Oneness

There’s a feeling we had on this day seventeen years ago that we hadn’t felt three days earlier. There was compassion, hurt, worry, also resolve. And more than anything there was a sense of oneness. A sense that we are all Americans now. Party didn’t matter. Ethnicity didn’t matter. People around the world stood with us—not looking down on us, or pitying us, but loving us and standing alongside us in our time of distress.

Flag in the aftermath 9-11-2018
image from NBC News

There’s a feeling we had a year ago in Houston last year, after the 50+-inch deluge that came with Hurricane Harvey. Neighbors helped neighbors. And everyone was our neighbor. People came in from well outside Houston. The Cajun Navy, as they came to be called, were neighbors with boats that set out from Louisiana to bring their small fishing boats to help rescue flood victims. People fed one another, and housed one another. Sometimes long term, since it took from several months to more than a year to get many homes back to habitable—some are still not. People helped each other muck out the debris, and clean, and dry out, and then begin the rebuild. People gave of their time and money.

Nobody asked, before offering help, “Are you part of my tribe?” No one cared about race, ethnicity, religion, political party. We were all people. We were all Houstonians. Even people from far outside the city, and even beyond the country’s borders.

My friends Derrick and Gloria, after Harvey (their 3rd flood)
The photo is his.

Right now there’s a disaster about to hit the southern east coast, aiming at Georgia and the Carolinas. More than a million have been evacuated. Sometimes these things turn out to be less than predicted, but sometimes—as we know around here—the worst case scenario shows up. So right now we’re all sending our prayers that direction. I heard there was a call for the Cajun Navy to re-deploy. Again, no one will be asking whether those in need are of a particular tribe: color, party, ideology. We’re all Americans, all humans, pulling together for those of us in harm’s way.

radar screen shot from CBS News

Can we agree that the oneness we feel under these circumstances is a good thing? I’m assuming if you’re reading this, you’re civilized enough to believe this is true.

We know how to get the unity: suffer a calamity.

What we need to know is how to get the unity without the calamity.

I don’t know the answer. Well, not true. I do know. Choose life in the freedom, prosperity, and civilization zones. Live by the rules that get us there. Do it individually, and then share your ways with the next generation, and with your larger circle of influence.

So, individually choose ultimate good: that’s the way to move from the fragmented, tribal culture that is making us simultaneously less unified and less individual. Persuading people—many people persuaded one by one—to choose ultimate good, that’s the challenge. I’m not sure how we’ll accomplish that.

But, in my personal, very small crusade toward that end, here’s a review of the ways to get ourselves up into freedom, prosperity, and civilization, according to the Spherical Model.

Into Freedom, Out of Tyranny

The Political Sphere

·         Keep government limited to the proper role of government: protection of life, liberty, and property.

·         Ask these questions:

o   Is the policy being debated something that an individual has the right to do, and therefore has the right to delegate to his/her government?

o   Does the policy infringe in any way on the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights?

Into Prosperity, Out of Poverty

We’re born naked, impoverished, and inexperienced. It is by growth, hard work, and gaining in expertise that we try to overcome this condition throughout our life. We are born with the right to life, the right to live free (not enslaved), and the right to pursue our own path to overcome the naked impoverished state.

The Economic Sphere

Prosperity comes when we are free to work, build our wealth (the results of work beyond subsistence), and choose how to spend the results of our work. In short, we need a free market. Not a crony capitalist economy. Not a highly regulated economy with government favoring various players. Not an economy of monopolies. But a true free market.

Policies should always be guaranteeing the right to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Prosperity is tightly tied to civilization. Because we need people acting honestly, people who are trustworthy.

And we also need generous people who are willing to help those who cannot help themselves.

So the answer to prosperity is a free market—which is the engine for creation of wealth—combined with philanthropy.

Into Civilization, Out of Savagery

Civilization requires a critical mass of people living the laws of civilization. These are simple but not easy things:

·         A religious people.

·         Strong families.

The religion we’re talking about is fairly broad and free. We need to believe that God is our creator, and we are held accountable to Him for how we live our life. He has provided a moral code that we are bound to follow.

The Social Sphere

The moral code is identified in the Ten Commandments, among other places: honor God, family, life, truth, and property.

These laws can be lived individually. But the smallest unit of civilization—living among civilized people—is the family. So we need to clarify what valuing family looks like.

Religious freedom is required for civilization. God is essential, because He is the giver of rights. Anything excluding God limits our rights to whatever the person or entity chooses to grant.

Civilized societies value family as the most important and basic unit of governance. Alternatively, a hallmark of totalitarian regimes, which are savage, is the replacement of the family with the state. Totalitarianism resents loyalty to any societal unit other than itself. And it is this absolute weakness that will always prevent a totalitarian state from offering true Civilization as you’d find it in a free strong-family society.

We have a lot of evidence, from thousands of years of history, to show that strong families, and hence strong civilizations, do not happen without protecting marriage: a man and woman committed and exclusive for life, raising their own children. Such families allow civilization to perpetuate, against the strong pull of chaos and tyranny.

So, if we’re going to be united, without being compelled by catastrophe, we need to do it by being a people who love freedom, prosperity, and civilization, and willingly live the laws that get us there.

Through the Deep Waters

I’ve been away from Houston the past several days, helping out family, as planned well before Hurricane Harvey. But I’ve been following much of the labor and service and heartache, and I’m so proud of my many friends who are reaching out and putting in one heavy-labor day after another, at no cost—simply because it has to be done, and we Texans have compassion for those in need.

Disaster relief comes in stages: preparation, getting through the storm, rescue, mucking out, and then rebuilding. We’re at the mucking out stage now. In some neighborhoods, enough of that has been done to get trucks in to pick up the debris. In other areas, houses still have standing water, and the owners are still waiting to get inside. The longer that takes, the more damage, sadly.

Anyway, as you might imagine, there’s no hiring enough workers to muck out that many homes, and many homeowners are unable to do the job themselves. That means, if it’s going to get done, it’s volunteers who will do it. And that’s what my friends are doing.

So I’ll just share a few of their images that I’ve borrowed from Facebook. I want to note that Mormon Helping Hands aren’t the only helpers. We’re two percent of the population, and no everyone has the right age and ability for this job. Catholic Charities is working with us, and there are many other organizations and ad hoc community groups doing this messy work. But my access to friends who are doing this is mostly Mormon Helping Hands.

This first group is from my ward (congregation) Monday. Similar groups (including many of the same people) have been mucking out homes since late last week. 

Mormon Helping Hands from Copperfield Ward on Monday
Several friends posted this photo, so I'm guessing and
giving photo credit to Janet Taylor

Here’s another crew coming from my church building. Their regular church building got a lot of water damage, so they'll be sharing our building for some time.

Mormon Helping Hands from Bear Creek and Westlake Wards on Monday.
Photo credit to Melissa Willis

And here’s another crew from a little way north. They were lucky to have President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, of the First Presidency (a counselor to the Prophet and President of our worldwide Church) show up for services on Sunday—which were short and followed by work crews heading out to assignments. In every way, it was a special Sunday service.

Cypress Stake Center, which had been a command center
for boat rescue, is now a command center for
Mormon Helping Hands. President Uchtdorf
showed up to join them this Sunday.
Photo credit to Mary Moellmer.

If you wonder what mucking out means, it’s tearing out flooring, moving damaged furniture and debris to the curb for pickup, and tearing out damaged drywall from above the flood line so the insides of the walls can dry out completely before rebuilding can be done.

It looks like this.

Photo credit to Derrick Campos, who hasn't been able to get back in
his own house yet, but has spent the waiting time helping other
people do the mucking out. This is the third time his home has
flooded in recent years. Sometimes life isn't fair.

Another photo from Derrick Campos

This is what's happening inside--cutting out drywall.
Another photo from Derrick Campos

Flooring gets removed inside as well.
Photo from Melissa Willis, who had water up
onto the driveway, but her house was spared.

  

Some friends of mine, the Siebert family, are very talented. Jim Siebert is the meteorologist for the local Fox television station, and he’s the one many of us tuned in to for constant updates during the storm week. His wife, Debbie, is a musician, with a particularly gorgeous voice. They have been doing short Sunday hymn videos for a while—the whole family. They did one this past Sunday. It’s a hymn, “How Firm a Foundation.” It’s a common Christian hymn, although I think many churches use a different tune (“Old Hundredth,” I think it’s called). But they do the one from our LDS Hymns. The fourth verse, which we’ve sung all our lives, has taken on new meaning these past couple of weeks:

When through the deep waters I call thee to go,

The rivers of sorrow shall not thee o’erflow,

For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,

And sanctify to thee, and sanctify to thee,

And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

The Sieberts used photos from the disaster and cleanup as backdrop to their song. When they get to this verse, they change tempo and tone, which brought the tears when I heard it—for the sorrow of loss so many are feeling, because of literal deep waters; for the generosity and kindness of so many who are helping others in their need; and for the love that we feel from our Father in Heaven, who promises to be with us, our troubles to bless and sanctify.

We’ve said for more than a decade now, when the Lord wants His people to turn to him, He sends a hurricane to the Gulf Coast. Mormon Helping Hands have been active here since 2005, the year of Katrina and Rita. Would that we would all turn to Him without these painful reminders. But bad things happen even to very good people. When they do, our job is to serve God by serving one another.

Choosing to Solve Poverty

Some things are simple but not easy. Solving the problem of poverty is one of those things. But here at The Spherical Model, we have the solution:

Free-enterprise economy combined with charitable giving and service.

We don’t solve poverty by taking from those who have been able to acquire more than they currently need through hard work and good fortune and giving their money to those who have less, for whatever reasons.

How do we know? Prime evidence is the “War on Poverty,” now ongoing for over half a century. I wrote about it two years ago, when it turned 50 ("The Fifty Year War" part I and part II). It is the largest, costliest war ever. Yet poverty rates remain about the same. And government goes on taking money to transfer even though their approach is provably faulty.

Graphic I used in 2014, found here

Maybe there’s something more than numbers involved.

Prosperity requires a free people engaged in a free market—all of which requires a law-abiding, righteous people. Things are interrelated. There’s something that comes up in all three spheres—political, economic, and social—and that is choice.

We need the freedom to choose how we will live, what we will do in life, what we will believe, what we will pursue. So political freedom will set the foundation for greater prosperity than any tyranny can do.

We need a free economy, in which we choose how we work, and more particularly how we spend what we have earned. This encourages the incentive to work harder and innovate, so that we can enjoy the fruits of labor.

But one reason “the poor are always with us” is that some are unable, for reasons that are no fault of their own, to take care of themselves, either temporarily or permanently. Some might lack physical or mental capacity to earn enough to care for themselves. Some might be in the position of taking care of a loved one, which prevents them from earning income.

In a civilized society, we recognize these people in need, we have softened feelings for them, and we want to help. We choose to help.

Those who think there is some other way have always failed, and will always fail. You can’t force good will, or charity, or caring.

But how do we get people to do the necessary giving? Because, what if people just don’t do it? Are we just going to let people die on the streets?

No, no one wants people dying on the streets. But if giving power to government to do charity for us would work, we’d have evidence of that by now. Instead we have proved that coercive “charity” doesn’t work.

Remarkably, though, even though government has tried to usurp this charity role from the people, we have nevertheless been charitable. In the January issue of Imprimis, Karl Zinsmeister writes of “Charitable Giving and the Fabric of America.” He offers some surprising evidence of our choice to give. He says,

Private philanthropy is crucial in making America the unusual country that it is. Let’s start with some numbers. Our nonprofit sector now comprises eleven percent of the total United States workforce. It will contribute around six percent of gross domestic product this year. To put this in perspective, the charitable sector passed the national defense sector is size in 1993, and it continues to grow. And these numbers don’t take volunteering into account: charitable volunteers make up the equivalent—depending on how you count—of between four and ten million full-time employees. So philanthropy is clearly a huge force in our society.

He gives examples of a few of America’s larger philanthropists: Ned McIlhenny, Alfred Loomis, John D. Rockefeller, George Eastman, Milton Hershey. These are all businessmen who then used their considerable wealth to do good in ways they were passionate about.

Then he told the stories of some lesser known, smaller philanthropists, because only 14 percent of charitable giving comes from wealthy people giving to big foundations. And only 5 percent comes from corporate giving. “The rest comes from individuals, and the bulk of it comes from small givers at an average rate of about $2,500 per household per year.”

One such person was Anne Scheiber, a reserved auditor. She retired with $5,000 in the bank in 1944, lived frugally, invested wisely, and amassed $22 million by her death in 1995 at age 101. She left her legacy to Yeshiva University so “bright but needy girls could attend college and medical school.”

Then there was Elinor Sauerwein, who frugally mowed her own lawn, painted her own house, and grew her own garden. She was motivated by a goal to give all she could to the Salvation Army—which was $1.7 million in 2011.

A shoe-shine named Albert Lexie donated his tops to the Free Care Fun of the Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh. From 1981 to present, he donated over $200,000, which was a third of his income.

There are others. You may know some. People who give to benefit society through education, or hospitals, or on-the-ground charities helping the poor and homeless. There are private societies preserving our history, maintaining libraries, and funding scientific developments.

America is great because America is good. So far. Partly because America is free to choose to be good.

Zinsmeister mentioned a comparison done by historian Daniel Boorstin: “In 1880, the state of Ohio had only three million inhabitants but 37 colleges. That same year, England had 23 million inhabitants but only four colleges. The difference was small-scale philanthropy directed towards education.”

Those who worry that charitable giving can’t possibly do enough look at private philanthropy with variations of three criticisms:

1.       It’s a drop in the bucket.

2.       It’s amateurish, chaotic, and lacks expert coordination.

3.       Private donors act from impure motives.

Zinsmeister then tackles each of these in turn. As for the first, he points out, “The Gates Foundation alone distributes more overseas assistance than the entire Italian government.”  And that single foundation is only “a tiny sliver of American philanthropy directed overseas. Members of American churches and synagogues send four-and-a-half times as much to foreigners in need each year as Gates does,” and far exceeds the foreign aid budget of the US government. Recent annual totals are $31-$39 billion.

About lack of coordination, he offers evidence that local people, observing a problem and acting to meet a need, are more likely to succeed than distant planners. He contrasts a woman named Lizzie Kander, who funded a settlement house for Russian Jewish immigrants around the turn of the last century—she made and sold a cookbook to fund the thing—with his experience working in the White House West Wing.

He asserts, “The healthiest forms of societal improvement result from lots of little experiments. Some will fail, but others will succeed and be copied. This is the method by which private philanthropy proceeds.”

As for the third concern, impure motives, he says, so what? Most donors have altruistic motives beyond a tax break or getting their name on a building. Still, if good things get done, why worry about mixed motives?

What if the government got out of the “charity” business tomorrow? Could we figure things out? I believe we would. I believe good people follow natural impulses to help one another. And the more we are personally connected locally, the more that is true.

My belief is that the natural freedom of the internet makes connecting givers to organizations and individuals working to make a difference easier. There’s also the possibility of fraud there, but I think we’ll get better with time at recognizing and weeding those out.

Some people have money to give. Some have time, talents, or expertise. There are so many ways to give and serve the community.

community service illustration from JustServe.org

My church has organized a website (I think it’s national and international) for connecting givers and servers with organizations in need of the help: JustServe.org. In Houston we’ve had a version of that for a while: VolunteerHouston.org.

For larger disasters and ongoing humanitarian projects, my favorite is LDS Philanthropies and Humanitarian Aid, where 100% goes to aid, because overhead is handled through other, separate donations. 

A couple of my most read posts relate to community service: “Community Service Is Better Than Community Organizing,” and “Peanut Butter News.”

Zinsmeister concludes: “Early on, Americans discovered that voluntary action to lift others up is not only possible, it is superior to the kind of state paternalism that diminishes freedom. Private charitable giving and the spirit of volunteerism have been essential bulwarks of the American character, and they remain indispensable to our national success.”

So, can we eliminate poverty? There will always be poorer people, but in a civilized society they are clothed and fed and sheltered. And paths are made available so that most can find a way out of being at the bottom of earners. That happy outcome happens not from government “being giving,” but by individuals in a free society choosing to give to one another.

Community Service Is Better Than Community Organizing

Brandon Darby with Cathering Engelbrecht

Last night I went to hear a Q&A session with Brandon Darby, a reformed liberal activist. His conversion is fairly recent (since Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, which was 2005), so I wanted to hear his story. Being a man of action, right after the NO devastation, he went there to start giving aid—not money aid, but physical help. He and friends put out a thousand flyers saying, “if you’re in need of help or want to help, call” his phone number. And then they would go and help people muck out their places. In the two years he did this project, he had more than 22,000 volunteers go through his organization. 

[I personally know dozens of people who did similar mucking out. Our church sent work crews with tools and chainsaws for weeks—then working on closer devastation that resulted from Rita two weeks later. It was amazing, really, to see how much people wanted to help—an attitude that was repeated in 2008 following Ike. My personal belief is that when God wants people to show love to one another in the Gulf Coast, he sends a hurricane. I’m hoping we can do it without that message for a few more years.] 

people from my church helping doing hurricane relief in 2005

Brandon Darby started getting calls from various organizations offering to join with him to help. Mostly he was inviting all comers. But then frustrations started to turn up. Volunteers would come for a few days, maybe up to a week, taking time off from paid work to do this volunteer work, and the organizations that came to set up under him would insist these volunteers needed training first—on how to be racially and culturally sensitive. Really? Someone gives up a week’s pay and time to physically labor for complete strangers, and you think they need a three-day lecture before they’re allowed to help? So Brandon spoke up against that. The response was that they didn’t like the idea of a white patriarchal male telling them how things should be done. 

Up until this point he had bought in to the narrative that liberals care for people and conservatives are selfish and just look out for themselves. But that wasn’t what he was seeing. He met many people who functioned outside of the organizations who claimed to be in it for the poor—people who were simply non-political. They didn’t want to talk to Brandon about his beliefs, but they were willing to work with him if he could show them where help was needed. 

On the other hand, the so-called helping organizations had a specific agenda, of “community organizing,” in the Saul Alinsky/Obama sense. Their purpose was to gather more people into their organizations and indoctrinate them with their political beliefs—and helping people was not the end in itself, but the means to that other end. I think the term he used for these groups within groups connected to other groups was “the non-profit industrial complex.” 

His personal story is made for a movie or adventure novel. Because of his close ties to radicals over the years, even as he was changing, these friends came to him with the assumption that he was with them, sometimes with dangerous and diabolical plans. Eventually he ended up helping the FBI thwart terrorist attacks, including one intended for the GOP convention in 2008. He has gotten no end of grief for working with the FBI. Finally Andrew Breitbart came to him and said, “Why don’t you tell your story? Why don’t you defend yourself?” And he told him, “I do. They won’t print it.” So, by doing an end run around mainstream media, Breitbart helped him get his own story out. 

Darby admits that it was hard going to the FBI in the beginning, because he had bought the narrative that they were the evil villain US version of the KGB. But he got some good guidance from a friend who said, “Don’t tell me any more; you’ve got to contact the FBI.” And he knew he had to, or many innocent people would be killed. He added, “If you had any idea how many times you’re saved from being blown up, you’d feel a lot better about the FBI.” And he said he knows them now, not as a big brother government agency, but as many men and women trying every day to do a difficult and dangerous job. 

The stated goal of the radicals, he said, was to do anything within their power to thwart the Constitutional rights of opposing views from being expressed. Brandon Darby himself loves his country and loves the Constitution—totally turned around from where he had once been. 

The next question becomes, what can we do? He recommends serving. Go directly to the people who are being manipulated and “organized” by the enemy, and work with them, physically giving them a hand, and giving them face-to-face contact with you—so you become human to them. Then they can no longer believe the lies against you, because you have become real to them. 

I’m not sure exactly how we will fit this in our daily lives. I know my church is very good at rendering service and makes that a priority, which does build the trusting relationships he is suggesting. So it works. But doing it in the neighborhoods he says need it might take the protection of some organization, rather than just an individual showing up on the street. I’m hoping we will learn more. As a call to action, he suggests:

• Talk to people in need.
• Find out who helps them (as opposed to self-appointed black community leaders claiming to be who to go through).
• Dig deeper.

I don’t fully understand all that means, for individuals whose lives are full with work and family. But I do indeed trust that people-to-people is the way to help, and not political leaders garnering government payola. Our political freedom, our economic freedom, and our civilization depend on our willingness to help one another freely.

The session with Brandon Darby was streamed live, and will soon be available for online viewing at King Street Patriots, under King Street Live.