"Gratitude," by Abba.

A post from my father on the meaning behind Thanksgiving... 

"Gratitude:

"An acknowledgement of what the L-rd has meant to us in the past and what He still means to us today, as well as an avowal of what our relationship to Him has been and should be.

"Our Sages comment that when one day in the new future that is to come, all things on earth will be in such an ideal state that there will be no more cause for prayers and offerings; even then, prayers of gratitude and offerings of thanksgiving will never cease. For it would be only under such conditions that these acts would attain their true significance. How great is gratitude, the noblest of all human traits and destined to endure throughout eternity.

"May we be made aware of the vanity of all the years of our life, of the inadequacy of all that which lies beyond us and which we think we can attain as the years go by.

"All he joy and happiness of which any of us is capable of attaining dwells in the certainty that we have lived all our days, hours, and minutes on earth in gratitude and loyalty to G-d, and that we have faithfully discharged our duty throughout time.

"And whenever G-d sees fit to call us away, we will boldly heed the summons, content in the thought that we have realized the goal for which we were created.

"May He, therefore, teach us how to number our days aright and greet each day with a heart full of gratitude for, each day is one more day in His service. What an awesome privilege to remain in His employ, unworthy servants such as we are.


"Happy Thanksgiving."

A Request of My Government: Stand a Little Less Between Me and the Sun

The American government has, of late, overstepped its legal bounds in many areas of the American people’s lives. One of the most recent and significant economic policies that serve as an example of this trend is Obamacare. As John S. Hoff points out in his article in the Independent Review, Article I, section 8, and clause 3 of the Constitution authorizes Congress to regulate interstate commerce – but the Affordable Care Act, “in requiring people to engage in commerce rather than merely regulating existing commerce, appeared to exceed that authority” (Hoff, 2013). And although the Supreme Court has broadly interpreted the Commerce Clause since the New Deal, there is a boundary the Court had never crossed in those seventy-five years – they had never found it Constitutional for the government to require a person to engage in commerce (Hoff, 2013). But now, thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision, the American people are being forced to buy something that not all of them want to buy. They are being compelled to engage in commerce, contrary to the Commerce Clause of their own Constitution. This is the most blatant example of disregard for the Constitution that the American people have yet seen in their history.

As Liberty University’s Government lecture notes point out, government’s role in the lives of the American people should be limited to specific areas. “The role of government is to facilitate the free association of its citizens. Government must also define and defend private property… government is not a corrective device” (Lecture Notes 8.1, Liberty University). The Supreme Court got around the unconstitutionality of the Affordable Care Act by stating that it was a tax, a tax that, once again, the American people are being forced to pay. The Supreme Court argued that “the penalty it imposes for failing to have the required insurance is nonetheless constitutional as an exercise of Congress's authority to levy taxes (Art. 1, Sec. 8, el. 1). Even though the president had assured Americans that the mandate was “absolutely not” a tax, and Congress had asserted authority only as a regulation of commerce, the administration showed no embarrassment in arguing in court that the mandate actually is a tax” (Hoff, 2013). Government health care will not only be regulated by the state and upheld by the Supreme Court in spite of its unconstitutionality, but it will be paid for out of the American people’s taxes. The government policy of Obamacare thus flouts the principles of free exchange along with the Constitution through a tax that pays for something the American people did not even want in the first place. This is a double grievance and one that doubtless has the Founding Fathers turning in their graves, for it goes against freedoms that America initially held dear – the freedom to choose, the freedom to buy and sell without state compulsion, and the freedom from unwanted taxation.

“Everything we get, outside of the free gifts of nature,” Hazlitt writes in Economics in One Lesson, “must in some way be paid for.” But economists all over the world “tell us that government can spend and spend without taxing at all; that it can continue to pile up debt without ever paying it off” (Hazlitt, 1946). It is obvious, however, that “all government expenditures must eventually be paid out of the proceeds of taxation” (Hazlitt, 1946). The funds for Obamacare have to come from somewhere, and what better place than the hardworking American taxpayer’s pocket? Gerald Wells writes in Arkansas Business that “Obamacare will impose higher taxes totaling $4 trillion between now and 2035” and that among these taxes are an increase in Medicare hospital insurance payroll tax from 2.9 percent to 3.8 percent, an annual fee on health insurance providers, a 2.3 percent excise tax on certain medical devices, an annual fee on branded drugs, and an increase on the medical expense deductions floor from 7.5 percent to 10 percent (Wells, 2013). Truly, as Chief Justice John Marshall warned us in 1819, “the power to tax is the power to destroy” (Lecture notes 8.1, Liberty University)

In conclusion, the policy of Obamacare and the implementation of the Affordable Care Act are severe mistakes on the part of the Supreme Court and a powerful example of how the American government has overstepped its bounds in regards to economic policy. It limits the capitalist freedom of the American people to buy and sell, forces upon them a tax to fund a product they do not even want to purchase, and goes against the oldest law of the land written to protect the country from corruption. As Hazlitt so intelligently points out, “government’s main economic function is to encourage and preserve a free market” (Hazlitt, 1946). When Alexander the Great visited Diogenes the philosopher and asked if there was anything he could do for him, the philosopher told the great king, “Yes, stand a little less between me and the sun.” This is, Hazlitt states, “what every citizen is entitled to ask of his government” (Hazlitt, 1946.)

  

Reference:

Hazlitt, Henry. “Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic

             Economics.” 1946. Three Rivers Press, New York, New York.

Hoff, John S. "Obamacare: Chief Justice Roberts's political dodge." Independent Review 18.1 (2013): 5+. Academic OneFile. Web. 14 Dec. 2013.

Lecture notes 8.1, Government 200 – D07, Liberty University, 14 December 2013.

Wells, Gerald L. "Obamacare costly, unconstitutional." Arkansas Business 30 July 2012: 27. General OneFile. Web. 14 Dec. 2013.

Process Philosophy and Modern Society

“The abandonment of the supernatural,” states Martin, “leaves us with a process view of life and existence, including man. We shift from an absolutist view to a process view… The conclusion was reached that there is nothing but change” (Martin, 2006). Process philosophy represented a profound alteration in thinking that greatly impacted the way we think, live, love, socialize, teach, and work today. Rather than assuming, as most intellectuals did before the 1870s, that reality was immutable and that God had created “an organological mature with theistic characteristics,” process philosophy “abandoned the absolute and absolutized the process instead” (Martin, Lecture Notes 4.1 on Worldviews from the 1870s to the Modern Era, 2013) This shift in thinking has infiltrated almost every area of American society, but there are two facets of modern civilization that have been most significantly affected – the economy and the family.

Modern economic thinking today is imbued with process philosophy at every level. A vital component of process philosophical thinking is evolution, and J. Potts, author and lecturer at the School of Economics in the University of Queensland stated that “evolutionary economics is a new scientific approach to economic analysis and one that has come of age in the past decade or so” (Potts, 2003). But of course the most powerful example of process philosophy’s influence on modern economics is Marx’s Communist Manifesto, the Bible of Communism and the basis for much of America’s Fabian Socialist thinking today (Martin, 2013). As Martin says, “Marxism presupposes that all change is progress” (Martin, 2013). Therefore Marx’s view of the economy is that through the natural forces of evolution, the lower classes will eventually take over the nation’s wealth and overthrow the bourgeoisie middle class. As we have seen, this evolutionary state of economics is a poor disguise for what is, in reality, a planned economy managed by the state. Martin points out that in the area of economics, process philosophy necessitates a “shift from a market-oriented economy toward a planned economy, as the state seeks to become the dominant force in the market, in the economy, and in the whole of society” (Martin, 2006).

A second area of modern life that has been greatly influenced by process philosophy is marriage and the family. According to Patricia G. Miller of the Pittsburgh Post, “America's divorce rate is approximately 50 percent…when you include a subgroup - those folks who have already gone through a divorce - the rate is closer to 60 percent (Miller, 2000). Clearly something has gone wrong with the marriage relationship in our society for the rates to be this high. Martin stated quite correctly that “without the absolute standard of God’s Word, marriage becomes a social contract between two presumably equal individuals” (Martin, 2013). Intimate relationships between imperfect human beings become very difficult indeed when seen through the eyes of a worldview, which holds that all change is good – there are no absolutes, rules, standards, or criteria that must be upheld to maintain such a relationship. Marriage becomes, as Martin put it, an “anarchy or hierarchy” (Martin, 2006). He goes on to declare that if God is out of the picture, “no basis for a presupposed equality remains,” and he questions, “On whose terms is such a presupposed equality established? Yours? Mine? By what standard?” (Martin, 2006). These very questions are the ones that are tearing apart family relationships in America today, because without God, there are simply no answers. John Gucciardi Jr. of the Milwaukee Journal states the situation simply: “The integrity of the family is frayed today” (Gucciardi, 2001).

In conclusion, process philosophy is an errant way of thinking that has tainted the way Americans think, which has in turned warped our ideas about many areas of life. When it comes to economics, Western society has adopted an evolutionary, Godless point of view, boding ill for America’s future as a supposedly democratic, free-market society. When it comes to marriage and the family, process philosophy has taken away the element of “unity with diversity, liberty with responsibility” and wrecked the relationships of many a couple who do not understand how to make a marriage work without some sort of absolute standard (Martin, 2013). Another shift in thinking must be made if we want our society to keep from travelling along the path to totalitarianism and anarchy, and this time, the shift in thinking must be from evolutionary, human-centered philosophy to a presupposed absolute, God-centered one.

Reference:

Gucciardi, John Jr. (2001, Apr 15). MARRIAGE.  Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/261315742?accountid=12085

Martin, Glenn R., (2006). Prevailing Worldviews of Western Society Since 1500. Indiana: Triangle Publishing.

Martin, Glenn R. (2013). Lecture on Worldviews from the 1870s to the Modern Era. Personal Collection of Glenn R. Martin, Liberty University, Lynchburg VA.

Miller, P. G. (2000, Jan 20). AMERICA'S DIVORCE RATE IS APPROXIMATELY 50 PERCENT. Pittsburgh Post - Gazette. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/391389122?accountid=12085

Potts, J. (2003). Evolutionary Economics: Foundation of Liberal Economic Philosophy. Policy, 19(1), 58-62.