Third World Subterfuge and the Atrocity of Al Gore

This will be a brief post, but I just want to point out the motives of the Chicken Littles of the climate change hoax. The "global carbon tax" has now emerged from the latest climate summit in Bali. <A href="http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=d5c3c93f-802a-23ad-4f29-fe59494b48a6&Issue_id=">Countries opposing U.S. Economic hegemony</a> are advocating policies that would cripple the U.S. Economy as a mechanism for advancing their own political goals. This debate is not about science, it's about politics, and the charlatans like Al Gore will not stop until the U.S. suffers for its "unfair" economic superiority.

Mike Huckabee and the Old CW

The unthinkable has happened: the pundits were wrong (end sarcastic tone).
The race was down to Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, and the only question
remaining was "Will Rudy's national strategy or Romney's early state
strategy be victorious?" Fred Thompson, who was supposed to be a saving
figure for conservatives turned out to be one of the worst campaigners in
recent memory. John McCain consistently underperformed and although Ron
Paul was raising a lot of money, there was no meaningful appreciation in his
polling numbers. The other candidates, Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Mike
Huckabee were no doubt going to be consigned to history as "also rans," a
mere footnote (if they were even that lucky) in the brief page that will be
written about the 2008 election.

What explains the pundits turning out so incredibly wrong? (They were also
wrong, by the way, about Hillary's coronation as the Democratic nominee, but
perhaps we shall save that story for another day.) First, they are the
pundits, and they are almost invariably wrong in their prognostications.
These spurious oracles have made a business in political prophecy that is so
vacuous and arbitrary that some people actually buy into it (for some
reason, that sort of clarity where clarity is an absurdity is alluring to
many people...look at how many people read the "Left Behind" series after
all). The entire business of political consultancy has been in pitching
false panaceas. It makes for great business--but not good campaigns.

Fortunately for Mike Huckabee, he's never been one to believe in the Old CW
(Conventional Wisdom). It was of course the CW that the country was not
interested in electing another Governor of Arkansas to the White House. It
was the Old CW that it is impossible to win the Republican nomination
without having the most money (after all, the empirical data since the
beginning of the Iowa Caucus/New Hampshire Primary first in country
tradition proves up that the winner of the Republican nomination is directly
correlative to the largest fundraiser). It was the Old CW that the country
had no interest in electing a Southern Baptist Minister to the White House.
The list goes on. Now it may be the case, at the end of the day next
November, that the country doesn't want a Southern Baptist Minister and
Arkansas Governor as President--but the Conventional Wisdom crowd has at
least been wrong that such a person doesn't have a chance.

Yet, it was also the Old Convention Wisdom in Arkansas that Republicans
simply couldn't win statewide election, that running against long-time
incumbent Senator Dale Bumpers was political suicide, and that even a
Republican who happened his way into the Governor's mansion couldn't
possibly get re-elected. But Mike Huckabee turned his massive defeat by
Dale Bumpers into a platform to run for Lieutenant Governor (a virtually
meaningless position in Arkansas that should likely be eliminated), and the
stunned the state when he performed as a brilliant and articulate statesman
in the wake of the conviction of former Governor Jim Guy Tucker in the
Whitewater investigation. Huckabee went on to become the second longest
serving governor in Arkansas's history (right after Bill Clinton), and the
only Republican ever to be twice re-elected to the office.

The Old Convention Wisdom is a self-fulfilling prophecy: if you believe in
it, it will come true. Mike Huckabee has at least escaped its dominance by
simply not believing it. (By the way, so has Barack Obama.)

There have been many comparisons and contrasts in the news media in the past
few weeks. I tend to eschew most comparisons, since there are so few
comparable politicians. They are all unique. There is no more such a thing
as "Another Reagan" as there is "Another Unicorn." In the last few days, I
have seen Huckabee compared to Howard Dean (rise from obscurity to leading
in the polls only to self-destruct because he is untested and unready for
national politics), Bill Clinton (folksy but articulate underdog from Hope,
Arkansas for whom the stars are now similarly aligning), Ronald Reagan
(diamond in the rough who everybody discounts in the general election), and
George McGovern (an extremist ideologue who will be slaughtered in the
general election no matter who the other party's nominee is).

The obvious problem with all of these comparisons is that the pundits and
commentators take what is convenient for their argument and pull out the
similarities and craft a usually well-reasoned article that makes sense upon
a cursory glance. Unfortunately, these comparisons ignore the thousands of
nuances, both in the personalities of these people, but also (and perhaps
far more importantly) the nuances of the circumstances surrounding the times
and places that each of these people entered the political scene.

Mike Huckabee is not, at least in any meaningful way, like any of the people
previously described. He is a bass guitar-playing former Southern Baptist
Minister who is witty, shoots from the hip, and has a rather impressive
record as Governor of Arkansas and head of the National Governors
Association. He has many liabilities, though, that cannot be discounted.
His religious views are outside of the mainstream of the American public: he
believes in the literal inerrancy of the Bible, he does not believe in
evolution (even, it seems, theistically guided evolution). He can sometimes
be a bit too preachy about public health issues. He is known for having
thin skin with respect to the media and his critics, and he doesn't have a a
whit of foreign policy experience. But all of the candidates have either
similar or analogous liabilities.

For example, Mitt Romney is a Mormon, Rudy Giuliani is thrice married,
Barack Obama is an African American with an unfortunately Muslim-sounding
name, Hillary Clinton is Hillary Clinton, and so on.

The trouble with the pundits and Conventional Wisdom crowd is they always
want to boil elections down to less than their irreducible complexities.
"The final question that will decide this race is..." There is no such
question. There are a multiplicity of issues, personalities, preferences,
and sentiments from millions of people, a half dozen candidates, and
countless commentators, pollsters, and news anchors that will ultimately
influence the outcome of this election. The charge for the Huckabee
Campaign, and for the hundreds of campaign managers across the country, will
be to ignore the pundits and their boiled-down approach and instead embrace
the admonition of Napoleon, when he said:

"The battlefield is a scene of chaos. The victory is the one who controls
that chaos, both his own, and his enemy's."

The Unprincipled Nature of American Consumerism and its Effect on Politics

My friend Andy and I have been talking a lot lately about consumerism and its pernicious place in American culture. Every trip to the West Village in Dallas makes me think of Solomon's words in the book of Ecclesiastes

All the labor of man is for his mouth,
And yet the soul is not satisfied.
For what more has the wise man than the fool?
What does the poor man have,
Who knows how to walk before the living?
Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of desire.
This also is vanity and grasping for the wind.
Whatever one is, he has been named already,
For it is known that he is man;
And he cannot contend with Him who is mightier than he.
Since there are many things that increase vanity,
How is man the better?

For who knows what is good for man in life, all the days of his vain life which he passes like a shadow? Who can tell a man what will happen after him under the sun?

But, I may have read the most disgusting reminder of American consumerism today in the online journal Politico: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1107/6892.html

Indeed, the need to consume, and to possess material goods is so strong that an iPod touch or some college tuition would buy a college student's vote. For a million dollars, most of them would even permanently forfeit their right to vote. Although these hypothetical scenarios are somewhat disconcerting, they are a reminder of the broader reality: that most Americans will give their votes in exchange for a portion of the government largess in the form of entitlement spending and pork. The rest of the country doesn't care, and doesn't vote.

I have a thought on this particular problem, one that came to me as I was walking to Starbucks (ironic, eh?) this morning. There is much talk about decadent nations meeting their doom. Individually, we are told in the Proverbs that "pride goeth before the fall, and a haughty spirit before destruction." I would assume the same is true of nations, but why?

Well let's go back to our example of college students exchanging their votes for an iPod Touch (which, by the way, is the most ridiculous product ever sold by Apple--why in the world would I want to buy an iPhone without the phone?). Things are pretty good in America. Left and Right seem to forget it, but the vast majority of Americans don't care about politics primarily because nothing is wrong enough (yet) to make them care. Consequently, they'd rather have an iPod Touch (even if it doesn't have phone capabilities) than a vote. Decadent societies, therefore, it would seem, decline precisely because when people have something to eat and drink, it makes it easier for them to "eat drink and be merry." Culturally, we have a nation of trust fund children, in the socio-economic and political sense. Trust fund children do not have to work, and usually turn out to be pretty miserable human beings. Our trust fund culture doesn't have to be diligent when it comes to the art of government and politics and so they aren't.

John Adams once famously said "I must study politics and war so that my children might have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy." Unfortunately the generation of mathematics and philosophy students gave way to a generation of business students, who produced a generation of people who now have little incentive to do much of anything where government & civics are concerned. The few people who are interested in politics are right-wing and left-wing ideological zealots seeking to impose some form of greater order on their fellow man.

More or less, we have taken the easy road and "outsourced" our government to a handful of incompetent yokels (i.e. Congress), an Emperor without Clothes (i.e. President Bush), and a massive, inert bureaucracy that could not possibly be more disconnected from society. With the power of the Internet, and especially the re-birth of the Internet in Web 2.0, we have the unprecedented ability to impact national policy and indeed the future and fate of our country.

We will not use these tools for their highest possible calling, however, until we see a change in culture. That is going to be the toughest sell of all. We need our college students to be willing to trade in their iPods for a bit of their attention to important matters of national policy, and not just concerning the things that make the headlines, but the millions of devilish details imposed on Americans every day. I'm not saying they are all bad--I'm just saying we should think about them, and give them our assent or dissent.

In our legal system there exists the concept of a "fiduciary." A fiduciary is a person to whom property or power is entrusted for the benefit of another." Every generation, in a sense, is the fiduciary for the next generation. We are all entrusted both property and power that we will one day hand over to a new generation. We have an ethical duty to preserve and improve both before our reign comes to an end. In business, the Director of a Corporation has a "fiduciary duty" to protect the interests of the Corporation, and the business laws that govern all of our states make it a crime for a Director to be negligent in his duties--"sins of omission" are punished, just as "sins of commission" are.

I hope Generation Y will wake up from its decadence and take the responsibility we have seriously. It isn't too late to do that in 2008.

Handicapping the Presidential Race at this Point

The Early-Mover advantage may be a thing of the past. Partly because of the general political fatigue and malaise, and partly because of the lengthy election cycle (something really must be done about this...), I do not think the early front runners have an advantage in this race, regardless of what the polls show currently. In fact, it is beginning to seem that they may be at a disadvantage. Thanks to the Internet, surges from obscurity can occur without large war chests, though nobody (except Ron Paul) really gets this. The Romney and Giuliani Camps on the GOP side, and the Clinton and Obama Camps on the Democrat side need to wake and realize that "two weeks is an eternity in politics" is obsolete. It is now "two minutes is an eternity in politics," and things can change overnight. Just as military strategy has changed in the post-Cold War Era to prefer light, nimble rapid fighting forces over large massive heavy forces, so in political strategy the Internet has changed the game entirely.

Iowa is developing into an extremely fascinating scenario on the Republican Side. In the latest Zogby Poll, Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee showed support amongst 15% of primary voters, second to Mitt Romney's 31%. This is a 7 point gain for Huckabee since August, and a 2 point decline for Romney. Huckabee displaced Giuliani in the #2 spot, with Giuliani's support dropping to 11%. Thompson was 4th with 10%, and John McCain came in 5th at 8%. Because of some of Huckabee's populist stances on certain economic issues and his conservative (but not extremist) views on social issues, it seems that he has the most to gain by siphoning votes away from all of the other major candidates, and especially from Giuliani and Thompson. Thompson's poor performance nationally, and especially in the key early states has not been a great surprise to most national political commentators, as he was never known as a great campaigner. Huckabee, on the other hand, is an incredible campaigner, and is not only convincing, but has the potential to be convincing that he has a chance in the general election nation-wide. This same trend could occur in South Carolina. If he can raise some much-needed cash (double what his site says he needs by the end of November) and make a few strategic changes, Huckabee will enter the top three nationally (and in the rest of the early states), displacing Thompson.

Prediction: By the end of 2007, Thompson, McCain, Tancredo, and Hunter will be out of the race. Thompson's support will likely coalesce around Huckabee in the South, and be more evenly distributed amongst the other candidates nationally. McCain's support will likely bolster Giuliani, and the Tancredo and Hunter votes will most likely go to Huckabee as well, assuming the last sentence of the last paragraph proves true.

On the Democrat side in Iowa, things are less tumultuous and unpredictable, but no less interesting. Obama has made incremental gains since August, and Hillary's losses have been within the margin of error. Edwards and Richardson's numbers have also remained relatively steady. The key on the Democrat side is that Hillary's numbers have been stable within 5 points of where they were as far back as March, proving that as the most "known quantity" in the race on either side, her support is unlikely to increase measurably. Interestingly enough, though, Obama's support has been equally as stable in the same period of time. None of the minor candidates appear to be making a Huckabee-like surge into the top tier, and that presents a problem for the Democrats. If they get tired of Hillary, Obama, and Edwards, they have nowhere to turn. Bill Richardson, although attractive on paper, is ineloquent and chubby. At the risk of being labeled a sexist, I think these two traits make it impossible for Richardson to escape the 2nd Tier, as he will never be able to break into the female voting bloc, which traditionally supports articulate, good-looking candidates.

The Democrats need an out. The problems presented by Hillary (50% of all men, and 55% of married men say they absolutely will not vote for her, for example) may be impossible to overcome in the Electoral College. A Giuliani candidacy puts her lock on New York in doubt. A Huckabee candidacy would almost assure a GOP shut out of the South (which was Al Gore and John Kerry's death knell).

Although I believe America could elect a female president, I am (sadly) less optimistic about its ability to elect a black president. Obama would lose the South against any Republican candidate, including Giuliani. It is no secret that there is substantive animosity between the African-American contingent of the Democratic Party and the other major identity groups: Unions, Hispanics, the Jewish community, and the GLBT community. In all of these cases, save the Hispanics, I believe the Democrats would rally behind whoever was nominated, though I firmly believe that all of the identity groups would be happier with a Hillary candidacy than an Obama candidacy. But, the Hispanic vote is fickle, and the Democrats do not have the lock on it that they have on the other major groups. I think it extremely possible that in the event of, say a Giuliani or Huckabee nomination (both candidates have reasonable and moderate views on immigration), Obama could face a split in the Hispanic vote, enough to turn the tables in key states like California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Florida, all of which the Democrats need to win, and save Florida, HAVE to win, in order to take the White House back in 2008.

Given all of this, I have a couple of predictions to make about the Democratic primary:

1) With Hillary's poor debate performance, Obama and Edwards smell blood in the water and will be taking off the gloves even more, trying to bloody her up.
2) The Democratic primary will be sharply divided all the way to the end, with a possible need for a convention vote.
3) No matter what, Hillary still gets the nomination. In this rare instance, the Democrats will nominate the front-runner, and "stick to the devil they know." If it goes to a convention, Hillary has it in a walk, because hard-core Democrats and the mass of Democrat insiders will support Hillary (if for no other reason than they view it as a second coming of their Savior Bill Clinton, who "rescued" them from the legacy of Reaganism).
4) The Democrats will leave the primary broken, battered, and divided, and we will have another dead-heat, down-to-the-wire general election.

4 more years of gridlock...let's get excited!

Peter Pan Update: Colbert Receives More Support Amongst Young Than GOP

According to aRasmussen Poll, Comedy Central talk show host Stephen Colbert's satirical campaign for the White House has more support among young voters than does either GOP candidate (Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani) in a hypothetical match up against Hillary Clinton.

It is a sad day when a full 13% of American likely voters would select a comedic television character over sitting and former United States Senators and the Mayor of the largest U.S. city in an election for the presidency of the United States. This, I think, is more of a reflection on the candidates, however, than it is on the American people. These poll respondents were probably just being honest with themselves. If I'm going to vote for a non-adult candidate, then I might as well support the one who is out front and honest about his non-adultness.

Is it going to take electing Stephen Colbert or Bugs Bunny to the White House before we decide it is time for some real statesmen to run for public office?

373 Days until the election. Will we have an adult candidate?

Wanted: Adults

I have officially decided that my Theme Movie for the 2008 Election, and for American Culture writ large shall be, until further notice, Peter Pan. To begin our new theme, here are excerpts from "I Won't Grow Up," Peter Pan's personal theme song.

If growing up means
It would be beneath my dignity to climb a tree,
I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up
Not me!
I won't grow up,
I don't want to wear a tie.
And a serious expression
In the middle of July.
And if it means I must prepare
To shoulder burdens with a worried air,
I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up
Never gonna be a man,
I won't!
Like to see somebody try
And make me.
Anyone who wants to try
And make me turn into a man,
Catch me if you can.
I won't grow up.
Not a penny will I pinch.
I will never grow a mustache,
Or a fraction of an inch.
'Cause growing up is awfuller
Than all the awful things that ever were.
I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up,
I won't grow up!
We won't grow up!
We will never grow a day
And if someone tries to make it
We will simply run away
And Never Land will always be
The home of beauty and joy
And neverty
I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up
Not me!
----

It dawned on me this morning, halfway through my second cup of coffee, the fundamental problem characterizing most of our cultural, social, and political malaise: we are quickly running out of adults. I do not know the source of these characteristics, but here is what Wikipedia lists as "qualities that symbolize adultness in most cultures."

* Self-control - restraint, emotional control.
* Stability - stable personality, strength.
* Independence - ability to self-regulate.
* Seriousness - ability to deal with life in a serious manner.
* Responsibility - accountability, commitment and reliability.
* Method/Tact - ability to think ahead and plan for the future, patience.
* Endurance - ability and willingness to cope with difficulties that present themselves.
* Experience - breadth of mind, understanding.
* Objectivity - perspective and realism.

Come back from science fiction land for a minute now, and hang your head with me in lamentation of the fact that it is difficult to find many people who have reached the "age of majority," who display even half of these characteristics on a consistent and daily basis. If we examine the world of politics, for example, we find that our political officeholders (I would not deign to denigrate the word "leader" by using it to describe our current set of officeholders) is particularly severely lacking in Self-control, Independence, Responsibility, Method/Tact, Experience, Objectivity. And the others are just a wash, at best.

Our churches have largely become either empty or glorified social clubs. We have prostitute preachers who use their silver tongue to keep the big offering checks rolling in. We have a laity suffering from the most grotesque form of intellectual and spiritual laziness. Many denominations are fighting internal discordant battles over tangential issues.

Our schools are run by Educrats who were indoctrinated by the so-called "Schools of Education" to espouse feel-good nonsense that is handicapping our children in a global marketplace. Our students run amok because there are no adults at home, and there are fewer and fewer adults running the schools (Educrats notoriously lack the objectivity/realism quality listed above), and we are approaching an almost Lord-of-the-Flies-esque educational polity whose feeble pillars are collapsing under the weight of the fat bodied obesity of our thin-minded children.

Business, the last haven of adulthood, is suffering the consequences. The economy cannot sustain itself, in the long-run, with a nation of children. The free market itself breeds adults. Socialism and the Nanny State perpetuates childishness. It has become popular to talk about the "overcompensation" of CEOs in this country, and to talk about business as being "uncaring" and "cut-throat." Some of these things may be true in certain circumstances, but I would argue that by and large, business is just being adult. Google takes particularly good care of its employees, provides them lavish benefits, etc. But they subscribe to the philosophy, I'm sure of "To whom much is given, much is also required." Google employees work long hours, and spend the vast majority of their waking time at work. And if they didn't, they would be replaced.

Adulthood does not meant stuffiness (thank God!), but it does mean having to grow up. It doesn't mean having to wear a tie in July, but it does mean taking reality as it comes, and being a responsible agent in a world of problems. The old cliche saying "you can't teach an old dog new tricks," is probably true in our present circumstance. The Baby Boomers spent too long being children. They were, in fact, the first generation of The Lost Boys. They rebelled against their parents' conservatism, and replaced it with a vacuous notion of "freedom." The eschewed the rules, but the rules came back to haunt them. They worshiped youth, and now they are old. But they are not mature. As Kipling said, using the Gods of the Copybook Headings as a metaphor for wisdom and, perhaps we could even say 'adultness,'

"The Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of man.
There are only four things certain since social progress began:
That the dog returns to his vomit, and the sow returns to her mire,
And the burnt fool's bandaged finger goes wobbling back to the fire.
And as soon as this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins;
When all men are paid for existing, and no man must pay for his sins.
As surely as water will wet us, as surely as fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return."

As a member of Generation Y, I know that the only person for whom I can take responsibility is myself, and vicariously, for my generation. I can point out the problems with past generations, but I cannot preach to them, and I am highly unlikely to change them. But I can take responsibility for myself, and for being a voice in the wilderness to my own people, the 20-somethings and bordering-on-30-somethings with whom I went to kindergarten, elementary school, high school, and college, and with whom I am now working in my everyday life, who I meet at Starbucks or the local wine bar.

We have to be adults, even if nobody else wants to. The world needs us, and it needs us now.

What Have We Done Today?

We shall do much in the years to come,
But what have we done today?
We shall give out gold in a princely sum,
But what did we give today?
We shall lift the heart and dry the tear,
We shall plant a hope in the place of fear,
We shall speak the words of love and cheer,
But what did we speak today?

We shall be so kind in the after while,
But what have we done today?
We shall bring to each lonely life a smile,
But what have we brought today?
We shall give to truth a grander birth,
And to steadfast faith a deeper worth,
We shall feed the hungering souls of earth,But whom have we fed today?

We shall reap such joys in the by and by,
But what have we sown today?
We shall build us mansions in the sky,
But what have we built today?
`Tis sweet in the idle dreams to bask;
But here and now, do we our task?
Yet, this is the thing our souls must ask,
What have we done today?

-Nixon Waterman

My friend Andy (AndyEllwood.com) has made a point to me on several occasions now that Generation Y doesn't actually do anything when they see injustice, they don't take action when they see a need for change, they just blog about it, or put up a YouTube video. We communicate for communication's sake, hoping that somehow our words or our YouTube clips will change the world. Kipling warned against this, saying in his poem IF "If you can dream and not make dreams your master, if you can think and not make thoughts your aim." Yet this is what we do on a daily basis. We feel that because we have used the power of the pen, or at least the keyboard, we have effected some sort of change and nothing beyond the words is really necessary. This post is almost a performative contradiction, I know. It means that in order to not be a hypocrite I have to actually *do* something this week beyond merely blog.

I have heard some of my friends say that our generation needs a voice. The problem is not that we don't have voices; nay, the problem is that we have a cacophony of voices. Generation Y needs a purpose, a unified cause, not the multitude of causes celebre that seem to populate blogs and Facebook groups. The Generation Y people I know who are involved in politics are a bunch of sycophants and "yes men" who want nothing more than the taste of power. If you don't believe me, walk into any random campaign office and look for the people between the ages of 18 and 30. You'll be disgusted.

I am not writing this as if I have the solution. I really don't know what it is, but we as a generation need to be thinking about it and figuring things out. I'm not sure the country can survive many more Baby Boomer-controlled Congresses or White Houses. But it isn't just with respect to politics that I am writing this post. I think it applies to many facets of society. We need leaders to rise up from GenX&Y in business, the Church, and education as well, and we seem to be devoid of such leaders. The reason is that leadership comes at a price. Most people aren't willing to pay it. The few who are rarely do so for the right reasons, and so they don't make good leaders.

We don't have a lot of time. We need to start a dialog. Join the dialog. Comment on this blog. Write your own thoughts somewhere: your myspace blog, a facebook note. Start thinking. Start talking. And let's all start doing, so we have an affirmative answer to the question "What have we done today?"

The Radical Message of Christ, The Mediocre Message of Christianity

"The Christian faith has not been tried and found wanting, it has been found difficult, and left untried." -G.K. Chesterton

Unfortunately, the Church's failure to live the radical, and mostly untried message of Christ has led to an emptying out of the pews, a lukewarmness for those who remain, and emptiness in a broken society desperately in need of forgiveness, acceptance, and love.

The Western world has drawn the line in the sand with itself, and its options are both unpalatable: Secularism or Fundamentalism. There is no long-term sustainability in either of these options, because they are fully and utterly devoid of meaning, and are the bastardization of Reason and Faith, respectively. Secularism requires an explanation of everything, where Fundamentalism requires an explanation of nothing. In the midst of this, the mainline Christian Church in the West is twiddling its thumbs, and wishing (not even praying) that things were different.

"Perception is reality" is a basic truth of human interaction, and in the age of the Internet, "Perception is based on your website" is a new basic truth. I make this remark only slightly in jest, but if I were some wandering agnostic in my neighborhood of Uptown Dallas (and believe me, the neighborhood is full of wandering agnostics), and I decided that my life were a bit too empty and devoid of meaning, and I thought that perhaps God/Church could fill that void, the first thing I would do is get on the Internet and start googling around to find a place to go. To have a broader appeal, I picked out several churches from the area here as well as some famous churches elsewhere in the country, to see the kinds of hope and meaning churches are offering these days:

From the main website of Saddleback Church, pastored by the famous Rick Warren:
"Over 50 million Americans have discovered the meaning and purpose of their lives through “40 Days of Purpose” - a six session discussion group program based on Dr. Rick Warren’s international bestseller, The Purpose Driven Life.

Beginning the week of October 21/22, more than 4,000 discussion groups will meet weekly throughout Southern California in neighborhoods and workplaces to watch the acclaimed video series on the purpose of your life, and discuss what it means for you. There is no cost to participate.

With its life-changing message, The Purpose Driven Life is “the bestselling hardback in American history, and the bestselling book in the world for 2 years.” (Publisher’s Weekly) It is the most translated book on earth, after the Bible. You’ll get a free copy when you attend a discussion group."

From the main website of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas:
Do You Know Christ?
Have you had the experience of knowing Christ in a personal way? Find out how »

Considering Prestonwood?
Get a glimpse of what to expect when you visit and the many opportunities available for your family. Read on »

Bible Fellowship
Develop meaningful friendships and study biblical principles in a small group setting. More info »

Ministry Opportunities
Participate in the various ministries and find out how you can serve. More details »

Reaching Others
Share the love of Christ with others in the community and worldwide. Get involved today »

Beyond All Limits
Take part in this incredible journey as we boldly move forward to proclaim Christ to our neighbors and to the nations. Learn more »

Now, I continued my search, but unfortunately, I could not find any other church websites that had much text, so I'll paste the links to others so you can see for yourself (it is difficult to paste flash into a blog, so Joel Olsteen's church website was completely out of the question, though you might be interested in signing up for his "Inspiration in Your Inbox"):

http://www.lakewood.cc (The Largest Church in the country, pastored by Joel Olsteen)
http://www.willowcreek.org/ (Willow Creek Community Church near Chicago)
http://www.fbcbentonville.org (The Southern Baptist Church I grew up in, in Bentonville, Arkansas)

Now, let's go back to my wandering agnostic...what is he to think when he sees these websites? Well, most of the wandering agnostics in Uptown Dallas are professionals with at least a bachelor's degree; they generally make between $75,000 and $150,000 per year, are single (or live with their girlfriends), drive a BMW 3 Series, drink a few beers Saturday night, and wish they had more time for the gym. All of these even neglects the reality that these Uptown Agnostics grew up in a post-modern society with all of the trappings of skepticism, and simply cannot be bothered with any hocus-pocus nonsense. That being said, "Be a Better You" is not exactly going to strike his fancy.

I have spent the last 2 years of my life working in high technology, and in some of my normal reading, I happened upon an IBM study that concluded that for a person to adopt a new technology, the user must perceive that the new technology be at least 9 times better than the one it is replacing. I tend to think the same holds true of life philosophies and lifestyles. For most of the Church's 2,000 year history, it had a silver bullet to address this problem: Hell. In a very Machiavellian, "ends justify means" sort of way, the Church believed it was doing a lot of good by scaring people into the pews with the threat of Hell. Bertrand Russell describes it this way: "The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell."

However, in the age of skepticism, disbelief, and agnosticism, people are hardly even convinced enough of God's existence, much less of Hell's. Consequently, "be saved or go to hell" is no longer a credible threat in American society, and it seems that for the first time in 2,000 years, the Church is going to have to work at actually preaching (and more importantly: LIVING) the Good News of the New Testament if it doesn't want to be rendered moot, and shoved onto the shelves of obscurity by the post-modern mind.

No, the moralism worshiped by the Fundamentalists simply does not have broad appeal, particularly in cities, among the college-educated, and the affluent. Yet people invariably still want to believe in something, and even in Christianity, as 80% of the U.S. population reports themselves to be Christian. Talk to any member of the clergy, though, and they will almost laugh at those statistics, because Church attendance and religious identification are two different matters. In a 2006 Gallup poll, asking Americans what institutions they trust, only 28% responded that they trust the Church or Organized Religion "a Great Deal," with an additional 24% saying they trusted it "Somewhat." When half of the population (150 Million people) do not have any trust in an institution, I would call that a crisis for the institution.

The problem is that the Fundamentalist Church isn't 9 times better than regular American life; it's hardly even 2 times better. Church life essentially consists of this: Do everything you normally would do except the 2 or 3 things we tell you not to do. This of course varies from Church to Church, but it usually is some combination of alcohol, drugs, various forms of sex, and maybe lying (only maybe). In return, you don't have to go to hell. That's more or less the trade-off. People who don't believe in hell are not exactly motivated by this...

So what is the response of the mainline denominations? I'm not really sure. I'm not sure they even know. It is generally a bunch of liberal, feel-good nonsense. (This isn't to bash liberalism or feeling good, to be sure, but I'm merely saying this doesn't qualify as the radical message of Christ either). Episcopals, Presbyterians, and Methodists do a little more charity work, the host soup kitchens and give some stuff to the poor, and they make themselves feel better. It's not a lot different than the Fundamentalists in function, only in form. The nice thing about the mainliners is that they are a lot less judgmental and a lot more pleasant to be around.

Jesus's message, on the other hand, was radical, difficult, and life-changing. The Gospels describe Chesterton's understanding of Christianity of being "difficult and left untried." Jesus said that "small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." This isn't the "eternal life in heaven" conceived of by the Fundamentalists, but the "Life and Life more abundantly" Christ promised he was bringing to earth.

In The People of the Lie, M. Scott Peck defines evil as "that force, residing either inside or outside of human beings, that seeks to kill life or liveliness. And goodness is its opposite. Goodness is that which promotes life and liveliness." Leading up to this definition, he argues the following:

To proceed we need at least a working definition. It is a reflection of the enormous mystery of the subject that we do not have a generally accepted definition of evil. Yet in our hearts I think we all have some understanding of its nature...Evil is in opposition to life. It is that which opposes the life force. It has, in short, to do with killing. Specifically, it has to do with murder--namely, unnecessary killing, killing that is not necessary for biological survival. When I say that evil has to do with killing, I do not mean to restrict myself to corporeal murder. Evil is also that which kills spirit. There are various essential attributes of life--particularly human life--such as sentience, mobility, awareness, growth, autonomy, and will. It is possible to kill or attempt to kill one of these attributes without actually destroying the body. Thus we may "break" a horse or even a child without harming a hair on its head. Erich Fromm was acutely sensitive to this fact when he broadened the definition of necrophilia to include the desire of certain people to control others--to make them controllable, to foster their dependency, to discourage their capacity to think for themselves, to diminish their unpredictability and originality, to keep them in line. Distinguishing it from a "biophilic" person, one who appreciates and fosters the variety of life forms and the uniqueness of the individual, he demonstrated a "necrophilic character type," whose aim it is to avoid the inconvenience of life by transforming others into obedient automatons, robbing them of their humanity.

Given this conception and background, I would argue that Christ stands at the apex of Life-givingness, and Satan (whether Satan is a being or a metaphor is irrelevant for the purpose of this statement) at its abyss.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, Blessed are those who mourn, Blessed are the meek, Blessed are those who are hungry, Blessed are the merciful, Blessed are the pure in heart, Blessed are the peacemakers, Blessed are those who are persecuted."

These are not easy sayings. But the promises of reward are overwhelming "Theirs is the kingdom of heaven, They will be comforted, They will inherit the earth, They will be filled, They will be shown mercy, They will see God, They will be called Sons of God, Theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven."

The Kingdom of Heaven is not above us, it is within us. Francis Thompson asked rhetorically, in one of his poems "Does the fish soar to find the ocean, the eagle plunge to find the air?" We too, goaded by the Church, look for Christ's promised rewards out around us, beyond us, above us, rather than within us. When Christ says "And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life," I do not believe he is talking about "going to heaven," nor of receiving material blessings here on earth, but rather something far more radical and transformative than that, eternal life, or to borrow from Peck's terminology, eternal liveliness.

After the Resurrection, Peter was speaking to Jesus, and Jesus asked him, three times, "Peter do you love me?" Peter's response was unequivocal, "Yes, Lord, of course I love you." To which Christ commanded, three times "Then feed my sheep." Not preach to my sheep, not teach my sheep, not keep my sheep in line, but feed them. Two thousand years later, the Church should take up Jesus's call.

The Church must accept the radical message of the Gospel and begin living it. The Church must become a foil for contemporary culture, not merely a critic of it. Only then can the Church pull itself out of irrelevance, and rescue itself from imminent obscurity.

Disorganized Thoughts on the Crisis in the Anglican Communion

I have been hesitant to write much concerning the present crisis facing the Episcopal Church of the United States and the Worldwide Anglican Communion because it is simply one of those issues for which there are no easy answers. I am a confirmed member of the Episcopal Church and belong to the Church of the Incarnation, a rather large parish in Dallas, Texas. Up until the last few weeks, the crisis in the Communion at-large had not publicly touched the shores of my parish. The Reverend Father Larry Smith, who had been the Rector of Incarnation until his retirement this summer, had done a remarkable job of maintaining unity and calm in the local parish. With his departure, I am in suspended hopes that such unity and spirit of welcome will continue.

It is naive to think, however, that some acrimony will not arise in the coming months. The Most Reverend Archbishop Josiah Fearon of one of the Archdioceses in the Anglican Province of Nigeria recently spent several days in Dallas at Incarnation, speaking, whether directly or indirectly, on the subject of the crisis facing the Anglican Communion. Archbishop Fearon's presence may have irrevocably brought the issue to the fore within our parish, and it is because of this that I have decided to begin publicly thinking about this subject.

I presume that over the next few weeks and months, this subject will occupy a prominent place in the pages of my blog, and it is certainly not a trivial matter. The Anglican Communion is (by many counts) the 2nd largest denomination of Christianity worldwide after Catholicism, and has 77 million adherents globally. Given its size, and the tremendous history of Anglicanism, it would seem that we are moving rapidly backward, not forward, in our present circumstances. As an ecumenist, I believe that the body of Christ should be unified, not fragmented, and although I am under no delusions that it will happen in my lifetime, it is my sincere hope that the Church will eventually be One.

I have had extensive discussions with friends and family about this subject, including one of my closest friends who is undergoing the discernment process for ordination in the Episcopal priesthood. From one such discussion, I came to the conclusion that there are two goals that seem to be at odds with one another, and which are fueling the schism: Truth and Community (which might be used interchangeably with "Communion" or "Unity"). Is the duty of the Church the pursuit of Truth or the pursuit of Communion? This would appear to be the most fundamental presuppositional question that, when answered, defines one's approach to the Anglican crisis.

As I do not think the discussion could proceed intelligibly without them, I will take the following things for granted as simply being accepted: 1) Man lives in some sort of imperfect state [Some might call this "Original Sin"], 2) In a state of imperfection, there exist in our understanding many epistemic gaps, 3) God has given us multiple mechanisms to use to interpret the world in the face of these epistemic gaps (namely: Scripture, Reason, Tradition, and Experience), 4) There exist reasonable disagreements amongst Christians as to conclusions derived from these four pillars of knowledge.

If we accept all four of the foregoing presuppositions, then I would argue that the pursuit of "Truth" as the highest ideal of the Church, inevitably leads to schisms and divisions. When we are preoccupied with who is "right" and who is "wrong," there is no place for Communion and Community. They are incompatible. This does not, however, mean that the pursuit of Truth is incompatible with Community, and in fact, I firmly believe that such a pursuit is best engendered and promoted in the context of healthy Community (in the M. Scott Peck sense).

Neither the Conservatives nor the Liberals in the Anglican Communion are pursuing Christian Community, and seeing Christ's church rent asunder is one of the most heartbreaking things I have ever witnessed in my life. I believe that the Love that Christ himself taught can endure the hardship of disagreement. Indeed, St. Paul wrote to the Corinthian church that "Love believes all things, love hopes all things, love endures all things, love never fails." When I survey the crisis in the Anglican Communion, what I see is not a failure of love, but a failure to love, on both side. Perhaps the people for whom this is the least excusable is the Liberals themselves, since their entire position is that we are to love, welcome and accept instead of judge. That means we cannot judge the judgers.

For fear of being considered a fence straddler, I will express that I am in the Liberal camp on this issue. The weight of my own personal experience alone would push me into the progressive side, but I genuinely believe that the Conservative viewpoint, tenuously justified by Scripture, is merely subterfuge for political and cultural biases against gay and lesbian people. This does not mean, however, that I do not want to be in communion with these Conservatives. I believe it is an issue on which there can be reasonable disagreement. Moreover, there should be love and understanding on both sides, and in the interim period if that means progress must be stalled until a new consensus can be reached, then I would favor that over further divisions and degradation in the unity of Christ's Church.

I have heard many on the Conservative side discount "experience" as an important pillar of knowledge, emphasizing Scripture and Tradition most of all. I will end my post today with a story from the Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 11. I will not add my own commentary, but rather want to leave it as food for thought.

=========
The apostles and the brothers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him and said, "You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them."

Peter began and explained everything to them precisely as it had happened: "I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. I saw something like a large sheet being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to where I was. I looked into it and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles, and birds of the air. Then I heard a voice telling me, 'Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.'

"I replied, 'Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.'

"The voice spoke from heaven a second time, 'Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.' This happened three times, and then it was all pulled up to heaven again.

"Right then three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house where I was staying. The Spirit told me to have no hesitation about going with them. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man's house. He told us how he had seen an angel appear in his house and say, 'Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. He will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved.'

"As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning. Then I remembered what the Lord had said: 'John baptized with[a]water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.' So if God gave them the same gift as he gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could oppose God?"

When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, "So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life."
=========

The Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Systematizing and Losing Humanity

M. Scott Peck, in his book The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace discusses the stages of community as being 1) Pseudocommunity 2) Chaos 3) Emptiness and 4) Community. The transition from Pseudocommunity to Chaos is inevitable whenever differences begin to arise in the community. He says that one of the common problems that emerges from Chaos is the suggestion from some to fix the community's disagreements by retreating into organization.

"It is true that organizing is a solution to chaos. Indeed, that is the primary reason for organization: to minimize chaos. The trouble is, however, that organization and community are also incompatible. Committees and chairpeople do not a community make. I am not implying that it is impossible...[for] some organization to have a degree of community within itself. I am not an anarchist. But an organization is able to nurture a measure of community within itself only to the extent that it is willing to risk or tolerate a certain lack of structure." The Different Drum, page 93.

Although I believe I must metaphorize Peck's analysis to make it fit into the subject of my thoughts today, I think in a certain sense individual's function in something of their own intrapersonal community. We go along through life, in its various aspects, content pretending that our methods work, in spite of not having given much thought to them, until at some point an event occurs in our lives when we sit up and realize that we have been thrown, usually involuntarily, into a state of chaos. Oftentimes, in response to this chaos, our immediate reaction is to begin creating systems, and blacks and whites. We think that if we implement policies, we can escape from the chaos and prevent the mistakes that took us there.

The problem with this approach (and I know, because I am a fanatic for systems and love to architect complex systems with an almost infinite number of conditional statements to trigger particular reactions, solving for every permutation, iteration, and contingency) is that if these systems involve people, then we have depersonalized, and consequentially, dehumanized everybody involved, including ourselves.

I have recently been particularly proud of myself for deciding to create a rather elaborate and robust system for staving off mistakes I have recently made, and the consequences of which I have recently endured, and almost as soon as the system was implemented, I was forced to come to the stark and horrifying realization that the system had a tremendous flaw: it was dehumanizing. I think at a subconscious level, I had bargained with myself to be satisfied with a distinction between depersonalization and dehumanization, where in fact it was a distinction without a difference. This came crashing down on me today, as I realized that in my effort to thrust myself into one of life's most treacherous endeavors, where one risks most the possibility of experiencing pain, that in an effort to avoid such pain, I had compromised my humanity and the humanity of other people, objectifying them as mere cogs in what I had previously thought was my ingenious and almost fool-proof system. The only fool was myself.

The system I had conjured was an overcorrection for past mistakes. I'm sure others will share similar recollections of early teenage driving lessons: I would be driving along, and get a little too far to the ditch and would jerk the steering wheel to the left, startling everybody riding with me, and most likely the oncoming traffic. Quite frequently the overcorrection is worse than the original error itself. It is not, however, a lesson against correction, merely the exaggerated form of it, and for those of you who know me most intimately, you will know that my penchant, in times of error, is toward overcorrection.

I had to do a gut check today, because I have struggled for so long against the natural inclination of humans to objectify other humans, and I realized I was doing it again. Perhaps worst of all, I was not even doing it out of flippancy or lack of care; rather, I was doing it with a certain sort of subconscious intentionality with the purpose of avoiding pain. Pain avoidance is not the goal or the purpose of life. Nay, I believe it is impossible to truly live without experiencing pain, and it is most certainly impossible to grow. But how unfair was it of me to project my potential pain onto others as actual, present pain, simply to eliminate the risk that I might have to experience it myself?

It just shows that as soon as I think I've made a lot of progress, I realize that I, like everybody else in this world, still have a lot of growing up to do.

Let the Lower Lights be Burning

It has been some time since I have published to this blog, but life frequently takes us for adventures that prohibit us from maintaining our normal habits, and that has been so in my life for the last several months. Now, nearing the end of the third quarter of 2007, it is beginning to dawn on me that this is going to increasingly be the rule, not the exception, in my life, and I must simply invoke in myself the discipline to write anyway.

I have been newly gripped in the last several months by the distinctive and sincere need in American society to pursue two virtues championed by the late bestselling author M. Scott Peck: Civility and Community. I have simultaneously been under the conviction that the kind of personal growth we must achieve in order to achieve these goals is almost overwhelming, but I believe that without it occurring on a grand scale, we will, as a nation, and as the human race, suffer complete annihilation, if not physical, then spiritual.

For a period of time this year, I fell back into the bad habit of thinking that political change and political reform are the necessary preconditions for a renaissance of society--but I keep reminding myself that political leadership has almost always been lacking throughout history, politics has always been corrupt, and that the genuine revolutions and reforms of culture have taken place, not in the halls of Congress, but in the halls of our elementary schools, in the pews of our churches, in the coffee shops and salons where people talk about the issues of the day, and most fundamentally, in the chambers of the individual heart.

There are two utterly saintly human beings with whom I have had the tremendous pleasure to get to know and interact with over the last two months who have reminded me that the human condition can be remedied through the faithful and selfless ministry of loving people, and my conviction is stronger now than ever that it is to this end we should strive. There may be a few times in our lives when we are able to make a visible, monumental impact on the world, but those times are few. Most days of our lives, we wake up, we do whatever it is that we do, we go to bed, and then rinse and repeat the next day, ignoring the human suffering in front of us on every corner, in every cubicle, and in every heart.

Although I am far from sympathetic to his theology, I am completely moved by a story D.L. Moody once told, and which inspired the hymnist Philip Bliss to pen a hymn with the same theme. I will quote both of them below:

On a dark, stormy, night, when the waves rolled like mount­ains, and not a star was to be seen, a boat, rock­ing and plung­ing, neared the Cleve­land har­bor. “Are you sure this is Cleve­land?” asked the cap­tain, see­ing only one light from the light-house.
“Quite sure, sir,” re­plied the pi­lot.
“Where are the low­er lights?”
“Gone out, sir.”
“Can you make the har­bor?”
“We must, or per­ish, sir!”
And with a strong hand and a brave heart, the old pi­lot turned the wheel. But alas, in the dark­ness he missed the channel, and with a crash upon the rocks the boat was shiv­ered, and ma­ny a life lost in a wat­ery grave. Breth­ren, the Mas­ter will take care of the great light-house: let us keep the low­er lights burn­ing!

-D.L. Moody

"Brightly beams our Father’s mercy from His lighthouse evermore,
But to us He gives the keeping of the lights along the shore.
Let the lower lights be burning! Send a gleam across the wave!
Some poor fainting, struggling sailor, you may rescue, you may save.

Dark the night of sin has settled, loud the angry billows roar;
Eager eyes are watching, longing, for the lights, along the shore.
Let the lower lights be burning! Send a gleam across the wave!
Eager eyes are watching, longing, for the lights, along the shore.

Trim your feeble lamp, my brother, some poor sailor tempest tossed,
Trying now to make the harbor, in the darkness may be lost.
Let the lower lights be burning! Send a gleam across the wave!
Trying now to make the harbor, some poor sailor may be lost."
-Philip Bliss

So many people feel the need to try climbing the flights and flights of stairs to take a small match to keep the great lighthouse aflame, but they will not stay on the shores, where the lower lights are saving people in the everyday. Without going into a lengthy discussion of the theological doctrine of salvation, I must say that I have come to believe that the greatest instrument of God's grace is the love of individual people toward their fellow man, unselfishly caring, unselfishly giving, and unselfishly understanding. We are capable of performing acts of salvation with every word we speak, with every heart we touch, and with every soul we minister to.

In a talk I once gave, I made the statement that Christ came to rule the world, not with a sword, but with a stethoscope, and I don't think it was until recently that I knew the full truth of that statement. The world around us is broken and sick. Every single one of us is broken and sick in our own way, and it is through our own wounds, and outpouring of agape love that we are able to minister to the wounds and sicknesses of those around us. This is what is meant by keeping the lower lights burning.

Whether we are Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Agnostic, or whatever, we must labor together, side by side, ministering in love to our fellow man. To borrow Henri Nouwen's term, we must all be "wounded healers," and it is through our wounded healing that we will find the strength to save the earth from being engulfed in sickness, hatred, and violence.

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.

Book Reviews: The Four Agreements and The Mastery of Love

I will blog more about the Two Party System and the need for election modernization tomorrow, but today I would like to do a brief review of a couple books I have read recently. The books are familiar to many people; they are called
The Four Agreements, and
The Mastery of Love by Don Miguel Ruiz. The books have a relatively simple premise,
that is, in life, through socialization or "domestication" as Ruiz terms it, we make many agreements with ourselves, even a countless number of them based on our need to feel liked, loved, and accepted, and based on the many inputs we receive from other people. Through these agreements, according to Ruiz, we become part of "The Dream," which is where the vast majority of human beings live for their entire life. "The Dream" is Hell on Earth; it is the pain and misery that humans seem addicted to, and as a result, subject themselves to, each and every day.

He uses an ancient Toltec term "mitote" (pronounced MI-TOH-TAY), which he describes as a sort of "fog" that prevents us from seeing the way things really are, that is, the way things would be if we woke up from "The Dream." Ruiz puts it this way:

"When you are aware that everyone around you has emotional wounds with emotional poison, you can easily understand the relationship of humans in what the Toltecs call the dream of hell. From the Toltec perspective, everything we believe about ourselves, and everything we know about our world, is a dream. If you look at any religious description of hell, it is the same as human society, the way we dream. Hell is a place of suffering, a place of fear, a place of war and violence, a place of judgment and no justice, a place of punishment that never ends. There are humans versus humans in a jungle of predators; humans full of judgment, full of blame, full of guilt, full of emotional poison--envy, anger, hate, sadness, suffering. We create all these little demons in our mind because we have learned to dream hell into our own life."

It reminds me of a Bob Marley song that Johnny Cash remade on his posthumously released album "Unearthed," called "Redemption Song." The pertinent line says "Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery; none but ourselves can free our minds." The analog to Ruiz's point of course is that our dream of hell, which is where we live everyday, is "mental slavery." We are enslaved to all of the poison of the world.

To put this theory into the context of the Christian tradition, "The Dream" is really what Christians would call "Original Sin." It is what orients us against our neighbor and consequently against God, since Sin is the opposite of Love. For a long period of time in my life, I was a Calvinist, and did not believe in Free Will, because I saw so many elements of compulsive Sin in the world, the horrors and violence that have taken place throughout history, and the atrocities committed each day, man against fellow man, whether it is genocide in the Sudan or forced abortions in China. The dim, deterministic vision of Calvinism, however, caused me to spiral into a deep spiritual depression, and I ultimately was forced to abandon it for the sake of my own mental and emotional well-being. However, after reflecting on Ruiz's descriptions of Hell and "The Dream," I have come to a deep understanding of the certain level of truth in the Calvinistic understanding, but also where the Calvinists miss the point.

"I have said that we never chose to have the Parasite, which is the Judge, the Victim and the Belief System. If we know we didn't have a choice, and we have the awareness that it's nothing but a dream, we recover something very important that we lost--something that religions call "free will." Religions say that when humans were created, God gave us free will. This is true, but the Dream took it away from us and kept it, because the Dream controls the will of most humans." (from The Mastery of Love)

Here we can see the Christian concept of "The Fall from Grace." If we think of Genesis Chapter 2 as a metaphor for the lives of every human being, I think it becomes all the more clear. We, as children, are naturally inclined toward happiness and a carefree attitude toward life. Children, as a rule, do not worry about paychecks, meals, bills, or any of those things. They would continue in such a state unless they learned different behavior. Without the knowledge of "Good" and "Evil" children would continue to play and run and laugh, but as soon as an adult says "If you do X or Y, then you are a bad boy," then suddenly children have been fed the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil by the Serpent, which is the adult who himself has already fallen from Grace. It is actually quite remarkable how tightly the metaphor fits.

In The Four Agreements, Ruiz says that in order to get out of the Dream, in order to get out of Hell on Earth, we must break all of the old agreements we made with ourselves, and to make new agreements. To extend the Christian metaphor as a grid through which the Western mind can perhaps more easily grasp the metaphysical points Ruiz is making, the breaking of the old agreements is symbolized in the Christian sacrament of Baptism (I must note here that my Episcopalianism fails me here, as I do not think this metaphor works when applied to Paedobaptism). In Baptism, the Sinner is symbolically buried, and then resurrected, as an imitation of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ. The Baptists use the phrase "Raised to walk in the newness of life." What a beautiful phrase.

This is what Salvation is; Salvation from Hell, from "The Dream," and it was accomplished by The Wounded Healer (to borrow a phrase from Henri Nouwen), who through love and exposing his own wounds, healed the wounds of the world by returning us to the state we were in before we fell into the Dream, before we ate of the Poisoned Fruit. It is no wonder that Christ admonished his disciples to "become like children" in order to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. Reflect on that reality; it is quite a powerful thought.

For anybody who doubts or rejects the interpretations I am rendering, one needs look no further than the extraordinarily metaphysical Gospel According to St. John. "In the beginning was the Word (that is, the Logos), and the Word was with God and the Word was God, and the same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it...The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God."

Indeed, we are then able to break our old agreements, those agreements that cause envy, jealously, hatred, strife, backbiting, and all the things that are poison, and instead allow us to make new agreements. These new agreements are described as follows by Ruiz:

1. Be Impeccable with your Words.
2. Don't Take Things Personally
3. Don't Make Assumptions
4. Always Do Your Best

These agreements are embodied by what Paul calls "The Fruit of the Spirit," in his Epistle to the Galatians Church, enumerated as "Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control." The Fruit of the Spirit are what flow from ending the old agreements with "Sin" and making these new agreements.

I would strongly recommend both The Four Agreements and The Mastery of Love to people, of whatever faith background or tradition, as I think they are metaphysical truths that transcend the human experience.

If we all would engage in deep self examination at the metaphysical level, I believe we can all wake up from The Dream, from the collective Hell that we have created here on Earth, and begin living in peace and community with our fellow man.

Modernizing Elections in the Age of Information, Part I

My apologies for a week's break from my series on the Two Party system and an emergent Third Party movement. Today, however, I will resume my discussions of this subject, focusing on electoral reform as an essential part of making government more representative and responsive. There are two aspects of substantive electoral reform that I will address: Methods and Means. By "methods," I specifically refer to issues of "form," by which our political value system is imposed into the election process. For example, we elect the President of the United States using "method" of the Electoral College. By "means," I am referring to issues of mechanics, that is, we use punch cards or optical scan ballots and we vote on Tuesdays in November.

One of the reasons that the state of American politics is in such disarray is that we are utilizing an electoral system that is not congruent with the society and technology of today. People frequently talk about the timelessness of the Constitution or even more scarily, of its Divine Inspiration (I wonder if they think that includes the parts concerning slavery...), but we ought to never forget that the U.S. Constitution was borne out of particular political crisis that ensued from the looseness of the Articles of Confederation, and was forged in Philadelphia as a political compromise over issues that are now at least a century out of date. This hardly diminishes what the men who founded what we now know as "America" accomplished in 1787, but at the same time, let us not forget that the framers of the Constitution were pragmatists, not idealists (as many people popularly believe, especially in the so-called "Christian Right").

First, the Constitution was written in a day when communication and travel were lengthy and laborious processes, sometimes taking several weeks of a journey to travel to the New York, which at the time was the U.S. capital. The country had just emerged from a confederate form of government, and retained many of the aspects of a confederacy with extraordinarily decentralized power until World War I. It was not until the advent of Radio, and especially Television, that the "dialects" of American English began to disappear and the country started to become more culturally homogeneous. The lack of integration near the turn of the end of the 18th Century presented a number of political problems that were addressed in the Constitution of 1787. The Electoral College, the election of U.S. Senators by the state legislatures, and the direct election of the House of Representatives (with the number of Representatives being set by the population, with no cap) were the features implemented to achieve some level of populist influence over government without giving the uninformed and disjointed masses too much power.

In 1787, few people traveled outside of their home town, much less out of the state, and their only exposure to current events in other states was likely a weekly newspaper and letters from family members who lived in other states. This kind of disconnectedness is quite divergent from today's instant information and global connections. I was text messaging with somebody in Argentina yesterday and received a call from my friend who was traveling in Paris. My blackberry now has Google Talk installed on it, and I can instant message, not even using the SMS network, with anybody who has a Gmail account and an internet connection. I receive news alerts instantly through email that pushes to my blackberry, or I can pull up the Drudge Report at any hour of the day to hear about the Earthquakes in Japan or read an editorial about the disintegration of the McCain campaign.

In the past three weeks I have flown from my home base here in Dallas to Little Rock, Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas, and Salt Lake City and am flying to Las Vegas this week for a conference, only to come back to Dallas and hop a flight back to Salt Lake City. All of this would have been unfathomable to James Madison or Benjamin Franklin.

Furthermore, the digital revolution and the Interstate highway system have radically altered the way the economy works, from the way we get our milk to the way we trade stocks and do our personal banking. I can make a stock trade, and use the profits to bet against the Dollar by buying Euros in the forex markets in as much time as it takes for me to click through a half dozen screens on my web browser while sitting in Starbucks sipping a latte and Instant Messaging on my Macbook Pro. Considering that our electoral systems, both methods and means, have remained relatively unchanged for more than two centuries in the wake of massive changes in every other aspect of society, is somewhat mysterious. Is there really something sacred about "going to the polls" on a Tuesday in November? Surely people who worry about the corruption of online voting don't actually believe that the current voting system lacks massive corruption.

Tomorrow I will continue this discussion with Part II of "Modernizing Elections in the Age of Information," examining how our methods can be improved, and how that fits into the advocacy of an emergent Third Party.

The Possibilities of Life

"Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters." -Genesis 1:2

At the beginning of every endeavor, and at the beginning of every new stage of life, or even in periods of limbo and reflection, we should recognize the Spirit of God hovering over the waters of our lives. The Spirit of God, referred to elsewhere in Scripture as the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost, and which has countless names in other faith traditions and in other literary contexts (the Spirit of the World, in the Alchemist), is the energy that sustains all of life. The Spirit of God is what quickens the flesh, and separates the living from the dead. He is called, in the New Testament, the "Comforter."

Life has countless possibilities. I have always been the kind of person to think in terms of possibilities, rather than actualities. I have a healthy sense of realism, in my own way, though it is frequently misunderstood. That is because although I recognize constraints and challenges, I do not actually recognize the existence of absolute barriers. The old cliche "where there's a will, there's a way," is not quite complete though. Any old will is not adequate to over come all barriers. Sometimes it takes extraordinary will, and determination, and sweat, and all too often, tears, to accomplish something. But the potential for such accomplishment is reason enough to make the attempt.

When Sir Edmund Hillary was asked why he climbed Mount Everest, he replied "because it was there." There are so many Everests to climb in life, and the energy of the Spirit of God empowers us to see the possibilities, and we can therein be motivated to action. Yet, the Spirit of God is a positive energy only. Light and Darkness literal opposites. They cannot occupy the same space at the same time. They are wholly incompatible. Consequently, if the Spirit of God is who/what grants us the positive life energy to see the possibilities and opportunities for fulfillment, then it is Darkness and Negative Energy that obscure that view.

The Spirit of God is a force of Imagination, and it is Imagination that have driven the human spirit to pursue and accomplish those things that changed the world. It is the dreamers who ultimately change the world. It is those people who see the possibility that things could be other than they are who leave their mark on history, for good or for bad. But those who focus only on barriers to the achievement of the dreamed for ends, they will always be the victims of circumstance, the subject of their own small worlds. It is the people who are able to expand their scope of vision beyond what is actual at the moment who are the ones able to take the possible and turn it into the actual. All change in history is the subject of people who have done this very thing.

For the last year and a half, I have signed all of my business emails with this quote:

"What the future-predictors, the change-analysts, and trend-tenders say in effect is that with the aid of institute resources, computers, linear programming, etc. they will deal with the kinds of change that are not the consequence of the Random Event, the Genius, the Maniac, and the Prophet. To which I can only say: there really aren’t any; not any worth looking at anyhow." --Robert Nisbet

The three agents of change mentioned in Nisbet's quote who are human are able to change the world because of a particular orientation of their mental state that differentiates them from the vast majority of the rest of the world. The Genius looks upon the obstacles of the world and devotes his intellect to overcoming them, whether through science or military force or through the pen. The Maniac is able to overcome the obstacles to changing the world merely because he likely doesn't recognize their existence. The Prophet, on the other hand, sees the problems, and knows he cannot fix them, and so he just shouts loudly, under severe persecution and ridicule, about the problem that few but he recognize, and he just keeps shouting until he does, or until there is change. Usually it is the former. But then, after his death, is usually when the change occurs. The Prophet, unlike the Genius and the Maniac, is usually a martyr, and whose goal is not often achieved in his own lifetime.

But uniting all three of these figures is a dogged determination that things be other than they are. They live in the world of possibilities, for if they did not believe that their desired End was achievable, they would never attempt its pursuit. This is the concept of Hope.

The Jewish writer of the Book of Hebrews says "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." In the Anglican tradition, the Eucharistic Prayer (Rite II) says, after the Holy Communion, "Almighty and everliving God, we most heartily thank thee for that thou dost feed us, in these holy mysteries, with the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son our Savior Jesus Christ; and dost assure us thereby of thy favor and goodness towards us; and that we are very members incorporate in the mystical body of thy Son, the blessed company of all faithful people; and are also heirs, through hope, of thy everlasting kingdom."

The world of possibilities, of the Everlasting Kingdom of God, of changing this world, of the fantastic, the science fiction, all of these things are the province if Hope and Faith. Without hope, the mortal existence of man is nothing more than a march toward the grave fatalistically consumed by militant determinism.

The Spirit of God hovers over the waters of our own lives, which at all times possess a lack of form and a darkness of potential energy whose beauty can be manifested through hope and faith. We have an ethical obligation to ourselves, our fellow man, and to God to keep faith, and to, as Theodore Roosevelt put it, "spend our life in a worthy cause." Such worthy causes exist only in the world of possibilities, and it is our duty to turn them into actualities.

Temporary Blogging Hiatus

I have been extremely tied up the last few days, and unable to continue my series on the need for an emergent Third Party movement. My plan is to take the weekend to clear my head, and to resume on Monday. Until then, I thought I would share a favorite poem of mine, just because.

The Aristocrat
G.K. Chesterton

The Devil is a gentleman, and asks you down to stay
At his little place at What’sitsname (it isn’t far away).
They say the sport is splendid; there is always something new,
And fairy scenes, and fearful feats that none but he can do;
He can shoot the feathered cherubs if they fly on the estate,
Or fish for Father Neptune with the mermaids for a bait;
He scaled amid the staggering stars that precipice, the sky,
And blew his trumpet above heaven, and got by mastery
The starry crown of God Himself, and shoved it on the shelf;
But the Devil is a gentleman, and doesn’t brag himself.

O blind your eyes and break your heart and hack your hand away,
And lose your love and shave your head; but do not go to stay
At the little place in What’sitsname where folks are rich and clever;
The golden and the goodly house, where things grow worse for ever;
There are things you need not know of, though you live and die in vain,
There are souls more sick of pleasure than you are sick of pain;
There is a game of April Fool that’s played behind its door,
Where the fool remains for ever and the April comes no more,
Where the splendour of the daylight grows drearier than the dark,
And life droops like a vulture that once was such a lark:
And that is the Blue Devil that once was the Blue Bird;
For the Devil is a gentleman, and doesn’t keep his word.

Making Political Power More Fluid

On this national holiday, I know that thousands of conservative bloggers will be extolling the virtues of the Declaration of Independence, and Independence Day itself, waxing cliche about Red, White, and Blue, Apple Pie, Mother, and the American Dream. They will talk about America's status as the greatest nation in the world, and oh, if only the Founders were here to tell today's government to follow the Constitution. On the other side of the aisle, the Left wing of the blogosphere will be abuzz with re-written Declarations of Independence, calling President Bush "King George" and talking about his "repeated injuries and usurpations," and labeling him a brutal tyrant.

For most Americans, I do not think this hollow, partisan rhetorical propaganda will ring terribly true. Most Americans are just glad to have the day off, and to celebrate their freedom with little fanfare: BBQ with friends and family, drinking some beer, watching fireworks, maybe doing a little work on the lawn or finish painting the guest bedroom. Most Americans are quite content with their lives; they aren't particularly concerned with world affairs. That is because, for most Americans, life is pretty good. It has its hardships and difficulties, but things aren't bad enough for people to care about politics, or else they have just given up.

As I continue my series on the potential for an Emergent Third Party in American politics, I would like for the reader to consider why voter turnout is so low in the United States. As I just alluded to, I think that there are two primary reasons people do not vote: things aren't *that* bad, and they have given up on being able to make any sort of difference by voting. Now, give us 10% unemployment or 15% inflation and I think people will be showing up to the polls en masse, most likely to elect somebody whose economic policy will even further devastate the country. I pray things don't get that bad.

Our new Third Party can help remedy Americans' belief that voting doesn't matter and that nothing will change. I am reminded of two animal characters in literature who perhaps represent most Americans' attitudes toward the political process: Eeyore, the pessimistic stuffed donkey from Winnie the Pooh who eats thistles, and Benjamin, the cynical donkey from George Orwell's Animal Farm, who was skeptical of the revolution and believed from the beginning that the pigs would be no different than the human masters. Thus are Americans similarly oriented toward the Democrats and the Republicans, with most people seeing little difference between the two parties, and certainly not expecting change in the event of a transfer of power. If anybody needed confirmation of this, 2006 should have been just that. The Left-wing base of the Democratic Party expected Nancy Pelosi & Co. to get the United States out of the Iraq War. Think again.

One of the reasons for our seeming inability to extract ourselves from the status quo is that the dominance of the Two Party System has created, especially in Congress, a Fox-Watching-the-Hen-House sort of scenario. Sure, the Democrats and Republicans hate each other. But that doesn't mean they don't scratch each other's backs when it comes to doling out the pork barrel spending, or voting for Cost of Living Adjustments for themselves, etc. Indeed, one of the essential elements of an Emergent Third Party movement is a system by which power is much more fluid, and where incumbents do not have so much authority and control over the process simply because of the power of incumbency.

Here are some ways this can be accomplished.

1. General party membership at-large should be empowered to elect the leadership in Congress, including the floor leaders, committee leaders, etc. The same would be true going down to the state legislatures as well. This would eliminate the seniority system in Congress, and would allow the public to be much more heavily involved in selecting the people with the most power in government. Party membership would also be able, at any time, to recall members of the leadership with a No-Confidence vote.

2. Candidates themselves, in order to run on this new Third Party's ticket, would have to bind themselves to recall as well, meaning that they will commit themselves to resigning and running in a special election if the party membership in their district goes through the process of a No Confidence vote in them.

These two conditions alone would require officeholders to pay particular attention to their constituencies, and to making good policy. Failing to do so will result in immediate action, unlike in the current system where politicians benefit from the very brief memory of the voting public.

3. Candidates for office would be nominated by the party's general membership, and the party (not the government) would enforce a strict spending cap for primary elections. Candidates would be encouraged and virtually required to court the party's membership through electronic means, meaning name recognition cannot be bought in the primary.

4. The New Party would utilize the Condorcet Method in order to give all candidates an equal and fair shot at getting elected, without the arbitrary nature of run-off elections or first-past-the-post elections.

Democratizing the candidate nomination and selection systems, and by instituting policies that help combat incumbency and entrenchment are essential elements to a successful Third Party movement. They are also essential to the advancement and preservation of our Republic.

Next time we will look at the importance of electoral reform on a broader scale and its place in the future of an emergent Third Party, and the success of our democratic system.

Water and Light

A friend of mine sent me this picture yesterday. I have reason to believe it is from the play "White Darkness." Nevertheless, it inspired me to write a poem from the perspective of the person in the picture. I'd prefer not to provide any further analysis, except the picture and the poem. I'll let the reader make any additional conclusions.



Water and Light
by Skinner G. Layne

I stand amidst the darkness, I stand without my sight,
But two forces now can save me: the Water and the Light.
I hang my head in silence, then the silence gives way to song,
And I bellow out a melody of sorrow and hope and wrong:

“Time has been so brutal, and life has brought me harm,
I long for life’s new purpose, to regain its wayward charm.
Oh God, and Angels above me, or Devils down below,
Someone please restore me, melt life’s wintry snow.
I have tangled with the torrent, of storms of bitter rain,
And lost, and found the struggle both meaningless and vain.”

My song, it echoes loudly, in the darkness and the night,
But ever louder in the background, roar the Water and the Light.
Though I feel the anguish, and though I feel depraved,
The Light relieves my misery, the Water my bleeding waived.
Rushing, almost deafening, the Waterfall resounds,
And the Sunlight pours behind it, breaking me from my bounds.

Though you cannot see my face, as it rises from my grief,
And what is happening inside of me, as I shatter all disbelief,
As I resolve to guide my own destiny, my future ever seize,
You will not see me falter, or fall upon my knees.
My earnest fixed intention, though wet and trodden down,
Is to plunge into the Water and my Defeated Notions drown.

For I’ve emerged from Death and Destitution,
From Hopelessness and Fright.
I have found my Restitution—
In the Water and the Light.

Realpolitik and a Return to Global Pragmatism: The Foreign Policy of an Emergent Third Party

Yesterday got away from me, and I didn't get to blog. I actually had my blogger window open and the title already written, and then all of my time was snatched from me somehow. But I hope to make up for lost time.

After we have already looked at what a Third Party's domestic policy and economic platform would contain, it only makes sense that we now examine the type of foreign policy that would best serve the country and reach out to the niche in the political system that would be most amenable to a Third Party movement. I am, and have always been, of the firm belief that Foreign Policy is always a direct function of domestic politics, especially in democratic nations like the United States. One of the reasons for this is that most people do not cast their votes based upon foreign policy-related matters, and if they do, it is based on ideology (problem #1), and when they are casting their vote based on domestic ideology, they tend to vote for politicians who are unsophisticated in the complexities of foreign policy, and so the elected officials tend to possess ideological views toward foreign matters (problem #2).

Ideological foreign policy has been one of the most disastrous components of the George W. Bush administration in the last 7 years, and was equally disastrous on the Left-hand side of the political spectrum during the Carter administration. There were certain elements of ideological foreign policy during the Clinton administration, though I think there was mostly just a lack of foreign policy. Foreign relations were good, but foreign policy was non-existent.

I do not believe a responsible steward of America's interests can approach the world negligently (Clinton) or recklessly (Bush II).

The United States cannot maintain its global hegemony without careful, meticulous attention to foreign policy and geopolitics from both a strategic and tactical standpoint. Foreign policymakers, starting with the President himself, must have a long-term view (in both directions...historic and future) of America's place in the world. This cannot be accomplished by a dogmatic adherence to some arbitrary view of foreign affairs. The following should be hallmarks of a Neo-Realpolitik foreign policy.

1. America must utilize and harness one of its historically most powerful foreign policy influences: soft power & cultural influence. American culture has been the aspiration of much of the world since World War II, and this cannot be discounted as one of the reasons we have been able to achieve so much. When the man on the street in Brazil wants to wear American clothes and watch American film, we have a powerful hold on global affairs. As soon as we lose that, our decline is imminent. The pervasiveness of "Americanism" itself must be shepherded, guided, and prospered, and most certainly not countered by formal national policy. During the Bush II administration, national policy has gone to great lengths to erode America's soft power in the world, and it is imperative that this immediately cease, and that the government instead promote our soft power interests.

2. The United States must immediately end all support of Israel. There is absolutely nothing useful, practical, or even ideologically sound about supporting a bully state in a region where its practices inflame 1.3 Billion Muslims worldwide against it, and whoever supports it. Both George Bush and Bill Clinton further made the mistake of trying to make the Middle East peace process part of their "legacy." This has proven not only be ineffective, but potentially hurtful. American intervention in the peace process has been a failure. We should stop trying. It only draws attention to our prominent influence in the region (and military presence), and that does not help us with the so-called "Muslim street." I am not at all advocating a policy of appeasing the Muslim world, but we can at least stop actively and purposefully antagonizing it. Additionally, the U.S. cannot afford to be aligned with Israel when it finally decides that it is going to use tactical nuclear weapons against Iran's nuclear facilities.

3. American hegemony exists, and ought to exist, to promote its prosperity, as well as global prosperity. This cannot happen without global free markets, and in fact, without global free markets, American hegemony will a) be irrelevant and b) automatically cease to exist. The best kind of "Dollar Diplomacy" is not in foreign aid, but rather in Trade. When nations can prosper with each other, they will not fight each other. Wars are unpopular, expensive, and inhumane. Few people will disagree with that. Military personnel will agree most with it. This doesn't mean that we should not fight wars when they are necessary.

I am in fact reminded of what John Stuart Mill once said about men with nothing left to fight for (and I think the same applies to Nations): "A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

This is not a license to warmongering, but it is also a reminder of the irresponsibility of dogmatic Dovishness. Yet, if war can be avoided through Economic prosperity, I can think of few more mutually beneficial diplomatic methods. The practical implications of this are unpopular, domestically in many cases. The United States must make unilateral strides towards the elimination of all import tariffs, especially on manufactured goods, and a total elimination of corporate welfare and subsidies, particularly in Agriculture and Aviation. This will lead to a re-alignment of American economic interests, greater domestic efficiency, global efficiency, macroeconomic prosperity, and simultaneously achieve foreign policy goals that can hardly be accomplished any other way.

4. The United States must make substantial efforts toward rethinking its approach to Military affairs and their relation to geopolitics and geopolitical diplomacy. The economic rise of China means that the age of technological superiority in military affairs for the United States is at an end. Where our comparative advantage was always in technology (and never in numbers), we would at least be equal with a new superpower if they achieved only technological equality (like the Cold War with the Soviet Union), but since China already possesses a comparative advantage in sheer numbers, the United States must recognize that it cannot be alone in the world from a military standpoint. It would be prudent for America to take a page out of the British Empire's play book: make up for ground strength with alliances. For Britain, it was India. India isn't a bad choice for America, either. India is the only other single country in the world with a population that rivals (and will soon exceed) that of China. Unfortunately, China is wooing India very effectively right now, potentially neutralizing our ability to form a strong military and diplomatic alliance. It does not mean we shouldn't try, however. I will not go into more hypotheticals or details here on this subject, but will attempt to do so in future discussions.

5. America must radically revamp its Space Policy. Space is the new ocean and the new sky. While Naval and Air superiority is essential to maintaining global hegemony, it is something that given China's rise, can be rivaled. Therefore, we must turn our eyes up towards the heavens (pardon my tongue-in-cheek religious reference). Militarizing space is not the answer, though. If we militarize space, then we will give license to China to do the same. We will find ourselves in a nasty Cold War in the stars. China is already beginning the process of militarizing space. The United States should take diplomatic leadership and garner support in Europe, Japan, South Korea to actively undermine any attempts by China to flex military might against global interests in space. The United States should invest increasing amounts of money (preferably through the private sector) to pursue economic interests in space, and make space a trade route, rather than a battleground. This will help diffuse Chinese attempts at extraterrestrial hegemony.

6. Peacekeeping Missions and Diplomatic Intervention. The Chinese government has become very adept at taking the "undefended hill." They are now the major diplomatic influence in a number of "lesser countries," though many of them, like the countries of Central Asia, are incredibly important from a geopolitical standpoint. The United States desperately needs to changes its approach in this respect. Whether it is by aiding the people of the Sudan in their existing humanitarian crisis, or building lasting diplomatic and national friendships with Kazakhstan to ensure overland trade routes and oil pipelines along the Old Silk Road remain open to American interests, the United States needs to take a more proactive role in courting Emerging Nations and developed countries alike.

7. Good Neighbor Policy. No place in the world is more important for the United States to develop friendships and economic ties than its own back yard: Central and South America. The increasing friendship between Iran and Venezuela is an unacceptable development, and Hugo Chavez's growing influence over his neighbors in Latin America is even more unacceptable. The U.S. has so much more to offer to Central and South America than the bankrupt socialist ideology of Mr. Chavez does.

Ultimately all of the items I have discussed are elements of a realistic, strong defense, strong diplomacy foreign policy that is rational, non-ideological, and would distinctly separate an Emergent Third Party from the ideological disaster of both the Conservative and Liberal wings of the two major parties.

Tomorrow we will pick back up our discussion of political process, and look at some of the more pragmatic concerns of breaking through the two party system.