June 21
To Joseph Mussomeli and his blogpost about the pardon of an American soldier who, in revenge for the death of his friend, disobey orders by taking an enemy combatant prisoner to an isolated area where he stripped the prisoner and then interrogated him. When the prisoner fought back, the soldier killed the prisoner. The article was written because this soldier, who was sentenced to 25 years in military prison, received a Presidential pardon. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.
We need to distinguish between what is understandable and justifiable. We could easily understand the 9/11 atrocities if we note that they were in response to our almost carte blanche support for Israel's atrocities against the Palestinians and to our sanctions against Iraq that took the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children. That is we could understand those atrocities unless tribalism has prevented us from doing so. Unfortunately, tribalism, a.k.a., strong group loyalty, often prevents us from seeing the sins of our own group. Instead, the ethic that comes with tribalism is that right and wrong depends on who does what to whom. Thus the atrocities that our group does can be described as understandable but not the atrocities of others. BTW though the 9/11 atrocities are understandable, they are in no way justifiable and neither could the actions of Behenna. BTW, for critics, I am well aware that the 9/11 attacks were on a scale far greater than Behanna's killing of the prisoner. That is not the point of comparison being used here. The point is to distinguish how an atrocity can be understandable but not justifiable.
Regarding the events that led to the prisoner's killing, against orders, Behenna took the prisoner to an isolated area where he stripped the prisoner to interrogate him. But when the prisoner attacked Behenna, why wasn't the prisoner's attack described as self-defense? If the roles were reversed and a lone enemy combatant had taken Behenna out to an isolated location, stripped him and started to interrogate him, would we describe Behenna as acting in self-defense if he attacked his captor? Instead, Behenna's reactions to the attack are the only actions described as self-defense.
War certainly corrupts everyone involved. It is inevitable. War enables tribalism to flourish. In fact war is steroids for tribalism. And in tribalism moral relativism wins the day. And that should be the Christian's problem with the above article even though Mussomeli complains about America's strong tendency to admit no wrong doing. Behenna's actions were in no way justifiable and thus they become a stain on the conscience of both our nation as well as Behenna. Even though what he did was understandable, it can in no way be justified. And though we don't know how Behenna will respond to this stain on his conscience, many of our troops who fought in the War on Terror have reacted to their own stains by taking their lives at rates not seen since the Vietnam War. Recognizing that Behenna's actions were understandable does not wash out the stain. Recognizing that his actions were unjustifiable begins the process of washing out that stain. Unfortunately, according to the above article, Behenna has not completed that stage. And his pardon, though bringing him temporary comfort, might even cause the stain to be set in deeper.
Fighting a war and, to a lesser degree, fighting crime show some with the most power weapons we allow people to have. To allow them to give into tribalism means that we are taking away an important motivation for those with these powerful weapons to exercise self-restraint. So are we fully informed if we give into tribalism for those who have the most powerful weapons people can have? Or are we just kidding ourselves when thinking that our side will always prevail when atrocities win the day?
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June 22
To Joseph Sunde and his blogpost claiming that Socialism and Christianity do not mix. His blogpost contains a video presentation of Socialism by Russell Moore from the Gospel Coalition. This appeared in the Acton blog.
The problems that almost always occur when religiously conservative Christians, especially American ones, talk about socialism is that that they talk about it mostly in static, monolithic terms. By static I mean that they never have read or listened enough to hear the evolution that occurs in socialist thinking. And by monolithic, I mean that socialism is always described as being the same without acknowledging key differences between Socialists. And we might add that religiously conservative Christians, especially those from America, are opportunistic in terms of what they point out as its examples.
Russell Moore is guilty of having all 3 problems when talking about Socialism. And one has to wonder how limited has been his view of of the subject.
In terms of talking about socialism statically, while the popular Christian assessment of socialism is that it occurs when we have state owned means of production in order to arrive at some utopian end, that is not the view of all socialists today. Some now believe in relying on socialism not to reach utopia, but to improve on a failing Capitalist system. Some now are emphasizing non-elite centered rule and worker-owned and controlled means of production--one can see this in Ezequiel Adamovsky's book, Anticaptialism. And, starting with Trotsky and continuing with Khrushchev and Gorbachev, many socialists have condemned Stalin's totalitarianism. Noam Chomsky also included in that condemnation of Stalin was a claim that Lenin was not a socialist in terms of how he ruled Russia. Like other systems, Socialism has evolved and gone through some changes.
Next, Moore describes socialism, even for democratic socialism, as a monolith where the state owns and controls the means of production. But such does not qualify as socialism from the Marxist tradition. Why? Because the most basic tenet of Marxist Socialism is that the workers replace the bourgeoisie as the ruling class. Thus, even if the state does own the means of production, which is not necessary for Socialism to occur, it is not Socialist if the workers are not in control of the state. And the workers gain those positions of authority by being democratically elected by their peers. That is an extremely important part of the definition of Socialism from the Marxist tradition. In fact, based on that criteria, Rosa Luxemburg, a contemporary of Lenin, declared that Lenin was not ruling as a Socialist because he relied on a small elite committee to help rule rather than on the workers. We should note here that Lenin came from the Petite Bourgeosie class, he was never a member of the proletariat--the workers. Therefore, according to Luxemburg, Lenin's rule over Russia resembled a Bourgeoisie dictatorship rather than a Socialist rule. And Moore would know that if he was adequately exposed to socialist thinkers. But he wasn't and thus was ignorant of that fact. But Luxemburg gave Lenin a Hall Pass because of Russia's internal conflicts at the time. And Luxemburg was not the only Socialist who was challenging Lenin's Socialist crednetials..
BTW, Moore's Democratic Socialism isn't the only variation of Socialism. Libertarian Socialism doesn't even believe in the existence of the state and yet it is a form of socialism. And yet Moore does not account for that.
Finally, religiously conservative Christians are opportunistic in their labeling of Socialist regimes. While they are more than happy to include the Soviet Union, Cuba, China, North Korea and alike as examples of Socialism, they overlook the fact that non-dictatorial, democratically elected and left-leaning regimes were replaced by the US with tyrannical dictators who served the interests of American businesses. Had they been given a chance, who knows what positive examples of Socialism would have emerged. Rather, Moore and others only point to those "communist" regimes that emerged from revolutions that sought to overthrow dictators who, far too many times, were supported by the West.
IN addition, Moore overlooks one nation that is both economically successful and the closest example of Marxism today. That nation is Germany. Why is Germany the closest example to Marxism in the world today? It is because just as Marx believed in redistributing power to the workers, so has Germany partially implemented that redistribution of power. However Germany uses a hybrid system with its codetermination laws that combine worker-controlled means of production with bowner-controlled means of production. For example, if a company has at least 500 to around 2,000 employees, then around 1/3 of the executive board of the company must be made up of workers who were elected by their peers. And if memory serves, if a company has over 2,000 employees, then the percentage of worker representation on the executive board approaches 50%.
If we want to want to read one of the best Christian assessments of Socialism/Communism, we need to read what Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his book: Strive Toward Freedom. It isn't that King doesn't commit some of the same errors that Moore has. Rather, King's objections to Socialism/Communism are far more biblically based than Moores as King strikes at more of the most bssic elements of Socialism that Moore overlooks.
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