Why do Evangelicals fail at leading their nation?

Originally Posted by Rob Stevenson on Monday, September 10, 2007 2:22:18 PM

Why are there no conservative Evangelicals on the Supreme Court? The President is a Methodist, and he was elected widely by the powerful force of Evangelical protestant voters. (At least that's what my liberal friends tell me.) Why then, given two vacancies, are their no conservative Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians or even Episcopalians on the Supreme Court? The president nominated one, but she wasn't qualified. Surely, we can all remember newspaper articles fearing that conservative Protestants would become to powerful because Bush "owed" them for his re-election. Did he fail us? I tend to think not. We failed him.

There are 5 conservative Catholics on the court. Catholics aren't more conservative than Protestants, but apparently they are better at taking the best and brightest of their young people and preparing them for leadership in the public sector.

In the congress, Catholics, Jews, and Episcopalians are all over-represented-the latter group grossly so-and in the next presidential election, the top conservative is looking to be a Catholic or a Mormon.

It is high time that Evangelical republicans take a good, hard look at how these other denominations, and in the case of Mormonism, other religions, go about putting their own people in leadership positions. We are a camp of pro-lifers who don't have a single member qualified to overturn Roe. We would do well to study their methods and take our seat at the table of government.

Blair Wars: The Prime Minister Strikes Back

After 13 years in British Legislature and 10 as P.M., Blair has some choice opinions on the modern media.

Text of Speech (Provided by the Telegraph)

Coverage:
Smart Mobs
The Guardian
The Times

Health Care

Distribution of Power and Resources

1) Federal governments excel in some areas where local governments do not and warfighting, dictating foreign policy, and regulating interstate commerce are among the issues occupying this category. Some problems, however, are best left to local authorities or the private sector. These include education, enforcing penal codes and civil codes, trash collecting, etc.

Unfortunately, not all issues are easily sorted into federal, local and private areas of expertise. One of the trickier issues is health care. Certainly it is not beneficial for the federal branches to be involved in day to day oversight of doctors offices. Yet, when staring down the barrel of Avian Flu, we may find it in our hearts, and in the interstate commerce clause, to let big brother help us effectively transport and distribute medical supplies. Before embracing this idea wholly, we must ask if Canadian-style socialized medicine is best.


2) If rapid transportation and distribution are the assets of social health care, than what are it's liabilities?

The environment most conducive to productivity will allow maximum freedom without sacrificing safety and security. I am a firm believer in free men working in free markets with minimally invasive laws enforcing ethics and safety that bolster liberty, rather than detract from it.

Socialized health care would rid the industry of competition, effectively weakening the product and taking away the basic check and balance that the capitalist open market provides. This means longer lines, higher prices, worse service, and more people dead or suffering from disease. In short, we become France. (If visiting France, do yourself a favor and don't get hurt.) The inevitable increase in death and disease would present a scourge on the entire nation far greater even than the financial burden that would destroy our economy with little gained.

Berkeley Part 2

"How the structure of higher education empowers the elite"

Recent conversations with philosophy students have led me to question the relevance of graduate level academic philosophy. They have responded by saying that the ideas of academia do affect the common man, but that this process is slow. The following is my amateur hypothesis explaining how this trickle-down occurs:

First, the academic elite decide on a vocabulary of terms and a set of acceptable ideas which they record in esoteric books and teach in philosophy classes. These classes are a mandatory part of undergraduate collegiate education, which means that any person desiring their union card to the middle class is required to talk to the proverbial "philosophy boss" for his dose of wisdom during his first few years out of the house. This young mind must first run the gauntlet of the prevailing worldview of the elite before he can take his diploma to the marketplace.

This explains how high-brow philosophy comes to middle-managers, but it does not explain how Derrida comes to kindergarten.

To do this, I will examine the tools used to control access to our society's children. Anyone wishing to teach primary or secondary school must be accredited by the state in which they wish to teach. State accreditation requires one to have a college degree in their concentrated subject. Additionally, this degree must be from an accredited institution of higher learning and this accreditation cannot be gained without a Gen. Ed. curriculum that includes -BINGO!- "Intro to Philosophy." This course's syllabus is subject to approval from a state inspector who will have a degree from a philosophical graduate program in good standing with the ruling authorities.

Thus the system by which we regulate our education structure, particularly, though not exclusively in government schools, aids the academic and philosophical elite in their control of education at the kindergarten level. This would be perfectly fine if the people controlling the levels of power in these institutions were benevolent and trustworthy, but as a bible-thumping monotheist who is resistant to naturalism, I have no faith in the academy to safeguard the minds of my children.

Friends of mine posit home-schooling as a way to short-circuit this system and reassert natural autonomy, but this is simply impossible at the collegiate level. A wholesale break from the scholastic system is something we can’t do, but I am not without hope. What we can do is read good books. Then we can read them to our children so that when it comes time for high-school English, (which at my school was just post-modern philosophy in the place of grammar) they will not soak up the most dominant world view like a sponge before a fire hose, but rather they will thoughtfully and prayerfully consider what the believe, and why.

Berkeley, CA

I am current in Berkeley, CA, which means that the view from my window looks something like this:Cal is a beautiful campus but a mysterious paradox. Specifically, It is a place of political sloganeering where the bumper sticker outmaneuvers the treatise, but where books are ubiquitous. While the selection may be one-sided, the sheer volume of literature here gives one pause to ask, "Don't they own televisions?"

This month's bestsellers occupy the positions of honor, just as at my usual bookstores back home, but Berkeley is also unrivaled in the ready availability of the classics. For the next few days, I will asking what makes people who read books so old stray so far from their culture's traditions. Keep reading as I continue my new series:
"Berkeley, Berkeley, Wherefore art thou Berkeley?"

Tomorrow's post:
"How the structure of higher education empowers the elite"

Dualism Alive and Well

          Dualism is the belief that the physical realm and the spiritual realm exist separately and are not intertwined. This sort of understanding comes into Christianity from time to time and understandably so. If we are going to die and be in heaven, while our bodies rot on earth, how can the physical world not be separate and less important than the spiritual world? It is seems to me that the main problem here is one of stewardship. People know that they will be forgiven and that their earthly bodies will not exist in heaven as they do now. They neglect the idea that God has entrusted us with them for this time and that we will be held accountable for how we used them.
          In the modern church dualism is manifest differently than it was in ages past. In the early days of the church, and even in modernity in places outside Europe and North America, the gospel was spread by means of physical manifestations of spiritual power. In other words: miracles. The average church may pray for the healing of the sick privately, but not with the expectation of results. If a child is ill, the urgent response is to take them to a doctor, with a possible visit from a priest as an afterthought.
          It seems that the hope of the physical intervention of the Holy Spirit is virtually non-existent in the Evangelical Church of America. Where dualism used to manifest itself in the neglect of right action on earth, it now manifests itself in the functional disbelief in any physical work done by the Holy Spirit. As J.P. Moreland is fond of asking, ‘Christians are driving out demons in Asia. Christians are performing miraculous healings in Africa; but not here, and not now. Have we no sickness? Have we no demons?’
          Perhaps what we lack is not spiritual beings, but rather human acknowledgement of them. The great dualists today are not the Manicheans; they are the methodological naturalists sitting in the pews holding on to no hope of the manifestation of the power of God.

Moron Kerry (More on Kerry)

Here is a Video Link for Kerry's faux pax.

Kerry Slanders the Troops.

Moron Veteran... ...I mean, "More on Veterans"

John Kerry flew way off the middle ground today at Pasadena City College and exposed his real feelings about the United States Military. The audio file can be found here.

In the words of a T.V. show I like, "Nothing can compare to the hate the right has for the left or the tonnage of disrespect the left has for the right." It would be nice if this were limited to his opinion of politicians. It is not.

Senator Kerry’s disgusting attitude toward these men, who act with unparalleled courage and discipline, is inexcusable. Let us not forget that many of the men in Iraq are Marines; A class of warriors who, in addition to bravely carrying out their ugly, but necessary duties, regularly outperform their civilian counterparts after they leave the fleet.

John F. Kerry displayed disrespect for our warriors, unfaithfulness to his comrades and a tactlessness that should make the educators at his Alma Mater flush pink with embarrassment at their inability to produce an authentic gentleman.

Can I Get A Veteran?

Daniel K. Asaka, James N. Inhofe, Edward Kennedy, John McCain, Bill Nelson, Pat Roberts and Jeff Sessions.

These men all have two things in common:
#1: They all served in the United States Military.
#2: They are all serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Let me do some quick math for you. Their are are twenty-two senators on the Senate armed services committee, which means that there are twice as many non-veterans as veterans. Of the twenty-two committee members, only two (Daniel Asaka and John McCain) have seen combat. When a four-star general tells the committee that he needs X billion dollars to finance X weapons system, how many committee members have the military experience and insight to ask the right questions and make an informed decision? Few. Too few.

One of the major problems with our country is the ever-widening gap of the liberal civilian elite and the conservative military. The blindness that ambitious, elite Americans have to their duty of national defense will have long reaching consequnces. If the problem is not solved, the number of veterans in government will decrease, even as veterans in the population increase.

The time has come for bright, patriotic Americans of this generation, liberal and conservative, to understand what it means to serve a country in a time of war. Only then can our leaders lead; and only then will their country follow.

Robert James Stevenson

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