Thanks for being interesting…

As a matter of fact, they don’t even bother trying to apply their religion to their politics, because they seem to believe that the political is entirely removed from the spiritual realm, and that politics ought to be governed by a reasonable, practical “law for man,” and spirituality to be governed by something entirely quietist, if you will.

“Calvinists” in Germany mostly SUPPORT “gay marriage,” birth-control, and limited abortion-rights.

Believe me, your conservative American politics have NOTHING in common with European “Calvinism”! And, in truth, if you want to intellectually confront Morning’s Minion with what TRUE “Calvinism” looks like, you should have him look at Northern European Protestant religious culture; it’s a “dualism” that leads directly to the kind of political and economic system he’d seem to prefer.

Yes, and at least in the Netherlands a lot of those Christian Democrats were Calvinists!

What exactly is an “adequate” amount of health care?

I attempted to address this question (or, perhaps just asked the same question using a lot more words) here.

http://www.city-journal.org/2009/19_2_pim-fortuyn.html

He puts up, for instance, some numbers that really strike me as unsustainable (especially if one professes to care for people coming together for the common good).

Socailism is viewed favorably by many Europeans because it did the political heavy lifting in transforming most European nations into parlimentary democracies. Kim Jong Ill is not someone who comes to mind as an example of socialism to Europeans, but instead it is often the men and women who played the role of George Washington in thier respective nations. Remember, a mere hundred years ago, few Europeans lived in a democracy.

But despite their primary and heroic role in winning parlimentary democracy, the Socialists were less lucky at then winning elections. That skill went to the Christian Democrats. And in the Netherlands and other Low countries, as well as Germany, Austria, Italy and elsewhere, it was the Christian Democrats who developed, designed and implemented the social welfare systems currently in place (with the hand of the Catholic Church very much in the mix).

The author correctly observed “There is another historical base to the Dutch social-welfare system, which curiously has been overlooked by American conservatives in their insistence on seeing such a system as a threat to their values. It is rooted in religion. “These were deeply religious people, who had a real commitment to looking after the poor,” Mak said of his ancestors. “They built orphanages and hospitals. The churches had a system of relief, which eventually was taken over by the state. So Americans should get over ‘socialism.’ This system developed not after Karl Marx, but after Martin Luther and Francis of Assisi.”

What exactly is an “adequate” amount of health care?