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The oligarch vs. the people

In an earlier entry I pointed out that the homosexual "marriage" issue has, with few exceptions so far, been taken to judges rather than to the people. This is not to deny that public opinions are changing on that subject, under the pressure of absolutely relentless PR from the media and schools, and of course under the teaching of judge-made "law." The point is merely that in America we have had numerous examples of cases where the left has had to get the semi-oligarchy of judges to force their desires on a reluctant public and then has used those rulings as a beachhead or a ratchet (pick your favorite metaphor) from which to drag public opinion ahead to where they want it to be. This pattern, which has been repeated times without number in the past four or five decades, stands as disconfirmation to the opinion that "the people" are inherently untrustworthy and that, as a rule of thumb, a land will be governed better if governed by a small elite--an oligarchy or a monarchy--of the smarter, stronger, and in some undefined sense "better." In the U.S., it has generally been true that what Robert Bork calls the chattering classes, who undeniably have a higher average IQ than the national average, have had on average the worst moral ideas. We should least wish to commit the governance of the nation to our elites, knowing the elites. Yet, because of the idea that the law is what judges say it is, they have again and again been allowed, de facto, to govern the nation, even when their actions are manifestly lawless. Roe v. Wade is, of course, a notorious example.

Back in January another example came up, which I have not yet mentioned: A judge named Nan Nash in New Mexico arrogantly struck down the state's anti-assisted suicide law and imposed an assisted suicide regime on the state. Nash admitted that assisted suicide was against existing New Mexico law but, in essence, said that in that case the law was wrong and must cease to function, that doctors must be permitted to assist in suicide. If this isn't legislating from the bench, I don't know what is. Naturally, there is no sign of the governor's saying, "Judge Nash has made her ruling, let her enforce it," and making it clear that anyone who assists a suicide will be prosecuted. Would that such a thing would happen. The state is merely mulling its options for some kind of appeal. I assume an appeal would be to a higher-level state court.

Meanwhile, as everyone knows, Belgian legislators have legalized assisted suicide. The hope there is that the King of Belgium will refuse to sign the law. I will certainly blog it if King Philippe blocks this horrendous law, thus serving as part of a system of checks and balances against, in this case, a gravely disordered legislature. I must say that, despite a petition to the king, nobody really seems to expect him to stop child-killing in his country. I don't know what the timeframe is for his signature or veto. We shall see.

Comments (50)

Lydia,

Public opinion on these matters is not changing because of what some judge(s) thinks. The fulcrum through which our morally depraved elites are changing public opinion is the artificial consensus that they are able to construct via the many different organs of propaganda under their control (e.g., television, film, radio, state education, etc.). When the ordinary person is exposed to the unanimous consensus of said elite class on these matters every time he turns on his television (or goes to the movies, or whatever) it creates the impression in his mind that this is not just an elite consensus but the consensus of the society in which he lives. The mere perception of this new consensus (e.g., that homosexuality is morally acceptable), which is initially more artificial than real, distorts his ability to think about matters pertaining to that consensus via the mundane (albeit powerful) pressures of group conformity, as demonstrated by the Asch conformity experiments (see YouTube). In time, as more people yield to the pressure to conform to the perceived societal consensus, what initially began as only a consensus amongst the elites slowly becomes the actual consensus of the larger society. This is the revolutionary difference between politics in the 20th century and that of previous eras, which is to say that we now have technologically advanced organs of propaganda capable of slowly reshaping the collective thinking of many millions of people across great distances by exploiting the mundane pressures of group conformity. Needless to say, there are no checks and balances in our 18th century founding documents to reign in this 20th century novelty, which is able to accomplish what the founders thought was impossible (i.e., reshaping the collective thinking of a country as vast as the one the United States would inevitably become. Of course, if the only forms of propaganda that you know about are newspapers, pamphlets, public speeches, etc. then this judgment becomes much more plausible).

However, the aforementioned judicial activity is certainly the fulcrum through which our morally depraved elites are formally reshaping the political landscape on these matters. I don't think there's any denying that.

I don't see any competition between the organs of propaganda you correctly cite and the "teaching" of judge-made law. I think you underestimate the teaching value of the latter. To take just one example, how many times have we seen it said that "abortion is a constitutional right"? Notice how the word "constitutional" adds a phony gravitas to the utterance and hence makes it more powerful as a propaganda tool. Where does that "constitutional" claim come from? From Roe v. Wade. Another example: In Massachusetts, where homosexual "marriage" was forced originally upon the people by state judges, schools have begun reading a book called, IIRC, "Prince and Prince" to little children in kindergarten. Challenged about this controversial "fairy tale," the principal stated that, since homosexual "marriage" is "the law" in Massachusetts, they are obligated to present it as normal to the children. Again and again we see liberals crowing about their success in making something part of "settled law" and using this as an argument for squelching dissent or for the rightness of their cause. W.r.t. assisted suicide, the example I was giving in New Mexico, we have seen that in other states where assisted suicide is legal there are continual calls for forcing pharmacists to dispense prescriptions for assisted suicide *on the grounds that* it is legal and that therefore the pharmacist must participate. So the move from "legal" to "must not be wrong" to "you must facilitate" is constantly being made and is part of the propaganda you cite. And of course judges are part of bringing that first step into being when they strike down laws and allegedly by their bare fiat make something "legal" that was not before.

Lydia,

I would say that the issue of gay marriage is a good example of how (over time) public opinion shifted substantially in the absence of something like an SC decision like Roe v. Wade via the mechanisms I discussed. If judicial decisions are the fulcrum through which everything else happens then how are we to explain this shift? By the time Justice Kennedy got around to doing the inevitable, I would say that a slim majority of the public was already there. If I remember correctly, that's not how it was with the public's view of abortion at the time of Roe v. Wade.

Lydia,

I think what I want to say is that abortion is something of an exception to a general rule. In particular, abortion is such an ugly, indefensible sort of act that the only way to defend it is to say that it's "constitutional" (or some such), in which case the aforementioned organs of propaganda can only kick in once a judicial decision of some kind has been made. But, of course, this is not necessary with regards to homosexuality and gay marriage, where arguments appealing to the public's sense of fairness and equality can be profitably made in the absence of such a decision. Hence, the reason why our elites were able to move public opinion on these issues before Kennedy got around to doing the inevitable in contrast with the public's view of abortion at the time of Roe v. Wade.

Again, I continue to think that the real fulcrum that the elite class is leveraging to shape public opinion is their unchecked control of the various organs of propaganda. You see, in the absence of someone belonging to a dissident community (e.g., a conservative church/parish), the mundane pressures of group conformity will eventually cause most everyone to conform. Of course, there will always be a few extremely independent sorts out there who could probably maintain their beliefs in a vacuum, but these can be easily marginalized.

If judicial decisions are the fulcrum through which everything else happens then how are we to explain this shift? By the time Justice Kennedy got around to doing the inevitable, I would say that a slim majority of the public was already there. If I remember correctly, that's not how it was with the public's view of abortion at the time of Roe v. Wade.

No, no. Justice K didn't start the ball rolling, of course, but he gave it the major shove it needed in the Lawrence decision, 2003. Before that there was not even anything CLOSE to a majority in favor of gay "marriage". No, the stats were clearly and uniformly (outside of SF) against any such thing.

Abortion is not quite as extreme, but similar: in the late 1960s to early 1970s, there was some loosening of state laws against abortion by state legislatures, but almost ALL retained some restrictions and most retained very extensive restrictions. Even in the 4 states where the legislatures greatly relaxed the prohibitions, it is hard to determine that this was because of general popular pressure rather than an outspoken, moneyed minority.

No, no. Justice K didn't start the ball rolling, of course, but he gave it the major shove it needed in the Lawrence decision, 2003. Before that there was not even anything CLOSE to a majority in favor of gay "marriage". No, the stats were clearly and uniformly (outside of SF) against any such thing.

Are you suggesting that the Lawrence decision in 2003 caused the sea change in public opinion on homosexuality and gay marriage that took place over the next decade?

Lydia,

Does your opposition to judge-made law extend to the concept of judicial review in general? I fully understand that judicial review isn't in the constituiton, and that the court arrogated that power to itself in Marbury. However, I think it's necessary for a citizen to have some recourse in the case of executive and legislative overreach. Let's say that Congress passed a law that required homeowners, in time of peace to quarter soldiers in thier house without the homeowner's consent. You refuse and get hauled off to jail. If there's no judicial review, what's to be done?

RT, I think you overlook the role of state judges, which has been very large, in the homosexuality issue. If you look at the history of it you will see repeated appeals to state judges to "find" a right to same-sex "marriage" in the state constitution. Very similar to what the state judge is doing with assisted suicide in New Mexico in the main post. Moreover, now the federal decisions are coming in on a tank, trying to overturn state outright _defiance_ of homosexual "marriage." In most cases these were passed by citizen referendum/initiative--the most direct democratic process in the U.S. There are several attempts to have federal courts overturn these in the pipeline right now.

I do not say anything so extreme as that the organs of opinion-forming are unable to get started on dirty work before a court opinion. Of course not. It all works together. But I do say that in America popular opinion has proven more resistant than one might have expected to propaganda _without_ court opinions, to such an extent that the liberals have seen their propaganda campaign as moving too slowly for their tastes and have gone straight to the courts on a number of issues.

You honestly cannot see the irony in wishing for a KING to veto a duly enacted law in a post about the injustice of oligarchs overruling the will of the people? You need to be more self-aware because you are coming dangerously close to Orwellian doublethink.

CJ, I would say I'm not opposed to attempts at judicial review but am opposed to the doctrine that everyone else must defer to whatever the court says, however stupid. I'm opposed to the idea that "judicial review" means that, if the SCOTUS "finds" in the Constitution that Mickey Mouse is President, then President he is. And so forth. The doctrine that "the constitution means whatever the court says it means" has got to go. There needs to be some willingness to give pushback to obviously baseless opinions handed down by court review. I would say that this willingness probably needs to reside in the executive branch at both the state and federal level. If one occupies a constitutional office and has sworn to uphold the constitution (state or federal), and if a court issues an obviously bizarre and distorted "interpretation," then we come back to what the Founders said--that the court does not have force on its side but only judgement. The executive branch needs to be willing as well to act as an interpreter of the document it is supposed to be acting under as well as the laws it is supposed to be enforcing and, in extreme cases, to ignore blatantly unsupported court opinions.

Does this leave open the possibility for a constitutional crisis? Yes, it does. But that was always a possibility. I think the Founders assumed the possibility of various crises as part of keeping the government honest. Once one branch is given all deference in the name of avoiding any crisis, ever, the system of checks and balances is out the window.

Dunsany, don't be shallow:

1) If the king vetoes the law, he will be carrying out a function very similar to the veto function the elected President has in the U.S. system. I haven't investigated, but it would be interesting to know if there is, similarly, a veto override process. He will hardly be engaging in some sort of heavy-handed rule of might making right but rather in a fairly mild action of checks and balances which is scarcely ever even used.

2) If you happen to find yourself a hereditary king, it's your responsibility to do what's right with the power you happen to have been given. Since vetoing the law is the right thing to do, it's what the king should do, just as voting against it is what a legislator should do. This point is independent of the question of what the theoretically wisest form of government in the world might be.

3) As an advocate of the position that in general, as Churchill said, (constitutional, representative) democracy is the worst form of government in the world except for all the others, it is only fair for me to acknowledge data points where a hereditary monarch _does_ act even in the modern world as a counterweight to wrong actions by the elected representatives. If King Philippe were to do so, it would be culpable in me, in relation to my monarchy-sympathetic friends (yes, I have such), to ignore this. If, on the other hand, King Philippe doesn't do so, then that will be a data point for a different conclusion.

4) I didn't allude to the _injustice_ of oligarchs overruling the will of the people. You should re-read the post.

RT, I think you overlook the role of state judges, which has been very large, in the homosexuality issue.

Fair enough. But in all my conversations with non-conservative people about these issues I've never heard them justify their position by appealing to some legal ruling. Rather, they invariably appeal to either some principle of fairness and/or equality or they insist that to think otherwise is morally repugnant "just because." I would submit to you that, as a matter of common sense, whatever causal chain produced these convictions did not involve a legal ruling. I am willing to concede, however, that in a previous era ordinary people might have cared about such things as the opinions of state/SC judges in forming opinions of their own.

"If the king vetoes the law, he will be carrying out a function very similar to the veto function the elected President has in the U.S. system

You clearly guessed what my response to this was going to be because you tried to address it in your second point, but I don't think you've dealt with the issue satisfactorily. The king is unelected, and unlike federal judges he isn't even appointed or confirmed by elected politicians. In my view he should have absolutely no political power. The right thing to do as a hereditary king is to declare that you shouldn't have any political power in the first place and work to eliminate the monarchy's non-ceremonial authority. If eliminating it is impossible you should refuse to exercise your "authority."


"4) I didn't allude to the _injustice_ of oligarchs overruling the will of the people. You should re-read the post."


I never SAID I disliked black people, I just said that I don't want to hire any of them.

Come on now, this is clearly intellectually dishonest given the title and tone of your post. Perhaps you are using some very specific definition of injustice.

Dunsany, I think you're just out of touch regarding the state of play, here. I am attempting to address a particular _type_ of argument made by monarchist-sympathetic people--to whit, that in general oligarchies or monarchies will govern better than democracies. This is an argument that is going to involve empirical premises about what real people have done in real situations, and I am bringing up data points to the contrary. I am not making an absolute or theoretical argument that some horrible injustice has taken place if an oligarchy or monarchy exists anywhere, ever, in the history of mankind. I am pointing out rather that it simply doesn't appear to be true that oligarchies do a generally better job than monarchies at doing what is right. Of course, in our own country, a functional oligarchy arises only by a perversion of the system as set up, because the Founders were rightly suspicious of oligarchies.

RT, I don't think you are really taking into account how this worked in, e.g., Massachusetts. Or how it is going to work if SCOTUS strikes down Michigan's or Kentucky's state ban. If the court _forces_ the people to recognize homosexual "marriage," then homosexual "marriage" becomes, by the order of the judges, part of the legal fabric of that jurisdiction. And that _legal situation_ (if acquiesced in by the executive branch) is itself a teacher. It influences opinion by making people behave in a certain way and telling people "this is the law, now." I already gave you the example of the principal and the perverted book in Massachusetts. Isn't that a sufficient example of my point? The very legal situation he was alluding to, and indeed all the present homosexual "marriages" and everything arising from them, including their influence on subsequent public opinion, in the state of Massachusetts, are a result of the action of the state Supreme Court. It isn't necessary for someone to quote a judge personally and defer to that judge's opinion of right and wrong. What is doing the teaching is the power of the judges, as deferred to by the other branches, to create legal facts on the ground. Surely you must agree that legal facts on the ground have an influence on subsequent opinion and attitude. People don't want to go against homosexual "marriage" because "now it's the law." And by the way, I certainly _have_ seen liberals bring this up. It's basically, "How dare you refuse to call Joe and Bob married and treat them as such? That's the legal fact of the matter. What's the matter with you? You just don't want to admit the actual situation. Get with the program."

There is a hierarchy of laws: Divine> Natural>Positive. Oligarchies, are not, in themselves either bad or always less preferable to democracies. The problem, in general, is that if an oligarchy errs in maintaining the correct relationship among types of laws, the effect is more generally and more quickly disseminated within the population than in a democracy. Even in nature we see similar effects. A well-balanced oligarchy can be an efficient way to run a society. The problem is that most oligarchies very quickly pervert the order of laws to suit their own ends. If the state judges were, uniformly and correctly, ruling against assisted-suicides, the mess would be held at bay for many years. They are not. The issue goes much deeper than mere democracy vs. oligarchy. It goes to the inability of people to be humble in the face of truth. It goes to the stubborn belief that anyone or any group can work out a moral or civil law as good as the Natural or Divine law. If the oligarchy or even a king realizes their limitations and bow under the hand of truth, they can become saints. It has happened in history, before. Even in the Book of a Proverbs, it is recognized that the moral stance of a king can affect society for good or ill.

Basically, the judges who rule for assisted suicide and many modern elites are moral idiots. Rather, more precisely, they are people who do not recognize a God above themselves. The problem is not oligarchy, per se. It is moral rot. Answer how we got that way and you will be well on the way to solving the moral problems that afflict modern societies.

The Chicken

Lydia,

Perhaps the difference between us is that I live in the very conservative South where local rulings of the sort you've been highlighting haven't taken place, yet a significant shift in public opinion on these matters has still occurred over the last decade. If we dismiss as ridiculous the idea that last year's SC decision retroactively accounted for this shift (in the very conservative South) then what we are left with besides the "absolutely relentless [nationwide] PR from the media and schools" that you mentioned in your entry?

From where I am standing, I would gladly give the socialist left every SC decision and the next few presidencies if my brand of ultra-conservatism could enjoy the level of control over the organs of propaganda that the socialist left has enjoyed in the post-war era. I am convinced that control of the organs of propaganda is the ultimate trump card in our technologically advanced era.

"I am convinced that control of the organs of propaganda is the ultimate trump card in our technologically advanced era."

You can propagandize all you want, but it won't be very effective if the people are sufficiently clued in so as to be inoculated against it. We live in cultures, both here and around the world, populated by people who have surrendered any kind of belief in an objective truth. People have become malleable because they have given into their own passions as truth. Who told them that feelings equal truth? It was the elites, in part, salesmen (propaganda and don't overlook the effect of psychologists), in part, and judges, in part. It has been an equal mix of temptations.

The Chicken

From where I am standing, I would gladly give the socialist left every SC decision and the next few presidencies if my brand of ultra-conservatism could enjoy the level of control over the organs of propaganda that the socialist left has enjoyed in the post-war era.

That's a very strong statement. I couldn't disagree with you more, there, not that the two are entirely separable nor that anyone is offering you that deal. The leftist SC decisions and state leftist court decisions are vile in every respect--they are morally vile and legally vile. And they are lies about the meaning of the laws they pretend to interpret. So they violate every bit of professional integrity that judges are supposed to have as a condition for holding the positions they do hold. Besides the concrete changes they make and the teaching power of those, which I have already discussed, they teach in essence that there is no truth and that the meaning of something (such as a legal text) can be decided by sheer power. Evil in every respect.

I do not deny the shift you are discussing in the south. I believe my comments have actually been quite moderate. The shift does not take place fast enough for the left, which is why they turn to the courts.

Let me also add: Don't underestimate the ripple effects within the U.S. of state court decisions on praxis in other states. Example: It was the Vermont state Supreme Court that forced Vermont to create same-sex civil unions. This was blatant bench legislation. So, they did. Subsequently a woman who had entered into such a civil union and then repented fled Vermont to Virginia, which did not recognize such unions, with her daughter. She was trying to avoid Vermont state court orders that her daughter must have unsupervised visits with her former lesbian lover, on the grounds that they had been in a civil union when the little girl was born. (The woman who fled was the child's biological mother. The other woman had no biological nor adoptive relationship with her.) Virginia eventually was forced to conclude that Vermont had jurisdiction over the custody issues, and the woman was eventually forced to flee the country! I believe that that forced deference to such a wicked custody ruling from another state does indeed have an influence upon opinions in Virginia, though I admit that it will be indirect.

Are you suggesting that the Lawrence decision in 2003 caused the sea change in public opinion on homosexuality and gay marriage that took place over the next decade?

No, I am not suggesting that. The "sea change" had, first, a lot of prep work in the media: Will & Grace, for example. But the court decision gave the impetus for a LOT more media effort, and undercut the possibility of a LOT of other cultural inhibitions on those very media efforts. Where a book that describes a sodomite relationship might be banned from schools (before Lawrence) on the basis that the act is illegal, after Lawrence principals could not use that argument to get rid of the disgusting material. After Lawrence it became more difficult for those in the position of public authority to support moral notions and to counteract elite degradation of morals. And so on, with infinitely many examples. Same with discrimination: before Lawrence, it was clearly easier for an employer to disfavor work-place communications presenting sodomite behavior as if they were merely "a legitimate lifestyle", thus making the protection of a normal moral sensibility much easier. After Lawrence, using even the modest power and authority of an employer to support the moral perspective and counteract elite/media influence became more difficult, and after Windsor, far more difficult.

So, I am saying that the judges helped the media efforts a very great deal, and the media ran with the ball and achieved that sea change: where in 1990 well over 2/3 of all people were seriously disgusted with the notion of sodomite behavior, and 3/4 thought the notion of gay "marriage" was a horror, not a positive good. Now the first percentage is below 60%, and the latter percentage is below 65%. However, the real sea change is in the number of people willing to TOLERATE gays getting civil recognition of marriage: the fact that the # of people who think that gays should not be prevented by law from "marrying" is much higher than the number of people who think it is a positive good is not insignificantly due specifically to the judicial mandates - though certainly the media had something to do with it as well.

Demoligarchs? That is, yes, a very small group of people are overriding the vote of a fraction of a fraction of the people eligible to pull the levers. The rulings against common sense themselves are unthinkable unless one has been huffing democracy's toxic paint fumes. One of the larger fume balls is that all inequalities, even reasonable and natural ones, are oppression. And since that fraction of a fraction of voters can't get it done, a "vanguard of democracy" must step in.

Scott, I don't agree. Sorry. I think that the commitment to, say, assisted suicide is an ideology in itself, not per se part of the concept or ideology of democracy. Look at me. I hold the moderate pro-democracy view that a constitutional, representative democracy with checks and balances is the wisest way to deal with the fall of mankind in human governance, but I don't think that assisted suicide is right. Sure, you can _find_ a way to make up a story, if you like, about how assisted suicide is called for by equality, but who says that most of the people who support it do so because of such a story? And who says that such a twisted story has any actual logical connection to a position such as mine? One could just as well say that a belief in traditional gender roles has "toxic fumes" because some people believe that husbands should be allowed to rape and beat their wives.

Let me also add, Scott, that you seem to be ignoring here the sheerly empirical point: You can say all you like that a mere "fraction" of the people vote who could. Big deal. The fact remains that these are in fact _data points_ concerning whether an actual, real-world, democratic process has worked out better than rule by elites. A commitment to anti-democracy that always finds something dismissive to say about any real-world examples is an ideology in the worst of senses. Which is why I will blog it if King Philippe blocks the euthanasia law.

I think this is an important point: Vague associations of ideas can be made with anything whatsoever, however good. That is what illogical liberals do: "Oh, a belief in hierarchy of any kind is bad, because it has been associated in the past in people's minds with antebellum slavery and beating wives and harming fluffy bunnies, and because we can kinda sorta see how that association works." If we conservatives are going to think clearly we need to do better than that, not adopt a similar method for our own desired projects and our own history of ideas.

The fulcrum through which our morally depraved elites are changing public opinion is the artificial consensus that they are able to construct via the many different organs of propaganda under their control (e.g., television, film, radio, state education, etc.).

I agree with you that it isn't judges, but neither is it the media. You can take away all the media and people still are going to trend towards gay acceptance. If we woke up tomorrow into a world in which conservatives had complete control of the media, I bet they still couldn't make a dent in this trend. Truth is, no one knows why the zeitgeist goes where it goes, and if anyone ever figured it out they'd be fabulously rich. Even advertisers, your best bet on expertise in this area, admit they have no clue beforehand about whether a given campaign will be a success or not.

Matt, if one took "nobody knows" to mean "nobody influences," then I guess one would have to say that everyone, liberal and conservative, who tries to do anything so as to influence society is just stupidly wasting time. But we all know that people _do_ influence one another and _do_ influence social change and larger outcomes.

Matt, that just doesn't quite work. Advertizers do plug the airwaves with their jingles and gimmicks because they do know, for a fact, that they work to some degree. What they don't know for certain beforehand is whether X campaign will takes off into the stratosphere of effectiveness while another campaign doesn't. But 100 years of using modern major media proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the political campaigns that spend lots more money getting their candidate's face and words "out there" have a much better shot at winning than campaigns that don't have nearly the exposure. Knowledge of the probabilities is sufficient for the purpose.

And you really can't be serious that the media didn't have a major role in changing the zeitgeist about gays. There was very, VERY little call in the public domain for changing attitudes about gay behavior before the media took up the cause. Now the old fallacy of "post hoc ergo propter hoc" is indeed a fallacy, but going in the reverse direction, you cannot possibly maintain that when Y followed X, and X was of such a nature as to potentially influence Y, that "well I don't think X had anything to do with Y even though I don't have a clue why Y happened." That just isn't reasonable. It's just throwing out the obvious explanation because you don't like it.

There is nothing fundamentally immoral about the media having an influence on attitudes (it is just plain natural for public media to affect the way people perceive things), so saying it had an influence here is not saying something evil about the media simply as such. It only becomes something wrong if the influence it had was toward an evil. Which, of course, conservatives do think was toward evil, but liberals generally don't.

There is nothing fundamentally immoral about the media having an influence on attitudes (it is just plain natural for public media to affect the way people perceive things), so saying it had an influence here is not saying something evil about the media simply as such. It only becomes something wrong if the influence it had was toward an evil. Which, of course, conservatives do think was toward evil, but liberals generally don't.

This is true to an extent, Tony, but I'd say that it is one of those "quantity has a quality all its own" kind of things. It is possible for the influence of the media to be overwhelming to such a degree that it cannot but be unhealthy, given the necessity of its being controlled by people whose main business is the manipulation of symbols and the maintenance of formal power.

That is the situation in which we find ourselves. Whenever there is even the potential in practice for the power of various media to overwhelm utterly just about any kind of common-sense or natural social norm, we are in a bad situation--even were it possible in principle for such a media environment to be oriented toward the good, which it manifestly is not. Assuming, in Hayek's words, that "the worst always get on top," we are better off without a particularly powerful mass media. I realize your claim was a modest one, that the power of mass communications to influence attitudes is not intrinsically evil, in the same way that state power is not intrinsically evil, and to say that the media had some influence is not to say that that influence was necessarily bad. But I guess my point is just that, as with state power, it is possible to grow that kernel of truth until it contains a falsehood.

The difference being, though, that the media is not univocally controlled in the same way that a centralized government is. So, for example, pro-lifers can make heart-tugging "Choose Life" ads, if they can get the money to do so. We can have EWTN and other alternative TV and radio networks. I know that lots of conservatives hate Rush and talk radio, but it's important to remember what it was like in the early 90's when conservative talk radio broke the monopoly of the left on the airwaves. Which is why the left hates it.

The Internet is another example. Very powerful. And here we are. I remember the days when I would have been tempted to give a pair of teeth for the ability to talk this frequently and openly with conservatives all over the world whom I had never met and to bolster one another's confidence and hope. In the days of dial-up modems, before real web sites, I literally paid long-distance rates occasionally to dial into a plain text message board called Samizdat Online just for some broader conservative intellectual company. As the Internet has gotten more powerful as a medium of delivering information and communication, all of that looks like the Dark Ages. Or perhaps the baby steps of a new giant who would grow up and change everything.

So the power of communication media can break ideological monopoly, not just create it.

given the necessity of its being controlled by people whose main business is the manipulation of symbols and the maintenance of formal power.

I will agree that some media executives think of maintenance of power is their main business, but I don't think that this is true merely because they are media executives. That is to say, there are plenty of media people who think of their main purpose is (a) to make a profit, and power is just a means to that end, or (b) to entertain, or (c) to provide news, or (d) to educate (or even "educate", if you prefer). The urge to power isn't particular to media, nor is the only way a person can pursue executive media office.

It is possible for the influence of the media to be overwhelming to such a degree that it cannot but be unhealthy,

Yeah, but I think that the problem there is as much a defect in other entities as it is in the media. An education system devised to render thinking in terms of clear, moral truth almost impossible is as much to blame for the media's power as the media is. One of the reasons people are satisfied with hours per day of drivel on TV or radio stations is their environment is not designed to fill the time, their ears, or their minds with anything better. A society that is better congnizant of the higher purpose of leisure over that of recreation wouldn't tolerate this as readily. And while it is true that the media helped create this problem too, it didn't do so without the active or passive connivance of other players.

I have read the article and subsequent comments with considerable interest. Perhaps I may offer a perspective from Ireland? We have had no judicial decisions nor any legislation regarding homosexual marriage here, but there seems to have been an extraordinary shift in general opinion in very recent times from where a vast majority would have considered it absurd and even unthinkable to where at least a very considerable and growing minority is in favour, which I can only attribute to an extraordinarily aggressive and incessant media campaign.
I personally believe it isn't about 'marriage' at all as I find it too difficult to believe that those really pushing this are that insane. I suspect it is merely a lever to coerce firstly approval for the homosexual lifestyle from those who would deny it, culminating in an attempt to force us to celebrate and adulate it to the point of acknowledging it as superior and more noble than comparatively mundane heterosexual relationships.

if one took "nobody knows" to mean "nobody influences,"

Why would you do that? Obviously some ad campaigns work. It's just that no one knows beforehand which ones will.

There was very, VERY little call in the public domain for changing attitudes about gay behavior before the media took up the cause.

In other words, there was no call in the public domain for changing attitudes, until there was.

It's just throwing out the obvious explanation because you don't like it.

It's not the obvious explanation though. It's the "under siege by a hostile and subversive media" explanation that has been a mainstay for conservatives for at least 40 years. Truth is, you could have talked on TV about gay marriage 24/7 back in 1940 without ever making a dent in the public perception. Today, you could get on and talk about how good Christianity is 24/7 without making a dent in the public perception. People like Andrew Sullivan who were agitating for gay marriage 25 years ago had no idea that it would be successful, and ever, not just as quickly as it was. We all like to theorize about why this or that attitude/sentiment/opinion changed in the population, but at the end of the day we are all clueless. Conservatives give their media opponents far too much credit by portraying them as omniscient puppetmasters.

I think we have plenty of clues. Clue #1: Public school ideological education, K-12. Which was far different in 1940.

"Conservatives give their media opponents far too much credit by portraying them as omniscient puppetmasters."

Not so much omniscient puppetmasters as slick, intelligent manipulators. Read a few things on the rise of mass advertising/mass media. Much of this critique comes not from conservatives, but from liberals.

And Lydia is correct about education being a factor. Soften the kids up intellectually and when they're adults they'll swallow any damn thing. It's not an either/or it's a both/and.

Hi Lydia, and the WWWtW pundits,

I buy it, I buy all of it. "It" being the descriptive observation of what we're seeing in this nation and in this culture.

My question: Is it possible to reverse what's happening? Let's say that you say, "With God, all things are possible." And then I say, "Yes, and given that, what do you think the probabilities are that the Oligarchic destruction of America will reverse itself with an American revival and reawakening without any violent bloodshed?"

The next question is: What do you personally do next in light of your answer to the previous questions?

Hi Lydia, et al,

With regards to my previous comment about the probabilities of an American Revival and/or American Re-Awakening which was asked with respect to your argument about The Oligarch versus The People, have you ever seen this quote before from a Czech source:

“The danger to America is not Barack Obama, but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools, such as those who made him their president.

"Yes, and given that, what do you think the probabilities are that the Oligarchic destruction of America will reverse itself with an American revival and reawakening without any violent bloodshed?"

Truth, my estimation has gradually hardened, but in the same direction, over the last 20 years: the probability has gone down every decade by a significant margin. We know what history shows: the history of the Jews is replete with God allowing disasters to visit them before they come to their senses and he restores them to some kind of corrected status. The Romans repeatedly immitated a leaf falling: they did a swooping swan dive with a shorter swoop up, every generation or two, for a few hundred years, with violence of some form in almost every cycle. Given the acceleration of cycles due to (a) high-intensity media and internet putting news out in minutes, and (b) democratic social patterns, the likelihood is that we shall condense any Roman-like period of decline into a much shorter time.

I have not been able to figure out any plausible scenario where good, solid, practicing Christians are likely to survive the time, other than by simply God's good will rather than by planning and well-designed action. Even if you have a lot of wealth, I don't see how you can use it to set up something, because in all likelihood the wealth and its accoutrements will be taken away from you.

"I have not been able to figure out any plausible scenario where good, solid, practicing Christians are likely to survive the time, other than by simply God's good will rather than by planning and well-designed action."

Lydia, et tu?

Tony, out of curiousity, have you done any planning and well-designed action? Also, I'm happy to take it off line with my e-mail address being truthunites@hotmail.com

I've had guests all evening and am just now on-line. I'm not making bold predictions. I say that things look dark, but God can always turn things around. As to what I do next, next I get up in the morning and do the job committed to my care. I think about the home school curriculum of my children still being home schooled. I advise my college-age child about life decisions. I answer the person who wrote to me today asking about Scripture and petitionary prayer--perhaps I do that in a personal e-mail or in a blog post. I plan the paper I've agreed to write for an anthology and a couple of other scholarly papers. I clean my house and cook and shop for food for my family. There are many worse ways to spend one's life. To us it isn't given to know all ends, and thinking too much about them will only sap our will to strive. We do what is right in our time. In G. K. Chesterton's "Ballad of the White Horse," the Virgin Mary tells King Alfred that he isn't to know whether he will be successful in driving back the Danes and that an expectation of success isn't what is to motivate his fight. It is in that context that the words come that are our new slogan on this blog:

"The men signed of the cross of Christ go gaily in the dark."

Given my time constraints, I'll keep this short. Two quick additions to the "What to do?" discussion.

We've seen that some supporters of the pro-gay agenda try (sometimes successfully) to pressure people who don't support the pro-gay agenda out of a job. So, as was done in previous times, people in local congregations need a contingency plan for if (or when) some of their members lose their jobs for this reason. Similarly, they need a plan in place for what to do if (and probably when) increasingly anti-religious sentiment gets codified into laws that directly affect places of worship.

There are still millions of people in the nation who are opposed to normalizing same-sex relationships, and even more than that who are generally fed up about the general direction our nation is headed culturally, economically, politically (think surveillance state here), and so on. Is there a set of principles or some common vision that might unite people of various faiths and world views to oppose the more corrosive causes of all this? I think there is, but it needs to be articulated and formulated for people at all levels. In other words, it needs to be articulated (in various ways) both for those in the upper echelons of academia and for the proverbial "man on the street." Anybody up for a new political party?

PhilosoFarmer, I am not opposed to a new political party. Indeed, there are some interesting "newer" parties out ther - try the Constitution Party, for example. But, as we see from the example of these parties, there is not enough of a pull in the electorate to make one of these parties truly competitive with one of the 2 main parties. That is, at least so far, there isn't enough pull to get people into state houses and Congress to the extent that they can either get legislation passed, or be the deciding vote on bills that matter, or even that make a new perspective one that is laid out in the media as a viable alternative. So, it isn't enough to propose a party, we need something that proposes also enough change in conditions that could get such a party into a position of having an impact. And so far I am not seeing it.

The Tea Party is the closest candidate, and do far as I can see, the coalition that constitutes that "entity" is not up to the job. Sure, it is on the right side of issues more often than not - unlike both the Dems and Repubs. But it doesn't seem to be rooted in any defining principles, so it ends up being here, there, and everywhere in the concrete results. And its concrete results are pretty thin anyway. Just for example, would the various tea party local organizations uniformly refuse to back a candidate who, 15 years ago, divorced his wife and married his secretary, with whom he now has 3 children? From what I can tell, the answer is no, they wouldn't be uniform about the matter.

"Given the acceleration of cycles due to (a) high-intensity media and internet putting news out in minutes, and (b) democratic social patterns, the likelihood is that we shall condense any Roman-like period of decline into a much shorter time."

Weaver said something along those lines in IHQ. I'll have to see if I can find the quote.

Looks like I will not have to be blogging even a small modern data point showing the hereditary monarch attempting to check contemporary evils:

http://www.lalibre.be/actu/belgique/le-roi-a-signe-la-loi-sur-l-extension-de-l-euthanasie-531057e535708d729d84c1ab

Conservatives who place all the blame on "judicial oligarchs" or "the media" not only put forward a very weak argument they are also dishonest in not pointing out the role corporate America has played. It is really easy to blame it all on elite manipulation and "judicial tyranny" but the fact is if Roe were overturned tomorrow the majority of American jurisdictions would vote in SSM and abortion. After all it was the great conservative icon Ronald Reagan who got the ball rolling on abortion-

On June 14, 1967, Ronald Reagan signed the Therapeutic Abortion Act, after only six months as California governor. From a total of 518 legal abortions in California in 1967, the number of abortions would soar to an annual average of 100,000 in the remaining years of Reagan’s two terms — more abortions than in any U.S. state prior to the advent of Roe v. Wade. Reagan’s signing of the abortion bill was an ironic beginning for a man often seen as the modern father of the pro-life movement.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/223437/reagans-darkest-hour/paul-kengor

Ita, that's lame. If you read what I write, you will see that I have very clearly _not_ placed "all" the blame on oligarchical judicial decisions, but I have placed _some_ of it there, and for good reason. If you don't think the blame I have placed belongs there, then you don't know American history. Moreover, it's silly to talk about what would happen _now_ after decades of, say, Roe v. Wade, as though that were not part of the _cause_ of current attitudes. Actually, it's a tribute to both pro-lifers and to the nature of the issue that the issue is still alive *at all* after all these years of its being a "constitutional right." \\

I also note your highly selective and snarky quotations from that interesting National Review article, which _clearly explains_ that Reagan a) thought he was signing a much more restrictive abortion law than turned out to be the case in practice, b) became a "conservative icon" on this issue later in part *because of* his sense of guilt at having liberalized abortion law in California.

But people like you are too busy taking quotations out of context to score points against the conservatives you hate (because they aren't radical enough for your taste) to note something even that nuanced. Not that that takes much nuance. Just reading, you know, both pages of the article and not taking a quotation out of context for highly partisan purposes.

I'll give Ita this: That's a fascinating article.

You should reread what I actually wrote:

place all the blame on "judicial oligarchs" or "the media"

You see? I did not just accuse you of placing all the blame on the judiciary. When they're not blasting the judiciary conservatives blame the media for their failures.

Moreover, it's silly to talk about what would happen _now_ after decades of, say, Roe v. Wade, as though that were not part of the _cause_ of current attitudes

It's not silly at all especially when your hero, Justice Scalia, essentially says he "wouldn't have a problem with abortion if it were democratically implemented" which it would be of course were Roe to be overturned. If that is the moral stance of conservatism's "best" well is it any wonder you have lost the culture war?

Yeah color me astonished that National Review would try to defend Reagan. Since you are such an astute historian Lydia, could you tell me what else Reagan did for the pro-life movement? Pretty please? (Aside from appointing Justice O'Connor and Justice Kennedy of course).

"Conservatives who place all the blame on "judicial oligarchs" or "the media" not only put forward a very weak argument they are also dishonest in not pointing out the role corporate America has played."

Two points:

1) Conservatives do not place all the blame on the media and the judiciary, as the comments above about education and a receptive populace indicate. The argument is not weak if one looks at it in its entirety; it's just that your typical liberals choose to gravitate to the bullet points and ignore the details.

2) A critique of the media contains an implied critique of the role of corporate America if one considers the fact that the media are controlled by large corporations. That many conservatives do not connect these dots does not mean that the connection isn't there. But there are many conservatives who see and note this connection.

Actually, I have heard Justice Scalia (in person, before an audience)discuss that very question, and he said in so many words that he believes abortion to be against the natural law and therefore would want to see it outlawed by due, constitutional process. I would be surprised if he has ever used so strong a phrase as "wouldn't have a problem with abortion." If he did, it was a highly infelicitous phrase for what he actually holds and has made quite clear, which is simply that he doesn't think abortion *is prohibited in the Constitution* and doesn't think he should tell a lie about the meaning of the Constitution to get that meaning out of it. On that I agree with him, so you can take away my pro-life card, too, with a bitter sneer, since that seems to be what you're all about--bitter sneers at fellow conservatives.

But frankly, Ita, I am not in a mood to let you turn this thread into a bashing session against other conservatives, a wide-ranging, "Hey, let's re-evaluate Ronald Reagan" session, and the like. The fact is that the National Review article contains additional facts of the matter, that you took a quotation from it out of context for your own bitter and unpleasant micro-partisan ends, and that you got called on it. Go jump in the lake. Hint: I am a sufficiently acute historian of W4 that I cannot think of anything you have done for the quality of discourse here, so we wouldn't be missing much without you.

Arizona's Bill 1062 passed the Senate with 57% in favor.
It passed the House with 55% in favor.
But got vetoed by just 1 person acting on the preferred advice of her favorite judges/lawyers.

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