Rusted Sky

you know, I just can't think in complex ways. I'm looking at what Prof. Campos is saying, and it seems to me he's weathervaning.

Radio Blogger - Colorado Law Professor Paul Campos' "rose-colored look" at history.

HH: Okay. Let's go to March 21. We're getting closer in time. It has been pointed out that it is more difficult for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, you wrote, than for a rich man to enter Heaven. And surely, few vices could be more dangerous to a Christian soul than to indulge in the decision that his nation is morally superior to other countries. Contemporary nationalism is little more than spiritual pride on a grand, political scale. Now this strikes me as truly an amazing statement. Do you believe there is no moral difference between countries?

PC: I would say that no country is inherently, morally superior to any other country.

HH: Is the United States morally superior to the theocracy of Iran?

PC: I would...I don't think that the people who make up the United States are morally superior to the people who make up Iran. Now I think the political system the United States currently enjoys is certainly superior to the political system that the Iranians are stuck with. And certainly, I wouldn't dispute that.

HH: So what you're...that's very deft, but it's surely not what you intended to convey when you write that a delusion to believe a nation is morally superior to other countries. When you say nation, you're specifically including not people, but the governmental structure. So I mean, you're refuting your statement here. Nations are morally superior to each other, aren't they?

PC: No, because the definition of a nation is not its particular political system at any particular time, but a people, that as in America as a people is different from its government. If we had a different government, we would still have the American people, even if we had a different kind of governmental system.

About all I can think is that I've had a woefully deficient education. Obviously this man is a much deeper thinker than I am, to the point where he can actually separate a nation into two distinct parts - the polical system of the nation and the people who actually live in it. So, by extension, SOME political systems are better than others, but no one population is better than another - despite the fact that if you're talking about the morality of a country you have to include both the political system AND the people it governs, or you're trying to add apples and oranges and ending up with gravel as a result.

You really ought to read the whole thing. Apparently this prof's been putting out a whole lot of columns, replete with erroneous conclusions drawn from rather dubious 'facts'.

J.