Sunday Editorials Amok!

Many of you will not be surprised at my slowness, but I have only recently come to the realization that many of the authors of editorials on the D&C opinion page don't know more than I do or write better than I can; their crucial talent is convincing a newspaper's opinion page editor that they do.

Today's examples are from George Will and Cal Thomas. Mr. Will's premise is that "California is 'on the verge' of becoming something without an American precedent — 'a failed state.'" (perhaps it could be argued that several failed states occurred in the middle of the nineteenth century, but I digress). Mr. Will then settles in to gnaw that old conservative bone; taxes are causing the smart people with all the money to flee.

"It took years for liberalism's redistributive itch to create an income tax so steeply progressive that it prompts the flight from the state of wealth-creators: Since 1990, it's estimated that 3.4 million more Americans moved from California to one of the other 49 states than moved to California from another state."

This number looks impressive, if read quickly it implies that California is losing more population than any other state with the phrase "49 states". Of course all that's really stated is that 3.4 million more people left California than moved there. It's certainly possible that other lower taxed states lost an even larger percentage of their population to other states. Mr. Will conveniently fails to provide any comparisons.

"California, which between 1990 and 2007 lost 26 percent of its factory jobs and 35 percent of its high-tech manufacturing jobs, ranks behind only New York, another of liberalism's laboratories, in the number of outward-bound moving vans."

No doubt the people that lost jobs in factories and manufacturing were important to California's economy but normally Mr. Will doesn't classify those jobs as "wealth-creators". That designation is usually reserved for the barons of Silicon Valley. I note here that the City of San Jose's population rose by 14.4% between 1990 and 2000 and has continued to grow since then. The metropolitan area grew about 12%.

To summarize: 3.4 million people left California, 26% of factory jobs and 35% of high-tech manufacturing jobs in the state were eliminated. Conclusion, high taxes are to blame. This editorial is so full of rhetorical weaknesses that a high school forensics team would be embarrassed. To whit, if you don't have facts make comparisons with different units: a count of people leaving versus percentages of jobs lost. Also fail to define your terms: what is considered a "high-tech" manufacturing job? Finally ignore any other reasons for people moving (older population retiring?) or jobs being lost (lower wages of overseas workers in manufacturing jobs?).

Whether or not California will become a failed state isn't really addressed. Such a scenario probably has more to do with the state's political insanity known as "propositions" which allow voting minorities to grant themselves any ideological boon they can dream up (from restricting property tax increases to mandating eduction spending). Today George Will isn't in need of a fact checker so much as a logic checker.

Cal Thomas defends Brit Hume and takes offense at being part of the religious majority. In his premise Mr. Thomas is either ignorant of Christianity or dissembling.

"In a day when some extremists employ violence to advance their religion, it is curious that many would save their criticism for a truly peace-bringing message such as the one broadcast by Brit Hume."

Jesus may have redeemed the human race, but he acknowledged that his message was not peaceful. In Matthew 10:34 he said, "I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword". While it is very unlikely Jesus was encouraging his followers to take up arms he certainly acknowledged that his message would cause strife. In another aside I note that Mr. Thomas's implied separation of Christianity from other religions by its alleged peacefulness fails; the history of Christianity (and also the present day), is also full of extremists advancing it through violent means.

While I doubt that Brit Hume needs Mr. Thomas's defense, his public preaching to Tiger Woods is startling as Mr. Hume seems to have no qualifications for such counseling, his noted accomplishments to date are a history book, memoir, reading from a teleprompter, and a willingness to express his opinions.

Here Mr. Thomas briefly diverts confusingly into a rant about those who take Jesus's name in vain and how that would never be tolerated if using the name of Mohamed.

Finally Mr. Thomas arrives at the reason Brit Hume's comments have caused consternation for some commentators.

"Christians like Hume are not trying to impose anything on anyone. They know the difference Jesus has made in their lives and want to share His message in the hope that other lives will be similarly transformed.

When he was president, Jimmy Carter shared his faith with South Korean President Park Chung Hee as the two rode in a limousine on the way to the airport."

What Cal Thomas fails to understand is that sharing your personal faith in private (as President Carter did) where the recipient may respond with some freedom, is different from calling out someone in public during a personal crisis and imposing on them to respond. If Mr. Hume was a close friend of Tiger Woods and he chose to share his beliefs in private it would be hard to object, to offer unsought advice as a publicity stunt is just rude.

Where was God?

Today I came across a reference at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting to the media's reaction to African (read Somali) pirates. The article describes the responses in editorials, blogs, comments, etc., "people have called unequivocally-often in blunt, colorful language-for killing Somali pirates." This reminded me of a letter to the Democrat and Chronicle that I have been pondering for weeks now.

The letter writer attempts to use the capture and subsequent rescue of Captain Richard Phillips as proof of God's universal love (brief recap: Phillips was held hostage by Somali pirates. On Easter Sunday snipers from the U.S. Navy shot and killed his captors). The letter entitled "Capt. showed love for crew" opens with, "This Easter was a remarkable message of God's love for us all." Note that the writer wishes to impress upon us that a message of love for all people was delivered to the world by God.

The writer goes on to quote John 15:13, "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." The choice of Phillips to remain a captive so that his crew could go free is certainly noble.

The letter concludes with, "How awesome that Phillips was rescued on Easter Sunday — the day when Christians celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior." It was wonderful that Phillips was rescued, I however have to question the hand of divine providence (at least Christian divine providence) in the whole affair. While it troubles me that someone would consider what happened to be a meaningful message of God's love, what is most disturbing is that the writer never mentions the fact that to successfully rescue Phillips three people were shot and killed.

So, was the rescue of Phillips a message of God's love for us all?

It certainly wasn't for the three pirates who died violently. Perhaps those three pirates were unloved by God, perhaps His love excludes some people. If we examine Jesus's teachings we find he spent a large part of his time with prostitutes, tax collectors, and other undesirable people of his day. In this case tax collectors warrant more attention. In the classical world of Caesar Augustus tax collectors were government employees (Julius Caesar had ended the practice of tax farming); tax collectors were often corrupt and oversight lax so that they were able to "shake down" the population for as much money as they could get and keep whatever was left over after the taxes were taken. They often used intimidation and violence to extract money from people. You can imagine that the poor and powerless, the same group that made up most of Jesus's adherents, were especially victimized by the tax collector. Yet Jesus invited tax collectors to join him, and he even went to stay in their homes. If Jesus didn't exclude thugs who harmed and terrorized his followers it seems unlikely that any humans are outside his, and by extension God's, love.

There is more evidence that God's love extends to all people; one of Jesus's most oft-quoted sayings is, "Love your neighbor as yourself." (Luke 10:27) After Jesus affirms his belief in this ancient teaching from Leviticus a lawyer, looking for a loophole asks, "Who is my neighbor?" In answer Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan. The point of the parable is that every human being is your neighbor. Here also it seems hard to reconcile the killing of three people with Jesus's endorsement of the Golden Rule.

It seems to me that had Jesus met the Somali pirates he would have had no qualms about breaking bread with them at table.

So was the killing of three people and the rescue of an innocent captive really a message from God? Perhaps, but if there is a message it's probably not as simple as many, including the letter writer, would like. It might involve things like, understanding: why do these people choose to commit piracy? Does it have anything to do with the crushing and deadly poverty of Somalia? What about the destruction of the Somalian fishery by wealthier countries taking advantage of the lack of a real government to protect the fishermen and their way of life? Or maybe the message is that we are our brother's (and sister's) keeper and it's time to stop ignoring the suffering that goes on in many parts of the world.

I have a hard time believing that a just and loving God would view the sad conclusion of the situation as anything but a single epsiode, in a long and ancient history of human beings failing to love and tolerate each other as he would have them do.

And I wonder why it seems so few other people see it that way.