Strong Governors

Patrolling the Blogosphere late this Saturday night so that you, gentle reader, can rest your weary bones, we stumbled across a nugget of information deemed worthy of your attention. Recall that our enlightened State Legislature, whipped into line by the "special interests" that have a vested interest in the status quo, is resisting mightily the effort by Mark Sanford to move our form of state government into the, let’s say, mid-twentieth century. Florida has, apparently in a spasm of progressive thought, given the governor the ability to appoint his Secretary of Education, along with other statewide offices. This information comes from an article in the Washington Monthly whose author is, to put it mildly, no friend of the Bush family. His observations (emphases mine):

His enhanced constitutional powers were not enough to keep the courts
from ultimately striking down his equally bold school voucher and
charter school initiatives, but they were sufficient to allow Jeb to
privatize many other state functions, from processing Medicaid
third-party payments to collecting highway tolls and managing the state
lottery. For better or for worse, Jeb Bush shook up Florida’s
government and many of its entrenched special interests and power
centers.

All this made him a lot of enemies
in the legislature. And the press had to get used to working with a
strong governor who didn’t have to rely much on their approval. But
that doesn’t make Jeb a dictator. Indeed, after years of watching
Florida’s elected cabinet members get captured by the special interests
they regulated, I’m glad Florida’s governor now gets to appoint his own
education secretary, for example, as well as his own comptroller and
bank examiners, even if I disagree with this particular governor’s
choices and policies. In allowing for a strong executive, Florida is
simply overcoming its Confederate past and becoming like most other
states.

As a proud South Carolinian, it saddens me to think that the vested interests in our corridors of power are so venal and short-sighted as to reduce us to a level of government worse than our southern neighbor.

Via: Real Clear Politics

                  

Bing West Reports

One of our favorite authors, Bing West, has posted his observations of the situation on the ground in Iraq. His points are brief, precise, and very wise. Dare we hope that General Petraeus and his Wise Men are reading this report and adding it to their database of operational metrics?

Follow the links for the briefing…….

H/T: The Belmont Club

 

Whither Episcopalians?

My church is dying. Torn apart by doctrinal divergence, disappearing due to a declining demographic, rendered increasingly irrelevant in a post-modern secular world that assaults Christianity at every opportunity, the Episcopal Church is slowly dissolving. Lacking the will to rebuild the foundation, while tearing down the walls in the name of social relevance and acceptance, the ECUSA faces a very difficult future. To be fair, all of the post-Reformation liturgically oriented Churches are dying. It is said that the churches of Western Europe are empty save for the tourists; village churches are crumbling without the donations of the visiting hordes that at least drop enough in the alms plate for pay for the maintenance of the great cathedrals.

There is one place where Christianity is growing, strong, and vital. Africa, Latin America and Asia are the new growth centers of Christianity. As any student of the world’s great religions understands, the spread of religions includes the adoption of local influences, the ethnology, if you will, that "fits" the universal view to the local condition. The great question for Churches like the Anglican Communion is how vastly different cultures will settle their liturgical differences as they move toward a new paradigm. I wouldn’t bet on the Western view prevailing.

The Belmont Club  moves the discussion forward in his usual thoughtful way.

A taste, to whet your appetite….but read it all:

Christianity has so often been described — often by Leftists — as a
"Western" religion that it is easy to forget that its roots are in the
Middle East and that the oldest Christian communities are in places like Iraq,
Syria and Ethiopia. Recently, I engaged in a dinner table discussion with a
Jewish friend who recalled the shameful behavior of Christians in Russia,
Eastern and Western Europe in the years before and immediately after the Second
World War. I wondered rhetorically how much of what is ascribed to
"Christianity" was really European behavior as opposed to anything
doctrinal. And now the question will be become sharper across the board as
non-Europeans inexorably gain the majority in church councils.

There are two further implications Father de Souza doesn’t address which will
have a gradual but growing impact. The first will be the effect of the numbers
and unapologetic style of Third World Christians in the current clash of
civilizations between the West and Islam.