General News

Faith in Our Founders: Jefferson on Taxation

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When we look back to our ancestors, at least to Jefferson, we see an expectation for the rich to carry the financial burden of government. As we look today at a federal budget deficit that threatens our current financial security and international standing in the world, it is clear that Congress will have to raise taxes. And, since so much of the nation’s wealth is concentrated in so few hands, the rich will have to carry this responsibility.

Politics & Society

Selective Conscientious Objection and Just PeaceTheory

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On the surface, selective conscientious objection seems untenable. A warrior’s duty is to salute and go fight where s/he is commanded to fight. At the same time, as the military begins to incorporate peacemaking principles into its counterinsurgency and stability operations thinking, there is space for the warrior to become a peacemaker for the SCO to lay h/er weapon down even in the midst of violent conflict. Just peace theory creates this space.

Politics & Society

A Truth Commission on Conscience in War

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The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have stretched our military to its limit. Military personnel and their families are suffering from a burden of war that they are carrying basically without the help of the majority of citizens of the United States of America. What does justice require of and for warriors in war? When ought our service members and their families say enough? Is war violence to the families of warriors? When ought our warriors assert the right of selective conscientious objection–that is an objection to particular wars and not to all wars? The truth commission will seek answers to these questions.

General News

On Glenn Beck and Social Justice

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This is not the first time that Glenn Beck has said outrageous things. He has called President Obama a racist. He called Van Jones, special advisor for green jobs to President Obama, a communist. Now Beck is calling social justice a codeword for socialism. The logical fallacy that Beck makes here is to think that because there may be some forms of socialism that are bad, that everything that calls for social justice is also bad.

Gender and Sexuality

Abortion and Healthcare Reform

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Women’s history tells us what happens when women do not have access to safe and legal abortions. Women die. The good news about expanding healthcare coverage is that when women are making healthy choices day to day about their reproductive health, they will be better able to avoid unwanted pregnancies and thus the need for abortions.

Health

Republican Rhetoric and Healthcare Reform

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The rhetoric of ram and jam to achieve the goal of healthcare legislation mischaracterizes the status of the legislation and legislative alternatives for passing the bill. Further, to make sweeping statements about American public opinion obscures the fact that polls show that people support the particular elements of the bills and support for them goes up when people learn the details.

General News

Negotiation Rather Than Faith in Institutions

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The important thing about faith, because it is at once powerful and irreparably fragile, is that we ought not to put our faith in everything or everyone. We ought to choose the people in which we have faith very carefully. We ought to put our faith in that which is ultimate, in Radical Love. The rest is a negotiation.