Maureen Dowd put it, ‘He’s so Old School, he’s Old Testament.’ [quoted from an article Mike Biggs posted]
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(Thanks for responding. Nobody on LBO seems to even care.)
The `he' is Scalia. A couple of times a week, I am relieved all the study put into Strauss was not wasted. Strauss started off as OT close reader, which he used in part to re-invent modern Jewish thought, away from its one-time heavy tendency to go left-liberal. He wasn't a key participant in creating the legends behind Zionism, but he sure did some of the philosophical justifications which have heavy political consequences in law. (I am having a hard time finishing Shlomo Sand, because after his first chapter, he gets into the extraordinarily archane specifics of Jewish-European and Near Eastern historical detail... I can only sustain the effort by considering the Christian examples which follow a similar arc.)
So then Scalia fits this same general mold, in the reactionary wing of the neoconservative system. I think of Scalia as something like Carl Schmitt. Both have this concept of government power, which is near absolute. The interesting thing is they both invite enemies of their positions to be equally blunt and think that what make liberals weak is their reluctance to stand for their own principles. I agree.
The article on Scalia was okay, but the writer didn't notice or perhaps didn't know that Scalia's version of Italian heritage taps into a profoundly authoritarian theme runing from Roman antiquity through the barren austerity of Catholic and Papal rule in the Middle Ages into the Renaissance with the Medici and Machivelli, while completely skipping any soft French republican pretenses like the Napoleonic conquest, straight to Mussolini. So I completely disagree with this view of Scalia:
``Scalia’s conservatism, on closer inspection, is more a Thoreauvian counterculture, a retreat from and rebuke to the mainstream, not unlike the hippie communes and groupuscules he once tried to keep at bay.''
This is foolish. Scalia shares absolutely nothing with Thoreau. If I had to guess at Scalia's favorite philosophers they would be the Old Testament, Plato, some Roman asshole I don't know, Thomas Aquinas, Niccolo Machivelli, Thomas Hobbes, and Edmund Burke. Scalia represents the idealism of state power. If state power seems to be wavering, as in Gore v. Bush, Scalia will take over the job of state power, which he did. Forget the foolishness of Congress or those hapless ninnies, The People, much less short dick Clinton.
Whether Scalia knows it or not, his so-called Originalism is the authoritarian streak of raw state power that has mostly dominated western politial history.
The whole thrust of the US Constitution, by contrast and in the liberal historical view, is devoted to breaking down and preventing the consolidation of state power. That's the point to the separation of powers and the system of checks and balances. Scalia's authoritarian idealism is devoted to the reconstruction of central power under either the executive branch or when the need arises, the Supreme Court.
Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and Kennedy all share this central theme with Scalia. The theme could be characterized as Old Testament paternalism, or the strong father theory of state, or the kind of rule by a central figure like Moses, surrounded by the tribal council of elders. In this vision, the US Supreme Court functions something like the house of Levi, with control over the temple and the laws. Or if you prefer, the Pope with a College of Cardinals, or even for amusement, the Taliban. The earliest of the western republics after the Roman example was the city of Venice ruled under a Doge who was elected by the noble heads of families. Check this out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bellini.doge.600pix.jpg
``The doge's prerogatives were not defined with precision, and though the position was entrusted to members of the inner circle of powerful Venetian families, after several doges had associated a son with themselves in the ducal office, this tendency towards a hereditary monarchy was checked by a law which decreed that no doge had the right to associate any member of his family with himself in his office, or to name his successor. After 1172 the election of the doge was finally entrusted to a committee of forty, who were chosen by four men selected from the Great Council, which was itself nominated annually by twelve persons. After a deadlocked tie at the election of 1229, the number of electors was increased from forty to forty-one....''
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_of_Venice#The_last_Doge
This sort of system might actually work in a place like Afghanistan, since 13thC customs seem to dominant the culture.
Scalia has either read Strauss, or reconstucted (maybe channeled) him by following near identical tenets and themes of political philosophy.
What bothers me about Kagan is she might have the seriously flawed idea that her role is as a mediator. She doesn't seem to recognize the other side sees only friends and enemies. This means mediation is considered a confession of weakness. Maybe Ginsberg, Sotomayor can convince her, because they must recognize the profound threat that the grand Latin paternal state represents to a modern republic.
Just ask youself what kind of man has nine children? Does anybody understand that baring children like a production system, breaks down a woman, until there is nothing left? Well, so fuck you. I watched my sister ruined and destoryed under such a regime of Christian dick-power. She had seven with one dead.
Golf as gradiators? How about I beat you to death with an iron?
Come on boys and girls let's get some blood flowing.
CG
