Drawn and Quartered

The subtitle of the 1996 book "Drawn and Quartered" is "The History of American Political Cartoons," an apt description illustrations that detail the American social and political experiment, the Civil War, the Industrial Revolution, the waves of immigrants to America, the wars and elections of the 20th Century.  Authors Stephen Hess and Sandy Northrop include more than 150 cartoons in their book.

Here's a tidbit.  The Republican party was represented by several different animals until the cartoonist Thomas Nast drew an elephant to symbolize the twenty year old Republican party in the cartoon panel "The Third Term Panic," published in Harper's Weekly November 7, 1874.  In the panel (p. 27), the elephant throws its weight around, overcoming Tammany, inflation and repudiation.  We are familiar with inflation but what were the other two?

Harper's Weekly, and Nast, was sympathetic to the Republican party, whose strength was in the North.  During the Reconstruction period following the Civil War, transitional southern state governments headed by Republican "carpetbagger" politicians issued bonds that were bought by a lot of Northeners.  Southerners argued that these debts should be repudiated or cancelled, just as the bonds of the southern states had been nullified by the 14th Amendment. The Republican elephant is pictured as destroying the forces of repudiation.

Tammany reform referred to a circle of corrupt Democratic politicans, headed by "Boss" Tweed, that controlled New York politics.  Nast's cartoons exposed the Tammany misdeeds and helped bring down the Tammany ring.

This book is a fun way to learn American history - a review of  the events and issues that were at the forefront of American concerns.  A more difficult lesson to learn is the ephemeral nature of current affairs.  Those living a hundred years from now will have little knowledge or concern with most of the burning issues of today just as we are unfamiliar with many of the struggles of 19th Century Americans.  When we extract the universal themes of corruption, however, the horror and folly of war, the dishonesty and contradiction that prompted these cartoons, we can appreciate the persistent unchanging repugnance that characterizes human affairs.

The Indignant Eye

The Indignant Eye is a 1969 book by Ralph E. Shikes that illustrates and explains political cartoons and sketches over a five hundred year period in Europe and the U.S.  The 400 illustrations are a wonderful narrative filter for history telling because it focuses on the concerns of people living in those times at those places.

Shikes commentary contains many insights.  Here's one on page 200 of the Beacon Press edition in regards to the century of revolt that began with the French Revolution: "the Rousseauist concept of political equality - the belief that power in a democracy stems from the people - was still ranged against the conviction of the church, the army, the higher bureaucracy, the aristocrats, and the wealthier bourgeoisie that authority must come from above and that special privilege was justifiable."

This theme of class, a stratification of human society that is pre-ordained by God, or genetics, continues to this day. It was at the heart of the eugenics movement in the U.S. where 60,000 people were sterilized over a fifty year period from 1909 to 1960.  The idea of the saved and the unsaved remains a key feature of some Christian churches.

Included in the book are sketches by prominent artists Van Gogh, Miro, and Picasso and leading printmakers and caricaturists Honore Daumier and Jacques Callot.  The book is an entertaining and informative journey through half a millenium of folly, outrage and misery.

Contradictions

These were some notes I made in 2014 on contradictions in Matthew, one of the New Testament books in the Bible.  Anyone can use these as they want.

A husband is not to divorce his wife.  1 Cor 6:11

A wife is not to depart from her husband. Even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried. 1 Cor 6:10-11

The Gospel of Matthew was written for observant Jews in the first century A.D.  The Gospel's aim was to convince Jewish people that this new teaching was not a departure from Judaic law but a furtherance and fulfillment of the law.  In the Sermon on the Mount, Chapter 5, the Gospel enumerates the sentiments and ethical rules or guidelines of this new teaching. Although this was a large event, it is not mentioned in the other three Gospels.

The Sermon begins with the Beatitudes, the "Blesseds..."  Then come the rules.  Some teach the Sermon on the Mount as though the rules in Chapters 5, 6, 7 were intended for all believers.  Matt 5:1-2 makes it clear that the disciples came to Jesus on the mountain and Jesus taught them, the disciples, not the multitudes gathered on the hillside.  In the Koine Greek New Testament text (http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/gnt/mat005.htm), the pronoun used is the standard 3rd person plural masculine accusative autous, meaning "them" and referring to the most recent noun mathehtai, "disciples" or "students."  Pronouns in Koine and Attic Greek are declined (change shape depending on what or who they refer to) and refer to the most recent noun which agrees in number, sex and gender.  In this case, that is the disciples, not the multitudes who had been following Jesus.  (Also, see end of this file for Greek grammar book ref)

On the other hand, the text is contradictory.  In the example above, the text refers to the disciples, as already noted, but in Matt 7:28, the text refers to the crowd, or multitude, "ohkloi", as being astonished at the teachings.  Are all of these rules that accompany the Sermon on the Mount heard by all believers, then? Like many religious texts throughout the world, these passages are marked by contradiction and enable teachers of these texts to validate multiple interpretations.

In Matt 5:19, Jesus refers to these "commandments" but breaking these rules does not mean one cannot enter the kingdom of heaven, only that one is "least in the kingdom of the heavens."  On the other hand, Jesus says that anyone who calls a brother a fool shall be subject to the fires of hell (5:22).   Unless the fires of hell are in heaven, these rules seem like pretty serious business.  So which is it?  In Matt 7:24 Jesus calls them sayings or discourses, using the plural of "logos" for word or utterance.  Are these commandments with consequences or simply exhortations, strong advice to be followed if we like?  In Matt 5:20, Jesus tells the disciples that they must be more righteous than the scribes and Pharisees or they won't get into heaven.

In Matt 5:16, Jesus tells the disciples "Let your light so shine before men" but in 6:1 he tells them not to do charitable acts in public.  Contradiction is a tried and true story-telling technique in both religious and secular texts.  We can guess that authors like Chaucer and Shakespeare learned the effectiveness of contradiction from the fiery arguments that have erupted during the centuries over the interpretation of many Bible passages.

Many of the rules in Chapters 5, 6, 7 are strict.  Some rules are rather extreme.  In Matt 5:29-30 Jesus tells the disciples that they should amputate their hands or gouge their eyes if those body parts cause the disciples to sin.  In Matt 5:39, Jesus encourages the disciples to go beyond gracious.  If someone hits them on the one cheek, a disciple should turn the other cheek.  In Matt 5:48, Jesus tells the disciples that "You shall be perfect just as your Father in heaven is perfect."

The audience for Matthew's Gospel would have been familiar with a special set of rules for the clergy.  The entire chapter of Leviticus is a set of rules for the priestly class.  In Matt 6, the rules keep on coming.  As mentioned, the disciples are told not to do any charitable deeds in public (6:1).  In Matt 6:6-7, Jesus tells the disciples not to pray in the synagogue nor out in the streets but to pray in secret to the Father.  Most clergy and Christians disregard this rule and pay attention only to the words of the prayer itself, the Lord's Prayer that begins "Our Father in Heaven..."  In Matt 6:19, Jesus tells the disciples not to accumulate "treasures" and many Caholic priests do not own goods in observance of this rule.  Most clergy of Protestant sects disregard this rule as well.  In Matt 6:32-34, Jesus tells the disciples not to be like the Gentiles and yearn for goods and other comforts.  Most Protestant clergy do not follow this rule.

Not quite done with all the rules, Chapter 7 begins with an admonition against judging other people. Then Jesus tells his disciples the Golden Rule found in all ethical systems or religions in one of two forms.  Jesus uses the positive form: we should do unto others as we would like others to do to  us.  
In Mark 12:28-34 we are told that the two most important commandments are 1) to love God with all our heart, mind and soul; and 2) love our neighbors as ourselves.

In Luke 10:25-28 a lawyer asks Jesus what are the commandments that will allow a person to "inherit eternal life."  Jesus answers with the two commandments above.  Now these are not just the most important commandments, but the only necessary commandments.

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The Rules of the Infinitive in Biblical Greek, Votow, 1896.
Explaining the various forms of infinitive: present (ongoing), or aorist (completed or occurring once)
http://greek-language.com/grammar/14_Infinitives.html

Dialog Topics

April 27, 2015

Some categories of topics that I have seen on Facebook
Abortion
Property Rights
Human Rights
Immigration
Vaccination
Selfishness vs Compassion
Privacy
Children's Rights and their status
God, the Bible, Koran, other religious texts
Celibacy of Priests and Women Religious
Women's Rights
Animal Rights
Intelligent Design vs Evolution
Managed Economies (Socialism, Communism) vs. Price Coordinated (Capitalist) Economies
Minimum Wage Laws

I'll try to update as I think of more.  Or some suggestions?

Two Aspects of the Enlightenment

In his book The Beginning of Infinity, David Deutsch notes a distinction in the Enlightenment as it developed on the European continent (continental) and in the British Isles.

"The Continental Enlightenment understood that problems are soluble but not that they are inevitable, while the British Enlightenment understood both equally." *

He goes on to say that this is not a geographic or national distinction.  A French thinker might hew toward the British version, or vice-versa.

This distinction helps explain some fundamental differences between the political institutions of Europe and America.  The U.S. was founded on the principle that imperfect people are the government. The Bill of Rights, the first Amendments to the Constitution, are largely proscriptive and concrete, specifying what the institutions of government can NOT do. 

The French Declaration of Rights ^ is largely prescriptive and conceptual, enumerating  the responsibilities of the law to the citizens and the citizens to the law.  The nation is a perfectible union of the people. There are few safeguards against government abuse enumerated in the French Constitution of 1793 #

Democratic governments are prone to several sins which undermine or suppress the rights of the citizens:  the tyranny of the group over the individual, the tyranny of the majority over the minority, and that this tension is inevitable and persistent so that structural safeguards must be in place to protect both the individual and minorities.


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* Deutsch, David. The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World. New York: Viking, 2011. 66. Print.

^ http://www1.curriculum.edu.au/ddunits/downloads/pdf/dec_of_rights.pdf, retreived Jan. 18, 2015

# http://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/1793-french-republic-constitution-of-1793, retrieved Jan. 19, 2015

Child Care Benefits

As every parent knows, child care is expensive, whether parents have to pay someone else to take care of their child or one parent forgoes the income from working to assume care duties.  Under current tax law parents can take up to $3000 per child ($6000 max) for qualifying child care expenses. If one parent does not work or works only part time, that lost income does not qualify as a legitimate expense.

The current system is one of many income redistribution schemes that follow a complicated set of rules  that undermine a family's major life decisions in  return for government benefits.  I propose that these tax credits be turned into tax deferments for parents under a certain income threshold based on the median household income of their area.¹  Under this proposed system, parents could defer a certain amount of taxes while they were raising children.  The tax burden would not go away as it does under the current system but the parents would have full control of the amount of taxes they deferred up to the set annual limits.  The taxes would accrue interest free while the parents are taking on the financial burden of child care and could be paid back over a long time period like ten or twenty years.

1.  Note:  Median household incomes, and living expenses, in large metropolitan areas like New York City can be 10% higher than the national average. (Census Bureau)  Income thresholds should be set accordingly, not a one-size-fits-all dollar amount common in many benefit programs.

The Gift

"All our social insurance legislation, a piece of state socialism that has already been realized, is inspired by the following principle: the worker has given his life and his labour, on the one hand to the collectivity, and on the other hand, to his employers.  Although the worker has to contribute to his insurance, those have benefited from his services have not discharged their debt to him through the payment of wages (my emphasis).  The state itself, representing the community, owes him, as do his employers, together with some assistance from himself, a certain security in life, against employment, sickness, old age, and death." *

This is a particularly succinct rationale for socialism, or the kind of socialist leaning capitalism in the U.S.  As an employer I don't agree that the exchange of wages does not discharge the debt I owe an employee.  As an employee, I did not feel that my employer owed me anything more than the wages and benefits agreed to.  I don't think there is any persuasive argument capable of swaying a person's opinion on this topic.  A person's experience and attitude will lead them to concur with or refute the phrase I have highlighted above.

Millions of words have been written to denounce or defend socialism.  The armies of writers and speakers on either side of the issue wave their ideological flags, exhorting their compatriots to fight the opposing army.  Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind, explains how people of opposing ideologies construct a moral code that has an internal integrity by placing emphases on different values.

Here  is a TED talk by Haidt.  Here is a discussion Jonathan had with economist Russ Roberts about the topic.

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Mauss, Marcel, and W. D. Halls. The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies. New York: W.W. Norton, 1990. 67. Print. (First published in 1950 as "Essai sur le Don.")