Dear Mr. Murray:
In regard to your Atlantic article, you say that democracy suffers "When Judges Believe in Natural Law"1. But I would like to ask you the following question: What happens when judges give up on the concept of natural law?
ANSWER: The war on drugs happens, which is based on the concept that a government can take over our rights to mother nature's bounty. Surely that is outrageous in the eyes of common sense, not to say world history. Nor is it even Christian, since the Christian god said that his bounty was good. If the concept of natural law upon which America was founded means anything at all, has any power to inspire or deter, then natural law says this: that human beings have the right to what Locke called the earth and all that lies therein.
Sure, we must combat the problem of natural law leading to subjective judicial outcomes based on specific religious beliefs -- but you seem to want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. By throwing out natural law, we return unbridled license to popular opinion led by demagogues. Surely, Jefferson was spinning in his grave when the DEA stomped onto Monticello in 1987 and confiscated his poppy plants2.
But you seem to say that, because natural law can be "abused" by those with narrow religious beliefs, we should hold no truths whatsoever to be self-evident. That idea has given the green light to a war on plant medicine that has outlawed entire religions, criminalized the substances that William James said we must investigate3, denied necessary pain medicine to those in hospice4 (100s of Indian hospitals no longer dare to even stock morphine) and it has completely censored academia, which cranks out endless articles about addiction and depression and consciousness in which they pretend that outlawed psychoactive medicines either do not exist or that they have no beneficial qualities whatsoever (thereby ignoring all that psychoactive experiences might tell us about the subjects in question)5. This Drug War has arrested millions of minorities by tempting the young and poor with wild profits -- and then arresting them when they took the bait -- thereby directly leading to the election of folks like Donald Trump by relatively small margins6.
The price of ignoring Natural Law is the hateful war on drugs, which is a folly that American democracy is not likely to survive. Indeed, the 1st and 4th amendments are no longer valid in the USA thanks to the Drug War -- and property can be seized at the government's whim -- and religious freedom is outlawed, unless a church follows the substance-use policy of Christian Scientists7. And this in a country where we claim that guns do not kill people.
As an enemy of the Drug War, I cringe when I hear folks dissing natural law -- for your doctrine seems to say that government does indeed have a right to outlaw nature -- and that is something I will never believe -- nor would Jefferson.
Author's Follow-up: February 5, 2024
I am not saying that I am comfortable with the ways that Clarence Thomas might invoke natural law; but Martin Luther King himself invoked such law when he spoke of our God-given right to freedom and insisted that no law is above this right or can justly countermand it.
"We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights."8
It is surely throwing out the baby with the bath water to claim that we have no inalienable rights whatsoever just because some may, in our view, misuse that term.
Once we concede that there are no such rights, then mother nature is no longer ours by right -- which is the absurd result that should make us rethink our priorities. Once we concede that there are no such rights, then government may tax the very air we breathe. But I am at a loss for citing more dire power-grabs from government, since government's claim to control mother nature is the power-grab par excellence, for it denies us the right to pain relief on our own terms, and when a government controls pain, it has its hooks in our flesh. By controlling psychoactive substances, it tells us literally how we can think and feel about this world -- a far more dire censorship than merely outlawing books.
Of course, even on the grounds of expediency, the Drug War is insane -- for if we were to outlaw all activities that had a similar (or worse) risk profile than drug use, we would give up horseback riding and skiing and we would not even be driving automobiles9. The only remaining grounds for outlawing drugs is an anti-scientific and ahistorical view that psychoactive substances can have no good uses for anybody, anywhere, ever -- a viewpoint that has been responsible for immense suffering over the last 100 years, because Drug Warriors are blind to all the stakeholders in the drug debate -- except for the white suburban young people that they claim they want to protect -- while locking up their black counterparts in the 'hood, turning inner cities into shooting galleries, and destroying the rule of law in Latin America.
Notes:1 Murray, Anthony,
When Judges Believe in 'Natural Law', The Atlantic, 2024
(up)2 Quass, Brian,
How the Monticello Foundation betrayed Jefferson's Legacy in 1987, 2020
(up)3 Quass, Brian,
William James rolls over in his grave as England bans Laughing Gas, 2023
(up)4 Rich, Steven,
Overdoses soared even as prescription pain pills plunged, 2023
(up)5 Quass, Brian,
How Scientific American reckons without the drug war, 2023
(up)6 Quass, Brian,
How the Drug War gave the 2016 election to Donald Trump, 2021
(up)7 Miller, Richard Lawrence,
Drug Warriors and Their Prey: From Police Power to Police State, Bloomsbury Academic, New York, 1966
(up)8 King Jr., Martin Luther King,
Letter from Jail,
(up)9
Horses Kill, The Partnership for a Death Free America,
(up)
More Essays Here
essays about
NATURAL LAW
Jefferson
Buy the Drug War Comic Book by the Drug War Philosopher Brian Quass, featuring 150 hilarious op-ed pics about America's disgraceful war on Americans
You have been reading an article entitled, When Judges DO NOT Believe in Natural Law: in response to the Atlantic article by Anthony Murray, published on February 5, 2024 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)
he following letter was written in response to a 2014 article entitled "When Judges Believe in Natural Law" by Anthony Murray in the Atlantic. When I attempted to send it to the author, my message was kicked back as "blocked" by the Murray law firm. (Hmm. Block ME will they?!) So I said, "No big deal, I'll just call their L.A. office number listed on their website." After doing so, however, I received the following somewhat cryptic prerecorded response: