Rejecting Textualist Justices

President Trump just nominated a textualist, Judge Neil Gorsuch, to the Supreme Court.

It is likely that many Democrats will cry foul and attempt to block the nomination. Nancy Pelosi has already said in an interview that Trump's pick is not "mainstream". Why? Because progressives and the liberal justices they appoint believe in the "living constitution", the notion that the constitution should be re-interpreted according to their modern political predilections, rather than according to the actual meaning of the text. Such a theory of jurisprudence is, in fact, anti-law: a law whose meaning can be freely altered by re-interpretation, because it no longer means anything particular, is no longer a law. It has become a weapon of political power.

Democrats hate textualists like the late Scalia, because more often than not, the constitution and the laws, if interpreted correctly, do not favor their progressive program. If the Democrats continue to insist that a textualist is unacceptable as a Supreme Court Justice, or that a textualist majority on the court is unacceptable, then they demonstrate two things: 

  1. Their progressive program is unconstitutional and illegal.
  2. They know it.

They are happy to vacuously repeat phrases like "rule of law" and to swear their love of the constitution. But such are mere pretensions, sheepswool. We can only hope that their fight over Trump's pick will expose their deceptions and reveal them to be the dis-civilizational wolves they are.

A Malthusian-Style Complexity Trap

As a Catholic, I have some advantage when it comes to evaluating the theory of evolution. I have no dogmatic difficulty accepting that God speaks in mythical and metaphorical language in the Bible while using the evolutionary process as a secondary cause to bring about his organic creations. In this way, I can approach evolution, like every other scientific theory, as provisional, and susceptible to revolution.

It is in this spirit of honest inquiry, rather than desperate dogmatism, that the following difficulty, inspired by the Malthusian Trap, occurred to me. I have no idea if the neo-Darwinian model has already considered it or not. There may be a perfectly sufficient explanation, but it is as yet unknown to me.

I call it the Evolutionary Complexity Trap.

Read more

Why Doesn't God Grant Private Revelations to Convince Atheists?

In a rebuttal to the up-and-coming Catholic debater Trent Horn, atheist Raphael Lataster comments that he would be quite happy to believe in God and obey him, if only God would personally convince him of his existence. And, since God is all knowing, all powerful, and all good, he has the knowledge of what sort of private revelation would convince Mr. Lataster, and the ability and incentive to so reveal himself. 

This is not a new argument.

Read more

In Praise of Violence

In these latter days, we hear a great deal about "toxic masculinity", and nothing typifies the toxicity of maleness like violence in word and deed. "Violence is never the answer," they say; and, "Violence only breeds more violence."

But this feminizing propaganda is both mistaken and foolish. 

Read more

Fantastic Stories & Religious Impulse

The wild success and high quality of 'Game of Thrones' on HBO, along with 'magical realist' outings like 'The Leftovers', and the steady stream of fantasy films in the form of comic book stories, Star Wars, etc. coming out of Hollywood suggest to me that despite everything--despite supercolliders, the rise of the New Atheism, Science!, and the increasing secularization of the culture--the religious instinct is still alive. Damaged, but alive.

Read more