When I was a kid, my second grade teacher had a way of punishing trangressions that even to this day sticks in my craw. If someone in the class acted up, we all had to stay after school and put our heads down on the desk for fifteen minutes. Looking back, I've guessed the object of group punishment was to put pressure on the offending party so he wouldn't act up again. The "good" kids were supposed to convince the "bad" kid to get in line.
Of course, it didn't work. One reason it didn't work was because no one was going to confront the class cutup because he was usually the class bully. Who wanted to get beat up in some dark corner during recess?
But the main reason group punishment didn't work was that it merely created deep resentment toward the teacher. All of us knew she was the one who was supposed to keep order by doling out punishment to the guilty one. Every kid, head down on the desk, simmered with resentment at the injustice of being punished for someone else's misdemeanor. Why should all of us suffer for the sin of one person?
In Parts I and II concerning the national debt, the issue of collective and trangenerational obligations were discussed, with the emphasis on the injustice of enslaving our own and future generations with debt unpayable. It is, as Thomas Jefferson noted time and again, unfair to burden generations no even yet living with another generation's debt.
But as the illustration from my third grade class illustrates, there's even more to the bascially unjust theory and practice of collective guilt. Were the theory confined to a third grade class room, perhaps the damage would not be irreparable.
But the truth of the matter is that within American society, assuming society as a whole is guilty because of the transgression of others is now a staple of the legislative, judicial and executive branch. That is because the leftist view of justice now prevails; namely, that group guilt is the cause of injustice; that society as a whole is responsible for the behavior of each member of society; that we Americans are all responsible for everybody's behavior and welfare. The view is illustrated by such slogans as:
"If there's even one child in America who is hungry, we are guilty as a society."
"As long as a single person is on death row, we in society have failed him."
"As long as one homeless person is on the streets, no one who has a bed should rest until the homeless are housed and fed."
The above is not to say that charity and compassion should not voluntarily be extended to individuals who are in need of aid. What is being said is that the idea that if there is a problem within society, we are collectively responsible and should be punished for our collective failures is unjust. To put it another way, the idea that we should all stay after school and keep our heads down in remorse and repentance for behavior we did not commit; that we, too, are automatically guilty because of someone else's transgressions is just plain wrong. There are a number of terms for group guilt, one of which is "guilt by association;" but no matter what one terms it, the fact remains that group guilt is unjust. [And as pointed out in Part I and II, group guilt overturns a chief principle of Western jurisprudence; namely, that the individual is responsible for his own transgressions, including his own debt.]
But let's take this overturning of individual responsibility and the establishment of group guilt in the place of individual responsibility for one's actions a step further.
Collective guilt vitiates another principle of Western justice; namely the Rule of Law.
Rule of Law Explained
Americans love sports, and one reason they love sports is that the Rule of Law, which should pertain to society as a macrocosm, is followed in sports in microcosm. Any given sport has set rules for the game. Within the rules, players are free to strategize and outhink and outplay the other team. Referees are appointed to make sure the rules are followed and penalties are exacted for transgressions. Everyone knows what fair play is, and the rules are rarely changed. If someone trashes the rules, he/she is the one who is benched, not the whole team.
Ideally, the Rule of Law which applies to team sports should also extend to society at large. There should be a set of minimal rules for the operation of society. Everyone should know what the rules are and should also know what penalites are exacted if the rules are broken.
The concept of the Rule of Law is particularly pertinent to the discussion on national debt and the taxes necessary to pay the debt off. Citizen should know just what the debt is, what their share of taxes will be to pay off the debt within their lifetime; and they should also know the consequences of not paying those taxes. Everything should be known in order that a just solution prevail.
Suspension of Rule of Law
But exorbitant and runaway national debt shatters the concept and practice of the Rule of Law, for debt establishes universal, collective guilt. Because everybody owes, everybody is automatically guilty. All are benched; all have their heads on the desk.
Because all are guilty, no one knows who will be punished next. A given citizen doesn't know what the rules are concerning an unpayable debt and thus doesn't know what constantly changing schemes, regulations and measures the government will take to collect the monies necessary to collect the debt. Rules will be arbitrarily made up as the government sees fit. Society is collectively in debt and collectively guilty; each citizen mortgaged to its own government. The inevitable result is suspension of the Rule of Law and the establishment of arbitrary law and persecution of those who "owe." That persecution usually begins with excessive and arbitrary taxation.
In brief, if justice concerning debt is not established for and within the present generation, if the Rule of Law does not extend to the living as well as to future generations, then arbitrary and dictatorrial measures against a collectively guilty populace will inevitably be enacted. Government will make up the rules as it goes along; its arbitrariness will put it at war with its own citizens, particularly those perceived to be "wealthy."
Americans have been warned about and fought against the dangers of the dictatorial and arbitrary suspension of the Rule of Law, especially as it concerns national debt. The issue has arisen time and again within our Republic. It is good to heed once again the wise words of Thomas Jefferson, who while recognizing the need for public credit, warned strongly against the two chief dangers of national debt outlined in Parts I, II and III.
He wrote:
I sincerely believe...that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale."
--Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816
[With the decline of society] begins, indeed, the 'bellum omium in omnia [war against all], which some pholosophers observing to be so general in this world, have mistaken it for the natural, instead of the abusive state of man. And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression."
--Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816
Since future generations cannot rise up and voice their objections to the oppression and arbitrariness of our government, we must be their voice against the albatross of national debt our current government is fastening around our and their necks.
Add to that duty to defend future generations the responsibility to refuse to accuse any class or sub-population as being collectively guilty, and Americans may be on their way to governmental reform in which the Rule of Law applies to all without exception.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
The Abandoned Road
As I've been thinking over Part III of my series on the national debt and it implications, I've been re-reading F.A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, written toward the end of World War II. The man's genius is amazing; and his trenchant insights hold as much wisdom for our contemporary scene as they did in 1944-45.
In the chapter entitled "The Abandoned Road," he warns Europeans of slowly accepting the precepts of socialism which many European intellectuals embraced despite the horrible outcome of socialist precepts. Some still optimistically embraced socialist principles despite the fact that socialism requres force, force which led to horrors of Nazism and Stalinism. The intellectuals to whom Hayek was writing still clung to the belief that in their own countries, matters would turn out differently.
He wrote:
"The crucial point of which our people are still so little aware is...not merely the magnitude of the changes which have taken place during the last generation, but the fact that they mean a complete change in the direction of the evolution of our ideas and social order. For at least twenty-five years before the specter of totalitarianism became a real threat, we had progressively been moving away fromt he basic ideas on which Western Civilization has been built...We have progressively abandoned that freedom in economic affairs without which personal and political freedom has never existed in the past. Although we had been warned by some the the greatest political thinkers of the nineteenth century, by Tocqueville and Lord Acton, that socialism means slavery, we have steadily moved in the direction of socialism. And now that we have seen a new form of slavery arise before our eyes, we have so completely forgotten the warning that it scarcely occurs to us that the two things might be connected.
How sharp a break not only with the recent past but wth the whole evolution of Western civilization the modern trend toward socialism means becomes clear if we consider it not merely against the backgroun of the nineteentth century but in a long historical perspective. We are rapidly abandoning not the views merely of Cobden and Bright, of Adam Smith and Hume, or even of Locke and Milton, but one of the salient characteristics of Western civilization as it has grown from the foundations laid by Christianity and the Greeks and Romans. Not merely nineteenth and eighteenth-century liberalism, but basic individualism inherited by us from Erasmus and Montaigne, from Cicero and Tacitus, Pericles and Thucydides, is progressively relinquished.
Hayek's lament could well be our own as "progressive" thinking has ignored or attacked the foundations of Christianity and conservative political thought in our own country, with the deleterious effects so clearly observable over the last century.
One of the most damaging concepts of progressivism is the idea of societal (communal) rather than individual guilt. I hope to elaborate on the effects of such an idea as regards the Rule of Law, and national indebtedness. (Hayek elaborates on this concept, and I will be borrowing from him.)
In the chapter entitled "The Abandoned Road," he warns Europeans of slowly accepting the precepts of socialism which many European intellectuals embraced despite the horrible outcome of socialist precepts. Some still optimistically embraced socialist principles despite the fact that socialism requres force, force which led to horrors of Nazism and Stalinism. The intellectuals to whom Hayek was writing still clung to the belief that in their own countries, matters would turn out differently.
He wrote:
"The crucial point of which our people are still so little aware is...not merely the magnitude of the changes which have taken place during the last generation, but the fact that they mean a complete change in the direction of the evolution of our ideas and social order. For at least twenty-five years before the specter of totalitarianism became a real threat, we had progressively been moving away fromt he basic ideas on which Western Civilization has been built...We have progressively abandoned that freedom in economic affairs without which personal and political freedom has never existed in the past. Although we had been warned by some the the greatest political thinkers of the nineteenth century, by Tocqueville and Lord Acton, that socialism means slavery, we have steadily moved in the direction of socialism. And now that we have seen a new form of slavery arise before our eyes, we have so completely forgotten the warning that it scarcely occurs to us that the two things might be connected.
How sharp a break not only with the recent past but wth the whole evolution of Western civilization the modern trend toward socialism means becomes clear if we consider it not merely against the backgroun of the nineteentth century but in a long historical perspective. We are rapidly abandoning not the views merely of Cobden and Bright, of Adam Smith and Hume, or even of Locke and Milton, but one of the salient characteristics of Western civilization as it has grown from the foundations laid by Christianity and the Greeks and Romans. Not merely nineteenth and eighteenth-century liberalism, but basic individualism inherited by us from Erasmus and Montaigne, from Cicero and Tacitus, Pericles and Thucydides, is progressively relinquished.
Hayek's lament could well be our own as "progressive" thinking has ignored or attacked the foundations of Christianity and conservative political thought in our own country, with the deleterious effects so clearly observable over the last century.
One of the most damaging concepts of progressivism is the idea of societal (communal) rather than individual guilt. I hope to elaborate on the effects of such an idea as regards the Rule of Law, and national indebtedness. (Hayek elaborates on this concept, and I will be borrowing from him.)
Monday, January 25, 2010
Building a New Coalition: A Way Ahead for the GOP
A friend and I were discussing the dividing line that occurs whenever Sarah Palin's name is mentioned or she appears on televsion: people either love or loathe her. Leftists see her as congenitally stupid.
We both agreed that thopugh she may not be an "intellectual,"--whatever that means-- she certainly is not stupid; so what explains the egregious hostility?
I told my friend it wouldn't matter if Sarah Palin were an Einstein, leftists would still loathe her because she is, among other things, deeply religious. Her core values are diametrically opposed to the left elite--indeed to some of the Republican elite. They hate her because of her faith.
It is a fact that many in political circles still buy into the enlightenment critcisms of faith; namely, that one who adheres to faith is superstitious and, well, so regrettably unenlightened; and, therefore, just not as smart as other, more educated people. Among such, if faith is tolerated, it is tolerated as purely personal and as having no bearing on the "real" world of politics. Politics and religion are seen as separate endeavors not to be mentioned in polite political circles.
As my friend noted, Palin's rise smashes such ideas, disrupting the very core of politcs as usual. She disturbed and continues to disturb the power grid of politics.
My friend and I went on to discuss the tendency for leadership of both parties to discriminate against people of faith. She noted that though such discrimination is forbidden in the work place as unconstitutional, it remains alive and well in political circles. Both Democrats and Republicans tend to have leaders who are most often led by a totally secular agenda, have found power within the secular paradigm and are loathe to give it up to or accommodate religious upstarts. If faith is noted, it most often is lip service.
[At this point, a disclaimer: The above is not to say there are not people of integrity and honor within GOP party leadership. If that were not true, I would have exited the GOP long ago. It is to say there is an underlying prejudice--a sort of vacuum, actually--against people of faith, especially people of faith who put their faith into practice in politics.]
But to put it bluntly, both parties tend to ignore or sideline--to their own peril--the 85% of Americans who derive their values from their religion, not from secularism. I suggest that as long as both parties conintue to embrace secularist ideals while jettisoning, sidelining or seducing religious people for poltical purposes, they do so unconstitutionally and to their own peril.
In the wake of the Scott Brown victory in Massachusetts, some GOP leadership has felt encouraged to concentrate on building coalitions with "moderates" and independents, concentrating on the issues which Brown emphasized in his campaign: taxes, the health care plan and terrorism. While I certainly don't discourage outreach; once again, some in the GOP continue to think along the lines of a secular pragmatic politics which ignores or sidelines people of faith.
Brown managed to seize on populist issues which at least temporarily unified a diverse coalition which was dependent on the circumstances peculiar to Massachusetts. But none should be deluded into thinking such a coalition is permanent or a set template for future victories.
It is worth noting Brown had not one word of thanks for the Tea Partiers who helped elect him. Perhaps that is why more than one observer has cautioned against the GOP assuming that just because the Tea Partiers got behind the Scott Brown campaign, the partiers' enthusiasm can be co-opted by other campaigns supporting basically liberal candidates.
Tea Partiers and other conservative groups springing up all over the nation do not want a repeat of the times when the Republican establishment co-opted evangelical enthusiasm in the 1980's and 90's. Evangelicals soon found that issues important to them were ignored while the GOP leadership retained their grip on a party machinery terming itself "moderate" while dropping social and other evangelical values from their political agenda once victory was assured.
In sum, conservatives who are deeply motivated by religious convictions have felt ignored by, cynically used by and tehn dropped by the Republican Party, which they see as sidelining conservative candidates in favor of "moderates" who resemble liberal Democrats.
However, matters do not have to remain at such an impasse. The GOP has the opportunity to think about long term future strategy. It may well have an opportunity to form a new coalition. It may have the chance to get together people of faith and other conservatives by articulating and promoting core values consonant with those disaffected groups.
The GOP already has good leadership in the area of government transparency, growing the business middle class, growing jobs, belief in lowering the tax burdens on citizens, encouraging a climate of growth in industry, reforming our educational system and much else. None of those efforts has to be jettisoned. All are praiseworthy.
But to those excellent goals the GOP can articulate and support the right to life of the unborn. It can affirm the Western traditional definition of marriage without resorting to a persecutorial or prosecutorial attitude toward gays. It can grant increased tax relief to parents--and much more.
In sum, the party can put itself in the position of a chief reforming influence in society and can by so doing, gather together a broad coalition of likeminded people who will wrok to elect candidates who believe in core values and who will work to put those values into law.
For example, the issue of abortion is not just a moral question sitting out there in no man's land. It is not just a personal choice. Like the issue of slavery, it cuts into the moral and political fiber of our entire society. It is a political issue that needs to be addressed, not shelved.
While a worthy moral cause in it own right, it has deep political implications. Those implications can be translated into a political coalition that has the potential to split the Democratic party in two while uniting and gathering the energy of the new conservative movements springing up with the GOP.
About 55% of Americans believe that abortion is morally wrong. Many of those Americans are Roman Catholics and evangelicals, who together comprise about 55% of the population. Both the Catholic Church and evangelicals are adamantly against abortion even though most of the Catholic Church members are Democrats. The GOP, if it takes a strong position against abortion, would also be in the position of being able to woo Catholics away from their support of the Democratic Party, which adheres strongly to a pro-abortion position. The church also resonates with traditional definition of family and marriage. Further, Hispanics and blacks are also overwhelmingly pro life and pro school choice. They could be part of the new coalition.
How to put the coaltion together? First, reach the churches. I repeat, reach out to the churches. The GOP would find the goals it already pays primary attention to (outlined above) are readily suported by almost all conservative leaning congregations. Adding to those goals the social issues which also motivate and stir Tea Partiers and other conservative movements would allow rapproachment and make the GOP a united and strong force for a much needed peaceful, and moral revolution in our beloved country.
We both agreed that thopugh she may not be an "intellectual,"--whatever that means-- she certainly is not stupid; so what explains the egregious hostility?
I told my friend it wouldn't matter if Sarah Palin were an Einstein, leftists would still loathe her because she is, among other things, deeply religious. Her core values are diametrically opposed to the left elite--indeed to some of the Republican elite. They hate her because of her faith.
It is a fact that many in political circles still buy into the enlightenment critcisms of faith; namely, that one who adheres to faith is superstitious and, well, so regrettably unenlightened; and, therefore, just not as smart as other, more educated people. Among such, if faith is tolerated, it is tolerated as purely personal and as having no bearing on the "real" world of politics. Politics and religion are seen as separate endeavors not to be mentioned in polite political circles.
As my friend noted, Palin's rise smashes such ideas, disrupting the very core of politcs as usual. She disturbed and continues to disturb the power grid of politics.
My friend and I went on to discuss the tendency for leadership of both parties to discriminate against people of faith. She noted that though such discrimination is forbidden in the work place as unconstitutional, it remains alive and well in political circles. Both Democrats and Republicans tend to have leaders who are most often led by a totally secular agenda, have found power within the secular paradigm and are loathe to give it up to or accommodate religious upstarts. If faith is noted, it most often is lip service.
[At this point, a disclaimer: The above is not to say there are not people of integrity and honor within GOP party leadership. If that were not true, I would have exited the GOP long ago. It is to say there is an underlying prejudice--a sort of vacuum, actually--against people of faith, especially people of faith who put their faith into practice in politics.]
But to put it bluntly, both parties tend to ignore or sideline--to their own peril--the 85% of Americans who derive their values from their religion, not from secularism. I suggest that as long as both parties conintue to embrace secularist ideals while jettisoning, sidelining or seducing religious people for poltical purposes, they do so unconstitutionally and to their own peril.
In the wake of the Scott Brown victory in Massachusetts, some GOP leadership has felt encouraged to concentrate on building coalitions with "moderates" and independents, concentrating on the issues which Brown emphasized in his campaign: taxes, the health care plan and terrorism. While I certainly don't discourage outreach; once again, some in the GOP continue to think along the lines of a secular pragmatic politics which ignores or sidelines people of faith.
Brown managed to seize on populist issues which at least temporarily unified a diverse coalition which was dependent on the circumstances peculiar to Massachusetts. But none should be deluded into thinking such a coalition is permanent or a set template for future victories.
It is worth noting Brown had not one word of thanks for the Tea Partiers who helped elect him. Perhaps that is why more than one observer has cautioned against the GOP assuming that just because the Tea Partiers got behind the Scott Brown campaign, the partiers' enthusiasm can be co-opted by other campaigns supporting basically liberal candidates.
Tea Partiers and other conservative groups springing up all over the nation do not want a repeat of the times when the Republican establishment co-opted evangelical enthusiasm in the 1980's and 90's. Evangelicals soon found that issues important to them were ignored while the GOP leadership retained their grip on a party machinery terming itself "moderate" while dropping social and other evangelical values from their political agenda once victory was assured.
In sum, conservatives who are deeply motivated by religious convictions have felt ignored by, cynically used by and tehn dropped by the Republican Party, which they see as sidelining conservative candidates in favor of "moderates" who resemble liberal Democrats.
However, matters do not have to remain at such an impasse. The GOP has the opportunity to think about long term future strategy. It may well have an opportunity to form a new coalition. It may have the chance to get together people of faith and other conservatives by articulating and promoting core values consonant with those disaffected groups.
The GOP already has good leadership in the area of government transparency, growing the business middle class, growing jobs, belief in lowering the tax burdens on citizens, encouraging a climate of growth in industry, reforming our educational system and much else. None of those efforts has to be jettisoned. All are praiseworthy.
But to those excellent goals the GOP can articulate and support the right to life of the unborn. It can affirm the Western traditional definition of marriage without resorting to a persecutorial or prosecutorial attitude toward gays. It can grant increased tax relief to parents--and much more.
In sum, the party can put itself in the position of a chief reforming influence in society and can by so doing, gather together a broad coalition of likeminded people who will wrok to elect candidates who believe in core values and who will work to put those values into law.
For example, the issue of abortion is not just a moral question sitting out there in no man's land. It is not just a personal choice. Like the issue of slavery, it cuts into the moral and political fiber of our entire society. It is a political issue that needs to be addressed, not shelved.
While a worthy moral cause in it own right, it has deep political implications. Those implications can be translated into a political coalition that has the potential to split the Democratic party in two while uniting and gathering the energy of the new conservative movements springing up with the GOP.
About 55% of Americans believe that abortion is morally wrong. Many of those Americans are Roman Catholics and evangelicals, who together comprise about 55% of the population. Both the Catholic Church and evangelicals are adamantly against abortion even though most of the Catholic Church members are Democrats. The GOP, if it takes a strong position against abortion, would also be in the position of being able to woo Catholics away from their support of the Democratic Party, which adheres strongly to a pro-abortion position. The church also resonates with traditional definition of family and marriage. Further, Hispanics and blacks are also overwhelmingly pro life and pro school choice. They could be part of the new coalition.
How to put the coaltion together? First, reach the churches. I repeat, reach out to the churches. The GOP would find the goals it already pays primary attention to (outlined above) are readily suported by almost all conservative leaning congregations. Adding to those goals the social issues which also motivate and stir Tea Partiers and other conservative movements would allow rapproachment and make the GOP a united and strong force for a much needed peaceful, and moral revolution in our beloved country.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
The Immorality of National Debt: Part II
We’ve all read the stories: A family, children included, is wiped out by gunman whose vendetta is inclusive. His rage has grown so hot that punishing the man who "owes" him is not enough to assuage his wrath. The entire family must be wiped out. The innocent perish with the guilty.
Such a scenario is an intolerable, outrageous travesty of justice. Everything within us revolts against the targeting of innocents, for we believe only the guilty should be judged and punished.
Yet, as pointed out in Part I of this two part series, our national debt unjustly targets future generations by loading them with debts they did not authorize. None was permitted a voice. Even the voiceless unborn are burdened with debt as the sins of the fathers are passed down to the next generations.
For make no mistake, making debt trans-generational is one of the most disastrous and far- reaching mistakes our government can make. That is because such a policy violates the principle that each person is responsible as an individual before the law. It overturns a basic foundation of Western jurisprudence, which from time immemorial has stood for the Judeo-Christian principle that the innocent are not responsible for the errors, crimes and debts of preceding generations.
For hundreds of years, Westerners have believed that children are not to be condemned or held responsible for the errors of their parents. For instance, children are not required to pay off their parents’ debts. The IRS is not allowed to arrest family members because grandad hasn’t paid his income taxes in thirty years. In a similar manner, wives are not to be held responsible for the sins of their husbands. They are not thrown in jail if their husbands get drunk and wind up in jail on a DUI charge. And a third example: Parents are not to be punished for the wayward ways of an errant son or daughter. They are not sent to jail when their teenager commits murder.
In brief, our gargantuan national debt turns the entire Western system of jurisprudence on its head, calling into question the very foundations of our system of justice. After all, why should any person be punished for reckless assumption of debt if our own government has proved itself to be the most reckless debtor in the history of the nations?
The matter goes beyond mere bad example. It even goes beyond punishing the provident and encouraging the profligate. In fact, the government’s reckless and disastrous borrowing corrupts by example and policy public morality as concerns fiscal responsibility. In point of fact, the innocent are punished along with the guilty, for through taxation, all are paying back others’ debts. The entire populace is treated as if guilty.
Further, in order to fortify itself against changing its disastrous policies, the government extends its own immorality to the entire populace by creating policies which encourage individual indebtedness. This it has done in the form of bailouts of individuals and of institutional entities which have engaged in profligate behavior. Debt is garnered without painful consequences.
Our government has been working overtime to relieve its citizens of the consequences of irresponsible behavior. It has seduced the people into following its own example of reckless borrowing by offering money to relieve credit card debt, reduction of mortgage payments, and bailouts of institutions which have engaged in reckless financial behavior, thus rewarding the profligate while punishing the prudent. In so doing, the government encourages the people to imitate in microcosm what it does on the macro scale. The psychological effect is to diffuse and vitiate any protest by the people. Governmental policies achieve the moral seduction and corruption of the very people it professes to be "helping."
In other words, our government is enabling and abetting a debtor’s mentality similar to its own in an effort to deflect criticism and to make the public dependent on government "aid."
To put it another way, the seduction and corruption of the populace, the effort to make people accept the debtors’ path as legitimate, is very similar to that of an alcoholic who gives his baby beer in a bottle to suckle so that by the time the child himself is a teen, he, too, is an alcoholic. The child will not reproach by example or word the father who addicted him, for from infancy on the child has now become dependent and an addict himself.
Our government is that bad parent. It encourages the people to accept and to imitate its bad behavior.
Meanwhile, the size of the debt and the fact it exceeds any particular generation’s ability to pay it off means that within a short span of time, the profligacy of our government will seem normal. Massive indebtedness will be an accepted means of governing; a normal function of government. Further, all the while the government is encouraging by its example and policies its own indebtedness and the indebtedness and the dependency of its people, it will continue to stoke the fires of class warfare in order to distract them from the real villain; namely, the government itself.
Next article coming up:
PART III: Spreading the Guilt Around.
Such a scenario is an intolerable, outrageous travesty of justice. Everything within us revolts against the targeting of innocents, for we believe only the guilty should be judged and punished.
Yet, as pointed out in Part I of this two part series, our national debt unjustly targets future generations by loading them with debts they did not authorize. None was permitted a voice. Even the voiceless unborn are burdened with debt as the sins of the fathers are passed down to the next generations.
For make no mistake, making debt trans-generational is one of the most disastrous and far- reaching mistakes our government can make. That is because such a policy violates the principle that each person is responsible as an individual before the law. It overturns a basic foundation of Western jurisprudence, which from time immemorial has stood for the Judeo-Christian principle that the innocent are not responsible for the errors, crimes and debts of preceding generations.
For hundreds of years, Westerners have believed that children are not to be condemned or held responsible for the errors of their parents. For instance, children are not required to pay off their parents’ debts. The IRS is not allowed to arrest family members because grandad hasn’t paid his income taxes in thirty years. In a similar manner, wives are not to be held responsible for the sins of their husbands. They are not thrown in jail if their husbands get drunk and wind up in jail on a DUI charge. And a third example: Parents are not to be punished for the wayward ways of an errant son or daughter. They are not sent to jail when their teenager commits murder.
In brief, our gargantuan national debt turns the entire Western system of jurisprudence on its head, calling into question the very foundations of our system of justice. After all, why should any person be punished for reckless assumption of debt if our own government has proved itself to be the most reckless debtor in the history of the nations?
The matter goes beyond mere bad example. It even goes beyond punishing the provident and encouraging the profligate. In fact, the government’s reckless and disastrous borrowing corrupts by example and policy public morality as concerns fiscal responsibility. In point of fact, the innocent are punished along with the guilty, for through taxation, all are paying back others’ debts. The entire populace is treated as if guilty.
Further, in order to fortify itself against changing its disastrous policies, the government extends its own immorality to the entire populace by creating policies which encourage individual indebtedness. This it has done in the form of bailouts of individuals and of institutional entities which have engaged in profligate behavior. Debt is garnered without painful consequences.
Our government has been working overtime to relieve its citizens of the consequences of irresponsible behavior. It has seduced the people into following its own example of reckless borrowing by offering money to relieve credit card debt, reduction of mortgage payments, and bailouts of institutions which have engaged in reckless financial behavior, thus rewarding the profligate while punishing the prudent. In so doing, the government encourages the people to imitate in microcosm what it does on the macro scale. The psychological effect is to diffuse and vitiate any protest by the people. Governmental policies achieve the moral seduction and corruption of the very people it professes to be "helping."
In other words, our government is enabling and abetting a debtor’s mentality similar to its own in an effort to deflect criticism and to make the public dependent on government "aid."
To put it another way, the seduction and corruption of the populace, the effort to make people accept the debtors’ path as legitimate, is very similar to that of an alcoholic who gives his baby beer in a bottle to suckle so that by the time the child himself is a teen, he, too, is an alcoholic. The child will not reproach by example or word the father who addicted him, for from infancy on the child has now become dependent and an addict himself.
Our government is that bad parent. It encourages the people to accept and to imitate its bad behavior.
Meanwhile, the size of the debt and the fact it exceeds any particular generation’s ability to pay it off means that within a short span of time, the profligacy of our government will seem normal. Massive indebtedness will be an accepted means of governing; a normal function of government. Further, all the while the government is encouraging by its example and policies its own indebtedness and the indebtedness and the dependency of its people, it will continue to stoke the fires of class warfare in order to distract them from the real villain; namely, the government itself.
Next article coming up:
PART III: Spreading the Guilt Around.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Christians and the World, Part III: The Mind of Christ and the Peaceable Kingdom
For the Christian, the mind of Christ is inextricably linked with on-going creation and with acts of mind and will that affect the world order continuously and powerfully, calling all that is to an order of justice and righteousness. The divine mind of Christ, creator of the cosmos, thinks continually, not futile musings, but powerful, creative actualization of events cosmic and earthly.
As Christ thinks, so things are. His thought is no mere abstraction, but thought, will and creation are interwoven into one powerful entity known as the Trinity.
Christians are told by the apostle Paul that they have the mind of Christ; that is, as Thomas a Kempis points out, they are to be an imitation of Christ; an expression of the divine image as exhibited and actualized in the person of Christ Jesus.
It follows that each believer is not a being who is divided into the spiritual and the material; is not a being who is divided between the earthly (body) and the divine (spirit/soul). Division of the material and the spiritual has more to do with neo-Platonism and gnosticism than it does with Christian belief.
Each believer is called to be and is in fact a unity who in mind, body and spirit participates in Christ’s continual effectuation of justice and righteousness, both within him/her self and within the society in which he/she lives. Any split of the Christian’s being; any compartmentalization, any division into the material and the spiritual is a distortion of our reflection of the perfect unity of the Trinity--God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The Mind of Christ effectuates and upholds a moral order, an order which is written into the very cosmos. Christians seek through righteous and just actions to effectuate the moral order of the cosmos within human society. The Kingdom of God is the template for earthly societies. Christians seek to bring the Kingdom of Heaven down to earth. That is the reasons Christians should refuse to heed the siren call to separate themselves from the society in which they are placed. Preaching separatism is not only faulty theology. Separatism spells disaster for Christians and the society in which they live.
Those Christians who are nervous about involvement with a world afflicted by evil, or those non-Christians who object to the idea of Christians’ views on the Kingdom of Heaven might want to know what the Christian’s vision of the Heavenly Kingdom brought down to earth might look like. Perhaps it looks like the "Peaceable Kingdom" painted by Edward Hicks, whose enchanting oil paintings–he painted over one hundred versions--depict with charming and endearing simplicity the vision of the great Hebrew prophet Isaiah. (For a visual of Hicks 1834 version of the "Peaceable kingdom, go to the following link and enlarge the picture.)
http://www.squidoo.com/the-peaceable-kingdom#module12942168
To the left of the painting, Hicks, a Quaker, depicts William Penn negotiating a treaty with native Americans in accordance with the larger vision depicted in the center and right of the painting. Peace is achieved among humans. Although the lion and the leopard appear startled or at least puzzled to be in the company of animals they usually would eat for breakfast; among them, too, all is peace. A little child, the symbol of innocence, is leading, just as Isaiah wrote:
"The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the
yearling together;
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow will feed with the bear,
their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like an ox.
The infant will play near the hole of the cobra,
and the young child put his hand
into the viper’s nest.
They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea."
There is scarcely a person who loves peace who would not wish the earthly order to resemble such a tranquil scene. One would even venture to say those who would wish to destroy societies which bear even a faint resemblance to the "Peaceable Kingdom" are the definition of evil.
The vision of Isaiah has inspired leaders of many nations, among them Martin Luther King, Jr., whose "I Have a Dream" speech echoes the longing for a world order in which all races live at peace with one another. His vision was a profoundly Christian vision. The list of those who share the vision is long.
But what is often left unnoticed is that Isaiah 11 indicates the divine messenger of God, whom Christians associate with Jesus Christ, brings the "Peaceable Kingdom" into reality by fighting for it. The "Suffering Servant" with whom Christians identify and whom they imitate does not achieve righteousness and justice without fighting the evil powers which mitigate against the establishment of the "Peaceable Kingdom."
Isaiah writes the servant is empowered by the Spirit of wisdom, of understanding, of counsel and power that comes from a humble acknowledgment of his dependency on and love for God. The servant of God believes in a divine, perfectly moral order which transcends and informs his actions. He adheres to the eternal verities of justice and righteousness and is willing to fight for them on behalf of the oppressed, the needy and poor.
As Isaiah writes:
"He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
but with righteousness he ill judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
Righteousness will be his belt
and faithfulness the sash around his waist."
In other words, the Peaceable Kingdom must be fought for, as there are forces which seek to keep it from transpiring; forces which would trample the poor and needy underfoot.
While there are many Christians who decry the use of any force to achieve peace, believing fighting for peace is an oxymoron, such must come to terms with the God of the scripture, whose church militant and whose chief commander, Jesus Christ, are portrayed time and again as warriors against evil. While Christians are cautioned that their primary weapons are not like those of the world; nonetheless, they are called to confront and combat evil wherever it rears its ugly head. The Christian is called to combat oppression of the poor and needy, the helpless and the despised of the earth.
The concept of the holy warrior has been much abused in the past and continues to dismay those committed to pacifism. It is entirely true that the militancy of the church has in the past been misdirected and sometimes disastrous. But by and large, the church has repented of its errors.
In fact, the current swing of the pendulum toward isolation and total pacifism has been equally if not more disastrous, for the retreat of the church into itself has resulted in a distancing from the world and its problems. The Christian subculture has wound up ministering to itself and to certain approved ministries, which while they may be completely worthy, are often too narrowly defined.
The result is that whole sections of the "world" have been cordoned off, including the political order. Governmental structures have often been considered regarded as unworthy of inclusion in the fight to extend the "Peaceable Kingdom" as they are seen as "of the world" and therefore inherently evil.
But that is not how Isaiah and the other great prophets saw matters. For them, the "Peaceable Kingdom covered the entire earth, infiltrating and transforming all societal structures. That is why the prophet Amos, who was an inspiration to Martin Luther King, excoriated the people of Israel, citing their contempt for justice and righteousness in governance, their trampling underfoot the oppressed, even selling them into slavery; the corruption of their courts, riddled with bribery, deceit and with lawyers’ tricky and devious stratagems. That is why Amos called on the people to restore justice and righteousness to their entire society, declaring, "Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a mighty stream."
It is up to every Christian to find just where his or her primary battle for justice and righteousness might be. Only one’s relationship to God can determine what God calls one to do to effectuate in some way the "Peaceable Kingdom." But each and every Christian must beware of exempting any part of the world order from the fight for and establishment of the domain of the "Peaceable Kingdom."
The battle to actualize Isaiah’s vision "Peaceable Kingdom" has been engaged from time immemorial. It remains for Christians to heed the call to participate in it.
As Christ thinks, so things are. His thought is no mere abstraction, but thought, will and creation are interwoven into one powerful entity known as the Trinity.
Christians are told by the apostle Paul that they have the mind of Christ; that is, as Thomas a Kempis points out, they are to be an imitation of Christ; an expression of the divine image as exhibited and actualized in the person of Christ Jesus.
It follows that each believer is not a being who is divided into the spiritual and the material; is not a being who is divided between the earthly (body) and the divine (spirit/soul). Division of the material and the spiritual has more to do with neo-Platonism and gnosticism than it does with Christian belief.
Each believer is called to be and is in fact a unity who in mind, body and spirit participates in Christ’s continual effectuation of justice and righteousness, both within him/her self and within the society in which he/she lives. Any split of the Christian’s being; any compartmentalization, any division into the material and the spiritual is a distortion of our reflection of the perfect unity of the Trinity--God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The Mind of Christ effectuates and upholds a moral order, an order which is written into the very cosmos. Christians seek through righteous and just actions to effectuate the moral order of the cosmos within human society. The Kingdom of God is the template for earthly societies. Christians seek to bring the Kingdom of Heaven down to earth. That is the reasons Christians should refuse to heed the siren call to separate themselves from the society in which they are placed. Preaching separatism is not only faulty theology. Separatism spells disaster for Christians and the society in which they live.
Those Christians who are nervous about involvement with a world afflicted by evil, or those non-Christians who object to the idea of Christians’ views on the Kingdom of Heaven might want to know what the Christian’s vision of the Heavenly Kingdom brought down to earth might look like. Perhaps it looks like the "Peaceable Kingdom" painted by Edward Hicks, whose enchanting oil paintings–he painted over one hundred versions--depict with charming and endearing simplicity the vision of the great Hebrew prophet Isaiah. (For a visual of Hicks 1834 version of the "Peaceable kingdom, go to the following link and enlarge the picture.)
http://www.squidoo.com/the-peaceable-kingdom#module12942168
To the left of the painting, Hicks, a Quaker, depicts William Penn negotiating a treaty with native Americans in accordance with the larger vision depicted in the center and right of the painting. Peace is achieved among humans. Although the lion and the leopard appear startled or at least puzzled to be in the company of animals they usually would eat for breakfast; among them, too, all is peace. A little child, the symbol of innocence, is leading, just as Isaiah wrote:
"The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the
yearling together;
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow will feed with the bear,
their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like an ox.
The infant will play near the hole of the cobra,
and the young child put his hand
into the viper’s nest.
They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea."
There is scarcely a person who loves peace who would not wish the earthly order to resemble such a tranquil scene. One would even venture to say those who would wish to destroy societies which bear even a faint resemblance to the "Peaceable Kingdom" are the definition of evil.
The vision of Isaiah has inspired leaders of many nations, among them Martin Luther King, Jr., whose "I Have a Dream" speech echoes the longing for a world order in which all races live at peace with one another. His vision was a profoundly Christian vision. The list of those who share the vision is long.
But what is often left unnoticed is that Isaiah 11 indicates the divine messenger of God, whom Christians associate with Jesus Christ, brings the "Peaceable Kingdom" into reality by fighting for it. The "Suffering Servant" with whom Christians identify and whom they imitate does not achieve righteousness and justice without fighting the evil powers which mitigate against the establishment of the "Peaceable Kingdom."
Isaiah writes the servant is empowered by the Spirit of wisdom, of understanding, of counsel and power that comes from a humble acknowledgment of his dependency on and love for God. The servant of God believes in a divine, perfectly moral order which transcends and informs his actions. He adheres to the eternal verities of justice and righteousness and is willing to fight for them on behalf of the oppressed, the needy and poor.
As Isaiah writes:
"He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
but with righteousness he ill judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
Righteousness will be his belt
and faithfulness the sash around his waist."
In other words, the Peaceable Kingdom must be fought for, as there are forces which seek to keep it from transpiring; forces which would trample the poor and needy underfoot.
While there are many Christians who decry the use of any force to achieve peace, believing fighting for peace is an oxymoron, such must come to terms with the God of the scripture, whose church militant and whose chief commander, Jesus Christ, are portrayed time and again as warriors against evil. While Christians are cautioned that their primary weapons are not like those of the world; nonetheless, they are called to confront and combat evil wherever it rears its ugly head. The Christian is called to combat oppression of the poor and needy, the helpless and the despised of the earth.
The concept of the holy warrior has been much abused in the past and continues to dismay those committed to pacifism. It is entirely true that the militancy of the church has in the past been misdirected and sometimes disastrous. But by and large, the church has repented of its errors.
In fact, the current swing of the pendulum toward isolation and total pacifism has been equally if not more disastrous, for the retreat of the church into itself has resulted in a distancing from the world and its problems. The Christian subculture has wound up ministering to itself and to certain approved ministries, which while they may be completely worthy, are often too narrowly defined.
The result is that whole sections of the "world" have been cordoned off, including the political order. Governmental structures have often been considered regarded as unworthy of inclusion in the fight to extend the "Peaceable Kingdom" as they are seen as "of the world" and therefore inherently evil.
But that is not how Isaiah and the other great prophets saw matters. For them, the "Peaceable Kingdom covered the entire earth, infiltrating and transforming all societal structures. That is why the prophet Amos, who was an inspiration to Martin Luther King, excoriated the people of Israel, citing their contempt for justice and righteousness in governance, their trampling underfoot the oppressed, even selling them into slavery; the corruption of their courts, riddled with bribery, deceit and with lawyers’ tricky and devious stratagems. That is why Amos called on the people to restore justice and righteousness to their entire society, declaring, "Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a mighty stream."
It is up to every Christian to find just where his or her primary battle for justice and righteousness might be. Only one’s relationship to God can determine what God calls one to do to effectuate in some way the "Peaceable Kingdom." But each and every Christian must beware of exempting any part of the world order from the fight for and establishment of the domain of the "Peaceable Kingdom."
The battle to actualize Isaiah’s vision "Peaceable Kingdom" has been engaged from time immemorial. It remains for Christians to heed the call to participate in it.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Americans Are Indentured Servants: The Immorality and Consequences of National Debt
From the very beginning of our country’s journey, officially begun in 1776, there’s something in the American spirit that has been revolted by slavery; and by all involuntary servitude, no matter what name it goes by; no matter what form it takes. Americans treasure their independence. It’s why they broke away from Britain.
At the time of the Revolutionary War, Americans, most of whom considered themselves good British subjects, revolted against being taxed without being represented in the British parliament. They saw correctly that if taxed without their consent for the expenses of the British Empire, their freedom was jeopardized; that they were instantly relegated to an inferior position and an inferior class–that of mere colonists, not British citizens. They saw the British empire had an agenda entirely apart from the people of the colonies; to whom the rulers of Britain were almost entirely indifferent except as the colonists met their demands and needs. Britain saw the colonists in purely exploitative terms, as serfs who worked to supply the coffers of an empire bent on expansion. Americans were seen as hewers of wood and water bearers; suppliers of raw materials--and of tax monies.
But typically, Americans did not see themselves as serfs who worked for the master of Great Britain. They saw themselves as citizens who were equal to, shared the privileges of those who resided within Great Britain itself. So they were infuriated. It wasn’t the size of the tax that mattered; it was the precedent, which once established, made the entire population of the colonies indentured servants, bound to pay off British debts they had no part in engendering and did not approve of.
It’s well to remember Americans of the time were intimately familiar with indentured servitude. While it was an established practice, free citizens wanted no part of it, for the abuses were known first hand. An indentured servant was merely a debt bondage worker, a laborer under contract of an employer. For three to seven years, the person who signed off his/her freedom had to work in exchange for their transportation, food, drink, clothing, and a roof over their heads–and that was the ideal situation.
We know the results of the British Empires attempts to tax their colonies without their consent: a whole people refused to become indentured servants, rose up and fought for the right to be free, to form a government which was to serve the people-- not the other way around. Americans decided against servitude in any form. And they have done so again and again.
Since the Revolution, the American revulsion toward servitude has manifest itself in may forms. Indentured servitude itself was eventually was banned as a practice banned by the US as inimical to freedom. As was slavery. As is human trafficking.
Time and again Americans have risen to free those whom the rapacious and cruel–always present in every culture--would enslave. To their credit, they have done so at considerable sacrifice of blood, sweat and tears. When Americans have awakened to the oppression of minorities in their midst–admittedly often far too slowly--they have risen to free the oppressed among them. The American Civil War, fought to save the union as well as to free slaves, cost the loss of 10% of our country’s population. The great civil rights movement of the 1960's moved mountains.
We Americans have even fought for others’ freedoms. WWII, as close to a perfectly righteous war as wars ever get, was fought in order that the world not fall into slavery imagined by the Aryan fanatics who saw the rest of the world as inferior, worthy only of servitude.
But in a vicious turn of fate, particularly over the two years of the Bush and Obama administrations, the American people and at least two successive generations have now themselves become indentured servants, slaves to the very government they elected to maintain the principles of the founding fathers of this great nation. Americans now work for the masters they have put in office.
How has this happened? A congress deaf to the voices of the very people who elected its representatives has enslaved generations of Americans to a unpayable debt. Without their even knowing it Americans very homes have become a debtor’s prison. Their freedom is an illusion. They are sold into indentured servitude. But their servitude does not end in two or three or seven years. Their servitude, just by order of the magnitude of the debt, is permanent.
Think about it. Up until a very short time ago, the average worker worked for the governments, federal and state, an average of four months of the year--January through May to pay the government. Thus he or she has been an indentured servant of the government for almost half of each year. But even that burden seems a halcyon scenario as the debt accumulated during the last part of the Bush administration and now by the Obama administration makes all taxes and debt that came before seem minuscule.
As of this July 6, 2009, the national debt was $11,503,557,424,736.83. The US population, at most recent count, is 306, 498, 146. If the debt is divided up among the population, each and every person in the US owes $37,532.23. This means a family of four owes $150,128.92. That’s just today’s figures, as the debt has increased 3.86 billions per day since September 28, 2007.
Since the first writing of this article in the fall, the debt has increased exponentially. It is hard to say just how much each person owes, as the amount of debt and debt service has become a runaway figure that only goes up, up and away.
It is a fact of life that debt represents work and productivity. It is Americans’ work, Americans' productivity, that are hijacked to pay off our national debt. Unless, of course, the Federal Reserve prints more money to pay off the debt, in which case you will wind up paying it off anyway in the form of inflation.
As noted above, one of the most horrific things about our government’s behavior is that it is imitating a savagely cruel practice of ancient and even modern times. It is enslaving future generations–America’s children. Each American child who is born is born an indentured servant, saddled with debts he or she neither knew or approved of–enslaved by feckless and rapacious governments, federal and state.
Did anyone ever dream our country would resort to such a practice? Just think of it: We and generations after us have been sold into slavery to our own government. Our wages present and future are permanently garnished--stolen. A yoke of taxation is fixed on our necks as securely as if our necks were in stocks.
But there is another factor to consider. Americans are not just slaves to their own government. They also have been sold to another people. Our country’s debt is largely owned by the Peoples Republic of China, whose ruthless government will extract every possible concession from the United States. Our debt puts us in the power of a government which is inimically opposed to the foundational beliefs of our country. China, whatever its concessions to a runaway capitalistic sphere may be, remains communist and is run by draconian authoritarians who have little to no empathy for their own people, much less hated foreigners.
All one has to do is to take a look at Communist China’s human rights record in order to know just what the Chinese government thinks of freedom of speech, religion and dissent. It is well to recall the consequences of the Tianamen Square revolt. The government of China is ruthlessly repressive, and pays little heed to the international community’s pleas for human rights. Does anyone seriously think the Chinese government will be as generous as Americans concerning debtors? Does anyone think there will be debt forgiveness? Or drastic consequences should America try to escape debt by inflating the currency or by defaulting?
Since ancient times, no greater fate befalls a free people than to be handed over to a repressive government. Yet such is the government to which the American people have been sold. What greater cruelty can a government commit than that of selling its own people into debt bondage to those who repress their own people?
Exaggeration? No. Debt hands control over to the lender. Recall what happens to an ordinary U.S. citizen who gets into debt. He becomes a bond servant to those to whom he owes money. Suddenly he finds himself under the control of his creditors. He is automatically subject to control and oppression, harassed by calls and threatened by legal proceedings. His possessions are no longer his own. His work is no longer for his own benefit. In short, he is no longer a free man, but a man who has become another’s indentured servant.
Even so, a nation which is indebted to another is no longer a free nation. It and its citizens are now obligated to a task master who makes the rules. The American people have become indentured servants to China.
While American citizens will no doubt escape the fate of ancient peoples who were summarily carted off to exile when they refused to pay tribute or taxes to a given empire, our indebtedness will supply China leverage to extract concessions from us while it freely expands its sphere of influence over the far East, intimidating even our most loyal allies such as Japan, its old enemy. The U.S. will be powerless to protest, especially as its indebtedness is being matched with deliberate vitiation of its armed forces by the current administration.
Of course, indebtedness and its consequences will show up as weakness elsewhere, for inevitably, an indebted nation loses its power on the entire world stage. Mikhail Gorbashev recognized that fact, and it is one of the chief reasons he began his policy of glasnost. He knew a nation with unsustainable expenditures and debt automatically lost its primacy among the nations. A similar fate awaits the United States if drastic action is not taken.
It is time to wake up.
The government for the people and by the people is perishing from the face of the earth as we watch ourselves and our fellow citizens shackled by a government determined to expand an already vast bureaucracy and to enrich themselves, their cronies and global institutions–all the while crushing and enslaving the great American middle class and America itself by unsustainble debt. The sovereign future of the United States is at risk domestically and internationally.
Americans must rise up and throw off the yoke of debtors’ slavery by protesting peacefully en masse by marching on Washington and state capitals, for it is probably too late to write letters and to petition.
It is time for a united, peaceful revolution; for yet more million man marches and protests.
It is time to throw out the task masters who have sold us and generations after us into bondage and to replace them with fiscally and morally responsible representatives.
Fay Voshell
.
Friday, January 15, 2010
An Open Letter to Pat Robertson
An Open Letter to Pat Robertson: A response to your comments on Haiti
Dear Mr. Robertson,
I have read you said the following about the earthquake in Haiti:
"Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French . . . and they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, "We will serve you if you'll get us free from the French." True story. And so the devil said, "OK, it's a deal." . . . Ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after another, desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It's cut down the middle. On the one side is Haiti; on the other side is the Dominican Republic. Dominican Republic is, is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, et cetera. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island."
There are several implications which can be garnered from your statement.
One is that the people of Haiti somehow deserved being hit with an earthquake as punishment for making a pact with the Devil some two hundred years ago. Another is that you can make a judgement because you have an insider’s knowledge of God’s ways.
Both assumptions are not supported by Jesus Christ or the scriptures. In the gospel of Luke 13, Jesus’ disciples tell him about a tragic events, doubtless seeking his reaction and explanation as to why the men were slaughtered. The butchering of the innocents was perpetrated by the Roman consulate Pontius Pilate, whose fame has endured because he later was to condemn Christ to death.
No doubt the disciples’ implicit question was what did these men do wrong to meet such a terrible end? After all, they had asked the question outright concerning a man who had been born blind. (John 9) "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
Jesus made it clear that personal sin was not the reason for the man’s blindness, but that the work of God would be displayed in the blind man’s life. He healed the man, who went home seeing.
Addressing the case of the slaughtered Galileans, Jesus replied, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too all will perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them–do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish."
Jesus’ admonition cut right to the heart of the ancient assumption that calamity only falls on those who by their sin deserve it. His message was that all people sin, are in need of repentance and all need salvation, which he offered freely and without condemnation to all who would receive it.
An implied message is we can't elevate ourselves to the status of divinity, as absolute diviners of God’s will and purposes. That is because as mere limited mortals, we are bound to get it wrong.
We begin to get it right, Christ is saying to his disciples, when we start with the evil within our own hearts.
Jesus also made the order of judgement clear in his parable of the mote and the beam, in which he advised the pharisees to look at themselves before they generously handed out blanket condemnation to others.
The above is not to say there can be citadels of evil which grip whole nations, keeping their peoples impoverished and oppressed. But excoriation of Haiti’s admittedly corrupt government and implying an earthquake is God’s just wrath surely seems like the vilest hypocrisy when our own nation is riddled with the rot of Chicago style thuggery, bribery, and onerous taxation. According to the parable of the mote and the beam, surely we need to get our own house in order. Surely, we and our nation, like the disciples, need repentance, forgiveness and restoration.
In the meantime, thankfully, there are attributes of the Deity we can imitate without adding to ourselves the sins of hubris, hypocrisy and false judgement. We can imitate Christ’s compassion and kindness in reaching out to the beleaguered Haitians. Acts of kindness and compassion never bring condemnation. Acts of mercy never are wrong, especially when we extend them even to our enemies as Christ commanded. If he has ordered we give a cup of cold water to our enemy when he is thirsty, how much greater our obligation to those whose hearts and minds we know nothing about.
For the people of Haiti, like the rest of the world’s nation, tribes and peoples, are divided into the good and the bad. From afar we lack the capacity and wisdom to discern the difference. Even if we did have that discernment, we must leave the final judgement to God while we work to obey his command to rescue the perishing regardless of their sins, real or perceived; past or present.
Praise God and give thanks to the men and women of our country who have rushed to aid the desperate without thinking about who does or does not deserve it. They are giving their time, energy and resources without expectation of reward. They are grateful to be rescuing the perishing and caring for the dying.
In their response as rescuers without discrimination or condemnation, they are imitators of Christ.
After all, isn’t God also rescuing each of us each and every day of our lives?
Sincerely,
Fay Voshell
Dear Mr. Robertson,
I have read you said the following about the earthquake in Haiti:
"Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French . . . and they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, "We will serve you if you'll get us free from the French." True story. And so the devil said, "OK, it's a deal." . . . Ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after another, desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It's cut down the middle. On the one side is Haiti; on the other side is the Dominican Republic. Dominican Republic is, is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, et cetera. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island."
There are several implications which can be garnered from your statement.
One is that the people of Haiti somehow deserved being hit with an earthquake as punishment for making a pact with the Devil some two hundred years ago. Another is that you can make a judgement because you have an insider’s knowledge of God’s ways.
Both assumptions are not supported by Jesus Christ or the scriptures. In the gospel of Luke 13, Jesus’ disciples tell him about a tragic events, doubtless seeking his reaction and explanation as to why the men were slaughtered. The butchering of the innocents was perpetrated by the Roman consulate Pontius Pilate, whose fame has endured because he later was to condemn Christ to death.
No doubt the disciples’ implicit question was what did these men do wrong to meet such a terrible end? After all, they had asked the question outright concerning a man who had been born blind. (John 9) "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
Jesus made it clear that personal sin was not the reason for the man’s blindness, but that the work of God would be displayed in the blind man’s life. He healed the man, who went home seeing.
Addressing the case of the slaughtered Galileans, Jesus replied, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too all will perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them–do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish."
Jesus’ admonition cut right to the heart of the ancient assumption that calamity only falls on those who by their sin deserve it. His message was that all people sin, are in need of repentance and all need salvation, which he offered freely and without condemnation to all who would receive it.
An implied message is we can't elevate ourselves to the status of divinity, as absolute diviners of God’s will and purposes. That is because as mere limited mortals, we are bound to get it wrong.
We begin to get it right, Christ is saying to his disciples, when we start with the evil within our own hearts.
Jesus also made the order of judgement clear in his parable of the mote and the beam, in which he advised the pharisees to look at themselves before they generously handed out blanket condemnation to others.
The above is not to say there can be citadels of evil which grip whole nations, keeping their peoples impoverished and oppressed. But excoriation of Haiti’s admittedly corrupt government and implying an earthquake is God’s just wrath surely seems like the vilest hypocrisy when our own nation is riddled with the rot of Chicago style thuggery, bribery, and onerous taxation. According to the parable of the mote and the beam, surely we need to get our own house in order. Surely, we and our nation, like the disciples, need repentance, forgiveness and restoration.
In the meantime, thankfully, there are attributes of the Deity we can imitate without adding to ourselves the sins of hubris, hypocrisy and false judgement. We can imitate Christ’s compassion and kindness in reaching out to the beleaguered Haitians. Acts of kindness and compassion never bring condemnation. Acts of mercy never are wrong, especially when we extend them even to our enemies as Christ commanded. If he has ordered we give a cup of cold water to our enemy when he is thirsty, how much greater our obligation to those whose hearts and minds we know nothing about.
For the people of Haiti, like the rest of the world’s nation, tribes and peoples, are divided into the good and the bad. From afar we lack the capacity and wisdom to discern the difference. Even if we did have that discernment, we must leave the final judgement to God while we work to obey his command to rescue the perishing regardless of their sins, real or perceived; past or present.
Praise God and give thanks to the men and women of our country who have rushed to aid the desperate without thinking about who does or does not deserve it. They are giving their time, energy and resources without expectation of reward. They are grateful to be rescuing the perishing and caring for the dying.
In their response as rescuers without discrimination or condemnation, they are imitators of Christ.
After all, isn’t God also rescuing each of us each and every day of our lives?
Sincerely,
Fay Voshell
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