Amos's River of Justice

Our Season of Creation

  • I seem to have implied in an earlier article that the story of Adam and Eve had ulterior motives. This is a big problem, and I don’t want to leave my readers with the wrong impression. Fortunately religion doesn’t work like a math problem or a history lesson where you can take one part of it and trace its cause and effect. Each part fits into the whole, and its meaning is not necessarily literal. And in light of the previous article, it didn’t really prove my point.

    If religion were the cause of U.S. tax policy, Germany as a majority Christian nation should have similar policies to the United States. But Germany has generous social benefits. The problem seems to be unique to the United States. It would probably make more sense to blame Ayn Rand than Adam and Eve.

    So although we still have the cruel tax bill things don’t seem quite as dark as they might have been. Good will and decency are alive in our religion. This will pass.

    See also: The Reserve Currency and Globalization

  • Is it possible we all fight the same enemy in different guises? I somehow got the impression that we were looking at a choice between a global government or a world divided between Eurasia and the West. To be clear, the threat of Alexander Dugin is that he wants nothing less than a planetary ideocracy and the second coming of Hitler as avatar of Shiva.

  • It turns out the Kurds in Afrin are not the responsibility of the United States. They are the responsibility of Russia. However the United Stated did inflame tensions by announcing the 30,000-strong ‘security force’. According to this video fighting ISIS was the easy part.

  • There was a time when it made sense for our politicians to argue that a higher birthrate was necessary to prop up an ailing social security system, but that argument is no longer convincing. Our government has shown an interest in eliminating or privatizing the social security program, it has demonstrated that it has every intention of reducing social spending, and it has indicated that it is willing to destroy the very earth on which we depend. Yet politicians like Paul Ryan continue to demand a higher birthrate without batting an eye.

    From the government’s point of view there are several benefits to overpopulation. It provides a broad tax base; leads to high unemployment and a large pool of low-wage workers; and provides more children for the adoption mill. I’m not claiming the ability to read Paul Ryan’s mind, but regardless of his reasons we know that he, or his donors, expect benefits from a higher birthrate. We know this because even though they favor reducing other types of benefits they re willing to increase the Child Tax Credit. That’s why I view the Child Tax Credit as the modern version of bridewealth. But I haven’t forgotten that the CTC is not a gift.

    The CTC is permission for women who bear and raise children to keep a little more of the money they would otherwise give to the government in taxes. When you compare this to the spirit behind the practice of bridewealth the cynicism is remarkable. But there is good news. It is merely a financial offer, meaning that women are free to take it or leave it. The big guns in this fight are ideological.

    The chief ideological proposition is unspoken: human procreation is a virtue. So our first question should be, how (and why) did large families become a virtue?

    Additional claims stem from this proposition. These include: large families are an act of solidarity with the human race; large families are an act of love and compassion; and a shrinking birthrate indicates that the whole society is giving up on humanity.

    If you accept the first assumption the rest might make perfect sense, but are they true? This is an important question because these kinds of arguments do have an effect. What we need is evidence–perhaps we could start with a series of surveys. In the meantime I think I’ve noticed an inverse correlation between Paul Ryan’s compassion and his demand for a higher birthrate.

  • Before I go on I want to discuss a statement I made previously in which I said the story of Adam and Eve is used to justify marriage without compensation for women. If you consider the theological implications of the Fall you might see a possible problem with my theory. On the other hand, saying that a story has been used in a certain way is not the same thing as saying it was written for that purpose. And the story of Adam and Eve has been used in a certain way. The deist John Locke denied rights to women based on the story of Adam and Eve. Apparently this can be done regardless of a culture’s religious beliefs, or lack thereof. My point in the previous article was that if bridewealth was practiced in the Old Testament after the Fall, compensation for women never officially ended. Therefore when Paul Ryan withholds benefits and entitlements and then tells women to have more children, it is an unprincipled act.

  • The people involved in planning and selling the ‘safe zone’ in Syria are the same people who tried to create it during the Obama administration–basically rogue generals and neocons. Except the last time it was Erdogan who wanted to create the safe zone. It is not going to be safe for regular people, but safe for terrorists, money and weapons going in, and safe for oil coming out. Erdogan wants to get rid of the Kurds so they can’t seal the border against ISIS. One major difference this time is Putin was against it the first time around. What’s going on there?

  • From the time I heard the news of the attack on the Kurds and then read of Trump’s half-hearted warnings to Turkey I was afraid the Kurds were going to be sacrificed. Now I’m beginning to think Erdogan will be sacrificed as well. When the president of the United States is saying one thing to you on the phone and another thing to the press, you should worry. That’s how it started with Saddam Hussein and look what happened to him. Come to think of it, there was that attempted coup in Turkey…

  • Update: 2:28 PM, Jan. 25, 2018 I’ve rethought my tone of voice on this and the previous post. I apologize if it was offensive, I was afraid. In an attempt to be more impartial I’ve added a video below that speaks to the fears of Erdogan and Putin. I owe this change of heart to Bishop Barron’s YouTube channel.

    There are two issues of concern in Syria: the continuation of the Syrian conflict and the safety of the inhabitants of Afrin. The initial cause of the latest conflict is the Americans’ threat to back a new force of 30,000 fighters on Syria’s border. The attack on Afrin is a separate issue and may not be connected to the overall conflict. Many sources are saying that the Kurds in Afrin were never part of the US coalition.(1) Furthermore, the United States has warned its Kurdish allies in the North that if they go to the defense of Afrin they will no longer be part of the US coalition. Instead, it’s becoming clear that Afrin’s misfortune is the fault of Vladimir Putin and Tayyip Erdogan.

    Representatives from the Democratic Administration of Northern Syria, the confederation of Syrian Arab and Kurdish leaders, say the ongoing violence in Afrin was the result of Russian jockeying to strengthen the hand of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime. Moscow offered to close the airspace to Turkish airstrikes if the Kurds would hand over their sovereignty to Assad. The Kurds refused and this is their punishment. As for Erdogan, he’s wanted to go after the YPG in Afrin since 2012. Now he claims to have killed Islamic State fighters in Afrin even though everyone in the region knows that the Islamic State is not in Afrin.(2)

    Rex Tillerson has said the border force is no longer in the works, but of course no one believes him and the fighting continues. However, compared to the complexities of the Syrian conflict Afrin’s troubles are not complicated. It is clear that the people of Afrin are not to blame. Recep Tayyip Erdogan is out on a limb in Afrin. (Or at least that’s how I expressed it when I wrote this the first time. Here is another side of the story.)

    https://youtu.be/ro2jo-LBWa8

    [1] Ragip Soylu US Disavowed ‘Afrin Kurds’ long ago, Daily Sabah, Jan. 25, 2018. Available: https://www.dailysabah.com/columns/ragip-soylu/2018/01/25/us-disavowed-afrin-kurds-long-ago

    [2] Ece Toksabay, Ellen Francis and Tuvan Gumrukcu U.S.-backed Syrian Force Denies Islamic State in Area Targeted by Turkey Reuters, Jan. 24, 2018. Available: https://www.yahoo.com/news/turkey-kills-least-260-kurdish-islamic-state-fighters-000434152.html
    (more…)

  • I feel called to warn the United States and Turkey that the Kurds belong to the Creator. If you harm them, or if you allow them to be harmed, he will defend them. If you have already harmed them you will pay.

    I am also called to tell you that Hassan Rouhani belongs to the Creator. It will be better for you if you do not threaten him or harm his country.

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