Nixon’s Civil Rights 19

One thing that stood out to me in my latest reading of Dean Kotlowski’s Nixon’s Civil Rights was how elements of Nixon’s civil rights policy were conservative.  I don’t mean rigidly libertarian, in the sense that Nixon opposed government intervention, period, for Nixon’s policy entailed increased federal spending in areas.  Rather, I’m referring to a skepticism that Nixon had about the efficiency of the federal government, as well as Nixon’s preference for local autonomy.

For example, on page 182, we read: “As in his relations with black ministers, the president hoped to use the Urban League to bypass the government’s social service and job-training bureaucracy, which he deemed wasteful.  Nixon promised to disburse government contracts, research grants, and manpower training subsidies to the Urban League…”  Nixon had some tensions with Whitney Young, the head of the Urban League, but both had the agenda of focusing on developing job and educational opportunities in the ghetto rather than integration.  Young was all for integration, but he expected for African-American ghettos to remain for years, and so he sought to promote “ghetto power” in the meantime.  Nixon trusted the Urban League more than the federal bureaucracy, which reflects a conservative disdain for government bureaucracy (at least in the domestic sphere).

On page 189, Kotlowski mentions a detail about Nixon’s policy towards Native Americans: “Nixon did not think it necessary for Indians to meld into Anglo society, and he recognized the need for separate Native American institution, a position in tune with his support for minority businesses.  Nixon’s respect for tribal autonomy was analogous to his use of local committees to desegregate southern schools.  As with their support of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Nixonians pumped money into Native American programs and the BIA”, the Bureau of Indian Affairs.  There were right-wing Western senators who were against Indian self-government, but Nixon’s conservatism led him to favor tribal autonomy.

In some cases, Nixon’s conservatism had good results, as it often did in terms of Native Americans and African-American businesses.  In other cases, the results were mixed.  Nixon’s policy of using local Southern committees to help facilitate integration was a good idea because it involved Southerners in the process, rather than imposing a policy on Southerners from the top-down.  But expecting local Southerners to do the right thing on their own was not always prudent.  That’s probably why Nixon did not hesitate to violate conservatism and to use heavy-handed federal pressure, when he deemed it necessary.

I’m intrigued by how conservatism can support progressive ideas.  Back when my Mom was in a graduate program in African-American history, I was a young man with a John Bircher ideology.  I feared a one-world government, which would undermine the sovereignty of the United States.  When I challenged my Mom’s multicultural notions, she replied that many cultures do not want to give up their sovereignty, but prefer to remain independent.  If my memory is correct, she referred to Native American tribes.  That gave me something new to think about: that opposing a one-world government could actually coincide with an idea that is considered liberal, multiculturalism.  Similarly, when I was a conservative, I had a great deal of sympathy for Malcom X and the Nation of Islam (albeit not for their anti-Semitism), although many conservatives I knew did not.  For me, supporting African-American businesses and encouraging responsibility and family were solid conservative ideas.  On these issues, I overlapped with some liberal colleagues.

I’d like to note another thing that I learned from my reading: James Brown was a Nixon supporter!

My reading over the next several days of Kotlowski’s book will not focus on African-American civil rights, but rather on the rights of other groups, such as Native Americans and women.  I’ll still be commenting on his discussion of those issues for Black History Month, even if that’s not exactly appropriate, however, because my goal is to blog through this book for Black History Month, and that is what I’ll continue to do.  Stay tuned!

Mark Hatfield

Former Senator Mark Hatfield has passed on.  See here.  I do not know much about him, but I will remember him as a devout evangelical Christian (who actually wrote books about faith that evangelical publishing houses published) who did not feel that his Christianity chained him to right-wing political dogmatism.  I was struggling yesterday with how (and if) to bring faith into the public sphere.  Well, maybe Mark Hatfield was one model on how to do this!

I’ll also remember him from the documentary, With God on Our Side, which was about the religious right in America.  Hatfield talked about the time that he spoke before the 1964 Republican National Convention, and he denounced the ultra-conservative John Birch Society.  Immediately, he was booed—which Hatfield narrated, and which we also got to see from actual footage of that event.  Hatfield remarked as he told his story that about a third of the delegates were members of the John Birch Society!

Trying to Develop a Political Philosophy

I haven’t written a political post on my blog in a long time.  Well, there was my June post on Herman Cain, but, other than that, there haven’t been that many!  During the last Presidential election, I wrote a lot of political posts, as I commented on each candidate—even during the primaries.  Those who have followed me have probably noticed my movement from being a right-wing conservative to being, well, whatever I am today!  At the present time, I tend to lean towards the Democratic Party.  I find some difficulty writing political posts nowadays because all I can really talk about is why I don’t like the right-wing, and that can get stale pretty fast!  Moreover, during the last Presidential primaries, I could say something that I liked and disliked about each of the candidates, both Republican and Democrat (even Hillary).  These days, however, I can’t stand the vast majority of the Republicans running (even some of the ones I liked in 2008), and Obama, although he strikes me as rather inept, will probably be the one I will vote for.

I think that something I am learning is that elections have consequences.  It’s easy for me to understand, and even to sympathize with, libertarianism as a political philosophy, from the perspective of an amateur analyst of ideas.  But what happens when elements of this philosophy actually have the potential to become national policy?  Take, for example, the budget cuts.  Libertarians are saying that these are not sufficient cuts, but rather are the government choosing not to spend as much as it planned.  But, whatever they are, they’re having an impact on people’s lives.  Students at my institution of learning will receive no subsidized loans this coming year.  There is talk about the roads falling into disrepair.  States will have to raise taxes, if they are forced to assume tasks that were previously supported by federal funding.  Medicare and Medicaid may be cut.  If there are cuts to fat and pork, I’m all for that!  But many of these cuts sound as if they will have profound effects on people’s lives, and not exactly for the better.

Then there is Governor Rick Perry of Texas, who is having a prayer rally for our country.  I was having an online discussion with some Christian conservative friends, and it got me thinking about what my political philosophy is, and why.  A conservative friend wrote that God does not support separation of church and state.  I responded that I don’t want Rick Perry or Michelle Bachmann imposing their idea of “biblical values” on America, when their idea of such values is the product of cherry-picking from Scripture.  My impression is that they won’t support laws in the Bible about taking into account the indebted, or supporting the poor with taxation (which, in Old Testament Israel, was a tithe), or the king being responsible for being a shepherd to the poor.  But they’ll oppose abortion and homosexuality, as if those are the only issues that concern God!  I said that I will not support a candidate who acts as if America is like Old Testament Israel.

I can easily point out where I believe that the religious right is flawed and one-sided in its approach to Scripture.  But, as a Christian conservative friend pointed out to me, even the Christian left seeks to impose its will on people who disagree, and it too has a one-sided approach to Scripture.  It may be open to society recognizing gay marriage, and yet it wants to coerce people to pay for social programs for the poor.  What my friend was essentially asking me was this: Why does the Left have a right to impose its ideas and values on society, but Christian conservatives do not?

That’s a fair question.  If I am going to believe that society should help the poor out of a commitment to biblical values, then shouldn’t I also maintain that society should oppose homosexuality—also due to biblical values?  And yet, as I was pointing out, once we allow people to bring their religious beliefs into the public arena—shaping their positions on public policy—what would prevent them from imposing their religious beliefs on others?  Roman Catholics do not believe in contraception, for example.  Would they have a right to impose that idea as law on people who don’t agree?  What is the difference between that and believing that society shouldn’t recognize gay marriage because it goes against the Bible?

My impression was that my friend was saying that majorities have a right to enact their will for society.  I wondered if that amounted to “might makes right”.  Someone else was bringing up the founding fathers and how, even though many of them were deists, their values were shaped by the Bible.  I doubt that every founding father left religion at the door when he sought to develop a conception of how the government should be!  But the founding fathers also had a commitment to freedom—to people being allowed to worship as they pleased, without compulsion to conform to a particular religious dogma.  Were they consistent on this?  Probably not.  There were anti-sodomy laws back then, and there are people nowadays who would probably see those as an expression of a religious opposition to homosexuality.  But the founding fathers, on some level, still did not want religion to restrict people’s freedom in a political capacity.

I was trying to express a consistent political philosophy, even though I was walking around with contradictory ideas in my head.  And what I came up with is this.  First of all, although we are a democracy that values the will of the majority, the will of the majority is not an absolute.  There should be institutions in place that protect minorities, and rights in general.  Although I am more liberal now than I have been in the past, I find that a John Birch Society video illustrating the difference between a republic and a democracy conveys my feelings rather accurately—even though I may take its message in a direction that the John Birchers would not support!  The video mentioned the scenario of a lawman catching a criminal.  Under a democracy, if the majority screams for that criminal’s execution, then the criminal must die!  A republic, however, recognizes the rule of law, which means that the criminal must be tried.  This is why there are liberal activist courts that strike down laws—they believe those laws are violating people’s rights, even if they were approved by a majority of legislators.  This is why even Justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative, has written opinions that strike down certain local ordinances.  There is something higher than the will of the majority.

Second, people should have a right to do what they choose, unless doing so would directly harm another person.  I support pluralism.  But what if people make choices that create an immoral environment for society, such as view or create Internet pornography?  What if Nazis choose to march through a Jewish neighborhood?  I have a Christian conservative friend who thinks that we as a society should not idolize freedom.  In my opinion, although the slogan of “You can’t legislate morality” has weaknesses (since laws do express some concept of morality), there is a sense in which it is true.  Christian conservatives, for example, may not want people to have sex outside of marriage, but people will do so anyway, and so contraception had might as well be available!  Laws exist to enforce a minimal amount of moral conduct, which is necessary for the security and maintenance of society, but they cannot make people perfect.  Plus, on the issue of freedom, I think that the freedom of people to do things we don’t like is our freedom to do things that others may not like.  In essence, I think that a society should recognize pluralism.  That means recognizing gay marriage, but also the right of conservative Christian religious groups not to perform them.  I tend to oppose, however, places of employment (except for churches) and apartment complexes being free to discriminate against people on account of sexual orientation, for that has to do with people’s livelihoods.

Third, although elements of my second point sound rather libertarian, I do believe in a social safety net.  I think that the government should be compassionate, rather than leaving charity solely to the discretion of individuals.  When people are financially broken on account of our health care system, for instance, that is a problem, and the government should do something to ameliorate it.  I’m open to solutions on how to do this from the right and from the left, but I tend to trust the left more, since it actually tries to do something about health care when it is in power.  On what should compassion be based?  On religion?  Well, for me, it is, in part.  But perhaps there are secular arguments for a compassionate society.  John Rawls asked us to consider how we would fare if we were poor or marginalized or disadvantaged, and to form a society with that in mind.  A society that is “every man for himself” is a sick society, and, eventually, it will collapse.

My political philosophy is not fool-proof, for I’m sure there are areas that need ironed out.  I’ll close by saying this.  Although I do not trust Rick Perry, and I feel he is leading the country in prayer at least partially out of political motives, I do support the idea of praying for my country.  My country does need prayer right now!

Good Quotes on Isaiah’s Deliverer; Shift in Focus; Sobran and the Holocaust

1.  In Randall Heskett’s Messianism Within the Scriptural Scrolls of Isaiah, the following quote of G. Adam Smith (on page 57) stood out to me:

“Isaiah foretells his Prince on the supposition that certain things are fulfilled.  When the people are reduced to the last extreme, when there is no more a king to rally or to rule them, when the land is in captivity, and revelation is closed, when in despair of the darkness of the Lord’s face, men have taken to them that have unfamiliar spirits and wizards that peep and mutter, then, in the last sinful, hopeless estate of man, a Deliverer shall appear.”

So did the following quotes of Thomas Cheyne (on page 58):

“Isaiah held the metaphysical oneness of the Messiah with Jehovah, but he evidently does conceive of the Messiah, somewhat as the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians regarded their kings, as an earthly representation of Divinity…No doubt this development of the Messianic doctrine was accelerated by contact with foreign nations; still it is in harmony with fundamental Biblical ideas and expressions.”

“[Because of the] improved condition of the human world…the evil propensity of lower animals will die out…”

Here’s some of Randall’s summary of John F.A. Sawyer’s discussion on Isaiah 7:14 (“a young woman conceives…and you will call his name Immanuel”):

“In Jesus ‘God is with us’ in a special way and the coming of Jesus is the fulfillment of prophecy, which has been altered from its original context of judgment to one of salvation.”

2.  On page 120 of Judaism: The Evidence of the Mishnah, Jacob Neusner says that the parts of the Mishnah between the wars (i.e., the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. and the defeat of Bar Kokhba in the second century) focus on the Temple.  After the second war, however, the Mishnah pushes the Temple to the periphery.  Is that because there was little hope at that time that the Temple would be rebuilt, and so the rabbis wanted the Jews to get on with their lives and to focus on other things?

3.  There have been prominent deaths this week.  Old Rose from The Titanic passed on.  Tony Curtis passed on as well.  I was thinking about him earlier this week.  My mind wandered to the scene in Some Like It Hot in which Tony Curtis told Marilyn Monroe that women’s kisses have no effect on him, and so she was trying to test that out!  But I didn’t know that he was Tony Curtis, nor that he was the “singer of songs” who claimed to perform “feats of magic” in Spartacus.

On Ann Coulter’s web site, I learned that conservative columnist Joseph Sobran also passed on.  I grew up reading Sobran in one of the Indianapolis papers, plus one of my relatives really liked him.  Sobran was accused of anti-Semitism, a charge that he addresses here, in a speech that he gave to the Institute for Historical Review, a group that denies the Holocaust.  You can judge for yourself whether or not Sobran is anti-Semitic.  In my opinion, he gets a little too close to Holocaust denial for my comfort.  (He says that he believes the Holocaust happened, but…well, read the speech!)  And yet, he raises some good points. 

First of all, I think that the best way to address Holocaust denial is to combat it with facts.  Countries that ban Holocaust denial as a “thought crime” are wrong to do so, in my view.  Dismissing Holocaust denial as the product of hatred or stupidity is also not the right way to fight it.  Even if that charge is true, it only encourages Holocaust deniers to say that people are marginalizing them because they’re unable to prove the Holocaust.  Appeal to facts should be how people combat Holocaust denial.

I was thinking of doing a blog series on Holocaust denial at some point.  I saw a few Holocaust-revisionist books at the Hebrew Union College library—Did Six Million Really Die?, and another whose title I cannot remember.  I also saw lengthy books that critiqued Holocaust denial.  I’d like to study this because I wonder how we know what we know about the Holocaust.  My Mom sent me an article a short while ago about a gas chamber that is being uncovered, which is important because, while Holocaust deniers believe that there were concentration camps, they don’t think that Jews were exterminated in gas chambers.  For Holocaust deniers, Jews died in the work camps from disease, or other causes.  My Mom said that she may also be able to put me in touch with people who survived the Holocaust.

Second, Sobran’s article brought to my mind a question: are Holocaust deniers pro-Hitler?  Sobran himself (who technically may not be a Holocaust denier) criticizes Nazi Germany’s repressive policies in his speech.  However, in this letter to the John Birch Society, Mark Weber of the Institute for Historical Review seems to talk out of both sides of his mouth.  Weber says that Holocaust revisionists “acknowledge that many hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed and otherwise perished during the Second World War as direct and indirect result of the brutally anti-Jewish policies of Germany and its allies”, and he points out that the father of Holocaust revisionism, Paul Rassinier, was “a French educator and underground Resistance activist [who] was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943 and interned until the end of the war in the Buchenwald and Dora concentration camps.”  At the same time, Weber appears to praise Hitler’s anti-Communism, as well as his promotion of private ownership and Christianity.

Third, Sobran takes swipes at Israel for its mistreatment of Arabs, and he says that the Holocaust is the main reason that Israel gets a free pass for its human rights abuses, whereas other nations are held accountable.  Sobran also criticizes the Right, which he says was at one point balanced and level-headed in its discussion of Israel, only to have been hijacked by neo-conservatives.  In my opinion, there are two sides to this story.  Israel acts as she does for national security reasons, and (sadly) innocent Palestinians are victims in the process.  No one should get a free pass to oppress others—neither Nazi Germany, nor Israel, nor Arab countries that want to drown Israel in the sea. 

Princes and Grinds

Izgad had a good post last week, Does the Stimulus Package Discriminate Against Aspergers?  He refers to an article by David Brooks that discusses two kinds of business people: princes and grinds.  Princes are charming extroverts, whereas grinds are socially-awkward.  But the princes were the ones who ”behaved with incredible stupidity” and helped cause our current economic mess, while the grinds—”the hedge fund loners”—”often behaved with impressive restraint.”

But who have been the beneficiaries of President Obama’s stimulus plan?  According to Izgad, it’s been the princes, who have “the lobbyists and the connections.”  And Izgad, a libertarian, recognizes here an important principle:

This is a basic principle well understood by libertarians that the very act of the government stepping in with rules and regulations benefits those who already are connected to the establishment and know how to work it at the expense of those who are not.

I’ve heard about this sort of thing from all over the political spectrum, from the John Birch Society literature that I read as a child and a teen, to my left-wing textbooks in my undergraduate political science class: government intervention often serves the interests of the powerful rather than those who need help. 

A commentor on Izgad’s blog, Clarissa (a liberal feminist), offers a different perspective:

Brooks doesn’t know what he’s talking about (as usual). Senior executives at major corporations are the most boring, vapid people who know nothing and can discuss nothing other than their bottom line. They aren’t autistic. They are just boring, vacuous people. They get government handouts not because they are charming (Blankfein charming? Come on) but because they are connected. The people giving handouts to Goldman all used to work for Goldman, so that’s not hard to figure out.

Another thing I wanted to mention is that people with Asperger’s are often extremely charming. It’s a kind of a mask one uses to “pass” in social situations.

Izgad’s post and Clarissa’s response bring three things to my mind:

First, there’s the book that I recently read, Adam McHugh’s Introverts in the Church.  In a chapter on leadership, McHugh compares flashy, extroverted, charismatic business executives with those who are introverts.  The flashy ones failed to establish a lasting foundation for their company that would outlast them after their retirement or death, whereas the introverted ones worked on building their company rather than bringing attention to themselves.  I liked this chapter because the message I often get in life is that I’ll fail because I’m socially-awkward.  Sure, I need to work on my social skills, but there are plenty of ways that I can contribute to life as an introvert.   

Second, I’ve often wondered what sort of political system would allow me to thrive as a person with Asperger’s.  In the Asperger’s support group that I attended in New York City, many of the members preferred the Democrats to the Republicans, feeling that the Democrats supported a society that is compassionate to the marginalized and the down-and-out.  Some of them received government disability or unemployment, or lived in government-subsidized housing, since their deficiencies in social skills inhibited them from making an adequate income.  They thought that a libertarian or a Republican society would be dog-eat-dog, depriving them of the help that they needed to get by.

Yet, there are plenty of people with Asperger’s who are libertarians, conservatives, or Republicans, for a variety of reasons.

Personally, I’m not in favor of people living off of the state, without working.  Not long ago, a society that allowed that sort of thing would have appealed to me, since I was scared of working and being around people: why should I have to starve or go homeless because of my hang-ups?  Now that I work and see $40 of my already meager paycheck being eaten up in taxes, however, I have a slightly different attitude.  I wonder why people should get things for free while I work.

I’m not for a society that says “You’re on your own”, though.  I’d like for the government—or somebody in society—to help people live productive lives, by offering job training, or counseling on work that is appropriate for them, in light of their talents and capabilities.  I should also remember that there are plenty of people who work, yet they don’t make enough of an income to take care of life’s necessities.  That’s why state programs are for “low-income” people: there’s an income there, meaning many of the recipients are working, in some capacity.  Moreover, in our current economy, people are having difficulty finding jobs.

I also agree with something Izgad said in his post, Asperger Hiring:

The first step in solving this problem is to get out of the medical model of disability and move to a social model where people on the spectrum are viewed not as people who are disabled, but as members of a minority group. Businesses exist to make money; they are not going to hire charity cases. They can, though, be convinced to follow their own interests and hire and even go out of their way to make room for people who are unconventional and have unconventional skills.   

Again, there should be structures in place—government or private—that help people with Asperger’s to recognize what their skills are, and to figure out how such skills can translate into a job.

Third, there’s the issue of “charm”.  There would be plenty of people who’d say that I don’t have it.  But, believe it or not, there are also plenty of people who have called me “charming”—maybe because they find me amuzing, or cute, or innocent.  I don’t especially like being considered “charming” for these reasons, since I prefer to be looked up to, or to be seen as distinguished.  But I can understand why one could argue that people with Asperger’s have charm: many of them do have something that attracts others to them.

Cold Turkey; Reversing Curses; Speech Communities; Indebted Proselyte; Argument from Silence

1. Samuel C. Hyde, Jr., Pistols and Politics: The Dilemma of Democracy in Louisiana’s Florida Parishes, 1810-1899, pages 12-13:

This mistrust of a meddling or energetic government remained central to the piney-woods existence.  The Livingston Parish Police Jury solved the perennial problem of forcing rural farmers to honor their obligations to maintain public roads by appointing them overseers with independent control over designated sections of the roads.  Each specific section would theoretically belong to a farmer and typically would be named for him.  Such a system relied on peer pressure rather than legal coercion to ensure road maintenance.

This reminds me of the 1971 Norman Lear film, Cold Turkey, which is about a tobacco company that offers $25 million to the town that can stop smoking for thirty days.  Dick Van Dyke plays a minister who tries to organize his town to take up the company’s offer, but he has difficulty persuading the conservative, anti-Communist Christopher Mott Society (based on the John Birch Society) to sign up.  “We already have too much big government telling people what to do”, its leader says.  And so the minister reaches a deal with the CMS: if its members take the no-smoking pledge, then they can police the traffic coming into the town and keep out the cigarrettes.  They like the prospect of having power, so it’s a deal! 

2.  Erhard Gerstenberger, Psalms, Part I with an Introduction to Cultic Poetry, page 82:

Mowinckel, in his early analysis of Psalm 12, sketches the original situation.  Slanderous talk as well as outright cursing was considered dangerous in the highest degree.  It needed to be counteracted by official, i.e., cultic, means.

I’ve often heard that people in Old Testament times believed in the power of words.  When Isaac blessed Jacob instead of Esau, for example, he couldn’t retract that blessing, for his words already went forth from his mouth and now have a life of their own (Genesis 27).  But, according to Gerstenberger, curses were also powerful.  But, fortunately, they could be counteracted by cultic means. 

3.  Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion, pages 32-33:

The Church Fathers considered Gnosticism as essentially a Christian heresy and confined their reports and refutations to systems which either had sprouted already from the soil of Christianity (e.g., the Valentinian system), or had somehow added and adapted the figure of Christ to their otherwise heterogeneous teaching (e.g., that of the Phrygian Naassenes), or else through a common Jewish background were close enough to be felt as competing with and distorting the Christian message (e.g., that of Simon Magus).

I used to get the newsletter for Redeemer Presbyterian Church, pastored by Tim Keller.  In one edition, Tim Keller was critiquing the view that the existence of Christian Gnosticism in antiquity attests to the diversity of early Christianity.  He said that, when he was in seminary, it was obvious to him and his fellow students that the Gnostics had coopted elements of Christianity and attached them to their belief system.  In short, for Keller, Gnosticism was not the earliest form of Christianity.

I tend to agree with him on this.  But I was somewhat skeptical when he said that such a notion was “obvious” to him and his fellow students.  I don’t mean “skeptical” in the sense that I doubt that’s what happened, for I’m sure such a notion was obvious to them.  Rather, I mean it in the sense that I wouldn’t accept such a viewpoint just because a group of conservative Christians saw it as “obvious”.  Of course they think it’s obvious that Gnosticism was not the earliest brand of Christianity: would they even be remotely open to adopting the view that it was such?  That would undermine their religion!

At Hebrew Union College, a professor talked to my class about “speech communities”: groups that share certain assumptions and conceptions of the world.  I got to observe that first-hand when I was talking to some conservative Christian students about Judas.  A New Testament professor had written that the character of Judas was modeled after Judah in the Book of Genesis, in which Judah sells his brother, Joseph, for money.  That resembles Judas Iscariot, who sold Jesus for thirty pieces of silver.  And, in the Greek, Judah reads as Judas. 

I thought that sounded pretty reasonable.  I’m not sure if I adopt it wholeheartedly, but I can understand why one might arrive at such a conclusion.  But my conservative Christian colleagues’ response was, “That’s quite a stretch.”  I didn’t think so.  I mean, both Judah and Judas sell a person for money, and their names are the same in Greek.  But my colleagues thought such an argument was off-the-wall, probably on the order of saying that aliens built the pyramids! 

In my opinion, they saw such a view as absurd because it went against the propositions of their speech community.  And we see this sort of thing in all sorts of speech communities, not just the conservative Christian one. 

4.   Richard Sarason, A History of the Mishnaic Law of Agriculture: A Study of Tractate Demai, page 80:

Tosefta Demai 2:4: A proselyte…who took upon himself all…the obligations of the Torah and is suspected with regard to one item—even with regard to all [the obligations of] the Torah—behold, he is [deemed to be] like an apostate Israelite.

That reminds me of Galatians 5:3, which states that a person who’s circumcised in indebted to observe the whole law.

5.  Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, pages 9-10:

D permits nonsacrificial slaughter (Deut 12:15, 21), as does P…Thus D overturns the Priestly law (H) that all meat for the table must first be offered up on the altar (17:3-7).  The same radical alteration can be deduced from the animals suet.  Whereas D continues to prohibit the consumption of the animal’s blood (Deut 12:16, 23-25), it is silent concerning its suet, implying that it may be eaten and thereby overturning the Priestly law (H) that prohibits the consumption of both the blood and the suet of sacrificial animals (Lev 3:16b; 7:23).

Deuteronomy 32:38 says that gods ate the fat of sacrifices, so doesn’t that presume that Israelites were not to eat the fat, which belonged to the gods (or God)?  Of course, some scholars may argue that Deuteronomy 32 isn’t really D, but rather an earlier poem.

Is the argument from silence a valid argument?  If H says that Israelites can’t eat fat, whereas D doesn’t have such a command, can we conclude that D is overturning H’s law?

Obama’s New World Order

The AP has an interesting piece today: Analysis: Obama’s new world order.

I’m hesitant to admit this on the blogosphere, but I grew up reading right-wing conspiracy theory books. Gary Allen’s None Dare Call It Conspiracy. Phyllis Schlafly’s A Choice Not an Echo. The writings of ex-Armstrongite David J. Smith. The Left Behind series. And, although I emphatically do NOT associate any of the above names with Nazism, Holocaust revisionism, or support for Hitler’s atrocities, another book to add to the list is Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Their premise was that there is an elite that wants to merge America into a one world government, ruled by a socialistic or (according to members of the Nation of Islam) fascistic dictatorship.

There are people I know who believe we are heading toward this goal, which (for them) will culminate in the Antichrist’s rule of the world. Right now, we see a lot of emphasis on globalism in the news. President Obama’s State Department Secretary, Mr. Cho, allegedly wants to base American court decisions on laws in other countries. Sean Hannity mocks conspiracy theorists as he plays the Twilight Zone theme song, but he and Dick Morris acknowledged that they may have a valid point, now that Obama is allegedly pushing for an international system of economic regulation. Treasury Secretary Geithner said that he was open to the idea of a global currency, before backtracking on the idea. And the AP article above remarks that Obama is moving away from the idea of American exceptionalism, towards greater cooperation with the nations.

Good or bad? There are probably conspiracy theorists who will say that Bush took this country down to set the stage for a coming New World Order. You know what Palpatine did on the Star Wars prequels: creating crises for him to solve so that he could gain power for himself and create a dictatorship? Some believe that this happens in real life, and they view wars, the current economic crisis, and the scare over global warming as coming excuses for a one world government. While Obama talks about peace, conspiracy theorists will say that such talk is often a cover for an attempt to gain power.

Do we have cause to fear? I don’t know. We should keep our minds open. On some level, all of the countries of the world are in this together, and we shouldn’t be afraid of cooperation. And, while many would consider “American exceptionalism” to be insulting because it implies that America is better than other countries, we should value all nations as exceptional in their own way. Hopefully, our current push towards globalism won’t lead to the destruction of nations as nations, but will respect their (and our) sovereignty.

Apocalyptic forecasts do not always pan out. Armstrongites grew up hearing that Germany would unite and become the Beast power, and we thought that was about to happen when the Berlin wall came tumbling down. But it hasn’t panned out that way.

Maybe we shouldn’t always expect the worse or fear cooperation among countries. But we should also remember that human nature has a selfish, power-hungry dimension, so we should keep on our guard, in some way, shape, and form.

Hoover and FDR: Liberal or Conservative?

I just watched This Week with George Stephanopoulos (click here to see it). In the second half of the program (for which I cannot find a transcript), people were claiming that Herbert Hoover was the liberal whereas Franklin Roosevelt was the conservative. Someone asserted that Franklin Roosevelt dramatically cut government spending when he came into office, and George Will then pointed out that Herbert Hoover had increased it by over 40 per cent when he was President. George apparently heard Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner agree with this particular scenario of history, for he referred to Geithner’s claim in the first half of the program that FDR “put the brakes on too early” in the early years of his Presidency, thereby worsening the Great Depression (see Transcript).

Many deem the late 1920′s and early 1930′s to be relevant for today, for people look to the past for guidance on what (or what not) to do about our current economic crisis. Conservatives and liberals alike offer different narratives, with conflicting portrayals of Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt.

Here are two liberal narratives:

1. Herbert Hoover believed in free markets and less government, an ideology that ultimately led to the Great Depression. The Depression only got worse under his watch, and his callous Administration did nothing to assist those who were suffering. The economy only got better when FDR became President and instituted programs to help people. You hear this point of view today, as many blame laissez-faire for our current economic mess and propose massive government intervention (e.g., regulation, spending) to ameliorate it.

2. FDR was actually a conservative, whose draconian budget cuts only made the Great Depression worse. Communists, socialists, Huey Long, Father Coughlin, etc., asserted that Roosevelt’s New Deal did not go far enough, and that FDR was in bed with big business interests rather than the American people. The “FDR was too conservative” approach was what Timothy Geithner promulgated on This Week. However, neither Obama nor Geithner want to go as far as communists, socialists, or extreme leftists desire.

Here are three conservative narratives:

1. The economy was actually getting better near the end of Hoover’s Presidency, but FDR’s New Deal prolonged the Depression and made it worse, as unemployment climbed during FDR’s first two terms. In this narrative, what ended the Great Depression was America’s involvement in World War II, not the New Deal. John Stormer presents this view in his landmark 1964 classic, None Dare Call It Treason. On pages 262-265, he offers documentation for these claims.

Today, many conservatives make this argument in response to Liberal Narrative # 1 (see above). As Obama is portrayed as the second FDR, conservatives are ready to respond that the first FDR wasn’t that hot, and that a laissez-faire approach (a la Hoover) is the best way to get the economy moving again.

2. Hoover was a liberal and FDR was a conservative. Hoover increased taxes, government spending, and tariffs, causing America to sink deeper into the Great Depression. FDR, by contrast, reduced government spending and embraced free trade. And, sure enough, America recovered on his watch.

John McCain made this argument in the second 2008 Presidential debate, as he argued that Herbert Hoover’s taxes and protectionism made the Great Depression worse. He made this claim to undermine Obama, who had tax increases and protectionist ideas as part of his platform. And, although Ronald Reagan once quoted a historian who said that FDR got his New Deal idea from Fascism, he also appealed to the conservative FDR. Reagan often said that he did not leave the Democratic Party, but the Democratic Party left him. In part of his mind, FDR was actually an advocate for less government.

3. Both Hoover and FDR were big government liberals. Hoover increased taxes and government spending, and FDR continued that trend, in violation of his 1932 campaign promises. Moreover, FDR’s taxes, spending, and regulations hindered the economy and prolonged the Great Depression, which only ended because of American involvement in World War II. For documentation of these claims, see William P. Hoar’s article, A Bad Deal Revisited — Obama and FDR. William P. Hoar is a John Bircher, but he quotes historians who maintain that FDR increased government spending and that unemployment worsened on his watch.

Who’s right? Can all of them be right, in some way, shape, or form? Maybe FDR cut and increased government spending at various points of his Presidency. Perhaps Hoover embraced laissez-faire in some areas but not in others. As far as the Great Depression is concerned, most agree that it lasted for a long time, but we eventually got out of it. Should we celebrate FDR for getting us out of the Depression, or should we castigate him for its length?

I’ve encountered these questions often in my life, largely in the eccentric things that I’ve read (e.g., the Communist Party Platform of 1936, John Birch books, a biography of Huey Long, etc.). Now these questions are part of America’s political mainstream, as leaders ponder how to get America out of its current economic crisis.

Palin and Individual Rights

The John Birch Society always liked to say that America is a republic, not a democracy. Why? Critics assert it’s because the JBS is an anti-democratic group of fascists, but that’s untrue. The reason is that it doesn’t think individual rights should be subject to the whims of a majority. And, although he was a staunch critic of the Birchers, William F. Buckley expressed the same sort of concern in Up from Liberalism.

I was thinking about this as I watched Sarah Palin on 20/20 last night. (And, BTW, she did a superb job on that. It’s amazing how good she can come across when she’s not cut off by choppy editing!) Charlie Gibson asked her about her increase of the sales’ tax as mayor, as well as her bond to pay for a big sports’ center. She responded that the people of Wasilla voted for that center, so government was truly on the side of the people because it gave them what they wanted.

But the city used eminent domain to get that property (see here). From what I’ve read, it’s not as if Wasilla was looking to boot someone off his own soil. What happened was that the Nature Conservancy was dealing with two potential buyers at once, and the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing. Wasilla thought it had the property because of a verbal agreement. And a big-time industrial developer stepped in and actually purchased it. So this isn’t exactly your classic fairy-tale in which the government kicks a poor, struggling family off its land.

And, technically, the eminent domain lawsuit occurred after Palin left office. But she is proud of the sports’ center, and she touts it as one of her major accomplishments as mayor. But is using eminent domain to carry out the will of the people moral? Does majority rule trump the right of an individual to his property?

Later in the interview, Charlie Gibson pointed out that 70 per cent of Americans support a ban on semi-automatics. Palin responded that she did not. That’s the right answer! Just because the majority wants to take away someone’s rights, that doesn’t mean it should happen. Government is supposed to protect people’s rights, even when the majority is against them.

Of course, I may be contradicting what I said in my 9/11 Reflections: “I have a problem treating civil rights as an absolute that cannot be infringed. In my opinion, if we can listen in to the conversations of terrorists, then we should do so.” Maybe there should be exceptions to rights. After all, Article 1, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution states: “The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” My point is that the mere vote of a majority is not a sufficient reason to take people’s rights away, since we should be ruled by law, not a mob.

But these are just thoughts.

Ron Paul at Duke U., and Other Cool Stuff

I’m a member of the Facebook John Birch Society Freedom Campaign, and I received an awesome link that I want to share with you. It’s a May 2 speech by Ron Paul to the Duke University College Republicans, but it also has some other cool stuff.

First, there’s a woman who discusses her conversion from liberal Democrat to John Birch Society volunteer. She looks beyond the distinction between Republicans and Democrats and says that there are other threats to America’s liberties.

Then, there’s a video about America being a constitutional republic rather than a democracy. The video is excellent, and it is endorsed by Michael Munger, the chairman of the Duke University Political Science Department. In an illustration of the difference between a democracy and a republic, the narrator gives the scenario of a posse that captures someone who’s on the run. In a democracy, the majority can vote to hang him, and he dies. In a republic, however, a sheriff upholds his rights and gives him a trial by jury. In essence, a republic is the rule of law, not majority tyranny. I always wondered why the Birch society has emphasized that America is not a democracy. This video cleared a lot of that up.

Then, a Republican congressional candidate and Duke alum talks about how Ron Paul has inspired him. He says that he reaches out to Republicans, yet he receives a lot of Democratic support as well.

Finally, Ron Paul speaks about liberty, inflation, the war, and fiscal responsibility. In one interesting line, he criticizes fiscal conservatives for cutting health insurance for children. He doesn’t believe that the federal government should have a role in that, mind you, but he also doesn’t think that it needs to begin there when looking for places to cut.

Enjoy!

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-5335883552107085649&hl=en