Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For January 16, 2019

Jan 14

To Joe Carter and his blogpost that states that economics is like Christianity.  This appeared in the Acton blog.

The above article relies on empty assertions--assertions made without proof or evidence. Economics can be the 'crown-jewel of human compassion? If it is, then economics is not being properly practiced here.

And those who care about employees going without pay are deficient because they care not for the taxpayers who fund them? Those who are being punished by the shutdown are individuals who do various jobs. But those being rewarded the most by our political-economic system are corporations and the wealthy who have conditionally invested so much in those corporations. We have to say conditionally invested because their investment depends on the ROI. Other than that, many wealthy shareholders make no other investment in those corporations. For that reason, many major shareholders are like absentee landlords who squeeze out of their tenants whatever they can while repairing their properties as little as possible.

The term 'economics' comes from the Greek word 'oikos' meaning house. Such a term implies a holistic approach to the subject. But what has often occurred is a reducing of economics to the field of commerce. This reductionism has been facilitated by limiting the definition of a business's stakeholders to consisting merely of the buyer and seller. Workers, and their communities, other venders, society, and environment are cut out of the picture because to include these parties as stakeholders, the free market must become less and less free.

We should also make one other point. To reduce Christianity to being other-directed is to cut the Gospel out of Christianity. For the Gospel revolves around the forgiveness of an infinitely unpayable debt because the one to whom the debt was owed paid the debt with His most precious Son. That is what Christianity revolves around. Now how is that mirrored in any school of economics?
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Jan 15

To Joe Carter and his blogpost that boasts of how Conservatives are leading the way in prison reform. This appeared in the Acton blog.

The above article consists of empty claims: claims made that are not substantiated. How is it that only conservatives have become the champions of prison reform as claimed above? In reality, the fight for prison reform is being led by a coalition of both conservatives and nonconservatives. In addition, who reduces the justice system to a single entity? Haven't many, but not all, conservatives conflated justice with punishment so that the two are indistinguishable? That part of the problem with our current justice system is due to the conservative approach to justice. For aren't our jails currently designed to be a hellish purgatory on earth? Aren't our current jails themselves a source of cruel and unusual punishment because there is nothing but the exploitation of prisoners and a lack of protection for them from violence that comes from either fellow prisoners or staff?


The article above is nothing more than an empty tribal boast of superiority of conservatives over others. And that kind of boasting can only lead to tribalism with its group authoritarianism and its assumption of being superior over all others.

Again, there is a coalition of both conservatives and nonconservatives who are leading the fight for prison reform. And perhaps that coalition, rather than false claim that conservatives alone are leading the way, is our only hope for the future because it shows that groups with different beliefs can respect each other and work together.