Stop Fussing over Natural Law and Natural Right

just show that lefty thought is rubbish and start a new quest for meaning

Michael Anton: “Natural Right and the Traditional Reproach” and Paul Gottfried: “Contra Michael Anton and America’s Natural Right Underpinnings” are scrapping again over whether we conservatives should take our stand on “natural law” or “natural right.”

See also the comment by PowerLine.

And I agree. Natural law is a good idea, and so is natural right. And if you mix them together, I dare say, we will all live happily ever after.

But the problem is that our lefty friends don’t believe in no stinkin’ natural law. Or natural right. They believe in “human rights,” which is whatever the fashionable lefty thinker of the day first thought of.

What we need, first, second, and last, is a critique of lefty thought. And a reconstruction of the meaning of “life, the universe, everything” based on a sensible reading of German thought since Kant. That is all.

The fact is that we live in a world post-Kant, in which we know that we do not know “things-in-themselves” but only appearances. A month ago the James Webb telescope send back an image — an appearance — that indicated that our understanding of the structure of the universe so far was no longer good enough. The scientists needed to come up with new equations and understanding to account for it.

I have addressed all this in my shortform “German Turn.” The belief system of our lefty friends is based upon what I would call a tendentious reading of the German Turn. Their faith is in an “equality” to be enforced by a special kind of hierarchy, a hierarchy where only lefty ideas and lefty politicians get to decide — well, everything. And anyone that disagrees is added to the mountain of skulls.

To oppose this with pre-Kant ideas about natural right and/or natural law misses the point. We need to oppose our lefty friends with their own ideas. We need to show how their interpretation of the German Turn is farcical and tendentious, and leads anywhere and everywhere not to a an imagined beneficial equality but to a horrific nightmare that reduces human life and human society to a military hierarchy designed to sacrifice the vast majority of humanity to death and destruction.

I say that equality is a fantasy; the question is what kind of hierarchy is most beneficial in turn to individuals, to groups, to humanity as a whole, and to the planet as a whole.

I say that top-down political supremacy is a nightmare; the question is how much top-down force is unavoidable to curb invaders and criminals.

I say that the sex-gender program of the left is insanity; the question is how much protection for women is necessary and beneficial for the survival of the species.

I say that the critique of the market economy from left and right misses the point; the question is how to promote trust and reciprocity and benevolence.

I say that one-size-fits-all religion — and culture and politics — misses the point; the question is to nurture faith traditions that provide meaning at least for Subordinates, for Responsibles, and Creatives.

I say that politics is only useful in an emergency; the question is how to cool the jets of hucksters that are out selling fake emergencies every hour of every day.

I say that subjecting humans to government education, government health care, and government pensions is a monstrosity; humans need to provide for them and theirs — individually, in family, in groups, in nations, on the planet as a whole — in order to find meaning in life.

And I say that the Antons and the Gottfrieds are missing the point; the question is how to start a new quest of meaning based on the ordinary middle-class Commoner as the center of gravity of the human world.

And that is all.