Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Musings on private interpretation

Over the years, I have run across a good many political liberals as well as theological liberals.  Here in the USA, we have a set of founding documents and principles.  In Christendom, we likewise have a set of founding writings and principles as found in the Holy Bible.  I have found a lot of parallels in the mindset of both sets of liberals, and they often coincide.

What I find in the world's system of politics in our nation, state, and local governments is the tendency to have one's personal affections and behaviors, then look for a way to justify them within the law.  And if the law doesn't quite fit, you merely either explain it away, or twist it through interpretation until it fits your desired liberty.  For example, Alexander Hamilton and George Washington stretched the concept of implied powers to get a national bank even though it was not an enumerated power in the US Constitution and both men were there when the document was crafted.  In Marbury vs. Madison, the US Supreme Court found a liberty that did not exist for them in the form of the power to declare laws as unconstitutional.  The Supreme Court found the right to kill unborn children while still in their mother's wombs via an unwritten nor intended right to abortion.  The SCOTUS has also found the right to "freedom from religion" and the "separation of church and state" where none exists and the ripping of old writings far out of their obvious context and applying it to a court case.  The constitutionality of Obamacare, Social Security, welfare, and homosexual marriage (not to mention even the concept that government has any business in defining marriage) etc. has been fabricated to justify what used to be considered deviant, sinful, or abhorrent behavior.  I could point to many examples in holy writ or even today's news about examples in the Church.

Just yesterday, I ran across a Twitter Troll that attempted to use the logic that I must be wrong about the US Constitution if a judge or even panel of three disagree with my reading of the scope of a constitutional amendment.  He assumed that one cannot have any true knowledge of the document, founding truths, original intent, or grasp of the text and yet proceeded to inform me of how he has to be correct because of his "interpretation" if a few judges happened to agree and ergo anyone else must be wrong.

Now, this may be a simple approach on my part, but I believe that the text of a law or of the Constitution, much as in the Bible, pretty much means what it says when laying out principles, guidelines, and the like.  A knowledge of both written context and historical context are helpful in understanding the meaning or intent.  And yet if someone wearing a robe, whether judge or clergy happens to render an opinion, then it must be accurate.  If those opinions are inaccurate or built upon a falsehood, those who stand for the truth of the text and disagree are vilified as being ignorant, pseudo-experts, legalistic, pharisaical, or simpletons.  A common one nowadays is to use the label of ___phobic; just fill in the blank.  Effectively, this is an ad hominem attack in that if you disagree with the elevated expert, commentator, or potentate then you are obviously wrong and therefore the veracity of your argument or position is likewise in error.  I instead stick by the quote of John Adams, "Facts are stubborn things." 

I find it hypocritical to assert that someone cannot be knowledgeable because they disagree with their chosen perspective or expert and that something must be interpreted in order to grasp it.  No, some things need no interpretation since they are self-evident and clearly written with a concise meaning.  To find liberties where there are none, dismiss prohibitions that clear, and excuse and accept as normal some abhorrent behavior is not enlightenment nor being saintly.  It is being loose with the truth.  Sadly that is the norm today.  But keep this one axiom in mind.  If you see it in our government and our society, it is because it was first allowed and accepted in the Church.  As the Church goes, so goes the nation.  I choose to stand against the prevailing winds of doctrine, whether in the world or in the Church.


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