No More Right Wing

I came across a discussion a week or so ago between Andrew Klavan and Bill Whittle of PJ Media, talking about how fascism isn’t right-wing. It’s socialism. [Video below.] I’ve been saying that for a while. It’s a good discussion, but I continue to think my three-dimensional Spherical Model is a more useful way to view ideas. I re-introduced the basic concept the last post of 2014.

So watch their 5-minute discussion, and think—if we’d all been taught the Spherical Model all along, there never would have been any confusion. And we’d be free from the comparison between Constitution admirers and Nazis. We’d also be free from the requirement to compromise between one level of tyranny and another. We could leave right and left-wing tyrannies to themselves and insist instead on freedom, prosperity, and civilization. We could go north on the sphere and stay there.

 

Extremist Views

You may have missed a news item that happened this past Friday, obscured by Thanksgiving weekend and Christmas shopping sales. I did not go to a store that day. Shopping is kind of an ordeal on normal days, so I avoid the crowded ones. So I guess that made me available to hear the occasional news story.

There was a shooting in Austin, Texas. An armed gunman shot up the downtown area, using about 200 rounds, tried to burn the Mexican Consulate, and was actually shooting at the police station when he was taken down by a single shot from police. What caught my attention was the assumption that he was a “right-wing extremist.” That is said about so many individual incidents, as an assumption early on when little information is known, and almost always it turns out to be a left-wing extremist nut job, which we eventually find out without any retraction or explanation for the error.

Houston Chronicle, Tuesday, December 2, 2014

So this time I was surprised to find a follow-up story on Tuesday in the Houston Chronicle, not even front page: “Police say shooter harbored extremist views.” Apparently he really did have extremist views. They weren’t of the freedom-loving sort that could possibly be considered conservative—or, in the language of the Spherical Model, northern hemisphere. But they were what are sometimes called “right-wing.”

I thought this would serve as an example of the Spherical Model giving us better vocabulary for identifying ideology.

Here’s what the story says investigators found inside the perpetrator’s van, according to Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo:

[A] copy of “Vigilantes of Christendom,” a 1990 book associated with the Christian Identity movement known as the Phineas Priesthood. The shadowy sect holds religious beliefs against banking, abortion and a strong central government and espouses anti-Semitic and racist views. The book describes the Phineas Priesthood as Christian guerrillas who avenge Judeo-Christian traitors. A handwritten note referred to [the perpetrator] as a “priest in the fight against anti-God people.”

Looking for motivations, the FBI noted, from acquaintances of the perpetrator, “that he couldn’t find a job and believed immigrants were given more services than he was.”

OK. Beyond that, he seemed to be delusional about starting a revolution. He thought his “revolutionary” act would set off a series of revolutionary events from other fellow revolutionaries. Or something. But he acted alone. There was no broader group helping him.

I am Christian. I have never heard of the Christian Identity movement, so I looked that up. They are a loose collection of  “churches” with a white supremacist theology. Is that a subset of Christianity? Not if you read the scriptures, which declare that “God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that heareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him” (Acts 10:34-35), and “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:28-29). It's not the identity; it's the behavior that qualifies a person as belonging to Christ.

So, if you’re a follower of Christ, you love and accept all people who work righteousness. You don’t “avenge” yourselves against others because of race, gender, or some other tribal issue. You live in peace with all others willing to live in peace.

Normally I allow others to define whether or not they are Christian; as a Mormon, I understand the irrationality of excluding someone just because they don’t share all your same beliefs. But in this case, I’d say that randomly shooting in a crowded city (fortunately no one but the shooter was killed), intending to murder innocent people and cause property damage—it’s safe to say Christ wouldn’t like your associating that with his name. That may be the quintessence of using the Lord’s name in vain.

But there’s the additional difficulty of not being able to find a job with the immigrants getting more services that he was. That could motivate a person to frustration, even anger. But there are ways toward improvement that don’t include shooting up a large city.

What this perpetrator did was incite chaos, as the alternative to state control: he chooses southwest quadrant chaotic tyranny to southeast quadrant statist tyranny, from what I can tell. He may be anti-state, but he isn’t pro-freedom.

I was puzzled about the anti-banking belief of the Phineas Priesthood, which I had also never heard of. So I looked them up too. They are not what we’d call a religion, or even an organization. But believers (anyone who self-declares such beliefs) is one. They are known as terrorists—for abortion bombings in the Pacific Northwest in 1996, and also bank robberies. I don’t know why they hate the idea that people can store their accumulated wealth in a way that allows the capital to be invested and bring in interest. They apparently don’t understand economics, if they think robbing a bank is an appropriate way to encourage prosperity.

The economic question that decides whether you’re in the northern hemisphere or not is whether the person who earns the income gets to decide how to spend it. They may be right that a too-big central government takes too much in taxes. But the northern hemisphere solution is to lower taxes to cover only essential government roles (not to zero taxes and no government), and allow individuals to decide on the rest. The southern hemisphere chaos alternative is to rob and plunder. There isn’t anything conservative or prosperity oriented about that.

So, we can agree this guy was an extremist. We could even call him a terrorist. But, as with all other terrorists, he believes in southern hemisphere chaotic tyranny. He may have rationalized his behavior differently than Islamist terrorists do, but his ideas fit in the same quadrant of the sphere as theirs. There is no way to get freedom, prosperity, and civilization through heinous terrorist acts.

Conservatives want to conserve and/or restore freedom, prosperity, and civilization by following the principles that get us there, and by convincing—through example and persuasive words—enough others to choose the northern hemisphere as well.

When someone refers to right-wing extremists, they almost always mean southern hemisphere chaotic tyranny. That is every bit as far from freedom, prosperity, and civilization as you can get. They are, literally, polar opposites.

But when they use the same term to refer to people who want the freedom of small, limited government, free enterprise, and cultural practices that create civilization—like many actual Christians, most Tea Party conservatives, people who honor the US Constitution, homeschoolers, entrepreneurs, and just basic decent people—then that is a lie. They are probably using that lie to discourage moving northward, where such people might not have the power to dominate.

If we can change the language, we can change the thoughts, ideas, and beliefs. And then we change behavior. Then we get to enjoy freedom, prosperity, and civilization. That’s my private little revolution going on here at the Spherical Model.

Best of Spherical Model, Part I

This is my 399^th blog post. The next post is the 400^th. That’s a lot of words in about 2 ¼ years. I think my son Political Sphere is probably the only person to have read every post. But there are a growing number of regular readers. For those of you who are just recently dropping in, I thought this milestone might be a good time for review, which I'll do in three posts this week.

Today I plan to review the Spherical Model idea, and cover a few favorite posts related to the Political Sphere. Wednesday I plan to cover favorite posts related to the Economic Sphere. And Friday I’ll cover favorite posts related to Civilization. Some posts can’t be separated out, so there’s likely to be some overlap.

I recognize this will be too much reading for one sitting (or several). So I suggest making a note of the posts this week for reference, to get back to when you want a little more idea food about freedom, prosperity, and thriving civilization.

If you like what your read, please share. My purpose is to offer ideas that I believe will help people. My prayer is that those who need to see these ideas will find them, and find them useful.

 

The Spherical Model

The Spherical Model is a way of looking at the interrelationships of political, economic, and social ideologies. It is an alternative to the inadequate left/right paradigm. It’s a little more complex than that oversimplification, but it is still relatively simple and easy to visualize. The ideas are presented in more detail on The Spherical Model website, where you’ll find an introduction page, and then sections for the political, economic, and social spheres. The social/civilization sphere is big enough that it is covered in two articles. The total is probably about 50 pages of reading. So that’s a good starting place. The blog is to support, and to look at how the ideas can be applied in our real world

So, to understand the Spherical Model, I suggest these:

·         SphericalModel.com (all parts)

·         First Blog Post (March 4, 2011)

·         One Hundred (July 29, 2011)

·         Political, Economic, and Social Sphere Interact Some More (November 17, 2011)

·         Year Two Begins (March 5, 2012)

·         What Is the Spherical Model (March 1, 2013)

o   Economic Sphere Basics (March 4, 2013)

o   Basics of the Civilization Sphere (March 6,2013)

o   Recognizing Savagery When We See It (March 8,2013)

·         Amplify the Love (April 29, 2013) 

The Political Sphere

The basics of the Political Sphere concern the principles put into our basic law, the US Constitution. These include limiting the role of government to its proper role as protector of God-given rights. Here are a few favorites.

·         *Role of Government (March 8, 2011)

·         Leaders vs. Power Mongers Parts I, II, III (March 11, March 12, March 14, 2011)

·         *Political Commentary from Gulliver’s Travels (September 13, 2011)        

·         Constitutionalism (September 22, 2011)

·         * The Hunger Games on the Spherical Model (March26, 2012)

·         The “Keep Us Free” Game (April 4, 2012)

·         The Proper Role of Government—Again (July 18,2012)

·         Happy 225^th Birthday (September 17,2012)

·         Measuring Rulers (January 24, 2013)

·         You Might Be Living Under Tyranny If...Parts I and II (May 15, May 17, 2013)

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* Among the most popular re-reads.

 

What Is the Spherical Model

We’re approaching an anniversary here at the Spherical Model. While the website has been up somewhat longer, the blog began March 4,2011, which is Monday. That first post was a Friday, so I think I’ll start the celebration today.

The Spherical Model is a way of looking at ideas and how they interrelate. It begins as an alternative to the left/right paradigm of politics, because that view is inadequate. Using a three-dimensional model allows for a full range of ideas, along with an understanding of how they compare to each other and whether they lead to freedom or tyranny. In addition, the model shows similar three-dimensional positions for economic and social ideas. These aren’t three separate models; they are three layers of the same model.

For the full explanation, I hope you’ll read the website. A year ago, at the one-year anniversary, I offered a shorter version, to get you started with the basics.

The Spherical Model idea is my own. It began in 2004, during our homeschooling decade, when I was looking for a way to explain the political spectrum during our history lessons, including a pretty long unit on the Constitution and government. I expanded the spherical idea beyond politics to include economic and social ideas sometime later and started writing those segments in 2008. I got the website up in 2010, when we finally graduated Social Sphere from our homeschool.  

I consider Spherical Model to be a think tank, but as think tanks go this is about as small as one can get. It consists of me and my personal research and opinions, along with input from my grown children, who happen to have personalities and interests that coincide with the three portions of the model: Political Sphere, Economic Sphere, and Social Sphere. The oldest, Political Sphere, who is a law student now, tends to offer the most input, which I appreciate. A time or two he has written a guest post. Economic Sphere has a degree in economics, and when I had more access to him daily, I often had him school me in how to explain economic principles. He’s now in the Army, studying at the Defense Language Institute. My daughter, Social Sphere, got married this past year, and is studying Family Consumer Science, which fits well into what we cover in the ingredients needed for civilization. Mr. Spherical Model, my husband of 31 years, also offers occasional general input.

For this anniversary review, I’d like to do a series on the three overlaying spheres. The goal, in all three spheres, is to follow the principles that will lead us to and help us remain in the northern hemisphere—the further north the better. So we’ll cover the principles over the next few days.

Political Sphere

The northern hemisphere is freedom; the southern hemisphere is tyranny. The longitudinal lines relate to the perspective—who has the interest. The western hemisphere is most local/individual, and moving toward the eastern hemisphere is moving toward larger interests, with national, regional, and global interests. In the south the two quadrants divide, then, into chaos tyranny in the southwest and statist tyranny in the southeast—both bad, and both the most common versions of governance throughout history. Too many people see the whole political struggle as consisting of the opposition between chaos and control; power seekers often use chaos as an opportunity to gain power by offering relief from the chaos.

These people are blind to the entire northern hemisphere, where people are more peaceful, more productive, more thriving. America, as created in the US Constitution, is probably the best example we have of northern hemisphere freedom at the national level, possibly in all of world history.

What are the principles that get us to the northern freedom zone? The following questions let us know whether the principles are being met.

• 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? For example, a person has the right to protect his own life and property. He can, therefore, combine resources with his neighbors and hire a government entity, such as a sheriff, to do that job for him. Similarly, the several states can combine to delegate the power of defending the nation to a national government entity. Conversely, a person does not have the right to take his neighbor’s excess grain production, for example, and bestow it on himself, because his neighbor was more prosperous in a particular season. He can, of course, ask his neighbor for charity, but he cannot coerce the neighbor to give. That would rightfully be considered theft. Therefore the person cannot delegate the redistribution of wealth to the government to do for him without moving too far south on the sphere.
• Does the policy infringe in any way on the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights? Does the policy infringe on the free exercise of religion or try to establish a particular sect as a state religion? Is political speech hindered? Does the policy infringe on the right of citizens to bear arms? Does the policy constitute an illegal search or seizure? Does the policy deprive a person of life, liberty, or property when the person has not committed a crime for which that deprivation is the just sentence? Does the policy try to claim for government a power that was not specifically granted in the Constitution? etc. If the policy infringes on the God-given rights, then government cannot take that power without usurping power from the people and is too far south on the sphere.
• Is the idea being debated a proper role of government, some aspect of protection (including national defense, protection from interstate crime, enabling international and interstate commerce, standardized weights and measures and currency to protect the value of wealth, the judiciary that guarantees the protective laws), as enumerated in the Constitution? If not, then accepting the idea is outside the Constitution and is too far south on the sphere.
• Is the perspective appropriately local? It is important that any issue be handled at the most local level possible. Parents should decide the means, methods, and curriculum for educating their children, for example. An issue that affects a state should be handled at the state level, not the national level. National decisions should not be ceded to some international body. As listed in the above question, some interests are national, but ceding power to a larger entity than the actual interest leads to tyranny, which means too far south on the sphere.