How About Another Winter Hike?

I'll never forget Luke's comment when we got back to the car: "That should never be done again." 

I knew you'd have fun, Luke!  I just knew it!

So, I've been meaning to kind of deconstruct that hike since last year but just haven't thought about doing it when I could.  While we (uh, I mean "I") might have picked a better day for a stroll in the woods, you can't always avoid inclement weather while hiking.  But there are some things we can review - some of which will be obvious, some maybe less so. 

1. We weren't lost, we just didn't know where we were.  OK, we (I mean "I") got lost...but only a little.  What I mean is that we had still had the map and had my old compass for a long enough time that we knew where we were on the map.  But also, remember that we were bounded on all sides by roads.  That's a big deal to keep in mind when you're hiking: where are the nearest roads, rivers, valleys, and ridge tops relative to where you are?  Also, though we lost my old Silva compass, I had not one but two digital compasses as back ups in my coat - we had the tools to get back out.  
2. What are your back up plans to get out when your first ideas aren't working?  When we started hiking back from the creek and figured out that the compass was lost, we got to the ridge top and found that old north-south logging road.  It looked on the map like we might be able to follow that down to the SSE and make our way over to the dam.  Had the road not been overgrown, it would've made for easier hiking than bushwhacking due east back to the trail.  But, alas, the road was so overgrown that I pulled the plug on that idea.  What I did then was to try to walk a 90 degree bearing back to the trail by the lake, but without consulting the compass.  We know how well that turned out: when I stopped to check the phone, we had actually been traveling at a 357 degree bearing - just over 3 degrees beyond due north!  *Lesson: even a dude that leads wilderness backpacking trips may not do a good job of dead reckoning*  In point of fact, had we kept walking north, we would've run into the road we turned off of to get to the parking lot.  But again, knowing that we were walking roughly parallel to our trail, we stopped, checked the compass on the phone, and started walking a 90 degree bearing back.  We landed on the trail about 100 yards north of where we'd left it earlier that morning.  The point of all of this is that off trail stuff requires multiple backups, and multiple alternative plans to get out.  
3. One word: wool.  Sheep aren't dumb, you know.  Well, actually, I guess they are pretty dumb.  But fortunately, God's given them a coat of stuff that insulates even when wet.  If I had it to do over again, I would've had you wear something other than cotton jeans and socks.  Not that you were ever in real danger of hypothermia (though I'm sure it felt like it), but cotton pulls heat away when it gets wet - just the opposite of wool.  I was wearing old jogging shoes like you guys were, but I also had on wool socks, a wool hat, and wool gloves.  My gloves were dripping wet in that 37 degree awfulness, and my fingers were still warm - toes, too.  On the other hand, when I go to the Grand Canyon I do just the opposite: I wear cotton shirts and dunk them in the creek whenever I get the chance.  The point is: know the weather and wear what fits it. 

That's about the size of it.  I suppose I wanted to get this to you for a couple of reasons.  One, hiking in hard places under difficult circumstances is something I love.  You may not love that like I do, but if you do, I'd love it if we could take another crack at winter hiking again (though 37 degrees and sleeting is just about the worst possible kind of weather there is - we might skip that stuff permanently).  If you don't like that kind of off-trail hiking, I still want you to be prepared if you end up in a situation like that by accident. 

So, to sum it all up: be prepared, don't freak, and act like sheep. 

Right to Work

I’m torn.  As a freedom nut, I’m pretty excited that my former home state of Michigan recently became the nation’s 24^th Right-to-Work (“RTW”) state.  But as a Hoosier, I have to say that I’m appalled at the development: it would’ve been so nice to keep taking companies from our northerly neighbors.  Oh, well, I guess we still have Ohio and Illinois to kick around.

All kidding aside, the recent vote in Michigan was truly astounding.  Michigan is, after all, the birth place of the United Auto Workers and at the end of this month, unions will celebrate the 76^th anniversary of the Flint Sit-down Strike, a work-stoppage which helped nationalize the labor movement.  Michigan has always felt to me like two states in one – the greater Detroit area being the first, and the rest of the state being the other – so it’s not totally surprising that Grand Rapids is more amenable to RTW than Livonia or Saginaw.  But the result is still shocking, historically.  

The labor movement is upset because Gov. Snyder had said that he would not make RTW a priority of his administration, and his decision to sign the legislation on December 11 is being received as an outright betrayal.  But the fact is, the Snyder administration wasn’t focused on RTW until Democrats put Proposition 2 on the ballot for a vote last month.  Prop. 2 was an amendment to the Michigan constitution that, among other things, would’ve prevented RTW.  Michigan voters saw this extraordinary measure as the power grab that it was and overwhelmingly (58-42) voted it down.  This was the context in which the Republican-dominated Michigan legislature decided to run the RTW bill through.  Did Snyder actually go back on his word?  I’m not sure, nor am I going to parse that out.  You can bet the AFL-CIO and Change to Win will be making the case that he did, come 2014 though.

RTW, as it’s commonly known, is a provision of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act (“TH”) which essentially allows states to override aspects of the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”).  Each state is subject to the entirety of the NLRA, unless it enacts legislation under TH.  One key provision of the NLRA requires that all members of a bargaining group at a “Union Shop” either join the representing union or to start paying for the union’s representation within 30 days of beginning their employment.  TH provided that if a state wanted to allow employees at Union Shops to opt out of paying dues, it was free to do so.  TH did at least one really dumb thing (requiring union leaders to sign anti-communist affidavits) but the aspect that would become the RTW was entirely sensible. 

That last point isn’t universally accepted, even though it should be.  Union members like to raise a free-rider problem objection: since unions are required to represent all of the members of a bargaining unit (premise 1), and that representation requires funding (premise 2), it would therefore be unfair for some members of the bargaining group to avoid paying their fair share for benefits provided to them by the union (inference). Were that line of thinking true, Labor’s claim that RTW efforts are actually geared at union-busting would have legs.  The problem with that view is premise 1: unions are not, in fact, required to represent non-unionized employees.  The NLRA provides for unions to negotiate members-only contracts – they are not required to represent all employees.  The sticking point - and the point on which free-rider concerns turn - is that often times, unions have negotiated contracts with employers in which they have agreed, as the exclusive bargaining agent, to represent non-members.  So, in the 77 years since the 1935 NLRA was signed, unions have had the option to negotiate member-only contracts, and in the 65 years since TH, they've had a rational reason to do so.  It seems to me that 65 years is sufficient time to re-negotiate a no longer sensible contract or, at a minimum, to quit negotiating contracts requiring that unions represent all employees.  But maybe I'm missing something.   

If RTW really isn’t about union-busting, what is it about?  Well, for starters, it’s about limiting coercion: why should the law require someone to pay for representation they don’t want?  That's a big question, one which goes right to the heart of liberty, but it's not the driving force behind the RTW movement.  The real point is, quite frankly, to drive down average labor costs.  

I hope all my Left-loosey buds will appreciate that admission from their Righty-tighty friend.

The trade off, as Charles Krauthammer points out, is more jobs vs. higher paying jobs.  Like rent ceilings and the minimum wage, requiring employers to pay the union rate simply limits the number of people companies can afford to hire.  A manager in Toledo who has labor cost capacity of $40 / hr. could hire 1 union guy at that rate, or she could add a non-union first-shift guy at $18 / hr. and a non-union third-shift guy at $22 / hr.     

That may seem like a horrible reality, but reality it is.  And, it’s only compounded by globalization: if your job is so basic that you could lose it to some unskilled laborer in Mexico or China, well, why shouldn’t you lose it to them?  I mean, what truly makes it “your” job anyway?  Is it anymore “your” job than a soon-to-be bankrupt company is the “owner’s” property?  So, Boeing relocating a plant from Washington (Union Shop) to South Carolina (RTW) may seem like a big deal, but it’s actually a reasonable way of keeping the plant from leaving the country altogether.  

When I put on my Lefty hat, I start thinking about ways around what I feel in my gut to be the pernicious effects of globalization.  One way is trade protectionism – we could slap huge tariffs on all imported goods, thereby driving the price consumers pay for Chinese-made products in line with American-made goods.  The problem there is that tariff-induced higher product prices don’t translate directly into higher wages, and we might still have a declining living standard problem.  But worse still is the Wal-Mart effect: gripe about the store all you want, many low-wage workers need stuff that Wal-Mart makes available cheaply.  

Ultimately, the way to address globalization problems are by addressing standards of living.  That requires either 1) more competition through trade freedom (e.g., we’re already seeing some trends to shift manufacturing from China to Mexico, due to rising labor costs in Asia), which would raise living standards sustainably in the long run or 2) a global Marxist revolution, which would equalize living standards, but at the profound cost of innovation, not to mention blood-shed.  

I hope the second possibility never materializes.

But neither of those long-term possibilities answers the short-term union quandary: how do they stay relevant in the light of a clear and building RTW wave?  Fighting RTW through political campaigns will doubtless be part of the answer, but that would be short-sighted. What if, instead of directing union dues to electing Democrat candidates, unions instead invested more money in the technical education of their workers?  Why wouldn’t that work?  Union dues combined with employer-provided tuition reimbursement benefits would be a huge funding source.  Union apprenticeship training could be coordinated with technical colleges, for example.  In that scenario, the “Union-made” disclosure would become a symbol of superior quality, not just a talisman of solidarity.  Union-member employees would then be worth more than their non-union counterparts – and here’s the really delicious reason – because their skill would be more valuable. 

I recently learned of an investment manager who was trying to hire a portfolio manager and a receptionist.  The company received 70 resumes for the receptionist position, but only 7 for the portfolio manager.  This recent economic contraction and subsequent tepid expansion has impacted low-skilled workers disproportionately.  That’s sad, but let’s face it: we don’t need full service gas station attendants, nor do we need as many checkers at the grocery store, nor do we need as many line workers in a GM plant.  Technological developments have changed the employment landscape permanently.  But the undesirable forces of globalization needn’t be permanent also.  

Mid & late 20^th century American economic exceptionalism was a product of political & economic liberty, a now dead depression-era work ethic, and as I wrote earlier this year, uniquely intact manufacturing capacity after WWII.  There is nothing guaranteeing that the U.S. will remain a great nation, nor can we be assured of future prosperity simply because of lingering manifest destiny fantasies.  But, I still believe we can compete our way out of the current trajectory.  I see labor unions having a potentially redemptive role in that process, but only with some major cultural and strategic changes. 

I'm Repenting (Really)

μετάνοια is transliterated as metanoia.  It's Greek for "to put behind/after one's mind."  We translate it commonly as "repentance." 

Telling someone that you're "sorry" might do the trick at first but if you've really hurt them, they're going to watch to see if your actions match your words; to trust is a different decision than to forgive, as it should be.  Sometimes demonstrating that you're sorry requires an apology (literally a suitable defense of your actions) or that you make someone whole for the loss you've caused.  But you simply can't actually be sorry without repenting.

I've been reading 1 Thessalonians again recently.  Near the middle of chapter 5, Paul urges the church in Thessaloniki to "...encourage one another and build one another up..."  When I read that section, I was hit with two powerful ideas, one right after another.  The first thing that hit me is how much I enjoy encouraging people.  It really brings me joy, and I never cease to be amazed at how a few thoughtful, observant words of encouragement can fill someone's sails.  

But the other thing I became aware of was my tendency to criticize in a harsh way.  I feel worse when I do that. I enjoy encouraging, but if I don't guard myself, that mode can actually devolve into the rottenness of condemnation.  Ironically, I end up perverting the good with its evil twin.  

And that's how sin works - it's often simply disgusting mockery or direct counter of something good. 

  
Sadly, this blog has made it easier for me to sin with harsh criticism.  I haven't at all used it as a tool for encouragement.  What a wasted opportunity.  Through it, I had hoped to share, to analyze, to discuss, to hear, to understand, to consider political, ethical, and economic issues with friends.  While I'm not backing away from the messages themselves, I'm pretty sure the spirit of my messages has driven some friends away - not necessarily because I was harsh with them, but with their ideas and the people they respect.  Oh, maybe I've not really driven them away, as in they'll avoid me on the street (at least not anymore than they normally would) but I've created relational distance between people I care about and myself.  Maybe it can be repaired, and maybe it can't.  That's pretty sad. 

So, let me say loud and clear to each of you whom I've offended: I'm sorry, and I intend to work to put that rotten mode of harshly criticizing and condemning behind me in favor of encouraging you and others.  Maybe you'd even consider sending me a message or - how about this for old fashioned - calling me up, to let me know that I hurt you.  It'd be better if I could ask for your forgiveness directly.  Either way, know that I regret offending you and I'm going to try to do better.    

A Letter to Messrs. Obama, Boehner, and Reid

30 November 2012

Dear President Obama, Speaker Boehner, and Majority Leader Reid:

Thank you for working together to solve our impending "Fiscal Cliff" problem.  A new day of cooperation has dawned across America, and our nation is grateful for your collaborative service.

However, I should also point out that averting the Fiscal Cliff might not be the big issue that everyone is making it out to be.  For example, even if you were unable to reach agreement (a most improbable scenario in our estimation) and the country were to go off the Cliff, a total P&L impact of +$600 billion vs. current annual deficits of -$1.1 trillion still leaves us with really horrific deficits going forward.

But the real problem - I'm loathe to mention again - is this: +$600 billion compared to the present value of our unfunded liabilities of -$20.5 trillion and -$40.8 trillion, for Social Security and Medicare respectively, is paltry.  To be totally frank, those numbers make the total U.S. debt of -$16.0 trillion look insignificant. 

Your decision to engage my consulting firm was very wise and also timely.  As you know well, we are the industry leaders in statistical research.  Our quantitative methods are quite complex, requiring hours of deliberative interpretation.  I believe that our grueling work has paid off and we have, fortunately, determined the answer to your fiscal quandary.  In fulfillment of our consulting agreement dated 7 November 2012, I want to now share with you the findings of our research:

• When President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act on 14 August 1935, the average life expectancy of the U.S. population was 61 years.

• In 1935, the age at which U.S. citizens could begin receiving full Social Security benefits was 65 years.

• When President Johnson signed the Medicare amendment to the Social Security Act on 30 July 1965, the average life expectancy of the U.S. population was 70 years.

• The current average life expectancy of the U.S. population is 80 years.

• The current age at which people born after 1960 may receive full Social Security & Medicare benefits is 67 years. 

• Our proprietary forecasting software projects that life expectancies will continue to rise.    

Thank you for entrusting our firm with this important civic task.  It has truly been a deep honor for us to help.  In all candor, being given the chance to respond to our nation's call in this fashion has been, in itself, more than enough compensation for our work.

Still, a deal is a deal: an invoice for my consulting fee of $80,000 has been sent under separate cover. 

In Enduring Admiration,

Sebastien P. Chicane
Chief Everything Officer

Chicane, Bullsauce, and Hawtere, LLC

P.S. Please ask Secretary Geithner to kindly remit payment for services rendered by 31 December 2012.

Coming out of the Evolutionist's Closet

I've come to believe that God used evolution and roughly 14 billion years to create the universe you and I experience today.

There.  I feel better.  Thanks, Uncle Sig.  And sorry again, Aunt Martha.  I'll be sure to keep my shoes off of your couch next time.

All kidding aside, I recognize that this topic will make some of my fellow believers uneasy.  My encouragement to you is this: let it.  I'm not out to make you uncomfortable, I just want you to put aside the comfort of your long-held beliefs in favor of letting your moral imagination wander a bit.  If you don't like the trip, I'll return you shortly.

The rest of this post basically traces thematically my journey from young-earth Creationist to my present view.  It's decidedly not a journey marked by deep scientific inquiry, though I've tried to understand that stuff as best I could.  It has involved a fair amount of theology, but don't expect to see a bunch of Hebrew and Greek words here;  I've never studied Hebrew and can only barely remember Greek.  Nor will you find a pithy quotes from Tillich and Bultmann.  What it really is, is the story of a regular guy trying to make sense of the natural world in a way that preserves his faith in Christ as redeemer.  And, it's really not an argument for my position as much as it is a description of how I've come to the views I have.

An Inclination to Trust Science (and Scientists)

I'm kind of a frustrated researcher by nature.  Well, not terribly frustrated - I'm interested in finance and economics and my job affords me plenty of opportunities to scratch & dig.  Still, there's a part of me that would get a kick out of academic research.  I read academic journals and papers in finance when I can, though sometimes the math gets overwhelming and I have to put them down.  I have a few theories I'd like to explore; I should probably go back and beef up my math skills, but for now my involvement in that field mainly includes helping the short people living in my house with addition, division, and pre-algebra.

Even if I did have my math an statistics squared away, though, I couldn't just start writing about my theories.  Odds are pretty good that several aspects of what I consider to be my unique thinking have already been developed by people before me.  One of the things that sticks out to me when I read a journal article is the way in which the authors first define who they are and where they're headed in the article, in terms of the work that's already been done in the field.  Only then do the authors start unpacking the findings of their analysis.

If a paper is judged to be good enough to be included in a prestigious journal, it's done so by an editorial panel of academics, who also are researching in the field.  This is what's known as the "peer review" process, and it helps to ensure that new ideas are vetted by the community of experts in that field.  What it really does is ensure competition for the best field-advancing theories of the academy.

Intellectual competition doesn't guarantee correct conclusions.  I'm sure natural scientists, like financial economists, have rusty paradigms that sometimes shift uneasily.  But, for the most part, competition among an informed group of scientists ensures that the best ideas rise to the top.  Not, perhaps, in the humanities: historians seem capable of constantly re-writing sagas to suit current fashion.  But unlike in historical research, the field of evolutionary biology holds the promise of commercial and public health rewards.  My doctor is uber-conservative about prescribing antibiotics because of a greater-than-Steve concern for mutating bacteria, for example. 

Yes, I get that mutations within species are different than mutations leading to new species.  But, to believe that researchers who are otherwise hemed in by the threat of making a career-ending dumb argument would also be complicit in a grand athiestic-materialist conspiracy seems, well, conspiratorial in itself.

If you've not yet read Francis Collins book, The Language of God, do so.  Collins is now director of the National Institutes of Health, but he won popular and academic acclaim as the leader of the Human Genome Project.  A former athiest, Collins earned a Ph.D. from Yale (physical chemistry) and and M.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Collins's intellectual-spiritual experience helped me gain additional comfort in harmonizing well-tested scientific claims with my undeniable experiences of the divine.  Also be sure to check out The Biologos Foundation (started by Collins) for resources to integrate a thoroughly scientific understanding of the natural world with an authentic faith in the living, redeeming God of the Bible. 


The Grand Canyon

I've been to the Grand Canyon four times.  It's an amazing place - hiking down from North Rim to the Colorado river, you go through 5 different life zones and 3 of the 4 desert ecosystems found in North America.  The north kaibab squirrel is a species unique to the north rim.  The grand canyon rattlesnake is also unique to the area.  I'm not much of a flora guy myself, but cactus flowers and agave plants always stop me in my tracks.

But it's the geology that gets me.  The upper canyon wall is comprised mainly of alternating layers of sandstone, limestone, and shale.  Each of those are sedimentary rocks, varying in density and the type of sediment: sandstone is self-explanatory, shale comes from mud, and limestone is mainly the calcium-carbonate shells of gajillions of little marine critters.  If you ever get a chance to look at limestone up close, do it.  My first childhood home was made of Bedford limestone.  I remember looking at the rough sides of the stone as a kid and being fascinated with all of the tiny fossilized shells.  It didn't hit me then that what I was looking at was actually the sediment of an ancient inland seabed.  I just thought the fossils were really cool.
 
Sand, silt or mud, and limestone will each form in very different conditions.  You might find sand at the edge of a sea, mud at the bottom of a different, murkier body of water, and calcium carbonate shells at the bottom of a sea.  When I see those types of rock alternating in the Grand Canyon, I'm impressed first with how dramatically the conditions in that location would have had to change over the years to produce those types of strata. 

Now it's possible that seeing many long cycles in the earth's upper crust is the wrong way to look at it.  But as a friend of mine said of God's creative activity in the earth: "Well, it's either really old or he made it look that way."  Why would God make something look like it took billions of years to form when it didn't?  Sure, it's possible that we're wrong to see those processes in the rock strata, but on what basis should we conclude that? 

Biblical Interpretation

I grew up in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS).  That tradition is more theologically conservative than the larger Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), including in the area of Biblical interpretation.  Christians vary widely in their views of Biblical authority.  Some groups hold that the Bible is the collected stories of many ancient and wise people, who each experienced the Divine in their own ways.  LCMS Lutherans (and many other Evangelical groups) hold a different view: they believe that the words of the Bible were communicated spiritually to the authors and are therefore not simply religiously similar accounts but are actually the words of God.

Let me just interject at this point to clarify where I stand: I believe the Bible to be God's word, not merely a collection of stories or fables.  I do not support the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy, though my objection to that position is on exegetical grounds; it's not because I see a lot of mistakes in the text.  Through inerrancy, the Church has painted itself in a corner that's neither asked of us in, nor supported by, the text.  Exegesis is a fancy word for methods of textual interpretation - more on that in a minute.

What I began to learn as I aged was that in my religious tradition, frequently a belief in inspiration was confused with a "plain sense" method of interpreting the Bible.  But, really, they're quite different.  I can say, for instance, that I believe God inspired the writing of Genesis without also believing that God created the world in six 24 hour days, and many conservative Christians would agree with me.  But the larger interpretive question, the place where the exegetical rubber meets the road, is this: how do we know that we aren't brining 21st century western views to an ancient near eastern text throughout the whole of Genesis?  At some point when you have time, read the first 11 Chapters of Genesis and then read some of the stories about Abraham in the chapters that follow immediately thereafter.  Yes, the accounts of Abraham's life involve a lot of miracles, which may seem inaccessible to your modern experience, but they're also more precise with respect to relationships, geographic locations, chronology, and so forth.  It strikes me that the emigration of Abram marked a change in the literary genre.  In Genesis 12 we move from something like theologically-oriented pre-history to ancient history.  When this first started to occur to me, I din't have that kind of clean distinction.  Frankly, Genesis 1 - 11 just felt different to me than what followed.

In John Walton's Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, I learned one reason why it felt different.  The central purpose of the creation accounts in Genesis 1 and 2 was not to communicate principals of the natural sciences nor to layout specific historical timelines, but to distinguish the Hebrew God from the numerous gods in other ancient near eastern cultures.  The Hebrew God was above the creation, not a petty territorial deity obsessed with humans' actions.  God was personal in a transcendent sort of way, not an anthropomorphism.  God created order; he did not arise out of disorder.  By the way, I should warn bookworms: this one is chocked with good stuff, but its almost a text on comparative religions and can be pretty dry.

When we read the story where God forms Adam in the dust and breathes life into his nostrils, why should we think that the plain sense of the text is the correct way to understand it?  I've come to believe that this story, too, is a way of distinguishing God's interaction with his human creation from other near eastern views and it's central to a Christian interpretation of the created order: God's not made us to be his muses, his marionettes. He's called us out of the purely physical order by giving us his image, his spirit.  Significantly, we hold moral accountability because of this image in a way that other primates do not, and certainly for purposes totally unlike the ones Sumerian, Egyptian, or Canaanite deities were thought to have created people.

Of course, understanding Genesis as primarily having a distinguishing theological purpose doesn't itself suggest that modern humans descended from earlier primates.  It does, I think, open the door to potentialities of nature like evolution.


A More Thoroughly Worshipful Experience

Most of what you and I experience as physical reality isn't actually matter, but energy and laws.  This is mind-blowing stuff and for the price of a few bucks, you should hire Gerald Schroder to guide you.  In The Hidden Face of God, Schroder digs way down to the cellular and sub-atomic levels of reality to describe the universe in truly awesome ways.

One example Schroder offers is of the electron and nulceus of the average atom.  If you could blow the scale up to a point where the nucleus was roughly a sphere 4 inches in diameter, how far out would you imagine the electrons would be orbiting?  4 feet?  40 feet?  400 feet?  Nope: 4 miles.  Which means that most all of the physical reality you and I experience daily isn't really matter, but laws keeping that matter toghether.  It gets worse: those electrons aren't tied to the nucleus, but some how they stay in orbit despite the fact that they're zipping around and around at roughly 25% of the speed of light.  What keeps them from shooting off toward the moon or collapsing into the nucleus?  Well, we don't know for sure, other than probably their charge.  Weirder still: electrons aren't actually like little revolving planets, but are "probability waves" instead.  In other words, they may only exist as energy which we're able to observe after they've been in a particular location.  

If this makes your brain hurt, you're in good company - or at least you have me for company.  I don't pretend to have anything other than the most basic concept of quantum physics, but this much I know: the universe functions - stays the same and changes - according to laws.  Schroder refers to these laws as "wisdom."  I tend to see them as also God's immancence.  "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands?"  Um, yeah, and he's way closer than you thought when you first sang that song. 

As you move back out from subatomic particles to atoms, to molecules, to cells, to organisms, to ecosystems, to planets, to solar systems, galaxies, and the universe, and you start to picture what it must mean that the universe has - maybe - 100 million galaxies each comprised of 100 million stars, give or take, what reaction does that stir in you?  That I would have a mind and awareness in this one little corner of a vast and old universe, comprised of energy and as yet unfathomable laws, brings me to worship.  The vastness of space, the depth of time each force me to my knees.  Just being moved to worship doesn't mean that what I believe is true, but it is a curious response.

The Problem of Evil

I think the theory of evolution takes a strong step toward settling the religious problem of evil.  If you want help distinguishing between the philosophical problem of evil and the religious problem of evil, you should read John Feinberg's The Many Faces of Evil.  I'd just briefly point out that as I've begun to see my suffering and pain as parts the story of being called out from the purely material world and into a spiritual world where I bear God's image, I've taken great comfort in the depth of God's love and purposes.  Pain still hurts, but I see it now in a very different context. 
 
The Stakes

I'm concerned for the Church and our still pervasive denial of an old universe and evolution.  I guess there are many reasons why someone might be concerned by these views.  Let me conclude by offering a few that matter most to me. 

First is the fact that disengaging with the real science that's being practiced doesn't do any of us any good.  We'll become even more marginalized in society but worse yet, we'll become cut off from the wonders of God's creation.  God continues to unfold the most amazing story ever in front of our eyes.  I believe God is sharing with us this understanding of how he creates for our enjoyment.  Let's not miss this opportunity. 

Secondly, I'm concerned as a parent.  As the story of evolution and the ancient universe grow clearer, I fear that if I nurture in my kids a simplistic faith, based on what knowledge I received, not on what I think God is actually doing, I'll set them up for disaffection and unbelief.  Fundamentally, science (in my view) explains how God is doing those things he's doing.  I don't want my kids to have a faith which is closed to God's possibilities. 

Finally, if part of what it means to be human is that we reflect God's character through our minds, let's not put artificial, culturally conditioned boundaries on that opportunity.  You may conclude that my reasons for believing in evolution and a very old universe are wrong, but make sure that you're doing it based on understanding - gained through wrestling in your mind with the data as best you can process it - not because it's part of a system that was handed to you. 

Grieving (a Little)

I grieve for our country.  Not because President Obama was re-elected.  I’ve said before that even though I think he’s a lousy leader, he’s a decent man.  He’s my president, too, and I pray that he’s guided by wisdom in his second term.  

Nor do I grieve because my hope is founded on political philosophies, systems, or leaders.  

I’m not sad that Latinos, African-Americans, and un-married women were successful in their choice of leader for our country.  We live in a rare slice of history, one when ordinary citizens get to vote.  What a great deal that is!

I’m definitely not sad for Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan.  Those guys will be just fine.

I am also not worried that this one event marks an immanent crash of any sort.  Although, that “Fiscal Cliff” thing could get ugly.

I’m sad because we’re moving toward Rome, post-Constantine, and the series of dots that connect our present choices with that future is too difficult for many to trace.  We didn’t just choose a decent man to sit in a big white building on Tuesday or a Native American senator for Massachusetts; we chose an economic and political trajectory.  That trajectory is called Statism.  It will result in our continuing decline in global commercial competitiveness.  It means importing lower standards of living.  It portends a diminished means of funding national security priorities, which protect our liberty as well as our economic interests.  

My sense is that a lot of voters simply can’t play those scenarios out.  So, we voted for a decent man with a kind smile whom we believe is most likely to understand our problems and provide government solutions to them (the President nailed that metric by something like 85-15 over Mr. Romney, by the way).  Is it legitimate to vote on that basis?  I suppose so.  But, the implications of a civic and intellectual life predicated on self-pity can’t be good for our future prosperity.  

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On the first night of my economics class, I try to encourage the students by saying that if they have any apprehension about spending the next few weeks in “the dismal science,” they should take heart: my class is really not about numbers and math as much as it is about cause and effect.  Watching students learn to master shifting supply and demand curves in response to external factors is very rewarding personally – it’s a reasoning tool they’ll use the rest of their lives.  There’s nothing like seeing the lights come on for them!    

But in class, shifting the demand curve for Doritos in response to a shortage in Ruffles is pretty simple.  The results of choice and external factors, intertwining through the far larger theaters of U.S. economic and political policy are way, way tougher to divine.  That’s especially true when faced with a flock of smart economists whose analysis is really advocacy in drag.   

   

I guess I grieve mostly as a teacher at heart, as someone who really wants to help people connect the dots.  If you don’t want to pursue the same society I do, OK, but I still want you to understand the implications of your choices.  

By the way, I think in some of these blog posts, my building sense of dismay bubbled up into impatience and it came across, at least as one friend recently said, as "vitriol."  That's not the emotion behind my barbs.  I'm sure I could've chosen my words more carefully, though, and I certainly didn't mean to offend.

November 6, 2012 was a stark reminder that blogging and teaching and contending and listening – while perhaps fine activities in and of themselves – sometimes don’t bear enough fruit to merit the energy and the passion.  And that’s sad.    

A Response to Rick Ungar's Article on Federal Spending

Two good friends, for whom I hold a deep intellectual respect, recently asked me whether I saw analytical flaws in Rick Ungar’s Forbes piece, entitled Who is the Smallest Government Spender Since Eisenhower?  Would You Believe It’s Barack Obama?  Here’s my response: 

I don’t think there’s really a “flaw” in Ungar’s analysis, except for the fact that the piece is not all that analytical—it’s really more of a political spider web than it is a relevant fiscal critique.  And, when you read through the comments, it’s pretty clear that Rick Ungar as Shelob was a very effective rhetorical device.  

The Republican party is not made stronger by meat heads who base their anti-Obama argument on federal outlays during his first term.  This is so for three main reasons, in my opinion.

One, when it comes to executive fiscal restraint, Republicans have almost no moral high ground left.  43 fought two wars without figuring out how to paying for either, and he instituted a massive new Medicare prescription drug benefit.  41 broke his campaign pledge on taxes.  40 did a lot to rein in the total cost of government, but even though his capitalist-based defense spending effectively beat the USSR’s moribund socialist-based war machine, it still meant a large increase in government spending.  Here, if we’re honest, we have to admit that Ungar makes a reasonable point.  I get that it’s hard to get elected to public office without promising goody bags to voters, and, frankly, I’m not voting for Mitt Romney tomorrow with a big heart-swell of libertarian optimism; I’m voting for him because of the two candidates, he’s by far the best shot we have at a financial tourniquet, and because he is a leader & problem solver.  

Two, the lion’s share of the president’s policies’ broader costs are either indirect or still coming.  The Affordable Care Act was sold as a means of saving money for the Federal government.  Even if it does, which seems increasingly improbable, it does so by cost-shifting: from the “Middle Class” to the rich; from old to young; from individuals to businesses; from insureds to insurers; from bureaucrats to innovators.  Plus, the number of doctors refusing Medicaid patients is growing.  Finally, what effect will the medical device excise tax have on innovation in one of our key areas of competitive advantage?  Those are all indirect costs of centralized management that add up to an absolutely huge economic cost, but which aren’t captured in Federal outlays during 2010-12.  But even ACA’s direct, probable Federal outlays (e.g., shoring up insufficiently funded state Medicaid budgets) won’t hit for at least another year yet.  The same holds for Dodd-Frank: do you realize that JP Morgan already has in excess of 400 full-time regulators at its NY office?  Plus, all of D-F’s rules haven’t been written yet.   

Three, President Obama’s fiscal "sins" (no, I do not really believe they are sins) are far worse than the sum total of the checks he cut during his first term.  Focusing on spending at the exclusion of the debt and annual budget deficits misses the larger fiduciary point.  It’s one thing for a family of 4 to spend $5,000 on a vacation when their income is $300k.  It’s something else entirely when their income is $100k.  The examples here are too many to count.  Maybe I can just say that current Federal outlays are at most a short chapter a 500 page book on President Obama’s economic mismanagement.  I’m happy to go into those details if you want, but I’m assuming you either already know them or otherwise don’t really care for me to, and in either case, I don’t have the time right now to enumerate them.  I’ve already tackled several of them in other blog posts, though.       

Rick Ungar is to Forbes what Al Hunt used to be to the WSJ: the token liberal.  His function for the Left isn’t really to analyze, it’s to advocate while giving the appearance of seriousness.  He poses no threats to GOP philosophy, but his "analysis" can serve as a corrective for self-reflective conservatives who yearn not to win elections, but to see government done well.