Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For Oct 5, 2016

Sept 30

To Joe Carter and his blogpost on the tradeoffs of the TPP. This appeared in the Acton blog.

It is unfortunate when Christians allow ideology to interfere with the objective reporting of information. IMO, this might explain Carter did in the article above. Whereas Carter lists the main objections to the TPP to be that of the loss of American jobs and currency manipulation, other objections include the right of multinational corporations to sue governments for loss profits over regulations such as those that raise the minimum wage or protect the environment (see http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/joseph-stiglitz-tpp-1.3515452 ). And when such a corporation sues a government, the case is heard in a tribunal established by the TPP (see https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kill-the-dispute-settlement-language-in-the-trans-pacific-partnership/2015/02/25/ec7705a2-bd1e-11e4-b274-e5209a3bc9a9_story.html?utm_term=.3686f85040de ). That means that the validity of some of our laws will be determined by an outside tribunal rather than by a court whose purpose is to uphold The Constitution. This gives multinational corporations an increased measure of control over any member nation while weakening the national sovereignty of those nations. In addition, another concern Stiglitz voices is that the 6,000 page deal was written in secret.

As for this trade deal spreading employment to those nations where people need jobs. We should note that a lot of the previous offshoring of American jobs performed the same task but was done not with the welfare of the employees of those other nations in mind. It has often been done to increase profits by exploiting workers as they are sometimes underpaid, overworked, and forced to work in unsafe conditions. And when these facts are found, governments are not allowed to sue the same multinational corporations that the TPP empowers to sue the participating governments.

So the question becomes this: Why didn't Carter report these other objections to the TPP seeing that they are made by prominent people? My guess is that 'economic freedom' for Carter has become code for private sector elite privilege over those from their own  and other nations. At least that is a possible explanation for Carter failing to mention those other major objections.

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Oct 1

To Joe Carter and his blogpost that claims that the Protestant faith allows for the most economic freedom. This appeared in the Acton blog.

Don't we have the cart before the horse here? Why are we using economic freedom to validate the Christian faith? Such implies that economic freedom stands over the Christian faith as a judge. In addition, how is it that the Protestant ethic requires the same economic freedom of which Carter is speaking? That kind of economic freedom is most likely the product of 19th and 20th century thinking. I am assuming that the main teachers of the kind of economic freedom Carter supports are Hayek and Friedman, neither of whom were protestant. Hayek, for example was raised a Roman Catholic but claimed that he was an agnostic. Friedman pretty much rejected religion. The Protestant ethic precedes both of them by at least a few centuries--that is unless one asserts that the Protestant ethic is scripturally sound.

But what could be said about Carter using the Christian faith to validate a favorite ideology is a serious flaw for all of us. That is because we all have our own pet ideologies and we would like to believe that our pet ideologies are superior to all other ideologies. And, at least, most of us have, from time to time, done what Carter is doing here: that is placing a favorite ideology above the Scriptures. So if we were to rebuke him, we need to acknowledge that our rebuke also applies to ourselves.

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To Abel Upshur and his blogpost about how because the federal government is “the creature of the States,” the federal government’s power should be limited by the states that created it, not The Constitution. This appears in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

I don't know how we can seriously read about The Constitution and the change in the government which it produced without first mentioning the context in which The Constitution was written. To say that our federal government is a creature of the states forgets that it wasn't any official meeting of the states through their representatives that produced the document even though a vast majority of the signers of The Constitution were or had served in the Continental Congress (see http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_founding_fathers_overview.html  ). Thus, some of the signers of The Constitution were private citizens at the time of the signing. The actual role of the states in the creation of the government specified by The Constitution was to accept or reject the document and thus the kind of government it created.

However, what created the federal government consisted of a combination of those who participated in the debates, discussions, and the writing of The Constitution and the historical events that moved these men to write the document. And the events that so moved these men consisted of dissent and Shays Rebellion.

As for the states, we might want to note the following line from Federalist 10 that says:

Hence, it clearly appears, that the same advantage which a republic has over a democracy, in controlling the effects of faction, is enjoyed by a large over a small republic, is enjoyed by the Union over the States composing it.

Thus, if one prefers a republic to the kind of democracy which was the scorn of many of the signers of The Constitution, then one must give significant precedence to the union over the states and thus to the federal government over the state governments.

BTW, we might want to note some of the proposals that the writers of The Constitution tried to block:

A rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property

In essence, the government created by The Constitution was meant to prevent sought after changes in the status quo by giving the power required by the federal government to prevent those changes . And that should not surprise us because most of those who participated in the creation of The Constitution were elites from the public and private sectors.


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To Bruce Ashford and his blogpost on what principles we should have to be a Christian witness in a changing America. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website

How many of these the-sky-is-falling," politically apocalyptic post Obergefell articles must we Christians endure? As in all fear-mongering communiques, the intent is to increase our tribal instincts in order to protect ourselves from others. But what people don't understand about tribalism is that its basic ethic is to define what is right and wrong by who does what to whom. Such makes us blind to our own faults.

Let's start with the beginning of the article. Ashford writes the following:

The past decade has made one thing clear to many evangelicals: the social, cultural, and political ground is shifting beneath them. We’re not “winning the day” with our vision of the good life. Although we’ve seen incremental progress on the pro-life issue, we’re experiencing consistent regression on other important issues, such as religious liberty, human dignity, gender and sexuality, and free speech. And many of us have given little attention to opposing racial injustice.

As we’re marginalized in this uncertain day, the Old Testament offers important lessons for us.

If we work backwards, we see that now we are being marginalized and then there is the concern for our past apathy to racial injustice. Do we see the unflattering association there? When we weren't marginalized, we were apathetic to racial injustice just as some are today. But beyond that, there is also another unfortunate pairing: religious liberty is associated with gender and sexuality and free speech. Well, who was marginalized before gender, meaning gender identity, sexuality, meaning sexual orientation, and free speech? See, the truth is hidden by obscurity. Religious liberty has recently come to mean the right of religiously conservative Christians to discriminate against the LGBT community in response to the Obergefell decision. Might we ask who was being marginalized when we were winning the day on that issue? Was it not homosexuals with some of them seeing the need to live their orientations underground? And so we fought against their rights and equality tooth-and-nail with the belief that our society is not big enough to recognize their rights along with ours. And so we targeted them for marginalization.

Now of course the article talks about much more than the-sky-is-falling apocalyptic scene.  And basically, it calls us to isolate ourselves from our neighbors. For when it calls almost every political ideology available to the American public an idol, it calls on us to withdraw from them. In reality, these ideologies either never have been idols or do not have to be treated as idols. That is because it is the individual who makes these ideologies into idols, not the ideologies themselves. It is only when we embrace ideological tribalism that we make these ideologies into false gods. Thus, we don't have to avoid them, we just have to keep them in perspective.

One of the most important questions we Christians must ask ourselves when it comes to our political involvement in the world is this: How are we to share society with others? Are we to share society in ways that give us a superior place so we can impose our religious values on others? Or, are we to share society with others as equals so that we work together to ensure that all of us have an equal place in society? It seems that the former option is more inviting to religiously conservative Christians even though Jesus warns us against "lording it over" others.

Comments Which Conservative Block From Their Blogs For March 16, 2016

March 2

To Joe Carter and his blogpost whether Christians should vote when we have factions in our political system. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.

A few comments here. The Constitution allows for geographical factions to be represented in government. But since the vocation of a very large majority of our representatives are either public servants (politicians with no other skills), lawyers, or business people the vast majority of us go underrepresented or even unrepresented in government when we consider our vocational interests. Such a representation would have occurred in the USSR if Lenin had not dismantled the soviets because his lust for power and his paranoia.  Soviets were workers' councils where the members are voted into the position by their peers and they used democratic processes to make decisions.

Second, yes the President is in charge of the military so that the gov't can provide the nation with security.  But the President can cause the nation to be at risk in other ways than to not employ the military for our defense. When the President employs the military to intervene in other nations and control or even remove other governments, the President has placed us at risk for retaliation. That retaliation  came true on 9-11. And the atrocities of 9-11 were a response for past American atrocities or our enabling of atrocities by others.

Finally, if we are going to make democracy work, we have to be able to escape many of the factions that separate us from others who are different. Otherwise, our factionalism becomes nothing more than tribalism and we, in various situations, adopt a gang warfare mentality that says what is right and wrong depends on who does what to whom.


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To Don Carson and his blogpost on whether we should call for justice. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.

Anyone who has a sufficient understanding of their sins and their place before God, modifies how they call for justice. It is not necessary for such people to want vindication. In fact, such peope who call for justice are concerned with two things: the cessation of injustice and reconciliation. 

Wanting reconciliation instead of vindication allows us to be more consistent in our call for justice. And our call for justice is important for two reasons. First the obtaining of justice ends the unrighteous suffering of ourselves and others. Second, to call for justice is not just to try to help the victim, it is an effort to call the victimizers to repentance.

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March 5

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost vide on the job of government but is really about exalting the conservative view of American Exceptionalism. This appeared in Heidelblog

What I've noticed about American Conservatives is that there an obsession and compulsion to praise themselves. This is most evident here in the praising of The Constitution and its writers. And writers are often described mythologially as a monolith even though they were neither mythical nor a monolith. And surprisingly enough, such an approach to The Constitution and its writers is an authoritarian approach.  It's authoritarian in that only those who hold to the Conservative mythological view of our founders and The Constitution are counted as valid interpreters of The Constitution while others can be ignored, at the least, or even counted as a saboteur and enemy of the state. So the exceptionalism that is being preached here is not just American Exceptionalism, it is the exceptionalism of conservatism.

We should note what prompted the writing of The Constitution: widespread dissent and Shays Rebellion. Don't believe me? All one has to do to perhaps see my point is to  list all of the references to the militia that are in The Constitution and then add the 2nd Amendment. For the 2nd Amendment couches the right to bear arms in the context of the need for a militia. And, according to The Constitution, the militia was to be armed and supported by Congress, was under the leadership of the President, and its jobs were to repel invasions and put down insurrections.

The Constitutional debates yield even more information. For there was a new kind of aristocracy that was to be supported by The Constitution. This new kind of aristocracy was not based on the privileges provided by one's birth. Rather it was based on one's economic class. And what the writers of The Constitution wanted to do with its document was to preserve the status quo for the benefit of the landed interests. Here we should note that for all of the bragging of the exceptional nature of our founding fathers and The Constitution, the majority were slaveholders who wanted to expand westward regardless of the fact that such would mean the continued displacement of Native Americans.  Now if we add to that that only 5% of the population could vote after the ratification of The Constitution and that 55 consisted of landowners, one has to wonder how any group could put our founding fathers on the pedestal that the Conservatives have when they engaged in ethnic cleansing, holding slaves, and restricting the right to vote. In fact, It was Madison who expressed fear at the thought of elections being opened up to all classes of people in England. He expressed that fear during the Constitutional debates.

Those who have embraced the exceptionalism of conservatism, because of conservatism's constant practice of self-exaltation have most probably joined a cult. And those Christians who have joined this cult can now be considered to be polytheists.

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March 14

To Joe Carter and his blogpost criticizing the Georgia governor’s attempt to use the scriptures to show that Christian businesses should be allowed to refuse to provide goods and services to same-sex marriages. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website. 

With the line of thought employed by Carter here, then Christians opposing integration during Jim Crow for religious reasons had their consciences wrongfully infringed on when the gov't worked to end Jim Crow. 

We have to realize that in society, the conscience has only a sphere of sovereignty, it is not autonomous. And what is and is not included in that sphere of the conscience should be determined on a case by case basis. Certainly, religion should not be used to violate the legitimate rights of others. Some would point out the abortion issue and a women's right to choose as an objection to that line of thinking. The problem there is that such an objection assumes that the unborn have no rights. And thus once recognizing that the legitimate rights of the unborn, then the state should have the right to protect those rights against the individual choices based on conscience made by those seeking abortion. 

It is one thing if the state was protecting religious institutions from having to provide public services to those functions that it could not participate in in good conscience. But that isn't the case here. The issue here is whether Christians business owners have the right to deny goods and services to same-sex marriages, not just weddings, in a Capitalist economy? Here, Christian business owners need to adequately explain why such participation is a true violation of conscience and not an attempt to marginalize the LGBT community in society. So far, I have not heard any legitimate explanations that show it is a true violation.

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March 15

To Denny Burk and his blogpost citing Russell Moore’s voting philosophy which consisted of voting for 3rd party candidates when the candidates from the 2 major parties offer no legitimate moral option. This appeared in Denny Burk’s blog.

Though I don't fully agree with Moore's approach,I respect it for it shows independence and conviction. And we need more truely independent voters like Moore.

Though I am pro-life, I no longer use a stand on abortion litmus test in voting. Why? Because tthere are multiple issues that should be associated with pro-life that are not. With some of these issues,  at least one of the alternatives would move us closer to destroying the world. And to me, if we wreck the world by waging war or destoying the environment, abortion becomes a moot issue. So unless candidates become more consistently pro-life, I can't use the aborition litmus test in voting.

In addition, to make the judgement seat of Christ our #1 concern in voting turns our vision inwards. What will happen to me if I vote for candidate x or candidate y. I think we need to turn our vision outward to see how candidates x or y's election will hurt or help people, especially the multiple varieties of vulnerable people, should determine how we should vote and resign ourselves to whatever judgment God gives..

Finally, the word on my street is that conservative voters have no credibility when it comes to speaking about opposing abortion with pro-choice advocates. The reason for that is consistency. So perhaps it is necessary in order to effectively bring an anti-elective abortion message to more people that we put it on the backburner for now and wait until we show more consistency in our pro-life convictions before making abortion an election issue again.

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To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost citing an article that says all forms of socialism end up with the same tyrannical result as was seen in Stalin’s Russia. This appeared in Denny Burk's blog.


Dr. Clark,
To treat socialism as a monolith, as the article you referenced does, is ignorance for some, but not for all. To ignore the criticisms that socialists had of Lenin's model of government in order to group all socialists together so one can conclude that Stalin's gov't is the destination of all forms of socialism is to deliberately ignore the different forms of Socialism that has been tried and discussed. And limiting one's sources on Socialism to just its antagonists is simply intellectually dishonest.

Yes, there have been forms of socialism that have led to tyranny. For example, when Iran's (1953) democratically elected leader Mossadeg moved to nationalize oil resources, both England and the US orchestrated a coup that replaced Mossadeg with a brutal tyrant, the Shah. When Chile's(1973) democratically elected leader moved to nationalize certain industries, the US orchestrated a military coup to install the tyrant General Pinochet as its leader. Pinochet would later be indicted for crimes against humanity but died before he could be tried. When Guatemala's (1954) democratically elected leader Jacobo Arbenz pushed land reform, the US orchestrated a coup that installed the military dictator Carlos Armos. When it was possible that Greece's 1967 election could have produced a left-leaning government, Colonel Papadopoulos used a NATO plan designed to keep Greece from falling to communism to orchestrate a coup prior to the election so that a military junta would rule Greece. BTW, one should read the LBJ quote that was part of the conversation between the Greek PM who was in power before the coup  (see http://www.ahistoryofgreece.com/junta.htm   ). 

Of course anti-Capitalists experiments like the Paris Commune and the Spanish Revolution serve as stark counterexamples to the claim that Socialism always leads to a Stalin type tyrannical regime. So do certain forms of Socialism such as Libertarian Socialism. Libertarian Socialism does not support a central state government.

But what is even more disengenous than what was written in the article referenced is that Sanders has carefully equated his idea of Socialism with FDR's New Deal. If FDR's presidency could be called Socialist, then the result of FDR's programs contradict the basic claim made by the article referenced. But what we have seen instead is a more gradual approach to the trend established above. We are now classified as a oligarchy, not a democracy. And part of that oligarchy has been a move away from FDR's programs to what existed before (see  http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746  ) because such programs interfere with state Capitalism--something Eisenhower warned us against when he spoke against the Military Industrial Complex.

At Westminster, we were constantly challenged to go to the original sources to learn about what was being taught. But such a principle doesn't apply on this board when talking about Socialism. And the information is easily available. One could read Rosa Luxembourg, Anton Pannekoek, Noam Chomsky, and others to see what Socialists are saying for themselves. The road chosen by this board is to remain insular and only read Socialism's antagonists to learn about Socialism. Of course, doing so is like investigating Christianity by only talking with Bill Maher. 

Quite simply, the article this post referenced is intellectually dishonest. And if I was a nonChristian, it would give me grounds for not believing any gospel preached by you since you refuse to go to original sources to see what Socialists say for themselves. If you were to do that, you will find a variety of views of Socialism.

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To Joe Carter and his blogpost on how increasing economic freedom can reduce human trafficking. This appeared in the Acton blog.

There is no doubt that greater financial opportunities can lead to less human trafficking. On the other hand, greater economic freedom isn't always used to increase the flourishing of all people. Some economic freedom, such as a relaxation of labor or environmental laws, allows the beneficiaries of economic freedom to exploit others. Allowing employers to pay employees poverty wages is an economic freedom for the employer which does not help the employee. Allowing owners to offshore jobs can bring economic freedom to owners but that freedom  is used to take advantage of places with inadequate regulations and laws. In addition, allowing economic freedom for some can also mean excusing owners who benefit the most from infrastructure from paying taxes to maintain that infrastructure. We should also note that some who have become victims of trafficking were lured into captivity by the promise of economic opportunity.

IN short, to talk about economic freedom in general as a tool to help people escape dire circumstances is very similar to talking about reducing regulations to help businesses. The general concept is too ambiguous to be meaningful and thus what is needed is not talk about increasing economic freedom in general, but talk about whose economic freedom is being created and what specific freedoms are being afforded.

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To Joe Carter and his blogpost containing a video presentation by William Voegeli on Government growing too big by trying to provide too much for its people. This appeared in the Acton Blog

This presentation is rather intellectually dishonest in a couple of ways. When talking about the government intended by our founders, we need to realize that since The Constitution was written in response to widespread dissent and Shays Rebellion, it was written to strengthen the Federal government by increasing its ability to respond to future rebellions that were challenging the status quo. One only needs to read all of the references to the militia made in The Constitution to see substantial evidence that would support that interpretation.

In addition, while the presentation talks about the growth in the government outlay for social benefits, the two largest social outlays are self-funded: Social Security and Medicare. In fact, Social Security is the biggest holder of our National Debt. And cutting Medicare expenses has been hampered by Federal law that prohibits the from negotiating on pharmaceutical products. The prices of our drugs cannot be explained by R&D costs since bulk of those costs are paid for by taxes that fund the research performed by the NIH. Rather, the pharmaceutical prices are there to allow pharmaceutical companies to provide an ever growing ROI for its shareholders. This is what the price gouging of opportunists like Martin Shkreli points out.

In addition, what is not mentioned at all in terms of the growing percentage of government spending in relation to our GDP is the prosecution of unfunded wars such as the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. In fact, Chalmers Johnson pointed out in around 2008 that the total US spending on defense, which is well distributed among several federal budges such as the DOD, Treasury, and the Atomic Energy Agency to name a few totals over $1 trillion. Why was that never mentioned? And another omission is how our Federal gov't continues to support our financial institutions in ways that allow these institutions to significantly increase profits.

It seems that the conservative approach to discussing big government is to lay the blame for such government at the hands of the vulnerable with many of those vulnerable having been victims of our economic system. Such is morally wrong and the way it is discussed is intellectually dishonest.

Finally, we should note that government is like love in one way: size doesn't matter, fidelity does. A small impotent government is has harmful to the population as a large government whose first love consists of certain private sector elites--this is commonly called Crony Capitalism. Government should be big enough to protect the people from both internal and external threats to justice. And people living in poverty provide examples of injustice especially when that poverty is caused by exploitation and the hoarding of wealth.

We should note that here in America, the Conservative Church is coming alongside of those with wealth and power just as the Roman Church did in France and Spain prior to their Revolutions and the Orthodox Church did in Russia prior to its Revolution. The protection of wealth and power by the Church caused the Church and its Gospel to be despised by those seeking revolution. Will the Conservative Church repeat an ugly part of Church history? Only time will tell though we should note that with time running out, it looks like it will.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For February 3, 2016

Jan 28

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost quote of Tucker Carlson that both declares  Trump’s use of outrageous speech is right and necessary for debates and the restraint of speech is why our national debates are ‘useless.’ This appeared in Heidelblog.


Then again, self-restraint in speech can indicate a character quality in a person who will be in charge of the most powerful military in the world.

As for Carlson's view, I believe it is a bit backwards. The reason why our debates are stilted and useless is due to the loss of self-control in speech. That loss isn't necessarily seen in the absence of outrageous words, but in choice to attack others rather than address the issues.

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Feb 1

To Joe Carter and his blogpost on how Christians can be single issue voters when justice is the issue. And that just because a candidate opposes abortion doesn’t mean that the candidate is consistently pro-life. On the other hand, he cannot believe that a candidate who is pro-choice can care about life and dignity in other situations such as the plight of the children in Darfur. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.


Carter's one issue of justice is a worthy issue on which to vote for candidates--that is in principle. The real question will be how it is implemented. And while in one paragraph, he states that a candidate who opposes abortion may not be consistently pro-life. And so we need to find out other policies this candidate has proposed for other situations in which his regard for human dignity would be tested. And all of this is well and good so far.

 But in the paragraph that follows the one asking us to test an anti-abortion candidate's consistency in being pro-life, he says:

On the other hand, failing on a particular litmus test is often a clear signal that the candidate has an inadequate view of human dignity, and will fail to consistently promote justice while in office. For instance, knowing that a candidate favors abortion-on-demand can be a clue to how they would act on foreign policy issues. If a candidate is unwilling to protect children in the womb in America, why should I believe they care about the plight of children in Darfur?

Here Carter is saying that if a candidate supports elective abortion, he has no reason to believe that the candidate cares about the plight of others whose human dignity is being severely compromised. So Carter proposes that we use one way of reasoning to assess candidates who oppose elective abortion and another way of reasoning to assess candidates who don't. And the with the latter way of reasoning resting appearing to assume negative about the candidate, then how is it that abortion has not in part become a single-issue on which Christians can vote?

Now instead of assuming what Carter does about the pro-choice candidate, we treat the pro-choice candidate as we would the anti-abortion candidate, then we would be looking into the candidate's position on other issues, such as the children in Dafur, to see if the pro-choice candidate has a mix of pro-life concerns. In other words, we rephrase Carter's statement questioning how he could believe that a pro-choice candidate could care about the children in Dafur, for example, so that it becomes a hypothesis worthy of testing:

 If a candidate is unwilling to protect children in the womb in America, then that candidate can/does not care about the plight of children in Darfur

Now to prove whether the hypothesis is true, one looks at the candidate's past positions and action regarding the children of Dafur to see if he/she can/does care about these children. And we could use that same hypothesis testing method to see if any pro-choice candidate can/does care about vulnerable or endangered people in other situations.

As Carter wrote his article, there is no need to test a pro-choice candidate's positions or record on other situations where people's lives or dignity are being threatened. That is because Carter's logic here strongly suggests, if not implies, that pro-choice candidates cannot be concerned about human life and dignity in other situations where life and dignity are being threatened. Thus, there is no need to inquire about their positions or record. But such logic tells us to ignore a candidate's position or record once we learn that they are pro-choice.

I oppose elective abortion. I agree with Carter in that we should make justice a plausible single issue on which Christians could vote. But to automatically conclude that one cannot be concerned about the dignity of human life in any situations simply because the candidate is pro-choice is not just wrong; in the context of this article, it is manipulative.

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Feb 2

To Jen Wilkin and her blogpost on how to escape becoming bitter over being treated unfairly. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.

I've run into a similar decision to the one above when protesting and in my activism. That I must remember when I call for social justice, I am calling as a person who has been unjust to others. Thus, I cannot protest in ways that suggest that I am morally superior to the people whom I am protesting against. That in protesting against injustice, I must show empathy to those I am protesting against and thus I should conduct myself in ways that invite the targets of my protest to change.

One of the ways to escape both the bitterness trap described above and holier-than-thou protesting is to remember my need for God's mercy and grace. 

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To Sarah Stanley and his blogpost lamenting the lessening of economic freedom in the US and the assertion that economic freedom causes a nation’s society and economy to flourish. This appeared in the Acton blog.

The problem with this economic freedom measurement is the assumptions that go with the index. For example, back in the '70s, both Chile and Argentina used miltiary dictatorships to introduce the economic freedom that came in the form of neoliberalism. Chile is still suffering from repercussions of that dictatorship. In addition, neoliberalism, which is epitome of economic freedom, required Yeltsin to use the military to attack his Parliament because they were not buying into neoliberalism's economic freedom sales pitch.

Another problem that comes with the measurement of economic freedom is wealth disparity. We should note that 4 of the nations with the most economic freedom listed above are in the top 17 nations in terms of a growing wealth disparity (see http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/05/income-inequality-around-the-world-is-a-failure-of-capitalism/238837/  ). In addition, another nation on that list, Chile, already had one of the greatest wealth disparity gaps in the world. And there are growing protests in still others nations from the above list regarding growing wealth disparity. That should not surprise us because economic freedom's definition revolves around the status of the individual. Thus, the above claim that economic freedom brings both social and economic 'flourishing' is exagerated. 

Economic freedom basically cuts social responsibility ties between private sector elites and society. And though the US is thought of as having less economic freedom than other nations, when our financial sector successfully fought off efforts that would regulate Wall Street's dirivative products, increasing economic freedom, that led to the economic collapse of 2008. The correlation between economic freedom and flourishing was backwards during that time--that is backwards according to the claims. 

The problem here is the oversimplicity with which economic freedom is paired with economic and societal benefits. There isn't such a positive correlation between the two and thus we have to look at other factors to see if the economic freedom there is really causing a nation's economy and society to flourish.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For February 25, 2015

As usual, remember that these comments will contain more grammatical errors than the regular blogposts do.  Sorry about that.


Feb 20

I attempted to post the comment below on the Imaginative Conservative blog. Comments might have been closed at the time of my attempt to post the comment below. We should note that there are blogposts on the Imaginative Conservative blog site which were published earlier than the blogpost responded to here which do not have their comments closed. 

But we should also note that in another discussion attached to a blogpost on the Imaginative Conservative blog site, my response to the blogpost was posted. And this is despite the fact that the author of the blogpost was very upset with my views. So the omission of the comment below is a rare exception to the practices and policies followed by the Imaginative Conservative blog in its publishing of opposing viewpoints.

To Eric and his comment describing all Socialists as wanting to consolidate all power to themselves. This comment followed Joseph Pearce's blogpost on how the Great Britain has been corrupted by false gods and atheists. This appeared on the Imaginative Conservative blog.


Eric,
Again, in a desire to portray socialists as a monolithic group, you are showing a lack of awareness of what socialists have debated about since the Lenin hijacked the Russian Revolution. To help provide some additional information that might challenge that monolithic group some are tempted to give into, I provided the links below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_jRd59qy0A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsC0q3CO6lM

https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1918/russian-revolution/ch08.htm

Below is a quote from the last link. The writer is a socialist contemporary of Lenin:

Lenin and Trotsky, on the other hand, decide in favor of dictatorship in contradistinction to democracy, and thereby, in favor of the dictatorship of a handful of persons, that is, in favor of dictatorship on the bourgeois model. 

and 

But socialist democracy is not something which begins only in the promised land after the foundations of socialist economy are created; it does not come as some sort of Christmas present for the worthy people who, in the interim, have loyally supported a handful of socialist dictators. Socialist democracy begins simultaneously with the beginnings of the destruction of class rule and of the construction of socialism. It begins at the very moment of the seizure of power by the socialist party. It is the same thing as the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Yes, dictatorship! But this dictatorship consists in the manner of applying democracy, not in its elimination, but in energetic, resolute attacks upon the well-entrenched rights and economic relationships of bourgeois society, without which a socialist transformation cannot be accomplished. But this dictatorship must be the work of the class and not of a little leading minority in the name of the class – that is, it must proceed step by step out of the active participation of the masses; it must be under their direct influence, subjected to the control of complete public activity; it must arise out of the growing political training of the mass of the people.

So the question is in criticizing the regimes like that of the Soviet Union, Red China, and so on, are you criticizing socialism or are you criticizing those who deviated from Socialism but kept the name.

As for my own view, I have a substantial amount of agreement with Luxemburg. But I disagree with her criticisms of Kautsky. That is because Kautsky didn't make socialism his goal, he made it the preferred means in eliminating oppression. At this point Luxemburg was too ideologically tribal to see Kautsky's point.

BTW, after he hijacked the Russian Revolution, Lenin criticized those Russians on the Left who opposed his consolidation of power.

Finally, counterexamples to your description of socialism can be found in the Spanish Revolution and the Paris Communes. Though not perfect, their methodology followed the practice of Socialism to a significant degree as opposed to the Lenin's Soviet Union or Mau's Red China neither of whom followed socialism.  BTW, to show that Socialism is not a monolith, there is debate between socialists regarding these issues. Some Socialists do follow Lenin. Some even follow Stalin. But many others do not. So your contention regarding how all socialists behave is neither historically nor theoretically true. And, btw, I am a Christian Fundamentalist and a Socialist. And there are other Christians who are Socialists as well. And many of my fellow Socialists accept me with my faith. In fact, Marx himself never advocated the elimination of religion unlike contemporaries like Bruno Bauer. For Marx, the abolishing of religion was really the abolition of the state from religious control.

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Feb 21

To R. Scott and his blogpost quote comparing political correctness with communist propaganda and declaring that its purpose is to 'humiliate' its opponents. This appeared in the Heidelblog.


There are some problems with what Theodore Dalrymple said in the article quoted from. For example, he described his father as a communist who read people like Plekhanov, Maurice Hindus, and Edgar Snow. At the same time, he reported that his father personally acted like Stalin. But with the people he listed as those who influenced his father, only one of them, Plekhanov, was listed in the www.marxists.org website list of Marxists. And, btw, Plekhanov was opposed to dictators because the workers' interests could not be served by them The two others he listed were reporters who covered different communist areas but were hardly communists that I know of by reading. During WW II, Snow defended allied regimes that were not democratic because of the urgency demanded by the war.

So the question becomes, why is political correctness 'communist propaganda writ small'? Remember that political correctness came into being in order to protect those who were marginalized. And racial slurs were among the first terms deemed politically incorrect. Is that what Dalrymple is protesting? Or is he using these terms pejoratively? And he could do the latter by using these terms to refer exclusively to the extremes and abuses practiced in each group.

Finally, by categorically referring to political correctness and communism the way he does, is Dalrymple practicing what he is condemning? Is he making such a blanket statement about political correctness and associating it with communism in an attempt to 'humiliate' those who align themselves with either political correctness or communism? Whatever the reasons for his statements, he and westerners who agree with him are practicing the same kind of tribalism which he would condemn if it was practiced by any communists. In addition, isn't censoring opinions a way of silencing dissent?

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To Linda Kimball's comment quoting Solzhenitsyyn on Communism and Marx and Lenin's view of God. This was part of the Heidelblog's post on political correctness.

We need to distinguish between the Soviet Union and Marxism. Marx himself was apathetic toward religion. While discussing it with Bruno Bauer, it was Bauer, not Marx, who advocated the eradication of religion. Marx was fine with it existing, he just wanted to see the abolition of the state from religion's control. You can read Marx's view in the link below:

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/

BTW, this isn't the only point of departure between Marx and the Soviet Union. See the following video links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_jRd59qy0A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsC0q3CO6lM

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Feb 24


To Elise Hilton and her blogpost on how we need both economic freedom and other abilities and values to help a society flourish. This appeared on the Acton blog.

Let's remember what economic freedom has become. It has become code for freeing businesses from what society deems as their social responsibilities. Thus, when there is a problem regarding economic freedom, it could be on society's side of demanding too much or demanding the wrong thing. But the problem could also be on the business side of not meeting its legitimate social responsibilities. And when the problem is the latter, then economic freedom translates into privileged status for business elites as they are either harming society by their practices or they are getting a free lunch at society's expense.


A concrete example of such privileged status for some businesses can be found in how some companies use government assistance programs to subsidize their payrolls. Some banks do this as well as some big retail chains. And what happens is that these businesses pay poverty wages that require employees to apply for government programs for help with food assistance, medical care, and so on. Here, we should also check if these same companies are doing what they can to pay the least amount in federal taxes. All of this is being done to maximize profits for the business owners whether the owners are families or shareholders.

The stress which some place on economic freedom is really an argument against democracy and society's right to determine how its members will live with each other. Of course there is the other side of the coin. Societies can make such great demands on businesses that businesses can't survive. But considering that it is those who can afford enough lobbyists who currently have the ear of our government, any overreach from government is not coming from society as a whole, but from those with the most lobbyists.

So here, we might want to review whether the same culture that puts so much stress on economic freedom will also result in volunteerism and generosity, positive creativity, and values or does the current stress on economic freedom work against these other would be cultural assets. For here, if business does not fulfill its legitimate social responsibilities, then these other assets are part of the free lunch business is enjoying at society's expense.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For January 28, 2015

Jan 27

To Elise Hilton and her blogpost blaming Gov't programs for poverty and creating a culture of dependence through entitlements. This appeared on the Acton blog.

Is there any questioning of Eberstadt's perspective here? Or why assume that it is the gov't that is creating dependence. Take how some corporations use gov't assistance programs to subsidize their payrolls as an example. Is it the gov't assistance programs that cause workers to be dependent or is it the poverty wages that drive workers to apply for these programs?

Or take the offshoring of workers and technological unemployment as other factors. Is it gov't programs that are causing dependence or the lack of opportunities caused by those factors that are creating the dependence.

We have an economy that revolves around enriching elite owners almost regardless of the costs to all others. And we have a gov't that is paid to continue to cut social responsibility ties for these owners. And who is being blamed for the dependence being fostered in the system? If only some conservative approaches would quit blaming the poor for their poverty.

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To Joe Carter and his blogpost claiming economic freedom liberates people from poverty. This appeared in the acton blog

We should note that the term 'economic freedom' is code used by some conservatives to talk about elite business owner privilege in society. Why this rather harsh assessment? One only needs to see the target beneficiaries of 'economic freedom' along with the emphasis put on such freedom and the demotion of other freedoms to see why the harsh assessment is made. Of course, one could also look at the countries where there is this 'economic freedom' and see what responsibilities elite business owners have been freed from and who suffers the most to understand the claim that the term 'economic freedom' is simply code for elite business owner privilege in society

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To Joe Carter and his blogpost on the Prison Entrepreneurship Program and how it has helped prisoners from returning to prison. This appeared in the Acton blog.

Not to be critical of PEP's program we should take note of the following:

1.    Many times, a prisoner who has a realistic chance to obtain meaningful work after prison with good pay and chance to secure a decent place to live, recidivism will become less likely.

2.    If providing a good education prevents people from returning to prison, then providing good education can also prevent people from going to prison in the first place.

3.    What's missing in the statistical information is the rate of acceptance into the program. How many prisoners were accept in relation to how many applied?

Certainly, PEP should be warmly celebrated for their results. However, it certainly does not provide a silver bullet solution to our nation's incarceration rate and the problems released prisoners face.  In addition, what is sorely lacking in business education is the kind of education that allows one to look at the current business environment and economic system from the outside. If all the PEP business education classes do is to teach people how to work in the system, then their graduates will only learn how to become significant cogs in a machine and thus, however unintentionally, contribute to any exploitation that is built into the system they've learned how to operate. We might also ask where is private sector commitment that would provide educational programs that would prepare students for careers other than those in business.

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To John Couretas and his blogpost on Greece's move to the Left. This appeared in the Acton blog.

A former colleague of mine told me why Greece had suffered its economic hardships. The first reason was the amount of corruption that existed in the relationships between the private and public sectors. The second reason was that everyone was doing what they could to avoid paying taxes. The third reason was that Greeks need to learn how to work harder.

If my former colleagues assessment is correct, then we in America should pay close attention to what is happening in Greece because of the similarities between the two countries,  What has spared us from already suffering problems Greece is that we can more easily print money for needed revenues. We should also note that with both countries, more and more of the wealth was being owned or owed to wealthy elites from the private sector. This redistribution of wealth upwards is one of the reasons why the Occupy Movement started and spread throughout the Mediterranean area prior to coming to Wall Street. This upward redistribution of wealth makes a growing number of people more strongly dependent on wealthy elites from the private sector.

We should also note that when a writer on Greece's economy shows no knowledge of what neoliberalism is, as Couretas demonstrates here, the articles produced by him will probably not yield any great insights. Neoliberalism is what Milton Friedman promoted. Neoliberalism is what is practiced in many Western nations today. And we should note that it is practiced with devastating results. And history shows that many times, governments have had to bully the people into experiencing this kind of economy which is ironic because neliberalism champions a laissez-faire relationship between gov't and business. The first example of such bullying came with the coup that replaced Chile's President Allende with military dictator Augusto Pinochet. Argentina and Russia also saw bullying used to install a neoliberal economic system.

The real key to how Greece will be administered by the new government is how much it will include people to participate in its decision making processes. What Conservative often fail to see is that widespread participation  is an essential part of being a leftist. If Greece's new Prime Minister Tsipras rules as a well-meaning elite, then a changing of the guard between conservative and nonconservative elites will more like become the order of the day.

Reviewing The Cultural Case Of Capitalism Part 11 Of 12

In this week's episode, Jonathan Witt revealss what he regards as the greatest freedom of all. It seems that he believes that economic freedom is the most important one. Why say this?

Note his first paragraph:

Economic freedom does generate certain challenges. The wealth that free economies are so effective at creating brings with it temptation. Wealth can tempt us to depend on our riches rather than on God. The temptation can be resisted, as we see with wealthy biblical characters like Abraham and Job. But it’s a challenge the church should be mindful of, helping its members cultivate a balanced view of money and of our responsibility and opportunities as stewards of the things God has given us.

We should then read the next paragraph about the challenges economic freedom presents to the community:

The free society also can be hard on communities, since the free enterprise system makes for such a mobile society. Michael Miller talks about this: the opportunities and demands generated by a complex market economy mean that people often end up moving far away from their childhood homes and the network of relationships that surrounded that home. In seeking to meet this challenge, we need to ask ourselves what strategies would effectively address the problem, and are there well-intended policies that are likely to make the problem worse. In essence, we need to exercise the virtue of prudence.

Note the interchangeability of terms between 'free society' and 'free enterprise system.' They are used synonymously.  In addition, note whose responsibility it is to adapt. We are to respond to the challenges that economic freedom presents to our lives but never the other way around. It is as if we live to serve the economy rather than the economy being there to serve all of the people. Martin Luther King Jr. would call this emphasis on the economy a part of a thing-oriented society.

And we should note what economic freedom actually means. Though not defined here, what economic freedom means is that, outside of avoiding corruption and the abuse of others, businesses have no social responsibilities. Economic freedom places business above democracy. Thus, people cannot use the democratic process to tell business how it should live in their communities and what social obligations it should have. And this is despite the fact that valid business activities have significant effects on the communities in which they reside. In addition, in many instances, business is given the privilege to define what is abuse. This is especially true when it comes to the Global Warming and the Climate Science debate. The most oft used objection to following the advice of vast majority of Climate Scientists is that it would lead to economic hardship. And what follows, though it shouldn't, is a denial of Global Warming because of the economic implications of an appropriate response.

So the brunt of the article is that we should adapt to economic freedom rather than making adaptation a two-way street. But there is something else we should note about economic freedom. The more wealth and property one has, the more freedom one has. We should note that the financial world has a one dollar-one vote relationship. There is no equality in this economic freedom. There is the ability to consolidate wealth and since power follows wealth, to consolidate power as well. So one wonders if we should be talking about economic privilege instead of economic freedom.

This brings us back to the first review in this series (click here). This blog stated that a primary indicator we have for measuring tyranny can be found in the presence or absence of democracy. The less democracy there is, the more elite centered rule we have  whether it is from the private or public sectors. A secondary indicator for tyranny can be found in how much individual ownership rights exist in the economy over and against collective ownership. Witt's view of economic freedom both consolidates power by consolidating wealth and denies collective ownership. And that denial is regardless of the interdependencies that exist in the system and society. So can we expect a growth in tyranny here?

A way to answer that question is to look at the facts on the ground. We still have quite a few freedoms. But these freedoms are mostly individual freedoms. What about the freedom of people to determine what kind of society we will live in. This freedom is a group freedom, not an individual freedom, and is commonly referred to as democracy. There we find that though we vote in our elected officials, these same officials obey the mandates of those who make the biggest contributions. As a result, banks and financial institutions can commit fraud and other felonies with criminal impunity while the rest of us cannot. We find that energy companies can also escape criminal prosecution when they harm the environment and they can sometimes even avoid impunity from civil suits too  regardless of the impact of their actions. We find that those with the most wealth have the most pull in writing the laws of this country. We find that many corporations can supplement their payroll with government assistance programs while not paying their fair share in taxes. And what about the foreign military aid where public funds are paid directly to our weapons manufacturers who in turn send equipment and weapons to foreign countries.

In the meantime, most of us comply because our remaining freedoms are found either in meaningless consumption or by vicariously living through the rich and famous. Many of us have given up on being able to experience group freedom (a.k.a., democracy). That last point is indicated by our passion for sports according to Noam Chomsky (click here). 

The facts on the ground show that we are called to make room for the economic freedom while economic freedom is not called recognize us. Perhaps this is why Witt calls on communities to do more of the patching up of problems. For he paraphrases Robert Nisbet saying:

greater centralized political authority and social safety net spending beyond a certain minimal level actually begin to undermine civil institutions and community, since people depend less and less on their family and community bonds and more and more on state-sponsored humanitarian assistance.

He adds that the solution is not found in big government, democratic or not. He cites Tocqueville in associating 'soft despotism' with too much government care resulting in the people becoming sheep with the government as their shepherd. 

But what Witt doesn't cover here is that community wounds can be deep enough so as to make any group of locals impotent in responding to the challenges of economic freedom. And it is in those unhealed wounds where we see real tyranny. In addition, by calling the people sheep and the government a shepherd, Witt divorces the government from the people regardless of how representative of the people the government is. This is a common approach of American Conservatives who are very individualistic. The problem with overemphasizing individualism, as Martin Luther King Jr. noted in his writings, is that it denies that life is social.

With Witt's divorcing of government from the people, not that government has not often tried to do that itself, we see that if there is to be a consolidation of power, it will be found in the private sector of wealthy elites where we go from a one person-one vote system to a one-dollar-one vote system. 

Finally, when Witt says that the answer is not found in government, since democracy can be a form of government, he is also saying that the answer is not found in democracy. Rather, according to Witt, the answer is to be found in individuals, civic groups, and communities, in other words volunteers, regardless of how they have been affected by economic freedom. Perhaps a reason why Witt thinks this way is because only democracy can have a chance at rivaling the power of economic freedom. Why? Because democracy includes the collection of communities working together rather than isolated communities working separately. What is the old saying? "United we stand, ...