AmericanThinker | James Lewis | March 12, 2009
Of course he’s a socialist. The real question is, how does he feel about America? His favorite Sunday preacher for the last twenty years is simply obsessed with a frothing hatred for this country. His good buddies Bill and Bernardine have been expressing their rage loud and proud since the Sixties. As president, O is trying to put Chas Freeman in charge of the National Intelligence Estimates, a man who is neither competent, nor temperamentally suited, nor emotionally able to restrain his animosity against American Jews who love Israel just as they love America (… because, for one thing, they love democracy, and can recognize fascists even in drag.)
Newsweek tells us we’re all socialists now. That’s an obvious lie, because the Newsweek socialists like Evan Thomas suffer from regular nightmares that American conservatives will find another Ronald Reagan. But that raised the question of socialism. Obama danced away from it, of course, when a NYT reporter actually asked him. Whoooo me?
Well, anybody who reads the New Media knows the answer already; and anybody who doesn’t know, doesn’t want to know. None so blind as will not see.
Our socialists will tell us is that there are 57 varieties of socialism, so that dreaded word doesn’t really mean anything after all. Well, tell that to 100 million dead people over the 20th century from Stalin to Mao. Tell it to people starving this very day in North Korea. Tell it to the thousands of Cubans who took to rubber rafts to get to this country. Tell it to the UN-ocrats who are enabling Sudanese genocide because Muslims have an alliance with European socialists at the UN.
Socialism is internationalist, and that means a genuine dual loyalty for a president of the United States. Marxists are convinced there is an inevitable contradiction between love of country and love of humanity. That’s why it’s called the Socialist International, and why the anthem is the Internationale. They haven’t made a secret of it. Internationalist fervor controls their actions, including very successful efforts to whip up black feelings against whites, women against men, and everybody against capitalism, no matter how many billions of people it has raised out of poverty. The whole point about the global warming scam is to empower the internationalist Ruling Class.
All the divisions stoked up by our “idealistic” socialists cut across national boundaries, and the result is to weaken national identities. That’s why liberals can’t think of a good word to say for this country. That’s why Britain is losing its identity to Brussels and the Euro-Soviet Union. When Hillary was running for president, one of her first moves was to drop the word “internationalism” into the media, as a code word to all the True Believers. They got the message, but she still lost because to the Left a young black man is sexier than an aging white female. The Democrats made their decision based on race and gender, and proudly so. That’s what it means to be Progressive.
I think Obama is a Third World socialist. It’s the basic story of his two autobiographies even before Bill Ayers rewrote them. It’s what his runaway father boasted about, back in Kenya, and it’s what O’s Mercer Island mom encouraged him to become. Socialism was the “in” thing in the post-colonial world, and it led to one economic disaster after another. It took a whole generation for the undeveloped world to recover its common sense. India suffered under the British socialism of Jawaharlal Nehru — who claimed to be post-colonial, but was in fact indoctrinated by British socialist imperialism himself; he was a victim of a particularly pernicious kind of colonialism. India suffered for decades from that ideological blindness.
India finally came to its senses when it rediscovered the amazing initiative and brains of its talented people, if they were just left alone to surf the web, read the books, learn and teach. South and East Asia have long scholarly traditions; Western math and science is no more difficult than the Sanskrit of the Bhagavat-Gita. While North Korea is still suffering under the Stalinist whip, with hundreds of thousands of people starving, right across the border their extended families prosper in South Korea.
Socialists never have to explain their failures; in the case of Obama, he has never even been asked the only relevant question: What do you say about the murderous failures of socialism wherever it’s been seriously tried? None of our media heads will ever ask it, and the New Media, who might, are carefully being kept away from The One. And let’s face it, O is not an independent thinker. He wouldn’t figure out a way to ask that question himself.
. . . more
I have a question for you: do you feel that conservative philosophy/agenda is perfect, infallible, and will lead this country toward social/political perfection?
I ask this because hard-core liberals and hard-core conservatives spend much of their time (and other people’s time) launching attacks at one another in the media, in books, online, etc.
I have yet to see a pure conservative/liberal step back and take a good long look at the philosophies they hold dear and examine and admit the weaknesses.
I’m hoping you will break this tradition…
One cause of this is blind partisanship. President Bush was robbing Americans to benefit the elite few. Republicans should have gone nuts about this fiscal theft. Many did, but not enough. Bush’s party label prevent the kind of criticism he deserved.
Obama is already backing off his pledges to end the war in Iraq. He is going to ramp up the war in Afghanistan. But the ‘peace’ lobby is staying silent. Obama is their guy, even when he betrays them. A liberal can do ‘conservative’ things and still be popular among liberals. A ‘conservative’ can sell out every single conservative principal and still be popular among ‘conservatives’ – precisely because most people have no concept of their own ideology. Rather, they deal in labels, affiliations, and personal impressions. Which means they are completely oblivious to their own contradictions.
The conflict is best summed up when viewing power. Man is fallen. The ‘left’ side of the political spectrum says, “Man is fallen, so government needs to be empowered to protect the weak from the strong through regulation. However, people should have personal liberty, even though economic freedom must be curtailed to prevent abuses.” The conservatives say, “Man is fallen. Therefore, government must be restrained lest it become too powerful and enslave the people. The danger from the government is far greater than the danger from private business, because private companies do not have standing armies and police forces to use in imposing their will.”
The problem is that ‘conservatives,’ like liberals, immediately begin finding reasons why the government must be granted greater and greater power. The conservatives are willing to grant power for ‘security’ and to prop up favored industries. The liberals want ‘fairness’ and ‘equal opportunity’ and to ‘address the economic crisis.’
Liberals claim to love civil liberties, but then help erect a state edifice that threatens to stomp all resistance. Conservatives claim to love freedom, but happily join in the fun.
Both sides are full of contradictions, but no one seems to really notice.
George, this comment from you is not true: “The problem is that ‘conservatives,’ like liberals, immediately begin finding reasons why the government must be granted greater and greater power.” Whoever advocates this is NOT a conservative. You are assuming that just because someone has the “Republican” label they are automatically conservative. As the last 8 years have made perfectly clear that is not the case in far too many instances. That was and is the problem.
Conservative principles of limited government, respect for freedom and liberty, respect for life, support of family, helping the poor in a constructive and meaningful way, reducing dependency on government, promoting accountability in all organizations, encouraging production and prosperity for the “greater good”, strong national defense (including policing borders), etc. have been ignored by too many in the political class.
“Whoever advocates this is NOT a conservative.”
So is there ever a time when a conservative, operating from true conservative principles, is wrong?
Jim, Conservative principles are based on truth and reality; they reflect God’s truth and the moral code and universal ethical principles that operate wherever human beings exist. Individuals, who are imperfect, always make mistakes and can be wrong about their perception of reality. However, that is not the fault of the principles, but the imperfection of the human filter.
Well the problem is they call themselves conservatives, then pursue non-conservative policies and we end up slimed. The bailouts are a classic example. We should have broken down the White House gates and demanded a halt.
Instead, what did we do? We groused. Until we decouple the concept of Conservatism from slavish dedication to the Republican Party, we are going to have this problem.
George, We, the real conservatives did! The conservatives have been critical of Bush I and II and many in the GOP who have forsaken their principles and have compromised the party. Interesting though how NONE of the liberals and leftists in the Democratic party or in the mainstream have ever admitted their hypocrisy and hard-left ideology.
” . . . NONE of the liberals and leftists in the Democratic party or in the mainstream have ever admitted their hypocrisy and hard-left ideology.”
What would you like them to admit? I’m not being sarcastic; I’d like to know.
For example, the three main programs that seem to really bug conservatives are welfare, Medicare, and Social Security. But these programs work, in the sense that they do what they are intended to do. They aren’t perfect. They all involve some degree of waste, fraud, and inefficiency (as does any large program). They all have some unintended negative consequences. They all need reform from time to time.
But because of these programs we don’t have people starving in the street. Older people are able to live independently and receive good quality medical care. It is difficult to conceive of what kind of society we would have without them, and every first-world country has programs like those.
A couple of years ago Bush wanted to privatize Social Security. Interesting idea in theory, but imagine what would have happened had we actually done that, given what happened in the stock market.
I think there are also liberal failures as well. I think liberals in general do not sufficiently appreciate traditional values associated with marriage and family. With respect to morality they preach a kind of radical individualism that I don’t believe is healthy for a society. I think many don’t appreciate the role of religion in society. I could think of other things as well, but these come first to mind.
I don’t think either liberals or conservatives have the market cornered on the truth. I would be more amenable to conservatism if conservatives could acknowledge that there are “liberal” programs that in fact work, and that we would be worse off without them.
“But because of these programs we don’t have people starving in the street.”
But these programs will stop working if we refuse to scale back the scope of these programs (unfunded liabilities that are many times the value of our GDP), continue to print massive amounts of money, and continue as a society to consume more than we produce. The programs, and the resultant entitlement mentality that will soon have over half of Americans dependent on government largesse, are themselves part of the problem. If we keep it up, one day, perhaps a year from now or perhaps a decade from now, there will be people facing starvation in the street.
Hey Jim –
Not all ‘leftist’ ideas are bad. On Counterpunch.com (which is known as a leftist site), there was a great article on community activists who were redeveloping failed shopping malls into mixed housing, commerce, and recreation. The malls were built using cheap credit created by the Central Bank. This credit caused malinvestment which eventually went bust. That is not a problem of free enterprise, that is a problem of central banking being run by, and for, the benefit of the bankers.
But back to the leftists. So this group is out there working in the community and helping the poor, using private money mostly, by repurposing existing structures to meet real needs. The control is local, there is accountability, and many of the people involved are Christians.
Why, then, is it leftist? Because many of the people involved believe that the free market system is at fault for the current dilemma. So even as they do extremely good work, they prattle on about the capitalists who robbed the poor. You know, the capitalists that Obama and Bush both rewarded with borrowed money while trying to inflate yet another bubble?
There was another good article recently on Counterpunch about how a community in Brazil cut food costs by using public parks to lease space directly to local farmers to sell their produce direct to the consumer. Even though this is free enterprise at work, with a little help from the city, the leftists applauded the initiative. In short, so-called leftists can have really good ideas and can implement them.
The problem is when leftists go from working for social justice by creating farms, feeding the poor, etc. (actions which are not at all different from typical Christian activists) to shilling for massive taxes, massive new government programs financed with borrowed money, regulations on free speech (hate speech ordinances), and other types of social engineering designed to make people live better – or else. It is when leftists embrace state power to coerce others that they become a threat to liberty.
The same is true for those who pretend to be conservative, but are actually lovers of power. The Bush Administration plundered the country to benefit its constituency. Nothing conservative about that. The Bush Administration empowered the government and reduced our Civil Liberties, and spent us into oblivion.
Obama is following suit, only at a faster pace. He has reversed none of Bush’s most obnoxious policies, preferring to keep as much power as possible while he decides how best to force us into his vision of what we should be.
Welfare, Social Security, and other programs created massive constituencies which demand service, and huge government programs which employ millions to provide that service. It is the wrong approach. The right approach is what some of the leftists I have talked about are up to. When denied a chance to pull the levers of power, they go out and do some really cool stuff.
Now if they would only keep that up, then real hope and change could be next.
I am an Orthodox Christian. I found this blog through a collection of links on a local Orthodox website, and thought I’d give it a try. I have read the article and the accompanying responses, and I am entirely confused. Plenty of words have been exchanged about conservatism and liberalism. Ok, but why is this site called OrthodoxNet though? Where have specifically Orthodox Christian beliefs and ideas been applied? I am not sure what the information on this site implies. Is this website only for those Orthodox who happen to be conservative, unlike many other faithful Orthodox who adhere to any of the other several (not only liberal) political view sets? Is it for conservatives who are orthodox, but not Orthodox in their beliefs? (Orthodox religion is not the only system of views which is called orthodox. For example, there are orthodox financial theories which have nothing to do with Christianity or religion in general.) Does the concept of the site embrace that all Orthodox need to be conservative? Or that all conservatives need to become Orthodox? Or does it mean that the Orthodox Christian values are identical to the modern conservative values? If so, can non-Orthodox even be conservative? Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox – to name just three main branches of Christianity – often disagree in profound ways when it comes to their religious lives and the understanding of religious mysteries. Is this a website then for all conservatives whether they are religious, agnostic, or atheist? Perhaps I misunderstood the intentions behind this site. Please help! I will appreciate any explanations. Thank you!
George:
I wish I knew some of the leftists you knew; it would brighten up my day. I know some really nice liberals, but they have progressed so far in this morally cancerous ideology that when they think of charity, they never mean basic charity extended to people they know. They might mean:
* great, vague social schemes involving imagined populations that they never see. (In this case, the “charity” is more a matter of coercing others to buy into the schemes with their votes and taxes.) This could be the “poor” or “homeless” or “underprivileged,” and the charity is “empowerment” or “self-awareness.” But it’s not giving a food coupon to a homeless person — that activity is too small and unexciting.
* good, basic sustenance charity … extended to animals. Many liberals don’t feel that their fellow man is a fitting recipient of their charity.
* social training of children, particularly if they are “underprivileged.” In that case, it’s VERY charitable to train them how to reflect good liberal principles.
* environmentalism, which, though a good idea on the face of it, has become so politicized and trendy that charitable actions have become almost indistinguishable from activism.
That might all sound terribly mean of me to say. I wish it weren’t true of the people I know.
Photini:
It’s really for the author of this blog to answer your questions, but I’d like to offer one reader’s perspective as well, for what it’s worth. In the spirit of full disclosure, I’ll admit that I’m conservative, in case it’s not obvious.
You say you’re surprised to find an Orthodox news site presenting conservative news. Would you be surprised if you were living in Russia in the late 1800’s and you met an Orthodox group that was arguing about Marxism? Or if you were living in 8th century Constantinople and saw that the Orthodox were up in arms about the usage of icons? At different times
This debate — right vs. left; conservative vs. liberal — IS where the battle for our future is being fought right now. There is a Christian meta-narrative of sin and redemption that we are called to preach to the world. At war with it is a humanist meta-narrative that has been infecting every level of secular and church life to the point that western Europe regards itself as being “post Christian.” One need only read Fr. Seraphim Rose’s book “Nihilism” to see what’s at stake.
So I don’t think it’s off-topic for an Orthodox news blog to feature news and analysis about the struggle we’re all undergoing every day. The alternatives — to ignore the battle, or to pretend that all viewpoints are identical and irrelevant to an Orthodox Christian — both seem wrong to me.
For the record, though, there are a lot of articles about non-political Church issues, pro-life issues and such. If the conservative vs. liberal stuff troubles your heart, don’t read those ones.
Photini,
Regarding your question: “Ok, but why is this site called OrthodoxNet though? Where have specifically Orthodox Christian beliefs and ideas been applied?”
I believe the “About Us” section on http://www.OrthodoxNet.com explains it:
The Blog is only a sub-section of the http://www.OrthodoxNet.com site, so its focus is more narrow. (FYI “OrthodoxNet” stands for Orthodox Network, an idea for a multi-media organization that is a public witness for the Truth and a vocal advocate for conservative Orthodox Christian voices in the world outside our churches.)
Hey Photini –
I actually consider myself a Libertarian with an affinity for Ron Paul. Theologically, I am simply Orthodox. Politically, I am pro-liberty, pro-free market, and pro-peace.
I don’t think the majority of Orthodox fit a neat ‘left-right’ dichotomy. The problem with such language are the linkages between unrelated ideas that have been built up into almost competing religious systems. What do I mean?
Well, if you are pro-free market, then you are also believed to be pro-Iraq War and pro-Bush (until recently). The three things have nothing in common. Bush and the Iraq War were, in the minds of many traditional conservatives, threats to the free market as we have now seen manifest.
If you are pro-environment, then you are also believed to be pro-gay rights, and pro-abortion. Again, these have nothing to do with each other. A person can be pro-environment believing it our duty to conserve God’s good bounty. That belief can be perfectly commensurate with traditional Christian morality on other issues.
So therein lies the real problem with political discourse in America. Under Bush I was considered a ‘liberal’ because I was anti-Iraq War and against Bush’s massive spending.
Obama is now in charge. I’m still against the Iraq War, but now the Iraq War is a ‘good war’ because Obama is a liberal. Peace activists have now gone home. I am now seen as reactionary because I am against government spending, bailouts, and still hold traditional moral positions.
So all this talk about ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ is just so much hogwash. The editor of this site and I don’t see eye-to-eye on some issues, but overall the tone is pro-free market, in favor of Constitutional governance, and in favor of traditional Orthodox morality.
In an environment where the ‘liberals,’ the friends of the common man, are pouring trillions into Wall Street fat cats, which is only continuing the policy started by a ‘conservative’ President – I don’t think labels are helpful in doing anything but getting people fired up over tangents.
The question is – what do you believe? What do you support in terms of policy? Putting aside labels and people, what do you think about specific issues?
George,
You actually make sense. I agree that some of the ‘conservative-liberal’ divides appear artificial; and they can foster scalding-hot debates about one’s true loyalties and moral integrity.
To answer your questions
(unless, of course, they were rhetorical, and then please pardon my musings) let me share some of my views.
I grew up in Russia; but I live in the Midwest now. It is not a big change of literal landscape – lots of agriculture here, too – but what a difference in cultural, political, and social beliefs! (Photini is my Saint’s name. The Russian Orthodox Church did not actually have a Saint for my given name when I was baptized.)
Given my mixed heritage, how do I define myself in terms of conservatism/liberalism? Well, considering the state and economic structure of first the Soviet Union, and then Russia, I can say that American liberals are actually quiet conservative by comparison. If I look at the common attitudes of the members of the Russian Orthodox Church (not the theology, for it is the same, to the best of my understanding, among the Orthodox Churches in communion) then even most American conservatives appear surprisingly liberal. Russian ultra-conservatives are a different story altogether. On the American scale though, I am generally a conservative, except, of course, that I care about the environment.
I have seen some first-hand and read about more unsettling erosion of the church-state boundaries in Russia throughout many centuries. Several hundred years ago the taking of monastic vows under pressure was sometimes used as a political tool against viable power contestants. Even before the October 1917 revolution parish priests were burdened with the responsibility to report politically significant parts of confessions. Communism of course did not make religious life in Russia and other republics of the Soviet Union any easier or more secure. Whenever I come across an Orthodox article or website – in Russian or in English – which seems to adopt a heavily political or partisan stand, I examine the site very carefully. That is why I asked so many questions in my first post. Although Orthodox people can and sure do have political opinions, I more wary of the Church herself becoming involved in politics. Where do people flock to for eternal wisdom if the same kinds of debates begin to sound from pulpits as from TV’s? Who is going to offer an alternative to the secular understanding of economic, military, and social issues if we blend our cultural and religious sets of beliefs so much, that it is hard to say what is from the Gospel of John, and what is from the book of Bob? (No offense to anyone named Bob in particular!) I have found that the Orthodox answers for many essential questions of life and reality are deeper, farther reaching, more profound and less compartmentalized than the common choices of the day. In a word, the world offers us information and knowledge. The Church offers us wisdom. I would regret to see the world contaminate the Church, rather than the Church offer uncommon insights to the world. If you are interested in an example of a Russian attempt to blend political aims and Orthodox presentation, there is a movie on the web that was made about Byzantium for Russian state TV in the last couple of years. It has since been translated into English, with the English version of the video and transcript available for free. I can find the link, if you’d like. At the end of the story an Orthodox priest praises Joseph Stalin’s insights…
On the issue of free market I can say that I am still trying to figure out what associations different American groups attach to this notion. I got an advanced degree in business from an American university, and kept my interest in economics and policy alive after graduation. Yet I am still trying to understand what politicians, economists, activists, and pundits actually envision when they defend the “free market”. So far I have come to the conclusion that there are about as many specific concepts of the free market as there are distinguished speakers. My personal opinion is that free markets are superior to planned economies in many respects. I am however careful to distinguish between planned economies and regulated economies, as the former is an ultimate example of the latter, but not every economy with regulations is restricted to the same extent. As far as the regulations themselves are concerned it is not so much their quantity as their relevancy that I ponder a lot. Also, how certain rules are enforced can transform a set of guidelines into frustratingly slow beauracracy or a valuable resource for the general public. For example, as a woman I appreciate that medications available in the U.S. are tested for possible birth defects they can cause. I believe in protecting unborn lives not only from death by abortion but also, as much as possible, from unintentional harm and disfigurement in the womb.
When it comes to wars I am not as liberal as some groups I have run into who support the reduction of military as the solution to neighborhood problems. I think it is important to support the United States military, both active-duty and retired. Peace may not be as simple an idea as it sometimes appears: while there are no conflicts in one part of the world, a country or even a region thousands of miles away can be consumed in armed struggle. Is the world then at peace or at war? More importantly, if it is not in our own backyard, do we even need to care? Or be prepared to defend ourselves or pursue an offensive in a different country? Well, I am not expert on military combat nor can I comment on how conflict jumps from one place to another, affecting seemingly uninvolved communities. I just think that a lot of careful consideration needs to take place before going to war; for wars have complicated political and financial consequences. I regret to say that I do not yet understand enough of just how well-thought-out and appropriate the U.S. involvement in Iraq was. I hope to learn more with time.
As for the association of conservatism and the former President George W. Bush, I like an explanation I once got regarding the allegiance of the United States military. I remember talking to a friend about the August 1991 events in Moscow. The discussion touched upon the consequences of the military’s refusal to follow orders from the temporary governing body. In Russia it was sometimes believed that such a choice affected not only the outcome of the coup but also the state of the military in post-Soviet Russia. Having disobeyed the government once, the military was believed to have slipped into greater disarray. Well, my friend told me that in the United States the military’s allegiance is to the Constitution, and in an event when a leader begins to violate the Law of the Land, as in a case of dictator coming to power in a coup, the loyalty to the Constitution supersedes the loyalty to the man. I hope that explanation was correct. Perhaps when it comes to conservatism it is healthier to be more discerning, too, and have ideas and ideals supersede the devotion to one person. People can falter and fall. Blind following not only endangers the fans, but also robs the leaders of valuable feedback and checks-and-balances on their actions.
Liberty – can’t this word mean many things to many people! – I have been learning quite a bit more about, too. When I came to the U.S., I definitely discovered a different idea of what liberty stood for as well as many different kinds of personal liberties people cheered for. I tried to stay open minded, so I would not quickly fall into one rut or another. I think this exercise helped me develop maybe a little more compassion for different segments of American society. (I do not identify compassion with lack of principles or a soft back bone, by the way.) I also wanted to form my opinions based on the values I had or preferred to develop rather than from a loudest-colored bestseller. Many freedoms available to Americans are definitely worth protecting. They also deserve thoughtful consideration and meaningful discussion more so than soap-box rallying that has sadly become so prevalent nowadays.
Quite a lengthy answer I gave, didn’t I? Perhaps the tradition of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky’s voluminous works is still alive in my writing style.
I’ll be interested to hear comments.
George writes: “Welfare, Social Security, and other programs created massive constituencies which demand service, and huge government programs which employ millions to provide that service. The right approach is what some of the leftists I have talked about are up to.”
But specifically, what you would replace such programs with?
You see, this is one thing I find very frustrating when I talk with conservatives. The conservative, for example, will express opposition to Medicaid. So I say “great, we’ll just eliminate Medicaid and people can die in the street from treatable illnesses.” The conservative will respond “oh no, that’s not what I was talking about.” I ask “so what were you talking about?” The conservative says “I’m just saying that we need smaller government.” I respond “so what specifically do you recommend?”
At that point there is either silence, or some kind of vague reference to the “free market” or “care for the poor should be up to the churches.” Of course, how that would actually work is never spelled out.
I think the bottom line is that conservatives are often engaging in a kind of dishonesty. They are able to denounce a program such as Medicaid, claim that they don’t want sick people dying in the street, and yet are unable or unwilling to propose any kind of detailed alternative.
I see that in all sorts of issues. Talk about health care reform and the conservative will throw out something like “health savings accounts.” Well, that’s just great, except that the first two hours of a serious injury or illness can wipe out a health savings account, and then what?
Same with Social Security. We’re supposed to privatize Social Security, which is another great idea as long as the floor doesn’t drop out of the stock market, which we know it can do.
That doesn’t mean that these programs don’t need to be reformed, but to the extent that conservatives want to do away with them, I think they have an obligation to be clear on what it is that would replace them.
Jim claims: “Same with Social Security. We’re supposed to privatize Social Security, which is another great idea as long as the floor doesn’t drop out of the stock market, which we know it can do.”
You have no idea what you are talking about. Bush proposed that only 4% (that’s FOUR PERCENT) of our SS funds be allocated by individuals as they saw fit: “In the first year of private accounts, people would be allowed to divert up to 4 percent of their wages covered by Social Security into what Bush called “voluntary private accounts.” The maximum contribution to such accounts would start at $1,100 annually and rise by $100 a year through 2016.” That means that even if 50% of your private SS allocation was lost, your account would have gone down just 2%.
Of course the current Social Security “fund” fantasy exposes the lunacy of the system. It’s a fiction that there is a SS fund to begin with. There is NO such thing. The gov’t simply spends our SS taxes every year to mask the real deficit. This is one of the reasons why conservatives are warning this scam needs to be corrected and a REAL fund be created where individuals are vested in their OWN money (SS taxes taken by the gov’t over their lifetimes) and they get to decide where and how it should be allocated. Here’s a case study on this exact issue:
Opting Out in Texas: Three Counties Leave the Social Security System
http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=1487
Grace:
Thank you for your response. I would like to clarify briefly that I was not
“surprised to find an Orthodox news site presenting conservative news”, but was rather unsure of the site’s intended audience. I have since received several sets of explanations, including yours. As for your questions
let me respond to each one of them.
When it comes to the discussions of Marxism in the late 19th century Russia, perhaps it can be useful to outline the historical circumstances of the period.
Russia was a mostly agrarian country with peasants constituting a large proportion of the population. Although the practice of serfdom was officially abolished in 1861, its impact was such that a major difference in attitudes and development existed between the rural communities and the urban ones. Peasants would have been more familiar with the Narodniks movement – the precursor to the Marxist movement in some ways – rather than with the actual Marxist ideas. It is worth mentioning that when the representatives of the Narodniks tried to reach out to peasant communities they were frequently met with suspicion and at times with outward hostility. So a major portion of the Orthodox population of the country was neither familiar with Marxist ideas nor open to the next closest set of beliefs from the Narodniks. The pool of those Orthodox who could have argued about Marxism has just narrowed significantly.
If we subtract those urban socialites who were more interested in entertainment, careers or wealth acquisition than politics we have just shrunk the number of those Orthodox who could have debated Marxism even further.
Marxist literature was usually distributed in secret and the meetings where such ideas were discussed were often clandestine, or at least their actual purposes were not advertised. So it appears that even fewer Orthodox people could have become familiar with Marxism then; and even fewer would have felt comfortable arguing about these ideas, especially in public. After all, revolutionary activity was not supported in the Russian Empire. The founder of the Soviet State Vladimir Ilych (Ulyanov) Lenin took his nickname “Lenin” after the river in Siberia, where he was exiled for some time.
Some discussion of Marxist ideas did take place in Russia at that time, as evidenced in the works of Russian religious philosophers of mid-19th to mid-20th century, but it was a much smaller phenomenon than perhaps can be expected.
So indeed I would have been surprised to meet an Orthodox group in Russia debating Marxism at the end of the 19th century.
Unless of course you are talking about those people who were Orthodox, at least nominally, and at the same time supported Marxism. (Until 1905 it was a punishable choice to leave the Orthodox Church in Russia for an Orthodox Christian [I will gladly supply a reference for this statement upon your request]) Josef (Dzhugashvili) Stalin – the well-known leader of the Soviet Union – actually attended an Orthodox seminary.
I am aware that many icons were destroyed in Byzantium during the iconoclast period you mention. I am however less familiar with just how militantly the Orthodox felt or responded to the iconoclasts. Could you share your sources for such information with me? I can always learn more. What did surprise me about Constantinople though took place in early 19th century under Turkish domination: Patriarch Gregory V helped build fortifications to protect the Muslim-ruled city from the Christian Englishmen. His Beatitude’s reasons were that even if the British succeeded in liberating the capital city, lots of Christians would have suffered in the Muslim rural parts of the empire as the result. So an unlikely choice by the Patriarch saved very many Christian lives…
Thank you for your questions. They gave me an opportunity to think about some interesting turns of history.
Jim:
I can understand your frustration. You tackle issues that are the behemoths of policy debate. It can be discouraging to hear the calls to dismantle what is without a thorough explanation of what will be, or even what might be.
“Why We Read What Read” by Lisa Adams and John Heath (copyright 2007) may give you some insights about the difficulties you experience while talking to the conservatives. Subtitled “A Delightfully Opinionated Journey Through Contemporary Bestsellers”, this book skillfully uses different forms of humor, but presents some very serious conclusions. It does not endorse one political movement over the other. It offers an interesting and unexpected way to review our cultural trends and their implications in different areas of literature and thought. Given the issues you bring up in your posts, you might enjoy this book.
A challenging but worthwhile book on economics is Benoit Mandelbrot’s “The (Mis)Behavior of Markets” (copyright 2004). Again, this work does not provide a partisan perspective from one side or another. It offers an informative and thorough explanation of the modern economic theory and its assumptions. It might help you understand how the same economic ideas are right, and wrong, and common-sense, and contradictory, all at the same time. Odd, I know. Yet it can be an unexpectedly fun read.
I do not know if my suggestions were helpful to you. I hope so.
Blog Editor writes: “You have no idea what you are talking about. Bush proposed that only 4% (that’s FOUR PERCENT) of our SS funds be allocated by individuals as they saw fit . . . That means that even if 50% of your private SS allocation was lost, your account would have gone down just 2%.”
No, as far as I know the “four percent” would be taken out of the (approximately) twelve percent (between employer and employee) that constitutes SS. Thus the private account would be around one-third of the total retirement funds, and a 50 percent drop in the private account would mean a drop of around 16 percent of retirement funds.
The problem is that if you take one-third of the money out of SS then you have to borrow a couple trillion dollars to replace that in order to continue to pay for current retirements. If current SS is a Ponzi scheme, then privatization is a shell game in which you go from having one eventually unfunded liability to another unfunded liability (payments on the new debt.)
And even if you devote one-third of the money to private accounts, you still have a long-term SS solvency problem that private accounts don’t address. Eventually you either have to increase SS revenue, cut benefits, or extend retirement age (which is basically cutting benefits).
Concerning what is usually called the “Galveston Plan,” the Social Security Administration did an extensive analysis and concluded that most people would do better under traditional Social Security:
http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v62n1/v62n1p47.pdf
Key findings indicate that, in general, the Galveston Plan offers higher initial benefits than Social Security to workers with higher earnings and/or in cases where there are no dependents that would qualify under Social Security. Social Security tends to offer higher initial benefits than the Galveston Plan to workers with lower earnings and/or to families with dependents who qualify for Social Security benefits. Although many of Galveston’s initial benefits are higher than Social Security’s, they are not indexed to inflation and lose value relative to Social Security’s over time
As you can see in Chart 3 of the report, at initial retirement the Galveston plan offers a higher benefit for 4 out of 8 family/income types. After 15 years it offers a higher benefit for only 1 out of 89 family/income types (single person, very high income).
I’ll give you this – there are alternative plans, but they just aren’t as good as SS for most people.
Mr. Holman #17: “The conservative says ‘I’m just saying that we need smaller government.’ I respond ‘so what specifically do you recommend?'”
Here’s an idea. How about a government that is small enough that it doesn’t resort to ponzi schemes and devaluation of its currency in an attempt to maintain its largesse? How about a government that does not run up debts that are surely impossible to repay? And how about a government that restrains its scope in conformance with the Constitution, which demands that all powers not specifically delegated to the national government be reserved for the states?
However small that might be is how small the government should be. I see few leaders in either political party who take the Constitution and common sense seriously, however, so I expect we will learn in most painful ways that we cannot indefinitely spend wealth that we have not earned through productive enterprise.
Several things I would change: 1) Repeal the 16th & 17th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution; 2) Actually enforce the 10th Amendment; 3) Strictly enforce Article I, Section 8, #11; 4) Greatly limit the scope of Article I, Section 8, #3; 5) Restore the concept of private property by greatly limiting the scope and use of immenent domain and the application of environmental protection laws to private property. Do away with the idea that Thomas Jefferson’s words are from on high especially the idea that there is a right to the pursuit of happiness which is patently absurd–That would be a start.
Oh, one other thing, I would restict sufferage to folks who can read and write English, are at least aware of who the people are currently holding office, those who are running and which party they represent. Registration must be done at least two months prior to any election, in person and a nationally standardized voting test be taken by each and every registrant.
Impose term limits on judges, office holders and bureaucrats and prohibit the revolving door syndrome of legislators becoming lobbyists get rid of PACS and all coporate contributions to campaignes. Remove the ceiling for personal contributions but require that each and every contributor be identified by name and amount and that the list of contributors be posted at all election offices, polling places and on the internet.
Institute propotional allocation of the electoral votes by state rather than the winner take all.
An end to all these programs. Each and everyone of them. If individual states pick up the programs, then great for them. The states receive pennies on the dollar in terms of taxes sent to Washington. If states want to have these programs, then they can run them more efficiently than Washington. I would oppose them in my homestate, but I don’t begrudge others from doing what they feel is best for their citizens. No state receives more in federal dollars than it sends to DC in the form of taxes.
That is because so many conservatives don’t believe in either the Free Market or smaller government. They believe in better government, which means doing all the New Deal things but better. They are afraid to sound mean or callous. The Federal government is giant money wasting machine. Either these programs should be run at the state level, or the states should abolish them. If abolished, they would be replaced with – nothing. Which is what we had prior to Roosevelt.
The primary problem with health care is that it costs so much. How can you reduce costs? More doctors, more PA’s, more health delivery options. Does every single four-year university and college have a medical school? No. Why? Why are doctors and PA’s not trained on the job, like in many other countries? Why are medical schools subjected to so much AMA-driven redtape?
Easy – the system is rigged to keep the number of doctors as small as possible. We need thousands more doctors. We need to train more doctors, more PAs, and we need to do it more cost-effectively. We need to stop enforcing patents on drugs. We need to stop enforcing patents on medical processes. A doctor should be able to train for his job at any university or college, and get that medical degree for only a few thousand dollars. He/she should then expect to earn a good salary but not get rich.
And the AMA can go soak its head in a bucket of ice.
If you privatize SS, then the government will just use the money to invest in favored enterprises. The ones too big to fail with nice connections. SS is a Ponzi scheme. It should be made optional. If you want out, you should be allowed out.
Conservatives are frequently not clear. Ron Paul-style Republicans are quite clear.