Six Californias Plan

Six Californias would add ten more United States Senators from the existing State of California at a time when the American people are about to sack the Senators who supported Obamacare's excess.  Purpose:  to prevent a conservative-majority in the United States Senate?

Notional National Morality

C.S. Lewis once observed that, "human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it" (Mere Christianity).  This idea persists today.  We hear it expressed anew every time anyone uses terms like “good” or “bad” or “productive” or “counterproductive”.  To use these terms, one must have in mind some standard of relativity, of relevance, of rightness.  And unless one is a nihilist or a narcissist, one must acknowledge some arbiter of one’s standard:  a philosophy, a god, or a throng.  Otherwise, one’s “good” or “bad” is just one’s prejudice—it is a notional standard of self, for self—it has no value for society at large.

In fact, it is adverse to society—this notional standard of morality—the self.  It is adverse to society because it acknowledges no authority as superior to the self.  This standard is harmless enough when it appears in the form of a self-deifying delusionary.  After some psychiatric diagnosis, an egocentric like that might be confined to a straight jacket.  But what if much of society became afflicted with this autonomy--the standard of the self for its morals?  And was not sensible that this standard springs from the id—that subconscious part of the psyche from which the instincts spring?  And had a teen-like regard for and understanding of moral authority and antiquity? 

Society would have no bearings, no moorings, no inhibitions, and no real basis for law.  Adrift, it might hazard any harbor—just for the sake of change.  Its crew would be in a constant state of mutiny—against all authority and against every check on self and gain.  Consequently, nothing would be secure—especially a destination.  This mob would need to be mastered in order to sail.  For a time, hopes, dreams, personal gain, or a promised land might actuate the crew to cooperate.  But some of the crew might tack for the safety of a familiar and forsaken harbor or reject the new destination as a fall or a fiction.  And thus, divide the ship.  To preserve a unity, to quell mutiny, while at the same time rejecting the morality and moorings of the past, unable to accept or appeal to any commonly cognizable authority—except the eventual use of force by mobs—its masters would make this their resort.  What was moored (ie. to objective morality), they would cast overboard; their opponents (ie. truth) would be made to walk the plank.  The “goodness” of their destination, the masters would moralize (without a standard for goodness) will justify this journey away from the past—and all of its sacrifices human and otherwise.  But after all of the sailing and sacrifices, the destination would be familiar.  It would be similar to the destination at which the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia actually arrived:  a sickening shipwreck of society.

A notional, national morality will not do to avert a shipwreck in America.  Our law depends on moral judgments and on an objective, fixed code (ie. the Constitution).  Amorality does not recognize and will not render justice.  And immorality will confound it.  If morality is notional, there is no basis for justice under law.  And without a rule of law, nothing is secure—even your person.  Today, we might agree about basic human rights and what is heinous behavior towards humanity.  But will we tomorrow?  And so, invariably, we moralize.  And raise our voices.  Louder.  But who will be the arbiter of right:  the rule of law?  The louder?  The stronger?  The most violent?