It's Iimi! Law, Justice, and the... (sigh) American Way

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It’s Iimi! We Must Be True To What We Believe!

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Isn’t it Time to Go Beyond the Usual Arguments?

5. Christ’s redemptive work, while essentially concerned with the salvation of men, includes also the renewal of the whole temporal order. Hence the mission of the Church is not only to bring the message and grace of Christ to men but also to penetrate and perfect the temporal order with the spirit of the Gospel. In fulfilling this mission of the Church, the Christian laity exercise their apostolate both in the Church and in the world, in both the spiritual and the temporal orders. These orders, although distinct, are so connected in the singular plan of God that He Himself intends to raise up the whole world again in Christ and to make it a new creation, initially on earth and completely on the last day. In both orders the layman, being simultaneously a believer and a citizen, should be continuously led by the same Christian conscience.

(Apostolicam actuositatem)

With yet another mass shooting and the inevitable arguments over whether laws should be passed, I think there’s one thing that never gets discussed: whether the 2nd Amendment itself needs to be amended. By this I mean it seems like proponents of gun control want to pass laws as if it did not exist and opponents of gun control want to use it to block any meaningful restrictions.

I think proponents of gun control need to offer ideas on how it should be reasonably be amended. I think opponents of gun control need to propose solutions on how to prevent mass shootings. But instead, people on both sides offer their same arguments that bring up the same counter-arguments and nothing gets done.

From a Catholic perspective, I think we need to move beyond partisan divisions and start *talking* to each other if we are to find a just solution that serves the public good. I would urge all sides to look at the situation without partisan lenses so we can find that just solution. But if we just point fingers and refuse to question ourselves, will that ever happen? Or will we just continue the circle of Shootings—Outrage—Forgetting?

As a Catholic, I think we need to break that circle and try to find just solutions, even at the cost of our political views.

Thoughts on Catholic Moral Teaching and Law

When people attack the Catholic Church and her teaching on morality, they point to laws in past eras that were brutal by our standards. They argue that these past laws show that the teaching that "X is a sin” caused brutal punishments. That presumes law and morality are the same, which is false. Not all sins are against the law, and sometimes law interferes with moral behavior. St. Thomas Aquinas makes this distinction:

Now human law is framed for a number of human beings, the majority of whom are not perfect in virtue. Wherefore human laws do not forbid all vices, from which the virtuous abstain, but only the more grievous vices, from which it is possible for the majority to abstain; and chiefly those that are to the hurt of others, without the prohibition of which human society could not be maintained: thus human law prohibits murder, theft and suchlike.

 

 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, STh., I-II q.96 a.2 resp. trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne,).

In other words, Not every sin was against the law in Christian societies. Morality distinguishes between right and wrong behavior. Morality tells what we must do or must not do regardless of what the law says. If theft is wrong, then we must not steal even if the law allows it. But while morality deals with what we must or must not do, law deals with what penalty we give when people violate morality in such a way that harms human society. Morality does not change over time, but laws can change over time.

Morality does not change from saying “X is good” to “X is wrong.” Theft was wrong a thousand years ago, is wrong today, and will be wrong a thousand years from now. Even so, law from a thousand years ago based on the morality that theft is wrong was different than the law today and the law based on that morality a thousand years from now will be different from the law today. We can and must adjust law when situations merit a gentler response, provided that gentler response is just.

For example, the use of the Death Penalty is not unjust by nature. But when society and technology advances to the point that the criminal can be safely contained without using it, then we can adjust the law so the death penalty is not easily applied. The change of the law does not mean Church teaching on the death penalty is wrong. It means we can adjust the law when the death penalty is not needed to protect the innocent from the criminal.

That’s assuming that the law is based on morality. Sometimes it comes from the vicious customs of a society. For example, slavery, lynching and segregation in the United States, Even though America began as a Christian nation, they adopted vicious customs which had been already condemned by the Church. For example, the Church condemned the reemergence of slavery in 1435—long before the Europeans encountered the New World. Despite this fact, unjust laws continued to treat blacks as property and even some Catholics in the United States owned slaves (just as how some Catholics support abortion today).

Often times, laws stayed in place from before a nation became Christian. Burning at the stake was a pagan Germanic practice. So were trials by ordeal. Catholics did not invent them. Should Christians have changed them? Yes. Do they show that some high ranking Catholics did wrong things? Yes. Do these things show that Catholics were worse than others? They absolutely do not! What they tell us is Christians can be as blind to cultural vices as everyone else.

When it comes to crafting or reforming law, we need to remember three things:

1. We must be aware of objective right and wrong. 
2. We must know which wrongs harm society.
3. We must assess the proportionate penalty for doing wrongs that harm society.

The Church does these things. She teaches us what right and wrong are. She warns us of wrongs harming society. She also speaks out against laws that are unjustly harsh or lenient. Unfortunately today, just as in the past, some Catholics have not kept these things in mind and instead passed laws which fail one or more of these criteria. But what people overlook is that the Church also expands our moral knowledge. In applying it to new situations, the Church brings us to deeper understandings we did not have in past centuries.

We cannot create just laws by eliminating our Christian moral roots. We can only create them by being vigilant, studying why things are right or wrong and finding just ways of protecting society from harm.

When Partisanship Replaces Justice

In the 1888 encyclical Officio Sanctissimo, Pope Leo XIII encouraged Catholic participation in the legal system to change unjust laws. Part of this document asserts:

[12] Effectively the laws give Catholics an easy way of seeking to amend the condition and order of the State and to desire and will a constitution which, if not favourable and well-intentioned towards the Church, shall at least, as justice requires, be not harshly hostile. It would be unjust to accuse or blame any one amongst us who has recourse to such means, for those means, used by the enemies of Catholicity to obtain and to extort, as it were, from rulers laws inimical to civil and religious freedom, may surely be used by Catholics in an honourable manner for the interests of religion and in defence of the property, privileges, and right divinely granted to the Catholic Church, and that ought to be respected with all honour by rulers and subjects alike.

 

 Claudia Carlen, ed., The Papal Encyclicals: 1878–1903 (Ypsilanti, MI: Pierian Press, 1990), 154.

I’m struck by differing assumptions compared to the American experience of the last few years. Courts strike down laws passed to defending moral rights, The government vetoes or ignores laws they swore to uphold (without suffering repercussions for dereliction of duty). In fact, executive orders and judicial diktats deny believers the right to promote laws benefiting the common good, and target them for refusing to accept the moral changes the political and cultural elites impose on society.

Leo XIII wrote this to the Catholics in Bavaria during the Kulturkampf encouraging them to use the same system to lift oppression that their opponents used to impose it. That says something ironic about America today. That irony is America today is less just in some legal structures than Imperial Germany was 120 years ago! When legal structures are unjust we can no longer rely on our checks and balances to defend the rights of citizens who hold views unpopular with political and cultural elites.

This shouldn’t surprise us. Americans have an ugly habit of setting aside their system of justice when they deem a targeted group unworthy under the law. The obvious example is that of slavery and segregation. But we could also include the violations of treaties with Native Americans, the Internment of Japanese Americans, the denial of the rights of the unborn, and the targeting of refugees. When Americans want to stop treating a disliked group as an equal, we enforced our laws arbitrarily and passed new laws pushing the disliked group further away. 

To defend injustice, America invokes hypothetical extreme cases and treats that extreme case as the norm. For example, abortion for the rape victim, or security from possible fifth columnists, terrorists or felons in the case of Japanese internees, Islamic refugees and illegal aliens. America justified segregation on the grounds that African Americans could not adapt to “White Society” and slavery on the grounds that slaves could not adapt to freedom. Nobody asks whether extreme cases are real and whether they justify these actions.

Today, America uses the irrelevant analogy fallacy, drawing attention to a few similarities between scenarios and ignoring the greater differences. Promoting “same sex marriage,” elites claim denying people with same sex attraction the right to marry is the same as denying interracial marriage. Elites invoke the similarity of “denying two people the right to marry” and name themselves foes of bigotry. The forgotten difference is interracial marriage still involves one male and one female. Opposing interracial marriage denied something essential (complementarity of male and female) in favor of something accidental (the ethnicity of the male and female).

The same happens in other cases. Elites justify abortion by arguing the fetus is a "clump of cells,” so we can excise like any other group of cells. The essential difference is the fetus is a separate person, not a mere clump of cells, and we cannot treat a person like any other “clump.” Elites justify the “contraception mandate” by saying women have a “right” to contraceptives. Even barring the fact that Catholics reject that premise, a “right” to something does not mean people must subsidize it.

These examples show how elites set aside justice and law when it benefits their ideology, invoking them only when favorable. This results in a system where the preference of the elite is law, despite what actual law and moral belief of citizens hold. They succeed because they use simple slogans in supporting their own positions and attacking their opponents. Refuting inaccurate slogans takes longer than reciting them. People remember the inaccurate slogan longer. “War on women.” “Freedom to love.” “Reproductive Freedom.” Few know refutations exist for each of them.

This reality frustrates many Christians. People ignore truth and favor slogans.  So we offer simplistic solutions in exchange. “We need better Popes and bishops.” “We need stronger teaching.” “We need simpler explanations.” These aren’t solutions. They’re just opposing slogans.

What we need—if you’ll pardon me for using a slogan myself—are “boots on the ground.” We need Christians in every walk of life explaining what we believe and why it is good. This isn’t going to change people like flicking a switch. Many will ignore us. Many will treat us hostilely. Yet, some will hear. What we say might turn out to be a planted seed. We don’t know if the seed will bear fruit, only God knows the answer to that question. Either each one of us sows the seeds in the face of opposition, or we abandon the Great Commission and surrender the nation to those who oppose truth and righteousness.

TFTD: Self-Contradiction by Opponents to Christianity

So, the backlash against Indiana’s Religious Freedom law continues to grow, and one wonders whether things will spill over into violence soon against Christians. The media, with backing from some politicians and some businesses are treating the entire affair as being intended to allow free discrimination against people with same sex attraction—never mind that they are merely making a circular argument that assumes discrimination instead of proving it intends discrimination.

But as I read the news articles and the comments, I am seeing what is amounting to several huge self-contradictions that, when explored, makes these protestors out to be huge hypocrites. Here’s the problem.

1. If nobody should be allowed to force their views on others, then nobody should be allowed to force their views of same sex “marriage” on Christian business owners.
2. If it is acceptable for the law to make demands based on moral beliefs (by banning “anti-gay” discrimination), then it is acceptable for Christians to make law based on the demands of their moral belief.

See the problem here? If relativists try to define the issue the first way (“forcing views on others”) then they are obligated to avoid forcing their views on others, and they cannot try to compel Christian business owners to cooperate with their view that “same sex marriage” is morally acceptable. But if they try the other tactic and claim that they have the right to pass laws that say Christians must cooperate with their beliefs of right and wrong, then logically Christians have the right to pass laws based on their own beliefs of right and wrong.

No matter which universal they stake claim to, Christians can point out they are being hypocritical in their enforcement of it because it is being applied in such a way as to exclude those the protestors disagree with (the Christians), whereas, if opponents of Christianity applied those principles across the board, they could not condemn Christians for behaving as they do without condemning themselves as well.

However, Christians can’t be accused of approaching these two concepts with the same self-contradiction simply because we don’t hold them in the first place. The Christian view is not based on the idea of freedom to behave as one wants, but the freedom to behave as one ought. Anything that blocks a person from doing what is right or forces them to do what is wrong is a violation of that freedom. Because the concept of family as husband, wife and children passing on the values needed for the society to continue from one generation to the next is a building block of the society, the law can be justified in defending it. Things that harm that building block of society by tearing down the things that make it possible to continue society to the next generation need to be prevented and the law is reasonable in using just means to prevent them from destroying it.

So (simplifying greatly), I would say that the Christian moral teaching would hold this principle with no self contradiction:

1. No law should prevent a person from doing what they believe they are morally obliged to do unless that belief causes actual harm to others or the breakdown of the common good (taking another life arbitrarily comes to mind here, as does attacks on the traditional family, committing violence against others without just cause).
2. No law should force a person to do what they believe is morally wrong to do.
3. Laws should promote the common good and protect the family and individuals from those who would actively seek to harm others.

Such a concept on law would not only protect the Christian, but the non-Christian from being forced to do wrong, it would protect society from individuals or groups who claim they have the moral obligation to murder or steal etc. It recognizes that real right and wrong do exist and seeks to make laws that makes it easier to do what is right, and put restrictions on wrongdoing that disrupts society.

No contradiction, no injustice. That’s the difference between the consistent Christian view and the self-contradiction of the inconsistent view of modern Christianophobia that pretends to be in favor of “rights” of all—except Christians.

Thoughts on (Lack of) Separation of Church and State in Modern America

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Thoughts on Catholicism and Human Law

I would like to expand on something I wrote a few days ago concerning the concept of legitimate and illegitimate law. I hope in this day and age (unfortunately, you never know) most people would recognize that governments can and do create unjust laws (whether actual laws, judicial rulings and executive orders) which are made binding through force—not just in totalitarian nations, but right here in the US as well.

Realizing that even in the Western Nations (which are always held up as the paragon of freedom compared to the rest of the world, fair or not) the governments can and do create unjust laws is important. It shows that no state government is impeccable in creating laws (human laws, to distinguish from Divine Law and Natural Law)—even if our own party of preference is in command.

I think that with this understanding in mind, the Catholic perspective should be explored. A lot of accusations have been made about us, and we need to have a basic understanding on how the Church views the authority of the state and the human law it creates.

We're not anarchists. We don't hold that the adage, the government that governs best governs least. Nor do we hold that government is a necessary evil. When it works as it ought, government justly holds authority and must be heeded. On the other hand, Catholicism is not a proponent of Big Government. The authority of the state certainly has limits as to what it can do.

In the Catholic perspective, the purpose of government is ensuring the common good. However, the government is not itself the common good. It can only be a means to this end. The government does not have the authority to redefine what the common good is, and the burdens of the law must not be unequally proportioned—such as favoring your friends and harming your enemies. (See Summa Theologica I II Q 96 a4). Finally, the laws passed cannot exceed the authority of the lawgiver.

This last point is important. While certain views of government exalt the power of the state, when the government decrees something it has no right to decree, the law it passes has no authority—much like if I were to pass a law that all the houses on my block have the obligation to pay me a 20% tax on their gross income. I would have no right to make such a law because I do not have the authority to even make a law. Maybe if I had my own private militia I could get away with it, but the law would have no authority on its own.

A government may decree a thing, but if the thing decreed goes beyond the authority of the government to decree, then the only way that the law can be binding is if the government uses force to carry out the law. There would be no moral  obligation to follow such a law.

When you see these principles, it becomes clear that sometimes the Church must necessarily be in opposition to certain acts of government but is not acting in a partisan manner in doing so.

The Church rejects the claim by a state that it can decide to change the definitions of what is good or evil. Thus when the state creates such legislation, she denies that the law has binding authority. If the law interferes with the ability to do good and avoid evil, then it is not a law at all. It is merely an act of coercion.

Thus the Church will challenge the state that decrees that it can make marriage anything other than between one man and one woman. The Church will challenge the state if it decrees that abortion is a "right." The Church will challenge the state if the state demands that employers violate their religious faith by paying for contraceptives.

When the state decrees such things, these laws lack the morally binding force that valid human law possesses. The government can use force to demand compliance—do it or be sued, locked up or dead.

Now while that threat of coercion may work on individuals within the Church, it doesn't work on the Church as a whole. The Church that recognizes the witness of martyrdom (which is not to be confused with the perversion of the term by those who blow themselves and others up to make a point).

Martyrdom in the Catholic sense says that it is better to suffer evil than to do evil—even to the point of dying rather than doing what God forbids. The Catholic faith, which says, " I would rather suffer as an innocent than to be guilty of doing what God forbids," does not accept the claims of the state to have the right to make good evil or evil good.

The reasons above also explain why the Church—contrary to the hopes of the media—will never permit abortion, woman priests, "gay marriage," contraception, or remarriage when the spouse of a pervious valid marriage is still alive. The Church is not an institution which arbitrarily makes up rules for Catholics to follow and can undo them whenever she likes. When God teaches us what is good or evil, the Catholic Church knows she does not have the authority to change that teaching.

When one understands these things, it becomes clear how the Church can be in opposition to the human laws of a government without being partisan. The Church can accept a government which seeks the true common good and does not seek to elevate itself to the greatest importance and does not seek to make laws it has no right or authority to make.

But it must seek to convert the government that seeks partisan gain for its supporters, that seeks to pass laws it has no right to pass.

This then is why the Catholic Church must sometimes be in opposition to our government.

Thoughts on Catholicism and Human Law

I would like to expand on something I wrote a few days ago concerning the concept of legitimate and illegitimate law. I hope in this day and age (unfortunately, you never know) most people would recognize that governments can and do create unjust laws (whether actual laws, judicial rulings and executive orders) which are made binding through force—not just in totalitarian nations, but right here in the US as well.

Realizing that even in the Western Nations (which are always held up as the paragon of freedom compared to the rest of the world, fair or not) the governments can and do create unjust laws is important. It shows that no state government is impeccable in creating laws (human laws, to distinguish from Divine Law and Natural Law)—even if our own party of preference is in command.

I think that with this understanding in mind, the Catholic perspective should be explored. A lot of accusations have been made about us, and we need to have a basic understanding on how the Church views the authority of the state and the human law it creates.

We're not anarchists. We don't hold that the adage, the government that governs best governs least. Nor do we hold that government is a necessary evil. When it works as it ought, government justly holds authority and must be heeded. On the other hand, Catholicism is not a proponent of Big Government. The authority of the state certainly has limits as to what it can do.

In the Catholic perspective, the purpose of government is ensuring the common good. However, the government is not itself the common good. It can only be a means to this end. The government does not have the authority to redefine what the common good is, and the burdens of the law must not be unequally proportioned—such as favoring your friends and harming your enemies. (See Summa Theologica I II Q 96 a4). Finally, the laws passed cannot exceed the authority of the lawgiver.

This last point is important. While certain views of government exalt the power of the state, when the government decrees something it has no right to decree, the law it passes has no authority—much like if I were to pass a law that all the houses on my block have the obligation to pay me a 20% tax on their gross income. I would have no right to make such a law because I do not have the authority to even make a law. Maybe if I had my own private militia I could get away with it, but the law would have no authority on its own.

A government may decree a thing, but if the thing decreed goes beyond the authority of the government to decree, then the only way that the law can be binding is if the government uses force to carry out the law. There would be no moral  obligation to follow such a law.

When you see these principles, it becomes clear that sometimes the Church must necessarily be in opposition to certain acts of government but is not acting in a partisan manner in doing so.

The Church rejects the claim by a state that it can decide to change the definitions of what is good or evil. Thus when the state creates such legislation, she denies that the law has binding authority. If the law interferes with the ability to do good and avoid evil, then it is not a law at all. It is merely an act of coercion.

Thus the Church will challenge the state that decrees that it can make marriage anything other than between one man and one woman. The Church will challenge the state if it decrees that abortion is a "right." The Church will challenge the state if the state demands that employers violate their religious faith by paying for contraceptives.

When the state decrees such things, these laws lack the morally binding force that valid human law possesses. The government can use force to demand compliance—do it or be sued, locked up or dead.

Now while that threat of coercion may work on individuals within the Church, it doesn't work on the Church as a whole. The Church that recognizes the witness of martyrdom (which is not to be confused with the perversion of the term by those who blow themselves and others up to make a point).

Martyrdom in the Catholic sense says that it is better to suffer evil than to do evil—even to the point of dying rather than doing what God forbids. The Catholic faith, which says, " I would rather suffer as an innocent than to be guilty of doing what God forbids," does not accept the claims of the state to have the right to make good evil or evil good.

The reasons above also explain why the Church—contrary to the hopes of the media—will never permit abortion, woman priests, "gay marriage," contraception, or remarriage when the spouse of a pervious valid marriage is still alive. The Church is not an institution which arbitrarily makes up rules for Catholics to follow and can undo them whenever she likes. When God teaches us what is good or evil, the Catholic Church knows she does not have the authority to change that teaching.

When one understands these things, it becomes clear how the Church can be in opposition to the human laws of a government without being partisan. The Church can accept a government which seeks the true common good and does not seek to elevate itself to the greatest importance and does not seek to make laws it has no right or authority to make.

But it must seek to convert the government that seeks partisan gain for its supporters, that seeks to pass laws it has no right to pass.

This then is why the Catholic Church must sometimes be in opposition to our government.

Thoughts on Law and Obligation: They're Not Always the Same

Let's start this article with a question:

Is a law to be followed just because it is a law (or court ruling)?

It would be tragic if this were presumed to be true because we have seen many harmful laws which have been implemented merely on the say so of the government—laws which were accepted unquestioningly by a majority of the people.

The Third Reich is the obvious example of such laws. The Nazi Party came to power legally and then legally (or through fait accompli) changed laws to what they wanted them to be.  if accepting a law on the basis of being a law (the technical term is legal positivism) is true, then it was not wrong for Germans to follow the laws of the Third Reich—something I suspect nobody would agree with. (if you're reading this, and you do agree, then do yourself a favor and keep quiet).

But we don't even have to "violate" Godwin's Law to demonstrate this. We can point to Dred Scott, Plessy v. Ferguson, the acceptance of slavery and segregation, forced relocations (Native American, Japanese). These were legal at one point in America.

So, let's go back to our question. Does the fact that a thing is a law mean that it must be followed?

1. If you answer "Yes," then you must accept the injustices a government that a government commits, and accept the claim that those opposing such a law (say, for example, Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King Jr.) are wrong and ought to be punished for law-breaking.
2. If you answer "No," then it means you recognize that the government can do wrong, and when it does, it must be opposed, and this opposition is legitimate.

I think of this Legal Positivism attitude when I hear certain politicians invoke the "right to abortion" granted by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade and other cases. The Supreme Court also affirmed the "right" to own slaves and the "right" to segregate. The Supreme Court may be the last stop when the political will is lacking to amend the Constitution, but we can see that history tells us that the Supreme Court has erred in the past—it is not infallible.

I think this demonstrates that government action cannot be the sole grounds of judging whether a thing is good or bad. If the Supreme Court, or Congress or the President does wrong, and the result of that wrong is a Ruling, or a Law, or an Executive Order, that result must be opposed with the intention of overturning the injustice.

Now of course, opposition cannot be rooted in "I don't like that policy! I want my policy!" (Which is what passes for political dispute today). Opposition must be rooted in the knowledge that some things are wrong—either always wrong, or wrong in circumstance (as an example: murder is always wrong. But in some contexts, like self defense, killing might be justified). This is not a matter of disputing what the percentage should be for the tax rate, where legitimate disputes can occur over what is best. This is a matter of "Does the government have the authority to decree that an evil is now good in a binding manner.

Some skeptics may face this point by denying we can know any thing is objectively wrong. But normally such skepticism is used with the intent of trying to justify doing a bad thing.  The fact is, we do know some things are wrong: The Holocaust, Ethnic Cleansing, Slavery, etc. We know that treating a human being as less than a human being is to be condemned regardless of where it is done or what century it is done.

Feigned or real ignorance is not a valid argument defense against the the fact that a thing is wrong. Yes, a person who truly does not know that a thing is wrong (for example a person who is insane) might have a defense against prosecution, but that does not mean that the act itself is not wrong. An insane man may not have deliberately chosen to commit murder, but that doesn't change the fact that murder is wrong.

But the person who feigns ignorance about the evil of a thing or a person who claims that good and evil is merely an arbitrary decision of the person who decrees it (many people who demand that the Catholic Church change her teaching fall into this category) does not have this defense, because we DO know things are wrong… even when we pretend not to know.

Think of it this way. The person who denies we can know what is truly good or evil will probably NOT think that way if I should steal his money (Hey, it's annoying writing articles on an Android tablet, I could use a laptop, and robbing you would help me get it quicker). Such a person, despite his claims that we can't know if a thing is good or evil, knows that it is wrong to deprive a person of his life or property at the whim of another.

We can see this in the skepticism used to defend the "right" of abortion. Roe v. Wade is essentially an Argument from Ignorance fallacy that claims that we cannot know where life begins, therefore we can't restrict the right to abortion. The problem is, a person taking action while not knowing whether it might harm another is at the least guilty of negligence and possibly manslaughter or even murder. When an action might cause harm to another, we are obligated to make sure it is safe to proceed before acting.

What is worse is the fact that some recent thinking in the defense of abortion holds that it probably is a person, but that is less important than the right not to be pregnant. In other words it effectively says it is ok to treat a person as less than human if it benefits me.

We've been down that road before. Here in America, we've treated Blacks, American Indians, Japanese and other minorities as being less than human for our own convenience. In other countries, Germans have treated Jews and Slavs as less than fully human. Serbs have treated Bosnians and Croats as less than fully human. Turks have treated Armenians as less than fully human.

The list goes on and on, each with government approval.

The only way to avoid such monstrosity is to recognize that law must be subject to truth, and when a government goes against what is true in its laws, it must be opposed.

There are graveyards filled with people because too many just decided that because a thing is a law, it must be acceptable.

Thoughts on Law and Obligation: They're Not Always the Same

Let's start this article with a question:

Is a law to be followed just because it is a law (or court ruling)?

It would be tragic if this were presumed to be true because we have seen many harmful laws which have been implemented merely on the say so of the government—laws which were accepted unquestioningly by a majority of the people.

The Third Reich is the obvious example of such laws. The Nazi Party came to power legally and then legally (or through fait accompli) changed laws to what they wanted them to be.  if accepting a law on the basis of being a law (the technical term is legal positivism) is true, then it was not wrong for Germans to follow the laws of the Third Reich—something I suspect nobody would agree with. (if you're reading this, and you do agree, then do yourself a favor and keep quiet).

But we don't even have to "violate" Godwin's Law to demonstrate this. We can point to Dred Scott, Plessy v. Ferguson, the acceptance of slavery and segregation, forced relocations (Native American, Japanese). These were legal at one point in America.

So, let's go back to our question. Does the fact that a thing is a law mean that it must be followed?

1. If you answer "Yes," then you must accept the injustices a government that a government commits, and accept the claim that those opposing such a law (say, for example, Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King Jr.) are wrong and ought to be punished for law-breaking.
2. If you answer "No," then it means you recognize that the government can do wrong, and when it does, it must be opposed, and this opposition is legitimate.

I think of this Legal Positivism attitude when I hear certain politicians invoke the "right to abortion" granted by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade and other cases. The Supreme Court also affirmed the "right" to own slaves and the "right" to segregate. The Supreme Court may be the last stop when the political will is lacking to amend the Constitution, but we can see that history tells us that the Supreme Court has erred in the past—it is not infallible.

I think this demonstrates that government action cannot be the sole grounds of judging whether a thing is good or bad. If the Supreme Court, or Congress or the President does wrong, and the result of that wrong is a Ruling, or a Law, or an Executive Order, that result must be opposed with the intention of overturning the injustice.

Now of course, opposition cannot be rooted in "I don't like that policy! I want my policy!" (Which is what passes for political dispute today). Opposition must be rooted in the knowledge that some things are wrong—either always wrong, or wrong in circumstance (as an example: murder is always wrong. But in some contexts, like self defense, killing might be justified). This is not a matter of disputing what the percentage should be for the tax rate, where legitimate disputes can occur over what is best. This is a matter of "Does the government have the authority to decree that an evil is now good in a binding manner.

Some skeptics may face this point by denying we can know any thing is objectively wrong. But normally such skepticism is used with the intent of trying to justify doing a bad thing.  The fact is, we do know some things are wrong: The Holocaust, Ethnic Cleansing, Slavery, etc. We know that treating a human being as less than a human being is to be condemned regardless of where it is done or what century it is done.

Feigned or real ignorance is not a valid argument defense against the the fact that a thing is wrong. Yes, a person who truly does not know that a thing is wrong (for example a person who is insane) might have a defense against prosecution, but that does not mean that the act itself is not wrong. An insane man may not have deliberately chosen to commit murder, but that doesn't change the fact that murder is wrong.

But the person who feigns ignorance about the evil of a thing or a person who claims that good and evil is merely an arbitrary decision of the person who decrees it (many people who demand that the Catholic Church change her teaching fall into this category) does not have this defense, because we DO know things are wrong… even when we pretend not to know.

Think of it this way. The person who denies we can know what is truly good or evil will probably NOT think that way if I should steal his money (Hey, it's annoying writing articles on an Android tablet, I could use a laptop, and robbing you would help me get it quicker). Such a person, despite his claims that we can't know if a thing is good or evil, knows that it is wrong to deprive a person of his life or property at the whim of another.

We can see this in the skepticism used to defend the "right" of abortion. Roe v. Wade is essentially an Argument from Ignorance fallacy that claims that we cannot know where life begins, therefore we can't restrict the right to abortion. The problem is, a person taking action while not knowing whether it might harm another is at the least guilty of negligence and possibly manslaughter or even murder. When an action might cause harm to another, we are obligated to make sure it is safe to proceed before acting.

What is worse is the fact that some recent thinking in the defense of abortion holds that it probably is a person, but that is less important than the right not to be pregnant. In other words it effectively says it is ok to treat a person as less than human if it benefits me.

We've been down that road before. Here in America, we've treated Blacks, American Indians, Japanese and other minorities as being less than human for our own convenience. In other countries, Germans have treated Jews and Slavs as less than fully human. Serbs have treated Bosnians and Croats as less than fully human. Turks have treated Armenians as less than fully human.

The list goes on and on, each with government approval.

The only way to avoid such monstrosity is to recognize that law must be subject to truth, and when a government goes against what is true in its laws, it must be opposed.

There are graveyards filled with people because too many just decided that because a thing is a law, it must be acceptable.

Unjust Officials

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Unjust Officials

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Reflections on Truth and the Current American Crisis

To say that what is is not, or that what is not is, is false; but to say that what is is, and what is not is not, is true; and therefore also he who says that a thing is or is not will say either what is true or what is false.

—Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1011b 25

One of the sad problems of America today is our tendency to reject that which is old on the grounds that it is old.  We are automatically interested in what is new.  Have a two week old computer?  Junk!  Have a 2012 car?  Trade it in!  Talk about Greeks living close to 2500 years ago – are you crazy?  The problem is, just because mechanical items become quickly replaceable and new science replaces older views of science as our abilities to observe become more precise, does not mean that what is true becomes obsolete.

Truth

In fact, if something is true, it is always true even if at some time it was not known by a culture.  Slavery, for example, was not "right" in the times of the Greeks and Romans and wrong after 1865.  It was always wrong even if some cultures did not recognize this.  It will be wrong in the future, even if a future civilization decides that all people with an IQ of less than 125 can be treated as an object.

Likewise, the Earth did not begin revolving around the Sun beginning with the Copernican system, but prior to that was stationary with the Sun revolving around it.  The Earth always revolved around the Sun, whether people were aware of it or not.

The point of stating the obvious is, despite what a person may say, it is either true or false depending on whether it accurately speaks of what is.

Truth and American Discourse

I think this is important when it comes to considering the political discourse in America, both public and private.  When a person says a thing is, he or she speaks truly if that is correct, but speaks falsely if it is not correct.

In terms of the current crisis, we have people who are saying that access to contraceptives and abortion in Health Care is a Choice, Choice is a right, and therefore everyone must pay for these services, even if they believe contraception and abortion are morally wrong.

The problem is, "Freedom of Choice" is a meaningless phrase if it is not defined.  So is the term "Rights."  During the Civil War (and even with some people I have met in real life) declared that the issue of the war was the issue of State's Rights and to say the war was about slavery was to oversimplify.  The question though is, The Right to do what?  Um, well… the right of the State to determine whether or not slavery should be permitted.  The problem however was that if Slavery was objectively wrong, no state had the right to permit it to begin with.

The Choice to Do What?

Likewise today, people like Pelosi champion the freedom of "Choice."  The problem is, we can ask the same question, The Choice to do what?  Whether or not we have that freedom, depends on what is.

In terms of abortion, the action being defended is the right of a woman to destroy the fetus in her body.  Whether or not one is free to do this depends on whether the fetus is a person or not.  We already recognize that one person may not have arbitrary control over another person's life.  If the state must end a person's life, it may only be because the crime is heinous and this is the only possible way to protect innocents from harm.  I don't have the right to shoot a neighbor because he plays the stereo too damn loud late at night.

So, if a woman has the freedom of "choice" regarding abortion, it assumes as proven that the fetus is not a person.  The fetus either is or is not a person.  If the fetus is a person, then whoever says the fetus is not a person does not speak truth.

History Shows the Horrors of Treating Persons as Non-Persons

This is not some academic philosophical issue.  The 20th century's worst regime declared that Jews and Slavs and Gypsies were not persons, and went out of their way to enslave and eventually destroy them.  We recognize that the Nazis did not speak the truth in declaring that the Jews were not persons and thus to treat the Jews as non humans was horrendously wrong.

I don't bring this up to say America is on the fast track to becoming the next Nazi Germany.  Instead I say this to bring home an important point – The government does NOT have the authority to determine who is and who is not a person.  Personhood is independent of what the government decrees.  If the government declares that a person is a non-person, then that government does horrific evil.

Partisanship Replaces Truth Today… But Catholic Moral Teaching Predates the Ideologies We are Accused of Embracing

The problem is, in popular thought, nobody even thinks of truth any more.  Nowadays, it is all partisanship… the ideology one likes is right and those who challenge that ideology are maliciously wrong, seeking to impose their views out of a lust for power and a hatred to whatever the ideologue invokes.

As a result, we see that the Catholic teachings of morality, which has existed far longer than the existence of the United States of America, is labeled as "Right Wing, Republican Propaganda."  The belief that the fetus is a person and the belief that sexual relations are only permissible between husband and wife were taught in the first century AD.

Our beliefs were taught long before there was a Republican Party in existence or a Right Wing vs. Left Wing conflict or even a United States.  We do not teach them because of a lust for power (we taught them when Christianity was hated by the Roman Empire) or a hatred of women (the Pagan Romans derided Christianity as a "religion for women").  We teach them because we believe this is how the God of All intended it to be when he created humanity – and that which goes against what God intended is harmful to persons whether they recognize the teaching of God or not.

Regardless of whether or not people today accept the Catholic moral teaching as true or not, this is what Catholics do believe.  Because all of us are called to follow what is true, and Catholics do believe their moral teaching is true, Catholics must do what they believe is true, regardless of whether the state agrees or not.

An Unjust Law is No Law at All

St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, some 500 years before the United States came into being:

I answer that, As Augustine says (De Lib. Arb. i, 5) "that which is not just seems to be no law at all": wherefore the force of a law depends on the extent of its justice. Now in human affairs a thing is said to be just, from being right, according to the rule of reason. But the first rule of reason is the law of nature, as is clear from what has been stated above (91, 2, ad 2). Consequently every human law has just so much of the nature of law, as it is derived from the law of nature. But if in any point it deflects from the law of nature, it is no longer a law but a perversion of law.

But it must be noted that something may be derived from the natural law in two ways: first, as a conclusion from premises, secondly, by way of determination of certain generalities. The first way is like to that by which, in sciences, demonstrated conclusions are drawn from the principles: while the second mode is likened to that whereby, in the arts, general forms are particularized as to details: thus the craftsman needs to determine the general form of a house to some particular shape. Some things are therefore derived from the general principles of the natural law, by way of conclusions; e.g. that "one must not kill" may be derived as a conclusion from the principle that "one should do harm to no man": while some are derived therefrom by way of determination; e.g. the law of nature has it that the evil-doer should be punished; but that he be punished in this or that way, is a determination of the law of nature.

—Summa Theologica (I-II. Q.95. A.2)

Because we believe that the current HHS mandate violates the law of nature, we believe the mandate is a perversion of law.  People may argue that what was written by a medieval theologian can be ignored, but that goes back to the original problem Americans have of rejecting something which is true because it is old.

Because we recognize the principle, "one should do harm to no man," and we recognize that the current law does harm to man, Catholics are not unreasonable in opposing this law, because it is no law at all and has no force outside of the state using coercion to force compliance.  Since the First Amendment forbids the government from laws concerning the establishment of religion and the free exercise of religion, we can say that even under the Constitution we are governed by, this mandate is no law at all, but an act of coercion and tyranny.

Thus, even if one disagrees with what the Catholic Church teaches, one must reasonably oppose this mandate as being nothing more than tyranny imposed.

Conclusion: Truth and Law

These considerations are important and not merely theoretical.  If the government is to create a good law, a just law, then it must be a law grounded in what is true.  The government cannot make truth however.  The government can only follow truth.  If a government follows truth and grounds the law in truth, it is a good government. 

Some may argue that the Catholic position is not true and not grounded in truth.  So you disagree with me.  But disagreement with me is not proving your position to be true.  The Catholic Church certainly has written vast amounts on why she holds what she believes.  Those who disagree with her in this current crisis don't even bother to prove what they believe.  "Choice" is repeated as a mantra, and people are not allowed to choose as to whether America should embrace "Choice."

Ultimately, many believers are being forced to accept something they believe is a bad and unjust law, not grounded in truth, but in the embrace of vice.  Such a mandate is no just law and those who recognize this as wrong are not bound to obey it.  The government may coerce and exact penalties, but this is nothing more than the use of force to make people comply.

We used to recognize that was tyranny.  Now, nobody seems to recognize what we have lost because we have forgotten long held truths.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

—From the Declaration of Independence