Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court
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Aren’t you being a little tribal here?
Or does Horace 2.0 actually believe in a creator god that granted us “inalienable” rights which for some reason have been alienated from us for almost the entirety of our existence as a species?
@jon-nyc said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
Aren’t you being a little tribal here?
Or does Horace 2.0 actually believe in a creator god that granted us “inalienable” rights which for some reason have been alienated from us for almost the entirety of our existence as a species?
I've already admitted that the "rights" under discussion can be believed in or not believed in by any individual. Your attempt to dismantle the existence of such rights is incoherent, in that it relies on the claim that rights must always be enforceable. That is obviously not the sort of "right" Jefferson was referring to. In fact he was invoking these rights as the moral underpinning of the social structures which make it possible to enforce them.
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No, I’ll just put the word ‘should’ in front of ‘have rights’ to acknowledge the actual situation humans have always faced.
@jon-nyc said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
No, I’ll just put the word ‘should’ in front of ‘have rights’ to acknowledge the actual situation humans have always faced.
By which you will always mean, "should have the ability to appeal to an authority to enforce those rights". Thus confusing the conversation, for those who might want to discuss the sorts of rights that can exist without an ability to enforce them.
Education is extremely important.
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@jon-nyc said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
Surely we all recognize that in casual speech. We would generally say 'people don't have the right to free speech in China', rather than 'of course people in china have the right to free speech, but it isn't recognized by their government' or whatever.
Did native americans have a right to live, even if they were slaughtered by colonists? Of course in casual speech you can find support or contradiction for anything you please, but a claim that rights are necessarily enforceable is absurd on its face. Murdered people had a right not to be murdered, QED.
@Horace said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
Did native americans have a right to live, even if they were slaughtered by colonists? .
It varied
http://www.virginiaplaces.org/boundaries/charters.html
In 1705, Robert Beverley described the extent of Virginia with specific limits on north, east, and south, but with the western edge extending all the way to the Pacific Ocean:6
Virginia's claim to land stretching all the way across the continent to "the Californian Sea" ended in 1763. At the end of the French and Indian War (known as the Seven Years War in Europe), negotiators in Paris determined a new boundary for the western edge of Virginia.
So, for a while, just about any native American between the Atlantic and Pacific was trespassing. And as a trespasser I assume they had limited rights.
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@jon-nyc said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
It seems to be an obvious empirical truth that rights are societally contingent.
'Natural rights' makes sense only as a normative concept.
Natural rights as a normative concept are neither natural nor rights. You're gutting the words of all meaning, and we have perfectly good language for what you are talking about without confusing it with the language and intellectual structure of "natural rights".
They are more like designated privileges -- as if you are granted the privilege to not be enslaved or killed with impunity, or to have access to the system of impartial justice, or the right to found a family, or the right to participate in the political life of your community, etc. either personally or as a class member or society member.
If you really think that its only a normative (rules of acceptable behavior) concept, then why complain of Hitler's treatment of the Jews? Why complain of slavery? Wouldn't any dystopian society have the same claim to authenticity?
@Ivorythumper said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
Natural rights as a normative concept are neither natural nor rights. You're gutting the words of all meaning, and we have perfectly good language for what you are talking about without confusing it with the language and intellectual structure of "natural rights".
They are more like designated privileges -- as if you are granted the privilege to not be enslaved or killed with impunity, or to have access to the system of impartial justice, or the right to found a family, or the right to participate in the political life of your community, etc. either personally or as a class member or society member.Yep yep yep.
I've always had a problem with the concepts of right and deserve. You have a right to X, you deserve Y. Yeah? Says who? They're like the wispiest of ephemera.
I'm with you and also Jon. Not to offend, but I don't see how laying it at the feet of a creator does (or has ever done) anything to ameliorate anything in the realm of rights. Pragmatically, at least. Maybe that gives us extra oomph in the moral sphere . . .
Well, I'm with Jon, sort of. Humans do have skillz that nonhumans do not have. The sad thing is that humans do not respect their responsibility to exercise their -- what, soul stuff? I can't think of how to finish that. I am newly risen from an AWFUL TERRIBLE ordeal of suffering and can't be expected to think good.
At least, that's today's excuse.
Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace. – Mike Ditka
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@George-K said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
Taking a stand.
She's a partisan. Period.
“Cry havoc and let slip the DOGE of war!”
Those who cheered as J-6 American prisoners were locked in solitary for 18 months without trial, now suddenly fight tooth and nail for foreign terrorists’ "due process". — Buck Sexton
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@jon-nyc said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
No, I’ll just put the word ‘should’ in front of ‘have rights’ to acknowledge the actual situation humans have always faced.
By which you will always mean, "should have the ability to appeal to an authority to enforce those rights". Thus confusing the conversation, for those who might want to discuss the sorts of rights that can exist without an ability to enforce them.
@Horace and Jon said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
No, I’ll just put the word ‘should’ in front of ‘have rights’ to acknowledge the actual situation humans have always faced.
By which you will always mean, "should have the ability to appeal to an authority to enforce those rights". Thus confusing the conversation, for those who might want to discuss the sorts of rights that can exist without an ability to enforce them.
Man, I love these slugfests Jon and Horace get into.
When they put their heavy thinking hats on, I feel like Bozo the Clown looking on. Not that that shuts me up any, but still.
Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace. – Mike Ditka
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@George-K said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
Taking a stand.
She's a partisan. Period.
@Jolly said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
@George-K said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
Taking a stand.
She's a partisan. Period.
Of course, and everybody knows it, especially those who approved of her. As soon as you know she eagerly accepts her role as "the first black female justice" rather than "the next justice", you know she will be voting along the partisan lines that implies. Imagine a nominee of a republican president being proud to identify as anything but an accomplished legal scholar. Unfortunately, righteous pop culture feels itself superior to the constitution, so Mrs Brown Jackson's actual job description will be something to be worked around, rather than honored. And that is exactly what her tribe expects.
Education is extremely important.
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@Horace and Jon said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
No, I’ll just put the word ‘should’ in front of ‘have rights’ to acknowledge the actual situation humans have always faced.
By which you will always mean, "should have the ability to appeal to an authority to enforce those rights". Thus confusing the conversation, for those who might want to discuss the sorts of rights that can exist without an ability to enforce them.
Man, I love these slugfests Jon and Horace get into.
When they put their heavy thinking hats on, I feel like Bozo the Clown looking on. Not that that shuts me up any, but still.
@Catseye3 said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
@Horace and Jon said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
No, I’ll just put the word ‘should’ in front of ‘have rights’ to acknowledge the actual situation humans have always faced.
By which you will always mean, "should have the ability to appeal to an authority to enforce those rights". Thus confusing the conversation, for those who might want to discuss the sorts of rights that can exist without an ability to enforce them.
Man, I love these slugfests Jon and Horace get into.
When they put their heavy thinking hats on, I feel like Bozo the Clown looking on. Not that that shuts me up any, but still.
Thank you Cats. I take my responsibilities as a public intellectual very seriously. I would like the TNCR think tank to come to good, pro-social conclusions in all of its political and cultural discussions.
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@Jolly said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
@George-K said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
Taking a stand.
She's a partisan. Period.
Of course, and everybody knows it, especially those who approved of her. As soon as you know she eagerly accepts her role as "the first black female justice" rather than "the next justice", you know she will be voting along the partisan lines that implies. Imagine a nominee of a republican president being proud to identify as anything but an accomplished legal scholar. Unfortunately, righteous pop culture feels itself superior to the constitution, so Mrs Brown Jackson's actual job description will be something to be worked around, rather than honored. And that is exactly what her tribe expects.
@Horace said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
@Jolly said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
@George-K said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
Taking a stand.
She's a partisan. Period.
Of course, and everybody knows it, especially those who approved of her. As soon as you know she eagerly accepts her role as "the first black female justice" rather than "the next justice", you know she will be voting along the partisan lines that implies. Imagine a nominee of a republican president being proud to identify as anything but an accomplished legal scholar. Unfortunately, righteous pop culture feels itself superior to the constitution, so Mrs Brown Jackson's actual job description will be something to be worked around, rather than honored. And that is exactly what her tribe expects.
Which it is so important to control the appointments to the court, the first among the Three Branches.
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@Horace said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
@Jolly said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
@George-K said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
Taking a stand.
She's a partisan. Period.
Of course, and everybody knows it, especially those who approved of her. As soon as you know she eagerly accepts her role as "the first black female justice" rather than "the next justice", you know she will be voting along the partisan lines that implies. Imagine a nominee of a republican president being proud to identify as anything but an accomplished legal scholar. Unfortunately, righteous pop culture feels itself superior to the constitution, so Mrs Brown Jackson's actual job description will be something to be worked around, rather than honored. And that is exactly what her tribe expects.
Which it is so important to control the appointments to the court, the first among the Three Branches.
@Jolly said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
@Horace said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
@Jolly said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
@George-K said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
Taking a stand.
She's a partisan. Period.
Of course, and everybody knows it, especially those who approved of her. As soon as you know she eagerly accepts her role as "the first black female justice" rather than "the next justice", you know she will be voting along the partisan lines that implies. Imagine a nominee of a republican president being proud to identify as anything but an accomplished legal scholar. Unfortunately, righteous pop culture feels itself superior to the constitution, so Mrs Brown Jackson's actual job description will be something to be worked around, rather than honored. And that is exactly what her tribe expects.
Which it is so important to control the appointments to the court, the first among the Three Branches.
Imagine, if our leading pop culturalite intellectuals rewrote the constitution today, how much diversicrat ideology it would contain. So much more racism would be codified in a present day attempt to write a constitution, than was ever codified in the original.
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@Ivorythumper said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
Natural rights as a normative concept are neither natural nor rights. You're gutting the words of all meaning, and we have perfectly good language for what you are talking about without confusing it with the language and intellectual structure of "natural rights".
They are more like designated privileges -- as if you are granted the privilege to not be enslaved or killed with impunity, or to have access to the system of impartial justice, or the right to found a family, or the right to participate in the political life of your community, etc. either personally or as a class member or society member.Yep yep yep.
I've always had a problem with the concepts of right and deserve. You have a right to X, you deserve Y. Yeah? Says who? They're like the wispiest of ephemera.
I'm with you and also Jon. Not to offend, but I don't see how laying it at the feet of a creator does (or has ever done) anything to ameliorate anything in the realm of rights. Pragmatically, at least. Maybe that gives us extra oomph in the moral sphere . . .
Well, I'm with Jon, sort of. Humans do have skillz that nonhumans do not have. The sad thing is that humans do not respect their responsibility to exercise their -- what, soul stuff? I can't think of how to finish that. I am newly risen from an AWFUL TERRIBLE ordeal of suffering and can't be expected to think good.
At least, that's today's excuse.
@Catseye3 Well, I don't think that natural rights requires a Creator, though if the human beings have an actual telos, which includes true love relationships, natural and supernatural perfection, happiness and joy and beatitude, human flourishing for the person and the society, then that certain gives it your oomph.
The issue here of course is that we all want these things for ourselves, if not necessarily for others -- nobody doesn't want what natural law (and to a much higher degree Christian moral teaching and Christian anthropology) tell us is the order of the human person in relationship. Yet, apart from accepting natural law and the worldview as the western Christian has worked it out, its really difficult to uphold that intellectually.
I think in general people do have some sense of their responsibility to exercise their soul stuff -- I think the vast majority of people mature into responsible and integrated human beings, and somehow find ways of fulfilling their innate need for happiness in relationships, even if they don't do it well or they don't ever really intentionally decide, "hey, my life is miserable, and I'm a jerk, and a good deal of my unhappiness is because I'm a jerk, or other people are jerks to me, and so maybe we should find a path of life where we try to love, and serve, and get rid of our selfish patterns, and submit our egos to a higher vision for life".
This is the sort of thing Augustine said: "Our hearts are restless until they rest in thee", or Francis Thompson's Hound of Heaven gives "‘Lo! naught contents thee, who content’st not Me.’"
I don't see how rights cohere apart from some higher vision of the person, which even the ancient Greeks and Romans got to without a direct appeal to a creator. But of course I write as a Catholic, and that's part of the picture for why it alone makes sense for me.
As for your travails, about which I really don't know, I can only offer you my love and solidarity and prayers and encouragement. Suffering is brutal, and meaningless, if it's not redemptive. I hope you continue to heal and are restored fully. <insert hug here>
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@Horace and Jon said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
No, I’ll just put the word ‘should’ in front of ‘have rights’ to acknowledge the actual situation humans have always faced.
By which you will always mean, "should have the ability to appeal to an authority to enforce those rights". Thus confusing the conversation, for those who might want to discuss the sorts of rights that can exist without an ability to enforce them.
Man, I love these slugfests Jon and Horace get into.
When they put their heavy thinking hats on, I feel like Bozo the Clown looking on. Not that that shuts me up any, but still.
@Catseye3 said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
@Horace and Jon said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
No, I’ll just put the word ‘should’ in front of ‘have rights’ to acknowledge the actual situation humans have always faced.
By which you will always mean, "should have the ability to appeal to an authority to enforce those rights". Thus confusing the conversation, for those who might want to discuss the sorts of rights that can exist without an ability to enforce them.
Man, I love these slugfests Jon and Horace get into.
When they put their heavy thinking hats on, I feel like Bozo the Clown looking on. Not that that shuts me up any, but still.
Never underestimate The Thumper.
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@Catseye3 Well, I don't think that natural rights requires a Creator, though if the human beings have an actual telos, which includes true love relationships, natural and supernatural perfection, happiness and joy and beatitude, human flourishing for the person and the society, then that certain gives it your oomph.
The issue here of course is that we all want these things for ourselves, if not necessarily for others -- nobody doesn't want what natural law (and to a much higher degree Christian moral teaching and Christian anthropology) tell us is the order of the human person in relationship. Yet, apart from accepting natural law and the worldview as the western Christian has worked it out, its really difficult to uphold that intellectually.
I think in general people do have some sense of their responsibility to exercise their soul stuff -- I think the vast majority of people mature into responsible and integrated human beings, and somehow find ways of fulfilling their innate need for happiness in relationships, even if they don't do it well or they don't ever really intentionally decide, "hey, my life is miserable, and I'm a jerk, and a good deal of my unhappiness is because I'm a jerk, or other people are jerks to me, and so maybe we should find a path of life where we try to love, and serve, and get rid of our selfish patterns, and submit our egos to a higher vision for life".
This is the sort of thing Augustine said: "Our hearts are restless until they rest in thee", or Francis Thompson's Hound of Heaven gives "‘Lo! naught contents thee, who content’st not Me.’"
I don't see how rights cohere apart from some higher vision of the person, which even the ancient Greeks and Romans got to without a direct appeal to a creator. But of course I write as a Catholic, and that's part of the picture for why it alone makes sense for me.
As for your travails, about which I really don't know, I can only offer you my love and solidarity and prayers and encouragement. Suffering is brutal, and meaningless, if it's not redemptive. I hope you continue to heal and are restored fully. <insert hug here>
@Ivorythumper said in Biden to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court:
IT, any response I give to your elegant and graceful essay above will be pretty much too boring to bother with, my intellect, if you can even call it that, being a mile wide and an inch deep, but I didn't want to leave your thoughtful comment unaddressed, FWIW.
. . . though if the human beings have an actual telos, . . . then that certain gives it your oomph.
The issue here of course is that we all want these things for ourselves, if not necessarily for others -- nobody doesn't want what natural law . . . [tells] us is the order of the human person in relationship.
Yet, apart from accepting natural law and the worldview as the western Christian has worked it out, its really difficult to uphold that intellectually.>That's the thing. There is maybe no need to uphold it intellectually. As endlessly
exhaustingfascinating as it is to ponder the nature of Truth, Beauty and the Universe, natural law makes some big truths easy to accept without a lot of struggle. Acceptance of natural law just lays it all out, easy peasy. (Which thank god; the lesser challenges are difficult enough.)But can western Christianity take all the credit? Has the telos (1) not preceded Christianity? Would Neanderthal have survived and evolved without a natural inclination toward caring for his children?
(1) To steal your term, about which I am ignorant, but intrigued. It seems like a dandy theory to enfold oneself in.
I think the vast majority of people mature into responsible and integrated human beings, <
You do???
Thank you for your very kind comments on my trevail. As it happens, my all-caps TERRIBLE SUFFERING was referring to a sick day preceding that which was one for the books, but which vanished without lingering consequences and left me feeling as fine as a frog's hair -- or as fine as I generally am able to get. (Conclusion of the TNCR expert panel: kidney stones; major hurt.) So as awful as it was, it maybe wasn't as bad as the impression I gave with my drama. But your across-the-miles hugs were lovely.
