I post some tips regarding family to my Linkedin page (see here) from time to time, and I thought I should start sharing them here too. Below is one of my family law tips, and you can read my articles on family law here and other posts on family law here and all are cataloged here.
Here are my latest uploads to YesSource, my Yes rarities youtube page (about which you can read here). This post is another addition to my series of Yes music posts and a collection of all my Yes-related posts is here. Yes, of course, is a, if not the, premier progressive rock band, and I am an enormous fan of it.
You can see all of my Yessource uploads here.
My latest YesSource uploads can be found here:
I have lost touch with my friend Mark, and, assuming he is alive, it will be some work to track him down, because he is periodically homeless or semi-homeless. My first impression was that his economic condition was mainly the result of his having been for many years a pretty good addict and a pretty poor motorcyclist, a combination that had predictable neurological consequences. I never knew Mark “before” — there is something in such men as Mark suggesting an irrevocably bifurcated life — but the better I got to know him, the more I came to believe that he probably had been much the same man, but functional, or at least functional enough.
Part of it was an act, but not all of it. If you saw him on the street and called his name, he’d spin around on you, fists balled up, half enraged and half afraid, ready to fight, until he recognized you, which could sometimes take a few seconds longer than it should have. But then he was all smiles and wry commentary on the passers-by and the police. He’d gesture at passing police cars (he lived about two blocks from the police station) and say, “They all know me,” which was true. We talked about motorcycles and his longing to ride again, and he’d explain to me all the reasons why that was never, ever going to happen. “They’d lock me up,” he’d say darkly, which also was true. He’d sometimes ask to borrow mine, and I’d explain to him all the reasons why that was never, ever going to happen. “You’re a maniac.” This was an approved line of argument. “That’s right!” he’d thunder. Maniac was fine, but he objected to lunatic. He didn’t like bum very much, either, but he was a realist.
A 20-year-old man with adequate shelter, cheap food, computer games, weed, and a girlfriend is apt to be pretty content.
Necessity used to be what forced us to grow up. That was the stick, and sex was the carrot, and between the two of them young men were forced/inspired to get off their asses, go to work, and start families of their own from time immemorial until the day before yesterday. A 20-year-old man with adequate shelter, cheap food, computer games, weed, and a girlfriend is apt to be pretty content. Some of them understand that there is more to life than that, but some do not. David Foster Wallace’s great terror in Infinite Jest was entertainment so engrossing that those consuming it simply stopped doing anything else. (Is it necessary to issue a spoiler alert for a 1,000-page novel that’s 20 years old? Well, spoiler alert: It’s Québécois separatists.) He revisited the idea later in “Datum Centurio,” which is one of the all-time great short stories, one that is written in the form of a dictionary entry from the future for the word “date.” Over the course of the definition (and the inevitable footnotes), we learn that pornography has become so immersive in the future that conventional sexual behavior has been restricted entirely to procreation. The final footnote reads: “Cf. Catholic dogma, perverse vindication of.”
Tyler Cowen considers some of this in his new book, The Complacent Class, in which he argues (in the words of Walter Russell Meade’s review) that “the apparent stability of American society . . . is an illusion: behind the placid façade, technological change and global competition have combined with domestic discontent to bring forth a new age of disruption.”
By Kevin D. Williamson and published in National Review on February 26, 2017 and can be found here.
This article is part of my posts on the economic system of distributism. This is from practicaldistributism.blogspot.com which you can find here:
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When President Trump chose to impose tariffs on China, there were various reactions. Some economic schools praised him because they believe tariffs will improve the American job market in those industries currently heavily outsourced to Chinese labor. Free market libertarians, typically representing the Austrian school of economics, berated him because they believe tariffs are terrible and hurt the American economy. However, Trump said he was doing this as an economic sanction because China was stealing US intellectual property.
Let’s start with where President Trump is wrong. He is using the tariff as a means of economic sanction – to punish another country. This is generally being characterized as a form of “trade war,” which is not an unreasonable conclusion. The reason he is wrong, however, is because we have been living under the doctrine of free trade long enough that China can economically hurt us just as much as we can economically hurt them. You can only impose a punishment from a position of power, and we don’t seem to have one. China is where our corporations produce our computers, cell phones, network infrastructure components, and many other things on which we have come to depend for our daily lives. It wasn’t that long ago that flooding in a region of China cause a world-wide shortage of computer disk drives. China can retaliate quickly and effectively against any form of economic sanction we may want to impose. A concrete example of this type of economic, and therefore political, dependence is the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union. One of the issues they have to address is potential interruptions in their food distribution. The UK has the resources to provide this for itself, but they have spent decades allowing themselves to become dependent on foreign countries for basic necessities. This is now being used as an argument against becoming politically independent from the EU.
Those praising the tariffs as a means to improve American job opportunities are wrong because Trump’s stated reason for imposing the tariff is not to bolster American jobs or American industries. It was a punishment for stealing intellectual property from American companies. Our situation is very different than when our economic might was building during the industrial revolution. As a nation, we desired greater economic power, but we were already economically independent for the majority of our daily needs and wants. We used an aggressive tariff system to not only protect our fledgling industries, but to open foreign markets to our strong industries.
Others, including those who believe in the Austrian School of economics, criticized these tariffs on the grounds that tariffs are bad for economics. For example, political commentator Ben Shapiro has stated on numerous occasions that tariffs are bad for the economy. He describes them as a tax on everyone for the benefit of the few. Are tariffs ever allowed according to his view? According to Shapiro, they should only be used for national security reasons or “in the name of liberty.”
“As JFK put it, ‘We will bear any burden in the name of liberty,’ and, I’m sorry, but getting slightly more expensive goods from China in the name of liberty doesn’t seem like all that much of a burden to bear to help the people of Hong Kong, who are flying the American flag while they are protesting for their freedom.”
– Ben Shapiro, Practicality vs. Morality?
So, we can use tariffs as a tool for political change in a foreign power, but not to protect national industries and jobs. While other capitalists disagree with this view, the implications of this position are astounding when you consider that we are dealing with a socialist dictatorship.
This is a tacit admission that, except when national security concerns apply, or when we want to help influence some form of political change in the name of liberty, socialism is an economic good for capitalism. Is this a ridiculous assertion? Consider the following points.
These positions can only be explained by a view that considers the so-called global economy to be the primary and most important economy, followed by the national economy. Other capitalists may consider the national economy to be primary and the global economy secondary but, for those of the former view, socialism is treated as an economic good for capitalist markets.
In the end, President Trump backed down on the tariffs in hopes that it would keep our prices reduced through the Christmas shopping season. Does this not show that we have become economically dependent on foreign countries, including China?
What can Chinese President, Xi Jinping, say about this? If I were him, I would be using this as propaganda to the Chinese people, that it proves socialism is superior to capitalism, that capitalist production cannot compete with socialist production, and that people who live under capitalism are not able or willing to do the work necessary to produce what they want because they are too lazy and greedy, which is why they depend on socialist workers.
While trade is generally good, distributism’s emphasis on supporting the local economy means that it should not be at the expense of economic independence. One of the foundational ideas behind distributism is that the more economically dependent you are, the more politically unfree you are. This applies to the national economy just as much as it does to the local economy. The views of capitalists seem to be divided between those who consider the global economy as primary and those who consider the national economy as primary. They don’t seem to give local economies much consideration. Distributists consider the local economy as primary. If the country is filled with a lot of strong and stable local economies, then the national economy will be strong and stable.
When considering trade policy, a nation should look to maintain a level which won’t cause too much economic turmoil for its people if trade gets interrupted. It should also not be the cause of the demise of your own producers. Some capitalists will declare that you are just forcing your own people to accept inferior products or to endure higher prices. They are ignoring the fact that many of their country’s top competitors in international markets initially grew under the protection of tariffs against foreign competition. Markets are different from country to country.
The labor market in the United States is different than the labor market in communist China. Why do any of our capitalists seem to insist that making these two labor markets compete against each other constitutes “free trade?” Are the wages comparable? Are the working conditions comparable? Are worker rights comparable? All of these can influence the cost of labor, and a tariff can be used to actually make them comparable.
Material costs and rents in the United States are different than those in communist China. Even when you factor in the competitive advantage given to many of our large corporations from government subsidies and preferential legislation, does it even come close to the level of government support of a socialist regime like China? No, the competitive advantage seem to be mainly against smaller competitors in our own country, which is why so many of our large corporations outsource production to China and other foreign countries. Tariffs can be used to protect our companies from this.
If a country is lacking development in a particular industry that impacts its economic independence, it cannot compete against those foreign companies that have already developed. A tariff on a particular industry will allow that industry to grow and develop within its own market.
Distributism would rather see as many people as possible engaged in productive work in small independent businesses supporting their local economy. We do not advocating leaving them at the mercy of corporate interests that drain local economies and leave people dependent on government assistance. We do not advocate corporate interests that consider it better to have workers in a socialist regime produce the products we need than our own people.
References:
Why Trump’s tariffs on China are a big deal; CNN Business
https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/21/news/economy/trump-trade-china-intellectual-property-301/index.html
Leaked Document Shows Potential Food & Fuel Shortage after No-Deal Brexit; Subverse News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MqO9wQjKno
Trump’s 45% tariff on Chinese goods is perfectly calculated; Los Angeles Times Op-Ed
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-navarro-trump-trade-china-tariffs-20160721-snap-story.html
Yes, Ben Shapiro is Still Wrong on Tariffs. Here’s Why; American Greatness
https://amgreatness.com/2018/03/19/yes-ben-shapiro-is-still-wrong-on-tariffs-heres-why/
The Second Cold War; Ben Shapiro, Ep. 833 (starting @ 40:00)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe_ySUG4Pco
Practicality vs. Moral Character?; Ben Shapiro, Ep. 839 (starting at 8:45)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NGdtBTnH0
Trade Trucers Push President Trump to Back Off on China Tariffs; Breitbarthttps://www.breitbart.com/economy/2018/11/29/morechinatrucetalk/
Back in October 2015 I wrote about the inauguration of the Abington Templeton Foundation (see here). The project is now underway (see here) and I will be posting our writing here.
Check out the latest piece entitled “Flannery O’Connor’s ‘Push Back’.”
See also:
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Flannery O’Connor was a southern Catholic writer who has bequeathed to us wonderful short stories and two novels. She has some good advice for Christians in this secular age. “Push back against the age as hard as it pushes against you. What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.”
“Push back” may be a harsh metaphor when we Christians are striving for civil speech in a contentious, combative society. But, let us not forget the primary point that O’Connor is making. We are to speak up on behalf of Christ–His redemptive sacrifice and wise teachings. When we are conversing with a friend, talking in a group that has gathered for dinner or some such activity, or participating in a formal setting of discussion or debate, we are called on to defend the faith, no matter what the risk. To follow Jesus is to carry a cross.
Having to make an apology, or defense, for many of us may be a frequent opportunity in our secular setting. We must balance civil speech with a firm stand. To be gentle and respectful does not mean to accede to falsehood. We may be objects of ridicule and scorn. No matter, we are to stand for the truth even unto persecution.
Our challenge in any dialogue may not only have to do with civility but also knowledge. Do we have enough knowledge to feel adequate to the task? We must also commit ourselves to study, especially of the Bible.
Next time we will discuss how Saint Paul comported himself before people in power. To do this we will turn to the Acts of the Apostles.
Here are my latest uploads to YesSource, my Yes rarities youtube page (about which you can read here). This post is another addition to my series of Yes music posts and a collection of all my Yes-related posts is here. Yes, of course, is a, if not the, premier progressive rock band, and I am an enormous fan of it.
You can see all of my Yessource uploads here.
My latest YesSource uploads can be found here:
Joe Arcieri is a friend of mine who I worked with for many years during my ten years working for Acme Markets. Joe, when not stocking milk or saving lives as a nurse, is an excellent guitar player. I have had the privilege, from time to time, of (badly) plunking my bass guitar with Joe as he melts a face or two with a great solo.
As great musicians do, Joe has written some of his own songs and keeps a soundcloud site to post them. When I have opportunity, I will post his music here as well.
Here is his composition called “Crash My Party (Ver 2.1)” which you can find here.
Here are the links to the previously posted songs by Joe:
The Salem witch trials turned on what was called “spectral evidence.” That was testimony from witnesses—either malicious or hysterical—who claimed the accused had assumed the form of a black cat or some other devilish creature and had come visiting in the night in order to torment the witness with bites and scratches, or to rearrange the bedroom furniture, or to send the baby into paroxysms.
The judge, William Stoughton, admitted this nonsense into evidence. Hysterical fantasies had real consequences: Sarah Good and four other defendants were hanged on July 19, 1692.
Three hundred twenty-six years later, an anonymous woman—a spectral and possibly nonexistent woman, for all that one knew when the story emerged—accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her 36 years ago, when he was a high-school student. It seemed as if the American constitutional process might be drawn back to the neighborhood of Salem, Mass. According to this phantom testimony, 17-year-old Brett held the girl down, pawed her and tried to force himself upon her, and held his hand over her mouth when she screamed, until a second prep-school devil piled on top, they all tumbled to the floor, and the girl managed to slip away. The boys were “stumbling drunk,” according to the account.
You were supposed to feel the sudden wind-shear of hypocrisy. The nominee was a seeming paragon—perfect father and husband and coach of his daughters’ basketball teams. He is a Roman Catholic with an Irish name, but now the script became as gleefully Calvinist as a Hawthorne tale. What imp of hell had possessed the Kavanaugh boy? The Protestant tale seemed to obtain subliminal verification against the background of Catholic sex-abuse scandals.
Thus the constitutional process takes on an aspect of the 21st-century medieval. The accuser’s story first emerged in a letter that came into the hands of California Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Ms. Feinstein brought it to light only after the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing, which featured somewhat Salem-like drama—costumed apparitions from “The Handmaid’s Tale” arranging themselves outside the committee room; inarticulate background screams of people being led away for disrupting the proceedings. It seemed as if Ms. Feinstein, not liking the odds of defeating Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation, had found a devilishly clever way to head it off after all.
But then the accuser materialized, in the form of a 51-year-old California professor of clinical psychology, Christine Blasey Ford.
What to make of it now? The tale became a lot less spectral. Still, there had been no police report, and there were no witnesses. The second boy allegedly in the room said he had no memory of such an incident and called the accusation “absolutely nuts.” Judge Kavanaugh flatly denied it. Her therapist’s notes from 30 years later are not objective reporting, merely a transcription of what Ms. Ford herself said.
The thing happened—if it happened—an awfully long time ago, back in Ronald Reagan’s time, when the actors in the drama were minors and (the boys, anyway) under the blurring influence of alcohol and adolescent hormones. No clothes were removed, and no sexual penetration occurred. The sin, if there was one, was not one of those that Catholic theology calls peccata clamantia—sins that cry to heaven for vengeance.
The offense alleged is not nothing, by any means. It is ugly, and stupid more than evil, one might think, but trauma is subjective and hard to parse legally. Common sense is a little hard put to know what to make of the episode, if it happened. The dust of 36 years has settled over the memory. The passage of time sometimes causes people to forget; sometimes it causes them to invent or embellish. Invention takes on bright energies when its muse is politics, which is the Olympics of illusion. Inevitably, people will sort the matter out along mostly partisan lines. A lot will depend upon the testimony of Ms. Ford, who has volunteered to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee. If the left expects a windfall from all this in November, it may find itself instead the victim of a terrific backlash.
These are part of the 21st century’s strange sectarian struggles. In another Senate hearing a year ago, Ms. Feinstein addressed Amy Coney Barrett, a Notre Dame law professor, about her nomination to the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Ms. Feinstein began fretting earnestly about the nominee’s Catholicism. “The dogma lives loud within you,” the senator told the professor—an oddly mystical locution.
But 21st-century progressivism is also a religion—a militant faith, a true church in nearly all important respects. It is a community of belief and shared values, with dogmas, heresies, sacraments and fanatics; with saints it reveres and devils it abhors, starting with the great Satan Donald Trump. If religion were to disqualify a Catholic from public service, it would logically have to disqualify a practicing progressive, who is the creature of a belief system that is, on the whole, considerably more dogmatic than the one with headquarters in Rome.
By Lance Morrow , a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, is a former essayist for Ti
Published in the Wall Street Journal on September 17, 2018 (see here) and Wealth Creates Good on September 18, 2018 (see here).
This is from religionclause.blogspot.com which you can find here:
EEOC last week announced the settlement of a lawsuit it had filed against an Ooltewah, Tennessee, senior and assisted living community. Garden Plaza at Greenbriar Cove required two Seventh Day Adventist employees to work on Saturdays, and asked them to resign when they refused to do so. In the settlement, Garden Plaza will pay $92,586.50 in damages, and enter a 2-year consent decree requiring it to train employees on Title VII matters.
You can learn more about this issue here.
Back in October 2015 I wrote about the inauguration of the Abington Templeton Foundation (see here). The project is now underway (see here) and I will be posting our writing here.
Check out the latest piece entitled “The Present Cultural Environment in America.”
See also:
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The situation for Christians in contemporary American culture can be described as increasing pressure to conform to secularism, an ideology not only different from Christianity but hostile to it. The circumstances did not come into existence overnight. Read Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age or a summary of his book by James K. A. Smith, entitled How (Not) to Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor.
Is cultural hostility becoming a situation of outright persecution? Are we headed toward an environment of “trials” similar to the exiles in First Peter, or worse? We do not have too long to wait to find out. Developments are moving at a fast pace. Secularism is an ideology that by its very nature is intensely inimical to Christian faith. Our apostolic and catholic confession is a threat to its tenets. And, of course, theirs to ours. But, as Christians, we are expected to react in love for our neighbor, even our enemy; but, we must also stand firm for our confession of faith.
What do we see on the cultural landscape? A sexual revolution has taken place that contravenes Christian ethics. (see R. Albert Mohler, Jr., We Cannot Be Silent). Our government has been active in promoting laws that would limit freedom of the practice of religion. Note the attempt to replace free exercise of religion with freedom of worship only, a change that would greatly restrict the intent of the First Amendment’s protection. Hollywood and the media have aligned themselves with secular ways of thinking and doing. Intellectuals have directed attacks against Christian theology and ethics. Though attacks on the faith are not new, today it seems more common and virulent. Science has become scientism–a philosophy that insists that only science provides knowledge. The humanities and theology, in this view, are not considered sources of knowledge.(See J.P. Moreland, Scientism and Secularism). We are moving toward a brave new world of drugs, sex only for pleasure, and laboratory production and experimentation that challenge Christian ethics (See Aldous Huxley, Brave New World) We have state law that allows the killing of a child outside the womb of the mother. Our societal symbols, representing who we are, could turn out to be the condom and the joint.
In some quarters, the church has become an object of ridicule and contempt. It is in this environment that we must speak the truth and proclaim the Christian faith.
We have churches who have allied themselves, astoundingly enough, with this secular culture in the name of Christ. The result has been bitterness and hostility within the Christian community. Are churches that renounce orthodox theology and ethics Christian? Because of our many divisions, the church has not spoken with one voice, based on orthodox theology and traditional Christian ethics. Valuable energy and positive influence are lost in these ecclesiastical and ecumenical conflicts.
What are Christians called to do in this situation? Despite the obstacles and dangers and threats, we must speak out. We must push back, as writer Flannery O’Connor advises. More on this next time.
Michael G. Tavella
June 1, 2019
Feast Day of Justin Martyr, c. 165
judicialsupport 