Can Anything Be Done About it?

Several respondents to my previous pessimistic blog about the state of our country that is in the hands of rich, powerful interests who get their way to the detriment of justice, the general welfare, and world peace challenged me to suggest something positive that could be done. Fair enough!

The realistic answer is that in the short run there is not much we can do that will fundamentally matter. The system is too rigged in favor of the prevailing powers. The background preconditions for radical change do not exist:

(1) deep and fundamental dissatisfaction felt by the masses of people accompanied by aggressive anger and desire for change,

(2)a clear sense of what is wrong and of what and who is responsible for the calamity,

(3)the presence of an available alternative consisting of a transforming vision communicated by able charismatic leaders with organizational skills and with a positive program containing major goals and specific means to achieve them.

We will not see fundamental change of the sort that is required in the absence of a major crisis like that of the great depression that took us from Coolidge and Hoover to Roosevelt in less than a decade. This crisis will create the possibility of a revitalized democracy and economic order that serves all the people. But it will also create the possibility of a fascism based on blood and soil led by demagogues who can identify the evil sources of our troubles internally and externally which must be destroyed. Oh, probably a third way will have us muddling through so that the outcome is not much better, just led by different villains.

In the meantime, we can hope for modest progress around the edges and some incremental gains that will indeed make things better for many and even for us all in some respects. These gains can be of great importance and should not be underestimated or demeaned. This is where the churches and humanitarian organizations fit in. I have worked in both, and positive changes at the margins was all we accomplished at best or even attempted. Churches whose membership include the dominant classes in the culture will not foment revolution -- and that includes Roman Catholics and most Protestants. Zip code is the primary clue to social outlook not church membership. If you find a factor that points to religion, e. g., that most active church people were the ones who voted heavily for Bush, then look for the socio-economic-cultural makeup of those congregations.


The Democratic Party is the best hope for modest improvements, but it is a pitifully weak instrument of justice. The present leadership is anything but inspiring, e. g., Howard Dean. The DP is too beholden to big money and powerful lobby groups, just like the Republicans are. The DP is dominated by a variety of interest groups, each with its own agenda that it singlemindedly presses. The DP has lost touch with many ordinary working-class Americans and average citizens who rightly suspect the party of Roosevelt, Truman, and Johnson is rife with cultural elitism epitomized by that man of the people, that down to earth Joe SixPack, John Kerry and his French wines and windsurfing. The DP is too beholden to the Israeli lobby to offer hope for Middle East Peace. I give you Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, and Harry Reid, among many others, who vote the Israeli lobby line as examples. Check it out.

When the Democratic Party championed civil right, and the feminist and gay rights movement along with abortion, gun control, etc. -- God bless them for it, it lost contact with many white working class folks, especially males, and conservative religious people, who, since they were doing well enough economically and many prospering, decided to vote their cultural values rather than their narrow economic interests. Democrats have not found a way to get them back without alienating major parts of its base. So Republicans have taken over. Still the DP is the best we have.

This is enough for now. I invite comments, alternatives, refutations, screams of protest, and bouquets of roses (I like the really red ones.)

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Maldistributed Power and Impossible Justice

We cannot achieve the common good with costs and benefits equitably distributed for many reasons -- lack of leadership and vision, defects in our democratic processes, ignorance, inertia, apathy, and the like. But a major factor lies in the fact that the realities of power and the requirements of justice do not always coincide. Where there is political power unchecked, it will be used to achieve selfish, limited ends that offend justice and thwart the general welfare. It is part of the phenomenon of original sin -- without which we cannot understand what goes on in this world.

Groups with effective power, money, organization, and intense commitment can often get what they want but that justice and the larger good forbid. The intense commitment is very important here. The majority that could prevent this domination are either apathetic, ignorant, or not deeply enough disturbed or lack the required organization and leadership. With potential opposition diluted, the strong, the aggressive, the wealthy, and the well organized get their way all too often. Some examples, please.

We cannot have a reasonable policy toward Cuba because of the power of fanatical anti-Castro Cubans in Florida who hold an effective balance of power in a state that both Democrats and Republicans desperately need in a presidential year. Both countries are thereby harmed.

We have a policy highly favorable to Israel and detrimental to Palestinians because of the effective power of the Israeli lobbies aided by right-wing evangelical Protestants with a peculiar and dangerous view of Scripture. Justice is offended, peace is made less likely, Arab and Muslim hostility to America is increased. The possibility of terrorism and opposition to American interests is enhanced

We cannot have a sane energy policy because of the power of the big oil and automobile companies and others. Thus we neglect alternative energy sources, drive needlessly inefficient vehicles that waste gas, contribute excessively to global warming, and otherwise put our future in jeopardy.

We have needlessly expensive drugs that are not as safe as they could be because of the power of the big pharmaceutical companies in influencing legislation and the FDA to suit their narrow ends rather than the common good.

We cannot have a rational policy on gun control because of the power of the National Rifle Association with its members, money, and fanatical outlook.

We have a terrible prescription drug policy for seniors because of the power of the drug companies and the insurance companies. Note that they were able to prevent Medicare from negotiating with drug companies for lower prices -- a shameful offense against tax payers and common sense.

We cannot have universal health care because of the power of the insurance companies and drug companies. A one-payer plan that universalizes Medicare would be more efficient, less costly, and produce better care.

We cannot find a middle way on abortion because two opposing sides take absolute positions and refuse to compromise, and they are sufficiently well organized and funded to prevent an outcome that would end the stalemate.

We cannot control urban sprawl, air pollution, long commutes, and the like partly because of the power of real estate developers and highway contractors aided by the inordinate love of the automobile and the desire to escape the city. Little that is effective is done until the air is too polluted to breathe, and long commutes and traffic jams become utterly intolerable.

We cannot have a healthy agricultural policy because of the power of giant agribusinesses and the farm lobby and farm-state legislators. Hugh subsidies are paid to rice, corn, wheat, and other growers that enable the big agribusiness corporations to flood other countries with cheap products and devastate their farmers. One rice cooperative (Riceland Foods Inc., Stuttgart, AR) was paid more than $500,000,000, I. e., more than a half billion dollars, between 1995-2004). Much of this subsidy money goes not to modest family farmers but to the wealthy. Charles Schwab of the investment group and his family received $564,000 in federal price supports for rice in 2000. The man is reputedly worth more than four billion dollars.

We have a miserable fiscal policy that produces massive tax cuts that go mainly to those at the top, especially those at the very top, that produces an enormous deficit that future generations must deal with, and that reduce revenues that could be used to benefit the middle and lower income classes. All this is rationalized by a dubious ideology that such policies increase investment and ultimately benefit us all, as if more equitable alternatives were not available that would be equally or more efficacious. The intense commitment of a powerful few prevails over average citizens who either ignore or passively acquiesce in this arrangement and others that result in a redistribution of income and wealth and income to those at the top at the expense of those at the lower middle and bottom. Sometimes this travesty is tolerated by non-affluent voters who are getting other gains, e. g., support of conservative values, from those in power more important to them and not intolerably offensive to or even in agreement with their own ideologies and values.

Perhaps this is sufficient to make the point. Groups deeply committed to causes and interests organize and add dollars to their passion in ways that elect and control those who will serve their interests. They pay close attention to every development that affects their concerns and exert pressure and money immediately in carefully chosen ways to maximum benefits. Meanwhile, the mass of citizens let it happen by their ignorance and apathy, by not being directly affected in ways that arouse their anger and swing their votes. The political system is rigged against effective opposition from people and parties that would upset these nice arrangements.

Beyond that gerrymandering of election districts, the power of incumbency, and other defects in the democratic process either aid or cannot prevent the domination of the government by narrow interests with the organization and money to get their way. Thus justice is not done, and the few benefit at the expense of the many, and, as always, the rich prosper, and the poor are neglected.

Even if we had a perfectly functioning democracy in which each person and group had power and means sufficient to protect their interests but not enough to oppress others, we would still have to deal with the values of the citizenry that may tilt the nation toward policies repressive of minorities and the poor and that are detrimental to the full flowering of freedom, equality, and the welfare of all.

As a white Baptist, I am particularly dismayed that the majority of white Protestants have a history in recent decades of voting for the Republican candidate for President, election after election. If you want to know the political, social, and cultural outlook of Christians, ask first about their zip codes not about how passionate they are about Jesus. I will quit now before I get even more depressed.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Can't Anybody Get it Right on Immigration?

With respect primarily to Mexicans and others further south, conservatives are divided between xenophobic opposition to all them foreigners who don't look like us, despoil our communities, and speak Spanish, on the one hand, and business types who think that an ever increasing pool of unskilled workers means cheap labor costs, on the other hand. Liberals are all over the place. The multiculturalists think diversity is swell -- let a thousand varieties of flowers bloom -- and are blind to the the negative side that may involve loss of cultural unity with accompanying conflict and violence between economic, cultural, and ethnic subgroups. This group includes some progressive Christians who are filled with compassion who think you can leap from love straight to generous social policies without having to take into account all the complexities, ambiguities, conflicts of just interests, and all the difficulties involved in reaching solutions with proximate justice for all affected. Naive idealists think you can have a compassionate policy toward poor immigrants but like the naive multiculturalists are oblivious to the unavoidable side effects, like dragging down the wages of all workers, who may be divided into competing ethnic, racial, and cultural groups whose conflicts may escalate into violence.

Politicians are subject to all the above groups, interests, and values that vary with their region, party, and money sources. They seek for some winning electoral strategy that maximizes support in dollars and votes.

Nearly everyone, including some of the loudest and most obnoxious, risks oversimplifying the issue based on ignorance, self-interest, ideological preferences, and so on and champion solutions as if the truth they see is the whole truth and nothing but the truth.


Disinterested theorists and others, including a few politicians, who seek the common good find that no one policy benefits all equally and that the good shared in common is only a small piece of the pie. Pessimists and skeptics like me conclude we must settle for the least bad policy and hope that the struggle of power between all the competing interests will somehow yield something workable and not entirely unjust.

More detailed analysis with more specifics can be found in previous postings.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Sex Trafficking, Prostitution, George Bush, Evangelical Christians, and Reinhold Niebuhr

I can't stand George Bush, and I think right-wing Christians are a block to progress on many moral and social issues. But Nicholas Kristof points out that on the issue of child sex trafficking, Bush, pushed by evangelicals, is doing a lot of good, while liberals, except for some feminists, aren't doing much.
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/05/09/opinion/09kristof.html

Reinhold Niebuhr is right again. Ambiguity pervades nearly everything.

Monday, 1 May 2006

PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES' LOVE AFFAIR WITH PATIENTS

I am getting a little tired of hearing drug companies on TV proclaim how much they love patients and put them first. Au contraire, profit is the end; patient satisfaction is the means. The prosecution offers three points in evidence:

1. If they love patients so much, why do they spend so much money in ads to persuade them to suggest their newest and most expensive drugs to their doctors instead of older and cheaper alternatives that work about as well?

2. Why do they spend so much money wining, dining, and plying doctors with gifts persuading them to prescribe the aforementioned newer, more expensive drugs instead of cheaper alternatives?

3. Why do they do everything within their power to keep their patents from expiring in order to prevent much cheaper generics from coming on the market?

The prosecution rests.

Immigration and Troubles Ahead?

Topic: Religion and Society
Whatever immigration policy is adopted at the moment can be dealt with. More important is what present trends suggest for the future. If the 10-12 million immigrants of illegal status are put on the road to become citizens, in another few years, will there be 10-12 million more and later 10-12 million more? If the answer is negative, how do we propose to keep them out in humane ways? We can and ought to liberalize legal ways for immigrants south of the border to come to the United State, but will it ever be enough to prevent others from coming in droves illegally?

A lot of these questions are speculative, but they are worth raising in order to give us perspective on what we are doing. One of the main issues is whether large numbers of Mexicans and other Latinos will continue to assimilate into American society, culture, and values. Or as their numbers increase, will they create enclaves in which the desire to perpetuate their own culture will become stronger?

Small groups who retain their own ways of life can be incorporated without great problems, but will large numbers intensify the desire to have little Mexicos in Los Angeles and other cities? Will there be a growing desire to sing the national anthem in Spanish, create a two-language nation like Canada, and fly the Mexican flag? A nation is enriched by diversity, but it also needs symbols of cultural unity like flags, language, a national anthem sung in the original language, and well as a core of common values.

Immigrants from the south are largely Roman Catholic and many share the views of the church on abortion, sex, women, divorce, homosexuality, same-sex marriage, and the like. Would the hierarchy be as favorable to immigration from the South if 90% of them were liberal Protestants on these issues? I don't know; I just wonder. Would ever-increasing numbers of social conservatives retard the progress we have made so painfully and slowly in these areas? Should those of us who are liberal Protestants be concerned about the possibility of adding so many more votes to reactionary policies? Will Hispanics tend more to the Republicans (on social-cultural issues) or Democrats (on economic issues)? Is it not important from the point of view of progressive and liberal folks like me what the answer is?

Would ever-increasing numbers exert an ever greater downward drag on already low wages for immigrants and unskilled Americans already here? One op-ed piece on May 2 commented on the spectacle of immigrant workers protesting in behalf of even lower wages, for that is what will happen in the pool of available workers becomes ever larger.

The worst case scenario might have the following elements:

1. Large enclaves of immigrants form in the big cities and elsewhere who become increasingly militant and resistant to assimilation while making growing demands on government on economic and cultural matters.

2. A backlash occurs among non-Hispanic whites that resists signs of increasingly militant demands for the Mexicanization of American society.

3. Tension moving toward violent conflict emerges between Hispanic and African American groups over jobs, falling wages, and cultural matters.

4. Riots with accompanying violence break out in cities with large numbers of alienated Mexicans and other Hispanics, resulting in burning cities reminiscent of the civil rights era.

If that sound outlandish, recall that tendencies in all these directions were much in evidence in the May 1, 2006, demonstrations, protests, and work stoppages. Mexican flags were much in evidence, and more would have been had not leaders warned against the bad public relations it would engender. Some are all ready in singing the national anthem in Spanish. Voices could be heard saying, "Los Angeles is ours," "we want a new America," "illegal immigrants from Mexico are not illegal, just back on native land," "we have the right to be here," and the like. All this hints that much more activism could be expected in the future. African American groups are already forming in opposition to Spanish culturalization and the competition with blacks over jobs. White militancy is evidence in posses forming on the southern border to keep immigrants out.

Whether this indicates that serious trouble is ahead, I don't know. It would be foolish to dismiss the possibility out of hand.

I speak here not so much of what is right and good as of troubling signs and realistic possibilities. European nations are learning how their liberal policies have created enclaves of alienated Muslims shut off from economic opportunity and at odds with the majority culture on matters of free speech, religion, morals, and the like. Granted the differences with the situation here are significant, it does not mean the similarities harbor no troubles for us.

Thursday, 27 April 2006

Immigration: Problem Without a Solution

Topic: Politics and Justice
Immigration at the present, at least with respect to Mexico and countries to the south, is a problem without a good solution. It is complex with many facets and subtexts. What commends itself in some respects is distasteful in others. What helps some groups hurts other groups.

Let us first dispose of some simplistic items. It is said that immigrants take jobs Americans don't want. That is true only if you add "at current wages." And it is not true even then, since Americans in fact do hold most of the kinds of low-paying jobs that unskilled immigrants take.

Signs proclaim that no human being is illegal, refuting a claim nobody is making and ignoring the intended meaning that an illegal immigrant is one who is here illegally not that this human being is illegal, whatever that could possibly imply.

It is also said that we are a nation of immigrants, so we should continue be receptive to others who want to share the same benefits our ancestors found in coming here. Fine, but it neglects two things: all humans beings living today, or nearly all, have ancestors who came from somewhere else, and we have to deal with new immigrants under the conditions that prevail here and now and not at some previous time.

To tackle the problem itself, there is little doubt that adding immigrant workers who will work for very low pay drags down the wages of those already here. If employers can hire workers at a dollar less per hour than they are now paying, it stands to reason they will do so. Employers who benefit in this way are favorable to a large influx of potential workers from the South who can be hired at low wages.

Let us add some complicating factors. Allowing free immigration from Mexico provides a safety valve for the Mexican government and reduces the pressure to improve conditions for their own workers. An author who has studied the problem for years claims that the Mexican government is being cynical. They are happy to have these impoverished people leave and don't want them back.

Mexico has a harsh, punitive policy toward immigrants entering from their southern borders but wants the US to be generous to immigrants from Mexico -- the old double standard issue.

One reason so many immigrants from Mexico will risk everything to get in is that Mexican farmers have been devastated by the subsidies paid to American farmers to grow corn, thus undermining the prices of a major Mexican crop. NAFTA has been hurt many poor Mexicans badly, pitting the interests of poor Mexican farmers against rich agribusiness interests in the United States. Guess who wins.

Both parties in Congress try to figure out how to get the Hispanic vote, so that self-interest rather than the common good tends to dominate.

Turning to solutions, all have drawbacks. To treat the millions of illegal immigrants already here the same as those who are pursuing a legal track would not be fair. To deport them is all but impossible as well as cruel. Any penalty or punishment administered them would only add further hurt to vulnerable people. Building a wall or fence sufficient to keep out all trespassers would be expensive as well as inappropriate given our national values. Completely open or completely closed borders is either impossible or bad policy.

The best solution, of course, would be to make the countries who are supplying unskilled immigrants so attractive that few would want to leave. That will not occur in the near future. Lacking that we have to search for the least bad answer. Practically speaking, the issue will be settled in a political battle in which all interested parties seek the best deal for themselves. Maybe that will, or maybe it won't, produce the least bad solution. In any case, it is what we will have to live with it. One could wish for an outcome that will require everybody to bear the burden imposed by a generous immigration policy and better wages for everybody at the bottom. This burden could be either higher taxes or prices on goods involving immigrant labor, if not job or pay loss.

One final note with two parts can be added. One is that liberals should be cautious about proposing policies that will cost them nothing but require others to take the loss. Middle class and upper class folks and professional people would not have their jobs threatened or their pay cut by a generous policies toward unskilled immigrants in large numbers. So let them be modest in their idealism. I speak in particular to Christians who would go unharmed.

The other point is some Christians want to leap from principles of love and compassion right to generous policies toward unskilled immigrants. I am suggesting that love needs to be mediated through principles of justice that take into account all the complexities involved and the differential gains and losses suffered by various groups. The hope is to arrive at some form of proximate justice that will also have a practical chance of enactment in the power struggle between different self-interested parties vying for what benefits them most.

Elements of tragedy pervade the situation. Skulls of Latinos are scattered in the Arizona desert in border areas testifying to the failure of some immigrants to make it to safety and a job. Would-be immigrants include honest people who want to work make a better life for themselves and their families, a few gang members, criminals, and perhaps now and then a potential terrorist.

I saw on TV a young man who had just entered the country illegally. In all earnestness he said, "I didn't come here to hurt anybody. I just want to work and help my family." One TV show followed a deported immigrant back to his village. The squalor, poverty, and desperation were heartbreaking. The young son was willing to risk his life to come to the United States to work and help his family. Christians will be moved by compassion for such people and be willing to sacrifice in order to help them, but they will not do so without counting the costs involved for everybody and trying to see to it that everyone shares the costs entailed by their loving kindness.

Tuesday, 25 April 2006

Small Scale Frustrations

In the cosmic scheme of things rebates and manufacturers' coupons are a minor evil but nevertheless deserve indignant renunciation.

Rebates are a way of fooling you into thinking you are getting a special deal. It only means the price has been lowered, which is always a good thing, of course. But rebates are an inefficient means to achieve this end. They are trouble for the manufacturer, the retailer, and the customer, adding unnecessary time and cost to a transaction that could be simplified. The giver of the rebate puts off sending your check as long as possible, which means they get your money interest-free for 6, 8, 10 12 weeks or more. Moreover, frequently they resist honoring them anyway. The find all sorts of things that make them invalid. I have been told they have no record of a claim when it was sent with another claim -- which they did honor -- at the same time in the same envelope to the same place on the same deal. I have been told the check has been sent and cleared when I never saw the check at all. I could go on. They are a nuisance and add unnecessary costs that could have been avoided by simply lowering the price. On retailer said to me, "I hate them."

Manufacturers' coupons are even more inefficient. They have to be conceived, designed, printed, distributed, and redeemed. The customer has to look for them cut them out, organize them, search for the exact product, and wait while they are scanned. The the manufacturer pays the store about 7 cents each to process them. This adds up to a whole nest of inefficiencies. The customer is forced to use them or end up subsidizing those who do.

Whey, then, do rebates and coupons flourish? Apparently because they work for the advantage of the seller. It seems there are enough people out there who think they are getting something for nothing to sustain the troublesome process that ends up costing the consumer more in the end. P. T. Barnum said, "There is a sucker born every minute." Those of us who hate them are caught up in a system where we must act defensively by using them to keep from losing more that we would otherwise. Everybody who agrees say, "AMEN."

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Can't Anybody Get it Right on Immigration?

With respect primarily to Mexicans and others further south, conservatives are divided between xenophobic opposition to all them foreigners who don't look like us, despoil our communities, and speak Spanish, on the one hand, and business types who think that an ever increasing pool of unskilled workers means cheap labor costs, on the other hand. Liberals are all over the place. The multiculturalists think diversity is swell -- let a thousand varieties of flowers bloom -- and are blind the the negative side that may involve loss of a cultural center with accompanying conflict and violence between economic, cultural, and ethnic subgroups. This group includes some progressive Christians who are filled with compassion who think you can leap from love straight to generous social policies without having to take into account all the complexities, ambiguities, conflicts of just interests, and all the difficulties involved in reaching solutions with proximate justice for all affected. Naive idealists think you can have a compassionate policy toward poor immigrants but like the naive multiculturalists are oblivious to the unavoidable side effects, like dragging down the wages of all workers, who may be divided into competing ethnic, racial, and cultural groups whose conflicts may escalate into violence.

Politicians are subject to all the above groups, interests, and values that vary with their region, party, and money sources. They seek for some winning electoral strategy that maximizes support in dollars and votes.

Nearly everyone, including some of the loudest and most obnoxious, risks oversimplifying the issue based on ignorance, self-interest, ideological preferences, and so on and champion solutions as if the truth they see is the whole truth and nothing but the truth.


Disinterested theorists and others, including a few politicians, who seek the common good find that no one policy benefits all equally and that the good shared in common is only a small piece of the pie. Pessimists and skeptics like me conclude we must settle for the least bad policy and hope that the struggle of power between all the competing interests will somehow yield something workable and not entirely unjust.

More detailed analysis with more specifics can be found in previous postings.

Small Scale Frustrations

Small Scale Frustrations
In the cosmic scheme of things rebates and manufacturers' coupons are a minor evil but nevertheless deserve indignant renunciation.

Rebates are a way of fooling you into thinking you are getting a special deal. It only means the price has been lowered, which is always a good thing, of course. But rebates are an inefficient means to achieve this end. They are trouble for the manufacturer, the retailer, and the customer, adding unnecessary time and cost to a transaction that could be simplified. The giver of the rebate puts off sending your check as long as possible, which means they get your money interest-free for 6, 8, 10 12 weeks or more. Moreover, frequently they resist honoring them anyway. The find all sorts of things that make them invalid. I have been told they have no record of a claim when it was sent with another claim -- which they did honor -- at the same time in the same envelope to the same place on the same deal. I have been told the check has been sent and cleared when I never saw the check at all. I could go on. They are a nuisance and add unnecessary costs that could have been avoided by simply lowering the price. On retailer said to me, "I hate them."

Manufacturers' coupons are even more inefficient. They have to be conceived, designed, printed, distributed, and redeemed. The customer has to look for them cut them out, organize them, search for the exact product, and wait while they are scanned. The the manufacturer pays the store about 7 cents each to process them. This adds up to a whole nest of inefficiencies. The customer is forced to use them or end up subsidizing those who do.

Whey, then, do rebates and coupons flourish? Apparently because they work for the advantage of the seller. It seems there are enough people out there who think they are getting something for nothing to sustain the troublesome process that ends up costing the consumer more in the end. P. T. Barnum said, "There is a sucker born every minute." Those of us who hate them are caught up in a system where we must act defensively by using them to keep from losing more that we would otherwise. Everybody who agrees say, "AMEN."


http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Hamas, Reason, and Justice

A Hamas leader, when asked if they would renounce violence and accept the right of Israel to exist now that they were in power, said, "Let Israel retreat to their 1967 borders, and then we will discuss that." This is a reasonable position and one that has justice on its side. The usual assumption of most discussions of this question in this country assumes that the Palestinians should be strict pacifists and accept whatever they can get at the bargaining table. This conveniently forgets that Israel is an intruder, an occupying power, an oppressor.

Let the United States demand that the Israelis live within their 1967 borders, and then we can demand that Hamas renounce violence and accept the right of Israel to exist.

Will this happen? No, of course not, because the political situation in this country will not allow it. Right wing Christians and the Jewish lobby will not allow it. So the tragedy will continue.

By the way, could we please get past two other obstacles? Let us hear no more that Yassir Arafat was offered the best deal the Palestinians could hope for when Clinton was president and turned it down. The situation was much more complicated than that.

Let us hear no more that God gave Israel all this land centuries ago and therefore it is theirs forever. Anybody who argues that should also argue that we should give the Indians back all the land we took from them since 1492.

PS
"Short of forcibly expunging the Arab presence from every inch of soil currently controlled by Israel, the dilemma facing Israel today is the same as it was in June 1967, when the aging David Ben-Gurion advised his fellow
countrymen against remaining in the conquered territories. A historic victory can wreak almost as much havoc as a historic defeat. In Abba Eban's words, "The exercise of permanent rule over a foreign nation can only be defended by an ideology and rhetoric of self-worship and exclusiveness that are incompatible with the ethical legacy of prophetic Judaism and classical Zionism." The risk that Israel runs today is that for many of its most vocal defenders, Zionism has become such an "ideology and rhetoric of self-worship
and exclusiveness" and not much more. In that case, Israel's brilliant victory of June 1967, already a classic in the annals of pre-emptive fefensive warfare, will have borne bitter fruits for the losers and the
winners alike."
Tony Judt, "After Victory," The New Republic (June 29, 2002)
http://www.hsje.org/six_days.htm



http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Proposal to Reform Lobbying

Lobbying is free speech guaranteed by the Constitution. However, the contemporary practice in Washington is corrupt. Here is my simple proposal for reform.

All gifts without exception are prohibited. The includes everything from free meals at Burger King to weekend trips to Scotland to play golf.

All lobbying will take place in designated places set aside for the purpose. Each room will be sparsely furnished, containing only a table and straight chairs and dimly lighted by a bulb hung down from the ceiling on a wire.

All conversations will be videotaped and available to anyone who wants to listen.

The express purpose will be for the lobbyist to convince Representatives, Senators, and the President by the power of reason that any proposal they want be in the public interest.

Written materials may be provided that shall be open to public inspection.

All campaigns for national office will be publicly financed by a surcharge on income tax payments based on a percentage of gross income or profit.

Members of the Supreme Court will be instructed on the difference between free speech and purchased speech employed for political purposes that unfairly gives an advantage to those with money.

Elected officials who violate these provisions will be immediately eliminated from office forever. Lobbyists and their employers in violation will be forced to watch for eights hours a day six days a week for ten years reruns of the Oprah Show on which she apologized for endorsing a non-fiction book that was full of fiction.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

The Fuss Over What to Call Christmas

What's going on here? Can we use the word "Christmas" in a public setting, or must we always say "Holidays?" Must "Christmas" be restricted to Christian settings or used only in communities of shared faith? Stores and advertisers are caught in the crossfire between opposing parties. One resident was even advised by the neighborhood association to remove a creche from his front yard.

Fortunately, I can explain. We are seeing a battle between two mind sets. One I will call traditional, and the other I will call multi-cultural or pluralistic. It all stems from the cultural transformation that began in the 60's that did two things:(1)it heightened the sense of identity within groups, especially those that had been subordinated by the reigning culture, and (2) it stimulated a demand that their rights, interests, and preferences be given equal recognition. Women, blacks, gays, other minority groups, along with secularists, were affected by this two-fold change change of outlook. The impact reverberated though society. The result was a rise of a multi-cultural consciousness which insists that previously neglected or subordinated groups receive equal regard in a new pluralism in which hegemony by one cultural group or perspective is not allowed.

This provoked a reaction by the traditionalists who felt their interests, values, customs, and preferences were threatened. Accustomed to having their way in the public domain, including commerce, they insisted that what has been common practice remain so.

So the battle is underway. What is funny about the traditionalist position is that tradition in this context means roughly the prevailing practices during the lifetime and memory of the cultural majority and their parents and grandparents or roughly the first half of the 20th century. Forgotten is that an annual observance of the birth of Jesus is not a New Testament practice. Memory of the resurrection was far more important. Neglected also is the fact that December 25 involved the adoption and Christianizing of a pagan sun festival in the 4th century.

More pertinent is the fact that the early Puritans hated Christmas as unbiblical. In Massachusetts from 1659 to 1681 it was a crime to celebrate the occasion by feasting and not working. Until well into the 19th century this reticence regarding and objection to Christmas observance continued among many Protestants. Not until the 20th century did it acquire the importance in commercial and domestic life it has today with all the symbols and practices we all know so well. Among the reasons it is such a big deal today were the growing popularity of St. Nick based on the images from Clement Moore's poem and the drawings of Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly. With the rise of high-powered advertising and the credit card, the stage was set, symbolized by the annual Friday shopping frenzy the day after Thanksgiving.

Christians, especially Protestants, are accustomed to dominating the culture and having special privileges regarding the customs, symbols, habits, and practices surrounding it the season. Some are upset at the new pluralism that demands that public displays, language, and observances reflect the multicultural reality of America today.

So what shall we do? The logic of capitalism will work well in commerce to find the proper accommodation of conflicting demands that will maximize profit margins. I would urge all other parties to cool it, simmer down, take a deep breath, and relax. We are all overly sensitive these days about our own prerogatives. The foundations of civilization, decency, and religion are not at stake here. Cosmic equilibrium does not hang in the balance. Christians should realize that the celebration of Christmas in the familiar ways of a half-century ago is a historically contingent development and not of the essence of the faith and that they do not require recognition by businesses and governments to authenticate their religion.

Pluralists and secularists should recognize that huge numbers of Americans identify themselves at least nominally as Christians and give them a little leeway if this is recognized publicly in some ways (though not officially by governments) in non-intimidating, non-coercive ways that involve no loss of their own worth or identity. Both sides need to give a little, calm down, and quell the hysteria.


No great principles of natural right or Constitutional validity are in question regarding whether Sears courts shoppers with Christmas or holiday advertising. Religious symbols and language peculiar to a particular religion should, of course, not be given governmental support or sanction in the public sphere common to us all. Beyond that, we would all do well to loosen the springs of our sensitivities and allow some room in the public sphere for non-threatening, non-congenial practices, even if they get into our space a bit in ways we would not prefer.

Do I expect my advice to be taken? Of course not! The zealots on both extremes of the spectrum are too wrapped up in their own partisan concerns to let anything like civility, tolerance, perspective, common sense, a sense of humor, historical fact,and -- well -- the Christmas/holiday spirit moderate their passions.

Perhaps we could all say "Yo Saturnalia" (let's hear it for the god Saturn), which after all was the original meaning of the day taken over by Christians.


PS With thanks to the column by Adam Cohen in The New York Times (Sunday, December 4, 2005).

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Believing What We Want To

The Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski set forth the Law of the Infinite Cornucopia, which notes that no shortage exists of reasons to bolster whatever theory anyone wants to believe.

In the previous entry I quoted two good people who effortlessly turned a tentative, disputable scientific finding into a dogmatic certainty that was favorable to the outlook of each. They could not know the truth because it is not yet known, but they spoke as if they were already in possession of it. They were not lying in the sense of deliberately misrepresenting things, but they made claims that betrayed nothing of the uncertainty in the actual situation. One of them may be proven right or more right in the end, but the outcome is not known at the present.

This is one example of a widespread phenomenon. A president announced that the possession of weapons of mass destruction by a reckless, cruel dictator justified a preemptive strike lest we be suddenly attacked. The claim we now know was false, but the harm has been done. Precious lives have been needlessly lost, billions of dollars wasted. Now we find ourselves in a situation that permits no easy resolution, and the nation is bitterly divided.

Did he lie deliberately to justify a move he intended to make on some real or pretended premise anyway? Was he honestly misled by faulty but sincere intelligence? Did he interpret the available information in the way most favorable to his purposes? He claimed to know more than he did and was shown to be mistaken.

Where does honest ignorance end and willing, complicit conviction begin? When does sincere belief in the presence of uncertainty take on an element of deceit that produces truth claims held with unjustifiable certainty? To what extent does desire turn a objective possibility into a subjective reality, a hypothesis into a firm belief communicated as a certain truth? Does wanting it to be true make it seem so real that we cannot deny it? Somewhere in these murky areas in where much of our public discourse transpires.

How much credit should be given to the massive tax cuts mainly benefiting the ultra-rich for whatever economic upturn we have experienced? Tax cutters and their supporters know for sure. We may safely surmise that to some extent political dogma turns what must remain an economic uncertainty -- given the complexity involved -- into a indubitable truth.

Environmentalists know that global warming is attributable in a major way to human activity. Polluters and their defenders know that the phenomenon -- to the extent real at all -- is due mainly to natural cycles.

Since this is a blog and not a book, I will cease, only urging that other instances of the tendency to believe with more certainty than is warranted what we want to believe can be readily found all about us in public and private life.

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The Abortion Pill and Original Sin

Recent reports indicate there may be a danger of a fatal infection after taking the abortion pill. The question has not been settled scientifically yet, but advance reactions were almost as predictable as the rising of the sun in the East. This from the New York Times, November 23, 2005:

"Wendy Wright, executive vice president of Concerned Women for America, a conservative group, said that the latest news about deaths involving Mifeprex proved that the drug was unsafe. Ms. Wright also speculated that more women were dying after using the drug but that their deaths were going unreported.
. . .
Dr. Scott J. Spear, chairman of the national medical committee of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the nation's largest provider of abortions, said there was no evidence that the vaginal administration of misoprostol increased the risks of bacterial infections."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/23/national/23pill.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1132848328-Q7jgsrMU+w3XKNue8MEZEA

Hmmmmmm. An anti-abortion group thinks that the uncertain, tentative, problematic report proves that the abortion pill is unsafe, while a group that thinks abortion is a moral option for women is sure that it is safe.

What shall we make of this? Nothing contributes to understanding more than the doctrine of original sin. Here it means that individuals and groups tend to favor interpretations favorable to their own ideology or self-interests.

Note that the doctrine of OS applies to everybody, everybody. These are not evil people. They are people who believe their cause is right and good. Yet both leap on an uncertainty, an unsettled question, with certain conclusions supportive of their beliefs.

What is so clearly illustrated here could be demonstrated in a thousand cases where uncertainties become certainties favorable to interests and outlooks.

So next time you confront conflicting interpretations of this sort, remember the old doctrine of original sin. Hardly anything is more helpful in providing understanding of current events, and it is the easiest of all religious doctrines to practice.

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Conspiracies in the Bush Administration

Allegations of conspiracy abound. A few of them are real. A major one that no one talks about is the conspiracy of politicians and the people against good policy and common sense.

People want greater benefits and lower taxes for themselves. Politicians want to get elected. How do you get elected? By telling people what they want to hear and giving them what they want. It is a marvelous arrangement.

So we get lower taxes, especially for the rich, who can unduly influence the Congress. They especially get what they want, often to the detriment of those who have only votes to pay for their goodies. The rich more than make up in dollars what they lack in ballot power.

What we don't get is good energy policy because the people want low gas prices, and the corporations want profits from making big cars, selling gas, and building highways.The politicians want votes from the people and dollars from the corporations.

What we don't get is a reasonable tax on gas, with credits for lower income folks, that would have multiple benefits -- better fuel efficiency, funds for seeking alternative energy sources, reducing our dependence on foreign oil and degradation of the environment, money for other good purposes like health care for all, and so on.

We get bridges to nowhere along with all the other pork our good legislatures arrange by playing "you vote for mine and I'll vote for yours."

We also have sub-conspiracies of the rich and the politicians against the rest of us. So we get bad, terribly confusing Medicare coverage for drugs with subsidies for drug companies.

What we get is 45 million people without health insurance because the insurance and drug companies have sufficient influence to prevent the enactment of universal health insurance that would be much more efficient and get good care for who can't afford to pay now.

What we get is a powerful effort to get rid of the estate tax that significantly affects only the very rich.

How can this sub-conspiracy flourish when it benefits the few and hurts the many? It works because while the rich and the politicians are screwing the rest of us, enough conservative values voters among us are willing to subordinate their economic interests to their reactionary moral and cultural attitudes that many of the rich are more or less indifferent to in order to get more rich. Religious and other conservative values voters are so fearful that the culture they cherished is passing away that they are willing for the rich to fleece the masses of us in return for votes supporting traditional (recent past) ways of life.

But since benefits without taxes to support them won't work in the long run, how do the politicians get by with it? They do it by reducing or withholding benefits to the poor and putting the rest on a charge card for later generations to pay.

But isn't this too simple a picture of the political situation? Of course it is, but is there not enough truth in this oversimplification of a complex situation worth taking notice of? You bet.

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Children of Divorce Wars: The Academic Debate

Recently a spate of book has engaged the question: Is divorce good for children? One side says, while some kids turn out badly, on the whole children of divorced parents do pretty well. Divorce is painful at the time for children, but in the long run does not harm most. There is such a thing as the "good divorce."

The other side says, while a few may remain unscathed, for the most part, children of parents who divorce do worse than kids from intact families in numerous ways. There is no such thing as the "good divorce."

It is more complicated than this for both positions, of course, but you get the picture. My thesis here is that you don't need to read these books to get their general drift -- if you have one piece of information about the authors. You need to know their general ideological orientation. I will call them for working purposes in this situation conservative and liberal.

Conservatives value tradition and the norms they represent. Things turn out better when people live in accordance with the institutional patterns given to us from the past, usually the more recent past, since all agree that some older traditions are bad, slavery, e. g. To put it differently, they give priority to structure and are skeptical of the capacity of freedom to create new patterns and practices that will work as well.

Conservatives and their sponsoring think tanks prefer studies that show children of divorce do badly. Moreover, the studies they do will pretty well confirm their preferences.

Liberals don't dismiss tradition outright but find enough wrong with it sometimes to justify a search for new patterns and practices that may be better. Traditional marriage, e. g., was male dominated, authoritarian, and put women in a subservient role. Put otherwise, they emphasize the capacity of human freedom and creativity to elaborate novel institutional arrangements that can be better for all.

Liberals therefore prefer studies that stress the possibility of the good divorce for the adults and the children. While a happy intact marriage is the best, divorce can be more or less harmless in the long run for children, their welfare, and life prospects. Studies done by them and their liberal sponsors will tend to support these preferences.

So don't bother to read all the books. Just try to find out whether the authors are conservatives or liberals in the sense defined, and you will know in advance in good measure where they will come out on the question of the long term effects of divorce on children.

Extremists and radicals at the far right and far left of the specturm just take these contrasting tendencies much further.

No dishonesty is imputed to anyone. With full integrity and good intentions all around, it just works out that way. There is so much variation in individual cases, so many ways to create and use methodologies, so much complexity in the data, so many ways of interpreting the bare facts that competent, reasonable people can come out at different places, each with a claim to truth.

But if you want to undertake all the reading, here is an annotated bibliography representing all sides on the issue prepared by a conservative institution whose preferences are evident in the short descriptions of each book:

http://www.americanvalues.org/html/cod_bibliography.html

The most interesting question for me in all this is how people come to have a particular ideology in the first place and how continuing experience and confrontation with fresh facts modify their stance. How do interpretive patterns and empirical data interact over time? How does individual temperament enter in relation to tendencies to persist in present beliefs versus openness to change? How do deep-rooted bias and commitment truth even if it requires a change of mind interact? These are questions of deep importance and not often enough pursued in cases like this.

Somebody once said that theologians should be forced to publish an intellectual autobiography alongside their books and articles. The same holds for people who write books on marriage and divorce. How did their life history, especially in childhood, and adult personal experience shape their outlook? These may be crucial factors, and yet they are generally ignored. Pursuit of them might even lead to understanding and to reduction of differences in interpretation. But, heck, a fight is much more exciting.

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We Need Universal Health Care: A One-Payer System

Data released today by the Census Bureau show that the number of uninsured Americans stood at 45.8 million in 2004, an increase of 800,000 people over the number uninsured in 2003 (45.0 million). The number of uninsured Americans was at an all-time high in 2004.
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
http://www.cbpp.org/


The aims of a good health care system can be easily stated. We want the best care we can afford efficiently delivered in a system that covers everyone and allows as much freedom of choice for doctors and patients as possible.

Dependence on the free market works fine for those who have enough money to afford it but is disastrous for the poor. The notion that supply and demand will guarantee efficiency, high quality, and low cost while maximizing freedom has fundamental flaws.

We need to go further away from a market system not toward it. No alternative is perfect, but we can do much better than we are doing now. I urge a one-payer system something like that now found in Canada and that is approved overwhelmingly both by Canadian citizens and doctors. The plan would be paid for by progressive taxation that would secure a level of quality care that was as high as possible given all our other social goals and values.

Some compromise would have be made between medical needs and expanding costs in relation to the availability of resources that always remain finite even in a rich country. This is not socialized medicine in which medical professions are paid by the government but socialized insurance. The advantages are:

1. It would be universal. It covers everyone regardless of income, pre-existing conditions, or employment status.

2. It would be comprehensive. It includes treatment by doctors and hospitals for all necessary medical services including prescription drugs, mental health, dental problems, and long-term nursing home care.

3. It would be efficient. Enormous savings would result in the reduction of administrative costs by having one uniform system of accounting. Because of the volume involved, the government as sole administrator could put constraints on costs of supplies and services. Money that now goes into investor profits could be used to treat sick people.

4. It would produce outcomes on the whole that are better than we get with the present system. The Canadian system supports this claim, although cross-country comparisons are hazardous.

5. It would preserve a great deal of freedom for doctors and patients. Patients could choose their own doctors and hospitals. Doctors could prescribe tests, treatments, and drugs with no greater constraints than now operate through HMOs, other insurance plans, and the ability of the patient to pay.

A universal health plan would, of course, not be free from problems, complications, and frustrations. Upward cost pressures will occur as they do now due to the creation of new and expensive drugs and technologies, the rising demand for them, and the increasing number of the elderly. We could expect fraud, abuse, and waste but not necessarily any more than we already have, except for the fact that some people seem to delight especially in cheating the government. Bureaucratic procedures and decisions would drive us nuts as they do now with HMO’s and other insurance plans. Some restriction of services would be necessary, but we have rationing at the present based on income. Limitations in the one-payer system ideally would be based on rational considerations relating to cost constraints that would not discriminate against the poor.

(This material is taken from my book, The Ethics of Belief (Lima: CSS Publishing Co., 2001), vol. 2, 119-24. )

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Sam Alito: Will Bring Out the Battering Ram

First impressions of nominee Sam,
He ain't worth a federal damn.
Democrats will pitch a fit.
Wanted a moderate, but Sam's not it.
Time to bring out the battering ram.

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Rove, DeLay, Bush: More Limericks for Today

Let there be no DeLay_

With his great power,
He built a great tower.
Now at last he's been arrested,
Now at last he will be bested.
The tower is crumbling by the hour.

He used his power, so they say,
To crush opponents who got in his way.
But now the jerk has been indicted.
Cosmic justice is much delighted.
The country will get better without DeLay

The Republican party is falling apart.
Warms the cockles of my Democrat heart.
Soon the worst will all be jailed.
The rest have miserably, constantly failed.
2008 we make a new start.

The Republican Party is all debacles.
Warms the heart of my Democrat cockles.
Let us toss them on their tails.
Send the worst to distant jails.
Only for money or power do they have ogles.

From your Roving Reporter:

Round-faced Karl in a business suit,
With a political brain that is mighty acute.
Without scruples he does his work
Of enhancing the power of a presidential jerk.
Hold on, it is about to go kaput.

A Little Devil Unbound

Since a Rove named Karl blew into town,
He's tried to bring his enemies down.
With scurrilous, nefarious, unfair attacks,
And skillful stabs in their unsuspecting backs,
He's earned his infamy in the world of renown.

Limerick inspired by a dam crisis:
News item: Dam may break in Taunton, Mass.

There was a young woman from Taunton,
whose mores she was always flauntin.'
She committed lascivious sin with 86 men.
The broad was thoroughly wanton.

OK, OK, I wrote it. I couldn't resist when I heard the name of Taunton.

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Football: Things that Don't Matter Much

A team has won two championships and may win again. The clever sportswriters will inevitably ask what? Of course, Will we see a "threepeat" here? OK the first time it was clever, even cute. A few more times were tolerable. But enough already! After the 10,000th repetition it wears thin, yea, becomes obnoxious, barbaric. Testifies to a limited imagination in the authors.

I once heard a pro football player say that if you are not in the Super Bowl, all the rest is nothing. Nothing? Does he realize what he is saying? If all the other games amount to nothing, then the Super Bowl amounts to nothing, since no matter how many times you multiply nothing, it is still nothing, zero, zilch. What is the Super Bowl anyway? No matter how you cut it, it is one more football game, although in some respects more significant for some people than others. Often it is not even a good football game. Even with a "threepeat," winning the Super Bowl is finally winning one more football game.

Some sports commentators think it is a crying shame approaching a national, even cosmic, tragedy that we don't have a playoff to determine the national collegiate champion in Division 1A football This logic is as faulty as the sentiment that all other games mean nothing, the Super Bowl is everything. OK, I like the NCAA tournament in 1A college basketball, but football is different. You play one game a week making the logistics of having a meaningful playoff formidable indeed without extending the season until Easter. I hesitate to introduce this notion when speaking of football, but colleges are, after all, gasp, educational institutions. But leaving all that aside, suppose we just forget about who is number one after the regular season ends and just have the bowl games for the entertainment they are and leave it at that. Would the sun cease rising, the oceans vanish, the laws of physics fail, or the common life of human beings eating, sleeping, dying, laughing, crying, getting in wars come to an end? No, life would go on. This is one alleged tragedy that is all in the heads of those who think so. So get over it!

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Wedding Announcements as Social Commentary

Engagement announcements are an interesting sociological study. They convey a great deal more information than the details about the event itself and the participants. My interest here is in the relationship of religion to class, Each gives a clue to the other,

For example, if the bride, according to the announcement in The New York Times, is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence and is the daughter of the chief surgeon at a prestigious hospital and the groom is a graduate of Princeton and both his parents are lawyers in one of the biggest law firms in the East, then it is not likely that the happy couple observed their nuptial ceremony in the Independent Bible-Believing Gospel Tabernacle. If the article appears in a small Southern town paper and the bridge and groom of graduates of the local high school and if she works at Wal-Mart and he drives a bread truck, one would not be surprised to learn that they are to be married in an Assembly of God or Congregational Holiness church.

You get the idea. Folks in the upper middle class and highly educated in elite schools might well say their vows in an Episcopal or Presbyterian church if they are Protestants, although it would not be shocking to see them identified as Unitarians.

Middle class people are well distributed in the main line Protestant denominations, but if they are in the lower half, they might well be Baptists or Methodists. In the South, however, where there are more Baptists than people, you will find all classes represented in the many churches large and small that occupy much real estate in the states of the old Confederacy. Affluent couples from rich families wouldn't be out of place at a well-groomed large Baptist church in the nearer suburbs, say Buckhead, if they are in the Atlanta region.

I will not belabor the point. It is elementary sociology of religion first imprinted in my mind by H. Richard Niebuhr's The Social Sources of Denominationalism. Just don't let anyone tell you that the denominations are to be distinguished only or primarily by their doctrinal differences. You can learn a lot by reading wedding announcements.

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The Hubris of Imperialistic Science

Topic: Religion and Science
The Intelligent Design project is not science as defined by the scientific community -- the best working definition we can provide. Therefore, it should not be part of the curriculum of science. But that is not the only hazard we face in schools and in the culture generally. In our midst is also an intellectual imperialism that is a form of naturalistic or even materialistic metaphysics masquerading as science.

It has at least two parts. The first is the implication or explicit claim that taking science seriously means rejecting belief in God. Examples are this fallacy are Steven Weinberg, Carl Sagan, and Richard Dawkins. The assumption is that science gives us a full explanation of things that makes rational belief in God unnecessary (weak form) or impossible (strong form). Belief in another dimension of reality violates Occam's law that forbids us to multiply entities beyond necessity.

Naively, some think that affirming God as the creator of nature only raises a further question from children's Sunday School classes, i. e., who created God. Why not just stop with nature, they say. This simplistic solution ignores the fact that all thought must finally reach a point of ultimacy beyond which it cannot go that must be accepted as a given. It is the final level of reality that cannot be accounted for by anything more ultimate but which is the explanation of everything else.

It may be that nature is the point at which we should stop and simply assume its laws and its constituents and proceed to interpret the particulars of nature in that light. But -- and here is the essential point -- the determination of whether that is the case is a philosophical issue, not a scientific one. It must be argued for on philosophical grounds. Science as science cannot settle it. Some of us believe that thought is best served by reference to a dimension of reality that transcends nature although it is manifest in nature.

Intelligent Design is not science. It is metaphysics. Atheism presented as the necessary or possible implication of science is not science either. It is metaphysics. Neither should be in a science curriculum or presented in any form as just truth and not philosophical opinion.

Some scientific atheists, including Richard Dawkins, offer a second fallacy in the name of science that deserves to be identified and rejected. It is Darwinian evolution not only as an account of the origin of species but as the clue to human psychology and culture. It assumes that the ruling power in nature and culture is natural selection that leads to the survival of the fittest. Fittest is defined tautologically as that which survives, i. e. has success in reproducing itself!

This principle holds whether we are talking about a plant or animal species, a form of behavior in human beings, or an idea or value in culture. Natural selection becomes imperialistic when it is extended by its proponents beyond plants and animals into the human realm of psychology, behavior, and culture as a unquestioned verity of science.

At the root of it all is the gene. Speaking metaphorically, genes want replicas of themselves to be spread as widely as possible. We can speak of "the selfish gene" (Dawkins, 1976). An organism is the gene's way of making another gene -- to adapt the old adage that the chicken is just an egg's way of producing another egg. Human beings behave and adopt ideas and values, and some get reproduced over generations and some don't. Success is whatever survives over time, i. e., gets more cultural genes into the population so they will continue. Variations in what people think and do lead either to failure or success depending on whether they succeed better than others in passing their biological, behavioral or cultural "genes" on to subsequent generations. Sociobiology (E. O. Wilson, 1975) and later evolutionary psychology emerged to show how principles that explain natural selection in nature are also exemplified in human behavior and in culture. Traits are valuable to the extent they ensure reproductive success whether in nature or history.

The problem here is that the extension of Darwinian principles beyond their original use into psychology and other disciplines introduces philosophical assumptions that are not derived as such from scientific investigation. The central question is: What is a human being? The Darwinians speak boldly about human beings by naively extending biological principles without sufficient questioning their relevance beyond their original use. I have seen TV programs explaining human behavior in Darwinian terms that assume what they present is true without any doubt. It is just what science teaches us. When someone defines the mind as a complex machine or as a computing device, we should be put on guard that an assumption has been surreptitiously slipped into the discussion that is not necessarily warranted by science itself.

That human beings are biological creatures and that genetic makeup affects mental as as well as physical aspects of our makeup is certainly the case. The question is whether we have the capacity to transcend nature as self-conscious rational beings. Some of us believe there is a dimension of spirit that must be taken into account. In any case, the conversation about who we are and why we do what we do requires a conversation on many levels among biologists, psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, theologians, and others that makes science a contributor but not a hegemonic Queen to whom all disciplines must give obsequious obedience.

When these questionable philosophies creep into the classroom or elsewhere uncritically as just plain scientific truth, an offense is created that is as misleading and dangerous as Intelligent Design parading as science

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The Hermeneutics of Superstition: the Epistemic Implications of Original Sin

With apologies to Paul Ricoeuer and "the hermeneutics of suspicion," I give you the hermeneutics of superstition (HOS). It is part of the doctrine of original sin. It refers to the tendency of individuals and organizations to prefer interpretations that best fit the ideology and self-interests they bring to the consideration of any issue, especially new ones.

Some examples will make the concept clear. It is not surprising the tobacco companies resisted the causal connection between smoking and lung cancer as long as they possibly could find scientists or use the lap dog scientists on their payroll to refute the notion. Only a few years ago a row of them to a person expressed to Congress the view that cigarette smoking is not addictive. Why? An ideology that served their monetary interests was at stake. In such instances, the hermeneutics of superstition raises its ugly head.

Is global warming taking place, and is it in part due to human activity? If you have an organization entranced by the wonders of the free market and is supported by businesses and individuals dedicated to that ideology, it will likely prefer to believe that recent global warming is a part of long-term natural cycles and that human activity plays a minimal role. This is the idea President Bush also supports.

Was racism involved in the treatment of poor blacks after Katrina? You can supply names and organizations as well as I that were absolutely sure there was. Conservatives thought the idea was ridiculous. Good evidence was in short supply from both sides.

Is it safe to import prescription drugs from other countries to make them cheaper? Pharmaceutical companies are sure it is not. Consumer groups insist that it is or can be made to be. Do Pharmaceutical companies need to charge high prices for new drugs to recoup their research costs? Of course we do, say they. Of course not, say the critics, since the government pays for for much of the basic research and the amount spent on marketing costs and cultivating the good will of physicians with lavish goodies is inordinate and inexcusable.

How doe we account for this? Why the hermeneutics of superstition, of course. We could make this list as long as we wanted to. Just take any new issue and proponents and opponents will find that the evidence fits their preconceived outlook on life and/or is beneficial to their own interests.

Will tax cuts to the wealthy benefit the economy? Of course, say conservatives. There is a better way to do it say the liberals that does not inordinately gift the already filthy rich with even more wealth. The hermeneutics of superstition is like the universal solvent that will dissolve anything, but, unfortunately, there was nowhere to put it. The HOS is universally relevant (or almost so), but there is a place to put it -- in our minds where we use it to be skeptical of all points of view, including our own.

Overcoming this obstacle to truth requires eternal vigilance, agnosticism about what fits the natural predilections of proponents, and hard-headed insistence upon clear and convincing evidence to counteract the seductive appeal of HOS. We need especially to be critical of ourselves, since, like original sin, it corrupts everybody.

By the way, the HOS also applies to thought about religion and morals. I have said this so well in other writings that I need only repeat it here. As I once wrote:

"The Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski set forth the Law of the Infinite Cornucopia, which notes that no shortage exists of reasons to bolster whatever theory anyone wants to believe. I suggest a theological version that I will call the Law of Infinite Hermeneutical Adaptability. This law states that the Bible can be interpreted so as to make it compatible with nearly every conceivable doctrine. The greatest proof of the operation of this Law is that irreconcilable positions on nearly every theological and ethical question are extant, all of which claim to have the sanction of Scripture. The sublime form of the Law indicates that reasons can always be given to demonstrate that Jesus himself would have approved of the conclusions reached by a given individual or community. When the Law of Infinite Hermeneutical Adaptability is in operation, it is nearly always accompanied by the Phenomenon of Total Surprise. I prefer the description of this Phenomenon in its "Lo and Behold" form: When individuals and groups find the Word of God in the Bible, the results, lo and behold, turn out to be identical with what they themselves believe"!
(From myToward a New Modernism, p. 31,1997)

Want an illustration? What does the Bible teach about homosexuality? Tell me the theological point of view of the interpreter, and I will tell you in advance what they will conclude after examining the evidence. There are, of course, renegade modernists like myself who say it doesn't matter what specific passages say. The question is whether same-sex love is healthy and beneficial to all concerned. See the dictum of Paul in Romans and I Corinthians : Love is the fulfilling of the law, the whole of the law. Moreover, all things are permitted but not everything is healthy and beneficial, but we should not be enslaved to anything. I add that that enslavement includes bondage to our own point of view that we bring to scriptural exegesis.

Selah!

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