You know when you get those feelings, like boot camps will reduce juvenile crime, drug raids reduce drug use, or the comments are slowing down on your blog? Do as David Ker did, and find out if you’re right! (Note to David: I absolutely couldn’t resist posting this. I tried. Really!)
Author: henry
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Free Speech Means Freedom NOT to Speak
There’s been a great deal of discussion amongst conservatives about the potential revival of the fairness doctrine, and some action on the left in hope of actually reviving it.
I regard the fairness doctrine as a thoroughly reprehensible idea. I did not support it while it was still in existence and I hope it doesn’t make a comeback.
At the same time, and for the same reasons, I think that radio stations should be free not to air this program, which many find offensive. Now the AFA is complaining about how they’re being suppressed. But freedom to speak doesn’t mean that others have to support your particular speech. That was the error of the fairness doctrine–that freedom to speak means somebody else must pay to disseminate your speech.
In this case, TV stations are rejecting the program because it annoys their customers. Whether you agree with their decision on this particular decision or not, if you believe in freedom of speech, I think you should agree that it is their choice.
If I write a book and somebody else doesn’t want to publish it, that’s their choice. I don’t have a “right” to a publisher. As a publisher myself, I don’t have a duty to publish things I regard as inappropriate, no matter how wrongheaded my definition of “inappropriate” might be.
Of course this can go on and on. Indeed the AFA does have the right to complain about those who don’t show their program, as I have the right to complain about their complaint. That’s freedom, folks!
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A: Because obviously what Jesus would do is shoot them
Q: Why did the Arkansas house pass this bill?
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I Wanted to Post Something about the Search for the Ark
… but the Internet Monk already did it and did it better. That’s Noah’s ark, by the way, not the Ark of the Covenant.
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How to Keep Religion in the Public Square
Every so often there’s another outburst of complaints about how religion is being suppressed in this country, and how it no longer has its place in the public square. And there are the occasional really silly incidents that actually support such a claim. I note, for example, that our local public library here in Pensacola, Florida refuses to permit religious groups to conduct meetings, which is simply a lawsuit waiting to happen.
On the other hand, many, and I suspect most, of the complaints arise more from inconvenience, and the legitimate requirements that people use some kind of etiquette in the way in which they use the public square. The complaint of suppression is frequently actually a complaint that one is not getting the proper strokes, or that the government is not funding one’s favorite religious cause.
WorldNetDaily has an article complaining that a clause forbidding the use of stimulus money to build buildings whose main use is religious. For example, you can’t build a seminary with the money. (HT: Dispatches.) They do this with the ridiculous headline, Stimulus to ban religious worship. Yeah, right. Either from the church or the state side, I very much do not want the government constructing buildings for religious purposes.
But if we Christians do not have what we think is our proper place in the public square, why is that? Is it because of suppression? Christianity is, after all, the majority religion. I do note, however, that when this is limited to True ChristiansTM, no matter who gets to make the definition, the number drops substantially.
But it seems to me that we’re so busy complaining about the opportunities we don’t have (and I’m not prejudicing the issue of what privileges we should have) that we aren’t really taking advantage of the privileges and opportunities we do have.
If you are a parent who complains that children can’t pray at school, let me ask a couple of questions. Did you take the time to pray with your children before you sent them out to the bus stop? Will you pray with them when they get home? Will you take time out of your schedule today to pray for your children during their time at school? And even more, have you investigated just where and when at school your children can pray? Have you taught them how to pray for themselves?
If you are complaining that our young people aren’t getting enough Biblical education, again let me ask you a few questions. Have you read your Bible today? Have you chosen a passage and really studied it, so that if someone referenced it in literature you’d “get” it? Have you or will you take time with your children to study the Bible or something about your faith? Do you encourage your children to read the Bible? Do you see to it that they know something about their church community?
And more importantly, have you let that life of prayer and Bible study impact the way you act in the public square? When you ask “what would Jesus do?” does it come out to something other than your own inclinations? Do people who meet you know you’re a Christian? If they find out you’re a Christian will their opinion of Christians improve?
If you don’t relate to many of the things I’m suggesting, I think you should reconsider complaints about being restricted in your religious activities. You aren’t taking advantage of the many opportunities that are available.
If you or your children aren’t praying enough or studying the Bible enough, is it the fault of the much maligned ACLU? Or is it a result of your desire to have somebody else take care of your children’s religious education because you don’t actually care enough to take the time to do it yourself?
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Do Scientists Promote Darwinism?
Not according to Steve Matheson of Quintessence of Dust, who did some empirical research on the matter!
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20 Things to Doubt
A few days ago, the Internet Monk was believing (and not believing) things, and today Moderate Christian Blogroll member SHARP IRON is doubting 20 things. Do you agree with his list?
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What I Want in a Stimulus Package
It is interesting to see what is regarded as spending for stimulus, and how this is debated. I’m afraid I don’t give the Democrats too many points for putting it together, and the Republicans really haven’t done all that much about tearing it apart. Since I’ve complained about it a bit, I thought I’d give some thoughts on what I think would work, so that people could complain about what I propose. And of course, I must provide apologies for writing so far out of my own field of study again.
While I know that when the word “billion” is involved, it’s a great deal of money, minor increments in the total spending packages, such as were negotiated for the Senate version, are not going to make that large of a difference. On the other hand, tax cuts aren’t all that helpful a suggestion as part of a stimulus package either, though they might well have their place in another policy.
When you’re working entirely in deficit range, even tax cuts work very much like spending, only somewhat worse. The government decides where to distribute the tax cuts, just as it decides where to spend the money, and it often doesn’t do nearly as good a job with the cuts as it does with the spending.
OK, am I a raving lunatic? Perhaps, but I don’t think this is evidence of that. The problem is that the tax cuts are not essentially returning money to people who earned it. Because of the shape of the tax code, they are redistributive, and thus they are similar to targeted spending, only spending targeted at people who will not necessarily be all that good at creating new wealth. It’s the folks who created wealth that we took the money from in the first place.
There will be an improvement in production based on tax reductions, but that isn’t infinite, else a 0% tax would produce the most revenue. In practical terms a 0% tax won’t even produce the greatest economic activity, because we do need infrastructure and regulation. Tax cuts targeted at businesses, at least if those businesses are potentially productive, are an improvement on this, of course.
The first thing both opponents are proponents of the bill need to decide is whether spending money we don’t have is a good way to stimulate the economy, and whether we can handle the potential inflationary pressure after we do it. If we start a half a trillion dollar deficit, and add another trillion to it (and this is ignoring the financial system bailout), something is going to happen. If we bring the economy out of recession a few months quicker, and add a few years of inflation and assorted associated problems, we may not consider it an overall win.
There are a number of voices in the media who are claiming that there is no question that we must spend to stop the recession. Rachel Maddow called it Economics 101. But it is not that well established, and bluntly looking at the last few decades I’m not all that inclined to trust the collective wisdom of economists. But there are quite a number of would disagree at this point. The loud claims that stimulus is “obvious” and “Economics 101” ignore a pretty strong body of contrary evidence.
It’s on this point where I would respect those Republicans who take a straightforward, “this isn’t the right idea at all” approach. Of course, there’s no negotiation there. The gulf between stimulate and don’t stimulate is a bit big to bridge! But at least it’s a position with integrity.
I’m personally inclined, nonetheless, to support the idea of spending to stimulate the economy. But contrary to what seems to be popular opinion, I think it very much does matter what we spend the money on. In terms of stimulus, the a business does not provide a very good analogy to the national economy. I cannot, after all, borrow large amounts of money, pass it around, and expect it to stimulate my single business. That is a course of action open to government, but not to me.
But I can borrow money for a business, and as any businessman knows, it’s very important what I do with it. If I’m borrowing to make payroll, I better be very concerned and have good reason to expect the situation to change for the better, and soon! If I’m borrowing to add a new plant and increase productivity, that’s likely a good bet, presuming there’s demand.
So if I were going through this bill and looking at what I think is a good idea and what is not, I would actually largely ditch those tax cuts. In a considering the entire bill lives inside the deficit, I think they’re going to have less effect than is hoped. On the remaining spending, I’d ask for one of two things: 1) Is this an improvement in our nation’s infrastructure that is going to produce new economic activity, or 2) Is this something that will have such a substantial effect on the nation’s mood that it will tend to stimulate individual activity. Under the first category, one should ask whether government is either the only agency, or the best agency, to carry out that particular activity.
As it is, much of the spending in the bill looks good to me, though some of the government spending seems to me to fail the test of whether government can do it best. In the second category, I think some support for unemployment insurance is a beneficial psychological stimulus.
As examples of the first category, I think that both improvements in the energy efficiency of government buildings and investment in basic scientific research are good things.
In the first case, I think the government obviously must invest in its buildings, and given an economic downturn, investing in them now is a good idea. This is borrowing that will produce savings in the future as well as build future jobs in the technologies and techniques involved. The buildings appear to me to be winners all around. Ironically, or perhaps as one would expect, such spending was cut. It strikes me that some Republicans regard any spending that involves the ecology to be some kind of green pipe dream and knee-jerk oppose it. To be fair, I must admit that for some Democrats, if the word “green” is in there, their support is assured.
While I believe basic scientific research is a good thing, I am not convinced that government consistently spends such money well. I would prefer that the government take on tasks that it needs to see performed, such as improvements in government buildings, or in transportation, or in information technology, spend money in those areas, and in turn expect that spending to stimulate private investment in developing those technologies.
If tax cuts were so structured as to stimulate this same type of activity that would improve our productivity in the future, then those might also be valuable. As a general way of getting money back into the economy, I don’t think they will be very productive at this point.
The problem down the road, of course, is to get government to back off of deficit spending once the corner has been turned, always assuming that we do turn the corner using these methods. In the past, that has always proven a problem.