It is said that Americans want the government to cut spending while also wanting the government to spend more for them. We will now see how serious the demands to cut the deficit are. The bipartisan commission appointed by the president to suggest how to trim government spending and get the budget into balance is working on the problem. The two chairmen have released a report on their suggestions. (This is not the final report of the commission.) The two… Read more
The Vocation of Military Service
November 11, 2010 By Gene Veith 30 Comments
In honor of Veterans’ Day and to salute those who served in the military, I would like to hear from those of you who are veterans. How did military service impact your life? What did it do for your character, personality, beliefs, etc.? Those of you who have been in combat, did you come out of that traumatized or stronger or a bit of both or what? (All of this has to do with the military as vocation.) Read more
Christian persecution intensifies in Iraq
November 11, 2010 By Gene Veith 30 Comments
Islamic militants in Iraq have turned their attention to their Christian neighbors, declaring that Christians are legitimate targets and bombing Christian neighborhoods. This follows a recent assault on a church during the worship service that killed more than 40. From the BBC: A series of bomb and mortar attacks targeting Christian areas has killed at least five people in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. Six districts with strong Christian majorities were hit – more than 30 people have been injured. The… Read more
Is there a "mere Christianity"?
November 10, 2010 By Gene Veith 149 Comments
David Mills, editor of First Things, takes issue with the C. S. Lewis and his notion of “mere Christianity”; that is, that Christians of all traditions are in agreement on certain key teachings and that this constitutes a common orthodoxy for all Christians. David is a Catholic, so of course he can’t accept that. Here is part of his argument: The problem is that image of the house with the rooms, illustrating what Lewis meant by “mere Christianity.” It appears… Read more
Jacksonian foreign policy
November 10, 2010 By Gene Veith 166 Comments
Michael Gerson thinks that the country is going back to “a Jacksonian” foreign policy: Even without a developed Tea Party foreign policy, the center of gravity on Capitol Hill is likely to shift in a Jacksonian direction. Historian Walter Russell Mead describes this potent, populist foreign policy tradition as “an instinct rather than an ideology.” Today’s Jacksonians believe in a strong military, assertively employed to defend American interests. They are skeptical of international law and international institutions, which are viewed… Read more
The other Republican victory
November 10, 2010 By Gene Veith 16 Comments
The Republicans also made big gains in our nation’s political infrastructure; that is, the important but often neglected state governments: While the Republican gains in the House and Senate are grabbing the most headlines, the most significant results on Tuesday came in state legislatures where Republicans wiped the floor with Democrats. Republicans picked up 680 seats in state legislatures, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures — the most in the modern era. To put that number in perspective:… Read more
Legitimate government controls?
November 9, 2010 By Gene Veith 34 Comments
George Will, in a column analyzing the election as a repudiation of liberalism, includes an interesting quotation: George Mason University economist Don Boudreaux agreed that interest-group liberalism has indeed been leavened by idea-driven liberalism. Which is the problem. “These ideas,” Boudreaux says, “are almost exclusively about how other people should live their lives. These are ideas about how one group of people (the politically successful) should engineer everyone else’s contracts, social relations, diets, habits, and even moral sentiments.” Liberalism’s ideas… Read more
USA judged on human rights
November 9, 2010 By Gene Veith 50 Comments
President Bush refused to allow the United States to be dragged before the United Nations Human Rights Council, but President Obama has reversed that policy. So the United States was hauled before the Human Rights Council, currently chaired by Cuba, to answer for its alleged human rights violations: A delegation of top officials, led by Assistant Secretary of State Esther Brimmer, gave diplomats at the U.N. Human Rights Council a detailed account of U.S. human rights shortcomings and the Obama… Read more
Who got the political spending?
November 9, 2010 By Gene Veith 2 Comments
Politicians spent some $4 billion trying to get elected, which comes to about $43 per vote. But who ended up with all that money? Mainly television stations and other media outlets. The Washington Post Company reported a 7% jump in revenue for the third quarter, which it credits to political advertising on its television stations, as well as its for-profit Kaplan University. This article talks about other businesses that benefited–including pollsters, advertisers, and small town restaurants–to the point of calling… Read more
The homeless commute
November 8, 2010 By Gene Veith 608 Comments
In our nation’s capital, the homeless shelters are on the outskirts of town, but all of the good panhandling spots are downtown. So the District of Columbia runs 10 buses, at the cost of $1.8 million, so that homeless people can commute. Each morning, the District government operates a kind of free mini-Metro for the homeless, connecting the city’s increasingly outlying network of shelters with soup kitchens, social service bureaus and preferred panhandling blocks closer to downtown. Then, each evening,… Read more
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