Category Archives: politics

Surreal Subversion

September 25th, 2013 | Dr. Charlie Self

American and Western European histories are filled with moral and social conflict and political battles. For the past three centuries, the trajectory toward human liberty and economic opportunity has been positive, with serious battles against totalitarianism in the 19th and 20th centuries. Coalitions of Center, Left and Right in Europe and lots of “horse-trading” in the USA have ensured relative stability for millions of people.

This stability depends upon four critical factors: consensual personal and social morality, human liberty, economic opportunity and the rule of law. These elements are interdependent and indispensable for human flourishing.

Our very civilization, built on these foundations, is threatened by the ideologues in power in Washington, D.C. (And by extension, Sacramento, CA)

I am normally optimistic, looking for the best in people, even those I disagree with. What is happening right now is the culmination of a century of subversion inaugurated by Woodrow Wilson, accelerated (with often noble intent) by FDR, turbo-charged by LBJ’s Great Society and mostly unopposed by even the Republicans designated as conservatives. The past five years, however, are fraught with exponential change that is subversive of the values enumerated above and enshrined in the Constitution.

I do not believe we can dismantle 100 years of structural change overnight…nor should we. What we must do is understand the times we live in and recognize the seriousness of our situation. All people of conscience, regardless of particular policy perspectives, must unite to stem the flood waters of self-destruction and turn the tide toward a preferred future.

Our current President and Administration are not content with adjustments that ease economic pain, build infrastructure and ensure opportunity. They are after forcible redistribution of wealth and the creation of a permanent working underclass that will vote for more largess from the federal trough. In addition to runaway spending, totalitarian control over health care and education and deliberate anarchy on immigration, they are undermining the four foundations mentioned above in the following ways:

The personal and social mores of hundreds of years are willfully discarded for “evolved” thinking of marriage and family, sexual license and special accommodation to Islamicists that despise everything the West stands for.

Human liberty – including freedom of conscience and worship, assembly and speech and redress to the government – is being sacrificed on the altar of political correctness and incipient totalitarian control over families and individuals. When people of goodwill cannot comment on marriage and morality, critique another religion or worldview (except Christianity) and are told that their most cherished values are subservient to state interests, we no longer have a functioning Constitution.

Economic opportunity is threatened by a militaristic environmentalism rooted in debatable science, excessive regulation and utter disdain for entrepreneurship that does not spout the correct social cliches. It is interesting that class envy is used to increase government control while major corporate donors pay little in taxes and garner contracts with public money.

Finally, the rule of law. Or should we say, lawlessness. Everywhere the current party is in power, crime grows, economies decline and social unrest is at an all-time high. Any suggestion of smaller budget increases or greater efficiencies in social programs are greeted with howls that millions will starve. Immigration reform is a joke. Millions will be pardoned for breaking the law. Instead of deporting felons, enforcing borders and crafting pathways to citizenship that continue our grand values, we are opening the floodgates for cheap labor and cheap votes.

We have a small window of opportunity to change this pathway to oblivion. It will require moral courage, spiritual awakening and wisdom to meet the needs of many types of people. It will also require Congressional and Presidential leadership willing to debate civilly and seriously and forge policies that represent all Americans.

Surreal artists distort reality and provoke reactions with exaggerated forms. The people in power are doing the same with their histrionics and propaganda. Their refusal to debate, stubborness in the face of many concerns and fiat-wielding power speak for themselves. They have a distorted narrative, an exaggerated sense of their own superiority and utter disdain for all that are less “enlightened.” It is time to compel them to get real jobs by voting in women and men of integrity that take the Constitution seriously.

A Great Reversal is Possible

August 12th, 2013 | Dr. Charlie Self

Endless federal deficits. Porous borders and immigration chaos. Selective enforcement of oversight laws and regulations in the EPA and IRS. Health care for all that includes 2400+ exemptions, including government employees. A foreign policy without direction. Serious scandals dismissed as phony and a media that is rarely investigating those currently in power.

These and other problems are not five years in the making, though the current Administration has done little to resolve and much to exacerbate this state of affairs. Our current crises are a century in the making, beginning with some of the unintended consequences of the Roosevelt Administration in the first decade of the 1900s, continuing through the elitism of the Wilson years, accelerated by the policies of FDR and codified by LBJ’s Great Society in the 1960s. Neither Democratic or Republican leaders have been able to reverse the trends that are presently carrying our American experiment toward oblivion.

The fundamental issue for over a century is the disempowerment of individuals and local government by the Leviathan of ever-increasing federal power. It is important to note that this essay is not a nostalgic foray into a mythical past. We need federal agencies for everything from protecting civil rights to decent food and a clean environment. The ethical and social oversight that ensures freedom and opportunity is a vital part of the original intention of the founders. What was never in their minds and must be altered in ours was the federal administration of so much public money! The corruption, bad stewardship and inefficiencies of federal power hinder the good intentions of most citizens that want compassion, safety and reasonable public services.

We must begin a reversal today and re-empower local and state governments and restore the dignity of personal virtue as the critical foundation for liberty. This will not happen overnight and will call upon every moral and spiritual resource we possess. We can begin by taking ownership of our decisions and votes and calling upon public servants to serve rather than be enriched at our expense. We must not allow collectivist or libertarian extremists or social elites to control the public conversations critical to our future.

We can reverse a century of malfeasance in less than a decade if we will find the courage to stop over-promising and under-delivering largess and call upon the better natures our citizens to contribute to the common good through their business and charitable enterprises. We must welcome people of all faiths (or none) into the civil-political discourse and stop pretending that religious values have no place in public life. Coercion of conscience has no place in a free society, but faith convictions are not restricted to the private sphere. Polite and robust debate is good for freedom and we must not permit one political party or religious tradition to impose their will and stifle dissent.

Wealth can be created while caring for the environment and compensating employees fairly. The tax code needs complete transformation – and some folks will need to find other employment. Military readiness and care for veterans are important priorities. Our policies must stop rewarding irresponsible behavior. Our management of the public purse needs an overhaul, releasing some local, state and federal workers to the private sector. Immigration policy requires courage and decriminalizing drugs is a social folly.

All these words are easy to write – and extremely hard to practice because our system discourages disrupting current norms that might displace voters. When enough citizens find courage and their elected officials discover integrity, we can reverse the tides and uncover new wellsprings of potential and prosperity.

The Truth Sets Free

May 13th, 2013 | Dr. Charlie Self

“The truth shall set you free.” This famous line has an important context. Jesus of Nazareth declared this at the end of an insightful description of his true followers: “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. THEN…you will know the truth…”

Truth is liberating for all that decide character and integrity must trump expedience and power. Admitting our personal failures and offering proper credit to others for our successes are both part of truthfulness that liberates the soul and earns the respect of others now and forever.

The Benghazi fiasco is compounded by an Administration unwilling to admit its foreign-policy failures. The terrorist attacks on 9-11-12 were not a spontaneous reaction to an obscure and obscene film produced months before. They were the deliberate actions of groups bent on the destruction of Israel, the USA and any other powers impeding a global caliphate. These attacks undermine the mythology that recent “outreach” to radical Islamicists has been successful. The hubris emanating from the Bin Laden assassination has obscured judgment and promulgated increased self-deception and public resistance to investigation.

If the President and Secretary of State had forthrightly declared, “We were ill-prepared and will correct our policies” the day after the attack, Benghazi would still be a tragedy. But it would also fade from public memory and we would not be subject to the current polemics that only increase the cynicism on the Left and skepticism on the Right.

The Watergate scandals of 1972-1974 were quite similar. If Nixon had fired the responsible parties and cleaned house, he still could have won the election. But paranoia won the day and two years later our nation had a new President they did not elect to that office.

Free the film maker. Admit the failure. Apologize to the families of the dead. Restore the positions of the whistle blowers. Come clean with no excuses and many Americans will offer a second chance – we love stories of redemption for those that repent. Continued defiance may preserve a public myth, but it subverts private and public morality and erodes of national character. Do the Republicans have political hay to harvest? Yes. But any such schemes have no fuel when humility triumphs over hubris.

Observations

March 16th, 2013 | Dr. Charlie Self

Observations on a Friday:

The human condition is summed up well by watching preschool children play. One minute they are hugging, laughing and sharing…the next they are crying, pushing and refusing to share.

Federal government leaders are like dieters confronting a box of doughnuts. They know they should walk away after eating one and sharing the box, but they end up eating all of them. Restraint is not an easy virtue.

“Redefining” marriage and family does not change the empirical and intuitive truth that humans are conceived by one man and one woman and children are best served by their biological parents staying together.

Just when I am about to embrace pacifism fully, Iran, North Korea and the Taliban do or say something that awakens a sensibility that we need military force in a fallen world.

But when the noxious odor of crusading and militarism appears, I realize that I am first a citizen of God’s kingdom and must love and pray for my enemies even as nations try to resist evil.

Judaism, Christianity and Islam see the world very differently, even as they share certain monotheistic and moral concepts. Civil discourse with love and respect is a must; pretending that “they worship the same deity” is intellectually and spiritually dishonest.

Academics are a funny lot sometimes. They love to rage against capitalism while teaching in buildings funded by people that were productive and employed others…and, gasp! – made a profit.

Why do so many environmentalists express deep concern for obscure animal species while allowing the elimination of unborn humans? Conversely, good ecology is good economics…if we care for creation, it will care for our posterity.

The local church can be the incubator of spiritual and social transformation. As people connect with God and each other, they become creative and productive and the world is better.

We cannot regulate all risk out of our lives.

Warm homemade bread and butter shared with people you love is profoundly gratifying.

Maturity, Please

February 19th, 2013 | Dr. Charlie Self

Our current pop culture encourages permanent adolescence as prurient passions rule over consideration of others and thoughtful actions and words. Children are maturing physically sooner, yet staying immature longer, with many psychosocial experts affirming that the brain – especially of males – only reaches adulthood in the mid-20s. I only wish most in their 20s were adults!

This issue is not physiological development. Our founders did much of their greatest work in their 20s and 30s. The Greatest Generation that persevered through a Dust Bowl and D-Day matured in their teens – they had to work to survive and shed the decade of stupidity that characterizes our contemporary rites of passage.

Maturity includes physiology, but it is not limited by the body. Maturity – true adulthood – is marked by the growing triumph of principle over passion, reason over reaction, ethical choices over temptations and service to others over cheap self-gratification. Biblically, maturity is the Great Commandment (loving God supremely and others sacrificially) expressed by the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) and the virtues of the divine life (II Peter 1:1-10).

Today’s youth are far more capable than we think. The problem is their parents. Too many “adults” are acting like middle school students, exchanging gossip, struggling for acceptance through moral compromise and hoping for popularity at any cost. O wait! this sounds like Washington, D.C. and most media content! Legislative progress requires self-control, principled compromise and the ability to reign in emotion and honestly desire the best for others.

It is time for new icons of virtue. The reason we love Captain America is that he appeals to something beyond ourselves…and even Iron Man follows his lead and willingly serves the cause. We love WWII movies and documentaries because – if only for a moment – so many served at great cost. These fantasy and folk heroes are flawed, but their decisions are sound and point to the heart of maturity – looking beyond ourselves to the Almighty and the good of others.

How do we change our current psychosocial trajectory? One decision, one family, and one relationship at a time. Today let’s open our Bible and turn off the computer. Mom and Dad, decide now that nothing will break your covenant…and if you have kids, your fidelity is the number one factor in their future. Let’s encourage learning, reflection and service and discover the wonder that caring for others fills our own souls with delight.

And by the way, let’s send a message to our city, state and federal public servants: We expect you to be adults and serve the common good. We are watching and we are voting.