7 Quick Takes: Friends, Romans, Republicans

The other people are talking about things more interesting than politics. Click to go see.

1.

I watched the debates last night.  Seriously entertaining.  Much more fun than any political debate I’ve seen in ages.  Also, enlightening.

2.

Here’s the thing: I live in a cave.  I don’t enjoy TV the way other people do.  So I had never, ever, seen any of the four candidates speak on TV.  [I’d heard Santorum live once, but in a completely different context.]  Now that I have seen them, many mysteries are solved.

3.

For example: Newt Gingrich.  As a child in metro-DC in the ’80’s, yes, we talked about politics in the backseat of the car as our parents shuffled us around the beltway to youth group activities.  I remember then, that Newt was this creepy, untrustworthy politician guy.

[I also remember my dad being livid, livid, at the evisceration of Poindexter.  Who until scandals broke I had known of only as ‘a dad of one of the one the boy scouts’.  Apparently a super nice guy in regular life.]

So, Newt.  When I heard he was running for president this year, my thoughts were:

1. He’s still alive?
2. I mean sure, Strom-Thurmond-Alive, of course.  But Running-for-President-Alive?  It was a stretch.  I guess when you are a kid, people seem so much older than they turn out to be later.
3. He’s this shifty beltway insider named after a reptile an amphibian.  What is the appeal?

4.

My goodness that man is charming!  CHARMING.  Did you see him open that debate?  He’s brilliant.  Utterly untrustworthy, anyone who is that smooth.  That loveable on stage.  But now I get it.

In order of Charming:

1. Gingrich.
2. Romney.
3. Santorum.
4. Paul.

So if you get your politics from TV and not from print, yes, it all suddenly makes very much sense.

5.

But you know what makes me angry?  Back last century, everyone knew that torture was wrong.  It was the stuff of satire.  Now, suddenly, it is very difficult to find a candidate who opposes torture.  You can expect to be treated as daft and unsophisticated if you insist your president be the non-torturing type.

People want charming.  Kingly.  From last Friday’s Mass reading:

⁶And the word was displeasing in the eyes of Samuel, that they should say: Give us a king, to judge us. And Samuel prayed to the Lord.

⁷And the Lord said to Samuel: Hearken to the voice of the people in all that they say to thee. For they have not rejected thee, but me, that I should not reign over them.

⁸According to all their works, they have done from the day that I brought them out of Egypt until this day: as they have forsaken me, and served strange gods, so do they also unto thee.

⁹Now therefore hearken to their voice: but yet testify to them, and foretell them the right of the king, that shall reign over them.

¹⁰Then Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people that had desired a king of him,

¹¹And said: This will be the right of the king, that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and put them in his chariots, and will make them his horsemen, and his running footmen to run before his chariots,

¹²And he will appoint of them to be his tribunes, and centurions, and to plough his fields, and to reap his corn, and to make him arms and chariots.

¹³Your daughters also he will take to make him ointments, and to be his cooks, and bakers.

¹⁴And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your best oliveyards, and give them to his servants.

¹⁵Moreover he will take the tenth of your corn, and of the revenues of your vineyards, to give his eunuchs and servants.

¹⁶Your servants also and handmaids, and your goodliest young men, and your asses he will take away, and put them to his work.

¹⁷Your flocks also he will tithe, and you shall be his servants.

¹⁸And you shall cry out in that day from the face of the king, whom you have chosen to yourselves. and the Lord will not hear you in that day, because you desired unto yourselves a king.

We insist our president be “presidential”.  Impressive.  Someone the Europeans and the Iranians will respect.  So that’s what we’ll get.

6.

Allie Hathaway.  You know what to do.

7.

If you want regular normal-people election coverage of the SC Primaries, of course you would never read this blog.  Instead you’d visit Brad Warthen.  Whom I love the way my dad loved Poindexter, so just you be quiet (here*) if you don’t like his politics.

 

 

 

*Rant away at his place.  He’ll love it.  Plus my FIL arrives tonight, so if you post here for the first time and your post gets stuck in moderation, it is not because I hate you, nor because I fell into a bottomless chasm.  I’m just busy seeing flesh-and-blood people this weekend.  Also, voting.  I’ll catch back up with the Internet come Monday or so.

Which Republican?

Assuming there’s more than one candidate left by Saturday morning . . . . which one?

–> My father-in-law arrives tomorrow night, and I’m sure that eight hours of talk radio will help him advise us.  He’s a DC-area plumber, so he’s totally at ease with that feeling that you’ve done something necessary, but now must wash your hands*.

In the meantime, I depend on my internet friends.  Imagine my voting in the Republican primary Saturday will somehow impact which candidate faces off with Obama in November.  Which button on the touchscreen should I push?  Why?

*I actually enjoy plumbing work.  It is peaceful. Satisfying.  In contrast, though I take perverse pleasure in living in an open-primary state, and therefore every year getting to see who has the most interesting ballot, then wandering down to the corner school to meddle a bit . . . I always feel like whether I vote or not, either way requires sacramental absolution after.

A Recipe for Poverty

A friend of mine lives in one of those helpful European countries with nationalized health care and social services and everything you could want.  And I know from experience that these systems can work pretty well for a lot of people.  I understand the appeal.

But my friend’s recent struggles to get the care she needs (nothing wildly expensive) leads me to think nationalization of social supports is a very bad solution. Here’s why:

Government-run services are much harder to shut down if they become corrupt, incompetent, or unsafe.  It takes, literally, an act of Congress.  (And then some).  In comparison, privately-run services can be boycotted by consumers, or in the case of safety-violations, legitimately shut down by government regulators.

When the system doesn’t work, there is nowhere else to turn.  Taxpayer-funded, universal-enrollment systems squeeze out private providers.  The money I could have spent on private fees has already been mailed to the government in taxes.  I no longer have that cash on hand.  The vastly diminished demand for privately-provided services also means therea are fewer private providers available to choose from.

“Universal” services shortchange the poor.  The supposed reason for creating nationalized services is so that the poor have access to the essentials they need, such as medical care or education.  The reality of government-run bureaucracies, however, is that they favor the upper-middle class — the people who have the resources and connections to work the system to their advantage.

How, then, to help the poor? By helping the poor.

Those who truly cannot provide for themselves do indeed need our assistance.  One can reasonably argue that in a large, diverse, and mobile society, government-provided alms are a legitimate way of caring for those who might otherwise be overlooked by private charities.

But the whole nation cannot need alms.  It is a mathematical joke.  We cannot all be poor all the time.

3.5 Time Outs: Near Occasions of Sin

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who is willing to count me among his minions, even though I’m also one The Jen F.’s minions, even if I did forget my 7 takes last Friday because I didn’t remember it was Friday.  Nice thing about Fridays is you get a new one every week.

1.

The people I’m trying to be nicer to are not helping me.  You who chew with your mouths closed? I have no difficulty being nice to you.  It is the people who pick fights at the breakfast table.  Those people.    I’ve had to switch acts of contrition, not just because I blank out in the confessional so I need something short and easy, but also because, well, I can’t exactly avoid “whatever leads me to sin”.  No sense pretending.  I think my pastor gets it.  He can’t avoid me all the time either.

2.

Speaking of bad influences:  I was having some trouble with the new Mass translation at first, not because it isn’t beautiful and everything, but because the first time I heard “like the dewfall” during the consecration, I giggled.  Not out loud.  But my lips sort of twitched.  I hope everyone else was looking at the altar. My trouble is the people I spend my days with.  They are so . . . juvenile.  It rubs off.

3.

This morning I read the wrong day’s Mass readings. The page marked in my missal had both January 3 and January 4 on it, and did I know what day it was?  No.  I didn’t even wonder. I just read.  But hey, you have good stuff to look forward to tomorrow.

–> First let’s just admit it, 1st John can be a little overwhelming, hmmn?  Even if it does fit right in with that whole “resolutions” theme we’re all talking about.  But I like this bit here, I think makes a good hinge for the could-be scrupler:

It was to undo all that the devil has done, that the Son of God appeared.

So that’s my consolation when I read in Psalm 97, “Let the rivers clap their hands,” and my brain goes all middle-school on me, not in a good way.   But look, here’s a nice river picture to clean the imagination:

The funny thing about poetry and photography, is that they aren’t like the real world.  Rivers don’t have hands that clap.  If you stand in the Narrows of Zion Canyon, this picture is not what you see.  The water isn’t all pearly and shiny.  It’s wet and icy cold, and you aren’t thinking about how it looks (normal old water), you are thinking: Snowmelt.  And the walls of the canyon are not so flat and washed out; they surround you, and make you forget the entire rest of the world, and you can touch them, and you would never have believed in them if you had not seen them yourself.

But people like the photo.  I think because the shiny-pearly water makes it feel like fairlyand.  Like rivers with hands that clap.   Like the world as we know it is supposed to be, if only the wreckage were undone.  Which is how you feel standing there in the canyon.  You know that whoever made this is so much bigger than you.  And entirely able to undo the madness.  And that you were meant to be a part of that.

3.5

. . . sidewalks.

Please.  Cut it out with the weird car ideas.   Just build a sidewalk.  A good one.  Wide.  With proper curb cuts.  That goes all the way to store.  Just like roads — we don’t build roads that stop abruptly because one of the neighbors didn’t want to cede a right of way, but hey, just drive over the grass and through the ditch, road picks up again in half a block.  Real sidewalks.  Don’t call yourself an environmentalist, or a fuel-security guru,  and then make it impossible for people to walk places.

Polarization and Politics

A friend recently resigned from her teaching position at a public high school.  The students were having intercourse in the classroom while she was teaching.  I assume this is a rare and extreme case; at the local blue-ribbon, top-rated public high school, the students show restraint, saving sex until they can get to the restroom.

I live in a cave, but I am not naive.  People of reproductive age will in fact reproduce.  What alarms is that the public school administrators are both persuaded they are unable to enforce a no-copulation zone, and also that they do not feel any obligation to attempt it.

These are public schools, so there are facts that don’t apply to, say, your local bar or brothel:

• We taxpayers are required by law to send our money to these schools, under pain of fines, imprisonment, and forfeiture of assets.
• Parents are required by law to send their children to these schools.  If they do not do so, their children can be taken from them.

Most parents do not have an alternative public school available.  Most parents cannot afford private school tuition.  Homeschooling is daunting for most and impossible for many; appeasing the authorities is an on-going problem.

But what stands out most about this problem: No one really seems to care.

Why isn’t this in the news?  Why isn’t this a hot topic at school board and superintendent elections?  How can a school be top-ranked, or a county promote itself as “A Great Place For Families”, when this is the atmosphere in which students are expected to learn?

Apparently there is a vast gulf between those who feel these sorts of things are a serious problem, and those who feel they are no big deal*.

I keeping hearing all these complaints that American politics is so “polarized”.  This is why.

 

*I don’t think this is a left-right divide.  Not at all.

What use a Classics Degree?

Darwin answers the question:

This isn’t because a degree in the humanities is “useless”. I believe that learning Greek, Latin, history and philosophy was very useful to me. But it was useful to me in the sense that a liberal art is meant to be useful — in allowing one to think like a “free man”. It is not useful in the sense of providing instant and easy employment. I think that it would be helpful if colleges and departments were a little more honest about this. It would also be very, very helpful if people took it into account before blithely borrowing large amounts of money. (And if people were less blithe about borrowing so much money in order to fund college degrees, perhaps the absurd rate of tuition increase would slow down. You may be assured that one of the things allowing universities to make off like bandits is that people have the illusion that having a degree, any degree, is an automatic ticket to a “good job”.)

He also confirms that Rush Limbaugh is not a classicist.  Apparently people were confused on that point.

***

Meanwhile, Archbishop Chaput demonstrates how to use such an education.  From his “On Being Human in an Age of Unbelief”:

That leads to my fourth and final point. The pro-life movement needs to be understood and respected for what it is: part of a much larger, consistent, and morally worthy vision of the dignity of the human person. You don’t need to be Christian or even religious to be “pro-life.” Common sense alone is enough to make a reasonable person uneasy about what actually happens in an abortion. The natural reaction, the sane and healthy response, is repugnance.

The whole thing is excellent, and eminently readable.  Print it out and read it on paper, because it merits sitting down and giving it your full attention.  Great essay to discuss with your high school or college student.

 

Logic, Criticism, & the 99%

There are two critiques of the 99% movement that I’ve seen floating around, that I wanted to address.  The first is this:

“You are criticizing capitalism, but you own a __[insert name of product manufactured by said capitalists]___”

There’s a little bit of truth in this criticism: Obviously someone who owns a smart phone isn’t secretly longing to run away and join the Amish.  (Who are capitalists, by the way.  They just aren’t no-holds-barred, if-I-can-than-it-is-good capitalists.)

But I think the criticism also points to a bigger problem: Consumers do not bear the primary responsibility for the behavior of their suppliers.  It is the job of the supplier to be a responsible employer and manufacturer.  A boycott is a useful tool, but it is one that only works at the extremes, when there is a known, egregious violation.  I can’t possibly know the inner workings of every manufacturer whose products I consume.  It is too big a task.  And to simply Boycott Everything and go be Amish is not the solution (unless you just want to be Amish, a worthy pursuit but not a universal vocation); boycotting every manufactured good also hurts honest employers and employees.

And then there’s the question of how evil is too evil?  Again, boycotting is a great tool for serious, longstanding, public offenses.  But it would be entirely reasonable, say, for someone who hired me to both say, “Jen, you need to come to work on time and get your projects done by deadline,” and at the same time, not fire me because I was five minutes late.  Or ten minutes.  Or an hour.  It’s up to the judgment of my employer to choose what combination of actions are the best way to deal with my transgression.  Entirely reasonable to both reprimand me severely, and keep me in their employ a little longer.  Public protest is the reprimand, boycott is the layoff.

–> In the case of the OWS, since protestors do not themselves have the authority to step in and oversee corporate operations, it is reasonable to insist that the proper authorities do what is necessary.

(We can agree or not on whether those demands have merit.  No one claims the OWS people even agree on these matters.  And I certainly don’t hold with violent protest of any kind.  I only argue here that our criticism of the criticizers ought to stick to logical arguments.)

UPDATE: Darwin points out in the combox that some OWS protesters really do want to dismantle capitalism.  So he is correct, to criticize that portion of the group for using the fruits of capitalism is a legitimate argument. 

 

The second criticism I’m hearing:

“You aren’t poor.  You have all this great stuff like running water and cell phones.  Quit complaining.”

What is the logic behind this kind of accusation:

• If you aren’t the victim, you aren’t allowed to protest injustice?
• If the robber is leaving you with all the stuff you really need, it’s okay if he just slips in and takes off with a few trinkets?
• If your pimp / master / feudal lord sees that your basic needs are met, therefore sex-trafficking / slavery / serfdom are acceptable social structures?
• You aren’t being pimped / enslaved / bound to the land, quit griping that you can’t afford the surgery you need?

Again, this is not a defense of any particular item on the all-purpose protest agenda of the OWS folk.  Only an observation that if you are going to critique someone’s arguments, critique their arguments.  Is there nothing to protest?  Then show that in fact our government is run fairly and efficiently, the needs of the poor are tended to adequately, workers are paid reasonable wages, and there is therefore no need for change of this or that type.

It is both fun and helpful to debate actual economic questions.  So do that.

Health Insurance Regulations – Go Comment

The Impractical Catholic has a very practical link to how to submit your comments on the new health insurance regulations.  Click on his link, it is very easy from there.   You can scroll through the regulations to make sure you know what you are talking about, and then submit the comment of your choice.

Naturally I forgot to copy mine for posterity before it submitted, by my talking points were this:

• I quoted the bit about how the goal of the religious exemption was to protect houses of worship.
• I observed this was too narrow a view of “religious institution”, that did not represent the reality of religious institutions such as hospitals, schools, and other benevolent works.
• I proposed a compromise, in which employees of such institutions could choose either to accept the employer-provided plan, or use a cash allowance of the same value to purchase the plan of their choice from another source.
• In that way, the religious employer is not required to directly fund a health care plan that includes treatments contrary to its religious tenets, but employees remain free to choose some other plan as they see fit.

I didn’t say it, but it’s a bit like the difference between saying, “every employee shall be given a per-diem allowance to pay for travel expenses at a hotel or brothel”, versus specifying a per diem amount per day, and leaving it to the employee to decide where he wishes to lodge.

So that’s what I wrote.  Go write something yourself.  It is so easy and fast.  Really, it is.

 

Okay, here’s the link directly to regulations.gov that I followed from Impractical Catholic’s post.  Go.  Now.  Seriously.

 

***

Also: Reconsider giving your nine-year-old a blog on the same blogging program you yourself use.  I almost posted this on a hot-pink ProudKittyCat blog.  That woulda made the grandparents raise an eyebrow.

As seen at the liquor store.

My post on Pagans & Tax Collectors is almost ready to go up.  But what you really want to read is Simcha’s column at the Register.  Bet you can guess what my favorite line is. 

WordPress is misbehaving this morning so I can’t make a link directly, but try this: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/dear-greenypantses-this-is-why-no-one-likes-you C&P’d from the Register‘s special find-me magic.

Hey, look, a Tollefsen article!

Yeah, it took me by surprise too.  You’ll be relieved to know it’s on a nice, quiet, non-controversial topic, Contraception and Healthcare Rights.  Here were my thoughts as I read:

1. Yay!  A Tollefsen article my readers will actually like!
2. Ooops.  Nope.  More mad readers.  Uh oh.
3. No, never mind, I think it’s good after all.

So, er, read at your own risk.  It’s written philosophy-style, of course, so you’re constantly behind the curve, never really sure whether you agree with the guy or not.  But I’m pretty sure he makes sense.  In that special philosopher way.*

 

 

*Keep in mind that professional philosophers have to work day in and day out with people who aren’t strictly sure they exist, or perhaps are sure they exist, but also that they only turned up at the conference or the coffee bar on account of their molecules making them do that.  I’m not making fun.  That’s what a subset of real live tenured philosophy professors actually think.  I’ve taken the classes . . . I know.  You’d write reaaally caaarefullly if you had to present your papers to those people.    (I mean, for a living.  If you’re a student, you could just write normally and live with the B.)