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| The Political Sphere of The Spherical Model |
I’ve done posts in the past of quotes from various people
that relate to the Spherical Model (for example, here, here, and here). And I’ve
done posts collecting links to some of the “best of” the Spherical Model blog
posts. But I haven’t done a post quoting from the Spherical Model website and blog. That’s what
we’re doing today—quoting myself. I’m hoping this will encourage you to read
more about the Spherical Model, an alternative to right and left in describing
interrelating ideas from the political, economic, and social spheres.
From “Fact or Opinion,” March 12, 2015. The piece was about
the distortion of the definitions of fact and opinion in a way that removes
morality and makes truth harder to ascertain. This is the final summary:
Truth exists separate from us. Seeking truth is a work for a
lifetime. It takes a good mind, and a good heart, and spiritual strength to
know truth. Seeking God is more likely to lead to truth than leaving out the
Omniscient One and going at it on our own.
From “Wealth, Poverty, and Politics,” December, December 10,
2015. This piece reviewed an interview with Thomas Sowell on Uncommon
Knowledge, following Sowell’s book by the same title. I noticed connections
with the Spherical Model idea of interrelationships of political freedom,
economic prosperity, and civilization. This is one of the basic axioms of the
Spherical Model and the role of government:
Whenever government attempts something beyond the proper role
of government (protection of life, liberty, and property), it causes unintended
consequences—usually exactly opposite to the stated goals of the interference.
From “Commerce and Philanthropy—Two Sides of the Same Coin,”
November 9, 2015. The piece covered a Q&A with Steve Forbes at a Hillsdale
College economic symposium. Forbes mentioned the importance, morally, of
turning to the Constitution for economic thriving, which sounds like the
Spherical Model, with the interrelating spheres. I followed with this:
The goals are freedom, which we get from abiding by the US
Constitution; prosperity, which we get from free markets (not to be confused
with crony capitalism); and civilization, which we get from a moral people
living moral lives, which includes strong families to pass along the way to
civilization.
From “What We Conserve,” October 1, 2015. In this piece, we
go over the enumerated powers of the Constitution, based on God-given rights.
Because this is the Spherical Model, we cover what we conserve in each of the
spheres: political, economic, and social. So we’ll have a quote or two from
each of those:
Political
Sphere:
If we’re going to conserve our liberties, that means
government does nothing to infringe on our God-given rights. So government has
no business involving itself in what we believe or what we say, with the
specific exceptions of when something we do infringes on the God-given rights
of others. What we need is to conserve our Constitution, in its real form, not
some penumbras invented by unelected judges.
Economic
Sphere:
Every dollar government spends is a societal expense.
Government can’t spend more money to help the economy. When we have downturns
in the economy, and everyone says government has to do something—that something
should be to get out of the way and let the recovery happen.
Charity isn’t a duty of government; charity isn’t even
possible by government. Government charity is better labeled coercive taking of
income from some to give to others—or theft. Charity includes various helps for
the poor: welfare food and housing, health care, student grants, social
security, and more.
Conservatives don’t mean for these helps to be eliminated.
But in a civilized society, those in need receive help mainly locally, by those
in contact with them, such as churches and local nonprofits, from those who
freely give. Charity means love; it is entirely unrelated to forced income
redistribution. If there is one thing conservatives need to speak more clearly
on, it is this better way to help those in need. Our way is better for giver
and receiver, and leads to greater prosperity, rather than more poverty at the
cost of lost freedom.
Social
Sphere:
Civilization requires a people accountable to God. Such
people value family, innocent human life, property rights, and truth. Such
people respect one another and generally live together in peace despite
differences in belief and culture.
A conservative leader recognizes that religion is not just a
tolerated quirk of some minority of the population; religion is an essential
institution helping us understand what our rights are, and what our obligations
to one another are. The question about forcing Little Sisters of the Poor, or
Hobby Lobby, or bakers, florists, and photographers to act against their
conscience would disappear, if our leaders appreciated the religious view of
family, life, property, and truth.
From “The Political World Is Round,” on The Spherical Model
website, in the section “US Parties in Relation to Freedom Zone.” This was
written, in its current form, in 2010. It’s probably more positive than the
party is today:
The Democrats are a symbiotic mix of people demanding that
government provide for their needs—health care, education, housing,
redistribution of wealth, regulating use of resources, even making jobs: the
demanding needy, we could call them—along with the elites who are willing to
pander to the demanding needy in order to increase their personal power: the
would-be dictators. When Republicans engage in the debate, they often try to
deal with the demanding needy by saying, “We’ll give you those things too, but
we’ll be more responsible about it and cost you less in taxes,” to which the
reply is, “You hate children and old people; you’re trying to kill them!” and
other absurdities. It’s not a reasonable debate approaching even the lowest borders
of the freedom zone.
I don’t mean to imply that everyone in the Democratic Party
is consciously socialist. Many simply focus on needs and wants as problems,
with government as the only logical problem solver. Many on the would-be
dictators’ side of the party, those in academia, media, entertainment, and
other areas controlling wealth, are well-intentioned. They think of themselves
as the fortunate (and often therefore guilty) elite who believe it’s their
moral obligation to force society to provide for the needy—unwilling or unable
to see the immorality in taking substance from one person for their own
purposes—what we call theft when anybody but the government does it. One
troubling thing about elites who seek power is that, when the people don’t elect
them, they see that as just more evidence that the people aren’t capable of
choosing what’s good for them, and so they see their power seeking as even more
justified.
From “Free Enterprise vs. Controlled Economy,” on The
Spherical Model website, in the section on “Capitalism.”
Capital in and of itself is simply never evil. Capital might
be considered always good. It represents work above and beyond what is
essential followed by careful use of it toward a good idea, resulting in even
more surplus. Those who hate capitalism are those who don’t produce it. They
don’t have either the discipline or the drive to produce more than is
necessary, and then to find ways to have that wealth work for them. They are
jealous of those who have produced capital and use it. They insist it’s unfair
that some have advantages that they don’t.
If you’re interested in more collected words from The
Spherical Model, try the links found in “Spherical Model Review,” December 31,
2015.
