Sider on Justice 1

I've been reading Ron Sider's The Scandal of Evangelical Politics. I've recently finished Chapter 5, which is titled "Justice." I think I disagree with much that is in this chapter.

I begin with Sider's basic idea of justice:

"Since the time of Aristotle, political thinkers have agreed that justice exists when persons receive what is due them. Persons, of course, live in groups and institutions, and something is also owed these different societal institutions." (p. 101)

He also explains:

"But what is due to persons and institutions? The most basic theological answer is: the order of creation established by God. 'The rights of man are rights which, so to speak, God gives men at their birth. The rights of communities are rights which go back to a definite relationship between men based on the order of creation. . . .In the last resort all justice means these constants of creation as a basis on which every human being receives his due.'" (p 101-103)

This is a perspective that I'm quite baffled by. I do understand the idea of God given rights, but I don't understand God given rights in terms of something that is due to an individual. I also don't understand the idea that a "societal institution" or that a community can have rights, much less that a "societal institution" or a community is due anything.

My understanding of a person's rights is consistent with the perspective Thomas Jefferson relied on in writing the Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Jefferson's ideas of justice and rights seem to me quite different from Sider's ideas. Note first that for Jefferson there are certain unalienable rights. Jefferson's concept is that these certain individual unalienable rights are gifts from God. A person is not due these unalienable rights. These individual rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are inherent in the individual because they are given by God, and these unalienable rights are the stuff of personhood and existence.

Second, note that the concept of justice is written about in the same paragraph as these certain unalienable rights. But, note that justice is written about as an attribute of government's power over the lives of individuals. A government can be just or unjust, and an unjust government would be a government that uses power in ways that infringe of the unalienable rights of individuals.

I take it that government is one of the "societal institutions" that Sider writes about as being due something. As such, the third difference of note between what I understand from Sider and from Jefferson is that the societal institution which is government is not due anything. Government is thought by Jefferson to be "instituted" by people in their efforts to secure their God-given unalienable rights against violation by other people. It is important also to understand that for Jefferson it is the individual's liberty that is being used by the people who choose to grant government power over their unalienable rights. Government has no rights, and the powers of government are thought to be granted by people. Not only is government not due anything on Jefferson's view, but when a government is unjust, i.e., government uses it granted powers to infringe on these certain unalienable rights, then the people can choose to take back the powers they granted by abolishing that government. People can take back the powers they granted because an individual always has the unalienable right to liberty which was given to every individual by God.

Sider applies his view of justice and rights to the issue of religious freedom:

"The biblical story tells us that the most important truth about human beings is that the Creator shaped us with the longing to find our ultimate fulfillment in right relationship with God. God also gave each person the freedom to embrace or refuse the divine invitation to fellowship. That means that the single most important thing that all human institutions including the state owe to persons is religious freedom, the space to respond freely to God's call."

It seems to me that Jefferson's view of rights and justice suggests a quite different view on the issue raised here. Government does not owe persons religious freedom because the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness embody religious freedom as a person's unalienable right. It seems to me best not to think of religious freedom as something I am owed by anyone else. To think in this way is to really say that I get whatever religious freedom I come to enjoy because it was given to me by others, and perhaps because that religious freedom was given to me by a government. My religious freedom is mine, and it is unalienable, and any government that infringes on that freedom by using force in a way that goes beyond the power I freely gave government over this unalienable right is a government that is unjust.

I suppose Sider might say that he and I, and Jefferson, are really saying the same thing. But, I think the idea of having something "owed" to me by government or by others is an idea that ultimately infringes on my unalienable rights when it becomes the foundation for the view of the purpose of government. A government like ours makes decisions in a way that might loosely be described as reflecting the "will of the majority." Many people seem to me to think that the "will of the majority" justifiably trumps the will of the individual. If we think of government as owing religious freedom to me, and at the same time we think that the will of the majority trumps my will, then it is a very short conceptual step to the thought that the religious freedom I am owed by government can be determined by the "will of the majority." But, I agree with Jefferson's view that implies religious freedom is part of my unalienable rights, and therefore I am the only one that can choose how much power to allow government to justly exercise over my individual right to religious freedom.

It seems to me that if we think in terms of government owing us a realm of individual freedom, then not only can that conceptual framework lead to the idea that government ultimately defines what the reach of the realm will be, but also that we give up the conceptually defensible view of Jefferson that when government infringes our unalienable rights then we can justly end the existence of the government. Actually I think Jefferson's view is that we can always, and for any reason, take back the power we, conceptually, grant government over our unalienable rights. In contrast, we do not typically assume that a person can justifiably take from another person what they are owed.

I find Jefferson's views on justice and unalienable rights the better perspective, and I think his views are a conceptually better foundation for the idea of government in view of my belief, and apparently Sider's as well, that God doesn't force, but allows, us to use the freedom and liberty he gifted to us as we choose.

I suspect that one reason for taking the perspective that justice means people are owed things is so that Sider can argue that God's justice demands a certain degree of redistribution. Consider the following from his discussion of religious freedom:

". . .Since this creation mandate falls on every person, society owes each person the space, the freedom, and a share in the available resources to exercise this divine mandate. Justice demands that every person enjoy the opportunity to fulfill this creation mandate. . . .Justice demands that every person has the opportunity -- within the limits of every particular historical setting -- to enjoy a generous sufficiency of material necessities." (105)

I will take up my views about such ideas as these in my next post on Sider on Justice 2.

Obama Change

ROGER KIMBALL considers Obama change:

Will McCain pull off a Truman surprise? I hope so. As I say, I think Colin Powell was right to call Obama a “transformational figure.” He, together with a large left-wing majority in Congress, would transform America from the land of the free and the home of the brave into another socialist swamp: the land of the taxed and the home of regulated.

To the extent that they are really understood, I believe, Obama’s announced policies would frighten most Americans. They are just the sort of thing that the unrepentant bomber William Ayers looks forward to. They are fine and dandy with Rev. Jeremiah “God damn America” Wright, Obama’s pastor for twenty years. They are exactly the sort of socialist polices that organizations like Acorn applaud. But what about the rest of us?

Obama represents the union of two distinct radicalisms: the old-style socialist radicalism of the 1930s and the cultural-radicalism of the 1960s. One emphasizes increased government control of business, increased government intrusion into family life, health care, education, higher taxes more regulation. The other emphasizes the agenda of multiculturalism and political correctness and the politics of redress. Obamas’s greatest triumph has been to amalgamate these different radicalisms into a smiling rhetorical mantra called “Change.”

Will it sell? In an earlier post, I said that “Whatever else it is, this election is a referendum on two very different visions of America. Obama’s vision is of country crippled by sin; McCain and Palin’s vision is of a country fired by high ideals and expansive opportunity.” Which has more traction?

I like the contrast suggested in Mr. Kimball's commentary, and I certainly can make no sense of the idea that this country is crippled by sin.

Unions

KIM BOBO writes about unions and labor:

Fifth, support the fundamental rights of all workers to organize into unions of their choice. Although Perkins wasn’t the first choice of labor unions for secretary, she overcame their hesitations with her steadfast support for workers’ rights to organize in the workplace. Elaine Chao, in contrast, has used her public voice to attack the Employee Free Choice Act, the most significant labor law reform to come along in decades.

When the economy is in shambles, it is America’s workers who take the biggest hit. Perhaps in the coming weeks and months, we will all understand better what has happened to our economy. But as we move forward as a nation in addressing the crisis, we need a secretary of labor who knows workers, cares for their concerns, and speaks up for them. Our current secretary of labor is missing in action. We need to put the “labor” back in secretary of labor.

I'm going to admit that I understand little of what was written in Bobo's commentary. Perhaps this is because I understand unions in a much different way than she does.

Unions are legal monopolies, and most of them would not exist without government using it's power to force employers to hire union employees.

Workers have always had "fundamental rights" to form and join unions. At the same time, employers used to have the right to employ who they wanted, and this included the right to not employ a member of a union.

But unions are classic examples of organizations that are subject to the logic of collective action. As such, most unions of any size would simply not exist without the use of force.

Today unions are able to use the force of government. The force of government, under certain conditions, is used to (1) force employers to employ union members and (2) force some, probably many employees, to be members of a union when they would otherwise choose not to be. In addition, government's force is also behind many instances of union's spending money on political causes and political candidates, and the money comes from some union members who would personally not support such spending because they believe it is against their own personal best interests.

It seems to me that a government that forces an employer to hire certain employees, that forces employees to be union members when they do not want to, and that forces employees to support political causes and politicians they believe are antithetical to their interests, is a government that is unjust.

I am hard pressed to understand how a Christian can support the use of force in such ways in the lives of others.

But, there is even more that concerns me. Because unions are monopolies there are two important economic implications that result from unions.

(1) Unions cause higher wages, and higher wages mean higher costs for businesses who are forced to hire employees who are union members. The higher costs of producing and supplying goods and services mean that we all pay higher prices for goods and services. Many of these goods and services are considered by many to be needs, and therefore, unions mean that people with little income find it harder to meet their consumption needs. It doesn't make sense to me for everyone to pay higher prices so that a monopoly union can gain higher wages for it's employees.

(2) Unions reduce the number of people who are employed, which of course is the same as saying that unions lead to a higher number of unemployed than would otherwise be the case. Of course, the surest way for a person to get out of poverty is to have and keep a job. Unions, by adding to the number of unemployed, mean people in poverty will find it much more difficult to escape poverty. But, there is more on this concern as well. Future prosperity and success for our country as a whole is determined by how resources are utilized today. When we have public policies that reduce the number of policies, such as using government's force to create and maintain monopolies (unions), we will have less prosperity and less economic advance in the future that we would otherwise have. And, of course, less prosperity and less economic advance in the future means fewer people are able to escape poverty in this country than would otherwise be the case.

In contrast to the assertion that when the economy is in shambles we should help unions, I would say that this is exactly the wrong policy to support, assuming of course that we are interested in seeing more people employed and fewer people in poverty.

Record vs. Rhetoric

TOM SOWELL'S clear vision:

"Sarah Palin's record is on the record, while whole years of Barack Obama's life are engulfed in fog, and he has had to explain away one after another of the astounding and vile people he has not merely 'associated' with but has had political alliances with, and to whom he has directed the taxpayers' money and other money.

Sarah Palin has had executive experience-- and the White House is the executive branch of government. We don't have to judge her by her rhetoric because she has a record.

We don't know what Barack Obama will actually do because he has actually done very little for which he was personally accountable. Even as a state legislator, he voted 'present' innumerable times instead of taking a stand one way or the other on tough issues.

'Clean up the mess in Washington'? He was part of the mess in Chicago and lined up with the Daley machine against reformers.

He is also part of the mess in Washington, not only with numerous earmarks, but also as the Senate's second largest recipient of money from Fannie Mae, and someone whose campaign has this year sought the advice of disgraced former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines, who was at the heart of the subprime crisis."

Presidential Politics In Music

Not The Only Skeptic

I'm not the only one skeptical of Senator Obama's promises. KIMBERLY STRASSEL has written a wonderful piece about the Great Obama:

"And now, America, we introduce the Great Obama! The world's most gifted political magician! A thing of wonder. A thing of awe. Just watch him defy politics, economics, even gravity! (And hold your applause until the end, please.)

To kick off our show tonight, Mr. Obama will give 95% of American working families a tax cut, even though 40% of Americans today don't pay income taxes! How can our star enact such mathemagic? How can he 'cut' zero? Abracadabra! It's called a 'refundable tax credit.' It involves the federal government taking money from those who do pay taxes, and writing checks to those who don't. Yes, yes, in the real world this is known as 'welfare,' but please try not to ruin the show."

Oh, please, be sure to read the whole thing.

Obamatopia

Senator Obama yesterday:

It is time to turn the page on eight years of economic policies that put Wall Street before Main Street but ended up hurting both. We need policies that grow our economy from the bottom-up, so that every American, everywhere has the chance to get ahead. Not just corporate CEOs, but their secretaries too. Not just the person who owns the factory, but the men and women who work on its floor. Because if we've learned anything from this economic crisis, it's that we're all connected; we're all in this together; and we will rise or fall as one nation - as one people.

The rescue plan that passed Congress last week isn't the end of what we'll do to strengthen this economy, it's only the beginning. Now we need to pass a rescue plan for the middle-class that will provide every family immediate relief to cope with rising food and gas prices, save one million jobs by rebuilding our schools and roads, and help states and cities avoid budget cuts and tax increases. And we should extend expiring unemployment benefits to those Americans who've lost their jobs and can't find new ones. I've been fighting for this plan for months. My opponent has said nothing. And that is the choice in this election.

You've heard a lot about taxes in this campaign. Well here's the truth - John McCain and I are both offering tax cuts. The difference is, he wants to give the average Fortune 500 CEO a $700,000 tax cut but nothing at all to over 100 million Americans.

I'll give a middle-class tax cut to 95% of all workers. And if you make less than $250,000 a year, you won't see your taxes increase one single dime - not your payroll taxes, not your income taxes, not your capital gains taxes - nothing. Because in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle-class.

I want to ask: "Do people really believe this foolish rhetoric?" But, of course, it appears there are people who must believe this stuff because the Senator appears by the polls to be on his way to victory. I think the good Senator from Illinois wants us to believe that his presidency will bring us heaven on earth. We will all have a right to all that we could want, and it will all be provided courtesy of the one who is President.

Of course, there are facts of life, and especially economic facts of life that one would be wise to consider. Yet, wisdom seems seldom to be part of politics and the political rhetoric of presidential campaigns. There seems very little wisdom among our political leadership these days. And, there seems little interest among the voters is wisdom as well.

The fundamental fact of economic life is scarcity. Our country has been prosperous, but that prosperity is not the gift of our political classes in Washington. That prosperity is the product of toil and investment; it is the product of risking taking and entrepreneurship; it is the product of many independent yet interconnected people each doing the best they can for themselves and for others, and in freedom and liberty. When I read the words above, I'm certain that Senator Obama has little understanding of our prosperity, and his words seem unwise in that they encourage us to neglect to see that scarcity is a fact of life. Not only can he not physically deliver all the goods and all the rights he promises in his speech, but just the effort to discover that it is not possible will involve significant increased tax burdens for all of us. No, he may say, the tax burden will only be on the wealthiest. But that cannot possibly be true. Even taking all that the most wealthy today have will not defeat scarcity and provide us will all that he promises. He promises nirvana, utopia, heaven on earth, and surely if we would stop and think and rest under a tree and ask for wisdom in these trying times we would come to realize the best for our future is not going to be found by relying on a new President, or on change that is coming to Washington, or on government's power to tax and take from others so that we can have more. All of that, if indeed we decide to rely on it, will come to less freedom and liberty for our lives and less productivity and prosperity for our own futures and the futures of our children. All that the Senator promises is not possible. It is not feasible. It is nonsense. I hope enough of us are wise enough to see this.

The Bums In Congress

Rasmussen Reports:

"Congress was front and center in the national news last week and the American people were far from impressed. If they could vote to keep or replace the entire Congress, 59% of voters would like to throw them all out and start over again. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 17% would vote to keep the current legislators in office.

Today, just 23% have even a little confidence in the ability of Congress to deal with the nation’s economic problems and only 24% believe most Members of Congress understand legislation before they vote on it."

I would like to see most members of Congress thrown out as well. Especially all those who are covering up the fact that it was the interventionist policies of Congress, i.e., themselves, that is the largest part of the explanation for the financial turmoil today.

Unfortunately, throwing out the current batch will have little impact. There will just be a new batch of members of Congress that believe they can better determine our economies than we can ourselves. The incentives inherent in legislatures are to pass law after law pretending to do better for us than we can for ourselves. The actual impacts of most of those laws are to reduce the prosperity of our economy that we can each tap into, and in the process a handful of people get special concentrated benefits for themselves (often among these people are the very members of Congress who pass the statutes).

It seems there are few possibilities to CHANGE what happens in Congress and in the Presidency. We need to limit and constrain Congress. Replacing one group of politicians with another group of politicians will just get us another group of politicians who act in much the same ways. We need voters as well as politicians who understand this, and who understand that unless we hold to a constitution for a limited and constrained government, very little will change in the government we have to live with.

ABC News Bias

GLYNN REYNOLDS:

"THIS DEBATE 'FACT CHECK' from ABC News notes that Sarah Palin fluffed the name of a general in Afghanistan but -- as I predicted last night -- ignores Joe Biden's multiple Constitutional mistakes. Putting the President in Article I, and claiming that the VP only presides over the Senate in case of a tie would seem to be at least as significant, especially given that Biden has been in the Senate since before I hit puberty, and is, you know, runing for Vice President. Perhaps he should study up on what the job involves. And perhaps the press should try reporting on what he says more . . . ."

It seems a shame that we can't expect the news industry to give us news without bias. On the other hand, hoping for such a thing may be rather utopian. After all, I've read accounts of times when Ben Franklin would pen (and publish in his own paper) criticims of himself under an assumed name so that he could later lambast his critic under his own name.

Freeze Up?

JONATHAN ADLER:

"I found it odd that Palin could not name another Supreme Court decision with which she disagreed. After all, we know that she is aware of at least one Supreme Court decision other than Roe v. Wade with which she disagrees. Just over a month ago she criticized the Supreme Court's decision in the Exxon Valdez case, slashing the punitive damages awarded by the trial court. So did she simply freeze up and forget? Was she afraid of a 'gotcha' comeback if she named a specific case? Or is she that much of a knucklehead that she can't even remember what she thought of the Court several weeks ago? My read of the video is that the first is most likely, but I'm sure others will disagree."

Maybe if Governor Palin was running for President I might assume she froze up. I think there is a more likely explanation. Since she is running on the McCain ticket as Vice President, I suspect she believes she needs to answer questions as the Presidential candidate would. If so, and if she and McCain had never discussed Exxon Valdez, then she would not know how she should answer the question. I'm pretty sure McCain and Palin, or Palin and McCain's people, would have discussed how to talk about Roe. I'm also pretty sure it is unlikely they discussed many other Court opinions.

Leaders? NOT!

The leaders of Congress recently went before the cameras and the microphones to declare they had a deal that would result in legislation that would stabilize the situation in the country's credit markets. But, something went wrong. Today the House rejected the deal. It is hard for me to understand why the leadership would bring the deal to the floor of either house if it did not have the votes for passage. Still that is what happened. So, talk this afternoon is that House Speaker Pelosi, who once supported the deal, changed her mind and torpedoed the deal with a speech chocked full of partisanship. Given what happened, this seems credible to me. After all, I'm going to assume that the House Speaker can count votes, especially when the majority of the votes in the House profess to be in her own political party.

At the end of the day, what happens next? The end of today's story is that the members of Congress headed home. Granted they headed home because of a religious holiday. But, the choice to run home seems irresponsible to me. After all, because the leaders said they had a deal that would stabilize our credits markets, when in fact they did not have such a deal, large numbers of people panicked this afternoon and sold off significant value in equities. People took a big hit because of what seems like the incompetence of our leaders. And, on top of that, our leaders show they are also irresponsible, and probably full of arrogance, because until Congress acts to stabilize the credit markets (something they purport to want to do) people are likely to continue to get nervous and even panic and take hits for bad policy choices years ago by people just like those (in some case exactly the same people)who ran home this afternoon.

If "change" is the password of the day in presidential politics, maybe it is time to see that the change that is needed is for us to elect true leaders to replace those in Congress who have failed this day. Oh, and by the way, 3 of the 4 leaders on the presidential tickets are currently members of Congress, and those 3 have each had opportunities in the past to change the legislation that led to this current credit crisis.

The Question We Have To Ask

Of course the reports are that Congress has a "bailout" deal. I'm not sure I'm going to like the deal. I'm also not sure I will even be able to get information about what the specifics of the legislation will look like.

In the meantime, I would like to take a look at something Senator Obama said in the debate last Friday. The exerpt here begins with a question from Mr. Lehrer:

But, I mean, are you -- do you favor this plan, Senator Obama, and you, Senator McCain? Do you -- are you in favor of this plan?

OBAMA: We haven't seen the language yet. And I do think that there's constructive work being done out there. So, for the viewers who are watching, I am optimistic about the capacity of us to come together with a plan.

The question, I think, that we have to ask ourselves is, how did we get into this situation in the first place?

Two years ago, I warned that, because of the subprime lending mess, because of the lax regulation, that we were potentially going to have a problem and tried to stop some of the abuses in mortgages that were taking place at the time.

Last year, I wrote to the secretary of the Treasury to make sure that he understood the magnitude of this problem and to call on him to bring all the stakeholders together to try to deal with it.

So -- so the question, I think, that we've got to ask ourselves is, yes, we've got to solve this problem short term. And we are going to have to intervene; there's no doubt about that.

But we're also going to have to look at, how is it that we shredded so many regulations? We did not set up a 21st-century regulatory framework to deal with these problems. And that in part has to do with an economic philosophy that says that regulation is always bad.

I agree with Senator Obama that before we get to carried away writing legislation we really should ask ourselves how we got into the present situation. However, it seems to me the Senator doesn't really offer a direct answer to his own question. But, maybe it seems that way to me because what he may have offered as his answer seems either lame or incorrect to me.

Perhaps his answer to this important question is this: Well, Jim, the explanation for how we got into this situation is that a couple of years ago I sent out a warning, and then last year I sent out a letter of warning, and my warnings were ignored. That is how we got into this situation.

He may have sent out warnings, but if his answer is really I said trouble was coming but no one listened, then I wonder what he thought his job was in the Senate. As we can see from the past few days, this situation isn't one that seems to have fallen within the power of the President or within existing statutes. If there was a problem, then why didn't the good Senator get to work to craft legislation that would deal with the crisis he was warning about? So, I think if this was his answer, it is kind of lame. Especially since I think it is also the case, from what I've been led to believe from news and commentary, that both Presidents Clinton and Bush made more than one effort each to get Congress to deal with the operations of the Fannie's. It seems each and every one of the efforts by these Presidents was rebuffed by Congress. Nothing changed. Well, maybe something changed, maybe Congress made changes that increased the incentives for the Fannie's to make loans that would ordinarily have been thought to be too risky. Some of the things I read and hear make it plausible to me that Congress did indeed increase the incentives for the bad loans.

In any case, maybe he offers a different answer. He speaks of shredding regulations. I'm not really sure what that is supposed to mean. Probably just political rhetoric that he hopes will merely be taken any way that favors him in the polls. It seems to me it is probably spin trying to confuse or hide the real answer to his good question. The real answer is that Congress made the bad incentives that led to the current situation.

Perhaps you have heard a simple summary of the incentives I refer to here: "privatize the returns, socialize the risks." I think this is a pretty neat and simple way to explain how we got to the present crisis. Congress created these incentives by insuring loans which really means Congress subsidized giving mortgage loans to customers that used to be thought to be too risky. So, I think this simple slogan is a good way to understand the basic economics of how this crisis started.

But, of course, Senator Obama doesn't want us to hear this simple explanation, because consider how the exerpt above ends. It ends by asserting this crisis is due to unregulated capitalism. Such an assertion seems wrong and quite the opposite of the real explanation. But, consider, if you are a member of Congress, you certainly don't want the voters to come to believe the problem was caused by either the action or inaction of Congress. And, if you tend to support policies that regulate markets rather than free markets, then you certainly don't want the voters thinking that it is actually the regulatory structure of our capital markets that explains our present circumstances.

Finally, notice that the policy that has been discussed the most to respond to this crisis involves government buying real estate and then later selling it for a "profit" for the taxpayers. I suppose this may sound good to many voters, but let me use that simple phrase above to explain why I think the essential idea of this "bailout" is a bad idea. The "bailout" take a situation of "privatize returns, socialize risks," into a situation of "socialize returns, socialize risks." Of course, that sounds like socialism doesn't it? Obviously, I think socializing risks led to the crisis, and now socializing returns can't fix the fundamental reason for this crisis. We should be looking for an answer that gets us to "privatize returns, privatize risks." That's capitalism, of course. I'm pretty sure Senator Obama doesn't want to move in that direction.

Maybe the question we have to ask ourselves, or ought to ask ourselves, is why are we apparently going to respond to the current crisis by moving closer to socialism?

[Also posted at Economics & Liberty]

The Perfect Stranger

Charles Krauthammer:

"Eerily missing at the Democratic convention this year were people of stature who were seriously involved at some point in Obama's life standing up to say: I know Barack Obama. I've been with Barack Obama. We've toiled/endured together. You can trust him. I do."

This expresses one of my concerns about Senator Obama. Mind you, it is very unlikely I would vote Democrat this campaign year because the Democrat party tends mostly to support public policies that are exactly opposite the policies I support. But, I don't think it is a good idea to support a candidate who runs on "trust me," especially when that candidate is also running on "change, change, change."

It seems to me the campaign of Senator Obama is more charade, or even smoke and mirrors if you will, than is the campaign of most politicians.

I don't want to be asked to support "trust me." I want to be asked to "support me because you agree with the policies I stand for." In my case, I don't trust the Senator, and when I do start to hear or read specific policies he will stand for (in contrast to the platitudes he stands for), the Senator begins to sound like virtually every other Democrat politicians who stands for policies I think would seek change that would be in exactly the wrong direction for our continued success and prosperity.

Obama's New Energy Promises

My blogger colleague had some interesting ideas about Senator Obama's thoughts about oil, but they were posted before the Senator decided to make some grade promises on the campaign trail today.

I've made a few observations about today's grand promises over at Economics and Liberty . My bottom line is that the Senator's grand promises are premised on ideas that I believe are quite inconsistent with a free and prosperous country.

Obama, Oil and DWUI

Senator Barak Obama commented recently on Exxon-Mobile’s 2nd quarter profits of $12 billion by noting that, “No U. S. corporation ever made that much in a single quarter”. In a statement on his web site, the senator called these profits “outrageous” especially “while Americans are paying record prices at the pump.”

Obama also suggested recently that we can save as much oil as we would get from drilling for more oil by just keeping our tires inflated and keeping our cars tuned up.

I have three questions for the senator:

Senator Obama, you are seeking to become the chief executive officer of a country that is asking its citizens to contribute $3 trillion over the next 12 months to keep it operating. No country has ever expected its citizens to pay this much in a single year! Do you find this as outrageous as Exxon-Mobile behavior? And, at a time when Americans are paying record amounts of money to keep the country operating, why is your call for higher taxes not equally outrageous?

Senator Obama, are you aware that the federal government that you seek to lead will take in about $6.67 billion in gasoline taxes for the gas consumed by Americans during the 2nd quarter of this year? When state and local gas taxes are added to the federal burden, governments at all levels will rake in $16.1 billion in gas tax profits. Do you find this outrageous? Since you are concerned about the record high gas prices being paid by Americans, should you direct the federal government to give some of it back and urge your companions in state and local governments to do the same? After all, you are suggesting new taxes on oil companies to take some of their profits away and give it back to the people.

Senator Obama, in a country where people find it difficult to maintain discipline with a diet or exercise routine for more than 27 nanoseconds, do you really believe that people will be diligent in keeping their tires inflated? Perhaps you have some legislation in mind to penalize people who don’t. I can see it now. On those three-day holiday weekends, we’ll add tire inflation checkpoints to our sobriety checkpoints. A guy who is stone-cold sober may make it through the drunk driving check only to find that he is still cited for DWUI – Driving While Under Inflated. We’ll cuff him and haul him off to jail and take away his license and get him to perform community service for his failure to help the country out of this energy crisis.

This country can solve its energy problem and it can do it in short order with a few wise decisions. A commitment to more drilling here and now would make an immediate impact. I also like the proposal put forward by a coalition of national security experts and environmentalists that would involve converting automobiles to methanol over the next few years (See more here at http://www.setamericafree.org/ and specifically here at: http://www.setamericafree.org/blueprint.pdf ) . I’m also in favor of conservation. This seems like an issue that is ready made for the bi-partisan approach that people claim to want on a variety of issues.

The one thing that will not work is the kind of demonization of private industry that Senator Obama is utilizing in pandering for votes.

New Is Old

Tom Sowell:

Although Senator Obama has presented himself as the candidate of new things -- using the mantra of "change" endlessly -- the cold fact is that virtually everything he says about domestic policy is straight out of the 1960s and virtually everything he says about foreign policy is straight out of the 1930s.

Protecting criminals, attacking business, increasing government spending, promoting a sense of envy and grievance, raising taxes on people who are productive and subsidizing those who are not -- all this is a re-run of the 1960s.

We paid a terrible price for such 1960s notions in the years that followed, in the form of soaring crime rates, double-digit inflation and double-digit unemployment. During the 1960s, ghettoes across the countries were ravaged by riots from which many have not fully recovered to this day.

The violence and destruction were concentrated not where there was the greatest poverty or injustice but where there were the most liberal politicians, promoting grievances and hamstringing the police.

Internationally, the approach that Senator Obama proposes -- including the media magic of meetings between heads of state -- was tried during the 1930s. That approach, in the name of peace, is what led to the most catastrophic war in human history.

Everything seems new to those too young to remember the old and too ignorant of history to have heard about it.

Perhaps I'm getting old because Sowell's views seem right on the mark to me.

McCain's Corporate Income Tax

Economist Greg Mankiw discusses Senator McCain's proposal to cut the corporate income tax rate:

Lost in this hubbub, however, is a bigger idea that Mr. McCain and his economic team have put forward: a cut in the corporate tax rate, to 25 percent from 35 percent. It is perhaps the best simple recipe for promoting long-run growth in American living standards.

Cutting corporate taxes is not the kind of idea that normally pops up in presidential campaigns. After all, voters aren’t corporations. Why promise goodies for those who can’t put you in office?

In fact, a corporate rate cut would help a lot of voters, though they might not know it. The most basic lesson about corporate taxes is this: A corporation is not really a taxpayer at all. It is more like a tax collector.

The ultimate payers of the corporate tax are those individuals who have some stake in the company on which the tax is levied. If you own corporate equities, if you work for a corporation or if you buy goods and services from a corporation, you pay part of the corporate income tax. The corporate tax leads to lower returns on capital, lower wages or higher prices — and, most likely, a combination of all three.

A cut in the corporate tax as Mr. McCain proposes would initially give a boost to after-tax profits and stock prices, but the results would not end there. A stronger stock market would lead to more capital investment. More investment would lead to greater productivity. Greater productivity would lead to higher wages for workers and lower prices for customers.

I think Professor Mankiw has explained the economics of this policy issue quite well. I think it is really, really important to pay attention to the fact that "a corporation is not really a taxpayer at all." The corporate income tax is shifted to people. One reason this seems important to understand is because a great deal of the political rhetoric about corporations and about the corporate income tax tends to emphasize some perceived "evil" which resides in the profits of corporations. For illustrations consider the recent Congressional hearings about "windfall" corporate oil profits, as well as the rhetoric of some presidential politicians regarding these oil profits. Just think, if corporations don't really pay taxes because the taxes are shifted to people, then it is also going to be true that corporations don't really receive profits because the profits are "shifted" to people.

I would also suggest that it is important to understand that another word for "profit," corporate or otherwise, is "income." Now I think we each like to have income. Income is a good thing. If you read Professor Mankiw's entire essay you should make note of another suggestion he makes with respect to taxes, i.e., to shift taxation away from corporate income and onto the sale of gasoline. The economic logic behind this suggestion is simply put as: tax bad things not good things. Many people see gasoline (carbon) consumption as resulting in many bad things (e.g. climate change and traffic congestion). So tax gasoline consumption and there will be less gasoline consumption. End or reduce the tax on income and there will be more income for people to enjoy. I would like to also note that saving and investment is a good thing. More saving and investment over time means an improved standard of living for everyone. Right now we tax savings and investment. It seems to me the simply logic of not taxing good things while taxing bad things, can be translated into support for a reform in our national tax policy to make greater reliance on taxing consumption while ending the reliance on taxing income, savings, and investment.

Obama's Gaffe: What Change Is?

JOHN HINDERAKER:

"Barack Obama must be the most gaffe-prone politician in memory. Today, he delivered a Memorial Day speech in New Mexico. After greeting the local Democratic Party dignitaries, he began:

On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes -- and I see many of them in the audience here today -- our sense of patriotism is particularly strong.

Memorial Day honors those who have died in our nation's military service. Is it possible that Obama does not know this? Sometimes the things that come out of his mouth defy understanding."

This is interesting, eh?

Maybe what is more interesting is that the Senator's campaign wants to be able to revise and extend the Senator's remarks. Check out what Gateway Pundit discovered:

The Obama website scrubbed the "dead people in the audience" from his speech:

On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes, our sense of patriotism is particularly strong.

Alakazam! No more dead people.

Not that's change for you.

What Change Is

I've been wondering what Senator Obama means when he talks about change. A couple of months ago the Senator seemed to use change to say that he was going to change the way politics happens, I guess because he was a different kind of politician. But, recently, in the last month especially, he seems to me to act like most every other politician, saying X on one day to a certain audience, and they Y on another day to a different audience. Most recently the Y is something he has to say because the X he said earlier turned into a problem for him. So, I guess that could be one meaning of the word change.

I just found a speech the Senator recently gave in Iowa in which he defines what he means when he says "change:"

I will leave it up to Senator McCain to explain to the American people whether his policies and positions represent long-held convictions or Washington calculations, but the one thing they don't represent is change.

Change is a tax code that rewards work instead of wealth by cutting taxes for middle-class families, and senior citizens, and struggling homeowners; a tax code that rewards businesses that create good jobs here in America instead of the corporations that ship them overseas. That's what change is.

Change is a health care plan that guarantees insurance to every American who wants; that brings down premiums for every family who needs it; that stops insurance companies from discriminating and denying coverage to those who need it most.

Change is an energy policy that doesn't rely on buddying up to the Saudi Royal Family and then begging them for oil - an energy policy that puts a price on pollution and makes the oil companies invest their record profits in clean, renewable sources of energy that will create five million new jobs and leave our children a safer planet. That's what change is.

Change is giving every child a world-class education by recruiting an army of new teachers with better pay and more support; by promising four years of tuition to any American willing to serve their community and their country; by realizing that the best education starts with parents who turn off the TV, and take away the video games, and read to our children once in awhile.

Change is ending a war that we never should've started and finishing a war against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan that we never should've ignored. Change is facing the threats of the twenty-first century not with bluster, or fear-mongering, or tough talk, but with tough diplomacy, and strong alliances, and confidence in the ideals that have made this nation the last, best hope of Earth. That is the legacy of Roosevelt, and Truman, and Kennedy.

That is what change is.

I would like to see change in the tax code, and I would probably like a tax code that rewards work. Unfortunately, any tax on income takes from the reward that comes from working and being productive, and I don't think Senator Obama is talking about changing so that the federal government no longer relies on an income tax.

What about taxing wealth? Well, the federal government already taxes wealth, and so do many other levels of government. I'm thinking the change the Senator wants in this case is to tax wealth more heavily. My own view is that both income and wealth are good things, at least I know them to be good things in my own life, and I think it is usually a bad idea to tax good things. It would be a better idea to tax bad things, say air pollution for example. I'm pretty sure the Senator is not going to try to accomplish a change that would stop taxing income and wealth. I think he still wants to tax these two good things.

I suspect the change he says he will provide with respect to health care insurance is mostly pie in the sky stuff. I know, it probably is possible to nationalize health care insurance, but the federal medicare program already seems to be something that present policies simply cannot pay for over many more years without significant tax increases. Economist Greg Mankiw has recently noted what he called the coming tax hike by pointing to a letter from the Congressional Budget Office to Congressman Paul Ryan. Here is the relevant portions of that letter:

Under current law, rising costs for health care and the aging of the population will cause federal spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security to rise substantially as a share of the economy....In response to your letter of May 15, 2008, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has prepared the attached analysis of the potential economic effects of...using higher income tax rates alone to finance the increases in spending....

With no economic feedbacks taken into account and under an assumption that raising marginal tax rates was the only mechanism used to balance the budget, tax rates would have to more than double. The tax rate for the lowest tax bracket would have to be increased from 10 percent to 25 percent; the tax rate on incomes in the current 25 percent bracket would have to be increased to 63 percent; and the tax rate of the highest bracket would have to be raised from 35 percent to 88 percent. The top corporate income tax rate would also increase from 35 percent to 88 percent.

Such tax rates would significantly reduce economic activity and would create serious problems with tax avoidance and tax evasion.

It seems to me the changes the Senator is espousing in this case are truly pie in the sky, or they will require rather significant tax increases. And, if we all end up paying significantly greater income tax burdens over time, it will all be in order to actually have a diminished supply of health care relative to what we have today. But, maybe that's just my inner economist talking.

What about the Senator's energy policy change? This doesn't sound very good to me either. He talks about not cozying up to other countries, but he doesn't seem to be big on the idea of releasing the policy chains on more production here at home. His attention to being cozy suggests to me he may not understand, or perhaps he just chooses not to understand for the political stance he chooses to take, that oil is really a rather homogeneous product and as such supply is pretty much supply regardless the region in the world it comes from. I hate to say that I'm old enough to remember the last time Saudi Arabia and OPEC were able to exercise some monopoly power over world oil prices (around 1980 if you don't remember). But, I think maybe there was a lesson to learn from that earlier experience. Namely that the high oil prices back then meant really strong incentives for increased production by oil companies in the United States and all over the world. The result? Increased production, of course. That increased production meant that the days of higher prices back then were relatively few, and it meant many additional years of low relative prices for gasoline. So, I suspect the change he talks about here with respect to oil is in the wrong direction.

What about those record profits to the oil companies? First, and very importantly, I don't want any change that would "make the oil companies invest" in anything. That sounds like tyranny to me. Where is Patrick Henry when we need him? I hope the Senator doesn't really mean what he said (and that he takes it back to another audience in a day or two), or I will have to hope for a 21st century version of the tea party, i.e., an oil party. Second, it is those very record profits that signal to oil producers, and would be oil producers, all over the world, that people worldwide really, really want more oil produced. And it is those very record profits that will provide the funds the oil companies will use to find and to produce more oil in the future.

Well, he has more in mind when he says change, but maybe I've already written enough. I mean, really, when I move to the next change that includes parents and tvs and video games I start to suspect from the Senator's words that he is thinking again about "making" us or them or somebody do what is best, at least what the Senator thinks they should recognize is best.

I'm certainly not against change. There have been so many wonderful and useful changes in the last 100 years. Change can be good. But, Senator Obama's change just doesn't sound like something I hope to see from the next president.

Perfection

Senator Obama recently said:

I believe in our ability to perfect this union because it’s the only reason I’m standing here today.

Stephen Bainbridge comments:

Setting aside the question of whether the adverbial clause sensibly follows from the main clause, this is one of my pet peeves. I simply do not believe in anyone’s ability to perfect anything. As the NAB puts it, ”all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God.” Or, in the classic phrasing of the King James, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God ....”

If humans are by their very nature imperfect and, moreover, imperfectible, it follows necessarily that human institutions are also inherently imperfect and, moreover, imperfectible. Even the United States of America.

The framers of the American Republic were highly conscious of this basic fact. They knew that fallen mankind was capable of great evil and that tyranny therefore was an ever present threat in human society. . .

. . . all too many people who talk about perfecting a society strive to do so through the vehicle of government. Personally, I do not believe the government can make people, institutions, or societies better—let alone perfect. After all, government is itself comprised of fallen men and women whose imperfections are precisely the reason good government is shackled with checks and balances. Unconstrained, government attempts to create a “Great Society” destroy communities, disintegrate the little platoons that inculcate virtue, atrophy both man’s ability and desire to control their own destiny, and limit choice.

As a Christian, Obama should be aware of the full implications of The Fall. He should know that government is not a vehicle for perfecting humanity or human institutions, but rather a vehicle for ensuring that the baser elements of human nature are restrained. If government does that, it has done all that we can expect of it.

I'm with Mr. Bainbridge on this. One thing people often loose sight of when they consider government and public policy is that government is inherently coercive. I don't believe people can be made better by force. I do think the basic purpose of government should be to use force and coercion in a protective role much as Mr. Bainbridge suggests.

I also have to say that I dislike the way the Senator makes reference to the preamble of the Constitution. The constitutional framers did not say they were trying to make a perfect union of 13 states. Rather, they wrote that the Constitution was an effort to improve upon an existing union of 13 states. The Articles of Confederation were seen by the framers as inadequate, so they meant to improve upon the Articles.

If Senator Obama had said that he thought today we could improve upon our union of 50 states (rather than perfect our union), then I might have agreed with such an assertion. However, I'm sure the Senator and I would disagree significantly in the way we would suggest improving the union. It seems to me we can improve the union by reducing the size of national government and by constraining the Congress and the President in ways that would move the government in the direction of a limited government as envisioned by James Madison.

The Pope & Inalienable Rights

Faith and politics seems much a part of this presidential campaign season. In the midst of this season Pope Benedict visited the United States. I'm very happy to know that his remarks with the President had much to say about freedom:

From the dawn of the Republic, America's quest for freedom has been guided by the conviction that the principles governing political and social life are intimately linked to a moral order based on the dominion of God the Creator. The framers of this nation's founding documents drew upon this conviction when they proclaimed the self-evident truth that all men are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights grounded in the laws of nature and of nature's God.

[ . . . ]

Freedom is not only a gift, but also a summons to personal responsibility. Americans know this from experience -- almost every town in this country has its monuments honoring those who sacrificed their lives in defense of freedom, both at home and abroad. The preservation of freedom calls for the cultivation of virtue, self-discipline, sacrifice for the common good, and a sense of responsibility towards the less fortunate. It also demands the courage to engage in civic life and to bring one's deepest beliefs and values to reasoned public debate.

In a word, freedom is ever new. It is a challenge held out to each generation, and it must constantly be won over for the cause of good. Few have understood this as clearly as the late Pope John Paul II. In reflecting on the spiritual victory of freedom over totalitarianism in his native Poland and in Eastern Europe, he reminded us that history shows time and again that "in a world without truth, freedom loses its foundation," and a democracy without values can lose its very soul. Those prophetic words in some sense echo the conviction of President Washington, expressed in his Farewell Address, that religion and morality represent "indispensable supports" of political prosperity.

I guess I would like to disagree with the idea that freedom is ever new and must constantly be won over for the cause of good. But, I think it does seem to be the case that as the United States ages an ever smaller proportion of "we the people" seem committed to (perhaps even to have studied) the idea of limited constitutional government, which so many of the founders of our country believed in.

Is Jimmy Carter Promoting an American Theocracy?

New York Times reporter David Kirkpatrick reports that Jimmy Carter made the following statement at Bill Hybels' leadership conference in the summer of 2007:

“I think that a superpower ought to be the exemplification of a commitment to peace ... I would like for anyone in the world that’s threatened with conflict to say to themselves immediately: ‘Why don’t we go to Washington? They believe in peace and they will help us get peace.’ This is just a simple but important extrapolation from what a human being ought to do, and what a human being ought to do is what Jesus Christ did, who was a champion of peace.”

Really? Is Carter actually suggesting that the American state should reflect the values of Jesus Christ?

This is the clear implication of his statement. According to Carter, the state should do what good human beings do and good human beings will exemplify the values of Jesus.

If asked for proof that Jesus was a champion of peace, I imagine that Mr. Carter might quote from the Sermon on the Mount. "Blessed are the peacemakers," Jesus said, "for they shall be called the sons of God" (Matthew 5:9). Rather than demanding an "eye for an eye", Jesus requires us to "turn the other cheek" (Matthew 5:38-39). "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you .... " (Luke 6:27) is another well-known command of the Prince of Peace and it tells us to seek reconciliation rather than retaliation.

Fair enough. Jesus is in favor of peace.

Interestingly, in that same famous sermon, Jesus also speaks about many other moral issues - issues such as divorce and adultery. He condemns both.

Does Carter think that the American government should incorporate Jesus' views on divorce and adultery into its public policy? If not, why not? After all, those values are right there in that same Sermon on the Mount that Carter would rely on for proof that Jesus is a promoter of peace.

If the American government should exemplify Jesus' views on peace, why should it not also adopt his views on marriage and illicit sex?

Imagine what would happen if James Dobson appeared at the National Association of Evangelicals' national meeting and said: “I think that a superpower ought to be the exemplification of a commitment to marriage ... I would like for anyone in the world that’s threatened with divorce to say to themselves immediately: ‘Why don’t we go to Washington? They believe in marriage and they will help us preserve our marriage.’ This is just a simple but important extrapolation from what a human being ought to do, and what a human being ought to do is what Jesus Christ did, who was a champion of marriage.”

I can easily imagine that Jimmy Carter would be critical of such a view. He has been critical repeatedly of politically conservative Christians and their attempts to pursue moral agendas that they think Jesus cares about.

But regardless of Carter's reaction, the usual voices on the political left would undoubtedly be outraged by such statements coming from Dobson. They'd be at DEFCON1 in the blink of an eye. From their bunkers, they'd issue dire warnings about the dangers of religious fundamentalists who want to take over this country and turn it into a Christian theocracy. They'd wag their fingers and tells us that you can't legislate morality.

Yet this same reaction does not occur to them when Carter suggests that the federal government should be promoting peace in the world because this is what Jesus wants.

Why?

I think it's pretty simple. They believe, in the face of all the evidence from world history to the contrary, that any dispute can be and should be peacefully resolved by negotiation and compromise but they do not believe in the ideals of sexual fidelity in marriage to one partner for life. They are happy to see people use Jesus to help them with causes in which they believe and they are happy to demand that Jesus be ignored in the public arena when his values conflict with their own.

Of course, this same phenomenon occurs on the political right. All political perspectives pick and choose the moral issues about which they choose to get exercised. Selective moral outrage is a common human failing.

All of these considerations bring my basic question about the interplay of Christian faith and politics into focus: Is there a principled basis for deciding which of my Christian values, if any, should be reflected in the governance of a secular state? I'm beginning to make some progress on this question and I'm happy to get any thoughts you might have on this matter.

Hope? Nope.

Is Senator Obama a "new kind" of politician? Consider what is on the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal this morning:

Barack Obama is promising to end partisanship in Washington, and here's a place to start: He could stop playing politics with the Federal Election Commission in a way that could hamper John McCain's campaign against, well, Mr. Obama.

The Illinois Senator is blocking confirmation of one of President Bush's appointees to the FEC, which administers election laws. This has left the agency two commissioners short of the quorum it needs to make decisions -- with the potential for direct harm to Mr. McCain's campaign. As we've been writing, the Arizona Senator took out a controversial $1 million loan that FEC Chairman David Mason has said might lock him into the public finance system for the primary season. Mr. McCain doesn't want to do that because he'd have to abide by spending limits that would reduce his campaigning this spring and summer. Mr. Mason says the FEC needs to rule on the matter, but without a quorum Mr. McCain is left hanging.

The FEC must also vote to certify that Mr. McCain can receive an estimated $85 million in public funds for the November election. The Republican has already pledged to accept those funds, and the spending limits that go with them, and he is counting on the money to make him competitive against a Democratic nominee. However, no FEC quorum, no public McCain funds in the fall -- and a potentially big advantage for Mr. Obama, who is raising far more in private donations.

The FEC dispute centers on Hans von Spakovsky, a Bush appointee whose two-year recess term ended in December and who has been renominated. Before coming to the FEC, Mr. von Spakovsky was a lawyer in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, where he supported voter-ID laws that Democrats claim will harm black voters but have been vindicated in court. Mr. von Spakovsky's nomination was approved by the Rules Committee in September, but then Mr. Obama intervened with a "hold." Other Democrats have since joined him.

Mr. von Spakovsky was supposed to be voted on in a package of four FEC nominees. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid instead demanded that all four get individual votes, hoping to tank only Mr. von Spakovsky. The six FEC commissioners have staggered terms, and one Republican and one Democrat are supposed to end their terms simultaneously so there is no partisan advantage. Mr. von Spakovsky is paired with Steven Walther, a Nevada lawyer with close ties to Mr. Reid. The Majority Leader can hardly expect to get his hand-picked choice, while throwing Mr. Bush's overboard.

All of this is the rankest sort of partisan Beltway gamesmanship, all the worse because it is rooted in racial politics. It is precisely what Mr. Obama says he wants to rise above, but apparently that will happen only after he wins the Presidency. Mr. Obama also boasts about his role in crafting last year's lobbying and ethics law, which includes a provision requiring candidates to report "bundled" campaign contributions. The FEC was unable to devise the rules for that provision before it lost its quorum in December. Meanwhile, Mr. Obama is bundling away.

We dislike these campaign laws, in part because they allow the likes of Mr. Obama to claim to be reformers while working the rules to their own advantage. But if Senators who want to be President are going to pass these rules, the least they can do is give the FEC the ability to enforce them.

There's an old adage: In politics, rhetoric is reality. Sounds like Senator Obama has some appealing new rhetoric. But, his actions speak the same old kind of politician.

Libertarian Christian

William Clark makes note of a comment in Dallas Willard's Renovation of the Heart:

"The revolution of Jesus is in the first place and continuously a revolution of the human heart or spirit. It did not and does not proceed by means of the formation of social institutions and laws, the outer forms of our existence, intending that these would then impose a good order of life upon who come under their power."

What do you see as some of the implications of Willard's comment? Here is what Mr. Clark suggests:

When I first read this I thought, "wow, since I've devoted most of my life trying to understand social institutions and laws, I guess I've wasted my life. I need to leave political science immediately."

But then I thought about it .... if Jesus's revolution is about a revolution of the heart, if its not about external control to induce good behavior, then it has implications for social institutions.

Social institutions should impose as few limitations as possible on the choices individuals make. If the heart is to be changed it is to be changed in an environment where people are free to make their own mistakes. Free to be challenged by the mistakes others make. Free to have an opportunity to learn and grow in such an environment. And free to be able to turn over their freedom to Christ and become a slave to righteousness.

A Politician Of Faith?

Don Boudreaux has written a letter to a radio station that he posts on his blog:

I'm appalled by everyone who called in today expressing hopes that one day one of their children "might become President of the United States."

My son, Thomas, is ten. I hope that he graduates from college and has a satisfying and lucrative career. But I'd much rather that he be even a janitor or a used-car salesman than become a successful politician. To succeed at politics - especially at the national level - requires duplicity and shamelessness rivaled only by arrogance. For my son to become President he would have to abandon nearly every moral precept that my wife and I try hard now to impart to him: honesty, forthrightness, decency, respect for others, and modesty. We emphatically do not want our son to yearn for power, for to do so would inevitably corrode his humanity.

Thomas, like nearly everyone else in this world, will be fit to rule himself when he is an adult. He is not, and never will be - again like everyone else - fit to rule others, even if those others elect him to do so.

Consider the character traits listed by Professor Boudreaux for a politician. Can a person of faith make a successful politician? More specifically, can a person of Christian faith make a successful politician?

I have wondered about this question before, and my answer has been (still is) that I thought it would be difficult because I thought a successful politician tended to be someone who acted as Professor Boudreaux describes in his letter.

Perhaps one illustration of this comes from recent primary camgaigning. Consider the following story from the Washington Post:

The attacks led to the most bizarre moment of the campaign: Huckabee announcing this week that he would not run a negative ad that he had prepared against Romney, then playing it for reporters and television cameras, virtually ensuring it would be seen across Iowa.

I also think it would be difficult because government is about power over others; government is about force and coercion. While government can use power and force in good ways and with justice, primarily when government uses power and force to protect individuals and their property from harm by others, government today goes far beyond such just uses of power. Someone elected to political office today is going to be confronted with nearly countless opportunities to touch power and to vote in support of the use of power to rule over others rather than in support of protecting others from harm. Few political leaders today, maybe the number is zero, define their political agenda as limited to the use of government's power to protect individuals and their property from harm by others. It seems to me very likely that any successful politician will have to act in ways that uses power and force to rule the lives of others, and acting in this way seems to me quite at odds with the teachings of Jesus.

I'm not sure I can trust a politician who announces their Christian faith as part of their personal character, and especially a politician who makes their faith one of the reasons people should vote for their election. I suspect my more likely response to a politician who announces their faith should be: "You hypocrite."

Would you agree with me?

Government Is Inherently Coercive

I'm reading God's Name in Vain by Stephen Carter. He points to something that I believe is fundamental.

. . . electoral politics has been a difficult and often harmful location for religionists to try to make a stand against the culture. Possessing an honored voice that somtimes prevails is not the same as regularly exercising actual secular power to tell people, at a point of a gun, what they must do. . . . (p. 6)

. . . . Any conversation about politics is also a conversation about coercion. A conversation about politics is either about what people should be forced to do, or forced not to do (law); or about who should do the forcing (elections) . . . . (p. 28)

Government is inherently coercive. Government is about force.

So when I think about my faith and my politics, I believe I have to think about what my faith suggests to me about the legitimate or justified use of force in my daily life.

I'm not sure I really like the idea of asking what would Jesus do, or what would Jesus drive. Still, the idea might be suggestive of what I think I need to confront when I think about my faith and my politics: Who would Jesus coerce and why? I would like to ask for suggestions about answers to these questions that we might find by looking at the Gospels.

I teach the economics of government to college students and I often ask them to note that government is inherently coercive and then to consider in what ways the use of force in their daily lives might be acceptable. In general, it seems the responses suggest that force and coercion is justified in our daily lives in self-defense, or in the defense of ourselves and our property, and even in the defense of the person and property of others. I think this is a widely accepted idea, that force is justified in self-defense. I wonder if we can find scripture in the Gospels that would suggest that force in self-defense is a principle acceptable to Jesus?

Returning to Carter, Chapter 6 in his book is titled "The Separation of Church and Slavery." He writes:

All through the twentieth century, historians searched for ways to explain the Civil War in particular, and the abolitionist struggle in general, without the need for resort to religion. . . .Yet it was slavery, and nothing but slavery, that caused the Southern states to secede; it was slavery, and nothing but slavery, that the war's most ardent Northern supporters addressed. . . .There is good reason to think that without the steady drumbeat of Christian condemnation from the abolitionist preachers, there would never have been sufficient antislavery sentiment--to say nothing of antislavery interest--to enable the nation finally to go to war over the issue. . . .

The suggestion is that without Christian condemnation, force would not have been used to end slavery in the United States. The Civil War that ended slavery would, perhaps, not have been fought, except for the political action of Christians to influence the ways in which government used it's coercive power. I'm not sure the abolitionists were seeking war to end slavery, but, nonetheless, it seems that the war that ended slavery emerged from their actions in politics. Given my Christian faith, was this an acceptable use of force and coercion? And, I wonder, could slavery in the United States ever have been ended without the use of force?

Journalism Today

Here is another commentary, this one by James Q. Wilson, that I think helps us develop an accurate understanding of government and politics:

Most of what I have said here is common knowledge. But it is common knowledge about a new period in American journalistic history. Once, powerful press owners dictated what their papers would print, sometimes irresponsibly. But that era of partisan and circulation-building distortions was not replaced by a commitment to objective journalism; it was replaced by a deep suspicion of the American government. That suspicion, fueled in part by the Vietnam and Watergate controversies, means that the government, especially if it is a conservative one, is surrounded by journalists who doubt almost all it says. One obvious result is that since World War II there have been few reports of military heroes; indeed, there have been scarcely any reports of military victories.

This change in the media is not a transitory one that will give way to a return to the support of our military when it fights. Journalism, like so much scholarship, now dwells in a postmodern age in which truth is hard to find and statements merely serve someone's interests.

The mainstream media's adversarial stance, both here and abroad, means that whenever a foreign enemy challenges us, he will know that his objective will be to win the battle not on some faraway bit of land but among the people who determine what we read and watch. We won the Second World War in Europe and Japan, but we lost in Vietnam and are in danger of losing in Iraq and Lebanon in the newspapers, magazines and television programs we enjoy.

I think this is a very important essay by Mr. Wilson. It seems to me important to account for the perspective presented in this essay when a person tries to become informed about political issues. Journalism's basic stance on the country and war is also present in all other areas of politics and public policy. The bottom line, in all matters of reporting and commentary on politics and public policy seems to be: "Journalism, like so much scholarship, now dwells in a postmodern age in which truth is hard to find and statements merely serve someone's interests."

I find it quite a challenge to try to become accurately and well informed about politics and public policy. I think one should always be cautious about what to decide to believe.

Victor Davis Hanson On The Libby Lessons

When I look at politics and government one of the things I try to do is have an accurate understanding of how these things work. With this in mind, I recommend Victor Davis Hanson's take on the lessons to learn from the Libby affair:

1. We now have a new branch of government—a symbiosis between a special prosecutor and the Washington DC judiciary. Given the available jury pool and justices in DC, together with the high-stakes, high-publicity of a special prosecutorship, any prominent conservative is fair game. An innocent or hung verdict spells financial ruin, a guilty one the destruction of a career.

All this is much like the ancient Athenian notion of ostracism, in which the prominent could be exiled and ruined simply by a populist vote on their high-profile stature that was felt to be a danger to an egalitarian Athenian ethos.

2. The Washington DC press corps and high-ranking officials talk, spin, and network 24/7. Trying to sort out anything among any of them is impossible. These are the grunt soldiers with no rules of engagement in a vast ideological battle between the mainststeam media and conservative administrations.

3. There is no sense of proportion or morality involved. One example: Richard Armitage comes off quite negatively. He knew he was the most culpable given the initial directive of the Special Prosecutor, and yet stayed quiet while the searchlight went on to others. This was especially reprehensible given his prior carefully crafted voice of conscious as a luke-warm supporter of the war.

4. We will never know all the power-plays, ego-trips, and vested reputations in all this. But apparently Fitzgerald had a lot on the line by going after Libby, and was willing to apply to him a standard not applied to others in or out of government. This does not mean necessarily that Libby’s testimony was not inconsistent, only that a degree of scrutiny was applied to it in a manner not done elsewhere.

5. All this reminds me again of wisdom from my late mother, a California superior and appellate court justice. She used to remind me that the most powerful people in government are not judges, not juries, not even legislators or executives—but state and federal attorneys, who act as judge and jury of sorts in selecting whom to prosecute. I say that because in the modern age, an indictment ipso facto can spell financial ruin and irrevocable loss of reputation. Our prosecutors must be above any hint of partisanship or grudge-holding, and must not see their offices as platforms for wide-ranging, Les Miserables obsessions.

Hanson also offers a summary of the details of note in the case. It does seem to me that this case is an illustration (and unfortunately it seems there have been others before and will probably be others to follow) where politics became part of our system of criminal justice. It is quite difficult for me to understand that in all of this there was an alleged crime, which upon further review seems never to have been a crime, and there was another person who should have been identified as the person who committed the crime (had there been one), and this person was neither arrested nor tried nor convicted, nor was this person even publicly criticized. Yet, another man who now is known not to have committed the crime (had there been one) that began all of this is convicted and waiting to be sentenced. This doesn't seem to me to be what our system of government is supposed to be about. But it does seem to be one aspect of how our system of government works.

The Nature of Congress

Ed Morrissey comments on the news report that Al Sadr seems to have fled to Iran:

"This couldn't have come at a better time. Congress has tied itself in knots trying to opine on what a disaster the surge will be, and before they can vote on a resolution scolding George Bush for wasting resources, he's already chased one of the worst actors out of Baghdad. Nancy Pelosi will be holding a debate to disapprove of a strategy that has already demonstrated success."

Doesn't this just illustrate the nature of Congress and war?

War & Politics

Richard John Neuhaus:

"I confess to being haunted by the recent observation of Bernard Lewis that the retreat of the United States from Iraq will establish throughout the world the perception that “America is harmless as an enemy and treacherous as an ally.” Such an outcome cannot be good for America and cannot be good for the world.

The New York Times editorial the next day held no surprises: “President Bush told Americans last night that failure in Iraq would be a disaster. The disaster is Mr. Bush’s war, and he has already failed. . . . Without a real plan to bring [the war] to a close, there is no point in talking about jobs programs and military offensives. There is nothing ahead but even greater disaster in Iraq.”

The editors do not say that they fear the policy will fail. With an air of supreme confidence they predict, as they have been predicting all along, that the U.S. will fail in Iraq. The editors have a steep stake in the vindication of their predictions. The editors want the U.S. to fail. This is vile.

Those less captive to partisan passion know that this is not “Mr. Bush’s war” but America’s war. All the mistakes notwithstanding, it was initiated for justifiable ends. I believe we are morally obliged to pray that it will be concluded in a manner that will benefit the people of Iraq and the greater Middle East and will not bring discredit upon America and its necessary role in the world. I earnestly wish I could be more confident of how that prayer will be answered."

I join in his prayer.

And, I agree this is America's war. In our system of political economy, one man, even the President, cannot take America to war by himself. Congress passed the Iraq War Powers Resolution, and absent that act by Congress the country's military forces would not be in Iraq today.

In some ways, I'm not so sure we have things quite right when we say Iraq is America's war at this point in time. America's war with Iraq began as a war against the government of Iraq. The government we went to war against was defeated. In the place of that defeated government we now have a new constitutionally elected government of Iraq. America is not at war with Iraq's government today. Instead, today, it seems to me America has committed itself to help provide the means by which the new government of Iraq can be successful in providing security for it's people. The acts of war and aggression today in Iraq seem to me to involve at least some people of Iraq attempting to topple the constitutionally elected government of Iraq, and also people who are agents of other countries (or even people without a country) seeking to topple the constitutionally elected government of Iraq. At this stage, my guess is that if America decides to no longer aid the new government of Iraq in providing security for the country, the result will at least be that the constitutionally elected government of Iraq will be destroyed. At this point, I hope our American leaders do not decide that it is best for America to let that happen.

Angels

James Madison in Federalist #51:

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary."

I wonder how many people would agree with Madison on this? It seems to me that many people tend to overlook this idea when they think about government. Many seem to think that the point of government is to make us all better off through the good works that government provides. On the other hand, if you think about government from point of view expressed by Madison, then I think the first, and perhaps most important, thing you think about with respect to government is that government is granted a monopoly in the use of force to protect us from harm by others (those who are not angels).

Perhaps there is another thought suggested by Madison's observation. Since men are not angels, how will men (and women) act if they become elected to government and come to have their own hands on the coercive power of government? Surely politicians and government bureaucrats are not angels as well. And, I think the next question is something like this: If we have government to constrain men who are not angels, how will we constrain the same men when they become members of government and therefore our governors? Surely we don't want to trust them to constrain themselves.

Christian Views

Antonin Scalia:

". . . we live in an age in which many Christians are predisposed to believe that John D. Rockefeller, for all his piety (he founded the University of Chicago as a Baptist institution), is likely to be damned and Che Guevara, for all his nonbelief, is likely to be among the elect. . . ."

This is an interesting observation. It seems to me to have more than a little truth to it.

The Political Dance

PEGGY NOONAN, a keen observer of politics, comments on the dance:

"Mrs. Clinton, who will soon go fully national again, shrewdly makes more and more religious references and has taken to wearing a cross on her neck on the campaign trail. Ben Smith of New York's Daily News called it a diamond cross. It looks like one. But diamonds would be an odd thing for a Democratic politician to campaign in. No Democrat or Republican politician has worn expensive jewelry in New York since Mario Cuomo looked at his wealthy opponent in their first debate and purred, 'Nice watch, Lou!'

A hunch. Hillary is just waiting for someone to ask her about the diamond cross so she can shyly respond, 'Lord, it's glass, actually.' Her office will elaborate: It was given to her by a little girl in Poughkeepsie, to remind her of what's important. Hillary promised to wear it every day. Then she promised a dying boy she'd hit a home run for him, while wearing her Yankees hat.

The Clintons, Mr. Schwarzenegger and Mr. McCain are the exceptions. There's a dance dearth out there. This is surprising, isn't it? The issues are large and deep. Great battles are ennobled by happy warriors. We have two weeks left. If you're bothering to run, get off the grim reading of talking points. Show some roar, show some game. Show some dance. Joylessness is unworthy of a great republic."

Virginia Declaration of Rights

The Virginia Declaration of Rights has an interesting statement about religious freedom which I comment on at Economics & Liberty. Here is the passage from that declaration of rights:

That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore, all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other.

Here is the punchline to my comments posted there:

I don't think that in a free system of political economy one need be terribly concerned about whether a person's views on government and policy are motivated by religious belief or belief in mother nature or belief in Newtonian physics or belief in quantum physics. In a system of government founded on liberty the key issue is really what we think is and is not a legitimate use of force and violence in our daily lives. As George Mason wrote in the Virginia Declaration of Rights it is not legitimate to use force and violence in the service of religious belief. Nor, does it seem to me legitimate to use force and violence in the service of belief in science, or belief in an environmental ethic, or belief in a witch's brew. But, in our system of political economy, there is seldom any real threat that force and violence will be used by government for any such personal beliefs. We each have our personal beliefs and motives for supporting this policy or that policy, and in the end the policy that is chosen is seldom, if ever, the policy that is supported by merely one type of belief. Liberty requires that government leave us free to believe what we will, and this principle even applies to the reasons we have for supporting our personal views of good and bad public policy.

Do you agree or disagree?

Is An Increase In The Minimum Wage Moral?

Recently we have heard a lot of discussion about increasing the minimum wage. Taking a political position in favor of increasing the minimum wage often seems to be good politics, but this may be the case only if the economic results of the minimum wage are overlooked. Anthony Bradley explains that an increase in the minimum wage will hurt teens and minorities:

"The only way to explain Republican bulldozing of the first minimum wage increase in a decade through the House of Representatives last week is election year political banditry -- even though it was paired with a cut in estate taxes. Before the Senate debates this bill, it is important to remind ourselves that government-mandated minimum wage helps no one in the long run. Parents of high school students and advocates for the poor should be outraged at the proposed increase because it discourages employers from hiring teenagers and low-skilled minorities.

[. . . .]

Emotionally, the issue is a winner -- who can be against lifting the prospects of the most poorly paid workers among us? But when viewed through economic analysis, the bill appears less rosy. Such an increase actually hurts teens and low-skilled minorities in the long run because minimum wage jobs are usually entry-level positions filled by employees with limited work experience and few job skills. When the government forces employers to pay their workers more than a job’s productivity demands, employers, in order to stay in business, generally respond by hiring fewer hours of low-skill labor. Low-skill workers become too expensive to employ, creating a new army of permanent part-timers.

[. . . .]

University of Connecticut economics professor, Kenneth Couch, estimates that a one-dollar rise in the minimum wage in the current economic environment would further reduce teenage employment opportunities by at least 145,000 -- and possibly as many as 436,000 -- jobs."

Presumably, those interested in increasing the minimum wage are not trying to cause many teenagers to become unemployed. Nor are they intending to reduce the number of low-skilled workers who have jobs. Nor are they intending to reduce the incomes of employers, or increase the prices paid for goods and services. But each of these things will happen, according to economic analysis, if the minimum wage is increased.

Certainly those employees who continue in their jobs will earn more income because of a government forced increase in the wage they receive, but such an increase in their incomes will just as certainly come with a decrease in the incomes of those who become unemployed (or unemployable) because of the increased minimum wage.

I think many people of faith strongly support an increase in the minimum wage, but I suspect they are perhaps unaware of the actual economic effects of such an increase. Perhaps they realize the full range of economic effects, and find some moral justification for government acting to gain these effects. For myself, I cannot find in my Christian faith support for using government's force in this way, because it seems to me to amount to taking from some to give to others. It seems to me that increasing the minimum wage will take income from those who will become unemployed (or become unemployable because they are a teenager), to increase the incomes of those who remain employed. I also see force used by government in a way that means people spend more for goods and services and thus have less real income for use in support of their own livelihoods and the livelihood of their families.

Of course, someone may want to argue that the economic analysis is not correct. That the minimum wage increase will not decrease the incomes of employers, nor will it increase the prices paid for goods and services, nor will it cause people to loose jobs they would have otherwise had. What I am interested in is, assuming the results described by Mr. Bradley and myself here will occur, how can we see an increase in the minimum wage as moral?