On Geneva, Calvinism And Universals In Political Discourse

In 17654, definitively estranged from Catholicism, Rousseau, once more the proud "citizen of Geneva," dedicated his second discourse to his native city-state. And a few years later, as he meditated on the political treatise that was to become the Social Contract, it was Genevan society, Genevan scenes, Genevan political controversies, as he recalled and reshaped them in the urgency of intellectual creation, that dominated his mind. His celebrated assault on representation in the Social Contract is a striking instance of how much Geneva was on his mind as he laid down principles he proclaimed to be universally valid.

And later:

As passages in the Social Contract testify, [Rousseau] was enough of a relativist -the disciple of Montesquieu in this matter as in others- to see the possibility of freedom in moderate aristocracies or elective monarchies. But his ultimate preference was for a Geneva purified, the Geneva in his fertile mind.

And to be more explicit:

And "Geneva" also implied a powerful incentive toward a certain religious style. Rousseau's native city was, of course, a Calvinist stronghold -the very home of Calvinism. ANd while secular doctrines of the Enlightenment had invaded cultivated circles in Geneva, the Calvinist atmosphere remained a palpable legacy even among Voltaire's sophisticated Genevan friends. And this is the atmosphere that pervades Rousseau's Genevan friends. And this is the atmosphere that pervades Rousseau's thinking. He was never an orthodox believer; never a good Calvinist, never a good Catholic. As a mature thinker, he adopted the deism current among the philosophes of his time: the doctrine that a beneficent god had created the world with its laws and then withdrawn from it to leave virtuous men to discover its moral rules and live according to its dictates.

- Peter Gay, "Introduction," in Jean Jacques Rousseau: The Political Writings, trans. Donald A. Cress. (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1987).

On Ancient Regimes And The Obama Administration

"It is epitomised above all by the President’s relentless drive towards big government against the will of the American people, and the dramatic increases in government spending and borrowing, which threaten to leave the US hugely in debt for generations. It is also showcased by Barack Obama’s drive towards a socialised health care system, which, as I’ve noted before, is 'a thinly disguised vanity project for a president who is committed to transforming the United States from the world’s most successful large-scale free enterprise economy, to a highly interventionist society with a massive role for centralized government.'"

- Nile Gardiner, "The Obama PresidencyIncreasing Resembles a Modern-Day Ancien Regime: Extravagant and Out of Touch with the American People," in Telegraph, August 9, 2010

On Big Government, Slavery, And Obamacare

Interesting connections that the congressman only affirmed; if she is right, all those for social justice needs to reevaluate their stance on obamacare.

On Religion, Government, And Utility

[A prince] who fears and hates religion is like the wild beasts who gnaw the chain that keeps them from throwing themselves on passer-by; he who has no religion at all is that terrible animal that feels its liberty only when it claws and devours

- Charles de Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, ed. Anne H. Cohler, Basia Carolyn Miller, and Harold Samuel Stone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

On Society, Individuality, Freedom, And The Perversion Of Rights

There is an even more profound aspect which needs to be emphasized: freedom negates and destroys itself, and becomes a factor leading to the destruction of others, when it no longer recognizes and respects its essential link with the truth. When freedom, out of a desire to emancipate itself from all forms of tradition and authority, shuts out even the most obvious evidence of an objective and universal truth, which is the foundation of personal and social life, then the person ends up by no longer taking as the sole and indisputable point of reference for his own choices the truth about good and evil, but only his subjective and changeable opinion or, indeed, his selfish interest and whim.

This view of freedom leads to a serious distortion of life in society. If the promotion of the self is understood in terms of absolute autonomy, people inevitably reach the point of rejecting one another. Everyone else is considered an enemy from whom one has to defend oneself. Thus society becomes a mass of individuals placed side by side, but without any mutual bonds. Each one wishes to assert himself independently of the other and in fact intends to make his own interests prevail. Still, in the face of other people's analogous interests, some kind of compromise must be found, if one wants a society in which the maximum possible freedom is guaranteed to each individual. In this way, any reference to common values and to a truth absolutely binding on everyone is lost, and social life ventures on to the shifting sands of complete relativism. At that point, everything is negotiable, everything is open to bargaining: even the first of the fundamental rights, the right to life.

- Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, March 1995, §19d-20

On Obamacare

“'The President's Proposal,’ as the 11-page White House document is headlined, is in one sense a notable achievement: It manages to take the worst of both the House and Senate bills and combine them into something more destructive. It includes more taxes, more subsidies and even less cost control than the Senate bill. And it purports to fix the special-interest favors in the Senate bill not by eliminating them—but by expanding them to everyone.”

- “ObamaCare at Ramming Speed: The White House Shows It Has No Interest In Compromise,” from The Wall Street Journal Online, February 23, 2010 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704454304575081391789004352.html

On Massachusetts

"Brown's margin of victory is significant, making it difficult for any potential challenges to slow down his certification as the winner. The state senator becomes the first Republican to be elected to the Senate from the Bay State since 1972."


Mitt Romney is quoted saying: "This is epic."

- Trish Turner, Molly Line and Jake Gibson, "Brown Beats Coakley in Massachusetts Senate Race" January 19, 2010. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/19/polls-close-competitive-massachusetts-senate-race/

On Love, Honesty and Politics?

This post from HillBuzz.com impressed me and has given me hope that there can be reasonable dialogue between liberal and conservatives. In light of Ft. Hood and the Bushes outreach toward the families, they said and I quote:

"a bunch of gay Hillary guys in Boystown, Chicago were wrong about the Bushes…and are deeply, deeply sorry for any jokes we told about them in the past, any bad thoughts we had about these good, good people."

It's nice to see them look past differences and affirm their humanity. Maybe Conservatives can take a page from their book.

1. http://hillbuzz.org/2009/11/10/thank-you-former-president-george-w-bush-and-former-first-lady-laura-bush/

On The Social Gospel and Socialism

In his critique concerning the conceit of Socialism and the error of attributing "intellectual respectability" to Socialism, Father Robert Sirico states:

"Among the clergy, there was a gravely flawed view of justice and the role of the gospel -that is to say, of how the gospel was to be applied to social circumstances. Clergymen generally regarded any inequality in wealth as inherently suspect and even as evidence of exploitation and injustice. Lacking understanding of how economies grow and distribute wealth, they believed that only a central authority could 'apportion resources' with an eye to helping the poor, the aged, and the underprivileged. Lacking business experience, they could not conceive of the contribution that entrepreneurs and businessmen made to the growth of an economy. They thought only of dividing wealth more fairly, not of generating more wealth."

- Father Robert. A Sirico, "Economics on the Left: From Marxism to Keynesianism," in The Age of the Economists From Adam Smith to Milton Friedman, 31-42 (Hillsdale, MI: Hillsdale College Press, 1999).

On Foreign Policy, Reagan and Humor

Before a radio broadcast President Reagan was asked to give a sound check. He agreed with a comical remark.

"My fellow Americans, I'm here to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever -we begin bombing in five minutes..."

- Ronald Reagan, August 11, 1984

On Freedom and Responsibility

"It cannot be repeated too often: Nothing is more fertile than the art of being free, but nothing is harder than freedom's apprenticeship."

 - Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, ed. J. P. Mayer, trans. G. Lawrence (New York: Perennial Classics, 2000).

On Religion and the State

"Let us therefore deal plainly . The magistrate is afraid of other Churches but not his own; because he is kind and favourable to the one, but severe and cruel to the [others]. . . . Let him turn the tables: or let those dissenters enjoy but the same privileges in civils as his other subjects, and he will quickly find that these religious meetings will be no longer dangerous. For if men enter into seditious conspiracies, 'tis not religion inspires them to it in their meetings, but their sufferings and oppressions that make them willing to ease themselves."

 - John Locke, Letter on Toleration, in The Works of John Locke vol. II (A. Bettesworth, London, 1727).

On John Locke's Political Theory

"It's important to remember that John Locke is a cradle Calvinist. He learned basic Calvinistic theory as part of his basic upbringing. He spent time in the Netherlands, a haven of Calvinism among other faiths. And he spent time in coffee houses learning about what toleration means, about what social contract means, about what natural rights mean, about what the rights of nature entail. And I dare say that a number of his basic [political] ideas are simply genetic reflexes or in of his Puritan heritage part of those ingenious repositioning of those Calvinistic ideas so that they would become palatable to an Anglican and Royalist community."

 - John Witte Jr., Jonas Robitscher Professor of Law, Director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University.

On Jack Bauer's Just War Theory

"And you sir are weak; unwilling and unable to look evil in the eye and deal with it."

 - Jack Bauer, 24, Season 7: Episode 12