Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders is on trial in the Netherlands on hate speech charges. Here's an English translation of his speech at the trial opening today posted at JihadWatch (my bolds):
It is not only a right, but also the duty of free people to speak against every ideology that threatens freedom. Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States was right: The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
I hope that the freedom of speech shall triumph in this trial.
In conclusion, Mister Speaker, judges of the court.
This trial is obviously about the freedom of speech. But this trial is also about the process of establishing the truth. Are the statements that I have made and the comparisons that I have taken, as cited in the summons, true? If something is true then can it still be punishable?
How do you establish that there is even such a thing as truth in a postmodern universe?
Here in Canada, we have similar encroachments on fundamental freedoms or the so-called "negative rights" that are part of the British Common Law tradition and enshrined in the U.S. Constitution if you believe in original intent.
In Canada, we have human rights commissions that have been used by political activists to silence those who don't toe the politically correct line on the latest identity group that is on the ascendancy at the moment. Truth is no defense before these bodies, because the concern is the impact of the speech on so-called disadvantaged identity groups. Of course, as in George Orwell's Animal Farm, some groups are more equal than others and Christians need not apply. I've been working on a story today about a pastor in Calgary with a street ministry who had the tax dept. revoke his charitable status because he preaches against abortion, divorce and homosexual behavior. Oh oh.
What role can the Anglo-Catholic ethos play in reviving some of the philosophical underpinnings of the Common Law and the English Enlightenment (as opposed to the horrible stuff coming out of France at the time) within the Catholic Church?
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"What role can the Anglo-Catholic ethos play in reviving some of the philosophical underpinnings of the Common Law and the English Enlightenment (as opposed to the horrible stuff coming out of France at the time) within the Catholic Church?"
Excellent question Deborah, in fact, that may be the best question I have heard in the entire discussion of the Apostolic Constitution. I feel very strongly that the common law is indeed a major part of the Anglican "patrimony." However, the English and Roman legal systems are very much opposed to each other and Anglicans can likely have little impact such a very different and ingrained system. Wouldn't you say that common law is on her death bed anyway? I would suggest finding points in common. Despite Apostolicae Curae, Leo XIII promulgated excellent thinking in Rerum Novarum. A darling of English Distributists, this encyclical could be an overlooked point in common. And of course Hooker's natural law theory would likely play well with the heavily Roman Catholic conservative membership of the US Supreme Court and I expect some of the membership of the Vatican congregations. I was saying just the other night to an ACA bishop that I believe the BCP catechism to be every bit as complete a statement of catholic belief as the recent Roman Catholic Catechism signed by the TAC bishops but the two are simply from very different legal and regulatory traditions and look very, very different. Of course he wasn't buying any of it!
Thanks again for a great question. Hope it spurs some additional thought in that direction.
While I am certainly willing to entertain the notion that English Common Law has some bearing on our Anglican Patrimony, I am confused on a couple of points.
Certainly the ecclesiastical law of the Church of England is derived from the canon law of the Catholic Church, and as such, it is largely based on civil law as opposed to common law (whilst being heavily governed by parliamentary statutes). Perhaps I am reading too much into your comment, but do you mean to suggest that the law that has governed the Post-Reformation Anglican Church is significantly at odds with the canon law of the Roman Church with which it shares so much in common? If so, how, exactly, are our canons in the ACA demonstrative of the influence of common law as opposed to Roman law?
My biggest confusion is how the Catechism of the Prayer-book is a product of common law? I am supposing that you simply appreciate its "minimalist" approach in which very little is actually defined (as by statute in the realm of civil law)?
I may have been off topic a bit with my post, since fundamental freedoms are one of my preoccupations.
I wasn't thinking so much about ecclesiastical law, except from what someone told me recently about how the Roman canon law is based on the top down civil law model. Is there a difference in Anglican common law? This person said to me that the top down approach tries to fit the person to the law, while the common law approach deals with where people actually live. The law bubbles up from real, concrete circumstances.
Then I recently heard columnist and author John Robson give a talk at a symposium about the common law approach to rights. The video can be viewed here:
http://deborahgyapong.blogspot.com/2009/12/john-robson-at-free-speech-and-liberty.html
One of my gripes with some of the official Catholic Church pronouncements on political issues is the top-down, civil law, European sensibility that then starts to sound a lot like statist and socialist solutions to problems, especially when the principle of subsidiarity is given only lip-service.
This had me wondering if Edmund Burke was an Anglican. Found an interesting post about his High Church Anglicanism that I will put up separately.
Deborah
There is an analogy that might help to explain the difference between English and Roman law, although admittedly imprecise. When network security tools such as firewalls were first being invented, some were developed that had a "default allow" policy, and others that had a "default deny" policy. (Aside: as internet security threats have risen and trust has decreased, "default deny" has steadily displaced "default allow". Even Windows doesn't come out of the box wide-open anymore.)
Roman law is closer to the "default deny" policy: permit only that which is explicitly specified by statute, and grant an authority the power to dispense from the default behavior. It is top-down by nature. It is also the norm for Catholic canon law and continental European law.
English common law is closer to the "default allow" policy: permit whatever is not explicitly forbidden. Exceptions tend to be handled not by the authority's granting dispensation, but by simply exercising official discretion not to enforce the prohibition. (Note: the above aside naturally leads one to suppose that common law works best in a high-trust environment. Whether it must fail in the absence of same is another question, one worth pondering.)
Deborah,
I believe that Burke was a member of the established Church of Ireland of his time though I know little of his churchmanship and will look forward to your posting. His Reflections on the French Revolution is one of the best discussions of what our Anglican Patrimony might be. I very much share your gripes and find the continental perspective of the Roman Catholic Church difficult to swallow, that said I think their perspective is very much cultural and the concept of subsidiarity is ingrained in official teachings (though not lived in practice). Traditional Anglicans tend to live it much better but have a difficult time teaching it.
Mark
Christian, let me rephrase a bit and use Deborah's more precise language…the "philosophical underpinnings" of the common law are a vital part of the Anglican patrimony. I say that knowing well I have a much wider definition of what constitutes the Anglican patrimony than most. I also know that the common law is nearly a dead letter both here in America and of course in England (but then again I like a lost causes). Take our catechisms, Roman and Anglican, as an example. The obvious difference is length, but why? What "philosophical underpinnings" allow the English to produce a document summarizing the faith in under 10 pages and what forces the Romans to produce something 825 pages long in the English language paperback edition from Doubleday? Another comparison might be the Holy Communion of 1662 Book of Common Prayer to Holy Communion of the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer. Remember, our 1928 Holy Communion is of Scottish origin and Scotland was a Roman law jurisdiction. What "philosophical underpinnings" allowed the English to produce a service of such brevity and to consider it complete?
I believe it is those philosophical underpinnings which make up the foundation of both the common law and the Anglican way of being a Christian. So my concern is not so much for the the mind numbing array of federal and state statutes in these United States but for what made the English come up with such a system which so influenced American development.
Beyond things liturgical, I have seen little substantive discussion of what it is that is good in Anglicanism that folks wish to preserve in the Ordinariates and I think Deborah's post is an excellent start. Thank you for giving her such a widely received platform as The Anglo-Catholic.
-Mark
How do you establish that there is even such a thing as truth in a postmodern universe?
Negatively. If there is absolutely nothing that is true, then that statement itself must be accepted as absolutely true.
If you cannot accept it that it is absolutely true that there is no truth, then some truth exists.
If truth exists, then speech which is true cannot be hate-speech (if "hate-speech" itself can, in fact, exist).
Hooker’s natural law theory would likely play well with the heavily Roman Catholic conservative membership of the US Supreme Court and I expect some of the membership of the Vatican congregations.
Hooker's jurisprudence has already been recognized by Catholic legal philosophers and jurists as based on the same principles of natural law as those embraced by Aquinas and deVitoria, i.e., God's reason. Thus he is already preferred by such, to a Hugo Grotius who founded his theory on God's will, giving the ius gentium a more "voluntarist" basis.
On the other hand, I do not think there are any "natural law" Catholic jurists on the Supreme Court. Antonin Scalia, who knows these matters, denies that he uses natural law in his argumentation and opinion-writing. That does not mean that he doesn't use natural law in his personal reasoning.
Michael,
Would you be able to recommend any particular Roman Catholic legal philosophers/jurists who deal extensively with Hooker?
Thanks so much,
Mark
Mark,
Unfortunately, I cannot recall any particular names. At Georgetown, School of Foreign Service, in 1970 or 1971, I took a course in international law. I cannot now remember who the professor was, and I do not think we had a textbook, but rather a syllabus + reading list, but I remember reading and discussing Hooker specifically in that class, and how he seemed to be on the same side of the Divine Reason/Will source of Law as Aquinas and de Vitoria.
I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he was covered in Copleston's philosophy series, and by Gilson in one of his histories.