One of the ongoing themes that I endeavor, with little success, is to identify critical ideas on which the progressive/left and conservatives (and for that matter libertarians) differ in their views of political and social matters. If have the good fortune to have two liberal/progressive dialog partners here. In recent conversations over the last few months this difference has arisen and I wonder if this point of difference is applicable to a wider groups, i.e., right/left, and significant.

The key point in to consider is that the progressive/left in question has abandoned  the 10th Commandment while the right has not. The 10th commandment speaks against coveting one’s neighbors possessions. A simple ethical generalization of this is that this is an injunction against considering one’s economic condition by comparison with ones neighbor. Read the rest of this entry

Good morning.

1. A beastly comic.
2. Talk of stiffening the Constitution, fear of runaway dismissed.
3. Expectations and behavior.
4. More Volt talk … I don’t believe the 127 mpg figure is anywhere near accurate.
5. A column recommended.
6. A contest.
7. Fraud and foreclosure.
8. A thorough foreclosure overview.
9. And a Fan/Fred connection.
10. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, but for some being above the law really helps one out.
11. Angle/Reid.
12. US National debt … which makes a default question sort of curious if the trend continues.

Good morning. This will be brief, I have to hit the road shortly.

1. Poverty and taxes.
2. A gay man’s response to the Admin and DADT.
3. Perceptions of economics.
4. Nikita Khrushchev.
5. A white butterfly.
6. Nobel and consequences.
7. Fun with logic.
8. Mrs Thomas and liberty.
9. Criticism of the Admin from the left … more here.
10. Yesterday’s reports on the Volt, countered.
11. So … supply is down, prices however, will be mandated magically by Obamacare to go down. Makes sense? Didn’t think so.
12. Vietnam and the delusions of the left.
13. Cancer and caution.

Good morning.

1. Politics, charge and counter.
2. A Democrat and talking points for the campaign.
3. Bad news for the government motors new car.
4. Guess their just following the lead of their majority owners, lie lie lie.
5. More stupid government tricks.
6. Concussions.
7. Unimpressed by the (not) sharing your pain.
8. Demographics moving.
9. A welcome homecoming.
10. Some Handel.
11. Stupid scholastic tricks.

Good morning.

1. On scandal.
2. A tragedy noted.
3. Football and gender.
4. The law and Mr Skinner.
5. Life imitates, uhm, sluggy freelance?
6. Mr Lewis and the APS.
7. China policy and that little island.
8. Libertarian and law.
9. Pressure and Obamacare.
10. Heh.
11. A book discussed.
12. A question for the consequentialists.
13. Expectations of the future.

Mr Schraub talks race. Before I get to the claim that slavery is America’s “Original Sin” I’d note that Mr Schraub says that the toxicity of being labeled racist makes “true dialog” about what constitutes racism impossible. ‘Cept that’s not really true. Racism is pretty a pretty simple thing to define. Racism is when one makes decisions or assessments based on race, e.g., voting for Mr Obama on account of his racial makeup. And yes, that makes most “race” activists racist themselves, which on reflection is quite obvious. Those who are conscious and likely to notice race are those more likely to make decisions based purely on that. Racism is felt quite universally to be a bad thing, yet given its prevalence, especially amongst those most vocal about the evils of racism and the neutrality of the definition given, perhaps what Mr Schraub is hinting at is that we need a better discussion of why racism is wrong. If one were to assume that the progressive/left is more racially conscious than the right … and therefore more racist is born up by the data linked last week that highlighted the finding that Black elected officials when elected from a mixed race district were more likely to be Republican than Democrat and those who were Democrat were more often from majority Black districts. In past conversations, Mr Schraub noted that race theorists indeed are aware that their work might serve to heighten and strengthen malign race consciousness that they hope to combat. Yes, but the personal imperatives of personal employment in their chosen field seems to defeat that idea quite handily. 

However, the primary point of this essay is to examine original sin in the context of American history.

St. Augustine of Hippo is perhaps the primary theologian influencing thought regarding Original Sin in the Western strand of Christian theological thought. There are a lot of parallels between that theology and strands of thought about slavery and race in America. Both notions suffer however, from the same sort of mistake. St. Augustine, in summary, taught that Adam’s primordial sin in the garden passes on to all of us. Adam as proto-human committed the sin of disobedience. All men, from birth, share in that guilt. From this viewpoint then, the importance of Penal Substitution and Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross becomes a linchpin of Western soteriology. 

This is however, a quite unnatural way to view justice. If my father steals, I and my children do not share in his guilt. The weight and import (the guilt if you will) of his crime, legal or moral, do not pass to his children. We don’t even consider that in sexual crimes, if a child results, that the child of that act is legally or morally impugned or tainted by that act (well, we don’t justifiably view the child in that way). This is the crux of Augustine’s error.

A better way of viewing Original Sin, which is the prevailing view in the Eastern/non-Augustinian strands of Christian theology, was that we do not inherit guilt or sin from Adam. What we inherit is his exile. Adam, by not being repentant, was cast from the Garden and God’s presence. The consequences of that are estrangement from God and death entering the world. He was exiled. We, as his descendants, share his exile (and to the point, not his guilt). To look at the example from a criminal point of view as was done above, if my parents were exiled as a result of my father’s crime, then I grow up in that place of exile. I inherit the consequence, that is my residence, not the guilt or blame. I and my children are not accountable for this act. From a theological perspective this means in the East, it is the Resurrection which is the dominant soteriological event, not the crucifixion. 

Take this back to the notions about American, race, and slavery. Guilt is, contra-Augustine, not heritable. The social conditions and ethnic consequences do exist. However, nobody living today is accountable for the actions begun in the 16th century by Bartolomé de las Casas and the social mechanisms that unfolded from those social/economic innovations. Perhaps it is the prevalence of St. Augustine’s error found so prevalently that allows those who consider slavery America’s “Original Sin” implies that guilt and things like reparations logically follow. They, alas, don’t. 

Good morning, a perfect 10, eh?

1. Voter intimidation.
2. No warrant required.
3. Propriety.
4. On the food stamps -> food censorship. So … should you need a warrant to search subsidized housing?
5. Mr Mankiw.
6. Nazism and the left, argument from authority … and btw, the statement that “all political scientists” say its a far right movement is wrong. Chantal Delsol a prominent political philosopher disagrees, see Unlearned Lessons.
7. Tea with a psychic.
8. Climate and bees.
9. Nuclear power.
10. Branding.
11. Che chic and the left.
12. Of growth and government, here and here.

Good morning.

1. Resilience in the recession.
2. On freedom.
3. Your nanny state working for you.
4. Tax commentary.
5. The 10:10 reply.
6. A day in the life of a professional cyclist.
7. Russia and China and the US.
8. Cringe-worthy.
9. Mr Obama is not a socialist/marxist or whacko.
10. Suavity.
11. Classy Democrats in California.
12. Raising the question, if it is Constitutional to require everyone to buy health insurance, is it also Constitutional to require everyone to purchase and own a gun?

It is apparently a self-conceit of progressives/liberals that they are friendlier to notions of liberty than are conservatives. While Libertarians (who are concerned with matters of liberty) disagree with that, today in a comment this was offered:

Name a liberty or freedom other than “the freedom to not be taxed” or “the freedom to screw over others” and progressives support it. (Guns is the only possible exception, but I’d argue that progressives who oppose gun rights generally throw it into the “freedom to screw over others” category.)

Just this week, I was inquiring at my daughter’s middle school whether I could get her excused (for the year) from gym class. She spends 20+ hours a week outside of school training at gymnastics and doesn’t lack one bit for physical exercise. What she does lack is time for homework. I had a nice chat with the school principle who informed me that he would love to do that, but state laws prevent that. It seems that somebody decided that there is a problem with childhood obesity and to help with that they’ve put a stop-gap to anyway of getting dismissed from gym class. He told me that another parent of a gymnast has been trying for 2 years to find a loophole unsuccessfully. Just another example of progressive nanny-state legislation snip snip snipping your freedom away. 

From the wiki article on “nanny state”:

For example, politically conservative or libertarian groups in the United States (especially those that support the free market and capitalism) object to excessive state action to protect people from the consequences of their actions by restricting citizen options.

Liberals on the other hand have used the term to describe the state as being excessive in its protections of businesses and the business class —protections ostensibly made against the public good, and the good of consumers. This usage applies to the international context as well, where the “public good” is used to refer to people in general, and where the state is viewed as being excessive in its protection of native business over foreign (rival) businesses

[Emphasis mine]

I’d point out I have not ever seen the liberal usage noted above, however the point in question in the above is that liberals in fact (as viewed by non-liberals) continually push state actions which prevent people from the consequences of their own (voluntary) actions. This is a restriction of freedom which does not fit into the “not to be taxed” or “screw others” category. The sorts of actions which this includes are countless and continually pushed and have been pushed more and more over the years. Apparently progressives (like JA who offered the above comment orginally) are not even aware that these sorts of regulations and laws are a restriction on our freedom. 

If you ask a Libertarian about the differences between the right and left regarding liberty they (and bloggers Shannon Love at Chicago Boyz and Timothy Sandefur at Freespace) who are both self-professed libertarians assert that while conservatives fall short of liberals regarding freedom in two categories of liberty (sexual and procreative) in all the other matters the left either falls short  or is the same (e.g., religion) and in both of their estimation when these were weighed together all in all the right was either more favorable for liberty than the left. 

Good morning

1. Not a right.
2. A question asked (HT: the Gentlemen).
3. A book noted.
4. The spiritual journey described.
5. A denial about Jewish control of media, alas, the thesis of which is contradicted in the last sentence.
6. If you haven’t heard of the 10:10 kerfuffle.
7. A prediction of climate trend and this winter.
8. It remains amateur hour at the White House. Eh?
9. Racism and the two parties.
10. Does anyone find it odd that Democrats seek “foreign cash and influence” now and didn’t so much when, say, Mr Clinton was getting bags of money from China?
11. The Oil kerfuffle, color me unsurprised, more here, here, and here.
12. Well, it’s mostly because he’s an ideologue and an ass.
13. The influence of that dark meme.

Good morning.

1. Considerations regarding anti-trust.
2. Uncertainty regarding the government and the recovery. I think this is a big factor in the slowness of the recovery. The administration has showed its willingness to swing a big sledge hammer at the economy … and the uncertainty which way that hammer will rock is one of the big reasons for caution in the business sector.
3. On teachers unions.
4. And they say Chicago politics is dirty.
5. Defining tradition and the church in a way that I’d think makes it more difficult for the Protestant to reject.
6. Ms O’Donnell and her opponent.
7. The center reviews the Constitutional challenges to Obamacare.
8. Looking for mystery fiction.
9. About those culture wars.
10. Puppies and love.
11. Bang!
12. Regarding last night’s post on economic inequality.
13. Has Mr Biden ever ever done one thing which was commendable?
14. A Catholic priest and a sex scandal.

I ran across an interesting observation in Fault Lines by Raghuram Rajan (a U of Chicago economist who has the distinction of being on of the economists who clearly and unequivocally warned of and predicted the recession well in advance of its occurance). Anyhow, I thought this quote fragment was insightful when viewing the distinct difference between left and right regarding income inequality, from the beginning of Chapter Nine:

Not all forms of income inequality are economically harmful. Higher wages serve to reward the very talented and the hardworking, identify the jobs in the economy that need the most skills, and signal to the young the benefits of investing in their own human capital. A forced equalization of wages that disregards the marginal contributions of different workers will deaden incentives and lead to a misallocation of resources and effort. 

However, when the only pathways to high wages are seen to be birth, influence, luck, or cheating, wage differentials may not act as a spur to effort. Why bother when effort is not the route to rewards? Ineed, as the political economists Alberto Alesina and George-Marios Angeletos argue, perception in a democracy as to how high wages or wealth are obtained can create self-reinforcing patterns. If society believes people earn high wages as a result of their training and hard work, it is less willing to tax high earners, thereby ensuring they have strong incentives to acquire skills and exert effort. If society believes people earn high wages because of connectedness, chance, or crookedness, then it will tax incomes more heavily, and since few of the honest will then bother to work hard, only those with influence, the lucky, or the cheats will flourish. 

The left and right in the US are distinguished in part by their willingness (or lack thereof) to tax high earners. The left like to pretend that the middle class right is “duped” into wanting to lower taxes on the wealthy because they are just stupid when in reality what is going on is that the middle class believes that the wealthy got that way in the main part due to their training and hard work. One might also observe that the left’s willingness to punish the wealthy will have its own negative social repercussions as noted above as well. 

Mr Rajan also points out that the willingness to tax high earners is higher than it was in the past and the above observation might be a clue to why that might be, that is our perception of who the wealthy consist as well as how they got that way is moving. This is unfortunate. 

Good morning.

1. The upside to the reaction to TARP, which I think is naive in that the negative reaction will not last long enough to serve as a moral hazard.
2. What COIN looks like up close.
3. Jews and Nebraska.
4. Defending Ms Rand.
5. Mr Lindzen and AGW.
6. Comparing two rallies, why is it that the ostensibly green democrats never manage to police their own trash?
7. Knowing your partner was “the one.”
8. Hell.
9. Cinema.
10. Porcupine.
11. Darwin, doubt and God.

Good morning. Sorry I’m late with this.

1. If you need evidence that the Administration is out of touch …
2. The Supreme Court and expansions of powers.
3. The “You’re only Christian because your parents were” argument.
4. Russian politics and more here.
5. So, if Mr Bush and Cheney had done something like this, how would the left have reacted? 
6. Education and incentives, here and here.
7. The AGW fringe.
8. History, Islam and given credit where credit is due (or not).
9. We really really need to cut the top three down.
10. Heh.

Good morning.

1. If this wasn’t so, then Christians should abandon claims that they follow the cross.
2. About the Contador kerfuffle.
3. Henry David speaks out against progressives.
4. You won’t lose the coverage you have, oh, wait.
5. Book cooking.
6. The biggest (greatest, strongest, or whatever) in the world.
7. FLOTUS foiled.
8. Pakistan.
9. Alas, I was more drawn to the painting than the prayer.
10. Slavery.
11. Quantum revolution.
12. No Joe … Rocky and Bullwinkle is not unwatchable and “boxtops” as the new international currency standard is pure genius and not irrelevant in today’s economic times.