THEY CAN JUST PAY THE TAX

Justices Kagan and Sotomayor both suggested that if Hobby Lobby, for religious reasons, didn't like the mandate to provide abortifacients to its employees, they could "just not provide any coverage and pay the tax."

This seems like Jizra to me.  Recall that Jizra is the tax that Muslim conquerors impose on Christians for the privilege of remaining Christian and not being beheaded.  Does anyone think it is acceptable to impose a tax on a religious community for the privilege of abiding by its religious principles?

The Problem of Government by Sinners

Genesis 3 tells the story of the Fall of mankind to the utterly sinful condition in which we find ourselves. Whether a literally true event, or an allegory explaining why we find ourselves in an evil world, it forms the basis of the Christian understanding of mankind.

After God had created man, and then made woman from man to be his perfect companion, they lived in the Garden with all of their needs provided for them.  God had given Adam and Eve just one command, not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  God warned them that eating of that tree, disobedience to God, would make them mortal.  They were tempted to eat of the tree by Satan who first told Eve that God had lied when He said they would die if they ate of the tree.  He went on to tell Eve that eating of the tree would provide mankind with the knowledge of good and evil making them "like God."  This convinced her and she ate and also gave the fruit to Adam.

The consequences were immediate and Adam and Eve hid themselves from God thus beginning the estrangement of God and man.  When God called to Adam, Adam began to make excuses, blaming his wife, that God had given him, for his sin.  Eve, in turn, blamed Satan.  God, almost in sadness and resignation pronounces the "curse" against first Satan and then the humans:

"To the woman he said, 'I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children,
yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.' And to Adam he said, 'Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, You shall not eat of it, cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.'”

The Apostle Paul, writing by the Spirit, addressed the same issue in the first chapter of his letter to the Romans:

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature, namely, His eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse; for although they knew God they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. .  . . And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct. They were filled with all manner of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them but approve those who practice them."

Thus, in both accounts it is the failure to acknowledge God as God, and in a sense to become gods in our own right, that causes the Fall.  Even though they were both written millennia ago, it is hard to believe that anyone reading these two versions of the fall of mankind to our present, sinful state would not immediately sense the truth in them for us today.  Looking back at the story of God's chosen Jewish people in the Hebrew Scriptures, we see a story of God's redemption of His people, followed by their promises to be faithful, followed in turn by their turning away from God, their falling upon hard times, their repentance and finally by God's next redemptive act.  We can look back on the history of the last century and that all the utopian schemes of fascism, nazism, communism, socialism, Maoism ended in tyranny and oppression and see man's stubborn, sinful nature.  And we can look around at the world, and even in our nation, today and see nothing but evil, no matter what civil arrangements are made or system people live under.  As Winston Churchill once said, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

With this history in mind, how could a rational human being ever believe that it were possible for any government to create a utopian society, no matter what system is tried.  Nor can we avoid Madison's conclusion in Federalist 51 (discussed in my last post), that no matter how virtuous a society, it will be necessary to closely limit government.  It should be further obvious that the subjective judgments of men and women on questions involving their own interests, whether political, economic, cultural, moral or scientific, will be subject to suspicion.  And finally, the corruption of mankind is so fundamental that no matter what system you place us in, we will almost always act in our own perceived self-interest, and that the more power anyone is given over others, the more danger there is from the self-interest of those in power.

Conservatives, Progressives and Sin

Michael S. Kogan, a Jewish professor of comparative religion attributes most of the theological differences between Jews and Christians to their respective approaches to the problem of sin.  I would take that further and assert that many, if not most, of the political differences between conservatives and progressives derive from their respective approaches to sin.

In his book Opening the Covenant, Kogan asserts that for orthodox Christians, the problems of sin, that is, the rebellion against God which started in the Garden of Eden, demonstrates that human beings are so evil in their very nature that there is nothing they can do for themselves to resolve the problem of their sin.  Thus only God can resolve the problem by sending His Son into the world to suffer and die for the sins of mankind, and be resurrected to eternal life so that those who have faith in Him will be saved.  This doctrine, of the utter sinfulness of man, while common to orthodox Christians of all denominations, is most closely associated with Calvin and Reformed Christians. The Reformed, Scotts Confession puts it this way:

"By this transgression [rebellion against God in the Garden], generally known as original sin, the image of God was utterly defaced in man, and he and his children became by nature hostile to God, slaves to Satan, and servants to sin. And thus everlasting death has had, and shall have, power and dominion over all who have not been, are not, or shall not be born from above. This rebirth is wrought by the power of the Holy Spirit creating in the hearts of God's chosen ones an assured faith in the promise of God revealed to us in His Word; by this faith we grasp Messiah Jesus with the graces and blessings promised in Him."

The Lutheran, Augsburg Confession goes further to condemn "the Pelagians and others . . . who, to obscure the glory of Christ's merit and benefits, argue that man can be justified before God by his own strength and reason."

Kogan also asserts that, unlike Christians, Jews today believe that God, through the Law, provided the means whereby Jews first, and ultimately all humans, could be reconciled to God through obedience to the moral aspects of that Law.  Sin was a problem, but one to which God had left the solution with us.  It did not require the radical solution Christians believed was necessary, the coming of Messiah Jesus and his death and resurrection.

Interestingly, the Apostle Paul writing in the Ninth Chapter of his Letter to the Romans, says much the same thing, that the Jews who were not being saved were pursuing righteousness by their own efforts and not by faith in Messiah Jesus.  For Jews, God sent the Law, obedience to which would bring righteousness.  For Christians the Law, which cannot be obeyed perfectly, only shows our own sinful nature. Salvation comes, to those who have faith, from the Act of God in sending His son.  Christians, grateful for salvation then seek, as best we can, to follow God's desires for our lives as expressed in the Law.

But what of Atheists?  While they might not call it sin, Atheists still, for the most part, see injustice in our world and seek to remedy it.  But I think they see injustice not as a problem within human beings, but rather a problem with institutions, systems and cultures and, if those things can be fixed by a benevolent government, the problem of injustice can be fixed.  So if only we, that is the enlightened elites, can marginalize or reform institutions that teach the wrong things (such as the churches), abolish or transform evil systems (such as capitalism), and take over the cultural education of children from their parents, we can establish a new, Utopian society where injustice will be a thing of the past.

Our Founders, although not all Calvinist Christians, shared the Calvinist view of the depravity of mankind. Madison, one of the principal authors of the Constitution and one of the three authors of the Federalist Papers wrote, in Federalist 51:

"It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices [checks and balances in and limitations on government] should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself."

Most conservatives, I believe, tend to have the Madisonian, Calvinist view of mankind and thus favor limited, restrained government.  They reject Utopian schemes and seek rather to strengthen institutions which can form a counterweight to government, uphold systems which preserve political and economic liberty and leave cultural education to the people themselves.  Faith based institutions, for conservatives, are essential to the preservation of "ordered liberty" - that is an orderly society without government coercion and oversight into every aspect of life.  And government, being made up of sinful men and women, is always subject to suspicion.

Few Christians who have a Calvinist view of mankind will be progressive politically.  Rather progressives will tend to be atheists, secular or nominal Christians and Jews, or Christians who reject the doctrine of the depravity of man.  Once mankind is viewed as perfectible, or perhaps fundamentally good but oppressed by systems and institutions, there is room for all sorts of grand schemes to "fix" everything - like ObamaCare, the Common Core curriculum, universal pre-school and so on.  Government should have no limits because only government can work these schemes and make sure everyone is forced to go along.

What the Arizona Religious Freedom Bill Actually Said

Before we make up our minds about the Arizona Religious Freedom Restoration Act, let's make sure we understand exactly what it does, and does not, do. See explanation by bi-partisan law professors.

And by the way, has anyone taken note of the political blackmail practiced by the NFL - a tax exempt organization - by threatening to move the Superbowl.  It's time to boycott the NFL.

Libertarians, Conservatives and Randians

I was accused by someone who does not know me of being both an atheist and a "Randian", that is, someone who looks to Ayn Rand for his political philosophy.  I am neither, of course.  But I think my accuser was confusing conservative thought with libertarianism and conflating the two.

In terms of the policies they support, most libertarians are more like conservatives with regard to economic policy, but more like progressives with respect to social and foreign policy - though how they get to those positions may differ from both conservatives and progressives.  For example, libertarians believe that trade with our enemies is the solution to our foreign policy problems.  Progressives tend to think that Western Civilization and the U.S. in particular, are the cause of the world's problems and therefor we have no right to have an assertive foreign policy or stand up for our values.

Both conservatives and libertarians believe that smaller, less expensive government will encourage economic growth and freedom which will, ultimately, make everyone better off.  Although Rand, who is a libertarian folk hero, had the reputation, at least, of being unconcerned with the poor, conservatives look more to Adam Smith who argued that everyone in society, particularly the poor, will be better off when economic transactions are voluntary, and so, if they are to happen at all, happen only when both parties believe they are better off entering into the transaction than not doing so.  Even most libertarians I know are not "Randians" in the sense of not caring about the poor.  They share the view that economic liberty helps the poor, just as it has helped hundreds of millions around the world out of poverty.

Libertarians differ from conservatives on social issues because, for them, liberty is the highest value, whether in economics or anything else.  Thus they tend to oppose restrictions on abortions, drugs, prostitution, pornography and so on.  They tend to share many, though not all, of these policy positions with progressives rather than conservatives.  But libertarians tend to do so because of the high value of Liberty - you can do whatever you want as long as it does not hurt someone else.

What I think libertarians miss about these social issues, and that many conservatives get right, is that a society with a strong cultural and moral code which governs these "social issues" less government intrusion is necessary to maintain a coherent and sane society.  Without the social restraints society becomes disordered and there is a temptation for government to step in to "order" it.  Many conservatives are beginning to see that government enforced conservative values are probably not the best thing unless the restrictions protect a third party from injury.  Elective abortion, for example, because the unborn child does not get a choice, should be seen by both conservatives and libertarians to be an exception to liberty - that is, the abortion does, in fact, hurt someone else.

Libertarian thought in the United States has developed primarily among atheists.  And still many of the most prominent spokesmen are atheists.  Most evangelical Christians like me are conservatives, and most conservatives view themselves as Christians or religious Jews.  Libertarians perhaps see these conservative values as relics of superstition and therefore they oppose all of them reflexively, even when it would be more consistent with their philosophy, as with abortion, to support them.

The other misconception of my accuser was that conservatives, and libertarians for that matter, were selfish and did not have regard for the poor.  This is clearly false and a slander.  Conservatives believe that free-market economics and small government help the poor escape poverty.  They believe that giving a poor person stuff (welfare or redistribution) even if necessary in the short run, does not take anyone out of poverty.  Poverty is not a lack of material wealth, but the lack of the ability to support oneself.  You can give a poor person $1,000,000 and that person will not thereby acquire middle-class values and behaviors.  In fact, as with rap stars, many star athletes, and poor people who win the lottery or a big personal injury judgment, having that money given to them may just exaggerate their bad behaviors - not always, of course but the point is that it's not money that gets you out of poverty but a change in culture.

That being said, sometimes society must provide material support to people (1) who for one reason or another simply cannot support themselves, or (2) temporarily to help that person actually escape poverty. My daughter teaches in a charter school and the stories she tells of some of her kids and the homes they come from make one cry.  Every kid needs to get a decent shot.  I think every conservative I know would agree with this paragraph.

But the problem with ObamaCare (or at least one of the problems) and with all means-tested welfare programs, is that they impose outrageously high marginal tax rates on people escaping poverty and thus encourage people not to work, or to work less, because an increase in income causes a loss of benefits.  My preference, and in this I do not necessarily speak for conservatives, is to have a "flat tax" with fewer deductions and a single tax rate for all income (including capital gains which will be indexed for inflation) - and then adding a substantial refundable credit which would provide a "floor" for everyone to have enough income to get by but not feel comfortable in poverty.  Although the marginal rate would be the same at every income level, the effective rate would go from negative (when the tax is less than the credit) to approach the marginal rate.  For Bill Gates or Warren Buffet the marginal rate and the effective rate are essentially the same.  But the value of the credit will be proportionately vastly more valuable to middle class and lower class people whose effective rates go to zero and below.  I suspect that a system could be designed with a tax rate, and a personal credit amount, picked so that, on average, it could replace all our welfare and redistribution programs (and the administrative machinery required to support them) while leaving the amount of support for the poor, and re-distributive effect, essentially unchanged from current law.

This plan would eliminate the disincentives for not working while making sure people had food to eat, a place to live, and basic medical care.  People would still have an incentive to work more and harder to buy better food, housing, medical care and other things they want - thus pushing them out of poverty.  This is a win-win-win.  The poor win by breaking the cycle of dependence.  The rich win by reducing marginal rates giving them incentives to save, invest and work harder.  And society itself wins with greater growth, fewer poor people, and smaller deficits.

ObamaCare and the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance

During the time of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I the English Parliament passed laws requiring all citizens, and particularly those who sought public office, to sign an Oath of Supremacy in which the signer acknowledged that the English monarch was the Head of the Church of England.  In 1606, under James I, an Oath of Allegiance was added which required the signer to agree, among other things, that no Pope could depose a King or absolve the signer from the requirements of the Oath.  Roman Catholics obviously had a problem denying the authority of the Pope over the English Church and limiting the Pope's authority.  Sir Thomas More refused to sign the Oath of Supremacy and was executed for treason.  Although the requirement to subscribe to these oaths would subsequently not carry the death penalty, Roman Catholics and some non-Anglican Protestants, who could not subscribe to them, were for many years excluded from high office in England - that is, except those willing to compromise their principles and sign the oaths.

The American Founders believed these Oaths to be abusive, some of them being subject to exclusion from office under them, and they were forbidden in Article VI, Paragraph 3 of the U.S. Constitution.

How does this relate to ObamaCare, you ask?  Well, the Little Sister's of the Poor have been told by the Obama Administration that they will have an exemption from the birth control mandate if they just sign a paper which directs someone else to provide free birth control to their employees on their behalf.  All the Sisters have to do is put aside their principles and sign the paper implicating themselves in behavior they believe goes against their Church teaching.  It will cost them nothing except a little bit of integrity.

And what is the point of the birth control mandate anyway?  No person would, in a rational world, buy insurance for birth control if she did not plan on using it.  Therefore, anyone seeking such insurance would be charged a premium equal to at least 100% of the anticipated cost of the product.  The only reason a person planning to use birth control would buy insurance for it is if other people who didn't want it, or thought it was immoral, were forced to pay some or all of its cost.  Indeed, what purpose is really served by this mandate except to potentially implicate every businessperson of faith in conduct he or she considers immoral, and establish the precedent that the government can freely do so despite the First Amendment?

Similarly, the recently announced further delay in the employer mandate for smaller businesses requires an employer looking for an exemption to certify that, if he fired anyone, it was not because of ObamaCare! They could not possibly audit companies claiming the exemption.  And how would you disprove it anyway unless the employer specifically said or wrote somewhere that he had fired people because of ObamaCare? So just like the Sisters, all the employer has to do is tell a falsehood, and then keep his mouth shut, to get the financial benefit. And of course, when Republicans later argue that ObamaCare is costing jobs, the Democrats will respond that the vast majority of small employers have certified that they did not fire people for that reason.  There is no point, and no authorization in the ACA, to require employers to lie to get an exemption.  This also implicates the First Amendment.

This practice by the Administration is corrosive of religious and speech liberty, business integrity and the political process.  The first breach in principle, no matter how small, is always the hardest. After that each breach becomes easier.

The Obama Scandals Part IV-1 - OMG, Not Another One

While I promised to move on from my list of Obama Scandals, I could not let this one pass.  As Daniel Halper notes on today's Weekly Standard Blog, the Obama-Clinton State Department "deep-sixed" an investigation of a big Obama donor ($500,000 plus) who was appointed Ambassador to Belgium (how do you say quid pro quo?) and then apparently regularly ditched his security detail to hook up with prostitutes, some of whom were underage.  The guy is still in place.  The scandal is actually much broader according to CBS News and infects much of the Diplomatic Security Service which is tasked with protecting our diplomats overseas.  Benghazi anyone?  These scandals are starting to come back on themselves.