Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For April 27, 2022

April 19

To Chris Gehrz and his article that compares Lindbergh's 1939 isolationism and his failure to condemn the Nazis with today's Republicans who oppose involvement in Ukraine and their failure to condemn Putin for his invasion. This appeared in the Anxious Bench blog on Patheos.

There are a few points to make here:

1. Lindbergh's accomplishments along with some of his political views illustrate something that is true about all of us: that each one of us is a mixed bag of good and bad. Some will have and display more good qualities while others will have and display more bad ones. That is not to write off the horrible thinking that Lindbergh was promoting. But it should put a temper on any self-righteous indignation. His ideas of callous isolationism and white-centric thinking have to be clearly rejected and opposed.

2. Some have called WW II a war between empires. Germany and Japan were seeking to establish their own empires while the Soviet Union, France, Great Britain, and the US already had empires. So here we should note why it might be understandable, but still horribly wrong, for Lindbergh to draw false equivalencies between Germany and Great Britain. Yes, Great Britain's empire was based on racial superiority and controlled much of the world. But Great Britain's empire didn't come close to committing the number of horrific atrocities that Germany was committing. But Great Britain had already committed enough atrocities for Lindbergh to somewhat plausibly make the comparison between Germany and England. We should note here that when questioned about the atrocities committed by some nation, I can't remember the name of the country, Trump responded, perhaps in partial Lindbergh fashion, by saying that the US isn't innocent either.

3. After WW II, the US sought to establish a different kind of empire, one in which the regional leaders had a lot of autonomy. And what we have discovered since then is that imperialism, like isolationism, is not a solution to the world's problems of emerging tyrants. It is not a solution because not only do empires destroy the republics of nation s that run those empires, but they provide role models for tyrants to aspire to. And so what empires do is to establish a forever king-of-the-hill battle between empires and other empires or emerging empires. That is part of what we have with Russia today.

4. To avoid unnecessarily antagonizing Russia and give any credibility to its feeling threatened, NATO should not be adding members that are located so close to Russia's border.

Yes, we have to oppose Russia's invasion of Ukraine whether that opposition will be successful or not--my feeling is that time is on Russia's side but we can't afford to overuse sanctions and try to rush Russia's defeat through other than military means. But also we have to practice what we preach to the world. Because the world will be far more willing to listen to our actions than our words.

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April 21

To Jack Lee and his article  that lists and briefly describes 6 misconceptions about Calvinism. My comment was directed to the first misconception that said that Calvinists worship Calvin and the sixth misconception that claims that Calvin murder Servetus because Calvin turned Servetus in to the Geneva authorities because of heresy. This appeared in The Chorus In The Chaos blog on Patheos.

I will mildly disagree with #1 and thoroughly disagree with #6.

When Calvin becomes the guide for how to read the Bible, then Calvin has become a canon above the canon and thus Calvin himself has been placed on too high a pedestal. Such a pedestal starts bordering on worshiping Calvin.

Regarding #6, the New Testament never states that denying the Trinity--though the word is not in the New Testament, the concept is--merits the death penalty. In fact, the strongest form of discipline the Church has is excommunication. Once the Church uses physical punishments, especially on those who are or should not be members, either directly or through proxies, such as the government, the Church has gone way beyond what the New Testament allows. To say that death was an appropriate penalty because of the time in history and place is to imply that there could be other times, such as in the future, and places, such as here, when such a penalty is justified. The execution of Servetus serves as an indictment on Calvin and Geneva. We can apply a relative moral view to what happened in Geneva back then. And let's not forget the number of witches who were given the death penalty as well. Calvin was an accessory to the murder of Servetus.

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April 26

To George Stanciu and his article that attempts to distinguish patriotism from nationalism. This article appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

While Stanciu would like to create an infinite chasm between patriotism and nationalism with definitions, I don't believe we can separate patriotism from nationalism. Instead, we need to recognize that patriotism is the opiate of nationalism.

Defining Patriotism as 'the love of place, countrymen, and local traditions' shows that it is simply the basis for nationalism. For what is that love based on? Is it not based on the same perception of goodness, including delusions of grandeur and denial of sins, that nationalism is based on. Inserting the Nation-State isn't a game changer here because tribalism is involved and nationalism is a form of tribalism. And we should note that tribalism existed before the emergence of the Nation-State. 

Here we should note that one of the working definitions of tribalism is a high degree of loyalty to a group regardless of what unifies a group. Well what does real love of place, countrymen and local traditions evoke but a high degree of loyalty.  And with tribalism, that high degree of loyalty eventually creates a moral relativity that defines what is right and wrong depends on who does what to whom. Attempts at localizing one's object of affection by introducing  'local traditions' as an object of love does not change the dynamics here.

If the Civil War provides an example of the difference between patriotism and nationalism, how is the Southerner singing about Dixie any less delusional than the  Messianic mission of the North? Those good times in Dixie were built on the backs of slaves. And while Stanciu rightfully acknowledges the atrocities suffered by Native Americans, somehow the sufferings of Blacks, who were on a good day in the South then were only counted as being inferior, did not merit the same recognition Stanciu gave to Native Americans. Here, Stanciu is exhibiting a similar disregard for Blacks that Tocqueville showed.

There isn't the chasm between Patriotism and Nationalism as Stanciu proposes. Rather, it is patriotism that feed nationalism and both are manifestations of tribalism.

 

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For August 22, 2018

August 16

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost quote of Ben Sasse who stated that a government that is big enough to put a business out of business for following the First Amendment is too big. This appeared in the Heidelblog.

On the other hand, we saw in Jim Crow First Amendment rights being used to deny other people their rights. Now either Sasse  doesn't see that other people's rights are being violated when they cannot participate as equals in the marketplace, or he doesn't see that the people whose rights are being violated don't deserve to have equal rights in the marketplace. In either case, Sasse's statement about the size of government should be followed with the question, is a state that is big enough to enforce just laws too big? And in either case, Sasse's statement is more of an attempt at marketing the issue in favor of his views than anything else.

What should also be noted is that while those who advocate the correction of social injustices in ways that violate conservative politics are accused of having inadequate eschatologies by the Heidelblog and other Christians, somehow conservative political views are being advocated. Does that imply that conservative political views have an inadequate concern for social justice?
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August 19

To George Stanciu and his blogpost on the good and bad of Capitalism and how the Christian is to live in such a system. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog

This article shows a good attempt to take a balanced approach to Capitalism. Stanciu did miss one point, that America didn't employ Adam Smith's free trade principles until sometime during the FDR administration. Up until that time, America employed protectionism in order to allow its industries to grow and become competitive.

There is a repeated theme in Stanciu's article, it is that of reductionism and the problems it causes. Adam Smith's reducing human motivation to self-interest, the self-reducing ethic of maximizing profits encourages us to follow the rules only when it costs less to follow them than to break them, and Capitalism's reducing of the labor power of the worker to a commodity making the worker disposable. In the end, the biggest reductionism that we see in Capitalism is that it leads us to reduce the study and practice of economics to that of commerce--a point made by Chiléan economist, Manfred Max-Kneef. Whereas commerce is primarily concerned the buying and selling of goods, the Greek root in the word economics infers a more comprehensive and holistic approach to the study of our system.
I appreciated Stanciu's borrowing from Martin Luther King, Jr. in his description of our society as being thing-oriented. Martin Luther King, Jr. made that observation in his 1967 speech against the Vietnam War. But King had much earlier said something else that pertains to Capitalism. That it leads us to measure life by the things we buy and accumulate rather than how we have contributed to others.

Now some Christians believe that only Christians should enlighten the use of Capitalism by society. That is simply an effort to have one's cake and eat it too. But the constant reductionisms made in Capitalist economic systems causes many of us Christians to start off as Don Quixotes only to see exhaustion change us into becoming cynics. As King would say, not only should we help the individual victims we find on the road to Jericho, we should change that road itself so that there are fewer victims. That implies changing our economic system. And that is the real challenge for the Christian in our Capitalist economic system; it is to work, with some unbelievers, in order to change our economic system so that there are fewer victims on the road to Jericho. For to do charity work only while riding in on the coattails of Capitalism causes the Church to repeat serious mistakes from the past. For we find that in the pre-revoutionary times of France, Russia, and Spain the Church stood with wealth and power. When those respective revolutions came, the Church and the Gospel she is suppose to preach was unnecessarily persecuted.

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August 21

To Joe Carter and his blogpost on whether income disparity is a moral issue. This appeared in the Acton blog.

Perhaps if Carter referred to the Scriptures instead of some principles, he would see why income inequality can become a moral issue.
Of course he speaks about income inequality as a whole implying that all instances of wealth inequality neither pose moral problems nor raise any red flags.

What do the Scriptures say? James says the following to the rich (see https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James+5%3A1-6&version=NIV:

Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. 2 Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. 3 Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. 4 Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. 5 You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.

Now some may argue that James is talking to rich individuals. But how does his message not apply to groups of wealthy owners who practice the same treatment of workers that individual wealthy owners do? In addition, we might ask what is the difference between unpaying an employee and keeping their wages from them? Isn't the difference in that when a business owner underpays their employees, they are keep some of the employees wages rather than all as mentioned by James?
Or we can go to Jeremiah 22 and read what Jeremiah has to say to the son of Josiah (see https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jeremiah+22%3A13-17&version=NIV ):

“Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness,
his upper rooms by injustice,
making his own people work for nothing,
not paying them for their labor.
14 He says, ‘I will build myself a great palace
with spacious upper rooms.’
So he makes large windows in it,
panels it with cedar
and decorates it in red.

15 “Does it make you a king
to have more and more cedar?
Did not your father have food and drink?
He did what was right and just,
so all went well with him.
16 He defended the cause of the poor and needy,
and so all went well.
Is that not what it means to know me?”
declares the Lord.
17 “But your eyes and your heart
are set only on dishonest gain,
on shedding innocent blood
and on oppression and extortion.”

Notice the same sins that James preached against is what Jeremiah preached against. And again, what is the difference between underpaying employees vs not paying them at all? Are not both examples of exploitation?
Or we can read what Isaiah wrote (see  https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+58%3A1-3&version=NIV  ):

“Shout it aloud, do not hold back.
Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion
and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.
2 For day after day they seek me out;
they seem eager to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that does what is right
and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
They ask me for just decisions
and seem eager for God to come near them.
3 ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,
‘and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
and you have not noticed?’
“Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
and exploit all your workers.

Carter cannot see the moral factors that can, though not always do, be involved when there is income disparity. And he cannot see the moral factors because he hasn't dealt with the human elements that can be involved with certain degrees of income disparity. He doesn't not deal with the results exploited workers have to suffer through as a result of income disparity. And he doesn't mention what the wealthy did in order to create income disparity. If he had, then perhaps he would admit that there can easily be a moral factor involved with the existence of income inequality. And again, income disparity becomes a group problem when a group of those who are wealthy act like an individual who is wealthy who exploits their workers.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For May 4, 2016

Just to point out a trend that has been growing on the Conservative blogs I've been visiting. There is a tendency among religiously conservative Christian blogs to block more comments than they have before. There are also several religiously conservative blogs that apply no blocks at all. 

 April 27

To Bruce Ashford and his blogpost about a Jewish Intellectual who predicted the Social Collapse of America. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition.

Whenever I read articles like the one above, I try to figure out what kind of society have we collapsed from. We tend to glorify the past because of the degree of influence Christianity had on it, but much of what we see today is the result of people waking up and rejecting the injustices of yesteryear.

No doubt, many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians believe that our society has collapsed because of its changing sexual mores. But what kind of society can claim to be superior to others because of its sexual mores while conducting ethnic cleansing against one race and subjugating yet another? And all of that was on our own continent. We then ventured of to dominating other peoples and races from other continents and we did that to benefit ourselves.

The differences that exist between the societal high life of yesteryear and today's "social collapse" depends on the contexts in which one speaks. Suppose the context is economics. Then, when more of America could be seen as being more like the Capitol, the Capitol from the movie The Hunger Games that is, our society was viewed as having risen or in the process of rising. But when more of America is living like those in the districts in that movie did, then we say we were collapsing. Or when sexual mores are the context for measuring the quality of a society, then when those whose orientation was different from most people were marginalized, then society was described as being better than it is today. 

When we consider America's past, when did America really center itself on God? After all, loving God is not just measured by our own claims of devotion to God themselves, but by our deeds too. And according to the history of our deeds and how we have treated those who were different, it seems that we never really made faith and the Christian religion the center of American life and thus our society had little height, if any at all, to collapse from.

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April 28

To George Stanciu and his blogpost on New England and how democracy has fallen there and elsewhere. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.


There are several parts of this article which I like. Such as when Stannic writes:

New England democracy, as observed by Tocqueville in the early 1830s, could not remained unchanged, for Modernity rests upon three connected legs—democracy, capitalism, and science and technology; the latter two legs changed the former.

it reminded me of something Martin Luther King said when speaking against the Vietnam War:

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

To combine what is said, we need a combination of values and proper structure to be self-governing. And that no structure is immune to all sets of values a society could adopt--though the popular notion of freedom denies this. But after that, I have problems with some of what is written.

The first of Stanciu's main concerns is the degree of  reliance on centralized power, and we should expect as much from an anarchist. The problem, especially as he looks at our democracy through the eyes of de Tocqueville, is that society is tremendously complex and interdependent. And the more interdependence that exists because of the population of individual communities, the number of communities that exist in towns and cities, the number of towns and cities that exist in states, the number of states that exist in the union, and the kind of economy that fosters increasing degrees of coupling, 'coupling is a computer science term that measures how dependent different parts of computer code are on each other, the more power federal government needs to be to protect Democracy. Here I should add is that what wasn't apparent to me is whether Stanciu sees Democracy as a state of being for society where all groups share a common society as equals. That kind of Democracy requires that both government and the people themselves be more involved in what goes on in the nation including in communities. That is because in an inderpendent society, what one part of the nation does affects another. 

Another of Stanciu's objections is that the more intrusive government is on our personal lives, the less mature we become. And the less mature we become the more dependent we become. And the more dependent we become, the less we act to maintain our democracy. The problem here is what was stated in the previous paragraph of this comment. The more interdependent life becomes in our society, the more our decisions affect others. And the more our decisions affect others, the greater call exists for government, whetever the level, to intervene. And that includes seatbelt laws.

Rather than looking at the centralization of government power or the intrusiveness of government decisions as being the reason why we have lost a large part of our democracy here, I would add a different factor to what was stated above about  Capitalism and technology, or what King called a thing-oriented society, as being the reason why we have lost a large part of our democracy. That other factor is tribalism. 

Tribalism isn't the mere belonging to a group. Rather, it deals with the degree of loyalty one has for any group one belongs to. The greater degree of loyalty one has for one's group, the less commitment one shows to principles and morals. Thus, what is right and wrong is determined by who does what to whom.

So why would group loyalty be a problem for Democracy? Because above all, Democracy is a state of being for a society where all groups share society as equals. Thus, Democracy is a commitment to the principle of equality for others as well as oneself.

But how would what has been said here apply to the lack of participation Stanciu notes in New England. Certainly, in a thing-oriented society, people are to occupied with affluence or the quest for it to care about being self-governed. So they vote for those leaders who will make decisions that will maintain or give them more opportunity to acquire more things. As for tribalism, we can look at that as form of group authoritarianism. And as with all authoritarianism, those who live under it either volunteer or are forced to depend on strong leaders. And here we should note how divided American society is and what can of Presidential candidates are being produced by those divisions.

Living in a thing-oriented society many of whose groups ascribe to tribalism seems to be a better explanation for what Stanciu has noticed about the decline in democratic participation in New England and elsewhere than the observations of de Tocqueville who made those observations at a different economic, political, technological time than what exists today.

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April 29

To Eric’s April 26 comments to me about his view of Marxism and the Communist Manifesto This was part of the discussion on the article on the future of reading. Previous response to Eric were not recorded by me and were blocked by the Imaginative Conservative website.

Eric,
This is my second attempt to answer your last note. Your comment that what was seen in Lenin is what happened in all Communist regimes first is not true and second assumes that Communism is the only expression of Marxism.

First, let's look at what is called Communism. It was originally call Bolshevism because it was Bolsheviks who were led by Lenin and who seized control of Russia. There was ample dissent and criticism of Lenin as failing to act as a Marxist. And if that is the case, then one can not lay at the feet of Marx the guilt of Lenin. The same could be said of any revolution that took the Communist label but failed to follow Marx. Thus, one could not blame the Communist Manifesto for the atrocities committed in the name of Marxism. In addition, one would have to read the Communist Manifesto as well as other works of Marx to realize be able to judge whether Lenin and others were actually Marxist in their actions.

Additional support to what was just written comes form the work of Orlando Figes who stated that Lenin's view of what it means to be a strong leader did not come from Marx, but from Russian literature and that that literature was not based on Marx. In addition, we might want to note the cultural influence of that the Tsarist regimes had on Russian and on Lenin. In many cases, revolutions resulted in slightly altered forms of the regimes that were overthrown.

To answer your previous note, my question about whether you read the Communist Manifesto was  not in any way an attempt to dictate terms. It was a simple question. For how can one adequately analyze a document they have not read?

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April 30

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost consisting of a video clip of a person defining democratic socialism as a dictatorship of 50.1% of the people. This appeared in Heidelblog.

Being a socialist myself, I find it frustrating to hear fellow American believers trying to explain Socialism because they never go to the original sources and this true of Matt Kibbe who is the person speaking in the video. For though he went back to the original sources to find the term 'proletariat dictatorship,' he didn't go back to the original sources to find its meaning.

Proletariat dictatorship means control by the workers. But the workers making the decisions were elected by their peers to discuss and make decisions using democratic processes. So outside of the word 'dictatorship,' how different such a concept of a 'proletariat dictatorship'  from a representative democracy? After all, don't we elect officials  by majority vote, except for the President who must win a majority of electoral votes as long as that majority exceeds a certain number? And don't those officials make binding decisions for the rest of us based on some kind of majority vote?

Well, there is a difference and that difference has to do with the demographics of the elected governing officials. For though we are we well represented by location with Representatives and Senators, we are not represented by vocation in our gov't. Rather, 3 groups of people make up the vast majority of our Representatives and Senators. They are professional public servants, lawyers, and business people. That means that the vast majority of vocations are not represented in the government. 

Now if Kibbe bothered to read more than just about the term 'proletariat dictatorship' and read more sources than just one or two documents from Marx and Engels, he could have better described what a proletariat dictatorship was. It was, and to its fault, a partial democracy, just like the kinds of democratic systems Socialists were protesting were also partial democracies called bourgeoisie democracies. Should note that the latter kind of democracies were defended by people like James Madison because he believed that power should rest in the hands of those with wealth. For just as Marx favored proletariat rule over a nation using democratic processes, so others support a bourgeoisie rule over a nation using  democratic processes. Others, like Lenin, favored using a bourgeoisie dictatorship. BTW, this was Rosa Luxemburg's assessment of Lenin's ruling style because Lenin was used a bourgeois model of government. This is evident by the fact that  decisions were made by a small group of elite leaders who were picked by Lenin. Btw, should note that Lenin abolished both the soviets and the Russian Constituent Assembly. 

So again, I find that my fellow believers in Christ, either through gross negligence or willful intention, have failed to even attempt to provide a fair definition of Socialism and have instead been opportunistically selective in how they have it defined. I hope you understand the dissonance you cause when you pass on such inept definitions while claiming to be faithful teacher of the Reformed Faith. If only you and Kibbe would have been honest in acknowledging your lack of knowledge about Socialism when trying to define it, then, though your material would be wrong, it would be honest and thus not merit any significant criticism. An example of such honesty can be found in a John Piper blogpost on Socialism (see http://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/how-should-christians-think-about-socialism ).

Finally, we should note that Bernie Sanders is not a socialist. Rather, he is an FDR new dealer. Though we agree with some of his individual proposed ideas and programs, he offers little in terms of actual structural changes to our political structure. But at least he is talking about the corrosive effects that money has on our political and economic systems.

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To Joseph Sunde and his blogpost on how theologians need to learn about economics. This appeared in the Acton blog.

I agree that theologians should learn economics. But the question becomes from whom should they learn because not all higher degrees will provide an adequate education in economics. 

As I was talking to someone who was protesting our May Day celebration, we talked about workplace democracy, something we both agreed on but was something he was not aware that such was tied to Socialism. His comment was that though workplace democracy is good, workers need to learn from those having MBAs because they have a lot to teach. I responded by asking about what they know. Their education might have helped learn how to tweak the system, but did it teach them to be able to criticize the system from the outside?

This is the problem with certain degrees. People learn to become technicians, but they remain uninformed about how the system they have expertise in interacts with the rest of the world. The result is that people start to believe that the world must be formed around the system they understand rather than that one must be able to see how the system they understand might possibly have to change because of other concerns that exist in the world.

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To Joe Carter and his blogpost listing 5 reasons why Millennials should prefer Capitalism. This appeared in the Acton Blog.

A valid point that Carter makes here is to say that there are different forms of Capitalism. But he fails to mention that there are also several kinds of Socialism and not all Socialists would agree with each kind,

Mais, c'est la vie, it is time to examine his reasons. We will not respond to reasons #2 and #3 because they are insignificant. Reason #1, Capitalism makes the world cleaner and less violent. That might be true if we don't include the increasing number of dead zones in the ocean, the increasing amount of greenhouse gas emissions, the destruction of Appalachia from the use of Mountain Top Removal, or China's environmental problems and that is just to name a few problems. 

Does Capitalism make the world less violent with fewer wars? His claim that there are fewer wars is actually based on the number of deaths from battles (see http://blog.acton.org/archives/78866-is-capitalism-killing-war.html ) . And though there are fewers deaths from battles, when we look at the details as to why, rather than to assume that Capitalism is the reason, we find the statement to be very misleading. Here we should note that the development of WMDs and the lessons learned from the two World Wars and how tens of millions of people were killed in each war was not even considered as factors in reducing the number of deaths from battle. Before our weapons became as powerful as they are now, there was less reluctance to start wars. In addition, comparing deaths today when Mutually Assured Destruction kept the two main antagonists from declaring war on each other with WW II where the use of no weapons were barred makes the two time periods is faulty. 

In addition, let's count how the number of nations where we have attacked with any kind of forces including drones since the year 2000. We have invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. We have sponsored the coup in Libya and possibly in Honduras. We conduct or have conducted drone warfare in Pakistan and Yemen. And we have been bombing Syria. And all of that is what is happening in the Middle East and parts of Central Asia.

The magazine The Nation reported in 2015 that we carried out 647 military operations in Africa during the previous year (see http://www.thenation.com/article/us-carried-out-674-military-operations-africa-last-year-did-you-hear-about-any-them/ ). And in 2014, the same magazine reported that we are conduct military operations in 134 countries. And perhaps the reason why this isn't real to us and that the number of casualties from battles is not comparable to the past is because of the great disparity between our forces and the forces of the countries we are attacking. It isn't that we have fewer wars or conflicts, it is that the number of deaths for each conflict is much lower than what was seen during WW II and that lower number of deaths has nothing to do with Capitalism.

Skipping reasons #2 and #3 because they are insignificant, we come to Reason #4. There, Carter claims that Capitalism is the most moral system. But what kind of Capitalism is he talking about and what systems did he compare Capitalism to? He never says in that part of his article. However, we should note that despite claims that Capitalism is reducing extreme poverty, the greatest alleviation of poverty is occurring in China which is participating in the Global Economy but could hardly be called a Capitalist country. Certainly it has been affected by Capitalism because of the Global Economy, but, again, it is hardly a Capitalist country.

But we should also note that Capitalism is overseeing an ever increasing wealth disparity throughout much of the world, especially in the US. We should note that along with the alleviation of extreme poverty has come the prevalence of sweatshop, trafficked, and even slave labor along with present environmental problems and an ominous environmental future. We should also note that trade agreements cause democratic nations to lose national sovereignty to foreign investors.

But finally, we should note that the freedom emphasized by Capitalism starts to become at odds with the self-rule freedom that comes with democracies. For the less power a government has to monitor and control businesses, the less control a democratic government has in doing the same. In addition, the new Global Economy that is based on free trade and markets is putting nations, especially less developed ones into an economic class system as Free Trade prevents nations from using protectionism to develop the industries and economic sectors of their choice.

Finally, for reason #5 on how Millennials would prefer Capitalism anyway, ask college graduates about their feelings toward the loans they can't repay because there are not enough well paying jobs available after graduation. In fact, ask Millennials about how they feel about pollution that seeps into our food, air, and water or fraudulently foreclosed on homes or used the global economy to lower the pay, benefits and labor rights of workers in the US or the other complaints listed in The Declaration Of The Occupation Of New York City as prepared by Occupy Wall Street (see http://www.nationofchange.org/declaration-occupation-new-york-city-1317784408 ). All of those grievances were the product of American Capitalism. Is that what Millennials want?

Of course, the easy out for Carter is that he could blame all of the ill-effects we see today on forms of Capitalism he doesn't prefer. But he provides no guidelines for determining which forms of Capitalism are responsible for the benefits he's cited. 

In the end, his article here is an attempt at manipulating people into supporting what he supports.