Books: Liberty and Tyranny (part 3)

[continued from previous two posts]

Levin covers a number of different areas of conservative thought, but important to all of them is the idea of limited government. There is a need for government to perform certain essential tasks – but no more. And as much as possible, the best level of government to handle these responsibilities is the one closest to the situation. That is why education is best handled at the local level. Very little was originally intended to be handled at the federal level.

Growing up in Connecticut, I was puzzled by the slight differences in laws between different states. When I went shopping in or near my hometown, I knew how to calculate the sales tax and thus the total I would need to pay the cashier. But when we did any shopping during camping trips elsewhere in New England, my calculutions were always off, because I had forgotten that other states had higher or lower sales tax, or includes/excluded different items.

There were also different traffic laws. Most other states allowed right turn on red, before Connecticut adopted the practice (it was the next to last state to do so). Speed limits were different (until President Nixon imposed the nationwide 55 mph speed limit in 1973). I think I was also vaguely aware of different state laws as to the sale of such things as alcohol, firecrackers, and lottery tickets.

None of the differences seemed huge. As far as I could tell, from visiting relatives in different states, there was not a lot of difference between living in one state or another, except those that had to do with by physical laws (climate, topography) rather than manmade law. As I studied history in school, I learned how and when different states had been added to the Union. But the reason why they each had a state constitution and their own set of laws remained a mystery to me.

Books: Liberty and Tyranny (continued)

[continued from yesterday's post]

One thing I liked about this book was that it discussed conservatism primarily in the abstract, citing examples more from history than current events. That way you can focus on the concepts themselves, without the emotional baggage the accompanies current manifestations of conservatism, either in personalities or programs. Discussions on worldmagblog so often become mired in specific details of what some well-known conservative or liberal did, or anecdotal evidence of the success or failure of some particular program.

Since no one is perfect and no one’s program is perfect, there will always be places to find fault, and somehow the faults of one’s political opponents always seem somewhat worse than those of people on the same side. Even when this is admitted, however, such fault still end up being used as evidence of the perversity of the opponents’ political views. This tendency is less pronounced when it comes to discussing history – though it’s hardly absent.

On the other hand, discussing conservatism in the abstract makes it hard to envision how it can be put into practice in the real world. And it paints a picture of the conservative as the paragon of moral clarity, while his opponent is a tyrant, the source of unmitigated evil. There may be people in the world who fit those two extremes, but most people are much more a mix of noble and ignoble thoughts and motives.

Who is this Statist, anyway? Levin explains right at the beginning that he will use the term Statist rather than Liberal, since Liberal should rightly mean broad-minded, and Levin considers today’s “liberals” to be the very opposite. They want to control people’s lives by government regulation that reaches into just about every aspect of people’s lives. What products you are able to buy, how you can use your money, how you can use your own property – these are just a few of the ways that your liberty is abridged by those who call themselves liberals. Therefore, Levin calls them Statists, to emphasize their use of government power.

While it is true that liberals generally favor regulation far more than do conservatives, I have trouble with the idea of assuming to know their motives. Levin says, “But it is the Statist’s purpose to make as many individuals as possible dependent on the government.” I have known quite a few liberals, and they are variously motivated by concern for the poor and oppressed, protection of the environment, or reaction against what they perceive as the moral code that conservatives seem to be attempting to impose on society. The result of their efforts may well be dependence on the government, but that does not mean it is their purpose. If Levin thinks that all or even most liberals are Statists in the full sense he describes, he is blinded by his own ideology.

Books: Liberty and Tyranny

My husband is enjoying being able to discuss politics with our older son, now that he is old enough to understand and take an interest in current issues and events. At his request, I checked this book (along with Ann Coulter’s latest book) out from the public library, for them to read and discuss. When they were done, he offered them to me to read. I wasn’t interested in Coulter’s book, from what I had heard about her and the excerpts our son had read aloud.

But I took a look at Mark Levine’s book and decided it was worth reading. I even kept it two days past the due date, when I discovered I couldn’t renew it because someone else put a hold on it, so I could finish the book. (Fortunately our library only charges a dime a day per book.) I’ve considered myself a conservative for a long time, but it’s a long time since I had seen someone articulate the conservative views clearly and succinctly without indulging in sarcasm and invective.

I do have some criticisms of the book, but for the most part I thought that Levin presented the main principles of conservatism well. At first I thought some statements were made without offering examples or corroboration, but once I got into the meat of the book, he provided examples and lots of footnotes. If I were to purchase the book, I would be able to do further research into some of the areas he discusses, using the sources noted in the notes at the end of the book.

I first came to hold a conservative position in college. I happened to turn 18 in 1980, right at the start of the presidential campaign (although that first semester I was studying at Word of Life Bible Institute, where no TV or radios were allowed and I paid little attention to the outside world (they kept us much too busy anyway). By the time Reagan emerged as the Republican candidate, I had decided to transfer from WOLBI to Cedarville College (now Cedarville University), and that fall I took a required course that included an introduction to both economics and political science.

I wasn’t certain just how the Bible supported free markets as clearly as our professor said, but everything he said about free markets and limited government made sense to me. When a straw poll taken that fall at the college showed over 90% support for Reagan among the student body, I was actually surprised it wasn’t higher. How could anyone listen to what they taught us about what the Republicans stood for and what the Democrats stood for, and not choose to vote for Reagan?

Books: Memorial Day

Arguments regarding the morality of “enhanced interrogation techniques” often focus on the “ticking-bomb” scenario, a hypothetical situation where a terrorist (in custody) has information regarding a plan to use WMD, possibly a nuclear bomb that will wipe out an entire city. Conservatives tend to point to the number of American lives that would be saved by using whatever means necessary to get the terrorist to talk, and that he deserves some pretty severe punishment anyway for his part in a mass murder conspiracy.

Liberals tend to point out how extremely unlikely such a scenario is, and that there is no way of knowing whether a captured suspect actually does have knowledge of the details of what is planned, or that he will tell the truth if he does speak. Using a highly unlikely scenario to justify torture of actual human beings, who may not even be complicit in the acts of terror they are being questioned about, gives too much power to government agency officials who may abuse that power. And the victims of that wrongly wielded power could someday be us.

Conservatives – who on other issues are often far more suspicious about government having too much power – prefer to err on the side of security rather than personal freedoms when it comes to the fight against terrorism. I find my sympathies more with the liberals on this one, but I also think that most people on both sides have far too little knowledge of real as opposed to hypothetical scenarios to be good judges of the matter. Personally I am glad not to have to be making those life-and-death decisions.

In the book I just finished listening to, Vince Flynn puts flesh on the hypothetical nuclear bomb scenario. Al Qaeda has managed to obtain the material needed to make the bomb, has apparently managed to smuggle it into the U.S., and plans to use it to destroy a major city. Mitch Rapp, a CIA operative, is charged with finding out the where, when, and how soon enough to avert the disaster.

Rapp’s methods are whatever it takes to get the job done, not necessarily within the parameters of what is officially allowed. Unofficially, he is granted a fair degree of latitude, because he is known to get results. And he is trusted to do what is best for the country, not for his own personal gain or satisfaction. That is, he is trusted by his boss and some others high up in the nation’s security apparatus. There are others who are adamantly opposed to him, whether for philosophical or personal reasons.

How did we get this way?

The recent murder of Dr. Tiller has sparked some heated and often harsh debate at worldmagblog (as well as throughout the blogosphere, no doubt). All the pro-life commenters have condemned the murder, but as they also often identify Dr. Tiller as a mass murderer, pro-choice commenters tend to assign some responsibility for Tiller’s murder to the pro-life rhetoric.

As I cannot understand the mindset of someone who would plan and carry out a murder, of an abortionist or anyone else, I have no idea what degree of influence that “baby-killer” rhetoric would have had on him. Even supposing it did have some influence, can a society committed to free speech deny the right of abortion opponents to express their firm conviction, that abortion is murder and that abortionists are therefore murderers?

What I find myself asking is, How did we as a society get to the point that people – who would otherwise consider each other decent and reasonable - hold such starkly conflicting views that they hold each other responsible for murder (in the one case, of unborn babies, in the other, of an abortion doctor)? There are other issues where there is strong disagreement – economic and fiscal policy, foreign policy, affirmative action, immigration – but in those areas the disagreement is more over the best means and short term goals to eventually achieve long term goals that the two sides can more or less agree on (prosperity, peace, equal opportunity).

With abortion, there is a fundamental disagreement about what is in a pregnant woman’s uterus. Is it a person or only a potential person? Part of the woman’s body or a separate individual? Belief that it is a person, different from the rest of us only by age, size, location, and mental development (none of which normally have a bearing on one’s right to life), naturally leads to the conclusion that killing the unborn is murder, just as much as walking into a hospital nursery and shooting or stabbing the newborns in their bassinets.

On the other hand, for those who honestly believe that the developing fetus is, for the time being, merely a part of the woman’s body, the charge of murder for excising it must seem as unjustified as to accuse a plastic surgeon of murder for removing unwanted tissue, or to equate surgical sterilization with murder because of the potential lives it destroys. (Even those who consider contraception morally wrong do not consider those who practice it guilty of murder, so far as I know.)

Books: The Appeal

I have somewhat the same complaint with The Appeal as with the one I reviewed yesterday, that getting out the author’s message seems to have taken priority over telling a good story. In Grisham’s case, that message is about the corruption that results from electing (rather than appointing) judges, as opposing interests pour huge amounts of money into judicial campaigns and force judges to act like politicians.

I have no idea just how true to life the scenarios in Grisham’s book are. In his author’s note at the end, he gives the usual disclaimers that people and organizations in the book are fictional, then points out that there is a lot of truth in the book. Regarding the judicial campaigns, he says that “the tactics are all too familiar” and “the results are not far off the mark.”

I don’t doubt that the kind of corruption he describes exists, and that well-meaning conservative Christians have many times been manipulated by deceitful campaign strategists who know they can get out those votes by bringing up the spectre of homosexuality and gun control. These are the hot button issues used, in this novel, by the people behind the campaign to unseat a moderate justice with a conservative lawyer (who has no experience as a judge – this is an advantage in their eyes because it means he has no record to attack).

Only in the final days of the campaign is it pointed out publicly that the moderate justice is hardly the liberal that her opponent’s ads suggest, and that neither homosexuality nor gun control are likely to ever be issues to come before the court. Only then does the challenger realize how he and the public have been manipulated by those funding his campaign, and only after the election does he learn just how many millions of dollars were funneled into the campaign by big business, mostly from out of state.

Thankful in all things

I am finding that our English language is full of words that start with D that are hard to be thankful for. Even aside from all the words that start with dis- or de- (disease, disaster, depression), there are dirt, darkness, dread, and death. For some people, the list of unpleasant words might include dandruff, diet, draft, or even dentist. Many of us struggle with debt, and some of my (now former) co-workers are dealing with the effects of downsizing. And it’s not easy for any of us to be thankful for difficulty, disappointment, danger, or doubt.

Yet 1 Thessalonians 5:18 instructs us to “give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” When I was a young Christian, I thought this meant I was supposed to be thankful for all things – I don’t know if this was what pastors and teachers had actually said or just the impression I got. It was somewhat of a relief to learn later that I can be thankful in all circumstances without being thankful for all the bad things that happen.

Not that that makes it easy. There are a lot of people who are very disappointed with the defeat of their candidate in yesterday’s election. My husband predicts “four years of hell that will take us a generation to recover from.” One commenter at WorldMagBlog expects homeschooling to be outlawed, and she and others expect restrictions on speech to whittle away our First Amendment rights.

I hope they are overreacting, but whether they are or not, we are still called to be thankful in our current circumstances. “This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24). Ah, there’s a good D word – day! Every day is a new day, full of new opportunities and new blessings. My mother used to have a small placard that said “This is the first day of the rest of your life.” Our worship leader at church often reminds us that “today is a day that’s never been used before.”

I don’t want to live in a fishbowl

A google search on the word “privacy” produces approximately 1,540,000,000 hits. Among the top ten listed, most deal with privacy policies of various organizations. It would seem that the matter of privacy matters a great deal to people – but that it is an increasing elusive aspect of modern life.

A recent column in the Wall Street Journal illustrates the changing attitudes of Americans towards privacy. I have realized for years that my use of debit or credit cards, frequent buyers cards at various businesses, and other programs that record my purchases make it possible for someone to draw fairly accurate conclusions about my interests and preferences. It doesn’t bother me to think that someone could find out what books I read or what movies I watch. (After all, if they want to know they can read my blog!)

What is the “emerging church”?

If I didn’t hang around at WorldontheWeb, I probably wouldn’t even have heard of it, at least not until now. The subject has come up a few times there, sometimes in the context of discussing “church” (such as worship style), but more often in the context of social issues.

I kept thinking, I ought to find out more about that. But I think that about a lot of topics, and find time only to explore a few. (A few months ago it was Islam. Right now I’m reading a book on Eastern Orthodoxy.) From what little I did find out about the emerging church, it because clear that even among those who consider themselves part of the movement (though I read that they prefer to call it a “conversation” rather than a movement), there was not a consensus on what it meant.

Reading: Wall Street Journal

I don’t seem to get much reading done these days, at least not the kind where I hold a book in my hands. I listen to audiobooks, both while riding my exercise bike and while driving. What am I reading more these days is online blogs and newspapers, which expose me to lots of information and ideas I probably would never pick up from books.

Today I found not just one but three interesting subjects in WSJ online, and as I didn’t feel like choosing among them for this post, I decided to include all three.

First I read yesterday’s column by Asra Nomani (a former WSJ reporter), lamenting the circumstances which have closed the door on publication of a historical novel set in Mohammed’s harem. Written from the point of view of Aisha, Mohammed’s young wife, the novel is racy but not – from indications given in the article – derogatory towards Mohammed. But one person was critical and spread word of the novel’s premise, and with the speed of email and blogs warnings of “a new attempt to slander the Prophet of Islam” spread like wildfire. Claiming concerns about safety and possible terrorist threats, the publisher of the book has postponed the book - indefinitely.