How Corporate Leftists Are Defeating Democracy in America

Activist corporate chiefs like Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com are using the economic power of their corporations to overrule the will of voters across America. This is a new and very dangerous trend that must be understood and resisted.

Case in point, a recent law in Georgia (HB 757) was passed by the Georgia legislature and was well on its way to becoming law, when Mr. Benioff threatened to pull his business out of the state if the governor did not veto the bill. Money talks, and the bill was vetoed. This bill would have protected religious institutions from being forced to perform ceremonies that violate their sincerely held beliefs. I read the bill closely and can say without hesitation that this bill did not discriminate against any person on the basis of their sexual orientation, nor did it allow such discrimination. The bill simply prevented the state or local governments from penalizing religious organizations for refusing to provide services that are in violation of their beliefs and teachings.

So, can you understand that pastors in America will be forced to perform gay weddings against their conscience or face penalty of law? Of course the intent of these activists is not to have these services performed by those who object, but rather to shut down the religious organizations and people of faith who stand in their way.

Is this really America the land of the free? Well it had better be the home of the brave now, because those freedoms are being taken away, not by a majority of voters, but by leftist CEOs from San Francisco, New York and Boston. Is this DEMOCRACY? It reeks of plutocracy and hypocrisy from those who profess to be advocates for democratic policies.

If you want to understand more, please read this Wall Street Journal article (http://www.wsj.com/articles/salesforces-marc-benioff-has-kicked-off-new-era-of-corporate-social-activism-1462201172) (10-5-2020 NOTE: This article now requires subscription to WSJ. But in the last four years and especially in 2020, seemingly all corporate boards are being stacked with leftist activists like Benioff, under the banner of "ESG - Environmental, Social, Governance". Just check corporate news for any large multi-national corporation in the last 6 months).

My dear friends, corruption is not only coming down from Washington, but seeping into state governments from the most powerful corporations in America. Votes are important, but understanding where the influences are really coming from should help you decide how to more effectively resist these anti-democratic forces. Corporate boards are elected by shareholders, and if you are a shareholder you can speak up about this inappropriate use of company resources.

I leave you with this question: Who should control lawmakers in your state on matters of conscience, the voters of your state, or a San Francisco billionaire and his cronies?


Reference:
Religious Freedom Restoration Act
State Religious Freedom Restoration Acts
Free Exercise Protection Act of Georgia

The Spectrum of Politics

This year in politics has proven my long-held theory that the political universe is not linear from left to right, but curved. In this bizarro world of politics, Bernard Sanders and Donald J. Trump live in the same neighborhood. Bernie's neighbors to the left and Donald's neighbors to the right actually live in the same house together, a crack-house whose residents feed on fear and anger caused by the desperation and delusion of a world without God.

In the spectrum of politics, where deep red and deep indigo plunge into political darkness, demagogues of the past fanned the flames of fear and anger to rise to power while the masses that followed them drank their witches brew of delusion and zeal. Look into this darkness and you will see where the generals of Saddam Hussein's left-wing Baathist party collaborated with the most right-wing zealots of Islam, a meth lab known as Camp Bucca where the evil army we now know as "ISIS" was born.

Demagogues who rise to power have a nasty habit of making themselves demigods. I say this not to suggest that our current political wannabes are of such ilk, but to state plainly that America and the western world have chosen that path by rejecting God. The path away from God leads not to freedom but to a world of hatred and tyranny, led by the prince of darkness. I can understand why those in darkness run to this destructive light, but what baffles me is how the children of God can be led in the same direction.

Jesus said his kingdom is not of this world, and the world of politics is beneath the pursuit of eternal things, but decisions we make in politics have an irreparable effect on young people growing up in the world we leave them. Let us not leave them a world of political extremism where lives are cut short by angry mobs and unnecessary wars. Let us turn back to love and the God who enables love through his unconditional offer of grace.

I am writing a new commandment to you,

which is true in Him and in you,

because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining. 

The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother

is in the darkness until now. 

The one who loves his brother abides in the Light

and there is no cause for stumbling in him.

But the one who hates his brother

is in the darkness and walks in the darkness,

and does not know where he is going

because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

I John 2:8-11

Holiness and the Sabbath

One of the things that I find difficult to reconcile between the Old Testament and the New Testament is the Sabbath.  This was one of the fundamental tenets of the Law; the Sabbath is to be a holy day unto the Lord.  The Sabbath rest is introduced in the very beginning of the Bible and it is one of the Ten Commandments.  I ran into this quandary again today when I was reading Isaiah 56.

Thus says the LORD,
            “Preserve justice and do righteousness,
            For My salvation is about to come
            And My righteousness to be revealed.
      “How blessed is the man who does this,
            And the son of man who takes hold of it;
            Who keeps from profaning the Sabbath,
            And keeps his hand from doing any evil.”

This theme of not profaning the Sabbath is repeated three times in Isaiah 56, even  applying it to gentiles who come to the Lord.

“Also the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD,
            To minister to Him, and to love the name of the LORD,
            To be His servants, every one who keeps from profaning the Sabbath
            And holds fast My covenant;
      Even those I will bring to My holy mountain
            And make them joyful in My house of prayer.
            Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on My altar;
            For My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.”

When I was a child in Houston, I remember the world around me seemed to stop on Sundays.  At that time (the 1960s) America was just getting started on its way to abandoning the Sabbath or "blue laws."  Today in America you couldn't tell much difference between Sunday and any other day of the week.  Most people still get weekends off from work (praise the Lord), but treat Sunday just like Saturday or any other day off from work.

So I had to stop and ask myself, how does this fundamental Old Testament law apply to Christians, or does it apply at all?  First, the Sabbath as counted by the original keepers of the Sabbath occurs on Saturday.  That immediately causes me concern about Sabbath legalism being applied to Sundays.

The apostles seemed to dismiss or even discourage observance of holy days, and even Christ seemed to intentionally violate Jewish traditions based on the Sabbath day, in order to challenge the religious establishment.

So, what can we learn from the principal of the Sabbath that applies to Christians?  Well, first the principal of rest on the seventh day is built into our genetics by our Creator.  This is a physical principal which we would do best to observe.

More importantly, just like our bodies need rest periodically, our spirits need refreshing periodically.  The Sabbath, like the tithe, is a principal which pre-dates and exists outside the Law of Moses.  Jesus said the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.  So we should use the Sabbath rest for its purpose, to re-unite our spirits with the Spirit of God, and re-unite our souls with our brethren in the Lord.

Most critical though, the Sabbath is a demonstration of the holiness of God.  Profaning the Sabbath is really just making the Sabbath like any other day.  There is another similar commandment right before the Sabbath law.

“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain."
Exodus 20:7 NASB

The first four commandments deal with the holiness of God.  There have been teachings in America that bring God down to our level, as a friend or a brother.  While it is true that God may present himself through Jesus as a fellow servant of God, we cannot presume to approach Him in that way.  The first words in the Lord's prayer lift up the holiness of God.

I came across this in my study of the prophets.

He said to me, “Son of man, this is the place of My throne and the place of the soles of My feet, where I will dwell among the sons of Israel forever. And the house of Israel will not again defile My holy name, neither they nor their kings, by their harlotry and by the corpses of their kings when they die, by setting their threshold by My threshold and their door post beside My door post, with only the wall between Me and them. And they have defiled My holy name by their abominations which they have committed. So I have consumed them in My anger.
Ezekiel 43:7-8 NASB

It appears to me that the Jewish priests set up a room next to the holy place in the temple where they kept the remains of their kings.  This reminds me of some churches I saw in Europe where they had the bones of dead saints right there in the sanctuary mixed in with images of Jesus.  Certainly elevating saints to a level of worship is an abomination to God.

God may come down to our level, but we are not allowed to go up to His level or bring Him down to ours. If we make His throne in our lives just one of many, we profane His name.  God's throne must be supreme; He will not share His glory with any other.

"I am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, Nor My praise to graven images."
Isaiah 42:8 NASB

The early disciples called Sunday the "Lord's Day" and it was indeed a special day.  We need not re-introduce the Law of Moses to make Sunday our Sabbath.  Rather, I pray that I will remember to keep the Lord's day separate in some ways, to spend a little more time in prayer, to read a little more from His word, and maybe even write something honoring the Name of my Creator!

No Place for Old Economists

I've been watching some old economists talking about "typically markets do this", or "when the economy returns to historical norms" or some such nonsense.  Maybe the law of supply and demand hasn't changed, but the historical norms of supply and demand in the West don't apply today and probably won't apply again until the world economy is fully globalized (yikes), or I expire (double yikes).

This really does matter to "main street" people because taxes, government spending and all manner of other decisions are based on these guys being right.

So you have one group of old economists called "supply-siders" who believe that if you throw money at the "rich" in the form of tax cuts, economic growth and jobs will just happen.

You have another group of old economists called "Keynesians" or "demand-siders" who believe that if you throw money at the "poor" that they will generate demand and the demand will result in economic growth and jobs will just happen.

Even the Federal Reserve is governed by these old economic views, as they wasted trillions of dollars "shooting in the dark" with easy money, assuming the economy would just magically recover.

Meanwhile we have tax policies designed to solve yesterday's problems of tight labor markets (capital gains tax breaks) and idiotic internet-bubble bad business models (dividend tax breaks).

Yes, it was a good idea back in the 1900s to incent businesses to invest in capital equipment to improve productivity.  It's not so good now - we are awash in productivity to such an extent that we no longer need about 25% of the available labor force in America.

Yes, it may have been a good idea back in the internet bubble to get companies to think about paying dividends instead of pursuing ridiculous, unsustainable revenue opportunities.  Now - not so much.

Now we have a situation where companies can make plenty of money with very little labor and the quality jobs that are available are easily filled with cheaper resources overseas.  But the supply-siders are continuing to push tax cuts and the demand-siders are continuing to push unsustainable government hand-outs.

At some point right-wingers have to say "tax cuts aren't the solution".  And left-wingers have to say "government hand-outs aren't working".  It's really that simple.  But the left continues to move left and the right continues to move right.  Here I am stuck in the middle again, in a vast un-represented waste land.

Van's List
My solutions involve eliminating laws and policies that make things worse.  That is free and simple.  Heres a partial list:

• Repeal Obama-care.  What a load of job-killing complexity and ill-timed policy.  Let's get people back to work so they can afford their own health care.
• Let the Bush tax cuts expire.  There are better ways to promote quality job creation.  If we're going to throw money at the problem, let's identify the problem first.  One thing for sure - those who live on high investment incomes don't need lower tax rates than those who work for a living.  The progressive income tax we have already provides tax breaks for lower income brackets, whether that is investment gains or earned income.
• Replace payroll taxes on both employer and employee with a revenue-neutral adjustment to the income tax, starting with the first dollar of income.  That will eliminate the concept of government-sponsored retirement and health care entitlements, and encourage people to plan their own futures without government subsidies.  It will also eliminate the perverse tax incentives to replace people with technology or offshore labor.
• Reduce unemployment benefits and re-direct that money to companies who will hire and train near-fit candidates from the unemployment rolls.  People need incentives to work, and companies need incentives to hire and train.  That's a policy that fits the economy today, and not one designed for an economy ten to one-hundred years ago.
• Eliminate all the new Obama EPA regulations and send half the EPA back to the college campuses from whence they came.  Thence they can pontificate about the causes of global warming and other idealistic causes du jour.
• One more radical idea - eliminate the exemption from overtime pay for salaried employees.  There is a problem today with companies eliminating jobs and piling more work on existing salaried employees.  This tactic works in a stressed labor market because people have limited alternatives to longer working hours.  And it is self-perpetuating by keeping the labor market stressed.  By eliminating the exemption from overtime, new employees would be cheaper than overtime, and the workload and wealth of jobs would be more evenly distributed.

If you are still with me, welcome to my world!  I'm sure I lost the left and right in that list of bullet items.  Please let me know if you agree (or not) by leaving comments.