“It explains conservatives’ pragmatism and unconcern for justice or higher principle. Many who call themselves conservative experience it as terribly important to link conservatism to some such ennobling conceit as natural law theory or the aspirations of the Western philosophers.  Even some of Edmund Burke’s admirers labor to obscure his genius by portraying him less as a conservative than a second-rate natural law theorist. Of course, every statesman and writer, Burke included, finds occasion every now and then to appeal to fundamental principles.  That does not mean that he is absolutely committed to them.  The conservative appeals to principle as convenience dictates.  It does not disturb him in the meantime that the few may dominate the weak, that the poor may starve while the rich prosper or that the citizenry may indulge in the most appalling license.  Conservatives uphold legitimacy whatever the human cost.”

So I’m not a conservative.  I’m glad to have found that out.  I suggest you all read
a chapter in a book by Richard Weaver in which he asked if the Late Romand and Byzantine
Empires were really worth the savage forms of execution which were required to keep
their people in line.  Sometimes it is better to consign even a “legitimate” govt.
to the dustbin than simply to execute all the people it would take in order to maintain
that legitimacy.  It is to the credit of French Legitimists that they did not undertake
the bloody purges it would have taken to eradicate the Orleanist, Bonapartist, and
republican partisans.

The United States Constitution furnished a new basis for a federal government that made the United States the most stable and prosperous nation on earth.

Does the Constitution really deserve that much credit? I would think credit should be given to the fortunate circumstances of the country, and the fact that the population is relatively diffuse.

Should have covered more Maistre, one of the greatest political philosophers to ever live.

Also, I doubt very many Catholics would consider the Weberian definition of legitimacy something viable to hold.  Error has no rights, as Leo XIII wrote.  And let us put this into historical context.  Anybody who supports the new order of industrial capitalist democracies is not a conservative, for he also necessarily accepts the work of violent revolution.  Through treason, men made governments upon their own authority, ignoring the irreformable legitimacy of sovereignty formed over the ages by Divine Providence.  What God had made, man tore asunder, and those who thereafter defend the bastard establishment born of this savage adultery are to be considered conservatives?  I am unconvinced.

The problem with this definition, and the reason that some of Mr. Bramwell’s corollaries do not actually follow, is the Weberian definition of legitimacy, as opposed to some “true” legitimacy.  The managerial state is legitimate by Weber’s definition, but conservatives oppose it. Same with mass consumerism and lots of other things.  Or in other words, defense of these institutions is conservative by the proposed definition, as would all defense of “charismatic” authority.

Mr. Bramwell abandons his own definition in his corollaries, where he uses non-Weberian (e.g., Maistrian) criteria of legitimacy.  The question of legitimacy is crucial here.  But any attempt to define “true” legitimacy leads back to the problems Mr. Bramwell thought he was avoiding.

Correction, my comment above should read “...as would be all defense of `charismatic authority’ as well”.

“Through treason, men made governments upon their own authority, ignoring the irreformable legitimacy of sovereignty formed over the ages by Divine Providence.  What God had made, man tore asunder...”

Can someone please show me where in the Bible God commands that only medieval monarchies are legitimate governments?

I’ll show you what God REALLY thinks of monarchies.....

“Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plough his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the LORD will not answer you in that day.” (I Samuel 8:7-18)

“So I’m not a conservative.  I’m glad to have found that out.  I suggest you all read
a chapter in a book by Richard Weaver in which he asked if the Late Roman and Byzantine
Empires were really worth the savage forms of execution which were required to keep
their people in line.  Sometimes it is better to consign even a “legitimate” govt.
to the dustbin than simply to execute all the people it would take in order to maintain
that legitimacy.  It is to the credit of French Legitimists that they did not undertake
the bloody purges it would have taken to eradicate the Orleanist, Bonapartist, and
republican partisans.”

Well said.  Any form of government, whether ruled by a King, president or whoever, must respect the God given natural rights and the individual rights of their subjects.  Will people here defend the reign’s of Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot and Stalin?  Are they not “legitimate” and in accord with “conservatism” by “keeping order”?

Mr Almoni,

I think you are quite right in your assessment of Weberian versus Maistrian legitimacy.  It comes down to metaphysics, of course, not politics, but then again all great political questions of legitimacy hinge on metaphysics.  A Thomist could not accept the Weberian conception of legitimacy, nor could any French Legitimist, Carlist, or any old-style monarchist who believes not in positivism but in succession and sovereignty being decided by the grace of God’s Providence.  The problem is an undue stress on the comparative (and thus subjective) aspect as opposed to the objective.  One must treat of such questions of objective legitimacy according to the corresponding objective criteria, which precludes positivism.  Naturally, there are infinite opinions of what this objective standard actually is, but the point remains.  Quite frankly, I do not think ‘conservative’ functions well as a noun and should always retain its original place as an adjective.

The Legitimists, actually, have a similar problem in that they are not ideological.  They defend an assortment of theological propositions, organic customs, and prejudices that developed through history with the nourishment of a sane, fervently Catholic society.  In an age of discussion and policy platforms, such a position poses considerable difficulties to proselytisation.  The same applies for the Carlists.  While these two groups are undisputedly ‘conservative,’ whatever that word means, so could the Gaullists, Orléanists, and Isabellines be so considered once we introduce, yet again, the Weberian definition.  Do the Legitimists and Carlists accept the French Republic or constitutional monarchy, respectively ?  Absolutely not.  Do the Gaullists, Orléanists, and Isabellines ?  Yes (respectively). 

Yet both the ancien régime and the new are considered ‘legitimate institutions’ under the same definition, which Bramwell rebuts and undermines in his corollaries numerous times.  And how could the radically Whiggish American revolutionaries be considered ‘conservative’ when the deeds which made them notable consisted of breaking away from the traditional institutions through violence and pamphleteering to found a republic on Lockean liberal philosophy ?  Because Burke defended them (the men who affiliated them with his party) ?  Maistre condemned them.  We run into the same problem as above.

And Great Britain, not the United States, is the most stable current regime.  The United States is on an inescapable path towards Nanny State socialism and social Marxism.  I would hardly call a government with failure to maintain itself written into its fundamental laws ‘stable.’

Even the Communist Party in China is considered legitimate by the Weberian definition !

Historian Jerry,

Since when has God recognised ‘natural rights’ ?  And what, pray tell, is an ‘individual right’ ?  Is it derivative of the common good, is it a ‘personal right,’ or is it a redundant way of affirming the ‘natural rights’ you mentioned one word before ?  What is a right ?  Does error have rights ?

Another word on legitimacy: As Weber’s student Carl Schmitt pointed out, democracy (as opposed to classical liberalism) is the only recognized form of legitimacy for Western governments today.  That’s as true now as when he wrote _The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy_ in the 1920s.  So if we use Mr. Bramwell’s “empirical” definition of legitimacy, then Western political conservatives will, by definition, defend democratic ("legitimate"), as opposed to classical liberal, institutions.  Schmitt’s conception of democracy was very different from what he called “mass democracy”, but it was not what most of us would call conservative either.

Correction :  “Because Burke defended them (the men who affiliated them with his party) ?” should be, “Because Burke defended them (the men who affiliated THEMSELVES with his party) ?”

“Since when has God recognised ‘natural rights’ ?  And what, pray tell, is an ‘individual right’ ?  Is it derivative of the common good, is it a ‘personal right,’ or is it a redundant way of affirming the ‘natural rights’ you mentioned one word before ?  What is a right ?  Does error have rights ?”

If you don’t have rights, what is to stop me from raping you and your family, burning your home down and taking all your possessions and cutting your limbs off before I leave?

And if you don’t like “rights”, then go complain to Thomas Aquinas

You failed to address any of my questions.

And if I don’t have rights, then a king has no right to rule over me either.

The pendulum by it’s nature must swing both ways

“You failed to address any of my questions.”

No, you forgot to answer my initial questions

I again ask you to read I Samuel 8:7-18

And if you don’t like “rights”, then go complain to Thomas Aquinas

Aquinas has no notion of modern rights (that is subjective active rights).

And if I don’t have rights, then a king has no right to rule over me either.

But he may have authority to rule. Authority does not necessarily have to include “right” in its definition.

“In defending an institution’s legitimacy, conservatives appeal less to the head than to the heart and the belly. Sentiment, instinct and affection guaranty legitimacy, not reason.”

I think this creates a false conflict and concedes too much to conservatism’s opponents.  It is perfectly rational for conservatives to believe that hastily tearing down inherited authority and institutions will probably do harm to the general welfare.  In this sense, conservatives are far more rational than the so-called rationalists, who fail to think through the logical consequences of their desires.

Goodness, some people absolutely hate the term “natural right.” So what are we to do
when Popes in encyclicals (for you Catholics) say that the right to private property
is part of the natural law?  You seem to leave no explanation for why its wrong to
murder me—and don’t just say “Because God said so.” God orders you not to kill me
because He gave me a certain worth—call it a “right” or not—that your whim or
material advantage do not outrank.  The divine command is not arbitrary—it could
not apply to a cow, as the Hindus seem to think—but it has to do with human nature.
Because humans are what they are, you are not allowed to kill them except in certain
very defined circumstances.  If a state does not have as a goal the preservation of
order in attune with the natural law, then it requires fixing.  This fixing may not
be the most urgent thing on the agenda, but it still remains there.  A state that never
appeals to these higher principles or that does not take them into account simply is not
legitimate.

“And if you don’t like “rights”, then go complain to Thomas Aquinas

Aquinas has no notion of modern rights (that is subjective active rights).”

And who said that WE were talking about “modern/subjective active rights”?  Maybe
we mean the word in the sense that Aquinas meant it?  In which case, the term itself
is legitimate.  I want progress, I just don’t define the word the way progressivists
do.  I also want liberty, just not what libertarians and liberals mean.  And rights
exist, even if the word is incorrectly used by 95% of the people who use it.

Most rights that people (and the moderns) speak of these days are subjective active rights (the moral faculty or license to do x). It can be maintained with little difficulty that an account of subjective passive rights (having a claim on someone doing x or giving y) can be extracted from Aquinas’ works.

So no, you don’t mean ius in the way Aquinas means it, because he does not explicitly discuss either subjective active or subjective passive rights.

Good posts, Caper

“But he may have authority to rule. Authority does not necessarily have to include “right” in its definition.”

Authority?  From whom?  Why should a man have authority just because he has the biggest guns or because he was born into a certain situation?

Authority in the temporal realm is only legit when the people under that authority agree to it

Bramwell wrote:
The United States Constitution furnished a new basis for a federal government that made the United States the most stable and prosperous nation on earth.

pb replied:
Does the Constitution really deserve that much credit? I would think credit should be given to the fortunate circumstances of the country, and the fact that the population is relatively diffuse.

If conservatism is what Bramwell says it is, I think there is a real danger for conservatives to overestimate the actual effect of government. The Wild West had no effective, legitimate government and it wasn’t so wild or violent. Gold rushes to Alaska or Klondyke were relatively peaceful events, despite the absence of government and the presence of many greedy goldminers with arms.

My view of American political history is that despite the U.S. government spending vast treasures abroad in search of monsters to destroy, the Americans have been able to lead a prosperous life. But during periods of inflation, trade barriers or recently, excess environmentalism, the government actually destroys more wealth than the people create.

A basic rule of logic is that correlation is not the same as causation. Applied to politics, one should question, whether the appropriate word is “because” or “despite”.

“The Wild West had no effective, legitimate government and it wasn’t so wild or violent. Gold rushes to Alaska or Klondyke were relatively peaceful events, despite the absence of government and the presence of many greedy goldminers with arms.”

There were good articles on this very subject on lewrockwell.com

For the best definition of real Conservatism (Burke, de Maistre, Adam Müller, et al.), see Karl Mannheim, “Conservative Thought”, in” Essays on Sociology and Social Psychology, London: 1953, Section 2 “The Meaning of Conservatism”, esp. p. 102-116, “the basic intention behind conservative thought”.

For a good discussion of a Thomist-Scholastic view of rights, see John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights, Oxford 1980, chapter 8, where Hohfield’s theory of rights is discussed.

Contemporary conservatism needs to be a combination of Burke and Catholic Social Teaching.  It has much to learn from the Austrian School of libertarians and from the ecology movement ("the conservatism of the Left” [sic]).  It has NOTHING to do with Fascism, fascism and ultra-nationalism, Clerical Fascism, nationalism in general ("retribalization"), Judeophobia, and racialism—however much much these anti-conservative movements make real conservatives their useful idiots.  And any serious political thought abandons the Left-Right spectrum as a metaphor for thinking.

The only Biblically sanctioned government is Patriarchy. Judges, Prophets and Priests where adjunct and not government. But woe to those that did not heed God’s words uttered through His spokesmen.

Kings and whatever other organizing that men invented, well, they are man made.

God did give Israel an option to have a King and when the Elders of Israel chose a King, it was a rejection of God. And Israel was warned of what being rules by a King, or any other human created government, meant.

------------------------

“Lincoln preserved legitimate government in North America in the only way possible. For this reason, conservatives, too, may revere Lincoln.”

Bwaaaaaaaa hahahahahahaha

If that quote is really part of what being a conservative means I am officially out.

Sic Semper Tyrannis

““Lincoln preserved legitimate government in North America in the only way possible. For this reason, conservatives, too, may revere Lincoln.”

Bwaaaaaaaa hahahahahahaha

If that quote is really part of what being a conservative means I am officially out.

Sic Semper Tyrannis”

Thomas DiLorenzo agrees with you

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/021022.html

A few observations: Contrary to Charles, Britain is no more stable than the USA and is headed down the same path of destruction (it is not a monarchy, it is a radical republic disguised as a monarchy);secondly, conservatives tend to favor a philosophy of natural law rather than natural rights (natural law coming from classical philosophers through the Thomists to us). Natural rights is an Enlightenment concept.

Bramwell makes some very good points and defending the legitimacy of institutions
is what conservatism is about and always has been about. The problem comes with this
statment:

“Take the vexatious case of Lincoln. He had no good options upon assuming the presidency. Refusing to contest secession would not have averted war, as nothing could be more inevitable than war between two great powers on the same continent. Foreign interference—again, inevitable—in such a war could have caused re-subjugation of the Anglo-Americans by Europeans. To be sure, Lincoln can be accused of introducing revolutionary principles into American government. (On the other hand, it is hard to see how Lincoln can be held responsible for the Fourteenth Amendment, which was not even proposed until after his death). Nothing short of a new national mythology could have justified the Civil War’s carnage. Lincoln preserved legitimate government in North America in the only way possible. For this reason, conservatives, too, may revere Lincoln.

This is so speculative as to been viewed from the vantage point of a crystal ball.
The Southwas not trying to overthrow the government of the United States. It had no
intention of doing so. Secession is basically a way of saying “You go you way and I’ll
go mine.” Many Southerners felt they were upholding the legitimacy of the Constitution by removing themselves from the national Union through secession due to irreconcilable differences the way the 13
colonies seperated themselves from the British Empire. Indeed many abolitionists were
more than willing to let the slave holders set up their own country and be done with
them. But Lincoln was not an abolitionist. If he was he would not have
won the GOP nomination. He was a nationalist and would not let the South go its own way
because he feared what Bramwell stated, that the South would basically become a British
dominated entity and, sandwiched between Canada and the South, would put the U.S. in
peril. But is there anything in the historical record to suggest Jefferson Davis and his
advisors were willing to quarter British troops and allow Southern ports to become British naval bases?
No. Southerners died fighting the British as well during the Revolutionary War and the
idea that Southern soldiers were dying so they could become subjects of British monarchy
seems nothing more than Whig paranoia.

Bramwell is right that the carnage of the War Between the States and need for a cause
higher than just perserving the old Union by force was no longer adaequate. Lincoln had
to radically change the meaning of nation to preserve his nationalist agenda. He had t
turn the “United States” into “America”. But perhaps he said what he said about Lincoln
because he made this statement in his essay “Good-Bye to All That”:

Still others eulogize local attachments and ancestral loyalties. They invoke a litany of examples: family, church, kin, community, school, the “little platoons” in which Burke found the basis of political association. Celebrating such “infra-political” institutions may well have made sense in the 1950s, the high tide of American nationalism and federal government prestige. At most other times, however, ancestral attachments are dangerously subversive. The U.S. could not have survived had it not ruthlessly extirpated the ancestral loyalties of both natives and newcomers; Great Britain suffered endless civil wars before the great constitutional oak that Burke praised took root; the West itself succeeded precisely because it cut short the reach of the extended family or clan. Ancestral loyalties are the curse of uncivilized peoples, most especially in the hypermnesiac Middle East. Most ominously, praise of local attachments now comes in the guise of multiculturalism, perhaps the most insidious threat to a just order today. Not for nothing did communitarianism become a left-wing
vogue.”

In other words, Bramwell has a problem with conservatives defending the legitimacy of
the instsitutions like family, clan, blood, tribe, region, you name it because it
does interfere with the nationalist agenda. Multiculturalism has nothing to do with this because multiculturalism goes beyond celebrating other cultures to the debasement of one’s own, thus interfering
with the globalist agenda of the cosmo left.  Ergo, such loyalties are uncivilized even
if small cultures can be far more civil and peaceful than larger, state sponsored cultures,
like say, Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia. As the British and Americans discovered, one
cannot build large empires while putting out fires in one’s backyard. That’s why the
Scots had to lose at Culloden. That’s why the South had to lose at Gettysburg.

There is nothing legitimate about the American Empire which is why conservatives
should not support it.

Sid,

You just have to keep asserting your personalism as a Catholic tradition, never mind that it is an inversion of Scholastic thought on private good and common good.  Maritain, who pioneered the theory, latter seemed to regret it.  The private good is a derivative of the common good; the common good is not the sum of all private goods.  See Charles de Koninck and Aquinas himself on this.

Lockean natural rights theory is anathema to the Catholic Faith, since he, like the Modernists (according to St Pius X), uses a different definition of rights than Aquinas.  His active rights are derived from the inviolability of the individual who lives in the state of nature.  Yet the Popes and saints have been clear :  Man is a social animal in his essence, the family and religious life are vocations that fulfill man’s purpose on earth—as such, according to the Catholic conception of natural law, we must affirm that man’s dependency on this social necessity is precisely what makes him man.  Unless of course, the Popes and great Scholastics were speaking in vain.  The Count (by which, of course, I mean Maistre) is good on this in his Study on Sovereignty:

“The isolated man is therefore by no means the man of nature. When a handful of men were scattered over vast territories, humanity was not what it was to become. At that time, there were only families, and these scattered families, either individually or by their subsequent union, were nothing but embryonic peoples.

And so, long after the formation of the great societies, some small desert tribes still show us the spectacle of humanity in its infancy. There are still infant nations that are not yet what they are to become.

What would one think of a naturalist who said that man is an animal thirty to thirty-five inches high, without strength or intelligence, and giving voice only to inarticulate cries? Yet this naturalist, in sketching man’s physical and moral nature in terms of an infant’s characteristics, would be no more ridiculous than the philosopher who seeks the political nature of this same being in the rudiments of society.”

And now, I have a question.  How many so-called conservatives who refer to Maistre have actually read him ?  It seems like very few of them have done so since scarcely one of them has even an elementary grasp of his genius.

Mr Van Oosbree,

You wrote, “A few observations: Contrary to Charles, Britain is no more stable than the USA and is headed down the same path of destruction (it is not a monarchy, it is a radical republic disguised as a monarchy);secondly, conservatives tend to favor a philosophy of natural law rather than natural rights (natural law coming from classical philosophers through the Thomists to us). Natural rights is an Enlightenment concept.”

I agree completely, which is a sad commentary on contemporary governments.  The ‘British monarchy’ (I am a Jacobite) is window-dressing for socialist tyranny.  However, it has lasted longer than the United States and the pound still dominates the dollar, hence my reference to a general stability, albeit a pathetic one that is not worth keeping.  Indeed, things have been on a path to certain doom since 1688; unfortunately for them, they have not gotten off of it.

And once again I agree, natural rights theory is Enlightenment revolutionary bosh.  Locke wrote his Second Treatise on government as a post facto justification for the treason that was the ‘Glorious Revolution.’

While we are on the subject of Lincoln (a debate with which I have some familiarity), I don’t see it as particularly “conservative” to read twentieth-century themes and ideas back into the Civil War era.  I remain unconvinced that Lincoln was the prophet of empire and global democracy-building, and it does not reflect a conservative respect for history to distort the Lincoln presidency in these contemporary terms (this is not an apologia for his presidency, just respect for the historic record).
Of course, Thomas DiLorenzo has got this revisionism down to a science. (Btw, I find it curious that he still has not responded to my reply to his critique of my piece on Lincoln.) http://www.takimag.com/sniperstower/article/a_reply_to_thomas_dilorenzo/)

“Nothing short of a new national mythology could have justified the Civil War’s carnage. Lincoln preserved legitimate government in North America in the only way possible. For this reason, conservatives, too, may revere Lincoln.”

“Legitimate government?”
I think not.

http://brocktownsend.forum5.com/viewtopic.php?t=1796&mforum=brocktownsend
Excerpt From Virginia’s Ratification Of The Constitution

“......the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression......”

Excerpt From New York’s Ratification Of The Constitution

“......the powers of government may be reassumed by the people whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness......”

The Latest Nonsense from the Lincoln Cult
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/021022.html

I should refine a point : “[Locke], like the Modernists (according to St Pius X), uses a different definition of rights than Aquinas.”

That is, he uses a different definition yet passes off his use of the word as representative of a universal definition of right.  Hence, the man’s followers use the word right in argument and mean something very different from those who have not been infected with affection for Locke.  This is probably the source of much ‘Catholic’ political liberalism and resentment of ecclesiastical authoritarianism.

“Most rights that people (and the moderns) speak of these days are subjective active rights (the moral faculty or license to do x). It can be maintained with little difficulty that an account of subjective passive rights (having a claim on someone doing x or giving y) can be extracted from Aquinas’ works.

So no, you don’t mean ius in the way Aquinas means it, because he does not explicitly discuss either subjective active or subjective passive rights.”

PB, you are being presumptuous in claiming to know that *I* don’t mean ius the way
Aquinas meant it.  Please, tell us, what did he mean by “ius,” and I defy you to use the
word “right”—NOT “subjective active” or “subjective passive,” but just the common noun
“right”—in your definition.

Sid—“It has NOTHING to do with Fascism, fascism and ultra-nationalism, Clerical Fascism, nationalism in general ("retribalization"), Judeophobia, and racialism—however much much these anti-conservative movements make real conservatives their useful idiots.  And any serious political thought abandons the Left-Right spectrum as a metaphor for thinking.”

Damn it, Sid, beat that dead horse, won’t you?  NO ONE HERE BROUGHT UP FASCISM, RACISM,
JUDEOPHOBIA, ETC.!!!  So they are not germane to the conversation!  Give it a rest!

“and I defy you to use the
word “right”—”

Erg, I meant “I defy you NOT to use,” etc.

Charles:

There is another Personalist school, the Polish one.  Among its most ardent followers and scholars was a certain Karol Wojtyła. The best US rep is John Crosby.

Locke isn’t the only natural rights theory out there. Finnis doesn’t like Locke’s view of rights (or Hobbes’) either.  Read Finnis for Natural Rights as derived from Natural Law.

I’ve read De Maistre.  He’s really not much of a Thomist.

Grant Havers is the typical case of not knowing what hit him.  Tom DiLorenzo demolished Havers on Lincoln. And Havers own “respect for the historical record” is risible.  DiLorenzo shows exactly what that historical record is!

Caper doesn’t seem to know that the question at hand is the definition of Conservatism, what it is and what it is not.  He also doesn’t like to be reminded of the 100 gallon pollution in the room.

“Take the vexatious case of Lincoln. He had no good options upon assuming the presidency. Refusing to contest secession would not have averted war, as nothing could be more inevitable than war between two great powers on the same continent.”

That is quite a leap. An assertion stated as fact. The two sides would have likely argued over the Western territories (hopefully that would have been settled by treaty), but I seriously doubt the Confederacy would have been invading DC any time soon.

A true statesman would have let the South go rather than starting a war to “save the Union.”

Have to agree with Dr. DiLorenzo, the South had the right to leave peacefully. It was about the tariff not slavery. Lincoln wanted the money for his Hamiltonian agenda.

I could never quite figure out where Bramwell was coming from, but his nationalism is becoming more apparent. He seems to support the American national mythos. Not in a naive American exceptionalism kind of way, but in a sort of mercenary, Machiavellian way. I think he views it as necessary. Hence his hostility to “subversive” regionalism, localism, etc.

In a way he is correct. Regionalism, localism, etc. are dangerous to the modern nation state. But since the modern nation state is part of the problem, this is a good thing. Why would the conservative not want to return to government on the human scale, instead of an artificial mega-scale?

Can anybody please show me how individual rights are anti-Catholic?  Anyone?  I have yet to see anyone actually show me a decent argument.

Most here are just acting like spoiled brats and are saying “Well rights don’t exist because I said so, so nya nya nya!”

Jerry, my friend, you’ll wait a long time for an answer, simply because rights are as Catholic as the Hail Mary.  The Holy Father praised rights at the UN last month, something not noted on Takimag.

Jerry, you got to know the enemy’s tactics:  Our Fascists, fascists, Clerical Fascists, and clerical fascists don’t believe in rights, and so they wish to turn against Benedict the real conservatives and authentic Catholics by the factual lie that anti-rights would be Catholic.

But as in liturgy, so in rights: The B16 has landed!

PB, you are being presumptuous in claiming to know that *I* don’t mean ius the way
Aquinas meant it.  Please, tell us, what did he mean by “ius,” and I defy you to use the
word “right”—NOT “subjective active” or “subjective passive,” but just the common noun
“right”—in your definition.

Caper:

ius: external action which equalizes—in the case of commutative justice, it equalizes thing with thing or action and passion, in the case of distributive justice, it equalizes thing to person

Do you think you are talking about the same thing as Aquinas?

Of course Aquinas doesn’t use ius (or “right") in his definition of ius--that would be an obvious example of a bad definition. So why would I use it either if I were to give my own, which I have no interest in doing since I’m just talking about Aquinas.

As for the different things ius can be used to name, the medievals and the neoscholastics gave various lists. Prummer, for example, gives at least 4 different things.

The point remains: Aquinas himself does not define or discuss rights in either of the two ways I mentioned above.

Oops--the above is from me.

I was totally unaware that Lincoln preserved the “legitimate government” of the United States, especially since he totally restructured and mutated this country from a federal system of government into a nationalized, centralized system. Hmmm....Lincoln would not be my ideal of Conservatism.

“The B16 has landed”

LOL now THAT is an awesome quote!  I hope you don’t mind if I borrow it

I was totally unaware that Lincoln preserved the “legitimate government” of the United States, especially since he totally restructured and mutated this country from a federal system of government into a nationalized, centralized system. Hmmm....Lincoln would not be my ideal of Conservatism.

Yes, curious statement by Mr. Bramwell, isn’t it? And so is this:

Refusing to contest secession would not have averted war, as nothing could be more inevitable than war between two great powers on the same continent.

I suppose it depends on what one thinks of the North and of the South, and their tendency to being bellicose.

Sid, I was doing some quick wiki research on clerical fascism.  What was interesting was that it only came about in the 1920’s (despite the fact that it’s supporters would say that it has been always existent in the church) And more interesting was that those Catholics who opposed the regime of Mussolini, who stuck to their guns, were considered “enemies of the state”, while those who sold their souls became what are now known as clerical fascists.

To Sid:
Tom DiLorenzo missed his target, which is why he failed to respond to my reply.  His acceptance of the Straussian claim that Lincoln was a global democrat is just as idiotic as your tiresome and uneducated attempt to synthesize Thomism with Confederate thought.  I still await his reply.  Being one of DiLorenzo’s apes, you can contact him for me if you wish.

Do you seriously contend that Lincoln had no alternative but an unconstitutional, bloody and total war that saw inflicted upon the people of the South barbarities and war crimes that were deplored by a Europe and Great Britain and served as examples for Hitler’s Generals?

And do you honestly hold that “two great powers” could not occupy the same continent without devolving into war? Please tell me when you expect the war between the United States and Canada to begin! Are you not merely finding excuses for a man whose actions killed more Americans than all of our wars put together and who destroyed the Union he claimed to preserve, changing forever the Republic into an Empire?

I don’t know where you get your definition of “conservative” for it would seem that there are a number of different kinds of conservatives. But conservative or liberal or moderate, only the brainwashed or the brain dead can “celebrate” Lincoln, the man who rendered the Constitution null and void and gave us our rapacious and ever more tyrannical federal government at the expense of the rights of the States and the People (see the defunct 10th Amendment to the Constitution).

“Being one of DiLorenzo’s apes.”

Goodness, Mr.Havers, you must have forgotten your manners......

“ius: external action which equalizes—in the case of commutative justice, it equalizes thing with thing or action and passion, in the case of distributive justice, it equalizes thing to person”

T. Chan, or PB, or whatever (I too sometimes use my real name instead of my pseudonym):

I did not mean that you would use “ius” in the definition of “ius”—I meant that you would
*translate* “ius” as “right.”

Caper: In general when dealing with Aquinas I don’t translate ius as right, precisely to avoid any misunderstanding of Aquinas…

Lincoln and his supporters then, and his apologists today were the revolutionaries. They redefined the nature and meaning of the compact amongst the sovereign former Colonies.

The South were the traditionalists and conservatives. They were the ones trying to preserve the true union, albeit separate from the proto-Bolsheviks.

PB, I wrote:  “Because humans are what they are, you are not allowed to kill them except in certain
very defined circumstances.”

That sounds like I met the scholastic definition of ius—“external action which equalizes.”
It is not just to murder me, therefore you honor ius by not murdering me.  My “ius” not
to be murdered sounds like a “right to life.” It is not just to deprive me of private property
except in certain defined circumstances—ius defends my property.  Sounds like a “right to property.”
“Right” is the correct translation of “ius.” To try to use the word “ius” in place of the English word
“right” is to engage in mystification.  It would be the same as using “lex” instead of “law” for the reason that “moderns do not understand ‘law’ in the same sense that the medievals understood ‘lex.’”
According to the natural law, human beings qua human beings have certain rights (iura).  There is no way around
it.  If a theory of law or politics wishes to deny that there is a natural law or that this law entails rights
(iura), then that theory is false and should be abandoned.

Yes, it can be the case that the “right to life” and the “right to property” are correlates that can be derived from what Aquinas writes about ius and justice. Or they might be derived from a different framework, such as one based on dignity or sovereignty. Aquinas does not talk about the “right to life” or the “right to property.”

Thus, I said he does not deal explicitly with subjective passive rights, though “it can be maintained with little difficulty that an account of subjective passive rights (having a claim on someone doing x or giving y) can be extracted from Aquinas’ works.”

If rights were solely limited to subjective passive rights, which are in turn defined by natural [or positive] law, it would not be problematic to endorse this sort of “rights talk.” But as I’ve said before, this is not the only thing which “right” or “ius” names.

Another important difference to highlight between Aquinas and contemporary understandings of rights:

For Aquinas subjective passive rights are defined by law or logically posterior to law--it is wrong for me to kill someone, and therefore it may be said he has a right to life. But according to certain notions of rights, rights are prior to law--I have a right to life, therefore it is wrong for you to kill me.

“It does not, like “conservatism is resistance to change,” make conservatives look stupid. Conservatives have no particular attitude towards change and on some occasions may even hasten it.”

Really? lets test this. How many “conservatives” would help to overturn the Treaty of Pressburg which dissoloved the Legitimate Authority of the Holy Roman Emperor. And hasten to restore this Temporal Divine Authority so as to give all the world a choice. A choice to be governed either by the New World Order i.e. UN EU etc or the Old World Order i.e. The Office of the holy Roman Emperor. But I bet most “conservatives” will dismiss this work, simply because “conservative” political
thought is dependent on the exisitance of modern democracy. Modern democracy is the life blood of the conservative movement. Any bets?

Hey Michael, how about I reject your iron fisted monarchy AND the UN?  Or is that simply a concept you cannot understand?

First, PB, to keep referring back to the “contemporary understanding of rights” is a bit of
a straw man.  Forget what “contemporaries” say, stick to what the truth of the matter is.
WE can use a correct definition of the word “right” without regard to what our “contemporaries”
mean when they use that word, just as we can use the correct definition of “politics” or “religion” or
“philosophy” despite modern misunderstandings.

“For Aquinas subjective passive rights are defined by law or logically posterior to law--it is wrong for me to kill someone, and therefore it may be said he has a right to life.”

But that’s just the point—not killing me is something I have a right to in light of my worth as a human being.
It is wrong to kill me because of what I am, not because of an otherwise arbitrary prohibition.  God forbids
murder because of His image and likeness in man, which is logically anterior to the prohibition of murder.  It
is because of this image that not killing me is something I have a right to.  In order for justice to work,
humans need some God-given intrinsic value that is being protected, something to which just actions are made
to conform.  My just claim against would-be murderers—my right to live—is what makes murder wrong; it is
not an extrinsic, arbitrary commandment from God that first makes murder wrong and then makes me have a “right
to live.”

But that’s just the point—not killing me is something I have a right to in light of my worth as a human being.
It is wrong to kill me because of what I am, not because of an otherwise arbitrary prohibition.  God forbids
murder because of His image and likeness in man, which is logically anterior to the prohibition of murder.  It
is because of this image that not killing me is something I have a right to.  In order for justice to work,
humans need some God-given intrinsic value that is being protected, something to which just actions are made
to conform.  My just claim against would-be murderers—my right to live—is what makes murder wrong; it is
not an extrinsic, arbitrary commandment from God that first makes murder wrong and then makes me have a “right
to live.”

Murder is prohibited because it is unjust. If you do not believe the right to life is absolute then you concede that the right to life is restricted by other precepts and considerations. Hence the “right to life” is delimited by law and not the other way around.

Justice requires an acknowledgement that someone else is a human being; but it is specifically different from charity and has a different reason (ratio). Otherwise, the love of neighbor, taken by itself from any other moral considerations, would not permit such a thing as capital punishment.

So to say:

In order for justice to work,
humans need some God-given intrinsic value that is being protected, something to which just actions are made
to conform.

is not sufficient to distinguish justice from charity. That is why goods and law are prior to rights, and not goods and rights prior to law. And Aquinas speaks of murder being opposed to not charity, but to justice.

First, PB, to keep referring back to the “contemporary understanding of rights” is a bit of
a straw man.  Forget what “contemporaries” say, stick to what the truth of the matter is.
WE can use a correct definition of the word “right” without regard to what our “contemporaries”
mean when they use that word, just as we can use the correct definition of “politics” or “religion” or
“philosophy” despite modern misunderstandings.

It’s not a straw man argument since I am not attributing this argument to Aquinas or you and then knocking it down and claiming that there are no rights or something else.

What I am saying is that this is how the word “right” is used by many people and therefore there is a reason to avoid talking about “rights” in Aquinas, because what can be derived from Aquinas is not the same as the thing defined by those contemporary accounts.

If you maintain that rights are prior to law then no, your “rights” are not the same as what logically follows from Aquinas’ teachings. On the other hand, if you are saying that rights are grounded upon human dignity, that’s fine, but so is law, and law is prior to rights.

“Murder is prohibited because it is unjust.”

Why?  Because it violates an arbitrary, extrinsic decree?  Or because it deprives someone of something (life)
to which he has a just claim (a jus)?  For an action to violate ius-titia, it must violate ius, right?  The law
that determines this is simply the natural law.  No civil law can come in and say, “One may kill the innocent.”
Next, yes, I realize that the right to live is limited, and by law.  But define law.  The basic maxim, “The
innocent must not be killed,” is not civil law but the natural law.  And I really am unconcerned with the
question “Which comes first, the natural law, or the rights entailed thereby?” That’s a chicken vs. the egg
debate.  I merely want to point out that the right of innocent people not to be killed is a right, and we
shouldn’t get so worked up about the fact, to be so frightened of the word “right” that we purposely avoid it.

“ I am not attributing this argument to Aquinas or you and then knocking it down and claiming that there are no rights or something else.”

You are objecting to a perfectly valid translation of a word because of how people misuse the word.  You are
attributing to the word only a false definition, then rejecting the word on that basis.  There is nothing wrong
with the word in its traditional usage, but you privelege modern definitions over the traditional one.

For an action to violate ius-titia, it must violate ius, right?

No--it must be in discord with the mean determined by reason through the form of equality specific to the particular justice involved (commutative or distributive). Aquinas does not say that something is unjust because it violates “ius.”

Do not kill the innocent is a precept of the natural law.

Aquinas would agree that this precept is of the natural law, but I think he would also point out that within the precept, as it is worded, the violation of the mean is implied by the use of the word “innocent.” One could restate it as “Do not kill someone unless that person has committed a crime deserving of that punishment, or retaliation, or that form of restablishing equality.” The foudnation of Aquinas’ conception of justice is not “rights to x” but equality, as mentioned above.

Next, yes, I realize that the right to live is limited, and by law.  But define law.  The basic maxim, “The
innocent must not be killed,” is not civil law but the natural law.  And I really am unconcerned with the
question “Which comes first, the natural law, or the rights entailed thereby?” That’s a chicken vs. the egg
debate. 

Aquinas gives more than an adequate definition of law, I would think. So you should be concerned with the question of which is prior, if you want to use Aquinas as a support for your understanding of rights. Rights are not real entities like us or plants or the elements--they’re logical beings constructed through reason, and hence one cannot say that this logical being is the same as that one if they have different causes, and hence a different relationship to law. It’s a term to be avoided in dialogue unless both parties are willing to establish the definition and see how they differ or agree.

You are objecting to a perfectly valid translation of a word because of how people misuse the word.  You are
attributing to the word only a false definition, then rejecting the word on that basis.  There is nothing wrong
with the word in its traditional usage, but you privelege modern definitions over the traditional one.

You say they are misusing it. Language does not have normativity built into it. If people wish to define something by using the same word, you either live with it and talk accordingly, or you can tell them that they’re “wrong” but that would be an extreme claim. How words are used is bound by convention, and if the majority of people decide to use a word in a different way than you would like, it’s better to concede that to them and work around it, than to keep telling them that they’re wrong. If you have to engage with their definition and the arguments behind the definition either way, then it’s much better to avoid the fight over who is using a word “correctly.”

We don’t need necessarily to argue about Aquinas—encyclicals refer to rights.  Those are the official documents
of the Church.

Secondly, “No--it must be in discord with the mean determined by reason through the form of equality specific to the particular justice involved (commutative or distributive).”

AGAIN, chicken vs. egg.  The equality—equal to WHAT?  Particular justice assumes I have some claim/value/
worth/something to begin with.  THAT is what I am mean by “right.” You’re basically saying that injustice is
when the scales are out of balance.  Well, I’m defining ius as the value placed in the pan.  How are you
defining what’s placed in the pan?

I am not primarily concerned with Aquinas, but with the truth of the matter.  And the truth of the matter is
that when you’re determining justice, people put something in the pan on the scale.  You say that one can
violate ius-titia without violating a ius.  In order to steal, someone is deprived of what is owed him.  Some one
comes up short, does not get justice.  Can one really violate justice without violating a just claim?  In
order for there to be a disproportion, there have to be values being proportioned.  That is all I mean.

We don’t need necessarily to argue about Aquinas—encyclicals refer to rights.  Those are the official documents
of the Church.

Yes, but that does not mean they are infallible, or have the same weight as more authoritative documents. And as far as I remember, the explanation behind rights has not been done in those encyclicals, though I will have to check the Compendium of Social Doctrine to see what it offers. Those rights need to be understood in light of Tradition, and it can be done, but the necessary theological work has rarely been put forth.

AGAIN, chicken vs. egg.  The equality—equal to WHAT?

commutative justice: equality between thing and thing, or action and passion

distributive justice: equality between thing and person

Particular justice assumes I have some claim/value/
worth/something to begin with.
Particular justice assumes that you are a human being. But that is insufficient to explain particular justice. If it were enough, it would be no different from charity.

THAT is what I am mean by “right.” You’re basically saying that injustice is
when the scales are out of balance.  Well, I’m defining ius as the value placed in the pan.  How are you
defining what’s placed in the pan?

What’s placed in the pan--
Some concrete thing (as you see in commercial exchange) or action. Not “ius.”

Addendum: with the possible exception of “ius” as legal title or legally conferred license to do something (the “right” to pursue further litigation, for example), which is exchanged with something else.

PB, thank you for your patience.  I won’t be checking for any answers here, since I’ve spent enough time.  I
don’t claim to have detailed philosophical training, or expertise in Aquinas. 

As for the normative use of
language, I argue that not I but certain paleocons sin against it by trying avoid the use of the word “right.” Most people would look at your definition of “ius” and say, “Sounds like you’re describing a right.” AS YOU SAY, passive rights may be harmonized with Aquinas’ account.  And the word is certainly used in papal encyclicals.  So it is worth it to stick to language that is already in use, provided you define your terms.  You can just say at the beginning, “By law I mean ‘lex,’ by right I mean
‘ius,’” etc.  All you need to say is that law and goods are anterior to rights.

Caper, thank you for the discussion-it has helped me to repeat and reclarify certain things for myself.

Last note for PB:  Just what I thought.  Here is an article saying pretty much what I said above:

Aquinas on ius and Hart on Rights: A Response to Tierney
John M. Finnis
The Review of Politics, Vol. 64, No. 3 (Summer, 2002), pp. 407-410

Caper,

I have the Finnis article; my critique of his work on Aquinas and attempt to harmonize rights with Aquinas’ ius will have to be presented elsewhere.

“Hey Michael, how about I reject your iron fisted monarchy AND the UN?  Or is that simply a concept you cannot understand?”

Hey “conservative” Jerry

Tell us what is to replace the UN?  By your intellectual efforts these last 200 years, you conservatives have given legitimacy to modern democracy and its institutions such as the United Nations and the European Union. Conservatives are responsible for the current mess. Its your creation. You disagree? So tell me just how do you conservatives go about changing the modern democratic institutions into something agreeable or more palatable to the conservative taste? Oh yeah you cant. That’s the problem, conservative thought has outrun its usefulness these past 200 years or so. It shows in the wear and tear of the modern democratic institutions conservative thought helped to give life.

Until you “conservatives” come up with a better game plan in correcting the immoral modern democratic laws. The only way to correct the current mess is to restore the Office of the Holy Roman Emperor and when this is done then men will be able to restore laws and institutions centered on the foundation of the Roman Catholic Faith and Morals.

Mr. Bramwell’s first sentence is quite right.  Everything else he has to say proves that his first sentence is right.

“Conservatism is the defense of legitimacy wherever it happens to exist. “Legitimacy” here is defined in the empirical, Weberian sense: that is, an institution is legitimate if and only if the opinion has become widespread that it is right (for whatever reason or lack thereof) to obey it. The conservative, in short, cultivates obedience to existing institutions.”

Our system of state schools is legitimate, in AB’s view. Most people are pretty happy with them. Only the truly educated, cultural conservatives, and some Beltway-n-business elite types are really unhappy with them. Are we as conservatives to not critique them because they are viewed as legitimate? Bramwell’s definition is a vacuous, social science--y, culturally barren, pragmatic-dumb-American approach.

Who is Austin Bramwell, and why is he such a tedious blowhard?

Conservatism is legitimacy
Legitimacy is conservative
Conservatism is conservative

QED

In the United Nations one can find every political “ism” under the sun, every “ism” is represented in this modern democratic institution socialism, communism, capitalism, Marxism, liberalism, conservatism, neo-conservatism etc. It is all there.

All these various and conflicting ideologies are working with the same goal in mind, to give legitimacy to a man made modern democratic institution. All these conflicting ideologies use the same instrument i.e. man made modern democracy to further their various agendas.

All these various and conflicting ideologies are in agreement on the means to achieve their various and conflicting ends. This is a reality that is inescapable. Take away the mean i.e. man made modern democratic institutions and these various and conflicting ideologies are annihilated. That means you Mr. conservative.

This the new world order of things. As long as the world is democratic, these various and conflicting ideologies will thrive. When the old world order is reestablished by a few good men, these various and conflicting ideologies will perish.

This is the reality; the Divine Authority of the Holy Roman Emperor has been usurped by man made democratic institutions. Many of you who call yourself conservative are working on the wrong side, and the company you keep the liberals, communists, etc are your true allies in this monstrous work against the Divine Order of things.

Good point about Lincoln. 
If we are still arguing about Lincoln 140 years after the Civil War, we’re in something like the position of the French in 1940, still fighting over the Revolution with the Germans marching into Paris.
What’s at issue isn’t so much Lincoln.  We can agree to disagree about his effect on the country. 
Rather it’s taking Jefferson’s or even Calhoun’s view of the Constitution as the only legitmate one and the consequent romanticization of the Confederacy.
Partisans of the Confederacy haven’t come to terms with the other side of our tradition, that of George Washington and the Federalists.
But beyond all that, politics now are very disputatious, contentious, rancorous.  “Legitimism” may not provide the best guide to how to handle things.
What is a legitimist?  The person who simply accepts the status quo and doesn’t make waves?  The person who strives vainly to restore some past order thought to be the only proper one?
Burkean temperamental conservatism may be a good thing.  But it comes across in today’s enviroment as something peripheral, a distraction from the real politics of orthodoxy against orthodoxy, more a matter of tactics or manners than of the substance of what’s in question.

Partisans of the Confederacy haven’t come to terms with the other side of our tradition, that of George Washington and the Federalists.

No. If they see within the Federalists the seeds for a centralized nation state and the destruction of states’ rights, what is there to come to terms with? If you disagree with their assessment of the Federalists, you’re free to debate them, but this is a false claim to make about followers of the Southern political tradition.

Lincoln is a rather minor point for them anyways, though they will take the opportunity to take him down from the pedestal if necessary. It is a question about how to get rid of centralization, which is one cause of the current problems that must be reckoned with.

“No. If they see within the Federalists the seeds for a centralized nation state and the destruction of states’ rights, what is there to come to terms with? If you disagree with their assessment of the Federalists, you’re free to debate them, but this is a false claim to make about followers of the Southern political tradition.”

They slight the achievement of building a country and keeping it going.  In that sense they “haven’t come to terms” with the other—less romantic and more realistic—side of our tradition.  They haven’t given credit where credit may be due.

“It is a question about how to get rid of centralization, which is one cause of the current problems that must be reckoned with.”

Very 1991: the end of the Cold War means building down the powers of nation-state.  I suggest we wait a bit and see what the post-Cold War world will look like.  We may still have need of national unity and federal power in the future.