Just Security obtained a copy of Mike Pompeo’s human rights plan, based on what he called “natural law.”
Some of us are old enough to remember when that phrase was used mostly by the Catholic Church to justify their views on marriage and procreation. But apparently the evangelicals have put their own gloss on it so that it excludes the usual suspects – gays, transgender people, and other miscreants – from human rights.
So that is what Pompeo would inflict on us and the world. Trump has already carried out parts of it in his actions against transgender people. I’m not sure that brown families seeking refuge are explicitly listed as those not qualified for human rights, but the administration has sure been acting that way.
Just Security also analyzes where this “natural law” theory came from. It seems to come primarily from several individuals’ needs to demonize teh gays. And, of course, it comes from God or human nature or whatever you need to make your argument unanswerable.
As a 2017 Heritage Foundation report framed the issue: “Civil and political rights are products of government; natural rights are not.”
It’s disturbing that so many in the government belong to extremist sects and are pushing those extremist beliefs. I’d like to see a reporter pin down Pompeo on what he believes about the Rapture. Nobody who believes that should be anywhere near the control of nuclear weapons.
Baud
One would think that the term “natural law” would be protective of sexual freedom because what could be more natural than that.
But as with many conservative theories, they read natural law to mean human law that reflected historical prejudices before the era of the Enlightenment and other more modern progressive movements.
Mike in DC
In a “state of nature”, individual humans have a tendency to, well, die. Small groups of humans developed a communitarian ethos that included sharing food gathered with those who were too old or young or sick to gather enough themselves…because at some point that could happen to any member of the group. Property rights don’t exist at all in a state of nature. While the evolution of western political philosophy is fascinating, I never had much truck with the natural law stuff.
Another Scott
I’m so old that I remember when the Natural Law Party was putting forward a candidate for President, and they thought Transendental Meditation would solve all the world’s problems… Now, it’s the “US Peace Government” party. Or something.
Pompeo is a disaster. He should be in the line for impeachment also too.
Cheers,
Scott.
Barbara
Natural law tends to reflect only what the majority finds natural for themselves. Thomas Aquinas has a lot to answer for.
Gin & Tonic
From the link:
I truly cannot understand how or why one would spend minutes of scholarly work, let alone decades, analyzing what other adult humans choose to do with respect to love and sex. If it does not harm anyone, who the fuck cares? More importantly, why?
Baud
@Baud:
I mean, look at bonobos.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
Self-hate is the usual answer. But who knows for sure?
brantl
I want a bumper sticker that says: “Gladys Kravitz was an asshole, and all you other busybodies, too!” I wonder if these pinheads would realize I was talking about them.
chris
Pompeo’s just amusing his friends while they await the Rapture.
Baud
@chris:
The Rapture can’t come soon enough. I’ve always said it would be a win-win.
Citizen Alan
@chris:
If the Rapture actually happened, we wouldn’t notice because the number of people who are “Christ-like” enough to deserve being Raptured is such a fantastically small percentage of the people who claim to be Christian.
Vhh
This “natural law” stuff comes straight from dogma of the conservative Catholic Church–you know, the folks who don’t accept birth control and are under legal siege for covering up pedophila around the world and even infanticide in Ireland, where the Church is at last being voted out of its veto on family policies.
Gravenstone
Pretty sure we already know what he believes about the Rapture – he’s all for it.
chris
@Baud: I’m with you! I still can’t believe that the Secretary of State, of the United Fucking States of America!!!, talked about the Rapture in public.
Ole Phat Stu
In the Bible, KJ Ed., God only mentions disliking Gays 2 times, but forbids eating shrimps EIGHT times.
So what’s Pompeo’s position on shrimps?
Even Forrest Gump approved ;-)
chris
@Citizen Alan: That will be the funny part. All those TV guys trying to explain why they were Left Behind.
James E Powell
The press/media have given pretty wide latitude to unhinged & dangerous religious fanatics, so long as they are fundamentalist Christians with money. In fact, they press/media have protected and promoted them with euphemisms like “values voters” and the like. If The Fellowship were anything but RW Christians with money, they’d be attacked by the press/media until they ceased to exist.
Barbara
@Ole Phat Stu: KJ was almost certainly homosexual or at least bisexual (he did father many kids with his wife), and he didn’t really bother hiding his love for men. My view is that the documented existence of a relatively small but durable percentage of people with innate preference for same sex partners across many ages and cultures strongly suggests all on its own a biological etiology that has naught to do with morality. I even posit some kind of structural advantage for having a few people in your hunting and gathering group who contribute to the production of food without producing more mouths to feed. That’s pure speculation on my part, but it’s striking.
Gin & Tonic
@Barbara:
And who can make the cave look fabulous with just a few common items.
Jager
@chris:
Let’s see, how about, “I was left behind to prepare you for the next Rapture. I can send you more information on preparations, just send….”
Immanentize
Just a quick law-ish comment. The Declaration of Independence’s framing of the rebellion as a Locke-ian cause of righteousness was utterly and purposefully rejected by both the framers of the Articles of Confederation and, more importantly, the framers of the Constitution. Many reasons for this, chief among them:
1) Revolutions can be waged on natural rights theory vis a vis governments, but Governments really can’t be run like that.
2) The anti-federalists (mostly New Yorkers) fought he Federalists on the question of unlimited vague government by theory. The anti-federalists won, hence the first 10 amendments.
3) Slavery. Even at the framing, there were many arguing slaves had natural rights too. Ooops.
schrodingers_cat
Meanwhile in India, dogmatic people are foisting their preferences* on school children by providing bland school lunches which are not just vegetarian but also don’t use onions and garlic. Most children prefer going hungry to eating this kind of food.
Its all about cultural hegemony and power for these so called religious people. The organization under fire is an offshoot of ISKCON.
*Only the strictest brahmins and Jains follow these rules.
oldster
So I wonder how these cretins will categorize the “right” to keep and bear arms:
as a “civil and political right” or a “natural right”?
I’m guessing it will be the second — nothing is more sacred to them than their guns.
Barbara
@Gin & Tonic: Ha ha! But seriously, it will come as little or no surprise that (per the link) the person behind this concept is Robert George, the guy whose whole adult life seems to be a panic stricken reaction to the concept of female autonomy and the existence of gay people.
Brachiator
Natural law has long been used to justify racism. Early versions of this can be seen in the Confederacy’s rationalizations for slavery and later, segregation and Jim Crow.
An offshoot has been used to justify sexism. The common thread is a hierarchy in which white males always come up at the top of the social pyramid.
And now it is also being used to erase gay and transgender people.
MattF
Garry Wills has a thing or two to say about the role of ‘natural law’ in Catholic Church doctrine on contraception.
Barbara
@oldster: Well, that might be a bit difficult since guns didn’t even exist before the Protestant Reformation.
JustRuss
@Gin & Tonic:
I use antlers in all of my decorating!
kindness
Obviously we as a people are divided. When one side starts saying that God is only on their side it’s pretty plain where this is going to go. Do we want to be like the Jewish folk in the Warsaw ghettos or do we want to fight for our own rights?
Sternly worded tweets aren’t going to help us here. They are implanting these haters into the fabric of our laws and governments. And before you say I’m being overly dramatic, think about what their side will do when they do have the power they are seeking.
Searcher
@Citizen Alan: I don’t know, Trump definitely has a martyr complex, is constantly getting backstabbed by friends and allies, and sure spends a lot of time around prostitutes.
germy
(Before the switch to “In God We Trust”)
https://rivergrandrapids.com/the-first-official-us-coin-said-mind-your-business-fact-of-the-day/
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic:
Maybe assuming too much about this guy?
syphonblue
“Human rights? What are those?” – Trump Administration
https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/trump-administration-cancels-english-classes-soccer-legal-aid-for-unaccompanied-child-migrants-in-us-shelters/2019/06/05/df2a0008-8712-11e9-a491-25df61c78dc4_story.html
Brachiator
@Mike in DC:
The “state of nature” doesn’t exist outside of philosophy. Human beings evolved from primate ancestors who were also social and cooperative.
Mike in NC
Human rights apply only to white evangelical Christians per the GOP.
patrick II
@Barbara:
To me the answer as to whether all gays are acting by choice is answered in those countries where homosexuality is a crime punishable by death. In those countries they still seek out, at great risk, to be with the one they love, even at the cost of death. Those are not the actions of someone making a choice just because they can, those are acts compelled by their nature, they would rather die than not act on them.
Major Major Major Major
Happy pride month!
@Brachiator:
Even then, only in some schools.
Barbara
@patrick II: That’s what I mean about it being seen across ages and culture — culture does not seem to provide any independent explanation for documented preference. Thinking that a gay teenager who has spent his whole life in a conservative Christian culture being inculcated to hate gay people is making a choice is floor level stupidity.
rp
@kindness: What does this mean?: “Do we want to be like the Jewish folk in the Warsaw ghettos or do we want to fight for our own rights?” If you’re suggesting that the Jewish residents didn’t rise up, that’s completely false.
lumpkin
Natural Law is one of the myriad ways of saying “shit I just made up”.
Barbara
The most depressing aspect of this is the existence of people who see the expansion of human rights as a bad thing. It’s so directly linked to the concept that power should include the right to demonize and discriminate in order to ensure greater welfare for some people than others. “I should have the right to harm you for my own good.” That’s what it amounts to. All the theological window dressing is just that. Otherwise, why does anyone even care what some nonbeliever does in bed? Let God sort it out.
Kay
I met an older woman yesterday and we were talking about pregnancy – her granddaughter is pregnant- and in the course of that she mentioned that she had two children but was pregnant three times. The third pregnancy was ended with a prescription from a doctor where she had to take two pills 12 hours apart. She was anxious – not sleeping, not eating- and unhappily married and she told the physician she just could not have another baby at that time. This would have been early 1970’s and she was living on an army base. Was that option available since the 1970’s but just came into wide usage much later? I didn’t know that.
Scott
You know, if you look up Natural Law in just Wikipedia, , there will be a dozen or so definitions or categories or whatever of what Natural Law is. Perhaps some enterprising journalist can read up and pin Pompeo down on exactly which Natural Law he is talking about. I suspect he has no clue since he is just parroting what his radical right wing Christianity has put into his brain.
trollhattan
@Baud:
Silly, only for sex with guns (cue Florida Man).
Chip Daniels
In a state of nature, “rights” don’t exist.
Chyron HR
@Barbara:
“I should have the right to harm you for my own
goodentertainment.”trollhattan
Can I just say that Pompeo is really thick, which I suppose puts him midpack with other House Republicans but shit, these low-quality hires are really wrecking the joint.
patrick II
Every time they quote Martin Luther King, conservatives are up to no good.
cmorenc
“Natural law” and “original intent” (of the founding fathers who wrote the constitution etc) are both but lofty-sounding blank walls against which conservatives paint their ideological beliefs, in an effort to try to sell the latter as structurally inherent to the walls instead of simply their preferences superficially painted on top.
Cheryl Rofer
Scott @43 and others: Pompeo’s concept of “natural law” is what the Just Security article is about. That’s why I linked it.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
So I have a lot of stuff to get done in the house today.
But the dog says I should hang out in the back yard and soak up the sun. This message is conveyed by flopping over into the grass at the end of the walk, while still on the leash, and refusing to move.
Not sure which way to go.
Immanentize
@trollhattan:
Hey! Stop the fat shaming!
Barbara
@Chyron HR: No, it’s not entertainment. It’s advantage. I can’t see this as a joke. Sorry.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@rp: I think that’s ammosexual mythology. Your average confederate-flag-waving idiot would never have let the Holocaust happen, they would have taken their assault rifle and single-handedly shown those Nazis a thing or two, you betcha.
lumpkin
@patrick II:
This is one of the more repellant forms of their various bad faith arguments.
Hildebrand
@Citizen Alan: Evangelical Christians have completely misinterpreted the concept (and the texts) of the rapture. Read correctly, you really don’t want to be one of the ones ‘taken’, they go to a very bad place. The ones who are left behind are the faithful, or at least the redeemable. So, if all the fundies want to be raptured, we shouldn’t stand in their way.
Immanentize
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: In their minds, they are Sargent York. In real life, Eddie Slovik.
Ruckus
@Gin & Tonic:
It is of course a matter of control. They think they should have it, and that you should not. Because then they own you. They can shame you and cause you pain. They do not understand or appreciate in any way that others have freedom, everyone, well except for them of course, have to abide by restrictive law.
jonas
@Gin & Tonic: Robert P. George at Princeton is another prominent natural law philosopher that a lot of evangelicals look to. IIRC one time he argued that a law banning masturbation would not be a bad or irrational thing.
kindness
@rp: The Nazis pretty much wiped out the people that stayed in the ghettos. Those that weren’t killed outright were sent to concentration camps. Historically speaking I was making a point that principles don’t protect you when the other side doesn’t care about your principles. Just like right now.
That is what I mean.
trollhattan
@Immanentize:
“Your brain is really Rubenesque!”
Ruckus
@Citizen Alan:
It’s possible that if the rapture happened the natural daily death rate would not be reached, and the number would be too small to measure.
Chyron HR
@Barbara:
I’m transgender. I’m not joking. They get absolutely no benefit from persecuting me, they just do it for fun.
Barbara
@Chyron HR: I would put it differently. You are a living rebuke to a world view that does not allow for deviation from a norm. They get advantage from enforcing that norm. You are the collateral damage.
Walker
@Ole Phat Stu:
This line of argument actually has a rebuttal, unfortunately. In Acts, Paul has a vision where he remarks that he cannot eat unclean creatures and the Lord rebukes him with the statement that nothing he has made is unclean.
This leads to some revisionary stuff later in the New Testament about the old laws. However, in one of the letters they specifically mention sexual morality (with no definition at all of what this means) as something that should still be observed. So this – right or wrong – is the New Testament scripture these groups go by.
NotMax
It’s separating humans into those who are “natural” and those who are “unnatural.” A ‘polite’ way of saying “subhuman.”
Seems to me this was tried within collective living memory.
The Moar You Know
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Dog Law trumps Natural Law. The dog is correct.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
Surely this must be considered a crime against basic decency..
Cacti
@Barbara:
Hobbes had a rather different view of life in its natural state:
No knowledge of the face of the earth, no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society, continual fear and danger of violent death, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
TenguPhule
@syphonblue:
I’m sure that furnace and shower room they’re building are definitely not an ominous sign of the future. //s
NotMax
@TenguPhule
Scene just outside the schoolyard.
“Psst. Hey, kid! Wanna buy some garlic powder?”
TenguPhule
@NotMax:
Republicans heard the stories about camps of WW II from their parents and thought they sounded like a good idea.
West of the Rockies
So much for certain inalienable rights and all that Revolutionary rot…
TenguPhule
@NotMax:
All the cool kids will have onions hanging from their belts.
Steve in the ATL
@Immanentize: you hold an active law license in at least one jurisdiction, right? There were some concerns yesterday about UPL and I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble!
The Moar You Know
@schrodingers_cat: Have a local lunatic here in San Diego suing the school district, claiming her daughter is “gluten sensitive” (not intolerant, which is a medical diagnosis and would be a different story with the same ending). She wants the school her daughter attends to not allow any foodstuffs on campus at all.
You will not be shocked to hear that Mom has an eating disorder and refuses to allow her daughter to be examined by an impartial physician.
Idiots everywhere.
TenguPhule
@The Moar You Know:
So only Kale, Quorn and Cheese Whiz will be available?
That’s asking for a student revolution.
TenguPhule
@Steve in the ATL:
At least not until you’re paid your first retainer.
Barbara
@Cacti: I agree, a lot of stuff that is natural is pretty horrible.
VeniceRiley
Whatever retcon fits for the cruelty and exclusion in order to ensure (white christian) heterosexual male supremacy.
They might believe some of their rationalizations for their acts; but that’s not a deal breaker. It’s useless to argue intellectual points with these people. If an argument fails, they’ll come up with some other one in order to support the goal.
They’re the enemy. They’re powerful, and they want more. Their thirst is bottomless, and they frighten me.
Ladyraxterinok
@Ole Phat Stu: Hsrd-line Evangelicals I’ve read claim KJV condemns gays 6 places. Others–eg Fred Clark in his blog slacktivist at patheos– show how those passages have been misread though history– key is mistranslation of terms and unawareness of culture of group/era in which passages were written.
The Moar You Know
@TenguPhule: No. She’s a fucking lunatic. NO FOOD WHATSOEVER. NO EATING ON CAMPUS. I’d almost like to see her succeed to see what a parent riot looks like, but the kid, sadly, is really nice.
Ladyraxterinok
@cmorenc: Original intent–slavery and no votes for women.
We better start listening to those who want to follow the ‘original intent of the founding fathers’!!,
Matt
Admitting that they’re unwilling to acknowledge that portions of humanity are human is literally the most honest thing the Christianists have ever done.
Tax their “churches” out of existence.
Bex
@Walker: Peter had that vision.
chopper
@Immanentize:
no, that’s “thicc”.
Martin
@Ladyraxterinok: I forget which political commentator said it, but they said the reason liberals misunderstand conservatives is that conservatives adapt their religion to fit their politics, while liberals assume that they adapt their politics to fit their religion.
The interpretation of the KJV is the dependent variable here. They read it that way because they need it to read that way.
Mnemosyne
@kindness:
Poland was invaded by a hostile foreign power that overthrew their government and started imprisoning and massacring the population. Gentile Poles who looked too “Slavic” were robbed of their lands and murdered, not just Jews. Your comparison makes no sense.
JDM
“Natural law” has been around for at least 35-40 years. It’s basically rightwingers libertarianism done with really poor scholarship (yes, even worse than usual for that stuff) based on hack sociobiology and evolutionary psychology. I first ran across it when I was looking at who cited my late wife’s book on early human evolution. Several cites were about “natural law” which sounded intriguing so I looked it up and read some papers. Every one was racist and/or sexist crap, “supported” by cites that didn’t actually support it.
The methods of pseudo and fringe science, conservatism, and conservative evangelicalism in the USA and elsewhere are virtually always the same. The same logical fallacies used over and over, and above all, projection. Always projection.
J R in WV
@Baud:
Baud, you are so acute. To the Right Wing Nut Job, natural law is what Calvin and Martin Luther told them it was at the beginning of the Reformation, which also was the beginning of 300 years of continuous religious warfare, witch burning, torture of innocent people who were cross-eyed or had a cleft palate.
To me natural law is being able to stroll in the rainy woods naked because your clothes will just get wet and uncomfortable. To make love as and when desired b everyone involved. To love your friends, where ever they are from, if they love you. To be uncomfortable around bigots and haters, and to avoid them when possible.
We don’t have a sign that says “Creepy Bigots Keep Out” on the road into the farm, because years ago the Jehovah’s Witnesses came up to the farm house to preach, and were greeted by a buxom sweaty pink lady out of the hot tub in a towel – Satan Incarnate, I suspect they thought, and put a special mark by our address in their central file — Thanks so much Caitlin!!!
@JDM:
Actuallly, linking it to even hack sociobiology and [fucked-up] evolutionary psychology is giving them too much credit. It’s all made up bullshit based on whatever illness any given RWNJ is suffering from — if they’re phobic about strong women, the Natural Law is that “Women must be demure and subject to a man’s strong will and control!”
If they have homophobia, then “The Gay Lesbians and Trans should all go to hell immediately so they won’t scare us any more!”
If they’re stupid then all “Smart people are devil worshipers, don’t believe the science that saved your mothers life!” — I like that one, it sums up all their phobias into one short line.
Natural Law, indeed! The Earth is Flat was the first Natural Law!
Looks like a lot of good comments… now I’ll read more of them. Natural Law is a great topic for putting RWNJs in their proper place, Noah’s Ark of Kentucky in a Tropical Storm’s worth of rain.
Barbara
@JDM: The natural law “tradition” was essentially begun by Thomas Aquinas as part of his quest to elucidate and defend the Catholic faith. He distinguished between natural law and divine law:
https://www.iep.utm.edu/aquinas/#SSSH9aii2
So the concept of natural law has been resurrected over the last 50 years as a means of rebuking what Pope Benedict termed “the dictatorship of relativism,” that is, truth or law that is contingent on something other than enduring principles. Modern day adherents of natural law are being dishonest when they try to divorce the concept from its origin in divine revelation. However, that’s what Robbie George’s goal is — to derive a concept of natural law that is not part of an a priori divinely inspired set of truths.
kindness
@Mnemosyne: I have family who are Concentration Camp survivors from Poland. I’m not saying the Nazis only killed the Jewish folk. But only the Jewish folk lived in the Warsaw ghettos. I have faith in those here who caught my drift. Which is our very way of life is at stake, don’t blow it.
Jeez.
James E Powell
@Brachiator:
Just like ceteris paribus doesn’t exist outside of economics classes, Otis Redding notwithstanding.
smintheus
Natural Law is “Kill or be killed.”
J R in WV
@Ladyraxterinok:
This may be why those in Episcopal theology schools must learn Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic in order to read texts themselves in a variety of ancient languages in which they were written/translated into in the very earliest times. As opposed to evangelical religions in which you need not read even English, just Feel the Call to become a preacher.
Procopius
Just a reminder, anti-abortion laws are an Establishment of Religion. When the soul enters the body was the subject of debate among Christian theologians for centuries before the Reformation and was never settled. It’s a religious question, not a scientific one. Pro-choice people need to start framing the argument this way.
Uncle Cosmo
@Hildebrand: I personally am rooting for The Crapture – when the fundacrazies are all lifted bodily up & dropped into an uncovered septic tank.