Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Colin Powell Endorses Barack Obama

    I know this is old news by now, but I particularly appreciated the tone of the endorsement. As one who has some policy disagreements with Barack Obama, but who nonetheless supports him on balance, I was glad to hear a nuanced endorsement.

    Here’s the video:

    PS: I particularly appreciated his comment on the question of Obama being a Muslim. He’s not, he’s a Christian, but being a Muslim should not disqualify someone from becoming president of the United States.

  • So Long to Public Campaign Financing?

    I had mixed emotions about Barack Obama’s choice not to accept public financing of campaigns. On the one hand, as an advocate of free speech, I believe that public financing and campaign spending limits are a threat to free speech precisely where it needs to be most free. But on the other hand, I dislike flip-flops, and this was.

    What I would have liked to have heard was Obama or his spokesman tell us that, having seen how individuals, when fired up, can produce the necessary campaign cash, he had realized just how important freedom was in a political campaign, and thus changed his position. I don’t regard changing your mind for good, publicly stated reasons to be a bad flip-flop. Doing so for political expediency is another matter.

    But I do welcome the fact that Obama’s campaign has underlined already existing questions about public financing. CQPolitics has an article on the $150 million Obama raised in September:

    Obama had initially promised to accept public financing if McCain did, but changed his mind after setting primary fundraising records. His extraordinary fundraising is bound to set a new standard in politics that could doom the taxpayer-paid system. Many Republicans have begun to second-guess McCain’s decision to participate in the program.

    In a way it’s nice to see this campaign highlight the problems with public financing, an issue on which I believe both candidates are wrong.

  • Valuable Summary Post on Bible Translation

    Brian Russell of Real Meal Ministries has posted a summary on Bible translation that is quite good.  It’s hard to keep things straight in a short, readable essay.  (HT:  Methodist Blogs Weekly Roundup by Allan Bevere.)

    I would note that he uses the popular rather than any of the technical definitions of “paraphrase,” but I find it necessary to deal with that term when publicly discussing Bible translations as well.  Many will find his answer to the question of what Bible translation he uses inadequate, but there’s no way around that!

    Overall, this is a good overview.

  • Added Caching

    Though the number of page views per day doesn’t seem to reflect it, I’ve had some database load problems, so I have added WP-SuperCache to this blog as well. As always, let me know about any problems you may have. This seems like overkill for the traffic on this blog, but if it works OK, I might as well lighten the database load.

    If comments are causing problems, e-mail pubs@energion.com.

  • Not About Joe the Plumber

    The furor over this poor guy has illustrated to me one of the problems of presidential campaigning in America. It’s not about analyzing policies to determine who they impact, to what extent, and for what purpose, nor indeed it is about whether the policies will accomplish that purpose. It’s rather all about engaging people’s emotions.

    I was reading AllahPundit over at HotAir who is quoting a report that Joe the Plumber may be in trouble for plumbing without a license. It’s not that I object to the law being enforced. I even think that someone who lives in a glass house and then invites the hail of rocks should be prepared for the results. That doesn’t mean I excuse either the people who point out the person in the glass house, while failing to mention, nor do I excuse the rock throwers.

    The proper issue here is tax policies and who they impact. Joe the Plumber was supposed to put a face on that issue. If the McCain campaign was doing their job, they would have figured out whether the business was worth $250,000 (or perhaps much less), or was bringing in $250,000, and they would have discovered whether that was gross receipts or profits. Then they could have determined whether Obama’s tax plan would make it impossible for this particular person to own a business or not.

    On the Democratic side, the proper response is simply that Obama’s tax plan does not tax this poor man to anything like the extent claimed by McCain, and that in fact his taxes will drop. So his complaint is that if he manages to make over $250,000 per year at some later time, he would be taxed more heavily on part of that income. Now that is a legitimate issue to discuss, because I want Joe the Plumbers all over the country to be interested in growing their businesses. It’s just not as emotional as the question of whether or not he can buy the business now.

    Here’s the thing. It can’t possibly be news to my conservative friends, but they sure are acting like it is. Businesses already have to pay taxes, and just like any other expense, those taxes might make it impossible for you to start or expand your business. That’s going to be true at any tax rate.

    You have to ask more about taxes than just whether they are bigger or smaller. What are they spent on? Who is getting taxed, and how much?

    We’re hearing a great deal about redistributing income. Some people are acting as though one candidate won’t redistribute while the other will. Actually, there is redistribution now and there will be redistribution then. The question is by how much, and what will it be spent on.

    I don’t hear Republican activists complaining about either taxes or budget deficits when the war in Iraq is on the line. Democrats are not complaining generally when it’s social programs that are involved.

    Now my pro-war friends will probably point out that the war in Iraq was, according to them, a necessity. We have to defend ourselves; we don’t have to provide health care for everyone. So we will spend on an invasion of Iraq irrespective of income, but we won’t do so when people have no health insurance. We can pull together the money, or more accurately pretend we have the money (and a government can get by with pretending for a long time), for Wall Street, but not for individuals.

    But in fact any war, and the war on terror is no exception, involves deciding how to apply limited resources to accomplishing one’s goals in the war. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again–the war in Iraq was a horrible strategic decision. It wasted American and Iraqi lives, and it wasted resources that could have been spent better elsewhere. It was not a necessity.

    We need to start looking for the details in these kinds of issues. When we borrow as a government it’s important to ask what we’re borrowing for. If we’re raising taxes, we need to ask what we’re going to accomplish with the money. If we’re building infrastructure, that’s one thing, while if we’re borrowing just to keep the basics running, that’s another. It’s sort of like home finance. If you’re borrowing to buy a practical family vehicle, that’s very different from finding you have to put your electricity bill on a credit card.

    Both parties have been lying to the American people and pretending that we can have what they offer without having to pay for it. In this case, I find Republicans more guilty than Democrats recently, because they always propose lowering taxes, but are much less forthcoming on lowering expenditures. Then they spend their time throwing rocks at Democrats who propose modest increases to pay for a small portion. I’d be more inclined to defend the Democrats is they were proposing amounts that would actually pay for their programs, but if they did they wouldn’t need my defense; they’d be losing so badly that nothing could possible help.

    So while on the one hand this isn’t about Joe the Plumber, in another way it is, because politicians who believe that you, the voter, can’t handle a rational discussion of policy want the issue to be about whether that one guy can buy a business, one that turns out to have been out of reach in any case.

    So the tax policy discussion is bypassed and we can sling emotions around the blogosphere and a bit in the media, yet at the end of the day, few people know more about the actual tax proposals than they did before.

  • Letter to Lifeway Christian Stores

    Rev. Geoffrey Lentz is a local United Methodist pastor. Some years ago before he went to seminary and learned better he was a student of mine. He sent a letter to Lifeway Christian Stores regarding their placement of a magazine about women pastors behind the counter. He sent me a copy and graciously gave permission to quote it.

    Dear Lifeway Christian Stores,

    I am a United Methodist Minister that believes in the importance of evangelism and the inspiration of the Bible. I have been a frequent customer at your store in Pensacola, FL. I have appreciated your good prices on many of the classics of our faith, but recently I have been concerned about your store pulling the last edition of Gospel Today: Female Pastors Share Their Joys, Struggles, and Victories off the shelves. I know that your store is run by the Southern Baptist Convention, but I thought you were interested in reaching out to and selling to Christians of other traditions.

    I regret that I will no longer support LCS with my patronage and will recommend my church members not do so as well. I think you should change the name of your store to Lifeway Right-wing of the Southern Baptist Convention Stores so it is not so confusing to people like me, who are looking for a regular Christian bookstore. I think your store is out of touch with your customers, the Church of Jesus Christ, and most importantly the Holy Spirit. But I do take heart that God has been calling women to ministry from the beginning and will continue to call even Baptist women to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, despite the church hierarchy’s best attempt to silence His voice.

    Peace in Christ,

    Geoffrey Lentz

    That’s telling them! You can find the story here.

  • The McCain Campaign and Comebacks

    In an article on MSNBC discussing how Obama is moving into some traditionally Republican territory, I found this quote:

    McCain, for his part, was returning to the argument that Obama’s credentials are too thin for the White House, his campaign and the Republican National Committee releasing ads focusing on experience and judgment.

    Here’s my problem with this: I’m asked to trust the running of the country to a man who can’t run a campaign. Oh, I know how the political operatives work, and I’m willing to discount some of the problems as a clash between McCain’s honorable inclinations and the demands of real life politics. But the bottom line is that a man who would be president needs to set the tone of his campaign and run it.

    I’m not talking about going negative in this case, though I dislike a nasty campaign. Some negatives are quite appropriate. It is not wrong to point out where your opponent has failed, and thus how you would presumably do better. But there are false negative themes and irrelevant negative themes, and one needs to be able to tell the difference. (Note: Just because your partisan supporters think something is true, doesn’t make it true.)

    But if one goes into a negative campaign, one needs at a minimum to do so competently. Just how far are we going to go? How are we going to handle the fallout if it doesn’t catch on?

    After clinching the nomination, McCain had a fairly strong environmental proposal. Where did it go? The twists and turns of his campaign have been quite entertaining, but not constructive. When you swing too many different ways you don’t satisfy all the different factions; you tend rather to anger them all.

    McCain wants to talk about judgment, but he doesn’t appear to have the judgment to choose a campaign focus and run with it. He should have noticed long ago that the “Obama isn’t up to the job” theme wasn’t really working all that well. Or maybe he just didn’t play it well enough. I’m not sure which. But he certainly hasn’t made it happen. And whether partisans on either side like it or not, the choice of Sarah Palin muddied the waters on the experience issue. I think the contortions of folks on both sides to try to explain how the experience issue goes their way are riotously funny. Democrats, presenting a young and relatively inexperienced candidate (something I don’t mind, by the way), should have just kept their mouths shut about Palin, and Republicans should have responded in kind.

    It seems to me that McCain should have decided who he was, decided just how far he might compromise to keep the base of the Republican party, and just how far he would compromise to attract others, and then stick with that theme. I don’t know if he would win with that approach, but it’s hard to imagine him doing much worse.

    Campaigning and governing may not be the same thing–indeed they are not. But keeping on message, managing a staff, setting the tone, and presenting oneself as in charge are all characteristics that are helpful to a president. McCain is arguing that he has better judgment and is a better leader, but he’s failing to demonstrate that.

    I recall a baseball coach talking to my son who is a pitcher. He frequently got into a jam around the 3rd or 4th inning, but then his pitching really picked up and he would pitch his way out of the jam and look good for the rest of the game. The coach noted that being able to pitch out of a jam was a good thing, but suggested he not go to that well too often!

    I think McCain has nobody but himself to blame for the position he is in now. It is not impossible for things to change, but thus far, he has displayed an almost uncanny talent for making things break the wrong way. He may be the comeback candidate, but if you try to come back from the brink too many times, you may find that it just doesn’t happen.

  • Trying WP-Spamfree

    I’m trying the WP-Spamfree plugin for a few days here. Please let me know if you have any problems posting comments. I’ll be watching the spam closely.

  • Quote of the Day – Elitism

    … A political strategy that depreciates the value of ideas in favor of some vague notion of the superiority of common sense and homespun, simple virtue undermines the foundations of democracy, the standing of the nation in the world, and the economic and technological prospects of a country.

    From: Madison Powers at CQ Politics. But read the whole thing. It’s not all on one side!

  • Believing in Private Charity

    Today is Blog Action Day, and though I didn’t get around to formally participating, I’m going to write a short post on dealing with poverty from a Christian perspective. I’m feeling idealistic, so beware!

    Since I first started thinking about issues of poverty, way back when I was a teenager (and fish were just working on that “leg” thing) I have believed that ideally private charitable action would have priority over government action. I still think that as a general rule, what the government can do even poorly, private agencies can do better. The problem is whether private agencies will do it at all.

    I recall having this discussion with someone a few years ago. He suggested to me that if the government would just get out of the welfare business, private charity would take over and there would be no problem. Personally I don’t believe that would happen. I do see a role for he government in providing that basic safety net, but I think that private agencies, privately funded can do much more.

    One option is faith-based initiatives. I have a major problem with these myself, however, for two major reasons. The first is that when a religious agency, such as a Christian ministry gets in bed with the government, their distinctive focus is often blurred or even obliterated. My strongest reason for supporting separation of church and state is that I believe the church is better off without the state.

    My second reason is that when the government provides the money, it can and indeed must regulate how that money is spent. As I will note below, one of the greatest benefits of private charity is its flexibility. That, combined with close access to the community in which aid is offered, helps a private agency to be more effective than a government agency.

    What are some of the strengths of private charities?

    1. Close contact with the community means less fraud. If you go to your neighborhood church, you will find it more difficult to engage in repeated fraud, for example. I don’t mean you can’t defraud a church. In fact, I’ve dealt with people who were trying, and I doubtless made some wrong decisions in using a church’s money when it was my duty to make that call.
    2. A private organization can be more flexible in responding to actual needs, not according to a formula. There are situations that fit a boilerplate, but there are also individual situations that require a flexible response. This is where a faith-based, government funded program loses much of the benefit. Too many government programs are designed to keep people from starving rather than resolve poverty.
    3. A private organization is generally not the only option. A person can seek the program that fits.

    I’d like to see an effort, especially on the part of Christians, to increase private charity before, not after, some mythical moment when the government will reduce its activities. Yes, I’m aware that there are many Christian and other private charities in action already, but I do not think that loving one another by our actions has a high enough priority.

    I think this should start inside the church community. We should make a determination that nobody in the family (that is our church family) will be starving, without housing, or unable to get the necessary training to find a job, unless they make it impossible themselves. The early church did this, as recorded in Acts 4:32-37.

    We would certainly have to take a look at some of Paul’s advice to the church in Corinth, and actually learn to police our own congregations, but that would be a good idea in any case. Let’s give this a priority over buildings. Let’s teach stewardship as hand in glove with charity. Let’s focus on making the time being helped by the church short and the time spent contributing great.

    If a church congregation has a member who is in need, that church congregation could respond in a number of ways, including child care, opportunities for training, networking for jobs, and so forth.

    I’m not saying we would succeed at all times. I also long for holiness of life, but the goal is a bit elusive! I’m not saying that we become a source of indefinite payments to support those who won’t support themselves. In fact, my suggest is exactly the opposite of that. The congregation makes wise decisions (we hope!) about what will be done and what won’t be done. The person who will not live up to the minimum expectations will be dealt with accordingly. If this idea was not combined with a return of some sort of congregational discipline, it would not be workable.

    Why do this just for other Christians? I propose this as a start. I believe that if Christians as a group practiced stewardship on the one hand, and charity on the other, there would be no need for the scandal of church members unable to meet their basic needs.

    Having demonstrated thus that we are different as a community, I suspect that we would have less trouble explaining who we are and why. Then when someone asks how it is done, we wouldn’t have to present theoretical models. We could point to our church congregations and say, “Like that.”

    Idealistic? Obviously. Do I expect it to happen? Not really. But of all the things I read in Acts, it is the one I think would have the greatest impact on Christianity as a whole, and on the world as a result. I think it could stop short of holding everything in common, but it would certainly require a greater level of personal giving to the church, and better spending of that money with well-chosen priorities.