- Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post does not have kind words for the Chicago School of Economics.
- Iron Knee at Political Irony loves free markets, but does not join conservatives in worshiping unregulated economic fundamentalism.
- Frances Langum reports that current Energy Secretary and former Texas Governor Rick Perry also loves the free market and has no clue how it works. No clue.
- Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger briefly imagines President Trump’s State of the Union address.
- At The Moderate Voice, Shaun Mullen explores the role in Trump’s Russia-Gate of a previously unknown player who testifies from the grave.
- This week’s note in Trumpian ‘Alternative Facts’ comes from The Hill where Ross Rosenfeld urges liberals to be less civil when confronted by right wing lies: confrontationally honest, even if honesty doesn’t seem polite.
- Every once in a while some conservative will opine that slavery was actually a good thing. Black conservatives generally disagree. One exception is Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, who thanks “God and white people” for slavery. tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors brings us video of a Fox News interview in which the good Reverend explains the period in American history in which black people had it worse.
- Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara at Principled Perspectives argues that free highschool education was never a cause of economic and technological advance. His primary argument is that plenty of progress happened before high schools were provided.
Well, yeah, I suppose. The communal use of fire, the invention of the wheel, language, writing, started a lot of progress. No high school in those days. Also, Mr. LaFerrara found his schooling quite boring. How can anyone argue against that compelling logic?
- Jon Perr at PERRspectives reviews the history of health care policy. He finds that, when policies change over the objections of opponents, the reaction varies. Some opponents are sore losers who try to sabotage. Some try to make new health care policies work, even when they had opposed the changes. Apparently both sides are not the same in this. It turns out political party does matter.
- T. Paine, at Saving Common Sense, seemingly arguing for church supremacy over secular rule, recalls the oft told story of Thomas More. One common error among my brother and sisters in Christ, when it comes to religion, is to mistake government neutrality with hostility, then to regard that perceived hostility as persecution.
I am happy to see my friend Mr. Paine concede that “we, as Americans, should be free to exercise our religious faith.” As he documents state interference with Christian worship, he inadvertently supports our own tradition, separation of church and state. He finds examples of interference – persecution? – in Sweden, which officially supports Christianity, and Wales, which funds Christian churches.
I recall a state legislator in South Carolina once rising in mock support of efforts to have the state support Christian beliefs. She could support establishing a state religion as long as it was her Presbyterian Church.
- North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz urges active, Church-going Christians to have the courage to follow Jesus in a world in which there often seems to be “no distinction between the supposed ‘ambassadors for Christ,’ and the sycophantic shills for a President without morality.” Even if that means following Jesus out of the building and away from their church.
- Michael Kinsley defends the New York Times as the mother of all papers sells space on a luxury cruise where the fabulously wealthy can meet the columnists and reporters whose articles they have been reading.
- Infidel753 uses this past week of independence, amidst a discouraging national environment, to remind us that setbacks are nothing new, and never final. I have had similar thoughts.
- nojo at Stinque gets weird and provides a strange introduction to a link through time, space, and a national American sport.
7 thoughts on “No-Clue Economics, SOTU, Russia-Gate, Less Civility Please”
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His primary argument is that plenty of progress happened before high schools were provided.
By this logic, since lots of people survived long enough to reproduce before modern medicine, modern medicine hasn’t really done any good and we can just as well do without it. And since people were able to communicate by talking before writing was invented, we don’t really need writing.
It’s true that the nineteenth century saw impressive levels of technological progress, but the twentieth saw even more, in part because of mass public education and government investment. And the application of that technology on a mass scale to benefit the whole population depended mostly on state action. Inventing technology and deploying it to benefit great masses of people are two different processes. Private initiative invented vaccines, but government action produced the mass application of vaccines which finally stopped the endless epidemics which had previously plagued humanity.
“One common error among my brother and sisters in Christ, when it comes to religion, is to mistake government neutrality with hostility, then to regard that perceived hostility as persecution.” ~ Burr Deming
Either I am a considerably poorer writer in trying to get my points across than what I thought I was or many good progressive folk simply cannot understand what is being written when any conservative writes these days.
I am certainly not promoting the idea of a theocracy or even the state being subservient to any particular church. I am, however, championing the idea that the state should NOT be allowed to trump my faith when it comes to core beliefs. I very much would like to maintain our long held American tradition of separation between church and state. Unfortunately, “state” seems to keep butting into my faith and my free exercise thereof in recent years. It is a problem created by progressivism throughout the world where they know better than does God, evidently.
Yes, Sweden officially recognizes the Christian faith and then the Prime Minister says that all priests should be forced to perform “gay marriages” or leave the clergy.
Wales, also supposedly Christian, is supportive of Christianity as long as their private schools teach their progressive doctrine over that of the Bible.
Yep, the world is neutral towards Christianity, as long as it is preached and exercised in a manner consistent with what the State says it should be. No hostility there at all …. right? That is the very definition of “neutral”, don’t you think?
Even Bernie Sanders ignores the constitution and subjects Russ Vought to a “religious test” during his hearing and finds him guilty of being a Christian, and therefore a bigot and hateful, and therefore unworthy of serving in the Trump administration.
No I don’t want the church to be over the state. And I certainly don’t want the state to be over the church.
That said, I will render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God. If ever church and state clash, I will absolutely side with God over our increasingly godless state. Better to lose my life than my soul, ya know…
Yes, Sweden officially recognizes the Christian faith and then the Prime Minister says that all priests should be forced to perform “gay marriages” or leave the clergy.
The one thing sort of follows from the other. If the state officially recognizes a specific religion, then church and state are already not separate. A religion which is given special status by the state can expect to be regulated by the state, since the state has put itself in a position to judge whether the religion is worthy of that status or not.
In the US, where there is no official religion and government cannot privilege one religion over another, the state will never force clergy to perform gay marriages, just as it will never force them to perform interracial marriages or any other kind of marriages that a given religion considers taboo.
Wales, also supposedly Christian, is supportive of Christianity as long as their private schools teach their progressive doctrine over that of the Bible.
That’s rather different. Private schools have to meet minimal government standards in order to be recognized as valid schools in the sense that attending them excuses children from mandatory attendance at government schools. Those standards will obviously reflect whatever is considered valid education in the country in question. For example, private schools might well be required to teach science and not pseudoscience (evolution and heliocentrism rather than creationism and geocentrism, for example), and be prohibited from teaching obvious bigotry (such as anti-Semitism or the Biblical view of homosexuality). Bigotry is bigotry whether it comes from Mein Kampf or the Bible. The state should not privilege one over the other.
Infidel, you do indeed make a very good point regarding Sweden and the “state” officially recognizing the religion and thus they are able to “regulate” it accordingly.
It is one of the reasons why our separation of Church and State, as Thomas Jefferson put it in his letter to the Danbury Baptists has worked rather well throughout our history until recently. The only reason it no longer works is because the state now wants to usurp first amendment rights and regulate what a faith can preach when it is contrary to what the state deems is appropriate.
If a religion was preaching in a form that incited violence or such, than the state has an over-riding justification to regulate it. When the state wants to thwart thousands of years of teaching of the three great Abrahamic faiths because it is no longer politically correct, then it is the state that is wrong, sir.
Infidel, you do indeed make a very good point regarding Sweden and the “state” officially recognizing the religion and thus they are able to “regulate” it accordingly.
Thank you. Even Christians should oppose the idea of religion having an official status (such as claiming the US was founded as a “Christian nation”). Which of the hundreds of sects gets the privilege? Once the favored sect has bound itself tightly to the state, what happens when a party it doesn’t like wins control of the state?
the state now wants to usurp first amendment rights and regulate what a faith can preach when it is contrary to what the state deems is appropriate.
Where are they regulating what a religion can preach? Churches all over the country are still spewing a diarrheal river of that ancient and barbaric “teaching” — anti-gay bigotry, subordination of women, calls to ban abortion or contraception, hate and contempt for atheists, and on and on — even in forms that could very reasonably be taken as inciting violence. All I see the state doing is regulating behavior, like discrimination against gay customers by public businesses. Every church is free to vituperate against gays, interracial marriage, pork, doorknobs, whatever its random taboo system declares to be an “abomination”. They are merely being told that, when it comes to behavior and commerce, they must obey the same laws that apply to everyone else.
I don’t care that the rubbish in the Bible is thousands of years old. The world is full of myths and legends that are very old. That doesn’t make them worthy of respect.
“Where are they regulating what a religion can preach?”
Nowhere. It’s just the persecution complex talking.
“Even Christians should oppose the idea of religion having an official status…” ~ Infidel
I also agree with this statement of yours, sir. I disagree with the example you cited though. It is a historical fact that the United States of America was indeed founded on Judeo-Christian principles. You only have to read some of our historical documents (i.e. The Declaration of Independence) and many of the letters of our founders to see the truth of this.
As for the state violating my free exercise of my religion, it is seen in many places these days. The Obamacare HHS mandate is one such example that states I must purchase health insurance that covers contraceptives and abortifacients, even if that is contrary to my core beliefs. This is true even if, like the Sisters of the Poor, I were a celibate nun that abhors abortion as a core belief.
Don’t get me wrong, Infidel. I would absolutely stand right beside you in denouncing the hate being spewed by the likes of the Westboro Baptist Church towards gay people. Their hateful rhetoric is vile and disgusting and has no place in a faith that is supposedly representative of Christ.
That said, while I have many friends and family members that are gay, that doesn’t mean that I am condoning of what I believe to be sinful behavior. That doesn’t mean that I don’t love them and wish to be a part of their lives though. It simply means that the practice of my faith will not allow me to be a material part of an aspect that goes against God’s law. This includes me taking photos or baking a cake at a gay wedding, as it is my belief that this violates God’s word about the purpose, intent, and sacredness of the marriage rite, my friend.
This does not mean that I cannot photograph or bake a birthday cake etc. for these same friends or family. It is the intrusion into what I am taught is sacred that is at issue. It should not be up to the government to define that sacredness or compel me to act in a manner contrary to the dictates of my conscience accordingly, sir.
It is not my place or desire to denounce or shame anyone for any of their sins. Lord knows they would have a hay day pointing out mine. It is my belief that we are all sisters and brothers created in God’s image. As such we should strive to treat each other with the dignity and love deserving of such divine creations. (And yes, I often fall short of this goal sadly.)
I wish we could all still be civil and kind towards each other in this world regardless of whether we are pro-life/pro-choice, or pro-traditional marriage/pro-gay marriage and so on. I may fervently disagree with you on these issues, but that doesn’t mean that I should hate you or call you my enemy simply because of that. I will simply do my best to live my life as the best example I can of the faith which I proclaim. I wish all people of all faiths and no faith would do the same.