Intellectual Bubble

Grouchy old Tom Hobbes and smooth-talking John Locke in a quiet, conservative moment. Horse Feathers.

Le tout-Washington is talking about a new book, James Comey's memoir of the events leading up to his firing as FBI director (A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership), so David F. Brooks is talking literature as well, seeing "A Renaissance on the Right": "all the political turmoil is creating a burst of intellectual creativity on the right" in which "Young, fresh writers are bursting on the scene" (getting stuck using the word "burst" twice in a space of 13 words gives you an idea of how fresh David Brooks is) such as Charles C.W. ("Cromulent Whiskers") Cooke, Mollie Hemingway, and James Poulos among other even younger and fresher names I'm not so familiar with, but the youngest and freshest of all is our old friend Jonah Goldberg, entering the field with his own immensely subtitled new book, Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy, which might sound better in the original German (Selbstmord des Abendlandes).

Which I'm not likely to be reading any time soon, after the disclaimer with which it begins—

Spiritual wut?

La Sainte-Cène du Patriarche, Jean Huber, 1772-73. Image via German Wikipedia. I think Diderot is the wigless man in black seated at right; Voltaire, in the red cap, the Patriarche of the title and the host of the gathering at his exile home in Ferney, is waving for attention, about to make a quip. 

This nation was not founded on political principles - this nation was founded on spiritual principles. https://t.co/CoKDlQOGYn #PFF15

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) November 21, 2015

Just the same old shit, obviously, that according to the Declaration of Independence all men are

endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights

which means that they're spiritual rights, not political rights, since the Lord laid them on us without even asking which ones we wanted, though it seems to me like a questionable reading in the first place; I mean honestly what is spiritual about "liberty" or "the pursuit of happiness"? If you believe in a kind of personal Creator, who endowed you with a nose, does that mean your nose is a spiritual rather than physiological property? If it's thanks to the Deity that we have a propensity to argue about politics, does that mean political discussion itself is spiritual rather than political?

I may actually have something new to say on this subject (I'm going to sketch an argument that Jefferson's formulation of natural rights owes less than commonly understood to the good Protestant Locke and much more to the atheist Diderot), but I want to work toward it backwards, starting on the more familiar territory of what Jefferson, as opposed to the Declaration, said.

Exchange: Locke and Load

The Founder of British Empiricism. Portrait by Sir Godfrey Knellor, 1697, via.

Another day, another comment war. This one at Crooks & Liars involving Dr. Ben Carson's assertion that the religion of Islam is incompatible with the US Constitution and a callow conservative who goes by Alex—sounds like he's about 20, but he uses Forbes Magazine as a source of scholarship on political philosophy, regarding it as "pretty objective", so he might well be 80.

DR. BEN CARSON: Well, I guess it depends on what that faith is. If it's inconsistent with the values and principles of America, then of course it should matter. But if it fits within the realm of America and consistent with the constitution, no problem.

CHUCK TODD: So do you believe that Islam is consistent with the constitution?

DR. BEN CARSON: No, I don't, I do not.

CHUCK TODD: So you--

DR. BEN CARSON: I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that.

CHUCK TODD: And would you ever consider voting for a Muslim for Congress?

DR. BEN CARSON: Congress is a different story, but it depends on who that Muslim is and what their policies are, just as it depends on what anybody else says, you know. (transcript from Real Clear Politics)

Note how assiduously Alex works to turn the his opponents' argument from a complaint on Dr. Carson's ignorance of the Establishment Clause (and the Religious Test clause of Article VI) to a ridiculous gripe about Dr. Carson's right to vote for any asshole he wants to vote for.