The Oregon Standoff

It's too bad that somebody had to die during the arrests of the protesters in Oregon this past week. While it was frustrating to see this band of armed men thumbing their noses at the law and making veiled threats of violence, I understand why the FBI handled it the way that they did. They have learned from fiascoes like Ruby Ridge and Waco that surrounding these types of protesters and cutting them off only escalates the situation and creates martyrs. The federal agents were able to arrest most of the protesters with little incident during one of their many trips out of the wildlife refuge. What I question is why this kind of approach is not used in urban crime situations.

There has been heavy press coverage of police shootings of unarmed civilians over the past year. Some of those killed have been engaged in aggressive behavior toward police, one in which witnesses claimed that he had attempted to take the police officer's gun and was charging the officer - perhaps it could be argued that there was justification in using deadly force - perhaps not. Some of those killed had been allegedly involved in criminal activity and had been shot while fleeing the police, one was a little kid with a toy gun, several were completely unarmed. Some of the justification for the police officers' response was that the officer's felt threatened. Some of the justification by the public was that these individuals would not have been killed if:

• They hadn't been running 
• They hadn't been involved in criminal activity
• They had obeyed the orders from police

Fair enough, engaging in criminal behavior, disobeying police orders and running away are all actions that put these people in a  position to be shot and killed. But since when is it a capital offense to run from a police officer? Since when is shoplifting punishable by execution? Shouldn't an officer be damn sure that his or her or the lives of the public life is in danger before shooting someone who, according to the law, is innocent until proven guilty? It's okay to kill someone just because you feel nervous? Perhaps the restraint shown by federal agents in Oregon should be practiced by officers in urban areas. What's the difference? Maybe it's a difference in the way whites and blacks are treated? maybe it's a difference between urban and rural settings? Or maybe the fact that the Oregon protesters were heavily armed and could fight back was the crucial difference. Police had no problem going in with SWAT teams to dislodge Occupy protesters, including in Lincoln - these protesters, no matter what one might say about their methods or their manners, were unarmed. The police in the St. Louis area lined up, with military gear, pointing weapons at protesters was a chilling sight. 

A related issue involves the fact of these protesters being armed; not only armed, but brandishing these weapons and threatening to use them. Can anyone tell me with a straight face that urban youths, especially black, marching through the streets waving weapons around would receive a quick and decisive response, while people like the Oregon protesters are free to make their points fully armed. The protests at some American mosques and Islamic Community Centers were pretty scary; you have to wonder if a bunch of armed Muslims protesting at a church or Jewish Center, or a bunch of armed black people protesting at a Federal Building would be treated with kid gloves. 

We haven't seen the last of protests like the one in Oregon. I believe that Cliven Bundy still owes over a million dollars in grazing fees after the government gave him back his cattle in the aftermath of a protest where his supports pointed guns at federal agents. Many of these groups have a view that the federal government either has no authority over them, or in extreme cases is an illegal entity. In some cases, like the use of range land, they may have a point, but they seem uninterested in changing the law, just in flouting it. 

What Good Are Newspapers?

Once upon a time, newspapers were the main source of news. Not only did they report on the mundane events of the day, but investigative journalism was "a thing" and you could count on reporters to dig up items that embarrassed politicians and big business and helped them stay accountable. Not so much anymore. Declining ad revenues due to fewer people reading papers and the proliferation of online journalism has reduced the staff in most newsrooms. This has affected small, local newspapers much harder than the big city dailies. And with declining readership, and just possibly the average reader being stupider than in times past local newspapers seem to devote more time and energy and puff pieces and so-called human interest stories than hard news, or even "news" at all. Our own local rag, the Lincoln Journal-Star is a prime example. Some years ago many of their long-time reports, including crime and political reporters were laid off, while emphasis was placed on their "Living" section columnists. The front section of the paper, the one devoted to national news is thin and anemic and most of the news comes from wire services like Associated Press. Even local stories rely on press releases from the stories' subject than on any reporting by staff. Recently a locally owned  grocery chain decided to close one of it's locations, but was keeping the information from its employees. The Journal-Star was informed of this and was given documentation to back it up, but did not publish this information. Were they protecting an advertiser? Did the stories about puppies and grade school science fairs crowd out the information? The story, if it could be called that, finally made the paper only when the chain made it's own announcement. The story was nothing more than the chain's press release, briefly mentioning the store close while devoting a lot of space to promoting their expansion and remodel at another location. I still enjoy reading newspapers, I read the New York Times every Sunday; I worked for an Omaha newspaper for many years, but in general, newspapers are all but dead, at least locally.

The Retail World Part One: The Mythical Work "Family"

I was watching a comedy series on Netflix the other day. One of the characters was bringing in doughnuts and other treats for his "work family". It got me to thinking about how easy it is to view the people that you work with every day as equivalent to your real family. After all, you're probably spending more time with the people at work than at home. At my last job I usually got up at 6:00am and was at work at 8:00am. My wife was generally asleep; I worked until 6:00pm and usually made it home by 6:30 and was in bed by 10:00. So that's 3.5 hours with my wife and 10 hours (9 if I made it out for lunch) at work (plus 8 hours of sleep). Aside from details of start time and quitting time, every job I've ever had was basically the same.

The other day I listened to a segment on NPR about a guy who was out of work. He made a statement that got my attention: he said that work is like a family only if you're talking about a family that completely forgets about you if you move to another town. Upon reflection, I think I'll add that most families don't fire you or lay you off when times get tough.

The place where you work, no matter how nice your co-workers are, no matter how cool your boss is, no matter how responsive the company president is, is a place from where the owners of the company expect to extract a profit. If you are not contributing to the generation of profit dollars, then you are expendable. Any benefits that you receive are not extended because they like you, or care about you; you receive benefits, whether they are vacation days, increased pay or recognition, in order to be more competitive in attracting competent employees. Companies that talk about "The XYZ Corp. Family" are blowing smoke up your ass. They want you to give your all for the company, like you would for your family, but usually do not reciprocate. Why should they?

Well one reason, which I briefly alluded to, is to be more competitive. The company where I until recently toiled, was for many years well below the local average in wages paid to their workers, including managers. If you were lucky enough to work in one of the reasonably profitable stores in certain positions, you might earn a bonus, but equivalent positions in smaller stores saw no bonuses for years. Certain positions commanded a decent salary, but most of the managers and other employees were paid insultingly low wages. Raises were tightly controlled and could be as low as 15 cents per hour per year (or 1% for managers); a redesign of the evaluation form used to determine raises made it more difficult to achieve higher increase levels. This went on for many years.

Several years ago, the corporate leadership began to harass the Human Resources Managers and Store Directors because there was an unprecedented number of open positions, implying that those responsible for hiring and recruiting were somehow not doing their jobs. HR and store management knew the reason: unemployment in Lincoln was hovering around 2%. When unemployment is low, the power dynamic shifts to the worker and away from management, especially in regards to entry-level positions. Many non-management employees were making wages barely above minimum wage for demanding, stressful jobs; it wasn't that difficult to find another job for a few cents more an hour when things got tough. When hiring, the competition was tough for potential employees with a good work ethic. Then, one day, someone at the central office woke up and realized that unemployment was low and that minimum wage, which had just been increased to $8.00/hour, would be going up to $9.00/hour at the end of the year. In the wake of this revelation an initiative to reevaluate pay scales was started. Pitched as evidence that the company cared about its employees, minimum hiring pay rates were increased and pay scales for most positions were redone, resulting in raises for virtually all employees.

Why was this done? Not because the employees were family, but because if it wasn't done, there would soon be no employees around that they could pretend were family. And what about the recent closing of one of their locations? Not only did they lie about their intentions when directly asked about it over the course of several years, but once information leaked out special meetings were held in which corporate leaders convinced employees that what was actually going to happen wasn't going to happen. Is that how you treat your family?

When you view companies as sources of profit and employees as the means to that profit and, as an employee, you are at peace with being a means to an end, with no expectation that the board of directors love you, your feelings won't be hurt when you're screwed over. If you think that you're a family, eventually you'll be disappointed.

Western Civilization: Individual Liberty Part Four; Regulation & Libertarianism

One of the hallmarks of contemporary libertarianism is the belief that when it comes to government, less is better. The fewer rules and regulations inhibiting our ability to live freely, to enjoy the "blessings of liberty", the better. Big business, naturally, opposes those laws and ordinances which restrict opportunities to make more money; entrenched social and ethnic groups oppose changes that erode their ascendancy, those who already control the government resist including those with whom they disagree. While it can be argued quite reasonably that there is such a thing as government overreach and that some regulations just make no sense, in the main, government regulation is often just an extension of the principle of protecting the minority from the tyranny of the majority, or the powerless from the powerful. Many modern day libertarians, and even some political conservatives, would have us believe that this would be a better country if there was no regulation, no government oversight and that the free market and common sense be allowed to dominate.

Here are a few of the things that government regulation and authority helps guarantee:

• The police - while there are definitely problems with how some police officers or even whole departments operate, imagine the chaos if there was no law enforcement. We would truly be in a Wild West scenario
• Property rights - the big business owner next door cannot, with impunity, annex your backyard for a parking lot
• Copyrights and patents - if you invent something or create something, the guy down the street who has a bigger bank account can't steal it from you
• Workplace protections - including OSHA regulations, building & fire codes, minimum wage, overtime...research early 1900's working conditions and you'll see more
• Environmental protections - the pea soup smog in many of our big cities has improved greatly over the last few decades

Do regulations sometimes go too far? Do they often make little sense? Sure, the constant tweaking and adjusting can be irritating; sometimes they're just intrusive. But unless you're one of the Koch brothers, you're benefiting from government regulation. 

Speaking of the Koch brothers, many of today's libertarians have a political philosophy that boils down to "don't make any rules that affect my ability to make more money". Granted, many in the movement are sincere and have an ideological basis for their libertarian positions, and are consistent in their politics, but in my opinion, most are opportunists. Even the protesting ranchers out in Nevada and Oregon are in it primarily to have access to government land with out paying the grazing fees (basically, that's rent) - they want to exercise all the perks of ownership without paying for it. 

In my view, while rugged individualism sounds romantic, sounds American, we wouldn't have America with a government to help guarantee and protect our rights. 

Do Christians, Muslims & Jews Worship the Same God?

I'm a little behind on my topical musings, but I want to address a little dust up at Wheaton College not long ago. A professor there was fired for stating that Christians and Muslims worship the same god. There was quite a response from various corners of Christendom, sometimes a very angry response: hell no, we don't worship the same God! Most of the Christian denial of identity between the Muslim & Christian views of God hinges on the differences between the New Testament and the Koran. Let us stipulate, without poring over the details, that the Koran and the New Testament say very different things about the nature of God. Some Christians (and perhaps some Muslims as well) would conclude from this that the "God" discussed in each of these books is not the same entity. What is often ignored in these discussions is that the God described in the Old Testament is also very different than the God of the New Testament. Although there have been sects, like the Marcionites, who took a position that they were in fact different, the majority of Christians take for granted that the same God is being referred to in all the books of the bible, plus the apocrypha, pseudepigrapha, Church Fathers etc. This is a reasonable assumption to make, since Jesus, Paul and everyone else who wrote or was quoted in the New Testament operated under this assumption. The fact that God, in the Old Testament, is portrayed as an angry, jealous, rule-making tribal deity, while in the New Testament he is the merciful and loving father figure who tells us to turn the other cheek, is not something that is often dwelt upon. In the Old Testament he often urges his people, a formerly nomadic tribe, to commit what we would nowadays call genocide to acquire territory, while his son Jesus preaches a more universal doctrine, and tells his followers to love their neighbors. Theologians devote a lot of time to reconciling these differences, not to mention the contradictions and discrepancies within the Gospels themselves.

The three great monotheistic faiths, Islam, Christianity and Judaism, all trace their beginnings to Abraham, and before him to Noah and Adam. Christianity and Islam are both referring to the founders of Judaism and the Hebrew bible and the God described therein as their foundation and as their God. All three are talking about the same God, but are saying different things about him.

If we are going to conclude that Muslims and Christians are worshipping a different God because their respective holy books describe him differently, and their followers view him differently, then logically we would have to conclude that Christians and Jews are worshipping different Gods. Take this a step farther and note that there is great variety among Christians. All accept the bible, especially the New Testament, as their holy book, but interpretations vary wildly. Think back to the 2012 Presidential election, where it was suggested that Mormon Mitt Romney would not receive votes of "real" Christians. I was once part of a Christian sect that viewed the bulk of Christian denominations as "not real Christians"; most mainstream Christians returned the favor. I recall seeing Catholicism described, in a history textbook published by a Christian University, as a "false religion".

Of course this is not to say that, in the view of Christians, that is Islam is equally "correct" or true, or that Christianity is equally valid in the eyes of Muslims, but that they both have very different views about the same entity, the same God. When I was growing up, there was no question about whether Muslims were worshipping the same God as Christians, but over the last dozen years, anti-Muslim sentiment in the wake of terrorist acts perpetrated by self-identifying Muslims, has spurred people to find as many differences between themselves and "the other" as possible.

Perhaps spending less time searching for differences and more time looking for common ground might result in less hatred.

Western Civilization: Individual Liberty Part Three; When It Goes Too Far

Individual liberty is one of the cornerstones of Western Civilization, but many members of our society take it too far. Despite the fact that in general we value individual rights and do not (again, in general) require the subordination of the individual to the "greater good", sometimes we have to look at how specific actions affect the greater community. 

One example is taxes. There is a vocal, if numerically insignificant, segment of the population that does not believe that taxes are legal and object strenuously to the imposition of any taxes. This goes hand-in-hand with a belief that the federal government does not have authority to enforce any internal laws and that the county sheriff is the highest authority in the land. Many of these people are fiercely independent, ultra-individualists if you will. But there has to be some central authority, it is unrealistic to believe that if we were all free from national and state government "interference", including regulations and enforcement. Absent a legitimate government, ad hoc "governments" will spring up. There are abundant examples of what happens when there is either no government or it breaks down:

• The "Wild West" - there was little to no law in the new and unorganized territory, but people made their own law. Those with the most guns made the rules
• Somalia - after years of civil war, the country degenerated into numerous competing warlords and militias, including religious groups
• Mafia strongholds - ineffectual police departments allowed the rise of criminal gangs, which for all intents and purposes, ran their neighborhoods and sometimes whole cities
• Middle Eastern nations where dictators were toppled - the freshest examples are Libya and Syria, although Iraq and Afghanistan fall into this category as well. Religious sects and ethnic groups carved out their own areas of influence. The Kurds took advantage of this opportunity to begin to found their own state - and then there's the so-called Islamic State - groups that moved into the leadership vacuum and imposed their own "order". 
• Even going farther back, virtually every one of the medieval kingdoms in Europe or Asia was the descendant of somebody who was strong enough, or had enough backers, to impose his will over everyone else. 

It is human nature to chafe against somebody - whether it be the parents of a typical teenager, the sergeant over a group of soldiers, the manager of a retail establishment, the assistant principal in high school - telling us what to do. And the government is certainly in the business of telling us what to do! And we don't like it, especially when we think our way is better. But government, like nature, abhors a vacuum. If there is no government, something or someone will step in to order things to their liking, usually at the expense of someone else. Do those who oppose the authority, or even the very existence, of government imagine that we would all live peacefully side-by-side, everyone respecting the rights of everyone else? History, as illustrated by the above examples, teaches otherwise. Does anyone imagine that if tomorrow there was no central government that the "independent" ranchers out West wouldn't be fighting each other to guarantee that their own interests would be safe? And that anyone (Native tribes, small landholders, town dwellers) who got in their way would be dealt with? Might would make right. In a few generations, the descendants of whoever had the most guns and supporters would be the new "government". 

Western Civilization: The Rule of Law

One of the concepts that came out of the European tradition was the rule of law, in contrast to rule by decree or fiat. As the doctrine of the divine right of kings faded, and the Westphalian nation-state became the norm, the idea that there were laws that all were subject to became more widespread. While we tend to think of this as a modern development, the idea of the rule of law goes back to the Greek philosophers, Plato and Aristotle among them.  While we are a long way off from perfect application of the ideal of the rule of law, it has become so ingrained in our thoughts processes and expectations that we feel offended, feel a sense of unfairness, when we see examples of this principle being ignored or circumvented. When the United States or European nations engage in nation building, such as our occupation of Japan and Germany after World War II or in Iraq and Afghanistan, one of the things that we seek to impose is the rule of law, and attempt to educate the occupied nation's leaders in its tenets. This doesn't often work as well as we'd like it to. On one hand, when we "rebuilt" nations like Japan and Germany, we were in a sense helping them revert to an earlier model. Germany's Nazi period was an aberration - they had been steadily moving away from the divine right of kings for generations and it was likely a relief to go back to an organized society. Japan was different in that there was a tradition of quasi-feudalism and military rule, but they were a society that valued order. The cultures in the Middle East are different. In many ways they are locked in the same framework that Europe was in the Middle Ages: the ascendancy of religion with the addition of a family/clan/tribal based culture. Many people in these nations see Western institutions as merely another way to promote their own group's interests. In Iraq, the offices of President and Prime Minister rotate among the main religious/ethnic groups and the top executives use their time in power to aggrandize themselves and their families. Police chiefs use their authority to oppress other religious groups and those with different tribal affiliations. 

So, which of these systems is better? Some might say that we have corruption and backroom deal-making in the Western nations, Some might allege that there is one type of justice for the rich and another for the poor, one type for whites and another for blacks, that "technicalities" allow the guilty to go free and that bigotry causes the innocent to be imprisoned or even executed. Every bit of this is true. But despite the fact that the system is often implemented poorly, there is a system and there is an expectation that it will work. Not only that, but we have seen incremental improvements and protections over the decades. The things that we dislike about our system, the things that we attempt to correct, are the very things that are at the heart of other systems. 

Being realistic, we cannot impose the rule of law on other cultures, but that doesn't mean that we can't encourage it and facilitate it when members of other societies express and desire to change their own countries. 

Western Civilization: Christianity as a Unifying Force Within a Secular State Part Two; Disunity

Between the initial waves of colonists and the establishment of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights there was a movement in the North American colonies that we now call the Great Awakening (or First Great Awakening - there are now 3 or 4 movements referred to by that name). The First Great Awakening was a religious revival movement that emphasized a need for personal morality and piety as well a individual study of the bible in contrast to passive listening to sermons. It is generally considered to have occurred from 1730-1740. Despite having spurred a huge change in the way many people viewed religion and despite many passive churchgoers turning into sincere, active and devoted Christians, it was by no means a unifying force. There was much disagreement within denominations and even within congregations. Many denominations experienced schisms as some people held on to the old way while others embraced the new ideas. There was another movement, retrospectively referred to as the Second Great Awakening that took place between 1790-1800, just as the new nation was getting started, this second movement was more concentrated on bringing non-churchgoers into established denominations, but it also resulted in the creation of new denominations. This was the atmosphere wherein the Constitution was written, as well as the First Amendment.

It has been well-established that the United States is not a Christian nation de jure, I don't think that I need to go into detail about the lack of any mention of God, Jesus or the Bible in the Constitution, or the fact that no religious test could constitutionally be made for any public office or that established churches were banned. But many still make the assertion that despite all of this, we were (and are) de facto a Christian nation insofar as our culture is Christian. A case could be made that the great majority of Americans at the time of the founding were Christians and that the religious convictions of the people influenced the way things were done. But was there a universally agreed upon definition of what it meant to be Christian?

While some differences among Christian denominations were a matter of church governance (i.e. was each congregation independent, or were they overseen by a regional or national council? Was there a heirarchy, bishops etc?) other differences were more serious and resulted in schisms and mutual excommunications. At the founding of the United States there were hundreds of denominations all at odds with each other over a variety of issues. As time went by, even to the present day, the differences became even more acute. Perhaps an extremely broad, watered-down, generic Christianity could be characterized as our common faith, but would a Christianity of generalities be distinguishable from any other faith?

In my opinion the idea of Christianity as a unifying force can be better characterized a tool to promote "us against them" by demagogues, since there really is no "us" that can be strictly defined by religion. Before there were more than a tiny percentage of Jews, Buddhists or Muslims in the country, Christians demonized other Christians; "them" were the Irish, or the Italians or the Chinese. Naturally the idea of non-establishment in the early days was seen in the context of numerous Christian (or more accurately Protestant) sub-groupings, and our founders sought to keep them all on equal footing, not imagining that other religions, or even the non-religious, would ever constitute a noticeable percentage of the population. But things change. Catholics upset the dominance of Protestants, Jews (in some urban areas) upset the dominance of Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Pagans and Atheists all make up growing sectors of our nation. The balance among Christians must now change to a balance among all beliefs.