by Doctor Science
In the comments to my previous post, McKinney TX mentioned his impression that
Public education, roads, police and fire protection, courts, life safety regulatory bodies and services(sanitation, clean water, food, public air travel, offshore drilling, etc) are miniscule gov’t outlays. Add in national defense, and it’s still easily affordable.
That can’t be right, I thought. What are the *real* figures?
Research happened. Most of the first Google results for “total government spending” and similar go to usgovernmentspending.com, a self-described “conservative” site that’s nicely data-heavy, but makes some odd choices — like making “pensions” a separate category. I went to the OECD and pulled some numbers for *total* government spending — that is, Federal plus state plus local. Going to the OECD means we can readily compare the US with other countries.
Summary: Many of the problems Americans think of as being characteristic of government per se (e.g. inefficiency and waste) seem to actually be specific to government in the United States. Overall, US government is either exceptionally inefficient, exceptionally ill-targeted, or exceptionally corrupt. Or a combination of all three.
Total spending at all levels of government for 2008
I picked these countries to compare to the US:
- Japan and Germany, because they are the next most populous OECD countries (after the US)
- the UK, because it is the next most populous English-speaking country, and is presumably fairly culturally similar to the US
- Sweden, because it is the most populous Scandinavian country, a region which has consistently high quality of life
I wanted to make a comparison to Canada, but AFAICT they stopped sharing data in a form OECD can use after 2006, and I couldn’t easily figure out how to manipulate their data to be conformable to the OECD categories.
At first I looked at 2010 data, but then I switch to 2008 because
- it’s before the world-wide recession, so reflects a non-crisis set of priorities
- it’s before Obama, so we won’t be distracted about talking about his administration’s priorities
The Key gives the OECD category names, then my interpretation, based on the examples given in Bureau of Economic Analysis Table 3.16. Government Current Expenditures by Function. In more detail:
A number of points jump out at me as I look at these charts:
- The US spends *enormously* more than other countries do on violence and coercion. As Andrew Bacevich keeps pointing out but no-one in Washington is willing to admit, U.S. military outlays today equal that of every other nation on the planet combined. The US also has the world’s highest incarceration rate. Public order and national defense are clear, legitimate governmental functions, but the US is clearly *much* worse than other countries at achieving them for a reasonable cost.
- As I already knew, health care in the US is *much* more expensive than in other countries, and it’s getting more expensive faster. These other countries spend 13-17% of their public outlay on health care, and *everyone* gets access. The US spends over 20% and lots of people are still uncovered — so US life expectancy is lower and infant mortality higher. We pay more for health care, but we get less.
- What I wasn’t expecting is that public education spending is higher in the US — 16.5% of the budget, instead of 9-13.5%. I wonder if the fact that US education primary & secondary education is mostly funded at the local or state level drives up costs, because of the immense duplication of effort and loss of economies of scale. In NJ, for instance, there are 600 school districts, which is extremely inefficient and costly. Just try getting them to consolidate, though …
- I confess, I was surprised at how *big* the safety net is in other countries, how much of a commitment they’ve made to supporting the bottom 20% of the income distribution. I do not think it coincidence that, at the time of the Founders, the bottom 20% of the US income distribution was made up of people who didn’t own property — because they *were* property.
Lane Kenworthy points out that US “social spending” is actually much higher than it looks, because much of it is in the form of tax breaks (especially deductions for mortgage interest, employer health insurance, and pension plan contributions). The net result is that US social spending doesn’t just go to the poor or unlucky, it also goes to the comfortable middle class.
In addition to government spending priorities, there’s the matter of government spending levels. For this comparison, I was able to include figures from Canada.
I’ve arranged this table to be in order of decreasing population, because one factor in costs should be economies of scale. When I threw together a chart of OECD countries, not including the US or the most sickly parts of southern Europe (Portugal, Greece, Spain), and graphed their 2008 spending per population:
the regression coefficient (r²) is 0.37, which is *something* but no great shakes. However, we do see that for the countries I’m considering, there *is* a clear relationship between population size and government spending: smaller countries spend more.
Since the US is by far the largest of the OECD countries, our government spending per capita should be among the lowest. This is clearly not the case. I can think of three four possible reasons, which may be acting together:
- Federalism and local control. Many important government functions, especially education, which are handled at the national level in other countries are controlled at the state and even local level in the US. This is bound to undercut economies of scale.
- Poor priorities. This is particularly obvious in our military spending, which is grotesquely large compared to every other country in the world, but which doesn’t seem to be politically controllable.
- Corruption. By this I don’t mean (just) straightforward bribery. I’m also thinking of things like campaign contributions, the revolving door between public and private work, crony capitalism, the military-industrial-congressional complex, and Medicare Part D. I know a lot about this in the US, not much about how it works in other countries. Certainly Japan, at least, has a reputation for cozy deals and crony capitalism, but it doesn’t seem to be enough to degrade how much government they get for a dollar.
- Resistance to the idea of government. No-one does a good job when they think the job itself is a bad idea. Many Americans — including most Republicans, these days — resist the very idea of government, and have no respect for people doing non-violent government jobs. This will obviously create a lot of friction in the system, making every task slower, more inefficient, and thus more expensive.
I don’t know how to discover which (combination) of these factors is most important; any ideas?
This should give you plenty to talk about.
So, you compared the US to two countries not allowed a military because of…well, you know… a country with full health care which makes patients wait months 9or years) for breast cancer surgery, and a country upon which absolutely no other country depends upon for protection. Good choices.
So who should the US be compared to, John Derby? Oh, I forgot, it’s so exceptional that it can’t be compared to anyone else and you can’t learn from anywhere else. None of the comparisons are going to be perfect, but they are revealing. And if you’re going to make uninformed comments about UK healthcare, maybe I should throw in the fact as a Brit that life expectancy is higher in the UK than the US.
Doctor Science – would there be any chance of adding in France to your very interesting data as a contrast to Germany (centralised versus devolved, more military-focused)?
“two countries not allowed a military”
Um, that’s interesting. Britain, Germany, Japan, Sweden — they all have very large military forces. Just nowhere near as large as the United States’. Which was the article’s point.
And, of course, the United States is one of the safest countries in the world, which hasn’t been invaded since 1814.
two countries not allowed a military because of…well, you know…
Actually, the only thing that the German and Japanese do not have is nuclear weapons. Otherwise, their militaries are rather large. Japan, for example, is about the sixth largest spender on defence, worldwide.
a country upon which absolutely no other country depends upon for protection
This is not really the case. The geopolitics of Northern Europe are a lot more complicated than you would think. The Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) are actually relying quite a lot on the unilateral security guarantees that Sweden issued a few years ago. The relationship between Finland and Sweden is more bidirectional: the Swedes rely a lot on the Finnish land defence, but in the event of a Fenno-Russian crisis, the Swedish navy and air force would most likely be thrown into the game, as they have officially indicated.
Well, technically, there was the 1863 invasion of the United States by the Confederate States.
5) Government has run too long without a reboot. The most recent “reboot” for the US government was over 140 years ago. Government doesn’t automatically work for the interest of the people, often it doesn’t at all. Government for the interest of the people requires mechanisms to force the political class to benefit the people in order to benefit themselves.
Our political class has had over a century to accumulate and perfect a collection of work-arounds and exploits that defeat those mechanisms, and so free themselves to govern for their own benefit regardless of the damage they do to everybody else.
I think we’re ripe for something approaching a revolution.
Among the least useful metrics for determining the ‘size’ of a country’s military is spending. US cost of labor is hugely higher, for example, than the PRC. The only meaningful comparisons are numbers and quality of personnel and equipment.
If you want to talk about defense policy, discuss where US vital interests do and do not lie and then budget accordingly, but be prepared to live with the result.
Just recently we saw NATO have to turn to the US to overthrow Khadaffi. That’s how powerful NATO minus the US is, despite the fact that NATO outspent Libya.
U.S. labor costs may be higher, but nowhere near enough to justify spending a trillion dollars on defense or enabling the Navy to ask that their warships arbitrarily be replaced every several years or so at the cost of several billions, regardless of the amount of use they’ve seen.
Compare that with the shrieking over there even being a minimum wage, and you can’t ignore the fact that this country’s priorities are seriously screwed up.
magistra:
No problem. I just put up the data and pie chart for France. Briefly: overall gov’t spending extremely high, 55% of GDP. But the distribution of spending is very much like other European countries: 3% each for defense and police, education 11%, health 14%, social protection 42%.
Brett:
5) Government has run too long without a reboot.
Believe it or not, I think I agree with you. When I was thinking about what might have happened to make governments in Europe & Japan more efficient and respected than in the US, I wondered if WWII might have been part of it. I think the metaphor of a reboot is a good one, in which case WWII in Germany and Japan counted as a *hard* reboot.
I think we’re ripe for something approaching a revolution.
This should scare the pants off you — think about what rebooting Germany and Japan cost the world, in human and economic terms. How do you get a hard reboot of the US government without WWIII?
Doc,
I am not asking anyone else to do this. But these are the quewstions I would have:
1) You say:
yet those programs, in Sweden for example, are NOT just for the bottom 20%. I have no idea about the other countries. And, as you’ve kind of noted, SS and Medicare in the US are for everyone, with minimal means testing.
(I would also question the depiction of the “comfortable” middle class. I’m not sure how comfortable the middle class is in this country.)
2) I think it would be useful to know how much of the police/defense counts the National Guard/Air National Guard etc.
I would also point out that all of these numbers have gone up as the Federal government has taken on more and more in the last 50 years. Without the Federal component of education how would we fare, and both economically and educationally. Without the Federal war on drugs how do those numbers fare? States at this point have to fight with the Federal government over marijuane laws, for example.
You seem to assume that Federal centralization would reducee cost
while I assume the local distribution channels would have to exist and the added overhead is less efficient.
Idle question – when you did the regression coefficient for economy of scale, did you assume a linear decrease? Eyeballing the dots, I’m more inclined to believe a line closer to 1/x than just x.
Doc,
This should scare the pants off you —
I wager Brett is thinking more along the lines of the comfortable attaining their final consolidation of power via a coup d’etat, not so much a bloody revolution.
The amount of boodle the well-off get from government largess is indeed staggering, but politically all we get are puzzled looks and “who,me?”
Among the least useful metrics for determining the ‘size’ of a country’s military is spending.
Assuming the OECD is allowing for trade-weighted currency valuations and comparing “real stuff” to “real stuff” this objection has absolutely no validity.
Remember that, to a large extent, most Western nations don’t spend that much on defense because the US military, through one treaty organization or another, takes on much of the burden. There could well be arguments that we shouldn’t be doing that, but our large defense expenditures are not just because we’re horribly inefficient.
And that’s not to say that we aren’t inefficient. I worked for ten years at a defense contractor, and I could definitely attest to that. Congress uses the Pentagon as a jobs program, and defense contracts frequently over-specify the work to be done.
That said, I know very few people, Republicans included, who “resist the very idea of government.” Aside from the libertarians, a significant portion of the GOP resists what they consider excessive government. But yes, I agree that many Americans have little respect for government bureaucrats; however, to a large extent that’s probably warranted by the rampant inefficiency and plain lack of concern for quality that so many civil service workers show. It’s hard to respect a functionary who makes it clear that they don’t really care what problems you’re having. Unsurprisingly, this is largely the fault of Congress as well. After all, one part of their reelection strategy is “constituent service” which is primarily helping voters work around recalcitrant bureaucracies. The lack of responsiveness is a feature, not a bug.
On the other hand, it is far from clear that the large safety nets in other nations are actually sustainable. The recent budget crises don’t exactly suggest that following their path is a great idea.
I think we’re ripe for something approaching a revolution.
the center never wants one because the center is cowardly/comfy.
conservatives, by definition, don’t want one.
when radicals try one, conservatives accuse them of hating America and of supporting whatever enemy conservatives hates the most that year. because, though conservatives might pay lip service to wanting change, they do not want the kind of change radicals will bring.
we saw this with the labor movement. we saw this in the 60s. we recently saw this with the Occupy-ish stuff.
any ‘revolution’ is going to have to come from an external force, not from within.
Sam Johnson:
Yes, I wondered about that, too. Which of these functions do you think I should use to re-run it?
I think your regression analysis should be multivariant. In addition to population two other variables I suspect have a strong influence on spending level are:
1. Racial and cultural homogeneity of the population – The US is an extremely culturally and racially disparate, whereas the other countries much less so right down to absolute minimal. It is hard to achieve unified policies and programs when the citizens identify as separate groups with separate interests.
2. Income inequality level – this can be measured rather neatly by the Gini Coefficient, the idea being that income inequality functions to increase inefficiency in governement interaction in much the same way as racial and cultural divisions, with citizens requiring very different government interventions across socio-economic status. The income disparity in the US is rather extreme (think about the difference between the bttom two quintiles and the top).
Because of these two variables the comparison between the US and the countires is an apples/oranges thing.
That said, the US does spend way too much on defense and this is due to the mil/indust complex as well as certain ingrained notions concerning exceptionalism and manifest destiny.
The LE/incarceration rate and associated spending is out of control and this is largely due to variables 1 & 2, IMHO.
Doc, it does scare the pants off me; History is not replete with examples of successful revolutions. (In the sense of increasing liberty, rather than exchanging masters.) Our own “revolution” here in 1776 was very little of the sort, as England had long since given the colonies a great deal of practical autonomy, and was attempting to take it away again. That makes 1776 more like a defense against external invasion than a revolution.
But the situation, in terms of rule of law, appears to be deteriorating at an accelerating rate, even as the threat of monetary meltdown looms. Each election cycle seems to make the previous look tame by comparison.
I think we’re into the endgame for democracy in the US unless something drastic happens, and by that I do NOT mean repudiating the 1st amendment in favor of systematic political censorship, as some advocate. Things are getting ever more antagonistic, because people sense that end is coming, and whoever is on top when the music stops playing might stay there.
It’s for all the marbles now, that’s why things are getting so ugly.
Bobbyp, are you under the impression I like the GOP? I was a life long libertarian until the late 90’s, and I didn’t leave the LP out of love for the GOP, but because they, in combination with the Democrats, had succeeded in rendering third parties an utterly futile approach to change.
As I said to a friend earlier in the week, I may be stoked to defeat Obama, but regard the GOP establishment, in WWII terms, as the USSR to the Democrats’ Axis. Not so much an ally as an enemy to be saved for after November.
I suspect a lot of conservatives view the GOP that way at the moment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient
The US has the lowest gini coefficient of education (I wasn’t aware that the concept has been applied to education). So, at least concerning education, we seem to be getting some bang for our buck; that despite the challenge of a culturally heterogeneous population.
That depends on whether you can actually consider a lot of the things people have been majoring in an “education”. It’s one thing to have a wide distribution of people educated in stuff that enables you to make a living, and quite another if they’re getting degrees in basket weaving and ethnic studies. (Although I may be unfair to basket weaving degrees; Have you priced hand woven baskets lately?)
Note, this doesn’t mean that degrees in non-paying subjects are worthless. Just that they’re luxury goods, and luxury goods are what you buy after making sure you’re not poor. I think too many people have been misled into purchasing luxury degrees when they should have been trying to become employable.
Re military spending, we’ve got a bad case of imperial over-reach, aggravated by the fact that, unlike most empires in history, we forgot to collect the tribute. I think we need to get back to being just another country. This isn’t because I want America to be reduced, it’s because I *don’t* want us reduced; As just another country, we have the prospect of being a really great just another country. As a hegemon, we’re doing a good job of destroying ourselves, not just economically, but destroying what’s best about us.
There’s a useful concept which I did not invent, the “values trap.” A values rtrap is when people believe something which causes them to be disfunctional but go on believeig it any way. Most of conservative philosophy falls inot this catagory.
The essence of the values trap which causes the US to be so unable to grabble with budgets is the old Calvinist belief that God shows His favor by makig the best people prosperous and that therefore poverty and misfortunes are character faults. There’s a bit of the old Medieval notion of people haveing their proper place i the order of things hanging around, too. Those old notions are stil with us in the updated Social Darwinism embodied in the buget proposals of Ryan and Romney. The same notions rear their ugly heads whenever we as a society try to discuss our federal budget.
It doesn’t help that we mislabel subsidies for the military industrial complex and military actions as “defense”.
A large part of the problem is that governmental institutions are driven to a non-trivial degree by factors extrinsic to the purpose of those institutions. Most notably, but not exclusively, regulatory capture by the interests being regulated.
Defense spending should not be used by Congress as a jobs program for their districts. If defense spending was really about defending the country, we would not be paying for weapons and aircraft even the Pentagon doesn’t want; we would be putting military bases and training facilities where it made sense to put them, not divvying them up who needs the most porkbarrel back home or who was the best fund-raiser; and defense policy would be a lot nimbler when it comes to updating tactics and strategy, rather than protecting the economic and political interests of groups who’ve gotten addicted to the vast windfall associated with obsolete tactics, strategies, and equipment.
Healthcare reform should have been about delivering healthcare in the mot utilitarian way (the most good for the most people); not about making sure the insurance and pharmaceutical industries got their cut.
Financial reform should have been about ending the 40-odd years of deregulation that turned every financial institution into a jobs program for con artists and grifters.
And of course it hurts that the GOP despises both the government and most Americans. You don’t get “good government” when the people running it don’t believe there is such a thing; and you don’t get a “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” in a plutocracy.
It is hard to achieve unified policies and programs when the citizens identify as separate groups with separate interests. — Blackhawk12
I’d agree that citizens increasingly identify as separate groups. But I don’t think I would characterize those groups as primarily racial and cultural. Rather I’d call them primarily socio-economic.
Some racial and cultural groups belong primarily to a single socioeconomic group, which tends to confuse things. For example, there are lots of relatively poor blacks who identify with Democrats — as many of the non-black poor do. But rich blacks are just as likely to be Republicans as rich non-blacks. Similarly with any other racial or cultural group you care to name, as far as I can tell.
Where things get interesting is which of these socio-economic groups join together in the two parties. That’s where things can get cultural. But even then, the biggest driver seems to be “which other socio-economic group do I see as the biggest threat to my well-being?”
That’s how lower-middle class (whites) come to join the upper class as Republicans: they see those below them (the poor) as a threat, just as the rich see the middle class as a threat. In contrast, the poor and the upper middle class see those above them as the bigger threat, and end up joined together as Democrats.
In short, if you look at who people fear economically, specifically whether they mostly worry about those above them or those below them you can go a long ways to seeing who they will join and who they will oppose. This isn’t really economic determinism, because the decision on who to fear is maleable. But it becomes less maleable as the perception rises that it is getting harder to move up. Still easier than in a lot of other places, but harder than it used to be here.
I wonder if Brett know that only 2.9% of bachelor degrees awarded annually, out of some 1.6 million, are in what is grouped together under “liberal arts and humanities” and that only 0.5% are awarded in gender and ethnic studies, and the most awarded degrees are by far awarded in business, education, and health professions?
(PS I don’t actually wonder.)
“Healthcare reform should have been about delivering healthcare in the mot utilitarian way (the most good for the most people); not about making sure the insurance and pharmaceutical industries got their cut.”
I agree with everything you posted CaseL accept for the above in that you have made the perennial liberal mistake of not including physicians and hospitals as a greedy interest that must get its cut.
“But I don’t think I would characterize those groups as primarily racial and cultural. Rather I’d call them primarily socio-economic.”
I don’t know about that. You really think that poor Southern white folk are going to want the same programs or to share the pot with poor urban blacks and Hispanics? I am pretty sure they don’t. Heck, even the poor urban Hispanics want for themselves and are in conflict with the poor urban blacks.
Same goes for Catholics versus babtists, etc, etc.
People often are locked into clannish identification and think in terms of that only and clannishness becomes increasingly petty regarding the boundries membership.
Brett, when you say “unlike most empires in history, we forgot to collect the tribute”, I immediately think of this:
http://www.wnd.com/2003/07/19844/
Also, very cute how you repeat the talking point that overturning Citizens United means “repudiating the 1st amendment” (by which you mean, “repudiating the idea that spending unlimited money is protected under the First Amendment”).
I don’t have time to look up the cites but I’ve seen the info and contrary to Fuzzy, there is no correlation between “safety net” spending and countries hit hardest by the economic downturn. Some of the largest social security (small s) spenders in northern Europe did the best in the downturn.
Unaccustomed as I am to agreeing with Brett, I am uncomfortable with the degree that the left and right are unable to listen to each other. This seems functionally similar to the slope that the US kept slipping down in the early 1800s about slavery, which eventually made civil war inevitable. My fears are that we will continue to become more divided until being ungovernable is resolved with either a violent conflict or military dictatorship. (Not imminently, but gradually over maybe 20 years.)
This seems functionally similar to the slope that the US kept slipping down in the early 1800s about slavery, which eventually made civil war inevitable.
Yep. Much as it would be better not to have to get to that point, some things are worth fighting for.
Phil, may I introduce you to a concept you’re apparently unfamiliar with? “Examples”
“Also, very cute how you repeat the talking point that overturning Citizens United means “repudiating the 1st amendment” (by which you mean, “repudiating the idea that spending unlimited money is protected under the First Amendment”).”
Burt, to be specific, I don’t believe the 1st amendment protects unlimited spending, except in the specific context speech and printed matter. Of course, that’s the precise context campaign ‘reformers’ want to regulate the spending of money.
Because it’s not the money they’re trying to regulate, it’s the speech…
Yes, Brett, thank you for those “examples” of something so trivial in the scheme of things that they can successfully be ignored away in the context of discussing education spending by government. Very useful, as always.
(In case everybody isn’t up on it, “We’re wasting millions of taxpayer dollars for people to learn transgender studies and postcolonial Indian literature” is the rallying cry of the “We need more MBAs on college boards of regents/we need to get rid of Pell grants/we need to get rid of subsidized student loans” crowd, of which I’ll bet Brett is a card-carrying member.)
2009:
Business 347,985
Social sciences and history 168,500
Health professions and related clinical sciences 120,488
Education 101,708
Psychology 94,271
Visual and performing arts 89,140
Biological and biomedical sciences 80,756
Communication, journalism, and related programs 78,009
Engineering 69,133
English language and literature/letters 55,462
Liberal arts and sciences, general studies, 47,096
Security and protective services 41,800
Computer and information sciences 37,994
Multi/interdisciplinary studies 37,444
Parks, recreation, leisure, and fitness studies 31,667
Agriculture and natural resources 24,988
Public administration and social services 23,851
Physical sciences and science technologies 22,466
Family and consumer sciences/human sciences 21,905
Foreign languages, literatures, and linguistics 21,158
Engineering technologies 15,503
Mathematics and statistics 15,496
Philosophy and religious studies 12,444
Architecture and related services 10,119
Theology and religious vocations 8,940
Area, ethnic, cultural, and gender studies 8,772
Transportation and materials moving 5,189
Communications technologies 5,100
Legal professions and studies 3,822
Library science 78
Military technologies 55
Precision production 29
Not classified by field of study 0
from here
What’s a degree in “Business”? Is it training to run Apple, a Motel6 franchise, or a lemonade stand? Is it, possibly, an excuse to spend 4 years on a campus away from your parents — a more politically correct excuse than “English Language and Literature”?
“Precision Production” is a major I have to learn more about. Likewise “Military Technologies”.
“Security and protective services” must be an interesting field of scholarship. I wonder what courses are required for a degree. Also, what fraction of the 41,800 graduates are seeking employment in the …yuk.. public sector.
–TP
More MBAs? God forbid we get any more MBAs. Only reason there’s so many jobs for MBAs as it is, is that people with MBAs are deciding who gets hired…
Security and protective services degrees are usually either Criminal Justice type degrees or dodgy “Homeland Security” degrees offered by for-profit institutions aiming at grabbing GI Bill money from students who want a degree and a path to airport and customs jobs. Bilboards advertising the latter popped up all over in the wake of 9/11.
My fears are that we will continue to become more divided until being ungovernable is resolved with either a violent conflict or military dictatorship.
over what?
the single-digit percentage over which the top 1% of income earners are taxed on their 250,000th dollar? the precise construction of the old-age health-care safety net?
what exactly is it that you all think the rest of the Kardasian-watching, Bud-Lite-Lime-drinking, USA-Today reading country is so riled-up about?
You really think that poor Southern white folk are going to want the same programs or to share the pot with poor urban blacks and Hispanics?
Why not? They don’t have to hang out at each other’s houses or associate with one another in any other significant way to support the same policies or programs. Voting patterns don’t have to equate to people identifying with each other on a personal level. Even if you think people of different backgrounds are generally incapable of liking each other, you don’t have to think they won’t vote for the same programs from which they would benefit.
Too many MBAs and an overly imperial US on the same day? Brett’s on a roll. We could turn him to the dark side, yet.
Note, this doesn’t mean that degrees in non-paying subjects are worthless. Just that they’re luxury goods, and luxury goods are what you buy after making sure you’re not poor.
The US economy generates approximately $50,000/yr. per capita (i.e., everybody). We are not poor. Advanced degrees and more leisure are different goods, not “luxury” goods.
So your little diatribe here left me, well, indifferent.
what exactly is it that you all think the rest of the Kardasian-watching, Bud-Lite-Lime-drinking, USA-Today reading country is so riled-up about?
There is a BLACK MAN in the White House.
Re Citizens United and free speech:
“Corporations are people*, my friends” — Mitt Romney
* So is Soylent Green
Re “useless” degrees:
A University is not a trade school, no matter how much the Job Creators want it to be. Spend four years getting a degree in Ethnic Studies or Contemporary Media or any other Liberal Art and you’ll be very good at writing, doing research, comparing different authorities, describing various viewpoints, and digging hard data out of crap.
For decades, the path to Business Management started with a Liberal Arts degree. Nowadays, it seems to be more important to know how to write Excel macros than to write a coherent position paper.
There is a BLACK MAN in the White House.
Yes, indeed, this is what they are riled up about.
I just don’t like him. Can’t stand to look at him. I don’t like his wife – she’s far from the First Lady. It’s about time we get a First Lady in there who acts like a First Lady and looks like a First Lady.
From NPR (via democratic underground).
I don’t want another civil war, and I’m praying (not sure to whom) that the country does the right thing without it. But, you know, I don’t want to live in a racist country.
“…..you don’t have to think they won’t vote for the same programs from which they would benefit.”
If that were the case, if socio-economic status was the variable defining the interest of voters, then there would be NO Republican party. It would die a quick death due to lack of support from 99% of the voting public.
This is important to realize because it’s where liberals fail miserably – from a political perspective – and where the right wing has deviously devised a successful strategy.
By becoming the party of amerikan values the right wingers are *against* welfare (read blacks and hispanics) and illegal immigrants (read hispanics) and abortion (read uppity women) and gays (read unamerikan freaks and pet projects of snotty college elitists).
They have offered a voice for anyone who hates. That’s alot of people. The dislike of the perceived outgroup outweighs the rational vote for economic self interest. Thus the right continues to stay in the game.
That said, the right does make more sense on some issues, like gun rights, where liberals shoot themselves in the foot, as usual. The small government pitch makes sense too. Even though it’s obvious they won’t really do it, it still sounds good.
Any how, the point is that the right has exploited the fact that people vote more for clan “values” and myths than they do economic self interest.
“I don’t want another civil war, and I’m praying (not sure to whom) that the country does the right thing without it. But, you know, I don’t want to live in a racist country.”
The People voted for a black man because that’s how desperate they were. The black man offered much shiny hope. He failed to deliver. Now the choice is between the failed black man or a crazy rich elitist white man. There is a sense that 99% of us are screwed either way. It’s a powder keg that just might explode. I’m laying 25% chance of civil war in 2013. 45% chance of civil war by 2015.
And I’m laying 19 to 1 odds that we’ll just muddle along for another 10 years.
Wasn’t there a blog exchange about the exaggerated extant that poor whites vote right-wing?
I think it was centered around a paper: What’s the Matter with ”What’s the Matter with Kansas?” by Larry Bartels
Rich State, Poor State, Red State, Blue State: What’s the Matter with Connecticut? by Andrew Gelman, Boris Shor, Joseph Bafumi, David Park
No Money, No Honey, No Church: The Deinstitutionalization of Religious Life Among the White Working Class by W. Bradford Wilcox & Jeremy Uecker
I have since reformatted my hard-drive, so I can not find the blog links where I found these, however the theme was that the biggest gain republicans made were among white middle-class low education types. Folks who who did well under Democratic social democracy, (high paying union jobs, big government hand-outs from 1950s-1980s,tax breaks for the new middle-classes) and wish the government would restrict those benefits from the the next generation.
“low education” as in, only needing a high school diploma to enter the middle-class.
I’m laying 25% chance of civil war in 2013. 45% chance of civil war by 2015.
This is complete nonsense. There is a nil chance of a US civil war in 2013. A civil war requires two sides with real weaponry. In 2013, the most you could get would be a coup d’etat, or a large amount of civil unrest.
At present, the US military and homeland security apparatus form a large and bureaucratically incoherent, but ideologically relatively homogeneous block. For a civil war to start, you would need a large portion of the US military and security services to defect on a different side from the National Command Authority. Otherwise, you wouldn’t get a civil war. You would get a number of massacres.
It is possible that a democratically elected president might be ousted from power by a conspiracy involving Secret Service, the Marine Corps security forces of the White House and a number of general officers, but if such thing happened successfully and swiftly, no portion of the rest of the US military would start a civil war over it.
In fact, there would be no need for violence. I would say that even the threat of collective resignation by the most important combatant commanders and service chiefs would force the resignation of the president at the present political climate.
Lightening Bug,
Soylent Grey is corporations.
I’m laying 19 to 1 odds that we’ll just muddle along for another 10 years.
Confounding factor: climate change. Many graphs worse than the worst case as envisioned just ten years ago.
Aus has an excellent safety net, for now, unemployment and disability: no time limits, aged pensions, student and family support payments too. All of these are income and asset tested. We also have a medicare program that covers everyone, but you can purchase private insurance for extras and private hospital visits.
Maybe we are too small for comparison purposes.
1)
“how much of a commitment they’ve made to supporting the bottom 20% of the income distribution”
yet those programs, in Sweden for example, are NOT just for the bottom 20%. I have no idea about the other countries.
In Germany and UK also, many social services are actually used by all levels of population.
As an example of how this works in Finland, which has a system similar to Sweden:
* I got a college degree and a doctorate without tuition. The goverment actually gave me a rather large grant, which was not dependent on the income of my parents. I graduated without any student loans.
* Daily, I use subsidised mass transit.
* My dental and medical care are paid for by the government, with means testing only for hospitalisation bills. Out-of-the pocket portion is very low (ca. 20 euros for a visit, with a total payment cap of 600 euros).
* My pharmaceuticals are subsidised (40-100% of the cost and a maximum out-of-the-pocket cost of 700 euros per year), with no means testing.
* My unemployment insurance is rather good (400-500 paid days at 60 % of my income).
* If I’m on sick leave, I receive 70% of my income for 300 days, after which, if the illness continues, I can usually get a medical retirement.
* My children go to a heavily subsidised municipal day-care. The cost is slightly means-tested but has a cap around 230 euros per month and child.
* My children’s medical and dental care has no out-of-pocket costs at all.
* For maternity and parental leave, the state pays 90-70% of the income of the leave-taking parent for about 11 months.
* If I die, my family will get widow’s and orphan’s pensions.
So, as a middle class person, with a family, I get quite a lot of government service for my money.
Debbie, I think the reason why is that 25 years ago, 50% of all your workers were in a union. On the other hand, in the US, union membership peaked at 28%… in 1954.
Having the critical mass to enact these programs in the 70’s is a key, I think.
Bobbyp: “The US economy generates approximately $50,000/yr. per capita (i.e., everybody). We are not poor. Advanced degrees and more leisure are different goods, not “luxury” goods.”
Let me repeat: Luxury goods are what you buy after making sure you’re not poor. The fact that somebody else has money is never justification for you buying a luxury good.
“exactly is it that you all think the rest of the Kardasian-watching, Bud-Lite-Lime-drinking, USA-Today reading country is so riled-up about?
There is a BLACK MAN in the White House.”
Oh, come off it. They’re riled up about gasoline being twice as expensive, (And not providing as good of mileage because of ethanol in it.) the official unemployment rate being above 8%, the real one being twice that, real incomes dropping, hamburger over $3 a pound… They’re riled up about watching empty houses rot while they’re stuck in apartments with the rent going up at several times the admitted rate of inflation ’cause they can’t get a mortgage. (And because the admitted rate of inflation is a crock.) They’re riled up over all the ways their lives suck much more than they did just a few years ago. That the only reason anybody would be riled up about Obama is if they were racist is just a bedtime story Democrats tell themselves because they can’t ever admit they elected an (charitably) incompetent. And because calling anybody they disagree with a racist has become a spinal reflex.
Oh, and lightning bug? A university is just a trade school with pretensions. “We’re not a trade school” is just a rationalization they use for screwing over people who came to them to become more employable.
I wouldn’t expect a revolution in 2013, unless Obama did something so Stupid it deserved to be capitalized, like canceling the elections. And while he may be incompetent at governing, he isn’t stupid.
At the same time, revolutions don’t happen because the people in power intend for them to happen, but instead because they miscalculate what they can get away with. And our elites are getting awfully out of touch.
And the idea that the only weapons you have to worry about are the governments’ weapons in case of a revolution is… Well, it’s what gun control was trying to make sure of, I suppose, but gun control failed. I would say that if we have a revolution in the US, it’s more likely to follow the Unintended Consequences model, than be a split within the government. Which is fairly unified, and that’s the problem, they’re unified against us.
Oh, come off it. They’re riled up about gasoline being twice as expensive, (And not providing as good of mileage because of ethanol in it.) the official unemployment rate being above 8%, the real one being twice that, real incomes dropping, hamburger over $3 a pound… They’re riled up about watching empty houses rot while they’re stuck in apartments with the rent going up at several times the admitted rate of inflation ’cause they can’t get a mortgage. (And because the admitted rate of inflation is a crock.) They’re riled up over all the ways their lives suck much more than they did just a few years ago.
In that case, they must have really had too much beer, because they forgot all about the financial crisis that caused most of the above, and the fact that corporate executives now make 230 times as much of the average worker (rather than the 20 times they made 40 years ago). Blaming Obama instead of the deregulators who want to turn them into slaves? They do that because they hate black people (among the many people that they hate). See the NPR-quoted woman above.
Basket weaving?
Also:
As an aside on the issue “proper functions of government” as it relates to the guns and butter question, I note that the first enumerated power in Article I section 8 authorizes Congress to raise money through a variety of means to (a) pay debts, (b) provide for common defense, and (c) provide for the general welfare.
What is most definitely *not* authorized, anywhere in the Constitution, is a standing army. On the contrary.
Just a point of historical interest, for the originalists among us.
And the idea that the only weapons you have to worry about are the governments’ weapons in case of a revolution is… Well, it’s what gun control was trying to make sure of, I suppose, but gun control failed.
This is a nice line but it is woefully inadequate in the historical view. Any industrialised government is fully capable of putting down any armed insurrection that has only personal firearms. Domestic terrorism will not destabilise a regime that has a firm grasp on its security forces. (E.g. Northern Ireland, Germany, Spain, Algeria etc.) Even in the fantasy novel Unintended consequences, the terrorists only won because the government backed down, voluntarily.
Thus, you might get domestic unrest with or without the 2nd amendment, but you will never be able to challenge the government without the support of a large part of the military.
“The demographics race we’re losing badly,” said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.). “We’re not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.”
There won’t be a civil war because there is no significant divide iin the population that is worth getting killed over. There is a real threat of a coup. In fact, that’s the goal of the Republican party: a quiet de facto coup by packing the judiciary with corporatists and rightwing extremist activists, by enacting voter suppression laws, by getting the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling,by maiinstreming hatem and fear mongering, and thereby entrenchiig the power of the one percent as represented by teh Republican party so that we have a one party state and only the illusion of a democracy. It’s a coup tha tis very close to being successful. If the coup fails by current tactics, a quick military coup might become necessary and could happen. If it does I’m willing to bet that all the fake patriots who have so far been able to rationalize away every act of the Republican party will rationalize away the formal overt end of democracy, too.
This has to be seen to be believed:
http://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/issues/314713
Tea Party Express Chair believes Obama doesn’t “love the country the way we do.
Watch the video to see her dance around defining what she means by “we” and “love the country” and “our heritage.” I’m sure it has something to do with gas prices and mortgages.
That $3 a pound hamburger is powerful stuff…
One of the many times in life it pays to be a vegetarian.
wait, people are blaming Obama for the cost of hamburger?
is that because he caused the multi-year drought, or because he didn’t do an effective rain dance to end it?
I think it is because he ate dogmeat as a child, which then had a knock-on effect.
RE; civil war: I am thinking of a combination of the following:
a continued drought that raises food prices to levels that force severe cuts in welfare spending, war with Iran that morphs into WW3 and raises fuel prices to unprecedented levels, a continued failing economy, an election this November in which the winner is perceived to have “stolen” the vote, a record heat wave next summer, global unrest and then some wildcard event (POTUS assassinated?) that serves as the fuse that sets the whole sh!t house up in flames – like the ’67-’68 riots, but on a national level and encompassing areas beyond the inner cities. This then leads to a declaration of martial law and a significant curtailing of civil liberties which, in turns, takes the scene from rioting and general unrest to full fledged civil war.
Yes, gun control has failed (as it should) and the citizens are sufficiently armed to make this happen. There would be enough military defections (including the National Gaurd and there armories) that the People would have all of the weapons they need.
The kardashian watchers would be on the sidelines and would become collateral damage. That is their lot in life. Such people experience such fates in all revolutions and civil wars.
few are a morally rotten as those who sit in their comfy chairs, wishing for the deaths of others so that they may someday live in political purity.
A lot of us have the sense that government did more than its share to create the financial crisis.
CEO compensation has closely tracked corporate capitalization for decades. Corporations in general are about six times larger than they were four or five decades ago. One advantage of size is that they can fill skyscrapers with experts to deal with all the laws and regulations that affect them.
What deregulators? The increase in federal regulations during the Bush was greater than in any previous administration. There was plenty of regulations. A better argument would be that existing regulations weren’t enforced, enforced perversely or were themselves a big part of the problem. Regulations can be an obstacle for the honest and a cover for the dishonest.
Quoting a single individual isn’t proof of anything. Besides you can disapprove of how someone looks or acts without skin tone being a factor.
By becoming the party of amerikan values the right wingers are *against* welfare (read blacks and hispanics) and illegal immigrants (read hispanics) and abortion (read uppity women) and gays (read unamerikan freaks and pet projects of snotty college elitists).
They have offered a voice for anyone who hates. That’s alot of people. The dislike of the perceived outgroup outweighs the rational vote for economic self interest. Thus the right continues to stay in the game.
I don’t disagree, actually. But what GOP spinmeisters also managed to do is convince people that the GOP’s prefered policies would help them, or at least wouldn’t hurt them, despite the reality being to the contrary. I’m not denying resentment of the other as a general matter. But I do think that, if people understood the reality of the GOP’s platform, they wouldn’t be swayed by fear or hatred of the other to the point that they would be willing to vote against their own interests. As I wrote, they don’t have to like each other to vote the same way.
Abortion and gay marriage are sort of outside of the scope of what I’m talking about, though abortion rights might prove more important to the women who vote against them if they end up having an unwanted preganancy. The abstractions of that argument seem a lot less important when they meet with the realities.
That aside, you wrote specifically that people don’t want to “share the pot.” But they have to believe that they actually do get a share before deciding they don’t want a share. Therein lies the rub.
So, as a middle class person, with a family, I get quite a lot of government service for my money.
Lurker, you just don’t seem to realize how much of your liberty has been taken away from you because of what you describe. You’re being oppressed, even though it might seem like you’re being helped and that the quality of life in your country is higher because of the social policies in place. Invisible chains, they are, you poor devil.
“few are a morally rotten as those who sit in their comfy chairs, wishing for the deaths of others so that they may someday live in political purity.”
I hope that’s not aimed at me. I don’t civil war. I’m just stating what I think is likely.
Think of it this way; what does a Montana rancher have in common with someone living in an east coast urban environment like Boston or NYC? What does someone living in the hills of Kentucky have in common with the rancher or the east coast urbanite? What does someone living in Compton have in common with any of the above or with someone living in Beverly Hills or even Santa Monica?
The only thing that binds people living in these disparate circumstances together is a common identity as “Americans”. Otherwise, the union makes no sense whatsoever. It should be clear that the sense of being an American is ideological in basis and not actually practical from a self interest perspective. Once the (increasingly) fragile ideal is seen as no longer functioning in any meaningful way there is no way to cause the Montana rancher to be bound to the poor black in Compton or the east coast urbanite.
See if you can answer this: why is the union good? Why is it better than several separate countries with boundries based on regional economic and life style realities?
I actually cannot find a satisfactory answer to that question.
“That aside, you wrote specifically that people don’t want to “share the pot.” But they have to believe that they actually do get a share before deciding they don’t want a share. Therein lies the rub.”
I know I don’t get a share of the pot beyond roads to drive on and a military that seems to no longer protect me, but goes running off of crazy foreign adventures with no rational purpose. Otherwise, I pay and pay for others.
Maybe some day I’ll collect social security and medicare, but that’s a little ways off yet and I am not convinced that those programs will be there for me if and when the time comes.
What do you get from “the pot”?
What do you get from “the pot”?
Stoned to the bejesus, my man.
Seriously, though, I thought we were talking about, for example, poor Southern whites voting against their own self-interests just because they don’t like urban blacks. You were specifically talking about people who do or would get some benefit from a given policy, or so I thought.
Perhaps heating assistance would be a good example of something that would help poor people regardless of their race or urban versus rural environment.
I didn’t think this was about you and me. And I don’t vote out of resentment of people’s ethnicity, anyway. Do you?
But I do like the fact that my bank deposits are insured and that I can buy canned goods grown by total strangers with a high degree of confidence. It helps that people are prevented from dumping chemicals wherever they like, too. I’m glad no one makes paint with lead in it anymore. That’s pretty good. Buying gasoline that I’m reasonbly sure won’t ruin my car’s engine is nice. It’s good to know I’m getting the right amount relative to the posted price, too. It’s nice to know that, if a serious defect is found the model car I drive, that someone has to tell me about it and fix it. That’s cool. I like to know the ingredients and nutritional content of the food I buy. I’m into having enough fiber in my diet. I’m glad there’s a rating system for the efficiency of my appliances so I can make better informed purchases of them. It’s great that the electrical service coming into my house is reasonably safe and very unlikely to blow up or catch fire. I like the internet. That’s a good one. It’s nice that someone checks out airplanes on a rigorous basis, and that freight trains have proper signaling so they don’t crush me at crossings.
I have to go, but thanks for asking. Maybe I’ll add some stuff later.
“I didn’t think this was about you and me.”
It isn’t. I asked as a rhetorical method designed to ellicit a hard look at possibly unexamined yet deeply held ideas; to wit, that the union is inherently good and sustainable; because I am not sure it is either.
“And I don’t vote out of resentment of people’s ethnicity, anyway. Do you?”
Nope. Not at all – accepting those who hold duel allegiance, one to this country and the other to the zionist entity. These people are blood sucking subversives and are going to get all of us in a lot of trouble (see WW3). I will not vote for any candidate that shows an unusual level of pandering to them.
“Seriously, though, I thought we were talking about, for example, poor Southern whites voting against their own self-interests just because they don’t like urban blacks.”
We were and are.
We are also talking about why any interest group in this vast and diverse continent would want to sacrifice his interests – real or perceived only – for members of a union that he will never meet, nor care to meet, and whos interests appear unrelated if not opposed to his. It is bigger than just the racial tensions, which are largely an illusion created by the natural tendency of humans to organize things into in groups and out groups based on some very superficial qualities. Yet, though you are idealistic and think we can overcome this tendency, it seems throughout history, all over the world, that a substantial proportion of humans cannot transcend simple racial, religious and cultural bigotry and that the bigotry has always been the source of much strife and human suffering. Stupid, but there it is.
Otherwise, there are very real regional divides in this country pertaining to economic interests and life style/culture that cannot be ingored. So, I ask again, why is the preservation union desirable to those regional interests? and that is, of course, a question that can be ignored and probably will be.
“I have to go, but thanks for asking. Maybe I’ll add some stuff later.”
uh huh. You don’t need a federal government for all of those things you listed. I fact, the federal government, along with corporatists, is working to erode the functioning of some of them.
Still, I like those things too. The question is, is having those things worth what comes with them? Examples of add ons being an immense and immensely costly military, an immense law enforcement/domestic profiling and spying/penal system, Dick Cheney, Wall St banking crises, Iraq/afghanistan and (?) Iran wars…………
“Any industrialised government is fully capable of putting down any armed insurrection that has only personal firearms.”
Right…
Probably true of small and/or stupid insurrections. Certainly not true of widespread insurrections, or ones that aren’t stupid enough to engage in organized battles with military forces. I mean, do you really think Americans are the only people in the world incapable of asymmetric warfare? You think there aren’t at least several million people in this country who could throw together an IED if they saw reason to?
Do you realize that long range shooting, AKA “sniping”, is a popular civilian sport? Heck, military snipers use firearms developed for the civilian market?
And how is a nation dependent on tax revenues from a modern economy to finance it’s military forces supposed to engage in military actions against the places where the revenues are generated?
Man, do I ever hope the people running our government aren’t thinking like that. Thinking that you don’t have to worry if you spark revolution, because you could crush it easily? Is THAT the sort of thinking you want the people in charge to engage in?
Like I said, nobody provokes a revolution intentionally, but rather by making mistakes about what they can get away with. Including mistakes about how easy it would be to crush insurgents, I suppose.
http://www.infowars.com/money-insider-us-will-see-violent-civil-unrest-in-2012/
That article contains a few worthwhile links. Bottom line, the feds think there is going to be civil unrest up to an including revolution and they are preparing for it.
And yes, the plan is to crush out protests and revolts by force of arms. IMO, that will backfire and make those crushed into martyrs and galvanize the people into an effective revoltionary force.
I am always fascinated by how lib.s – like hairshirt – suddenly become jackbooted fascists boasting of and relying on their beloved centralized goverment’s ability to kill discent. True character doesn’t take long to emerge when even the thought of pressure rears up.
This is bound to undercut economies of scale.
I’m interested in the relative impact of lack of local control vs. economies of scale. I’m not saying economies of scale don’t come into play, but I’m not convinced that savings are the end result when you detach local accountability. Frex, I’m not so sure we get a real bang for the buck from “No Child Left Behind.” And lack of local tailoring can also result in inefficient funding outlays. Not to mention that the budget for the Fed DOEd has increased from 14B to 65B+ while having apparently had no positive impact on results. My impression is that incredible inefficiencies of lobbying, turf wars, etc. that occur in Washington vastly outweigh any economies of scale on education. But I’m open to more information.
This is particularly obvious in our military spending, which is grotesquely large compared to every other country in the world,
And our responsibility disproportionate to boot. Pretty much what Fuzzy Face said.
Corruption.
Not necessarily disagreeing here, but your list is short.
Resistance to the idea of government.
Resistance to the idea of big, inefficient intrusive government. I.e., “bureaucracy is a method for turning energy into solid waste” type of government. Add in a penchant for making laws that are hopelessly complex (and by design?!!), a lack of a line item veto, pork barrel politics by almost everyone involved, a federal government nuetron star trying to become a black hole by accretion of governmental function and you have a problem, IMO. If that is “government”, then, yes, I am resisting the idea.
The funny thing is, I remember real, live violent civil unrest. Bombings, assassinations, cities on fire.
All of those things happened, during my lifetime.
And that wasn’t the first time. We’ve had a number of periods when civil and political violence was quite common.
What happened in each of those cases was that society – our political and economic laws and institutions, as well as people’s own behaviors and attitudes – changed, such that the underlying causes of the violence were, to some degree, addressed.
I hope we don’t have widespread violence, but if we do, I expect that we will weather it. Because he have before, more than a few times.
And I second HSH’s list of things that make a continued commitment to political union worthwhile. And the unnecessary wars and Dick Cheney crap is not essential part of the deal, they’re just a consequence of electing sorry examples like GWB.
But hey, if you really want out, go. Unlike folks of 150 years or so ago, I’m sure as hell not taking a bullet to stop you. Via con dios, amigo.
The fascination and obsession with bloodletting is, to my eye, perverse. There are other ways for people to sort out their issues.
I am always fascinated by how lib.s – like hairshirt – suddenly become jackbooted fascists boasting of and relying on their beloved centralized goverment’s ability to kill discent.
Um … what???!!! Do have a quote or something? I have no idea what you’re on about here, but that’s happened before.
You don’t need a federal government for all of those things you listed.
Maybe not all of them. But I doubt most of them would happen, at least not very effectively, without one. That is, of course, a counterfactual. You asked what I do get. In this universe, I’ve gotten those things because of the federal government.
I fact, the federal government, along with corporatists, is working to erode the functioning of some of them.
I agree, and I oppose that.
The question is, is having those things worth what comes with them? Examples of add ons being an immense and immensely costly military, an immense law enforcement/domestic profiling and spying/penal system, Dick Cheney, Wall St banking crises, Iraq/afghanistan and (?) Iran wars…………
I don’t like these things, either. But I don’t see that these things necessarily come along with those things I like. Are you suggesting we shouldn’t have a federal government at all? Do environmental regulations lead somehow to unjustified wars?
So, I ask again, why is the preservation union desirable to those regional interests? and that is, of course, a question that can be ignored and probably will be.
That’s a fine question. I won’t ignore it. I just think that you overestimate the differences you describe. I don’t deny their existence. I just think they can be overcome enough of the time that things don’t have to go to total sh1t because of them. It happens imperfectly, to be sure. But it doesn’t have to be an unworkable disaster, IMO.
Did he really say “Zionist entity”?
Yes, and it’s not the first time.
Anyway, the idea that expecting your government to do its job and protect your stuff when idiots start shooting each other in the streets in some ill-fated revolution is “jackbooted fascism” is so far past crazy I don’t even have a word for it.
Yes, I fully expect that, if a bunch of self-styled militants decide to launch a “revolution” in my neighborhood, the duly constituted authorities will put them down. Not only do I expect it, I encourage it.
Yes
“Um … what???!!! Do have a quote or something?”
Perhaps I misunderstood you. I thought you were pooh poohing the idea of revolution because the federal government, which I gather you like, would simply crush any such by force of arms; a good thing if you like the federal system. I probably read too much between the lines. Apologies.
“I agree, and I oppose that.” “I don’t like these things, either. But I don’t see that these things necessarily come along with those things I like”
Yet these things are still happening at an accelerating rate regardless of which party is in the WH.
So, the question is, at bottom, what if the federal government decides to just do as it pleases against the will of 99% of the people and no viable candidate is offered to the 99% and the government’s attitude becomes a blatant and bleak, “Screw you. You don’t like it? Well take your beat down like a dog and starve quietly or we’ll unleash our killing power in the form of the US military on your sorry noisy @sses”. ?
The governemnt would no longer be functioning as intended. Do you just lie down and take it? Or do you rise up in revolt?
I am certain that any militant action in my neighborhood will not be quelled by my Zionist entity.
“Did he really say “Zionist entity”?”
Skocking?
So a bunch of nuclear armed rightwing religious “self-styled militants” took control of Ohio and attempted to secede from the union, displacing or killing Phil and his neighbors in the process, using violence as needed and then some, and renamed Ohio, “Reganstan”, you would recognize the new name, would you?
In fact you have made it clear that would want those people stopped – “…the duly constituted authorities will put them down. I encourage it”.
Just saying.
Any way, this, “This is bound to undercut economies of scale.
I’m interested in the relative impact of lack of local control vs. economies of scale.” is more interesting and germane.
I agree with bc. All of that hoohaw over economies of scale is just that. It’s an over-rated concept even in the private sector and it speaks to benefits of decentralization of policy.
So a bunch of nuclear armed rightwing religious “self-styled militants” took control of Ohio and attempted to secede from the union
My wife’s from Akron. I don’t really see this in the cards.
I can’t even get the Orthodox Jews in my neighborhood to walk on the sidewalk instead of the street, or their kids to pick up candy wrappers. Nuclear terrorism is probably a little beyond their ken.
I am curious about the candy wrapper problem. Maybe its just me.
Well, it’s not just the Jewish kids who are slobs, there are just more of them. Plus their stuff is easier to identify because it comes from the kosher grocery store down the street, thus the wrappers are in Hebrew.
The Flav-r-ice wrappers I see all summer, though, could come from anyone.
Do you just lie down and take it? Or do you rise up in revolt?
I might bide my time, all the while plotting and scheming to increase my odds, to be sure there were sufficient resources, that I had support from others. I doubt I would run headlong into sure death for no foreseeable benefit to my loved ones. (Ooohh, this is fun! It’s like Red Dawn – full of awesome!)
For your scenario of the 1% putting the rest of us under their fascist thumbs to happen, the US military would have to agree to do the actual roundin’ up and shootin’ parts. I mean, I agree that the full force of the police and military would not be stopped strictly by a revolt of the armed civilian citizenry, regardless of how widespread it was. But I don’t think anything would go down that way. A good chunk of the police and military would revolt along with everyone else. But who knows what sort of result that will have in the end? Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, perhaps?
There’s no good outcome to what is inherently a total clusterfnck, given what you’re proposing, blackhawk, regardless of what I might or might not do. But I don’t see such as being very likely.
I could see Waco-like occurrences, and I might not agree with the government’s responses to them. That doesn’t mean I’d run out and get shot in support of whoever the analog to the Koreshians might be, though. Would you?
Well phil,I don’t see any Zionist entity help there either. 🙂
Resistance to the idea of big, inefficient intrusive government
When folks say things like this, I’m always curious to know what an efficient, non-intrusive government looks like, to them.
What does an efficient, non-intrusive Department of Education do?
Nobody ever likes to talk about this flipside, where pi gets redefined to be equal to three, or geology gets rewritten so that the planet is really 6,000 years old.
There are worse things in the world than bureaucratic inefficiency. It seem to me, anyway.
And if “just the right amount” of government was easy to measure, there’d be nothing to discuss. Because everybody wants “just the right amount”. Nobody I know is interested in government for its own sake.
If only my cousin Eric still lived in Tel Aviv, he might be able to help me with my candy wrapper problem. ;_;
For your scenario of the 1% putting the rest of us under their fascist thumbs to happen, the US military would have to agree to do the actual roundin’ up and shootin’ parts.
This sounds about right to me.
To my knowledge, the closest we ever came to this was in ’33, but the coup plotters made the mistake of recruiting Smedley Butler to lead the charge. By that time, he was sick and tired of going to war for rich guys, and he apparently turned them down.
What does an efficient, non-intrusive Department of Education do?
What it did prior to 1979, and, as some say, follow the Constitution? Or, alternatively, cut down the subsidy programs to a number less than 100? Let the states have the money in the 2012 budget of around $98B to decide how to spend it themselves? Not put way too much money into the post-secondary system creating education inflation? Just my short list of suggestions.
I don’t follow, Russell, your pi comment. I don’t think you need a department of ed to counter “creationism in the classroom” if that is your point and I don’t remember that being a justification for the 1979 creation of DoEd.
I know I am skocked.
And how is a nation dependent on tax revenues from a modern economy to finance it’s military forces supposed to engage in military actions against the places where the revenues are generated?
Easily. cf Abe Lincoln and “greenbacks”.
I’m laying 25% chance of civil war in 2013.
So if I put up $30,000, you’ll put up $10,000, and if not much happenes prior to 1/1/14, I get the pot? Tell me how I can get this bet down. I figure to get at least 100 to 1 if I bet the other way with somebody else. Of course you will have to tighten up your definition of civil war. A few malcontents executing FBI agents and pulling McGyvers does not cut it.
I promise to donate my winnings to the zionist entity of my choice.
11.9% for defense seems way too low, it’s generally assumed to be at 20%+
And if you add in war veterans, foreign military aid, nuclear weapons, discretionary funds etc, you might arrive at a number twice as large.
I’m no expert, but that’s what I’ve read on various sites.
“That doesn’t mean I’d run out and get shot in support of whoever the analog to the Koreshians might be, though. Would you?”
No. However, I might “fight” in some other way, such as video recording government abuses, etc.
“….made the mistake of recruiting Smedley Butler to lead the charge”
Ha! Smedley rocks. He’s one of my personal heros, albeit on a tier below MLK.
“There’s no good outcome to what is inherently a total clusterfnck……”
I am not proposing anything. Nor am I advocating anything. I am simply querying to see what is out there. That said, I do think that at some point – a point we haven’t reached yet and hopefully never do – armed action is required; say if a Hitler took over the country or even if someone more benign threw out the Consititution and appointed himself King. That sort of thing.
OTH, I am saying that people are not as reasonable as myself and that something much less than the conditions that would impell me to armed revolution can, and probably will, set them off.
You guys seem to think it won’t happen because it’s just too crazy. History disagrees with you.
“If only my cousin Eric still lived in Tel Aviv…..”
My cousin lives in Beirut and he has a solution to your candy wrapper problem.
“11.9% for defense seems way too low, it’s generally assumed to be at 20%+”
Yes, Novakant, you correct concerning the *federal* budget. I believe Dr Science’s charts/data refers to % of *all* tax revenue expenditures including local government (e.g. your property tax, state income tax if you live in one of those states that collects it, etc)
Oh, hush, little man, before I call in a drone strike on your horse farm.
ok, got it
I don’t follow, Russell, your pi comment.
In 1897, the Indiana legislature attempted to redefine the value of pi by legislative fiat. Apparently, a member of the Indiana House had devised a way to square the circle, which required pi to equal something other than it’s normal value, and he wanted the imprimatur of the state to back up his claim.
Happily, it did not pass. But, it came close.
My point being that basic national standards for curriculum might well be A Good Thing.
And yes, countering “creationism in the classroom” was my point. I have nothing whatsoever against religion and/or faith, and I’m sure I myself believe a number of things that would make some folks scratch their heads, but they are not science. In science class, you should learn science.
And to be honest, the “it ain’t Constitutional” argument against the Dept of Ed seems a thin reed. I do not hold with the “if the word doesn’t appear in the Constitution, Congress can’t fund it” point of view, and as a practical matter, virtually no-one, of any persuasion, does either. For reference, please see my comment upthread concerning standing armies.
A cabinet-level position focusing on education may be a good idea, or it may not be a good idea, but it’s certainly well within the scope of “general welfare”, so as far as I’m concerned, it’s on the table, Constitutionally speaking.
YMMV. We all have our point of view.
Also, education in this country is EXTREMELY decentralized, especially as compared to virtually any other similar nation. Federal money makes up maybe 10 or 11% of what gets spent.
Long before there was an ED, there was the Morrill Act (1890) making land grants for colleges and universities. Was that constitutional?
There were a number of federal programs funding agricultural and industrial education in local schools. I’m talking about the early 20th C. Was that constitutional?
What about the GI Bill? Constitutional?
National Defense Act after the Sputnik launch? Constitutional?
Folks need to distinguish between “it’s not Constitutional” and “I don’t like it”.
And in my opinion, folks need to recognize that, when they argue for local autonomy, that’s going to be a big step backward for a non-trivial set of folks.
If your principles require it, so be it, but if you think that it is some kind of unalloyed good, and that all or even most federal involvement is net negative, you are incorrect.
even if someone more benign threw out the Consititution and appointed himself King.
What about if somebody invents their own, personal, fourth branch of government? Would that do it?
“And to be honest, the “it ain’t Constitutional” argument against the Dept of Ed seems a thin reed. I do not hold with the “if the word doesn’t appear in the Constitution, Congress can’t fund it” point of view, and as a practical matter, virtually no-one, of any persuasion, does either. For reference, please see my comment upthread concerning standing armies.”
While you exaggerate the unanimity in favor of unlimited government, you have indeed described why I’m expecting something like a revolution in the next twenty years. The rule of law is getting awfully threadbare, and a substantial fraction of the population have no use for it anymore. The less the government is constrained by the rule of law, the higher the stakes get. When it’s abandoned entirely, the stakes become all the marbles.
Sorry Brett, I think if a police state/authoritarian government takes over, it will be right-wing nationalist, using the discourse of Anti-government. For all the screaming gun nuts do, they know who gets thrown in prison and who doesn’t…and it ain’t white right-wing nuts.
Yeah we all want to imagine it’s only our enemies who are capable of evil. The sensible among us resist that temptation.
Yes. Twenty years from now the new national motto, “Get Off My Lawn” will be inscribed on all the gold coins, well at least those coins not hoarded in basements as the rage against the machine unfolds. A paradise indeed.
Wolverines!!!!!
Yes Brett, far better to act as if everyone is your enemy. That’s why one makes atlatls for home defense.
and a substantial fraction of the population have no use for it anymore.
Please note the incredibly heavy load the word “substantial” is carrying in this missive.
Right wing Leninism? Whither the vanguard of the revolution?
Land, peace, and bread, bro!
“What about if somebody invents their own, personal, fourth branch of government? Would that do it?”
I have no idea what you are talking about. So I can’t answer the question. I suppose, generally, it would depend on how that 4th branch is implemented (by Constitutional convention? Or illegally?) and what’s it’s function would be.
Some people say that the lobbists are a 4th branch. If that’s what you mean, then yes, it might eventually do it. It’s one of the issues that are pushing people to the brink today.
“Oh, hush, little man, before I call in a drone strike on your horse farm.”
Anyone know what Phil is talking about? I find this outburst interesting. Is he always like that; i.e. apparently responding to internal stimuli? Because, if so, there are pharmaceuticals that help aleviate the voices and other hallucinations.
Actually, blackhawk, most of the regulars do understand what Phil is getting at. I don’t really have an opinion, as I haven’t thought about the person Phil is referring to since they stomped off the stage (Thinking about people who hold loud and edgy opinions for no particular reason is like letting people who you have no interest in or desire to know about live in your head rent free) but the snark about pharmaceuticals really illustrates how far you have to go before you attain regular status here. Not that you are interested in it or anything, but snark like that only serves to highlight the fact that you really don’t know anyone on this board.
Folks need to distinguish between “it’s not Constitutional” and “I don’t like it”.
why? there’s no requirement in the Constitution that anyone must do so.
how liberal of you to just go and invent a new requirement like that.
… “4th branch” …
That was Dick Cheney. How soon we forget.
Brett Bellmore: The rule of law is getting awfully threadbare, and a substantial fraction of the population have no use for it anymore.
Yeah, warrantless wiretapping, extraordinary rendition, torture, …
The rule of law is getting awfully threadbare, and a substantial fraction of the population have no use for it anymore.
in your dreams.
go take a poll. bring your shiniest gun downtown, wave it at some passers-by, and ask if they think they’d enjoy some police protection.
For those among us not remembering: Richard Bruce Cheney aka Dick aka Darth, 46th Vice President of the United States of America came up with the idea of the vice president being in essence a fourth branch of government not bound by the laws and regulations (L&R) devised for the first three.
To be precise: He claimed not to be bound by L&R for the executive branch because he was head of the senate but also not bound by L&R for the legislative branch because he was not a member of Congress. But of course all privileges of either branch fully applied to him.
There were two standard interpretations (classic and quantum):
1. Cheney is a 4th branch (above POTUS).
2. He makes use of a macroscopic wave-particle dualism. He is always in the branch not currently (legally) investigated/observed.
“why? there’s no requirement in the Constitution that anyone must do so.”
Depends on whether or not you’re a federal officeholder, doesn’t it? They most assuredly ARE required to swear they’ll do that.
“4th branch” …
That was Dick Cheney. How soon we forget.”
If it was Cheney that Russell was refering to, then i would say that the situation does not immediately rise to the level of demanding revolution. Instead, it does demand a legal course of action like an investigation and, if sufficient evidence found, a trial.
Of course none of that happened because, contra cleek, the rule of law does not apply to the 1%. This will lead to – has led – to a further erosion of the People’s trust in their own government. Another weight on the camel’s back. Who knows what the last straw will be. But it is coming sooner or later.
I had hoped that Obama would do something to bring about justice concerning Cheney, GITMO, Iraq war, etc . I guess his vision of “hope” and “change” don’t involve having government adhere to rule of law or being held accountable. I think the vision was limited to hoping for self agrandizement and changing his personal status.
“go take a poll. bring your shiniest gun downtown, wave it at some passers-by, and ask if they think they’d enjoy some police protection.”
This is just silly. Everyone wants to be protected from gun waving maniacs. Even Stalinist USSR had a rule of law in this regard. Rule of law only means something in a democracy if it includes law makers and causes them to follow the highest laws of the land. That is what is not happening (see Cheney, Dick).
How can people trust the govenment to spend their hard earned money properly when they don’t trust the government – and why should they trust the government? It has lied continuously about some very critical matters.
Who hands money to someone that is a known liar?
All the statistics regarding government spending don’t amount to a hill of beans if the trust isn’t there.
This is just silly. Everyone wants to be protected from gun waving maniacs.
go back and read what i was replying to.
Who hands money to someone that is a known liar?
You really are a straight man, aren’t you?
“You really are a straight man, aren’t you?”
I’d like to be as it is my nature, but no one ever picks it up for the punch line.
Therefore I have devolved into a deadpan snarker ( http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeadpanSnarker ).
Unless you’re talking about sexual preferences – one never knows around this place – in which case the answer is simply, “Yes. Absolutely 100%”.
If it was Cheney that Russell was refering to
We have a winner.
Instead, it does demand a legal course of action like an investigation and, if sufficient evidence found, a trial.
Yeah, me too.
I guess his vision of “hope” and “change” don’t involve having government adhere to rule of law or being held accountable.
My reading is that he assumed, correctly IMO, that if he spent his 4 years running Bush & co to ground not a single other thing would get done. And in the end, it probably would not have resulted in any constructive outcome.
Hold your nose and let it go, or get on with the business of governance.
I don’t know if I agree with the choices he made, but I think the reasons he made them are fairly clear.
YMMV.
Here is why there won’t be a revolution:
Not that many people are highly interested in shooting other people, or in getting shot. They’re more inclined to make the best of whatever crap situation they have been handed, and to try to improve it if they can without f***ing shooting anybody else.
That is why.
The population of people who are ready to actually go kill somebody else because their tax rate went up by some single-digit number of points, or because Congress passed some law that would make Thomas Jefferson crap a brick, is actually vanishingly small.
In other words, most people are sane and not inclined to violence if they can avoid it.
And for that, we should all be thankful.
So alla you revolutionaries can make some popcorn, spin up “Red Dawn”, and have a ball. Just keep it to yourselves.
The rest of us will carry on dealing with reality.
correction re; straight man. actually a +1 goes out to hairshirt for this exchange:
What do you get from “the pot”?
Stoned to the bejesus, my man.
“…that if he spent his 4 years running Bush & co to ground not a single other thing would get done. And in the end, it probably would not have resulted in any constructive outcome.”
And what, pray tell, has BHO accomplished beyond furthering what the people he won’t investigate and prosecute started – other than some half baked rube goldberg contraption of a healthcare reform act?
Nothing that I can see.
“Not that many people are highly interested in shooting other people, or in getting shot. ”
True. Only a very sick person would desire to participate in either.
“The population of people who are ready to actually go kill somebody else because their tax rate went up by some single-digit number of points, or because Congress passed some law that would make Thomas Jefferson crap a brick, is actually vanishingly small.”
Agreed again, mostly. That is what the Cheney’s of the world count on.
Yet, the history of the world is surfiet with bloody revolutions. The guilletine went way beyond its original intented use and became some kind of bloody entertainment.
We have kids gunning each other down every day right here in the good old US of A over a who’s wearing what color bandana, over a perceived “dis”, over a few dollars or a crack rock. We have flashmobs beating down innocent people for nothing.
Here’s what I see, Russell and I don’t mean any disrespect and I don’t want to come off as patronizing. Really, I don’t.
I think you mean well and mean what you say and are decent good guy, but you are coming from an educated middle class nice guy perspective. You are honestly voicing what you and the people you associate with think and feel.
However, I think you miscalculate how many people are just like you and your associates. I think you also miscalculate what you and your friends are actually capable of in the right circumstances.
“most people are sane and not inclined to violence if they can avoid it.”
I disagree. Most people act sane as long as that is the lead to follow becuase most people are followers (see Millgram).
Most people – or if not most, a substantial % – are capable of extreme brutality and inhumanity if that is what the cues around them are pointing to. This is particularly true of young men and, these days (thanks feminism) increasingly young women as well. This is something the military knows and exploits quite succesfully.
Once the flashpoint is reached and the mobs react, people will join in and do things you thought never capable of. I cannot overemphasize that the restraints that have been historically there are no longer. The government has earned its loss of respect and admiration as a source of authority and this erosion of foundation will have severe backlash when the sh!t hits the fan.
“I cannot overemphasize that the restraints that have been historically there are no longer.”
I’m not sure about that. I agree with what you said about the rule of law not applying to the 1 percent, and think that criticism applies to both parties. I still hope Obama wins for other reasons, but on the rule of law and war crimes issues he stinks. But it’s been that way forever. One of Glenn Greenwald’s final columns at Salon was about the history of terrorism–I mean the word, not the tactic. It actually made me feel better about the Democrats in Congress, or rather some of them back in the 80’s, because apparently (according to someone GG interviewed) they fought to have Reagan’s policies in Central America labeled as support for terrorism, which it was. The NYT never reported on this (except in the column of Anthony Lewis). Anyway, my point is the government quite deliberately supported death squad killers to win in El Salvador. There were no consequences. There were no serious consequences to Iran-Contra either. There’s not been a rule of law for really high-ranking Americans for a long time. People don’t rebel over this. I don’t want to see gunfire or riots, but street protests and constant denouncing and that sort of thing seems called for, and even that doesn’t happen. I don’t do it either.
Here is the interview GG had with someone named Brulin that I just referred to —
link
“My reading is that he assumed, correctly IMO, that if he spent his 4 years running Bush & co to ground not a single other thing would get done. And in the end, it probably would not have resulted in any constructive outcome.”
Nah, he’s got employees, he can, metaphorically, walk and chew gum at the same time.
More to the point, he has every reason to believe that, if he broke this tacit agreement between the parties to not prosecute each other, HE would subsequently be run to the ground. The assumption that criminality in office and out is somehow limited to Republicans is absurd. By the standards Bush committed war crimes, Obama has committed war crimes. And you wouldn’t have much trouble making the case that he’s committed crime crimes, either, if you wanted to mount a politically motivated prosecution. Or just abandon a politically motivated non-prosecution, really.
Mark Twain famously said that Congress were America’s native criminal class. That hasn’t changed a bit, and only mindless partisans think it doesn’t apply to both parties. That’s the horror of our times: There isn’t an honest alternative to vote for, the crooks have made sure of it.
In the meanwhile, best blog comment title of the week: Democrats Celebrate Ted Kennedy, Mary Jo Kopechne Unavailable For Comment Best, because it’s true. Your party lauded a murderer.
I think all presidents of at least the last 100 years committed hanging offenses while in office and at least some did even before that*. I would bet also that most state governors in the same period committed acts that at least should have sent them to jail. To be cynical, having served as president or governor of state should be made a criminal offense with assumption of guilt until proven otherwise (good luck with that). That would be a net increase of justice.
Not that it would have any chance of becoming reality but the idea has been tried in the (distant) past**: Any holder of (at least high) office has to publicly account for his or her deeds before an entity with the legal power of prosecution (which itself cannot be party or benefit from any outcome).
Your party lauded a murderer.
That’s mandatory but usually it’s indirect mass murderers (what we over here call Schreibtischtäter) not people that unintentionally cause death through reckless personal behaviour.
*i.e. before getting elected (although referring to the 100 years would not be that far off either).
**Rome tried it but the results switched between 100% acquittal and 100% conviction depending on which class (senatorial or knight) provided the jurors. Unfortunately the US have a lot in common with the Rome of the late republic.
If you are including yourself in this “we”, Brett, I would like to applaud this thought.
In general, it’s a useful realization. It’s something I have given too little thought to in past times, and something I hang out with a great deal more these days. Which also has me commenting a good deal less where I would otherwise be inclined to.
New topic: I would like to say that I have much appreciated russell’s involvement in this thread, as well as his implacable reasonability while disagreeing. russell is the heart and soul of disagreeing while remaining agreeable, I say. Which is not to say that he doesn’t get pissed off from time to time, just that once that’s done, it’s done.
So: even though russell and I have some areas of disagreement, I respect the hell out of the guy. We might be voting for different people this election season, but russell is a standup dude, and we are fortunate to have his participation here.
Damnit, now I’m getting all teary. Anyway, russell inspired me so much that I went out and deleted a few hundred trackbacks to porn sites (And the like. You have no idea, nor do you want to.) just so I could feel like I did something good.
you are coming from an educated middle class nice guy perspective.
Correct.
That said, my opinion regarding the likelihood of violent uprisings is not based on, or at least not solely on, my own personal point of view and preferences.
Nah, he’s got employees, he can, metaphorically, walk and chew gum at the same time.
I guess my point was less about how full Obama’s personal date book was, and more about the political ramifications of pursuing criminal charges against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al.
IMO Obama’s been an improvement over Bush in the specific area of torture. You will get no argument from me that, in other areas, hoped-for changes have been less than forthcoming.
Some of that appears to be due to Obama’s preference, some to what appears to me to be his lack of interest in spending his time in office walking into any number of political sh*tstorms.
Remember closing Gitmo? Or holding and trying people in the US?
At some point, on a lot of this stuff I think Obama woke up one day and just said f**k it, it’s not worth it, I have other things I need to get done.
Don’t know if I agree with those decisions, but they weren’t mine to make.
As noted above, my reading, nothing more.
Your party lauded a murderer.
More likely, felony vehicular homicide.
Yes, it’s true, Kennedy is a liberal hero, and he was responsible for the death of Mary Joe Kopechne.
And when it happened, he handled it with more than the usual portion of cowardice and rich-kid lawyering up.
Make of it what you will.
But seriously folks….
……who hands their hard earned money to a known pathological liar?
Who trusts a pathological liar to “do the right thing” with their hard earned money?
This, IMO, is the fundemental question dividing the right and left on the issue of taxes and gov’t spending. The right not trusting the gov’t “beast” and the left, if not trusting completely, at least being involved in codependent relationship with the beast.
The right not trusting the gov’t “beast” and the left, if not trusting completely, at least being involved in codependent relationship with the beast.
Then, there are those of us who don’t view government as a “beast”. Any more than any other human institution is a “beast”.
Such silly children we are, I know, but there it is.
Also – captcha with foreign alphabets is a step too far.
Just saying.
In science class, you should learn science.
No argument from me. Amen! Er, I agree.
And to be honest, the “it ain’t Constitutional” argument against the Dept of Ed seems a thin reed.
Yeah, and I thought my “some people say” would buy me some cover. Quit seeing right through my plausible deniability Russell!!!
I didn’t want to really get into THIS debate. Yes, Congress has a long history of skipping right past the specifically enumerated powers and reservation to the states and salivating over the words “general welfare.” IMHO, federal intervention in education made more sense during reconstruction (before the land grants) or to protect civil rights or as a benefit adjunct to military service than DoED does today.
Wolverines!!!!!
Lol. Beat me to it.
However, I think you miscalculate how many people are just like you and your associates. I think you also miscalculate what you and your friends are actually capable of in the right circumstances.
physician, there’s a log in your kettle.
“Then, there are those of us who don’t view government as a “beast”. Any more than any other human institution is a “beast”.”
Oh, Come now. Surely there is some level of awfulness at which you would be willing to see a government as a functional entity deserving to be called a “beast”. Let’s test where you draw that line by starting at an extreme; The Nazi Party circa 1942 as it drafts its “final solution”. Would you be willing to label that govt as a beast?
Everyone knows that logs belong in tables. A log in a kettle is just unnatural.
“physician, there’s a log in your kettle.”
Cleek, all you have to do is turn on the tv and take a look at what is happening all over the world to realize that people are very capable of killing their neighbors, in very large numbers, in the course of civil wars, revolutions, general uprisings, etc
In Africa people were capable of slaughtering their neighbors, to the count of around a million, with machetes for christsake.
Yet you guys think that Americans can’t do that? What??!!! do I detect the R word operating here? Is it possible that good libs would take leave of their “we’re all the same” philosophy and might indulge in thinking that its only a bunch of subhuman wogs that can slaughter their fellow countrymen?
Because that’s what you’re saying. You know that, right? That or you’re just going all ostrich.
Slarti, is that log base 10 or base e? I think it makes a difference.
Because that’s what you’re saying.
no, it isn’t. i’m saying your continual insistence that violent revolution is imminent – or, at least eminently possible – appears to be based on a rather narrowly-focused bit of mass psychology.
of course Americans are capable of mindless violence. someone demonstrates that, usually with a gun, every couple of weeks. and of course we’re cool with killing people by the thousands (ask Germany, Japan, Vietnam, Iraq, the US south). and yes, mobs exist.
but you haven’t shown that the conditions for Nazi-style or African-style mob violence, or exist here, today. you just keep insinuating that it’s right around the corner, and you seem to be saying that it’s because people share your particular set of political concerns. and i disagree.
The Nazi Party circa 1942 as it drafts its “final solution”.
Ai yi yi.
This is getting a little too late-night-undergrad-lounge-with-bong for me.
Peace out.
“….but you haven’t shown that the conditions for Nazi-style or African-style mob violence, or exist here, today.”
I am aware that I haven’t. I was merely responding to russell’s assertion that it *can’t* happen here because there aren’t enough people capable of it here.
What I *am* proposing is that it *could* happen here if conditions (e.g. trust in govt continues to fail, govt continues to be perceived as non-responsive to the needs and desires of 99% of the population, the population continues to perceive itself as hopelessly divided on a number of key issues, the population perceives that it is handing its hard earned money to a bunch of crooks,etc); that we are sliding towards that situation and the possibility grows greater each year.
I don’t want it to happen.
I work in a building that is more than tall enough for someone to jump off it to his or her death. I think the probability that someone will do that today is very, very low. That does not require me to believe that people are incapable of committing suicide by jumping off of tall buildings.
(Is that so hard?)
cross-posted, blackhawk. never mind.
Then again, I don’t think russell has asserted that what you’re proposing can’t happen here under the extreme sort of conditions you describe, so don’t never mind.
I think the issue is that you think we are moving inexorably toward such extreme conditions and that we will reach them fairly soon, as though things can’t slow down or turn around as far as the poor conduct of our political elites is concerned.
Our government is a lot like Nazis, and we will be hacking each other to death with machetes soon.
Apparently.
I had best get to sharpening up some polearms.
hairshirthedonist, I listen to signals/chatter and analyze what it says about attitudes and activities. I have never seen the country so divided, so disillusioned with government and so willing to contemplate revolution.
The only period close in this regard – in my life time – was the 1960s. However, in the ’60s the revolutionaries were the young people (some of whom did riot and burn), with the older people, say those over 30, still maintaining a fair level of trust and respect in and for the government. Today that base of loyalists seems to me to be a lot weaker with many older folks being very cynical and lacking trust. There is a sense of hopelessness and nihilism in the air.
In the 60s we still had a solid middle class and the American dream was very much alive. There was an flourishing idea that if you bought in and worked hard you could have a good life. Belief in that notion has eroded. People are feeling more and more like they have nothing to lose because there is nothing to gain and no way to effect positive change.
Income disparity levels have grown since the 60s. People don’t need to look at data to understand this. They live it every day.
Our elected leaders seem deaf to these issues. They throw empty slogans at us and then go off and wheel and deal for their own benefit.
I don’t see things turning around. BHO promised a turn around, but it didn’t happen. Romney is blatantly promising to screw us.A lot of folks are feeling very let down. A lot of folks say they aren’t even going to bother voting this year.
Washington interests are more entrenched than ever. Our money goes to the military. We give more money to countries like Pakistan and Israel and Afghanistan and Iraq than we do to our own counties hardest hit by the recession and the export of our jobs.
I don’t see “change” coming. The 1% is too busy feeding its insatiable greed. In its fervor to consume more it has become blnd, deaf and dumb to the people. These are conditions that have historically *always* resulted in social upheavals and revolutions. History does repeat itself, you know. Te only reason some think it won’t here is the ingrained notion of American exceptionalism – and we should know better than that by now.
But I’m all ears. You tell me how things improve in a positive fashion, please.
I was merely responding to russell’s assertion that it *can’t* happen here because there aren’t enough people capable of it here.
Apparently I need to make my points more clearly.
I have no problem believing that Americans are capable of mass political violence.
What I find unlikely is that the election results of this particular November will result in conditions that will move the bar from “capable” to “actually going to go shoot somebody”.
I find that very unlikely.
We don’t live in a hypothetical world, we live in a real one. Or, at least (if the string theorists are to be believed), one real one at any given time.
blackhawk, it would probably be useful to respond to Slart’s last comment and tell us how your predictions diverge from what he wrote, if at all.
I wrote earlier that I could see Waco-like events occurring. Perhaps there might be some major protests or even riots in the next decade or so, a la the Sixties. It seems you’re proposing that something worse is likely in that timeframe.
What I think is that political pressures can be released in smaller increments than it seems you do, and that things can change sufficiently to restore peace as a result. I don’t think that violence, generally speaking, is highly unlikely. I just don’t see mass revolt happening, as in a total upheaval or civil war.
It seems you think the situation is more like a boiler with no release valve, that will simply explode once the pressure gets high enough. I don’t think we’re politically oppressed enough in this country for that analogy to be apt. I think there still is a working release valve, which is why I don’t think your assertion of historical precedent necessarily applies.
“What I find unlikely is that the election results of this particular November will result in conditions that will move the bar from “capable” to “actually going to go shoot somebody”.”
I agree at a meta level. However, it could set off one or two people that then decide to shoot a re-elected BHO. That would start my scenario. Or Romney wins and he decides to go to war with Israel against Iran. That situation quickly gets out of control (as war games show it would) and a draft is instituted and the war then goes global. That would start my scenario.
Otherwise, as tensions build over time, the kind of incident(s) that starts the shooting become more difficult to predict. Anything will suffice as a fuse at a certain point.
“We don’t live in a hypothetical world, we live in a real one.”
You keep saying that and I have no idea what you mean. You seem to be saying that it is wrong to analyze and predict the future so as to be prepared. All businesses and governments engage in predictions. Responsible individuals try to make reasonable assessments of what the futre is likely to hold and adjust their financial and other planning accordingly. Prediction is a constant endeavor of the human creature.
BTW, the federal govt is predicting and preparing for mass riots and civil unrest. The beast seems to think it’s coming 😉
“It seems you think the situation is more like a boiler with no release valve…….”
Yes. All of that. Thanks for saying better than I did.
Not yet, agreed, but getting there quickly.
You keep saying that and I have no idea what you mean.
Actually, I think I’ve said it once.
But I’ll spell it out.
In a hypothetical world, the US government might be just like the Nazis in 1942. Or, a Hitler might “take over”. Or, some more benign person might appoint themselves King.
In the real world, those things haven’t happened, and show no signs of being about to happen. Were someone to try to make them happen, they would encounter a number of barriers preventing them from succeeding, all of which fall far short of widespread armed insurrection.
I’m sure that if Obama wins re-election there will be a number of pissed-off people running around. Some of them might shoot somebody or blow some stuff up.
I’m sure that if Romney wins re-election, there will be a number of pissed-off people running around. Off the top of my head I’d say they would somewhat less likely to shoot somebody or blow something up, but if Medicaid actually converts to a voucher system there might be some old dudes with nothing left to lose who would be willing to go out with a bang, just to make a point.
Let’s hope none of those things actually happen, because they would suck.
But none of them amount to widespread armed resistance to the government.
Also, slarti, many thanks for the kind words, I will try to deserve them.
And bc, thanks for your reasonable and thoughtful reply.
relief valve, not release valve (as an engineer, I can’t let that go uncorrected)
Google treats relief valve and release valve as interchangeable. However, “relief valve” has about 3.4 times as many references.
I’m sure that if Romney wins re-election…
Back to the future, now? Freudian slippolah?
So much for the real world, too ‘stringy’ for you, Russell?
😉
So much for the real world, too ‘stringy’ for you, Russell?
LOL.
Stringy, or bongy, or something.
Our government is a lot like Nazis, and we will be hacking each other to death with machetes soon.
Rhetorically, the political class most definitely is (and on the right I regularly spot direct quotes). Nazi aesthetics are also extremly popular (Speer and Riefenstahl were studied and openly adapted long ago). And then there is that deplorable taste for overblown neoclassicism. The latter developed independently though. The US just kept it when most Western countries abandoned it.
What is relatively new in the US is not the use of Nazi style rhetorics but an increasing use of its formal ideological opposite, i.e. Soviet speak, on the right. And while there have always been some fascist tendencies at the base of the political right, the higher echelons of the GOP have begun to resemble more a CPSU type party (or ‘new type party’ as it was known post WW2) than a ‘traditional’ fascist one. I think the reason behind that is the failure of the ‘charismatic leader’ model and the decision by the influence leaders to go with a cadre model instead where the party leaders dictate the party line to the members (esp. in congress), making the president a mere receiver of orders (with just enough working digits to hold the signing pen, to quote the Norquist). The in-fighting among the actual and prospective leadership does not change the basic model. The politbureau was as much of a shark tank as fascist parties were and are.
The Democrats on the other hand have (at the moment) fully embraced the charismatic leader model as an election strategy while almost completely lacking discipline after actually winning. I have no idea what the Dems will do post-Obama since I do not see a natural successor
Hartmut, You should get to see him tonight at the convention, his name is Clinton.
No, I do not think a Clinton will even run for the next Dem ticket, while I see quite a number of realistic aspirants on the GOP side (i.e.not the inevitable nutjobs).
[and I get news with at least 24 hours delay due to both time zone and limited access)
I didn’t see Obama as particularly charismatic, Hartmut. Maybe it’s because I didn’t really think the Hope&Change mantra was going to magically turn into good outcomes.
Inspirational speaking is useful. There are people who do it for a living. But it’s a rare inspirational speaker who can manage outcomes through words alone. Outcomes other than “vote for me”, I mean.
Clinton, at least, was quite skilled at the game of politics. Obama, not so much. It’s not through lack of trying, I think. I’m not quite sure what he’s lacking but a glib appraisal would be that he’s not a good enough liar.
I didn’t find Obama particularly charismatic, either, what with that weird cadence while speaking, and the lack of affect. But I always assumed that was because I wasn’t the target of the charisma, it was tuned for the benefit of Democrats.
That is one reason why I limited the ‘charismatic’* part to the getting elected. Obama did not sell much of concrete proposals during his campaign and he himself admitted that he, to a large degree, functioned as a mirror. People projected their hopes into him based not on tangible things but his perceived character. Iirc he even himself saw parallels to Reagan. People voted more for the party of the candidates because they were the candidates and less for the candidates because of their party. Romney is the polar opposite of that. Few will vote GOP because he is the candidate but most will vote Romney only because he is GOP. Obama’s aura has faded a good deal (and rightly so) but it is still he and the positive personal perception of him that will be the deciding factor. Without Obama the Dems would be toast.**
*I see it as value free. A person is charismatic if people follow him/her because of the perceived aura. It’s highly dependent on the environment. Wilhelm II. and Hitler had gift and skill to ‘mesmerize’ huge audiences and drew their power from that to a very large degree. But neither would have a chance today. At least over here. Willy could, I think, easily adapt to the US (which again is based on my belief that the US mentality of today is quite similar to that of Germany in the decade before WW1). Over here there are few political candidates that run as anything else but technocrats (the mayor of Berlin being a rare exception but even he has to present more than water walking stunts).
**which is not likely to increase my opinion of the American voter. The Dems are weaklings and prone to corruption, the current GOPsters are simply evil. Tertium non datur.
I have to disagree with you guys. Obama is total charisma; his reaction among the Democratic die-hards reminds me of Clinton. Now Clinton and Obama have totally different types of charisma, but they are/were the walking essence of the charismata. It took Clinton awhile to lose his professorial approach (remember his boring convention speech, back in the 80s?), but he was able to bring out his inner Southern sugar.
Hartmut: People voted more for the party of the candidates because they were the candidates and less for the candidates because of their party.
This is incorrect. Your observations about Germany are really interesting, and maybe correct, but you aren’t good at judging the American electorate. Obama, a Republican, was an impossibility. Sure, some people voted for Obama because he was the first serious African-American presidential candidate; some voted for him despite that. But most people voted for him because he represented a return to tolerance, reason, science, environmental stewardship, justice. Those are all Democratic values at this moment in history.
“Obama’s aura has faded a good deal (and rightly so)” Not rightly so, and his aura has barely faded, despite the horrendous economy. He is an excellent President, and a wonderful leader – I’m thankful for him every day. But there are other leaders that could have galvanized Democrats: both Clintons, and many other speakers at the Democratic convention. Charisma always helps – that’s true.
The Democrats on the other hand have (at the moment) fully embraced the charismatic leader model as an election strategy while almost completely lacking discipline after actually winning.
This shows a complete misunderstanding of American politics. I don’t care to go over the numbers in the Senate again, but the Senate had enough Republicans to filibuster everything Obama did except for approximately 5 months. During that time, the Democrats’ supposedly filibuster-proof majority included Lieberman (not a Democrat), and Ben Nelson (not a Democrat who voted for anything Democratic). And despite all of this, the Democrats accomplished in their first two years more legislative success than anyone since Roosevelt. Your analysis of American politics gets a D grade.
The theoretical existence of enough votes to filibuster everything is not the same as everything actually having been filibustered… You don’t have to filibuster nominees never nominated, budgets never submitted, bills never written.
Well, I think if there had not been an Obama, then far more people would have stayed home. The choice was (and is) for a vast majority not party X or party Y but ‘my’ party or no vote. Obama drew tons of non-voters. And, cruel irony, this time he will do the same for the opposition too. A lot of base conservatives will not go to vote for Romney but against Obama. The question now is: can he draw more people for him than against him to the ballot box.
If the Dems were like the GOPsters then the GOP could not have filibustered because the Dems would have gotten rid of it on the first day by simple majority (and Reid says that it was a huge mistake not to do it).
‘Aura’ is immaterial and subjective. Obama’s value as a president is independent of that perception. I think there is no reasonable doubt that Obama is seen today much more through his record than 4 years ago. He has a lot to stand on and that can replace at least partially the semi-messianic ‘aura’. What remains unchanged is his perception as likable and natural. In general I think both he and the public are a good deal more grounded today with more realist* views. I still think there is a net loss that is only compensated by the anti-aura of the current GOP and it candidates.
If the GOP wins this time, all legislative achievements of the Obama era will get wiped out. They might not have dared that even just 4 years ago but I believe this time it will/would be a pure ‘damn the consequences’.
I think Obama was and is what sober analysts have said before he became president, a pragmatist who would, in another era and with a different skin colour, could as well have run on a GOP ticket. If the GOP had not turned mad, he would have been the great uniter. As it is all the change primarily functions as preventing the status quo from further deteriorating. That takes skill but I fear history will not treat him kindly, less because of his faults but because of the exterior conditions.**
*both in the sense of ‘as it is’ and realpoltik
**Boris Godunow was among the most competent rulers Russia ever had but bad luck and character assassination ruined his reputation permanently.
I have to agree with Harmut. I think the US political system places a much higher value on charismatic leaders, and less so for bland technocrats, while it seems to be the opposite in most European nations. I don’t think it’s so radical as to say it is either/or, but charm goes a long way.
I think George W. Bush was an interesting case. His charisma seemed to inspire white Evangelicals; however becoming a war president changed how most folks in the US reacted to him. Even moderates and non-political types went for his charismatic presence in a strong way. But as the promises of the war began to wane, so did his charisma.
In America one needs one candidate perfect to run for office and another to run the office 😉
Tat should have read:
I think George W. Bush was an interesting case. His charisma seemed to inspire white Evangelicals mostly; however becoming a war president changed how most folks in the US reacted to him.
You don’t have to filibuster nominees never nominated, budgets never submitted, bills never written.
and once you figure out that everything is going to be filibustered or killed in committee, you might as well not put a candidate through the humiliation of being dragged around in the press just so the GOP asshats can do their Lucy routine.
a pragmatist who would, in another era and with a different skin colour, could as well have run on a GOP ticket.
i can’t think of when that era would be.
he’s not an evangelical, anti-tax zealot, anti-government hypocrite so that takes us back to the pre-Reagan era.
he’s not a race-baiting culture warrior, so he’s not in the Nixon era.
he doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would be hell-bent of driving back communism by building up a nuclear arsenal and going to war in SE Asia, so that rules out the Eisenhower era.
so now we’re all the way back to Hoover, in the early 1930s. technocrat faced with a huge economic problem? well, maybe. some have made that comparison. but the differences between the 1930s and today are staggering.
nope, he’s a Democrat. a modern, mainstream Democrat.
“and once you figure out that everything is going to be filibustered or killed in committee, you might as well not put a candidate through the humiliation of being dragged around in the press just so the GOP asshats can do their Lucy routine.”
Whine all you like about how you didn’t run in the marathon because they would have kneecapped you. The truth remains that you weren’t at the finish line because you didn’t bother entering the race. You don’t have standing to complain about abuses you never suffered because you didn’t show up.
It’s just an excuse for a President who didn’t want to bother with the tedium of governing.
Well, I think if there had not been an Obama, then far more people would have stayed home.
It’s true that Obama galvanized the African American and youth votes in 2008. But that wasn’t just charisma (remember the complaint that he wasn’t “black enough”?). It was that he was an effective community organizer, and his machine worked to get the vote out.
Hartmut – many people, especially African Americans, have been historically disenfranchised. The despair of that reality is immeasurable. Look this year – the Republicans are playing on it for all they’re worth. Obama convinced African-American voters to come out and vote. That their vote counted. Democrats are still working hard to make sure it happens this year in the face of Republican opposition. (No one should ever forget that Republicans, since Rehnquist at least, have stood against voting rights.)
This isn’t a charisma issue. It’s an issue of organizing and motivating disenfranchised voters and bringing them into the American mainstream. Obama was effective, not charismatic. He may have moved the millions in Europe, but in the U.S., he fought. And he’s fighting this time.
Whine all you like about how you didn’t run in the marathon
Hilarious to mention a marathon, considering this week’s news!
Whine all you like about how you didn’t run in the marathon because they would have kneecapped you.
me? nobody kneecapped me.
and sorry, but walking away from a rigged game isn’t the humiliation you want it to be.
This isn’t a charisma issue. It’s an issue of organizing and motivating disenfranchised voters and bringing them into the American mainstream. Obama was effective, not charismatic. He may have moved the millions in Europe, but in the U.S., he fought. And he’s fighting this time.
Why can’t it be both? There are plenty of moderate, middle-of-the-road Black organizers, but their charisma could not transfer over culturally. And some just don’t have that charisma, at all. Either way, their ability to organize and move folks is limited. Without Obama the whole activist structure doesn’t mean much. Being charismatic doesn’t mean you lack the ability to organize; on the contrary it helps your ability to organize.
I think it was Weber, who separated the different types of charisma. The structure of the organization grants the leader its charisma (Roman Catholic Church) and then there are structures that are dependent on the charismatic leader to even have a purpose (Many cults, some social movements). Sometimes the charismatic leader leaves a structure behind that survives him/her.
No, complaining that the game was rigged because you didn’t want to bother trying in the first place convinces nobody who’s not already full of koolaid up to their eyebrows.
Brett doesn’t like the cadence of Obama’s speechs and feels he can’t bother with the tedium of governing. In an earlier era, some might have said that he didn’t speak English correctly and he was lazy.
Speaking of cadences, I’ve noticed some folks sayin’ that Obama drops his “g’s” and takes on a more “Black” cadence when in front of Black audiences. But Obama sounds like his white mid-western grand-parents, especially when he drops his “g’s”. I swear, Obama sound more like a dude from Kansas I knew than Black folks in Chicago.
If only Obama could knuckle down like Dubya could. Now there was some serious guvnin’. (I know, I know – that’s not really relevant. I just couldn’t help it, what with all the contrast burning my eyes.)
Oh, I don’t think Obama is in any sense “lazy”; He’s clearly investing a lot of effort into improving his golf game. He’s got a busy social schedule, and he’s now campaigning almost non-stop, often at taxpayer expense. He’s clearly not the “Kick back and relax.” type. If the White House has a hammock, he sure hasn’t been using it.
I think he just doesn’t put a high priority on the actual job he was hired to do. Given the amount of damage he’s managed to do in the areas where he is genuinely engaged, like energy policy, this may even be a good thing.
But it does explain some things, such as why the administration has left so many vacancies unfilled, not even bothering to nominate people to fill them. Or why there’s been so little legislation actually proposed. Why no serious budgets submitted. (By serious, I mean budgets at least Democrats could stomach voting for.)
The guy apparently doesn’t like the parts of the job that are a slog. He’s just doing the fun parts.
As for the cadence issue, he doesn’t speak badly, just oddly. Perhaps it’s an effect of his over-reliance on the teleprompter? It went away during his unscripted “You didn’t build that!” rant. Or maybe he just thinks inserting random pauses makes him serious. Whatever. I can understand what he’s saying, it’s just that my GPS is more animated and natural in the way it speaks…
… Knows how many states there are, too. 😉
He’s clearly investing a lot of effort into improving his golf game.
teleprompter
man, for someone who says he’s not a Republican, you sure pay attention to their talking points!
For a person who likes to think they’re not delusional, you sure manage to miss the fact that talking points are, occasionally, true. IOW, Obama HAS played an extraordinary amount of golf for a President. This is a fact. Add up the preparation, travel, cooling down, he’s spent a couple months of his Presidency golfing.
Just like it’s a fact that Obama had a lot of vacancies, not because nominees got filibustered, but because they didn’t get nominated in the first place. The people who did get nominated got confirmed on a pretty typical schedule, actually. It’s just there weren’t enough of them.
As I note, perhaps the country is better off that Obama hasn’t done to the judiciary what he did to energy policy. But the guy is clearly not a workaholic.
I’d like to see some evidence that a) George Bush had, really, any charisma at all, and b) that what charisma he did have somehow appealed to white Evangelicals.
Otherwise: bare assertion. Which is fine, but not quite as scholarly-sounding. Lots of assertion going on, here. Still, it would be nice to hear some underlying thinking, even if this is 100% assertion, regarding why you think the quoted statement is true.
My own take on it is this: George W. Bush really didn’t have much more charisma than does e.g. a strip of vinyl siding. Which put him pretty much on par with his opponent in 2000. To the extent that white evangelicals went for Bush over Gore is, I say, more due to exasperation over the antics of Gore’s previous running mate and their joint antics vis a vis fundraising and playing fast & loose with space technology around the Chinese than to any particular appeal Bush had as a white guy, or as an evangelical. Also, Gore had/has a particularly annoying streak of unearned arrogance that rubbed me the wrong way, possibly in that like-irritates-like manner.
That’s my own personal rationale, anyway. It was a hold-your-nose-and-vote kind of year; one of far too many.
IOW, Obama HAS played an extraordinary amount of golf for a President. This is a fact.
oh well, if it’s a fact, i’m sure it must be very important !
I’d like to see some evidence that a) George Bush had, really, any charisma at all,
what kind of evidence do you want?
a little Googling shows that plenty of people thought of him as charismatic – especially after 9/11. ex.
Obama HAS played an extraordinary amount of golf for a President. This is a fact.
How much golf Obama has played is damned close to the bottom of the list of things I actually give a crap about either way.
That said, I’ve sort of started making a hobby of doing simple, basic, Google-level fact checking on some of the horsesh*t that is flying around this year.
As it turns out, as Presidents go, the number of golf games Obama has played while in office is nothing special.
Wilson played 1200 rounds in two terms. Wilson played in the freaking snow. That, my friends, is a serious golf jones.
Eisenhower, 800 in two terms.
Hoover, Truman, and Carter where the only non-golfers. Roosevelt didn’t golf while in office because he had polio, but he did build a number of golf courses with public money.
Kennedy was the best golfer, even with his bad back. Ford went and played a round immediately after pardoning Nixon.
As of Father’s Day this year, Obama played 100 rounds in not quite four years. Probably more than average, but far from the top of the pack. “Extraordinary” it is not.
It’s not a fact. It’s horsesh*t.
Golfs too much? Teleprompter? Civil war if Obama wins reelection?
It’s just like a Jeffy Goldstein/FreeRepublic marathon.
BTW, white evangelicals are always going to support the GOP candidate. They’ll even hold their noses and turn out for Romney the cultist. The reason is the GOP platform (anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-women, anti-minorities, etc) dovetails neatly with white evangelical beliefs.
Brett’s just mad because if it hadn’t been for golf, Clinton wouldn’t have given that speech last night.
That’s got to be a valid reason why people voted for him in 2000, doesn’t it?
I know that’s not specifically what we were talking about, so probably foul on my part. But he had to have appealed to someone in 2000; it’s probably instructive to look at that rather than reflexively pull the white-Evangelical chain. Which, by the way, Al Gore is, or was.
Second time around I voted for him because I thought he was less of an outright blowhard than John Kerry, not because I thought he was particularly devout or anything that “white Evangelicals” might cherish.
Obama played 100 rounds in not quite four years.
once every two weekends?! that’s outrageous.
here’s another awesome fact: W spent almost 1000 days either at Camp David or on vacation. such a hard worker.
plenty of people thought of him as charismatic – especially after 9/11
That’s got to be a valid reason why people voted for him in 2000, doesn’t it?
ahem. “especially” does not mean “but not before”.
here, find a problem with this: Bush: Charisma kid.
“Resistance to the idea of big, inefficient intrusive government”
Everybody bitches about the government. It’s the flip side of the expectation that the government will be there doing its job, providing services tht the people doping the bitching want the government to do.
Take the so-called Sagebrush Rebellion. It was an astroturf action gined up by some millionarie ranchers who wanted to have subsidized acces to public land without having to abide by even the meager public interest regulations that existed, largelyunenforce. Piss, moan. whine. Some smaller and less properous ranchers bought inot it becuse blaming regluations was a way of dodging the fact that their subsidized businesses weren’t vary profitable.
Well during the Reagan Administration the real agenda of the astroturfers came out: there was an attempt to sell public land to the businesses taht wnated to exploiut the land without the pesky regluations
The smaller ranchers though that was a great idea until they realized that they would not be able to buy the land and that the corportaions that could buy the land would not give them any access to it at all.
Ooops.
It alwasy comes down to that: people bitching about services they actually want.
(Sometimes the complaints are vaild of course, but often its just selfishness, an unwillingness to deal with realtiy)
Slarti, I think Dubya is a case in point that charisma depends on the recipients. Those not on a similar wavelength simply don’t get it. Look at the average cult leader. You and me would say ‘what a crap’ but clearly he binds people by successfully appealing to a non-rational part of them. Dubya, btw like Hitler*, did not possess that from the start and his first attempts failed (he did not yet know the evangelical code for example). His cowboy image was nearly 100% fake but he learned how to project it successfully enough. He managed to sell himself as the redeemed prodigal son and left all substance to the team of old hands. He ran almost purely on likability (to the necessary 50.1%) and opposed to the soulless technocrats the Dem candidates were portrayed as.
From what I have read, Obama possessed strong natural appeal but had to work hard on oratory so he could work not just on individuals but on crowds too. Bush’s aura was fake and many saw it. Obama’s of course got some professional polish too but with that having worn off there is still enough natural one to have him liked even by many that do not share his policies. Even the GOP admits that they cannot beat him on likability.
An extreme case of ‘charismatic leadership’ devoid of any natural charisma would be North Korea. The Kims have to rely on a constant conditioning of the population to appear ‘charismatic’ but the whole state is built on the idea of a semi-divine leader.
Cult of personality (and Dubya was a clear case of that) needs the aura, be it real or wholly manufactured, and it needs a receptive audience for the specific type. The question is how broad that appeal is. I’d say Reagan > Obama >> Dubya which, I have to emphasize, hasn’t necessarily anything to do with substance behind it. But, alas, substance clearly plays at best the second fiddle in political campaigns (one reason we have no Lincoln debates anymore).
*who took acting lessons and practiced in front of a mirror before competing in the big league.
Besides it being WND and besides there not being an article there for me to read, I can’t fault much.
the link works for me.
here’s the relevant section:
Besides it being WND
maybe you should answer your own questions, from now on, since only you seem to know the criteria you’ll accept.
In Dubya’s case, the issue may be that “charisma” just isn’t quite the right word. He certainly appealed to a lot of people on a personal level. Maybe it wasn’t exactly a matter of charisma, but general likability based on “he’s a regular guy” or “he’s like me.” The latter would apply to at least some evangelicals, moreso for Bush than Gore, regardless of whether or not Gore was (nominally?) a member of an evangelical sect. Bush ran with it. Gore didn’t.
At any rate, I think the rub here is that a general matter of personality is getting too fine a point put on it. Charisma may simply be too narrowly focused, thereby missing the mark.
I’m just using the same metric I’d expect anyone else here would use. According to Carleton Wu, once upon a time, “WND is a crap source”. I could go on at length about how much WND has been reviled here in the past, but your Google skills are likely better than mine.
That aside, more charismatic than Gore is a very low bar.
Jonathan Bernstein had an interesting take last year on the politics of ‘charisma’.
That aside, more charismatic than Gore is a very low bar.
Hence his running mate choice. And, I guess, Romney’s too.
That aside, more charismatic than Gore is a very low bar.
But it is the relevant bar, or at least one of them. Kerry wasn’t exactly a charisma machine, either, if we’re talking relative charisma.
With that, I would say, to get a more absolute measure of charisma, you should see how many people who didn’t vote for or generally like a given candidate would consider that candidate to be charismatic. Bill Clinton comes to mind. I’ve seen a lot of people who didn’t like or disagreed with him acknowledge his ability to wow the crowd.
Harmut,
I’m going to disagree with you concerning Bush Sr. and W and their relationship with the Evangelical community. W and Jeb left the traditional mainline Protestantism of their family (Episcopalian and Presbyterian). They were liberal Protestants in theology and moderately conservative in their politics, and that used to be the base of the Republican Party.
When Jeb commits to Florida he converts to Roman Catholicism and when Bush Jr, commits to Texas, he becomes a Methodist submerged in the Evangelical community. Also remember his first conversion experience was with a radical Pentecostal preacher,
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2005/12/prayer-w
Also remember George Bush Sr’s relationship with the Evangelical communities prior to his election.
From: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jesus/interviews/wead.html
So you were writing your memoranda for Vice President Bush because he is not evangelical, he was not as tuned in to this community and what they think, or how they feel. Can you talk a little bit about how you were trying to bridge that with him? How were you trying to explain it to him?
It’s hard to describe what was on those memoranda, because we’re talking about a thousand-plus pages. But in building a relationship with evangelicals, I had to define who they are, and what they believe, and what they think. So a lot of it was polling data, demographics.
Then, I had to share language, because every subculture has its own nomenclature, its own language, its own style. You can be out on the street and someone can just put one word in front of another word, and you instantly know where they’re from. The same is true with the evangelical subculture.
It was important that the vice president be speaking directly to them, saying to them what he believes. I didn’t want to influence what he believed, but I wanted to make sure he was communicating. So a lot of it was language and communication, and “What does this mean?” and “What do you mean when you’re saying this?”
Then, I had to share language, because every subculture has its own nomenclature, its own language, its own style. You can be out on the street and someone can just put one word in front of another word, and you instantly know where they’re from. The same is true with the evangelical subculture.
Are there any things that you can tell me that are specific? What are the types of things that you would have said to him?
One very big issue for Vice President Bush at the time was understanding the terminology of being “born again.” I didn’t know it, but in the 1980 election, he had met with some evangelical leaders at the hotel there at O’Hare Airport. They’d ask him, “Are you a born-again Christian?” and he said, “No,” that he wasn’t.
So, [in] my memorandum I was saying to him, “Look, Mr. Vice President, if you’re asked the question, “Are you a born-again Christian?” you can’t say no. You can say anything else, but you can’t say no.
Even Walter Mondale did not say “No.” His campaign in 1984 actually made the strategic decision of attacking fundamentalists and fundamentalist leaders as a part of their political strategy. Even with that, in the debate, he would not say no to the question, “Are you born again?” He said, “Well, my father was a minister, and I have deep respect for people of faith,” and he gave a different answer.
[I said to Vice President Bush], “You, too, must find a different answer than ‘No,’ because we’re talking”– it was then 36 percent of the American population [was born again], today, of course, it’s 48 percent. But at that time, [without] 36 percent of the American population, you can’t win the Republican nomination and say ‘No’ to this question. Say something else, and here are some options.”
Well, that raised the whole issue of, what is a born-again Christian? As an Episcopalian, actually, his own church would teach that he becomes born again at baptism. Jesus said in the New Testament, “Unless you’re born again, you won’t enter the kingdom of heaven. So will you enter the kingdom of heaven?” Of course, he would believe he would enter the kingdom of heaven. He’s a good Episcopalian. So when did he become born again? The point is, doctrinally, his own church would teach he was born again at baptism. So you have to come up with different language. …
So it was obvious to me that, on the one hand, this was a blind spot. This was an area that he did not understand, had not tapped, and he was in a position where it was too late to publicly admit it and say it. He had to get the information.
Although George Bush Sr struggled with Evangelicals at first, Doug Wead, an Evangelical leader, Bush family friend, and a campaign adviser to George H.W. Bush in the 1988 presidential election remarks,
Then in 1988, when we won with the Bush senior campaign and carried the highest total of evangelical votes ever in American history, we lost as we always do — the Republicans — we lost the Jewish vote and the Hispanic vote and all those votes. We lost the Catholic vote. We were the first modern presidency to win an election and it was a landslide and not win the Catholic vote. It was barely, but we lost the Catholic vote. How did we do it? We carried 82 percent or 83 percent of the evangelical vote. I remember when it was all over– this was one of the reasons I got a job in the White House — but I remember when it was all over, there was great shock from me and others saying, ‘Whoa, this is unhealthy.’ We immediately began going after the Catholic vote. While at the same time, we were frightened by the fact that we lost all these votes and still won the White House. The message did come home. My God, you can win the White House with nothing but evangelicals if you can get enough of them, if you get them all, and they’re a huge number.
And when it came to the son, W…he was situated dead center within the white Evangelical community:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jesus/
http://www.amazon.com/The-Evangelical-President-Democracy-Throughout/dp/1596985186
http://www.beliefnet.com/News/Politics/2004/09/The-Real-Reasons-Evangelicals-Love-Bush.aspx
I can’t find them, but there were a proliferation of political journals where they have George W. Bush praying.
I think John Kerry was the first Democrat to receive the majority of mainline Protestant votes. They are the most white, educated, moderate and middle-class (and upper middle-class) of all of our socio-political categories. The Republican Party had given up on their foundation.
Also remember the most important question of the Bush/Gore election. “Who would you rather have a beer with?” (Didn’t Hitler start off in a beer hall? 😉
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/who-would-you-rather-have-a-beer-with-why-2004-is-not-2012-and-obama-is-no-bush/
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2008/09/want-a-presiden/
http://articles.cnn.com/2011-05-20/opinion/navarrette.romney.regular.guy_1_mitt-romney-health-care-obamacare/2?_s=PM:OPINION
http://houston.culturemap.com/newsdetail/11-05-10-idecision-pointsi-confirms-i-want-to-have-a-beer-with-george-w-bush/
But what else has happened since the Bush/Kerry election was the category of “Evangelical” which keeps changing.
From my own notes:
Ironically, it was the election of a Democratic President, Jimmy Carter and, subsequently Time and Newsweek both declaring 1976 “The Year of the Evangelical,” which brought renewed attention to an otherwise ubiquitous Protestant term. This prompted social scientists to lament the lack of empirical research on modern American Evangelicalism (Hunter 1981; Warner 1979). Since then, a torrent of research has been produced, examining the many facets and nuances of what has been understood as a movement. These studies usually identify Evangelicals, using dissimilar approaches to measure belief, behavior, and belonging, even within the same research. Consequently, observations concerning the demographic and religious characteristics of American Evangelicals are usually inconsistent and contradictory (Hackett and Lindsay, 2008). Studies have estimated the adult Evangelical population in the United States to be as small as 7% (Barna 2004: Smith et al. 1998) to as large as 47% (Gallup and Lindsay 1999). Historians and social scientists conscious of these conflicting images have critiqued the way studies “somewhat arbitrarily identify [respondents] as Evangelicals” (Hart 2004: 176). For many, Evangelical has morphed into a blanket term for conservative White Protestant, sometimes differentiated from fundamentalists or Pentecostals, and sometimes synonymous with fundamentalists or Pentecostals. The term “Evangelical” as a functional approach to measure an aspect of American Protestantism continues to come under criticism and many within the movement have an aversion to the term because of its theological and analytical fuzziness (Dayton and Johnston 1991; Noll 2001; Woodberry and Smith 1998), while others find its fusion with right-wing politics objectionable (Hart, XXXX).
I think it is in the Rights best interest to keep the definition of the Evangelical fuzzy, because of the growing conservative Roman Catholics and by golly Mormons.
I am both mainstream Protestant and Evangelical, apparently. It’s almost as if I defy some neat & tidy classification for the purposes of making some political point or other.
As to fuzziness: it is the responsibility of label-makers to ensure that their labels are clear and legible. If you’re going to throw those labels around as if they mean something, hadn’t you best get to making it clear what they mean?
Well, that’s the problem…since Evangelical is used in a multitude of ways, it is a pain in the ass to even use it…but it is used.
Since some people use the whole “born-again experience creed,” like Doug Wead and most US Evangelicals at the national level, that would leave out Calvinists and Lutherans. A bit ironic since Luther used the term first and Calvin (with other Reformers) used the term to differentiate Protestant evangelism from Roman Catholic evangelism.
Others use it as a stand in for conservative Protestantism, but that would exclude Black and Latino conservative Protestants. Is Evangelical a racial category? So do they mean politically conservative? And if so what the hell does social policy have to do with spreading the Gospel as it was formed during the Reformation?
I wish folks would just say that their measuring white Protestants but then that would exclude Roman Catholics, ironically enough:
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1993235,00.html
Notice how many Roman Catholics are on that list. For some reason, the term Evangelical doesn’t have the same baggage as Protestant, or I don’t think Roman Catholics could make that list.
The fact that there is a type of binary between Evangelical vs. Mainline, should tell us how freaked up the category is, since technically all Protestants engage with Evangelicalism. But while most mainline Protestants were liberal in theology and moderate in politics, their clergy was dominated by Leftist (and I say that as a Leftist Protestant). All that to say, I can only use the term the way it is used by the culture at large, recognizing the problems that even has.
Sorry about that link:
http://tinyurl.com/324ssjd
From Time Magazine:
The 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America
American Evangelicalism seems to defy unity, let alone hierarchy. Yet its members share basic commitments. TIME’s list focuses on those whose influence is on the rise or who have carved out a singular role
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1993235,00.html#ixzz25im7nCnV
But to go back to the topic of this thread, I think the role of government played the real defining role in the formation of the modern Evangelical category.
An example of this is, prior to the 1970s, Fundamentalists like Falwell and Bob Jones hated the way Billy Graham was using the term, and viewed the generic term Evangelical as another liberal plot at ecumenicalism, but when Jimmy Carter failed to stop investigation into the racist practices they stopped using fundamentalism and embraced Evangelicalism as an identity. Many more politically conservative Protestants needed some category that did not isolate Roman Catholics, and I suspect the term Evangelical assisted in that alliance of white Christians to redefine the role government.
As an aside, some aspiring academic could show the way the term Judeo-Christian has changed over time, as well. You know, since Jews are alright for the Right, now.
If you’re going to throw those labels around as if they mean something, hadn’t you best get to making it clear what they mean?
cf ‘the right’ and ‘the left’ as commonly used in political discussions, why I daresay, even on this board.
From now on I shall only use the terms to describe my hands, or my feet, or when giving directions….oh,oh, it’s starting to get all fuzzy already.
Over here (were Protestantism was born) we these days make a difference between evangelisch and evangelikal, the former meaning protestant as opposed to Orthodox /Catholic/Anglican. The latter is used for a religiously conservative subgroup (iirc) not including pentecostals. I think biblical literalism is the main charcteristic. Fundamentalist is not the same anymore because its meaning has been expanded beyond protestantism and has become more or less a general synonym for ‘religiously inflexible’.
—
In case I have not been clear in any previous post: I did not intend to make any statements about Bush Sr. Any references to Bush are to Dubya.
—
I use ‘charisma’ primarily in the sense of being able to exert influence through personality*, esp. on a scale beyond one-on-one.
*real or perceived. People can be made to believe in somebody’s charisma even if little of it is actually there.
I have done my best to avoid those, FWIW. Not because they’re meaningless, but more because they both refer to more disparate groups of people than the labels really describe.
I would tend to think that Evangelicals as a label would have to attach to Christians that actively evangelize. Since the E in WELS means just that, I am an Evangelical.
And of course since about half of blacks are Baptist, it would attach to them as well, unless I am totally off base with what Baptists are all about.
But maybe I am being too literal. My point is: if Evangelical doesn’t simply point to those who evangelize, what does it point to?
My sister voted for Bush, both times I think, because he was a godly man.
I’m still unclear on what, exactly, that meant. But that’s water under the bridge.
At least over here evangelisch and evangelikal have lost all meaning of missionary activity. Although the term Evangelisation for organized in-country missionizing still exists is has lost any firm connection to denomination. A lot of evangelicals over here live in bubbles and are not really welcoming to new members or their acquisition. Recruiting is (at least that is my impression) generally very low on the Christian agenda. Roman activity in the former Eastern bloc and Britain is almost an exception (and is not at all aimed at heathens but targets almost exclusively non-catholic Christians with special emphasis on clerics).
I used to call myself an evangelical. Since so many of them were supposed to have been in Bush’s camp (that was a truism in the media, but no, I don’t have links handy) I stopped calling myself that. Now I think of myself as a mainline Protestant.
Anyway, I think someotherdude gets at part of it. My understanding (again from things I’ve read but don’t have a link for) is that “evangelical” was originally a term that “Bible-believing” Christians used who didn’t want to call themselves fundamentalists. Fundies were perceived as anti-intellectual (though some of the early leaders of the movement were intellectual, but nevermind). Sociologically evangelicals were more like college-educated suburbanites who were trying to distinguish themselves from the stereotype of fundies as snake-handling, ranting hicks. On evolution, for instance, evangelicals were sometimes more open to it, or at the very least they would avoid the extremes of 6 literal days and a 6000 year old universe in favor of one billions of years old (even if they had doubts about evolution as a naturalistic process). Fundies are more likely to be hardline young earther type creationists. Evangelicals want to engage with the culture and be respected by it (which can get pathetic sometimes, IMO)–fundies just see the world as the enemy.
I think that up until Dubya evangelicals were more split politically–you had the lefty element (like Ron Sider) and the conservatives and people in-between, though there was an overall rightward tilt. But then Bush came along and I remember hearing a lot about his appeal to evangelical voters, which disgusted me so much I dropped the label.
Again, no links. I’d be happy to read someone else’s links either confirming or refuting my impressions. There’s got to be some actual data and polls and so forth about these things, but I’m not going to look them up.
The black church is a whole separate issue. I don’t know enough about that to even stereotype very much.
In case I have not been clear in any previous post: I did not intend to make any statements about Bush Sr. Any references to Bush are to Dubya.
Posted by: Hartmut
Well, I wasted some time on that one, sorry.
I would tend to think that Evangelicals as a label would have to attach to Christians that actively evangelize. Since the E in WELS means just that, I am an Evangelical.
And of course since about half of blacks are Baptist, it would attach to them as well, unless I am totally off base with what Baptists are all about.
But maybe I am being too literal. My point is: if Evangelical doesn’t simply point to those who evangelize, what does it point to?
Posted by: Slartibartfast | September 06, 2012 at 05:04 PM
Here I agree with you. And that was its use primarily, prior to the 1970s. And I still use it that way in certain Protestant communities. But since the rise of the Religious Right, it has taken on many other meanings, which have nothing to do with evangelizing.
Black evangelism is hyper aware of Evangelicalisms its many meanings, so are quick to remind their audiences that they are not talking about Republican politics. But the fact that they have to explain these double meanings seems to suggest how much of an analytical vertigo the category has become.
Lutheran and Reformed (Calvinist) folks seem to be upset with the generic quality the term has taken and its relationship to “core values” causes.
Examples
http://blogs.standard.net/behind-the-zion-curtain/2012/08/02/lutherans-the-other-evangelicals/
http://presbyterianblues.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/a-word-we-need-to-phase-out-evangelical/
My point is that, politically conservative Anglo-Protestants needed away to talk about their ethno-racial religious identity, without bringing up the “ethno-racial”. Most of the major/popular leadership of the Mainline Protestants were engaged in civil rights, feminism, and some leftist causes, from 1950-1980s, so I think…Evangelical became away to reorganize the more reactionary and conservative elements of Anglo-Protestantism, which is now white Evangelicalism. But as Pentecostals and Charismatics began to dictate the theological contours of Evangelicalism, we see some theologically conservative Protestants (like the 2 examples above) jump ship, political solidarity be damned.
I believe the “core values” argument is really another way to discuss limiting government for a section of society. On the one hand, when it comes to the truth value of faith/religion, a conservative Presbyterian has no patience for conservative Pentecostals, and vice-versa. (I mean Arminianism is basically Roman Catholicism in Protestant drag!) But if you’re attempting to build a political coalition among all of the disparate Protestant traditions, how can you get them into one political bloc, without bringing up their common ethno-racial identity? And the oncoming conservative Catholics who believe “the road to salvation runs through Rome”? How do you make them feel comfortable, without making them feel like “Papist Prostitutes” or accuse them of “Popery”?
Anyway, at bottom is the role of the federal government, these political identities change as white privileges change as well.
My prediction for the future, wealthy Muslims begin to make common cause with the “Judeo-Christian” tradition in a battle over the government protecting polytheists. And then we will hear bigots wax eloquently about the enduring tradition of monotheism.
Another example I can think of, where religious categories stand in for ethnic or racial identity is in Northern Ireland. Where the dispute is usually framed as Catholic vs. Protestant, but it seems that it is really Irish vs. British subjects or Celts vs Scottish, English, Welsh. I understand that Irish Protestants were discriminated against along with their Catholic co-ethnics. And Anglo-Catholics may have had more privileges in No Ireland than their Celtic co-religionist.
Roman activity in the former Eastern bloc and Britain is almost an exception (and is not at all aimed at heathens but targets almost exclusively non-catholic Christians with special emphasis on clerics).
Posted by: Hartmut | September 06, 2012 at 05:39 PM
Holy shit Harmut, do you have any articles on that? There have been a recent rush of Reformed and Charismatics academics who have converted to Rome! It’s like a big deal. Ironic, since Pentecostalism has been mining the poorer members of Catholicism.
For Donald,
In his eye-opening Deconstructing Evangelicalism. D. G. Hart offers a definition of sorts:
Combine two cups of inerrancy, one cup of conversion, and a pinch of doctrinal affirmations; form into a patchwork of parachurch agencies, religious celebrities, and churches; season with peppy music professionally performed; and bake every generation.
Hart is a traditional Calvinist, and does a great job of tracking the changes in meaning of the term Evangelical. His other book is valuable From Billy Graham to Sarah Palin: Evangelicals and the Betrayal of American Conservatism. He used to refer to himself as an Evangelical and he is a political conservative, but believes the term has benefited the Republican Party, but horrible for theology and conservative thought.
On the liberal side, Martin Marty, a Lutheran, explains this phenomena, as well.
Friendly as I am to evangelicals, they do not recognize me as part of the born-again camp. (We Lutherans like to say we are born again daily in a “return” to our baptism through repentance, but that does not count.) I often, and gladly, accept invitations to evangelical gatherings, think tanks and schools, where I am introduced as the participant-observer “nonevangelical.”
I like then to point to a linguistic irony: I am often the only person in the room whose very denomination has “evangelical” in the title and whose confessional tradition was “evangelical” in dictionary senses (gospel-centered, German-Lutheran or Reformed, mainstream Protestant) before the Newsweek version was patented in America. Ironies aside, I welcome the chance to observe and participate, finding much that is admirable as well as some that is confusing on such occasions.
From: http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=184
Again, I think these Protestant identities begin to fluctuate in a big way, in the United States, when the civil rights movement, ERA and gay civil rights begin to demand protection from the state, instead of the state stepping in on behalf of the traditional hierarchies.
I think the government has had a more powerful role in forming many religious identities, more so than theology. (I think there was some Marxist who wrote about that).
Lord have mercy, I’ve written quite a bit.
This is what happens when I’m off my meds.
Keep it up, SOD (not Stormtroopers of Death). I’m getting a nice education. I loved this turn of phrase in your excerpt: “…before the Newsweek version was patented in America.”
I second hairshirt. Very informative and worthy of a top post. I raise my kids Lutheran but generally have no idea that all of this intrigue is going on. Love learning.
I raise my kids Lutheran but generally have no idea that all of this intrigue is going on.
American Protestantism is buck wild!
SOD, great stuff. I hadn’t really thought of religious identity linked to governmental action in a big way in the US,, except in the reactive way it has evolved. I’m still thinking about what you wrote, but my untutored take was that the evangelical DNA is tied up in those tent revivals. A quick look at wikipedia doesn’t give dates, but I’m thinking that there was an outburst at the turn of the century (nothing like the calendar turning over to get people fired up) and another one in the 20’s and 30’s, coinciding with the Great Depression and a lot of the things that I think of as evangelical (baptism, speaking in tongues, call to rededicate to Christ) seem to be from those meetings. I realize that both could be true, but what is your take on that notion?
Great Awakening
Revivals were events Protestant evangelicals were engaged in; if we understand evangelical the way Slarti explained it, which I agree with, that is Protestants actively evangelizing, Revivalists prior to the 1950s, didn’t go around using the term evangelical as their identity, their religious identity was tied to their denomination. The Neo-Evangelicals (Billy Graham’s movement in the 1950s) began claiming all “evangelicals” as one and the same, downplaying the denominational differences, and emphasizing conservative Protestant solidarity.
Another way to look at it, are the various religious terms all Christians share: sanctification, justification, etc. But each Christian tradition has a different view concerning how they are possible in a sinful world. So, for a Catholic to talk about justification would not mean the same thing for a Protestant. One more, there was/is a Sanctified movement, (Methodist….Holiness tradition) that stressed sanctification in such a way that a High Church Protestant would not recognize, let alone Roman Catholic, however we would never use the Sanctified Movement’s definition speak for all the Christian traditions. Another are Episcopal and Presbyterian, the Catholic Church hierarchy has an Episcopal polity and a presbytery, but we would be sure to understand that though they share certain words together, doesn’t mean they are all the same thing. The same thing for Evangelical, it is a term all Protestants share, however the content of the Gospel message used to be tailored to the foundation of the denominational tradition.
I think of as evangelical (baptism, speaking in tongues, call to rededicate to Christ) seem to be from those meetings
Speaking in tongues was/is? A Pentecostal/Charismatics innovation (Post-1900), so I don’t think a Baptist revival would allow it. But I think this is why many traditionalists have been leaving the Evangelical label behind. Once there is a mixing of traditions, many of the attributes that define your tradition get lost. What makes this all the more ironic is the conservatives and traditionalist and fundamentalist, of the past, did not trust the liberals within their own traditions because of the generic ecumenicalism they promoted. Liberal Protestantism watered down the faith making all traditions meaningless, according to them. But then the politics of the day were different. Evangelicalism after the Neo-Evangelicals became a form of “conservative ecumenicalism” experiencing what the Fundamentalists’ predicted would happen to liberal Protestantism.
Some Notes:
The First Great Awakening (1720s-1740s) is understood as an event in which Calvinist denominations like the Dutch Reformed, Presbyterian and Congregationalists were all engaged in spectacular revivals to renew the churches. They were revitalizing their present congregants as well as reaching out for new members. These vigorous revivals were part of the evangelizing mission of the Protestant tradition. However, the “revival” was new, and the style in which the preachers engaged in were controversial and innovative. Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield went on preaching tours emphasizing emotive responses to scripture, personal relationships with God, stressing individual conversions, and encouraging discipline and moral piety. Whitfield and is imitators appealed to the emotions of their listeners, a practice shocking in an “enlightened” age when rationality was so highly valued both within and outside the churches.
Yet, what made this type of evangelizing controversial was the attempt to disrupt the traditional social authority of the local churches. These traveling proselytizers, these evangelists, suggested that many of the Christians in attendance were unconverted because their clergy was unconverted. This would cause many of the “unconverted” clergy to become anti-revivalist. What is to remember at this point is that the term evangelical is still associated with proselytizing, an essential characteristic of the Protestant faith, it is not viewed as a separate entity. The threat the traveling preachers posed, as far as the established clergy could see, was the attraction of revivals as a new way to form a Christian event, and eventually form new churches. And what is more, even though the traveling preachers questioned the authority of the local clergy, they were all operating within the Calvinist tradition.
While the First Great Awakening was revitalizing Calvinist denominations, it would also plant the seeds for Calvinism’s declining influence on American Protestantism. The evangelists working within the burgeoning Baptist denomination began preaching about the sole validity of adult baptism, and “emphasizing the importance of an intensely dramatic conversion experience.” This experiential form of Christianity placed a priority on spiritual gifts above and beyond education, thus allowing lay people to preach and contribute to the clergy. This break from the traditional form of Protestant training allowed the denomination to spread quickly, since Baptist preachers with little or no training began evangelizing a more egalitarian interpretation of scripture. Many people would see “ordinary people” rather than the children of the landed gentry, preaching in front of the churches.
These revivals would also begin to create a space where ideas concerning the formation of individuals and views concerning social reforms would be blessed or damned by various revivalists—evangelicals. They begin emphasizing a form of individualism which would appear as a new emphasis within the liturgical and corporate denominations of American Protestantism. Social reforms become a very popular aspect of the 19th century “evangelical.” It is not a coincidence that social reforms to build a better Christian nation, during the 1840’s, are developed when large numbers of Roman Catholic immigrants are arriving on the East Coast and American Protestant missionaries, attempting to proselytize Roman Catholic Mexicans on the newly acquired South-Western coasts.
Protestant revivalism would become closely associated with the term “evangelical,” yet it does not become a separated identity. Another way to understand this is that a revival was a method Protestant’s used to evangelize and revitalize their congregations. American religious historians would use the term “evangelical” to describe these revivalists.
Retail religion…
O come all ye faithful: God is definitely not dead, but He now comes in many more varieties
someotherdude, I cannot offer comprehensive articles on the Roman ‘poaching’* activities. But there is a lot of bad blood between the leadership of the Orthodoxies and Rome and I find notices in the papers regularly that e.g. the Russian and Ukrainian church leadership has again formally complained in Rome about aggressive Roman Catholic missionaries.
And there was much stink between Rome and the Anglican church, esp. after the Anglican church finally allowed women to become priests. Rome offered any (male) Anglican priest who would not accept that a conversion with a guaranteed employment as priest and a dispense for staying married. Iirc it became really nasty when some conservative bishops received the same offer. Ironically, a lot of catholic priests complained too because they saw it as extremly unfair that those potential converts could keep their wives while they themselves who were not turncoats had to be celibate. I am not up to date about Germany (although I live there) but I think here protestant clerics that convert to catholicism cannot immediately become priests and are not allowed to be married (divorce is not an option). German bishops seem to be afraid of the consequences of allowing the double standard as in Britain**.
To target clerics has the advantage that it often leads to more conversions in their parishes because the bond between the sheep and the shepherd/pastor is often stronger than the denominational convictions.
*I think it has little to do with theology but with the idea that there was a silent agreement between Moscow and Rome that each would keep to their traditional territories and that Rome broke that after the end of the cold war.
**Speculation on my part: the ‘problem’ with the ‘Altkatholiken’ (who split from Rome after Vaticanum I) may play a role here. Catholic priests that want to marry (or are secretly married) tend to switch to Old-Catholicism rather than becoming protestants when Rome drops the 15 ton weight on them. Allowing married convert priests in the ‘true’ church would be an admission that the other guys are not truly aberrant and could drive even more disgruntled priests into their arms.
A couple of things, which you doubtless already know, but don’t seem obvious from the above: evangelism isn’t just tent revivals. Some denominations didn’t really do the whole tent revival thing. IMO, the whole tent revival movement was really more about getting people emotionally bound to religion and not so much about the religion itself.
Also (and this is not based on any one thing but more of a sense of how my own sect of Christianity has evolved over the years), evangelism has grown into a combination of a) missionary work, with an eye toward both helping people that need it and bringing them closer to God, b) community outreach, to not only friends and family of current churchgoers but also to the general community surrounding the church itself, and c) exploration of American sub-cultures that may be wanting religion in their lives but don’t see anything they like. That last bit can be absolutely anything, but currently my church synod is spending a lot of effort toward graduating bilingual (English/Spanish, primarily) pastors in order to better give lapsed Catholics of Hispanic origin some alternatives. Given how many lapsed Catholics there are in the world that aren’t disavowing God but are instead disenchanted with an authoritarian church heirarchy, there is a lot of potential for recovery there.
So that’s evangelism as I see it, with (as I said) no academic research behind that opinion.
I’d like to (N+1)th the N thumbs-up you’ve already gotten, SOD. Interesting stuff.
A couple of things, which you doubtless already know, but don’t seem obvious from the above: evangelism isn’t just tent revivals. Some denominations didn’t really do the whole tent revival thing. IMO, the whole tent revival movement was really more about getting people emotionally bound to religion and not so much about the religion itself.
Yes, you’re right. When looking at how evangelicalism was perceived prior to 1976, tent revivals, missionary projects, tract publications, were placed under the evangelical projects of particular Protestant traditions. After 1976, though, one of the questions asked by pollsters that could place someone under the Evangelical label would be “Have you shared your faith with someone this week?”
From my notes:
1976 would become the perfect storm for the Neo-Evangelicals. All of the work they had done to revise American Protestant history in their image began to bear fruit. Jimmy Carter a Southern Baptist who spoke openly about being “born-again” and his faith, also referred to himself as an “evangelical.” This caused a flood of interest in the term and anyone who claimed it. In October of that year Time magazine published a short story called Counting Souls, wherein George Gallup Jr., president of the American Institute of Public Opinion and an active member of the American Episcopalian Church, announced that this is the “Year of the Evangelical.” Gallup, who had a born-again experience while in divinity school, would use new measuring techniques for understanding American religiosity. Instead of focusing on traditional church boundaries, he would use questions designed to measure feelings about particular religious positions, “Many Episcopalians and members of other denominations may think that ‘religious enthusiasm does not go hand in hand with intellectual seriousness and emotional balance,” says Pollster Gallup. But, he wonders, “Isn’t it time for us to bring our religious feelings out of the closet?” (Time, 1976) Not to be outdone, Newsweek announces that it is the Year of the Evangelical on the cover of the magazine. And so, by the end of that year, Evangelicalism, a theological term usually meant to describe the emotive zeal of particular Protestants had become a separate religious identity. It cannot be stressed enough, how radical it was for Gallup to structure his polls on emotive standards as opposed to church allegiances, this would assist the Neo-Evangelical cause since most Americans were beginning to embrace emotive types of spirituality, instead of the traditional systematic theologies dominant within the church structures.
Although Jimmy Carter could be said to be the first Evangelical President, he fell out of favor among most evangelicals, once they believed him to be more liberal than Southern Democrat. His stances on abortion, pornography, the ERA, gay rights and his toughened stance on regulations that denied tax exemptions to allegedly racially discriminatory private schools, many of which were conservative and fundamentalist Protestant academies.
+++
Another interesting observation is the Evangelicalism of Dwight Moody. He practiced a type of Pan-Protestant evangelism, after the Civil War, and Anglo-Protestant/”White Brotherhood in Christ” solidarity became important.
From my notes:
After the dust settled from the ruble of Reconstruction, Protestantism had become an amalgam of “whiteness, godliness, and American nationalism” coming to define not only postwar Protestantism but also the United States, “whites claimed a new national solidarity at the expense of racial reform, ministers and politicians marshaled religious and white supremacist rhetoric in order to wield social power and imperialism wrapped itself in sacred cloth” (Blum 2005). The victory of the Spanish-American War, augmented White Anglo-Saxon Protestant solidarity, it was at its zenith and triumphant. The “ethnic nationalism of whiteness, underpinned by Protestantism, had penetrated and had come to dominate the American psyche… whiteness, Protestantism, American nationalism, and imperialism were bound tightly together in the moral conception of whites by the turn of the century” (Blum 2005). This consolidation of Anglo-Saxonism was occurring during an era of massive migration from Europe, consisting primarily of Roman Catholics and Jews. It was a “massive influx of highly undesirable but nonetheless ‘white’ persons from” Europe.
+++
When the Neo-Evangelicals hit the scene in the 1950s, they found common cause with some of the conservatives in the mainline traditions, over the rise of Communism and Roman Catholic influence, thus the reception of a Pan-Protestant movement. After WW2, there was a growing middle-class of Southern Europeans and Jews in traditionally Anglo-Protestant areas of American life. And I think the “core values” argument shows up here. But that alliance breaks up toward the end of the 50’s.
German Lutherans and Anglo-Conformity
By the way Lutherans have always had an interesting history with other Protestant denominations, in the US. Since German (and to a lesser degree, Norwegian) ethnic identity was a strong aspect of Lutheranism, they have been uncomfortable with Anglo-Conformity. When the whole notion of an Anglo-Saxon identity is developing during the American Revolution, guys like Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson seemed to suggest that all the real Anglo-Saxons were in the colonies, while the British were Normans and Germans were something else. Now this changed after the revolution, but German (and Norwegian) Lutheran ethnic identity still had some social problems with Anglo-Americans. Some saw their liturgies as “un-American” because they were conducted in the mother tongue, their serious beer drinking offended Prohibitionists (way before the 1900s), and other aspects of ethnic identity all seemed to place the Germans in suspect relation with Anglo-American identity. And this was way before WW1. I think this also explains why other northern European ethnics were so pro-Western expansion; they wanted to get away from the standards of Anglo-Conformity. Dutch in Michigan, German Lutherans and Roman Catholics to the Mid-West, Lutheran Norwegians and Swedes to the North-West. Anyway by the 1950s, all Northern Europeans (Scot-Irish, Welsh as well) became Anglo-Protestants (that’s when the WASP category becomes more explicit). As an aside, this doesn’t happen in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, where Anglo means English. I wonder how separation from the Mother country facilitated this?
Now when it came to theories of race and ethnicity, many Anglo-American and German (in Germany) scientists shared research and agreed with many ideas, but this broke up prior to WW1.
Also (and this is not based on any one thing but more of a sense of how my own sect of Christianity has evolved over the years), evangelism has grown into a combination of a) missionary work, with an eye toward both helping people that need it and bringing them closer to God, b) community outreach, to not only friends and family of current churchgoers but also to the general community surrounding the church itself, and c) exploration of American sub-cultures that may be wanting religion in their lives but don’t see anything they like. That last bit can be absolutely anything, but currently my church synod is spending a lot of effort toward graduating bilingual (English/Spanish, primarily) pastors in order to better give lapsed Catholics of Hispanic origin some alternatives.
I think there is something in the water. One of my cohorts is married to a second generation Mexican Lutheran pastor (she’s Black Lutheran). The church is in downtown LA, and I can’t help but notice the differences between the Pentecostal churches I grew up in, (my Grandfather was a pastor) and their Lutheran community. Because of the way Lutheran churches are structured, I think, the pastor does not always have to beg for money. I think, Lutheran missionary evangelicalism (using it in the technical sense) spend a lot of time cultivating and training clergy. Education and proper theology are way more important than charismatic presence. And mass conversions are suspect, tends to be one-on-one intimate stuff, when someone is becoming a members. And once a church site is chosen the denomination as a whole invest heavily in making it happen.
Pentecostal churches, independent or part of a denomination function as franchisees, that is the Pastor is autonomous, thus must have a charismatic presence. Always having to devise ways to keep the lights on, making church membership easy. And the dependence on big flashy events, constantly having to engage in some questionable “evangelical” activities (weight-lifters for Jesus, battle of the Christian bands, skateboarders for God) to appear relevant.
I think there was and is from the moment of conception a deep desire in Lutheranism for stable structures and an inherent distrust of ‘enthusiasticism’ (sorry, none of the existing words coming to mind really fit, at least in English). Luther never intended to be a revolutionary and he committed his worst deeds trying to curb the natural consequences his ideas had in the environment of his time. And I think this has stuck with the denomination ever since. It’s about how to be a good and honest Christian within the given environment. Calvinism was far more radical and tried to shape the world according to its ideas, if need be by force. It’s about creating the structures to best be a Christian in. To be nasty and oversimplifying, Pentecostals (and their forerunners) do not care about the environment, it’s purely about the personal side and its relationship to the deity (may I call them the hippies of Christendom? 😉 ). So this variety lacks fundamental structures and is thus far more flexible but also unstable.
Are you sure the Social Protection numbers for other countries don’t include health care (or something else)? SS benefits in this country are certainly not generous, but are they that much better in other countries? If not, maybe they are inefficient.
Harmut, I hope I’m not too late.
I’m not trying to defend Calvin, here but only shed light on the social context he was formulating his ideas. But I think Calvin, along with John Knox (Scottish Calvinist) were operating under different social conditions that Luther. Luther would have the backing of governments and communities within the forming German ethnic identity and state institutions. Calvin had the persecution of the French state fresh in his mind. Its treatment of Huguenots and such stuff. Calvinist in Scotland (John Knox) had English Imperialism and the Neo-Roman Catholic Anglican Church haunting them as well.
Calvinism becomes a form of anti-Imperialism, when Calvinist meet in Switzerland and form the New Geneva Bible. The anti-Monarch emphasis forces the creation of the King James Bible in England, by the way.
Eventually Calvinist will dominate Denmark and then early American society, and they learn the benefits of persecution. I understand Calvin even lured a friend to Switzerland to be burned. Either way, the Calvinist struggled without State power. And were assholes when they got it. (The Cromwells, but I think I’m sympathetic to Thomas).
By the way, you guys kind of helped me organize the 2nd chapter of my dissertation.
“may I call them the hippies of Christendom?”
During the 1970s, there were the Jesus Movement hippies, which were basically non-denominational charismatics (ie Pentecostals).
someotherdude, although I do not like Calvin at all, there is one thing attributed to him that he would utterly despise could he see it: The idea that there was a 1:1 relationship between (business) success (or lack thereof) and the salvation status of a person. To make him the patron saint* of work ethics OK, but not of Manchesterism. It’s like Darwin and (social) Darwinism.**
As for the social conditions, I think there is truth in it but I think character issues also played a role. There were many reformators but it was those that fitted their environment best that had the lasting success. They were not interchangable.
*figuratively speaking of course. Saints and Protestants don’t mix well (although the veneration of Luther in parts of Germany bordered on idolatry at times).
**Don’t get me wrong, I do not accuse you of having made such statements.
In the military and other places at the time I remember them being called Jesus freaks.
My prediction for the future, wealthy Muslims begin to make common cause with the “Judeo-Christian” tradition in a battle over the government protecting polytheists. And then we will hear bigots wax eloquently about the enduring tradition of monotheism.
The Abrahamic legacy of our forefathers!!
Once Islam is in the fold, Ahuru Mazda will be the next to be co-opted.
Back in my Bible College days, fundamentalists and evangelicals were seen to be largely the same – Biblical inerrancy, personal conversion, generally the same theologically. Fundamentalists a little more hardline, evangelicals perhaps a little less.
The main difference was more around issues of social and cultural separatism.
Fundamentalists wouldn’t go to the movies, wouldn’t dance or listen to certain kinds of music, wouldn’t play cards (at least with a standard deck, odd games like Rook *might* be OK). No alcohol of any kind, grape juice served at communion. Men wouldn’t have long hair, women wouldn’t have short hair.
Evangelicals generally didn’t worry about all of that.
This was as of almost 40 years ago, so the markers may have moved since then.
In today’s new rightist ecumenicalism, both fundamentalists and evangelicals, not to mention clergy, seem to get laid on the sly more than the rest of us, while of course raking in the big Citizen United bucks stoking outrage against our efforts to prevent pregnancy.
They burn Beatle records, but not before listening closely to the naughty bits about pornographic priestesses letting their knickers down.
someotherdude wrote:
“I understand Calvin even lured a friend to Switzerland to be burned.”
I have a relative like Calvin. Though not religious, he carries the faint whiff of burning martyr, the better for the rest of us to experience guilt. But I can never detect singe marks on HIM, so I know someone else is going to take the fall … probably me.
I grow wary when he offers to fire up the barbecue.
Just for completeness: Calvin’s victim was Michael Servetus.
I see Cervetus displeased Catholics and Protestants alike, who massed again in Tampa recently for planning sessions.
Mind you, I’ve nothing against burning at the stake.
After all, burning at the stake is protected under the Second Amendment, a well-regulated mob being necessary to light the faggots in a free State.
It’s just that it’s always the wrong people who are burned.
Harmut,
The idea that there was a 1:1 relationship between (business) success (or lack thereof) and the salvation status of a person.
He would wretch; it’s another form of works => salvation (freakin’ Arminianism!). And then there is the stereotype that Calvinism leads to elitist fatalism or some type of nihilism. These forms of stereotypes are interesting, in private school I was taught that Catholicism leads to fascism, this was during the 1970s.
*figuratively speaking of course. Saints and Protestants don’t mix well (although the veneration of Luther in parts of Germany bordered on idolatry at times).
John Calvin is no hero, but we/I thank God, he wrote. Hero worship is certainly frowned upon in many Calvinist circles, which might explain some of the stereotypes as wet blankets.
As for the social conditions, I think there is truth in it but I think character issues also played a role. There were many reformators but it was those that fitted their environment best that had the lasting success. They were not interchangeable.
This could explain why so many of the Calvinists settled in the various British colonies, (No. Ireland, the Americas, New Zealand). I’m sure the English wanted them out of their hair. But I get the stereotype of the dour and stoic wet blanket. Thank God our faith isn’t supposed to be grounded on sparkling personalities 😉
Russel,
Fundamentalists wouldn’t go to the movies, wouldn’t dance or listen to certain kinds of music, wouldn’t play cards (at least with a standard deck, odd games like Rook *might* be OK). No alcohol of any kind, grape juice served at communion. Men wouldn’t have long hair, women wouldn’t have short hair.
That resembles my adolescent church communities. The isolationism fundamentalists practiced happened in the late 20s, the term was developed in the 1910s. The Modernist-Fundamentalist Controversy drove them into their own sectarian communities. Billy Graham and the Neo-Evangelicals wanted to change that, and by the 1970s, many fundamentalists began to agree with him.
And this reminds me of some other things. Reinhold Niebuhr’s response to Billy Graham, well many liberal Protestants, of the Lutheran variety, Paul Tillich seemed give Fundamentalists heart attacks. When the Fundamentalists were organizing, it was a struggle to pull conservative Lutherans into the fold; although they did not trust liberal Protestants they didn’t trust the Fundamentalists either. One man’s “fundamentals” is another’s heresy.
Another thing I find interesting is the differences among all the conservative/orthodox/fundamentalist. During the 1980s and the threat of satanic themes in Rock music, conservative liturgical Protestants seemed to stay away from that noise. And the kids I knew from those communities openly listened to “satanic” rock…and they danced! Outside of church! (Pentecostals could dance in the spirit, in church), while Fundamentalist Baptists and Pentecostals were all about Satan being woven into all aspects of popular culture. I have to admit, there was a freedom I experienced, when I entered the liturgical Protestant fold, there just wasn’t this constant fear. To be fair, I’ve met many ex-Lutherans and ex-Calvinist who found the “active” Holy Spirit to be liberating from the “staid” and boring liturgies…I guess the grass is always greener.
I still enjoy watching Praise Breaks on the youtubes, reminds me of my youth. (And for the record, there were way more white and Asian praise breaks on youtube, wonder what happened?). And I ain’t to proud, I never pass up a Pentecostal revival.
Retail religion…
O come all ye faithful: God is definitely not dead, but He now comes in many more varieties
Posted by: CharlesWT |
At some point I’m going to get to my books that study the way Protestantism is developing in South Korea. There was a period where there was a reformed/charismatic tension, now, much like the US, evangelicalism has become the common identifier. I understand that there are some Presbyterians that still won’t allow charismatic forms in their congregations, but they are much smaller. But something is developing between evangelicalism and Korean nationalism. There are many missionaries from South Korea, in the US, hoping to bring this Godless place “back to its roots.”
I think America has always been a Godless liberal Protestant society (and liberal does not mean enlightened!), and I hope it stays that way.
Here’s a possibly interesting factoid about evangelicalism and Christianity in South Korea. I’m a member of a large teaching organization here in Japan and we have these sub-groups called ‘special interest groups’. They serve an organizational purpose, allowing groups of interested members who wouldn’t have enough people on their own to create a sub-organization that can meet their needs. The president of the organization noted that the Korean equivalent of our organization actually has a SIG for Christian English teachersI boggled a bit when I found out, I think it is really difficult to imagine a similar teaching organization in almost any other country with that (I don’t know the structure of all the TESOL affiliates, but none of the ones I am aware with have a similar subgroup). It speaks to a much higher comfort level with open acknowledgement of Christian beliefs and probably ties into a particular kind of relationship between nationalism and religious identity.
I wonder if the organization allows Catholics?
From CharlesWT’s article:
“Counting Catholics (which many Korean Protestants don’t), Christians make up close to 30% of the population. “Koreans don’t play church,” says an American elder at Yoido.”
These forms of stereotypes are interesting, in private school I was taught that Catholicism leads to fascism, this was during the 1970s.
Ironically one of the important papal social encyclicals (probably Quadragesimo Anno but I am too lazy to look it up) described fascism as the secular version of the ideal Catholic state. The complaint was not about the authoritarian nature but that the fascist states kept too much of the power for themselves and shared it too little with the church. Most fascist states made arrangements with the church* that silenced those complaints. Only Nazi Germany was unwilling to fulfill its side of the bargain (that Hitler had entered in in obviously bad faith to keep the Vatican off his back at a critical time period).
So, the RCC had often a very cosy relationship with fascist regimes but had rarely a direct hand in installing them (just happy to do the maintenance). The church has learned to live with democracy (despite declaring it absolutely impossible
less than a century ago). But I say don’t tempt them or they might relapse.
*in the East with the Orthodoxies instead
Franco in Spain, the fascist regime in Portugal, Pinochet in Chile, …most of the right-wing governments of Latin America, all had close intimate relationships with their Roman Catholic churches.
But, I think my teachers were referring to Italy and Germany. I think they tended to support the right-wing regime in Latin America.
Now that I remember, their observation went something like this: “Mussolini and Hitler were both catechized in the RC, and were never excommunicated. Luther was an outstanding Christian and they found the time to excommunicate him!”
I used to repeat that stuff when I wanted to annoy my RC friends.
I understand Calvin even lured a friend to Switzerland to be burned.
Hartmut is correct, that was Michael Servetus.
I’m not sure if Servetus and Calvin were friends, and I’m not sure Calvin lured him to Geneva. But, somewhat inexplicably, Servetus did in fact show up in Geneva at an inopportune moment, and was imprisoned and then burned alive.
His crimes were proposing a non-trinitarian theory of Jesus’ divine nature, and opposing infant baptism.
Calvin actually argued for beheading him, but some of the others in the Geneva circle thought that too lenient, so burned alive it was.
There are days when I don’t understand how the human race has survived its own bloodlust. To my knowledge, it’s only us and the ants who set out to kill fellow members of our own species with such a remarkable combination of zeal and organization skill.
To bad there was no penitentiary system. Then again…..
russell, according to the German wiki entry Servetus did not intend to stay in Geneva but to step from his incoming boat right into an outgoing one. But the latter did not show up, so he had to stay overnight. As I remember from school (daily) church visits were mandatory in Geneva under pain of arrest for non-attendance. Why he walked into a church where Calvin himself preached remains a puzzling question though. That kind of risk taking seems to be a human trait. It somehow reminds me of the German writer Erich Kästner who attended the public burning of his books by the Nazis and was recognized. He managed to hide in the crowd though. Ironically he became the victim of another book burning in post-war West Germany by conservative Christians. In US terms, he was seen as part of the gay agenda. He was the only author whose books ended on both pyres.
“There are days when I don’t understand how the human race has survived its own bloodlust.”
It’s not the only lust.
“It’s not the only lust.”
I lust a thread that can move seamlessly from the Pol Potian, autonomic savagery of the anthill to the bedroom romps of Doris Day, Rock Hudson, and Tony Randall.
It’s more than a little disappointing that people were still being burned alive for heresy more than two centuries after the Templars, and that the practice continued for more than another century after Servetus.
By some accounts, wood that was not fully dry was used to burn Servetus, so that his execution would take longer.
WWJD? Not that.
It is, really, amazing to me how people can get from, frex, the sermon on the mount, to burning someone alive in the most painful way they can conjure up.
Crooked timber.
Eh, wet wood produces lots of smoke and is likely to render the victim unconscious before th flames reach them. It was a standard practice to observe, whether the smoke got blown away from the victim (leading to an agonisingly slow death) or into her/his face (quick unconsciousness). The former was seen as a divine affirmation of guilt while some who had the luck of the latter got posthumously rehabilitated.
The use of extra-dry (and thus smoke-free) wood was seen and used as a means of aggravated punishment, esp. for the unrepentant. Another measure was to keep the area directly around the victim free of wood and to light the pyre in stages so the suffering could be prolonged. It was a cruel science, something for experts.
But I think the pinnacle of perversion were the witch ovens built in some places (the best known in Neisse in Silesia). The purpose behind those was to allow mass burnings while keeping the fuel consumption low. When I hear that on one occasion 69 witches were burned in one go using that contraption and knowing where it took place comparisions to the holocaust inevitably come to mind (and according to some reports in the final days the gas chambers got skipped and the victims put into the crematories alive). Civilisation and progress indeed.
This hung in my psyche for a few days after I read it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_%28elephant%29
Especially that the children were summoned to witness.
Now cut that out, Mitt!
Martin Amis’ ruminations on Evil, particularly the exceptionalism of Hitler and Stalin, are relevant.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Martin-Amis-Contemplates-Evil-165590986.html?c=y&story=fullstory
Sullivan hat tip.
The politics of burning witches is an interesting one. I listened to a collection of lectures by Teofilo Ruiz, Terror of History: Mystics, Heretics, and Witches in the Western Tradition. An incredible journey through the medieval world.
The blurb: This two-part series invites you to consider what might be called the “underbelly” of Western society, a complex mixture of deeply embedded beliefs and unsettling social forces that has given rise to our greatest saints and our most shameful acts. The “terror of history,” according to Professor Teofilo F. Ruiz, is a deeply held belief—dating from the ancient Greeks to Nietzsche and beyond—that the world is essentially about disorder and emptiness, and that human beings live constantly on the edge of doom.
He compares and contrasts the reasoning/politics behind burning witches and heretics, in the RC world and Protestant world. I think he suggests there were more witch burnings in Protestant societies because of the breakup of a centralized church. While in Roman Catholic societies, many women would have been accused of heresy, instead of witchcraft.
These days few serious scholars are willing to give numbers about how many people were condemned or executed as witches because it is (often) impossible to separate them from the heresy persecutions*. It was an important part in the invention of the ‘new type witch’ to susbsume their alleged deeds under heresy. One should not forget that up to the infamous witch bull (and the commentary about it that became known as the Hammer of Witches) it was heresy to believe in the reality of witchcraft. It was seen as a devil induced hallucination and the church prosecuted attempts to spread these false ideas. Then came the 180° turn and it became heresy to not believe in the reality of witchcraft. The Hammer of Witches begins with a long section on that very topic, immunizing itself from criticism by defining it as the worst kind of heresy. Only after that it begins to present its absurd paranoid fantasies. Btw, it must be one of the worst books ever written even if one looks only at form and ‘literary’ quality. Large parts are close to unreadable (and often chapter titles do not match content). No surprise at all that the authors had to forge letters of approval from authorities (and then took care that those editions containing them would not be sold where those authorities resided).
—-
Although the witch craze got started from above, it was never centralized. Each territory decided for itself, whether to join in or to go after the witchhunters instead. And a lot was done at the base without official approval. At least that was the case in Greater Germany. Spain suppressed any witchhunts mercilessly (after doing some remarkable research that came to the conclusion that it was all a fraud). In Scandinavia it became a question of pure power politics. Burning witches in a place became a way to lay claim to the territory the place was in. A lot of men and women in the North had to die because the kings of Norway/Denmark and Sweden/Finland quarreled about borders in Lappland while at the same time trying to subdue the local Sami (whose male shamans were prime targets)**. Britain had a competition between for-profit private witchfinders and the state. Interestingly Britain was the state that stopped the madness first while keeping the laws on the book longest (famously a modified version was used twice during WW2 to go after fraudulent spiritualists that were suspected of leaking military secrets).
*for the clear-cut cases Protestants seem to have been slightly more active indeed, so after adjustment for relative strength Protestants killed more but not extremly so. Again, this concerns mainly Germany.
**I recently did some reading about this for a private project of mine.
God’s vengeance is like water.
Disallow burning at the stake and the searing water of God’s vengeance will find a work-around, in this case by causing disabled children to be born, according to this current-day sadistic, murderous, vermin Inquisitor:
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2012/09/10/tiny-vengeance-ghosts-everywhere/
Burning witches in a place became a way to lay claim to the territory the place was in.
I live quite near Salem MA. The church I attend was founded in 1629 by the first generation of Puritans, and many of the folks involved in the witch trials were members.
I work in what was then Salem Village, and the Rebecca Nurse homestead is literally a block away from where I’m sitting now.
The roster of witchcraft accusers and accused tracks quite closely to a series of land disputes from the time. One of the aspects of being convicted and executed for witchcraft is that your property would not go to your heirs, but would revert to the Commonwealth, who would then commonly sell it. The buyers were frequently well connected folks.
There are other dimensions to the trials – town vs country folk, religious bigotry and superstition, racism, misogyny – but the interest of some folks in the land forfeited by the convicted “witches” is a prominent one.
Cherchez l’argent.
Do you know what he Latin word for country/rural folk is? Paganus. Strong hints that Christianity was/had become the religion of the ‘superior’ city dwellers while the backward ‘inferior’ people outside the walls stuck to the old ‘pagan’ superstitions. I think it even entered the Germanic languages. In German it is Heiden (heathland dwellers), in English heathen. Well, now you know why Scotsmen are not true Christians 😉
” I understand that there are some Presbyterians that still won’t allow charismatic forms in their congregations, but they are much smaller.”
I went to a PCA church (Presbyterian Church in America–a conservative denomination not to be confused with the mainline group) when I was in my 20’s. The pastor was actually put on trial for heresy by a faction within his congregation. They’d kept a file of all the heretical comments they thought he’d made from the pulpit over the years and finally brought him up on charges (in a church court). I attended some of the “trial”,which was held on a weekend, I think. He was acquitted. But anyway, one of the charges was that on one Sunday he expressed a hope that “gifts of the Spirit” would manifest themselves in the congregation, including tongues. That was apparently a big no-no.
I was simultaneously fascinated and disgusted by the proceedings. I suppose it was all proof of one of Calvinism’s most beloved doctrines, total depravity. It reminds me in some ways of the political power struggles that go on in the co-op building where my wife and I live. People are ridiculous.
Still, at least with church courts and co-op elections there aren’t any prison camps or torture centers.
Russell,
“misogyny” for sure.
I think Salem was not typical and it appears many Puritan elders outside of that community, found no grounds for the mass death. However, they were more concerned about protecting the image or reputation of male leadership. One of the Mather pastors, (Cotton’s father?) seemed to explain that replacing the leadership, but no renunciation.
Donald Johnson,
I have to be honest; I find church discipline, especially in matters of doctrine, to be an essential aspect of church communities. A Pentecostal pastor who argues, from the pulpit, that the gift of tongues ended with the last apostle, would not even have an opportunity for a trial. Submitting yourself to a church tradition does mean a certain amount of “un-freedom”. I think, I get worried when I see church members demanding the State to act as arbiter of church discipline.
Even Jonathan Edwards’ church got rid of him when he started a checklist to check if if some were part of the elect.
That should have read:
One of the Mather pastors, (Cotton’s father?) seemed to explain that replacing the leadership was important but done quietly, but no renunciation. I think, he was more concerned with the image of male leadership. It has been a long time since I’ve read a history on this era.
One of the Mather pastors, (Cotton’s father?) seemed to explain that replacing the leadership, but no renunciation.
Increase, Cotton’s father, counseled some restraint IIRC.
Cotton was all over it like a cheap suit.
My general impression is that after a year or so, everyone was basically horrified that it had gotten so out of hand.
They started out going after the local weirdos, but before long they were accusing (and executing) people who were full members, in very good standing, of the Puritan congregations. Which was a very big deal.
I think folks started feeling a combination of “what the hell is going on?” and “anybody (including me) could be next”.
It became a matter of embarrassment, if not shame, fairly quickly.
Only one of the original accusers, however, every publicly apologized, as far as I know.
It was a standard practice to observe, whether the smoke got blown away from the victim (leading to an agonisingly slow death) or into her/his face (quick unconsciousness). The former was seen as a divine affirmation of guilt while some who had the luck of the latter got posthumously rehabilitated.
Science, bitches!
I think it goes to show that not all “rationalisms” are the same.
I’m not anti-science, but the sciences, in all eras seem to generate similar blind spots.
My comment earlier, “To bad there was no penitentiary system. Then again…” had Foucault’s thoughts about the development of the penal system under the era of the Enlightenment.
But your comment is still funny.
“I have to be honest; I find church discipline, especially in matters of doctrine, to be an essential aspect of church communities.”
Well, on the purely logical level, that seems strange to me unless you happen to know beyond a shadow of a doubt which church gets all the theological details right. Otherwise you’re causing a lot of bad feeling (and in the bad old days, a lot more than just bad feeling) and solely because of your own opinions dressed up as theological certainties and if you’re not even correct, you’re causing trouble for no good reason at all. If someone wants that, join some sort of highly disciplined political party. Maybe the Bolsheviks. Unfortunately I think the Bolshies probably copied the Christians.
Of course you could be speaking from some sociological viewpoint, where it doesn’t actually matter whether doctrines X, Y, and Z are true, but only that they serve as social glue that holds the community together. Religion can give meaning and structure to people’s lives, never mind whether any of it is actually true, and if you have dissenters within the ranks they can damage or destroy what others find precious. I have no interest in employing heresy trials to protect a community in that way, but I could see where others might. But what happens is either that the community fragments (the story of Protestantism) , or else it hangs together, like the Catholics, but at the cost of having an authoritarian structure which is often abusive and hypocritical. One reason I like the Episcopal Church is that it tries to hang together. Of course the conservatives, or some of them, are leaving, and on the other side I’m not crazy about people like Spong, but I much prefer the attempt to maintain community in the face of much disagreement over the kind of unity that comes either from repression or from endless fragmentation into smaller and smaller groups of likeminded people.
Personally I find church discipline over controversial and basically secondary doctrines wholly repulsive, a source of bad feelings and bickering about things that nobody really knows and that’s at the best of times. What I saw at my church back then was a bunch of self-righteous men (and you’d better believe in the PCA it’s men) who were keeping tabs on this pastor for years, until they had enough evidence (in their view) to bring him to trial. Friendships ended. No doubt God approved, because I’m sure nothing pleases Him more than to watch His self-proclaimed followers slander each other, claim to know things they don’t know and backbite in His Name.
“One reason I like the Episcopal Church is that it tries to hang together.”
Without repression, I meant to say. Though of course there’s politics within the Episcopal Church too. But at least some of the liberals, moderates, and conservatives, along with the high and low church elements are trying to stay together.
But ideas and interpretation do matter.
End- times eschatology, faith healing, gift of prophecy, using political views as a guide to who is “really” Christian, “born-again” experience as the foundation of faith, didn’t practice infant baptism, American flag or Israeli flag in the sanctuary, a Pope (and there are more) are all things I would not tolerate to be taught as gospel. I would not join a church that would tolerate those ideas from the pulpit. That doesn’t mean I think those who believe them are not Christian, however they could not be part of the Christianity I practice. What gets taught from the pulpit must be a reflection of proper theology.
A political example:
The split between evolutionary socialists and revolutionary socialists is a good example. Evolutionary socialists believed in working within the democratic process, while revolutionary socialists believed the democratic process to be corrupted by capitalism. There was no way, for the two separate movements to exist as one political unit.
But also, Protestantism is inherently schismatic.
Or, maybe, they just ran out the moldy rye they had been eating.
Harmut and russel,
I’m totally copying & pasting this thread.
Harmut, I am just now listening to a lecture on “pagan” conversion in Scandinavia. Viking Christians trip me out! (one of the TTC lectures).
Would anybody be interested in sharing books on PDF ?
someotherdude, you could give Gerpla (aka The Happy Warriors) by Halldór Laxness a try (don’t know whether there is a good English translation though, the German one is superb). Written in the style of the old Icelander Sagas it’s among other things a satirical and rather dark take on Christianisation in the North. Let’s say that St.Olav appears a bit different than in his hagiographies. From what I know it keeps rather close to the historical facts.
Late to the party, but I’m a Dead Thread Head…
Having moved from the States to Canada two years ago it’s been very interesting seeing the different relationship people in Canukistan have to their government. They expect it to work! And it mostly does. When I needed to get my US license and car registration changed I was puzzled by the paperwork — I CALLED the govt department in Toronto and was given the information. And then the govt employee CALLED ME BACK because he wanted to make sure I understood something he thought might not have been clear. Could have knocked me over with a feather. Two years later, I’m still trying to get a piece of paper from the NJ DMV that my husband needs, with no success and no idea how to get through the bureaucratic wall — and since Christie shut down many of the DMV offices, if I go to NJ to get the form I’ll need to plan to spend the entire day waiting in line…probably to find out that I can’t get that form at that office.
The attitude is entirely different. Much more relaxing, as a result.