Some Klavan on the Culture

The other night I happened upon a short video by Andrew Klavan, explaining God. And that led to another suggested Andrew Klavan video. And then another.

Andrew Klavan
screen shot from Uncommon Knowledge interview

Andrew Klavan, a novelist and conservative Christian commentator (who has the talent of being simultaneously funny and insightful), talks about culture. A lot.

The first introduction I had to him was a Klavan on the Culture video in which he compares liberal ideas to zombies that keep coming back from the dead. This was around 2009. I didn’t know how to save a video, so I sat through it multiple times to transcribe it—just so I would always have it. It turns out he’s extremely prolific, so I couldn’t keep doing that.

Anyway, a couple of the videos I watched the other night were a bit of a look back in time, both following books he had recently written. 

In this one, from 2013, he has written A Killer in the Wind, but the talk, he says, is about “Sex and German Philosophy,” two things you should never attempt at the same time, but that are related. In the end, he summarizes with this (around 20 minutes in):

The arts naturally, inherently, by nature, support the conservative view of man. They naturally—they cannot help, left to themselves, but produce a view of spiritual people with a right to choose for themselves.

And what we have to do, as we take back the arts, and take back the culture—and we will do it—is we have to keep from being seduced into being censors and scolds, and simply let the arts speak the truth. Because if the arts speak the truth about spiritual man and what makes him happy, then they will sing the song of human freedom. I know this for a fact, because they always have.

In other words, have faith in the truth. I agree.

The video that got me thinking I ought to write about culture, here in this early January 2017 post, was an Uncommon Knowledge interview (yet another of my favorite things) from 2008, following the publication of his book Empire of Lies.

Peter Robinson talks with Andrew Klavan about his journey to Christianity (from a non-religious Jewish upbringing, through atheism). And they talk about art—particularly in Hollywood, where Klavan both works and criticizes.

Toward the end they cover speaking truth to power—which he says is not what Hollywood does.

PR: So, last question in this segment: Do you get the feeling that Hollywood today—this notion that the arts are always avant-garde, the cutting edge—my feeling is, that’s nonsense. At the present hour, they’re a lagging indicator. You could parachute into Kansas, anywhere in Kansas, walk into the nearest diner and find people who have a much more acute grip of reality than you could by strolling up and down Wilshire Blvd.

AK: No question about it.

PR: And so, is it purely a question of time? All these studio heads who are in their 60s are going to retire soon…. My view would be, let’s buy them places, since we’re…. In other words, is there going to be just kind of a healthy turnover, or is there more kind of an enduring ideological fight that has to be fought?

AK: I’m very optimistic. I think there is an enduring ideological fight that has to be fought. I think the reason they’re a lagging indicator—perfect phrase for them, because they are straight-jacketed by their ideology; they’re the most conformist group of people, backward group of people, you can imagine. But we, conservatives, have let them get away with this.

I’ve said this again and again. But if you win the White House, if you win the Congress, if you win the Supreme Court and lose the culture, you will lose the country. It’s the culture… You know, Shelley was right, the poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. It will take a longer time, but if you lose the culture—if you let them drip this poison into the consciousness of America forever, they will win.

And I think it really is going to require—I’m very optimistic about it, but it is going to require an effort to take the culture back from these people, who are, as you say, conformist, backward, living in the ideology of a generation ago.

They end with a discussion from the novel, which I appreciate:

PR: OK. Let me put the same question in a slightly different way, and ground it in your Empire of Lies, your new novel. Here’s a quotation from Empire of Lies:

The day it began was an autumn day, Saturday afternoon in October. I was sitting in a cushioned chair on the brick patio at the edge of my backyard, looking down half an acre of grassy slope to where my two boys were organizing some kind of Frisbee game around the swingset.

I loved our neighborhood—Horizon Hill, the Hill for short. Big yards. Craftsman houses. Lake views. Friendly, mostly like-minded people. Hard-working dads, housewife moms. Not too many divorces. Lots of kids.”

Andrew Klavan, I charge you with having become irretrievably bourgeois. You are attempting to do something that cannot be done: you’re a novelist; you seek to inhabit the world of the entertaining, the hip, the cool. And yet here you are, as a Christian, a conservative, holding up for praise the square, the unhip, the conventional. You’ll never be cool again.

AK: I may never be cool again. I’ll certainly never be called cool again. And yet, and yet, I cannot help but think that at the center of the arts—because at the center of human life—is the experience of love. And that love is not excluded from the suburbs. It’s not excluded from the bourgeois life. It never was; it never has been. It frequently finds its best ground to grow in there.

My life is deeply affected by my marriage, which is an anomalous marriage in its romance. It’s been a 30-year romance. And I know that’s anomalous, and I know that’s not something that everybody gets. And yet it does give you an insight that this is a possibility—that love, in marriage, is a possibility.

It seems to me that that possibility has been excluded by the so-called avant-garde, who really are the behind-garde. It seems to me that that possibility has been excluded, and that putting it forward is in fact a revolutionary act. Putting it down is in fact saying, “You know what, you know, this is here. You can’t close your eyes to it. You can’t constantly tell us that all marriages are Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf? without us coming back and saying, ‘You know, I live in this neighborhood, and I see marriages that aren’t like that at all.’”

Yes. Because family is the basic unit of civilization.

There’s a section near the end of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy that I’ve written about. When the Hobbits return to the Shire, and Sam Gangee musters the courage to go talk to Rosie—and begin what becomes a happy family life. That is, I think, what all the mission was to secure.

I’m often puzzled by the word bourgeois. I think it means middle class, but it’s pejorative, implying corruption. In the real middle class, where families live their lives, mostly happily, but with real life struggles, and love one another—that is where you're most likely to find civilization.

There’s a section of the Spherical Model where we talk about what civilization looks like, and it includes cultural arts:

Creativity abounds; enlightening arts and literature exceed expectations. Architecture and infrastructure improve; innovation and invention are the rule.

People feel free to choose their work, their home, their family practices, their friendships and associations. And they generally self-restrain before they infringe on the rights and freedoms of others.

When people are secure in their persons and property, and have the freedom to choose their own life paths, but are self-restrained by the love of one another—mainly because of family—then civilization is set up to thrive.

It is in the northern hemisphere—of the political, economic, and social spheres—that we get the good outcomes. Nothing that drags people into the southern hemisphere and keeps them there can get those positive outcomes.

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty”—that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.—John Keats

Andrew Klavan is right about culture: truth in art leads to conservative values--the values of freedom, prosperity, and civilization. We need to take this opportunity, while we have more outlets for expression, and find better ways of saying so.

The Basic Principles

It’s the start of a new year, so it seems like an appropriate time to review what the Spherical Model is. I’ve done the description of the model a number of times:

Condensed version here: The Political Sphere Is Round 

Video here: https://youtu.be/IGoh5X-CPGA

The whole website here: www.sphericalmodel.com

In all of these we’re changing the language from a right/left dichotomy to a three-dimensional model. The hope is that, with old language out of the way, we can discuss the principles that lead to the best outcomes: freedom (instead of tyranny), prosperity (instead of poverty), and civilization (instead of savagery).

Rather than review what the model looks like, today we’ll cover the basic principles that lead to the best outcomes—upper northern hemisphere—in the three overlying spheres: political, economic, and social.

Go North on the Political Sphere

The Political Sphere

Government must be limited to its proper role: protecting life, liberty, and property. We can ask (and insist that our government officials ask and honor) a series of questions to test whether or not a policy fits within the freedom zone:

·         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.

·         Does the policy infringe in any way on the rights enumerated in the US Constitution 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 God-given rights, then government cannot take that power without usurping power from the people.

·         Is the idea being debated a proper role of government; i.e., some aspect of protection (including defense, protection from interstate crime, enabling international and interstate commerce, standardized weights and measures and currency, the judiciary that guarantees the protective laws), as enumerated in the Constitution? If not, then accepting the idea is outside the Constitution and south of the freedom zone.

·         

Go North to the Prosperity Zone

The basic principle for economic prosperity is: the person who creates the wealth gets to decide how to spend it.

The Economic Sphere

The closer we get to that principle, the more prosperous the society.

Inequality of outcome is not a problem government should solve. In fact, protecting property is pretty much the only assignment of government related to the economy. We know from long experience that government interference in the economy, for whatever well-intentioned purpose, will cause negative consequences—usually the exact opposite of the stated goal of the interference.

Included in its job of safeguarding our wealth, government can be charged with coining/printing money. But whenever it prints/coins/creates money not representing actual created wealth, it devalues money, robbing earners of some portion of their wealth.

So, above all, we get prosperity in a free-enterprise society where government is limited to protecting property.

What do we do about the poor?

That is a combination of an economic question and a social question. “For ye have the poor always with you,” (Matthew 26:11). If we want to help one another, it has to be a free-will charitable gift—not a coercion of government. Government is incapable of charity; it is only an exertion of power, or coercion. So government needs to stay out of the issue of helping the poor.

If we live in a civilized society, we will care about one another. We will go through churches, organizations, and individuals to help those who need help.

There will always be a bottom 10% of earners. But the goal is to raise the standard of living so that even those lower earners have basic food and shelter, and, whenever possible, the opportunity to get out of poverty and become self-sufficient.

Respecting one another’s property rights, obeying laws, and honesty in business transactions are also necessary for economic prosperity, so the interrelationships of the spheres becomes evident. Political freedom from limited government, plus the self-government of civilized people set a background for economic prosperity.

So, economic prosperity comes when we have a free-market combined with philanthropy, and a government strictly limited to protecting property.

Go North to the Civilization Zone

The Social Sphere

In the Spherical Model, Civilization is more than a society where people write records, have a certain amount of technology, and live together in cities. It is a society free from savagery. Civilized people live peaceably among their neighbors, helping rather than taking advantage of one another, abiding by laws enacted to protect property and safety—with honesty and honor. Civilized people live in peace with other civilized people; countries and cultures coexist in appreciation, without fear.

As with the other spheres, where good people agree that freedom is better than tyranny, and prosperity is better than poverty, civilization is better than savagery. These are not close choices; they are clearly different.

A civilized society requires a critical mass of people who live a certain way.

·         A civilized society must be a religious society.

o   Not all religious societies are civilized (according to my definition), but every civilized society is a religious society. This absolutely does not mean state-sponsored religion or lack of religious freedom; in fact, the opposite is true. Freedom of religion is essential, and the flourishing of religion in general must be encouraged.

o   Rights come from God, not from government or some human grantor; so belief in God is the basis of freedom.

o   Individuals feel accountable to God in this life and the life to come, so they choose to self-govern.

·         The religious beliefs of the people must include honoring God, life, family, truth, and property (this is the summary of the Ten Commandments).

·         Because it perpetuates the civilization, family is the essential basic unit of civilization. There must be a critical mass of married mothers and fathers raising their own children to be civilized people.

So those are the basic principles of the Spherical Model.

If we can agree that we want freedom, prosperity, and civilization—as opposed to tyranny, poverty, and savagery—that’s a lot of agreement. And then we can move the conversation on to how we get those outcomes. I’ve proposed what I believe are the true principles. Most of what I write about here relates to how these principles are playing out in our world.

Good Thing Coming to an End

Economist Thomas Sowell wrote his final column this week. Fortunately, he’s not dead; he’ll keep writing books, keep giving interviews. We just won’t have his frequent short pieces of wisdom to count on each week.

Thomas Sowell
image from here

He’s 86—and only retiring from the column. He said last spring he was on a photography trip to Yosemite with friends. For four days they had no access to news. And he really enjoyed that. While writing the column, he has felt obligated to keep current on news and events so he could comment intelligently about them. And now he’s letting that go.

I relate to that, since I write regularly here, and it does a good part of the time relate to current events. During this holiday season, surrounded by family, I’ve mostly tuned out radio and newspapers, and even much social media—and it is refreshing.

Thomas Sowell has me by nearly two decades, after an extraordinarily prolific career, so I think he’s entitled to the relief from news. Back before writing this blog, when I was writing a few pieces a year (mainly in defense of traditional marriage), I would take hours—weeks sometimes—to write a piece. I marveled at how Thomas Sowell could put out something so profound, well-researched, and well-reasoned a time or two a week.

Eventually I learned that there are differences in writing when you’re doing something quick and regular. I don’t polish as much. I don’t provide exhaustive footnotes as often. I just try to put out a complete thought. I think that’s what Thomas Sowell has done as well, compared to his books, which are longer, more polished, and more referential to specific research. It’s just that he has a huge body of research in his head, and all the thought connections he’s made over many thoughtful decades.

I mentioned his Basic Economics as a favorite influence in my very first blog post. I’ll probably continue to refer to his writings as a model and a resource.

In celebration of his column retirement, I thought I’d share some Thomas Sowell wisdom.

First, if you have half an hour, he did an interview on the Larry Elder radio show on Wednesday. Their conversation covers a wide range, and gives the flavor of his wit and wisdom:

You can read his final column here: https://www.creators.com/read/thomas-sowell/12/16/farewell

I wrote about a Thomas Sowell interview on Uncommon Knowledge in 2015, following the publication of his book Wealth, Poverty, and Politics. Worth a re-read. 

Townhall put together a list of “12 Fantastic Thomas Sowell Quotes in Honor of His Retirement.”

And now I’ll share a few of the quotes I’ve saved in my Spherical Model quote file:

The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.

Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.

Character is what we have to depend on when we entrust power over ourselves, our children and our society to government officials.

We cannot risk all that for the sake of the fashionable affectation of being more non-judgmental than thou.—(article following resignation of NY governor Elliot Spitzer)

Someone once said that a con man's job is not to convince skeptics but to enable people to continue to believe what they already want to believe.—(article on Obama’s “faith” speech 3-19-08)

One of the biggest taxes is one that is not even called a tax—inflation. When the government spends money that it creates, it is transferring part of the value of your money to themselves. It is quiet taxation but often heavy taxation, falling on everyone, no matter how low their incomes might be.—(10-29-08)

How have intellectuals managed to be so wrong, so often? By thinking that because they are knowledgeable—or even expert—within some narrow band out of the vast spectrum of human concerns, that makes them wise guides to the masses and to the rulers of the nation.

But the ignorance of PhDs is still ignorance and high-IQ groupthink is still groupthink, which is the antithesis of real thinking.—(11-11-08)

The medical care stampede is about much more than medical care, important as that is. It is part of a whole mindset of many on the left who have never reconciled themselves to an economic system in which how much people can withdraw from the resources of the nation depends on how much they have contributed to those resources.—(8-19-09)

There is usually only a limited amount of damage that can be done by dull or stupid people. For creating a truly monumental disaster, you need people with high IQs.—(9-29-09)

People who call differences "inequities" and achievements "privilege" leave social havoc in their wake, while feeling noble about siding with the less fortunate.—(5-4-2010)

Among people who voted for Barack Obama in 2008, those who are likely to be most disappointed are those who thought that they were voting for a new post-racial era. There was absolutely nothing in Obama's past to lead to any such expectation, and much to suggest the exact opposite. But the man's rhetoric and demeanor during the election campaign enabled this and many other illusions to flourish.

Still, it was an honest mistake of the kind that decent people have often made when dealing with people whose agendas are not constrained by decency, but only by what they think they can get away with.

On race, as on other issues, different people have radically different views of Barack Obama, depending on whether they judge him by what he says or by what he does.—(7-19-2010)

Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good.

The vocabulary of the political left is fascinating. For example, it is considered to be "materialistic" and "greedy" to want to keep what you have earned. But it is "idealistic" to want to take away what someone else has earned and spend it for your own political benefit or to feel good about yourself.—(3-22-2011)

Even if it could be proved that judges who are making rulings that go counter to the written law produce better results in those particular cases than following the letter of the law would have, that does not make society better off. When laws become unreliable and judges unpredictable, lawsuits become a bonanza for charlatans, who can force honest people to settle out of court, for fear of what some judge might do.—(3-22-2011)

The Obama administration seems to be following what might be called "the Detroit pattern"-- increasing taxes, harassing businesses, and pandering to unions. In the short run, it got mayors re-elected. In the long-run, it reduced Detroit from a thriving city to an economic disaster area, whose population was cut in half, as its most productive citizens fled.—(3-22-2011)

Since the government creates no wealth, it can only transfer the wealth required to hire people. Even if the government creates a million jobs, that is not a net increase in jobs, when the money that pays for those jobs is taken from the private sector, which loses that much ability to create private jobs.—(7-6-2011)

People who say they want a government program because "I don't want to be a burden to my children" apparently think it is all right to be a burden to other people's children.—(8-2-2011)

Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.

Like so many people, in so many countries, who started out to "spread the wealth," Barack Obama has ended up spreading poverty.—(10-17-2011)

Politicians can solve almost any problem—usually by creating a bigger problem. But, so long as the voters are aware of the problem that the politicians have solved, and unaware of the bigger problems they have created, political "solutions" are a political success.—(10-17-2011)

Let's stop and think, if only for the novelty of it.—(8-29-2012)

The black family survived centuries of slavery and generations of Jim Crow, but it has disintegrated in the wake of the liberals' expansion of the welfare state. Most black children grew up in homes with two parents during all that time but most grow up with only one parent today.—(1-15-2013)

There are no magic solutions [to getting out of poverty], at least none that I know of. Common sense, common decency, work and honesty are about all I can come up with. These things are not fancy or new or politically correct. But they have a better track record than much that we are doing today.—(5-20-2014, “Poverty and Snowstorms”)

I am so old that I can remember when most of the people promoting race hate were white.—(“Who Is Racist?” 7-2014 National Review)

If you don’t understand the issues, but want to do your patriotic duty, then stay home on election night, whether in the primaries or in the national election in November. Uninformed voters turn elections into a game of playing Russian roulette with the future of America.—(1-30-2016)

The old adage about giving a man a fish versus teaching him how to fish has been updated by a reader: Give a man a fish and he will ask for tartar sauce and French fries! Moreover some politician who wants his vote will declare all these things to be among his “basic rights.”—(http://l.prageru.com/29VdtqE)

It's Christmas!

About a month ago I drove up to visit my grandkids and do a photo shoot for the Christmas card. I pictures something a little different, but we take what we can get when we’re dealing with wild animals and children.

I thought we might have “Mary” sitting on the donkey, and “Joseph” leading it with a rope. But it turned out our donkeys were actually wild. They belong to one of granddaughter, Little Political Sphere 1’s, friends from school. They live in a small Texas town (one elementary school), and the friends live on some acreage down the road, where they raise some calves for sale, but otherwise work in normal in-town jobs. The donkeys lived on the property when they bought it well over a decade ago. 

The one in the photo, Jack, was tame enough to come up and eat carrots out of your hand. So we fed him a lot. And took what we could get. I would have liked a different angle, but then we’d have had to move the truck, and we didn’t know if we’d get the donkey back. The other donkey—more standard looking, with the cross on her back—took one carrot from my very large son. That was more than she usually does.

In most of the photos Little PS1 was so thrilled to be feeding the donkey that she had a huge smile that didn’t say “I’m weary from traveling all the way from Nazareth.” And we were limited by Little PS2’s attention span. But it was a fun time, with a photo good enough for our purposes.

Not sure what to do for next year’s photo.

I’ve been enjoying the music of the season as well—I always do. Besides the choir, and playing with my dulcimer jam group at a few parties, I’ve had my Pandora station set to Pentatonix holiday. I like more and more of their music.

Favorites have included their “Little Drummer Boy” and “Mary, Did You Know?” This year the one that got my attentions is “O Come, All Ye Faithful.”

One more I’ve enjoyed this year is Peter Hollens and 300 friends (including BYU’s Vocal Point) doing Carol of the Bells. This fun version makes me like this song again.

The Doctors Thornton

This past week, for book club, we read a biography: The Ditchdigger’s Daughters: A Black Family’s Astonishing Success Story, by Yvonne S. Thornton, MD (as told to Jo Coudert). It’s not a new book; it was first published in 1995. But it’s at least as relevant today.

It’s an example of how a father in the home, doing his job well, makes all the difference. The five Thornton girls grew up in the 1960s, at a time when their friends were surprised to learn that their married parents lived in the home—the father hadn’t left.

Donald Thornton, whom the girls called Daddy, worked two jobs always. His wife Itasker (usually called Mommy) worked as a maid or laundress most of their growing up lives.

It was a loving and stable home. But Daddy was also blunt, as you might guess from the opening lines:

“You kids are black,” Daddy sometimes said to us. “You’re dark-skinned and ugly.”

“Daddy, don’t you love us? We wailed.

“I love you. I love you better than I love life,” he assured us. “But I’m not always gonna be around to look after you, and no man’s gonna come along and offer to take care of you because you ain’t light-skinned. That’s why you gotta be able to look after yourselves. And for that you gotta be smart.”

There’s a fair amount of frank talk about racism in the book, but never as an excuse. Daddy didn’t let them do that. Just face facts, and then do what it takes to overcome the odds.

I hadn’t realized how much racism based on skin tone existed (still does?) among blacks. Light skin is preferred, and given advantages within the culture. It was considered marrying down to marry someone more dark-skinned. But the book is never about how insurmountable racism is. Just the opposite.

To those who work so hard to inculcate a high self-esteem in children, separate from their accomplishments, Donald Thornton’s way was different. The way out of poverty was to work hard, be smart, do what it took to earn respect. He had specific goals for them: become doctors. That MD was inarguable; society had to respect you when you earned that degree.

Daddy and Mommy expected the girls to figure out how to get A’s in school. They taught them to look at someone who did well, use them as a pattern, pass them up, and then choose someone else to be a pattern.

Sometimes the girls would say it was just too hard; they weren’t cut out for college. But their Daddy wouldn’t accept that. He’d say it was just a matter of working hard enough.

One important development in the family was music. When they expressed a desire to learn, Daddy found a way to get them instruments and teachers. Good teachers. Usually male professional musicians. The girls got good, and eventually formed a band, which paid for the instruments and lessons, and eventually paid for college.

It took some tremendous energy for the girls to travel and play in the band—The Thornettes—on weekends, and keep up with their schoolwork, plus sometimes extra jobs. They continued all the way through med school, which had to be dizzying and relentless. It also kept them busy, and out of trouble, and always aware of how much effort it took to earn advantages.

In the afterward of the edition I got (ten years after the original printing), Yvonne gives an update:

My oldest Sister, Donna (tenor sax) never celebrated her fiftieth birthday. She lost her battle with lupus in 1993 and died at age forty-eight. Although Donna chose not to graduate from college, she still recognized the value of education. Her daughter, Heather, is an alumna of the University of Virginia and the University of Pennsylvania. She is a social worker now living in San Francisco with her husband and young son.

Betty [a cousin who was adopted into the Thornton family] and her husband still reside in “The House That Donald Built” in Long Branch, New Jersey. Betty will soon be retiring after almost forty years of being a geriatric nurse.

Jeanette (electric guitar) continues to practice psychiatry in Albany, New York, in her subspecialty of Addiction Psychiatry. She has been married for over twenty-five years to her husband, Emile, a gastroenterologist. Although they have no children, Jeanette remains involved in many civic activities.

Over the past twenty-five years, Linda (drums and percussion) has since retired from the United States Army as Lieutenant Colonel. She is now one of the very few female board-certified prosthodontic oral surgeons in the country and holds a Master’s degree in Healthcare Administration. Currently, Linda is an associate professor on the faculty of Temple University School of Dentistry in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she serves as the course director for removable prosthodontics.

Rita, my kid sister (piano and keyboards), has had a more circuitous route to her present career. After leaving her position as a science teacher, she enrolled in Seton Hall University School of Law and received her law degree at the age of forty. Not being satisfied in the legal profession, Rita hanged her path, entered the New Jersey Institute of Technology and, in 2006, at fifty-four years of age, became the first black woman at NJIT to receive a PhD in Environmental Science.

As for me, since 1983 (when the book ends), my life has been occupied with trying to balance my roles as a mother, wife, professor, obstetrician/gynecologist, and author. I am still married to my medical school sweetheart, Shearwood. It will soon be thirty-four years. Where does the time go?

I have been affiliated with several teaching hospitals and universities since the book was published in 1995. The academic achievement of which I am most proud is my climb to the faculty position of Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Cornell University Weill Medical College in New York, and my delivery of 5,542 babies. I am presently a consultant in High-Risk Obstetrics (Perinatology).

It was an impressive goal for Donald Thornton to want all his daughters to become doctors. You set a high goal, you might reach it—and if you only get close, you’ll have accomplished more than if you set a lower goal.

One thing their Daddy told them over and over was to keep away from young men who would have no respect for their goals and their futures. It was all too easy to try to please a man, get pregnant, see him up and leave, and find yourself stuck in poverty. In a time, place, and culture where that was the common outcome, the Thorntons all managed to avoid that outcome. A determined Daddy and dedicated mother were the main reason.

In the afterward, their one more part that I think is important when you’re looking at successful career women:

My mother always told us: “No amount of success in your profession can ever make up for being a failure at home.” With that said, my greatest life accomplishment has been (with my husband) rearing two exceptional children. Our daughter Kimberly, is a graduate of Stanford University and is now completing her graduate studies in socio-medical sciences in the Master of Public Health program at Columbia University.… 

Our son, Woody (Shearwood, III), is a Life Chess Master and has had a stellar career in the world of chess. He was the 1997 United States Junior Open Chess champion… and won the United States Chess Federation Scholar-Chessplayer Award before entering Harvard University. Woody graduated cum laude from Harvard and began his medical studies at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons (our alma mater). When he graduated from P&S, my husband and I ascended to the stage and presented him with the diploma of Doctor of Medicine. He is currently in his residency, training to be a neurosurgeon.

One more time, the way out of poverty in America is:

1.      Don’t have sex before age 20.

2.      Don’t have sex until after marriage.

3.      Stay married.

4.      Obtain at least a high school diploma.

Donald Thornton set the sites for his daughters even higher. This was a starting point (he was actually only 18 when he married), but with drive, energy, and consistent common sense, he made it possible for them to have a much better future than a ditchdigger and a maid could normally expect.

Plus, the book is a joy to read.

Random Economic Thoughts

On Saturday Texas Representative Mike Schofield came out to our local Tea Party meeting, talking about the upcoming legislative session, and whatever else was on our minds. He gave an explanation about federal and state economics that made sense to me, and I’d like to share.

Rep. Mike Schofield speaking to us last Saturday
photo: Cypress Texas Tea Party

This is from my notes, so not direct quotes. But he said the federal government ran out of money decades ago. It has no money—so it spends debt. 

This isn’t like you and me, or even the vast majority of states that are required to have a balanced budget. We can spend beyond our ability to repay for a while, but soon we have to tighten our belts or find additional income to repay the debt.

The federal government is far beyond the ability to ever repay, and yet they keep spending. They get away with it in just a couple of ways. One is higher taxes, but you can’t do that indefinitely. People won’t tolerate it, and the economy slows to a crawl or into a recession when government removes so much money from the market.

The other thing they do, which has been their preferred choice lately, is to push programs down to the states. They keep hold of the rules and regulations (so they can take credit for "doing good") but push the bill onto the states.

What is the way out? We can hope that a Trump administration will reverse the trend. Heads of programs can remove requirements (unfunded mandates). Another hope is that new appointments to the Supreme Court will stop ruling those myriad regulations, with laws created by unelected bureaucrats, as unconstitutional.

There is an old view—believed by the democrat party and beyond—that you win the election so you get to do what you want. But we have this document called the Constitution that says otherwise. It’s not about doing what you want; it’s about doing what you’re allowed by the supreme law of the land to do. As for the Supreme Court, you certainly shouldn’t be on the Court if you don’t believe in the Constitution.

Rep. Schofield then talked about the Texas constitution. With a balanced budget requirement, when you cut taxes (and literally cut revenue), you have less money to spend. You can’t expand the size of government.

So when the federal government comes in and mandates a program, it literally cuts what the Texas legislature can do with the state budget.

For example, Medicaid is a cancer on the budget. Of $209.4 billion, $64.2 billion is for this one federal program. All we can do is keep qualifying down to narrow the group.

When you buy into the program, you’re stuck with the terms of the deal. But the federal government can change their part of the deal and still won’t let you out of your requirements. They might provide less federal money. They might stop paying entirely, and you’re still required to provide the program in full—now totally at state expense.

Then they say things like, “Then you’ll need to have an income tax.” They want government to have more control over every citizen’s money, because they think they know better than you how to spend your money.

That brings us to one of the basic principles of the Economic Sphere of the Spherical Model: Who decides what will be done with the fruits of your labors? If you want the benefits of the prosperity hemisphere (north on the sphere), the decider should be the person who did the work to earn the money, not some far distant wielder of power. 

This morning I was listening to the third hour of the Glenn Beck radio show. He was talking with Chris Martenson, of PeakProsperity.com. Glenn asked what we could expect from the Fed this week, and how that would affect us. Martenson responded that they would have to raise rates. And the two discussed why. Eventually they got to talking about imbalances. And Chris Martenson made this assertion:

Chris Martenson of PeakProsperity,com
photo from their website

Chris: These things have all been building for a really long time, Glenn. And I think if we had to, if we wanted to put our finger on something, we would say August 15th, 1971, when the United States abandoned the gold standard for the world—that’s really where all of this started. And these imbalances are enormous now.

Glenn: Well, that’s when we all decided we wanted a life we couldn’t afford. So the United States did that, but we convinced the rest of the world that, we’ll continue to buy your stuff, so that will be good for you. But we all said—all of us—we want more stuff than we can afford if we base our dollar or our currencies on gold. Is that accurate?

Chris: It is, because gold provides a set of restraints that you just can’t get around. And, if you can’t get around those restraints, well, sometimes you get to live beyond your means, but very soon thereafter you have to live below your means. The world kind of collectively said, “We don’t like that below our means part. How can we just forever live above our means?” That’s how these imbalances got started.

And it’s a very human thing, Glenn. We’ve seen this so many times in history, and here we are again.

They discuss the differences between inflation and deflation.

Chris: So, everybody I talk to says, “Look, I like falling prices.”

That’s not what the Fed is targeting when it’s worried about deflation. They have a different thing they’re worried about where prices rising or falling are the symptoms, but the cause is what they’re concerned about. And the cause is either our credit markets are expanding or they’re contracting. When they’re expanding, which is inflation, everything kind of works. Governments can continue to run deficits, and big banks can do crazy dumb things. And it all seems to work out. 

The opposite, though, Glenn, when credit is falling, that’s also known as 2009 in the United States. It is deeply scary. What works in forward doesn’t work at all in reverse. The whole system shudders and threatens to collapse. It’s a really scary moment.…

Remember, the Federal Reserve is not really federal; it’s a private entity. It’s got a charter from the US government, and it operates in a very nice monopoly. But it’s first set of clients, always, is the banks. So if the banking system’s happy and expanding, the Fed’s happy.

Glenn: OK, so they’re not worried about deflation; they’re worried about the bank. But, by doing what they’ve done, they are throwing caution to the wind by printing $7 trillion dollars’ worth of currency. Never been done before in the history of the world. And expecting that hyperinflation won’t happen. How can we have printed that much money and not have the problem of the Weimar Republic? What’s the difference?

There are some discussions, then, about where the printed money has been floating around. Instructive. But we really want to know about that hyperinflation thing looming over us.

Chris: The bubbles always have the same self-reinforcing mental map on the way up. People think it makes sense: “Well the last guy paid $79 million, and I paid $85 million. Surely somebody is going to pay me $100 million for this piece of art.” That’s all self-reinforcing on the way up. And we don’t know why, but eventually there’s a pin that that bubble finds, and when it bursts, then you discover what is the true value of things. And things go down very quickly at that point.

Glenn asks, again, will the bubble burst badly, or are there systems in place to prevent that now?

Chris: Well, you know, if it’s not going to burst, we have to believe in the four most dangerous words in human investing history, which is: This time it’s different.

It’s not different. It’s never different. I’m seeing the exact same psychology, rationalizations, post facto rationalizations that people make.... To me, it’s much easier to understand where we are if you see that we’ve got a very scared set of central planners. They’ve worked themselves into a multi-decade corner. They don’t know what to do. So they print.

 And you can find this story in Roman times; you can find it in the first paper money in China. You can find it all through history. And it boils down to this, Glenn; it’s very simple: humans would much rather take a little risk today, instead of some pain today, in the hopes that things turn out better in the future. We always go down the same path.

I highlighted that. I think it explains a lot. 

But, about that hyperinflation: will we see it, Glenn asks, within the next four years?

Chris: We’re going to see it at some point. It could come at any time. It will happen at some point. And I think that the best quote on this comes from Ludwig von Mises; he’s an Austrian economist. And he said, “There’s no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.”

This isn’t good news, of course. We probably ought to have some food stored, and have some real assets. I don’t know if gold is the right answer. I don’t know what is the right answer. I guess I’m not here to answer how to mitigate the damage caused by the central planners; I’m here to point out that the central planners never do a better job of controlling the economy than a true free market would do.

If only we could try that for a change.

Thought Crime Press

I have a list of questions:

·         When five of nine judges make a societal change, are all Americans required to change their beliefs to align with that slim majority?

·         If individuals don’t immediately realign, should they be shunned, publicly shamed, forced out of their livelihood, and protested? Should this happen based on assumptions about someone’s beliefs, rather than on what they have done?

·         If one judge swings the majority opinion to something at odds with entire religions, such as Catholics, most Protestants, Latter-day Saints, and Muslims, should all of those adherent be required to denounce their religions or face the loss of their rights to participate in the marketplace and society?

·         If everyone is to change their opinions to align with that slim majority, does that include the four dissenting judges? Should the dissenters be forced to change their opinions or else risk being drummed out of their positions?

·         If even judges are to be forced to change their opinions whenever they are in the minority, does that need to happen even when a ruling goes against the side you’re now supporting?

·         Does that mean that you must change your beliefs whenever a slim majority of the Court goes against you? Should you be subject to coercive efforts such as shunning, public shaming, being protested, and forced out of your livelihood?

I’m asking the questions to carry a thought to its logical conclusion. Because people who police other people’s thoughts and attack them for disagreement tend not to be people who think things all the way through.

I’m hoping that we’ve reached the end of that pendulum swing (the disallowing dissent from current popular beliefs, particularly those in progressive/social-justice-y minds) and moving back to actual tolerance and respectful disagreement and dialogue.

This past week there was the attempt at public shaming of Chip and Joanna Gaines, hosts of HGTV’s Fixer Upper. I’m a fan. I’ve binge watched the seasons available on Netflix, and I’m glad a new season is underway. We’ll be within an hour of their store in Waco during the holidays, and we’re trying to work out a visit.

Chip and Joanna Gaines of HGTV's Fixer Upper
Photo from HGTV on Twitter, also found here

One of the things I love about the show is their happy family. They show the kids, at home around their farm. And they show how the family works around the parents’ busy schedules to make sure there is time for kids. There’s a little bit of family in every show.

They’re Christian. They’ve been very open about their faith in multiple interviews. Joanna has talked about how God led her, first to close down the store she loved to spend time with her small kids. And then, when it was time, step out and build something even better. Their growing business isn’t just about hard work, skill, and Joanna’s exceptionally good taste; it’s about using their talents to serve others and glorify God.

The attack in the press, BuzzFeed, was underhanded, and couldn’t even qualify as journalism. They spread the story that Chip and Joanna attend a church where the pastor is against “same-sex marriage.” There was no interview of the pastor; there was nothing in his behavior to show that he has attacked homosexuals or even been unkind to them. There was only assumption and inference. And, by association it was implied that the Gaineses ought to have publicly denounced their own pastor. And, failing that, maybe their show ought to be boycotted.

But, instead of some of the torches and pitchforks we’ve seen surrounding this issue, even people who support “same-sex marriage” were saying, that’s not only bad journalism, it’s just the wrong thing to do.

In a Heritage Foundation panel discussion, “Decision 2016: What’s Next for Conservatives?” Ben Domenech of The Federalist talked about this in a way that made me hopeful:

I don’t think we should underestimate how significant an issue the fact was in this election, that we had an election after the progressive left in America had announced an end to the culture wars. They were confident that the culture wars were over, “and we won. And we’re going to go around the battlefield shooting the wounded. And we’re going to continue to do that in a very public way. And we’re going to single out American individuals, private citizens, who simply have what is, from our perspective, the wrong views. The wrong views about God. The wrong views about family. The wrong views about the way that we live.”

I think it is very interesting what happened over this past week with the targeting of the HGTV hosts Chip and Joanna Gaines, merely for the fact that they went to a church where the pastor was a Christian and believed Christian things that one would expect to see if you went to a church in Texas and heard Christians talking about Christianity. And the fact that there were a number of members of the media, the left media included, who stood up and said, “This is unfair. You shouldn’t do this. You shouldn’t target people this way.”

I think that we are in an entirely new space culturally, about where there are a number of people on the left who recognize, “Hey, there are a lot of Americans who don’t agree with us about things, and maybe we should acknowledge that those views are acceptable to have within the public square. Maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to embark on this type of targeting.”

I think, under this administration, you are going to see an amazing thing happen, which is that the left is suddenly going to rediscover that they like civil liberty, that maybe federalism is a pretty good idea. Maybe not the entire country needs to be governed by the same rules or expectations whereby a centralized government in Washington… I think you’re going to see them rediscover the fact that, hey, local things are good—and not just food. And that’s something that I think is going to be a very beneficial trend. And it’s one that conservatives, that people who believe in the Constitution, should be prepared to seize a hold of. Because, if the outcome of that is to devolve power back to our citizens, to our communities, to our neighborhoods, to our states, that’s something that we’re all going to benefit from.

Chip and Joanna Gaines said nothing during the week of attacks on them. Then Chip finally tweeted this:

Chip Gaines

✔@chippergaines

Regardless of our decision to make a statement about all this craziness, or not, I ask that people please! respect @KateAurthur & @ginamei

3:15 AM - 3 Dec 2016

He asks for respect. That is all. After taking the attacks without so much as a single defensive grumble, he appeals to common decency. In other words, he has responded as a good Christian.

Maybe there’s something in Christian beliefs that build people like this, or at least people who strive to be like this as much as we have learned so far.

I don’t know the anything more about Kate Aurthur, who wrote the non-news piece with the insinuating headline. I’m not inclined to shun, shame, and protest until she is fired and blacklisted. But I’d like to point out the irony of her claim—after what she just did to Chip and Joanna—that Christians are immoral. And I suggest she open up a Bible and look up Matthew 7:4 or Luke 6:42 and read about motes and beams in the eye.