WHEN MORALITY IS AGAINST YOU ARGUE THE LAW, WHEN THE LAW'S AGAINST ARGUE ANTI-AMERICANISM:

The Left thinks legally, the Right thinks morally (Dennis Prager, 9/21/04, Jewish World Review)

To understand the worldwide ideological battle — especially the one between America and Western Europe and within America itself — one must understand the vast differences between leftist and rightist worldviews and between secular and religious (specifically Judeo-Christian) values.

One of the most important of these differences is their attitudes toward law. Generally speaking, the Left and the secularists venerate, if not worship, law. They put their faith in law — both national and international. Law is the supreme good. For most on the Left, "Is it legal?" is usually the question that determines whether an action is right or wrong.

Take the war in Iraq. The chief leftist argument against the war — before it began, not later when no weapons of mass destruction were found — was that without U.N. sanction, attacking Iraq violated international law.

Whatever their feelings about George W. Bush or about attacking Iraq, for most of those on the Left, the rightness or wrongness of toppling Saddam Hussein's regime was determined by its legality (i.e., whether it was authorized by the U.N. Security Council). On the other hand, for those who supported attacking Iraq, whether the war was deemed legal played no role in their assessment of its rightness or wrongness. To those who supported removing Saddam Hussein by force, if the United Nations did not authorize it, it was a reflection on the morality of the United Nations, not the morality of the war.

International law thus provides a clear example of the Left-Right divide. To the Left, an international action is right if nations such as China, Russia, France and Syria vote for it, and wrong if they vote against it. To the Right and to the religious, an action is good (or bad) irrespective of the votes of the world's nations. They judge it by a code of morality higher than international law.

This would seem less a case of a simple Left/Right divide and more a matter of religion vs. secularism, which also explains the divergence between America and Europe on these questions. America is, of course, Founded on the Judeo-Christian belief that rights and human dignity derive from God and precede the State. For secularists there can be no other basis for a right except for in the law.

Interestingly, this dichotomy was on display at the UN yesterday as the President made a moral case for extending democracy universally and Kofi Annan made a legal case for protecting dictatorship, Bush, Annan Speeches Show Divisions on Iraq (Maura Reynolds and Maggie Farley, September 22, 2004, LA Times)

For the second time in two years, President Bush on Tuesday defended the invasion of Iraq before the U.N. General Assembly and appealed to other countries to join the United States in spreading "freedom" and "human dignity" in Iraq and Afghanistan. But in a pointed rebuke, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned that countries that hoped to instill the rule of law must first abide by it themselves.

The two addresses at the opening session of the 59th annual meeting invoked values such as democracy and the rule of law, and both Bush and Annan only briefly mentioned the schism of the last two years over the invasion of Iraq. But the war was the clear context for both leaders' remarks, as it was last year, and the two sides seemed not to have moved closer in the interim.

"When we say 'serious consequences' for the sake of peace, there must be serious consequences," Bush said, referring to language in a Security Council resolution warning Iraq to eliminate any weapons of mass destruction. "And so a coalition of nations enforced the just demands of the world."

Annan insisted that "every nation that proclaims the rule of law at home must respect it abroad." Although the secretary-general did not name the United States, to the scores of world leaders listening in the vaulted chamber, the target of his comments was obvious.

"Those who seek to bestow legitimacy must themselves embody it," he said, "and those who invoke international law must themselves submit to it."

Sadly for Mr. Annan and the Left, Mr. Bush has not just moral authority but the legal points in his favor too.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 22, 2004 9:49 AM