Conservative, Catholic- and Confused

A speech given by William Barr at the University of Notre Dame in October 2019 provides an interesting, if confusing insight into what American Conservatism might be. It contains all the 'usual suspects' -how secularism and 'moral relativity' has conspired to produce an excess of one-parent families, a nation of drug addicts and suicides and angry young men.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/a...-center-ethics

He quotes Edmud Burke with approval, even though Burke represents the politics that 1776 rejected, for the American Revolution was a Liberal event, and designed so because Conservatives -the forces of British America that supported the Crown- were opposed to a Republic that was not anchored on the State, but the individual. Burke on one level supported the American Revolution as a movement against excessive taxation by the Crown, but wanted the new US to remain part of the British Empire because of the common interests he saw in both, so that his conclusion was that "True liberty could only be maintained by union with Britain “under the present limited monarchy.” "
https://blog.oup.com/2016/12/edmund-burke-new-america/
but see also-
https://theimaginativeconservative.o...ole-story.html

He appeals to the Roman Catholic Church to lead the moral revival of the USA, and yet:
For most of its existence, the US has been anti-Catholic, indeed only one Catholic has ever been Roman Catholic, and JFK had to make it clear to the public that he was not running as Catholic, for while the US was changing in the 1960s, it was still the case that many Americans did not trust a Catholic- and guess who is the latest Catholic seeking to become President? Yep, Joe Biden.
https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/abo...y-and-religion
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ting-catholics

So here we have a confusion: American Conservatives, who in economic terms ought to be Liberal, are Conservative in social terms because they march into peoples libaries, lounges and bedroom to express their shock and horror at the immorality they believe is destroying their country- because they believe State Power is the guarantor of individual liberty, and it is the State in the form of the Law that Barr wants to use to 're-order'(why not, impose?) his idea of the moral life.
But Barr must then reject that very same Liberal Constitution which allows for a non-religious life being equal to all others, and is lamenting a secular conspiracy to destroy the family when he should be trying to expain the failure of his own religion to convince people their way of life is superior.

Conservatism, like Brexit in the UK, thus becomes a force for radical change, the complete opposite of Conservatism as it used to be, perhaps, is supposed to be. And the Catholic Church, which is to coordinate and anchor this revival of Christian morality, is the same Church that in Boston and other parts of the USA was instrumental in the demolition of private and public morality owing to the sexual sins of its 'Fathers' and the attempt by the Vatican to cover it all up.

Conservatism in the US has been in crisis for so long, I am not sure if it is even, in the terms established by political philosophy Conservatism, but a hybrid of Conservatism, Liberalism, Libertarianism, and Nationalism.

This marriage of contending minds has given birth to a bastard, and in the antinomies of warped political genetics, is it not salutory that the President who leads them is a foul-mouthed jerk who can barely read and write? One thing is sure, Edmund Burke would be appalled. And confused.

I can't understand why the lies of this man, and his blatant disregard for the rule of law and the Constitution are not headline news. There is a scene in All the President's Men, when Ben Bradlee confronts Woodward and Berstein because as he puts it, they have alleged that the USA's top law enforcement officer 'is a crook!' The moral compass of the 1970s did not have to move far to create the seismic response to the revelations about Attorney General Mitchell. Compare that to Barr defining First Amendment protests as Sedition, the complete refusal to agree Americans can only vote once, and then one thing after another and it gets really scary, as the article linked suggests.

Maybe it is Barr who is guilty of lies and sedition?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-election-2020

What about Liberal Blacks who are Protestant, Liberal Muslims, and Conservative Catholic Hispanics,

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Originally Posted by MrFanti

What about Liberal Blacks who are Protestant, Liberal Muslims, and Conservative Catholic Hispanics,

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What about them? Are they Attorney General? My theoretical point is that Conservatism and Liberalism have become incoherent in the US because jurists -Barr, for example- and politicians are using the law to promote interests that run counter to the foundations of the USA as its founders intended.

You might argue that this attaches too much importance to ideas, when practical politics requires a different way of dealing with case law, but the US Constitution is a Liberal document precisely because it was conceived as an alternative to the Conservative ideas that justified both the Monarchy and the Taxation that Americans rebelled against.

To import one's personal religous views into the law is very dangerous. As we have seen with Abortion, it is the attempt to change the wording of the law to give an 'unborn child' the status of a citizen that some Roman Catholics have supported which can only succeed by removing the rights of the existing American citizen, whom for the sake of convenience we might identify as 'Pregnant Woman'. How can it be, that in a Liberal Democracy, the rights of a citizen can be set aside to privilege a foetus that is endowed with the status of a person? This is neither Liberal nor Conservative, but incoherent nonsense.

Surely one of the reasons religion is separated from the State in the US is to prevent one person's religious beliefs from shaping the whole of the law. If you think it is wrong for a Muslim Attorney General to make law on divorce as understood by the clerics of al-Azhar, then is it not also wrong for a Catholic to base his views on Abortion according to Papal edicts?

The challenge has always been to make Constitutional Law that treats American citizens equally, and for some, the long delays in giving women and minorities, such as Black Americans, equal rghts has been a political flaw in the system -yet Barr is part of the very process that is taking rights away from Americans, and is in my view, enabling what could amount to the dismantling of the Constitution-based system of law, because Barr and his boss have reached a point in American history where they no longer believe that their interests are served by a Constitutional Republic and democracy as known since the Revolution -for them, it is time to move on.

The President is atttracted to 'strong leaders' in Russia, North Korea and Turkey, because the does not want to be limited in decision-making by the checks and balances of the Constitution, and because he believes the condition of the USA merits decisive and radical action. For his moral reasons, Barr supports a partisan manipulation of the rule of law- not law that benefits Americans equally, but law that privileges one part of society against another.

Republicans -if this is what they are- to my mind believe the USA is now in a state of such internal opposition that it may even amount to a civil war. The collapse of a bi-partisan consensus and the extent to which the Republican Party is now identfied, not in terms of ideas, or its own history since the Civil War, but with one man, has generated a crisis that the election might not resolve. On the one hand, there is a cynical manipulation of the President by Repubicans in Congress who regard the man himself as an idiot, but their usefu idiot. On the other hand, they have given him licence to provoke the very forces which threaten the security of the Republic.

Armed militias are now openly carrying battefield weapons on the Streets. I saw a report from Louisville today where armed militias with red berets (some women) are visibly on the street to 'defend' whatever they think needs defending, knowing that a large demonstration is taking place owing to the decision re Breonna Taylor. Add to that, Fox News has gone into overdrive to defend the teenager whose murders in Kenosha are justified -

"Fox News devoted multiple segments on Tuesday night to defending accused murderer Kyle Rittenhouse, describing the 17-year-old charged with shooting several Kenosha protesters as an “all-American” and a “little boy out there trying to protect his community.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-ne...ting-his-state

On the other side, Grandmaster Jay and the NFAC do not sound like they carry their passports and the Constitution in their pockets, but do carry -and legally, of course- the same battlefield weapons 'the enemy' are carrying around Louisville tonight.

The problem is Barr is not likely to protect the Constitution but interptet it in order to classify one set of people as 'terrorists' and another as 'Patriots', but this can only be done with a sophistry that makes a mockery of the Constitution, and can be done because he doesn't care about that.

Finally, the point is that not only the President might reject the result of the Election, so too might the armed militias -where will Barr stand then? On whose side? Hysterical it might sound, but from this side of the pond, you are stumbling from a political conflict into something that might turn much darker.

You may have only 40+ days to save your Republic, if that is what you want.

The Daily Beast has published an intriguing article on William Barr and his perversion of the rule of law. It is a long article which is not choked with legal jargon but does go some way to illuminating the damage that was done to the US legal system by men whose priority was to please their lord and master. One day someone must explain how a man with such a crude, witless perspective on life and poitics, mired in hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, a known racist, misogynist and liar, was able to reduce men so much better than him to the status of terrified slaves. Whatever.

The full article is here via Yahoo-

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/bill-barr-...085934377.html

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Originally Posted by Stavros

What about them?

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Is the Black church in the USA confused because of their religion? (Not Republican)
Is the Black Nation of Islam confused because of their religion? (Not Republican)

Bill Barr has been honest about his endorsement of 'the Republican candidate' in the 2024 election -

"“But at the end of the day, you have to remember I was serving in his administration,” Barr told Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto during his Saturday appearance on “Cavuto Live.” “I was fine with his policies. I think his policies were good policies. My problems came with his behavior, which I found very troubling after the election.”"
Bill Barr: Real threat to America is from ‘far left,’ not Trump (yahoo.com)

A) What evidence does Barr have the man he wants to be President will behave differently from before, when the signs are Trump will be even more aggressive than he was in the first term? And if that is his problem with Trump, he is setting himself up for a colossal disappointment as far as behaviour goes, but not knowing if that behaviour will include the kind of lawlessness and violence of Jan 6th -can Barr really be so confused by his own judgment, when he is/was a lawyer?

B) This is what puzzles me-
"“The threat facing our country is from the far left and the drift that’s been occurring toward really a socialistic system,” Barr said.He added, “It’s a heavy-handed bunch of thugs in my opinion, and that’s where the threat is.”"

-Socialistic? What is he talking about? Is he incapable of understanding what Socialism is? Have the Democrats promised to take most of the US's industry -coal, steel, computing, transport, water, gas, electricity and oil- into public ownership? (No).
Is there going to be a National/Federal Health Service? (No).
Is the wealth made by Americans going to be shared more equitably by Americans? (No).

C) The Vice President will have to be someone who does not make Trump uneasy because he or she is more intelligent or active -Pence was reliably Dull and willing to take the knee to his Boss -Trump can surely not choose someone who has eyes on his job? Maybe that mad woman from the House...(Yeah, I know, which one?!!)

The language of politics in America has been debased for some time, after all, how can one define a Conservative when Barr to some people in Congress is a traitor, or whatever other epithet they want to insist he is 'not one of us'?

So there you are, Bill Barr: still Catholic, still Conservative, and still Confused.
How did he ever become Attorney General?

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Originally Posted by Stavros

B) This is what puzzles me-
"“The threat facing our country is from the far left and the drift that’s been occurring toward really a socialistic system,” Barr said.He added, “It’s a heavy-handed bunch of thugs in my opinion, and that’s where the threat is.”"

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This sounds like a device to deal with cognitive dissonance. In order to rationalize supporting a man they must know is an unhinged authoritarian narcissist, these regular Republicans need to invent an even more dangerous threat on the other side.

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Originally Posted by filghy2

This sounds like a device to deal with cognitive dissonance. In order to rationalize supporting a man they must know is an unhinged authoritarian narcissist, these regular Republicans need to invent an even more dangerous threat on the other side.

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They live in a binary world, not just with regard to Gender. With their 'Us or them' mentality, they have adopted the same kind of political existentialism that Netanyahu thinks he has perfected. Thus, it doesn't matter who 'they' are, Communists, Marxists, Fascists, Radical Left, Anarchists -add your label here- just as long as 'they' are not 'US'. Just as when Donald Trump is on trial, it is in fact America. Just as, if he loses, America loses.

And this is what Barr also believes. As if when they win, nobody else loses. This is close to what AJ Polan considers to be the end of politics, where open debate is shut down, and you have a 'market place of ideas' where there is only idea or one person to buy.

Now Barr says that when Trump raged at people he wanted executed, it was not to be taken seriously. He would be talked out of it and nobody would do it anyway.
Barr: Trump Brought Up ‘Things Like’ Executing Rivals a Lot (yahoo.com)

So if Trump were to say 'I intend to use the Office of the Presidency to make as much money as I can' -should this be taken seriously? Barr, one imagines, would shake his head at the immorality of it, but do nothing about it- which is why Trump gets Barr's vote, because what in Barr's Catholic, quasi-Opus Dei world could be worse than (er, Catholic) Joe Biden?

"So you see, Barr is against Trump, but not in the same way that you and I are. He eventually took a stand against Trump, but let’s recall that it did take him a long time. It wasn’t until Trump’s election denialism after the 2020 election that it all became too much for Barr to swallow. Until then, he was with Trump all the way: through the Muslim ban, through the family separation policies, through the Putin love, through the climate denialism, through the various expressions of racism, through the relentless dividing of the country into an Us and a Them, through the reactionary response to George Floyd’s killing, through the famous walk across Lafayette Park to use a Bible as a prop for the cameras, in which Barr, I remind you, was a happy participant—through every bit of it."
Bill Barr Basically Agrees With Donald Trump About Us Vermin | The New Republic