Whatsoever Things are Lovely

Jeff St Easter, a photo by paynehollow on Flickr.

I've lately been in another discussion on marriage equity at another blog. This time, I've taken up the POSITIVE biblical and rational case for marriage as it relates to hetero- and homosexuality. I re-post them here.

First, I review the FIVE VERSES in the whole Bible that seem to touch on homosexuality and point out why those discussions, as interesting as they might be, are moot in this discussion. That is followed by the rational, biblical defense of marriage equity for all...


1. THREE verses/passages in the WHOLE BIBLE seem to say fairly clearly that some form of homosexuality is wrong: Levititcus 18, Lev. 20 and Romans 1. The hunch from my side – given the obvious context – is that these THREE PASSAGES are all speaking specifically of some form of pagan ritualistic sex practices, NOT any and all homosexual practices.

The hunch from the other side – given that this is how they’ve traditionally interpreted it – is that it IS speaking of any and all forms of homosexuality.

2. TWO additional verses (in the WHOLE BIBLE) refer to Paul’s made up word of “arsenokoitai” – literally “man-bed.” The hunch from my side of the fence is that, frankly, we don’t know WHAT Paul is referencing in these two passages. There was a Greek word for homosexual, so it does not appear to be referencing any and all forms of homosexuality, but we just don’t know what it is referencing. We have ideas, but just can't know for sure.

The hunch from the other side is that it IS referencing any and all forms of homosexuality.

3. The point is - and it's a HUGE POINT - I can NOT prove my hunch is the ONE TRUE, APPROVED-BY-GOD-ALMIGHTY (tm) interpretation of these passages. And THEY can NOT prove THEIR hunch, either. We could go around all day talking about the various reasons why we think yes or no, but at the end of the day, I can’t prove that MY HUNCHES on these five verses are correct AND, NEITHER CAN THEY.

Neither side can “prove” our hunches on the interpretation of these passages is “right.”

4. So, is that the end of the topic, then? An unsatisfying, “we can’t tell”?

I don’t think so.

On the POSITIVE side of the defense of marriage rights for all, we see that the Bible tells us...

“Finally, friends, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”

The Bible tells us...

“But the fruit of the Spirit [of God] is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

While we can’t say authoritatively WHAT God’s opinion is about gay marriage, since God hasn’t told any of us; while we can’t prove definitively that these five verses in the whole Bible are speaking negatively of ALL homosexual practices or just certain ones, we can say with GREAT confidence that those things that are good, true, faithful, forgiving, gracious, loving, pure, etc ARE good things.

And, carrying on, we can say with great confidence that a healthy marriage – one in which two individuals LOVE each other, RESPECT each other, are FAITHFUL, MERCIFUL, GRACIOUS, KIND to each other – that these things ARE GOOD THINGS.
Where is the rational argument against two adults being monogamous, loving and faithful to one another? Would it be better to be polyamorous and unfaithful to each other? No! There is no sound rational argument against commitment, love and fidelity that I have ever heard.

At the very least, it would seem the anti-gay marriage crowd would have to concede that marriage between all folk is a MUCH BETTER solution than licentiousness and polyamory. EVEN IF you are of the tribe that thinks homosexual practices in any form are a moral wrong, it would seem you’d have to concede that marriage would at least be a step in the right direction.

And just a reminder: The topic here is NOT Dan Trabue. It would seem wise, respectful and adult to stick to the topic. It would seem obviously moral to refrain from slander which we KNOW is wrong in your defense of your position on marriage equity, which is what the question is.

I point that out because almost without fail, the ad hom attacks come, instead of rational defenses on the topic at hand. I welcome the one and will reject, point out and/or mock the other.

It almost makes you wonder if they know they have no rational defense for their position so they MUST stoop to attempts at character assassination?

Happy Easter!

Easter blessings from the tribe at Jeff St Baptist Community...

Not many years their rounds shall roll
Each moment brings it nigh
And all your glories stand revealed
To our admiring eye
You wheels of nature speed your course,
You mortal powers decay
Fast as you bring the night of death
You bring eternal day

~from "Florence," by Crooked Still

Confrontation Monday!

This was something I posted at my church blog on Monday that I've decided to post here, as well, since it touches on some common themes we discuss here...

On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there.

He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves*, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’”

The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching.

~Mark 11

*Doves - the offering specifically mentioned by Jesus - were the offering required to be paid by the poor folk, who'd often bring in their own doves, only to find out they were not "pure" enough for a sacrifice and thus, the poor were forced to pay more - that they couldn't afford - in order to be in God's Temple. Thus, the "den of robbers" charge, especially insofar as they were ripping off especially the poor, who could least afford it.

It is this action that was at least one of the final straws for the religious authorities that drove them to plan Jesus' execution by the state.

True Cost of Driving Cars

My Bike, a photo by paynehollow on Flickr.

[A reprint from a previous post, with updated numbers, in honor of the pending Earth Day. Thoughts on saving the planet AND saving money by cutting back on driving...]

On the actual Cost of Cars...

Owning a car cost (on average) $8,588 per a year in 2010 according to AAA. That's figuring in gas, repairs, insurance, car costs, etc.

AAA

This is up from $6,890/year on average (according to [a now missing] article back in 2004). Wow. Costs are rising quickly.

Here's a website that calculates your personal expenses - telling you how much you're paying a month for the privilege of owning a car and how much you'd be saving if you didn't have a car:

bikesatwork.com

And here's another that calculates your direct costs to drive a car along with your expenses occurred indirectly (accidents, road costs, pollutions costs, lost time costs, etc).

(This site includes the little factoid that, if I did NOT own a car and invested that savings instead - beginning at the age of 25 - that I could have saved $1 million + by retirement age. Or I could easily pay for my children to go to college.)

According to that last website, my wife and I are spending a little under $7,000/year for our car.

Let me go ahead and say $7,000 for the purpose of my following illustration.

Now, if we work 250 days (5 day workweek x 50 weeks) a year, that means we're paying $28/work day for owning a car (7000/250). That means, if you make $9/hour, you have to work 3 hours every day to pay for that car. if you make $14/hour, you're working 1 1/2 hours to pay for it.

I bring this up because I want to make the case for walking/biking/busing places instead of driving. Some people look at me and say, "You're spending 1 1/2 hours walking to work and back home! That's great if you can work it out, but how do you have the time to do so??!!"

The answer is, because I'm not working 1 1/2-2 hours to pay for a car. In fact, by the time you figure that if I drove, I'd be spending 1/2 hour to get to and from work, then I'm coming out with at least 1/2 hour MORE free time than the person in my situation who drives. More still, if that person also later drives to a gym (where they pay MORE money) to exercise.

Want a million dollars? Want to pay for your kids' college? Want to SAVE time?

Sell that car. Or, at least consider it. It's not the time saver you might think it is. And for folk working at minimum wage (where paying for a car might take closer to HALF your workday!!), give it a serious consideration.

Or just take a walk or a bike ride for the sheer joy of it.

Happy Earth Day.

Obama and Jefferson

Fair Play Fire Co, a photo by paynehollow on Flickr.

President Obama has announced his plan for reducing the deficit and it involves some of the cuts I mentioned in my previous post, but also, a promise of progressive taxation...

The president is likely to repeat his broad contention that he stands with middle-class Americans and believes the wealthy need to bear more of the burden of caring for the elderly and less fortunate, stances he says are reflected in his deficit plan.

On this point, Obama is in agreement with Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, Adam Smith and other supporters of a progressive taxation scheme.

According to these folk from our history...

“Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometric progression as they rise.”

~Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1785

"The collection of taxes... has been as yet only by duties on consumption. As these fall principally on the rich, it is a general desire to make them contribute the whole money we want, if possible. And we have a hope that they will furnish enough for the expenses of government and the interest of our whole public debt, foreign and domestic."

~Thomas Jefferson to Comte de Moustier, 1790

"The rich alone use imported articles, and on these alone the whole taxes of the General Government are levied. ... Our revenues liberated by the discharge of the public debt, and its surplus applied to canals, roads, schools, etc., the farmer [ie, working class/poor] will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone, without his being called on to spend a cent from his earnings."

~Thomas Jefferson to Thaddeus Kosciusko, 1811

"The great mass of the articles on which impost is paid is foreign luxuries, purchased by those only who are rich enough to afford themselves the use of them. Their patriotism would certainly prefer its continuance and application to the great purposes of the public education, roads, rivers, canals, and such other objects of public improvement as it may be thought proper to add to the constitutional enumeration of federal powers."

~Thomas Jefferson: 6th Annual Message, 1806

"The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion."

"the expense of defending the society, and that of supporting the dignity of the chief magistrate, are both laid out for the general benefit of the whole society. It is reasonable, therefore, that they should be defrayed by the general contribution of the whole society, all the different members contributing, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities..."

"When the toll upon carriages of luxury, upon coaches, post-chaises, &c. is made somewhat higher in proportion to their weight, than upon carriages of necessary use, such as carts, waggons, &c. the indolence and vanity of the rich is made to contribute in a very easy manner to the relief of the poor, by rendering cheaper the transportation of heavy goods to all the different parts of the country."

Adam Smith: Wealth of Nations

I've read repeatedly that both Thomas Paine and Ben Franklin were progressive taxation proponents. Although I was finding it more difficult to find good quotes. Here's one...

"...as a Tax, and perhaps the most equal of all Taxes, since it depreciated in the Hands of the Holders of the Money, and thereby taxed them in proportion to the Sums they hold and the Time they held it, which is generally in proportion to Mens Wealth."

~Benjamin Franklin to Thomas Ruston, October 9, 1780

All of these folk are just in support of the self-evident truism that those who have much can be expected to contribute much. In the words of Jesus, "From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked."

Now, of course, Jesus was not speaking of taxation. Rather, he was just uttering a reasonable truism, a point that is self-evident and obviously moral to probably most people today.

Some will try to complain, saying, "But Jefferson wasn't speaking of a progressive INCOME tax!" and he wasn't. But that does not change his clear intent (nor does it change that of his colleagues) in support of SOME sort of progressive taxation where proportionally more is paid for by those with more.

It's simply morally reasonable. Self-evident.

All of which to say that Obama is in good company and staking out a morally sound stand in desiring to see a progressive tax scheme. Those who would call it socialism are just being ridiculous. Those who call it "theft" are being duplicitous and ridiculous. Those who suggest it is anti-American are just un-informed.

IF someone wants to argue reasonably against it at all, they could suggest that, while progressive taxation can be a good thing, AT SOME POINT, it becomes too much. And then they could make that argument as to why they think Obama's level of progressive taxation is "too much," but I just don't see how anyone can reasonably argue against progressive taxation in general. Much less, if they are resorting to calling it names lilke "communism" or "theft," which it clearly isn't.

Save! Save! Save!!

Worlds Largest Junky Store, a photo by paynehollow on Flickr.

So, the Republicans want to cut $100 billion from the federal budget? No problem. Here are my proposals for EASILY reducing federal spending by $300 billion:

1. De-criminalize marijuana (at least) and cut back on the crazy drug war.

The U.S. federal government spent over $15 billion dollars in 2010 on the War on Drugs, at a rate of about $500 per second.

860,000 people arrested for marijuana-related offenses in 2009.

source

A 1999 study showed that 60,000 individuals were behind bars for marijuana use. This cost taxpayers $1.2 billion.

Nor does it reflect the number of individuals or the amount spent on those who had their probation or parole revoked for marijuana use. In total, in prosecuting and policing individuals with regards to marijuana, between $7 billion and $10 billion was spent — and that’s just last year.

source

$42 billion? Because that's what our current marijuana laws cost American taxpayers each year, according to a new study by researcher Jon Gettman, Ph.D. -- $10.7 billion in direct law enforcement costs, and $31.1 billion in lost tax revenues. And that may be an underestimate, at least on the law enforcement side, since Gettman made his calculations before the FBI released its latest arrest statistics in late September.

source

Savings: ~$20-50 billion (more, if we expand it beyond just marijuana)

2. End wars in Iraq/Afghanistan...

...according to the Pentagon, the cost of the Afghan War in 2012 will be almost $300 million a day or, for all 365 of them, $107.3 billion. Like anything having to do with American war-fighting, however, such figures regularly turn out to be undercounts. Other estimates for our yearly war costs there go as high as $120-$160 billion.

source

According to infoplease, we spent $65 billion in Iraq in 2010 and $105 billion in Afghanistan.

End those wars.

Savings: ~$150 billion

3. Other Defense cuts...

As we pointed out earlier this month, the Pentagon could save around $358 billion by the end of 2015 by implementing the following ten measures:

* Terminate the Marine Corps’s expeditionary fighting vehicle
* Permanently reduce the number of U.S. military personnel stated in Europe and Asia
* Redirect the majority of the Department of Defense’s planned efficiency savings toward reducing the baseline defense budget
* Cancel the V-22 Osprey program
* Roll back post-September 11, 2001 efforts to grow the ground forces
* Reduce the number of civilian DOD personnel concomitant with the reduction in military end strength
* Reduce procurement of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter
* Reform military personnel policies, including the military health care system for retirees
* Retire and do not replace two existing carrier battle groups and associated air wings
* Update the U.S. nuclear arsenal and missile defense systems to counter the threats of the 21st century

source

Savings: ~$100 billion

Three suggestions, saving us somewhere around $300 BILLION a year. Nearly ONE TRILLION DOLLARS in three years.

Sorta makes the silly "Stop funding NPR and save $400 million annually" seem pretty limp and flimsy.

By all means, boys and girls, let's cut our spending. But let's be serious about it.

Anyone else have some good spending cuts to make some serious progress in reducing the size of the gov't? Preferably ones that won't cost us MORE in the long run (like cutting the EPA or Education would do) and, also preferably, ones that aren't borne on the backs of the poor, sick, elderly and otherwise marginalized.

Real Costs of Oil

Bike Shirt, a photo by paynehollow on Flickr.

Earth Day is a few days away.

The tragic anniversary of the BP Oil "Spill" is also days away.

It's a good time to try to consider the actual costs of oil and gasoline. I've said it before that I think the free market can be a relatively efficient way of managing our business, BUT ONLY if real costs are being paid.

To illustrate: If we have two widget factories producing widgets. Company A can make widgets responsibly - disposing of waste and cleaning up after themselves - at $10/widget and then sell them at a profit at $15/widget.

BUT, Company B discovers they can produce the widgets much more cheaply if they DON'T dispose of their wastes and clean up after themselves responsibly. By cutting corners, they can produce widgets at $5/widget and sell them at a profit for $10/widget, thus undercutting the "more expensive" widget company by Company A.

Additionally, Company B has paid lobbyists to get federal and state subsidies to produce their widgets, thus reducing their costs to $2/widget and allowing for even more profit.

Responsible Company A goes out of business due to the fact that Company B was NOT paying actual costs, nor were their consumers. Not paying actual costs can skew a responsible market.

Looking at just the gov't subsidy angle (what we'd call "welfare," if we were talking of assisting those in actual need) on gas prices, consider...

"...an examination of the American tax code indicates that oil production is among the most heavily subsidized businesses, with tax breaks available at virtually every stage of the exploration and extraction process.

According to the most recent study by the Congressional Budget Office, released in 2005, capital investments like oil field leases and drilling equipment are taxed at an effective rate of 9 percent, significantly lower than the overall rate of 25 percent for businesses in general and lower than virtually any other industry...

...Oil industry officials say that the tax breaks, which average about $4 billion a year according to various government reports, are a bargain for taxpayers...

...Jack N. Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, warns that any cut in subsidies will cost jobs...

“We’re giving tax breaks to highly profitable companies to do what they would be doing anyway,” said Sima J. Gandhi, a policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, a liberal research organization. “That’s not an incentive; that’s a giveaway.”

Some of the tax breaks date back nearly a century, when they were intended to encourage exploration in an era of rudimentary technology, when costly investments frequently produced only dry holes. Because of one lingering provision from the Tariff Act of 1913, many small and midsize oil companies based in the United States can claim deductions for the lost value of tapped oil fields far beyond the amount the companies actually paid for the oil rights...

Over the last 10 years, oil companies have also been aggressive in using foreign tax havens. Many rigs, like Deepwater Horizon, are registered in Panama or in the Marshall Islands, where they are subject to lower taxes and less stringent safety and staff regulations. American producers have also aggressively exploited the tax code by opening small offices in low-tax countries. A recent study by Martin A. Sullivan, an economist for the trade publication Tax Analysts, found that the five oil drilling companies that had undergone these “corporate inversions” had saved themselves a total of $4 billion in taxes since 1999...

Despite the public anger at the gulf spill, it is far from certain that Congress will eliminate the tax breaks. As recently as 2005, when windfall profits for energy companies prompted even President George W. Bush — a former Texas oilman himself — to publicly call for an end to incentives, the energy bill he and Congress enacted still included $2.6 billion in oil subsidies. In 2007, after Democrats took control of Congress, a move to end the tax breaks failed."

NY Times

That article cites a $4 billion/year price for oil company subsidies. In This article (in the Rush Limbaugh Letter!) cites a Christian Science Monitor story that places the annual price tag for energy subsidies between $50-100 billion!, with ~$40 billion going to oil/gas companies.

There appears to be a problem in sorting out just how many billions of dollars are going to oil companies (coal companies, gas companies, etc). What counts? Does "free" military protection of oil sources overseas count? Does "free" drilling in public land count?

I'd be curious to know if anyone thinks they have a reliable source for a rough total annual subsidies going to oil and gas companies.

In the meantime, I hope we could agree that giving these sorts of billions of dollars to support an industry skews the cost of oil/gas to make it artificially cheaper than it actually is. Of course, that's not counting the many, even larger ways we under-pay in gas prices, which I'll save for another day (but that include environmental degradation, human costs, health costs, societal costs, etc).

We need a way of getting our prices in the fossil fuel industries to reflect something like actual costs in order to best let the Market do its magic. Ending corporate welfare for wealthy oil/gas industries would be a start.

The Bible and Economics

Farming Friends, a photo by paynehollow on Flickr.

Part of an ongoing series looking at all the many passages in the Bible that deal with wealth and poverty issues. You can see the links to the other passages in the series under the heading "The Bible and Economics" below.

Today, I’m looking through the book of Deuteronomy. I’m grabbing excerpts from the first 15 chapters, but I think one can make the case that these excerpts represent a line of reasoning offered by God for HOW and WHY we ought to care for the poor, the foreigner, the outcast, and what that would look like at a societal level. These passages contain the rather audacious and amazing claim: There need be NO poor among you.

!

Do these rules/guidelines/commands really represent a systematic plan from God for EFFECTIVELY dealing with the problem of poverty in the real world – in a real nation? It seems to me the answer is Yes!

[With the caveat that this passage goes on to point out that there WILL still be the poor amongst them, presumably because they would not follow a systematic plan to deal with poverty.]

How does that work?! Something worth considering, seems to me.

Deut 6:

In the future, when your son asks you, “What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees and laws the LORD our God has commanded you?” tell him: “We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand...

The LORD commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the LORD our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today.

Deut 8:

Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land the LORD promised on oath to your ancestors.

Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep God's commands. God humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years...

Observe the commands of the LORD your God, walking in obedience to him and revering him. For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land—a land with brooks, streams, and deep springs gushing out into the valleys and hills; a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing [!?!]; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills.

When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God for the good land he has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe God's commands, laws and decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

God led you through the vast and dreadful wilderness, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. God brought you water out of hard rock. God gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never known, to humble and test you so that in the end it might go well with you. You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” But remember the LORD your God, for it is GOD who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.

Deut 10:

And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in obedience to God, to love God, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the LORD’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?

...For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. God defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.

Deut 14:

At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year’s produce and store it in your towns, so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.


Deut 15:

At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. This is how it is to be done: Every creditor shall cancel any loan they have made to a fellow Israelite. They shall not require payment from anyone among their own people, because the LORD’s time for canceling debts has been proclaimed.

You may require payment from a foreigner, but you must cancel any debt your fellow Israelite owes you. However, there need be no poor people among you, for in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, God will richly bless you, if only you fully obey the LORD your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today. For the LORD your God will bless you as he has promised, and you will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. You will rule over many nations but none will rule over you.

If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites in any of the towns of the land the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them. Rather, be openhanded and freely lend them whatever they need.

Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought: “The seventh year, the year for canceling debts, is near,” so that you do not show ill will toward the needy among your fellow Israelites and give them nothing. They may then appeal to the LORD against you, and you will be found guilty of sin.

Give generously to them and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.

What do you think? Are these type of passages speaking of a specific plan (for that specific time and place) for effectively dealing with poverty on a societal level?

Liberty, Laws and Regulations

Prohibited, a photo by paynehollow on Flickr.

I've had some related conversations lately on the topics of criminalization and regulation of behaviors. I thought I'd bring the topic here. Some of the conversations went like this...

I made the point that I am fine with criminalizing behavior that is harmful (ie, your right to swing your fist ends at my nose) and was generally opposed to criminalizing behavior that isn't harmful.

For instance, even if you disagree with gay marriage, where's the actual, physical harm? I KNOW that some think there is spiritual harm in gay marriage, but we don't generally criminalize those behaviors that cause spiritual harm, only that which causes physical harm. I am strongly opposed to the notion of trying to criminalize that behavior which SOME MIGHT THINK causes spiritual harm. That is not the proper role of gov't.

Anyway, I am fine with criminalizing that behavior which causes actual harm. As are most people. We have no problem making it against the law to take something which does not belong to you - taking my bicycle, taking her barbie doll, whatever, we rightfully criminalize theft because of the obvious harm by one to another.

FURTHER, I am generally fine with the notion of regulating/taxing other behaviors that cause harm at the larger level. One person driving a car is not necessarily dangerous or harmful in and of itself. BUT, 200 MILLION people driving cars, emiting toxins, causing wrecks... THIS does cause harm.

In saying this, one person asked...

How much power are you willing to cede to the government to regulate your actions? At what point do we start calling it tyranny?

I’m willing and desiring that the People would say to a company that would pollute the groundwater, “You can’t do that.” Are you willing to cede to enterprise your right to clean water? At what point does “free market” become tyranny?

Don’t be melodramatic. I’m speaking of behavior that has measurably harmful effects. The right of the coal company to blow up a mountaintop ends at the People’s right to clean water and intact mountains. Do I support the freedom of a coal company to dig for coal? Yes. Do I support the People’s freedom to regulate that behavior if and when it becomes toxic, dangerous or at a loss to the People? Yes! It would be ridiculous not to do so.

To give up our right to do so IS to give up freedom.

Obviously, at SOME point, regulations and laws could lean towards tyranny, or at least be overbearing and counterproductive. I think of the Prohibition laws against alcohol back in the day, or the prohibiiton laws of today against marijuana and other drugs.

But there is a line somewhere that needs to be drawn.

This critic seemed to be presenting this as if on ONE side his side) there is the fight for liberty at all costs and on the OTHER side (mine) there is the attempt to promote tyranny. As already noted, BOTH sides involve a loss of liberty.

Telling a motorist that he has to drive 25 mph in a residential zone IS taking away “liberty” – the freedom to drive as fast as he wants – but we’d be stupid NOT to regulate that behavior.

The thing is, we have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We DON’T have a right to take that away from others. THAT’s the difference I’m speaking of...

This person also said...

There is an extremely fine line between regulation and tyranny, so fine no one can really say where it is. When the government regulates pay? When it sets production? When it starts regulating what you eat, or how much you eat? How far you can drive? What you can drive?

I responded that I thought he was making this too hard: We have a right, as a People, to protect our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. As a result, we have a right and obligation to either criminalize or regulate behavior that takes away these.

"So fine that no one can really say where it is?" Of course we can and need to draw lines! Will these lines be perfect? No, but they are necessary nonetheless.

We already limit what you can drive: You can’t drive a tank. You can’t drive a street rocket.

I was asked...

Tell me where regulation ends and tyranny begins, in the name of “protection”.

The limit is, that which causes harm to others. When we allow people to take away the rights of others to life, liberty, etc in order to give OTHERS the right to make money, drive as fast as they want, blow up whatever they want, pollute, etc, we will have an ugly, undesirable society. I won't engage in the same sort of hyperbole as this critic and call it "tyranny," but I will call it unhealthy and undesirable.

sigh...

Dave Amos Working, a photo by paynehollow on Flickr.

In the news...

[CNN] Maine Gov. Paul LePage ordered a 36-foot mural depicting the state's labor history be removed from the lobby of the Department of Labor headquarters building in Augusta, Maine, according to LePage's office...

The 11-panel mural depicts labor scenes including a cobbler and a textile worker, and pro-labor organizations have used the action to criticize the governor.

A statement from the Maine AFL-CIO said removing the mural is an "insult to working men and women" and is another example of how LePage is putting politics before people.

And, from Politico.com...

LePage’s push to remove the mural came after “several messages” from members of the public complained about it, as well as an anonymous fax last month from someone who said the artwork was reminiscent of “communist North Korea where they use these murals to brainwash the masses.” And it comes as several governors and legislatures around the country are engaged in debates over the power and privileges of labor unions.

And so, the governor has decided that THE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR is an inappropriate place for artwork depicting the HISTORY OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT? Really??

And this, after complaints that artwork depicting Labor history is too much like the Communists of N Korea?!!?

I repeat: sigh.

Or maybe Aaaarrrrggh! would be more appropriate.

When wilt thou save the people?
O God of mercy, when?
The people, Lord, the people,
Not thrones and crowns, but men!
Flowers of thy heart, O God, are they;
let them not pass like weeds away
Their heritage a sunless day
God save the people

Shall crime bring crime forever,
Strength aiding still the strong?
Is it thy will, O Father,
that men shall toil for wrong?
No, say thy mountains; No, say thy skies;
man's clouded sun shall brightly rise,
and songs be heard, instead of sighs,
God save the people!

Storytelling and Truth

Listen a photo by paynehollow on Flickr.

In a previous post with a rolling set of interesting commentary following it, the question of storytelling arose. I hold storytelling in high value and think that the stories told in the Bible are tremendous sources of truth and ought to be taken as truths to contend with. However, that is not to say that I consider all the stories therein to be likely strictly fact-based.

As far as I know, most early storytelling falls into the "storytelling for the purpose of passing on truths, or for entertainment, or for moral lessons" category - as opposed to storytelling with an emphasis on telling strictly factual, linear history of a more modern sort. That sort of fairly strictly factual history-telling didn't really start happening until somewhere around 500 BC - 500 AD.

As far as I can tell. I'm not an expert, I just know what I've read and what makes sense. Can I do some research and discover "proof" that, of ALL the stories ever told in our earliest history, none were told in a factual, linear sort of way? No, of course not. One can't prove a negative. And so, I can't say it didn't happen and I'm not saying that.

Rather, what I'm saying is simply that, I see no evidence of it. I have seen no early writings with an emphasis on linear factual storytelling in a more modern historic sense. If you google "ancient historians," you come up with names such as Herodotus (known as the "father of history"), Josephus, Tacitus, Thucydides and Sima Qian, among others. All of these folk lived in that 500 BC - 500 AD window. And even amongst these who are credited with beginning "history" as a category of writing, the emphasis on facts was not always apparently strict.

source, source, source

So, what does that say of our biblical history stories? Most of the Old Testament, after all, falls prior to this 500 BC start of more modernistic history-recording. Is that to say that these stories are "false" and therefore unreliable?

I say, No. I say that early peoples told valuable stories and kept their history, they just didn't do it in the way we do it today. To suggest that early history-storytellers who might include some fiction right alongside some fact are "liars" or that lessons learned from these stories are compromised simply because they told history-stories in the style of their day is not to denigrate those lessons or those stories. It's just that we need to keep in mind the context and read these history-stories accordingly.

And yet, in the aforementioned post, we found some commenters who DID seem to suggest that ancient history-storytellers who include fiction and fact side by side ARE liars. That the lessons learned in such stories ARE compromised or wholly invalid.

Comments made include...

"How does one find comfort is something that didn't happen?"

and,

"Just because they were primitive doesn't mean they were stupid."

(I had pointed out that these were a "primitive" people, by Merriam Webster definition, meaning simply an earlier, pre-literate people with differing cultural/storytelling norms than we have - nothing in that was to suggest they were stupid, nonetheless, that was what one commenter appears to have gathered.)

I offered an example of my OWN storytelling (with some departures from the facts) from my own family and that was met by,

"I'm glad you have so little regard for factual accuracy. Great so you tell funny stories, is it somehow less valuable/funny to use the facts of the situation. Personally this is a weak analogy, the Israelites were not just telling some funny stories around the campfire, they were relating their national history."

and,

better to not make inferences about the character of a real person from a fictional tale in the first place.

Given all this, I wonder if it's the case that some of these commenters just hold storytelling itself in contempt? Human history has a long and wonderful history of storytelling that is not wholly dependent upon facts. From one source speaking of native American storytelling traditions, we read...

In the time before The Change (European contact), the oral narrative was a "sacred" process and the soul of Indigenous People. Without a written language traditional culture and customs were handed down using the spoken word as the base. They provided social, cultural and historical contexts, and acted as a social cohesive for the entire tribe...

In other words, the oral narrative was a highly developed, sophisticated medium supported by ages old teachings and explanations that were based on fact, observation, oral claims and contracts (in front of witnesses), and a complex set of social and cultural customs for dealing with the sacred and the supernatural.

Native people did not distinguish between the physical and supernatural because everything was viewed as a vast continuum; whether it be animate or supernatural, the world existed in 'real time' and in a conscious state of existence. Every living thing was a member of one large family: the four elements (earth, air, fire and water), plant, animal and human worlds were connected to each other in often complex and sophisticated ways. In other words, every object that existed in the physical world or sprang from the rich imaginations of the storytellers was in effect in possession of ‘real’ life and co-existed in perfect harmony with all other living beings - all were considered human...

Missionary damnations of Indigenous culture was as a result of refusal to acknowledge or understand the descriptive narrative base of Indigenous languages. Patriarchal Christian biases, coupled with attempts to translate the stories into a utilitarian language such as English caused a double jeopardy of linguistic confusion and misinterpretation. This distortion continues to exist, as colourful transformation figures such as Raven, Glooscap, Napi and Coyote were reduced to mere caricatures of buffoonery...

It was simply beyond the pale for the average missionary to contemplate them as akin to the level of Jesus Christ - that is a figure sent by Great Mystery to bring order to the world. Clutching rosaries and muttering homilies, Christian missionaries scuttled about, "Raven, Jesus, Coyote in the same sentence?" "I don't think so!" and so, the culture heroes were relegated to the only other place in Christian sensibilities, hell and Satan.

Indigenous narratives defy simple classification. 'Myth' seems to be a popular category, but it is incorrect. Myth, by definition means the stories are not real because they refer to fictitious themes that include imaginary persons or things that were spoken of as though they existed.

For the Ancestors, all beings whether they were physically real or from the visions of the Old Ones did exist, and in real time, albeit sometimes in an altered or supernatural state. The oral narrative also passed down important claims and entitlements - territory, crests, clans, names.

If labels are to be applied, 'Lore' is probably closer because it invokes a teaching, or the act of being taught by someone who has knowledge of a particular group or subject matter of a traditional nature...

source

I've read things of this nature before and believe it to be a common theme in ancient history-storytelling. The people told stories well, passed down histories accurately by their terms, and if ancient people had "fictional" talking Ravens in a story next to an actual person in the real world or a fictional dragon and an actual king, it was NOT because they were lying - these were real to them and their "factual" non-existence was irrelevant to the story.

Storytelling - regardless of rigid factuality - was of GREAT importance throughout history and still is today. The truths learned in these stories are not to be rejected and the authors reduced to "liars" simply because the storytelling style is different. It has been and still is a rich, beautiful, wonderful and powerful to convey great truths, deep personal connections and histories, even if every line is not factual.

My Poetry??

Almost Sarah Bike a photo by paynehollow on Flickr.

I'm having a senior moment. I was looking through an old “poetry” folder on my computer and found an incomplete poem there I don't recognize. Now, generally, my poetry folder would be full of poems that I wrote. And all the other poem documents in that folder ARE my writings.

But this one, I don't remember or recognize, and it doesn't really sound like me (maybe a little bit – I DO like me some trebuchets...)

But, given the lovely weather here in Louisville today and that it's THAT time of the year, I will offer you an anonymous incomplete poem on a bicycle girl, grooving around the globe...

With the wind under her wheels,
She flew like a dog behind a cat
Like a penguin in a jet

Like a pumpkin recently on a trebuchet.

Smooth.
Subsonic.
Substantial.
Sublime.

No time for gravity, sister astronaut
On a round-the-globe groove
Shakin’ sprockets and grease and...

...and that's it!

Anyone recognize that? I tried googling some excerpts and came up with nothing.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.