When Will We Ever Learn?

 The issue of politics has been a thorny one for many a Christian. Why? Because all too often, it tries to pull both of our feet down to earth while we meditate on  what it means to be a dual citizen of both heaven and earth. And all too often, politics wants our full attention when it only merits less than half of it.

But that doesn't mean that politics is not important, especially while living in a Western Democracy. For we have a stewardship in how we live on earth regardless of where we live. And democracies have ways of increasing our stewardship role in terms of politics.

The latest venture into this tempest is an article posted on the Gospel Coalition website written by Dr. Steven Bryan who is a member of the faculty at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (click here for a bio). In that article, Bryan tries to discover a third way between conservatives and progressives in how we interact in a political world. He is looking for this 3rd way because he is writing to Christians (click here for a link to the article).

In commenting on the conservative and progressive political worlds, Bryan tries to do what Fox News only claims to do: that is to be fair and balanced with both conservatives and progressives. And I think he is fairly successful in his attempts. But he first starts of with comparing the confessional evangelical with those in the white social group voting block. In that comparison, Bryan states that while the former is an ethnically diverse group that is always trying to change for the better, the latter is not necessarily that way. He continues by comparing confessional evangelicals with the progressivist agenda. That agenda stands in contrast with what the Reformers wrote about the Church because that agenda is seeking to get the Church to compromise itself by fitting in with the world standards and ideas. That serves as a warning that we should selectively heed.

Bryan notes that sometimes there are similarities in the agendas of progressives and conservatives with what confessing evangelicals work for. Of course confessional evangelicals can hold to those similarities for different reasons than progressives and we could add conservatives as well. Bryan also repeats what G.K. Chesterton wrote about conservatives and progressives. Chesterton wrote that while 'progressives go on making mistakes,' conservatives 'prevent mistakes from being corrected.' Bryan also noted that in the US, confessing evangelicals align themselves with political conservatism.

This could lead one into thinking that Bryan wants us Christians to be centrists. To think that would be a mistake according to Bryan. Rather, Christians should take on a gadfly in relating to both groups.  The term that Bryan used was 'prophets' who come from  the wilderness. And as prophets, we are to try to bring both conservatives and progressives in line with what the Scriptures say. And that we should do this with unwavering clarity and conviction. He then says that the greatest threat to the Church and the Gospel are 'overt antagonists.' He then quotes II Timothy 3:5 in warning us to stay away from such people.

So Bryan's article is a so far a mix between some good stuff to agree with and a lot left to the imagination.

What should we say about this article? For one thing, Bryan seems to stress that the Church should stand not only above the fray between conservatives and progressives, but in judging them. What else can we conclude from him telling us to act toward and speak [down] to them as if we are prophets from the wilderness. And it is at this point, it becomes evident that Bryan might be too heavenly minded to be aware of the context in which he is speaking.

Politics deals only with a part of our horizontal lives, our lives with the State and society. It does not deal with the vertical, nor should it. It is ill-equipped to do so. So we need to carefully think what it means to be a prophet from the wilderness in the political continuum that has conservatives on one side and progressives on the other. And, at this point, we should note the binary thinking Bryan is employing.

That taking on the role of the prophet carries with it some dangers and hazards. One is, to borrow the phraseology of Martin Luther King Jr. as he spoke against the Vietnam War, that start to believe that we have everything to teach politically minded unbelievers and nothing to learn from them. And while Bryan cites II Timothy 3:5 to warn us about the antagonists from both groups, I would see that and raise him Romans 2 where it talks about how the unbeliever sometimes acts more righteously than those who believe, or claim to, in God. So that when we consider Romans 2, we should start cooling, not turning off,  our prophetic jets. To combine lessons from the cited parts of  II Timothy 3 and Romans 2, we should learn when to ignore unbelievers and when to learn from them. That last part is underemphasized in much of the religiously conservative Christian world.

But something else calls on us to learn when to learn from unbelievers when exploring issues in the political world. We are suppose to live in a democracy. And if we consider what a democracy is in terms of a state of being and in terms of what Jefferson warned us about, we should work for a society where we don't use majority rule to oppress any minorities. That we should use our democratic processes to ensure that all different ethnic groups have an equal share in and of the state regardless of their size. What is inferred from that is that we Christians should not gather in our spiritually ideological ghettos apart from where the rest of the world thinks about and discusses politics. Rather, we should collaborate. And the proper word there is 'collaborate' rather than try to control. For as collaborators, we become equal participants with unbelievers. As those seeking control, we try to claim a place of supremacy over them.

Does Bryan disagree with what is written in the last few paragraphs here? I really can't say and that is because in writing his article, he left too much to the imagination.

The Clash Of Ironies

What America is plagued with today is war between the Immoral Right vs the Intolerant Left. This is the clash of ironies.

Btw, I hasten to add that my use of the term 'Left' is breaking one of my cardinal rules here. For I have always distinguished between Liberals and Leftists. But in the context of this discussion, the distinction does not necessarily hold.

Why is the battle between the Immoral Right and the Intolerant Left a class of ironies. It is simply because the conservatives have for a long time portrayed themselves as champions of moral values whereas the Left has portrayed itself as champions of tolerance--especially tolerance of the marginalized. And what do we see today? We see that because many conservatives have reduced the pro-life label to that of opposing abortion, it has embraced the breaking of other moral values such as the murder and theft that occurs in our wars and interventions as well as in our domestic policies that favor the wealthy over all others. And when Christians do this, they show a flagrant disregard for Church history. For in the past, when Christians, especially Christian leaders, align themselves with wealth and power, as they did just prior to the French, Russian, and Spanish Revolutions, they brought unnecessary persecution on the Church and greatly damaged the reputation of the Gospel.

Likewise, as the Left has often portrayed itself as champions of tolerance, quite lately it has shown itself to be highly intolerant of  free speech for conservatives. Here we should note that conservatives do have a significant amount to contribute to our nation's discussions on issues. However, the Left has used specific points of conservative hypocrisy and bad history to portray conservatives as a monolithic group. 

The American Left has no excuse for the above behavior because one of its past champions is Martin Luther King Jr. And painting an opposing group as a monolith and then not allowing them to say their peace in public is not something that King would do. But then again, today's Left, is, for the most part, devoid of any disciplined study of King. And with that, the Left has joined conservatives in making any remembrance of King merely superficial, symbolic, and self-serving.

Unfortunately because the Left is correct in accusing the Right of immorality and the Right is correct in accusing the Left of intolerance, they both have an extra reason for ignoring the charges being brought against them besides the plague of tribalism. That those legitimate charges against the other has destroyed the ability of the members of each group from engaging in self-criticism.

Neither group can win this clash. For in fighting each other while denying the truth about themselves, it is the rest of us who turn out to be losers. That is because such fighting turns too many of us off from even wanting to learn about the issues promoted by each group. And because each group also has valid concerns, when we ignore the concerns of one or both group, we only ensure that we will be ignorant of our own demise until it is too late.

Of course there is one more irony. That in the land of the free and the home of the brave, that we seem to stuck in our ways to adapt to an ever changing future.





 

The Conservative Case Against Socialism Is Not Scientific

The Conservative case against Socialism (or what will be referred to here as Communism/Socialism/Marxism) comes in the form of a mantra. It says that Communism/Socialism/Marxism has not only failed wherever it has been tried, it will always fail. For Communism/Socialism/Marxism, according to its Conservative critics, always ends up with two results: totalitarianism and poverty. And to hedge bets, we should note that the West has waged economic and/or even military campaigns against nations that were leaning to the Left or were already there. To prove their claim about Communism/Socialism/Marxism, Conservatives provide a list of those nations that tried it and failed and thus they conclude that it can never succeed. Of course, the list starts with Russia and then includes China, Cuba, Cambodia, and sometimes Venezuela.

But here is a list of Communist/Socialist/Marxist nations that never seem to be included when Conservatives talk about failed Communist/Socialist/Marxist nations: the Paris Commune, the Spanish Revolution, Iran, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Chile. And these examples represent some different situations than what we've seen in Russia, China, Cuba, and Cambodia. For example, both the Paris Commune and the Spanish Revolution were working, though not without problems, until Frances' army and General Franco's Fascist forces overthrew their respective Leftist regimes. Nicaragua deserves speacial attention because its Communist/Socialist/Marxist government was voted out of power, but not before America waged a brutal terrorist and economic war on it. In fact, America was actually condemned by the World Court for its actions in Nicaragua. We should also note that its Leftist government was voted back into power too. And we should also know that Iran, Guatemala, and Chile saw Leftist leaders elected into office. However, America, and Great Britain in the case of Iran, worked first to destabilize and then to overthrow those elected leaders. Except for Guatemala where America simply overthrew the government, and Iran where Great Britain was the nation that worked to destabilized it.

But what of the examples of Russia, China, Cuba, Cambodia, and Venezuela? Here we should note that Venezuela's economic problems are in large part due to the drop in oil prices. And despite all of that, along with the alleged cconomic war waged by America, Venezuela is still a democracy where Chavez actually lost an election that would have extended his term as President.

But what about the examples of Russia, China, Cuba, and Cambodia where we've seen the some of the most brutal regimes in history? What we should note about those examples is this: in each case, the Communist/Socialist/Marxist revolutions were preceded by brutally harsh conditions from totalitarian rule and/or outside military action. Russia, for example, had the Tsars prior to their 1917 revolution. In addition, a civil war broke out after the Revolution by the anti-Communist White Movement that was assisted by Western nations. The Marxists remained united behind Lenin until after the war when he not only refused to relinquish the Tsarist powers he acquired during the conflicts, he purged his own party. 

In China, though there was a then current movement to install democracy, it was preceded by the rule of warlords and it suffered greatly from horrible atrocities perpetrated by the Japanese during WW II. In Cuba, Castro's revolution overthrew a corrupt American supported dictator and then was met with American attacks on civilian targets such as sugar fields and factories. What followed was an American economic war waged on the island nation while we pointed to the failures of their economy and attributed them solely to Communism/Socialism/Marxism. Finally, Cambodia was experiencing a growing authoritarian rule when its leader allowed Vietnamese Communist forces to hide there. America brutally carpet bombed the land resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands if not at least one hundred thousand civilians. The Khmer Rouge, the Communist Revolutionaries of Cambodia, saw a significant growth in numbers from the bombing. 

What does this all have to do with science? The Conservative case is basically a universal declaration stating that Communism/Socialism/Marxism, and there are real distinctions between these terms but for the sake argument all three will be mentioned together, always has and always will result in tyranny and poverty. To prove it, Conservatives list these a few examples. However, a scientific approach to the Conservative claim would not result in reaching the same conclusion. Why? First, the sample size of the nations Conservatives cite is too small. Four or five nations are not enough to say that Communism/Socialism/Marxism will always fail. Second, no control group has been established. Without any control group being established, there is no way to determine if Communism/Socialism/Marxism was the reaason why certain nations ended up with tyranny and poverty. Without a control group, there is no scientific way of isolating variables to determine whether Communism/Socialism/Marxism was solely to blame for the troubles experienced by nations like Russia, China, Cuba, and Cambodia. 

We should also note that the scientific method takes great care to rule out all other possible explanations and variables before concluding that what one has hypothesized is supported by the evidence. Thus, it should be easy to see here that the methodology used by Conservatives to conclude that Communism/Socialism/Marxism always fails is deeply flawed. And we might add that since Conservatives are strong supporters of Capitalism and that Capitalism is the economic system practiced and promoted by those nations that have waged war on left-leaning nations, the objsectivity of those Conservatives who claism that Communism/Socialism/Marxism always has and will fail comes into question.

In addition, left out of this discussion, but of equal importance, is our definition of terms. What is Communism? What is Socialism? What is Marxism? What do they have in common and how are they different? The answers those those questions shall be left as exercises for the reader. However, we should note that at least part of the Conservative mantra is false and this can be shown by counter example. That Communism/Socialism/Marxism always results in tyranny has already been disproven in Nicaragua and could very be proven false by Venezuela. Both nations have working democracies. As for the other possible examples where Communism/Socialism/Marxism may have not produced tyranny and poverty, we will never know. And we will never know because the powers that Conservatives support have overthrown those governments before they had a chance to prove themselves.

The Political Defining Of Social Problems

Imagine if the game of baseball allowed for a variable strikezone where the strikezone for each batter was determined by each batter's own wheelhouse. Well, that is analogous to how our political leaders and their entourages define and address many of today's social problems. These problems are described only in terms of how each side sees its own strengths. 

For liberals, their strong suit is government and so our many of our most prominent social problems are defined by what government can do to address them. For conservatives, especially religious ones, their claim to fame is promoting personal responsibility. And thus they define our social problems by how individuals must change themselves in order to be more responsible. And since laws often fail to produce those changes, conservatives often resist using legislation to address many of our social problems.

So when we see a problem like gun violence. Liberals define the problem by what gun control laws could be passed while, on the other hand, conservatives reject the liberal definition and solution and opt for viewing the problem as one that revolves solely around  individual responsibility. Those who are responsible follow the existing gun laws while there is nothing anyone can do to prevent those who are irresponsible from breaking the existing laws. Thus, if there is nothing one can do regarding gun violence, it is no longer considered to be a social problem.

Now of course, liberals don't approach all  problems by using government control nor do conservatives do the same by appealing to individual responsibility. Abortion and the same-sex marriage crisis has shown us that. 

In addition, there are some areas where what is perceived as the wheelhouse for both liberals and conservatives is shared. Consider many of today's world problems. Because of their reliance on the power of our military, a good number of both liberals and conservatives define most foreign problems and, of course, threats strictly in terms of our possible military response.

So what we see in our elected officials and their respective political parties and ideological affiliations is a trend. Though their strikezone may vary from issue to issue, it is based solely on what they consider their strengths or our greatest resources to be. As a result,  we end up with elected officials and their cohorts who do not listen to and/or play well with others. In addition, their attempted solutions to our problems tend to be shortsighted and unbalanced and thus producing more problems than they solve. And why does this happen? It is because our elected officials and friends will acknowledge no other strikezone than what they consider to be their own wheelhouse. Thus, all other pitches are not worthy to be swung at.

What does all of this lead to? It leads to a barometer test for all candidates and some others.  If people are seeking power, this includes but is not restricted to elected offices, they might be using their definitions of social problems as a way to get that power. Thus, the more one excludes the concerns and thinking of others on a given set of social problems, the more one claims to provide the only solution to those problems and thus the only one who can solve our social problems. This is as true with conservatives and Republicans as it is with liberals and Democrats as well as with all others.

To give an example from my leftist perspective, Marx called for the proletariat to replace the bourgeoisie in ruling over others. He did this because he reduced all social problems to that of being caused by the bourgeoisie and their control of the state and society. So Marx called for a proletariat dictatorship and, of course, the only way to wrestle power away from the bourgeoisie was for the proletariat to conduct revolutions. Many who followed Marx identified with either the actual proletariat or some idealized notion of who they should be. Thus, people like Lenin and Stalin used Marx to seek power for themselves and their scapegoating the proletariat was not just the way they interpreted the status quo, it was their way of pursue power for themselves.

Those who advance the Free Market or who oppose gun control work in a similar way as just mentioned in that they defined the social problems associated with unregulated markets or gun violence as problems revolving around individuals being personally responsible. This allows them to gain power by appealing to those who stand to gain from a lack of government oversight. Those who state that the problems that arise from a lack of regulations on both our financial markets and the purchasing and owning of weapons played the other side of the same coin. They gained their power by appealing to those who, though may not have understood the characteristics of good regulations, would follow any candidate promising to pass laws to regulate the markets and the purchase and ownership of weapons.

Those who claim to have a monopoly on understanding our social problems usually have one-dimensional views of our problems such as illustrated by the above examples. Yes, legitimate gun ownership involves being a responsible individual, but we need limits to partially control the actions of those who are not responsible people. Thus, we need to balance individual responsibility with reasonable gun control laws.

And yes, we need the protection of private property in order to be successful in the business world. But the business world has responsibilities to the other parts of society and thus property rights must be balanced with regulations that control how businesses  treat other businesses people as well as the rest of us. In addition, businesses must pay for the infrastructure resources they consume which are provided by the state and society. Such includes paying for the kind of humane society in which businesses can be successful and that includes helping those in need.

So the one word that is not sponsoring the campaigns of those seeking power is the word 'balance.' In other words, many of our social problems require that we define and approach them using the concerns of multiple perspectives. Thus the word 'balance' applies because we mix and match competing concerns and perspectives. For example we have to allow for property rights, regulations, and taxes when creating laws and a cultural ethic toward conducting business. And often, achieving balance requires that we surrender some of the power we would use to advance our own agenda.

So from all what has been written here, are there any candidates for public office from either the 3rd parties, the Republicans, or the Democrats who are applying a balanced approach in both defining our social problems as well as in proposing solutions to them? If you know of any, please leave a comment on this blogpost.


  

Is Jim Crow A Conservative?

Suppose you want to hold down another race in your country and suppose that the old ways of slavery and Jim Crow are no longer considered acceptable. The change is because discrimination and segregation are no longer in style for these methods have been outed as saying more about the victimizer than the victim. What do you do? You could use a proxy who not only does the dirty work for you, this person uses bleach to make what is filthy look as white and pure as the driven snow. Who is this middleman? According to Michelle Alexander (it is essential to click here to listen to her argument in this matter), this proxy is our Criminal Justice System.

What use to happen under Jim Crow was this. Blacks were held down and demoted to 2nd class citizenry. They were easily arrested and thrown into prison so that their labor could be exploited. Those who weren't in prison were demoted through the denial of rights, such as the right to vote, the denial of access to public services and places to live, denial of employment, denial of the right to serve as jurors. And where there was no denial, there was separation that stigmatized Blacks. This punitive special treatment of Blacks was solely based on race. This occurred during a time when today's old-timers regarded our country as being more of a Christian nation partially because our sexual mores were far more conservative.

How does today's Jim Crow II work according to person who coined the term? You start with prison and the inequitable enforcement of laws involved in the "War On Drugs." That is, instead of using procedures such as Stop And Frisk or police sweeps fairly on the whole population, certain races and economic class are targeted. Arrests from these procedures result in felony convictions and lengthy prison sentences due to harsh, mandatory sentencing requirements. Then discrimination continues after a person is released from jail because their felony conviction can prevent them from obtaining professional licenses, jobs, the opportunity to serve on juries, assistance for education, access to public housing and even food stamps. And in many states, convicted felons are forever denied the right to vote.

And just when you thought it couldn't get worse, you run into Chris Hedges who sees Michelle Alexander's description of those who are guilty of crimes and raises that by listing how those who are poor and belong to a minority, that is those who are legally vulnerable because of restricted access to services, have been falsely accused and even framed by the authorities (click here and there).

But this nightmare for those who are targets of the system and utter shame for the rest of us is still missing parts of the story. People working in the prison system or privately owned prisons are profiting from this new Jim Crow.

Jim Crow is more than just about the horrible persecution of Blacks that became a way of controlling Blacks after slavery was done away with. The concept of Jim Crow is that of relegating a group to 2nd class citizenry, or even, to use a German term from WWII, 'untermenschen.' And certainly there are varying degrees to which this dehumanizing of others who are different occurs. The differences in degree, however, share the same basic concept of demoting a group to a lower rank in society. And that is why we need to pay careful attention to another Jim Crow that is rising like the morning sun.

What is this other new Jim Crow? Consider the different states that are discussing or voting on legislation that would allow businesses to deny public services and even employment to gays so long as the denying of services or employment has religious reasons (click here and there). Certainly this Jim Crow is not as severe as what minorities who live in poverty are facing, but it is a demotion in citizenry. And we really need to think about the ramifications here.

The possible results of allowing just one business to deny public services to gays for religious reasons is that other businesses could follow suit so that gays could find access to public services impossible for either all or many. This is especially true in a Capitalist economy where it is only the private sector that provides these services. But it isn't just the denial of services that is involved here. It is the stigmatization of gays that follows.

Now a similarity is shared between the different instances where some varying degree of Jim Crow is introduced. That similarity involves a previous expansion of rights for the target group. The first Jim Crow followed the elimination of slavery and Reconstruction. Jim Crow II came on the heels of gains made by the Civil Rights movement for minorities. And this possible emerging anti-gay Jim Crow follows gains in rights such as the right to be joined in a same-sex marriage. In other words, Jim Crow is a reactionary movement against those who have come closer to being recognized as equals in society.

That Conservatism has played a significant role in the life of the three forms of Jim Crow mentioned here is undeniable. Russell Moore, the President Of Ethics And Religious Liberties Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention (click here), admits this regarding the first Jim Crow, though we should hasten to say that he also believes that Conservative Christianity helped undo it too. We should also note that not all who favored segregation were conservatives or were from the South. Northern Liberals also played a significant role to ushering in Jim Crow. 

The second Jim Crow also has a conservative influence. As Michelle Alexander has stated, Ronald Reagan's War on Drugs, the Get Tough on Crime movement, and the Law and Order Movement, the latter was, in part, a response to the Civil Rights Movement, are enabling Jim Crow II. Remember that our Criminal Justice System is being used as a proxy to advance the 2nd Jim Crow. These movements have been strongly supported by Conservatives with their support for Ronald Reagan though their support for his War on Drugs has started to vacillate. Alexander points out that the latter of the three movements appeals to voters who supported Reagan and who were considered to be part of the Southern Strategy in winning presidential elections.

Finally, the third Jim Crow is a Conservative Christian reaction both to gains in rights for gays, such as for same-sex marriage, and to legal problems for Christian businesspeople who tried to refuse providing public services to same-sex weddings. The laws being proposed in around six states go well beyond providing Conservative Christians legal protection for refusing to provide public services for same-sex weddings.

Historically speaking, Conservatives do not have a monopoly on participating in our country's Jim Crow movements and certainly not all Conservative support Jim Crow. But there are some Conservative personality traits that does lend Conservatives to supporting discriminatory systems. 

The first personality trait is the conservative emphasis on authoritarianism--this is especially true for Conservative Christians. The corollary for authoritarianism is hierarchical relationships in society and, because usually those advocating authority and hierarchy are doing so for their own group, tribalism. The bend to authoritarianism usually demands a high degree of respect and obedience from others and this is particularly applied to supporting harsh punishment for those who don't fall into line. 

Hierarchical relationships in society, when mixed with tribalism, lends itself toward a continuum with domination at one end to some kind of paternalism to group privilege on the other end. Conservative Christians have been looking to maintain at least a privileged place for themselves and heterosexual marriage over gays and same-sex marriage in society.

The second personality trait is the conservative reluctance to accept change.  Conservatives tend to work to preserve the superior status of the old, which they call tradition, over the new. So some Conservatives worked to maintain White privilege and its higher position in society following the Civil War, which the period of Reconstruction started to challenge. This also occurred during the Civil Rights movement when Blacks were gaining more freedom and political power. As with marriage, the antiquity of the primacy of heterosexual marriage has been a staple in Conservative Christian apologetics for keeping the old status quo and making same-sex marriages difficult, if not impossible, to obtain and maintain.

In the end, if Conservatives, especially Conservative Christians, do not wish to be saddled with an old stereotype image of being tyrannical and oppressive, they will have to spend more time facing the truth about themselves. But more importantly, their desire to dominate others, or at least to have the upper hand and privilege, must be exorcised. For not only does this desire discredit Conservatives, it almost always leads to serious conflict either now  or later. We should note here that conflicts always involve collateral damage and sometimes lead to wars. And so the desire to dominate and have a superior position over others should be despised and be seen as repulsive. 

The Real Dr King Is The One Telling Us To Change

Martin Luther King Day has just past and you know what that meant. It meant that he, like other cultural icons and authority figures, was remade and shaped so that if he were alive today, he would jump on the bandwagon of our concerns and causes rather than inviting us to join his. That is because he is in an elite group of people, like Jesus and Gandhi, whom we use to make us look better rather than study so we can become better. Thus, the irony here is that King has become so important that, in death, he has lost control of who he was. Instead, we must be in charge here. For if we are not, we would have to change to save face. So we must preside over what he looked like by painting revisionist portraits him. Some of these paintings show parts of him missing or amputated while others so disfigure him that his likeness will be barely recognizable if at all.  

Who was Martin Luther King Jr? King was a man of three messages, two methods, and one theme. He had a message for each of the three evils which he could identify in his time and he saw these monstrosities as being intertwined. In other words, one couldn't pick and choose when addressing these crimes and still do justice to King's message.

Against Racism

Of course, King's first message was against racism. We have heard this and yet we often act as if we have not. Some of us will point with pride about how we no longer harbor prejudice against Blacks but we seem very fearful of Muslims and Arabs. And many of us are very accepting of all Israeli actions against the Palestinians while being so critical of their resistance while others will do just the opposite.

And if we don't discriminate against others based on race, we'll find other reasons. The current cultural war over same-sex marriage yields slippery slope arguments that make horrendous and fallacious comparisons between gays and others. These comparisons say more about those making them than about their targets. 

And if our bigotry is not based on race or sexual orientation, then we feel free to zero in on people because of their ideologies. In particular, we wear the labels of 'Conservative,' 'Liberal,' and 'Leftist' so hard and tight that we claim that there is nothing to be learned from the other groups. In other words, many non-Conservatives believe that the Conservative view of personal morality could not contribute to society. And many Conservatives fear that the Liberal's view of those with wealth sharing benefits with those in need will kill our economy, freedoms and our morality. And Capitalists believe that all Leftists, because of their opposition to capitalism and support for collectivism, support tyrannical regimes such as those that existed in the Soviet Union or Red China. Nobody believes that those from the other groups have nothing to contribute to any politico-economic discussion.

Chris Rock said something to the effect that those who are conservative or liberal in everything belong to gangs (click here). Their minds are made up before listening to the issues and thus they are acting on blind loyalty. And Mr. Rock could not be anymore correct. Those who are prejudiced against people from other ideologies need to hear King's speech against the Vietnam War (click here for quote) when he spoke about the following:

The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

So each group paints the others as monoliths and thus they see no need to listen to them. Yes, as a Leftist I have strong disagreements with Conservatives and Liberals about politics and the economy, but does that mean that I can't learn anything from them? The Conservative emphasis on personal morality can help raise our society upwards though their judgmental attitude against those who live by different standards tears apart societies and countries by allowing for the persecution of others. And the Liberal emphasis on a more libertarian society with regard to personal morality allows for some to overlook the humanity of the unborn and for others to look down on or even persecute Conservatives. And the Leftist opposition to Capitalism pushes some to see no redeeming qualities in either Conservatives or Liberals.

Thus, too many of us think that as long as the Black person is not a target of our fear and scorn, that we have healed ourselves of racism and bigotry. Those who think that way are in too much of a hurry to justify themselves and show either an inability or reluctance to escape literalism. 

Against Economic Injustice

King did not preach against racism alone, he also spoke against economic injustice. He believed that we should have a guaranteed national income that lifted everybody from poverty. He believed in non-poverty wages for full-time work. But such are rather concrete ideas. His ideas of racial equality spread to his ideas of the economy and personal dignity. Overall, he was against an impersonal economy that revolved around consolidation of wealth by some and the distraction caused by new technology all of which is at the expense of people in general and the poor in particular. And when King talked about the poor, though he mentioned them by race, he didn't divide them that way. He considered all of the poor to be his brothers and sisters.

We should note that when King talked about economic injustice, he described it in speeches where he also spoke against both racism and violence. We can see this in his speeches from 1957 to 1968. We should also note what Martin Luther King Jr was doing when he was assassinated. He was in Memphis, Tennessee, campaigning for economic justice for the sanitation workers of Memphis, Tennessee. 

What King said about economic justice challenges everybody. To the Liberals who try to legislate benefits and to the Conservatives who put all of the impetus for escaping poverty on the poor, which basically blames only the poor for their poverty, King declares that we also need to examine the edifice that puts people into poverty. That means that we shouldn't just accept the status quo, but that we should be willing to change the current economic system. And it isn't just our system, it is our basic ethic of putting people last before money and things which needs to reordered.

But with all of this, Leftists, like myself, can't assume that our system will provide enough of a fix. For Leftists who believe in worker-owned and democratically run workplaces, without a spirit of collectivism in the people, we could end up with similar results to what we have today. People might then ask, what good is the Leftist position? The Leftist position of extending democracy to places like where people work disperses power rather than consolidates it. The dispersing of power keeps exceptionally abled individuals from accumulating it and thus helps prevent them from using power to abuse others. The extension of democracy provides a structural checkpoint for wealth and power that the current system cannot do.

So we should note here that to understand what King was saying about economic injustice we must realize that no particular side or ideology can claim to have a monopoly on representing his views or to be above reproach.

Against Militarism

Much of what King said against militarism can be found in his speech against the Vietnam War (click here). It is here that, going back to economic injustice, he said that when profits, machines, and property rights are more important than people, then the evils of racism, "extreme materialism," and militarism cannot be defeated. That was toward the end of his speech. Toward the beginning of his speech he stated that those who honored him for his fight against racism but were perplexed over his opposition to the War never knew him. Why?

King listed most of his reasons in that speech. He knew that the more that was spent on the military and the war, the less that would be spent on helping those in need at home. He was against militarism because the war he opposed asked Blacks and Whites to kill, be wounded, and be killed together. He opposed militarism because it provided a role model for resorting to violence to solve problems to the young men in our cities. He opposed the Vietnam War because it sickened America's soul and compromised any integrity we claim to have for life. He opposed militarism and the Vietnam War because he believed in the brotherhood of man regardless of their nation, race, or creed. And he believed in this brotherhood because he believed that Christ died for His enemies. But he also opposed war and militarism because of the ominous future such brought us in the nuclear age.

King stated that we now of a choice between "nonviolence or nonexistence" in both 1960 and 1968 (click here and there). He picked nonviolence not just for how we should protest and promote social causes, but for how nations conduct themselves too. And it is in this latter sense that we see where King opposed militarism.

In addition to his 3 messages, King restricted himself to using two methods in promoting his causes. Those two methods were trying to win over his opponents and to be involved.

Winning Over Opponents

The goal for King's activism and words were not just to win concessions, but to facilitate reconciliation and win friendship, as was stated in the Montgomery Bus Protests (click here). The goal was not just to gain rights and dignity that were long denied to Blacks; it was to bring Blacks and Whites together in the spirit of brotherhood. This is the essential reason why King chose nonviolence. For even when violence wins the day, it causes bitterness and resentment afterwards. 

All of this is because for King, the enemy did not consist of the people who were enforcing an unjust system, but the spirit of the system itself. King wasn't battling Whites but injustice. And as much as the Left would love to adopt King as its own, this is where we have fallen dreadfully short, at least we have in the Occupy Movement.

In separating the 1% from the 99%, our goal was to conquer rather than to win over the 1%. This is where King would confront and oppose us. And he would do that, not because we were wrong about what 1% was doing, but because we wanted to defeat and humiliate them. As a result, they used their resources to shut down the encampments and to carry on as usual with little public opposition. The Left's message was correct in analysis but dreadfully wrong in design. The design flaw was that the Left tried to create an extended democracy for the 99% only. A full democracy requires 100% of the people. And though we have had some legal victories here and there, the status quo remains and the global downward spiral continues.

Central to King's goal of winning people over was his preaching against violence. But King upped the ante here. He did that by opposing two kinds of violence. King opposed the most obvious kind of violence, external violence. Such is easier to do than what King added to the subject of nonviolence. King added that we must abstain from internal violence. He said that we cannot even afford to hate or insult those who are hurting us. Why? First, such people deserve dignity because they are people. Second, it is because we cannot castigate others and win their friendship at the same time. Again, King's strategy in defeating unjust systems was to be reconciled and win friendship. This did not mean that his tactics relied on libertarianism. He felt that the law was important in controlling the behavior of those who would not control themselves. But the end game was to win people over.

To Be Involved

We could summarize King's other method for promoting his messages was to get everybody involved. Those who did nothing were complicit in the evil of the status quo. Martin Luther King Jr. stated that when he said (click here for quote):

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.

King also stated this principle when he interpreted Jesus's parable of the Good Samaritan (click here). King understood the reaction of the priest and the Levite as being "what will happen to me" if, on this dangerous road, I stopped to help this man. According to King, the Good Samaritan reversed the question. The Good Samaritan got involved because he dared to ask, "what will happen to him," if he neglected the man who was beaten and robbed. This kind of thinking went into King's discussion of the poverty of India (click here) and how we are all interrelated.

There are a number of ways to be involved with those in need and individuals from all of the groups mentioned here do help others. And though we don't see eye-to-eye on what that involvement should consist of, we should acknowledge how those who are from other groups try to help those in need. Perhaps this is another reason why we should not look to conquer others.

King's One Theme

We could sum up King's messages and methods into one very short statement. That statement is: Everybody counts. This everybody includes the wealthiest of the 1% to the poorest of the 99%. It includes everybody from one's own creed to everybody from all of the other creeds. It includes everybody from one's own race to everybody from all of the other races. And, what should be noted in our present time, it includes everybody from one's own ideology to everybody from all of the other ideologies. The same is true about those from different nations.

That King's theme of everybody counting does not mean that the road together or our dialogue will always be smooth and conflict-free. But this theme should be our theme too even when we realize that nobody carries out this theme perfectly, not even King carried out this theme perfectly. Nonetheless, that is the theme of his message and those who would use a partial or distorted picture of King so as  to get street cred for being like him need to be corrected. But those who correct others must also realize that to encounter the real Martin Luther King Jr. is to be confronted with a myriad of one's own personal and group's faults. This is true for every person and every group.

What's A Constitution For Anyway

Friday's post is usually for reviewing a Christian writing/work in order to relate it to what is happening today. But because of some recent debates/discussions regarding the Constitution and our republic, it is necessary to clear up some misconceptions regarding its purpose especially with regard to liberty vs tyranny. And I should note that when writing about what I understand of the Constitution, that though I will make certain assessments, the writers of the Constitution were not a monolith. But at the same time, some themes won out over others and became descriptive of the whole process. 

We should note that understanding the Constitution and its context is important in discussing the role of our government with Conservatives. Why? Because they side with Madison in being against democracy. We should note that Madison was only referring to a pure democracy when he wrote against it. But most Conservatives fear democracy because they are afraid of a tyranny of the majority or, loss of power by the privileged.

The documents being reviewed/consulted here are Henry Knox's letter to George Washington (click here), the Constitutional debates (click here), and Federalist Paper #10 (click here). Now while the Constitutional debates will give a fuller picture of the range of views expressed, Knox's letter and Federalist Paper #10 give a cogent view of what the Constitution was in response to.

What we have to remember is that when the Constitution was being written, America had a class society--see Pinckney's listing of the three classes on the discussion of Monday, June 25. Some thought that the classes would clash with the formation of the national government. Others, including Madison who was the writer of the Constitution, proposed that government be constructed in ways that would protect their own class from emerging threats. In essence Madison's view won out.

But before reading the Constitutional debates or even the Constitution, one should read Henry Knox's letter to George Washington. His letter is one of dire warning that a certain group of people wanted to change the current class system. The changes this group campaigned for included the use of paper money, the elimination of all public and private debts, and agrarian reform, all of which Madison regarded as evil. The argument for agrarian reform was based on the fact that since defense of the land from the British was a joint effort, the land should belong to everybody. We should also note from reading Howard Zinn's preface to this letter that the faction consisted of small farmers who were veterans and were suffering and losing their land because of the reign of the ruling class. This group was referred to as a faction by both Knox in his letter and Madison in the Federalist Paper #10. We should note that Federalist Paper #10's purpose was to persuade people into supporting the Constitution and the republic it described as a defense against this group. 

Thus, when Conservatives say that the intent of the writers of the Constitution was to guard against the tyranny of the majority, while they imply a majority in general, Madison and others had a specific group in mind--the faction of the day. And what that faction challenged was the status quo that benefitted Madison and others in his class so generously.

So the first Constitutional myth busted here was that the republican government, for which the Constitution provided a blueprint, was constructed to protect the people from a tyranny of the majority. Rather, it was to protect the status quo from a specific group of people who lived during that time. And Madison's fear was that this faction, which was at the current time a minority of people, could eventually gain enough support to become the majority of people. So the Constitution was written so that this faction, regardless of its size, could not challenge the status quo while at the same time it established a stronger and secure federal government. Madison argued that if this faction was a minority, then the new republic's majority rule would defeat it. But if the faction consisted of the majority of the people, the new republic's structure would limit the damage which the faction could do.

The second myth that needs to be busted is that Madison & company constructed a weak federal government to protect against a tyranny of the majority. Here we must go to the Constitutional debates and both what Madison was supporting and his apologetic for it. What Madison was supporting here was not the weakening of the federal government, after all, Madison was promoting a stronger federal government that could withstand divisions. Rather, Madison was promoting a proposal that made Senators more immune to democratic pressure. In other words, he was trying to protect against the tyranny of the majority, or really against the changes proposed by a specific group, by strengthening the government against popular opinion.

Though what is written above just slightly scratches the surface, I think it provides enough information to say the following: today's Conservatives' defense of business and the upper x% from regulations and higher taxes which would increase their social responsibility is consistent with Madison's view of at least one purpose of the republic established by the Constitution. That purpose was, in the words of Madison on Tuesday, June 26:

to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority

We should note that our leaders never seem to talk about protecting the minority of the impoverished against anyone. Perhaps this will help some to understand our country's need for structural change.

Do Conservative Values Interfere With Community

R. Scott Clark, from Westminster Seminary in California, the sunny part of California that is, posted an article on the decline of trust in others in America (Click here for the post).  The article is well written and makes several good points. 

One of the points made came from a citation from Connie Cass.  Cass pointed out that simple trust is a necessary ingredient to a functioning democracy. Clark goes on to note that without trust in others, society stops functioning and that this is at all levels. And while some have suggested that the internet can help bridge the gap between people, especially people from different countries, Clark notes here that the same internet can also be the source of bad news. He cites identity theft as an example of a new concern spurred by technology.

On the other hand, gadgets with screens can reduce our "social interaction" which would not lead us to trust more people. In addition, others point to the current wealth disparity as a cause for growing lack of trust people have in others. Clark's response is disappointing as he seems to minimize the deprivation that today's poor must endure. This is the only thing stated in the article that warrants criticism.

But what is missing from this post is the mentioning of a conservative value that might be contributing to the demise of faith in our fellow citizens. That conservative value is individual liberty. It's not that individual liberty itself is the problem, rather it is the kind of emphasis which conservatives have place on it that is the problem here. This is because many conservatives believe that the individual liberty is the only liberty. Thus, any curtailment of one's personal choices is seen as an infringement and a threat. And anyone who can enforce such an infringement is seen as coercive. Therefore, democracies are seen as potentially coercive because binding decisions that result from a democratic process are coercive.

The emphasis which some conservative place on individual liberty negates group or societal liberty. Group or societal liberty consists of the freedom of choice groups and societies have in determining how they want to exist. Obviously, some of those decisions will clash with personal choices made by some. According to conservatives, who overemphasize individual liberty, when this occurs we have coercion.

Such conservatives will naturally feel uneasy with meeting more and more people unless they are meeting likeminded people or they believe that they can defend themselves against any potential coercion. This might explain why some conservatives demonstrate extremist views of gun rights. That is because the bigger one's world is, the more likely there will be disagreement and possible interference with the choices one has made.

But we should also note that all-or-nothing approaches to individual liberty leads to tyranny by a few. It is obvious how disdain for individual liberty can lead to such rule. What is not obvious is how putting too much emphasis on liberty can do the same. Why this is the case takes a little explaining for it can happen in two ways. For if individual liberty is the only recognized liberty, we must avoid democracy because of how it threatens individual choices. Noting that democracy is allowing the people to determine how society and individuals will interact, control of the laws must be given to the right people, rather than to all, who will guarantee individual liberty. Thus, elites who have control are in position to rule tyrannically. 

In addition, if there are no democratic checks put on individual liberty, soon those who excel, especially those who create the most wealth for themselves, will be in better position to control society, including the "Free" Market, and maintain their financial position. We should also note that with wealth comes power. So even now, with some societal controls in place, some have become competitive enough to seek every societal advantage regardless of whether that advantage exists in the market or elsewhere, like in the government. Since some have been motivated enough to use the government to control the market place when there are controls, why shouldn't we expect them to cheat or rig the market without the presence of government?

Those who call for limited government in order to enhance individual liberty, are all too often looking to free exceptional individuals from their normal social responsibilities. Those exceptional individuals will more often than not use their freedom to maintain their position, which means they must control the economic and political environments to maintain the status quo. In addition, they will pass down their social responsibilities to those who are not as exceptional and who have less resources to handle these responsibilities. 

We currently see all of this in how those with the most wealth can free themselves of paying taxes and receive degrees of impunity for their crimes. Please note here that big banks and financial institutions that have been found guilty of fraud are let of the hook by sharing a part of their winnings rather than serving time in prison as The Daily Show has pointed out. So again, if with the current government controls we see those with wealth manipulate the system to their advantage, how much more will they try to control things if they had fewer restrictions?

The overemphasis on individual liberty makes democratic dissent a threat. Thus, there is the beginning of mistrust among the greedy of all who are different. And if we don't have democracy, we have elite rule. So we need to see how an overemphasis on individual liberty destroys both trust in others and threatens democratic rule. This is what Clark's post is missing and thus could have made a good article more complete. It is up to us to make up the difference by investing more in democracy than we have so far even if it is at the expense of some individual liberty.

One Man's Dream Is Another Man's Nightmare

The good news is this week is the 50th anniversary of the March On Washington For Jobs And Freedom. But the same is also bad news because of how we use Martin Luther King's words. For rather than letting his words challenge our hearts to change, we use his words to exercise our fingers. Yes, unfortunately, it seems that many of God's children in America, Conservatives and Liberals, Republicans and Democrats, and children of all colors, creeds and classes, use King's teachings to point the finger of blame at their opponents while raising the finger of pride because of their inflated views of themselves.

Before his speech, King was introduced as "the moral leader of America." But it is the approach of the pharisee from Jesus's parable of the two men praying (Luke 18:9-14) who interprets a message from a great moral leader as a personal communiqué of congratulations.  And, to adapt the words of Spock, it is only human arrogance that would assume that voices appealing to values and principle can condemn others only. But this is how King is celebrated by many today. Too many who commemorate him on birthdays and anniversaries are the self-righteous who claim to share his dream while King would call their dreams his nightmares.

In his 1967 book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos Or Community?, King summarized what he had been saying all along. He said that as long as things, profits, and property rights were more important than people, we could never abolish the real threats to our well-being. Those threats are "racism, materialism, and militarism." Note that each of these threats is an ism that possesses those who embrace them which leads them to oppress, threaten, and kill. And also use King's criteria listed here when examining the claims of following King's Dream made by others. Do they value things, profits, and property rights more than people or do put the welfare of others first?

What my fellow Leftists and Occupy Movement members and I must remember about King is that as much as he had opposed the previously mentioned threats, he had a passion for winning over his opponents as well as preaching against and abstaining from using violence, both external and internal. These passions of King are where we have failed horribly. Whether it is by our war of words waged against the police or the scapegoating of the 1 percent, not only have we shown ourselves to be ignorant of King's words and spirit, we have preferred targeting opponents for wrath rather than trying to change the world by longing for their repentance and conversion. And though we might legitimately lack affection for those who have brutalized us with batons and slandered us with false accusations, trying to win our opponents over is a mandate from King's dream, not an alternative strategy. 

And by scapegoating the 1 percent, we have sabotaged our efforts to make a new world possible. For a new world must include 100 percent of the people and not just 99 percent. In addition, though we might not be caught up in the sins of the 1 percent, we should not conclude that we are better people. It could be that we are innocent of those sins because we lacked opportunity. 

Regardless of why we don't share the sins of the 1 percent, we should note that we have sins of our own and thus need the compassion and patience of others to continue to change. And if that is what we need from others, shouldn't we show the same to our adversaries without compromising our message and diluting the legitimate complaints we have?

This approach of exercising compassion to win over the 1 percent may seem counterintuitive to what is needed to get what we want. For historically speaking, elites who abuse the rest must be compelled by pressure and demands in order to change. But why must we make winning over and pressuring to compel change an exclusive-or choice? Why can't we try to win over whom we can and peacefully pressure the rest?

To the conservatives who have either claimed to join King's cause or attempted to provide expert testimony as to why King's dream has failed, I would like to ask these questions. How much of King have you read? Do you realize that for as long as you make the plight of Blacks King's only concern, you have adorned his vision with myopia? 

And have you read his statements on economic justice? Do you realize why he predicted that the programs of "social uplift" initiated by President Johnson would fail? Do you know that, according to King, they started to fail when LBJ escalated the war in Vietnam? Did you know that King believed in a guaranteed income for all? Do you really think it was welfare, which would be supported by King, by itself that hurt Blacks and not the absence of additional programs that kept Blacks down?

Furthermore, why are you silent about the role that the private sector has played in sabotaging King's dream? Do you really believe that King himself would be a supporter of neoliberal capitalism  regardless of the content of the character of its managers? Haven't you noticed from the outsourcing of jobs, the exploitation of foreign labor, and the destruction of the environment, that when you maximize profits, you sacrifice people? And have you ever read King's criticism of capitalism in general? He said that that capitalism denies the reality of collectivism.

Neoliberal capitalism, which is the capitalism du jour, seeks to sever almost all social, economic, and moral responsibilities of both big business and the rich from the rest of society. At the same time, it seeks to prohibit government from serving its people so that private sector elites can profit by filling the void. Were these disconnections ever a part of King's dream? What did King say about things and profits being more important than people? And how does the neoliberalism inspired disregard for the environment fit into King's dream? How does free-trade policies that destroy the ability of smaller nations to produce their own food by forcing their local farmers to compete with our subsidized Big Agribusiness fit into King's dream?

And what about all of the wars you supported in the name of patriotism? Did you think King was bragging or lamenting when he called the U.S. government the "greatest purveyor of violence in the world"? How could those who share King's dream so wantonly wage war let alone do so while declaring that they are accountable to nobody? And how could those who share King's dream justify a rush to war based on lies? Didn't you read where King told us that our choice is not between "violence and nonviolence" but between "nonviolence and nonexistence"?

But we have to give some conservatives credit for stressing the importance of personal morals. And we have to give all conservatives credit for not being liberals. For most of what can be said about conservatives and their love for neoliberal capitalism can also be said about liberals except that liberals try to cover their tracks. And this is why liberals bear a greater judgment than conservatives. For while liberals consistently claim to champion King's dream, they disguise their passionate embrace of neoliberal capitalism and American imperialism by tossing a few social justice issue bones out to us dogs just to prove that they are a faithful master. 

But consider the attacks on the Occupy encampments, the war on whistleblowers, the expanded wars in the Orient with its climbing civilian death toll, America's increasing imperial reach into Africa, the forever failed promises to close Gitmo, the failure to criminally prosecute those from the financial institutions who committed fraud and money laundering, and the soaring claims to more authority and power paired with the even greater urge to void themselves of accountability. When liberals combine all of that with their love of neoliberal capitalism, realize that they are using a magic mirror when they tell themselves that they and King have the same dream.

We all have questions of conviction to consider when we read or listen to King's messages. We all have questions because we have all played sabotaging roles in derailing The Dream. Sure, some of us have also contributed to The Dream's realization. But if we are honest, we must admit that all of us have too many failures to point the finger of blame at others only.  I know for myself that how I conduct myself in debates, especially on blogs, sometimes employs an internal violence that King opposed. I also need to be more involved with people in the area where I live. 

If we really want to realize King's Dream, the first step we will take will be to look at our own failures and sins. And then we can reach out to help our fellow saboteurs who are also failing.

Why I Am Taking My Christian Fundamentalist Views Into The Voting Booth

All too often, we have heard an undiscerning, one rule fits all mantra against religion and politics. That rule says that religion and politics don't mix except for the extremists. It matters not whether the extremist is a Christian, Jew, or Muslim;  one cannot afford to vote with one's faith.

There is good reason to join in the chant. For we see the effects of many who do vote according to their religion. And the first effect we see is intolerance. Those who are of a different faith than that of those in power all too often suffer oppression. This is as true in the West as it is in the East. It is true whether  the religion of those in power is Islam, Judaism, or Christianity. When religion dominates politics, people suffer.

In America, a legitimate fear is expressed by those who are afraid that Conservative Christians will run the country on "Biblical" values. These values cannot be reduced to a particular abortion position. This is because there are some Conservative Christians who want to dictate how the poor will or will not be helped, what rights those who have different religious beliefs can have, what gender can marital partners be, and what foreign policies we should pursue. Some legitimate concerns cause others to claim that such Conservative Christians makeup the "Christian Taliban" referring to the harsh and brutal Taliban rule that existed in countries like Afghanistan.

But those who want religion and politics to separate might be wearing blinders here. For one only needs to point out that the political reforms that Martin Luther King advocated were based on his religious views. And who could object to laws based on King's belief in equality and the dignity of human life?

So for many nonconservatives, it is important to note that the religious values that they wish not to control the law of the land are conservative religious values. So where does that put a religious conservative like me?

I will only quickly comment on a few Scriptures and how they, IMO, obligate us to advance certain kinds of policies. The first Scriptures we should consider are Isaiah chapters 58 and 59. Chapter 58 tells us how it isn't the shortage of religious ritual behavior that concerns God, it is that this behavior has been used as a veneer to coverup living selfishly rather than living selflessly. Isaiah 58 tells us that people practice fasting, but it is not to the glory of God. In contrast to merely fasting or following other practices, God wants His people to take care of those in need. To do so is to experience personal salvation. To continue to live selfishly is to promote the distopia rid of all justice described in chapter 59. "Truth has fallen in the streets" because everybody seeks to use deception in administering the law.

How should Isaiah chapters 58 and 59 determine whom I vote for? It is rather simple. It determines the key question I will ask before voting. This question is not am I better off than I was four years ago. Rather, the question for the Christian, like myself, must become are the least of these better off than they were four years ago.

One way to answer the latter question is to quip, if misery loves company, then the answer must be yes. This is because we have more people who are living in or near the poverty level since Obama has become president. And we should only note that, in 2008, candidate Obama never expressed a concern for the poor. His claim to fame was to be a defender of those in the Middle Class though he was more dependent on the upper class for campaign contributions.

Isaiah chapters 58 and 59 are all too clear. That until we go out to help those who are in need, regardless of our religious claims about ourselves, we are in darkness. And at this point, we need to consider what Martin Luther King said when talking about the Vietnam War. He stated that it was not enough that we toss a little money to those in need. We must challenge the system that causes all of the hardship.

If what King said is valid, how can I vote for any Republican or Democratic candidate who wants to maintain the current socio-economic system that makes so many people suffer? For most of the Republicans are in favor of making the current system even more coldhearted than it is today. Meanwhile, Democrats only want to take the edge of the current system rather than changing it. Thus I will vote for either the Socialist candidate, Stewart Alexander, or the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein.  No other candidates want to make the necessary changes to the current system that put the right priority on those in need Alexander and Stein.

Likewise, I will use my Christian Fundamentalist beliefs to dictate what foreign policies my country should have too. What beliefs am I talking about here? I am thinking specifically of the 2nd chapter of Romans where we are warned not to judge others because we are practicing similar, if not the same, sins.

Many times has Noam Chomsky described the above problem with regard to U.S. policies. Specifically, Chomsky states that we must follow the principle of universality by refraining from doing to others what we consider them doing to us is wrong. That is, we must all abide by the same set of rule. Such a view faces off the belief in American Exceptionalism.  And here again, I find that my Fundamentalist beliefs preclude me from voting for either Romney or Obama because both believe in such exceptionalism. In fact, a belief in American Exceptionalism  has deceived President Obama into believing that he can create a kill list that he can use to execute anyone else without sinning.

Certainly Obama is not the only candidate who believes in American Exceptionalism, Romney might even prescribe to a stronger belief than Obama. That means that Romney could very well conduct even more egregious sins than Obama has.

There are other religious beliefs to consider than the two I just mentioned. But they seem sufficient. For if I carry these religious beliefs with me into the voting booth, I will be required to vote for someone other than anyone who belongs to the two major parties