“Realities are above theories.”
— Bias.
BIAS, surnamed "The Prince of Wise Men," born at Príene, in Caria, Asia Minor, 570 B.C.; one of the seven wise men of Greece; he was noted for his liberality to the poor, his wisdom, and love of justice; the date of his death is unknown.
What is the reality of the current MAGA Republicans in their views, rhetoric and actions, these Americans who perhaps comprise a quarter of the United States whose leader is overwhelmingly agreed to as the former president, Donald Trump. Particularly at question are their views of American law, and American justice. The calls to violence, the open threats to law enforcement personnel, and the overall justice system at many levels could not be louder, and have been so for an extended time period. January 6, 2021 is the date of most significance, but it is far from the only date. The recent rhetoric from the former president, his family members and others so attached to the man seem only to be willing to resort to violence as their only answer to their predicament.
This is far from traditional conservatism, of the Republican Party once of Abraham Lincoln, and of those considered as conservative throughout the ages. It is my understanding that Aristotle may have been the first philosopher who may be considered as having conservative views. Edmund Burke may be the most notable of conservative philosophers. He was influenced primarily by David Hume. Edmund Burke was a primary influence on Winston Churchill, and the American Russell Kirk, both Churchill and Kirk of the Twentieth Century.
I wish only to publish quotes on these famous and respected people of note on law and order, justice and the constitution. But first let’s look at an anarchist from the past. An Italian, Luigi Galleani who caused turmoil, violence not only in his native Italy but in other countries he had to flee too, including the United States. This man rejected the peacefulness of the socialists of the time, to more extremism in his cause of the labor fights of that time. Please look over what is below with the question of the need for law in order and justice, of having a system for such and trying to enforce it upon all within the jurisdiction equally. Please look for the reality of our current state in regards to law and justice.
“Reality are above theory,” and I might add “or above misconceptions, and above those who are misinformed or the victims of disinformation.”
Luigi Galleani (August 12, 1861 – November 4, 1931) was an Italian insurrectionary anarchist best known for his advocacy of "propaganda of the deed", a strategy of political assassinations and violent attacks.
Life in the United States
Galleani settled in Paterson, New Jersey, a hub for Piedmontese immigrant silk weavers and dyers, where he took up editing the Italian anarchist newspaper La Questione Sociale. When a silk workers' strike broke out in the city in June 1902, Galleani became a vocal supporter, giving a series of speeches in which he called for a revolutionary general strike to overthrow capitalism. When the striking workers clashed with police, Galleani was shot in the face and charged for incitement to riot.
He escaped to Canada and recovered from his wounds, before covertly returning over the border and hiding out in Barre, Vermont, where he stayed with Tuscan stonemasons from Carrara. With these new comrades, on June 6, 1903, Galleani launched a Cronaca Sovversiva, which rapidly became the most influential Italian anarchist periodical in North America, receiving worldwide distribution. Through this new publication, in 1905, Galleani published the bomb-making manual La Salute è in voi!, in which he supplied to his readers the chemical formula for making nitroglycerine, compiled by a friend and explosives expert, Professor Ettore Molinari.
Socialist politician Francesco Saverio Merlino, whose critique of anarchism provoked Galleani to write his book The End of Anarchism? Francesco Saverio Merlino (9 September 1856 – 30 June 1930) was an Italian lawyer, anarchist activist and theorist of libertarian socialism.
Below from Luigi Galleani and his The End of Anarchism?
This is anarchism, doctrine and tactic, according to Francesco Saverio Merlino.
Thus, the absence of authority and coercion not only implies the abolition of government, laws and constituted social orders; it implies also — and above all — the abolition of all forms of centralization of functions, even if merely administrative...; it implies the nonexistence of authority, be it of the majority or of a minority; it means the freedom of the autonomous individual — all individuals — within the free society.
Consequently, anarchists believe that rather than short-range ineffectual conquests, tactics of corrosion and continuous attack should be preferred, which demand from strikes of an openly revolutionary character more than shorter hours or paltry wage increases; which demand, instead, the experience of a more extensive solidarity and an ever deeper awareness as an indispensable condition for the realization of the general economic strike of a whole trade, of all the trades, in order to obtain, through the inevitable use of force and violence, the unconditional surrender of the ruling classes. Merlino, himself, knows that they yield only to force. Thus, instead of the mere passive and polite resistance so fervently recommended by the socialists, the anarchists prefer boycott, sabotage, and, for the sake of struggle itself, immediate attempts at partial expropriation, individual rebellion and insurrection — actions which usually reap so much socialist horror and cursing, but which exert the most spirited influence over the masses and resolve themselves in a moral advantage of the highest order.
Traditional Views on law in quotes:
“At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.”
— Aristotle
“and it is more proper that law should govern than any one of the citizens; upon the same principle, if it is advantageous to place the supreme power in some particular persons, they should be appointed to be only guardians and the servants of the laws…”
— Aristotle
ARISTOTLE, born at Stageira, a seaport town in the district of Chalcidice, 384 B.C.; an illustrious Grecian philosopher, and the most learned man of antiquity; he became so famous for his intellectual attainments that Philip of Macedon appointed him tutor to his son Alexander the Great, and in this occupation he spent eight years; the young Prince became so strongly attached to him that he valued his instructor above his own father. Aristotle was versed in every science then known, and he illustrated them in his writings with all the resources of a mighty mind; died at Chalcis, in Euboea, 322 B.C.
“The law always limits every power it gives.”
— David Hume
The most inviolable attachment to the laws of our country, is everywhere acknowledged a capital virtue.
— Hume.
[Inviolable - never to be broken]
HUME, DAVID, born in Edinburgh, April 26, 1711; a distinguished English historian and philosopher; died, August, 1776.
“As to the right of men to act anywhere according to their pleasure, without any moral tie, no such right exists. Men are never in a state of total independence of each other. It is not the condition of our nature: nor is it conceivable how any man can pursue a considerable course of action without its having some effect upon others; or, of course, without producing some degree of responsibility for his conduct.”
― Edmund Burke
“Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.”
― Edmund Burke
“Many of the greatest tyrants on the records of history have begun their reigns in the fairest manner. But the truth is, this unnatural power corrupts both the heart and the understanding. And to prevent the least hope of amendment, a king is ever surrounded by a crowd of infamous flatterers, who find their account in keeping him from the least light of reason, till all ideas of rectitude and justice are utterly erased from his mind.”
― Edmund Burke
“It is an obvious truth, that no constitution can defend itself: it must be defended by the wisdom and fortitude of men.”
― Edmund Burke, The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 06
BURKE, EDMUND, born in Dublin, January 1, 1730; a distinguished orator, statesman, philanthropist, and writer; as an orator he ranks among the first of modern times, and as a writer there are few who equal, and none who transcend him; died, July 9, 1797.
"Let reverence for the laws, be breathed by every American mother, to the lisping babe, that prattles on her lap - let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in Primmers, spelling books, and in Almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice."
— The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume I, "Address Before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois" (January 27, 1838), p. 112.
“When I so pressingly urge a strict observance of all the laws, let me not be understood as saying there are no bad laws, nor that grievances may not arise, for the redress of which, no legal provisions have been made. I mean to say no such thing. But I do mean to say, that, although bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as soon as possible, still while they continue in force, for the sake of example, they should be religiously observed."
— The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume I, "Address Before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois" (January 27, 1838), p. 112.
"...let every man remember that to violate the law, is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the character (charter?) of his own, and his children's liberty."
— The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume I, "Address Before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois" (January 27, 1838), p. 112.
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM, born in Hardin county, Kentucky, February 12, 1809; the sixteenth President of the United States. His ancestors were of English descent. After a life of many vicissitudes, he was elected to Congress in 1834, and was twice elected to the highest office in the gift of the nation; and though torn from it in the moment of triumph, his name will remain one of the greatest in American history, as the liberator of the colored race; he was shot by Wilkes Booth, April 14, 1865, and expired on the morning of the fifteenth.
“It is not given to us to peer into the mysteries of the future. Still, I avow my hope and faith, sure and inviolate, that in the days to come the British and American peoples will for their own safety and for the good of all walk together side by side in majesty, in justice, and in peace.”
— Winston Churchill
“Harsh laws are at times better than no laws at all.”
— Winston Churchill
“And wherever men are fighting against barbarism, tyranny, and massacre, for freedom, law, and honour, let them remember that the fame of their deeds, even though they themselves be exterminated, may perhaps be celebrated as long as the world rolls round.”
― Winston S. Churchill, Birth Of Britain, 55 B.C. To 1485
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. Apart from two years between 1922 and 1924, he was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1900 to 1964 and represented a total of five constituencies. Ideologically an economic liberal and imperialist, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955.
“In any society, order is the first need of all. Liberty and justice may be established only after order is tolerably secure. But the libertarians give primacy to an abstract liberty. Conservatives, knowing that "liberty inheres in some sensible object," are aware that true freedom can be found only within the framework of a social order, such as the constitutional order of these United States. In exalting an absolute and indefinable "liberty" at the expense of order, the libertarians imperil the very freedoms they praise.”
— Russell Kirk
“In other words, freedom is not the power to do what one can, but what one ought. Duty always accompanies liberty. Tocqueville similarly observed, "No free communities ever existed without morals." The best minds concur: there must be borders: freedom must be limited to be preserved…What kinds of limits are we talking about?…* Political limits such as the rule of law, inalienable rights, and representative institutions, which we inherited primarily from the British…
* Legal limits of the natural and common law, which we also owe to our Western heritage.”
— Russell Kirk
“Ultimate equality in the judgment of God, and equality before courts of law, are recognized by conservatives;”
— Russell Kirk
Russell Amos Kirk (October 19, 1918 – April 29, 1994) was an American political theorist, moralist, historian, social critic, and literary critic, known for his influence on 20th-century American conservatism. His 1953 book The Conservative Mind gave shape to the postwar conservative movement in the U.S. It traced the development of conservative thought in the Anglo-American tradition, giving special importance to the ideas of Edmund Burke. Kirk was considered the chief proponent of traditionalist conservatism.
I wished to take a closer look at the nativist political party The Know Nothings (American Party) of the 1850s. It was a party primarily of xenophobia during a difficult economic time in America. The primary unifier of this group was a shared conspiracy theory involving Catholics and other immigrants. As some of the driving forces seem similar in this group I took time to look at what this group may have thought in terms of law and order. Looking both at rhetoric and actions.
The movie Gangs of New York some years ago gave a glimpse of the violence within the streets of our largest city. But the violence and gangs were more widespread than in only this city at the time.
The term Know-Nothing Riot has been used to refer to a number of political uprisings of the Nativist American Know Nothing Party in the United States of America during the mid-19th century. These anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic protests culminated in riots in Philadelphia in 1844, St. Louis in 1854, Cincinnati and Louisville in 1855, Baltimore in 1856, Washington, D.C. and New York in 1857, and New Orleans in 1858.
Notable Know Nothing criminal gang rioters are as follows:
a) American Guards (New York City), b) Atlantic Guards (New York City, c) Blood Tubs (Baltimore and Philadelphia), c) Bowery Boys (New York City), d) Killers (Philadelphia), e) O'Connell Guards (New York City), f) Plug Uglies (Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City), g) Rip Raps (Baltimore), h) Roach Guards (New York City) and i) Shifflers (Philadelphia).
Two significant riots described in an academic paper referenced following are described below:
In May and July 1844, Philadelphia suffered some of the bloodiest rioting of the antebellum period, as anti-immigrant mobs attacked Irish-American homes and Roman Catholic churches before being suppressed by the militia. The violence was part of a wave of riots that convulsed American cities starting in the 1830s. Yet even amid this tumult, they stand out for their duration, itself a product of nativist determination to use xenophobia for political gain. In the aftermath of the riots, shocked Philadelphians began debating new methods of maintaining order, a discussion that contributed to the consolidation of Philadelphia County in 1854.
And St. Louis.1852.
It was on this day (April 5th) in 1852 that voting led to a riot. From the book “St. Louis Day by Day” by Frances Hurd Stadler:
“This election day was filled with bloody rioting between recently enfranchised Germans and native-born Americans with the battlefield centered in the Soulard Market area. Early in the morning First Ward poll workers discouraged Whig voters from casting their ballots. The discouragement increased until some would-be voters barely escaped with their lives. When the rumor spread that Germans had taken over the First Ward polls, a large group of Americans moved in.”
From the history of Soulard Market:
In St. Louis, the burgeoning German immigrant population sided fervently with the abolitionist North, while most of the Americans and French were Southern sympathizers. During mayoral election day in April 1852, some German men began preventing, by the threat of bodily harm, the presumed opposition from voting at the Soulard Market polling place.
Word quickly spread of this action, which enraged the American population. A mob of 5,000 Americans moved through the streets that afternoon toward the market. They were greeted by firsts, rocks, brickbats, and even gunshots, but 200 or so of the Americans broke through and seized the Soulard Market poll with shouts of “Free suffrage!”. The violence lasted into the night; persons were killed and a nearby tavern was set ablaze.
From an academic paper on the Know Nothings:
Riots against foreigners Philadelphia (1844) and Saint Louis (1852) were symptoms of the ill-will between some natives and naturalized Americans. This mutual dislike prepared a fertile field for the seeds of Know-Nothingism.
The Know-Nothings rose to power during a period of political, economic, and cultural upheaval. Their interpretation of political events was cast in the form of a great conspiracy theory, and their interpretation was formed at a time in American history when a conspiracy theory was likely to be powerful.
Know-Nothings extolled the virtue of free religion, free speech, suffrage for the common people, liberty of conscience, and the worthiness of individuals to improve their own lot. These were values celebrated by natives. The sacrifice of Catholics and immigrants to crush their religion, rob them of suffrage, snuff out their liberty, and deny them any claim to individual worth.
The No Nothing presidential candidate of 1856 former president Millard Fillmore extolled law and order in his speeches as shown below. The party platform also law and order and following the constitution, but with a caveat that it only applied to native born Americans. In the end this political party which grew rapidly dissolved as the members went elsewhere. As I understand it the hypocrisy of denial of rights to certain groups and not to the native born may have led to the end of the group. They were also apparently split on the issue of slavery.
MR. FILLMORE IN ALBANY.
Immense crowds pouring out in the Capitol of the State, and the Mayor welcoming,
“If it breaks asunder the bonds of our Union, and spreads anarchy and civil war throughout the land, what is it less than moral treason ? (Cries of “ Nothing—nothing less !”) Law and common sense hold a man responsible for the natural consequence of his acts, and must not those whose acts tend to the destruction of the government, be equally held responsible? (Cries of “Yes yes!”)”
MR. FILLMORE IN ROCHESTER.
“I can give no pledge for the future that is found in my past conduct. If you wish a Chief Magistrate to administer the Constitution and laws impartially in every part of the Union, giving to every state and every territory, and every citizen, his just due, without fear or favor, then you may cast your votes for me.”
Observers who closely examine today’s MAGA Republicans cannot come to any conclusion that they hold to the traditional conservative view of following laws. There may be rhetoric in this regard, the the defense of Donald Trump can not be a clearer indication of acceptance of law breaking in the search for power.
34th post, April 6, 2023