Let Me Apologize: Government has a Moral Responsibility to the Governed.

We find the statement to be so self-evident that we mostly do not discuss it, that the Government should not be capricious and arbitrary.  We talk about the Rule of Law, and Equality Under the Law.  But what do these really mean?  They are all premised on this point: Just as the Moral Law affects us as individuals, so it should (must) influence Government and how Government interacts with the People.

If Government is to govern all the people, it must have a consistent standard to apply to all the people.  It must, in short, have some form of Morality.  This Morality would inform not just the civil and criminal legal code, but also the decisions made by the government in how to enforce those codes.  It would influence what areas of life the Government would leave alone, and those in which it would take an interest.  And, here, we must decide what form of Morality it should choose.

If it chooses to follow the Universal Moral Law, as we have discussed, then we know that the same rules that constrain our behavior, and that inform our policy would also constrain the Government's behavior and inform it's policies.  If the Government is constrained by the Universal Moral Law, it is held to the same standards of justice, compassion, and responsibility as we are individually.  It must consider what it does in light of all the people- knowing that any group which is arbitrarily benefited will necessarily harm some other group- and that is not just.  It would know that spending money it doesn't have, and raising taxes to punitive levels is neither compassionate, nor just.  But, because the Universal Moral law is not exactly the same as the Religious Law, it also knows that requiring, or promoting, any specific religion also fails to be just, compassionate, or responsible.

It is because of this that we have no reason to fear a Theocracy in America.  It is because of this that we can be comfortable "Legislating Morality."  A Government acting as though it is constrained by the Moral Law is one that we have no reason to fear.  It won't make the "disputable" thing illegal- because it knows it has no Moral Authority to do so.  It won't make arbitrary decisions- because such would be immoral.

Now, obviously, our current Government does not operate that way very well.  Largely this is because we have ceased expecting our Representatives to be Moral People.  More specifically, the Democrats have rejected the Moral Law in favor "what feels good" and selfishness.  But, even here, the Moral Law speaks.  It says that such blatant immorality should be forcefully opposed.  If we required Conservative politicians to be as Moral as we are, they would find the over-reach by Liberals so immoral, so heinous, that they would not submit to merely "moral" victories.  They would oppose the advance of Liberalism with every fiber of their being.

Let Me Apologize: Responsibility is part of the Moral Law.

Quite often, when we discus the Moral Law, we talk about things like Murder and Theft.  Christians often talk about Lust and even Gluttony.  But, as I said, I'm trying to keep this out of a purely Religious argument, and keep it to the "universal" Moral Law.  The Religious Moral Law is concerned with consequences after death.  The Universal Moral Law is concerned with consequences now.  In either case, a key component of the Moral Law is Responsibility.

I've written in this space before that Responsibility is the inverse of, or the balance to, Liberty.  As regards the Moral Law, responsibility is both a duty and a balance.  It simultaneously requires that we "man up" to our mistakes, and that we deal with the consequences thereof.  It requires a "confession" of sorts, while it also requires its own form of "penance."

Taking responsibility for one's actions is, itself, a moral action.  This requires the admission of mistakes and the confession of wrong-doing.  In this sense, responsibility is as much a choice, as much a verb, as it is a simple explanation of events.  More than simple admission or confession, it requires that one place one's self directly in the path of whatever the consequences of those wrong actions will be.  It requires bearing the burden you have created.  This is Moral for two reasons.

First, this is Moral- universally moral- because it is a natural form of "negative reinforcement."  Much like getting burned when you place your hand on a hot iron, this is not some cosmic "punishment," though it may function as same.  It is simply the natural result of your actions.  In this way, we might not even call this "responsibility" except for two things.  First, this kind of responsibility is often delayed.  Unlike touching a hot iron, Moral Responsibility can come minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or even years or decades after the actual offense.  From dealing with the lack of trust shown to you after you've lied to someone, to dealing with the pain you've caused others and yourself from some other lapse, these are still natural results of your actions, they are just delayed from the incident.  Second, this kind of consequence can be avoided, to some extent.  You can avoid telling people you lied to them, and, if you're clever and lucky, not get caught in your lie.  Even if you are caught, you can refuse to be held accountable for it, and just avoid the person to whom you lied.  It is this ability to be avoided that changes these natural results from mere "consequence" to "responsibility."

Second, this is Universally Moral because you have the power, in accepting or rejecting responsibility, to take a Moral Action.  It is very, very easy, when you've had a lapse of judgement, or moral failing of any kind, to allow others to take the fall, or to allow them to get "caught in the cross-fire."  Indeed, it is often our natural reaction to these consequences to seek some kind of shelter from them- and that shelter is often our family, friends, and acquaintances.  By shouldering the responsibility, by being willing to bear the cost of your decisions on your own, you are taking Moral Action by sparing them that burden.

So, we have shown that Responsibility is part of- or at least necessary to- the Moral Law.  And, again, this is the Universal Moral Law, the one that everyone understands, even if they hold no religious convictions of any kind.  Box 10 checked.  Next: The Government has a Moral Responsibility to the Governed.

Let me Apologize: The Moral Law is not the same as Religious Law.

I said before that the Moral Law is nearly universally recognized.  This is true.  However, some people have a better, a more true, understanding of it than do others.  The people who have the best, clearest understanding of the Moral Law are religious.  Specifically they tend to be Christian.  Read some Christian authors for more on this, but you will find few others who tend to have as strong logical and philosophical foundations for their moral pronouncements.  The problem with this is that not everyone agrees with everything they say.  In some cases, people do not accept the premise of a given argument, and much of the disputed premise is an issue of faith.

For instance, the Catholic Church, as I understand it (I'm not Catholic) preaches that all forms of abortiofacients (birth control pills, the "Plan B" pill, IUDs, etc.) are wrong, because they are the same thing as abortion.  They believe that life begins at fertilization: that is, the moment the sperm enters the egg, they believe life has been created.  Most Protestant religions believe that life begins at conception- that point when the zygote attaches to the uterine wall.  They believe that most forms of birth control are permissible, in the right circumstances.  Both are beginning from a similar, but distinctly different premise.  Now, if either of these groups were to legislate this particular piece of doctrine, we would have a problem.  For one thing, both groups have solid foundational principles for their stand, and both have Moral claims to non-interference.  So what do we do?

Well, while we do enshrine the common pieces of Moral Law in the Civic Law, when an issue is disputed- such as when life begins- we believe that the Civic Law should stay silent.  It should neither support one position, nor prohibit another. 

There are other issues that are even more doctrinal.  That is, they have no specific Moral Component other than our general reverence for the Creator and His Creation.  Catholics going to Mass is one of these areas, as is the Rite of Confession practiced by Catholics and other religions.  Holy festivals fall into this category as well.  Given that these have no specific Moral implication, we do not believe these kinds of things should be legislated.

Indeed, we find, once again, that enshrining the Moral Law in the Civic Law is actually proof against the very Theocracy social liberals claim to fear.  That same Moral Law that we all agree prohibits murder and theft, similarly prohibits interference in matters of the conscience.  The Moral Law does not speak on whether one should Worship the Creator on Sunday, or on Saturday, or, indeed, at all in any official sense.

So, in issues of dispute, and in purely "doctrinal" issues, we see that the Moral Law requires that the Civil Law remain quiet.  A civil government, truly and humbly (I'll wait for you to stop snickering) attempting to uphold and support the Moral Law stands no more chance of becoming a Theocracy than it does an Anarchy.

Box 9 checked.  Next up:  Responsibility is part of the Moral Law.

Let Me Apologize: An Objection

To my post "Is Truth Knowable," commenter 'Dustin' posted a comment.  I thought it was good enough that it deserved a fairly in depth response.  So here it is.  I'll lead with each point to which I'm responding, and then my response.

I define knowledge: A)Justified B)True C)You believe it.

C is fairly redundant- of course you believe anything you know.  If you "knew" it but didn't believe it, you wouldn't call it knowledge.  A is absolutely true, assuming B is true.  But B is the question.  We are, here, discussing if truth is knowable.  If the ability to "know" anything is in question, then truth, itself, is in question.  So, if we are discussing if Truth is knowable, then defining knowledge as 'true' is circular, at best.

I prefer this, more straight forward (to me, anyway) definition- The mental recollection and understanding of a fact.

Justification is the lynchpin. Why did you believe something to be true? And if you raise that bar high enough, we really don't know very much.

Certainly you are right.  If you are talking about 100% certitude, there are a great number of things we do not "know."  However, we can "know" things with a great degree of certainty.  For instance, to take your example.  While I would not, necessarilly, know as soon as I left store that my car had gone for a ride, there would likely be clues to tell me.  My odometer changing, for instance.  The unlocked door, for another.  So, if I get out to my car and it is in the same spot where I left it, the odometer hasn't changed, and the doors are still locked, I can say with close to 100% certitude that my car had, indeed, been sitting and waiting for me in the parking lot the entire time. 

So whether or not my car has moved is still reasonably knowable; I just have to interpret the available evidence.

How do we know that we didn't learn our language in relation to how others describe things? I heard someone say the Eiffel tower is brown, but the color I see is what he would call green. we never can share our conciousness, so we never know that the words we're using are different.

The first is true.  If the second were, however, we could never communicate.  We are not, here, talking about the language we use.  Obviously there are a very large number of human languages, and each of them will describe the same concept differently.  The question, then, is if two people- speaking the same language- will mean the same concept with the same words.  If they do, they can communicate, if they don't they can't.  If I say, "That table is sturdy," but you understand "That brisket I ate was wonderful!" we haven't communicated.  Even if we thought we were communicating, we would not be.

As a (somewhat) practical (if contrived) example, consider the following.  You're having a discussion with your boss, and he gives you several "To Dos."  He says, "Email the maintenance staff about your broken chair."  You hear, "Go make me a sammich."  Finding the order odd, but not wanting to get fired, you say, "Yes sir."  He hears "I'll send that email immediately."  Do you think he'll be rather surprised when you drop a half-congealed Monte Cristo on his desk? 

That's what actually meaning different concepts by using the same words would actually mean.

If we can communicate concepts like "Email maintenance," then we can be reasonably sure we are correctly communicating concepts like "The sky is blue."

The trick is in not taking our 'knowledge' so far that we think all our observations are accurate knowledge.

This is the one I have the most problem with, however.  Of course our observations are accurate knowledge.  What they might not be is comprehensive knowledge- and that's something different.  If observe a bird flying, then it is accurate knowledge that that bird, at that time, was flying.  What I cannot do, from that one observation, is make the comprehensive statement that all birds fly.  I would only know it about that one bird.

The trick here is to use one of the First Principles of logic (and here my lack of formal training may get the best of me, so please bear with me): the Principle of Uniformity.  It basically says that when we see something repeated in nature, we can be pretty sure that it's going to be a regular occurance.  Now, that's not completely true- which is why the Principle of Uniformity is only one of the first principals (and not really the most important), the others are combined with it to get a more full picture of knowledge.  However, after observing, say, 100 times that you can pick up a rock (any rock), let go of it, and it will fall to the ground (or whatever surface is beneath it) you can, based on the Principal of Uniformity, infer that rocks- at least- will not stay in the air on their own.  When you've done the same thing with enough objects, you can then deduce that this is generally true of all objects.

When you find an object (say a helium baloon) that does not fit your knowledge, that does not indicate that your knowledge is wrong, simply incomplete.  And part of logic and philosophy is taking these facts that seem contrary to the general rules (what we might call 'edge cases') and finding out why they don't behave as expected.  With our example, that might lead to the concept of relative density, gravity, and so forth.

To link this, finally, to my main point.  If your point is that we cannot know Truth 100%, you are largely right.  At some point, we have to admit we cannot have perfect knowledge, and accept that there is some amount of faith required for any belief we hold.  The question, then, becomes how much evidence we have for a given proposition.  If we have much evidence for something, it doesn't take much faith to believe it.  If we don't have very much at all- or we have contraindicating evidence- then we must have a lot of faith to believe it.

Let Me Apologize: Preserving the Moral Law in Civic Law, part II

In the last post, we examined the mostly theoretical argument for preserving the Moral Law in Civic law.  In this post, we'll examine the practical reasons to do so.  There are several, and I may not touch all that exist.  So, with no further ado, let's get down to brass tacks.

One: Someone is going to legislate their morality, so we may as well legislate the one all people hold commonly.
This serves both as reason for the Moral Law itself, and as defense against a specifically Christian Moral Law.  There are certain things we all know are morally wrong.  Murder, theft, and fraud are among these.  We can examine the reasons we know that these acts are immoral, but those reasons are beside the point: we all know it to be true.  Just in the last post, I posited a world where specific murders were not prosecuted, but booze was outlawed.  I'm pretty sure your mind rebelled against such a hypothetical- mine certainly did.  They did because we know that such a stance would not be moral.

Whenever we legislate, we are saying that one thing is Wrong and its opposite is Right.  That is, no matter what the law, we are asserting a Moral position.  Now, that position may be in keeping with the True Moral Law, or it may not.  As long as the Moral Law is our guide, we know that things which should be allowed will be, and things that are actually immoral- and generally accepted as such- will be prohibited.  This protects society from immoral behavior, while also protecting the citizenry from a capricious Government.

Two: The Moral Law informs and upholds our "Natural Rights."
The Moral Law, coming as it does from the nature of the Creator, is not just one about the immorality of theft and murder, but also about our Natural Rights.  We derive our Natural Rights from the same source as the Moral Law, so it stands to reason that they are related.  Indeed, when we begin to look at the philosophical ideas behind the Moral Law, we see that the two are directly linked.  Theft is wrong because it deprives someone of their property.  Murder is wrong because it deprives them of their life.  Slavery is wrong because it deprives them of the liberty.

By upholding the Moral Law in the Civic Law, we actually strengthen our hold on those Natural Rights, and we provide them better security.  Life, Liberty, and Property are protected because the Moral Law demands it.  Simultaneously, protecting those through Civic Law limits the government (this was the whole point of the Constitution), and therefore protects the citizenry.

Three: A culture which behaves Morally is more likely to be sound fiscally.
We'll get deeper into this in a later post, but the short version is this:  Among the near-universal morals are those of thrift, industry, and self-support.  When we uphold the Moral Law generally, we encourage the modes of behavior that Moral Law encourages.  This, in turn, encourages individuals towards behavior which is moral, but not specifically legislated.  A man who lives in a society that upholds the ideals of Personal Property, and Liberty is one that will encourage thrifty, industrious behavior.

For these reasons, and more besides, social conservatives should not flinch from the charge of "legislating morality," but rather should defend the process, explaining that without that same morality being enshrined into law, the accuser has no security for the same rights he believes are being infringed.

That's box 8.  Next we'll tackle box 9: The Moral Law is not the same as Religious Law.

Let Me Apologize: Preserving the Moral Law in Civic Law, part I

It is often said, mostly by social liberals, that we should not attempt to "legislate morality."  There are two major problems with this. In this, the first post on this subject, we'll deal with the more theoretical of the two.  We'll handle the more practical consideration next time.

The first problem with the idea that we shouldn't legislate morality is this: that's exactly what legislation is.  If there is no moral foundation for a law- if there are only "practical" considerations- then there is neither any basis for any specific law, nor are there any limits on what laws might be passed.  If we're only looking at "practical" considerations, there is no reason that murder should be a crime, unless that specific murder can be shown to harm "society."  So murdering a politician or high executive would be prosecutable while murdering a Hobo would not.  Or, at least, one would carry a higher sentence than the other.  Indeed, murdering Hobos might be shown to benefit society, inasmuch as it reduces their drain on society.  On the other hand, there would be no reason that homosexual relationship could not be banned altogether, since they are completely incapable of producing offspring, and therefore "harm society" by not contributing to its continuation.

The list is endless.  We could completely outlaw drinking, because drunkenness harms society, but any given instance of theft might have to be shown to harm society itself, rather than theft, in general, being harmful.  We could completely turn our legal system upside down, and there would no philosophical or logical reason to oppose such a thing.  Your mind is already coming up with rationalizations for why we would still outlaw theft and murder, while not outlawing booze or homosexual relationships.  This is because the Moral Law is so deeply ingrained in you that you are loath to give it up, even as a theoretical exercise.

If we are going to have any security against government overreach, we must subscribe to the Moral Law, and attempt to preserve it in our legal institutions.  As long as we do so, we receive the benefits of the Moral Law, including the limits it necessarily places on Government.  For, while it is true that the Moral Law hates evil and loves good, just as the Creator does, because it stems from the nature of the Creator, it also values free will, and enshrines the ideas of personal responsibility and liberty.  It does this, also, because it stems from the nature of the Creator- the same Creator who gave us free will and liberty, but constrained those by giving us personal responsibility as a counter-balance.

So we have a bargain.  On the one hand, we can choose to reject the Moral Law, and never "legislate morality."  If we choose that option, we have no reason to be self-conscious about our choices, or to feel guilt when we do things the Moral Law opposes, but we also lose any defense against an over-reaching, dictatorial government.  On the other hand, we can choose to accept the Moral Law and legislate accordingly.  If we do this, we do have to accept certain standards of behavior, but we also receive security in the knowledge that Government itself is constrained by that same Moral Law that restrains us, individually.

In Part II, we'll consider the more practical considerations.

Let Me Apologize: A Creator Means A Moral Law, It is Truth, It Is Knowable

Now, I'm going to try to stay away from too much theology, but this is one thing that all Theistic religions (Theistic just means they believe in a Creator God- as opposed to pantheistic religions which believe that the Universe itself is, in some way, God) agree on: A Creator God is Moral, and therefore there is a Moral Law.  Now there are many examples of this in real life.  People will deny it, but they're lying- either to you or to themselves.

The reasoning, however, goes like this: For a Theistic God to exist, He must have certain qualities.  He must be infinite (since he can't be within in the Universe: he created).  He must transcend Time/Space (for the same reason).  He must be able to Choose (if He couldn't choose, he couldn't have Created the Universe).  He must prefer one thing to another (to have chosen to Create the universe).  Now, an entity that can choose, and prefers one thing to another has a moral viewpoint.  In the case of the Creator, His moral viewpoint must, by definition, be the True moral viewpoint.  By extension, that means that whatever God views as Right is Right, and whatever God views as Wrong is Wrong.

Now, if there is a Moral Law that is Truth, and Truth is Knowable, then the Moral Law should- by extension- be knowable, too.  And, when we look, we find that we do know it.  We know it deep down in our bones.  Every time we say that something "isn't fair" we are appealing, however imperfectly, to the immutable, unchangeable Moral Law.  When Hammurabi had his Code chiseled into an obelisk, he was merely codifying the Moral Law that everyone already knew.

And what do we already know?  We know that people, as created beings, have worth in the eyes of their creator.  That worth should not be lightly degraded.  So we oppose things that harm people: from theft (which robs them of their labor), to slavery (which robs them of their freedom), to murder (which robs them of their lives).  We promote things that make people more worthy: self respect and reliance, thrift, industry, moral behavior. 

Now, when we look at the two movements under consideration: the modern Conservative Movement, and the Modern Liberal movement, we find that one upholds the Moral Law much more closely than does the other.  One supports the moral virtues, and one preaches moral relativism.  One is for punishing moral vice, and the other is for coddling it.  One is for rewarding thrift and industry, while the other is for rewarding sloth and vanity.

In short, the modern Conservative Movement- especially the oft denigrated Social Conservatives- is much nearer to the Truth than is the modern Liberal Movement.

Another clue, and another three boxes checked.  Next up: Preserving the Moral Law in Civic Law

Let Me Apologize: Man is Created / Being Created Assumes a Creator

"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal.  That they are endowed by their Creator..."

Those are some famous words.  And we overlook their profundity all too often.  Probably without even thinking about it, the signers of the Declaration of Independence were stating that Man is a created thing- that he has a Creator. 

Now, to do a full philosophical proof of Man's creation and the existence of a Theistic God would take many more posts, and more expertise than I have.  There are plenty of those available for those who are interested.  My point is of a much more immediate nature.  Whatever you believe about God, the founding Fathers based the entire premise of their Rebellion against England, and, later, their Constitution of a new government, on the existence of a Creator, and the fact that we are "created equal".

The existence of a Creator is of paramount importance.  If there is a Creator, then He must be the supreme Truth about which all Truth Claims must ultimately be made.  If a Creator Exists, then we are merely objects which were created, and we are answerable to a Higher Power.  This sets aside any idea of Heaven or Hell, or the fallen-ness of man, or any of those Judeo-Christian ideas.  This is a simple statement of fact: if there is a Creator, then that Creator must prefer one thing to another (otherwise why "create" at all), and whatever he prefers must, logically, be better for his creation than whatever he does not prefer.

Now, what this further means is that Man must have been created with a purpose.  Even if that "purpose" is merely the entertainment of our Creator (not what I believe, just the most trivial reason I could come up with), we do have a purpose.  And if we are not fulfilling that purpose, we are in conflict with our Creator.  This would be bad for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that a Creator capricious enough to create us simply for amusement would be one capricious enough to destroy us if we annoyed Him.  So we want to be, we need to be, in accordance with our Creator's will.

One of the other consequences of us being Created is our equality.  Now, this is not the trivial equality of outcomes that Liberals promise (but fail) to provide.  This is a much more profound, and much more fundamental equality of station.  Just as any given wolf is "equal" with any other given wolf- one as valuable to his Creator as the next- so also is any man just as valuable to his Creator as another.  This is why we reject the notion of Kings and an Aristocracy, chosen by birth.  We do not believe in "classes."  We believe that each man, from the ditch-diggers son, to the scion of a "Great Family" is of equal worth, and therefore deserving of equal consideration.

Now if we were promised Equality of Outcome, then the redistributive policies of the Liberals would be justified- yea, required, by our understanding of our Creator.  Similarly, if we were not created, then the only kind of equality that could exist would be equality of outcome- and, again, Liberals would be justified in pursing redistributionist policies.  However, since what we are promised is equality of stature with our Creator, the whole concept changes.  Now, "redistribution," however nice a euphemism, is simply state-sponsored theft.  You are taking what one has earned, and giving it to another.  If you were "better" than the one whose asset was seized, then you would be fully justified- but you aren't, because "all men are Created Equal."

So we have our first clue as to which philosophy is closer to the truth: one advocates theft, and the other does not.

Boxes 3 & 4 Checked.  Up Next: A Creator Means a Moral Law

Let Me Apologize: Is Truth Knowable?

In the last post, we reviewed the concept that Truth exists.  There are at least some things in existence that can be absolutely true.  But, can we know those truths?  Is truth, in fact, knowable?

We have shown that people must claim to know truth before they can even assert that truth doesn't exist, or that something isn't true.  But it doesn't necessarily follow that truth is knowable.  Perhaps it is possible that we can simply know what isn't true, but never actually know the truth itself.  In this view, we are locked into knowing that the tree isn't actually as we perceive it; always knowing there is some true 'tree' out there, and that we'll never know it.

Besides being depressing, there's another problem that philosophy.  What, exactly, would the purpose of sensory organs be if they didn't sense true things?  If that floor in front of you isn't real floor, just your impression of a floor, what's to say it isn't two feet below where you think it is?  How can you be sure from one moment to the next that you won't fall into some chasm as you just walk down the putative sidewalk?  I have a problem with a philosophy that tells me not to believe my own senses.  Logically, there would be no reason for us to have them if they didn't communicate an acturate picture of our surroundings and events.

However, I have another truth that may clear this up.  2 + 2 = 4.  Now, don't let yourself get caught up in the numerals or the words we use.  The concept "2 + 2 = 4" is always true.  It is true for all people in all places at all times.  If you don't believe that, go talk to a mathematician.  Be sure to bring caffeine with you, though.  You'll probably need it.  The fact is Mathematicians, more than just about any other discipline, routinely work with known truth.  The call them mathematical proofs.  Once something has been proven mathematically, it considered proven forever- unless someone can show an actual failure in the math used to prove it.  These proven statements are truth.  And if we can know that truth, then we can know other truths as well, logically speaking.

As for the guy who says you can't really know a tree?  Well, of course we know that to be the truth, too.  We know that, because we can accurately describe things.  If each thing we experienced were subjective, and only "interpreted" by our brains, we would never be able describe things as they are.  We would each see something else when we see the Empire State Building, or the Eiffel Tower.  But we know we do not, because we describe them the same way (respectively).  Indeed, another group who proves our knowledge of truth, day in and day out, are construction workers.  If they didn't have an accurate knowledge of their environment and surroundings, then they wouldn't know if that board they were picking up was a 2 X 4 or a 1 X 2.  And that would make for some interesting buildings.

So, Box two checked off:  Yes, we can know truth.  Next We'll tackle our first Conservative Assumption: Man is Created.

Let Me Apologize: Does Truth Exist?

Before we can lay a solid philosophical foundation, we have to discuss truth.  Specifically, in this post, we have to discuss if truth even exists.  Is there anything, even one thing, that is simply true?  There are those who deny this.  They claim that everything- even the world around us- is subjective.  They say, when we look at a tree, "you're not seeing a tree.  Your brain, through all the training you've received growing up, sees a tree, and interprets it.  What you're seeing may not actually have much relationship to a "tree" in any way."

This is important, because if there is no Truth, then there is no philosophy.  It's that simple.  Either Truth and Philosophy, or No Truth and No Philosophy.  If there is no Philosophy, then I may as well stop this series of posts, because Conservative vs. Liberal is then just a question of preferance.  I like chocolate, you like vanilla.  But, if there is Truth, if it really exists, then it is possible- if not guaranteed- that either Conservatism or Liberalism will be closer to the Truth, philosophically speaking, than the other.  And if this is the case, we have the beginnings of our discussion over which is more true. 

So, back to the question: is there even one single objective truth?  Can we find one thing that we can say "This is how it is," and know that we're correct?  We'll I could simply assert something silly.  I could say, "I, the Dedicated Tenther, on this day, the 16th of February, in the Year of Our Lord 2012, feel chilly," and that would be Truth.  It is true for all people in all places at all times that, today, 16FEB2012 (when this post was authored, not published), I feel chilly.  Not that anyone else does, or that it's a particularly chilly day, or anything like that.  Objectively, I feel chilly.

However, that's a little less profound than we mean, and far more contrived.  So we'll take a different tack.  We will put the burden of proof on those who claim there is no truth.  That truth is not knowable.  Let's take our example, above.  If someone says to you, "Hey.  You see that tree?  You don't really see it, your brain is just interpreting something and saying that's a tree."  He is claiming, at the same moment that he claims truth is unknowable, to know the truth.  For, to know that the tree you think you're seeing isn't actually the tree as it is, you must first have some idea of what the tree really is.  You must have some truth against which you are comparing your vision of the tree, to know that the tree you're seeing isn't truly the tree.

Indeed, it seems that if you claim there is no truth, you're claiming to know the truth that there is no truth.  We call this a "self defeating statement."

Now, some of you may be feeling let down.  "I was looking for something profound!" you might be saying.  If you think about it, though, you'll realize that this is very profound.  Not only, in this post, have we discovered truth, we've discovered that you literally cannot (logically) deny that truth exists, for so doing is claiming to know the truth. 

Box one checked off the list: Yes, Truth Exists.  Next question: is Truth Knowable?

Let Me Apologize.

It is has been often stated, among a certain class of libertarian-leaning conservatives, that social conservatives will cost the Republicans this election.  Most particularly over statements made by Rick Santorum, which will not specifically be discussed here.  As one of the Social Conservatives, however, I feel it is my duty to enlighten and inform, so that we will be less misunderstood.  To do so, we have to get to the heart of why we are conservatives in the first place.

You see, anyone can claim conservative means: lower taxes, balanced budgets, small government, but without some sound foundational principles, it's just one of two competing camps.  Without a logical explanation for why we believe government should be smaller, there is no reason we can give that people should support our positions over those of the Liberals.  We promise them hard work, and pain, and failure.  Liberals promise them little or no work, no pain, and no chance of failure.  Why should they like our position better?

And so Conservatives find themselves in the same conundrum Christians have for centuries (millenia, really): We need to give an explanation of our beliefs, and we need to show why they are true.  In fact, we need to apologize, in the classical sense.  And, as with any good piece on apologetics, we begin with the most fundamental question: What is truth?

For, you see, either universal truth exists, or it does not.  If it does not, then there is no use saying our beliefs are truer or better than the Liberals'.  Next we must settle the question of if Truth- assuming it exists- is knowable.  For, again, even if Truth exists, if we cannot know it, we cannot act on it, and therefore there is no reason for people to accept our ideas over the Liberals'.

So we'll embark on a new series here at Dedicated Tenther: Conservative Apologetics, or, as I like to call it: Let Me Apologize.

There are 11 steps we'll go through.  They'll probably average about a post per point.  Some points may take multiple posts, some posts may cover multiple points.  In the end, I believe I will have established the logical foundations of Conservatism- foundations which some may find uncomfortable, but that are no less true for that.

The steps we will go through:

I Truth
    A Does Truth Exist?
    B Is Truth Knowable?
II Some Assumptions
    A Mankind is Created
    B Creation assumes a Creator
    C A Creator means a Moral Law
III Moral Law is Truth
    A The Moral Law Exists
    B The Moral Law is Knowable
IV  Moral Law informs Social Policy
    A Preserving the Moral Law in Civic Law
    B Moral Law is not the same as Religious Law
V   Moral Law informs Fiscal Policy
    A Responsibility is part of the Moral Law
    B Government has a Moral Responsibility to the Governed.