Gold, the Silent Success Story

As I write this, gold is breaking $1560 an ounce, a new record. The price rose $25 an ounce today. That is stunning. People were talking about $1500 gold by Christmas. It hit that figure before Good Friday. It is now more than half way from there to $1600 within the following week.

This should be front page news, not only because it is a rip-roaring good investment, but also because gold prices move inversely with the value of the dollar. A rapidly rising gold price means a plummeting dollar. Surely that's news.

So I wrote my column this week on gold and the U.S. economy ("Whither Gold Prices?"). Not that I am an economist or a gold market analyst, but I talk to people who understand these things, I digest the principles, add the politics, and put it all together. Badaboom, badabing...I'm a prognosticator.

When the Republicans retook the House, commissioned by the voters to reign in government spending, had Obama tacked to the center as Bill Clinton did after his 1994 midterm defeat, we would perhaps have a sign that precious metal prices were soon on their way down. But the president has signaled no such change in course. In fact, in his budget-cutting plans, he has signaled his continued determination to raise taxes on the job-producing class.


...there is every reason to believe that there is a lot of upside to precious metal prices. That’s the good news if you still want to get into the market. The bad news is unemployment, inflation, and a huge, tragic waste of human potential as we flounder in this ideological soup of Obama’s wealth redistributionist fantasy.

Track precious metal prices at www.kitco.com.

Consider the front page of today's Wall Street Journal: "Officials Unfazed by Dollar Slide."

The U.S. dollar fell Thursday to its lowest point since the summer of 2008, but officials aren't showing signs that they are alarmed by the currency's descent or acting to stem it. In recent days, the nation's top two economic policy makers—Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner—have publicly expressed their desire for a strong dollar. But there is little indication of a change in policy from either the Fed or Treasury—or in underlying economic conditions—that would alter the currency's downward course.

 This well known analyst gives advise on bubble and silver prices:

Legendary global investor and chairman of Singapore-based Rogers Holdings, Jim Rogers warned that if silver continues to go up like it has been over the past 2 or 3 weeks and reaches triple digits in 2011, he will probably start to think about selling because then 'you've got a bubble'.

Speaking to Financial Survival Radio, Rogers said: " My hope is, silver and gold and all commodities will continue to go up in an orderly way for another ten years or so, and eventually the prices will be very, very high".

"I hope something stops it going up in the foreseeable future and we have a correction," he added.
Explaining his wish, Rogers warned that "a parabolic move and all parabolic moves end badly".

"Eventually, everybody’s going to be owning gold, and then we’ll all have to sell our gold.  But that’s a long way from now, he predicted.

The legendary investor doesn't consider the recent increases in precious metals as parabolic. "If silver continues to go up like it has been over the past 2 or 3 weeks, yes, then it would get to triple digits this year.  And then we’ll have to worry.  It’s not parabolic yet".  

Here is an overview of, as the article puts it, "How gold went from $251 to $1,500."

P.S. Gold hit $1570 an ounce today. Silver still came shy of $50.

Yankees Game

Yup, that's me at Yankee Stadium for the Yankees-White Sox game. And that's home plate right there. Chicago won, 3-2. The game ended with an exciting play by the Chicago outfielder, but his amazing catch went unrecognized by the New York crowd.

High honors to anyone who can identify the man in the suit in the lower right hand corner of the picture. He is a former Yankees player who was wearing a large, diamond-encrusted World Series ring. Seemed like a nice guy.

Let's Rediscover Our Inner Republicans

In last week's column ("We Are All Republicans"), I went on the public record for my colleague, Matt Parks and David Corbin, who have written a fine little handbook of American citizenship, Keeping Our Republic: Lessons for a Political Reformation (Resource Publications, 2011).

The remedy for the current American decline, they argue, is “that we relearn how to think and how to act like republicans.” To help us in our re-education, Parks and Corbin cover our “republican principles” in six chapters that address current political points of division from the standpoint of what ought to be fundamental points of agreement taken from our founding era and founding documents. The titles of most of these chapters come as no surprise—equality, responsibility, justice, lawfulness. But two chapters—honor and prudence—signal the reader that, despite the book’s concise simplicity, this is no mere high school civics primer, though it’s useful in that role.

Read their Washington Times article, "State of the Union? Out of Touch with the Founders" (January 24, 2011).

Petitioning Government By Fasting

So, what should Christian think of the bongoing budget talks in Washington. Is it just a matter of math? We don't need a Christian accountant, just an honest one, right?


Ah, but this is a government budget. So where it allocates spending, whether it takes oln debt to pay for various priorities, and whether it cuts spending or raises taxes are all political decisions. And even accountants are moved by political passions...I bet.


Evengelical Left leader, Jim Wallis, the CEO at Sojourners, is deeply concerned about the morality of our budgetary choices. He says he is all for reducing the deficit (first I've heard of that), but why pick on the poor instead of going after where the real money is: defense spending, corporate subsidies, and tax cuts for the rich. (Never mind that defense spending is already way down under Barack Obama, corporations create jobs when we make the USA a business friendly environment, and the top 5% of income earners pay 59% of the taxes whereas the bottom half of earners pay just 3%. The top 1% pays 38% of personal income taxes. Accountants say the darnedest things.)





For this reason he has pulled together a coalition of Christian leaders and other "people of conscience" to ask What Would Jesus Cut? As part of this campaign he has undertaken a four week fast that will continue until Easter Sunday when Jim will rise and feast. I consider the politics and the piety of this in my Worldmag.com column, "Jim Wallis's Public Petition to God and Government."


For Wallis, this is not just about playing the moral gadfly to elected officials who all too easily lose their moral bearings in the duststorm of DC politics. He is pursuing what he understands to be the Kingdom of God. Jim Wallis has a Social Gospel understanding of the Kingdom. As he says in his HuffPost piece, "Because I am an evangelical Christian and the root of the word "evangelical" is found in the opening statement of Jesus in Luke 4, where Christ says he has come to bring "good news (the 'evangel') to the poor." So to be an evangelical Christian is to try and bring good news to poor people." So, for Wallis and his politico-theological circle, the good news of Christ is essentially political and economic. It's the redistribution of wealth.

It is perfectly legitimate to criticize how government spending is allocated. As Wallis says, budget choices are always moral choices. I agree with this, but in support of it I would argue that resources are inherently scarce and God established government as an instrument of his justice in the world. But Wallis sees government spending, especially federal government spending,  as primarily for addressing the needs of the poor and suffering (don't we all suffer in one way or another?). His rhetoric assumes that if you oppose federal government action, you are simply against addressing those needs in any way. You are a heartless monster and a two-faced Christian if you are a Christian at all.

But that aside, in my column I point out where I think Wallis is at his strongest and where his piety just looks like a power play. What he presents as fasting before God to turn the heart of the king looks a lot like a hunger strike to pressure Congress.

In that regard, he comes across looking ridiculous. Michel Martin of NPR asked him if his voice was being heard in this call to fasting and turn the tide of budget discussions. Oh yes, he said. But his only concrete example was a church youth group in Tennessee organizing a three hour fast. A three hour fast! (Play the Gilligan's Island music.) Imagine. No snacks for three hours. Now if they went on a three hours texting fast, that would be impressive.

Religion has to be in politics because Christ is Lord of all of life. Nonetheless, when religion wades into politics, religion is in greater danger from politics than politics is from religion. There is always foolishness in politics, and a good political system like ours is designed to set one class of fools against another and limit the damage of both. But when the religious undertake political change in the name of religion, they tend to ruin both.

That is not to say they shouldn't try. They just need to be sober, humble, and consciously self-critical about it.

Making War in Libya

Ignoring the President's self-aggrandizement and bravery after the fact (can we ignore this?), I must say that the Obama Doctrine he enunciated in his speech is arguably Christian in character. So I argue in "Finding Neighbor-love in the Obama Doctrine" (March 30, 2011).

Presidents have enunciated foreign policy doctrines in the past, and the need for a "doctrine" has become synonymous with the need for a foreign policy. Consider this summary from Michael Hirsh in the National Journal:

American history is replete with leaders and senior policymakers who have sought to be identified with a grand strategic policy--such as the Monroe Doctrine, the Truman Doctrine, and the Bush Doctrine--and others who have tried hard and failed. Tony Lake, Bill Clinton's first national security adviser, sought to define post-Cold War doctrine by calling for the "enlargement of democracy," which was promptly forgotten. Madeleine Albright, Clinton's second-term secretary of State, later hinted at something called "assertive multilateralism" as a doctrine.

Taking policy to the point of doctrine isn't necessarily a good thing in a complicated world. But neither is incoherence.

Given that, as the Scripture says, "righteousness exalts a nation," a foreign policy should also be righteous, i.e. godly, biblical. If we are making war on Libya (don't tell Congress) for humanitarian reasons, not reasons of national self defense, then is it a legitimate use of the civil magistrate's sword?

The Lord invested civil government with the power of the sword, the divinely sanctioned power to take life justly in the defense of those under its care (Romans 13, I Peter 2). Domestically, this is the power to execute those whose crimes deserve death. Internationally, it is the power of war. It is an awesome power that ought to be used with restraint but, when it is used, wisely and decisively.

At first, it seems obviously good to intervene militarily on behalf of suffering people around the world to save them from everything from persecution and denial of the human rights to genocide.

The Book of Proverbs tells us, "If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; If thou sayest, Behold we knew it not; doth not He that pondereth the heart consider it? and He that keepeth thy soul, doth not He know it? and shall not He render to every man according to his works?" (Proverbs 24:11-12)

But in a world that is awash with tyranny, oppression, and bloodshed, that can very quickly overwhelm the resources of even a mammoth nation like the United States.


In addition to the economic limitations, there are also political complications of which John Quincy Adams warning us in his 1821 Independence Day speech to the House of Representatives when he was James Madison's Secretary of State. He cautioned his and future generations against assuming the role of universal policeman.

Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.... She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.

Though President Obama proclaimed, “wherever people long to be free, they will find a friend in the United States,” he did not promise them military support. He echoed Adams himself who said of America, “Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.”

The Obama Doctrine as stated in this speech (it could change in a week) is not neo-Wilsonianism, the worldwide crusade for democracy that is the opposite of Adams and traces back to that pest of a Presbyterian priest, Woodrow Wilson. Bush was our neo-Wilsonian. Obama is giving us something far more limited and more Christian. In my column, I argue that the Christian basis for such interventon is international neighbor-love tempered by prudence, not political Messianism.


But prudence is no small matter. Running around saving people on every continent would draw us into foreign conflicts "beyond the power of extrication," as Adams put it. As in Iraq, a conflict that President Bush eventually justified as a cause for liberty we were morally obliged to support, we could find ourselves committed to long-term nation building on several fronts while suppressing civil war and dodging factional crossfire. After Libya, why should we not head next for Syria and the next Middle Eastern abattoir after that? We take up this and that fight for liberty, but we end up "in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom." We start off as friend of liberty for oppressed, but by indiscernible stages we end up "the dictatress of the world."

George Kateb, Emeritus professor at Princeton, offers some helpful guidelines. He says there are only three types of regimes: unjust regimes, oppressive regimes, and evil regimes. Unjust regimes, recurrently miscarry justice but nonetheless preserve human rights on the whole: “political injustice is the denial of one or a few personal or political rights.” Oppressive regimes follow a pattern of abusing rights, preserving only a few of them. “Oppression is thus the denial of many or most personal and political rights, but some rights are still respected.” Evil regimes are characterized by genocide. Life in essence is a commodity. This regime not only strips people of their natural rights but also of their lives on a large scale. “Evil is the obliteration of personhood and hence the deprivation of all the personal and political rights of one, few, some, or many.” (George Kateb. The Inner Ocean: Individualism and Democratic Culture. Cornell University Press, 1994; pg.  201)

Within this framework, humanitarian intervention would be justified only against an evil regime.

Also keep in mind Augustine's criteria for a just war: a just cause, proper authority, right intention, last resort, proportionality, and probability of success.

Andy Innes, Johnny Clegg, and Jeff Beck

There is a South African guitarist named Andy Innes who is worth your attention. Here he is promoting some sound equipment, but you can hear a bit of his playing at the end.



He plays for the Johnny Clegg Band. Here is Johnny Clegg singing "Asimbonanga" with an appearance from Nelson Mandela.



Based on a song I heard on his MySpace page, "Low Flyer," which is no longer there, Andy's playing reminds we of Jeff Beck. Here is Jeff Beck.



Andy is orginally from Manchester, England, but we're of no relation that I know of. (My family moved from Aberdeen down to Coventry in the early 1960s after my parents emigrated to Canada.) We're both Inneses and we both studied philosophy as undergraduates. That's it. (Note the philosophy degree. He is not just some aging, garageband punk.)

Happy Children and Slave Children

Here is a remarkable video not only for it's cuteness and hilarity, but also for the way these two twin diaperados appear to be communicating with each other like a couple of Pentecostals in conversational glossolalia.



Now look at this video of North Korean slave children playing Spanish guitars like grown up pros. It's unnatural. I cannot imagine what cruelty these children must have suffered to be able to play like this at such a young age.



No doubt, the North Koreans thought this would impress us and confirm for us the superiority of their "system." But it's just creepy.

Gone Are the Days of Drummer

All this talk of Max Roach led me into conversation with a drummer friend about the apparent dearth of great drummers. I wondered if “the drummer” disappeared with the golden age of jazz. The sixties and seventies gave us great guitarists. (Yes, there have been great country and classical guitarist; I know I'm especially way out of my depth on that one. I have in mind Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana, and Eric Clapton.) But the last notable drummer I recall was Carl Palmer of ELP. I haven’t heard a drum solo since jean jackets were a staple in my wardrobe.

My friend referred me to Thomas Pridgen. Join half a million others in watching this:



I'm told that the great drummers are spread out in that vast musical diversity that has developed since the 1970s. But I’m not saying no one can play the drums nicely. I’m just saying that everyone knows who Buddy Rich and Max Roach were. But any great drummers there are today are hidden in the tall grass, or so it seems to me.

I case you don't know who Buddy Rich (1917-1987) and Max Roach (1924-2007) were, watch this. The friend who sent me the link said: "If you listen to the album in stereo, Buddy is on one channel, Max on the other. But you can tell the difference because Buddy's playing is more precise and bombastic, while Max's is looser, more be-bop."



As usual, whoever posted this on YouTube gives no information on the what, when, where of it.

Immanuel Kant and Thelonious Monk

I have spent the day reading Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics while listening to the historic 1957 recording of Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane (on vinyl!). You tell me if those two things--that labor of the eyes and that pleaure of the ears--go naturally together.

Because I am an infantalized, 21st century consumer, I went onto Amazon to see if I could get it inexpensively on CD and right now when I want it, preferably in just two days. Yup. Six bucks. Delivered.* With extra tracks. My character is rotting even as I type. But "Ruby My Dear" and "Well, You Needn't" will sound good on the LIRR after I load it all onto my iPod.

I then went looking for Max Roach, as I do from time to time. Freedom Now Suite is still too pricey for me. But I found this interesting video that graphically presents the song I'm looking for. I thought it was on M'Boom or Freedom Now Suite, but I didn't hear it on the sample tracks.



Of course, that is only half the song, as I recall. He takes off from there. I'll keep looking.

*We have Amazon Prime.

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I found it. (It was there on the Internet the whole time!) It's on Chattahoochee Red. Of course! But it's not available on Amazon, neither new nor used. Why? Why! Why can't I have whatever want right now from sitting on my couch? (Remedy for this petulant, infantile feeling of entitlement: read previous post on all the evil in the world and the great hope of the world.)

Amazon does tells us this: "For this quartet outing, Max Roach performs seven group originals plus tributes to Clifford Brown ("I Remember Clifford"), Thelonious Monk ("'Round Midnight") and John Coltrane ("Giant Steps"). Roach's regular band (with trumpeter Cecil Bridgewater, Odean Pope on tenor, flute and oboe, bassist Calvin Hill and on "Wefe," guest pianist Walter Bishop, Jr.) is in excellent form on this spirited outing; pity that this LP has been out of print for quite some time." (emphasis added. Pity? Inexplicable!)

Side 1:
The Dream/It's Time I Remember Clifford
Reach For It
Lonesome Lover
Wefe (We-Fay)

Side 2:
Six Bits Blues
'Round Midnight
Red River Road
Giant Steps
Chattahoochee Red

Musicians:
Max Roach - drums, chimes, tympani, percussion
Calvin Hill - bass violin
Cecil Bridgewater - trumpet, flugelhjorn
Odean Pope - tenor sax, alto flute, oboe
Walter Bishop, Jr. - piano

Hope Amidst the Evil

After last week's column on the West Bank Fogel massacre ("Middle East Murder"), it struck me--or I should say weighed heavily on me--that there is a lot of evil making the news these days. It crowds into limited news time and forces itself on our attention.

Just after the beginning of the Jewish sabbath on March 11, terrorists from Fatah’s Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade (so-called) broke into a West Bank settlement home and butchered Rabbi Uri Fogel in his bed, along with his infant daughter, his wife, Ruth, and two of their sons, ages 11 and 4. This was not shooting from a distance; this was throat slashing and heart stabbing. Two children survived the massacre only because the monsters who flooded the home with blood overlooked them. The 12-year-old daughter arrived home after midnight from a youth event to behold what no human being should ever witness.

That same day, the earthquake and tsunami hit northeast Japan with a resultant nuclear crisis that has pushed even the misery of 450,000 people whom the disaster made homeless.

This volunteer fireman lost his wife, his son's family, and his four grandchildren when he went to close a wall against the tsunami. Warning, it is very sad.



Then there's Libya where the self-styled Mad Dog of the Middle East has been shooting and bombing his own unarmed people (as well as the subsequently armed ones) when he foresaw their protests sending him into exile as Hosni Mubarak's room-mate.

And all of that is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg as far as human suffering in the world is concerned. It's in Syrian dungeons, Thai brothels, Brazilian slums, and it's on your street.

In this week's column, "Overcome by Evil These Days?," I indicate where the wise turn when they come to face the ubiquitous evil of a fallen world.

Long Range Political Prediction

Ordinarily, the only thing that long-range political predictions have going for them is that they are forgotten long before they are disproved.

But Dick Morris makes a strong case for the unlikelihood of Barack Obama's re-election in 2012.

It is essentially an economic argument. Economic slowdown, inflation (sharply rising food and energy prices), sustained unemployment, and a continuing crisis in the housing market.

This dark horizon is partly the administration's own doing. Part of it is international events like the Middle East revolutions that have driven up oil prices and the Sendai earthquake that has taken the world's third largest economy offline. As far as the Middle East is concerned, a wiser American foreign policy could have turned some of these events, such as those in Libya and a couple of years ago in Iran, to our advantage.

Here's Morris:

As the Rev. Jeremiah Wright said - outrageously and wrongly - about 9/11, "the chickens are coming home to roost." The policies of this administration - the disastrous overspending, the irresponsible borrowing, the social experimentation - all are magnifying and amplifying the impact of the recession. Relief is not going to come anytime soon.

Instead, the true legacy of the Obama years is likely to be stagflation and an entire decade wiped out by his policies, budget and programs. Long after he is gone in 2013, we will still be repairing the damage of his terrible decisions.

Of course, anything can happen in politics. Like the Republicans could put up a completely implausible candidate as they did in the 2010 Senate contests in Nevada and Maryland.

Monsters in the Middle East

When you consider the Arab-Israeli conflict, consider also who it is that the Israelis are having to deal with. If you are heartened by democracy spreading in Arab countries (if in fact that happens), consider who it is will be voting for governments in those countries.

Glen Beck describes the murder of Israeli settler family Uri and Ruth and their three children Yoav (11), Elad (4), and Hadas (3 months) (thankfully three children escaped) by a Palestinian terrorist.



Here is an interview with the Vogels a year ago.



Here is the Fogel family playing in their home.



Here are the surviving children with their grandmother, if your heart can stand it.



My column today, "Middle East Murder," addresses an aspect of this. I should have titled it "Middle East Massacre."

Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal has a fine column on the subject, "Are Israeli Settlers Human?" (You may have to Google the title to get at the column.)

A few years ago, British poet and Oxford don Tom Paulin offered a view on what should be done to certain Jewish settlers. "[They] should be shot dead," he told Al-Ahram Weekly. "I think they are Nazis, racists. I feel nothing but hatred for them." As for Israel itself, it was, he said, "an historical obscenity."

Last Friday, apparently one or more members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, the terrorist wing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's "moderate" Fatah party, broke into the West Bank home of Udi and Ruth Fogel. The Jewish couple were stabbed to death along with their 11-year-old son Yoav, their 4-year-old son Elad and their 3-month-old daughter Hadas. Photographs taken after the murders and posted online show a literal bloodbath. Is Mr. Paulin satisfied now?

Unquestionably pleased are residents of the Palestinian town of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, who "hit the streets Saturday to celebrate the terror attack" and "handed out candy and sweets," according to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. The paper quoted one Rafah resident saying the massacre was "a natural response to the harm settlers inflict on the Palestinian residents in the West Bank." Just what kind of society thinks it's "natural" to slit the throats of children in their beds?

The answer: The same society that has named summer camps, soccer tournaments and a public square in Ramallah after Dalal Mughrabi, a Palestinian woman who in March 1978 killed an American photographer and hijacked a pair of Israeli buses, leading to the slaughter of 37 Israeli civilians, 13 children among them. ...

The mystery of iniquity.

Here are the Crises. Where are the Statesmen?

What should we expect of our next president? What is the defining crisis of our times? It would help if we had a History of the Twenty-first Century, but that won’t be available for many years to come.

The remarkable thing about great statesmen is that, as though by intuitive grasp of the relative importance of things, they seem to see the present in the clear light of the future. Churchill, in the political wilderness, saw the monstrous threat of Nazism long before his more respectable contemporaries did. It was not a recent insight that he shared in his “Their Finest Hour” speech when he cast the coming Battle of Britain as a contest for “the survival of Christian civilization” and “the abyss of a new Dark Age.”

When we look for a presidential candidate, we are looking for a statesman.

Mitch Daniels says the great crisis is financial. There is a strong case to be made for this. But statesmen are also able to read and lead the public. Daniels stumbled in this. Last year, he told Andy Ferguson of the Weekly Standard that the next president would have to call a truce on social issues to focus on our nation’s more immediate and existential crisis of crippling debt. "It is just a suggestion I made once," he told World reporter Edward Lee Pitts. Both Pitts and Ferguson demonstrate that Daniels is pro-life to his bones. Ferguson quotes Curt Smith, head of the Indiana Family Institute, saying, “He has a deep faith, he’s totally pro-life, and he walks the talk.” Perhaps it was just a stumble. Perhaps he is a great man, and not the bean counter he appeared to be at that moment.

Newt Gingrich tells us that Islam will swallow us if we do not rally against it. This could be true, and rally we must. But in America, unlike Europe which has already committed moral and demographic suicide, we still have a backbone to stiffen, and our uniquely free society encourages Muslim Americans to moderate and assimilate. As for Newt, he is not a great man. He is strong on insight and analysis, but profoundly deficient in character. No man as morally hollow as Newt Gingrich should be President. We suffered that from 1992-2000. Newt is the Bill Clinton of the right

In yesterday's Worldmag column, I make my case that abortion and the disintegration of the family are the great moral crises that threaten to destroy the nation ("Facing the Crisis of Our Times").

As for abortion in particular, not only does it present serious demographic and workforce challenges, it is a moral blight that invites God's righteous judgment.

We need to repent of our evil, return to the Lord, and reform our ways. George Washington saw the flourishing of our nation as inseparable from our national repentance before God’s righteous majesty and from our trust above all in the strength of his arm on our behalf. He wrote at time when the Lord’s government of the nations was commonly recognized and with a clear political conscience for doing so.

In his General Orders of March 6, 1776, as Commander of the Continental Army, General Washington declared, “a day of fasting, prayer, and humiliation to implore the Lord, the Giver of all victory, to pardon our manifold sins and wickedness’s (sic.), and that it would please him to bless the Continental Arms, with his divine favor and protection.” (I thank Dr. Peter Lillback for sending me this reference.)

Inside the Union Mind

It has been interesting to see all these union people jumping up and down and chanting their chants up in Wisconsin.

"What do we want?" ("Fill in the blank!") When do we want it?" ("Now!")

"We are..." ("We are...") "Union!" ("Union!")

It's like watching someone else's religion.

Some of the scenes are like time travel back to the sixties. Guitars. Joan Baez freedom songs. It's really pathetic.

In my column on the subject, "The Unions Have No Clothes," I identify the difference between public sector and private sector unions. With the former, the relationship between management and labor is symbiotic, not adversarial. (1) Unions contribute money for the re-election of their employers (if they're Democrats). (2) The employers don't use their own money to pay their employees. They tax it from other people or they borrow it. I thank George Will for pointing out the difference in his much finer column, "Out of Wisconsin."

The heart of my argument is this.

Margaret Thatcher faced a similar issue when she became British Prime Minister in 1979. ... Thatcher knew she would have to face down the unions over where sovereignty and the locus of democracy lay in Great Britain, in the elected government or in the labor unions. The clash in Wisconsin shows the same question is at issue in America today.

These union people speak about the "fight for democracy," and they compare their fight in Wisconsin to the fight for democracy in the Middle East and North Africa. It seems that "democracy" means widespread unionization and consequent union domination of politics. That's what Britain had between WWII and Mrs. Thatcher. It is also the same reasoning that supported the claim of East European communist dictatorships calling themselves "democracies" (like the German Democratic Republic, or communist East Germany). These are the same unions that want to do away with the secret ballot by "card check" legislation that would allow union thugs to approach people--maybe at their homes--with cards for them to sign...no pressure, of course.

The left doesn't see how these obscenely generous public service employee compensation packages are bankrupting government. To them it is not a spending problem, but a revenue problem. Ben Manski of the Liberty Tree Foundation says what seems self-evident to the "soak-the-rich" end of the political spectrum. According to him, everybody--public and private sector--should be able to quit work at 50 and be paid full salary for the rest of their lives. Paying for it should be no problem: raise taxes on the rich and the corporations. It's as simple as that. Lots of money there. Free for the taking.



In light of this, consider how closely tied the White House is to union power. Richard Trumka, the president of the AFL-CIO, is a weekly advisor to the White House.



This union dominated world of Barack Obama's community organizing dreams is an economic and political nightmare. It's good that we are having it out.
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One helpful commenter at the Worldmag column shares four points of difference between public and private sector unions that david Brooks lists in his column:

1. “Private sector unions push against the interests of shareholders and management; public sector unions push against the interests of taxpayers.” (David Brooks, Op-ed, New York Times, Feb. 21, 2011).

2. “Private sector union members know that their employers could go out of business, so they have an incentive to mitigate their demands; public sector union members work for state monopolies and have no such interest.” (David Brooks, Op-ed, New York Times, Feb. 21, 2011).

3. “Private sector unions confront managers who have an incentive to push back against their demands. Public sector unions face managers who have an incentive to give into them for the sake of their own survival.” (David Brooks, Op-ed, New York Times, Feb. 21, 2011).

4. “Most important, public sector unions help choose those they negotiate with. Through gigantic campaign contributions and overall clout, they have enormous influence over who gets elected to bargain with them, especially in state and local races.” (David Brooks, Op-ed, New York Times, Feb. 21, 2011).

But how many people in the public discussion just talk about "unions" as though these government worker unions weren't a separate species?

Constitution Toon

I found this charming video on the Constitution Society homepage.



It appears to be Libertarian, but their hearts are in the right place on this one.

The Entitlements Around Our Necks

The interesting historical confluence of muscular Obama progressivism, the continuing fallout from the 2008 financial crisis, and the European welfare state insolvency has led to serious questions about the feasibility of the American welfare state.

So in my column this week, I examine the relative merits of private charity and government entitlement, or what Tocqueville calls "legal charity."

Some comments on last week's column, "Obama's Godly Government," actually condemned private charity as an evil, and extolled entitlements as superior in both efficiency and humanity.

Said one, "Its the stability of funding from entitlements that allows a recipient to plan ahead, set goals and work his/her way back to independence. Charity is inconsistent, random and in a subtle manner demands an obligation."

Said another, "Charity ennobles the giver and obligates the recipient. The former is noble while the latter is common. This is the core dynamic of feudalism. Entitlements make possible the orderly transfer of substance to the next generation, whether through inheritance, social contract, or special grant. ... The welfare state has been an essential ingredient in moral and material betterment since the passing of the ancien régime."

Here I let Tocqueville take the ball:

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In my column last week, I asserted, "Charity ennobles and enables. Entitlements enslave and incapacitate." I was echoing Alexis de Tocqueville who, in his “Memoir on Pauperism” (a must-read), argues that legal charity, what we call public welfare or entitlements, “depraves men even more than it impoverishes them.” Private charity involves people in one another’s lives who ordinarily would occupy separate worlds, the giver actively affirming the receiver’s humanity, and the receiver inspired with hope and gratitude. By contrast, attempts by the government to duplicate this relationship inspire resentment in the rich and envy in the poor, while leaving them still rich and poor

Here I take up the ball myself.

Entitlements are attractive because of their apparent stability as a system of relief in contrast to the comparative unpredictability of private giving. But that is also their danger. As they are institutionalized and made permanent, they incline people to rely on them just as permanently. The widespread cultural habit of people voluntarily helping people in need—carrying them through a period of unemployment, taking care of them in their old age, providing pro bono medical care—unites us with ties of obligation and mutual affection. But the omniprovisional state destroys even natural human ties. Families evaporate. Communities disintegrate. It infantilizes, and even dehumanizes. The brick wall of economic unsustainability that we are beginning to experience is merely adding material constraints on the entitlement way of helping each other to the tragic moral constraints that have been obvious for some time.

Michael Goodwin points to the entitlement attitude behind the public sector union revolt in Wisconsin and other states in this Fox News article which is adapted from something in The New York Post.

The Wisconsin showdown between a determined Republican governor and spoiled public unions is shaping up as a crucial test of state and municipal solvency. But the financial stakes represent only part of the much larger conflict engulfing America. The real war is over the entitlement culture itself. And while government spending is the most visible part, the ultimate issues are the character and fate of our nation.

The most powerful moral refutation of the entitlement regime I have read recently is Charles Murray's AEI address in 2009, "The Europe Syndrome." That should be in your must-read pile.

Church and State in Loving Embrace

Listen to (or read) the President's National Prayer Breakfast speech from February 3, 2011.



Notice that the church needs the government if it is to do its work of charity. Does that sound like Christ's vision for his bride and witness in the world?

My column on this speech explores the division between Evangelical left and right over the role of government in "a just and caring society." President Obama claims that the church and nonprofits are simply inadequate to the needs a round us. The government "must" be involved.

Of course, the president is looking at the capacities and willingness of non-governmental givers and providers in the context of a large-and-getting-larger government welfare system. We now have had generations of government that has been progressively crowding out private action by taxing away capacity to give and weakening people’s sense of their moral responsibility to care. It’s impressive that we give and care as much as we do! But any deficiency that we have privately in these is not an argument for more government action, but less.

The second problem I see in the president’s thesis is the equivalency with which he speaks of private and government caring activity, whether together or separately. When the American people’s charity is expressed through government, it is not received as charity but as entitlement. It follows from the nature of the relationship. As such, the effect is different. Charity ennobles and enables. Entitlements enslave and incapacitate. Charity tries to get you back on your own feet, functioning as an equal. Entitlements maintain you as a permanent client, dependent and politically supportive.

Read "Obama's Godly Government" (Worldmag.com, February 16, 2011).

Texting and the Limits of Law

"There is a particular temperament that wants to address every problem with a law or regulation. But there are some evils that law as an instrument is poorly designed to fight. For that reason, criminalizing them causes more problems than it solves."

That is my thesis in "Don't Mess With Texting" (Worldmag.com, Feb. 9, 2011). Studies have shown that laws against texting while driving actually increase accidents.

The column is about the nature of law, not about texting at all (though I go into details on how bone-headed the people are who do this). But I guess my argument was too subtle. And it seems that what I say about how the Long Island Rail Road handles people who talk loudly on their cell phones just distracts from my point, instead of illustrating it.

Here is an organization that, "attempts to accomplish with public education and social condemnation (shaming) what the law’s fat fingers are by nature too clumsy to do."



Where we have good citizens, we don't need good laws.

But while we're on the topic of texting while driving, here is a shocking video of what happens when people text while driving. (Teen girls and young women are twice as likely to t.w.d. than teen boys and young men, so the video depicts three silly young women.)



Here is a news report on teen reaction to the video.



None of us are safe on the roads while this remains socially acceptable. Perhaps we need to raise the driving age to the age I was when I got my license: 28!

Smoking and this Mortal Coil

Jerry Weinberger has a poetic account of his life growing up a smoker, "On Smoking a Cigar" (City Journal, Winter 2011).

"Smoking a cigar reminds one of finitude, and life not so reminded is not whole—is no life at all."


It is interesting how unhealthy, essentially suicidal behavior can be romanticized and glorified. But any of you who take a nail from time to time will surely enjoy this short essay by a very fine scholar of Francis Bacon and Benjamin Franklin.
 
Weinberger edited The Great Instauration and New Atlantis for Croft Classics, two short works by Francis Bacon.
 
He has also written:
 
Science, Faith and Politics: Francis Bacon and the Utopian Roots of the Modern Age (Cornell University Press, 1985).
 
“Politics and the Problem of Technology: An Essay on Heidegger and the Tradition of Political Philosophy” (American Political Science Review, March 1992).
 
“Technology and the Problem of Liberal Democracy” in The Problem of Technology in the Western Tradition, ed. Melzer, Weinberger, and Zinman (Cornell University Press, 1993).
 
Francis Bacon’s History of the Reign of King Henry the Seventh: A New Edition and Interpretive Essay (Cornell University Press, 1996).
 
“Pious Princes and Red-Hot Lovers: The Politics of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet” (The Journal of Politics, 2003).
 
Benjamin Franklin Unmasked: On the Unity of His Moral, Religious, and Political Thought (The University Press of Kansas, 2005).

Save Our Souls. Repeal ObamaCare.

ObamaCare is back on the front burner. That's what happens when you pass an historic and revolutionary piece of social legislation by the barest majority and against strong popular opposition. People are not tired of the health care debate. They are tired of arrogant, liberal social engineers and wealth redistributors.

In "The Moral Dividend of Replacing ObamaCare" (Worldmag.com), I argue that the 2010 health care reform will be a devastating blow not only to the nation's economy but also to our sense of personal responsibility (which is bad enough as it is).

I set up my closing argument with this reductio ad absurdum scenario.

Democratic lawmakers argue that healthcare is too important to leave to individual responsibility. Because some people cannot afford it, the right thing to do morally is to socialize the costs so that everyone has this basic good at public expense. But that claims a rationale for ever-greater government takeover of people’s private affairs that has no limiting principle. Food is important. So are clothes. People can’t get to work without a car. Why should some people have free access to these basic goods and with Cadillac-quality (literally, in the case of cars) while others go without them or get by with shoddy quality? When it comes to food, clothing, housing, and transportation, they will complain that we have a two-tier society. Ban the private car or give everyone a functional government-made, government-issued car. Why shouldn’t everyone live in worker housing? Let’s nationalize Nike and Tommy Hilfiger. Style for everyone!

I close by saying that, morally, this approach to government,

...leads to infantile dependency. People lose the inclination to provide for themselves as responsible, self-governing, adult people. “I have this need! Why does the government not provide for it! It’s important!” The government becomes a benevolent zookeeper, and the people are all nicely preserved. But, like the lions sunning themselves on the rocks behind the fence, no one resembles what a human being is supposed to be.

This column provoked a long string of comments in which people debate (I use a polite term) back and forth about the merits of ObamaCare. They also debate what I'm saying, and who is being rational and polite about it, and who is not. Someone calls me a "political hack" for joining God and mammon in the phrase "moral dividend." Sheesh! Another condemns me for, he says, callously just wishing someone with cancer or MS a boost in character. Someone comes to my defense, pointing out that I clearly state: "There are better ways of helping people in need." That's all I say because the substance of what should replace ObamaCare is not the subject of the column, and we only have 400-700 words to work with anyway. My defender also rebukes the fellow for rudeness and indifference to understanding the arguments of others. Unrepentant and undaunted, the curmudgeon gripes on.

It is interesting to see how many nasty and unreasonable leftists--both professing Christian and clearly non--spend their time tussling with conservative World readers on the commentary pages of the website. Are they unemployed? Are they employed by George Soros? That leftists would occupy themselves with this constant sparring in a conservative forum is one thing, but how ungracious the professedly Christian ones are is another.
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*Save Our Souls: of course, I mean souls in the classical sense.