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March 27, 2009
Barack Obama’s ‘Red’ Spiritual Advisor
Note: This piece originally appeared on worldnetdaily.com on March 26, 2009.
El Salvador has officially joined the Red regimes of Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Bolivia. South America is turning Red, dark Red, and little is being said to alert North Americans of the encroaching Red plague. Perhaps that's because North America is moving in the same direction. The President of the United States has surrounded himself with socialists, and some of those closest to him have had a part in turning South America Red.
According to the Associated Press (March 17, 2009), Mauricio Funes, the presidential candidate of the Farbundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) is the new head of the nation of El Salvador. Behind Funes "is a party of former Marxist guerrillas that fought to overthrow U.S.-backed governments in the 1980s and whose rise to power has raised fears of a communist regime in the war-scarred Central American country."
The AP admits "ex-guerrillas will almost certainly form part of the Funes government, including Vice President-elect Salvador Sanchez Ceren, a rebel commander-turned-congressman."
And then there's the "drug" connection! Investor's Business Daily (IBD) reports that "last May, the FMLN confessed to ‘a relationship' with Colombia's drug-trafficking FARC Marxist terrorists after documents found on the computer of dead FARC chieftain Raul Reyes, killed in a 2008 raid, proved it" (March 16, 2009).
Funes, of course, says he'll "govern moderately, more like Brazil ‘socialist' President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva than Venezuela's radical [communist] Hugo Chavez." Of course, this is what the Nicaraguan communist Daniel Ortega said, too, before he displayed his Communist "proletariat morality" by hugging the Communist dictators Castro and Chavez. Ortega and all his South American pals are hardcore Marxist-Leninists.
While all of this, of course, is relevant to an ardent free-market capitalist, what really frightens me is that Obama's latest announced "spiritual advisor" has had connections with all these Marxist regimes. And who is the President's latest advisor? The Rev. Jim Wallis!
FrontPageMagazine (March 17, 2009) reports, "The most notable of [Obama's] spiritual advisors today is his friend of many years, Rev. Jim Wallis." Rev. Wallis admits that he and Obama have "been talking faith and politics for a long time." He was picked by Obama to draft the faith-based policies of his campaign at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado in 2008. Why should this alarm us?
First, Jim Wallis has had relationships with the communist Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES).
Second, his "Witness for Peace" was an attempt to defend the Nicaraguan Sandinistas! Wallis, together with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright (Obama's former pastor of 20 years) "rallied support for the communist Nicaraguan regime and protested actions by the United States which supported the anti-communist Contra rebels" (Family World News, February 2009, p. 7).
Third, Wallis and his Sojourners community of fellow-travelers believe Fidel Castro's Cuba, Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, Daniel Ortega's Nicaragua, and the other revolutionary forces "restructuring socialist societies" are the Communist paradises the United States needs to emulate in order to establish "social justice." Writing in the November 1983 issue of Sojourners, Jacob Laksin notes, "Jim Wallis and Jim Rice drafted what would become the charter of leftist activists committed to the proliferation of Communist revolutions in Central America" (Laksin, "Sojourners: History, Activities and Agendas" in Discoverthenetworks.org., 2005).
The ugly truth is Wallis wishes to see the destruction of the United States as a nation and in its place "a radical nonconformist community" patterned after the progressive, socialist commune he established in Washington, D.C., in 1971 (Laksin, Ibid.).
"The Sojourners community," says Laksin, "actively embraced ‘liberation theology,' rallying to the cause of communist regimes that had seized power with the promise of bringing about a revolutionary restructuring of society." Clark Pinnock, a disaffected former member of Sojourners, said that the community's members were "100 percent in favor of the Nicaraguan [communist] revolution" (Laksin, Ibid.).
All this revolutionary activity in spite of the fact that today's Cuba, for example, has to import 84 percent of its food supply due to the socialistic mess of the agricultural system (150,000 oxen till the ground because tractors represent capitalism). However, in a move that looks more like capitalism than Marxism's state farms, "Raul Castro is moving to boost food production by putting more land under the control of private farmers" (The Weekly Standard, March 23, 2009, p. 13).
It appears that Raul Castro is learning what America's early pilgrims learned back in the 1620s! William Bradford noted in his History of Plymouth Plantation that once he canceled the pilgrims' socialistic experiment and provided each settler with a piece of property to till, starvation was averted. We can hope and pray that Raul Castro continues to implement more capitalistic policies and will learn firsthand the economic system that has brought more people out of poverty than any other in the history of the world. (See Rodney Stark, The Victory of Reason.)
Of course, Rev. Wallis should have learned the lessons of Plymouth Plantation early in his education, but may not have because our Secular Humanistic K–12 curricula deletes most of the history of the pilgrims and the Mayflower Compact in an attempt to avoid acknowledging its "advancement of Christianity." (Sadly, one first grade textbook that does include the pilgrims has them "praying to the Indians.")
For years, Wallis has been in the forefront of the "evangelical" left and has been fêted at numerous evangelical colleges and seminaries. That seems to be the "in" thing right now! His publication Sojourners is piled high on these campuses for the reading pleasure of the naïve and foolish.
Unbeknown to these colleges and seminaries is Wallis' Red background. He was the president of the radical Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) while at Michigan State University. The SDS was the youth arm of the League for Industrial Democracy — the American counterpart to the British Fabian Society founded to promote socialism throughout the West. One of the League's mentors for years was Norman Thomas, who argued that "the American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism, they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened" (Google, Norman Thomas quotes). Another prominent League mentor was John Dewey, a signatory of the atheistic, socialistic 1933 Humanist Manifesto. The SDS actually merits a chapter in Richard J. Ellis's work The Dark Side of the Left: Illiberal Egalitarianism in America published by the University of Kansas Press.
In October of 1969, SDS original organizer Tom Hayden directed his followers to "set off on a rampage, smashing windows of parked cars, hurling rocks and bricks through apartment windows, and fighting with police." Hayden blamed the police for his violence even though later his followers "comforted themselves, because theirs was a violence to end all violence, a liberating and righteous violence that would rid the world of a system that deformed and destroyed people. Such glorious ends justified, even ennobled, violent means" (Ellis, p. 137).
Ellis insists that the language of revolution and violent confrontation was evident throughout the ranks of the SDS. Jim Wallis was part and parcel of this pro-communist group of radicals and revolutionaries.
Wallis' Sojourners enterprise has been a radical, socialistic undertaking from the start. FrontPageMagazine (March 17, 2009) says, "As one of its first acts, Sojourners formed a commune in the Washington, D.C. neighborhood of Southern Columbia Heights, where members shared their finances and participated in various activist campaigns that centered on attacking the U.S. foreign policy, denouncing American ‘imperialism,' and extolling Marxist revolutionary movements in the Third World."
Sojourners contributing editors included the radical Daniel "Pentagon Papers" Berrigan, Walter Brueggemann, James Hal Cone (author of the racist Black Theology and Black Power in which the white race is depicted as devils), Rosemary Radford Ruether (Professor of Feminist Theology, Catholics for Choice, God is the feminine Gaia), Ron Sider, Cornel West, and Garry Wills. Today, Sojourners' Board of Directors includes Wallis, Ron Sider, Brian McLaren, and Bart Campolo.
Over the years, Wallis has been pro-Vietcong and actually gloried in America's defeat in Vietnam. He said, "I don't know how else to express the quiet emotion that rushed through me when the news reports showed that the United States had finally been defeated in Vietnam" (Ronald H. Nash, Why The Left Is Not Right, p. 58).
However, like Jane Fonda, Wallis said next to nothing about the Communist genocide that followed the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia. In fact, in a typical communist response, he criticized those fleeing Vietnam by boat as somehow attempting "to support their consumer habits in other lands" (Nash, p. 59).
Wallis has been closely associated with Richard Barnet (former contributing editor of Sojourners) and the Institute for Policy Studies, a radical leftwing think tank supporting socialist revolutionaries around the world; Wallis had his book The Soul of Politics published by Orbis Books in 1994, a radical leftwing Roman Catholic publishing arm of the radical leftwing Maryknollers; Sojourner magazine has been a strong supporter of the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and, indeed, has supported every leftwing, liberation theology cause around the world.
And yes, Wallis portrays the evangelical right that happens to be pro-American and anti-Communist "as members of the forces of darkness" (Nash, p. 66, 71). For Wallis, a good Christian is someone who is pro-Communist and socialist, while a bad Christian is someone who is anti-Communist and pro-capitalist. The cry of the Sojourners crowd is "social justice" for the poor and downtrodden — social justice being code for socialism/communism.
I could not disagree more strongly. I contend that the Marxist-Leninist worldview is 100 percent contrary to Biblical Christianity, and I document this extensively in my book Understanding the Times. Further, Communism is directly responsible for the murder of tens of millions of human beings, a slaughter documented by Stephane Courtois, et. al. in their 1999 book The Black Book on Communism (Harvard University Press).
I will attempt to be as kind and gentle as humanly possible and break the news to the Rev. Wallis and his "spiritual" advisee Barak Obama — socialism has never lifted the poor out of poverty. It has equally distributed poverty, but it has never been able to create the wealth that is partially responsible for lifting the poor out of poverty.
I say "partially responsible" because one's worldview is even more important than wealth in reducing poverty. But socialism is a flawed idea, and it poisons the worldview of the people it influences. Our brothers on the evangelical left, who are concerned with the poor, need to read Theodore Dalrymple's Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass. Although not a Christian, Dalrymple understands perfectly the importance of a proper worldview and its role in combating poverty, drugs, crime, and broken families.
Can we admit a hard truth? Christian capitalist Truett Cathy's Chic-fil-A has done more to fight poverty and help the poor than all the pronouncements of Jim Wallis, Ron Sider, Daniel Berrigan, Brian McLaren, Tony and Bart Campolo, and their entire crew of leftwing sociological and economic friends combined.
Thomas Sowell explains, "It would be devastating to the egos of the intelligentsia to realize, much less admit, that businesses have done more to reduce poverty than all the intellectuals put together. Ultimately, it is only wealth that can reduce poverty and most of the intelligentsia have no interest whatever in finding out what actions and policies increase the national wealth" (Capitalism Magazine, May 9, 2005).
In fact, the intellectuals are the very ones who complain about those who do increase wealth. Again, Thomas Sowell speaks to this issue: "Think about the things that have improved our lives the most over the past century — medical advances, the transportation revolution, huge increases in consumer goods, dramatic improvements in housing, the computer revolution. The people who created these things — the doers — are not popular heroes. Our heroes are the talkers who complain about the doers."
Socialism is built on a slogan: "What can government do for me today?" instead of "What can I do to better prepare myself to take care of myself in order to be a better Christian and servant of my Lord?" Preparation involves individual responsibility, traditional family values, education, love of God and neighbor, and compassion for the up-and-outers as well as the down-and-outers.
Socialists stand against nearly every Christian, conservative principle imaginable. Compare the socialist agenda with Yale professor David Gelernter's summary of the conservative position — "the freedom of every American to make his own way, free speech on the radio and everywhere else, free elections for workers and other people . . . freedom to acknowledge and celebrate the nation's rootedness in Christianity, Judaism, and the Bible . . . love of liberty, and love of God" (National Review, March 23, 2009, p. 32).
In 2006, Barak Obama was the keynote speaker at Jim Wallis' Call to Renewal conference, "Building a Covenant for a New America." Following his address, in an interview by the United Church News, he cited "the teachings of the UCC (United Church of Christ) as foundation stones for his political work." He said, "Just as my pastor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright from Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago welcomed me as a young man years ago, UCC churches across the country open their doors to millions of Americans each Sunday . . .. I believe that democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal values. Social justice and national security are both universal values, values that may originate for some in their religious beliefs, but are shared by us all."
What Americans can look forward to now that Rev. Wallis has the ear of the President is what Sojourners magazine has been pedaling since 1971 — "advocating America's transformation into a socialist nation" (Accuracy in Media Research Report, May 1983, Section 19).
Could it be that America, who turned her back on God by deciding that prayer and the Bible can no longer grace her public schools, but homosexuality (indeed the whole GLBTQ rainbow), abortion counseling, and condoms in school colors are welcomed, is experiencing the very judgment of God? There are consequences for "forgetting God" as Solzhenitsyn noted about his mother country, Russia! These same consequences are piling up on the metrosexual West in general and on the United States in particular.
- Posted at 12:15 pm by David A. Noebel
- Join the Discussion (17)
February 24, 2010 // 02:17 pm // #
A guy apparently opened fire on middle school students with a rifle. The math teacher, David Benke, stopped him and probably saved dozens of childrens’ lives at the risk of his own life. This man is a true hero.
You can read the news article here http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_colo_school_shooting - Teacher tackles gunman supected in school shooting <IMG>http://www.youvoid.info/piczz/k/n.gif</IMG>
We should all take a moment of silence for this man. Thank you.
February 25, 2010 // 06:17 am // #
The response to national disaster is awesome but it’s a real shame that so many people take advantage of the negative situations.
I mean everytime there is an earthquake, a flood, an oil spill - there’s always a group of heartless people who rip off tax payers.
This is in response to reading that 4 of Oprah Winfreys “angels” got busted ripping off the system. Shame on them!
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/08/19/crimesider/entry5251471.shtml
March 01, 2010 // 06:37 pm // #
Hey guys, do you use these two services?
I’ve found some cool people on both. A neat place to do more discussions on these topics!
Buzz is really new but I dig the deeper converations there.
May 29, 2010 // 08:01 am // #
Deterministic systems, ideological symbols of abdication by man from his
natural role as earth’s Choicemaker, inevitably degenerate into
collectivism; the negation of singularity, they become a conglomerate
plural-based system of measuring human value. Blunting an awareness of
diversity, blurring alternatives, and limiting the selective creative
process, they are self-relegated to a passive and circular regression.
Tampering with man’s selective nature endangers his survival for it would
render him impotent and obsolete by denying the tools of variety,
individuality, perception, criteria, selectivity, and progress. Coercive
attempts produce revulsion, for such acts are contrary to an indeterminate
nature and nature’s indeterminate off-spring, man the Choicemaker.
Until the oppressors discover that wisdom only just begins with a respectful
acknowledgment of The Creator, The Creation, and The Choicemaker, they will
be ever learning but never coming to a knowledge of the truth. The rejection of
Creator-initiated standards relegates the mind of man to its own primitive,
empirical, and delimited devices. It is thus that the human intellect cannot
ascend and function at any level higher than the criteria by which it
perceives and measures values.
Additionally, such rejection of transcendent criteria self-denies man the
vision and foresight essential to decision-making for survival and
progression. He is left, instead, with the redundant wreckage of expensive
hind sight, including human institutions characterized by averages,
mediocrity, and regression.
Humanism, mired in the circular and mundane egocentric predicament, is
ill-equipped to produce transcendent criteria. Evidenced by those who do not
perceive superiority and thus find themselves beset by the shifting winds of
the carnal-ego; i.e., moods, feelings, desires, appetites, etc., the mind
becomes subordinate: a mere device for excuse-making and rationalizing
self-justification.
The carnal-ego rejects criteria and self-discipline for such instruments are
tools of the mind and the attitude. The appetites of the flesh have no need
of standards for at the point of contention standards are perceived as
alien, restrictive, and inhibiting. Yet, the very survival of our physical
nature itself depends upon a maintained sovereignty of the mind and of the
spirit.
It remained, therefore, to the initiative of a personal and living Creator
to traverse the human horizon and fill the vast void of human ignorance
with an intelligent and definitive faith. Man is thus afforded the prime
tool of the intellect - a Transcendent Standard by which he may measure
values in experience, anticipate results, and make enlightened and visionary
choices.
Only the unique and superior God-man Person can deservedly displace the
ego-person from his predicament and free the individual to measure values
and choose in a more excellent way. That sublime Person was indicated in the
words of the prophet Amos, “...said the Lord, Behold,
I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel.” Y’shua Mashiyach
Jesus said, “If I be lifted up I will draw all men unto myself.”
As long as some choose to abdicate their personal reality and submit to the
delusions of humanism, determinism, and collectivism, just so long will they
be subject and re-acting only, to be tossed by every impulse emanating from
others. Those who abdicate such reality may, in perfect justice, find
themselves weighed in the balances of their
own choosing.
“No one is smarter than their criteria.” selah
May 29, 2010 // 08:08 am // #
“EXPERIENCE KEEPS A DEAR SCHOOL,
BUT FOOLS WILL LEARN IN NO OTHER.”
- Ben Franklin
July 26, 2010 // 01:30 pm // #
Your writing represents a sickness that could only have come from Satan himself, as well as a total misunderstanding of world affairs, but the former is much more dangerous from my own (a Christian’s) perspective.
The US govt, along with the support of most of the US fundamentalist community, waged unholy war on almost every person and group in Latin America that sought to stand up for the rights and well-being of the “least among us,” the poor majority whom our treatment of Jesus clearly declares will determine our eternal destiny.
Unspeakable torture, rape, mutilation and murder were the regular tools of this right-wing “Christian fundamentalist” campaign.
Trust me, Wallis (as well as Funes) are quite “moderate” (i.e. mostly co-opted by the status quo powers that be that you also love), however I’m writing this on the behalf of the millions of victims of your ideology, beautiful REAL Christian people whom I hope you find the chance to apologize to from your dark future resting place.
http://www.antipasministries.com/html/file0000105.htm
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/WhatUncleSamWants.html
August 10, 2010 // 12:04 pm // #
L C Larsen - Look who’s calling others sick! You have no business pointing your finger at others when you sympathize with radicals. Your hatred for true Christians betrays your wicked heart.
Put down the Kool-Aid, wise up, and believe in the creator of truth and light - Jesus.
August 13, 2010 // 01:52 pm // #
I appreciate your comment, LC.
Unfortunately, the violent, ravaging toll capitalism has taken on our world will never be recognized by ALL of the church even when simply and cogently pointed out.
Saying that Dr. Noebel’s ideas come from Satan, however, I would say is an overstatement.
But anyway…
I’m wondering what brings you accross this radical, paranoid, far, far right part of the internet?
October 30, 2010 // 08:48 pm // #
Rick,
Capitalism hasn’t taken a ravaging toll on the world. Capitalism is simply freedom. It is rather human nature, and more to the point, sin which has taken a ravaging toll on the world.
Anyone who would for a moment think that capitalism has done more damage to the world than controled economic systems simply doesn’t have their eyes open. Or perhaps they only have them selectively open.
It is not Capitalism, but greed, short-sightedness, pride, and so on that lay waste to our world.
Now, many people associate capitalism with greed, but this is also pure nonsense at its most basic level. People who live under controlled economies are just as greedy as those who don’t. Also, those who control said economies are just as greedy as any other human beings.
The only, and real difference between capitalism and a controled economy is simply who has the power. Controlled economies are essentially oligarchies, while capitalsim places the power in the hands of the consumer (ie the people).
It is common to paint capitalism as a system controlled by corporations. This is completely untrue. Capitalist systems are always controlled by the consumers.
Systems that are controlled by corporations are just another variation of ‘controlled economy’ (corporatism or syndaclism)
The eternal problem for societies in government, law, and economics, is human nature. All the rest is just so much smoke and mirrors.
The question is what systems is best, given the unchanging problems of human nature.
On the one hand, a strongly controlled system might seem like a good idea because it can deal most effectively and efficiently with the problems arising from human nature. Yet it always fails because in the end, it is controlled by humans. Thus while this type of system may be better at maintaining order, it invariably becomes oppressive as the people who have the power to control force their will on everyone else. This also faces another problem. On the surface this idea is flawed because the people with the power will be just as corrupt as everyone else. Yet there is also the axiom that power tends to corrupt. Thus those who have power are MORE likely to be MORE corrupt than everyone else.
If on the other hand a system is not strongly controlled, the people will invariably run amok to the degree that they are allowed (ie have freedom) to do so.
The idea that any system of economics or government will solve the worlds problems is a lie, an illusionary cheat. Nothing will prevent the ravaging of the world by human nature.
The only question then is which system would you rather live under… one that allows you to choose your own fate and pursue your own goals, or one in which someone else dictates to you what you can and can not pursue?
October 30, 2010 // 09:07 pm // #
LC,
I have no doubt at all that many groups and regimes supported by the US have been bad.
The US government has repeatedly made bad decisions in that regard because of short-sightedness, expediency, and utilitarianism.
However, what you don’t seem to realize is that just because one group is bad doesn’t mean the other group is good.
The US at one point supported Saddam Hussain. I don’t think anyone is really going to suggest that this was ‘good’.
That, however, doesn’t mean that Ayatollah Khomeini was really the good guy and we should have supported Iran instead.
the US having supported various oppressive or corrupt regimes in Latin America by no stretch of the imagination means that the opposition groups were or are any better.
The reality is they are all every bit as murderous, oppressive, and corrupt. The only thing that changes when they take power is which super power they get their checks from, and which group of people they oppress.
Probably more accurately, the people being oppressed don’t really change all that much. In all cases the common people pretty much get the shaft.
It is largely a public relations illusion that the US opposes communism as an ideology. There is precious little difference between a facist dictator and a communist dictator. The US supported one over the other not on the basis of their ideology or philosophy, but simply on the basis of whether they favored us, or Russia.
From a moral, Christian point of view, communism is every bit as bad, as evil, as vile, as fascism. In fact, they are virtually identical. They are both Totalitarian and that is the real issue.
The spread of communism is of concern for Christians, not because of political emnity with the US (which may be of concern for the US) but because of the fact that communism is EVIL. It is a completely anti-christ, inhuman philosophy that destroys those over whom it gains power.
November 01, 2010 // 12:20 pm // #
Hey Josh,
Well I guess your first statement is true- capitalism is an impersonal force, style, ideal, etc. Any corruptions thereof are ultimately traceable to the problem of sin. I’m a Christian- so I agree wholeheartedly. In light of this, your idea that “communism is EVIL” doesn’t make much sense. In fact this is the sort of dogmatic fear mongering and close minded labeling that moderate and liberal Christians find so confusing, vexing and hurtful. Your posts suggest that the world must choose between CAPITALISM and its unholy, exclusive alternative COMMUNISM. I have major problems with capitalism, but I’m not a communist. Please avoid this paranoid namecalling (not that you really have, but there is some of it, I would argue, on this blog) If you want to support the ideal of capitalism, go ahead, it’s a legitimate point of view. Your “communism is EVIL” attack on my post is, however, distinctly illegitimate.
You say that “Capitalism is simply freedom.” But this just isn’t true. The most RADICAL proponents of market freedom generally admit that SOME governmental regulation is necessary for things to run smoothly and rightly.
But ok, sure, MORE freedom (in markets) is a part of what we’re calling Capitalism here… You spend some time discussing the idea that (pardon the paraphrase, please) because of human nature, the centralization of power in the hands of a choice few humans is a bad idea. Even if they are to control the redistribution of wealth and resources or something, greed is real and there will be big problems. In communism someone comes along (historically in countries that were ALREADY a disaster economically) and says, “I’ll make it so we’re all the same.Good things for everyone! I’m in charge.” Power corrupts, power was centralized, castrophe ensues. Fair enough. This has clearly been a weakness of communism.
BUT, what I AM saying is that capitalism is actually a WORSE venue for human nature to wreak havoc. To suggest that there is no centralized locus of power in a freemarket global system is to ignore the TINY class of super wealthy who control the worlds wealth. Capitalism doesn’t give power to the consumer… it gives power to the financier. It gives power to money, not humans. How could the power be in the hands of the consumer? The consumer is beholden to the captains of industry to pay their wages just so they can consume anything at all!
I’ll briefly address this concept that Capitalism gives power to the consumer to determine their own destiny Just look at our urban centers- When 100’s of thousands of American children are literally HUNGRY in school they don’t have equal opportunity. When they come home to post-industrial brownfield neighborhoods that are no longer economically viable and thus, afflicted with all the things that follow poverty (violence, drugs, disorganization) they haven’t CHOSEN their life and they won’t have the same chances as the rest of kids. Not even close. Capitalism helped to create this! Focus on profit, exploitation of labor surplus, relaxed laws on dumping, white flight to the suburbs, detached governance.… the list goes on. All of these things are associated with the ideals of capitalism. It is downright insulting to those in the downward spiral of poverty to claim that the current system has put power in the hands of the people.
Is it possible for the free market to bring money, infrastructure, and organization where it is lacking and it will just take time? Sure it’s possible… many experts and me (a total non-expert) don’t think so… it hasn’t happened yet and things aren’t getting better. 3 billion people in the world live on less than two dollars a day. Cities in the Third World are growing and sprouting up like wildfire as capital centered industry exploits local labor surplus. Millions of people now belong to cities that have no ability to support them. Slums are what fuel global money making. Thrift and agrarian subsistence are becoming fainter and fainter as possibilities. In our vastly interconnected world, simple discussion about failed communistic regimes and the “freedom” of the market just isn’t that helpful.
But you’ve ignored any nuance of argument and informed me how “completely untrue” and “pure nonsense” is a critique of capitalism. I tried to touch on a few of the issues that have pulled me over the past 6 years towards a side that is critical or at least wary of the unseen consequences of the Free Market. It’s not a great post, but I would encourage you to reconsider some of the BASIC tenets of your argument before you go around using the word EVIL and utterly dismissing Christians who criticize the Christian Right’s political agenda.
Sincerely
Rick Talbon
November 08, 2010 // 07:50 am // #
Josh I’d like to hear from you…
would you be interested in talking or Gchatting privately? It could be cool…
March 31, 2011 // 04:21 am // #
It sure seems like were headed towards having a socialist government.
March 31, 2011 // 07:11 pm // #
Hi Rick,
First a point of clarity. My comments about communism being evil were not directed at you. That post was directed as a response to LC Larson. LC’s post was not discussing economics, but rather politics and regimes on a broader scale. Specifically he was talking about the US political agenda in Latin America and its opposition of communist regimes in Latin America.
He was essentially depicting the US as evil oppressors who rape and pillage the poor folk, whom the communists stand up to protect etc.
I am perfectly willing to admit that the US has done bad things in the name of ‘national security’ and self-interest. However, to depict the various communist groups active in Latin America as good guys goes beyond reason. Often enough the truth is that there are no real good guys in many of those situations. Both sides treat the other (and frequently the common people) with unbelievable brutality.
In economic terms I believe communism is unwise, and also immoral if enforced by government. I think it is unwise because it runs against the grain of human nature, both the good-side and the bad. I think it is immoral because I believe that the right to own property is a fundamental human right and I don’t believe any government can justly remove that right.
However, my charge that communism is evil was not based on its economic theory but on the broader reality of what communism is. In the world of political science it is commonly stated that communism is far left on the spectrum and fascism is far right.
In my opinion communism and fascism are virtually identical as political systems, with one primary difference. Both systems, are organized around a central principle which is viewed as the highest good. In fascism the highest good is the nation-state. What ever is best for the nation-state is the ultimate governing principle. The good of the nation-state is the ultimate over-riding goal. In pure marxist communism the highest good is that of the working class, with the understanding that through dialectic clash of classes, a new form of working class will be produced. In practice this amorphous class or people usually just becomes a synonym for the state or the party. Bringing the end result of communism even close to Fascism.
I would also argue that Nazism, which is generally considered to be ‘fascist’ is actually another varient form, not based on the state, but rather on the race(and culture). The German state only mattered to the Nazis in so much as it was the homeland and cradle of the Aryans (in their view). Another significant difference is that communism is locked to an economic view. Its economics are a defining part of the ideology. In Fascism and Nazism the economics were really more utilitarian. They both began as socialist because it was politically convenient and eventually ended up something of a syndaclist/socialist mix.
What the three all have in common comes back to the fact that they are totalitarian ideologies. Totalitarian has become almost synonymous with ‘authoritarian’ or ‘dictatorial’ however the real meaning of the word is actually wrapped up in the concept that the driving core principle, the goal, the greatest good of the ideology (whether class, race, or state) permeates every area of civil life, and controls every area of civil life. The individual becomes completely secondary and subservient to the community (race, class, or state).
This kind of ideology has a certain appeal to it because it is idealistic and it has an air of selflessness to it. You lose yourself in the greater community. You serve the greater community. It provides purpose etc.
In this regard these ideologies are direct competitors to Christianity (and other religions). They essentially attempt to put themselves in the place of the Faith, the Church, etc. This is why I would say that all of them are fundamentally anti-christ and I would argue they are all essentially modern religions.
I don’t think the economics of communism are fundamentally evil. If a group of people want to engage in voluntary communism, I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. I don’t think they are workable economics when imposed from the top down, and I don’t think a government has the right to impose them.
In response to your comments about capitalism. What follows is my opinion. Capitalism, like freedom in all areas, has a fatal flaw. It requires constant vigilance to maintain. Given the state of human nature it is impossible that any society will maintain capitalism (or freedom in general) indefinetly. People will always get lazy, and ‘soft’. They will always grow ignorant of the things which are truly necessary to maintain freedom.
In terms of capitalism, there is a constant tension between the ambitious who try to amass power and wealth by taking it from others, and those who have grown to lazy, or otherwise incapable of maintaining what they have, or creating more.
Another related aspect of this is that freedom to succeed requires freedom to fail and for all those who succeed there will also be many who fail. As a result capitalism generally trends gradually towards syndaclism/corporatism. As GK Chesterton once said, the problem with capitalism is not too many capitalists, but too few. The problems with capitalism begin to arrise when most of the capital has been brought under the control of large conglomerates. At this point they begin to have undue power to control not only politics and government, but also the market itself. When this occurs, inevitably the corporations get into bed with government in order to secure laws and political advantages that tilt the market in their favor. At this point, the system is no longer truly capitalism. The US has been in that place for some time.
I do want to make this clarification as well, it is common for people to depict capitalism as a system in which people get wealth by taking it from others. This, of course, does occur, especially in the world of finance and banking. However, the truth is capitalism is by far the best system at creating wealth and as a result many of the people in a capitalist system get wealth by creating it, not by taking it from others.
Personally my ideal economic system would be what GK Chesterton and Hilare Beloc described, generally known as distributivism. I would describe it as essentially a pre-industrial early state of capitalism. It has significant problems, not the least of which is that I don’t see a way in which it could practically be brought about.
I describe it as pre-industrial not because it is anti-technology (which its not) but because its model resembles more the idea of “cottage industry” which was common before the industrial revolution. One of the major problems of the model is that it is admittedly significantly less efficient than an industrial capitalist society.
Efficiency is really good and necessary in some ways, but it also often has a track record of having a dehumanizing influence when taken to extremes.
I suppose I’ve rambled enough
June 03, 2011 // 06:13 am // #
i ahve been reading his Autobiography, its a good read, pretty long but good
June 03, 2011 // 07:24 am // #
Each individual human being possesses a unique, highly developed, and
sensitive perception of variety. Thus aware, man is endowed with a natural
capability for enacting internal mental and external physical selectivity.
Quantitative and qualitative choice-making thus lends itself as the superior
basis of an active intelligence.
Human is earth’s Choicemaker. His title describes his definitive and
typifying characteristic. Recall that his other features are but vehicles of
experience intent on the development of perceptive awareness and the
following acts of decision and choice. Note that the products of man cannot
define him for they are the fruit of the discerning choicemaking process and
include the cognition of self, the utility of experience, the development of
value measuring systems and language, and the acculturation of
civilization.
The arts and the sciences of man, as with his habits, customs, and
traditions, are the creative harvest of his perceptive and selective powers.
Creativity, the creative process, is a choice-making process. His articles,
constructs, and commodities, however marvelous to behold, deserve neither
awe nor idolatry, for man, not his contrivance, is earth’s own highest
expression of the creative process.
Human is earth’s Choicemaker. The sublime and significant act of choosing
is, itself, the Archimedean fulcrum upon which man levers and redirects the
forces of cause and effect to an elected level of quality and diversity.
Further, it orients him toward a natural environmental opportunity, freedom,
and bestows earth’s paradigm title, The Choicemaker, on his singular and
plural brow.
In the Bible, God’s Word has accurately defined the human being as
‘the earth creature endowed with the ability to choose.’ His natural Rights,
therefore, are merely an extension and application of natural human
endowments, which all humans - everywhere in the world - possess.
Even as goldfish, canaries, and puppy dogs require an environment
based on their natural features, so humans require external freedom
to fulfill their natural internal abilities of decision, choice, selection,
election, and consent. Uniquely, America was founded on this definitive
paradigm in human nature. All nations should reject foundational human
opinion that teaches otherwise.
No one is smarter than their criteria.
June 03, 2011 // 07:31 am // #
CONTEMPORARY COMMENTS
“I should think that if there is one thing that man has learned about
himself it is that he is a creature of choice.” Richard M. Weaver
“Man is a being capable of subduing his emotions and impulses; he can
rationalize his behavior. He arranges his wishes into a scale, he chooses;
in short, he acts. What distinguishes man from beasts is precisely that he
adjusts his behavior deliberately.” Ludwig von Mises
“To make any sense of the idea of morality, it must be presumed that the
human being is responsible for his actions and responsibility cannot be
understood apart from the presumption of freedom of choice.” John
Chamberlain
“The advocate of liberty believes that it is complementary of the orderly
laws of cause and effect, of probability and of chance, of which man is not
completely informed. It is complementary of them because it rests in part
upon the faith that each individual is endowed by his Creator with the power
of individual choice.” Wendell J. Brown
“These examples demonstrate a basic truth—that human dignity is embodied
in the free choice of individuals.” Condoleeza Rice
“Our Founding Fathers believed that we live in an ordered universe. They
believed themselves to be a part of the universal order of things. Stated
another way, they believed in God. They believed that every man must find
his own place in a world where a place has been made for him. They sought
independence for their nation but, more importantly, they sought freedom for
individuals to think and act for themselves. They established a republic
dedicated to one purpose above all others - the preservation of individual
liberty…” Ralph W. Husted
“We have the gift of an inner liberty so far-reaching that we can choose
either to accept or reject the God who gave it to us, and it would seem to
follow that the Author of a liberty so radical wills that we should be
equally free in our relationships with other men. Spiritual liberty
logically demands conditions of outer and social freedom for its
completion.” Edmund A. Opitz
“Above all I see an ability to choose the better from the worse that has
made possible life’s progress.” Charles Lindbergh
“Freedom is the Right to Choose, the Right to create for oneself the
alternatives of Choice. Without the possibility of Choice, and the exercise
of Choice, a man is not a man but a member, an instrument, a thing.” Thomas
Jefferson
THE QUESTION AND THE ANSWER
Q: “What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You
visit him?” Psalm 8:4
A: “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set
before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that
both you and your descendants may live.” Deuteronomy 30:19
Q: “Lord, what is man, that You take knowledge of him? Or the son of man,
that you are mindful of him?” Psalm 144:3
A: “And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves
this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served
that were on the other side of the river, or the gods of the Amorites, in
whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
Joshua 24:15
Q: “What is man, that he could be pure? And he who is born of a woman, that
he could be righteous?” Job 15:14
A: “Who is the man that fears the Lord? Him shall He teach in the way he
chooses.” Psalm 25:12
Q: “What is man, that You should magnify him, that You should set Your heart
on him?” Job 7:17
A: “Do not envy the oppressor and choose none of his ways.” Proverbs 3:31
Q: “What is man that You are mindful of him, or the son of man that You take
care of him?” Hebrews 2:6
A: “I have chosen the way of truth; your judgments I have laid before me.”
Psalm 119:30 “Let Your hand become my help, for I have chosen Your
precepts.“Psalm 119:173
References:
Genesis 3:3,6 Deuteronomy 11:26-28; 30:19 Job 5:23 Isaiah 7:14-15; 13:12;
61:1 Amos 7:8 Joel 3:14 Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 Psalms 25:12 119:1-176
DEDICATION
Sir Isaac Newton
The greatest scientist in human history, a Bible-Believing Christian, an
authority on the Bible’s Book of Daniel, committed to individual value and
individual liberty
No one, no one is smarter than their criteria…