This is one of my longer posts, possibly the longest I’ve done on the blog. What happened was, I was reading an open letter from a Christian planning on voting a particular way, and as I read further and further into it, one objection after another kept coming to my mind, and one problem after another regarding the writer’s reasons kept getting in the way. Finally, I realized I’d have to just set aside some of my typical day-to-day blogging of the link-and-quick-comment type, and go in-depth into the problems I see with the author, and Christians in general, who vote Democratic for specifically Christian reasons, and especially regarding the social issues brought up in the letter. Pull up a cup of coffee and sit back.

Anne Rice is a Catholic author. I’ll admit to not being too well-read, but as a Protestant my knowledge of Catholic authors is even more limited. Therefore, I’m not sure how much Ms. Rice’s views are mainstream Catholic, although whether or not they are really isn’t the crux of this post. I do want to discuss the views she espouses, and espouses quite well as an author. That she is a Catholic and I am a Protestant has really no bearing on my criticism of her recent public letter dated August 10. I know Protestants who would agree with her on these issues, so this is not a denominational thing. She professes Christianity, as do I, and we have very similar goals, as far as I can tell, on the topics she discusses, and yet we’re voting differently. Ms. Rice wrote a lengthy letter to her readers on her main web site (no permalink so don’t know how long it’ll stay on the front page) about why she is endorsing Hillary Clinton for President. They reasons she lists for that endorsement, to me, run completely counter to her list of important issues and goals. If she is truly concerned about those goals, I don’t follow her endorsement, nor the endorsement of other of my friends and acquaintances of any Democrat in the current group. I want to address the inconsistencies I see in this post.

Ms. Rice starts out with her Christian and Catholic creds, which I respect and am willing to accept. She talks about how, while the separation of church and state is a good idea, the voter does not have that prohibition, and in fact must consider their vote based on their religion.

Conscience requires the Christian to vote as a Christian. Commitment to Christ is by its very nature absolute.

I agree wholeheartedly. But, she also correctly notes, we have only 2 political parties in this country. (She believes, as do I, that a vote for neither Democrat or Republican, whether it’s a non-vote or a vote for a 3rd party, is essentially a vote for one of the two major ones, no matter how you slice it.) In short:

To summarize, I believe in voting, I believe in voting for one of the two major parties, and I believe my vote must reflect my Christian beliefs.

Bearing all this in mind, I want to say quietly that as of this date, I am a Democrat, and that I support Hillary Clinton for President of the United States.

And that last clause is where the disagreement begins.

Charitable Giving

The first paragraph of explanation deals with giving.

Though I deeply respect those who disagree with me, I believe, for a variety of reasons, that the Democratic Party best reflects the values I hold based on the Gospels. Those values are most intensely expressed for me in the Gospel of Matthew, but they are expressed in all the gospels. Those values involve feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, visiting those in prison, and above all, loving ones neighbors and loving ones enemies. A great deal more could be said on this subject, but I feel that this is enough.

First of all, neither the religious right nor the religious left have a lock on charitable giving. At the same time, as was noted on this post regarding a study by Arthur Brooks, conservatives outgive liberals by quite a significant amount. How does this relate to how the political parties differ in their view of the government’s role in this? Ms. Rice, I believe, falls into a trap by simplistically equating the advocacy of government charity with Jesus’ admonition to the individual to be charitable. Democrats say the government should give more, so by her reckoning thy are more in line with her Christian view. However, it has always made me wonder how when Jesus tells me, personally, to be charitable, that somehow this means that I should also use the government to force my neighbor, under penalty of jail, to be “charitable”. I put “charitable” in quotes because when there’s force involved, there’s no real act of charity. How Democrat Christians get from point A to point Z on this boggles my mind. Another statistic from Brooks’ study brings this point home; People who believe the government does not have a basic responsibility to take care of the people who can’t take care of themselves are 27 percent more likely to give to charity.

On top of this, the bureaucratic inefficiency filter that we’re all forced to funnel our “charitable” taxes through siphons money away from the needy, as does the massive fraud that goes on in a big government program that has little accountability.

Conservatives believe that forcibly taking money isn’t charity, and that it is not government’s role to rob from Peter to pay Paul, and that the way the government handles this creates dependency and causes further problems, like giving fathers a disincentive to stick around. Because of this, conservatives give more of their own money to local charities where the administrative costs are much lower. The Republican party, the current home of most conservative political ideas in this country, purports to support these goals, and while they don’t always follow those principles, they have done better at this than Democrats. An expanded role of government in the area of giving to the poor is not the best way for that to happen, and as a Christian I believe it’s not moral to force others to give when they don’t want to. Again, Jesus asks me to give; He didn’t ask me to force others to.

Ms. Rice, in ticking off a laundry list of values, seems to be falling for the framing of the issue that Democrats have put forth; welfare = caring. There are other ways to care, which can have much better results.

Part 2 tomorrow.

Technorati Tags: Anne Rice, Catholic, Protestant, religion and politics, charity, welfare, abortion, Democrats, Republicans, social issues

This is another reason why the US government shouldn’t be spending borrowed money to finance extra-constitutional spending.

The Chinese government has begun a concerted campaign of economic threats against the United States, hinting that it may liquidate its vast holding of US treasuries if Washington imposes trade sanctions to force a yuan revaluation.

Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning – for the first time – that Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion (£658bn) of foreign reserves as a political weapon to counter pressure from the US Congress.

Shifts in Chinese policy are often announced through key think tanks and academies.

Described as China’s “nuclear option” in the state media, such action could trigger a dollar crash at a time when the US currency is already breaking down through historic support levels.

It would also cause a spike in US bond yields, hammering the US housing market and perhaps tipping the economy into recession. It is estimated that China holds over $900bn in a mix of US bonds.

When the federal government is asked to do things the Constitution doesn’t tell it to do, and when more and more money flows through it, and with that more and more power, it’s hard to stop spending. And with that comes borrowing. And with that comes slavery. The same thing could happen even if spending were kept in the context of the Constitution, but once you escape its limits, there is then no limit.

The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender. – Proverbs 22:7 (NIV)

Technorati Tags: China, debt, Communism, borrowing, deficit

…has been cut in half.

The nation’s budget deficit will drop to $205 billion in the fiscal year that ends in September, less than half of what it was at its peak in 2004, according to new White House estimates.

President Bush planned to discuss the figures in an afternoon appearance.

The new figure is considerably smaller than original estimates. In February, the White House predicted that this year’s deficit would be $244 billion because of stronger-than-expected revenue collections. The deficit hit a peak of $413 billion in 2004 and was $248 billion last year.

And with no tax increase? Those on the Left who both decried the Bush tax cuts, while at the same time morphed into fiscal conservatives regarding the spending by the Republican Congress, will have a tough time with this news. Heads may explode if they have to credit Bush with anything let alone tax cuts. Fiscal conservatives who have always been fiscal conservatives will, of course, have no consistency issues with both the tax cut results and with continuing to push for less spending.

Technorati Tags: economy, deficit, tax cuts

An Kenyan expert in economics, James Shikwati, was interviewed by the German magazine Der Spiegel. The interview got off to a quick start as Shikwati surprised the journalist.

SPIEGEL:Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to beef up the development aid for Africa…

Shikwati: … for God’s sake, please just stop.

SPIEGEL: Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty.

Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor.

Massive injections of money, good intentions, and virtually nothing to show for it. Sounds just like the welfare state here. The journalist is confused, bewildered.

SPIEGEL: Do you have an explanation for this paradox?

Why is it a paradox if it simply a case of doing what doesn’t work on a much larger scale? This exposes the incredibly simplistic assumption on the part of liberal ideology that throwing money a a problem really should work…in theory. As conservatives have been arguing for decades, however, an understanding of economics helps explain this “paradox”. In answer to the question, Shikwati explains.

Shikwati: Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa’s problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn’t even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.

Being taught to be beggars, dependence on government, dampening entrepreneurship, and government corruption involved in the cash transfer. Sounds just like the welfare…well, you get the idea.

Well, now our journalist is flummoxed. Doesn’t someone have to help them? Shikwati slaps down this dependency thinking, and explains how food shipments both prop up corrupt governments and at the same time destroy the local economy’s incentive.

SPIEGEL: Even in a country like Kenya, people are starving to death each year. Someone has got to help them.

Shikwati: But it has to be the Kenyans themselves who help these people. When there’s a drought in a region of Kenya, our corrupt politicians reflexively cry out for more help. This call then reaches the United Nations World Food Program — which is a massive agency of apparatchiks who are in the absurd situation of, on the one hand, being dedicated to the fight against hunger while, on the other hand, being faced with unemployment were hunger actually eliminated. It’s only natural that they willingly accept the plea for more help. And it’s not uncommon that they demand a little more money than the respective African government originally requested. They then forward that request to their headquarters, and before long, several thousands tons of corn are shipped to Africa …

SPIEGEL: … corn that predominantly comes from highly-subsidized European and American farmers …

Shikwati: … and at some point, this corn ends up in the harbor of Mombasa. A portion of the corn often goes directly into the hands of unsrupulous politicians who then pass it on to their own tribe to boost their next election campaign. Another portion of the shipment ends up on the black market where the corn is dumped at extremely low prices. Local farmers may as well put down their hoes right away; no one can compete with the UN’s World Food Program. And because the farmers go under in the face of this pressure, Kenya would have no reserves to draw on if there actually were a famine next year. It’s a simple but fatal cycle.

And it just gets better after that. It included an admission from a tyrant that they indeed waste the aid, a exposure of exaggerated AIDS numbers for profit, and an African biochemist stuck being a chauffeur to aid workers. You simply must read the whole thing. It really turns on its head the idea that huge amounts of aid helps a nation, or even a continent. Giving to the poor is one thing. Destroying the individual spirit by destroying their livelihood is entirely another. The interview concludes with the journalist, playing the part of the liberal to the hilt (and, based on the full interview, not really play-acting) asking in desperation…

SPIEGEL: What are the Germans supposed to do?

Shikwati: If they really want to fight poverty, they should completely halt development aid and give Africa the opportunity to ensure its own survival. Currently, Africa is like a child that immediately cries for its babysitter when something goes wrong. Africa should stand on its own two feet.

Rugged individualism, combined with personal, not massive, charitable giving. That is the responsible position.

Technorati Tags: Africa, James Shikwati, foreign aid, United Nations, World Food Program, Kenya, AIDS, poverty

I’m shocked. Or not.

After promising unprecedented openness regarding Congress’ pork barrel practices, House Democrats are moving in the opposite direction as they draw up spending bills for the upcoming budget year.

Democrats are sidestepping rules approved their first day in power in January to clearly identify “earmarks”-lawmakers’ requests for specific projects and contracts for their states-in documents that accompany spending bills.

Rather than including specific pet projects, grants and contracts in legislation as it is being written, Democrats are following an order by the House Appropriations Committee chairman to keep the bills free of such earmarks until it is too late for critics to effectively challenge them.

Smaller government is the only way this kind of abuse can be reduced, not just a change in party power. The more Washington does — the more responsibility we hand over to them — the more money they get. The more money, the more abuse of it. Divide up some of that power into 50 pieces (commonly referred to at “states”), and you have more accountability and less abuse, mostly because when you centralize things in Washington, abusers have one-stop shopping for largesse.

Technorati Tags: Democrats, earmarks, smaller government, federalism

After the election, I noted that some right-of-center pundits were saying that while the Democrats won big in the election, conservative values won big as well. No, that’s not a contradiction. I said that the actions of the Democrats has been a great misreading of the election results which, as had been noted by others, was the election of more moderate Democrats, not the leftist kind.

Today comes proof of it. Blue Dog Democrats are asserting their power.

When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi faced scorn from fellow Democrats during a recent closed-door meeting for not moving more aggressively on Iraq, it was conservative Blue Dogs _ her ideological opposites _ who rose to defend her.

The unlikely support reflected an emerging dynamic in the House, where the 43 right-of-center fiscal hawks are increasingly asserting their power, working to moderate the policies and image of a party with a liberal base and leaders to match.

The coalition’s name is a play on yellow dog Democrats, an epithet that came into being in the 1920s to describe party loyalists in the South who, it was said, would vote for a yellow dog if it ran on the Democratic ticket. Democrats who said their moderate to conservative views had been “choked blue” by the party’s liberal flank started referring to themselves as blue dogs and formed their group after Republicans swept control of the House in 1994.

With Democrats in charge again, the Blue Dogs have played a key role in halting an emerging plan to place strict conditions on war funding. Their revolt helped beat back that proposal, by Pelosi ally John Murtha, D-Pa. Leaders are now considering a watered-down version.

These moderate Democrats push fiscal responsibility and are putting the brakes on the Pelosi/Murtha wing who are charting a course for Iraqi killing fields. As much as the anti-war crowd would hope for it, and as much as the Democrat leadership talks it, support for cut-and-run is weak. Further, fiscal irresponsibility (from either party) is not what the election was about, either. The last election was indeed a referendum on how Republicans have been running the government, and while the public doesn’t like how the war has gone, they elected more Democrats who don’t want to just bail out post haste. Any suggestion otherwise is to blindly ignore those very election results they continue to trumpet.

Technorati Tags: Nancy Pelosi, John Murtha, Blue Dog Democrats

Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina had an article in the Washington Post last week (just pointed out to me) regarding conservative conservationists. No, nowhere near an oxymoron. His point is how the right should deal with the global warming issue, because if we don’t deal with it, the Left will, and you know what sort of big-government, economic takeover solutions they’ll come up with. (Think Kyoto Protocol.) Gov. Sanford make 3 points:

First, conservatives must reframe the environmental discussion by replacing the political left’s scare tactics with conservative principles such as responsibility and stewardship. Stewardship — the idea that we need to take care of what we’ve been given — simply makes sense. It makes dollars as well, for the simple reason that our economy is founded on natural resources, from tourism and manufacturing to real estate and agriculture. Here in South Carolina, conservation easements are springing up across the state as landowners see the dual benefit of preserving the environment and protecting their pocketbooks.

Second, conservatives must reclaim lost ground from far-left interest groups by showing how environmental conservation is as much about expanding economic opportunity as it is about saving whales or replanting rain forests. When corporations such as BP and Shell America pursue alternative energy sources, they not only cut carbon emissions but help cut our petroleum dependency on OPEC nations. When South Carolina restaurants recycle their oyster shells, they not only restore shellfish habitat but take a job off local governments’ plates and ensure continuing revenue streams for local fishermen.

Third, conservatives must respond to climate change with innovation, not regulation. This means encouraging private research and implementation of more eco-friendly construction, more energy-efficient workplaces and more sustainable ways of going about life — all of which cuts costs and protects God’s creation. It means looking past the question of whether your car’s exhaust melts polar ice caps and instead treating our environment as an investment our future depends on.

Read the whole thing. That last point is the key, but is predicated on the first two.

Technorati Tags: Governor Mark Sanford, South Carolina, global warming, conservative, conservation

The New York Times asked, “Are we cheap?” Liberals give their opinions on that.

“Yes,” they say. Former President Carter recently said the rich states “don’t give a damn” about people in poor countries. And when it comes to helping the needy in poor countries, U2 singer Bono says, “It’s the crumbs off our tables that we offer these countries.”

Crumbs because many other countries, such as Norway, Portugal and Japan, give a larger share of their wealth to needy countries.

The United States gave out $20 billion in foreign aid last year, but as a percentage of our wealth, we rank 21st out of the 22 major donor countries.

Actress Angelina Jolie is horrified by it.

“It’s disgusting. It really is disgusting,” she said. “I think most American people, you know, really do think we give more. And I know that they would if they could understand how little they give and how much more we can afford to give, absolutely, without even noticing it.”

But what these folks are ignoring is that America is one of the most generous countries in the world when you look at how we take personal responsibility for our charity. As much as the general consensus has inched more and more towards the idea that it’s the government’s job, a very large segment of our population understands that “rugged individualism” not only means being personally independent but also means taking personal responsibility for the needy, and not shoving it off onto some other group or institution. Predictably however, those who do gauge things by institutional or governmental charity are blind to the reality of the generous America.
Read the rest of this entry

As of now, Democrats have been given control of the House of Representatives, and there are two outstanding races in the Senate that will determine who controls that chamber. This is definitely going to make it harder for Republicans to get their initiatives through, to be sure, but let’s look a little closer.

As Michelle Malkin notes, Republicans may have lost but conservatism did not. She lists a number of indicators.

Property rights initiatives limiting eminent domain won big. MCRI, the anti-racial preference measure, passed resoundingly. Congressman Tom Tancredo, the GOP’s leading warrior against illegal immigration–opposed by both the open-borders Left and the open-borders White House–won a fifth term handily. Gay marriage bans won approval in 3 states. And as of this writing, the oil tax initiative, Prop. 87–backed by deep-pocketed Hollywood libs, is trailing badly in California.

While an AP article headlines 3 items that could be considered conservative setbacks–rejection of SD abortion ban and AZ gay marriage ban, and approval of stem cell research in Missouri–it lists later on in the article all the items that could be considered conservative wins, and on balance conservatism did very well. Written after Malkin’s post, it notes 8 states that banned gay marriage, as well as the aforementioned sunsetting of affirmative action in Michigan, and a number of anti-illegal-immigration initiatives in Arizona. (And the Missouri stem cell amendment, as I noted previously, was passed with a margin that could suggest that if it had been worded honestly, it may not have passed at all.)

Also, as ScrappleFace notes, the win for Lieberman and the loss for Lincoln Chafee could be considered a gain of 2 seats for Republicans. >grin< So unlike Democrats after previous elections, you won't find Republicans hiding under the covers for days, packing for their move to Canada, or suing Diebold. (Gee, where did all those Democrats go that insisted that Diebold machines were “fixed”? Is it OK when they’re “fixed” for Democrats? Love the choice; either Democrats win, or someone cheated.) The victory for Democrats was more a typical 6-year-itch midterm result mixed with some “throw the bums out” mentality with some hope by Republican voters that this may wake up the Republican lawmakers, as I noted in this thread. I think that there was plenty of deserved anger with Republican lawmakers, but this, in my opinion, wasn’t the way to express it.

And don’t forget all the moderate to conservative Democrats that were elected, including many former Republicans like Webb in Virginia (though the “elected” part has yet to be determined there).

What will they do with that platform?

Will they try, for instance, to impeach the president? Or will they stick to Ms Pelosi’s stated goal of leadership?

Probably the latter. Many of the new intake are moderate Democrats, conservatives even, who are not looking for an ideological fight.

Could they have won without pro-Iraq-war, anti-abortion Democrats? Given some of the margins of victory, it would have been interesting to see what would have happened if they’d all looked more like Ned Lamont.

So Republicans should not, and most likely won’t, go sulking around your office. Yeah we’re disappointed, and we deserved much of what we got. On the other hand, apart from party label, this election shows that the American public in general still leans conservative.

Technorati Tags: election, republican, democrat, conservative, government, congress