The Huckleberry Hound Theory of Government

I was a member of the Huckleberry Hound Fan Club in the first grade—50 years ago. I do not remember how many box tops it cost. I got a membership card and a ring! I kept the membership card all the way to high school until it became too frayed to keep. Even back then it fit my sense of the absurd. 

Now my second grader is watching Boomerang Zoo on TV most mornings, so I caught an old episode of HH. Huck is the Purpil Pumpernickel. He could not spell worth a darn, the King said. Huck would rob from the rich, mostly the government, and give to the people, my kind of guy! Huck gave a speech like he was a politician running for office:

Huck:    I will build roads. 

Crowd: Yeah

Huck:    I will have free schools.

Crowd: Yeah! 

Huck:    I will have old age pensions.

Crowd: Yeah!!

Huck:    Of course we will have taxes.

Crowd: Boo!!!!!!

As the preacher said in Ecclesiastes 1: 

⁹ What has been will be again, 
   what has been done will be done again; 
   there is nothing new under the sun. 
¹⁰ Is there anything of which one can say, 
   “Look! This is something new”? 
It was here already, long ago; 
   it was here before our time.

Lord Maynard Keynes famously said that in the long run we are all dead. He was right of course, and he is dead. But we are alive and living with the consequences of his philosophy, the Huckleberry Hound Theory of Government. Even if a bar offers a “free” lunch, you will pay for it in the drinks you buy. We are like a drunk staggering to our next drink without the understanding that we are in trouble. We must think that government is magic, rainbows, and unicorns. Instead we need to understand that unless we cut the deficit, the market place will refuse to buy our bonds, and at that point the cuts will be made in an unorderly fashion. It is ironic that the writers of this cartoon understood the realities of government better than either political party will admit today. 

No Man Knows

I have found two interesting links related to Bible Prophecy. Both are about Harold Camping, who for the second time is predicting the return of Jesus and the rapture. His previous failure in the 1990’s has not discouraged him.

Liberty Magazine comments:

Jesus knew about this. He told his followers that no man knows the day or the hour of his Return, but that people would always be running around predicting it (Mark 13:32, Luke 21:8–9). The failed predictions, which seemed so snazzy before they failed, wouldn’t really be perceived as failures, because the failures wouldn’t be remembered, or considered interesting enough to be remembered. Watch out for predictions, he said. 

Naturally as a Libertarian magazine they approach this from other failed predictions, especially economic predictions. Stephen Cox makes an interesting point about why people keep getting fooled by this kind of error. The reason is that there are always fresh people to be deceived, or as P.T. Barnum famously DIDN’T say “There is a sucker born every minute.” I was fooled by this kind of thing in the 70’s so I am not likely to repeat. 

My friend and fellow blogger Pam Dewey commented on Camping in one of her blogs:

Essentially, Camping has convinced his supporters to see a large number of factors moving inexorably toward a target of the date of May 21 for the rapture, much as a “perfect storm” moves inexorably toward a tragic landfall. (perfect storm: …an expression that describes an event where a rare combination of circumstances will aggravate a situation drastically… also used to describe a hypothetical hurricane that happens to hit at a region’s most vulnerable area, resulting in the worst possible damage by a hurricane of its magnitude.) According to Camping, there’s no denying it is coming precisely when he has predicted, and no holding it back. Once it has come and gone … and all True Christians (according to Camping’s standards) are gone… all that is left for those Left Behind to do, is to wait for the final Perfect Storm to destroy the world on October 21. 

 
I am always amazed by the fact that so many Christians do not believe what Jesus said on a number of topics. Cox mentioned that so many ignored what Jesus said about his return in his article. Here is Matthew’s version of it:

         24:36 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the                    angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

The arrogance of someone thinking they know something that Jesus did not know is breath-taking. Whether he comes on May 21, or not, in truth it does not really matter, for our response should be the same. We should be ready. We should be in the world, yet not of the world. We need to be leaving Babylon the great, step by step.

Watch this space! As an internal note I do plan a podcast soon. This is, after all, the Prophecy Podcast!

I also wish to thank Pam Dewey for her help with this blog. Without her help and support this blog would not exist. Thanks Pam. 

Guardedly Pessimistic

 

 I mentioned one of the biggest mutual funds, Pimco, and its continual pessimistic outlook on treasury debt, in my “I Love Lucy” blog post over the weekend. Pimco is upping its bet that treasuries will drop in value. 

(Reuters) - PIMCO’s Bill Gross, the manager of the world’s largest bond fund, raised his bet against U.S. government-related debt in April to 4 percent from 3 percent, according to the company’s website on Monday.

While this is a modest increase in Pimco’s negative treasury bets, the article mentions that this is the plan for Pimco, to gradually ratchet up the position. 

But even so, I am still guardedly pessimistic because of the speech that Speaker Boehner gave at the club of New York:

So let me be as clear as I can be.  Without significant spending cuts and reforms to reduce our debt, there will be no debt limit increase.  And the cuts should be greater than the accompanying increase in debt authority the president is given. We should be talking about cuts of trillions, not just billions.  They should be actual cuts and program reforms, not broad deficit or debt targets that punt the tough questions to the future.  And with the exception of tax hikes — which will destroy jobs — everything is on the table.  That includes honest conversations about how best to preserve Medicare, because we all know, with millions of Baby Boomers beginning to retire, the status quo is unsustainable.  

Boehner understands the seriousness of the problem. But the math will force taxes up eventually.  He is wrong about that. When you realize that to balance the budget with cuts alone means a cut of 42%, you see the need for tax increases. I do not see Social Security being cut that much, and every time you exempt a part of the budget from cuts the result is that the cut must be more severe elsewhere. The reductions in spending increases that Ryan proposed to Medicare were not well received. 

Eric Anderson, in his blog “Universe of Lies,” drew an analogy of being in a car headed for a precipice. While all Boehner is suggesting is that we slow down as we head for the cliff, even that is progress. 

We will see over the next few months if we have politicians or statesmen. I am guardedly pessimistic. 

Uniforms for Jesus?

We were in line for lunch. Suddenly I had a revelation. No, not a vision from God, but a realization that I had observed something about the two men in line ahead of us. They were Mormons. But with such a revelation I needed confirmation. So I walked around the line to look at the food to choose, looked out of the corner of my eye, and saw they had name tags as Latter Day Saints. Mormons have a period in their lives when they are missionaries, and no doubt these young men were in that period. 

I thought all day about the uniforms the boys were wearing, and the uniforms we all wear in life. I thought of two incidents in the church where I used to serve. One of my self-appointed jobs was to help a certain type of visitor we used to get. I was a member of a particular denomination, and our main “competitor denomination” met down the street. There were great differences between us—or so it seemed at the time. Each denomination was founded by man with the same last name, a father and a son who no longer spoke to each other. Sometimes there was confusion about who met where. Both congregations met in Union halls on the same street a short distance apart. But I could always tell when we had a visitor that had made that mistake by the uniform the man wore: suit, tie, and most importantly a brief case. The brief case was “the tell”—the dead give-away. Most male members of the “other” denomination carried them. I imagine that they had an element of practicality, but the main use was to give the member an aura of business-like seriousness. Yes, those in my denomination were serious about our religion too, but oh, how my friends and I made fun of their uniform! 

The second incident was when the founder of our denomination, the son, gave a message about proper attire for church. While he planned to introduce no requirements, he wanted to encourage suit and ties among the men. We in leadership were pleased because many members of our congregation did not dress as well as would have liked. Coincidently my wife and I had received a care package from my brother in law. He was a pastor for the other guys, the father’s denomination. He felt that he needed to have a fresh variety of ties, and as a result he had many ties he no longer needed. So we took the ties and gave them away free to anyone who wanted one. We were totally surprised that this was offensive to a portion of the congregation. The one the most offended was also the best dresser in the congregation. No doubt he saw an attitude condemned in James 2:

 1My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. 2 Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. 3 If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” 4 have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? 5 Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? 7 Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong?

I did not understand why the man was upset at that time. I understand better now because I realize that I too had a uniform I wore. The uniform included a suit and tie, but also meant a uniformity of thought. I would look in the mirror and see the outward uniform, and be glad. But the mirror could never reveal the interior, the man who made fun of others and their uniforms while pretending he had none.

Jesus taught about the dangers of our uniforms.

Matt 23:27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

While I am sure that Jesus wore the culturally-correct clothing for his time, including the distinctive phylacteries, He advocated a different way of looking at things. Earlier in this chapter he said this:

23 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

What I had done with my uniform was to strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. Our uniforms, in themselves, are not wrong. There was nothing wrong with the uniform the Mormon boys wore that identified them: the dress pants, the very white shirt, the tie, and the very very short hair. The danger is when we rely on these uniforms as crutches to support our religiosity. Instead we need this:

Rev 7:14 I answered, “Sir, you know.” And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

If we are transformed within and from above, the uniform may still appear, but it will be the outward expression of an inward truth. Not a religious garb designed to deceive. We cannot make anything white by dipping it in blood, but God can. 

I Love Lucy

It is not often one can quote that great Philosopher Lucille Ball. Usually her quotes are "Oh, Ricky" or "Can I be in the show?" But in her later show, "The Lucy Show," there was an episode where the troubles of the youth of the time are addressed. Remember this is the tumultuous 60's. Her character, Lucy Carmichael, said something along these lines.

The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority, they show disrespect to their elders. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, and chatter before company. They eat up dainties at the table, ... and are tyrants over their teachers.

The purpose of the statement is to get the older generation watching the show to agree with it. But then Lucy gives the kicker. This was said by Socrates in Ancient Greece. Immediately, the conclusion was to be drawn that the troubled youth of the 60's were in fact normal. Every generation of elders disparaged the youth. In the show, the smugness of Mrs. Carmichael was almost unbearable.

But there are several layers of difficulties with the quote. First, as Abraham Lincoln once said, "There are lots of fake quotes on the internet." While the quote was pre-internet the quote is fake--Socrates did not say it. In fact we do not really know very much of what Socrates said. It is either an adaptation of something from Plato or from Aristophanes’ play The Clouds. Secondly, to use the quote in this way shows a huge ignorance of the history of Greece. When Socrates was alive the Greek people were in a golden age. They had defeated the Persians, the greatest empire of the time, in battle-once on land and once at sea. The plays, the philosophers, and the political philosophy of that time still influence us. But the leaders of the time, especially of Athens, decided to meddle in the affairs of other countries. The Athenian Empire was very short lived. The Empirical-leaning generation that this quote refers to destroyed the Greek culture and eventually they lost their independence, not to a powerful empire, but to the barbarians to the north led by Alexander.

In this same way the generation Ms. Ball and her writers so wanted to praise—those who were teens in the 1960s—are  destroying American culture through empire, bread, and circuses, to mix a metaphor. In the same way that ancient Rome bankrupted itself to pay for their military, the free bread to keep the urban poor from rioting, and the lavish entertainment of the games at the coliseum to distract them, so this same generation will bankrupt America. The bankruptcy will occur for much the same reasons that it did for Rome.

The two plans to stop our overspending, the Ryan and the Obama plan, are both just delaying the inevitable. The biggest mutual fund, Pimco, specializing in debt, no longer purchases American government securities. They see a crisis coming. The point is not the current debt ceiling. The point is that there is a debt ceiling that will be placed by the market on US bonds when no one wants to buy them. Neither the debt increase over the next 10 years from not having a plan (debt to 26 trillion), or the debt from the Obama plan (debt to 23 trillion), or the debt from the Ryan Plan (20 trillion) are sustainable.

How convenient that the generation that is causing these issues by over consumption is exempting itself from any cuts. Those 55 and older are free from any cuts. Normally since I am 56 I should support this. But I feel strongly that what my generation is saying to my children and grandchildren can only be described with an expletive. You pick the expletive you are comfortable with.

As a concluding note, what I am trying to do in these first blog posts is to provide a philosophical background as to why I feel that each of us needs to metaphorically leave Babylon the Great. Gradually I want to add and discuss the practical ways one can be in the world, yet not of the world. I see that some of my friends are ahead of me in this journey, and others need to catch up. In any case I feel the effort is well worth it.