I have to admit that the details of the Casey Anthony case are still a mystery to me. I do see headlines occasionally at my Google homepage which mention proceedings in the trial. But when I log into Comcast to check email and see the electronic equivalent of the celebrity magazines at the supermarket checkout, I generally receive the news about Kim Kardashian’s latest revealing outfit or the best smelling actor according to Tom Hanks. All of which is to say that I’ve had a general awareness of the Anthony trial. But I dismissed it as the television news networks’ attempt to generate viewers during a slow news period.
That was the case until this morning when my wife and I had breakfast at the Jackson County Airport. The setting itself was eye-opening since this airport handles no commercial flights. People who own planes use the airport as one of many such places to land or take off, like boat and yacht owners use any harbor throughout the United States. I had never thought much before about private aircraft and personal flights. I must say it was fascinating to see three different planes land, their pilots park next to the terminal, and then meet the other pilots and passengers for a prearranged breakfast for eight. I didn’t know such a world existed.
And I also learned over breakfast that Fox News is devoting untold people-power to the Anthony trial. The volume was low, but the image on the large flat screen television in the restaurant was bright. And during the time it took to consume an omelet, I counted at least seven different talking heads discussing the concluding days of the Anthony trial. I even saw Greta VanSusteren walking outside the prison facility where Casey is an inmate and under constant surveillance for fear of a suicide attempt.
I understand, even without knowing the details, that this is a trial that titillates the prurient. A mother accused of killing her child would be enough for publicity. Throw in the irregularities of the Anthony family and you have a show that combines Jerry Springer and Judge Judy. It would be easy to ridicule the media and the public that consumes such yellow electronic journalism.
But I also have a hunch that Americans are fascinated by this trial because they also love to watch court room dramas and police shows, and because they have a inherent sense of justice. I know that the television executives who allocate resources and assign reporters are likely more interested in ratings, advertising revenue, and job security than they are in the law, merit, and fairness. But most Americans, I suspect, don’t care about the ephemera of television journalism but do care about wrong doers receiving their just desserts, and justice officials meeting out some semblance of due process.
If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect that what makes the Casey Anthony trial tick as a media extravaganza is natural law — that innate light of nature that gives all people a sense of right and wrong, justice and criminality, good and evil. It is not enough to prevent Comcast from teasing its customers with Kim’s latest dress. But it does account for what seems to be an insatiable interest by most Americans (at least) in law, order, and justice — from Nancy Grace to CSI.
Old Life 
You give the average American way too much credit.
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1. Taking some law courses, so it interests me on those lines. Taking “criminal law” next semester. Putzing around Supreme Court decisions this summer.
2. Will be attending a live trial at Camp Lejeune, NC. A General Court Martial for first degree murder.
3. Criminal law is rooted in “centuries” and “centuries” of common law traditions, taken up and codified.
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Ben, I have to since I don’t live as a hermit. I expect them to not hit me on the road, to cheer for the home team, and to give me the right change.
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Ben,
You give the average American way too much credit.
So Americans have no sense of justice, or the Law written within?
It might be a bit naive of me, but on the human plane, even if Americans like all other people are afflicted with total depravity, I like to assume the general decency of most folk unless I have a reason not to. More often than not my assumptions are right. I haven’t been mercilessly beaten, robbed, or unjustly imprisoned as an American citizen, which says something of the rule of law, and the State’s role as God’s minister in restraining evil. As prone to breakdowns and failures as our justice system is, it is better than none at all, and I am thankful for that.
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I’m not sure what Benjamin means by his comment. But if the below linked piece on the case as it plays out in various social media is onto anything it may be that Americans not only have an inherent sense of law but that it also can be in relative overdrive, at least when it finds its way into social media. If that’s so, then I suspect a correlation between the average American and theonomy, which may mean that it’s curious for a theonomist to undercut average Americans. That is, if he means one cannot rely on the average American for a sense justice.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2077969,00.html
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“… If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect that what makes the Casey Anthony trial tick as a media extravaganza is natural law — that innate light of nature that gives all people a sense of right and wrong, justice and criminality, good and evil … ”
Perhaps, but what happens in cases where the defendant is considered guilty by a jury, but maintains that he/she did absolutely nothing wrong (in the eyes of law). Here in Illinois we now have several infamous cases on the books involving wayward governors who claimed that they did just that – nothing wrong – since they merely followed in the footsteps of other corrupt Illinois politicians.
Ironically, the second most recent of these pardoned those on death row just before he was displaced as governor, because (he claims) he was watching an evening news program with his (now deceased) wife that covered the exoneration of a condemned inmate whose innocence seemed to be proven by later DNA evidence. Therefore, the presumption on this ex-governor’s part seems to be, ALL convicted felons on death “might” be innocent and should not be subject to the death penalty.
Since the Florida case “could” result in a death sentence the same logic. Certainly if “the Peoples’ ” sense of right and wrong prevail then the Anthony woman will be convicted on similar reverse logic. After all, she just has that brooding, pouting, in-your-face, dare-to-prove-me-wrong look about her. How can she possibly be innocent.
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I’m willing to stipulate that this desire is still pretty strong in American culture–certainly far stronger than in Europe–but it’s increasingly being diluted. Sure, there’s a desire to see wrongdoers punished, but we’re increasingly a bit squeamish about the actual punishment. Retributive justice is pretty unpopular, at least amongst the powerful.
I’d be willing to attribute that to another innate human tendency: original sin. Being willing to come out and say that certain actions merit punishment, even really bad actions, suggests that at some point, something I do might merit punishment. But, on the other hand, if rapists, murderers, and drug dealers are really just disadvantaged products of their environment that with sufficiently large amounts of government spending can be rehabilitated into productive members of society, how bad can I really be?
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Y’all were reading too much into my post. While that may be true in the deep recesses of their subconscious the reality is this story hit the trifecta of salacious news. 1) Dead Child, 2) Mother was a good-looking white female, 3) weak case with all kinds of subplot.
That is what attracts the bored housewife and Nancy Grace to this story, not some deep seated desire for “law and justice”.
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Benjamin, I think the point may have been that it’s a mixed bag: a noble and deep seated sense of justice co-exists with an ignoble penchant for the salacious. You know, sort of like at once sinner and saint? Unless you want to simply say that the ignoble swallows up the noble and the phenomenon is all, as Don Henley put it, dirty laundry (kick ’em when they’re up, kick ’em when they’re down). But maybe since theonomy relies on utter depravity instead of total the cynical take makes more sense than the realistic one?
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The reaction to the not-guilty verdict proves my point.
People don’t want justice in the true sense of that word, they want blood, preferably someone else’s.
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Ben, the point was that people may be fascinated with Casey Anthony because they are also fascinated with law and justice. Before Nancy Grace there was Perry Mason, Matlock, and there still is Law and Order. I think it also accounts for the popularity of The Wire over Treme.
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Benjamin, the inherent but over-realized sense of justice you cite is what links the ignoble of the American public with theonomy. What is it with Reformed theonomists (and their co-belligerents in the evangelical religious right) who point to the underbelly of culture as reason for why we need the Bible to govern public life an dmake everything better, but then when that same culture yearns for exact justice you guys throw them under the bus?
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You two are awfully grumpy tonight.
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It’s one thing to praise God for His common grace (which among many things gives man a general sense of right and wrong); it’s another to advocate that Christ-worshipers and Christ-haters can collectively use NL to decide the difference between first-degree murder and manslaughter, or the civil penalty for bestiality.
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Josh, exactly. Saints praise God on Sundays and use natural law in the courts the rest of the week.
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Dr. Hart,
Have you seen article on Fox News?
Jesus, Reagan and John Lennon — What Secrets Has Yoko Ono Been Keeping From Us?
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/07/24/jesus-reagan-and-john-lennon-what-secrets-has-yoko-ono-been-keeping-from-us/#ixzz1TXjaYrVe
Doesn’t deal directly with this topic, it is media related
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Darryl,
Excellent response! Your comment was nothing if not obscure enough to avoid the issue. You must be a Pastor.
Is it possible for regenerate and unregenerate to a) deduce ethics from nature (the naturalistic fallacy), and b) to come to common conclusions on things like the penalty for bestiality and the distinction in penalty between murder and manslaughter? If yes to a, then I’d like to hear your novel answer to the criticisms that have been around since Emmanuel Kant, David Hume and G.E. Moore. If b, then i) where is the Scriptural warrant, and ii) are you saying that law is religiously neutral and that legislation is religiously irrelevant?
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Josh, your response is anti-clerical. You must be an evangelical. But where is your biblical justification for demeaning pastoral office? Do you derive them from Kant and Hume?
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Josh, people might think you’re a public service announcement on the danger of mixing theonomy, philosophy and evangelicalism before getting behind the keyboard.
If Kant, Hume, and Moore made an argument that’s relevant, why don’t you tell us the argument?
Odd that you bring up bestiality, but isn’t that at least a stigma in 99% of the world, and doesn’t that tend to be a proof against your position?
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Darryl,
Speaking in generalizations does not demean the pastoral office. I know a few pastors who aren’t actively working to rid the earth of God’s law in the public square. But most are too diplomatic to give real answers to questions about helpful but controversial questions. You’re skirting the questions I asked exemplifies my point.
Michael,
You want me to cite their arguments about the fallaciousness of deducing morality from nature? If you have a rebuttal of the naturalistic fallacy, I’d love to hear it.
So, your position is that if the majority doesn’t break certain portions of God’s law (that they haven’t consulted), then all nations can go ahead and chuck it as an objective standard for informing legislation?
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Josh, in case you missed it, the light of nature reveals God’s moral standards. Even Paul says that God’s law is seared on all human consciences. I believe God is the author of moral law and the creator of human nature, so what exactly is your point?
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Josh, I believe Christians can be magistrates and rule “according to the wholesome laws of each commonwealth” and that there were “sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the State of that people; not obliging any other now,” and those laws are not to be followed any “further than the general equity thereof may require.”
Other than that, I’m asking you to make an argument rather than simply give its title. It’s clearer for all of us to actually see what the argument is. You mentioned at least three philosophers who have set it forth. That’s going to be at least three versions of the argument. Let’s hear your version.
Maybe the pastors who wouldn’t answer your questions know the limits of their jurisdiction and office-competence. That’s encouraging.
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