Spiritual wickedness in high places

“While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.” II Peter 2:19

Let’s look at the curious confluence of libertarianism and populism.  As the Bible says, you have to be careful about those who promise liberty, but are in fact in pursuit of something quite different.

First a couple of definitions.

Libertarianism can thrive at either end of the political spectrum. In this country, libertarianism is generally associated with conservative political movements. In other parts of the world, libertarians are also proudly socialists. That’s what makes this particular philosophy so difficult to pin down.

In this country libertarianism is generally closely aligned with the belief that the free market is the best delivery mechanism for all services but defense, government is generally the problem rather than the solution, and people (like markets) are best when they are most free to make their own decisions.

Populism is the belief that there is an inherent wisdom in the common man. It manifests itself in this current political climate as a deep distrust of science and academia. Populist movements in this country have popped up during times of economic or social disruption. William Jennings Bryan rode a wave of populism to three unsuccessful presidential bids around the turn of the past century. More recently Ross Perot also ran for President on a populist platform in the mid 90’s. The Luddite movement during the early days of the industrial revolution is a good example of a populist political reaction to social and economic changes.

So why now and what does all of it mean?

Why now is because we are at a time when the country is deeply divided, economically fragile, and people are afraid.

Evidence is the rise of libertarian figures like Ron Paul and populist figures like Sarah Palin.

There are two things that bother me about the process.

First, I have a problem with populism, particularly in today’s climate. At it’s core, it is an emotional response to the pressures brought on by economic and/or social change. Rather than embrace the change, populists look for people to blame for the fact that their world is changing. Rather than question why their world view appears out to be out of sync with the facts, they attack scientists and academics as the ones who have caused the changes that frighten them.

What the populists end up doing is slowing the process of change and prolonging the pain that radicalized them in the first place. They eventually die and their children resume the process of figuring out how to be successful members of society.

Second, I have a problem with libertarianism when combined with populism. I don’t have a problem with the philosophy of libertarianism. My problem that rather explore libertarianism as a philosophy, populists reject research and study. Instead they trust demagogues who inevitably rise to positions of leadership because they promise simple answers to complex questions. For example, the reason you can’t find a job is because the government is too big.

So that brings us to today.

We have an emerging populist movement, tea parties, that have adopted an abbreviated form of libertarianism because it allows them to distance themselves from established parties. As evidence of their influence, the CPAC conference in Washington selected Ron Paul as the front-running presidential candidate in a straw poll of delegates. 

Fox, who feels they can take some credit for this movement, is using their growth in viewers to legitimize their propaganda as news and touts Glen Beck as their leading self-proclaimed libertarian.

I think that few in tea party movement really understand what libertarianism means. Among other things, it means government out of all aspects of our personal lives. No drug laws, gay marriage, no public education, no prohibitions on child pornography, the end of social security, medicare, medicaid, the federal deposit insurance corporation, all regulations, all taxes (other than for defense), OSHA, EPA, Head Start, WIC, ADC, CDC, and more. There are libertarians who even object to mandatory immunization and traffic signals.

I heard a libertarian the other day supporting the supreme court’s defeat of election laws restricting campaign financing. His logic was that the only way libertarian candidates are going to get elected is to have the support of wealthy individuals or corporations. So he was all for it.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised.

The bottom line is for this country to move forward, we have to get past ideology and get down to getting things done. No populist movement in this country has ever garnered more that 15% of the vote. This is not what people want. But there are a lot of people who have figured out how to make money off these frightened people, so they want to see this go as far and as fast as possible. 

These are the folks that the Bible warned us of.  From Savonarola to Beck, there always seem to be room at the head of a mob.

As we stumble to the end of the year, the lingering image in my mind from that past twelve months is how divided the country appears to be and how difficult it has become to govern. 

The Republicans appear to have adopted a scorched earth strategy regarding the Obama administration. They are going to stand in opposition to everything that this administration attempts to accomplish in the hopes that it will improve their changes to regain some of the power that they lost in the 2008 (was it only a year ago) elections. 

As evidence of how single-minded this opposition is, the Republicans threatened to hold up a defense department spending bill which could have forced the defense department to close down in an effort to exert some leverage in the health care debate They have also asked that amendments be read aloud in the chamber simply to delay the inevitable vote that they were destined to lose and then criticized the resulting vote because it occurred in the wee hours of the morning. 

If this were producing better legislation through some sort of tough bargaining, I could accept that these tactics are serving the American people. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. 

The result of this tactic is that the path to 60 votes without Republican participation, gives a few senators inordinate power. Though this could be viewed as an exercise in old-fashion politics, it also ended up twisting this bill in ways that did not benefit the greater good. 

So rather than work to make the bill better, the Republican opposition has in fact made the bill worse and they appear poised to take credit for that effort. 

Now you can say that this is how business gets done in the Congress, but the facts simply don’t support that view. In the 1960’s, filibusters were threatened on only 8% of the legislation that was introduced – famously civil rights legislation being the predominant target. In the 1980’s that rose to 27%. Since 2006 when the Democrats regained control of Congress, the Republicans have threatened to filibuster 70% of the bills that were introduced. 

The Republicans have countered that this must be a uniquely Democratic problem, since they were able to accomplish quite a bit during the Bush years.  That claim doesn’t actually ring true when you look a little closer.  

Mr. Bush never asked the Congress or the American people to pay for any of his initiatives. His tax cuts were not balanced by spending cuts, in fact much the opposite. He hid the cost of his wars from the public. He gave the pharmaceutical companies a big bonus through an expensive Medicare drug benefit that remains unfunded. It was a congressional feeding frenzy where both Democrats and Republicans got fat. 

The only surprise is that the Republicans are now characterizing Democratic spending proposals where funding is fully disclosed and scored by the CBO as irresponsible. 

Now that it appears that health care insurance reform will pass, we’ll get a chance to see if the Republicans will be able to capitalize on their strategy. 

The economy appears to be in recovery, though job growth remains anemic.

The housing market is reviving in part due to historically low prices and interest rates.  Foreclosures remain a serious problem that is now the result of unemployment rather than bad loans.   

Many of the biggest companies that received federal funds early in the year have paid the government back. 

The stock market just hit a fourteen month high.

The dollar just hit a three month high.

Crime is at the lowest point it has been since the ’60’s.

We are making progress on climate control issues, though Republicans appear determined to deny that a problem exists. 

Our international standing is on the upswing. We were able to salvage the recent climate talks because of President Obama’s willingness to negotiate directly with the Chinese. We are making progress with Russia on pressuring Iran to curtail their nuclear ambitions. We are also making progress with Russia on our own treaty to reduce our respective weapons stock piles. Israel and Palestine are moving closer toward an agreement. We also had broad international support for our expansion of forces in Afghanistan.  

President Obama has also demonstrated that he is up to the task of being the commander-in-chief and certainly takes his responsibility to protect the American people seriously. 

Most importantly, 30M people who don’t have healthcare insurance because of cost or pre-existing conditions, will have an opportunity to purchase insurance that they can afford. I wonder how many of those people are going to vote for Republicans?

“Behold, I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people.” Isa 55:4

President Obama is sitting at an interesting cross roads in his presidency. In my opinion it will determine whether he will be regarded as Lincoln or Roosevelt, or something more in the middle of the pack. 

The crossroads moment is whether or not he is willing to confront the key ideological issue at play in the electorate today.

That issue is the role of government in the lives of its citizens.

The conservative view is that government is the problem. By implication, the solution to every problem then must be less government and more free market.

Roosevelt faced this same choice when he was elected. The stock market had crashed and the Great Depression was in full howl. The wisdom at the time was to reduce government and trust that the markets and the economy would recover on their own. Roosevelt chose to confront the issue head on when he said in his first inaugural speech that, “We refused to leave the problems of our common welfare to be solved by the winds of chance and the hurricanes of disaster”

This summarizes the liberal economic position then and today.

There is a role for government and it is to provide the greatest good to the greatest number of people. It is also an outright rejection of the notion that free markets inherently serve the best interests of the people.

Even after the financial meltdown which demonstrated in the most obvious possible ways the inability of the free market to govern itself, conservatives continue to insist that government is the problem.

Until President Obama takes on this issue directly, he will continue to fight a trench war against this ideology. Fighting that trench war will only demonstrate to those who distrust government, that it is incapable of responding in a timely fashion to any challenge.

What we need is renewed faith in the ability of government to solve the big problems and hold the excesses of the market in check. This trust comes from our leader standing up and saying that the problem is not government. The problem is those who seek to obstruct the common good for their own self-interest.

If he does take this issue on directly, he has the opportunity to become the leader that we all hoped he would be.

“A wicked doer giveth heed to false lips; and a liar giveth ear to a naughty tongue.” Prov 17:4

The whole Joe Wilson incident has raised a series of questions about both the man and this country.

The first question that comes to mind is whether it is acceptable under any circumstances for an individual to confront the President in that forum, a nationally televised speech to both houses of Congress, and call him a liar?

The second question is what motivated the outburst?

Finally, what does it say about the man and the process?

For a thoughtful treatment of the first question we probably should look at a history of Presidential lies, the impact that those lies had on the country, and how the Congress reacted to those lies. Then we should examine this particular incident to determine whether the particular claim of Joe Wilson is supported. Then perhaps we can answer the first question.

The biggest recent presidential lies that come to mind are Bush’s claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and Clinton’s claim that he did not, “have sex with that woman”. In the first case, we invaded Iraq, toppled the government, destroyed their infrastructure, never found any weapons of mass destruction, opened the door to al Qaeda, and are still there eight years later. There were no immediate consequences for President Bush. The Republicans did suffer a fairly resounding defeat in 2008, but that could be attributed as much to the economy as the war in Iraq. President Clinton was brought up on impeachment charges, but ultimately not convicted. This investigation did significantly weaken the President and set the stage for a very close Republican win in 2000.

As far as Joe Wilson’s claim, it was in reaction to President Obama’s statement that the administration does not support extending benefits to illegal aliens. His specific objection was that the current house bill, though it requires proof to participate, doesn’t specify how. There was an amendment offered in committee and rejected to add enforcement language. What Wilson also knew was that there ARE enforcement procedures in place requiring proof of citizenship for many other federal programs and that these procedures would likely get added to any bill that was signed.

As an elected representative, Mr. Wilson has access to many effective public and private methods to express his skepticism at the President’s comments. He is NOT a powerless individual whose only recourse is to disrupt a public meeting to express his views.

Finally, as an experienced and successful politician, Mr. Wilson’s claim of losing control of his emotions also does not ring true. Only those people who are masters at calculating the impact of their actions win statewide elections to national office. We live in a culture were every verbal slip or inappropriate emotional response is preserved and circulated. Only those who have cultivated the ability to control their emotions survive. Joe has spent eight years (four elections) in the House and 17 years in the state legislature. This was not a rookie mistake.

So maybe we can gain some insight by learning more about the man.

We know that he is from South Carolina. From his website, he is a military man dedicated to public service. He has four sons (all eagle scouts) who are following in his footsteps.

What you won’t find on the website is that he belonged to the Sons of Confederate Veterans. This was a fairly benign historical organization until the last five years or so when a more aggressive white supremacist faction took control. Mr. Wilson was one of only seven members of the SC senate who voted in 2000 to keep the original Confederate Flag flying over the SC state house. He then mounted a vigorous defense of the original flag and was quoted as saying, “the Confederate heritage is very honorable”.

He also denounced as a “smear” the claim that Senator Strom Thurmond fathered an African American daughter. Senator Thurmond later admitted his affair and his long warm relationship with his daughter.

So perhaps Joe Wilson is a racist and his outburst was an emotional reaction to being lectured by an African American who also happens to be the most powerful man in the country.

It’s also possible, as some have suggested, that Joe is part of the conservative backlash to a popular democratic president. FDR had his Father Coughlin. Truman had Joe McCarthy. JFK had the John Birch Society. Bill Clinton had Ken Starr and Newt.

He also could be part of the larger populist movement that gains momentum during any time of rapid change. Sometimes it is a conservative movement. Sometimes it is a liberal movement, but it seems to show up whenever the little guy feels the big guys have rigged the system. In it’s current incarnation, it is fear of government expansion at the expense of the little guy. You can also throw in a little of the reaction of the uneducated to the educated elite.

Finally, it could have been a very simple cynical political calculation. Disrupt the meeting and distract from what was billed as the biggest speech of President Obama’s career. It worked. Wilson became famous and talk about the disruption overwhelmed discussion about healthcare.

Joe Wilson may be some or all of these things. What he isn’t, however, is a victim.

His was a risky move, but it also has paid off handsomely. With a very simple statement, he has become a lightening rod for all of these groups. He has burst upon the national scene as a poster child for all sorts of conservative causes. His fund-raising has skyrocketed to the tune of several million dollars. Would you call the President a liar for several million dollars?

At the end of the day, it is never acceptable to disrupt a President’s speech in the manner that Joe Wilson did for the following reasons.

Such an outburst by any conservative politician in today’s political climate will advance that career. That makes it unethical behavior. Since you can’t determine if the act is sincere or cynical, the end result is the same – advancing your own career at the expense of the respect for the office of the President.

Elected officials have to be held to a higher ethical standard because of the trust that they accept from the public. So they not only have to avoid outright issues where they sell their office and influence for money/fame, but they also have to avoid the appearance of such conflicts of interest.

This situation is no different.

It is his responsibility to avoid situations where there is any question about the motivations for his actions. This is clearly one of those situations and as a result, it is right up there with Bill Clinton and George Bush as a big lie.