POLITICS BLOG POST

Politics

I know I’ve picked a rather odd topic as a starting point for a post on politics, but maybe not. I recently found a book in a library give-away stack called Dung Beetles. If you don’t know what that is, take some time to look it up. In short, it is a beetle that rolls dung (particularly cow manure) and has ties to ancient religions (Egyptian). I discovered Dung Beetles years ago when my dad told me about seeing them moving across the flat plains of west Texas, where the wind pumps the water, and the cows cut the wood. The religious ties to the dung beetle also have a more current connection. “When asked what he could infer about the attributes of God, the British geneticist J.B.S. Haldane thought a moment and then remarked, “God must have an inordinate fondness for beetles since he created so many different species” (Walters 2008). I think God has a fondness for all His creation, even the odd ones. As Sigfried Farnan said in the 1970s TV series All Creatures Great and Small (S6 E11), “There is a Divine purpose in us all being created.”

Please don’t misunderstand the link I am making to politics. The link I am making has to do with one of the hottest topics in national and international politics, climate change. At the writing of this post, we are less than 100 days until the 2024 presidential election, and climate change is big conversation. So, what do these beetles and politicians have in common? Well, you might be surprised, but then maybe not.

Food and agriculture organization of the United Nations, livestock are significantly contributors to global warming, being responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. But the participation of dung beetles in rapidly incorporating nitrogen and carbon nutrients of dung into the soil can assist us in decreasing the release of these greenhouse gases from dung and dramatically reducing global warming (Walters 2008).

Here again is an example of God’s design at work. It is probably bad humor on my part, but I think a 2024 campaign button that looks like a dung beetle would be appropriate, possibly for either party, or both.

On a more serious note, understanding the difference between a change and a crisis is important. I think we all know how crises are created for personal benefit, it happens in politics, marriage, finance, and almost anything where someone has something to gain by it. Politicians and others in authority can cause a lot of harm with one statement and one sweep of the pen. How many times have we seen people overreact to things others have said and then regret them. Don’t do it. For those of you that are interested, the Cornwall Alliance is a great source on the topic of climate change.

I have often called myself a conservative, in just about every area. I think most of my students and other people that hear that, don’t really know what it means. To them it just means he calls himself a Christian or that he is a Republican, or most likely both. For me conservative means that I want to conserve the good things of the past, the things that have proven to be good for happiness and human flourishing, much of what I would call ordinary things. It has been called a disposition toward old things (Mohler, Thinking In Public n.d.). That is not to say that there is not room for change, there is. However, that does not mean I want a complete overhaul of western civilization, I don’t. it reminds me of a line from the Andy Hardy movie, You’re Only Young Once. “You can’t beat a code of conventions that’s been hammered out for hundreds of years.” He was speaking about marriage and family, but I think it has many applications. Christianity may survive in any culture from a dictatorship to a democracy, but if I have a choice, I want to live in the culture where it works better, even if it is only an incremental difference.

There are a lot of definitions for the word politics, I don’t care for most of them. Actually, it is not the definitions I dislike, it is the act of politics I dislike. I don’t like taxes either, but I still have to pay them. However, there is a definition that I can live with. Aristotle viewed "politics" as the means to create an environment within a city-state that allows citizens to live virtuously and achieve their full potential, or "human flourishing." Wow, that doesn’t sound like the politics I know. Someone else said Politics is the rule of a city. It's the order you want to use to promote human flourishing. I like both definitions.

I guess the big question now is what kind of order do you want to rule the city and promote human flourishing? I believe there is a creation order that works for all of creation, and no matter how hard you fight it, you just can’t change it, at least not for long, and doing so just brings problems. I have taught economics long enough to know that socialism does not work, even if you call it democratic socialism. Capitalism has its problems, but it is by far the best of all the other choices. Someone once said the best would be a benevolent dictator. In light of the evil in the world, I’m inclined to believe it. But there is a problem with that idea, at least for mortal man.

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. Lord Acton

We are currently in the midst of one of the most divided presidential elections I’ve seen in my lifetime. The difficulty I see in a lot of this election is that parties (especially the left) are soliciting peoples votes for every reason except to “create an environment within a city-state that allows citizens to live virtuously and achieve their full potential, or "human flourishing." Another is logic. How can someone be fighting for a person’s rights when they are denying the personhood of the innocent unborn and will never give them the opportunity to enjoy those rights. They say it is a complicated issue, well making the murder of an innocent human being legal certainly takes the complexity out of it. I guess history has shown us that. Another logical item that falls through the cracks in politics is biology. How in the world can someone keep a straight face and say they don’t know the difference between a man and a woman. In an ordinary or normal culture, I would be tempted to break out in laughter, but these people are serious. It is like the scene in No Time For Sergeants, when Nick Adams told Andy Griffith that he didn’t see a man or a woman, just a captain. Andy replied, “by dog, I knew right off she was a woman.” Nick Adams convinced him that he should only see a Captain. That idea caused a lot of issues later in the movie. A comedy, yes, but there are some similarities. Liberals might try and explain their lack of understanding on this question, but then again there is no good answer. No wonder there is such a lack of critical thinking skills in our schools. You can’t even rely on your senses to tell you what is true. It reminds me of a time when our youngest grandson, around four years old, and I were walking ahead of my wife and our granddaughter. My grandson turned to look at them and then turned to me and said, “Granddad, they are the girls, and we are the boys.” I said, “Yes, and it is just that simple.” Hard for a Supreme Court nominee, but simple for a four-year old not seeking a nomination to the highest court in the land. I think honest pediatricians will tell you that there comes a time when children recognize the difference, and when they don’t, something is not normal.

I guess there is just no such thing as logic anymore. People will say things without any idea of what they are saying. If you take the time to try and explain how what they have said is a logical error, they just get frustrated and say you just don’t understand and you are the problem. “I will not tolerate intolerance!”

I have been accused of being a one issue voter, and that may be true. In the case of abortion, all the other issues pale in comparison, or they are directly or indirectly related to the attitudes associated with a person’s stand on this one issue. People will say that if we just vote for someone that says they are for social justice, this issue will take care of itself, but I don’t believe it. You cannot improve humanity and promote human flourishing by killing unborn babies, that is an oxymoron. If this is not a baby, then you are not pregnant. If someone is for abortion and for social justice, they must have a different definition of social justice. Although many Christians are criticized for being one issue voters, others will say that all we need is a woman in the Whitehouse, as if that is the only issue that matters. For instance, placing a person’s sex over their other qualifications for the position of Commander and Chief. They think that getting a woman in office will take care of all our social justice problems. I can think of many issues, mental health, family life, economics, immigration, and crime, that could be addressed better by addressing the issue of abortion. “We must help our neighbors see that abortion isn’t good for anyone; it not only kills the unborn, but it harms women, families, medicine, politics, the economy, and our culture as a whole” Ryan T. Anderson. In our current election, we are not having to decide between Donald Trump and Margaret Thatcher.

One last comment. I heard Jeff Meyer use this sports term in a recent podcast by Alisa Childers. “They need to play the ball and not the person.” I think history has shown that there is an evil nature in all men and women. Playing the ball means not focusing on the person as much as the object of the game. In this case, that would be creating an environment that promotes human flourishing and living a virtuous life. From a political perspective I think it means playing the platform and not the person. Some may take the “all or nothing” stand, but I’ve seldom seen that work, in politics or marriage. My life has been a continuous or incremental move towards the good, Christians call that sanctification. In the case of promoting good and human flourishing, don’t let your vote be wasted, even if it is just a slight move in the right direction. “Our goal needs to be not simply the most protective law possible now, but the most protective law that can withstand efforts to repeal it, all to buy time for shaping public opinion in a better direction for future votes.” Ryan T. Anderson.