Our last class on the Foundations of American Order met tonight.  We spent six weeks studying how America became such a beautiful testament of ordered liberty and three classes noting how it fell from ordered liberty to disordered passions.

Tonight’s class greatly appreciated the wise words of one of America’s leading contemporary jurists, a Man for all Seasons:

This selection was found to be particularly poignant tonight:

•The [Majority's] description of the place of Roe in the social history of the United States is unrecognizable. Not only did Roe not, as the Court suggests, resolve the deeply divisive issue of abortion; it did more than anything else to nourish it, by elevating it to the national level where it is infinitely more difficult to resolve. National politics were not plagued by abortion protests, nat ional abortion lobbying, or abortion marches on Congress before Roe v. Wade was decided. Profound disagreement existed among our citizens over the issue — as it does over other issues , such as the death penalty — but that disagreement was being worked out at the state level. As with many other issues, the division of sentiment within each State was not as closely balanced as it was among the population of the Nation as a whole, meaning not only that more people would be satisfied with the results of state-by-state resolution, but also that those results would be more stable. Pre-Roe, moreover, political compromise was possible.

Aux. Bishop James Conley has known me (Bryan) since 1991.  He is one of my spiritual advisers and has been for 18 years now.  He explains our shared background in this clip which he prepared for our December 8 banquet, before he knew for certain that the federal litigation would be filed.  He prepared a similar — actually even  more glowing — recommendation as to my good moral character and fitness and sent it to the Indiana Board of Law Examiners last June.  They ignored it.

I post this now because I am pretty certain that the same conspirators who focused their collectivist efforts to deny me entrance into the Indiana bar are now plotting to destroy me for daring to set forth their “official” deeds in the federal court pleadings.  (Read the complaint.)

More  revelations and fireworks to follow, so stay tuned  . . .

Or did the generations who set up constitutional republics across North America have a specific Infinite-Personal in mind when they formed their governments?

Wednesday afternoon: Updating with links at end

Tonight a class of more than 20 bright eyed students met in air conditioned comfort in the top floor of the former abortion clinic to continue the study of the Foundations of American Order. We have studied the Natural Law, Roman Republic, Founding Fathers, Declaration of Independence, US Constitution, Bill of Rights and Incorporation Doctrine — and even more — over the past eight weeks.

It has been an honor to pass on the fruit of my research on these topics.

Tonight’s discussion of the Incorporation Doctrine and how it has led to American disorder was challenging and personally rewarding. We read Supreme Court cases and discussed the history of the American Left in the very room where young women once waited to have their children killed. It is the room that was to be my law office (and my means for supporting my wife and five minor children)  had I not suffered the substantial setback dealt to me by the Indiana Board of Law Examiners, Indiana Supreme Court and Defendants in Brown v. Bowman for refusing to deny my Lord Jesus Christ and the teachings of His Church. (See posts gathered at category Brown v. Bowman and accessible here)

It felt right to teach constitutional law in that room, and especially to present the following prophetic foreshadowing from one the greatest American jurists of the 20th Century:

There are many appeals these days to liberty, often by those who are working for an opportunity to taunt democracy with its stupidity in furnishing them the weapons to destroy it as did Goebbels when he said: ‘When democracy granted democratic methods for us in times of opposition, this (Nazi seizure of power) was bound to happen in a democratic system. However, we National Socialists never asserted that we represented a democratic point of view, but we have declared openly that we used democratic methods only in order to gain the power and that, after assuming the power, we would deny to our adversaries without any consideration the means which were granted to us in times of (our) opposition.’ 1 Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression (GPO 1946) 202, Docs. 2500-PS, 2412-PS. [337 U.S. 1 , 36]   Invocation of constitutional liberties as part of the strategy for overthrowing them presents a dilemma to a free people which may not be soluble by constitutional logic alone.

But I would not be understood as suggesting that the United States can or should meet this dilemma by suppression of free, open and public speaking on the part of any group or ideology. Suppression has never been a successful permanent policy; any surface serenity that it creates is a false security, while conspiratorial forces go underground. My confidence in American institutions and in the sound sense of the American people is such that if with a stroke of the pen I could silence every fascist and communist speaker, I would not do it. For I agree with Woodrow Wilson, who said:

‘I have always been among those who believed that the greatest freedom of speech was the greatest safety, because if a man is a fool, the best thing to do is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking. It cannot be so easily discovered if you allow him to remain silent and look wise, but if you let him speak, the secret is out and the world knows that he is a fool. So it is by the exposure of folly that it is defeated; not by the seclusion of folly, and in this free air of free speech men get into that sort of communication with one another which constitutes the basis of all common achievement.’ Address at the Institute of France, Paris, May 10, 1919. 2 Selected Literary and Political Papers and Addresses of Woodrow Wilson (1926) 333.

But if we maintain a general policy of free speaking, we must recognize that its inevitable consequence will be sporadic local outbreaks of violence, for it is the nature of men to be intolerant of attacks upon institutions, personalities and ideas for which they really care. In [337 U.S. 1 , 37]   the long run, maintenance of free speech will be more endangered if the population can have no protection from the abuses which lead to violence. No liberty is made more secure by holding that its abuses are inseparable from its enjoyment. We must not forget that it is the free democratic communities that ask us to trust them to maintain peace with liberty and that the factions engaged in this battle are not interested permanently in either. What would it matter to Terminiello if the police batter up some communists or, on the other hand, if the communists batter up some policemen? Either result makes grist for his mill; either would help promote hysteria and the demand for strong-arm methods in dealing with his adversaries. And what, on the other hand, have the communist agitators to lose from a battle with the police?

This Court has gone far toward accepting the doctrine that civil liberty means the removal of all restraints from these crowds and that all local attempts to maintain order are impairments of the liberty of the citizen. The choice is not between order and liberty. It is between liberty with order and anarchy without either. There is danger that, if the Court does not temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom, it will convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact.

TERMINIELLO V. CITY OF CHICAGO , 337 U.S. 1, 37 (1949)(Jackson, J., dissenting, joined by Burton, J.)(emphasis added)

GOD BLESS GREAT PATRIOT JURISTS LIKE JUSTICE ROBERT H. JACKSON! He tried to warn his peers — they did not listen and continued to crash through the gates to the Age of Obama (i.e. the summit of the collectivist suicide pact).

Pictured above:  Robert Houghwout Jackson (February 13, 1892 – October 9, 1954) was United States Attorney General (1940–1941) and an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court (1941–1954).  A “county-seat lawyer“, he remains the last Supreme Court justice appointed who did not graduate from any law school (though Justice Stanley Reed who served from 1938–1957 was the last such justice to serve on the court), although he did attend Albany Law School in Albany, New York for one year. . He was also the chief United States prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials.

MORE from Justice Robert Jackson on this website here and here

When I (Bryan J. Brown) was last in Topeka I lunched with my former boss and current friend Eric Rucker.  “Ruck” was Chief Deputy of the Attorney General’s Office, reporting directly to Phil Kline, while I was Deputy AG and Chief of the Consumer Protection, Antitrust and No Call Division.  (I supervised about 20 employees, Assistant Attorney Generals, Investigators, paralegals and other staff.)

Over our three hour (no martinis) lunch, Eric informed me that (more…)

The following (in red)  is more text from Deacon Keith Fournier’s essay on the need to embrace the Natural Law as the cure for our national apostasy.  This is the same Natural Law that animated our nation’s birth (in the Declaration of Independence and almost every state’s constitution).  Note that Christ is not – simply cannot be – divorced from this explanation of the rightful foundation of our social order since we find ourselves standing in Christendom – the geopolitical fruit of the Christian faith.  This Christian-faith informed Natural Law is the only wooden stake that can pierce the rapidly metastasizing cancer (more…)

This one will not hurt the new Justice’s feelings one bit.

At the beginning of the summer the ArchAngel Institute sent out a mailing to more than 2500 local households presenting my (brown’s) predicament before the Indiana authorities (click here for a nutshell on that) and an aggressive summer educational and committee program.  We also noted that things were going badly on the national level, and that our summer was thus best called a summer of discontent.

Our new SCOTUS “justice”, Elana Kagan, certainly demonstrates the source of our discontent.  Add this to our analysis of her:  Elana Kagan is no Bryan Brown.  Consider:  She has a pro-abortion activist background, Brown has a pro-life activist background.  She has an allegation of gross misconduct pending before the United States Supreme Court that could, if true, result in disbarment; Brown has had two minor complaints filed against his Kansas license in 12 years — both were dismissed on the merits without any disciplinary action taken (and both arose out of my work in the culture wars and were filed by those advancing pro-abortion agendas).  Brown is a conservative, white, Christian, heterosexual male (zero diversity points — or is it -10?), Kagan is a … well let’s just say she hits a bullseye on diversity points.  Kagan’s religious perspectives are lauded, her arguing with an “orthodox” rabbi and all, Browns are vilified, him defending the Blessed Virgin Mary and all.  (Click here)  Brown cited Sir Thomas More as his hero, Kagan cites a socialist Israeli judge.   Kagan is respected by the Left for her “over the line” work to ensure the right to kill babies at birth, Brown is derided by the government for his actions on behalf of a tramautized 83 year old woman.  Kagan enjoys the full and unified support of the Left, Brown enjoys little to no support from the Right, local or national.

Last but not least, Kagan has no view affirming the clear teaching of the Declaration of Independence and was bold in stating that fact before the Senate, Brown defended his belief in this teaching before the Indiana Board of Law Examiners, and was then punished for that audacity of Hope. (Click here and click here)

Elana Kagan is now one of the most powerful judges on Earth, and will likely remain in that position for the rest of her life.

Brown, by comparison, has been denied admission to the Indiana bar and told that he cannot even ask for admission again until 2014, at which time he will presumably meet the same religious biases if he has not abandoned his historic Christian faith.

Kagan empowered to the max, Brown unempowered to the max. (more…)

This video is dedicated to the government agents who determined that my view of abortion and God’s Law should be used to ban me from the Indiana bar for eight years (three processing, five by order) when child molesters, those who out and out lie to them (I never did, even to my great harm) and serial drunk drivers often get less than two years banned.

The attorney from Springfield, Illinois who became the 16th President of these United States had a lifelong dedication to the Declaration of Independence. Early and late in his political career Abraham Lincoln was quoted as saying

Senator Coburn tossed Elana Kagan a softball at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.  Had she been of the same mind as Lincoln she would have hit it over the fence.

She instead let it scream past her, a choice that should count as a strike.  Added to her slavish devotion to the culture of death and political correctness, Kagan should be back on the bench at this time.

Here is Kagan refusing the hit a pitch that Abraham Lincoln would have sent out of the ball park:

KAGAN:  Senator Coburn, t-t-to be honest with you, I — I — I don’t have a view of what are natural rights, independent of the Constitution.  And my job as a justice will be to enforce and defend the Constitution and other laws of the United States.

COBURN:  So you wouldn’t embrace what the Declaration of Independence says, that we have certain God-given, inalienable rights that aren’t given in the Constitution? That they’re ours and ours alone and that government doesn’t give those to us?

KAGAN:  Senator Coburn, I believe that the Constitution is an extraordinary document, and I’m not saying I do not believe that there are rights pre-existing the Constitution and the laws, but my job as a justice is to enforce the Constitution and the laws.

COBURN “Well, I understand that.” As a justice you’re going to do this and do that, but, “Well, I’m not talking about as a justice. I’m talking about Elena Kagan. What do you believe? Are there inalienable rights for us? Do you believe that?”

KAGAN:  Senator Coburn, I — I think that the question of what I believe as to what people’s rights are outside the Constitution or the laws, that you should not want me to act in any way on the basis of such a belief if I had one or –

COBURN:  I would want you to always act on the basis of a belief of what our Declaration of Independence says.

KAGAN:  I — I think you should want me to act on the basis of law, and, uh — and that is what I have upheld to do if I’m fortunate enough to be confirmed is to act on the basis of law, which is the Constitutions and the statutes of the United States.

SO,  the “law” stops, the nominee Kagan assures us, begins and ends with the federal statutes and Constitution of these United States.

One of Lincoln’s biographers, Harry Jaffa,, wrote in Crisis of the House Divided that

“Lincoln did not appeal to the Declaration of Independence merely because it was our first and foremost founding document. It was, he said, the immortal emblem of man’s humanity and the father of all moral principle because it incorporated a rational, nonarbitrary moral and political standard.”

How then might Lincoln have replied to Senator Coburn?  Probably in a similar fashion as he did in his debate against Democrat nominee (for U.S. Senate) Stephen Douglas in Lewiston, Illinois in 1858:

The Declaration of Independence existed eleven years before the United States Constitution or any federal statutes.  It is our American Creed.  A creed that the nominee Elana Kagan runs from, just as the slave holders did in Lincoln’s day.

His advice to her would likley fall along these lines …. from the same 1858 debate ….

Now, my countrymen, if you have been taught doctrines conflict with the great landmarks of the Declaration of Independence; if you have listened to suggestions which would take away from its grandeur and mutilate the fair symmetry of its proportions; if you have been inclined to believe that all men are not created equal in those inalienable rights enumerated in our charter of liberty, let me entreat you to come back. Return to the fountain whose waters spring close by the blood of the revolution. Think nothing of me — take no thought for the political fate of any man whomsoever — but come back to the truths that are in the Declaration of Independence. You may do anything with me you choose, if you will but heed these sacred principles.

There can be little doubt that the Great Emancipator, the father of the Grand Ole Party in most respects, would have had little use for a Solicitor General and academe who was embarrassed to claim the Declaration of Independence as her own creedal statement.

There can be little doubt that a Senator Abraham Lincoln would have voted against putting Elana Kagan on the High Court given her lack of allegiance to the “sacred” document that he considered the most preeminent in our national heritage.  Alas, he lost the 1858 election to Stephen A. Douglas, a man pledged to the abortion industry of his day — the slave system.   It appears that America is about to lose out once again as the Democrat Party’s affinity with the culture of death bears its awful political fruit, and puts on the High Court a tool slavishly  loyal to the abortion industry.

Worse than slavery? Ask the baby. Or ask Elana Kagan, she defends this as a constitutional right.

The question is only this — who will stand in the shoes of the Great Emancipator?  Senator Richard Lugar’s feet have proven way too small for that task.

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God Help Us!

Honesty has long been a trait highly valued among statesmen and allegedly at a premium in our nation.  Our Founder was lauded for his honesty,  a reputation which he greatly prized:

“I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.” – George Washington

President Teddy Roosevelt likewise valued honesty, even brutal frankness.  This great statesman believed that the failure of honesty in government was a harbinger of doom.  Consider:

“We cannot afford to differ on the question of honesty if we expect our republic permanently to endure. Honesty is not so much a credit as an absolute prerequisite to efficient service to the public. Unless a man is honest, we have no right to keep him in public life; it matters not how brilliant his capacity.”

Elana Kagan is, we are told, brilliant.  But is she honest?

Serious and substantial questions have been raised — now even before the United States Supreme Court — about this nominee’s candor to the court.  Were she a conservative these allegations would be the death knell of her nomination.  She is no conservative, and so these serious and substantial charges are ignored.

Consider this document recently filed with the High Court

Legitimate questions have been raised as to whether Elana Kagan is an honest attorney or pro-abortion shyster.   These questions are far more substantive and documented than the personal, private and quite subjective allegations raised against Justice Clarence Thomas during his confirmation, allegations which resulted in show trial-like hearings in the Senate.

Here is a fine presentation of the case against Kagan based upon her misuse (via misrepresentation) of sworn testimony toward the goal of protecting infanticide.   Kudos to Jill Stanek for getting this out where the main stream media could completely ignore it.

The crux of the issue, the smoking gun, is pictured below:  Kagan, in her own hand, is found helping the abortion industry escape from legislation designed to stop them from sucking the brains out of babies being born in the third trimester of gestation.  (Heads too large to clear the cervix, thus the need to collapse the skulls for choice and profit.)

These hand written notes could constitute the suborning of perjury.  Or at least a lack of candor to the court.  Shall we let the SCOTUS consider that question, or shall we rush Kagan to the High Court to rule upon her own complaint?

Teddy Roosevelt would have advised great caution in such a situation, of that we can be certain:

The liar is no whit better than the thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander he may be worse than most thieves. It puts a premium upon knavery untruthfully to attack an honest man, or even with hysterical exaggeration to assail a bad man with untruth. Roosevelt, T, The Man with the Muck Rake

If we assume preborns having their brains sucked out to be honest men, is the act of killing them not, by definition, knavery?  And what of those who clear the legal obstacles between the killer and the innocent, honest victim?  Especially if that path is cleared via a shading of testimony, a form of slander?  Is this not open to the charge of lies in support of murder?

Ancient parallels beg to be made.

The fate of the Republic now rests in the hands of the Imperial Senate.  Do the Senators have the courage to stand up and ask the necessary questions in this hour, or will they instead cower before the secular progressive media machine and Orwellian Obama octopus, allowing Elana Kagan to be placed on the High Court without as much as an inquiry into the pending allegations of the gross misuse of her government office as an officer of that very court?

Senator Lugar, if you have any cajones now is the time to show it.   Saddle up in the spirit of the Rough Riders and get to the bottom of these most serious and substantial allegations.

Or reveal yourself to be nothing but a sunshine patriot, at the very best.

hattip to Darl D