Vacation I’m away until the 6th, so except for tomorrow and Tuesday and except possibly for a Stream interlude, favorite and classic posts will be run. The comment filter has been set to Unreasonably High. We are all ladies and gentlemen here.
Here’s how the concept of Judicial Review came to be. There was this guy named Marbury, and he had been appointed as a Justice of the Peace in the closing hours of the Adams Presidency. But the new government of Thomas Jefferson (under Secretary of State Madison) refused to deliver the title to the appointment. So Marbury sued the Federal government. The facts were on his side, and so was the law. The law in this case was the Judiciary Act of 1789, which gave the courts the power to issue a writ of mandamus. What’s that? It’s an order from a court to an inferior government official ordering the government official to properly fulfill their official duties or correct an abuse of discretion.
Here was the magical part. By claiming that this power (granted by Congress) in the Judiciary Act of 1789 wasn’t specified in the Constitution, the Supremes (led by Chief Justice John Marshall) ruled that they didn’t have the Constitutional authority to issue that same writ of mandamus! And in the confusion that followed, several mistakes were made by everyone.
First, the Supremes said they did not have the power to order the Presidency around. And Constitutionally speaking, they were right, in a way. But since the Legislative branch had given this power to the Judiciary subsequent to the ratification of the Constitution, it makes sense that the Courts could properly order an underling of the President to obey the law passed by Congress. If the Court didn’t fulfill this duty given them by Congress, then that would vault the Presidency above Congress. And none of the Founding Deists (who were all still alive) wanted that. That would be too much like a King! After all, it wasn’t like the Courts were making new law on their own—no, they were simply staying within the literal bounds of the Constitution. As it was on Day One. And not one minute past then.
Let’s think about this. It was definitely the Supreme Court’s job to rule when a law had been broken. But if the law had indeed been broken, there had to be some mechanism to force the law-breaker into compliance. Even if that law-breaker was the President! And that mechanism was the Judiciary Act of 1789. The tool of that power was the writ of mandamus. It had been granted to the Courts, in a legally and constitutionally binding manner in the same year that the Constitution was enacted. So, if this power-grant by Congress was so damned un-constitutional, why didn’t the Supreme Court ‘review’ that same law in 1789? It’s not like they had a backlog of cases, right?
Here’s why they didn’t. It’s because they had no motive to do so. Official or otherwise. But soon enough, a motive would arise. A personal and political motive. Not a constitutional one. So let’s look closely at how this thing shook out. On the surface, we had a situation wherein the Judiciary seemed to be demurring the acceptance of additional power. Sounds humble, right? Sure. Except this demurral created a de facto Kingship in the Presidency. The President could, evidently, ignore any law Congress passed if the President felt like it, and even if the Courts ruled he did that illegally, there would be no way to force him to comply.
We now know the real outcome of this little shell game. Because the real result of this scam was not to defer to the Presidency (thus increasing its power), but rather to diminish the power of both the Legislature and the Presidency. After all, if the Courts could now say in any case before it that ‘the law itself was invalid’, then guess who just won the jackpot? No, it wasn’t the Presidency. Why not? Because this same power of nullification could (and would) be used against the Presidency. And always against the Legislature. And the States as well.
It’s simple. Let’s say Congress passes a law, and the Supremes let it stand. But when the Executive branch tries to enforce it (which after all, is its job), the Supremes rule that the Executive’s methods of enforcement are unconstitutional! Pretty slick, eh? The Supremes can either rule a law itself is unconstitutional, or the particular enforcement of it is unconstitutional. Check and mate, mate. Get the picture? No wonder they are called the Supremes.
I’m sure a lot of folks are going to start barking about my suspicions of human intentions, conflating them with conspiracy theories. They will claim (with no proof) that there was no such attempt to counteract the framers’ Original Intentions, as the strict constructionists would say. And you know what? At the purely human level, they are probably right. I don’t think there was such a (human) intention to derail the entire invention of American constitutional law and jurisprudence. But that doesn’t mean that the venal acts of a few can’t have large-scale effects that they never foresaw. And it doesn’t mean it wasn’t foreseen by somebody else. I’ve said it before, so I’ll say it again, to the consternation of those who can’t see anything they literally can’t see: there’s more to this game that meets the eye. Never forget the gods!
Yes, the gods could see the logical outcome of such a human judicial finding. A perfect opportunity to derail the train at any point in the future. Who wouldn’t go for this kind of chit in the original game of Judicial Warfare? These guys aren’t stupid, you know. But human surely are. And greedy too. And that’s how this whole thing came to pass.
What am I talking about? I’m talking about why the Human Supremes made this convoluted ruling. There probably was no vast overarching plan to overturn the Constitution. Nope. But there was a conspiracy. A rather small one. Just two people, and they didn’t even have to actively plan it. All they had to do was act in their own personal interests, which happened to coincide. It was a little bit of brotherly love, my friend.
Bear with me here. Justice Marshall was acting at this very same time as both the Chief Justice and the Secretary of State under the new Jefferson administration (as delegated by Madison, the actual Secretary of State). So it was a case of Marbury vs Marshall, if we really want to be accurate. Guess who it was that was originally tasked with the duty to deliver this contested commission of the office of Justice of the Peace to Mr. Marbury? Well, whadd’ya know, it was the brother of Chief Justice-Secretary of State Marshall, James Marshall. And guess who might be legally liable for not delivering this same said commission? Yep, little brother Jimmy.
That little personal family problem also happened to intersect with the political life of the Marshall clan. More to the point, Chief Justice Marshall was acting in political lock-step with the Jefferson administration when he decided to refuse to command his brother to deliver the commission. But he did all of this while also wearing his Constitutional robe, deciding in favor of his family and party and against Marbury and The People. Shazzam.
The rest is history. Bad history. This total inversion of the original intention of the Constitutional structure of American government set off a power struggle that continues to this day. Here’s the funny thing to me. Why hasn’t any President ever declared some ruling of the Court to be ‘unconstitutional’? And why hasn’t Congress ever done the same, using the power of appellate review I mentioned earlier? Either action would have at least as much legality behind it, or more, than the whole-cloth invention of Marbury vs Madison. Has everyone been asleep for 213 years? Am I the only one that can see this?
To be fair, historically speaking, there has been lots of action between 1804 and today. The most important came with the accession of President Lincoln to the Pantheon of Caesar. Lincoln did his part to subdue the courts by suspending Habeas Corpus, and attempting to arrest the Chief Justice. The Court seems to have gotten the message. Lincoln then set about neutering Congress by ignoring anything they said. And the stupid Southerners made the fatal mistake of allowing those silly cadets to fire the first shots at Ft Sumter. That took the leash off the dogs of war.
That left Lincoln with the only chips that really count at times like those, the Army. Which he gladly used in his mad pursuit of total power. While Julius committed the gravest sin possible against the Republic of Rome by illegally bringing armed troops across the Rubicon, inside the actual district of Rome, without the consent of the Senate, Lincoln did the converse. He illegally sent troops across the Potomac, outside the Capital district into the sovereign States without the explicit consent of those States. Game on.
A final bit of history. Nobody ever bothers to read the original Constitution. Yes, the Articles of Confederation. The first American Constitution. If they did, they would know that it explicitly stated that this union of sovereign states would be ‘a perpetual union‘. Yet this union was dissolved peaceably by these same states as they withdrew from the Articles of Confederation when they adopted the new Constitution. The new Constitution made absolutely so no such claim to indissolubility. And in fact, a majority of states ratifying this new Constitution did so with the explicit statement that they reserved their sovereign right to secede at any time in the future. After all, that’s what sovereignty is all about, right Komrade? Well, no, not according to Caesar Abraham. He wasn’t going to preside over some rump state nation. Hell no. After all, he was (or would soon be) Caesar! We all know the rest of the story. Glorious Lincoln. And every American President pays him his first homage, whether he be Republican or Democrat. Until Emperor Donald!
Anyway, once Dishonest Abe decided he was King, it was lights out for the sovereign States. Think of the Civil War as the Big C-Section that gave birth to The Empire. The result is now we’re all equal. Equally enslaved. The final bit of evil, the last thrust of the dagger into the body of the Republic, came in 1913 with the re-establishment of the Federal Reserve system (which Jackson had abolished), the imposition of the hated Income Tax (which the Supremes had ruled unconstitutional several times years before), and the final coup de grâce, the destruction of the meaning of the States themselves. Yes, the imposition of the direct election of Senators by The People (versus their appointment by the States) made the concept of State Sovereignty a moot point. The last checks on the powers of the new Federalized, unitary, centralized, and voracious State were gone. Out of the cloud of confusion surrounding this magic trick known as Marbury vs Madison emerged The Empire. Hail Caesar!
What is my point? It’s pretty simple my friend. The Constitution is dead. Has been for a long time. There’s no turning back, because all of the bridges have been burned by Caesar. We’re all prisoners now. Equally enslaved. All of this has been given to us by factional political actions. Self-interested groups that have no interest in anything beyond their own self-interest. But hey, this isn’t an exclusively American thing. No, this is how it always goes. Once you get rid of the King, this is what happens. Everybody starts jockeying for position, place, and, most of all, for power. It’s human nature. Fallen human nature. And it will never stop until the end. The end? The end of what? Time, silly. Till the final iteration of The Empire, in all its gory glory. It seems that we’re closing in on that point in time. But Hell, it could take another 100 years. Seriously. I don’t see the technological grasp matching the Imperial reach for at least another twenty-five years or so. A lot can happen in that time, including setbacks to the hubris of the gods, and men. But eventually, we (or our children) will get there. And won’t that be swell, eh?
In the meantime, what is the real point of this missive? It’s simple, Komrade. No matter how hard men try to set up some kind of alternative to the original Mosaic religious/political system that is pure and just, it is bound to fail. Why? Because of the players, silly. Forget Artificial Intelligence. We don’t even have real intelligence. All we have is our continuous rebellions against every form of government dreamed up by anyone but ourselves. It’s not hard to see why we rebel. Because each system that has replaced the original Monarchy of God is bound to fall short of perfection. And the resulting injustices that rebellion produced brings forth the call for another ‘reform’.
Well, if I’m so damned smart, what do I think we should do? After all, I’ve painted a pretty bleak picture, haven’t I? I’ve said the Republic is dead, and the rot has irreversibly set in, correct? So, what could anyone possibly do to reverse this course? Nothing, actually. As far as bringing the corpse back to life, that is. After all, we’re not dealing with a religious question here. At least, not a Christian religious question. The Messiah never said he would visit three times. Twice will be plenty, according to His word. And I take Him at His word. That’s crucial to my understanding of where we are now, and what remains to be accomplished. Because until we, as Christians, finally understand the difference between Holy Rome and Imperial Rome, we will continue to be fooled by The Lie sold to Sgt. Alvin York. The lie that says our foreign forays are the moral equivalent of the Crusades. And that we must invest our blood for the saving of Caesar. And that the fate of the entire world depends upon this secular task.
And actually, it does. But that is a bad fate, an evil one, for a bad world, an evil one. The world of Caesar. But if we want to regain our sanity, we must distinguish between the Catacombs and the Pantheon. They are not the same, and we have no means of entering the latter. Why would we want to? Do we really want to advance the cause of the gods? Because that is exactly what we are doing as we fail to see that our secular problems have no secular answers. And that the world rejects the real answers to our real problems.
Am I saying all is lost, and that there is absolutely nothing that can be done, here and now, to benefit our country and her citizens? No, I’m not saying that at all. What I am saying is this: we have to realize that the natural progression of man is in a downward slide. Evolution of man, whether from a scientific, artistic, intellectual and yes, even (and especially) the political standpoint, has been shown to be a fraud. A fraud as dead as the supposedly-living Republic. And this downward slide will continue until the final confrontation between the Acolytes of God and the Mammonites of Caesar.
That doesn’t mean we have to give up. If we can reject The Empire, we can still work for Our Country. We can still have a positive effect on the rate of decline, the rate of the rot that is decomposing the body politic. Because God can always squeeze some good out of our bad past. Here is how. We must still participate in the electoral process. Yes, it is imperfect. Just look at Donald. But there is still a lot that good people can accomplish, especially at the local level of the political spectrum. That is what we must do. Why? Because the power to influence the course of events, however minimally, at whatever level, is a gift that we must not waste. At least, not if we value our children. And theirs.
Yes, there is another thing that we can do that will be of lasting benefit for ourselves and others that we may have an influence on. I think we all might be smart to brush up on our manners. Eh? You know, our courtly manners. You know, bows and curtseys. Genuflections, too! After all, regardless of whether you believe in Heaven or Hell, the visible manifestation of all the final concentration of Imperial human power, in all its eventual global and gory glory, is coming soon. Because Caesar is growing ever stronger. And Caesar wants his due. Even Jesus says to give him his due. So get ready to kneel. Whether it’s Donald or Vlad (or both, in tandem), it’s coming soon. Maybe within our children’s lifetimes.
For those who can see the unseen, here’s another interesting thought that might make my advice about courtly manners more apropos. Heaven is not going to be a republic. And neither is Hell.
We began our first predictive analysis, and spent a lot of time with it. But we still haven’t got to the main question!
And that is how it should be.
Since the predictive method separates probability from decision and emphasizes decision, we should spend most of our time with defining the decision. The probability part will be easy, and is just math. So, as they say on the planes, but here I mean it, sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight.
When we left off, we were exploring CGPA. If a person was only taking one class, there were 14 possible CGPAs (0, 0.33, …, 4.33). Now, if all we knew was the scoring (grading) system and that person was taking just one class, then we deduce the probability (from the symmetry of logical constants leading to the statistical syllogism) of a CGPA of, e.g., 4 as 1/14—and the same for the other possibilities.
Because all probability is conditional on a specified list of premises, and only on that list, it’s well to be explicit. The probability CGPA equals, say, 0, needs givens. Those assumptions, premises, givens, truths, are the list itself, (0, 0.33, …, 4.33), the implicit premise that CGPA must be one of these; or the explicit premise there is only one class and explicit rules of the scoring system which together imply the list. Notice we do not allow an “incomplete”. Why not? Why not indeed? It is as assumption on our part and nothing else. If we assumed an incomplete, the probability changes (homework: how?). Remember: the all in “if all we knew…” is as rigorous as can be. We calculate the probability on these premises and none other. Probability is not subjective, except in the sense that we choose the premises: after the premises are chosen, probability is deduced.
If the person were taking 2 classes, there are 196 different possible grades (from 14^(number of classes); see this document on permutations), of which only 42 are unique (0, 0.165, 0.330, 0.335, …, 4.33). If all we knew were the scoring system and that there were 2 classes, the chance of a CGPA = 3 is 9/196 = 0.046. Use this self-explanatory R code to play (but don’t push r much beyond 5!; install gtools if you don’t have it; this code is not meant to be efficient, but explicative; if you can’t follow the code, don’t worry, just use it).
require(gtools)
# possible grades; a premise set by us
s = c(0,.33, .67, 1, 1.33, 1.67, 2, 2.33, 2.67, 3, 3.33, 3.67, 4, 4.33)
r=2 # number of classes; another premise
result = as.matrix(expand.grid(lapply(numeric(r), function(x) s)), ncol=r)
cgpa = apply(result,1,function(x) sum(x)/r)
table(cgpa)
The table(cgpa) gives a count of possibilities for each CGPA; i.e. with r = 2 there is only 1 way to get 0, 2 ways to get 0.165, and so on.
Again, the “all” in the “all you know” cannot be stressed too highly. All probability is conditional on the information assumed, and only on that information, so the probabilities above are only valid assuming just the premises given and none other. In particular, it does not matter what you might know about a person and their study habits, or the school, or anything else. The probabilities are true given the premises. Whether these are the right premises for the question we want to answer is another question which we’ll explore — in depth — later.
Now, what if all we knew were the scoring system and that the person were going to take 1 or 2 classes? Suppose we’re interested in a CGPA of 3 again. If 1 class, the probability is 1/4; if 2 classes, it’s 9/196. And since we don’t know if 1 or 2 classes, we apply the statistical syllogism again, and deduce 1/2 * 1/4 + 1/2 * 9/196 = 0.148.
You can see that we in principle can derive exact answers—though the counting will grow difficult. For a “full load” of 12 classes, there are 14^12 possible grades (5.7e13), of which only about 1,000 are unique.
Two of these possibilities are 1.860833 and 1.861667. We could, of course, compute the probability of these CGPAs given the by-now usual premises. But is that what we want? Is this the decision? Compute the probability of barely distinguishable grade points?
It could be that we care about such small differences. If we do, then we have the apparatus to solve the problem. Not for incorporating SAT or HGPA or past observations yet, but for our “naked” premises. We’ll come to that other information in time. But let’s be clear what we’re trying to do first or we risk making all the usual mistakes.
Now, I do not care about such small differences, and neither do most people. I just do not want to differentiate (though I could if I wanted) between, e.g. 1.860833 and 1.861667. To the nearest, say, tenth place is good enough for the decision I want to make about CGPA. Yet small differences are important if our goal is ordering; if, say, we want to predict who has the highest or lowest CGPA and that kind of thing. We’re not doing that there. Our decision is quantifying uncertainty in CGPA for individual people and accuracy to the 6th decimal place isn’t that interesting to me — to you it might be.
We have a decision about our decision to make: keep the small differences, which carry computational burdens and produces not very interesting answers, or make an approximation. Pay attention here. Tradition (classical methods) approximates the finite discrete CGPA as a continuous number, usually on the real line, a.k.a. the continuum. This approximation is so common that few pause to think it is an approximation! But, of course, it is, and a crude one.
If this most important point has not sunk in, then stop and think on it.1
One difficulty with the traditional approximation is that it says the probability of any caCGPA (the “ca” prefix is for the continuous approximation) is 0, which is dissatisfying (the continuum is a strange place!). The benefit is that all sorts of canned software is ready for use, and the math is much easier. Whether these benefits are worth it is the point in question and cannot be assumed true in all problems.
Besides the continuum, another approximation is to compress CGPA. It is already finite and discrete: we keep that nature, but further reduce the level of detail. I don’t care about the differences between 1.860833 and 1.861667, but suppose I do care about the difference between 1 and 2, and between 2 and 3, and 3 and 4.
That is, one compression is to put CGPA on the set (0, 1, 2, 3, 4). There are no computational difficulties with such a small set; all probability statements based on it are readily calculated. Number of classes has much less effect on this set, too.
It’s a crude compression, true. Still, that doesn’t mean a useless one. It depends—as all things do—on the decisions I want to make with CGPA. If I’m a Dean of some sort (Heaven forfend), this compression may be perfect, and I can even consider going cruder, say, (0-2, 3-4).
Or again, it may be too crude at that. Maybe every tenth is more what I’m looking for, especially if I’m considering eligibility of some scholarship.
We’ll see what these approximations do next time.
I’ll answer all pertinent questions, but please look elsewhere on the site (or in Uncertainty) for criticisms of classical methods. Non-pertinent objections will be ignored.
1You may argue that CGPA is embedded (in some mathematical sense) in an infinite sequence, and thus CGPA would live on the continuum, and thus the continuous is no longer an approximation. Since probability is conditional, accepting this condition works in the math. But, of course, CGPA is not embedded in any infinite sequence. Nothing is, because nothing contingent is infinite. So we’re back to the continuous as an approximation.
Part I of three parts, showing life begins at conception. What follows from this truth is not taken up, but is anyway obvious.
Chapter 83 That the human soul begins to exist when the body does (alternate translation) We’re still using the alternate translation.
1 Now, since the same things are found both to begin to be and to end, someone might suppose that, because the human soul will not cease to exist, neither will it have begun to exist, but, on the contrary, has always been. And it would seem possible to prove this by the following arguments.
Notes Be careful, here is where the counter-arguments begin (some of which are very clever); to be answered later. And please don’t forget God never started to exist: He always was; He is outside time. Paragraph 5 shows the peril of amateur exegesis.
2 That which will never cease to be has the power to exist forever. But no such thing can ever be truly said not to be; for the extent of a thing’s existential duration is exactly commensurate with its power of existing. But of every thing which had begun to exist, it is at some time true to say that it is not. Therefore, that which will never cease to exist, at no time begins to be.
3 Moreover, just as the truth of intelligible things is imperishable, so is that truth, of itself, eternal; because it is necessary, and whatever is necessary is eternal, for what is necessary to be cannot possibly not be. Now, the imperishable being of the soul is demonstrated from the imperishability of intelligible truth. Hence, by the same reasoning, the soul’s eternity can be proved from the eternal being of intelligible both.
4 Also, a thing that lacks several of its principal parts is not perfect. But, clearly, the principal parts of the universe are intellectual substances, in the genus of which human souls belong, as we have shown above. If every day as many human souls begin to exist as men are born, then, obviously, many of the principal parts of the universe are added to it daily, so that it lacks a multiplicity of things. Consequently, the universe is imperfect. But this is impossible.
5 Then, too, some draw their arguments from the authority of Sacred Scripture. For in Genesis (2:2) it is said that “on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made: and He rested from all His work which He had done.” But, if God made new souls every day, this would not be true. Therefore, no new human souls ever begin to exist, but they have existed from the beginning of the world.
6 Hence, for these and similar reasons, proponents of the doctrine of the world’s eternity have said that, just as the human soul is incorruptible, so has it existed from all eternity. That is why the upholders of the theory of the immortality of human souls in their multiple existence—I refer to the Platonists—asserted that they have existed from eternity, and are united to bodies at one time and separated from them at another, these vicissitudes following a fixed cyclical pattern throughout set periods of years.
Advocates of the theory that human souls are immortal in respect of some single reality, pertaining to all men, which remains after death, declared, however, that this one entity has endured from all eternity; whether it be the agent intellect alone, as Alexander held, or, together with this, the possible intellect, as Averroes maintained. Aristotle, also, seems to be making the same point when, speaking of the intellect, he says that it is not only incorruptible, but also everlasting.
7 On the other hand, some who profess the Catholic faith, yet are imbued with the teachings of the Platonists, have taken a middle position. For, since the Catholic faith teaches that nothing is eternal except God, these persons maintain, not that human souls are eternal, but that they were created with, or rather before, the visible world, yet are fettered to bodies anew. Among these Christians, Origen was the first exponent of this theory, and a number of his disciples followed suit. The theory, indeed, survives to this day among heretics, the Manicheans, for example, siding with Plato in proclaiming the eternity and transmutation of souls.
8 Now, all these opinions can be easily shown to have no foundation in truth. For it has already been proved that there does not exist only one possible agent intellect for all men. Hence, it remains for us to proceed against those theories which, while envisaging the existence of many human souls, maintain that they existed before bodies, either from eternity, or from the foundation of the world. The incongruity of such a notion is exposed by the following arguments.
9 For, it has already been established that the soul is united to the body as its form and act. Now, although act is prior in its nature to potentiality, nevertheless in one and the same thing it is temporally posterior to it; for a thing is moved from potentiality to act. Thus, seed, which is potentially living, preceded the soul, which is the act of life.
Notes Slow down and read that twice. Act is prior in its nature to potentiality, yet potentiality is temporally prior to act.
10 Moreover, it is natural to every form to be united to its proper matter; otherwise, that which is made of form and matter would be something preternatural. But that which befits a thing naturally is attributed to it before that which befits it preternaturally, because the latter is in it by accident, the former, through itself. Now, that which is by accident is always posterior to that which is through itself. It is, therefore, becoming to the soul to be united to the body before being separated from it. The soul, then, was not created before the body to which it is united.
11 Again, every part existing in separation from its whole is imperfect. Now, the soul, being a form, as has been proved, is a part of the specific nature of man. Hence, as long as it exists through itself apart from the body, it is imperfect. But in the order of natural things, the perfect is prior to the imperfect. It would, therefore, be inconsistent with the order of nature were the soul created apart from the body before being united to it.
Note Yet the soul, your intellectual form, persists after the corruption of the body. Hence to reattain its perfection requires a resurrection.
12 And again, if souls are created without bodies, it must be asked how they are united to bodies. This union could he effected in but two ways: by violence or by nature. Now, everything violent is against nature, so that if the union of soul and body is brought about by violence it is not natural. Hence, man, who is composed of both, is something unnatural; which is obviously false. There is also the consideration that intellectual substances are of a higher order than the heavenly bodies. But in the latter there is nothing violent or contrary. Much less, therefore, does any such thing exist in intellectual substances.
13 Now, if the union of souls to bodies is natural, then, in their creation, souls had a natural desire to be united to bodies. Now, natural appetite immediately issues in act if no obstacle stands in the way, as we see in the movement of heavy and light bodies; for nature always works in the same way. So, unless something existed to prevent it, souls would have been united to bodies from the very beginning of their creation. But whatever obstructs the realisation of natural appetite does violence to it. That at some time souls existed in separation from bodies was therefore the result of violence. And this is incongruous, not only because in such substances there can be nothing violent, as was shown, but also because the violent and the unnatural, being accidental, cannot be prior to that which is in keeping with nature, nor can they be consequent upon the total species.
Notes “nature always works in the same way”. This is true, of course, only when circumstances are identical.
14 Furthermore, since everything naturally desires its own perfection, it pertains to matter to desire form, and not conversely. But the soul is compared to the body as form to matter, as was shown above. Therefore, the union of the soul to the body is not brought about in response to the desire of the soul, but, rather, of the body.
15 Now, the argument may be raised that union with the body is natural to the soul, as well as separation from it, according to various periods of time. But such a notion seems impossible. For changes that take place naturally in a subject are accidental, such as youth and old age; so that, if its union with, and separation from the body are for the soul natural changes, then union with the body will be an accident of the soul. The human being constituted by this union therefore will not be an essential but an accidental being.
It’s “pride” day tomorrow in many places. Type “pride month” into Google. One long endless sodomy flag (to use the polite term) decorates the results. Google is proud of sodomy. Evidently they want you to be, too.
Why “proud of sodomy”? Well, it is “pride” month, and the pride meant is that felt by those who are same-sex attracted and those suffering from gender dysphoria. The so-called “LGBT community”. A “G-man” in this “community” is proud of being sexually attracted to other men.
Both the desire and the manifestation of that sexual attraction is sodomy, which in the original and best definition meant “carnal copulation in a manner against nature” (Webster, 1913). The Oxford English Dictionary has “any form of sexual intercourse considered to be unnatural.”
“L-women” who are also proud of their sexual attraction to women are thus proud of desiring sodomy, too. Men who pretend or who believe they are women, and vice versa, have any manner of sexual desires. But they are at least proud of their delusion, if not also of desiring sodomy.
Sodomy, then, is a good and useful word. True, it is a judgmental word, in that it indicates an unnatural desire. But reality is often harsh and judgmental. And we can’t evade reality.
If you enjoy sodomy, you may take (meager) comfort that unnatural by itself does not mean immoral. It takes a deeper argument to get from unnatural to unlawful, immoral, unsupportable and the like. And even the most adamant supporter of “gay rights” has to admit that sodomy does not lead to natural sexual procreation.
So we can all agree on definition of the word.
Logic insists that when a man says he is proud of “being gay”, he is proud of his desire for sodomy with other men. That is all “being gay” means, a desire for sodomy—and not for friendship or love. A man may befriend or love another man in the complete absence of any sexual desire. The word we use for this is friend. There is nothing “gay” about friendship.
Very well, “pride marches” and “pride month” are logically equivalent with “pride for desiring sodomy” and “pride in sodomy month.”
Now the “rainbow” or “gay” flag is used by supporters of sodomy everywhere, as all know. It expresses pride in desiring sodomy, and further says that this desire is good. Nobody can dispute this. Thus we can call the creation the “(desire for) sodomy flag” or “sodomy colors”.
Google is only one of a slew of public corporations who are participating or signalling support for desiring sodomy. Before we answer why this is so, consider how these groups announce their agreement.
Pepsi issued a can imprinted with the sodomy flag. Colgate displayed the sodomy colors in toothpaste, stacked on one brush. Rice Krispies has the sodomy colors on their package in the shape of a heart with the words “So much to love about”.
Facebook, Instagram, and some others created apps to stitch or overlay the sodomy colors onto random photographs. Dr Martens shoes, Levi’s, GlassesUSA, Converse, American Eagle Outfitters, Nike, Urban Outfitters, all have custom products with the sodomy colors.
Starbucks flies the sodomy flag, as does the entire city of San Francisco. Bank of America announces its “employees around the country celebrate Pride“—in sodomy, of course.
One can go on and on like this. Indeed, the trick is not to find a major corporation celebrating pride in desiring sodomy. The magic is in discovering one that celebrates pride in natural sex. Indeed, I was only able to find companies everybody already knew about, like Chick-fil-A and Hobby Lobby. It might make a fun exercise for readers to see if they can unearth others.
If the CDC’s statistics are a reliable guide, something over ninety-five-percent of the people who work at these corporations are not themselves “members” of the “LGBT community”. And the companies must know their actions in supporting sodomy discriminate against their (among others) Muslim and Christian employees and customers.
That makes the utilitarian argument some advance for why companies support pride in sodomy weak. Sodomy-pridefuls buying up Oreo cookies and the like won’t produce more than a blip in sales.
No, the pride in sodomy for those who don’t personally care for sodomy is for another reason, and a banal one. Virtue signaling.
Dull explanation, but true. These companies, celebrities, and non-sodomy fanciers want to tell the world how enlightened they are that they support those who do desire sodomy.
Sodomy, though it is unnatural by definition, always has limits. It is another useful exercise to project those limits. Supporters won’t give support for merely man-on-man anal sodomy forever. They’ll want something out of the deal, too. Signalling virtue will pale. Just what “freedoms” do you suppose these folks will demand?
