Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For September 23, 2015

 Sept 2

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost quote from Tertullian that talked about how we are to share our earthly goods. This appeared in Heidelblog.


Sometimes charity is like a bandage, it covers the wound but does not address its cause. Thus, bandages cannot prevent future wounds. That isn't to say that bandages aren't needed, it just says that we are to look into how to prevent future wounds too. For Martin Luther King Jr., to prevent future wounds of poverty we need to examine the systems that produce the many people who live in poverty to see what can be changed.

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Sept 7

To Denny Burk's blogpost using a NYT article to state that Kim Davis did not need to be put in jail for her convictions. THis appeared in Denny Burk's blog.

We need to realize that she is not in jail over her beliefs, she is in jail because she defied a court order. As for her beliefs and those of my fellow religiously conservative Christians, they are being portrayed as something that suppresses the equal rights of another group. Such was was not tolerated when Jim Crow was being eliminated. Here, we should remember that some used the Bible to defend Jim Crow. Christian liberty is not the freedom to deny someone else their freedom.

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Sept 8

To Dr. James Willingham's Sept 7 response to the part of my comment regarding those Christians who would seek to suppress the rights of others asking about the rights of those who want to commit murder. This appeared on Denny Burk's blog.

Dr Jim,
Tell me how the rights of those who want to commit murder compare with the rights of those who want to marry the person of their choice when the partners are consenting adults?

All you are doing with your analogy is showing your view of those from the LGBT community. That you would compare their rights to marry with a nonexistant right to commit murder. So can you guess why some from that community might not want to listen to the Gospel you cling to and represent

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Sept 11

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost consisting a picture of the attacks on the Twin Towers titled 'Remember.' This appeared in Heidelblog

 

There are times when a pictue can say a thousand words. There are also times when we need at least a thousand words to help explain a picture. The picture above fits firmly into the latter category. For while most Americans see atrocities like 9-11 count as the beginning of the genesis account of the war on terror, we committed too many sins in the Middle East before the 9/11 attacks to believe that the war on terror started with what others did to us.

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Sept 21

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost consisting of an interview with David Van Drunen about The Constitution and the Obergefell decision. This appeared in Heidelblog.

I think describing the different ways of interpreting The Constitution needs further clarification. Many see those who employ a more modern approach to the document as looking at The Constitution as a living Constitution that changes as times change. That is in contrast to those who want to interpret The Constitution more literally and in keeping with what they see as being the intention of the writers.

Instead, perhaps we should look at The Constitution, especially the amendments most of which were written well after the times of the founding fathers, as either being a document that uses explicit and concrete statements only to describe our rights or a document that uses a combination of explicit and concrete statements with abstract statements. Thus, we would use what we see as abstract as a source from which we can apply The Constitution to today's issues and derive rights which the founding fathers or those who wrote the amendments may not have anticipated.

Seeing at least some of the statements containing our  rights in The Constitution as being more abstract than concrete allows us to employ a degree of flexibility in terms of using the document to answer some of the questions being asked today without treating the document as a waxed nose in the hands of time. To see The Constitution as having only explicit and concrete statements gives us a rigid document that struggles to react to the new issues and questions of today.

I can see one of the concerns of those who see The Constitution as containing just explicit and concrete statements as a fear of losing continuity with founding fathers when we treat some of the amendments as being more abstract. Thus, they do not see added flexibility gained when we treat some of the amendments more abstractly as a benefit.

One should consider the source of the above statements because I fully agree with what I have read of the Obergefell decision. It granted rights which I saw as being owed to those in the LGBT community who seek to marry the partners of their choice with recognition of at least some of the tension many conservative Christians have over the subject. BTW, the Obergefell decision does not relieve those in the LGBT community the hardship of losing one's job because of one's sexual orientation which exists in 29 states.

Finally, if we religiously conservative Christians really wish to address this issue without providing any unnecessary stumbling blocks to those who would hear us preach the Gospel, then it seems to me that we would rely solely on preaching and teaching God's Word as a way of influencing the people in society on whether they would or would not enter a same-sex marriage.

 

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For September 16, 2014

Sept 8

To R. Scott Clark and his quote by a Yale Freshman student who talked about Yale becoming uncomfortable with controversial conservative speakers. This appeared in Heidelblog.

This is a two-way street here. To criticize capitalism or question patriotism makes many conservatives, especially in church leaderships, very uncomfortable as well. After all, we can't afford to offend those members who are politically conservative. This discomfort from dissent spurs the use of pejoratives and that is by both sides. So when talking about this discomfort, nobody can afford to imitate the Pharisee in the parable of the two men praying.

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Sept 9

To Michael Kruger and his blogpost on why Christians who call certain behaviors sin, especially homosexual actions, are called haters. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website

There is a problem with using the 1st century Church as a grounds for why we are called haters today. That problem is that the 1st century Church had no track record in controlling society where the Church today does. And with regard to how homosexuals have been treated in the past because of Church's influence on society and its laws, there is legitimate reasons to accuse some Christians of hating gays and others. Those reasons are seen in the laws Christians supported which marginalized gays in society.

In addition, because too many Conservative Christians have so strongly associated calling homosexuality sin with supporting laws that marginalize homosexuals, such as laws that would prohibit same-sex marriage in society or Jim Crow type laws allowing Christians to deny legitimate business services to gays, calling homosexuality sin is now understandably perceived as being a hateful act.

We will get nowhere in evangelism if we attribute people's rejection of our message solely to them without considering whether we have any faults.

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Sept 10

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost on why Millennials have trouble trusting others. This appeared in the Heidelblog.

Saying that the economic comes into play so late assumes that the economic dimension has a low priority in society. That presupposition should be checked at the door in a Capitalist society especially when the current form of Capitalism is neoliberalism and its revered teachers are people like Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman.

Rather, shouldn't we consider the inability to trust demonstrated by Millennials to be evidence supporting what Marx said about the Bourgeoisie of his day and perhaps Capitalism for our day:

It [the Bourgeoisie] has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self- interest, than callous “cash payment”.

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To R. Scott Clark and his short video clip on 9-11 and ISIS. This appeared on the Heidelblog.

Seems like that only things some want us to remember is what is done to us. What is not forgotten because most of it was never known is what we did to others prior to 9-11.

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Sept 16

To Joe Carter and his blogpost on linking poverty with the decline in marriage. This appeared in the Acton blog

We are looking at marriage as the only factor having a correlation with poverty? We are not going to look at low wages, the drop in union membership, technological unemployment, and the outsourcing of jobs  overseas with poverty?  

We should also note  that correlations do not imply cause and effect--something that most educated  people know. So who is to say whether poverty causes a decline in marriage, or marriage causes a decline in poverty, or both.

With many corporations relying on gov't assistance programs to subsidize their payrolls, it seems that some conservatives are determined to avoid linking corporate practices with poverty and this is despite their eagerness to cite crony capitalism as a threat to our system. Of course the main culprit they identify  in crony capitalism is gov't. So at least these conservatives are consistent.

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To Joe Carter and his blogpost on how ending slavery made America richer. This appeared on the Acton blog.

It is not humorously funny that one should talk about the eradication of slavery as helping the economy without mentioning the other forms of worker abuse that took slavery's place. Those other forms included prison labor bolstered by Jim Crow laws and the horrible abuse of immigrant labor, such as those building the railroads, or those who were abused while working in factories. In fact, labor history in the US, especially after the Civil War, is replete with state violence against labor for the purposes of supporting businesses' control of labor.

Yes, ending slavery was human and moral necessity regardless of any possible economic sacrifice. But ending slavery did not end the exploitation of labor.

The Roar Of Fear

I spent September 11 in D.C. at a protest that was advertised as a protest against our use of drones. But this purposely became dominated by 911 conspiracy talks. That and the number of people attending was disappointing. Part of this is what happens when one of the major organizers of an event is the 911 Truth Movement. The other group that helped organize the event was the Million American March Against Fear.

But a couple of speakers, including Cornel West did partially redeem the event along with the counter protesters. There were actually two groups of counter-protesters. The one group consisted of my fellow Christian fundamentalists but who are on the political

right. They assumed our protest against the use of drones in enforcing U.S. policies and that we joined those who are trying to undo Islamophobia meant that we were all Muslims. Well, we weren't. These same counter-protesters explicitly said that they blamed the religion of Islam for the 9-11 attacks rather than just a handful of radicals. They also told us to repent and believe in Jesus with the implication that if we did, we would be pro-American conservatives like they are. The second group of counter-protesters were the rightwing patriotic bikers  who were in D.C. in large numbers and to show pride in their nation. 

We started the protest on the National Mall around four hundred yards from the Washington Monument. And despite the fact that 911 Truth Movement was one of the 2 organizers of the event, there were some good speeches--btw, one of the best speeches of the event was given by a 911 Truth Movement organizer who spoke about her army experience in Iraq and how she had a ignorance-driven fear of Muslims. We then marched to the pool at the U.S. Capital for the second round of speeches. On the way to our second location, we passed more than a few of previously mentioned Bikers. As we were starting our second round of speeches, some of the bikers revved their engines so that hearing anything else became very difficult. 

It was obvious why they did this. They didn't want our message to be heard by them or even us. For they share a fear with their fellow Christian Fundamentalist counter-protesters. Their fear is of that which is different. The first item that was different was our message. Our message is that we must oppose all forms of terrorism even when it is America that acts as its practitioner and people of color and other religions are the victims. 

Thus, they are afraid of Muslims. One of the bikers told us this when he commandeered the microphone after our first round of speeches to blame the religion of Islam for the 9-11 atrocities. 

They are afraid of their fellow Americans who have different political views. In particular, they are afraid of Americans who have views like ours. For how could they live in a country where too many Americans believe what we believe.

And they are afraid of the rest of the world. This is because people from the rest of the world are different from them. In short, they are afraid of all that lies outside of their own world. So, along with the technology of the bikes at their disposal, their way of relating to the rest of us is to project power, the power of their numbers and the sounds of their bikes.

The revving of their engines became the roar of fear. They used the power of their technology to drown out a message they wanted no one to hear. And such serves as an illustration for how America intervenes in the world today. Just as the sound of the many revved up motorcycles overpowered the volume of our portable amplifier and speakers, so we have seen for a while how our troops use their technological advantages, "Shock And Awe" if you will, to overpower their enemies in the field. 

Our technological advantages turn many a combat engagement into a David Vs Goliath matchup. And as if that was not enough, we are now using even more technology to add invincibility via remoteness to some of our troops through drone warfare. What we overlook in so doing is that along with making some of our troops invulnerable, we have shielded them from the inhumanity of war by blinding them to the actual carnage on the ground. We have dehorrorized the process of mass killing by removing the killers from the sights, sounds, and smells of the battlefield which, in the end, only serves to dehumanize these same "warriors."

Why are we so determined to project such technological power to subdue our enemies? Perhaps it is our nation is so afraid of those who are different, that we cannot allow them to exercise any significant control in a world that we share and over resources that we covet. So just as we were not even allowed to hear our own speakers as they talked next to the Capital Building, so those who are nonAmericans are often not allowed to control the resources that belong to them. And it is our technology that enables this stifling display of power.

Of course, just as their faith in the volume of their bikes to prevent our message from heard was merely a delusion, so our faith in our hypertechnological weaponry to so dominate those who are different from us in race, nationality, and religion so that they are not even permitted to own what is naturally theirs is a fantasy too. For one of the points of our protest in objecting to all terrorism is that America has been using its power advantage to intrusively and sometimes brutally subjugate those who have resources we envy because we can't trust them to use their resources in our best interests.   

So the question that becomes to all of us between now and the next September 1st is, what will we do with our fear?

Be Careful Of Who Your Enemies' Enemies Are

It is obvious that the Obama Administration regards Syria's President Assad and his government as an enemy. Any rational person should regard Assad as a horrible tyrant. But whom would America be supporting if it attacks Syria? That is one of the important questions that requires an answer. Another important question revolves around why, during the week of the 50th anniversary of the March On Washington, is the President, who is considered to be a partial fulfillment of "The Dream," choosing force and violence as his way to resolve Syria's alleged use of chemical weapons?

We will address the first question first. It isn't that America's leaders just want to bomb Syria to stop its alleged use of chemical weapons, they are also thinking about arming the rebels. Their goal is to force a regime change. But there is a problem here. The rebels are a mixture of many different groups including Islamists who are killing Christians and others who are associated with Al-Qaeda. And of those who are neither affiliated with Al-Qaeda nor are Islamists, it is unknown what they want.

Currently, like many other countries, America supports the Syrian National Council which is a conglomeration of resistance groups. As mentioned before, America opposes Assad's government. But in addition, the word on the web says that overthrowing Assad's government weakens Iran's influence in the region.  At this point, our government's allegations that Assad's forces used chemical weapons is being employed to rationalize participation in the conflict. For if Obama's Administration can convince the world that it is convinced that Assad's forces have used chemical weapons, then Obama can direct America to do more than just cheer from the sidelines and give money to boosters. 

If we were to use the Cold War's bipolar mentality, we would then support all of President Assad's enemies regardless of his use of chemical weapons. But some who fight against him either already are or would be our enemies. This includes some Islamists and Jabhat al-Nusra, the latter of which is affiliated with Al-Qaeda. We should also note that many of the rebels are Sunni Muslims while Assad's government is made up of Shi'ites and thus the longer the war continues, the better chance this conflict will change from a civil war into a sectarian conflict and, as seen in Iraq, there will be no telling when the violence will end.

So the question is, should America jump into the Syrian Civil War to support a group it doesn't know much about except that it opposes the government that it also wants out of power? We find that History has a mixed record when it comes to supporting the enemy of one's enemy where the first enemy is not a natural ally. It was necessary and beneficial to do so in WWII. One of the reasons why we could defeat the Nazis is that Germany was fighting a two-front war against multiple formidable opponents. As Russia turned the war around on the eastern front, there were fewer German resources that could be used to repel the D-Day invasion and its aftermath.

But supporting Russia also carried a high cost. For immediately after WWII, we were locked in the Cold War with the new Soviet Union. That Cold War put us on the brink of nuclear war more than one time. So it was by the role of the dice that the story of supporting Russia during WWII had a happy ending. 

But since then, that previous partnership with Russia has been used to rationalize quite a few other partnerships. So we should look at other examples as well. For example, we partnered up with Islamic extremists to draw the Soviet Union into a Vietnam style war in Afghanistan. We should note that Carter's signing statement authorizing support for these extremists preceded the Soviet invasion by six months. These extremists practiced terrorism against the people. But because they were trying to overthrow a Soviet backed government, and this is despite the fact that it was a secular government that helped advance the place of women in the country, America supported them. 

We know the end of this story. The end was that some of those terrorists, whose bills we paid, eventually attacked two of our embassies in Africa in the late 90s and then two of our cities on 9-11. The collapsed buildings are being replaced. But we will never be able to make up for the loss of those who perished, especially for those who sacrificed themselves to save others. That kind of loss is a wound that burns forever. Those who died on 9-11 were part of the cost of supporting those whom Ronald Reagan called "freedom fighters" during the Soviet Union's war in Afghanistan. 

There is another story to consider as well. We use to support Saddam Hussein while he was President of Iraq. We supported him despite the fact that he used some of that support to build WMDs and used them on his own people. We supported him because he was seen as someone who could keep the Ayatollah Khomeini and Iran in check. 

This story has a sad ending too. Hussein became an enemy when his forces invaded the oil rich country of Kuwait. So, led by America, the Coalition forces drove him out of Kuwait. Then the U.S. and U.K led the fight to have UN sanctions imposed on Iraq and the sanctions were tied to Iraq's alleged possession of WMDs. These sanctions lasted from the end of George H. W. Bush's presidency to the beginning of his son's presidency. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children died because of the combination of the first Persian Gulf War's destruction of Iraq's infrastructure and our enforcement of the sanctions. The first two administrators of the sanctions resigned in protest. Denis Halliday called the sanctions a "genocide." The second administrator, Hans Von Sponeck, called them "another war." BTW, the suffering of Iraqis during these sanctions was one of the stated reasons why Al-Qaeda attacked us on 9-11.

Tragically, some may not think that what happened to Iraq was sad because we didn't suffer. But eventually we did, though the Iraqis have and continually suffer far more than we have. Their country is now in shambles and locked in sectarian violence. Thousands of our troops and perhaps over one million Iraqis died because of that invasion. And these statistics do not include the tens of thousands of troops and countless Iraqis who were injured and the millions of Iraqis who were displaced.

Another possible example can be seen in Libya. There, some claim that there is evidence that we teamed up with Al-Qaeda to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi. Libya is now in a state of turmoil. 

Some have already said that we have learned the wrong lessons from WWII. And two such lessons are that we feel too free to both engage in wars and support the enemies of our enemies. And we have learned these lessons because, as WWII Admiral Eugene Larocque wrote in the article The Good War, 

We've always gone somewhere else to fight our wars, so we've not really learned about its horror.

So perhaps the reason why we are no closer to finding peaceful ways of resolving conflicts than before is because our country has not suffered enough. We can only hope that we would learn to replace war with peaceful resolutions before it's too late.