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Why do this?

Today it’s being reported that the Sign interpretation services provided at Nelson Mandela’s funeral were completely fake. That makes me sad and embarrassed.

I used to work in the Deaf community for a few years. I still have very warm memories of the first time I held my own conversation from start to finish in Sign, with no interpreter. At my best I was a long ways from fluent. No one would — or should — ever ask me to interpret. But I always smile when I see ASL or SEE being used. We have a sign interpreter at my church. Sometimes I get distracted, watching her and trying to catch phrases or words as I remember them.

Sign interpreters — real ones — are not impossible to find. Not by a long shot. And though the cost of a fully trained and certified interpreter might be intimidating for many small businesses, it’s not even noticeable by government standards.

I don’t know what happened. I could understand zero Sign interpretation if there were no request for it. But requested or not, your choices should be between real Sign interpreters or zero Sign interpreters. I don’t know how “fake sign language” ever got onto the menu of choices.

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Don’t make things hard for others

This morning I was reading Romans 14. (Actually, I was having it read to me — The Bible App is great!) The line that really stood out to me was this: “make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister.”

The kind of person I want to be is this: one who helps people see that Jesus loves everyone, wants everyone. Sometimes in the past, I’ve let my strong feelings about a couple different political issues interfere with that. I express my opinion about those issues in a way that causes people to feel judged and rejected.

When I do that, I am putting a stumbling block in the way of my brothers and sisters.

Loving Jesus is too big for any one thing to sum up the whole point of it. But if I was to try and sum it up, this would be a key element: “when we screw up and hurt people, he can fix that.”

Please help me use my attempts to get back to writing in a way that also makes me a good ambassador for you Lord.

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Trying again

I had to put blogging aside for a time. I found that writing about politics often causes me to struggle with anger. The more I write about Obamacare or gun control, the less and less I want to treat people on the other side of the aisle with respect.

But that’s the whole point of this blog. I want to be a person who is active in politics who does not mock, scorn, and belittle the other side. I want to be a person who speaks with respect. More important, I want to be a person who disagrees with respect.

So, I’ll try again. I will write in a way that demonstrates decency and kindness, or I won’t write.

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Making Obamacare work

Many people in American politics who lean to the left have a strange belief. They believe that Republicans do something wrong when we refuse to help Obamacare work.

Let me explain something:

The individual mandate harms my friends and neighbors. The individual mandate harms me. The individual mandate harms my country.

When confronted with something that harms people you care about, the loving, kind choice is to try to prevent that harm. The loving, kind choice is never to assist in harm.

Here’s an offer to people on the left: If you will join me in saving the people and the country I love from the evil of the individual mandate, I will join you in trying to make this law work.

But of course, when confronted with offers like that in the past, Obamacare supporters have said, the individual mandate is indispensable. The law can’t work without it.

Very well.

No change to the individual mandate, no help from Republicans.

I want all my fellow Americans to have health coverage if they want it. I want all my fellow Americans to have financial security in the event of illness.

But I do not want it so bad that I will destroy the freedom of people I love just to get it.

End the mandate, and Republican “obstructionism” will change.

Keep the mandate, and you are participating in an evil enterprise which must be ended by whatever nonviolent means are at hand.

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Love can never be the law

Many legislators or politicians make a fairly simple chain of reasoning. Jesus says help the poor. Social security, SNAP, AFDC, welfare, medicaid, and many other forms of government spending help the poor. Therefore Christians should support them.

The fact which gets left out of that chain of reasoning is that all of those programs are funded by taxation, and taxation is never voluntary. If you get to choose whether or not to pay, it’s not called a tax, it’s called a suggested contribution. No one may live in a country and not pay its taxes.

Taxation is always backed up by the implicit threat that you will be found guilty of breaking the law if you don’t pay. The IRS will accuse you of tax evasion. A court will find you guilty and sentence you to pay a fine. If you don’t pay that fine, the government will take your money and your things without your consent. If you wont give up your money and your things, you will go to prison.

Jesus does not endorse that relationship. Jesus came to set the captives free, not to put more people in prison. Jesus came to allow people to choose, not to force them.

Choosing to help the poor pleases God. Grudgingly allowing a system based on force to take your money against your will and spend it on the poor does not please God.

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God will never force you.

God is love. –1 John 4:8

Love does not insist on its own way. — 1 Corinthians 13:4-5 (ESV)

God will never force you. He will always let you choose everything about your own conduct. He may make it very clear to us which we he would go, but he will always leave the choice whether or not to say yes or no.

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Kantian Categorical Imperative

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from the 1700’s. He wrote a famous idea of how to treat other people. He called it the “Categorical Imperative,” or “the thing you should always try to do, no matter what your circumstances are.”

His idea of the way to treat people was written, in its initial language, this way:

Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.

Of course, the older language makes it harder for us to relate to in the era of 140-character tweets. Let’s try paraphrasing it.

Never treat a person as a means. Always treat every person as an end in themselves.

Here the word “means” is used to mean “something you use” and the words “an end in themselves” means “the goal.”

And so a further paraphrase might read, “never use people to achieve your own goals. Always treat people in a way that works toward their own goals.”

It’s a fairly workable definition of love, frankly. If we accept it as a good way to treat people, it poses a good question for modern American politics:

What does all this say about a system that forces one person to buy health insurance in order to achieve the goal of making it affordable for someone else?

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What creates contentment?

So a journalist named Adam Weinstein has written an essay that I find interesting. It’s written in response to something I read — and obviously so did he — about how people of his generation (Gen Y) are spoiled and have too big of a sense of entitlement and shouldn’t whine so much about not being rich and famous yet.

I don’t want to express an opinion about the original article. I think all of us suffer from our own self-delusions and such, it’s not unique to one generation.

What I do find interesting is the attitude Mr. Weinstein expresses in his essay. He describes himself as broke, underemployed, perpetually renting, burdened by student debt, etc. He seems, from his essay, very very disappointed with his financial position in life.

Now, I don’t know what he makes, and I’m not going to put what I make on a blog. But it’s really hard for me to imagine that he makes less than me. I make more than the average per capita income in Montana, but far far less than President Obama’s definition of “the rich.” Less by a decimal place and then some.

And yet I’m pretty content.

Yeah, I’m always shaking the piggy bank the last day or two before payday. Yeah, my condo is a long way from the home I want. Yes, I could easily find a way to put more money to very good use.

But basically, I’m alright. Could I use more money? Sure. Is the lack of it hurting me? No.

So Mr. Weinstein has had a pretty cool writing career. He’s writing for a lot of national publications (obviously different ones than I would write for), and making a living at it. I once wanted to be a professional writer — maybe someday I still will.

But from my perspective, it looks like he’s a very fortunate man. He seems to have a lot of things I wish I had — not least a family.

(No doubt that family contributes to the greater sense of financial hardship he feels, but still, it seems like a great gift.)

So why do I feel content, and he feels broke and trapped by debt?

I am not a better money manager than he is, I promise you.

I’m sure the authors of the original article that he was responding to would have an idea of the answer to my question. But I don’t like their answer. It’s belittling and not meant to treat him with respect.

He’s a professional writer, has a family, has people all around the country reading his work and having their politics influenced by what he writes…

I’m a small state party ED who doesn’t make very much money, has almost infinitely-less influence than outside observers seem to think, and is still patiently waiting in terms of family.

By everything that I wanted when I was a child, I should envy him. Instead, he feels trapped and broke, and I feel like I’m blessed beyond imagining.

I’m not going to answer the question of why he feels bad and I feel good. All I’m going to do is thank Jesus for the contentment I have.

(Update: I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that LinkedIn says I’m 3 degrees removed from him. Probably one of the Romney campaign guys I worked with knows someone who knows him.)

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Private Property in the Bible

And my princes will no longer oppress my people but will allow the people of Israel to possess the land according to their tribes. –Ezekiel 45:8

A government that does not allow the people to possess land is oppressive. Private property ownership is a scriptural principle, and it is a facet of a government that does not offend him.

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Freedom is good

It is good when Americans may make their own choices about purchasing firearms. It is a moral good when individuals can use technology to make themselves better able to defend themselves. It is good when free citizens can make economic choices privately, without a file being kept on it.

Any law that attempts to alter those situations, inherently, removes something that is morally good from the people.

Anything that removes a good is, by definition, a harm.

Gun control harms people.

Those who vote for it rightly should be voted out of office.

That happened in Colorado last night. It’s proof that our republican form of government is still valid, despite everything the world might tell us.