Zeal For Truth

While I was waiting for my now obsolete HDDVD player to warm up and play season 8 of Seinfeld, I caught the best part of ABC’s democratic debate - not an exchange between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, but Charlie Gibson educating Obama on how capital gains taxes work (2:20-5:22):

Gibson outlines how every time the capital gains tax was raised, total revenue went down. The reason this works, by the way, is exampled in the Laffer Curve. Obama doesn’t even deal with the facts of this case, but responds to say (despite the fact that raising it will bring in less revenue), it should be raised “because of fairness.”

Obama indicates that he could care less about how well the government actually works, but is more interested in the ideals of socialism. It is more important that rich people be punished, rather than taxes be collected efficiently.

More on Obama
(From Jew) Obama’s recent comments imply a “functionalist view of religious conviction” that “is not concerned with the truthfulness of these beliefs, but only with the effects the beliefs have on the believer.”

A speech from 2006 reveals a similar pattern of thought in Obama’s beliefs about the functional importance of religion.

[Americans] want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives. They’re looking to relieve a chronic loneliness, a feeling supported by a recent study that shows Americans have fewer close friends and confidants than ever before. And so they need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them, is listening to them – that they are not just destined to travel down a long highway towards nothingness.

Obama does mention the whole “forgiveness of sins” idea, although he fails to mention repentance. (And Mr. Obama, I think you should refer to Jesus Christ as a savior, not an ally.)

[Faith] doesn’t mean that you don’t have doubts. You need to come to church precisely because you are of this world, not apart from it; you need to embrace Christ precisely because you have sins to wash away – because you are human and need an ally in your difficult journey.

But he seems to get confused about the importance of the truth. (Here’s a tip, Obama: if you traveled the same path as a Muslim or a Jew, then you don’t understand the truth and you aren’t saved.)

I felt I heard God’s spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth.

The path I traveled has been shared by millions upon millions of Americans – evangelicals, Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims alike; some since birth, others at a turning point in their lives. It is not something they set apart from the rest of their beliefs and values. In fact, it is often what drives them.

It seems that Obama’s faith is rooted in social justice, not in things above.

I believed and still believe in the power of the African-American religious tradition to spur social change, a power made real by some of the leaders here today. … I was able to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death; it is an active, palpable agent in the world. It is a source of hope.

…

It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ one day and affirm my Christian faith.

More Links This Week
New Statesman article on NT Wright

The Filipino rice shortage we mentioned a couple weeks ago isn’t just in the Philippines. It’s global. CNN reports food riots in Haiti, Bangladesh, Egypt, and Mozambique. Rice prices have shot up 75%, wheat 120%. Corn prices are up too.

Glenn Beck argues that the US should lower it’s corporate tax rates.

CEOs Pushing Ayn Rand Studies Use Money to Overcome Resistance

The Trillion Dollar War:

These runaway costs do not include a single dollar from the Pentagon’s annual operating budget, which in 2008 reached a whopping $481 billion. If the war were being accounted for based on a rational, transparent budget process instead of an opaque and politicized shell game, Americans would be painfully aware that we are now in the seventh year of what the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has called a $1 trillion war.

How much money is $1 trillion? Enough to pay for the entire 1976 federal budget, adjusted for inflation. Enough to write a check for $37,500 to every Iraqi man, woman, and child. Enough to buy 169,492 Black Hawk helicopters, or 455 stealth bombers. Enough, in nominal terms, to pay for the entire federal government from 1789 to 1957. And it’s 10 times more than what specialists predict it would take to eradicate malaria once and for all.