Where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation

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Many Democrats wonder what happened to their party since the days of President Grover Cleveland. Cleveland was the leader of the pro-business Bourbon Democrats who opposed high tariffs, Free Silver, inflation, imperialism, and subsidies to business, farmers, or veterans. His crusade for political reform and fiscal conservatism made him an icon for American conservatives of the era. Cleveland won praise for his honesty, self-reliance, integrity, and commitment to the principles of classical liberalism. He relentlessly fought political corruption, patronage and bossism. Indeed, as a reformer his prestige was so strong that the like-minded wing of the Republican Party, called “Mugwumps“, joined with him.

Many have written about the growing number of Americans who are dependent on the government for their livelihood.

The growth of government programs since Cleveland including FDR’s “New Deal”, President Johnson’s “Great Society” and President Obama’s Affordable Care Act are in the news of late. The Great Society’s programs expanded under the administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Presidents Clinton, G.W. Bush and Obama have added to the size and scope of government.

Perhaps it is appropriate to revisit how government expansion, taken to its ultimate end, impacts an entire society.

Leon_trotsky

Leon Trotsky

In November, 2009  wrote a column titled “The Evil of Leon Trotsky Revisited“. Ilya’s column has relevance today. Here it is for your edification:

Two of Leon Trotsky’s best-known quotes are his statement that “Where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation” (made famous, especially among libertarians, in part because it was quoted by Hayek in The Road to Serfdom), and the very next sentence in the same paragraph: “The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced with a new one: who does not obey shall not eat.” My GMU colleague Bryan Caplan helpfully provides the context of these quotes, from Trotsky’s 1936 book, The Revolution Betrayed:

During these years [since Stalin took power in the USSR] hundreds of Oppositionists, both Russian and foreign, have been shot, or have died of hunger strikes, or have resorted to suicide. Within the last twelve years, the authorities have scores of times announced to the world the final rooting out of the opposition. But during the “purgations” in the last month of 1935 and the first half of 1936, hundreds of thousands of members of the [Communist] party were again expelled, among them several tens of thousands of “Trotskyists.” The most active were immediately arrested and thrown into prisons and concentration camps. As to the rest, Stalin, through Pravda, openly advised the local organs not to give them work. In a country where the sole employer is the state, this means death by slow starvation. The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced with a new one: who does not obey shall not eat.

Bryan points out that this context doesn’t reflect well on a man who is still admired by many leftists and even a few ex-leftist conservatives:

Worth noticing: While Trotsky meant what libertarians think he meant, the man’s sheer evil still shines through. He doesn’t mind if the socialist state starves human beings. He was delighted to wield this power when ran the Red Army. No, Trotsky is outraged because the Soviet Union is turning its totalitarian might upon fellow Communists. Was there ever a better time to snark that “Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword”?

As I explained in this series of posts, Trotsky was a brutal mass murderer who objected to political repression only when it targeted his fellow communists. He also opposed Stalin in part because he thought Stalin wasn’t repressive enough. Any residual admiration for Trotsky is sorely misplaced.

Nonetheless, the translation of The Revolution Betrayed quoted by Bryan seems to be less damning than the wording quoted by Hayek. In Hayek’s version, Trotsky is quoted as writing that “Where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation” (emphasis added). Since Trotsky of course favored an economic system where the state is the sole employer, this version of the quote implies that he also favored the inevitable “slow starvation” of oppositionists. By contrast, the translation linked by Bryan states that “Where the sole employer is the State, this [referring to Stalin’s policy of denying employment to oppositionists] means death by slow starvation.” The translation quoted by Bryan doesn’t seem to say that opposition means death by starvation in any society where the state is the sole employer, but only if that state is governed by Stalin’s policy of denying work to “oppositionists.” And, as we can see later in the same chapter, Trotsky did not propose to abolish the government’s monopoly over employment, but merely to replace the Stalinist “bureaucratic” class with a different set of economic central planners. The latter might potentially have a more liberal policy on employing oppositionists. Which version is correct? The only way to tell is to check the original Russian text of The Revolution Betrayed. If anyone can find it online, please let me know and I would be happy to do the checking myself.

Even the more charitable version of this passage still doesn’t paint Trotsky in a flattering light. After all, as Bryan notes, the only “oppositionists” whose right to dissent Trotsky wanted to protect were communists who disagreed with Stalin’s party line. Towards the end of the same chapter of The Revolution Betrayed, Trotsky calls for “a revival of freedom of Soviet parties, beginning with the party of Bolsheviks.” Non-Soviet (i.e. – non-communist) parties need not apply. He had no objection to the “slow starvation” (or even outright execution) of non-communist oppositionists, including even non-communist socialists. Indeed, when he was still in power, Trotsky often ordered such starvation and execution of political opponents himself.

UPDATE: I have found the Russian text of The Revolution Betrayed online here. In my judgment as a native speaker of the language, the Russian version is closer to the translation cited by Bryan than the one used by Hayek. Here is the original Russian text of the relevant sentence:

В стране, где единственным работодателем является государство, эта мера означает медленную голодную
смерть. Старый принцип: кто не работает, тот не ест, заменен новым: кто не повинуется, тот не ест.

Here’s my own translation:

In a country where the state is the sole employer, this policy [referring to Stalin’s policy] means a slow death by starvation [for oppositionists]. The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced with a new one: who does not obey shall not eat.

The key Russian phrase “эта мера” literally means “this measure.”

UPDATE #2: Some commenters on this and previous posts about Trotsky ask whether anyone really admires Trotsky anymore. In reality, quite a few modern leftists still do. Christopher Hitchens (see here and here) is one example. As Clive James points out, Trotsky “lived on for decades as the unassailable hero of aesthetically minded progressives who wished to persuade themselves that there could be a vegetarian version of communism.”

Black conservative leaders: NRA created to protect freed slaves

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A year ago Black conservative leaders discussed how the NRA was created to protect freed slaves. These Black conservative leaders discuss the reason the NRA was founded and how gun control is an effort to control people. This is the full version of that discussion:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/jKMi023Ofro[/youtube]

 

The Center for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE) hosted a group of prominent figures from the African American community at 9:45 a.m. on Friday, February 22nd [2013] at the National Press Club to speak out against gun control legislation currently being considered on Capitol Hill.

CURE is the largest black conservative think tank in the nation and is headquartered in Washington, D.C.

CURE organized the news conference in response to concerns shared by black conservatives that the Senate proposed laws will restrict their ability to defend themselves, their property and their families. They are also concerned that the proposed gun control legislation puts too much power in the hands of politicians.

“I believe that it is our duty to stand together and challenge the proposals currently on the table in the Senate, which invoke painful memories of Jim Crow laws and black codes,” said CURE president and founder, Star Parker. “Black history is rife with government demands for background checks in order to qualify for constitutional rights. All Americans should be concerned.”

Star Parker, a nationally syndicated columnist and other noted thought leaders, authors and speakers will make the case against the type of gun control measures President Obama and his liberal allies are proposing. While the group believes that Sandy Hook was a national tragedy, they oppose its use as an opportunity to advance government control and strip any American citizens of their constitutional rights. In the middle of Black History Month, CURE is calling for a serious national dialogue about the impact of gun control on the black community.

“We want to inform United States senators that we will be notifying urban pastors, business leaders and other black voters of their legislators’ position on the Second Amendment—especially blue senators in red states currently up for re-election.” The news conference is to rally behind the tradition of former slave and great American orator Frederick Douglass who said, “A man’s rights rest in three boxes: the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.”

DAFR fights for the inalienable firearms rights of responsible disabled Americans. Disabled Americans have unique needs when exercising their 2nd Amendment rights. The mission of DAFR is intertwined within five basic areas of focus.

These areas consist of:

1. The introduction of firearms for self-defense to disabled Americans.
2. Shooting sports program and organized competition for disabled Americans and wounded veterans.
3. Oversee firearms legislation and research their impact on Americans with disabilities.
4. Offer assistance to responsible disabled Americans in order to exercise their 2nd Amendment right.
5. Educating the public and elected officials about how disabled American firearms owners have unique needs that must be met when exercising their 2nd Amendment right.

We have also become concerned with recent legislation that is proposed throughout the United States in reaction to the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut. With that, our organization has taken a clear stand on various bills, public acts and proposed laws that we deem would be disadvantageous to responsible disabled firearms owners. DAFR intends to shed light on the fact that many Disabled Americans can only use certain types of firearms such as the highly adaptable AR 15 rifle platform. A ban or other serious restrictions on the AR 15 rifle as well as certain other firearms will have an adverse effect on the rights of thousands of disabled Americans.

RELATED LINKS:

http://www.dafr.org

http://www.facebook.com/DAFRUSA

http://www.twitter.com/DAFRUSA

Disabled Americans for Firearms Rights: http://www.dafr.org.

A Libertarian Frank Underwood by Elijah O’Kelly

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If you’re involved or even interested in politics and haven’t heard about House of Cards, then it’s likely that neither you nor your friends own a TV, a tablet, or a smart phone.

The series, one of Netflix’s new in-house production, portrays the ruthless, power hungry politician Frank Underwood. In addition to its critical acclaim, it has become a staple in the conversations of political activists everywhere. Watching as a libertarian, his nearly every action is reprehensible. Underwood acts solely to increase his own power, never shying away from doing immoral things, and he consistently pushes legislation that increases the scope of government. He is a libertarian nightmare. And yet we can’t help but be entranced by him.

But what if Frank Underwood was a libertarian? At first thought, the idea is a complete paradox. His blatant acts of aggression and his vision of power as an end rather than a means are contradictory to the underlying principles of libertarianism. Yet if Underwood viewed power as a means to accomplish libertarian policies rather than an end to satisfy personal desires, it wouldn’t be so easy to despise him. A plethora of valid critiques can be launched at him, but it is indisputable that he has a talent for getting things done.

Imagine if instead of education and entitlement reform, Underwood had pulled strings, twisted arms, and manipulated politicians in order to pass something like a repeal of the Federal Reserve Act or a decriminalization of drugs. It might be hard for libertarians to be smug. The bottom line is that Underwood’s talent for increasing his own power could be very effective if modified and applied by a real life counterpart trying to create libertarian change.

A mental exercise like this doesn’t typically mean much in reality, but the truth is that it offers insight into the current direction of the liberty movement. There are two main methodologies that people subscribe to for creating libertarian change. One seeks to rely mainly on educational efforts, sometimes even abstaining from voting or any political activity, to create gradual change towards a freer society. The other emphasizes political activism to sway elections and build alliances with different groups in order to pass libertarian legislation. Both are vital for a movement and some libertarians effectively use a combination of both approaches. But if we picture the effect a libertarian Frank Underwood could have on the direction of the country, the superior approach becomes obvious.

As unfortunate as it is, government bureaucrats and their cronies won’t change their behavior because they get handed copies of Human Action. Politicians won’t begin following the Constitution because they got mailed a pocket-sized version of it. The government will continue to pass legislation violating everything libertarians stand for until someone has enough power to stop it. Gaining and keeping this power may very likely entail manipulative schemes to thwart more statist peers. It may be contrary to what every libertarian, myself included, wishes the situation could be, but a failure to “play the game” means a failure to make change.

Envisioning a figure like a libertarian Frank Underwood makes it clear what the impact of a master politician who pursues libertarian legislation could be. This isn’t to suggest that all libertarians must attempt to emulate Underwood or that those in politics should try to mold themselves into replicas of him. But questions about purity—doctrinal or otherwise—rarely touch on how the sausage gets made. At some point, some libertarians are going to have to get their hands dirty.

There are, of course, limits to this. Underwood the character commits acts of inhumanity that no amount of legislative achievement could justify and that no honest libertarian would participate in. There are also worries about the corruptive nature of power and if a libertarian could actually avoid succumbing to its temptations. After all, how much of one’s soul must be sold off to achieve such heights of power? In a reality that television writers don’t have to face, a libertarian Underwood might be impossible. Yet, for those who dare to fight the beasts in their own lair, taking a cue from Underwood and outfoxing politicians could lead to enormous gains for libertarian causes. And so the question becomes: What ends justify what means? Or, where on the continuum has the libertarian politician gone too far?

The extent to which a libertarian Frank Underwood deserves our support has no simple answer, but it’s a question we have to ask ourselves as we begin to aspire to political offices. In any case, we cannot dispute that a willingness to “play the game” is absolutely vital if the Liberty Movement has any hope of moving out of the Internet’s basement and into the statute books.

ABOUT ELIJAH O’KELLEY

Elijah O’Kelley is currently interning with Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) where he works to spread the ideas of liberty on college campuses.

Some Very Good News About Americans

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We are all besieged daily by bad news. It is easy to become depressed about the present state of the nation, but there is some very good news as well.

This is not to say there aren’t legitimate problems and concerns. The last two elections put a President in office that lies all the time. The nation’s economy has been so awful that 100 million Americans are either out of work or have ceased looking for work. Democrat political leaders are actually telling Americans that being unemployed is a good thing because it leaves them free to pursue their hobbies.

The President has been pursuing a campaign to make Americans believe that there is massive income inequality when, in fact, there is relatively little. There has always been a very wealthy class and a very poor one. What there is, however, is a loss of wealth primarily in the Middle Class. As for poverty, America has long provided income mobility to those who wish to study and work hard to improve their status.

What is rarely addressed is the seething power of American entrepreneurship which, at present, is trapped by a largely socialist federal government imposing a mountain of regulations that thwart growth and take money from the private sector that would otherwise be invested in the creation or expansion of business and industry nationwide.

Americans have repeatedly suffered, survived, and overcome financial crises to come back to build the greatest economy in the world. Part of the reason for this are the long established values that Americans of every description embrace.

That is why Wayne Baker’s new book, “United America: The Surprising truth about American values, American identity and the 10 beliefs that a large majority of Americans hold dear” is a welcome review that the author’s extensive research confirms.

The beliefs are:

  • Respect for others
  • Symbolic patriotism
  • Freedom
  • Security
  • Self-Reliance & Individualism
  • Equal Opportunity
  • Getting ahead
  • Pursuit of happiness
  • Justice & Fairness
  • Critical patriotism

Cover - United AmericaA journalist, David Crumm provides an introduction to Baker’s book. “Dr. Baker defines a Core American Value (as one) that is strongly held by a large majority of Americans, stable over time, and shared across diverse demographic, religious and political lines…Here a core value represents an area of deep and broad consensus among American people, not disagreement and division. A core value is not a prescription of what Americans ought to believe, but what Americans actually do believe.”

The research supporting Dr. Baker’s book was conducted over two years by the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research and was funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Institute. The data was analyzed with a battery of statistical techniques to ensure the validity and reliability of the results.

Touching on a few of the values addressed in the book, Dr. Baker starts with respect for others which he describes as “so important that it actually characterizes what it means to be an American…More than 90 percent of Americans in the national surveys I conducted said that respect for people of different racial and ethnic groups is important to them.”

“Respect is given to people who do what they say, who live according to what they believe, who are persons of integrity. A position or title doesn’t necessarily garner respect, but integrity does” says Dr. Baker and that is bad news for those identified as “leaders” or “experts” who do not display integrity. Telling lies undermines everything they say and do.

“We have what appears to be a contradictory situation,” says Dr. Baker. “Politicians, political elites, and party activists are increasingly polarized, moving further apart from one another. Yet public opinion polls clearly show that Americans loathe the divisiveness. And the values of Americans are not polarized.”

“There is widespread agreement among Americans when it comes to core values. Which means our polarizing politicians are becoming less and less representative or our actual views.”

A review of those core values show that Americans love their symbolic patriotism such as our flag and our national anthem. “Love of country is especially strong in America” says Dr. Baker.

“Americans hold tenaciously to the principles of liberty and freedom,” says Dr. Baker. “A 2013 poll by the Pew Research Center shows that 53 percent of Americans see the federal government as a threat to personal rights and freedoms. This is the first time since Pew started asking about this issue in 1995 that a majority felt this way.”

Little wonder when one recalls the assault on the Second Amendment that was launched by the Obama administration and one that failed significantly. Recent news of the Federal Communications Commission’s plans to “monitor” radio and television news judgments evoked a comparable response.

Freedom to participate in politics and elections evoked a response in which 98 percent of Americans agree with this definition of freedom and it stands in stark contrast to the Obama administration’s corruption of the Internal Revenue Service to deny Tea Party and patriot groups non-profit status routinely granted to other groups.

As one reads Dr. Baker’s book, one comes away with a renewed confidence in the judgment of Americans, confirming that their core values are those that have made America a beacon of freedom in the world.

And that’s the very good news!

© Alan Caruba, 2014

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of an American Bald Eagle taken at the Hoogle Zoo in UT taken by Therightclicks.

Um, Scarcity? by Sandy Ikeda

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The new mayor of New York wants to make city streets safer. According to The New York Times:

Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday unveiled a sweeping set of proposals aimed at improving street safety in New York City, pledging considerable police resources and even precious political capital in Albany to a most ambitious goal: eliminating traffic deaths.

Not just lowering traffic deaths, mind you. Eliminating them.

I posed the following question to my students: If His Honor did manage to eliminate all traffic deaths in the city, how might that policy actually raise the total number of deaths? The answer lies in understanding a very basic lesson in economics: Scarcity matters.

What Is Scarcity?

Scarcity is what gives something economic value. Scarcity results when our wants exceed available, want-satisfying resources. The air we breathe outside is ordinarily not scarce, while the air we need to breathe underwater usually is. Consequently, to those who want air to breathe, the value of outside air is low while the value of underwater air is high.

Although we are often tempted to ignore scarcity, it’s impossible to escape its consequences. For example, there are not enough hours in a day to consume as much leisure as I want and also to earn as much income as I want. But the more I work the less time is left for leisure, and vice versa. Scarcity entails trading off some ends for other ends.

Now, if I’m spending my own private resources to pursue ends of my choosing—to buy a shirt for myself or a gift for someone else—scarcity is hard to ignore. But it’s much easier to overlook if I’m spending someone else’s valuable resources—when someone else is footing the bill. And because modern governments sustain themselves precisely by spending other people’s resources (acquired through taxation or inflation), public officials are far more likely to ignore scarcity and its consequences than a private person is. They may not be aware of the costs of a choice, but those costs always fall on someone, somewhere.

I argued recently that you can almost define economics as “the science that explains why passing a law won’t get it done” because the unintended consequences of a government intervention tend to frustrate what its advocates want to achieve. In that essay I emphasized how an intervention generates unintended consequences because society is so complex. But often the problem is simply that public officials ignore the existence of scarcity. If they spend more of the government budget on traffic control, that means spending less on preventing violent crime, and they may not like the results.

Political Rhetoric or Social Science Fiction?

So when I read about de Blasio’s plan, it caught my eye. The article goes on to say:

The 42-page plan is rooted in a Swedish street safety approach known as Vision Zero, which treats all traffic deaths as inherently preventable. Perhaps the most significant changes involve the New York Police Department, whose officers will increase precinct-level enforcement of speeding.

I’ve developed a soft spot for Sweden lately because it has taken major steps at the macroeconomic level toward a freer economy.

We here in the United States should learn from these steps. So I visited the website of Vision Zero and found much to like in their approach, which tries to take into account the imperfection of human behavior. They claim that safety in Sweden has improved, presumably as a result of Vision Zero.

The trouble begins when you look closely at the underlying philosophy.

The first is the idea that “no loss of life is acceptable” if it’s caused by traffic. But why stop there? Why should traffic deaths be less acceptable than deaths by poisoning or by drowning or from the flu or from a myriad of other causes? The same arguments they make for eliminating traffic deaths could be made for those. But Vision Zero doesn’t make them, perhaps because if they did it might direct scarce resources away from their pet project, or because at some level they realize that it’s too costly to eliminate all accidental deaths.

Second, Vision Zero places the bulk of the responsibility for safety not on the imperfect driver or pedestrian but on the less imperfect “professionals” in charge. Aside from the uncomfortable paternalistic overtones of that attitude, as I explained in the column I reference earlier, making driver “safer” can cause more accidents. In order to minimize accidents, the driver and pedestrian must bear the costs of their actions, otherwise they have an incentive to act recklessly.

At any rate, in each of these cases the VZ folks can’t possibly mean what they are saying because it utterly ignores scarcity. The spokesperson says that people should be able to demand (and presumably get) freedom, mobility, and safety all at once. Since what Vision Zero is purportedly aiming for is perfect safety—which is what is supposed to make the approach novel—then he must also mean perfect freedom and perfect mobility as well. In world of scarcity, that’s fantasy, or to be more precise, it’s social science fiction.

Surely, it’s only political rhetoric. At least I hope so. But there’s another problem with Vision Zero.

Ought Implies Can

If drivers and pedestrians who put their lives at risk still make mistakes, why should we assume that traffic professionals who don’t have as much to lose won’t also make mistakes? They can’t possibly anticipate every contingency, nor would we want them to if the cost is going to be sky high. Everyone makes choices that might contribute to an accident.  But why can’t an accident, even a terrible one, simply be an accident? Why does it have to be somebody’s fault, every time? I think this is wrong-headed.

I’m not saying that lowering traffic deaths isn’t a good thing. But making it a moral problem, by placing the main responsibility for saving lives on experts, is confused. Morality is related to economy, of course, but probably not in the way its proponents think.

As my colleague Steve Horwitz put it, “Ought implies can.” Economic concepts such as scarcity help us get a handle on what’s possible, the set of feasible choices, from among which we can choose. The “eliminate deaths” approach ignores the feasible and goes right to what we would like to see. Sure, bringing the number of traffic deaths to zero would be great, if it could be done at a reasonable cost. But I can say with assurance that the cost would not be reasonable.

That’s because “pledging considerable police resources” to eliminate traffic deaths necessarily means drawing police and other resources (for narrowing streets or installing devices that will penalize taxis for speeding) away from other areas, such as monitoring thefts or preventing violent crime and so on. In that way, Vision Zero could wind up taking away more life than it saves. The total effect would be an empirical question.

The mayor points out that last year there were 176 pedestrian deaths in the city. That works out to about 2.2 deaths per 100,000 persons, which is significantly higher than the national average of 1.58 deaths. Now, New York City has an above-average number of pedestrians per 100,000 persons, which might explain much of the difference, but it might be a good thing anyway to try to lower that number to somewhere closer to the national average. And that’s where people get uncomfortable with economists because we’ll often talk about the “optimal” number of deaths in such a case.

But when we say something is optimal, we’re not trying to morally justify those deaths. We’re only trying to make it clearer what the realm of the possible is—what we can do. Can we do better with existing resources? Almost certainly; our knowledge is never perfect and there’s always room for improvement. Can we increase government resources by increasing taxation and through inflation? Yes, we can!

That won’t solve the fundamental problem though. Even with a bigger budget, scarcity and the hard choices it entails won’t go away. The sooner real-world governments and their supporters realize it the better.

ABOUT SANDY IKEDA

Sandy Ikeda is an associate professor of economics at Purchase College, SUNY, and the author of The Dynamics of the Mixed Economy: Toward a Theory of Interventionism. He will be speaking at the FEE summer seminars “People Aren’t Pawns” and “Are Markets Just?“

Pat Condell: There’s no Racist like a Liberal Racist

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“Progressive” used to mean socially enlightened and forward looking. Now it’s just another word for a creepy liberal racist.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/vz4PjxSmtoI[/youtube]

 

Good piece by Nick Cohen on liberal racists and the harm they do
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/nick-coh…
Liberal intellectuals are frightened of challenging Islam’s honour-shame culture
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/ric…

Muslim opinion polls: Challenging the “tiny minority of extremists” myth
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pag…

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Milton Friedman on America’s Haves and Have-nots

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Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman talks about the state of inequality in America, what he calls a system of haves and have-nots. Learn more about Milton Friedman, school choice, and his legacy the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice at http://www.edchoice.org.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/yEQl3zW9NZ4[/youtube]

Baroness Margaret Thatcher on the Moral Foundation of Democracy

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Margaret Thatcher was born in 1925 and went on to earn a degree in chemistry from Somerville College, Oxford, as well as a master of arts degree from the University of Oxford. For some years she worked as a research chemist and then as a barrister, specializing in tax law. Elected to the House of Commons in 1953, she later held several ministerial appointments. She was elected leader of the Conservative Party and thus leader of the Opposition in 1975.

She became Britain’s first female prime minister in 1979 and served her nation in this historic role until her resignation in 1990. In 1992, she was elevated to the House of Lords to become Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven. The first volume of her memoirs, The Downing Street Years, was published in 1993 by HarperCollins.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/bb1sgMoYb70[/youtube]

EDITORS NOTE: The following transcript is from the concluding lecture given on November 1994  by Lady Thatcher delivered at the Hillsdale Center for Constructive Alternatives seminar, “God and Man: Perspectives on Christianity in the 20th Century” before an audience of 2,500 students, faculty, and guests. In an edited version of that lecture, she examines how the Judeo-Christian tradition has provided the moral foundations of America and other nations in the West and contrasts their experience with that of the former Soviet Union.

The Moral Foundations of the American Founding

History has taught us that freedom cannot long survive unless it is based on moral foundations. The American founding bears ample witness to this fact. America has become the most powerful nation in history, yet she uses her power not for territorial expansion but to perpetuate freedom and justice throughout the world.

For over two centuries, Americans have held fast to their belief in freedom for all men—a belief that springs from their spiritual heritage. John Adams, second president of the United States, wrote in 1789, “Our Constitution was designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.” That was an astonishing thing to say, but it was true.

What kind of people built America and thus prompted Adams to make such a statement? Sadly, too many people, especially young people, have a hard time answering that question. They know little of their own history (This is also true in Great Britain.) But America’s is a very distinguished history, nonetheless, and it has important lessons to teach us regarding the necessity of moral foundations.

John Winthrop, who led the Great Migration to America in the early 17th century and who helped found the Massachusetts Bay Colony, declared, “We shall be as a City upon a Hill.” On the voyage to the New World, he told the members of his company that they must rise to their responsibilities and learn to live as God intended men should live: in charity, love, and cooperation with one another. Most of the early founders affirmed the colonists were infused with the same spirit, and they tried to live in accord with a Biblical ethic. They felt they weren’t able to do so in Great Britain or elsewhere in Europe. Some of them were Protestant, and some were Catholic; it didn’t matter. What mattered was that they did not feel they had the liberty to worship freely and, therefore, to live freely, at home. With enormous courage, the first American colonists set out on a perilous journey to an unknown land—without government subsidies and not in order to amass fortunes but to fulfill their faith.

Christianity is based on the belief in a single God as evolved from Judaism. Most important of all, the faith of America’s founders affirmed the sanctity of each individual. Every human life—man or woman, child or adult, commoner or aristocrat, rich or poor—was equal in the eyes of the Lord. It also affirmed the responsibility of each individual.

This was not a faith that allowed people to do whatever they wished, regardless of the consequences. The Ten Commandments, the injunction of Moses (“Look after your neighbor as yourself”), the Sermon on the Mount, and the Golden Rule made Americans feel precious—and also accountable—for the way in which they used their God-given talents. Thus they shared a deep sense of obligation to one another. And, as the years passed, they not only formed strong communities but devised laws that would protect individual freedom—laws that would eventually be enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

Freedom with Responsibility

Great Britain, which shares much of her history in common with America, has also derived strength from its moral foundations, especially since the 18th century when freedom gradually began to spread throughout her socie!y Many people were greatly influenced by the sermons of John Wesley (1703-1791), who took the Biblical ethic to the people in a way which the institutional church itself had not done previously.

But we in the West must also recognize our debt to other cultures. In the pre-Christian era, for example, the ancient philosophers like Plato and Aristotle had much to contribute to our understanding of such concepts as truth, goodness, and virtue. They knew full well that responsibility was the price of freedom. Yet it is doubtful whether truth, goodness, and virtue founded on reason alone would have endured in the same way as they did in the West, where they were based upon a Biblical ethic.

Sir Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, wrote tellingly of the collapse of Athens, which was the birthplace of democracy. He judged that, in the end, more than they wanted freedom, the Athenians wanted security. Yet they lost everything—security, comfort, and freedom. This was because they wanted not to give to society, but for society to give to them. The freedom they were seeking was freedom from responsibility. It is no wonder, then, that they ceased to be free. In the modern world, we should recall the Athenians’ dire fate whenever we confront demands for increased state paternalism.

To cite a more recent lesson in the importance of moral foundations, we should listen to Czech President Vaclav Havel, who suffered grievously for speaking up for freedom when his nation was still under the thumb of communism. He has observed, “In everyone there is some longing for humanity’s rightful dignity, for moral integrity, and for a sense that transcends the world of existence.” His words suggest that in spite of all the dread terrors of communism, it could not crush the religious fervor of the peoples of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

So long as freedom, that is, freedom with responsibility, is grounded in morality and religion, it will last far longer than the kind that is grounded only in abstract, philosophical notions. Of course, many foes of morality and religion have attempted to argue that new scientific discoveries make belief in God obsolete, but what they actually demonstrate is the remarkable and unique nature of man and the universe. It is hard not to believe that these gifts were given by a divine Creator, who alone can unlock the secrets of existence.

Societies Without Moral Foundations

The most important problems we have to tackle today are problems, ultimately, having to do with the moral foundations of society There are people who eagerly accept their own freedom but do not respect the freedom of others—they, like the Athenians, want freedom from responsibility. But if they accept freedom for themselves, they must respect the freedom of others. If they expect to go about their business unhindered and to be protected from violence, they must not hinder the business of or do violence to others.

They would do well to look at what has happened in societies without moral foundations. Accepting no laws but the laws of force, these societies have been ruled by totalitarian ideologies like Nazism, fascism, and communism, which do not spring from the general populace, but are imposed on it by intellectual elites.

It was two members of such an elite, Marx and Lenin, who conceived of “dialectical materialism,” the basic doctrine of communism. It robs people of all freedom—from freedom of worship to freedom of ownership. Marx and Lenin desired to substitute their will not only for all individual will but for God’s will. They wanted to plan everything; in short, they wanted to become gods. Theirs was a breathtakingly arrogant creed, and it denied above all else the sanctity of human life.

The 19th century French economist and philosopher Frederic Bastiat once warned against this creed. He questioned those who, “though they are made of the same human clay as the rest of us, think they can take away all our freedoms and exercise them on our behalf.” He would have been appalled but not surprised that the communists of the 20th century took away the freedom of millions of individuals, starting with the freedom to worship. The communists viewed religion as “the opiate of the people.” They seized Bibles as well as all other private property at gun point and murdered at least 10 million souls in the process.

Thus 20th century Russia entered into the greatest experiment in government and atheism the world had ever seen, just as America several centuries earlier had entered into the world’s greatest experiment in freedom and faith.

Communism denied all that the Judeo-Christian tradition taught about individual worth, human dignity, and moral responsibility. It was not surprising that it collapsed after a relatively brief existence. It could not survive more than a few generations because it denied human nature, which is fundamentally moral and spiritual. (It is true that no one predicted the collapse would come so quickly and so easily. In retrospect, we know that this was due in large measure to the firmness of President Ronald Reagan who said, in effect, to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, “Do not try to beat us militarily, and do not think that you can extend your creed to the rest of the world by force.”)

The West began to fight the mora! battle against communism in earnest in the 1980s, and it was our resolve—combined with the spiritual strength of the people suffering under the system who finally said, “Enough!”—that helped restore freedom in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union—the freedom to worship, speak, associate, vote, establish political parties, start businesses, own property, and much more. If communism had been a creed with moral foundations, it might have survived, but it was not, and it simply could not sustain itself in a world that had such shining examples of freedom, namely, America and Great Britain.

The Moral Foundations of Capitalism

It is important to understand that the moral foundations of a society do not extend only to its political system; they must extend to its economic system as well. America’s commitment to capitalism is unquestionably the best example of this principle. Capitalism is not, contrary to what those on the Left have tried to argue, an amoral system based on selfishness, greed, and exploitation. It is a moral system based on a Biblical ethic. There is no other comparable system that has raised the standard of living of millions of people, created vast new wealth and resources, or inspired so many beneficial innovations and technologies.

The wonderful thing about capitalism is that it does not discriminate against the poor, as has been so often charged; indeed, it is the only economic system that raises the poor out of poverty. Capitalism also allows nations that are not rich in natural resources to prosper. If resources were the key to wealth, the richest country in the world would be Russia, because it has abundant supplies of everything from oil, gas, platinum, gold, silver, aluminum, and copper to timber, water, wildlife, and fertile soil.

Why isn’t Russia the wealthiest country in the world? Why aren’t other resource-rich countries in the Third World at the top of the list? It is because their governments deny citizens the liberty to use their God-given talents. Man’s greatest resource is himself, but he must be free to use that resource.

In his recent encyclical, Centesimus Annus, Pope John Paul I1 addressed this issue. He wrote that the collapse of communism is not merely to be considered as a “technical problem.” It is a consequence of the violation of human rights. He specifically referred to such human rights as the right to private initiative, to own property, and to act in the marketplace. Remember the “Parable of the Talents” in the New Testament? Christ exhorts us to be the best we can be by developing our skills and abilities, by succeeding in all our tasks and endeavors. What better description can there be of capitalism? In creating new products, new services, and new jobs, we create a vibrant community of work. And that community of work serves as the basis of peace and good will among all men.

The Pope also acknowledged that capitalism encourages important virtues, like diligence, industriousness, prudence, reliability, fidelity, conscientiousness, and a tendency to save in order to invest in the future. It is not material goods but all of these great virtues, exhibited by individuals working together, that constitute what we call the “marketplace.”

The Moral Foundations of the Law

Freedom, whether it is the freedom of the marketplace or any other kind, must exist within the framework of law. 0thenvise it means only freedom for the strong to oppress the weak. Whenever I visit the former Soviet Union, I stress this point with students, scholars, politicians, and businessmen—in short, with everyone I meet. Over and over again, I repeat: Freedom must be informed by the principle of justice in order to make it work between people. A system of laws based on solid moral foundations must regulate the entire life of a nation.

But this is an extremely difficult point to get across to people with little or no experience with laws except those based on force. The concept of justice is entirely foreign to communism. So, too, is the concept of equality. For over seventy years, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union had no system of common law. There were only the arbitrary and often contradictory dictates of the Communist Party. There was no independent judiciary There was no such thing as truth in the communist system.

And what is freedom without truth? I have been a scientist, a lawyer, and a politician, and from my own experience I can testify that it is nothing. The third century Roman jurist Julius Paulus said, “What is right is not derived from the rule, but the rule arises from our knowledge of what is right.” In other words, the law is founded on what we believe to be true and just. It has moral foundations. Once again, it is important to note that the free societies of America and Great Britain derive such foundations from a Biblical ethic.

The Moral Foundations of Democracy

Democracy is never mentioned in the Bible. When people are gathered together, whether as families, communities or nations, their purpose is not to ascertain the will of the majority, but the will of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, I am an enthusiast of democracy because it is about more than the will of the majority. If it were only about the will of the majority, it would be the right of the majority to oppress the minority. The American Declaration of Independence and Constitution make it clear that this is not the case. There are certain rights which are human rights and which no government can displace. And when it comes to how you Americans exercise your rights under democracy, your hearts seem to be touched by something greater than yourselves. Your role in democracy does not end when you cast your vote in an election. It applies daily; the standards and values that are the moral foundations of society are also the foundations of your lives.

Democracy is essential to preserving freedom. As Lord Acton reminded us, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” If no individual can be trusted with power indefinitely, it is even more true that no government can be. It has to be checked, and the best way of doing so is through the will of the majority, bearing in mind that this will can never be a substitute for individual human rights.

I am often asked whether I think there will be a single international democracy, known as a “new world order.” Though many of us may yearn for one, I do not believe it will ever arrive. We are misleading ourselves about human nature when we say, “Surely we’re too civilized, too reasonable, ever to go to war again,” or, “We can rely on our governments to get together and reconcile our differences.” Tyrants are not moved by idealism. They are moved by naked ambition. Idealism did not stop Hitler; it did not stop Stalin. Our best hope as sovereign nations is to maintain strong defenses. Indeed, that has been one of the most important moral as well as geopolitical lessons of the 20th century. Dictators are encouraged by weakness; they are stopped by strength. By strength, of course, I do not merely mean military might but the resolve to use that might against evil.

The West did show sufficient resolve against Iraq during the Persian Gulf War. But we failed bitterly in Bosnia. In this case, instead of showing resolve, we preferred “diplomacy” and “consensus.” As a result, a quarter of a million people were massacred. This was a horror that I, for one, never expected to see again in my lifetime. But it happened. Who knows what tragedies the future holds if we do not learn from the repeated lessons of histoy? The price of freedom is still, and always will be, eternal vigilance.

Free societies demand more care and devotion than any others. They are, moreover, the only societies with moral foundations, and those foundations are evident in their political, economic, legal, cultural, and, most importantly, spiritual life.

We who are living in the West today are fortunate. Freedom has been bequeathed to us. We have not had to carve it out of nothing; we have not had to pay for it with our lives. Others before us have done so. But it would be a grave mistake to think that freedom requires nothing of us. Each of us has to earn freedom anew in order to possess it. We do so not just for our own sake, but for the sake of our children, so that they may build a better future that will sustain over the wider world the responsibilities and blessings of freedom.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image of a portrait of Baroness Margaret Thatcher is courtesy of the Margaret Thatcher Foundation.

Redefining Truth has Consequences

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In all organized sports, there are clearly defined rules that must be adhered to.  In all universities, there are clearly stated guidelines for admittance.  In all religions, there are shared beliefs that all members must adhere to. Without these clearly defined rules of engagement (ROEs), there can be no order within groups; and without order there is nothing left but chaos.

Groups and organizations, by definition are all predicated upon certain agreed upon principles and values. These agreed upon principles and values are the raison d’etre of these entities.

You join the Boy Scouts, for example, because you are a boy and you join the Girl Scouts because you are a girl.  You are a male because you are born with a penis and you are a girl because you are born with a vagina. These things used to be unquestioned statements of fact.

Now some parents are filing lawsuits because their daughters want the legal right to join the Boy Scouts. Some males, on the other hand, want the right to join a sorority while some females want the right to join a fraternity. To call this a ball of confusion is an understatement.

Sadly, sexuality is no longer determined at birth and is no longer absolute.  You now can legally (in California) “self-identify”  your sex.  You can be born a male and simply wake up and say you “self-identify” as a girl and legally you can play on your high school’s girls softball team; you must be allowed to use the girls bathroom; and you must be allowed to wear a dress to class.

Now, right is wrong; up is down, black is white; and there are no rules.

Rules are created in order to maintain order and control.  No matter where you go throughout the world, the rules for basketball, American football, and baseball are the same.

Conversely, when you have no clearly defined rules, you have chaos instead of order.  This is exactly what is happening in America in particular and the world in general.  Rules are the glue that keeps a society together.  Rules make the family into a functioning unit.  Rules create the framework for dispute resolution.

In America, as in most countries, murder is deemed wrong and society universally punishes the perpetrators. Killing can be justified (self-defense), but murder (the taking of an innocent life) can never be justified.  Honoring one’s mother and father is just simply expected in our society.

These rules are necessary to create a society where there is structure and order.  Rules also create a sense of security and freedom for the people.

How can you have a functioning country when you can no longer define the family unit?  For time immemorial, the family has been mother, father, and children; and in some cases grandparents, uncles, or aunts, also known as the extended family.   Now, agreement on the definition of the family unit has become mired in controversy.  Some want Johnny to have two dads or Jenny to have two moms.  Some want Rahim to have one father, but three mothers (all legally married to the one father).  Some simply want mother and child.

Study after study has shown that the family unit is the most stabilizing force in a society and that children who are reared with a mother and father are best positioned to be successful in life.

You can’t prevent or resolve disputes unless you have rules that have been agreed upon by society that are compatible with the values of a country.  Most Americans don’t commit crimes because we have been instilled with a sense of what is right and wrong; also because we know crimes will be met with certain punishment.

When there are disputes, you have courts, Congress, and government to turn to for redress.  Today, you have judges ignoring case law and the will of the people and injecting their personal feelings into cases such as homosexual “marriage.”  Congress is incapable of passing bipartisan legislation that is truly in the best interest of America.  Government is totally incapable of solving conflict because there is no consensus as to what the rules of engagement are.

I am a huge proponent of individual freedom, but freedom can’t exist without some agreed upon rules of engagement.  You can’t have children born as one sex and then be allowed to simply “self-identify” as to something totally different.  You can’t –  or shouldn’t – seek to become a member of, say, a Pentecostal church and then refuse to comport yourself in a manner consistent with their rules (including a prohibition against homosexuality), and then call them a bigot if they refuse you membership.

This altering of what it means to be an American will lead to our demise as a global leader. Even freedom has its orderly limitations.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is a photo of smaller chancel window depicting ‘The Life’ at Holy Trinity Church Leicester by P.J. Parkinson.

Going Outlaw – It’s not necessarily a bad thing!

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If a tyrannical government passes laws we cannot obey, we will be outlaws. But that is not necessarily a bad thing.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/Y_DLqmnoYGA[/youtube]

Who’s the Goodman? Is it I, Lord?

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If the goodman had known, he would have watched, and not suffered his house to be broken.

Christ’s words in Matthew 24:43 should be seen in a broader context that we often overlook. His visible return is in the middle of the chapter, verse 30, as it is in middle of Matthew 25, verse 31. The seven examples between Matthew 24:30 and 25:31 are like a parenthetical “heads up” for sudden events and we look at support for them all to have a similar timing at the beginning of the endtimes.

  1. Suddenly a fig tree flaunting its pretentious leaves with promise of fruit withers.[i]  It happened to the Jewish nation in Christ’s time, but could it represent America now? If we look, maybe we can see some fig leaves turning brown!
  2. “As it was in the days of Noah,” suddenly the Flood came and took them all away. Paul warns that the day of the Lord comes with sudden destruction.[ii]  Ellen White said “Christians should be preparing for what is soon to break upon the world as an overwhelming surprise.”[iii] These comments suggest something big is coming unexpectedly.
  3. 3.       Two shall be in the field; one shall be taken, the other left. This is often cited in reference to a sudden rapture, but Christ’s statement in Luke supports them as taken to the dinner of the birds in Revelation.[iv] Suddenness is implied. Could this be about martial law when the economy crashes with FEMA camps or worse for those who don’t do well with New World Order re-education?
  4. Suddenly the goodman awakens to loss from a thief.
  5. The evil servant thinks the Lord delays his coming and begins to smite his fellow servants. This is Matthew 24 where Christ also urged our understanding of Daniel which shows the little horn that persecuted the saints. Historians say history repeats. The UN image beast of New World Order will resemble the Old World Order, probably because of the woman who is riding that beast.[v]
  6. 6.       Asleep with our lights out in Matthew 25:5 implies that we don’t understand this wedding parable. Suddenly there is a cry at midnight. This links to Egypt when the Bridegroom came and took Israel to a covenant at Sinai and later said, “I am married to you.”[vi] Paul includes the Exodus in “all those things happened for examples…ends of the world.”[vii]
  7. Suddenly the master returns from a long journey and surprises a slothful servant.

Since those events happened suddenly, we should see that suddenly means quickly without warning. We should understand them as impending from signs of the times, even when we don’t see them coming.

Since God will not do anything without revealing it,[viii] we should consider that when He will do it is revealed. Let’s look again at the above list to see how many clues we can find. It might surprise the average reader to discover there’s a link to Passover timing in most of Christ’s examples,

  1. It was the week of Passover, after Christ’s entry into Jerusalem that the fig tree withered. “When summer is nigh”[ix] also fits the next clue for 2nd Passover.
  2. “As the days of Noah, the Flood came with Passover timing, but in the 2nd spring month because Noah buried Methuselah whose name meant, at his death, the sending forth of waters.[x] Noah entered the ark on the 10th day, the same day the Passover sacrifice was selected in Exodus 12:3. When people refused Noah’s invitation, they selected themselves for sacrifice. The Flood’s Passover timing in the 2nd spring month was according to the provision in Numbers 9:10,11.
  3. After “one shall be taken, the other left,” the next word is Watch. This is translated from the Greek word, gregoreo, meaning to be awake. Passover was the only night in the year when everyone was to be awake.[xi] “You don’t know the day or hour was probably an idiom. “Know” is from the Greek word, oida, meaning to be aware, perceive, understand. Christ was saying, You don’t understand and each time He said it, He gave an example that fit the provision in the law for a late Passover.
  4. We will discuss the goodman later.
  5. The lord of the evil servant comes when he is not looking for him. Could this mean not watching like the other references to “watch”? And getting cut asunder with “weeping and gnashing of teeth” is the same destiny as the man without a wedding garment in Matthew 22 where that parable is linked to Passover by verse 7. It was Passover when Titus began his siege in 70 AD.[xii]
  6. The midnight cry in Matthew 25:6 is linked to Egypt’s Passover where a midnight cry is first found.[xiii]
  7. Christ punctuated His last two parables with the word watch, meaning be awake, a clue for Passover, but not as the disciples were thinking. Christ said, You don’t know [understand], for it’s like a man traveling to a far country.
    The Israelites often traveled in spring when winter was past, but if it was a long journey and they couldn’t get back to Jerusalem for Passover, they were to keep it the 2nd month as shown in Numbers 9:10,11. Christ was taking a long journey. His return as Bridegroom (not His visible return, but as in Egypt when calamity fell and there was a cry a midnight) will conform to the provisions of the law that is in effect till heaven and earth pass.[xiv]

So who’s the goodman in Matthew 24:43? There is only one reference to goodman in the Old Testament, KJV.  It’s in Proverbs 7 where a harlot tempts a young man saying, The goodman is gone a long journey. He has taken a bag of money and he won’t come back till the yom kece [full moon]. Passover comes on a full moon, but long journey is specific for 2nd Passover.[xv]

During the week of 2nd Passover in 2009, Pope Benedict went to Jerusalem. Could he represent the goodman? Married to a harlot, Bene [dict] means good. He was on a long journey and he had a bag of money, possibly buying property for when the King of the North[xvi] will move “his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain.”[xvii]

The goodman doesn’t know when to watch and has his house broken by the thief. The papacy boasts that they abolished the Jewish festivals which included Passover as a time to watch (be awake) and pray.[xviii] Due to poor translation that added “is” to Colossians 2:17, Christians think those times ended, but Paul  says they are “shadows of things to come” and, therefore, not all fulfilled.

Paul kept the week of Passover with Greek believers in Philippi and Corinth.[xix] His warning in 1Thessalonians 5:1-6 has clues supporting Passover as when to watch, but first, let’s look at Acts 1:6 where the disciples asked Christ, Will you restore the kingdom to Israel at this time? He replied, It is not for you to know the times and seasons–the same phrase as in Daniel 2:21,44 where it says God will set up a kingdom (the stone strikes the toes of time).

And Paul uses the same phrase to tell us, “Of the times and seasons, brethren, you have no need that I write, for you know perfectly the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night, for when they shall say ‘Peace and safety,’ sudden destruction comes upon them as travail on a woman with child…watch.”

Let’s unpack each phrase for what we might see:

  1. “The times and seasons” was the phrase that Christ linked to the setting up of the kingdom and Paul said we [should] know them perfectly. Could we be missing something?
  2. “The day of the Lord” is the Old Testament apocalyptic term and it is linked to Passover as “the day of the Lord’s sacrifice [when God] will punish the king’s children clothed in strange apparel.[xx] Ellen White cited this text commenting on her vision of an earthquake in which “it seemed that Judgment day had come.”[xxi] We are the king’s children as implied by her vision at Loma Linda. Does strange apparel mean no wedding garment? Could we be thrown out of the wedding?
  3. “As a thief in the night.” We showed a connection between the coming of the thief for the goodman and the goodman’s long journey and return at the full moon—clues that point to 2nd Passover.[xxii] Passover was also the time when watching, being awake, was enjoined. Watching would spare loss by the thief.
  4. “Sudden destruction comes on them.” The Flood brought sudden destruction and had Passover timing in the 2nd spring month.[xxiii]  ”As the days of Noah”–could “as” include timing?
  5.  “As travail on a woman with child” God birthed Israel, His “first-born” from Egypt. The cry at midnight on Passover was part of the childbirth process. Again, could “as” include timing?
  6. “Ye are all children of light…let us not sleep…let us watch.” Psalm 119, the longest chapter in the Bible, praises God’s law in each verse and calls His Word a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. Could it be that Laodicea is blind and doesn’t see the light in His law which includes Passover designed to memorialize the greatest events of the Old and New Testaments—freedom from physical bondage, and freedom sin with hope of eternal life. Christ took our beating that night. Can we not watch (be awake) and pray?

“It would be well for us to spend a thoughtful hour…in contemplation of the life of Christ. We should take it point by point, and let the imagination grasp each scene, especially the closing ones… If we would be saved at last, we must learn the lesson of penitence and humiliation at the foot of the cross.”[xxiv]

Why not on the night set apart for that memorial? We’ve looked at clues “as in the days of Noah” that point to 2nd Passover, for the coming of the Bridegoom because Christ ended that parable by saying Watch, it’s like a man traveling to a far country. This year 2nd Passover comes on Wednesday evening. May 14 is the 14th day counting from the visible crescent seen in the western sky after sunset on the eve of May 1.  Those seeking Christ’s return should be found in prayer meeting. (Ellen White)

It would be great to see the church packed for the Lord’s Supper and a focus on Chjrist’s sufferings for us. If not, could we be speechless like the man thrown out for no wedding garment? Is it I, Lord? We will all have to answer that for ourselves, but one person who doesn’t have a wedding garment on is the aggelos, [Greek] the messenger to Laodicea, because the True Witness says  he is naked.”[xxv]

Some may think this is taking things out of context, but the Laodicean message is also a wedding message with six parallels to Luke’s wedding parable! “Naked” in Revelation 3 explains who has no wedding garment in Matthew 22:11.

  1. “loins girded” in Luke 12:35 is like our need of white raiment in Revelation 3:18.
  2. “lamps burning” (same verse in Luke) is like the need of eye salve to see.
  3. Each passage has a knock. Luke 12:36; Revelation 3:20
  4. Each is to open.
  5. “Ruler over all that He has” in Luke 12:44 is like “sit with Me on my throne” in Revelation 3:21.
  6. Laodicea is the last church. The word means people [laos[ judging [dicea, decree].

Historically, Adventism grew out of the Millerite movement as pioneers gave the message of judgment and the Bridegroom’s coming in 1844.[xxvi] Neither message fit as they expected. It was the prophetic “bitter belly” experience of John in Revelation 10 as he typified the Advent movement. But the chapter ends, “You must prophesy again,” implying that a message of judgment and the Bridegroom’s coming must be given again.

Adventists are big on the investigative judgment that began on the Day of Atonment in 1844. But are we like the goodman when it comes to the executive phase of the judgment?

God said, “I will execute judgment” in the context of Passover.[xxvii] Israel had to put blood on the doorpost and be awake that night.[xxviii] We no longer kills lambs, but being awake, (gregoreo, watch) isn’t said to be optional; we just don’t do it. Could we be presuming like Moses when he went to Egypt for the time of judgment but faced death because he was out of compliance with the law?[xxix]

We hear of all night prayer vigils for evangelism or some other cause. Why not to remember what Christ did for us that night. This year 2nd Passover on May 14 (Wednesday evening prayer meeting) could be a communion service like the Last Supper with a focus afterwards on the closing scenes of Christ’s life.

There were probably people who saw the animals going into the ark and who might have wanted to go in, but they were afraid of what others might think. Maybe we need to get over similar feelings. If not, we may play the role of the goodman who doesn’t know when to watch.

Didn’t Christ say, If you don’t watch, I will come on you as a thief.[xxx] The goodman had his house broken by the thief. Serious loss! The man without a wedding garment is thrown out—weeping and gnashing of teeth—serious loss of destiny. Beaten with many stripes is for those who knew to prepare and did not.[xxxi]

Pastors have a special responsibility because it is their privilege to have great light, and to whom much is given, of him much is required.[xxxii] Those words end Luke’s wedding parable. Ellen White says the coming of the Bridegroom is the same event as Malachi 3 where “who may abide the day of His coming…He is like a refiner’s fire and He shall purify the sons of Levi.” [ministers?][xxxiii] Let’s not be the goodman, when we could be “ruler over all that He has.” Why not plan something special for prayer meeting and invite the church!

References:

[i] Matthew 21:19
[ii] 1 Thessalonians 5:2,3
[iii] Prophets & Kings, p 626
[iv] Luke 17:36,37, Revelation 19:17,18
[v] Revelation 17:3-6
[vi] Jeremiah 3:14
[vii] 1 Corinthians 10:1,11
[viii] Amos 3:7
[ix] Matthew 24:32
[x] Genesis 5:21, KJV margin
[xi] Exodus 12:10; Matthew 26:38-41
[xii] The Great Controversy, p 31
[xiii] Exodus 12:29,30
[xiv] Matthew 5:18
[xv] Numbers 9:10,11
[xvi] Ezekiel 26:7; Revelation 17:5
[xvii] Daniel 11:45
[xviii] Matthew 26:38-41
[xix] Acts 20:6; 1 Corinthians 5:8
[xx] Zephaniah 1:7,8
[xxi] Testimonies, Vol 9, p 93,95
[xxii] Numbers 9:10,11
[xxiii] Genesis 7:4,11
[xxiv] The Desire of Ages, p 83
[xxv] Revelation 3:17
[xxvi] The Great Controversy, p 398
[xxvii] Exodus 12
[xxviii] Exodus 12:10
[xxix] Exodus 4:24
[xxx] Revelation 3:3
[xxxi] Luke 12:47,48
[xxxii] Ibid.
[xxxiii] The Great Controversy, p 426

‘Kangaroo court’ convicts pro-life activist for holding a sign

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After having had phony charges against him dismissed several times, this was bound to happen eventually.
On Wednesday, Feb. 12, pro-life activist Peter D’Attilio was convicted by a jury on three charges stemming from an incident when he held a pro-life sign in front of a school in Brockton, Mass. on March 21, 2012. After a two-day trial in Brockton District Court, the six-person jury found him guilty of disturbing a school, trespass, and resisting arrest. MassResistance was present for the entire trial.

Brockton District Court in downtown Brockton, Mass.

Those verdicts came despite the fact that Peter’s lawyer (using testimony by the prosecution’s own witnesses) clearly proved that he did not commit any of those crimes. This was a monumental miscarriage of justice. In the end, the facts and evidence mattered very little.

Seemingly everything in this trial was stacked against him: (1) A hostile judge who was new to the bench. (2) A jury that appeared to be made up of several people who were strongly pro-abortion. (3) A young prosecutor who largely ignored the facts and focused on demonizing Peter personally in the eyes of the jury. And (4) a police report with blatant untruths.

In our opinion, it seemed this was meant to send a strong message to pro-life activists. By local standards, this was a “nuisance” case that would normally never have gone forward. In Brockton there is a backlog of actual violent crimes. And this one, on its face, had no substance. It did not involve injury, damage, theft, etc., but was more political in nature. Nevertheless, neither the judge nor the District Attorney’s office would relent.

Peter D’Attilio’s pro-life ministry

Peter D’Attilio is a pro-life hero in Massachusetts. He is a religious Catholic who runs a pro-life ministry called “Defenders of Women.” Its mission is to educate high school and college students about the true nature of abortion, versus what Planned Parenthood tells them in school. He usually carries a sign with diagrams about a baby in the womb, and passes out bookmark-like pamphlets.

Peter gives a pro-life talk at Boston City Hall Plaza to kids who had gathered there — while a Jimmy Fund event takes place behind him.

Carrying a video camera

Unfortunately, he has been viciously harassed and even beaten up by local police who don’t like his message. A few years ago the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that people have the right to video police who are confronting them. So Peter brings a video camera for protection. It has come in handy; he has documented several illegal harassments by police with YouTube videos, such as this example. He is often falsely charged by angry police. Until now, every charge against him relating to carrying a sign has been dismissed by a judge.

A few months previous to the incident in this case, Peter had an encounter at a different Brockton school with the same police officer. He was similarly not doing anything illegal. At that time, the police harassed him but did not arrest him.

In 2011 Peter got this black eye when beaten by the police in Franklin, Mass. But there were no witnesses who would come forward. After that he decided to carry a video camera with him when holding his sign.

What happened on March 21, 2012

The incident took place on March 21, 2012 in Brockton, Mass. (Shortly afterwards, Peter submitted a detailed description of what happened to MassResistance.)

Basically, this is what happened:

Peter had been holding his sign with his handouts at the Brockton bus terminal about 7:30 am. A high school girl walking to school spoke to him. She said she was pro-life, and offered to show him where the school was. They walked to the school together, which was a few blocks away. She went into the school with some of his materials to give to others.

Peter with the sign he was carrying on March 21, 2012. (It folded in the middle for easy carrying.) You can see a closer view of it here.

Peter started walking down the sidewalk next to the school. There were only a few students around.

Suddenly the school principal came out of the building and approached Peter, telling him that he was disturbing students. Peter pulled out his video camera and asked him to repeat what he said, but he turned around and walked back into the school. Peter continued to stand on the public sidewalk.

Almost immediately a police officer came and began to approach Peter. Peter pulled out his video camera and turned it on. Peter asked the cop what he had done wrong, and told him that he had the right to stand on a public sidewalk. The cop got very angry and demanded that Peter leave immediately. He reached out and pushed the camcorder, but Peter held on to it.

The cop got angrier and more threatening, so Peter decided to leave. He started walking away, crossing the street. The cop followed him and continued to yell at him, telling him to go home. Peter’s video camera was still on and pointed toward the cop. He was also holding his sign and his handouts.

As soon as Peter got to the other side, without any warning the cop tackled him to the ground. Peter then realized he was being arrested but did not know why. Peter went limp, and the cop quickly handcuffed him and put him into the patrol car. The cop took the video camera, but the sign and handouts were left behind on the ground. When Peter asked about his sign the cop refused to gather it. Normally, a police officer collects the person’s property when arresting him.

\
ABOVE: Peter was on sidewalk next to school. Principal came out red door near tree. Police officer confronted Peter on sidewalk in front of tree. Peter then crossed the street to leave the area.

RIGHT: Police officer followed Peter across the street and tackled him to the ground here.

Peter was doing full-time pro-life work and not being paid. Without that sign, he told us, he could not do his pro-life work. He could not afford to replace it, either. (At the trial, the police officer testified that the sign was “too big” to put in the car. In fact, all of Peter’s signs have been about the size of a regular poster-board.)

The arrest

Peter was taken to the station, but not taken inside immediately. They left him in the car for 20 minutes, which is unusual, before taking him inside. He was booked, fingerprinted, and charged with (1) disturbing a school; (2) trespass; and (3) resisting arrest.

Afterwards, Peter had to go back to the school to try to find his sign. A crossing guard said he had it, but told Peter that the officer would not let him give it back. Peter was able to contact the officer and persuade him to allow him to have his sign.

Peter was arraigned the next day in Brockton District Court.

The missing tape from the video camera

The officer’s police report included several statements which Peter strongly denied. It said that the officer observed Peter “filming the students and school officials” and that he “informed Mr. D’Attilio several times that if he did not leave school grounds that he would be placed under arrest.” It also said that Peter was “on school grounds” rather than on the public sidewalk.

Is that true? Was Peter taping kids? Did the officer actually say those things to him? The tape in the video camera would certainly reveal that, since his camera was on the entire time the police officer was at the scene.

After Peter’s arraignment, the police finally gave Peter back his video camera. But the camera had been broken open and the cassette tape was missing. Peter asked numerous times about getting the tape back. A clerk at the police station told Peter that the police officer confirmed to her that he had taken the tape out of the camera and that he had the tape, but that Peter couldn’t get it right now, though possibly later.

Peter’s broken video camera right after he got it back from the Brockton Police Department. The cassette tape had disappeared.

They kept stalling. After Peter’s lawyer sent a formal letter to the department requesting the tape, the police changed their story and said that the camera had never had a tape in it. That’s what the officer testified at the trial.

The trial begins

Over the next 22 months there were several hearings and postponements. But the District Attorney’s office insisted on prosecuting him. Finally, a jury trial was set for Tuesday, Feb. 11, in Brockton District Court. The trial lasted two days.

The judge was Cynthia Brackett. She was appointed by Gov. Deval Patrick last fall and had been a judge for less than four months. Before that, she spent her entire legal career as an Assistant District Attorney in the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office. From the beginning, Judge Brackett seemed to be hostile toward the defendant.

In particular, she would not allow Peter’s lawyer to question the prospective jurors about their position on the abortion issue, if they had been involved with pro-abortion activism, or any questions involving abortion. She said that the subject of Peter’s sign (and his ministry to students) had no bearing on the case. So there was no way to tell how the jurors felt about that often very emotional subject.

Judging by the body language and looks on the faces of jurors during the trial, it appeared that a number of them had pro-choice sentiments to various degrees. And the prosecutor took full advantage of that.

To make matters worse, the police officer testified that the sign Peter was showing students “pictures of dead babies” and the slogan “say no to birth control.” That was not exactly true. Peter’s sign simply showed drawings of a baby in the mother’s womb during the abortion procedure. But the judge ruled that the jury may not be allowed to see the sign.

The judge also prohibited Peter’s lawyer from asking prospective jurors whether they accept the principle that citizens have a constitutional right to free speech, even if it may be offensive to others, or the right to disseminate information in a peaceful manner.

The prosecution had two witnesses: The principal of the school and the police officer. In several key instances, the eyewitness testimony of the principal was at odds with the police officer’s testimony. And in many instances the police officer’s testimony conflicted with the apparent facts. Peter was the only witness for his defense.

Debunking all the charges against Peter

During the two-day trial, the actual evidence against Peter was virtually non-existent. All three charges appeared to be thoroughly debunked.

** Charge #1: Disturbing a school

It appears that false statements were added to the police report to conjure up the idea of “disturbing a school” when in fact Peter simply walked by the school.

The statute: Ch 272 Sec 40:

Whoever willfully interrupts or disturbs a school or other assembly of people met for a lawful purpose shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than one month or by a fine of not more than fifty dollars . . .

The claim: Blocking access to the school. The police report said that the principal stated that Peter was “on school grounds preventing students from entering the building. “At the beginning of the trial, the prosecutor told the jurors that Peter was “blocking the door of the school” and “trying to block students from going inside.”

At the trial: Both the principal and the police officer testified that they did not actually see Peter blocking anything, or impeding anyone in any way.

The claim: Videotaping students. The police report said that the principal stated that Peter “was interviewing and recording students.” The report also said that the police officer observed Peter “with a recording camera filming the students.”

At the trial: Both the principal and the police officer testified that they didn’t actually see Peter filming any students at all.

In addition, according to the testimony, no students had complained about Peter in any way.

** Charge #2: Trespass

The public sidewalk is legally considered public property, not “private property” or “school property.” That fact was not disputed in this trial.

The statute: Ch. 266, Sec. 120:

Whoever, without right enters or remains in or upon the dwelling house, buildings, boats or improved or enclosed land . . . after having been forbidden so to do by the person who has lawful control of said premises, whether directly or by notice posted thereon, . . . shall be punished by a fine of not more than one hundred dollars or by imprisonment for not more than thirty days or both such fine and imprisonment.

The claim: The officer claimed that Peter left the sidewalk and briefly stood on the school walkway leading to the door — and therefore was “trespassing.”

At the trial: Peter strongly disputed that, and stated he is always very careful only to stand on a public sidewalk or public street, and that he never had any reason to leave the sidewalk.

The principal also testified that he only saw Peter walking on the public sidewalk. This conflicts with the police officer’s testimony. The officer said he saw Peter on the school walkway. But the principal was present the entire time the police officer was in the area. (Note: Neither was in the courtroom while the other was testifying.)

** Charge #3: Resisting arrest

This appears to be another trumped-up charge which fell apart during the officer’s testimony.

The statute: Ch 268 Sec 32b:

A person commits the crime of resisting arrest if he knowingly prevents or attempts to prevent a police officer, acting under color of his official authority, from effecting an arrest of the actor or another, by:

(1) using or threatening to use physical force or violence against the police officer or another;
or
(2) using any other means which creates a substantial risk of causing bodily injury to such police officer or another.

. . . Whoever violates this section shall be punished by imprisonment in a jail or house of correction for not more than two and one-half years or a fine of not more than five hundred dollars, or both.

The claim: The police report says that when the officer was placing Peter under arrest that he “proceeded to grab his right arm several times in order to place him under arrest. Mr. D’Attilio pulled back every time” — and that that constitutes “resisting arrest.”

However, the claim does not reference any “physical force or violence” or “a substantial risk of causing bodily injury” to the police officer, as the statute requires.

At the trial: The testimony revealed nothing remotely approaching the legal threshold for “resisting arrest.” The police officer testified that Peter “pulled a little bit” but “it wasn’t much of a struggle.” The principal, who witnessed it, said substantially the same thing. Neither of them mentioned any fear of violence or risk of bodily injury. Peter testified that he simply went limp when the police officer tackled him.

The real question is why the police officer tackled Peter to the ground. Peter was not running away. He was merely walking across the street. His hands were full; he was holding his sign and the flyers with one hand and the video camera with his other hand. He had no idea the police officer meant to arrest him.

The principal also testified that Peter was walking across the street with his hands full. It’s clear to us that the arrest came out of the officer’s anger towards Peter, and that he charged him with “resisting arrest” for no good reason.

A phony “resisting arrest” charge is unfortunately a common tactic. In another case in February 2012, a District Court judge actually berated the prosecutor for pursuing a phony resisting arrest charge against Peter.

Prosecutor’s strategy: Ignore the facts and demonize Peter

At various junctures during the trial when it was very clear that the case against Peter had no legal substance, his lawyer asked for a dismissal. Every time the prosecution vigorously contested it, and the judge steadfastly refused.

Even with a terribly weak case, the prosecution insisted on continuing. In fact, the prosecutor’s strategy had very little to do with the facts or the evidence. Instead, she focused almost entirely on demonizing Peter personally. She basically aimed to make the jury believe he was a dangerous threat to children and should be convicted no matter what happened in this incident.

For her closing arguments to the jury, she had Peter’s arrest photo introduced as evidence. She walked over and showed the photo to each juror and said something to the effect of “this is who he really is.”

This was a particularly odious trick. The photo was taken by the police department camera soon after Peter was tackled without warning, arrested, and brought into custody, and didn’t know what was going to happen next. He was under extreme stress.

The prosecutor introduced this police mug-shot of Peter as “evidence” and showed it to each individual juror in the juror’s box.

She twisted the nature of his pro-life ministry to make him seem like a child predator. Using Peter’s testimony of how he had gotten to the school, she harangued the jury that Peter was simply a grown man who had “picked up” a high school girl at the train station, walked with her to the school, and tried to approach other children.

And she persuaded the judge to allow Peter’s sign to be brought into the courtroom, but showed only the blank side — not the front side — to the jury. Thus, the jury was led to believe that the police officer’s testimony that the sign showed pictures of dead babies and a “say no to birth control” message was actually true. But they couldn’t see the front!

The verdict

The case was handed to the jury just before lunch on the second day. It wasn’t too long before they came back with their verdict. The foreman gave it quickly and deliberately:

Disturbing a school: “Guilty”
Trespassing: “Guilty”
Resisting arrest: “Guilty”.

They all seemed very intent and not the least bit unsure of themselves.

Peter was sentenced on the Trespass to 30 days House of Correction, suspended for one year. On the other two, he was placed on probation for one year with administrative (i.e. unsupervised) probation. He has to pay a “victim/witness fee” of $50 (mandatory on any guilty finding) and a $50 administrative fee each month — a total of $650.

Left to right: Peter’s attorney Stephen Foley, Peter, and Brian Camenker of MassResistance in the courthouse.

Stephen Foley is a smart, passionate pro-lifer who has represented Peter pro bono — and has stuck with him through thick and thin. Unfortunately, he can’t take on the appeal.

What’s next?

From now on — unless this gets appealed — all of the enemies of the pro-life cause, including the various police departments, can now label Peter a convicted criminal and treat him accordingly. This is outrageous. He was simply exercising his Constitutional rights for the pro-life cause, trying to reach the young people who most need to hear the message.

Unfortunately, it’s estimated that an appeal costs a minimum of $5,000 just to prepare, and there is a very short time frame to do it.

Peter is currently trying to find an attorney to file it for him. We’ll keep you posted.

We need more – not fewer – people like Peter D’Attilio

A lot of people talk about being pro-life. Peter D’Attilio actually does it. He gave up a successful landscaping business to go into inner-city neighborhoods and educate young people on the truth about abortion. He has endured enormous abuse, been arrested several times, jailed, even been beaten up by police. How many people are willing to face that?

But he has had wonderful successes bringing the light of truth to hundreds of young people whose only other sources of information are Planned Parenthood and pop culture!

Right now he needs everyone’s support. You can contact his ministry Defenders of Women at: all.credit.to.god@gmail.com.

Freedom of Association is No Excuse to Target Gays by Casey Given

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A recent spate of proposed laws protecting business owners’ right to discriminate against homosexuals has reignited a longstanding debate in the libertarian community. Under the guise of protecting “religious freedom,” 13 states have each introduced bills over the past few months preempting the State from forcing employees to service individuals if they believe doing so conflicts with their beliefs. While none of the bills specifically mention homosexuality, each one effectively only applies to gays since most other classes (e.g. race, sex, religion) are protected under the federal Civil Rights Act.

Many libertarians have cheered the proposed laws, citing the small-government principle that the State has no business interfering in individuals’ private contracts. LewRockwell.com’s Lawrence M. Vance voiced his support of Kansas’s recent attempt, while admitting it “doesn’t go far enough,” reasoning that “[i]n as much as the bill legalizes—if only in a small degree—the freedom to discriminate, such provisions in it should be welcomed.” Such an instrumentalist approach to protecting freedom of association is strategically flawed, as the current bills’ targeting of gays suggests bigoted motives that libertarians best not associate with.

Legally, businesses in almost all of the 13 states in question already have the right to deny gays service. As mentioned previously, sexual orientation is not currently a protected class in the Civil Rights Act. While 21 states have compensated for this federal gap by enacting LGBT nondiscrimination acts of their own, no state considering the current legislation is in the number except Oregon. Thus, these anti-anti-discrimination bills do not expand freedom of association but merely serve as redundant reassurance of the right to not serve gays—effectively targeting the LGBT community.

While almost every libertarian would defend an individual’s right to associate (and not associate) with whomever they choose, that’s not quite the issue with the current class of bills. Their implicit targeting alienates one demographic, making them look like not-so-subtle expressions of bigotry. The freedom of association issue looks like a red herring here.

As David E. Bernstein explained in a 2010 Cato Unbound essay, “I would be troubled if there was a sudden popular move to repeal antidiscrimination legislation, if it were unaccompanied by broader libertarian political trends, because it would suggest that opposition to such laws arose from hostility to minority groups, not from opposition to Big Government.” Granted, Bernstein is speaking about repealing antidiscrimination laws whereas the issue at hand is enacting laws that protect discrimination, but the underlying point is analogous. Namely, a libertarian push for protecting discrimination suggests its advocates are motivated by bigotry, regardless of whether it is the case or not. This point is only amplified in the present case. And perceptions matter.

Fortunately, the issue may be moot soon enough thanks to the massive public outrage that has accompanied these bills, prompting some of the most conservative state legislatures and governors to reject the measures. On February 18th, four bills in South Dakota, Kansas, Idaho, and Tennessee failed to pass their state legislatures. One week later, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed another attempt that captured national attention.

Libertarians have a long history of being ahead of the curve on gay rights. The Libertarian Party has supported marriage equality since its founding in 1971, decades before the two major parties dared to address the topic. Associating with an apparently homophobic push to protect the right to discriminate against gays that already exists would suddenly put the movement on the losing side of the question of LGBT equality.

ABOUT CASEY GIVEN

Casey Given is an editor and political commentator with Young Voices, a project aiming to promote Millennials’ policy opinions in the media.

The Crony Gap: Political Inequality is the Real Problem by Stewart Dompe, Adam C. Smith

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When it comes to public discourse, inequality is immensely fashionable. Along with its featured position at this year’s Davos conference, it received top billing in President Obama’s recent State of the Union address. But most of this talk lacks merit.

Some inequality is in fact necessary; it provides the incentives for creativity and innovation. In other words, if inequality is a consequence of overall growth, then it’s a positive symptom. Apple revolutionized cell phone and tablet technology—fields littered with less profitable models—and very few would argue their profits were unearned, any more than they would argue that ordinary people have been made worse off by owning iPhones. If we can agree that some inequality is needed to incentivize wealth creation, the question becomes: What are the illegitimate sources of the inequality we see in the world?

Sources of Inequality

Inequality has emerged in the modern world for a number of reasons. For one, more money is currently accruing to capital than labor, as capital becomes scarcer in a regulated market. These returns to capital outpace that which goes to labor, and the divergence becomes significant over time.

The marketplace for labor has also changed, favoring those with unique skills in technology and finance. Those who are most productive in these areas are compensated handsomely. People who can put their skills to use in the new knowledge economy also often find increasing returns to their investment as compared with more traditional industries, which face diminishing patterns of growth.

President Obama’s answer is to spend more on education. His argument is that higher levels of education lead to increased productivity and better wages. But even if every dollar of additional spending was translated into human capital, this would be insufficient to prevent inequality. After all, many people eschew careers with high salaries because they want something different for their lives—think of art history majors. While these preferences may generate greater well-being, they will not necessarily alleviate income inequality; after all, engineers and computer scientists would see their productivity rise alongside their peers’.

So what about politics? Oxfam made waves at this year’s Davos World Economic Forum with a widely touted study of rising global inequality, “WORKING FOR THE FEW: Political capture and economic inequality.” What sets this piece apart from the virtual avalanche of recent anti-inequality manifestos is that it calls attention to an underreported, though fundamental, cause of economic inequality: political capture. Coming from Oxfam, which doesn’t exactly have the best record when it comes to economic assessment, it’s a welcome development.

The difference between political and economic causes of inequality is that political inequality is an artifact of government control, while economic inequality flows as a natural consequence of voluntary human action. Political inequality arises when the State controls access to markets or intervenes with largesse extracted from the market. It creates juicy prizes that only the politically connected can access and increases the value of otherwise expensive routes around the State.

The irony here is even when we properly diagnose the problem, we are just as likely to reinforce it as address it. So it is with the Oxfam report. While chastising the business community for putting its hands in public coffers, Oxfam cannot help but recommend policies that encourage only more political panhandling. Progressive taxation, greater public presence in education, health care and social protection, demand for a living wage, and stronger regulation of markets—each, in its own way, contributes to the very problem Oxfam ostensibly hopes to solve.

Take progressive taxation. On the face of it, this is a simple transfer from the rich to the poor. But if that’s the case, why does Warren Buffet pay so little in taxes in an already-progressive system? Or Mitt Romney? Steepening the tax curve only benefits wealthy accountants as the rich discover legal loopholes and tax shelters. Cayman Island accounts provide little in the way of “public benefit,” instead enabling such assets to go to greater capital investment. And greater capital investment only serves to widen the inequality gap, as we explained above.

Regulation of markets is another disturbing entry on the list. Regulation has long been a means for special interest groups to toy with the market process to further their own interests while burdening their competitors. Studies show there is a strong correlation between market regulation, political corruption, and an erosion of trust in public institutions. In other words, talented rent-seekers learn to rig the rules in their favor.

Furthermore, regulatory uncertainty can lead to capital scarcity as lenders will only invest in new ventures with a high enough rate of return to compensate for the increased risk. Firms also operate within a given capital structure that depends on the productivity of their employees. If well-intentioned regulation prices these employees out of the market, there might not be a viable substitute, in which case the productivity and return to that capital falls. Put another way, highly skilled workers are not always a substitute for unskilled workers if you have to radically alter the capital structure to accommodate them. So, say, if meatpackers are priced out of the market, their tools might not maintain their value; instead, the firm may hire an engineer to monitor and maintain a chicken de-boning robot. Ultimately, if regulation causes the existing capital structure to shift radically, existing capital might lose value—leading to far greater returns to what capital remains, increasing the divergence in income between those who hold the capital and those who don’t (e.g. computer coders vs. art history majors).

Finally, wage controls are probably one of the surest ways of undermining the efforts of the poor. It’s no wonder that unions are among the fiercest advocates for wage controls; they jump at any chance to push workers willing to accept lower wages out of the running for jobs. Even worse, those who are willing to work for less are usually the very poor who need the income most. It might not pay all the bills, but it’s certainly better than no job at all. This was indeed the finding of a recent CBO report indicating that current proposals to raise wage floors to $10.10 would result in the elimination of 500,000 jobs.

To competently address any justifiable concerns regarding income inequality, we have to maintain focus on the problematic features of society that lead to it. Simply decrying inequality itself clouds the issue. Political inequality is the sort that makes people worse off, and kudos go to those who are willing to admit this. But it takes more than acknowledgement. It takes an understanding of how wealth is created and how it is distributed to truly root out the illegitimate causes of wealth inequality. Considering just how political inequality operates to undermine the economic forces of wealth creation is therefore a useful lens in determining what makes our society less equal.

ABOUT  STEWART DOMPE

Stewart Dompe is an instructor of economics at Johnson & Wales University. He has published articles in Econ Journal Watch and is a contributor to the forthcoming Homer Economicus: Using The Simpsons to Teach Economics.

ABOUT ADAM C. SMITH

Adam C. Smith is an assistant professor of economics and director of the Center for Free Market Studies at Johnson & Wales University. He is also a visiting scholar with the Regulatory Studies Center at George Washington University and coauthor of the forthcoming Bootleggers and Baptists: How Economic Forces and Moral Persuasion Interact to Shape Regulatory Politics.

Dirty Dozen Sexual Exploiters of 2014 list includes Eric Holder, Verizon, Google and American Library Association

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Morality In Media (MIM) has released its 2014 Dirty Dozen LIst: 12 Leading Contributors to Sexual Exploitation. The top purveyors of pornography in America are:

  1. Attorney General Eric Holder – Mr. Holder refuses to enforce existing federal obscenity laws against hard-core adult pornography, despite the fact that these laws have been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court and effectively enforced by previous attorneys general.
  2. Verizon – Verizon pushes porn into our homes now through hardcore pay-per-view movies on FIOS, smartphones and tablets and as an Internet Service Provider with insufficient filtering options.
  3. Sex Week – Yale and other colleges and universities repeatedly offer Sex Week on campus. Porn stars are routinely invited to lecture, and pornography that glamorizes “fantasy rape” is screened.
  4. Playstation – PlayStation’s live-streaming abilities are filling thousands of homes with live porn, and the PlayStation Store sells hundreds of pornographic and sexually violent games.
  5. Facebook – Facebook has become a top place to trade pornography, child pornography and for sexual exploitation. Facebook’s guidelines prohibit such behavior, but the company is doing little to enforce them.
  6. Barnes & Noble – This Fortune 500 Company is a major supplier of adult pornography and child erotica. They regularly put pornography near the children’s sections in their stores and provide free, unfiltered porn publications on their Nook e-reader.
  7. Hilton – This hotel chain, like Hyatt, Starwood and many other top hotel chains, provides hardcore pornography movie choices. Porn channels are often the first advertisement on their in-room TVs.
  8. American Library Association – The ALA encourages public libraries to keep their computers unfiltered and allow patrons, including children, to access pornography.
  9. Google – Google’s empire thrives on porn. Porn is easily available, even to children, through YouTube, GooglePlay, Google Images and Google Ads.
  10. Tumblr – This popular social media blogging site bombards users with porn. Users must only be 13, and the filters do not work.
  11. 50 Shades of Gray – This bestselling book series and upcoming movie are normalizing sexual violence, domination and torture of women. Oprah Winfrey Network, Broadway and other mainstream outlets have even promoted this abusive lifestyle.
  12. Cosmopolitan Magazine – The magazine is a full-on pornographic, “how-to” sex guide, encouraging women to accept the pornified culture around them. They specifically market this content to teen girls.

Read more.

ABOUT MORALITY IN MEDIA

Founded in 1962, Morality In Media (MIM) is the leading national organization opposing pornography and indecency through public education and the application of the law. MIM is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

Currently, Morality In Media directs the War on Illegal Pornography coalition, an effort with Congress to pressure the U.S. Department of Justice to enforce existing federal obscenity laws.

MIM also maintains a research website about the harms of pornography and regularly directs national awareness campaigns to help the public understand the consequences of pornography and find resources to aid in their struggles. To see MIM other current efforts, click here.