The Boston Globe carried a syndicated article this morning from the Washington Post about a doctor who travels from Minnesota to South Dakota to perform abortions at a women’s clinic [Abortion Provider Goes Miles to Offer Services] and the fear that has been instilled into doctors who perform these services in the aftermath of the murder of a doctor by anti-abortionist activist Glen Roeder, who was recently convicted of that murder.

Why do anti-abortion activists, whose views are based in their particular religious beliefs, work so hard to interfere in the lives of those who don’t believe their absurd view that a fetus is a human being and abortion is equivalent to murder? The major Christians denominations support the view that human life begins at birth when the baby is able to interact with other humans and is based on the view (in Genesis creation story) that human life begins when the breath of life (ruach, spirit, soul) enters the newborn.

I grew up in an evangelical (Southern Baptist) church in VA a long time ago in the 1950s. The minister was a very serious, very honest, very pious man. He believed that it was wrong to do any work on the sabbath (which he did not know was Saturday), wrong to gamble or play cards, wrong to dance (because it could lead to closeness of bodies and ultimately to sex), wrong to wear makeup (because women of ill repute wore makeup and one should not create the impression of being like them), going to movies was wrong (for reasons I never understood). He did not talk about abortion, because it was not an issue then. He simply stated his beliefs, but he did not harangue the congregation about them and he did not try to impose his views on the community by writing them into law. He knew they were his beliefs. He believed it would be a better society if everyone followed his beliefs. But he respected the rights of others to believe differently. He respected our democracy and he respected the rights of others.

We seem to have lost that respect for others today and the abortion wars are a prime example. Fundamentalist Christians try to impose their view of right and wrong on those who believe differently than they do. Fundamentalist Muslims try to impose their views and their harsh Sharia law on other Muslims who believe differently than they believe. Fundamentalist Jews try to impose their views on Israeli society, much of which is secular and is not interested in religious rules.

Fundamentalists have become a danger to whatever society they are in because they attempt to subvert that society by imposing their religious views (which they mistakenly believe are ULTIMATE TRUTH) into laws that others have to follow. They make the mistake of assuming their own views are the only ones that matter. They believe they see things through the eyes of their god, which is not only arrogant but unacceptable in a modern pluralistic society. This attitude of disrespect and disregard for the values of others has to be opposed wherever it appears.

The Reverend Arthur G Broadhurst

http://www.christianhumanist.net

A curious act of political theater played out on the House floor last Friday afternoon when Republicans discovered that the appropriations bill renewing intelligence funding contained a provision that specifies criminal penalties for “any officer or employee of the intelligence community who, in the course of or in anticipation of a covered interrogation, knowingly commits, attempts to commit, or conspires to commit an act of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.”

The furor among Republicans was predictable knee-jerk response to anything that impacts Republican fear-mongering about terror and terrorism—that where our “war” on terrorism is concerned, no treatment of prisoners is reprehensible or out of bounds regardless of our traditional national values or our Constitutional niceties, and that any reasonable restrictions on what the CIA or military intelligence officers can do to prisoners [called “enhanced interrogation procedures”] to extract information from them endangers our national security.

According to CNN, the section of the bill in question dealt with specific prohibited acts, namely “beatings, electric shock, water-boarding, deprivation of food, water or sleep and violations of the suspect’s religious beliefs” and decreeing that “responsible intelligence officers would face up to 15 years in prison or life behind bars if the detainee dies.” According to the bill’s supporters, those acts are already prohibited by the Army Field Manual and by Presidential Order reinforcing those existing prohibitions. We note that if terrorist suspects being held are “enemy combatants” captured on the field of battle in our “war on terror” then they are “prisoners of war,” and those proscribed acts are prohibited by international treaty. Alternatively, if the terrorist suspects are criminals, these acts are prohibited by American law. So it is hard to see how the Republican objections make any sense.

[Not directly on topic, I copied the article from the CNN website during late afternoon, but when I went back to the CNN website 2 hours later to copy the link I was unable to find the article and a search of the CNN website using the headline or other relevant search terms did not produce any results. I do not know how to explain that, and I am not much inclined toward conspiracy theories, so I am at a loss to explain the disappearance of the article or my comment posted in response to the article. The original article had a time stamp of 2:35 pm EST, posted by CNN Producer Pam Benson.]

Objections raised by House Republicans were primarily that the interrogation provisions of the bill would result in intelligence officers fearing to interrogate prisoners because they might face prosecution, resulting in less useful information and further endangering our country. That claim would be worth considering if it were true, but both the FBI and former CIA officials have said that “enhanced interrogation” (torture) does not result in reliable information because prisoners will say whatever the torturer wants to hear. We know that false confessions were routinely obtained by torturers from a variety of nations without scruples [North Korea, China, Japan, Germany, East Germany] and used as a basis for executing prisoners, and we can point with some shame to the Inquisition as the classic historic example of false confessions being extracted.

Regrettably, after the Republicans objected, the Democratic controlled Rules Committee pulled those provisions from the funding bill. I do not know whether I am angrier at the Republicans for their blindness to the ethical issue that such treatment violates our sense of proper conduct, or at the Democrats for once again backing down under pressure and failing to stand for principle. I conclude that both parties are a disappointment and beyond redemption.

As usually happens when an issue of this sort arises, comments are posted and one comment in particular got my attention because it raises an ethical dilemma worth considering, an ethical problem sometimes called “the ticking time bomb” scenario. The comment: “Imagine your child is held captive by a violent criminal and you have his accomplice. Please tell us what you would do to get him to tell you where your child is. Is there anything you wouldn’t do? You can hate me all you want, but there is nothing I would not do. Nothing.”

That may be true, and any of us in that situation might do something that violates the law, but that does not excuse any of us from the consequences of the law. That is the principle of civil disobedience, which is based on the principle that there may be a difference in what the law requires and what the demands of justice (or duty) require, setting up a conflict of values.

From an ethical standpoint, there are some circumstances where impending or potential evil compels us to a decision or action that may be, at least from the standpoint of the person faced with the dilemma, the lesser evil. However the moral principle is that you then accept the consequences of your action, you don’t get a free pass. To see the moral dilemma posed by the conflict between obedience to law and the demands of justice, recall the Civil Rights era and the laws supporting inherent racism, and the decisions made in civil disobedience to intentionally and knowingly violate the law and a concomitant willingness to accept the consequences of doing so.

My wife and I discussed the issue faced by CIA, MI5 and other intelligence agencies about what to do when there is a situation of such consequences that, arguably at least, breaking the law becomes necessary—usually given the name “ticking time bomb” scenario—and we concluded that the intelligence agent would have to break the law and hope that he was right, and that he felt strongly enough about the urgency to be willing to bear the consequences.

That does not imply that mistreatment of prisoners should be condoned in law; on the contrary, it requires that enhanced interrogation methods be declared out of bounds and subject to penalties. It is too bad that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats grasped the importance of this issue. The proposed law would have eliminated routinely using “enhanced interrogation.” If the situation raised by Dick Cheney were to arise, that we were faced by imminent ticking bombs, we would expect that the seriousness of the situation would lead courageous interrogators to make the moral decision as to whether their country or their personal safety was their immediate priority.

Http://www.christianhumanist.net

I wrote a commentary last week arguing that President Obama’s religious views were not relevant to his role as President and the fact that he does not regularly attend any particular church in Washington because he thought it would be disruptive and a distracting reason to attack him was a perfectly sensible decision. 

That started some hate mail (electronic of course), which I am getting used to, but I was surprised at the nature of the comments. None were on topic. The two most common type of comments, made with more viciousness and hostility than the subject warranted, were about my avatar (ChristianHumanist) on the grounds that Christianity and Humanism were incompatible (which I will not deal with here) and that Obama was a [pick one: Muslim, Socialist, Communist, Racist] who shared the views of his long time pastor and religious mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a minister of the mainstream United Church of Christ in Chicago whose views fall into the category of Black Liberation Theology. Those who attacked Wright got their ammunition from the blathering fools on talk radio and conservative websites who point to a video snippet of one of his sermons and some selected quotes taken out of context. 

I wonder how many of those criticizing the Reverend Wright really know anything about him or his church in Chicago, or have actually read any of his sermons delivered over the past 20 years.

It is easy to take one sermon or one statement, particularly when taken out of context in a video clip, and use it for character assassination for political purposes. It is even sillier for these right wing critics of Obama or Wright to keep repeating stuff that appears on right wing TV shows without actually verifying the source or knowing anything about the subject at hand. 

I admit that I have read very few of his sermons, but it is my impression based on what I have read about him lately that he is getting a bad rap for statements made in that one sermon that were over the top and were intentionally given an interpretation beyond what was intended for political purposes. I am sure that same tactic could be (and has been) used on many people in public life, from politicians and talk show hosts, to ministers, priests and televangelists.

Before getting on their high horse and charging around flailing the air wildly, it would be wise and make them look less ignorant and uninformed to know something about the object of their criticism.

I discovered lots of information by a quick Google search, from a variety of perspectives, both informed and ignorant, and I will be spending some time over the next few days learning more about Mr. Wright. 

For a very good analysis of Jeremiah Wright’s comments on one occasion and how they were so mischaracterized by the right wing, you might read this article:

http://www.antiwar.com/henderson/?articleid=12553

To get some idea as to how statements taken out of context can be misconstrued, and to get an idea as to the style of the article, note the paragraph below from his introductory comments:

 “I should preface this by pointing out an interesting definition that journalist Michael Kinsley gave years ago of a gaffe. A gaffe, he wrote, “is when a politician tells the truth.” The idea is that the truth is something few people want to hear because it upsets them. My favorite gaffe was that of Senator Bob Dole in 1976, when he ran for Vice President of the United States. In a debate with candidate Walter Mondale, Dole stated, “I figured it up the other day: If we added up the killed and wounded in Democrat wars in this century, it would be about 1.6 million Americans – enough to fill the city of Detroit”. Virtually everyone attacked Dole the next day, but not based on whether what he said was true or false. Did he get the U.S. body count wrong? The critics didn’t say, although, as it happens, he got it right. Were the four major U.S. wars of the 20th century up until 1976 – World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War – not Democratic wars? They didn’t say, but he got that right also. Democratic presidents made the decision to go to war in all four cases. Maybe, then, Dole had misestimated the population of Detroit? Again the critics didn’t say.

“And that’s the point. In the critics’ minds, the truth didn’t matter. What mattered is that by talking about uncomfortable issues, Dole violated the code. And the code says that you’re either supposed to lie, as long as the lies are generally accepted, or talk about vague things like America’s greatness or the audacity of hope. But never, never talk about things that are true and that matter.”

It’s a well written article.  It demonstrates through an extended discussion of one of the quotes taken out of context, that what the Rev. Wright said was uncomfortable but true.

The larger point, however, that is conveniently missed is that Mr. Obama is no more responsible for the beliefs or actions of his minister, than the reader is for the beliefs, statements and egregious actions of his minister, priest or rabbi.  It is not rational or right to judge people—or presidents—on the basis of what a religious leader says or does.  

 http://www.christianhumanist.net

Do Obama’s Religious Views Matter? Does it matter whether he exhibits his religious faith publicly?

The Boston Globe carried a front page article this morning talking about the President’s religious views but it was immediately trashed by the usual knee-jerk anti-Obama hysterical critics. I concluded from the article that the President believes that his faith is a private matter, that joining any particular church in Washington would be disruptive to that church and its members, a distraction from his agenda, divisive since he is president of all the people, grounds for more attempts by the religious and political right to attack him—his position being that faith should be lived, that he should walk the walk and not have to talk the talk in public.

I am quite used to seeing illiterate, hateful and nonsensical posts in my local paper [I live in FL] but I was shocked at the comments made in the Globe because I had assumed that because Boston was a more cultured area that the tone of the posts would be more respectful and literate.  Was I wrong! Some of the posters must have immediately consulted their Glen Beck handbook for hateful irrelevancies.  Many of the comments were just excuses to trash the President and to repeat the same astonishing lies that have been debunked many times over and and are not worth responding to.

It was obvious from the tone of the comments on that article that the President can never please the fear mongers and the haters and may just as well ignore them. More important it is not important that he be seen as a religious leader.  It is important that he be seen as leader of all the people and leader of the free world.  It is important that he bring back respect for the U.S. and its traditional values—democracy, dignity and peace. It is important that he lives the values of Jesus – feeding the hungry (food stamps, unemployment benefits), sheltering the homeless (housing programs, mortgage relief, heating oil subsidy), clothing the naked (welfare benefits), standing with the poor against the powerful (voter registration, electoral reform, campaign reform, term limits).

Many who posted hateful comments showed that they do not have a clue what Christianity is all about.  They need to be reminded regularly that it is not about what they say they believe,  it is not about “being saved,”  it is about the content of one’s life.  We had enough of that false public religion from the fundamentalist “I talk to god” hypocrite George Bush, whose religious faith led him to start wars that were unnecessary, take away civil rights in the name of presumptive war powers, hide the cost of the war by putting it “off budget,” and put the economy into recession.

We conclude that it matters what Obama’s faith is, because it results in the sort of person he is and the values he holds.  We conclude that it is important that he “walk the walk.” We conclude that he is wise to keep a low profile about his religion, because public display is simply another opportunity for the right wing faux religious radicals to attack him.

Thank god (for those of you who believe there is a god) for President Obama.

http://www.christianhumanist.net

The Associated Press has a story discussing whether or not the aircraft flown into the building in Austin, Texas, containing IRS offices is terrorism or criminal behavior. The argument seems pointless.

What difference does it make? How will the treatment of the perpetrator be different no matter how the question is answered? Is this a semantic difference with no consequences one way or the other? If we call this “domestic terrorism” will the terrorist be an “enemy combatant” and sent to Guantanamo and subject to a military trial?

Which gets us to another point: the whole discussion about “war on terror” makes little sense. There have been terrorists for years for all sorts of causes in and against various countries… Ireland, Portugal, Spain, England, Germany, and other countries. We have had domestic terrorists for years (think PETA, Greenpeace, environmental activists, seal hunting activists). There are terrorists fighting political, religious, economic and environmental issues every time there is a major international economic, political or environmental conference.

Sensible countries fight the terrorists using police and sometimes the military where it is lawful to do so, but they don’t dignify the struggle against terrorists and terrorism by calling it a “war” and suggesting that civil liberties, judicial process and common sense need to be suspended. They arrest terrorists, they try them, they convict them, and they jail them.

This so-called “war on terror” is more like the war on poverty, the war against drugs, the war on illiteracy, the war against smoking (or is it a “campaign”), the war on the environment, or the war against piracy—it just means that some concerted action needs to be taken to deal with a specific problem and part of dealing with any problem effectively is not playing political games and seeing the problem clearly. The “war on terror” is not like World War 2.  There is no enemy country with an army that is fighting us on a conventional battlefield where the rules of war apply and where we conquer territory, achieve strategic objectives, and take prisoners of war.

We have let our language interfere with our ability to agree as a nation on what we need to do to fight domestic and foreign terrorism—and the most important thing we need to agree on is that Islamic jihadists are a dangerous enemy and we need a variety of smart strategies, techniques and resources to eliminate the threat. The most important thing we need to acknowledge that our military, as good as it is, is not the only tool in our bag, and may not be the most effective tool in fighting  jihadists.

Arthur G Broadhurst

http://www.christianhumanist.net

Are Christians Responsible For Poverty In Haiti?

Arguably, yes.

In fairness, there are many contributing factors to Haiti having become a failed state prior to the earthquake last month—with its massive unemployment, little industrial or commercial activity, widespread poverty and illiteracy, high birthrate, corrupt politicians and police, and a government that has demonstrated remarkable resilience to any attempt to reform it and help it to become less corrupt.

Haiti has had a terrible history—a colony much fought over by various colonial powers, a population largely descended from slaves and revolutionaries, a country ravaged first by external powers and then by its own corrupt leaders, an island stripped of its resources and unable even to grow its own food, a nation invaded and occupied from time to time by the United States. It is the poorest nation in our hemisphere and has been so for years.

However, regardless of the many other factors that have crippled Haiti and made a mess of its economy, the Roman Catholic Church has been the most significant contributor to Haiti’s crushing poverty and widespread illiteracy, oddly enough but most ably and unknowingly assisted in that endeavor by the most unlikely of partners—a large number of fundamentalist protestant missionaries.

The responsibility of the Catholic Church for the pre-earthquake disaster that is Haiti is two-fold, its policies and practices toward and in Haiti, and its support of the status quo in Haitian politics. The “mess” in Haiti that we refer to is political ineptness, overpopulation, illiteracy, ignorance, poverty and unemployment.

The conclusion that Christian ineptitude and ill-conceived policies were largely responsible for the grinding poverty in Haiti had not occurred to me until I became interested in why Haiti was so poor and began to read a bit of its history in the wake of a barrage of criticism of Haiti from the usual whiners loudly complaining about wasted foreign aid and concluding that Haiti had brought its troubles (including the earthquake!) on itself as a punishment for its moral corruptness and national laziness, and its willingness to be a net receiver of public charity from other nations.

Haiti has been Catholic since its early days as a French colony. As far back as 1860 the educational system in Haiti was turned over to the Roman Catholic Church to operate with French priests. In the early days the priests educated only the ruling elite of Haitian society, who were mulattos descended from original French settlers who had children by their slaves, and ignored the masses of peasants and working class poor, who received almost no education except for catechism.

In effect, the Catholic Church became allied with the ruling elite in Haiti and taught the Haitians to respect authority, to accept life as it came to them as god’s will, and therefore to be content with their place in life. Although charged with education of the people, the church did very little and even in more modern times very few children got more than a few years of education. The Church did not serve as an advocate for education but was content to ignore illiteracy and failed to acknowledge that illiteracy was a significant factor in poverty. The Church did not educate Haitians in technological or practical skills, did not train them to be farmers on their own land, did not encourage the skilled trades, did not agitate for literacy.

The Church failed to recognize or acknowledge that its attitude and policy toward birth control and contraception were also significant factors in crushing poverty. The Church helped maintain the status quo. It was not an advocate for change. It opposed any attempts in Haiti to institute family planning and birth control education, and it fought against all international aid programs to promote contraceptive use not only for birth control but also to prevent the spread of AIDS.

Typical is Pope John Paul’s 1983 statement that “Contraception is to be judged so profoundly unlawful as to be never, for any reason, justified. To think or to say the contrary is equal to maintaining that in human life, situations may arise in which it is lawful not to recognize God as God.” The result: population is out of control, creating ever more mouths to feed with fewer resources, increasing poverty and creating more competition for fewer jobs, and straining Haiti’s already over-stretched ability to house, feed and clothe its people.

The protestant fundamentalist missionaries that wanted to combat the superstition of voodoo, which had become interwoven with Catholicism in Haiti, were equally guilty of negligence and irresponsibility toward poverty and overpopulation. They were more interested in saving souls than in sex education, family planning, self-reliance, and literacy. They too did not advocate for change, and they had the same policies against birth control and contraception as the Catholics.

The Haitian people do not need another hundred years on their knees, with outstretched arms, palms up, looking for miracles and accepting conditions as they are. It is too bad that well-intentioned people (and we do not imply that either the Catholics or the protestants in Haiti are evil people) do not seem to understand the damage they have done to Haiti by keeping the people poor and pregnant, confusing education with indoctrination, giving them fish rather than teaching them how to fish, and operating with a medieval world view that teaches acceptance rather than foments radical change, which is the only way that Haiti will move forward.

It’s about time the various religious organizations wake up to the problems they cause by opposing the sorts of programs that will actually make life better and help economies grow. You can’t do that by maintaining the status quo. The Haitian government, with the support of Christians of both the Catholic and protestant variety, need to encourage and support international efforts to promote birth control, safe sex, condom use, family planning and sex education. The schools must change their curriculum to teach needed vocational skills rather than doctrine, reading and writing rather than histories of the saints, focus on science rather than catechisms, promote reform rather than acceptance, encourage action rather than prayer, teach critical thinking rather than obedience to authority, advocate self-reliance rather than dependence on charity.

But will they?

Arthur G Broadhurst

http://www.christianhumanist.net

It may be useful to remind ourselves and simultaneously to point out to our fundamentalist neighbors—Christians, Jews and Muslims—that whatever truth or goodness we humans possess is always less than absolute Truth or Goodness. That knowledge should keep us humble because while we may know what truth is for us, that is not the same thing as absolute truth or truth for all.

The fundamentalist in each of the major religions is too certain that he knows the truth, not just for himself, but for the rest of us as well.

True religious faith involves a sense of reverence and awe before the mysterium tremendum–or whatever one sees as God—that should keep us from claiming too much for ourselves.

A few seasons ago on the PBS program NOW there was a fascinating conversation between Paul Woodruff and Bill Moyers. The gist of Woodruff’s remarks was that reverence in the face of transcendence is the essential virtue missing in so much that passes for religion, and that the implied corollary of reverence is acknowledging that we are mortal and finite, that there is a huge gap between us and whatever it is that we acknowledge as Transcendent—god, truth, justice, the good, or whatever. I think that’s a good way to put it, and I think that gives us a reference point by which to critique fundamentalist takes on religion.

If reverence is the elemental religious quality, no religion can be taken seriously if it does not have reverence at its core. I think that is the essential meaning behind the Christian doctrine of Creation, once we get past the mythical Genesis story. Reverence implies both awe and respect. It acknowledges the distance between ourselves and what is ultimate, what we call god.

There is a cluster of related values that go with reverence – awareness of our mortality, humility in the face of the absolute, respect for the dignity of those who share our common humanity, compassion (which means the ability to stand in the place of another, to walk in his shoes, and to feel his pain), and love (which in the fully Christian sense means affirmation of the value of another).

Terrorism in the name of religion is evil precisely because it lacks reverence.

Fundamentalist religion, whether Jewish, Christian or Islamic, serves terrorism by providing it with a rationale and justification, the end justifying the means..

In the US, protestant fundamentalism has prostituted itself to the political right as the merged political-religious ultra-conservatives try to remake America according to their vision, values and priorities. This has become a uniquely American problem, and the essence of the problem is not that the fundamentalist chooses conservative values by which to live (because he has the right to live in accordance with his values), it is that he wishes to deny my freedom of choice and to compel my neighbors and me to live by his rules, and he will do whatever it takes to accomplish that objective, sometimes even if it is illegal or violent.

The marriage between fundamentalist religion and right wing politics trivializes and cheapens both and endangers both our freedom and our democracy. That should concern all of us no matter where we are on the political spectrum because it involves at the least the erosion of our basic values as a democracy, as a civilized nation and as a free people.

There has been a noticeable reluctance across our society to confront religious fundamentalism directly but if we value human rights and democratic values, if we care about the social responsibility implied by a caring society, and if we want to continue to enjoy our hard-won constitutional freedoms, we must be willing to confront and say NO to the fundamentalist religious terrorists and bullies in our nation.

Arthur G Broadhurst

http://www.christianhumanist.net

No one likes to pay taxes, including me. No one wants to see tax money wasted. No one (except in the minds of the loonies, fanatics and extremists) really wants government to be any bigger than it needs to be. Most people I know want to see serious efforts to deal with mismanagement and waste wherever it is found regardless of party or ideology.

That said, I accept what ought to be obvious to all, that if we want services we have to pay for them and taxes are how we pay for them. Taxes are what makes civilized society possible—taxes fund roads, libraries, schools, street lights, fire and rescue services, child protection agencies, parks and playgrounds, boat launches and all the other things we take for granted each day that make our life more pleasant.

Griping about taxes is almost a national pastime. Nevertheless I was surprised to read that Americans complain about taxes more than citizens of most other countries, yet our tax burden is considerably less than in most other countries. The complaining does not seem justified by the reality. The U.S. ranks 27 out of 30 in overall tax burden in OECD countries, and has a comparable rank in what Forbes calls the “misery index,” which ranks taxes at the highest marginal rate, a rate which only the wealthy pay and then only on the portion of their income that exceeds $370,000. http://www.forbes.com/global/2006/0522/032.html .

Some years ago when I got my annual bonus check [which was performance based for meeting specific goals!] I made a comment to the CEO that he perceived as griping about the amount of money that was taken out of that check for Federal and State taxes, and he observed drily that I should be grateful because the amount of taxes taken out reflected a pretty significant income and that I should consider it a privilege and a duty to have the income that could pay taxes at that level—and he was right, and it was an important lesson that has stayed with me through the years.

Massachusetts is considered a high tax state and is sometimes called Taxachusetts by its residents. Taxes were on the minds of unhappy Massachusetts residents who, apparently influenced by the drumbeat of anti-tax ads attacking “big government,” elected Scott Brown to the Senate. So the Boston Globe, mindful that taxes were on the minds of citizens, published an article this week on attitudes and realities that was interesting and instructive about the way people think about taxes. Some of their observations and conclusions are relevant to this article: [a] Many people believe that government is too big and wasteful and that some programs need to be cut, but they were unable to name which programs they actually want to cut. [b] When the sales tax was raised recently from 5% to 6.25% many residents flooded over the border to New Hampshire, which has no sales tax, to buy groceries and clothing, despite the fact that those items are not subject to sales tax in Massachusetts, an irrational response. [c] Restrictions on real estate tax levies by towns require voter approval to bypass, yet most levies that go to voters are approved.

I live most of the year in Florida. We have no income tax, a sales tax rate of 7%, and property taxes (for residents with homestead exemption) that are below the median of the other states. We read complaining letters in our newspapers and hear rants about taxes on talk radio. The State budget, as is true in most states, has been cut for the past several years and is still in deficit. The public demanded drastic cuts and no new taxes. The legislature reiterated the public demand for cuts and the mantra of no new taxes. We have a Republican governor and Republicans control the legislature by a significant margin, so it should be easy for the Republicans to make the cuts they say they want. However, the legislature has run into the reality that most everyone says they want cuts but they don’t want programs cut that matter to them.

I see the same “cut our taxes but don’t cut our favorite programs” dilemma at the local level. Our county commissioners, all Republicans, complain loudly about foolish government waste and overspending on government programs (of course, at the Federal and State level) and promise that they will keep tax rates low with no new taxes. They cannot agree on what to cut—do we cut police and fire budgets, do we reduce teacher pay or lay off teachers or increase class size, do we cut athletics from the schools, do we reduce all county employees pay or just employees making over $100,000, do we cut the health department or ignore our sewage system repair needs? Is rebuilding the boat launching ramp at a city park an extravagance or a necessity?

The stated objective of the tax cutting movement is to lower the “marginal” income tax rates to benefit the wealthiest Americans. The essence of the argument supporting lower marginal income tax rates is “fairness” and the tactic is a proposal to eliminate differential income tax rates in favor of a “flat tax” that everyone would pay at the same rate that would have the added benefit of simplifying the tax code. Simplifying the tax code is long overdue, but that is a different issue. The question of “fairness” is a complicated one and could be answered in different ways depending on what values and assumptions are considered in the discussion but, regardless, the practical effect of lowering taxes on the wealthy inevitably involves shifting more of the burden onto the middle class and the poor.

It is reasonable to argue that “fairness” of the tax burden means fairness in terms of ability to pay and that those who are wealthy have profited more from society and should pay more for its support. It is also obvious that requiring a wage earner with a middle class income to pay 10% of his income as tax, which cuts into the amounts required for food, clothing and shelter, creates a much greater burden on the middle class than a 10% tax on the income of a millionaire creates on the lifestyle of the wealthy. Arguing otherwise involves an “Alice in Wonderland” view of reality. Contrary to the argument made by the wealthy, lowering taxes on the wealthy and shifting the burden onto the middle class involves a wealth transfer (redistribution of wealth, anathema to the right) from the lower and middle class to the wealthy, and that cannot be fair in any reasonable sense of what “fairness” means.

Then there is the inconsistency in thinking by our political leaders. The same politicians who complain loudly and regularly that government bailouts of the financial industry or the auto industry lead the country toward socialism had no problem giving a local aircraft manufacturer $35 million in tax reductions, incentives and grants to stay in the area and hire more employees (a mixture of State and local funds); the manufacturer took the money, laid off a good portion of the remaining employees, then sold the company to a Brunei corporation that may move the company out of the United States to Asia. When some locals objected to this expenditure of tax money to subsidize private enterprise, the same right wing blue collar types who protest Obama’s waste of money for bankrupting the country and believe that subsidizing private industry is socialism when the Federal government does it, said that this situation was different, it involved keeping local jobs so it was not really a waste of money and it was unfair to call it socialism. It was important and necessary.

So what do we make of this muddle-headed and inconsistent thinking, both from politicians and from the general public? We note with some amusement that: [a] People do not like taxes in general but they do not object to taxes if they agree with the program the taxes will pay for. If I benefit from a tax-supported program, it’s ok; if my neighbor benefits, it is a waste of tax dollars. [b] The more distant the taxing authority, the less people like paying the taxes. Federal taxes are worse, State next, local taxes are grudgingly acceptable. [c] Earmarks (Federal money that pays for local projects) are always a waste of money unless they are in your local district. Then the money is “free” and doesn’t really cost taxpayers anything. [d] State money is also “free.” An example: County Commissioners are spending $7 million on a beach re-nourishment project to spread new sand on beaches in the northern part of the county where the sand is annually washed away during storms. One commissioner said in response to complaints this project was wasting taxpayers money by throwing sand into the sea, “this is costing the taxpayers practically nothing, so it’s a no brainer”—but the commissioner was the one with no brain, because $6.5 million of the funds were from the State and Federal government and was tax money.

Why do we have such ambiguous, inconsistent and ultimately selfish attitudes toward taxes? I think there are three reasons: [a] Right wing anti-tax activists have been very vocal in print and in various media including talk radio in insisting that our tax system is not fair, that we pay too much of our “hard-earned income” in taxes, that government is bad and wastes our money, and that the purpose of taxation is to take from those who earned their money in order to give it to deadbeats, so they have created mistrust among the populace. [b] The public is increasingly uneducated, intellectually lazy and ill-informed so they are uncritical in their thinking, inclined to believe what they are told, and unable to form independent judgments based on evidence and common sense. [c] Our leaders have been negligent by encouraging the anti-tax revolt as part of their continual drive to get re-elected and by their failure to lead and educate the public—to explain the role taxes play in a democratic society, to explain that taxes are for the benefit of everyone and are not just for those things that one personally agrees with, that taxes are necessary to support the community and the nation.

We need a new national conversation on the role of taxes in a Democracy, that paying taxes is both a necessity and a privilege—but don’t count on that happening in our divisive and self-interested political climate.

Arthur G Broadhurst

http://www.christianhumanist.net

I read two news accounts yesterday that had no immediately obvious connection, but both troubled me because of their implications for society, for civil order, for law and justice, and for ethical and rational behavior.

The first account was from Turkey, reported by The Times of London. 16-year old Medine Mimi was buried alive in an “honor killing” at her home. Following a tip, her body was found in a sitting position in a 6½ foot deep hole under a chicken pen outside her family’s home in Turkey’s southeastern province of Adiyam in December. The coroner said a post-mortem examination found a large amount of soil in her lungs and stomach, indicating that she had been buried alive and suffered a slow and agonizing death. Her father and grandfather were arrested and charged with the killing. In Turkey, as in other muslim countries, honor killings continue to take place when traditional families believe their honor has been sullied by inappropriate behavior. In this instance, she was caught talking to a boy who was merely a friend.

Anna Momogliano, writing in The Nation, asserted that honor killings are part of a widespread male-dominated culture of violence that exists not only in Islamic countries but in Western countries as well, and while I do not disagree with that argument, for the purpose of this essay I have a different take on the issue that I will develop later. Here is a relevant quote from her article:

“Honor killings, homicides carried out by male family members to redeem the shame that women have supposedly brought upon their families, are often associated with, and blamed on, tribal customs in the Arab and Muslim world. In some particularly conservative Muslim countries, such as Iran and Pakistan, honor killing is still legal according to local tribal authorities, although it is often condemned by the central governments. In other countries, this practice is formally prohibited but is widespread and treated leniently: in Turkey, for instance, there are more than 200 honor killings a year–half of all the murders committed in the country. Many of them are easily disguised as suicides, while others are punished with just two or three years of jail.”

The second account was from Stuart, Florida. Ricky Silva, a prisoner already serving a life term shared a cell with a man convicted of child molestation. For reasons that are unclear and disputed (at the time said to be racially motivated, subsequently claimed by Silva to involve the cell mate masturbating in front of a picture of Silva’s niece), Ricky Silva killed his cell mate in a rage and was charged with first degree murder and seeking the death penalty. The local newspaper carrying the story allowed comments on the news article [many newspapers do not make provision for comments on articles likely to inflame passions]. I was appalled but not surprised at the tone of the majority of the comments, some so vulgar that they needed to be taken down by the paper. The majority supported Silva for getting rid of a child molester by killing him and suggesting that since the law does not permit killing child molesters they should be put in the general prison population and other prisoners encouraged to kill them. One urged him to kill other child molesters in the prison. Others urged castration, mutilation, hanging for child molesters. There was an angry and distasteful thread running through many of the comments, that individuals who believe that their sense of justice and their view of appropriate punishment are not meted out by the courts should take justice into their own hands and dole out their own punishment. There was a ready willingness to excuse the murderer, to condone extra-judicial lynching, for that is what it is. Only a few comments took a more rational approach saying that murder cannot be tolerated even against molesters and defended the concepts of justice, law and fairness.

What do these two seemingly unconnected stories have in common?

Honor killings, which apparently are more prevalent that many of us realize, are an old tradition in Muslim society and we have seen several killings in Western democracies including the U.S. where Muslim traditionalist males killed their wives, daughters or other family members for bringing shame on a family and damaging its reputation, even for things that we believe are silly, harmless or trivial, and despite the fact that such acts are a violation of civil law. Honor killings are extrajudicial acts based an individual’s sense of outrage at unacceptable behavior.

That same outrage toward certain heinous behavior in our society blinds some individuals to the reality, that individual acts to satisfy their outrage outside of our laws and our judicial system are just as evil as the acts that offend these individuals. Proposing violence, beatings, mutilations, castrations, hanging, or murdering of child molesters or other bad guys, is offensive and dangerous. Most people saying these atrocious things probably would not act on them, but given a mob attitude they are dangerous and could incite unlawful violence. However whether they talk about, threaten or carry out extra-judicial acts, they undermine our judicial system and ultimately our civil order.

It’s time to tone down the violence in our language and acknowledge that an uncivil society is the first step in the breakdown of civil order. We have moved past the lynch mobs of the wild west and the Ku Klux Klan days to a civil society of laws and courts. Some of those despicable comments from our neighbors seemingly came from those who consider themselves Christians and/or good Americans, but apparently missed something in church or school that would have given them some insight into how a civil society thinks and speaks. As a people we are better than that. There is no place for vigilante justice in our society.

http://www.christianhumanist.net 

I believe the failure of mainstream Christianity to come to terms with and seriously engage the world of the 21st Century has resulted in the loss of much that is central and essential in Christianity and has put it on the edge of irrelevancy. My impression is that the Christian church, faced with the fact and implications of 21st Century thought, lost its nerve and retreated into a theological fortress where it has tried unsuccessfully to defend a 19th Century world view. By failing to interpret Christianity to our generation in terms that this generation could understand, Christianity lost its power to speak authoritatively and meaningfully to us and that has resulted in a Christianity that is increasingly seen by many as irrelevant.

We see things differently than people of earlier generations. We do not live in our parents’ and grandparents’ world. This is true for philosophers, historians, scientists and theologians. We no longer accept that there is a “religious” explanation of natural events and processes. We understand a great deal about life and cells, about the laws of physics and of the atom, of the origin of the universe and the movement of the stars, about space and time, about the evolution of life forms and the earth’s geological formations, about forces and matter, about causation and result.

We no longer use religion as an explanation to fill in the gaps of our knowledge of things we do not yet understand. We do not any longer see a “conflict” between the world of science and the world of religion that requires us to separate our experience into segments with “keep out” signs posted at the borderline between “scientific” knowledge and “religious” knowledge. We do not try to harmonize the biblical 7 days of creation with what we have learned from astrophysicists about the structure and sequence of the origins of our universe as if both were descriptive accounts of process that need to be reconciled. When we have questions about our physical world we rely on the principles of science for what we can know and how we know it, whether the subject is matter, forces, energy or the universe. Whatever we mean by the “truth” of the creation story, we accept the premise that it is not intended to be an alternative or competitive process description of an event in time.

Each generation receives the faith of the previous generation wrapped in the concepts and framed out in the language and style that made sense to that earlier generation. It is our job to locate that central core of truth in Christianity that must be discovered anew by each generation and which each generation must reformulate for itself and in its own words.

By failing to identify, understand and reinterpret the central core of Christian truth in a way that makes sense to us in our generation, and by failing to separate that core truth from the language and the world view of a previous generation in which it came to us, the Christian church in our day (in both its Catholic and Protestant forms) has largely abandoned its duty of reinterpreting the Christian message, leaving it in a form and language that has become increasingly incomprehensible to many of us who have struggled with it.

I believe there is a way, surprising to many, unacceptable to some, that requires jettisoning much of the theological baggage that encumbers Christianity and getting to its essential core—the life and teachings of Jesus as a guide to our own lives and conduct.

http://www.christianhumanist.net