Harry Reid, Racism, and Common Law

So Senator Harry Reid is a closet racist. Add to the list of Reid’s Senatorial sins beguiling those of common sense in America. The sin? What’s good for one party (think Senator Trent Lott’s 2002 toast to Strom Thurmond) – running another Senator out of town for a vocal faux pas – isn’t treated with even handed fairness by media voices and those supporting the sinful Reid.

And now umpteen millions want to throw a millstone around Reid’s neck and toss him into the sea. Or rue the day he was born.

While that soap opera burns up our attention span, I’m interested in something else.

Have you noticed the unspoken power of human nature that has exploded over this? Everybody has an opinion and some people want to see Harry Reid suffer.

Why?

There’s an ember of right and wrong that flares to life whenever idiotic statements like Harry Reid’s are made. Each of us have it. But it’s not just racist comments that get us riled.

We don’t like anything unfair. We especially don’t like our overzealous government increasing our taxes or shoving health care down our throats. It makes us angry.

That sense of fairness, that very ember of truth inside each of us actually has a name. Cicero called it “right reason.” The Founders called it Natural Law.

Natural Law is an inborn, hard-wired, fully-assimilated saturation into the universal and unifying common ground of “what’s right for one must be right for all.”

Nobody needs a book to explain why some things are “right reason” and others not. We know it the moment that first bully swipes our chew toy or pushes us down.

In the Five Thousand Year Leap, Dr. Skousen points out that Natural Law remains the one powerful constant whereby equality and free choice can shake hands and create for all human beings the greatest freedom possible. Good human relations and good government must begin here. Says he:
Most modern Americans have never studied Natural Law. They are therefore mystified by the constant reference to Natural Law by the Founding Fathers. Blackstone confirmed the wisdom of the Founders by stating that it is the only reliable basis for a stable society and a system of justice. Then what is Natural Law? A good place to seek out the answer is in the writings of one of the American Founders’ favorite authors, Marcus Tullius Cicero.
The Life and Writings of Cicero
It was Cicero who cut sharply through the political astigmatism and philosophical errors of both Plato and Aristotle to discover the touchstone for good laws, sound government, and the long-range formula for happy human relations. In the Founders’ roster of great political thinkers, Cicero was high on the list.
Dr. William Ebenstein of Princeton says:
“The only Roman political writer who has exercised enduring influence throughout the ages is Cicero (106-43 B.C.)…. Cicero studied law in Rome, and philosophy in Athens…. He became the leading lawyer of his time and also rose to the highest office of state [Roman Consul].
“… Yet his life was not free of sadness; only five years after he had held the highest office in Rome, the consulate, he found himself in exile for a year…. Cicero nevertheless showed considerable personal courage in opposing the drift toward dictatorship based on popular support. Caesar was assassinated in 44 B.C., and a year later, in 43 B.C., Cicero was murdered by the henchmen of Antony, a member of the triumvirate set up after Caesar’s death.” 1
So out of Cicero’s maelstrom of turbulent experience with power politics, plus his intense study of all forms of political systems, he wrote his landmark books on the Republic and the Laws. In these writings Cicero projected the grandeur and promise of some future society based on Natural Law.
The American Founding Fathers obviously shared a profound appreciation of Cicero’s dream because they envisioned just such a commonwealth of prosperity and justice for themselves and their posterity. They saw in Cicero’s writings the necessary ingredients for their model society which they eventually hoped to build.
Cicero’s Fundamental Principles
To Cicero, the building of a society on principles of Natural Law was nothing more nor less than recognizing and identifying the rules of “right conduct” with the laws of the Supreme Creator of the universe. History demonstrates that even in those nations sometimes described as “pagan” there were sharp, penetrating minds like Cicero’s who reasoned their way through the labyrinths of natural phenomena to see behind the cosmic universe, as well as the unfolding of their own lives, the brilliant intelligence of a supreme Designer with an ongoing interest in both human and cosmic affairs.
Cicero’s compelling honesty led him to conclude that once the reality of the Creator is clearly identified in the mind, the only intelligent approach to government, justice, and human relations is in terms of the laws which the Supreme Creator has already established. The Creator’s order of things is called Natural Law.
A fundamental presupposition of Natural Law is that man’s reasoning power is a special dispensation of the Creator and is closely akin to the rational or reasoning power of the Creator himself. In other words, man shares with his Creator this quality of utilizing a rational approach to solving problems, and the reasoning of the mind will generally lead to common-sense conclusions based on what Jefferson called “the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” (The Declaration of Independence).
Let us now examine the major precepts of Natural Law which so profoundly impressed the Founding Fathers.
Natural Law Is Eternal and Universal
First of all, Cicero defines Natural Law as “true law.” Then he says:
“True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions…. It is a sin to try to alter this law, nor is it allowable to repeal any part of it, and it is impossible to abolish entirely. We cannot be freed from its obligations by senate or people, and we need not look outside ourselves for an expounder or interpreter of it. And there will not be different laws at Rome and Athens, or different laws now and in the future, but one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all nations and all times, and there will be one master and ruler, that is God, over us all, for he is the author of this law, its promulgator, and its enforcing judge. Whoever is disobedient is fleeing from himself and denying his human nature, and by reason of this very fact he will suffer the worst punishment.” 2
In these few lines the student encounters concepts which were repeated by the American Founders a thousand times. The Law of Nature or Nature’s God is eternal in its basic goodness; it is universal in its application. It is a code of “right reason” from the Creator himself. It cannot be altered. It cannot be repealed. It cannot be abandoned by legislators or the people themselves, even though they may pretend to do so. In Natural Law we are dealing with factors of absolute reality. It is basic in its principles, comprehensible to the human mind, and totally correct and morally right in its general operation.
To the Founding Fathers as well as to Blackstone, John Locke, Montesquieu, and Cicero, this was a monumental discovery.

Next: Natural Law continued—The Divine Gift of Reason

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 14th, 2010 at 8:19 am and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.