Symbols of Patriotism
AT A time when the plight to which considerable _/\_ portions of the country are exposed by the Mississippi floods has awakened a fine consciousness of civic solidarity, it is comforting to...
...In the third place, just as the peaceful settlement of an international difficulty is preferable to war, so is segregation of the unfortunate nobler than an autocratic manhandling of them...
...He holds that the immature of many varieties should "be specially encouraged to pay homage to this goddess of our nation's hopes...
...But precisely what are these tasks...
...During recent years, a formidable attack has been made upon the natural rights theory, on the ground that this is based less on historical or psychical fact than upon metaphysical theory...
...Similarly, there are moral and mental tasks which the community as an entity can perform to great advantage...
...Is it not quite as proper to say that those on the brink of starvation ought to be chloroformed for the peace of society...
...For instance, the more universally marriage has come to be considered a contract which the state can bind and dissolve at its pleasure, the less distinct has become our consciousness of the authority and privileges lodged in the family...
...One has the suspicion that their author is a little more enthusiastic about government than about liberty as such...
...but we cannot assent to being kneaded into one soggy whole...
...In the first place, it is extremely doubtful that classical ethics has ever endorsed the drafting of troops...
...A growing, almost equally large number is certain that this is not the case...
...An important incident having a direct bearing upon this situation is the recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States upholding the authority of the State of Virginia to order the sterilization of mental defectives...
...In many places—very recently, for instance, in Ohio—Catholic organizations have vigorously opposed movements to legalize sterilization...
...Beginning with the principle that a "right" is an innate possession which cannot be surrendered without endangering some essential, natural characteristic of that in which it inheres, these exponents proceed to define rights possessed by the individual, the family, the church, and the state...
...for liberty is properly freedom to accomplish those things which a person or an institution is entitled to do...
...We may well be proud of and instructed by what we have achieved in common...
...One might object by saying that the surgical operation authorized is not the only method of prevention, that it is by no means obvious that criminals who endanger communities are to any large extent defectives, and that under normal conditions there would be little excuse for allowing an imbecile to starve...
...Why should he term a goddess that program of human action which is deeply rooted in human nature...
...But the work can easily be accomplished by the United States as a whole, and once it is satisfactorily done all will share in the reward of assured stability...
...Our economic and commercial enterprises are regulated by so many common factors that disturbance in any one place has a general evil effect...
...It seeks to place the discussion on a new level by speaking of "sacrifices" which persons are required to make for the common good and by suggesting the parallel of military service...
...Even the Statue of Liberty seems in need of something like a reformation...
...Similarly, proposals to establish the government as a supreme arbiter of economic relations and achievetpents may have sounded attractive, but they have been discountenanced because they threatened to destroy certain basic, essential liberties, and to entail further and even more serious curtailments of rights...
...The house cat is not so formidable a creature as Leviathan, but it connotes more comfortable relationships...
...Certainly the practice is wholly modern, and quite as certainly Aquinas counseled those who considered a given •conflict unjust to refrain from taking a part in it...
...It is perhaps a peril real enough to justify the title of a recent book—Declining Liberty...
...Where any of these rights are expropriated, hberty ceases...
...In which direction are we to look for truth and safe counsel...
...Manifestly a glance at it should reveal that for its making the prism was broken into colors, as if to represent the varied and equally important human energies which go into the composition of society, and that upon it the states have their individual places as stars free to course under the dominion of a common law...
...Secondly, no soldier is ordered to commit suicide or maim ihis body—actions akin to what the Supreme Court was considering—but to overcome the enemy...
...Difficult though the problem of the feeble-minded may be, there is no reason why it should be disposed of with a knife in the dark...
...Where shall we end if the "general welfare," bounded only by certain specific limitations named in the law of the land, is to be granted unconditional supremacy over the individual...
...AT A time when the plight to which considerable _/\_ portions of the country are exposed by the Mississippi floods has awakened a fine consciousness of civic solidarity, it is comforting to reflect upon the advantages afforded by nationhood...
...After all, the imagination and not abstract reasoning bodies forth the forms of our culture and civilization, our habits and our tolerances...
...There is and has been some danger lest Leviathan should come to be once more a cherished image of the state holding absolute power over men...
...Might we not as well agree with the Chinese that any child for whom no satisfactory provision is in sight ought to be got rid of as quickly as possible...
...Large numbers of people assume that any movement toward reform or what they see as "development" is properly the nation's business...
...Liberty and government are equally substantial human achievements...
...The wisest and most detailed answer ever given to this query is surely that offered by exponents of natural rights...
...and other churches have, for years out of number, been quite as firm in their antipathy...
...But whether they have taken their point of departure from Hegel or not, the attacking forces have constantly tended to consider the state supreme, leaving the individual and non-political groups to fend as best they may...
...We do not care to say more about the matter here, excepting to point out how regrettable every attempt by the Court to substitute the formalisms of a constitutional tradition for the active, universal human consdence must be...
...If the individual can, on principle, be summoned to make sacrifices for the "public welfare," as the Supreme Court ascetically declares, what excepting humanitarian feeling is to prevent the commission of brutal excesses...
...One may well hold that these assertions are slightly rhetorical...
...In the long run, everybody who stands for the second part of this sentence is as thoroughly a good citizen as anybody who lustily supports the first part...
...Their argument, congealed into a phrase, has been that the state possesses no right of jurisdiction over the individual body—over that which the soul of every man or woman has formed unto itself...
...There would be little reason to hope for the speedy rebuilding of destroyed or damaged properties, or for the organization of future safeguards against the river's destructiveness, if the people directly affected had to depend solely upon their own resources...
...The efficiency of federal action is so apparent in many fields of endeavor that this question is frequently overlooked...
...Nevertheless, one cannot, from a Christian point of view, find this argument particularly convincing...
...That is why one hopes that liberty will soon come to have more rallying points, more standards and symbols, than it has...
...This the Court does not directly contravene...
...It is better for all the world," declares the Court, "if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind...
...Nevertheless, it would serve us well to set apart definite mementos of the things, the rights, to which we cling separately as individuals and groups...
...According to the president of the New York Young Republican Club, the War Department's policy of making money out of tourists interested in seeing the tall landmark is a "capitalization of a sacred trust...
...It is more pertinent, however, to notice how firmly the traditional Christian concept of man has been antagonistic to methods of social relief such as these...
...The flag of our country is a thrilling sign rich with meaning, but one fears a little that in the hands of jingoistic patriots it is paling into a bleak image of abstract federal power...
...Surely it is evident enough that the advantages of national solidarity are no careless trust...
Vol. 6 • May 1927 • No. 2
