Why I Don't Want a Christian America (and Neither Should You)

One of the greatest things about my seminary is the diversity. Having grown up and attended college up in homogeneous Western PA, I have a chance to finally meet people from an array of different cultures, nationalities, and ethnicities. Over the course of the year I have become quite good friends with a British student named Philip. We enjoy talking about theology, culture, and politics (usually over a beer), as well as occasionally and playfully mocking each others nationality.

One evening I brought up the recent retirement of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. I asked him who he thought his replacement would be. He informed me that typically the Church of England alternates between a theological conservative and a theological liberal. Rowans (at least from an Evangelical perspective) was liberal, so a conservative ought to take his place. Yet there is a complication: the Church of England is a state church, which means that the Archbishop of Canterbury is chosen by Parliament. The problem is that British Prime Minister David Cameron, as part of an effort to modernize the Tories by dropping the party's historical social conservatism, is a strong advocate of gay marriage. Whereas gay marriage is largely a social issue in the US, it is a messy political-ecclesial issue in Britain because the Church of England baptizes, marries, and buries British subjects. In other words, the legalization of gay marriage in Britain means that the Church of England would have to marry homosexual couples. However, while the Church has a broad social function, its primary religious functions are increasingly dominated by theological conservatives, whether Evangelicals or Anglo-Catholics, because these are the only people who still regularly attend church in Britain. Hence, against the wishes (and conscience) of the greater portion of its active members, the Church of England may soon be required to wed homosexuals. No doubt these Anglican parishioners will be quite upset. Social conservatism largely dead in Britain (hence, Cameron's decision to ditch this platform) so lobbying against gay marriage would probably only cause resentment. Philip told me that what this means is that the messy disestablishment of the Church sometime down the road is probably inevitable.

Thus, the irony is this: whereas American Evangelicals want to preserve a Christian America, British Evangelicals wish to hasten the end of Christian Britain.

Though American Evangelicals do not want to officially bind church and state together in America, they do tend to yearn for the days when Protestantism was unofficially established in American culture. Up until the twentieth century Protestants, or at least a Protestant ethos, wielded tremendous influence over public schools, colleges and universities, local governments, and local communities. The presence of a chapel on the campuses of many public universities is a testament to this fact. But as American high culture became increasingly secular, this cultural hegemony was challenged. Ugly culture wars were fought, and are still fought, between those who want to see a strong Christian presence in American culture, and those want Christianity banished from it altogether.

Christianity in America has been historically tied so close to American culture that many Christians don't know how to get along without being culturally established. Many Christians push for a Christianized America because their very identities are tied up with the national culture. As a result, the religious nature of American Christianity gets sidetracked by the nasty arena of politics. Three decades of lobbying by the religious right has done little more than cause deep-seated bitterness towards Christianity from non-Christians. Hence, Christians have allowed themselves to caught up in the messiness of identity politics, uncivil discourse, and resentment that dominates most of the public square.

Another one of the ill-effects of this cultural secularization was Protestant liberalism. Virtually all of the mainline churches were so inextricably tied to American culture as established institutions within that culture that they found it impossible to resist the rising tide of modernism. As a result the mainline denominations, just like the Church England, had to compromise their values due to a messy alliance with an increasingly secular culture. This compromise involved a nasty divorce proceeding, just as the Church of England may soon also face. The plethora of splinter Presbyterian denominations is a testament to the bitter separation that occurred between Evangelicals and the mainline cultural establishment.

The lesson to be learned is that a "Christian America" is a double edged sword. Culture can transform Christianity instead of Christianity transforming culture. For many Christians the line between Christianity and Americanism became so blurred that when the latter exerted pressure on the former to compromise their values, they had little ability to resist. Liberal Christians have largely given orthodox values in order to become "modern" or "progressive." Evangelical circles have compromised as well. The profusion of consumerist, therapeutic, and nationalist Christianity in American churches, particularly in the mega-church churches, is a witness to the fact that Christianity often prostitutes itself out when seeks cultural establishment.

If we are unable to learn from our own past, let us at least learn from what is going on in Britain right now. The Church must ultimately stand with one foot in the world and with the other in the City of God. We must strive for the difficult paradox of antithesis to and contextualization within our culture. Only then will the integrity of the body of Christ be kept.

US-China Relations

I thought this was an interesting article. I think that the current administration is realizing that the key factor in cooperation and dialogue, or lack thereof, is not always the US. Hopefully we our collective leadership is beginning to understand the value of diplomacy and dialogue (instead of an "us against the world" mindset) while at the same time is not afraid to defend American interests. I couldn't help but see some fairly scary paralells between the new nature of Sino-American relations and pre-World War I relations between Britain and Germany (a subject that I researched and wrote on in depth for my Historical Research Seminar). Like the US, Britain had begun to feel the strain of its vast global commitments and began to fear that the power it had during the 19th century was fading. Like China, Germany was anxious to take its place in the world among the other Great Powers. Particularly, Germany wanted to challenge British naval superiority (think of China and the development of its carrier-killer missile). The desire of the British to retain their 19th century glory and the desire of the Germans to finally claim a similar glory for themselves led to escalating tensions. Obviously the dynamics of the world are vastly different now as compared to then. Economics aside, China's main political/foreign policy ambitions are regional. So while the opportunity for cooperation exists since China is not determine to challenge the US all over the world as former the USSR did, there is plenty of room for conflict over the Pacific Rim. North Korea is the most glaring example, but Taiwan continues to be an object of conflict between the two countries. If the US continues to play an active role in East Asia as allies of South Korea and Japan (as I think they will for economic reasons/N. Korea) military tensions could rise. I think, thought, that the most important thing that both the Chinese and Americans need to avoid is the poison of nationalism.

Here's the article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12219993

Why I am not a Libertarian - Part III

Idolatry of Mammon

Finally, I am not a libertarian because I do not belief in the inherent “magic” of the market. Now, I would describe myself as a capitalist in the sense that I believe that the capitalist system is the most efficient economic system available. Yet, economic efficiency is not always the most desirable thing, especially when it comes at the expense of other important aspects of society. To this extent, I believe the “free market” should be chastened by two things; morality and law. For morality, I naturally believe that the Christian religion is most useful here. I believe that the libertarian faith that the market is inherently self-correcting and will, by itself, create a just social and economic situation is unfounded. Capitalism, by itself, is not perfect. The problem is that too many people (economists especially) have a “Cold War framework” where they polarize all economic theories into two opposing camps; the free and the centrally planned or, in more abstract terms, the “socialist” and the “capitalist.” It leads to a sort of fatalism among libertarians who admit that capitalism is perfect yet resort to say that its “the best we got.” Yet I believe that there is another option, one that has pure capitalism chastened by faith and justice.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Christian groups worked very hard to alleviate poverty and Christians today to keep up with that tradition. Unfortunately, it seems that many Christians today have the attitude that the poor, especially those on welfare, are lazy and immoral and therefore do not deserve our charity. Libertarianism, at times, almost takes on a Social Darwinian aspect where inefficient businesses or workers must wither and die for the betterment of society. Yet, charity, by its very definition, is something that is not deserved. In all Christian economic thought, as in all Christian thought, the model of Christ should be at the fore. For Christ did not come to those who deserved him but to those that did not and he came to them (us) give grace. Perhaps the poor do deserve their poverty (though I think we must be very careful about generalizing) but those who have been successful, who have accumulated “merit” as Christ did, ought to give to economically poor just as Christ gave to the spiritually poor. Perhaps through this ministry of grace those who are poor because of their lifestyle may become overwhelmed by charity and may be transformed. I do not mean this simply in the sense of soup kitchens. It is true that during the early industrial revolution that the workers were receiving “fair” wages in that based on the supply of labor and the productivity of the worker they were fair. Yet there were far from ideal. The Victorian factory owner that prided himself in his faith ought to have given parts of his income to improve the income of his workers. This would have been the Christ-like thing to do. Instead, they held to Social Darwinian ideas and the “Iron Law of Wages” that helped to perpetuate Marxism and socialism after mid century. Marx became so popular because, while his theories about improving society were off the mark, his sympathy with the worker and the indictment of bourgeois society was spot on. The Christian must always chose charity in his disposable income instead of luxury to feed his prideful greed. Always bear in mind the proverb: “give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me.”

Also, I personally reject the mysticism that the far left and the far right have attributed to business and economics. To the left, business is the greedy and all-corrupting facet of society that poisons the government and exploits the worker. Business is therefore controlled by the state or the "vanguard of the proletariat." To the far right (or libertarians) the market and business is a pure and perfect institution that, magically, transforms greed and vice into virtue. So holy is it that the sinful hands of government bureaucracy cannot even touch it. I do not see the realm of business as any different from any of the other areas of society and government involvement in it should be the same as in any other facet of society; enough to secure justice. In the wake of the recent economic collapse, caused in part by the scams of corporate executives, I believe that tougher regulation is definitely needed to ensure that there more oversight to catch fraudulent businessmen and harsher penalties to discourage fraud to begin with. It is true that people who do business with banks and other financial institutions do so voluntarily but they do so under the assumption that the law will force these institutions to act honestly and responsibly. Moreover, the actions of these institutions affect more people than those who voluntarily do business therefore they need to especially be watched to ensure that they are conducting business honorably and responsibly. I also, unlike some libertarians, believe that certain reforms from the Progressive era (the FDA, laws regulating working conditions, safety regulations, environmental regulation, etc.) are very necessary because they are concerned with justice. Again, this all builds on my first principle that justice is the primary function of governments and not “securing rights.” As a final remark, I want to distinguish between regulation and control. I do not believe that government should control businesses. Their involvement in regulating business should be on the same level that governments regulate aspects in society to ensure justice is upheld. The economy is a complex system and cannot be run by any central planning committee or jobs czar.

Some Distinctions

Before I write more on my series (which I haven't had time to do since the beginning of the semester) I thought I would share an insight that we discussed in my political philosophy class that perhaps clarifies what I have been arguing.

There is a disctiontion between true political conservatism (which was and is extremely rare in the 20th and early 21st centuries) and conservative liberalism. Neo-conservatives and libertarians are NOT political conservatives, they are in fact conservative liberals. This is true of many of the "faces" that one associates with American "conservatism": Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck. They are, essentially, politically liberal but more on the conservative end. This is because they accept, whether or not they consciously understand it or not (I would wager they don't), the political liberalism of the Enlightenment. This tradition began with Locke and his social contract theory int he late 1600s which emphasized radical freedom of volition, rights, equality, and reason. It also violently opposes tradition, customs, and religion. What I have been attempting to show is that this understanding of government is utterly opposed to Christianity and my political conservatism is inherently Christian-based.

Thus liberal conservatives, while they may oppose so-called libera liberal policies such as the welfare state, Keynsian economic theory, internationalism, and cultural diversity, they core assumptions are the same as their liberal liberal foes. They believe that freedom, not justice or virtue, is the chief political value. They operate on the understanding they there is a "common good" for society that can be deduced by reason. Thus we get books such as Glenn Becks Arguing with Idiots and its counterparts on the American left. The idea is that those who disagree with us must be stupid. Why else would they disagree with us? I personally believe this is because they have fundamentally different pre-suppositions about how society should be. Thus the ultimate value for both conservative liberals and liberal liberals is the self (or perhaps the nation in the nationalism of the American right, but I believe this is just another self-justification principle; I am and American, America is great, thus I must be great). They also greatly value equality and egalitarianism and both caricature the opposition as "elitist." Both hold to social contract theory and believe the governments are legitimized by a mandate from the people. Thus both follow in the Enlightenment tradition of Locke, Rousseau, Montesquieu, and Jefferson opposed the to the tradition of Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, and Burke.

Why I am not a Libertarian - Part II

What is the Purpose of Governments?

Libertarianism also presents a completely different view of government than the view espoused by Scripture. It holds the to the social contract theory of government formulated by John Locke in the late seventeenth century. This political theory says that governments gain their legitimacy from the people since the first governments were formed when human beings decided to endow certain individuals with powers that would preserve their rights to life, liberty, and property. Therefore, governments are the creation of the people and can be formed or dismissed at the whim of the general will (Locke, of course, believed that the overthrow of governments should not be common, however). Libertarians have a very solid foundation for this theory in the American Declaration of Independence which is essentially an argument from social contract theory.

However, this theory of government is not the same as the one put forth by the Bible:

¹Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. ²Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. ³For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, ⁴for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. ⁵Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. ⁶For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. ⁷Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

(Romans 13:1-7)

According to this famous biblical text about governments, governments are not instituted by the people but by God. Also, the text does not say that the only point of government is to protect people’s rights (that is, freedom of indifference) and in fact rights or any precursor to rights are not even mentioned in the verses. Instead, Paul says that the government is “the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.” Thus the purpose of government is not the upholding of rights but the upholding of virtue and justice. St. Paul is writing, contrary to what many libertarians teach, that the government is a benefit to society because it establishes justice. Libertarians see government as a necessary evil and believe that the government should be extremely small in scope.

Some theologians, such as Thomas Aquinas, even taught that the even if the Fall had not occurred, governments would still be a intrinsic part of human society. Even if it did not exist to restrain evil, as evil would not exist among men, it was still necessary to the ordering of society and the production of culture. This was because Aquinas believed that earth would mirror Heaven; just as God is king of Heaven, so a man would be king of society. I do not know that I would subscribe to this belief necessarily, but in contrast to modern theologies I do believe that governments exist for a positive good rather than a negative good. What I mean by this is that in libertarian thinking government is intrinsically bad, but the world would be much worse without them. Thus, governments are an evil, but are the lesser of two evils. I, however, believe in the Pauline view that governments, even ones that are not Christian, are still an integral part of God’s sovereign plan to redeem the world. They exist to propel man to excellence (redemption) not just to maintain indifference.

The reasoning behind my stance lays in a simple question: What is the first command that God gives to mankind? Many will no doubt answer that it was “do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Yet this is incorrect. This command does not come until Adam and Eve are placed in Eden in Genesis chapter two. The first words, recorded in the Bible anyway, that God speaks to his creation man is "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." (Genesis 1:24). God’s primary mission is to be stewards of the earth for God and rule over it. Many have seen in this, and I would agree with them, a cultural mandate. Human beings are mandated to create culture, to “fill the earth and subdue it.” The command is, in short, the pursuit of excellence. Now rule and dominion implies government of some sort or another and, interestingly, despite human sin we are never told in Scriptures that the command is removed. In fact, God reiterates a command similar to this one to Noah after the Flood subsides in Genesis 11. It would seem that, even in human sinfulness, we are commanded to pursue excellence in culture knowing that one day the world will be redeemed and made new by God.

Thus I believe that governments can have a hand in God’s redemptive plan even when they are un-Christian. First they restrain human willfulness and ensure that justice is upheld in society that enables the members of society to safely pursue the activities of their lives. Among these activities is economic, cultural, and intellectual production which aids in the fulfillment of the cultural mandate. This restraining of willfulness also extends internationally where a nation or group of nations can stand against oppressive and evil regimes across the world, whose citizens lack the ability to enact change from within. However, more on this subject will be discussed in part three.

Governments can also create infrastructure to support these activities. They can create a centralized system of roads, highways, ports, waterways, etc. In essence, governments support infrastructure. While it is true that private companies or even states/provinces can also do these things, they will not be centralized, ordered, or uniform. One only needs to look at the difference between state and federal highways to understand this. Before the Eisenhower Highway System built during the 1950s it took far longer to travel across the United States because highways lacked any coherent, uniform order. Libertarians also do not acknowledge that, historically, governments were the first institutions to provide these components of infrastructure. Governments also have the resources to create many public places and spaces. Many of the greatest edifices and parks in the world were the creations of governments. While it is true that private institutions can do this as well they are not available to the public since they rely on profits in order to function. Public museums, parks, and concert halls all help humanity continue to fulfill the cultural mandate by making cultural activities publically accessible. Governments can also create uniform environmental policies. What has completely bewildered me is the hostility that many Christians have toward environmental movements. Part of the cultural mandate is that we are stewards of the earth and that we are to rule the world wisely. This certainly implies conservation of biological diversity, resources, and scenic places. We forget that world is God’s handiwork and that our rule, while pursuing cultural excellence, should not destroy that handiwork. As one GCC college professor has put it, he would hate to have to stand before God one day and have to admit to killing God’s last bear cub. As a caveat, I admit that this must be done according to reason. Many environmentalist groups (e.g. PETA) go too far. We must balance conservation with dominion. There is also ever present dilemma of how to balance economic growth and people’s livelihoods with environmental protection.

Finally, governments can counteract the effects of sin. Libertarians offer an extremely inaccurate picture of the historic development of welfare. They preach that welfare last a late-nineteenth/early twentieth century development that was directly related to Marxism/democratic socialism. In reality, social welfare programs go back centuries to the Middle Ages. It was not uncommon for kings or lords to subsidize poor houses or economic relief for common folk. The great reformer, John Calvin, encouraged the introduction of a welfare system during his time in Geneva. Again, I must offer a caveat. I am by no means advocating the welfare state as it exists in Europe and is beginning to exist in the United States. Such programs are offer cumbersome, hinder economic growth, and make people reliant on the state. However, I think that programs that give people temporary relief and help them develop skills and seek unemployment. Therefore, I do not seek that destruction of American welfare but its reform and limitation that will temporarily aid people and help them regain their feet. I do not believe that any handouts should be long term and should be more in the form of education and career development.

I must offer one final caveat for this entire section. I have said that governments are instituted by God and serve his purpose in the plan of redemption by upholding justice and virtue in society in the forms of law, economics, and education. What I do not mean is that governments are, in and of themselves, redemptive. They may be a tool of redemption but they are not the sources of redemption. This has been a problem throughout the twentieth century; the state plays of the role of God and acts as a redeemer. This has been the case in Nazi, Germany, Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, and Pol Pot’s Cambodia. What happened was that governments and states ceased to see themselves as under God and elevated themselves to the position of God and thereby became idols. The government must always be limited by some higher law so that people understand that governments only have a restrictive role, a role assigned to them by God who is their institutor. What breeds tyrannical governments is when a leader or group of leaders see the state as the mechanism of salvation and not just an aid to it according to the mysteries of God. All the great totalitarian governments did not set out to do evil but rather believed that they were achieving good. However, they became horribly twisted when they made their institutions an absolute and suddenly the end justified the means. Thus government cannot become an idol and when it does the results will be horrifying. Thus two things are important for governments. The first is recognition that there is a higher being and a higher reality above the government so that citizens and politicians realize that the government does not cover the whole of human existence but only part of it. Secondly, which is a practical application of the first, governments need constitutions that limit them to their own sphere of influence so that they do not cross into other spheres (such as the Church of family) and thus become tyrannical. More of this will be said in the next section.

What I am Not a Libertarian - Part I

Introduction

One of the biggest shocks that I had coming to Grove City College (and besides the lack of social skills there is little about GCC that is shocking) was the proliferation of libertarianism on the campus. One of the first classes I took for my first semester was Foundations of Economics, which I like to refer to as “Libertarianism 101.” In it my professor taught that libertarianism was, at the very least, the logical economic/political system per Scripture. He bordered on saying that anything other than laissez faire capitalism and libertarian politics was unbiblical and for about a year I struggled with this point of view. Yet in the fall of my sophomore year I took another class, Early Modern Europe, which would equally shock my economic and political thinking. Although the professor of that class was not the most endearing teacher I have had during my college experience, I found the lectures very interesting. Often we in the twenty-first century view the past through our contemporary worldviews which leads to anachronisms in our historical knowledge. What Early Modern Europe did for me was to understand that the past was “another country.” What I mean is that their ways of thinking, pre-French Revolution, were completely antithetical to our modern sensibilities.

It also gave me a large magazine of ammunition against libertarianism. The pre-modern era was fundamentally a far more Christian era that the modern one. Being a historian, and a Christian, I was quite prepared to accept that people in the past actually had something sensible to say about the way human affairs should be ordered. One of the ironies of libertarianism is that this political philosophy that proclaims to be antithetical to Marxism in fact embraces a Marxist view of history; contempt for elites and a belief that power is the chief motivator in history. By the time I took Mirco Economics in Spring 2009, “Libertarianism 102,” I had developed a vehemently anti-libertarian political philosophy. The reason was that I understood that the chief axioms of libertarianism (hyper-free markets, individual rights, and limited government) were completely foreign to anyone living pre-1776. They were, in fact, creations of the Enlightenment, which was notoriously secular and rationalistic. Therefore, the second great irony is that while Christian libertarians preach libertarianism as a logical conclusion of Christian theology, what they are in fact preaching is a system of thought that was in actuality produced by the anti-Christian European Enlightenment. Below I was specifically record why I reject libertarianism in favor of classical conservatism.

What is Freedom?

Freedom seems to be a word that is thrown around flippantly, especially at Grove City, without any real definition given. What exactly is freedom? When I questioned my political science professor on this last semester I did not get a clear answer. Where I did get an answer was in George Wiegel’s book The Cube and the Cathedral for my political science book review. Weigel, an American Catholic theologian, argues that in Western history there have been two understandings of history. The first “freedom for excellence” had its origins in Classical Greek philosophy and was formally born in the writings of Thomas Aquinas in the Middle Ages. “Freedom for excellence” argues that freedom is foundational to human nature and the fulfillment of the human life because it is one of the chief components of the imago dei (image of God). As human beings are made in God’s image, and God is a free Being, humans have some degree of freedom. Freedom was inherent in the Garden of Eden where God gave Man the ability to choose to serve Him willingly by not eating of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil or to rebel against Him by eating of the fruit and indulging in the service of the self. Man, unfortunately, chose the latter. Yet freedom still important to human being because, though the imago dei was corrupted by the Fall it was not destroyed. Moreover, Christ promises us Christian freedom whereby we will be free of the slavery of sin and once again freely chose God as a result of the grace of the cross.

Therefore, freedom for excellence is freedom of conscience. Each individual should be free to pursue the “good life” – which is the excellent or righteous life. The caveat is that this freedom is not boundless. It is fenced in by morality. The individual is not free to indulge in actions that pervert society and hinder other people’s pursuit of the good life. Freedom is by necessity not simply about individual about society as well. The good life involves helping society by striving to make it better. This is because man is, according to Aristotle, “a political animal” – i.e. finding human fulfillment in human society. Society and culture are creations of God, I believe. Thus, the individual is free so long as his or her actions are for the benefit of society. I am free to do what I wish and believe what I will per my conscience as long as it is pursuing the “good life.”

The other type of freedom that Weigel identifies is “freedom of indifference.” This concept of freedom has its origins in another Christian thinker, William of Ockham. While Ockham by no means subscribed to such a concept about freedom, his philosophical movement, nominalism, would greatly influence its conception later on. Ockham outright rejected universal absolutes and claimed that only particulars of the human mind existed. Therefore, things such as the pursuit of the good, life were not universal to man by particular to each individual and his relationship to God. What this thinking did was to shift an emphasis away from God and his universal laws and toward the genius of the individual. While Ockham and his followers by no means moved away Christianity, they shifted the focus of Christianity from beginning first with God and moving down to individuals to individuals first moving up toward God. Essentially, it would emphasize the genius of the individual, an increasingly theme in Western thought from the Renaissance on. The individual would become especially important in the Enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The culmination of this thinking would be Nietzsche, Sartre, and the post-moderns. Freidrich Nietzsche was a late nineteenth German philosophy who has been called the harbinger of both nihilism and post-modernism. He taught that the death of God brought the death of absolutes, such as truth and morality. Humans were thus radically free. The expression of humanity was thus not found in the pursuit of excellence but in human volition. Human beings find fulfillment through free action and creating their own truths and meaning. Existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre writing in the mid-twentieth century would also highlight radical volition as the defining characteristic of human beings. The way to human meaning lay in the exercising of human freedom. Likewise, the ultra-democratic post-moderns also teach that the chief concern of humanity is the construction of individual narratives and the deconstruction of established power narratives. If there is one unifying theme of modern philosophy, therefore, it was radical freedom. Thus we have freedom of indifference; individuals having a veritable right to pursue their own meaning, their own truth, and their own happiness regardless of what anyone (especially the damnable elites) have to say. Freedom is no longer seen as a means to an end but an end in itself.

Of the two version of freedom, libertarians undoubtedly adhere to the second. What I constantly hear is that elites, especially government, have absolutely no business in bounded human freedom, so long as the freedom of other individuals is not interfered with (say, by the taking of life or property). The chief virtue in libertarian thought is that the individual is free to find his own way in life regardless of whether it is self-destructive (say, narcotic) or culturally corruptive (say, pornographic). This is completely and utterly antithetical to the Christian believe that the chief end of man is not the exercise of volition but the enjoyment and pursuit of God.

If You are Putting Your Faith in the New Year, You May Want to Think Again

As the ball dropped in New York City at 12:00 AM on New Year’s Day, a rather plastic-looking Dick Clark wished everyone a Happy New Year and assured us that 2010 will be a good new year. Although 2009 hadn’t been the greatest of years with a declining economy and a string of terrorist attacks near the year’s end, Dick Clark assured us of a brighter 365 days ahead. Similar calls were proclaim elsewhere on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Optimists pointed what they saw as rising national economy, some even predicting a “mini-boom” with growth rates of 4-5%. Even President Obama’s slow but steadily declining approval rating shot back up to almost 50%. As we said good-bye to 2009 and welcomed 2010 we blindly have placed our hope in the future. Americans have bought the ma

Thus, throughout the last decade Americans aggressively consumed in a vain attempt to define themselves and bring themselves happiness. This caused Americans to borrow increasing amounts of credit in other to fuel their spiraling consumption. This includes federal and state governments that sought to bring political salvation to Americans through entitlement programs. In both private and public cases, there was a sense that we could spend our way to salvation. If only we threw enough money at our problems (poverty, ignorance, unhappiness) they would all go away. However, this over-consumption fueled a credit crisis. This first became evident when the housing bubble burst in 2007. The Feds had reduced interest rates for banks encouraging the banks to lend out loans to people who couldn’t afford them. Cheap loans fueled over-production in the housing industry. However, when it became apparent that people could not meet the payment on their loans, people stopped buying up houses and the housing market crashed. This caused a downturn in the economy which revealed serious over-extension in credit and caused the collapse of several business scams, notably Bernard Madoff’s billion-dollar Ponzi scheme. This caused a full-on market failure in which stocks and economic growth dropped precipitously and unemployment rose. Yet, rather than being chastened by our greedy-consumption and over-spending, our government, in bipartisan action, decided to throw more money at the problem (at the tune of about $700,000,000,000 by Bush and Obama each).

In further evidence that Americans have not taken serious the lessons learned from 2009, wall-street and government economists proclaimed economic recovery because Americans were spending more again. So Americans re-engaging in the same self-destructive behavior that caused this depression and this is seen as a positive turn of events? It is for this reason that I put no faith in free markets beyond their pragmatic value. The free market is just a tool and, like all tools, it must be used wisely. Our consumption must be chastened by commitment to a set of values beyond ourselves (I believe religious values to be the best solution, namely because I believe they are on the only legitimate values that exist. But that is another matter entirely). Yet Americans in general have not learned with lesson and perhaps are not likely to learn it. That is why I put not hope in 2010; Americans will merely resort back to the same behavior as they did last decade. The stimulus has “saved” our economy by keep it artificially afloat but at the expense of a massive expansion in the federal deficit. Unfortunately, the government does not procure its funds out of thin air; it gets funds through taxation. Democrats in Congress and the Obama administration are suggesting that we need new taxes to curb the federal deficit. They blame the deficit, in part, on tax cuts during the Bush administration. But wait they fail to realize (perhaps it has only dawned on you a year into his presidency that Obama lacks any semblance of economic sense) is that tax cuts ensure national prosperity which leads to higher revenues in the future. However, tax cuts are meant to coincide with temporary spending cuts in order to avoid an increasing deficit. The Bush administration cut taxes but without reducing spending and thus increased the deficit. High spending, not high tax cuts, is responsible for our nation’s mounting debt.

What Obama fails to understand is that raising taxes on an economic that is still on shaky ground will breed disaster. All of bailout money that was given out by the government in 2009 will simply be re-collected by the government in 2010. To make matters worse, much of this tax money will be exacted from businesses that remained sound during the financial crisis. Essentially, it will be the honest and stable businesses that will end up footing the bailout for the dishonest and poorly run companies that nearly collapsed during the economic downturn. Thus all the bailouts will really have done is delayed the inevitable. New taxes will hamper the growth of our economy which is in the process of recovery, which will be much higher than the $1.4 trillion given out in bailouts in the last year of Bush and the first year of Obama due to entitlement programs that are spiraling out of fiscal control (social security, Medicare, Medicaid) and an entitlement program that will spiral out of fiscal control (ObamaCare). If you really believe that the government is going to run ObamaCare in a fiscally responsible manner, please remember “Cash for Clunkers” and social security which were likewise suppose to be fiscally sound. If Obama and the Democrats get their way with Health Care “reform” and tax hikes, you will most definitely want to revise your hopeful stance on 2010.

ntra that 2010 will see a reversal of American fortunes. Yeah, don’t bet on it.

One Year of Obama Foreign Policy

Very good piece. While I disagree with the overall neo-conservative tone of this article (i.e. that America should spread democracy all around the world) I agree with Kagan that America needs to be a pillar of justice in the world, opposed to tyrants and evil. Obama simply isn't doing this by making nice with people like Hugo Chavez, Hu Jintao, and Vladimir Putin.

In other notes, since I got Windows 7 Enterprise I have been unable to paste stuff from Word documents or OneNote. Since I typically write my blog posts in either of these formats first, I haven't posted a blog since before finals last semester as they won't copy. Hopefully with some help (Jason?) I can get back to posting more blogs.

http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/2010%20-%20JanFeb/full-Kagan-JF-2010.html

KSM Trial

I thought this was a very interesting article. I have to agree with Pat Buchanan on this one.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/11/17/are_we_at_war_or_not.html

New Amendment for the Election of Senators and Representatives

I. No senator or representative shall take office unless they have passed a proctored exam, approved by Congress, in order to ascertain their ability to act as a senator or representative. A tougher exam being in place for senators and an easier one for representatives.

II. A grade of three-fourths correctly answered questions shall be required for a passing grade on the proctored exam. The candidate shall have no knowledge of the exam prior to taking the exam. If any candidate violates this article, the candidate shall immediately be disqualified. In addition, after failing an exam, the candidate may retake the exam only once as long as the candidate has scored better than fifty per-percent. Any candidate scoring below fifty per-cent may no retake the test again during the current election year.

III. The questions in the said exam shall be objective and based on the following subjects: English language, history, economics, the American constitution, and comparative politics. There shall be no discrimination of persons in the exam, with the same questions being asked of each candidate per election year and new questions being generated for future exams.

Dealing with Iran

A recent poll done by Fox News shows that 69% of Americans feel that President Obama has not dealt strongly enough with Iran. 61% feel that force is needed to be used against Iran in order to stop the country from developing nuclear potential. While I agree that Obama should take a stronger stance against Iran, I think that launching an attack against Iran would be a terrible mistake. Unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, which do not have strong nationalist pasts, Iranians have a proud history that dates back to ancient Persia. Afghanistan and Iraq are both ethnically diverse and lacked a real national identity and thus felt little loyalty to the state. Iranians, however, who have strong ties to the Iranian state, would be enraged if the US or a US-backed Israel attacked Iran. People with a strong national identity detest any violation of national sovereignty.

The problem with much of American foreign policy is that it emphasizes too much on the present. It doesn’t look back far of enough in the past and doesn’t look far forward enough into the future. The best long term solution to stabilizing Iran is to have the ruling theocracy overthrown by a reform movement and a pro-Western (or at least not anti-Western) government to take power. Attacking Iran would almost certainly ensure that the Iranian people (who have shown strong support to introduce reform) would rally around the government against foreign military action. A good story to keep in mind is what happened with the SPD in Germany at the start of World War I. The SPD (Social Democratic Party) was extremely critical of the German monarchy and intense German nationalism. Yet, with the start of the First World War the patriotic members of SPD rallied around the German flag (at least initially) and approved funds to mobilize Germany for war. Even the most critical opposition can be driven to support of an unpopular government if they feel threatened by foreigners.

Thus the long term solution is to support and aid reformist Iranians within Iran. Force should not be used except as the most desperate course of action. This is because the best hope for removing Iran from the so-called “Axis of Evil” is to support regime change from within Iran by the reformers and the people. If Americans work closely with these people we can secure their friendship. To put pressure on the current Iranian regime the US should enforce harsher sanctions against Iran to deteriorate the economic situation. The biggest complain that reformist have against Ahmadinejad is his poor handling of the economy. If a connection is made by Iranians between Ahmadinejad nuclear ambitions and the deteriorating economy, Iranians at the very least will put pressure on him to end this ambition in order to have embargos lifted. I do not think that the Iranians believe that nuclear weapons are worth the price of a poor economy. Finally, American should pursue alternative fuels and expand domestic drilling which would tremendously hurt the Iranian economy and cause greater unrest. This is a less direct form of economic pressure and may bode better to Iranians so that anti-Western propaganda (in the case of greater sanctions) won’t be handed to the Iranian regime.

Some things to remember:
*51% of Iran’s population is Persian and 58% speak Persian. 89% are Shia Muslim. Thus there is a strong national identity through ethnicity, language, and religion.
*Iran’s revenues: $51 billion, Expenditures: $103 billion.
*80% of Iran’s exports are petroleum.
*Unemployment: 12.5%

On Democracy

Democracy passes into despotism. -Plato

In is common place in modern American, and indeed the modern world, to say that democracy is the best form of government. Yet, democracy is a relative newcomer to forms of government in the world. With the exception of some of the Greeks and the Roman republic, most governments prior to 1776 were dominated by a monarchy or some other kind of non-democratic regime. In modern times most democracies did not emerge until the mid 19th and early 20th c.'s. Thus there has not been ample time for us to truly judge the success of democracy. In Greece, democracy passed into disunity and they were conquered by the monarchical Macedonians. The Roman Republic descended into civil wars and eventually came to be dominated by the Caesars. Much of the faith in democracy has been generated by the fact that there have been few positive regimes to compare it to. Democracy looks good when it is compared to fascist, communist, or ultra-nationalist regimes. Now let me say that I am not opposed to "democracy," as the term is loosely used today. However, I do not think that the proliferation of democratic regimes means the "end of history" and I certainly do not think that democracies are the perfect form of government. Below are some of the faults of democracy that are meant not to shake our faith in democracy, necessarily, but awaken us to the fact that democracies will not lead to the epitome of government that many have dreamed they would lead us to.

*Democracies take far longer to make decisions than more authoritative regimes do.

*Democracies open way for the "tyranny of the majority." 51% of the population can enforce their will on 49%. Even if a constitution protects the rights of citizens, a large proportion of the dissenting population is forced to share in the poor decisions of the majority. If the majority leads the nation into ruins, as much as 49% of the dissenting population is forced to share in that ruin.

*The majority can confer on itself privileges at the expense of the minority; welfare, a graded income tax, corporate bailouts, labor concessions, special interests, etc.

*Democracy, ultimately, puts the hope of the nation in a common populace who may not be properly educated in politics,economics, and history. Can we really trust a populace that is ill-trained to decide on such weighty matters? (especially when they take as Gospel the broadcasts of mass media).

*Politicians can be elected purely on their popularity and ability to provide to special interest groups (labor unions, black caucuses, the NRA, big business, etc.). In a monarchy, ministers may be appointed according to merit but in a democracy they are elected by popularity.

*In parliaments with proportional representation, the vote can be splintered among a host of competing parties so that the government is hopelessly fractured. For instance, Labour, the ruling party in the United Kingdom, has a majority of only 35.2%.

*There is no centralized decision making in democracies. Bureaucracies can grow to a size and complexity that make them difficult to govern. Often there needs to be a person with great authority in charge.

*Governments that are elected do not have the permanence of other governments, such as monarchies, and therefore make decisions that are best for the present and not the long term, e.g. Keynesian economics.

*There has become an increasing apathy toward government by the general population. Not only are people ill-educated in matters of state they are apathetic towards them as well.

ObamaCare: The Chief Problems

This is an update on my previous blog post about so-called healthcare reform, “Health Care for All?” Now that Obama and his fellow Democrats in Congress have revealed a little more about their vague plan to supposedly “make healthcare more affordable” I am able to better accurately point out the flaws in what they are proposing – as well as how astoundingly little the Obama administration knows about basic economics. Much of the plan is similar to the plan that Clinton proposed back in 1994, greater regulations in the insurance and health care industry, with the addition of a government option which people who are unhappy with their current healthcare can choose. Basically, under this plan the government will either subsidize part or all of the medical expenses of people under the government plan or force health care providers or insurers to provide their services to people at a reduced charge. How exactly the government will provide cheaper healthcare for those under the government plan I am not exactly sure. Either way the government plan will actually increase, rather than reduce, the cost of health care for most Americans. Greater “regulation” of the health care and insurance industry will certainly increase the price tag on health care.

First, we must remember the basic message of my last blog on this subject; government may reduce the price of health care for a certain individual or group but cannot reduce the cost of providing healthcare services. The cost of healthcare is determined by supply and demand. If the government mandates a price ceiling on healthcare for those under the government plan, this will mean that the healthcare companies will have reduced profits. They will either have to reduce capital investment from reduced profits or they will have to charge the middle class who are not under the price ceiling more. In the first case the quality of our healthcare will be reduced because the company will have fewer profits to put toward increasing the quality of their insurance or healthcare services, whether this means less coverage, less doctors hired, or less new technology and medical advances. In the latter case it will mean that the hard-working middle class will not save money on health care reform but will end up paying more. If Obama does not create a price ceiling, but only subsidizes healthcare for those under the government plan, this will mean a ballooning deficit for the federal government, which will mean increased taxes for the middle class.

I believe that the current proposals for the cost of this health care plan are grossly underestimated. What democrats fail to understand is that whatever measures they use to make health care “affordable” for those under the government plan, the result will be an increase in demand. With the price of healthcare reduced for those under the plan they will visit the doctor more often than usual. In addition, when they are not footing the cost of the bill, the incentive for people to engage in less risky health behaviors, such as smoking, excessive drinking, and overeating, is reduced. Remember, the biggest health problem among America’s poor is obesity and heart disease. Many of these people also smoke. The public will not become healthier from this plan but less and the bill will be footed by those hard working Americans who actually have to pay for their healthcare. For my solution to reduce healthcare costs, see “A Healthcare Solution” below. For more about the contradictions in ObamaCare see this Time article: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1914973,00.html

There is also the question about whether or not abortions and euthanasia will be funded under this healthcare bill. While Democrats claim that nothing in the bill supports such an assertion, others point that the working, like most of the proposal, is ambiguous enough that it may include these ethically questionable procedures. Even those who believe that abortion and euthanasia should be left up to the conscience of the one receiving and performing the procedures should be upset that people who find these things ethically immoral are being forced to fun them.
Ultimately this plan will not help reduce the cost of healthcare or increase the health of Americans. All it will do is make health care more inefficient, costly, and stagnant and entangle the government in more controversial ethical questions.

A Healthcare Solution

I put this modest proposal before our mad government who appears ready to spend us into oblivion with Obamacare. Save the $1 trillion plus (remember, Social Security and Medicare weren't suppose to cost too much either!) and instead implement this plan which probably won't cost the US government even $1 billion dollars. If you read my post "Healthcare for All?" you should understand that the government cannot lower the cost of anything, only the price. You also should understand that prices are brought about not by greedy CEOs, for competition among healthcare providers and the elasticity in demand mean that the price is only that amount where the minimum amount the healthcare provider is willing to charge for their services and the maximum amount the consumer is willing to pay for that service meet. Prices are determined by the market. They are controlled by supply and demand. When the demand for medical services increases, the price for that service increases. This is basic economics. Any economist, regardless of his or her political persuasion will tell you this. Thus rising healthcare prices are the result not of greed and price-gauging but high demand. I put forward that the reason American healthcare costs so much is that it costs a lot to keep Americans healthy! We are McDonaldnation. When the majority of American adults are obese and unhealthy they are going to require more medical attention for for things like lung cancer, skin cancer, and heart disease. Therefore, what I propose is that the government starts to offer incentives for American citizens to remain healthy. Every year Americans can go to their physcian and have a physical. There will be rankings from excellent health to average health to poor health. For every health level average and above, tax-payers can claim a deductable that correlates to their level of health for each member of the family. Thus, the government will give you incentive to keep healthy during the year. By eating healthier, eating less, excercising more, and refraining for smoking due to proper incentive, Americans will need to go doctors less (an apple a day keeps the doctors away!) and the demand for health with decrease and with it healthcare prices.

Between One Socialist and Another?

Preident Obama is extending an arm of friendship toward Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez at the Summit of the Americas. The two have discussed resuming diplomatic relations which were severed last September by the Bush administration. Chavez was even nice enough to offer Obama a book. It's title: Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent. The author, Uruguayan journalist Eduardo Galeano, blames countries like the US for exploitng Latin America. Obama said that the book was "a nice gesture." This is akin to if Khruschev offered Kennedy a copy of Das Kapital at the Vienna Conference and Kennedy referred to it as a "nice gesture." I would humbly suggest to writers such as Galeano that the notoriously corrupt and irresponsible governments (such as Chavez's) that have misruled Latin America for over two centuries are the real exploiters. Obama claims that his warm exchanges with Chavez are part of his campaign to "reach out to" America's enemies (the assumption being that it is the fault of America that they are our enemies). I would like to point out to Mr. Obama that Chavez has currently undermined the democratic process in Venezuela by changing the constitution, albeit by plebecite, so that he can become president for life. Chavez has also accused a Venezuelan opposition leader of trumped up charges of fraud. Economists also believe that Chavez may be driving his country toward fiscal ruining. He has relied on socialist programs to gain much support from the populace but with oil prices at $40 a barrel and the Venezuelan state-owned oil company PDVSA running what is believed to be severe defecits by some, Chavez could be cooking a recipe for ruin. Former CIA Director Michael Hayden has said: "Here's a case where I would watch for behavior, not for rhetoric, and the behavior of President Chavez over the past years has been downright horrendous -- both internationally and with regard to what he's done internally inside Venezuela,"

So why is Obama courting this would socialist dictator? Apart from the fact that Chavez and Obama's fiscal and economic policies are alike in many aspects, it would be good to remember Venezuela has lots of oil. In Obama's justification for friendly relations with Venezuela he noted that "they [Venezuela] own Citgo, the oil company." When Bush removed a horrendous dictator in Iraq there were cries of "blood for oil" yet similar denunciations are not made when Obama gets cozy with a man that has undermined the democratic process in his country and is well on the way of becoming a dictator himself.

Saving Conservatism

It is no secret that the last two elections have gone badly for conservatives. Over the last four years Republicans have lost both houses of Congress and the White House to democrats. It has been a reversal of the situation in the early 2000s when Republicans won the White House in 2000 with George W. Bush and the Senate in the 2002 Congressional elections. How long with this stinging defeat last for conservatives? It is impossible to tell. Although some talk radio hosts like to think that the recent elections have not been a referendum on conservatives, it is hard to see what else this has been that reaction of disillusionment on the part of many Americans to what they see as the failings of conservatism. How long the American public holds this view depends on how conservatives react to the current political environment. I will suggest several things that might not solve all the problems facing conservatism today, but are critical to putting conservatism back on track.

The first problem with conservatism today is its repugnant populism. Beginning in the 1980s as many socially conservative blue-collar workers became disillusioned with the liberal social agenda of the Democrats, Republics were quick to reach out to this demographic to extend the conservative base. However, this outreach has caused a numbing down of intellectual conservatism in the party’s platform. Demagogues in the form of talk radio have hijacked the conservative movement by appealing to the “common sense” of the “common man.” Solutions are often put forth bluntly, with slanderous rhetoric that angrily attacks opposition. In this case, conservatism has become more reactionary than conservative. It conjures up in the historic memory of the common man this idea of classic Americana that has viciously been assaulted by liberals and needs to be restored. Typically this type of reactionary conservatism uses this ideal and mythical model of Americana instead of reasoning as the basis for party platform and tends to extremely inflexible in its beliefs. In a streak of anti-intellectualism, liberals are put forth as elitists that need to be countered, not with equal intellectual fire-power, but with the common sense of the common man. It offers over simplistic answers to complex questions. This switch has drastically isolated the educated class, especially college students who abhor conservative’s tactless rhetoric and lack of interest in engaging with the intelligentsia. Conservatives have continually failed to sway this demographic because of their inability to present intellectual appeal. Academia is often demonized. While it is true that academia is usually contrary to conservative ideals, what it needs is to be transformed by conservative ideals rather than blow apart by them. Rational discussion, opposed to bumper sticker ideology, is key.

Secondly conservatives had over-relied on social conservatism. Both Republicans and President Bush heavily relied on conservative evangelicals for their core basis of support during the last eight years. The fear among social conservatives that turning against Bush and Republicans, despite some egregious violations of other conservative values such as limited government and fiscal conservatism, would surrender society to the social liberal agenda. In short Bush was able to maintain popularity among conservatism throughout his term by appealing to social conservatism all the while undergoing massive government expansion, increasing the national deficit, and committing some foreign policy blunders. Now I by no means mean to bash Bush here. Liberals have done that enough, but certainly I feel that Bush betrayed some serious conservative ideals, perhaps unintentionally, by relying too heavily on social conservative support. Unfortunately the advances of social conservatism by governmental means are rather limited outside sanctity of life legislation and proposing a marriage-protection article to the Constitution. Pushing a social conservative agenda also isolates non-social conservatives who, nonetheless, could cooperate with conservatives on other projects (e.g. fiscal responsibility). In short, social conservatism is best resigned to grass-roots movements because pushing a social conservative agenda in big government can cause resentment and end up being counterproductive.

Finally conservatives need to rebuild their moral capital. Many Americans felt betrayed by conservatives’ fiscal irresponsibility to the point that they perceived little difference between Republicans and Democrats on the issue. Also, the angry rhetoric coming out of talk radio (such as Rush Limbaugh’s tactless statement that he hopes that President Obama fails) does more harm that it does good. Conservatives need to return to core values such as discipline, fiscal conservatism, and constitutionalism. Many social conservative’s worries could be better addressed by appointing conservative judges who do not legislate from the bench. Conservatives need to rein in spending and only then will they be able to criticize Obama’s Keynesian economic policies without appearing hypocritical. In short, conservatives need to regain the moral high ground that they have lost from out-of-control spending, rushing into war in 2003 with faulty intelligence, and angry rhetoric from talk radio. While it might be tempting to lash out at Obama, conservatives need to criticize Obama with the respective his office deserves, a respect that liberals did not accord to Bush during his presidency. Only by doing this will conservatives regain the moral high ground in the minds of the American people.

In short conservatives need to rebuild their political movement based on dispassionate politics, discipline, fiscal conservatism, ethical responsibility and guardianship of traditional government practices. The Republican Party needs to de-emphasize its populist appeal and reach out intellectually to college students and young professionals. It must be smart, flexible, disciplined, and kind. Placing its eggs in the basket of populism is a poor investment because the social conservative, blue-collar demographic is rapidly decreasing in favor of a more idealistic and college-educated professional. All of this begins with building a firm intellectual basis, which, by necessity, must be more flexible. Conservatives must prioritize their agenda and cooperate with others, even liberals, in order to achieve aspects of it. Conservatives must cease to be seen as reactionary and instead as actually conservative; i.e. preserving long-standing values while being flexible with change and figuring out how to intelligently apply traditional values with new challenges.