Update

For those who occasionally visit here, the posts have been few lately, and will continue to be few... or nonexistent. The reason? I am writing a novel. I tried this once before in 2004 but got so enamored with developing my characters and descriptions of 'place,' that I forgot to develop a compelling plot. I now have one; plus some interesting people to carry the narrative. My writing in these future months will therefore be mostly confined to writing the book.

Quote of the Day

"You American haters bore me to tears, Ms. Barham. I've dealt with Europeans all my life. I know all about us parvenus from the States who come over here and race around your old Cathedral towns with our cameras and Coca-cola bottles... Brawl in your pubs, paw at your women, and act like we own the world. We over-tip, we talk too loud, we think we can buy anything with a Hershey bar. I've had Germans and Italians tell me how politically ingenuous we are, and perhaps so. But we haven't managed a Hitler or a Mussolini yet. I've had Frenchmen call me a savage because I only took half an hour for lunch. Hell, Ms. Barham, the only reason the French take two hours for lunch is because the service in their restaurants is lousy. The most tedious lot are you British. We crass Americans didn't introduce war into your little island. This war, Ms. Barham to which we Americans are so insensitive, is the result of 2,000 years of European greed, barbarism, superstition, and stupidity. Don't blame it on our Coca-cola bottles. Europe was a growing brothel long before we came to town." - Quoted by the James Garner character in the 1964 movie, "The Americanization of Emily."

Book Review - Evangelism in the Wesleyan Spirit

Evangelism in the Wesleyan Spirit, by Albert Outler (1971)

This short book of four lectures by the ecumenically minded Methodist theologian Albert Outler (1908 – 1989) consists of (1) an interpretation of John Wesley, as evangelist, (2) an examination of “his understanding of the fundamentals of the Christian evangel and the nature of Christian communication and communion,” (3) a speculation of the possibility for a “Third Great Awakening… a revival that might move beyond the stereotypes” of the first two which occurred in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, and (4) Outler’s vision of what a Spirit-filled church might look; and he suggests a means to get there – both clarified in the Wesleyan tradition.

First some background: However one defines the term “evangelism,” I think it’s fair to agree with the introduction (from the 1971 version) that, since the 60’s, it has often been characterized as “a self-serving, game-playing exercise, concerned only with numbers in terms of conversions and confessions of faith.” As proof, this evangelism business has made quite a few evangelists rich playing the numbers game; and, of course, most of us can recall at least some of the news-grabbing Christian evangelist scandals of history, which justifiably cause reluctance to more charitable views of evangelism.

In Part I, “Wesley the Evangelist,” Outler doesn’t dwell on the public’s broad notions of evangelism, but rather attempts to examine it from a Wesleyan perspective and “suitably update it in our time and place…” Nonetheless, he acknowledges concerns within the Methodist tradition that evangelism’s “stereotypes… [are] one-sided and exclusivist and, worst of all, many of its characteristic negations have seemed… to breach the law of forbearance and charity.” In an appeal to honesty and openness, he says, “Convict me of error before these judges [Scripture, the Wesleyan tradition, and the living faith] and you can lead me to repentance. Otherwise, the wisest way is to follow Wesley’s advice to his people in the case of disputed questions: ‘to think and let think’”

Outler quickly delves into three “contemporary concerns” and what they mean to the “future prospects for Christian evangelism.” (It is good for the reader to remember that this prophetic book was written 37 years ago!)

1. “The first of these is a widespread and spreading demoralization throughout the churches…” and he refers to an “ominous loss of nerve and poise amongst” those who “profess themselves Christian.” He adds, “Even the most self-assured and militant amongst us (whether self-styled ‘evangelicals’ or the self-anointed ‘prophets of revolution’) sound more strident and abrasive than truly confident or convincing.” He speaks of a laity in “ferment,” a “badgered and bewildered clergy” and “whipsawed” seminarians needing to learn and to do, right now. He further notes that “Extremists from both left and right have learned that the churches can be intimidated or embarrassed – but have not yet learned how to turn their dubious victories into anything resembling real renewal.” One could argue that we Methodists are still in such a malaise in 2008.
2. “Alongside… is the beginning of a wholesale defection of the middle class and the young from their traditional roles in American Christianity…” without replacement. He particularly notices the lack of replacement from “those disadvantaged groups on whose behalf the church has rightly risked the alienation of her bourgeois clientele” and further mentions a growing “polarization” involving, ideology, class, and identities with “no signs of abatement.” He suggests that this is not a “momentary episode in some larger scheme of human progress that utopia is still ahead and available on passionate demand; or, alternatively, that we can turn the clock back….”
3. The third concern is what he calls “a radical mutation occurring in the depths of the human consciousness… recognized in the weakening of all the old taboos and compulsions that have served Western society (and Christian culture) as moral control systems for millennia, the radical dissolution of old linkages between psychological anxiety and religious guilt, [and] the swift fading of the church’s moral influence….” Outler says while our anxieties have not diminished, any guilt we might feel “is rarely related to [one’s] awareness of God’s relentless judgment against sin.” The discontent of the disaffected is typically vented on ‘those others…’” In other words, we blame somebody else for whatever we think is wrong with the world; and I love this line, also appropriate in 2008: “Repentance comes hard to the self-righteous – and we are being drowned in a flood of self-righteousness, from all sides and of all sorts!”

“All of this affects evangelism and our understanding of evangelism – if by evangelism we mean the communication of the gospel and the maturation of Christians in the community of the church and in the human community at large.” (Going forward, it is critical to keep this concept of maturation in mind.) Outler wonders how a polarized church can get anyone’s attention; and he asks, “How can a dispirited church renew her ‘life in the Spirit?’” Outler offers that successfully conveying the message of God’s “good news” means that the “massive confusion and disagreement” within the Christian community must be addressed. He thus turns to Wesley where he sees “a perennial vitality still available.”

Outler says we should not, however, blindly imitate Wesley. “He was an evangelical, all right – orthodox in doctrine, zealous in personal faith, self-righteous and overweening – but with next to nothing to show for thirty-six full years of high-mindedness.” He also had “few political instincts and no power base… He was an obsessive compulsive neurotic all his life and his religion never really cured his neurosis… Aldersgate [his epiphany event)] had warmed his heart but had not taught him how to communicate the gospel or how to guide men into holiness.” But, within a few years, he emerged as the “head of the most effective mass movement in eighteenth century England – a great upwelling of Christian faith and of social reform….”

Outler says there is no formula to be shared of how this all happened. However, there are “some important aspects of [Wesley’s] transformation” that are relevant: “Wesley’s conversion from passion to compassion as his dominant emotion, his change from a harsh zealot of God’s judgment to a winsome witness to God’s grace, from censorious critic to an effective pastor, from arrogance to humility.”

Outler says Wesley began to be heard when his “passion for truth” was transformed into “compassion for persons.” For Wesley, the prescription, “preach the faith until you have it” (Peter Bohler), was more a case of preaching until others had it – a lot of practice or trial and error, perhaps, until it became effective – which is what improved his own spirit. His published sermons suggest a teaching effort “to lead men and women into a clearer understanding of their faith and a more fruitful response to their divine imperatives in their Christian existence.” His oral preaching was “dominated by his effort to come close to people with God’s message… rather than flinging the gospel at them like a soteriological [the doctrine of salvation, i.e. deliverance] brickbat.”

A key point of this piece: Wesley’s preaching “was aimed beyond confession and conversion toward the fullness of faith and the endless maturing of life in grace,” which is a life long process. Thus, “sanctification became the goal and end of all valid evangelistic endeavor.” Outler criticizes and questions any notions of an evangelism that stresses only the initial stages of conversion, attendance and financial support without ongoing nurture, maturation and becoming living witnesses. “For Wesley, the scope of evangelism was never less than the fullness of Christian experience – ‘holiness of heart, and a life conformable to the same…’ [that is] the essence of faith was personal and inward, but the evidence of faith was public and social... the Word made audible must become the Word made visible, if men’s lives are ever to be touched by the ‘Word made flesh.’”

And this responsibility falls mostly on lay people, which at the grassroots level in the early Methodist societies, was where the real work was done and which made Wesley the successful leader of the Methodist movement. “Wesley had somehow grasped the secret of the Word made social, and of the faith that works by love not only in the heart but in the world as well.” (And he had a well organized laity to reflect such love in the world – living as Christ following examples.) Outler says there is a crucial distinction between the sort of evangelism “that scores repeated triumphs that pass and fade” in contrast to “an evangelical reform movement that leaves a permanent deposit in the church and in the world.” This obviously implies a social dimension, and while Wesley never saw himself as a rebel, we can see in retrospect what this “revival” did: It was the driver of “an actual transformation of social morals and manners” in mid 18^th century England. Wesley had created “a powerful agency for social change… evangelical and reformist… on the premise of the freedom and dignity of the Christian man whose love of his neighbor is a vital function of his love of God.”

In Part II, “Wesley’s Evangel,” Outler says the words evangel, evangelical, and evangelism have “an honored history. They point to the heart of the gospel… ‘the glad tidings of our salvation.’ But these fine old words have also generated many a distorted image in many modern minds…” He also suggests that the “acrid image to the typical ‘evangelical’ is no mere illusion,” and I assume he refers to our modern American perspective. Outler says the main difference between “any clutch of ranters” on one side, and an equal number of effective fruit-bearing heralds of Christ on the other… [is] in the presence or absence of a quality of soul best labeled ‘gracious’ or ‘grace-filled.’” Reflecting on the great historical evangelistic characters, starting with Paul, Outler says they were all authoritarian personalities; and “in every case, but for the grace of God and the partial redemption of their power-drives, ‘obnoxious’ would have been an accurate enough designation of their respective dispositions.” Such attitudes too often ignore “respect for human dignity in every single manifestation of it… an openness of heart and mind that cherishes diversity within the larger unity of essential faith and commitment,” i.e. Wesley’s famous “catholic spirit.”

“The essential fallacy of all unhealthy evangelism… is its hidden strategy of self-justification, masked by the flaming rhetoric of radical faith.” This is built on the idea of following a simple formula (for what ever aisles us) to get God on our side with self-satisfaction our reward. But Outler then makes this important and fine clarifying distinction: “God is on our side…” Christ was and is present in the Holy Spirit. “Divine power does become operative in our hearts and lives. God’s purposes for… all his children… [are] on his terms, at his initiative. It is not our part to control the dynamic equilibrium between God’s grace and man’s response, but rather to find and lose ourselves in participation in the divine-human relationship in which God acts and man reacts. The less self-conscious our faith, the less self-righteous our assurance of God’s healing love,” i.e. the doctrine of justification by faith. Good works out of obligation or our own self-righteousness do not cause any kind of saving grace on God’s part. “It is by faith alone (radical, buoyant trust) that self-righteousness is displaced by the righteousness of Christ.” Good works then are a result; and as Outler says many times in other writings, good works are a result of our gratitude! (We aren’t merely grateful for “largess or bounty… or indulgent treatment. The only thing that begets gratitude is grace.” We are primarily grateful for what Christ did for humanity. And gratitude is the only “reliable ethical energy that we know,” more so than fear, duty, utility, self-concern, or political ideology of whatever persuasion. The reference here is sermon #20 from volume 3 of the Albert Outler Library.)

Outler shares the essence of Wesley’s sermon on “Catholic Spirit,” which lays out the essentials of Christian beliefs: “(1) faith in God and his providence, experienced by a ‘supernatural conviction’; (2) faith in Jesus Christ… (3) the love of God casting out the love of the world; (4) a life committed to God’s will, aiming only at God’s glory; (5) the hope of ‘a conscience void of offence toward God, and toward man’”; (6) the love of neighbor with visible evidence of that love in daily life.” With these as agreed upon foundational principles, Wesley “was prepared not merely to tolerate but actually to welcome theological, liturgical, and psychological differences across a broad spectrum.” Outler says this is a strength of Methodism – Interpretations of the central mystery of God in Christ through the Spirit “are of necessity partial and plural… [since] no single conceptual system can ever exhaust this mystery….” Indeed, there is much we do not know of this mystery. Also, this thought struck me: It would be good if we could think and speak of our religious beliefs in terms of essentials, coupled with an open spirit about the less essential, rather than a Christianity defined – with self-righteous certainty – by our personal tastes or self-justifying inclinations.

Outler further notes the demands Wesley set upon himself and others (the Wesleyan Quadrilateral): “… that they be rooted in the Bible, illumined by tradition, realized in experience, and confirmed by reason – all together, none apart from the others.” If any one of these becomes the main priority or focus, one will have abandoned the universal spirit. Wesley’s evangelism therefore reflected no formula or package, nor a “single doctrinal system, nor… a specific worldview or any actual political frame” other than maintaining a balanced perspective of the essentials of faith.

Outler also sees a “distinctive Methodist emphasis in evangelism… The gist of sin is man’s false perception of God’s wrath, or of his mercy, or of his absence. The sinner supposes himself either able to save himself (which is false) or else as hopelessly lost (which is also false). The transit from the death of sin to the life of faith is made possible by the disclosure, in Christ, of God’s accepting, reconciling, love.” It is in this light that the believer can recognize himself as made in the image of God. “Wesley believed in original sin but as a tragic malignancy rather than the actual destruction of the imago Dei [image of God] in the sinner.” Prevenient grace is always available – the Spirit, the unmerited grace, is there before us. This means that the job of the evangelist, in Wesleyan thought, “is less that of imparting truth that would otherwise remain unknown than of stirring up the human spirit, of awakening faith… This is why pure doctrine… is less important in effecting the hearing of faith than loving witness is.”

Outler says (and explains in greater detail) that the “main motifs of the… evangel run an impressive parallel to the first principles of the Christian life as a whole:”

1. “The prime motive of the Christian life is gratitude, our deep thankfulness and appreciation for all of God’s providence and bounty…” summed up in the life and mission of Jesus.
2. “The prime certainty of Christian faith and life is that God was – and is – in Christ…” reconciling the universe.
3. The prime dynamic of the Christian faith is the vital energy of the Holy Spirit in every human heart… [and] the church.”
4. The prime and constant end of the Christian life is the actualization in feeling and act of God’s righteous rule in the human community… the kingdom of God.” Here Outler throws in a but: “The Bible never falls into the utopian subjunctive. It says, rather, that God’s kingdom is ‘at hand,’ that God’s reign in righteousness, peace and joy is a present, live, possibility – not by coercion, or imposition but by repentance, conversion, obedience.”
5. “Finally, the principle means in the Christian life for measuring up to God’s expecting love is God’s grace.” Here Outler explains Wesley’s phrase “the means of grace,” referring to activities which help us discover God’s presence and active personal love.

Outler recognizes that the newly converted easily “sink into a spiritual slump” after becoming involved in church, “not a healthy setting for a newborn Christian,” where “nominal Christianity” reigns, where church is possibly “just another voluntary, cultural association.” Wesley understood that becoming a mature Christian involved long-term nurture and re-awakening. Outler writes that evangelistic mission to its own nominal Christians – to the church herself – is as vital as awakening the Holy Spirit in the unchurched.

In Part III, “A Third Great awakening,” Outler says the first revival occurred in America running from the 1730’s to the American Revolution, with “the chief characteristic” being “a vivid personal experience of deliverance from the wrath to come…” It ran an uneven course during this period, including the growth of many denominations, but for Methodists there was no effective Anglican structure and Wesley disapproved of the Revolution, which left the churches in a “shambles” reduced to “five or six percent of the population in 1790.” The strong influence of the Enlightenment and deism (which in the 21^st Century still have their impact) raised questions about the survival of orthodox Christianity in such an “atmosphere of religious liberty and state-church separation.” The philosopher Voltaire even predicted its demise.

The “Second Great Awakening… turned the tide again,” with a “radical Protestantism.” And its most “obvious feature… was its emotional fervor… focused on two points:” (a) salvation, i.e. escaping hellfire and damnation, and (b) “a self-inhibitory personal morality.” In other words, reflecting a self-righteous prudery for those who regarded “this world as a restless antechamber to the next” became the predominant behavior. “The personal life of the converted Christian was deeply moral. Sobriety, chastity, thrift, industry, decency, and a strict personal integrity were the evangelical’s cardinal virtues. But these high personal standards often failed to generate any acute social sensitivity,” Or if it did, their impotence, to end slavery for instance, was taken for granted. The Civil War marked the end of this Great Awakening and there has not been a third.

There, of course, was the emergence of the “social gospel” movement during subsequent times and a liberalizing of theology where evangelical other-worldliness was beginning to be threatened as Christians became focused on preparing this world for the Kingdom to come. “And this led to the most crucial change of all, as far as the Wesleyan tradition is concerned: the displacement of the older optimism of grace… with a new optimism based on… progress.” But for the rough period of 1890-1930 +, “the newly emergent liberalism was a minority movement followed by a swift and “drastic shift of the theological climate” where by the 1960’s Christian existentialism and the “death-of-God hurrah” resulted in modern forms of utopianism and the “spread of secular mysticisms….” Outler comments on the emerging “guerrilla activities” of the evangelicals and the formation of “pressure groups” but says that “if the cause of evangelism continues to be tied too closely to the resurgent residues of nineteenth century Biblicism, supernaturalism, anti-intellectualism, political conservatism, etc. it will simply fail to generate the necessary power and relevance for anything fresh and new.”

Outler saw no “immediately hopeful omens in any of the current movements in the renewal business.” He then makes this statement (in 1971) which seems to be mostly true if one measures its accuracy in terms of overall influence in the USA: “Mainstream Protestantism, in the forms we have known it, will not survive this century without a third ‘Great Awakening’ of some sort or other.”

He then describes what this third awakening, if it is to come about, must involve:

1. It must be evangelical but modern since “the hearing of faith takes place in the context of the hearer’s worldview (not that of the preacher’s) – and the hearer’s worldview has been changed out of all recognition over the past century.”
2. It must be concerned about the church as the “community of faith and the trustee of the means of grace. And it will have to be ecumenical.” There was a time in the U. S. when the camp meeting was where social action was driven. Today evangelism and social action involves going “into all the world.”
3. The next awakening will involve an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Outler writes of the irony of the clamoring interest in astrology, psychedelic drugs, witchcraft, etc. while the prayer life of nominal Christians is at all time low. But he also recognizes that “the tides of the Spirit are often gathering in out-of-the-way places in just those times when the lights in the temple are flickering low.” He mentions the possibility of awakenings in unexpected quarters. This was before the real emergence of the big-box ‘community’ churches with, for some, their strong emphasis on mission work or the explosive growth of Christianity in Africa and lately, China.

He says that it is long overdue and it will not be “programmed or organized. The church stands forever on the rock of faith… there have been long stretches of very nearly suspended animation, in various places and epochs. Such might very well be our fate and if so, we’d have no just ground of complaint against Providence.” He prayed that this would not happen here; but the comment about Providence is an example of Outler’s own faith and trust.

In Part IV, Outler tries to imagine a renewed church – “A Church of Martyrs and Saints” – and here, the word martyr means “witness.” Outler is anguished over the future of the church. He says, “Old epochs do not die, and new ones are not born, without agony and travail. The contemporary church is far too deeply compromised by its century-old acquiescence in nominal Christianity and pattern-maintenance… to absorb the rude shocks of radical change…” He then lists many of the trials of modern life and our dispirited nature closing with this remark that I wish I had said: “The world is a gaggle of true believers hopelessly disagreed as to what is true.” He is clearly skeptical of self-styled “theologies of hope” and “theologies of politics” and notes that evangelisms success in the past has occurred when it could “translate the eternal verities of the perennial gospel into new idioms for new generations.”

Outler further notes what he calls “unprecedented developments” in human history:

1. The triumph of technology “and the fantastic acceleration of change in the physical circumstances of human existence…” This has weakened our “social stability” and “heightened our false confidence of being able to achieve any human goal we can define or aspire to.” In other words, “Any nation that can put a man on the moon can… (you name it).” This means we are still speaking as “desperate men” and that evangelism must speak to different forms of despair than in the past.
2. The “triumph of radical freedom” which gives “modern man a bewildering range of over-choice….” The message of “Christian liberty” must be framed quite differently to those who see themselves as having absolute freedom. And yet we have a consciousness of being oppressed!
3. The “triumph of humane values.” Here, he means that old hierarchical structures of history and “official authority (i.e. the right to decide who is rightly subordinate to whom in what respect)” are breaking down, e.g. the corporate world, to where “Kant’s great maxim – that we should treat humanity, whether in ourselves or in others, always as an end and never as a means only – now appears more obvious to more people that ever before… A whole new value scale is emerging around the humane principle itself.”

Outler recognizes the positive effects of these “great gains” but also sees these as hollow victories, referring to the “incontinence of the human spirit…” and our insatiable “aspirations (for knowledge, freedom, love, etc.)… Unless our freedom is normed by order and our love is normed by community, men are newly doomed to neon-lighted hells of their own making here on earth.” So much for optimism! And he goes through more of what is wrong with the world leading the reader to fully appreciate what it means to evangelism: That it is critical to do theology “for the actual people who are out there to hear the gospel…” i.e. the evangelistic message needs to be reformulated toward a skeptical world.

Our present condition has pretty much resulted in ending the gospel of “self-conscious guilt…” and “the gospel of a pure-hearted moral ethic…” to a larger, perhaps more amoral culture, who see the gospel as “incredulous”. Outler says that dealing with this will not involve creating a new gospel; it will be based on Scripture with its true center on Jesus Christ. He sees an historical necessary pattern of actions: (a) heralding, (b) martyrdom (witness), and (c) servanthood. It is servanthood that “is the hardest part of the gospel to believe and practice. It threatens our two most vulnerable spots: fear of destitution and fear of indignity. These are aboriginal fears and they cannot be allayed in any society that cherishes rank and status. We speak too glibly, therefore, of the servant-church and of Christian service, when the fact is that we have confused benevolence with servanthood.” It was heralding, martyrdom, and true servanthood “that rammed home” the evangelistic message Wesley preached. “The world hears the gospel when it sees it.” (Emphasis added) “To the starving, we must help them find bread! For the well-to-do, we must help them find a way out of affluence’s cruel traps. To the oppressed, we must help them be free; to the victims of freedom, we must help them find moral commitments that are anchored in God and have some promise of staying power.” We must recognize “God’s stubborn rejection of any final triumphs for self-indulgence, self-righteousness, self-centeredness” and choose the gift of God’s sovereign grace in Christ. “Wesley was as vitally concerned as ever the humanists were about the quality and dignity of human life – only he knew, as they did not, that life’s highest quality and dignity cannot be gained, but must be given, that life’s enduring meanings and values are all dividends of grace.”

To close, Outler makes this summarizing remark: “Evangelism is not just Christian truth proclaimed and defended. It is the apostolic benediction acted out."

Global Warming

Don Surber asks, "What does global warming cause?

Answer: Everything."

Read the comments and check out this link for a "complete list of things caused by global warming."

The Egalitarian Fantasy

Keith Burgess Jackson has a wonderful quote from John Kekes on the subject of egalitarianism, which I quote in full:

It is natural to wonder what reasons Rawls and Dworkin have offered in defense of these absurd egalitarian claims. The scarcely believable answer is that they have offered none. Dworkin says that “my arguments are constructed against the background of assumptions about what equality requires in principle. . . . My arguments enforce rather than construct a basic design of justice, and that design must find support, if at all, elsewhere than in these arguments.” And Rawls concludes his discussion of the section of his book called “The Basis of Equality” by saying that “of course none of this is literally an argument. I have not set out the premises from which this conclusion follows.” Their very long books certainly present the appearance of giving arguments in defense of their views, but the appearance is deceptive. What they do in great and tedious detail is to work out some of the consequences of assumptions for which they offer no reasons, while they ignore the consequences whose absurdity I have been pointing out.

Dworkin, for instance, offers what he himself calls an egalitarian fantasy concerning the ideal distribution of resources. Such distribution must meet “the envy test,” which asks whether people are satisfied with the resources they have and do not prefer someone else’s resources instead of their own. It should not escape notice how extraordinary it is to make envy the test of ideal distribution. Envy is the vice of resenting the advantages of another person. It is a vice because it tends to lead to action that deprives people of advantages they have earned by legal and moral means. The envy test does not ask whether people are entitled to their advantages; it asks whether those who lack them would like to have them. And of course the answer will be, given the human propensity for envy, that they would like to have them, that they are not satisfied with what they have. Dworkin, counting on this, claims that the ideal distribution would be one that removes this dissatisfaction. It would distribute advantages so evenly that no one could be envious of anyone else’s. Instead of recognizing that envy is wrong, Dworkin elevates it into a moral standard.

(John Kekes, “Assault on a Fine Ideal,” The New Criterion 26 [February 2008]: 25-31, at 27 [ellipsis in original])

The link to John Kekes displays an interesting interview on the subject as well. I couldn't help but think about the 10th Commandment when reading this piece by Kekes - coveting, or envy if you prefer, has been elevated to a moral standard! For reference: Exodus 20:17 "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that [is] thy neighbor's."

"The Great Seduction"

In today's New York Times, columnist David Brooks has a column on the country's biggest seduction - taking on massive debt - by its citizens and by its government:

The people who created this country built a moral structure around money. The Puritan legacy inhibited luxury and self-indulgence. Benjamin Franklin spread a practical gospel that emphasized hard work, temperance and frugality. Millions of parents, preachers, newspaper editors and teachers expounded the message. The result was quite remarkable.

The United States has been an affluent nation since its founding. But the country was, by and large, not corrupted by wealth. For centuries, it remained industrious, ambitious and frugal.

Over the past 30 years, much of that has been shredded. The social norms and institutions that encouraged frugality and spending what you earn have been undermined. The institutions that encourage debt and living for the moment have been strengthened. The country’s moral guardians are forever looking for decadence out of Hollywood and reality TV. But the most rampant decadence today is financial decadence, the trampling of decent norms about how to use and harness money...

The deterioration of financial mores has meant two things. First, it’s meant an explosion of debt that inhibits social mobility and ruins lives. Between 1989 and 2001, credit-card debt nearly tripled, soaring from $238 billion to $692 billion. By last year, it was up to $937 billion, the report said.

Second, the transformation has led to a stark financial polarization. On the one hand, there is what the report calls the investor class. It has tax-deferred savings plans, as well as an army of financial advisers. On the other hand, there is the lottery class, people with little access to 401(k)’s or financial planning but plenty of access to payday lenders, credit cards and lottery agents.

The loosening of financial inhibition has meant more options for the well-educated but more temptation and chaos for the most vulnerable. Social norms, the invisible threads that guide behavior, have deteriorated. Over the past years, Americans have been more socially conscious about protecting the environment and inhaling tobacco. They have become less socially conscious about money and debt...

There are dozens of things that could be done. But the most important is to shift values. Franklin made it prestigious to embrace certain bourgeois virtues. Now it’s socially acceptable to undermine those virtues. It’s considered normal to play the debt game and imagine that decisions made today will have no consequences for the future.

I couldn't agree more with Brooks; but then I have been fiscally conservative my whole life, so it's logical that I would say that. Read the whole thing for more details.

Two Movies

I watched two obscure foreign and fascinating movies (via Netflix) this past week. The first was the Lives of Others, which the New York Times, in its review, said: "A terrible sadness lies at the heart of 'The Lives of Others' — a reckoning of lives and talents wasted by a state with no good reason to exist apart from the maintenance of its own power." It made me think of where we're headed...

The second was Zwartboek, (Black Book), which I thought was pretty terrific in a strange way. Rolling Stone said of the director, "Verhoeven bites off more than he can handily chew. He wouldn't be Verhoeven if he didn't. But his tremendously exciting film can suddenly, unpredictably move you to tears. Black Book, the first film Verhoeven has made in the Netherlands in two decades, is spoken in Dutch, German, Hebrew and English, and it lasts for 145 minutes. There's not a dull second in the bunch. Verhoeven is back, baby, and he's got his mojo working."

A nice thing about Netflix is that you can order odd films and if you like them, then you've been entertained and maybe you learned something. If you didn't like them, you can turn them off and do something more constructive with your time. These were both worthwhile and lucky choices.

Dirty Harry

"Clint Eastwood talks... about race, euthanasia, politicians, capital punishment - and how he really feels about the 'fascist' role that made him famous." - Via Drudge.

We Americans Are Whiney Spoiled Brats

Check out the post from Carpe Diem, regarding how Americans compare to the rest of the world in income. There is even a link called the Global Rich List where you can see where you individually stand. Also, I liked the first comment:

While the obvious argument is that the "mileau" in which you have to pay your bills is relevant (hence the concept of "purchasing power parity"), I still agree with the general premise -- 98% of the people complaining these days about how much they make or how much things cost are being whiny little bitches.

What In The World Is Going On?

This has been floating around in e-mails lately and my brother-in-law sent it to me. The link reprints the entire speech to CEO's in Davos, Switzerland several weeks ago by Herbert Meyer at the World Economic Forum. In it, he covers "four major transformations that are shaping political, economic and world events" and the implications of those transformations.

Read the whole thing but I found the section (3) on "Shifting Demographies of Western Civilization" the most interesting:

Shifting Demographics of Western Civilization:

Most countries in the Western world have stopped breeding. For a civilization obsessed with sex, this is remarkable. Maintaining a steady population requires a birth rate of 2.1. In Western Europe, the birth rate currently stands at 1.5, or 30 percent below replacement. In 30 years there will be 70 to 80 million fewer Europeans than there are today. The current birth rate in Germany is 1.3. Italy and Spain are even lower at 1.2. At that rate, the working age population declines by 30 percent in 20 years, which has a huge impact on the economy. When you don't have young workers to replace the older ones, you have to import them.

The European countries are currently importing Moslems. Today, the Moslems comprise 10 percent of France and Germany, and the percentage is rising rapidly because they have higher birthrates. However, the Moslem populations are not being integrated into the cultures of their host countries, which is a political catastrophe. One reason Germany and France don't support the Iraq war is they fear their Moslem populations will explode on them. By 2020, more
than half of all births in the Netherlands will be non-European.

The huge design flaw in the postmodern secular state is that you need a traditional religious society birth rate to sustain it. The Europeans simply don't wish to have children, so they are dying. In Japan, the birthrate is 1.3. As a result, Japan will lose up to 60 million people over the next 30 years. Because Japan has a very different society than Europe, they refuse to import workers. Instead, they are just shutting down. Japan has already closed 2,000 schools, and is closing them down at the rate of 300 per year. Japan is also aging very rapidly. By 2020, one out of every five Japanese will be at least 70 years old. Nobody has any idea about how to run an economy with those demographics.

Europe and Japan, which comprise two of the world's major economic engines, aren't merely in recession, they're shutting down. This will have a huge impact on the world economy, and it is already beginning to happen. Why are the birthrates so low? There is a direct correlation between abandonment of traditional religious society and a drop in birth rate, and Christianity in Europe is becoming irrelevant.

The second reason is economic. When the birth rate drops below replacement, the population ages. With fewer working people to support more retired people, it puts a crushing tax burden on the smaller group of working age people. As a result, young people delay marriage and having a family. Once this trend starts, the downward spiral only gets worse. These countries have abandoned all the traditions they formerly held in regard to having families and raising children.

The U.S. birth rate is 2.0, just below replacement. We have an increase in population because of immigration. When broken down by ethnicity, the Anglo birth rate is 1.6 (same as France) while the Hispanic birth rate is 2.7. In the U.S., the baby boomers are starting to retire in massive numbers. This will push the elder dependency ratio from 19 to 38 over the next 10 to 15 years. This is not as bad as Europe, but still represents the same kind of trend.

Western civilization seems to have forgotten what every primitive society understands - you need kids to have a healthy society. Children are huge consumers. Then they grow up to become taxpayers. That's how a society works, but the postmodern secular state seems to have forgotten that. If U.S. birth rates of the past 20 to 30 years had been the same as post-World War II, there would be no Social Security or Medicare problems.

The world's most effective birth control device is money. As society creates a middle class and women move into the workforce, birth rates drop. Having large families is incompatible with middle class living.

The quickest way to drop the birth rate is through rapid economic development.

After World War II, the U.S. instituted a $600 tax credit per child. The idea was to enable mom and dad to have four children without being troubled by taxes. This led to a baby boom of 22 million kids, which was a huge consumer market. That turned into a huge tax base. However, to match that incentive in today's dollars would cost $12,000 per child.

China and India do not have declining populations. However, in both countries, there is a preference for boys over girls, and we now have the technology to know which is which before they are born. In China and India, families are aborting the girls. As a result, in each of these countries there are 70 million boys growing up who will never find wives.

When left alone, nature produces 103 boys for every 100 girls. In some provinces, however, the ratio is 128 boys to every 100 girls.

The birth rate in Russia is so low that by 2050 their population will be smaller than that of Yemen. Russia has one-sixth of the earth's land surface and much of its oil. You can't control that much area with such a small population. Immediately to the south, you have China with 70 million unmarried men who are a real potential nightmare scenario for Russia.

The implications of this demographic shift:

Europe and Japan are dying because their populations are aging and shrinking. These trends can be reversed if the young people start breeding. However, the birth rates in these areas are so low it will take two generations to turn things around. No economic model exists that permits 50 years to turn things around. Some countries are beginning to offer incentives for people to have bigger families. For example, Italy is offering tax breaks for having children. However, it's a lifestyle issue versus a tiny amount of money. Europeans aren't willing to give up their comfortable lifestyles in order to have more children. In general, everyone in Europe just wants it to last a while longer.

Europeans have a real talent for living. They don't want to work very hard. The average European worker gets 400 more hours of vacation time per year than Americans. They don't want to work and they don't want to make any of the changes needed to revive their economies.

The summer after 9/11, France lost 15,000 people in a heat wave. In August, the country basically shuts down when everyone goes on vacation. That year, a severe heat wave struck and 15,000 elderly people living in nursing homes and hospitals died. Their children didn't even leave the beaches to come back and take care of the bodies. Institutions had to scramble to find enough refrigeration units to hold the bodies until people came to claim them. This loss of life was five times bigger than 9/11 in America, yet it didn't trigger any change in French society.

When birth rates are so low, it creates a tremendous tax burden on the young. Under those circumstances, keeping mom and dad alive is not an attrac tive option. That's why euthanasia is becoming so popular in most European countries. The only country that doesn't permit (and even encourage) euthanasia is Germany, because of all the baggage from World War II.

The European economy is beginning to fracture. Countries like Italy are starting to talk about pulling out of the European Union because it is killing them. When things get bad economically in Europe, they tend to get very nasty politically. The canary in the mine is anti- Semitism. When it goes up, it means trouble is coming. Current levels of anti-Semitism are higher than ever. Germany won't launch another war, but Europe will likely get shabbier, more dangerous and less pleasant to live in.

Japan has a birth rate of 1.3 and has no intention of bringing in immigrants. By 2020, one out of every five Japanese will be 70 years old. Property values in Japan have dropped every year for the past 14 years. The country is simply shutting down. In the U.S. we also have an aging population. Boomers are starting to retire at a massive rate. These retirements will have several major impacts: Possible massive sell off of large four-bedroom houses and a movement to condos.

An enormous drain on the treasury. Boomers vote, and they want their benefits, even if it means putting a crushing tax burden on their kids to get them. Social Security will be a huge problem. As this generation ages, it will start to drain the system. We are the only country in the world where there are no age limits on medical procedures.

An enormous drain on the health care system. This will also increase the tax burden on the young, which will cause them to delay marriage and having families, which will drive down the birth rate even further.

Although scary, these demographics also present enormous opportunities for products and services tailored to aging populations. There will be tremendous demand for caring for older people, especially those who don't need nursing homes but need some level of care. Some people will have a business where they take care of three or four people in their homes. The demand for that type of service and for products to physically care for aging people will be huge.

Make sure the demographics of your business are attuned to where the action is. For example, you don't want to be a baby food company in Europe or Japan.

Demographics are much underrated as an indicator of where the opportunities are. Businesses need customers. Go where the customers are.

I'm a bit beyond caring too much about the latest business opportunity although I hope others do because healthy economies are driven by such people. To me, the greater concern is cultural and the possibility of the eventual end of Western Civilization as we know it... The wisdom of "dead white males" could be, one day, a relic of history.

Gay Marriage

I said my piece here; but this is rich food for thought, including the comments:

The Libertarian Argument for Gay Marriage

Book Review - Your God Is Too Small

Your God Is Too Small, by J. B. Phillips (1956)

This book has been around a long time, always on my 'someday to read' list. I finally read it...

We first learn about God as children and our conceptions can remain in a state of juvenile faith or more likely, the idea of God can become too small to affect "adult loyalty and cooperation." Or one cherishes a "hothouse God who could only exist between the pages of the Bible or inside the four walls of a church." Phillips acknowledges immediately that "many men of goodwill will not consent" to "mass hypocrisy... to buy a sense of security at the price of... truth." Phillips addresses the inadequate conceptions of God which lead to this problem and tries to show us "a God big enough" for adult comprehension and respect.

Part I lists the destructive constructions of God:

The Resident Policeman, i.e the overdeveloped conscience, a relic of childhood that we mistake for the voice of God, where "God can be made to appear to the sensitive an over-exacting tyrant, and to the insensitive a comfortable accommodating 'Voice Within' which would never interfere with a man's pleasure."

The Parental Hangover, i.e. the residue of a sentimental clinging dependence on a parent. Christ's reference to the Father or becoming "as little children" was not about a childish toddler / grownup relationship but about an understanding of the "awe-inspiring disparity between man and God."

The Grand Old Man, a great power in his day but old-fashioned, a God inadequate for our modern scientific times, a God to be respected for what he was but hardly adequate to be engaged in our fast-moving contemporary world. I would call this a result of our narcissistic tendencies.

The Meek and Mild, often conveyed in sappy hymns. Christ may have been meek "in the sense of being selfless and humble" but he was hardly mild considering his displayed courage. He was "no saint" in the sense that we sometimes use the word. "He taught men not to sit in judgment" of others "but He never suggested that they should turn a blind eye to evil or pretend other people were faultless... To speak the truth was obviously to Him more important than to make His hearers comfortable" but He did it with tact, wisdom and love.

Absolute Perfection, i.e. Christianity as performance, involves completely obeying "rules" in order to be perfect, an "anxious slavery" rather than a life of "perfect freedom."

The Heavenly Bosom, i.e. the God of our escape, Christianity being a place for the psychologically immature. A good deal of harm is done by not "growing up" in Christ and the true Christian does not wish to remain in adolescence.

God in a Box, i.e. the problem of churchiness, joining the right union of a particular structure or formula of worship, the "invalid" church vs. the "approved" church, reflecting an intolerance of dissent and open criticism of those "other" less godly churches. Phillips calls this "the outrageous folly and damnable sin of trying to regard God as the Party Leader of a particular point of view." The outsider "cannot stomach... the exclusive claim made by each to be the 'right one"... No denomination has a monopoly of God's grace, and none has an exclusive recipe for producing Christian character... God takes no notice whatever of the boxes; 'the Spirit bloweth where it listeth' and is subject to no regulation of man."

The Managing Director, the God who is so vast in scope that we cannot conceive of his interest in the single human life. Phillips' suggest that this is a secret wish for many, to go unnoticed, and be free of responsibility. Others may sense being "cast adrift." The problem is that we model God upon what we know of man. "Man may be made in the image of God; but it is not sufficient to conceive God as nothing more than an infinitely magnified man." He is other than we are.

The Second-hand God, i.e. "We envisage 'God'... from the way in which He appears to deal (or not deal with) His creatures." It is from our perspective and knowledge of life that we evaluate the nature of God, which is no doubt lacking information, and exacerbated by 'fictional' notions of God, providence and His activity in the world.

Personal Grievance, i.e. God as a disappointment; it was He that was unfaithful;. Phillips says some find "ghoulish pleasure" in wallowing in their grievances with God, particularly for one is using God as "a convenience, a prop, or a comfort, for his own plans". Our approach is one of self pity: I trusted Him and "He let me down." The emphasis, of course, is for mankind to cooperate with God's plans. (Consider Job.)

The Pale Galilean, i.e the negative God with the "perpetual frown" whose Nature seems to deny, to cramp, to stifle and is "quite literally a blight upon human life... Such people's lives are cramped and narrow and joyless because their god is the same." There are masochistic elements at work here, as well as the suffering servant's criticism of those who find joy in worship since the joyful obviously do not have the correct picture of God. The negative god worshiper also sees himself as "something special" which Phillips calls "pathetic... unattractive, and unpleasant."

Projected Image, where we ignore our blind spots and project qualities upon God from our own history - magnified - ranging from the hard puritanical god to a "god with about as much moral authority as Father Christmas." It is narcissistic, inadequate, and ultimately unsatisfying.

God in a hurry, which is a completely false conception. Phillips says "He is never in a hurry... never impressed by numbers, never a slave of the clock." Consider the anxiety within churches: "that every second, thousands of pagan souls pass into... eternity," or simply name the latest crisis in the news that requires our urgent attention.

God for the Elite, for the privileged class; for people who are drawn to mysticism, the place of a so-called higher spirituality. Phillips says the NT is "downright and practical. It is by their fruits that men shall be known."

God of Bethel refers to those who would be more comfortable with the Old Testament God - obey the rules, follow a formula, but do not see the connection with the NT.

God without Godhead, a "modern" concept, where "God is completely depersonalized and becomes the Ultimate Bundle of Highest Values... raised to the nth degree." And the Ultimate Bundle of Highest Values is what we have defined.

Gods by any other name, i.e. "substitutes," for example: "the State, success, efficiency, money, glamour, power... security." No one calls them God but one or more of these is where devotion and allegiance lies.

I have another one: The Great Puppeteer - The one who dangles mankind over the lake of fire waiting to drop us when we don't behave; as though saying, "I'll show you, for not paying attention to me. I'll give you cancer!" This, however, is not the God of love, but god the manipulator; and is as much a misrepresentation as the other destructive constructions.

Part II provides commentary on constructive principles:

Phillips starts this section by delving into the problem of the vast but perceived unfocused God, which seems to depersonalize God until he "becomes a vague Abstraction." A result of this is that people then "pin their hopes and apply their energies to the 'progress' of the human race... they get... satisfaction in improving the 'here and now' because they cannot come to terms with eternal values or a personalized God; the spiritual is "shadowy and unsubstantial while the physical is solid and reliable." Phillips suggests that human progress has been remarkable in advancing civilization but at the end of the day there is the distinct possibility of "annihilation in the deathly cold of inter-stellar space" with "nothing more to come... sheer non-existence" if one merely sees "progress" as the ultimate reality. However, God is something beyond time and space and "the nature of reality" may in fact be "spiritual and it is only quite temporarily and incidentally involved in matter" which means we might "want to know something of the Spiritual Being behind the Scheme of Things." (See C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce.)

Phillips discusses the nature of beauty, and the "good" or a universal moral sense, and Truth ("not always a welcome visitor") that are clues to Reality. He says, down deep, we want to know God; and Jesus gave us indications "by which men could know (not by scientific 'proof,' but by an inward conviction that is perfectly valid to him in whom it arises) that His claim and His revelation are true." (1) "Jesus says... that there will be no inward endorsement of the truth of the ways of living he puts forward as the right one until a man is prepared to do the will, i.e. cooperate with the purpose of God.... Christ regarded the self-loving, self-regarding, self-seeking spirit as the direct antithesis of real living." (2) "Christ unquestionably claims to present accurately and authentically the Character of God" not the whole of God but the nature of God and His love. (3) John 14:6 "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." If Jesus was God in human form, he must say this, mustn't he? Phillips asks, "Do people in fact know God except through Christ? He says, yes, people can stumble upon a Christ like way of living. (Note: He does not delve into other religions here, I assume to stay on point. He was not writing a book about the Buddhist or Hindu who never heard of Jesus or if they did, only in a passing obscured sense.) But anyone who rejects Christ's claims, or ignores it "do not know God." (One must consider the flawed approach of over analysis of Christianity vs. the simple faith - seeking the presence of the Holy Spirit.)

Phillips says, " To Christ the most serious sin was not the misdirection of the love-energy, which might be due to ignorance or mere carelessness, but the deliberate refusal to allow it to flow out either to God or to other people... Christ's time, in the circumstances, was short and He wasted none of it in dealing with mere symptoms. It was with motive and attitude of the heart, i.e. the emotional centre, that He was concerned. It was this that He called on men to change, for it is plain that once the inner affections are aligned with God the outward expression of the life will look after itself."

I have some issues with this idea of good intentions being sacrosanct since, I think, motivations are too easily manipulated by our own ego, where then inappropriate actions are self-justified. But to avoid going off on a tangent, which would be distracting, I'll deal with this subject in a separate essay. And to be fair to Phillips, he doesn't bore into it. He moves on to a wonderful interpretation of the Beatitudes.

Phillips then delves into the subject of sin and forgiveness and suggests that "sin against the Holy Spirit is a pretty bad one: "If God Himself is both Truth and Love it would be logical to suppose that a deliberate refusal to recognize or harbour truth and love would result in an attitude that makes reconciliation with God impossible... forgiveness must then consist in a restoration to Reality, i.e. Truth and Love." In other words, forgiveness requires repentance first.

Phillips comments on "spiritual poverty" with this explanatory remark: "It is those who realize their spiritual poverty who find in Christ's Act [dying on the cross] the way to fellowship with God." Death has been abolished: "It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the meaning that Christ intended to convey [John 11:26] was that death was a completely negligible experience to the man who had already begun to live life of the eternal quality."

At the end of the book, Phillips says that Christianity "is not to be judged by its success or failure to reform the world which rejects it. If it failed where it is accepted there might be grounds for complaint, but it does not so fail. It is a revelation of the true way of living, the way to know God, the way to live life of eternal quality, and is not to be regarded as a handy social instrument for reducing juvenile delinquency or the divorce rate... if real Christianity [as opposed to fake, maudlin, or immature Christianity] fails, it fails for the same reasons that Christ failed - and any condemnations rightly falls on the world which rejects both Him and it."

In fitting conclusion, my good friend said of the book: "... as to the best of Phillips' book, our God has been too small, measuring at best the dimensions of Nietzsche's superman - idolatry is the fate of him whose god is too small, followed by disappointment and finally jaded unbelief."

My Liberal/Progressive Credentials

I have many liberal friends although the new clarifying word consistent with the “spirit of the age” is progressive. That’s a smart term for self-identification because nobody wants to be its opposite, i.e. an intransigent moss backed fogy. I’ve never considered myself either a progressive or an intransigent moss backed fogy (or a hand-wringing worrywart about life’s uncertainties) but, on various occasions, I have thought of myself: a curmudgeon, or a contrarian, or a skeptic, or an occasionally glib introvert, or a cynical optimist… is that an oxymoron? Nonetheless, I thought I’d offer a dozen of my “progressive” ideas for my liberal friends which will no doubt endear me to them, assuming they just read the parts in bold letters. Perhaps I should have titled this, “My Liberal/Progressive Credentials – Well, Maybe Not."

1. Like progressives, I support free speech. Only I mean it. Hate speech laws; speech codes on college campuses; attempts to reestablish the fairness doctrine, which is really an effort to shut people up; and political correctness run amok, do not seem like examples of people who advocate free speech. Evidently, the Left has evolved into the “law and order” political wing – one must obey the rules established by them, or else – how intolerant! They do care about never being offended, as though it is a right. Since when? These people obviously never had teenagers in their house. Talk about the lack of civility! This just isn’t a progressive thing; look at that bipartisan law, McCain-Feingold, which allows for free speech unless it annoys politicians. It’s the incumbent protection act. People should be able to say disgusting things that offend, and not lose their livelihood in the process. I’ve always thought that when someone is being a loutish uncouth fool, give him (or her) a megaphone; the ill-mannered crudeness usually identifies the speaker for what he is – a boor – and he will usually be tuned out by a discerning public (but apparently not by the sycophantic like-minded or apoplectic overly sensitive); and he will have caused his gradual ostracism from public influence himself.
2. I am against the death penalty; but not for any of the maudlin reasons typically cited by the anti-death penalty crowd. I’m against it for idiosyncratic reasons, the main one being I do not like giving the state that kind of power over its citizens. Take our money; but don’t kill us (at least so it's noticed).
3. I am pro-choice; but reluctantly so. After forty million deaths since Roe v. Wade, I have hard time thinking any reversal of the law would be good for the country, putting women and doctors in jail for defiance. It might be good for a quite few babies, however. I also think it was bad law, creating a right that didn’t exist in the Constitution. Because the abortion promoters knew they couldn’t create change legislatively, they found a friendly court. I’d rather see more options available to women for carrying to term and adoption. I also would bet that of the 1.2 t0 1.5 million abortions per year, a very small percentage has anything to do with “women’s health” unless health has been completely dumbed down and redefined, i.e. poor health requiring surgical intervention now means, “I don’t want to have this baby; it will mess up my plans.” Nonetheless, carry on ladies; I’m just an old guy with no moral right to comment (apparently).
4. Racism is bad. A Viktor Frankl idea was that there are two kinds of races, the decent and the indecent. Difference in skin color is as meaningless as hair or eye color. Period. Or as Chief Justice John Roberts said in a recent majority opinion on school integration, "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." When are we going to start doing that?
5. What two or more consenting adults do – in private – with their genitals is up to them. Or even one person, if you think about it… I do not claim that what “two or more consenting adults” might do is moral as the possibilities are endless. I do claim that the “state” has no business in anyone’s bedroom, legislating or regulating the morality of sex or various communal arrangements involving consenting adults. Thus, I would support legalizing prostitution. The fact that money changes hands has no bearing on the principle. I do not mean everywhere and ubiquitous; I do mean that if states want to legalize it, manage it and control it in selected places, they certainly should be able to do so, as in Nevada. The fact that this isn't high on any state agendas is fine also. I don't have a dog in this fight; I would simply support legalization, depending on the details of the legislative bill, if it ever came up. My position does have boundaries: I draw the line at non-consent, children, and animals; I don't care what people might do sexually with plants, although this article on The Silent Scream of Asparagus might give someone pause. The fact that I choose to live and associate with people who live more traditional lifestyles indicates a kind of philosophical inconsistency; but my amoral statement is simply built on a premise of stating a non-prescriptive position regarding how other people live in this private regard, exercising their free will. It would not be what I would recommend should someone want my perspective on how one should live. So far, nobody has asked.
6. I support human rights. The UN’s declaration is a good one: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” However, the UN Human Rights Commission is run by a bunch of international thugs. Look at the ineffectual job being done in the Sudan! Look at the UN’s poor history of dealing with the world’s genocides or nuclear arms proliferation! We need a new model that actually addresses actions consistent with the words. Perhaps the UN should move to Zimbabwe.
7. I care about the poor. I mean the poor widows and orphans, the mentally ill or drug addicted homeless who need help, people not capable of working or who need some serious training in practical life skills that provides more opportunity for them to work, the unskilled single mother with children, the destitute, the – dare I say it – deserving poor. I do not mean the free-lance writer, artist, rock-climber, avid skier, musician, tennis bum, Pentecostal minister, life-long college student who chose to go into massive debt for his intellectual passions, or any myriad of other reasonably sane and healthy people who choose a lifestyle, career, and/or occupation, however noble their calling, that does not pay well, falls near or below the government’s calculation of the “poverty line,” then expects the dentist in Topeka, the pizza shop owner in Chicago, and the travel trailer worker in Elkhart to subsidize his chosen poverty and his health care, in effect underwriting his lifestyle. (Whew – long sentence.) Selling insurance or working long hours for an evil oil company may not be “fun” but somewhere along the way, healthy capable people need to pay their own way. To scream that there are 37 million people living below the poverty line today, and it’s a moral outrage that we’re not doing something, does not recognize that “something” is being done in the way of government welfare programs, food stamps, homeless shelters, and numerous religiously funded outreach efforts, nor does it recognize that the 37 million people involved are individuals in different situations where no one-size-fits-all plan meets their needs. Some need no broad taxpayer funded assistance; just our love and encouragement. It should also be noted that the figure of 37 million is affected by millions of illegal immigrants; apparently we like to import poverty. As Mark Steyn said, “There are arguments to be made both for and against immigration, but you can't be in favor of mass unskilled immigration and then pledge to fight the ‘war on poverty’. It's like spooning out a bathtub with a thimble while leaving the faucets running.”
8. I am not against policies that redistribute income or increase taxes and I fully expect them to go up even though we were promised by both Democrat candidates that taxes would not be increased on the middle class. Is that believable? Who the heck is the "middle class?" One cynic defined the middle class as those making between $50,000 and $50,001. It makes me think of a discussion in the movie, The Outlaw Josey Wales, where the Senator says to Fletcher, "...there's an old saying: To the victors belong the spoils." Fletcher responds, "There's another old saying, Senator: Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining." I am concerned as to how taxes are used. They are far less objectionable, in principle, than the misuse of those legal confiscations. A short list: pork projects (spending the citizen's money on monuments in one’s home district to insure reelection), sending economic stimulus checks to everyone, paid for by increasing the debt for our children (a "feel-good" display; "look, we're doing something"), international military adventures based on fear-mongering (yes, I mean Iraq), eminent domain abuse, i.e. taking private property for “development” by another private entity that improves a city’s tax base, the costs all consumers bear for draconian regulations, e.g. state smog check stations (where everything passes but you wait and pay anyway), corporate welfare, corporate bailouts, farm subsidies, the misuse of federal grants to universities, support of entrenched bloated bureaucracies whose major agenda is to grow in size and scope… this is getting tiring so I’ll stop now.
9. I like the idea of free health care for everyone as well as free food, gasoline, heating fuel, electricity, vacations, etc. etc. Unfortunately, there is no Wizard of Oz offering these, so things like health care have to be paid for. Since the government has no money of its own, the funds to pay for free or low cost health care comes from the producing taxpayer. So it is we who will pay for the eventual government universal health care system. As P. J. O Rourke said, “If you think it is expensive now, wait until it’s free!” So instead of providing health care for the poor who need it and cannot afford it, we’ll give (or is it mandate?) it for everybody, even those who can afford it, so we can all enjoy rationed care. I know the drill: “It’s rationed now. The rich get care; the poor don’t.” Au contraire: The rich will never be rationed; they'll go to India for surgeries if they have to wait here. It’s everyone else that will wait in line for months or be denied completely, particularly if you are old. And the poor can and do get care; they show up at a general hospital emergency room. (Millions of the so-called 47 million without health insurance visiting our emergency rooms are illegal immigrants, but that is another issue). The trouble is that the costs have to be picked up elsewhere, so it is a system clearly with problems. It's interesting to me that, as a society, we've grown to expect that everything gets covered one way or another, minus co-pay; As Economist Arnold Kling says, that's insulation, not insurance. We want protection from all obligations for our health paid for by someone else. Finally, on this matter, I punt. I don’t know what to fix let alone how to fix it. And I am amazed that so many people seemingly have it all neatly figured out. I think it more likely that they are acting like human windsocks blowing only to the winds of their particular ideology, either “let the market handle it” or the Cuban model. It reminds me of Keith’s Law (Philosophy professor Keith Burgess-Jackson): “Partisanship is inversely proportional to authoritativeness.” It would be good if we could hear about a non-ideologically based system that provided a safety net for the truly needy and those with prior health conditions, offered low cost catastrophic insurance for the big ticket items but expected us to pay for the routine doctor’s visit or our own cholesterol medicine, and even allowed for others to enjoy life without health insurance if they so choose (accepting the consequences). But then ideology sells; and ideology says we don’t want anyone to manage their own health without assistance from Washington – such is the grand allure of political power.
10. We should legalize drugs. When the federal government outlawed alcohol in the 1920’s, it required a constitutional amendment to do so; no such niceties were employed with the War on Drugs. At a fundamental level, I think that it is the unalienable right of individuals to “medicate” themselves. The Drug War has led to violations of civil rights, costs of over $40 billion per year, excessive prison sentences for non-violent crimes via three strikes laws, violence greater than during Prohibition, and major funding for terrorists. After approximately a half a trillion dollars spent, one would think someone might say: “This is not working!” Drug abuse is a tragedy but criminalizing it only drives it underground and lines the pockets of the criminal class from here to Latin America, the Middle East and Asia. With legal drugs (and I do not presume to know the details of how managing the dispensing of such drugs should work; unfortunately, it’s seldom discussed in the public arena), we could spend $40 billion a year on treatment programs. It took years to stigmatize smoking, which is now on par with farting in church. Since hard drugs are more addictive, major treatment centers would be necessary and certainly more effective than “Just Say No” PR campaigns.
11. I’m anti-war and I think we should cease trying to be parents to the entire world, assuming the work of an inept UN, battling the occasional tyrant wearing funny clothes who has a propensity to torture and exterminate his own people,. While I do not support isolationism, I do question the need for over 200,000 troops scattered all over the world outside Iraq and Afghanistan; perhaps it’s for the New Cold War. We have a long history of getting sucked into the world’s tears and flapdoodles, usually with good intentions or because we convinced ourselves we had no choice. Having said that, I do not believe we would have the will to confront another major country grabbing dangerous despot should one threaten civilization today. I am not a pacifist. There is a time and place to confront evil, as in WWII. As C. S. Lewis said, "Only liberal societies tolerate Pacifists. In the liberal society, the number of Pacifists will either be large enough to cripple the state as a belligerent, or not. If not, you have done nothing. If it is large enough, then you have handed over the state which does tolerate Pacifists to its totalitarian neighbor who does not. Pacifism of this kind is taking the straight road to a world in which there will be no Pacifists." In the second instance, the pacifist will have decided the fate of many who might disagree with them… in effect, making a choice for others… aiding the totalitarian state at the expense of innocents… a rather huge responsibility for the pacifist to assume over his neighbors, I’d say.
12. I am an environmentalist; or more accurately, a conservationist, which is to say I conserve. We keep the heat low during the winter and dress warm; we sleep in a cold room; we don’t have air-conditioning; with gasoline prices rising, we drive slower and less (if it gets worse, I’ll drive even less); we don’t waste water from our well; we recycle all we can; we compost; we seldom fly anywhere anymore; I’ve changed all the light bulbs that we use most often to those mercury laden long-life bulbs; we’re always turning off the lights; and I abhor waste. I’m a fly-fisherman so I am quite conscious of the cleanliness of our rivers and lakes. I lived in Southern California for 25 years so I know about bad air; but then I’ve experienced much worse in China, Southeast Asia, and several places in Latin America. I’ve read and enjoyed all of Edward Abbey’s books but then I’m no Monkey Wrencher and I don’t intend to chain myself to a tree. I don’t know anyone that doesn’t want clean air, pure water and unspoiled lands. When someone says we’re raping the planet, or they’re hyper about global warming, I have a solution, so stick with me, that is, unless you agree with Ted Turner or think that a Mad Max scenario is immanent within a few years, in which case I cannot help you. But take a deep breath. Like an old man who plants a tree knowing he will never sit under its branches, or like a lightening caused forest fire that won’t regenerate in kind for 100 or more years, sometimes one must take the long view. I assume the “we’re” in “we’re raping the planet” refers to the United States, or Western civilization, or all semi-capitalist societies that have used resources while creating wealth which would include some significant non-western countries. Well, we can take the lead of several of these other more enlightened countries. Europe is almost ensuring its own extinction by not replacing themselves. They are getting long in the tooth and not having enough children necessary to continue maintaining productive economies or pay for their welfare systems. Holland practices euthanasia, which from the earth’s true advocates is a blessing. Europe may achieve a 7^th Century non-consuming economy sooner than we think. Japan is in a similar state of affairs – an aging population and few births. It won’t take long. We could do the same, either voluntarily, or through mandates like China’s one child policy. The people who really care will stop having children without coercive measures, however, because they know down deep that adding people, particularly our kind of people, will only exacerbate the earth’s problems. (Which reminds me… I’ll get concerned about the global warming / now climate change “crisis” when the most vocal spokespersons start behaving like it’s a crisis instead of an opportunity. They say they care, but they don’t act like it; they don’t walk the talk.) So that’s it. When “we’re” no longer here, or at least reduced to insignificance – and it could be sooner rather than later if Americans will just stop having babies – the earth will do just fine, as George Carlin sardonically suggests in the link. Al Gore is a piker; he emphasizes band-aid solutions.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a conservative on economic matters. This has nothing to do politics; I mean conservative in the sense that I am cautious and prudent with money. Politicians spend like drunken sailors, which may be unkind to drunken sailors by suggesting equivalence, but they hardly deserve emulation, making promises they cannot keep knowing full well they cannot keep them. It’s simply that I have spent my whole life living within my means, even when I was poor, taking on only the debt that I had confidence I could cover, saving something out of every paycheck even when it wasn’t much, delaying gratifications, and living within a budget (which includes giving to charities). I am also conservative in that I am “resistant to change” regarding my fiscal responsibilities; I see no virtue in becoming a spendthrift. In this sense, I am also not a very good patriot: I will not go to the mall to help the country. I will go shopping if I need or want something, which is rare. It is mostly a chore, seldom an enjoyable experience. I further think that it would be a good idea for countries to control their emotions and live within a responsible budget; but then history has taught me to have low expectations in this regard, particularly when effectively, all we have to choose from are Republicans and Democrats.

I've Been Expecting This

From Instapundit:

THE SILENT SCREAM of asparagus. "What is clear, however, is that Switzerland's enshrining of 'plant dignity' is a symptom of a cultural disease that has infected Western civilization, causing us to lose the ability to think critically and distinguish serious from frivolous ethical concerns. It also reflects the triumph of a radical anthropomorphism that views elements of the natural world as morally equivalent to people."

Watch the linked farcical video.

"Windfall Profits for Dummies"

From the Wall Street Journal, comes this neat little assessment:

This tiff over gas and oil taxes only highlights the intellectual policy confusion – or perhaps we should say cynicism – of our politicians. They want lower prices but don't want more production to increase supply. They want oil "independence" but they've declared off limits most of the big sources of domestic oil that could replace foreign imports. They want Americans to use less oil to reduce greenhouse gases but they protest higher oil prices that reduce demand. They want more oil company investment but they want to confiscate the profits from that investment. And these folks want to be President?

Brilliant.