Why the E.U. is Compromised in Handling the Refugee Crisis

At least four E.U. states, including Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland, rejected a federal plan on September 11, 2015 that would have imposed refugee quotas on the states. The failure to come up with a fair allocation of migrants by state threatened to undo the borderless travel within the E.U. The tremendous influx of mostly Syrian refugees exacerbated differences between the states; given their power even at the federal level of the E.U., the infighting was a risk to the viability of the E.U. itself. I contend that structural flaws in the E.U. itself unnecessarily compromised the Union from quashing the risk to itself by solving the refugee problem. The state governments were clearly not in unison in dealing with the problem themselves.

The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires.

Refugees held up in Hungary because the state's government was overwhelmed. Why didn't the E.U. step in to help? (Mauricio Limo/NYT).

Corbyn as Labour Party Leader in Britain: Are Increased Deficits Implied or Avoidable?

The notion that a political party oriented to redressing the widening economic inequality during the years following the financial crisis of 2008 and the subsequent debt-crisis in the E.U. necessarily must increase government deficits to do so is, I submit, faulty. That is to say, being especially oriented to the plight of the poor, with the goal being the elimination of extreme poverty, can be consistent with fiscal responsibility. The election of a socialist as leader of Britain’s Labour party presents us with an interesting case of assumed fiscal irresponsibility.

The complete essay is at "Anti-Poverty and Budget Deficits."

Jeremy Corbyn upon being elected as leader of the British Labour Party (Jeff Mitchell/Getty)

Moral Grounds Found Sufficient to Deny Employees Contraception Coverage: Is Morality Distinct from Religion?

In addition to religious organizations and their respective affiliates being excluded from having to include contraceptives in employee health-insurance, non-religious groups with a salient moral stance against the use of the devices are also exempt—this according to a federal judge in the United State. The moral stance need not be associated with any religion. By implication, moral principles are distinct from religious doctrines. Even though religions incorporate moral principles, the latter are based in another domain. I contend that the interlarding of the non-native fauna can dilute and even compromise a given religion, thus undercutting its viability.

The complete essay is at “Moral Principles and Religion.” 

The Ten Commandments on the grounds of the Texas capitol. Do the Ten Commandments serve only a religious purpose? Were they intended to serve only a religious purpose? 

Fewer Blue-Collar Lawmakers in Maine’s Legislature: Public Financing Cut by the U.S. Supreme Court on Free Speech Grounds

In 1996, Maine became the first American state to enact a public financing system for statewide elections. Voters passed a referendum by which the government provides money to candidates who meet a threshold of fundraising in $5 increments from voters in their districts. Before 2011, candidates got matching funds from the government if an opponent was funding his or her campaign with their own money, or if an outside group was spending money on the race over a certain amount.[i] The reason for the discontinuance of the matching funds and the subsequent impact on the number of blue-collar people running for office and being in the legislature demonstrate that the public financing of political campaigns can have a huge impact on both political campaigns and representation in a legislative chamber.

The complete essay is at "Blue-Collar Lawmakers in Maine."

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1. Paul Blumenthal, “Maine Voters Hope to Restore Their Revolutionary Election System,” The Huffington Post, September 4, 2015.

Pope Francis On Taking In Refugees In Europe: A Basis For An Alternative Approach To Christianity

As tens of thousands of refugees from the Middle East were seeking refuge in the E.U., Pope Francis “called on every parish, religious community, monastery and sanctuary in Europe to shelter refugees.”[1] It was not enough, he said, to tell them, “have courage, hang in there.”[2] Providing the Christian basis, he said that “the Gospel calls us to be close to the smallest and to those who have been abandoned.”[3] Jesus went to those who had been abandoned by the hegemonic Temple-centric Judaism of his day, and healed them. In the Gospel of Mark, it is the strangers rather than the disciples who understand his message. I submit that this approach to Christianity could serve as an alternative to the dominant one that applies Christianity to every issue.

Pope Francis making the appeal. (Riccardo De Luca/AP)

The complete essay is at "Pope Francis on the Refugees."

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1. Alison Smale, “Pope Calls on All of Europe’s Catholics to Shelter Refugees,” The New York Times, September 6, 2015.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

Capitalism in Vietnam: War as Overrated

Going to war might seem like the most expedited course to achieving geopolitical aims, even when they in actuality predominately economic in nature. To the extent that the Cold War was from the American standpoint a means of keeping capitalism from succumbing to socialism (i.e., the state rather than private industry owning the means of production), the American involvement in the civil war in Vietnam was a waste of effort, not to mention lives lost. For the feared “loss” of Vietnam to communism turned out only to be temporary.

The complete essay is at “Capitalism in Vietnam.”  

In retrospect, was the Vietnam War worth it for anyone? (source: CNN)

Mass Shootings in the U.S.: Why Are Americans So Angry?

Even though the United States account for less than 5% of the world’s population, 31% of the total number of mass killings worldwide between 1966 and 2012 occurred there.[1] I contend that a rise in passive aggression and the related intolerance accounts for much of the difference. In other words, it could be that Americans generally are getting nastier and more angry at each other.

The full essay is at “Mass Shootings in the U.S.”

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[1] Stan Ziv, “Study: Mass Shootings ‘Exceptionally American Problem’,” Newsweek, August 23, 2015.

Is God the Father Marginalized in Christianity?

The name of Jesus (or Christ) is common on Christian lips. “Jesus saves” is a typical expression, whereas expressions highlighting the Father or the kingdom of God are much less frequent, and explicit references to the Holy Spirit (or Ghost) are essentially missing. As the three manifestations, or “persons,” of the Trinity are consubstantial (i.e., of the same substance), the hypertrophy (i.e., maximizing one part of a system) is worthy of investigation. This is not to say that equal attention to all three is optimal; Jesus himself says in the Gospels that he came to preach the mysteries of his Father’s kingdom. This statement implies that followers of Christ should focus most on the Father and his kingdom. That this is not the case suggests that historical and contemporary Christianity has missed the point. This should hardly be surprising, for throughout the Gospel of Mark, strangers get Jesus’ point whereas the disciples tend to miss it.

The full essay is at “Is God the Father Marginalized?”

Jesus is clearly the focus at this church. (Maliz Ong)

Migrants Overwhelming Europe: Unfairness Impeding the E.U.

More than 100,000 migrants, many of them refugees from conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, entered Hungary from January to August 2015, the vast majority en route to the more affluent northwestern E.U. states. A record 50,000, many of them Syrians, reached Greece by boat from Turkey in July alone. Meanwhile, Hungary was building a fence along the state’s border with Serbia, where 8,000 migrants were staying in parks, to keep more migrants from entering.[1] I contend that the disproportionate power of the state governments relative to that of the federal government accounts in part for the difficulty that the E.U. has faced in coming to grips with the tremendous influx. This case suggests why redressing the imbalance in the federal system has been plagued with difficulty.

The complete essay is at “Migrants Overwhelming Europe.” 

Police disperse migrants at a registration place in Kos, Greece. Should the E.U. leave it to the state governments to handle the crisis? (Yorgos Karahalis/AP)

American Consumers Using Gas-Savings to Reduce Debt: Frugality or Responsibility?

The steep drop in the price of oil in July 2015 was a concern for traders. Drillers and other energy companies comprise a significant portion of the S&P 500 index. “The upside to falling oil is that all the money that drivers are saving at the gas pump should mean more spending by them at stores — and a faster-growing U.S. economy. But Americans are choosing to pay off debt instead of going shopping.”[1] Is this a bad thing? In reckoning it as such, Wall Street analysts are missing the big picture, even financially.

The full essay is at “Wall Street Defining American Society.”

Gas at a station in January 2015 (ABC News)

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[1] Bernard Condon and Ken Sweet, “Why Stocks Are Tumbling 6 Years into the Bull Market,” The Associated Press, August 23, 2015.

Humans As the Intense Predator: Unbalancing the Food-Chain Unsustainably

By 2015, humans—the homo sapiens species in particular—had become “the dominant predator across many systems”; that is to say, the species had become an unsustainable "super predator."[1] We have had a huge impact on food webs and ecosystems around the globe.[2] Moreover, we have been using more of the planet's resources than we should. By August 2015, for example, humans had already consumed the year's worth of the world's resources.[3] In terms of fossil fuels, the consumption has had an impact on the warming of the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans. Behind human consumption are human beings, so the astonishing increase in human population is a major factor. As a virus-like species incredibly successful genetically over the previous five-hundred years, the self-maximizing feature both in terms of population ecology and profit-maximization may be the seed of the species destruction, and thus long-term genetic failure.

The full essay is at “The Intense Predator.”

We are fishing fish out of existence. (James Watt: Getty Images)

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1 Chris Darimont et al, “The Unique Ecology of Human Predators,” Science, Vol. 349, no. 6250, pp. 858-860.

2 Ibid.

3 Jonathan Amos, “Humans Are ‘Unique Super-Predator’,” BBC News, August 20, 2005.

On the Pretentiousness of Senior Water Rights in California

California water regulators proposed a record $1.5 million fine on July 21, 2015 against the Byron Bethany Irrigation District (BBID) in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The agency claimed that the district had defied cutbacks that the California Water Resources Control Board had ordered by diverting water from June 13 through June 25. The complaint said that Byron Bethany had consumed an estimated 2,056 acre-feet of water[1] in spite of the fact that the agency had imposed a 25 percent mandatory cutback in urban water use and cuts to major agricultural interests.[2] I contend not only that the district’s board put the interest of a part ahead of the good of the whole (i.e., the common good), but also that the board did so out of a sense of entitlement based on the sheer longevity of the water rights in the district.

The full essay is at “Pretentiousness of Water Rights.” 

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[1] An acre-foot is the amount of water that would cover a square acre up to a foot high.

[2] Adam Nagourney, “California Farm District Accused of Diverting Water,” The New York Times, July 21, 2015.

Koko the Gorilla Meets Mr. Rogers

Koko, a western lowland gorilla held in captivity, learned over 1,000 signs from American Sign Language, and achieved a "sophisticated understanding" of spoken English by the age of 44.[1] Research has uncovered, moreover, that "gorillas may be capable of complex vocal behavior that defies previous beliefs about their communicative abilities."[2] In other words, the species is able to have a spoken language. Even though humans branched off from chimpanzees rather than gorillas 7 million years ago (our own species, homo sapiens, began 1.8 million years ago), the findings are hardly surprising; after all, whales and dolphins communicate by making distinct sounds. Even so, the prospect of being able to carry on a "conversation" with a member of another species is astounding. Gorillas like Koko might one day be able to tell us what it is like to be a gorilla. Ironically, we might learn more about our own species in the process. 

Koko teaching Mr. Rogers the sign for love.

The full essay is at "Koko the Gorilla."

1. Carolyn Gregoire, "Apes May Be Much Closer to Human Speech Than We Realized," The Huffington Post, August 15, 2015.
2. Ibid.

Educating Kids in American Schools: Early-Morning Zombies Subject to the Status Quo

It is natural to assume that the people in the business of educating children are highly committed to the dissemination of knowledge. That many school-administrators would stand by, and even enable the continuance of practices that compromise learning is difficult to believe; that fallacious reasoning would be used could only be reckoned as highly bizarre, and oxymoronic. Yet all this applies to dragging kids to school before their bodies have woken up.

The complete essay is at “Educating Kids in American Schools.”

Analysis of Inferences and Assumptions: A Homework Assignment for “We the People”

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both strongly believed that the continued viability of a republic depends on an educated and virtuous citizenry. Public education and even the practice of some of the professional schools (e.g., medicine and law) since at least the early twentieth century to require a degree in another school (e.g. Liberal Arts and Sciences) before being admitted to the undergraduate program (i.e., the M.D. and J.D. or LLB, respectively). This lateral move is unique to the U.S.; entering medical and law students in the E.U. need not already have a college degree. I submit that the Founding Fathers’ firm political belief in the importance of an educated electorate concerns the value of not only having a broad array of knowledge, but also reason being able to assess its own inferences, or assumptions; for inferences, or leaps of reason, go into political judgments. Ultimately, voters make judgements, whether concerning the worthiness of candidates on a ballot, their policies, or proposals on a referendum. To the extent that subjecting assumptions to the “stress test” of reasoning is not a salient part of secondary education, an electorate is likely to make sub-optimal judgements, resulting in suboptimal elected officials, public policies, and laws.

The full essay is at “A Homework Assignment for ‘We the People’.”