From “56% Oppose ‘Sin Taxes’ on Junk Food and Soft Drinks” on Rasmussen Reports:
Several cities and states, faced with big budget problems, are considering so-called “sin taxes” on things like junk food and soft drinks. But just 33% of Americans think these sin taxes are a good idea.
Acton welcomes new blogger — and long time friend — Rudy Carrasco to the PowerBlog. He also writes at Urban Onramps. Don’t miss Rudy at Acton on Tap on March 31 (6 p.m. at Derby Station, East Grand Rapids, Mich.) — Editors
On his blog, Marginal Revolution, Tyler Cowan links to an article about game show, The Game Of Death, that was recently broadcast on French television. According to the article (“Torture ‘Game Show’ Draws Nazi Comparison“) the program, “had all the trappings of a traditional television quiz show, with a roaring crowd and a glamorous and well-known hostess.”
For all that it appeared to be a typical game show, what “contestants . . . did not realise [was that] they were taking part in an experiment to find out whether television could push them to outrageous lengths.” As describe by SkyNews:
The game involved contestants posing questions to another “player”, who was actually an actor, and punishing him with 460 volts of electricity when he answered incorrectly.
Eventually the man’s cries of “Let me go” fell silent, and he appeared to have died.
Not knowing that their screaming victim was an actor, the apparently reluctant contestants followed the orders of the presenter, as well as chants of “Punishment” from a studio audience who also believed the game was real.
According to the article, some “80% of contestants went all the way, shocking the victim with the maximum 460 volts until he appeared to die” with “just 16 refus[ing] to shock the victim and walk[ing] out.”
Putting aside the morality of the project, the program parallels the study done in the 1960′s by Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram. Milgram’s “experiment measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience.” As with the television program, Milgram found that the majority of participants in his study (A Peer Administers Shocks), 25 out of 40, were willing to follow orders and administer a fatal electric shock (and again, as with the TV program, in Milgram’s experiment, the “victim” was a confederate of the researcher and did not actually suffer any harm much less die).
As Milgram wrote in a 1974 article for Harper’s Magazine (“The Perils of Obedience“) based on his experiment: Read more on The Perils of Obedience…
As rumors of congressional action on health-care reform continue to swirl (it will happen Sunday, maybe?), fissures in the American Catholic community are becoming increasingly evident.
The rift is highlighted in the current, in some ways unprecedented, public dispute between two important Catholic voices. By size and clout, the principal health-related organization of a Catholic identity is the Catholic Health Association. The official organ of the American Catholic bishops as a collective is the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Although tension between the two on the matter of health-care reform could be discerned a long time ago, the disagreement was largely hidden by ostensibly shared principles of absolute commitment to Catholic moral norms (of chief importance, opposition to abortion and to public funding thereof) and to extending health care access to all people.
In this week’s Acton Commentary I expand on a minor meme floating around the web towards the end of last year that criticized the purported claim made by Lord Brian Griffiths, a Goldman Sachs advisor and vice chairman: “The injunction of Jesus to love others as ourselves is an endorsement of self-interest.”
On NRO, John Leo points out how Glenn Beck missed the mark in his recent criticism of “social justice” churches (the reductio ad Hitlerum fallacy, again). But Beck is on to something, Leo says:
“…we are setting an ambitious goal: all students should graduate from high school prepared for college and a career – no matter who you are or where you come from.” – Barack Obama, Saturday Radio Address.
A few years ago I asked a friend and business owner why he put value on a college diploma when talking with entry level talent who had majored in subjects incredibly tangential to his job descriptions. He answered, “Well, it shows they can finish something.” That’s a pretty weak reason for a student and/or his family to lay out $50,000 to $250,000 of tuition and lost opportunity costs but I let him have his fantasy.
Former Heritage Foundation analyst Dan Lips lays out another kind of fantasy in National Review Online with a proposal to meet Obama’s goal in last weekend’s broadcast in light of the increasing cost of college in the U.S.. It’s a version of “virtual learning” accomplished online. That’s certainly not “college as we knew it” and not as it might or should be – a place where one seeks Truth and learns how to think – but maybe that education is unretrievable. Maybe all we can hope for are certificates of accomplishment in niche fields and employers like my friend.
Yet even with Lips’ online world, any bureaucracy including the academy deserves some closer inspection before we all jump on the web to search out our next degree. But this only makes sense if you agree with my premise that college has more of a role to play in one’s life than assuring a potential employer that you can “finish” something. Mr. Lips is rightly concerned about affordability – I’m thinking relevance. Read more on Read My Lips…
The hugely influential reformer Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560) writes in his commentary on Romans 13:
Meanwhile, the Gospel teaches the godly properly about spiritual and eternal life in order that eternal life may be begun in their hearts. In public it wants our bodies to be engaged in this civil society and to make sure of the common bonds of this society with decisions about properties, contracts, laws, judgments, magistrates, and other things. These external matters do not hinder the knowledge of God from being present in hearts or fear, faith, calling on God, and other virtues. In fact, God put forth these external matters as opportunities in which faith, calling on God, fear of God, patience, and love might be exercised.
Read more on Melanchthon on the Gospel’s Social Implications…
Rev. Jerry Hoffman, Director of the Center for Stewardship Leaders at Luther Seminary, reviews the NIV Stewardship Study Bible. “What I found was a remarkable resource that leads one to see how strong the stewardship thread exists throughout scripture…. I anticipate using this resource in my writing, preaching and teaching,” he says.
Read more on NIV Stewardship Study Bible: ‘A remarkable resource…’…
Power Line has a post over at its site titled “Why Don’t Christians Care?” Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit also linked to the post today. Powerline’s question refers to the lack of concern from the “mainstream” Christian community on Christians being massacred by Muslims in the Middle East and Africa. It’s a great question to ask.
