Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For December 7, 2016

Nov 30

To Mike Edmonson and his blogpost on Evangelicalism’s 4 unique perspectives on politics. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website

Christianity does not revolve around our own uniqueness, it revolves around the uniqueness of Christ and the Gospel. To focus on our own uniqueness merely imitates those from any other group where tribalism is strong. To show this, all we need to consider is the concept of American Exceptionalism and how people from other nations have also seen their own nations as being exceptional.

Another way of showing that our uniqueness is not unique is to look at each of the 4 perspectives on politics and show that they are not unique. Take the first perspective, which is our governmental perspective, for example:

Although elections are important, as believers we uniquely understand that elections are not ultimate.

Sorry but Howard Zinn made an activist career of putting elections and their leaders in their place. Anarchism and bottom-up forms of Socialism also regard elections as not being ultimate.

On the other hand, the belief that elections are ultimate in that we depend too much on our elected leaders to manage the government while we tend to our own business is a mark of embracing an authoritarian relationship with the government. And guess which institution is one of the greatest teachers on authoritarianism is. It is the Church where most of our relationships with others and God use authority figures as a center part of each relationship.

Take the second perspective, which is our moral perspective, as another example:

Wealthy business-owning American citizens baptized in Christ, for example, must deeply consider the practical wellbeing of the undocumented migrant worker and refugee also baptized in Christ. Christian civil engagement is not fundamentally self-interested.

Hate to bust Edmondson's bubble here but Socialists have him beat. For Socialists are not just concerned for the well-being of Christian migrant workers and refugees, they are concerned for all migrant workers and refugees. What Edomondson seems unaware of is that he is replacing self-interest with tribal interest. And what group, where tribalism is present, is not concerned with all of its members?

As for the third perspective which is our perspective on pain:

One of the most significant distinctions we have as God’s people is our compassion for the distressed. Deuteronomy 10:18 says God “executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing” (see also Exod. 22:22–23; Deut. 27:19; 2 Chron. 19:7; Ps. 68:5; and Ps. 146:9). Throughout Scripture, the Lord makes himself known through his practical care and concern for the most vulnerable and distressed

Here we need to compare how those in a Christian nation, especially Christians who tend to be politically conservative, with those from other nations. Until its Civil War, Syria was one of the leading nations in caring for refugees. Ironically here, most of the refugees whom Syrians took care of became refugees as a result of America's invasion of Iraq. Currently Jordan is one of the world's leaders in taking in and caring for refugees. As for Christian America, we only need to look at its political conservatives, who have more than their fair share of religiously conservative Christians, and their position on taking in refugees. That is because their position is not very good and this is especially evident by the support conservative Christians gave to Donald Trump in the election. There is no need here to mention Trump's views on immigration or the Republican Party's opposition to societal safety nets.

As for the forth perspective, if the beliefs expressed there were so strongly held, why did the majority of religiously conservative Christians vote for a candidate like Donald Trump? Issues like controlling immigration, changing the Supreme Court, and wanting to make America great again were reasons that greatly influence Christian voters.

Again, pointing our uniqueness as a way of proving Christianity to either ourselves or others is problematic. It is flawed because as people, we are not always as unique as we perceive ourselves to be or should  be. And once our lack of uniqueness is outed, our credibility as witnesses for Christ is greatly damaged.


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To Jason Baxter and his blogpost about what the humanities can contribute to the modern world in the light of how our politicians are trying to make education more of a tech school experience. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

Every time I read a conservative reference to the founding fathers which describes them as trying to limit government's power, I wonder if such conservatives have heard of decontextualization. That is because The Constitution was written with the intention of strengthening government power so that the Federal government could, in the future, better respond future insurrections. And the point of being better prepared to handle future insurrections was to maintain the status quo for the sake of the bondholders and the landowners and slaveholders where wealth was consolidated at that time. The then current insurrection that prompted the writing of that document was Shays Rebellion.  And all one has to do to realize that The Constitution was written to strengthen the federal government's power is to look up all of the references made to the militia. For the militia was to be armed and trained with funds from Congress and was to be under the command of the President. And one of the state purposes of the militia was to put down insurrections.

Furthermore, with the powers granted to the Senate, we should note how Senators originally received their office. They were appointed by their respective state legislators. That, along with their term in office, made Senators pretty much immune to popular opinion and with good reason. In arguing for the length of a Senator's term, it was Madison who said that the purpose of government was to 'protect the minority of the opulent from the majority.'

Along with the fact that only White, male, property owners could vote when The Constitution was ratified, we see a government that is as not limited as conservatives want to portray it. In fact, since The Constitution was written to preserve the status quo for the sake of America's own elites, Baxter's statement that Rubio and Walker are closer to Clinton than to our nation's founding fathers is a bit more problematic than Baxter realizes. For in that Walker, Rubio, and Clinton are striving to preserve a status quo that serves those with wealth and power, they are all in fact following in the footsteps of the majority of those who wrote The Constitution.

Thus, their, that is Walker, Rubio, and Clinton, wanting education to serve the welfare of the money-interests is in line with the intentions of our founding fathers. And so there is a certain irony when Baxter uses our nation's founding fathers to challenge the current deemphasis on the humanities in education. Baxter is completely correct in challenging the current emphasis on technology. He just does so from the wrong basis.

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Dec 3

To Greg Forster and his blogpost that describes both America’s signs of death and its signs for hope. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.

I heartily agree with much, though not all,  of the description of the problem. The solution, however, is problematic. But there is also a problem with the description of the problem. The problem with the description of the problem is that it doesn't tie together the similarities between what Hillary was offering and what Trump was offering.  Those similarities could be described with two labels: neoliberalism and neoconservatism.  Yes, their versions of both were different, but the general direction was the same.  With neoliberalism, both wanted to cut big businesses' social responsibilities and give them free reign in society. Hillary wanted to do that on the global scene with open markets and free trade; Trump wanted to do that on the domestic scene by reducing taxes and regulations. This somewhat illustrates why their versions of neoliberalism are different. While the Repubs want an express train to corporate rule, the Dems want a local train that offers amenities. But in the end, they destination is the same. After all, how different is Trump's promise to reduce regulations from trade agreements like the TPP that allow corporations to sue governments for any financial losses incurred by the laws a government passes? And yet, open markets would  rely on trade agreements like the TPP. And both Hilary and Trump have expressed the same concern over these agreements: it is American jobs not this corporate control. Plus, we also have to realize that with the presence of foreign investors, we really don't have any true American big businesses anymore

As for their shared neoconservative leanings, the only real difference between Hillary's and Trump's view of America's leadership in the world is that Trump wants America's allies to pay protection money for its military services and presence.  Plus we also have to ask ourselves why a free world needs a leader? For if the free world has a leader, is it truly free?

Despite missing their similarities, the  identification of battle between technocrats vs tribalists has much merit. But we also have to realize that patriotism is an exercise in tribalism as well. So if we are going to complain about Trump's economic nationalism, which is something not necessarily mentioned here, or his other forms of tribalism we have to complain about our military tribalism as expressed in patriotism as well. And we need to accurately define tribalism in the context of the world we live in. Tribalism is when group loyalty is so high that it trumps, no pun intended,  any commitment to  morals and absolute values. And tribalism can be based on what's listed above as well as ideology and economic class. Thus, we could say that Hillary's favoring of technocrats was a form of tribalism.

The solution resented is problematic for two reasons. First, the Church has, since the time of Constantine, generally stood with and supported wealth and power. Yes, there have been some intramural battles between wealth and power where the Church was split, but it still has, for the most part, stood with wealth and power.  This was true prior to the French, Spanish, and Russian Revolutions as well as  many other modern revolutions. It is most certainly true for the conservative Church in modern America. After all, the conservative Church in modern America was slow to even recognize our nation's problem with racism. And it wasn't the conservative Church that took the lead in battling racism. We should note that King was no conservative Christian theologian. The conservative Church in America, under the banner of patriotism, has been even slower in recognizing the immorality of many of America's wars. And where does the conservative Church stand in relation to unions and workers' relationship with employers? The conservative Church  predominantly supports small gov't and low taxes and few regulations and all of that favors those with wealth. And the conservative Church is not a big supporter of social safety nets because it believes that the Church should be in charge of providing relief and help, not the government.

Or we could go back to what was written in a report called The Crisis of Democracy where the Church is listed, along with the family, schools, and the military as institutions whose job was to teach people how to fit into society and take orders from those with authority. Here it would be helpful to note that that report was the liberal view of the role of the Church which was in response to the radical exercises of democracy during the 1960s. The The Crisis of Democracy called those radical exercises in democracy an 'excess of democracy.'

But it isn't just our history that makes the proposed solution problematic. What the above solution proposes is that the Church must have a place of supremacy in society that is based on the freedom of religion. And this is done by having society look to the Church for its temporal salvation. In such a scheme, where does the LGBT community fit in? And how about those whose suffering is prolonged by the Church's slowness in recognizing their problems just like the conservative Church was slow in recognizing our nation's problem with racism? And how can we call for a public discipleship while the Church shares society with others as equals? And if it doesn't share society with others as equals, then what other position than a place of supremacy does the Church want in society?

Yes, we need to share the Gospel to all. But we have to both acknowledge our past failures and look at how we can share society with all sorts of unbelievers as equals so that if a large number of people become converted, they will not be a part of marginalizing some group like the Church has for all America's history.


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Dec 4

To Kyle Hanby and his blogpost that cites an article by Samuel Gregg which claims that protectionism is bad for us in the long run. This appears in the Acton blog.

Link for the article cited: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2016/1201/Can-economic-nationalism-keep-more-jobs-in-US

Just as location is everything in real estate, so labels are in persuasive articles.The 'economic nationalism' and 'free trade' labels serve as such examples. We should note that economic nationalism can mean economic self-rule. We should also note that if free trade is not popularly accepted, it becomes forced trade with the free part describing how those who benefit the most experience it.

We should also note that economic globalism has produced more than the alleged effect of lifting more people out abject poverty. It has caused a loss of many manufacturing and even service jobs in America causing a glut of people applying for low skilled labor jobs. That glut means less in wages for many people which is why over a billion dollars goes into subsidizing corporate payrolls via government assistance for the working poor. We should also note that economic globalization has involved the trafficking of people and to sweatshop factories. In addition, in the two nations that have allegedly seen the biggest decrease in poverty, which are China and India, we have seen slight to significant increases in slavery. In the mean time, Jeff Halper notes that the wealth disparity between nations has sharply increased.

Certainly any kind of self-rule that is based in some kind of tribalism is not good for anyone. But the reliance on the rule of economic elites as opposed to self-rule produces even worse results in the long run. For the rule of economic elites which we see in today's economic globalism not only increases wealth disparity in and between nations, in many of the nations which have embraced this kind of globalism, it destroys democracies and all of that occurs for the love of wealth. So why is a Christian blog encouraging a system that revolves around the love of wealth and the weakening of national sovereignty?

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Dec 6

To Joe Carter and his blogpost on profits, wealth, and well-defined property rights. This appeared in the Acton blog.

We should first note that the Scriptures don't label money as being intrinsically evil; but they do call the love money the 'root of all kinds of evil.'

But second, what is said above about property rights is pretty much contradicted by Martin Luther King Jr. when he spoke 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.

So while well-defined property rights are a key to the common good according to the article above, King states that while property rights and other things are more important than people, then the triplets of 'racism, materialism, and militarism' will forever plague us. We should note that well-defined property rights does not imply just property rights. A question that would be involved in determining just property rights would be this: Did all of James Madison's wealth belong to him seeing that much of it was the product of slave labor? We might ask the same when it comes to corporations that pay poverty wages to workers here and/or use workers from sweatshop factories abroad. We might also ask, why, if there is this economy of mutuality, do we have a growing wealth disparity within many nations as well as between nations?
 

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For May 21, 2014

May 17

To R. Scott Clark and his heidelblog podcast on political correctness. This appeared on the Heidelblog


The Left has been aware of how political correctness has been around for decades and started during Wilson's administration as soon as the  controlling public opinion became a priority. During WWI, everything German was the target. After WWI, Bolshevism was targeted. There was the Hollywood blacklist of the 1940s and 1950s along with McCarthyism. There was firing of at least one professor from a tenured position for participating in and supporting students who were standing up against segregation. And then there was the FBI harassment of Civil Rights and antiwar activists. Then there was the harassment of antiwar activists during the Bush years along with the Obama Administrations possible ties to dismantling the Occupy encampments.

The test of our commitment to civil and religious rights is whether we will defend the rights of those with whom we disagree. So the ACLU defense of the speech and assembly rights of neo-Nazis, with whom they vehemently disagree, shows a true commitment to civil rights. Likewise, we would be showing a commitment to civil and religious rights by defending the rights of homosexuals to marry while disagreeing with homosexuality because of what the Scriptures say.

On the other hand, we have to consider that any political correctness pressure to condone accepting  homosexuality could be partially be due to our past intolerance and legislative persecution of gays. In other words, we have no problems when we can control them but we cry coercion if the favor is returned. Such shows a commitment to partisanship, not to principle, and those seeds of partisanship have found their place in other gardens.

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May 18

To Joe Carter and his blogpost on globalization and the reduction of world poverty. This appeared in the Acton blog.


There is a problem with linking globalization with the reduction in world poverty. The problem is that globalization means different things not just to different parts of the world, but to different countries as well. To show this, all we need to do is compare two neighboring countries and what globalization meant to each. To India, as to the West, globalization means neoliberal capitalism--note that India has been starting to introduce some new controls. To China, globalization a liberalizing of the economy but that is relative to what the economy was. It is still pretty much controlled.

But problems loom for both countries. For example, not all sectors of India's economy have profited from globalization. The number of its farmers who went deep into debt as the result of the free market has resulted in the number of suicides to measured in the tens of thousands. In addition, air pollution in India, which was already a problem prior to globalization, has increased due to industrialization. In China, air pollution is a very serious problem.

But other problems have arisen with the increase of globalization is income disparity. That income disparity has significantly increased in the West is beyond dispute. Part of that is that income many Americans, for example, has stagnated or dropped. Part of that is due to the technological unemployment and the outsourcing of jobs to other countries.  In Europe, we also have austerity cuts. The combination of these two factors could suggest that  what we are seeing with the reduction of poverty is a shifting wealth from American middle and even lower classes to other countries.

Part of the global alleviation of poverty is the result of the increased labor supply which has lowered pay in the West while allowing for the existence of sweatshop labor conditions in countries like China. Here, sweatshop labor is defined not by pay but by working conditions and violations of labor law. So those working in sweatshop factories might be lifted out of poverty by their jobs but the working conditions are abusive if not dangerous or deadly.

Another problem with globalization is the multiple use of the term "comparative advantage." This has referred to a country using protectionism to build up an industry and then forcing free trade on other countries for products made by the newly established industry. This drives foreign companies involved in manufacturing the same kinds of products as the protected industry out of business in their own countries as they are forced to compete with the once or still protected foreign industry. We should note that comparative advantage is sometimes currently used to assign specific contributions a country can make to the global economy. These assignments are not made by the country itself but by the leaders of the global economy. Here we can see certain sectors of a country's economy disappear making that country dependent on the world to even feed itself. Haiti  found itself in that situation when in around 2008 when fuel prices rose, Haiti suffered a food crisis because its farmers had already been put out of business.

In addition, part of what was just said leads into the next problem with our current form of globalization. That problem is that foreign investors begin to accumulate power in foreign countries. Thus, the citizens of a given country lose democratic control over their economy and are thus ruled by foreign investors.

We could go on with other concerns but the point is when people try to present overlysimplistic cause and effect relationships between desired results and single variables, we should remember the saying:

Beware of Geeks bearing gifts

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May 19


To Greg Forster and his article on separating marriage from the state because of society's new view of marriage. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition's website.


To me, it seems that the first front in the battle over marriage is status of our own marriages and those of our friends. But something has to be added when talking about the battle over marriage in the state. What needs to be added is that we live in a kind of democracy. Democracies can be  measured by the effectiveness that democratic procedures have in controlling the gov't and they can be measured by the degree to which the country belongs to all of the law biding citizens. So once we start using legislation to prohibit same-sex marriage and that is done for religious reasons, we are telling those outside our group that the country belongs more to us than to others.

But if we defend the equality of homosexuals while preaching the Gospel, won't we be fighting the battle over marriage while preserving/enhancing our democracy?

I hate commenting on this so much but it seems that we conservative Christians are obsessed with the subject and what others are doing behind closed doors.

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May 20


To R.R. Reno and his blogpost on the Nationalism. This appeared in the First Things blog.


Are we forgetting American nationalism and how we call it patriotism? True, our nationalism does not revolve around ethnicity and there is a dispute as to whether it is to revolve around religion. We should note that nationalism is merely an instance of something more abstract. What is more abstract is that people tend to congregate in groups for obtaining significance and security. And that is a human trend. Where it becomes a problem is when loyalty to that group whether it be national identity, ethnicity, religion, race, or whatever, trumps commitment to principle. That is one kind of nationalism.

Another kind of nationalism involves group ownership of nationally located,  jointly needed resources. Here, we are talking more about self-sovereignty than compromise of principle. And this is where we should favor nationalism over the control of resources by financial elites. And we should note that the apartheid congregation of elites is based on the same principles of group identity that nationalism is based on. That is it is based on a search for significance and security, as stated above.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For May 14, 2014

May 7

To Greg Forster and his blogpost on hating the Bourgeoisie. This appeared on the First Things blog.


What is the point of creating a buffer class? Is it so that one class can continue to live in an economic apartheid of his/her own choosing while the other is forced to sing, "Que sera, sera"? This only transfers to the wealthy and the poor what has been true about the powerful and the weak: That one does as they wish while the other endures what they must.

If we know that human nature, which includes all people, has a problem with greed, then should we have adopted an economic system that encourages greed because it claims to have the tools to make the necessary corrections for its abuse? For this is how the free market is sold. Since the market is self-correcting, then one can indulge in self-interest without any worry or pangs of conscience. And what becomes true of the market is what Marx observed about the Bourgeoisie, that all human connections become based in "naked self-interest." And when all 3 classes become infected with this ethic, then instead of 2 classes at war with each other, we have 3.

We should also note the psychological problem that comes with reducing all interest to self-interest. The problem is that we end up with a reduced thinking capacity because we can only exercise 2-dimensional,  all-or-nothing thinking. In contrast, the more we have to consider the interests and welfare of others, the more complex, and thus expanded, our thinking becomes.

So again, if greed is a problem, is it logical to cleave to a system that tells its participants to embrace greed because it has the capacity to make the necessary corrections? Or will such a system only increase the greed in all existing classes?

One other point, doesn't our current system place a higher value on wealth than work? That is that work is the price of admission to gaining wealth but once one has paid the price, one can live off the work of others and thus we have the rich shareholders. And one of the perks of being that rich is that one can be represented by purchased lawmakers whose legislation creates an economic apartheid.

I don't see how the existence of the middle class can mediate between the classes with the above mentioned values. Rather, the solution is to have an economic rights movement much like we saw in the  Civil Rights movement. Such a movement would constantly invite those who oppress to join the oppressed but until that time comes, controls from our Democracy could be used to prevent the spirit of gradualism from preventing any change at all. And one of the tasks of this economic rights movement would be to usher in a different economic system that does not sell us a bill of goods regarding greed.

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May 8


To Dale Coulter and his blogpost on the bourgeois which followed up on Forster's blogpost. This appeared in the First Things blog.


First, like Socialism, Capitalism cannot be spoken of as a monolith. From after WWII to the mid seventies, we saw the Bretton-Woods system which allowed countries to control currency and flow of capital. After that time, we saw neoliberal Capitalism gradually come into play where businesses sought freedom from the chains of social responsibilities and more latitude with less gov't oversight over how they conducted their affairs. In addition, neoliberal capitalism saw the end of countries having control over their currency and the flow of capital. In both periods, you saw certain players from the private sector benefit from State Capitalism--that is where businesses were either kept alive or thrived due to gov't contracts or the results of gov't research such as in the hi-tech industry.

We should note that in the current state-capitalism arrangement, many corporations are using gov't assistance programs to subsidize their payrolls while trying to avoid paying taxes. In addition, state-capitalism as seen in the military industrial complex but also in pharmaceutical companies and gov't health programs to ensure an adequate customer base with profitable prices and are facilitating a transfer of wealth from the public sector to the private sector. This was also seen in the bailout programs for financial institutions  that fraudulently sold defective financial products and then got very low interest loans to recover from the failure of their activities. BTW, the private sector made sure that the gov't didn't significantly change the rules of the game that would enable another collapse.

And so what should we make of the sentence, "Capitalism, at its best, unleashes the creative impulse commensurate with human freedom" when the private sector elites are so dependent on the gov't for their success in the first place? In addition, the freedom spoken of here is individual freedom, the kind of freedom that allows the individual to excel but sometimes at the expense of one or more communities. We should note that not only do we have individual liberty to maintain, we have corporate (nonbusiness) liberty, which is demonstrated in a democratic society, to maintain. The latter allows society to determine how we will live with each other. Understanding that there is an inverse relationship betweenindividual liberty and   corporate (nonbusiness) liberty, we should seek a balance between the two but that is precisely what is being prohibited by today's neoliberal Capitalism. For its adherents cry tyranny and ask where is individual liberty should Society use democracy to place limits what the individual business, corporation, or financial institution can do.

So where is the middle class person who mediates between the upper class bourgeoisie and the poor? Is he/she there to make life endurable for the poor while the rich find their own Galt's Gulch? What the middle class is being told is to support the rich in their attempts to free themselves from whatever social responsibilities they have left because their battle is also the battle of the Middle Class. At the same time, the  Middle Class is suffering because of this increased individual liberty for the rich. First, the Middle Class jobs are disappearing either because the jobs vanish or the pay does. Second, the tax burden is being shifted from corporations and the rich to the Middle Class--please remember the French Revolution here. This results in less public services for the Middle Class as well as a crumbling infrastructure. It also causes some in the Middle Class to treat the poor the way that the rich have treated them. Third, demands by the rich limit how some in the Middle Class do their jobs. For example, some franchise owners are being squeezed by the demands that corporate shareholders place on them through their representatives.

Finally, what is meant by the term "free markets?" What is meant is that big businesses have more latitude and less social responsibilities in how they conduct business. And sometimes, free markets are forced on nations by those who have developed their own comparative advantage.

I don't believe in denouncing anyone because we all have faults. But we need to take an honest look at the system in which we live and hail as being free and the producer of wealth. And if the above does not make us question our current system, our growing wealth disparity and the immunity to criminal charges enjoyed by private sector elites should.

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May 10

To Frank's comment on a blogpost commemorating Churchill's announcement about the end of the war in Europe. His comment asked where certain qualities like patriotism, leadership, civilization, and resolve were. This appeared on the Heidelblog.



Frank,
    Sometimes leadership is nothing more than authoritarianism, patriotism becomes tribalism, and civilization glorifies privilege while hiding exploitation. So what does resolve become when any of those three are true?

    To give an example, after we fought so hard and lost so much to free Europe, we helped the French as they tried to recolonize Vietnam.

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To Sarah Stanley and her blogpost against government expansion. This appeared on the Acton blog.


What the Conservatives often miss about State power is this, it is not the only issue. What is another just as important issue is the degree of citizen participation in the state. For as long as I lived, what Americans want is a laissez-faire relationship with the government. They want to elect officials every x number of years and then be able to go on with their lives without having to think about or have to petition their government for anything. If the government demanded citizen attention outside of the elections, then it was because it had misbehaved. I should note that such a view shows that I grew up in the midst of Middle Class privilege.

But the tradeoff we experience on such a laissez-faire relationship with government is that government is viewed more as alien entity. Such is not a government of the people but a government of a necessary evil.

The trouble with such a view of government is that is ignorant of others, particularly those with or who are seeking wealth, who know what a valuable resource government can be in helping them gain wealth and power. The conservative response to this is to limit the size of government so as to control the damage it can cause. But those with wealth know that they can also gain power in the face of an impotent government, which can be characteristic of small government, as much as they can when government is big enough to be a resource. And this is what the conservative approach to limiting government in the name of freedom never addresses.

In any form of democracy, we have two kinds of liberties: individual and corporate or societal. The former concerns what we can do as individuals and the latter is concerned with how we as a society wish to live with each other. Since there is an inverse relationship between these two kinds of liberty, we need to hold them in balance. What Conservatives fail to realize is that the more we take an all-or-nothing approach to individual liberty, the more we court tyranny. The more we stress individual liberty, the more we limit corporate liberty which democracy enables. The more we limit democracy, the more we empower elites whose concern is to either maintain or improve their current status. Thus, without a proper balance between individual and corporate liberty, we court tyranny--and there goes your liberty.

What enables corporate liberty is citizen participation in the government. Such participation prevents government from becoming an alien power. And without that participation, the more those who financially excel in society will have opportunity to limit our freedom if the government doesn't. So it isn't government expansion that is the only issue.

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May 13

To Jonathan Witt and his blogpost on Tolkien and war. This appeared on the Acton blog.


What we should note here is that according to the Just War Theory, we might not have gotten involved in some of the post WW II intervention that we did. Why? The civilian casualty rate. That Cuban civilians were targeted by the US right after the revolution and up to the Bay of Pigs.  That civilian casualties soared during Vietnam and why not with how we conducted bombings. Civilians again became targets by the people we sponsored in Central America during the 80s as was the case in Afghanistan. And what about the civilian casualties from our two wars with Iraq. The first was caused by the combination of the aftermath of attacks on the infrastructure along with sanctions, and the second because that is where the fight was. And before closing the book on Iraq, we should remember that we supported and armed the leader we eventually fought.  If we went by the Just War Theory, would we have done much of what we did since WWII especially with the motivations we acted on?

We might also want to note how the Just War Theory was written before the development of WMDs. And even before proliferation became a foreseeable inevitability, the Russell-Einstein Manifesto told us that, without a doubt, we had to choose between war and existence. And now that proliferation is an inevitability, how much more true is that choice today?

Most wars are fought for avarice and ambition, something patriotism blinds from seeing when looking in the mirror. So perhaps that song War, What Is It Good For  has a message we need to hear more than reading Tolkien.

The Problems Christians Have With Responding To The World's Needs

Greg Forster just contributed an article called The Radical Christian Approach To Poverty And Riches to The Gospel Coalition's blog. The approach to wealth and poverty which Forster recommends is that of attitude change. He charges the rich with 'arrogance' and the poor with 'envy.' He wants the rich and poor to regard each other as equals. He wants the rich to donate to the poor as part of their stewardship and he wants the poor to be content and realize that they have enough to be stewards of before God. He wants a healing of the relationship between the rich and the poor so that no partiality is shown to either. His only other comment is to speak against massive redistribution. Unfortunately, if all of those involved do as he recommends, there will be no transition of those who are poor from poverty. Thus, one has to guess whether the title of his article was written tongue-in-cheek.

Are there good things in this post? Certainly. First, all of us need to look to the Scriptures for an attitude check. Riches do not justify arrogance while poverty does not justify envy. Second, Forster acknowledges the great wealth disparity that exists during our time. Third, our dignity is not found in our wealth but in being made in God's image and our stewardship. Fourth, Forster wants a healed relationship between the rich and the poor.

But there are glaring errors and omissions as well. The title suggests that the article addresses wealth and poverty in society. It does not. Rather, it addresses wealth and poverty among Christians. Forster doesn't talk about how we should react to nonChristians' struggle with poverty in society. Rather, Forster wants everybody to take the Christian approach to their lot in life. Thus, Forster has nothing to say to nonChristians who suffer through poverty but to believe in Christ so that one can adopt the proper attitude.

The trouble with addressing poverty by repeating Biblical instructions given to the Church is that it fails to recognize the differences that exist between society in general and the Church. The Church is a voluntary organization consisting of those who believe in Christ. Now unless Forster believes that society must be made up of Christians only, how is telling nonChristians who are poor to take up the task given to Christians only? That task is to endure the suffering of injustice to bring glory to God. 

Another trouble with Forster's article is that the only changes he calls for are attitude changes which are to result in behavioral changes. Both the rich and the poor are to be stewards of what God has given them. The rich are not to be arrogant but are to be 'generous' and serve those in need while the poor should work to become economically independent. As part of a larger solution, such attitudes and actions are good. But to reduce the solution to poverty to changing attitudes about work and possessions is overly simplistic.

First, Forster's reductionism only recognizes the responsibility of the individual in how one should react to poverty. Thus, his only solution to poverty is to tell the rich and the poor to shape up. What this ignores is society's corporate responsibility for poverty. In other words, the political and economic systems which society embraces also share some of the blame for our problems with poverty. This is why Martin Luther King said that it is insufficient to address poverty by merely donating money to those in need, we must also examine, and possibly change, the system that puts so many in need. According to King, society has a significant responsibility, and that means those of us living in society have a collective responsibility, to help those in need.

If we look at Jeremiah 22, we see the prophet comparing the responses of 2 different king to the poor. One of the kings, Shallum, ignored the poor to increase his wealth and glory. Read about Josiah's righteous response to the poor in verse 16.

He [Josiah] pled the cause of the afflicted and needy; Then it went well.  Is not that what is means to know Me? Declares the Lord.

Here, the king is charged with a responsibility defend and help those in need. The modern day translation of the Old Testament king here is THE GOVERNMENT. In fact, the Old Testament constantly warns us about Israel's two greatest sins: idolatry and the neglect and oppression of the vulnerable and needy. 

But lest we think that the above is just a religious charge, we need to consider what our troops were commanded to do to German citizens who lived near Hitler's death camps. Our troops were commanded to force the German citizens who live under Nazi rule to tour the camps and see both the dead those who barely survived so they could confront their personal and corporate responsibility for the Holocaust. With wealth disparity increasing, where are the troops who would make us see, up close and personal, how we have failed in our corporate responsibility as a society to those in need? Please note that there  I am not equating the suffering of the victims of the holocaust with the poor of our nation. Certainly the suffering during the Holocaust was horribly beyond the pale. But I am equating the social responsibility that the Germans had then to the victims of the system their society embraced with what we have now toward the victims of the system our society embraces. Individual responsibility plays a role in creating and maintaining poverty; but so does corporate responsibility as well.

This partially leads to the final problem with Forster's article. The alternatives that he provides to our current system are highly flawed and designed to support the status quo. One of Forster's alternatives is to say we could hate wealth, but then he shows that that is not biblical. He then says that we could embrace a massive redistribution of wealth; but he claims that such is not justified. In all of this, our current economic system is receiving a double coat of white paint to hide its dirt and flaws. 

In addition, Forster's comments here show a lack of awareness of both the system and the alternatives. Our current economy is gradually embracing neoliberal capitalism. Such an economy was militarily forced down the throats of many countries so that freedom and democracy were decimated. In the comments, I provided three examples of where this occurred, it occurred in Chile in '73, Argentina in '76, and Russia in the 1990s under Yeltsin, and Forster's response showed that he did not know about any of these situations. His claim was that democracy and free markets go hand-in-hand.

We could summarize Forster's inadequate response to poverty in this article by noting that it typifies the American Conservative Christian response to most of the world's crises. The American Conservative Christian response to the world's problems are many times wholly inadequate because of our self-absorption and our resulting lack of awareness of the world outside of our Christian faith.