An Alternative Populism Gives Us Populism Choice

From Trump's political emergence up through now, we have heard that his political success is the result of populism. And because of how it has been reported, it seems like Trump has a monopoly on populism.

Now there are some concerns with the populism that has benefited Trump. Some of those concerns deal with the ties between that populism  with Christian Nationalism. But even graver concerns have been expressed with the ties between that populism with the acceptance of right-wing conspiracy theories such as those expressed on Q-Anon. Stories from there are divisive because they promote the employment of black-white thinking. That is the kind of thinking that enables one to see one's opponents as totally evil and their own as totally good. Furthermore, the demonization that is practiced by these conspiracy theories has spread great distrust in our nation's institutions while at the same time, these conspiracy theories have been used to support a call for a messianic type leader whose only obstacle to success is not possessing absolute power--and some from that group complain about being accused of promoting fascism.

William J. Barber II (click here for a bio) and Liz Theoharis (click here for a bio) have proposed starting up an alternative populism to the one supporting Trump. The one they propose in the Religion News Service article (click here for the article) involves people of all races and revolves around those making the least money. And in proposing this alternative populism to the one supporting Trump, they make an interesting claim. They wrote that the majority of those making less than $50,000 per year were not members of Trump posse. They didn't substantiate that claim, but if it was true, it would be a welcomed relief. That is because Trump's populism seems to feed of of racism and xenophobia that either exists or can be easily sowed in people.

The populism that Barber and Theoharis are proposing will be exhibited in their Poor People's Campaign (click here for its website). Their campaign seems to be based, at least in part, on the Poor People's Campaign orchestrated by Martin Luther King Jr. And Barber and Theoharis want to stress morality in their group. But most of all, they want to be an alternative to the Christian Nationalism based populism that has been opposing abortion, scapegoating 'non-white immirants,' promoting an extreme form of nationalism, and supporting pro-corporate politicians.

Barber and Theoharis note that they will be recruiting from the same groups of people that the pro-Trump Christian Nationalists recruit from, such as from prisons, but Barber's and Theoharis's reach will extend to other groups of lower economic class and poor people as well.

Barber and Theoharis claimed a victory in their article. They claimed that they had helped elect a Democrat to be governor in Kentucky. They considered this a victory because Kentucky is regarded as a red state.

I am hoping that this effort by Barber and Theoharis transcends political involvement, even though political involvement is a necessity in working to make sure the poor receive justice and help. Though I very much hope that their organizing and enlisting of people is successful, what stands in the way of their helping of people is our two-party political system. Though the Dems try not to appear as a party that serves financial elites, in the end, they are such a party. In addition, giving the help that those in the lower economic classes deserve must include the cutting of our military budgets, the passing of regulations that protect the climate and workers, a more fair tax policy that has the wealthy paying more of their fair share of taxes. and securing effective social safety nets for the vulnerable while remaining fiscally responsible. And though all of that sounds like Biden's agenda,  the wealthy usually get the breaks they have paid for.

When we consider the history of the Democratic Party and the control that wealthy elites have over it, even though the Democratic Party is not under as much control by those elites as the Republican Party is, it is still under significant control by many of those same elites. And so Barber's and Theoharis's Poor People's Campaign will have a more limited political influence than they might expect to have. 

What their Poor People's Campaign really needs to exert a political influence in this nation is for us to have viable 3rd parties with politically attractive candidates. But for as long as the Republican Party continues to go off the rails of sanity by supporting Trump and others like him, those on the left will feel more and more pressure to give their political support for the Democratic Party, which will stop non-conservative third political parties from emerging from obscurity.. And that by itself will limit the political influence that Barber's and Theoharris's Poor People's Campaign will have as honorable as that campaign is.

I am very much hoping for Barber's and Theoharis's Poor People's Campaign to succeed. But the nation needs to change before it can succeed. However, that should not stop people from joining or supporting Barber's and Theoharis's work.

What Makes Activism Work

We should note that within the last few months, activism has won twice and lost once in shifting government policies. The two wins are the cancellation of the TPP and the failure of the American Health Care Act to get off the ground. The loss has to do with renewing the construction of DAPL.

The TPP was activism's first victim. For while activism delayed the passing of the TPP before the election, Trump's election, which was partially the result of conservative populism,  sealed its doom here. But the TPP was not just in trouble in America, other nations started to back away as well (click here). Opposition to the TPP showed that individual issues can bring conservatives and nonconservatives together. I have seen this happen when I have taken the time to talk to counter-protesters at May Day celebrations, I've found that leftists, like myself, and some of the conservatives with whom I've spoken can sometimes agree on what our nation's problems are. Of course, our disagreement comes in what we believed were the solutions. But sharing recognition of the problems again shows that we conservatives and nonconservatives can find some common ground.

As for the Republican replacement of Obamacare, yes, we were told that the Ryan's replacement was dead on arrival. For many groups opposed the replacement though not for the same reasons. We know that some of that opposition was voiced in the angry townhall meetings that Republican legislators had to endure. These legislators saw the rage that people felt about the potential of losing the health insurance they gained through Obamacare. And while the problems caused by the ACA shows that it is not a permanent solution, certain parts, like the increased number of people who now have health insurance, could no longer be sacrificed according. 

Activism's loss mentioned above came with Trump's order to continue DAPL construction. For the protests against DAPL were not widespread enough and did not incorporate enough people to put sufficient pressure on the government. It did delay some of the construction when the Army Corps of Engineers agreed to do more extensive studies of the project. But with Trump's election came a presidential directive to approve the immediate continuation of the construction of the pipeline. BTW,  we should note here that our President is financially invested in the project.

With this current record, what we should note is that when enough of us make our voices heard, we can still make our government listen. We can still gain victories. Sometimes those victories are small and temporary while there are a few times when those victories decisive and final. The point here is that despite the increased authoritarian nature of our government, we can still put limits on it and change some of its policies. We just have to get enough people to speak as loud and as often as possible. One thing we can be sure of, though we might have a shortage of activists from time to time, there will be no shortage of issues to address during Trump's Presidency.





 

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For March 1, 2017

Feb 24

To Joe Carter and his blogpost stating that Christians must oppose anti-Semitism. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.

If we believed that Christians should oppose all racial discrimination, then articles like the one above would be unnecessary.

Of course anti-Semitism must be opposed by all Christians. But what is being talked about above is anti-Semitism against Jews. What is being overlooked is that Jews are not the only Semites--contrary to the assumptions made by Wilhelm Marr who was the first person to coin the term. Palestinians are also Semites; but how many Christians are talking about anti-Palistinian prejudice and discrimination?

The stats that Carter cites regarding instances of anti-Semitism are tragic and point to the need to oppose anti-Semitism. But what about the stats regarding anti-Muslim acts, where are they? We should consider that since Trump's election, 2 mosques have burned and there was a shooting in another one. In addition, over 700 anti-Muslim acts have been recorded by law enforcement when the number hate crimes against Muslims in 2015 was under 300.

It isn't just anti-Semitism that must be opposed by all, let alone by Christians. All racial and religious bigotry must be opposed. If we don't oppose all racial and religious bigotry, then our valid complaints against anti-Semitism will be relegated to be counted as instances of Pharisaical tribalism.

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To George Carey and his blogpost advocating the return of popular self-government. In that article, Carey states that only conservatism could bring back popular self-government. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative Blog.

This is simply another article that states conservatives must rule, and that rule must be without limits. For the only form of populism recognized is conservative populism. Then in complaining about the power of the courts, the issue is that any laws drafted by conservative principles, whether they be federal laws or state laws, must then be evaluated by the courts to see if they violate The Constitution. For though there is less complaint here when the courts apply The Constitution to evaluate the legitimacy of Federal law, it is argued here that the courts have no grounds for so evaluating state laws.

But such would seem to run contrary to what we know as the Bill of Rights. For rights that cannot be abridged by federal laws but can be violated by state laws are not rights. And thus what the current practice of the courts, including the Supreme Court, is that it runs as a check on both state and federal governments in terms of how they would rule over those not represented by populist sentiment.

What is assumed is that only conservatives have the proper approach to interpreting and applying The Constitution and that populism is not determined by any majority, but by those who most accurately represent the founders of our nation.  This article is nothing more than a promotion for a conservative power grab where conservatives can deny the rights of others provided that they do so through their state governments. And in promoting this conservative power grab, nonconservatives are meant to be relegated to a passive role of accepting whatever a conservative mandate dictates provided, again, that it is through the state governments.

There is no sense of conservatives working with others in this article. Rather, it is just another in what is becoming a long line of conservative works calling on conservatives to take back their nation from nonconservatives regardless of whether conservatives represent a majority of the people. Our nation, according to this article, must suffer a tyranny of the past as only conservatives have interpreted it. Instead of sharing the nation with the children of the Enlightenment as equals, this article calls on conservatives to strive to seize full control of this nation.  At this time, we should note that the writers of The Constitution were merely trying to strengthen the federal government so that those from the upper economic classes could safely rule over those from the lower classes. We should remember that at the time of the ratification of The Constitution, only around 5% of the people could vote. That soon changed but was that the intention of our founding fathers?
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Feb 28

To Devin Ryan and his blogpost citing Dylan Pahman’s work that claims that free trade helps a nation’s economy more than government interference via protections, the regulation of wages, and guaranteed incomes. This appeared in the Acton blog.

The trouble with the above article, besides the fact that the title is a bit misleading,  is that history points to economic benefits from protectionism. This is true especially when a nation uses protectionism to build up specific industries and economic sectors. Those nations that currently push free trade now are merely 'kicking away the ladder' they used to develop many of their own industries in the past.

Something else should be troubling here. Though the ratio of jobs lost to automation compared with offshoring might have changed, initially, offshoring was a primary way by which many lost their jobs here and those from other nations who took them were not protected by the laws of their nations as many workers here are. And still, a significant number jobs continue to be lost to offshoring. Why offshoring, for many, it is because stockholders here were demanding a greater ROI and thus workers here were sacrificed in order to achieve bigger returns. In fact, for many corporations, the only meaningful stakeholder has become the shareholder and yet nothing here is said about that changing scenario.

What free trade demands is what the Donald is offering American big businesses here: fewer and fewer social responsibilities for business in terms of what they owe to those who traditionally were regarded as their stakeholders. So Trump's economic policies pretty much resemble Hillary's in terms  of goals and direction. The only difference has to do with the issue of the location of the business restraints government would employ. Would the restraints fall more on restraining an expansion in the foreign workforce of American businesses or on taxes and regulations on how American businesses would conduct themselves here. We should note, and this is neither a criticism or sign of support, that  the open trade borders Hillary wanted was part of an American economic plan for South America written in the mid 1940s.


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To Joe Carter and his blogpost on why people prefer government to markets. This appeared in the acton blog.

We should note here that when people favor government over business in a democracy, they are favoring democratic controls over business rather than market control that favors elites in how they will interact with all of their stakeholders, not just their shareholders.

We should also note that free markets and free trade allow for elites to increase not just their profits but their power as well. That on the way to increasing their profits, many elites have a way of objectifying many of the stakeholders of their businesses thus making them disposable. And when people, especially workers, become disposable, then the neighborhoods in which they live become disposable as well. And when people are so disposable, there is a denial of their intrinsic worth. Only their market worth is recognized. In contrast to that, democratic control of the markets allow people to show solidarity as they attempt to protect the vulnerable.

So we have a choice between democratic control of the market place or elite-centered control of the market place and the government where the rule of economic force rules. I wonder how Christians could defend the latter.

A Tragic But Real State Of The Union

If we think back to the election, we had a choice between two sides of Neoliberal Captialism. One side, Hillary's side, promised to put some curbs and taxes on the domestic businesses front while freeing up restraints that would allow more business freedom on the international level. The other side, the Donald side, saw a freeing of domestic businesses from their social responsibilities to the nation in the promises to reduce both taxes and regulations. While one candidate represented global side of neoliberalism, the other side promoted the domestic side of  neoliberalism. Neoliberalism here is the drastic reduction of government control over and taxes on businesses. And the businesses which stood to gain the most with either candidate were big businesses.

Increasing the control that business has over society is nothing new--this increase in control is often reflected in a reduction of governmental control over business. From the Obama Administration's failure to criminally prosecute those responsible for the 2008 economic collapse, to the writing of laws like Obamacare and to an extent Dodd-Frank, and to the attempt to fast tracking the TPP, big businesses were benefiting from Obama's Presidency. So while conservatives thought that government was the problem, big business has now gained an even greater control over our government with the election of Trump. Thus, the election was rigged. It wasn't rigged in the sense that either Hillary or the Donald was selected to win. It was fixed so that big business would gain more significant control over a government they already had decent amount of control of regardless of who was elected. Regardless of who was elected, any change in the status quo would further the position of wealth and power in society.
 
So while the Democratic Party suppressed its populist urges, Republican populism was merely a tool as its leaders exercised some slight of hand to make the public think that it was voting for a change in direction.

From Trump's appointments, to his promises to cut taxes and regulations made to the CEOs of major corporations, to his sabotaging of the EPA with Scott Pruitt, to his support of the Keystone and Dakota Access Pipelines, to his AG stating that the Federal prison system will return to relying on private prisons, and to his unnecessary plans to boost defense spending, Trump is championing the cause of big business while pretending to be concerned about the people who voted for him.

In the meantime, this President is giving unprecedented treatment of the press with him and some of his supporters claiming that the media is the enemy of the American people. Such  only plays to his base but it does so powerfully. We should note that many conservatives already form a strongly insular group. So that revelations by the press about Trump and his responses do nothing more than make his base more and more defensive. In addition, some of the conservative press is relying on promoting racial and religious prejudice to reinforce the belief among conservatives that all of their enemies are external ones--external in the sense that their enemies are either domestic nonconservatives or foreigners who do not share their religion and race.

The above is a description of the state of our union as far as I can see things.  And what is different between what the state of our union was under Obama from what it now is under Trump is not seen in the direction in which our nation is heading, the difference is seen in the speed our nation is traveling toward its final destination.



 

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For February 22, 2017

Feb 18

To Joseph Pearce and his blogpost on what is Capitalism. Pearce distinguishes the forms of Capiatlism by the percentage of people who share the greatest amount of wealth. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative Blog.

We can say that Capitalism has more than one meaning, which is true, or we can say that Capitalism has more than one form. For example the kind of Capitalism the preceded today's Neoliberalism was the Bretton-Woods system. However, unlike the above article that categorized Capitalism by the rate of owners/entrepreneurs who exist in an economy, the difference between the Bretton-Woods Sytems and today's neoliberalism rests in the relationship that owners, especially elite ones, have with the government. And before we go on, we should note that the kind of relationships between owners/entrepeneurs and the government is further complicated by whether a given government is succeeding as a working democracy or whether there is openly or secretly elite-centered rule over the people. 

If we assume that a given government is succeeding as a working democracy, then the degree of control that government can exercise over business owners allows the people, through their government, to set rules and limits on how owners can interact with the rest of society. At this point, because the Bretton-Woods System allowed for greater government control while Neoliberalism tries to eliminate as much government control as it can get away with, the degree of control that the people of a given society have over owners, primarily those with wealth, is greater under the Bretton-Woods System and much worse under Neoliberalism. And it seems that if we want to escape the problems, if not horrors, of elite-centered rule, we would not only be concerned with how much control the government can exercise over business, we would possess just as much care over whether our government is a working democracy.

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To Clyde Wilson and his blogpost on populism and state power. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blogpost. 

Sometimes, how we defines words depends on  the ideologies that we wish to either canonize or demonize. To a large extent, this is what has occurred in this writer's definition of populism. Populism starts of with being the 'people's party' and finishes, in its American form, with the people's opposition to state power, a power that is assumed to be corrupt and evil. So American Populism vs State control is simply an instantiation of the age old battle between good and evil. And we should note here that all successive references to populism will be to American populism.

But not only do we have that description, we see that populism and progressivism oppose each other, they share the trait of being confined to regions and ideas. For example, according to the writer, populists lean toward conservatism as it exists in parts of the South and West. Progressivism, which is more located in the North and East, involves urban professionals, and is associated with planning and wealth all of which creates a liberal establishment. In addition, we see that minorities are not included among populists so that, according to the writer of this article, only the 'core people' could be considered to be populists. Thus, by definition, minorities could never be counted as populists. And thus, what we see is a definition of populism is one that includes the majority of the right kind of people--White people--from the right part of our nation and who hold to conservative values and demonized the government.

Because of the assumptions made about both populism and its adversaries such as progressives and elite-centered rule as exercised by the state, evaluating and assessing the value of  populists, progressives and the state becomes unnecessary. For, by definition, American populism has been predefined as being good and its adversaries can be prejudged as being evil without even having to glance at their decisions and performances. In addition, we should note that membership requirements for belonging to the populists include ideological criteria, geographical criteria, and racial criteria. So by now, what the writer wishes to say in praise of populism should have raises plenty of red flags for the rest of us who belong to what could be called the 'excluded majority' of the American people. How ironic.

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Feb 20

To Joseph Sunde and his blogpost about how Trump's SCOTUS pick advances religious liberty. In that article, Sunde cites Jay Richards in saying that religious and economic are "mutually reinforcing and indivisible.' This appeared in the Acton blog.

To state that religious and economic liberties are indivisible not only confuses religion with economics, it does contradict a quote from Martin Luther King Jr.:

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.

When insisting that religious and economic liberties are indivisible, unless one is declaring that mammon is one's god, one forgets the degree to which how the practice of one's own religion affects others from that of one's own business. For though one conducts business to make a profit, conducting business is significantly outward-oriented in terms of how businesses impact different communities, other businesses, the economic system itself, and the environment as well as how a business treats its workers. In contrast to that, religion is much more inwardly directed in terms of personal piety and beliefs. We should also note that before the Obergefell decision, religiously conservative Christians used the law to limit the religious liberties of those from the LGBT community by prohibiting same-sex marriage. And now many of these same conservative Christians want laws that allow them to discriminate in varying degrees in the business world against the LGBT community much like Blacks were discriminated against during Jim Crow. In fact, if one wants to put religious and economic liberties on equal footing, it would follow that one would continue to support Jim Crow laws should they be supported by the majority of the people. It seems that when religiously conservative Christian sites are talking about religious liberties, they are really talking about religious privilege for their own group since they seem not to regard other religions as deserving equal status in society with their own. Finally, it isn't that there should be no economic freedom. It is that when government represents the people, economic freedom is rightfully subject to more restrictions than religious freedom because of how more outwardly directed practicing business is. And even when practicing relgion becomes outwardly directed, then relgious freedom is or should be restricted according to how it infringes on the freedoms of others.

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To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost stating that the normalization of homosexuality along with statements by scientists who see a a possible cause and effect relationship between certain physiological  characteristics and pedophila imply that our society is on the way to normalizing pedophilia. This appeared in Heidelblog.

I fully agree that we should be concerned about the normalization of pedophilia. We should certainly oppose its normalization with everything we have in us. But just because scientists may have observed certain physiological characteristics as appearing in pedophiles, doesn't mean that we are on the road to its normalization. And those who would use pedophilia to attack homosexuality are the ones who are minimizing the immorality of pedophilia.

To bring homosexuality into this picture as precursor in terms of what to expect indicates a hatred of homosexuals. Why would I say this? It is because if we were to return to yesteryear, not only would we call homosexuality sin, which I have no objection to, we would have society punish homosexuals by marginalizing and even incarcerating them. We should realize here that to not believe in Christ is also sin and yet we don't call on society to punish those from other religions--that is we don't despite Martin Luther's treatment of the Jews.

And when we compare heterosexual relationships with homosexual relationships among consenting adults and regardless of whether they occur in marriage, we find that homosexual relationships are very similar to heterosexual relationships whereas they are not similar at all to what we see in pedophilia. In fact, homosexual and heterosexual relationships between consenting adults are very similar except for the fact that same-sex marriage could never be justified in the Scriptures. 

So now, not only do those who use the acceptance of homosexuality in society as a precursor for the normalization of pedophilia show a hatred for homosexuals by wanting society to marginalize and incarcerate homosexuals despite, or perhaps in order to cover up, how similar they are to us heterosexuals, they put homosexuality on the same moral level as a seriously criminal and abusive set of behaviors toward children. This shows nothing more than a desire to, as they say in football after players continue to hit the ball carrier after the whistle has blown the play dead, pile on or commit unnecessary roughness. And the logic employed above assumes that the X above can be represented by both homosexuality and pedophilia. And that is where the logic employed is flawed. But it is more than just flawed, it is as hateful as it is self-righteous.

 

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Feb 21

To Joe Carter and his blogpost asking if Trump will defend religious freedom against the plans of the LGBT community. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.

In articles like the one above, the all important question is whose religious liberties are being protected? Is it just the religious liberties of religuosly conservative Christians or does it include the religious liberties of others such as those who believe that sex outside of marriage is acceptable or that same-sex marriage is acceptable. For if we are not defending the religious liberties of all, then we are defending the religious privileges of some.

In addition, we need to ask if defending the religious liberties of religiously conservative Christians come at the cost of the rights of others. We should note that the arguments that defend the right of Christian business owners to refuse to serve same-sex couples or same-sex weddings have much in common with the arguments that defended Jim Crow practices and laws. For some who defended Jim Crow laws and practices did so based on individual liberty and their religious beliefs. So if the government was right in dismantling Jim Crow, why is it wrong in preventing businesses from refusing to serve same-sex couples and same-sex weddings? Is it because since sexual practices are a choice and race isn't that discrimination against same-sex couples is different? Do we hear not only how punitive and self-righteous that reasoning is, but how racist it is as well? For what it says about same-sex couples is that society has the right, if not the obligation, to punish them because their sexual choices are not Christian. And what it also says is that society doesn't have the right to punish Blacks for their race because one's skin color is not one's fault. What all of this says is that we good Christians reserve the right to punish those who deliberately choose to be different from us.

What Kind Of Populism Will We Choose?

Much has been made of populism for over the past several months. We've seen populism on both the conservative and liberal sides. We should note here that the Left in America does not have enough people to claim to be a populist movement.

And so the question that is implied, by the existence of the conservative and liberal flavors of populism, is which one should we choose? Here we should note that not all populism is really populism. Quite often, the Republican and Democratic Parties want to co-op the respective forms of conservative and liberal populism. However, when this occurs, populism dies for the people of a populist group become followers of the elites who have co-opted them. Many who followed Sanders during the Democratic Party primaries learned this unfortunate lesson after Hillary obtained enough delegates. As for the Tea Party, though it has some independence, it works either under the leadership of the Republican Party's elites or under rogue elites like President Trump.

What we should note about populism is that it isn't just a movement, it is a practice or method. The method or practice is that of the people making their voices heard by their representatives so that they have more say in governmental decisions.

In one sense, populism, like elite-centered rule, is a neutral state of affairs that becomes good or bad depending on the quality of decisions made. Of course the difference is that populism is democratic while elite-centered rule is not. But the value of populism depends on the quality of the decisions made by its participants. And the advantage of populism is that more voices are being heard and thus more concerns are, hopefully, being addressed in the decisions being made.

There are two traits that make populism more constructive than destructive. The first of these traits is that the people in a given populist movement are more 'person-oriented' rather than 'thing-oriented.' These terms come from Martin Luther King Jr. And what it is meant here is that people are counted as being more important than things. The things King had in mind were gadgets, profits, and property rights. But our problem with getting people to be more person-oriented than thing-oriented is that our Capitalist economic system is constantly teaching us that happiness is achieved through materialism, through the growing acquisition of things. And the reality that comes with people being more thing-oriented than person-oriented is that their focus will be UNNECESSARILY on increasing their acquisition of things for themselves and for those in their groups. This means competition starts to push sharing and cooperation out of the picture. We should note that we are talking about 'unnecessarily' increasing the obtaining of goods because there is nothing wrong with those who live in poverty to want and get the basics of life.

The second necessary trait for any populist movement that wants to contribute to society rather than take away from it is that it must open rather than insular. What is meant by a group being insular is that the group obtains all of its information about the world from its own members only. There is no learning from those outside the gruop. And because there is no learning from others, there is no need to listen to them. And why should those in an insular group listen to those outside when a group is insular because those outside the group have been demonized?

Without these two traits of being person oriented and not being insular, populism will merely maintain the status quo. That status quo is a king-of-the-hill competition between members of a society in order to see who gets to rule over all others. 

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For February 24, 2016

Feb 18

To Elliot Clark and his blogpost on suggestions for being or creating 3rd culture Christians where we share the Gospel. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.

Suggestions #2,3, & 5 are very good. Suggestion #4 needs to be fleshed out. That leaves suggestion #1 and that needs to be qualified if we don't wish to spread colonialism with the Cross. For much of Church history that follows Constantine's conversion has been about Christian imperialism and colonialism is an important issue. That points to how the Church has throughout most of its history, been corrupted by the actual or potential acquisition of political power. With the corruption of the Church comes a distorted Gospel message. And that corruption continues to occur throughout the world today.

So how should this affect our teaching of Church history? Should we just focus on doctrines or do we include the Church's on-again, off-again love affair with political power? For while Christianity can be easily distinguished from other religions by its doctrine, it becomes one of the gang of those seeking power. And such is our dilemma in what to teach from Church history.

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Feb 20

To Joe Carter and his blogpost on how liberal economists disagree with Sanders' economic plans. This appeared in the Acton blog.

Here is a fact that is overlooked in the article. While Sanders never explains in detail how he is going to finance his promises, he has made one valid point: other nations are doing what he is promising to do here. So whatever "liberal" economists are claiming, the point is that a lot of what Sanders wants done is being accomplished under different conditions than exists here. And since conservatives, like Carter, harp on the fact that a raise in the minimum wage will mean a rise in unemployment without ever asking why, it is our current economic system and its conditions that need as much scrutiny as the promises made by each of the candidates.

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To Jordan Ballor and his blogpost on 5 theses on taking care of the  environment. This appeared in the Acton Blog.

Theses #1-3 are fine. But #4 has problems. Whether our economic stewardship clashes with our environmental stewardship should examined case by case basis. For much of produces profits and economic growth does hurt the environment regardless of whether short-term profit is involved. 


Thesis #5 misses a point. Fossile fuels are a key concern because of what they put back into the environment. Just because the use of nuclear fuel doesn't put back the same emissions that contribute to the build up of greenhouse gases doesn't mean that we can afford to neglect what the use of nuclear fuel does deposit in the enviornment. Perhaps solar and wind technology should be looked to more than nuclear--though doing so would not benefit corporate America as much as the other technologies.

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Feb 22

To Joe Carter and his blogpost describing the tariffs proposed by Trump and Sanders as taxes on the poor and working class because of the increased prices they would have to pay for some imported goods. This appeared in the Acton blog.

Free trade advocates forget a couple of things here. First, not everyone is starting from the same point. The industries of some nations' are more developed than others. And one of the reasons why some nations have more developed industries is because those industries were formerly protected by tariffs. So now that they are developed, those nations with the developed industries insist that other nations continue to lag behind them because the other nations cannot use the same method of developing their own industries as were used before. Or in the case of the nations being targeted for tariffs by Trump and Sanders, one nation's industries outcompete their counterparts from other nations because they can cut costs by exploiting workers and the environment This is designed to keep nations in a strict caste system that is governed by those who are calling for their own freedom: business elites. 

This brings up a second problem with free trade. Free trade is not free to the nations that participate in it because they are not allowed to make laws that govern how foreign players from the private sector are treating the people in their nation. What is called economic freedom and free trade is nothing more than the continual reduction of social responsibilities for businesses. And what is deemed as reward for this freedom is the bottom line for those businesses because it is assumed that whatever is good for business, is good for all. 

Analogies are only as good as  their  portrayal of the object is complete. So like statistics, analogies that filter information can be classified as lies. Tariffs have never been viewed as a tax on those purchasing the goods as much as on those producing the goods. And when tariffs allow for nations to develop their own industries, then there comes a tradeoff for the higher prices one must pay today for those tariffed goods. That tradeoff can be more jobs for more people that come from developing industries that can eventually compete with the foreign industries of those nations which must pay tariffs. ANd we know what happens when these local industries begin to flourish. As the supply of goods increases, the prices go down. So to use the venacular here, the "taxes" that the middle and lower class consumers must pay now carry with them the potential for those taxes to self-destruct--as well as the elimination of the economic caste system managed by private sector elites. 

So why is it that Carter did not present this tradeoff or the above mentioned use of tariffs in his analogy and artilcle?

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Feb 23

To Sarah Stanley and her blogpost warning against populism in 
general and how today's manisfestations in support for Trump and 
Sanders presents a danger to freedom. This appeared in the Acton blog.

I believe that the writer here confuses freedom and privilege. The main difference is that freedom is enjoyed by all, privilege is enjoyed by some. And those who are in the economic-political axis, and that includes Charles Koch, are gaining more privileges as the rest of us lose more freedoms. 

There is a reason why the writer here doesn't recognize the difference between freedom and privilege. It is, IMO, that the writer here reduces all freedom to individual freedom. Such destroys the concept of democracy. For Democracy involves a corporate freedom where society tells its members how they are allowed to treat each other. Yes, Democracies can go too far in making such rules. But reducing all freedom to individual freedom weakens, if not destroys, democracy for the benefit of the privileged. 

The Citizens United decision simply allows those who have the means to enjoy a privilege that others do not have. The Citizens United decision works to replace the 1-person-1-vote system on which our democracy is based with the free market principle of $1-1-vote. Those who object to populism may struggle to see why such a replacement is so abhorent. It is because such a replacement ensures a rule by elites rather than a democratic rule by all.

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To Michael Dever, Voddie Baucham, and Bill Kynes and their podcast discussion of Christians and politics.  This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.

There are important points to cover here. First, distinguishing being partisan and political in the Church is important especially since politics includes issues of justice and thus morality. So how can one be political without being partisan? It is a matter of the Church being a curmudgeon to all who are in or are seeking power that enables Christians to be political without being partisan. That is because  the Church can speak prophetically when being a curmudgeon and as long as it acts that way to all who are in or seek power, partisanship dissipates.

Also exposing utopias for what they are is another important point. But there is a subtle and sly way of advocating a utopia. That is to brand all attempts to improve the status quo as being utopian. That is because saying that things cannot improve is simply another way of saying that we have a utopia.

Finally the homosexual and same-sex marriage in society issues was brought up. And here, we should note that there is another issue involved besides a doctrinal one. That issue concerns itself with how we will share society with others, not just whether homosexuality is biblical. Of course it isn't, but neither worshiping other God and we allow freedom of religion. So the question regarding laws concerning hmosexuality an same sex marriage becomes whether we will share society with others as equals or will we seek some hierarchical relationsip as being over them.