The Great Bacon Dialog

THE  GREAT  BACON  DIALOG
Friday Nov. 4th, 2022

 

Had a great discussion about bacon with Rick from Poplar Springs a couple of weeks ago at the Vintage Dog.  None of the quotations is exact.  It's really just a happy memory now.  Here's the way I recall it:

D I A L O G

Frank: Has Poplar Springs Baptist Church started back up on its monthly Saturday breakfast, now that many people feel the coronavirus is abating or drawing down?

Rick: Nope.  Price of bacon is too high.

Frank: Rats!  I'm gonna miss it.

(pause for thought)

Frank: Y'all had four meats: livermush, sausage, country ham, and bacon.  Why not simply cut out the bacon and serve the other three meats?

Rick: !!

Frank: I love country ham.  Doesn't everyone have a breakfast meat they like besides bacon?

(pause for thought)

Rick: I'm a bacon lover.  I'm not leaving home to pay for a breakfast that doesn't have bacon.

Frank:  Well, can you explain why people take so many slices of bacon?  (Thought balloon: I'm the oldest of four children.  When I was growing up, I thought it was a sin to put more than three slices of bacon on your plate.)

Rick (reading Frank's mind): When I went through the breakfast line, I used to put eleven slices of bacon on my plate.

Rick (to a passing bartender -- you know the Vintage Dog follows the multiple-bartender system, which works really well): If you went out to breakfast and you had a choice between livermush, sausage, country ham, and bacon, which would you choose?

Passing bartender (without missing a beat): Livermush.  (And she keeps on walking.)

(Fadeout)

Q U E S T I O N S   F O R   D I S C U S S I O N

1. Livermush is Cleveland County's "heritage breakfast meat."  How do you feel about "heritage breakfast meats"?

2. Doesn't this remind you of Plato's famous dialog between Haplodides, Diplodides, and Socrates about the meaning of life?  Why, or why not?

3a. Should the expression "As American as apple pie" be updated to read "As American as bacon"?  Justify your answer.

3b. What is your philosophy of bacon?

4. Based on the dialog, which man do you think is taller, Rick or Frank?  Explain.

 

Frank Newton (and yes, it is a happy memory)

Women's Liberation and the Parable of the Shattered Statue

WOMEN'S LIBERATION AND THE PARABLE OF THE SHATTERED STATUE
Wednesday Oct. 26th, 2022

In the year leading up to my seventy-first birthday, I have a different angle on women's liberation from other people, and also from what I used to feel.  It will take me a couple of paragraphs to explain.  Here we go.

1. The Parable of the Shattered Statue

We say that in earlier generations, men put women on a pedestal.  That means men talked about women in an idealized way, as if half of the human race was a statue on a pedestal.  Now, we are not supposed to talk about women in an idealized way.  One part of this means that we are supposed to talk about women one by one.  Also, if we make two pieces of art with one woman in each piece of art, the two depictions are supposed to be depictions of different women.  One piece of art ought to show one woman, and the other piece of art ought to show a different woman.

In other words, we don't have a statue of woman, or in the plural two statues of woman.  Instead, we have a statue of a woman, and in the plural, two statues of women. 

Taking the metaphor of the pedestal for granted, we can say that the statue of the woman on the pedestal has been shattered.

Now what?

In this parable I am writing, there are several things we can do, and those things are also things which people actually are doing.  Here are three.

a) We can explain why we needed to shatter the statue.
b) We can haul off the pieces of the statue, so that no one will trip over the broken pieces of stone, and they won't block the way.
c) We can deplore the shattering of the statue, and explain why it should not have been shattered.

As I said, all of those things are being done.  We can make a chart, with (a), (b), and (c) down the side, and two columns labeled "Liberals Believe" and "Conservatives Believe," and we can fill in the boxes with either "a worthwhile activity" or "not a worthwhile activity."  The chart comes out looking like this:

	Liberals Believe It Is	Conservatives Believe It Is
a) We can explain why we needed to shatter the statue.	a worthwhile activity.	not a worthwhile activity.
b) We can haul off the pieces of the statue, so that no one will trip over the broken pieces of stone, and they won't block the way.	a worthwhile activity.	a worthwhile activity.
c) We can deplore the shattering of the statue, and explain why it should not have been shattered.	not a worthwhile activity.	a worthwhile activity.

If we follow the metaphor of the shattered statue, the only thing liberals and conservatives agree about is that we need to move out of the way any and all shattered pieces of stone that are blocking people's path.

2. My Fourth Possibility

I believe there is a fourth activity we need to be doing, which no one else that I know believes we need to be doing.

We need to describe what the pieces of the shattered statue look like, lying on the ground.

That is the intellectual equivalent of taking a photograph of the shattered statue.

How can one describe what the shattered statue looks like, lying on the ground?

3. A Description

Here is my description of what the shattered statue looks like lying on the ground.

-- Men used to believe that in a boy's life, his mother would cook for him, and when he grows up, his wife cooks for him.

-- Now we believe that, early in the day, a person needs to purchase a meal cooked by a random person of either sex; and later in the day, a person needs to purchase a second meal cooked by another random person of either sex; and still later in the day, a person needs to purchase a third meal cooked by another random person.

The concept of "cook for" has been largely replaced by the concept of "buy a meal."

That is definitely not all there is to women's liberation, but it is definitely a very important part of women's liberation.

We don't mean to say that nobody cooks for her husband and nobody cooks for his wife nowadays.  But we do mean to say that the women who cook three meals a day for their husbands are a lot less numerous than they used to be; and the men who cook three meals a day for their wives used to be practically zero, and they are still not very numerous.

4. An Aside on a Fairy Tale

I will repeat the "Men used to believe" sentence and comment on it.

Men used to believe that in a boy's life, his mother would cook for him, and when he grows up, his wife cooks for him.

I think this explains a sentence in the story of Rumplestiltskin, which most people attach no meaning to nowadays.  Rumplestiltskin says to himself "Today I bake, tomorrow brew -- what a clever thing I do!"

As I said, I think most people nowadays assume that Rumplestiltskin is singing a meaningless song.  But when the story was first written down, I think that sentence meant "Rumplestiltskin had neither a mother nor a wife to cook for him.  This dude was a total goofball!"

Now when we read the story of Rumplestiltskin, we see nothing wrong with the fact that he is unmarried and he cooks for himself.

5. A More Important Commentary

Now I will talk about what I wrote in part three, when I attempted to describe what the shattered statue looks like.

You can say what I wrote is a parody of women's liberation; you can say that it is making fun of women's liberation.  You can say that it is a reductio ad absurdum (a reduction of somebody else's argument to an absurd conclusion).

But I say I could have written it for parody or for mocking women's liberation, but I actually wrote it as an attempt to describe what the shattered statue looks like lying on the ground.

6. A Final Comment for Divergent Thinkers

I am a divergent thinker.

The Old Testament says "My thoughts are not your thoughts, says the LORD."

That Bible verse says two things to me.  Number one -- God is a divergent thinker.  Number two -- if you are a divergent thinker like me, and you are leaving a conversation or a party where you feel like nobody understood what you said, it is okay for you to say to yourself, "My thoughts were not their thoughts."

Frank Newton

Coronavirus Hindsight: My Reply to a Conservative Friend on Facebook

CORONAVIRUS HINDSIGHT: MY REPLY TO A CONSERVATIVE FRIEND ON FACEBOOK
Monday Oct. 24th, 2022

 

The evil was not in the government. The evil was in the virus. We were handed a massive defeat by a creature so small we can't even see it.  It's too bad the children lost two years of education, but there is no use crying over spilt milk. We need to pick up the pieces and move on. The virus was not a plot by evil human beings. It was a tiny creature that we couldn't control. We didn't have the science to control it. But our descendants will have the science to control it, if it tries to come back. We are the strongest species, but sometimes our species loses a battle really badly. The coronavirus was like the battle of Little Big Horn. The virus was in the position of the Dakotas and Cheyennes, and the human beings were in the position of General Custer's soldiers. But I'm not comparing our leaders to General Custer.  Don't get me started on that.  We did the best we could with the knowledge we had.  Dr. Antony Fauci was a saint.  It would have been nicer if he had known some things a couple of months earlier than he knew them, but he was doing the best he could, too. "First impressions mean so much" doesn't mean we should cling to our first impressions come hell or high water. When the authorities finally got around to telling us that we were wearing the masks not to protect ourselves, but to protect each other, we SHOULD HAVE SAID, oh this was one of those times when our first impressions were wrong. We have to be willing to revise our ideas when better information comes along. The virus was not about Democrats versus Republicans. It was about human beings versus the coronavirus creature. We lost badly. We have to learn the bitter lessons which losing a war teaches to the people who lost. We have to respect our scientists even when they don't have all the facts. God gets us into heaven, but scientists figure out what the medical profession can do to help us live longer. Scientists are working with God's blessing. Not every tax dollar invested in science is good value for the money, but choosing what science to invest in is partly a crap shoot, and our American authorities are doing the best they can to invest in good science. When Americans say they don't respect NASA, I simply don't believe them. Deep down, every American is proud of what American scientists have accomplished. But some Americans are so out of touch with their inner common sense that they don't even know they are proud of NASA. What is true for rocket science is true for our germ fighters, too.

Frank Newton

The Relationship Between People Who Did Well in School and People Who Did Not Do Well in School

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PEOPLE WHO DID WELL IN SCHOOL AND PEOPLE WHO DID NOT DO WELL IN SCHOOL
Sunday Oct. 23rd, 2022

 

I think Jesus changed his mind several times about rich people but He never changed his mind about poor people. I don't count "The poor you will always have with you." I interpret that sentence to mean "There will still be poor people after I am crucified and ascend into Heaven." That's what it means. It does not mean "Give up on helping the poor. You'll never make any progress."

Just as there will always be new children who need to be taught spelling and arithmetic, so likewise there will always be new poor people who need to be helped by more fortunate people who are trying to be like Jesus, at least a little bit.

I think there's a big correlation between children who learn more slowly than average children, and grownups who are poor. I do not know the brain, but broadly speaking, I think it's not a person's fault if they have fewer of those connector nerves in their brain connecting one part of the brain with another. Their processor isn't as fast or as reliable. When they grow up, sometimes they literally miss THE BUS because the bus schedule didn't stick accurately in their brains. They read or were told where the bus schedule said "4:12 p.m." But they misremembered it as "4:37 p.m."

Here's how I look at our species: God is making oodles of human beings using a very unstandardized process that gives highly uneven results. Some people come into the world with a lot more gifts and graces than other people, and those who have more are supposed to share with those who have less.

I don't think of taxes as an evil plot hatched by the government. I think of taxes as a sensible way, in a big country, for me to pool resources with other people who (like me) have more, so that we can help poor people, especially the enormous numbers of poor people that we will never meet in person.

The wickedness of the human heart greatly exceeds the wickedness of the government. We don't have a government problem. We have a problem shared by all the nations in the world: the problem of human beings who have more, and think they deserve to have more. Here's a phrase people used in Victorian England: the deserving poor. We need to start using that phrase again. What "the deserving poor" means is: "You are wrong if you think all poor people are criminals. And you are also wrong if you think none of the poor are criminals."

When a crooked person cheats a good-hearted person, there isn't any shame for the good-hearted person, unless they have consumed all of their substance in their misguided effort to help less fortunate people. When a crooked person cheats a good-hearted person, I think Jesus would say the system is working as intended. Time is a teacher, and we should have time to figure out who the deserving poor are before we die. Being cheated is part of life, but honest people seek each other out, and when honest people work together, they make the distribution of the gifts and graces less lopsided.

I perceive the Sermon on the Mount as an enormous miracle, which could never have been produced by a million monkeys typing on typewriters -- it could only have been produced by an incarnate being with an enormous reservoir of goodness inside of them. -- But I do not perceive the Sermon on the Mount as a complete guide to goodness.  As far as I can recall, the Sermon on the Mount does not say anything about forgiving people who cheat you, and forgiving yourself when you are cheated.

But if you want to help people less fortunate than you, or/and if you want to help the deserving poor, then you have to prepare yourself for being cheated.  You have to prepare your heart in advance to forgive people who will cheat you, and to forgive yourself for being cheated.  And that includes forgiving the government when it is cheated by crooked people.  Individual people, and governments, cannot do good, and cannot do the right thing consistently, without risking being duped by crooks. People who spit in the face of good people who have been duped, or spit in the face of well-intentioned governments who have been duped, are part of the problem.  Good people are duty-bound to remind citizens that crooked behavior is so unpatriotic that it is as unpatriotic as desertion on the battlefield.

People complain about how slowly government acts.  But the government acts slowly because of all the procedures that have been put in place after the government was cheated by one crook after another, to prevent the same cheat from working again.  Trying to dupe the government is not a game.  It is a nauseatingly unpatriotic behavior.

Frank Newton

Rude But Not Crude: a Recipe for Better Political Debates

RUDE BUT NOT CRUDE: A RECIPE FOR BETTER POLITICAL DEBATES
Tues. October 11th, 2022

 

This is a suggestion for better political debates.  Consider this situation.  Politician A makes a statement.  Then Politician B (of the other political party) tries to show why Politician A's statement is wrong.  Then politician A repeats their original statement.  Some news commentators seem to believe that Politician B is now in an impossible situation -- in other words, they believe that you can't win a debate against a person who keeps making the same point over and over again.

My counterclaim is that after Politician A has repeated himself, Politician B needs to think like a lawyer.

I've never been to law school -- not even for a small part of a semester -- but my impression is that an important part of lawyer training is on how to discredit witnesses -- how to make witnesses for the other side look bad.

That kind of training should be very helpful in a political debate.  I think the key for a lawyer trying to discredit a witness, or a politician trying to make an opponent look bad, is RUDE BUT NOT CRUDE

Here is my suggested solution for Politician B:

Politician A: [makes a statement].

Politician B: [tries to show why Politician A's statement is wrong].

Politician A: [repeats original statement and ignores Politician B's argument].

Politician B: I'VE ALREADY EXPLAINED WHY YOU'RE WRONG, BUT I''LL EXPLAIN IT AGAIN.

Saying "I've already explained why you're wrong, but I'll explain it again" is extremely rude.

In an ordinary conversation, saying "I've already explained why you're wrong, but I'll explain it again" would be a disaster.  You would immediately lose the support of everybody in the room.

Even if there wasn't anyone in the room except you and the person you were talking to, you've made an enemy for life.

But a political debate is no ordinary conversation!  A lot rides on a political debate.  Each candidate is trying to get a message across to the audience -- causing a general picture of what each candidate believes to dwell in the minds of listeners.  And for best results, an accurate general picture!

In the modern analysis, part of getting a message across is called "creating separation."  That might have started as a football metaphor -- first dodging to get your lead started, and then running faster than the guy who is trying to tackle you.  But in politics, it refers to creating a clear picture in your listeners' minds of how you are different from the other candidate, in terms of what you will vote for, or try to accomplish, if you are elected.

Now I'll try to show why being rude but not crude will help a politician to get their message across, and create separation.

Notice how "I've already explained why you're wrong, but I'll explain it again" is rude but not crude.

1 -- You haven't used any crude words.
2 -- You haven't used an ethnic slur, or an English word commonly used to criticize a specific group of people based on a disability, or based on any other thing  not directly related to your audience's political opinions.
3 -- You have forcefully criticized your opponent's behavior, but you didn't attack their character.

I've already suggested that saying "I've already explained why you're wrong, but I'll explain it again" in almost any other situation is completely useless, and extremely counterproductive.

But it is not useless, and not counterproductive, in a political debate.

In a political debate, saying "I've already explained why you're wrong, but I'll explain it again" means "My opponent doesn't know how to come to grips with other people's ideas."  You're implying: All my opponent can do is to repeat himself.  He doesn't know how to respond to what I've said, and he doesn't know how to strengthen his position by adding supporting arguments.

Here's the really interesting thing: I believe that almost every citizen knows, instinctively, that showing that "My opponent doesn't know how to come to grips with other people's ideas" is an extremely serious criticism, when we are talking about people who want to be leaders.

People know, instinctively, that a person who doesn't know how to say why their ideas are better than the other candidate's ideas cannot be an effective leader.

Leadership is partly about applying force, and using good tactics.  But when leaders are elected, leadership is also about using words to explain why your ideas are better than your opponent's ideas.  If citizens have a choice between a candidate who is forceful but also good at telling you why their way is the best way -- on the one hand -- and a candidate who is forceful, but not good at telling you why their way is the best way -- on the other hand -- then citizens  will vote for the first candidate, the one who is forceful but also good at "building consensus" as people put it.

If you are one of the candidates, your job, as a debater, is to trigger that impression in your listeners -- the impression "My opponent doesn't know how to come to grips with other people's ideas."  In the little scenario described above, a lot is riding on Politician B's second turn in the debate.  In Politician B's second turn, the best strategy is to be rude but not crude.  Don't say "My opponent doesn't know how to come to grips with other people's ideas."  Instead say, "I've already explained why you're wrong, but I'll explain it again."  Explaining why the other guy is wrong is an important leadership skill.  If you can show people you have it, they will say you were rude but not crude, and they will support you enthusiastically.  Citizens can use newspapers and television to diagnose that you will not be rude to ordinary citizens -- you will only be rude to your opponents in a debate, and even then rude but not crude.

But you have to get the message across yourself.  If you are a candidate in an election, you cannot pay someone else to do it for you.  Paying other people to express your opinions -- especially angry voice-actors!! -- is not a leadership skill.

Frank Newton

Matthaean

MATTHAEAN

Mon. October 10th, 2022

I like the phrases in the left-hand column.  I do not like the phrases in the right-hand column.

            I  LIKE                                               I  DON'T  LIKE

            Matthew's story                                  the Matthaean story

            Mark's story                                        the Marcan story

            Luke's story                                        the Lucan story

            John's story                                         the Johannine story

            Paul's story                                          the Pauline story

The words in the right-hand column ending in -an and -ine are borrowed (taken) from Latin and Greek.  I do not object to words borrowed from Latin and Greek.  But . . . I'll try to explain.

Somewhat similar words are derived from the names of some other famous people.  Newtonian physics is a set of principles first expressed by Sir Isaac Newton.  Jeffersonian democracy is democracy as President Thomas Jefferson defined it.  The Elizabethan Age is the time when Queen Elizabeth the First was queen of England.  The Augustan Age is the time when Augustus was the emperor of the Roman Empire.

All of these words are derived from the names of people by adding suffixes, which turn the name into an adjective.  And they imply that the person, although dead in most cases, is important.

The way I see it, though, there is an important difference with the words derived from the New Testament writers and the words derived from the other people's names, in the examples given above.  The difference is this: no one is trying to explain Newtonian physics to children.  No one is trying to explain Jeffer­sonian democracy to children.  No one is trying to explain the Elizabethan Age to children; although many people are involved in explaining the Elizabethan Age to teenagers.

But people are trying to introduce children to Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul.

The best I can figure out, the reason I don't like Matthaean, Marcan, Lucan, Johannine, and Pauline is that, when adult Christians are talking to each other and using these words, they are using learned ways of talking which are quite sensibly avoided by Sunday School teachers when they are talking to children.

What stands out for me, is the question of whether adult Christian beliefs about the New Testament writers, and aspects of Christian religion in general, are a deeper and maturer version of the teaching which children receive about Christianity, or a mutation of the teaching which children receive about Christianity.

To me, there is a feeling or connotation which attaches to the words Matthaean, Marcan, Lucan, Johannine, and Pauline -- a feeling or connotation that the users of these longer words have experienced a mutation, rather than a deepening, of their faith.

My own instinct and hope is that there is a continuity and connectedness and cooperation be­tween the work of Sunday School teachers on the one hand, and the work of theologians on the other hand.  That is, perhaps, a leap of faith on my part.

Conclusion.  It seems to me that using phrases like the ones in the left-hand column above are a way for adult Christians who are not teaching Sunday School to children to express solidarity with Sunday School teachers.

Chasing a Rabbit.  I cut out a few paragraphs, but I decided to keep one point I made in them.  I observed that when people use the word Pauline in writing -- meaning of, by, from, or pertaining to Saint Paul -- they usually don't tell you how they pronounce it.  Do they make it rhyme with machine, so it is pronounced like the woman's name Pauline, or do they make it rhyme with canine?  I will say that if I did decide to make an exception and use one of these words, I would make Matthaean rhyme with Ian, and make Pauline rhyme with canine.  (I like to be ready to pronounce rare words, even if the chances of me using them are slim.)

Frank Newton

What Kind of Democrat Am I?

 

WHAT KIND OF DEMOCRAT AM I?
Fri. September 2nd, 2022

 

One of the main recreations of Americans in our time is stereotyping the opposite political party.  In the hope of inspiring other moderate people in both political parties to contribute to shrinking the power which these stereotypes have over us, I decided to give any readers I might have a picture of what kind of Democrat I am.

I hope that you will conclude that I am what you might call a "Chinese menu" Democrat -- a Democrat who chooses some values from column A, and other values from column B.

Summary of what follows:

Part One

1. I'm a Christian Democrat.

2. I'm a semi-Darwinist.

3. The Bible is my holy book, but I do not believe in its inerrancy.

4. For me as an American, my proof text in the Bible for belonging to the Democratic party is Isaiah 58:6  . . . [to] "set free those who are oppressed, tearing off every yoke."

Part Two

5. I believe in taxation.

6. I do not believe in political correctness.

7. I respect the United States Constitution.

8. I believe that the Electoral College should be respected by the people, until such time as it may be repealed by a duly authorized amendment to the Constitution.

9. I believe that the farmer is the man.

10. I support gun control.

11. I believe that the legal term "qualified immunity," used to describe the right of police officers not to be prosecuted for what they do while on duty, means "limited immunity."

12. I am opposed to revolutions.

13. I oppose the legal notion that corporations and organizations have the right of free speech.

14. I believe drastic changes need to be made in the regulation of people and combin­ations of people lending money to young people so that they can continue their education.

15. I believe education is not a right; it is something earned.

16. I am in favor of the death penalty for murderers.

17. I believe global warming is an impending doom which the human race should fight against, and pass laws to avoid it.

PART ONE

1. I'm a Christian Democrat.  

I go to church for a number of reasons.  The most important is to hear the words and deeds of Jesus read aloud over and over.  The rock and roll songwriter Ian Anderson wrote in one of his songs "He's not the kind you have to wind up on Sunday."  Anderson was talking about God.  I agree that God is not the kind you have to wind up on Sunday.  The point is, I'm the kind you have to wind up on Sunday.

I'll speak for a moment to the people who were not alive when the old clocks were in use.  The old clocks did something which is called "winding down," meaning they gradually quit keeping time after a certain amount of time had passed.  Taking the key of the clock and inserting it in the clock and winding up the mechanism once a week prevented the clock from winding down.  Seven days was a good amount of time between windings.  I remember my father winding up our clock in the sitting room (living room) on Sunday evenings.

There is nothing magical about the number seven.  But, it is a very wise general compromise on how many days you should have to wait between one day of setting down the tools of your trade (as much as is humanly possible), and the next day for doing the same.  (Minus one, of course.  With a seven-day cycle, you have to wait six days between one day of setting down the tools of your trade (as much as is humanly possible) and the next day of doing the same.) -- "As much as is humanly possible" could be interpreted various ways, but I interpret it to mean that it is useful and good not to stop watering and feeding the animals, not to stop cooking, and not to stop policing and not to stop guarding the city gates, not even one day out of seven.

The Jewish religious leaders who caused the ten commandments to be copied and recited, and generally not forgotten, intended the day of rest to be a day for citizens to worship the ruler of the universe and think about the commandments they live by.  But those things are in addition to it being a day of rest.  Even people who do not believe in a ruler of the universe may pause to think about the commandments or principles they live by -- the fundamental things which apply as time goes by, to paraphrase the song with words and music by Herman Hupfeld.

Incidentally, Jesus never criticized the day of rest.  He repeatedly criticized the nit-picking approach which some of the Pharisees took to the day of rest, but he never criticized the day of rest itself.

There are so many other reasons I go to church, besides being reminded of the words and deeds of Jesus by hearing readings from the Gospels.  One is to sit quietly and admire the stained glass windows or the other works of art in the church.  Another is to praise God, which is a discipline.  Another is to be reminded that there is other moving and satisfying music besides patriotic music and music about the relations between men and women.  Another is to hear exhort­ations to righteousness from my priest and deacon -- my immediate spiritual leaders, to speak more gen­erally.  Other Christians call them pastors or preachers, but it would be a mistake to spend too much time debating over which of these terminologies is best.

Needing to hear from my immediate spiritual leaders the exhort­ations, which on different Sun­days focus on different parts and applications of our faith and beliefs, is an important part of me being the kind you have to wind up on Sundays.

Another reason I go to church is to enjoy the fellowship of kindred souls, which many Christians call fellowshipping for short.

It is fair to say that most worship services do not work very well for wiggly people.  From my standpoint, wiggly people are created by God just like the rest of us.  That is why God created the Shakers and the whirling dervishes.  The world has made provision for wiggly people to worship and celebrate God.

My mother's favorite priest, David Yates, said that church is a spiritual filling station.  I come from an intellectual family. and this saying kind of stood out as a non-intellectual saying in my family when I was growing up, but the consensus of my parents was that it was right on the money.

2. I'm a semi-Darwinist. 

I believe in evolution, but I reject the notion that "survival of the fittest" is an appropriate pattern for human behavior.

I take my belief in evolution second-hand.  I have not read The Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection or any of Darwin's other books, or the books of his fellow-scientist and co-developer of the theory of evolution, Alfred Wallace.  I received my belief that evolution is a scientifically justified theory -- a current and non-superseded theory -- from the science textbooks I was given to study in school; with the support of my parents, who could not have single-handedly changed what textbooks my school adopted, but who did approve of the choice to teach evolution as a factual theory.

But survival of the fittest is not a pattern for the dealings of one human being with another.  Darwin did not intend it as a moral law.  He intended it as a scientific law: a statement of fact, not a statement of desirable behavior.

That puts, for me, the survival of the fittest in the same category as the dominion of people over the other animals described in Genesis chapter 1 at verse 26:

Genesis 1:26  Then God said, "Let us make human beings in our image, after our likeness, to have dominion over the fish in the sea, the birds of the air, and every living thing that moves upon the earth."

In my Christianity, Genesis 1:26 is not a statement of what is desirable; it is a statement of fact.

The survival of the fittest is the same kind of formula.  It is a statement of fact, for creatures living in a state of nature.  It is not a statement of what is justifiable or desirable.

Recently I read in Wikipedia that the female Tasmanian devil gives birth to a litter of around ten babies of their species; but the female of this species has only four nipples.  Again, if there is any truth at all in that, it is as a statement of fact,  There is nothing desirable about it.  If true, it is a dis­gusting fact about the world we live in.  Natural science is not an invitation to cease having any beliefs about what is desirable and righteous.

For the relations between two or more human beings, the teachings of Jesus supersede the formula of the survival of the fittest.  The teachings of Jesus render the survival of the fittest null and void as a statement of how human behavior should be conducted and guided.  Religious people of every religion are commanded to orient their behavior toward the way things ought to be, not to the way things are.  For Christians, that is the behavior laid down by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter  6, at verse 33:

Matthew 6:33  ". . . seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness . . ."

3. The Bible is my holy book, but I do not believe in its inerrancy. 

Biblical inerrancy means believing the doctrine that the Bible is one hundred percent free from error.  In terms of the first two chapters of the Bible, which tell the ancient Jewish story of the creation of the world, not believing in Biblical inerrancy is a necessary condition for believing in evolution as Darwin and Wallace formulated it.

But as for me, wanting to believe in evolution is not my main reason for disbelieving in the inerrancy of the Bible.  I have written at length and fierily about my main reason for disbelieving in Biblical inerrancy in my prophecy, On Healing Ancient Wrongs.  (Since it has not been published, I will add that if you need to find that file on my computer after I die, it is the file called Prophecy of Francis Newton Jr in the directory called \DadGathering\.)  This is my reason for disbelieving in inerrancy: I disbelieve that God commanded Joshua to kill all the men, women, and children of Jericho after Jericho's walls fell down.

The killing of the men, women, and children of Jericho is commanded in the Bible.  The Bible verses in question are the Book of Joshua chapter 6, verses 17 and 20 to 21, and the supporting verses in Book of Deuteronomy (believed by many Christians to have been written before the Book of Joshua) -- Deuteronomy chapter 20, verses 16 to 18.

Christians cope with these Bible verses in various ways, but none of our ways of coping with these verses is honorable.  These verses are what the Muslims call sword verses, meaning, verses which justify massacres.

One way of coping is to say that that is the way people behaved around 1000 B.C., but the message of Jesus means (among many other things) that we are no longer to behave that way.

My prophecy is that the Bible words commanding the massacre of the Jerichoans are not the words of the Lord.  That means that Biblical inerrancy cannot be a correct teaching or belief.  From that, it follows that how long it took the world or the universe to be created is not some­thing that Christians need to worry about.

But I have received a supplementary vision concerning Biblical inerrancy which, to my knowl­edge, other liberal Christians have not studied; and I have not studied it as much as it needs to be studied.  Here it is: conservative Christians believe in Biblical inerrancy because the belief in Biblical inerrancy simplifies the work of children's Sunday School teachers.  Conservative Christians believe that the idea that the Bible is not inerrant is unsuitable for children's ears.  In a denomination which believes in Biblical inerrancy, the task of children's Sunday School teachers is greatly simpli­fied.  They simply teach children what the adults in their denomination believe.

I agree that Biblical errancy is not a suitable doctrine to put into children's ears.  But for my denomination, the Episcopal or Anglican denomination, which is in the camp of liberal Christians -- I am oversimplifying a little, but I will not go into detail -- the doctrine that the Bible contains mistakes  means that the beliefs of the adults in my denomination are not in harmony with the teaching duties of children's Sunday School teachers.

In other words, there is a tension between what adult Episcopalians believe and what Episco­palians like me consider suitable for children to be taught.  For me, this is in line with my belief that it is not appropriate to teach children about the Holocaust of the Jews.  That teaching should be reserved for the teenagers.  What is taught to children should be things that they may take for granted when they grow up.  But no one should take for granted the Holocaust of the Jews.  The Holocaust should be an object of fear and loathing for every future generation.  The way to make that so, is to postpone the teaching of it until the children have become teenagers.

The teaching of children's Sunday School in the liberal denominations like mine seems like a difficult problem to me.  But I do not have any more light to shed on it.

4. For me as an American, my proof text in the Bible for belonging to the Democratic party is in the Book of Isaiah, chapter 58, at verse 6:

Isaiah 58:6  . . . is not this the fast that I require, to loose the fetters of injustice, to untie the knots of the yoke, and set free those who are oppressed, tearing off every yoke?

In this Bible verse, God is speaking.  That is, the prophet writes down the words God spoke to him: because this verse falls under the heading of Isaiah chapter 56, at the first verse: "These are the words of the LORD."

For Christian Democrats, Isaiah 58:6 is the proof text for supporting liberation movements, after one is convinced that any particular liberation movement is not a sham.

In my lifetime, I have witnessed many liberation movements.  I have welcomed them.  All liberation movements involve inconvenience.  But for the long run, the work of people who believe in tearing off every yoke is to prune away the inconveniences so that the liberation will stand by itself, without laying undue burdens on people already free; without assumptions which do not follow from the premises; and specifically without assuming that the group of people whose yokes are being torn off are correct in every detail about what needs to be changed.

This concludes the religious portion of What Kind of Democrat Am I?  I put the religious portion first, because for me, with my beliefs, the religious portion orients and stabilizes the rest.

PART TWO

5. I believe in taxation.

It is appropriate for nations to tax their citizens.  Adult citizens owe financial support to their country, just as young adult citizens owe military duty to their country.

The purpose of taxation is to make the nation strong.  The doctrine that the least possible taxation should be imposed does not make the country strong; it weakens the country.

Taxation in support of institutions that administer justice fairly and honestly makes the nation stronger.  Taxation that supports the fair administration of justice creates citizens who are willing to fight for their country.  Taxation which is invested for the public good in multiple projects to address multiple needs and inequities of our society is an investment to make it unnecessary for our nation to hire mercenary soldiers.  Mercenary soldiers are undesirable, and they make our country stink in the nostrils of foreign countries, which is also undesirable.

6. I do not believe in political correctness.

Correcting other people's political correctness is no more virtuous than correcting other people's grammar.  Huckleberry Finn, the main character of Mark Twain's novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, calls the black man Jim a nigger, but Huckleberry Finn has a conscience.  The fact that Huck's conscience works -- it does what a person's conscience is supposed to do -- is more important than Huck's vocabulary.

Investigating a person's vocabulary is much easier than investigating their conscience, but it is also more childish than investigating their conscience.  When the Bible says God looks at the person's heart, we should not take that to mean that it is impossible for human beings to look at another person's heart.  True, we are not very good at looking at one another's heart, but that should not stop us from trying; trying, but not primarily for the purpose of condemning the other person.

I try to avoid words which other people find offensive.  But purity in terms of avoiding offensive words is a very minor form of purity, if the heart of the person whose speech is called offensive is in the right place.

Political correctness will shrink in importance; it will become no more important than it deserves to be.  I would also add, that the majority is not obliged to change the name they use for a mi­nori­ty every time the minority changes their preference for how they wish to be called.

7. I respect the United States Constitution.

I believe our Constitution is a highly desirable constitution, and deserves to be respected by our people, in addition to being protected and defended by our leaders, as they are sworn to do.

8. I believe that the Electoral College should be respected by the people, until such time as it may be repealed by a duly authorized amendment.

The Electoral College is written into our constitution, and the respect our Constitution commands and deserves should comprehend respect for the Electoral College; until such time, as already stated, when it shall be written out of our Constitution by a properly approved amendment.

The reason why our founders instituted an Electoral College is plain and obvious, and the opponents of the Electoral College should not pretend that our founders adopted it on a whim.  It was written into the Constitution to protect smaller states of the union from being pushed around by larger states.  In our generation, that can only mean that the Electoral College is part of our political system in order to protect rural states of the union from being pushed around by urban states.

Isolated Democratic complaints, after the 2016 presidential election, that the Republicans "stole" the 2016 election by winning the vote in the Electoral College after losing the popular vote, are the direct cause of the groundless Republican complaints, after the 2020 presidential election, that the Democrats "stole" the 2020 election.  People who commit verbal excesses will bring unwanted consequences upon the cause they claim to be supporting.

9. I believe that the farmer is the man.

Farmers are a vital part of any nation, and command respect, because they raise food for all the people to eat.  That is why I support the rights afforded to rural states in our Consti­tution.

10. I support gun control.

Self-protection is a reasonable right.  But many people with guns kill people without guns, not because the person with the gun is in any kind of danger, but because the person with the gun is under the delusion that they are in danger.  Being under the delusion that one is in danger is not a justification for society not to punish a person who kills another person.  On the contrary, the full force and penalty of the law should fall upon the person who kills another person because they are under the delusion that they are in danger.  The fact that it only takes a few seconds to kill a person, if you have a gun, does not justify the delusion -- it is not a justification if the delusion only needs to last a few seconds in order for the other person to be dead.

For civilians to be wrong about the need to kill someone is a severe and extreme form of wrongness, and should be punishable.

11. I believe that the legal term "qualified immunity," used to describe the right of police officers not to be prosecuted for what they do while on duty, means "limited immunity."

Qualified immunity means that a presumption of not having committed a crime attaches to the action of police officers while on duty.  But presumption does not mean that a police officer is protected from inquiries, or from prosecution, when evidence is available to people suggesting that the police officer did exceed the limits of their duties, or when evidence is withheld from large numbers of people as to whether the police officer did or did not exceed the limits of their duties.

Kneeling on a suspect's neck until the suspect is dead is not behavior which is protected by qualified immunity.  Citizens are obliged to respect the police, but citizens are not obliged to hold police officers harmless when police officers engage in reckless and irresponsible behavior.  There are a few bad apples in almost any line of work.  The bad apples should not be shielded from punishment, if they injure people while disregarding the norms of their profession.  There is no immunity for priests who molest juveniles.  There is no immunity for Air Force officers or men who pilot an airplane in such a way that the air­plane severs the ropes of a ski lift in the air at a ski resort, plunging skiers to their deaths.  There should be no immunity for police officers who behave with reckless disregard for the lives of suspects, or open fire at the wrong house.

12. I am opposed to revolutions.

I hold that the success and enduring value of the American Revolution was a fluke.  The over­whelming majority of revolutions fail to achieve their objectives, and end in blood­baths and the death of many innocent people.  With almost no exceptions, it is foolish to support a revolution in one's own country, and meddlesome to support a revolution in somebody else's country.  A song by Bob Dylan says there was "revolution in the air" in a certain decade of American history (not the 1770's).  Anytime a revolution is in the air, the best thing to do is to suck it out of the air.  That is done, above all, by reforming the aspects of the political system, and the defects in the management of the nation, which are inclining people towards revolution.

Some other, non-political revolutions have also been the occasion of grievous and hateful oppressions.  The Industrial Revolution is an example.  A period in which large numbers of people go to work in factories for the first time, without any legal restraints on the factory own­ers, is going to be a period of oppression -- a time when new kinds of yokes and shack­les spring into existence.

13. I oppose the legal notion that corporations and organizations have the right of free speech.

If you are paid by someone else to speak, your speech is paid speech, not free speech, and it should not be protected as free speech.

An organization which exists only so that people can pay other people to speak for them is, by definition, incapable of uttering free speech, does not deserve any protections given by the Constitution in the name of free speech, and is not in the public interest.  It should be taxed, and be required to give a public accounting of what persons give it money, and how much money is received from each.  It should not be permitted to receive money given by other organizations and not traceable to a specific human being; it should be required to make public when it was organized and by whom, and the date it ceased operation if ceased.

But political parties, which do not go out of existence when a particular political goal is accomplished, should not be subject to taxation.

Even an organization which can be shown to have other purposes besides existing so that people can pay other people to speak for them, should not be permitted to utter anonymous speech.  A list of the organization's chief officers should be attached to, and reproduced with, any statement of the organization's beliefs or positions on political issues, and should continue to be available to be read after the organization ceases operations.  It should give names of officers in a long enough form that the person named cannot be equated with a long list of other people of similar names.

14. I believe drastic changes need to be made in the regulation of people and combinations of people lending money to young people so that they can continue their education.

It weakens our nation when we allow an enormous group of young people, twenty-two-year-olds, to be saddled with debts which will need thirty years to repay.  It weakens our nation like a grievous wound.

Different forms and degrees of debt forgiveness for college loan debt are possible and thinkable.  There is no need to exclude from such a program of debt forgiveness young people saddled with debt because of other unsuccessful but legal ways in which they tried to improve their career opportunities.  And there is every justification to exclude from this portion of taxation every person who has paid off a debt of similar size, starting with family resources of a similar size.  Under our Constitution, there will not be a law punishing people for some deed committed before the law against it was passed: an ex post facto law.  But the makers or lenders of college student loans will be deprived of nothing requiring compensation, and will be subject to no punishment beyond deprivation of future revenue which they have not in any sense earned.

Usury, the charging of excessive interest, was a sin in the Middle Ages, and is still a sin today.  A legal system which ignores usury is like a legal system which ignores robbery.  There should be laws against it, and it should be punishable by law.

15. I believe education is not a right; it is something earned.

Neither the government nor the nation has done any wrong if they do not provide financial assistance to all citizens seeking higher education.

Not every citizen benefits from prolonged education.  Higher education is a crap shoot.  There is no way to know if it will benefit a particular person, short of trying it.  But if the financial resources to pay for college are not available to a given citizen, or to their family, then they should proceed into adulthood without a higher education.  It does not make the nation stronger -- not in the slightest degree -- to offer higher education for free to all citizens.

Furthermore, there is and should be a military cast to higher education.  The student is not being shot at, and is not putting their life on the line for their country.  But the student does owe a duty of obedience to their teachers, and students should be subject to discipline if they fail to obey their teachers, discipline as far as being expelled from college with a record of misconduct.  And the student who cheats, caught or not caught, is guilty of conduct unbecoming a college student, and deserves to be punished.  As in military training, the teachers, not the students, dictate the speed at which higher education is taught.  Requiring students to stand when their teacher enters the classroom is no more unreasonable than requiring soldiers to salute in the presence of a superior.  Requirements set by teachers can be belaid by higher-ranking school officials, but only under very extraordinary circumstances.  A school administration which discourages teachers from giving lower grades is acting improperly.

This should not be interpreted to mean that there should be no punishment for students who ignore the authority of teachers in the course of education before college.

Education is the result of studying.  If a citizen does not study, they have neither earned nor received an education.  If they have attended school and have not studied, they have not been deprived of anything which can be called a right.

People who say that they are bored in school have no complaint. School work is work, and homework is part of school work.  The young person who is "bored" in school is in exactly the same position as the young person who is "bored" by feeding and watering animals on the farm.  In both cases, the only proper recourse is to run away.  Claiming that you have been deprived of a right when you are bored has no legal merit.  From a right young age, a child owes work to their family or self-support to society -- work in a form which the child is capable of.  Education if seriously pursued by a young person is a way of satisfying the obligation to work.

16. I am in favor of the death penalty for murderers.

The government which puts citizens to death when they have been convicted of murder in a fair trial is providing a service to the nation.  This service can be called, briefly, the heading off of vendettas.  Citizens who do not believe that criminals are fairly punished will take the law into their own hands, and justice handed out by citizens who take the law into their own hands is very bad justice: crude, inconsistent, and heavily biased in favor of the strong.  Our nation's system of justice is completely justified when it acts in such a way as to head off vendettas.

The people of the nation who are unaffected by a murder owe a debt to the family of the murd­ered person, and that debt is paid by not stinting the punishment of the person proved guilty of the murder.  The Bible is completely correct when it says that the blood of a murdered person cries out from the ground.

The finding that black people convicted of murder are put to death more often than white people convicted of murder in our country does not mean that fewer black people convicted of murder should be put to death.  It means that more white people convicted of murder should be put to death.  People who believe in the impartial administration of justice should work to see that more white people con­victed of murder are put to death.

17. I believe global warming is an impending doom which the human race should fight against, and pass laws to reduce it.

The issue of global warming is an issue of trust in scientists.  I trust the world community of scientists to get their facts straight on global warming.  That is, I trust that scientists already have gotten their facts straight on global warming.

I feel sorry for the owners of land which, it is forecast, will sink beneath the ocean waves.  But they have no right to delay the fight against global warming until they have sold their land to some more gullible person.

Global warming can only be opposed by international cooperation.  I will vote for politicians who believe that the United States needs to sign treaties which dictate the behavior of nations with respect to global warming, including the behavior of our own nation.  There is a time for nations to come together and cede, every one of them including ours, some of their sovereignty for the sake of saving the planet.  The human beings alive today are living in one of those times.

Conclusion

I have tried to make a case that I am a Chinese menu Democrat, taking some beliefs from column A, and other beliefs from column B.  I rest my case.

I did not intend to write such a long essay.  But it is what it is, until I figure out how to write a shorter version, without leaving my beliefs completely undefended and unexplained.

Frank Newton