Wisdom from Cesar Chavez: 'The Oppressed Almost Always Overestimate the Oppressor'

I have to say that I am having a really difficult time with you referring to an entire group of poor, uneducated, powerless, isolated people as being "just too stupid to find alternatives".

Real Christian of you.

fundamentalist, would you call yourself a libertarian? If so, what kind of libertarian are you? One who believes an "individual's rights must never be abrogated in the general interest," or one who wants to maximize individual rights and minimize the government, or both?

Do you know whether all libertarians put primacy on individual rights? If so, it seems that the aim of libertarianism would be freedom from all constraints on individual liberty. Since an individual's freedom is restricted by social norms, religious beliefs, family structures, market forces, and the state, do all libertarians want to shrug off these constraints too?

More importantly, if you are a (Christian?) libertarian how would you reconcile the commandments (limits on freedom) to love unconditionally (agape) found in the Christian tradition while maximizing individual freedoms?

If you are not a libertarian, do you agree that political ideologies and Christianity should not be mixed?

The "progressive" definition of oppression is the same as the common definition:

1. Merriam Webster: : unjust or cruel exercise of authority or power b : something that oppresses especially in being an unjust or excessive exercise of power

2. Oxford: 1 keep in subjection and hardship.

3. Dictionary.com: the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner.

Do you see the common thread here?

Exercise of power or authority in a cruel or unjust manner? That is not "at the heart of oppression for "progressives" - that IS the definition of oppression.

Who are the oppressors and how are they oppressing others?

Amen, and Amen!

"unfettered, unregulated"?

Hundreds of local, state and federal agencies and hundreds of thousands of pages of rules and regulations say otherwise. You may not think they are regulated enough, but they certainly are not unregulated.

BTW, many of my ancestors were oppressed (and killed) by their GOVERNMENT (communist Russia), and I have the history to prove it.

Thanks, Mihs. But just a couple of clarifications. The hospital does not choose to shorten Medicaid patients' stay because of pay. Medicaid pays by the day. Medicaid may limit the number of days that it is willing to pay for a particular procedure. So if Medicaid will only pay for a certain number of days, then the hospital will keep the patient only that long.

Also, length of stay is not a good indicator of good care. Our doctor tries to get patients in and out of hospitals as quickly as possible because he considers hospitals to be extremely dangerous place due to the bacteria and viruses that only hospitals have and that are vary contagious and lethal. Also, the longer you stay, the more likely you are to suffer from being giving the wrong medications.

So would it be fair to say that oppression is highly connected to inequality of wealth in much the same way that the "progressive" idea of justice is equality of wealth?

"If no one forced them, then they chose to work in those mines, for those wages and under those conditions. Can someone choose to be oppressed?"

If I walked up to you on the street with a 2 by 4 and smashed you in the face; and the first Sunday of every month I did the same; it really makes no difference whether or not you choose to continue to show up. My action would be wrong. It would not be just. It would be oppressive.

Your continuing to show up does not change the nature of my action.

fundamnetalist, oppression is an admittedly tough concept to grasp because it's so multidimensional.

As you may see already,"there are multiple definitions of oppression, all of which have an underlying theme related to the use and misuse of power in human relationships."

In Ms.Sine's blog post, it may be useful to understand experiencing oppression as "living

FWIW, classism (disdaining the poor) and reverse classism (disdaining the rich) are also forms of oppression.

letjusticerolldown: "Your continuing to show up does not change the nature of my action."

LOL! You're right, but it sure reflects on my intelligence and ability to reason. Rationality means, among other things, that I don't intentionally hurt myself. If I show up every Sunday and let you hit me with your 2X4, then I'm acting irrationally.

Keep in mind that the 19th century was one of high mobility even for the poor. They came from Europe by the hundreds of thousands and moved across the US to Texas, Oklahoma (for the lands runs), California, and other places. Nothing forced miners to stay in the mines. What does that suggest? Assuming that the miners were rational, it suggests that the mines offered better opportunities than the next best opportunity.

So were the mine owners justified in paying the wages they paid? According to Church law, yes, as long as no one coerced the miners into taking the jobs. Wages are nothing but prices for labor, and the church has maintained for centuries that just prices are found in free markets.

Viewing the mining industry as exploitive and oppressive commits the error of judging the past in terms of modern ideologies, particularly socialism. When I read about mining in the 19th century, I see laborers and mine owners struggling against poor technology and lack of resources to arrive at better and safer mining methods.

Miners did eventually earn much better pay, but attributing that higher pay to unionism would be to commit the post hoc fallacy. Unions cannot increase wages any more than roosters can make the sun come up. Only higher productivity increases wages in the long run. So when did miner wages go up for good? When mining company owners bought better equipment for the miners so that their productivity increased. The best that could be said of unions is that they forced mining companies to buy newer, better equipment faster.

letjusticerolldown: "I think you make a mistake in arguing that the existence of a choice eliminates oppression."

I don't think so. Above I agreed that a state of affairs might be oppressive without there being an oppressor. Poverty is like that. But that doesn't mean than justice is perverted because no one has caused the poverty or is oppressing the poor, at least in this country.

As for the mother, it's very sad that she died when she had healthcare options. If she had exercises her options maybe she wouldn't be dead. If she had an option and she might have lived if she exercised that option, where is the problem?

"as no one coerced the miners"

I would certainly affirm that options and freedom to choose are powerful counters to oppression. But I think you make a mistake in arguing that the existence of a choice eliminates oppression.

I saw the same mistake today as pundits criticize the 11-yr-old whose mother died and is being paraded around to advocate for health reform. The critics want to argue that the mother may have had an option to get care. i.e. If there was an option, then there is no problem.

One does not follow the other.

Patricia: "Conditions in the coal mines were bad compared to conditions in auto plants,..."

You're comparing apples to oranges. Of course conditions in coal mines were worse than those jobs. They're coal mines. Conditions in coal mines can never be as good as those other jobs simply because they are coal mines. You need to show that conditions in coal mines in the US were worse than in coal mines anywhere else, or mining in general. For example, were gold and silver mines safer and paid more?

Patricia: "If you've got no education and you've got no transportation and you've got no other skills and you've got no money and you've got no other resources then you have no choices."

Yes, you have choices. You just described most Americans up to WWII and poor Americans have always been very mobile. Look how many dirt poor Okies got up and moved to California in the 30's.

"And when a corporation owns all those things and controls all those things to keep you at a subsistence existence so they can exploit your "cheap" labor, that corporation (or, the owners of that corporation) are engaging in oppression."

It's not oppression if people voluntarily work for those companies. The Church decided that centuries ago. And as you point out, coal miners had very few skills, so they could not work at the type of jobs you compare them with above.

Yes, your church is very different from traditional Christianity.

Mihs: "What is a libertarian definition of justice?"

The libertarian definition has been the same at least since the Reformation. It comes from the Church Scholastics who created natural law. Essentially, it is the application of God's laws concerning life (murder and violence are evil), liberty (you can enslave people) and property (theft and fraud are evil). But it has to be applied equally to all people without regard for position in society, wealth, race, gender, etc. Partly, it's the justice is blind concept.

Yes, I'm a libertarian. However, I'm not an anarchist. I agree with the greatest economist of the 20th century, Ludwig von Mises, that government is not a necessary evil; it is a necessary good if it does the job that God designed it to do, which is administer justice as defined above. The state is good because it makes freedom and society possible.

At the same time, individuals occupying the institution of state have committed the worst crimes in history. War is a crime only states commit. And states have murdered more of their own citizens than all of the natural disasters put together. That's why states must have limits. States can only commit crimes when the citizens allow them unlimited power.

"Do you know whether all libertarians put primacy on individual rights?"

Yes, as far as I know. But every individual right is limited by the laws of God regarding the rights of others.

"Since an individual's freedom is restricted by social norms, religious beliefs, family structures, market forces, and the state, do all libertarians want to shrug off these constraints too?"

There is a huge difference between the power of the state and the power those things. Individuals are free to comply or not with the ideas you mention. But individuals are not free to comply or not with state power. The consequences can be deadly. Unbelief in religious authority is not dangerous in this life unless the church uses the state as its enforcer. The definition of freedom, at least since the Reformation, has meant freedom from state power and nothing else. And even then, that is freedom from the state except where the state acts in its legitimate role of protecting the life, liberty and property of others.

"More importantly, if you are a (Christian?) libertarian how would you reconcile the commandments (limits on freedom) to love unconditionally (agape) found in the Christian tradition while maximizing individual freedoms?"

Yes, I'm a Christian. That's one of the reasons for my handle. As I mentioned, libertarians are concerned only with freedom from the state, not freedom from God. There is no conflict between the commandments to love other and freedom from state. The commands are for the individual, not the state.

"do you agree that political ideologies and Christianity should not be mixed?"

The natural law, God's law, is based on the Biblical prohibitions of theft, murder, fraud, etc. In that sense, you can't separate the two. I often debate with atheists and show them that the great atheist philosophers understood that without God no morals exist. The foundation of morals is the character of God, and the foundation of law is the morality of God as expressed in the Bible.

Libertarian thought did not come from the enlightenment, as is popularly taught today. It came from the fires of the Reformation when the Catholic Church used the state as its enforcer, in spite of the great tradition of Church Scholastics who demonstrated that such an alliance was anti-Christian. The concept of the separation of church and state came from the Dutch Republic after it rebelled against the rape and murder of Dutch citizens by the Spanish king. According to economic historians, the Dutch were the first in history (at least since the nation of Israel under the Judges) to implement secure property rights for all citizens. They did so as a direct response to the Biblical attitude toward theft and law. And they did it to protect common people from theft by the nobility.

But my attachment to libertarianism came from practical matters more than morality and religion. I became interested in economics because I wanted to know why some nations are so poor while others are so rich and what to do about it. It's very clear in economics that libertarian societies with the rule of law and secure property lifts entire nations out of the worst poverty. China is only the latest example. I turned libertarian out of concern for the poor without knowing about the divide within Christianity over the issue. Later, when some Christians began insisting that capitalism and libertarianism were un-Christian and un-Biblical, I began to search for the origins of what we call capitalism. I found them in the writings of the Catholic Scholars of the 16th and 17th centuries, especially in the School of Salamanca. But those ideas were never put into practice until the creation of the Dutch Republic. Godly Protestants took the ideas of the Church Scholars and implemented them for the first time. Adam Smith studied them and labeled them the system of natural liberty. Socialists gave the system the Catholic Scholars had discovered (not invented) the name "capitalism."

With respect, your christianity is about as traditional as your economic view is mainstream. I believe you're out on the far end of the spectrum with both.

Further, it seems to me that your christianity is informed by your economic view, rather than the other way around. As is your historical perspective.

Would you all consider Cuba to be an oppresive country? Or rather a country that oppresses its citizens? How about Venezuela, and China?

Hey Patricia,

How are you doing?

I am wondering what you do for a living. Do you mind if I ask? Just curious. :)

What is that vision of capitalism? I didn't see any mention of capitalism in fundamentalist's post.

fundamentalist, you believe that "systems can't oppress anyone... only people can oppress people..." and "no one is oppressing [the poor] ... so justice doesn't apply?"

Oppression occurs within social systems and is maintained by those systems. Oppression refers the policies, practices, norms, and traditions that unjustly place burdens on certain groups, by interfering with their powers, interests, or opportunities. In this respect systems can be oppressive. (A social system is any structured or patterned relationship among people in a society; how society is organized.)

Excellent point, "no one" in particular is oppressing the poor; oppression is a group-based concept that is characterized by systemic discrimination against subordinate groups.

When racism, sexism, classism, and other discriminatory 'isms get codified into law and normal social practices we call those 'isms institutionalized. Institutional racism, classism, sexism, etc, are manifestations of oppression.

Justice, (especially social justice as the concept and realization of social equality), counters oppression.
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And you asked, "how do you achieve social equality without some kind of equality of income?"

There is no need for any kind of equality of income at all.

People could establish a social order that respects everyone's inherent dignity by providing everyone with reasonable opportunities to fulfill their basic needs, and by law protecting their essential human freedoms as enumerated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

This just social order may call for (nonequivalent) redistribution of money to support public goods and services (which is what taxes already do in the US).

There are many ideas on the best ways achieve social equality.

Mihs, I'm still trying to pin down the "progressive" concept of oppression. Like social justice, it seems it can mean whatever the user wants it to mean at the moment he is using it and morph meanings when convenient. Would you say that concern over power is at the heart of oppression for "progressives"?

And in what way does those "unequal power relationships among different classes that systemically disadvantage the poor"?

Mihs: "When racism, sexism, classism, and other discriminatory 'isms get codified into law and normal social practices we call those 'isms institutionalized. Institutional racism, classism, sexism, etc, are manifestations of oppression. Justice, (especially social justice as the concept and realization of social equality), counters oppression."

I agree completely, but technically I would say that the people who passed the laws are oppressing others. Libertarians would say the the isms violate the rule of law, which requires the state to treat all citizens equally. It is unjust by any definition of the word for the state to treat citizens differently based on race, gender, or economic status, which is why I don't understand why "progressives" find it OK to tax the wealthy at a higher rate than the middle class. That is discrimination based on income.

"This just social order may call for (nonequivalent) redistribution of money to support public goods and services (which is what taxes already do in the US)."

That's what I meant. The "rights" in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are not traditional rights. They are newly minted rights. And providing those "rights" to all people requires discrimination against citizens based on wealth in order to have the money to pay for those "rights". It violates what your own definition of justice. And in reality, it punishes the most productive people and rewards the least productive.

The problem with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is that it assumes that wealth just exists, like water, and someone needs to distribute it properly. But that is not true. Wealth exists only because someone works very hard to produce it. I think some of the false economics comes from thinking that wealth is nothing more than natural resources, like water and air. But even natural resources such as coal and oil require an enormous amount of talent, work and money to extract and turn into a useable form.

I am having an intense lenten season :)!

I don't mind you asking - I've done a lot of things - janitor, sales clerk, nurse, human services professional in multiple venues, several iterations of teacher in settings from pre-school to adult, writer, now semi-retired. That's a pretty general listing of my careers...I worry about TMI on the internet.