I can't help but lament that it is unfortunate that success in politics is driven by the ability to use snappy short zingers to explain a position on a topic that is inevitably very complicated with a lot of nuances and potential paths to progress.
The common theme in today's paper was not surprising a bit more reflective than usual as we have Passover and Easter. Ross Douthat's column observed how the religious center is eroding. He uses the Civil Right's movement as his example of how the Church used to occupy a high moral ground in the middle without a proclivity toward either party and used the pulpit to make sermons on how man kind could achieve better.
He goes on to observe how society has split in two ways which has reduced the Churches ability to act in this way. One substantial part of the country has secularized and is non-church going. The other has become more strident in their church going with a side effect of becoming political and generally Republican. Thus, even though the country believes in Freedom of Religion as much as ever, we have the current state of politics where church goers believe that means the government should allow them to promote their beliefs, while the non-church goers believe that means the church has no standing to affect their life. From that disagreement you get the "War on Religion" and the "War on Women". The result of this is that churches no longer occupy a place where they have the ability to promote moral principles in the center and lead the politicians by forging a national consensus.
Another effect on the churches is the fact that a substantial % of the population doesn't support them financially. This means they must get their money from those that do support them. Since, lower taxes provide more funds to those who do give, churches have been placed in a position where their survivorship depends on those lower taxes. The church is not in a position to advocate about the morality of supporting the government's position as a provider of a social safety net.
This lack of moral direction from the churches has many unfortunate effects on U.S. policy. I cannot attribute any of these specific observations to a lack of specific morality; but I do have a belief that, if the country had a less political, more moral based, religious center, we might be addressing problems in a more productive manner.
Welfare Reform passed during the Clinton Administration has been perceived as a success, but now 4 years into a brutal recession we seeing the underside of it. In Arizona, young single mothers are being placed in difficult circumstances. Now I will agree with RedStateVT that one benefit of this Welfare Reform is that individuals are encouraged to take responsibility for their own selfs, and this is happening in Arizona. But when abused mothers are forced to return to their abuser husbands, I cannot help but feel that somehow Arizona has it wrong as Arizona takes some Federal $ that are designed to help these single mothers and diverts it to other programs. This is almost certainly better addressed at the state level, but Arizona is ground zero for this hard divide between the political parties and the Republicans dominate Arizona. If a religious center were operating there, perhaps this problem would be addressed.
Thomas Friedman points out that the Arab Spring is as much about food and water as it was about Democracy. Desert countries are running out of water and food is getting more expensive. Countries where leaders worship money - a situation that exists in 100% of oil rich Arabia - are not thinking in a forward manner about water and food for their population. Meanwhile, climate change - which humans have some role in - is threatening to make these food and water issues more widespread around the globe. In fact, it is already having an effect on California where you cannot grow food without irrigation and what happens to California food matters to the cost of food in the U.S.
As the U.S. Military has already pointed out, climate change through its effects on the availability of food and water, is a national security issue. The Arab Spring proves that populations do not care if they die if the availability of food and water is suspect. Friedman's point is that climate change must be addressed because it will have an effect on us sooner or later and later is, his mind, no more than 20 years out. This is why China is so aggressively working at dominating every form of manufacturing so they can afford to survive this upheaval without the Communist Party losing control of the situation.
If the Church was occupying a position in the center then a consensus might be developed that the U.S. should do something about addressing our inter-connected policy problems. What is the right level of economic support for the Federal Government. Is it the 22% of the Reagan years or the 18% that the Heritage foundation now promotes? What is the appropriate divided between National Defense and Entitlements? How do we pay for the War on Terror which has been 100% borrowed? How do we find an atmosphere where Democrats and Republicans can agree that they disagree but agree that compromise and a path forward up the middle is better than standing still?
I have no answers beyond the Democrats need to try to compromise but stand firm on the need to raise revenues so that revenues are somewhere in the area of 21% or 22% and the budget is in surplus when the economy booms and in deficit when the economy is in recession.
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