To my Republican Christian friend who posted the following link:
The Real Battle Begins
The 2012 election reveals a sea change in the long-term direction of this nation. We are no longer guided by our historic values, but steaming full speed into darkness without concern for the rocks ahead...
Chuck Bentley, the blogger you cite here is long on speculation and short on actual facts (and in some cases a good editor). He implies that anyone who voted Democratic must have done so because of "sour grapes" or emotion. As someone who voted against my economic interests but on core values, I know I am not alone. You may not agree with us, but pretending to read the minds of half of Americans who cast votes (and many more who didn't) smacks of sore losing.
He claims that voters "endorsed the right of women to publicly funded birth-control and abortion." This is incorrect on two counts. Publicly-funded birth control (no hyphen needed) has always been available. The ACA mandate the bishops council created such a public row about involved PRIVATE plans and whether they should be compelled to waive copayments on contraception (what is forgotten in all this breathless "war on religion" talk is that as it turns out, no, they don't). No public funds support abortion (per the Hyde Amendment).
He claims that President Obama is "running up the largest national deficit in our history." This is incorrect. President Obama's deficit is uncomfortably high, as was his predecessor's, but it has come down, not up. It is not unprecedented. Bentley maybe confusing debt and deficit (a common mistake); in nominal dollars, the debt is unprecedented, but in terms of GDP it is not, and is entirely accounted for by a decade of Bush tax cuts and two wars. All three will be ended soon. At any rate, Congress, not the president, controls the purse strings. Last time I checked, the House was in Republican hands.
He claims that "Americans who are financially successful should be demonized and that their wealth be redistributed, turning the sin of envy into public policy." Well, if this was a sin, Jesus was guilty of it too. What he proposed was redistribution; what President Obama proposed was raising top marginal tax rates 3% to levels below where they were under Clinton. It is bearing false witness to claim this is redistribution. No one is demonizing people for being rich, but those who are rich, materialistic, and unwilling to pay their fair share of taxes should be called out. Their behavior most certainly is not Christian.
He falsely claims that the electorate has accepted "massive increases in government welfare as a form of compassion and care for the poor" and that the Bible teaches that "compassion and generosity are a personal responsibility that cannot be shunted off on the government." I would be very curious to see that passage but it sounds like rationalization to me. If "personal responsibility" sufficed, then there would be no hungry, poor, or homeless - no one is preventing Christians or people of any faith from sharing all that they have with them as Jesus commanded, but it does not seem any are doing that. And why should they when their house needs a 22 car garage?
In the area of healthcare, one area I have direct extensive experience, he is as wrong as he could be when he claims that we are "virtually guaranteed" to destroy ... the finest health care system in the world." First, our health care system is not globally ranked #1, not by a long shot, except in one category: spending. We spend about 15.6% of GDP on healthcare, more than any other country in the world but fail (so far) to cover all of our citizens. Tens of thousands of Americans die for want of health insurance. The United States is the only developed country where bankruptcy - losing everything you own - is the price you pay simply because you got sick. I have seen it happen so many times that it really burns me up when someone such as Bentley talks about a reality that does not exist, ruined by a proposal no one made. The ACA is an all-private deal except for some badly needed expansion of Medicaid. And by the way, Medicare, with its 1.8% administrative overhead,is far more efficient than private plans, which often have overheads as high as 15-25%, much of it due to advertising and executive compensation. And if the ACA were ruining healthcare, why are private insurers up so much since the law was passed?
And before condemning the Affordable Care Act as some dastardly Democratic plot to ruin America, let's not forget that it was essentially a Republican invention, later disowned when championed by an African American president. Republicans years ago proposed such an idea in retort to Clinton's attempted healthcare reform, and - irony of ironies! - the man President Obama just defeated successfully implemented a state pilot of the program in Massachusetts (which now enjoys the lowest rate of uninsured citizens in the country).
He blames the president apparently for the votes of millions of Americans in support of marriage equality. (He incorrectly states that only two states did so - I believe the number was four.)
He bemoans the decriminalization of marijuana, claiming that cannabis takes a "tremendous toll" on "those poor souls who struggle to be free from its addictive power." As a psychiatrist, I think most people would be better off not seeking to alter themselves with recreational drugs, but alcohol and nicotine have a far higher death toll and are far more addictive than cannabis. This is not to say it's a good idea to welcome another legal drug into the mix, but countries that have de facto or de jure decriminalized marijuana have not seen increases in their overall rate of substance abuse or crime. If Bentley believes that no Americans use marijuana because it is illegal, I have news for him. The question is whether police have better things to do than hunt down nonviolent citizens whose only crime is possessing small quantities of a substance he does not like. I think they do.
On concrete, disprovable facts, the blogger continues to get it wrong. He claims that "13 million fewer Americans voted in the 2012 Presidential race than turned out in 2008." Actually,120,871,984 voted in 2012. 129,391,711 voted in 2008. The difference is currently 8,519,727, not 13 million. His figure is 152% the actual number!
But it should encourage him to note that more evangelical Christians voted in 2012 than in 2004; they were just swamped by everyone else, most of whom disagreed with them. That's democracy. And if everyone voted, he would be even more unhappy.
He claims that those who showed up to vote were "interest groups rallied by their self-interest." Fascinating. I voted against my self-interest and represent no interest group.
He compares debt reduction, immigration reform, a fairer tax code, and poverty reduction to "bread and circuses" repeating the discredited elderly- and veteran-bashing 47% remarks of Mitt Romney: "About half of America does not pay taxes, yet can vote to take more from others." First of all, all Americans pay some form of taxes, many of which are embedded in every product we buy. The majority of those in the 47% either paid income taxes and social security over their working lives, or are paying at least social security now. Calling disabled veterans or the working poor moochers because they do not pay federal income taxes today is rather callous. And isolating out a very particular tax and calling it "taxes" is disingenuous.
He states that "politicians are elected promising to take from those who do not support them to give more to those who do." This is callous and cynical (and ignores the fact that in 2008 Wall Street gave more to President Obama than to McCain). There simply are not enough Americans who are recipients of entitlement programs other than Social Security or Veterans benefits (the former of which was paid into by today's recipients when they were working) to make a decisive voting block. The vast majority of those who voted for President Obama work, many at 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet. To say they are looking for a handout is insulting and frankly unchristian.
"We either see man as fallen and sinful in need of laws to enforce standards of moral conduct, justice and freedom or we see man as good and capable of self-governance without standards that restrain or restrict individual sinful desires," he states. So why then does he oppose efforts to enforce standards of moral conduct such as paying one's fair share of taxes, not cheating on one's tax return, not stealing the productivity surges of one's workers by paying them no more than when they were far less productive, or protecting miners from greedy mine owners who tamper with carbon monoxide detectors? Why does he believe "self-governance" will be any more successful with charitable giving, regulation of Wall Street (greed, last time I checked, was a sin), or carbon emissions than in other spheres?
He claims most Americans have "vastly differing worldviews" than he does, but is this really the case? Do we really disagree about the moral imperative to work hard, feed our children, fund our government, and be kind and compassionate to each other? I doubt the blogger has ever taken estrogen-progesterone or been confronted with an unintended pregnancy or (I am assuming from his homophobic slant) wanted to have to right to visit a dying life partner who happens to be of the same sex, so these are - for him - marginal issues that do not personally affect him. The ones that do, we mostly agree on. As to whether you believe in god or capitalize his pronouns or call him Jesus or Yahweh or Zeus, those are not world views but metaphysical views, speculations beyond the here and now that demands action from us.
He seems confused about the difference between losing an election and losing a war. We have a long and hallowed tradition of peaceful transfer of power in this country. His call to "battle" and his condemnation of "peace" as a "sin" (an idea I would imagine the pacifist Jesus would condemn) is upsetting. I hope he is only being metaphorical, but these sorts of violent metaphors may encourage others to engage in horrific acts of violence.
He writes that "Government in a democracy is merely a reflection of the desires of the people and their choices for leadership." Fair enough. So the people desire something and have chosen someone different from what he would choose. He is welcome to attempt to exhort people to agree with him but at present they don't. It's not his job to tell the rest of us what sort of culture or leadership we should choose. He claims that "the real solution to America’s problems is the return of the common denominator that once united a diverse people." Given the rich diversity of religious and political opinions that shaped this country, I don't think such a unity ever existed. I hope it never does because at that point we will become a theocracy. America's richness is that it doesn't much care what you think or believe, but it very much welcomes what you can do.
The idea of a "culture with common values and biblical principles" is oxymoronic since the bible is not shared by all Americans as an authoritative text and as John Adams and George Washington once wrote, the United States is "in no way a Christian nation." We are a secular republic but everyone is free to believe or not in god as they choose.
"We must work to rebuild our country as one nation under God" perhaps unaware that that phrase (under god) was inserted during the McCarthy era. For most of our history we were not "under god" and stumbled along OK. The Greatest Generation did not say "under god" when they said the pledge of allegiance each morning (if they did at all) but somehow that didn't stop them from storming beaches at Normandy and Iwo Jima.
"The GOP lost the election, but GOD did not," he says, but GOD was not on the ballot I cast.
He talks about "The Lion of Judah" which "has been about redeeming people from worldly philosophies since they chose to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil." He is mixing up some biblical allegories here; I don't think Adam and Eve were doing all that much philosophizing (but perhaps they should have). And why is his "worldly philosophy" so superior to all the other competing Axial Ages philosophies or the much older traditions of Buddhism and Judaism that preceded Christianity? Simply claiming that a philosophy purports to represent all truth, god, etc., does not make it so.
"Let us arm ourselves with the ultimate weapons of love and truth and let’s go forth and boldly engage in the battle for hearts and minds." Fair enough, but it seems that whole "love and truth" part is a necessary component. You do not express "love" for an electorate you dismiss as sinful and self-serving and beholden to (or part of) an interest group. You do not show a dedication to "truth" if you get so many disprovable facts wrong (from what the ACA mandates to how many people voted).
Interestingly, after condemning self-serving interest groups, he asks for money. "Crown," he says, needs "your financial support" among other things. There is nothing wrong with this per se - all worldly philosophies, even those claiming to have a monopoly on extraterrestrial reality, need to pay the bills - but it seems to contradict everything he said about "the biblical admonishment to work as unto God for your resources, if physically able." Is he physically able? Than according to his worldview he should not ask for other people's money.
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