D EAR HONOURABLE MEMBERS.

You are ignoring me - yes, I

know it. You are much too busy for your

friends. You cannot find seven minutes in

your week to enjoy me. But summer is upon

us and you will be free of this now.

Let the f o u l i s s u e sit on its shelf. Perhaps

during the summer the shelves will be

cleaned, and the i s s u e will be moved, and

accidentally carried out, and then misplaced,

and then lost, and then ... a clean slate in

September!

Yes, let us enjoy the

summer. Let us feel the

blessed heat of the sun

(rather than that roasting

political heat). Let us feel

the summer breeze that

breaks through the clammy

air with hallelujahs on the

skin. Let us trod the beach

and with each step press

warm sand between our

toes, the shifting ground

beneath us a joy rather than

a worry. Let us hear the

delicious swish of wind-

brushed pines, the lichen

crunching underfoot, the keening chorus of

the cicadas. Let us see the brown water by

the boat dock wink at us with white and

amber gleams, and then slip a waxy foot into

its realm. Let us be small beneath the prairie

billows and feel large with gratitude. Let

the dusk make us invisible, like the maritime

rocks we sit on, until all that is left is the

faithful lapping of the waves in the night.

You do not, I hope, think I am indulging in

‘poetry’. No, friends, I am writing of you.

These are the joys of all human beings. You

have made the welfare and fulfilment of

human beings, in our land, your own concern.

And we who are served are grateful indeed.

But it does seem odd, to care about human

beings and to be vague and indifferent as to

who is one.

If we are asked, ‘Is it ever a human being

who is forced out of its natural home, into

oblivion, by human interventions?’ it seems

odd for us to say, ‘We do not know .’

If we are asked, ‘Is it ever a human being

who, on a sad day indeed for another human

being, is stopped from coming to birth, and

so will never feel the sand, or dangle her foot

in the water, or see that symphony of clouds

- is it a human being who was so deprived,

or is it a mere process that we have halted

... nothing more?’ it seems odd for us to say,

‘Who knows ÉÉ? And stop asking .’

It is a fair and reasonable question. A good

question, even, for those concerned about the

lives of human beings. And how amazing,

then, is our answer: ‘We do not know . We

do not want to know .’

Would it stop us from securing

justice, if we knew? What

would ever stop us, you and I, from caring

about Justice? What would ever stop &

prevent us from seeking Justice, working

for it? Knowledge?!

Say we knew. The day came when we

discovered we could know. Well, on that day

we found one of two thing s :

We found that what is in the womb is a

clump of cells , a gestational sac , merely

a potential life . Is the hope of j u st i c e

now ruined? But how? On that day we would

proceed to consider what is owed, as a matter

of Justice, to a clump of cells, a gestational sac,

a potential life. Perhaps it is not very much.

Perhaps it is nothing at all. That being the

outcome, we shall say, let us by all means

h av e j u st i c e .

o r , on that day we found that it is a human

being inside the womb. Is j u st i c e now

confounded and obstructed by this new

knowledge? Is justice obstructed by any

knowledge? By knowing? It is a strange

thought, to think so. Do you not agree that

on that day we would proceed to consider

- and with no reluctance or foot-dragging

whatsoever (for we in this country are

willing defenders of justice) - what is

owed, as a matter of Justice, to this human

being? That being the outcome, we shall again

say, let us by all means h av e j u st i c e .

We shall say - wont we? - Let us establish

what is j u st when the interests of two

human beings clash. Even when one of these

creatures is inside the other !

Some now cry out, “Ah, but if we are

led to that outcome, in which we

find it is a human being residing within,

now you have made it so much harder for

us to show that i t i s j u st to deprive that

human being in the womb of life.”

Goodness, I say, just listen to yourselves!

How easy do you want it to be, to deprive a

human being of life? Surely it should be hard

- very hard indeed - to deprive a human

being of life, given that that already seems

a principle we greatly cherish, in this Land

with No Death Penalty. So let it be just as

hard as it ought to be, and no easier.

But I must not drone on,

because I know how tedious it

is for you to read my words. Yes, I have

been told. (If I say hello to you, it is

already, “Stop, man, must you always drone

on so?”) Have I truly failed in my plan to

be your shadow accomplice, to keep

your spirits up as the f o u l i s s u e

passes among youÉ? I was gravely hurt

by the taunt of my friend Mr. james

m cfaddingtono ’f laddington , that

you would not even bother to read me .

Very well then, read him , for surely you

are reading somebody on this issue. If you

do not like what I have said, I wonder if you

will like what he said much better, for he

painted quite a pretty picture o f yo u in his

remarks upon our political process. Here it is

(and to tax you less I have even diagrammed it).

The attack that James had stopped

by my house to launch was not

derailed by the ‘noble speech’ I had delivered

- but I did not intend it to be. On the contrary,

I had said that all the reasons should be heard.

James unloaded all of his reasons upon me.

A good Member of Parliament, he said,

who is fully in harmony with our political

process (not selling-out their Consitutency

by hijacking the vehicle of State for their

own tyrannical ends) must , when faced with

a d iv i s iv e i s s u e o f m o r a l ity :

A|o b s e rv e st r i ct n e ut r a l ity .

An MP must not come down either

in favour of or against this Divisive Issue

of Morality ; your options are to choose

option B or option C, which is plenty!

That is just what he said:

“So up comes Motion 312: Why?” he asked.

“Most Canadians sense that the MPs who are complaining

about abortion ... are coming from a religious viewpoint and

a lot of them are fundamentalist Christians ... and Catholics

and they are really bringing their religion into the public

sphere and that’s not right.…They should stay neutral on

issues like that. We live in a secular democracy And they

should be responsible to all their constituents.”

“So,” I remarked, wanting to understand

this, “if MPs differ from their constituents,

you are saying, they should set their own

beliefs aside and vote on this Motion like the

Citizens in their Riding. For a Christian MP

to be responsible to, say, non-religious Pro-

choice Citizens he should...?”

“Not vote his Bible-based conscience,” said

James, completing my sentence.

“But clarification on one point, please: How

can you vote and be responsible to all your

Constituents? Is it majority rules? And how

does an MP discover what the majority view

in the Riding is?”

(I am sorry, but you will have to find the

answer in what James replied, as I, frankly,

could not: “This is an issue over which the

politician has to stay neutral . In a free

country you handle divisive moral issues by

letting each person vote his conscience, so the

task of the MP is just to transmit the voice

of his or her Constituents.”) This, plainly,

delivered his next principle, which could be

phrased as follows:

B|cast t h e v ot e o f yo u r c o n st i -

t u e n cy . Do not lead your constitu-

ency, you arrogant fool. Are the people who

voted for you mere dupes, that you should

tell them what to think & how to vote É

regarding a Divisive Issue of Morality?

No, be led by them. Obviously, you must be

the dupe told how to vote . You are to serve

them by doing what the majority wants (so

far as you know. And what are you: a mind

reader?) You cannot serve them by doing

what is, say, Good for them. Who are you to

decide that? Some kind of ... leader?

James continued to argue for the personal

neutrality of the MP, who should represent

the Riding. When I commented that there

were surely many minds within the bounds

of that Riding, he argued for Democratic

Majority. When I again asked how the

MP knew what the majority view was, his

answer was simply, “They know.” I knew

No.

6 21 JUNE

2012}}

The DISSEN TING FU TILITARIAN {{

L ET T E R S TO M EMB E R S O F PA R L I A M E N T F R OM A C I T I Z E N O N T H E S U B J E CT O F T H E P R O P O S E D I N V E ST I G AT I O N I N TO O U R H U M A N I T Y

Y e s , w e c o u l d r e a d ; b u t , r e a l l y , w h a t f o r ? W e k n o w a l l w e n e e d ; w h y r e a d a w o r d m o r e ? !

B

The Honourable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , M.P.House of CommonsOttawa

E|mps must reject , Expunge , &

repent of all leanings toward

belief in actual ‘rightness ’ or talk of

‘The truth ’ (note Ominous Capitals).

“But could it be t h e t r ut h that a few

abortions should be restricted?” I asked. “Is

it even t r u e that restrictions would follow

if the Motion went ahead? (Imagine that the

result of the hearing were that we agreed on

the following: that a fetus becomes a human

being at, I don’t know, 34 weeks, in the

eighth month of pregnancy. Would that prove

that it was criminal to abort a 35-week-old

fetus? Would it? We would have to consider

the issue of j u st i c e . Would the mother’s

interests outweigh those of the fetus? The

Pro-choice side insists that they would!)

So is it really t r u e that countless unwanted

restrictions would necessarily follow?”

“You do not get it, do you?” said James.

“People don’t need to know w h at i s t r u e .

It doesn’t matter w h at i s t r u e if we

already know w h at w e wa nt , which is

that abortion not be restricted.”

“So we should close our eyes to the truth simply to

justify abortion?”

“You natter on and on about the t r ut h :

forget that. This is a case where some particular

social practice needs to block the road of inquiry … in order to

get something done. First projects (Women’s Rights),

then principles (‘true’ or ‘right’ or ‘humanity’

- whatever). It is my C O N S C I E N C E , my

c o m m it m e nts , that are bedrock, not truth,

reason, logic, science, experts, ‘reality’.”

I never did succeed in bringing up HOBBES,

who rejected the very thing that James had

just said (because it makes the Nation hostage

to the “secret thoughts" of Individuals).

‘Conscience’, Hobbes said, means literally

to know (‘science’) in concert with

É(‘con’) another . It exists “when two or more

men know of one and the same fact.” But James had

said it was the private inner voice of the Poli-

tician. Yet “it is a violation of conscience” (says

American jurist Stanley Fish , who under-

stands Hobbes) for a person “to prefer their

‘secret thoughts’ to what has been publicly established.”

Those who “take conscience to be the name of the private

arbiter of right and wrong” simply “wish to elevate their

own opinions to the status of reliable knowledge,” when

their own opinions (for booting all evidence

away from them) are anything but.

If you are disinclined to my view, incline to

my friend’s. But where, I wonder, will it take

you. I hope we shall see. - But forget all this,

friends, and enjoy your summer to the fullest!

I am, etc.

1 1 D i s s e nt i n g f ut i l ita r i a n . b lo g s p ot.ca

what this meant. James believed that every

MP can simply take the majority who elected

him to be a carbon copy of himself, on every

serious issue, the political process being a

magical medium of perfect transference.

Which indeed rather puzzled me, for the

very thing the duty of Representing the

Constituency then seemed to demand was,

contra principle A, that the MP not be

neutral, but vote what he himself (and his

carbon copies) believed. To challenge that, I

asked, “Are there any Parties in this country

that are resolutely in favour of women’s right to choose,

so much so that a Party Leader could say,

these are issues of fundamental importance on which

we should draw the line and say, THIS is what we believe in,

and if you are in this party, so do you?”

In fact, James agreed with this line of

thought, for I think he supports just such a

Party. His next principle was therefore:

C|v ot e as yo u r pa rty says . Your

Party Leader may tell you how to

vote re. a Divisive Issue of Morality, or may

suggest it, or may reveal his will in hints, or

may draw a picture and then shrug, and then

wink, and then look back at you over his

shoulder, raising his eyebrows fetchingly.

Consider it settled! Avoid the ridiculous

scenario of a pipsqueak like yourself defying

your leader with arguments such as ... what?

“I won’t ask you,” I replied, “what you would

do if you thought your Party Leader was

misguided, but I am curious about your view

of the Country these parties exist in. How

would you answer a person who claimed, The

free exercise of one’s moral conscience is a fundamental

right in our society?” I watched James turn this

question over in his mind, and to help him I

added, “What if this person stated that in a

free and democratic society, the conscience of the individual

must be paramount and take precedence over that of the

state. I believe that Dr. MORNING-DOLLAR

said he was ‘firmly convinced of the moral rightness

of [his] course of action’ when, early on, he

performed abortions against the law: it was

his conscience that guided him; and was it

not for his compassion-driven conscience that

he received the highest Order in the Land?”

James quickly agreed that voting your

conscience on a matter of justice was

certainly allowed. It rather seemed to go

against the other principles he had enunciated

(A, Being neutral, B, Casting the vote of

your Constituency, and C, Voting the Party

line), but he insisted that this avenue too was

open. Thus a fourth principle fell into place:

D|v ot e yo u r c o n s c i e n c e , which

is to say, quite obviously, w h at-

ev e r yo u f e e l d e e p d ow n i n yo u r

s o u l . o r (if you don’t believe in a soul)

whatever sacred part of you floats these

‘beliefs’ to your surface. o r (if you do not

believe in a sacred part) whatever is left

that can manage that . (And for heaven’s

sake don’t tell us! Do you think we haven’t

got trouble enough?) When D = B (Will

of your Constituency) and C (Will of your

Leader), it is a sweet day in politics, is it not?

“G oodness, principles?” I exclaim-

ed. “This is no principle at all,

since you have justified every possible manner

of voting. You can vote any way you feel . If

you feel it is right to vote with your Constitu-

ency, do that; to vote with your Party, do that;

or to vote your Conscience, do that. You can

do anything. There is no principle here but

one: whatever you f eel is right, do It . This

is nothing but the Ty r a n ny o f O p i n i o n .”

“Well nobody ever does anything else ,”

James shot back confidently, “but act on

what they feel is right. That is all there is.”

“And you call yourself a man of politics !”

I replied. “What have we come to? If what you

say is true, then you have uncovered our

very problem! We once knew better: have you

forgotten THOMAS HOBBES?”

James went rigid at the mention of someone

who is presently a heap of bones (i.e., nothing)

and brushed it aside, asking, “What else could

an MP do but vote what he thinks is best?”

“But you advocate n o t h i n k i n g at all. What

you or your Constituents or your Leader

think is best is always, if you bother to look

into it, based on some reason ; is it not?

Thus the one thing to do is to examine the

reason for which any person thinks voting

X is best. And there is one question that then

faces you: is he r i g ht to think this?”

“Consider,” I said. “Say your Party has direct-

ed you to vote X. is it right to do so?

- that is your question. Your Leader has

a reason , but the question is really not,

Do I accept it; it is, is his reasoning

correct? Does his case truly mesh with

o u r P r i n c i p l e s and t h e facts ? (Is only

the Leader equipped to weigh this argument?

Then what useless people he sees in his MPs.)

No, you should not Act on what you feel

is right; you should See what is right, and

follow that wherever it is leading you.”

“But what is this questioning based on?” James

asked. “At bottom you just pick what you believe.”

“No bedrock? At bottom we have p r i n c i -

p l e s : basic human rights, accorded without

reservation to all human beings; giving a

voice to the voiceless; and so on. We have

powers of k n ow l e d g e , allowing us to

know things about people. Put these together

and do what yo u m u st , not what yo u f e e l .

Face the consequences of the p r i n c i p l e s

you stand for and the facts you cannot

deny - for surely you do not shrink from

serving your very own principles or

deny evidence and the testimony of fact.”

“But what is this r i g ht n e s s you keep

talking about?” James asked. “Your right, my

right. Here’s what’s r i g ht for me: to hear

no evidence about what makes a human

being - and not because of anything true .

No, just because all that this Motion could

accomplish is to restrict abortions in this country at

some fetal development stage, and (read my lips)

I do not want that.” Thus his final piece of

precious guidance:

A OBSERVE STRICT

NEUTRALITY

so, To PIERRE ELLIO T

TR UDEA U you should say:

Sir, surely you appreciate that the issue

of the State and the Bedrooms of the

nation is a Divisive Moral Issue. As I am

duty bound to stay neutral on such issues

i assuredly cannot give you my support!

D VOTE YOUR CONSCIENCE

To JOHN S T UAR T MILL

(NO HERO O F YOURS) say:

No, Mr. Mill! In a free society people must

“‘Act on their conscientious conviction” and

NOT ENGAGE W ITH ideas “they think pernicious.”

Chapter 2 of your so-called treatise On Liberty

(snort) OFFERS no guidANCe to this House!

E ESCHEW BELIEF IN

‘RIGHTNESS ’ & ‘THE TRUTH ’

SHOUT ‘HEAR, HEAR ’ AS U. S .

S UPREME C O UR T J US TI CE

RO GER B. TANE Y sayS:

This Court is not a laboratory, not an academic

setting; it deals with LAW, and in the eyes of

settled law the slave Dred Scott (suing for

HIS freedom) is not a citizen, and HE IS not a

person: he is property. Appreciate that this is

a case of rights, not science! And to preserve

our Constitutionally granted rights of property

in slaves it is my just duty to hand this

property back to his owner.

HOW TO B E A G O O D M P

B VOTE YOUR

CONSTITUENCY

To MARTIN LU THER KING, JR.,

say:

I do believe you can see, sir, what my cautious

constituency expects of me in the matter of Buses.

How can I let down their faithful hope that I

would represent them. My hands are tied, by duty.

C VOTE WITH YOUR PARTY

To WILLIA M WILBERF OR CE , MP , say:

Sir, you do not seem to appreciate that the business of our party is politics, not

morals. Of what use in this Legislature is your so-called “principle above everything that

is political”? Plainly none. whereas protecting sugar interests (with affordable

slave labour), thus bolstering the economy, is in the line of our daily business.