Watchmen on the Tower

We lost a great defender of the family, religious liberty, and God’s law this past Friday, Elder Boyd K Packer. He was 90. This is just weeks after we lost another great defender of the family, religious liberty, and God’s law, Elder L. Tom Perry, who died May 30^th at age 93. Both were members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I’m grateful we had them among us for so long, and that we have their words—and often their voices—recorded so we don’t forget.

Elder Boyd K. Packer and Elder L. Tom Perry
at General Conference in 2011
source: Salt Lake Tribune

Elder is a title in the LDS Church. In its simplest form, it refers to a holder of the higher priesthood, referred to as the Melchisedek Priesthood. That is the priesthood missionaries hold, which is why the 18-25-year-old young men in suits riding bikes have that title, even though they’re so young. But also it is how we refer to the general (church-wide) authorities. There are several such levels, from area authorities, to Seventies (traveling ministers, as Stephen in the New Testament book of Acts).

The highest authorities, considered as a group to be prophets, seers, and revelators—like Moses, Abraham, and Peter—are the First Presidency and the Quorum of Twelve Apostles (sometimes referred to as the Council of the Twelve), which Elder Packer and Elder Perry had been longtime members. According to Ezekiel 31:1-7, these men are our watchmen on the towers, warning us of danger, keeping us safe.

I don’t know what other 93-year-olds do, but Elder Perry was one of the representatives of the LDS Church at the Vatican Colloquium on the Family, called Humanum Summit, last fall. (I wrote about the Colloquium here.) In his last general conference address, April 2015, he talked about that visit, in a talk called “Why Marriage and Family Matter Everywhere in the World.” He mentioned that one of the other speakers at the colloquium, a Muslim cleric from Iran, quoted two paragraphs from “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” which the Church declared in 1995. (We’ll be celebrating the 20^th anniversary of that document in a couple of months.)

I’m not certain how that happened, but I do have a story that may relate. Back 1995 or 1996, my friend Richard Wilkins attended his first international conference on family. He had a copy of the relatively new proclamation, in a pamphlet form, in his pocket, and read from it as part of his speech. People came up to him afterward and thanked him for saying those things that needed to be said. He found that Muslims in particular were interested in strengthening marriage and family. After several years heading up (along with others) the World Congress on Families, and Defend Marriage (for which I was a volunteer writer for a time), he went to Doha, Qatar, to head up the Doha Institute on Family. In other words, through him, the “Proclamation on the Family” reached many people. Maybe that was how the Iranian Cleric got it.

Elder Perry also said,

During the colloquium, I observed that when various faiths and denominations and religions are united on marriage and family, they are also united on the values and loyalty and commitment which are naturally associated with family units. It was remarkable for me to see how marriage and family-centered priorities cut across and superseded any political, economic, or religious differences. When it comes to love of spouse and hopes, worries, and dreams for children, we are all the same.

Within the Church, we spend a lot of time working on ourselves, to be better parents and spouses—to be better individuals, in other words. But the leadership also spends their energy standing up for our right to religious freedom, not just in this country, but around the world.

This past Sunday we were read a letter from the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve, in response to Supreme Court ruling June 26^th, which is likely to affect our religious freedom in this country. (Some congregations will be read the letter next Sunday, but the entire letter, plus background material, is available online.) The letter made it clear that no earthly laws—and much less, a bare majority of unelected judges—has power to change God’s law: “Changes in the civil law do not, indeed cannot, change the moral law that God has established. God expects us to uphold and keep His commandments regardless of divergent opinions or trends in society.”

The letter included the idea that family, with a mother and father joined in marriage, is the way God established for us as the best setting for happiness in this life. That was also the theme of Elder Packer’s talk this past April conference, called “The Plan of Happiness.”

Elder Packer declares things straight. If you’re aligned with God’s will, you hear the love and kindness in what he says, the hope for redemption. But if you’re not so aligned, you might take offense. There was an outbreak of outrage at a talk Elder Packer gave in 2010, called “Cleansing the Inner Vessel.” It was mainly about the importance of keeping the commandment of chastity—no sex outside of marriage. Some of it referred to the plague of pornography. Only briefly and indirectly was homosexuality referred to, but those who looked to take offense did so. I wrote about it at the time, and posted it in 2012. This week I’m finding both his talk and my thinking it through timely, following the SCOTUS ruling.

One of the most memorable talks by Elder Packer was called “The Mediator,” from 1977. He explained Christ’s atonement with a parable about a debtor. This was later made into a video, portraying the story Elder Packer tells. It is beautifully profound. It shows Christ’s love for us, which Elder Packer understood so thoroughly. The best ten minutes of your day.

Ultimate vs. Relative Good

Back in September 2011 I wrote a couple of pieces about ultimate good. In one called Ultimate Right and Wrong"  I referred to a lecture I went to with American Heritage professor Brett Latimer. He pointed out the dichotomy between two groups of people: those who believe in ultimate Good and those who don’t. Those who don’t use relative beliefs as their standard.

He used a formula for looking at things:

·         The Good (G)

·         Dogma (g)

·         Relativism (b=b)

·         Man-made “good” (B)

So, capital G means ultimate Good—what is permanent, unchanging, and revealed to us by God, and necessary for civilization.

Dogma is the way a culture goes about trying to reach ultimate Good. For example, chastity (no sex outside of marriage) is a revealed G, which gives us strong families, the basic unit of civilization. A head scarf and burka might be a culture’s way of being modest in an effort toward reaching that ultimate G; those cultural requirements would be dogma, a little g. A culture that thinks music (at all) or dancing (at all) should be taboo because they can lead to impure thoughts—that would be a little g. People who believe in ultimate G can differ markedly on little g practices to achieve G.

Relativists don’t look at the anything as G; they look at various versions of g that they think are ridiculous and conclude that all dogma is wrong, proving to them that no ultimate G exists. Instead, they believe all beliefs are equally true and relevant. This is represented as b=b: one belief is equally as true and relevant as any other belief.

But a society will have some version of requirements and laws. So, in a relativist world, the “law” becomes what those in power believe. This is represented as capital B, for the ruling belief.

Who decides the capital B? Whoever is in power. And it can change day to day.

Truth doesn’t matter, because everyone experiences their own truth. However, if your “truth” doesn’t agree with the truth of those in power, you may be coerced into re-thinking until you stop expressing what you believe is true. Because, even though relativists start with the idea that one belief is just as good as another, when they invent a capital B, no other belief is acceptable.

That explains some of the news this past week. Obamacare (the ACA) has increased costs, coerced millions of Americans to buy services they do not want, attempts to force Americans to pay for things that go against they’re deeply held religious beliefs (abortion), and has caused many lost jobs and contributed to economic stagnation—and it doesn’t meet any of its purported purposes, like lowering health care costs and providing coverage to more people. [Analysis from Heritage Foundation here, including an interactive graphic showing how much better off you’d be without the ACA.]  

  

But the president stands before a microphone and with a straight face claims, “There can be no doubt that this law is working. It has changed, and in some cases saved, American lives. It set this country on a smarter, stronger course….This morning, the Court upheld a critical part of this law—the part that's made it easier for Americans to afford health insurance….If your family gets insurance through your job -- so you're not using the Affordable Care Act -- you're still paying about $1,800 less per year on average than you would be if we hadn't done anything.”

These are provable falsehoods, not just opinion. But he’s not held accountable for the lies. Because he wants the reality to be what he says it is, and he’s in the power position, joined by other relativists.

Hillary Clinton sets up an illegal private server, from which she conducts official Secretary of State business—which means our enemies were able to hack in and get access to those emails, but to us she says it was just private things, like her yoga class schedule or maybe some recipes—and that she provided everything that was pertinent. Except that she doesn’t include anything from any server about communications during the Benghazi attack. Except that the slow trickle of emails that have been grudgingly produced show otherwise. But she gets away with saying, “What difference does it make?” and goes ahead assuming she will be our next president.

[I’d really like to have a president worthy of a capital letter P, which I have been refusing to use with our current occupier of the office.]

So, truth is one of those ultimate Goods that relativists don’t believe exists. Instead, they distort and lie, and then insist that we go along with their version of reality.

Here’s another ultimate G: marriage is a God-given institution, to bind a man and woman together, to bear and raise children in order to build a thriving civilization.

Relativists start with b=b: a married heterosexual couple is equivalent to a homosexual couple. I have a hard time buying the equivalence when, this week, following the erroneous SCOTUS ruling, “gay pride” parades included plenty of indecent exposure, and spitting upon clergy, and a group flipping their middle finger at a portrait of Ronald Reagan. Those are equivalent to my husband and me raising our children to be civilized?

But they are indeed claiming equivalence. And then the man-made B takes over: you’re not allowed to believe that man/woman marriage is better than homosexual couples, and you must redefine marriage to include homosexual couples. If you refuse, you will be persecuted and coerced to align with the capital B. You might be deprived of your business, fined, maybe imprisoned, and receive hate and threats.

Our Constitution is full of Capital Gs, because it was written by believers in ultimate Good. So it’s not surprising that the first one listed in the Bill of Rights is the freedom of religion.

The relativists start with the assumption that belief in religion = belief in no religion, or secularism. But when the relativists get power, they don’t stop at equivalence; they impose a capital B. So the new B is, "We will allow you to believe in your religion as long as it doesn’t interfere with our enforced secularism. You can’t talk about religious beliefs in public places, like schools. You can’t expect to choose work you will do or not do based on your beliefs. You must pay for things against your beliefs if we say so."

Requirements of the secular Bs could include making cakes, doing photography, or providing a venue in your home for a same-sex wedding ceremony. [Good list here.]  It could include being forced to personally be the clerk who licenses such a wedding. It might, as has happened in other countries that have experimented with same-sex “marriage,” include being a clergy forced to perform the ceremony for a same-sex wedding. Coercive measures may include threat of job loss, threat of loss of tax-exempt status, threat of loss of power to perform any marriages, loss of ability to offer adoption services to anyone if same-sex couples aren’t given preferential treatment. And more we are yet to imagine.

In the world of ultimate Good, freedom with responsibility is G, and slavery is antithetical to G. But in relativism world, words mean something different. In past centuries relativists thought slavery was acceptable because of rationalizations they could come up with to justify it: not all lives are equal; it’s tradition; our economy might be negatively affected. After a Civil War that ended slavery in our country, relativists still find ways to justify it. That insistence that a Christian florist uses her skills to service a same-sex “marriage” is slavery—beyond what was institutionalized slavery, which couldn’t force use of artistic skills. Insisting that churches alter their beliefs is slavery, not to mention a complete rejection of the First Amendment. And remember, in reality world, rights come from God, not government. So it is never right for government to pretend it can grant or take away those rights at will.

Is there a vast difference between the pro-slavery types of the 1860s and those who today kidnap vulnerable young people and immigrants and enslave them? Because some reports claim there is more slavery in the world now than during institutional slavery. And none of it is done by believers in ultimate Good.

Valuing life is an ultimate G. Relativists think some lives may be valuable, and others not so much. For example, unborn life isn’t valuable if it’s unwanted by the adults who engaged in the act that led to the pregnancy. They might think the elderly or very ill might not be worth caring for, because younger, healthier people are more valuable. Some of these very relativists (including at least four members of the Supreme Court) warp life value by claiming there should be abortion and euthanasia (no value for innocent life) but no capital punishment (value for heinous criminal life).

This is our new reality in the relativistic southern hemisphere. Relative efforts to get an ultimate Good always fall short. Inevitably. If you aim several feet below a target, you’re more likely to hit the floor than the bullseye.

In Spherical Model terms, Ultimate Good is the way to the northern hemisphere, where you can enjoy freedom, prosperity, and civilization. Relative Belief just changes from one relative belief to another, depending on who manipulates mass opinion successfully, leading inevitably to tyranny, poverty, and savagery.

I choose Ultimate Good.

Getting It Wrong, Part II

The sad news of the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling came out on Friday.

Normally on controversial rulings, I go through the opinions in this blog and consider the legal ramifications. But we’ve been through much of this already. Kennedy’s opinion ignored the law and came down to something about him personally not wanting homosexuals to feel lonely--not kidding. (He ignored his own recent ruling that marriage law was up to the states, not the federal government.)

The irony of the day was Chief Justice Roberts’ dissent about the majority ignoring the law—after he had done exactly that the day before on the King v. Burwell decision. All four dissenting judges wrote their own dissents—all worth reading. Again, Justice Scalia’s is the essence of clarity and truth.

Justice Kennedy is at fault—moreso than Breyer, Ginsburg, Kagan, and Sotomayor—because the others are partisan hacks, but Kennedy swings, so the decision was his. He is like the independent voter, going by some personal list of criteria mysterious to those of us with real principles, with the hubris to believe that his mind workings are more evolved than the rest of us.

That single unelected person in a black robe decided for all of America that there is, somewhere hidden in the 14^th Amendment, a heretofore unknown right for homosexuals to marry. Because he knows more than God.

He doesn’t actually know more than God. Reactions to the ruling seem to forget that.

The people's house, with a small sub-group's flag
superimposed on it, photo from WhiteHouse.gov

The White House cheered by changing the white lights to be a rainbow. They were able to accomplish that lighting change that very day. One might think that was planned for way ahead of time, almost as if they had control over the ruling. Author Brad Thor pointed out that this was practically the first time the White House wasn’t surprised by the news; practically everything else they claim to learn about as we did, on TV news broadcasts. 

We might note that the White House is the people’s house, not the Obamas’. Their “gay pride” in the face of more than half of Americans is intentionally offensive. No other flag has been represented in colored lights on the White House—not even red, white, and blue on the 4^th of July. The LBGT flag gets special privileges, just as homosexuals insisted on special privileges concerning marriage.

In addition, the president gave a speech (also likely prepared well in advance of the ruling, as if he knew the outcome). Apparently forgetting that he deceptively campaigned in 2008 as a supporter of traditional marriage, he said,

Opposition in some cases has been based on sincere and deeply held beliefs…. All of us who welcome today’s news should be mindful of that fact. Recognize different viewpoints. Revere our deep commitment to religious freedom.

But today should also give us hope that on the many issues with which we grapple often painfully real change is possible.…

Shifts in hearts and minds is [sic] possible…. And those who have come so far on their journey to equality have a responsibility to reach back and help others join them.

Let me translate: “You bitter clingers need to give up your religious beliefs; we’re right and you’re wrong, and we’ll force you into compliance. We might go easier on you if you submit to our superiority now.”

Here’s the thing: the president of this country is not more powerful or more all-knowing than God. Neither are any black-robed judges.

Contrary to popular belief, marriage—real marriage—didn’t change on Friday. Real marriage is older than all earthly governments, and it won’t change because people change their opinions.

It predates this earth. But on our planet it was instituted by God to our first parents. He gave Adam and Eve a covenant—between each other and the two of them together with Him—to sanction the behavior that they would need to experience (and hopefully enjoy) in order to multiply and replenish the earth, so that they would experience the joy of having posterity.

Marriage was a blessing to them from the beginning, and to all of us who have come after. Saving that sexual act until it is sanctioned by covenant offers many blessings: knowing who a child’s parents are, committing both parents to the raising of their children, economic stability, absence of sexually transmitted diseases, and more. There is nothing instituted in any culture at any time that is better for building civilization.

Marriage provides care for children during the years before they are productive. It provides support for women during childbearing and raising small children when they would otherwise struggle to be self-sustaining. It motivates men to more productivity in order to meet their family obligations. And it connects men and women permanently, to work together for the economic and social well-being of their family unit.

There is a detail about this that has been ignored in today’s society. Marriage is to sanction the procreative sexual act—before it takes place. It legitimizes no sexual act other than the procreative one. And it is understood that extramarital participation in that act is illicit: i.e., outside the law, not sanctioned by law.

In religious terms, any sexual acts outside of marriage is a sin. It is outside the covenant. God has not approved it. That’s why the terminology includes phrases like “illegitimate child,” “living in sin,” or “making an honest man (or woman) out of me.” 

Governments, which usually support the covenant, refer to the specific procreative act. This procreative act requires a male and a female. If you don’t believe this, your biological education is sorely deficient. A marriage isn’t consummated until the man and woman engage in the act. Failure to engage in it is grounds for annulment.

Homosexuals never, ever, world’s without end, engage in that act with someone of the same sex. It isn’t a physiological possibility. What they do is sexual, but it isn’t what is required for marriage. The Supreme Court can’t make it so; all SCOTUS can do is confuse the law, and take away the honor from real marriage that it has always had because of its benefit to society.

Furthermore, homosexuals are not entering marriage in order to place within the law any sexual act they have been refraining from; you may not find, in the entire history of homosexuality, a couple that keeps themselves pure and virginal up until the moment their government deems them married. They aren’t insisting on their alignment with God; they are insisting that society ignore what marriage is and honor their sexual act as equivalent to the procreative act—just because they want the honor.

Society has been duped.

This has been the result of a media campaign. If truth were given even half as much media, beliefs wouldn’t have been manipulated.

The issue has been framed as about fairness and tolerance. There may have been times, a century ago, when people were prevented from making a living or getting housing because of their homosexual lifestyle. That mostly disappeared long ago. Long before judicial activism stepped in to “help.” But the media campaign has portrayed anyone who points out the obvious—that real marriage is best for children, families, and societies as a whole—as bigoted homophobes. Name calling. As well as some sticks and stones in the form of ostracism and business ruin intended to instill fear.

What we’ve seen on social media this past weekend is a lot of bandwagon jumping. People want to pat themselves on the back for not being bigoted, so they put a rainbow on their profile photo. They think they’re meaning, “I’m open-minded; I’m a good person. Because I don't hate gays.”

But they’re actually falling into the trap of another meaning: “I don’t want to be seen as something the loud media calls bad, so I’m labeling myself the way the media wants. And I think we media-go-alongers know better than God. Those people who don’t go along with us will be labeled negatively and will be persecuted, as they should be, for not giving in with us.”

If you’re a go-alonger, you seem to have fallen for some things that are not true. Such as, homosexuality is a genetic reality; a person is made homosexual and cannot change or even refrain—and shouldn’t.

Let’s look at what this means to a Christian, since actual Christian believers are to be the target of the persecution. You go-alongers are saying that, while God requires obedience to His commandments for all heterosexuals, He made homosexuals exempt to His law, because no homosexual should be expected to refrain from sexual acts God’s law forbids. You are saying God must have made a mistake—because science (not real science, but pseudo-science) says homosexuality is natural, and inborn, and unchangeable—and that means they have no free will to control their behavior.

You are saying, either God has to change His law, or else He is unfairly excluding an entire group of people who haven’t done anything to keep themselves out of heaven except that sexual sin thing that you think shouldn’t apply to them. So God is just a big unfair meanie. According to you. Because you know better than God.

Can a real Christian be wrong on such an issue? Yes, we can all be wrong on a lot of things. But God is not wrong. So if you’re out of harmony with God, it is up to you to correct yourself. Christians who are in harmony with God on family and marriage will not persecute you; we will use persuasion, example, and patience. That’s what Christians do. That is what tolerance looks like. Not giving in, not celebrating sin. But with love trying to persuade all people to come unto God.

Tolerance does not look anything like coercing Christians to use their talents and abilities to celebrate what God has clearly declared to be a sin. So if you’re one of those who says, “Just go ahead and bake the cake already, you troglodyte bigot,” you’re on track to support tyranny. We’ve seen it before. Everywhere there has been tyranny.

Taking the side of tyranny for temporary safety from persecution might seem like a good idea to you now, but you will answer for it before God.

I call you to repentance, with gentle invitation, but firmly. I’ve taken a stand. And experience tells me I’m better off siding with God than with Obama, or Justice Kennedy, or even friends who put pro-homosexual flags on their profile photos.
______________

PS: Son Political Sphere reminded me of an additional point. Justice Scalia has pointed out that every time Kennedy writes that something is safe, the next ruling he writes endangers that very thing. This time his opinion assured us that our First Amendment guaranteed freedom of religion is safe. That means the next thing you can expect from Justice Kennedy will be his explanation of why we do not have that right. We'll be watching.

Getting It Wrong

What happens when the Supreme Court gets it wrong? Because that happens.

Earlier this week was the 10^th anniversary of the notorious Kelo v. City of New London decision. That was the one that defined imminent domain requirement of “only for public use” to the endlessly broad possible future “public benefit.” So, if a city decides it would rather get the tax money from a mall, it could seize the property (compensating at current market rate) and sell it to a preferred developer who might provide more tax revenue.

All of us regular thinkers could see clearly that the purpose of imminent domain should be something necessary, such as a road. It should be used carefully and sparingly, not extending beyond necessity, and always with the value of the land at its highest (if the road would make the property more valuable, then taking it before the value is added and depriving the owner of that increased value would be wrong).

Taking property from one owner to confer it to a preferred owner is theft. Pure and simple. It wasn’t just misconstruing the term “public use”; it was also a matter of disregarding all the Court’s precedent on property rights. It so thoroughly threw out the long-held understanding of property rights, as Sandra Day O’Connor said in her dissent, only a really “stupid staffer” could fail to come up with some “public benefit” from any government taking. (There’s a good review here.)

There was public outcry—across party boundaries. And some states have amended their constitutions to address the matter, to avoid such public seizures. But the Court has not done anything to reverse itself.

January 22 of this year was the 42^nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, which found in the “umbras and penumbras” of the Constitution a right to privacy that is construed to guarantee a woman a right to kill her unborn child. It acknowledged that a state could have an interest in its citizens, including persons-in-being, which can be at odds with the between-the-lines right to abortion. So that led to the clarification referred to as the undue burden rule. 

Following that debate-ending SCOTUS ruling, no state has been able to outlaw abortion. But there have been some movements toward progress. Pro-abortionists are revealing themselves to be callous and cruel when they oppose each and every measure. As science becomes better able to show details of a growing fetus, laws in several states—still meeting the undue burden requirement—have managed to curtail partial-birth abortion, and even third-trimester abortions, or abortions after 20 weeks, the point at which pain is proven to be felt by the unborn. Eventually this abomination will be seen for what it is—no thanks to the Supreme Court.

Today we add to the list of SCOTUS errors. The King v. Burwell decision came down, a 6-3 decision claiming that a state exchange is equivalent to an exchange through the secretary of Health and Human Services. The law doesn’t say it. The law clearly says otherwise. But Justice Roberts, in his opinion, even though he could see that the law didn’t say what it needed to say, wrote that we should keep the law from failing.

Here is Justice Roberts’ explanation[i] of the situation (section C):

The Act requires the creation of an “Exchange” in each State where people can shop for insurance, usually online. 42 U. S. C. §18031(b)(1). An Exchange may be created in one of two ways. First, the Act provides that “[e]ach State shall . . . establish an American Health Benefit Exchange . . . for the State.” Ibid. Second, if a State nonetheless chooses not to establish its own Exchange, the Act provides that the Secretary of Health and Human Services “shall . . . establish and operate such Exchange within the State.” §18041(c)(1).

The issue in this case is whether the Act’s tax credits are available in States that have a Federal Exchange rather than a State Exchange. The Act initially provides that tax credits “shall be allowed” for any “applicable taxpayer.” 26 U. S. C. §36B(a). The Act then provides that the amount of the tax credit depends in part on whether the taxpayer has enrolled in an insurance plan through “an Exchange established by the State under section 1311 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act [hereinafter 42 U. S. C. §18031].” 26 U. S. C. §§36B(b)–(c) (emphasis added).

So, there are two types of exchanges, a state exchange and an exchange set up by the secretary of Health and Human Services. The law is clear that those who qualify for a subsidy must fit the requirement of income between 100-400% of poverty level and sign up through a state exchange. The law was written that way to pressure states into setting up the exchanges. No state exchange, no subsidy for citizens in need. It was assumed very few if any states would refuse to set up the exchanges. But they were wrong. Many states refused—34.  In addition to those refusing, some tried and failed. Several more are still trying but are on the verge of total collapse. So the secretary of HHS ended up providing exchanges for far more than expected.

And that’s why they (the IRS, directed by the administration) decided, even though the law doesn’t provide for it, to subsidize any low-income users of any exchange.

Roberts had a misguided purpose—again. He thinks it might subject the Court to disrepute to throw down a law that Congress duly passed—even though, if the Court has a purpose beyond being the final court of appeal, it’s purpose is to throw down as unconstitutional any law Congress passed that doesn’t meet the limited government standards clearly laid out in the Constitution. He knows it’s bad law. He says,

The Affordable Care Act contains more than a few examples of inartful drafting. (To cite just one, the Act creates three separate Section 1563s. See 124 Stat. 270, 911, 912.) Several features of the Act’s passage contributed to that unfortunate reality. Congress wrote key parts of the Act behind closed doors, rather than through “the traditional legislative process.” Cannan, A Legislative History of the Affordable Care Act: How Legislative Procedure Shapes Legislative History, 105 L. Lib. J. 131, 163 (2013). And Congress passed much of the Act using a complicated budgetary procedure known as “reconciliation,” which limited opportunities for debate and amendment, and bypassed the Senate’s normal 60-vote filibuster requirement. Id., at 159–167. As a result, the Act does not reflect the type of care and deliberation that one might expect of such significant legislation. Cf. Frankfurter, Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 15 Opinion of the Court Some Reflections on the Reading of Statutes, 47 Colum. L. Rev. 527, 545 (1947) (describing a cartoon “in which a senator tells his colleagues ‘I admit this new bill is too complicated to understand. We’ll just have to pass it to find out what it means.’”).

So, knowing the law is faulty, he says, “But that does not allow this Court to rewrite the Act to fix that problem.” And yet “fix” it (i.e., put in “the fix,” meaning “to influence the outcome or actions of (something) by improper or unlawful means: fix a prizefight; fix a jury)[ii] is what he does.

If there is a bright lining to this dark historical cloud, it is Justice Scalia’s scathing dissent, joined in its entirety by Justices Alito and Thomas. Scalia pulls no punches, and he doesn’t beat around the bush. This is his first paragraph:

Justice Antonin Scalia
(photo by Pete Marovich,/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom)
found here 

The Court holds that when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act says “Exchange established by the State” it means “Exchange established by the State or the Federal Government.” That is of course quite absurd, and the Court’s 21 pages of explanation make it no less so.

This exasperated explanation is on his second page:

This case requires us to decide whether someone who buys insurance on an Exchange established by the Secretary gets tax credits. You would think the answer would be obvious—so obvious there would hardly be a need for the Supreme Court to hear a case about it. In order to receive any money under §36B, an individual must enroll in an insurance plan through an “Exchange established by the State.” The Secretary of Health and Human Services is not a State. So an Exchange established by the Secretary is not an Exchange established by the State—which means people who buy health insurance through such an Exchange get no money under §36B.

If the subsidy would be given for any exchange, then would be odd to keep referring to the subsidy coming in relation to a state exchange under §36B. There are places in the vast law, cited by Justice Scalia, that refer to both the state exchanges and those provided by the secretary of HHS, and sometimes together those are referred to as “exchanges,” but never in relation to §36B (the subsidy, dealing with the IRS). Every time the subsidy is referred to, the full phrase includes “state exchange” and the reference to the part of the law. Not just a time or two, but I believe it was seven times. That’s not an accident; it’s clearly to delineate when such a subsidy can be given.

Here is one of the more important lines:

Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is “established by the State.”

Whatever else follows this decision, this is the precedent that was set: words in law no longer have meaning.

It used to be that a court would look at the clear understanding of the text—what the words mean to reasonably educated people. And if that left something ambiguous, then the court would look at context, to see if the ambiguity can be cleared up elsewhere in the law. And sometimes a law would define a term in a specific way—that would be designated in the law. (Example: for the purposes of this law, the term “duck” shall be referred to as “goat.” And then, for that law only, even if nowhere else, a waterfowl we normally refer to as a duck would be referred to as a goat.)

Roberts actually claims that he is viewing the term “state exchange” in the larger context, but Scalia schools him on that. Chief Justice Roberts just got told, “You keep using that word—state exchanges. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

One difference between Roberts and Scalia is that Roberts thinks he should “help” the lawmakers by ruling, “let’s pretend you wrote it better.” Scalia does the more natural thing: the law says what it says, and that’s all it can do. If you don’t like it, the legislature is free to change the law. As Scalia so aptly puts it:

Perhaps sensing the dismal failure of its efforts to show that “established by the State” means “established by the State or the Federal Government,” the Court tries to palm off the pertinent statutory phrase as “inartful drafting.” This Court, however, has no free-floating power “to rescue Congress from its drafting errors.”

And,

They made Congress, not this Court, responsible for both making laws and mending them.

Scalia may be writing the dissent, but his lines will be most memorable. Maybe especially this one:

We should start calling this law SCOTUScare.

Son Political Sphere suggests it could aptly be called RobertsCare, since it is his two bad Obamacare rulings that leave us wondering what this administration is blackmailing him with.

Scalia adds,

This Court’s two decisions on the Act will surely be remembered through the years…. And the cases will publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites.

If the Chief Justice had as his purpose retaining respect for the Court, this decision was a big FAIL. His legacy will be that any time there’s a dispute over the meaning of words in law, the Roberts precedent will be cited: if it doesn’t mean what it says, we will say it means what we want it to mean.

That may be many ridiculous things, but it is not blind justice.

No good comes from a bad Supreme Court decision. Much bad can come from it. Hold onto your hats; we’ll have more to face Friday and Monday, the final days of this Court session.

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[i] http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-114_qol1.pdf

[ii] The Free Dictionary by Farlex, definition 2c:  http://www.thefreedictionary.com/fix

Being a Dad

We spent yesterday honoring fathers, but I wanted to extend it one day, so I could share a couple of things.

What’s it like being a dad? I can’t specifically answer that question, being a mom and grandma, but I’ve seen fatherhood in action. And it’s kind of an awesome force for good in the world.

Have you seen The Skit Guys answer this question?

Imagine a world in which every lonely, confused adult going down the wrong road had had a dad that filled the role—maybe not perfectly, but with love, tenderness, and an unending will for the child’s life to go well. Not all the world’s problems would be solved; people still have free will, so some will just choose badly. But so many more will know what a good choice looks like. The holes in so many children’s hearts would be filled, and ready to pass that love along.

Good fathers make a difference.

Of all the titles of respect and honor and admiration that are given to deity, He asked us to address him as Father.—A. Theodore Tuttle

That is from a very good talk on fatherhood, from October 1973. Still true.

Disparity

Some people have more money than others. Some people have a lot more than others. Is there something wrong with that? Something evil that requires correction?

First of all, what is wealth, again? At the Spherical Model, this is the definition:

Wealth is not some mystical entity endowed by either government or birthright. Nor is it something that the haves enjoy by depriving the have nots of their fair share. Wealth, simply, represents the accumulation of the results of labor.

There is a total amount of wealth in the world—at this current moment. But that is an accounting detail, not a limit. There is no upper limit to wealth in the world. It is producible by every productive human individual.

There’s a section of The Lessons of History, by Will and Ariel Durant, on money, and disparity of wealth:

Since practical ability differs from person to person, the majority of such abilities, in nearly all societies, is gathered in a minority of men. The concentration of wealth is a natural result of this concentration of ability, and regularly recurs in history. The rate of concentration varies (other factors being equal) with the economic freedom permitted by morals and the laws. Despotism may for a time retard the concentration; democracy, allowing the most liberty, accelerates it….

We conclude that the concentration of wealth is natural and inevitable, and is periodically alleviated by violent or peaceable partial redistribution.

So, what we know is, there will always be differences, disparity of wealth. Because people are different. But the problem isn’t that wealth disparity exists; it is that poverty exists. As the Gospels say, “For ye have the poor with you always” (Mark 14:7, see also Matthew 26:11 and John 12:8).

It would be helpful to look at real root problems, rather than imagined problems.

Does a rich person’s wealth prevent a poorer person from generating wealth? Not in a free market. In a true free market, wealth is developed by producing more than the minimum necessary for survival. In the language of money, it’s when you earn more than you spend, and you accumulate the extra. And you might accumulate more if you invest it—low amounts in a savings account, possibly more with other investments—along with the risk of loss.

But what about the person who spends everything he can earn, and can hardly get by? What if he can barely cover his food, clothing, and shelter needs, with nothing left over for education, entertainment, or greater comfort? Is it fair that he works hard and lives this way, when another person works maybe only as many hours—and maybe at less physically taxing work?

Isn’t it evil for the rich person to accept so much money—way beyond what he needs—for work that is in many ways equivalent to a regular worker?

The Good Earth

That’s the kind of question that leads to discontent and sometimes to violence. 

In Pearl Buck’s novel The Good Earth, there’s a point where the poor are starving and growing daily more desperate, squatting along the walls of the wealthy, until things get so heated, the poor rise up and raid the property of the wealthy, looting and killing. That was a book of fiction, but the Durants’ book describes that as a typical cycle.

It might look like the problem is too much wealth at the top, but it’s really about too little at the bottom. When people are starving and suffering while the wealthy ignore their needs, that is an injustice that won’t stand indefinitely. Usually in that kind of situation, there are interferences going on that protect the position of the wealthy at the expense of the poor. There are class systems that keep people down. Or there are limits to who can do what work, or enter into certain businesses.

It is interference with liberty that leads, not simply to disparity, but to suffering by the poor with no apparent way out. More interference, even with the intention of making up for the injustice, will never solve the problem.

The problem isn’t that some people make more; the problem is that there are actual poor—those who, for no fault of their own, cannot earn enough to meet their needs—that aren’t being taken care of.

A Democrat friend (whom I am quoting without identifying, because I value the friendship, if not the ideas) recently posted this Jimmy Carter quote:

If you don’t want your tax dollars to help the poor—then stop saying that you want a country based on Christian Values, because you don’t.

And then he commented,

We are the government. We choose where the money is spent. If you hate government, then work to change it. A society is known for how it treats people. I choose to live in a society where we feed the poor and provide great education for people to succeed. I believe we should provide healthcare to all people regardless of what country of birth or ability to pay. These people are our brothers and sisters. If you want to turn away your brother and sister then send them to me. If you want to blame government for everything bad in this country, then blame your forefathers for setting up this system. I choose to work harder to make a difference.

I guess we need to mention that this is not the system of forefathers set up. I've read the Constitution. But this is an example of how many Democrats think. They would never vote for a Republican, because Republicans are mean and stingy, and out to make money for themselves and let the poor starve. But they’re wrong. Republicans, or conservatives in general, because they don’t assume that government has relieved them of responsibility, are much more likely to give freely, and are likely to find charitable organizations that make a real difference in the lives of those in need. need.[i]

Government is coercion. There is no charity in coercion, so government charity is a lie; it is the despotism of redistribution. In short, that means we are voting to allow government to take earnings from whomever it chooses and to give that confiscated money to whomever it chooses. In our individual lives, that is called theft. When our government does it, it doesn’t suddenly become noble; it is still theft.

The “we are the government” claim is a fallacy. We, the people, are sovereign, and grant to government only what we must, to perform specific security and infrastructure roles. When government takes our money to give to the poor, we aren’t being charitable; we are being robbed. And too often the poor aren’t helped out of poverty; they are lured into dependency on government, which is about government power much more than about helping people. If you assume that, once robbed by government you have no more responsibility to the poor, you might be making yourself feel good, but you’re not actually engaged in charitable giving.

Follow that “we are the government” idea to its logical conclusion, and it means any majority can do anything it wants: confiscate wealth, take businesses from those who own them (ask GMC dealers under threat of Obama), control what you produce and sell, control what you are allowed to do with your own property, decide whether you are a preferred person to get various opportunities, decide how you raise your children, decide whether you get health care and within what limits, and on endlessly.

The solution to poverty isn’t theft from earners. It has to be actual charity. People with enough to meet their needs need to feel compassion in their hearts and give freely, in ways that will help the poor, whenever possible, to move out of their situation and become self-sustaining, and on the way to building their own wealth.

Name calling about whether someone is Christian or not isn’t helpful. Start with tithes and offerings. A tithe is 10% of your gross income (you figure that out, if you’re a business; it can be after reinvestment in the business for future income). Then, on top of that, consider going without something, such as a meal or two while you fast, and giving that to the poor. If your church isn’t a good outlet for the entire amount of your charitable giving, then find the charities that work for you.[ii] If you’re not doing this minimal amount that God asks for, then don’t go pretending you’re more giving because you let government take your money for its purposes. [Note: the Democrat friend actually is a rare one who pays tithes, so at least he's not hypocritical on this point.]

Baby Social Sphere helps by making friends
at a nutrition screening in Peru

If you’re at the lower end but getting by, you can still give that percentage; the widow’s mite was the greatest gift left at the altar that day (Luke 21;1 and Mark 12:14). Seeing yourself as someone with extra to give can be mind-changing in ways that lead to wealth. You feel gratitude instead of covetousness. You recognize the value of what you have and take care of it. You feel generosity to care for the less fortunate. You cease to feel entitled to what others have earned and begin to feel confident in your own ability to meet your needs and offer value to the world.

Inculcating real charity, instead of resentment and covetousness, would get us closer to solving the poverty problem.

The problem isn’t disparity, so let’s not even worry about that. The problem is that some people are in need and really need help. The political solution isn’t more government control; it is more liberty. The economic solution isn’t forced redistribution and control, but free market with its opportunities. The real solution is something you need for civilization—real charity and voluntary giving.

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[i]  Read Arthur Brooks, Who Really Cares? The Surprising Truth about Compassionate Conservatism, © 2006.  

[ii] I suggest Liahona Children’s Foundation, which offers nutrition-dense resources for poor children, a project daughter Social Sphere is helping with in South America the past couple of months.

Enlightenment

Hillsdale College has a growing list of free college-level classes online. Right now I’m into History 102, American Heritage, and lesson three is “Enlightenment and Natural Rights.” The lecturer is Hillsdale history professor Terrence Moore. He shares with us stories of the life of Benjamin Franklin as a kind of exemplification of the American Enlightenment.

Benjamin Franklin
image from Wikipedia

Ben Franklin’s life is always enlightening to learn about. I enjoyed the biography The Real Benjamin Franklin[i] some years ago. He was a marvel of creative thought and energy, as well as good humor. So the review of Franklin was interesting in itself. But there were connections made in the lecture that I think are worth looking at, especially in our day.

This is from the introduction:

Franklin was important in creating the American character and also the American ideas of self-government. And Franklin always started at the bottom, from the bottom up, you might say. He would form a library based on his friends’ needing books. He would conduct scientific experiments just with his friends that ended up being profoundly important in the history of electricity. Franklin never thought for a minute to write London for a grant to help him buy his jars and his kite and his key. Franklin never thought about writing London to deliver a bunch of books for free for these poor colonists. He scraped together what books he had with his friends, and that became a library. And they didn’t need an overarching directive from London telling them what to do.

If you look at the list of things that Franklin created, that in some cases had never been created before, even in London, you see that a native genius with a lot of freedom and with belief in oneself and one’s capacities of self-government can lead to great things.

We see some particularly American virtues in Franklin. He wasn’t content to be stuck in anything he didn’t enjoy. On a second or third try at apprenticeship, he learned the printing trade. When, at 17 years of age, he disagreed with his master (who was his older brother), he left Boston and showed up in Philadelphia. And worked his way up from the bottom—always confident that he could succeed.

He saw things that could be improved, and did something about them. He wasn’t a loner; he studied with other young tradesmen who also didn’t get to go to college, covering everything a college could have given them. When he had a good idea, he recruited others to his view, using the media and his own persuasive skill.

He grew, and learned, and flourished, and improved. And so did Philadelphia. And so did the American colonies. As Professor Moore says,

The larger point I wish to make is that Franklin’s many activities in Philadelphia were a microcosm of what was then taking place throughout the colonies, what we might call an apprenticeship in self-government. In fact, this apprenticeship of colonial Americans had been going on for some time. But in its later stages, as seen in the life of Franklin, the apprentice was beginning to surpass the skills of the master. The improvements and growth taking place in American civil society, unrecognized and unwelcomed by the mother country, would prepare the colonists to declare independence and go on to create a more perfect union.

Among Franklin’s scientific studies included what we now call demographics. He observed the growth rate of the colonies, as compared to the mother country, and realized that eventually there would be more Englishmen in the colonies than in Britain. He wasn’t, at that point, a revolutionary; he hoped there would be Englishmen smart enough to recognize the situation, and who would see the value of a mostly self-governing transatlantic empire.

But there were reasons that wouldn’t happen, mainly having to do with Britain’s, and all of Europe’s, premise of aristocracy.

It was assumed that men and women of birth were superior to those of humbler origin. The American colonies were populated overwhelmingly by men and women who did not have a social edge in their home countries, by younger sons of gentlemen, by the lesser gentry, by the various religious refugees, by what were called the middling sort of merchants and other professionals, and by artificers and servants.

Americans had the ability to rise—as high as their efforts and ingenuity could take them.

[Franklin] once said that in America, a man becomes known not for who his is—that is, what his name is, or his social pedigree—but by what he can do…. In Britain, to get anything done, no matter how worthy a cause or project, you almost always needed aristocratic patronage. In Philadelphia, as Franklin showed time and time again, all you needed was a good idea, some common sense, and a lot of hard work.

That sounds quintessentially American.

When the lecture started talking about the Enlightenment, I wasn’t sure exactly what that referred to. In Wikipedia, it is, in short: “an era from the 1650s to the 1780s in which cultural and intellectual forces in Western Europe emphasized reason, analysis, and individualism rather than traditional lines of authority.”

The Enlightenment had a different flavor in the American colonies, embodied by Benjamin Franklin. Kind of like Franklin’s self-education, there was an energy, a freshness, and an excitement to use the discovered truths to improve personal human lives. Not so much in Europe:

Whereas enlightened political and moral ideas were being generated by great European thinkers, those in charge of European institutions did not always take these new discoveries of old truths to heart. The Americans did.

Terrence Moore uses a drawing of a neoclassic structure, with the pillars representing parts of thought, to describe the American Enlightenment. Think of the architecture of Thomas Jefferson.

The neoclassicism shows that the American revolutionaries did not consider themselves to be inventing something new, but rather discovering things that had always been true though mankind had not always been able or eager to know them.

In Europe there was more skepticism, even cynicism, and a tendency to throw out essentials of a civil society—mainly religion. That was not so in America. Both continents move toward an increase in science, but we need to define that term, because it’s different from what comes immediately to mind:

We must be careful with this word, since in the 18th Century the term science still meant knowledge in systematic inquiry generally. It was not confined to research in the physical world. The Scottish philosopher David Hume, for example, set out to create a science of man; that is, an account of human and human activity in its social, political, and economic spheres.

This more than anything caught my attention here at the Spherical Model. How about that? What we’re about here is the science of man.

So, science, for Franklin and most educated Americans, studied both human and physical inquiries, as hobbyists, but also offering valuable discoveries. Moore reminds us that the foundation of scientific study was the great Isaac Newton. And that is a key point:

The importance of being Newtonians is that American colonists, and later the founders, thought of the universe as an ordered, balanced cosmos created by a benevolent deity who governed according to fixed and discoverable laws, “the laws of nature and nature’s God,” as Jefferson put it.

How vital Newton’s conception of the physical universe was may not be clear until you realize that the nation’s first progressive president, Woodrow Wilson, abandoned the authority of the Constitution by saying it was “accountable to Darwin, not to Newton.” In other words, the balanced world of Newton, in which natural laws were predictable, and in which men, by implication, could lead lives reasonably, was either a figment or fairytale compared to the survivalist nature of Darwin’s world, wholly indifferent to man’s well-being. Who, then, should remain faithful to a fixed constitution when mankind must continually reinvent himself just to remain alive? That was how the progressives thought, not the founding fathers.

That explains a lot. Progressivism (not to be confused with actual progress) has a hateful prejudice against the past, no matter how true and instructive. So there’s an assumption among them that the Constitution is irrelevant, just because it was created in the past. And they don’t believe in principles, so they throw them out for whatever new thing they want to try.

I remember a science class that introduced Einstein’s relativity. The teacher explained that there are situations in which Einstein’s physics are more accurate than Newtonian physics—such as when approaching the speed of light. But in normal circumstances, Newtonian physics is accurate enough for our typical human purposes. I don’t know enough to know if that is true. But the point is, Einstein’s theories added to, rather than wiping out, Newtonian theories of the physical world. So I’d assert that, if there were truth to Darwin’s theories, they would add to, not wipe out, known and ever useful truths.

So far, this covers only about 2/3 of the lecture. Much of the rest covers the four pillars of the American Enlightenment: religious liberty, political liberty, economic liberty, and moral responsibility. We could spend a full day on each of those; in fact, from time to time we have done so.

For now, it will do to be grateful that our heritage proves so many eternal truths: freedom, combined with self-control and moral responsibility, leads to growth, success, ingenuity, and human thriving. People like Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson lived the proof.

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[i] W. Cleon Skousen and M. Richard Maxfield, The Real Benjamin Franklin (Vol. 2 of the American Classic series) © 1982.