It’s been a good week so far. My eldest step-daughter has been home on leave and visiting us. My son-in-law and grandson have been with her. My wife’s heart sister has been staying for a while as well as she finishes her move to the west. So we’ve had a house full of laughter, geekery, and fantastic intellectual discussions. I love having these debates and discussions with my wife, but adding in others is always fun.
I’ve been thinking about my comments on centrism and how I view myself. My sister-in-law made comments to my Facebook page in light of comments made by a local friend that she felt she should take her views and move off to the corner. I wholeheartedly disagree and I think that she, like my friend, fell victim to my own articulation issues with my own political stance. I usually self-identify as a left-leaning libertarian if pushed. I do believe in the reduction of the state especially when it comes to the granting of powers to the state. I firmly believe the PATRIOT act should be scrapped as just as surely as Prohibition was after that failed experiment was shown for what it is. I do believe in individual liberty. I admire many of the left for their desire to create an equal and just society. I believe they have the best of intentions and the worst of vehicles with which to work, the state. Most of the people I know on the left are wonderful people, they want everyone to work together and to have justice, equality, and a fair chance at life. Most of the people on the right, on the other hand, seem to want two things. They want their version of religion forced upon everyone, preferably by legislative means and they want to shut the door of opportunity behind them after they’ve achieved their success. They look at it as placing themselves in an elite category and then demonstrating their elite status. In my own political view, fiscal conservatism should be easy to attain because the government should have little income from which to pull to do things. I believe in government support of infrastructure and schools, more at a state than federal level, but I think both should play parts. I believe the federal government should regulate interstate commerce, diplomacy with foreign powers, assessment of duties and taxes, and the protection of our borders by a strong military. It should create the framework from which the states then draw model in order to ensure homogenous laws and regulations. I also believe states should create frameworks for municipalities to do the same thing. I don’t think this would create a over-arching, over-reaching federal system, but a more localized system where the intent is to give us all frameworks in which to live, work, and pursue happiness while providing for the general welfare of all citizens. Socially, I support equal rights for all persons regardless of any differences. I support marriage rights for all adult persons regardless of their partner’s gender. I support the rights of like minded people to come together and form a community based on their principles, but I also demand the right not to participate in their community, without prejudice, should I not agree to those principles.
I think the decline of the American right, especially within the Republican party has been mirrored by the rise of the evangelical movement post WWII. In many ways, this movement more and more seems to mirror something I have seen in the history of the religion to which they subscribe. The modern evangelical “star” ministers remind me of incomplete versions of Saul of Tarsus. Saul of Tarsus is the most influential and enigmatic figure in Christian history after Rebbe Y’hoshua ben Yosef himself. Little to nothing is known of Saul’s childhood and history. These things become important to our discussions as he was formed by those experiences. Somehow he went from being a Pharisaic Jew to a burgeoning Christian. To what was he exposed as a child? This question is important as you investigate his Christian faith. Saul never met Y’hoshua, though if the book of Acts is correct, he might have met others who have met him. I personally don’t believe it as Paul’s own letters never discuss it and if he had the authority described in Acts, he would have used it.
As Saul only encountered a spiritualized representation of his view of Y’hosua, it’s safe to say, as he wrote about Christianity, it become more and more apparent, he pulls the faith father away from the Torah and closer to a Gnostic/Hellenic model. Over time, the evangelical movement has pulled more and more away from the New Covenant, due to their “spiritualized” form of Christianity which is a “protest” against the “hide bound ways” of the conventional denominations. They harken back to parts of the Torah, but as they don’t embrace all 613 commandments, they cannot be good Jews. Instead, they create and the push out a faith which demands belief in their version of faith which they control and determine for you. Questions are not welcomed and their own prejudices are paramount.
I wonder what it bodes for everyone that these folks are following the other part of the Roman model, control the government and you can enforce the religion throughout the empire. Perhaps my progressive friends would do well to not be quite as senatorial as Rome.