Don't make the mistake of thinking that the cultural backlash against Christians is going to be protested, or argued away. It won't. Prayer is our primary defense. But that doesn't mean that we should just lay down and let the culture of death gain more power. Chuck Colson and dozen's of evangelical leaders are doing something sinificant for the body Christ in America. Read the article below and visit the ColsonCenter.org to sign on if you agree.
I am proud to be the 639th signer of the document myself and hope millions will follow. By the way: For a good example of why this kind of stand is important see my late Saturday night post tomorrow.
BREAKPOINT DAILY TRANSCRIPT (Chuck Colson)
The Manhattan Declaration
Defending Life, Marriage, and Freedom
November 20, 2009
Today at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., I and a dozen evangelical, Catholic, and Orthodox leaders face the microphones to announce the release of an historic document -- one of the most important documents produced by the American church, at least in my lifetime.
It is called the Manhattan Declaration, and signed by over 140 leaders representing every branch of American Christianity. The Manhattan Declaration is a wake-up call -- a call to conscience -- for the church. It is also crystal-clear message to civil authorities that we will not, under any circumstances, stand idly by as our religious freedom comes under assault.
The Declaration begins by reminding readers that for 2,000 years, Christians have borne witness to the truths of their faith. This witness has taken various forms -- proclamation, seeking justice, resisting tyranny, and reaching out to the poor, oppressed, and suffering. Having reminded readers about why and how Christians have spoken out in the past, the Declaration then turns to what especially troubles us today -- the threats to the sanctity of human life, the institution of marriage, and religious freedom.
The Declaration notes with sadness that although “public sentiment has moved in a pro-life direction,” pro-abortion ideology “prevails today in our government.” Both in the administration and in Congress, there are many “who want to make abortions legal at any stage of fetal development, and...provide abortions at taxpayer expense.”
The Declaration isn’t a partisan statement. It acknowledges that since Roe v. Wade, “elected officials and appointees of both major political parties have been complicit in giving legal sanction to the ‘Culture of Death.’”
The result of this bipartisan complicity is an increasingly prevalent belief that “lives that are imperfect, immature, or inconvenient are discardable.” This lethal logic produces such evils as euthanasia and the “industrial mass production of human embryos to be killed” for their stem cells. The response to this kind of assault on the sanctity of human life requires what the Manhattan Declaration calls the “gospel of costly grace.”
This starts with the willingness to put aside our comfort and serve those whom the broader culture would deem outside the scope of its concern and legal protection. The cost may be higher. Christians may have to choose between the demands of what St. Augustine called the “City of Man” and the “City of God” -- which, for the Christian, is really no choice at all.
This kind of principled non-cooperation with evil won’t be easy -- there are signs of a reduced tolerance for that most basic of American values, religious freedom. As we’ve discussed many times on BreakPoint, Christian organizations are losing tax-exempt status for refusing to buy in to homosexual “marriage.”
Some are going out of business rather than cave into immoral demands—such as placing children for adoption with homosexual couples. Conscientious medical personnel are being sued or being fired for obeying their consciences. I say, enough is enough. The Church must take a stand.
And with the release of the Manhattan Declaration, that’s exactly what we are doing. I am asking Christians by the thousands to come to ColsonCenter.org, where you’ll be able to read and sign the document. Please stand with us today.
Tell the world you stand for the sanctity of life and traditional marriage -- and that you cherish your God-given freedom.
Copyright (c) 2009 Prison Fellowship
Friday, November 20, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
A Letter that Has Much to Commend Itself
I have been a frequent critic of our President. I think the "Christian left" is many times wrong headed and weak theologically. Jim Wallis, part of the Christian left, a man I admire but rarely agree with, has a written an open letter to the president that has much to commend it. What do you think? I have included it below.
Side note: the very first co-signer of the letter is Noel Castellanos, one of the editors of the book I just contributed a chapter to on multi-ethnic ministry. Noel's endorsement of the big picture of the letter is significant to me. His "gospel" credentials are impeccable.
Build, Don't Destroy in Afghanistan:
An Open Letter to President Obama
Dear Mr. President,
In your speech to the United Nations General Assembly this fall, you eloquently stated one of your core beliefs, that while too often peace remains a distant dream:
We share that belief, and urge you to make it your guiding principle in Afghanistan. We speak not as military or political strategists, but as religious leaders seeking to faithfully apply our moral values to this most crucial issue. We have been watching, listening, and praying as the political arguments and counter-arguments about what to do in Afghanistan fill the air. We commend you for taking time to make your decisions in such an important matter which will affect the lives of so many.
We believe that after eight years of war we need a whole new approach in Afghanistan. And we respectfully and prayerfully suggest to you a different strategy that we would name: the humanitarian and development surge.
First, lead with what we know works -- massive humanitarian assistance and sustainable development. We know that what can re-build a broken nation; inspire confidence, trust, and hope among its people; and undermine the appeal of terrorism is massive humanitarian assistance and sustainable economic development. And it costs less -- far less -- than continued war.
Many of us as religious leaders are deeply involved with the people and organizations who know places like Afghanistan the best; and they are neither the military nor the private contractors who increasingly dominate U.S. foreign policy in war-torn regions. Rather they are the NGOs, both faith-based and secular, doing relief and development work which have been there for years, have become quite indigenous, and are much more trusted by the people of the country than are the U.S. military. We’ve also learned that it is vitally important that humanitarian and development assistance should be provided, as much as possible, by independent civilian and non-governmental organizations, both international and local -- rather than using aid as a government adjunct to military operations. Another way to say it is that the best face of America to the world is a baseball hat and not a helmet.
Of course, we recognize that effective development needs security, and when we have massively intervened in a country as much as the U.S. has in Afghanistan, we can’t responsibly just walk away -- as has tragically happened to that country in the past. But we should lead with economic development now, starting in areas that are secure with the plan of growing the transformation from there and providing only the security necessary to protect the strategic rebuilding of the country. That kind of peacekeeping security might better attract the international involvement we so desperately need in Afghanistan, both from Europe and even from Arab and Muslim countries. Let the non-military strategies lead the way, rather than the other way around. Let us not make aid and development another weapon of war, by tying it so closely to the military; but rather provide the security support needed for the development work to succeed -- led by both respected and well-established international organizations with strong local connections.
Second, we feel deeply about the ethical and moral issues that are at stake in our decisions about future policy in Afghanistan -- legitimately protecting Americans from further terrorism, protecting the lives of American servicemen and women, protecting the Afghan people from the collateral damage of war, defending women from the Taliban, genuinely supporting democracy and, of course, saving innocent lives from the collateral damage of war -- to name a few.
We also strongly recommend a diplomatic surge. We urge you to continue pursuing political and diplomatic solutions to these complicated issues, promoting stable governance in Afghanistan and Pakistan, seeking political integration of those elements of the Taliban that are willing to cooperate in preventing the use of their territory for launching terrorist strikes, engaging with the United Nations and other states in the region to build diplomatic and economic support for regional stabilization and economic development, as well as international policing to prevent the spread of extremists and the use of terror.
But Mr. President, as you deliberate on these momentous decisions, we are concerned that the discussion in Washington, D.C. is far too narrow, with only two points of view being seriously considered.
One strategy supports a robust strategy of counter-insurgency, requiring a substantial escalation of troops that would bring the total number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan to as many as 100,000. Yet, this only increases the massive American footprint in that volatile country; which is now one of the primary causes of our problems there, and is clearly helping to fuel the insurgency. Add in a corrupt Afghan government, a highly decentralized society, and a physical terrain that has confounded every other occupier in history; and we find little reason to be hopeful about the prospects of military success through more escalation.
The other prefers counter-terrorism, relying on precision targeting technology to apply military pressure on the most dangerous and extreme operatives who are the greatest threat to us. Our counter-terrorist missiles and unmanned drones may cost less in American lives and treasure, but they have very significant political and moral costs. In war, a laser-like focus is seldom possible, often leading to tragic results in unintended consequences and innocent casualties. The collateral damage of our technological war has already been great, resulting in many civilian deaths, further alienating the populace and, inadvertently, producing even more angry young recruits for terrorism.
And we fear the solution that may be emerging in Washington could be a confused combination of the two strategies, bringing us the worst of both worlds.
We humbly suggest it is time for a meeting at the White House with both American religious leaders and the heads of the leading international development agencies, some of whom have been in Afghanistan for years, with many indigenous employees and partners, who are trusted by the people of the country. These organizations can contribute their experience and wisdom on what U.S. policy would best work, and what kind of security they would need to really do the kind of development in Afghanistan that is most needed. Along with the military and political advice you are receiving, this input is crucial to your decision. And it is time, perhaps for the first time, for an on-going moral and ethical conversation between government and the faith community about the moral implications of our policy decisions.
Mr. President, we assure you that in taking the approach of effective aid and development, and real engagement with the moral issues that confront us in Afghanistan, you will have our support. As always, you are in our prayers as you seek the right decisions to these most difficult questions and choices. We look forward to hearing from you.
Blessings,
Jim Wallis, President and CEO, Sojourners
Noel Castellanos, President, Christian Community Development Association
Side note: the very first co-signer of the letter is Noel Castellanos, one of the editors of the book I just contributed a chapter to on multi-ethnic ministry. Noel's endorsement of the big picture of the letter is significant to me. His "gospel" credentials are impeccable.
Build, Don't Destroy in Afghanistan:
An Open Letter to President Obama
Dear Mr. President,
In your speech to the United Nations General Assembly this fall, you eloquently stated one of your core beliefs, that while too often peace remains a distant dream:
We can either accept that outcome as inevitable, and tolerate constant and crippling conflict, or we can recognize that the yearning for peace is universal, and reassert our resolve to end conflicts around the world ... For the most powerful weapon in our arsenal is the hope of human beings -- the belief that the future belongs to those who would build and not destroy; the confidence that conflicts can end and a new day can begin.
We share that belief, and urge you to make it your guiding principle in Afghanistan. We speak not as military or political strategists, but as religious leaders seeking to faithfully apply our moral values to this most crucial issue. We have been watching, listening, and praying as the political arguments and counter-arguments about what to do in Afghanistan fill the air. We commend you for taking time to make your decisions in such an important matter which will affect the lives of so many.
We believe that after eight years of war we need a whole new approach in Afghanistan. And we respectfully and prayerfully suggest to you a different strategy that we would name: the humanitarian and development surge.
First, lead with what we know works -- massive humanitarian assistance and sustainable development. We know that what can re-build a broken nation; inspire confidence, trust, and hope among its people; and undermine the appeal of terrorism is massive humanitarian assistance and sustainable economic development. And it costs less -- far less -- than continued war.
Many of us as religious leaders are deeply involved with the people and organizations who know places like Afghanistan the best; and they are neither the military nor the private contractors who increasingly dominate U.S. foreign policy in war-torn regions. Rather they are the NGOs, both faith-based and secular, doing relief and development work which have been there for years, have become quite indigenous, and are much more trusted by the people of the country than are the U.S. military. We’ve also learned that it is vitally important that humanitarian and development assistance should be provided, as much as possible, by independent civilian and non-governmental organizations, both international and local -- rather than using aid as a government adjunct to military operations. Another way to say it is that the best face of America to the world is a baseball hat and not a helmet.
Of course, we recognize that effective development needs security, and when we have massively intervened in a country as much as the U.S. has in Afghanistan, we can’t responsibly just walk away -- as has tragically happened to that country in the past. But we should lead with economic development now, starting in areas that are secure with the plan of growing the transformation from there and providing only the security necessary to protect the strategic rebuilding of the country. That kind of peacekeeping security might better attract the international involvement we so desperately need in Afghanistan, both from Europe and even from Arab and Muslim countries. Let the non-military strategies lead the way, rather than the other way around. Let us not make aid and development another weapon of war, by tying it so closely to the military; but rather provide the security support needed for the development work to succeed -- led by both respected and well-established international organizations with strong local connections.
Second, we feel deeply about the ethical and moral issues that are at stake in our decisions about future policy in Afghanistan -- legitimately protecting Americans from further terrorism, protecting the lives of American servicemen and women, protecting the Afghan people from the collateral damage of war, defending women from the Taliban, genuinely supporting democracy and, of course, saving innocent lives from the collateral damage of war -- to name a few.
We also strongly recommend a diplomatic surge. We urge you to continue pursuing political and diplomatic solutions to these complicated issues, promoting stable governance in Afghanistan and Pakistan, seeking political integration of those elements of the Taliban that are willing to cooperate in preventing the use of their territory for launching terrorist strikes, engaging with the United Nations and other states in the region to build diplomatic and economic support for regional stabilization and economic development, as well as international policing to prevent the spread of extremists and the use of terror.
But Mr. President, as you deliberate on these momentous decisions, we are concerned that the discussion in Washington, D.C. is far too narrow, with only two points of view being seriously considered.
One strategy supports a robust strategy of counter-insurgency, requiring a substantial escalation of troops that would bring the total number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan to as many as 100,000. Yet, this only increases the massive American footprint in that volatile country; which is now one of the primary causes of our problems there, and is clearly helping to fuel the insurgency. Add in a corrupt Afghan government, a highly decentralized society, and a physical terrain that has confounded every other occupier in history; and we find little reason to be hopeful about the prospects of military success through more escalation.
The other prefers counter-terrorism, relying on precision targeting technology to apply military pressure on the most dangerous and extreme operatives who are the greatest threat to us. Our counter-terrorist missiles and unmanned drones may cost less in American lives and treasure, but they have very significant political and moral costs. In war, a laser-like focus is seldom possible, often leading to tragic results in unintended consequences and innocent casualties. The collateral damage of our technological war has already been great, resulting in many civilian deaths, further alienating the populace and, inadvertently, producing even more angry young recruits for terrorism.
And we fear the solution that may be emerging in Washington could be a confused combination of the two strategies, bringing us the worst of both worlds.
We humbly suggest it is time for a meeting at the White House with both American religious leaders and the heads of the leading international development agencies, some of whom have been in Afghanistan for years, with many indigenous employees and partners, who are trusted by the people of the country. These organizations can contribute their experience and wisdom on what U.S. policy would best work, and what kind of security they would need to really do the kind of development in Afghanistan that is most needed. Along with the military and political advice you are receiving, this input is crucial to your decision. And it is time, perhaps for the first time, for an on-going moral and ethical conversation between government and the faith community about the moral implications of our policy decisions.
Mr. President, we assure you that in taking the approach of effective aid and development, and real engagement with the moral issues that confront us in Afghanistan, you will have our support. As always, you are in our prayers as you seek the right decisions to these most difficult questions and choices. We look forward to hearing from you.
Blessings,
Jim Wallis, President and CEO, Sojourners
Noel Castellanos, President, Christian Community Development Association
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Chinese Capitalist? The Ultimate Irony
I want to start a movement. Let's start all over.
Let's get rid of every incumbent in Congress. How's that will send a message to the Senate? (Marty)
-------
BREAKPOINT DAILY TRANSCRIPT (Chuck Colson)
Breaking the Bank : Beijing and Health Care
November 17, 2009
The biggest single vote to be cast on health care reform is taking place right now. Not in the halls of Congress or in some smoke-filled back room. Not in the Oval Office. Not in the media.
No, the single most important vote on health care is being cast in, of all places, Beijing.
As the New York Times reported Sunday, Chinese officials are questioning American officials about health care reform in the U.S. As the Times wrote, “The Chinese were not particularly interested in the public option or universal health care....They wanted to know, in painstaking detail, how the health care plan would affect the [U.S.] deficit.”
Why would the Chinese be so interested in our deficit? Well, for all intents and purposes, China is the official banker of the United States government. China is the number one foreign holder of U.S. Treasury securities.
And, as the Times reports, “like any banker, they wanted evidence that the United States had a plan to pay them back.”
Somehow, I doubt the President had any such evidence to give them in Beijing this week.
The Chinese are nothing if not clever. One investment banker told me that they had converted all of their debt from 30-year maturity to one year. The hard questions they are asking right now are about how much the health care bill will raise the deficit. And make no mistake, if the Chinese decide not to continue financing our debt, the dollar could drop through the floor. America could have a huge financial crisis.
Isn’t it ironic that the communist Chinese are more concerned about the cost of socialized medicine than the President and the Congress? That the Chinese communists are more concerned about the U.S. government printing money like it’s going out of style than we are?
If that isn’t a wake-up call to the politicians, the media, and to the American public, I don’t know what it’s going to take.
Look at your own personal spending over the past year. Have you cut back on expenditures because of the recession? Have you put off purchases -- even ones that a year ago you might have thought to be essential? I know I have.
Sadly, the government doesn’t think that way. The politicians want their pet projects—health care reform or earmarks -- and they want them now. No matter that the U.S. budget deficit is at an all-time high. If you or I behaved this way with our personal finances, we’d be broke.
Well, the Chinese are having none of it. And what they are proving is that you don’t need huge armies or navies to conquer America. All you need to do is loan the U.S. government all the money it wants for social reengineering, and then call in the debt.
It’s time we all asked the government to be responsible with our money. Deferred gratification and prudence are virtues worthy of Christian individuals and of governments as well.
I and other Christians have voiced numerous concerns over the health care reform bill being debated on Capitol Hill -- freedom of conscience, the government being involved in end-of life decisions, publicly funded abortion to name a few.
But in the end, it may be that the health care bill being debated on Capitol Hill will turn out to be just too expensive. We cannot afford it.
Just ask the Chinese.
Copyright (c) 2009 Prison Fellowship
Let's get rid of every incumbent in Congress. How's that will send a message to the Senate? (Marty)
-------
BREAKPOINT DAILY TRANSCRIPT (Chuck Colson)
Breaking the Bank : Beijing and Health Care
November 17, 2009
The biggest single vote to be cast on health care reform is taking place right now. Not in the halls of Congress or in some smoke-filled back room. Not in the Oval Office. Not in the media.
No, the single most important vote on health care is being cast in, of all places, Beijing.
As the New York Times reported Sunday, Chinese officials are questioning American officials about health care reform in the U.S. As the Times wrote, “The Chinese were not particularly interested in the public option or universal health care....They wanted to know, in painstaking detail, how the health care plan would affect the [U.S.] deficit.”
Why would the Chinese be so interested in our deficit? Well, for all intents and purposes, China is the official banker of the United States government. China is the number one foreign holder of U.S. Treasury securities.
And, as the Times reports, “like any banker, they wanted evidence that the United States had a plan to pay them back.”
Somehow, I doubt the President had any such evidence to give them in Beijing this week.
The Chinese are nothing if not clever. One investment banker told me that they had converted all of their debt from 30-year maturity to one year. The hard questions they are asking right now are about how much the health care bill will raise the deficit. And make no mistake, if the Chinese decide not to continue financing our debt, the dollar could drop through the floor. America could have a huge financial crisis.
Isn’t it ironic that the communist Chinese are more concerned about the cost of socialized medicine than the President and the Congress? That the Chinese communists are more concerned about the U.S. government printing money like it’s going out of style than we are?
If that isn’t a wake-up call to the politicians, the media, and to the American public, I don’t know what it’s going to take.
Look at your own personal spending over the past year. Have you cut back on expenditures because of the recession? Have you put off purchases -- even ones that a year ago you might have thought to be essential? I know I have.
Sadly, the government doesn’t think that way. The politicians want their pet projects—health care reform or earmarks -- and they want them now. No matter that the U.S. budget deficit is at an all-time high. If you or I behaved this way with our personal finances, we’d be broke.
Well, the Chinese are having none of it. And what they are proving is that you don’t need huge armies or navies to conquer America. All you need to do is loan the U.S. government all the money it wants for social reengineering, and then call in the debt.
It’s time we all asked the government to be responsible with our money. Deferred gratification and prudence are virtues worthy of Christian individuals and of governments as well.
I and other Christians have voiced numerous concerns over the health care reform bill being debated on Capitol Hill -- freedom of conscience, the government being involved in end-of life decisions, publicly funded abortion to name a few.
But in the end, it may be that the health care bill being debated on Capitol Hill will turn out to be just too expensive. We cannot afford it.
Just ask the Chinese.
Copyright (c) 2009 Prison Fellowship
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
The President is Wrong
The President is wrong on the economy. He is wrong on health care. He is wrong on gay marriage. He is wrong on gays in the military. But he is most greviously wrong on the issue of abortion. John Piper once again has said it most compassionately and clearly.
View the video and pray for our President.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O68MByaMVdM
View the video and pray for our President.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O68MByaMVdM
Monday, November 16, 2009
Liberalism and Limits
The following is from Mars Hill. The Mars Hill Audio Journal is one of the most thought provoking investments you could make. The following was written by Ken Myers
Liberalism and Limits
On his blog, Patrick Deneen identifies himself as a political theorist. Not a political scientist or a political philosopher, but a theorist. This self-designation reflects Deneen's attention to political history and to the life of language. To be associated with scientia, derived from the Latin verb meaning "to know," would be an honorable situation for any thoughtful academic, even if "political science" has an air of mechanistic wonkishness about it. "Philosopher" might be a more attractive label for someone with Deneen's commitments, the etymological echoes of the word accurately suggesting his evident belief that thinking well about politics is a matter properly linked with the orientation of the soul. …
Deneen's blog is called "What I Saw in America," a homage to G. K. Chesterton, and is subtitled "The Political Theory of Daily Life." Like the ancient theoroi, Deneen has traveled to distant places, distant in time if not space—Tocqueville's America, Aristotle's Athens, Wendell Berry's Port William, Descartes's utopia—and returned to explain aspects of our daily lives in light of what he has seen there.
In the past few weeks, Deneen's posts have placed the Wall Street meltdown in a larger cultural perspective that is absent from most media diagnoses and from the comments of politicians, whose handlers and PR experts forbid them from ever saying anything critical of the dominant trends of our cultural moment. In mid-September, in a piece called "Abstraction,"
Deneen argued that "at nearly every level this financial collapse was precipitated by transforming reality into abstraction, unmooring grounded commitments and obligations and fostering new patterns of fantastical behavior throughout the populace." That essay was followed by "Political Philosophy in the Details," in which Deneen questioned one of the fundamental assumptions of classic liberalism, which is that "unleashed self-interest is a predictable driver of human behavior and can be harnessed to ensure stable political institutions and dynamic economic activity."
This assumption contradicts the wisdom of premodern political thinkers from Aristotle on, who "argued against unleashed self-interest inasmuch as its free rein led to the deformation of the human soul—a form of enslavement to the desires." While liberalism claims to be a procedural order in which competing claims about the good—whether religious, philosophical, or practical—all compete freely in an open "marketplace of ideas," in actuality what liberalism "seeks above all is the promotion of economic growth and material pursuits as the main activity" of human societies. "It can afford to be neutral about ends because by emphasizing that one end—growth and material gain—it effectively demotes all other ends. . . . Correspondingly, no party of government will call for virtue and restraint as a possible solution [to our economic woes], since that would contradict the fundamental wellspring of human behavior necessary for increase and dominion."
Deneen followed up this piece with a post entitled "Whack a Mole," in which he insisted that the failure of political leaders to call for self-restraint is "an indication of our enslavement to appetites over which we have no control. This latter condition was defined by the ancients as a condition of servitude, not liberty." In an entry dated October 2, 2008 called "Democracy in America," Deneen raises questions about the viability of democracy in a culture that eschews limits and self-control. Citing Tocqueville's insight that democracy was a collection of mores as much as it was a system of government, he reviews Tocqueville's warning about how the very success of democracy could lead to its undoing.
"The very dynamism of modern democracy that allowed it to defang resentments [by enabling social and economic mobility] also simultaneously contributed to profound short-term thinking that devolved into forms of self-serving individualism. Increasingly unable to discern how our liberated actions impacted others—neither recognizing our debts to the past nor our obligations to the future—we see ourselves as wholly free agents shorn of history or future."
Deneen also cites Montesquieu's belief that democracy could only survive if it was internally enabled by virtuous citizens, people with the habit of the heart to eschew luxurious living and temper their appetities. "Without the virtue of moderation, thrift, and self-governance [that is, the willingness of each citizen to govern himself], democracy was an ideal whose reality was always in question."
Reading Deneen over the past few weeks has prompted me to go back and review some of Daniel Bell's observations in his 1976 book, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism. In that profound study, Bell raised questions about "the end of the bourgeois idea," the unravelling of social and political order in a society in which the bourgeois virtues of self-control and delayed gratification necessarily collide with the modernist values of limitless acquisition and boundless self-expression, values promoted by a capitalism centered on consumption rather than production.
Bell's examination of the symbiotic relationship between economic practices and structures on the one hand and cultural beliefs and assumptions on the other is worth extended reflection. Looking at the current financial chaos with his analysis in mind, one is struck—as one is in reading Patrick Deneen—by how the trajectory of this crisis predates the regulatory changes of the past three decades. "American capitalism changed its nature in the 1920s,"
Bell wrote, "by heavily encouraging the consumers to go into debt, and to live with debt as a way of life. In the 1960s, the basic financial structure of the economy became transformed when sharp individuals began to realize that considerable fortunes could be created through 'leverage,' that is, by going heavily into debt and using that borrowed money to underwrite finance companies, create real estate investment trusts, and increase the debt/equity ratio of corporations, rather than expand out of internal financing or by equity capital."
Bell goes on to describe possible economic and political scenarios when an economy built on a "mountain of debt" encounters reality. What I find more interesting is his description in the first half of the book of how so many features of our cultural life—our notion of identity, the centrality of fun and entertainment in social life, our need for constant distraction and stimulation, the institutionalization of "transgressive" behavior—have imprinted a characteristic mentality that makes recognizing the nature of our cultural and economic disorder so difficult.
That's all the more reason to be grateful for insightful theorists such as Patrick Deneen.
----------
Subscribers to the MARS HILL AUDIO Journal will have heard my interview with Patrick Deneen on volume 91.
Posted by Ken Myers on 10/7/08
Liberalism and Limits
On his blog, Patrick Deneen identifies himself as a political theorist. Not a political scientist or a political philosopher, but a theorist. This self-designation reflects Deneen's attention to political history and to the life of language. To be associated with scientia, derived from the Latin verb meaning "to know," would be an honorable situation for any thoughtful academic, even if "political science" has an air of mechanistic wonkishness about it. "Philosopher" might be a more attractive label for someone with Deneen's commitments, the etymological echoes of the word accurately suggesting his evident belief that thinking well about politics is a matter properly linked with the orientation of the soul. …
Deneen's blog is called "What I Saw in America," a homage to G. K. Chesterton, and is subtitled "The Political Theory of Daily Life." Like the ancient theoroi, Deneen has traveled to distant places, distant in time if not space—Tocqueville's America, Aristotle's Athens, Wendell Berry's Port William, Descartes's utopia—and returned to explain aspects of our daily lives in light of what he has seen there.
In the past few weeks, Deneen's posts have placed the Wall Street meltdown in a larger cultural perspective that is absent from most media diagnoses and from the comments of politicians, whose handlers and PR experts forbid them from ever saying anything critical of the dominant trends of our cultural moment. In mid-September, in a piece called "Abstraction,"
Deneen argued that "at nearly every level this financial collapse was precipitated by transforming reality into abstraction, unmooring grounded commitments and obligations and fostering new patterns of fantastical behavior throughout the populace." That essay was followed by "Political Philosophy in the Details," in which Deneen questioned one of the fundamental assumptions of classic liberalism, which is that "unleashed self-interest is a predictable driver of human behavior and can be harnessed to ensure stable political institutions and dynamic economic activity."
This assumption contradicts the wisdom of premodern political thinkers from Aristotle on, who "argued against unleashed self-interest inasmuch as its free rein led to the deformation of the human soul—a form of enslavement to the desires." While liberalism claims to be a procedural order in which competing claims about the good—whether religious, philosophical, or practical—all compete freely in an open "marketplace of ideas," in actuality what liberalism "seeks above all is the promotion of economic growth and material pursuits as the main activity" of human societies. "It can afford to be neutral about ends because by emphasizing that one end—growth and material gain—it effectively demotes all other ends. . . . Correspondingly, no party of government will call for virtue and restraint as a possible solution [to our economic woes], since that would contradict the fundamental wellspring of human behavior necessary for increase and dominion."
Deneen followed up this piece with a post entitled "Whack a Mole," in which he insisted that the failure of political leaders to call for self-restraint is "an indication of our enslavement to appetites over which we have no control. This latter condition was defined by the ancients as a condition of servitude, not liberty." In an entry dated October 2, 2008 called "Democracy in America," Deneen raises questions about the viability of democracy in a culture that eschews limits and self-control. Citing Tocqueville's insight that democracy was a collection of mores as much as it was a system of government, he reviews Tocqueville's warning about how the very success of democracy could lead to its undoing.
"The very dynamism of modern democracy that allowed it to defang resentments [by enabling social and economic mobility] also simultaneously contributed to profound short-term thinking that devolved into forms of self-serving individualism. Increasingly unable to discern how our liberated actions impacted others—neither recognizing our debts to the past nor our obligations to the future—we see ourselves as wholly free agents shorn of history or future."
Deneen also cites Montesquieu's belief that democracy could only survive if it was internally enabled by virtuous citizens, people with the habit of the heart to eschew luxurious living and temper their appetities. "Without the virtue of moderation, thrift, and self-governance [that is, the willingness of each citizen to govern himself], democracy was an ideal whose reality was always in question."
Reading Deneen over the past few weeks has prompted me to go back and review some of Daniel Bell's observations in his 1976 book, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism. In that profound study, Bell raised questions about "the end of the bourgeois idea," the unravelling of social and political order in a society in which the bourgeois virtues of self-control and delayed gratification necessarily collide with the modernist values of limitless acquisition and boundless self-expression, values promoted by a capitalism centered on consumption rather than production.
Bell's examination of the symbiotic relationship between economic practices and structures on the one hand and cultural beliefs and assumptions on the other is worth extended reflection. Looking at the current financial chaos with his analysis in mind, one is struck—as one is in reading Patrick Deneen—by how the trajectory of this crisis predates the regulatory changes of the past three decades. "American capitalism changed its nature in the 1920s,"
Bell wrote, "by heavily encouraging the consumers to go into debt, and to live with debt as a way of life. In the 1960s, the basic financial structure of the economy became transformed when sharp individuals began to realize that considerable fortunes could be created through 'leverage,' that is, by going heavily into debt and using that borrowed money to underwrite finance companies, create real estate investment trusts, and increase the debt/equity ratio of corporations, rather than expand out of internal financing or by equity capital."
Bell goes on to describe possible economic and political scenarios when an economy built on a "mountain of debt" encounters reality. What I find more interesting is his description in the first half of the book of how so many features of our cultural life—our notion of identity, the centrality of fun and entertainment in social life, our need for constant distraction and stimulation, the institutionalization of "transgressive" behavior—have imprinted a characteristic mentality that makes recognizing the nature of our cultural and economic disorder so difficult.
That's all the more reason to be grateful for insightful theorists such as Patrick Deneen.
----------
Subscribers to the MARS HILL AUDIO Journal will have heard my interview with Patrick Deneen on volume 91.
Posted by Ken Myers on 10/7/08
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Obamacare Just Won't Work
My Opinion: Vote against every politician of any party that voted for this bill.
------
Source: Townhall.com
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
The U.S. House of Presumptuous Meddlers
by John Stossel
As an American, I am embarrassed that the U.S. House of Representatives has 220 members who actually believe the government can successfully centrally plan the medical and insurance industries.
I'm embarrassed that my representatives think that government can subsidize the consumption of medical care without increasing the budget deficit or interfering with free choice.
It's a triumph of mindless wishful thinking over logic and experience.
The 1,990-page bill is breathtaking in its bone-headed audacity. The notion that a small group of politicians can know enough to design something so complex and so personal is astounding. That they were advised by "experts" means nothing since no one is expert enough to do that. There are too many tradeoffs faced by unique individuals with infinitely varying needs.
Government cannot do simple things efficiently. The bureaucrats struggle to count votes correctly. They give subsidized loans to "homeowners" who turn out to be 4-year-olds. Yet congressmen want government to manage our medicine and insurance.
Competition is a "discovery procedure," Nobel-prize-winning economist F. A. Hayek taught. Through the competitive market process, we producers and consumers constantly learn things that force us to adjust our behavior if we are to succeed. Central planners fail for two reasons:
First, knowledge about supply, demand, individual preferences and resource availability is scattered -- much of it never articulated -- throughout society. It is not concentrated in a database where a group of planners can access it.
Second, this "data" is dynamic: It changes without notice.
No matter how honorable the central planners' intentions, they will fail because they cannot know the needs and wishes of 300 million different people. And if they somehow did know their needs, they wouldn't know them tomorrow.
Proponents of so-called reform -- it's not really reform unless it makes things better -- have shamefully avoided criticism of their proposals. Often they just dismiss their opponents as greedy corporate apologists or paranoid right-wing loonies. That's easier than answering questions like these:
1) How can the government subsidize the purchase of medical services without driving up prices? Econ 101 teaches -- without controversy -- that when demand goes up, if other things remain equal, price goes up. The politicians want to have their cake and eat it, too.
2) How can the government promise lower medical costs without restricting choices? Medicare already does that. Once the planners' mandatory insurance pushes prices to new heights, they must put even tougher limits on what we may buy -- or their budget will be even deeper in the red than it already is. As economist Thomas Sowell points out, government cannot really reduce costs. All it can do is disguise and shift costs (through taxation) and refuse to pay for some services (rationing).
3) How does government "create choice" by imposing uniformity on insurers? Uniformity limits choice. Under House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's bill and the Senate versions, government would dictate to all insurers what their "minimum" coverage policy must include. Truly basic high-deductible, low-cost catastrophic policies tailored to individual needs would be forbidden.
4) How does it "create choice" by making insurance companies compete against a privileged government-sponsored program? The so-called government option, let's call it Fannie Med, would have implicit government backing and therefore little market discipline. The resulting environment of conformity and government power is not what I mean by choice and competition. Rep. Barney Frank is at least honest enough to say that the public option will bring us a government monopoly.
Advocates of government control want you to believe that the serious shortcomings of our medical and insurance system are failures of the free market. But that's impossible because our market is not free. Each state operates a cozy medical and insurance cartel that restricts competition through licensing and keeps prices higher than they would be in a genuine free market. But the planners won't talk about that. After all, if government is the problem in the first place, how can they justify a government takeover?
Many people are priced out of the medical and insurance markets for one reason: the politicians' refusal to give up power. Allowing them to seize another 16 percent of the economy won't solve our problems.
Freedom will.
About The Author
John Stossel blogs at http://blogs.abcnews.com/johnstossel/ is an award-winning news correspondent and author of Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel--Why Everything You Know is Wrong.
TOWNHALL DAILY: Be the first to read John Stossel's column. Sign up today and receive Townhall.com daily lineup delivered each morning to your inbox.
©Creators Syndicate
------
Source: Townhall.com
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
The U.S. House of Presumptuous Meddlers
by John Stossel
As an American, I am embarrassed that the U.S. House of Representatives has 220 members who actually believe the government can successfully centrally plan the medical and insurance industries.
I'm embarrassed that my representatives think that government can subsidize the consumption of medical care without increasing the budget deficit or interfering with free choice.
It's a triumph of mindless wishful thinking over logic and experience.
The 1,990-page bill is breathtaking in its bone-headed audacity. The notion that a small group of politicians can know enough to design something so complex and so personal is astounding. That they were advised by "experts" means nothing since no one is expert enough to do that. There are too many tradeoffs faced by unique individuals with infinitely varying needs.
Government cannot do simple things efficiently. The bureaucrats struggle to count votes correctly. They give subsidized loans to "homeowners" who turn out to be 4-year-olds. Yet congressmen want government to manage our medicine and insurance.
Competition is a "discovery procedure," Nobel-prize-winning economist F. A. Hayek taught. Through the competitive market process, we producers and consumers constantly learn things that force us to adjust our behavior if we are to succeed. Central planners fail for two reasons:
First, knowledge about supply, demand, individual preferences and resource availability is scattered -- much of it never articulated -- throughout society. It is not concentrated in a database where a group of planners can access it.
Second, this "data" is dynamic: It changes without notice.
No matter how honorable the central planners' intentions, they will fail because they cannot know the needs and wishes of 300 million different people. And if they somehow did know their needs, they wouldn't know them tomorrow.
Proponents of so-called reform -- it's not really reform unless it makes things better -- have shamefully avoided criticism of their proposals. Often they just dismiss their opponents as greedy corporate apologists or paranoid right-wing loonies. That's easier than answering questions like these:
1) How can the government subsidize the purchase of medical services without driving up prices? Econ 101 teaches -- without controversy -- that when demand goes up, if other things remain equal, price goes up. The politicians want to have their cake and eat it, too.
2) How can the government promise lower medical costs without restricting choices? Medicare already does that. Once the planners' mandatory insurance pushes prices to new heights, they must put even tougher limits on what we may buy -- or their budget will be even deeper in the red than it already is. As economist Thomas Sowell points out, government cannot really reduce costs. All it can do is disguise and shift costs (through taxation) and refuse to pay for some services (rationing).
3) How does government "create choice" by imposing uniformity on insurers? Uniformity limits choice. Under House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's bill and the Senate versions, government would dictate to all insurers what their "minimum" coverage policy must include. Truly basic high-deductible, low-cost catastrophic policies tailored to individual needs would be forbidden.
4) How does it "create choice" by making insurance companies compete against a privileged government-sponsored program? The so-called government option, let's call it Fannie Med, would have implicit government backing and therefore little market discipline. The resulting environment of conformity and government power is not what I mean by choice and competition. Rep. Barney Frank is at least honest enough to say that the public option will bring us a government monopoly.
Advocates of government control want you to believe that the serious shortcomings of our medical and insurance system are failures of the free market. But that's impossible because our market is not free. Each state operates a cozy medical and insurance cartel that restricts competition through licensing and keeps prices higher than they would be in a genuine free market. But the planners won't talk about that. After all, if government is the problem in the first place, how can they justify a government takeover?
Many people are priced out of the medical and insurance markets for one reason: the politicians' refusal to give up power. Allowing them to seize another 16 percent of the economy won't solve our problems.
Freedom will.
About The Author
John Stossel blogs at http://blogs.abcnews.com/johnstossel/ is an award-winning news correspondent and author of Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel--Why Everything You Know is Wrong.
TOWNHALL DAILY: Be the first to read John Stossel's column. Sign up today and receive Townhall.com daily lineup delivered each morning to your inbox.
©Creators Syndicate
Monday, November 09, 2009
Unfortunately, the Answer is Probably Both
Monday, November 09, 2009
Were They Duped Or Were They Stupid?
by Bruce Bialosky (From Townhall Magazine)
In the 2008 presidential election, young adults voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama. This voting pattern has generated much discussion and no small amount of head scratching, principally because the main consequence of these young adults’ electoral choice appears to be a huge tax on them. Ultimately, the question becomes: Were they duped or were they stupid?
In late 1999, I went to Washington, DC, for a political forum that included all the Republican presidential contenders. Each candidate made a presentation followed by questions and answers. My question was for Senator John McCain. A significant element of Mr. McCain’s political platform was campaign finance reform. His proposal was similar to what eventually became the McCain-Feingold Act passed in 2001, which limited the amounts that individuals and entities could contribute to campaigns.
I had the first question: “Mr. McCain, I have a deep respect for you as an American and Senator, but could you please explain why you are proposing a law that appears to be contrary to Republican principles?”
This question deeply upset the Senator. He turned to the moderator and mumbled “And when did I stop beating my wife?” As I edged my way back to my seat, Mr. McCain followed me down the stage giving me an earful about how the youth of America was not voting, and that the reason they were not voting was because the campaign financing system in our country was broken and corrupt.
Senator McCain never really answered the question, but he was profoundly incorrect about why America’s youth wasn’t voting, and – trust me on this – I remember being a teenager much better than he does. It really is abnormal for anyone who is 18 years old to be concerned about our electoral system. If they are still students, they are often focused on graduating high school or getting into college. Many of them, regrettably, are more interested in getting drunk and finding someone to bounce around with on Saturday night. People like myself who were interested enough to work on campaigns were the exception – not the norm.
When these young adults finish school, they become most interested in building the foundation of their careers and their future life. It’s usually only when they settle down, buy a home, start a family, and begin to make progress in their careers that they start to realize how expensive government is, and begin to get involved in the political process. It has been this way for generations and is validated by voter turnout.
Barack Obama changed that and it had nothing to do with campaign finance reform. The under-30 crowd identified with him and voted heavily for him. And what has he done to reward that commitment? He is attempting to saddle them with a huge tax increase to cover his health insurance plan.
Most people in this age group carry health insurance. But approximately 18 million do not, because they have made a decision that they would rather spend their money elsewhere. They realize that they have very little need for health care, so they spend their money on other priorities or save it for a down payment on their first home. I did the same thing when I was their age. When I visited a doctor, I wrote a check.
Mr. Obama, Senator Baucus and Nancy Pelosi do not want to give them that choice. They have targeted this group to fund the Democrats’ plans. They have decided that these young folks should pay for the older Americans who actually use most of the health care. It is an easy group to pick on, and no one really believes they will show up at the polls in 2010 without Obama on the ballot.
I believe these young adults should carry catastrophic insurance, at which they would probably not balk, because the cost would be minimal. However, the proposals that are being floated by the Democrats would require them to purchase full-blown insurance that carries a hefty price tag. While this additional revenue would help make the health insurance scheme work, no one is considering the effects of that money being taken out of the economy from where the young adults currently spend it. In particular, nobody is giving any thought to the negative effect upon the housing market caused by the delay of entry-level home purchases because the prospective homeowners will be forced to put their money into the health care system instead of a home.
In addition to being targeted with a large part of the cost of the health insurance proposal, the Obama Administration has put another yoke around their necks. The consequences of the skyrocketing budget deficits will be thrust upon them as they reach their peak earning years, and they will also have to bear that crushing burden.
The 18-30 crowd happily went to the polls to vote for Obama. Political groups that deliver for a winning candidate usually expect benefits after the election. Unions, for example, have already received billions of dollars in federal goodies and trial lawyers have been dutifully rewarded by the absence of even a hint of malpractice reform in the health insurance legislation. The under-30 voters were seduced by Obama, but have now become his whipping boys. His most significant policy proposal is aimed directly between their eyes – and they are soon to be his biggest victims.
Young voters are quickly learning about the electoral process and how it really works. Which brings us back to the question – Were they duped or were they stupid?
About The Author
Bruce Bialosky is the founder of the Republican Jewish Coalition of California and a former Presidential appointee.
Were They Duped Or Were They Stupid?
by Bruce Bialosky (From Townhall Magazine)
In the 2008 presidential election, young adults voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama. This voting pattern has generated much discussion and no small amount of head scratching, principally because the main consequence of these young adults’ electoral choice appears to be a huge tax on them. Ultimately, the question becomes: Were they duped or were they stupid?
In late 1999, I went to Washington, DC, for a political forum that included all the Republican presidential contenders. Each candidate made a presentation followed by questions and answers. My question was for Senator John McCain. A significant element of Mr. McCain’s political platform was campaign finance reform. His proposal was similar to what eventually became the McCain-Feingold Act passed in 2001, which limited the amounts that individuals and entities could contribute to campaigns.
I had the first question: “Mr. McCain, I have a deep respect for you as an American and Senator, but could you please explain why you are proposing a law that appears to be contrary to Republican principles?”
This question deeply upset the Senator. He turned to the moderator and mumbled “And when did I stop beating my wife?” As I edged my way back to my seat, Mr. McCain followed me down the stage giving me an earful about how the youth of America was not voting, and that the reason they were not voting was because the campaign financing system in our country was broken and corrupt.
Senator McCain never really answered the question, but he was profoundly incorrect about why America’s youth wasn’t voting, and – trust me on this – I remember being a teenager much better than he does. It really is abnormal for anyone who is 18 years old to be concerned about our electoral system. If they are still students, they are often focused on graduating high school or getting into college. Many of them, regrettably, are more interested in getting drunk and finding someone to bounce around with on Saturday night. People like myself who were interested enough to work on campaigns were the exception – not the norm.
When these young adults finish school, they become most interested in building the foundation of their careers and their future life. It’s usually only when they settle down, buy a home, start a family, and begin to make progress in their careers that they start to realize how expensive government is, and begin to get involved in the political process. It has been this way for generations and is validated by voter turnout.
Barack Obama changed that and it had nothing to do with campaign finance reform. The under-30 crowd identified with him and voted heavily for him. And what has he done to reward that commitment? He is attempting to saddle them with a huge tax increase to cover his health insurance plan.
Most people in this age group carry health insurance. But approximately 18 million do not, because they have made a decision that they would rather spend their money elsewhere. They realize that they have very little need for health care, so they spend their money on other priorities or save it for a down payment on their first home. I did the same thing when I was their age. When I visited a doctor, I wrote a check.
Mr. Obama, Senator Baucus and Nancy Pelosi do not want to give them that choice. They have targeted this group to fund the Democrats’ plans. They have decided that these young folks should pay for the older Americans who actually use most of the health care. It is an easy group to pick on, and no one really believes they will show up at the polls in 2010 without Obama on the ballot.
I believe these young adults should carry catastrophic insurance, at which they would probably not balk, because the cost would be minimal. However, the proposals that are being floated by the Democrats would require them to purchase full-blown insurance that carries a hefty price tag. While this additional revenue would help make the health insurance scheme work, no one is considering the effects of that money being taken out of the economy from where the young adults currently spend it. In particular, nobody is giving any thought to the negative effect upon the housing market caused by the delay of entry-level home purchases because the prospective homeowners will be forced to put their money into the health care system instead of a home.
In addition to being targeted with a large part of the cost of the health insurance proposal, the Obama Administration has put another yoke around their necks. The consequences of the skyrocketing budget deficits will be thrust upon them as they reach their peak earning years, and they will also have to bear that crushing burden.
The 18-30 crowd happily went to the polls to vote for Obama. Political groups that deliver for a winning candidate usually expect benefits after the election. Unions, for example, have already received billions of dollars in federal goodies and trial lawyers have been dutifully rewarded by the absence of even a hint of malpractice reform in the health insurance legislation. The under-30 voters were seduced by Obama, but have now become his whipping boys. His most significant policy proposal is aimed directly between their eyes – and they are soon to be his biggest victims.
Young voters are quickly learning about the electoral process and how it really works. Which brings us back to the question – Were they duped or were they stupid?
About The Author
Bruce Bialosky is the founder of the Republican Jewish Coalition of California and a former Presidential appointee.
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Beware of Government Officials Who Want to Go into the Health Care Business
Politics and health care just don't mix. Add in social engineering and the soup is particularly deadly as this story on AIDS and Africa makes very clear. Beware of government officials trying to get in the health care business.
----
BREAKPOINT DAILY TRANSCRIPT (Chuck Colson)
Adding Insult to Injury: Africa, AIDS, and Victim-Blaming
September 5, 2008
Approximately 30 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are thought to be infected with the HIV virus. Unlike the West, from the start, HIV/AIDS in Africa has ravaged the non-drug-using heterosexual population. Let me put it this way: People whose Western counterparts are not at risk for HIV/AIDS have been the epidemic’s principal victims in Africa. Why?
This has prompted many people to blame the victims in ways that played on the worst racial stereotypes and prejudices: Researchers and experts argued that “Africans were simply incapable of being anything but promiscuous where sex was concerned.”
They were wrong: The AIDS epidemic in Africa was not because of a unique African promiscuity. In some ways, it is the product of efforts to reduce the number of Africans.
In his book POPULATION CONTROL: REAL COSTS, ILLUSORY BENEFITS, Steven Mosher tells readers about the work of researchers David Gisselquist and Stephen Potterat. Prior to their work, it had been assumed that the AIDS epidemic had been spread by heterosexual sex.
Assumed because there was little evidence that this was the case. But, as Mosher points out, it was an assumption that suited the needs of various influential parties: most obviously, AIDS activists.
Another such group was population controllers who believed that Africa was “overpopulated.” A heterosexually spread epidemic would allow them to flood the continent with condoms. While Africans might not have used them for birth control, surely they would use them to prevent the spread of a potentially lethal virus!
Gisselquist and Potterat put the heterosexual transmission assumption to the test and found it wanting. Their peer-reviewed analysis of 22 studies found that instead of 90 percent of African AIDS cases being the result of sexual transmission, as was assumed, the real number was 25 to 35 percent. By way of comparison, the U.S. percentage is well over 50.
According to the researchers, the evidence suggested a “large majority of HIV infections in non-promiscuous adults.” Far from being the victims of their own promiscuity, half of all African AIDS victims were involved in monogamous relationships.
So, if promiscuity is not driving the epidemic in Africa, what is? Substandard medical care -- specifically, dirty needles. Almost uniquely, in Africa the more “health care” a person receives, the greater her chances of being infected.
That is because the sanitary conditions we take for granted do not exist in poor African countries. There, syringes and surgical instruments are often re-used without proper sterilization. The needles used to administer vaccine can also transmit AIDS.
It is not only vaccination. The World Health Organization has acknowledged that needles used to administer contraceptives like Depo-Provera are often re-used. Their likely connection to the spread of HIV was tacitly confirmed by their replacement in 2002 by needles that could be used only once.
While it is impossible to know how many women were infected this way, it is clear that population-control efforts, inadvertently maybe, contributed to the spread of the virus in Africa.
But what was not inadvertent was the libeling of an entire continent by outsiders with agendas. People who did or should have known the truth went along with a lie, adding insult to a most grievous injury.
This is part two in a three-part series.
Copyright (c) 2008 Prison Fellowship
----
BREAKPOINT DAILY TRANSCRIPT (Chuck Colson)
Adding Insult to Injury: Africa, AIDS, and Victim-Blaming
September 5, 2008
Approximately 30 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are thought to be infected with the HIV virus. Unlike the West, from the start, HIV/AIDS in Africa has ravaged the non-drug-using heterosexual population. Let me put it this way: People whose Western counterparts are not at risk for HIV/AIDS have been the epidemic’s principal victims in Africa. Why?
This has prompted many people to blame the victims in ways that played on the worst racial stereotypes and prejudices: Researchers and experts argued that “Africans were simply incapable of being anything but promiscuous where sex was concerned.”
They were wrong: The AIDS epidemic in Africa was not because of a unique African promiscuity. In some ways, it is the product of efforts to reduce the number of Africans.
In his book POPULATION CONTROL: REAL COSTS, ILLUSORY BENEFITS, Steven Mosher tells readers about the work of researchers David Gisselquist and Stephen Potterat. Prior to their work, it had been assumed that the AIDS epidemic had been spread by heterosexual sex.
Assumed because there was little evidence that this was the case. But, as Mosher points out, it was an assumption that suited the needs of various influential parties: most obviously, AIDS activists.
Another such group was population controllers who believed that Africa was “overpopulated.” A heterosexually spread epidemic would allow them to flood the continent with condoms. While Africans might not have used them for birth control, surely they would use them to prevent the spread of a potentially lethal virus!
Gisselquist and Potterat put the heterosexual transmission assumption to the test and found it wanting. Their peer-reviewed analysis of 22 studies found that instead of 90 percent of African AIDS cases being the result of sexual transmission, as was assumed, the real number was 25 to 35 percent. By way of comparison, the U.S. percentage is well over 50.
According to the researchers, the evidence suggested a “large majority of HIV infections in non-promiscuous adults.” Far from being the victims of their own promiscuity, half of all African AIDS victims were involved in monogamous relationships.
So, if promiscuity is not driving the epidemic in Africa, what is? Substandard medical care -- specifically, dirty needles. Almost uniquely, in Africa the more “health care” a person receives, the greater her chances of being infected.
That is because the sanitary conditions we take for granted do not exist in poor African countries. There, syringes and surgical instruments are often re-used without proper sterilization. The needles used to administer vaccine can also transmit AIDS.
It is not only vaccination. The World Health Organization has acknowledged that needles used to administer contraceptives like Depo-Provera are often re-used. Their likely connection to the spread of HIV was tacitly confirmed by their replacement in 2002 by needles that could be used only once.
While it is impossible to know how many women were infected this way, it is clear that population-control efforts, inadvertently maybe, contributed to the spread of the virus in Africa.
But what was not inadvertent was the libeling of an entire continent by outsiders with agendas. People who did or should have known the truth went along with a lie, adding insult to a most grievous injury.
This is part two in a three-part series.
Copyright (c) 2008 Prison Fellowship
Thursday, November 05, 2009
The Canadians Came to Us. Where Will We Go?
Canada now ranks 26th out of 28 among developed nations in physicians to population. Why? Because nearly two decades of mandatory coverage and government control of the health care industry has caused many Canadian doctors (my chiropractor among them) to either flee the country for the USA, close their practice, or retire early.
I just read one article that says part of the result of what has happened in Canada is that if a colonoscopy is part of your healthcare future, you are 16% more likely to die in Canada than the USA because of waiting lists caused in part by fewer doctors. Apparently cancer does not wait for waiting lists.
A recent Pew Institute study says that a staggering 45% of all practicing doctors “would consider retiring or closing their practice if the Barack Obama health care bill passes.” If the bureaucrats in Washington and our state legislatures have their way, we may become like Canada in ways they never intended.
Write you congressman and senators and tell them the bill before the nation is a disaster on atleast three levels.
I just read one article that says part of the result of what has happened in Canada is that if a colonoscopy is part of your healthcare future, you are 16% more likely to die in Canada than the USA because of waiting lists caused in part by fewer doctors. Apparently cancer does not wait for waiting lists.
A recent Pew Institute study says that a staggering 45% of all practicing doctors “would consider retiring or closing their practice if the Barack Obama health care bill passes.” If the bureaucrats in Washington and our state legislatures have their way, we may become like Canada in ways they never intended.
Write you congressman and senators and tell them the bill before the nation is a disaster on atleast three levels.
- The good of the nation.
- The good of the economy
- Their politicial careers (we won't vote for them again).
The Negativity of Environmentalism
The source for the following article is the Kairos Journal. It has been said by someone that "language defines the debate." No where is that more true than in the debate over the environment. Danish academic Bjorn Lomborg puts the spotlight on what he calls "The Litany" of the environmental movement. In so doing, he exposes the religious nature of much of the language. You might want to pick up a copy of The Sceptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World, (Cambridege University Press, 2004).
-----
The Green Litany
An Oxford University Press publication for children states it this way: “The balance of nature is delicate but essential for life. Humans have upset that balance, stripping the land of its green cover, choking the air, and poisoning the seas.”1 A New Scientist supplement in 2001 goes further:
Lomborg argues that the problem with the Litany is that it is wrong in general and in almost every particular. The issue of world population and food resources serves as a good example of the Litany. In 1968, Paul Ehrlich’s best seller, The Population Bomb, claimed that “[t]he battle to feed humanity is over. In the course of the 1970s the world will experience starvation of tragic proportions—hundreds of millions will starve to death.”5 Ehrlich used India as an example. In 1968 India faced the prospect of needing to feed an additional 120 million people in an eight-year period. Obviously, argued Ehrlich, this was an impossibility. Yet at the end of the period India was able to feed an additional 144 million people—and the population increase was limited to 104 million, so there was actually more food per person than before.
India’s situation is not unique. Lomborg demonstrates that four key aspects of the Green Revolution have changed agriculture across the planet. The four changes are: high yield crops; irrigation and controlled water supply; fertilizers and pesticides; and farmers’ management skills. So, for example, rice now matures in 90 days not 150 days, allowing farmers to increase the number of harvests of increasingly high yield plants.
Moreover, countries such as Canada, China, Argentina, and Russia can grow new types of corn. New types of wheat are resistant to mildew. The proportion of irrigated fields has increased from 10.5 percent in 1961 to over 18 percent in 1997. Irrigated land is more fertile and can produce more harvests—so 40 percent of the world’s food is grown on 18 percent of the total land mass for agriculture. Finally, while in 1960 one third of the Asian rice harvest was eaten by insects, today, the use of new pesticides significantly increases the yield of the land.6
The Litany is so deeply embedded in Western media and culture that its echoes impact thoughts and actions on a daily basis. Lomborg raises the shocking possibility that reality is very different—that the world is a good place to live and is getting better for most people all the time. Modern man lives longer, eats better, and has more comforts than any previous generation. Hunger, disease, and pollution are being extensively ameliorated by cultural and technological breakthroughs. This conviction is reflected in the opening words of the Cornwall Declaration, drafted by the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance in 2000, and signed by such Christian leaders as James Dobson, Charles Colson, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, and Marvin Olasky:
-----
The Green Litany
An Oxford University Press publication for children states it this way: “The balance of nature is delicate but essential for life. Humans have upset that balance, stripping the land of its green cover, choking the air, and poisoning the seas.”1 A New Scientist supplement in 2001 goes further:
We humans are about as subtle as the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs . . . The damage we do is increasing. In the next 20 years, the population will increase by 1.5 billion. These people will need food, water and electricity, but already our soils are vanishing, fisheries are being killed off, wells are drying up, and the burning of fossil fuels is endangering the lives of millions. We are heading for cataclysm.2These publications are advancing what Danish academic Bjorn Lomborg calls “the Litany”—the core negative message of the environmental movement over the last few decades.3 Lomborg contends that the negativity of the Litany is central to both the fundraising and influence of the green movement—the Litany asserts that the world is getting worse and worse: resources are running out; world population is exploding while food resources are collapsing; species are disappearing along with forests and fish stocks; and the planet’s water and air grow increasingly polluted.4
Lomborg argues that the problem with the Litany is that it is wrong in general and in almost every particular. The issue of world population and food resources serves as a good example of the Litany. In 1968, Paul Ehrlich’s best seller, The Population Bomb, claimed that “[t]he battle to feed humanity is over. In the course of the 1970s the world will experience starvation of tragic proportions—hundreds of millions will starve to death.”5 Ehrlich used India as an example. In 1968 India faced the prospect of needing to feed an additional 120 million people in an eight-year period. Obviously, argued Ehrlich, this was an impossibility. Yet at the end of the period India was able to feed an additional 144 million people—and the population increase was limited to 104 million, so there was actually more food per person than before.
India’s situation is not unique. Lomborg demonstrates that four key aspects of the Green Revolution have changed agriculture across the planet. The four changes are: high yield crops; irrigation and controlled water supply; fertilizers and pesticides; and farmers’ management skills. So, for example, rice now matures in 90 days not 150 days, allowing farmers to increase the number of harvests of increasingly high yield plants.
Moreover, countries such as Canada, China, Argentina, and Russia can grow new types of corn. New types of wheat are resistant to mildew. The proportion of irrigated fields has increased from 10.5 percent in 1961 to over 18 percent in 1997. Irrigated land is more fertile and can produce more harvests—so 40 percent of the world’s food is grown on 18 percent of the total land mass for agriculture. Finally, while in 1960 one third of the Asian rice harvest was eaten by insects, today, the use of new pesticides significantly increases the yield of the land.6
The Litany is so deeply embedded in Western media and culture that its echoes impact thoughts and actions on a daily basis. Lomborg raises the shocking possibility that reality is very different—that the world is a good place to live and is getting better for most people all the time. Modern man lives longer, eats better, and has more comforts than any previous generation. Hunger, disease, and pollution are being extensively ameliorated by cultural and technological breakthroughs. This conviction is reflected in the opening words of the Cornwall Declaration, drafted by the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance in 2000, and signed by such Christian leaders as James Dobson, Charles Colson, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, and Marvin Olasky:
The past millennium brought unprecedented improvements in human health, nutrition, and life expectancy, especially among those most blessed by political and economic liberty and advances in science and technology. At the dawn of a new millennium, the opportunity exists to build on these advances and to extend them to more of the earth's people.7Of course, there are matters that need to be addressed, such as rampant industrial pollution in China8 and the overfishing of Atlantic Cod,9 but humanity’s response to life on planet earth in the twenty-first century should be thankfulness and gratitude to the Creator God who sustains all things.
Footnotes:
1 Cited in Bjørn Lomborg, The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 3.
2 Ibid., 4.
3 See in particular the work of Paul Ehrlich at Stanford University and Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute.
4 The Litany is neatly summarized by Lomborg in The Economist. See “The Truth about the Environment,” The Economist, August 2, 2001, http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=718860 (accessed, August 18th, 2005).
5 Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb (New York: Ballantine Books, 1968), xi, cited in Lomborg, The Skeptical Environmentalist, 60.
6 Lomborg, 63.
7 “The Cornwall Declaration,” Interfaith Stewardship Alliance Website, April 2000, http://www.interfaithstewardship.org/pages/cornwall.php (accessed April 26, 2006).
8 Jasper Becker, “China’s Growing Pains,” National Geographic, March 2004, http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0403/feature4/index.html?fs=www7.nationalgeographic.com (accessed April 26, 2006).
9 Neil Fletcher, “Will Atlantic Cod Stock Recover?” ICESCIEM Website, http://www.ices.dk/marineworld/recoveryplans.asp (accessed April 26, 2006).
Disclaimer: It is unfortunate that Bjorn Lomborg describes himself as gay but that has little (nothing) to do with the data he has published.
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Selling Biblical Sexuality in a Sex Obsessed Culture
Another great post from Prison Fellowship
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BREAKPOINT DAILY TRANSCRIPT
A Tough Sell : Can We Be Happy without Sex?
October 22, 2009
Professor Dale Kuehne is a professor of politics at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire. At least once a semester, Kuehne can count on a certain question always being asked when he teaches a class called “The Politics of Diversity.”
“Professor Kuehne,” a student will say, “are you seriously going to try to persuade us that if we forgo [sex] outside of marriage we can have a fulfilling life, even if that means we never have a sexual relationship?”
Well, that’s a pretty tough sell these days.
Kuehne is the author of a new book, Sex and the iWorld. He says that the traditional world, or tWorld, as he calls it, has been largely supplanted by the iWorld, in which “the immediate desires of the individual have been deemed paramount.” In the iWorld, complete sexual freedom is a given, as long as all parties consent. Sexuality is considered essential to human happiness.
This is why iWorlders are scornful of the biblical view that sex should be reserved for marriage between one man and one woman. What about single people? What about gays in a committed relationship? they ask. Are they to be condemned to lifelong misery?
Even churches have bought into the iWorld belief that sex is essential to happiness. The idea that one cannot have relational fulfillment without sex “has been a largely unquestioned assumption of evangelical psychology, if not theology, for decades,” Kuehne writes.
That’s why many Christians now accept the iWorld teaching that anything that stands in the way of sexual fulfillment must be wrong. God wants us to be fulfilled, they reason; sex is an essential component of relational fulfillment, thus the Bible can’t really mean what it says about restricting sex to marriage.
Well, Christians who accept this idea need to open their eyes -- and dig a little deeper in the Word. Scripture teaches that humans are made for relationships, and that we crave intimacy and love more than anything else, Kuehne writes.
For instance, in his teachings about sex and marriage in 1 Corinthians, the apostle Paul makes clear that we can have deeply fulfilling lives without sexual relationships. And some of the richest relationships in the Scriptures are non-sexual ones. David and Jonathan. Jesus and the disciples. Jesus and Mary Magdalene.
Moreover, where biblical writers viewed sexual relations within marriage as a wonderful good, they considered sex itself to be an appetite -- something that was potentially enslaving.
Tragically, many iWorlders have become enslaved by their appetites.
True intimacy and happiness are found in loving God with all our hearts, souls, and minds, and loving our neighbor as ourselves. The greater our intimacy with God, Kuehne writes, the greater our ability to share that love with others.
For those who think that sex is essential to their happiness, Kuehne has a question: Does the iWorld view of sex and relationship make them happy? The sad truth is that promiscuity inhibits our ability to cultivate the love and intimacy God designed us to enjoy.
Read Sex and the iWorld to learn how to make the case that the happiest people are those who make relationships -- not sex -- their highest goal. Visit our website, BreakPoint.org, and we’ll show you how to get a copy.
Copyright (c) 2009 Prison Fellowship
-----
BREAKPOINT DAILY TRANSCRIPT
A Tough Sell : Can We Be Happy without Sex?
October 22, 2009
This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship president Mark Earley. This
commentary contains material that may not be suitable for children.
Professor Dale Kuehne is a professor of politics at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire. At least once a semester, Kuehne can count on a certain question always being asked when he teaches a class called “The Politics of Diversity.”
“Professor Kuehne,” a student will say, “are you seriously going to try to persuade us that if we forgo [sex] outside of marriage we can have a fulfilling life, even if that means we never have a sexual relationship?”
Well, that’s a pretty tough sell these days.
Kuehne is the author of a new book, Sex and the iWorld. He says that the traditional world, or tWorld, as he calls it, has been largely supplanted by the iWorld, in which “the immediate desires of the individual have been deemed paramount.” In the iWorld, complete sexual freedom is a given, as long as all parties consent. Sexuality is considered essential to human happiness.
This is why iWorlders are scornful of the biblical view that sex should be reserved for marriage between one man and one woman. What about single people? What about gays in a committed relationship? they ask. Are they to be condemned to lifelong misery?
Even churches have bought into the iWorld belief that sex is essential to happiness. The idea that one cannot have relational fulfillment without sex “has been a largely unquestioned assumption of evangelical psychology, if not theology, for decades,” Kuehne writes.
That’s why many Christians now accept the iWorld teaching that anything that stands in the way of sexual fulfillment must be wrong. God wants us to be fulfilled, they reason; sex is an essential component of relational fulfillment, thus the Bible can’t really mean what it says about restricting sex to marriage.
Well, Christians who accept this idea need to open their eyes -- and dig a little deeper in the Word. Scripture teaches that humans are made for relationships, and that we crave intimacy and love more than anything else, Kuehne writes.
For instance, in his teachings about sex and marriage in 1 Corinthians, the apostle Paul makes clear that we can have deeply fulfilling lives without sexual relationships. And some of the richest relationships in the Scriptures are non-sexual ones. David and Jonathan. Jesus and the disciples. Jesus and Mary Magdalene.
Moreover, where biblical writers viewed sexual relations within marriage as a wonderful good, they considered sex itself to be an appetite -- something that was potentially enslaving.
Tragically, many iWorlders have become enslaved by their appetites.
True intimacy and happiness are found in loving God with all our hearts, souls, and minds, and loving our neighbor as ourselves. The greater our intimacy with God, Kuehne writes, the greater our ability to share that love with others.
For those who think that sex is essential to their happiness, Kuehne has a question: Does the iWorld view of sex and relationship make them happy? The sad truth is that promiscuity inhibits our ability to cultivate the love and intimacy God designed us to enjoy.
Read Sex and the iWorld to learn how to make the case that the happiest people are those who make relationships -- not sex -- their highest goal. Visit our website, BreakPoint.org, and we’ll show you how to get a copy.
Copyright (c) 2009 Prison Fellowship
Kuyper College - What a great place.
My wife and I took a vision trip to Grand Rapids to scope out future sites for church planters to be deployed and found a wonderful college I had never heard of.
Kuyper College is a small Christian college focused on building true disciples and missional leaders for the real world.
Seriously, if you are looking for a place to get a great education among students, faculty and administration who "get it" (Christianity is a game to be played but a life to be lived), you owe it to yourself to take a look at Kuyper College in Grand Rapids, MI.
Web link is Kuyper.edu.
Kuyper College is a small Christian college focused on building true disciples and missional leaders for the real world.
Seriously, if you are looking for a place to get a great education among students, faculty and administration who "get it" (Christianity is a game to be played but a life to be lived), you owe it to yourself to take a look at Kuyper College in Grand Rapids, MI.
Web link is Kuyper.edu.
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