The Wild Tears Fall

'Let's not do politics; let's build Poland.'

Thus said a billboard featuring a large image of Donald Tusk, looking rather blue collar with no jacket or tie. If his sleeves were visible, I'm sure they were rolled up above the elbow.


A Pole walking with me frowned at the slogan and said that the sentiment communicated by the billboard was actually, to a certain extent, illegal.

'What? How so? I personally rather like the words, though I don't believe that Tusk genuinely means it.'

'He's supposed to support his party's politics; he's taken an oath to do so.'

I groaned. 'The law should never be able to restrict a man from having an awakening of conscience, especially the crime is merely breaking with one's party platform.'


Last Friday, such an awakening, or at least a stand, did take place in Poland. Fifteen noble souls defied the PO's (Civic Platform) party line, and voted in favour of a bill that would ban abortion completely. And yes, their coalition now wants to make them pay for voting according to their conscience, rather than following the coalitions modus operandi.


One may argue that rejecting their faction's position and favouring a higher, moral code was undemocratic. Is PO not in power because of votes? However, Jacek Tomczak, one of the fifteen, did not only justify his actions ethically, but politically as well.


“I voted against the rejection of the (bill) because it was a civic project supported by 600,000 citizens...As a conservative I could not vote against my conscience, especially as it concerned the right to life of the most innocent and defenseless human beings.” (http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/exclusive-interview-polish-lawmakers-threatened-with-fine-for-supporting-ab)

Mirosław Puta stated outright that one's political party should not dictate positions on 'ideological' issues at all. That's an intriguing statement. When Aristotle concluded the Nicomachean Ethics, he ended with the words, 'Now let us begin.' He meant that the student was finally ready to read his work, Politics. For the Philosopher, the entire point of laying down a rational framework for moral conduct was to guide one's understanding of how a state should function properly. While Puta rightly understands that his party does not have the final say on moral issues, he ought to recognize that it should be the other way around.


The formal Marshall of the Sejm, Marek Jurek, did not tolerate such flaws in his own coalition, and in his integrity, resigned his tenure. He has now formed his own party, but it is a tragedy in Western democracy that he had to do either of these things. A statesman should be chosen for himself, not for the conglomerate faction to which he is expected to pay court. Consider this scheme to institute genuine democratic reform in Britain:


Can one guess why the fictional Prime Minister did not put it forward? Yes, that's right. By the end of the episode, the elitist 'Permanent Secretary for the Department of Administrative Affairs' (backed with a bargaining chip from a Leftist politician) reminds the Prime Minister that he was not given power by the people, but by his party. What kinds of horrible things would the coalition do to revenge itself upon him if he betrayed it by reforming local government at the party's expense?


George Washington's Farewell Address on bequeathing the presidential office is not infallible advice for a state, but it does contain the sincere opinions of a man who was a leader and a statesman rather than merely a politician. Of the five key warnings laid down in the speech, the second is by far the most significant to a democracy qua democracy:


...Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally. 

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy. 

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty...

...It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another. (George Washington's Farewell Address to the People of the United States)


The reason I am a monarchist and not a democrat is not because of the superior beauty, pomp, and poetry of the former order. It is because there will always be a king, whether he rules directly or through the command of a group. Whatever title one may choose to give him, be it president, prime minister, dictator, or Cromwell's hideousely ironic label, 'Protector of the Realm.' The only variation is how entangled the support behind the throne is, whether there is indeed one head or many, and how long the reign may last (life, four years?).

An outright, functioning monarchy is more advantageous to the people in its transparency. If the king did in fact become a Cronus devouring his children, it would be better to know exactly who he is that one may visit him at his bath à la Charlotte Corday (assuming of course, that it is the kind of tyrannicide that St. Thomas Aquinas would approve of: removing rather than exacerbating the problems of the state). In a party state though, such an expediency is absolutely impossible. As Alexis de Tocqueville pointed out, the tyranny of the majority would be more entrenched than that of a king's, and one cannot combat that sort of tyrant.

Washington, et al., had been more reluctant to demand independence from England than the fiery rebels of New England, and though he has left many rousing and eloquent words as to the reason he took part in the War of Independence, we shall never know how much he believed that the colonies would be freer in their own union. Like Tocqueville, he seems to have seen the constitutional form of government as an experiment, and his tenure as president undoubtedly showed him how delicate an experiment it was. 


One wonders what he would think of the EU's 'Philadelphia moment' and of a system governed by men who are not elected at all, though they definitely toe a certain party's line. 

Gaius Mucius Scaevola, as so vividly depicted by Livy, shall always strike an impressive visage in the imagination, regardless of one's political views. Even though he botched his venture into the hostile Etruscan camp by assasinating a well-dressed secretary rather than the enemy king, he managed at least to declare his fierce defiance, and that of 'three hundred other youths of Rome', by thrusting his hand into a flame and saying, 'Rather this than a king in Rome!' 

According to the republican historian, this impressed King Porsenna so much that the monarch released him. Yet, had that young man seen the forthcoming travail of the modern world, he would have placed both hands in the fire crying, 'Rather this than the rule of a party in Rome!' 

Would a party be as clement as Porsenna at such a display of defiance? Well, are those fifteen lawmakers being fined or not?

Nine years ago, my chemistry class was having a discussion cut all too short. While I love science, and chemistry is an especial favourite, forays into philosophy and ethics intrigued me the most by far. Yet, our teacher was most irksome in this regard, for she would put forward an extremely combustible position in the most provocative way possible, then cut short the argument saying: 'Something to think about.' We were never allowed to pounce on the proposition beyond a few scant sentences.

Once she brought up stem cells. Again, a provocative subject, which we did not get very far in discussing. Since this was a class in Tennessee, most members believed in the sanctity or unborn human life, and being a class of quite rational individuals, too, it held the proposition that the ends do not justify the means. A few young men did shrug their shoulders though, and say, 'Well, the embryos from which they are taking these stem cells are leftovers from in vitro fertilization. They're just going to be left frozen, so why not use them?'

I shivered. Having seen pictures of children adopted and carried to term from such states, I knew that they might still live life as any other man or woman can. Though their vast numbers makes that chance unlikely, it is not impossible. Even given how unlikely adoption is, should a human being's person be so callusly harvested for its potential resources? There are images in my mind, imprinted by my visit to Auschwitz, of carpets made from human hair, pictures of soap boiled from human flesh, and descriptions of men prying the gold fillings from the teeth of Jews, Poles, patriots of any non-Aryan nation. Why not? After all, they were dead; what use were these things to them now?

One of the most striking evils concerning these acts, aside from the murders which made them possible, is their uselessness. Was there a shortage of carpets in Germany? Was soap so scarce that they were driven to using the cadavers of men, women, and children? Perhaps all those dental fillings melted together made some reasonable amount of gold, but what a despicable act committed to obtain them!

In vitro fertilization is an act of subordinating human life to another human's desires, whether those who employ this service know this or not. The 'pick of the litter' alone is chosen to be born, while his brothers and sisters are left in a clinical limbo. As good as dead where the law is concerned, morbidly curious scientists have stepped into exploit their flesh. Yet, even pro-abortion advocates would likely abhor the odor of grave-robbing, so these chemical artisians exalted their endeavours to the very realm of Heaven. Within the pillars of life, would be found the cure for every ailment, perhaps even the Fountain of Youth, and isn't that worth the price of an embryo legally devoid of personhood?

I hope I am not willing to murder another human being for the sake of saving my own life. Even if I were that weak, my personal evil would still not be justified. The same applies to every human soul: one cannot do evil, even to achieve some perceived good. Hence, the sacrifice of so many on the altar of scientific 'progress' is as justified as burying Vestal virgins alive as scapegoats for Rome's failure in battles.

The other wretched evil in the ugly business is that the pseudo-justification is a lie. Not one medical achievement has been garnered from embryonic stem cells, not one. Graph vs. host cases and defective overstimulus in patients do abound, but these are hardly progressive steps in medicine. The incredible leaps science has made via stem cells have been made from using adult stem cells.

The case of Ben Leahy of Australia is just one amongst many:

"Following some chemotherapy and administration of marrow stimulating drugs, the patient's own bone marrow stem cells are harvested from the bloodstream on a machine during a narrow window of time," Dr Pidcock explained. (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/18/2902815.htm)

Now Italian researchers have unearthed a cure for certain cases of blindness:

Dozens of people who were blinded or otherwise suffered severe eye damage when they were splashed with caustic chemicals had their sight restored with transplants of their own stem cells. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100623/ap_on_he_me/us_med_stem_cells_blindness)


Scientists, in the age wherein they have been most exalted, could certainly stand to remember that humility is a boon to one's work, not an impediment. Ego virtually always stands in the way of objectivity, ergo in the way of the scientific method, ergo in the way of progress. And is it really so backward to say that the repugnance of an act should cause one to hesitate performing it?