Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Author Related

Posts that relate in some way to my books. Excludes administrative posts and most reviews of other people’s books.

  • What Decides My Vote (or Silly Experience Arguments)

    McCain has just stirred the pot by making an unorthodox choice for his running mate, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska. Contrary to much of the response on the left, I don’t see this as cynical, though obviously there’s political calculation involved. It’s bold and risky.

    It is, in fact, the first thing that’s happened since the end of the primaries that has made me think better of a candidate than I did at that time. It isn’t enough to make me vote for John McCain this time around, but that’s not because I think Palin is stupid, excessively inexperienced, or someone who would make a bad vice-president. The bottom line remains that I disagree with her on a number of matters of policy, insofar as I know what she stands for. We’re certain to find out much more over the next few days.

    I think my belief that “experience” is an argument you use in favor of someone you already like for other reasons, and against someone you already dislike, also for other reasons, is confirmed by the Democratic response. Republicans who are trying to argue that Palin has a better resume than Obama need a reality check. Democrats who think that they can successfully make her look so much worse on the basis of her resume need to rethink. If there is one thing that has been used cynically throughout this campaign, it is the experience argument, and it’s at a crescendo (at least I hope!) at the moment.

    The most positive thing about this choice, from my point of view is that it shows McCain can still think outside the box. Romney and Pawlenty were candidates that the political commentators would like. Lieberman was to some extent as well, though he had extraordinary negatives as well, being a very recent ex-Democrat, now independent, who had been a VP nominee of the other party, and also one with a substantially liberal voting record would hardly endear him to the Republican party’s right wing.

    McCain stepped out of the standard reasoning and picked someone almost out of the blue. Not that she had never been mentioned, but the vast majority of commentators didn’t take that seriously. She’s conservative, she’s vigorous and forceful, she seems intelligent, and she has also shown integrity in an incredibly difficult decision–her decision to carry her current child to term. Skin-deep pro-lifers might have waffled at that point. She’s living up to her convictions and showing that those are not simply things she believes are true, but things that are part of her being.

    Obama’s choice, on the other hand, was someone the political commentators were sure to like. It was largely media-safe, but rather boring. I’m not saying that Joe Biden would be a bad vice-president. Rather, he’ll be much the same as other vice-presidents.

    Does that change my vote? No, it doesn’t. As I said much earlier in the campaign, all of these other points do impact my vote, but they aren’t at the core. If I was looking at two essentially equal candidates, experience might sway me. If I found one candidate who was consistently honest, that would probably sway me. I count the historic possibility of Obama becoming the first African-American president of the United States as a plus. But if I couldn’t stomach who he is and what he proposes to do, that wouldn’t get me to vote for him. I look with favor on the possibility of having the first woman as Vice-President, but that doesn’t overcome policy disagreements.

    Since the primaries, I have been disappointed. Barack Obama has sounded less like an agent of change, and more like he’s under control of Washington insiders. The decision not to engage in town-hall meetings with McCain, while understandable from the political point of view, took away a great opportunity to change the way campaigns are conducted and perceived. Having the two candidates one-on-one in numerous settings would, I think, go a long way to blunting the effect of misleading negative advertising. It was an opportunity for change, but it didn’t happen.

    Obama waffled on FISA. He was wrong to vote for that bill. I’m extremely disappointed.

    He waffled on campaign finance. Here I agree with the decision, but as best as I can tell, he really approves of public financing, but thinks it is disadvantageous this time around. Now if he would have said that he has proven how the little people can gather the money to overwhelm big money operations in this internet age and thus the value of campaign finance reform has diminished, that would be different. He could then recommend taking the axe to part of the federal bureaucracy.

    McCain, of course, has done his waffling as well, on issue after issue, but he did most of it before and during the primary season. I liked him in 2000. I don’t like him now. There’s apparently a little bit of the maverick McCain spark left, but not enough.

    Now you could take this as a terribly negative view of the election as a whole, but I really feel pretty good about this election, when seen in comparison to others. Choosing a candidate to support is always an exercise in compromise. I disagree with each candidate on some issues. I am disappointed with each candidate, but largely because they are behaving as politicians generally behave. While I would like to see that change, I know how to relate their behavior to the background noise.

    So here are my major issues:

    • Iraq War – I think the Republicans in general have a terrible strategy at all for the war on terror, and McCain is simply following the same. The reality is that our strategy involves invading countries that support terror and retaliating for strikes. I’m amazed that conservatives who recognize the futility of “talking nice” to terrorists because of who they are don’t recognize the fact that retaliatory strikes don’t actually accomplish anything. McCain’s military experience argument is blunted for me by one fact–he apparently doesn’t recognize that we don’t have the resources to fight terror according to the current strategy. Somebody needs to work on a scalpel approach to replace our current sledgehammer.
    • 4th Amendment – I’m still hoping that Obama remembers who he was and will be better than McCain on this point, including warrantless wiretapping, rendition, torture, and all related elements I’m loosely grouping under 4th amendment. McCain has failed to show integrity here, in my view.
    • Supreme Court nominees – Obama is likely to appoint people I don’t like all that much, but they will replace other people and maintain the balance. The idea of a court that is consistently lined up with Scalia and company is horrifying.

    Those are not my whole list by any chance, but I rank those highest. Even though the economy has become more important than the Iraq war to most people, it remains my highest concern. I cannot make the fruitless killing less than #1 in my thinking.

    I would add that there are third party candidates that are options for those who cannot support either of the two major candidates. I don’t regard voting third party as throwing away your vote. I’m not going to do it this time. Those who say that Nader is siphoning off Obama’s votes or Barr is siphoning off McCain’s seem to have the odd idea that someone “owns” or is “due” particular votes. You earn the vote when you convince the voter. It’s only your vote when that voter pulls the lever.

    In summary, I think voting is a matter of priorities and compromise, and I think we do have a field of candidates to work with. I would love to find a year when there was someone out there who thought just like I did. Unfortunately, I’m convinced that candidate would lose, so maybe not so much!

  • A Forest of Signs and Waving People

    I headed out to vote yesterday in the Florida primary. We had contests for a number of local offices. I’m registered with no party affiliation, but there was one non-partisan race that needed thinning out and one race that would be settled by the Republican primary. It was a fairly easy task to fill out my ballot!

    I was struck again by the forest of signs around the polling place. There’s a sign indicating how close people can be to the entrance if they are going to solicit people’s votes. Actually nobody was all that close. They had chosen to gather around the entrance to the property Several people not only had signs, but had volunteers with t-shirts and hats who would wave to prospective voters on their way in. My precinct is in a church, so I suspect those folks wasted a bunch of waves on people visiting the church office or something of the sort.

    It’s not my major point, but one guy was standing by the road, and someone, possibly a friend, or perhaps even a political opponent had pulled up beside him in a pickup truck and they were talking. He waved to me and then tried to wave me around the truck, but unfortunately he also waved someone coming from the other direction. It took him a couple of minutes to think of the idea of getting that pickup truck out of the way of voters trying to get to the polls or leave again after voting.

    What I’m wondering is just how much such a display of signs and waving people impacts anyone’s interest in voting. My approach to choosing candidates is to read their web sites, read the literature they send out, read the newspaper interviews or fact sheets on them, and so forth. On local candidates, information can be hard to come by, but usually you can find out something more substantive than the person’s name and the office for which they are running.

    I can’t resist another detour here on the subject of campaign literature. This year I did read one piece of campaign literature that would have impacted my vote if I had been able to vote in that primary. (The candidate involved won his primary.) This was a simple postcard with a list of claims that I could easily fact check, and which appear to have been mostly true. They were negative, but provided good reasons not to vote for his opponent. Negative advertising can be of value. I don’t object to something just because it’s negative; I object if it is inaccurate or twisted and also negative.

    But to reiterate, how much do signs and waving people impact votes? Earlier in the campaign I saw some people holding signs for a candidate on an overpass over the interstate and waving to passing motorists. Is it possible that there is someone out there who doesn’t know who they plan to vote for and lets themselves be persuaded because they saw someone standing on an overpass with a sign and waving? It just seems too bizarre for words.

    Perhaps they just use that to gain name recognition, but then just what value is that type of recognition? You don’t know anything about the candidate. I get the sample ballots our elections office kindly provides and look up each and every candidate. Name recognition has nothing to do with it.

    Oh well, this will be only one of my election season rants. It seems to me that it is such a privilege to actually have a government in which we can each participate, and that any citizen would be willing to spend just a few minutes every couple of years to actually vote based on some idea of who the candidates are and what they stand for. Signs and waving people seem to argue against that.

  • Methodists and Evolution

    I reported some time ago that the United Methodist General Conference had passed some resolutions in support of evolution and opposing teaching faith based ideas in the public school science classroom. There’s a story in the Fort Wayne, Indiana Journal-Gazette about how this happened and the role of a local church member.

    I have observed some people trying to get resolutions passed at annual conferences or occasionally at General Conference and the process is somewhat difficult and I know that the individuals involved put a lot of work into the process. It’s nice to see people willing to be that involved. I do note that it seems that resolutions from general conference have little weight in practice.

    I would say that in the four congregations of which I have been a member, for example, the social principles only played a noticeable role in the most recent, and even there many members would probably be surprised to learn that there are social principles. (For non-UM folks, let me note that the social principles are only one area in the Methodist discipline which I’m using as an example, not the full statement of our doctrine and polity.)

    Perhaps it would be a good idea for Methodist pastors, teachers, and church leaders to refer to the social principles and other portions of the Discipline and Resolutions even when we don’t particularly like what they say, as will inevitably happen.

    Two early experiences of mine in the United Methodist Church come to mind. First, after I had read the relevant portions of the United Methodist Discipline prior to joining my first Methodist congregation, I asked the pastor about the social principles. I pointed out certain ones with which I could not agree. “Oh, the social principles,” he said, “we don’t really pay that much attention to those here.”

    The second was teaching in the same church, when I was asked to teach about the Wesleyan doctrine of Christian Perfection. I was raised Seventh-day Adventist, and SDAs have a substantial bit of Wesleyan in background and doctrine, so I was acquainted with Wesleyan theology. I looked up what we had in the Discipline, and included it on slides for the class. I found that of those attending (perhaps 40 or so), only the pastor and I were aware that there was such a thing as the doctrine of Christian perfection.

    It’s the Methodist doctrinal position with which I am probably least comfortable, but I would have thought more people would be aware of it. My guess is that pastors know their members are not comfortable with “perfection” in just about any form and just prefer to let that one slide.

    And just to get back to the topic in the title, I suspect evolution comes under the same heading. Why get into the debate if you don’t have to?

  • Denominationalism – The Disease

    Consider these situations:

    • A Sunday School class for young adults is growing by leaps and bounds. Many young men and women who are not members of the church are showing up just for the class. The church leadership shuts the class down because it is not using denominationally approved curriculum.
    • A speaker who is not a member of the same denomination is invited by a pastor. The guest has an extensive publication record, which the pastor has read. He has spoken to other groups of the same denomination, and even taught pastoral continuing education programs. Leaders in the church make such a fuss that the speaker cannot be allowed to speak at the church because of the divisiveness. (None of the objectors have read any of the speaker’s books, nor have they ever heard him speak.)
    • A leader claims that only denominational material can be used, because if it’s in print, the members will believe it, and so the leadership must make sure that nothing “wrong” appears before the members in print.

    I’m guessing that most of my more liberal readership is imagining that these are stories that come from my conservative upbringing. If that is what you assume, then you’re wrong. Now I could match those stories with ones about attitudes from my upbringing as a Seventh-day Adventist, a group that surely is infected with denominationalism, but I actually took those stories from my experience in United Methodist churches.

    It’s interesting to note that my experiences as a Seventh-day Adventist and those as a Methodist are not all that different. There is a difference of degree, there is some difference in the specific theological issues, but the attitudes are so similar that I can tell stories of what I experienced in Adventist churches to Methodist congregations without specifying the denomination, and they ring true, and similarly I can discuss Methodist experiences with my Adventist family and friends and they have no problem relating.

    I find it tremendously humorous in Methodist circles that the same people who criticize the denomination and the agencies in Nashville bitterly, will also act as though having “Abingdon” or “Cokesbury” on the cover of their book somehow makes it “safe.” One wonders if they have really considered that issue logically.

    This is one symptom of the disease–and I do think it is a disease–of denominationalism. By denominationalism I mean a view that suggests that one’s own denomination is really the true Christianity, that books written by folks in other denominations are dangerous simply because they aren’t from the same denomination, or even that people in one’s own denomination are somehow closer to God, simply by virtue of being a member of that denomination.

    I do not mean here loyalty to one’s organization. As a member of a United Methodist congregation I am obligated to support my church and to do things that build it up. I believe that denominationalism is actually destructive of my church congregation. I also don’t mean here that all selection of curriculum materials is bad, but rather that selection based simply on the “it wasn’t made here” criterion is dangerous and fear based.

    This type of denominationalism results in fear-based decisions. It tends to isolate people from other members of the body of Christ who worship across the street or down the road. It tends toward theological inbreeding. It produces sheep in all of the negative senses, and none of the positive ones.

    There are a number of positive things about denominational churches:

    1. Accountability to some higher authority. Completely independent churches can have accountability problems and are even more subject to inbreeding of ideas than are denominational churches. But note that the variation by congregations is pretty wide. I’ve encountered very open independent churches and denominational churches that were closed to other congregations in their same denomination.
    2. Stronger connections to other Christian churches. Within the denomination this is obvious, but it is also possible that the denomination, through programs of outreach and cooperation with other groups, can help the local church be more connected.
    3. “Brand” identification. When I’m visiting a town and looking for a place to eat, if I have no local recommendations, I’m likely to go for a chain restaurant, simply because I know where I’m going. For some people, being able to identify the general focus of a local congregation through the denominational label can be helpful.

    There are certainly more points that can be made. Take the inverse for independent churches. Remember, of course, that all generalizations, including this one, are wrong! If you are looking for a congregation in which to worship and serve, you may need to look for the symptoms of denominationalism even in the smallest independent congregation.

    My suggestion? While being loyal to any organization to which you have offered your loyalty, work actively to build connections and understanding. Understanding your neighbor does not mean necessarily agreeing with your neighbor. If you think church members believe everything that’s in print, instead of trying to limit what they see, try to educate them to realize that this is not so. I actually believe you’ll find that church members aren’t as stupid as you think.

  • Georgia and Ossetia – Asking the Right Questions

    I am not proposing answers at this point, because I haven’t had time to study the situation in any detail, but it seems to me the right time to point out some problems with the questions.

    It appears to me that almost everything I read about the situation with Georgia, Russia, and Ossetia involves ad hoc justifications for something someone wanted to do in any case. One of the major problems with American foreign policy, in my opinion, is that we really don’t have one, that is, other than attack the people we don’t like (sometimes), support the people we do like (sometimes) and blather a lot about everyone else.

    In addition, the justifications for what we do seem to have very little relationship to the actual reasons. Publicly, during the first gulf war, we heard about atrocities and about defending poor little Kuwait. I’m not denying the atrocities, nor am I even saying that Kuwait was undeserving of defense, but we did not similarly take a military position on East Timor, where atrocities were also happening. Unfortunately for the folks on that piece of an island, they lacked oil.

    In the case of Ossetia, I suspect that if we moved some of the players a bit, but kept all other factors the same, our reaction would be substantially different than it is.

    Here are some questions:

    Just how small does a territory have to be before we no longer think it deserves independence from the surrounding country? Will we apply the same standard here?

    What conditions must exist before one portion of an existing country can declare independence and receive support? (In this case, differentiate Kosovo wanting independence from Serbia and Ossetia wanting independence from Georgia.)

    Do the conditions for independence of some region change if it’s the Russians that back up the breakaway region rather than the United States?

    How big does a country have to be before it can be regarded as an oppressor?

    How long ago must a territory have been conquered before it can be considered an integral and essential part of a country? (Remember that Kuwait was once part of Iraq, sort of, Georgia was part of Russia, while Ossetia was also a conquered territory. Then there’s that other Georgia that was once largely Cherokee country, because a British colony, became part of the United States, attempted to separate, but was forcibly kept in the union with military force.)

    I don’t know the full history of Ossetia, and it will probably be some time before I might even imagine, probably incorrectly, that I understand the situation, but it seems to me that we are not working on the same set of principles in all of these various places.

    It sounds to me like atrocities are military actions carried out by the other guys, and invasions are when other people’s armies enter a country that is not their own.

    If we did that sort of thing, of course, we would demand that one consider the fact that we were merely defending the just desire of the local population for self-determination. Or something like that.

    Some background from the BBC.

  • Todd Bentley’s Marriage

    I had thought about writing something on this, but I think this post says most of what I would say, only better.

    Especially considering that there has been no marital infidelity reported, and folks have been upfront in with this, it doesn’t seem to me to provide any new basis to judge Bentley’s ministry. I still object to the same set of things, hold judgment on the same set, and tentatively approve of the same things.

    Marital unfaithfulness, as I have said about politicians and ministers before, is a valid consideration in determining someone’s integrity. But a person’s sin, before or after, does not, in my view, invalidate ministry. I’ve known of pastors who have fallen into serious transgressions. It often damages the fruit of the ministry they have done, but it doesn’t invalidate it.

    In this case, it should be noted, we’re looking at a couple working through difficulties in their marriage. We have not yet seen–and should not predict–divorce or other negative outcomes. It is unfortunate that, because of the level of publicity involved in his ministry, Todd Bentley and his wife have to deal with this with extraordinary publicity. That makes things harder.

    Whatever the outcome, however, we judge the ministry, teachings, and fruit by, well, the ministry, teachings, and fruit, and not by whether the minister is a greater sinner than the rest of us. That latter one is a judgment we have no right to make.

  • Forgiving or Excusing

    I’ve noticed in recent discussions both online and offline that there seems to be some fuzziness about the difference between these two concepts. I think that perhaps our human tendency is to either excuse or condemn.

    By “excusing” I mean either minimizing a transgression or perhaps even claiming it’s not a transgression at all. When we fail to find an excuse, then we condemn. It’s hard to both regard an action as truly wrong and damaging, and yet to forgive. It’s hard to forgive when someone does not regard their actions as truly wrong.

    I would argue, however, that there is a part of forgiveness that we should embrace even when the perpetrator of the action is not repentant. We need to give up our own resentment and rage that make us do irrational things in response to wrongs. That doesn’t mean we need to excuse the person or let them by with the action; merely that we need to bring ourselves to the point where we can respond rationally.

    Politicians tend to give non-apologies, or, in the terms I’m using in this post, they try to excuse their actions. Their hope is not that we will think they did something terribly wrong, are sorry for it, and that we should forgive. Their hope is that we will decide they weren’t so very wrong after all.

    Many of us actually like it to work that way, because it is easier to condemn or minimize than it is to forgive. A pastor who fails us, yet acknowledges guilt and asks for forgiveness, has still hurt us. But there can and should be an opportunity for forgiveness and redemption. Forgiveness doesn’t eliminate consequences. Often there is a rush to restoration, especially with very famous people. But for many others, who may have as much potential even though they lack the fame, there is no rush. There may, in fact, be no plan for redemption at all.

    I would suggest that we need to be very careful to hold people accountable, to acknowledge the true nature of transgressions, yet where there is repentance, we need to be ready to forgive and restore under appropriate circumstances. It’s much harder than either condemning or excusing, but it’s the way of grace.

  • Two Good Things from Church

    My pastor (First United Methodist Church, Pensacola) today caught my attention in a special way two different times.  The first was when he announced the reading for his sermon.  We had already read the gospel lesson, and the Psalm was included in the call to worship.

    He then said that we needed to take the opportunity more often to read extended pieces of scripture, after which he read all of Genesis 37.  I really enjoyed hearing that entire chapter read.  He built a good sermon on it as well, dealing with living our lives according to some narrative.  As Christians, he said, we should be living our lives according to the narrative of scripture.  That is, of course, much too great of an oversimplification (redundancy-r-us!), but it gets the basic idea.

    Early in the message he also paused for a moment to tell the congregation that he had profound pity on those who do not read the Bible regularly.  I also pity those Christians who have no regular program of Bible reading and study.

  • Edwards: Is Marital Fidelity Strictly Personal?

    I have posted before on the sex scandals involving Larry Craig and David Vitter. Now with the admission of infidelity by John Edwards, we have yet another sex scandal.

    One response, as is often the case with marital infidelity, is to claim that this is strictly a personal issue, one between him and his wife. And the spouse is certainly the primary person who is wronged. If John Edwards (or David Vitter or Larry Craig before him) were private individuals, their deeds would be a private matter to be settled privately. (One must note that unlike Edwards, so far as I know, both Craig and Vitter violated laws, while Edwards violated only his marriage vows.)

    But Edwards is a public person, who has sought public office multiple times. He does not claim that marriage vows are temporary or optional. In public he portrays a family man. I don’t think infidelity in that case is strictly personal. Whether or not one fulfills one’s vows is of paramount importance in judging integrity.

    I have certain standards for sexual morality. I claim to be moderate, am regularly called liberal, but my personal standards are rather old fashioned. I believe in marital faithfulness. I don’t believe in pre-marital sex. If I violate those standards it should (and doubtless would) have an impact on the way people regard me as a Christian teacher and leader in my church.

    But both in and outside of the church we seem to have accepted a curiously bipolar attitude toward sexual sins. On the one hand we are scandalized and yell and scream about them a great deal. On the other, we excuse them in practice. I can find few people in churches, for example, who will say they believe that premarital or extramarital sex is OK, but when it is practiced, the consequences are quite limited unless the person is a very public figure.

    It seems as thought we know it’s wrong, but we also know that we are weak, and think “there but for the grace of God go I.” This is similar to early problems in dealing with drunk driving. Police, judges, and juries so often knew that they were guilty of the same thing from time to time, and were aware that they might just as well have been the defendant, so they went easy on what was regarded as a human weakness. Mothers Against Drunk Driving waged quite a campaign to make driving under the influence a truly shameful deed before it was treated as seriously as it deserved. (You’ll still find some cases where good old boys let one another off on this one.)

    Marital infidelity, of course, doesn’t kill as many people as does driving under the influence. But when one gets married, one does make a commitment, and normally that commitment is for life. If you can make a commitment “until death do us part” and then casually violate it, it says something about your integrity. When you cover it up, it not only says something about your integrity, I believe it is morally corrosive. You become practiced at lying.

    I believe that a willingness to ignore one covenant, that of marriage, is a significant factor in deciding whether the person in question will be faithful to another covenant, for example, the oath of office. Will the person who swore to be faithful to his wife, and then strayed while covering it up regard the oath to “uphold and defend the constitution of the United States” any more seriously?

    In an atmosphere where lies and half-truths are so common, it may seem very odd to make a big deal out of this one particular issue. But I would suggest that if we drop out of the search for integrity simply because so many people have failed to provide it, we will continue to enable our politicians to become less and less honest with us.

    I do not believe marital fidelity is strictly personal when it is committed by a person seeking the trust of others. Violation of a lifetime vow is a very bad indicator of personal integrity.

    PS: I commend the mainstream media for waiting for confirmation on this one. I rarely find them commendable, but they did much better than average here.

    Crossposted to RedBlueChristian.com.

  • Barack Obama’s Income Redistribution Plan

    In a recent ad we hear the following:

    “A windfall profits tax on big oil to give families a thousand-dollar rebate,” an announcer in the ad says.

    (Source: MSNBC.com.)

    The entire energy debate seems to have become a pandering game, with each candidate dulling any responsible suggestions he might make with various bribes to the public. McCain, who used to oppose off-shore drilling now supports it, and though he admits it’s more long term, he still brings it up in connection with current high gas prices. (I actually regard it as a short-term non-fix, because I believe “long term” should mean at least a century when we’re talking energy policy.)

    Obama seemed to resist this particular idea, though he will now allow it as part of a compromise. Which leads me to a digression. In reality, any candidate is going to have to compromise on the actual laws he will propose. Little of what is promised by either candidate in the campaign will actually happen. Why are we so shocked when a candidate suggests he would accept something he opposes generally as part of a compromise package? What should annoy us is that the candidates pretend they will be able to somehow govern without significant policy compromises.

    The problem here is that the debate is being framed in terms of managing gas prices. The capitalists among us should object to this, no matter how it is done. The way to reduce the price is to either increase supply or reduce demand, and the best means to accomplish that is the natural market forces. There are those who will object that foreign cartels change this equation. But in actuality capitalism does not call for people to be required to sell. That is simply one aspect of supply.

    We can artificially push down the price of gas temporarily, but that will not solve our problems, because all of the factors that push gas prices up will still be present. The oil-drilling idea has the advantage that it will eventually increase supply. It will be useless (except psychologically) in the very short term, provide some value in the longer term, but will not provide a truly long term solution in my opinion. Nonetheless I would support limited drilling provided reasonable environmental concerns are dealt with.

    High gas prices are the best possible thing for the long term because they will push us to change the way in which we consume and produce energy. There are many technologies becoming available, and as gas prices increase, they will become more and more economical. This is a good thing. If we artificially hold the prices down now, such an adjustment will have to be made sometime, and the longer we wait, the more painful it will be. It’s time now to do more than talk about breaking our addiction to oil.

    But back to Obama’s redistribution plan. This is classic redistribution of wealth. Take the money away from the oil companies that are making profits, and give it to people who are having to buy the high-priced gas. This has many of the hazards of price controls, only it actually won’t work. The oil companies will find a way to get the money back, and a couple of years from now we’ll realize that the rebates did nothing more than attempt to buy our votes. (Buying my vote was unnecessary for Obama. Despite my strong opposition for his gas tax/rebate plan, McCain still annoys me even more.)

    The whole notion of “windfall profits” is fairly ridiculous in any case. Just what is the windfall? The price of energy has gone up. I remember this discussion in a public policy toward business class when I was in college relating to excess profits. (Looking at the current situation, I suspect “excess profits” would be the better economic description for the situation. I fail to see the windfall, but perhaps I’m just not looking at it right.)

    Excess profits appear to be fairly well defined (see Wikipedia for a decent, if rather abbreviated discussion). The problem is that while the definition is clear, calculating what would be an excess profit is much less clear, and in practice the term “excess profit” becomes synonymous with “windfall profit” and simply refers to any profit the person speaking doesn’t think the one making the profit should have.

    Note in addition that very few people talk about the oil company profits in terms of percentages (see this report to congress for some numbers, though I haven’t checked them), because those would sound much less overwhelming. It’s easy to make any large company’s profits sound obscene, even when the return is not really all that far out of line with other industries. This is not to say the oil companies are not profiting. It’s just that I don’t think it’s bad for them to do so.

    In the case of oil we have a choice similar to what we have in other industries–don’t buy their product. In this case I have to add “as much”, and in addition note that reducing our consumption will take time. And lest anyone think I’m suggesting something that I will not do myself, let me note that fuel costs have cut into my business severely. I have had to change the way I plan my days to avoid certain driving in order to handle the higher gas prices.

    I believe we need to feel this pain now in order to change the way we produce and consume energy. I am disappointed with congress and with both our presidential candidates, though I’m not surprised at their action. We, the voters, are demanding that they behave irresponsibly, and they’re just doing what we ask. No, not what we say we want. What our actions show we want.

    Unfortunately, what many of us want is lower gas prices tomorrow. What we’ll get is an even worse problem a few years in the future.