Like Rick Garnett, I know little of the Spanish Civil War. I do not think the Church should have supported either side. Its tight connections with Franco served to damage the Church in the long run (as Jose Casanova has shown convincingly) as have most of its tight connections with dictators. (Is Constantine an exception?).
With respect to abortion, I understand the argument for the analogy. I do not understand the purpose of the analogy. Surely, it would not persuade anyone who favors Roe. Those who favor Roe do not think that the unborn have the same moral status as the born. The Spanish Civil War analogy does nothing to speak to them. Perhaps it is designed to light a fire under those already persuaded. But if those persuaded already see abortion as mass murder, I do not see the point.
In any event, if Stith is right in the Stith/Penalver dispute, I think it over the top to maintain that the impingements on religious liberty (notice I am not now talking about abortion) in the United States are comparable to the murders in Spain. I agree that hospitals should not be forced to have abortions or supply contraceptives (though I do not think government need fund hospitals that do not offer the care government seeks to support). I agree that Mormons should not be subjected to violence (to what extent are they?; Is the Spanish Civil War really an apt comparison here?) or discrimination (though I think far more than Rob's view in Commonweal (an otherwise excellent article) that they are fair subjects of criticism as are all citizens; in this respect and in many others I do not agree with Rawls' public reason doctrine).
Stith says that the actions of the Republican regime explain (but do not justify) the violent reaction. Perhaps I have to sunny a view. I do not see Catholic or Mormon violence (in reaction to infringements on religious liberty) on the horizon in the United States. Again I am having trouble seeing the pragmatic point of the analogy to the Spanish Civil War. If it is just an intellectual exercise. Fine. Nothing wrong with that.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
The Spanish Civil War
The Church and Freedom of Speech
Rick recently posted about obscenity and pornography including links that were helpful on the damage done by such speech. (One of the authors, however, seems not to know that obscenity is not protected (leaving Stanley aside) under the First Amendment and the other either does not know of the Miller case or gives it an unwarranted narrow reading). I think the rise of the internet makes enforcement of obscenity laws much more difficult. Nonetheless, I think the outlawing of obscenity at worst has expressive value, and I find it regrettable that the MacKinnon ordinance was not given a triaI effort in some areas. I am interested in the extent to which the Church's position on speech issues compares with current law. I would be grateful if someone could point me on or off site to the Church's views on obscenity, defamation, and privacy in particular. I know that the Church opposes pornography. I think the Church should be opposed to a culture that sanctions the invasions of privacy protected under American law (as opposed to Germany and France) though I do not know of statements to this effect. I would be greatful for information about Church lobbying in these areas as well. I have no clue what the Church might have said about defamation (my views are more U.S. oriented here than European).
Response to Eduardo
Our friend and former colleague Eduardo -- who has, to my great regret, decided to give dotCommonweal a monopoly on his blogging time -- has, several times over the years, suggested that the failure of pro-lifers to call for civil war calls into question the sincerity of their claims to regard abortion as a great moral evil. And, as Michael P. notes, he has made the argument again, in this post, in response to Richard Stith's. (Here, just for variety, is a post on this same question, by Will Baude.)
Because Eduardo and I have both posted many times on this question -- i.e., "if you say you think abortion is homicide, are you therefore required to punish women who procure abortions in the same way you punish murderers; if you think abortion is a monstrous moral evil, and that Roe is as wrong and illegitimate as any decision in history, are you therefore committed to violent civil war? -- and because I cannot seem to find the old posts, I'll just say, "no, you are not." And, with all respect to Eduardo, I really don't understand why he would think otherwise.
To be clear -- I don't know near as much about the Spanish Civil War as Eduardo does, and so am not speaking to the Stith-Penalver debate. And, I'm pretty sure that among my many faults is not a proclivity for what Eduardo calls "unhinged . . . rhetoric." I'm confused, though, by Eduardo's discomfort -- indeed, his insistence that those of us who say it can't really mean what we are saying -- with the observations that to the extent our current legal regime makes it impossible to regulate meaningfully what is a great moral wrong that regime is deeply flawed and that to the extent this feature of our legal regime reflects our culture's moral premises and priorities, our culture is deeply flawed, too.
Maybe Eduardo will rethink his ship-jumping to that other site, and come back home. =-) Clearly, I'm trying to goad him into doing just that.
The "Stimulus" Package
With respect to Network's endorsement, which Michael P. posted recently, of the "stimulus" package, it seems to me that, whatever one thinks of the social-justice or other merits of the various spending items listed by Network, the fact that the package includes provisions requiring discrimination against religious schools and universities is one (of many) reason(s) to withhold full throated support for this bloated monstrosity spending measure.
Eightmaps
An interesting story, about "eightmaps", a site that takes the names and ZIP codes of people who donated to California's Prop. 8 — information that California collects and makes public under state campaign finance disclosure laws — and overlays the data on a Google map:
FOR the backers of Proposition 8, the state ballot measure to stop single-sex couples from marrying in California, victory has been soured by the ugly specter of intimidation.
Some donors to groups supporting the measure have received death threats and envelopes containing a powdery white substance, and their businesses have been boycotted.
Intimidation is bad, of course, but we're supposed to think that disclosure and transparency are good, right? So, what about this?
Pornography and the Freedom of Speech
I teach a course on the Freedom of Speech, which focuses primarily on the First Amendment. Each year, I struggle with the presentation of the cases and debates about obscenity and pornography. On the one hand, I am moved by limited state, slippery slope, "counterspeech, not regulation", civil-libertarian arguments. On the other, I am deeply unsatisfied by the view that pervades so much of our talk and thinking about regulating expression, i.e., "speech does not cause harm, and even if it does, pornography does not cause harms of a type that the government ought to be permitted to forestall through regulation." Of course speech causes harm; we simply choose (as, in my view, we usually should) to assume the risk of that harm, or to employ means other than regulation to prevent and redress it.
Anyway . . . check out these two thought-provoking essays, over at "Public Discourse", by Roger Scruton and James Stoner, on the matter.
The importance of Vatican City
David Gibson posted this, a few days ago, the 80th anniversary of the Lateran Pacts which, among other things, regularized the status of the Vatican. While I'm pretty sure there is not -- any longer, anyway -- a need for the Papal States, etc., it does seem to me that not only the freedom of the Church, but religious freedom generally, is powerfully aided by the fact that the Roman Catholic Church has a place. Thoughts?
Once it's gone . . .
. . . it's really hard to get back (a university's "Catholic character", that is). Or so this quote, from Prof. Maxim Shrayer, the chairman of the department of Slavic and Eastern languages and literatures at Boston College would suggest:
"I believe that the display of religious signs and symbols, such as the crucifix, in the classroom is contrary to the letter and spirt of open intellectual discourse that makes education worthwhile and distinguishes first-rate universities from mediocre and provincial ones," Maxim D. Shrayer, chairman of the department of Slavic and Eastern languages and literatures, said in an interview.
What twaddle.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
"Unhinged Abortion Rhetoric" and the State
Michael P. links to Eduardo's "Democracy and Abortion" post at dotCommonweal. Setting aside the question of whether using certain rhetoric, analogies, or comparisons is prudent or not in a given setting, Eduardo continues to attempt to dodge the central reality of the unborn's humanity by suggesting that if the pro-life movement really believed that abortion in America was the state sanctioned taking of an innocent human life, a bloody civil war would be justified against an illegitimate regime. Since most pro-lifers don't advocate a bloody civil war, Eduardo concludes that talk of abortion as murder - or as "a form of mass-murder" - is "mostly just that - talk."
What I hear in this post and others from Eduardo and pro-abortion rights advocates is "hey, pro-lifers, put up or shut up. If you really believe abortion is murder or the intentional killing of an innocent human being, then you must take action. And, if you really believe your own rhetoric, then you must work to ban all abortion. If the state won't bend, then you must attempt to overthrow the regime, by violence if necessary. If you are unwilling to do this, then shut up because you don't truly believe your own rhetoric. We the pro-choicers can dismiss you because you're just just talk."
This is an interesting rhetorical strategy for pro-abortion rights advocates to take. Instead of trying to persuade the persuadable that the pro-choice position is more reasonable than the pro-life position, the strategy is to avoid the question of the justness of abortion by telling the uncommitted person "don't go with the pro-lifers because they don't really believe their own talk; if they did they'd be taking up arms."
I don't think pro-lifers need to defend not taking up arms against the U.S. any more than non-violent abolitionists needed to defend not taking up arms against the U.S. in the period before the Civil War, or anymore than Karol Wojtyla needed to defend not taking up arms against the communist government in Poland, or anymore than Chinese Christians (and others) need to defend not taking up arms against their Communist government, or anymore than the the Jews needed to defend not taking up arms against the Roman occupation.
There are many ways of working to eradicate evil in our midst. That we don't advocate the most violent (and probably the most futile and wreckless) doesn't make us any less true believers in the cause to protect the unborn. Although Eduardo might find the rhetoric immoderate, abortion is the taking of innocent human life. Instead of criticising the rhetoric, analogies, and comparisons of pro-lifers, I'd hope Eduardo and others in his camp would tell us why the state is justified in authorizing private parties to take innocent human life.
When in Rome ... Stop by a Conference on School Funding
There may not be a lot of MOJ readers in Rome (or maybe there are -- and at the highest levels?) ... Anyhow, there is a conference this Monday in Rome on "State Financing of Catholic Schools," held at the Pontifical University Antonianum, and co-sponsored by the university's canon-law faculty and the Acton Institute. I'll be speaking along with Acton's president Fr. Robert Sirico and its research director Dr. Sam Gregg. I'll speak on America's pattern of refusing funding to K-12 religious schools and on whether that tradition can be consistent with an appreciation for institutional pluralism.
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