Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For August 25, 2021

Around Aug 18

To Bradley Birzer and his article that reviews a new book about war and propaganda in the US. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative Blog.

The Left here has been writing about propaganda and war for a long time. It is often mentioned in the writings and talks given by Noam Chomsky.  Chris Hedges has written and talked about government efforts to control narratives since WW I. In fact, Leftists like Helen Keller and Eugene Debs spoke out against entering WW I with the latter being incarcerated for sedition. Norman Solomon's book on the subject titled War Made Easty appeared in 2007.

Not that the above should make obscure the book reviewed here, it is that this is not a new subject to certain groups of people.

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Aug 19

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that uses multiple news items to talk about Christians and the government. This appeared in Heidelblog.

The conservative political bias on this blog is not usually as strong as it is in the above article. Take the part on Afghanistan. Absent is the fact that Biden was acting on Trump's peace deal with the Taliban. Also absent is the fact that Carter approved covert aid to the Mujahideen in July of 1979, 6 months before the Soviet invasion. Such aid raised the probability of Soviet intervention.

But what is also not noted here is that the Mujahideen was fighting then because of social reforms, which included rights for women, introduced by Soviet friendly Afghan regimes. We could place a lot of blame on Carter for that, but we should also note that Reagan greatly upped the ante in support for the Mujahideen. We should note here that after the Soviet Union left and quit providing aid for Afghanistan, it eventually fell to the Taliban. And guess who made up much of the Taliban back then. It was the Mujahideen that was supported by both Carter and Reagan.

What is absent from the rule of natural law mentioned above is that it is a Christian view of natural law developed when Christendom was the rage throughout Europe. And not only that, it is theology that tells us that natural law should govern nations, not the New Testament. This should be noted when it comes to laws we have regarding marriage and sex. As much as advocates for natural law were saying that we have 2 kingdoms, a lighter Christian dominance of society than Christendom over society  was, and still is, being advocated for.

We might also want to talk about the good old days when Christians could ignore government. The problem is such an approach to government demonstrates a lazy democracy rather than a working one. And the fact that we have expansion in gov't roles is sometimes a function of a working democracy as people put limits on others, such as business, for how they will interact with and affect their lives. 

Thing about democracy is this, we can talk about it as either a set of political  mechanisms employed by society to make corporate decisions, or we can talk about it as a state of being in which each group in society shares the state as equal to the other groups. In other words, the rule by majority is not used to oppress some minority. Thomas Jefferson warned against such oppression in his 1801 inaugural address. If we consider our democracy a stewardship so that there are minority groups being oppressed, as there were when Christians could ignore government, then practicing a lazy democracy is not an option for the Christian. For during the good old days that Clark mention was the Jim Crow era.

Finally, claiming that Fox News gives a Christian worldview, as claimed by a Baptist minister cited by Clark, can only be true if we conflate a white, American patriotism with the Christian faith. The trouble with that is that such a conflation  causes us to compromise the Scriptures.

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Aug 20

To Pat Buchanan and his review of what was going on in Afghanistan 10 years after America sent troops in in the year 2001. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

Any commentary on Ameria's part in the Afghanistan War is deficient and incomplete without starting with Carter's July of 1979 decision to send covert aid to the same group that the Taliban would recruit from when it was formed in the 1990s. We should note that Carter's decision and aid took place before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Why did Carter send covert aid? First, he was sending that aid to the Mujahideen who opposed the social reforms such as rights for women started by some of Afghanistan's Soviet Union friendly leaders. Those reforms and rights were the same that the US was defending once we sent our troops in in 2001. While Carter's aid was relatively small, it helped the Mujahideen survive. Then Reagan upped the ante considerably and referred to these same Mujahideen as 'freedom fighters.' Again, theses same people opposed social reforms such as rights for women. 

So why was it right for the US to send aid to help those who opposed rights for women while sending troops to fight those who opposed those same rights for women? Apparently, the difference rests in which gov't is promoting and working for those social reforms including rights for women. If the wrong side is providing them, then we must support those who oppose such social reforms. If we or  our allies are promoting and working for such rights, then we defend those reforms and rights against the same evil people who would take them away..

Such is missing from Buchanan's look at our involvement into Afghanistan.