Civic Passport

I finally finished my first book of the year. It’s been a busy year so far and on top of that busyness, I’ve piled too many substack and RSS subscriptions that have kept me more occupied than I would ideally like. I’ve been trying to rethink my intake of those forms of reading to make more space for books and I’m aiming to achieve a better balance there.

The book I did finish is one I started before the election actually. It was placed on pause for a while and then I was able to take it up again to be able to mark it complete. That book is “The Dead Zone” by Stephen King. “The Dead Zone” asks the question, what if someone woke up from a coma and was able to see the future, but only when they touch another person or something someone had touched? In my opinion, the what if question is the best way to read a Stephen King story. He himself has said in his book On Writing that that is how he conceives of ideas for his stories. What if a young teenager who was picked on also had powers of telekinesis? What if there was a cemetery that could bring someone back to life? What if there was a new superflu that raged across the world leaving only a handful of survivors who were immune?

In “The Dead Zone” Johnny Smith is a teacher who drops off his date and her home and then proceeds to get into a car accident and spends five years in a coma. The story spans the decade of the 1970’s and in the book we see Johnny come to grips with a girlfriend that got married, a vietnam war that came to an end, a president that was disgraced and resigned due to watergate, and much more. He also has a mother who goes slightly crazy with fundamentalist religion, but could also have her own slight powers of prophecy.

Johnny goes on to become a sensation who can peer into peoples' futures and prevent tragedy from happening. On occasions he can also see into a person’s past or pressent. At the same time that this is happening, there is a serial killer in the town of Castle Rock, Maine and a ruthless and charismatic politician who is rising in a house district in New Hampshire. Johnny has to navigate these and other difficulties that no one else would need to deal with, and him paying a heavy cost for doing so.

It’s actually one of his deeper books in my opinion. We get to see Stephen King work out what exactly it would do to someone who has these powers. What kind of toll would tha take on their emotional health, their physical health, and their relationships? There are some minor holes that one can identify in the logic of the story and like many of his books, he has a little bit of trouble sticking the ending, but overall to me this is an enjoyable read and I recommend it to anyone who wants a good mysterious and thrilling yarn.

For years I have struggled with prayer. What it really boils down to is a version of the problem of evil, and almost entirely involves intercessory prayer. There are millions of people around the world who live in absolute poverty. It’s not just that they live on little, but they live on nothing. They have kids who are dying of starvation or incurable (or curable) diseases. They aren’t healed or fed. Wives see their husbands and mothers their sons go off to war and killed for territorial gain or the glory of the tyrants. And even in our first world societies, people see loved ones die of cancer, killed in accidents or die on the operating table. In all of these some having prayers offered, and others not, but in all of these that end, not being answered. Yet so many Christians will thank God for answering prayers for getting money to pay for their apartment, or something trivial. They will praise God for cancer cured in a loved one, while someone else’s child dies because their parent had Aids and passed it on to them. Why should God honor my intercessory prayer when another person’s prayer goes unanswered, or someone dies that no one is praying for? None of it seems fair or right. In most cases I find it next to impossible to pray of my own volition. If someone asks me, I will say a prayer because I want to honor their request.

Yes I can at times doubt God’s existence or the resurrection. But those things don’t trouble me like the above does. Frankly, I find both doctrines easier to believe, than intercessory prayer. I read scripture almost every day, and offer various forms of prayers. However, asking God for things and hoping/expecting them to be granted just doesn’t strike me as right. Maybe someday I will find a way to reconcile this inner tension within my faith. For me this is actually less about belief in a loving God. The teachings of Jesus and the demonstration in his own life do actually square that circle for me.

Never Trump conservatives and liberals are often accused of having Trump Derangement Syndrome. This being the case where in Trump supporters eyes, Trump opponents simply don’t like Trump or some policies because they can’t seem to get past the bad orange man whose only problem is the inability to put his phone down. His talk simply prevents those who are opposed from seeing how wonderful Trump actually is.

Those of us opposed to Trump know that that isn’t the case. There are far worse things about Trump than simply his diarrhea of the mouth. However, almost 10 years into Trump dominating the political landscape, I’ve noticed how one particular issue completely clouds the judgment of Trump supporters to an unreasonable extent. That issue is abortion. For opponents of abortion there is no more important issue than ending abortion on demand, and all other issues and politicians are subordinate to it.

The Bible itself is fairly silent on the matter of abortion. Yes, there are a few passages that refer to God knowing a person before they are born. But that is really as far as it goes. There are other passages that go in the direction of indicating that the unborn baby is not a person in the fullest sense. In Exodus 21:22-25, there is a law where a person causing a woman to miscarry by striking her doesn’t receive the death penalty as is the case for all other instances when a person kills another person. Instead the punishment is a fine to make up for the loss of property. In Numbers 5:11-31, a wife is accused by her husband of having adultery. In order to prove her innocence she is required to ordeal the trial of the bitters. She must drink a brew and if a miscarriage is triggered, than the wife is guilty, and if no miscarriage occurs than the wife is innocent of the accusations. Neither of these stories/laws are ringing endorsements of personhood from conception.

I want to say up front though that I don’t think any of these passages give us insight into the morality of abortion or whether it should be legal. There certainly are interpretations of the preceding verses that support the position of abortion opponents. At the very least though what this should communicate to us is that we don’t get a straightforward answer on abortion from scripture. To foist one understanding on all people, regardless of what they believe, is not fair to them.

I for one do not find abortion to be a positive good for society and I don’t think it’s good for Democrats to engage in celebrating it. At the same time those who need to resort to abortion should not be shamed either. It ought to be treated primarily in society as a medical issue and a personal ethical choice. But instead abortion opponents support a party that believes in cutting taxes to benefit the wealthy, while cutting spending and refusing to endorse programs that would aid those people who most need the assistance to provide an alternative to getting abortions.

The Bible is far more clear on caring for the poor, widows, orphans, and foreigners. Those who are outside and in the margins of society. The lease of these, if you will. There is no doubt whose side God is on there. Opposition to abortion completely warps this perspective though.

Simply put, at least part of the reason that Trump is president again, is because of abortion derangement syndrome.

One of the things I want to use this blog for is documenting my thoughts and feelings over the next four years of the Trump presidency. Obviously there is much to be uncertain of as we ultimately don’t know what he is going to do. As Matt Yglesias has pointed out in his latest newsletter at Slow Boring Trump is a liar and his followers know he is a liar and that is part of the reason they like him. I think that a lot of his policies will be bad for the economy and our civic culture. But I’m also concerned as someone who serves in the military with his foreign policy and how that will impact my life and the life of my family.

Today he is expected to sign close to or more than 100 executive orders. Doing everything from declaring national emergencies at the border and energy to changing the names of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and Mt. Denali to Mt. McKinley. Makes me think of Governors of Maine LePage and Mills trading over what the sign at the border of Maine and New Hampshire on I-95 says. Thankfully he also clarified for everyone that there are only two genders, male and female (hopefully the sarcasm there can be detected). The big item that the news media seems to be taking is Trump saying that his inauguration brings to end a period of American decline.

I should say up front that my biggest concerns are less about Trump making himself into an authoriatrian dictator, and more that our political institutions will corrupt from within and the free culture that we have known that is based on our political system will slowly deteriorate. Granted that this has been happening off and on for a while, having a bunch of very rich dudes able to basically manipulate our system with money, while others exploit the people seems like a recipe for disaster. Oligarchy combined with kleptocracy is how many republics have met their fate. Hopefully by keeping our eyes open and thinking through what is happening we can arrest the rot that threatens to overwhelm the system.

That being said, I don’t think this has to mean the end of the American experiment in self-governance. This country has gone through many dark periods in the past and I see no reason why it could not emerge from this as well. I also don’t want to just offer up cynical takes either and disparage everything the new administration does. I want to tell the truth as I see it with full honesty. That is what any thinking person ought to offer at this time where there will be so much lying and deceit.

I like to share on thanskgicing proclamations from Presidents of the past. Usually it’s Presidents Washington and Lincoln, and this year I’m sharing the post by Abraham Lincoln from October 3, 1963. I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving in America and enjoys time with their friends and family.

Washington DC, October 3, 1863

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

William H. Seward, Secretary of State

I was reading Taeggan Goddard’s excellent Political Wire and he had a great piece of analysis, called “Out of Touch”. It’s behind a gateway I believe, but he highlighted that the one thing that all the pieces by Democrats trying to figure out what went wrong have in common is that Democrats are out of touch with the people whose votes they need. I think that is the smartest piece I have come across so far. Democrats haven’t been able to truly connect with people they need for a long time. This is why they didn’t believe that Vice President Harris genuinely had their best interest in mind. Why they think that Democrats are more focused on trans-rights than the working class voters they need to win. As others have pointed out, this isn’t a matter of policy to the extent that President Biden had many policies that were good for workers. But he was not a good spokesperson, and any good was overshadowed by the inflation that lasted for two years.

I don’t think there are easy answers here, but clearly new leaders are needed that can connect to people in a new way. It’s not just a matter of formulating a new message and pandering. Because Democrats believe that government can be used to do good for people, policies should be able to be formulated that can meet people where they are at and the problems that they face. Democrats need to prioritize policies that will open doors to allow people to move up in society and encourage economic growth that redounds to the benefit of all Americans. As important as redistributing that growth is, growth in itself needs to be a priority. People don’t just want to feel like they are dependent, they also want to feel like they are getting ahead.

I really enjoy the work of Aaron Ross Powell. His work for liberty has been tireless for many years and he has had some wise words about the election. I want to highlight this blog post of his in how to approach the coming period where the freedom of minorities and the vulnerable may be under threat. We need awareness, mindful awareness, and compassionate awareness. The cause of pushing freedom for ALL people never ends. Remember, it’s not about ME. Don’t tread on ANYONE!

One other thought I have is that President Obama wanted to be a transformation president who ushered in a new Democratic majority. Instead, with Trump’s win it feels more like Obama was actually the last president of an old order. We have a new one that Biden never actually fully rolled back. Democrats will be pivoting from here and we will see how things unfold.

So Donald Trump has been elected president once again. I have had a feeling for a while that this would happen, but was hoping it would not be the case. It turns out the sense of doom felt by Democrats was justified. Mr. Trump will take the presidency having most likely secured the popular vote for the first time for him, as well as the first time for a Republican in 20 years. It troubles me the extent to which the American people have been so clearly willing to entrust themselves to a man who is so fully unfit for office, especially when there was a person running against him in Harris who was plenty qualified for it. What I want to do though here is step back and take a look at the election and what might be gleaned from it. I think an important aspect here is how much Biden was disapproved of by the electorate primarily because of inflation, regardless of how much blame he actually bears for that.

But it does bring me to what I think is an important observation about people and their motivations. People crave security. I’m definitely not saying that this is the only reason Trump won. People are complex and there are all kinds of motivations going on underneath. However, I do think that security is a unifying theme that bridges the reasons that people voted for Trump. I think people are primarily motivated by concerns about security, whether that be economic or otherwise. The pandemic itself was a massive breach of peoples feelings of security of their health, and then inflation brought fears of peoples’ feelings of security in regards to the economy. Add massive migrant flows to the equation and the recipe is ripe for people turning to someone who pledges to bring them the security they are craving. Democrats did try to play on another aspect of peoples security, and that would be the security of our form of government, but ultimately that is an abstraction that just doesn’t cut through to most people. When Biden was elected people were hoping to go back to the way things were before the pandemic, and unfortunately, they don’t feel like he did that. So they hope that Trump will be able to do that. Color me skeptical.

The best opportunity Democrats would have had would have been for President Biden to have announced in 2023 that he was not running for reelection and allow an actual primary to take place that would have been competitive and have brought candidates who had no ties to the current administration. It is still possible though that Trump might have been any Democrat in hindsight, but that’s a tough counterfactual.

People turn to government for security. They always have, and always will. When there is an absence of legitimate forms of power, then illegitimate forms will take its place in a vacuum. Democrats failed to address those concerns, and we all pay the price now. Liberalism must find a way to return to addressing people’s needs for security in a way that marries the principles of liberal democracy and capitalism, to their immediate needs. Somewhere along the way that plot seems to have been lost. It is no longer to enough just to say “Trump bad” and “GOP bad”. Lord willing, this is the last time Trump is able to run anyway. Democrats lost ground across the board and will need some extensive soul searching to repair itself and win back people’s trust.

For a few years now the country has been dealing with skyrocketing housing prices that were driven by a variety of factors. A large factor is that the supply of housing never actually caught back up after the Great Recession. Combined with increased demand during and after the pandemic, along with interest rates that were sent up because of inflation, pushed housing costs beyond what many are able to afford.

In the current election cycle, both candidates have (sort of) put forward policies to address the price of housing. Vice President Harris wants to incentivize the building of more housing as well as provide inducements for first time home buyers to help with costs. Former President Trump wants to deport millions of illegal immigrants because he blames housing prices on the immigrants “invading” our borders. It seems plainly obvious to me that the Vice President’s plan is much closer to actually addressing the problem of housing costs. Supply has simply not kept up with demand in any meaningful way.

Given how close the polls are, I want to stop and think about what if Trump wins. Undoubtedly, many of his supporters believe his rhetoric about illegal immigrants causing housing inflation, and even those who don’t agree, but vote for him still probably don’t have a problem with that rhetoric. If Trump wins, without any movement to actually build more housing, I’m inclined to think that people don’t actually want more housing built. There are perhaps more people that are NIMBYs (not in my backyard) than YIMBYs (Yes in my backyard) people. Perhaps, what people actually want isn’t to address problems in the country, but rather to have a scapegoat to blame the ills of the country on and take it out on said scapegoat. In this case the scapegoat being undocumented migrants coming across the southern border. Illegal immigration (and “bad” trade deals) really have become the blame for anything and everything that has gone wrong in this country. If we simply get rid of illegal immigrants and set tariffs across the board at 10-20%, then Trump will have made America great again.

Now none of this is actually true. Illegal immigrants have not caused the inflation in housing prices or in general. Illegal immigrants have not caused massive crime waves. In fact, undocumented migrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans, regardless of anecdotes people have. But we increasingly live in a society where evidence and facts don’t matter. What matters whatever our tribe says against them. Throughout history the scapegoat mechanism has been responsible for the deaths of millions of people. Rene Girard laid out a theory of the scapegoat and his theory of mimetic desire. He actually had a quite original atonement theory in Christianity where Jesus is the final scapegoat. The Jewish leaders blamed him for all their problems as did the Romans in that region. Christians should know better, and yet too often we don’t.

If our country really is in the place where so many of our fellow citizens would rather scapegoat an entire people rather than deal with facts and evidence to actually address the real situation, then we are not in a good place as a society and I fear where that will lead us. Hopefully November 5 doesn’t turn out that way.

The current state of the race is fascinating.

1. We have a strong economy, even though many don't feel that way.
2. Unemployment is near historical lows.
3. Inflation is back down to roughly where the Fed target is.  Also, short of a severe 	
recession or depression, prices are not going back to where they were before the 
recent inflation spike.
4. Gas prices have remained far below the pace of inflation.
5. Border crossings are the lowest they've been in years and violent crime has fallen 		
to historic lows.  

What is so interesting is that with all that said, solely because of the recent bout of inflation and immigration surge, if it was Nikki Haley or any other sane Republican, I’m convinced the Democrats would be getting trounced right now. But Republicans decided to nominate Trump for a third time and thus have a seriously close election on their hands. Republicans have only themselves to blame if Trump, once again, lets them down.

There is a thought exercise I have when thinking about liberalism in the classical sense. Imagine that you live in the U.S. 50 years from now, but there was an infusion of Indian immigrants and there is now a large majority Hindu population. Meanwhile the evangelical Christian numbers have shrunk to make up a small minority of the population. Now, imagine that Hindus make up a majority of the Republican party in this future and the conservatives have passed a bill that would make it illegal to farm cattle and eat beef of any sort. After all, cows are sacred and the slaughter of them is a holocaust that is offensive to the nostrils of Hindu’s and is a reflection of the truth in their religion. Does it not matter that there is a Christian contingent, amongst other groups, whose beliefs differ and say that eating beef is acceptable? It should, but not according to the Hindu majority.

Now transfer back to modern day America. Evangelicals believe just as strongly as that Hindu majority that abortion is evil in the eyes of God as well as same sex relationships. Does it not matter that there are others who do not hold to these beliefs? In a liberal society, the protection of the beliefs and rights of minorities and smaller groups is paramount. Although it would be great if, as Aaron Ross Powell argues, we could celebrate differences, at a minimum a pluralistic society requires toleration. Unlike the “Dont Tread on Me” cry, it requires us to instead advocate that the government “Don’t Tread on Anyone”. To advocate for the rights and liberties of those not strong enough to be in the majority. This thought experiment doesn’t answer every question and conflict, it does serve me well as a guiding thought. Christians should not advocate that our religious views apply to others via law because legislating morality doesn’t work, but because from the perspective of governing, politics is not the place to hash out those differences in values.

I’ve attempted to write about this before. My junior year of high school, I lost the innocent certainty in my faith I had had since childhood. At first I thought that loss of certainty was a loss of faith, but I now see that it wasn’t that. Or at least not quite so. Doubt became a constant companion of mine. I spent the next ten years trying to assuage that doubt by throwing myself headlong into the evangelical Christian practice of apologetics. Apologetics is the practice of presenting evidence or defenses of one’s faith or beliefs. I read books, listened to podcasts, took courses and more in an effort for what I thought was going to be presenting to unbelievers convincing proofs, but was actually me trying to regain the certainty I had lost in high school. Sometimes that effort was fairly benign and innocent and at other times to the point of being obnoxious towards others. I think it is likely that I felt if I could convince others that Christianity was true, then maybe that would aide in regaining my own certainty. Ten years ago, I looked back on all those years of effort, only to realize that my doubts were the same as they had been, if not more so.

In thinking through what it would mean to be certain, one can imagine two different states of mind. One is an emotional feeling of certainty that one is in the right. The other is the logical process of coming to a conclusion that cannot be doubted. Although the two can overlap, after all if something logically cannot be doubted, then a feeling of certainty should come along with that, I think most people seek to have the feeling of certainty, without the logical deduction that should rightly be a prerequisite to feeling certain. The fact is that I had the feeling of certainty growing up. Sure, I could imagine being wrong, but I saw no particular reason to think I was. It was all I knew after all. Still, I’ve never been sure what cause me to so readily doubt, but it happened anyways.

Many years after were spent trying to line up the logical end so as to regain that feeling of certainty that would rest on being able to reason to a conclusion beyond reasonable doubt. However, the ability to reason through evidence and deduction to a point of certainty would seem to defy the point of faith. After all, as the book of Hebrews says in the Christian Scriptures, faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. It is the project of the enlightenment and modernism to use the scientific method and reason to arrive at knowledge. The Christian faith comes down to us from premodern times, and while historical claims can and should be subject to scientific procedures, we are speaking of metaphysical claims that are reasoned through logical arguments that simply go beyond where science is able to go. Science may inform those arguments and discussions, but it cannot give final say. However, this means that faith and certainty are in a certain sense at odds with each other. The strength of one’s faith is not the ability to believe without having any doubts, but the ability to be faithful to God. I’m sure I will spend much more time on this in the future, but this is a broad overview on some of my thinking.

The world currently seems to be in a state of decoupling, and has been for the past several years. Free trade is seen as a deal for suckers and nationalisms of various sorts and degrees on the rise. I see this inevitably leading to a rise in conflict, which is already occurring. This is not just because we are going from a unipolar world dominated by the United States to a multipolar world with various regional powers. Indeed we might just be in a diminished unipolar world. It is also because we are reversing centuries of global integration. I’m not sure the world will ever be a completely peaceful place. I think there will always be conflict of varying degrees. But the best way found to mitigate war and conflict is through greater integration of the world and economies. Not getting rid of nations per se, but integrating closer together. True, you can end up with other forms of conflict. That surely has been part of the rise of Islamic terrorism as religious fundamentalists deal with a smaller world. However, nationalism and populism will definitely bring about conflicts similar to what we have seen in the past and it will not be good for anybody.

There has been a recent myth circulating that is counter to an earlier myth. The view is that if we integrate our economy with China then they will become more politically free as their economy becomes more free. The more recent myth is that because this didn’t happen, obviously economic interdependence was a mistake that didn’t get us anywhere but stuck with an economy with fewer jobs and the possibility of conflict anyway. I would argue though that it is not the case that we necessarily would turn China into a liberal democratic capitalist state by integrating our economies, although it is still possible that it could happen down the road. However, it is the case that integrating our economies reduces the possibilities of conflict, and by decoupling our economices we not only increase the possibilities of conflict but remove the possibility of China further liberalizing.

This is a short piece following on one that Nate Silver wrote in his substack on the growing split between liberals and leftists. His article is anchored to the Israeli-Hamas conflict that grew out of the attacks of October 7. He focuses on the leftists who support the Palestinians versus the liberals who largely support Israel. Nate uses the example to model the spectrum slightly differently as a triangle with MAGA conservatives in one corner, social justice leftists in the other corner, and liberals in the bottom corner. I think this is a fair model, but I would take it one step further, as his spectrum doesn’t include space for those who are conservatives, but not of the MAGA variety. Yes, we can get really nitpicky here, but I think there needs to be a recognized distinction between those conservatives who are all aboard the Trump train (or nationalist conservatives), as opposed to those who are anti-Trump, and embrace liberal values and principles.

My spectrum would thus resemble more of a trapezoid with the bottom corner broken into two corners, but closer together so that one is right-liberals and the other corner is left-liberals. Liberals after all share some core principles in common, but emphasize different elements. Right-liberals are more conservative socially, but still recognize that rights rest inherently in individuals, just as left-liberals do. Left-liberals are much more comfortable with market regulations and redistribution of wealth, but share with right-liberals a key commitment to free markets of varying degrees. The spectrum as it has been is growing rather long in the tooth, and if differences continue to keep emerging between left-liberals and leftists, and right-liberals and MAGA conservatives, I can see the possibility of new coalitions forming within the parties. I’m sure Nate Silver would not necessarily disagree with this model as his focus was more on the cleavages occurring within the left.