Seasons

Green Up Date

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Green Up Date

The Green Up Day is when leaves start popping out from the trees.

Rainy Day on the East Coast

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But it looks like there is clearing and tomorrow will be much nicer. Look at the green pushing north from the south.

This rebel Jesus was a menace to God and mankind …

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Or so the Roman court declared, and despite some dissent by members of the court, he was executed via the cross for the the high crime of treason. While our criminal justice system has made some progress over the original Roman system of justice — it’s hard to argue that all that much has changed since the days when the Romans laughed as Jesus died in agony on the cross.

Government, even in so-called representative democracies, is the sovereign with power justified by law. What happened — the lawful murder of Jesus Christ by the state — could happen even in our modern times. Law can not determine whether or not something is moral, only what is justified as force by government actions against the people.

Whether or not Jesus was a menace to God and mankind is debatable, indeed millions honor Christ for his organizing of the working man against the rich man. For confronting the Alderman and politicians, for raising his voice. Jesus, the son of God wasn’t afraid to confront power, with acidic attacks on power, confronting comfortable ideas with truth.

Did Jesus argue for the over-throw of the government, the treasonous acts that the Roman court claimed was supported by evidence? We may never know, as much is lost in history. But we do know that Jesus organized the carpenter, the weaver, the farmer, as a voice against the rich and powerful. His power, through the people, confronted old ways of thinking, put established ways of thinking at risk.

Do I Believe in Liberalism?

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The best way I can answer that question is with ‘Pruitt-Igoe’, the failed 1954 public housing complex that was blown up and hauled off to a local landfill in 1972.

The idealistic architect Minoru Yamasaki designed Pruitt-Igeo, the World Trade Center, and many other buildings during the 1950s and 1960s. Built in the modernist style, the buildings ultimately failed to reform the people they were designed to inspire and quickly fell into disrepair and became dangerous cesspools only a few years after opening.

America is the wealthiest society in the world, we have a moral obligation to help the poor. Yet, Minoru Yamasaki idealism and plan to help the poor with beautiful high-rise buildings set in a park setting with playgrounds, stores and clean, modern apartments with running hot water, heat and flush toilets proved to be disaster that ultimately would be blown up and hauled off to the landfill. Remember, many cold-water flat tenants prior to his buildings bathed with hot-water in a bucket, with water available only in common areas. You can blame really two things — cost cutting and top-down planning that was unresponsive to community needs.

Pruitt-Igoe is emblematic of what is wrong with Big Government liberalism — a bold vision for a better tomorrow, that inevitably fails to make a better community. It’s not saying we shouldn’t help the down-trodden build a better life, but it shouldn’t come from big centralized government programs that aren’t build for unique communities. Big buildings are great for politicians to cut ribbons on, but they rarely suit community needs. Liberalism should focus on small problems at community level, and move away from big national programs that don’t reflect local community conditions.

Big ideas are impossibly expensive to implement, especially with the inflation pressures that any big program is bound to create in the economy. The high cost of implementation doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. And that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t help working families get ahead. But we should do it in a measured steps, making small changes to existing programs to make it better. We shouldn’t take a bulldozer to existing programs, but instead look to build on what has proven to be successful. It’s hard for politicians to take credit for small changes, but small changes are often the best way to make the world a better place for ordinary people.