizen privileges. Nor does this international body act as an overriding authority for a particular sovereign nation.

Rights then, are the insidious way of attempting to compel other nations (in this context)  to limit itself. One nation cannot compel another to limit itself but through conflict, which is all forms of conflict up to and including war.

Rights are a good bedtime story, a feel good thing that makes citizens feel warm and fuzzy and powerful. Citizens would not be so at ease if they spoke about them accurately.

AMDG