Author: bobreagan13

This is an updated version of an article first posted 14 years ago.

The Fourth of July is a day for picnics, fireworks, parades, and all kinds of activities celebrating our Nation’s birth. It should also be a time for reflection on the founding principles. The source of those principles is most immediately found in the Enlightenment. This was a cultural, intellectual, and, later, political movement of the late Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries that historians regard as the culmination of a sea-change of thought about the relations of human beings with the universe that began with the Reformation and its precursors. Enlightenment thinkers emphasized the use of reason as the basis of knowledge and understanding and the primary method of discovering moral and physical truths. Their use of reason led to the idea of the essential sovereignty of the individual person, and the rights of man (in the generic sense) to life, liberty, and estate, or property. The Enlightenment is associated with such thinkers as Isaac Newton, John Locke, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, Adam Smith, and others in Europe, and Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Paine in America. The United States of America is the only nation founded on the basis of common ideas, rather than accidents of geography, of kinship or tribe, or conquest. Some historians have described our primary founding document as an Enlightenment Manifesto. Leonard Peikoff in his book The Ominous Parallels described America as the “Nation of the Enlightenment.” I have spent some time parsing the Declaration of Independence to show why this is so. Please read on.

When in the Course of Human Events…

The first seven words of the Declaration of Independence are themselves revolutionary. Before Thomas Jefferson (with help from Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and others) penned this document, all important legal documents began with the paean to God, or the monarch. The Magna Carta, the Mayflower Compact (which some call the first American Constitution) are some examples. There are countless others. This Declaration recognized human, not supernatural, not authoritarian, events which drive this change. This is not to say that it rejects a deity, or even Christianity. It emphasizes that this is the act of human beings, and it is done in the name of a group of people freely associating.

… it becomes necessary…

The word “necessary” in the Enlightenment sense means naturally caused; that is, inevitable because it is of nature. It is akin to a natural law like Isaac Newton described in his treatises on motion and gravity. The law of gravity requires – makes necessary – that an object falls to the ground. As the Declaration goes on to say, events have made American independence necessary.

… for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another…

Political connections are a human construct, not the divine right of kings. The King is not the state – L’etat ne c’est le Roi pas, contrary to what Louis XIV of France said.

… and to assume among the Powers of the Earth the separate and equal Station…

The people of the colonies are “assuming by their own act a status that is independent sovereignty is equal to all the other nations on earth. This assumption is not a grant; it is not a sufferance of the colonial master. It is inherent by right, by the law of nature.

… to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them,…

This is the core of Enlightenment thinking. God is revealed through nature, and the laws of nature are the laws of God. Jefferson may have been treading lightly here. He probably was a Deist, which many Enlightenment figures were, including Benjamin Franklin, and most notoriously Thomas Paine. He had to recognize the Judeo-Christian tradition because most of the colonial leaders, not to mention the ordinary colonists were at least nominally Christian. Deism as such, was not hostile to Christianity, or other forms of religion, but those faiths did not tolerate Deists.

… a decent Respect for the Opinions of Mankind requires that they declare the causes which impelled them to the Separation.

The people seeking independence are telling the world why. They are justifying their actions to the rest of the world, not just their former British overlords. Reason is what gives actions legitimacy, according to Enlightenment principles. Reason is given to men by God, or nature, and they are expected to justify their actions by it. In order for the world to grant its approval and sanction, human actions must be reasonable.

The next paragraph of the Declaration is a treatise on government and gives the underlying philosophical basis and general justification for independence.

We hold these Truths to be self evident…

The introductory phrase is an epistemological statement that breaks from the long-standing Aristotelian Scholasticism’s presumed authority of the past. The Enlightenment held that the empirical observation, and reasoning from those verifiable observations, is the basis of knowledge. The intellectual tradition of the Western world – indeed, the entire world – had been that the received wisdom from the past should not be deviated from and should form all premises on which knowledge was based. The primary Western authorities, of course were the Scriptures and the Greek philosophers, particularly Aristotle. Beginning with Francis Bacon, the early modern thinkers gradually broke with this method, at least insofar as it attempted to explain the workings of the physical universe. The Enlightenment scholars, and other humanists, did not necessarily reject religious Christianity to provide moral guidance and inform men as to the relation with God in eternity, but believed that God manifested truths about the physical universe in nature.

… that all Men are created equal…

The notion of equality of human beings in the Enlightenment did not mean that everyone was the same; that is, equal in physical, intellectual, and moral character. Neither did it mean that they should be leveled to the same economic status. The operative word here is “created.” Its use in this context means that no one is given any special status in relation to others merely by the accident of birth. The Aristotelian description of the universe included the Great Chain of Being. This construct held that there is a order from God in heaven down to the inanimate rocks in which every species of being has a place. In the human order, the King and his nobles have their places at the top, and the peasants and serfs have theirs at the bottom, with different levels of status or importance in between. The Chain of Being was not a ladder, and one’s place was immutable. It was a crime or a sin to attempt to rise above or sink below the status to which one was born to. The Seventeenth Century doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings was a logical deduction from the concept of a Chain of Being. The King was God’s lieutenant on earth. The Enlightenment broke with that concept, and declared that there was no inherent aristocracy based merely on the accident of birth. The turmoil of the English Civil War, the Restoration, and then the Glorious Revolution broke the chain in England by the end of the Seventeenth Century. It would persist in France until that country’s Revolution, a hundred years later. That was not long after the American colonies won their independence, with a little help from their friend – France. Ironically, that nation was still under the ancien regime.

… that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,…

The quality of being human means that there are rights which are given by God, the Creator of nature and the universe, which cannot be abrogated by the whim of human authority. Those rights may be forfeited, but only by misconduct of the individual as rationally determined in the due process and course of valid law.

… that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness –…

This enumeration of rights is declared to be, by the use of the word “among,” not exclusive, but these are the basis of, and imply, others. It comes directly from John Locke’s formulation that when human beings are in a state of nature, these are their individual rights. Locke’s Second Treatise on Government termed these rights as protection of “life, liberty, and estate” – estate being interchangeable with the concept of property. Jefferson changed “estate” or “property” to the “pursuit of happiness,” which included the right to possess and enjoy property, but was broader in scope. The proposition that the pursuit of happiness was a fundamental right was revolutionary in itself. From almost time immemorial, and certainly in the Christian tradition at least until the Reformation, life on earth was not supposed to be happy. Life was an arduous journey through a vale of tears on the way to an afterlife of happiness, or punishment, depending on how one conducted oneself in this world. Rather than pursuing happiness here on earth, it was self-denial and mortification that were virtues, not enjoyment or seeking betterment of living standards and conditions. This, of course, was a doctrine which kept the Great Chain of Being intact, as well as the hoi polloi in line. Individual liberty was nonexistent, because the individual person was subject to the collective, that is, the King or state. One’s life as well belonged to the same sovereign.

That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed…

Legitimate governments are created by the consent of the people, not imposed from the top down. The people, who in a state of nature are unable to adequately protect their lives, their liberty, and the ability to pursue happiness, including the protection of their private property, form a government for this purpose. In order to accomplish these ends, certain aspects of the fundamental rights are limited, and ceded to a constituted authority by consent, whose primary – and only legitimate – function is to secure the essence of those rights.

… That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

A government can become destructive of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In fact, the use of the word “whenever” seems to imply that it is inevitable that at some point the government will become destructive of such. It is part and parcel of these unalienable rights for the people to alter or abolish it, and create a new government. A new government, however, must be instituted on the core principles stated.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.

When government has existed for a long time, some deference must be given to it for that quality alone. Stability and just expectations are aspects of the unalienable rights, which themselves must be respected. This passage recognizes that the governments will not be perfect, and there may be better ways of accomplishing the protection of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness at various times, and under different conditions. Just because a government may act in an imperfect manner temporarily is no reason to take the drastic step of abolishing it. The phrase that “mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable” echoes William Shakespeare’s observation in Hamlet that we “rather bear the ills we have than fly to those we know not of.”

But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government and to provide new Guards for their future Security.

This sentence states the conditions necessary to overcome the presumption that governments long established should not be changed. When they are fulfilled, revolution becomes a right – and duty.

Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the present King of Great-Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.

Thus begins the justification for Revolution and nature of the grievances against British rule. It is followed by a bill of particulars containing twenty-seven specific grievances committed by the Crown, personified by King George III. If one studies the Constitution later drafted and ratified, it is possible to find a provision there which addresses many of the complaints found in this bill of particulars.

In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People.

After the bill of particulars, the Declaration provides additional justification for independence by asserting that the people of the American colonies have brought their grievances to the attention of the King, and his ministers, to no avail, and only to receive further injury.

Nor have we been wanting in Attentions to our British Brethren. We have warned them from Time to Time of attempts by their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the Circumstances of our Emigration and Settlement here. We have appealed to their native Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the Ties of our common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our Connections and Correspondence. They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice and of Consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the Necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of Mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace, Friends.

This penultimate paragraph reminds the people of Great Britain that the American colonists have notified them of the grievances, and they have nevertheless done nothing to prevail upon Parliament and the King’s ministers to change policies and redress the grievances. It concludes by defining the relations going forward that the Americans will have with the British: that is, a separate and equal station, along with all other nations of the Earth, and not as sworn enemies.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of Our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly Publish and Declare, that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown and that all political Connection between them and the State of Great-Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce and do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, Our Fortunes, and Our Sacred Honor.

The use of the lower case “united” indicates that each of the new entities are separate States, though united in purpose. Unification will come later, and remain tenuous, in many ways, even unto this day. The Declarations appeals to God as a witness, but is done in the name of the “good People of the Colonies” who are to be the sovereign. Divine Providence will protect them. The signers pledged their “sacred honor,” the most precious possession to an Enlightenment man. As for their lives and fortunes, they were aware they were committing treason against the British Crown, which was subject to the severest of penalties.

It was over seven long years of war and privation before the Declaration of Independence was ratified by the Treaty of Paris in which Great Britain gave up all claim to sovereignty over its former colonies, but these words written and approved by the patriots in Philadelphia two hundred and twenty four years ago finally became a reality. It remains so to this day, perhaps imperfect, but there is nothing better. Indeed, there is nothing like it in the world.

NOTE

The writings of Professor Alan Charles Kors of the University of Pennsylvania, who is the editor of Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, gave me the idea for this essay. He teaches 17th & 18th Century intellectual history. Professor Kors is one of the founders of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, (www.thefire.org), a watchdog for freedom of expression on American college campuses and elsewhere. 

Friday the Thirteenth has been regarded as an inauspicious day for a long time. Like most superstitions, its origins are obscure. But whatever the reason, that June 13, 1980, forty-five years ago today in the still record hottest summer in North Texas was exceptionally inauspicious for a young housewife and her family in the Dallas exurb of Wylie

That day Allan Gore who lived with his wife and two children in Wylie was on a business trip away from home. After numerous attempts to contact his wife Betty at home, directly and through her friends, he asked a neighbor or a friend to see if there was something amiss. There was. When the friend Richard Parker and another man entered Allan’s house, they found Betty Gore’s bloody body in the utility room, together with a three-foot long ax. She had been hacked to death.

Ax murders have long been the staple of fictional murder mysteries. Their brutal, bloody, and sensational visuals excite the morbid curiosity many, if not most, of us have — at least where it doesn’t happen to us. This one, like the Lizzie Borden case in Massachusetts that possessed a number of striking similarities from almost a century prior, ended up in a woman being accused, tried—and acquitted.

For several days after the discovery of Betty’s body, it was a mystery. The town of Wylie was beset by all kinds of speculation, whether an ax murderer was lurking around and might strike again, among others. Allan Gore was initially a suspect, because law enforcement has experienced killings involving married couples in many cases.

As it turned out, the main suspect was Candace “Candy” Montgomery, who together with her husband Pat and the Gores, were members of the First Methodist Church in the nearby town of Lucas. As it came out in the investigation and trial, Candy and Allan Gore had previously had a clandestine relationship that involved sexual trysts at a no-tell motel on Highway 75 near Allan’s place of work. That affair had ended in the Fall of 1979. It was unclear whether Betty had known about the affair — Allan stated that he did not know, and if she did she might not have said anything. Nevertheless, both families’ children were friends with each other. Betty’s then six year old daughter Alisa and Candy’s and Pat’s daughter Jenny often spent the night with each other.

On that Friday, Candy was to take Alisa and her daughter Jenny to swimming lessons. She went to Betty’s house that morning to retrieve Alisa’s swimsuit. Investigation and later testimony showed that, during the visit, Candy and Betty had an altercation that involved physical pushing and shoving, and at some point Betty grabbed an ax that was there in the washroom. According to Candy, she managed to wrestle the ax away from Betty, and struck her. Candy lost control and continued to strike with the ax. After an involved investigation by the Wylie Police Department, assisted by Dallas County medical examiner and Criminal Investigation Laboratory, the County district attorney charged Candy Montgomery with the murder of Betty Gore.

The trial was held in Collin County District court in November of the same year. Candy hired Don Crowder, a personal injury lawyer and member of the same church. Crowder had never tried a criminal case (and never tried another one after this was over), but who was known as a hard-charging trial lawyer skilled in persuading juries. For criminal law expertise, Crowder associated Dallas attorney Gary Udashen.

During jury selection, Crowder shocked everybody when he stated that Candy Montgomery killed Betty Gore; she did it with an ax; it was self-defense.

At trial, Candy Montgomery testified in great detail about the events on June 13 in the altercation that resulted in her killing Betty Gore. She told the court and jury that Betty had been the aggressor and had the ax in her hands first during the confrontation, and she essentially “freaked out” when she pulled the ax away and hit Betty with it. The psychiatrist that had examined Candy testified that she probably had and a “dissociative reaction” that triggered an early childhood trauma to instigate a frenzy in which she continued to strike Betty with the ax.

In the aftermath of the trial, there was considerable public dismay and anger, particularly among Betty Gore’s family. Predictably, a lot of outrage was expressed towards the jury members who were vilified as stupid or, at best naive enough to believe someone could kill with an ax in that manner in self-defense.

Both the Gores and the Montgomerys, soon thereafter moved away from Texas. Candy has never allowed an interview or made any statement beyond “I have nothing to say” or words to that effect. Her last known whereabouts was in the Atlanta, Georgia area.

Like Lizzie Borden, who was tried and acquitted for killing her father and stepmother with an ax in 1892, and although there was considerable circumstantial evidence that appeared to sustain that accusation, Candy Montgomery was found not guilty. Was Justice fully served? Well, the law is not about abstract justice. In this country’s system, its primary function is to protect what might be termed ordered liberty. Actual justice can only be had in a venue not of this world.

Notes and sources:

A criminal verdict of “not guilty” does not mean the defendant is innocent. It means, at least, that there was a reasonable doubt as to an element of the alleged crime. Self-defense, however, is an affirmative defense which requires the defendant to prove by a preponderance of the evidence, sometimes described as “more likely than not” or 51% responsibility.

Candy Montgomery’s lawyer Don Crowder later unsuccessfully ran for Texas Governor. He died in 1998.

Dr. Vincent DiMaio, performed the autopsy on Betty Gore. DiMaio later became the chief medical examiner in Bexar County, Texas, and more recently testified in the George Zimmerman trial in Florida on behalf of the defense.

See R. Atkinson & J. Bloom, Evidence of Love; A True Story of Passion and Death in the Suburbs (1984). A thoroughly researched and good read by experienced journalists. Contains a lot of the backstory.

Numerous press reports and personal conversations with some persons close to the investigation and trial.

Jeanne d’Arc, known in English as Joan of Arc, was a teenage girl from Domrémy in northeastern France who played a crucial role during the Hundred Years’ War between England and France in 1429 – 1430. She claimed to have received visions and messages from saints instructing her to support Charles VII, the Armagnac Dauphin of France, and help him claim the French throne. (Henry VI of England also claimed to be the rightful King of France.) Whatever these visions and messages were, her presence and apparent charisma, if not her actual military leadership, purportedly inspired the French military supporters of Charles. Those soldiers had become demoralized by a number of defeats at the hands of the English and their Burgundian allies. Relief of the English siege of the city of Orléans, and other battle victories appears to have given Jeanne credibility, and because of her sex and age, embarrassment to the English forces.

After the victories that cleared the route from Chinon, where Charles sojourned, Jeanne and the French army escorted Charles to Reims to be crowned in the traditional venue there.

After Charles’s coronation, Jeanne participated in the unsuccessful siege of Paris in September 1429 and the failed siege of La Charité in November. Her role or presence in these defeats reduced the Charles and his court’s confidence in her. In early 1430, Jeanne as part of a company of volunteers to relieve Compiègne, which had been besieged by the allies of the English, was captured by Burgundian troops in May 1430.

After trying unsuccessfully to escape, Jeanne was sold to the English in November. She was put on trial by Bishop Pierre Cauchon on accusations of heresy, which included blaspheming by wearing men’s clothes, acting upon visions that were demonic, and refusing to submit her words and deeds to the judgment of the church. In reality, these charges were mostly bogus. Her real “crime” was political. The English military and other authorities were certain a mere slip of a girl, as they doubtless regarded her, had to be an agent of the devil if she was successful in preventing their loss of the city of Orléans. Enlisting Cauchon, who was in their political pocket and would rig the trial to curry favor with them, was a tactic to obtain Church approval. Jeanne was declared guilty and burned at the stake in Rouen on May 30, 1431, aged about nineteen.

In 1456, an inquisitorial court re-investigated Jeanne’s trial and overturned the verdict, declaring that it was tainted by deceit and procedural errors. A bit late for her, of course. Subsequently, Jeanne has been described as an obedient daughter of the Roman Catholic Church, an early feminist, and a symbol of freedom and independence. She is popularly revered as a martyr. During the centuries that followed, especially after the French Revolution, she became a national symbol of France. Interestingly, she has been used by both the political left and right to be a patron for their ends. In 1920, Jeanne d’Arc was canonized by Pope Benedict XV and, two years later, was declared one of the patron saints of France. She is portrayed in numerous cultural works, including literature, music, paintings, sculptures, cinema, and theater.

There is a certain amount of legend connected with Jeanne d’Arc, but the transcripts of both the condemnation and the exoneration trials are available (in early modern French). No historian doubts that Jeanne participated in the exploits for which she is known, even though character of that participation is uncertain. The real significance is the part of the lore of France, both in the ancien régime, the two empires of the Napoleons, and the five Republics that Jeanne, or La Pucelle became. As we say out here in the West, even if the legend becomes fact — print the legend.¹

NOTES:

The actual name Jeanne (pronounced “sz-ahn”– hence in English “Joan”) was known by in her time is uncertain.

There is a fine museum in the archbishop’s palace adjacent to the cathedral in Rouen that chronicles Jeanne d’Arc life and subsequent treatment by history.

REFERNCES :

Pernoud, Régine & Clin, Marie-Véronique Joan of Arc – Her Story. Translated and revised by Jeremy duQuesnay Adams, late professor of history Southern Methodist University.
(St. Martin’s Press, New York 1998).

Duby, Georges et Andrée Les Procés de Jeanne d’Arc (the Trials of Joan of Arc) (Gallimard, Paris 1973, paperback).

Leonard Cohen’s Joan of Arc, sung live by Jennifer Warnes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOh8SQxad2c a haunting rendition

1. See The Man who Shot Liberty Valance, John Ford, dir. (1962) ↩︎

“In a world where carpenters resurrect, all things are possible” — James Goldman,The Lion in Winter (1966)

Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, was born and raised in Chicago and its suburbs, educated at Villanova, a Catholic Augustinian university near Philadelphia Pennsylvania. He joined the Augustinian order of friars there, but spent most of his career as a priest and bishop in Peru. Although English is his first and native language, he is reported to be fluent in Spanish, Italian, Latin (probably required to be Pope), and others. He did not speak in English when making his first public address, preferring Italian, the first language of the majority of his live audience. As the Vatican is in the midst of Rome, and celebrating a new Pontiff has been a traditional Roman holiday, the language choice was understandable.

An American elected Pope. What does that mean? “America” was coined by a German cartographer in honor of Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci, referring to the continents of the Western Hemisphere: North, South, and perhaps Central America ,and associated islands. In that sense, the late Pope Francis, born and raised in Argentina, could be considered “American.” Common use has applied America, and its demonym, when unqualified, to the United States and inhabitants. Because of Leo’s peripatetic ministerial career, perhaps he is the first Pan-American Pope.

Robert Prevost’s family heritage of the Pope is illustrative. It appears that his ancestors hailed from many places. In addition to the Italian, French, Spanish, there is the Creole. The latter indicates some African heritage. Possibly, if one applies the infamous “one-drop rule” he might qualify as black. In that case, perhaps some might claim Leo to be the first African Pope. He has not.

Global Pope might be the appropriate description. Christianity, once confined to Europe and its fringes, is a global religion, and the majority of its adherents are Roman Catholic. That appellation, however, seems somewhat oxymoronic. Lower-case “catholic” is from the Greek and means universal. Other versions of Christianity describe themselves as catholic – most notably the Anglican Communion. “Roman” with the empire long gone, seems a bit parochial. Be that as it may, the ultimate definition and interpretation of the Church’s doctrine still resides in the environs of Rome.

Robert Prevost took the name of Leo as a paean to the 19th Century Leo XIII who had significant influence on American Catholics toward he end of that Century. That Leo called for fair treatment of workers and their right to unionize, criticized laissez-faire capitalism, and condemned socialism and communism. Leo XIV seems attuned to that namesake in that regard.

What might be Leo’s Norte Americano early years experience bring to the Papacy? Well, according to some sources the Vatican’s finances are in trouble and are need of reform. As President Calvin Coolidge observed on eh 1920s, the chief business of America is business. The really has not changed over the past century. Perhaps this Pope has recognized that American business know-how and will bring it to the Vatican, at least to some degree.

Because of past statements he has made, it is unlikely he will end clerical celibacy or allow the ordination of women. Changing those policies in the U. S. and other Anglophone nations might be welcomed by, at least acceptable to most Catholics in those regions, it would not be so in the so-called Global South where such policies, particularly women clerics, would be counter to local custom. The Church has been successful in large part by adapting its rituals to indigenous cultures.

The salient significance of Leo XIV may be that he is the fourth non-Italian and second non-European to be Pope, reflecting the globalization of Christianity, and the Catholic Church in particular. Latin, formerly used in liturgy, has given way to vernaculars. English is now the international language, and the United States is the premier Anglophone country. Though the European and North American components of Western Civilization have been in the process of secularization, the basic message of the once Jewish carpenter from Galilee, promulgated in a number of versions, still resonates there and has now throughout the entire world.

Note: Although it has been said that Leo XIV was the first Pope who spoke English as his native language, a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal corrected that misapprehension observing: “The first was Adrian IV, who was born in Hertfordshire, England, and reigned from 1154 to 1159. His birth name was Nicholas Breakspear, which certainly has a literary English ring to it. He lived during the transition from Old English to Early Middle English but was at least as much an Anglophone as most natives of Chicago.”

On May 14, 1948, David Ben Gurion declared the existence of the State of Israel and its independence. Shortly after the news arrived at Washington D.C., President Truman officially recognized the new nation, the United States being the first country to do so. Since then, Israel has been America’s only consistent friend and ally in the North Africa/Middle East region.

As most of us know, Israel was founded as a country to be a haven for Jews, who had been systematically, oppressed, and exterminated since the diaspora beginning in 70 A.D. At least in Europe that oppression was by Christians, notwithstanding their founder was a Jew. Israel’s neighbors, mostly Muslim, opposed the Jewish state from the beginning and, with several exceptions, have not let up for the past 77 years. The most recent atrocity was the October 7, 2023 wholesale murder and hostage taking by the Hamas terrorists from their base in the Gaza strip.

Prime Minister Netanyahu, and the Israeli leadership, understandably sick and tired of the attacks on their citizens. Have responded in kind, though hindered somewhat by the international community. Even, the United States under the prior Administration hedged its bets. One would hope the new one will give its wholehearted support to Israelis.

One lesson for those who deplore the suffering of Gaza inhabitants who are not Hamas is how the American and its allied forces, mainly British, World War II. German and Japanese civilians were subject to relentless bombing and destruction, collateral damage necessary to end the aggression. Neither country has troubled the world since.

We Americans should send birthday greetings to Israel. Someday, perhaps, it will be Happy Birthday.

I am not a basketball fan. Never have been one, and have not paid much attention to college or professional sports as an adult. I live in Dallas, Texas and am an insatiable consumer of news and current events in print and electronic media (radio, television, Internet) and often in the company of colleagues and friends who are sport fans. Consequentially, like everyone else in North Texas and in particular Dallas (other than those who live in caves), I knew about the accomplishments of Luka Doncic, the star of the Dallas Mavericks. His being traded to the Los Angeles Lakers (during the season) was unexpected and extremely disappointing to many fans. The this past week there were protests at least one game where the heckling became so intense that one particularly enthusiastic fan was evicted. Demonstrations against Luka’s trade outside the arena almost matched the intensity of recent political ones. No torches and pitchforks, however.

All this brought back some memories when I was a serious baseball fan, which was quite a long time ago. In the summer of 1959 before I started high school, I became interested in baseball and gained quite a bit knowledge of the historical and current players of major league teams as well as our then local minor-league team in Dallas. Major league games were broadcast on network radio regularly during the season. Networks carried some televised games, one of which was NBC’s “Game of the Week.” At that time the major league teams were concentrated in the Northeast, although there have been some expansion to the West Coast notably the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants in 1958 had located to Los Angeles and San Francisco respectively. Otherwise, the westernmost team in the majors was the Kansas City Athletics, who had moved to that city from Philadelphia earlier in the 1950s.

As a result, in order to be a major-league fan I had to pick a team from another city to root for. My family had migrated to Texas from the Cleveland Ohio area in 1951, so I picked the Cleveland Indians, an American League Team. Pretty good pick for 1959. The star of team was Rocky Colavito. Rocky had the ardor of the Indians’ fans equivalent if not in excess of that of current Maverick fans. He was the American League’s home-run champion, hitting 42 during the 1959 season; in that year he hit four consecutive homers in a game against Baltimore in the Orioles home stadium. Nevertheless, in April 1960, the Indians’ general manager Frank Lane inexplicably traded Colavito to the Detroit Tigers.

This trade brought out the torches and pitchforks, figuratively if not literally, against Lane, who had traded away every player from what had been fairly successful team he had inherited when he became GM in 1957. Lane lasted another year with Cleveland before moving on, possibly because he feared for his bodily integrity. The Indians, however, during the subsequent 34 years never finished a season within 11 games of first place. Rocky Colavito did return to Cleveland for the 1965 – 1967 season and was welcomed back, but the magic was not quite the same. The Cleveland Plain Dealer sportswriter Terry Pluto chronicled the story in The Curse of Rocky Colavito: A Loving Look at a Thirty-Year Slump (1994).

Perhaps Luka will come back to the Mavericks some day. Whether this trade results in the Curse of Luka Doncic remains to be seen.

Alissa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum, better known by her nom de plume Ayn Rand, was born February 2, 1905. She entered the United States during the 1920s, became a citizen, and lived here the rest of her life. She died in March 1982. I mention her birth name because her Russian nativity and early years explain a lot of her thinking and themes.

Rand was born into late imperial Russia and spent her teen and early adult years during the Bolshevik revolution and the early Soviet Union. Born in Saint Petersburg, she was 12 years old when the Bolshevik revolution upended her life. Her father’s pharmacy business was expropriated by the revolutionaries and the family had to leave town. Alissa managed to obtain a secondary education in Crimea and later returned to Saint Petersburg (renamed Leningrad) where she graduated from the State university, after being purged as being “bourgeois” and later reinstated along with a few others at the insistence of scientists. She came to the United States on a visa to visit relatives in Chicago, remained in America, and became a citizen in 1929.

Rand’s writing in the 1930s through the late 1950s consisted primarily of fiction. Her notable works in that genre were Night of January 16th, a courtroom drama; We the Living, a dystopian short novel; The Fountainhead; and her magnum opus Atlas Shrugged, both novel.

In publishing the latter tome — it’s 1,084 pages in the 35th Anniversary edition – Rand stated that she was aware that she was challenging the cultural tradition of 2000 years. If that cultural tradition regards wealth and its pursuit as a vice and poverty as a virtue, denounces entrepreneurs as “robber barons” and portrays them in popular literature and media as villains, Atlas Shrugged certainly challenges it.

These works extol individual freedom and capitalism and are fiercely anti-Socialist and anti-all types of collectivist political and economic systems. After Atlas Shrugged, Rand spent the rest of her career as an essayist and an advocate of the philosophy expounded in her novels — individualism, rational self-interest and what she termed Objectivism. Collectivism is the ultimate evil according to Rand, as the basis of socialism, communism, and fascism. The identity politics of today would certainly draw her ire. ¹

Ayn Rand’s promotion of capitalism and the free enterprise system is matched by several well-known economists, both classical and recent. Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and Milton Friedman have all extolled the virtues of free markets and the relationship of capitalism to individual freedom. None have supplied the emotional heft to promote that theory in the dismal science of economics that Rand provided in her novels. Or so observes Rainer Zitelmann, writing in the opinion section of the Wall Street Journal, January 30, 2025. ²

Ayn Rand’s condemnation of collectivism, that is, ascribing perceived group characteristics to all individuals in the perceive group, particularly when the group membership is involuntary, is salient. Her essay, published in 1963, in which she said racism was the worst form of collectivism in that it ascribed moral worth and characteristics of a collective of ancestors to individuals, is illuminating. An excerpt is worth repeating here.

“Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage — the notion that a man’s intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors.” ³

A personal note. In the 1960s, and indeed even today, many so-called liberals have characterized capitalism and limited-government conservatism as racist and oppressive towards members of minority groups, at that time mainly black persons living under racial segregation, legal in much of the South, but also cultural and informal elsewhere. The 1964 Republican Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, an outspoken free market and limited government conservative, was denounced as racist. Because I agreed with most (but not all) of his conservative principles, many of my then peers accused me of being inherently racist. Rand gave me the intellectual ammunition to refute such accusations.

1. “Fascism” as well as “racism” and even “democracy”, among other words, have lost their meaning and have become all-purpose epithets. For more on this issue see George Orwell’s 1946 essay “Politics and the English Language” available in numerous sources in print and on line. ↩︎
2. See https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-ayn-rand-contradiction-reason-emotion-capitalism-economics-0c5b12b7? ↩︎
3. The Objectivist Newsletter (September 1963) reprinted in The Virtue of Selfishness, p. 176 (Signet Books 1964) ↩︎

The Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy (JLPP) is a law review at Harvard Law School published by an independent student group. It was established in 1977 as a conservative and libertarian alternative to left-wing oriented publications on campus. It is the flagship law review for the Federalist Society, an organization for like-minded lawyers, students, and other interested persons. The Society has been influential in selection of Supreme Court justices and other federal judges.

The Federalist Society established the annual Barbara K. Olson Memorial Lecture Series “in Barbara’s memory because of her enormous contributions as an active member, supporter, and volunteer leader” ¹

Bari Weiss gave the 22nd lecture in November 2023, titled “You Are the Last Line of Defense.” It is published in the Spring 2024, Volume 47, No. 2 of the JLPP. Ms. Weiss’ topic is defense of free speech, but also a condemnation of the toleration of anti-Semitism in academia and culture, especially in the legacy and social media, and elsewhere. Ms. Weiss does not seek to ban expression of contrary views; quite the opposite. Her concern is that when viewpoint expression segues into acts of violence and obstruction, particularly when those acts serve to intimidate and prevent expression of opposing viewpoints they must be resisted. She particularly faults the media, legacy and social, and even the current U. S. Government for pusillanimously failing to resist such intimidation. The people of the United Sates of America are the Last Line of Defense.

Bari Weiss is a journalist who has worked for the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and is now a contributor for the German Die Welt and a Substack newsletter “The Free Press” she founded, and has sought to “position herself as a reasonable liberal concerned that far-left critiques stifled free speech.” Ms. Weiss has defended free speech on campus and in the media. She resigned from the New York Times in 2020 in protest over the newspaper’s not defending her against alleged bullying by her colleagues and maintaining that Twitter [prior being purchased by Elon Musk in 2023] “has become [the NYT’s] ultimate editor.”

In her resignation letter Ms. Weiss explains: “As the ethics and mores of [Twitter had] become those of the paper, the paper itself has increasingly become a kind of performance space. Stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions. I was always taught that journalists were charged with writing the first rough draft of history. Now, history itself is one more ephemeral thing molded to fit the needs of a predetermined narrative. My own forays into Wrongthink have made me the subject of constant bullying by colleagues who disagree with my views…”²

I commend reading the transcript of her lecture to every one interested. It can be found at the link below. One cannot do Ms. Weiss justice by attempting to paraphrase or summarize her speech. Nevertheless, the following quotation from it that expresses what it means to fight back as a line of defense.

“New York coffee shop owner Aaron Dahan had all of his baristas quit when he placed an Israeli flag in the window and began fundraising for Magen David Adom—the Israeli Red Cross.

“But his café didn’t close—quite the opposite. Suppliers sent him free shipments of beans and cups. Community members picked up shifts for free. There were lines around the block to buy a cup of coffee. The café made $25,000 in a single day.”³

What a great response from those who would not stand idle and cower in the face of such outrage!

Full disclosure: I am and have been a member of the Federalist Society since law school. The Israeli flag flies along with the U. S. flag in front of our home.

Footnotes

1. Barbara Kay Olson was an American lawyer, conservative television commentator, and author. She was a prominent critic of the Clinton administration and wrote two books about Hillary Clinton. Olson was also a frequent guest on news programs and a co-founder of the Independent Women’s Forum. She died a as a passenger on American Airlines Flight 77 that was hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon during the September 11, 2001 Islamist terrorist attacks. Her husband Ted Olson, a founding member of the Federalist Society was Solicitor General in the Bush administration at the time of the attacks. ↩︎
2. https://www.bariweiss.com/resignation-letter ↩︎
3. JLLP at https://fedsoc.org/commentary/fedsoc-blog/22nd-barbara-k-olson-memorial-lecture-by-Bari-Weiss ↩︎

Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite movie quotes. Anyone who wishes to add, please do so by comment or email.

Sherif Ali: Truly, for some men nothing is written unless THEY write it

— Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Eleanor of Aquitaine: Love, in a world where carpenters get resurrected, anything is possible.

— The Lion in Winter (1969) 

Lt. General Frank Benson: Never tell a soldier that he does not know the cost of war.

—  Eye in the Sky (2015)

James Donovan (lawyer: I have a mandate to serve you. Nobody else does. Quite frankly, everybody else has an interest in sending you to the electric chair.
Rudolf Abel (Soviet Spy)l: All right…
James Donovan: You don’t seem alarmed.
Rudolf Abel: Would it help?

— Bridge of Spies (2015)

Leslie Benedict: Money isn’t everything, Jett.
Jett Rink: Not when you’ve got it.

Jett Rink: Bick. I’m a rich ‘un. I’m a rich boy. Me, I’m gonna have more money than you ever thought you could have – you and all the rest of you stinkin’ sons of… Benedicts.
Uncle Bawley: Bick, you shoulda shot that fella a long time ago. Now he’s too rich to kill.

— Giant (1956)

Tuco: When you have to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk.

— The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)

[News paper reporter]: No, sir. This is the west, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

— The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) 

[Zhivago’s father-in-law]: [A] committee of Rvvolutionary Justice has expropriated my house in the name of the people. Very well, I’m one of the people too!

— Doctor Zhivago (1965) 

[Other gangster]: Rules? In a knife fight?!

— Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

Luke: Yeah, well… sometimes nothin’ can be a real cool hand

Captain: You gonna get used to wearin’ them chains afer a while, Luke. Don’t you never stop listenin’ to them clinking. ‘Cause they gonna remind you of what I been saying. For your own good.

Luke: Wish you’d stop being so good to me, Captain.

— Cool Hand Luke (1967)

Corporal Miller: There’s always a way to blow up explosives. The trick is not to be around when they go off.

— The Guns of Navarone   (1961)

Didont: With luck, no one will be hurt.
Labiche: No one’s ever hurt. Just dead.

— The Train (1964) 

Thomas More: Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!

— A Man for All Seasons (1966)

Eleazar ben Yair: You say you will catch us, and kill us? I invite you to try.
Cornelius Flavius Silva: You invite me to try? Your country is one long and narrow graveyard already; your cities are flatter than your deserts, your temple has been destroyed and most of the survivors are slaves, all for seven years of our ‘trying’. Give us our due, man, we know how to kill.

— Masada (1981) TV series

Martin Howe: People gotta talk themselves into law and order before they do anything about it. Maybe because down deep they don’t care. They just don’t care.

— High Noon (1952)

Julia: The German public toilets are always so clean. So much cleaner than ours in America.

— Julia (1977)

Harmonica: The reward for this man is 5000 dollars, is that right?
Cheyenne: Judas was content for 4970 dollars less.
Harmonica: There were no dollars in them days.
Cheyenne: But sons of bitches… yeah.

— Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

Little Bill Daggett: I don’t deserve this… to die like this. I was building a house.
Will Munny: Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it.

Will Munny: It’s a hell of a thing, killing a man. Take away all he’s got and all he’s ever gonna have.
The Schofield Kid: Yeah, well, I guess they had it coming.
Will Munny: We all got it coming, kid.

— Unforgiven (1992)  

Alma as a Girl: My name is Alma and Alma is Spanish for soul. Did you know that?

— Summer and Smoke (1961)

Alva Starr: New Orleans is certainly not a place where a person needs to feel the pain of separation for long.

— This Property is Condemned (1966)

Shane: A gun is a tool, Marian; no better or no worse than any other tool: an axe, a shovel or anything. A gun is as good or as bad as the man using it. Remember that.

— Shane (1953)

Senator: Fred Van Ackerman: What I did was for the good of the country.
Senator: Bob Munson: Fortunately, our country always manages to survive patriots like you.

Senator Seabright Cooley: Haven’t had this much fun since the cayenne pepper hit the fan!

— Advise and Consent (1962)

Devlin Warren: [dusting himself off] Ah, I don’t know what to say. Never begged before. Turned my stomach. I suppose I should have been grateful you gave me the job.
George Washington McLintock: “Gave?” Boy, you got it all wrong. I don’t give jobs, I hire men.

— McLintock (1963)

Atticus Finch: If you just learn a single trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.

—To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

The Dallas Bach Society’s annual performance of Handel’s Messiah has been a Christmas tradition over twenty years. These performances have always been enjoyable and a high point of the season for this writer and family.

A friend once asked me if the Messiah lyrics were an English translation, knowing that Handel was a German, born in Halle, Saxony, and had been the court musician for the Elector of Hannover. They were not.

The English lyrics of Messiah were taken by the librettist Charles Jennens from the King James Version of the Bible. He took most of the selections from the Old Testament; others were from Gospels, St. Paul’s epistles, and Revelation. Jennens had compiled two other Biblical oratorios for Handel, Saul and Israel in Egypt, selections of which are often included in compilations or “greatest hits” albums. Handel wrote the music for Messiah in less than a month, a super feat. Jennens was for some reason disappointed in the result, but given the work’s surviving the test of time, whatever his objections, they were rather misplaced.

There have been several revisions of Messiah, some made by Handel, and later by Mozart and other composers. These edits were not substantive, at least not for the untrained ear, including mine. Some appear to be longer and there have been differences of the size of the chorus. In some, contra-tenors (and in the 18th Century perhaps castrati) sing the alto parts. The version Dallas Bach Society’s Artistic Director and conductor James Richman chose for this 2024 performance was the April 1742 manuscript for the work’s premier in Dublin.

The remarkable feature of Messiah, apart from Handel’s magnificent music, was Jennens’ lyrical selections from the Bible. Of all the numerous versions of the Christian Bible, few have the literary quality and grandeur of the King James Version. Some have maintained that it is the greatest prose ever written in the English language. King James I commissioned a group of 54 scholars, termed ”divines”, to create an Authorized Version in English. These men spent seven years pouring over previous texts and translations including Tyndale’s, Coverdale’s, the Geneva Bible, and others, before the work was printed in 1611. These men were contemporaries of William Shakespeare, who made his own significant contribution to the development of modern English.

It is interesting that the King James Version was made by a committee, belying conventional wisdom.

There is debate over the accuracy and faithfulness to the Greek and Hebrew texts, mainly by those who use the Bible as a textbook to validate their own beliefs — but no matter. King James Version’s significance and value are in the beautiful and inspiring language contained throughout the book. A brief rendition of a passage used by Jennens exemplifies this:

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.

Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned.

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

The phrasing and cadence of this language is, as expressed in the last verse, Wonderful. The beauty of the work of God’s Secretaries, as Adam Nicolson’s 2003 book was titled, coupled with the music of George Frederic Handel, is certainly an inspiration to Christians of all denominations, especially at Christmas, but it has considerable value to those of the purely secular mind as well.

Note: There was a story that the Elector-Prince George of Hannover was annoyed when Handel abruptly resigned as court musician in 1710 and took up residence in Britain. Handel became concerned when the Elector became George I, King of Great Britain that the new king would express his previous annoyance. Not to worry, George was glad to have Handel again and forgave any offense he had taken.

A Wonderful and Merry Christmas to all.

___

References:

Nicolson, Adam, God’s Secretaries, The Making of the King James Bible, HarperCollins Publishers, 2003.

Bucholz, Robert & Key, Newton, Early Modern England 1485 – 1714, Blackwell Publishers, 2004.

Of interest might be a book just published Every Valley by Charles King. it was reviewed by Barton Swain in the December 21, 2024 Wall Street Journal. Swain reports it to be the story of Handel, Jennens, and creation of Messiah. I have not read this book as of today.