Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For Jan 8, 2014

This is a new category of posts. It is dedicated to those conservative blogs that have blocked my comments for various reasons. The blogpost of blocked comments will appear every Wednesday when the blog is not taking a break

Jan 5


to Jack's last comment to me on heidelblog debate on homosexuality

Special note on this and the next comment. These comments of mine were blocked but not because of their content. Rather they were blocked because of the time it takes to moderate a back and forth discussion that goes on for a length of time. Thus the blocking of this and the next comment is very understandable

Jack,

First, a non-rhetorical question cannot be a red herring.

Second, I didn't brush aside any of William's objections. I simply said that from people I know, the template he was using was false. I didn't supply a template because I don't believe homosexuals are a monolithic community. And, in fact, it was he who outrightly denied what I found to be true with the people I know. I didn't deny his experiences. I simply said that his experiences do not describe all homosexuals. In fact, logically speaking, it would be a substantial error for anyone to make  generalizations of fact about any group from their own experiences. So I believe you have it backwards. I am not establishing a template here, I am denying one. And the one I am denying is one in which there is piling on. Where we assume that homosexuals can never be in committed, monogamous relationships or where we assume there that they are narcissistic. In fact, if you read what narcissism is about, you will find that sexual orientation and narcissism are quite independent of each other.

All of this effort to paint homosexuals with one broad brush is counterproductive to our mission and goal of preaching the gospel especially when it comes to preaching the gospel to homosexuals. Whereas Budziszewski and William want to make generalizations about homosexuals which go beyond describing homosexuality as sin, I am saying that such generalizations are neither supported by the scriptures nor by the lives of those whom I know to be homosexual. That doesn't deny that there are homosexuals who have certain diseases, or cannot be faithful in monogamous relationships, or who are narcissists; it simply means that certain diseases are due to promiscuity rather than homosexuality, that there are homosexuals who are in committed, monogamous relationships, and that there are homosexuals who are not narcissists. That is my template.


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To William's last comment to me on the same post on the Heidelblog blog. Again, the blocking of my response below was for understandable reasons rather than for content


William,
Not sure if I posted my last response because it didn't appear as awaiting moderation but I will try again with a shorter version.

IMO, the person who does not take sin seriously enough is the person who piles on the description of sin. This is how I see Budziszewski's comments. He makes a great deal out of homosexuals having herpes lesions when herpes is a result of promiscuity, not homosexuality. He states that research shows homosexuals cannot be faithful in monogamous relationships without citing the source of his research. In addition, it goes against the experiences of my friends. And note that you attempted to discredit the experiences of my friends. Third, you and Budziszewski want to claim that homosexuals are narcissists because males reflect males and females reflect females and all of that shows that you either believe that males and females are monoliths or that all that is needed for one to reflect the other is to be of the same gender. In addition, such doesn't tie homosexuality to narcissism. To give evidence to my claim are 3 links that discuss narcissism

http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/narcissistic-personality-disorder

http://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/02/narcissism.aspx

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-personality-disorder/basics/definition/con-20025568

And yes, what Luther did has everything to do with what Christians are trying to do when they want society to either stigmatize gays or prevent them from being treated as equals. Luther wanted his fellow Germans to punish the Jews for their unbelief lest the Germans become complicit with that same unbelief. What is the Christian apologetic for prohibiting gay marriage in society? So that people don't regard homosexuality as normal and thus stigmatizing homosexuals. In addition, Budziszewski's natural law argument is there to influence civil law and social sanctions against gays. That is what Luther called for against the Jews.

And no, I am not putting words in  your mouth. You agree with Budziszewski that homosexuals cannot be faithful in monogamous relationships and that they are narcissists. The scriptures support neither claim.

Finally, I have never shied away from calling homosexuality sin. What I have said is that we must be precise when defining it as sin and distinguish that from how we describe homosexuals. Again, when we take any sin seriously enough, we have no need to pile on. Calling an act sin is serious enough.

My apologies to Dr. Clark if part or all of the above is a repost. That was unintentional.

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Jan 7


To Jordan Ballor on his Acton blogpost titled, Trickle-Down Welfare Economics. In his post, Ballor both denies the existence of Trickle-Down economics in the private sector but says that it exists in government's handing out of welfare benefits. It appears to this blog that the comment below was blocked for content

When I have read about Trickle-down economics from conservatives sources from the past, there has never been a denial of it or the claim that it doesn't work. And unlike Sowell's assertion that only the insane advocate Trickle-down economics, those who react negatively  say that the term is a misleading label meant to deceive the public about Reagan's economic proposals. Thus, the term "Trickle-down Economics" is simply a nickname of debatable value for a set of actual economic policies.

In responding to criticisms, conservative want to emphasize that wealth can only be earned rather than filtered as suggested by the debatable label. That assertion itself is wrong. Wealth can also be stolen, siphoned, and inherited. But we also have to examine what it means to say that wealth is earned because of the different claims to that wealth that various sides recognize. It seems that the majority of conservatives believe that wealth is earned solely by the individual. Nonconservatives of various perspectives believe that wealth can be earned solely by individuals, however, in almost all of today's earning of wealth, it is earned because of both the individual and a supporting cast. And so to sustain that supporting cast, certain claims to what is earned are legitimate. The supporting cast would include the system in which wealth is earned. In addition, the right to life can be practically denied to some who cannot create enough wealth in the present system. At this point, we have to ask whether the only value society should recognize in people is extrinsic.

But what I find odd in the blogpost here is that the term "Trickle-down Economics" would be applied to the administration of welfare benefits. Not that those who call administration of welfare programs "trickle-down economics" don't have a right to try to frame welfare anyway they wish, it is that the administration of welfare programs is not comparable to Reaganomics. For with Reaganomics, you have a partial cutting of ties between a select group who "earn" a great deal of wealth from the supporting cast in the guise of tax cuts and deregulation. We could also add Reagan's attack on unions as part of the cutting of ties. With the administration of welfare benefits, not that it is above criticism, you have the distribution of wealth by stewards of a system.

One of the dilemmas I see for conservatives is this, while they are hung up on the ethics and morality of outside claims to the wealth earned by businesses and the rich, they begin to make the system in which wealth is earned unsustainable. Greece is an example. Certainly people there have a work-ethic issue to address. But that is not the only cause for their economic problems and debt. The mass move to avoid paying taxes and the corruption between gov't and private sector elites played  big roles in destroying Greece's economy. The more that those with wealth here avoid paying taxes and the more they indulge in corrupted relationships with those in gov't, the more they make Greece's problem the future for our economy.

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To  Bruce Frohnen on imaginative conservative blogpost on how the Mayflower Compact and Declaration of Independence are tied together in what they contributed to the Constitution

What is missing in this article is how the above documents differ from the Constitution. The Mayflower Compact was revolve around the concerns of a specific religious community, a religious community that was more exclusive than inclusive and that later on participated in the ethnic cleansing of America's indigenous people. The Constitution revolved around creating a stronger federal gov't than what existed before and this was for the benefit of the wealthy. Deliberately absent from the Constitution were voting rights allowing states to determine voting rights by property along with equality for Blacks, women, and America's indigenous people. The Constitution substituted the right to property, and this was for the benefit and protection of property owners, for the right to happiness. In the Constitutional debates, Madison feared that if every person had the right to vote, agrarian reforms would set in and thus one of the purposes of the Constitution was to protect "the opulent of the minority" from the rest.

We should note that both history and the number of amendments to the Constitution should tell us that it should always be reviewed and possibly revised at least as much as it is revered.

BTW, my apologies to the Imaginative Conservative Blog for listing the above comment as being blocked. I discovered later that it wasn't blocked. This is my fault.

Does Individual Liberty Produce The Most Entitlements

The battle cry of today's Conservative tends to express the following sentiments:

• Give me liberty or I'll give you death
  and
• Don't tread on me bro

What liberty is being referenced here? It is that of the individual including private property rights. To whom are these sentiments being expressed? It is to the government. These Conservatives believe that since government, per se, is a potential threat to individual liberty and rights, it must be kept on a short leash inside an electric fence in yard that is surrounded a resurrected Berlin Wall. Such is the only container that guarantees the rights and freedom of the individual which, in turn, provides the most fertile ground for the flourishing of human ingenuity and industry. 

Of course these Conservatives do believe that government should occasionally be allowed outside for a purpose-driven walk. The reason the walks is to scare away or fight stray governments or others who threaten to desecrate one's property or attack one's person. But then government must be quickly returned back to its yard lest it forgets that it is merely a pet or servant while the individual is the master.

This conservative view of government is proclaimed with much pomp and circumstance because it has merits after one considers specific governments from both the past and the present. However, when government is opposed in principle in order to provide a hedge against tyranny, a barrier to any meaningful democracy is also being created. How? Since any meaningful democratic government is representing the will of the people, limiting the role of government is to limit corporate liberty, the freedom of the group. In other words, the job of a democratic government is to express the will of the people as a collective. And it sometimes has to address the impact that individual liberty can have on the people. Labor and environmental protection laws are examples of how the government can express the will of the people to the individual who has a business.

What is the Conservative's alternative solution to using government to curb the abusive actions of individuals ? It is the Free Market. The Free Market is the Conservative's Superman in that it is portrayed as being invulnerable to attacks. The Free Market promises to punish most wrongdoers with failure. For example, the Free Market had the capacity to prohibit the past sins of our financial institutions by not providing for bailouts. Those businesses that escape the clutches of the Free Market and break the law are then sent to the government to receive their punishment. 

But here we need to stop. We need to ask, how can the Free Market weed out those who use liberty as a license to hurt others? We also need to ask, when would those who care first about personal profit mingle and even cooperate with those from the lower economic classes? This concern only arises when it is beneficial to the rich such as when they are financially depending on those from the lower economic classes. In other words, in most cases, concern for the welfare of the lower classes by those with wealth is self-serving. And we should ask, how the Free Market can weed out those who use their liberty to harm others when abusing others is rewarded in the marketplace? Examples of these abuses can be seen in the use of foreign sweatshop labor. 

Likewise, when will government step in and help the lower classes? In states that are fleeing true democracy, government serves others with the same self-interest described above.

All of this brings up a couple of crucial points about our Capitalist system. The first point is that our Capitalist system seems to be at odds with documents like The Declaration Of Independence in determining the value of each person. Whereas The Declaration assumes that each person has an intrinsic value, as shown in declaring certain rights to be inalienable, our Capitalist economic system only recognizes each person by their extrinsic value, which is measured by the financial gain they have to offer to others. There is no need to ask my fellow Christian fundamentalist nerds which approach is more biblical here. 

The second point that bears mentioning is that globalization and technology has made the extrinsic value of each person from the middle and lower classes very volatile. This is because the more jobs that can be lost due to either outsourcing or new technology, the less that those in these classes have to offer to both the rich and the government. Thus, those in the upper class have less incentive to even interact with or care about those in the lower economic classes, which is contrary to how De Tocqueville described the relationship between the two (click here and read paragraphs #3 and #7).

Likewise, if we look at government as being either the writer of rules to maintain the social order or an arbitrator of disputes between individuals, what incentive do our elected officials, who are more dependent on campaign contributions than they are on the votes of the compliant, have to serve the interests of those who are losing their value in society (click here for reference on the role of government)?

Despite these two points, and much evidence, what we hear from Conservatives are hypotheses disguised as mathematical theorems. For while they stress how their emphasis on individual liberty and property rights when combined with just a touch of governmental control will motivate people to act properly and treat each other fairly, both history and current events beg to differ. And yet their challenges are dismissed by scapegoating the government for interfering with the Free Market. And conservative Christians should note here how conservative economists have claimed to be able to make a perfect theoretical creation called the Free Market.

In the meantime, the culture war between The Declaration Of Independence, with its claim that each person has an intrinsic value, vs our Capitalist system, which counters by honoring only those who have extrinsic value, wages in the battlefields of our local, state, and federal governments as well as the market place. The key to victory for The Declaration Of Independence is to appeal to morality. If The Declaration wins, our economic system will be designed to serve the people. But if our Capitalist system wins, then we will have a government that will serve those with wealth and an economic system that will continue to divide the people into three groups: the rich, those who serve the interests of the rich, and those who either are expendable or who have become surplus people. 

And here, we must ask the Church this question, "Whose side are you on?" The Church's answer will reveal whether the Church is serving God or mammon.