Election

“That’s one of the hazards here.”

Posted on by albrooke

From Marvin Olasky’s interview of Hadley Arkes:

hadley-arkes-facebook1[Olasky] What’s the major way students have changed in 50 years?  [Arkes] One notable change: They have trouble doing sit-down exams and giving an account of what they’ve read. They have not been required to read closely. How does the writer’s argument move? What are the supporting points of evidence? How does he reach the culmination? They can’t do that, except the very best.

Would both major presidential candidates get an F on one of your exams? I don’t think I could get from Donald Trump a precise account of anything he reads. Hillary Clinton would give me the party line: Whatever the subject, we need gun control.

You say we have a choice between “the brutal sure thing,” Hillary Clinton, and “the wild card,” Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton is not a question mark. For her and the left, the “right to abortion” is the first freedom, displacing freedom of religion and freedom of speech anchoring axioms.

You’re for the wild card, particularly because of Supreme Court appointments? I am, but it’s not merely about replacing justices. With Clinton, the lower federal courts that handle most of the cases—the points of first entry—will be filled with characters from the academic left who favor theories that ordinary folk take as bizarre.

*    *    *

Does [Trump] care about judges? I don’t think he cares overly much about the courts and the Supreme Court. He certainly hasn’t troubled to read much about them. He depends on other people. That’s one of the hazards here.

“Hadley Arkes: Life and politics” World (August 18, 2016) [link] (emphasis added).

I’m still not convinced — sounds more pragmatic than principled — but I have a good deal of respect for Professor Arkes (who has taught Political Philosophy at Amherst for 50 years).

The Man in the High Castle

Posted on by albrooke

This is not entirely true, of course, but a provocative thought, nonetheless:

“We do not have the ideal world, such as we would like, where morality is easy because cognition is easy. Where one can do right with no effort because he can detect the obvious.”

61BMpmDw23LPhilip K.Dick, The Man in the High Castle 260.

Indeed the truth is that too often, knowing perfectly well what is moral, we find that we do not choose to do it. See Romans 7:18b-19 ESV (“For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.“)*

PKD’s quotation does remind us, however, that our choices are obscured by our inability to perfectly perceive reality — we have very imperfect knowledge about many of the choices we have to make — and yet we still must make them.

Paul goes on to explain the only escape from this dilemma:

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.  Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Romans 7:21b-25a ESV.  Only Jesus delivers.

And so we should pray for guidance from the one whose perfect knowledge and perfect love are necessary for correct decisions in life and in less momentous choices like elections.

RIP GOP?

Posted on by albrooke

ScreenShot164Alan Jacobs writes this recent post:

“My friend Ross Douthat disagrees, mostly, with Avik Roy’s contention that the Republican Party is dead, but by contrast I suspect that Roy is too optimistic. He thinks that some kind of renewed GOP will eventually rise from the ashes, but I doubt that. I don’t think that the rise of Trump marked the end of the Republican Party as we know it, but rather that the party’s incoherent and brainlessly reflexive responses to Trump, whether positive or negative, were the equivalent of the last few electrochemical twitches of a corpse. The current donor base will pay for one or two more decades of artificial respiration, but no more, and I suspect that as early as 2024 the GOP will be completely irrelevant to American politics, at least at the national level.

At that point we’ll still have a two-party system, but the two parties will be the Neoliberal and the Socialist — basically, the two main wings of the current Democratic Party. And I’m not sure that, when that happens, we’ll be any worse off than we are now.

Alan Jacobs, “Two parties,” Snakes and Ladders (July 25, 2016) [link].  (That last line may be fairly discouraging to many, but I think AJ means it to be encouraging — it is not going to be much worse.)

Jacobs is referring to an article in Vox about Republican strategist Avik Roy’s dismal predictions regarding the GOP:

“The work of conservative intellectuals today, [Roy] argues, is to devise a new conservatism — a political vision that adheres to limited government principles but genuinely appeals to a more diverse America.

“I think it’s incredibly important to take stock,” he says, “and build a new conservative movement that is genuinely about individual liberty.”

Zack Beauchamp, “A Republican intellectual explains why the Republican Party is going to die,” Vox (July 25, 2016) [link].

I think believers can pray that an American political party will rise from the ashes that is committed to social justice as well as limited government.  I wonder what it will be called?  Compassionate Realism?

Not funny, but . . .

Posted on by albrooke

ScreenShot164I am well aware that the problem itself is not funny, but Michael Brendan Dougherty is managing to make our apparent 2016 Election choices pretty amusing by saying things like:

You know that Donald Trump is an unstable imbecile. But this knowledge doesn’t oblige you to discover new qualities in the bottomlessly cynical, power-mad grifter Hillary Clinton.

Michael Brendan Dougherty, “The existential despair of Hillary Clinton v. Donald Trump,” The Week (June 9, 2016) [link].  Dougherty:

You might also feel some pressure to suck it up and vote for “the lesser of two evils.” Well, I have a simple message for you: Don’t.

Don’t let anyone steal that disgust from your heart. It is a precious thing. You should treasure your disgust as a sign of your decency, particularly because hardly anyone else will. Don’t let anyone tell you that the nearly uncontrollable urge to retch at the thought of this election is disproportionate, or somehow uncivil. When you contemplate the fate of your country in 2016, you have the right to be depressed, or even despairing.

Read the whole article and and laugh a little and then remember that “He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.” Psalm 2:4.

No reason to despair.

Tyranny coming?

Posted on by albrooke

ScreenShot196An interesting and frightening take on the 2016 election (in light of Plato, Sinclair Lewis, the Constitution, Eric Hoffer, and others), in which Andrew Sullivan says:

Trump tells the crowd he’d like to punch a protester in the face or have him carried out on a stretcher. No modern politician who has come this close to the presidency has championed violence in this way. It would be disqualifying if our hyper­democracy hadn’t already abolished disqualifications.

Andrew Sullivan, “Democracies end when they are too democratic: And right now, America is a breeding ground for tyranny,” New York Magazine (May 2, 2016). [link]

This article is very long — and very worrisome — but well worth reading.

To be clear . . .

Posted on by albrooke

ScreenShot142I did not realize that “No, I don’t” would strike a nerve like that. I may have had more political conversations in the last four days than in the prior four months.

The people who disagreed said two things that bear response, because they are right:

1. “You can’t restrict yourself to voting only for people with whom you agree 100%.” This is absolutely true. Most of the votes I have cast in my life have been for people I agreed with only in part. But isn’t there a limit to this? I have come to think that there is and that some candidates do not meet the minimum.*

2. “The next President is going two be able to appoint two Supreme Court justices, and that is going to affect the country for the next 25 years, not just the next four.” This is, if anything, too weak. President Obama is going to nominate Justice Scalia’s replacement, and the next President may well nominate replacements for the three remaining Justices who are over 75 years old. That is a huge turnover in the Court, and it is very important. Before 2020, the Court may well consist of Justices Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Sotomayer, Kagan and four people we have not heard of. Nevertheless, I think we are going to have to trust God, not the candidate, for these selections.**

In the end, that is my real point.

The Republican Party has entirely lost control of its process and the Democratic Party seems never to have guessed that a 74-year old Senator might not make a 68-year old former First Lady, Senator, and Secretary of State look energetic and youthful.

But God has not lost control of anything at all.

 

*Should I say “my minimum” to be completely clear? I am not telling anyone “You cannot vote for Donald Trump,” or “You cannot vote for Hillary Clinton.” Maybe they sufficiently reflect your values and your sense of right and wrong. I am saying “I cannot vote for either, and there is no spiritual duty to vote pragmatically.”

**Of course, many Presidents have found that it is hard to guess how their Supreme Court appointments will turn out. Eisenhower was supposed to have said that his two biggest mistakes were sitting on the Supreme Court — Earl Warren and William Brennan.  These things are not entirely within human control.

No, I don’t.

Posted on by albrooke

ScreenShot141How many times have we all heard that it is our civic responsibility to vote, that if we are unhappy with our choices we have to make a pragmatic choice and pick the lesser of two evils?

I reject that position.

First, because you and I have a responsibility to do good and to worship God. There are real ethical dilemmas, but we must do good, not evil.

Second, because we don’t have only two choices, we have at least five. Assuming that things go as the polls suggest, we will all have a choice between the Democratic candidate, the Republican candidate, a variety of third-party candidates, a write-in candidate, or not voting. No matter which candidates the parties offer us, one of the latter two options would be permissible. (Of course, I am well aware that not voting is not practical. I do not put much stock in practicality when it is weighed against morality.)

Third, because the GOP, at least, needs to understand that this is unacceptable. Mr. Trump reflects rage and dissatisfaction, not statesmanship and leadership. (Ms. Clinton, to be fair, reflects the mainstream of the Democratic Party leadership, whether or not she reflects the core of the general population.)

Fourth, because I believe that there is power in prayer, and that God’s plans don’t develop along election cycles. Maybe this is exactly what’s necessary to bring both parties back to sanity and civility. Maybe this is what’s necessary to get believers to pray for those in power.*

Finally, there is still something that can be done — perhaps you can still vote in a primary against a candidate by voting for an acceptable candidate who is in second place. Perhaps you can write your political party and explain why they have lost your vote or registration. To be clear, if the Republican Party nominates Mr. Trump, I will change my registration to Independent. It is becoming increasingly difficult to accept that in any sense the GOP is representing me.

I have to vote?

No, I don’t.

I need to pray.

*1 Timothy 2:1-4 (ESV): “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, or kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior. who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”