I have trouble watching Cabaret, the 1966 musical that choreographer Bob Fosse would direct in an Academy Award-winning film 1972. It’s a scary work of art. Cabaret is set in the Berlin of the Weimar Republic in 1931, a city and time at the height of a joie d’vivre during a wave of liberal attitudes; resplendent with what we might think of as libertine or even Pagan approach to life and sex. The film opens with the catchy song Wilkommen by the carnivalesque master of ceremonies singing:
Willkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome!
Fremde, étranger, stranger
Glücklich zu sehen,
Je suis enchanté,
Happy to see you,
Bleibe, reste, stay.
The words are hallmarks of hospitality, but the moment is pregnant with a tremendous dread that would culminate in the Holocaust. No matter how I use the film in class or workshops, no matter how much I enjoy the music, that gravid terror always looms for me. Some of my ancestors fled Nazi Germany; and if I had been alive then and there, there’s little chance I would have seen the end of World War II.
I recognize the fiction of Cabaret, and yet that ominous backdrop of a changing world that is inexorably shifting to the right echoes in our present moment. Now to be clear, this is not an opinion essay about President Trump and what his administration will unleash, might unleash or is unleashing. I lived through the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, and through ACT-UP, I learned what we are capable of in resisting callous administrations. We overcame, for example, the Reagan administration’s convenient blindness from regressive fervor while they witnessed hundreds of thousands — later millions — literally die around us. This essay is not about the current cabal of White House stooges and their myopic and hypocritical allies in Congress.
This essay — I hope — is about a shift away from the Enlightenment values that undergird the modern civil and secular society in which most of us live. It is important to us because all modern Neopaganism is rooted in the Enlightenment. I am certainly aware that many of our traditions invoke a lineage that predates the 17th century, but the Enlightenment is itself a culmination of political backlash against conservative forces that dictated not just social order but also the dominance of religion in controlling action as well as thought.
One major accomplishment of the Enlightenment is that it marginalized fanaticism. The period ushered in the elements of deism, the religious perspective that the universe is knowable through reason but also in concert with the presence of deity. This weakened institutions that demanded subservience and obedience. With that, the period also piloted in a worldview that personal discernment was a powerful force for learning about our world and ourselves.
![[Photo Credit: Bonnie Jacobs via Wikimedia]](https://wildhunt.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/We_the_people_-.jpg)
[Photo Credit: Bonnie Jacobs via Wikimedia]
But now, a backlash has begun. We are witnessing something more complicated than a retaliation against intellectualism and reason. The de-funding of the National Endowment of the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts are the first projected casualties of that war. The NEH and NEA are the modern homes of Calliope, Clio, Euterpe, Melpomene, Terpsichore and Thalia, six of the nine inspirational goddesses of Hellenic religion. Solon, the Athenian poet and statesman, saw them as necessary for a good life and a good society. Clearly, destroying the muses leads to ignorance and a people easily controlled by aristocrats.
Other Pagan values are being assaulted. We are witnessing revulsion toward hospitality, consensus and inclusion, and a dismantling of the institutions charged with protecting the Earth. In a way, I feel that we are witnessing the manifestations of spiritual warfare against that Pagan resurgence.
“Spiritual warfare” is a precise term of art. It is a Christian concept referring to resisting and rebelling through prayer, anointing, exorcism and other techniques against preternatural evil forces that embolden and underpin Satanic control of the world. It is the use of techniques like exorcism that validate Christian authority over evil, as well as serve as badges of righteousness. Ephesians 6:10-18 describes the components of the armor of God — belief, righteousness truth, etc. — in preparation for spiritual battle to promote faith salvation and, ironically, peace. Fundamentalist and evangelical Christians underscore their responsibility to dominate evil by pointing to Matthew 12:27-29: “And if I drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. But if I drive out demons by the spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. How can anyone enter a strong man’s house and steal his possessions, unless he first ties up the strong man?”
You, dear reader, are that strong man.
The logic of spiritual warfare has been used to subdue idolatry from ouija boards to Native American art to awens; and, of course, more famously, in the hunt and murder of women accused of witchcraft. The arsenal of spiritual warfare was invoked in the 1980s during the Satanic panic episodes of unsubstantiated ritual abuse. It use has a single objective: power.
That has set the stage for the present. The rise in liberal and secular values has been framed as an assault on the spiritual welfare of a Christian majority. While this is certainly not the philosophical position of many Christians, especially the many from liberal denominations and orders within Christianity, a vocal minority of Christian evangelicals from nondenominational traditions are decrying what they perceive is a conspiracy to suppress their beliefs, and that capitulating to that conspiracy is nothing less than rebellion against the divine. Just as there is no such thing as persecution of Christians in the West, there is no conspiracy to subvert Christianity, but the utility of that myth is not lost to evangelical leaders.
Like in Lord of the Flies, paranoia and the belief in demonic council have led to a societal retreat from reason through the fabrication of a mythic “beast” that is lurking on the island. The fictional beast is slowly adopted as reality and used to establish control and obliterate anti-authoritarian opposition, ultimately with violent consequences. That cautionary tale of tribalism is slowly becoming a documentary of reality.
You, dear reader, are also that beast.
The spiritual warfare must not relent. I have heard “I’ll pray for you” far too many times this year. It’s not a sentiment of concern, it’s an aggression, and it must be clearly and unquestionably labeled as such. Aggressive prayer is not intended as a compassionate action but rather a violent one; an action where who I am is obliterated and replaced with a “believer” who champions a specific brand of Christianity. It may be something between Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Stepford Wives. “I’ll pray for you” is as much code for “we’re watching” as it is for a spiritual militaristic operation. It underscores our otherness and a deep distrust of our non-conformity. It says nothing less than “you are targets.”
I’ve also witnessed a rise in propaganda. Driving to a festival this past weekend, every billboard for almost 100 miles was reinforcing that submission to Christianity is the only choice for a constructive society and eternal life. One cautioned that being anti-God is a form of treason. Another one showed Jesus’ return that is prophesied in the Revelation, only this time with Marines, tanks and weapons of war. To Pagan eyes, they also said, “You are a danger.”
These are far cries from the central ministry of peace that Jesus taught, yet they now pervade the consciousness of many fundamentalist strands of Christianity, especially those with little to no history in managing diverse populations in their communion. These are far cries from the central ministry of peace that Jesus taught, yet, they now pervade the consciousness of many a Christian.
Most disturbingly, there has been a rise in anti-Semitism hallmarked by violence. These are attacks on all communities of faith, including ours. They are nothing short of abomination.
Now, while the memories bound in my DNA from my ancestors are whispering that these are becoming dangerous times, they are also whispering that fundamentalism — in any religion — is an illness worthy of compassion. Solutions to fundamentalism like satire, education, shaming, pity and reason have been consistently failing, but I do remain resolute that Enlightenment values will guide us to solutions.
![Apollo and the Muses by Baldassarre Peruzzi [public domain].](https://wildhunt.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Baldassarre_Peruzzi_-_Apollo_and_the_Muses_-_WGA17365-500x209.jpeg)
Apollo and the Muses by Baldassarre Peruzzi [public domain].
Now, I should say, that I’m personally terrible at interfaith work, but I try. I am far too quick to have my eyes glaze over when Abrahamic dogma is presented as singular, universal truth. I’m no good at prayer breakfasts, trust me, yet I also know so many nuns and sisters eager for dialogue. Not for conversion, but for conversation. They want to better understand the complexity of faith and the human experience. They are both a blessing as well as a counter pole to the religious fundamentalism pervading American evangelicalism.
These women highlight that our dialogue is not just worthwhile, but that in these times, it is critical. They recognize that interfaith does not mean just talking among different strands of Abrahamic religions and denominations; they strive for inter-religious dialogue. We might do well — on a personal level — to consider all invitations for such dialogue, accepting every opportunity as a gift from our muses. They are powerful allies, and we can add our own powerful resources. We can support and honor our Pagan elders who engage in interfaith dialogue by learning from their tremendous experience in the conducting such complicated yet essential work. They not only possess astounding experience and commitment but they also carry tremendous wisdom. Their knowledge, skill and work are forging stronger, more diverse communities of faith that are both wiser and safer.
I’m not disheartened, but I am concerned. The social climate feels like it has turned more severely against us, but we have the tools and wisdom in our community to turn that tide. It is an act of bravery to reveal oneself as Pagan, and an added act of courage to go further into interfaith work. I also think that bravery and courage are blessings we have in abundance.
Wir sagen
Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome
Im Cabaret, au Cabaret, to Cabaret.
* * *
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Thank you. I started Cabaret recently…and couldn’t finish it. I knew what was coming. My paganism is not necessarily a peaceful one, and the times have me worked. And arming.
“…yet that ominous backdrop of a changing world that is inexorably shifting to the right…”
The traditional right wing and left wing definitions really don’t work all that well. But the Nazi party considered themselves left wing, and they were left wing by the standards of the time. A better distinction is if someone supports the state over the individual. Unfortunately many don’t recognize that a state that supports them today can turn against them in a second. Sort of like happened recently.
Trump deserves criticism, there’s no doubt about that. But it’s impossible to understand why Trump won without considering the actions of Obama over the previous eight years. It was backlash. You may not believe me, but look at all the Congressional seats, the state legislative seats, and the governorships the Democrats lost in the last eight years.
Heinlein said that a government supported artist was an incompetent whore and he wasn’t far wrong. I don’t want politicos and technocrats deciding what is art and what is not. Neither should you.
The muses live in the artist and the art, they are reflected in the eyes and ears of the audience. I don’t want a government rating on how artistic something is, I want to feel it touch my spirit.
There are ways to deal with Christian attacks. Point out that any faith system that needs government force to back it up tells just how weak someone’s faith really is. Work from there,
There’s also our secret weapon. The U.S. Constitution mentions the Christian god exactly once, in the date. Unlike every other government document in Western civilization at the time, the Constitution does not beseech the Divine or claim that government power derives from the authority of the Divine. It set up the United States as a plural society and we have remained that way ever since. Despite repeated efforts by certain evangelicals.
Don’t look to government to solve your problems or protect you from your fears. Look to your neighbors and friends, the people of good character who are the real power in our country.
it’s impossible to understand why Trump won without considering the actions of Obama over the previous eight years. It was backlash. The problem with one-dimensional explanations is that the world has so many dimensions. The same Republican roll-up can also be explained by the Citizens United decision that allowed so much money to be poured into election campaigns. Another factor is the ineptitude of a Democratic presidential campaign not foreseeing the red-shift of unemployed factory workers and redundant coal mines in three key states feeding the absurdist algebra of the Electoral College.That being said, it is true that the Nazi party’s full name translates to Nationalist Socialist German Workers’ Party. And that the traditional right was the peace party in France in the same time period. Left-right postures of the present cannot be mapped onto even the near historical past.One enduring way of distinguishing left and right is that the right tends to be more Social Darwinist and the left more Social Welfarist. It’s crude and approximate, but it’s a start.
Ahem. Coal miners.
I’m not reducing it to one dimension. I’m pointing out that the left and particularly the Democrats are not the saints they claim to be. There were at least just as many who felt attacked by Obama as feel attacked now by Trump. There are differences in how each handles it though.
Oh, and going by the cash spent, the Democrats outspent the Republicans for the Presidency this last time around.
What people forget is that when the Nazis came to power they were the new kids promising deep changes to solve social problems. And that is precisely what they delivered. That is about as left wing as it gets.
I’ve said it elsewhere and I will say it here again. The problem is government. The more you let government into your life, the bigger a victim you set yourself up to be.
Which, as I keep pointing out, is exactly what happened. Obama and the Democrats expanded government in every way that they could, and now Democrats and progressives are all surprised when government can be used against them just as easily.
Yes, I’m aware the Dems outspent the GOP in the presidential, but you cited all the wins the GOP got at all levels of government. My email appeals from Dems around the country log how much Citizens United money the GOP is raking in.Nobody is the saints they claim to be (not even the saints if you read their bios).As a liberal, I would be delighted to accept that delivering on one’s campaign promises is a left-wing trait, but I don’t believe even that.”The problem is government” is a perfect example of what I mean by the right being more Social Darwinist.
One of the things that Obama set out to do was prevent “right wing” money from being spent at all. That’s why the IRS didn’t recognize conservative groups for tax exempt status.
I’m not right wing. One thing libertarians soon learn is that both the so-called right wing and the so-called left wing both want massive expansion of government, just for different reasons.
This is the bone of contention between us. You are convinced that with the correct people doing the correct things, a bigger government is a Good Thing™. I think that if you make a government bigger today, it’s sure to be used against you tomorrow.
Just as happened in 2008. Just as happened in 2016.
Your problem is that you think government power is being misused. I’m telling you that government power is misuse.
I have already explained that the IRS was looking into 501(c)(4)s globally when a lot of Tea Partiers decided to seek that status.”Spite money?” I never used that phrase; you did.As a Social Darwinist, you are culturally right-wing.The soft underbelly of the “government is the problem” meme is that it is so global as to be hermetically sealed against any evidence of a need for government action. An assertion which no possible constellation of evidence can disprove is divorced from the real world, and therefore a technically meaningless statement.
According to internal IRS documents, conservative and tea parity groups were targeted. These documents were published (among other places) in Stassel’s excellent The Intimidation Game. The story about the Judicial Watch FOI lawsuit and all the IRS crashed hard drives is particularly interesting. Some of it was even reported in the press at the time, although with a very patronizing tone.
The comment about spite money avoids the issue. Here, I’ll emphasize to make it easier. Why should the Democrats get to spend money while the Republicans shouldn’t?
I’m not a Social Darwinist either, I rejected that philosophy when I was still in junior high school.
Here’s the thing. In the first few paragraphs of this article that we’re commenting on, fear of government in the wrong hands is obviously the central issue. In all your comments on this site about the power of government, you’ve always supported government in the correct hands even as you say it’s hard to find and elect honorable people to serve. You’re arguing over who gets to drive the getaway car.
I can talk about the proper places of the muses and defending against Christian attacks for a year and a day. All you’re focusing on is who gets to call the shots and why. You are willing to surrender power over your life to some politico who looks good and says the right things on cue. Why? Does it make your life better? Does it give you the secret food additive so when you pass gas it smells sweet?
Or does it give you power over others?
Wow. Even a left-brain like me knows when he’s hit a nerve.My remark on your “government is the problem” meme was not about what you believe, but about the way you think, hence the nerve. You’ve replied with a lot about what you believe, but have you thought about the way you think?If you think government is the problem, you are a Social Darwinist by default. Every decision you make about public (government) policy regarding the truly desperate will map nicely onto Social Darwinism.Why should the Democrats get to spend money while the Republicans shouldn’t? No one says they should. Campaign finance regulation would apply to everyone and never mention any party. If the result is found more confining by Republicans than by Democrats, that is simply information about who the Republicans are.Thanks for the references about 501(c)(4)s.
I poked around references to that book and did research into John Doe investigations. They are unique to Wisconsin, not the left, and sound flagrantly unconstitutional whoever is in office. I understand why they made conservatives mad, because that’s who was victimized, but that doesn’t attaint the left generally. If this kind of cherry-picking is being offered as evidence, put me down as unpersuaded.
Check closer. It wasn’t just Wisconsin.
Neither the IRS or the DOJ is supposed to delay FOI requests, especially not for years at a time. That’s beyond the means of most organizations and individuals to follow up. It’s also a direct violation of the law.
The first source I cracked on the subject said John Doe investigations are unique to Wisconsin.FOI has been a sore spot, ranging from irritating to outrageous, over a number of administrations. We’re not pointing exclusively left here.
That’s the point. It was never exclusively left. Or right either.
My irritation at progressives since the election is that all the blame has been put on Trump for what he might do while excusing everything wrong that has been done by Democrats.
I really, really don’t like defending Trump. But overlooking the “sins of the past” while attack Republicans for everything wrong with the world won’t get Trump out of office any faster. If anything, it will dilute effective criticism because people will just start tuning out all criticism of Trump. People will tire of complaints that never panned out and will just stop listening.
Attacking Republicans for everything wrong is appropriate when the government is solid GOP from wall to wall. They are now responsible for everything, and they asked for it. Although in the wake of the ACA fumble, the Russia issue and the wiretap bubble they are beginning to look like the gang that can’t shoot straight.
That’s the shell game that you’ve been conditioned to accept.
It’s always the other party’s fault. And you can fix it if you just get enough of the right people elected at the right time to do the right thing. And if you can’t do that, it’s because the other party is oppressing you. It’s their sneaky tactics and blatant manipulations that are driving out goodness and democracy.
The solution to government problems is always…More Government! Of the correct kind, of course. Our government, not their government. And since the other guys are sneaky, we have to be sneaky to protect our legacy and the truly good things that government can do, if just given a chance. Or ten. Just in case government doesn’t get it right the first few times.
Do you see how that works? Do you see how the problems never get solved, just made worse?
Don’t you see how much of your freedom this costs? Don’t you see how you end up bowing at the altar of Government Doing the Right Thing?
How much freedom will you be allowed tomorrow?
I’ve been around long enough to have a pretty shrewd idea of how much freedom I’d enjoy without government activity. Nice theories don’t stack up against sad experience.
Actually, you haven’t been around long enough. Since at least the Great Depression, government has been heavily involved in American lives. More and more so every year.
Then government tells you how much worse off you’d be if government wasn’t involved.
Government action displaces private action. If government does something, it’s not because they do it more efficiently or more humanely or whatever the justification is. It’s because government uses the law and the implied use of force to keep anyone else from doing it.
We know that choice and the free market work because even a partial free market over time delivers things faster, cheaper, and with a wider distribution. The same can’t be said for government.
Then government tells you how much worse off you’d be if government wasn’t involved. I don’t need government to tell me that, I can see it and compare. I see it in the American South on everything from civil rights to Pagan rights to public health to workers’ status to teaching creationism on the public dime — government is less involved and the situation is worse. Yes, one can argue that some of that is made worse by state government, but the same voices hypocritically cry “too much government” when the Feds get involved. Pfah!We know that […] even a partial free market over time delivers things faster, cheaper, and with a wider distribution. We “know” no such thing. Some of us — not me — believe it as a matter of faith because their politics makes no sense without it. Yes, the collapse of Communism proved that total substitution of government regulation for the judgment of the market doesn’t work. The opposite of that is not “government is the problem”; it’s government as a check on worst excesses of the marketplace, which has been its role in liberal democracies for over 100 years.
I assume you’ve heard of Jim Crow laws? Literally government involvement and the root justification of the civil rights movement.
Tell me, what are Pagan rights? Do they supplant Christian rights? Do they exist in addition to human rights? Are they written down somewhere?
Public health among other things enacts price controls. Which leads to shortages, as it does every single time price controls have been enacted. We also have public health to thank for the eugenics movement and the Tuskegee experiment. The current decades long lag to get new medicines on the market is due to public health.
Public schools have been about controlling education since they began. Creationism could only be mandated because the schools are government instruments.
Ah worker’s status, that’s a good one! We could start with how the minimum wage reduces the number of jobs. We could continue how many folks are locked out of starting their own businesses by government regulation (taxi medallions, health laws against home cooking, requiring cosmetology school for hair braiding, etc.). We could also talk about how the H1B visa program has impacted employment. I know! How about how the Obama administration deliberately set out to destroy the coal industry as you yourself posted previously?
We do know that the free market works. Choose any industry. Measure government regulation. Watch how fast it grows. Notice for some industries, the government is the customer and how they ignore what consumers want.
Can you name these excesses of the marketplace? Would those be the ones that deliver fresh food all over the nation (and several others) in the dead of winter? Or the ones that mean I can buy a smartphone for the same price (unadjusted for inflation) that one of the original pocket scientific calculators sold for? What about the fact that I have more choice in almost everything from entertainment to clothes than I did a couple of decades ago. In fact, the only places where I have less choice is where government has increased it’s involvement. Like health insurance. Or Epipens. Or laundry detergent that actually gets stains out.
Not a nerve. It’s just annoying when modern liberals excuse behavior in “their own” that they would not stand for if it were done against them. Which reflects the same point I’ve been making since Trump was sworn in. It’s also the same point that almost every American progressive refuses to accept. They don’t object to government power, they just object to government power used against them or the things they believe in. You’d be perfectly willing to apply the screws if the situation were reversed. Almost nobody bothers to ask if the screws should exist in the first place.
The label of social Darwinist is inaccurate because the philosophy itself is deeply flawed. If you had bothered to ask or even to check, I’d tell you that I’m the guy who said that humanity is a colony organism. I’ll let you work through some of the implications.
If the Obama administration conspired to keep conservative and tea party groups from getting tax exempt status and the Obama DOJ investigated those same groups, then something is a little screwy. Especially when no one was taking a close look at the Clintons. Odd how the Clinton Foundation has folded up shop. It’s almost as if it had no purpose other than to get HRC elected. In violation of I don’t know how many laws.
Provide with no specifics, I’ll reply just as generally. Is hypocrisy on the part of liberals a scandal? It crops up everywhere, you know.So humans will take care of one another the way colony animals like social insects do? Males of some bee species get pushed out of the nest to starve when they’ve done their fertilization thing. Not my idea of a template for human behavior. (I was invited to ponder the implications…)The Clinton Foundation is alive and well. It asks me for money between weekly and monthly. (No, I don’t have money; I’m on some emailing lists.)
Humans have been taking care of each other for a very very long time. How many old stories have gods wondering the Earth disguised looking for hospitality and charity? Our society is built on the idea of honor and fair play. Parity is a keystone. The Christians called it the Golden Rule, but it existed in dozens of successful cultures. It may be the most important idea of Western civilization and the best thing that sets us apart.
Look closer at the Clinton Foundation. Their donors are down, they hid the third quarter 2016 drop until after the election, they’ve been releasing staff, and their operations have scaled way back.
Humans have indeed been caring for each other for, by the archaeological evidence, tens of thousands of years. But in circumstances that probably would not delight either a liberal or a libertarian.If you think you can demonstrate illegal intent in the part of the Clinton Foundation, by all means shout it from the rooftops. I’m not sure who will care at this point, but go for it.
The thing is, we’re getting better. Americans especially. We’re practically hardwired to help. Show us something that we can do something about and we will do it. Not because we’re obligated to, not because of some government edict, but because we genuinely want to. Child fallen in a well? We’re there, not only with (mostly unofficial) rescuers but with people feeding the family and the rescuers. New Orleans flooded? We’re there with fan boats carrying supplies and the most efficient trucking network on the planet bringing in more. Notably the fan boats got turned away because they weren’t “official.” You should watch for that, it’s a repeating pattern.
The Clintons have been doing shady and not quite shady enough things since Bill was governor of Arkansas. The press doesn’t call them on it. Case in point, before the election HRC and her staffers met with Russian officials more than Trump and his staffers. There was also a questionable uranium deal while HRC was Secretary of State (and while the CF was receiving scads of funds from Russian sources), but who is counting, right? And this is the problem. Prominent Democrats get a pass while every Republican action, legal or not, gets made into the scandal of the week. I’m not excusing Republicans for their screw-ups. I just want Democrats held to the same standards.
ETA: It’s early and my caffeine hasn’t quite hit yet. I forgot to mention in the first part that America is the biggest source of private charity in history but a few orders of magnitude.
We’re great in emergencies. It’s desperation for the long haul, like Black Lung or plant closures, that take more organization, and that usually means government. If private charity were adequate in good times and bad there would have been no need for the New Deal.The press didn’t call them on it? The Clintons were peppered with scandal attacks from the moment Bill started running for President, it never let up, and the press played their role of chronicling the mob rather than exposing the BS behind the scandal claims.
I’ve news for you.
There was no need for the New Deal.
All evidence shows that the New Deal prolonged what should have been a short term correction. Not to mention that government actions created the crash to begin with. Things like manipulating the price of gold, restricting the amount of currency, and messing with import/export taxes.
I won’t dispute that government folly turned what could have been a cyclical downturn into the Great Depression. But one may notice that democracy and, in some places, capitalism itself went belly-up in a lot of places, but not here. That’s what the New Deal did, taking enough edge off the agony to stop short of the brink of real desperation, until the defense economy of WWII could pull the economy back up while putting a lot of the unemployed into uniform.
No, it didn’t.
The unemployment rate stayed roughly the same for years. Capital dried up. Businesses failed. Farmers came darn close to revolting, the ones who were able to keep their farms anyway.
By most measures, the economy was either worse or the same in 1938 that it was in 1931. Look at the previous depressions and recessions and see how long they lasted.
And don’t forget, a major part of this was because government restricted the flow of currency before the bank runs.
The economy can’t be controlled and it can’t be managed. Each person makes a hundred economic decisions each and every day, most without realizing what they are doing. Do they use a pen or a pencil? Handkerchief or tissue paper? Pack your lunch or grab something downtown? Multiply that by 300 million, that is the self-regulating system that government thinks it can control. There are just too many variables and conditionals, it would take lifetimes to measure.
Fortunately, we don’t have to. Humanity is a colony organism. We built these interconnecting, self-repairing, self-regulating systems that require very little from us.
The New Deal did exactly what the right wing accused it of doing at the time: it gave out-of-work people enough money to survive on, for doing things not economically productive. (We got the term “boondoggle” from then.) That’s why I have a good opinion of it.I’m not going to start arguing tax policy with you at this point. Coming off his championship performance with health care, Trump is going to launch tax reform next. You and I will really have some fun then.
The unemployment rate stayed in double digits, and in April 1939 one in five still couldn’t find work.
And that brings us to the bit that even Keynes could never bring himself to admit: the private sector is the source of wealth and employment. Keynes believed that it was massive government spending that could bring back a depressed economy. He failed to allow that government doesn’t create wealth, it can only divert wealth.
Which leads to an inescapable conclusion. Government relief decreases the flow of capital and increases unemployment. It may look good, it may pay for a meal today, but all it really does is shift the costs elsewhere.
Even WWII after factoring out the costs in human lives didn’t end the Depression. It hiked the national debt from $49 billion in 1941 to just under $260 billion in 1945. Real recovery didn’t come until after the war. FDR’s death prevented his Second Bill of Rights, neither Congress nor the American people were willing to let Truman revive the New Deal after the war.
I was only talking about taxes in terms of how they affect prices. Accurate prices are the main feedback in the free market. Well, that and reputation. Which is a completely new subject, even as it ties into parity.
Your reply is askance to my point, so I won’t comment.
As for the Clintons, Bill never should have been the nominee. And yes, stuff was covered up only to emerge later. Did the Clintons have Vince Foster killed? Nope. Was the body moved? Yep. Did HRC run AND name the “bimbo eruptions” unit? Yep. The really scary thing is (and this goes straight back to AR and is a big part of why WJC should never have been the nominee), the Clintons have a very specific pattern of behavior. Do something, cover it up, lie about it, and then grudgingly admit to some of it to a sympathetic journalist. But they promise to do better the next time.
I knew Bill Clinton was going to be the nominee during one debate. Someone had dropped out and the journalist-interlocutor asked “Does anyone miss him?” Clinton grabbed the initiative and said, “I miss him because he put health care front and center in the campaign.” From the moment he grabbed the initiative and put his stamp on what had been someone else’s issue I knew he would win. It’s hard to go up against that kind of energy, as the GOP field found out in this latest cycle.Perpetrate, cover up, lie, weasel, promise — this is a description of generic politicians. It’s arguably an error to stick it exclusively to one party, one wing of the political spectrum or one actor.
I bring it up because Bill Clinton was sold as the savior of the Democrat Party.
Just as Hillary Clinton was…in 2008.
Even by politico standards, the Clintons were bad and corrupt. And they corrupted those around them. Being a FOB was a badge of honor in some circles even as he bent ethics and broke the law. He’s the last known heir to the Kingfish tradition and I hope it dies with him.
I have in-laws who are full-time Clinton haters. I’ve learned not to argue with them.
And I know people in Arkansas who were screwed by the Clintons.
The idea that government is an unvarnished evil is not born out by the realities of our world. Sudan, Somalia, Central African Republic, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq and Haiti. These are among the states with the very least amount of government according to several indexes. I’m not seeing any American libertarians or “freedom caucus” types pulling up stakes to enjoy the fruits of freedom in any of these countries. In fact, the only people who ever go there are arms dealers, terrorists, war reporters and a few hardy NGO types. Under your theory of “no government is good government”, libertarians should be swarming to these countries like Jews to Palestine after WW II. I have yet to see one.
At the other end of this spectrum, we have the Nordic countries, which have far more government involvement in day to day life than we do. Certainly they have much higher tax burdens, extensive welfare programs and far more public art subsides. For all that, they have us beat by very wide margins on virtually any quality of life index you can find – life expectancy, infant mortality, education, health, happiness. Relative to us, most of the planet has very little governance.
If you look at most of Africa, Central America, the former Soviet republics, South and Southeast Asia etc., you find relatively small governments. They’re not big on due process or human rights, and they certainly will wield power to maintain their ruling class and elites, but they have none of the tax and spend and regulate liberal state mechanisms that libertarians and conservatives love to hate. They have little or nothing in the way of public health infrastructure, environmental regulation or anything reeking of “nanny state” programs. They have no welfare or safety net programs to speak of. Basically if you aren’t on the state’s enemy or close friend list, you don’t exist in these places where the government is concerned.
And yet, we have this apparent paradox that ALL of the planet’s population who are motivated to emmigrate aim for North America or Western Europe, the Orwellian nightmares of government overreach by libertarian measures.
Government in no way deserves all of the credit for the successes of the West, but its also true that without it, we would have virtually none of the prosperity and quality of life we now fret over losing. Without public investment and the sometimes heavy hand of government, we would not have the coast to coast transportation networks critical to economic development. The hallowed Market wasn’t going to build most of that. Before the railroads – which were heavily incentivized by government, you had two choices in getting from New York to the West Coast. You could hoof it in six months, if you didn’t die of exposure, starvation or dysentery first. Or you could sail 13,000 plus nautical miles around South America (Cape Horn is a real hoot).
In a more modern context, we would have none of the medical or technological breakthroughs we take for granted, especially the computers and handheld devices we are all using in this forum. Before private industry could spin these technologies into these awesome consumer goods, it took decades of basic research funded by…grit your teeth – government. Billions of dollars went into public university labs, motivated in no small part by the Cold War and Space Race. Private industry don’t do basic research, because it’s very expensive, high risk and usually has 20-30 year lead times before it really pays off commercially, if it ever does.
Government in a democracy is nothing more or less than a set of tools to achieve common goods that the market sucks at creating. Whether it’s good government or oppressive falls to us. If you have an educated, truly engaged citizenry willing to operate government in a reasonably transparent and adult manner, you’ll get more good than evil coming out of the system. If you don’t have these things, no amount of Tea Party budget cutting or “starving the beast” is going to Make America Great again.
You misunderstand.
Unrestrained government is the “unvarnished evil.” The Constitution was designed for limited government.
There are very few areas that the free market actually sucks, and most of those are caused by (wait for it) government mandates and restrictions.
The free market is built on two very simple principles. The first is the voluntary exchange of goods and services between consenting adults. The second is hardly ever acknowledged but just as important. Someone will see something and think “I can do better than that!” Most will fail, some spectacularly. But the ones who succeed change everything. There’s no way to tell who will succeed in the free market now or in the next decade. It can’t be controlled or predicted. Nor should it be.
Choice and the free market make the most effective advancements in human history. Good law protects free choice and the free market while insuring responsibility.
Even here, our choices make it possible. We choose not to be part of the prevalent monotheisms. We choose to look at the Divine and the World in ways not accepted by most of our fellow citizens. That choice and accepting responsibility for that choice shape who we are and how we touch the other lives on this planet.
It’s not about the mechanisms of government. It’s about how much we keep it restrained. Transparency is useless without limiting government because politicos won’t limit themselves.
There is an old proverb, fire and water are good servants but evil masters. Some say that Washington said government is like fire, a troublesome servant but a bad master. He probably didn’t say it, but the idea is sound.
Ok. I get that. I think then the debate is more about the proper size of government or as you put it, the right degree of restraint. I would say the relationship between degree of governance and oppression is not a linear function. I would plot it more as a U-shaped graph, with too little and too much government leading to very high bad outcomes and some “sweet spot” in the middle. We would no doubt differ on where we envision the location and size of that spot.
I call bovine defecation. When there’s coal left to dig and products that consumers in your nation need, there are no legitimately unemployed factory workers and redundant coal miners. If you make them so artificially by pandering to special interest groups as Obama and Democrats did by legislating their legitimate jobs out of existence you will get punished for doing so. They’re just extremely lucky this is a civilized country and it was done in the polls instead of being done by the traditional way of being stood up against a wall or hanging from a convenient lamppost. I’m sure the likes of Nicolae Ceausescu would have preferred to simply been voted out as compared to what he got.. Vae Victis.
Bovine scat right back atcha: The effort to stave off a climate disaster is hardly a special interest group. The coal mines are shuttered because natural gas is cheaper to extract and cleaner, and the factories are shuttered because labor is cheaper elsewhere. I had the honor (if that’s the word) of having my job shipped to the Philippines circa 1990, well ahead of the pack.
I haven’t completely given up on the idea of interfaith work, but I’m a little jaded on the subject. From what I’ve seen (which is by no means comprehensive), much of the Pagan-Christian interfaith dialogue tends to take place among secularists living in secular and fairly cosmopolitan areas – major metro regions, college towns and blue states. That’s great, but are we achieving any real diplomatic successes where we and other religious minorities really need the help? Have we won any hearts and minds in Scratcass Louisiana or Jesustown Alabama? (If we have, I’d sincerely love to hear about it).
The other problem I see arise with some frequency is that our “place at the table” turns out to be a 5-gallon bucket under the stairs. Our newfound allies are all about us, but only if we’re not “too Pagan” and don’t challenge any of their white suburban sensibilities. These folks are reminiscent of the liberals who just loved racial minorities…until one bought the house next store and started dating their daughter. I’d rather deal with an honest enemy in front of me than an insincere “friend” at my back.
I get anxious about interfaith work, honestly. I live in a rural community deep into Christianity. But I see it’s merits. It just requires skill I don’t yet have. Good article and excellent civil discussion!