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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 7/11/2003 12:44 PM (GMT -6) |   | I myself bought my first lottery ticket on Wednesday, a power-ball ticket, since according to Neil Lettinga(four and a half point calvinist history prof at Bethel, who was traditionally Greg Boyd's nemesis in Christianity and Western Culture) it isn't a sin to buy one lottery ticket since you are just giving God a chance to bless you. Although, buying two lottery tickets is a sin since it shows a lack of faith(from God's eyes all probabilities are subjective).
Anyways, I committed to God in advance that if God let me win that I would take the 90 million or so immediate payment and use it to run for the presidency(or to get a public figure like maybe Wesley Clark to run on my issues). I think there are a wide number of social conservative issues that the Republican party are ignoring/neglecting and that such a candidacy would be needed to draw attention to them. I also think that, given the 50-50 split in our country and the lack of charisma on the part of the Democratic candidates(with maybe the exception of Howard Dean who would never win against Bush), only if social conservatives develop more autonomy from the Republican party will the election be competitive.
So the candidacy would likely be a spoiler, but I think social conservatives demonstrating autonomy and a willingness to play the parties off of each other would guarantee that both parties will give more attention to the distinct issues they care about more. These could include ensuring the political compromise I suggest in other links regarding abortion, banning the advertisement of alcohol in the US, diminishing the sway of Hollywood's ability to propagate the worst aspects of US culture around the country and the world by setting up a progressive tax on movie advertisements, setting up a slight, but progressive, tax on all advertisements for the purpose of funding advertisements meant to make USAmericans care more about the poor in the under-developed world, ensuring the freedom of religion abroad(i.e. with China setting up potential reductions in their access to our markets if they continue to persecute religious minorities), undermining the dangerous propaganda of the gay-rights movement by granting couple, but not marriage, status so long as the commitments are longer-term, cracking down on tobacco-advertising world-wide, reducing our dependency on foreign oil so as to reduce funding for terrorism and corruption abroad.
I also believe that research in Economics has developed some ideas that would be helpful here in the US. In Mexico, there is a program called Progressa where they gave cash-transfers to the poor but in a distinctive way that tied the cash to the recipients accepting improved health-care and more education. Since there was insufficient funds for everyone to receive everything at once, what they did was randomize across regions and households who received the assistance for a couple of years. Then, they evaluated whether the assistance was truly helping or not by measuring and comparing the improvements between those who received the assistance and those who didn't. This demonstrated that the program was, in fact, having results and ensured its long-run viability. It also has helped its adaptation elsewhere in much of the world.
The same sort of program could be adopted to help the low-income regions of the US, of which there are many. Innovations in programs could be made to fractions of the different populations and then evaluated to see if they work. Doing this on a continuous basis over the long-run would like reduce the level of gov't "waste" and ensure some real poverty reduction.
The same could be done for reforming our tax-code. I.e., before giving a substantial tax-break that is supposed to provide incentives for investment or what-not, it would be good to randomize and evaluate just how responsive investors might be to such incentives.
Otherwise, one could end up with a deficit-widening tax-cut that would mostly be an income transfer to the rich. As it currently stands, the empirical evidence for such a response to the tax-cut is quite ambiguous, particularly right now with the general over-capacity of most industries.
So I would plead to the winners of the lottery, right the wrong of how such lotteries transfer money away from the poor, poorly educated(particularly in calculating expectations) and lead people to fantasize about how great life would be if they could get so much more stuff. Right the wrong by supporting the candidacy of a social conservative, economically-moderate candidate for the presidency. Then, maybe the world will see that "Evangelical" Christianity is in fact autonomous from both of the two main parties, having a higher allegiance and willing to risk some corruption from interacting with politics(even if it is dominated by Satan as Herr Boyd suggests). Hopefully, we might even be able to ban such lotteries since they undoubtedly focus people on materialism and distract from their true spiritual needs, in addition to robbing the poor to make a very few rich.
dlw
Prayer from Kenya
From the Cowardice that dare not face new truth,
From the Laziness that is contented with half-truth,
From the Arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Lord Deliver Me. | | Back to Top | | |
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 7/12/2003 8:39 AM (GMT -6) | | This article illustrates the need to compromise and defuse the homosexuality issue politically before it becomes another interminably divisive issue...
This is taken from the NewHour.
A Massachusetts court will rule over the next few days in the case of seven homosexual couples who have sued the state for the right to legally marry. Betty Ann Bowser reports on the gay marriage debate.
JULIE GOODRIDGE Are you ready?
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Hillary and Julie Goodridge have been together 16 years. The lesbian couple wanted to share the same last name so several years ago they legally changed it. In 1995, Julie was artificially inseminated and delivered their daughter Annie, now seven. So the Goodridges are a family in most all traditional ways except one: They are unable to legally marry, which they say is unfair.
JULIE GOODRIDGE: Because if I drop dead in the living room for example, Hillary has no right to have my body removed, regardless of the fact that she's my power of attorney and durable power of attorney. She has no right over my body.
HILLARY GOODRIDGE: For example, we are not considered kin to each other. We are not consider spouses. If either of us dies, becomes disabled, all things mostly that happen when you're older or things none of us want to think about, disability, death, bad things, accidents. It's in those times that you realize, I have no relationship to this person. If Julie were to die, it is possible would I have to sell the house because I would have to pay tax on the inheritance, which most spouses would not have to do and we have a child to protect, to consider too. So certainly raising Annie has brought all of this to the fore in a protective way for me that I never considered before.
The Supreme Court sodomy decision
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Last year, the Goodridges joined six other gay or lesbian couples and sued the state of Massachusetts. They claimed they were being discriminated against, being denied equal protection guaranteed under the state's constitution because the state did not allow them to get a marriage license. A decision in their case is expected any day.
This comes on the heels of a U.S. Supreme Court decision just weeks ago that invalidated a Texas law that made sodomy a crime. Harvard Law Professor Martha Minow says that doesn't automatically mean the next step is to legalize gay marriage, but she says courts are starting to show more acceptance of gay rights issues.
MARTHA MINOW, Harvard Law School: When the United States Supreme Court struck down the sodomy law this past month and said that this actually violates liberty, that is a recognition that we must tolerate practices that are performed privately by free individuals who are consenting. That, I think, is a first step in a free country toward what ultimately, I think will be equality, equal treatment.
It is true, as some commentators indicate, there is a difference between tolerance and equality. But I think the next step, once people start to realize these are people just like us. They're our neighbors, sending their kids to school. We are not allowed by law to discriminate against them, and in fact we see that they deserve the same kind of treatment in the country as everybody else.
The definition of "marriage"
BETTY ANN BOWSER: That's just what worries Ron Crews. He's a former minister and director of the Massachusetts Family Institute, a Christian conservative interest group. Crews says if gay marriage is permitted, it could lead to other more disturbing types of relationships.
RON CREWS, Massachusetts Family Institute: A word means a what it means. Marriage means the union of a man and a woman, and if that definition was changed, it's no longer marriage as far as I'm concerned. If they are successful in redefining marriage between a male and a female, then is the next step to redefine marriage to three people or four or what? What is the ultimate goal, and by what standard do either judges or legislators decide this word is going to be defined? How are they going to define this word?
BETTY ANN BOWSER: The Catholic Church has joined Crews' group in opposition to the Goodridge case. It filed a brief maintaining that marriage can only be between a man and a woman. Catholic Conference Associate Policy Director Dan Avila also argues that gay and lesbian couples are not being denied equal protection under the law.
DAN AVILA, Massachusetts Catholic Conference: When we talk of people who are not able to be married, we don't normally think of them as being demeaned. For example, a brother and a sister cannot get married. A grandparent and a grandchild cannot get married. Does that mean that we are sending the message that they are less than equal? That they are somehow as individuals not human beings with dignity? No, we don't normally make that equation.
Canada's marriage laws
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Claire Humphrey and Vickie Henry aren't waiting for arguments like that to be settled in the United States. The Boston couple has been together for nine years. In 1998 on the 4th of July, they had a religious marriage ceremony in Wellesley, complete with a minister and bridesmaids. But they have been unable to be legally married. After being artificially inseminated, Vickie gave birth to their daughter Lucy, 22 months ago.
Now they are expecting a son, and in two weeks they're going to Canada. That's because last month, the province of Ontario threw out a law that banned gay marriage. The province of British Columbia quickly followed suit. So Humphrey and Henry are getting married again, this time legally.
VICKIE HENRY: We are going to have a baby in a couple of months and there are always risks, although we hope everything will turn out, just fine with that. We want to put as many protections in place as we feel like we can.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: And they say if they were married, Humphrey would not have to go through a complicated adoption process like she did after Lucy was born.
CLAIRE HUMPHREY: I had to wait five months before I had any legal relationship to her, even though I'm her primary caretaker, until it came up on the court calendar. And that got pretty frightening because there was a time when Vicki was 3,000 miles away on a business trip, and as infants do, Lucy came down, out of nowhere, with a 103 fever. She was tiny. And I'm racing around the house trying to get to the pediatrician. And I had to go back and hope that the paperwork that I had was enough that I would be able to help her. I have never felt so helpless in my life, so inadequate in my life.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: But it's not clear whether a Canadian marriage license would be recognized in the United States. Still, conservatives are worried that courts are now engaging in judicial activism with gay marriage, and they want to curtail some of that authority.
The next civil rights battleground?
RON CREWS: I do believe that there's going to be a growing movement of folks that says, "Wait a minute. We didn't elect these judges to make laws." Our system says that they're to interpret, not make laws. And these actions have been exceeding the bounds that we believe they have the constitutional responsibility for.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Crews and others are trying to get the Massachusetts legislature to pass an amendment to the state's constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. It would be similar to so-called "Defense of Marriage Acts" passed by 37 other states. But whether that happens or not, Harvard's Minow says the issue of gay marriage will likely become the next major civil rights battleground facing America.
MARTHA MINOW: Family law has many functions, but the most important function is to reflect and guide the way people actually live. And if the law has no relationship to the way people are actually living, it will be ignored. This is a worldwide phenomenon. There is a growth of freedom and an exercise of freedom by people to choose how to live and with whom to be intimate, and if people are living in an intimate relationship, the law has to eventually come to recognize that.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: But couples like the Goodridges are concerned. They know conservative lawmakers in Washington have started a movement to pass a constitutional amendment that would make heterosexual marriage the law of the land.
dlw
Prayer from Kenya
From the Cowardice that dare not face new truth,
From the Laziness that is contented with half-truth,
From the Arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Lord Deliver Me. | | Back to Top | | |
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GregBoyd
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
| Posted 7/16/2003 8:26 PM (GMT -6) | | DLW: This article illustrates the need to compromise and defuse the homosexuality issue politically before it becomes another interminably divisive issue...
Doc: Herr DLW, what compromise would you propose here? Just curious.
"The responsibility is with the chooser -- God is blameless." Plato, Republic, 10. | | Back to Top | | |
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 7/17/2003 5:18 AM (GMT -6) | | Give gay-couples most of the benefits and legal rights given to couples but not recognition as marriage and skew the benefits so as to favor longer-term relationships. I.e., one could make "divorce" and "re-coupling" more difficult.
The point is that there are aspects of the languague/reasoning of the gay-rights movement that are quite non-Christian:biological determinism and libertarianism("It shouldn't be wrong to love someone"). I go into this more in the constitutional amendment link, but I think the situation is that there is real things in conflict in the cultural wars and that by giving in on the economic/political stuff(which doesn't mean that I don't personally believe they shouldn't have the above. Clearly denying them isn't convincing anyone to go "straight".), social conservatives can regain the moral ground for their heterosexist positions.
dlw
I-uh-scream-uh,
You-uh-scream-uh,
We-all-uh-sceam-uh for
Ice-uh-cream-uh!!!
Roberto Bernigni in
Down by Law.
ahehmAmericanzituhsen! This,varrrrrybaadfuryur
Cuntry! Varrrrrrrybaadfuryur
Cuntry!
Roberto Benigni in
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Tigress
Registered Member
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1252
| Posted 7/21/2003 6:09 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Give gay-couples most of the benefits and legal rights given to couples but not recognition as marriage and skew the benefits so as to favor longer-term relationships. I.e., one could make "divorce" and "re-coupling" more difficult.
The point is that there are aspects of the languague/reasoning of the gay-rights movement that are quite non-Christian:biological determinism and libertarianism("It shouldn't be wrong to love someone"). I go into this more in the constitutional amendment link, but I think the situation is that there is real things in conflict in the cultural wars and that by giving in on the economic/political stuff(which doesn't mean that I don't personally believe they shouldn't have the above. Clearly denying them isn't convincing anyone to go "straight".), social conservatives can regain the moral ground for their heterosexist positions.
dlw
I-uh-scream-uh,
You-uh-scream-uh,
We-all-uh-sceam-uh for
Ice-uh-cream-uh!!!
Roberto Bernigni in
Down by Law.
ahehmAmericanzituhsen! This,varrrrrybaadfuryur
Cuntry! Varrrrrrrybaadfuryur
Cuntry!
Roberto Benigni in
Johnny Stecchenino.
DLW,
Why don't you just run for an office like Senator or something? It seems like you have so many ideas, and if you moved up the political ladder, maybe you'd even make it to president! Then I could say, "I used to bug the heck out of that guy when he was nothing but a long-winded message poster on a website!" Hee hee! 
Tigress
The Angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and He delivers them.
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 7/21/2003 12:41 PM (GMT -6) | | Well sometime when I was at the beginning of my 2nd year of grad school, I went on a trip to Washington D.C. with some friends. They had a recorder with them and made a tape that has my singing our nat'l anthem in front of the nation's capitol the way it was it meant to be sung originally, as a bar song way way out of pitch. As long as said tape still circulates anywhere I'm afraid I have too big of a skeleton in my closet to run for office.
I did right up my own party platform, the Christian Pragmatic Progressive Party, on election day of last year out of disgust with the two main parties and the failure of the Independence Party in MN.
A lot of the above was in that, although I focus here on issues that social/religious conservatives should be in conflict with economic conservatives over.
Or to make a long-story short, it takes money to run a third-party and I don't have money and I am supposed to do research as a professor occasionally and so my political delusions do not contribute to that, but I still believe that democracy would be more viable in the US if social conservatives would develop better habits of political reflection/activism and an independence from the Republican party, which is/has taken its votes for granted while makings legislative priorities on economic conservative issues.
But thanks for the encouragement and you don't bug me half as much as I probably have bugged you...
dlw
I-uh-scream-uh,
You-uh-scream-uh,
We-all-uh-sceam-uh for
Ice-uh-cream-uh!!!
Roberto Bernigni in
Down by Law.
ahehmAmericanzituhsen! This,varrrrrybaadfuryur
Cuntry! Varrrrrrrybaadfuryur
Cuntry!
Roberto Benigni in
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Eli
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2003
Total Posts : 44
| Posted 7/22/2003 5:19 PM (GMT -6) | | You could always reject Christianity and become a Freemason. *cackle* I always enjoy discussions about the "society of secrets". What have the geniuses of CVM to say on the topic?
"...it is fools, they say, who learn by experience. But since they do at least learn, let a fool bring his experience into the common stock that wiser men may profit by it." -C.S. Lewis
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 7/23/2003 5:23 AM (GMT -6) | | If they did they wouldn't say(It's a secret!).
dlw
I-uh-scream-uh,
You-uh-scream-uh,
We-all-uh-sceam-uh for
Ice-uh-cream-uh!!!
Roberto Bernigni in
Down by Law.
ahehmAmericanzituhsen! This,varrrrrybaadfuryur
Cuntry! Varrrrrrrybaadfuryur
Cuntry!
Roberto Benigni in
Johnny Stecchenino. | | Back to Top | | |
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