I received the following from a law student, and I think the student's profound questions go to the heart of our project at MOJ. Can the law educate? How can it educate? How should it account for human weakness, sin, and the Fall? I would hope that MOJ authors and readers of all political stripes will take a stab at an answer.
Here is the email:
I just got done reading this article by David Mamet (a playwright who uses the word "f--k" anytime he needs a syllable filled in) about his conversion from liberalism to conservativism.
Reading the article, the thing I'm struck by most is just how quietly reasonable the whole thing is. I mean, essentially what he says is that liberals are always forgetting that people are too fallen for government to do much since everyone seeks his or her self interest. Why should we not create a system in which each person pursuing his or her self interest (what they will do anyway) will create the best outcomes?
I actually kind of buy all of that. I do believe that that is how people will behave most of the time (if any one thing is plainly universal, it’s the fall). BUT a Thomistic view of the law is precisely that law SHOULD be a school (contra Mamet) and not just a marketplace; that it has a teaching mechanism about what is valuable and what is good; that this mechanism is invaluable in helping people to rise above this base self interest and become good.
So then, realizing that this is no small question, what to do? It seems wise to create a system that accounts for human beings acting as we know they will act (concupiscence dictates that, this side of paradise, we can count on this truth). But if that action is not the way people should act, is it good to create a system that relies on and glorifies this self-interest seeking? And is it good to sacrifice law's educational role in order to create a system that works relatively well? Do we expect people to act in accord with original sin, as Mamet suggests, or do we give opportunities for them to rise above it, realizing it may not happen at all?
A final note about how flawed our system of self interest is. I just got done reading a case for Business Associations about Henry Ford. Turns out Ford wasn't worried about profits, but really just wanted to make cars affordable, give people jobs at good wages, and get cars into every home. He got sued by his own shareholders for not seeking his own - and, as a result, their - interest. And they won, despite the fact that they were making tons of money anyway.
Anyway, this juxtaposition (knowing how people will act v. teaching them not to act that way) really struck me. And I'm not sure what to do with it. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
LONDON (AP) — Paul Scofield, the towering British stage actor who won international fame and an Academy Award for the film "A Man for All Seasons," has died. He was 86.
Scofield died Wednesday in a hospital near his home in southern England, agent Rosalind Chatto said. He had been suffering from leukemia.
Scofield made few films even after the Oscar for his 1966 portrayal of Tudor statesman Sir Thomas More. He was a stage actor by inclination and by his gifts — a dramatic, craggy face and an unforgettable voice that was likened to a Rolls Royce starting up or the rumbling sound of low organ pipes.
Even his greatest screen role was a follow up to a play — the London stage production of "A Man for All Seasons," in which he starred for nine months. Scofield also turned in a performance in the 1961 New York production that won him extraordinary reviews and a Tony Award.
"With a kind of weary magnificence, Scofield sinks himself into the part, studiously underplays it, and somehow displays the inner mind of a man destined for sainthood," Time magazine's said.
Actor Richard Burton, once regarded as the natural heir to Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud at the summit of British theater, said it was Scofield who deserved that place. "Of the 10 greatest moments in the theater, eight are Scofield's," he said.
Scofield was an unusual star — a family man who lived almost his entire life within a few miles of his birthplace in southern England and hurried home after work to his wife and children. He didn't seek the spotlight, gave interviews sparingly, and at times seemed to need coaxing to venture out, even onto the stage he loved.
This morning I read Rick's review of Till We Have Built Jerusalem: Architecture, Urbaniam, and the Sacred, which appears in the March issue of First Things. (I look forward to reading the book). As I read, my memory brought me back to a recent trip to Pepperdine where I participated in two thought provoking conferences organized by MOJ friend, Bob Cochran. This was only my second time in Malibu. I tend to like traditional (and grand) church buildings and on my first trip to Malibu, I remember thinking that the Catholic Church, Our Lady of Malibu, was an unimpressive structure that really didn't signify the sacred. This was especially surprising given the wealth in Malibu.
Sometimes it takes a while for my eyes to adjust; I saw Our Lady of Malibu in a totally different light this time. When one is surrounded by palaces, maybe the best way to see the grandeur of God and the scandal of the Incarnation is in simplicity, after all Jesus entered the world in a stable in Betheleham. On this recent trip, I also went to the cathedral, Our Lady of the Angels, which I was prepared to dislike because of its distinctly modern features. Instead, I found the starkness of this structure, which lifted my gaze heavenward, to be be witness to LA's culture of glitz and glamour. My sense, after this recent trip, is that how we construct our sacred may very well depend upon the time, place, and circumstances.
That was the headline from the Catholic League this morning. And, this is their email:
"It was reported over the weekend that Sen. John McCain denounced anti-Catholicism and explicitly mentioned Rev. John Hagee’s role. McCain said that “I repudiate any comments that are made, including Pastor Hagee’s, if they are anti-Catholic or offensive to Catholics.”
Catholic League president Bill Donohue commented as follows:
“Sen. McCain has done the right thing and we salute him for doing so. As far as the Catholic League is concerned, this case is closed.'”
Responding to Jamie Smith’s comments, Jonathan Watson writes:“As a quick note - the bill President Bush vetoed was H.R. 2082 - It's the general appropriations intelligence bill.This was not a veto of Sen. Kennedy’s bill, S. 1943, which is a bill “To establish uniform standards for interrogation techniques applicable to individuals under the custody or physical control of the United States Government. (Introduced in Senate).”
Here is the President's stated reasoning. It appears that there are 4-5 reasons the bill was vetoed. This is what the President said about interrogation methods:
"Section 327 of the bill would harm our national security by requiring any element of the Intelligence Community to use only the interrogation methods authorized in the Army Field Manual on Interrogations. It is vitally important that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) be allowed to maintain a separate and classified interrogation program. The Army Field Manual is directed at guiding the actions of nearly three million active duty and reserve military personnel in connection with the detention of lawful combatants during the course of traditional armed conflicts, but terrorists often are trained specifically to resist techniques prescribed in publicly available military regulations such as the Manual. The CIA's ability to conduct a separate and specialized interrogation program for terrorists who possess the most critical information in the War on Terror has helped the United States prevent a number of attacks, including plots to fly passenger airplanes into the Library Tower Los Angeles and into Heathrow Airport or buildings in downtown London. While details of the current CIA program are classified, the Attorney General has reviewed it and determined that it is lawful under existing domestic and international law, including Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. I remain committed to an intelligence-gathering program that complies with our legal obligations and our basic values as a people. The United States opposes torture, and I remain committed to following international and domestic law regarding the humane treatment of people in its custody, including the "Detainee Treatment Act of 2005."
My disagreement over section 327 is not over any particular interrogation technique; for instance, it is not over waterboarding, which is not part of the current CIA program. Rather, my concern is the need to maintain a separate CIA program that will shield from disclosure to al Qaeda and other terrorists the interrogation techniques they may face upon capture. In accordance with a clear purpose of the "Military Commissions Act of 2006," my veto is intended to allow the continuation of a separate and classified CIA interrogation program that the Department of Justice has determined is lawful and that operates according to rules distinct from the more general rules applicable to the Department of Defense. While I will continue to work with the Congress on the implementation of laws passed in this area in recent years, I cannot sign into law a bill that would prevent me, and future Presidents, from authorizing the CIA to conduct a separate, lawful intelligence program, and from taking all lawful actions necessary to protect Americans from attack."
Jamie Smith, a student in my Jurisprudence Seminar, has these thoughtful comments and questions in response to the President's veto of a bill that would have banned various interrogation techniques, including waterboarding.
"I was stunned to learn of President Bush's veto of the ban on waterboarding. The ban would not just have applied to water boarding, but also to burning, beating, the use of dogs, stripping detainees, and even forcing them to perform or mimic sexual acts. Basically, every act from the infamous Abu Ghraib photos that shocked and disgusted the American public has been declared by President Bush, to not only be legal, but to be "valuable" in the war on terror. Valuable? Really? As a student in Professor Scaperlanda's Jurisprudence Seminar, the first thought that came to mind when reading about this veto, is the human dignity of every individual. For many weeks now, our class has discussed the idea that human beings have inherent and inviolate dignity, simply from "being". My question is, "does this apply to terrorists who want to kill Americans"? "Is there a way to treat prisoners with dignity while still getting valuable information from them"? To answer this question, I thought about my reaction, as well as others, to the Abu Ghraib photos when they were first released. I knew, as well as others, that the prisoners in the photos were terrorists, that they hated Americans, and that they had participated in evil plans to kill and harm America. But when looking at the photos, my reaction was of disgust. Why woud I be disgusted to see humiliating photos of a complete stranger that hated America and my way of life? Perhaps, simply because the photo was of another human being. Apart from his conduct or the sins he may have committed, he is human, just like me. And because of that, without myself even having been in such a humiliating situation, I felt and knew at the core of my being when viewing those photos, that they were "wrong", that it is inhuman to violate the dignity of any human being in such a way. But at the same time, I'm torn between this basic truth of human dignity and the atrocities committed by these prisoners. I'm not quite sure how to reconcile these two issues.
I can say that the possible consequence of President Bush's veto will have not just an impact the law but human rights theories as well. What does this say about America and how we value the individual? And what message are we sending to other countries by participating in such practices? If we do not recognize the dignity of foreign individuals, I question then, how much we recognize the dignity of our own citizens."
My student, Ash Mayfield, brought the following to my attention.
Jim Roberts of KTBS reports:
"Sister Cristina Angelini has been called the heart and soul of Shreveport's Renzi Center, an early child development center run by the Catholic church.
But the federal government might be getting ready to tear that heart out. In a country where there are millions of illegal aliens -- and a shortage of Catholic sisters -- the feds are threatening to make her leave and return to her native Italy.
Exactly why, the government couldn't tell KTBS News today. It might be a bureaucratic mixup.
Sister Cristina got a letter from the government last week, telling her she must leave the U.S. by the end of the month.
She had applied to extend her visa and thought she was approved.
Then the letter from immigration officials arrived.
"I was very shocked and confused," Sister Cristina said today. "I don't know why this happened."
Angelini would not discuss specifics pending a conference with immigration officials later this week. But the reason for the deportation could have something to do with Hurricane Katrina and delays in processing her paperwork at immigration's New Orleans office.
But she and her lawyer are having a hard time maneuvering through the government's red tape."
James Martin, SJ, had an interesting op-ed in the NYT yesterday.
"LAST month, while Americans celebrated the feast days of two secular saints, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, the Vatican issued a surprising new directive calling for greater rigor in its own saint-making process. ...
Even the standard for verifying miracles, arguably the aspect of the process that causes the most eye-rolling among agnostics and atheists, is famously strict. The Congregation draws on teams of doctors (not all of them Catholic) who assiduously rule out any other cause for a healing. Typically, the person cured will have prayed for the saint’s intercession. Any miracle must be instantaneous, permanent and medically verifiable. Those “cured” cannot simply have improved, cannot relapse and cannot have sought medical care (or at least must have given it up well before the miracle). Consequently, the verification process can take decades, as doctors monitor the stricken person’s progress.
Vatican standards for miracles are high not simply because the church is seeking irrefutable evidence of divine intervention, but because the church has much to lose if a miracle is later debunked. The Oxford historian Ruth Harris, for example, uncovered evidence of several early “healings” at the French shrine of Lourdes that were widely held to be miracles by the local populace, but which were rejected by exacting church officials worried about a rush to judgment. "
Michael P. has posted a serious question from a devout Catholic 3L who is troubled by McCain's failure to distance himself from the anti-Catholic Hagee. Michael asks me among others to respond to the student. Here is my response - I'll be glad to discuss this question privately with the student, but I do not (or only very rarely) discuss partisan politics or elections publicly.
To my mind our culture has a disordered obsession with electoral politics, and I personally know several people who treat politics as a god of sorts. The Catholic Legal Theory project transcends today's partisan divide, proposing a more authentically human anthropology as a grounding for our society, a grounding that requires rethinking of certain assumptions by those on the left as well as those on the right. I prefer to work in this arena, taking the longer term view of the project in a way that frees me from the temporal/political labels of today's politics. I can't, of course, prevent others from assigning the left/right, liberal/conservative labels to me, but I don't want to do it to myself. As an immigration law professor, I often find myself in the company of very liberal folks who by and large don't know and don't talk to people on the right. As a constitutional professor who cares deeply about the sanctity of life for all human persons including the unborn, I often find myself in the company of very conservative folks who by and large don't know and don't talk to people on the left. Maybe I'm just pissing in the wind (sorry for the language Rob!), but I like to think that I can participate in building some long-term bridges by not being publicly partisan in my short-term politics.
I am not judging anyone else who engages publicly in partisan politics. It needs to be done, I think those of us on MOJ have a lot to contribute to the discussion, and I understand that readers flock to MOJ when we are discussing partisan politics. All I'm saying is that it isn't my cup of tea for what I judge to be good reasons. This also doesn't mean that I don't have opinions about these matters. I have already decided which party's candidate I will back for president, and it is doubtful that my position will change over the next 9 months.
