Best Discussions on the Marriage Issue I Have Found...

It's long, but it's a good one.  Link HERE

And another one HERE

Collateral Murder: The Wikileaks Agenda

Wikileaks recently released a video they entitled 'Collateral Murder' purporting to show US combat troops mercilessly gunning down non-combatants in Iraq in 2007.  Here is the video if you have not seen it:


What Wikileaks did not make clear in their initial release was the editorial license they took with the raw video footage to achieve 'maximum political impact'.  Watch this video of an interview that Colbert did with one of the Wikileaks founders, Julian Assange:

Colbert Interview

Now watch this video created by The Scholar's Stage (link here) showing portions of the uncut video that Wikileaks conveniently 'left out':

"Wikileaks edited and presented this incident in a manner that can be called nothing but blatantly dishonest. This video presents portions of the full 40 minute video that Wikileaks left out. At this moment it has received 500 hits. The Wikileaks video has received 5 million.

I ask my readers to spread this video to the best of their ability. While I do not condone the reckless actions of these aviators, their side of the story needs to be told. The record needs to be set straight." - The Scholars Stage

And finally, (sorry for such a long post!) here is an interview with a US soldier who was among the first to arrive on the scene following the incident depicted in the video (for full transcript and video go to wired.com)

Ethan McCord had just returned from dropping his children at school earlier this month, when he turned on the TV news to see grainy black-and-white video footage of a soldier running from a bombed-out van with a child in his arms. It was a scene that had played repeatedly in his mind the last three years, and he knew exactly who the soldier was.

In July 2007, McCord, a 33-year-old Army specialist, was engaged in a firefight with insurgents in an Iraqi suburb when his platoon, part of Bravo Company, 2-16 Infantry, got orders to investigate a nearby street. When they arrived, they found a scene of fresh carnage – the scattered remains of a group of men, believed to be armed, who had just been gunned down by Apache attack helicopters. They also found 10-year-old Sajad Mutashar and his five-year-old sister Doaha covered in blood in a van. Their 43-year-old father, Saleh, had been driving them to a class when he spotted one of the wounded men moving in the street and drove over to help him, only to become a victim of the Apache guns.

McCord was captured in a video shot from one helicopter as he ran frantically to a military vehicle with Sajad in his arms seeking medical care. That classified video created its own firestorm when the whistleblower site Wikileaks posted it April 5 on a website titled “Collateral Murder” and asserted that the attack was unprovoked. More than a dozen people were killed in three attacks captured in the video, including two Reuters journalists, one carrying a camera that was apparently mistaken for a weapon.

McCord, who served seven years in the military before leaving in the summer of 2009 due to injuries, recently posted an apologetic letter online with fellow soldier Josh Steiber supporting the release of the video and asking the family’s forgiveness. McCord is the father of three children.
Wired’s Kim Zetter reached McCord at his home in Kansas. This is his account of what he saw.

Wired.com: At the time you arrived on the scene, you didn’t know what had happened, is that right?

Ethan McCord: Right. We were engaged in our own conflict roughly about three or four blocks away. We heard the gunships open up. [Then] we were just told … to move to this [other] location. It was pretty much a shock when we got there to see what had happened, the carnage and everything else.

Wired.com: But you had been in combat before. It shouldn’t have surprised you what you saw.

McCord: I have never seen anybody being shot by a 30-millimeter round before. It didn’t seem real, in the sense that it didn’t look like human beings. They were destroyed.

Wired.com: Was anyone moving when you got there other than the two children?

McCord: There were approximately two to three other people who were moving who were still somewhat alive, and the medics were attending to them.

Wired.com: The first thing you saw was the little girl in the van. She had a stomach wound?

McCord: She had a stomach wound and she had glass in her eyes and in her hair. She was crying. In fact, that’s one of the reasons I went to the van immediately, because I could hear her crying. It wasn’t like a cry of pain really. It was more of a child who was frightened out of her mind. And the next thing I saw was the boy…. He was kind of sitting on the floorboard of the van, but with his head laying on the bench seat in the front. And then the father, who I’m assuming was the father, in the driver’s seat slumped over on his side. Just from looking into the van, and the amount of blood that was on the boy and the father, I immediately figured they were dead.

So, the first thing I did was grab the girl. I grabbed the medic and we went into the back. There’s houses behind where the van was. We took her in there and we’re checking to see if there were any other wounds. You can hear the medic saying on the video, “There’s nothing I can do here, she needs to be evac’d.” He runs the girl to the Bradley. I went back outside to the van, and that’s when the boy took, like, a labored, breath. That’s when I started screaming, “The boy’s alive! The boy’s alive!” And I picked him up and started running with him over to the Bradley. He opened his eyes when I was carrying him. I just kept telling him, “Don’t die; don’t die.” He looked at me, then his eyes rolled back into this head.

Then I got yelled at by my platoon leader that I needed to stop trying to save these mf’n kids and go pull security…. I was told to go pull security on a rooftop. When we were on that roof, we were still taking fire. There were some people taking pot shots, sniper shots, at us on the rooftop. We were probably there on the roof for another four to five hours.

Wired.com: How much sniper fire were you getting?

McCord: It was random sporadic spurts. I did see a guy … moving from a rooftop from one position to another with an AK-47, who was firing at us. He was shot and killed.
After the incident, we went back to the FOB [forward operating base] and that’s when I was in my room. I had blood all down the front of me from the children. I was trying to wash it off in my room. I was pretty distraught over the whole situation with the children. So I went to a sergeant and asked to see [the mental health person], because I was having a hard time dealing with it. I was called a pussy and that I needed to suck it up and a lot of other horrible things. I was also told that there would be repercussions if I was to go to mental health.

Wired.com: What did you understand that to mean?

McCord: I would be smoked. Smoked is basically like you’re doing pushups a lot, you’re doing sit-ups … crunches and flutter kicks. They’re smoking you, they’re making you tired. I was told that I needed to get the sand out of my vagina…. So I just sucked it up and tried to move on with everything.

I’ve lived with seeing the children that way since the incident happened. I’ve had nightmares. I was diagnosed with chronic, severe PTSD. [But] I was actually starting to get kind of better. … I wasn’t thinking about it as much. [Then I] took my children to school one day and I came home and sat down on the couch and turned on the TV with my coffee, and on the news I’m running across the screen with a child. The flood of emotions came back. I know the scene by heart; it’s burned into my head. I know the van, I know the faces of everybody that was there that day.

Wired.com: Did you try to get information about the two children after the shooting?

McCord: My platoon sergeant knew that I was having a hard time with it and that same night … he came into the room and he told me, hey, just so you know, both of the children survived, so you can suck it up now. I didn’t know if he was telling me that just to get me to shut up and to do my job or if he really found something out. I always questioned it in the back of my mind.
I did see a video on YouTube after the Wikileaks [video] came out, of the children being interviewed. … When I saw their faces, I was relieved, but I was just heartbroken. I have a huge place in my heart for children, having some of my own. Knowing that I was part of the system that took their father away from them and made them lose their house … it’s heartbreaking. And that in turn is what helped me and Josh write the letter, hoping that it would find its way to them to let them know that we’re sorry. We’re sorry for the system that we were involved in that took their father’s life and injured them. If there’s anything I can to do help, I would be more than happy to.

Wired.com: Wikileaks presented the incident as though there was no engagement from insurgents. But you guys did have a firefight a couple of blocks away. Was it reasonable for the Apache soldiers to think that maybe the people they attacked were part of that insurgent firefight?

McCord: I doubt that they were a part of that firefight. However, when I did come up on the scene, there was an RPG as well as AK-47s there…. You just don’t walk around with an RPG in Iraq, especially three blocks away from a firefight…. Personally, I believe the first attack on the group standing by the wall was appropriate, was warranted by the rules of engagement. They did have weapons there. However, I don’t feel that the attack on the [rescue] van was necessary.

Now, as far as rules of engagement, [Iraqis] are not supposed to pick up the wounded. But they could have been easily deterred from doing what they were doing by just firing simply a few warning shots in the direction…. Instead, the Apaches decided to completely obliterate everybody in the van. That’s the hard part to swallow.

And where the soldier said [in the video], “Well, you shouldn’t take your kids to battle.” Well in all actuality, we brought the battle to your kids. There’s no front lines here. This is urban combat and we’re taking the war to children and women and innocents.

There were plenty of times in the past where other insurgents would come by and pick up the bodies, and then we’d have no evidence or anything to what happened, so in looking at it from the Apache’s point of view, they were thinking that [someone was] picking up the weapons and bodies; when, in hindsight, clearly they were picking up the wounded man. But you’re not supposed to do that in Iraq.

Wired.com: Civilians are supposed to know that they’re not supposed to pick up a wounded person crawling in the road?

McCord: Yeah. This is the problem that we’re speaking out on as far as the rules of engagement. How is this guy supposed to [decide] should I stop and pick them up, or is the military going to shoot me? If you or I saw someone wounded on the ground what is your first inkling? I’m going to help that person.

Wired.com: There was another attack depicted in the video that has received little attention, involving a Hellfire and a building that was fired on.

McCord: I wasn’t around that building when it happened. I was up on a rooftop at that time. However, I do know some soldiers went in to clear that building afterwards and there were some people with weapons in there, but there was also a family of four that was killed.
I think that a Hellfire missile is a little much to put into a building…. They’re trained as soldiers to go into a building and clear a building. I do know that there was a teenage girl [in there], just because I saw the pictures when I was there, that one of the soldiers took.

Wired.com: Have you heard from any other soldiers since the video came out?

McCord: I’ve spoken with one of the medics who was there. He’s no longer in the Army. When this video first came out, there was a lot of outrage by the soldiers, just because it depicted us as being callous, cruel, heartless people, and we’re not that way. The majority of us aren’t. And so he was pretty upset about the whole thing…. He kept saying, we were there, we know the truth, they’re saying there was no weapons, there was.

I’ve spoken with other soldiers who were there. Some of them [say] I don’t care what anybody says … they’re not there. … There’s also some soldiers who joke about it [as a] coping mechanism. They’re like, oh yeah, we’re the “collateral murder” company. I don’t think that [the] big picture is whether or not [the Iraqis who were killed] had weapons. I think that the bigger picture is what are we doing there? We’ve been there for so long now and it seems like nothing is being accomplished whatsoever, except for we’re making more people hate us.

Wired.com: Do you support Wikileaks in releasing this video?

McCord: When it was first released I don’t think it was done in the best manner that it could have been. They were stating that these people had no weapons whatsoever, that they were just carrying cameras. In the video, you can clearly see that they did have weapons … to the trained eye. You can make out in the video [someone] carrying an AK-47, swinging it down by his legs….And as far as the way that the soldiers are speaking in the video, which is pretty callous and joking about what’s happened … that’s a coping mechanism. I’m guilty of it, too, myself. You joke about the situations and what’s happened to push away your true feelings of the matter.

There’s no easy way to kill somebody. You don’t just take somebody’s life and then go on about your business for the rest of the day. That stays with you. And cracking jokes is a way of pushing that stuff down. That’s why so many soldiers come back home and they’re no longer in the situations where they have other things to think about or other people to joke about what happened … and they explode.

I don’t say that Wikileaks did a bad thing, because they didn’t…. I think it is good that they’re putting this stuff out there. I don’t think that people really want to see this, though, because this is war…. It’s very disturbing.

The Long War

Bill Moyers interviewed Andrew J. Bacevich on his program last week.  Bacevich is a West Point grad, Vietnam vet, best-selling author, and tenured professor at Boston University.  He's also one of my favorite people when it comes to understanding American foreign policy (Incidentally he is also a conservative Catholic.  Not counting the seemingly endless accounts of pedophilic priests, Catholics are really turning out some good people these days:)  I've included a clip from the interview.  Click here for the entire transcript.

BILL MOYERS: What does it say to you as a soldier that our political leaders, time and again, send men and women to fight for, on behalf of corrupt guys like Karzai?

ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, we don't learn from history. And there is this persistent, and I think almost inexplicable belief that the use of military force in some godforsaken country on the far side of the planet will not only yield some kind of purposeful result, but by extension, will produce significant benefits for the United States. I mean, one of the obvious things about the Afghanistan war that is so striking and yet so frequently overlooked is that we're now in the ninth year of this war.

It is the longest war in American history. And it is a war for which there is no end in sight. And to my mind, it is a war that is utterly devoid of strategic purpose. And the fact that that gets so little attention from our political leaders, from the press or from our fellow citizens, I think is simply appalling, especially when you consider the amount of money we're spending over there and the lives that are being lost whether American or Afghan.

BILL MOYERS: But President Obama says, our purpose is to prevent the Taliban from creating another rogue state from which the jihadists can attack the United States, as happened on 9/11. Isn't that a strategic purpose?

ANDREW BACEVICH: I mean, if we could wave a magic wand tomorrow and achieve in Afghanistan all the purposes that General McChrystal would like us to achieve, would the Jihadist threat be substantially reduced as a consequence? And does anybody think that somehow, Jihadism is centered or headquartered in Afghanistan? When you think about it for three seconds, you say, "Well, of course, it's not. It is a transnational movement."

BILL MOYERS: They can come from Yemen. They can come from—

ANDREW BACEVICH: They can come from Brooklyn. So the notion that somehow, because the 9/11 attacks were concocted in this place, as indeed they were, the notion that therefore, the transformation of Afghanistan will provide some guarantee that there won't be another 9/11 is patently absurd. Quite frankly, the notion that we can prevent another 9/11 by invading and occupying and transforming countries is absurd.

BILL MOYERS: In this context, then, what do we do about what is a real threat, from people who want to kill us, the Jihadists. What do we do about that?

ANDREW BACEVICH: First of all, we need to assess the threat realistically. Osama bin Laden is not Adolf Hitler. Al-Qaeda is not Nazi Germany. Al-Qaeda poses a threat. It does not pose an existential threat. We should view Al-Qaeda as the equivalent of an international criminal conspiracy. Sort of a mafia that in some way or another draws its energy or legitimacy from a distorted understanding of a particular religious tradition.

And as with any other international criminal conspiracy, the proper response is a police effort. I mean, a ruthless, sustained, international police effort to identify the thugs, root out the networks and destroy it. Something that would take a long period of time and would no more succeed fully in eliminating the threat than the NYPD is able to fully eliminate criminality in New York City.

BILL MOYERS: You participated this week in a symposium at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on the subject, "How will we know when a war ends?" So, the boots are on the ground there. The troops are there, committed, at least through 2011. What do we do?

ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, I have to say, and I mean, I'm sure this sounds too simplistic. It would be way too simplistic for people in Washington. But if you want to get out of a war, you get out of a war. I mean, you call General McChrystal and say, "Your mission has changed. And your mission is to organize an orderly extrication of US forces."

Robert P. George: "Thank God for the Latter-day Saints"

I have been telling friends lately what a fan I have become of Catholics. Much of this admiration is the direct result of my interest in the writings of Professor Robert P. George of Princeton University.  Well, evidently Dr. George feels the same way about the Mormons.  He recently posted to the blog Mirror of Justice an article entitled "Thank God for the Latter-day Saints".  I have re-posted the article below (link to article here).  Thank God for good men like Professor Robert P. George who courageously defend truth and Christian morality in the halls of academia.

April 4, 2010
At Easter mass today, our wonderful chaplain, Fr. Thomas Mullelly of Princeton's Aquinas Institute, invited us to take a few minutes to reflect on, and thank God for, the good things He has sent our way.  Among the very first things I found myself praying in gratitude for is the friendship of many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Over the past five or six years, I have been blessed to work alongside several outstanding LDS intellectuals and to get to know a number of the Church's general authorities.  They are among the most gifted, dedicated, and inspiring people I've ever known.  Their faith is much misunderstood and, alas, there is still a great deal of anti-Mormon prejudice out there.  But they bear no resentment or ill will towards those who misunderstand or dishonor them, and they are among the first to enter the field and the last to leave it when it comes to working for justice and the common good.

I initially came to know Latter-day Saints in the marriage movement, some years before same-sex unions and the question of redefining marriage to eliminate the principle of the sexual complementarity of spouses was an issue.  They joined Catholics, Evangelicals, Eastern Orthodox Christians, observant Jews and a fair number of secular folks in the effort to do something about family fragmentation, out-of-wedlock child-bearing, and the growing divorce culture.  I've also worked alongside Latter-day Saints in the pro-life cause.  Every group has its bad apples, and I'm sure the LDS is no exception.  But anyone who knows a large number of Mormons will, I'm sure, be struck as I have been by how many members of the Church really do lead faithful and honorable lives---lives of selfless service to others.  As a community, the selflessness, generosity, and public-spiritedness of the Latter-day Saints is extraordinary.
A few weeks ago, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago spoke at Brigham Young University.  In the course of his remarks, he noted that:

In recent years, Catholics and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have stood more frequently side-by-side in the public square to defend human life and dignity.  In addition to working together to alleviate poverty here and abroad, we have been together in combating the degredations associated with the pornography industry; in promoting respect for the right to life of those who are still waiting to be born in their mother's womb; and in defending marriage as the union of ome man and one woman for the sake of family against various efforts to redefine in civil law that foundational element of God's natural plan for creation.  I am personally grateful that, after 180 years of living mostly apart from one another, Catholics and Latter-day Saints have begun to see one another as trustworthy partners in the defense of shared moral principles and in the promotion of the common good of our beloved country.

On this Easter Sunday, I would certainly say "amen" to that.  The Catholic Church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints truly share some profound understandings and commitments, especially when it comes to the sanctity of human life and the value and meaning of marriage.  180 years of living "mostly apart" is enough.  Catholic and LDS scholars and leaders have a great deal to collaborate on and learn from each other.  I know that many LDS law professors, philosophers, political scientists, sociologists, and historians are eager to talk with their Catholic counterparts about natural law and natural rights and more generally about the Catholic tradition of thought and debate concerning morality, politics, and law.  These are conversations very much worth having. 

I give thanks to God for my LDS friends and for the inspiring and courageous witness of the LDS community.

De Tocqueville Quotes

Since my blog title is borrowed from Alexis De Tocqueville's book of the same name, I decided it might be a good idea to actually read his book.  So that is what I am doing presently.  I am not the quickest reader though and after 6 weeks or so I am a little over half way through this 900+ page classic.  I just got through emailing a few quotes from the book to a friend.  After going to the work of typing them out I decided I may as well add them to the blog too.  The quotes are on my standard themes of marriage and religion.  Enjoy:)

Here is De Tocqueville commenting on marriage in America and contrasting it to the situation in Europe at the time (1835-ish; bold added):

"America is certainly the country where the bonds of marriage are most respected and where the concept of conjugal bliss has its highest and truest expression.  In Europe almost all social disorder stems from disturbances at home and not far removed from the marriage bed.  There men come to feel scorn for natural ties and legitimate pleasures;  there they develop a liking for disorder, a restless spirit, and fluctuating desires.  Shaken by the tempestuous emotions which often trouble his own home, the European finds it difficult to submit to the authority of the state's legislators.  When the American returns from the turmoil of politics to the bosom of his family, he immediately finds a perfect picture of orderliness and peace.  There, all his pleasures are simple and natural, his joys innocent and quiet; and since he reaches happiness through the regularity of his life, he has no difficulty in regulating his opinions as well as his tastes.  Whereas the European seeks to escape from his domestic troubles by disturbing society, the American draws the love of order from his home which he then carries over into his affairs of state."

Here is a great passage from De Tocqueville regarding the importance of religion to American Democracy:

In the United States, religion governs not only behavior but extends its influence to men's minds.  Among Anglo-Americans there are some who profess Christian dogmas out of belief, others because they are afraid they might appear to lack belief.  So Christianity reigns without obstacles by universal consent;  so, as I have already said elsewhere, the result is that in the world of morality everything is definite and settled, although the world of politics is given over to debate and human experiment.  Thus, the mind of man never beholds an unlimited field in front of itself; however bold he might be, man senses from time to time that he must halt before insurmountable barriers and test his most audacious ideas against certain formalities, which either hold him back or stop him altogether.  The imagination of Americans, even in its greatest flights of fancy, is circumspect and cautions.  Its impulses are restricted and its achievements unfinished.  These habits of restraint are found in political society and to an unusual degree favor the tranquility of the people and the stability of the institutions they have adopted.  Nature and circumstance have turned the inhabitant of the United States into a bold man;  this is easily proved by the manner in which he seeks his fortune.  If the mind of the Americans were free of all shackles, one would soon encounter among them the boldest innovators and the most relentless logicians in the world.  But American revolutionaries are forced publicly to profess a certain respect for Christian morality and equity, which does not allow them easily to violate their plans;  and were they to manage to rise above their scruples themselves, they would still feel hindered by those of their supporters.  Up until now, no one in the United States has dared to promote the maxim that everything is legitimized in the interests of society, an impious maxim which seems to have been invented in an age of liberty simply to justify every future tyrant.  Thus, while the law allows the American people to do everything, religion prevents their imagining everything and forbids them from daring to do everything.  Religion, which never interferes directly in the government of Americans, should therefore be regarded as the first of their political institutions, for, if it does not give them the taste for liberty, it enables them to take unusual advantage of it.

 That last section in bold is, I think, the key to liberty.  It's message may help us understand more clearly why our freedoms are under attack at the present.  Compare this message to a talk given by Elder D. Todd Christofferson (LDS Apostle) in October 2009: link to talk here.

On China: Paul Krugman vs. Peter Schiff

This will be a long post.  Sorry.  I have included two articles that address the same topic but from very different points of view.  The topic is Chinese currency manipulation and it's effects on the global economy.  I am particularly interested in the disparate ideas between Krugman and Schiff on who-has-who over a barrel in this relationship and the potential impact should China decide to start selling its massive Treasury holdings.  I want to believe Krugman, but my instincts point more to Schiff.  Give both articles a read and let me know what you think.
Paul Krugman, NY Times, "Taking On China":

Tensions are rising over Chinese economic policy, and rightly so: China’s policy of keeping its currency, the renminbi, undervalued has become a significant drag on global economic recovery. Something must be done.

To give you a sense of the problem: Widespread complaints that China was manipulating its currency — selling renminbi and buying foreign currencies, so as to keep the renminbi weak and China’s exports artificially competitive — began around 2003. At that point China was adding about $10 billion a month to its reserves, and in 2003 it ran an overall surplus on its current account — a broad measure of the trade balance — of $46 billion.
Today, China is adding more than $30 billion a month to its $2.4 trillion hoard of reserves. The International Monetary Fund expects China to have a 2010 current surplus of more than $450 billion — 10 times the 2003 figure. This is the most distortionary exchange rate policy any major nation has ever followed.
And it’s a policy that seriously damages the rest of the world. Most of the world’s large economies are stuck in a liquidity trap — deeply depressed, but unable to generate a recovery by cutting interest rates because the relevant rates are already near zero. China, by engineering an unwarranted trade surplus, is in effect imposing an anti-stimulus on these economies, which they can’t offset.
So how should we respond? First of all, the U.S. Treasury Department must stop fudging and obfuscating.
Twice a year, by law, Treasury must issue a report identifying nations that “manipulate the rate of exchange between their currency and the United States dollar for purposes of preventing effective balance of payments adjustments or gaining unfair competitive advantage in international trade.” The law’s intent is clear: the report should be a factual determination, not a policy statement. In practice, however, Treasury has been both unwilling to take action on the renminbi and unwilling to do what the law requires, namely explain to Congress why it isn’t taking action. Instead, it has spent the past six or seven years pretending not to see the obvious.
Will the next report, due April 15, continue this tradition? Stay tuned.
If Treasury does find Chinese currency manipulation, then what? Here, we have to get past a common misunderstanding: the view that the Chinese have us over a barrel, because we don’t dare provoke China into dumping its dollar assets.
What you have to ask is, What would happen if China tried to sell a large share of its U.S. assets? Would interest rates soar? Short-term U.S. interest rates wouldn’t change: they’re being kept near zero by the Fed, which won’t raise rates until the unemployment rate comes down. Long-term rates might rise slightly, but they’re mainly determined by market expectations of future short-term rates. Also, the Fed could offset any interest-rate impact of a Chinese pullback by expanding its own purchases of long-term bonds.
It’s true that if China dumped its U.S. assets the value of the dollar would fall against other major currencies, such as the euro. But that would be a good thing for the United States, since it would make our goods more competitive and reduce our trade deficit. On the other hand, it would be a bad thing for China, which would suffer large losses on its dollar holdings. In short, right now America has China over a barrel, not the other way around.
So we have no reason to fear China. But what should we do?
Some still argue that we must reason gently with China, not confront it. But we’ve been reasoning with China for years, as its surplus ballooned, and gotten nowhere: on Sunday Wen Jiabao, the Chinese prime minister, declared — absurdly — that his nation’s currency is not undervalued. (The Peterson Institute for International Economics estimates that the renminbi is undervalued by between 20 and 40 percent.) And Mr. Wen accused other nations of doing what China actually does, seeking to weaken their currencies “just for the purposes of increasing their own exports.”
But if sweet reason won’t work, what’s the alternative? In 1971 the United States dealt with a similar but much less severe problem of foreign undervaluation by imposing a temporary 10 percent surcharge on imports, which was removed a few months later after Germany, Japan and other nations raised the dollar value of their currencies. At this point, it’s hard to see China changing its policies unless faced with the threat of similar action — except that this time the surcharge would have to be much larger, say 25 percent.
I don’t propose this turn to policy hardball lightly. But Chinese currency policy is adding materially to the world’s economic problems at a time when those problems are already very severe. It’s time to take a stand.

Peter Schiff, EuroPacific Capital, "Paul Krugman Versus Reality":

In his latest weekly New York Times column, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman put forward arguments that were so nonsensical that the award committee should ask for its medal back.

Recent rhetoric from Washington has put the economic relationship between the U.S. and China squarely on the front burner, and Krugman is demanding that we crank up the flame. This week 130 members of Congress sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner demanding that the Obama administration designate China as a "currency manipulator". Following that, a bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill that looks to force the Obama administration's hand. For its own part, Beijing invites criticism by continuing to deny its utterly obvious currency agenda.

As these tensions escalate, most economists urge Washington to tread lightly because of the negative fallout for America if China were to begin selling its enormous cache of U.S. Treasury bonds. Krugman pushes back, asserting that the U.S. risks little by playing hardball, and that China has more to lose. He asserts that a Chinese decision to end its purchases of U.S. Treasury debt would make only a marginal impact on long-term interest rates. Did you hear that Stockholm?

According to Krugman, our secret weapon of economic invincibility is the Fed's ability to print dollars endlessly. If China were to foolishly decide to attack us by selling our debt, the Fed could simply step in and buy the excess with newly printed greenbacks. (In other words, Krugman sees no difference between funding the debt and monetizing it. See my latest video blog on the subject.). For Krugman, China would gain little from such an attack, but would lose the ability to export to its best customer and suffer severe losses in the value of its dollar holdings. Krugman's worldview is reassuring - but it has absolutely nothing to do with reality.

There is a huge difference between selling your debt to another and "selling" it to yourself. When China buys our debt, it uses its own savings. In order to purchase a trillion dollars of U.S. Treasuries, the Fed would have to expand our money supply by a corresponding amount. Even Krugman acknowledges that this would cause the dollar to lose value; however, he feels that a weaker dollar is good for America and bad for China.

Krugman does not believe that a tanking dollar will translate into higher interest rates or higher consumer prices at home. No matter how many dollars the Fed creates, or how much value those dollars lose relative to other currencies, he is confident that as long as unemployment remains high, rates will stay low and inflation will remain under control. This is absurd.

If the dollar were to nosedive, the Fed would normally look to protect the currency by raising interest rates, thereby increasing foreign demand for the currency. But with an economy currently on crutches, the Fed will ignore a weakening dollar and continue to try to boost employment with near-zero rates.

But keeping the Fed Funds rate low only holds rates down for U.S. government debt. If the dollar weakens substantially, other rates offered to other borrowers will rise as investors demand greater returns to compensate for inflation. To keep rates low for homeowners, credit card borrowers, corporations, municipalities, and state governments, the Fed would be forced to buy, or guarantee, all forms of dollar-denominated debt. The Fed would become the lender of only resort.

Once the Fed shows that its commitment to low rates is limitless (the value of the dollar be damned), private creditors will quit the game. Even average Americans would hit the Fed's bid. It would be a race for the exits, with no one wanting to be left holding a bag of worthless paper dollars.

Most economists, Krugman included, see cheap money as a panacea for all ills. And while it's true that a falling dollar, by lowering the real value of U.S. wages, would help make U.S. goods more competitive, it would also lead to skyrocketing consumer prices, rapidly rising interest rates, and a collapse in American living standards. Make no mistake: this is the end game of Krugman's "get tough on China" policy.

This apocalyptic scenario can only be avoided if Washington jealously guards the status quo, avoiding confrontation with China at all costs. Yet, even that is an outcome that no one can rationally expect. Given exploding U.S. government deficits and the inability of U.S. citizens and corporations to repair their balance sheets, the United States faces financing needs that even China's gargantuan savings stockpile will be unable to cover.

Krugman is right about one thing - China's currency peg is destabilizing the global economy and must end. But he fails utterly to understand the implications for the U.S. and China. If China were to reverse its role in the U.S. Treasury market, both economies would be destabilized in the short-term. But in the medium- and long-term, China would clearly emerge as the winner.

Absent Treasury-bond purchases, the value of the Chinese currency would rise sharply, causing goods prices to tumble in China. This long-delayed increase in purchasing power for everyday Chinese will unleash pent-up demand in what is already the largest middle class in the world. Chinese factories would retool in order to produce goods for their own citizens to consume. In RMB terms, commodity prices would plunge, making it easier for China to produce all kinds of stuff, such as automobiles, while also making it cheaper for the Chinese to buy gas. Millions will trade in bikes for cars, and Chinese oil imports will swell.

The opposite would occur in America, where an artificial, consumer-based economy, supported by Chinese lending, will come tumbling down. Without the ability to import cheap goods from overseas, Americans will pay more and get less. While gas and food become cheaper for the Chinese, they will simultaneously become much more expensive for Americans - so too will automobiles, consumer electronics, furniture, and just about every other product we want or need (even those few we still make ourselves).

Washington's best option is to recognize that the current relationship is unsustainable and to plan, as best as possible, for a more viable future. We Americans also must be honest with ourselves and recognize that we have been living beyond our means and that our lifestyle has been largely financed by austerity in China. We must conceive of a plan that weans us from this dependence without provoking China to pull the rug out from under us before we have a firm footing. To construct a policy around Krugman's ridiculous assumption that we benefit China more than they benefit us is to invite catastrophe on an unimaginable scale. 

E Pluribus Unum

This is a splendid little piece by John S. Tanner, Academic VP at BYU.  I was going to post the article then follow with some personal comments, but I think anything I have to say would simply detract from the message.  Link to the article here.

About a year ago, BYU held a campus-wide symposium on academic freedom. The conversation often circled back to the need to accommodate the competing but legitimate claims of unity and diversity. It occurred to me as I listened to the discussion that the issue belonged within an older and larger conversation about how to reconcile the “many” and the “one” in a healthy society. The Founders wrestled with this problem as they set out to form a more perfect union. They captured this perennial challenge in a now famous Latin aphorism: e pluribus unum, “out of many, one.”

This saying expressed the Founders’ aspiration to forge a new nation out of disparate colonies and a new people out of diverse cultures. E pluribus unum resonated with an America engaged in the task of nation building. It continues to resonate with Americans today because it speaks to our ongoing national project of fashioning pluralistic constituents into a cohesive commonwealth.

We used to imagine this national project through the metaphor of America as melting pot, an image that goes back at least to Letters from an American Farmer (1782) by John Hector St. John Crèvecoeur. Crèvecoeur envisioned our nation at its birth as a place where “individuals of all races are melted into a new race of man.”

Today the metaphor of America as melting pot has largely fallen out of favor. It is considered too hegemonic and implicitly violent. Nowadays we tend to reach for metaphors of assimilation that preserve and celebrate our diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural identities—gentle metaphors such as “salad bowl,” “mosaic,” “tapestry,” or “patchwork quilt.” Such metaphors, however, lack the teleology of e pluribus unum. Instead of anticipating progression from the many to the one, they anticipate the continuation of the many within the one. They celebrate diversity rather than unity. In this small matter of metaphors, we can thus discern a larger disagreement over what constitutes America’s proper national ideal: diversity or unity.

As I’ve thought about this question over the years, it has seemed to me that healthy, flourishing social institutions require a mix of both “pluribus” and “unum” as it were. People need room to express individual differences, talents, tastes, and identities. They also need a sense of common purpose, norms, values, and ideals.

This is true of nations and schools, communities and families. It is even true of the church, which consists of many members but one body: “We have many members in one body. … So we being many, are one body in Christ” (Rom 12:4-5). The very term “member” is metaphorical; it harks back to Paul’s extended analogy in 1 Corinthians 12 to the church as a single body comprising many members with a diversity of valuable gifts and necessary functions. Paul’s analogy constitutes a sort of scriptural version of e pluribus unum applied to the church.

BYU also accommodates both individual diversity and institutional unity. A few years ago, we crafted an “Enriched Environment” statement articulating our commitment to diversity and unity for the students we admit. The statement, which has been approved by the Board, reads in part:

"[T]he university seeks qualified students of various talents and backgrounds, including geographic, educational, cultural, ethnic, and racial, who relate together in such a manner that they are ‘no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God’ (Ephesians 2:19). It is the university’s judgment that providing educational opportunities for a mix of students who share gospel values and come from a variety of backgrounds and experiences is an important educational asset to BYU.”

Notice the conjunction of diversity and unity: “various talents” but all “qualified”; divergent “backgrounds” but all comfortably gathered in the same “household”; a “mix of students” but all sharing “gospel values.”

BYU unites individuals possessing both a rich diversity of gifts and a shared commitment to the common good. We gather individuals with different talents, tastes, disciplinary expertise, interests, life experiences, creative abilities, and so forth. We cannot flourish without such individual diversity. We need experts in Management, Mathematics, Microbiology, Music, and even Milton. At the same time, BYU unites diverse individuals in a community bound together by a common commitment to our institutional mission and, for most, by an even deeper commitment to covenants that unite us as disciples in our diverse disciplines. We cannot flourish without a sense of common purpose. This admixture of unity and diversity makes life at BYU wonderfully enlivening for me. We are many and we are one.

The Clash of Orthodoxies

I recently finished reading "The Clash of Orthodoxies", by Robert P. George.  Dr. George describes the clash that is at our doorstep between those who claim the Judeo-Christian worldview and those who have abandoned that worldview in favor of, what he calls, the "secular orthodoxy".  "The issues immediately in play," he says, "have mainly, though not exclusively, to do with sexuality, the transmitting and taking of human life, and the place of religion and religiously informed moral judgment in public life."

In this post I want to look at Dr. George's critique of secular views on sexuality as contrasted with the traditional, Judeo-Christian view.  Professor George is a philosopher.  As such, it might take a few readings of the included quotes to fully grasp what he is saying.  If you take the time however, I think you will find his views quite enlightening. 

Professor George claims that the liberal misunderstanding of sexual morality is rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of the human person.  He explains it this way:

Implicit in [secular views on sexual morality] is a particular understanding of the human person as an essentially non--bodily being who inhabits a nonpersonal body. According to this understanding--which contrasts with the Judeo--Christian view of the human person as a dynamic unity of body, mind, and spirit--the "person" is the conscious and desiring "self" as distinct from the body which may exist as a merely "biological," and, thus, sub-personal, reality.

Secularist ideology holds to a 'dualistic' view of the human person.  The body is seen as a mere instrument of the true "self".  The real "you" is your consciousness.  Your body is not truly part of you, but rather an instrument to be used by your consciousness in seeking pleasure and other forms of personal fulfillment.  Thus bodily unity, through sex acts that are procreative in type can never be personal unity because the body is not truly part of the person.  The most that can ever be achieved between two individuals is emotional unity.  Sexual conduct is simply a means to express affection, experience pleasure, and heighten the emotional intensity of a relationship through sex play.  This emotional unity through sex play can be achieved as easily by two men or two women as it can by a man and a woman (or as Professor George asks, "...if it is a purely emotional bond, some ask, why only two?)

Contrast the secular view of sexual morality with the traditional, Judeo-Christian view.  Professor George describes it as follows:

Rational reflection on marriage as it is participated in by men and women makes it clear: since men and women are essentially embodied (and not simply inhabitors of a suit of flesh [contrasting with the secular view]), the biological union of spouses in reproductive--type acts consummates and actualizes their marriage, making the spouses truly, and not merely metaphorically, "two in one flesh." The sexual union of spouses--far from being something extrinsic to marriage or merely instrumental to procreation, pleasure, the expression of tender feelings, or anything else--is an essential aspect of marriage as an intrinsic human good. Marital acts are the biological matrix of the multi--level (bodily, emotional, dispositional, spiritual) sharing of life and commitment that marriage is.

But, one might ask, is a true bodily or "biological" union of persons possible? Indeed it is. Consider that for most human functions or activities, say, digestion or locomotion, the organism performing the function or act is the individual human being. In respect of the act of reproduction, however, things are different. Reproduction is a single act or function, yet it is performed by a male and female as a mated pair. For purposes of reproduction, the male and female partners become a single organism, they form a single reproductive principle. This organic unity is achieved precisely in the reproductive behavior characteristic of the species--even in cases (such as those of infertile couples) in which the nonbehavioral conditions of reproduction do not obtain.

Properly understood in light of a non--dualistic account of the human person, the goodness of marriage and marital intercourse simply cannot be reduced to the status of a mere means to pleasure, feelings of closeness, or any other extrinsic goal. Indeed, it cannot legitimately be treated (as some Christians have, admittedly, sought to treat it) as a mere means to procreation, though children are among the central purposes of marriage and help to specify its meaning as a moral reality even for married couples who cannot have children. [Marital] acts realize the unity of marriage (italics added), which includes the coming to be of children.

In the Judeo-Christian tradition bodily, sexual union is personal union.  Since the body is not seen as a mere instrument of the conscious and desiring "self", sex cannot be reduced to a means of pleasure seeking, expressing affection, or even to the begetting of children.  It is properly viewed as a biologically unifying act that forms the foundation of a multi-level (biological, spiritual, emotional, etc.) sharing of life between two individuals.  As I have noted in a previous post, this view helps to make sense of the consummation requirement that is part of the legal tradition of all western civilizations.  Short of a sex act that was procreative in type, the marriage of a couple was not viewed as legally complete since it lacked the biological unity that was seen as an essential element of a completed marriage.

Why is the liberal view on sexuality so damaging?  Because it is a lie.  And like all lies, once it is accepted it leads to other lies.  Liberal views on abortion are a natural outgrowth of their views on sexual morality.  They want sexuality to be an innocent pleasure, but they cannot hide from the fact that quite often, sexual behavior manifests its biologically unitive characteristic in the creation of new life.  Rather than recognizing the error of their ways, they claim that the fetus (while human) is not yet a person (lacking the conscious and desiring aspect to qualify as a 'self').  Thus, it is not due full respect under the law and can be discarded at the mother's whim.  The mother, buying into the secular lie, is often faced with tremendous guilt following an abortion because she senses the lie at some level of her soul.  Once again, rather than acknowledging the lie, secularists hope that by repeating the lie often enough and loud enough, the guilt will be removed.

Sexual activity is immoral, secularists claim, only when it is non-consensual or when the consenting persons do not take proper precaution to avoid unwanted pregnancy or disease.  When presented with evidence of continued unwanted pregnancies, disease, and the emotional distress that are a natural outgrowth of their secular dogma (and this in spite of their best efforts to promote safe-sex and abortion as necessary), they blame it on 'Christian Fundamentalists'.  These problems are easily solved, they claim.  If Christians would stop blocking secular policy efforts and join the secularists in advocating abortion and safe-sex practices, individuals could continue to enjoy the free and easy pleasures of sex without the unpleasant side-effects.

What if secularists achieved their goals?  What if all of humanity joined in the crusade to make sex the innocent pleasure that secularists want it to be?  What if abortion put an end to all unwanted pregnancy, and safe-sex was practiced so perfectly that sexually transmitted disease was completely eradicated (actually if safe-sex was practiced perfectly I suppose there would be no need for abortion)?  Would we have reached the state of sexual nirvana where we could have our proverbial cake and eat it too?  Dr. George thinks not:

The psychosomatic integrity (i.e. mind/body unity) of the person is another of the basic or intrinsic goods of the human person. This integrity is disrupted in any sexual act that lacks the common good of marriage as its central specifying point. Where sex is sought purely for pleasure, or as a means of inducing feelings of emotional closeness, or for some other extrinsic end, the body is treated as a sub--personal, purely instrumental, reality. This existential separation of the body and the conscious and desiring part of the self serves literally to dis--integrate the person. It takes the person apart, disrupting the good of acting as the dynamically unified being one truly is.

Did our Christian forebears invent this idea of integrity? Did they dream up the notion that sexual immorality damages integrity by dis--integrating the person? No. Christianity has had, to be sure, a very important role in promoting and enhancing our understanding of sexual morality. But in the dialogues of Plato and the teachings of Aristotle, in the writings of Plutarch and the great Roman stoic Musonius Rufus, and, of course, in Jewish tradition, one can find the core of this central, important teaching about the way sex is so central to integrity, and therefore so central not only to us as individuals but to us as a community. Disintegrated, individual human beings cannot form an integrated community.

Individuals who are 'disintegrated' will be incapable of then integrating with other individuals to form lasting families, and communities that are necessary to the functioning of a free society.  The truth of this claim is most easily witnessed in those countries where state sponsored welfare is most prevalent.  Is it any coincidence that those countries that are most heavily dependent on the government to provide for basic welfare needs are also those countries most entrenched in secular orthodoxy?  As the voluntary forms of social bonding and support break down, it falls to the state to perform these welfare functions.  Once again, rather than recognize that this unfortunate result is the natural consequence of secular ideology, secularists pretend that state sponsored welfare is 'enlightened' and 'desired.'  This socialist dream, which sounds so wonderful in theory, does not look so rosy when viewed in the light of history. Perhaps it is this destructive state that the leaders of my faith had in mind when they said:

"We warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets."

Am I a Glenn-Beck-ificator Too?

So I got in a debate with some libertarian-types who were bemoaning the state of our country.  "How did we get here?", they ask.  "If we could just pull the government out of everything then our creative abilities would be set free to solve everything and we would reach the state of libertarian nirvana!"  So I pitched my now fairly firm belief that this is IMPOSSIBLE unless we start rebuilding the family and other institutions to take care of the social welfare needs of society.  Something has to take its place!  I added a bit about my view that social liberalism and its views on sexuality (I think I called it sexual anarchy in the debate) are incompatible with a free society.  Social liberalism participates in the destruction of families, churches and other institutions that HAVE to be strong if we ever hope to get off the government teat.  Here was Smitty's response:

SMITTY:You're a Fruit-Bat. What a bunch of Bunk. No wonder Mormons are persecuted... the sh** you're peddling doesn't square with reality.

You just invent non-sense to square with your non-sensical views. You just throw around terms; 'Leftist', 'Liberalism', 'Welfarism'... you haven't got a clue what you're talking about. This is the Glenn Beck-ification of American discourse. You just talk sh**.

Individualism is what the US is all about. Just because one is individualistic doesn't mean that they are anarchists.

The Government has no place in the bedrooms of the nation.. and sexual morality laid down by Mormons, would be a pretty comical, but deserving fate, for an America that would subscribe to your vacuous prattling.

Who are you, to be fit to determine what a 'norm' or a 'standard' would be?... You believe in 'fairy tales'... and follow a Religion invented by a two bit Con Man...

Anyone who brings 'sexual morality' and 'family values' into a conversation about the Constitution, is clearly a Dogmatic Bunko Salesman.

The Pea-Brains that are proliferating at an alarming rate...who follow to the nit-wittery that you subscribe to, are the primary reason the United States is becoming a laughing stock.


SAM: Pretty good for an ad hominem attack Smitty but you didn't even address anything I talked about, and I don't even think you tried to understand what I am saying.

In his initial post Occam despaired the loss of the constitution due to the fact that the government is doing too much for us now. A HUGE chunk of that is related to social welfare expenses. I see a direct connection between the breakdown of institutions such as the family, the church, community institutions and the rise of the government to fill those roles. Maybe that is a stretch...it seems pretty obvious to me. Anyone who wants to advocate a decline in government expenditure on welfare, but not propose anything to fill the void is kidding themselves. I'm proposing some things that are necessary to fill the void.

I'm all for an 'individualistic' society. Fine. But there are social welfare needs that can only be addressed collectively. We either choose to come together as individuals, or we let the government take over those social welfare needs. And when we give the government control over greater and greater pieces of the national wealth we shouldn't be surprised when they do things we don't agree with.


SMITTY: You post bunk.. I throw To-Mah-Toes... there are no rules.

There's no sense in debating your assertions. You put forth no evidence or logic... you simply make sh** up and present it as fact.

Like everything you post.. it's circular logic.. you believe things.. and you speciously substitute your beliefs, for something that could be debated.

Your POV is not an argument... you offer no facts to be debated.

This is the state of American discourse... people pull stuff out of the a** and run with it, as if it is something for debate... or as if they are seeking some sort of 'understanding'...

Basically, ideologues push their Dogma.. until you the shoot them. would I bother to have a debate with Mohammed Atta? Osama Bin Laden? Pat Robertson? Marshal Applewhite? No. There's no point in debating dogma or faith or non-sense...

You would just keep presenting more bunk.. and more dogma.. and more of your self acclaimed assertions, as being some sort of evidence... it would be pointless.

You get the point.  The more I thought about it though, he's kinda right.  I do just make assertions.  Most of my assertions are extensions of my gospel testimony.  They aren't open to refutation.  Now do not misunderstand me...there is nothing wrong with bearing a testimony or even advocating political postitions based on spiritual testimony of truth.  But, as Elder Oaks reminded us in his speech at BYU Idaho last fall,

"...religious persons will often be most persuasive in political discourse by framing arguments and positions in ways that are respectful of those who do not share their religious beliefs and that contribute to the reasoned discussion and compromise that is essential in a pluralistic society."

Smitty's criticisms of my argument actually reminded me of the criticism that the BYU professors (cited in an earlier post) made about Glenn Beck:

"Most of the books of Beck's I've picked up … are like his manic, ADHD television personality," said BYU political science professor Ralph Hancock. "He's just throwing stuff out there. They're not meant to be read as discursive arguments. They're just thrown out there to try to entertain people who would rather be Twittering or playing video games."
I find in [Beck] a trace of anti-intellectualism," Hancock said. "My interest is to help connect a certain LDS conservative impulse or mood with a more deeply grounded intellectual conservatism. We can't enter the political field with the argument that all the bad, but smart people think X, but we good dumb people think Y."

 So I suppose I am a bit of a Glenn-Beck-ificator...no apologies but definitely a wake up call to do better!

The Constitution is Dead

This is another great post from my buddy Occam on the CommonSense forum with a bit of back and forth as follow up (sorry again for such a long post to anyone who actually bothers to read...It's worth it I promise!)

OCCAM:
Every person elected as President of the United States must recite the following oath.

Quote:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Every president since FDR has utterly failed to uphold this oath.

Upholding the Constitution's sharp limits on government was once a sacred duty for the men who worked in the oval office, even if that meant making unpopular decisions.

They knew that limiting the scope of the federal government was crucial to the continuation of the American experiment. They knew that turning the federal government into a giant money pool would ultimately destroy the freedoms our forefathers had fought so hard for. They knew that, sometimes, they would have to make the hard choices, even if it meant they would be ostracized.

That is why they took that oath.

Quote:

President Franklin Pierce’s 1854 veto of a measure to help the mentally ill read, “I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity. [To approve the measure] would be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded.”

One cannot even imagine a president today vetoing a reading program for the mentally ill. But that is exactly what presidents of the past did, on a regular basis. Or government, by design, was never meant to be a public charity. But that is exactly what it has become.

On the issue of using federal funds to build up infrastructure, something similar to Obama's recent Stimulus Program, President James Madison had this to say:

Quote:

“Having considered the bill this day presented to me . . . which sets apart and pledges funds ‘for constructing roads and canals, and improving the navigation of water courses, in order to facilitate, promote, and give security to internal commerce among the several States, and to render more easy and less expensive the means and provisions for the common defense,’ I am constrained by the insuperable difficulty I feel in reconciling the bill with the Constitution. . . .”

Madison could find no provision in the Constitution allowing federal infrastructure projects precisely because no provision ever existed. The federal government, as the founders envisioned, was never intended to take on the responsibility of building roadways or transport. In their minds, these were best left to the states.

The definition for what is allowable under our constitution has shifted so much in the last 100 years that today's federal government would be unrecognizable to presidents of the past.

Today, every congressman goes to Washington with his or her hand out, trying desperately to funnel as much money as possible into their districts. This comes in the form of road projects, bridges, government office buildings, financial assistance, tax breaks, etc.

This system has shifted the focus of our lawmakers from good governance to begging. They beg for campaign contributions so that they can go to Washington, D.C. to beg for money to pay back their campaign contributors. Then they must beg for more to keep their constituents happy, so that they can win another election and beg for more. This cycle is destroying our nation. It is obvious from our ballooning federal debt. And We always want more. But we never want to pay for it.

This is where principled men and women are supposed to stand up and shout "No!" No to stimulus spending! No to health care spending! No to education spending! No to welfare spending!

We want all these things, of course. We think these things will end our reliance on our crappy jobs, or on our crappy economy, we think these things will set us free, free to do the things we really want to do.

But what many do not realize is that these things end up controlling us. Huge swathes of our economy, including millions of jobs, live or die depending on how much our government wants to spend on a particular project.

Our spending through Medicare and on health insurance tax cuts is driving health care prices through the roof, making health care unaffordable to anyone who is not receiving federal benefits.

Our spending on education has centralized control of tens of thousands of schools, millions of teachers, and tens of millions of students into the hands of a few people in Washington, D.C.

Our welfare spending, which we say helps people without jobs, takes money out of the economy, money that could have been used to create jobs for the very people we claim to be helping.

Just Say No

It is time to say "No." If you want special interests out of Washington, remove what is bringing them there: the money. If you want to cut spending and reduce the deficit, you have to remove money. If you want to bring politics back to the state and local level, where you actually have a voice, then you need to take back the money. But it begins by saying "No."

The transition will not be easy, but when have Americans ever shied away from a challenge? Living under a paternalistic government is easy, but it quickly builds dependence. And once you are dependent, you are no longer free. We claim we want freedom, but we need the government constantly. We need the benefits it gives us. We have stopped providing for ourselves. Instead we look up to the government, with our hands out. We have given our freedom away, in exchange for convenience.

America was not meant to have a government that cares for you, that picks you up when you skin your knee, that makes you sandwich when you get hungry. Americans are supposed to be brave. We are supposed to take what life gives us, good or bad, and thrive.

America was meant to be the land of opportunity, the land of freedom, the land where you did what you want, and took responsibility for yourself. That is what the founders had in mind when they penned the Constitution 224 years ago. The government was there to protect your freedom to follow your dreams, and little more.

America was not supposed to be easy. It was supposed to be free. We have strayed so far from that ideal that I do not know if we can ever find our way back. But I will try, because I know what must be done. I know what must be done to revive the American spirit, to get back to the ideals upon which this country was founded, to get back the ideals that made this country great.

It starts by saying "No."

SAM: Those are great thoughts Occam. The problem I see with this type of reasoning however, is that it all depends on Americans being organized in a way that they are prepared to take care of themselves. This requires a spirit of community founded on strong families that help each other because they want to. If we simple yank the government out of the welfare business, there are still people that are suffering (emotionally, financially, etc.) that need to be taken care of. I think in our more primitive days as a country we were better organized and willing to address these needs. As we've chosen a path of greater individualism and self-fulfillment we ironically find ourselves more reliant on self-serving bureaucracies to take care of our welfare needs.

OCCAM: The spirit of community did not spring up simply because people liked talking to their neighbor. The spirit of community is a survival mechanism created by humans to face the daily challenges of living.

Government is supposed to be an institutionalization of the community spirit, but it has become so abstracted from reality, especially on the federal level, that the spirit in which it was created no longer exists, but rather it has taken on a life and mind of its own.

As follows naturally from what I just said, by yanking the government we stand a strong chance of remaking new communities to help each other. With the advent of the internet, communicating and organizing has never been easier or faster. We simply have no motivation to do so, because the government ostensibly is there to serve that purpose. However, as we can all plainly see, the government is doing a rather terrible job of it, and putting us all into debt to boot.

I submit we can do better, if given the opportunity.

SAM:I agree with you for the most part. I guess where we differ may be in how we got here. I don't think it is the result of a government coup. I think we gradually let down our defenses over the years. We have decided to sacrifice devotion to family and community in pursuit of selfish desires. Politicians have seized the opportunity to acquire greater power by promising to clean up the mess we leave behind. They never fully succeed of course. But the government increases in power as a result and over time develops a 'mind of its own' as you say to pursue ends we never intended. But that is what ALWAYS happens when we give the government more power...we think we are granting it power to pursue particular end but it inevitably uses that power to pursue ends we never intended.

Maybe we do stand a chance to "remake new communities to help each other" as you say. I certainly hope so. I fear that the transition is something that most Americans don't have the stomach for.

OCCAM: You are absolutely right. We got here because we got lazy, and believed politicians who promised us more than they could deliver. In the end, we got more than what we bargained for, and the very power we gave these politicians to help us ended up being used against us.

Taking Conservatism Back to It's Roots

Here is an article by Pat Buchanan I found on The American Conservative .  The article is entitled "Liquidating the Empire" and it is a critique of American foreign policy.  I was tipped off to this article when I listened to Dan Carlin's Common Sense podcast this morning.  Why have conservatives become the pro-war party?  What happened to the Robert Taft version of conservatism that advocated a non-interventionist foreign policy?  Or even in the LDS tradition, what happened to the voices of men like J. Reuben Clark who declared in the aftermath of WWII (article link here):

In our course under the new gospel of interference with everything we do not like, we have gone forward and are going forward, as if we possessed all the good of human government, of human economic concept, of human comfort, and of human welfare, all of which we are to impose on the balance of the world,— a concept born of the grossest national egotism. In human affairs no nation can say that all it practices and believes is right, and that all others have that differs from what it has is wrong. Men inflict an unholy tragedy when they proceed on that basis. No man, no society, no people, no nation is wholly right in human affairs; and none is wholly wrong. A fundamental principle of the operation of human society is to live and let live.  Yet, to repeat, we have entered into new fields to impose our will and concepts on others. This means we must use force, and force means war, not peace.  What has our apostasy from peace cost us?

Pat Buchanan declares that our "apostasy from peace" has cost us our national soul in some sense.  America, once universally admired, is now equally scorned.  And beyond the loss of respect, the loss of blood and treasure is reaching the point where 'liquidation' of the empire is becoming inevitable.  Give it a read and tell me what you think:

A decade ago, Oldsmobile went. Last year, Pontiac. Saturn, Saab, and Hummer were discontinued. A thousand GM dealerships shut down.  To those who grew up in a “GM family,” where buying a Chrysler was like converting to Islam, what happened to GM was deeply saddening.
Yet the amputations had to be done — or GM would die.
And the same may be about to happen to the American Imperium.
Its birth can be traced to World War II, when America put 16 million men in uniform and sent millions across the seas to crush Nazi Germany and Japan. After V-E and V-J Day, the boys came home.
But with the Stalinization of half of Europe, the fall of China, and war in Korea came NATO and alliances with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, Pakistan and Australia that lasted through the Cold War.
In 1989, however, the Cold War ended dramatically with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the retirement of the Red Army from Europe, the break-up of the Soviet Union and Beijing’s abandonment of world communist revolution.
Overnight, our world changed. But America did not change.
As Russia shed her alliances and China set out to capture America’s markets, Uncle Sam soldiered on.
We clung to the old alliances and began to add new allies. NATO war guarantees were distributed like credit cards to member states of the old Warsaw Pact and former republics of the Soviet Union.
We invaded Panama and Haiti, smashed Iraq, liberated Kuwait, intervened in Somalia and Bosnia, bombed Serbia, and invaded Iraq again — and Afghanistan. Now we prepare for a new war — on Iran.
Author Lawrence Vance has inventoried America’s warfare state.
We spend more on defense than the next 10 nations combined.
Our Navy exceeds in firepower the next 13 navies combined. We have 100,000 troops in Iraq, 100,000 in Afghanistan or headed there, 28,000 in Korea, over 35,000 in Japan and 50,000 in Germany. By the Department of Defense’s “Base Structure Report,” there are 716 U.S. bases in 38 countries.
Chalmers Johnson, who has written books on this subject, claims DOD is minimizing the empire. He discovered some 1,000 U.S. facilities, many of them secret and sensitive. And according to DOD’s “Active Duty Military Personnel Strengths by Regional Area and by Country,” U.S. troops are now stationed in 148 countries and 11 territories.
Estimated combined budgets for the Pentagon, two wars, foreign aid to allies, 16 intelligence agencies, scores of thousands of contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, and our new castle-embassies: $1 trillion a year.
While this worldwide archipelago of bases may have been necessary when we confronted a Sino-Soviet bloc spanning Eurasia from the Elbe to East China Sea, armed with thousands of nuclear weapons and driven by imperial ambition and ideological hatred of us, that is history now.
It is preposterous to argue that all these bases are essential to our security. Indeed, our military presence, our endless wars and our support of despotic regimes have made America, once the most admired of nations, almost everywhere resented and even hated.
Liquidation of this empire should have begun with the end of the Cold War. Now it is being forced upon us by the deficit-debt crisis. Like GM, we can’t kick this can up the road any more, because we have come to the end of the road.
Republicans will fight new taxes. Democrats will fight to save social programs. Which leaves the American empire as the logical lead cow for the butcher’s knife.

Indeed, how do conservatives justify borrowing hundreds of billions yearly from Europe, Japan and the Gulf states — to defend Europe, Japan and the Arab Gulf states? Is it not absurd to borrow hundreds of billion annually from China — to defend Asia from China? Is it not a symptom of senility to borrow from all over the world in order to defend that world?  (italics added)

In their Mount Vernon declaration of principles, conservatives called the Constitution their guiding star. But did not the author of that constitution, James Madison, warn us that wars are the death of republics?
Under Bush II, conservatives, spurning the wisdom of their fathers, let themselves be seduced, neo-conned into enlisting in a Wilsonian crusade that had as its declared utopian goal “ending tyranny in our world.”
How could conservatives whose defining virtue is prudence and who pride themselves on following the lamp of experience have been taken into camp by the hustlers and hucksters of empire?
Yet, now that Barack Obama has embraced neo-socialism, Republicans are about to be given a second chance. And just as Rahm Emanuel said liberal Democrats should not let a financial crisis go to waste, but exploit it to ram through their agenda, the right should use the opportunity of the fiscal crisis to take an axe to the warfare state.
Ron Paul’s victory at CPAC may be a sign the prodigal sons of the right are casting off the heresy of neoconservatism and coming home to first principles.  -  Pat Buchanan

Religion vs. Science

I have been involved for the past few days in a discussion with mostly atheists and some agnostics on the value of religion. The discussion has helped me formulate my own thoughts so I decided to transfer excerpts to my blog (sorry for such a long post!).  Check it out if you have any interest and let me know what you think.  If you are interested in this type of thing, check out this 2006 debate between two evolutionary biologists: Francis Collins (a Christian, and Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute) and Richard Dawkins (author of The God Delusion.)  I also highly recommend Francis Collins book The Language of God.

SAM:  Religion responds to the 'why?' questions in life. Why are we here? What is our purpose on earth.  Where do we find answers to these questions outside of religion?  CS Lewis describes it in this manner ( from Mere Christianity):

"Science works by experiments. It watches how things behave. Every scientific statement in the long run, however complicated it looks, really means something like, 'I pointed the telescope to such and such a part of the sky at 2:20 a.m. on January 15th and saw so and-so,' or, 'I put some of this stuff in a pot and heated it to such -and such a temperature and it did so-and-so.' Do not think I am saying anything against science: I am only saying what its job is. And the more scientific a man is, the more (I believe) he would agree with me that this is the job of science--and a very useful and necessary job it is too. But why anything comes to be there at all, and whether there is anything behind the things science observes--something of a different kind-this is not a scientific question. If there is 'Something Behind,' then either it will have to remain altogether unknown to men or else make itself known in some different way. The statement that there is any such thing, and the statement that there is no such thing, are neither of them statements that science can make. And real scientists do not usually make them. It is usually the journalists and popular novelists who have picked up a few odds and ends of half-baked science from textbooks who go in for them. After all, it is really a matter of common sense. Supposing science ever became complete so that it knew every single thing in the whole universe. Is it not plain that the questions, 'Why is there a universe?' 'Why does it go on as it does?' 'Has it any meaning?' would remain just as they were?"

VANESSA:  Okay, so you say the question is "what is our purpose on earth?" That could be answered simply enough, in evolutionary terms. Our purpose is to survive long enough to pass our genetic material to the next generation. If the question is widened to include all humanity, then it could be answered that our purpose as a species is to survive and perhaps evolve in such a way that we stave off extinction for as long as possible.

If the question is, specifically, "What is our spiritual purpose on earth?" then you have to define spirit and spiritual and explain why you think these things exist and why they demand a purpose if they do.

If the question is "How can I as an individual find a satisfying purpose for my individual life?" then the answer could be any of a wide range of possibilities. It could come through work or through relationships with others or art or music or religion. But it couldn't be a universal answer, because different people can be shown to find meaning and purpose in different ways.

If you have chosen the middle option then we would have to first agree that there is something which could be described as spirit or spiritual before we answer. So describe what that thing is and why it's not a matter of brain chemistry and evolutionary or cultural pressures on the particular animal we call human.


SAM:  [On the first question] all you are saying here is that the purpose of life is to perpetuate more life. So we are right back to square one. Why do humans exist at all?

[On the question, "What is our spiritual purpose on earth"] I'm not sure I would draw such a strong distinction between the spiritual and material. If there is a spiritual realm, it is apparently integrated with the material and it seems unlikely that the two spheres of existence have completely separate purposes.

I think my question is better expressed in the following ways: Is there a purpose for the existence of humanity (besides just perpetuating more humanity)? Do we share a common destiny? Is there existence beyond this earth life? If so, do our individual actions determine our place in the eternities? If my actions do matter, how am I to act? Did I exist in some manner before I was born?

These are the types of questions that lead people to religious inquiry. Many on this board apparently don't care. That's fine...I don't suggest that people have to ask these questions. But many of us do. In fact, the history of humanity suggests that most of us do. And it is ignorant to suggest that only the deluded and irrational ask these questions. There are countless examples of brilliant thinkers who were also deeply religious.

VANESSA: If the question is posed in a fair way I think it would have to be "Is there a (greater, spiritual, etc) purpose behind the universe and our existence?" Asked in that way, the Atheist can simple answer, "No." If you ask instead "What is the purpose?" or "Why are we here and no fair answering with how we came about through evolution?" that is a rigged question. It presupposes that you can't simply answer that there was an evolutionary reason for religions forming or that something in the human brains pattern recognition systems tends to recognize patterns and intentionality even where none exist.

There aren't any questions that can't be answered by beliefs in things like brain chemistry and evolutionary pressure. This does not mean that those are the true answers, just that I insist that it be recognized that some people find them perfectly acceptable and explanatory.

I tend to think that there is something to the totality of lived experience, morality, beauty, consciousness, that is better explained by spiritual answers than by science. However I don't see any reason to privilege one religion over any of the others unless it happens to be the religion you were brought up into.

I've always found my vague sense of something greater, my appreciation of art and music and nature, and my occasional doubts and tendencies towards atheistic explanations are very fulfilling and don't leave me with a sense of lacking anything either morally or in any other way. I also know that many atheists are perfectly happy explaining everything this through brain chemistry and evolutionary pressures and seem to feel they're not missing out on anything. They may feel the same awe I do on a mountaintop or under the night sky and enjoy it thoroughly without needing to find anything more than interesting neuro-chemistry behind it.

Now, a question for those believers who feel more strongly that atheists are wrong and/or their own religion is the right one:

If it's true that there are atheists (or believers in other religions) who have an internally consistent system of beliefs and live their lives in a way which is moral and find themselves as happy and satisfied in their lives as much as anyone, do you feel that this would somehow conflict with your own beliefs in some way? Does it make God less likely to be real?

Now I think of it, the question can be posed just as easily to the more vehement atheists. So:

If there are believers who have thought things through and arrived at a consistent set of beliefs which accord with science, and who are happy and moral etc, does this somehow threaten your own beliefs or your world view? Would it make god more likely to be real if other people persist in believing in spite of hearing all your arguments?


SAM:  Vanessa, thanks for a very insightful comment and great questions. As to your restructuring of the "Why?" question I posed, I think I see your point, but I don't think it gets us anywhere. If, in response to your question "Is there a (greater, spiritual, etc) purpose behind the universe and our existence?" an atheist answers, "No", the question is simply extended "How do you know there is no (greater, spiritual, etc.) purpose behind the universe and our existence?" It seems that the atheist has no answer other than to say, "that's my opinion." If this is the case, the best an atheist can claim is to be agnostic. All they are saying is that for some reason they don't care about asking the "Why?" questions.

[In response to your question to the believers,] it should be noted that the question is loaded with certain conditions that would certainly never come to pass. An astute believer would probably probe the atheist until they found holes in their supposedly "internally consistent belief system." The gaps in logic that the believer found would undoubtedly be challenged by the atheist, and an argument would ensue that would have no resolution. In fact, I think it is fair to say that this is the current state of affairs on the very question you are posing: an ongoing argument. Also, the whole idea of persons being "as happy and satisfied in their lives as much as anyone" presupposes that there is some objective measure of happiness agreeable by all. I can't imagine such a universally accepted happiness meter existing.


[In response to your question to the atheists,] once again, I think the question is posed with certain conditions that are unimaginable. Religious belief presupposes that certain premises are taken on faith. How could science ever prove (for example) that Christ truly atoned for the sins of mankind, or that His resurrection ensures the resurrection of humanity? Every religion has these type of faith-based features. These are the features that make them 'religions'. A 'person of faith' who's belief system accords fully with science has necessarily ditched certain faith-based beliefs and is no longer a 'person of faith'.

VANESSA:  Well, as you say Sam an atheist can always find things he feels to be inconsistent or ridiculous in the believer's system, and a believer can always say that a simple "no" answer to the question "Is there a larger/greater/spiritual purpose behind the universe" is not good enough. When I say "consistent" I mean, there's no question you can pose to this hypothetical atheist that they can't answer in a way they find satisfying enough for themselves, with the converse true for the believer.

What I intended was just to exclude cases where the believer insists on things are completely opposed to all scientific evidence (young earth creationism comes to mind). And also exclude cases where the atheist insists on things which can be proven factually inaccurate- like those who claim that religion is a consistent force for evil and is at the root of all wars and killing or whatever.

I'm not sure, but you sound like you might be saying that an atheist who considers themselves happy and moral and satisfied with their life isn't really any of those things, by your measurement of those things, and that yours is right and their own is wrong. Is this what you believe- that they don't know what they're missing?

SAM:  If that is what is meant by your question, then I think the answer is obvious in both instances (the question to the atheist and believer) for that is the situation in which we find ourselves. Atheists and believers are convinced of the internal consistency of their belief systems. If they recognized (and admitted) an inconsistency how could they possibly be 'happy' in their belief system? They would be forced to reevaluate their system of belief to find contentedness.

[As for the 'young creationists' as well as those who insist religion is always a force for evil,] I think individuals that fall into either camp are not even worth having a conversation with.

What I meant [in regards to the happiness issue] was that both sides would most likely define happiness in such a way that excluded the possibility of happiness to the other side. The religious believer may base a large portion of their happiness on the joy they find through their faith. They may, therefore, conclude that anyone lacking that type of happiness has bought into a false and fleeting form of happiness. The atheist may conclude that a believer who is 'happy' because of their faith is deluding themselves and is actually mentally deranged. "The believer would be much happier", the atheist might say, "if he would face the truth and drop his delusions." My point was that the whole idea of an objective version of happiness could never be settled on.

DIATRIBALIST:  I suppose [Vanessa's comments about those who claim religion is a consistent force for evil] was directed partially at me. I have read much on the history of the creation of the Catholic Church and the corruption associated with it. There is nothing factually inaccurate in my assessment. The Church has a history of cruelty and corruption. And after the reformation, the Protestant religions did not do much better.
I do not believe in evil. What I do believe is that humans are animals. They have animal instincts. Religion is an attempt to quell those instincts. Instead, it gives an outlet to those instincts for the leaders and some enterprising followers. The instinct to control others. The instinct to do as little work as possible for the greatest reward. The instinct to feel superior to your fellow creatures. These instincts have lead people, using religion, using the fear of god, to start wars for economic gain. To torture and kill for the glory of god and the riches of the church. From the Crusades to the Inquisition. To Prohibition and todays modern Isalmic Jihadis, Religion has been the bane of civility for centuries. Always with the "best of intentions" and for "the glory of god", religious crusades always end in a bloody mess.

Religion was created out of human instinct. Humans are animals, so it follows religion will conduct itself with animalistic characteristics.


[And Sam,]the goal of life should be truth, not happiness. But if people are happy believing in god, then so be it. The problem I have is when religionist take their beliefs into the public square and try to influence laws, forcing their specific morality on society at large. Pray in the closet, as Jesus suggested. Don't be proud in your faith, humble yourself before the lord and respect others right to disagree and possibly anger your god. That is the essence of religious tolerance.

SAM:  [In response to Diatribalist,] although there may be nothing factually inaccurate in your assessment, it is clear that you choose to selectively exclude the tremendous good that churches do as well. You speak about the history of 'cruelty and corruption' but you fail to include the work of someone like Mother Teresa who was motivated by her faith. That is why people like you are not worth having a conversation with. You look at religion with blinders on and you refuse to look at evidence that contradicts your preconceived notions. The irony is you accuse the church of 'cruelty and corruption' yet within the same breath you express your belief that evil does not exist.

Your foundation of moral relativism provides you with no firm basis on which to judge the actions of the church. The best you can say is that the church does things that you would choose not to do. But even in this statement you would be indicating the possibility of choice (and free will) thus lending an attribute to humanity that distinguishes it from the brute animal.

'Pure religion' is not created out of human instinct. It seeks to channel human insinct into its proper bounds. Human beings are agents in that they (i) possess a capacity to choose between options and (ii) possess the power (in many instances) to act on their choices (see Oxford Companion to Philosophy). This distinguishes the human animal from the brute animal, as the brute animal is guided entirely by instinct. Human beings are prompted by instinct, but they choose whether or not to act on those instincts. Religion seeks to guide those choices. I really like the way CS Lewis describes it:

"We all know what it feels like to be prompted by instinct--by mother love, or sexual instinct, or the instinct for food. It means that you feel a strong want or desire to act in a certain way. And, of course, we sometimes do feel just that sort of desire to help another person: and no doubt that desire is due to the herd instinct. But feeling a desire to help is quite different from feeling that you ought to help whether you want to or not. Supposing you hear a cry for help from a man in danger. You will probably feel two desires--one a desire to give help (due to your herd instinct), the other a desire to keep out of danger (due to the instinct for self-preservation). But you will find inside you, in addition to these two impulses, a third thing which tells you that you ought to follow the impulse to help, and suppress the impulse to run away. Now this thing that judges between two instincts, that decides which should be encouraged, cannot itself be either of them. If two instincts are in conflict, and there is nothing in a creature's mind except those two instincts, obviously the stronger of' the two must win. But at those moments when we are most conscious of the Moral Law, it usually seems to be telling us to side with the weaker of the two impulses. You probably want to be safe much more than you want to help the man who is drowning: but the Moral Law tells you to help him all the same. And surely it often tells us to try to make the right impulse stronger than it naturally is? I mean, we often feel it our duty to stimulate the herd instinct, by waking up our imaginations and arousing our pity and so on, so as to get up enough steam for doing the right thing. But clearly we are not acting from instinct when we set about making an instinct stronger than it is. The thing that says to you, 'Your herd instinct is asleep. Wake it up,' cannot itself be the herd instinct."

 [And Diatribilist,] on the 'enforcing morality' issue, you are deluding yourself. Laws are by definition a codification of morality. Religious participants are wise to advocate their positions in terms that are agreeable to secularists, but they are under no obligation to do so. Astute religionists are every bit as capable of defending their moral positions rationally as any secularist out there. But the fact is, we live in a democratic society, and it is (as Prez Obama said) "[a practical absurdity] to say that men and women should not inject their "personal morality into public policy debates."