Friday, March 02, 2012

The Georgetown Skank & the Pursuit of Horniness

Some scattered brain droppings to get us started:

The following is either paraphrased or a direct quote from Maritain: Each genuine science has its own distinctive light, corresponding to the formal principles by which it attains its object, or makes the object known.

Now, there are also supernatural principles, and these are made known by the light of faith. For there is an "object of pure intelligence" that cannot present itself to us -- or which we cannot make known to ourselves -- in any other way. We must meet it on its home turf, not ours.

There are necessary truths accessible to our reason. To the extent that one denies truths that compel our assent -- such as that the world is intelligible and that truth exists -- one is floating about the earth untethered to anything but the winds of opinion, fashion, preference -- in a word, desire.

What do these ethereal thoughts have to do with, like, anything -- you know, important stuff, like whether it is true that the Constitution forces us to subsidize the hysteromaniacal sex life of some Georgetown skank?

Glad you raised that point, because it is a perfect example of the distinction between a legal system rooted in principle and one based upon getting laid.

Call me an old-fashioned liberal, but it never occurred to me that one of the state's enumerated powers is to assure me abundant sex without consequences. Indeed, if the government were in charge of sex, then I'm sure that all women would look like DMV clerks, or maybe Miss Fluke herself (that's the DMV clerk on the left).

I know what you're thinking: Bob, you silly assoul, you never attended law school! What makes you think you understand the Constitution?

Fair question, but I've done some research, and it turns out that this Constitution thingy wasn't actually ratified by the Harvard Law School faculty.

Rather, it was presented for approval to the people, who are its author and its source. Our Constitution is sovereign over the people only to the extent that we are sovereign over it.

I know. Weird!

And of course, we can only be sovereign over it to the extent that we are sovereign over ourselves. But it sounds to me like the Georgetown Skank has no such auto-sovereignty, because you've got to be either really stupid or quite the bimbo -- or maybe just Paris Hilton -- to spend a thousand dollars a year on birth control.

I'll be frank: back when I was in college, I was never that lucky. Nor is it any measure of Cupid's favor to end up in the sack with the indiscriminate Miss Fluke. Rather, if one attends Georgetown -- or maybe just lives in the greater Georgetown area -- that is inevitable.

In fact, having sex three times a day for three years is beyond lucky. Rather, it's a compulsion. So does Obamacare cover the Georgetown Skank's sexual addiction? Because if she doesn't get treated, I don't know how she's ever going to graduate. Unless she's sleeping with her professors. Right.

Besides, if she wants to screw that many people, why not do it the old-fashioned way, by getting a judicial appointment?

About the question of law reducing to libido, or desire. That's no gag, because as Arkes points out, constitutional law took a one hundred eighty degree turn with the Griswold case of 1965.

In fact, you might say that it took a three hundred sixty degree turn, in the sense that it represented a "new start" for the forces that had been trying to undermine the Constitution for decades.

Griswold is only superficially about birth control. Rather, it simply used that as a pretext to usher in a new epoch of state intrusion into our lives. As Arkes explains, Griswold and Roe have become "the new touchstones in our jurisprudence," to such an extent that "any theory, any doctrine, of the law" which yields "the 'wrong' result" is "instantly marked as suspect or invalid."

In other words, instead of using the powers of deduction to apply constitutional principles to individual cases, we have a new standard that insists that we must toss out the principle if it clashes with the desires of the new vulgarians. For example, if I don't want the states to legislate abortion, then I conjure a constitutional reason to make it illegal for states to do so. That's what you call conjurisprudence.

Arkes says that "It could hardly be an overstatement then to say that Griswold and Roe mark the center, the core, of liberal jurisprudence in our own time."

The irony, of course, is that in reality the state -- the state, of all things! -- couldn't care less about your privacy. For example, it can reach into your wallet and force you to buy products you don't want and enter contracts you'd rather not.

But even leaving Obamacare to the side, have you ever been audited by the IRS? I mean, not over some small error, but the full proctological exam? That's when you find out that your privacy is a joke. And, for that matter, that you are guilty until proven innocent.

Another irony is that, in order to force the New Deal and Great Society upon us, the court had to take an entirely different tack prior to Griswold. Otherwise, how does one justify the huge expansion of state power to regulate every aspect of our economic behavior? Protest to FDR that you have a right to privacy -- for example, that you are free to charge as much as you want for a fucking chicken -- and you would have been arrested and tried.

But choking your chicken?

No, that's a poor example. Statists want to get involved in that activity as well.

37 comments:

mushroom said...

Indeed, if the government were in charge of sex,...

Diversity training. Ugly men and women need love, too.

Early on, I might have done better with more affirmative action.

mushroom said...

Speaking of the homely, I went and looked up that girl's picture. The problem at Georgetown is not that contraceptives are too expensive. If she's getting it three times a day, they need to stop giving away free beer.

julie said...

Mushroom, I'm really glad my coffee was finished before reading that...

julie said...

As to teaching masturbation to schoolkids, Planned Parenthood is all over that...

Gagdad Bob said...

That's not a plan for parenthood.

julie said...

True - I'd guess a remarkably small number of their clients manage to become parents.

Cond0011 said...

Miss Flukes testimony is so sad!

Sniff, sniffle...

Free contraceptives are important! Otherwise they will have to stop having... sex and live like many married people do.

Oh the humanity....

John Lien said...

What really shocks me is that the left used her plight (awwww, no free sex) and her version of poverty (going to $45,000/yr law school) as something that they thought would garner public support for their cause.

Two things come to mind.

1. It's a deliberate attempt to drive us nuts.

2. The divergence of world views between left and right is so extreme that they actually considered this a good example to trot out.

If 2 is true then, well, we're all screwed and it won't be fun or free.

bradger said...

Hi all,

I hope you will forgive me for posting what appears to be a random comment in an established comment stream. But a couple of months ago I asked Bob this question and he advised me to enter it into the comments for your response. That has been my plan for some time now, but I don’t have internet access early on in the process and by the time I do, the action has moved on. So, again, please excuse my abruptness. I am genuinely interested in your take on what follows.

I am wondering what you all think about the nature of some experiences of Christian mystics and "elders". To be specific, there are accounts of these encountering Christian spiritual figures of the past and having sustained conversations with them. A good example would be the account given at "http:// fatherstephen.wordpress.com/christianity-in-a-one-storey- universe/". Father Stephen is an Orthodox priest and he shares an account of how the monks at a Coptic monastery receive regular visitations rom those who have traveled on. St. Antony is specifically mentioned.

Reading those accounts makes me wonder what they are experiencing.
I have no trouble believing that they are having these experiences. But are they really communicating with the saints? I am assuming that if St. Antony doesn't sound like a Coptic then Coptic monks would dismiss the experience as demonic. Yet, I’m pretty sure that St. Antony in his current state of existence isn't particularly Coptic, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or Protestant for that matter. Maybe the Saint communicates to them in a manner they can accept given the specifics of their church affiliations? What is your take on this?

Thanks,

Bulldog

bradger said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
JP said...

As someone who went into debt in the amount of $120,000 for a T14 law school, I will add some commentary here.

First, she is a *female law student* at Georgetown, which it itself a *top law school*. Mushroom has already discovered what information is generally conveyed when you put those two phrases in the same sentence.

Second, you are missing the point of the modern high-priced legal education. It's generally a ticket *into* poverty once you get out of school with $200,000 in debt and no actual job lined up. When you think of *law student* these days, think *mark* as in confidence trick.

Third, I have no useful response to Bulldog.

Cond0011 said...

"To be specific, there are accounts of these encountering Christian spiritual figures of the past and having sustained conversations with them. "

I don't think I have ever had the luxury of conversing with a bonafide saint or mystic. The closest I came to that was Father Zosima from reading 'The Brothers karamozov' in high school. heh.

My eager anticipation as to the description of how a potential saint would converse with the ordinary man, led to my disappointment: he struck me as just a kindly old man. Whether it was the fault of the writer (heh, again) or my very muddy vision through the words of merely a story, I do not know. Still, it inadvertantly sent me on the path of thinking that the great are just ordinary people and that they can be anyone ... anywhere.

Be it the Longshoreman Eric Hoffer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Hoffer

to public figures such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayaan_Hirsi_Ali

Thanks for the link to Father Stephen, though I do thnk the link is old. Here is the new link:
http://fatherstephen.wordpress.com/christianity-in-a-one-storey-%20universe/

I will read it when I have time and hopefully have further comments to your questions. How nice that you value us comment dwellers opinion ( at the Raccoon lodge) this much!

Talk to you later.

julie said...

Hi Bulldog,

Personally, I've no reason to think the monks' experiences are anything but what they say. If they seem unusual in having frequent face-to-face conversations with saints, I can only think that these days it is unusual to see such a thing as being perfectly ordinary. They have no blinders telling them that it can't be done, and since they have an affinity for St. Antony, I see no reason why he shouldn't like to pop in and chat from time to time. While I find it highly doubtful that people remain sectarian after death, still it stands to reason that they are most likely to aid those who know to call upon them, no?

Thanks for the Father Stephen link, by the way. I've seen him mention the one-storey/ two-storey universe, but don't believe I've read this particular essay before.

mushroom said...

Hi, Bulldog. Protestants are generally not going to be too accepting of the idea, and that is, I think, our loss (speaking as a Protestant). We tend to reject manifestations of saints or the Virgin Mary as delusional or the work of demons, which seems rather ridiculous. The devil is not likely to encourage us to righteousness.

While I have never talked to a saint or someone deceased directly, I did spend so much time reading C.S. Lewis and being absorbed in his writings that I felt as if I had met him and been instructed by him.

I agree with Julie that if someone cultivates an affinity for a particular saint or mystical teacher that God would allow more direct communication. Jesus talked to Moses and Elijah, apparently in person, on the Mount of Transfiguration. Paul believed and stated that he was an Apostle because he had met Christ in Person on the Damascus Road.

He further claims, in Galatians 1, for example, that he did not receive his revelation and teachings from men, but "from God".

John encountered the Lord in Person on Patmos.

If you can talk to Jesus, and the saints are "in Christ" -- ("to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord"), it makes sense that those saints would be, at the very least, "in on" the communication.

ge said...

Romney-Christie!

from beyond the grave, known friend Breitbart may be sending a posthumous gift their way

mushroom said...

Romney-Christie: "Keep Your Money; Give us your doughnuts."

mushroom said...

I could get behind that, actually.

Cond0011 said...

@Bulldog:

Now to answer your question the best I can (in light of the article you posted by Father Stephen)

"I have no trouble believing that they are having these experiences. But are they really communicating with the (dead) saints? I am assuming that if St. Antony doesn't sound like a Coptic then Coptic monks would dismiss the experience as demonic."

I don't know, Bulldog.

Magnus Itland said...

Seeing saints talking to you may seem like the ultimate boon from Heaven; but if words were enough, we all here would be saints already, alone from the words the saints gave us while alive.

julie said...

Magnus - true, that.

Happy March Forth, raccoons!

Van Harvey said...

"... it turns out that this Constitution thingy wasn't actually ratified by the Harvard Law School faculty.

Rather, it was presented for approval to the people, who are its author and its source. Our Constitution is sovereign over the people only to the extent that we are sovereign over it.

I know. Weird!"

Perfectly put!

Gagdad Bob said...

Bulldog:

I have no doubt whatsoever that some of these experiences are real some of the time. As always, test the spirits and judge them by their fruits. But to suggest that there is no personal experience and knowledge of the divine would be to toss out the most compelling evidence and testimony of God. If the Beatific Vision isn't real, then I'm a monkey's uncle. Or rather, vice versa.

Gagdad Bob said...

At the very least, there's some kind of profound sympathetic resonance that goes on when we immerse ourselves in the world of a genuine saint or sage, which awakens something in ourselves, as "deep calls to deep." In fact, I invented a symbol for the process: "≈" (the wavy equal sign).

Gagdad Bob said...

And because the contemporary western mind is so abstract and intellectualized, perhaps we are less susceptible to visions, but more prone to other forms of communion and reception. In a preliterate world, people think "imagistically."

Gagdad Bob said...

Van:

Besides, the Harvard Law faculty would never have ratified it.

Van Harvey said...

Bulldog & Gagdad 11:59,

A friend posted a quote from Abigail Adams that bears on the issue:

"When will Mankind be convinced that true Religion is from the Heart, between Man and his creator, and not the imposition of Man or creeds and tests?"

~ Abigail Adams, Letter to Louisa Adams (January 3, 1818)


I suspect that to the extent that the experiences came from the depths within, such things are true, and in the only way that actually matters... to the extent they come from without... personally, I'd be suspicious of them - but that's me.

Van Harvey said...

Gagdad said "Besides, the Harvard Law faculty would never have ratified it"

So true, and what they wouldn't have ratified then, they've been working ever since to repeal.

William said...

Well, the count is up to seven .... sponsors fleeing the Rush Limbaugh show like rats from a wrecked ship. (ProFlowers, Sleep Number, The Sleep Train, Quicken Loans, Legal Zoom, Citrix, and Carbonite - GONE).

Even before these attacks by Limbaugh, Polls showed Obama crushing his challengers in the women vote, just like last time in '08.

Good job, keep it up.

Van Harvey said...

willian said "...crushing his challengers in the women vote..."

I suppose that explains your vote.

Gagdad Bob said...

It's true. Democrats know as well as anyone that they cannot win the "man vote" -- liberal and manly being antonymous -- which is why they have to control the hysterical and helpless single women who depend upon the state instead of a man. Thus their weird fixation on birth control, as explained by Taranto.

Van Harvey said...

willian said "Sorry, typo."

Lol. Sorry, but… the notion that spelling could the issue ;-) it's sorta like when like when a dog seems to be thoughtful and concerned, and everyone says "Oh! Look! Spot looks just like a person when he does that!", when of course no one really thinks he looks just like a person, but only that there's some similarity in the appearance, that reminds everyone of an expression that a person might make.

willian, your comments. They look just like things a thoughtful person might say.

julie said...

Au contraire, Van - they look just like things a thinking person might say, but they don't bear any resemblance at all to actual thoughtfulness.

Gagdad Bob said...

If the Georgetown Skank ever wants to be treated as an equal, she's going to have to stand up and take the verbal slings as men routinely do, without wilting like a frail flower.

William said...

Let it stand on record that the "Christian" Robert Godwin endorses Rush Limbaugh's request that college women who receive insurance coverage for contraception must submit video tapes of themselves having sex for the amusement of pigs like Limbaugh.

Just wanted to make sure we had that stated for the record... for those who research Mr. Godwin.

Van Harvey said...

willian: illustrating absurdity by truly being absurd.

julie said...

Wow. It must be a horrible universe you inhabit, William, if such a chain of thought actually passes for reasoned, logical argument. How did you ever manage to learn music? Hell, how did you ever learn to put pants on? Truly, it's a wonder your sentences even come out in a semblance of intelligible order; chalk one up for intelligent design, I guess...

Gagdad Bob said...

William, you are so full of shit. I never even hinted that college women should submit sex tapes to Limbaugh. I explicitly said they should send them directly to Cousin Dupree, and he'll pass along any good ones to me.

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