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As an experiment, I wish one state would go completely Libertarian for a decade. The state would need to be a border state or Florida. Then, for ten years, the state would have no taxes, no public health care, no minimum wage, no public schools, no public fire departments and no police. Furthermore, if the state is invaded, the national army would not have to defend it.

For ten years the state would have no government, just businesses, and talk shows and lots and lots of guns. Epidemics would be dealt with by individual initiative. The same method would be used to deal with polluting businesses, price gouging and war lords. To test the truth of libertarian theory, there would be absolutely nothing in the state to protect weak from strong.

We would need to build a wall around the state and seal the gates. After ten years we would reopen the gates to see who still whines about paying their fair share of taxes to live in a civilized society.

I don’t need ovaries to understand the issue of abortion any more than I need black skin to understand the abomination of slavery. My own humanity teaches me that I would not tolerate a shackle on my leg, nor would I consent to being the breeding stock for my community. Abortion is not a special right of women, it is an particular application of the wider proposition that every human being belongs to him or herself.

Forbes magazine allows peons like you and me to briefly look at the world through the eyes of the rich. And let me tell you, it isn’t pretty.

Harry Binswanger has a written an editorial for Forbes that is truly remarkable for it’s elitism. In it, he argues that individuals owe nothing to other human beings, per se. He argues that taxes should be reserved for the lower classes, and that the richest person in the nation should win an award every year.

“It’s time to gore another collectivist sacred cow. This time it’s the popular idea that the successful are obliged to “give back to the community.” That oft-heard claim assumes that the wealth of high-earners is taken away from “the community.” And beneath that lies the perverted Marxist notion that wealth is accumulated by “exploiting” people, not by creating value–as if Henry Ford was not necessary for Fords to roll off the (non-existent) assembly lines and Steve Jobs was not necessary for iPhones and iPads to spring into existence.

Let’s begin by stripping away the collectivism. “The community” never gave anyone anything. The “community,” the “society,” the “nation” is just a number of interacting individuals, not a mystical entity floating in a cloud above them. And when some individual person–a parent, a teacher, a customer–”gives” something to someone else, it is not an act of charity, but a trade for value received in return.”

Harry then argues for Ayn Rand’s “intellectual pyramid” where the people on the top contribute to those below, but “The man at the bottom who, left to himself, would starve in his hopeless ineptitude” contributes little. In other words, human beings don’t have intrinsic value, they produce value by making profits.

Thanks Harry, but you can have your eyes back now.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/harrybinswanger/2013/09/17/give-back-yes-its-time-for-the-99-to-give-back-to-the-1/

When people think of political involvement as just voting every few years, the future can seem very bleak. We continue to elect people who morph before our very eyes into yet another Manchurian candidate for corporations. If Republicans always defend their hero, and Democrats defend theirs, we can never get around to changing the system itself. No wonder people lose hope. But, when we realize that politics is how people share (or don’t share) power, we can also remember that we are never without influence. Our real power begins at the grassroots, not at the treetop. We must together craft a system that serves all the people, instead of betraying one other in service to economic and political systems that do not.

Not long ago it seemed certain that the Obama administration was going to bomb Syria without going to Congress, without international support, and without an apparent strategy other than dropping the bombs and leaving. It was an uprising of popular opinion that forced the administration to go to Congress, and in that delay, for negotiations to break out.

In the same way, the Obama administration seemed dead set on giving the top position at the Federal Reserve to Larry Summers, architect of the devastating attack on Glass-Seagall and other regulations under Clinton that helped set up America for the great Wall Street robberies. It seemed unthinkable that our president would give the keys to the henhouse back to the same fox. It was an informed citizenship and courageous Democrats that rose up to put an end to that nomination.

No one truly loves America who does not also demand that it be a decent citizen of the world. No one truly loves America who believes that the poor were born to serve the rich. Loving America requires a constant revolution under the banner of life, liberty and justice for all. Mature politics thinks in terms of such principles, not in terms of a struggle for power between heroes and villains.

We face many challenges, but there is hope yet for our nation. That hope will be born from the grassroots, and will require that partisans stop defending their heroes and start living by common principles.

The link below leads to a slideshow on 10 breathtaking statistics about the global health of mothers and infants.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/16/mdg-week-un-global-health_n_3862611.html

This morning I tried to scan the headlines to see if anyone was reporting on what the refugees themselves want. The results were rather bewildering.

It seems like a simple question. If US intentions in Syria are humanitarian, then the people we are rescuing should welcome the help. But the “news” sources base much of their reports on information provided by governments with agendas of their own.

“Syrian Refugees praying for Western bombs” -Euronews

“Syrian Refugees in Jordan Decry American Plans to Attack” Truthout

“What Does Potential U.S. Military Action Mean for Millions of Syrian Refugees? Humanitarian agencies are scrambling for resources, and a military strike may only make matters worse.” -National Journal

“Syrian Refugees “Horrified” at Possible US Strike, Just want to be left alone Says Christian Relief Agency Head” -Christian Post

So, we don’t seem to know what the people most affected by the bombing want, which leaves them as pawns in someone else’s game of chess. One fact seems clear, the nations hosting these refugees are running out of resources and patience. It’s too bad that our nation, while willing to bomb Syria on behalf of these refugees, is not willing to let them immigrate, nor are we willing to seriously help the nations that do.

If our political opinions are not expressed in political action, 
if we do not join the activists who are giving their lives on our behalf 
in the terrible and bloody struggle for human rights, 
then our political opinions will die stillborn within us,
and, in the end, they will have had no more consequence
than the croaking of frogs.

It seems obvious right? The higher the concentration of guns in a given population, the higher will be the rates of suicide using a gun, murders by gun and accidental gun deaths. The largest study of gun violence ever has found the obvious.

“…for each 1 percentage point increase in proportion of household gun ownership,” Siegel et al. found, “firearm homicide rate increased by 0.9″ percent. A one standard deviation change in firearm ownership shifted gun murders by a staggering 12.9 percent.” -Zach Beauchamp, Nation of Change

http://www.nationofchange.org/largest-gun-study-ever-more-guns-more-murder-1379169648

Last week I gave Rev. Pat Robertson a lifetime achievement award for inflicting pain on humankind and shame on the body of Christ. Helen Eisert was quick to nominate Jerry Falwell as another possible candidate. Looking at the following top 10 list, it is hard to argue with her nomination. Any other votes for the Rev?

10. “The idea that religion and politics don’t mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country.”

9. “The ACLU is to Christians what the American Nazi party is to Jews.”

8. “I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won’t have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!”

7. “AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharaoh’s charioteers … AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals; it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.”

6. “Nothing will motivate conservative evangelical Christians to vote Republican in the 2008 presidential election more than a Democratic nominee named Hillary Rodham Clinton – not even a run by the devil himself … I certainly hope that Hillary is the candidate. She has $300 million so far. But I hope she’s the candidate. Because nothing will energize my [constituency] like Hillary Clinton. If Lucifer ran, he wouldn’t.” –at a “Values Voter Summit”

5. “Grown men should not be having sex with prostitutes unless they are married to them.”

4. “Billy Graham is the chief servant of Satan in America.”

3. “He is purple — the gay-pride color, and his antenna is shaped like a triangle — the gay pride symbol.” –from a “Parents Alert” issued in Jerry Falwell’s National Liberty Journal, warning that “Tinky Winky,” a character on the popular PBS children’s show, “Teletubbies,” may be gay

2. “You’ve got to kill the terrorists before the killing stops. And I’m for the president to chase them all over the world. If it takes 10 years, blow them all away in the name of the Lord.”

1. “The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way — all of them who have tried to secularize America — I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.'” –on the 9/11 attacks

http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/stupidquotes/a/falwellquotes.htm

Karl Marx called religion the opiate of the people and I think he’s largely right. To preach about justice, or to pray for justice, can never replace actually working for it.

Religion should avoid being partisan politically, but religion that avoids politics altogether also avoids the struggle for human betterment. What difference does it make whether we believe in civil rights, or feminism, or peace, if our voice is unheard in the actual political struggle that will shape our future world?

Much religion is like a child’s seat in the back of a car with a steering wheel connected to nothing. Praying to God for peace and justice implies that we humans are not the ones who are fighting and oppressing one another. Such praying acts like God is the one who needs to change. Religion has been an opiate if at the end of our prayer we do not rise to liberate our brothers and sisters from their actual political oppression.

One who prays for justice but does not work for it, is like an infant hoping it can fill its belly by sucking its thumb.