Correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE Knee-jerk Iconoclasm Although I defer to few in my admiration for the rambunctious insights and savory prose of Tom Bethell, his dismissal of Margaret Mead (Capitol Ideas, April...
...Ernest van den Haag New York, New York Mr...
...Revel's The Totalitarian Temptation...
...Order from: Rich-Errington, Publisher, Box 546, Bay City, Michigan 48706...
...Box 877 NAME Bloomington, IN 47401 ADDRESS Please rush me reprints of William Simon's article, "Preventing CITY Medicine...
...When writing to us about your subscription, always attach your address label or print your name and address exactly as they appear on your address label...
...No sales tax...
...2) that the framers thought (a) that natural rights justify the rights, limitations, and powers articulated in the Constitution, (b) that natural rights are independent of, antecedent to, but consistent with the Constitution, and (c) that natural rights are self-evident truths...
...In the current issue, two American social democrats debate J.F...
...college...
...Most revealing book ever published with photographs, biographies of all Members of Congress showing committee and subcommittee assignments...
...Excellent text...
...Beverly S.A., Box 8059, Dallas, Texas 75205...
...Actually they areirrelevant and so is, therefore, Mr...
...Arkes replies: I am reluctant to take up more space in these columns than I have already, but frankly I am puzzled by Mr...
...van den Haag himself has recognized all of this—i.e., he has recognized at different times that the provisions of the Constitution must often be understood in the light of the true ends or character of the Constitution, which depend in turn on the principles of constitutionalism...
...KNOW YOUR CONGRESS-1978 (95th Congress, 2nd Session...
...LEARN TO READ CLASSICAL GREEK, the language of Plato and Aristotle...
...von Hayek, and E.J...
...Books for informed conservatives...
...Box 6235, Washington, D.C...
...Else the Constitution would be redundant...
...37219...
...For that reason Lincoln registered his obligation to respect the provision in Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution, which required the return of fugitive slaves—even though he understood that slavery was incompatible with the very...
...Arkes' argument...
...Brain beau, Box 2138, Youngstown, Ohio 44504...
...Gateway Editions, 722 Western Ave., Glenn Ellyn, III...
...Feulner, Jr...
...FREE COPY OF NEW REVIEW to anyone interested in the abortion issue...
...so are they, until and unless embodied in positive constitutional law...
...DON'T ROB: IT'S A CRIME TO COMPETE WITH THE GOVT...
...CAPITAL PUBLISHERS...
...van den Haag better may HELP WANTED Auto Damage Appraiser...
...On the contrary, Mr...
...Of course the dispute would move to the question of a priori and necessary truths, but I forbear to say more than I have already lest someone write in to tell us that a priori, necessary truths are nowhere mentioned in the Constitution...
...Commodore Decatur's Trading Post, North Adams, MI 49262...
...Kirk, Hayek, Buckley, Weaver...
...Satisfaction guaranteed...
...Send resume: DUNN, 12415 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44106...
...Those principles counsel lawfulness, which means that they oblige us to respect explicit provisions of the Constitution until they are lawfully repealed...
...Careful correction of exercises...
...Please attach the address label from the most recent issue of your American Spectator in the space below...
...INC., Dept...
...Ophthamologists say: "LONG NEEDED ...TRULY VALUABLE...
...AS, P.O...
...I am afraid that the only non sequitur I find in Mr...
...Does Mr...
...Box 877 Bloomington, Indiana 47401 (Please attach address label here...
...Arkes worries that, unless his view of self-evident moral values is accepted, rights and duties may be arbitrarily decreed by majorities...
...5.50...
...pertinent travel costs are fully tax-deductible...
...In other parts of our Constitution it becomes evident that the literal provisions in the document make no sense unless they are informed by an understanding of the principles of constitutionalism that exist anterior to the Constitution, and which the Constitution is trying to express...
...It may be useful to establish, for example, that we shall have a legislature composed of two houses, and that the veto of an executive may be overridden by a two-thirds vote of both houses...
...Discover it for yourself...
...Write: Business Tours, Box 731, Sedona, AZ 86336...
...But Mr...
...The provision of the Constitution makes sense only when read against a fundamental commitment, arising out of the principles of lawfulness, to distinguish between the innocent and the guilty: Those distinctions may not be made in a reasoned way when torture is used to extract confessions, and it is that use of coercion which must be seen as the core of the provision against self-incrimination...
...Box 163, Rosedale, NY 11422...
...Moreover, her major work, Male and Female, is still the most lucid, sensitive, and incisive exposition of the differences between the sexes, and in recent years she has defied the entire feminist establishment by declaring the ubiquity and biological basis of patriarchy...
...Cash and carry...
...Smith, in Gold, based on the famous Tassie medallion...
...Please renew my subscription for one year ($10.00...
...Why did the framers, who believed in natural rights, frame positive constitutional law, if natural rights can replace it...
...It would take a leap of logic, then, to suggest that the very presence of a constitution indicates that moral understanding (or a sense of natural rights) has been displaced by positive fiat as the source of all law...
...Features a profile of Prof...
...van den Haag's last paragraph is one of his own authorship: viz., that since "natural rights," in the hands of Ronald Dworkin, can be used to "justify anything one wishes," natural rights must be arbitrary and meaningless...
...Box 2686, Nashville, Tenn...
...The self-evident truths mentioned in the Declaration of Independence are no more a matter of "belief" than the existence of Ernest van den Haag...
...These kinds of features are useful, but there is no principle which establishes that either one of them is strictly necessary to a regime of law...
...Caveat emptor...
...van den Haag may preserve his respect for law, but the principled source of that commitment remains obscured, and it is hardly assuring to be told that it rests on grounds that are safely non-moral...
...4.50 refundable...
...Write for free catalog...
...International Business Proposals: quarterly magazine presenting offers and requests for worldwide licensing, distribution, joint ventures, acquisitions, divestments...
...We have a living constitution by following it, not by replacing it with whatever moral ideas we feel nature tells us to follow...
...Payment enclosed ^ Please bill me (please print) Name Address City State Zip Date of change X71 classified Your chiropractor would like to know...
...A constitution may have a special importance in establishing the precise features that define the character of any particular regime and the way in which a government of law happens to be conducted...
...Michigan residents please add 4% sales tax...
...Arkes, who shares these beliefs (in some form), thinks that they argue against Mr...
...CORRESPONDENCE Knee-jerk Iconoclasm Although I defer to few in my admiration for the rambunctious insights and savory prose of Tom Bethell, his dismissal of Margaret Mead (Capitol Ideas, April 1978), who remains one of the great figures of this century's thought, is an act of knee-jerk iconoclasm...
...and foreign territories on easy terms...
...MISCELLANEOUS THE ADAM SMITH NECKTIE—Now available in FOUR COLORS...
...Checks, money orders...
...New York or Boston areas...
...IBM by James Grant, The "Magic" of Planning by Dr...
...Please hurry—prices have been indexed for inflation: 1 for $.50, 3 for $1, 10 for $3, 25 for $7, and 100 for $20...
...I- (APPLY SURGICAL INSTRUMENT) The American Spectator PLEASE PRINT P.O...
...Berger's view that the Constitution must be interpreted as allowing the judiciary to grant only those rights and duties specified in it, however much other rights or duties appear morally (or naturally) justified...
...Their value would be heuristic...
...van den Haag's puzzlement...
...For information on these and other publications available, write: USIC Educational Foundation, P.O...
...two for $22...
...van den Haag makes a gratuitous gesture when he persists in representing my own views in the language of "belief" (continued on page 43) The American Spectator June/ July 1978 41 CORRESPONDENCE (continued from page 41) and "feeling"—a language that he knows is foreign to the argument I made...
...Arkes' practice is better than his theory, whereas Dworkin's practice is as good as his theory—shared by Arkes...
...FREE SAMPLE: The New International Review, a quarterly journal of social democratic theory...
...Send two 13-cent stamps for catalogs...
...The Foundation is also interested in assisting young writers with research and writing projects...
...honest, energetic, mechanically inclined with capacity for detail...
...In this regard, she has shown more guts than most of the normally-dominant males in the conservative movement who can boldly stand up to General Torrijos but who collapse into incoherent mumbles when faced by a feminist...
...Box 877, Bloomington, Indiana 47401...
...Print your new address and mail this form to The American Spectator...
...Arkes' belief in moral values and their objectivity and truth (whether or not correct) is quite irrelevant...
...We carry original articles, book reviews, reprints, and new translations...
...20015...
...74-33546, ISBN 915898-02-0...
...Be sure to include the line of information above your name...
...Box numbers $2 each...
...Cage, and American Perspectives II by Anthony Harrigan...
...But as Harry Jaffa has explained, Lincoln understood that the commitment to law arose from the same principle that established the wrong of slavery...
...Arkes...
...Please specify color choices: Navy Blue, Burgundy, Scotch (dark) Green, and Laissez Faire Black...
...IT IS A MUST sourcebook of Congressional information...
...Please specify ad classification: Help Wanted, Positions Wanted, Books & Periodicals, Literary, Conferences, Personal, Miscellaneous...
...More...
...IMPORTANT: allow six weeks for address change...
...Positive constitutional law alone would be decisive in conflicts and litigations...
...Like Bethell, Mead is never afraid to express her opinions and if a number of them are off the mark, they nonetheless retain a freshness and idiosyncrasy, a refusal to be abashed by new fashions of thought, and a matter-of-fact conservatism about family roles that are rare in an aging pundit, beloved of the media...
...Free sample if your business requirement is specified...
...Result of seven years' experience: it tells you in clear language how to avoid expensive replacements, stop those agonizing moments no one warned you about...
...and those who do not know Mr...
...suspect that he is seeking to achieve, through linguistic reduction, what he has not been able to accomplish with his substantive argument...
...Buttons, posters, bumper-stickers, and self-adhesive stickers...
...The most we can say is that we are obliged to establish provisions of this kind, and the ones I have mentioned are not inconsistent with the principles that underlie a constitutional order...
...If so, of what use is the Constitution...
...Arkes believes that we (including the judiciary) are bound by the Constitution and cannot replace, extend, or supersede it via natural rights when these are not granted by it, then it does not matter whether one believes that there are such self-evident natural rights and that they justify what the Constitution tells us to do...
...Your state's laws providing for party participation charted...
...no experience...
...George Gilder Tyringham, Massachusetts Taking Rights Seriously In his reply to Raoul Berger (April 1978) Hadley Arkes proves at some length: (1) that the framers of the Constitution were inspired by natural-law ideas commonly held at the time...
...Arkes really believe that natural (moral, human) rights legally can supersede or extend those articulated by the Constitution, or that natural rights can legally give powers, or grant rights, not articulated in the Constitution...
...In the Bakke case Dworkin's natural-rights interpretation leads him to the opposite conclusion from that reached by Mr...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR Circulation Department P.O...
...Society for Libertarian Life, Box 4, Fullerton, CA 92632...
...Send $1.00 for Lesson 1. Greek Course, 1825 4th Avenue North, Grand Forks, ND 58201...
...Due to public demand, we have prepared a handy, reduced-format reprint of "Preventing Medicine," William Simon's acclaimed essay on national health insurance which appeared in our April 1978 issue...
...Franchises available for U.S...
...CUT TAXES LEGALLY Obtain specifics by surveying prospective sites of a new automatic international communication system...
...That is rather like saying that since George McGovern used the claims of "moral" argument in a zany way, "moral" propositions must have no meaning—and no binding force in our law...
...Conservative leaders, in general, still accept and propagate the myth that earning differences between men and women are caused by "discrimination" rather than by hormones and by the family roles that are indispensable to civilized society...
...This is a non sequitur in logic and has not happened in our constitutional history...
...four for $40, postpaid...
...Recent United States Industrial Council Educational Foundation publications include Wanted: A Journalism That Understands Technology by John Chamberlain, A Test of Economic Dogma: The United States vs...
...Paperback $4.00, plus postage and handling $0.75...
...Hazan International, 38 Rue de Moscou, 75008 Paris, France...
...BOOKS & PERIODICALS UNITED STATES POLITICAL PARTIES—How they developed...
...60137...
...A high-quality publication you've got to see to believe...
...PERSONAL Dear Leo Joseph: Pourquoi, perche, warum, and cur do you not write to La Folle du Nord...
...The American Spectator reserves the right to reject any copy for any reason...
...POLITICAL PARTIES: PROMISE & PERFORMANCE, Schrank, LC No...
...REACH 45,000 READERS with an American Spectator classified ad 25 cents a word, 12-word minimum...
...Ronald Dworkin has lately succeeded in demonstrating (see his Taking Rights Seriously) once more that natural rights can justify anything one wishes...
...Incentive compensation 10K-25K first year...
...The Human Life Review, a new quarterly journal, provides the best anti-abortion arguments available anywhere...
...Presidential primaries—the pot's private game...
...Handling, postage included...
...If Mr...
...Changing Your Address...
...Enclosed is my check for $ STATE ZIP 118 The American Spectator June/ July 1978 43...
...idea of constitutional government...
...And so the provision against self-incrimination would be absurd if it were read with literal strictness to free any person from an obligation to yield his fingerprints or to present his body in a court of law where he can be identified...
...For cradle-to-grave-and-beyond security, spirit a SASE to J.C...
...And so would the real doctors, congressmen, students, and public-affairs specialists on your list...
...COMPLETE GUIDE TO SOFT CONTACT LENS...
...Cheshire National Bank, 15 Main Street, Keene, NH 03431 (Member FDIC...
...Discounts are available for bulk quantities...
...For your FREE, no-obligation sample copy, write today to: The Human Life Review, 150 E. 35th St., New York, NY 10016...
...GOLD COINS AND BULLION for sale...
...Why they do not reflect the voters' opinions...
...12.50 each...
...Send ads, with full payment, to: Classified Ad Department, The American Spectator, P.O...
...These ties are identical to the ones worn by Milton Friedman, F.A...
Vol. 11 • June 1978 • No. 8
