First, Jim Wallis tried to make it okay for Christians to vote for a pro-abortion candidate. Then Brian McLaren followed suit. These two paved the way for the inevitable: an evangelical celebrity who would go the whole nine yards and endorse Barack Obama.
Meet Donald Miller. Apparently Miller's claim to fame is a book that he authored, entitled Blue Like Jazz. I've heard rave reviews of the book but have not read it; there's too much great literature out there and so little time to spend on fads. Miller is using his fame to campaign for Barack Obama. Like other Christians who have recently announced their support for Obama, he wants to treat abortion like a traffic management issue and marriage like a civil rights issue. And he has some absurd notions about law and the Supreme Court. All this proves is that he has never given a moment's reflection or study to moral, legal, or political philosophy. But young Christians are listening attentively and taking his assertions very, very seriously.
I am sure that Miller's heart is in the right place. And he is right to support male mentorship and assistance to the poor and suffering. (It is interesting to note, however, that conservative Christians have been championing and furthering these causes for decades without fanfare or self-aggrandizement.) Good on him for motivating young Christians to good deeds. But before opining on policy, law, and morality, he would do well to read a book or two on the subjects.
Showing posts with label liberals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label liberals. Show all posts
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
"I hate her."
Jay Nordlinger has some useful observations on the Left's pathological hatred -- yes, hatred -- of, and attempts to destroy, Sarah Palin. I share Nordlinger's physical revulsion at the recent behavior of the mainstream media and cultural elite. However, I think his anecdotal sample is slightly skewed by living in New York. Most Americans are not nearly so vile as the liberal elite.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
A depressing record for liberals
It must be depressing to be a liberal these days. Democrats are losing the presidential election after liberals succeeded in placing the two most liberal members of the Senate on the ticket. Liberals are (finally) losing the culture wars, with public opinion turning slowly but decisively in favor of protecting the lives of the unborn, embracing theistic convictions and the natural law, and defending conjugal marriage. And the United State is winning the War in Iraq, which liberals have tried so hard to forfeit.
Liberals have been trying to encourage each other as the political and cultural landscape has suddenly and unexpectedly grown dark for them. A liberal colleague of mine called my attention to this Bob Herbert op-ed in the (where else?) New York Times. In it, Herbert, trying his best to buck up his leftist cohorts, argues, "Without the extraordinary contribution of liberals — from the mightiest presidents to the most unheralded protesters and organizers — the United States would be a much, much worse place than it is today."
It's an interesting argument. The problem is that it's manifestly untrue. We certainly have liberals to thank for the civil rights movement. To their shame, conservatives sat that one out. But the rest of the supposed achievements of the Left, which Herbert trumpets, simply aren't that impressive. The verdict is very much still out on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, all of which could be bankrupt within a generation. Unfettered welfare was a disaster, and was reformed (and saved) by a conservative Congress and a moderate President. And it is absurd to credit libs with improving the lot of women in America. The feminist movement since ca. 1945 has had the opposite effect with its emphasis on sexual liberation, which frees men from the obligations of marriage. Furthermore, libs gave us abortion, the great moral evil of our time, and capitulated to Communism and Islamic fascism. Overall, not a very good record.
Indeed, liberals can rightly claim credit for only two major achievements in American history: the Bill of Rights and the civil rights movement. At every other pivotal moment in American history -- Dred Scott; the Civil War; the credit crises of the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries; World War II; the Cold War; the culture wars of the late Twentieth and early Twenty-first centuries; the fight against Islamic facism -- liberals have been on the wrong side of history.
The Bill of Rights and the civil rights movement are certainly not insignificant achievements. Both were significant and just causes. However, liberals have managed even to botch these attainments. They have placed activist judges and justices on the courts of our land who have read into the Bill of Rights a tyranny of relativism. The Bill of Rights now contains within its penumbral emanations inviolable rights to obtain abortion on demand, engage in homosexual sodomy, and consume sexual obscenity, among other rights.
And liberals have in the last thirty years manages to despoil even the civil rights movement, arguably the high point of American liberalism. They have rejected the natural law principles on which the movement was founded and replaced them with identity politics, grievance-mongering, affirmative action, a commitment to sexual licentiousness, and a program of affirmative action, all of which harm those whom the civil rights movement was designed to assist.
Herbert protests too much. It must truly be depressing to be a liberal these days.
Liberals have been trying to encourage each other as the political and cultural landscape has suddenly and unexpectedly grown dark for them. A liberal colleague of mine called my attention to this Bob Herbert op-ed in the (where else?) New York Times. In it, Herbert, trying his best to buck up his leftist cohorts, argues, "Without the extraordinary contribution of liberals — from the mightiest presidents to the most unheralded protesters and organizers — the United States would be a much, much worse place than it is today."
It's an interesting argument. The problem is that it's manifestly untrue. We certainly have liberals to thank for the civil rights movement. To their shame, conservatives sat that one out. But the rest of the supposed achievements of the Left, which Herbert trumpets, simply aren't that impressive. The verdict is very much still out on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, all of which could be bankrupt within a generation. Unfettered welfare was a disaster, and was reformed (and saved) by a conservative Congress and a moderate President. And it is absurd to credit libs with improving the lot of women in America. The feminist movement since ca. 1945 has had the opposite effect with its emphasis on sexual liberation, which frees men from the obligations of marriage. Furthermore, libs gave us abortion, the great moral evil of our time, and capitulated to Communism and Islamic fascism. Overall, not a very good record.
Indeed, liberals can rightly claim credit for only two major achievements in American history: the Bill of Rights and the civil rights movement. At every other pivotal moment in American history -- Dred Scott; the Civil War; the credit crises of the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries; World War II; the Cold War; the culture wars of the late Twentieth and early Twenty-first centuries; the fight against Islamic facism -- liberals have been on the wrong side of history.
The Bill of Rights and the civil rights movement are certainly not insignificant achievements. Both were significant and just causes. However, liberals have managed even to botch these attainments. They have placed activist judges and justices on the courts of our land who have read into the Bill of Rights a tyranny of relativism. The Bill of Rights now contains within its penumbral emanations inviolable rights to obtain abortion on demand, engage in homosexual sodomy, and consume sexual obscenity, among other rights.
And liberals have in the last thirty years manages to despoil even the civil rights movement, arguably the high point of American liberalism. They have rejected the natural law principles on which the movement was founded and replaced them with identity politics, grievance-mongering, affirmative action, a commitment to sexual licentiousness, and a program of affirmative action, all of which harm those whom the civil rights movement was designed to assist.
Herbert protests too much. It must truly be depressing to be a liberal these days.
Monday, September 1, 2008
The choice is hers
One of the many lies that pro-abortionists shamelessly perpetuate is that pro-life politicians are trying to take choice away from women. Mark Hemingway today catches Matt Yglesias peddling this prevarication.
Putting aside the obvious fallacies in Yglesias' reasoning -- women choose whether or not to have sex (unless raped), they can choose to put a child up for adoption -- there inheres in this claim a more subtle and foundational deceit. Abortion prohibitions would not eradicate choice about abortion any more than other homicide prohibitions take away choice about other forms of homicide. That homicide is a crime does not prevent many people from choosing to kill other human beings.
Of course, a criminal prohibition against abortion would place the compulsion of the state on the side of innocent human life. And that compulsion would, no doubt, directly inform the choice of would-be aborters. But what's wrong with that? Yglesias and other libs are simply wrong about their claim that conservatives devalue human agency. Indeed, one of the most important reasons to restrict abortion is to encourage women to maintain their character and to avoid an action that would harm their integrity.
Furthermore, many abortion restrictions fall far short of compulsion by threat of criminal punishment. Informed consent requirements, cooling off periods, paternal consent demands, and similar regulations would go a long way toward encouraging women to save the lives of their unborn children.
Liberals, who claim to care about the autonomy of pregnant women, would do well to consider their moral and physical well-being. Pro-life conservatives demonstrate true concern for the health and integrity of women's choices.
Putting aside the obvious fallacies in Yglesias' reasoning -- women choose whether or not to have sex (unless raped), they can choose to put a child up for adoption -- there inheres in this claim a more subtle and foundational deceit. Abortion prohibitions would not eradicate choice about abortion any more than other homicide prohibitions take away choice about other forms of homicide. That homicide is a crime does not prevent many people from choosing to kill other human beings.
Of course, a criminal prohibition against abortion would place the compulsion of the state on the side of innocent human life. And that compulsion would, no doubt, directly inform the choice of would-be aborters. But what's wrong with that? Yglesias and other libs are simply wrong about their claim that conservatives devalue human agency. Indeed, one of the most important reasons to restrict abortion is to encourage women to maintain their character and to avoid an action that would harm their integrity.
Furthermore, many abortion restrictions fall far short of compulsion by threat of criminal punishment. Informed consent requirements, cooling off periods, paternal consent demands, and similar regulations would go a long way toward encouraging women to save the lives of their unborn children.
Liberals, who claim to care about the autonomy of pregnant women, would do well to consider their moral and physical well-being. Pro-life conservatives demonstrate true concern for the health and integrity of women's choices.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
More on health care
A liberal colleague of mine, who identifies himself as an evangelical but stands squarely outside 2000 years of Christian tradition on matters of legal and political philosophy, is fond of the Wallisian argument that Christian moral teaching demands single-payer health care. Christians have a moral obligation, he thinks, to employ the state to ensure that disparities in health care are eradicated.
The flaws in this argument are too many to count. But it is important to respond to this sort of nonsense because many liberal Christians, eager for an excuse to vote for Barack Obama, are buying it.
First, this consequentialist account of political engagement simply does not hang together. It is entirely inconsistent with 2000 years of orthodox Christian teaching on jurisprudence and poltical philosophy. The Church has always taught a moral philosophy that is deontological and emphasizes the importance of the Eschaton values -- virtue, the Good -- relative to things of lesser and merely temporal importance, such as human conditions. In short, these Christian consequentialitsts stand squarely outside of orthodox Christianity. Perhaps that is not troubling to so-called "progressive Christians," but it should at least cause them to pause.
That aside, the assumption on which the argument is predicated -- that the justness or morality of a policy is determined by its consequences (the "moral goal," to borrow your oxymoron) -- is anything but self-evident, and liberal Christians have not bothered to demonstrate it. I would love to know they plan to get around the incommensurability problem, which in the last 50 years has caused consequentialist philosophers the world over to abandon consequentialism as untenable. So far, they aren't saying.
As a prudential and factual matter, their claims are simply wrong. "Progressive" -- statist and collectivist -- proposals have never, anywhere, at any time reduced disparity in healthcare (is it disparity to which they object or inadequacy?), reduced waste, or made anyone more healthy. Health care rationing in Canada is now so extreme that doctors are actually dropping patients from their practice lists. I suppose in that sense, Canada's statist system has reduced disparity: everyone is equally unable to obtain adequate health care.
An old joke about the Soviet economy went like this. After ordering his car at a local dealership, a customer inquired when it might be available to pick up. The dealer told him, "You can come by to get it on February 3, two years from now." The customer replied, "I can't. The plumber's coming that day."There's a reason why that joke is funny. It was true.
Indeed, most (though certainly not all) of the failures of the current health insurance system are due to too much state intervention and not enough freedom of market. If insurers were freed from disparate and restrictive state regulatory schemes, a national market would naturally emerge, increasing access and reducing costs.
The tradeoff would be that less affluent people would end up with "Wal-Mart" plans and more affluent people would end up with "Brooks Brothers" plans. In the minds of conservatives, that would be a good thing. Better a Wal-Mart plan than no plan at all. But liberals care more about disparity than about access, so they prefer a single-payer system that rations a smaller quantum of health care on more equal terms.
McCain's plan is, in the minds of conservatives, superior to the statist solution Obama offers for all of these reasons.
The flaws in this argument are too many to count. But it is important to respond to this sort of nonsense because many liberal Christians, eager for an excuse to vote for Barack Obama, are buying it.
First, this consequentialist account of political engagement simply does not hang together. It is entirely inconsistent with 2000 years of orthodox Christian teaching on jurisprudence and poltical philosophy. The Church has always taught a moral philosophy that is deontological and emphasizes the importance of the Eschaton values -- virtue, the Good -- relative to things of lesser and merely temporal importance, such as human conditions. In short, these Christian consequentialitsts stand squarely outside of orthodox Christianity. Perhaps that is not troubling to so-called "progressive Christians," but it should at least cause them to pause.
That aside, the assumption on which the argument is predicated -- that the justness or morality of a policy is determined by its consequences (the "moral goal," to borrow your oxymoron) -- is anything but self-evident, and liberal Christians have not bothered to demonstrate it. I would love to know they plan to get around the incommensurability problem, which in the last 50 years has caused consequentialist philosophers the world over to abandon consequentialism as untenable. So far, they aren't saying.
As a prudential and factual matter, their claims are simply wrong. "Progressive" -- statist and collectivist -- proposals have never, anywhere, at any time reduced disparity in healthcare (is it disparity to which they object or inadequacy?), reduced waste, or made anyone more healthy. Health care rationing in Canada is now so extreme that doctors are actually dropping patients from their practice lists. I suppose in that sense, Canada's statist system has reduced disparity: everyone is equally unable to obtain adequate health care.
An old joke about the Soviet economy went like this. After ordering his car at a local dealership, a customer inquired when it might be available to pick up. The dealer told him, "You can come by to get it on February 3, two years from now." The customer replied, "I can't. The plumber's coming that day."There's a reason why that joke is funny. It was true.
Indeed, most (though certainly not all) of the failures of the current health insurance system are due to too much state intervention and not enough freedom of market. If insurers were freed from disparate and restrictive state regulatory schemes, a national market would naturally emerge, increasing access and reducing costs.
The tradeoff would be that less affluent people would end up with "Wal-Mart" plans and more affluent people would end up with "Brooks Brothers" plans. In the minds of conservatives, that would be a good thing. Better a Wal-Mart plan than no plan at all. But liberals care more about disparity than about access, so they prefer a single-payer system that rations a smaller quantum of health care on more equal terms.
McCain's plan is, in the minds of conservatives, superior to the statist solution Obama offers for all of these reasons.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Liberal theonomy comes in Catholic variety, too
We have on numerous occasions condemned theonomous reasoning on matters of civic importance (for examples, see here, here, here, and here). Both liberal Christians and conservative Christians can be found arguing that the Bible says x, therefore Christians ought to endorse y policy. Almost invariably one finds that the speaker is a protestant, usually a self-described evangelical.
Today the Bishop of Providence, Rhode Island demonstrates that Catholics are not immune to the temptation to indulge in theonomous lines of argument. According to the AP, "Rhode Island's Roman Catholic bishop is calling on U.S. authorities to halt mass immigration raids and says agents who refuse to participate in such raids on moral grounds deserve to be treated as conscientious objectors." America's immigration laws ought not be enforced, according to Tobin, because they are unjust and immoral.
One of the many problems with the rhetorical tie between theology and public policy is that it is a cop-out. It excuses the one making the assertion from engaging in the rigorous process of reasoning publicly, invoking publicly-accessible propositions and demonstrating proofs. Bishop Tobin doesn't bother to explain his assertion that the democratically-enacted immigration laws of this country are unjust. And the assertion is just that: an assertion. It is anything but a self-evident truth.
The AP author provides a clue, stating, "The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has called U.S. immigration policies 'morally unacceptable,' saying they keep families divided and encourage the exploitation of migrants." If that sums up Tobin's concern with current immigration laws, then he has no ground for claiming that the laws are unjust and immoral. The laws may be imprudent. They may result in undesirable (and presumably unintended) outcomes, such as the division of families. They may for these reasons be bad public policy. But that in no way makes the laws unjust or immoral. Unwise perhaps, but not unjust.
And Tobin should know this. As a Catholic bishop, he is aware of the distinction between matters of principle and matters of prudence. The legalization of abortion is unjust in principle. Our current health care laws are unwise as a matter of prudence. Similarly, our immigration policies are prudentially suspect in some respects. But to encourage law enforcement officers to refuse to enforce the law, simply because one has prudential disagreements with the lawmaker, is to thumb one's nose at the rule of law.
Today the Bishop of Providence, Rhode Island demonstrates that Catholics are not immune to the temptation to indulge in theonomous lines of argument. According to the AP, "Rhode Island's Roman Catholic bishop is calling on U.S. authorities to halt mass immigration raids and says agents who refuse to participate in such raids on moral grounds deserve to be treated as conscientious objectors." America's immigration laws ought not be enforced, according to Tobin, because they are unjust and immoral.
One of the many problems with the rhetorical tie between theology and public policy is that it is a cop-out. It excuses the one making the assertion from engaging in the rigorous process of reasoning publicly, invoking publicly-accessible propositions and demonstrating proofs. Bishop Tobin doesn't bother to explain his assertion that the democratically-enacted immigration laws of this country are unjust. And the assertion is just that: an assertion. It is anything but a self-evident truth.
The AP author provides a clue, stating, "The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has called U.S. immigration policies 'morally unacceptable,' saying they keep families divided and encourage the exploitation of migrants." If that sums up Tobin's concern with current immigration laws, then he has no ground for claiming that the laws are unjust and immoral. The laws may be imprudent. They may result in undesirable (and presumably unintended) outcomes, such as the division of families. They may for these reasons be bad public policy. But that in no way makes the laws unjust or immoral. Unwise perhaps, but not unjust.
And Tobin should know this. As a Catholic bishop, he is aware of the distinction between matters of principle and matters of prudence. The legalization of abortion is unjust in principle. Our current health care laws are unwise as a matter of prudence. Similarly, our immigration policies are prudentially suspect in some respects. But to encourage law enforcement officers to refuse to enforce the law, simply because one has prudential disagreements with the lawmaker, is to thumb one's nose at the rule of law.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
The power of liberal academic dogma
Anyone who thinks that universities in America are places of free and open inquiry either: (1) has not recently stepped foot on an American campus or (2) is liberal and deluded. The latest demonstration of narrow-mindedness in the left-leaning academy comes from North Dakota, where the NoDak Law Review had the audacity to publish articles by pro-marriage scholars. For this bit of heresy, the Law School is being flogged in the local press and legal community.
Just last week I shared dinner with a fellow member of the legal academy who unwittingly slandered me to my face. She complained of "anti-gay bigots" who "oppose gay marriage." Of course, it never occurred to her that I, a rational person, might support conjugal marriage, much less that the word "bigot" might be an insulting calumny. Mercifully, another colleague arrived at that very moment to save me from having to respond. But the point was (once again) driven home: scholarship in the American academy is for the exchange of ideas and the pursuit of truth, unless those ideas are conservative and the truth is inconvenient for the liberal worldview.
Protests from North Dakota lawyers have been so passionate and widespread that North Dakota Law School Dean Paul LeBel posted a disclaimer on the school’s Web site assuring the legal community that “the university and the School of Law are welcoming and inclusive educational communities.”
Just last week I shared dinner with a fellow member of the legal academy who unwittingly slandered me to my face. She complained of "anti-gay bigots" who "oppose gay marriage." Of course, it never occurred to her that I, a rational person, might support conjugal marriage, much less that the word "bigot" might be an insulting calumny. Mercifully, another colleague arrived at that very moment to save me from having to respond. But the point was (once again) driven home: scholarship in the American academy is for the exchange of ideas and the pursuit of truth, unless those ideas are conservative and the truth is inconvenient for the liberal worldview.
Debunking the callous-America myth
Over at Mirror of Justice, Greg Sisk takes down the liberal canard that the United States of America has failed to commit financial resources to development of its poor. Unlike his intellectual opponents, he uses facts. Lots of them.
For example, government spending in 2007 consumed $4.9 trillion, 35.9% of our gross domestic product. Sisk states, "Of that government spending, social spending constituted some 55.8 percent of total spending, totaling more than $2.88 trillion."
Think about that number for a moment. That's "trillion" with a "t". Furthermore, Sisk points out that "the percentage of the federal budget devoted to defense has plummeted while social spending has skyrocketed."
Finally, the average American begins working on January 2 each year and doesn't start taking money home until May 1. Everything she earns before May 1 goes to the government. And while she is not taking money home, she is not able to give to charitable organizations, which are able to help the poor much more effectively than government bureaucrats. This graph effectively illustrates the problem:
It is worth noting that Barack Obama proposes to make this problem worse by increasing expenditures on federal entitlements for the poor. In short, the claim that America is not serious about assisting the poor and needs to take a more liberal, compassionate (profligate) posture toward state spending is hogwash.
For example, government spending in 2007 consumed $4.9 trillion, 35.9% of our gross domestic product. Sisk states, "Of that government spending, social spending constituted some 55.8 percent of total spending, totaling more than $2.88 trillion."
Think about that number for a moment. That's "trillion" with a "t". Furthermore, Sisk points out that "the percentage of the federal budget devoted to defense has plummeted while social spending has skyrocketed."
Finally, the average American begins working on January 2 each year and doesn't start taking money home until May 1. Everything she earns before May 1 goes to the government. And while she is not taking money home, she is not able to give to charitable organizations, which are able to help the poor much more effectively than government bureaucrats. This graph effectively illustrates the problem:
It is worth noting that Barack Obama proposes to make this problem worse by increasing expenditures on federal entitlements for the poor. In short, the claim that America is not serious about assisting the poor and needs to take a more liberal, compassionate (profligate) posture toward state spending is hogwash.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Wealth and poverty, two sides, same coin
The most recent edition of Harvard Magazine (Mrs. Discipulus is an alumna) contains a silly screed inveighing against income disparity. That's predictable enough. Contemporary liberals adhere to the ridiculous notion that your financial success is a net loss to someone who is less successful, even if that person is better off as a result. So the corporate shareholders who succeed in business and create jobs for working-class families are, in the twisted lib worldview, harming those very same working-class families for whom they are creating jobs and, therefore, wealth.
The HM author introduces a new term to summarize this concept: "relative deprivation." I quote directly: "The idea is that, even when we have enough money to cover basic needs, it may harm us psychologically to see that other people have more."
To articulate such nonsense is to refute it. However, liberal fascination with inequality (and attendant, maleable concepts such as "poverty") flows out of a much deeper metaphysical misunderstanding about the world in which we live. For whatever reason, contemporary liberals have it stuck in their heads that human conditions like poverty and wealth, sickness and health, pleasure and pain, are the really important things in life. This is a narrow, dogmatic view of life.
Mature, reasoning people recognize that the really important things in life are basic human goods, such as knowledge and beauty, and the great virtues, such as love and charity. The human conditions are merely the occasions -- opportunities, if you will -- to practice the great virtues and to enjoy the basic goods.
For this reason, mature, reasoning persons have the capacity to be truly joyful in wealth or poverty, sickness or health, pain or ecstatic pleasure. Liberals lack this capacity. Instead, they look around at the greatest, most just nation in the history of the world and complain that biology has left the genders unequal. They live in the most prosperous time in history, in the most prosperous nation on earth, but they are obsessed with the psychological harm that a middle-class college professor ostensibly suffers by watching his CEO neighbor drive to work every day in his Benz.
These are useful observations to bear in mind as we listen to "progressive Christians" in the coming months drone on and on about inequality in America. Having grown up the oldest of six children in a ten-foot wide trailer and having worked my way into the upper middle class, I look at inequality in the most prosperous nation in history as an amazing opportunity. So who is narrow-minded? The Harvard Magazine-Sojourners crowd, or me?
The HM author introduces a new term to summarize this concept: "relative deprivation." I quote directly: "The idea is that, even when we have enough money to cover basic needs, it may harm us psychologically to see that other people have more."
To articulate such nonsense is to refute it. However, liberal fascination with inequality (and attendant, maleable concepts such as "poverty") flows out of a much deeper metaphysical misunderstanding about the world in which we live. For whatever reason, contemporary liberals have it stuck in their heads that human conditions like poverty and wealth, sickness and health, pleasure and pain, are the really important things in life. This is a narrow, dogmatic view of life.
Mature, reasoning people recognize that the really important things in life are basic human goods, such as knowledge and beauty, and the great virtues, such as love and charity. The human conditions are merely the occasions -- opportunities, if you will -- to practice the great virtues and to enjoy the basic goods.
For this reason, mature, reasoning persons have the capacity to be truly joyful in wealth or poverty, sickness or health, pain or ecstatic pleasure. Liberals lack this capacity. Instead, they look around at the greatest, most just nation in the history of the world and complain that biology has left the genders unequal. They live in the most prosperous time in history, in the most prosperous nation on earth, but they are obsessed with the psychological harm that a middle-class college professor ostensibly suffers by watching his CEO neighbor drive to work every day in his Benz.
These are useful observations to bear in mind as we listen to "progressive Christians" in the coming months drone on and on about inequality in America. Having grown up the oldest of six children in a ten-foot wide trailer and having worked my way into the upper middle class, I look at inequality in the most prosperous nation in history as an amazing opportunity. So who is narrow-minded? The Harvard Magazine-Sojourners crowd, or me?
Friday, June 27, 2008
Live by the judicial decision, die by the judicial decision
Largely unable to persuade in the court of public opinion, progressives have spent the last five decades imposing their eschaton-immanentizing worldview on the rest of us through activist courts of the third-branch, impervious-to-democratic-impulse type. The problem with that strategy of legal subjugation is that the courts do not always cooperate.
Yesterday the Supreme Court decided (rightly, in my view) that the Second Amendment secures to individual, private citizens the right to bear arms. (See Ed Whelan's helpful summary, here.) And a million liberal lawyers groaned audibly.
Yesterday the Supreme Court decided (rightly, in my view) that the Second Amendment secures to individual, private citizens the right to bear arms. (See Ed Whelan's helpful summary, here.) And a million liberal lawyers groaned audibly.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Justice Hillary
This is absolutely terrifying:If Barack Obama is elected president, mutual friends say the best course for Hillary Clinton might be nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court rather than staying in the Senate.Clinton is also talked about as suitable for secretary of state in an Obama administration. The consensus among her friends is that she would not be content forging a lifetime career in the Senate, as Sen. Edward M. Kennedy did after he lost the 1980 presidential nomination.
A footnote: The last confirmed Supreme Court nominee without prior judicial experience was Lewis Powell, a prestigious attorney from Richmond, Va., named by President Richard M. Nixon in 1971. No high court selection has had so modest a legal background as Clinton since President John F. Kennedy named football star Byron (Whizzer) White in 1962.
Of course, it is terrifying because Hillary is an outright liberal politician. The Supreme Court is supposed to be devoid of politics. To date, the left has at least had the decency to pretend to nominate non-political judges. I suppose there would be one commendable thing about a Hillary nomination: the left would finally be admitting that they see the Supreme Court as an extension of the legislature where they need dutiful liberals to legislative their agenda from the bench.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Bullies for same-sex marriage
I never cease to be amazed by the willingness of homosexuality advocates to bully social conservatives into accepting their premises. Our arguments are so bad, we must be motivated by anti-gay animus. The analogy between same-sex marriage and polygamy is disingenuous and therefore no reasonable person takes it seriously. Et cetera.
Trouble is, it's not just cowardly libs who use these tactics. Libertarians willingly use the same ploy. Today on Volokh, both Eugene Volokh and Ilya Somin, in consecutive posts, play the any-reasonable-person-must-accept-my-presuppositions-about-same-sex-marriage game.
Why do most (all?) opponents of conjugal marriage refuse to engage supporters of conjugal marriage on the merits of our arguments? Is it intellectual cowardice, disrespect?
And why do those who consider themselves liberal and broad-minded so often resort to illiberal debate tactics? Is it delusion, malevolence?
For once, let's have a debate on the merits of a conservative idea without all the hocus-pocus. Is that too much to ask?
Trouble is, it's not just cowardly libs who use these tactics. Libertarians willingly use the same ploy. Today on Volokh, both Eugene Volokh and Ilya Somin, in consecutive posts, play the any-reasonable-person-must-accept-my-presuppositions-about-same-sex-marriage game.
Why do most (all?) opponents of conjugal marriage refuse to engage supporters of conjugal marriage on the merits of our arguments? Is it intellectual cowardice, disrespect?
And why do those who consider themselves liberal and broad-minded so often resort to illiberal debate tactics? Is it delusion, malevolence?
For once, let's have a debate on the merits of a conservative idea without all the hocus-pocus. Is that too much to ask?
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
John Adams is all the rage
You knew it would happen. After the HBO miniseries Hollywood types are tripping over one another to declare their allegiance to an Adamsonian view of America. Stars from Pete Wentz to Michael Moore (ok, I use the term "star" loosely with these two) have got nothing but love for the prickly but principled New England Founder.I welcome the fact that so many liberals watched the series. I also welcome the fact that they recognize greatness in the character of Adams. These two developments simply confirm my belief that the American people can largely agree on foundational principles. It is in the application of the principles that we get crosswise.
But it must be observed that there is still a huge disconnect between their perceptions of Adams and the reality of who the man was.
To these Hollywood liberals, Adams is a foil to use against the GOP and Bush, nothing more. In fact, were they to really be confronted with many of Adams' beliefs their liberal sensibilities might well be repulsed. But that matters not, as long as he serves a purpose for them right now. That purpose of course being juxtaposing our current President with the second President. I dare say few Presidents would wear well in that harsh light.Entertainers suddenly love John Adams. Consider “The View” co-host Joy Behar, who told Larry King: “When you see what John Adams was like and George Bush, it’s almost like Darwinism in reverse. You know?”
...funny-producer-turned-serious-producer-turned-all-purpose-Bush-hater Michael Moore said: “The Founding Fathers would never have uttered the presumptuous words ‘God Bless America.’ That, to them, sounded like a command instead of a request, and one doesn’t command God, even if they are America. In fact, they were worried God would punish America. During the Revolutionary War, George Washington feared that God would react unfavorably against his soldiers for the way they were behaving.
John Adams wondered if God might punish America and cause it to lose the war, just to prove his point that America was not worthy.”
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Jimmy Carter and the failure of evangelical courage
A prominent evangelical pastor in a large northeastern city recently gave a sermon in which he extolled the post-presidential activities of Jimmy Carter as a model for Christians to emulate. (I was in attendance and was astonished.) This same pastor recently hosted at his church Jim Wallis, Accommodator-in-Chief. That the two events occurred in the same pulpit is not coincidental. Wallis and his organization have intentionally associated themselves with our Elder National Disgrace on numerous occasions (see, e.g., here and here). Indeed, Carter wrote the forward to one of Wallis' recent books. Birds of a feather and all that jazz.
Carter's latest demonstration of fecklessness and irresponsibility -- lending the legitimacy of the high office he once occupied to a terrorist organization -- is perfectly consistent with his behavior over the last couple of decades. And it is consistent with the conceit, self-absoprtion, and delusion of his Accommodator accolytes. Here's an Accommodator today (incredibly) defending Carter's most recent folly on Wallis' blog:
The trouble with this assessment is not so much its factual inaccuracy. The real problem is the author's complete disregard for facts. Hamas most emphatically denies that it is willing to accept a two-state solution. That fact is not merely inconsistent with the author's claim, it is exactly the opposite of it.
Facts, those stubborn things, make rather infrequent appearances in Accommodators' reasoning. Misrepresentations and calumnies are frequent guests in "God's Politics."
The increasing influence of the Accommodators (or the appearance thereof, which the mainstream media is more than happy to perpetuate) is no longer merely an irritant. It has become dangerous. If terrorist thugs such as Hamas believe that they have successfully deceived some large portion of American evangelicals they are likely to become even more emboldened. Carter and Wallis abet that mistaken impression, and the bloodshed that results.
We will repeat again the refrain: The Accommodators do not speak for us!
Carter's latest demonstration of fecklessness and irresponsibility -- lending the legitimacy of the high office he once occupied to a terrorist organization -- is perfectly consistent with his behavior over the last couple of decades. And it is consistent with the conceit, self-absoprtion, and delusion of his Accommodator accolytes. Here's an Accommodator today (incredibly) defending Carter's most recent folly on Wallis' blog:
Carter's visit also showed that while Hamas, like most Palestinians, are bitter about the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, they are pragmatic enough to accept a two-state solution negotiated by the moderate Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, so long as the Palestinian public gets a chance to approve it in a popular referendum. ... Keeping 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza under permanent siege is illegal and immoral. Israel, and indirectly the U.S.'s, refusal to accept the offer by Hamas of a ceasefire is illogical.
The trouble with this assessment is not so much its factual inaccuracy. The real problem is the author's complete disregard for facts. Hamas most emphatically denies that it is willing to accept a two-state solution. That fact is not merely inconsistent with the author's claim, it is exactly the opposite of it.
Facts, those stubborn things, make rather infrequent appearances in Accommodators' reasoning. Misrepresentations and calumnies are frequent guests in "God's Politics."
The increasing influence of the Accommodators (or the appearance thereof, which the mainstream media is more than happy to perpetuate) is no longer merely an irritant. It has become dangerous. If terrorist thugs such as Hamas believe that they have successfully deceived some large portion of American evangelicals they are likely to become even more emboldened. Carter and Wallis abet that mistaken impression, and the bloodshed that results.
We will repeat again the refrain: The Accommodators do not speak for us!
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
The cost of freedom
Antiwar liberals in Washington have taken too a new line of attack of late. With the 5-year cost of the war in Iraq closing in on $1 trillion, they sense an opening. The war, they say, is the reason for a declining economy. The war is the reason we cannot have universal government-run health care. The war is the reason we cannot be responsible and reign in entitlement spending that threatens to bankrupt the nation in the near future.Thankfully, Larry Kudlow blows this argument up in his column today:
First point: The U.S. has spent roughly $750 billion for the five-year war. Sure, that's a lot of money. But the total cost works out to 1 percent of the $63 trillion GDP over that time period. It's miniscule.
But here's the real question we ought to be asking: What is the cost of freedom? While the Left refuses to acknowledge it, the U.S. homeland has not been attacked since September 11. Right there is a big economic plus. Since President Bush went on the offensive and took the battle to Iraq, al Qaeda and other extremist terrorist groups have been utterly routed by U.S. forces. But in tying the jihadists down on their home turf, and keeping them from mounting another coordinated attack on the U.S., our economy has benefited incalculably.
Then again, the anti-war forces might want to recall John F. Kennedy's inaugural address, in which he called on Americans to "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to ensure the survival and the success of liberty."
Do these folks actually think 1 percent of GDP is too large a price, too heavy a burden? I sure hope not.
Now, let's talk numbers:
And by the way, despite the current slowdown, the U.S. economy has performed remarkably well during the five years of the Iraq war. Real GDP has increased by 16 percent, or 3 percent annually. The unemployment rate has hovered below a historically low 5 percent for quite some time. Nearly 10 million jobs have been created. Household net worth has increased by $20 trillion. Industrial production has expanded by 13.5 percent. Even home prices, despite the current correction, have increased by 20 percent.
But this matters not to Washington liberals. They see a sticker price approaching $1 trillion and they immediately begin to think of a liberal wish list of policies that they could purchase for the same price. This is their real motivation for cutting funding for Iraq; to funnel it towards their big-government Utopian schemes.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Fun for them while it lasts
Liberals love the Accommodators, especially Jim Wallis. Mind you, I don't mean that they have agape love for them. It's more akin to the affection that a starter on the football team has for the cheerleader who is currently making the rounds. And the cheerleader, delighted to be invited to the parties, mistakes opportunism for respect and fails to see that she's never going to get a marriage proposal out of these relationships.
Because libs love the Accommodators, one frequently sees fawning enconia to Accommodators in that great communications bureau of the liberal movement, the mainstream media. All the tributes follow the same pattern. This piece, though not in a traditional MSM source, is illustrative. The author, Melinda Henneberger, discovers an ostensibly new tension in the evangelical movement, brought about by younger, better-educated evangelicals who have rejected the dogmas of their parents, come to their senses, and embraced Christ's true message of collectivism, statism, and redistribution of wealth. Unfortunately for Accommodators, this praise is not borne out of respect. In fact, with praise like this, one could kill a movement.
To see why liberal praise of Accommodators carries the seeds of the Accomodators' destruction, it is important to see why Accommodators are as popular as they are. Their influence (currently at its apogee) derives not from any insight, proposal, or virtue of theirs. No, the Accommodators fascinate the libs because they play against type. Here are evangelicals who are educated, aren't hung up about sex, and don't assume that humans are better than other species. Why can't you conservative evangelicals be more like them?
Henneberger's Accommodators, Aaron and Ginny Routhe, have moved beyond obsolete evangelical dogmas. They are no longer constrained by a belief that humans are uniquely created in the image of God. Ginny: "But pro-life for us is more holistic, more all of life and all of the environment-endangered species, and not just the human species."
They are no longer inhibited by defense of something so trivial as the intrinsic values of human life and conjugal marriage. Peter Ilyan, a "Christian environmental evangelist": "So now when James Dobson says it's only gay marriage and abortion we should care about? One of our jokes is that gay married couples have the fewest abortions of anybody."
Convenient that the quip is at James Dobson's expense, no?
Notwithstanding the current popularity of the Accommodators, the Accommodator anti-type is doomed for two reasons. First, the type itself is grossly caricatured. Accommodators have borrowed their stereotype of conservative evangelicals -- uneducated, prudish, joyless, peculiar, scheming -- from secular liberals, many of whom have never met a conservative evangelical, and all of whom avoid conservatives like the plague, whenever possible. But anyone who actually comes to know a conservative evangelical quickly discerns that the type is terribly unfair. Certainly there exist some joyless, prudish evangelicals. However, they are not anything like a majority.
So, Accommodators do not play well against type. "Give 'Em Hell" Zell Miller played well against type because the type -- the Democrat who cares more about defeating Bush than winning the War in Iraq -- is accurate. Similarly, Alan Keyes plays successfully against type because not very many black men in America are conservative.
By contrast, Accommodators have chosen to combat a type that doesn't fit their opponents very well. So their self-congratulatory calls for a "more well-rounded" and "more holistic" view of political issues rings hollow. When an Accommodator quoted in Henneberg's article asserts that "evangelicals en masse are beginning to realize that the Good News encompasses both" "fundamentalism [and] the Social Gospel," bewilderment sets in. Evangelicals are only now embracing the Social Gospel? Really? So the Salvation Army, Samaritan's Purse, hundreds of other charitable organizations, and millions of the most generous people on Earth were only pretending to be evangelicals?
Second, the more frequently Accommodators are held up as the anti-type the more rapidly they become a type of their own. Once it becomes conventional wisdom that savvy evangelicals vote for Democrats, the Accommodators will have served their purpose and will no longer be of any use or interest to orthodox libs. Like the cheerleader who has finished making the rounds, the Accommodator will find himself used, abused, and no longer invited to the party. Libs don't buy this stuff about the Gospel. They think it's trite, amusing... and convenient.
Because libs love the Accommodators, one frequently sees fawning enconia to Accommodators in that great communications bureau of the liberal movement, the mainstream media. All the tributes follow the same pattern. This piece, though not in a traditional MSM source, is illustrative. The author, Melinda Henneberger, discovers an ostensibly new tension in the evangelical movement, brought about by younger, better-educated evangelicals who have rejected the dogmas of their parents, come to their senses, and embraced Christ's true message of collectivism, statism, and redistribution of wealth. Unfortunately for Accommodators, this praise is not borne out of respect. In fact, with praise like this, one could kill a movement.
To see why liberal praise of Accommodators carries the seeds of the Accomodators' destruction, it is important to see why Accommodators are as popular as they are. Their influence (currently at its apogee) derives not from any insight, proposal, or virtue of theirs. No, the Accommodators fascinate the libs because they play against type. Here are evangelicals who are educated, aren't hung up about sex, and don't assume that humans are better than other species. Why can't you conservative evangelicals be more like them?
Henneberger's Accommodators, Aaron and Ginny Routhe, have moved beyond obsolete evangelical dogmas. They are no longer constrained by a belief that humans are uniquely created in the image of God. Ginny: "But pro-life for us is more holistic, more all of life and all of the environment-endangered species, and not just the human species."
They are no longer inhibited by defense of something so trivial as the intrinsic values of human life and conjugal marriage. Peter Ilyan, a "Christian environmental evangelist": "So now when James Dobson says it's only gay marriage and abortion we should care about? One of our jokes is that gay married couples have the fewest abortions of anybody."
Convenient that the quip is at James Dobson's expense, no?
Notwithstanding the current popularity of the Accommodators, the Accommodator anti-type is doomed for two reasons. First, the type itself is grossly caricatured. Accommodators have borrowed their stereotype of conservative evangelicals -- uneducated, prudish, joyless, peculiar, scheming -- from secular liberals, many of whom have never met a conservative evangelical, and all of whom avoid conservatives like the plague, whenever possible. But anyone who actually comes to know a conservative evangelical quickly discerns that the type is terribly unfair. Certainly there exist some joyless, prudish evangelicals. However, they are not anything like a majority.
So, Accommodators do not play well against type. "Give 'Em Hell" Zell Miller played well against type because the type -- the Democrat who cares more about defeating Bush than winning the War in Iraq -- is accurate. Similarly, Alan Keyes plays successfully against type because not very many black men in America are conservative.
By contrast, Accommodators have chosen to combat a type that doesn't fit their opponents very well. So their self-congratulatory calls for a "more well-rounded" and "more holistic" view of political issues rings hollow. When an Accommodator quoted in Henneberg's article asserts that "evangelicals en masse are beginning to realize that the Good News encompasses both" "fundamentalism [and] the Social Gospel," bewilderment sets in. Evangelicals are only now embracing the Social Gospel? Really? So the Salvation Army, Samaritan's Purse, hundreds of other charitable organizations, and millions of the most generous people on Earth were only pretending to be evangelicals?
Second, the more frequently Accommodators are held up as the anti-type the more rapidly they become a type of their own. Once it becomes conventional wisdom that savvy evangelicals vote for Democrats, the Accommodators will have served their purpose and will no longer be of any use or interest to orthodox libs. Like the cheerleader who has finished making the rounds, the Accommodator will find himself used, abused, and no longer invited to the party. Libs don't buy this stuff about the Gospel. They think it's trite, amusing... and convenient.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
While we're on the topic...
of so-called "Progressive Christians," it is appropriate to put that offensive term in its proper light. The Progressive movement is founded on the purpose of using politics to bring about an Eschaton on Earth. Progressives speak of goals such as eradicating poverty, ending war, insuring all persons against health care costs, and enabling all sentient beings to exercise fully their autonomy. As the name of the movement suggests, progressives believe that they are helping mankind move toward an ultimate goal, an evolved state of peaceful self-actualization. For this reason, the Progressive movement is well-suited to the secular worldview, which takes as its presuppositional foundation Darwinian naturalism.
For the same reasons, progressivism is completely antithetical to Christianity. Christians believe that the Eschaton is not a state to be achieved here on Earth, but rather a Person to be desired and pursued, the very Son of God. We also believe that humans do not have it in our power to end poverty, end war, or bring about self-actualization. Indeed, we are not called to do so. Instead, we are called to tend to the poor (whom, Jesus assured us, we would always have with us), preach the Gospel, and lead people to the Good.
A central tenet of Christianity is that man cannot improve upon what God has created. In the orthodox view, God allows us the privilege of helping to redeem what we have corrupted by our own rebellion. To suggest that self-absorbed humans -- much less governments, which are comprised of fallen humans with competing self-absorptions -- have it within our power to effect our own progress is a category mistake.
Furthermore, that suggestion belittles the crucifixion and resurrection of the Eschaton Man. There remains no work to be done, no higher plane to which we must progress, because Christ has done it. Past tense. To suggest that Christ left the job unfinished is to claim that his life, ministry, and death were less than what they truly were.
Conservatism and Christianity, by contrast, fit naturally with each other. Conservative Christians suffer from no internal contradictions in their thinking. We believe that Christ has completed the work of sanctification and that He allows us to participate in His work of redemption in personal relationships with Him and with our fellow man. We have the great privilege of participating in this work by assisting the poor (not taxing the rich), defending the unborn and infirmed, and preserving institutions -- marriage, the public square -- that enable mankind to be fully integrated, to pursue the Good.
The next time an acquaintance identifies herself as a "progressive Christian," ask her toward what she is progressing. You will, I think, find the answer enlightening.
For the same reasons, progressivism is completely antithetical to Christianity. Christians believe that the Eschaton is not a state to be achieved here on Earth, but rather a Person to be desired and pursued, the very Son of God. We also believe that humans do not have it in our power to end poverty, end war, or bring about self-actualization. Indeed, we are not called to do so. Instead, we are called to tend to the poor (whom, Jesus assured us, we would always have with us), preach the Gospel, and lead people to the Good.
A central tenet of Christianity is that man cannot improve upon what God has created. In the orthodox view, God allows us the privilege of helping to redeem what we have corrupted by our own rebellion. To suggest that self-absorbed humans -- much less governments, which are comprised of fallen humans with competing self-absorptions -- have it within our power to effect our own progress is a category mistake.
Furthermore, that suggestion belittles the crucifixion and resurrection of the Eschaton Man. There remains no work to be done, no higher plane to which we must progress, because Christ has done it. Past tense. To suggest that Christ left the job unfinished is to claim that his life, ministry, and death were less than what they truly were.
Conservatism and Christianity, by contrast, fit naturally with each other. Conservative Christians suffer from no internal contradictions in their thinking. We believe that Christ has completed the work of sanctification and that He allows us to participate in His work of redemption in personal relationships with Him and with our fellow man. We have the great privilege of participating in this work by assisting the poor (not taxing the rich), defending the unborn and infirmed, and preserving institutions -- marriage, the public square -- that enable mankind to be fully integrated, to pursue the Good.
The next time an acquaintance identifies herself as a "progressive Christian," ask her toward what she is progressing. You will, I think, find the answer enlightening.
The Real Predators
Over at the "Progressive Christian" (an oxymoronic term, if ever there was one) hangout, Elizabeth Palmberg renews the old "Jubilee" movement's call for debt forgiveness for poor nations. The Jubilee movement has intuitive appeal on its side, just as it did more than a decade ago when I first encountered it in college. (There is nothing new in the "progressive" movement, only old ideas dressed up as new ones.) No Christian wants to keep poor, oppressed peoples under the bondage of debts they cannot hope to repay. And if the choice were actually between freeing developing nations from their debts and forcing them to pay, debt forgiveness would make sense. In this case, however, as in so many others, the Accommodators are impervious to the reality of the situation.
Impressively, Palmberg manages to slip two canards into her post. She begins with the irrelevant howler, "The subprime mortgage crisis in the U.S. has raised just outrage at the behavior of predatory lenders." This is another of those casual defamatory presuppositions buried in a related assertion as a given, at which the Accommodators are so skilled. Which lenders behaved in a predatory manner? How did they behave? Palmberg doesn't say, because she can't. The fact is that borrowers, especially poor borrowers, benefitted from the subprime lending frenzy. Borrowers obtained loans they had no business acquiring, which enabled them to purchase homes they had no business purchasing. When rates continued to rise and home prices fell, the cards collapsed and subprime borrowers returned to the position they occupied before the fiasco, living in residences for which they have the means to pay in full.
Indeed, the evidence is mounting that borrowers hoodwinked lenders at least as often as lenders took advantage of borrowers. The FBI is now buried under a massive pile of mortgage fraud investigations.
Back to the Jubilee plea. Palmberg advocates for forgiveness of loans, "often the result of Cold War favors to corrupt dictators," which cannot now be repaid. Two questions appear not to have occurred to her. First, why can these countries not repay the loans? The fact is that many, if not most, of these nations remain poor not because of usurious loans but because of terrible leadership. No rule of law, no protection of private property rights, and expenditures for the comfort of the privileged elite rather then desperately-needed infrastructure, all hold these nations back. Loan forgiveness would merely reward the very same bad behavior that harms the people Palmberg wants to assist.
Second, who will benefit from loan forgiveness? Palmberg assumes that, now freed from their dictatorial Cold War leadership, the people of poor nations will experience the direct benefits of loan forgiveness. However, she ignores the facts on the ground. Most of the nations saddled with these loans have exchanged one dictator for another, and that one for the next, in a continuous succession. In those nations, loan forgiveness would accrue not to the benefit of the people but rather only to the benefit of the regimes who oppress the people.
So, loan forgiveness must be taken on a case-by-case basis. Which nations are good candidates? Palmberg appears not to have considered this question, either. Does she mean Zimbabwe? Uganda? She specifically mentions Zaire, now known as the Congo. The Congo is hardly a compelling case study. Burdened with periodic conflict and self-absorbed leadership, the Congo, like many African nations, makes the case against loan forgiveness a no-brainer.
Impressively, Palmberg manages to slip two canards into her post. She begins with the irrelevant howler, "The subprime mortgage crisis in the U.S. has raised just outrage at the behavior of predatory lenders." This is another of those casual defamatory presuppositions buried in a related assertion as a given, at which the Accommodators are so skilled. Which lenders behaved in a predatory manner? How did they behave? Palmberg doesn't say, because she can't. The fact is that borrowers, especially poor borrowers, benefitted from the subprime lending frenzy. Borrowers obtained loans they had no business acquiring, which enabled them to purchase homes they had no business purchasing. When rates continued to rise and home prices fell, the cards collapsed and subprime borrowers returned to the position they occupied before the fiasco, living in residences for which they have the means to pay in full.
Indeed, the evidence is mounting that borrowers hoodwinked lenders at least as often as lenders took advantage of borrowers. The FBI is now buried under a massive pile of mortgage fraud investigations.
Back to the Jubilee plea. Palmberg advocates for forgiveness of loans, "often the result of Cold War favors to corrupt dictators," which cannot now be repaid. Two questions appear not to have occurred to her. First, why can these countries not repay the loans? The fact is that many, if not most, of these nations remain poor not because of usurious loans but because of terrible leadership. No rule of law, no protection of private property rights, and expenditures for the comfort of the privileged elite rather then desperately-needed infrastructure, all hold these nations back. Loan forgiveness would merely reward the very same bad behavior that harms the people Palmberg wants to assist.
Second, who will benefit from loan forgiveness? Palmberg assumes that, now freed from their dictatorial Cold War leadership, the people of poor nations will experience the direct benefits of loan forgiveness. However, she ignores the facts on the ground. Most of the nations saddled with these loans have exchanged one dictator for another, and that one for the next, in a continuous succession. In those nations, loan forgiveness would accrue not to the benefit of the people but rather only to the benefit of the regimes who oppress the people.
So, loan forgiveness must be taken on a case-by-case basis. Which nations are good candidates? Palmberg appears not to have considered this question, either. Does she mean Zimbabwe? Uganda? She specifically mentions Zaire, now known as the Congo. The Congo is hardly a compelling case study. Burdened with periodic conflict and self-absorbed leadership, the Congo, like many African nations, makes the case against loan forgiveness a no-brainer.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Conservatives more charitable than liberals
George Will's column this morning examines the disparity in giving between conservatives and liberals. A recent study finds that:-- Although liberal families' incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal-headed household ($1,600 per year vs. $1,227).
-- Conservatives also donate more time and give more blood.
-- Residents of the states that voted for John Kerry in 2004 gave smaller percentages of their incomes to charity than did residents of states that voted for George Bush.
-- Bush carried 24 of the 25 states where charitable giving was above average.
-- In the 10 reddest states, in which Bush got more than 60 percent majorities, the average percentage of personal income donated to charity was 3.5. Residents of the bluest states, which gave Bush less than 40 percent, donated just 1.9 percent.
-- People who reject the idea that "government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality" give an average of four times more than people who accept that proposition.
Will goes on to point out that it is an individual's value set that is most determinative when it comes to how much they give. "America is largely divided between religious givers and secular nongivers, and the former are disproportionately conservative," writes Will.
The scariest thing to contemplate is the growing liberal movement to replace individual charity with government imposed "justice" as defined by the liberal bureaucracy:
While conservatives tend to regard giving as a personal rather than governmental responsibility, some liberals consider private charity a retrograde phenomenon -- a poor palliative for an inadequate welfare state, and a distraction from achieving adequacy by force, by increasing taxes. Ralph Nader, running for president in 2000, said: "A society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity." Brooks, however, warns: "If support for a policy that does not exist ... substitutes for private charity, the needy are left worse off than before. It is one of the bitterest ironies of liberal politics today that political opinions are apparently taking the place of help for others."
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Krugman the optimist
NY Times uber liberal columnist Paul Krugman has an astonishing note today on his blog. All of us conservative chicken littles are wrong about Social Security. We should not worry so, says Krugman. In actuality, "Social Security’s financial problem is relatively minor. It doesn’t deserve the emphasis it receives from most pundits."
How can one comfortably claim that a program that "owes $6.5 trillion more in benefits than it will receive in taxes" is facing a "minor" financial problem? Well, if you are a liberal NY Times columnist who from the start has been in favor of a sweeping redistribution of wealth then I suppose it is relatively easy.
Ah the joys of being able to pass one generation's debts off to the next...
How can one comfortably claim that a program that "owes $6.5 trillion more in benefits than it will receive in taxes" is facing a "minor" financial problem? Well, if you are a liberal NY Times columnist who from the start has been in favor of a sweeping redistribution of wealth then I suppose it is relatively easy.
Ah the joys of being able to pass one generation's debts off to the next...
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