Mysterious Things

So wrote the late revered Benito Mussolini.

"Everything I have said and done in these last years is relativism, by intuition. From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, that all ideologies are mere fictions, the modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own ideology, and to attempt to enforce it with all the energy of which he is capable. If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories, and men who claim to be the bearers of an objective immortal truth, then there is nothing more relativistic than fascism."

The quotation is from 1921's Diuturna, according to the commenter 'srdc' in Damian T.'s comment thread here (the post itself is on some awful Caitlin Moran woman's bigotry; she writes for the Times, although the quotation at the head of the post was sent out on Twitter).

But he knows what "standards of inclusivity" means in the benighted world of autogelded academic administration.  He's commenting on the case of Dr Kenneth Howell, formerly of the University of Illinois, who sent this e.mail to students as part of their academic coursework, preparatory to an exam.

Update on Saturday, July 10, 2010 at 19:39 by Marc

The Way of the Fathers' Mike Aquilina knows Dr Howell's work and reputation, and reports that he is preparing a new edition of the Apostolic Fathers, with works of Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna being already available.

To be able to respond so politely and irenically to Professor Perry.  The fact is that I haven't really been following this particular bout between the Catholics professing and the Catholics dissenters--Professor Perry and his party are 'down' on the Sovereign Pontiff's use of the term 'relativism' (as I understand it, both because the Vicar of Christ, Successor of the Apostles Saints Peter and Paul, the Bishop of the Catholic Church, doesn't use the correct academic precisions and then also because what his Holiness has written does rather tend to limit the fun the dissenters can enjoy).  It's true that 'in real life' I am myself much more patient and, well, irenic, when I happen to be engaged in conversations on religion or, more specifically, about Holy Church; here on Mysterious Things, though, pace Mons Zavala, it is much more useful and expedient to call black black and white white, and dissenters dissenters... and to use the Atheists/Heretics/Schismatics tag.

Had me wondering what I had missed when the case had been argued before the Supreme Court, the author or authors excitedly going on ("the justices recognised that the Vatican can be sued in civil court for the actions of pedophile priests") most irresponsibly; John Allen at the ENCR thought to report attorney Jeffrey Lena's reaction:

Today the Supreme Court decided not to grant the Holy See's petition for certiorari. These decisions are made based upon the Supreme Court's docket and what cases it wishes to hear each term. The decision not to hear the case is not [necessarily--MP] a comment on the merits of our case (importantly, the United States does agree that we are correct on the merits). The effect of the Supreme Court's decision is to cause the case to return to the district court in Oregon, where the additional remaining defenses will be heard.

Plaintiff currently has one jurisdictional theory left. That theory is that the priest who committed the abuse was an 'employee' of the Holy See. 

We will, of course, point out to the district court that the priest in question is not an employee of the Holy See, and that, therefore, the district court does not have jurisdiction over the case.

In our view the indicia of employment simply are not present....

And if the idiot courts here go completely insane and the plaintiff wins, then eventually the Supreme Court will actually rule on the merits: and for all its faults it isn't a court in Oregon nor its members judges of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, ahem.

Or smoke or put on my make up while driving, tsk.

Professor Somin takes a first look at Professor Drezner's book on zombies and other stuff.

"And it is that he deserved it...."  Joseph Bottum at First Things continues:

... The murder he committed twenty-five years ago still cries to the heavens for justice. And maybe it does. Certainly it does. But where, exactly, does the State of Utah get the authority to answer the calls on heaven? Where, exactly, does a modern nation, founded on no deliberate godly principle, derive its power to kill in the name of high justice? This is a nation, after all, that refused—with the infamous “mystery” passage in Casey v. Planned Parenthood—to protect the unborn, precisely because, the Supreme Court said, no such metaphysical foundation can be imposed by government. So where do these assertions of divinely based power for the death penalty come from?...

The entire essay well repays a read.  Perceptive readers of Casey realised then that the Supreme Court was well on the way toward stripping the Union of its legitimacy.

Political and constitutional are in fact not actually all that thoughtful, eh. Tsk. The Michigan constitution requires that Mr Patterson is ineligible for re-election this year.

Whose daughters can no longer be given away in marriage by their fathers; David Pryce-Jones blogs at National Review on the EU Gender Equality Bill:

... One provision of this preposterous and impudent measure is that fathers are no longer allowed to give away their daughters in the traditional church ceremony. Apparently that is to treat daughters as chattels. The whole European Union is on the point of breaking up, Greece is in flames and the Germans about to rebel, several countries in the eurozone are bankrupt beyond redemption, the euro itself has failed and soon there may be no currency for Europeans to trade in--and the giant statesmen of Brussels come up with a prohibition on fathers giving away their daughters in marriage as fathers have done in country after country, century after century....

I expect that the various national Equality Bills will soften the hardest edges of this Eurononsense but, pft, when the entire edifice collapses this, too, will pass.

By his Holiness the Sovereign Pontiff. Dr Peters is a well-known canonist, and the father of Thomas Peters of American Papist.

Update on Saturday, May 22, 2010 at 19:29 by Marc

Dr Peters's announcement on In the Light of the Law.

As Professor George points out to Professor Perry at Mirror of Justice.  A supremely tolerant man, perhaps (if to tolerate is "to bear without repugnance; to allow intellectually, or in taste, sentiment, or principle; to put up with"). 

Professor Robert George goes on to note that he trusts she will answer all the sorts of questions in the Senate which she professed to expect that Judges Roberts and Alito should have answered. 

This post at Police Inspector Blog is as much as I care to fuss with tonight.  The Inspector's third happy consequence of the change of government:

...When a person tells us to fuck off and either runs away or tries to stab us, we will be allowed to refer to this as criminal behaviour, instead of excusing it by explaining that this is a totally acceptable cultural reaction to dealing with aggressive colonial authority.

They are much worse off in most of the UK than most of us are in the United States, although there are regions and cities where the barbarity is just as choking here as it is there.

Or so someone or some persons in Mr Obama's corps of retainers may well be thinking, according to Stewart Baker at Volokh Conspiracy.  The terrorist murderer Omar Khadr "has become a cause", as "a senior administration official" has put it in the Washington Post, and the politicians in DC are worried: Mr Khadr was fifteen when he committed his crimes.

... So what’s the problem with the case?  It is widely believed to have a stronger evidentiary basis than any other likely military prosecution.  Despite this, the administration is apparently so spooked by emanations and penumbras of international law that it is ready to send the killer of an American soldier back to his loathsome family after a few years — and perhaps immediately, if he gets credit for eight years already served.

At that point, Omar Khadr will be in his twenties and living just a three-hour drive from the world’s longest undefended border.

Gee, what could go wrong with that?

I suspect that Mr Khadr will serve many, many years in prison, when all is said and done: that there is liable to be some injustice in that, I freely grant. But I'm not willing to execute him, nor have the civil power do so, and there is something to be said for the fact that his relative youth may have predisposed him to a prudential misjudgment or two or three, and it is just possible that decades in the solitude of a prison will allow him to come to some comprehension of the enormity of his crimes.  Human life is unjust (which is another way of repeating the canon of the Second Council of Orange, "Homo non habet de se nisi mendacium").

By Nicole Winfield of the Associated Press at Religion Clause; it's much better than one might expect.

Update on Sunday, April 18, 2010 at 11:06 by Marc

Yesterday was Religion Clause's fifth anniversary....

Perpetrated by Messrs Dawkins, Hitchens et alii; his commenters seem to have a sounder judgment in this matter than does the good jurist.

Update on Tuesday, April 13, 2010 at 20:29 by Marc

And then there is Australia's Bob Ellis, who seems to be in a different league altogether. 

But Michael Cook at MercatorNet does a professional job of it.  Robertson is a crank known for his mania about the sovereignty of the Holy See and its international position. 

On 'the Obama health care event'.  They are, in order of appearance, here, here, here, here, and here.  Professor Sisk is Orestes A. Brownson Professor of Law at the University of St Thomas in Minneapolis. From the final post:

... The most pleasant, if least likely, scenario is that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 will afford universal health care coverage, ensure quality and secure health care for all Americans, and reduce the national debt-- all at the same time, just as promised by President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Majority Leader Reid.  We can all join hands, sing “Kumbaya”, and skip joyfully into the promised land of milk and honey.

My grim forecasts of burgeoning government, national insolvency, eroding individual freedom, and declining health care-- the subjects of my posts all this week-- will be shown up as the depressing interjections of a foolish pessmist.  But, to quote an Eagles song from the 1970s, “I could be wrong.  But I’m not.” ...

I think one can never be too pessimistic about politicians and their nonsense, as long as at one and the same time one knows that grace and the human imagination and will can effect truly marvellous works of justice and good. We shall see.

Professor Kerr at Volokh Conspiracy has noted that PPACA (do I have that right?)--according to the New York Times, as he says--has "buried" in it the requirement that McDonalds, Starbucks et al post the calorie count on drive through menu boards and on the menus themselves (how many calories in that breakfast at IHOP?....).  Many of the commenters are commendably acerbic or amusing or both.

The bill Mr Obama signed into law today, and I am waiting to see the Left writers there respond to his upcoming posts.

... To be sure, President Obama and Speaker Pelosi triumphantly announced Sunday’s vote in the House of Representative as culmination of a century of efforts to enshrine quality health care coverage as a basic right for all Americans.  In his typically self-reverential and rhetorical excess, President Obama declared last September to a joint session of Congress:  “I am not the first president to take up [the health care] cause, but I am determined to be the last.”

What nonsense.  There never was any chance that the complex and constantly evolving set of policy, political, economic, and technical issues surrounding access to health care could be magically resolved for all time by a single piece of legislation enacted by any political party in any particular year.  In fact, the legislation enacted by the Democratic Congress on Sunday and signed into law today by President Obama is so defective that it guarantees that the health care mess will be passed on to the next Congress and the next President and the next generation (here).

Speaker Pelosi admonished the American people that “ we have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it” (video here)  We have arrived at that day.  And, as the attentive knew in advance, the most significant elements of this legislation do not take effect for months or years and remain contingent on a series of future actions (read: yet more political votes) by Congress over the next several years....

Quite frankly, I am heartily sick of paying attention to the health care reform nonsense, and for a fortnight or so am going to retreat to my default political position (which is, inveigh against the pro-abortionists, the partisans of the 'culture of death', and the Mohammedans on jihad, but otherwise only notice those things that are ironically amusing or amusingly embarrassing to politicians).  Not going to concern myself with November until after Pentecost.  I haven't the faintest idea why the formatting of this is so effing screwed up pft but am not going spend any more time on it.