Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For June 2, 2021

 June 1

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost quoting from an article written by Keith Mathison that talks about how the Church's desire for political power, as in the days of the Roman Church in the Middle Ages, will be one of the factors that contribute to its death. This appeared in Heidelblog.

Link to article cited in Clark's article

https://www.keithmathison.org/post/the-shared-priority-of-american-evangelicalism-and-the-medieval-papacy

The question here is whether the Church, including the evangelical part of the Protestant branch, can speak prophetically to the state without lusting for power. For while the above post and article cited makes the traditional conservative mistake by viewing the Church's interaction with the state solely in the light of the past, we need to also consider the present. The present includes a significant laundry list of politically facilitated oppressions some of which are still promoted by Evangelicals including those who are providing the criticisms of evangelicalism described above.  One only needs to ask if homosexuality and same-sex marriage should be legally allowed to show that point.

We should also note that it isn't just liberals who, as described above, teach that cultural standards should replace the scriptures, conservatives do that too. Only conservatives know that the appearance of doing so raises red flags. And so instead of teaching people that we should replace what is taught in the scriptures with cultural values, they teach that their favorite sacred cow cultural values are also taught in the scriptures. Some of those cultural values include patriotism, conservative political ideology,  and capitalism. 

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To Russell Kirk and his article, possibly written in 1973, about the need for order and how the American order, though not perfect, has brought freedom and justice to people. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

The more unjust the order, the greater risk of challenges to that order which can cause unjust changes in current order or a new order to  become more unjust. The latter happened in Russia following the October 1917 Revolution. The former seems to be happening in Israel with its Occupation of Palestinian territories. Now Israel faces a choice between military defeat and moral suicide. It seems to be vying for the latter. 

The perception of the justness of America's order often depends on whether or not one is privileged. One can quote Tocqueville to one is blue in the face, but he spoke as a member of the privileged from Europe. Thus he failed to see America's atrocities for what they were. Those who suffered the atrocities of the American order have seen things differently, and perhaps more realistically, than Tocqueville did.

We have a choice when facing the corruption of the current but weakening American order. Either we can insist on maintaining the current order because order is better than anarchy, or we can look to change the current order to become just--note that I didn't say more just. Those who are privileged, are looking for affirmation when they view the current American order. Their insecurity is evident when they either describe the merits of the current order or when minimize its atrocities. But because they have prospered by way of oppression, nagging self-doubts caused by guilt cause them to gloss over reality.

So the question is whether we will have the courage to face a real picture of the moral failures of the American order. We've already seen, through examples, what  our options will be if our courage fails.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For May 2, 2018

April 29

To Bradley Birzer and his blogpost that gives a completely negative critique of Marxism. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative website

There really isn't that much difference between the above critique of Marx and other conservative criticisms. According to those criticisms, Marx had nothing of value to teach us. That he seems to be a godless person who misunderstands having been disillusioned with capitalism and thinks that  he has discovered a  way to utopia. However, the history of nations that have tried his ideas like the Soviet Union, China, Laos, Cuba, etc shows otherwise.

The above critique is different from the one given by Martin Luther King Jr (see pg 92-95 of  http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/ows/seminars/aahistory/Pilgrimage.pdf ). Like the above criticism, King rejects Marx's materialism and he seemed to have strongly associated the totalitarianism of the Soviet Union with Marxism and he rejected that. He also rejected Marx's relative morality though I am not sure that that didn't come more from the Soviet Union than from Marx. I like much of King's critique of Marxism but he errs when he seems to identify it with Bolshevism--the Soviet Union's Communism.

But what we should note about King's critique of Marx is the value he sees in Marx's writings and the criticisms he has of Capitalism. And that King believed that we should pursue what is best from both Marxism and Capitalism. For whereas one ideology forgets that life is individual, the other forgets that it is social.

So what value did King see in Marxism? King agreed with the William Temple, a late Archbishop of Canterbury, who said that Communism was able to identify and cling to certain Christian truths. Those truths included waiting for a utopia and wanting social justice. And here we should note that while Marx reduced the overall theme of history to that of class struggle, it is obvious that class struggle plays a staring role in the saga of man's inhumanity to man. And it should be obvious that man is incapable of creating any kind of utopia. Despite that, Marx clearly shows how Capitalism objectifies labor power and makes workers into disposable objects for profit.

King also notes how Capitalism causes us to focus on success in terms of material goods instead of human goodness toward each other. It isn't that there are no capitalists who don't help, it is that the system trains people to perceive and treat others in the world as expendable things.

One more point should be made. While  Christian Capitalists rightfully fault Marx for believing in a utopia, they also condemn themselves for the same belief when they defiantly claim that Capitalism can be neither replaced nor improved on. The only difference is that Marx wrongfully believed in an absolute utopia on earth while such Capitalists wrongly believe in a relative one.

One other point should be made. That the list of nations trying some form of Marxism includes far more nations that the ones listed above. Those are nations where the US, and sometimes some allies, has supported or orchestrated coups where a democratically elected leftist in government were replaced by brutal tyrants and dictators.
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April 30

To Russell Kirk and his blogpost on a 10-point description of Conservatism. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

The above description of conservatism by Russell Kirk contains both ambiguities and contradictions.
Contradictions include not favoring 'absolute political dogmas' while celebrating America's rejection of all forms of collectivism. Another conservative contradiction exists in the expressed disdain for the centralization of power while maintaining privilege and status and allowing power to collect in the private sector. Here, a bit shortsightedness and overreaction to the Soviet Union back then might explain the inconsistency. Kirk seems to say that conservatives only object to the consolidation of power in the public sector while, through the maintaining of privilege and status, allowing power to consolidate in the private sector. For Kirk should realize that in Capitalism power follows wealth, the consolidation of wealth leads to what is expressly feared: the consolidation of power as seen in oligarchy.

Ambiguity exists in determining whose moral law will set the standard and serve as the code for society. In addition, what are the specific differences between improving the world and seeking any dreaded utopian dream. Or when Kirk describes Conservatives as protecting everybody's right to keep what is theirs, how does he determine what is someone's property when it comes to fair wages?

Much of what Kirk wrote here was in revulsion to the Soviet Union. But how much about the Soviet Union did Kirk really understand? Did he understand that many socialists themselves opposed the Soviet Union? Did he understand that according to some socialists, Lenin and/or Stalin were rejected? Would that have made a difference in what he wrote?

Despite the above, more problems with conservatism can be found in its working definition rather than its ideal definition. For conservatism's working definition amounts to conservatives looking solely to the past to understand today's world and how to solve its problems. Such works against the conservative principle of accepting the universal law of change.

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May 1

To Rev. Ben Johnson and his blogpost that challenged France’s President Macron’s call for change in the US during his speech before a joint session of Congress. This appeared in the Acton Blog.

Though I have to agree with Rev. Johnson's objections to Macron's approach to fake news, Johnson is off the mark when he criticizes Macron's call to the US to follow the climate agreement. Yes, there have been problems with the current approach to addressing climate change in Germany and the UK. But what does that mean? Does that mean that we give up on addressing climate change? Does it mean if government cannot "get it right" with their first approach, that gov't will never get it right? The conservative response to Social Justice issues, and climate change is one of those issues, is to reduce reality to what favors their perspective. This includes ignoring other realities. The reality being ignored by Rev. Johnson is the future reality if we do not change. And that future reality is becoming more and more certain as we observe either the disappearance or breakup of Arctic and Antarctic ice. It becomes more certain as we see the continued melting of the permafrost and the release of methane gas. It is observed as we see the rise in sea levels increase at a faster pace. And it is observed as we see global temperatures rising. And those are not the only places we see climate change coming.

Rev. Johnson also misses the mark when he criticizes Macron's call for regulated markets. Johnson seems unaware that the stats he cites to challenge economic inequality are inadequate. Wealth disparity has been growing within nations (see  https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2018/jan/22/inequality-gap-widens-as-42-people-hold-same-wealth-as-37bn-poorest and  http://www.austaxpolicy.com/news/world-inequality-report-2018/  and  http://www.oecd.org/social/inequality.htm  ). Citing only the work  of a conservative think-tank is problematic when the results are not found by other sources. What Oxfam observed about extreme poverty being reduced does not not apply to other levels of poverty. In addition, where poverty is reduced the most in the world is China, which hardly has a free,unregulated market as well as the environmental growing pains that comes with their reduction in poverty, and India, which has problems with increases in slavery. Thus, whether even extreme poverty is being reduced around the world the way it is reduced in China and India is debatable.

It's about time that Acton should come clean in terms of its pushing neoliberal capitalism and who that kind of capitalism benefits the most. The growing wealth disparity in the world indicates that it isn't the people at the bottom.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For July 13, 2016

July 7

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost on what the Iowa Civil Rights Commission expects from churches. This appeared in the Heidelblog.

If you read the Iowa Civil Rights Act, the most probable reason for the approach that the Iowa Civil Rights Commission is taking to churches and religious institutions is that the Commission is applying the same criteria to the term 'public accommodation'  for churches and other religious institutions as it applies for private clubs. So that a private club is considered to be Public Accommodations if it  'caters or offers services, facilities, or goods to the nonmembers for fee or charge or gratuitously, it shall be deemed a public accommodation during such period' for an event.  (see the definition of Public Accommodation in https://coolice.legis.iowa.gov/Cool-ICE/default.asp?category=billinfo&service=IowaCode&ga=83&input=216. ). Thus, there is no targeting of religious institution in the law and thus, IMO, the title of this blogpost is a bit of an overstatement.

The problem though is the question of whether the Iowa Civil Rights Act should use the same criteria for public accommodations for church services and other religious institution events as is applied to private club events. After all, how is that we can equate sermons and other parts of a religious service to the catering, kinds of services, facilities, or goods that a private club might offer to the public? In addition, the Iowa Civil Rights Act does not provide a precise definition for the term 'religious purpose.'

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July 9

To Russell Kirk and his article that was posted on a review of Edmund Burke’s view of what makes  a good constitution. This was posted in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

In essence, Burke's principles on constitutions, as reported by Russell Kirk, was built from an exalted view of both one's own upbringing as well as The Constitution of the United States. And nothing indicates this more than principles #2 & #3.  With principle #2, his emphasis that man is a religious animal and that there is a need to be accountable to a divine authority for people to be principled kind of forgets all of the abuses people have practiced in the name of their religion. The Church's support for wealth and power prior to the French Revolution should have taught Burke something different about the need for religion. Also, in terms of how his emphasis on a national religion for America, there is no national church here is that the Revolution required a certain level of manpower and that manpower could only be drawn from a religiously diverse group.

But another point must be made about religion. That all too often the Church, that is the branch of the Church that is dominant in a given nation, has supported wealth and power at the expense of justice for many of the people. Yes, the Church can contribute to a stable society by doing so. At the same time, when that stable society can no longer be tolerated, the Church suffers persecution while it causes the Gospel to be dishonored. Though I am not a fan of Vladimir Lenin, we should note his criticism/observation about Christianity in Russia prior to the Revolution (see https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/dec/03.htm ):

Religion is one of the forms of spiritual oppression which everywhere weighs down heavily upon the masses of the people, over burdened by their perpetual work for others, by want and isolation. Impotence of the exploited classes in their struggle against the exploiters just as inevitably gives rise to the belief in a better life after death as impotence of the savage in his battle with nature gives rise to belief in gods, devils, miracles, and the like. Those who toil and live in want all their lives are taught by religion to be submissive and patient while here on earth, and to take comfort in the hope of a heavenly reward. But those who live by the labour of others are taught by religion to practise charity while on earth, thus offering them a very cheap way of justifying their entire existence as exploiters and selling them at a moderate price tickets to well-being in heaven. Religion is opium for the people. Religion is a sort of spiritual booze,   in which the slaves of capital drown their human image, their demand for a life more or less worthy of man.

Of course what Burke, according to Kirk, is praising, Lenin is protesting and it has strong connections with his next point. In point #3, Burke praises a 'natural aristocracy' which he equates with men who have made it in the business world and that any democracy that he envisions is heavily reliant on this aristocracy. Burke must have had his wish with The Constitution because it was for the most part written by America's own natural aristocracy  and it was written to maintain the status quo for their benefit against the interests of others.

Something could also be said about Burke's point #4 as interpreted by Kirk, he calls for a balance between the claims of freedom and the claims for order. But order for whom or for whose benefit? Is this order so that Burke's natural aristocracy can fulfill its role in society? The trouble here is that the elevation of any group in society goes against the grain of democracy for democracy is about sharing power rather than seeking control. For control corrupts and destroys democracy. In addition, regarding Burke's notion of natural law, we should note that natural law does not carry a universal definition.

What appeals to Burke about constitutions should not surprise anyone. His notion of an acceptable constitution, despite its use of democracy, is one that is based on a certain degree of authoritarianism. In comparison to a dictatorship, we could refer to this as authoritarianism-lite. The reliance on authoritarianism is part in parcel with Conservatism's emphasis on maintaining traditional values. And here there exists an inverse relationship between how comprehensive the traditional set of values emphasized by a given set of conservatives is to governing life and both democracy and freedom.
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To Joe Carter and his blogpost defending churches’ current tax exempt status. This appeared in the Acton blog.

I have to disagree with both the blogpost above and the article it cites. One of the reasons cited from the article is that making churches tax-exempt cuts them loose from the 'burdens of tax laws.' But any church that pays employees must meed the burdens of following some of our tax laws already. And my feeling is that churches don't want to be taxed because of the tax laws themselves, it is due to the result of following those tax laws. That is paying tax bills. And if a church cannot pay its tax bills, then it is not paying its fair share for the government services it consumes. Thus, others are left with the bill for those services.

Much of the argument here is a survival one. Making churches tax exempt allows them to operate. We should note that businesses that shirk at least some of their tax responsibilities are operating under the same idea.

In addition, there is a small government argument embedded in apologetic for keeping the tax exemption status for churches. Since making churches tax exempt gives them a better chance of surviving economically, and since religious institutions provides avenues by which voluntary associations of people can be used to provide services for people which reduces the number of services government has to provide, religious institutions should remain tax exempt. Such employs a reasoning that, in the end, makes businesses a main beneficiary of keeping churches tax exempt. Why? Because the more responsibilities that the gov't doles out to religious institutions to provide safety nets for the people, the less gov't has to spend on those safety nets and thus the less in taxes businesses must pay. But such forgets a key point when gov't attempts to help individuals or groups that are in need. That key point is that when gov't helps those in need, it demonstrating that the gov't is representing the people it is helping. On the other hand, the fewer government safety nets there are, the less the gov't is representing those in need.

Finally, there is the argument that says that keeping churches tax exempt lessens government's regulatory power.  Here we should note that the 2008 economic collapse was due in large part to the lessening of the regulatory power of the gov't. And here, we should note that the gov't already regulates religious institutions by the necessity of definition.  Regulations are needed to determine if an institution is a religious one or not.

There is no good argument for defending tax exemptions for churches. But that conservatives defend that tax exempt status shows how the Church here in America is imitating the Church during the pre-revolutionary times in France, Russia, and Spain. The Church supported those with wealth and power and the favor was returned. We should note how many religiously conservative Christians favor reducing the number of regulations and the taxes paid by businesses. And the less that businesses, especially the wealthy ones, avoid paying their fare share in taxes, the more the tax burden is shifted over to working people. Such was one of the situations that existed just before the French Revolution.
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July 10

To Annie Holmquist and her blogpost that recommended the reading of the Anti-Federalist Papers. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative Website.

At some point, we have to move off the Federalist/Anti-Federalist continuum to include with, rather than just replacing, it with a concern for and proposals for Constitutional amendments that would protect individuals from being oppressed by other individuals. We should note that the there were both Federalists and And-Federals who oppressed Blacks through the institution of slavery. And fans of both groups supported Jim Crow and support Jim Crow II. And currently there are those who still try to deny equality and civil rights for those in the LGBT community.

The government is not our only potential enemy and our Founding Fathers knew this because many of them exploited Blacks through slavery. Thus, what The Constitution with the Bill of Rights allowed for was the continuation of  individuals infringing on the rights of other individuals and thus both supported the status quo of their time.

BTW, did anyone notice what the anti-Federalists said about prosperity:

A republican, or free government, can only exist where the body of the people are virtuous, and where property is pretty equally divided

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July 12

To Denny Burk and his blogpost quoting the Dallas Police Chief as saying that too much is being asked of police officers today. This appeared in Denny Burk’s blog.

I agree with the police chief. We should also note how difficult a police officer's job can be without asking them to do too much.

The solution to the problem recognized by the police chief has multiple parts. Yes, we need children to be born in families and for families to remain intact. However, we also need revitalize economic opportunities for men of all ages living in densely populated urban areas for families to stay together. We also need to renew gov't provision of some of the services mentioned by the police chief. And for all of that to happen, we need to switch from an economic system built on the Ayn Rand's self-centered philosophy to one that is based on participation to the point of contributing, sharing, and cooperation.
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To Alexander Salter and his blogpost stating that the Brexit vote shows that it is necessary, for our own good, that democracy should be limited as recommended by the founding fathers. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.


We should note why the Federalists despised a more direct democracy, it was a threat to the status quo from which the Federalists so easily benefited from at the expense of others. After all, The Constitution was written in response to widespread dissent and Shays Rebellion. And what some of the people who opposed the new American elite proposed was politically called innovation by the Federalists. Federalists, like James Madison, believed in elite-centered rule couched in a republic where Senators were protected from the wrath of American voters which made up of around 5% of the people when The Constitution became law.
As for Jefferson's quote, there are two problems. First, logically speaking, the decisions in a Republic are made in a similar way as the decisions in a democracy only fewer people, more likely the elites, are the ones voting. So if we could call democracy, where 51% of the people rule, 'mob rule,' we could call our republic, where either 51% or 60% of the elected elites rule 'the mob rules.' Unless you have a dictatorship, the majority will have their way.

However, there is another problem with the Thomas Jefferson quote shown above is that the The Jefferson Monticello Website has no evidence that Thomas Jefferson ever said anything related to that quote (see https://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/democracy-nothing-more-mob-rule ).

In the end, those who are most opposed to Democracy are following in line with the Federalists of old. And it should surprise no one that a religiously conservative website like this one should want limits on democracy because those who are religiously conservative tend to be authoritarians. And that is where the issue lies. Will we be self-governing for which only Democracy provides the necessary political structures or should we leave the important decisions up to our elites in hopes that, in the face of any conflict of interest, they will rule with our best interests at heart?