Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For June 14, 2023

 June 8

To R. Scott Clark and his blog article that rightfully criticizes Stephen Wolfe's view of Christian Nationalism and Kevin DeYoung's view of cultural Christianity. He also commented on Marxism. This appeared in Heidelblog.

I fully agree with Clark when he oppose Wolfe's Christian Nationalism and questions DeYoung's cultural Christianity. He provides sound reasons for his disagreements with them. But when he argues for Natural Law, which in other posts he has claimed is summarized by the 2nd Table of the Law, isn't Clark also vying for some sort of cultural Christianity? For in using the 2nd Table of the Law as a summary for Natural Law, he is promoting a Christian understanding of Natural Law.

When describing how we should react to the LGBT rights, Clark doesn't seem to fully notice that nature might be giving us mixed messages. For same-sex behavior (SSB) has been observed in 1,500 species of animals where SSB has produced positive result for at least some of those species. Clark doesn't include that when he also talks about how attributing homosexuality to genetic or biological causes have failed. In addition, there are physiological factors that contribute to gender dysphoria of which Clark seems unaware. And so it seems that Clark's attribution of these conditions to fallen nature refers to our sinful nature. Thus, we are dealing with a Christian theological understanding of the physical world which would be imposed on those from the LGBT community. And because it is a theological understanding, that understanding is incomplete because even scientists are not sure of all of the physical factors involved in either homosexuality and gender dysphoria. Resisting or opposing the equality for the LGBT community based on a Christian understanding of natural law promotes an imposition of Christian morals on the LGBT community in society. And so his use of natural law here would put him in the same league as those who call for a cultural Christianity.

Finally American conservative Christian theologians must realize that commenting on Marx and Marxism is not in their wheelhouse. Why? It is because they can only interpret Marx and Marxism from an antithetical capitalist viewpoint. That makes it difficult for them to identify a real Marxist regime. And Clark seems content on not relying on any Marxists for input. For if he read Gorbachev, he would acknowledge that authoritarian regimes that the Soviet Union starting with Stalin, Red China, North Korea and so forth were never Marxists to begin with. If he used Chomsky or the left Marxists of Lenin's time, he would also exclude Lenin's regime as being Marxist. 

It is good that Clark rejects Wolfe's Christian Nationalism and that he questions DeYoung's cultural Christianity. But he is unaware of the similarities that his own position has with at least the cultural Christianity of transformationalists like DeYoung. And one of the reasons for Clark's lack of awareness is his sources for the above topics are inadequate.

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June 13

David Deavel and his reposted article that uses an article called Woke Capitalism Is Capitalism as an introduction to determine whether Capitalism is woke. Though Deavel answers in the negative, the information he uses to answer the question is wholly inadequate. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

To determine whether Capitalism is woke, one only needs to consider its history in this country. For example, our labor history, and even the present, does not show that Capitalism is woke. Our labor history is full of blood and violence by capitalists who, in an effort to maximize profits, treated workers horribly until they were forced to do otherwise. Under Capitalism, businesses used to employed children in, what for them were, dangerous settings. They overworked their employees while underpaying them, and they used violence and the law to silence dissent. See, Capitalism's stakeholders consist of more than just the consumers.

Throughout the history of American Capitalism, businesses have polluted the environment and have tried to escape  accountability for doing so. Under Capitalism, corporationss have offshored jobs regardless of how it affected its employees and their communities. And they did so in order to maximize profits. Under Capitalism, corporations have sought to garner government business with the military industrial complex, the pharmaceutical industrial complex, and the prison industrial complex, just the name some examples, in order to maximize profits. Under Capitalism, corporations have used lobbyists to gain favors with government officials in order to reduce or eliminate both their taxes and regulations governing how they will treat employees and customers. And they do so in order to maximize profits.

The above list is a partial list of corporate activities that are anti-woke, rather than woke. How is it that Capitalism can be considered woke? Is it because they are now using their power in order to promote equality for the LGBT community? Here, we need to look at what is being protested. Again, we should remember how businesses once used their power to comply and even promote Jim Crow laws and culture. We should remember how before a recent court decision, homosexuals did not have any legal protection from harassment at work or even dismissal from their jobs in the majority of states. 

The problem with the above article in answering the question of whether Capitalism is woke is that its scope of corporate activities used in answering the question is very small. In addition,  the above article seems to reduce Capitalism solely to what it offers consumers. The stakeholders of Capitalism include far more groups of people than just a business's customers. We could even count the environment as a stakeholder of Capitalism. And the above article left out the basic motivation and ethic that is promoted and practiced under Capitalism: the maximization of profits. Does that sound woke to you? 

In the above article, it's not Deavel's answer that is the problem, it is his method. His method is totally inadequate to adequately answer the question.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For April 26, 2023

 April 19

To Heidelblog and Bruce Pardy for the part of Pardy's article which mentions how Agatha Christie's works are being revised to remove the mentioning of race, ethnicity, and other characteristics and what is suggested by that.

Bruce Pardy's full article can be found at:

    https://nationalpost.com/opinion/agatha-christie-revisions-are-the-writing-on-the-wall

The above reminds me of one school publisher removing the mentioning of the race of Rosa Parks in telling her story. That removal coincides with the color-blind approach to racism taken by the Reagan Administration. 

The partial silencing of authors like Agatha Christie, Ian Fleming, and who knows who else is similar to the censoring of CRT and LGBT writers in public schools and libraries. One can debate whether the revisions of Christie's works is censorship, but to censor information based on or to promote one's ideology is part of indoctrination. And, sadly, indoctrination knows no ideological boundaries. The forced cancelation of conservative speakers at some campuses is also an attempt at indoctrination.

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To David Gordon and his article on gambling. Basically, he is against it in all forms and he bases his claims on Christian sources from the 17th to the 19th centuries. This was posted in Heidelblog.

When I saw the title of the article, I was excited and anticipated something really positive. That anticipation was fed by my frustration with students, especially male students, I've enountered who sought to gain wealth through gambling rather than through labor where they can contribute something of value to others. In addition, while this article understandably focused on gaming, there are other forms of gambling that our nation has passionately embraced prior to the widespread legalization of gaming and sports betting.

Something else should be said here. Using the WLC without any critical review of it only places the Westminster Standards on a pedestal that it does not deserve. Those who have read about the effects that alcoholism can have on the children of alcoholics should be able to see some of the same affects they suffer from in the writings of the Westminster Standards, especially when it comes to their commentaries on the Ten Commandments. The Devines, perhaps a future name for an NFL team, tended to do the religious equivalent of what is called 'piling on' in football.

Also, what will escape the notice of all-or-nothing thinkers here is that we must make a distinction between gambling that revolves around social relationships vs gambling that revolves around obtaining riches. My one grandfather was a graduate of Cornell who had a friend who was a graduate of Penn. They use to bet a dollar on the Penn-Cornell football game each year. Should we put that in the same category as playing poker for money or betting on sporting events? Gambling can be a way of relating socially that should not be objectionable if the property (money) stakes are inconsequential. Thus, what the person financially loses can be offset by the social interactions involved.

Though the portion quoted from the WLC can be helpful here, perhaps we need to update our sources that serve as the basis for the argument against gambling. Here I would suggest either replacing or supplementing the above sources with the following quote from Martin Luther King Jr. as he spoke against the Vietnam War (see  https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2564.htm   ):

'A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just."'

The advantage that the above quote has over the WLC is that it explicitly addresses the kind of gambling that often goes unmentioned in Christian discussions on gambling: the Stock Market. It isn't that everything about the Stock Market is wrong. But the farther away that stock transactions are from the original buying of shares, the more that the buying of shares is only done for the financial benefit of the shareholders without regard for a business's other stakeholders. And such use of the purchase and selling of stocks is as much gambling as gaming and sports betting are.

The trouble with addressing gambling in a Capitalist economy is that gambling is such a intragal part of the economy. That many of the owners of property are looking so hard to maximize their profits that all other concerns are sacrificed. That is because the ethic of maximizing profits cannibalizes all other ethical concerns. And the more we centralize the nation's wealth into the hands of private sector elites, the more that gambling becomes a part of our nation's psyche.  

What is the difference between betting on a publicly owned business or corporation by buying stocks in order to maximize personal profits from gaming or sports betting for the same reason? Even buying state lottery tickets can be both a way of socially interacting with others while the funds not claimed by the winner often goes to supporting public initiatives or people who are retired or are in need.

Certainly, most forms of gambling are wrong. But to make that point, we Christians need to rely on more than just our safe and familiar traditional Christian sources of information. That is because the spirit of gambling is such a vital part of the American economy. And that is because much of the American economy is based on a hyper individualism that teaches us to care about ourselves to the extent that it causes us to lose sight of how that affects the welfare of our neighbor. 

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April 25

To Heidelblog and Stella Morabito for the part of Morabito's article quoted in a Heidelblog post that claims that Woke is 'Anti-thought.'

Stella Morabito's full article can be found at:

https://humanevents.com/2023/04/02/stella-morabito-the-true-definition-of-woke-is-anti-thought

After reading Morabito's full article, one has to give her credit for having an active imagination. But there are some downsides to her analysis. For example, she writes as if being woke will usher in a George Orwell 1984 oligarchic socialism. She starts by describing woke as being monolithic. She then proceeds to make it a scapegoat for much that has gone wrong. And that progression from describing a personally unwanted entity as being monolithic to making it a scapegoat has many historical precedents. However,  she shows signs of projecting onto woke what she is doing herself: writing a polemic piece that would totally discredit and isolate those with whom she disagrees.

According to Morabito, the hub on which wokeness operates is in 'the intolerance of free speech' with the goal of socially isolating people. That causes people to accept what woke says without thinking.  

One would think that with that initial description, Morabito would include the likes of Ron DeSantis who is using his political powers to take revenge on Disney and who is trying to ban all materials, and even mentioning of, CRT and the LGBT community in Florida schools. Isn't what DeSantis is doing meeting the definition of intolerance. But she doesn't include him. 

She could have included Trump who had employed a similar ban but to a lesser degree for those businesses that have federal contracts and publicly tried to discredit almost everyone of his critics with harsh impromptu accusations. But she didn't include him either. 

Or she could have included those who group together to not just ban books on racism from a CRT perspective and about those from the LGBT community, they have worked to ban classic works by highly regarded authors, including George Orwell from public or school libraries. But she didn't include them either.

In her description of the evolution of woke, she can now only see those who promote CRT or those in the LGBT community as being woke along with those who are part of the cancel culture.  She later includes everyone who is pushing what she perceives, wrongly in terms of her border and gun confiscation claims, is Biden's agenda into this woke group. And, according to Morabito, what woke has become is a monolithic community that, with the help of corporate sponsors, plans to bring an Orwell 1984 type totalitarianism to America. 

She then proceeds to tells us the right way to think about race. That we should become colorblind like Martin Luther King Jr. The problem there is that King was not the only one who promoted colorblindness, the Reagan Administration did too. However, King's colorblindness is lightyears away from the Reagan Adminstration's version. One only needs to compare the two to see the differences. One can listen to Xander Vanocur's interview with Martin Luther King Jr. and then compare that with Kimberlé Crenshaw's views on measuring equality based on outcomes. Then one should be able to see the continuity between what King advocated for and what CRT teaches. Don't trust me on this point, listen to the interview (see  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xsbt3a7K-8  ) and read Crenshaw for yourself (see  https://harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Crenshaw-Race-Reform-and-Retrenchment-pdf.pdf   ).

So it is no surprise that she accuses woke of demonizing dissenters when she herself, by describing woke as an evil monolith, is doing the same thing. And in doing so, she is following in the footsteps of DeSantis with his war against Disney and his cancel culture politics on CRT and LGBT literature in the Florida schools and Trump and his war against all dissenters and who called the MSM the 'enemy of the people.' Do such people think that making accusation after accusation will divert people's attention away from their own actions? I guess those who supported the Jan 6 Insurrection hope so.

Anotherpoint can be made by quoting Morabito's own article:

'As I've written before at the Federalist, we've exhausted all political labels today, including conservative/liberal, leftist/right-wing, Democrat/Republican, and so on and so forth. There are now only two political camps: pro-thought and anti-thought. And "woke" is literally anti-thought.'

For if we take Morabito's word as truth, we never will have to listen to or read anything that those who are woke say. And certainly refusing to even listen or read is a core part of employing a no-thought approach to considering what a group says.

Finally, it isn't that Morabito has no legitimate gripe. After all what she is really complaining about isn't a given ideology or movement; she is complaining about authoritarianism. But authoritarianism has crept its way into every ideological side. And that should be evident when Morabito and those she aligns herself with those practice what she preaches against in some who are woke. It is just that not everyone who can significantly agree with CRT, or supports full equality for the LGBT community, or who is conscious about the environment, or who wants stronger gun regulations are authoritarians just as not everyone who is conservative is either. But here we should note that authoritarianism isn't the only factor that causes some of practices and attitudes that she complains about. And so the world is more complicated than Morabito gives it credit for.