Please take some time to read the review of the redistribution of wealth published by Paul Buchheit on Common Dreams entitled "The Shocking Redistribution of Wealth in the Past Five Years."
I guess an honest look at this assessment is for all honest brokers to study. One reaches the conclusion that the allowance for a highly regulated marketplace in which profiteering is reduced and policed is well within the means of the prosperity of this nation and for that matter the world economy.
Why is that? Because the redistribution of wealth is so badly tilted toward the non-wage earner investment income that the pin ball machine should be banging and clanging "tilt."
Washington politicians apparently are forever in the Alfred E. Neuman phase of unconscionable neglect of an economy setting us up for disaster brought on my greed unregulated and exploitative of the common good. Enough said. Happy New Year to the rich for sure, but no need to say that. So God help the hopeless, the marginally employed, the jobless, and the destitute. God help us all to be better people.
Published on Monday, December 30, 2013 by Common Dreams The Shocking Redistribution of Wealth in the Past Five Years
by Paul Buchheit. On the internet at:
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/12/30-0?fb_action_ids=10201183989263840&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%7B%2210201183989263840%22%3A191892941005724%7D&action_type_map=%7B%2210201183989263840%22%3A%22og.likes%22%7D&action_ref_map=%5B%5D
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Friday, November 1, 2013
A Discourse on Prosperity, Economic Advantage, and Wealth Part II.
A Discourse on Prosperity, Economic Advantage, and Wealth (continued here):
Part II.
Today, I wish to continue with my discourse on the economics of our republic and our “Christian” participation in its economy. Below are some more of my points at which I believe Tea Party Christians can take issue. If you respond to my blog commentary, please read what you write in response first (no jibberish). I do this out of affection for you, respect too, and reverence for a person of accomplishment and moral purpose. You of course are going to think my praise syrup (flattery you say)! I do not waste words on folks I have no time for!
1) You say that freedom is capitalism. Do you mean they are synonymous? Perhaps you wish to say that freedom without capitalism is not freedom. If that is what you meant to say, I can argue in favor of that point of view but only in so far as every human freedom is brokered in society. Your right to swing your fist ends a while before it strikes my nose. Restraint of freedom is normative in society. Chaos otherwise would result. Restraint of capitalism (consumer safety laws, usury laws, criminal fraud, et cetera) is normative. Even if you have a minimalist view of the societal need for governance of human freedom, you began at some point to place restraints on human conduct, and therefore profit taking as a human conduct is no exception.
2) You say “we” are transferring wealth from producers to the ruling class (Senators, Representatives, Judges, and Executive Branch Officials). You say merely. Perhaps you meant to say to no good purpose this limited transfer of wealth is made. I beg to disagree of course with that only in part. By good purpose the reader might think of a number of good purposes among which only “domestic tranquility” sounds Marxist ( see the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution). The wisdom of a just society is in distributive acts of wealth so as to empower people, not just the Establishment, but persons who want to have a livelihood or even become the nouveau riche. The limitation on capitalism is that taken to the extreme, wealth pools at the top of society and impoverishes everyone else (which creates social instability, civil war, and war generally to distract the masses from the economic injustice of such a society). Good grief, America is vaunted for being the land of opportunity. You mean you want to shut it down tight so that we develop permanent social classes. I for one am not ready for a return to a Brahman - serf - pariah mentality. Our America does have a general course direction as the just society it can be! We dissent from wrong turns and self-dealing that fail to advance the loadstar of the just society.
3) Your underlying supposition is that wealth is held by producers of wealth and these producers via taxation are forced to share the wealth with state employees (which technically is the larger class to which the ruling class of government belongs). I of course think you are half baked on this one. The ruling class of government is the toady of big industry, big banking, and conglomerates. The real transfer of wealth is to the ruling class of society. These are the folks who hold capital ownership interests. They are shielded by limited liability laws in corporations and other inventions of capitalists from personal liability for injury under the civil law and in almost all cases from criminal prosecution. They are in position to benefit from usury laws that permit profit taking not from production of goods and services (this is the credit card world as we know it), They are the holder of greater diversity ownership stakes in mutual funds in which professional money managers manage the risk of speculation in the value of holding stocks, bonds, et cetera. They are the one’s who manipulate the regulations and laws of government to spur their wealth increase and protect and safeguard it from diminution (the function of the Republican Party and the New Democrats (think Clinton and Obama).
4) The wealth transfer from the ruling class to government is only transactional. You know that income tax paid by the corporation or limited liability operation is some kind of mistake. They failed to shelter the income, failed to pay a dividend, or had a windfall of profits due to unexpected or unintended consequence. The income tax is predicated on employee compensation. Well, we know the saga.
Congress votes into law all the deductions of the people that send and keep them there. Then the ruling class protects the employee compensation with all sorts of schemes which the politicians have brokered for the ruling class. The only sorry ass who pays the significant amount of income tax is the person in the middle between the ruling class and those who truly do not experience significant income (poverty class). Notice all income tax reform is always pushed down the road a ways by both parties. Our current situations is undertaxed wealth, overtaxing the working class of persons to afford tax evasion of the wealthy (some of whom claim to be middle class), and shrinking the middle class and enlarging the poverty class.
No one who loves this republic of ours can abide this state of affairs. It’s why even Warren Buffet calls for effective income taxation of wealth!
5) When you say wealth producers, do you mean the extractors of minerals, the producers of plastics and metals for production, and the equipment of manufacturing, and the consumer products, the tillers of the soil, the harvesters, the food processors? I think you do. In the traditional Marxist and economic sense, the wealth takers are not the miners, the field hands, or the farmers even. All of the valuables may be said to pass through the hands of laboring persons whose labor can be said to produce the traditional wealth producing activities (for others).
The union movement was predicated on slowing down the wealth transfer to the limited benefit of the laborer as opposed to unmerciful exploitation of immigrant classes of persons (the historical context in which America first embraced unionism was European immigration to America).
6) If we live in a post- Marxist reality, it is that machines are displacing the working unit known as the at-will employee (whose term of employ is at the pleasure of his employer). The employer of human workers though is still part of our society. However, it does appear that the curtailment of consumerism now apace will actually speed that process of the reduction of the actual number of wealth producers. This is no one’s fault per se. Technology is about “labor” saving advances, of which the computer is proving especially effective.
7) Today, a person of middle age and women and young adults too are likely to be confronted with “temporary” and “part time” status to such an extent that they are actually beginning to withdraw from the consumer society in whole or in part. This too is neither good nor bad (potentially good in light of waste of the planet's resources and the environment). It might spur a few individualists to think of ways in which to raise income by other means than traditional employment (forty hour week with two weeks off per year paid vacation and to some good measure health insurance benefits). The harsh reality is that the number of low paid positions tend to increase, positions which have no benefits whatsoever. In fact the minimum wage is trivialized as few employees will be working forty hour weeks (much less ever make Christmas bonus status with time and a half for overtime hours). Meanwhile, the attics and garages of my generation are filling up with a lifetime of middle class consumerism, and garage and estate sales are a prevalent situs of consumerism for those part time, poorly compensated at-will employees of current generations.
8) The clout of my working class generation has fallen from a high of trade unionism to a low of non-tax paying economic unit. Some of us in the dwindling down middle class actually think the rich are paying too great of a share of their annual income from wealth. Really? Are you one of these persons? Or are you? Do you help others to stay mired in this swamp of recriminations for economic malaise? Is this because you fear that if your peers actually understood who is exploiting them, they would start the mindless killing of another in anger and revenge? Are you keeping the lid on a society coming to a boil while there was yet time to deal with economic disparity?
9) One reason I am not a Marxist is that I do not accept that revolution of proletariat is a necessary corollary of capitalism. I believe that rational self-government imposes on capitalism the income tax as a means to effect rectification of imbalances that result of capitalism unbridled, unfettered, and evil in its disregard of people and the despoiliation of nature. We as a people just have to have the will to impose it and not let the politicians owned by the ruling class water it down to a pittance!
10) In our society, trained in civics as citizens of a representative democracy, our allegiance quite frankly to the flag (my country right or wrong) is quite problematic. Why is that? Because our government is subject to international law (or it is not). The culmination (high point) of the Twentieth Century was the Nuremberg Trials in which war criminals were prosecuted for war crimes as individuals. Instead of punishing the loser nations as happened in the aftermath of the Versailles Treaty which ended WWI, the decision was made to hold accountable the crimes against humanity which are to be found in international law (i.e. Geneva Conventions) perpetrated by persons in power who committed the atrocities. The fly in that particular ointment (being the onesidedness of losers only being prosecuted) was that war atrocities in violation of international law occurred on both sides of WWII. Were the winner nations of WWII to proceed to put on trial those who had committed crimes against humanity committed by Allied personnel? Obviously not! Thus the high point of the Twentieth Century was shy of transformative. The country we love shied of holding its own war criminals to account, and even though it decided to foster international governance (the United Nations) in the aftermath of WWII, it made sure “winner” nations in international conflict would by virtue of the security council veto prevent prosecution of people who committed the crimes against humanity of the winners.
11) Which brings us to the evil conjunction of capitalism and the military industrial complex. War is the greatest wealth accretion known to humankind (if you win). Our parent’s generation, speaking as a baby boomer beneficiary, knew the advantages of winning. Today, in our elective wars such as the Iraq War, the apparent losers for objective comment include our sons and daughters who volunteered for service but today are dead or maimed for life. The social compact requires that they be made whole at a minimum (a concept taxpayers bolt at actually). Our winners are the investors in munition industries and precious metals. Our collateral damaged persons are those whose share of economic prosperity must be delayed for some later time of social advance (remember the disparity of percent of drafted Blacks in the Viet Nam War).
Conclusion. This remains the status quo today. You may want to blame this on baby boomers (Dad’s generation). Well guess what, now it’s been your turn for the past twenty five years, and your children will do the same for you. The will to effect change comes along in the likes of Paul Wellstone. Exceptional politician. Did you vote for him for U.S. Senate?
How about a moderate like Durenburger who shepherded the health care reform laws to find new funding mechanisms for private medical insurance and for the medical industry while employers are weaning themselves of employees covered by health insurance by them in whole or in part.
I am for single payer health insurance simply because medicine should not profiteer on sickness and disease and disability. The for profit realm of private industry in the medical area is unseemly. Single payer works for medicare and the military. It will always have bureaucratic adjustments to make. It is not a panacea, but the profiteering over sickness and death might be brought under control.
Finally, as a Christian you either do or do not have a sense of “unjust enrichment.” The Bible is so stewed with examples. King David and Bathsheba comes to mine. The love of anything other than God is the root of evil. The actual proverbs might help you out on that one! “Neutralist” Switzerland for example washes its hands of the art confiscated of Jews being sent to the death camps of the Nazi Era, which art is stored in its vaults. Our corruption even in our bastions of wealth is that we close our eyes while the stranger is robbed and beaten and raped. This mindlessness for a Christian in this republic of laws, not men, must and will not stand! More is required!
A Discourse on Prosperity, Economic Advantage, and Wealth, Part I.
Introduction. My niece who is extremely well educated and trained as a nuclear warrior, recently wrote me on Facebook: "Yep. Sounds Marxist to me. Freedom is capitalism. We are merely transfering wealth from the producers to the government ruling class...it never works...the ecology will collapse and all but the rich will suffer. To (sic) bad for the money lovers but hope is in Jesus. If you can read a book. You are the rich-- what will the get through to you?"
So you need a little more context? Her retort was in reference to my Facebook comment Monday, October 28, 2013. If you read the comment, perhaps her retort will make kinda, sorta sense. The challenge of social snippets on facebook is my forte. I like to stir the pot (which in my opinion is already stirring). It helps dissipate negative energy for some and disturbs others who then continue unabated in the brew which is private/public social media.
A Discourse on Prosperity, Economic Advantage, and Wealth
Part I.
We all probably have a dear niece or nephew who consumes enormous amounts of Tea Bag politics and stirs in a select jaundiced version of Christianity. I consider this particular mixed drink, toxic! I know that capitalism conceptually is no better nor different than the very embodiment of the human ego in advance of its own agenda. What scares me is that my one certain niece confuses the prosperity of persons in the faith with the faith itself. The Christian faith can not serve both God and Mammon, but her “dispositive” explanation for prosperity is that it is a product of human freedom (here think small government without regard for the harsh consequences of unbridled capitalism).
In this Tea Party segmented view with which I take issue, any rule or law that interferes with economic freedom is evil. If my words offend some in the Tea Party cause who do not consider themselves libertarian, I am only directly here in the face of such persons who claim Christ as Lord and Savior and then wash their hands of the burdens of citizenship in a representative democracy, our beloved republic of laws, not men.
On another front her capitalist-Christian rhetoric is a self serving and ego centric congratulatory Christianity. I am not alone in finding it extremely chilling, and I might add, the anti-thesis of the Gospel attributed to Jesus of Nazareth and Paul and other traditionally accepted renderings of the core and essential messages of Christianity embraced by Orthodox, Catholic, Episcopalian, Lutheran, and Protestant denominations.
The work ethic itself is not under attack as I myself believe in the opportunity afforded everyone regardless of race, color, creed, or sexual identity, inherent in a society where hard work, labor, is rewarded by our peers for the goods and services provided us. I do not begrudge even the cut taken by bankers and persons who seek a return on the labor of others, or for that matter the ownership class of persons who expect to limit the benefit to the “workers” as it would shorten them of the profit that adds to their status as wealthy beneficiaries of capitalism. I am here though most certainly regardful of social polity of shared benefits of prosperity and labor and regard for those less able to exploit our market system of capitalism (or in some cases totally unable to do so).
The notion that successful capitalists winners turn philanthropic (i.e. Bill and Melinda Gates, Warren Buffet, the Hunt Brothers) does suggest that greed has its limits among those who realize the human being also is a social animal with a capacity for altruism. This type of fairmindedness is at best humanitarian and potentially restorative justice on the part of those whose ”take” far exceeded just compensation for one’s actual labor. Keep in mind that the humanitarian impulse is not exclusively Christian, as an atheist non-true believer is potentially just as cognizant of the benefits of a prosperity beyond all reasonable bounds of just compensation.
In the Tea Party rugged individualist world, one works hard and succeeds and is even “blessed.” However, even the most ardent Ayn Rand type must acknowledge some benefits that derive not of just merit, but priviligege and fortunate timing, and truth be told some skirting of the laws of society and disregard of normal human kindness and too a regard for the fate of our fellows and economic interests of our fellows (copyright or patent comes to mind).
I for one do not think Jesus was silent on the exploitation of people and how the economically prosperous can be so contemptuous of the “less economically blessed.” Let’s not forget Jesus and his righteous anger at the Jerusalem temple precinct money changers who were permitted and encouraged by the Jewish ruling class of priests to fuel the sale of oxen, lambs, doves, and goats of the devout pilgrim to raise capital in order to purchase the “pure” animals bought with pure money purchased at a compounded loss by the devout. The ruling class of Judea which controlled the temple was on the take just like our modern capitalists! Can the “take” of the temple ever be purified of its exploitation of the devout? If the temple is the bank, something is surely awry!
The commonality then and now is that the fleecing of the little people is the traditional premise of capitalism. In our materialistic society, money is enshrined and the perpetuation of wealthy class of persons consumes the waking hours of lobbyists and politicians on the make.
The fact anyone else ever has a say in the U.S. Congress (or my state capitol in St. Paul, Minnesota) is to me a marker of hopefulness. I could do with some more meaningful say in progressive, respectful governance. It’s why I am a Democrat. If all I worried about was wealth, yah I too would vote Republican. I just choose not to be defined by the acquisition of material wealth. To me the pursuit of wealth is just one of the facets of the pursuit of happiness for all (not just the advantaged). If you believe in spiritual wealth as I do, the spiritually endowed do or should not create a space in which to ignor the economic hardship of others. No, the exact opposite. I foster a representative democracy in which prosperity is chartered by each succeeding generation for all (not just the advantaged).
See Part II which follows this edition of Glebewise.
So you need a little more context? Her retort was in reference to my Facebook comment Monday, October 28, 2013. If you read the comment, perhaps her retort will make kinda, sorta sense. The challenge of social snippets on facebook is my forte. I like to stir the pot (which in my opinion is already stirring). It helps dissipate negative energy for some and disturbs others who then continue unabated in the brew which is private/public social media.
A Discourse on Prosperity, Economic Advantage, and Wealth
Part I.
We all probably have a dear niece or nephew who consumes enormous amounts of Tea Bag politics and stirs in a select jaundiced version of Christianity. I consider this particular mixed drink, toxic! I know that capitalism conceptually is no better nor different than the very embodiment of the human ego in advance of its own agenda. What scares me is that my one certain niece confuses the prosperity of persons in the faith with the faith itself. The Christian faith can not serve both God and Mammon, but her “dispositive” explanation for prosperity is that it is a product of human freedom (here think small government without regard for the harsh consequences of unbridled capitalism).
In this Tea Party segmented view with which I take issue, any rule or law that interferes with economic freedom is evil. If my words offend some in the Tea Party cause who do not consider themselves libertarian, I am only directly here in the face of such persons who claim Christ as Lord and Savior and then wash their hands of the burdens of citizenship in a representative democracy, our beloved republic of laws, not men.
On another front her capitalist-Christian rhetoric is a self serving and ego centric congratulatory Christianity. I am not alone in finding it extremely chilling, and I might add, the anti-thesis of the Gospel attributed to Jesus of Nazareth and Paul and other traditionally accepted renderings of the core and essential messages of Christianity embraced by Orthodox, Catholic, Episcopalian, Lutheran, and Protestant denominations.
The work ethic itself is not under attack as I myself believe in the opportunity afforded everyone regardless of race, color, creed, or sexual identity, inherent in a society where hard work, labor, is rewarded by our peers for the goods and services provided us. I do not begrudge even the cut taken by bankers and persons who seek a return on the labor of others, or for that matter the ownership class of persons who expect to limit the benefit to the “workers” as it would shorten them of the profit that adds to their status as wealthy beneficiaries of capitalism. I am here though most certainly regardful of social polity of shared benefits of prosperity and labor and regard for those less able to exploit our market system of capitalism (or in some cases totally unable to do so).
The notion that successful capitalists winners turn philanthropic (i.e. Bill and Melinda Gates, Warren Buffet, the Hunt Brothers) does suggest that greed has its limits among those who realize the human being also is a social animal with a capacity for altruism. This type of fairmindedness is at best humanitarian and potentially restorative justice on the part of those whose ”take” far exceeded just compensation for one’s actual labor. Keep in mind that the humanitarian impulse is not exclusively Christian, as an atheist non-true believer is potentially just as cognizant of the benefits of a prosperity beyond all reasonable bounds of just compensation.
In the Tea Party rugged individualist world, one works hard and succeeds and is even “blessed.” However, even the most ardent Ayn Rand type must acknowledge some benefits that derive not of just merit, but priviligege and fortunate timing, and truth be told some skirting of the laws of society and disregard of normal human kindness and too a regard for the fate of our fellows and economic interests of our fellows (copyright or patent comes to mind).
I for one do not think Jesus was silent on the exploitation of people and how the economically prosperous can be so contemptuous of the “less economically blessed.” Let’s not forget Jesus and his righteous anger at the Jerusalem temple precinct money changers who were permitted and encouraged by the Jewish ruling class of priests to fuel the sale of oxen, lambs, doves, and goats of the devout pilgrim to raise capital in order to purchase the “pure” animals bought with pure money purchased at a compounded loss by the devout. The ruling class of Judea which controlled the temple was on the take just like our modern capitalists! Can the “take” of the temple ever be purified of its exploitation of the devout? If the temple is the bank, something is surely awry!
The commonality then and now is that the fleecing of the little people is the traditional premise of capitalism. In our materialistic society, money is enshrined and the perpetuation of wealthy class of persons consumes the waking hours of lobbyists and politicians on the make.
The fact anyone else ever has a say in the U.S. Congress (or my state capitol in St. Paul, Minnesota) is to me a marker of hopefulness. I could do with some more meaningful say in progressive, respectful governance. It’s why I am a Democrat. If all I worried about was wealth, yah I too would vote Republican. I just choose not to be defined by the acquisition of material wealth. To me the pursuit of wealth is just one of the facets of the pursuit of happiness for all (not just the advantaged). If you believe in spiritual wealth as I do, the spiritually endowed do or should not create a space in which to ignor the economic hardship of others. No, the exact opposite. I foster a representative democracy in which prosperity is chartered by each succeeding generation for all (not just the advantaged).
See Part II which follows this edition of Glebewise.
Morning Monitor Report
Today is Friday, November 1, 2013. This monitor of the cosmos is its usual manic self, up before the globular revolution provides the local solar light's eruption into day. We, my fellow monitors, do not as yet have a life support system for humans on the adjacent planet Mars. The clock advances on our species of monitors which may or may not one day provide a place of safety should the host planet Earth prove inhospitable to life forms such as the higher life form humans dependent on lower life forms for survival. Our political and social systems broker delay in restraint of global warming of the planet and began to expend enormous amounts of human and monetary resources on reallocation of the planet's resources between the haves and have nots. At some point revolution and break down of society which is periodical is to occur. Low lying coastal regions heavily populated are likely to experience such fundamental need of such reallocation prior to interior upland less populated areas resulting in further political instability. Prognosis is not good. Instability alert issued by this monitor is now on red to yellow due to some institutional compensation to affected areas (i.e. see FEMA and related mechanisms).
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Monday, September 30, 2013
Christians join theists and atheists in regard for the gift of life
The mutual impetus to change human conduct that threatens life on the planet concerns us all, no exceptions.
Samuel Scheffler, philosopher of New York University, published recently in the New York Times an article (see endnote) on the human condition, or situation. His viewpoint is premised not on the uncertainty principle, but rather on the certainty principle of human mortality. The viewpoint is not tucked into an atheist or theist stance which I as a believer in God feels uncomfortable in endorsing.
I ask of my fellow believers in not only God, but the God of justice, mercy, and compassion, to give his disposition the merit it deserves. Ethical conduct by the individual and by society remains our subject however. Scheffler is a proponent of mindfulness about the legacy we can and should leave to our successors on the planet Earth.
This can be viewed as a superior disposition to an old world notion which was concerned with ancestor worship, and tradition for tradition’s sake. Shame about one’s conduct often is framed in terms of having failed the expectations of our ancestors that placed their hope in our success in perpetuating and extending civilization.
In my life time, I can not forget the shame of America in suing for peace in the 1970s and abandoning its toe hold support of post-colonial powers and its control and influence on mainland Asia (outside of South Korea and Taiwan). It was indeed to have a reflexive assertion of power and influence in two wars in the new century’s first decade at the same time to assert the role of the American Empire in Asia: Afghanistan (from 2002 and by 2013 winding down) and Iraq ( from 2003 and by 2009-2010 winding down).
What is a little more difficult to assert is that society either has the will and the leadership or it does not to affect desirable conducts. Scheffler posits an idealist principle that intelligent acceptance of the realities of the human race has impetus for change. For example, current certainty about human causation of global warming is termed in a percentage (95% of concerned scientific appraisal).
As to what can or should be done to curtail the negative effects of global warming, politicians remain more beholden to trade and industry and current profit margins for capitalism and continued exploitation of the world’s resources to perpetuate wealth predicated on world markets and consumerism.
What issue I take is not with Scheffler’s humanism or his rationalism for indeed we currently resident on Earth do succeed or fail premised on the future hold of the human race on this planet, its habitability, and its fostering of life.
My issue would be with persons, Christians or not, who conclude that the tomorrow for the planet can be divorced from one’s view of the afterlife. The concern of Jesus was for the entirety of society and Christianity per se has as its concern all persons without exception as subject to redemption and salvation. He did not exclude generations yet unborn.
If one posits “end times,” then one lives with greater urgency the day God gives us to live. That urgency of which Scheffler speaks (regard for posterity) is just as valid with a personal afterlife as a guarantee of God’s provision for his children. Christians just can not, must not, separate themselves from theists and atheists whose common humanity is ever more apparent in the custodial role of the human race in its care of the planet that fosters life.
If faith is valid for the individual and the individual community (and I believe that it is), that faith can not abandon the perpetuation of life and the health of this planet as its concern. The common enemy is the devil in the details, the crass indifference to the planet's health and the human community's failure to safeguard life and its perpetuation by what means we have to do so.
Rick Hilber, Monday, September 30, 2013
End Note. See Star Tribune, Sunday, September 29, 2013, at OP4 for “What to do today if tomorrow never comes?” by Samuel Scheffler as reprinted from the New York Times prior publication of the article.
Samuel Scheffler, philosopher of New York University, published recently in the New York Times an article (see endnote) on the human condition, or situation. His viewpoint is premised not on the uncertainty principle, but rather on the certainty principle of human mortality. The viewpoint is not tucked into an atheist or theist stance which I as a believer in God feels uncomfortable in endorsing.
I ask of my fellow believers in not only God, but the God of justice, mercy, and compassion, to give his disposition the merit it deserves. Ethical conduct by the individual and by society remains our subject however. Scheffler is a proponent of mindfulness about the legacy we can and should leave to our successors on the planet Earth.
This can be viewed as a superior disposition to an old world notion which was concerned with ancestor worship, and tradition for tradition’s sake. Shame about one’s conduct often is framed in terms of having failed the expectations of our ancestors that placed their hope in our success in perpetuating and extending civilization.
In my life time, I can not forget the shame of America in suing for peace in the 1970s and abandoning its toe hold support of post-colonial powers and its control and influence on mainland Asia (outside of South Korea and Taiwan). It was indeed to have a reflexive assertion of power and influence in two wars in the new century’s first decade at the same time to assert the role of the American Empire in Asia: Afghanistan (from 2002 and by 2013 winding down) and Iraq ( from 2003 and by 2009-2010 winding down).
What is a little more difficult to assert is that society either has the will and the leadership or it does not to affect desirable conducts. Scheffler posits an idealist principle that intelligent acceptance of the realities of the human race has impetus for change. For example, current certainty about human causation of global warming is termed in a percentage (95% of concerned scientific appraisal).
As to what can or should be done to curtail the negative effects of global warming, politicians remain more beholden to trade and industry and current profit margins for capitalism and continued exploitation of the world’s resources to perpetuate wealth predicated on world markets and consumerism.
What issue I take is not with Scheffler’s humanism or his rationalism for indeed we currently resident on Earth do succeed or fail premised on the future hold of the human race on this planet, its habitability, and its fostering of life.
My issue would be with persons, Christians or not, who conclude that the tomorrow for the planet can be divorced from one’s view of the afterlife. The concern of Jesus was for the entirety of society and Christianity per se has as its concern all persons without exception as subject to redemption and salvation. He did not exclude generations yet unborn.
If one posits “end times,” then one lives with greater urgency the day God gives us to live. That urgency of which Scheffler speaks (regard for posterity) is just as valid with a personal afterlife as a guarantee of God’s provision for his children. Christians just can not, must not, separate themselves from theists and atheists whose common humanity is ever more apparent in the custodial role of the human race in its care of the planet that fosters life.
If faith is valid for the individual and the individual community (and I believe that it is), that faith can not abandon the perpetuation of life and the health of this planet as its concern. The common enemy is the devil in the details, the crass indifference to the planet's health and the human community's failure to safeguard life and its perpetuation by what means we have to do so.
Rick Hilber, Monday, September 30, 2013
End Note. See Star Tribune, Sunday, September 29, 2013, at OP4 for “What to do today if tomorrow never comes?” by Samuel Scheffler as reprinted from the New York Times prior publication of the article.
Monday, September 9, 2013
Obama and the Punitive Use of Fire Power as the Means to an End
Today, Congress at the behest of the President, is deliberating the use of American fire power (as opposed to invasion or start of war consent). Approval of use of American firepower to punish the Assad Regime in Syria for its use of chemical weapons on its own people is a curious use of Congress. Why is that?
Our representatives can look at the intelligence or not, but if they look they can not disclose either the content or the good faith of the dossier on Assad's conduct of suppression of the uprising in Syria. So we are left the public speeches of Congress which are scrubbed and sanitized and which leave us the American people in the dark.
It happened with the George W. Bush Administration's jingoism and lead up to the Iraq War premised on weapons of mass destruction that in fact the Hussein Regime of Iraq did not have (in so far as production of such weapons in the lead up to the start of war and the search for weapons that followed could or would ever establish). So, asking the American people to authorize a punitive action on the Assad Regime is wrongheaded.
The correct forum for every police action in world affairs is the flawed by design provisions of international law, specifically the United Nations. Disclosures in that forum by the United States can help establish that the removal of Assad from power is for the greater good of the people of Syria itself. Even then, the mayhem that results in the takedown of the regime will result in untold consequence for the people of Syria. The President wants to commit to a punitive action, one that must not have as its goal the removal of the regime from power. Why? Because the power vacuum that will result will be filled by jihadist and extremist elements who will exploit the opportunity to further not the cause of Syria and its people but their own insane delusions of power and right.
But then why ask the question of the American people? One is reminded that the government secrets are supposedly secret because of actual national security concerns for our undercover agents and those they come to exploit for America's cause. The President is on the hotseat by his own "good offices." Which leaves us where? The real ethical dilemma is Russia's and Turkey's dilemma. Each country has a sad history of pogroms and genocide to account for not just in days of the Russian and Ottoman Empires, but in the modern era of Republics. They are the power brokers who need the status quo in Syria for their own internal and national security interests.
So the real question is where does American power and influence stop, or should it stop? If this is about preservation of Israel, then take out the enemies of Israel. If this is about the Christian or non-Alewite Muslim populations of Lebanon and Syria, they will be decimated by America's firepower (much as the Christians of Iraq have suffered so adversely from America's invasion of Iraq). We know the chemical weapons and control centers will be housed in churches, schools, and mosques. How good are we with pin point use of fire power? Ask the 100,000 plus dead civilians of Iraq (but do not ask the survivors of these 100,000). My President seems bound and determined to excuse the death of innocents as the essential product of taking action, what is called euphemistically, not terrorism per se, but "collateral damage." No President wants to signal that the American Empire has its limits.
Time, Mr. President, to call you on this one and your true motivation for using American fire power for purposes of "credential" enhancement of American power in the Mid-East. I voted for you twice, but I'm still very much the critic of the power brokers of Washington, D.C., of which you by definition have become.
Our representatives can look at the intelligence or not, but if they look they can not disclose either the content or the good faith of the dossier on Assad's conduct of suppression of the uprising in Syria. So we are left the public speeches of Congress which are scrubbed and sanitized and which leave us the American people in the dark.
It happened with the George W. Bush Administration's jingoism and lead up to the Iraq War premised on weapons of mass destruction that in fact the Hussein Regime of Iraq did not have (in so far as production of such weapons in the lead up to the start of war and the search for weapons that followed could or would ever establish). So, asking the American people to authorize a punitive action on the Assad Regime is wrongheaded.
The correct forum for every police action in world affairs is the flawed by design provisions of international law, specifically the United Nations. Disclosures in that forum by the United States can help establish that the removal of Assad from power is for the greater good of the people of Syria itself. Even then, the mayhem that results in the takedown of the regime will result in untold consequence for the people of Syria. The President wants to commit to a punitive action, one that must not have as its goal the removal of the regime from power. Why? Because the power vacuum that will result will be filled by jihadist and extremist elements who will exploit the opportunity to further not the cause of Syria and its people but their own insane delusions of power and right.
But then why ask the question of the American people? One is reminded that the government secrets are supposedly secret because of actual national security concerns for our undercover agents and those they come to exploit for America's cause. The President is on the hotseat by his own "good offices." Which leaves us where? The real ethical dilemma is Russia's and Turkey's dilemma. Each country has a sad history of pogroms and genocide to account for not just in days of the Russian and Ottoman Empires, but in the modern era of Republics. They are the power brokers who need the status quo in Syria for their own internal and national security interests.
So the real question is where does American power and influence stop, or should it stop? If this is about preservation of Israel, then take out the enemies of Israel. If this is about the Christian or non-Alewite Muslim populations of Lebanon and Syria, they will be decimated by America's firepower (much as the Christians of Iraq have suffered so adversely from America's invasion of Iraq). We know the chemical weapons and control centers will be housed in churches, schools, and mosques. How good are we with pin point use of fire power? Ask the 100,000 plus dead civilians of Iraq (but do not ask the survivors of these 100,000). My President seems bound and determined to excuse the death of innocents as the essential product of taking action, what is called euphemistically, not terrorism per se, but "collateral damage." No President wants to signal that the American Empire has its limits.
Time, Mr. President, to call you on this one and your true motivation for using American fire power for purposes of "credential" enhancement of American power in the Mid-East. I voted for you twice, but I'm still very much the critic of the power brokers of Washington, D.C., of which you by definition have become.
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Adult modernity leads away from where we are going!
I am reminded of a person who once was so far into being righteous that he touched upon the face of God and God held his hand and called him: "Child."
The next day, when the rich and powerful heard this person proclaiming love of neighbor (including one's enemies), they felt threatened and undermined. The worldly wise saw no choice; they had the person put to death. Now, there's a story.
True ...religion was born that day in a land long ago and far away. Some who heard him that day started to say he had risen from the dead. Many would turn away having much to lose, while others with nothing to lose believed and lived henceforth with hope that in the end good triumphs over evil. It's a primitive belief though.
We moderns do not need it, do we? We have such very well formed consciences, we do not need this guy mucking up our capacity for self justification.
The next day, when the rich and powerful heard this person proclaiming love of neighbor (including one's enemies), they felt threatened and undermined. The worldly wise saw no choice; they had the person put to death. Now, there's a story.
True ...religion was born that day in a land long ago and far away. Some who heard him that day started to say he had risen from the dead. Many would turn away having much to lose, while others with nothing to lose believed and lived henceforth with hope that in the end good triumphs over evil. It's a primitive belief though.
We moderns do not need it, do we? We have such very well formed consciences, we do not need this guy mucking up our capacity for self justification.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Why the Sole Proprietor is Favored in the Law, and then Disfavored in Favor of Limited Liability Business Entities
Are you among those who think a progressive Republican or liberal Democrat is out to get the sole proprietor?
Tell me you know that the business expense deduction properly and legally claimed is the means to an end to further small businesses which are unlikely to be hobby ventures. Americans who favor the graduated income tax know that at the point a small business pays a salary to its employees, the business in effect has no income which is subject to the graduated income tax. That protection in the law is not going anywhere when you consider the realities of new growth enterprises.
When a sole proprietor, a limited liability company, a corporation, an international corporation, began to hide profits in off shore accounts and other maneuvers, they remove the wealth from the economy which is the Economy of these the United States of America. The money supply shrinks, jobs are siphoned off to other economies where labor is slave labor poor and without any of the protections of the law we afford for one another in this our commonwealth.
Yes, it's true that no President fearful of re-election is going to print money at a rate that causes inflation of the currency (which he will do to some extent to counter the siphoning off of the wealth of our country into international capitalism). Why is that? Because persons on fixed incomes whose income is for the most part consumed by necessities are first to suffer the impact of inflation.
On the other hand, those with the means of enhanced income typically benefit from the economic maneuver of investment sectors such as home mortgage sector which just increases the interest rate on loans. This triggers a spiralling and out of control economy as the rich make war on the rest of us who depend not on investment income but on the fruit of our actual daily labor. The only way out is to tax the rich and increase the income tax on unearned income (as in sale of stocks, receipt of payment of dividends, and exercised stock options). The push back is for the rich to say to the law makers if you do not allow us protected unearned income (essential interest and dividend income), well we are just going to take our money and invest it where you can not tax it.
Geez! Don't you love asking simple questions and getting complexity thrown right back at ya? Be that as it may, are you absolutely wrong in defaming "progressives" or "democrats."
The class war has been for some time now been on the little people who depend more on the sweat of their brows then on their leveraged investments which profit the rich at a very little risk (given limited liability law for investor protection and a lower tax rate for investment income).
Trickle down economics is an obscenity foisted on us by economic conservatives with no regard for the rest of us in society and for whom we represent only opportunity and exploitation. A progressive wants government to be responsible for its effective expenditure of public funds (which includes foregone revenue from effectively taxing the wealth of the economy that has been squirrelled away by the rich people and even richer corporations)..
If I find an economic conservative who is a progressive typically, I find a hypocrite whose pockets are lined by corporate America and special interests. If I find a true progressive, I typically see a public servant who regards ordinary wage earners as the lowest common denominator and as one who asks at every turn: "How will this change in the law affect the little guy and gal who have to buy milk and rush their baby to the emergency room and go to food shelf and stand in line for a job and be badmouthed by the folks who have it made?"
Tell me you know that the business expense deduction properly and legally claimed is the means to an end to further small businesses which are unlikely to be hobby ventures. Americans who favor the graduated income tax know that at the point a small business pays a salary to its employees, the business in effect has no income which is subject to the graduated income tax. That protection in the law is not going anywhere when you consider the realities of new growth enterprises.
When a sole proprietor, a limited liability company, a corporation, an international corporation, began to hide profits in off shore accounts and other maneuvers, they remove the wealth from the economy which is the Economy of these the United States of America. The money supply shrinks, jobs are siphoned off to other economies where labor is slave labor poor and without any of the protections of the law we afford for one another in this our commonwealth.
Yes, it's true that no President fearful of re-election is going to print money at a rate that causes inflation of the currency (which he will do to some extent to counter the siphoning off of the wealth of our country into international capitalism). Why is that? Because persons on fixed incomes whose income is for the most part consumed by necessities are first to suffer the impact of inflation.
On the other hand, those with the means of enhanced income typically benefit from the economic maneuver of investment sectors such as home mortgage sector which just increases the interest rate on loans. This triggers a spiralling and out of control economy as the rich make war on the rest of us who depend not on investment income but on the fruit of our actual daily labor. The only way out is to tax the rich and increase the income tax on unearned income (as in sale of stocks, receipt of payment of dividends, and exercised stock options). The push back is for the rich to say to the law makers if you do not allow us protected unearned income (essential interest and dividend income), well we are just going to take our money and invest it where you can not tax it.
Geez! Don't you love asking simple questions and getting complexity thrown right back at ya? Be that as it may, are you absolutely wrong in defaming "progressives" or "democrats."
The class war has been for some time now been on the little people who depend more on the sweat of their brows then on their leveraged investments which profit the rich at a very little risk (given limited liability law for investor protection and a lower tax rate for investment income).
Trickle down economics is an obscenity foisted on us by economic conservatives with no regard for the rest of us in society and for whom we represent only opportunity and exploitation. A progressive wants government to be responsible for its effective expenditure of public funds (which includes foregone revenue from effectively taxing the wealth of the economy that has been squirrelled away by the rich people and even richer corporations)..
If I find an economic conservative who is a progressive typically, I find a hypocrite whose pockets are lined by corporate America and special interests. If I find a true progressive, I typically see a public servant who regards ordinary wage earners as the lowest common denominator and as one who asks at every turn: "How will this change in the law affect the little guy and gal who have to buy milk and rush their baby to the emergency room and go to food shelf and stand in line for a job and be badmouthed by the folks who have it made?"
Friday, April 19, 2013
Preface to November 13, 2012, "The Beloved of the Earth."
Preface to Beloved of the Earth.
The gun lobby would perhaps ban my poem "Beloved of the Earth" from the internet, but I hope my fellow Americans who cherish most sacredly the Second Amendment will take a moment to understand the consequence of my poem "The Beloved of the Earth." Why would I say such a seemingly self-serving thing? I will tell you why.
Each time you take a life (animal or human) that you at least get it that killing is a desecration which only the animal or human family can condone, maybe even honor, if you the killer understand what we and you lose with the taking of a life. Killing is of consequence to all of us, the human community, we stewards of this our home, the planet Earth.
There is no impermeable barrier, as each of us very well should know, between the right to bear arms and the taking of life by the use of firearms, and the consequences of which I speak. We are too enamored of saying only criminals misuse firearms. The reality is that humans are killers.
Killing is gratuitous, or it is not. A lawman one moment who cherishes the rule of law becomes an enraged killer the next. The person who has killed, the next moment will sometimes, too often, turn the gun on himself. Time must have a stop. And one wanting an exit, turns the firearm on himself.
So the commandment "thou shalt not kill" is not termed with exceptions and allowances, and wisely so. Even the soldier who follows orders has to deal with the personal consequence of the taking of the life of another. His or her humanity is at a risk when following orders. Indeed, every commander understands at his or her own peril that what he asks of his platoon is lawful, or it is not. There will be other occasions of a My Lai Massacre, but my generation has had its moment of horror, of an American leader debased by his act of terrorism and one who about finished the role of America as the noble interloper in Southeast Asia. What would a noble commander have said to his troopers that the cause be advanced? I think I know. Why? Because it is etched onto our hearts every Memorial Day service in remembrance of our honored dead:
"Be fully armed and dangerous, be wary, for much depends on you not firing your weapon. Much also depends on you discharging your weapon to spare the life of your comrade. I too would be a defender such as I would have you to be. Very little depends on you firing to save your own life. Why? Because more than life itself, you treasure honor and the privilege to be of service to your country and not to dishonor it with deeds of infamy. This day if it be your last, die knowing you have the gratitude of your commander and of your country. It is a noble thing, sweet and honorable, to give one's life for one's country!"
Does our language even have a word for the gratuitous killing at My Lai in 1968. Yes, "atrocity." Were most of the deaths perpertrated that day at My Lai acts of terrorism? Yes, they were. Remember though that not all who were at My Lai participated in the unlawful killings of the unarmed, infants, children, women, and elders. The true heroes saw the murder of innocents and they paid the price to bring to light the atrocity which has among others such as the Moro Crater Village Massacre in the Phillipines become the shameful history of this country which we must share and own as surely as the heroics of Valley Forge and Gettysburg.
One of the effects of immorality is the mindless repetition of behaviors of our leaders who take us as a nation down the wrong path. The path to the right leads to villainy in furtherance of a just cause. Even more of consequence, the path to the left leads to furtherance of an unjust cause by perpetration of unjust means to affect that unjust cause. There lies the very meaning of the word "horror" as in the phrase: "the horrors of war." If there be amplified shame in defeat, the shame will not be a consequence of nobility in war, rather utter ignobility in immoral acts to advance an immoral cause.
A nation deserves its defeat that can not serve the greater good for itself and its neighbors and fellow residents of the planet Earth. Yes, the person of conscience with a will must seek to end a war the victor. If you need an example, study history. If wars must be fought though, I for one emphasize that the true crisis of war is the crisis of nobility in executing the war. Yes, I am mindful that foremost in mind is the shrill dictum of militarists and patriots that a war to be fought must be a war to be won." I want to add to the dictum these words: "or one should not have resorted to war in the first place."
What do we make of a high purpose? We do the age old rendition of turning the high purpose into gratuitous killing. We end up saying falsely and ruefully that "Might makes right." Even victors lose all sheen of glory for a battle won by acts of treachery and betrayal of their nobility. For the victor, the perpetration of a criminal and immoral deed, especially one seemingly required of one to prevail, is undone by the truth. No poet can make patriotic such ignoble deeds of a victor. No, the true poet will find another theme: the tragedy of an aspirant of nobility who falls far short of deeds of valor which may have redeemed his ignoble purpose.
In this day and age, the acts of radicalized persons programmed to commit mayhem and homicidal suicide leaves us as a civilized people ready to shorten our personal liberty, our privacy, and our rights. Americans consider the exceptionalism of the insanity of such "heroics" by homicidal suicides. Indeed, suicides so deluded that they would serve a cause they deem noble by committing an atrocity. "What deeply damaged human is this killer who wants to take innocent persons into his enlarged and profaned act of suicide?"
Just wanting a larger stage on which to protest the inequities and injustices which beset an individual does not make one a terrorist. However, by conspiring to take the life of another, leaders of a noble cause debase the cause itself as noble and are traitors to its goals. Terrorist as a word fails of its meaning and usefulness as a label. I would to reserve the label "terrorist" for the evil plotter who turns another human into a programmed killer on a mission. Such a person deserves such a label (being the creator of a criminal conspiracy to commit acts of violence).
Each time you take a life (animal or human) that you at least get it that killing is a desecration which only the animal or human family can condone, maybe even honor, if you the killer understand what we and you lose with the taking of a life. Killing is of consequence to all of us, the human community, we stewards of this our home, the planet Earth.
There is no impermeable barrier, as each of us very well should know, between the right to bear arms and the taking of life by the use of firearms, and the consequences of which I speak. We are too enamored of saying only criminals misuse firearms. The reality is that humans are killers.
Killing is gratuitous, or it is not. A lawman one moment who cherishes the rule of law becomes an enraged killer the next. The person who has killed, the next moment will sometimes, too often, turn the gun on himself. Time must have a stop. And one wanting an exit, turns the firearm on himself.
So the commandment "thou shalt not kill" is not termed with exceptions and allowances, and wisely so. Even the soldier who follows orders has to deal with the personal consequence of the taking of the life of another. His or her humanity is at a risk when following orders. Indeed, every commander understands at his or her own peril that what he asks of his platoon is lawful, or it is not. There will be other occasions of a My Lai Massacre, but my generation has had its moment of horror, of an American leader debased by his act of terrorism and one who about finished the role of America as the noble interloper in Southeast Asia. What would a noble commander have said to his troopers that the cause be advanced? I think I know. Why? Because it is etched onto our hearts every Memorial Day service in remembrance of our honored dead:
"Be fully armed and dangerous, be wary, for much depends on you not firing your weapon. Much also depends on you discharging your weapon to spare the life of your comrade. I too would be a defender such as I would have you to be. Very little depends on you firing to save your own life. Why? Because more than life itself, you treasure honor and the privilege to be of service to your country and not to dishonor it with deeds of infamy. This day if it be your last, die knowing you have the gratitude of your commander and of your country. It is a noble thing, sweet and honorable, to give one's life for one's country!"
Does our language even have a word for the gratuitous killing at My Lai in 1968. Yes, "atrocity." Were most of the deaths perpertrated that day at My Lai acts of terrorism? Yes, they were. Remember though that not all who were at My Lai participated in the unlawful killings of the unarmed, infants, children, women, and elders. The true heroes saw the murder of innocents and they paid the price to bring to light the atrocity which has among others such as the Moro Crater Village Massacre in the Phillipines become the shameful history of this country which we must share and own as surely as the heroics of Valley Forge and Gettysburg.
One of the effects of immorality is the mindless repetition of behaviors of our leaders who take us as a nation down the wrong path. The path to the right leads to villainy in furtherance of a just cause. Even more of consequence, the path to the left leads to furtherance of an unjust cause by perpetration of unjust means to affect that unjust cause. There lies the very meaning of the word "horror" as in the phrase: "the horrors of war." If there be amplified shame in defeat, the shame will not be a consequence of nobility in war, rather utter ignobility in immoral acts to advance an immoral cause.
A nation deserves its defeat that can not serve the greater good for itself and its neighbors and fellow residents of the planet Earth. Yes, the person of conscience with a will must seek to end a war the victor. If you need an example, study history. If wars must be fought though, I for one emphasize that the true crisis of war is the crisis of nobility in executing the war. Yes, I am mindful that foremost in mind is the shrill dictum of militarists and patriots that a war to be fought must be a war to be won." I want to add to the dictum these words: "or one should not have resorted to war in the first place."
What do we make of a high purpose? We do the age old rendition of turning the high purpose into gratuitous killing. We end up saying falsely and ruefully that "Might makes right." Even victors lose all sheen of glory for a battle won by acts of treachery and betrayal of their nobility. For the victor, the perpetration of a criminal and immoral deed, especially one seemingly required of one to prevail, is undone by the truth. No poet can make patriotic such ignoble deeds of a victor. No, the true poet will find another theme: the tragedy of an aspirant of nobility who falls far short of deeds of valor which may have redeemed his ignoble purpose.
In this day and age, the acts of radicalized persons programmed to commit mayhem and homicidal suicide leaves us as a civilized people ready to shorten our personal liberty, our privacy, and our rights. Americans consider the exceptionalism of the insanity of such "heroics" by homicidal suicides. Indeed, suicides so deluded that they would serve a cause they deem noble by committing an atrocity. "What deeply damaged human is this killer who wants to take innocent persons into his enlarged and profaned act of suicide?"
Just wanting a larger stage on which to protest the inequities and injustices which beset an individual does not make one a terrorist. However, by conspiring to take the life of another, leaders of a noble cause debase the cause itself as noble and are traitors to its goals. Terrorist as a word fails of its meaning and usefulness as a label. I would to reserve the label "terrorist" for the evil plotter who turns another human into a programmed killer on a mission. Such a person deserves such a label (being the creator of a criminal conspiracy to commit acts of violence).
The law obviously does not deter sociopaths and psychopaths, and so the law must be for the rest of us to uphold and to cherish.
When a shepherd hunts down a predator of his sheep, he is not into gratuitous killing. He might like our ancestors ask Brother Wolf to forgive him his defense of his livelihood, his sheepfold.
Killing a wolf for your "credentials" as a hunter is actually without nobility (perhaps you have a bounty in mind for Brother Wolf's life). The wolf in its natural state is noble, while you my dear friend, degrade the meaning of the word "hunter" if not the word "human."
You are merely a killer and apparently without remorse.
May God forgive you in your plea for mercy at the hands of the killer who stalks you to the grave, yourself!
I understand that suicide is the outcome esteemed more than hunting itself by gun owners (given statistcs on suicide by gun and the percentage of gun owners who maintain a firearm or an arsenal for purposes other than hunting legally).
What's that about? Some would say "mercy," but I sense that "cowardice" is the fatal flaw for many who take the nearest exit! Our national trauma of gun enhanced violence continues and we dwell too much on death. Sadly, some who suicide, want the evil of gratuitous taking of life to mean some greater evil abides which justifies the taking of the lives of others. Hence, the commandment: thou shalt not kill. Let vengeance be God's.
The Newtown
Endnote by the author: Elsewhere then this posting, I make clear my regard for the piece supplied our American perspective by libertarians (who briefly stand for minimal government and maximization of individual liberty). My emphasis here and elsewhere is on the values clarification with which the egotism of individual liberty by definition fails of any social purpose, a regard for the community. For example, if you condone abortion as a right, very much the same right to kill enshrined in the Second Amendment, this poem "Beloved of the Earth," I optimistically believe, might start you on a journey of gratitude and dismay. The Giver of life is honored and cherished by all who speak of our Mother the Earth. The shadow on us all is the act without mercy or regard for the gift of life.
Originally published to Facebook, January 19, 2013.
Revised Friday, April 19-21, 2013. RJH.
Sunday, April 14, 2013
We tax wealth, even the wealth of persons of modest means, but why?
This is a two part article on patriotism and wealth. The article is inspired by the events of the last ten years in which our Congress did not raise taxes to pay for two foreign wars. During that period, it also extended the tax cuts obtained early in the G.W. Bush Administration which were made possible as a result of the balanced budgets of the Clinton Years in the White House. The tax cuts of course should have renewed the economic good times of the 1990s age of the new technology companies and mildly increase revenue of taxation. Instead, the inequities in the tax code went unreformed and Wall Street took ordinary Americans to the cleaners. Even worse the bankers and lenders leveraged their risks into oblivion to take profits by sale of securities which may as well have been shredded when the housing market collapsed. All of this irresponsible behavior was to really bad effect as President Bush was left scrambling in 2008 at the end of his term to save the world economy with bailouts of banks and Wall Street investors (which to be fair included the investments of ordinary Americans whose portfolios for retirement took it in the shorts and just maybe should be spared a total emptying out of their pockets). Enjoy.
Part I. Why I love the rich.
Part I. Why I love the rich.
Do
you know why you love the rich? I know why I love the rich. They pay the
graduated income tax in support of capitalism that permitted them to be takers
of the wealth of others, the laborers, the decedents (inheritance), and the
means of wealth afforded by public spending on roads, airports, and the
infrastructure of the country, including the internet, not to mention the
security afforded by military preparedness and national defense.
I dearly love a certain nephew who confuses liberals with
communists and socialists and at times spews forth that liberals are fascists
or nazi. He debases language and misconstrues the nature of those of us who
support a system of laws and self-government that procures prosperity for
ourselves and our posterity.
The wealthy, left indulging in a myopic avarice and fear, at
their worst and ultimately against their own self interest, would attack and
degrade the purity of the graduated income tax which permits not only the
system of laws to prevail, but also refloats the economy so that it can grow
again and provide pathways for all participants regardless of social economic
class.
The very best capitalists support the graduated income tax and gladly fund government because it is the true expense of procuring and maintaining wealth (i.e. property rights and intellectual property rights being the procurement by order in society without which chaos and debasement ensues).
Our most generous and truly disinterested capitalists even safeguard their children from the evil effects of unearned wealth by posting their wealth to charitable endowments that further the public good while focusing on the empowerment of their children to have goals and interests, their own pursuits. That would explain the exorbitant tuition the wealthy afford for the better if not the best schools from pre-school to grad school. Not containing the tuition rates perhaps due to their extreme of wealth, they then at some point fail to object to our current system of encumbering our college students with burdensome student loans to afford post-secondary education and even more burdensome grad school debt. At no junction is the class system so apparent and so damning as two students with the exact same results as undergrad but burdened so unevenly with debt. The impoverished graduated heads into the job market extremely hungry to say the least, and at just about every turn, has to broker a future for oneself and likely broken in addition spiritually as one sells his soul to have his success. As an aside, it suggests that ethical and spiritual endowments are life saving expenditures for our young which at some point will surely factor large in a child or a youth or a student making it through the worm hole that is economic independence with a conscience, a regard for society, the family, children the vulnerable, the elders, and the finer things of life such as art, music, preservation and restoration of nature and wildlife.
Our most generous and truly disinterested capitalists even safeguard their children from the evil effects of unearned wealth by posting their wealth to charitable endowments that further the public good while focusing on the empowerment of their children to have goals and interests, their own pursuits. That would explain the exorbitant tuition the wealthy afford for the better if not the best schools from pre-school to grad school. Not containing the tuition rates perhaps due to their extreme of wealth, they then at some point fail to object to our current system of encumbering our college students with burdensome student loans to afford post-secondary education and even more burdensome grad school debt. At no junction is the class system so apparent and so damning as two students with the exact same results as undergrad but burdened so unevenly with debt. The impoverished graduated heads into the job market extremely hungry to say the least, and at just about every turn, has to broker a future for oneself and likely broken in addition spiritually as one sells his soul to have his success. As an aside, it suggests that ethical and spiritual endowments are life saving expenditures for our young which at some point will surely factor large in a child or a youth or a student making it through the worm hole that is economic independence with a conscience, a regard for society, the family, children the vulnerable, the elders, and the finer things of life such as art, music, preservation and restoration of nature and wildlife.
Even Dale Carnegie who extracted the very life blood of
immigrant labor to the point of slavery knew that he could not cross the bloody
ground upon which his wealth crested without practicing disinterested public
endowment and largesse for the good of society.
God bless you if you have a good income or God bless you if you
pay as you go, but pay your church tithe and your income tax with a grateful
heart.
What is true?
When you begin to realize that the words conservative and
liberal coalesce if the public interest is held high.
We tax ourselves because we trust in our selves to not be
isolated and ensconced in our walled and armed compounds with the starving at
our gate awaiting alms.
We fully fund public education for all and esteem the teacher
who provides learning and discipline as a way forward (whether the child is of
the entitlement of wealth or of welfare) (notice that the word "entitlement" while dishonored by crass materialists actually is a regard for the livelihood of persons whose wealth is not yet procurable, or likely procurable, or past being procurable by engaging in the fray that is the competitive market place of society, business, and industry).
When you say "God bless America" if you're a liberal
like me, you really mean that you do bless those who cherish its system of laws
and its self-government, its fairness, its equity, and its prosperity. These together as integral of one another are together your
highest concern. You could actually say of me that I am bent on the conservation of values and livelihoods for all in so far as that can be obtained on this earth and by our society bent on progress and the dignity of human life. I would see to it that government is to be the servant of we the people, and not of the privileged few whose greed (and its excuse for the perpetuation of private gain) endangers the economic well being of the rest of society. In my book the community and its prosperity procures for all the very best products of both capitalism (private ownership) and socialism (public ownership), but that is a topic for another day as the balance of public and private ownership requires patient fine tuning and conscientious experiment. Not governing ourselves wisely is to buy trouble and so liberals and conservatives stay engaged and as true patriots get the job done!
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Amazing grace, I do believe . . .the Bible is for me.
Diverse communities of the modern era rely upon the Bible as (a) divinely inspired literature and (b) some communities believe in the stories of the Bible as literally true.
I hope to convince you that both a and b are conclusions and only in hindsight to be valued for efficacy and worth to the reader of the Bible. Why is my offer of insight a helpful one? Think of a preacher of the Gospel, any preacher. Does he call the Bible the "Word of God?" Is that not a tad presumptuous?
Why, what is to stop someone from just making stuff up and then telling folks that the words he writes down were words God told him to write down? Absolutely nothing. However, if he or she is struck by lightning on the spot for his claim of authenticity, we will tend to believe he or she has been entirely discredited. So are we suppose to believe every yokel that comes along who makes such a claim and is not struck dead on the spot? I think not.
If you've a mind to do so, keep listening and I will give you in a manner of speaking the wherewithal to deal with charlatans and false prophets of the words of God. They are here, yes here, in the modern age just as assuredly they have always been present in every generation since the dawn of creation of humankind. Who knows? I may be one! And so the question hangs in the air: "Priest, rabbi, elder, bishop, do we all not know you to be God fearing as Abraham and know you to be persons subject to judgment for your deeds consistent with your words?"
And so it is that each would be witness of the word of God comes to you as one who is being put to the test for the proof of his or her testimony. The witness is living in fact and in deed the words of one who is God fearing and as one subject to the judgment of God. The witness can be anyone! Why, could it not be me?
What's missing here? I think you know. You. You need to show up in the conversation. Read your Bible, process its contents, listen to the learned and the God fearing who are respectful of your intellect and capacity for God as a human designed with a certain innate quality. The quality, I believe, is reducible to words, and so here goes: "You are an intelligent creature capable of faith and trust in God." Abstract words and phrases are useful here too. Some recent commentators say that we humans have been created with a capacity for relationship with God. Believe absolutely that "you are a creature capable of faith and trust in God" and stuff will start to happen in your life. Transformation of your life becomes your hope and absolute purposefulness in living your life becomes your limitless gift from God that can not ever be eroded or thefted from you.
God will want you like God wanted Abraham to be. He will want you to be as follows: a person who believes in God, trusts in God, and does God's bidding even in the midst of despair and insurmountable odds and the disfavor of your fellow human beings! Read the Book of Job; read it again. To what purpose? You will belong to God and God will be your God.
By becoming a reader of the Bible, you with your own reason and experience and hopefully wise counsel of family and church can honestly react to each story, especially if the story puts words into the mouth of God. Did God really say such a thing as God is said to have said in these stories? At some point, you will find yourself commenting in three ways: (1) bunk, (2) definitely a Godlike thing to say, or (3) I just do not honestly know and I'll just go on "hold" until I know more.
I offer you this: your comment (even if it's "bunk") tells you exactly what posture you have taken as a response to the word of God some preacher is talking about. You are as some other preachers like to say interacting with the "Living Word of God." And like it or not, you are living the word of God. That can be earthshakingly important in how you come to live as authentically as the person God created you to be.
I tell you this, because I believe it to be true: One day, you can in all honesty say that you have had an experience of God which is your own experience and to which you too can witness to others!
Wow! Isn't that amazing? You will actually come to know why a believer weeps during the singing of a hymn like "Amazing Grace."
The Bible first should be trusted as the literature of the Jewish people and honored for what it can teach about ideals which reflect upon a people and a person in their trust and reliance upon a God and two other very profound truths: (a) God keeps his promises to people; and (b) people capable of faithfulness to God are often and predominately unfaithful to God and subsequently thrown down upon the mercy of God.
What else is there? Well, quite a bit actually. The Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, and Epistles and even the Book of Revelations are also Jewish literature, but it's a Jewish literature that takes on the entire human race and shares the entirety of divine wisdom with all comers. What? What did that preacher man just say?
How did a backward, wayward, perverse Aramaic people become at times the People of God, a people which could then anticipate and receive the Son of Man (the Messiah or Promised One)? And the story just keeps getting better and better. For then the Messiah does come and is killed for it, and then something else happens. He is resurrected in glory. Then he sends some of these same Aramaic persons forth into the world at large with the Good News of Salvation for all.
This is ultimately the grand saga, is it not? Yes, a saga, an epic of God becoming human, suffering as a human, and dying an ignominious human death (as if a criminal among criminals though he was without blemish and innocent of sin or crime), transcending death, not to prove he was God, but to redeem us from sin and death.
You mean he failed to prove he was God, or at least the Son of God? He already knew he was God. He didn't have to prove anything. Well he did have to prove one thing. He had to prove God keeps his promises for we truly difficult ones who need God to convince us that he is the God of Love.. He had to prove God's love for each of us. God wants us to believe that he died on the cross to redeem us from our sin, our waywardness, our perversity, and our disobedience of the will of God.
I know it has to bother you that God made you knowing that you could and would disobey him. Why would he do that? I think I know.
I believe God, being God, is drawn down from his heaven into our midst, or can be drawn down into our midst, by worshipful prayer offered up by his people. Not just any people, but by communities of believers who aspire to be the people of God. Read Psalm 22. Not yet, Estelle, not yet!
When you get home, go into your room, close the door, and read Psalm 22 until it brings you to tears. If it does not do that to you or should you tell me that you did not cry, I guarantee you that one day you will read it and you will weep, and you will weep, you will weep profusely. And you will be filled with the Holy Spirit because you will have been emptied out so that the Spirit of God can fill up your cup. Your soul will absolutely be brim full, spilling out, every excess of the Spirit that one can imagine.
This God thing really works. It does. And even more profoundly, when you conform to God's expectations, you love God and you love neighbor, you actually will come to see God. And you will see the Lord. Not only that, but you will see the Lord even before you should die. How is it that I can proclaim such a patently exaggerated thing? Why indeed?
Because you will see in the face of the idiot, the prostitute, the wife abuser, the homosexual, the tax collector, the oppressed and downtrodden, the widow, the orphan, the dying, the diseased, the outcast, the stranger, the face of Our Lord Jesus Christ. This call from God, this religion, is not for sissies.
Yes, you will suffer rejection and even self-abnegation, and despair, but God will send an angel to comfort you and you will come to no harm. What is more, you will have given life over to the greater glory and honor of the God who does want you for himself. He will say your name and welcome you into His glory and you will say, "When, dear Lord, when?" He will say, "When you spoke words of kindness and compassion and when you met the need of those considered the lesser in the world from which you come. You did it to Me as I commanded you to do."
Notice how the literature of the people of God ascends to theology over time, a theology of the God of Love in all and for all. It becomes a story of Divine intervention to turn us heart and soul back to God, whom though we have forsaken God, wants us for His purposes, not our own. He appears to have gifted us with willfulness (the power to disobey God) but that same will can turn us to faith, trust, and reliance on God alone as the source of our best interest and welfare.
Start living today. Be Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, Elijah, Job, Hosea. Be the person, be the people of God. Be Mary, John the Baptist, Peter, John, and Paul. You will be the person, the people, that God created you to be. You will speed the return of the Son of God in all his glory. When this earth perishes and all we know of this world is ended, there God is and you will be there with him, safe, and in his care just as you learned to be when you walked and dwelt on the Earth. Or you can do otherwise, but know this: you do it at your peril and to the detriment of your eternal soul.
That may seem harsh, but this God of Love is a jealous God. This God wants you for God's purposes. This God wants you to freely choose God as he designed you and me to do. You can turn and walk away now, but you will be back. You will ultimately throw yourself down on the mercy of God. Trust that one thing you know is true. We are not alone in the universe of science or of history. God is not only out there, he is in here, in the human heart, and the heart does not lie except to its own detriment and brokenness.
Saturday, April 13, 2013. Sermon notes for my readers. Richard J. Hilber.
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
One Lesson: What would it be? It has to be the only lesson you will ever teach.
Said the Teacher to his Student at just about every turn:
The answer you seek, the one that defines you, at least if you had to say, is spiritual work to know.
Does the human "heart" require this work of you?
Has this work always been there waiting for you to finally phrase it, say it out loud, then live it, or if you have been living it, live it more deeply and with absolute conviction?
Looking outside of oneself helps, but be wary of the "madness" of permitting others to define you.
The person God created you to be gave you a spirit which is at best a question which lies in your very center of being, a seed really.
A human being has within him or her the "God particle" which makes all things possible to he or she that believes it to be so.
Be the person God made you to be.
Take charge of your life.
Take responsibility for directing yourself and your time and talent.
You really do not have anything else to do really except maybe to just give it away, give it away, this gift God gave you, LIFE!
The answer you seek, the one that defines you, at least if you had to say, is spiritual work to know.
Does the human "heart" require this work of you?
Has this work always been there waiting for you to finally phrase it, say it out loud, then live it, or if you have been living it, live it more deeply and with absolute conviction?
Looking outside of oneself helps, but be wary of the "madness" of permitting others to define you.
The person God created you to be gave you a spirit which is at best a question which lies in your very center of being, a seed really.
A human being has within him or her the "God particle" which makes all things possible to he or she that believes it to be so.
Be the person God made you to be.
Take charge of your life.
Take responsibility for directing yourself and your time and talent.
You really do not have anything else to do really except maybe to just give it away, give it away, this gift God gave you, LIFE!
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Art and Spirituality as One's Experience of God and About that Mary Mother of God Belief
As Catholics the full measure of faith includes acceptance of Mary's status as the Mother of God as through her the Son of God became the Son of Man (and Second Adam) and so the virgin birth (immaculate conception), the assumption of Mary into heaven without first having to die, and her coronation as Queen of Heaven have all in turn been the focus of Catholic devotion to Mary as the intercessor at the throne of God.
Some Protestant Christians take exception to the elevation in status especially as the intermediator as between God and humankind is Jesus Christ and none other (with which Catholics will certainly not argue).
The Catholic understanding though is that when we pray for our spiritual and material wants and needs and most especially for the blessings of God upon others that we mere humans are interceding, and so not even Protestants ultimately take issue with the veneration of Mary the Mother of God as an advocate at the throne of God.
The use of icons and statues is disconcerting to many Protestants as if Catholics were praying to an idol, but this has a point of diminishing returns when you consider the mystical experience of Juan Diego of Mexico and the artifact of the image of Our Lady of Guadeloupe.
The image of Our Lady of Guadeloupe encapsulates how artists have apparitions on an exceptional basis when the artist's experience of God later expresses itself in art. If Juan in seeing Mary and speaking wtih her was delusional, his delusion does not become the focus of our attention. Rather, his story comes to us with his cloak loaded with flowers as he had been directed to gather by Mary for Juan to carry to Juan's bishop. When the robe is opened, the flowers spill out and emblazoned on the cloak is an effigy of Mary the Mother of God as she had appeared to Juan. Mary's message to the bishop was to build a church.
The bishop in seeing the display as a miracle was conceding that Juan's experience of God was to emphasize an article of the faith; the bishop realized he must permit the story of Juan and the Mother of God to reach its audience (which is what happens when the basilica church is built and pilgrims travel to the church to pray for God's favor before the garment).
There is some speculation about Mary the Mother of God which tends towards acceptance of the Divine Feminine. Why not? A people's experience of God someway, somehow, must be encompassed in imagery especially if not otherwise disclosed or available in existing art! The Catholic Church in Mexico in embracing Our Lady of Guadeloupe as a sign of God's favor was giving the people of Mexico a cultural icon in line with the teachings of the church, Over the years, the veneration Our Lady has proven an exceptional portal for reception of God's grace by the people of God.
Author's Note 1. Many come to faith in God through the Divine Feminine (as in gender assignments for God are problematic and culturally embraced as useful in theology to a point).
Author Note 2. I am a Methodist Christian and embrace my Catholic heritage as integral to my experience of God. If you wish instruction in the Christianity of the Catholic faith, please seek persons learned in the faith who are practitioners of this living faith. If you wish instruction in the Methodist faith or other Christian denomination, please seek ones learned in the faith who are practitioners of these living faiths..
Saturday, April 6, 2013
What Jack knows down deep in the well
April is National Poetry Month. So here is a poem for my readers. The persona in the poem is the familiar character Jack, though not necessarily he of the beanstalk, but something of that Jack for the trouble he has gotten himself into, and more obviously the persona is Jill's Jack which twins together went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. However, here the twins are on this particular day separated and not together fetching a pail of water. Here goes.
The Twin in the Well
So far down in the well am I,
Will parents hear my cry?
For now a circular patch of blue
Is all I see of sky above.
A song bird on the open lid
And the wind vibrating that
Drown out my calling:
“Dad, Mom, I am in the well.”
What’s to become of me?
Why did I lean in so far?
Was it to see bottom
For what I could see, a cloud?
Who only knows the end
Of me can not go well?
I can hold on here.
But cold and wet, how long?
God, I promise I will
Make it all right with Jill.
She can have the rope.
It’s mine to give her.
Just so she brings it
Right down here now.
She knows to ask
Where I’ve gone.
RJH. Thursday,
February 28, 2013.
Marriage and the Prospect and Promise of Marriage
Saturday, April 06, 2013.
On the way to meeting
up with God, I found he spoke to me before I should ever see the face of God,
and in small and quiet ways the Deity asserted Himself and His predisposition
for love as the greatest requirement of our common humanity.
[This being my
treatment of the topic of marriage and its prospects.]
By Richard J. (Rick)
Hilber
A broken heart is a terrible thing to mend, but it is
required to live again, as opposed to merely surviving. We have to heal in the broken places and grow
strong, but the process is fraught with challenges. Prayer and good times are prescribed
antidotes to the poison that pools in our being when we are hurt. This is especially true if the hurt be not
dispersed and watered down to a painful memory with little or no power over us.
Picture one of the most hurtful scenarios of our day and
age, the parent who withholds approval of an adult child who enters into a
marriage union, and even worse interferes in the responsible conduct of his or
her adult child. The parent has a broken
heart over a life choice and only manages to alienate the adult child as a
consequence. No prisoners taken in this
particular encounter, only banishment.
However, there is something worse, and it would be in an
adult child’s failure to be true to himself or herself. The hurt that results is that prisoners are
taken, sometimes spouses, and even more cruelly children who we could have
empowered to live their own lives, make their own choices, and have their own
consequences both good and bad.
We fault former lovers not for our having loved one another,
but for proving all too human and short of our idealization of one another
(which is to err on the side of objectifying the loved one). Marriage is an undertaking that soon takes us
to other quarters than any idealization of the "other" termed
"romantic."
Spouses in love with one another have transcended romantic
love by loving the actual person (or not).
Freedom to go or to stay is an enpowerment that provides second life (and
later lives) to mature spouses. That's
the commitment to relationship those who aspire to marriage want for
themselves.
They gladly trade in the rashness and intensity of romantic
love episodes they may or may not have had for the prospect of actual intimacy
and trust in another adult. The intimacy
and trust are as byproducts of marriage commitment the first children of every
couple (regardless of gender assignments).
Kudos to those with the commitment and passion for marriage
and its rebirth. Your marriage by
definition can not be childless if you actually have a true marriage (and
regardless of state sanctioned marriage provisions of the law, actual child
progeny of the marriage, or child adoption).
Persons who have true marriages or true marriage experience
know of what I speak. Let's not forget
this commonality in the midst of enlarging the sphere of state sanctioned
marriages and rights for all.
It of course makes me more than a little sad, that not all
marriages are respectful and open to growth for both partners. I have known a measure of success, but I also
know the other side of the coin. Divorce
sometimes becomes an altered state of being when there are actual children of
the marriage (but that’s a topic for another day).
As a parent and grandparent, I ask would I fail my progeny (child, step-child, et cetera) for
his or her marrying a person of the same sex?
The same can happen when an
inter-racial marriage is undertaken but that one seems not to have much sway
over me. In Christian charity in answer
to my question, I should say not. I just
hate it that my moral stances are so often at odds with institutions which I
serve and honor with my
allegiance, church and country. Again
as an adult, I find I have no place to hide.
Here, I have tried to state my values as conservatively as
possible, but in a manner which is respectful of persons different yet the same
as myself. This is not about hedonism or
a descent into perdition. Clearly it's
about family values and the efficacy of covenant relationships into which even
atheists can commit. If married, you
become fulfilled and evolved and you reach your potential, who is to say you
are not the best promotion of the married state itself. (Again, the efficacy of the single life is a
topic for another day.)
As a Christian, I too experience sadness that the marriage
covenant perhaps does not become the covenant of the spouses with God as the
third partner, but the substitute of accountability of the spouses to one
another is as good or better. You be the
judge, and I will be the respecter of your freedom to believe in God, or not.
In my conservative spiritually, the assent or yes to God is
obtained by commitment to my fellow human beings and when they fail me or I
fail myself, it only serves to throw me back upon the mercy of God. No easy out.
And definitely no embrace of hedonism. The sacrament I am called to over and over
again is to love God and love my neighbor and to forgive myself and others for
the hurt that results of our common humanity.
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Why I am a Liberal and Why Humanists Tend to be Liberals
Thursday, April 04, 2013
Why I am a Christian Liberal (Christian Democrat).
By Richard J. Hilber
A consistent liberal posture includes and furthers use of state and federal power to effect a
just society while watchful of the results which indicate movement of a
government towards either anarchy or statism. I define statism as the unnecessary and
excessive exercise of power by the state forsaking the humanism of individual
rights and responsibilities. Anarchy, or unbridled license of individuals to do as they
please, is no more American in my
experience than is statism (being that America is a premier example of
limited government by design and by grant of limited powers of the governed to
the government).
As a Christian and an American, I share in what is best termed the quest for the “just society.” Notice that the aspiration is not to a perfect government, rather an approximation of the ideal in both governance and results. Even if I share my home country with atheists and those that are not humanists, if we have a regard for the ideals of a democratic society with respect for minorities, even of the smallest minority, the individual, we can join together in common enterprise. Humanism found in many religions as a high regard for human life and the furtherance of justice and charity make the vast majority of the religious persons of the world my fellow travellers.
As a Christian and an American, I share in what is best termed the quest for the “just society.” Notice that the aspiration is not to a perfect government, rather an approximation of the ideal in both governance and results. Even if I share my home country with atheists and those that are not humanists, if we have a regard for the ideals of a democratic society with respect for minorities, even of the smallest minority, the individual, we can join together in common enterprise. Humanism found in many religions as a high regard for human life and the furtherance of justice and charity make the vast majority of the religious persons of the world my fellow travellers.
By definition, the just society will not and can not embrace
anarchy or its philosophical parent, libertarianism.
Nor can it further the excess of its opposite, statism, which in the
Twentieth Century was identified as the common abomination which was Joseph Stalin’s
Soviet Union, Adolph Hitler’s Nazi Germany, and even the Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Italy. These three experiments in government, just to name a few of the
failed states in which statism was triumphant, resulted in debasement of life and the erasure
of any pretence of aspirations to being a just society. Christians in all of these statism
experiments were or should have been at odds with their governments at just about every turn, and to the point of non-violent protest and imprisonment.
In each of the three named experiments in statism,
Christians who participated in the experiments or even stood by and failed to
object or suffer political consequence were later to be discredited as
quislings, collaborators, endorsers, and encouragers of the evils perpetuated
(thee game altering evil being pogroms, executions, and disenfranchisement of
disfavored persons and classes of persons).
If the Christian who aided the oppressed populations (populations harassed
by the state on grounds of ethnicism or religion or politics) paid for their conscientious objection, moral support, wealth, or other assistance, with his or her life, we as Christians would be derelict not to find them martyres and persons worthy
of canonization for sainthood evident in the acts of conscience of adherents of Christ. The same would be true of
Christians who failed to object, for their failure to object would indicate unworthiness of a
subject for sainthood. Persons of power
and influence found themselves in the crosshairs of history in which normative
pursuits such as peace treaties brought into question a person’s moral compass.
In time the conduct of
Christianity in times of persecution of Jews, Gypsies, Poles, and
persons with disabilities would be reviewed and criticized. Pope Pius XII in silencing German Catholic
hierarchy and laity did so to protect church vested interests under the
Nazi regime. Even the Lateran Treaty
which yielded Church a Vatican
State Germany
and then once he became Pope in his own right. The record of this Pope is not easy to judge as he was hostage in Italy to first Italian nationalism and then a German usurpation of soveignty, which is when he took personal risks and advanced the cause of his faith in a manner to reclaim his soul.
Personally, I think Pius XII was in his long reign to be
credited for his growth in spirituality and resolve to rectify the results of
the era of accommodation with statists like Hitler and Mussolini. Did he ever challenge the phalangist Franco
in Spain
whose nationalistic socialism survived the reign of Pius XII into the 1960s. Franco one must remember for using German
supplied bombs and planes to destroy civilians in bombing raids on his own
Spanish people in the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s. His killing innocent
children and non-combatants gave the world fair warning of the implications of
all out war which soon would rain down on English, French, Polish, Russian, and
German and Italian cities as well.
What is lost in all of this of course is that appeasors such
as Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of Great Britain, and Pius XII hoped to
avoid the consequences of not working out an accommodation with the “modernist”
regimes of Germany
and Italy . The then and
now apparent consequences being the all out wars of aggression bent on
empire and supremacy over nationals and foreign populations alike and the wars
of self defense that would follow. The
Papacy of the late 1930s was in effect being left behind as a player in world affairs, having
little to do of consequence about the ravages of Asiatic countries by a
militaristic and nationalist Japan ,
with enormous suffering which resulted of the imperialism in Korea , China ,
IndoChina , and the Phillipines for
starters.
Even in experiments in statism which had a humanistic
flavor, the collaboration of communism and statism produced results which
indicate a war on the propertied classes (instead of the usual target of statism, the poor, the indigent, or the disenfranchised). The humanistic bent had to do with providing
government services to the poor which were a means to justify autocratic and dictatorial
powers of the government as vested typically in a dictator who jailed
detractors, objective minded critics, and political opposition. So the common traits of statists whether fascists or communists bent is the suppression of dissent. Even in my lifetime, I had a sister tell me
I should not criticize Genreral Augusto Pinochet of Chile ,
dictator of Chile ,
because under Pinochet the streets were clean and the trains ran on time. I was appalled and by the American
corporation that maintained relations with a fascist regime that oppressed
dissenters with kidnappings, imprisonment, and executions (the infamous
“disappearances of the Pinochet Era in Chile ).
The word conservative has been tarnished for me by its
political uses as descriptive of the Nazi, the Fascists, and too the
conservative Stalinists. Liberal for me
came to mean “humanism” as the ultimate regard for life and liberty (but not to
the point of anarchy or disregard of the rights of others). In my understanding, government was a
necessary evil, and only if responsive to problems and capable of procuring and
inducing a just society (i.e. the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s
being the premier example).
The world I was born into had served up reactionaries to the
liberal ascendancy of Franklin Delano Roosevel and as well the just society
that if necessary to defend freedom had to go to war and conduct all out war
(i.e. use of the atomic bomb on civilian populations). Born in 1950, I would look at conservative
politics in the United States and be wary of the fascists and Stalinists of the
American stripe even whilst I was taught
of the menace of international communism as a threat to America’s vested
interests in control of the economies of the world (the American dollar being
the essential and stable currency not the least of America's interests and
concerns).
The world I was born into was a world with a conservative
Stalinism (statist in governance even if in rhetoric communistic) at odds with a conservative capitalist ascendancy
that at times would put world peace at risk in a nuclear age. To be fair the conservatives of the era (both
statists and capitalists) messed with mutually assured destruction of nuclear
war as a deterrent to one another’s excesses (the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962
comes to mind as the example of the brinkmanship required of both President
John Kennedy and Premier Nikita Krushchev.)
I must say that the use of the phrase “Western Democracies” was used
much like “International Communism” as proxy phrases for unbridled capitalism
of the West and the statism of the Soviet Union
(and its control of its satellite nations).
The competition that was threatenting to either side was
quite frankly over who was free and not free to exploit the planet without
being checked by its adversary. So
during the Suez Canal Crisis, France
and Great Britain would risk
all to stop nationalization of the canal which process of ownership by Egypt was supported by an expansionist Soviet Union who aided Egyptian nationalists who had come
to power. The United
States did not, even if it did, have to lift a finger to
procure the result it wanted (it had ballistic missiles in Turkey pointed
right at the heart of Mother Russia).
The results we have today many decades later are mixed and a
moving target of problems and subsets of problems which have left liberals open to criticism from those who
have no conscience that equats with a societal disposition to be the "just
society." Christians living in this
republic (representative democracy) tend to be responsible citizens by being
liberals (persons with a social conscience).
Liberals have rightly been challenged for adoption of a libertarian
stance on the right of a woman to have the say over her pregnancy (especially
with the establishment of societal interests limiting those rights as
established by the Supreme Court in Roe
v. Wade (1968)). As events have shown since Roe v. Wade, the
expansion of rights of the state over the body of a woman have expanded. The public debate is over the extent of those
powers and the necessity for such an enlargement of state’s rights over the
individual. It is just the debate we who
advocated for a just society need to have and over which we are likely to be at
odds with ourselves.
The Republican Party of Ronald Reagan and the Bush
Presidencies have exploited this divide with a measure of success as socially
conservative Christians take issue with results indicative of abortion on
demand and abortion for economic reasons at best and inconvenience to the woman
at worst (ignoring the fact that the life of the mother is hers to decide as a
medical decision and the disinclination of society to fund the expense of
raising a child to majority a public liability).
Taking of human life by abortion or capital punishment is
inherently evil to a humanist (or that word means nothing). This is not to say that a state’s rights to
incriminate a woman for abortion is to prevail in a just society on any account. To wit, if abortion is outlawed than the
state must police the medical profession and drive the practice of abortion
underground into the nadir of medicine, into quackery, and into the immorality
of the extortionist portion of
capitalism which includes the sex trade, the smuggling trade, and organized
crime.
Libertarians (not liberals) espouse as large an exercise of
personal freedom as maximizes the individualism of which our materialistic
society is so enamored. The libertarian
view wants for legalization of
marijuana, abortion, weapons for high speed kills, and physician assisted
suicide.
Of such postures of libertarians, Christian liberals labor
to see elements of the "just society" they could embrace in good
conscience.
They do see elements of the "just society" in the ideal of a death penalty humanely administered, but the actual exercise of the death penalty is fraught with exercise of state and federal power that reeks of statism with tinges of racism and classicism as the persons executed tend to be black and of the impoverished class of persons, and even more daunting convicted on evidence that later proves or establishes lapses in the application of the rules of evidence or a harsh imposition of a sentence that constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment” of criminal conduct (i.e. execution of the criminally insane and minors). I learned today that even inTexas ,
the premier capital punishment state and society, only two per cent of those
sentence to death will ever be executed (based on the state’s actual record of
executions). So who lives and who dies
under such a system of laws is judged on de facto results to be “cruel and
unusual.”
They do see elements of the "just society" in the ideal of a death penalty humanely administered, but the actual exercise of the death penalty is fraught with exercise of state and federal power that reeks of statism with tinges of racism and classicism as the persons executed tend to be black and of the impoverished class of persons, and even more daunting convicted on evidence that later proves or establishes lapses in the application of the rules of evidence or a harsh imposition of a sentence that constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment” of criminal conduct (i.e. execution of the criminally insane and minors). I learned today that even in
Part of humanism is a regard for the victims of crime. We have a need to know that criminal wrong
doing is to result in meaningful prosecution of sentences imposed. It also suggests that for victim families
there is no justice. Why? Because statistically only a very small percentage of victim
families will ever see execution of the murderer of their loved one. As humanists, we can disagree on the efficacy
of capital punishment as a procurement of a just society. Is there deterrence to any degree in making
murder a capital offense when the results suggest only two percent of the
population in Texas
face execution at some point, usually years down the road? The Republican Party which shuns liberals has
exploited this divide as well, playing off one part of the humanist community
from the other the same as it does in the abortion debate.
When I hear younger generations speak ill of liberals, I do
ask these same persons to be wary of libertarians who have very little or no
regard for the just society to which Christians and like minded persons must
aspire.
The consequence of libertarian influence and control and
that of an underregulated and unregulated capitalism is a loss of
public confidence in the will of the people to check the excesses of capitalism
and too of the individuals who have very little or no regard for the just society
which I would pass on to my children and grandchildren.
For conservatives and liberals alike (oddly not for
libertarians), I say be wary of a political process in which our elected
representatives owe allegiance to the highest bidder who supplied the funds
necessary to sway the electorate at election time. Be wary of the turnstile nature of elected
officials who purport to regulate industry, diligently to enforce regulations as executive branch
officers, and then become the paid lobbyists and consultants of the very
businesses they had been elected to monitor and control. A libertarian would simply say more power to
the person who can exploit the system for every dime of which it can be milked! Good grief, even Republicans and Democrats alike place love of country over selfish aggrandizement and not necessarily in that order (some Democrat being more public spirited than some Republicans or vice a versa).
Our moral fibre as individuals means we must procure the
just society for future generations and we do so both to procure and to receive the blessings of
liberty. Libertarians are about taking
the individual's stake out of a common enterprise called representative
democracy in our American experiment which is now 237 years old. Do your part.
Practice the acts of concern for the commonwealth of persons that
make up this great nation and its
progeny. Safeguard the environment. Educate the young regardless of the
immigration status of parents or foreign origin. We are a nation of immigrants and we are all
on a pilgrimage towards the just society that merits us a tomorrow as a
nation. That is my political faith as a
liberal.
You will hear conservatives descry humanism as secular or atheistic, but the lie in that attempt is in Christianity itself in which the man who eats, lives, and sleeps the Great Commandment and the Beatitudes of Christ has his or her heavenly reward even if such do not profess that Jesus is God (notice how guarded Jesus was of any but the freest acclaimation of His divinity). Remember Christ said he was the way, the truth, and the life. The attack on liberals as humanists is justified in almost all cases, but not the noise about it being secular or atheistic. Liberals err when they embrace statism or libertarianism. The consequence of either of these two extremes is either subsequent justifiable rebellion to statism or the anarchy that results of libertarian mentality of its adherents.
Humanism, which is not theology, can err too. I will be the first to admit that. Theology is even more legendary as a source of err though (the Inquisition and the Salem Witch Craft Trials being a common ancestry of right minded individuals later proven to be evil incarnate). Enough said.
Humanism, which is not theology, can err too. I will be the first to admit that. Theology is even more legendary as a source of err though (the Inquisition and the Salem Witch Craft Trials being a common ancestry of right minded individuals later proven to be evil incarnate). Enough said.
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