In this second post about OCCUPY Portland: Its not really hypocrisy that I am interested in highlighting by making this post.

I am not even defending corporations, per, se.

Rather, what I want to know is what these folks want? I sincerely ask: If you had your way, what would you want to see different in our society if you we able to achieve the changes you are calling for (whatever those are)? If you got your way, do you think you that you would be able to continue enjoying the way of life you currently have?

Thought Experiment: Here is a list of the things that OCCUPY Portland listed on its website as needs for the success of the protest. Which of these do you think will Not be provided by a corporation (probably publicly traded on Wall Street)?

Immediate Needs Friday 10/7

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Corporations, Occupy Portland, Politics, protest

Occupy Portland - In Peaceful Solidarity with Occupy Wall Street

Beginning in New York city on Wall Street, we now have an organized group of protesters ready to help folks “Reclaim Your Voice.”  What are they protesting against? Pretty much anything that seems worth protesting about: Apartheid in Israel, loss of jobs, loss of pensions, union busting, decline in housing values, political corruption and cronyism, war, poverty, world hunger, student debt, greed, injustice, racism, CAPITALISM, and on goes the list. I have linked picture above to the Occupy Portland website so that you can see for yourself what they are saying.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: NT - Luke, Occupy Portland, Politics, protest, revolution

Rousseau in 1753, by Maurice Quentin de La Tour

E.L. Hebden Taylor points out that a significant problem for Western Civilization as it turned away from God, His Word and a Christian worldview (in the 16^th & 17^th centuries) was how to balance human freedom with the needs of society as a whole.

“Rousseau attempted to solve this problem by means of his theory of the “social contract” which in order to be valid must include precisely the clause that each individual delivers himself with all his natural rights to all, collectively, and thus through becoming subject to the whole by his participation in the “general will” gets back all his natural rights in a higher juridical form…The “general will” is, by Rousseau’s definition, always right. It is the common will of the people. If man himself is the only criterion for moral and political behavior, then the benefit of the majority of men in a given community becomes irresistible. Instead of our doing good to others, it is they who do good to us by allowing us to exist.” (The Christian Philosophy of Law, Politics and the State, pp. 214-215)

And so we see the seeds planted in the soil of intellectual thought that grew to become a Statist view of life, blooming into a form Totalitarian Democracy. Hebden Taylor continues by quoting Rousseau:

“As nature gives each man absolute power over all his members, the social compact gives the body politic absolute power of all its members also; and it is this power which, under the direction of the general will bears…the name of Sovereignty…The most general will is always the most just also, and the voice of the people is in fact the voice of God.” (The Christian Philosophy of Law, Politics and the State, pp. 216)

Hebden Taylor asserts: “With these ominous words, Rousseau, the so-called apostle of human freedom, ushered in the age of totalitarian democracy. His religion stands revealed as the deification of society…Rousseau invented modern democracy. He invented first the dogma that every man has an equal right to a say in government, and secondly, that democracy alone has the right to silence it critics or opponents.”

The storming of the Bastille, 14 July 1789

Thus, Rousseau also became the direct influence of those who led the French Revolution, and the Marxist revolutions to follow.

“Once the mystical idea of the general will was born, once society was credited with the common will, superior to the will of its individual members, eighteenth century rationalism became the instrument of revolutionary violence instead of benevolent despotism.” (The Christian Philosophy of Law, Politics and the State, pp. 218)

Tags: democracy, E. L. Hebden Taylor, general will, philosophy, political theory, Politics, revolution, Rousseau, social contract

E L Hebden Taylor (1925-2006)

I have recently begun The Christian Philosophy of Law, Politics and the State, by E.L. Hebden Taylor He wrote:

“One of the great tragedies of the Protestant Reformation was the failure of the great Reformers John Calvin and Martin Luther to develop a doctrine of law, politics and the sate upon truly reformed and biblical lines…[because] they  were so involved in theological disputes, religious controversy and the very struggle for survival that they did not have time left in which to develop a reformed and biblical theory of politics and government.”

For this reason, Protestant Christians in the years following the Reformation relied on medieval and scholastic conceptions of society based on Natural Law, resulting in an inability to provide an explicitly biblical and Reformed view of politics, science, art, etc. Consequently, in the tidal wave of the Enlightenment forces, “protestant Christians were unable to withstand the onrush of the new secular humanist conceptions of law, politics and the state.”  Taylor quotes James Hasting Nichols History Christianity 1650-1960:

“In the seventeenth century, for the first time in a thousand years in Western history, a deliberate attempt was made on a grand scale to organize a religiously neutral civilization…independent of Christianity.”

Tags: E. L. Hebden Taylor, government, law, Natural Law, Politics

In a heroic effort over the last few days to keep the US Federal Government from shutting down because there is no budget in place – Our leaders of the House and Senate reached an agreement with our President (with less than two hours to spare) to enact what amounts to an incredible $38 Billion reduction in spending this year!  Good news, right?

Of course the Democrats are complaining that the cuts they were forced to agree to were draconian and wicked, and the Republicans are (at least the leaders) doing a little jig that they were able to get such significant concessions from their rivals. President Obama (I heard on the radio) called this the biggest one year cut in the budget ever (this is an unconfirmed report)!

Let take a look at how much slashing this $38 Billion from our spending will help us. In the following clip the illustrator explains how much impact a reduction of  $61 Billion (quite a bit more than was actually agreed to) would have on our Federal budget and debts.

Post-Script:

Keep your eye on Representative Paul Ryan who has unveiled his party’s 2012 budget that would cut $5.8 trillion over the next decade. It also proposes reducing the top corporate and individual tax rates to 25 percent in what Republicans say is a move to improve American economic competitiveness.

O boy – we have a lot to look forward to in the days of ahead as the Presidential elections get into full swing!!!

“And the Lord said to Samuel, “Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt, even to this day—with which they have forsaken Me and served other gods—so they are doing to you also. Now therefore, heed their voice.

However, you shall solemnly forewarn them, and show them the behavior of the king who will reign over them.” So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who asked him for a king. And he said, “This will be the behavior of the king who will reign over you: He will take your sons and appoint them for his own chariots and to be his horsemen, and some will run before his chariots. He will appoint captains over his thousands and captains over his fifties, will set some to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and some to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers. And he will take the best of your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves, and give them to his servants. He will take a tenth of your grain and your vintage, and give it to his officers and servants. And he will take your male servants, your female servants, your finest young men, and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take a tenth of your sheep. And you will be his servants.

And you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, and the Lord will not hear you in that day.” ” (1 Samuel 8:7–18, NKJV)

Tags: 1 Samuel, Federal Budget, Paul Ryan, Politics, Spending Cuts, US Government