Comments for The Appeals and Distractions of Michelle Bachmann at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 5 out of 5 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Thu, 20 Jun 2013 05:29:17 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/the-appeals-and-distractions-of-michelle-bachmann.html#comment-7353 The thinking of Hamilton and Wilson was, of course, countered by that of the Anti-Federalists, whose insistence on a bill of rights reflected a very Catholic way of thinking about the nature of man and the corrupting effects of power. - Ruth Joy Fri, 08 Jul 2011 16:30:50 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/the-appeals-and-distractions-of-michelle-bachmann.html#comment-7312 I want to thank our readers for their comments. Mr. JSmitty touches on a sensitive matter, and it may interest him, as well as others among our readers, that we announced, on June 4th, the establishment of a new Center for Natural Law in Washington, D.C., under the Claremont Institute, with my own writings figuring in the curriculum. But we hope to draw together a number of federal judges, along with lawyers and professors who want to bring natural law out of the shadows and bring it forth with a sense of its practical and pressing importance. Our purpose would in fact be to offer an alternative to that positivism that has taken a dominant hold even among conservative—and Catholic—jurists in our own day. And so, to our friends in the Catholic Thing, I say “stay tuned.” - Hadley Arkes Tue, 05 Jul 2011 12:26:25 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/the-appeals-and-distractions-of-michelle-bachmann.html#comment-7310 Well, what did we expect, Dr. Arkes? Conservatives been pushing the legal positivism of Judge Robert Bork for nearly 40 years now as a tactical response to the kind of judicial activism of the 50's 60's and 70's that, from where we sit now, is beginning to look like an historical aberration. We also muted criticism when Antonin Scalia absurdly pretended that his positivist judicial philosophy even remotely squares with the Catholic legal tradition. Scalia was our man on Roe v. Wade, you see. So we now reap what we sow. Your article would have been better if it admitted candidly that the contradictions between traditional Catholic natural law jurisprudence and the faddish "constitutional conservatism" championed by Bachmann have been exposed. This is also an illustration of the chimerical nature of the political alliance between Catholics who know their Aquinas and Evangelicals who have many of the right instincts but no intellectual tradition to draw upon. And this is yet another illustration of the growing intellectual incoherence of American conservatism in the sunset of the Reagan era. - jsmitty Tue, 05 Jul 2011 08:54:52 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/the-appeals-and-distractions-of-michelle-bachmann.html#comment-7308 Thank you, Dr. Arkes, for your erudite discourse on an esoteric subject. Most Americans will have no idea what you are discussing. Our present Warrior-in-Chief was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. How many wars are we waging now? We have not waged a Declared War since 1945 and yet we have killed millions of human beings (over two million in Viet-Nam alone!) throughout the world. Was it not Humpty Dumpty who said that "words mean what I want them to mean"? With 53 million abortions and men marrying men appearing to be the rage, I find I have no interest in national elections. Politicians seem to be drawn from the criminal class. Mark Levin, admittedly a radio personality, who is a constitutional lawyer by training, is the only one today who seems capable of taking his audience where you wish to take the TCT readers. Thank you! - Manfred Tue, 05 Jul 2011 03:30:58 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/the-appeals-and-distractions-of-michelle-bachmann.html#comment-7307 I do hope that this learned counsel has been sent to Michele Bachman personally. It has, in my opinion,every chance of being gratefully received and quite quickly assimilated. (I also am grateful.) - Ars Artium Tue, 05 Jul 2011 01:27:55 +0100