David Boaz on the 'social Darwinism' nonsense, and why it's nonsense.

Matt Welch on the irony of a libertarian being called a social Darwinist.

Like many politicans, Romney likes free speech, as long as there's "quality control". What Bill Clinton used to call a "truth detector"?

Don Cheadle, friend of justice.

Pachomius

You greatly delude yourself...if you think that one thing is demanded from the layman and another from the monk.... Because all must rise to the same height.... ~ St. John Chrysostom

Saint Pakhom, also known as Pachomius, is recognized by most as the founder of Christian monasticism of the cenobitic type, the type of monasticism with which we are most familiar.

Pachomius was born in Thebes in 292 to pagan parents and during difficult times for the Roman Empire (i.e., the Crisis of the third century, 235-395), during which twenty-five emperors reigned and the empire experienced extreme military, political, and economic crises.

From what we know, we believe he was pressed into military service at the age of 20, during a Roman army recruitment drive -- a common occurrence -- and somehow ended up in prison.

During his imprisonment, Christians brought food and comforts to the inmates. This ministry to the captives made an indelible impression on him, and he vowed to learn all about Christianity when he was released. As things turned out, he was able to get out of the army without ever having to fight. He was converted and baptized in 314 in the city of Tabennisi; and became totally committed to his new faith.

He then came into contact with a number of well known ascetics and decided to pursue that path. He sought out the hermit Palaemon, who was living on the Nile River, and came to be his follower in 317. After studying seven years with Elder Palaemon, Pachomius set out upon the life of a hermit near St. Anthony of Egypt, whose practices he imitated until realizing that he was not called to the solitary life of the hermit. According to one story, he had a dream in which God told him to build a monastery and wait for God to fill it with men of prayer, desiring to become cenobitic monks like himself. According to another story he had a dream in Tabennisi in which a voice told him to build a dwelling to which hermits could come. (An earlier ascetic named Macarius had earlier created a number of proto-monasteries -- "larves" -- where holy men physically or mentally unable to achieve the rigors of St. Anthony's solitary life could live in a more community-like setting.)

Whichever story we accept as true, Pachomius's contribution to monasticism was the organizing of monks into communities of monastics living under a common rule, adding a social dimension to Christian monasticism which it did not have before him.

His first cenobitic monastery was in Tabennisi, Egypt and was established between 318 and 323. The first to join him was his elder brother John, and soon more than 100 monks lived at his monastery. By the time of his death he had built nine of these comminities in Egypt.

Given my own "flirtation" (if you will) with monasticism, I can't help but wondering how these hermit-cenobites lived. Pachomious divided his monks into twenty-four groups, which he named after the letters of the greek alphabet, ranking them according to his assessment of the depth of their spirituality. "Alphas" were beginner monks; and "Omegas" were the most advanced and spiritually mature.

The monks shared all things in common. They worked and prayed together. They ate together. And they practiced the rule which Pachomius had devised for them. They supported themselves by making and selling baskets, giving some of the proceeds to the poor. And, being monks, they engaged in all sorts of good works.

Getting back to the fact that these men and women went out to the desert as a radical solution to the radical problem of the worldliness that they believed had permeated the church, we might point out the obvious: Very likely, every Christian who wished to resist worldliness could not leave for the desert. Clearly that is still true. Nevertheless, there remains much to learn from Pachomius's lifestyle. I'll mention just three.Part 1, Legitimacy of Monastic Life

Part 2, Rise of the Monastic MovementPart 3, Theology of the DesertPart 5, St. Anthony of Egypt

Theology of the Desert

You greatly delude yourself...if you think that one thing is demanded from the layman and another from the monk.... Because all must rise to the same height.... ~ St. John Chrysostom

You shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know...that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD. ~ Deuteronomy 8.2, 3

As I said previously, the new privileges granted to the Church by Constantine resulted in a number of problems, problems which to some were radical problems, requiring radical solutions. Chief among these problems was people joining the Church for the social benefits they could enjoy. It was in reaction to increasing worldliness that lay people went into the desert to seek God.

Living arrangements varied. Some were hermits, living in complete solitude. Others were cenobites, living in communities with one another. Still others combined the two lifestyles, living in solitude for the most part, occasionally meeting together for worship and celebration of Holy Communion.

But, really, why the desert? It would be erroneous to assert that these were men and women who just couldn't handle the "real" world, or just didn't want to. Unable, or unwilling, to bear the burdens the rest of us must do, they escaped to the peace and quiet of the desert. In fact, their selection of the desert was motivated by the Scriptures. In the Scriptures, the desert was a place of death, scarce life, scarcer supplies of water. Famously, the desert was a place for the testing of men and women of God, a place of preparation. The Israelites were disciplined and fashioned by the desert, for God in the desert forty years, into the Army of God which ultimately took the Promised Land under the leadership of Joshua. John the Baptist seems to have been a permanent resident. Jesus spent forty days in the desert to be tempted and to have the finishing touches, as it were, put on his preparation for his earthly ministry. The desert is not a place for ease-seeking social drop-outs. It is a place for spiritual warfare. It is a place where passions are conquered, and sins is are destroyed.


The desert reflected the monks' spiritual values. There was a connection between their living environment and their inner lives. The nature of the desert, as one might imagine, encouraged asceticism. In fact, the desert forces asceticism on those who would live in it. The desert forces detachment. One learns quickly what to keep and what to discard for purposes of mere survival. One is required to decide ruthlessly upon what must go and what must remain. That which interferes with survival must be let go. The same for the spiritual life: whatever comes between one's self and God must be let go. For the monks, the physical demands of the desert matched the spiritual demands Christ makes upon us.

The desert forces one to contemplate what things separate us from survival, the same sort of contemplation which should tell us what things in our life come between us and God. Money? Ambition? Food? Desire for the opposite sex? Seeking to be desired by the opposite sex? Are we more focused on appearances than the inner reality of who we are? Are we, really, more than a little afraid to find out who we really are? (If so, God may show you; and it will hurt. Trust me.) Do we seek comfort, more than we seek God? (Let's try to be honest.)

God wants us to be free from these needs. In truth, they are not needs. The desert will teach you that.

The desert is a place of deep silence. Can we handle silence? Hours and hours of it? Some really cannot. Most have some type of sound pumped into their heads for almost as many hours as they are awake. The desert has no music for you, no talk radio, nothing to occupy you or to entertain you. Until you get used to it, silence can almost give you a headache, or even what Tigger (in an episode of Winne the Pooh) called a "hearlucination". You talk to your self a bit. Long enough and you'll start talking to cactus. You'll hum. Soon, hopefully, you'll realize you're wasting precious moisture; you're throat will go dry.

In many ways, the desert is the best of all teachers when it comes to self negation. It forces you to take a good hard look at yourself, especially as you begin to think about the things you miss about "civilization". The desert doesn't care about you. The desert doesn't care about your academic or professional achievements. The desert doesn't care if you are a high school drop-out or a Ph.D. It doesn't care if you are a movie star, a rock star, or a king.

Ladies, the desert doesn't think you're sexy. It doesn't want your body. It doesn't think you look good in those jeans. On the other hand, it doesn't think those jeans make your rear look big, either. The desert doesn't think you're hot in a bikini. It doesn't care about your measurements. In fact, the desert doesn't think anything of you at all. It won't remember your birthday, or your anniversary. It won't flirt with you, or anything else that may provide an ego boost. It won't watch chick-flicks with you or give you cards or candy on Valentine's Day. The desert won't take you dancing. It won't take you to a fine restaurant. On the other hand, it will never expect you to, as they say, put out.

Men, the desert doesn't care about your athletic prowess. It doesn't care how fast you run, or how much you bench press. It doesn't care how much money you make, or that you run a Fortune 500 company. The desert doesn't think you're hot; it doesn't care that you have eight-pack abs. It doesn't think you're great; it will never look adoringly at you from across the room. It won't fall for your sweet-talking bullshit. You have nothing to say that will entice the desert into going home with you for the night. The desert will never fall in love with you. It will never be impressed with you. It will never respect you. On the other hand, it won't disrespect you, either. But it might kill you.

The desert doesn't think you're eye candy, not even if you're Megan Fox or Brad Pitt. And it won't provide you with any eye candy, either. It has no amusements, no diversions, no distractions from the harsh reality of life within its warm embrace.

The desert doesn't care about your hopes, your dreams, your plans--or your regrests. The desert doesn't know you; it won't miss you when you're gone. The desert will give you no recognition, no honors. The desert doesn't care who you are; it doesn't care who you think you are. The desert can't hear you; it is not even listening to you.

The desert has no social justice to offer you. The desert will offer you no food, no water, no shelter, and no clothing. The desert doesn't think you have rights, not to free speech, not to life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness; it just might rob you of life, liberty and happiness. The desert offers you no vote. The desert doesn't care what you think you're entitled to, certainly not at its expense. The desert will give you nothing, certainly not healthcare. More than likely, it will take everything.

When you are sick, the desert will not minister to your needs. When you rejoice, the desert will not rejoice with you. When you mourn, the desert will not mourn with you. And when you die, the desert will not know it. The desert will not eulogize you, memorialize you, or cry over the loss of you. The desert will not even bury you. The desert will leave your rotting corpse for the scavengers to feast upon. It will be as if you never existed at all. And, for the desert, you never did.

All these things the desert teaches you, while not so obvious in "the world", are true even in the world. No matter what you do, no matter who remembers you--the day is coming when no one will know, or care, about you at all. Joseph did many great things in Egypt; but one day a pharoah arose who did not know Joseph. So it will be with you, no matter who you are. Think of it: two thousand years ago, the word caesar meant something to the entire known world and could put fear in the hearts of men; now it is the name of a salad.

The desert will kick your ass and bring you down to size.

It does happen that some monks will forget the lesson. The humorous story is told of John the Dwarf. One day John decided that he had progressed far enough to have become more angel than man, and therefore better than his brethren. He decided he should be free of the requirements of labor and informed his elder: "I should like to be free of all earthly care like the angels, who do not work but ever offer worship to God."

John took off his cloak and went away into the desert. After just one week (I told you the desert will kick your ass) he returned to the monastery. When he knocked on his elder's door, his elder asked, "Who is there?"

"It is I, John, your brother," John said.

But his elder replied, "John has become an angel and is no longer to be found among mere men," and left him there, in his discomfort until morning. Then, in the morning, his elder opened the door and said, "You are but a man, John. And you must work in order to eat."

At this rebuke, John prostrated himself before his elder and asked forgiveness.

The desert can quickly whittle one down to size and put everything into proper perspective.Part 1, Legitimacy of Monastic Life

Part 2, Rise of the Monastic MovementPart 3, Theology of the DesertPart 5, St. Anthony of Egypt

The Rise of the Monastic Movement

"You greatly delude yourself...if you think that one thing is demanded from the layman and another from the monk.... Because all must rise to the same height...." ~ St. John Chrysostom

In my previous posting, I wrote, briefly, about the legitimacy of monasticism, suggesting that whatever its abuses, it is still worth trying to understand. I also suggested the possibility that such a life could be rendered consistent with Reformed theology.

It's worth asking why men and women went out into the desert in the first place, since that's were monasticism began (and why we still call it "desert theology").

When we look at the first three hundred years of church history, we find the existence of what we could call proto-monastic communities. These communities were based upon and organized around ascetical principles which were in turn based upon the teachings of Jesus in the gospels. Take, for example, Luke 9.63 where Jesus calls people to a radical form of discipleship, requiring death to self: "If anyone comes after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever shall save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it."

As another example, in Matthew 19 Jesus told the rich young ruler, "If you want to have eternal life, sell everything you have and come, follow me."

In Paul's epistle to the Galatians, he wrote, "I have been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, but not I, Christ liveth in me. And the life that I now live I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me."

Some think that the communities of widows mentioned in Acts and the epistles to Timothy continued into the second and third centuries, and, with a few changes, were transformed into convents. Perhaps. What is clear is that for quite some time there was in Christendom, East and West, a long standing ascetical ideal, which laid the groundwork for what became monasteries and convents.

It was during the third and fourth centuries that the turning point occured in the monastic movement. During this period, the movement took on a new life in which large numbers of men and women departed the cities for the deserts. By the end of the fourth century there were thousands of people living in the deserts of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria.

If we ask what happened in the fourth century which caused this explosion of men and women taking up residence in desert communities, the answer just has to be Emperor Constantine's conversion. Whether or not it was a true conversion it had, inarguably, certain undeniable effects. (I try to make it a habit not to question whether anyone's profession of Christian faith is genuine or not. The only thing we can assert about a professing Christian is that when he talks about his faith what he says accords, or does not accord, with orthodoxy. And that's it. But I digress.)

In 312 AD, Constantine defeated Maxentius, at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, and attributed his victory to Jesus Christ. According to one tradition, anyway, Christ appeared to Constantine in a dream with the sign of the cross and a message. Constantine was to go into battle with the monogram of Christ's name (Chi Rho) on the shields and helmets of his soldiers. By that sign, he would conquer. Constantine did as instructed, won the battle, and gave Christ the credit for his victory.

From that time on, Constantine began granting favors to the Church in ways never before seen. Almost right up to that time, Christians had been undergoing severe persecution, at the hands of the Emperor Diocletian. That persecution was the worst general persecution from the Roman Empire that Christians had ever seen. Christians were sought out, beaten, roughed up, and even killed for their faith. Churches throughout the Empire were broken into by Roman soldiers. The soldiers confiscated Bibles, tore down altars, and assaulted the clergy. Thousands were murdered during this time.

Suddenly, the new Roman Emperor, Constantine, declared himself a Christian. At that time, Christians amounted to anywhere from three to ten percent of the Roman population. It is difficult to imagine that Constantine saw some political advantage to professing faith in Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, this reversal of fortunes brought great joy to the church. Unfortunately this reversal of fortunes was not without its down-side.

As martyrdom declined, and earthly prosperity increased, people became, or seemed to become more worldly. Christians began to lose sight of the second coming of Christ, believing that nothing but good times were ahead. With Constantine's favor lavished on the Church, people began joining the Church and professing faith for the obvious social benefits involved in doing so. By the end of the fourth century, Christianity was the official state religion of Rome. Sadly, this meant that Romans were going to church, but not understanding the liturgy, or the theology of the Church.

As to worldliness, even some of the bishops who survived the persecutions of Diocletian now lived lives of luxury in beautiful homes with lovely wardrobes. The churches were swelling with large numbers of people. The worship services began to change. The simple liturgy became ever more elaborate. Ecclesiastical garments were embroidered with brightly colored (and therefore expensive) cloth. Services lasted longer and longer, even for hours in some cases. Thousands were attending worship; but few understood the faith at all.

In response, the Church began an elaborate educational program, the catechumenate, to teach people about the faith before they would be permitted to be baptized. Sometimes, as many as three or four years of Christian education would be required before entry into the Church. Gone were the days when one could be baptized into the faith on a mere profession of faith.

The peace which resulted from Constantine's conversion resulted in a laxity which many found distressing. The Church, in the opinion of many, was very unhealthy. And radical illness calls for radical remedies. In the eyes of many (including myself), as the needed remedy, God raised up a spriritual army of lay men and women to protest the compromise of the Church who would, and did, make themselves "eunuchs" for the sake of the kingdom (see Matthew 19.12). This spiritual army reminded the Church that the kingdom is not of this world.

It is interesting, and important, to note that the monastic movement was not a result of the clergy meeting together to determine a way to renew the Church. No renewal committee created what became the monastic movement. Judging from appearances alone, it was a spontaneous movement among laity. Judging from some of its more savory results, it was a movement of the Holy Spirit in the world, working through unremarkable lay people, most of whom were illiterate. But they understood the message of the gospel, in many respects better than the educated clergy.

Christ calls men and women to take up the cross and follow him, to die--to the world, to the flesh, and to the devil. That is what these men and women sought to do. They went into the real desert in order show those still living in the city how to live a "desert life" inside city walls, how to die to self.Part 1, Legitimacy of Monastic Life

Part 2, Rise of the Monastic MovementPart 3, Theology of the DesertPart 5, St. Anthony of Egypt

That is how E. J. Dionne E. J. Dionne saw it:

[T]here are Republicans in Congress whose top priority is to force through legislation making the Bush-era tax cuts for the best-off Americans permanent, thus expanding the deficit by about $700 billion over the next decade.

So on the one hand, we have to cut, cut, cut because fiscal catastrophe is looming. On the other, we have to make the problem worse by shoveling more money to the rich because...taking care of those with tidy incomes is contemporary conservatism's highest purpose.

It may be contemporary conservatism's highest purpose to take care of those with tidy incomes. My purpose--a libertarian purpose--is to take care of anyone with any income. But I digress.

On Dionne's view (not that he is the only one who has it) when the government doesn't take your money, it is giving you money, or, to put his way, shoveling money to you.

Your money. Shovelled to you just because someone decided not to take, or to take less than previously was being taken from you. How generous!

You know, by that sort of logic (I'm being generous in calling it logic) if you and I pass each other on a sidewalk and don't rob each other of the money in our bill-folds (or wallets) then we have each made a gift to the other of the money we didn't take. What generous people you and I are!

What Dionne wants to know is why cut taxes when the deficit is so big? These people. I cannot recall the last time I heard anyone on the left say, "Okay, now it's a good time to lower the tax rates for everyone, including the rich." For almost every year I've been following politics, I have heard leftists complain about Republicans lowering taxes for the wealthiest Americans and (I love this part) balancing the budget on the backs of working families. We couldn't lower tax rates for the wealthiest Americans before the present malaise. We can't do it now.

It would be nice if they would stop pretending they'll ever think any time is a good time for tax rate cuts for all of us, including the so-called rich.

It would also be nice if they would stop arguing (still being charitable) as if the deficit is the fault of the rich. Most of what the unfederal government does--and spends money on--isn't constitutional in the first place. Why in hell should any one pay the bills of a government who cannot be prevailed upon to obey the "law of the land"?

P. S.

The reason I didn't post on this until now, is I didn't want to look like a partisan, unlike Dionne. I like to discuss the issue of taxation as such, not as part of some statist party's political platform.

and it's probably a good thing, too.

The following was posted to my Facebook page as a response to a similar piece by one of my friends. The original is re-printed below, for purposes of authorial attribution and needful context.

Juan gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is as clean and good as it was when his ancestors pumped it up from wells they dug themsleves without the help of tree-hugging liberals. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are as safe to take as ever because some smart capitalist, in addition to financing the research which brought the medication to market, also determined that knowingly, willingly and negligently killing customers isn't a workable business plan. He also knew that where he failed, one of his competitors might succeed, putting him out of business and his employees out of work.

All but $10 of Juan's medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Juan gets it too. Aside from the fact that he didn't ask for it, he also wouldn't need it if not for the insurance in the first place. You see, Juan is the curious sort who long ago wondered why the costs of just about every other good or service on the market has a tendency to go down, except for healthcare. Reluctant to take the word of people who give him things he did not ask for and then demand gratitude, he looked into the matter himself and determined that using the insurance model to pay for health care is one of the things driving up the costs--that and his government's dictate that there are no such things as pre-existing conditions. Then, too, are all the regulations which arbitrarily add to the cost of it all.

He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Juan's bacon is as safe to eat as it was when his great-grandfather and grandfather were growing pigs on the family farm in South Texas during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Of course, now, thanks to regulations and all those other good things he asked no one to do for him, his pork costs a hell of a lot more than it did a century ago (adjusting for inflation, which was also brought to him by his government). Not only that, but thanks to all these regulations, and licensing fees, and inheritance taxes, Juan's ancestors could not today afford to go into farming in the first place, leading Juan to believe that the primary purpose of these regulations is, for the most part, to limit the entry of new competitors to the no-longer-very-free market.

In the morning shower, Juan reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some enterprising capitalist accurately forecast that consumers would have a preference for his product over his competitors' precisely because it was labelled. Juan, of course, doesn't really care as long as it cleans his @#$%ing hair, so he has no intention of expressing gratitude to anyone for it. He paid for shampoo that cleans his hair--label or no label--and he received shampoo that cleans his hair--label or no label. He figures that if he ever really wanted to know what was in his shampoo he could have called and asked the producer to email him a list. Or he could wash his hair, and the rest of his body with lye soap, like his ancestors. Again: he didn't ask anyone for this shit in the first place. After all, even if he could easily pronounce Dodecylbenzenesulfonate, he doesn't have a degree in chemistry so he has no @#$%ing idea what the hell it is, anyway.

Juan dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean not because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for the laws to stop industries from polluting our air but because the people who own those polluting factories discovered they couldn't breathe the shit in the air any more than people who don't own factories. On his view the liberals don't want clean air; they want purified air--or just fewer factories, which they will get due the costs of building and managing new ones. (You know, like oil refineries.)

He walks on a government-provided sidewalk because it's there, whether he wants it to be or not, whether he asked for it or not. If being lectured to by liberals--in addition to paying his taxes--is the price for walking on a sidewalk he didn't ask for, then he'd rather walk in the mud, like humans did for thousands of years without having to be made to kiss meddling liberals' asses for an alternative. (He smiles at the probablility that those humans who walked in the mud for those thousands of years would consider liberals to be whinning, snivelling little pusses. The Spartans would have killed them, or exiled them: dead weight.) As he walks, he shares the sidewalk with children on their way to the elementary school, supported at the local level by his property taxes and at the federal level by his income taxes. (His own children go to a private school, for which he foots the entire bill.) He tries not be too miffed that the people responsible for taking his money in the form of taxes then turn round and lecture him on the gratitude he owes them for what they have provided him at his cost and depriving him, in the process, of those things he might have preferred to spend the money on--had he been allowed to keep it and employ it as he, the earner of the money, saw fit. "Thugs and racketeers," he mutters to himself. "I wish they'd grind this sidewalk to powder and blow it up their asses."

As he stands in the subway car, tolerating his government-subsidized ride to work, he fondles the .45 semi-auto in his overcoat and hopes two things: (1) he doesn't get caught with it since his caring and benevolent government won't let him be responsible for his own safety without its kind permission (any more than it will permit him to be responsible for his own ride to work); and (2) he never has to use it (because his benevolent government doesn't exactly own and manage the safest subway system in the world). He politely smiles at the liberal standing next to him, lecturing him on the benevolence of the government, who takes money from people who for the most part never use the damn thing in the first place. The liberal demands gratitude from Juan for an opportunity he didn't ask for--the "opportunity" to be a contributor. The liberal says, "I object to people like you enjoying the benefits I and my ilk provide and criticizing us for providing them." He tries not to laugh too hard: this liberal don't provide shit; he's a @#$%ing fast food restaurant manager who receives tax credits.

Juan begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, because he doesn't belong to a union and is not bound to a collectively bargained employment agreement, which limits his pay to a figure approved by his union "brothers". Therefore, because of his superior marketable skills, as well as his skill as a negotiator, he makes better money than his unionized peers in other organizations. He has medical benefits, it's true. But this is not because liberal union members fought and died for it. (Another thing he didn't ask anyone to do for him.) It's because of U.S. domestic policy in WWII. Due to government policy, Juan learned in his private school, inflation grew both before and during WWII. As a “remedy,” caps on wage increases were imposed by the government. (Another financial set-back provided by your benevolent government.) In response, employers began to offer their employees health insurance to soften the blow and attract quality workers. ( WTF, mate? Imagine that: employers providing health care insurance, not because they were commanded by a benevolent government, but rather because of market considerations. Sometimes, it's an employees' market, not an employers' market. Again: WTF?) The federal government did not consider an increase in health benefits a violation of these wage controls, and the IRS (bless them for their infinite wisdom and generosity) ruled that health benefits were tax exempt for workers. After the wage caps were abolished, health insurance benefits became the norm and were not eliminated. Now, of course, these benefits, which started out as market driven benefits, are rights. And liberals want us to kiss their asses for (not!) procuring them for us. Thank you (relatively) free market.

It is noon-time and Juan needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. It's true that Juan's deposit is federally insured by the FDIC because some liberal wanted to protect Juan's money from bankers he determined were unscrupulous and ruined the banking system before the Great Depression. But Juan, again because he was privately educated, suspects that the liberal had no idea what unscrupulous actions the bankers took. Juan, on the other knows that the banking system wasn't ruined until after the stock market crash. Juan further knows that the stock market crash followed in predictable fashion on the heels of a great boom, a boom which was itself created by a fraudulent banking practice called "fractional reserve banking", which Juan, since he thinks its fraudulent, opposes. If banks were prohibited from practicing fractional reserve banking, he wouldn't need the @#$%ing FDIC. We wouldn't need the Federal Reserve, either, which would do away with inflation.

Unlike Joe the Republican (maybe!), Juan doesn't have a Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage or a below-market federal student loan. Consequently he doesn't feel a duty to express gratitude to some elitist liberal who decided that Juan and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime--things which cost him (i.e., the elitist) nothing. Juan wonders two things: (1) Who the hell is the liberal to decide for him what would make him better off and then to force it upon him? and (2) Why do liberals, since they feel so strongly about it, not start their own mortagage and student loan companies and extend below-market loans to the objects of their concern? Better yet, he thinks, why don't liberals found, fund and operate their own free universities? You know: do something that actually costs them--and only them--their own @#$%ing money.

It is true that Juan attended a state funded university. But he attended it, not because it was state funded but because it was in a city he wanted to live in while he went to college. He'd have gone to that state funded university even if it were private. (He spent six years working his way through that university for his bachelor's degree; he'd have had no problem spending eight years working his way through a private one). Moreover, he'd have had no problem taking out a market-priced student loan, spending fewer years working his way throught school and paying the loan off from money earned from his improved employment conditions. Juan happens to believe that without state funding inflating both the costs of a university education, as well as the grades awarded by universities, there could be more private universities. This increase in the number of universities, all competing for students, would drive down the cost of a university education. (It's a supply and demand kind of a thing. A liberal wouldn't understand.) Finally, as a believer in privately funded university education, as well as personal generosity, Juan is a member of his alma mater's alumni association and gives as generously as he is able to financially support his university.

Juan is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world. It's also a bit more expensive than it needs to be because it has features required by law he might not have wanted in the first place had he been asked. This, again, is because some meddling liberal fought for unreasonable car safety standards. As he drives out to his father's he remembers his great-grandfather's car that didn't even have seat belts because in those days, seat belts were optional; and his great-grandfather didn't think he needed them. Juan admits that he himself would have purchased them, but wonders what it would be like to live in a country where an adult is free to make such decisions for himself. What a country that would be.

He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the fourth generation to live in the house financed by three previous generations of capital accumulation--no inheritance taxes. The house didn't have electricity until Juan's dad was almost out of high school. It's true that some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification, which, naturally, cost the liberal nothing. The electric company ran the wires out there, but lost a lot of money because there were few customers: Juan's family and their neighbors didn't have shit that ran on electricity in the first @#$%ing place, and had no immediate plans to buy such things. But you can't expect your average, city-dwelling, big-government liberal to know shit about country living.

Juan is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father, who lives on a farm, remember, lives on the money his still-productive farm generates for the family. Yep. His dad and mom handled their money well, making sure, as well as they could, that they could take care of themselves so Juan wouldn't have to. Not that Juan would mind: he loves his parents. (He knows there are liberals who think he shouldn't have to take care of his parents, but he doesn't care what they think. These are not their parents!) And it's a good thing his parents were smart with their money, too: Social Security don't pay squat. Who the @#$% can live off it? Certainly not Juan's parents.

Juan gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The liberal radio host keeps saying that liberals are good and conservatives are bad. (Libertarians are probably worse than bad.) He doesn't mention that the benevolence bestowed by liberals like himself cost them nothing or, at most, a pittance. He doesn't understand why conservatives aren't grateful.

Juan muses aloud: "First they take our money, then return a fraction of it in the form of things we didn't ask them for. Then they demand our gratitude and call us hypocrites for living the life they have forced upon us. What the hell are we supposed to do? Rip out the seat belts? They have made it illegal not to use them. For this, we are to be grateful? Cabrones."

P. S. -- Joe Republican, who in Juan's opinion is almost as much a statist as any liberal, can speak for himself.

*********************************************************************

"The Life of Joe Republican"
by Hector Cruz

[Or; "How a Liberal Does Ad Hominem, Specious and Tendentious all in Seven Hundred Words or Less"]



Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised.All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Joe gets it too.

He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for the laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

He walks on the government-provided sidewalk to subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union.If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

It is noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. Joe also forgets that his in addition to his federally subsidized student loans, he attended a state funded university.

Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards to go along with the tax-payer funded roads.

He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans.The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.

He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."

Hugh Hewitt was recently concerned with the President’s description, speaking in New Mexico (28 September), of why he was a Christian and what it meant to be a Christian. Question and answer are split between the two following videos, beginning at about 6:20 into the first posted video.

Obama refers to a passage in Genesis and tacitly asserts that it conveys the notion that we are our brother’s keepers. Color me skeptical.

And it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" And [Cain] said, "I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?" [God] said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to Me from the ground" (Genesis 4.8-10).

The question asked by Cain seems to be a request for information. Cain, we are to believe, is honestly asking God if he is Abel’s keeper. But note what Cain says just previously: “I do not know [where my brother is].” Cain’s question is rhetorical, claiming that it is not his job to know Abel’s whereabouts. Remember, the question Cain is answering is about Abel’s whereabouts, not his welfare. Today we might say, “It’s not my day to keep up with him.”

Obama seems to be under the impression that when Cain uses the word translated “keeper” he means the same thing as is meant when in verse 2 it is said of Abel that he was a “keeper of flocks”, a shepherd. We are, if Obama is correct, our brothers’ shepherds. But the two words are not the same. Abel was a “keeper [רעה] of flocks”. Cain denies being his brothers “keeper” (הֲשֹׁמֵ֥ר). It doesn’t take a Hebrew scholar to see that the two words are different. הֲשֹׁמֵ֥ר is used in reference to sheep only one other time, in 1 Samuel 17.20, where David is recorded as leaving a flock of sheep with a keeper. But this is telling: in the same passage (verse 22) it is recorded that David left his baggage in the care of a “baggage keeper”. This second notion, of someone who “keeps” in the sense, not of shepherding, but of guarding, is the one most associated with the word employed by Cain in Genesis 4.9. The word is used similarly elsewhere in references to officers called “keeper of the wardrobe” (2 Kings 22.14), “keeper of the king’s forest” (Nehemiah 2.8), “keeper of the women” (Esther 2.3). Frankly, I don’t feel like I need a keeper, thank you very much.

It is interesting to see and compare the Septuagint with the New Testament. In the LXX, the word Cain uses is translated into Greek as φύλαξ, while the word employed with reference to Abel is ποιμὴν, the same word used in the New Testament to refer to pastors. How is φύλαξ used? In the Louw-Nida schema, it belongs to the category of words associated with rule, or control (i.e., 37) and appears three times: Acts 5.23, Acts 12.6, and Acts 12.19. Each time it is used, it refers to guards in prisons. Get the picture? Cain is really asking, “Am I to be holding my brother captive, so as to know at all times where he is?” Or, perhaps a better fit with the context: "Am I my brother's master?"

But Obama is not a Bible scholar, certainly no Greek or Hebrew scholar. So let’s stipulate that, all of this aside, he really means “keeper” the way that the word is used of Abel. He wants to be his brother’s shepherd. But recall that his claim is that the Scriptures, or specifically Jesus, teach that we are our brothers’ keepers. The fact is, the Scriptures don't teach this. Secondly, let us note that Obama wants to use this as an excuse for his statist policies. Even if I am my brother’s keeper, it does not follow that support for statism is an appropriate means of exercising my duty.

I might not mind so much the idea that I am my brother’s keeper in the same sense in which Abel was a keeper of flocks, if not for the fact that the state bears the sword. I might wish to be my brother's keeper by assisting him with paying his medical bills, but the sword-bearing state makes me do it, whether I want or not, and in a way I might not want. The sword-bearing state makes me be my brother's keeper, but in a way suitable to it, not me. I might not mind, as my brother's keeper, assisting him with his college education by giving money to insititutions I deem worthy of my personal financial support. The sword-bearing state makes me do so anyway, whether I want to or not, taking my money from me and giving to institutions and students which I may deem unworthy. If I am an atheist and find objectionable the biblical notion that people other than my biological siblings are my siblings and that I am their keeper, then the sword-bearing state "establishes" religion by forcing me to, for all practical purposes, pay tithes.

The fact is the state is not the proper means by which I exercise my brother-keeping, assuming we actually have this duty--which we don't. If, as President Obama seems to believe, we must be our brothers’ keepers, then we must be so because the Scriptures teach it. And that’s the problem for the idea that the operations of the state are the appropriate means for exercising this duty.

If we look at the key NT text regarding the state’s obligation, what we find, to put the matter in simplest terms is that the state bears the sword—not the bread basket—for purposes of serving as God’s “avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil” (Romans 13.4). I suppose it wouldn’t bother me so much that statists believe they are acting as their brother’s keeper but for the fact that the state bears the sword, not, let us note, the shepherd’s staff.

Every time Obama and his ilk talk about being our brothers’ keepers I get this image in my head of a book titled, To Serve Man. I mean, it sounds good and all, but it’s really not. It sounds really sweet of people to want to be their brothers' keeper. But it doesn't look like they are going to put up with people who don't want to be kept.

Michael Daly thinks Rush Limbaugh and others bear some (if not all) responsibility for Michael Enright's attack on cab driver, Ahmed Sharif. Never mind that Enright has a history of bizarre, drunken behavior, for which Limbaugh and others cannot be responsible. Last year, he was arrested in an apartment building while ranting about dead Marines. Residents hid in their apartments as Enright marched up and down the hall for a half hour. Who's responsible for that, the cast and crew of "A Beautiful Mind"? We do not know. But we do know that Michael Enright, the guy who did the marching and ranting, is not responsible for it.

"As Limbaugh and...other...panderers...shamelessly sowed," Daly writes, "so did Ahmed Sharif undeservedly reap." Oh, brother.

Sharif, we are to believe, was attacked because Limbaugh and other svengali types made appeals to base desires. Begging the question which has everyone arguing (i.e, whether there is anything objectionable about a mosque at or near Ground Zero), Daly arbitrarily asserts, without any explanation of the causal relation between Limbaugh's supposed pandering and Enright's attack, that he "fanned...bigotry and hate...at one point saying it was like building a Japanese temple at the battleship Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor."

So far, I have not found that Enright was even listening to Limbaugh and Gingrich when they both compared the building of the mosque to that of a Japanese temple. If Limbaugh's pandering, as evidenced by his analogy, is responsible for the attack on Sharif, one should expect that Enright heard it. Not only so, but Limbaugh has millions of listeners who have heard this violence-motivating pandering but for which the attack would not have occured. Thus far, only one attack, on a single cabbie, not millions of attacks.

To get around the probability that Enright wasn't responding to anything he heard Limbaugh or Gingrich say, Daly asserts that Limbaugh and Gingrich are responsible by creating a "climate", which climate itself, not Enright, is somehow the cause of Enright's attack on the cabbie. In the same way, no doubt, that one cannot help being cold in a cold climate -- and responding accordingly -- one cannot help hating in a hate climate -- and responding accordingly, like Enright.

But the only way one can avoid the ridiculous charge of "climate creation" is simply to voice no opposition to something like the building of a mosque near Ground Zero. That's the left for you: the only way not to be responsible for this or that is to keep your mouth shut about things they do not oppose.

It doesn't bother Daly that despite having millions of listeners all over the country, there were not millions of attacks all over the country -- only one. He deftly deals with Limbaugh's pandering analogy: "One difference is that Japan really attacked Pearl Harbor. The World Trade Center was attacked by a handful of fanatics who need us to do exactly what the panderers are doing." (Yeah. That's it. The fanatics didn't really want to kill any of us. They just wanted us to get really angry with each other. Thousands died, not so much because the terrorists wanted to kill anyone, but because they wanted us to get pissed off at each other. All we have to do, I guess, is not get angry with each other and the fanatics will give up.)

Brilliant, but only so long as one ignores, as Daly does, that the handful of fanatics were fanatical about Islam and thought, as is too well known, they were doing their God's will. (Allah akbar, and stuff.) All Daly really demonstrates is that what Limbaugh should have said is something to the effect that building an Islamic community center (or mosque) at or near Ground Zero, which many Muslims round the world admit would be something on the order of an arch of triumph, would be like building a Japanese cultural center at the battleship Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor, which cultural center, arguably, has as one of its purposes the celebration and honor of the Emperor of the Empire of Japan, in whose name, and for whose sake, the attack was perpetrated, and was being funded by Japanese who remain sympathetic to the Japanese Imperial cause. Or something like that.

See the problem? It takes too many words. Daly and people like him can do stupid in fifty words or less. Smart takes a bit more. Limbaugh hosts a live call-in show, not a live philosophy journal. (And it might interest Daly to know that even in philosophy journals, people smarter than Rush Limbaugh employ faulty analogies. I have never seen it happen that one philosopher accuses another of any act more heinous than logically fallacious reasoning. Good thing Daly doesn't read philosophy journals: whole lot of crime in those pages!)

Of course, what Daly would like us to believe is that Limbaugh didn't just happen to employ a faulty analogy. If he's truly responsible (I mean, you know, if Daly isn't just, well, pandering) then he did so knowingly, consciously, and with malice aforethought and with the express intention of so fanning bigorty and hate (blah, blah, blah) that it would create the necessary climate and some harm would result. Furthermore, he did so hoping that, in fact, someone out there in radio land, hearing his svengali broadcast, or being influenced by his climate, would in fact perpetrate just this sort of violent act. Wait, there's even more: If Rush Limbaugh did not intend this, then he is still culpable, for he should have known his svengali message would have this effect, and behaved accordingly. So he's guilty of not knowing something he should have known.

Given how smart Daly must believe Limbaugh to be, I imagine that the only thing that bothers Daly more than the fact that Limbaugh is (must surely be!) smarter, is the fact that Limbaugh is richer. (Daly mentions Limbaugh's money two or three times in his article.) But I digress.

So, it's about a mosque at Ground Zero. To Rush and others, there is something objectionable about a mosque at Ground Zero. To Daly there isn't, which naturally makes him morally superior to those with whom he disagrees. Morally superior enough to know there can be no truly principled objection to a mosque at Ground Zero. In order honestly to have a problem, Daly has to hold that Limbaugh and his fellow panderers really know and agree with him that there is no principled objection to a mosque at or near Ground Zero. Otherwise, the charge of pandering fails.

Take the simple proposition, "The building of a mosque at Ground Zero is objectionable." It is a categorical affirmative proposition, taking the form "For all P, P is Q" or, "For all building of mosques at Ground Zero, the building of mosques at Ground Zero is objectionable." As a proposition, it has a truth value: it is either true or false that "For all building of mosques at Ground Zero, the building of mosques at Ground Zero is objectionable." The difficulty is that this is not a question of empirical fact. The proposition is not subject to empirical verification. Its truth value depends upon the grounds which render objectionable the building of a mosque at Ground Zero, grounds which also are not capable of empirical verification. But that particular question does not concern me here.

What concerns me presently is how holding the proposition either true or false makes one responsible for the actions of another, simply because one has used a faulty analogy in arguing the case. If Rush Limbaugh and others believe it to be true that "For all building of mosques at Ground Zero, the building of mosques at Ground Zero is objectionable" how do they become responsible for the attack on a Muslim cab driver? Why is not the attacker, and only the attacker, responsible?

According to Daly, they are responsible because they complained, loudly, and employed an analogy which, to him, isn't just inapt, but inciteful -- climate-creating, in fact. Very well and good. Daly tells us they are responsible but he doesn't tell us the way in which they are responsible.

And he really should do, because there are many ways of being responsible for something.

(1) One can be role-responsible, in the sense that one holds a position or office in an organization to which specific duties are attached to provide for the welfare of others and is responsible for the performance of these duties. A ship's captain is responsible for the performance of those duties which attach to his position; and in that role he may be held responsible for, among other things, the lives of his crew and any passengers. Should any harm come to them as a consequence of some failure of his assiduously to perform these duties he is responsible for that harm although, techinically speaking, he himself did not cause the harm. If Daly conceives of Limbaugh and others as role-responsible, then he must believe they have, by virtue of their positions, or offices, some specific duties they are obligated to perform and which they failed to perform. And the failure to perform these duties resulted in harm to Ahmed Sharif. I suppose he could assert that at least one of these duties was the duty not to pander, which pandering is what caused the harm. But his only evidence for this putative pandering, at least in Limbaugh's case, is the "Japanese temple" analogy. If so, that's pretty lame. (2) One can be causally responsible, the way a drought is causally responsible for a famine. But if we consider causal-responsibility in thinking of the harm to Sharif, then the one who is causally responsible is Enright, not Limbaugh. I think about the only way Daly could hold Limbaugh causally responsible is if he argued that Enright was Limbaugh's agent. To be a reasonable claim, it would entail that Limbaugh personally selected both the target (Sharif) and the agent (Enright). I don't see Daly pulling that one off. Besides, that isn't the way causal-responsibility is discussed. (3) One can be liability-responsible, having some obligation -- legal or moral -- to act or refrain from acting, and becoming responsible when failing to meet the obligation. Moreover, one can be held (vicariously) responsible for the actions of one's servant, or employee, even if he gave no order or permission, or even had no knowledge of what his servant was doing. But the master-servant, or employer-employee, relation is a formal one. Such a relation did not exist between Limbaugh and Sharif. We would also have to inquire about Limbaugh's state of mind at the time of his pandering. Daly needs to believe that Limbaugh had, or should have had, some certainty that someone, somewhere would assault a Muslim just because he (Limbaugh) has some objection to the construction of a mosque near Ground Zero and offered a faulty analogy involving a Japanese temple. (4) One can be capacity-responsible, but the issue there isn't about what someone has done, or failed to do. The question with regard to capacity-responsibility is whether one has the mental capacity to be held responsible. The assertion that one is capacity-responsible is intended to defeat a claim, among others, that one is not guilty of wrong-doing by reason of some diminished capacity (e.g., an insanity defense). There is no question of Limbaugh's sanity. (If so, then those who find fault with him should shut up, since he can quite obviously use the diminished capacity defense. Just saying.)

Ulitmately, Daly's problem comes to this: He doesn't like Rush Limbaugh, because Rush (who, by the way, made less than half of Beyonce's $80 million, according to Daly's own Daily) is rich:

Rush Limbaugh sure lived up to his name. He was in such a rush to leave the city he helps make more dangerous that he left the furniture when he unloaded his apartment.

Limbaugh pocketed $6 million profit on his Fifth Ave. penthouse even as he was fanning the bigotry and hate aroused by the so-called Ground Zero mosque.

So, maybe Limbaugh could spare a few dollars to help out the Muslim cabbie who fell victim to the kind of attack that was sure to come in such a climate.

There's your hate. It is not hate to have, and voice, an opinion at variance with the left, despite the left's insistence that it is. It is not even hate to argue a contrary position and employ a faulty analogy, despite Daly's insistence that it is.

But it is hate to take a difference of opinion, call it hate, connect it with a tragedy, and assert that the tragedy occured because of this so-called hate. That's the left: telling us who they really are, by what they call their opposition.

Note: I'm still waiting to see whether Daly accuses Al Gore of being responsible for James Jay Lee holding all those people hostage at the Discovery Channel. After all, he said he was inspired by Al Gore.

"We won’t know the full results of what we have done until the very institutions we have created, the regulations we have suggested and provided for are actually tested." ~ Sen. Chris Dodd

In remarks delivered 13 July 2010, His Beatitude spoke, with reference to the recently signed financial reform bill of the end of an "era of irresponsibility". One must simply smile in order to avoid pulling out one's hair over a financial reform bill which not only leaves in place the entity, such as The Federal Reserve most responsible for this era (an era which, to some of us, goes all the way back to 1913, but actually gives to this entity, even more power over the economy:



Nice.

We are told that, although the government does exert a great deal of control over the economy, the fact that the financial meltdown occurred at all means that it still is not enough control. The "free market", we've been told, failed us. (It's funny how every failure of the "free" market is testimony to the fact that it doesn't really work, but any successes are not evidence of the contrary. But I digress.) More is needed, and so we have the financial reform bill. As we've heard, over and over, the free market clearly doesn't work the way its supporters say it works. There is never permitted the slightest suggestion that, despite the supposedly little control the government has over the economy, it has still been sufficient control to be the greater cause of our present difficulties than the "free" market.

The irresponsibility for the meltdown, we've been told, lay in the over-reliance upon credit, motivated, naturally, by greed. But who, precisely, extended and expanded this credit? Not the greedy people who borrowed the money. They don't have that kind of power. Not the lending institutions. They don't have that power, either. If we really are talking about money which should not have been loaned, then why were the interest rates as low as they were? The fact of the matter is that the Fed controls the money supply, expanding it or shrinking it as they see fit. This has an effect on the so-called free market, making it rather un-free. It is, in fact, one could say, driven. There is a reason why people took out loans they should not have done. There is a reason why banks lent money they should not have done. And greed is an acceptable explanation only if gravity is an acceptable explanation for every plan crash.

"Why did the passenger jet crash"?

"Gravity." Think of the billions that could be saved if the NTSB would stop investigating plane crashes.

The money was lent because Alan Greenspan made it availabe and it was virtually (but only virtually) free. Recall the present complaints that banks have been given a great deal of money which they are not lending. Had the banks not lent the money which started the boom, we'd have had the same complaints in 2003 and 2004. One of the reasons the banks are not lending is that there is no way for them to know which loans to grant.

For what follows, think of money not as a medium of exchange, but as a commodity which, like any commodity, can be bought and sold. When you work a job you purchase money with your labor; your boss purchases your labor with money. Think also of interest as the cost of money between borrower (buyer) and lender (seller). Money is a commodity; interest is the price of this commodity.

Now think about the function of price. For most of us, price affects a great many of the decisions we make. There is a reason I bought a 2000 Saturn in 2000 rather than a 2000 Lambourghini: price. I could easily afford the former, but not the latter. But let's say the price of a 2000 Lambourghini, as well as the cost of owning one, suddenly dropped to a point equal to that of the 2000 Saturn, making it possible for me to own a Lambourghini for as much as it would cost me to own a Saturn. I assure you, that would have been sufficient reason for me to have purchased the Lamboughini. So it is with interest rates. A higher interest rate has a different effect on calculation than a lower one. If the interest rate is too high I might be reluctant to seek a loan for a business venture, or even a house. Both are risky activities; and part of the risk is the ability to pay the loan. The higher the interest rate, the greater the risk, especially since, in the beginning, the bulk of each loan payment is on the interest of the loan, not the principle. But if the interest rate drops to almost zero (that is, almost free), then things change. A business venture at 20% interest is clearly much riskier than at 2%. At 2% it's almost like passing up a Lambourghini for $1,500.00 to purchase a Saturn for $15,000.00. Pass up a virtually free Lambourghini? Are you mad?

In the same way that price affects my decision about a car purchase, the interest rate affects a businessman's calculation concerning the chances of turning a profit from any projects he may be considering. Just like the prices of the material factors of production, wage rates, and the anticipated future prices of the products, the interest rate (the price of money) is an item that must enter into the planning businessman’s calculations. The result of this calculation gives the businessman an idea of whether or not a certain project will pay off. A drop in interest rate makes the businessman’s calculations misleading. These false calculations will tend to make some projects appear profitable and realizable which a correct calculation, based on an interest rate not arbitrarily manipulated by credit expansion, would have shown as unrealizable. Being misled by the interest rate the businessman undertakes a project he would not otherwise have done. Business activities are stimulated, and a (credit-generated) boom begins. About the only thing the current president has correct about the recently ended boom (the meltdown) is that it was false. Indeed it was, as would any boom be which was egged on by a false interest rate. But that is about the only thing, because what neither he nor any other administration, would admit is that this false boom was egged on by a false interest rate, an interest rate set arbitrarily by The Federal Reserve, an interest set as low as it was precisely to start a boom in the first damn place! Now, they blame the businessmen for their miscalculations, and, on top of that, blame these miscalculations not on the Federal Reserve's interest rate, but on businessmen's greed.

The interest rate in a truly free market (as opposed to a centrally manipulated market that is called free) would be set by individual lending institutions, about as follows. To get straight to the relevant point, banks need to lend money, especially if they are to pay you interest on your savings accounts. The more you save, the lower they would set their lending interest rate. The less you save, the higher would be the lending interest rate. Why? When you save alot you send a signal to the bank that you are putting off consumption until the future, the more you save, the futher into the future you are putting your consumption. Moreover, the more you save, the more reserves the bank has on hand for lending. Recall that money is a commodity. When a bank has a lot in reserve it is like a car dealer with too much inventory, so it will usually lower its lending interest rate (the commodity price) in order to lend from these reserves (sell the money), taking some of the interest from these loans for itsef, as its profit, and passing some more of it to you in the form on interest on your savings account, certificates of deposit, or money market account. As banks lower their lending interest rates, this sends a signal to businessmen that a large portion of the population is putting off consumption into the future. In the future, they will consume. Businessmen, anticipating what these savers will want to consume in the future, and anticipating much more consumption in the future than if savings were lower, will take out loans either for research into and development of new, as yet non-existent products, or improvements in current products, or simply increased production (without improvement) of current products. When savings are low, banks, having less in reserve, will raise their lending interest rate. This signals to businessmen that consumers are preferring present consumption to future consumption. Consequently, they will discipline themselves and concentrate their efforts on producing such products as are presently being consumed because higher interest rates mean less tolerance for risk.

That is how banking would work in a free market. By increasing or decreasing their savings, by preferring present consumption to future consumption, or vice-versa, consumers -- not the government, not the Federal Reserve, not any bank -- would control the interest rates. But that is not the way it works. The Federal Reserve controls interest rates, and by virtue of this control it can launch an economic boom, for which, of course, greedy businessmen will be blamed.

After the dot-com bubble burst, and in the wake of the 11 September 2001 attacks, Alan Greenspan decided to increase the money supply by targeting the federal funds rate, the rate at which banks lend to each other to cover their reserve requirements, lowering it to 1%. (Can you say, "Fifteen hundred dollar Lambourghini"?) And he held it there 2003 to 2004, the heart of the housing bubble.

As I mentioned above, this injection of liquidity sent a signal, as any change in any interest rates will do. For reasons I shant go into here, the dot-com bust resulted in a loss of confidence in the stock market. Where to invest this new liquidity? Confidence immediately turned to real estate. Among other things, the artificially low interest rate drove people into the building industry who, in a "normal" market would have been laughed out of a bank. In the market with which I am most personally familiar some of those who entered the general contractor profession included disk jockeys, cabinet makers, carpet and brick layers, electricians and one record producer (or drug dealer, still not sure.) Why could these people get loans to build homes, including "spec" homes? Because the loans were that cheap and, thanks to belief in a bit of nonsense which became known as The Greenspan Put, banks, among many, many others, falsely believed risk had been banished from existence. But also because, in most cases the banks would never have to wait for these loans to be paid.

What typically happens is that banks eventually sell the loans they make. To the uninitiated this sounds mysterious. But think of it. If money is a commodity, then so is a loan. In practical terms, the loan is the paper it's written on, that is, the loan contract. So the loan contract itself, like the money it represents, is also a commodity, bought and sold like any other commodity. So let's say, keeping it simple, you take out a $1,000,000.00 million dollar loan which, when amortized, will mean that when you've paid it off, you will have paid $1,750,000.00. Let us stipulate also that this is a twenty year loan, meaning the bank must wait twenty years to get its $1,750,000.00. On the other hand, it could sell the loan for, say, $1,250,000.00. It just made $500,000.00 and it doesn't have to wait twenty years for you to pay anything. So if a bank loans money to a disk jockey who wants to play general contractor it risks virtually nothing if it can sell that loan. As we know, many of these loans were bundled together and sold as mortgage-backed securities.

Of course, it would be one thing (forgivable, even) for banks simply to have loaned money to disk jockeys to build spec homes. It is quite another for them to have loaned to people who, as we've heard, had no chance of paying them. As we've heard, banks were not even requiring proof of income. This, we've been told, was because banks were unscrupulous, greedy. (Ostensibly, the people who falsely reported, or perhaps inflated, their incomes were innocent by-standers, unwitting victims of bankers' greed. Who were sitting around, minding their own business, when these unscrupulous bankers knocked on their doors with offers that couldn't be refused. The poor dears.) Clearly, if all banks have to do is loan money and then turn round and sell the loans, it almost doesn't matter to the bank whether the mortgagee can pay. Almost. In a truly free market it would matter a great deal: the one who buys the loan could sue the bank for failing to perform due diligence. In selling the loan the bank would have been understood as warranting to the buyer that it had ascertained the mortgagee's ability to pay the mortgage. And the bank should have done, for if it could not find a buyer for the loan, then it would have been stuck with that loan itself. But in a market in which losses are socialized, this is not a problem.

For my purposes here, it doesn't matter why banks loaned money to people who couldn't pay them. Some blame the Community Reinvestment Act. It probably played a role. But, like I said, it doesn't matter. The boom was fueled by manipulation of interest rates by the Federal Reserve. If the boom had not occured in housing it would have occured elsewhere. Remember that the lowering of the federal funds rate gave banks virtually free money to lend. Banks make money by lending money the same way car dealers make money selling cars. That money -- that liquidity -- was going somewhere. Loans were going to be made to someone. A boom somewhere was inevitable thanks not to greedy speculators, drunk with "irrational exuberance", who can't do squat without liquidity, but to the Federal Reserve, which provides the liquidity.

And now, two weeks after Chris Dodd told us we won't know what the financial reform bill will do until after it's tested, the POTUS tells us the bill, which leaves the Federal Reserve in place and even gives it more control over the economy, will save us from the boom-bust cycle. If only the mafia could make their operations work as beautifully.

Finally, a brief explanation of the bust. The sad fact is the Federal Reserve may be able to create money out of thin air, but it cannot create factors of production. There may suddenly be more money available for business projects, but there is not equally as suddenly the material for these projects. At some point, producers are unable to keep up with the Federal-Reserve-driven demand for production goods. The market slows down as businesses wait for the needed material. Unfortunately, banks don't wait for loan payments, not for long anyway. Finally, projects increasingly cannot be completed. But these projects need to be completed in order for loans to be paid. The boom is over.