Ordered to bake?

Comment to Ross Douthat's "Baker vs. Empire", New York Times, 2017-12-09

"...designed for specification" is a phrase that I have never seen in any arguments pro-baker or pro-buyers.  My own question was if he had been asked to put two male figures on the top of the cake.  If he was to be forced to do so, could he then be forced to put a nude male-female couple on a cake?

The same kind of arguments could be applied to photographers.  If they are forced to take photos of a gay wedding, could they be forced to take photos of a nudist wedding?

My understanding of the case is that the baker was not refusing to sell them a cake but refusing to make a cake to their specifications.

What is a real Christian?

One who

Doesn’t throw the first stone,
Doesn’t pray in public to be seen by man,
Forgives others as he or she wants to be forgiven,
Helps someone not like him or her.

I won't say who follows or doesn't follow these guidelines: judge not lest ye be judged.

Submitted as a comment to Roth Douthat's "Is There an Evangelical Crisis".

Liberal/conservative misnaming

Ross Douthat gave a long selection of books for “liberals” to read given that Donald Trump “won” the election.

Boy!  Did readers take him on, including the false dichotomy of liberal vs. conservative, or even it the labels are accurate.

My own contribution was:

The problem is not the division between "liberalism" and "conservatism". They are both misleading labels. For example, "liberals" can be very conservative about reigning in corporate power and "conservatives" can be very liberal about increasing corporate power. The real problem is the disinterest of too many people in voting at all. Lost in all the hoopla of Trump's "victory" is that he came in third to a de facto "none of the above”.

See http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/21/opinion/books-for-the-trump-era.html?comments&_r=0#permid=20874252.

Trump and the rule of personality, not of law

"Donald Trump is the personification of the distortion of a constitution by men who hate the constitution with such passion that they are willing to swear complete fealty as they destroy everything it stands for.” - Montreal Moe in response to Ross Douthat’s “The Trump Afterlife”, New York Times, 2016-10-19.

Douthat, being a true conservative, doesn’t care much for Trump’s anti-constitutional remarks.

To Montreal Moe’s comment I added:

Hear! Hear! I find it ironic that so-called conservatives rant about activist judges. So-called conservative Supreme Court Judges have defined corporations as persons and defined "people" in the Second Amendment to be "persons". Changes like these are certainly not "conservative”.

See http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/19/opinion/campaign-stops/the-trump-afterlife.html?comments#permid=20183212:20184925.

Louis the XIV famously proclaimed “L’état, c’est moi!”.  "The state, it is me!"  Is Trump planning on being Donald the I?  Hm, in Trump’s case does “I” mean “me” or the first or both?  Trump’s remarks certainly sound monarchical (rule by one) rather than democratic (rule by many).

Conservatives conserve what?

This entry was triggered by Ross Douthat’s “Trumponomics Is Reform Conservatism’s Evil Twin”, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/opinion/campaign-stops/trumponomics-is-reform-conservatisms-evil-twin.html, New York Times, 2016-08-10.

Once again, a commentator uses “free market” without clearly defining what it means.  And of course, they really never define what is being conserved.

“Free markets’ generally mean that corporations are free to do what they please, no government regulation, no interference from shareholders, and no unions.

The Constitution states that Congress has the power to regulate commerce among the  states.  Isn’t contamination of rivers that flow into other states “commerce among the states”.  Isn’t the smokestack pollution that goes into neighboring states “commerce among the states”.

But those conservatives who are so quick on the “patriotism” of
"limited government” quickly ignore the conservatism of carefully reading the Constitution.  The Constitution has lots of checks and balances to have a fair government for all, but these “conservatives” only note those that fit their agenda.  For example, they want legislators to attend “prayer breakfasts”.  But isn’t the political pressure to attend a “prayer breakfast” a religious test for office, a test prohibited by the Constitution?

Post-modern times are not now

Ross Douthat wrote another interesting column, "The Promise and Peril of Pope Francis",  New York Times, 2013-10-06. It is about the juggling act that Pope Francis has to perform to attract more fallen-away Catholics and keep the faithful but conservative Catholics.

One commenter used the term "post-modern world".  "Excellent article. In terms of reclaiming the so called absent middle for Catholics, Jews and members of all faiths confronting a post-modern world the question needs to be asked: Does attendance at religious services really matter anymore? The vast numbers of adherents who identify only culturally to their religious tradition need to be reached in creative new ways and respected for their lack of participation in what are perceived to be archaic institutions."

How can we be living in "post-modern" times or a "post-modern world"?  These terms are often used to denote the here and now as coming after a time that was modern then.  But "post-modern" times, like tomorrow, never come.  We are always living in modern times.

Place, community, and politics

Ross Douthat is a different breed of conservative, and I almost always read his columns with satisfaction.  He tries to cut through all the political grandstanding of either party to get to some basic truths.  One of these was "When Place is not Enough".

I posted the following as a comment to his article:

We've lived in the same house now for 14 years, and we still don't know the names of all our neighbors. We chat with a few, but we either are inside or out and about. We belong to some various groups and form our relationships within them.

I think stay-at-home moms have contributed to neighborhood or town cohesion, but as kids grow up and interests diverge, more activities outside the neighborhood draw people away from their neighbors and towards others with similar interests all over town.

In Duluth we have three choices for getting around - car, bus, and walking. We use each according to conditions. The car obviously doesn't let us connect to our neighbors other than a friendly wave. The bus is less than a block away and there are few people out to meet. We can walk to several places within a mile and do in nice weather, but we rarely meet anyone regularly. It is the people at these various destinations that we know better than those in our block.

I grew up in Cleveland in mostly lower middle-class neighborhoods. In the 40s and 50s I knew only half the kids and no more than 10 percent of the adults on the same block.  My network was through school, community center, and a church, all within a mile of my house but past dozens of houses whose occupants I knew not.

I do laud the Front Porch Republicans and communitarians for striving to make where we live better places.  If more of us do that maybe we can organize better to put the Masters of the Universe in their place!

I highly recommend at least taking a peek at the About page of the Front Porch Republic.  It looks like a good basis of a new political party.  Or at least for independent candidates to use as an inspiration.

Ideology, compromise, and the big picture

Today was another publication day for me.  My letter to the editor of the Star Tribune was published as "Political Discourse: You want compromise?  Are you sure about that?"

Ross Douthat also wrote a blog about politicians jockeying for position rather than trying to solve problems: "The Roots of Overheated Rhetoric".

He does take a good look at bigger issues than just who believes what on some "little" issue.  However, I take issue with one of his statements: "a protective government ready to save us from our foolishness when the economy goes bad".

Who is this "we" in "our foolishness"?  Granted, many of "us" overextended ourselves with inducements from many sellers of this and that; a little reflection could have kept our credit card bills small.  On the other hand, credit was extended by "trusted advisors" who few had any reason not to trust.  When the mortgage officer at "Neighborhood Bank and Trust" tells us we can afford the mortgage, few of us have the expertise to ask the right questions.  And when "Oversize Bank and Trust" of Wall Street tells Neighborhood Bank and Trust that it will buy Neighborhood's mortgages, Neighborhood feels it can and should sell as many mortgages as it possible.  The whole problem was out of "our" hands.

Well, maybe not completely.  Enough of us believed the rhetoric about "getting the government out of the way", not realizing less government oversight meant less corporate oversight of the long-term effects of its short-term thinking.

A possible name and basis for a new party?

There is no real middle between today's so-called conservatives and so-called liberals, other than those who feel caught between two extremes.

What we need is a party that determines what the real problems are and what real, possible solutions to those problems may be.  Maybe this party should be called the Realistic Party, not to be confused with reality shows.

Of course, once a group has a name and real people start joining it, then the group starts moving from its original goals.  Oh, well!  I tried.

This entry was partially inspired by Ross Douthat's latest column, "Scenes from a Marriage", New York Times, 2011-01-16.

He writes about the mutual antipathy between "the media" and Sarah Palin, which Douthat writes is more co-dependence.

Based on his realistic look at the issue, I would say he might be an ideal spokesperson for the Realistic Party.  On the other hand, does his over-generalization that some journalists are "the media" disqualify him from this role?

A pragmatic conservative

I call Ross Douthat a "yes but conservative".  He has a considered approach to politics rather than following an ideological checklist.  His analysis of Rand Paul's follow-through on Paul's Kentucky Republican primary upset is a great example of Douthat's thinking.  His column, "The Principles of Rand Paul", New York Times, 2010-05-24, has many wonderful, quotable statements.  I'll give you this teaser: "In an age of lockstep partisanship, there’s a lot to admire about this unusual constellation of ideas, and its sweeping critique of American politics as usual."

A "Conservative" compromises

You think that is an oxymoron; conservatives don't compromise because they are too busy sticking to principles. Maybe you are sticking to close to your principles of political definition.

I started thinking about this when reading Ross Douthat's column "A compromise that's centered on catastrophe". It was originally published as "The Catastrophic Option" in the New York Times, 2009-10-19. It is about shifting the health care debate to something that might actually work.

Ross Douthat supposedly is the resident "conservative" columnist for the New York Times. One of those attempts to show that a newspaper doesn't have a "liberal" bias. I've found some of his columns to be "liberal" in the sense that he approaches issues in a thoughtful, adaptive manner rather than a reactive manner.

In an email to a local columnist who generally writes reasoned columns, I wrote, "If you don’t change your paradigms, you won’t have a pair of dimes for change." I didn't mean to apply this to him, but to people who expect things not to change.

I think one of the paradigms we have to change is the "conservative/liberal" divide, especially when those to whom these labels apply don't really act that way. Rather, they are locked into positions that are neither conservative nor liberal.

Maybe we can move away from this locked horn position by looking at some of our definitions again. For starters, I offer these. A conservative is one who says, "Not so fast" with regard to change. A moderate is one who says, "Here are our choices and the probable consequences."

There are many other ways at looking at political viewpoints, but I think these two would be a good starting point on how we define our political parties and how we choose those who would govern us.