Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Politics

  • Remedial Math and Reading for Chuck Norris?

    In his WorldNetDaily column (HT: Dispatches), Chuck Norris is recommending a reduction in the size of congress. He likes the word “proportional” but doesn’t seem to be able to comprehend it.

    He quotes the part of the constitution from article I section 2:

    The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; . . .

    But he apparently fails to read the entire thing, which (as amended) notes that:

    Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. . . . (Quoted from the 14th amendment which amends the text of the first sentence of the third paragraph of section 2)

    He says:

    If you’ve ever heard the saying, “Too many cooks in the kitchen,” then you know how I feel about Congress.

    But then later he says:

    I don’t only think there are too many cooks in Congress’ kitchen nowadays, but the numbers are stacked in discriminatory ways.

    Perhaps instead of pushing for Bible teaching in public schools, he should go for better math and reading, and undertake some remediation himself.

  • Chuck Colson says Scripture Commands Limited Government

    Chuck Colson writes a guest column at the Christian Post, in which he argues in favor of limited government from the Bible.

    In it, he tells the story of a friend of his who bought some property to create a children’s camp for inner city children, surely a most desirable goal. Over the next two years, his friend was harassed by various regulators and bureaucrats with overlapping and incomprehensible regulations. The delay, he says, cost millions of dollars and considerable delay.

    Now assuming all the facts of this story are correct, I’m certainly in sympathy here. One of the major problems of modern government is the complexity of regulations as we solve problems with one set of standards by creating another, and create new federal jurisdiction, for example, where we see failure at the local government level.

    I would like to see the government forced to simplify things and to move out of numerous areas of regulation. In other words, I like limited government.

    But Colson finds a way to make his view the Christian view by claiming to take it from scripture. I wanted to say that he is prooftexting, because that is the best I can do imagining just how he might derive such a thing from scripture. In actuality, he doesn’t even prooftext–he just asserts conclusions about what is scriptural. While I can imagine where he might get these conclusions, I cannot be certain of the texts.

    He says:

    There is a profound Christian question at stake here. Scripture says government has just two objectives: to preserve order and do justice. How did we get from that simple function to a government that requires 18 different permits before you can build a new bathroom—or expand a campground for needy kids?

    I can imagine a hermeneutic that would derive part of that from Romans 13:1-4, but it wouldn’t do too well. There are numerous passages about justice in the prophets, but I don’t see the part about limiting the function of government.

    In fact, in Israel, where the prophets worked, there were regulations about what to eat (Leviticus 11), how to worship, even how to handle the blood of an animal you kill while hunting (Leviticus 17:13-14). Israel was, in addition, a monarchy, with only relatively informal constraints on the power of the king from prophets and sometimes people (the details are debatable). People’s sex lives were also intensely regulated (Leviticus 18), something that surely goes beyond the bounds of limited government. Oh, but I forgot. Modern conservatives think it’s a disaster if the government interferes with our economic freedom, but it’s open season on personal moral issues like sexuality.

    So in the context of such a government, just how much could the prophets be calling for “limited” government? It simply isn’t there. There are certainly discussions that condemn rulers for immoral acts, but still there is no limitation that says, for example, that the king can’t take in taxes and assign them to whatever he wants within the limits of moral behavior.

    But what about the New Testament? In Romans 13, for example, which I cited (and I confess I don’t know which scriptures in particular Colson is bending to his will on this matter), Paul is urging subjection to the Roman government, which was certainly not terribly limited as to its activities in the provinces, and only slightly so in Rome proper. Paul is calling for Christians to be subject to a government that was quite susceptible to not just overstepping it’s bounds a bit, but to rampant evil and destruction.

    So while I’d like to support the idea of limited government, and indeed might do so even more consistently than does Colson by including limitations on the government invasion of private sexual activity, I don’t see that the Bible explicitly espouses it, and in the only government directly commissioned by God the government was not terribly limited.

    Let me give one more example for those who doubt this. Compare the need to get permission to deal with wetlands, however small. That’s an issue that comes up regularly here in the Florida panhandle, and I think regulators are sometimes over the top and lack common sense on the issue. Landowners, however, also frequently lack good sense. But compare that to the sabbatical year and the year of Jubilee, when one would be ordered not to plant and harvest for an entire year. How does that relate to absolute control of one’s property?

    I absolutely do not want to argue that the Bible supports me rather than Chuck Colson. In fact, I don’t think the Bible provides us with any blueprint for a secular or religiously diverse state at all. To the extent that one can support limited government and civil liberties from scripture, it would be via the route of supporting the dignity of each person and their importance before God, and not by means of explicitly stating how government should function.

    I truly object to one major thing in this entire article, and that is contained in this next paragraph:

    When we go to the polls in November, we should beware of any candidate promising that government will solve all our problems. We need to work to keep government doing its right roles and no more, because if we do not, it will eventually cease to function at all.

    This paragraph follows immediately the paragraph stating that the Bible states the limited function of government which I quoted previously. Now we have it. If we vote for “that other guy,” you know, the one who wants to use government programs to solve problems, we are not behaving properly as Christians.

    Which is, bluntly, hogwash. As Christians we know how we should be motivated. I can argue with Chuck Colson or any other conservative about the means by which they would accomplish Christian goals, but unless I want to become a judge in the sense intended in Matthew 7:1, I should stick with criticizing the means and not try to pretend that my particular views on means or my particular candidate is the right one for all Christians to support, nor should I question the motives they claim.

  • Resident Alien, Agent of a Foreign Power, Patriot

    I planned to post this yesterday, but both work and family intervened, leaving me with insufficient time to complete the task. Work involved family as I helped my brother with a computer problem at his office. Family was in the form of listening to my stepson play baseball via the internet, as the Pensacola Pelicans lost to the Grand Prairie Air Hogs. While it isn’t fun to listen to your team lose, I wouldn’t miss it! Now that it’s Saturday, however, I’m going to finish the post.

    As an advocate of separation of church and state, I’m often mistaken for an advocate of separation of faith, ethics, and politics in one’s own life. This misunderstanding is encouraged by the effort I put into learning to express goals in a secular or interfaith context. But this separation does not exist in my own mind.

    As a Christian, everything centers around the incarnation, and my acceptance of that belief. I put my faith in Jesus as the anointed one of God, and if God invaded human space in the form of one Jewish man in 1st century Palestine, then that has to be the central fact of my life.

    Now before someone determines from this that I mean that anyone who doesn’t have the same faith I do is less ethical, less trustworthy, or even is evil let me say clearly that I mean no such thing. I mean that my view of life centers around that one point of trust. I acknowledge that I live in a secular world when I express my political goals in secular language. I acknowledge that this is my own commitment and choice by saying that it is best that faith and spiritual commitment not become a matter for the use of force. Thus starting from my roots as a committed Christian I conclude that for the sake of both church and state the church and state should stay apart. But that’s for other posts . . .

    As a committed Christian, I live in a world shaped by metaphors, and in the literary sense myth. One of these metaphors is that of the alien and stranger in the land. This shaping story goes all the way back to Abraham. Israel was formed first as strangers and aliens, and only afterward as residents of the land. (This is one aspect that should be part of any struggle we have with the genocide recorded in Joshua.)

    In the book of Hebrews (11:13) this metaphor is presented to Christians, who have taken it up and embraced it as their own. When we pray “thy kingdom come, thy will be done” we are talking about another country, a kingdom not of this world, that will transcend our concepts of “nation” and “kingdom” so much that we probably cannot imagine it.

    So while I am a citizen of the United States in an earthly and a secular sense, my primary citizenship, as a Christian, is in the kingdom of God. If my prayers frighten you–and they should not if you don’t make the same faith commitment I do–then you should be afraid. I sincerely pray for a new kingdom. If you realize, however, that I serve the one who said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight” (John 18:36), you would also realize that I will never use the tools of force to advance God’s kingdom. In fact, I believe it is antithetical to that kingdom for me to force you or even manipulate you into proclaiming your acceptance.

    I’m a resident alien, serving and praying for another kingdom, an outside sovereignty.

    One of the great concerns I have with American Christianity is that we have forgotten this fact. Our nation, in fact every nation on earth is contingent and temporary, always assuming we really believe the core elements of our theology. We serve a greater sovereign. When his commands come into conflict with the commands of our secular rulers, we have the example of the apostles in obeying God rather than men, though we also have ample advice to make sure it is God we’re obeying rather than our own desires (Romans 13). In fact, their temporary nature is part of the reason one should obey them in all ways possible.

    Second, and derived from the fact that I’m an alien, I’m also the agent of a foreign power. I am a representative of my sovereign Jesus Christ in the world. I serve him. I report to him. I give him my allegiance. He says to keep on living here until he comes, and I do that.

    I think we should frequently pray and meditate on the Lord’s prayer. When we pray “thy kingdom come, thy will be done,” do we, as Christians, actually mean it? Is our primary concern that God’s will be done on earth? I ask, because it seems that in politics we have tended to equate our own nation’s desires with God’s will, and have often failed to live as resident aliens who are agents of another power. But I think that the Lord’s prayer clearly says that.

    The interesting thing is that my foreign Sovereign doesn’t tell me to subvert my earthly country, but rather to be a voice there for what is good and right. Sometimes that will place me in a position to challenge actions. That’s why I take a firm stand against torture, why I believe that the unnecessary and counterproductive killing in Iraq ought to stop. It’s why I think my country should live up to its proclaimed ideals and follow its own constitution. Integrity demands it if nothing else. Integrity is a feature of my Sovereign’s kingdom.

    And that leads me finally to patriot. I am a patriot. Many interpret the first two points as a mandate to work to overthrow and subvert the government. And I do, in fact, believe that there are circumstances in which such a things would be appropriate. If you have a government that is oppressive, that refuses, for example, to allow you to live for your other Sovereign, then there may be a time when one must resist that sovereign.

    But when one has the ability to argue and act for one’s beliefs in the public square, when elections are generally open to anyone, when ideas can be exchanged freely, one has a legal way to advocate for the right.

    I love America as my home. I served it as a member of the United States Air Force. I continue to serve it loyally. I also criticize some of its actions. I am appalled that Americans, even many Christian Americans can sanction the use of torture or even long term confinement without a proper trial. I feel that it would be disloyal to my country if I failed to protest those actions.

    There’s a certain contradiction in 4th of July celebrations. There are people who call themselves American patriots who object to any protest of their own country’s actions, who call those who oppose war, torture, or other oppression disloyal, and yet they are celebrating the time when America’s founders acted violently against their legal sovereign, George III, ostensibly over a matter of taxes.

    Now the point went deeper than that. It went right down to the foundation, to the notion that one person could not be devalued over another, or one group of people (Englishmen on this side of the Atlantic) cannot be treated as inherently less than another (Englishmen on that side). Even with that foundation, this nation still continued to treat some people–slaves, for example–not merely as less than, but actually as nothing, not people at all. It took more patriots protesting laws and policies that were wrong to change that fact.

    I can’t help but believe that many of today’s American patriots, had they lived at the time of the American revolution would have been Loyalists and might have moved to Canada (not a bad place to live!).

    For me, the best loyalty that I will give my earthly nation is that I remain totally loyal to my Sovereign whose kingdom is not of this world. And I think that loyalty is the best kind of loyalty of all. May God help me live up to that goal.

  • Oppose Fairness Doctrine

    Here’s a case where I support a position taken by a number of religious right groups–the fairness doctrine. I don’t think it was ever appropriate, and it is both inappropriate and unnecessary now in the information age. The story is on the Christian Post.

    In the information age, all we need to do is refrain from censoring speech. It is quite possible for the most marginal idea to find its way to some kind of a hearing, often more than it deserves.

    Liberals should favor free speech–let the market direct.

  • Trust the Executive Branch?

    Liberals tend to trust the government to do right in social spending. Conservatives tend to trust the government on security issues. I’d suggest we do neither. It seems some appeals court judges agree.

    Allowing agents of the executive branch to simply declare someone outside the court system is ridiculous. I have a hard time understanding why someone would trust the executive branch to police itself on that matter. If nothing else there is the embarrassment of admitting one’s mistakes. That’s why we have a judiciary in the first place.

    Reviewing after they are captured doesn’t present a security hazard in the field. It is only a hazard to those who are afraid to correct their own errors.

  • In Defense of Elitism

    I was going to write a lengthy post with a great deal of substance, but then I spent the day working mostly on the Moderate Christian Blogroll and Blog Aggregator. I’ve already posted links to the new feeds I created, and will post the code for this tomorrow on my computer services blog, if all goes well.

    But I really wouldn’t want having nothing much to say keep me from writing something, so I nurtured my negative reaction to this article in the Washington Post, which talks about some folks in Findlay, Ohio, also known as Flag City.

    Now let me get several things out of the way. I appreciate these people’s patriotism. I’m glad they’re living the life they want to live. I also don’t think that one must be a racist in order to oppose Barack Obama. There are plenty of policy grounds on which to do so. In fact, were my priorities a little reordered, I could easily switch to McCain myself. There are many policy issues on which I disagree with Obama, they just aren’t the most important ones on which I’m basing my vote this year.

    Obama took a big hit for making a few snide remarks about some people. He did so in too general a way, though many suspected, with some validity in my view, that he let the truth slip out by accident. I imagine he is frustrated by just the people he mentioned, and he doesn’t think that much of their views. He probably said it with more acid than he intended, but such are the risks of politics.

    But some people are just plain stupid. I’m not running for office, so I can say that. If someone is opposed to Barack Obama because he’s going to raise their taxes, that’s a political difference. If someone is opposed because they think he’ll pull out of Iraq recklessly, that’s a political difference. But if someone is opposed because they can’t pronounce his name, or they think he’s an Arab, or they believe he just must be a closet Muslim, that’s just plain stupid.

    I recall Tolkien’s description of Hobbits as folks who liked books filled with lots of things they already knew set down plainly without contradiction. He said it with some affection, I think. There’s a great value in people who are ordinary, who don’t want to spend their time in college or some academic environment, yet who are actually quite intelligent and have a good sense of ethics. There are others whose stupidity and willful ignorance are dangerous.

    There’s another version of elitism, or perhaps it should better be called anti-elitism, which attributes everything that an educated person does to his education. I get this over my more liberal views on Biblical studies. “The seminary ruined you,” I was told. Never mind that the seminary was much more conservative than I am and refused to publish some of my work. They say I was brainwashed into accepting the theory of evolution, never mind that the schools I attended were one and all young earth creationist strongholds.

    These folks will look down on someone like Obama because of his Harvard education. That, again, is just plain stupid. If you don’t like his policies, argue against them. If you don’t like his attitude argue against that. But education is a good thing, whether or not you like the opinions of those who graduate. Give them the credit of actually having their own views. Oddly enough, the reason more educated people seem to tend to be more liberal may not be because of brainwashing. (And no, I’m not using “more intelligent.” “More educated” is intentional. I know too many genius level conservatives to say conservatives are less intelligent as a group.)

    So I’m in favor of elitism. I like intelligent people. I like educated people. I like people who are willing to apply all that learning and think for themselves. There will be bunches of those on both sides of this election. There will also, unfortunately, be quite a number of stupid, willfully ignorant people.

    I call the first group elite; the second group deserves no respect.

  • Flip-Flopping with Integrity

    I an earlier post, Public Financing, Integrity, and Mixed Emotions I discussed my mixed emotions on Barack Obama’s flip-flop on public financing. I dislike public financing of campaigns, and it’s nice to see the system receive a body blow, but at the same time, I have a serious problem with Obama’s action.

    Before someone thinks I’m looking for nasty things to say about Obama, I should mention that I’m over 90% likely to vote for him come November. The 10% is giving me room to change in changing circumstances. I like him, despite certain policy positions, but I believe this action, as carried out and explained, was wrong.

    I don’t believe politicians should be afraid to change their minds. If one is convinced by the evidence, then not changing one’s mind is more dishonest. But to change one’s mind honestly, and then to express that honestly is done in a different way.

    What would I like to see a politician in such a case?

    1. Acknowledge the error. Say “I was wrong.”
    2. Present the evidence and reasoning for changing one’s mind.
    3. Avoid spin, and don’t blame everyone else.

    I was watching a commentator the other day on I forget which network who commented that if Barack Obama didn’t reject public financing under the circumstances, he would have been committing political malpractice. The commentator went on to list the great benefits that would accrue to the Obama campaign and the Democratic party under these circumstances. It sounded to me as though one was advising someone to lie. They refuse. You point out just how much money one can earn from the lie. Would that make it right?

    My problem with Obama’s decision is that he still believes in public financing, yet he’s not living according to that belief. Nothing changed except for the fact that he found out just how effective he was as a fundraiser. The only difference between now and when he made the promise is that he found out just how much benefit he could derive from staying out of the system. The 527s were a factor before and they are now.

    If he had examined the system, and then announced that, while he used to support public financing of campaigns, he had learned the value of freedom, in the form of lots of ordinary people pooling their money to do great things, and thus he had come to realize that public financing was not the benefit he had once thought, I would have had no problem. It would be a simple changing of his mind based on the evidence.

    As it is, even though his current stance is closer to my own, I am deeply disappointed with the way in which it took place.

    Crossposted to RedBlueChristian.com.

  • More on Campaign Finance

    While deploring the hypocrisy of Obama’s switch on the issue (though still preferring him to McCain), I will be very happy if his action is the death-knell of public campaign financing as suggested in this NYT article (via MSNBC).

  • Robert Reich on Offshore Exploration

    One of my disappointments in John McCain is the amount of pandering he has done to various people. I regard his vacation from gas taxes as simple pandering. It solves no problems. It potentially creates many more. The only reason to favor it is that some people who don’t think beyond the next paycheck.

    Now before someone accuses me of elitism, I should note that I have been hit badly by the high gas prices. They hurt. But sometime, I expect within my lifetime, we’re going to have to bite the bullet, change the way we use energy, reconstruct some of our infrastructure (public transportation), and use less energy. I’m not one of those who think we will have to give up huge chunks of lifestyle to do this. I think there’s a very good chance technology will allow us to do very well whilst using much less energy. But there will be a cost. Developing, and more importantly implementing new technology will cost money.

    Which leads me to the actual topic. I think McCain is pandering on offshore drilling. It’s the wrong way to solve our problems. I would say it’s a short term solution, but it’s really a solution that will take a long time to provide a short term result.

    Robert Reich has a post today on this that says it succinctly, titled No To Further Offshore Drilling. When Reich was labor secretary in the Clinton administration I didn’t think much of his opinions, but I have now become a regular reader of his blog. He has been providing very wise advice on things like infrastructure spending, and now on oil drilling.

    It’s worth reading and considering.

  • Public Financing, Integrity, and Mixed Emotions

    Barack Obama has opted out of public financing for his presidential campaign.

    I greet this event with mixed emotions. On the one hand, Obama said that he would accept public financing and the limits that go with it. He is a supporter (or so he says) of public financing. Thus there is a question of integrity. It is simple political tactics–one might say politics as usual rather than “change.” On the other hand, I regard public campaign financing as a very bad idea, and I hope its time is passing. Obama’s action, I hope, will help underline the problems.

    I view public financing as an effort to limit free speech. I know the arguments in favor, in particular the idea that “ordinary” people get more say when you limit the contributions of the rich. But I simply don’t think that is a function that government can or should perform, and I think the history of campaign finance “reform” amply demonstrates that. In effect we have taken the power from those who have money, and given it to those who know how to manipulate the legal system.

    So while Obama has broken a promise, I hope that some good will come of it. The best good, in my view, would be complete elimination of public financing of elections, and also the end of the choking of free speech by attempting to regulate the money. Of course, that is way too optimistic, but I too can dream, can’t I?