Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For August 9, 2023

July 21

To Heidelblog and Helen Joyce for the segment of her talk/interview on how parents who supported gender affirming care for a child has to live with the guilt of supporting the mutilation of their child. This was posted on Heidelblog.

We Christians would like to think that all of the gender dysphoria has a simple explanation that blames social pressure. And thus we ignore what medical science says as well as how the majority of people who have transitioned find relief through gender affirming care. 

Yes, there are those who regret their decision to transition. But from what I've seen, those people are in the vast minority. 

We need to realize that other civilizations have seen gender dysphoria before we did. Some Native American tribes have recognized up to 5 different genders and they celebrated those who were not cisgendered.

I am not saying that transitioning is right. But we simply don't know all of the causes for gender dysphoria and the desire of some to transition. And until then, yes, we stay with what the Bible says while not speaking arrogantly as if we always know why a person has taken measures to transition.

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To Heidelblog and Joe Carter for the portion of Carter's article that complains about how Pride Day is becoming a religious holiday and that  it is against the Gospel to recognize the normalization of homosexuality and transgenderism in society. This article was posted in Heidelblog.

Joe Carter's full article can be found at:

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/lgbt-pride-month-became-religious-holiday/

We need to make a distinction between how our nation's Founding Fathers defined religion from how many of us religiously conservative Christians who are also Culture War warriors or veterans of it are defining religion. With the former group, only the recognition and veneration of a superior supernatural being is a religion. With the latter group, any commitment that exceeds one's commitment to God is a religion.  And though each use of the word has a context that justifies its definition, when referring to society and life outside the Church, the second definition can be seen as manipulative.

Yes, we see a lot of Pride demonstrations now that we didn't before. And why shouldn't we see them considering how the LGBT community was oppressed and marginalized for centuries in this nation. But their suffering doesn't phase many of us religiously conservative Christians because we think that they deserve such marginalization because of their sins. Consider the following Joe Carter quote from the part of his article that was not cited above:

'Because the LGBT agenda of normalizing homosexuality and transgenderism conflicts with Christianity (at least in its non-apostate forms), to “eliminate prejudice” requires anathematizing the beliefs of Bible-believing Christians. In the future the celebration of LGBT views will likely be compelled. But for now, every American is simply required to choose a side.'

The question I have for Carter is this: Is the normalization of homosexuality and transgenderism in society any different from the normalization of other religions in our society? After all, other religions are blatantly anti-Christian because they preach another gospel. But does that mean that it is our Christian duty to demand that society oppress and marginalize homosexuals and the transgendered? If the answer to that question is a 'yes,' then why shouldn't we also do away with the Establishment Clause from the 1st Amendment. If the answer is 'no,' then why is it our Christian duty to convince society to oppress and marginalize the LGBT community? Why is it that we can consider the following of false religions as being normal in society while objecting to the normalization of homosexuality and transgenderism  in society?

Former groups that were or are still marginalized in society, such as women and people of color, were so treated  possibly because our government was following Aristotle's lead on who qualifies as a citizen. If we promote the oppression and marginalization of the LGBT community in society, are we saying that such people do not have the capability to be counted act as citizens? Or are we demanding that society excommunicate the LGBT community from public life?

If we use the fact that homosexuality and transgenderism are unnatural, then we might consider that  same-sex behavior (SSB) has been observed in around 1,500 species of animals. We might also do well by reading  how medical science is observing possible physical causes for gender dysphoria in people. Here we might ask if nature is giving some people mixed messages.

There is no doubt that the LGBT community has many of us religiously conservative Christians spooked to the extent that we are now phobic indicated by how we are trying to get society to alleviate our fears by disappearing that community. Is that what the Scriptures demand when preaching the Gospel?

Why must the necessary Christian calling on the LGBT community to repent include seeking to oppress and marginalize that community in society? Again, we don't treat those from other religions that way.

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The following comment might be an exception to the rule in that the blog in which this comment was  blocked may not be a conservative blog. 

Around July 30

To Talley and her comment that strongly disagreed with my comparing the debate between socialism/communism and Capitalism to her egalitarian view of the sexes vs gender role theology. In my comment she is objecting to, I took a Martin Luther King Jr. approach to the communism vs capitalism debate by noting that both sides have strengths and weaknesses and thus we should seek to blend the two. Talley believes that there nothing redeemable in any version of gender role theology. This appeared in a discussion that followed her article that opposed Gender Role Theology. She claimed that it was part of a slippery slope to LGBTQ+. This article appearsd in her blog Flesh Of My Flesh: Reflections On Gender, Sexuality, Singleness, And Marriage This blog is hosted by Patheos. Some of my comments in response to the article are still there. It would be helpful to read those comments to get a good gist of the conversation

Blog article can be found at:

    https://www.patheos.com/blogs/fleshofmyflesh/2023/07/gender-role-theology-a-slippery-slope-to-lgbtq/

The comment I am responding to can be found at:

    https://www.patheos.com/blogs/fleshofmyflesh/2023/07/gender-role-theology-a-slippery-slope-to-lgbtq/#comment-6243389410

Talley,

Let’s take a look at the previous biblical points. The Bible presents the relationship between Christ and the Church as a model for the relationship between a husband and a wife. At the same time Galatians says that there is no difference between male and female. And the context of that passage in Galatians tells us where there is no difference. And so I must apply both sets of Scriptures. And so the New Testament presents both truths and does not consider them to be contradictory.

How is gender role theory comparable to racism? Perhaps for some forms and applications of gender role theory, that is the case. And thus that some points can be made in the comparison. But there is a significant difference between the sexes that does not exist between races. And thus, how much you can use a comparison between the two to establish your point is very limited.

I understand that the New Testament was used to support slavery. And yet Paul gives mixed messages about slavery because he condemns those who traffic slaves, if memory serves. In addition, Paul was working with the current economy of his time with a deep concern for how the behavior of slaves can affect the reputation of the Gospel.

But when it comes to using the relationship between Christ and the Church to illustrate the relationship between the husband and the wife, he is stating something new; he isn’t accommodating something that was part of the status quo. So again, the comparison between misusing the Scriptures to support slavery and using the Scriptures to support every form of gender role theory is problematic.

I am not saying that everything that is said in evangelical patriarchy is right. But the New Testament makes distinctions between men and women in the home and the Church, but not in society, while stating that men and women are equal and dependent on each other.

But if we take an all-or-nothing thinking approach, neither your side nor the side of evangelical patriarchy has anything to learn from each other. And here, remember the Martin Luther King Jr. quote that I provided. And I believe, that taking an all-or-nothing thinking approach is the result of the reductionism that is at the base of this portion of your theology. That if we are equal, there can be no differences in roles between the two sexes in the context in which the New Testament teaches it. When we absolutize a principle as WE understand it, we put ourselves into the position of telling God what He can and cannot say.

People can misinterpret the Scriptures and their errors can lead to abuse. People can misapply the Scriptures to the same end. But it is post modernism that says if an idea can be used to abuse others, the idea must be false. And so I am not interested in how people can find ways to interpret the Scriptures out of a post modern concern.; I am interested in what the Scriptures say for themselves—I hasten to add that I sometimes resist what the Scriptures say. And those very same Scriptures address how they are misused. And so I am concerned about being guided by the Scriptures so that I neither abuse nor dehumanize others. After all, I lean toward Marx and Socialism. And I am also concerned with avoiding the absolutizing of some human understanding of a principle or rule that would have me dictate to God what He can and cannot say.

BTW, my reading list is full and so if I get to look your references up, I will.

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August 2

To Nicholas Batzig and heidelblog for the post that quotes part of Batzig's blog article on how wise pastors learn from the past great theologians. 

Nicholas Batzig's full article can be found at: 

    https://www.feedingonchrist.com/blog/post/the-shoulders-of-giants-the-counsel-of-the-wise

Wise people do learn from the past, but they tend to do so without becoming traditionalists. Why? It is because traditionalists are the mirror image of narcissists. Both extoll their favorite time periods to or nearly to the point of believing that those in their favorite time period have everything to teach those from other time periods and nothing to learn from them--to borrow and adapt the phraseology of a Martin Luther King Jr. statement. For while traditionalists favor selected time periods of the past to irreverently praise, narcissist choose the present.

Yes, we can and should learn from Augustine through to Luther and Calvin through to the Westminster Devines with the latter being neither a college nor pro sports team. But do we presume that Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and the Devines have nothing to learn from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King Jr., James Cone, William Barber, Noam Chomsky, Howard Inn, Critical Theory, and CRT? Note that some in that list are not Christians but have important things to say about society and one's nation. Would Jonathan Edwards and J. Gresham Machen, both of whom struggled with harboring personal racial  prejudice, have benefited from reading MLK, James Cone, and CRT? 

Mark 7:1ff speaks to both traditionalists and narcissists. It does so because of how both groups so elevate their favorite time periods. And that is just what the Pharisees whom Jesus confronted did. They elevated their traditions so high that their traditions became substitutes for God's Word.

Wise people do learn from the past; but they also learn from the present. For if we don't learn from both, we put ourselves at risks of becoming either traditionalists or narcissists.

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Around Aug 1

To NorrinRadd and her comment to me (you will have to find the comment once you access the article, her comment begins with the word 'AFAIF.' She objected to my comment on egalitarianism vs gender role theology because I am arguing that equality between the sexes and gender role theology do not necessarily contradict each other. The article in which our comments our posted and NorrinRadd herself disagree with my claim. This comment was posted in the article Gender Role Theology: A Slippery Slope to LGBTQ+. That article was posted on the Flesh Of My Flesh: Reflections On Gender, Sexuality, Singleness, And Marriage blog hosted by Patheos.

The article involved can be found at:

    https://www.patheos.com/blogs/fleshofmyflesh/2023/07/gender-role-theology-a-slippery-slope-to-lgbtq/

NorrinRadd,

You're correct that it is bookended by mutuality. And that is my point! That the two do not contradict each other in God's Word. It is only when we absolutize the relationship between Christ and the Church as a model for marriage or we absolutize mutuality and equality that we end up with reductionism. To include both is not reductionistic. To overshadow either one by the other is to be reductionistic.

In addition, Christ is our Savior, but in this context, submission is one of the subjects. Sacrifice, which I did not focus on, is also one of the subjects. Mutual dependence, which is something I already mentioned, is another realization.

So you can try to say to me that I am reductionistic, but you would have to be specific here since I am trying to put equality and imitating the relationship between Christ and the Church in which submission is explicitly mentioned on equal footing. Talley, for understandable reasons, is saying that submission, which is part of gender role theology, can't be part of the mix.

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Around August 7

To William Allen and his article that asks for the one word that defines the national character of the U.S. He suggested that initially that word was the word 'equality.' His article was posted in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

It seems that the national character of the U.S. is hiding in plain sight from the writer. Only we should realize, unlike Allen did, that our national character has not changed since our nation's allegedly idyllic beginnings. That word is 'intolerance.'

Here we should note that equality has never been the central motif of public opinion. How could it be when slavery was followed by Jim Crow and continued systemic racism while Native Americans were ethnically cleansed from the land and other ethnic groups were exploited for their labor. And that does not include how women were subjugated by men. Even the Kim Davis case required Federal court intervention to remedy the intolerance she was showing to 2 homosexuals who desired to get married.

Part of the intolerance is a, perhaps almost, phobic fear of the lack of conformity. And that existed in the beginning, when the differences were racially determined, to now, when the differences are more ideologically defined and/or by membership to the cult of a self-described Messianic figure. Our authoritarian responses to those who show dissent reveal both our intolerance and the fear that lurks beneath the surface of our intolerance.

Our national character always has been, currently is, and will possibly be the cause of our demise in the future, if the environment or war don't get us first, defined by our fear-driven intolerance of others. 

Was The Invasion Of The Capitol Just A Hopeless Gesture?

 Joe Carter (click here for brief bio, Carter's is the 2nd one), has written an article on the insurrectionists who invaded the Capitol on January 6. And though he acknowledges that those who invaded the Capitol consisted of multiple groups, Carter states that they all had the same reason for acting the way they did (click here for the article).

In describing that reason, Carter described a Vietnam anti-war protester who, despite knowing that his method of protesting could hurt the cause, felt compelled to participate in a very disruptive manner. The reason for the disruptive manner of protest was so that he would feel better about himself. In essence he was virtue signaling. To Carter, this was an example of what has been called a 'fantasy ideology' where one adopts a purpose or method of advancing one's own or a group's collective fantasy. And here the fantasy being carried out by the war protester in the example was that he was demonstrating that he was on the right side of history, even if what he was virtue signaling.

In terms of how Carter uses the concept, the protest method used by the man in the illustration, as well as the people who invaded the Capitol was that it was a meaningless attempt at doing something dramatic to show their own righteousness.

I have problems with Carter's analysis but let's first acknowledge what I can fully agree with. Carter is critical of those who further the election fraud narrative. To Carter, some know that they are promoting a lie about election fraud. Also, Carter rightly criticizes the churches for tolerating the conspiracy theories and lies about the election. And such points are very important to make because many people, especially fellow Christians, are firmly convinced of those lies and conspiracies.

But where I feel Carter's analysis needs correction is in his reducing the motive or perception of those protesters of why they invaded the Capitol and acted the way they did. Carter acknowledges that there are multiple groups who participated in that invasion. And if there were multiple gruops who participated, then surely there can be multiple motives and perceptions of how effective such a protest can be than to say that they participated in a fantasy ideology.

In that crowd there were QAnon people, people who protested the alleged stealing of the election, and people who thought they were stopping the advancement of socialism--something Carter is very critical and has an overly simplistic view of. Did all those participants believe that they were hurting the cause by invading the Capitol but did so to show their own personal or group false agenda? To answer that question, we might want to divide the participants of that invasion into two groups: the foot soldiers and the leadership.

The foot soldiers carried out the invasion. Here we should note that there were a variety of foot soldiers who stepped into the Capitol. There were those who acted like tourists, those who participated juvenile vandalism, those who committed significant damage to parts of the building, and those who were violent or called for violence against others. Some who entered the Capitol were armed with weapons. And there was one thing that was clear, with how the violent group was prepared, it appears that they went in there with a limited mission.

As for the leaders, including Donald Trump, it seems that what they wanted the foot soldiers to accomplish was to intimate Congress and the Vice President out of accepting the election results. In fact, a few of those foot soldiers wanted to do more than just intimidate Congress and the Vice President, they wanted to hurt or kill them. 

This attempt to undo the election might have been a long shot, but it wasn't a fantasy to those leaders who were imploring the foot soldiers to be strong, to undergo 'trial by combat,' and to 'kick ass.'

In addition, threats of greater violence in the future, especially by some white supremacist groups, indicate that some were initiating a war with their own specific objectives. One objective I've heard white supremacists express is that they want their own nation. And to get that, contiguous states would have to secede from the Union. Considering that some Texas state politicians are advancing that idea for Texas, then I wouldn't attribute the invasion of the Capitol to just a single cause or fantasy. All of that demonstrates why Carter's analysis is overly simplistic.

I am happy with Carter's rejection of the invasion of the Capitol, the election fraud lies used to spur the invasion force, and am happy with his criticism of the churches for not taking a stand against the lies that some of their own members have eagerly believe. But what happened on January 6 could be pointing to an emerging menace that is far more significant than fantasy. And if we factor in how civil unrest has historically been used in the past, especially by our own country, to produce regime change, we might be dealing with something far more dangerous than doomed attempts to advancing a fantasy or people trying to prove themselves to both themselves and others.

 

 

Referneces

1. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/fantasy-ideology-american-insurrectionists/
2. https://www.phc.edu/journalism-faculty
   see second person
   

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For July 24, 2019

July 17

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that quotes a portion of a Chris Gordon article that compares the use of the rainbow by the LGBT community with that used by God after God delivered Noah from the flood. In that article, Gordon seems to lament over the legalization of same-sex marriage as well as the rejection of God’s Word shown in their sexual preferences. This appeared in Heidelblog.

Chris Gordon’s article:  https://www.agradio.org/what-the-gay-marriage-movement-should-know-about-gods-rainbow.html

The writer of the article, Chris Gordon, talks about the Christian weeping over how people are rejecting what God has said about marriage in the last part of his article. But is there only one kind of sin that Christians should weep over here?

Shouldn't Christians also weep over any society that seeks to punish the LGBT community because of their sexual sins? After all, we American Christians would easily weep over the denial of religious freedom for those who worship false gods. Why should we not also weep when those in the LGBT community are punished by society rather than treated as equals. Wanting the LGBT community to be treated as equals in society is not more an endorsement of their sexual sins than wanting those who follow other religions to be treated equal in society an endorsement of their false gods.

Yes, we Christians need to share the Gospel and what God says about human sexuality with the LGBT community. And we need to do that in love. But we are not showing love when we speak kindly to them while demanding that society must marginalize them.



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July 23

To Joe Carter and the video he posted in a blogpost that talks of the emerging crisis from our ever growing national deficit and debt. This appeared in the Acton blog.

The bias of the video presentation is beyond being disingenuous. Claiming that self-funded programs like Social Security and Medicare contribute to the debt is lying. The only way that Social Security contributes to the debt is for the fund to demand that the federal gov't pay back what it has borrowed from the fund.

In addition, we might want to note that defense spending in spread through several budgets including the DOD  budget, Treasury budget, and the DOE and has been approaching or exceeding $1 trillion for a while. We should also note that there are corporations that receive more in gov't subsidies than they pay in federal taxes and those that pay no taxes at all. We could also include how the pharmaceutical industry exploits Medicare spending. And we could go on.

We could raise taxes on corporations but we are threatened with the loss of jobs when that option is considered. Why? Because we live in a shareholder economy where business's primary interest is to feed the greed of the shareholders. Traditionally speaking, the definition for the term 'stakeholder' was that all who are impacted by a business serve as stakeholders for that business. But today's working definition of the the term 'stakeholder' has become synonymous with the word 'shareholder.' It isn't that some businesses don't recognize other stakeholders in addition to shareholders. It is that the predominant business ethic is to conflate the definitions of the two words. And such an ethic helps drive the every growing wealth disparity and shifting tax burden that exist in our nation.

What really drives our deficit today is that too many corporations see the public fund as something to receive from than to give to. And so whether it is through the military industrial complex, the prison industrial complex, pharmaceutical companies exploiting medicare, and so on, too many big corporations are acting as parasites until there is nothing left to gain. And we might want to inform those who want to cut social safety nets that austerity programs and an ever growing wealth disparity in a nation hinders economic growth. That is according to the IMF.




 

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For May 15, 2019

May 14

To Joe Carter and his blogpost on tyranny and how younger people have forgotten about the tyranny of Communist regimes. His comments about that were made in reviewing a book by Yale professor Timothy Snyder. This appeared in the Acton blog.

Carter rarely provides a balanced view of an issue. And he fails to disappoint here. For in talking about tyranny, Carter not only presents a brief accounting of communist tyranny, he avoids mentioning the context of communist tyranny or the tyranny that has sprung in Capitalist economic systems.

If we want to talk about Soviet Union Communism, then we need to mention the tyranny of the Tzars which preceded the Russian Revolution. We also need to remember the strong criticisms that were made by fellow Marxists of Lenin's hijacking of the Russian Revolution. If we want to talk about the repression of people that is so much a part of Cuba's political system, we need to remember not just the US supported but corrupt and tyrannical Batista regime that preceded Castro's revolution, we also need to mention the American military attacks on civilian targets that pushed Castro into the arms of Khrushchev and the constant American attempts to assassinate Castro. If we want to talk about Nicaragua and the Sandinistas, we must first talk about the US supported tyrannical Somoza regime and the US supported terrorism that took place after the Sandinistas took power.

There are exceptions. The Nicaragua revolution didn't lead to tyranny in the 1980s despite its beginnings. In fact, it led to a democracy. And Chavez's rising to power was not the result of a revolution against tyranny. But his reign not only repeated the same economic mistakes made by previous Venezuelan regimes, he never followed through on the first and most vital tenet of Marxist Socialism--the implementation of a proletariat dictatorship. That dictatorship includes democratic processes but those processes are restricted to the proletariat.

Nor does Carter mention how left-leaning regimes that were arising from democratic processes were overthrown and replaced with dictators who were friendly to American business interests. In fact, before Cuba's Batista became the corrupt tyrant he ended up being, when he initiated workers' rights in Cuba, the US would try to correct him.

Finally, Carter fails to recognize the success of the most Marxist government in the world. For if redistributing power to the proletariat is the first and foundational tenet of Marxism, then Germany's codetermination laws where democratically elected workers are made members of a business's executive board qualifies as being the most Marxist system. Its codetermination laws have not produced a proletariat dictatorship, and yet by redistributing some power to the proletariat, Germany's system is perhaps the closest attempt we have ever seen of Marxist Socialism.

Carter's view of tyranny suffers from partial blindness. For he either is unable or refuses to see the tyranny that has been promoted by his own side, his own tribe. And he fails to see context in the tyrannies he rightfully mentions.

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To Joe Carter and his article on how we benefit from Billionaires. The family that owns Walmart is focused on in making that case. This was published in the Acton blog.

There are two problems with Carter's article here. The first problem rests with the incomplete data on Walmart provided by his source material (see https://mises.org/wire/billionaires-arent-quite-rich-we-think-they-are ). For as the writer of that article relied solely on Walmart's own report, other information provides disturbing or contradictory information.

The disturbing information not included by the report used by the article referenced is the actual state of Walmart Employees. For one thing, Walmart relies on anywhere between $5 to $7 Billion of government assistance for low-wage employees to subsidize its payroll. (see http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/walmart-government-subsidies-study#51652 ). We should also note that around half of its workforce consists of part-time workers whereas the average percentage of part-time workers in the the kind of business Walmart is involved is 30% (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-walmart-workers-idUSKCN1IQ295 ).

In addition, there seems to be some misinformation that comes from the sources that the referred article used. For it was reported in the article Carter cited that the family that owns the majority of shares of Walmart only earned 0.02% (or 0.0002 *) of the Walmart's 2018 $514 Billion dollars in sales. But other sources report a far greater share going to the family that owns it. For according to the article, the family that owns Walmart would have garnered only 0.0002 * $514,000,000,000 in sales which equals $102,800,000. However with the NASDAQ report showing that the dividend payment for 2018 was around $2.08 per share and with Walmart's proxy statement reporting that the family owning Walmart owns 1,508,965,874 shares, that family's cut from Walmart in shares alone is over $3 Billion (see https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/02/19/does-walton-family-earn-more-minute-than-walmart-workers-year/?utm_term=.0eb7f8a63db1 ). And that doesn't include the family's other sources of income from Walmart which puts their earnings between $3-$5 Billion for one year (see https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-19/walton-family-fortune-increases-3-3-billion-on-walmart-earnings ).

The problem with Carter's source is that it provided a one-sided research regarding the income and welfare of Walmart's workers as well as easily disputable claims on the cut that the family that owns Walmart receives.

But there is a second problem with Carter's article. That is a problem with consistency. We are told time and again by conservatives like Joe Carter that the consolidation of power is dangerous for the rest of us. Here, Carter and others refer to the consolidation of government power. But what about the consolidation of power in the private sector? Isn't the consolidation of power there just as threatening? After all, in a capitalist economy that claims that relies on democratic processes, power follows wealth. And thus the consolidation of wealth leads to the consolidation of power--even political power in the private sector. And if we need any more verification of that point, then realize that some have already reclassified America as an oligarchy (see https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746 ).




 

Comments Which Conservatives Block from Their Blogs For May 8, 2019

May 4

To Joe Carter and his blogpost criticizing Millennials for preferring to live in a Socialist or Communist nation despite the history of certain nations. This appeared in the Acton blog.

2 points should be made here. Just as Millennials might prefer to live in a Socialist or even Communist nation because they don't know what one is from experience, neither do conservative critics of Marxism, Socialism, and Communism. That fact that the majority of Millennials prefer a kind a nation in which they have never lived to a Capitalist nation in which they live is very telling. That preference is, in and of itself, a huge indictment on Capitalism and a significant indicator that Capitalism has failed them. And the details of their disillusionment with Capitalism should be looked into.

But Conservative apologists would rather divert everyone's attention to their view of Marxism, Socialism, and Communism--which many, not all, Conservatives tend to blend together in the forms of the Soviet Union, Red China, Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela. They opportunistically scapegoat Marx for the totalitarianism of those states. But what they don't mention are the conditions and type of leaders who were replaced by the "Communists." And they neglect the backgrounds and contexts of those Marxist states with good reason. In the cases of the Soviet Union and Cuba, the "Communist" overthrew the totalitarian and corrupt governments. The Batista government in Cuba was supported by the US. In the case of China and North Korea, both were emerging from Japanese totalitarian rule. China broke away from Japan both in the 1920s and the end of WW II while North Korea broke away at the end of WW II.
The history of Venezuela was different in that the Socialist leader was elected to power. However, 2 factors should be considered here. First, Chavez never followed Marx in terms of redistributing power to the proletariat. Instead, like Lenin did when he hijacked the Russian Revolution, Chavez consolidated power. Here Rosa Luxemburg's criticism of Lenin's Bourgeoisie dictatorship is more condemnatory of Chavez because Chavez didn't have a subsequent Civil War to fight. Though Chavez called himself a 'socialist,' by not empowering the proletariat, he broke away from the fundamental tenet of Marxism. In addition, though some of Venezuela's economic problems could possibly be due to US intervention, much of its economic problems stem from following the failed history of the past: basing the economy on oil. While prices rise, that seems like a good idea, but when prices drop, the economy collapses. That occurred during the late 1980s and into the 1990s before socialism, and that also occurred under Chavez.

What conservatives conveniently forget are those nations that through democracy started to lean left only to end up in dictatorships. Examples of those nations include Iran ('53), Guatemala ('54), Greece ('67), and Chilé ('73). Why these examples are conveniently forgotten is because in each of those cases, the US had a significant hand in overthrowing the governments of those nations and replacing them with dictatorships. Other examples could have also been mentioned.

We should note that history shows that no one political-economic system guarantees eternal success and prosperity. But what we can look at is the location of power in a given political system. And one criteria by which we should fairly apply to all governments and political systems is to measure the degree to which a government is under elite-centered control or democratic control. Here, we cannot judge any nation simply by the label given to its political system. For elite-centered control governments can exist in nations that actually have "fair" elections in that people are freely voting for the candidates of their choice. Why? Because even here in the US, our system has now been fairly recategorized by some as an oligarchy (see https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746 and https://theintercept.com/2015/07/30/jimmy-carter-u-s-oligarchy-unlimited-political-bribery/ ). And the reason why its status has changed is because power is not defined by the political office one holds, but by the degree of influence one has. And it has become measurably clear that those with the most wealth have the greatest political power in our nation. And that is despite, or perhaps because of, our Capitalist economic system.
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May 5

To Bradley Birzer and his blogpost on democracy. In that article he talked about the need to reduce, but not eliminate democracy in a given nation. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

Why is it that the negative comments about democracy were not vetted here. Certainly the founding fathers opposed democracy. But why? Was it not because many of them replaced British leaders as the new elites of America? Was it not because the people were protesting and even tried a rebellion that threatened the place of these new elites and thus prompted the writing of The Constitution? And did not the founding fathers associate those populist ideas that challenged their position in society with democracy but did so in a derogatory fashion. And don't we see a significant arrogance by those who claimed that the general population did not want virtue and thus implying that the new elites had a monopoly on virtue?

Those above spoke against democracy not necessarily because they knew what it would become. They spoke against democracy our of self-interest and in opposition to popular ideas that could have alleviated some of the suffering of the people, ideas that would have cost the new elites some wealth and position.

Authoritarians don't like democracy. Neither do tribalists. Why? Perhaps it is because democracy is the rule of the people, it is the rule of all the people, not just the majority. Democracy, when looked at as being more than just the sum of certain political processes, can actually be a state of being. It is a state of being, as Jefferson envisioned it, where the nation belongs equally to all its citizens. Democracy is a state of being where society is shared equally by all. When, if ever, we reach democracy as a state of being, we will have greatly reduced, if not eliminated rule by either a few elites or by an ethnic group that assumes its own superiority.

We should note that like any other form of government, democracy does not produce some form of utopia. No political or economic system can do that. But what democracy as a state of being does do is that it prevents the centralization of power whether the centralization of that power be located either in the public or private sectors. And those who are concerned about the rise of tyranny should favor democracy over any other form of government.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For February 20, 2019

Feb 15

To Joe Carter and his blogpost that claims that progressives are trying to legislate policies that were thought to be unthinkable. Carter defines and uses the Overton Window to show how progressives are attempting to promote their agenda. This appeared  in the Acton blog.

If politicians are adjusting the policies they support according to what the people will support, what should we say about many Republicans who adjust the policies they support according to the campaign donations they receive directly or indirectly from corporations?

Carter has defined what the Overton Window and includes how progressives are trying to push through what was unthinkable into laws, But he has not really told us why what progressives want in the New Green Deal was or should be unthinkable. And that makes the term a mere pejorative and thus a word used to manipulate readers of this article.

Carter obviously rejects the New Green Deal in its entirety. Does that mean that he rejects its efforts to clean the environment by how we update our power grid, or to make education affordable, or to ensure employment for every American? Does it mean that he supports at least some of those goals but thinks that the Federal government should not bite off more than it can financially chew by footing too much of the bill? Or does Carter support maintaining the current status quo?

The New Green Deal is an updated, more exhaustive version of FDR's New Deal which is despised and scapegoated by many current conservatives. Many past conservatives such as Presidents Eisenhower and Reagan were strong supporters of programs like Social Security while President Nixon started the EPA. But having succumbed to a spell cast by Ayn Rand, many current Republicans and their financial supporters want to eliminate everything from FDR's New Deal. And that is despite how his New Deal saved the people of our nation from many problems.

Many current conservatives oppose the new deals because of both the benefits they bring and that the federal government foots the bill. In the end, I'm afraid that the major opposition to the basic principles of either new deal is because those with wealth want to continually reduce their social responsibilities. I say social responsibilities because the people these deals would help are fellow stakeholders of the business interests and economic system that made those with wealth rich. That kind of rejection of the New Green Deal leans toward varying degrees of cold hearted selfishness.

At the same time, pruning some of the goals of and how we implement the New Green Deal based on feasibility can provide responsible objections to what the Dems propose.
I have my own reservations to the New Green Deal. Though I fully agree with the program's approach to updating our power grid, the deal does not address our most basic problem in America: the belief that one is morally obligated to work only for one's self-interest. That helping the vulnerable is always a choice, never a moral obligation. Though some government intrusion to mandate some help is necessary, the government needs to supplement its intrusion with new relationship structures between all of the stakeholders in the economy so that all work together. We need new structures so that we learn how to work not just for self-interest alone, but the interests of others, especially the vulnerable. Government should create new structures that make our economic system a participatory one, not one that revolves around elite-centered rule. If we continue with the status quo where we, especially the wealthy, believe that we are only obligated to work for self-interest, our systems and society will implode from selfishness.

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Feb 16

to Michael Matheson Miller and his blogpost that asserts that using tariffs is not a good way to solve the problems caused by economic and social globalism. This appeared in the Acton blog.

We first have to deal with the inaccurate claim that economic globalization has brought a lot of good including a 'drastic reductions in poverty.' Yes, we have seen a drop in abject poverty, but other levels of poverty exist some of which are growing. In addition, wealth disparity has been increasing in many nations and between nations. Thus, economic globalization is not all that Carter says it is.

In fact, the term 'globalization' is really an ambiguous term. Globalization can revolve around many ventures. For example, international communism is a globalization of labor with their plights and concerns. I don't see Carter call for that kind of globalization.

The economic globalization that Carter consistently praises is actually called neoliberal Capitalism or neoliberalism. With neoliberalism, business owners face fewer and fewer restrictions and social responsibilities in the name of free trade. But we should also realize that the fuel on which Capitalism runs, especially neoliberalism, is greed in the form of following the maximization of profits ethic. The maximization of profits is a cannibalizing ethic in that all other moral and ethical values can be sacrificed if doing so increases profits. And with fewer regulations and supervision, those who are wealthy gain more power as they gain more wealth. And as they gain more power, they lose more accountability and responsibility.

What we have seen with today's economic globalization are some reductions in abject poverty. What we have also seen are worldwide gains in wealth disparity and increasing damage to the environment, as well as losses in democracy. For the more a nation embraces free trade, which is part of neoliberalism, the more it loses governmental supervision of businesses. And when the government is a working democracy, then losses in government supervision of businesses translates into the weakening of democratic controls over businesses. In the meantime, many of these businesses follow the maximization of profits ethic.

Carter's article is about how we can curb economic globalism while still passionately embracing neoliberalism. But if he is really talking about neoliberalism when he says economic globalism, then all we need to do is to substitute the term 'neoliberalism' for the term 'economic globalism' in the previous sentence to see the contradiction. It seems that what Carter is proposing is that non-owners care for the victims of neoliberalism while owners continue to follow the maximization of profits ethic.

There have always been varying forms of economic globalism. There was a form of economic globalism when America became a nation. But America did not embrace the economic globalism of its day. Rather, it used protectionism, such as using tariffs, to allow its fledgling industries to grow up and have a chance to catch up with their European counterparts. Our nation employed tariffs from its beginning to the FDR Administration. And that protectionism brought great benefits to our economy because it allowed our industries to grow and mature. Whether America needs tariffs or not is debatable. But those less developed nations that want to develop their fledgling industries could very well benefit from protectionism including the use of tariffs. To prohibit those nations from doing so is called 'kicking away the ladder.' The ladder in this case would be protectionism and it is a ladder our nation used to develop our then fledgling industries.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For January 16, 2019

Jan 14

To Joe Carter and his blogpost that states that economics is like Christianity.  This appeared in the Acton blog.

The above article relies on empty assertions--assertions made without proof or evidence. Economics can be the 'crown-jewel of human compassion? If it is, then economics is not being properly practiced here.

And those who care about employees going without pay are deficient because they care not for the taxpayers who fund them? Those who are being punished by the shutdown are individuals who do various jobs. But those being rewarded the most by our political-economic system are corporations and the wealthy who have conditionally invested so much in those corporations. We have to say conditionally invested because their investment depends on the ROI. Other than that, many wealthy shareholders make no other investment in those corporations. For that reason, many major shareholders are like absentee landlords who squeeze out of their tenants whatever they can while repairing their properties as little as possible.

The term 'economics' comes from the Greek word 'oikos' meaning house. Such a term implies a holistic approach to the subject. But what has often occurred is a reducing of economics to the field of commerce. This reductionism has been facilitated by limiting the definition of a business's stakeholders to consisting merely of the buyer and seller. Workers, and their communities, other venders, society, and environment are cut out of the picture because to include these parties as stakeholders, the free market must become less and less free.

We should also make one other point. To reduce Christianity to being other-directed is to cut the Gospel out of Christianity. For the Gospel revolves around the forgiveness of an infinitely unpayable debt because the one to whom the debt was owed paid the debt with His most precious Son. That is what Christianity revolves around. Now how is that mirrored in any school of economics?
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Jan 15

To Joe Carter and his blogpost that boasts of how Conservatives are leading the way in prison reform. This appeared in the Acton blog.

The above article consists of empty claims: claims made that are not substantiated. How is it that only conservatives have become the champions of prison reform as claimed above? In reality, the fight for prison reform is being led by a coalition of both conservatives and nonconservatives. In addition, who reduces the justice system to a single entity? Haven't many, but not all, conservatives conflated justice with punishment so that the two are indistinguishable? That part of the problem with our current justice system is due to the conservative approach to justice. For aren't our jails currently designed to be a hellish purgatory on earth? Aren't our current jails themselves a source of cruel and unusual punishment because there is nothing but the exploitation of prisoners and a lack of protection for them from violence that comes from either fellow prisoners or staff?


The article above is nothing more than an empty tribal boast of superiority of conservatives over others. And that kind of boasting can only lead to tribalism with its group authoritarianism and its assumption of being superior over all others.

Again, there is a coalition of both conservatives and nonconservatives who are leading the fight for prison reform. And perhaps that coalition, rather than false claim that conservatives alone are leading the way, is our only hope for the future because it shows that groups with different beliefs can respect each other and work together.



 

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For December 5, 2018

Dec 3

To Joseph Sunde and his blogpost that argues against the $15 per hour minimum wage. This appeared in the Acton blog.

There are two problems with the $15 per hour minimum wage. The first problem is that not all areas of the country, or any state, has the same cost of living. In rural parts of the country where the cost of living, especially the cost of housing, is significantly lower than in the cost of living in cities. And the cost of living can be different from city to city depending on the size and/or region of the nation a city is located in.

The second problem is partially expressed in the above article: it takes away the need for workers and owners to talk with each other, listen to each other, and work together for each other's interest. And what the conservative side seems to miss about the $15 per hour minimum wage is that the loss of jobs isn't just a possibility for small businesses, it also occurs in corporations. And what many of these corporations have said to workers is that to have any job at all, one must settle for what the owners offer regardless of whether they are offering poverty wages.
An illustration of the problem can be seen franchises. When large food corporations, like Mac Donald's opens a restaurant, it will either open a corporate owned store or a franchise one. With the former, the corporation assumes all costs. Starbucks, if memory serves, has opened quite a few corporate-owned coffee shops. With the latter, the franchise owner assumes all of the costs and that includes returning some of the income from the franchise to the corporation so that the corporation joins a franchise's list of creditors. Meanwhile, the franchise restaurant becomes only a source of income for the corporation. The franchise owner is responsible for all of the non start-up costs.

Unless at least part of the cost for the $15 per hour minimum wage is billed to the corporations that have opened franchise stores via taxes,  the $15 per hour minimum wage only hits the franchise owners who are then put in between a rock and a hard place. In the meantime, the shareholders of the corporations involved would object to their corporations being taxed in order to defray some of the some cost for the new minimum wage because they live by the maximize personal profits ethic: the very ethic that is destroying not just our economy, but our society as well. For the wealthiest shareholders believe that only they deserve to be able to live by that ethic even though that ethic is the cause of class war and the exploitation of people and the environment. We should note that when there are attempts to reverse the exploitation by allowing other parties to live by the same ethic, the business or or economic sectors or the whole system is subject to collapse.

When only one group is allowed to live by the maximize personal profits ethic, we see wide scale exploitation and either self-destruction or revolution. When we allow other groups to practice the maximize personal profits ethic, we also see failures in businesses, economic sectors, and the whole system. So the real problem here is not setting a proper minimum wage, as important as that is, the real problem is how to actually exorcise  the maximization of personal profits from our economy and culture
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Dec 4

To Joe Carter and his blogpost that cites a Koch Industries’ study that predicts significant negative results that will result from Trump’s tariffs. This appeared in the Acton blog.


Here is the problem with Joe Carter's article, it takes predictions from a highly invested source as facts without reviewing America's past use of tariffs, without it mentioning available literature on the current effects of Trump's tariffs, and without questioning the possible lack of objectivity that could occur in source he is citing.

I write the above from neutral point of view on Trump's tariffs. America's history has shown that tariffs can have positive long-term effects. In fact, from the beginning of our nation up through FDR's Presidency, America employed tariffs to allow fledgling American industries to grow to the point of being competitive with, if not superior to, their counterparts from all over the world. That doesn't mean that tariffs always work. But it shows that tariffs can contribute positively to a nation's economy especially when the long-term results are examined. Such a point is not considered in Carter's article.

Other literature is not considered by Carter's article as well. The Houston Chronicle reports that Trump's tariffs are producing mixed results on manufacturers (see https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/economy/article/Trump-tariffs-having-mixed-impact-on-13432850.php ). CNN also gives a mixed report on the results that Trump's tariffs will have on American Manufacturers (see https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/08/news/economy/tariff-explainer/index.html   ) as well as a picture containing some uncertainty.
Furthermore, we should note the source of Carter's report: Koch Industries. How much trust can we put into a report that comes from a for-profit source that might not be all objective? A scientific approach to the subject would not put so much weight on one source especially when the objectivity of that source is questionable.
With all of the above mentioned flaws, why does Carter present his material as factual?





 

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For November 7, 2018

Nov 4

To Joe Carter and his blogpost that cites a Joseph Loconte article on Luther’s 95 theses and what that did to promote religious liberty and a free conscience. This appeared in the Acton blog.

There are problems with Loconte's article on Luther and conscience. Besides the fact that appeals to our conscience do have a limit, we should note what else Luther supported. He sided with wealth and power by supporting a brutal suppression of the Peasant's Revolt as well as he, later on in life, expressed strong anti-Semitism sentiments and suggested harsh treatment of the Jews in Germany with the purpose of seeing them gone through attrition.

From these two facts, we see that even Luther put limits on the conscience: the consciences of some with whom he disagreed. The limits we should note about the conscience here is that we can't excuse our oppression of others on our consciences. This excusing of visiting injustice others occurred during Jim Crow when some Christians used the Scriptures to defend segregation and white supremacy. Here one could say that they included an appeal to consciences as a defense of their abuse of others. At least that is how they saw it and the same could be said of those who owned slaves or supported slavery that preceded Jim Crow.

How some Christians used their religious beliefs to defend the oppression of Blacks is an important point to bring up here because a similar defense is being made for Christians being able to discriminate against the the LGBT community. Though there are significant differences between the past marginalization of Blacks in during slavery and Jim Crow and how many religiously conservative Christians want to discriminate against the LGBT community today, the basic theme of not sharing society with a targeted group as equals is what both kinds of discrimination have in common.

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Nov 5

To Caroline Roberts and her blogpost that references an article by Samuel Gregg that speaks of what is good and bad about our economy. In listing what is bad, Loconte lists several entitlement programs as causing current and future harm to our economy. Roberts’s article appeared in the Acton blog

In actuality, the article cited (see  https://stream.org/economy-booming-but-theres-trouble/ ) is rather disingenuous with its claims about the economy and especially about entitlement programs.
Is the economy improving? Yes, but it has been for a while especially during much of Obama's Presidency. In other words, part of the success of the economy has to do with the momentum created by what went on during the Obama Administration.
But is the economy improving for everyone? No. Wealth disparity continues to grow and with that there is a growing disparity in political power so that the wealthiest gain more and more political power. Wages for many jobs have not increased significantly for decades when accounting for inflation. Basically, we have an economy that revolves around the whims of major shareholders rather than one that accounts for the needs for everyone.

The grouping of entitlement programs as being blamed for 70% of the Federal budget is deliberately deceptive. Both Social Security and Medicare are self-funded and thus cannot negatively contribute to the National Deficit or Debt. In fact, the Federal Government has borrowed more money from the Social Security Trust fund to finance its spending than any other lender including China. Realize that that fund is financed by individual payers for their collective future for when they retire and much of that spending goes to corporations. Thus we are seeing a transfer of funds from the middle and lower economic classes to the higher ones. Also, to include Social Security and Medicare with programs that are not self-funding in this 70% of Federal spending is deliberately dishonest. In addition, one of the reasons why we have some current spending problems with Medicare is because of Federal laws that prohibit Medicare from negotiating lower drug costs with Pharmaceutical companies.

To merely call self-funded programs like Social Security and Medicare entitlement programs is false labeling. To call the non-self funded programs entitlement programs without including other labels is highly selective. Along with Social Security and Medicare, these programs are survival programs for many in this nation.

From an overall perspective, the most apparent reason for calling for cuts in these entitlement programs is that those with wealth want to pay less and less in taxes while enjoying the benefits from living in and/or doing business in our nation at the current and previous tax rates. Basically we have an ongoing Ayn Rand Coup of the government. But let's suppose we cut those "entitlement programs," what happens? This has been occurring in Greece and even the IMF has come to the conclusion that national austerity policies lead to economic harm. From other perspectives, these cuts lead to a society and culture that value things over people. Such according to Martin Luther King Jr maintain what he called the 'triplets of evil': racism, materialism, and militarism.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For October 10, 2018

Oct 8

To Joe Carter and his blogpost on the Columbian Exchange. That exchange includes the benefits enjoyed by Europe and the suffering and loss of life brought to the natives of the New World by Europeans like Columbus. This appeared in the Acton blog.

It's sad that when listing the parts of the Columbian Exchange, the atrocities committed by Columbus and other Europeans are not mentioned. Atrocities such as mass killings, slavery, and exploiting workers were not mentioned alongside the loss of life from European diseases. How could such an omission exist in a Christian blog written by a Christian?

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To Allyson Wieringa and her blogpost questioning the call for the government to put Church charities out os business and to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour. This appeared in the Acton blog.

What is wrong with the government making Church charities not needed? Whose loss is that anyway? And if the Church no longer needs to worry about providing charity because those in need are receiving help elsewhere, then doesn't that mean that the Church can focus more on preaching the Gospel?

Though I can't speak for England, right now, we are in an Ayn Rand coup of the American government. In that coup, those with the most wealth use their wealth to seize power over the government. Then they use that power to continually reduce  fulfilling their social responsibilities. As a result, tax burdens are shifted more toward those who have less and that results in sharp increase in deficit spending. The Ayn Rand opportunist try to use their arguments and power to reduce or even eliminate social safety nets even if those safety nets are self-funding and thus do not contribute to the deficit.
We should note here the kind of government in which Ayn Rand's family financially succeeded: the government of the Tsars. And the Tsars were dictators who enforced the belief that to oppose the Tsar is to oppose the nation. That is similar to the declarations made by Lenin and the Bolsheviks with respect to the workers.
One other point must be made here. Though raising the minimum wage is good, it leaves a major issue unaddressed. Seeing that socialism, from a Marxist perspective, relies on the dictatorship of a proletariat democracy, letting the gov't alone to set all increased wages does not empower the workers. Rather, it establishes a particular group of people in government as the vanguard for the workers. And like most vanguards such as Lenin's Bolshevik Party right after the Russian Revolution, they will declare that anyone who opposes them opposes the workers whom they say they represent. And then we are right back where we started from with the Tsars and Lenin. Not that we don't need the government to raise the minimum wage. What we do need is a minimum wage that is high enough to help and low enough to require workers and owners to continue to meet together to see what each side needs and then to start making decisions that benefits both sides.

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Oct 9

To Thomas Ascik and his blogpost about some Supreme Court decisions on same-sex marriage and laws that addressed inheritance. In that blogpost, DOMA, the Defense Of Marriage Act, is referred to. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

I want to comment on one part of the article above: the references to DOMA. DOMA stands for the Defense Of Marriage Act. But the name itself is ambiguous. Which or whose marriage is being defended? The answer is simple: no one's marriage is being defended. Instead the desire of same-sex couples to be legally married is being attacked by those who claim to have a monopoly on the definition of marriage. Thus, perhaps we should call DOMA, OBTMAA-- the Offensive By Traditional Marriage Activists Act.

The legalization of same-sex marriage does not threaten any traditional heterosexual marriage. Claims otherwise are based on fears that those moving in to the marital neighborhood will bring down the property values. On the other hand, despite the results of inhibiting monogamous relationships and thus reducing promiscuity in the LGBT community, those opposed to same-sex marriages by other people are threatening the marital prospects for those in the LGBT community. Why do they do that? It is simply because they want to impose their own religious/cultural beliefs on others. That imposition would appear to violate the 1st Amendment regardless of how democratically the legal definition of marriage was determined. Why the imposition? There are a number of reasons one can find when talking to DOMA apologists.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For September 19, 2018

Sept 18

To Joe Carter and his blogpost that cites an article on how to read The Constitution. This appeared in the Acton blog.

Having read the cited article, it seems that there is a missing part to how to understand The Constitution. Paulsen, the author of the article cited, talks about understanding the purpose and history of the writing of The Constitution. But while mentioning the historical context of the 14th Amendment as an example, he neglects to mention the historical context and reasons for writing The Constitution. The reasons for writing The Constitution was the need to respond to the widespread dissent over the then economic times and Shays Rebellion. That putting down the rebellion required the funding of a private militia. Thus, one of the major concerns that were addressed in The Constitution was the need for a federal force that could put down future insurrections. One only needs to look up all references to the Militia made in The Constitution, including the Bill of Rights to check the validity of that claim.

Some more context can be garnered by reading Henry Knox's letter to George Washington (see  https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/04-05-02-0095  ) and the Constitutional debates (see http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/yates.asp  ). Knox's letter shows the concern caused by the times and Shays Rebellion and the Constitutional debates recorded the conversations of the drafters that went into the writing of The Constitution.
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To Joseph Mussomelli and his blogpost that proclaims how we Americans should still claim American Exceptionalism provided that we follow his revisions. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

There is a huge problem with what is being proposed in the above article. That problem consists of the conjunction between the lessons of WW II and the idea that America is morally superior to others. The combination makes the George Washington form of American Exceptionalism untenable. That is because the belief in our moral superiority along with the perception of threats abroad, compel us to act independent of the cooperation of the UN. In addition, belief in American Exceptionalism itself disconnects us from the atrocities we have committed within our own nation.

American Exceptionalism blinds us to the decadence that justified carrying out Manifest Destiny and promoting white supremacy either in the form of slavery or Jim Crow. How did our ethnic cleansing of Native Americans not affect our notion of our own moral status in the world? We can talk about it only if we are allowed to converse with no sense of horror or shame. To converse with others in that way, we must at some point excuse the gross racism that permitted us to steal, or force Native Americans from, the land. That is often done by minimizing the humanity of Native Americans. So that the only atrocities we should be ashamed of are those committed in other lands. In other words, people of other ethnicities are recognized to be more human than the indigenous people of this continent.

And how should we feel about slavery and the subsequent Jim Crow? Should we not again hide our faces in guilt and shame or can we remain unaffected by the atrocities brought on by both because the Civil War was fought to free the slaves and the Civil Rights movement removed Jim Crow laws? And since our worse immoral crimes are in the past, isn't Mussomelli proposing that there is no sense in beating ourselves up over past. Is that what we would advise the Germans to do with their history of Nazism and all that followed that?

Either form of American Exceptionalism emotionally disconnects us from our past. That disconnect is most apparent in the Wilson intervention type of American Exceptionalism. But all of the necessary ingredients for carrying out the ugliest form of Exceptionalism are an integral part of the recommended, George Washington isolationist type of American Exceptionalism or Mussomelli's revised version of Exceptionalism still lead us to the ugliest form of Exceptionalism. That should be clear by how Mussomelli whitewashes some of our past such as our interventions in Cuba and the Philippines from decades ago.

Finally, why insist on being Exceptional in the first place? Is it because of our religious history that Mussomelli wants us to feel compelled to claim superiority over all others? Or is that insistence on being exceptional is because of a belief in racial superiority of Europeans and Western Civilization? Why insist on being exceptional when our religious heritage contains the parable of the two men praying where the person who claimed to be exceptional was rejected by God? Perhaps the reason why Mussomelli insists on America claiming to be exceptional is because it is the only remaining argument that can be used to prevent America from changing the way it has been.

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To Emily Kleinen and her blogpost on how we try to distract ourselves from the finality of death, the eternal, and God by our earthy pursuits. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

The article well describes a hospice way of living. That is that we seek to be comfortable until the end comes The hospice way of living is a living for oneself and it certain denies the eternal and God.

However, Reformed theologian Francis Schaeffer, a while back ago, warned us that this hospice way of living, which he described as making a god out of the pursuit of personal peace and prosperity, also afflicts Christians who also have their eyes on the eternal and on God.

The point being that this hospice way of living is not just motivated out of a desire to distract ourselves from death, the eternal, and God, it can also be motivated out of a pure addiction to the material world. In that case godliness becomes a search for being selfishly righteous. That is we live for ourselves as long as we avoid breaking certain taboos.

Regardless of the motivation, what is lost is what the Old Testament talked about such as in Psalms 103 where the Psalmist mentions many of the benefits God grants us and what the New Testament saw the fulfillment of. And perhaps the reason for people losing track of what the Scriptures say is because of our weaknesses in the face of such strong temptations.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For September 12, 2018

Sept 11

To R. Scott Clark and this blogpost denouncing ethnically-based theologies such as Black Theology. This appeared in Heidelblog.

Despite some of the good things that were written in the above article, there is one problem that was glossed over. That problem was whether there is a need for such identity-group based theologies. Because of the tremendous ethnic-based, and we can include class-based, oppressions and persecutions from the past and present, the need for such identity-group based theologies becomes legitimate. And that is especially true since Christians are seen as either having supported are participated with the oppressors. So while one could judge the merits and faults of Cone's Black Theology, one must be open to whether theologies that address specific hardships that groups of people face is legitimate.  And here, we need to investigate by asking people from different marginalized groups whether their needs caused by systemic injustice are fully met by the identity-group, generic theologies of the past. To reject the need to investigate from an apriori perspective is to assume that the confessions and standards from the past are sufficient in addressing today's needs. And such an assumption seems to come from arrogance rather than a concern for the Gospel.

One should only point to history to help determine whether the need for identity group theologies is legitimate. We should note that during the Civil Rights movement in this nation, many who opposed the movement were Christians who held to the revered confessions from the past but had their own Identity-group based theology as well. And even before that movement, there were prominent Christian leaders who claimed to have submitted to those confessions who also supported and even promoted white supremacy and that included slavery. Acknowledgments of that those grave sins are directly acknowledged by resolutions of apologies and regrets issued by both the PCA and SBC.

We could also point to other cases from the past where the Church supported and promoted systemic injustices in both the US and the rest of the world. The dominant branch of the Church supported those with wealth and power during the pre-revolutionary times of France, Russia, and Spain. That siding with wealth and power not only  promoted systemic injustices, class-based injustices in those instances, it brought unnecessary persecution and shame onto the Gospel. We should note here that the dominant branch of the Church in America, conservative Protestantism, currently supports and promotes those with wealth and power in this country. And there are many other corporate sins that the American conservative Church has supported and promoted. We might even include the Pilgrims, whom Clark mentions, because of their ethnically-based sins committed against Native Americans. In fact, those who came from Amsterdam showed the same ethnic and cultural concerns for themselves that Blacks and other groups have today.

The following quote from the above article shows the fault in Clark's reasoning:

Under the New Testament, after the death of Christ, for Christians, those old distinctions remained important as sociological and historical realities but not as religious realities. Those Gentiles to whom God graciously gave new life (regeneration) and true faith, remained Gentiles and Jews who received those same benefits of Christ remained Jews but their Jewish identity lost its religious significance. Paul calls the Old Testament laws that distinguished Jew and Gentile a “dividing wall” (Eph 2:14) which has been “torn down” in the death of Christ.

Acknowledging that the 'old distinctions' continue to be important in terms of our 'sociological and historical realities' is a cause for the continuance of systemic injustices that fuel the need for identity-group based theologies. And that to totally reject today's identity-group based theologies indicates that one belongs to those who are privileged, rather than to those who are marginalized.

It is one thing to correct the errors expressed in today's identity-group based theologies. But to deny the need for such theologies shows an ignorance of or dismissive attitude toward what it means to be marginalized. Such are not Biblical practices when we consider what the OT prophets and James had to say about injustice.

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To Joe Carter and his blogpost listing 5 facts about 9/11. This appeared in the Acton blog.

Two other facts about 9/11 should be mentioned. First, the 9/11 attacks were not first strikes. Rather they were responses to US foreign policies including the UN sanctions forced on Iraq for its invasion of Kuwait--those sanctions were pushed through the UN and implemented by the US and Great Britain. Those sanctions were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children let alone the deaths of many adults. In addition, US carte blanche support for Israel and its brutal occupation against the Palestinians was another cause for the attacks.
Second, the attacks on the US on 9/11 of 2001 were not the first significant attacks on 9/11. Those belonged to a US supported military coup that overthrew the democratically elected President of Chilé, Salvador Allende and installed the brutal military dictatorship of  Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet was later indicted for crimes against humanity in his own nation but he died before any trial could take place.

The atrocities that occurred on both 9/11s were without excuse. But that doesn't meant that they randomly took place or were without cause. The question becomes which 9/11 attacks are more understandable though without excuse.
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To Bradley Birzer and his blogpost praising President Andrew Jackson as a ‘true American republican.’ This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

To say that Jackson was an honorable man because of his frontier ethics forgets that the presence of frontier ethics challenged Native Americans for ownership of the land. And to say that Andrew Jackson was honorable because his policies sought to protect Native Americans from disaster provides a tremendously huge indictment against his fellow Americans including those who lived on the frontier for their regard and desired treatment of Native Americans.

Also, the question about the Trail of Tears is not as much about under whose Presidency did it occur, it is about whose Presidencies helped cause that tragic event. So it seems that Jackson really didn't oppose the rampant hatred of Native Americans during his time to point of resistance. Rather, at best, he tried to mitigate the effects of the hatred Americans had for Native Americans and the desire such Americans had for Native American lands. But that is at best and beginning research tells me that that is not the case.
BTW, how many Native Americans were forcibly removed from their homelands during Jackson's Presidency? Or we could also ask whether Jackson fought in any wars against the Native Americans. In either case, we find that Jackson was not as honorable as the above article indicated. And that says something about true American republicans since the author declared that Jackson was such a person..

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For August 29, 2018

August 27

To Joe Carter and his blogpost praising Adam Smith’s theories. This appeared in the Acton blog.

One more thing about Adam Smith that should be mentioned: he is often misunderstood by many conservatives who promote his views. The invisible hand idea is one such area where Smith was misunderstood. The invisible existed in a context of national interests. And what Smith taught about the invisible hand has been blown away by today's global neoliberalism.

And under-understood is Smith's teachings on self-interest because Smith, if I have correctly read his interpreters, reduced all motivation to self-interest. But such goes against the Scriptures as well as the examples we have seen in the lives of individuals we have known (see  http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2018/08/capitalism-gospel-of-love-george-stanciu.html  ).

Something else that conservative promoters of Smith seem to have missed is that from almost the very beginning of our nation up until FDR, our nation's economy didn't abide by Smith's free trade. Our government employed protectionism in order to give our infant industries time to grow in order to become competitive and beyond. Such a success story does not imply a carte-blanche support for protectionism. It does show that a carte-blanche support for free trade is not merited.

There are other misperceptions as well but the above will suffice.

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August 28

To Eva Brann and her blogpost review of Martha Nussbaum’s book that speaks against the for-profit view of education. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative Blog.

What seems to be missing from the review on the book about the de-emphasis on humanities in education is what seems to be an inverse relationship between emphasis on the humanities in education and materialism. The more the humanities are removed from education, the more educational success is measured in terms materialistic criteria for its graduates: income, purchasing power, accumulated wealth, technological advances, etc. It isn't that such criteria have no place in society; It is that being human means more than just what wealth we have accumulated and what things we own. Thus, the more society restricts measuring itself to just materialistic measurements, the more our relationships between individuals and between groups are relegated to oblivion.

Why does materialism reign when teaching the humanities is minimized or eliminated? It is because the more we use the obtaining of material goods for the measurements of success, the more we succumb to the maximizing of profits ethic. And we should note that that ethic is a cannibalizing one that devours all other ethics and values that get in its way. For example, breaking the law is not longer unethical if doing so helps one get largest ROI. In fact, then breaking the law becomes an ethical requirement so that one can maximize one's own profits. And those profits are  material goods only and show no regard for how maximizing one's own profits may hurt others.

We should note that in a Capitalistic economic system, there is already a an overemphasis on materialism and thus on the maximization of profits ethic. Removing the non-material aspects of what it means to be human from education, such as what we see with the removal of the humanities, removes part of our humanity from education. And this filtering out of the humanities is being done in both not-for-profit and for-profit educational institutions. Such is the result of reducing education so that it fits entirely in the business model.

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To Joe Carter and his blogpost on why economic transactions do not have to be based on a zero-sum game. This appeared in the Acton blog

There are several problems with Carter's approach here. First, wealth creation depends more on the supply of resources than on the number of wants. And that makes moot the idea that humans have an 'unlimited number of wants.' What should be focused on is the number of resources we have vs the number of wants we can meet.

Another problem is that denying the existence of the zero-sum game in economics seems to be a return to the reason why people attempted to build the tower of Babel: It was to reach heaven or God. It was an attempt to create a utopia. And God prohibited it lest people's pride, based on what they have accomplished, led them to believe that they did not need to depend on God.

But perhaps the biggest concern of the writer is that of rationalizing extreme self-interest. For maximizing personal profits becomes morally acceptable when there is no significant cost to be borne by others. But neither the facts on the ground nor reason support the existence of extreme self-interest. Here, we will define extreme self-interest as the interest one has for themselves alone. Extreme self-interest ignores the growing wealth disparity in the world. Extreme self-interest ignores the exploitation of workers and other people whose labor created the wealth in the first place but were not rewarded based on the wealth they created. Extreme self-interest ignores the environmental costs of maximizing personal profits.
The conservative utopian dream is that one can exercise extreme self-interest without being morally responsible to share with others what they have harvested..But something else should be said. That the kind of system that Carter, the author of the article advocates has a very llimited view of economics. Carter defines economics as:

as the science of purposeful individual action in an attempt to satisfy an unlimited number of wants with a limited set of means.

But Chilean economist, Manfred Max-Kneef, has noted that the Greek root for the word 'economics implies a holistic approach to the study. A holistic approach would encorporate more than just what the individual is free to produce, but also how a given system causes people to relate to each other. Without including how people relate to each other in the study of economics, we develop a view of economics that is as dangerously materialistic, though in a different way, as Marxism's  materialism is. And when we add to that the idea that economics revolves around the individual, we develop a view of economics that is modeled after Cain's famous rhetorical question to God after God inquired about Able's disappearance:

Am I my brother's keeper?

One must ask if Carter's view of economics show that his loyalties side with a particular form of materialism rather than with God's Word. For the NT Scriptures are clear from Lazarus and the Rich Man to James as he rebukes the wealthy for exploiting workers, one cannot work and live as just an individual whose moral obligations to help the poor are solely determined by one's own good will. And we should note how in Church history, that sometimes when the Church sided with wealth and power, it suffered attacks and persecution for having ignored those in need.